It was a good weekend for tanks.
The match maker smiled upon me and my win/loss ratio tilted in favor of wins.
This was enhanced by a couple of matches where the generic loud-mouth on chat who died first and spent the rest of the time telling us how we were going to lose because we didn’t follow/support/obey them, ended up having to watch us win by using the very tactics they said would guarantee a loss.
That never gets old.
On the progress front, Potshot and I were able to carry on with our French heavy tank spree.
Potshot and I stalking…
Despite some comedy moments, the fully upgraded BDR G1B is turning out to be a formidable tank.
I bet the KV-1 can’t do this!
As Potshot noted, the 90mm gun makes a big difference. It does a lot of damage and will plow through most armor on which it can draw a bead. This has lead to some really good matches.
Not bad for a defeat
Part of it is people do not seem to expect much from the BDR. The “egg” is dismissed as an easy target. People get greedy trying to get a cheap kill.
I have had any number of opposing tanks sit in the open shooting at me, thinking they’ll do me in without injury once I come out of cover. I had one M4 driver rail at me for being a “wallet warrior” since I was clearly using premium ammo. I caught him broadside, where he was sitting and waiting for me, which knocked him down under 20% health and set him on fire. The fire, in turn, finished him off… something I always enjoy. However, no premium ammo was involved. That stuff is expensive and I am an avowed cheapskate.
And part of my cheapness this past weekend came from having dropped a lot of credits on a new vehicle. I am now officially in tier VII, having finally made it to the KV-3.
It looks like my T-150…
I literally missed the KV-3 being half price by one day. As I was getting close, I checked the price and it was ~700K credits. And then when I got that last bit of experience and trained for it, the price had jumped to ~1.4 million credits.
Ouch.
I had the credits… and I can always make more driving the Type 59… but the KV-3 is the most expensive tank I have purchased so far. And once I got it out in matches… well… it played a lot like my T-150.
No, really, it looks like a T-150
Well, a lot like the fully upgraded version of the T-150 at least. (The base T-150 played like the KV-1.)
And well it might. Since I was low on credits, I moved all the accessory equipment… camo net, binocular telescope, large gun rammer… over from the T-150. I stole the 107mm gun from my KV-2. That is the same gun I have on the T-150. All of which left those other two vehicles less than useful and makes me wonder whether I should hang on to them or not.
The T-150 plays better in general, but the KV-2 can be, as I said, comedy gold with the 152mm gun. Though, to be honest, I haven’t played the KV-2 at all since I got the T-150, and with the T-150 I was primarily focused on getting to the KV-3. And now I am focused on upgrading the KV-3, so I suspect that one or both of those tanks should probably be sold off, if only to save me the gold price of another garage slot.
The argument for keeping at least one of those two is that with 5 person crews, I couldn’t just transfer either group en masse to the KV-3. The T-150 crew already has the first skill/perk, band of brothers, which needs everybody in the crew to have it for it to be in effect.
Meanwhile, the heavier armor of the KV-3 seems to suit my “village idiot” play style. I managed to get the upgraded suspension and the heavier turret, making me even more heavily armored.
Looking less like the T-150 now
So when I wander out into the open and get myself killed, I now seem to survive long enough to take a few opponents with me.
Sailing the river Styx in good company
In the picture above, my wreck sits amongst my victims. I was sitting in the open, killing a TD when I noticed the Panther-M10 sitting behind me, shooting into my backside. I slowly brought the turret around and killed him in two shots. While that was going on, a Black Prince rammed me and then sat there shooting into my flank until I turned and killed him. I was immobile at that point, so turned and got off a hit on another foe before artillery finally did me in.
That’s a tough tank.
Now I have to work on getting to the bigger guns and the better engines. We shall see if the match maker remains kind to me and whether or not this tank really fits me. I am a bit apprehensive, if only because the next tank in the Soviet heavy KV tree is the KV-4, which has some mixed press. Heavy armor and an accurate top gun are good, but we’re definitely sailing deep into “slow and as big as a house” territory with this big boy.
Of course, the BDR G1B has mixed press as well, and I find it to be fun, so we shall see.
The Ancient Gaming Noob 
Wait till you get the 122 on the kv-3. The thing is a beast, and it sounds like it is tearing a hole in the space time continuum or something.
With the top engine the mobility is better too. Still pretty slow, but a lot faster than when it was a tier 6 before the split.
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I will be curious about your KV-4 opinion, though you have a long grind until you get there.
The KV-3 got a big boost after one of the upgrades. I started playing it and it was slow and ungainly, but with decent armor and a good gun. Suddenly, it was light on its feet and got better armor. I have loved mine ever since and still run it occasionally. I would say stick with it, it gets better.
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I have the free XP to skip the KV4 and I will be doing so. I’ve played enough matches with it on the Test Server to know it will drive me nuts to be stuck in it for that long. YMMW.
Congrats on the tier 7. I think that’s one of the most fun tiers in the game. Good enough firepower and HP that high tier matches aren’t as scary, and you get a lot of matches where you are able to pick on tier 5s.
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You mention your “village idiot” style of play, however, if your in a tank that does 20kph and gets there _very_ slowly, it is difficult to have any other play style, you should not be envious of an ELC darting about as there are ways to deal with them…
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First you report your quite believable joy at succeeding with tactics that a teammate thinks is bound to fail. Then later you describe your playstyle as “village idiot”.
This combination makes the post, really.
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@Toldain – Idiots passing in the night?
My particular brand of idiocy is to become fixated on a specific target and completely lose my sense of situational awareness. This generally leads to a final pre-destruction thought of “Wow, a lot of people are shooting at me.”
The other guy is just an example of your standard battleground know-it-all who blames the team for his own failings.
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Heh. No offense intended, but sometimes it =is= the team. Ruinberg encounter as a scout, light up the entire enemy force, which is advancing up the field en masse: what does my team do? They all run to the cap and sit in a huddled mass, apparently unaware that the timer works differently in encounter mode. Enemy force rolls through the few mediums who oppose them, rolls over the poor artillery, then meanders over to the cap and shoots everyone in it to death in a massive crossfire. After 9k battles, I could tell hundreds of horror stories about teams snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, or worse.
Difference is, if I die early, I generally don’t stick around to tell the team what they did wrong, because most of them aren’t going to listen anyway. And there’s always the inevitable “shut up, you’re dead” response. But I do like looking at the after battle reports and seeing that I finished in the top half in XP earned, even if I died in the first three minutes ;^)
(Not saying that I don’t have the occasional bad battle, especially in underarmored medium tanks.)
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@Vatec – Oh, no doubt that sometimes we all draw the lemon team. That is the price of using the match maker.
I just don’t have much use for people who sit around for the whole match badmouthing their side. It doesn’t do any good. It isn’t constructive. Your team mates wanted to win as well. And I would say that a good chunk of the time, the person complaining loudly doesn’t really have a record to stand on.
So I enjoy the delicious irony of winning when somebody has spent most of the match telling the team they suck.
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Yes, critics are a dime a dozen. And I’ve gotten plenty of bad advice from them as well. Me, I only stick around if A. platoon-mates are still alive and fighting or B. I have multiple kills and the team has a chance of winning (consider it protecting my investment plus having a visible stat that forestalls the “shut up you’re dead” replies). Even then, I usually limit myself to pinging obvious things like the enemy medium heading for the base or the TD hiding around the corner (in case no one noticed them).
And yes, it’s fun when you prove critics wrong, especially if they’re annoying critics….
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