New Tank added to my collection - IS-6 - Tier 8 Russian Premium Heavy

So I decided to get myself a premium tank and a premium account. A few days earlier I was wondering what tank to get to grind my credits and possibly as a crew trainer. So I consulted Hate, who had seen me play before, and he recommended the IS-6.

As in the picture above, those are my current stats on my IS-6 and I got to say I love it.

As what Hate had described to me, The tougher version of the KV-1S.

I know I had some disagreements with my choice for a premium tank, some even suggested the T34 American Heavy but I think I made the right choice getting this tank instead.

Comparing between the other tier 8 Heavy Tanks (total 12 different tier 8 heavy tanks including IS-6)

Hit Points
IS-6 has the third highest HP amongst all tier 8 heavies with 1550HP

Mobility
Only 3 heavy tanks are slower than the IS-6, and 5 heavy tanks are faster than the IS-6,
Despite that, personally to me it is still fast enough at 35kph, If you are used to the speed of a KV-1 and a T-150 then the IS-6 shouldn't be a problem. Coz you are not gonna go around chasing medium and light tanks. But don't expect to be able to switch flanks quickly or retreat to base for a cap reset when you are more than halfway across the map.
It has a faster traverse speed than 7 of the other tier 8 heavies, which is pretty average for a heavy tank at 26 deg/sec but will still be a problem if an enemy light tank decides to perform the circle of death.
Turret traverse how ever, it's slow at 24 deg/sec, being only faster than the Lowe, T34 and KV-4. So if an enemy tank decides to do the circle of death, you gotta try turning your turret and hull at the same time and try to out move him so he can't circle you easily.

View and Signal
It's bad. Signal range at 440m is bad, being typical of russian tanks, So it's best not to stay too far away from your allies or risk not knowing where your enemies are. View range is just as bad at 350m expect to be spotted before you can even see the enemy unless you are close to team mates with good view range and they spot the target for you. Avoid being too far ahead of your allies, stay close or slightly behind.

Gun
It's great for a tier 8 battle, does ok in a tier 9 battle and that is why you don't meet a tier 10 battle.
175mm penetration with 390 damage. Most fully upgraded tier 8 heavy tanks could dish out a lot more damage than you can and with even better penetration. Always pick your shots especially against tank with well angled armour like another IS-6.

Armour
This is the most deceiving part of the IS-6. On paper it has very thin armour for a heavy tank,  100/100/60 for the hull, 150/150/100 for the turret. But the armour is really well angled, making it possibly be almost 200mm thick at the front and sides. The turret is just as tough being slightly rounded and the hatch being very small. A player who knows how to properly angle his IS-6 is going to bounce shots all day.

Conclusion
Despite it's strength of the being well angled, certain situations will expose it as a weakness. If you are fighting at close range against a taller tank, they can aim down on your armour and make the angle lesser, decreasing the effective armour value. it's the same as you are on low ground and the enemy is shooting down on you from high ground or you are high ground going down a slope shooting an enemy on flat ground. City maps are best for this tank. Lots of flat terrain and cover for you to angle your armour. Side scrapping is an excellent choice to be used on this tank.

And like any tank, you have to pick your shots, aim for weak spots instead of randomly firing since your gun isn't as powerful as other fully upgraded tier 8 heavies. Be opportunistic when meeting similar or higher tier tanks. Don't charge in blindly especially if they are fully upgraded and have a gun strong enough to penetrate and damage you severely. And pick your shots because you don't carry much ammunition. You only have 30 rounds of ammunition. Missing and bouncing shots is a waste because each shot is worth 1,025 credits. Despite being a good credit grinder, missing too many shots in a defeat can make you lose credits unless you have a premium account.

In all, I think this tank is awesome!

Light Tanks

Light tanks are first and foremost identified with a diamond.

I'm not going to go into specific details about every single light tank as each light tank has their own unique characteristics. You'll find more details about each tank from the WoT wiki. The link is at the side of this page.

What I am going to mention is the general characteristics of a light tank and their role.

