Hey, so I keep getting asked for advice on how to win at Tanks. The Do's and Don'ts and how to deal with this or with that, I figured (since I didn't find an obvious thread covering this) I might make one myself, explaining a couple of key-mechanics that make and shape this wonderful little skirmisher.
PS: not everything posted here applies to everyone, and as for everything they are not true in all circumstances, however these are some of the things I picked up playing (a lot) of tanks and winning more than I lose. Generally I want to add, everything here is from my perspective and experience, thus IMO. Also this doesn't cover all possible details of any scenario, but I think they are a couple of rules I follow and make general gameplay way more enjoyable as feeling in control of what is happening on the field.
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Rundown of the stats and their importance:
Initiative: for me personally the most important stat of the game. Movement initiative is generally far more important than shooting-initiative, unless you run cautious vehicles.
why is high (movement-) initiative so good? well, you get to move last, which is great! if you face a vast swarm of tanks, who all happen to be slow, their numbers are easily made useless by outmaneuvering them. you will see where your opponent moves all his tanks before you make your move. if he is on one side of a woods, move across to the other, into cover, only enabling one enemy tank to fire upon you & for you to target. Take for example the starting scenario "Barkmanns corner" which ive lost once in probably 12 games (my first one incidentally), as the panther can reliable stay out of Line of sight of the second Sherman at all times. This is true at any scale, use faster tanks to only ever face one enemy, possibly with everything you got, before moving on to the next target.
---> High movement initiative is also paramount in any close combat list, if you are slower than your enemy, he will, unless critted, ALWAYS stay just out of your reach to not deal with your strengths. With high initiative you dictate the fight.
This is true for all tanks in the game, except cautious vehicles (eg The M18 hellcat), who relies entirely on SHOOTING-initiative. Why is that? if the tank moves first or not at all does not matter, what matters is the special move you possibly and hopefully get to make after shooting. this means you want to shoot first and then move the highly fragile tank entirely out of sight and not deal with any incoming fire, as it is devastation to 0 armor, 3 hull point tanks. I played 4 M36's before, all firing at initiative 11, killing two massive IS2's and not losing a single hull point (in fact never getting shot at once).
Attack:for me the second most important stat, as I generally prefer good attack over good defense. This game has a capped defense-limit, but no offensive limit, making attack a by default more potential value. As many people reliably drive around with 5-6 defense dice (and defensive drivers being as popular as they are: re-rolls) hitting such a tank with 3/4 attack die is basically pointless. Even if you do it with 5 tanks at the same time, it will all bounce pretty reliably. One of my favorite key elements in my German builds is a Jagdpanther with Otto Carius, a resourceful loader and optionally a sharpshooter gunner. This build remains stationary at all times, only uses his Blitzkrieg move to get around and fires devastating volleys of 7-8 attacks per round while reducing the enemies defense by -1 (VERY good ability). What I'm getting at is: Its comparable to Risk (board game, strategy), whoever rolls more dice will eventually win. Its as simple as that. if you throw 6 dice while being stationary, not only can you reroll if you roll terrible, but your opponent wont benefit from you moving as well. The average armor level is 1, my build hits such a tank with 8 attacks (can reroll) against an average of 2-3 defense dice (depending if target is in cover). He basically one/two hits anything he aims at.
Defense:This will probably spark heavy criticism, but armor doesn't mean much (to me) in this game. Most armor is generated by moving around and utilizing cover anyhow. Having 6 defense die is very valuable, and one or two re-rolls are too, but I think at the point cost to increase your defense you would have a higher benefit of improving your attack/initiative.
The special Rule Heavy however is a VERY good rule and should always be used. nothing blocks line of sight to a weak, friendly/repairing tank like a sideways parking IS2/tiger. These tanks (specially because of high armor and high hit points make great shield, however if you neglect their offense, they will undoubtedly meet their match in a tank that is built to destroy such targets (like, again, my jagdpanther).
Hullpoints:Adding a single hull point to a tank can have a surprising effect, often buying the vehicle a whole extra turn. Generally hull points are hugely important and the reason why I love heavy tanks (who tend to have many). However don't over expand and count on them to much, as many people build attack-builds that throw so much against you that no hull-point amount possible could save you.
