quinta-feira, 31 de agosto de 2017

Engagement Report 13 – Dual Hull Brutix




I log in one day and I feel the urge to go HED-GP. A true magnet for every kind of adrenaline seeker capsuleer. Solo, small gang, large blobs, cloaky campers, hotdroppers, hi-sec suiciders, “elite” linked kiters, 3 day old brawlers… You name it, they go there! On top of that, local station was Freeport, so great way to repair my Hull Brutix fast.

Upon arrival I jump in with my Tank Brutix and cloak up my DPS Brutix at the HED-GP gate, orbiting at 5km. It might indeed get decloaked by some random traveller or gang, but being close by to provide fast backup surpasses that risk.

Inside HED-GP scan shows around 20 in local and about 10 frigates towards Kebers gate, as well as a crapload of bubbles. I warp to a ping in order to draw their attention. As expected they are camping the gate with bubbles, and as soon as I arrive, some of them start warping to their own pings close to mine to catch me. These guys are in full out in blind bloodlust! Good… Bloodlust people are prone to overconfidence and mistakes.

Enyo, Enyo, Rifter, Crusader, Worm, Hawk, Stilleto and I think they also had a Garmur as well as a couple more interceptors. I don’t want to be caught at this location, so need to act fast.

Option A – Warp to the safety of station and take a few more minutes to play cat and mouse games, in order to see if there is more than meets the eye, like a Falcon, Recon or just plain DPS ships holding back;

Option B – Warp to the SV5 gate at 0km, try to split them and get hostilities going as I decloak my backup Brutix.

Taking in account they looked completely disorganized, I went for option B. Let’s go to the gate and see what happens. Surely enough, they were already at the gate when I arrive, but with them comes a Tengu!! Oh crap…

A properly PVP fitted Tengu can, alone, engage head on both my Brutix with ease… I might be in bigger problems that I expected. Some of the frigates have already Scrammed me but keeping cool for a few extra seconds I look at the Tengu’s weapons. There aren’t any! Ufff… that’s a relief… It’s a Links Tengu… Sure Links will be annoying to deal with, but nowhere compared to a beastly faction fitted Neutron Blaster Tengu or a Heavy Assault Missile Tengu.

Ok so, all on gate, some aggressing me. I jump out, most of them follow. Some aggress me too inside SV5- as I burn back to gate. Good, now they’re split among both systems. I jump back into HED-GP and it’s on! Primary targets are the Scrambling frigates to make sure my MJD can activate properly when the time comes. I bring in my backup Brutix and then…. Greed takes over me… What if I used my Backup DPS Brutix to kill the Link Tengu orbiting the gate? The hell with some crappy frigates, I’d prefer to have a T3 Cruiser kill any day!

I split my own fire… Tank Brutix focus on frigates, DPS Brutix focus on Link Tengu… But the frigates don’t go down fast enough. The Link Tengu pilot is also probably realizing he’s under fire and he can just jump it out at any time. With this much going on, there’s no way I got the awareness to try bump him off gate. If I continue down this path, there’s a good chance I’ll lose 1 Brutix over nothing! I must control my greed with a strong leash or it’ll get the best of me.

As the Tengu was reaching 50% shields I decide it’s time to get back to the original plan and focus on teaming up both Brutix properly for maximum effect. From this point onward I focus both Brutix into the same target and surely enough, the frigates start to go down at good pace. Eventually my Tank Brutix reaches around 10% structure, but having killed all the Scramming frigates, I MJD and get him safe while my DPS Brutix kept on field clearing the rest of the fellas that didn’t warped off already. I was able to kill 2 Enyo, Rifter, Crusader, Worm, Hawk and Stilleto, but most of all, I was pleased with my decision in mid-fight of keeping my bloodlust under control and ignore the Tengu, assuring a better outcome of the battle. 

From here I went to run the Catch-Querious pipe. Usually a slow place, but map showed some dots, so went to investigate. Warping at range on a random system belonging to Infamous guys (when Infamous lived in Catch), I see that a Hurricane Fleet Issue is undocked. There’s about 10 in local and I know some of the local names. They usually like to fight and tend to organize fairly fast, but at same time they are also prone to make mistakes fairly easy. This combination means that I might have a chance of scoring a good kill here.

The Hurricane Fleet Issue is aligning towards me, and slowboating away from station. This is a sign of aggressive stance, and knowing these guys, he will not engage me alone. I warp off to a gate, but keep spamming D-Scan. As I warp off, I see in D-Scan a Falcon and a Crusader. Auch.. ECM… Even with 2 Brutix this could go wrong, but I’m still willing to engage. Let’s see what develops. I land on the gate with the Crusader and decide to try ninja it. I aggress it on the gate and he aggresses back, but unfortunately Falcon lands and jamms me before I kill it. As the Crusader gets safe, the Hurricane Fleet Issue and a Curse land on the gate, both aggressing me too.

