The AMX ELC Reborn?!

As many of you know I was disheartened almost to the point of tears when WarGaming nerfed the engine on the AMX ELC, changing it from a Porsche Boxster to a Toyota Corolla. It simply didn't have the acceleration, power to weight ratio or all-around agility to be a great active scout anymore, in my opinion. Even with the smaller, lighter, 75mm gun.

So mine was parked. Has been for the last two weeks. Then, yesterday, I had an epiphany...what if...

What if...

What if I put the 90mm gun back on and played it more like a sneaky TD sniper tank? It's still got great camo and with a decent crew and binocs you can still get pretty good view range. The 90mm gun isn't amazing, but at Tier V it's pretty good. You can take 240 hit points off most tanks you'll see if you hit them just right. And if you hit them from a decent range, hiding in a bush, then maybe sneak off and find a different bush...that could work, couldn't it?

So I tried it.

It does work. Let's be fair, you're not likely to carry in this tank, but light tanks have always been tough to carry in. Not enough armor; not enough hit points. The ELC is a 2-shot to most of the things it will see and can still be 1-shot by Tier V artillery (despite the alleged SPG nerf).

However...in the handful of battles where I've played the ELC as a sneaky TD instead of a frontline scout I've actually done pretty well. I've consistently approached 1000 in direct damage and 1000+ more in spotting just from picking clever bushes to sit in, snapping on the binocs and waiting patiently for a good target to trundle into view and give me its side.

I even managed to flank and kill a KV-220-2 that was engaged with one of my team on El Halluf. Got a nice high roll on a shot into the back of his turret.

I've equipped mine with vents, binocs and, most importantly for the 90mm gun...a gun rammer to reduce reload time.

So there you go dishearted ELC drivers. You might not be able to scamper across the countryside lighting up the entire enemy team before dashing into their spawn to Pascucci their artillery before anybody can catch you. You might not be able to take as many aggressive positions near the front. You're still pretty likely to get killed if you're spotted...

...but the tank IS still playable with the nice big gun, a rammer to cut the reload time down and binocs to boost your vision. Just take a position further back, stay patient, look for unsuspecting enemies who don't see you, or hang back and put cheeky shots into enemies that are preoccupied fighting your teammates. The 90mm packs a nice little punch and as long as you don't try to brawl, you can still give your team some quality help. 

And it's just a different kind of fun.