Sunday night… I knew I would be busy tonight for a while, but I cast the chips in, and Sgt Joker accepted the helm of command.  The first landing brought them to the Ruinberg map of Courland to face the Angels of Death – Wilde Jagd.  Players were scarce, and we only fielded a team of 10, but they did their best before falling.  The Angels advanced on past us, through the finals, but eventually fell to the land owners in the landing, so even though we lost, we have no shame in our showing.

More people arrived, including myself (who just narrowly missed the first landing) and we fielded a fairly decent team for the second match, Ruinberg again but in the Netherlands, where we faced the Iron-Raiders.  We had a few minor misfires in positioning people, and our tanks in the city got flanked hard.  In the end, it was a learning experience, which is a polite way of saying we lost.

A post from Wilso was made tonight… a rallying call with a straight forward message… “This Friday, we WILL take land, and this Saturday, we WILL defend it”.

Rally around the flag, men… it’s time to take land!

Last night left the bitter taste of defeat in my mouth, and I was hoping for better results in the nights battles.  Bonestriker cast our chips, and we made our first landing in the semifinals of the Mines of Cyprus against 5th Canadian (Armoured) Division, who had already fought in the quarter finals.  As battle time drew near, I was pleased to see 8 tier X and three tier IX on our side, along with my trusty T-92, so I felt pretty good about our chances.  We have been working long and hard, the grinding is paying off, and we are finally fielding a very competitive team.  Our gameplay was solid, and we lost only one vehicle to advance into the finals against Xtreme United Gamers.  We were still smarting from our defeat to them last night, but we had been very close then, and we were better armed this time.  Obviously, they were running scared, because they didn’t even show up… a technical victory!

Meanwhile, we had the second landing, the 1/4 finals at the Abby on the Canary Islands against the International Drunks.  That battle would be at 2 past the hour, with the landing at Cyprus at 11 past.  Obviously, we couldn’t risk entering the battle and not making the landing, so Sgt Joker led a second team into that battle.  They were massively outgunned, so they did the noble thing and surrendered the battle, wishing them well on the landing.

The second team made it back into chat to wish us well on the landing, and we entered with high hopes.  Alas, no land would be taken tonight.  Their arty fired for effect, and their strategy was sound leading the Brothers Grim to safely defend their territory again.

We were heavy on tonight, and our first landing was a finals match in Cyprus against Xtreme United Gamers, who had already fought through the semi-finals to get to us.  As the match started, there was much gnashing of teeth that we were heavily outgunned.  Wilso led us in to battle with reassurances, and as it turns out, the match ended with 2 of us in their base, and 2 of them in our base… and both of them were damaged, they just got there a little ahead of us.  NEVER call the odds, good game-play will win out, and we ARE a competitive team!

Our second landing was also a finals match, this time in Corsica against the Vietnam People’s Army.  We ran the numbers on their team, and we liked the odds.  Perhaps we were a bit overconfident, and even though we started up one vehicle, and seemed to outgun them, their superior play against our unfamiliarity with the map brought the match to them.

Lesson learned?  The match we thought we would get stomped in we did VERY well.  The match we thought we would win easily, we got our asses handed to us in a bread basket.  Always keep focused, and take nothing for granted either way.

The first battles of September have been fought.  Our first landing was in Cyprus, and having lucked out on the draw we managed to skip the quarter finals.  Panzac and Cyberdestruction tied, so we slipped into the finals unchallenged, where we would be facing Xtreme United Gamers, who had fought their way up through the quarter finals and semi finals.  Problem was, the finals for Cyprus were at 22:43, and our first landing for Brittany was at 22:39.  Tough call… but at Brittany, we were already in the finals, as the only other Clan applying for that zone was 1ª Brigada de Cavalaria Blindada, and they only had 37 members with no tier IX or X tanks… and as that landing came 4 minutes before the finals for Cyprus, we decided to go balls in with it, and hope to kill them in 4 minutes or less.  Screw it, even if we didn’t kill them that fast, we would be in our first REAL landing, and that was worth it all… emergency emails were sent, Bonestriker showed up in the nick of time, and as battle time drew near we fielded a full team of 15… to face the enemy team of 7!  We won, but not in time to make it into the Cyprus battle, so we lost that one as a technical defeat… but we made our first landing at Brittany to face Marder She Wrote.  It would be a tough battle, but we made the LANDING!!!  By then, we had about 20 Clan members online, and easily fielded a team of 15, carefully picking to give it our best chance.  As expected, we were heavily outgunned, almost all tier X but their arty…

But we took some of them with us, and at the end of the match, we were in their base and they were in ours… they were just a little further ahead than we were… but only by a hair…

Wednesday night found 13 souls online, so I figured by the time I threw in chips and the landing came up, we would pick up another couple… I was wrong.  Our first landing was the Steppes of Crimea against Hardware_RUS, and fight time found 11 brave souls entering the battle.  Imagine our surprise when we encountered 11 brave souls on the OTHER side, too.  They were a little more heavily armoured, with 3 IS-7s, a Maus and 2 T-92 for arty (along with a G-Type I believe).  Their scouts took down our arty early, but we brought down their Maus and a T-30 before we fell to their bigger guns… we wished them well on the landing, and turned our attention to the second landing.

The Netherlands brought us to Ruinberg where we faced Phoenix Company.  StompAE86 made his triumphant return bringing his Maus, jimmy, fiddler and HaTz bringing their IS-7s, and we felt good entering the match.  Of course, the enemy came pretty well stocked, too, with 5 IS-7 and 4 Maus, and we were heavily outgunned.  We gave a good showing, taking down 6 of the enemy, including a Maus and an IS-7.

At the end of the night, we gave a good show.  Even though we lost,we gave a good show both times.  More people on in the first match might have tipped the scales, but the second was purely an issue of firepower… more grinding will take care of that, and then the world will be ours!

I wandered on to WoT tonight around 8:30, and was happy to see a room full of Clanmates, so I decided to throw down chips for what I thought would be a quick foray into Clan Wars… I picked Troms, which was out of the way, and only had 2 other Clans throwing in their chips, so I figured we were good for a couple fun rounds…

As the turn set up, we saw we were up against Forge, and they came heavy… our little rag tag band met with 9 IS-7 and 3 Maus… I am not sure what the rest were, I was too busy getting smacked.  They wasted little time going right for our base… but we stood tall!  Our colours may bleed, but they DO NOT RUN!  We died noble deaths, but we died to a man…

We are almost there… we have the numbers, we just need to grind up to higher tiers.  Most evenings, we can field a couple tier X, a handful of tier IX, and a good showing for the rest.  But as the grind continues, we will soon be able to field a competitive team full of tier X tanks…

Until then, Clan Wars remains a fun foray for us… we gain experience every time we play, learning the maps and learning how to work as a team!