Goings-on

I'm going to be very honest for a second here.
Verge Vendor has seemed kinda slow.
And yet, that is not at all to say nothing has happened...
For instance, I (Ronan) am now the proud home-inventer of the Lazer-bellicose, which played a serious role taking down this Eagle: http://tuskers.killmail.org/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=3504522

Also Caster Rom has been posting some great stories: http://criminally-yours.blogspot.com/

As well as one of our newest recruits, IzzyBella: http://not-about-living-forever.blogspot.com/

And we can't forget Wensley, who has been having entirely too much fun roaming 0.0 in his Rifter! http://www.rifterdrifter.com/

Then came a day that will...I dunno probly be forgotten, but looking over the past few weeks it certainly sticks out! June 16th...It's a story of Dreads and Freighters, Lady Luck and The Effing Loot Devil, Nanos and Stealth Bombers, Ransoms, and long, seemingly dull roams to Amarr space.

It started the day before when one of our old amigos, now a Tusker Public groupy (if you'd like a better title, please see recruitment section of Tusker forums =P) started tracking a Harbinger and Caracal in the Costolle system.

As it turned out they were setting up POS defences, but had only managed to set-up 4 Cruise Missile batteries by the time we started warping in for closer looks.
The Harbinger seemed to disappear, and the Caracal logged off inside the POS. Tuskers began testing their tanks and damage on the Cruise launchers, hoping for the harbinger to warp back in and engage.

Before long one of the cruise launchers was going down, and we decided we may as well try to ransom the thing.
So we convo the only guy still in local, here's some sweet sweet chat-logs:

Channel Name:
[ 2009.06.15 16:20:34 ] Alex Rudd > o/ shiktar
[ 2009.06.15 16:20:37 ] shiktar > hi
[ 2009.06.15 16:20:56 ] Alex Rudd > we're kind of killing your pos here
[ 2009.06.15 16:21:12 ] shiktar > what delay?
[ 2009.06.15 16:21:40 ] Alex Rudd > but for the small sum of 100mil we'll get the hell out and leave you alone :)
[ 2009.06.15 16:22:50 ] shiktar > I will just invite some guys from my allianc if you permit :) because like you see we are an alliance and not a bunch of guys
[ 2009.06.15 16:23:48 ] Venkarian > xD
[ 2009.06.15 16:24:09 ] Alex Rudd > hello there
[ 2009.06.15 16:24:48 ] Venkarian > THe Tuskers want shot a pos of stellar ?
[ 2009.06.15 16:24:49 ] Venkarian > xD
[ 2009.06.15 16:25:16 ] Ronan Jacques > actually the missiles are already incapped
[ 2009.06.15 16:25:27 ] Ronan Jacques > and the POS is at 3/4 shield
[ 2009.06.15 16:25:30 ] Alex Rudd > we wanted to and we have, now we're offering you the chance to save it before we completely destroy it
[ 2009.06.15 16:25:49 ] Venkarian > Oh ok
[ 2009.06.15 16:25:52 ] Venkarian > Attack we wait xD
[ 2009.06.15 16:25:54 ] shiktar > sorry ronan but you are wrong I m in the pos atm
[ 2009.06.15 16:26:06 ] Ronan Jacques > oh, 4/5th?
[ 2009.06.15 16:26:31 ] shiktar > certainly not :) 100%
[ 2009.06.15 16:26:39 ] Alex Rudd > we have cap pilots available who would cladly take this pos down in a matter of minutes. but before we call on them we'd rather give you the chance to save this beautiful structure of yours
[ 2009.06.15 16:26:51 ] Venkarian > Lolll !
[ 2009.06.15 16:27:02 ] Venkarian > You are 42 we are 360 xDDDD
[ 2009.06.15 16:27:13 ] Alex Rudd > gratz
[ 2009.06.15 16:27:37 ] Alex Rudd > any how 100mil or we destroy your POS
[ 2009.06.15 16:27:42 ] Venkarian > tilk chuis mdr ils ont des caps ships
[ 2009.06.15 16:27:45 ] Ronan Jacques > hopefully you get good participation for pos-repping ops XD
[ 2009.06.15 16:27:57 ] Tilk02 > feu a volonte
[ 2009.06.15 16:27:59 ] Tilk02 > yop
[ 2009.06.15 16:28:14 ] Venkarian > On a tous peur abusé xD
[ 2009.06.15 16:28:24 ] DustBlow > salut les fille
[ 2009.06.15 16:28:27 ] DustBlow > filles
[ 2009.06.15 16:28:51 ] Alex Rudd > Again, 100mil or you'll be short one POS
[ 2009.06.15 16:29:31 ] DustBlow > how many lol??
[ 2009.06.15 16:30:35 ] Alex Rudd > matter not, we have the fire power to destroy your POS, will you pay the ransom of 100mil?
[ 2009.06.15 16:30:46 ] Venkarian > Heu no
[ 2009.06.15 16:30:51 ] Tilk02 > no you pay
[ 2009.06.15 16:30:51 ] Alex Rudd > rgr
[ 2009.06.15 16:30:52 ] Venkarian > Shot first and die :p
[ 2009.06.15 16:30:54 ] Ronan Jacques > k then, have fun repping o/


