Merlin is no Magician

My explorer had been doing some profitable low and high sec exploration during much of the 3-day weekend along with Jack Dancer making an uneventful foray into Great Wildlands null sec.  Then on Monday evening I checked Heild and found a bunch of activity.

This game is a lot of fun when there are other pilots around.

I had a bit of sparring with Sebastian  Petras (we were both in rifters and he was sitting at the sun when I found him), but he was able to break off the engagement (due to the fact that I didn't have room to equip a web to slow his escape down) when things were going well for me in a shield tanked rifter ...

[ 2012.05.28 23:45:49 ] Sebastian Petras > damn jack.. shield tank?
[ 2012.05.28 23:46:03 ] Jack Dancer > Gotta keep you guessing...
[ 2012.05.28 23:46:08 ] Sebastian Petras > lol
[ 2012.05.28 23:46:16 ] Jack Dancer > gf
[ 2012.05.28 23:46:22 ] Sebastian Petras > gf

A few minutes later Sebastian Petras was ganked by Sleepysheep and Rahgg Graageor.

After that I joined haerod and Thestarling in fleet to catch up to Sleepysheep and Rahgg Graageor who were terrorizing the neighborhood in their Tornado and Jaguar.  I managed to zig when I should have zagged and wasn't involved in the excitement when haerod and Thestarling turned the Tornado and Jaguar into burning masses of twisted metal.  But it was fun to at least be in on the hunt.

Then it was time for a trip out with my delightful wife to grab a couple Vietnamese sandwiches...

When I got back, I found Heild to be quieter, but with a couple possible targets.  One of them, Jareedon, was flying a Merlin and appeared to be ratting in the asteroid belts.  I managed to land on him once, just as he was leaving.  And then seemed to miss him at a few other belts.

But finally...

I caught up with him.  I targeted, orbited, turned everything up to 11 and started pummeling him with my autocannons and rockets.  As a side note, these new rocket graphics are great.  Like watching Chinese fireworks.  I totally approve.

I was doing good damage to his ship's shields while my shields evaporated (I had switched to an armor rifter - gotta keep people guessing...).  But my armor was built of stouter stuff and held up nicely.  I methodically worked through his defenses and it didn't take long.  He exploded.  \o/  GFs were exchanged in local.  And in the corp chat channel Grernandez noted that he was also hunting for Jareedon, but I had managed to catch him first.

It turns out that the fight took long enough for my warp scrambler to burn out as had my afterburners. I'm going to have to remember to turn the overheater off when I have my victim scrambled and webbed...

But it was a clear win in the Death to Flying Things Campaign.  Current score 9-21-1.