Entry: eight hundred seventy-nine.
Battle report:
Took out a small roam, meant for corp only, but opened to alliance just in case. Final fleet composition came out to a five double nano whelp canes and an instacane plus myself in a triple TD, sixteen hundred plate, triple trimarked Arbitrator.
When we started the roam, I ordered that Jason and Killie take point, acting as a two man gang instead of having the normal interceptor scout for a bigger gang. I felt that if they acted in this fashion, possible targets would be less likely to run. Eventually, on our way to a blob on the map, Jason and Killie jumped into a gatecamp in PUZ-IO. This camp consisted of a Cynabal, Rapier, Pilgrim, Curse, Falcon, and Drake. The Falcon and Pilgrim were initially cloaked and possibly off-field, the Drake was off-field.
I told Jason and Killie to hold cloak, then fake a gatecrash to draw aggression. Once that happened, Jason called jump and the rest of our gang landed. I called points on the Rapier, eventually driving it off since we weren't able to kill it. The Falcon decloaked while the gang pushed the Rapier out and I set my TDs on the Cynabal. Temujin pushed the Falcon off field with his instacane. I immediately called the Cynabal primary next, Jason warped out with shields gone, and after he left the field the Drake landed and aggressed with the Curse. I didn't mean to bait tank with my medium armor repper, but it looked like I was going down. I managed to jump out before entering structure, and the rest of the gang killed the Drake and Curse.
Everyone did what they were supposed to do and did it right. Only downside was lack of scrams. With the scrams, the Rapier, Cynabal, and possibly the Pilgrim would have died as well.
After that conflict, the rest of a roam was a bust, right up until we got to a system in the Kalevala Expanse where Black Legion was shooting some structure. I had called Jason and Killie to warp to the cyno and gank it, costing Jason his cane. I did not realize who was in local, neither did I take into account that they should check dscan at a nearby celestial first. My frustration at the lack of fighting drove me to this silly error, needlessly costing us a cane.
Overall, the roam was a still a success, in terms of ships and ISK, but it wasn't as perfect as it could have been by far. On a side note, the Arbitrator performed fantastically in its role. I took almost zero damage from the Cynabal, and I'm certain Jason was able to stay on field as long as he was because I was TDing the Cynabal so heavily.
Computer: terminate recording.
Sounds like that Arbi is a helluva ship for FCing from. I'm probably going to be cross training into Amarr first out of all the races, and I've been wanting to try FCing, some cheap roams, that might just be the ship to do it out of.
ReplyDeleteThe Arbitrator does seem like a really good ship to do it from. I've also heard of FCs giving orders from blackbirds or Falcons. The issue with all of these ships though is that you also act as the primary ewar, which means you may get primaried. Make sure you designate a secondary and tertiary FC for when you can't be on field. In this case, Jason was my second and Evil my tertiary.
ReplyDeleteA tactic used by some other FCs was to FC from a bomber, or a covops prober, etc, such that they could stay safe on the field and not need to worry about the fleet losing its FC and still have a role in the fleet. This is a bit less viable in small gangs than massive fleets, but can still work out depending on the ship (Falcon, Pilgrim, etc).
Just as a final consideration, I have FCed from a frigate as well. I'm fairly skilled at frigates when it comes to null-sec and scouting, so being in that position, while a little bit riskier (less so if you are comfortable and competent in frigates) can also have some advantages in the area of making judgement calls faster and better.