A limited edition Victor was lost April 23 in a skirmish in Black Rise between five pilots. The rare Guardian Angel force recon, awarded as BPCs in the 2017 Alliance Tournament, was the fourth such ship lost, and the second one by the same pilot.
At 18:24 UTC in Akidagi, Black Rise, kingtuttut Badasaz of L A Z E R H A W K S <HAWKS> appeared in system with his Victor. He was located and tackled by a small gang of Russians, including Lorenzo Medice, who said that the four aggressing pilots were all on a roam together when one of them was suddenly attacked and killed by kingtuttut. Lorenzo and his friends initially thought little of the engagement, as Victor is a common name in Russia – they assumed that Vilis’ killer was named ‘Victor’. Lorenzo said that once they saw the killmail, however, they “got excited,” but getting to the AT ship wasn’t going to be easy, as kingtuttut was doing some fishing of his own.
“He (kingtuttut) put a Slasher on the FW beacon,” Lorenzo explained, and when Vilis showed up he tackled it with the Slasher and decloaked the Victor for the kill. “It’s a very effective bait tactic in faction warfare,” he explained, but once you’ve done it, it’s really easy to counter. So after a quick reship and a bit of hunting, Lorenzo and friends laid a trap of their own.
Casting the Bait
“We started flying through neighboring systems looking for the Victor. When we found him, our comrade Alex Uda took position in a Myrmidon in a combat site. Five minutes after the Myrmidon was in place, the Slasher appeared on grid. At that moment, we realized that the fish had taken the bait. As soon as the Victor came out of cloak, I warped to Alex Uda in a Garmur. When I arrived on grid, I grabbed the Victor.”
Lorenzo said that the combination of him tackling an AT ship, the stresses of combat, and the fact that the AT pilot now knew what was going on gave him a massive adrenaline rush. “My hands were shaking,” he said. After realizing his fate was nearly sealed, kingtuttut made one last ditch effort, putting all his EWAR on Lorenzo to kill the Garmur and break the tackle. Despite bringing Lorenzo to 11% structure, kingtuttut was quickly overwhelmed. “Only after our Loki grabbed him with two webs was I able to fly out of range,” Lorenzo said.
When asked about the Victor killmail, Lorenzo said he felt euphoric. “To be honest, we expected that there would be officer modules in the wreck, but we were not at all upset not to find them there. All the same, this is an AT ship!”
What’s A Victor?
The Victor is an Alliance Tournament ship awarded to the top four teams in Alliance Tournament XV in the form of blueprint copies. There can only ever be 50 such ships without further seeding by CCP. Now that number is down to 46. The ship itself boasts significantly boosted stats compared to the Celestis hull it’s based on, most notably its ability to mount a Covert Ops with no CPU requirement, 110% bonus Medium Hybrid Turret damage, 20% bonus to Stasis Webifier optimal range, and a 10% bonus to Stasis Webifier effectiveness. Combined with its 7.5% bonus to Armor Repairer effectiveness, this ship could pack a punch and take one too while keeping its target from going anywhere.
