World of Tanks

[Dave Fennessy]

I finally downloaded this about 2 months ago and it's currently my go to game. The word / insult noob is rife, so much so that you end up turning the chat box off. Despite that, this game is fun. At the lower levels it is every man for himself and leads to either elation or a feeling that resembles being kicked in a private place. My user name is 'Gapermaker' on EU servers as I thought it would strike fear into the enemy... hasn't quite worked. I play within the Tier 1-6 (out of 10) bracket as it seems to get very competitive after that and to be honest, I play games for a bit of fun rather than to change the world.

Load this up and have a blast, it's free so nothing to lose. You'll either get hooked or fed up with being shot to pieces every game. I'm still rubbish and still have tremendous fun, can't say that for many other games I've ever played.

[JamesLit]

I've played WoT for yonks and I'm still a bit pants. Sure, I've had some amazing victories, I've swung entire games, but you that happens when you've played for this long whether you're actually that good or not. Mostly I try and play in platoons with my buddies, we communicate with voice over TeamSpeak in real time so that's incredibly helpful. We often do Matilda platoons, Cromwell platoons, TOG platoons and such, as well as one of our favourites which is: American shock and awe/freedom: Hellcat; Russian stronk tenk: KV-2, and German efficiency: the Panzerkampfwagen IV Schmalturn or the Panzerkamfwagen V/M10 (the Panther in disguise!). That works pretty well too, but the times we all play the same tank are in my opinion the most fun. We can hold up entire battles, usually killing at least half the enemy team between us. We switch who's on point according to which player(s) have the least health, who's lost their engine or track(s), etc, and just march on and on and on. the TOG in particular is such a good tank to use here because it has excellent HP, a very good reload and fantastic alpha damage. The Matilda, for its tier, is similar although not quite to the TOG's extremity.

I've easily invested about £300 in this game with premium account and vehicles, gold, credits and such, but I really don't regret it. The new patches have only made it more and more fun and, while yes you have crappy games where you end up losing 15-0 or something ridiculous like that, you know your mood will instantly change when the odds are in your favour again...!

Let me share my current garage... I am focusing largely on German vehicles at this stage as I have always loved them. However, I am pursuing a few lines on other country's tech trees as well. Things are in tier order (which will hopefully be obvious anyway!).

German vehicles:
Marder II
Pz.Kpfw. III Ausf. A
T-15 (premium)
-
Marder 38T
Hetzer
Pz.Kpfw. III
-
T-25 (premium)
Pz.Kpfw. IV Ausf. H
VK 30.01 (H)
-
VK 30.01 (P)
Pz.Kpfw. IV Schmalturm (premium)
Dicker Max (premium)
-
E-25 (premium)
Panther/M10 (premium)
-
Jadgtiger 88mm (premium)


UK:
Cruiser Mk. II (with the derp gun, otherwise I'd not have it)
-
Matilda
Birch Gun
-
Cromwell
TOG II*


USA:
M2 Light
T18
-
M3 Stuart
M22 Locust
-
M8A1


USSR:
BT-2
-
BT-7
T-46
SU-76
-
T-28
SU-85B
-
SU-100Y (premium)


France:
FCM 36 Pak 40 (premium)


Vehicles planned to get:

Germany:
Marder 38T line
Pz.Sfl. IVc
Nashorn
Pz.Sfl. V
Rhm.-B. WT
WT auf Pz. IV
WT auf E 100

Hetzer line
StuG III G
Jg.Pz. V
Jadgpanther
Ferdinand
Jadgtiger

VK 30.01 (P) line
Tiper (P)
VK 45.02 A
Tiger I
Tiger II
E-75

VK 30.01 (H) line
VK 30.02 (M)
Panther
Panther II
E-50
E-50 Ausf. M

Pz. III line
PZ III/IV
VK 30.01 D
VK 30.02 D


UK:
Birch Gun line
Bishop
FV304


USA:
M8A1 line
T49
Hellcat
T25/2
T28 Prot.

M2 light line
M3 Stuart
M5 Stuart
Chaffee

T2 Medium line
M2 Medium
M3 Lee
T1 Heavy
M6
M4
M4A3E8


USSR:
SU-85B line
SU-85
SU-100
SU-152
ISU-152
Obj. 704


Yep, I've got a lot of work to do...

[Dave Fennessy]

Well that's a lot of tanks LOL. I only spend £8 a month on a premium account and have about 8 tanks active. I used to spend £9 a month on World of Warcraft so I'm up on the deal. I did recently join a clan but found my performance dropped, it think I was trying too hard to impress my platoon. I love the Hellcat but haven't quite mastered it. The KV-1 is my current beast but I don't think my play-style suits the heavies. I go back to the mid-tier German especially the PZKPFW III/IV and can spend hours in some tier 2s trying to raise my win rate.... 48% no great shakes. Even the mobile artillery guns are fun. I watch video after video on YouTube and it does nothing to improve my own hit and miss successes.

We should also mention that you don't have to spend any money whatsoever, it's just a slower grind to the next step-up.

[Stone75]

One important thing Dave is knowing your enemy. Stats might say 100mm armour on turret front but often they can have bad weak points. Some might have 100mm but only in a very small area. Check out the Wot Wiki for detailed pros and cons worth checking for your own armour and to learn how to take down the tough nuts.

steve

[Tankski]

I've been playing the game for two years now, and am one of the lucky ones to be named a "unicum" which means I'm top 0.1% of players on the EU cluster. The WoT Wiki can be useful, but take it with a pinch of salt (just like the in-game stats - they can be nefariously misleading). General rules of thumb are that you should aim for lower frontal plates of most German tanks (generally a weak spot - one or two tanks buck this trend, however). Another weak point on most tanks are the commander's cupola(s) as demonstrated in this armour scheme:

The green arrows up top are the cupolas, the LFP is the Lower Front Plate UFP is Upper Front Plate.

The mid-tiers (tiers 5, 6, 7) are generally known to be the most imbalanced of all the tiers in the game; the Tier 6 KV-1S and Hellcat are fairly strong enemies, even in the hands of someone who plays badly. It doesn't really fix itself until tiers 9 and 10, but with the recent Waffentrager line, balance is still thrown out to the wind - 5 round auto-loading tank destroyers that can shoot an apple at 500m reliably and kill any tank in 8 seconds isn't a nice thing.

Tanks can be a fun game, and it's improved in the two years I've played it. It could still be improved upon through re-working some game mechanics, though (namely artillery - who likes getting one-shot from the other side of the map whilst moving at full chat?).

[cjbarnes5294]

am one of the lucky ones to be named a "unicum"

A what?



You have to wonder what that name is supposed to mean, and why it was chosen to represent the elite.

Chris

[Tankski]

Unicorn - thing of myth

[cjbarnes5294]

Yes, but it looks like an abbreviation of unicorn and something else. However, the latin definition apparently means "a unique example of specimen", which I'm sure is what it's supposed to mean in context of Tanks.