Let's be AF'n You

End of an Era

So the era of the nanoship comes to an end. A topsy turvy time it has been for us all both in them and victims of them. My Ishtar took it's final voyage on Saturday, heading up to the edge of Syndicate space. After some nice kills, Huzzah decided to 'Vindicate' my ship in the correct manner. A battleship that was going faster than my poor little HAC was a sight to see. Alas, grats to Huzzah for picking up a nice MWD from my wreck.

Quantum Rise

The Assault Frig for the past year has been nothing more than a stepping stone for most. In many cases it becomes the 'Mercy Kill' for a stricken victim.

Damage Control - 'Sir! we simply cannot take this level of beating, the ship can hold out for maybe 30 seconds more!'

Captain - 'Jenkins! find me a suitable target that cannot defend itself'

Jenkins - 'Captain, there is a Wolf class Assault Ship in close proximity to our hull. Targeting the ship, web and torpedoes are ready'

Captain - 'Fire Jenkins! Make sure this scamp won't be getting any insurance back!'

It was an occasion that happened far too frequently to warrant the 10-15mil outlay for the ship hull.

Now...how things have changed.

Our little AF's are nurtured little DPS spewing muderbeasts that have a signature radius equal to that of a crouton in your soup.

'What does that mean Jones!' I hear you all ask. Well it's pretty simple. Cruiser weapon systems and up, which in part are designed to be fired at similar sized vessels are now almost obsolete when fired against something with a small signature radius.

 A mixture of their afterburner speed and their miniscule sig radius now means that they can operate in kissing distance of the enemy without fear of LOLWTFBBQ11111ELEVEN.

Not 30 minutes after the patch had gone live, our Assault Frigates were whirring up and looking for targets. A cock sure Harbinger warps in on euan8, a new recruit from Python. Euan's ab Thorax kept the chap interested as we poured in several AF's consisting of two sub 300dps Harpy's, a drone spewing Ishkur, a well rounded Jaguar and Viginiti in his quintessential Sentinel.

The Harbinger locked up Kulmid who had landed right on top of him. Levelling the Focused Medium Pulse lasers in line with the Harpy. Despite being webbed, the Harpy still managed over 300m/s allowing it to stay well ahead of the tracking of the turrets in such a tight orbit. The Harbinger opened up with its Amarr Navy Crystals yet could only catch the vacuum of space.

Kulmid then decided to return the favour, opening up his Neutron blasters onto the thick armour plating of the Battlecruiser. The blasters able to fire like machine guns with the increased magnetic field stabilisation.

Soon, the others in the wolfpack were opening up. The oversized DPS from the Assault Frigs was simply too much for the stricken Battelcruiser to handle. The gang had focused their fire on the rupturing armour plates and quickly tore into the bulkheads, reducing the Harbinger to floaty bits of rolled tungsten.

Unbalanced I hear you cry!

Never...

We have been losing a lot of these AF's trying to get the setups right. As we are using afterburners, it gives us a lot more grid to play with.

One particular fight we got into in a local 0.0 entry point ended up pretty bad. With our quintessential Hellcat support of the 'Maneater' Mynxee and the 'Scrumptuous' Shae Tiann, we had engaged a Rokh which uncloaked and was promptly tackled by my trusty DrillHawk. As we closed range, licking our lips at what was to come, the Rokh engaged 8 Smartbombs, reducing ships and pods alike to space blubber in mere seconds. We all laughed, cried, did the Ewok dance and listened to the Cow in a can give out tremendous life changing philosophical quotes.

As you are all confused, soon there will be many lols as the Cow in a can FC's one of our ops. The Cow is a big part of our lives in The Bastards, his wise words drive us all forward in the hope that one day, we could aspire to his greatness.

A shorter one for this broadcast. To be honest we are all to busy trying to get the best kill we can in an Assault Frig. I hope to be able to bring you a carrier kill or something in the coming weeks!

Much <3

San