A silent behemoth was grazing in the ratting fields of Immensea. It lumbered slowly from field to field, its great size deterring small predators from disturbing its meals. The stars sparkled passively, setting the mood for a quiet evening of relaxation and consumption for the Erebus’ pilot.
Unknown to the Erebus, a large pack of Bomber’s Bar hunters were sweeping through the area. They were already in high spirits after several large kills of the newly rebalanced Rorqual Industrial Capital Ship. Lead hunter Lexa Griffin was speedily traversing ahead of the pack. The lack of defensive fleets being formed in response to their presence and the seeming ignorance of intel channels were fueling her desire for more prey to kill. Without realizing what she was about to encounter, she jumped right into the ratting Titan’s domain. Her eyes flitted around quickly, detecting nothing on her directional scanner. She launched her Combat Probes, revealing her predatory intentions to any prey paying close attention. She found and warped swiftly to the first hit on her scan. Although it was a valuable Faction Battleship and worthy of her attention, she redeployed her probes around system, seeking more prey too slow or inattentive to escape her view. She landed on grid just a moment too slow to catch her quarry before it warped off. However, with a small amount of shock, she saw the results of her second scan. A mighty Erebus, sitting in space. It appeared to not have noticed her presence in local or her probes on scan. Lexa quickly relayed her findings to the rest of the hunters and began to assess that her target was indeed vulnerable to attack.
Bomber’s Bar reacted with alacrity, though with some disbelief at the massive find. They even teased Lexa about calling out improbable targets. Nevertheless, they quickly poured out of their hidden wormhole hiding spot and began readying their jump drives and bridges for action. 41 pilots in Stealth Bombers, Force Recons and Black Ops Battleships gathered together, waiting for the signal to leap out into the darkness and pounce on their epic prey.
Lexa warped in cautiously, hoping not to land on a Citadel or a POS and be destroyed. As she came out of her warp tunnel, her eyes registered an unbelievable sight. A Titan, sitting contentedly at a ratting site, having just finished grazing with its doomsday weapon. She decloaked, lit her microwarpdrive, and burned into tackle range. As soon as she came into range, she killed her momentum and lit her covert cynosural beacon. Calling out to her fellow hunters to lock on and come through, she hoped desperately that they would be able to hold their prey down long enough to kill it.
Titans are very difficult to catch without specialized equipment. If the pilot has max skills, a Titan has an innate warp core strength of 50. Typically, only a dedicated Heavy Interdiction Cruiser or an Interdiction Destroyer has any hope of pinning one down.
Bomber’s Bar jumped and bridged through without delay. They immediately locked onto the mighty Erebus and activated all the warp disruptors and scramblers they had. In addition, a very thoughtful and proactive pilot, Flora Vida, rammed the Titan to knock it out of alignment. Mobile warp disruptor bubbles were dropped and began anchoring. They would be just enough to hold the Titan if it could be kept inside them long enough to be killed.
The Erebus pilot began paying attention to his massive vessel’s plight. He attempted to drop multiple Mobile Depots in order to refit into a more effective defense, and also to fit his own cynosural beacon. This desperate effort failed, as Bomber’s Bar FCs Cowkiller and Lexa called the depots out and had them destroyed before they could be onlined.
The long fight began in earnest. Bomber’s Bar standard doctrine called for their bombers to equip and use Focused Void Bombs to attack their prey’s capacitor and shut off their tank. (They were unaware that the Erebus was fit almost entirely without tank). The bombers carefully balanced moving into position to launch their bombs and then moving back into range to reestablish their warp disruptors and scramblers. All ships carefully overheated their weapons in bursts to speed up the destruction. The hunters were extremely concerned about incoming reinforcements. The Titan’s alliance staging was within capital jump range, and nothing was stopping him from calling for help as his ship slowly succumbed to the torpedoes, Void Bombs and various other weapons being fired at it. However, help never came. The Erebus pilot chose not to call for aid and appeared to simply accept his grisly fate. Everyone watched as the mighty Titan’s shields collapsed, its armor shattered and finally its hull sheared apart, culminating in a bright turquoise explosion.
The Hunters cheered and exulted in their victory. They had worked long and hard to find such prey and finally their efforts had paid off. This was the first time they killed a target of this size. Now all that was left to do was to collect the loot and marvel over their new trophy:
Click for Killmail
A few matters of note.
This Titan was the first to fall to a NPSI (Not in fleet, shoot it) doctrine fleet without support from another corp or alliance. (Obviously excluding special event kills). It was also of the smallest fleets in terms of ship class or mass to have killed a Titan that did not engage it’s self destruct. 32 stealth bombers and 9 Force Recon/T3 cruisers were all that made the fateful jump into Immensea. No Black Ops Battleships were involved beyond bridging the fleet.
Another notable aspect of this fleet was that several of the pilots had never even seen, much less engaged a powerful ship like the Erebus. Bomber’s Bar allows pilots from all levels of experience to participate in their operations. From the 10+ year veteran, to the 3 month old pilot who can barely online all of his stealth bombers modules, all are welcome to try their hand at one of the ultimate hunting experiences in Eve Online.
For your viewing pleasure, we include this video made by one of the capsuleers on field with Bomber’s Bar. It includes several other kills from the evening.
