Vengeance vs Harpy

So I was feeling in the mood for a fight. Thats new, huh? If youve been looking at my kill board, it might seem I have a relationship with Sneakybadger. Let me say this now, I dont. It just so happens he and myself blow each other up often.

So Im jumping around Heild between safes, belts and the sun. I see a harpy on dscan and I take a minute to double check the info on this ship. Ah, another Assault Frig. Low explosive resists in both shield and armor; luckily I have the boom boom missiles. Yikes, hybrid guns. He's either got an mwd equipped with rails to kite me, or hes fit with blasters for close range. I docked up real quick to switch out my web for a TD. On a split second gut feeling, I chose not to do this. First, my ship is slow compared to most others. If he's got mwd fit, Ill need the web to get him within web range to scram. If hes ab fit, he'll just burn out of range if things go sour. While doing this thought process in a few seconds, SneakyBadger asks for a 1v1 in local against the Vengeance. To make sure, I ask if hes the harpy. Surprise, he is!

I accept, and undock without equipping the TD. I set the location to the sun, a dangerous spot anywhere in low sec, tbh. We mutually agree that if anyone jumps in, we primary them. I like SB, he's got pirate honor. Anyhow, I warp in at 40 or 50km. He's roughly 20 away from me. I try to remember my manual piloting skills and set an off center approach to the harpy. When we hit about 15km, I adjust to a sharply upwards course to maximize transversal against his turrets.

Right then, my girlfriend calls and of course, I have to answer it. On speaker phone she goes as I half pay attention to her. I have a ship to blow up! Within range now, I open the scram and web modules. My launchers and repper were both pre-heated during warp to the sun, and as they blast into his shields, my shields go down. Expected of course, and I pop a standard Exile booster. At this point, Ive got the combat adrenaline under control and continue my conversation with the significant other.

She asks if Im busy I think, and I say yeah, Im busy fighting this damned pirate trying to kill me! Or something like that. Anyways, Im keeping up with the incoming damage relatively well, so I turn off the overheated repper and go regular speed. My cap is stable, my launchers arent taking much heat damage, and my opponent is half in armor while my armor is roughly 90%. At this point, I finish my conversation with the "ball and chain" and focus entirely on the fight.

With the combat rush under control and still going strong, I take in everything happening: My rockets are doing insane damage to this Harpy. My armor is taking very little damage, each rep fills me back to 100%. My opponent hits structure, then explodes. I dont even try to grab the pod out of respect for SB. I won!

GF's were exchanhged, and as he exclaimed at how that went in an unexpected direction for himself, I let him know that I had little over 82% in all resists, so not much was going to hurt me in a 1v1. I think he was surprised, but I dont want to think that he was because that would just make my head bigger thinking I surprised a seasoned fighter like SneakyBadger. One of the better fights Ive ever been in, and not because I snagged the victory. Other than the distracting girlfriend on the phone, I was focused and didnt let the rush of combat excitement overpower my thought processes while manually flying or managing modules.

Great fight, imo. I think Im getting the hang of this =) Except for one thing I noticed just as I finished this post: 3 of his 4 blasters were fit with null, while the 4th was fit with void. I think he said he was using void in our after fight conversation, so Im not sure he noticed this either. Seeing this, I think a rematch may be in order.