OFFICER DOWN

Over a year ago I bought a Bellicose. I bought it because I could fly Minnie cruisers, I couldn't fly them very well, and I couldn't find a good use for the boat I'd christened “Income Support”, and so for a long time it gathered dust. Later on it took on the roll of go to comedy boat to be refit in strange ways for specific purposes. It spent considerable time with a 1600mm plate and small guns for ganking frigs. I even once gave it a full set of scrams to tackle a multi stabbed smart bombing Typhoon class boat camping a gate in Ardar.

After finally learning T2 medium Auto cannons Income Support took on a new roll, that of AN ELITE BATTLE WARRIOR JUSTICE BOAT. It was rigged and prepped for combat.

It had many skirmishes, and endeared itself to me when it dispatched of a Hurricane boat that attacked me on a station in Sirekur.

Last night Income Support fell in EPIC BATTLE, and possibly the best cruiser 1v1 I've ever been involved in. A honourable fellow named Owen Drakkar offered me a cruiser battle, in fact he actually offered me a battle between his Rupture and my Vagabond. But in 1v1s unless its really insisted I prefer to be in a boat of an equal or underestimated class.

(Don't get me wrong if I'm roaming in a HAC and encounter a cruiser/frig/destroyer or whatever I'd be the first to engage.)

Owen agrees to battle my mighty Bellicose, and goes to get his Rupture.

By the fact he'd offered to fight my Vagabond, I was assuming fall-off Rupture. I was further assured of this when we both warped to 50 at the agreed planet of battle and landed on each other.

I had a range script loaded into my Tracking Disrupter and Barrage in my guns. We quickly zoomed to range of each other. I was faster than him so made sure to stay at the edge of point range, and tried to keep angular high with the TD turned on to reduce incoming damage while the great battle of the drones began.

Owen's bay was full of Warrior 2's, my Bellicose contained a max damage set up of 3x Hammerheads and 2x Hobgoblins. Warriors being faster and better at tracking other drones, meant I had to pull drones in more often, and if we continued as such I would surely lose the drone battle. So I changed tactics, we were rather far apart so every time he sent out a drone after recalling, I flew away from him kiting the drone and turning my guns on it. After a considerable amount of time all his Warriors were down and I had 2x Hobgoblins remaining. However I'd taken several Wrecking shots and I was in deep armour, I used my speed advantage to fly far off to recover shield, Owen burnt out his mwd, I suspect chasing me at this point but I'm not 100% sure. The fight had been very long, and in our private chat Owen had suggested that maybe it was a draw. But the BELLICOSE DEMANDED THAT ONE OF US EXPLODED. Having recovered about 30% shield I turned and went back in. Keeping angular up at about 20k we slugged it out, and it looked like I was just edging it, I needed his shields to fall first as I had no armour. And they did. Then DISASTER the heat from my point burnt out my mwd, this made it considerably harder to keep a high angular and although my TD was reducing damage, his damage on me increased, my shield fell when he was in about half armour, and it became a race he was ahead in, guns blazing hot my hull started to take damage, one of my gun cycles later his hull started to turn red. I hit half hull before him. Then inevitably I exploded with Owen in deep hull.

GF GF OWEN DRAKKAR

and R.I.P Income Support

Needless to say, after such an epic, long, and fun battle, I immediately bought a new Bellicose, and Welfare Check has been added to the Kenssy fleet.