Into the Faction War Zone - Part 2

Thus far, the kills I’ve been getting have been newbies in T1 fitted frigates. They’re probably all alpha pilots. I don’t know, I’m not really familiar with the exact rules of what alphas can and can’t fly.

Now, of course, I like kicking puppies and curb stomping toddlers as much as the next guy. You’ll never catch me complaining about too many newbies lining themselves up to be slaughtered.  But this also wasn’t quite scratching the itch I was trying to scratch here.

I needed to find some Omega pilots to fight. So I undocked Kestrel 2 from Hek BCF and headed for Amamake.

Kestrel 2 vs Kestrel 

I was glad to see that Amamake is still the kind of place where there’s always something going on. I soon dscanned another Kestrel in a PLEX. 

I warped in, found Bona Seo of Pandemic Horde on the entrance, orbited at 7500m, scram, webs, and rockets.

It was a good fight. I was euphoric at first to see his shields drop quickly to zero under the withering fire of my Mjolnir Rage Rockets, but quickly became clear that the enemy Kestrel was armor tanked, and my own shields quickly melted. 

I was pretty close to the edge of warp scrambler range, so I made an effort to disengage, but the other Kestrel had 2 stasis webifiers on me. I was going nowhere.

RIP me

Lesson learned: 

Armor Kestrels do less dps than shield kestrels, and are slower, but they have more overall EHP, a smaller signature radius, and the second webifier that they can fit surely helps with damage application and range control. 

I’m leaning towards the armor fit being better overall, but I still have a few more fitted shield Kestrels to lose before I try something else. 

A quick jaunt back to Hek and I went looking for another fight.

Kestrel 3 vs. Thrasher

I located a fellow by the name of Paugutaja in another plex with a Thrasher. An older character, probably Omega. I used to scram kite Thrashers all the time in my Merlin, loading my blasters with Null. It was an easy win most of the time.

“This Kestrel should do the same trick even better,” I thought.

I warped in and got my face melted by Paugutaja.

Seemed like a good idea at the time.

Lesson learned:

Scram kiting with a frigate may or may not still be a good plan against autocannon Thrashers, but against artillery Thrashers? Not so much.

Kestrel 4 vs. Rifter

I found Sneaky peaky Pete of Minmatar Republic sitting motionless, probably AFK, in another faction warfare plex, flying a completely unfitted Rifter. I carefully pressed my rocket launchers up to the back of his pod and humanely executed him for his crimes.

Justice was served.

Lesson learned:

I have no idea whatsoever how faction warfare actually works. I’ve found lots of these guys lurking around in the war zone over the years, sitting afk in unfitted ships. What are they doing there? I have no idea. All I know is that they need to die.

I guess the lesson is that I should stop being so lazy and actually learn something about the PVE ecosystems I’m hunting in. One of these days. When I get around to it.

Kestrel 4 vs. Thrasher

Another of those evil Minmatar Republic guys, Haedir, was in a plex with another Thrasher.

“Ok,” I thought, “Last time this didn’t work because the guy was artillery fitted, and I tried to fight him from scram range. Maybe if I fit Javelin rockets and try to snipe from further out I’ll have better luck. I won’t be able to keep him on the field if he wants to warp off, but he might have slow reaction time or something.”

So I warped in and got my face melted again.

If at first you don't succeed, something something die again.

Lesson learned:

Artillery Thrashers seem to be a common fitting meta in the war zone these days. Rocket Kestrels do not seem to be a great idea for countering them.

I had burned through my little stack of shield Kestrels anyway. I made my way back over to Hek to try something a little different.