VK 16.02 Leopard Research Path

Zoom zoom zoom! Well not really seeing how the Leopard isn't all that fast compared to the T-50-2 but hey, it's still fun running amok in this tank. Ever since it got bumped to tier 5, the Leopard just doesn't seem to be all that great of a scout anymore. Nevertheless, it'll still keep you on the edge of your seat as you whiz through enemy formations and try to take out their artillery.

1. Engine: Maybach HL 120 TRM
2. Engine: Maybach HL 157 P
3. Radio: FuG 7
4. Gun: 5 cm KwK 39 L/60
5. Gun: 3 cm M.K. 103
6. Radio: FuG Spr. A
7. Tracks: Leopardketten Ausf. B
8. Tank: VK 28.01

Seriously you should have already researched those radios and if you have, then slap them on immediately. You also won't need the tracks until the very end as your stock tracks will be able to support everything you throw on it. As for the gun choices, the 3 cm is definitely better even though it uses an autoloader which takes years to reload but at least you have higher penetration than the 5 cm which is very important when you have no other option but to fight higher tiered enemies. Don't actually try to fight them of course, your armour really isn't impressive. 

Dishonored

I really need to talk about games when I play them, not 5 months after.

Anyway, so I played Dishonored a while back and if you've never heard of it, it's essentially a first-person Assassin's Creed with nifty gadgets, magical powers and a deadly plague that seems to interfere with your missions. Dishonored has a well written story that gives life to the game itself without over-doing it. You play as a former royal protector who got framed for the assassination of your empress as well as the kidnapping of the princess.

You get captured immediately after the death of the empress and kidnapping of the princess but a few new friends help you escape about a month afterwards. You get a pretty badass looking mask that not only protects your identity (you're a wanted man after all), but also serves to frighten your enemies. Granted in one mission your mask is used to help you participate and sneak through a masked ball with lots of aristocrats enjoying themselves.

You get to use a very nifty looking sword that can easily be folded whenever you're not using it and you also get access to a pistol and crossbow. As you may have guessed, a pistol will attract attention from nearby enemies whenever you use it but it's always nice to see your enemies fly back. A crossbow is better used for those stealthy take-downs with the option of equipping standard crossbow bolts, sleeping darts or even incendiary bolts. Light 'em up!

One of the biggest aspects of the game is your choice of actions. Go around killing off all your foes may seem convenient and fun but will lead to a chaotic ending while sneaking about and simply knocking them out without actually killing anyone will lead to a more peaceful ending. Additionally, these actions have their own consequences as you progress throughout the game. Kill too many people and just leave their corpses lying on the street will generate more guards and rat hordes in future missions thus making your life more difficult as you are forced to either find another route to sneak around them or fight your way through. Go for the more "good guy" way and you'll be seeing less soldiers and the citizens of the city won't act so aggressively towards you.

Did I mention that this game has a steampunk theme to it? No? Well in between being able to use your specially earned magic which allows you to teleport short distances (amongst other cool things of course), your foes will use equipment that ranges from pistols to crossbows that fire explosive whale oil (similar to our own oil we see today).

Dishonored is a pretty fun game but unfortunately after the second run, it starts to lose its replay value. Most of the storyline will remain the same regardless of which path you choose and it's easy to just go on YouTube and watch the different endings rather than play through the game again and again. But overall, it's worth looking into and it did win the 2013 BAFTA award for best game so you'll know that you won't be wasting your time.

Now for a more funny picture. Yes I found it on 9gag.

Call of Duty Thoughts

Can't exactly have a blog that talks about games without talking about Call of Duty right? Oh I should probably warn you folks, if you are easily offended or have a faint of heart, then you probably shouldn't read this. My opinions are my own and if you don't like what you are reading, you are more than welcome to stop reading and leave. Now that I got that disclaimer out of the way, let's get started eh?

So I remember when Call of Duty 2 came out. I had walked into a nearby Best Buy and walked up to the nearest Xbox 360 that was available to try. They had loaded the demo for CoD 2 and I was amazed by the graphics (I was a kid back then). It was then that I developed a slight interest in FPS games. Several years later, I got my hands on CoD 2 and quite honestly, it was pretty good. The campaign had a reasonable length to it and playing a WWII themed FPS game, who could say no?

Then came greed. Somewhere along the lines, EA, Activision or Treyarch (I honestly don't care which and I'll explain why later) got greedy and poof, we now have a new CoD game coming out every year. So why don't I care who got greedy? Mostly because once you create a video game, the consumer only cares about the game itself and not the workings behind it. Certainly EA gets 99% of the blame especially with the fact that it got rated in the top 10 worst companies in the US but let's face it, the developer should have also put in more effort in the single-player campaign rather than just recycling multi-player content and just over pricing them.

Unfortunately, CoD has gotten so mainstream (or whatever word you wish to use), that every 12 year old will convince their mommy and daddy to fork out $60 everytime a new CoD has been released. Oh and add in an extra $50 for DLC's and you've got enough money to feed an African country right there.

