Two on One and then Eighty on None

Entry: seven hundred one.

Two nights ago, Archie led us in a fleet to fight against the Fountain residents. I tried the previous night to make it a more engrossing battlereport, but with the battle lasting thirty minutes, I doubt anyone, even myself, would have the patience to wade through thirty minutes of raw combat logging interspersed with fleet chatter. In fact, I know I could not.

In this particular roam, we formed up in Arty Canes and Drakes. We had one or two Scimitars tops, and a smattering of tacklers and recons. After a trip from 49-U6U to lower Fountain, we waited on a gate for fifteen minutes before finally jumping into LBGI- to engage. When the fight did finally happen, we were at zero on the WMH- gate when the enemy fleet landed.

There was a period of confusion, as the FC was deciding what to do, and then after ten seconds, when a fleet member called multiple enemies engaging him, we took action and burned off the gate and out of the deployed interdiction bubbles. Primaries were called one after the other as we burned off, aligning out with microwarpdrives active. Enemy targets fell minute by minute as they attempted to chase us down, but our superior speed and range kept us out of range by and large. They gave chase for over ten minutes before the situation changed.
 
Enemy reinforcements arrived. We engaged for another few volleys before warping off. We'd lost a quarter of our fleet.
 
A few minutes later, we warped back to the WMH- gate at range, ready for the enemy fleet to warp at zero to give chase. When they landed, we activated our microwarpdrives and aligned out, shooting down anything that came close. More enemy targets fell, but we started losing more of our own fleet faster as pilots became less able to manage their own diminishing capacitor levels. We warped off yet again. We'd lost yet another half of our fleet.
 
A few minutes after the previous warp out, we decided to change locations. We moved to J-R, warped to a gate at range, and waited. The enemy arrived as expected, but with so few of us left and so many of them, we lost far more than we took with us before we warped off and began bouncing safe spots for the next fifteen minutes. When fifteen minutes were up, we went dark.

Unfortunately, the FC was still probed down, destroyed, and podded. With him dead, those of use remaining were forced to burn back home. After fifteen minutes of zero power output, we reactivated our systems and burned up into Fountain and out into low-sec, taking the trip back home down through the Aridia region to 1DH-.
 
The roam was extremely successful during the first two engagements in LBGI-, but cascaded horribly in the third and final engagement, costing most of the fleet its ships. 

Fortunately, and unfortunately, I've gotten quite good at not getting myself killed. This is a blessing in the sense that I don't lose much, but a curse in that I have three such Arty Canes and have yet to lose one. I'm seriously considering contracting them off, or finding a way to modify them from the original spec without a serious ISK investment. After that, I still have a Whelp Cane, a Tornado, a Nano Pest, and several assorted frigates including interceptors, assault ships, stealth bombers, and an Imperial Navy Slicer.

The biggest issue concerning these is accumulation. I want to fly other ships than what I have, but I don't want to own twenty ships. I'm doing my best to lose them in PvP without intentionally losing them, but so far I've been unsuccessful. I'm starting to wonder how long I'll have these ships, if I'll even get the insurance money on them before the contracts expire.

As for today, we formed a practice run of a Drake doctrine, for which I flew the Slicer, hoping to lose it. We 'terrorized' BDEAL for two hours, disabling jumpbridges and attempting to bump a Hurricane out of the Jump Bridge tower's forcefield, as well as generally running around in their space while waiting for them to form up a fleet.

It seems, however, that BDEAL can't actually field a fleet strong enough to deal with an eighty man gang on its own. We left frustrated, no targets to shoot, no enemies to fight, no killmails acquired. Further roams against the CFC, if it can still be said to exist, will likely run farther into Fountain, even past PNQY-.

I find another situation more likely, though. With the CFC having left Delve, there's no one for Evoke to combat except for Cascade and Nulli, while Cascade also has former DRF entities in Catch to deal with, with the strong possibility of TEST and Pandemic Legion making a show there as well, if not on a regular basis, then at least from time to time.

Given that Evoke has been forming up for Cascade's timers as we retake our former space in Catch, Querious, and Delve, I expect we'll be seeing them more in the coming days long before anyone else. It'll be interesting to see how it all plays out though.
 
Computer: terminate recording.