Tactics Talk: Strategic Sacrifice

Had a game yesterday I wanted to talk about for a moment because I think it illustrated a unique situation. I decided to take my Squall (Tier 8, Czech, LT) out for a game and was momentarily delighted when we loaded into Prokhorovka.

Prok, as you undoubtedly know, is the map light tank drivers crave. It's big, open, and has lots of soft cover. If somebody has a 10K spotting game there's a better than average chance it happened on Prok.

But then....reality check

When I looked at the lineup, however, my enthusiasm was dampened. I was bottom tier in a Tier X game (not necessarily a bad thing in a LT on Prok) but there was sobering news. Each team had two LTs: we had a Projet Louis and me. They had a T49 and...

...an ELC Even 90. 

The Projet Louis, as you may recall from my earlier post, is not really a good scout tank and there's no way I'm going to outspot a competent EVEN 90 player in a Squall. In fact, I think it was fair to say that the EVEN 90 was the enemy team's most important tank because he could give them nearly invisibile vision over a wide swath of the map.

According to XVM the EVEN 90 player was a good player, and I quickly had to figure out how we were going to deal with that.

The game started

We were in the North spawn and I decided to go to the 1/2 line at the start. Their T49 was quicky spotted ridge surfing the middle and heading East so I made a snap decision. I loaded an HE clip and I told my team in chat:

There's no way we can outspot the EVEN 90, but I can YOLO him and try to kill him. On this map that's a good trade for us.

Team pinged Affirmative and I decided to take the opportunity, while the T49 was over by the 6 line to charge up the 1/2 line in hopes of finding the EVEN 90 before I got killed. I couldn't outspot him, but with an HE clip I could probably kill him if I got close enough. Especially if my team got in a shot or two.

Sure enough, I found the EVEN 90 (I practically had to proxy him) and he was all the way up at E2. I rammed him and dumped my clip into him. I ate a couple of shots but got him killed. While I was reloading the T49 came back over and charged me, killing me. 

Still, a good trade.

Bonus: On the way in to kill the EVEN 90 I lit a couple of other enemy tanks on the 1/2 line and my team got shots.

In chat my team were commenting "Hero" and "GOAT". 😂

The outcome

With the EVEN 90 out of the game and the T49 wounded and trapped in the bowl at F2, my team went on to a solid win.

The lesson

It doesn't happen all the time, but every now and then there's an opportunity to trade HP (or even your whole tank) to get rid of a superior enemy and give your team a big advantage. If you recognize one of those opportunities, communicate with your team and go for it.

GLHF!