I had made a slight change to my Devoter fit and wanted to see what difference it made, so I undocked in it. I already had some nice kills under my belt for the day and I was waiting around with a few Alliance mates for more people to show up so we could go on a roam.
But sometimes, Eve has other plans. Lo and behold what do I spy with my eye on d-scan? Could that be a Machariel? Along with a Drake, a Domi, a Basilisk, and a Eagle (wtf?! An Eagle? lol). Man that sure sounds like a level 5 gang to me. ( I only say that because I was told that later, honestly I have no clue what a level five gang is or isn't. To me it looked like a bunch of shit that needed to die.) And the cherry on top? The gang just happened to be Douchies, a former Burn Away corporation that had left to join Shadow Cartel. Nothing personal here, but it did make the following a bit sweeter.
We started organizing immediately. Once I got the ball rolling I made a phone call to some good buddies of mine that I hoped would already be out and about. Not only that but they were nearby. In cases like this it is important not to rush, despite the urgency of the situation and your desire to hurry, things have to be done correctly. We merged fleets, comms, Rixx got bumped to FC for a bit so we could work the probes on our end. And we dropped probes.
Devoter, Cane, Drake and Stabber is what we had in system. Certainly they had seen us on their own d-scan and thought nothing of it. We warped in to the acceleration gate and jumped thru. Into a room full of wrecks. Another acceleration gate, burn and jump. Another room full of wrecks. The further we go in the longer it takes for back-up to arrive. Another gate, burn and jump. Right smack dab on top of 'em!
I yell GO, point Mach, point Eagle on comms! My Drake (piloted by Qanzark) Cane (piloted by Torrinar) and Stabber ( piloted by Gordon Rush ladies) also get points. Woooo! This is insane, rats everywhere, explosions, missiles, smoke, crazy pointy rocks and ships flying around every which way! Our job is to hold on, keep points long enough for the back-up to arrive.
I really like the Devoter in many ways. Two infinite points, damn awesome tank (right at 100k ehp with high resists), but it is slow and like almost all Amarr ships it has cap issues. Right off the bat I'm not only getting hammered, but I'm also having cap issues. Everything I don't need is turned off, I'm even cycling my hardener! But I can't keep up with the Mach, the Domi is making that impossible, even with full cap the Mach could outrun me without webs on him. My Alliance buddies are hanging tough, but they won't last long, I'm at half-armor when I finally get some cap back to start the repper!
And like some golden WW2 dive out of the sun fighters, the Tuskers arrive. I had kept point on the Eagle and it died quickly, the Basi shortly afterwards and the Domi in short order. The Mach had run off, but we also caught the Drake. We kept the Drake alive to keep aggro from the mission rats so we could loot the field. We were also hoping the just arrived Tempest and Ishtar enemy back-up would try to save him, but they didn't. Once we secured the loot we killed the Drake. (Battle Report)
When we got back to station to drop off the loot everyone docked up. I stayed out to see what might happen, when one of their Canes arrived and red boxed me. Huh. Obvious bait is obvious? So I docked and we decided that those of us in Artie Canes (I switched) would undock, lock him up and then Alpha Strike! Then gtfo before his back-up arrived. Believe it or not it worked like a charm, he was actually still there. But not for long. He didn't actually have any back-up because no one came. I don't know what he was thinking. (Oddly, when I undocked my Cane refused to turn and just kept going in a straight line. lol, fortunately that issue didn't end up meaning anything)
Thanks to Suli for answering my call and for my good friends in The Tuskers for coming to help. And to my Alliance mates that hung tough on that Mach as long as they could. Heroes, all of ya! Much appreciated and I hope you all enjoyed the fight as much as I did.