World of Tanks: When to Zoom in and out

So throughout my World of Tanks travels I've noticed that a lot of times I've missed easy shots due to using the third person camera. It happens a lot more then I'd like due to certain situations like when I'm rubbing tanks. There are also times when I've missed a shot because I've tried using the sniper mode when I could have just looked at my target in third person and shot. In a lot of situations you'll know when to trade off the area awareness of being able to see the area around your tank and the precision of being able to select the exact spot for your cross-hair to hover over. Before I get much further however I'd like to make the distinction of the different phrases I'll be using in this post.

• Sniper mode = Zooming in using the mouse wheel or shift so that the camera is now centered where your gun's barrel is pointing.
• Third Person / Normal mode = This is the state where you can see your tank from a third persons perspective.
• Strategic View (Arty) =  This is the top down view that SPG's get when you press Shift in one of them, it is very handy to use and I generally stay in this view mode 90% of the time.
• TD Mode = When an enemy tank gets a bit too close I like to leave Strategic View so I can see my artillery in third person (normal mode). Generally I prefer shooting tanks that are close to my artillery in third person instead of a top down perspective since I can see how much of the reticule the tank takes up instead of a ring on the ground around / behind him.

Shooting someone around a corner
In situations where you're pulling around a corner to do a quick peek-a-boom (drive out of cover, shoot, run back behind cover) it is best to zoom in. It could be a building, a large rock, or even those annoying trains that you can't shoot through. This is because of how World of Tanks handles where your barrel should point based on where your cross-hair is pointing on the map from a different view point. I'm pretty sure a lot of you have noticed when you are close to certain objects your gun stays trained on it for a few seconds as you pass it or looks up into the sky for some odd reason (I believe it has to deal with collision boxes).

Pretty much when such time sensitive subjects comes up as poping around a corner between a guys reload. Think of those few seconds it takes for your barrel to turn towards the target, where if you where zoomed in you could already aim directly at where the tank is as soon as you can see it. Those seconds could mean the difference between getting shot / killed and living long enough to get that next shot off. Several times zooming in before I turn a corner has saved me, especially when I notice that my tank decided to look at the second story window instead of where a tank would actually be!

Hugging a Tank
Now I'm sure at some point you've been touching the tank you are shooting at, be it side hugging a tank destroyer to going face to face with another brawler. A lot of times it doesn't matter if you zoom in or out since it is almost impossible to miss, however when your tank is tall and the other tank is short you'll have a pretty good chance of actually shooting over them! When zoomed out you can't really tell if your gun is looking at the tank, or just over it. However when you're in sniper mode and the tank covers all of your reticule you'll know you can hit it unless someone suddenly moves. Too often have I missed easy shots because I didn't bother zooming in to make sure my gun was elevated all the way down to guarantee a hit.

Now after you have shot though you'll want to zoom out as fast as you can. In situations like these angling and where you are can be very important. In a lot of cases while driving a TD a scout or medium decided hugging my side was a good idea, however they didn't pay attention to where we where backing up too and they ran into a house allowing me to scrape them off directly into the path of my gun. Another good part is that you can see where the other tank that is shooting you is looking so you can hopefully turn just enough so his shot bounces off an angled section of hull or is dispersed through your tracks. Since you're reloading anyway knowing what is happening around your tank and its angle is more important then staring at a wall / weak spot when you still have over 3 seconds to reload.

Running all over the place
Now in a lot of maps, especially the new ones there are a LOT of bumps on the ground. For fast tanks or people shooting on the move it becomes increasingly difficult to hit anything while your camera is bouncing up and down on the screen. In situations where I'm running over terrain other then smooth roads I like to shoot from third person. It is easier to keep my cross-hair centered on the middle of the tank I'm shooting at so my chances of hitting him increase compared to clicking the trigger when my tank suddenly dips an inch (and my cross-hair dips a mile).

TD Mode
Now there exists a magic distance in which I switch from strategic view to third person for my artillery. This distance changes a bit based on the terrain around me. Generally though this range is about a map square. You can also avoid those frustrating cases where you happen to hit a parked car or a destructible wall that you couldn't see on the top down view while focused on that tank. Just yesterday I one shot a tank hunting for me in TD mode which I'd probably miss in Strategic because of a destructible object that was in front of me that I just noticed and shifted my pre-aimed location to avoid it of before he came around the corner and died to an arty round to the face.

