In august the Black Rebel Rifter Club was between campaigns and to fill the void it was declared Scythe & Bellicose month. Points would be awarded for killing things in said ships and at the end of the month (the 27th) we’d have a grand big fight to finish up in style. The rules were as follows;

The rules are simple.

If you haven’t already got it …… train Minmatar Cruiser level II

Buy as many Bellicose and Scythe hulls as you like.

Fit them. (use your imagination – the wackier the better) Lolmails will not be frowned upon.

Go out and get kills in them. Sitting in a busy low-sec system’s belt at 0 is a big help. Fleets encouraged.

Points make prizes.

50 points for a kill whilst piloting a Scythe.

25 points for a kill whilst piloting a Bellicose.

The Month

Now both the Bellicose and the Scythe are not a really common sight in PvP, but the Scythe is really really rare, I mean if a combat veteran like Azual has apparently never even seen one in PvP at all, it must be rare! The Bellicose can actually be fitted to be a respectable frigate killer, slam 180mm auto cannons on and add two stasis webifiers and overconfident frigate pilots will quickly be reduced to a great balls of flaming debris.

I made two fits at the beginning month now the Bellicose was fitted pretty much as described above, in addition to 180’s I fitted a medium neut a roflket launcher and put a 800mm buffer armour tank in the lows, it worked fine. Most notable ship I fought in it was a E-UNI Vengeance which went into deep armour before he even scraped my tank but then despite asking for a 1vs1 himself, EVE’s most famous blob descended on me anyway. So much for ever trusting a unista ever again, I am confident the Vengeance would have died otherwise however.

Now for the Scythe I decided to go with a bait setup, I put 180’s in the top but put a multi-spectral ECM in the free slot and stuck an EC-300 drone in the bay, sadly I still don’t know if it works because nobody took the bait. I got two kills in it in the end if I recall correctly, but not very notable ones (I caught an uncloaked defenceless probably afk prober….). But at least one BRRC pilot, Kooba Kaundur, had quite some success with the Scythe at what from the killmails looks to be baiting and killing can flippers.

The Bash

Eventually the 27th came around and I had to decide what to bring to the corp shoot out, a Scythe and risk dying early but potentially gathering lots of points for the total at the end, or a Bellicose and try to win the actual final slug fest? I went for the latter option.

Now fitting for an arena situation is a bit different from fitting for normal PvP, you don’t need points (nobody is going to warp out as it disqualifies you) and in a setup like the one we had you know exactly what ships you’ll be facing.

In normal PVP I’ve been increasingly frustrated by the current lowsec frigate fotm which is kite, kite and kite some more, if you like flying slow brawling ships like me, that is really annoying. So for this I decided I’d do just that but with cruiser I was going to make a kiting Bellicose. Just to be extra annoying an ECM fitted one at that, here is what I ended up bringing;

[Bellicose, Kiting Faggotry Bellicose]

Damage Control II

Nanofiber Internal Structure II

Nanofiber Internal Structure II

ECM – Phase Inverter II

ECM – Phase Inverter II

ECM – Phase Inverter II

Y-T8 Overcharged Hydrocarbon I Microwarpdrive

720mm Gallium I Cannon, Republic Fleet Depleted Uranium M

720mm Gallium I Cannon, Republic Fleet Depleted Uranium M

720mm Gallium I Cannon, Republic Fleet Depleted Uranium M

Rocket Launcher II, Caldari Navy Gremlin Rocket

Rocket Launcher II, Caldari Navy Gremlin Rocket

Medium Ancillary Current Router I

Medium Ancillary Current Router I

Medium Ionic Field Projector I

Hobgoblin SD-300 x4

Hornet EC-300 x4

Arty’s for hitting out real far (I had RF Nuclear & RF Fusion in the hold it could hit up to +/-60km) and mwd+dual nano’s for the kiting, ECM’s for general jamming and dealing with anybody getting close, some rocket launchers thrown in for getting rid of pesky drones.

At the beginning of the fight we were all told to wrap to a neutral ‘beacon alt’ at a range and from a direction of choice. Because I didn’t want to end up with another Bellicose on top of me I warped in at 100 from an unlikely direction, with the desired result.

There were a couple of guys balled up on each other near the warp in alt and three of us including me sitting at range, I was 68 km from the nearest target, Lhorenzho in another Bellicose.

Now the first thing that happened is that the guys in the middle all pounced on Miura Bull and he died in seconds, poor MB, but I guess being considered that much of a threat is a compliment in its own right. Regardless, I loaded nuclear and put some damage on Lhorenzho at range just for the sake of it. Then went about jamming people I thought could kill me later, so they’d die first and not the people that I thought I could handle.

I became instantly unpopular at this point, the first comment on Ventrilo after the start of the fight being; “ECM, really?”

At some point some meanie send hobgoblins out to get me, but the rocket launchers did what they were meant to do quite effectively.

The Real Hero

As the fight progressed people died and all the Scythe’s went down except for one, Dong Orson in his Scythe was standing up to and tanking two Bellicose’s not to mention putting good damage on one of them… Now obviously one of the Belli’s was getting some of my ECM love but still, that is pretty damned impressive.

After getting rid of the other two remaining Belli’s it was just me and a Scythe that couldn’t get close to me, but was comfortably tanking my damage for some time still. By now we had figured out he was running dual reppers with a booster and his fate was sealed. I just waited for the boosters to run out while kiting it and keeping it jammed and killed it when the boosters ran out. I actually felt semi bad about myself doing it. I may have won the bash but Dong was the real hero of the fight. He has incidentally also promised to pod me for this if either of us ever leave the corp, can’t say I blame him 😀

So what was the fit on that Scythe? Behold!

[Scythe, Dong Orson’s Scythe]

Damage Control II

Medium Armor Repairer II

Medium Armor Repairer II

Y-S8 Hydrocarbon I Afterburners

J5b Phased Prototype Warp Scrambler I

Medium Electrochemical Capacitor Booster I

Dual Light Pulse Laser II,Scorch S

Dual Light Pulse Laser II,Scorch S

Dual Light Pulse Laser II,Scorch S

Small ‘Knave’ I Energy Drain

Rocket Launcher II,Caldari Navy Phalanx Rocket

Medium Ancillary Current Router I

Medium Auxiliary Nano Pump I

Medium Nanobot Accelerator I

Dong revealed after the fight he had a hold full off cap booster 800’s to go with that and in case you’re thinking to yourself does that really work? Have a look at the killmail and take note of; ‘Total Damage Taken: 35,293’. So yeah, that really works!

After the fight we took the remaining Scythe’s & Bellicose’s from our docking bays and attempted to explode a Hulk in hi-sec with them, sadly despite fleet warping the cruisers landed a bit apart and the Hulk survived in deep structure :'(

The Final Tally

I may have won the final battle but despite being absent for the bash due to real life obligations Kooba Kaundur had tallied up enough kills in a Scythe over the course of the month to be the Winner. So massive congratulations to Kooba for pulling that off. Second place was taken by yours truly and Dong & Lao tied for third. The prizes? ISK in all three cases but Kooba and moi are now the proud owners of a Scythe Fleet Issue…

Also special thanks to Miura Bull for making all of this happen and providing the prizes.