Armageddon vs. R1FTA Gang

It all started in typical Jack Dancer Style(tm) - I screwed up.

After my RvB alt took the Agony PvP Basic class last weekend (which I very highly recommend - it's an excellent course on PvP) I thought it would be a good idea to set up the R1FTA voice comms - they seem like they could be handy.  Now, don't get the feeling that voice comms are a vital part of the Black Rebel Killing Method(tm).  They aren't.  Probably the most common reply to a question about voice communications by a Black Rebel pilot would be, "We do that?"  And the voice comms have nothing more to do with today's story than as just a preamble...

So, as I was saying, I was setting up the mumble service.  In the meantime Jack Dancer was floating in space in Heild in his safe spot where he can scan around to look for targets.  The safe spot was not aligned with any other routes in space and was one that I've used for weeks.  On my way there I had noticed that someone had combat probes active in the system, but assumed they were probing out mission runners or miners or something shiny and worth a lot more than my beat up rifter.

So, after getting mumble working and ready for some final sound checks, I flipped back to the Eve screen to see if there were any new juicy targets for Jack to destroy.  Instead of juicy targets there was an Armageddon battleship sitting nearby with it's combat drones out and whizzing around menacingly!  YOW!  Battlestations!  Battlestations!  Flee!  Flee!

Fortunately, he hadn't locked onto my little rifter yet (it probably would take a while for a battleship to sort out such a small target) so the drones hadn't started to destroy me and my warp engines weren't scrambled.

I escaped and immediately deleted that "safe" spot.

It was a very close call and I reported the incident in the R1FTA non-voice channel.  We had a laugh about a battleship stalkng a frigate.  But a few minutes later Eraebus asked if anyone was game for trying to catch that battleship.  I was fine with the idea and volunteered to again let him scan me down while others could come along and destroy him.  We thought that he was using a Helios covert ops ship to do the scanning and that he was dual boxing.  Tavisturus in a Caldari Navy Hookbill also joined the fleet.  Eraebus was flying an Imperial Navy Slicer.  We were all in little frigates.

I set up a new "safe" spot near the sun and waited.  Sure enough combat scanner probes started getting very close to me.  It was tense.  And soon after I was visited, not by the Armageddon battleship, but by a Stiletto interceptor.  This is a ship especially designed for the job of nailing down an opponent and holding him for others to destroy.  I knew it was trouble.  Either the opponent was triple boxing (Armageddon, Helios, and now a Stiletto) or there were more than one of them stalking me.

I immediately turned everything up to 11 and tried to attack the Stiletto.  Unfortunately, Stilettos are much faster than my Rifter.  So I didn't really have much chance of catching him and with a long point he could keep my warp engines dead from 20km away.

I called in the rest of the R1FTAs and we started chasing him.

Now, for some reason, I DID catch the Stiletto.  Maybe he was avoiding one of my comrades and flew towards me.  Maybe he was distracted by the other ships he was flying (flying three ships at once can be confusing...).  Maybe one of the other rebels webbed him and slowed him down.  I don't know.  But I did manage to scramble his engines and put a web on him.  Then I started orbiting and pounding him with my 150mm autocannons.  Eraebus and Tavisturus joined in the destruction.

About this time the Helios arrived.  And the Armageddon.

The arrival of the Helios was a complete mystery.  It had no guns or reason to be there.  I can only assume it was a complete blunder by the pilot (again, possibly confused trying to fly three ships at once).

Once the Stiletto was destroyed I burned for the Helios in hopes of catching it.  Eraebus had the same idea and destroyed it before I got there (probably with one or two shots - it was a flimsy thing).

We then turned our attention to the battleship.  The aptly named Armageddon.  It was not a flimsy thing...

It had drones out and we first targeted and destroyed those.  The big lasers (Dual Heavy Pulse Laser IIs) on the battleship were having a terrible time targeting our fast little frigates and were no danger to us.  The drones on the other hand had to be destroyed or they would kill us.  With three of us targeting the drones, it was no problem.  They died and we settled in on the task of killing the battleship.

I orbited at 500 meters and pummeled the beast with my autocannons and rocket launcher.  Unfortunately, I hadn't expected to live this long, so hadn't brought sufficient supplies with me.  My rockets ran out relatively quickly and I was left with just the autocannons.

The Armageddon was low on shields and soon into armor.  Then things slowed down.  The three of us continued to pour on the damage, but when he lost about a third of his armor he was able to repair enough to keep the damage stable.  We were at a stalemate.

But, unlike the webbed and scramed battleship, we had options.  Eraebus headed back to the station and returned with a Rupture.  A cruiser could put out more damage than our little frigates.  That turned the tide in our favor.  The battleship's armor started disappearing and, after I reloaded with the last of my ammo, the battleship blew up!  The pod was caught and also destroyed.

Victory for R1FTA!

I had 19 shots remaining in my autocannons.  We looted the field and headed home.