Tyen let us know he was going to be heavily shield tanking his Nightmare (obviously), so Noir. followed suit with a shield fleet composed of Caracals, Cerberuses, and Basilisks, with a few links and a Blackbird.
We rallied up 30 minutes ahead of time, at 23:00, in Nourvukaiken, a high security system one jump over. The total fleet, with the help of Sky Fighters, The Dark Space Initiative, and a few solo pilots, numbered about 40 or so, but Noir. represented the bulk of the fleet.
We had some scouts in Tama at the sun, which Tyen was going to warp in upon login, and so we knew there was a small fleet of assault frigates, interceptors, and a few assorted frigates already at the sun. We went ahead and came into Tama and warped to the sun at our optimal range as Tyen was coming in so we would arrive at roughly the same time.
We easily cleared the field of the smaller ships, but as news began to spread through local and various intel channels, more and more people began to arrive.
Tyen's Nightmare, accompanied by Kasai Hightower's Nightmare, held most of the attention, allowing us to continue to continue repairing Tyen's shields, our fleet's shields, and control the field fairly well. I was in a Caracal, personally, a fit I originally created for the "Save" Jita 2.0 campaign, which allowed us to dictate range fairly well with a high alpha. Unfortunately, since I travel all the time for work, I have to have a fairly light laptop. Currently, my work rig is a Lenovo Y410p. It's sturdy enough for most things, but the amount of people on the field was causing a ton of lag for me, even at low settings. If I were home, on my desktop, I don't think there would have been any issues, but on my laptop, by the time I started to notice damage and either broadcast for reps or warp out, I was dead.
Tyen would let us know in TS if he needed anyone specific taken out or if he was preparing to smart bomb, and we were controlling the overall flow of the fight pretty well for the first 45 minutes.
About 10 minutes in, SniggWaffe also showed up in a Caracal fleet. They managed to take out one of our guys right when they showed up, one in the middle, and two more right at the end. We kept close eyes on them, as they heavily outnumbered us. The range and damage of the Caracal ended up costing us almost half of our losses, which is why we tried to keep such a close watch on them.
Eventually, Pandemic Legion brought an Ishtar fleet, and their drones managed to take me out once (damn those things!). The damage of an Ishtar fleet is nothing to laugh at. Up until this point, our logistics had been able to hold reps on Tyen and our fleet with no real issues. We were able to stay out of range of the battleship fleet that Suddenly Spaceships brought in and we could burn anything smaller down pretty quickly. Unfortunately, Suddenly Spaceships also had a triage Archon on the field, and we weren't able to break the tank of enough battleships to keep control of the battle.
Coupled with PL's Ishtar fleet, we began to lose the edge in repair power, and one by one our logistics were forced off the field or destroyed. After this, it was basically a waiting game. By this time, our damage was too low to force any of the other major hitters off the field, of course, and so we waited to see when Tyen was going to go.
And go he did, along with 11 of our ships.
Overall, Tyen lasted 51 minutes, a little less than half of the allotted time given to kill him. Fun was had by all, and prizes were given to the lucky few. Noir. was paid for our 242 contract, and everyone involved kicked off Halloween with a bang, pardon the pun.
Thanks again to Tyen for the organization and implementation of a really fun event. On behalf of us here in Noir., we look forward to next year, no matter what side of the Nightmare we're on!
Edited to add the fact that SniggWaffe was in fact a part of the fight and was in fact on our minds and in our decisions in TS.