However TD mode is less reliable the further the enemy tank is since you'll want to see how far you may overshoot him or under shoot him. In cases where I get a chance to pre-aim or he's around a grid square away or further I'd stay in strategic. The chances of overshooting is higher but with pre-aiming I'll KNOW if I can hit him when he walks over that completely zoomed in circle.

Finally
And then there are those obvious occasions when zooming in to sniper mode is a good idea. These include when shooting over 100m (sniping), aiming for specific weak spots like the commanders hatch, and other occurrences where you need to hit a certain spot. As you play the game you'll notice the different situations where you'll need to enter sniper mode to get a hit, and then there are also those times where you have to zoom out into third person to focus more on maneuvering your tank.

World of Tanks: Premium Tanks

Welcome Tankers! This will probably be familiar to most of you but several people do not know the glory and amazing versatility of a premium tank not only for earning credits but to also train crews in.

This is an image of an IS-7 crew placed inside a premium KV-5 without any retraining or penalty added.

Which Premium Tank to Buy?
This is an interesting question that depends completely on what you want to do with the tank. If you want to grind credits like a fiend then your choices are more limited to the Tier 8 tanks. This is because they have the highest credit per game return since even on a lose unless you shoot a ton of gold rounds you'll be making 10,000~30,000 credits easilly.

However if your primary goal is to train a crew line which I'll get to a bit further down then you'll choose a tank of the same nation and class. If you want to go up a heavy line like the IS or KV line then getting an IS-6 would be a good idea. Not only does it earn credits but it also earns your crews experience.

Finally and the most important is that pick a tank based on its play style since if you hate the tank you won't be having fun and making credits / exp in it. It could be the best credit grinding tank in the game and you could hate it so much that you just play poorly in it.

Credit Grinding
Premium tanks can grind credits faster then other tanks of the same tier for two very good reasons. The first is that their repair is lower then other tanks of their tier and the second is that they naturally gain additional credits as well. This grants most premium tanks Tier 5 or better a nice boost of income compared to their counterparts. Tier 8's will see an average of 40,000 credits and will break 100,000 credits on a good game.

Training Crews
One of the biggest things about premium tanks is that you don't need a dedicated crew for premium tanks because you can use the crews from other tanks of the same type like an IS-3 crew for your IS-6. This is because premium tanks don't suffer penalties to reload speed, aim time, acceleration, and everything else when a crew that is not trained in that tank is in it.

As a reference the penalty of having a crew trained in another tank inside of non-premium tank is around 25% (a 100% crew will act like they are 75%) and they won't use their skills or perks. This penalty is also greater for crew in a different class of vehicle from which they are trained is closer to 50%. Also placing a tank destroyer crew in a heavy premium tank will have a penalty to their abilities as well, but it is not the full penalty.

This is why my premium tanks along my Russian line (I have a lot of Russian tanks) have no dedicated crews since I will just place a crew from another tank of the same class like my KV-1 into my IS-6 or Churchill III or my SU-100 in my SU-122-44. This is extremely effective when credit grinding since I can train my crew for a commonly played tank and make money at the same time. So instead of two crews with just one crew skill each, I'd have a single crew with two skills on them.

Preferred Matchmaking

A cool thing about certain premium tanks like the IS-6, KV-5, and T-127 is that they don't get normal matchmaking for their tiers. Instead of getting the standard plus / minus two in matchmaking where a Tier 8 will see Tier 10's, these get something closer to plus one / minus two (so a Tier 8 IS-6 will only see up to Tier 9's). This is nice since you'll be more likely to fight against weaker opponents so you'll have an easier time scoring damage and kills. However this is offset due to low penetration (they can't hurt tanks two tiers higher without a gold shot to the ass) so it is balanced out nicely.

