[Jester's Trek] Fit of the Week: HAM Sandwich Legion
Fit of the Week: HAM Sandwich Legion
I give you this fit in the hopes that someone out there will find a use for it (or already has). Rote Kapelle was flying these regularly for about two months then a couple of new FCs came in and wanted to take the meta in a different direction and we never flew them again.
And yet, I love the concept and think it has a lot of promise in the right application. Let's start with the fit, then I'll tell its story:
[Legion, HAM Sandwich]
Federation Navy 1600mm Reinforced Steel Plates
Imperial Navy Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane
Imperial Navy Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane
Damage Control II
Caldari Navy Ballistic Control System
Caldari Navy Ballistic Control System
Experimental 10MN Microwarpdrive I
Fleeting Propulsion Inhibitor I
Warp Disruptor II
Heavy Assault Missile Launcher II, Caldari Navy Inferno Heavy Assault Missile
Heavy Assault Missile Launcher II, Caldari Navy Inferno Heavy Assault Missile
Heavy Assault Missile Launcher II, Caldari Navy Inferno Heavy Assault Missile
Heavy Assault Missile Launcher II, Caldari Navy Inferno Heavy Assault Missile
Heavy Assault Missile Launcher II, Caldari Navy Inferno Heavy Assault Missile
True Sansha Medium Energy Neutralizer
True Sansha Medium Energy Neutralizer
Medium Trimark Armor Pump II
Medium Trimark Armor Pump II
Medium Trimark Armor Pump II
Legion Propulsion - Chassis Optimization
Legion Offensive - Assault Optimization
Legion Electronics - Energy Parasitic Complex
Legion Defensive - Adaptive Augmenter
Legion Engineering - Capacitor Regeneration Matrix
The fit itself happened completely by accident. During one of the Syndicate Competitive League matches, the Reputation Cartel team being captained by Bob Shaftoes had to go through a grueling set of matches where they had to fight again and again and again, seemingly all afternoon, one match after another. And in the process of those matches, they started with a lot of standard comps and fittings, but eventually had to field so many comps and so many ships that they had to improvise a lot of ships to take specific roles.
And in one of their improvisations, they needed neuts but also DPS, so they threw both onto a single Legion: a pair of neuts supplemented by an otherwise full set of HAM launchers. The fit they used was really rather horrible. And I can't even remember if they won the match (I believe they did). But the concept...
...oh yes, I could see a lot of interesting possibilities in the concept.
For the longest time, my two favorite ships to fly were the Hurricane and Tempest, both of which featured dual neuts. But 2013 treated both ships pretty poorly, and I think I was all primed to love another dual neut attack boat. At the time, Rote was already running close-range brawling AHAC gangs pretty regularly and this struck me as a really fun addition to such a fleet. AHAC DPS plus utility neuts on a super-tanky, fairly mobile platform? Yes please!
So I took the Reputation Cartel fit and tweaked and modified and tweaked and modified, through several iterations, ending up with the fit above. It has lots of fun advantages! Let's start with the tank: it's twice as tough as the Zealots and Deimoses that were the cornerstone of the Rote brawling fleets. 115k EHP before fleet bonuses or armor links, with an average resist in the mid 80s. Paired with a Damnation, EHP rises to 150k with average resists in the high 80s. If you have the ISK, you can get another 10k or so by trading out the faction EANMs for A-type ANPs. So the ship is incredibly tough, incredibly suited to close range brawling and close range tackle.
DPS is about average for the AHAC fleets that this ship was paired with, a little over 400 base which can be increased routinely to about 475 by overheating half the missile launchers at a time. That's very respectable DPS particularly since it's tunable to whatever type of damage you want to fire, and you can swap out for Javelin missiles and get a 30km range. Even the base 20km range is quite good for a brawling ship, again superior to the Zealots that it would be flying with.
Speed is also quite good, at 1400-1450m/s, which is about equal to Zealots. The secret to the speed is the little-known Federation Navy plate, which greatly reduces the normal mass penalty of a 1600mm plate on a cruiser-size ship. Many of my attack T3s use this plate for that reason. If speed is not as important to you, it has the same fitting requirements as a T2 plate (which will increase the ship's sizeable tank still further).
This particular fit has standard MWD, point, and web, but you can (and should!) seriously consider a low-end deadspace MWD to reduce the cap penalty inflicted by MWDs and faction point and web to increase the ship's tackle range. A good faction web, in particular, is definitely worth seriously considering.
But the heart of the fit is two medium neuts that with the Legion bonuses are sucking away 540 cap every 12 seconds. For comparison, that is nearly the equivalent of two heavy neuts on a battleship platform. It's sufficient to drain pretty much any cruiser- or battle cruiser-sized ship of its cap in 30-40 seconds and in small groups is a credible threat to capital ship cap... while it's also doing very respectable DPS and can't be blapped off the field by a dread the way an Armageddon might be.
So yeah, hopefully you can understand my fascination with the concept. During those two months, I rapidly racked up more than a hundred kills in this boat with no losses. The thing looks very unassuming -- I mean, who cares about a Legion, right? -- as it sucks your life away while simultaneously plugging heavy assault missiles right into your resistance hole... if it's not making a new resistance hole more to its liking. ;-) And the best part? It's dead simple to fly: go right at 'em!
But as I said, a couple of new FCs came into Rote, pooh-pooh'ed the close range brawling AHAC meta, and ordered everyone into a longer-range skirmish AHAC meta. I haven't flown my "HAM Sandwich" in months.(1)
But now, maybe someone out there will get some fun out of it. Neut someone into the ground for me!
All Fits of the Week are intended as general guidelines only. You may not have the skills needed for this exact fit. If you do not, feel free to adjust the fit to suit to meet your skills, including using meta 3 guns and "best named" defenses and e-war. Ships can also be adjusted to use faction or dead-space modules depending on the budget of the pilot flying it. Each FOTW is intended as a general guide to introduce you to concepts that will help you fit and to fly that particular type of ship more aggressively and well.
(1) HAMs in the middle, sandwiched between the dual neuts.
Source: Fit of the Week: HAM Sandwich Legion