Anti-pirate corp meets Sinners for the first time, goes home in flames

Sometimes the best plan goes up in smoke once the first shots are fired. That's what happened to a gang that came face to face with us last night. This gang had every detail planned to perfection, it showed in every action they took, from the ranges they warped in at, getting people out when needed, and in reviewing their losses you can tell they had specific fits for that fleet. But it all went out the window when we didn't behave in the manner they had anticipated.

It all started when Croc and myself spotted a lone Drake jumping into Aurohunen through the Korama gate. We warped in and pointed him, began peppering him with damage while he MWD'd back to the gate. This Drake pilot didn't jump back through though, he yellow boxed and held his position. Hmmm, being used to what was coming next Croc and I instinctively align out. Yep, here it comes, local spike. We hold for a half a min until the gang is on scan to get an idea of what's on the way. 2x Stealth Bombers, 2x Griffens, and a Punisher. Sure enough they land on the gate at varying ranges, Stealth Bombers at 20km, Punisher at 0km, Griffens at 50km. Crocs out, I hold 5-10 seconds longer to get a quick glimpse of the enemy pilots names and ship types then warp.

Regrouping we realize, "Hey, we can smoke these guys". We get Tek in on it and our old corp mate from Monsters, Captain Destructo. Our gang would consist of 2x Hurricanes, a Harbinger, and a Rapier. The enemy gang retreated to a safe spot and began to smack talk in local. We got Cap't to fit a probe launcher to his Rapier then he set about probing them down. In the mean time an additional member of this nuisance corporation brought in a second Punisher. Now it would be 4 on 7 and they had ECM, it might still be a little hairy for us. This gang had killed and podded Cap't the week before.

Cap't got the 100% hit on their fleet and warped in cloaked. The enemy gang was smart enough to be aligned and by the time the good Cap't landed on them he was 50km away. The good part for us was that they WERE aligned, which meant we could warp to Cap't from the gate they were aligned to at range and land on top of them. Croc, Tek, and myself initiate warp, land and immediately the enemy warps to a second safe spot 150km from us. Damn, we didn't have time to point anyone. However... Cap't had been being stubborn and insisted on leaving his probes out. Good call, all he had to do was hit scan one more time and another 100% hit. YES! So Tek, Croc, and Cap't were able to warp right in and  very quickly drop drones and points on these little pricks. I was just inside warp range so I had to warp out and back in on Tek to get in the fight.

The enemy had anticipated this and scattered the Griffens out to 65km and the stealth bombers to 30km leaving the Drake at our warp in point and the punishers orbiting. Our gang points the drake and a punisher while I'm on my way in. Drones are quickly dispatched towards the griffens before they can get jam cycles off leaving them vulnerable to damage. I land just as Captain Destructo needs to bug out, he's been primaried by the Bombers. The enemy had used the punishers as tackle but they fit them with heavy armor buffer tanks which gave Cap't plenty of speed advantage to get out of point range and leave. ECM has shut down all outbound damage from Tek and Croc. The griffens are taking heavy damage from our Warrior II's and take off just as mine reach one of them. No more ECM, Tek and Croc are free to deal damage at will now and I'm in the fight with a point on that Drake before he can bug out too. Another point on one of the punishers, the second starts running away from point range. Croc is taking heavy DPS from the Drake and the bombers at this point and needs to GTFO. Croc out and Cap't back in, it's musical chairs lol. The Drake was MWD'ing away from us but Cap't dual webbed him, slowing him to a crawl. We put our drones on the bombers and having no tank they hit structure quickly and run for the hills. We pour out everything our guns can do on this drake and let the Warrior II's finish off that punisher that's still warp scrambled. We need to get these guys down before the ECM and bombers come back.

Punisher down. Drake is very heavily tanked but under the weight of our over heated guns he's down in a short time. We out played these guys. Not a ship on their side escaped without damage. We took two of them out including what appeared to be the FC judging by age and KB activity. At least one punisher was alive but on fire and the same for one of the griffens, the other had moderate armor damage. The bombers were in need of serious repair. The smack talk from them has turned into an eerie silence, not even a return "gf" in local to our proud proclomations, well at least until Tek has his way with them in local chat for being rude!

These guys would have seriously beat down our usual gangs just a couple of weeks ago. The difference? This is Sinners now baby, and we aren't the easy kills we were with Monsters... We are fighting smarter and harder and it shows. We've dropped the baggage that was the "camping crowd" as we call them, and the others that had good piloting skills but too much mental beat-down trash to be effective. The enemy was a decently run gang, fit out specifically to fight us nasty pirates. We were able to pick apart their strengths, force them to continuously have to switch primaries, use our drones with great effect, scatter them from the fight, and hold the "bait" and "tackle" down until it drowned in the fishes mouth. Go Sinners! We do this everyday, not just when we get bored of mining Veldspar! Fuck those anti-pirate bitches!