General Description

As the name suggest, light tanks are very light in comparisons to their bigger counterparts.
They are fast and lightly armoured, making them very mobile and agile tanks.
They are small and have very good camouflage rating, that means they are harder to be spotted in bushes. They even maintain their camouflage value whilst on the move.
They generally have the weakest guns but are still capable of destroying other light tanks, medium tanks, tank destroyers and spg. Some light tanks are capable to do considerable damage to a heavy tank.

General Pros and Cons

Pros
-Fast and mobile
-Good camoflage
-Small size making it hard to aim from a distance.
-Good view range

Cons
-Weak armour
-low health
-Weak gun.

General Role
Scout (active/passive)

-Due to their small size, good camouflage value, fast speed and excellent mobility, they make great scouts.
-They could zip near enemy lines and quickly spot enemy movement and  quickly retreat before they  could be taken out.
-They could hide in a bush from a safe distance avoiding detection and spot passively for the team to eliminate those targets, earning you spotting damage.

 Things to remember 
-Always remember to be aware of your surroundings to prevent enemies from getting too close and spotting you, having Sixth Sense for your commander is highly recommended.
-Never be afraid to retreat at the first sense of danger
-Move in cover behind hills, bushes, trees, forested area or buildings.
-Cover and Concealment is a necessity.
-Stealth is your strength.
-Always use your speed and mobility to your advantage and make your movement unpredictable.
-Most tanks would find it hard to kill you if you run around them, especially the Heavy tanks and Tank Destroyers.
-You could even flank enemies and use hit and run tactics.
-SPG is your food, take them out when the opportunity arises, observe the enemy movements and wait for an opening before sneaking in for the kill. It will save your team from lots of trouble, giving your team an advantage.
-Always have good battle awareness, it's pointless if you can spot targets and keep them spotted but your team mates are too fair away or the enemy is not within clear line of sight.
-Never engage tougher tanks head on alone or otherwise. You'll die very quickly without doing much of anything. Wait for backup or retreat to safety.
-A dead scout is a useless scout, so stay alive!

Personal opinion for light tanks?
Personally I don't really like light tanks. It uses a totally different set of skills and mentality to have a good game using a light tank that I'm personally not used to. I'm not saying it's a bad tank. It's a great tank to have in a team if the person uses it well. It can be the most annoying tank to face if the tanker is a decent one. A friendly light tank can be the game breaker or the one that spoils your team chances of winning.

Imagine the situation of most of the enemy are dead and what's left are the slow tanks, they are aggressively attacking your base as your team mates are courageously defending it. You zip off to the undefended enemy base to capture. The enemy might try to retreat but that would leave their rear expose from your friendly tanks to kill or they just got too engaged in battle that they can't retreat safely. And you secure a win by capping.

Imagine the reverse, both teams are capping, you zip back to base to reset it (damaging a tank that is capping is enough to reset it's cap, so you don't have to kill it. Just use your speed to keep yourself alive and keep resetting it). What does it do? it buys your team time for a successful capture.

You run off early in the game to spot enemy tanks and your teams are spread out evenly across the map. You spot a huge force of enemy tanks going through one flank, relaying information to the rest of the team. Your team reorganizes their movement to counter the threat saving your team from a crushing defeat.

Light tanks may be seen as a weak tank but they are important. They are the "spy" or "ninja" of the team sneaking around, hit and run, relaying important information for the team to act on.

***Note***
Not all light tanks are meant for scouting, some are slow but heavily armoured and have to be played like a heavy tank. Some have decent firepower comparable to a medium tank and can be played as a medium tank flanking enemies for the kill or causing serious damage. Know your tank strengths and play accordingly. You can check the wiki for a clearer understanding of each individual light tank.

First attempt to post a replay on youtube.

My first attempt to upload a video, this is dated back on the 18th July when I was platooning with HemanathanRX7 and his friend Liquidambar.

No commentaries, just trying out loading videos. If anyone knows of a good free video editing software, please tell me. :D

what is wrong with you people? seriously? where is help when you needed them?

