Korvus the Fleet Leader

So I had a remap recently, back in September actually. I remapped to train the Leadership skills with the intent of using the Christmas remap to switch to Perc/Will for more gunnery, missile and ship training in January or Feb or whenever I get tired of training leadership skills. The reason for this training is that Id like to lead fleets on a regular basis. Whether or not Im gonna be good at this is up for debate, but I feel Id be a pretty good fleet commander. Plus its fun when I get to take the blame for blowing us up or getting credit for an awesome roam. Take the good with the bad I spose. Anyhow, Ive been leading a fleet here and there with the newbies in r1der lately.

Now, theres this new downside. Eve-kill has been in and out and our corp killboards are going to shit too for some reason. And I hate battleclinic for various reasons. For these reasons, I wont be using killmails as proof of my fleet kills or losses or posting battlereports. I really should seriously consider using FRAPS, but tbh, my laptop isnt of the highest quality for gaming, considering I got it for work related things only in the first place. So yeah...no killmails, lossmails or battle reports to back up what I am telling you from memory. Tough shit, tbh.

I led a fleet a week or two ago but I didnt think to take any notes or even bother remembering the evening. I had dropped a neut for an armor resist boosting link on my Hurricane. I had a few frigates as support, a Thrasher or two and maybe a Rupture or Stabber, I dont remember. So these links would be helpful I felt. I had one of the new guys in a Rifter scouting for us, just to give him some experience doing it. I had him stay 2 jumps ahead of our fleet, which in hindsight, I think 1 jump ahead will be better. I think we had a Hurricane kill and it was the first pvp kill for a few people in the small fleet. So thats cool I thought. Continuing on our roam, we had several empty systems. Our scout landed in a system with 10 or 12 people, and we landed on the in gate for him to find a target, or me to be done waiting and give the word to move on. Well, we decided to move on, and the scout next system as we jumped in.

Landing in the next system, my overview was filled with red. Well, shit, I said over comms. This fleet snuck in behind out scout somehow. I order everyone to burn back to the gate or warp out if they can. Some live, some die. Im one of the ones who dies. Due to ECM, I didnt get a shot off, and I hadnt bothered to release my drones. Ah well, win some, lose some. With half the fleet exploded and no ships to jump into nearby, we called it night.

My next fleet went somewhat better, albeit still unplanned and me unorganized again. I jumped into an Arbitrator this time with frigate and destroyer support. During formup, I dropped fleet to do a 1v1 frig fight with a guy. That resulted in me getting another kill with my Punisher. Pretty cool, I thought, this night is going well already! Docking up, reshipping and rejoining the fleet I had started, someone else is calling for the Rifters in system to come to the sun and fight him. Well, no one else in system was in Rifters except my fleet, so I called over comms to oblige him and x up when they had points.

Undocked and aligning to the sun, I waited for the x's to come in over comms and fleet chat. I didnt have to wait long. Entering warp, I thought to myself Im being such a dick bringing a cruiser to fight a Rifter. I had forgotten to ask for ship type over comms when they landed, so imagine my surprise when I landed to see a Jaguar on grid. Welp, now I dont feel so bad. I locked him up, added my scram to the fleets and sent my drones on him. One member down, a few days old rifter pilot. Shes got bigger balls than most newbies to EvE, Ill give her that. With me settling into a very tight orbit to apply my small blasters, I begin chewing through the Jag's shields. He hits armor and a second Rifter drops. Both pods escape.

 Ive fought jags before in my Vengeance, but this jag didnt seem to be holding up well to my assault, going down much faster than Im used to seeing a Jaguar do so. Soon, he hits structure, then explodes. GF's are exchanged in local, and I remind the newbies to give a gf as well, even though they lost their ships, we got the kill as a team. Plus, its only sportsmanlike to give a gf even if we lost.

Earlier, I had sent the same newbie out again to scout the Istodard pocket while this was all going down, and he found nothing of interest, so we regrouped in Oddelulf after everyone reshipped and repaired. Sending the scout only one jump ahead now, we were staying closer this round. I had originally had a 29 jump roam planned, but by the time we started the roam, I had changed our target system to Eugales, only going through Low Sec. Unlikely that we'll make it all the way there, but who knows, we might not run into any trouble.

I had difficulty typing that without a busting up laughing.

Anyhow.... After redirecting the scout, I got exclamations of excitement over the planned route to Eugales. I suppose this will need to be a regular route until we someday make it to Eugales. About 8 jumps out, we find something interesting. A spike of 9 in local of an FA fleet. Roughly twice our size, with a gila pilot scouting for them. I direct the scout to locate them, and he does, but then they disappear off his dscan. The gila pilot is nearby as we orbit the in gate at 500 for roughly 45 seconds before I call for us to jump through. When the grid loads, my overview is again filled with reds. A hurricane, oracle, tornado and several others that I cant recall.

Well, shyt. We need to send this scout to scout school or something, these damned fleets sneaking in behind him all the time! Ah well. I call for the fleet to warp out, because I had seen a couple of the enemies jump to the other side, waiting for us to burn back to the gate. A couple of my fleet makes it out, a couple dont. Im one of the ones who doesnt again. My ASB tanked arbitrator doesnt stand a chance against the superior firepower of this enemy gang and explodes in a ball of fire. Again, I dont even bother deploying drones. Hopefully the loot fairy will destroy them!

My ship explodes, and I warp out. No one was podded, but the roam is now over as none of us has ships close enough to reship. The other person who lost a ship and myself dock up to get a newbie ship and head back to Heild, where I then get distracted with chat channels and such.

Good fleet leadership experience I feel for myself. When I saw the Gila pilot and assumptions were confirmed he was scouting for a bigger fleet, I should have redirected my fleet. When the enemy fleet disappeared off my scouts dscan, I should have directed him to check our in gate to see if they were waiting for us. Ah well, live and learn.

Soon enough, Ill be a pro at this leading thing! As a side note, I also discovered how to do the jump break things; which for my long posts is awesome.