Like the proverbial butterfly’s wings causing a hurricane, a recon pilot noticing something strange leads to the death of one of New Eden’s most rare ships.

Brave went from a brief sighting to a killmail with an enormous amount of hard work.

Here is the after action report of Roartak, Brave Collective’s Military Director:

The first thing to know is that a Revenant is a faction supercarrier that costs roughly 100 billion ISK, before fittings. This is equivalent to the cost of your average titan. Normal supercarriers cost a fourth of what the Revenant goes for. At current PLEX prices, the ship with fittings would cost roughly $2,500 USD, if you wanted to just buy enough PLEX to afford the ship.

The story starts with a solid bit of intel from Jim Rheic. He reported seeing a medium citadel anchoring in OGY-6D. Recon bros were asked to check it out, and Kinera Anurin volunteered to do so. After logging the vulnerability timer for the citadel, he did a sweep of the rest of the constellation as there were a couple of alliances that had recently begun flipping the systems there. THIS IS WHY RECON IS SO GOOD.

One system over, in 8-SNUD, Kinera spotted a Revenant on D-scan

One system over, in 8-SNUD, Kinera spotted a Revenant on D-scan. This threw a huge red flag – what the hell was a Rev doing down here? Unfortunately, he didn’t have probes. Ada Kilndown started burning over immediately with probes. They deduced that the Revenant had cloaked up somewhere in system. This was problematic. Technically, it could stay cloaked until downtime and we wouldn’t be able to find him.

Eventually, the Rev leaves system. Because recon is awesome, they figured out that it had cyno’d into V-L and made haste to get over there. However, there was nobody in system. A locator agent showed he was still in V-LEKM, so he must have safe logged. Again, because recon is awesome, they find the wreck of the cyno ship and also made an educated guess that the Rev immediately safelogged on jumping into system, instead of warping to a safe, as is usually customary when moving the biggest of Big Atrons. This also led to the realization that the Revenant did not have enough capacitor to jump out of system immediately (it requires more than 70% full capacitor to do this). This took a while and some brainpower to determine, but ended up being 100% correct. Figuring this out was eventually key in catching the ship.

The spot is bookmarked and Kinera bugs a couple of people to help him camp it. In total he had been following this ship for more than four hours. Kinera hands the cloaky campfire over to John LiWang, Brotter Otichoda and GoldLeader and logs off, as it’s past 4 AM for him.

The three amigos camp the logout spot for another hour and a half in cloaked ships. During this time I set up a POS in V-L and bring in an SMA to fill with ‘dictors on the recommendation of ex-Brave recon director Cornak Firefist. Brotter and GoldLeader have to go, I had to go eat dinner. Mikal Werrengard volunteers to come out in a cloaky Flycatcher and joins John on the campsite. Clay Robertson also joins them during this time. For another two hours it’s just the three of them.

I log back in and see a message from Cagali that INFAMOUS has invited us to bash a POS that has a titan logged off in it. Very kind of them. But now it’s a choice; do we abandon the Rev camp and possibly let it get away and potentially go kill the titan which needs to either escape quickly or be forced to stay logged off until the INFAMOUS replacement POS dies. Mikal courageously volunteers to stay behind by himself while we quickly form bombers to bash the POS with INFAMOUS. If the Revenant had logged in during this period, we might have lost it.

That didn’t happen fortunately, though we did not get any titan kills either. We scoot back into I1Y and Dunk Dinkle volunteers to help me stock the POS in V-L with the remainder of our ‘dictor cache. I head back to hang with Mikal on my main while Dunk and I coordinate the POS stocking. Dunk offers his Lif to carry the ‘dictors over to V-L.

I made a pretty critical mistake here because I am a newbie and I still don’t know how to do things correctly in this crazy game. Apparently the cool thing to do is to initiate self-destruct on your ship, which takes two minutes to occur. 15 seconds before you blow up, you’re supposed to light the cyno, which means there is only a very narrow window in which other people can warp to the cyno. I did not do this, and just lit the cyno without self destructing my ship at first. Derp derp derp.

