View source for User:Raven X Aihaken/AARs/Magic Merlin Monday Vol. 4

The formup this time went pretty quick but since there were more than 25 we looked for the quickest way to make it to null. Unfortunately all the Thera holes were 10+ jumps away but we set one of them as destination and started.
There were a few new faces in the fleet, unfortunately they were having a hard time keeping up so I had to make the hard decision after some time to truck on.
While we were waiting for a few people to catch up still in lowsec, a Gnosis aggressed on one of our fleet members right on a gate, not expecting 25 more to show up. He probably regretted that decision.

Once we got through the few lowsec systems and got back to highsec again the sailing was a bit smoother to Thera. We jumped in, went to a station to drop the Gnosis loot and then picked a good looking nullsec system.
After undockingm, one of our scouts found a Confessor (and some other people we met sometime later again) on the wormhole we were going to exit through - unfortunately we were still in warp and by the time we got there the deed was done and there was nothing we could do.
It's always much more difficult to go through Thera with people who have never set foot in there as it's a large and confusing system so if you don't know how to navigate and getting told the first time it's hard to quickly get it. As a result we had a few people who needed some time to catch up and one member got killed by the same group who got our scout but most of us made out of Thera into Delve. On the wormhole and in the system there were two groups dancing already (one, a bunch of Caldari Navy Hookbills, the other, the group our scout and newbro friend met with earlier), which we tried to third-party but got there a bit late.

After realizing they're not going to come back, I wanted to check the two pockets in the neighborhood as they seemed promising with a lot of NPC kills recently. We jumped into F-9PXR and were already planning to go to deeper into the pocket when Tomlin reported that a Sabre is jumping in to our system. We went back to the in-gate and managed to destroy the ship and the capsule without any casualties. We didn't know then that this was only going to get better! At this point I assumed the Sabre was just a hunter for a bigger fleet so we were waiting on the gate but it was not the case, however the Hookbill fleet showed up, having came through the other entrance in the loop. We spent some time trying to find something on them but their range was vastly better. One of them did get too close to a few of us and the folks managed to pick him off, trading a Merlin for a Hookbill but after that I decided it's pointless for us to stay with no tacs as there was no way to get closer to them, we just jumped the gate. We expected them to follow but they didn't and we didn't even see them after that.

Since at that point we were sure the F-9 pocket was fully aware of us and all docked up, decided to go for the other pocket. We were already in the entry system of the pocket, but scouts reported it's all docked up here as well so we started moving around while considering our options. Upon arriving to a gate in 4O-239 we found a Praxis just chilling on the gate. Obviously it was a trap (not a good one, but still) as the Praxis had smartbombs. Fortunately people immediately called it so I could tell the fleet to keep out of smartbomb range and switch to long range ammo (if possible) but keep all ewar on him. It was a huge drop for us, the fact we only lost one person and even that only for the initial hit is a testament to how disciplined this fleet was despite the fact it was many people's first fleet or first time in a role.

After this kill my recollection of events gets a bit fuzzy but we were just jumping around in the neighboring system thinking SURELY after spending an hour here, scaring their miners and killing 3 ships, we're going to get a response, but weirdly enough that never happened. Some time into this carousel play, we got report that an Imperial Navy Slicer aggressed on a Merlin at the gate we jumped from so we warped back and got the Slicer but unfortunately we were too late to save the Merlin.

We continued our little dance just going around waiting for a response, when our scout reported that he found a Kikimora - piloted by the same person we just killed in the slicer. Again, by the time we got there we couldn't help but we took revenge and removed the Kikimora without any casualties. Shortly after, someone said a Ferox Navy Issue is jumping in so naturally, we went after him - piloted by the guy from the Praxis earlier... This fight was much bloodier, took us 5 Merlins to get rid of the Ferox. It was awkward how two people from the same alliance decided to come at us on their own, not once but twice, knowing exactly what we're flying.

Anyway, I promise there's not much left. After the Ferox fight we found ourselves a Broadsword, by this time the bloodlust just occupied everybody's mind so it wasn't even a question if we're gonna try to get it. This is the point where I just need to tip my hat to the logi department for their performance through the whole evening. The reps were impeccable and the losses were absolutely minimized as long as we got on grid in time (which admittedly was a problem in a few cases.). Case in point we didn't lose a single ship against the Broadsword. After this fight the fleet mentioned at the beginning who have killed some of us earlier got in our system and we decided if we're going home, this is the best way to do it. Before going down we managed to take down a Malediction but ultimately the fleet died to the roaming small gang.