Success.
That is right. The Courageous Caldari have triumphed over the Ghastly Gallente. It was a battle of the ages, a flashback to the Caldari-Gallente War. Two rivals, pitted in semi-mortal combat for the rights to..bragging.
This time around, each team of 10 was given a box that held 2 Battlecruisers, 1 ECM cruiser, 1 Combat Cruiser, 1 dessie, 1 EAS, and EW/Combat frigs. For us, that meant a Drake, Ferox, Blackbird, Coromant, Kitsune, Griffin, Merlin, Condor, Kestrel, and a Caracal. Our nemeses fielded a Brutix, Myrmidon, Thorax, Atron, Maulus, Keres, Celestis, Tristan, Incursus, and Catalyst.
Again, I went to the field in my drone killing Merlin, this time fit out with a web as well as dual painters and an Invuln Field II. Our strategy broke us into 2 groups: The BB, Ferox, and Coromant were to split off and work as DD/RR/ECM, leaving the more brittle of us 20 km behind them to work as support anchoring to the Drake.
We stayed close, inching closer to their group. What happened what something a big surprise to us. The Keres, of course, tried dampening a few of us, but it doesn’t work well in these set ups. The Thorax gunned straight for us, predictably being a blaster fit and dual 1600mm plated. His ECCM did little to help him as he singled himself out and let us hammer him into space dust. His fit had 106k Hp..when it came to kinetic. But we weren’t using only kinetic. He simply sat in front of our group, trying to work the BB down. The Ferox had begun a cap transfer with the BB, giving infinite reps while the BB also had RR running. The Atron made its way into our midst, but soon melted after I webbed it and sent rockets screaming out and spooling up my 200mm autocannons.
Their fleet seemed to spread out in a line. The Brutix had simply bum rushed our first group, becoming the primary and receiving the full force of Caldari might. There was little he could do as we blew his armor off in chunks. The Tristan and Catalyst coming in slowly behind him were not enough to save their comrade, since he was in structure when they came into range. The Catalyst was next on our hit list, melting quick. But the Tristan had got it in mind to try to take me out. With my Merlin rigged for resistance and bit of buffer, I simply turned on my Invuln Field, not even reaching half shield. I split my paints between the Cata as it went down and the pesky Tristan. Drones had also taken note of me, but our Condor was making short work of them when I got distracted. Their Celestis had come into our midst at some point, so we burned him down as fast as possible before his drones and missiles could do enough damage. Sadly, at some point our Griffin had started taking fire, and despite last minute reps, went down. The Keres had been largely ignored throughout the fight, one or two mods left to cycle and break his locks. So now we finally gave the crowd a nice golden explosion, leaving only the Myrmidon. He had been sitting 55 km off the whole fight, seemingly doing nothing. He didn’t even pop drones to my knowledge or at least only a few at a time. We made sure to be cautious and not rush the win, but as we launched missiles he loosed drones….and brought them back. Apparently, he had no notion of dying since the next thing we knew, he warped off. This is a forfeit as warping in the fight was prohibited.
Of course, the entire time before the fight we had been bet against and told we would lose by many people. I’m not sure why, I guess they just hoped we “squids” would somehow fail at it. It always feels that much better to be the underdog that wins. We even netted one corpmate a cool 500 mil. Awesome. Our great strategy is all thanks to Ruges and thanks to my team for such a great tourney. We were told we got to have our hulls are reward, but somehow a few minutes later we are told we get the racial inty of our choice. I’m feelin’ pretty good, even though I completely forgot to bet on us :P Sadly, our even KB is still borked so when it becomes available I will try to link all the relevant KMs.
Thanks again to Silentbrick for his great tourney, I had a blast.
-Mem
7 comments:
Great fight!
I was in the Condor. The light missiles are drone killing machines! I even got the atron KM.
Nice job, bro. I knew you guys had this one, though I thought they'd make you work just a bit harder for it. NOT how I would have run a Gallente squad, but, hey.
Being the underdog is always cool in my opinion.
After the previous fight with the Amarr I realized how powerful the RR was. And wanted to use the same strat again. However we did not have a RR bonused hull. So we had to stick with the BB and then the Ferox being RR.
Going against the Gallente and us having the fragile frigates. I did not want them to get poped right away. So I figured if we put the BB out front along with ferox RRing it they would primary the BB and leave our frigs alone till we needed them. The Caracal and commorant also where in this front group, So it would not look as if we where baiting with the BB.
The drake, had the range so it was ok sitting back and would still be able to engage and formed the anchor point for our frigs. and was still close enough that our Kitsune and griffin would still be in range of the front line attackers. And the other frigs where inrange of any drones that where sent.
When the event started the ferox group proceded towards the enemy force. Withe the drake group holding back 20km. Once we got inrange of the enemy we turned directions and headed away. At which time we where able to engage there frontline ship with our heavies. And caused them to send there drones after us. Which our frigs where able to pick off.
So with a large portion of there drones down and our primary targets droping. we again turned direction towards them. And broke rank as we tried to get the last few ships. Of which they all droped fast.
Damn you Squiddies, I had 10mil on Gallente to win!! *shakes fist*
Nah, nice job guys, I really thought Kheg's team was going to pop your shells and nomnomnom on the tasty insides...
Good to see how effective mutual support and teamwork can be, especially since Caldari ships have a bad rep in PVP situations. Maybe they're not so bad after all?
No ship is bad in pvp. You just need to find a way to use it effectively. Which it seems you guys did.
Sounded like a nice fight, would've loved to be there.
Yeah your guys plan, pretty effectively broke the plan I had formulated.
My Idea, was that your ecm guys would either be set up purely for jams, so very lightly tanked, or would have tanked a bit more and so would have been less effective jam bunnies.
The myrmi was set up for long range sniping, to take out the ecm before the rest of my guys got in range to start killing. but only the BB and the griffin ever got in range of him, and the RR on the BB kept him way too tough to kill.
The bait rax was purely there to keep you guys occupied as we closed, but I forgot to anchor the rest on me, so meh, made it too obvious.
Possibly I should have just sat there and made you guys approach me. If my plan had gone as I hoped I would have traded a thorax and probably a catalyst, for having degraded your ecm enough to make it less of an issue, and got the rest of my guys in blaster range, then things might have been different. ;)
Lol Loki, sorry to lose you money.
Don't worry, we had two plans, just in case things weren't how we thought they would be. I was, as always, a bit surprised by how much anti-ECM sentiment in various channels. As an ECM pilot, I feel a bit singled out simply because my method of war is more effective than other forms of Ewar. Caldari strengths are in range and ECM abilites, so playing into them is only natural. Squiddies just can't win for some people I guess :P
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