Our caps are put on standby and the other Fight Club alliances are informed

Dunk cynos in and aligns to the POS with his Lif when the CYNO CHAR FOR THE REV LOGS IN. OH SHIT. Our caps are put on standby and the other Fight Club alliances are informed of this development. Incredibly, the cyno char actually warps to my cyno at 100 while Dunk is still aligning to the POS. Dunk makes it in and stuffs the ‘dictors in the SMA. The cyno char left system, so I convo’d him on an alt. Sneaky Dunk suggests that we act scared that he was so close to the Lif, to boost his confidence.

[ 2016.05.26 05:58:21 ] shieff > ?

[ 2016.05.26 05:58:41 ] Icario Aytalt > thanks for not shooting fax

[ 2016.05.26 05:58:42 ] Icario Aytalt > that was scary

[ 2016.05.26 05:59:00 ] shieff > If I had a point it would have died tbh

[ 2016.05.26 05:59:11 ] shieff > but alas, I was only move fit

[ 2016.05.26 05:59:31 ] shieff > so you did get very lucky

[ 2016.05.26 05:59:42 ] Icario Aytalt > haha

[ 2016.05.26 05:59:49 ] Icario Aytalt > spooky

[ 2016.05.26 05:59:57 ] Icario Aytalt > we do not have many lifs

[ 2016.05.26 05:59:59 ] Icario Aytalt > we like that one

SPOILER ALERT: WE HAVE SO MANY LIFS

Anyways, I am about to move my alt’s pod back to I1Y when the REV LOGS IN AND LANDS RIGHT ON TOP OF MIKAL AND ME IN OUR CLOAKY DIC AND HIC. ohshitohshitohshitohshitohshitohshitohshit

Mikal grabs the first bubble on him. Revenant tackled. Mikal warps away, which is the proper thing to do since you want to keep your ‘dictors alive as long as possible. I throw up my HIC bubble on him. My hands are shaking so hard I can hardly hold the mouse. In one of those “you’re in a nightmare moving in slow motion” moments, I frantically type across all channels that I’m in that the Rev is tackled. Fight club is informed. Clay puts out the alliance ragepings and people pile into the fleet. Clay begins burning a cyno over quickly to bridge bombers in. Eventually, the Rev kills me and I warp to our POS to avoid being smartbombed and grab a ‘dictor. But I’m dumb and forgot that my main is not in the POS corp, and therefore cannot access the stash of ‘dictors! Fuck me. Mikal warps back in to throw up more hero bubbles, but he eventually goes down too. ohshitohshitohshitohshitohshitohshitohshit. We lost tackle on the Rev. Fuck, we might have lost this one.

We are yelling at everyone in Brave and other fight club alliances to burn ‘dictors over ASAP. The fleet is growing by the second and I can hear Norman, Dunk and Clay working out the cyno, as well as organizing and undocking the fleet. They did an absolutely fantastic job. Lucky that my POS character was just one jump out, and we start launching ‘dictors from the POS as the Brave fleet is bridged into system. I put my main back on the log out point where the Rev was just a minute ago, but there’s nothing on grid. The first few Brave start to land in the POS and in on my pod. The Rev was still in system, but not on scan anywhere. We realize he cloaked, and the Brave dudes start starbursting. It was a tense 30 seconds, when all of a sudden – REV ON GRID. FUCK. FUCK FUCK FUCK. WE NEED TO TACKLE HIM.

Then n0rman’s voice cuts through the silence as clear as anything I’ve ever heard. “BUBBLE!” YES! More ‘dictors land on grid, and we spam dozens of bubbles on him.

This Rev is fucking tackled for good now.

Image by Wiros PotHead Image by Wiros PotHead

Fight Club goes into crazy mode. We let them know the Rev is hard tackled. Rote Kapelle rageforms their caps and starts throwing dictors our way. Squirrels arrive on scene within 60 seconds and bring more dictors. Infamous had people not too far away, and they too arrive on grid shortly. The grid is filled with Brave bombers flinging torpedoes at the Revenant.

