Pod FLuid

Took a gang out the other night since the russian FC's had set out and not bothered to open their fleet up for the english guys. Can't blame them though, I imagine its quite a pain in the ass to have to constantly find an FC and a translator to get ops across. Having to listen to a discussion in russian and wait for it to be resolved before the english 'Ok here's what were doing' goes out over comms develops discipline; but it slows down a PVP group that would otherwise be much quicker to move.

The call was for Fast BC's and a sprinkling of tackle. Failing that, I wanted kitchen sink compositions and I got it. 3 canes, 2 dictors, 1 curse 2 drakes where the flavor of the day. Formup took a bit longer than it ought to have, but once we got setup at the pos we sprinted forward cause there was talk of a small gang roaming nearby picking on traffic. They were two systems away when we caught up, sitting on the gate waiting.

I ordered the jump in, hold cloak and then broke myself. My ship of choice was the drake because 1)I have a few of them in reserve for CTA's 2)Killing a drake first is stupid and I didn't wanna be put out of action in the middle of FC'ing. My forward scout (the corps lead FC) suggested I ship to a drake, but I wasnt sure I was comfortable skirmishing in front while calling targets and managing fleet movements. My plan worked, and I think I will repeat it in future roams. I broke cloack first, drew aggro from the camp, then had my mates break cloak. Enemy FC had everyone lock me up and start firing, but then called for a target switch after my mates broke cloak.

Zealot, 2x Falcon, and misc other things on the field when we started that fight. Primaried the zealot, and when it went down took a falcon with it. We managed to lose a dictor, but thats not unreasonable given that the other FC did the smart thing and had his gang MWD align to a warp out and favor tackle in his target calling once we jumped into them.

Moved from there through catch, where we caught two initiative guys. A drake and a prorator. Drake was a standard gank, with the dictor holding tackle just long enough for the fleet to get points and warp off. I'm a bit new to this FCing stuff, but already I'm feeling much love for quality scouts/tackle. Little bit later, that same dictor pilot managed to get a decloak on the Prorator and hold tackle long enough to let the entire fleet whore. A+ work from him.

From there we went into querious in hopes of catching some carriers at anomalies. Not much luck, but no lack of trying in the end all we managed to snag was a Noctis but the skirmishers solo'ed it. After about 15 minutes IT got wise and formed a home defense fleet. 1x baddon, 2x guardians, and an assortment of T3 ships. not a huge show of force, but at the same time, well thought out and quite effective.

we were on oposite sides of a gate. I'd rather not have fought them, and they sent a loki through to keep eyes on us and try to poke us through. I waited on my side for another gate actication (gang had instructions to hold) so that there numbers went down a little bit, and then had the fleet jump and hold cloak. Here's where I made the mistake of the night that I only caught after I got home. I had everyone decloak at once and make a break for the out gate at full burn. I should have moved first in my drake and drawn some webs so that they would be locked in mid cycle when the curse decloaked. Live and learn; lost a curse but the rest of my gang got out (good news, considering the pilot that lost the dictor at the start reshipped into a proteus.)

On our way back home, we had to pass through GE- and all buthurt about our drake and prorator kills earlier, Initiative formed up a 60ish man T1 cruiser/frig gang to come after us. We safed up, provided intel for an alliance counter fleet and I handed my gang over to them before going home and sorting out someone who wanted to rent space from -A-. Not bad for my second crack at FC'ing.