In Short

• Don't have a dedicated crew for premium tanks when you can use a non-premium crew in it since you'll be making both tanks better at the same time. If you do need a dedicated crew, have it trained for a tank you want to get eventually instead.
• Pick them based on what you want out of them, Credits, Crew, Fun.
• You do not need to retrain a crew that you place into a premium tank, you just send them to the barracks (right click and send crew to barracks), and then on the premium tank select the empty crew slot (in the garage) and click on the crew member you are transferring to that tank. Nothing else is involved.
• This is a short list.

Well Known Premium Tanks

IS-6

• Russian Heavy (4 crew)
• Preferred Matchmaking
• Role: Brawler
• Weakness: Driver hatch

Lowe

• German Heavy (5 crew)
• Role: Sniper / Support
• Weakness: Relatively weak armor on chassis

T26E4

• American Heavy (5 crew)
• Role: Hull Down Brawler
• Weakness: Commander hatch under the two barrels on the turret, don't bother hitting the front chassis unless you know you can pen it easilly

JgTig 8.8cm

• German Tank Destroyer (6 crew)
• Role: Damn his front armor!
• Weakness: triangle on the front and sides / rear.

KV-5

• Russian Heavy (6 crew)
• Preferred Matchmaking
• Role: Big ass Tank
• Weakness: R2D2
• Extra: Side-scrape for increased effectiveness of fighting on corners (wall is covering R2D2). Ramming is the most fun you'll have, but do it where you'll come out better for it. Laugh at T-50's that try to pen your ass.

Type 59

• Chinese Medium (4 crew)
• Role: Wolf pack / That guy that shoots you in the side / ass
• Weakness: Sides and Rear (not much on the front besides the commander hatch)
• Extra: You're a jerk.

Tog II*

• British Heavy (6 crew)
• Role: RR and go off to watch tv until it gets to battle, then just mouse over an enemy and shoot
• Weakness: Slow as dirt at 14 km and fairly weak armor when not side scraping.
• Extra: Amazing side scraping abilities and has HUGE health, also so special it has a star next to its name.

AT-15A

• British Tank Destroyer (6 crew)
• Role: Assault Tank, push the enemy and use your high gun traverse to angle that armor.
• Weakness: The angled plate on the front of the tank under the gun.
• Extra: The gun traverse is HUGE, use that for your advantage.

Examples

• To level my IS-3 crew faster I will send them to barracks and then play a x2 game in my Churchill, IS-6, KV-5 so if I have a good game in each one I'll make 8k exp off doubles on just one crew. (without accelerated on.)
• In a nice battle I'd get 100,000 credits off my KV-5 before taxes. (making 60,000 to 80,000 after taxes)
• In a great battle in my IS-6 I can make over 100,000 credits.
• They're already elited so you could train your crew, get credits, and get convertible exp to get that next tier.
• I grabbed a Matilda IV so that every so often I can pop my T-34-85 crew in it to level a smudge faster when I feel like playing Tier 5's with a platoon mate.

Penalties
So you might be wondering why not place my MEDIUM crew into my HEAVY premium tank, well lets go over the side effects of why that is a bad idea. By effectiveness it means your 98% crew will act like they where a 73% crew. 

• premium to premium of the same class = 100% effectiveness
• non-premium to premium of the same class = 100% effectiveness
• premium to premium of a different class = 75% effectiveness 
• non-premium to non-premium of the same class = 75% effectiveness
• non-premium to premium of a different class = 75% effectiveness
• non-premium to non-premium of a different class = 50% effectiveness

Mordheim Warbands: Mercenaries

And so it begins...

Who
Reikland, Middenheim, and Marienburg Mercenaries.
Averlander, and Ostlander Mercenaries.
This also covers 90% of all the other human based warbands such as Pirates and Norse warbands.

Boxes
Empire Militia (20 bodies)

Why These
The Empire Militia box (Free Company) is the most versatile box of humans in the whole line of Warhammer miniatures, not only does it contain 20 models (5 more then the average max warband size) but it also comes with virtually every bit you'll need for any equipment a human warband can take. It has swords, daggers, bows, crossbows, pistols, axes, clubs, halberds / spears, double handed weapons, rifles / blunderbuss's, and more.

