Saturday 31 July 2010

Tengu Down

I logged on this Monday, planning on heading up to Old Man Star and then through to Tama on the lookout for combat in my Crusader. However, my plans were cut short as I logged onto Ventrilo. It was obvious that something  was going down, but I could not make out the details. Querying in corpchat quickly brought me up to speed: there was a Tengu running Combat Sites in a wormhole directly connected to Hevrice. 

A Tengu is one of the 4 Strategic Cruisers, combat vessels which are incredibly flexible and can be configured in innumerable ways, for both direct combat needs and support through the use of the appropriate subsystems.

If setup correctly for running Combat Sites, a Tengu is able to do high DPS (More than 600) at great range (more than 100km) whilst still boasting a strong shield tank (More than 1000). However, to get this performance out of a Tengu, you must be willing to spend major ISK on it, purchasing faction items.

Therefore, they are perfect for running Combat Sites and are typically choke full of faction goodies, ready to be liberated. In my mind, a Tengu in a wormhole can be likened to a loot-piƱata, although armed to the teeth with the latest state of the art technology.

Therefore, although it is possible to solo one of these fearsome ships, it is more satisfying and more successful to bring a small gang of ships which, working together can easily make mince-meat of it.

As reports trickled in, I got a clearer understanding of the situation. Our gang was sitting on the entrance to the wormhole in Hevrice whilst we had 2 cloaky alts inside the wormhole attempting to pinpoint the exact location of the Strategic Cruiser.

After joining the fleet, I warped my main to the entrance of the wormhole in a Harbinger whilst simultaneously moving my own probing alt into the wormhole to lend a hand. Quickly, through the use of the onboard scanner as well as directional, we were able to pinpoint the combat site the Tengu was running. 

A Stiletto, piloted by Kishin Hattori (his blog can be found here) was dispatched into the wormhole and was promptly fleet warped ontop of the Tengu. Alas, as the Stiletto dropped out of warp, Kishin reported that the Tengu had already moved from the Combat Site. Another cloaky alt reported that the Tengu was back in his POS and thus safe. At this point, I was sure we had lost our chance as the Tengu must have seen Kishin on directional.

However, when we started moving our alts out of the wormhole, the scout watching the Tengu reported that he had warped out of the POS. Kishin reported that the Tengu was on scan near the exit wormhole leading back to Hevrice. He immediately warped to the closest planet but the Tengu was not there, but he was still on scan along with a Thrasher. Strangely, a Cargo Container also appeared on scan in the same area as the two. I managed to probe them down, and warped Kishin ontop of them, but again they already moved on. However, their Cargo Container was still in space and Kishin reported that inside was a number of Sleeper Salvage. 

It seemed that the Thrasher was salvaging the wrecks of the Sleepers that the Tengu had killed and was placing them inside the Cargo Container. The Tengu was reported as being on scan around their POS but not actually inside it. At this point, we came up a plan: we would chase the Tengu around the system with our probes and try to scare him into going back to the Cargo Container.

With the plan in motion, all three Covert Ops vessels operating in the wormhole decloaked and dropped Combat Scanner Probes and began trying to flush the Tengu out. He was reported near another Planet, but he moved before we could get a definite hit. For the next few minutes, we kept him moving around the system, until eventually Kishin reported him back on scan near the Cargo Container. Each second seemed to last hours, until Kishin reported point on Tengu over comms. As one, the fleet in Hevrice jumped into the wormhole and warped to Kishin. He reported that he was getting hit by the Missile bombardment from the Tengu and was hurting, hurting real bad. The advice from the fleet: suck it up and overheat your MWD.

The fleet finally dropped out of warp ontop of Kishin, and just 20km from the Tengu. Calling out points over comms, Kishin warped off, his job done.

We started working into the Tengu, but his tank was formidable and he was tanking us with ease. That is, until the Hurricanes glided into range followed by the Pilgrim. As one, they activated their energy neutralizers and the Tengu went from 90% shields to 10% shields in an instant, and then disintegrated with no capacitor left to turn on Hardeners. The pod escaped, fleeing back to the POS.

Scooping the loot and emptying the Cargo Container, we filed out of the wormhole as we awaited the Killmail. Once it was posted into fleet chat, reactions on comms ranged from "Daaaamn, that's one expensive fit" to "Oh man, we got robbed".

In the end however, we made out with nearly 770M in loot, after the Sleeper Loot was sold. Even split 10 ways, still very respectable for each pilot.

1 comment:

  1. It seems like the way pirates can get paid nowadays is to jump in any and all wormholes that you can probe down. Nice kill, and nice loot! (Even though you lost the A-Type...)

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