AutoLoader: AMX 12t, Bad scouting, and Tankers Workshop

It's a manic Monday so let's jump right in!

AMX 12t

Been playing the AMX 12t a bit again (Tier 6, French LT) and I have to say, it's really good. In fact, it's a lot better than you'd expect since the published stats on it aren't great...somehow it plays better than should.

Somebody on Twitter said it was the best Tier 6 LT and that they feel like they could take on tier 9 or 10 with it. I wouldn't go that far, I'd not really like to duel with an EBR 105 or a T49 in it, but for its tier it's excellent. Very comfortable mobility, decent autoloader gun, typical good French camo.

I'll do a tank review on it soon, but if you're considering grinding French LTs, you've got a treat waiting for you at Tier 6. I'll add that the 12t gets a lot better when you have a good crew in it. So if you start it out stock (and I hope you don't) with a noob crew, don't be put off if it doesn't shine. It will, when it's loaded out and has a good crew.

There are surprisingly few recent reviews of the 12t but here's what Dreadshells had to say about it last year on YouTube.

Speaking of scouts...


Lately I've had a LOT of games with some really awful scouting. Today our only light tank, a T37, started to go West, then decided to go East (alone) pushed the flank too aggressively, and got dead within 90 seconds of the start of the battle...having lit exactly one enemy tank that nobody had shots on. We lost BADLY, 1-15.

In a similar game last weekend I had my Type 64, bottom tier, on Murovanka. My entire team went West (to the 1 line) as I started to go to the forest. Recognizing this early I pulled up in a good bush well short of the forest so I could spot enemies pushing out of the forest. Our lemming train pushed, I lit the three enemies that pushed out of the forest and our TDs/arty punished them, then I was able to push up for clean-up time. Solid game. We won 15-6.

Another game today we had no light tanks but we had a pair of CromB's and a regular Crom on Lakeville...two of them went valley and the third hid in the back with the arty. No vision meant our team was lit and hit early (by the enemy CromB's) and we lost. 10-15.

One thing this has led me to realize is that good spotting is one of the biggest factors in winning a game. I don't have any data on this (yet) but I suspect that the team that has better scouts, wins a disproportionate amount.

Tankers Workshop

Last Friday's Tankers Workshop got some nice feedback. I really appreciate all the suggestions, praise, and constructive criticism. So I've already started to work on this week's Tankers Workshop - the topic of which will be using the Minimap. 

If you have suggestions for that Workshop, feel free to leave them in the comments below!

Tip: Want to know what the upcoming Workshops will be? They're based on Five Things Good Players Do More Often Than Average Players.

Frontline vs TankRewards

One question I got recently was how to balance playing Frontline vs getting the TankRewards missions done. Like a lot of players I have a finite amount of time to play (often less than an hour a day on weekdays) So here's how I'm approaching it:

(Disclaimer: I don't expect to get to the top tier of TankRewards or Frontline, so that helps)

My goal in TankRewards is to reach Tier III (Blueprints) so what I did is see how many points I needed to get there, and divided that by the number of days I have to play this month. Luckily if I average 30 TankRewards points per day I can reach Tier III with a couple of days to spare. If I happen to get 50 TankRewards points (or, gasp, 70) in a day that just puts me ahead of pace.

To get 10 points we just have to play a battle. Easy enough. To earn 20 we need to finish top 3 by XP on our team, in a tier 4 or higher tank. Note that you don't have to win the battle...just finish top 3 by XP, which makes it a lot easier. I've realized that I can often finish top 3 pretty easily in my Luchs, so my plan is to start each day with a battle in the Luchs. If all goes well I'll knock off the 30 points in that first battle.

If I do, I'll probably play a battle in my AMX 13 57, which is another tank I can often get top 3 in. If that works out, I'll have 50 points for the day. But anything more than 3 battles and I'll probably bail and switch to Frontline. Hopefully I'll get at least 30 each day, and 50 on some days.

If you're doing both Frontline and TankRewards what's your approach to balancing them? Tell us in the comments below.

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