Now then, Ronan has had this certain issue when ransoming people who don't speak english terribly well....You may have spotted it in the course of these logs, but the point is we THOUGHT this was the Harbinger pilot, and that he had warped off the POS as we came in.
The last time I did this, one of our buddies from Public had caught a Russian destroyer in a mission, and I ended up ransoming him. Obviously I picked the guy in local with Russian in their bio, and started negotiations through google-translate...in Russian.
Long story short, and no I don't have those chat logs, I had chosen the wrong russian...

This time, I had chosen the wrong POS owners.

We worked this out when the Harbinger logged back on inside the POS shields, and was completely not the guy we had just harassed for money.
About this time, the french people we had demanded ransom from, (for no particular reason) started sending convo's to Tuskers, demanding money and asking them if that Ronan guy is crazy.
I think played it off quite well, insisting that it's more like we accidentally tried to scam them....y'know, as opposed to Ronan totally fails at ransoming foreign people >_<


[ 2009.06.15 17:01:56 ] Ronan Jacques > you got that 100mil yet?
[ 2009.06.15 17:02:06 ] Venkarian > No you are making dream
[ 2009.06.15 17:02:11 ] Ronan Jacques > lol
[ 2009.06.15 17:02:18 ] Venkarian > You are crazy
[ 2009.06.15 17:02:19 ] Ronan Jacques > no, I'm ASKING
[ 2009.06.15 17:02:21 ] Ronan Jacques > FOR
[ 2009.06.15 17:02:26 ] Ronan Jacques > ONE HUNDRED MILLION!!!!
[ 2009.06.15 17:02:28 ] Ronan Jacques > :9
[ 2009.06.15 17:03:09 ] Venkarian > You want a war ?
[ 2009.06.15 17:03:16 ] Ronan Jacques > no, 100 million
[ 2009.06.15 17:03:28 ] Ronan Jacques > look dude, you have my name, just send it already


Anyway, it turned out the real POS owners weren't interested in Ransom either, but they did start unanchoring something... And due to the little 'unanchor' timer being sort of off to the side and no-where in particular, The Mighty Tusker Battle-fleet was convinced for a good 20 minutes that the guy was unanchoring the entire tower in his foolishness, and at any moment we would be able to smash the harbinger and grab the POS tower!!
We realized about a minute before it finished that it was a coupling array, and by this time the POS was nearly reinforced, so we begrudgingly finished the job, and put out the call for Dreadnought support to kill it after it's 16 hour reinforcement cycle.


Bright and early the morning of the 16th, just after downtime, a majestic Moros Dreadnought undocked from Hevrice 5, and cyno'd to within blaster-range of the Small Caldari Tower. The mighty guns wound up, and proceeded to pulverize the structure alongside a small fleet of Battleships, Stealth Bombers and other support.


(FRAPS AT BOTTOM)
Some 55 million worth in mods were looted, and on top of the pretty pictures it was at least worth the ammo!!

While clean-up was taking place, an Ishtar was sighted roaming Costolle, and so I went to bait in a belt with my Omen. After quite some time he warped in, and I took up point and orbit as the fleet warped-in. He came terrifyingly close, in fact he was within 12km of me for a split second as I changed course to dodge the asteroid belt! But at that time Kruger's Hurricane had landed, and Paul Jons' Nemesis and Ghoststalker's Manticore had begun launching deadly salvos that devastated the Ishtar with it's MWD-inflated signature.
This kill and the POS are included in this Battlereport:
http://tuskers.killmail.org/?a=kill_related&kll_id=3541742

Soon after, a planned 'nanos and stealth bombers' squad was set out under my command.
The fleet consisted of two Hounds, a Purifier and a Manticore, assisted by an Omen, Taranis and Rifter.

In Agoze, we were incredulous to stumble upon a SCUM Nighthawk command ship, RATTING IN A BELT!!!
Ronan dove in with his Omen and got point, and told the fleet to bum-rush it! Unfortunately, also totally incredible, the Nighthawk was warp-stabbed, and warped-off in alarm at the local-spike.
Just, one more time for the people in the back: THE WARP-STABBED RATTING NIGHTHAWK FROM SCUM ALLIANCE escaped our clutches.
It's so funny, we were just discussing how one of Jolo's old pirate corps had a 100% tax-rate to prevent exactly these horrible moments...