Had a small discussion about how we asian players play. Some of the regular chatters I had chat with had experiences playing in EU, RU and NA servers and they all said 1 thing, those servers are tough.

I may not have experience in those servers but if what they say is true, it's very disappointing.

One thing I do realize about those servers are the Unicums or at least someone have some sort of initiative to give back to the community with livestreaming, posting replays on youtube or even do some sort of guide online or even mods. But what do we have?

We keep looking at their videos for tips and tricks, advise and tactical plays but somehow it just doesn't seem to work in this server. The only useful thing that a player can get is tank weak spots and tank reviews. But gameplay advise on for the server? NOTHING. Replays? NOTHING. Guides? NOTHING. And what do we do? NOTHING except complain how fucked up every player is.

So seriously, are you great players in this server gonna sit there on your ass and hopes that someone would do something? just like how noobs/idiots who camps together in one big group in the open hoping enemies would come to you one by one?

So here I am with ideas on making videos on simple tactics like flanking things like that and someone has to shoot that down by saying "you are not good enough"

So someone who is not good enough wants to do something and you tell them no, how about you people who are good enough? All I see you guys do is "2k battles? noob! you are not even close to me! i'm waaay better than you!" Hell, I've seen players with 10k battles who have no  idea how to use a KV-1S! so does that makes you with so many battles equates to being an elite? Then if you really are that good, why don't you try to teach us instead of looking down on us? I bet you guys forgotten how it feels like to be at the bottom!

I know of a Russian player who plays amongst us asians. He sends back replays to his Clan commander back in the RU server for him to use as training guide on what to do or more commonly, what not to do.

Do we do that? do we even look at our replays and gameplay? do we even tell your friends or clanmates and say something like "hey! I had a great game! here's the replay maybe you might find something useful!" or "hey! I had a bad game and I found out something about the map that got me killed! or I found out a way to counter this move! maybe I can show it to you"

But what do we do? share are battle results and we go "oh great job!, congrats!"

The players here play with the concept of "There is no I in teamwork" which means "Let the team do the work, not I". How often do we see platoons in a battle that don't play together? or even random team mates backing you up when you needed help?

Something like "help.. I'm under enemy fire and stuck here, can someone give suppressive fire? or can someone shoot that guy so he will take cover and I can retreat?"
But what do our team mates do? hide in fear despite the fact they are not in danger and when you die. "who asked you to go there noob?" and in your heart you know you wanted to get an advantageous position so your team can push forward.

Sometimes the team work is, they go scout and spot everyone and dies, and blames everyone for not killing the enemy or even say "I spotted them, now its up to the team"

Seriously? How bad can we asian players get? There was an event a few weeks back for getting Top Gun, SPG went into TD mode and rush forward.
I asked, "what the hell are you doing?"
His reply "I'm gonna go for kills, I wanna get Top Gun"
We don't have to guess if he was successful.

Then there is the issue of Elitism. The mindset of DOTA or what other MMORPG that we asian play. They don't realize that WoT is not the typical MMO game. It requires skill, not upgrading of armour and weapons and become the all powerful knight in shining armour. Having higher tier tanks won't make you a great player like how you play MMORPG where your your equipments can decide or damage output or defense capabilities.

Each tank is unique in their own right, some are over powered but still can be destroyed. Some maybe have weak armour but hard to penetrate because of slopes or how the player angles it. Gun with low damage but high penetration and quick reload? can still be good enough to kill that tank with High damage output but super long reload. Just because you have a Maus, T57, IS7 or what other tier 10 tanks doesn't qualify you as a great player. It does not qualify you as an elite either!

No disrespect to players with money to invest in the game but seriously, are you going to enjoy that money spent on a tank when you have no idea how to make full use of a tank or even how to play effectively that you will enjoy playing the tank? You wallet jumpers to me are idiots, why? You barely learned how to cycle, and yet there you go splashing all your money to buy a big bike thinking you can do awesome stunts with it.

Morning retards..

2 battles was enough to give up playing for the morning.

