The Militia

Good morning. Not without it's drama, but then again, I wasn't in the FC channels so I'll leave other to comment.

On one side, an old corp mate and all round excellent pilot (and his corp) have joined the militia. This instantly gives me more pilots I'd be willing to fly expensive ships with (always a good thing). Getting into any long conversation with the guy may lead to depression and thoughts of suicide (by way of charging at the enemy) but he's good in a fight.

We started off the morning and initial I was in a Thrasher as per FC's request. That soon changed to a loaned Cheetah (one of my favorite ships in EvE). Not that I don't have my own rigged Cheetahs but they were far and the op was underway. I must discuss with the FC one day why I found 3 tech 2 expanded cargoholds in a Cheetah (this was soon rectified) but I digress.

I spend the rest of the morning scouting for plexes as we were mainly a (rather large) cruiser/frigate gang. As per the FCs design, we plexed madly, stedfastly ignoring any Amarr buildup in fleet concentration. When we heard they were running an un-restricted plex however, judging the timing right the FC ordered a burn to the system and an precipitous up-ship. The rapidity ouf our re-location and the swiftness of our strike were well rewarded with many dead Amarr ships for few losses. Once that plex was capped, it was back to our plex running.

This time we were dodging a re-concentrated Amarr fleet, but once again we simply ignored them and concentrated on plexing. Their un-willingness to downship to follow us into the plexes that were size capped is evident by the regular capping of plexes for little losses on our part. But then again, we're Minmatar. We're not there to play into their hands. It was practicaly a textbook example of "Raid and Fade". An excelent example to future FCs about how to run this type of operation, get plexes capped and ignore the enemy until it's time to strike. Then strike hard, strike fast and faid before counter operations can be moutned. Keeping mobile.

For most of it I was actualy plex scanning in my cov-ops, confirming systems without plexes and tracking down those that had them. I only switched to a combat ship for the strike, then right back to the cov-ops after the strike. I didn't get a lot of plex points this way but it did allow the militia to keep moving from system to system with something to do when we weren't attacking the enemy.

A note to vairous pilots that want to FC in the milita:

1. This is not 0.0, one does not "have" to hold any ground. This is much more like skirmish warfare mid sized fleets for the most part.
2. If things go wrong (and they will) do not make a prat of yourself and start recriminating the other pilots. They've been doing this for months and they can tell when you make a bad call.
   
3. It's usually a bad idea to insult existing matari FCs (especialy the ones that can get the pilots to x up).
4. Again, this is not 0.0, most of the pilots you are flying with are self-supported. What they've got is what they've got. You want them to fly specific ships they dont' have? YOU supply the ships.
5. After a few bad experiences with bad FCs it'll be a very rare competant matari pilot that will fly something expensive with an FC they have not flow with before, or one not backed by the other known FCs. Fly with us a bit as a normal pilot before trying to take over a fleet. If you're competant and we can see it, you'll get the pilots. If not, we'll be avoiding you like the plague and good luck getting anyone to form a fleet with you.

Having addressed this morning's drama, more general advice for anyone joining a Militia follows:

1. Do not call for people to help you out at gate x in system y in the general militia chat. Plenty of spies have done this in the past and it's lead to some juicy ambushes. If you keep it up we will simply asume you're a spy even if you aren't.
2. Do not give travel destinations on the militia chat. Ever. You idiot.
3. Do not say "I'm going plexing in system x" in militia chat. It's like painting a nice big "shoot me now" target on your ship.
4. You can report war target system presence. If you can see them, they can see you, so revealing your position with this intel is irrelevant. The enemy already knows and the militia pilots can use the intel. A simple x wt in is sufficient. If youv'e got eyes and after you get to know the pilots "it looks like Armada's cap pilots are undocking in - get ready for a hot drop somewhere" is more useful, but again experience will tell you. Stick with simple till you know the players.
5. Be careful replying to pilots who just joined your fleet who ask "where are you going" instead of "where should I go". The first are probably spies trying to see if they can setup an ambush, the later are actualy trying to join your fleet. As a corolary, do not ask a fleet you've just joined, where it's going, ask it where they want you.
   

Ah, EvE, don't you just love the paranoia.