I have had a love hate relationship with the Incursus for the past three years. I have endured countless fellow pilots talking about how awesome they are, getting my ass handed to me when I run across a well-flown version and generally exploding whenever I try to fly one myself.
So my Incursus flying days have been on the shelf lately as I focus on other ships that don't get me kilt as often. But I'm never happy with sucking at something and the Incursus continued to mock me silently from the dark corner of my hanger. "You can't fly me properly, neaner neaner!" Stupid little frigate.
And so it was on Saturday when I had some time to play that the thought occurred to me, "Once more into the breach." And so I whipped out my trusty copy of Pyfa and started from scratch on a new Incursus fit. Which is more than likely the same one I'd flown before, or that countless other pilots have flown before. I'm not claiming to re-invent the wheel here, but sometimes it is worth scrapping everything everyone else is doing and just start building a fit from a clean slate.
I thought I'd tool around the neighborhood and see what kind of trouble I could get into. As it happens, as CEO of Stay Frosty, I had a bunch of people that would like to come with me. So we formed up a nice frigate based gang and headed out to meet our destiny. Or watch in horror as, once more, the CEO gets himself kilt in that damn frigate.
We had barely gotten ourselves organized when someone called point on a Hawk in Hevrice, and we made short work of him. Ok, I didn't explode, but seriously I added little of value to that kill. Not a huge dps machine this thing. Same story with the newbie Arbitrator we found next, I didn't even roll my guns on that one.
In Agoze the story was a tad different. A Vengeance, Incursus, Jaguar, Tristan and some other ships were about in system. The Vengeance and a few support ships were in a plex so we decided to make a go for them. The subsequent battle resolved into two phases, with many re-ships and warp outs in-between the two. It is, even now in hindsight, a bit of a mess. So I will admit to any mistakes in memory right up front. My apologies, but I was focused on killing ships, FC'ing, and not exploding.
The Vengeance was the obvious anchor for the boosted enemy gang. And his tank was tough, so tough that we could not break it the first time, despite having more than enough dps to do so. During the first phase the enemy lost an Incursus, a nuet Tristan, a Thrasher and a Kestrel. Nak lost his Hawk, sumlovin lost his Slicer, and we lost a Rifter and a Slasher. The enemy re-shipped and so did our pilots, leaving poor Rixx on the field engaged with the Vengeance and a newly arrived Jaguar.
The Jaguar wasn't with the Alpha Volley guys and we managed to remove him from the field. Meantime, my Incursus is tanking like a boss and strangely not dying! No one is more surprised than I am. MY guys are starting to return with new ships and Phase Two kicks into gear slowly around me.
They bring a Sentinel into the mix, but he doesn't last long. And Nak sacrifices his Dragoon to hold down the Vengeance until we can all get points on him. The Punisher manages to get away and this time, the Vengeance finally falls.
The Battle Report is a mess, it includes some things that had nothing to do with the fight for some reason. Here is yet another version of it.
Good fights all around.
And uh, my Incursus didn't explode. It came very, very close at several different points but I managed to OH, manage my flight paths and keep point even under extreme duress. I ended the second phase on fire, empty of cap charges, nanite paste and most of my ammo. Oh and I lost my drone at some point there. Thank goodness for Nak bringing me some re-supply during the brief lull in the middle.
Of course, the Incursus was never actually cursed. I just haven't had a lot of luck in the ship. But ten kills in a brief time tends to change things in your mind. I never had a lot of confidence in the little frigate, it isn't fast, it doesn't do great dps, it doesn't have enough cap in my opinion to be effective, and yet the combination of aggressive tanking and pilot skill seem to illuminate a place where it can shine. At least briefly.
The Incursus will now take its place in my regular rotation. And we'll leave the dark corner to the other ships that are hiding in there for their day of redemption.
Poor Punisher.