Gila~

The new patch landed.  When I logged in on patch day I had to reorganize my Rattlesnake's drone bay, then I went out to high sec and fitted out the Gila hull I had been sitting on.  It took me a while, but eventually I found something I was happy enough with and drug it back home to play with later.

'Later' came yesterday.  We were scouting down our chains, and the Bossman, Kynric, was working on a chain off of a nearby null sec system.  The null connected to a C5-2 with a second C2 attached, and one of those C2's was a HS/C4.  I duly noted the HS access in case I felt like bringing anything else in, and then Kynric announced the Domi on coms.

"Domi?  Can you tackle it?"  "Negative.  It's in their POS... oh, it just warped.  To the high sec hole.  Maybe they're closing off the system, I'll sit on the hole and tackle it if it comes back polarized."

We began pulling the fleet together to come assist Kynric if he got the tackle, but five minutes ticked by without event.  Then another few minutes.  Then a Domi, flown by a second and previously unseen pilot, entered the C2.

They were active.  We decided we'd hang out, just in case.

Kynric camped in the C2 for a while, observing their movements, then poked into the C2's C4 static.  They were running sites.  A Maelstrom and three RR tengus were working over the NPC Sleepers, while there were only five of us (including Kynric's scout Astero).  "Can we take them?" one of my fellow Sky Fighters asked.  "Not all at once, no," was the answer.  "But the battleship will be slower, we might be able to snag it apart from the T3's.  They might also split up if we jump them and people panic.  Go ahead and ship up, I'll call out point as soon as I get it."

After a short inventory of what other pilots had in the hole (I have all my doctrine ships plus a few spares >.>)  we settled on three Ishtars and my Gila; we wanted a Falcon to counter the RR tengus, but the only one online with a falcon in their hangar was the initial tackle.  We started heading that way anyway, and were urged to move quicker when Kynric announced the fleet looked like it was aligning back to their home connection.

We hesitated for a little on the C5 to C2 connection, not wanting to tip off the pilots in the POS in the C2 that we were there; Kynric called for the fleet to move up, though, so we jumped into the C2 and were going to hold on the C4 hole when he reported they had landed on grid and he had tackle.  We jumped through and the fight was on.

Grid loaded in the C4 - a Pulsar, I saw.  We had the Maelstrom pointed and were quickly applying scrams, and the tengus had bugged out - all I could see with me were the Sky Fighter ishtars and Kynric's Astero.  Kynric had to break off and bounce to drop aggro, and the Maelstrom had one hell of a tank.  With all four of us going after it, though, the tank was breaking - until three of the tengus landed on the hole.  Two began repping the Maelstrom, the third passed through.  We were still taking the battleship down, but much slower now, and were facing a lot of pressure ourselves.  Then the Maelstrom pilot broke engagement, jumping through the wormhole - freeing the Ishtars to turn their fire on the tengus, while I chased the Maelstrom through back into the C2 to point it and keep it in place.  Kyra had a stealth bomber he had brought as well to keep eyes on that side, and we locked the Maelstrom down and I began attacking it again with my hammerheads.  Unable to slip past to the POS, the Maelstrom jumped back into the C4; the rest of the fleet had been trying to catch the tengus, so the Maelstrom warped off to a safe and the two Tengus pulled out of scram range, following it.

I was polarized, so I sat in the C2 and waited, watching their POS, and counting down my timer.  It had just finished when I saw the tengu pilot from earlier ship into an Armageddon, and another pilot came out in a Myrmidon.  They landed on the hole, the Geddon locked me and my capacitor instantly vanished, while I heard that the battle had been joined again on the other side of the hole - they were trying to break through.  My shields hit 10%, and then the Geddon jumped into the C4; I cursed a moment but followed it, getting away from the Myrmadon's drones and getting back with the rest of the fleet - the Maelstrom was holding tank against the Ishtars, and I wanted to add my DPS to what we had.

Things get a little hazy in my memory at that point.  I remember we chased the Maelstrom and Tengus off of the hole in the C4 again - I think the Maelstrom was still polarized from it's first jump into the C2.  The geddon neuted all of our points off, but when the Myrmidon followed me into the C4 pulsar it's active armor tank melted like butter. (https://zkillboard.com/kill/39313139/)  A Navy Omen and another cruiser joined in from their side while we were brawling the battleships/tengus in the C4, and the whole group of them warped off to start bouncing safes in the C4.  In the lull, Kynric ran home to swap his Astero for a Scimitar, another pilot went to swap their Ishtar for a Helios with combat probes, and another two Sky Fighters logged in and came to join us in a bomber and a Falcon.

Round Two, we chased them down at a couple of safes and then they made another dive for the hole (and their POS).  The Maelstrom dived through the C2 and was caught again, so it dived back, so we took out the neuting Geddon (https://zkillboard.com/kill/39313431/) and were working on the tengus when two RR domi's landed on grid.  DPS switched to the Domi's and they started breaking, then fell through into the C4 - which, if you have been counting the number of battleships that went through and back, and now had three more battleships in it, was within 'easily collapsible' range.  The tengus went back with the Maelstrom again, while the other Trauma Ward cruisers took off - one of them came back in a Cheetah and slipped into the C4, probably in case they closed the hole extracting their battleships, while the other landed on grid at a perch in a falcon, then cloaked.  We had two ishtars, my gila, a scimitar, a falcon and a couple of bombers, and their fleet had a super tanked Maelstrom, two RR Domi, two RR Tengu, and a falcon.

We held position, with one of the bombers scouting for their fleet in the C4.

The Maelstrom logged.  It was joined by the other ships when their timers came up.

We grumbled, then decided to make a show of leaving; one of the bombers held back on the hole as hero tackle, though, and they bought it.  We had just jumped out into the C5 and had just aligned away (in case they had eyes on the C5) when they started logging back in; we turned around to head back to the hole, but they got their fleet through and tore up the bomber, escaping just before we landed on grid.  They left a scattering of Warrior II's in their haste to clear grid.

All in all, though, two kills to one bomber loss, and a LOT of fun brawling.  I am also very much in love with this Gila fit.

o7
-K

(PS: Naglfar kill from the other day: https://zkillboard.com/kill/39232619/)