Hounds Of Love

"Among your hounds of love,
And feel your arms surrounding me.
I've always been a coward,
I never know what's good for me."
                                                                -- (Hounds Of Love, Kate Bush)


        The whole ordeal began with the loss of another Dramiel, bringing me to 3 or 4 totalled lifetime if I'm not mistaken. It's still one of my favourite ships to fly and whilst people cry out it's overpowered and all that, I can't help but let it fall on deaf ears in light of the other forms of power within Eve. I fly frigates and I'll be damned if I'm going to be berated for using the best available to me. (I honestly think the Slicer is better anyway so...)


        Anyway, after the loss myself and corpmate Etuura Zellis decided to head out in more modest ships to try and dust off the tears we both held back (check battle reports for full details). Comms, to my recollection, went something akin to...


Etuura - 'I'm thinking Rifters?'
Kishin - 'Good. I'm already in one.' 


As I do with all my fleets, though unbeknownst to my wingmen, I dubbed us the Hounds Of Love for this roam. Partially due to the fact that I was listening to Kate Bush at the time and secondly because this was an old school wolf pack. We were on the same page and we were going to do our best to wreak some havoc in our little wolf pack, that much was certain. Amamake was set as our destination and off we went. All was initially quiet, we spotted the people who had killed us earlier still set with the same trap in Vitrauze and this time we were smart enough to leave them be. It wasn't until we hit Mannar that things got fun. 


        I've always been a little bit of a Fleet Commander at heart, even if I opt for some unorthodox and (to be kind to myself) 'optimistic' plans and this whole roam was no different. As we jumped into Mannar a Slicer spotted us and proceeded to circle us. I gave the call to hold at the gate, wait for him to agress and work together to catch his orbit with the second Rifter. Etuura was deemed primary and I worked to out-manoeuvre the opponent. I latched a scram for a moment, overheating my web to try and keep him down. He pulled from under the scram's grasp with a last ditch attempt and broke free, though my web held firm. One pulse of an overheated afterburner cycle later and he was snagged just in time as Etuura's armour was buckling. 1-0 to the Hounds Of Love. 


        Things weren't over for our merry crew, he came at us again in a rather suspect Vengeance; 2-0 to the HoL. He even tried to bait us in with a small gun Augoror Navy Issue, but with 5 corp mates waiting on the other side of out gate we thought better against and moved on. 


        Next we hit Oyonata where a Hookbill engaged us at a planet. Overheating everything at point blank range, I sought to extend the life of my tank as best as possible and we managed to claim the kill, though at the cost of my Rifter simultaneously. Etuura held the field and bugged out as a Vengeance charged in. 3-0 HoL.  I flew right out into the heart of Molden Heath to fit up a new Rifter to keep this good thing going. The Hounds Of Love had more hearts to break! All fitted up we reconvened in Vard. 


        For some reason people seemed to have vendettas against our merry gang, with another fellow trying to take us on twice in a row, first dying horribly as a huge gang watched. The second time he clearly fitted null ammo and Etuura walked a dangerous line, unfortunately going down to a gutless move on one of the ships who had watched our previous fight. I refused to leave the field until the Enyo was dead, spewing venom in my bullets as we both cut deep in structure. 30% left and the red lights are flashing, the Harbinger is in scram range, firing it's full rack of lasers at me and the Enyo keeps repping slivers of armour... Finish! The Harbinger sicked his drones on the Enyo and snagged on the kill in another gutless move... I was happy to survive and keep the HoL on the winning side. I burned out from under the Harbi's grasp and warped out, once more losing out on the loot we could have had. 5-0 to the Hounds Of Love in those two engagements! Etuura refit (I love the Amamake market) and we moved on. 


        We got a little celebrity sunshine as number 1 PvPer lukka was in Amamake local talking to the other inhabitants, though after checking his Battleclinic record I can't say I felt all that honoured to be killing his corp mates. After some warping games we engaged a Hawk in top belt which didn't last all too long, though we didn't have time to rest as a Vagabond had been watching 400km away and decided to engage. He'd landed just off us and there was no way out, we either fought like wolves or died like dogs... And fought we did, managing to catch him with an overheated Scrambler.


        I frantically blurted into comms 'Get under his guns! Overheat the afterburners and target the hornets!' We went to work, dispatching his attempt to break free from our combined assortment of tackle. Suddenly, as he hit structure, a Taranis and Enyo gang landed 30km away. 'Overheat the guns!' Vagabond down. We turned to face them, I primaried the Taranis and called to overheat and just burn right through him. Unfortunately after being primaried by every target in the fight my Rifter couldn't hold any longer and I went down, taking the Taranis down simultaneously once more. Etuura leapt upon the Enyo and got right under his Railguns which lead to another victory for the HoL. He had to bug out as overwhelming odds came into the belt. This brings us to 8-0 for the Hounds Of Love, winning each of those engagements ultimately. 


        CEO Ka Jolo hopped on comms and decided to try his hand in a Rifter, joining up and becoming a member of the HoL, where we proceeded to take down a rather surprising opponent. We roamed for a bit longer, though our luck didn't hold so strong after our 9-0 win streak. Some mis-calculations of opponent force numbers lead to a few losses and we headed home to Hevrice. A couple of hours later this little hilarity happened and I could log off with a smile on my face.


        It was a great roam, one of the best I've had in a while. Not only the night before I'd had a great duo pilot roam with fellow corpie (and one of the coolest guys in New Eden) Man Barthelme, so it was awesome to have the events of the Hounds Of Love to follow. I miss my Dramiel even now and have contemplated whether to stretch my funds out to grab another hull, yet I continually hark back to my roots and undock in a Rifter and manage some pretty amazing things. Who knows what will happen, those luxuries get pretty addictive don't they?


All the best fellow capsuleers, keep on plugging.