A few jumps later, a Flaming Brotherhood member jumped through the wroooong gate in his blackbird. He was so swiftly annihilated, one of our sensor-boosted bombers did not even acquire lock!
http://tuskers.killmail.org/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=3542170

Finally, we found a system with scans cluttered by TONS of ships parked in POS, even a Nyx!!
We spotted a Phobos away from the POS', and commenced probing it. However the heavy congestion in the system and our scouts' focus on helping pin-point the phobos allowed several ships to slip in and begin moving around. When we finally decided to give up and move-out, I found the Phobos sitting on the gate out of the system....

I promptly warped to the nearest belt, and a couple of our stealth bombers warped-in to take up ranges. The Phobos followed soon after, and my Omen took up point and orbit, kiting him marvelously. As Man Barthelme came in and added to the tackle, the Stealth Bombers began to de-cloak and open up their launch-bays. At this point we were also joined by Nupe in his Vagabond, who had caught up to the fleet during the lengthy probing session...

At just this moment, a Falcon decloaked some 50-60km away and began jamming! Vajo's Hound warped out jammed, but Ghoststalker's Manticore got a lock and managed to fire a volley into the Falcon as I rushed it with my Omen. Two Tempest battleships also landed in the belt, but then the Falcon warped out, and the Tempests were rather quick to follow it, leaving the Phobos to take our fire!

Unfortunately, at this point Vajo had warped back in outside of torpedo range, and I would take more precious seconds to get the Phobos back in range of his guns. The Phobos' incredible tank was actually holding against the three Stealth Bombers and Nupe's Vagabond. By the time Vajo's torps were hitting again and the armor was falling under 50%, the Tempests had returned!

After an incredibly tense moment of watching the Phobos' tank waver, hearing cries of heavy-neuts from my fleet mates and checking the ages of the Tempest pilots, I found that one of them was grossly under-age, and ordered primary be switched to him.

He must have known how to fit a buffer, however, and their heavy-neuts were forcing the Stealth Bombers off the field. I ordered a general retreat as the Neuts began to cap out my Omen, and the single remaining MWD cycle was not enough to carry my ship free of the Phobos' Focused point. Man Barthelme's rifter, and Jin's Hound were also lost in the retreat:

http://tuskers.killmail.org/?a=kill_related&kll_id=3542570
_____________________________

Tusker luck was about to take a wild, wild ride however. A few hours later, Vajo Mithrandhir was sitting on the Jovainon gate, awaiting a roaming gang that Leo Solunar was forming up.

Already tired from a day of roaming, and used to seeing the rectangular brackets of industrial vessels jump through the Jovainon gate, it took him a moment to recognize something very, very interesting about one that took a particularly long time to align...
It was a FENRIS.

And then, Vajo's brain farted quietly, as the Fenris warped majestically off....to a belt.
The Tusker gang that had been slowly forming suddenly coalesced in the belt beside it, swarming it, tearing it apart with wild abandon! But when the smoke cleared, there was something terribly, terribly wrong with the wreck:
http://tuskers.killmail.org/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=3543073

Ogod, why.

I got into space shortly after seeing the news, incredulous but still in time to catch Leo's gang on it's roam down to Amarr space.

The pipes seemed empty, but we did find a Harbinger to kill: http://tuskers.killmail.org/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=3543828
The whole time, this rather paranoid, sort of woody-allen style neurotic character was jabbering at us in local about how he didn't care we were camping his system, and then declaring he was coming out to smash our fleets, and then congratulated us on calling his bluff. He proceeded to suggest that he would pay double for us to go back and camp the guy who had paid us. We waited out our GCC's enjoying the word play between Leo, who repeatedly failed to be a smooth con-man, and Caster, who managed to repeatedly save the negotiation with his own smoothness.

Later we fought a running battle with a Vagabond (note: this is the wrong kinda battle to fight with a Vagabond when everybody but Ronan has Afterburners lol).
My shiny rail-taranis went down, as I forgot the part of my magic Vagabond-kiting skills where I actually bring him closer to my gang...

But the kill emboldened the Vagabond, who promptly dove into the fire, allowing the undeterred Caster Rom to scramble his MWD, and died.
http://tuskers.killmail.org/?a=kill_related&kll_id=3544778
His snide remark upon killing Ronan sorta bit him in the butt there, he was much quieter when we came through his home-system later =P

Anyway, there's even been cool stuff in the time since then, but those are other stories for others to tell.
Today for instance...


Haha, oh I'm such a tease...

Check out the POS Shoot!

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