The only thing it really doesn't have that people use on a semi-regular basis is shields / bucklers which can be modeled with some plastic card or even Popsicle sticks. However due to how useful having a second weapon like a free dagger or a club is compared to a small boost in armor save or a parry that can be negated easily in most cases.

Along with the coat, the axe on the back really makes my Captain stand out.

Thoughts
I do suggest mercenaries to be the first warband for anyone to get since they are very versatile, you just have to pick which mercenary warband to use based on what you want to focus on.

• Movement Phase: Averlander's Trappers who can block off paths of approach.
• Shooting Phase: Reikland's BS4 Marksmen
• Combat Phase: Middenheim's S4 Captain and Champions.
• Out of Combat: Marienburg's +1 to find items and +20% gold at the start of the campaign / one off game.
• Equipment: Ostlander's double barrels, dwarf axes, prayers as no other Mercenary warband can use spells / prayers, and an Ogre!

One of my big modelling suggestions involve having your five heroes use the torso with the coat. I did that and visually they are all very easy to find as it is a common trait separating them from the henchmen.

Marksman, Warrior, Young blood, Swordsman.

Personally I really do like the Reikland Mercenaries more due to their better Marksmen. When looking at my list it is split into three parts. My dedicated two to four archers places on the tops of different buildings for a wide angle of shots. My warriors and swordsmen act as my dedicated melee users who pretty much rush up and act as a buffer between their melee characters and my firing lines. Then finally my heroes who push up behind the front line of henchmen and either act as archers or melee depending on the situation.

For expanding the warband I think a warlock would be a good choice as most mercenary warbands have zero magic presence along with a war dog or two to help flanking. Beyond that see what you are suffering from as you play and boost that aspect of the warband with more henchmen. Generally though more melee characters are better since piling on three characters into combat with a single one, especially a strong hero will give you better odds of killing him compared to the low strength range attacks.

My two champions, another marksmen and warrior, then my other young blood on the end.

World of Tanks

So the last few months I've been addicted to playing World of Tanks. Through my journey from Tier 1 to Tier 10 I've had some good and bad games and over the course I've written a few helpful tips for my clan mates. However after an internal drama breakup thing that happened I left and and took my little guides with me. However I've yet to get a new place to put them down on so I've decided to just throw them up on here! Wooooo.

Anyway World of Tanks is a very fun game that fits my desires for free time activities almost perfectly. I classify it as a slow paced shooter along the lines of Chromehounds (I loved that game). You have enough time to think between shots like angling your armor to get a bounce, but unlike a turned base game you won't have all the time in the world or else your team might loose a flank.

Another interesting thing results in the fact that you meet different tiered tanks where you could do 10% of a tank's health in one shot, but he can take away 50% of yours and he'll reload before you do. In order to fight at a disadvantage in either numbers or tank strength you'll have to use your head and skill to take advantage and win out.

This game isn't for everyone, but if you like a shooter that takes less twitch then try it out, just remember that it gets so much better as soon as you get to Tier 5~6.

Cheap Mordheim Update

After some deliberation I have decided to test out a restructuring of my earlier Cheap Mordheim posts to a more standardized and readable format. After looking at most of my previous posts the only real take away I've got from skimming them is that the suggestions on what boxes to buy to put together a war band for Mordheim gets bogged down by all the other information I'm typing out along with it. I've wrote these not only for my own use as I gather more and more warbands together as at time of writing this I now have 5 distinctive warbands. I am also putting all the information I have gathered together for each warband in one place so that anyone else interested in Mordheim may use the research and reasons I've come up with to help decide what boxes and warbands to get.

Now remember that any suggestions I make will likely be from Games Workshop as I almost exclusively play at my local Bunker on their tables and in Games Workshop hosted events. To do so each model needs a certain percentage of GW product (50%), so in most cases I'll be pointing to their stuff first and will include links to the products I talk about so you can see what I'm talking about.

To test this new format I'm thinking of implementing I'll be rewriting my first Cheap Mordheim post on Mercenaries and if I like how it turns out I'll be rewriting all of my other posts in the same way. I've just decided I should just say this here anyway in case anyone cares to know why there are two posts for Cheap Mordheim: Mercenaries.