______________Does:If your slow, don't spread out! keep slow tanks together, if one gets targeted, try to make sure ALL of them can retaliate. Slow targets, as mentioned above, make perfect target for decent players to be singled out and destroyed. keep them hull to hull, granting each other cover or even hiding the weakest link entirely.
Gank Up! Try to play unfair: focus one target at a time with all you got. fighting 1v1 around every street corner can easily tip the scales against you in one or two unlucky rounds. gank up on your enemy and don't let him do it in return. Again: high movement initiative is the best key here. use terrain in such fashion that other enemy tanks cant draw line of sights, until its their turn to die.
Forests! How to use them right! always stay on the rim of Woods. Only two of your tanks corners need to be hidden to get cover, while if your turret/gun mount is out of the woods your opponent does not receive said cover in return. This is what I like to call "ambush position". parking in the middle of a woods seems easy, but actually is really ineffective, as you grant cover for anything that shoots you.
On that note, if facing multiple enemies, that are slower than you (again, movement initiative), try to NOT enter a well visible forest at all. get your cover from hiding half you hull behind the RIM of the forest (but outside), peeking around its corners. this way you keep your cover while ideally only your target, but no one else can draw line of sight to you. *as soon as any part of your tank is IN the forest your tank can be shoot at from anywhere...
Many hands one purpose! Make up your mind: This relates to the ganking mentioned above. I always try to have my tanks target one enemy at a time. It really helps to have all your tanks following the same strategie to achieve this. One sniper one brawler (or something like that) may work for some, but it also opens the door for you to get singled out in return. If you have two/three very fast, high initiative (again), bloodthirsty tanks they can chase their prey around a building together and take it apart effectively outnumbering anything they face at any given point. In vice versa, a single close combat vehicle might get trapped out of line of sight for his support tanks and be taken apart in short range by superior numbers, this is much less likely if you have 1-3 friends running around with him, effectively protecting one another.
Long Range or Short Range! Put thought in synergy: Many combinations of upgrades work great in this game, many really make no sense. Examples: Bloodthirsty Gunner and Camo-Netting. Maryia Okti in a tank with 2 defense base. Michael Wittman with Liquid Courage. Supercharger/Fast with Add-ON armor. Otto Carius with Bloodthirsty Gunner...
Sure some of these get to pull of their combo in a very specific settings/happenings, but generally they just don't make sense are frankly a waste of points. Try to have every tank built around an internal synergy. A tank that benefits from being stationary has no business from being built as a close range brawler, as enemies will just "step away" from you. Multiple cards doing the very same thing have no effect unless the other instance gets discarded - again, highly specific case. Some combinations might look ok on paper, but play them out/try them by playing yourself, and you will quickly see that often they make no sense.
A racing Snail or a dangerous Hamster! Know your tanks. Trying to get a REAL low initiative tank up to speed is often a futile endeavor. Putting a Racing driver in a SU 100 puts it at initiative 3 in movement. that is better than 1, but still so terrible you effectively wasted the points. making a heavy sniper of a Panzer III short will more than likely be futile, as you will double or triple its points just to get to a base value of 5 attacks. Build your tanks around their given values. A Cromwell is the ideal vessel for a bloodthirsty gunner, as it has both the FAST rule and base imitative 8 (fastest tank in game). A Jagdpanther or SU 100 are great heavy snipers, A Panzer III is not. Again, with all these you CAN throw heavy points at anything to achieve pretty much any result, but at what cost? If you really want something hard to get, try to find work around: maybe use some Recon/Scout vehicles to get that initiative up, use a cheap, living shield to protect a vulnerable target and so on. My above mentioned 4x M36 list has actually only one, expensive tank at shooting init 11, this paired with 3 radio coordinators gives all 4 tanks ini 11 rather than 7 when shooting. Its entirely OP and I haven't played it because frankly there is little opposition to the build leaving it quite boring.
Don'ts:I realize the don'ts are included as part of the does, so yeah :D be careful out there and good luck. & please come forward with any questions or input, there are no dumb questions, and I know its hard to get into a game if all the others have been playing for a while.
Edited by user Tuesday, June 27, 2017 10:45:23 AM(UTC)
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