Let's talk for a moment about LT game play on everybody's favorite map...Empire's Border.
Just had a tier 8 battle there from south spawn that was interesting. Each team had just one LT - both were EVEN 90s. Each team had 1 arty. I was in my T-103.
Right from the go, our EVEN 90 drove to J2 and parked there.
I casually asked him in chat who he thought would shoot what he spots there. He didn't respond. And he stayed there mixed up in the knife fight with heavies and assault TDs.
So what's wrong with that?
A few thoughts on why that's not a smart play.
Now we're blind
He was our only light tank and our best spotter. By burying (literally) his tank in the J1 corner at the outset he meant that we had poor vision on the entire rest of the map. The enemy EVEN 90 went to E5 where he could spot. If it wasn't for the fact that our Progetto 46 made an aggro play to the F5 pass and spotted him he would have had unchallenged vison control over the entire middle of the map.
Can't he spot 1 line?
Sure, and he did, but what's the value in that play? What can shoot what he spots on 1 line? Realistically, only artys and tanks that are sitting right next to him. But...
- Arty has limited shots there because of the mountains, and we only had 1 arty anyhow.
- Anybody sitting next to him can probably spot for themselves, so there's not a lot of value-add.
In chat he made an excuse about his spotting telling us where the enemy heavies went. But on that map you usually know where the enemy heavies go, it's not much of a mystery. You'll get the odd one that goes North, sure, but for the most part they go to the SW corner.
Wrong tool for the job
The J1 corner is a knife fight. Close quarters brawl against big boys, generally. The EVEN 90 is a small, unarmored, autoloading gnat with an unimpressive gun. The last thing you want to do with it is brawl heavy tanks frontally from 50m away.
Tip: The size of the EVEN 90 does make one unusual play possible...if you can get right up alongside a tall heavy with bad gun depression you can get UNDER his gun where he can't shoot you. I've seen people do that with the EVEN 90 against an O-Ni when they couldn't get away. They slide right up alongside while they reload.
Unfortunately that only works if he's alone and can't find a way to scrape you off or tilt his tank.
So what happened?
After a couple of minutes he died and ranted in chat about how his team were "Fucking morons". When people called him out that it was useless to take an EVEN 90 to that corner at the beginning of the game he responded:
Right so...you can play your ELC EVEN 90 any way you want to, of course, but if you think taking it to the heavy zone so you can get in a phone booth with KV-4s is a good play, well...that's just dumb, in my opinion.
And, for the record, he did two shots of damage to the KV-4 and about 150 total assisting damage. So, basically nothing.
We lost the battle 7-15. Was it all the EVEN 90's fault that we lost? Of course not, but he was basically useless and hurt the team by conceding the vision advantage on the entire northern 3/4 of the map to the other team.
I finished 3rd on damage, but made a few mistakes. Could have had a lot more damage if I'd positioned better, and hadn't misjudged the enemy reloads. Our Progetto who made such a bold early play disconnected or went AFK. If he'd stayed in the battle he could have given us a valuable crossfire.
What could he have done better?
In my opinion it would have been a lot more useful for him to go to F5 to give the team vision over that part of the map and counter the enemy light tank. From there he can get annoying flanking shots (which are higher percentage than frontal brawling) on the enemy at G4, or work up the 4 line towards the enemy spawn either spotting or taking out arty.
Just my opionion.
GLHF!
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