Beating My Chest Like King Kong

"We're gangstas and thugs, we embrace with love

And beat the hell outta anybody that £$%^ with us"
Eminem/Trick Trick

It's been a nice couple of weeks since my last update.

LOWSEC CONCORD

First, I made a glorious contribution to Hulkageddon IV without leaving lowsec (after screwing up on my first attempt and killing a retriever ONE MINUTE before the start of the campaign). One of my associates was minding his own business in Tannakan when he spotted a Mackinaw in an ice field. A Drake was also present on scan but not on grid. I quickly undocked my Cynabal and made my way to the warp-in spot kindly provided by a cloaked fleetmate.

Just as I finished off that abomination of a ship, the Drake warped in. I loaded EMP and settled into a 20 kilometre orbit while he sat still, tanking my DPS quite well. Bored and willing to kill him quicker, I closed distance and that was when the Drake ignited his own engine and sarted burning in my direction at full speed. This allowed him to shut down my MWD with a scram and start pounding my shields really hard. To make matters even worse, a Huginn warped in and put a web (or probably a couple) on me.

Tackled!

After repeating "OH SHIT OH SHIT OH SHIT" in my head at least a dozen times I tried the only trick that could save me and put my medium neut on the Drake, which, according to my overview, was neuting me as well, most likely with a small device. That was his mistake which cancelled out my mistake: as I got into armor, his point dropped and I was free to warp to a celestial to which I had already aligned. The Huginn never came closer than 30 kilometres and his webs only helped me get into warp faster. Phew, humiliating loss avoided.

I did manage to screw up even worse a bit later, losing a Drake and then a Dramiel to a well-piloted arty cane. The Dramiel loss was especially stupid since I undocked with a neut instead of a nos and simply got neuted. That's what happens when you get mad and want to retaliate immediately. I should really make other people behave like that instead of doing it myself. Props to my opponent for flying solo and doing it well.

I healed my ego a little bit by stealing a Zealot kill from an unlucky Pen Island pilot shortly afterwards.

COMET ME BRO

On the following day, my associate VJ was more lucky when a gang of three Navy Comets, one Rifter and a Heron engaged his Cyclone in the nearby system of Sosan. The Cyclone, its fit shamelessly stolen from the Genos killboard, tanked the frigs easily and neuted and killed them one by one.

His success must have caued me to underestimate Comets and later engage one in a Rifter, which resulted in a tense fight but a convincing victory for the faction frigate. I guess the MSE gank fit was not the right one there but at the moment I thought: if it works against a Taranis, it should work against a Comet. Most importantly, he had a nos which allowed him to keep shooting and repping despite my neuting.

GANGING UP

Later on the same day, I joined a Shadow Cartel-led roam, taking part in my biggest fleet to date. This was a very interesting experience, being part of a 30-strong gang of battlecruisers, battleships, recons and logistics ships. Doing dozens of jumps nonstop is stressing though or maybe it's just something I haven't got used to. Unfortunately, I joined the fleet late and only got on one kill, although it was quite juicy: a Heretic faction-fit smartbombing Typhoon Fleet Issue.

Finally, yesterday, I was finally able to join my first Wensley's Wednesday roam. I acted like a bit of a scumbag, being mute on voice comms, arriving in Egbinger in my pod and asking Wensley for a ship. Our gang was to be made up mostly of battlecruisers and logistics but Wensley wanted to have some light tackle and I gladly hopped into an Ares. Nevermind that I could not use it's Tech 2 railguns or anchor the bubble Wensley had put into its cargohold (at least I bought blasters somewhere along the way).

Just like the previous roam, this was something completely new to me - roaming nullsec in the company of celebrities like Laedy. Of course, I screwed up a few times, for example by failing to notice that the gang went in a different direction than the one suggested by our autopilots.

I will not go into the details of the roam as Wensley will surely explain this much better from an FC perspective but it was quite productive in terms of kills and I think most of the gang (me not included) made it out in their ships as well. We snatched a few DEMON HUNTERS by camping their station, got into a few other small engagements and tried, albeit unsuccessfully, to bite something off a BC/recon/T3 R.A.G.E. gang.

Being a mute interceptor pilot, I was only good for tackling and challenged myself to try and point stuff faster than fellow gang member Dian Lung who was flying a Stiletto. Unfortunately, I was on par with her at best and probably even slower taking into account the natural "lag" between the pointing and its announcement on voice comms. So much for my PVP veteran image. Also, dying to the R.A.G.E. gang was completely unnecessary.

I think I should get some ships of my own ready in Egbinger by next Wednesday as I'm definitely looking forward to flying with Wensley again.

I had only done really small gangs before