In the meantime, last night I helped down an Archon and a Nidhoggur whilst setting up our HQ for our next campaign - Molden Heath, Resurgence.
The original FC of the fleet who lured it out (accidentally) has written up a fairly accurate report here, which I have pasted below (with minor edits in order to make more sense):
We still had a respectable fleet up and Lee wanted to take his new falcon for a spin. I didn't check his fit beforehand (more on this later) and we heard tell of a camp near muttokon. We headed out with 3 canes, 2 drakes, 2 rifters and a falcon and sure enough, there were a brutix, mael and myrm on gate. The fleet held while I went to spike it but unfortunately the mael and brutix warped off before I landed so I was forced to take potshots at the myrm, baitdrake style. His friend jumped through in a drake and opened up on me so I pointed him and the game was on.
We jumped in and warped to me with the falcon staying hidden to try and lure them into escalating with their entire fleet before revealing the futility of it. Sure enough, they landed their fleet back on us and it was game on. However they had a surprise in store, the moment the battle got underway an archon landed. Things started badly with a gank fit brutix getting in cael's face while we couldn't get a jam (no gal jammers) but fortunately it's massive lack of tank meant that it got popped between repair cycles and Cael got free. While he was recovering his shields I set him with the task of finding me a fleet to deal with my archon so I could focus on FCing.
Back on the field they had a Harbinger, Myrmidon, Drake, Maelstrom, Harbinger and Raven escorting their Archon but were struggling to really apply their dps. The Harbinger got out of rep range and a Rifter kept it there while we smashed it down. The first of Cael's volunteers landed on grid and I was pleased to see it was Suleiman Shouaa, a local cane pilot with a LOT of skill points, experience and dps. He wasn't on comms with us and the extent of our communication was him saying "that mael is arty fit, warn the rifters, I'm gonna kill it" before soloing it in about 30 seconds flat. They weren't getting anywhere as they were tied to the Archon's rep range and we were nanoing so they did what anyone would and warped in a second Carrier, this one a Nidhoggur.
We split our points between the carriers and the Xs in our intel channels started rolling in. Vanderie, a member of Gunpoint Diplomacy took over and we were quickly able to finish off the support in the form of a Myrmidon, Raven, Blackbird and Drake. Unfortunately the carriers decided they were committed and their support kept returning and our Falcon was sitting exactly 100k off an aligned point. A stabber fleet landed on him at 0 and 2 shotted his completely untanked hull, sending our shiny new falcon to its grave. Seconds later Sulei hulksmashed the SFI but still, .
The entire op was getting pretty messy by this point and the Teamspeak Server decided to crash on us which probably contributed to the death of a weird active tanked pest which was sitting within neut range of the carriers. It wasn't ours though but still, things weren't going perfectly. Gunpoint had cynoed in a carrier of their own (which got promptly jammed) but they didn't have enough Liquid Ozone to bring in some dreads and the Carriers weren't going down. They could have probably still logged out at this point despite us having 20 guys on the field. They continued to try and bring in support but there was just too much and all that they achieved was letting me headshot a Falcon.
We were very slowly breaking the Archon's tank while we hit the Nidhoggur with jams and neuts but it was painstaking work. People were bringing in alts, fuel, spare ammo and boosters to try and keep the damage up and eventually a cyno was lit up for two executioners dreadnoughts. Both carriers instantly started self destructing but we were able to kill the archon about 15 seconds before it finished its timer, with the Nidhoggur pulling it off successfully.
 |
| Archon goes boom! |
The Battle Report is found here and is correct as far as I am aware.
The only incorrect parts of the above report is regarding me - I wasn't contacted by anyone to help them kill the Archon, I was actually stalking them and planning on killing them when I found them engaging the Archon & its support on the gate. Funny how things work eh?
See you in two months.
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