2400 WN8 player’s path to the Obj 279e

Got the Obj 279e today.

I'm not terrible, not great, 2400 to 2500 WN8 depending on what I play. Consistency is a problem and I do well on some maps and struggle on others.

I had a wide selection of tanks available, therefore I did not feel limited by not having the right tank.

My thoughts about the missions follow.

Excalibur:

• All of Excalibur with honours – 4 orders. This was easy except for Bloc with honours on which I was weirdly stuck for longer than I should. In the end, a combination of E-50 for High Caliber + Top Guns and scouts let me finish this. For Aces, play tech tree tanks.

Chimera:

• Chimera Union-15 honours was easy, just a random good game in Obj 260.
• Chimera Bloc-15 honours was trivial, just a random good game in Leopard, but any t10 will do, and it is doable even in t9 and good t8.
• Chimera Alliance-1, it is not very difficult but still needs stars to align to let you farm so much on a win – quite often when winning your team steamrolls the enemy and you don't get the 25% of hitpoints. I did it in a T29 in a relatively easy battle, but it took some battles for the right combination of "my team and enemy team are both very bad" to come.
• Chimera Alliance-15, I never did with honours. It was really easy without honours in many tanks, I did it multiple times in Chieftain, Super Conqueror, T110E4, T110E3, but stars never aligned for this "6.5k dmg + 5 kills + win" – one component was always missing, often just one shot of dmg or one kill. I turned on Grand Battles for this and it seemed to help, but the endgame dynamics sometimes flow too fast on Grand Battles. It is certainly a doable mission, but very RNG and dependent on enemy teams.
• Chimera Coalition-15 with honours – very easy in EBR 105, just get Malinovka or Prokhorovka and play well.

Obj 279e Union:

• Union-1 (10k assist 5 battles) – easy if you start with a good game in T-100LT
• Union-2 (2x own HP) – easy in Obj 261
• Union-3 – 15 kills in 10 battles – easy if you start with a good game, did in 112 without trying
• Union-4 – block 40 shots in 5 battles – trivial in 112, but KV-4 probably also works if you start with a good game
• Union-6 – top kills in team 3 out of 7 – did in 112 easily, use a platoon if you have difficulties with this, but I did not need to.
• Union-7 (internal critical hits) – skipped as it was way too RNG, I had many many times of going 3-3-2 with the critical hits. I tried Obj 261 and it worked OK but not great. I switched to T-44-100 and Type 59 and those worked better, but it really needs 3 games in a row where you both do well and the internal critical hit RNG gods smile upon you. It is doable when the stars align, but I was getting too tilted with it and skipped it.
• Union-8 – 7 out of 10 own HP no arty – Done easily in combo of LT-432 and T-44-100… I think WZ-132 and T-44 are good candidates too.
• Union-9 – 3 kills 2 battles in a row – done in T-44-100 and 112 combo, very easy mission.
• Union-10 – 15k block in 10 battles – trivial in IS-4 if starting with a good battle
• Union-11 – pen shots – Done in LT-432 but anything fast shooting makes this an easy mission
• Union-12 – assists – done in LT-432 easily
• Union-13 (Top Guns) – I skipped this without trying, though if you have a good, reliable platoon who are ready to sacrifice damage so that you can farm Top Guns then it is probably doable. You just play normal until first Top Gun, then you have 11 attempts to farm the second Top Gun.
• Union-14 stun – done in Obj 261 easily
• Union-15 – Did it without honours in T-44 and it was very easy. Doing it with honours is more tricky, but doable in T-44. I tried also LTTB and WZ-132 and KV-4 but never got them working well enough for me to get consistent Aces.

Obj 279e Bloc:

• I skipped this with 3 orders. It surely is doable except for Bloc-10 High Calibers, but this is the one I decided to skip – in part because I ran out of German food at some point and thus had made no progress with these missions and therefore finishing the other branches always seemed easier than starting Bloc from scratch.

