So, going through the losses incurred in and around Molden Heath (the first 5), let's see what happened:
Number 10 - The first one always hurts the most
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| The Beast |
This Harbinger was the original one I purchased when I first visited Molden Heath back in February, surviving dozens of fights. I was chasing a single Hatchery Drake running a mission into a deadend system. When I tried to leave, I found him barring my way, with the rest of his gang - a Hurricane, Sentinel and a Dramiel sitting on the other side of the stargate. Attempting to split them up, I jumped into the rest of their gang after the Drake aggroed me on one side, burnt back to the gate forcing the Dramiel to jump into the other side with the Drake before attempting to burn off and gun down the Sentinel whilst outpacing the Hurricane and warping off before the Dramiel could jump back in and pin me down. Whilst in theory this should have worked, I neglected two crucial facts, namely
a) Without the gangbonuses of my alt sitting in the next system, I was only slightly faster than the Hurricane and Sentinel
b) The Sentinel's Tracking Disruptor made it tricky to kill him.
In the end, I put the Sentinel in half armor before the Dramiel managed to scramble me 50km off the stargate, at which point I inevitably popped.
Number 9 - The ONI that could (have)
Without my shield Harbinger, I decided to go roaming in my Omen Navy Issue instead. In this ship, I managed to grab initial point on a Thanatos in Bosena which was camping stargates before losing it to an untimely disconnect whilst warping to the Bosena station at 100km. When I relogged, a Falcon decloaked 5km off me and webbed & scrambled me whilst local spiked. Fortunately he appeared not to have an Amarr jammer and I was able to apply my lasers, energy neutralizer and set my drones on him intermittently. Unfortunately, his jammers kept him alive - by the time his gang landed and made mincemeat of me he was in low armor.
Number 8 - Armor outruns shield, what?!
Not to be deterred (much!), I started roaming in my last Myrmidon. Finding a Gunpoint Diplomacy neutral Hurricane sitting on a stargate, I was hoping he would engage me, seeing as I could not initiate hostilities without taking sentry gun fire. Unfortunately, he decided to jump through and warp to a station. After giving him a few minutes to get his backup to arrive (another Hurricane I had spotted earlier), it was still clear that he wasn't willing to engage. As I made to leave the system, he finally made his move and followed me to the stargate.
Interested to see why he had a sudden change of heart, I jumped through the stargate once aggressed and came across his backup - the afore mentioned corpmate in a Hurricane, with another in a Tempest. Fearing the Tempest's heavy energy neutralizers and their effect on my armor repairers, I burnt back to the stargate and jumped through, but not before taking significant armor damage. At this point, I decided to try burning away from the stargate and hopefully outrunning the enemy gang. To make matters worse, once again my gangbonuses were in the system with the Tempest and thus, eventually I popped 300km off the stargate, but not before burning out most of my modules and going through most of my cap booster charges.
Number 7 - The power of Electronic Attack Ships
Often, Ewar such as Remote Sensor Dampeners and Tracking Disruptors are called ineffective. In reality, in small gang situations, they are often times incredibly effective, especially in small gang PvP. Roaming around in my brawler Crusader whilst my alt secured logistics to move ships back to Hevrice from Atlar as the Molden Heath campaign wrapped up, I found a Vexor in top belt in Bosena. Warping in, I was amused to see him attempt to kite me with medium railguns and deploying Hammerhead IIs. Easily getting him scrambled, with my Afterburner I had no difficulty remaining untouched by either his drones or his guns. After settling into a steady orbit, a Keres uncloaked 30km from me.
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| Rarely seen, the Gallente Electronic Attack Ship |
Abandoning the Vexor, I sensed an easy kill and closed in on the Keres. Unfortunately, he spotted me and damped me down to a lock range of 6km, hardly ideal. At the same time, a Vagabond and a Thrasher landed. Burning away with my Afterburner fit Crusader, I found myself unable to catch the Keres, who was MWD fit. However, at the same time I was able to outrun the Vagabond and the Thrasher. Burning away, I hoped that I could manage to drive the Keres out of capacitor, as Remote Sensor Dampeners as well as the MWD would use up capacitor by the bucket.
After a few minutes of this I kept trying to manually burn to catch the Keres out, using such manoveurs as the slingshot. Unfortunately, the combination of his bonused Warp Disruptor range, his Sensor Dampeners and superior speed allowed him to keep me at a comfortable range and eventually I got lax and the Vagabond managed to warp to his Keres friend and run me down with his overheated MWD before I could respond. I reshipped to an Armor Hurricane, but their gang scattered just as I was about to scramble the Vagabond.
Number 6 - The Scary Celestis
With the majority of my ships back in Hevrice courtesy of my alt and a bored freighter, all that was left was to head down there with my main. Grabbing my anti-frigate Celestis, I started roaming the 47 jumps back without my alt. The first jump out, I spotted an Damnation and Maelstrom running a mission. Without a prober, I decided to move on. A few more jumps out, I spotted a Rattlesnake in a safe spot near a stargate, with no other celestials on scan and only a single other person in local, who appeared to be a carebear.
Purchasing probes and a probe launcher from a nearby station, I refitted my Celestis, probed him down and swapped fittings back to full combat. Landing ontop of him, I was relieved to find him still there and started making my way through his considerable shield buffer, jokingly wondering if I could break his passive shield tank with my measily 200 DPS. After a minute or so of no response, the Rattlesnake pilot appeared to return to his screen and deployed drones which proceeded to bloody me and forcing me to run away with my tail tucked between my legs.
Continuing along the roam, it was dreadfully empty until I finally came to Amamake. Unfortunately, none of the Faction Warfare frigates would engage me and I somehow escaped a 20 man FW frigate fleet in my armor tanked Celestis. Eventually, I decided to suicide my ship into a Tengu and 2 Slicers, hoping to lure one into overheated web range, which occured, however the Tengu managed to annihilate me before I could finish off the Slicer.
Well, at least the trip back to Hevrice was made quicker - only 10 jumps via high sec in my pod!
Feel free to reply in the comments section with what happened when you came back to Eve and the dreadful, dreadful mistakes you made
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