Of course I'm not trying to bash CoD. CoD itself is a pretty decent game, but constantly reusing the same formula and going with the idea of "if it ain't broke, then don't fix it" just gets boring and repetitive over time. Life is all about taking risks, not trying to scam people into spending more money. Although granted, I still like the health system in CoD. In theory, it's so much easier to survive then say Counter Strike for example as you can actually heal just by standing there and not get hit. But for the most part, CoD needs new ideas and ones that don't involve trying to scam players. Money is difficult to come by and as a publisher, EA should be more understanding of this but they aren't. They care too much about money and as a result, the quality of games has decreased dramatically. We'll never see a "Super Mario World " type game from EA anytime soon.

*Insert Witty Title Here*

So as some of you may (or may not) know, I am a field commander at my clan PWNT. By the way, if any of yous wishes to join a lovely clan filled with crazy but awesome people, come check out PWNT. Ok now that I got that out of the way, let's get to the more important stuff.

So last night I had to call battles. Wait what? What are you talking about? 

For those who aren't familiar, PWNT participates in clan wars and like all kinds of organized fighting, there is a command structure during times of seriousness. Generally a deputy commander or field commander will take charge of the entire fight and call the shots with roughly 2 or 3 element leaders who are generally tasked with leading their respective groups. I'm very happy just staying as an element leader as the job generally only entitles directing fellow clanmates to focus fire and shoot at a specific target. 

Unfortunately (or fortunately if you want to see if that way), none of the usual commanders who called the whole battle were online yet we had our clan battles scheduled. So at first, I was reluctant to step up as it is a very stressful position. You spend much of your time directing people what to do and combine that with fighting directly on the front lines, it's a lot of work. 

So with that in mind, I decided it was a good idea to say no to calling battles and instead let my clanmate Newsomator call the battles. He wasn't very clear with some of his instructions during the battle but I feel that with practice, he should do a pretty good job of leading people. But nevertheless, after the first battle he felt that it was a better idea to just let me do the job of calling battles. Yikes!

So I reluctantly said yes but decided that it was probably the best idea. I reused the old strategy of just amassing tanks in the town area (we were fighting on Lakeville mind you) but this time, I devoted more tanks there with no artillery support. Like so:

• 1 GW Tiger
• 1 JgPzE100
• 2 BatChat.25t
• 1 T57 Heavy
• 4 T110E5
• 2 E-100
• 2 IS-7

Granted there were just the few of us online (odd right?) so this was the only thing I had to work with. We were lucky however to face a team filled with tier 9 and tier 8 tanks so despite the fact that we were short handed, we still had a breeze fighting them. 

The next battle was a bit better as more of the clanmates were starting to come online. However there was a problem and that was we were fighting the folks for Hostile. Let's just say that I wasn't too keen on fighting them as they too amassed large number of tanks in the city area. They also brought along a good number of autoloader tanks which created a very big challenge. So how exactly does one beat autoloader tanks? Bring more of your own of course! So the tank setup looked a little something like this:

• 1 AMX50B
• 2 E-100
• 3 T110E5
• 4 T57 Heavy
• 3 BatChat.25t
• 1 JgPzE100
• 1 B.Chat.155

So autoloader artillery plus 8 autoloader tanks. Muhahahaha. That was an evil laugh by the way. We did manage to win the battle in the end but it was a close one. Although we had crushed their city forces, they had crushed ours too. Fortunately I was prepared for this and we won by capturing their base using the tanks that I had positioned in the valley. I won't give away too much here with my valley strategy but just keep in mind that they have a very important job of helping me out whenever I need them. So I had done it. I managed to beat the one clan which I thought was one of the tougher clans we faced. This brought me to the final battle with the land owner. 

Now I didn't know anything about the strategy of the land owner but I assumed that it there would be a decent number of tanks in the city area. But for more durability, I tweaked my tank setup a little. I was now fielding:

• 2 E-100
• 4 T110E5
• 4 T57 Heavy <-- these babies are very useful for support you know
• 2 BatChat.25t
• 1 Tortoise <-- this thing fights on par with tier 10 tanks which is why we use it
• 1 B.Chat.155
• 1 T92

Sadly our T92 got counter battery-ed very early on but we were still able to manage. Fighting in the city is very stressful and requires careful thinking. You also want to lure the enemies out in the open so your artillery and any other support forces outside the city can help out. It was an extremely close call but I did re-learn one thing and that was focus fire really makes a huge difference. We managed to knock out 4 of their tanks in a matter of seconds and I believe it was at that moment that I managed to secure a foothold in our victory. It was a pretty eventful match filled with some funny moments but the final result was, we had won. 

I was very satisfied with myself and how I managed to refine a strategy and make it work. Plus I had gotten us land! If there was one thing that I learned with fighting in the city, it's that you must send in a large number of autoloaders to help out. Just like how people love to use big giant guns with long reload times in the city, autoloaders work to the same effect.