The art of baiting

I just spent over an hour trying to get into a fight that we would have a good chance of winning due to more/better ships. That is, I've been baiting.

And we suck at it :(

It started with (as so many times before) us not finding any activity in our chain, and going plexing in our home system. We got into a few Tengus and was just about to start when we saw a covops on scan.

We assumed that it had come from Gloria, our static C2. After quickly switched into a dictor and a interceptor we warped to the C2 hole in hope of catching it on its way out - not that you ever manage to catch a cloaky, but hey! you could always try!

We camped the WH for a few minutes until someone questioned if it had come from our static at all, maybe we had a new incoming WH? The dictor I was flying had probes so, 10 seconds later we knew that we indeed had a new sig, and another minute later I was in warp to it.

It was a C5.

I jumped in with the dictor, had a look (nothing on grid, nothing on scan) waited a few minutes for something to warp to the hole or the scout to get back. Nothing happened.

I jump back home, switch into a cloaky and go back to the C5 to check it out a bit more thorough. It happens to have a POS on one of the moons around planet 5, so I warp to my usual distance (more then 10, less then 100 km) to the planet to find it.

This corp (that I could have checked by just checking to POCOs) apparently thought that a dictor, a interceptor and a cane warping around wildly trying to catch a one of their scouts in the system next door was not in any way a reason to not do your PI, because at the POCO 60km in front of my cloaky Tengu there is a Badger parked.

So because I'm such a nice guy, I tell my buddies that they can kill an badger if they only warp to zero on the POCO at planet five.

Which they do, ofc. What happened to the dictor guys? two BCs to kill a Badger, and still not getting the pod...

A few minutes later, when I found the POS and could report that the ships we had seen on scan was indeed, piloted. Dominix, Dominix, Drake, Manticore.

Directly after the badger got killed, they switch into two Tengus, that's promising! I decide to see if we could get a fight with this guys, so I ask them to ship up to some RR-Tengus also. I log on my alt to get some sweet Vulture boosts.

While I'm hanging at the POS keeping eyes, three more of our guys log in. Talaq takes over for me as eyes at the POS (cloaky Tengu). Djavo keeps eyes on the Natalie (our home system) WH in the C5 (cloaky Proteus) and Sephie adds another RR-Tengu to the mix. I switch out my cloaky Tengu to a dps one.

We try and stay away from scan as much as possible by hanging at a deepsafe in Natalie. Our gank-fleet now consists of three RR-Tengus a HAM-Tengu and a Vulture. Sweet.

We wait a bit to see what they do. Maybe they want to send something to the WH to have a look? Camp it a bit maybe? Maybe they want to close it? Or maybe they still have that scout in Natalie and have seen all our ships knowing exactly what we got.

Nothing happens. We decide to send the guys that killed the Badger back to shoot the POCO some. They do. Nothing happens.

Nothing except they are loggin on more and more pilots, a Chimera comes onto d-scan. And then a cloaky Proteus. They move around some. They warp the Proteus to 80km from the WH and cloak up, but do nothing.

After a while, it's apparent they either have eyes on us, or simply don't want to fight. We call it and withdraw back home.

Maybe close, but definitely no cigar.