Unboxing the Italeri Tiger

Source: http://www.dom1n.com/newsy/tygrys-italeri-unboxing/

Hello everyone,

last time, we had – thanks to Dom1n’s blog – a look at the Italeri Ferdinand. Today, we are going to have a look at the Italeri Tiger model – or, rather, the special “Wargaming” edition. The images are hosted at Imgur, for full size, just rightclick it and press “view image”.

As with the Ferdinand, the model is not cheap, but it’s of relatively high quality. According to Dom1n, the model is actually much more complicated than the one of the Ferdinand.

The box art is straight from World of Tanks…

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WoT Blitz for Android Tested

Hello everyone,

as you probably know, the testing of WoT Blitz for Android platforms is currently in full swing. The following screenshot is from FTA VK community, where a tester shared the picture. The text in the middle says “Destroy enemy tanks” and under it “Autoaim works even in sniper mode.”

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So, I guess even the Adroid players will be able to enjoy the thing soon… :)

Havok and Motion Physics Video

Hello everyone,

yesterday, I provided you with a summary from a video, where Storm answered some questions about World of Tanks. The summary can be found here. The video was however removed from Russian portal unfortunately – the reason was, there were some mistakes and there were also profanities in the chat.

It should return soon (even today), but you can watch it right now, because someone from the Wotleaks community managed to actually capture it.

It’s all in Russian and most of it is a footage of someone playing World of Tanks (wasn’t Storm himself, some community guy it was I think). But there are two interesting segments. First, there is a footage of Havok destruction (at cca 0:25) and secondly, a small preview of the new motion system (at cca 1:56). Looks interesting.

Introducing the Italian Medium Line

Hello everyone,

one of the first lines to be introduced to the European tree, coming in 2015, will be the Italian medium line. You might think it’s old news, but the line was put together (even roughly) only not so long time ago and everything is still in flux. What is practically decided is the tier 1 and tiers 7-10, even though those are not set in stone. Tiers 2-6 aren’t so problematic and there are multiple candidates especially for the low tier slots, but who knows? In any case, this line was discussed on multiple Russian sources, so I don’t think I’ll be betraying any secrets if I tell you how the line will basically look.

The main reason why the developers want the Italian medium branch is simply because the lowtier (2-4) vehicles are historical and actually fought the British (and Americans, well, partially) in the war. That of course is one of very few advantages of this setup and the developers are well aware of the issues, that come with it. As for the top tiers, well… you’ll see.

Tier 1 – Fiat 3000B

f3b

According to the Russian sources, this tank is – as one of the few – pretty much set in stone. It was heavily inspired by the FT-17 (basically an Italian version of that tank). The version in the game will be the one with a 37mm gun (“Model 30″). According to Yuri Pasholok (or, at least allegedly), this tank will be slow, but it will have very decent firepower in the 37mm gun – there was even an upgrade of the 37mm and that might be its top gun. Here’s a wiki entry, if you are interested, or you can read an article by Vollketten about it.

One interesting thing is, apparently, this vehicle might serve as a tier 1 for ALL the European branches (despite no other line having anything to do with it). I guess I don’t have to tell you how stupid that idea is – we’ll just have to see if WG drops it.

Tier 2 – M11/39

m39_color_1

One of the “classic” Italian tanks, that actually fought the British in the desert (with mixed results). 11 tons, 37mm hull gun, 30mm armor tops and a 105hp engine – this thing will probably not be the best vehicle ever to hit World of Tanks, but for its tier, it’s solid. Think of it as a tier 2 “Lee” – a tall(ish) tank with casemate gun and limited traverse. The engine is too weak to be serving even as a medium tank, so I think they’ll upgrade it. You can read an article about it by Vollketten if you are interested.

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LTB or LTTB?

Hello everyone,

player Sunny sent me a screenie from the World of Tanks assistant, where the LTTB is designated as R107 LTB.

Screenshot_2014-10-01-00-22-53

Now, you might think, it’s an obvious typo, right? Plus, that R107 (which appears on KV-85 as well as R106) is some kind of internal WG designation, showing the nation (R) and the internal number of the tank (106-107). Well, it’s not that simple. You see, for some reason, at one point, before it was introduced, LTTB was actually really called “LTB” in the game files (it was around the time the project was first mentioned as Russian light tank candidate, back then it was still intended as tier 8 LT). There’s no real reason for it – the project in real life really was called “LTTB” (literally it means “light tank with heavy armor”), so I guess somebody made a typo before the tank was even modelledand the old “LTB” designation stayed in the files.

Yea, it’s a small thing, but an interesting one I think.

Sixth Sense Rework

Hello everyone,

as you already probably know, the Sixth Sense perk (the famous “lightbulb”) is getting an overhaul. It will be tied to a radioman. If you listened to the entire stream itself, what he actually said is this:

- it will be tied to a radioman or to a crewman fulfilling radioman’s role
- it will be activated only after the main skill of the crewmember reaches 100 percent.

So, what does it mean for us, players? Well… for older players with more battles, who already have crew with perks, very little. The entire perk/skill rework (don’t expect it anytime soon) will come with a crew perk/skill reset (due to numerous overhauls), so they will just switch the perk to another one.

For newer players or those with many tanks and not-100-percent crews, it will be easier to obtain the skill, all they will have to do will be to buy 100 percent skill training (for gold) for the radioman character. Now, identifying the radioman character, that’s going to be a bit tougher, because on tanks that do not have him, you’ll have to look at crew available skills/perks or on wiki, which guy is it (unless you want to just upgrade the entire crew). Or, you can have a look at the small role icons on that respective crewmember’s panel in the garage (thanks to Viktor E. for reminding me of this one):

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I also guess that due to earlier access to Sixth Sense, Wargaming will have to make a special tutorial or something for everyone to know, why the hell is there an orange lightbulb lighting up above their tanks (I can full well imagine there are players, who wouldn’t have a clue the first time they see it).

So that’s it. Good change? Bad? Whatcha think?