Obj 279e Alliance:

• Alliance-1 – own HP in dmg not arty – done in T110E4 easily, but anything will work and any TD or LT makes it relatively easy
• Alliance-2 – top 3 in dmg – any tank works, did in Centurion AX while grinding credits
• Alliance-3 – assists – done in LHMTV
• Alliance-4 – 30k dmg 10 battles – Chieftain makes this easy, but it is doable with other t10 tanks too, I would have gone for Super Conq or T110E4 if I didn't have a Chieftain.
• Alliance-5 – Stun – done M53/M55 first gun, easily
• Alliance-6 – confederates – Done M53/M55 first gun, easily
• Alliance-7 – block 2k dmg on avg – Done in T95 easily, but T110E3 and Chieftain would also work
• Alliance-8 – 25 internal crits in 10 battles – this mission is such a pain after the HE nerf! I was trying to complete mostly with Caernarvon, and I was also trying Super Conqueror, M53/M55, Chieftain, etc. If you are really good or get really lucky, it's probably doable, but I completed it using an order. Fast shooting guns with good module damage are the key. This is probably the mission I spent the most battles on – without coming closer than 23 internal crits in 10 battles. Drowning enemies can help a lot, but you need stars to align (right map, right positioning, allies who do not shoot them while they drown, etc.). Setting enemies on on fire can help. I wish the designers of this mission would demonstrate on a live stream how to complete it, odds are good they are unable to do so themselves. Proper unicums can complete this simply by penning a lot of shots per game, but fus us mortals this is a very difficult mission.
• Alliance-9 stun – M53/M55 first gun easy
• Alliance-10 2x own HP – M53/M55 second gun easy
• Alliance-11 1k stun – M53/M55 second gun easy
• Union-12 block top dmg in team – T95 easy
• Union-13 top XP, 3 times in a row – T95 easy, but anything brawling t8 or t9 is probably pretty easy
• Union-14 – shoot many tanks – done in Caernarvon AX easily, but other fast shooting tanks work as well
• Alliance-15 – with honours in T32. Did not buy the Bulldog, it was quite easy with T32, did 3 Aces in 8 battles (though was lucky with the battles).

Obj 279e Coalition:

• Coalition-1 – 4+ kills 3 out of 10 – done in Škoda T56 easily but other autoloaders would have worked, Vz 55, Kranvagn, Emil 2, or TNH Vz 51 would have been my other choices. Use a platoon if failing, but I didn't have to.
• Coalition-2 – 3k dmg 3 times in a row – done relatively easily in TVP T50/51 but any decent t10 will work and good t9 would also
• Coalition-3 – battle awards – done easily in EBR 105 for Scout + Patrol Duty combos, other wheeled lights would work too
• Coalition-4 – internal critical hits – skipped. Same as Alliance-8. Supposedly, Coalition has better tanks here and if I had tried to do this, I would have focused on Progetto 46 and Škoda T50, but playing some games yielded nowhere close to the right numbers so I skipped it.
• Coalition-5 – block 30 hits – Done on A.P. AMX 30 easily while grinding credits but Emil 2 and Kranvagn and Vz 55 are also good choices that would have worked.
• Coalition-6 – pen shots – done in Progetto 46 quite easily.
• Coalition-7 – 2 kills 3 battles in a row – trivial, done in Progetto 46 but anything will work
• Coalition-8 – Patrol Duty – easy in EBR 105, other wheeled lights would work too
• Coalition-9 – dmg 4 tanks – easily done in Progetto 46 and anything else fast shooting would work
• Coalition-10 – 1.5k assist – done easily in EBR 105
• Coalition-11 – top kills in battle – same as Coalition-1
• Coalition-12 – 7 assists – done in Lynx 6×6 but other wheeled lights would work
• Coalition-13 – 2x own dmg 3 out of 7 – done in a mix of A.P. AMX 30 and Progetto 46… I tried with Lynx 6×6 figuring that 1840 dmg isn't much at all, but had better results with mediums. I think this has many good options to try and overall isn't a very difficult mission, you just need 2 good games in the space of 6 games.
• Coalition-14 – top dmg in battle 3 out of 5 – nearly did this quite a few times (being top 2 in dmg for the last try), but in the end I skipped it. It's certainly doable if you are a good player, and if you are a great player then it becomes a very easy mission that finishes without trying. I focused on Kranvagn, Emil 2 and Progetto 46 for it.
• Coaliation-15 – without honours in a mix of Lynx 6×6 and TVP VTU, it was really easy, took 15 battles or so. Doing it with honours is more difficult, but likely quite doable in TVP VTU and Lynx 6×6. BC 12t is also a good option but I did not rebuy it.

Overall, I took way longer to finish these missions than I should and certainly choked a lot on the last make-or-break battles way too much.

The internal critical hit missions are horrible. Very RNG, tuned for old HE/crits mechanics and utterly frustrating. I kept a detailed log of crits achieved with all tanks and was analysing which ones work better than others… Well, some work better than others, but none worked well enough for me and I ended up skipping every single one of these missions using orders.

The only other mission besides internal crit missions that I grew to hate was Chimera Alliance-15, I don't think it really belongs in Chimera as it is significantly more random (with honours! – without honours it is easy) than anything else in Chimera.