[2018-08-18] One fleet - 3 timers

[wootman369]

AAR by: Budda Sereda, FC of this fleet

I'd like to write down what did happen today with the goal to recap and learn what could I do better as FC, any feedback is welcome!
Plus, I think it is good to share with the alliance information about the content we had, which I believe was interesting and will have quite a few follow-ups

This night we had a friendly citadel timer in YKS (just 3 jumps from 6RC), 1 hour later - anchoring of a baitadel in CR-, and even later - timer in 6RC.

As clocks approached 2:30 and we did not hear any intel that opponents are going to form-up, I've decided to not waste time and organize a fun roam in harpies. But literally few minutes before undock we got intel: opponent is going to form-up Muninns and staging them on Titan.

Thanks to Nivlac Hita and Exonfang: we did re-ping for a beta fleet and I was offered to run it. I feel that solid counter to Muninns are Ishtars, so called to form them. We got around 20-ish Muninns, 6 Guardians, Devoter, few ceptors, and eyes here and there, totally around 36-39 in the fleet.

We travelled to FIO and hold on YKS gate. Opponents may saw us undocking and may know our numbers, but I did not want to show them that we are ready to fight and instead wanted to bait them into a fight. They Titan-jumped somewhere, but not into YKS. Why? Apparently, YKS is just 1 jump out of range from D06. Nivlac jumped to confirm and saw opponents 1000km from the gate.

I was hinted by other FCs that we may take the fight at the gate, after some hesitation called fleet to reload to tracking disruptor script, jumped fleet to YKS, warped to X36, bubbled the gate. We were a bit late as opponents already were burning from the gate. I called to tackle Lachesis first, we tried to break it, but it holds, we switched primaries to few other Muninns - no success, Scalpels-Kirins...
Kirin +76.84m
Capsule +0.86m
Got the first one!

But we could not break others. In a mean time we lost dictor and guardian:
Sabre -108.53m
Guardian -352.76m
And could not break anything else... Apparently, Lachesis was scrammed and stood near us waiting for his logies to disengage, another kill:
Lachesis +471.71m

We kept trying to break them, they kited more than 100km away, we did exchange a few smal ships:
Crucifier -3.19m
Capsule +0.01m
Scythe +20.04m
but the rest was too far.

I was thinking about bouncing to get into a better position, somebody advised to warp on top of the wreck, Exon warped us on top of the wreck. We kept exchanging drones for ammo.
It looks like during the whole fight opponents were shooting our drones (at least one flight of my heavies was completely destroyed), so we dropped sentries. Thanks to opponents, they did not kite away too far from our drones and I feel this make some difference: we started applying MUCH better. It was still hard to break them, but we got some progress.

First they caught our ceptor:
Crucifier -3.29m

But we got a dictor and shortly Scalpel:
Sabre +107.86m
Scalpel +41.49m

Their rep. power got lower, plus somebody was late with the call so we exchanged Ishtar for Muninn and got one more Kirin by quick switch of primaries:
Ishtar -321.47m
Muninn +424.29m
Kirin +73.95m

We decided to try the Looki's tank, and apparently it broke relatively easy:
Loki +479.15m
2nd went down even quicker.
Loki +587.58m
Executioner +4.77m

At this moment opponents realized that the game is over and warped away.

Citadel defended, opponent's fleet was pushed away, OP SUCCESS!

It is necessary to admit that somewhere during the time we got folks from FEDUP in Jackdaws and Cormorants fighting Muninns too: they were far from us and took heavy losses. I assume that till some extent they meatshielded us and helped us to save numbers, but feel would be better if we took the heat instead: Ishtars with Guardians support has more 'meat' and are harder to kill.

Anyway, we picked up drones and where going to camp the outgate (X36) looking for another fight, but heard about the trap that Goons setup down the road for Co2 and I decided to warp fleet to a citadel to move new set heavy drones from cargo to drone bay... and to let PH to go into a trap.
Few minutes later it appeared that trap was discovered so I called Saltlife to bubble the gate and aligned the fleet to X36 and prepared for the 2nd fight. But, Pando discovered that PH fleet docket to one of their citadels, so after short briefing we decided to reinforce it: we warped to a citadel, dropped centries and started shooting it. After a few minutes they undocked but did not take the fight. I had X36 gate bubbled, I guess that's why they warped to FIO gate... TBH, right now I don't remember exact details, I believe I asked buble to be removed from X36, but instead have a HIC aligned to the gate, and have a fleet aligned as well. When PH warped to a gate, I warped fleet and called Saltlife to follow the PH fleet and try to catch whatever he can on the other side.
With some issues, it worked well and thanks to efforts of many we caught a struggler

(03:41:23) X36Y-G
Muninn +426.35m
Capsule +0.86m

After that we came back into YKS and finished reinforcement of the citadel we were shooting before LOL

Stats
ISK Destroyed: 2,715,764,417.05
ISK Lost: 789,253,269.47
ISK Delta: 1,926,511,147.58
Efficiency: 77.482%

The whole BR in the system: https://zkillboard.com/br/102923/ (though I believe it does not include the last killed Muninn).

I do want to express many thanks to Fweddit management group: Nivlac Hita, Exonfang, Flying Kiwi Oculus as well as Pandoralica for support during the fight, taking over when I lost the ball, and advises!

Overall evaluation
✔ (Positive stuff)
1. We got content!
2. First more or less serious and successful sov-nul fleet for me
3. We defended 1 citadel, while that another anchored near the D06 (in CR-), and reinforced the citadel in YKS

✘ (What could I do better)

0. Indecisiveness and slowness. This can be easily explained by the lack of experience, hopefully, I will improve with time and more fleets run.

1. Chose drones BEFORE we undock. Today for the fleet I feel like we would benefit from having 2 flights of heavy drones and 1 sentries, and think about what types of drone to chose. I should have thought about this.

2. Expecting a fight with Muninns I did not expect they will fly frigate logies: they sig-tanked very well and yet had enough reps (together with few Lokies) to keep Muninns alive. I probably should have called for Target Painters. What would be a good ship, Huginn? With faction webs reaching 65-75km, we would snipe those Scalpels easily.

3. We needed to have shield, info, and skirmish links...



Thanks all who joined, stay tuned for next 'harpies' fleet