It can be a hard life being an ebil piwat down in the Amamake area. First of all it's one of the most PvP active areas in galaxy. That's the no. 1 reason we moved there. But between the Blob Militia, sorry, the Amarr militia, and the Minmatar Militia, good old SoTF just hasn't had the numbers during the summer to counter their fleets. Even solo PvP in that area is difficult. Getting a solo fight isn't difficult in itself, it's keeping it solo that's the problem.
Over the weekend I'd had a roam up the pipe to Black Rise and had not been able to get a fight. I'd encountered a few people I thought could give me a gf, but they ran away. An Enyo vs a Hawk, surely that would have been a good one! I came across a few cruisers, but nope they are off too! So I head back down to Amamake area. I know I'll get a fight there..... only problem is trying to get one where there isn't eleventy-billion others joining in.
I was roaming around in my trusty Hawk when I came upon a Caldari Navy Hookbill on a gate. He was in the Minmatar Militia so it was a possibility he had back up, but I was not 100% certain as I would have been if he was Amarr. So I warped to the sun. He follows and lands 100km off me. We sit there a second, like wild west gunslingers at high-noon. Sat staring at each other, fingers twitching over our guns.
It's The Good, The Bad and the Ugly. In fact I'm whistling the iconic theme. I decide to burn at him, he does the same. Suddenly we're back 300 more years in history from the Wild West to the Middle Ages.
Is he range fit?
Is he close fit?
Is he going to about turn and warp off?
Nope, it's fast forward to the time of the Matrix! Like Neo and Smith in the subway we clash at point blank range. He's scrammed me, I've scrammed him. LET'S GET READY TO RUMBLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!
It's a close range brawl. We're both rocket fit and shields are dropping both sides. However looks like I might have the upper hand as his shields are dropping faster than mine.
Yup, I'm at one third shield and he's into amour. Boom!
I decide to try and catch his pod but not ransom or pop it, just hold it and thank him for having the jacobs to do a 1v1 and release him (I know, it's not a very piratey thing to do) but he warps off before I lock his pod.
I know I need to move fast, he may have back up so I open his wreck which is only 800m away and just about to scoop the loot when his tardy* mates land at on me at 0. They must have already been in warp to him as he went down. Stiletto, Ruppy, Ruppy..... WARP! WARP! WARP GOD DAMN YOU!!!!
The Hawk is painfully slow in aligning and the 'ceptor gets a point on me. I go down like a sack of the proverbial!
I post "gf and good gank" in local and I pod home.
I was not too please that my high from a solo 1v1 and kill lasted approximately 5 seconds. But do I blame his mates? Of course not. We hadn't agreed a 1v1. Therefore I was fair game to his fleet mates. If it was the other way around and one of my corpies had an Assault Frigate tackled and was asking for help I'd be there PDQ. So no hard feelings about being ganked, just mad at myself as I should have known that would have happened and as soon as the Hookbill had asspolded I should have been spamming warp. Then again that faction point could have dropped and I could have scooped it and been away on another day with some nice loot. Greed killed me this time, oh and the severally volleys of medium AC fire!
Anyway, things are a changing for us. B.A.N.E. have moved back into the area and we have blues with them. Heretic Army want Amamake back from Snuffbox, and we're going to help them do it. Our old comrades-in-arms from the days of the MDP, the Quantum Cats Syndicate (QCats), have moved down with us too. We're starting to get numbers and it's still only mid-August. A few more weeks and the European weather will start to turn forcing our drunken comrades from the beer gardens and back to New Eden.
I think things are about to get interesting in the Amamake area!
*I know from the stats people from countries that do not have English as their first language visit this page. "Tardy" means late, delayed, overdue, poor time keeping etc. Thought I'd better add this here as people might think it meant something different!
I do love reading these fight night reports :)
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