Good fights bad fights?

Yesterday when passing through Melmaniel solar system I noticed quite a few frigates and destroyers on scan, narrowing them down to a military beacon I was pleased to see that my Wolf would be allowed to fire up the acceleration gate. I landed on grid with two Dramiels, two Catalyst, a Rifter and a Tristan. This would be a nice test for my newly unwrapped Wolf. 6 v 1, my kind of dogfight.

Landing right on top of the Rifter I quickly blitzed through his, erm, multiple tank and then started taking railgun fire from the two Catalysts. At this point the Dramiels had fled the scene, no surprise there, good to see people still putting the Dram to good use and doing what it does best. I was soon on top of one of the Catalysts, and he was soon space wreckage. The other Catalyst had now managed to slip from my overheated scram range and despite my best efforts he too warped off, quickly followed by the Tristan who was always quite far away from the action.

I was slightly disappointed, in the course of the fight I had only needed to pulse my repper once, after taking initial heavy railgun fire, when what I really wanted was a mangled and buckled overheating mess of a repper. This could have been a real test for the Wolf, if all those ships had stuck together and coordinated some kind of attack then the Wolf may well have bitten the dust. In fact I was resigned to losing it, in exchange for a couple or three killmails of course. Instead, pilots who were (supposedly) all flying under the same banner went and scattered to the four winds, every man for themselves, what is an ally or a friend when you've got your pixelated piece of scrap metal to save?


At the moment the best fights seem to be good old fashioned 1v1 dogfights, or in some cases 1v1's that turn into a 2v1 or 3v1, such is the nature of the beast. I seem to be noticing a lot of Daredevils in space at the moment, a ship I've never really liked, it just strikes me as a poor ship, not something I could ever see myself flying in all honesty. But of course I will always fight them, or try to fight them, as I have noticed a fair few Daredevil pilots have read the Dramiel Flyer's Guide To Making A Quick Escape.

I spotted one such beast out bouncing around the many asteroid belts of Agoze, carefully watching his movements I second guessed the projected landing spot of his next belt and sat there in wait, guns sizzling under the forced heat. Sure enough the Daredevil was soon on top of me and I sparked the Wolf into action, reducing the Daredevil into a glittering pile of bent metal.

The next Daredevil I found had a Cynabal buddy in tow and also a couple more corpmates in the system and in the surrounding systems. This too was in Agoze, oddly enough. I wasn't sure what the other pilots were flying but had narrowed down the Daredevil and the Cynabal to an asteroid belt. Engaging warp I knew this could be a tough fight, my plan would be to quickly remove the Daredevil then hopefully land a scram on the Cynabal. I landed smack bang on top of the Daredevil but the Cynabal was some 50 clicks off of us. As to be expected the Daredevil was no match for the blistering power of the Wolf, and was soon delivered to the scrapyard in the sky. The Cynabal came in closer, to 30k, I had no chance of realistically chasing him but I tried anyway. Narrowing the distance to 20k, taking some heavy fire in the process he then    pulled some more range before warping off the field. At this time I had noticed that multiple ships were now on scan, maybe 5 or 6 buddies of the Cynabal and in nasty looking ships, so I decided to wait out my GCC in safety before moving on, happy with my killmail.

After championing the Firetail in my previous blog post I have been flying them quite a bit recently. Most of the fights I have found where I have won have been quite standard affairs, or alternatively, fights that have simply been the wrong fit for the Firetail, resulting in expected lossmails. I have quite a few in stock now so will pretty much engage anything in them if it means getting a fight.

I spotted a Daredevil in an asteroid belt, again, these guys must love loitering in belts. Landing in the belt with him I was 50k off, after a short stand off as I weighed up my options I was soon burning for him. He did the same and we met about half way and we began the dance. This was more of a test for the Firetail and the repper was put through some serious hard work, but the resultant flames from the Firetail's structure were well worth it in the end, as another Daredevil killmail was added to the bank. I also podded the guy and collected a bounty of 36 million isk.

Another fight that got the blood pumping recently was a fight I had with a Claw whilst I was out in a no plate cap boosted Rifter. At first the Claw carefully danced around my Rifter, no matter what I did I just couldn't break his piloting and land the scram, but at the same time there was no exchange of damage. Then he decided to go for it and we were soon brawling up close. This fight was one of the best frigate dogfights I have had for a long time, a very, very close fight and lots of burning modules afterwards. I was happy to leave with the killmail and also had a good chat with the pilot after the fight, which is always nice. He was on his way home to dock up for the night and thought 'what the hell, let's have a brawl', this kind of attitude towards fights I like, a lot. We need more pilots out there like this.

Sometimes you find a fight that ends in no killmail for either party, and whilst you have nothing to show for it in the end you certainly take away some satisfaction of a good fight. Sitting in Iges solar system in my Firetail I noticed another Firetail on scan. Soon enough, Dischordant from the pirate corporation Repo. was in the belt with me and we were slugging it out in what was a good brawl, unfortunately I managed to cap myself out near the end of the fight, not sure if I bled my cap dry from my over use of the repper outside of nos range or if I got neuted, I can't recall if he had a neut or not, but either way I lost the power to my scrambler in the end and he slipped away from my clutches in structure I believe. Good fight. Dischordant has a cool blog that is well worth a read.

Finally, another fight that resulted in no killmail.

Again I was in my cap boosted no plated Rifter when I encountered an Incursus spoiling for a fight in Ouelletta solar system. The pilot, well-placed in the top 500 of battleclinic's ranking would sure pose a mean threat, together with the new improved capabilities of the Incursus.

This was a fantastic fight, almost up there with the Claw fight. The Incursus danced around the edge of my neut range, zipped in and out and at one point we were straight up brawling each other in the face in blaster range. My repper was singing and working overtime to repair the damage as it got hotter and hotter. At one point I thought I had the upper hand, the Incursus deep in Gallente structure, he was fast and as it looked like I may pull off an unlikely victory he began to burn out of my range so I gave chase. In the excitement of the pursuit I was doing my level best to push the afterburner to its absolute limit and then suddenly it went bang! Oops. The Incursus was still with me, but with no afterburner now I decided to hammer the warp drive and get out of there before he noticed how slow I had now become. Good fights were exchanged in local.

Every gfgf should end with your modules toasted.

MB.