One night in Egmar

"Today Is A Good Day For Someone Else To Die!"

-- (Terry Pratchett, Feet of Clay)

I spent the evening roaming the Minmatar Faction Warfare zone looking for the ever illusive 1v1s that I'm convinced the revived Rifter is capable of dominating.

The area was buzzing with activity, numerous small and large gangs all over the place, Amamake hot as hell and Santo "Pod Reaper" Trafficante lurking.

My recent experience with the Rifter has shown me it's a lot better than it was, but is limited to singular engagements but damn it I'm going out there and going to find my Nirvana.

So it was that with one or two random warps to various faction warfare plexes I tripped over two Cheetahs, very unlucky for them that I would exit warp right on top of them and disable their cloaking systems.
Killing cloakers is almost as satisfying as killing warp core stabbers.

After one such kill I warped back to the wreck to loot the cloak, when a Firetail frigate warps in, piloted by the skillful and dangerous Lhorenzho.

A quick look at the Firetail shows me it has artillery fit, with its superior speed this was going to be an interesting fight, it quickly starts to close range as I align out, my afterburner at full throttle, he closes.

50km

40km

30km

My afterburner cycle is about to finish, I overload and pull off a maneuver I haven't done in a while, not since the days of the static 2/10 in Gusandall.
With bits of metal straining all around me, the forces exerted by the Crazy Ivan do almost as much damage to my Rifter as any weapon system, I'm launched in a direct collision course with the Firetail.

20km

10km

Scram and web kick in, the added range my guns now had wouldn't help me in this fight so I had to get close and mitigate some of the incoming damage, weapons systems overloaded I go to work on Lhorenzho's Firetail, his damage is impressive and so is his tank, it's neck and neck, both our repair systems fighting to repair the chunks of armour being torn out of our ships, he's still significantly faster than me and starts to get range where his artillery starts hitting me harder.

With my repper out of nanite paste his armour crumbles, my own is close to evaporating under the massive volleys of his artillery.

I try to orbit, minimising the impact of his salvos, using the greater tracking of my guns to finish him off.
I'm rewarded with a satisfying explosion as Lhorenzho's Firetail illuminates the Egmar system

A great fight and one I thoroughly enjoyed.

I seem to be having an issue with my modules burning out, cost me a Police Comet kill with him at 3% structure, but the pilot was gracious enough to offer a 1v1 against my Rifter, we did so at a deep safe and this time I managed not to melt everything and win. Another good fight.

Also just lost my Astro, took on a Hyperion in an anomoly... Neuted, tackled and dead :(

The Battle of Arnher

Greebo's technique was unscientific and wouldn't have stood a chance against any decent swordmanship, but on his side was the fact that it is almost impossible to develop decent swordmanship when you seem to have run into a food mixer that is biting your ear off.
-- (Terry Pratchett, Witches Abroad) 

A rather dull evening locally, very little happening other than me being impressed at my skills with a 36km infinite point on an old Broadsword, which was put to good use catching a stabbed Procurer who thought he was immune to old school gate Piracy.

Started playing around with a Strateo fitting but I'm not convinced yet, but holy shit, have you guys seen the Mobile Depot?

Anyways, I was bored so boarded a Tristan and headed to Amamake. Very little I could engage realistically en route, cross jumped a rather large frigate gang on the Amamake gate, but I liked this Tristan and wasn't going to just throw it away.

I docked up in Ama for a bit to have dinner, the Vegan Mac n Cheese is particularly delicious.

Setting my nav com to Bosena I headed on out again, still not much I could fight until I hit Arnher. Scan showed a few frigates about, possibly together or fighting amongst each other, who knew, so I warped to the Novice plex at 50km, soon enough A Firetail warps in and we start a slow dance around each other, to see who would make the first move.

we hover at about 24km from each other and the Firetail engages with a long point. he's not moving terribly fast, possibly on afterburner but he could always be duel propped. I start to spiral in as he starts to apply damage at range... Artillery, goddamn artillery and with the Firetail being more agile and faster this was going to be a problem.

I launch my drones and engage, I land a web but he seemingly has me dual webbed, as he outruns me and gets out of web and scram range. At least he's not dual propped.

A Magnate warps in at range, things are about to get interesting, it seems the Magnate is waiting to take on the winner, who would most likely be severely damaged giving the Magnate the high ground. The fight between me and the Firetail isn't over yet as I'm deep in armour, my overloaded repper clawing back vital hit points as my drones continue to go to work on the Firetails armour, but he is repping great big chuncks back, I can see the nanites working furiously to keep him intact.

He moves out to 30km and eventually loses point, it seems he's running but still applying damage to me, I'm just about out of armour, my repper decides to reload... What the actual fuck!

The Firetail explodes... Instead of warping out he tries to kill me off with a last volley or two, but my drones are tenacious little bastards and quite deadly.

The Magnate decides now is the time to try steal the loot, he's faster than me and closes on the wreck quicker, but I get in range to get point and web on the golden ship. He engages, with me in deep armour already, an easy kill.

My repper finishes it's long reload and starts to burn, repping great big chunks of armour, I change ammo as this fight is going down eyeball to eyeball.

The first module to melt on my Tristan is my afterburner, then the web and finally the scrambler... This isn't going to end well, I can't get away.




This is it.




I'm in structure




The Magnate explodes, he was in deep trouble but the thought of getting that last shot in was too tempting.

Who needs tackle when you just need to look like you're one shot away from dying?

GF in local before I headed off to find a place to put out the fires and repair all the damage. Eventually made it to Bosena, saw Sard Caid in a Dramiel and took a break. The rest of the night was a wash, I went back on the Amamake route, saw nothing I could fight so went home.

Give that drone a medal

The pre-luncheon drinks were going quite well, Mr Bucket thought. Everyone was making polite conversation and absolutely no one had been killed up to the present moment.
-- (Terry Pratchett, Maskerade) 

[20:03:53] Randy Wray > 20:02:29    Combat    222 from Kane Rizzel[NOVAK](Tristan) - Hobgoblin II - Wrecks
[20:03:57] Randy Wray > I warped out after that
[20:04:06] Randy Wray > consider my anus rekt