Verblonde

As it is written, Non Cogito, ergo sum Solanum tuberosum. That really should be my motto... (When I gave that to Google to translate, they originally gave me the name for a pepper for some reason.)

It's true: I generally avoid gambling crates unless what's in them for certain justifies the spend. I reset the Russian cruiser line when the Moskva switch happened, and I'm not really a cruiser fiend, so moving through the tiers faster than I would otherwise is rather helpful.

Aye. Besides what others said, quite a few ships can put fighters/spotters up too, and shooting them down also contributes to the planes kills tally.

I bought a few premium crates, mainly because I could use some dragon flags to speed up a regrind (Russian cruisers): First ten: no CV missions. Subsequent five: two missions (for the T4 and T6). Things is, with these sorts of crates, most of us only see small data sets, so any one of us could easily be spectacularly lucky, unlucky, or anywhere in between. Buying these things is absolutely gambling if you're after a specific random element that *may* be inside...

(emphasis added) This is very true; FWIW my feeling is that two (maybe three) well-chosen lines from each main class isn't bad quantity before going higher. There are a few down-sides to going excessively diverse: if you're playing lots of different things all at once, it takes longer (in terms of hours of play) to get decent captains together; also, you tend to do better if you play multiple battles in the same thing as you tend to get more of a feel for whatever that thing is.

Just to echo what @SeaWolf7 said - they're a poor choice for a 'first' cruiser line, as they have weirdness (SAP rounds); I would suggest returning to them once you have mastered some more conventional cruisers. As a DD main, I do treat the Italian cruisers with a lot of respect though; the aforementioned SAP rounds will shred DDs in short order if you give them a chance.

You won't like this answer, but 'neither of them' (yet). If you'll permit me: At time of writing, you have only 115 random battles under your belt (I'm assuming you aren't a reroll; if you are, ignore me); this isn't an "unworthy dog - begone!" thing, but rather an observation that there will most likely be a lot in the game you have yet to fully get a handle on, plus you're most likely a bit short on well developed captains too. The game gets a lot harder when you get into the +2 MM bracket (as you'll have probably discovered already), and you'll be at less of a disadvantage if you venture up the tiers at a more considered pace, allowing your skills and captains to keep pace. I would suggest playing several other ship types to Tier 5/6 before venturing higher in anything - you'll be a better player if you have a better understanding of how all the classes handle, what they're trying to do, and their various strengths and weaknesses. I note that you've probably bought (unless they were rentals) several high tier premiums; this isn't terribly wise - don't worry though; most of us did it too - with a T8, say, you're going into the teeth of players with thousands of battles under their belt, and probably far superior captains than you've probably had a chance to acquire yet. I would suggest messing about in Coop with your high end premiums until your silver lines have caught up. In terms on lines to explore, I might suggest the following: for DDs, US (the classic all-rounders, and they have okay AA, which helps with all the CVs around), followed by KM (again, decent all-rounders, and they get hydro from T5, plus you have Z-39 for use as a captain trainer); for cruisers: IJN (another classic starter line, plus your Atago gels well as a captain trainer), and maybe KM (the usual 'other' starter line is the US, but you have PE for use as a captain trainer later); BBs you already have a couple, but I would focus on the US first (the RN is prone to teaching bad habits, most notably a tendency to shoot too much HE); as to CVs, they are perhaps less essential, although understanding how they work will help get through the T4 CV plague - perhaps one or other of the US or IJN (RN are felt to be a bit weaker by many, and the KM are a bit weird, mainly due to the AP rockets). If you haven't found it yet, the wiki is an essential resource (https://wiki.wargaming.net/en/World_of_Warships), plus I would look at some of iChase's more recent 'how to' videos on YouTube. WOWS is (perhaps surprisingly) well laid out, if you follow a logical and measured tier progression, in terms of introducing you to different game elements in a 'one thing at a time' sort of way: guns first (T1), then torps, then planes, then hydro, then radar etc. To be effective, one has to learn a lot of stuff, and the best way to do that is to play as wide a range of different things as possible at lower tier. The other thing that is crucial is captains (well built ones too): when you get into the +2 MM bracket, you will be at a disadvantage if you don't have at least 10 pointers on your ships, mainly because of the CE skill; this, incidentally, is why picking lines based on which premiums you have already isn't entirely stupid (although it's more sensible/usual to do it the other way around) - premiums allow you to develop relevant captains faster. The key pain-point in all this is CVs; low tiers should be where newer players get to learn and T4 CVs present a bit of a problem in that there are lots of them and many ships they see (most especially, T3s) have essentially non-existent AA; my feeling here is to either accelerate your progression to T4/T5 when you start to acquire at least some AA defence (or do the same in Coop). As painful as it can be, it is worth trying to hone your anti-CV methodology at lower tiers (apart from a few seal-clubbers, most CV players aren't actually that good), as CVs only get more dangerous at higher tiers... That's just a few pointers, so keep asking questions on here - there are usually plenty of helpful folk about.

It's worth being in a clan anyway - mainly for the various economic bonuses (assuming a reasonably developed base); if you aren't keen on stuff like Clan Wars, just join a "we're only in it for the resources" clans...

Always pick resources containers - guaranteed minimum reward (400 coal + clan bonus, if applicable). You'll get an occasional supercontainer, but the chances of any one containing anything useful are vanishingly small. Personally, I groan whenever I get a SC these days, as I'd rather get coal than flags/cammo (which is what the majority contain).

Magnificence! <hat-tip>

How do people (like me) who already have her vote? Three is probably closest...?

You're too kind - thank you. It felt like I spent all my time running away from people and spotting for that Yamato with his pretty dress though... But of course! Mounting AA signals usually has a similar effect for me!

