I find that in an encounter, the tide can be turned easily (with a platoon) simply by filling in the gaps left by the pubbies, since Encounter has a rather focused objective: keep the enemy from capping. For example if you start out north on Prokhorovka and too many people take sniping position on the island you take your plat to go contest hill and spot base for them. I do agree that Mountain Pass is biased, and Assault is only fun if you're on defense.

http://i44.tinypic.com/3089jro.jpg

Notice something off?

A surprising amount of people got off-guard (even in Wotlabs, where they should be USED to wackiness like this), as getting to the extreme edge of the A line requires someone to push you up (at B2 for West spawn, and B0 for East spawn) to do so. I'm tempted to experiment, but the effort of the platoonmate pushing you up might be served better shoring up the front line.

already experimented it

http://wotreplays.com/site/363590#team

nice place if you are in med. manage to control mid while hard place to counter.

thought it seem only work in high tier since it's kinda take long to go there. if you do it in low tier. team probably die before you reach there

Well, status wise...

Got the AT 2 and T1 cleared; to my surprise, I had an easier time getting kills on those two compared to the T-34. Currently at 11 kills for my T-34.

Gonna havta try get an MC tomorrow so I can continue tanking lol. :p

It took four tries to clear the daily mission for my Hellcat. Predictably the win was a low-scoring effort, while the three losses were multikill attempts to carry teams that had some deficiency or other. I even got an Ace Tanker out of one of the losses.

Meanwhile, back in the B1:

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Started at the NE base, attempted to push across the northern road, noticed that our SE group had been obliterated, returned to base, defeated the first wave, teammate got killed while we were figuring out new positions, defeated second wave. Got lucky and eliminated the derp Alecto's gunner early, and the M2 Medium's shots bounced.

Come to think of it, the APCR-shooting situation with the Pz S35 is better than the B1's, since the S35 at least gets to beat up on tier 2 once in a while. The B1's tier 4 and 5 MM means that even a few tier 3s present penetration issues.

Wow UTE, you sure know how to use the B1.

BTW, for those who didn't know, the tanks for next weekend mission will be M4 - BDR - T49.

I have to credit MM for my luck with the B1, because being bottom-tier is basically a game of trying not to be noticed long enough to do something/survive/not get beaten on. When it gets top tier the only real issue is looking out for tanks with very strong guns.

Putting aside the issues of the horrible gun, the B1 is actually not that bad to drive, though.

Unlocking the BDR G1B for the mission (which has been completed) was the only reason that I went into this tree. The other two I already have.

I am perversely still using the B1 until I get the final radio unlocked, and then I don't see myself keeping it. It's on the masochistic side.

...though I'm still doing better with it than the JT88, which has contributed to the other large portion of my losses today.

Finally got Ace Tanker in my Object 268! It was quite a spectacular match.

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Link to replay.

Also, receiving over 1 million credits (upon completion of the weekend's mission) is quite an amusing sight.

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Looks like a nice place to go if you're in a medium with good depression... or an AMX 50B. :heh:

That looks like the screenshot of the loss I posted yesterday that was the mission to give the prizes for Earn Your Steel... we similarly got blown up without doing much. :D

So... I made it through the Char B1 in 36 hours. It's even got the top radio researched (because the G1B needs it). 33 missions, 20 wins, 12 losses, 1 draw; 58 kills, one Top Gun, that de Langlade's medal, decent performance ratings. MM started to f*** with me at the end by giving me a neverending string of Tier 5 games. And I never want to play that tank again.

I've found a Japanese heavy which is equal to KV-5. This will be interesting.....

The Japanese line will be interesting to see what they can put in. The Japanese Army was not all that well regarded when it comes to tanks after about 1942 from what I understand. They do have some stuff they finally started building by 1945, but most that I've seen aren't all that capable against later German and Russian tanks. Especially in the heavy tank department.

OH HELL YES.

After all that pain, finally got the event done.

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Now I gotta rush to work.

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Trying to get accustomed to the BDR G1B before the putative event next weekend. Since the gun is basically a copy of the short 88 with a low ROF, it's already annoying me a bit, though I definitely can't argue about its alpha potential versus tier 5.

I like the French puzzle-piece paint job because it's a significant change from the base color. I'd use the fake leaves print camo job, but that green bothers me.

