Although not really a heist, (the only thing that came out of this event was dank frags, some loot, a killmail and some in game high fives and o7's) this is going to be a top level run down of one of our long games that we undertook a few years back which involved around 25/30 members of FUN INC.
No killmails will be linked to protect alts and to remove the likelihood of linking characters.
During the course of my time in EVE online, I have often taken the preferred role of scout / skirmisher. This means going ahead of a fleet and trying to find targets to kill. Over the course of many roams in an [undisclosed] region of nullsec, I would regularly come into contact with a player who had the penchant for dropping Carriers onto targtes.
Now these targets were varied - they could be a lone battleship, a blingy cruiser, or even a skirmishing interceptor. Now the trouble with this guys tactics is that he has a number of "eyes" set up at key locations, thus making his traversal of these systems very risk averse, and thus engaging soft targets with next to no likelihood that he will be beaten.
We had a number of plans:
Run a normal fleet into the HVT in conjunction with a corp blackops fleet, engage tackle on the HVT, and cyno in the BLOPS fleet onto an alt.
Run a pure BLOPS fleet with a bait BS and cyno.
We opted for option 2.
After a failed attempt a few months before, we let this one slide for a few months, eventually opting for a corporation event, where as many people would logon to take part. I believe we had about 30 people in fleet which for a corporation our size, we had a really great turn out.
The plan was as follows. Move a battleship through from losec to nullsec gate to gate, and deliberately get caught in a bubble (we knew that the HVT would see the battleship) moving between systems, and get the engagement on a certain gate where we had a cyno capable ship setup ready to cyno our BLOPS fleet in.
We had the plan so all formed up, and it went like clockwork.
We had a dictor cloaked in the next system, and our helios ready near to the target gate, and hopped the Battleship into the first nullsec system. Our battleship pilot then warped to one of two gates - both gates are on scan - so the HVT would see the battleship so knew that we would be going to the next system, so would meet us there with his heavy.
Now i should mention - the battleship we used, was a brick Dominix. Full bulkheads, all neuts, and grappler and scram. If - as we had planned - the Carrier would land at zero on his own cyno on our Battleship in a bubble, we would have it instantly tackled and would be able to engage freely.
Our battleship landed in the destination system - local was as it should be, four of the expected pilots - the hostile cyno ship and his heavy tacklers and dictor - harbinger and gnosis and myrmidon and sabre - which curiously could kill a dominix without the need for the carrier (Thanatos).
Our Dominix warped to the outgate as planned, calling the recon over comms, and advising what he could see on scan. As the outgate came on scan, the hostile bubble was up, and all the HVT tackle ships were present. We had found his trap. We just needed to spring his cyno and for him to bring his Thanatos in.
As our Dominix landed, the hostile rapier decloaked, lit the cyno and the Thanatos loaded grid, it was at this moment that I knew we had Him.
The Dominix immediately overheated his tackle and called for the fleet to come in. Our dictor in the next system, decloaked warped down to gate, jumped and overheated and burnt to our Domi and bubbled the Thanatos, whilst our Helios simultaneosuly decloaked , lit our friendly cyno and brought in the friendly fleet. 15 Stealth Bombers, and some force recon ships.
As the bombers and me loaded grid, I warped down my arazu and got an overheated ranged long point onto him - he wasnt going anywhere. We had him. The bombers warped down and locked the Thanatos up and we destroyed it in less than 2mins.
We lost the battleship in the process, but destroyed a 4BN isk Thanatos.
This was not just about the kill - this was about the planning. This was about the logistics, this was about understanding and detecting and predicting peoples movements. We had the intel, we had the knowledge, and we delivered.
No killmails have been linked to protect alts and to remove the likelihood of linking characters.
However please do see my reactions which i feel are worth more than killmails!
Massive kudos to @npsi.rocks for the setup on this one!