Moar plexes

Using my hauler alt to deliver some Slashers (the Vigils won't be ready till tomorrow), I prepared for another evening on the front lines. This time I took one of the newly un-crated slashers. I'm not sure because I haven't bothered to check my numbers, but it's entirely possible that the microwarp drive is worth more than the hull. Either way it's cheap and has many uses. A few more were apparent by the end of the evening. The nice thing about having my support skills in place is that I can perma-run the MWD.

So still getting my feet wet, so to speak, I decide to go do a defensive plex to start with. This turns out to be no problem, no one comes and disturbs me and once again a contested system becomes uncontested. I also get my first promotion. Then I spend a bit of time on a choke point seeing if I'll get lucky and tackle someone. Yep, solo tackleing in a slasher... Probably a good thing the Amarr aren't so active.

Deciding that this was fairly pointless, as a Zelot got away, I decide to x up and join a gang. We end up with a Thrasher, a Hugin, somethign else and myself in a Slasher. The FC would probably have prefered me in a Rifter (he did mention it) but as I stated, till I know who's who, it's cheap ships for me. The biggest problem I've got is my over view settings seem to be messed up. I don't see war targes in local... no red stars... This will prety much scratch me as a scout till I can figure out how to get those to show. Very annoying since one of the primary purposes of small frigates (apart from tackle) is scouting.

Again the Amarr are proving elusive. So we decide to go plexing in amarr space. Off we go and start doing plexes. Whereupon the question was asked: "Who can perma-run their MWDs"... "I can"... "You know how to speed tank?"... "Get agro and run away, right?". So you can guess what I spent my next hour and a half doing. At one point I managed to have about 7 battleships, assorted cruisers and some frigates shooting at me. This was the patern for the next few plexes. I would mostly speed tank with occational "sitting on the button". By the time I had to leave I'd been involved in the capture of 4 sites in amarr space.

By the end of the night the fleet had grown to about 10-12 or so pilots and we were concentrating on nailing as many plexes as possible. In amarr space just about totaly unmolested. Some observations:

1) I HAVE to get my overview/local problem sorted. Being unable to instantly tell when a WT is in local (while we still have local) is not only annoying - it's dangerous. I have no problems with on grid, but local is still there, I'd like to be able to use it.
2) A Slasher that can perma run it's MWD makes a nice tank for plexes - 2 frigates can take down any plex if they are unopposed. The lesson here is that a small gang should be all that's needed to chase off a plex running Amarr gang most of the time.
3) Might as well keep running plexes and occupying ground while the Amarr station hug.
4) Defensive plex running is worth more standing increase than offensive.
5) One of the minmatar pilots sounds like Duke Nukem.....

I think that my next 2 production runs (after the Vigils pop out) should consist of some scan launcher Probes (to help on the plex scan down) and some Thrashers. That should prety much be it for the inital ship reserve. Then it's goign to be a matter of expending some of these in PvP. If the Amarr will ever come out and play that is....