Thursday, 13 March 2014

The Lion VS the Wolves

 This is the story of one of my favourite fights ever. 

In RvB, whenever a lone battlecruiser engages a gang of small ships by a gate, I've always seen it go one of two ways: One the gang is small and the BC squishes a few while the others run away. In the other, the small ships shred the battlecruiser apart in very short order. 

But what happens when the forces are almost perfectly balanced?

So a small fleet of us reds are in Josamento, by the Liekuri gate (I think). Most are in frigates, I'm in my arbitrator. A prophecy warps to the gate. We engage, and he yellow boxes me, and then agros someone else. He moves towards the gate, and we start pounding on him. He kills one of our tacklers, an atron - no big surprise there, these things happen. The hunt has its dangers.

http://rvbeve.com/re...l&kll_id=506500

I realize that he has some kind of guns and put on my tracking disruptors on him. We all expect him to de-agro and jump into the gate. We are confident - a lion cannot stand long vs so many wolves. But he keeps on fighting! Why? Because we realize, to our dismay, that he's killing us one by one - and fast!

http://rvbeve.com/re...l&kll_id=506511
http://rvbeve.com/re...l&kll_id=506503
http://rvbeve.com/re...l&kll_id=506509
http://rvbeve.com/re...l&kll_id=506510
http://rvbeve.com/re...l&kll_id=506508

Some fleet members warp off and are urging us to keep him in place, that they are going to re-ship in something bigger. It seems hopeless though... but I have moved my arbitrator closer, and I have a point on my ship! The prophecy, piloted fearlessly by Horvick, has a point too and doesn't want to let me go - nor does he feel like running from an arbitrator!

A droneboat duel follows - I want to do as much damage as possible, but mostly I want to hold him long enough for the fleet to arrive. I have no guns to shoot his drones so I can't help that part. I keep TDing him and starts neuting him. He neuts me. Our drones are clawing at each other. He's confident he can destroy me and escape, he knows my tank can't outlast his... but he doesn't realize that my arbitrator isn't a pushover in the tank department, and he can't shake me off. This duel lasts perhaps two minutes at most, but if feels like an eternity. How long can a lone wolf fight of an angry lion?

Finally, helps arrives! Tommy, the first one to lose a ship, returns in a vexor, points him and starts pounding on him. I start burning away to warp off... but it's too late. I take more damage and explode.

http://rvbeve.com/red/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=506507 (32K ehp!)

Another tackler comes back. We expect him to flee, but he keeps on fighting. The cavalry, finally, arrives - this includes a drake and a tornado. This doesn't seem to phase Horvick, and he not done killing red ships, destroying the vexor:

http://rvbeve.com/re...l&kll_id=506502

This was to be his last kill however. Our firepower is now too great, and the mighty lion, despite his mighty tank, must now perish:

http://rvbeve.com/re...l&kll_id=506501

(looking back at this I can now see that part of his success was due to the double web, which slowed frigates to a crawl and is why I just couldn't seem to get away from him to warp off).

Following this, as usual "gf" were given in local but this was followed by a very friendly and animated conversation between the red fleet and Horvick. He said it was the best 70 million isk he's ever spent, and everyone agreed that it was a particularly good fight. He was surprised at how good my tank was, and we were at how well, vicious his prophecy turned out to be and were impressed by his fighting spirit. It really isn't clear who "won" here - the lion is dead, but he gave us one *hell* of a fight!

Fight like these are what keeps people hooked to PvP

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