Hello dear readers,
I must firstly apologize, I had intended to include pictures in this post, but neglected to transfer them to my laptop before heading off for the weekend, I shall therefore post them on my return!
On to the content!
The esteemed gentlemen Chack’nul and Larkonis reminded me recently that I have been remiss in updating my blog with my shenanigans. The circumstances under which they spoke to me were most unique, but that is not where today’s story begins…
…It all began four days ago, in a system known as Ishomilken.
After an extended period of inactivity, the piracy bug was biting me hard and I logged in to see if I could go and try out my new ships; the fearsome curse and pilgrim recon vessels.
Day One:
I was a little dismayed to find almost no pythons online, the corp menstrual cycle had struck again, and we were in the low activity phase. Fortunately there is one python that is ALWAYS active, I struck up a conversation with Mr. Piscis and shortly after we were on our way to Mara in a curse and a cyclone.
We found nothing of note in Mara, and decided we should try heading up “the pipe” towards Tama instead, along the way we ran into a Harbinger and Stabber Fleet issue. We screwed up our timing, got separated, and generally screwed up. Piscis underestimated the speed of the stabber, and died under the withering fire of the sentry guns and harbinger and shortly after I likewise bungled and was down one curse.
Not a good start. Not good at all.
We were determined to get some kills though, after downtime we prepared to venture out again with some of our Flashie friends, and things soon started to get way crazy… Before venturing out again, we had the distinct pleasure of meeting the Pandemic Legion Rapetrain in transit, dozens and dozens of Supercarriers, accompanied by an Erebus titan and a blob of assorted battleships. I flew in my Anathema to snap some pictures and managed to land directly on top of an arazu which was also spying on the massive fleet. Fortunately it was only the arazu that got a face full of lasers… This is also the point where lark and Chack whined that I didn’t post enough, so here you go guys!
It started with a brutix and a retriever (which was actually mining in mara) 4 battlecruisers, 2 cruisers and a TERRIBLY FIT ROKH later. We called it an evening.
Day two:
I log in, poke Piscis on MSN, generally make a tit of myself in our various private channels and scrounge up a fleet; I have spotted mission runners next door!
Jarek brought in his probing rapier, and I sit next to him in my brand new pilgrim, he quickly narrows their position down and we warp into the mission cloaked. Jarek gets initial point but can’t stay for too long, the rapier having a flimsy tank. Fortunately my pilgrim creeps into range in time, and I lock down the battleship completely.
This is exactly the sort of thing the pilgrim was made for. We warp in our fire support and bag a nice Battleship and Battlecruiser kill.
We’re feeling good at this point, our gang grows a little, and we continue on to Mara (again)
We kill some small fry, including a mysterious cloaking retriever that is trying to ninja mine kernite ore for some reason.
And then things got interesting, while hanging cloaked off a gate, I inform our gang that Sleipnir has just warped to the top asteroid belt, where we are keeping a baitship. We try to catch him, and nearly do so, but the sleipnir is too fast and it’s impressive shield boosting ability kept it alive under the hail of fire our gang poured into it.
We skirmish for a while, and then the sleipnir disappears of scan. Instead a Wolf assault frigate and a Myrmidon land in our belt, we set about tearing them to shreds like tasty fajitas naturally. Turns out we weren’t the only ones baiting apparently as the Sleipnir reappears accompanied by a Guardian (why a guardian? we don’t know either…).
The Wolf explodes pitifully after only seconds, the myrm hangs in there longer but dies shortly after. The Sleipnir in the mean time is kiting our gang around with gusto, hurting several of our ships pretty badly. Unfortunately for him one of our battlecruisers cuts him off and lands a scram, stopping his ballet antics. The Sleipnir heroically tanks all incoming damage with his insanely powerful shields… Until I rewarp and land my pilgrim on his face.
The massively powerful neuts of my recon evaporate the power in his capacitor at a ridiculous rate, his shield boosting becomes infrequent, and then finally stops all together. A beautiful blue explosion follows, and we deftly murder the Guardian.
It is only when we examine our killmails that we realize we just killed a command ship worth well over a billion isk. We scream bloody murder when we realize we were just cheated out of a 650 million isk shield booster drop, but are elated nonetheless.
We kill half a dozen more ships, and call it a night.
Day three:
Wake up, jump in ship, make fleet, TO MARA!
We kill a tempest and some small fry, get bored and head back, where we run into a gang consisting of a Dominix, Hyperion and Abaddon battleship, so blood-drunk after days of murder and destruction we engage them under sentries, expecting to die horrifically. Apparently these pilots were all show, the moment they realized we were not afraid of them, they stopped fighting back. Like deer stuck in the headlight of a truck They All Died.
At this point we are actually getting high off the killings.
Day four:
By now it’s becoming second nature, I pick a curse for today, round up a gang and we wait.
And wait.
And wait.
Did we kill everything in here or what?
A megathron appears and hangs around, despite warnings that this was suspicious some of us get too close, it was a trap.
The megathron pops a cyno and a giant fleet of machariels and assorted battleships jumps in, all but two of us elude them fortunately; Things could have definitely gone worse. The bad thing? Some corpies are now obsessed with obtaining a titan of their own… I hope they don’t get one, this can only end badly.
Our patience is rewarded in the end. We kill four caracals in quick succession ( o.O 4?), murder a hurricane and a Harbinger, but most importantly…
…We slaughter Quantar Swords pilot Nexiumpro’s Hyperion, His massive repping power completely neutralized by my curse and the assorted neuts on our battlecruisers. If you’ve been reading my blog from day one, you will know QS were the bane of my early pirating life.
Payback feels so good.
In the end, after four days, the result has been this:
Results! Click to Enlarge
The verdict? I am in love with my new ships!! (though I flew my cane and cyclone on a fair few of the kills).
The Pilgrim is surprisingly durable, able to tank sentries and a drake for a good while waiting for reinforcements to arrive. The only thing I hate about it is how terribly, TERRIBLY slow it is with an afterburner fit, but I’ve been unable to find something with an MWD that gives the same results as of yet. It is monstrously powerful if you can get it on top of someone however…a ship to be feared.
The Curse is not quite so durable, but with the fit I am using it is fast as hell (1880 m/s without heat) neuts nicely and has a bit of extra oomph with the addition of two HMLs. I love this thing, it’s sexy, it’s fast, it has range and it’s mean. My only gripe is that drones and gateguns don’t mix too well, CCP should look into that.
My only regret of the past few days is that only 2-3 pythons actually flew with me, I hope this low activity cycle ends quickly. I love the flashy reds, and I love flying with them.
I don’t love flying with more blues than corpies.
I don’t like it at all.
Anyways, pictures on (hopefully) monday!
Fly reckless.
-HB