Well, I had already faced a Rook and Curse some time ago, and it went terribly wrong. Even with 2 Brutix I would have very slim chances to score a kill, especially considering the Crusader pilot is probably going to reship into something sturdier. I deagress, jump out into safety and go repair in a quiet system. I might not be able to kill them, but they also messed up a perfectly good chance to bait me properly and kill me.

Moving on to Querious, I dwelled into a pocket in the south. For me, the biggest problem in entering these closed pockets is their ability to control intel. If I show up I have 2 Brutix I lose my edge, but if my backup is too far away I miss on good kills or I die.

Anyway I move in the pocket and an Ishtar follows me at range and warping to pings on my gates. Me and Ishtar pilot talk a bit and he was always polite. He tells me to leave the area because they would not fight and I’d be wasting my time in an area with no content. In my experience, people will fight if they think they can properly overpower you, so I press on around. After all, they had more than 50 people among 2/3 systems…

Eventually, while jumping a random gate, I’m greeted by a Kestrel, Crow and Crucificier, all at range. They aggress me without coming close to me, so I warp off to station at range. This seems promising but I need to see what they have prepared for me. Archon, Myrmidon and Vexor at the undock. Good. I start to think where I want the engagement to take place, and best spot seems to be at the ingate for several reasons:

1: From station to the ingate it’s about 60AU, so somewhat far. Any heavy backup incoming from station will take a bit to arrive;

2: Previous system was empty. I can cloak my backup Brutix really close to the ingate for a fast backup. I can only hope for their intel toons to not spot him while he gets in position.

While my backup Brutix gets indeed in position they post in local something in the lines of “hey, tell your mate to come in” and “your mate is lonely out there”. Unwillingly, they’re giving me some insight. The fact they are calling my backup Brutix my “mate” means they don’t realize it’s my alt, so aren’t probably researching my killboard, and the fact they did not bragged about knowing he’s also in a Brutix, convinces me they don’t know what he’s in. Most likely only saw one guy in their local moving around and that’s it. Good enough for me.

Once I’m ready on both toons, I go sit with Tank Brutix at the ingate and wait. Kestrel, Crucificier, Crow and Atron engage me and I kill the Atron pretty easily. Meanwhile, in the previous system, my cloaked DPS Brutix sees the Ishtar pilot jumping into fray. It’s the perfect opportunity for a juicy kill. I stop messing with those kitting crappy frigates, reaproach gate, load void, recall my drones back, overload my mids and prepare for the Ishtar to decloak. As it decloaks I manage to catch him, easily. I bring in my DPS Brutix and also join for a quick kill.

As the Ishtar is about to go down, Myrmidon and Vexor arrive at range and hit my Tank Brutix with sentries. As the Ishtar dies I MDJ and warp my Tank Brutix away, but I need to decide what to with my DPS Brutix.

The Myrmidon was exactly 100km away from Rtb in the DPS Brutix… I could just MJD on top of him and kill him fast! I mean… he’s EXACTLY at 100km from me. The Universe wants me to kill it for sure! They don’t have anyone with Scrams in the field, I expect that Vexor and Mymidon to be PVE and range fitted, and these guys are fairly inexperienced, so what could possibly go wrong!? I play the “Cocky” card and MJD on top of the Myrmidon.

He’s completely taken off guard and he does not even tries to move. Then I realize he actually has a 1600mm Plate on that Myrmidon, my “ninja” kill is taking a bit longer than I’d hoped for… Then a Hawk lands just on top of me and Scrams me… Somehow I have the sense this is all going downhill... Even though I cannot MJD anytime soon, I might need my MWD mobility sooner than later, so I change focus from the Myrmidon into the Hawk and hit D-Scan as they might have more backup incoming.

Archon on scan… Just wonderful… I keep my focus into the Hawk, but he’s not dying fast enough. How did I manage to get myself in this mess again?! Ah yes, I remember, I got cocky…
Archon arrives and the Hawk pulls some range on me, enough to drops is Scram. I use this opportunity to start kiting with my MWD overloaded towards a random celestial, but I still need to survive for more than a minute as my MJD cools down while I’m long pointed by the Crow. Fortunately their inexperience surfaces once more and the Crow fails to maintain a long point on so I’m able to warp off.

It was getting late, and with my surprise advantage gone, an Archon in the field, and 1 Brutix in low structure, It was time to call it a day and log off. I chatted with the locals a bit as I moved away, but even though they were not happy for me to be there (after all I was harassing them in their home) they kept it civil.

Nenhum comentário:

Postar um comentário