Fleet Command

One evening recently I joined a pre-organised corp T1 frigate fleet led by my fellow blogger Kishin Hattori. I hadn’t thought I would be able to join the fleet as the start time was somewhat late for me, but alas I was online at the start time and thought “what the hell”. I also wanted to show my support to him as it was his first time leading an organised fleet.

The fleet assembled and we had a fair mix of dps and ewar, unfortunately what we didn’t have were targets. We roamed systems near and afar, only to be disappointed. Even Old Man Star was deathly quiet, though I did manage to lose my Rifter. I always tend to have terrible luck in OMS or do something really stupid.

Targets had been glimpsed, but were not forthcoming until after nearly two hours roaming a Hurricane was sighted and tackled. All did not end well however as when our 15 man gang landed in the belt after a long warp to find ourselves 70+km from the Hurricane who was accelerating away at 1500m/s. Our tackler went in for the scram to kill his MWD but was caught then by the Hurricanes neuts and drones and consequently died in a ball of fire.

The call was given that the op was ended and that we should head back to base. At this point it was very late, but I decided to stick my nose in Hulmate on the way home just on the off chance. What I found was an Ishkur seemingly ratting in a belt. I called to the remaining fleet members and they said they would make best speed running the gate guns, though they were 4-5 jumps out. I decided to try and keep the Ishkur interested which a pretty dangerous decision in hindsight. Kiting him and his drones and shooting them down before he would recall them. He warped away a couple of times but eventually I found him again as the fleet arrived. I went in, announcing to the fleet I had point I offered a prayer to the gaffer tape gods to keep me alive until they landed. Secondary and teritiary points were called and I resumed kiting the drones, just as I capped out it was announced that the Ishkur was down \o/. A fitting end, and just what was needed to end the op for the night.

Hats off to Kishin (no pun intended) for have the stones to organise and run the fleet. I hope to join the next one. What he has also done, damn him is to make me think about doing something similar and organising a fleet myself. Time will tell I suppose, but I guess I’m going to need to do something while I train for Cruisers & Battlecruisers!