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Nephtys wrote:Victory!
Battle: Redshire Sunday, November 11, 2012 3:18:11 PM
Vehicle: M103
Experience received: 1,903
Credits received: 82,140
Battle Achievements: Confederate, Mastery Badge: "Ace Tanker"

Farewell M103. I'm finally moving on to T110E5. But a 7100 damage game is a pretty good send-off.

God loves the M103. And then when you move up to the T110E5, you realize that the T110E5 is God .

I'm doubting to get the better V-2-54IS engine for the IS-1. It costs about 24k exp and I find that a big number for an engine, especially when I'd save 77k exp to get the IS-3 and get the engine upgrade for free.

It really does improve mobility pretty drastically. The IS is a brawler, and having good mobility (for a heavy) can really help it, I think.

Probably not worth it from a sheer grinding speed consideration, but it is pretty darn fun.

Victory!
Battle: Fisherman's Bay 12 November 2012 18:28:36
Vehicle: Black Prince
Experience received: 2,502 (x2 for the first victory each day)
Credits received: 29,878
Battle Achievements: Steel Wall

Well, I'm liking the Prince. It's basically an armoured Tiger armed with the 75/L100. That match was quite fun; myself and a Churchill I were holding off 6 enemy tanks in the town, me just sitting there and hammering them as they played peekboo and the Churchill peeking and fuctioning as ablative armour for me. I asked the Churchill to flank them as there were obviously being stupid and not flanking *us* in this grid-format city. He, not unreasonably pointed out that that would let them swarm me. I was pretty sure they weren't bright enough to do that, but our team's BDR decided to flank them instead.

The end result of this rare display of teamwork: Us three scored the top 3 of the team and captured the base. I bagged 3, the BDR picked off two of the damaged ones when he flanked and the Churchill somehow killed a T25 AT.

Job's a good one.

Be nice to have more battles like that, really.

wautd wrote:I'm doubting to get the better V-2-54IS engine for the IS-1. It costs about 24k exp and I find that a big number for an engine, especially when I'd save 77k exp to get the IS-3 and get the engine upgrade for free.

Buy it. The point of the game is to enjoy it. Not endure a grind.

The point of the game is to make money for the company because the grind is too long. I'm trying to get my T34 and my M40/43 and it's taking a LONG time...

Hawkwings wrote:The point of the game is to make money for the company because the grind is too long. I'm trying to get my T34 and my M40/43 and it's taking a LONG time...

You have to ask yourself "why do I want this tank?"

If the answer is anything but "it has a particular gameplay style that I enjoy", you're probably doing it wrong.

I discovered that I don't enjoy tank destroyers or artillery, so I'm not playing with them. I do enjoy the high risk/reward of the French light tree though, so I'm playing those fairly intensively and it's paying off, my average reward per match is going up (I feel hard done by if I'm not top 5 at least), my win rate is holding above 50%, and I'm generally feeling like I'm getting a bit better at playing those tanks.

There's no reward for getting to the end of every tech tree, it's more rewarding to learn to play a few styles really well and be able to win more consistently.

Indeed. Most tanks I buy are ones that I would enjoy.

I generally pre-play tanks on the test server to make sure I would enjoy them, particularly premium tanks since I couldn't afford selling a premium tank.

Could someone expound on the playstyle differences between Soviet and American mediums? I've played both, but I'm having trouble differentiating.

Soviet Mediums from Tier 6 and onwards are fast, sorta maneuverable, have decent frontal armor and powerful, but highly inaccurate and relatively slow firing guns. Average view range.
American Mediums from Tier 6 and onwards are middling-fast, maneuverable, have no armor except on the front of the turret, and have rapid fire guns with godlike gun depression and aiming speed. Best view ranges.

Basically, Soviet Mediums have better frontal armor and higher powered guns. Americans have soft stats, rate of fire and can use cover better.

Soviet mediums are also much more prone to ammo rack detonations.

What I suppose I meant to ask is more: how do those things translate into play style? With the T-34-85, for instance, I took to playing it like an American medium; the turret front is pretty tough and the long 85mm gun is quite accurate. I doubt that'll work later on, though.

Simon_Jester wrote:What I suppose I meant to ask is more: how do those things translate into play style? With the T-34-85, for instance, I took to playing it like an American medium; the turret front is pretty tough and the long 85mm gun is quite accurate. I doubt that'll work later on, though.

The T-34-85 and T-43 are a bit sluggish and don't really play with the Soviet medium tank style, but the T-34, the T-44, and the T-54 all have the true Soviet medium tank style: BALLS TO THE WALL. Use your speed to rush to a good spot where you can act as a passive scout, take enough time to determine the tactical situation, and when you see an opening to get in and flank enemy heavies while they are engaged with your own heavies, take it: pedal to the metal, and damn the torpedoes. Get right in there, circle those thickly armoured heavy tanks and high-tier TDs, and make them turn to try to track you, so that your own heavies will have beautiful shots at their vulnerable flanks and/or turret side armour.

