Uni Armor Fleet
Armor Fleet
General description
The Close Range Armor fleet is a setup that revolves around armor tanking ships that are supported by armor Logistic ships. As armor ships tend to be slow, this fleet usually excels at close range brawling situations. It is good for static fights at certain points of interest (e.g. station, gate, cap ship). Another advantage of the armor fleet is that every armor ship usually has some room to fit tackle or ewar in the medium slots.
As a slow close range fleet, it is vulnerable to kiting/sniping fleets that manage to stay out of the engagement range of the armor fleet and use their speed to keep it that way. To counter that, one can bring a sniper add-on squad that (depending on the numbers) will most likely not be able to destroy enemy ships but might be able to scare them away.
Pros and Cons
Advantages:
Very high staying power on the field due to the Logis As armor fleets tend to be slow and static, they are a bit easier to FC than kiting shield fleets where the FC and the pilots also have to check for their ranges, align points and such Close Range setups deal a lot of damage at their optimal
Disadvantages:
T2 Logis are quite an investment so this fleet is not cheap Close range fleets are easily countered by a good kiting/sniping fleet Logis are vulnerable to being alpha’ed, to ECM/RSD and to neuts
Command structure
Full command structure with CS and links
FC – Skirmish warfare links (they benefit everyone’s sig and prop mod cap) WC main body and Logi body – Armor warfare links SC – just leadership V, bring a boosting BC for an Ewar squad if you like
Small gang command structure with BCs and links
FC – A single evasive maneuvers link WC main body and Logistics – Passive defense and Rapid Repair warfare link SC Logistics – the other armor warfare link (don’t go overboard on that one)
Tactics
The close range fleet setup is quite easy to implement. Usually you will get your main body into the fight as close as possible (either by being punted or by warping to your tacklers which you sent in first). Usually the Logistic and Ewar body will warp in on your main body anchor at a bit closer than their engagement range (e.g. at 50). The Logistics and Ewar body will then usually anchor on the Logistics anchor and try to stay at that range to mitigate damage. In certain situations it can make sense to keep the Logistics body right at 0 on the target as well. This is the case if you can better protect your Logistics body by being close (e.g. when they can deaggress and jump a gate or dock at a station or when there is the risk of getting probed down and then being engaged out of the close range of the main body).
Fits
Main body
The main body of the Close Range Armor fleet consists of heavily armor tanked ships BC and BS sized ships
Logistics
As a Guardian pilot you have to decide between good resists and a high rep amount or a 1600 plate (or you throw ridiculous amounts of money at your ship and get it all). I would suggest to bring the bigger plate in bigger fleets. Bigger fleets usually mean bigger fleets to engage. This increases the risk of being alpha’ed, which the 1600 plate should counter a bit. Note, that the med repper has not the full 70km range of the large.
Support
With a fleet like this, you rely heavily on your tackle. Your engagement range ends at large scorch range at about 50km (unless you bring a sniper wing).
A great addition to this fleet are tackle recons. With the right boosts (CS/T3) or faction tackle you can point and web out to 70km (combined up to 100km). The main disadvantage of the tackle recons are their thin tank. Make sure to stay as much out of the enemy engagement range as possible and inside the range of your Logistic ships. Check out the armor version of the recons at the top of this document.