1st Battle

Cromwell suggest EVERYONE goes to the left flank and rush for enemy base.
I refused. Of course I told him don't be stupid for leaving the right flank open.
He said no, it's faster to win if we all rush.
And as I was arguing, I was moving to the right side of the map with 2 other tanks while he was still at base.

5 minutes later into the battle, he was still arguing, my flank of 3 tanks (1 MT and 2 TD) died because of 7 enemy tanks consisted of mediums and heavies rampaged through. The other flank however, just killed 1 tank (they took 5 minutes to kill that one tank when they outnumber the enemy 5 to 1).

I told him, I thought you said it was faster? you guys took 5 minutes to kill 1 tank. He said I was useless since I am dead. So I told him, look at the minimap, we are about to be capped. He continued to charge for the enemy base.

End of battle, He did LESS damage than me. So I am the useless one. -_-

2nd Battle

Countdown ended, on the first second, KV-1 turns and shoots a friendly Tiger-P.
We asked what the hell was that for?
His answer? Tiger-P shot him first.

WTF?

and he runs off into the middle of an open field in a KV-1 thinking he is a scout. I don't think I need to say how quickly he died.

They wanted a shout out

Well they were making noise I didn't mention them.

So this goes out to the regular chatters out there especially SoftShellTurtle and beercules (who specifically wants their IGN to be mentioned)

Oh by the way, that is not how I always look at my garage.

THAT is how I usually look at my garage.

sometimes you wonder if they are stupid or just new to the game.

 Not sure what to say. We are getting capped and our heroes made themselves get caught out this way.

Someone explain to me why all the heavies are camping? getting capped, no one bothers to spot them and they are still camping.

And this is one of my pet peeves. Heavy Tank with a Derp Gun which has high damage, low penetration and horrible accuracy, attempting to snipe.

another WTF moment

Another stupid moment.. hunt down 1 JgPanther and 2 KV-1S got trapped. where is their intelligence now? This was almost a lost if not for the T29, Jg Panther and KV-5 being competent players. Kudos to them but not to these 2 KV-1S.

This is what I mean by tunnel vision and being obsessive about killing 1 target that they didn't realize they placed themselves and the team in a disadvantage.

WHAT THE F!?

Look at the Minimap. What is wrong with that? I'm sure you can see it since I already pointed it out. That is what I call stupidity. you are one of the biggest baddest tank, what the f*** are you doing there?????

I lost this game via capping with 5 tanks alive. It was a frustrating game in a KV-1S. KV-1S is weak on their own due to the long reload time and no back up came as I requested for help. So I had no choice to hold that corner as the other tanks around me decides to stop to enggage that Hellcat (suffering casualties of course) and then a Matilda pop up and they took a good 3 minutes trying to kill it. So I had to content fighting an Excelsior and a Wolverine on my own hoping they wont try to rush at me. So the other flank (which u can see only the T49 and another medium is going) died and we got capped. So I thought that USELESS KV-1 could help defend. I WAS WRONG! He ran off at the first sign of trouble. So the tanks furthest away end up going back to base to no avail.

This is the kind of stupidity that SEA server goes through.

*facepalm*

What I've learned so far...

The past 2 months or so I had been playing a lot of World of Tanks to the point of addiction that I even dream of the game when I'm asleep. I also have been watching lots of videos especially by Mr Jingles and Quickbaby on YouTube and live stream

Mr Jingles YouTube channel
http://www.youtube.com/user/BohemianEagle
Quickybaby YouTube channel
http://www.youtube.com/user/QuickyBabyTV
Quickybaby Twitch channel
http://www.twitch.tv/quickybaby

I find their videos exceptionally entertaining and useful. They have tank reviews which is useful even if you are not interested in the tank as they explain the strength and weaknesses of the tanks. Know your target and you will know how to kill them. They also have replays with commentary which actually gives you the insight of what is going on in their minds as they play or what they could have done differently. Quickybaby even have videos on map tactics which is based on how he plays those maps which helps him become a unicum in the EU server. Occasionally you might even see both of them play in a platoon in livestream.

