The Ishkur!

Much has been said about Assault Frigates. For the most part, they are considered as ships which are not up to their design idea. And perhaps it is true, for the amount of ISK spent on one of these little guys, a cruiser might be able to do the job better.

But EVE is about fun...right?

I am a big fan of cruisers, loving my Thorax and Vexors. However, I had been thinking about giving out the Ishkur a try. Sure it is expensive, and a well flown/fit cruiser can probably kill it. But on the other hand, I love the hull, and I am always looking for new fun ships to fly.

With this in mind, I bought one, fitted it out, and headed out into the unknown. The first half an hour or so was slow, not finding much of anything I went on my usual jump in, warp to scan point, scan, warp to gate, jump cycle. When I arrived at a gate in Dastryns, a neutral thorax that was killing the rats warped away towards a station or a planet. I didn't know why, as I couln't have held the onslought from the gate guns. But deciding on taking my chances that he might be at the planet, I warped to 0m.
Lady luck was on my side and I landed on top of him. Locked, webbed, pointed and my guns firing I began orbiting him. Soon he deploed his vespa ECM drones and I dispatched them quickly to keep him from getting away. He barely touched my shields, only getting me to about 80% before he went pop. He also declined my generous 20m offer for his pod (hehe). I was willing to come down lower if he had asked for it, but as he told me go to hell, I resumed my firing.

Having looted and waited out the timer, I continued on my search for a fight. After a few more jumps, I jumped into Ouletta and had an ishkur and a Merlin on scan at a belt. I knew they werent together as I had followed the ishkur from the previous system. As I put my own ship into warp, I began to wonder on my chances vs this other Ishkur. After all, the pilot was a year old. This was my first time piloting an ishkur and my assault ships skill was only at level 2, but no guts no glory right!?
I landed just in time to see the merlin go pop 20 km from me, and the ishkur sitting there. I belined towards him, released drones, and he did the same...the duel was on! Unsure on what the best course of action was, I figure half or more of his damage is from his drones, and went after his Hobgoblin II's with my own drones while my guns and NOS worked on him. After killing a couple, I saw I would be winning and sent my own drones back after him. By the time he worked through my armor, his Ishkur went up in glorious fireworks! Disaster almost struck as I finished looting, a vaga warped in on my location and I warped away.

Came out of that with great T2 modules. Looking it over I saw that his undoing were the low slots, as we had basically same high/med slots. He fitted an overdrive II, DC II, and Energized Reactive Membrane II, as opposed to my Small armor repper II, DC II, and explosive plate.

Then disaster struck. As any pvp pilot will tell you, engaging in pvp and coming out the victor, specially in close fights such as the one vs the ishkur, has a tendency to get the adrenaline pumping. This has in effect for me a sort of a blood thirst...or ISK thirst in our case :)
Just before heading a course for home a few jumps away, I spoted a celestis cruiser in a belt. Without thinking it twice, I dumped my modules in a station and warped to his location.
As I engaged, he seemed to be withought a worried. Had not fire on me, and he had not released any drones to engage me. Just then, a scimitar cruiser warped on top of me, later joined by an arbitrator cruiser. The celestis simply warped away thanks to his warp core stabilizer (later I would find out that the arbitrator and scimitar were NOT working with the celestis). I tried to make a run for it, and just as I got out of range of the disruptor, I canceled the warp to wait for my drones... "Bad bad move" you say, "Ship>drones" you say, and you are right! I had forgotten that by canceling my warp, my ship would be stopped completely. By the time I realized this grave mistake, I was back into disruptor range and without any shields or armor to be able to make it back out. And so Puerco was destroyed!! You were not with us for long, but you WILL be missed!!

Licking my wounds, I went back to the station and picked up the loot I had dropped off (thankfully) and headed back to my HQ in a rookie ship.
In its first (and only) outting, my "Puerco" (spanish for pig) Ishkur frigate had netter me 2 kills, including another AF.
People talk about AFs not being up to snuff, and I agree that they should be buffed, but at least I have fount another ship that I can use for some fun...

After all, isn't that why we are playing?