We form our own caps, and Turkey Sandvich gets the cyno in position for us to bridge in. He does so and we see Rote Kapelle already has caps on grid, as well. The grid is filled with bubbles in every direction. We realize that this guy is fucking dead.

As the Revenant explodes, so does comms. We are going so crazy. Everyone, both Brave and all the other Fight Club groups, was over the moon at this. GFs and congratulations are exchanged over local. All the groups, as is polite to do, let each other evacuate their forces and caps untouched.

This was a super that Brave scouted, that Brave hunted, that Brave camped for eight hours straight

We did it. This was a super that Brave scouted, that Brave hunted, that Brave camped for eight hours straight. This was OUR kill. To their credit, the Fight Club alliances were majorly on point and did not hesitate to assist us when we requested it. They rage pinged just as hard as we did, they dropped everything they had in as short a period of time as possible. But WE were the ones that made it happen. SO PROUD OF EVERYONE.

Biggest props go to Kinera Anurin. He wasn’t on for the kill, but he did everything to set it up. He was proactive and intelligently deduced what the Rev was doing, and where he was in system. Without his efforts, we wouldn’t have had this opportunity in the first place. It was a big play, and it led to Brave’s first real super kill in a long time. MVP status, for sure.

Talking more with Roartak, the details of how Kinera tracked down the cyno wreck are more impressive:

Kinera found the wreck by warping back and forth between two celestials over and over, dropping bookmarks and narrowing the distance each time. It was insane.

Kinera D-scanned the wreck in line from a gate with another celestial. So he just did repeated warps back and forth until he finally got on grid with it.

That was some pro level hunting.

Here’s the view of events from Mikal Werrengard

I’ll throw in my experience here (Mikal Werrengard). I saw the ping from Kinera for HICs/DICs around 9:30 EST. I had finished training into ‘dictors and HICtors just the week before, but still had to purchase or sit in one. I looked around and found a fit Flycatcher in ED- (thanks Bryce!). At this point I still wasn’t sure what was going on but I piped up in Slack at 10:20 EST that I had a ‘dictor ready. Finally at 11 I get dragged into Bravo Command and start making my way to V-LEKM where I meet up with John LiWang and Roartak. I believe Roartak drops the POS tac for me as I warp to him. I proceed to cloak up on that spot and wait. And wait. Roartak logs for a bit.

A couple of hours later everyone decides to go help Infamous bash a POS in hopes of baiting out a Levi. I sit and wait. All by myself. Luckily, I had found a superior sleeper cache on an alt and was working it on another computer while keeping one eye on local. Levi was a bust so I get company again in V-L. Comms were fun the whole time. We did research on every single pilot that came through system, fearing that they were all spais.

We thought we were goners at this point

1:50 AM EST and Dunk is in system with Roartak getting a ‘dictor cache into POS; cyno alt logs in; comms erupt! We thought we were goners at this point. Who would log in a super when they have just observed three in local, one of them an Apostle! Cyno alt exchanges words with Dunk and then leaves system?! Heading to his next cyno spot we assume. No way is that super logging in now. Nope. Just after 2 AM EST the super logs in and I observe it on short scan!!! Comms really go wild now! I begin to uncloak and the Revenant comes out of his login warp less than 4k from me! He cloaks up. I drop a bubble. Either that or me moving towards him decloaks him. I drop my other two bubbles and begin to warp to POS. Roartak is landing at this time I think and pointing him? The super starts smartbombing to clear the bubbles. Sitting in POS waiting on reload while hearing Roartak slowly going down was nerve wracking! I warped back in just as my reload finished and drop at least one more bubble before fighters kick my teeth in. Back in I1Y- I grab a bomber and warp to Dunk’s BLOPs. All bombers warp to his log-in spot and proceed to decloak him for the second time. Final tackle is established!!! I somehow got on the killmail. Just under 3 hours sitting in a cloaked HICtor – worth it.

