How to make friends and eliminate them...

How to make friends...

So the other day a fresh Amarr militia dude pops up in local. After initially running away from him it didn't take long before he pipes up in local and some friendly banter ensues.

After some chatter he offers to fight a good old 1v1 and of course I accept. He wanted to fight in attack frigates but the ships he proposed to bring spelled certain doom for my available boats. Instead I suggested either T1 frigates or cruisers.

After deliberating and shopping around Lord Servant managed to get together a T1 cruiser.

I boarded an old Vexor attack vessel and warped to the safe of his choosing. With significantly more time in-game than me, my opponent was sure to beat me...but hell, I was excited anyway.

Pinging D-scan revealed an Arbitrator, a whut?

Upon exiting the warp- tunnel I immediately activated scram and web to ensure he wouldn't run away to far and out of the reach of my small blasters.

A full set of drones set to work, spewing hot lead through his shield. I choose to ignore his drones as his shield vanished in mere seconds.

Antimatter charges took a chunk out of the Arbitrators armour and it was looking good for me...

At first I expected it to be a glitch but indeed his shields were fully healed, not so good.

My shields had now perished and armour plates now started losing some of their integrity.

Overload top rack, pray...

His shields had disapeared again and another chunk of armour propelled into the darkness... Good.

Full shields... Not good. Although... at this stage I was confident that his oversized booster could not keep up with the incoming DPS.

Each time his booster activated it was a second too late...

A satisfying flash was followed by the remains of Lord Servants 80 million Arbitrator being spread across the Dal blackness.

GF!'s where exchanged, I gave him back his dropped gear and we exchanged some fits.

Lord Servant is a top guy and good fun was had all round. Of course I questioned his allegiance to the Amarr and tried to convince him to join KGB, but alas.

Regardless, I made a friend...

-=oOo=-

…and how to eliminate them...

Forming fleets can be hard in a small Corp like KBG. We are growing but until we can field our own gangs and fleets we join in with friends or go out solo or duos.

One of my 10 intel-channels mentioned a pair of unsavoury characters were in our area and appeared to be passing through our system. I nudged my US-time zone-right-hand-man Acute Dragonis and before I could even explain he had undocked and was waiting for me.

I undocked in my Sleipnir as I still haven't actually killed anyone with it and it felt like the right time.

Warping to the Auga gate I expected the two pirate BC's to come in from I was a little surprised to find a Dominix instead. Great intel is hard to get sometimes I guess.

Unsure why a Dominix would fly around these parts solo I warped to a spot 160k of the gate.

Brutis Kahn was the pilot; Podla. Well this does generally mean two things; one is that he is skilled beyond your abilities and two; he is highly likely to be alone.

I creep in closer but keep at least 50 clicks of space between myself and the Dominix. Yes I am a little nervous...

D-scan revealed a Legion in the local area and danger loomed.

As Acute and myself where debating the options the gate flashed again.

Lord Servant didn't waste any time and uncloaked his mighty Machariel and opened fire on my Sleipnir. The Dominix also proceeded to lock me up and at that stage it was obvious me and Acute had to bail.

I was still a little confused as to why Podla would be working with the Amarr militia... Until I saw GF's exchanged in local.

Mmmm, immediately I convo'd Mr Kahn to confirm that indeed he expected me to die and wanted to whore on the killmail. Fine, no problem, I would have done the same.

Without too much thought I contracted Brutis Kahn a Myrmidon and we agreed to work together on bringing down at least the Mach.

I have no Battleships available and with what we were facing or possibly facing we made the call; bring out the Thanny.

To the best of our knowledge we were facing at least a Tengu, Machariel, a Harpy and some other assorted chaff. And more possibly waiting next door…

Brutis and Acute both fit scramblers and undocked to secure points on whatever would be out there waiting.

'Point' Brutis calmly spoke, ‘secondary point' Acute confirmed. Come on out Brutis Kahn requested as his Myrmidon started to take heavy damage.

A deep breath preceded me undocking the Thanatos, this could end in tears.

It took a considerable amount of time to lock up the three ships in front of me. First; both the friendly Battlecruisers received some much needed love.

Already ejected fighters sped towards the stricken Machariel and opened fire. Heavy energy neutralizers started to cycle, adding to the pain Lord Servant was now sure to be suffering.

A Cynabal and a Drake had now entered the field and Brutis skilfully switched his scrambler to the faction cruiser.

For the Mach it was too late, sustained fire from 10 combat drones, 10 fighters and 11 overheated auto cannons finally proved too much.

The Harpy attack frigate now joined the fray but with a wrong call on whom to shoot the Sentry guns made short work of him.

Acute positioned himself to tackle the Drake as combined firepower cut down the Cynabal.

In his attempt to get tackle on the Drake, officer Dragonis burned out his scrambler and although free to leave the field of battle the Drake remained to suffer the fate of his friends.

A local spike signalled the cavalry had finally arrived, obviously there to avenge the Machariel loss and the smell of a Carrier kill.

Officer Acute Dragonis and Podla Brutis Kahn docked up safely as several battleships and Battlecruisers landed around the TLF station.

Of course I thought about engaging but the overview alone showed enough firepower to drop the Thanny in less than 2 minutes.

Time to bail.

Sour GF's sounded off in local, followed by a barrage of accusations we blobbed them and can't bring fair fights.

Now I take that to heart actually. I am mostly the guy that fights outnumbered and get blobbed, in most cases die. I am the man that will never turn down a duel, and always return your stuff after an arranged fight. If e-honor truly exists I master it.

With what we were certain to face and with what is likely to come through the gate from the Amarr heavy neighbouring systems I think we made the right tactical calls and came away victorious, righteously.

Undocking in less than we did would have been near certain suicide, I dont even know why I am defending myself here btw...

Perhaps if we would have undocked in 3 BC's and taken a beating Lord Servant would have poured GF's in local and we would still be friends.

Instead I eliminated him...

Also read Acute Dragonis Version of events here!