The Vortex Empire wrote:Soviet mediums are also much more prone to ammo rack detonations.

That's what everyone says, but I have not found it to be the case in my experience. My T-44 was actually surprisingly durable, often lasting much longer than expected in heavy firefights while taking multiple shots, even to its flanks. My T-54 is even more so. I can't recall a lot of ammo-rackings.

Speaking of the T-54, I had a run of bad games when I first got it, but I just got it upgraded, and now that it's nicely equipped, I love love love this tank. In just my second game with the top gun installed, I got this:

Victory!
Battle: Erlenberg November-13-12 12:44:36 AM
Vehicle: T-54
Experience received: 4,100 (x2 for the first victory each day)
Credits received: 83,722
Battle Achievements: Mastery Badge: "Ace Tanker"

It's fast, it can take a lot of hits, and with the top gun installed, it has enough penetration and firing rate to be a serious threat to anyone on the battlefield. Also, while I save these for emergencies and rarely use them (actually, I haven't used them once yet), the HEAT shells have 350mm penetration, which is high enough to be a threat to even the most heavily armoured opponent.

The T-54 is pretty excellent. Both it and the T-62 have really good turret armor so if you can show only their turret they generate a lot of bounces. The guns aren't the best but they are good enough with the rest of the chassis.

T-54 doesn't have the best of guns. But T-62 does, with the highest DPM in the whole game and effectively total penetration of all but the most heavily armored surfaces. While having the best on the move accuracy too!

I don't think that a really excellent gun would necessarily suit the T-54 playing style; it has an adequate gun, which means that you can't expect to slug it out with people; you have to rush them and use your maneuverability. If it had a truly excellent gun, it would be like gold shell dependency: people would be tempted to simply sit still and slug it out with enemies, which is really not the T-54's job on the battlefield.

I tried the T-62A on the test server, and it actually seemed rather sluggish compared to the T-54. I suppose it would need a rather good gun (relative to its tier) in order to be as effective. The T-54 feels like a sports car.

Zinegata wrote:God loves the M103. And then when you move up to the T110E5, you realize that the T110E5 is God .

I've seen the light. The T110E5 is the greatest tank in the history of fake napkin warfare.

It drives like a mid-speed Medium. Bounces everything the world can throw at it. Just ran up, took down an IS-3 that bounced 4 shells off me. Then drove around, took out a T95 by absorbing one hit, circling and permatracking it. Then went and trolled the hell out of an E-75 head on.

It's everything the M103 was, and more. Amazing.

I just got a Victroy!

Map: Karelia

18,134 credits
895 XP

Five kills: Pz38nA, StugIII, ARL 44, Churchill I, KV-1.

Damage done: 1,286

Best battle I've had yet

Had a real fun battle on my Jumbo today, started with me and a KV-Sport sidiling on up one flank on our lonesome, makign short work of the enemy TDs lurkign in ambush.

It was Himmelsdorf, so we were able to cut along the buildings on the enemies side of the park, taking out another good four tanks before rolling on up the centre road towards his base.

As usual the rest of the team were idiots, and a good chunk of the enemy team were starting to cap our base, and everyone was ignoring them and still pushing forwards, so I spun around and drove right across the park, the Jumbo can be reasonably quick ina straight line! Problem was, waiting behind our lines was an enemy KV Sport who tracked me, we traded shots while my tracks came up... only for my other track to be knocked out by one of the TDs capturing our base. Naturally I swung around and blew him the hell up, tracks finally go up, I drive on, shooting out both tracks of the enemy Sport on the way by.

Manage to take out the entire enemy force capping our base when it was almost in the 90s range, letting the rest of my team finally cap the enemy base and win us the match, it was a good game.

Victory!
Battle: Himmelsdorf 13 November 2012 18:14:52
Vehicle: M4A3E2
Experience received: 2,252 (x2 for the first victory each day)
Credits received: 22,323
Battle Achievements: Steel Wall, Top Gun, Sniper, Defender, Master Gunner

I'm highly tempted to abandon my current Lee tank and just restart over, perhaps as a German TD or Russian Heavy..........

Push through it! The Lee honestly isn't that bad if you think of it as a very maneuverable TD, and the M4 sherman is so worth it.

Lee is awesome, but I didn't enjoy the M4 or M4A3E2 much.

Stick it out with the Lee, dude. It sucks, but the M4 family is so, sooooo worth it.

Now if only I could get motivated about rebuying and grinding the AMX 40

Oh, and did the vets day special. got 2 new garage slots, a barracks expansion, and the Premium Churchill. (and I live that thing.) what are some suggested modules for it?

DrMckay wrote:Stick it out with the Lee, dude. It sucks, but the M4 family is so, sooooo worth it.

Now if only I could get motivated about rebuying and grinding the AMX 40

Oh, and did the vets day special. got 2 new garage slots, a barracks expansion, and the Premium Churchill. (and I live that thing.) what are some suggested modules for it?

Vents, Rammer, Gun Laying Drive. Standard configuration for heavies without available vertical stabilizers.