Snapshot: Light tank play on Highway

 Just got a good lesson in how NOT to play LTs on Highway...

Tier X battle, South spawn, no clickers, I'm in my SkorpG. We have just one light tank - an EBR FL 10 - who, according to XVM, actually is a Green player. His most-played tanks are the EBR and the T-100 LT...which makes this play all the more baffling.

From the countdown I went North to support field and town. If I'd been top tier I might have considered going East to support city, but bottom tier in a SkorpG I though it was probably better to shoot field, and rotate back to J3 if we lose city to shoot the guys pushing towards our cap. The futility of that soon became apparent.

Our EBR, straight from the countdown, went K line to the city. That's not a horrible initial play. There can be something to be said in the early game for making a scout run down to the J8 area, maybe weaving North through the trees a bit, but 3 things:

1. We had no arty

With no clickers you have to have line of sight to your targets and, for the most part, they have to be within the vision circle. Anything you spot 800m from your team isn't likely to get shot when there are no clickers.  Which means that even if he lit something doing a 9 line approach there was nothing on our team that could shoot it.

Yes, there's something to be said about gathering information, but realistically on Highway there aren't that many plays and you could pretty much predict that their heavies, probably their assault TDs, and maybe an MT or two were going to push 9/0 line for the SE corner brawl. So it's not like he was going to reveal some big mystery.

2. He didn't scout into the trees

In fact he continued up the K line to K0. And because he got there an hour before our HTs (because he was in a Mario Kart) he arrived there all by himself while any possible support was still struggling up the hill at K6. 

What did he suppose he was going to do there in his bottom-tier wheelie? Anything he spotted couldn't be shot by anything except him, and was he really going to brawl a Progetto 66 with a wheelie? Object 705? ST-I? If you're driving a Mario Kart why would you get into a phone booth with multiple higher tier HTs where you can't maneuver?

Predictably as soon as their force arrived in the city the EBR was 2-shot and dead by the ST-I. It was probably less than 2 minutes into the battle.

3. The opportunity cost was HUGE

He was our only light tank. So while he was futilely dancing around at K0, NOBODY was spotting the entire rest of the map. Well, nobody from OUR team. Their scout, in an LT-432, was competent and went to the D4 area. I can't be sure where exactly, because it was already 2-10 by the time he got spotted - and he got spotted climbing the hill at G2.

Our MTs going to A1 got lit crossing at E1 and took a shot or two from their TDs at D7 and C6. Maybe more importantly (at least to me) all our E/F line shooters were suppressed. With no spotter we had to stay back at G2 and any time we dared push forward from there (or shoot) we'd get lit by their invisible scout doing his job at D4. 

If we'd had another light tank or two, then making that play is slightly less stupid. At least we're not depending on him to spot. But he was it - our one scout. And by burying himself in a useless play at K0 he ensured that we were blind.

Results

The battle lasted 6 minutes and 36 seconds and was a 2-15 loss. Our EBR did 0 damage, and had 0 assisting. Their LT-432 had 3.5K assisting and added another 1.7K in damage during cleanup time - which started about 2 minutes in.

Was it entirely the EBR's fault? No, of course not. But the fact remains that they owned the map from the first minute because they had vision and we didn't. So their shooters could sit back and pump shots into us while we had zero red tanks to shoot at. I'm not sure their Grille 15 or STRV 103-0 were ever spotted during the battle.

Know your tank, know your role, and know what your team is counting on you to do. If you're the only scout...you need to get some vision on the map or else it's almost certainly a loss. Taking our only LT to K0 in the early game adds no value to your team, and costs a TON on the other 90% of the map.

GLHF!