So, what have I learned so far?

From the videos, personal playing experience and tips and advise from better players and interestingly some personal experience in paintball, here are the few things I picked up. Although I do admit I make the mistakes of not practicing it.

1) NEVER tunnel vision.

I learn this in paintball. Focus on one target and you will forget everything around you. That is how to die from a flanking move.

2) ALWAYS look at the minimap.

You know that thing at the bottom right corner? yes that is the minimap and many players forget it existed. Find out where the enemies are, see if your team mates are outnumbered or if they need your help, be aware if you are about to be flanked or there is an opportunity for you to flank.

3) NEVER remain stationary in the open for too long.

That is the fastest way to die.

4) Basic skills/tricks

Simple things like side scrapping, Peek-a-boo, Tea-time, Reverse Tea-time, leading a shot. It's the basic but power is nothing without a foundation.

5) Don't get too focused on one objective

Some players are only out for the kill, some just want to rush for the capture, others just want to spot as many targets as they can and then die.

For me, I just want to win!

My main target for each battle is to cause as much damage as I possibly can, minimum aim? same amount of damage as the health of my tank. Imagine a 700hp tank which is worth 1400hp of enemy health.
Kills? It will come.
Spotting? if my tank allows.
Capture points? if required to secure a win because killing that last enemy tank is not worth risking a defeat.

6) Tactics and Tank's role

- There is a time and place to camp and I call it holding a position. (camping at spawn point when the battle starts is not holding a position.)
-- There are times you have to let the enemy come to you due to a bottleneck or a ridge.

- There is a time to charge. 
--You don't charge like a headless chicken in the open into an enemy that outnumbers you! And when you outnumber them, take that opportunity to quickly dispatch the enemy as one group! Don't appear 1 by 1 and die 1 by 1. That is how 4 enemy tanks can easily wipe out 10 friendly tanks! would you prefer 10 friendly guns on 4 enemy targets or 4 enemy guns on 1 friendly target repeatedly until 10 friendly tank dies?

- Passive scouting and active scouting
--Passive scouting means hiding quietly in a bush spotting targets for your team mates to shoot them as you just observe them die without you firing a shot. NEVER expose yourself by firing a shot.
--Active scouting means running like a crazy chicken in the middle of the field making yourself a hard target and knowing when to pull back and hide behind cover before spotting more enemies.
A DEAD SCOUT IS A USELESS SCOUT

- Some tanks are multipurpose or not the typical of their type.
example: Soviet Tier V medium tank T-34 can also play as a scout which is usually done by a light tank.
British Tier IV medium tank Matilda is played like a heavy tank due to the amount of hp, armour and slow speed.
German Tier VII heavy tank Tiger (P) is played like a sniper which is usually done by a Tank Destroyer.

- Flanking
If it's safe to get to shoot the enemy's rear or side. why not!? it'll be faster and a hell lot easier to kill it right?

7) There is no such thing as a bad tank or a good tank.
A tank is only as good as it's driver. There is no immortal tank that can't be killed. well, with one exception. A dead friendly tank is a bad tank, A dead enemy tank is a good tank.

8) Pick your shots.
Sometimes you are faced with multiple targets. Depending on situation, you either go for easy kill, or biggest threat.

9) Use your free cam when around corners
Why go for the enemy when he is aiming for you to come out? wait for him to turn his turret, take a shot, hide before he turns around to shoot you!

10) Knowledge is power

Know your tank! Know your enemy tank! learn their weaknesses and strength. Learn the maps! Know your role! It'll provide you the key to victory.

Things to take note?
- Armour thickness of tanks.
-- some tanks have thick armour that you need to be careful of so you know not to enggage them from that direction. Your tanks might have really weak armour that you need to pay particular attention to avoid getting killed easily.
- Weak points in the hull or turret.
-- some times you have no choice but to brawl it out face to face, knowing their weak spots gives u an advantage and knowing your weak spots would allow you to avoid from getting shot at those spots.
- Rate of Fire (reload time)
-- Reloading tanks are tanks at the weakest, you can shoot them and they can't fight back. It applies the same to you. so know when to take cover or have back up.
- Damage
-- If you know the type of damage a tank can deal out, you know you have to avoid direct confrontation and probably survive longer and deal more damage.
- Map
-- Good to know which spots are good for camping/holding position or spots that you can use to sneak up on the enemy. Of course those places could be used against you.

well, these are just some of the things I've learned. I might miss out some but I'll add that up once it crosses my mind.

