There were a bunch of us Bastards hanging about in Evati last night, looking for targets of opportunity. Since none were forthcoming a roam was suggested and I volunteered to FC. With some trepidation we gathered our fleet of BCs and Cruisers and went for a wander.Neighbouring systems were fairly empty as we left Evati en route to our first waypoint. We did catch a Maelstrom on the Todifraun gate and as we had gained the attention of the sentries when we engaged didn’t have the luxury of time needed to hold him for ransom. As we were regrouping Flash decided to tag along in a Blackbird to give us some ewar support. The job of FC’ing became a little more daunting with the boss in tow.
Heading out towards Fuskunen we came across a PODLA Nan0-Drake in Uemon and the fleet made a valiant effort to pin him down. The Nano-Drake is a very impressive fit, relying on speed to gain range on anything it comes up against and this one was very skillfully flown. After a protracted chase the drake pilot decided that discretion was the better part of valour and broke our points with a burst of speed. He earned his escape with valour and honour, and we saluted him as we moved on. Had we been in faster ships with maybe an interceptor in tow things may have turned out very differently.
As we were passing a well used entrance to nul-sec space I sent Kalius Prime to have a peek in LXQ2-T to see if there was any action to be had. He discovered a gatecamp on the Paala gate. It seemed to be pretty well organised with bubbles up on the routes to the major celestials and a fleet of approximately 12 ships ready to prey on unsuspecting travellers.
The campers seemed to have stationed the majority of their ships away from the gate leaving a Cyclone, Harbinger and Ishkur to watch from 100km off. This would also give us somewhere to warp out to whilst avoiding the bubbles should we need to make an exit. I sent our cloaker through to get us a warp in on their position and we waited till he was far enough from the gate before we made our move.
It was suggested that we send a couple of ships through to begin with to possibly bait the rest of the gang onto the gate. SO I sent Wikkid and Mr. Frog through in their Drake and Harbinger to engage the Cyclone. The call came through that they were fully engaged and enemy reinforcements were inbound. The rest of the gang jumped through and the battle was on.
From our side of the fight it seemed that we’d caught the campers completely flat footed. They were disorganised and some even got caught in their own bubbles. The fleet spread its DPS across the smaller ships thatw ere warping in whilst Mr. Frog and Wikkid concentraqted on the Cyclone. The Cyclone went down fast and the enemy scattered, either jumping through to Paala or warping off. We gathered loot from the Cyclone whilst the campers tried to harrass us from afar, warping ships in to points too far above and below the gate for them to be any threat to us.
Having extracted our pound of flesh we jumped back, counting everyone out of LXQ to make sure that no-one was left behind and made our way back to Evati.
So my first command of a fleet was reasonably successful. We took out a battleship and a battlecruiser with no losses. I may get a taste for this. My thanks to the guys in the fleet for your advice and suggestions.
J out