Most of my national camouflage patterns have standardized; I still have some limited variation among my German vehicles, but the green/yellow dazzle pattern is starting to take over everything there.

Rule of thumb for me with regards to camo is that it has to be as far from the base color as possible. The only exemption to this is the clowncar camo pattern that UK vehicles use, because thats far too loud even for me.

My rule for camouflage: At least with summer, keep only one per permanent vehicle.

I generally agree with you about that.

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Somehow that scheme comes out louder than usual on the T1. Probably because of how big the sides are.

I used the pink LRRP-style pattern on the Cromwell.

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For every British tank after that, though, I decided to bask in the glow.

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The green/yellow dazzle pattern comes out really interestingly on the PzV/M10, since it has an American olive tone as a base coat instead of that depressing gray German color.

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For me, I prefer the brown and gray camo on my German tanks, though I might try dazzle later.

But usually for camo, I prefer to use more muted colors, mostly greens. *shrug*

I also bought a truly ridiculous amount of small repair kits - something like 500 of them - during the event. :heh: Ah well they were cheap, won't need to buy till next year. I've now got 3.7 million in the bank, so I can probably afford an EGLD for my KV-1, though I'm thinking of waiting for an equipment sale.

And my T-34 crew finally broke 100% on their first skills and are now starting their second set. Now running them as follows:

TC: Mentor, Recon.
Driver: Off-road, Clutch braking.
Loader: Repair, camo.
Radioman: Repair, Situational awareness.

Meanwhile, with this one week of premium, I guess I'll work on getting my M4 Sherman crew to 100% and change on their first skills, then drop their skills and swap to Brothers in Arms for all of them, then do Repair (TC), Clutch Braking (Driver), Snapshot (Gunner), Situational Awareness (Radioman), and Repair (Loader).

Third set will then be Recon (TC), Off-road (Driver), Repair (Gunner), Repair (Radioman) and Camo (Loader).

Edit: Damnit, that British dazzle pattern! Now I've got a hankering for Paddle Pop ice cream, lol.

Wild Goose: Generally you only get Brothers in Arms only AFTER you hit your third skill/perk, swapping it out for the second skill in question. Also its use can't be seen on low-tier tanks, and can only be felt when you get to tier 9 stuff, where even minute increases mean the difference between getting taken out, or doing it to the OTHER guy first.

For low-tier meds, increasing comfort (Off-Road, Clutch Breaking), view range, and survivability (6th Sense, full camo) are better choices.

BiA definitely matters more when there's not much else you can do to increase your rate of fire, and yes, will be more noticeable when it is taking off full seconds from reload time versus hundreths of seconds.

It also has a slight benefit to soft stats and things like repair and camouflage.

Still, starting out, it is a large training investment that doesn't show too obviously, and will gimp things like repair while it's being trained up.

Random mission note: Decided to squeeze in one more mission before turning in, chose the leFH18B2. Won the game. Actually had 6 of 6 direct hits... though two of those were direct-fire shots on a Churchill that got to our cap. (Nobody enjoys an artillery-caliber HEAT to the face.)

@Myssa & Endless:

That's true, and those are very good points made... we'd had a long discussion about this among Velocity members. Long and short of it was the opinion that BiA was greatly beneficial for the M4 Sherman since it shaved off about a second of reload time, so our derps would have a roughly 5 second or so reload, as opposed to 6.75 seconds. *shrug* The idea is to train skills to 100%, then drop them for the perk you want, which will be at 100% and instant activation, then train up that skill again.

Of course, for the T-34, it doesn't really matter if I take BiA, because it won't shave off enough seconds off the gun, which is why I went with skills for increasing view range, etc.... now wondering if perhaps I should have dropped Repair for Situational Awareness on my radioman, since the T-34 isn't really durable enough to rely on Repair...

Definitely going to get BiA for my KV-1S, however. It'll shave off at least another second from my fuckoff gun's reload. Still, hopefully if we get a 100mm, it'll be the 107mm on the IS, which hits hard, does decent damage and has acceptable reload. Currently trying to do the math for the KV-1, to decide if I want BiA or not; I set that crew as: Mentor for the TC, Clutch Braking for Driver, Repair for Loader, Snapshot for Gunner, and Recon for the Radioman. Once we hit 100%, I'll drop mentor for Repair and train up Recon for the TC.