My view of the events has a slightly different perspective. To prepare for the return of the supercarrier, Roartak placed a POS in system to stage interdictors. Against the power of a supercarrier, heavy interdictors won’t last long, so the idea is to tackle the Rev until the rest of the Querious Cavalry can arrive. To do this, many fitted interdictors would be needed.

I jumped into a Lif and Roartak handed me fitted Sabres from the alliance stash. A cyno was burned into system and I got ready to jump in. Due to miscommunication, we didn’t arrange the typical self-destruct timer, with the cyno lighting 5-10 seconds before the ship blew to remove the cyno from the overview. Being in a Lif, there was no real way for me to blow up the cyno ship. We hoped for the best.

The Revenant’s cyno pilot appeared in system in an interceptor and warped 100km off the cyno, appearing on grid with us. We thought the game was over at this point. Worse, I assumed the interceptor was going to tackle my Lif and I was going to lose it. After a stressful few seconds, my force auxiliary entered warp and headed for the POS.

The interceptor pilot said “damn, if only I were better prepared” in local, which we took to mean that he thought we got lucky that he couldn’t tackle and kill me. Roartak convoed him and helped play along with the idea that we were doing a routine logistics run.

We had no idea if he had bought our story

At the time, we had no idea if he had bought our story or whether he was onto the trap we were setting.

We got word from Infamous FCs that there was another possible large target in Querious. While maintaining a watch in V-LEKM, Clay Robertson formed a fleet of bombers to black ops bridge in support of Infamous. It soon became clear that the hunt had turned into a POS bash alongside Infamous and after a bit, the bomber fleet blopsed back home to I1Y-IU to resume the usual activities.

And so we waited and waited. I was tired and mentioned that I was getting ready for sleep since these kind of watches can go on for days. Four of us sat in command comms, wondering if the Revenant pilot had seen our trap forming.

Amazingly, the Revenant pilot logged in. Roartak is describing it in comms and I can’t believe it’s happening. The initial tackle by MIkal in a ‘dictor and then Roartak in a heavy interdictor occurs and he screams for more tackle. The Revenant tries to fight its way out, but was low on capacitor and couldn’t jump immediately

The Fight Club FCs are told we have a Revenant tackled and Affirmative, Infamous, and Rote Kapelle jump into action to head in. It’s chaos. Trying to get info out, warp-ins, and joining people to fleet. We aren’t the practiced REKKINGCREW who’s done this before.

Clay and I hop into standing fleet comms and scream to get into the ‘SOMETHING BIG’ fleet in bombers ASAP. We had realized we only had a covert cyno ship next door to V-LEKM. I had a Panther waiting on our home Fortizar and once the covert cyno is lit, begin bridging bombers in and Clay sends his Sin.

The Revenant kills enough to get untackled and cloaks as the bombers arrive. Roartak directs the bombers to orbit to uncloak as the first interdictors arrive and start bubbling. We still don’t know if we are going to be able to hold this thing.

Turkey Sandvich2 is burning a cyno ship to V-LEKM desperately to get our capitals in. Lesson learned. Have cyno ships staged as well as interdictors.

I’m bridging more bombers in time after time when Roartak announces the Rev got decloaked and is in a bubble. The Rev starts fighting again, going after our Sabres. Good piloting by n0rman and others lays down nice coverage of bubbles and we dare to hope for a kill.

Turkey arrives and lights a cyno. 4.20ly Mining Range, Turkey’s corp, has carriers ready, fitted to go anti-fighter on the supercarrier and they jump. My second force auxiliary pilot jumps as well in support. I dock my Panther, switch to a Lif, and jump in soon after.

Rote Kapelle’s dreads arrive on scene just about the same time and drop into Siege. 420’s anti-fighters are out and locking down the Firbolgs on field.

Comms are a cacophony of shouts and nervousness.

Amazingly, the Revenant melts in less than 2 minutes. I grab a screenshot a second before it blew up.

Even now, days later, I can’t believe that we did this. Well worth the hours of prep and the lack of sleep at work the next day.