Fear The Kestrel...... OF DOOM!

"She might not look like much, but she's got it where it counts, kid."

- Han Solo, Star Wars - A New Hope

I haven't bothered with T1 frigates much in a long time. If I need a ship to enter novice faction war plex's I'll use a navy faction frigate. Why not?

A couple of weeks ago I exhausted my supply of Hookbills so went through my hanger to see what I had there because I really don't know. Nisuwa, apart from a few small breaks, has been my home in Eve Online since 2009. So I've amassed a lot of ships there. Scrolling through I have a few carriers, a dreadnought, pirate faction battleships, navy faction battleships, a shed ton of BC's, a variety of cruisers including navy and pirate faction, a metric shit-ton of destroyers, and look! I even have some T1 frigates. They appear to be buried under a ton of dust and cobwebs and I've not used these in a while, certainly not since they were revamped last year under the "teiricide" banner.

Needing to get into a novice plex I make an old Kestrel active and see its an old cyno Kestrel from before I had an army of alts to light cyno's. My first job is to strip that out and see what I can bung on it. I know I need to be quick, novice plex close in 10 minutes.

Top rack is easy and I fill it with T2 rocket launchers. For the medium slots I go web and scram, an afterburner and a medium shield extender. In the lows I stick a BCU and then I have only enough CPU left to run the Spectrum 48k game Manic Miner! Nano is an obvious needing no fitting and I just manage to squeeze a meta damage control in after dropping from a T2 to a meta web, leaving me with 0.0 CPU. Now that is a tight fit!

The Kestrel doesn't have a damage type bonus, so I stick in T2 rage high-damage EMP and explosive rockets plus some T2 long range rockets. With the web/scram/AB fit I would have problems with kitey opponents and the javelin class rockets give me a range of 22km which is nearly long point range!

And so with my new T1 frigate ready, I am determined to give it try even if my delivery of new Hookbills arrives.

Kestrel vs Incursus works fine and I easily win my first fight in it.

Next I thought I try against a Hookbill. Now a Kestrel vs a Hookbill should be an easy win for the Hookbill right? An even easier win if said Hookbill is actually armour tanked and the Kestrel pilot assumed a shield tank and is firing EMP rockets? Nope! I'm at 2% armour when he pops!

I get a few kills in the Kestrel and for no loses. Now the easy win is NOTHING to do with my (not) l33t PVP skills or my superior fitting abilities. Guys, when you are in a plex...

1. Spam D-Scan.
2. When you have a potential WT on your gate.... CHANGE AMMO TYPE APPROPRIATELY!
3. Overheat! I will be and my DPS will be up 15%. Shouldn't you do the same?

Unfortunately my victims tend to get as far as 1 on the list. I've had them firing Nova (explosive) rockets which are my highest resist and when I packed up the loot that I scooped none of it is usually heat damaged.

I did get cocky and tried against a Thrasher in a small plex. I was hoping he was AC fit and if I could get out to max range I might be able to kite him. But in the end I'll never know.... as he ran away.

And then there was last night which prompted me to write this piece. There was a Hookbill and an Ishkur (assault frigate) in a plex. I'm in my Kestrel and a corp mate is in his Tristan. Two T1 frigates verses a faction frigate and a T2 frigate. We're in our home system, we could reship, but where is the fun in that? We decide to try it for shits and giggles.

We both land on the gate and activate it, agreeing in corp chat that the Hookbill dies first!

As we enter the plex we find both enemy ships at the warp in. I get a web and scram on the Hookbill and activate the AB hoping it will give me some transversal against the blasters of the other ship. The Hookbill goes down surprisingly fast under both my rockets and the Tristan's drones. He had an invulnerability field and the Tristan was neuting so I guess his hardener may have gone offline. The enemy Ishkur set his drones on me and they start tearing through my shields. With both of our DPS on the Ishkur it pops as I'm in low structure.

Suddenly Merlin!

A war target frigate enters as we finish off the Incursus and we decide to stay and kill him.... oh and that Rifter.... and those other Merlins.... and those Condors too.... and that Griffin.... and that..... oh bugger!

We'd not been watching local during the main fight and it would appear half of the squid militia is landing in our plex.

I align with the AB on but the Rifter has me pointed. I web and scram him and it appears he must have been short point fitted as I manage to get out with smoke billowing from my ship and half a dozen angry squids waving their fists at me. WTB duct tape!

Unfortunately they did manage to snag Kibayasu and killed him with all seven ships.

We ship up to Destroyers and find they have all piled into a novice plex. We go back to the medium and wait. Sure enough once they have captured the novice they land on our gate. A reverse Leeroy Jenkins. 11 of them including 2 Griffin's verses out two destroyers and a Tristan.

Needless to say we got kerb-stomped. I got one Griffin as he landed but then I was jammed by the other and that was that. We headed back to station in our pods and shipped to three cruisers. The squids bailed as we entered the plex. Unfortunately TS wasn't working for me last night, I have some internet issues which means TS either works or it doesn't and if it doesn't it needs a PC restart which I wasn't going to do at coming up to midnight. So I hung around in my cruiser as the other QCats formulated a plan on comms.

Five minutes later and a round of 'GF' in local chat and the system emptying of squids gave me the hint that their plan had worked and I REALLY needed to go to bed!