Fool Me Once

It was a bit like the wild west in the Amarr/Minmatar warzone this weekend, with a larger number of neutral gangs floating around then what is usual. At one point, we went to engage one neutral group, then ended up engaging another. Then the Amarr showed up, then the first neutral gang came back, and then DNS blopsed on the whole thing to make it one glorious mess of a multi-way fight.

On Sunday, we got blopsed on by DNS again. Not that we didn't expect it. A DNS tech 3 cruiser sitting 15K off a gate in low-sec isn't obvious or anything, right? Most of us scattered, being in smaller ships. We shipped up quick and came back, but they took one look at what we had and dispersed themselves.

Apparently, however, we only wet their appetite. Not ten minutes later the same bait ship was once again sitting on the gate, this time on the Kourmonen side. We hadn't even gotten out of our battlecruisers and guardians yet.

So, we did what any self-respecting Faction War pilots would do. We flew over to their bait proteus and started vigorously shooting it.

It was an odd situation. We knew they were going to Black Ops on us. Duh. And they knew that we knew. And they knew what we had, since we had just dropped our BCs and guardians on them only minutes before. And we knew that they knew that too.

But there their bait proteus sat dying. His armor…slowly chipping away.

Finally he lit the cyno. I called it on coms. “Cyno up, Cyno up!” It was about time.

“Prepare to point any blackups that comes through that cyno. Put your drones on the stealth bombers.” Bahamut420 barked.

But, nothing.

“Uh….nothing is coming through the cyno?”

That awkward moment when you’re killing something that obviously thought he had backup and lights a cyno but no one comes to save him …and you’re wondering what sort of yelling is happening on their coms, because you know if it was you there would be a lot of yelling on coms at that moment….and your own fleet is kinda quiet for a second because everyone is thinking how much that would suck…

And then, local spike, and his backup arrives. First, it was just a few stealth bombers. And then, the redeemer arrives, and the rapier…then another Redeemer, who warps off almost instantly upon seeing what was waiting on the other side for him.

The proteus is almost dead, so we decided to finish him off before turning on the Redeemer. Stealth bombers are dying, and people grab points on the rapier.

And they all die in an epic blaze of a fire.

It was a rather entertaining conclusion to a very chaotic weekend. Hopefully we will continue seeing neutrals roaming around the warzone, as it adds a very interesting dimension to things. Warzones are a good place to find fights in low-sec, and with politics being what they are today, there’s little chance of opposing militias ganging up on neutrals. Though, don’t be surprised if all hell breaks loose. It is, after all, a warzone.