Malinovka, Campinovka

This is how typically this map is played. Everyone camps and it's usually the big bad heavy tanks that camps. Just look at the minimap. There is no need to guess who lost this battle because it was obviously my team. The enemy suffered only 1 lost in that game. The worse part was seeing my team mates dying because they were spotted. And what did they do when they got hit by the first shot? stay in the open!

Yes Tankers. Lesson here is, even if you are camping,
1) if you got shot
1a) you have no idea from where, it means.. THE ENEMY CAN SEE YOU!
2) you still able to move
3) get into cover!

Staying in the open looking around wondering where that shell came from is gonna get you killed!
The thing is, you usually see this in Tier V or below because players are still learning the mechanics of the game but it's a common sight now in tier 6 and above.

It is sad when players go higher up and not learned a thing.

Lesson to be Learned. Look before you jump? Look before you slide down.

Lesson learn from this battle. Watch out where you are sliding down from. I was stuck here for the entire match and didn't manage to see much action. Luckily we won.

Introduction

Who Am I?
I'm a World of Tank player on SEA server going by the IGN Mad84.

I'm pretty much a new player even though I had started playing this game almost a year ago. I stopped playing approximately 1 month after starting mainly because of lag issues with my ISP and not having friends playing the game. I came back some 7-8 months later mainly because of watching a little too much youtube videos of the game. So technically I had to relearn the game all over again after 900 battles. So almost 2 months later, I'm at this moment played 2,477 battles and just unlockedTier VII.

Why blog?

I like to type out my thoughts and rants so I thought it might be fun to post some of my adventures or maybe misadventures in the game. I hope I don't offend anyone but I do have a tendency to offend people, for that I would like to apologize in advance.

And I thought it might be interesting to have the views of an average player instead of the usual posts and videos made by unicums and the such. The progress of an average player as he tries to improve and progress in the game.

My objective in the game?

WIN! ok I hate losing and I'm a sore loser. I blame myself for a poor game but I'll blame the team if I had a poor game and I happen to be the best performer. I like a good win or a good defeat. A good defeat to me means putting a good fight right to the end forcing the enemy to win with massive casualties.

A good game for me is when I do lots of damage or spot lots of damage. I was advised to do at least the equivalent amount of damage to my tank's health, but I will aim for at least 1,000 damage.

And of course to make friend's since I'm excessively active in the General chatroom.

Which nation do I like to play and what type of tank is my preference?

I have a strange attraction to soviet tanks. Not sure why.
I'm in love with medium tanks. To me they are the in-betweeners. The average tank which can be powerful like a heavy tank if used correctly or very weak like a light tank if used wrongly. They are either the mobile heavies or the armoured light tanks. The jack of all trades and master of none.

Current Tanks in my Garage?

At this moment I have only 10 garage spaces and 10 tanks.
Tier I - American - Light Tank - T1 Cunningham (I don't stat pad, I use this tank 2-3 games just for the fun of it or just practice the basics when I think I'm playing too carelessly)
Tier IV - American - Tank Destroyer - M8A1
Tier V - American - Medium Tank - M4 Sherman
Tier IV - British - Medium Tank - Matilda
Tier V - Soviet - Medium Tank - T-34
Tier VI - Soviet - Medium Tank - T-34-85
Tier VII - Soviet - Medium Tank - T-43
Tier V - Soviet - Heavy Tank - KV-1
Tier VI - Soviet - Heavy Tank - KV-1S
Tier VI - Soviet - Heavy Tank - T-150
I intend to get more garage space soon and have every single Soviet mediums and heavies from tier V onwards.