"BLAH BLAH GET TO STAT STAT BLAH BREAK LOGI BLAH BLAH"
More or less what I got an ear full of when I got back from AFK land. Not exactly knowing what we were up against I grabbed my neut Legion and made my way over, and what I met was not exactly something you see everyday in wormhole space: a T1 Cruiser fleet. Against the squishier ships my Alliance mates already had there (namely recons) and no Logistics present for us, their fleet was fairly effective. We mopped them up eventually, killing three Thoraxes, an Augoror, and an Ishkur, plus one of the Thorax pilot's pods.
We try to catch some of them as they bounce around the system a bit, so our fleet is a bit split up across multiple holes in our static. While we are split and broken up (and still without Logistics) a Proteus lands on the static's static and jumps away, it works as intended and prompts a bubble from our Interdictor pilot on both sides of the hole which pins our fleet down. Soon enough we have a T3 gang bearing down on our heads from the same guys we killed with three Guardians and a Jamgu for Logistics and support. Everyone but me was able to burn out of bubble before their fleet landed except me, as I was Afterburner fit, so I was forced to jump into Stat Stat to escape and hung out in a safespot as the rest of my Alliance mates organized a proper fleet.
End result was three Guardians with mixed T3/Faction DPS. TFP's main FC was out running the Logistics group so I was the one to FC, provided I could get back to my fleet of course. The enemy fleet was currently sitting on our static on static side. Unfortunately when I jumped back from stat stat there was a Proteus waiting for me, I was easily tackled. Now, my neut Legions can sport around 230k EHP dependent on fit and links, so I knew it was going to take time for them to slowly kill me. Thinking I had time, I call the fleet in letting the Logistics know I would need repairs as soon as they landed. Time was not something I had though, as our Logistics landed split seconds too late, as I was starting to bleed hull when they landed. Pop I go.
I run as quickly as I can back to POS to refit into a neuting ship as I knew we had none, so on the way back I decided to bust out my new toy: a Bhaalgorn I bought just 2 hours before. In the meantime though we had issues controlling our fleet without me to be there to FC, so with no clear direction and no one (or worse, multiple) people willing to FC, our fleet was left in our Logistics wing's hands to keep it alive while I made my way back. Our Logistics wing had its own issues though as well, instead of three we had a fourth extra Guardian on grid that we were not aware of, thankfully the Logistics pilots readjusted their cap management well to get him on the chain. In the end, damn glad to have had that fourth Guardian even though it caused some commotion in the beginning.
I jump into static and warp, but I close our connection home as I jump, no more reinforcements for us. As I land on grid I know we are in trouble as I realize what my fleet's composition is made of: nearly pure DPS, almost no support: just a single Falcon for ECM and my Bhaalgorn for neuts. While pure DPS is nice, it is 9 times out of 10 never enough to break a 3+ Logistics chain.
Knowing that this would come down to who can break the cap chain of the other fleet first, I primary their Tengu and try to break it. But that is what our entire fleet was shooting way before I land so the Logistics were well established on that so I decided to switch to the actual Logistics themselves, all the while hearing Logistics coordinate capacitor chains as they try to compensate to ECM landing on them. Confused as to why they were getting jammed so much by one Jamgu, I ask, the answer was simple: ECM Drones, other wise known as 'Dishonor Drones' by the majority of solo/small gang players. (Note: I am not by any means calling x13's ECM Drone tactic dishonorable and dirty, its a fair tactic, I just wanted to include the term so I can have it relate to this post's 'witty' title, I'm so clever ^^) Thankfully despite the extra pressure from the ECM drones is lessened by the fact that we accidentally brought a fourth Guardian.
In the meantime on the front lines our Falcon pilot is getting jams off on the hostile Guardians, occasionally jamming two out of three, sometimes all three, but mostly just one. In the meantime I am trying my best to shuffle DPS around to break them dependent on where the jams land, which is one of the weaknesses of pure ECM EWar in fleets. ECM is purely chanced based on when it lands as well as, if its spread on multiple targets, where it lands. This can lead to many hurdles for a fleet to overcome when its trying to break a Logistics wing (switching targets dependent on where jams land, super dependent on the fact that they land at all to stop reps). Generally speaking, ECM should be used in conjunction with Sensor Dampeners with Scan Resolution Scripts so that when ECM does drop, it still takes more time than normal for enemy Logistics to reacquire locks, thus amplifying the overall effect. Unfortunately, at most I think we had one, maybe two, unbonused damps. Now, my neuts do amplify the ECM just a tad by making it longer to cap up and get the chain running again, it is no where near as effective as damps. The long cycle times of heavy neuts from the Bhaalgorn made for plenty of time for cap to regenerate in between the cycles (and yes I was staggering neuts). Perhaps it may have been better to neut out their Proteus to decrease pressure on our Logistics, but hindsight is always 20/20 right?
We were holding though, so I had no motivation to bail just because it was taking time to break them, so we kept at it. I call the fleet to switch to a Loki, knowing it was the least tanky of the T3s in terms of EHP and hoped we could break him with our newest set of jams. It was close, ~20% armor before reps caught.
Around this point a Dominix of theirs lands, I disregard it at the time, not entirely sure of its role as extra DPS or just neuting power or a mixture, but my Logistics, nor anyone else reported extra neuting pressure from it, so I more or less ignored it. What I did not ignore was the Armageddon that landed a little while after words as well. The combined fact that it would have T1 resists and long range neuts made me instantly primary it, again, close ~20% armor before reps caught.
It seemed that was the final nail in the coffin though for our Logistics wing, the ECM drones were starting to add up and the newly arrived neut pressure plus their much more abundant ECM compared to ours, started cracking our chain slowly. The Logistics head notifys me of it though in time for me to tell the fleet to align out, and eventually warp the fleet.
Three casualties, all Guardians, no T3s were lost, op success.
Also no kills in the second fight.
Damn... good... fight...
Now what did we do wrong? Talking about a fight after it has occurred is nearly as important as the fight itself. Things that we were lacking that could have helped:
-Smartbombs to clear ECM Drones
-Sensor Damps
-Less chaos at the beginning
-A better more experienced Bhaalgorn pilot ( first time flying one :( )
I would argue that in the end it came down to x13 having more EWar and support than we did, while we had almost pure DPS with some ECM and neuts thrown in almost halfassed. Hats off to x13 for a good showing and fights.
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Latter on we as an alliance make ourselves feel a little better, killing a 1.1 billion ISK Loki.
Even latter, me and a few others go camp busting in a C3 and force a high sec wormhole camp to come to us and fight on a C3-C4 connection. Small skirmish, with a killed Pilgrim, Cynabal, and Raven, with an escaped Onyx, Scorpion, and Federation Navy Comet. A nice pick me up to the earlier loss fight.
Battlereport
Over all, damn good day.
Blöd
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