World of Warships
So the Holiday Convoy, Pan-American Destroyers & AA Rework Update (15.7) kicked off today (Thursday).
New ships are available to grind toward. No doubt, many players will go for the long-awaited New Jersey which is an Iowa-class battleship. I have some of these "new ships" already so am not that interested.
Instead, I am going to concentrate on using my holiday tokens for doubloons instead. So, each day you play a total of five winning games (Tier V and above) in whatever battle mode you choose to earn a total of twelve hundred tokens. Nine thousand holiday tokens is needed to earn three thousand doubloons PER update. And as the image below shows there are six Updates in total. Or eighteen thousand doubloons on offer.
The new Pan-American destroyer line is now out in Early Access. Got four of them today - two free from crates, one for dubs and one from the Event Pass. The remainder are behind a pay wall. Will wait for their eventual release for free grind in a couple of Updates.
The return of the Event Pass saw the release of two of the new Pan-Asian destroyers as rewards which also includes the premium Pan-Asian destroyer Jurua. Nice effort from WG this time round.
Also released is a new economic bonus (legendary). It is the next level up from the red one. Got thirteen of each using the fifty-two Exchange tokens gifted to me. Does that mean service costs are going to rise considerably? Is this a preview of what is going to happen in the future? If so, it's a bit suss.
December 2 will be a day to remember as a free Tier IX ship (or equivalent credits if already in your port fleet) will also be gifted to EVERYONE participating. Part of the Santa/New Year celebrations.
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You can exchange resources for Holiday tokens by clicking the cross icon in the top right corner of the page (below). The rate is as follows:
Something to keep in mind when one gets too lazy to bother grinding for these tokens the "usual way". Today I played more games than usual in order to complete the weekly grind missions for the Event Pass - the five 3000 BASE XP ones. For a change, I played the Yimeng after earning the daily coal loot crates. This ship is one of those being offered in the Holiday Convoy ships event. Got it several updates ago. It has the torpedo protection gimmick unique to this vessel. No smoke. No hydro. Good secondaries (at least level with Pommern). Guns smack alright but are not top tier smackers. At least you have a fair number of guns.
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Today (Saturday) I exchanged 200,000 coal for 60,000 holiday tokens and got Bismarck '41, an historical ship I missed out on when it was released recently. Glad to have it now. Took it out and enjoyed it. Slow reload but wicked secondaries.
It's the only ship I'm interested in. Now I will return to my focus on getting holiday tokens to exchange for doubloons. Pricey exchange but 18,000 FREE doubloons is worth it. Any extra holiday tokens I will spend appropriately.
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Sunday was a quiet session with just the Leipzig to commander grind. Priority today was the daily coal loot crates and 1200 holiday tokens. Then quickly logged out.
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Iron Next Heavy Turret Simulator
Took on the Iron Road mission today (Thursday). Completed it with no problems which was a relief because I noticed in the global achievements that it had a 41% completion rate. So I was a bit nervous at the beginning. But then it was knocking out a moving target that seemed to be the hurdle that had to be overcome. And I got first attempt. Chuffed.
The briefing was both informative and straightforward. You got mission instructions including a direction, speed and ETA which when duly processed (calc-ing in the head) gave a firing solution that was plotted and actioned.
Once the train convoy was taken out, the rest proved easy by comparison in that I had to gun plot and then knock out two bunkered gun emplacements before signalling the assault to proceed. And then, to further assist the assault and thus finish off the mission, I had to knock out the remaining enemy units and structures. Only then was I stood down.
The good thing from succeeding with the Iron Road mission was receiving several new punch cards, among which the EMERGENCY MOVE! is most welcomed as it pauses the counter-battery clock whilst also enabling the turret the option to reposition.
Next mission will be raising the Siege of Cartagena.
Glory to Castile!
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Broke the Siege of Cartagena after a couple of stuff ups early on tonight's late-night session. Got so caught up in the plotting that I forgot to read the communications coming through especially after destroying the primary objectives - knocking off the signals station, an assembly point, and a command HQ. Thought it was just knock out the nearby enemy units after self-congratulations. But I forgot about the coastal batteries that mentioned in the initial Command HQ message.
When I attempted to knock out the batteries however I soon learned that the information from the friendly listening post was erroneous. The bearing and distances when plotted did not match up to the actual locations of the enemy guns once revealed.
Eventually the enemy guns were silenced. And then I had to wait for the call for assistance, namely firing smoke to assist a breakout. Was given two timings for smoke firing. Fortunately I was ready both times.
Next mission, The Gorge, is meant to increasing in difficulty, i.e. more complex. Looking forward to it.
Really enjoying this fifteen-mission campaign. Learned there are a couple of "side" or "chill out" missions where you can practice your skills and also grind for requisition points to restock on ammunition.
