Average player’s journey to 279

Howdy! Am an average joe in WoT (IGN: thDarkKnight, NA) and unlocked the 279 yesterday, feeling immensely proud and happy about it after months of frustration!

Average not only means that stats are average, but also that I very rarely fire gold in randoms, ranked, advances, skirmishes et al and use standard repair and med kit (no food or directives), except auto extinguisher, which is not commonly needed so the expense is worth the benefit (reduced chance of fire too, not just the automatic extinguishing). The two occasions of exceptions are that during the clan wars campaigns I fired a lot of gold and used expensive consumables including food and directives, and that helped get a Chieftain in February and 907 this month; and for the missions in this 279 campaign that were limited by the number of battles to fulfill (like getting 30k damage within 10 battles). Did not use gold or expensive consumables for Chimera, Excalibur, 260, T-55 etc missions, cause they could be done just by attempting again instead of spending credits to strive for fewer attempts (did test my patience sometimes!). Spent a bunch of credits in buying and trying tech tree tier 8 and 9 tanks for missions (Is-3, 110, Wz132, Pershing, T32, T69, LHMTV, Fv3805, 212A, etc).

The main reason I choose to use standard setups is so I can play my favorite tier, which is 10, without worrying about credit loss. I've spent a bit of money on the game during the lootbox events, which has yielded considerable premium time, which along with the standard setups and occasional credit boosters keeps running tier 10s afloat with minor credit profits on average. I do enjoy a lot of tier 8 premiums and play them, especially before clan wars seasons, but mainly, I stick to 10s. The bunch of gold yielded by lootboxes (especially the repeated premiums) gets spent on free xp conversion during 40 xp per gold discount (no accelerated crew training on any tank) and used to unlock more tier 10s.

Any way, here's the journey to 279 broken down, let me know if you have any questions!

Chimera #15 missions:Union: v4 with honorsBloc: Jageroo with honors. Fired HE till condition of damaging 6 different enemies was fulfilled; stayed behind cover but close to groups of enemies, popped in to fire without aiming for weakspots, usually retreated before getting hit or often bounced cause armor was angled while withdrawing when they shot back.Alliance: Badger without honors. Couldn't get an order out of this one, got 6.5k couple of times with Badger but either didn't get 5 kills or lost the battle.Coalition: Ebr 105 with honors.

These along with completing the Excalibur #15 with honors yielded 7 orders, so decided to do 2 lines on the 279 and have 1 extra order to skip a mission in one of them. Tried all 4 lines, completed 4 missions in Bloc and 5 in Coalition, but the Union and Alliance lines came more easily, so continued putting more effort on them. Encounter and Assault modes were kept unchecked, may or may not be a good strategy, just thought I'd get 5 more minutes to get missions done. For all the missions where arty was used, Himmelsdorf and Minsk maps were blocked. For all the missions where avoiding getting hit by enemy arty was required (hull down tanks to collect damage), Prokhorovka and Malinovka were blocked. Breakdown:

Union:

1. T-100lt
2. 261
3. Lt-432
4. v4
5. v4
6. Lt-432
7. v4 firing HE
8. v4
9. Lt-432
10. v4 with honors
11. Lt-432
12. T-100lt
13. skipped with order, closest attempt was with Lt-432. Found this to be the most difficult mission.
14. 212A with stock gun with honors
15. Is-3 with quite a bit of gold. 3 1st classes in 9ish battles, that's all I needed. Quite sure that tank can get it with honors rather easily with full gold loadout, big consumables and directives.

Bloc (incomplete):
3: Stb-1
6: Stb-1
11: Stb-1
12: Type 5
15: skipped with 3 orders

Alliance:

1. Chimera
2. Badger
3. T92 (the tier 8 prem light tank, not arty), found this to be the 2nd most difficult mission after Union 13. After many attempts, got a lucky break on Prokhorovka with assisting in killing 8 in a single battle to help get the 20 total in 10 battles, ended up getting 25 thanks to that one good battle. Manticore came close too at 17.
4. S Conq (worked better than Chieftain in dealing damage consistently while perma-tracking and having more hull armor and hp to trade later in a battle). Me being an average player found this the 3rd most difficult mission, took a lot of focus and quite a bit of gold ammo.
5. Fv3805 with stock gun with honors
6. Senlac
7. E3 with honors. Rolled with spall liner to not only reduce HE damage to stay alive longer to bounce more, but also reduce chance of driver dying which reduces ability to wiggle and shrug off attempts at weakpoints, and toolbox for faster track repair.
8. 183 firing gold. My typical standard loadout ass felt more cringe about credits bleeding doing this mission than any other one.
9. Fv3805 with stock gun
10. Fv3805 with honors
11. Fv3805 with honors
12. E3 with honors, same setup as #7
13. Chrysler
14. Fv3805 with honors
15. Pershing, same as with Is-3 for Union 15, with quite a bit of gold and got 3 1st classes in 9ish battles, and also like Is-3, this tank can get it with honors quite easily with full gold and big consumables loadout.

Coalition (incomplete):
1: 30b
5: Kran
9: Lorr 155 51
12: Ebr 105 with honors
13: Lorr 155 51 with honors
15: skipped with 3 orders

Played just 1 battle with the 279 so far, and I agree it's a broken tank. 3.5k damage and 5 kills with my typical standard loadout. The only real weakness seems to be the ammo rack, broke twice just from arty's hits.

Thanks for reading and have a great day! 🙂