Black Friday Deals
By:
IrmaBecx
So if you have 5000 gold lying around, you can get yourself a new tier VIII premium tank from today, your choice of the T26E5, the Lorraine 40 t, or the Object 252u – King of IS Spam.
I thought I’d give you a quick rundown of what you can expect from these tanks, because 5K gold with all nine equipment slots is I think a deal worth considering.
And I can tell you up front that for my money, the 252u is the best deal of the bunch.
*
The Object 252u is the most powerful IS spam tank in the game, there’s just no doubt about it. The only reason I say you should consider the IS-5 first is that its so much cheaper, even at this low price you’d get almost four of them for the price of one 252u.
But that’s not what this is going to be about. Every time I drive the 252u on the press account, I become more convinced it is in fact the most powerful of the Soviet style Heavy tanks, and if a picture is worth a thousand words, a moving picture should be even better:
That’s my first game out today, pumping out almost 3K damage in a tier IX game without too much effort.
The Spam King has three things going for it other than a liberal amount of Russian bias. It’s mobile, it has solid armour, and it has the most powerful 122 mm of any tank of this style. The BL-13 is basically a BL-9 with double cheese and extra hot sauce; you get the same 225 mm of standard penetration, but you’ll have 420 alpha on your AP, 360 on your APCR, and it points the gun down one more degree than the IS-3.
That doesn’t sound like huge increase, and it’s not. But it does make the weapon slightly more consistent, and with the benefit of thicker, more angled armour plating, you should be able to take on the tech tree tank any day of the week and come out on top.
The Object 252u is not automatically going to win you games, but is sure will make things easier for you. It doesn’t really have any significant drawbacks, which is a bit of Bias in and of itself, and if you make out all right in your current IS Spam beater, chances are you’ll do a little better in this one.
So is it worth it?
Yes. If you like this style of tank, without a doubt. This is as close to overpowered you can get driving a Russian Heavy tank at tier VIII. I’ll even say I quite like it, but I’m not getting one, because I am quite happy with my slightly less biased WZ-111.
*
If you don’t want to drive a pike nose, or you think the most powerful 122 mm Heavy tank makes things too easy, you might consider the T26E5; that’s the one they call the “Sheriff” when decked out in the special camo, and please note that camo is not included in the bundle.
The T26E5 is more of an acquired taste, I’d say.
You get 500 DPM more than tier standard, but you need to use a 90 mm gun to put out the shells. That means you have a Medium tank reload; you’ll easily trade two shots for one against other Heavy tanks with 120 or 122 mm weapons, and with ten degrees of gun depression and a sturdy gun mantlet, you can really chew people up in the right position.
The T26E5 is a tank you either like or you don’t; I know people who swear by it, but there’s not a lot of them. I kind of like it but not enough to buy it, and I would say there’s an easy test to see if you will. If you think driving a Löwe, AMX M4 49, or any other 105 mm Heavy tank is too complicated because of the low alpha damage, then this tank is definitely not for you.
It’s one of the most typical Medium/Heavy hybrids in the game. I drove a quick game in it just so you can see the thing move and shoot:
Is it worth it?
For the right driver, yes; and it all about that 90 mm gun. It’s a good one, but it does mean you’ll have to work a little more to do damage, and if you’re not into that, then stay away.
*
This brings us to the Lorraine 40 t. Again, this is sort of a niche vehicle; a four shot 90 mm autoloader with no armour that does 60, and again I know people who swear by it.
I’ve had the Lorraine on my press account for a while, but I haven’t driven it all that much, and so I don’t really have an opinion for you, except to say this is a tank with very flimsy armour, but you do have two important strengths to make up for that.
The Lorraine has a burst potential of 900 damage over 7.5 seconds. that in itself is a strength. But then you also have great mobility; this is nothing like your AMX 50 100, you have 15 km/h top speed and five horsepower per ton more, it really is fantastically mobile. And that means you can deploy that awesome burst potential where it needs to be, and then hopefully make a quick getaway.
The playstyle isn’t super hard to learn. If you already drive autoloaders, you’ll like this one, it’s a real hit and run burst assassin.
The tradeoff however, is that every part of the tank except the turret front will be overmatched by a 122 mm or larger caliber weapon. I found that out trying to clip out a T49, taking almost 1000 damage right off the bat and then being stuck on a 21 second reload while my team rushed to help.
Sadly, they got there too late, so I’m not going to show you that game. We lost, too.
But yeah, if the T26E5 is an acquired taste,t eh Lorraine is even more so. I’d rather have the M4 Rev or the CDC I think, but again, for the right player this will be a gem.
*
Three interesting tanks on offer, I’d say. Again, for my money the Object 252u is the most obvious deal, and If I were out shopping, that’s the one I’d go for.
It looks like you’ll have to spend an enormous amount of gold to get a hold of the coveted Scorpion G camper special, but that never interested me.
You probably know I like the T-34-3; basically a Hype 59 with a 122 mm on it, I’d say avoid the VK 168.01 (P). The FV201 (A45) is also a low alpha, high DPM type deal; almost 3000 DPM at tier VII, and the ISU-122S from the “Berlin” collection just got buffed, so they may be worth a look.
I was never super into the E25, but you certainly get a lot of stuff with it. That’s not a gold bundle, however.
All in all, I do think there are some good deals to be had; again for the right customer.
Except the Object 252u. That’s an actual bargain, and you can quote me on that.
IrmaBecx School of Tank Philosophy 