On the 29th June, the 74th numbered Ganked roam went out to play. It was lead by top scout & regular Guest FC: Green Gambit, as I would only be able to make it later due to taking part in a Space hangout with Ali Aras – a fellow CSM delegate. The time I spent with the roam was really great fun, a couple of good fights were had with the Providence holders and their friends.
Anyway, Green sent me his write up of the whole thing, so here it is:
So we’re out on Ganked 72 discussing future roams when I mention the idea of shield-Amarr as a theme. Next thing that’s chosen as the theme for Ganked 74, and I’m guest FC…
Fleet forms up in the regular favourite of Rens, although we don’t see any of the usual docking games. Departing a minute or two past 20:00 the fleet makes best-speed to Irshah where we meet up with the flashies in fleet. Now at full-numbers the 130-strong fleet heads one-jump out into Asabona when we’re informed of a small BC fleet, one jump back in Gomati. We run back to find that they’ve left local, and we have no clue which way they went. We turn around again and head into Curse.
Entry into Curse is quiet so we start heading along the pipe to VOL-MI. Forward scouts call a small gate-camp in CL-85V, so the fleet burns to try and catch something only for the scout to report the camp fleeing, as soon as we start hitting K-Q. Fortunately a Cynabal lands on the CL-85V gate in K-Q at the same time of the fleet, is forced to jump and dies in CL-85. We move on through Curse looping around through XX9 finding people in local, but space quiet. We arrive in H-A and as we’re warping towards the S-E gate, a gang on a gate in EQX is spotted, again the fleet makes haste over, but again the gang flees to station before we arrive. We turn around and head back towards VOL-MI cutting through Scalding Pass. Local009 spots another small gang in VOL-MI heading into ARG. We wait in R-3 hoping to catch them as they come through – however they must have scouted us as they flee, leaving us just with a solitary Stabber to kill.
We get intel on a relatively large Cruiser+BC gang in Providence, so head out of empty Curse and cut through Catch into Providence. Our scouts find them in T-RPFU setup at zero on the gate. This being Ganked, we jump in and open fire. We have slightly more numbers, but they have more BCs whereas we’re mostly cruisers. Add to them a dozen Scythes and they clearly have the upper-hand, but it’s a nice little brawl and we cut through most of the Scythes and net 28 kills overall.
Having finished his CSM business, Mangala joined us for round two, and the fleet reformed in Rens. We set off again around 22:45 heading back towards Providence but skirting through a little low-sec first. The fleet kills a random punisher on a gate in low-sec only to discover from the killmail it’s worth 92m ISK! But aside from occasional ships on gates this part of low-sec is quiet, so we soon find ourselves back in Providence.
We wander around Providence mostly missing small things on gates until local009 calls a small gang with Harby and Drake on the D61 gate in Y-MP. We send forward a couple more ceptors to tackle, and the two BCs are pointed. Fleet jumps in and kills both, along with 6 other ships from the gang. This seems to have turned around our luck as we then snag a few things on gates including a Raptor that thinks he can escape by burning away at 3km/s. However our tackle has him locked down and eventually he dies along with his pod. Unusually though Providence is quiet of ratter and miners.
We head further around Providence and venture into VKI then H-G. It’s quiet so we turn around to start moving round towards LF-2. There’s a little confusion about the location of fleet and scouts, and we’re told about a medium-sized gang – just as we jump into it in 3GX. Finding them set up, and ourselves outnumbered, we burn back to the gate and jump back into VKI – we lose a few ships, but most of the fleet make it back. The scouts still in 3GX inform the Provi-defence fleet, that we’ll stand and fight but only if they jump into us.
After a small delay they oblige and local spikes. A rupture is the first thing to decloak and dies almost instantly. We’re shooting other targets when Mang points out their Basilisks have decloaked right in the middle of us, so we switch targets. It takes us a minute to grind through the reps but they both die. We’re now starting to fall fast, but manage to pick-off a couple more ships before we’re done. Another decent fight, whelp two over and time for bed!
I’d like to thank.
- Local009 for scouting and stepping up to target-call when needed.
- Major Floor for scouting and bringing some links along
- Cal Abungu for entertainment on comms
- The provi-block for bringing two decent fights
As with the past 40+ roams, Somer.Blink sponsored some prizes for the roam and the winners are:
- Navy Slicer: Major Floor, Akori Mitsumoto, Phantom OfKrankor, mikeshaw91 inkura, Dazmaz, Joe Appleby, Ragnar Alestorm, Kitty Baugh
- Navy Omen: Cal Abunga, Oh’so Scrumptious
- Navy Harbinger: Local009, Trinneth
- Navy Apocalypse: sens1