HCHE is a nasty bigger blast form of HE. HE is good for pinpoint accuracy with its smaller blast radius; HCHE has a much bigger blast area and therefore does not discriminate.
Glory to Castile! Down with the anti-monarchists!
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Played two missions in the campaign today (Friday). The first was The Gorge.
Instantly handicapped when discovering the turret had suffered some damage.
Was part of a convoy passing through a gorge when we were attacked by those anti-monarchist scum. Our units were able to thwart their initial attacks. But I had to fire blind and try to locate the enemy. All I had was a general location. Sent up air recon to verify and then took it from there. The console (shown above) was out of action: it requires bearing and distance to a target in order to spit out gun elevation. Now I had to guess the elevation.
You can do it by fall of shot and straddle firing. amending elevation as you go. Or stick to one elevation and simply change the distance. I chose to keep the direction more or less constant and just change the elevation to suit. Able to make it work after initial challenges.
Blind firing wastes ammo. But perseverance pays off however. And this came to the fore in the next mission after completing The Gorge mission. Lucky the enemy were obliging to line up on the same axis of approach so all I had to do was concentrate on placing my rounds correctly.
Then I completed the primary objective in the Rock of Gibraltar mission which was sink a British cruiser anchored in harbour.
Sneaky Castilians is all I can say. Read the newspaper and you will understand.
Then there is the side mission, the one I saw the YT streamer complete and which eventually got me hooked on this game. Sink a moving ship. Unfortunately, my confidence was sky high, especially after my lucky success in Iron Road. But here I made a calculation error and my Hail Mary shot landed well short and so far ahead that I thought I had fired into the future!
From here on in, I began chasing my fall of shot to correct. Lucky for me the enemy vessel held the same course and speed. So all I had to was project where it would be at a certain time. But my calc-ing proved faulty (that's why you write it down instead of doing it all in your head) and I plied further time pressure on myself.
But persistence pays off as I reasoned I still had time enough before the ship disappeared off the plotting board because, as they say, "it ain't over until the fat lady sings!".
And after four "corrections", I finally got lucky and scored a direct hit on the ship. Truth be told, it was just a lucky shot as I was too busy requisitioning and reloading to fully calculate properly and simply make a quick guess where to aim. My time in World of Warships was useful after all.
Next mission will be Dead Reckoning.
Glory to life! F*** this war!
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Today (Saturday) I entered the game and clicked on the Dead Reckoning mission. First challenge was sorting out the location of the enemy headquarters. I was given the following information from the engaged spotters (circled red below). Obviously, this was about as useful as toilet paper insofar as both directions are identical in direction but the spotters sending the info are in different locations. So I had to work out precisely whereabout SW the HQ actually was. Was it WSW or SSW?
I fired the TEAR (specialised ammo designed to reveal hidden enemies) round at SW and what was revealed was nothing. Nada.
So I began bracketing rounds by splitting the difference from fall of that first shot, firstly by half one way, and then half again. I trusted the distance was correct; just the direction needed correcting. And the plan worked for the HQ was soon revealed to be WSW. And the HQ was soon destroyed.
Once the primary objectives were completed, I was given a secondary mission - find and destroy ten more enemy units. Managed to located and destroy eight. But then ran out of requisition points. No requisition points, no ammo. So it's time to do some chill missions to accumulate points before I can resume my ongoing southern campaign.
Once that's done then it's the northern front for Iron Nest.
Reading the little articles in The Castile Herald can sometimes be quite hilarious such as the pre-ventilated headdress or craters for sale. Lol.
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Today I jumped back into the last mission of the southern campaign. It was a slog in terms of endurance as you weren't given clear objectives as with the other mission. Seville was eventually "liberated". Yay...not!
Mission was fire support, as and when needed. Initially hectic as Iron Nest signalled the assault to start. And you waited for call-ins for fire support. Once the initial call-ins were dealt with and the advance into city commence, you were left to your own devices. In other words, it was time to locate and destroy any remaining enemy units and structures within the city. At least now you operated with any time pressure whatsoever. But you had hidden enemies to locate. And for that you needed spotters. I chose to use STAR shells and FO (Forward Observers) to identify the remaining hidden enemy.
Prior to completing the mission tonight I enjoyed several playthroughs where I simply quit either from not understanding the mission properly or causing collateral damage or, as in one instance, loading too hastily without proper preparation thus handicapping myself to having only the one gun operational. D'oh!
So now it's on to the eastern campaign with the ultimate goal, the liberation of Barcelona. And the first mission requires Iron Nest and a small infantry force to defend a beachhead and thwart an enemy ship-to-shore landing.
Yada yada yada...Castile! Looking at my political options right now. High Command is turning into a right royal pain in the bum!
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