I believe I just saw @Greyshark taking his experimental Russian DD (R-10?) for a spin; unusually for me, I didn't explode in the first thirty seconds or so - my usual form when there's a forum member present...

I haven't checked again, but I was under the impression that WG said 300 tokens were available for nowt, and it seems the rest require you to be lucky and/or spend. To get a free cammo, you have to complete all four of the mission chains, all of which require either a specific early release CV, or one of the GZs to finish off. So, first chain needs the T4, second needs the T6, third the T8, and the fourth requires a GZ. Edit: for clarity(?) - all the 'free' tokens come from the earlier stages of the four CV mission chains; I make it 75 tokens per chain before you need a specific CV. So, four lots of 75 is the 300 that WG announced, assuming you have access to T8+ KM ships. The reward for the final stage of each chain is another 15 tokens, plus you unlock the final reward of another 60 tokens (plus the relevant CV's permaflage), so giving us up to 300 more 'lucky/spend' tokens - 600 total, unlocking one T10 permaflage. To get more than that single T10, of course, you have to buy one or more of the class-specific mission chains from the shop...

I'll be thunderstruck if it does. It looks to me rather as if someone at WG didn't learn a d*mn thing from the PR -up. My feeling is that - for a commercial entity - there is nothing wrong with trying to make money, but you absolutely need to be straight about it. Because it is functionally impossible (for most people) to get the freebie T10 permaflage without spending money, and entirely impossible to get more than one without spending, WG should have made that crystal clear from the beginning. All that's needed is some text spelling out that you will almost certainly have to spend; they did it with the current dockyard event, so clearly at least one person learned from previous mistakes; not everyone, apparently. A sensible compromise would be to have an alternative T8 permaflage (say) available for 300 tokens as well, so there is something worthwhile for the f2p crowd to get for free: people who spend get something of significant value, whereas people who don't get something merely okay. Not much extra work, and WG don't make a large chunk of their customer base either a) annoyed, or b) go outside and not bother playing (or possibly both).

Just a small PSA, in case anyone hasn't noticed (and cares about the CV missions for tokens/free cammo for the new CVs): as we probably all know, the KM CV missions can be done simultaneously (hence my having fun using GZ as a cap contestor in Coop!). What I missed initially - because I'm a bimbo - is that the tier requirements vary across the various mission chains, so for maximum efficiency, play T8 or higher; lower tiers, although they'll possibly tick the boxes for the first one or two sets of missions, won't do the job for the 'top' two. Missing this didn't impact me much personally (I only noticed when giving Scharn a run out earlier) as everything I'd played for this had been T8+ anyway, but just in case I'm not the only airhead in the vicinity. Reading is hard...

I'm reasonably confident you aren't the only one. I needed some dragon flags for a RB regrind, so picked up a few gamble boxes, which dropped the T4 and T6 missions; besides liking freebie permaflage for them, I suppose it's remotely possible the T8 mission might drop from a freebie; so, I'm doing the missions as a 'just in case' sort of a thing, since I already have GZ. Even if the T8 doesn't drop, I can always use the tokens for some signals. Since I was playing anyway, and it isn't a huge hardship to play some of the more Teutonic bits of my ship collection...

This was the last I saw (back in May), and the tier appears to have been moving around still: https://thedailybounce.net/world-of-warships/supertest-german-tier-viii-premium-destroyer-z-35/

What are we looking at? Are you referring to all the Sprint R1 folk on one side? That doesn't mean very much - I got to R1 in the recent sprint, and I'm bloody awful... Taking a guess, the big muck-up was not finding and killing the opposition's Cossack, rather than the team make-ups.

I thought we might get it today, too. Last I heard, it sounded like a vaguely entertaining YOLO sort of a beast for mucking about with bots, but quite possibly not my first choice for PvP...

It's the very last mission that's the kicker - as @Klopirat says, you need all three early access KM CVs, plus one or other of the GZs. Unless I missed something, the only way to get a cammo 'free' is to have bought enough of the premium containers to get all the CVs* (I'm assuming the probabilities with the free ones are such that almost no-one will get all three), or bought one or more of the 'for money' missions... *Edit: and have one of the GZs of course!

This is pretty much what I do with Georgia at least three-quarters of the time...

Of course not!

If it was one or the other, probably Thunderer, although mainly on the grounds that there seems to be a view that it'll be removed from sale first. On a vaguely related note, so far anyway, once a T10 is gone, it's gone, whereas the T9s have tended to turn up as bait for the Xmas gambling boxes (although that pretty much requires that you whale most mightily, as you seem to generally get just about every clunker first, before something more desirable drops). After that, if it were me, I would think in terms of what I already had, and which one I had a better captain for (or was able to get soon enough to be useful), and what I most needed the chosen ship to do. As far as I can see, Thunderer is simply a very good vanilla T10 BB, so you don't need to do anything weird with a captain for her and she'll just do BB things very effectively. Georgia is a bit more weird, and is the superior credit earner (she's a full premium); I find her to be more fun too, but don't listen to a word I say on the technical merits of BBs - I'm bloody awful in all of them!

As (probably) everyone knows, the AA hulls have been removed from the game (mainly US DDs). I only just noticed (which probably means I missed a patchnote somewhere) that if you had the AA hull in use and - presumably - hadn't kept the B hull, your ship reverts back to the stock hull. Might be of interest to someone (as far as I can see, only one US DD that I had was impacted, as I'd mostly been playing the B hulls of late)... Edit: I could be entirely wrong though, as I could have sworn I was running the AA hulls on my KM CLs, and they've gone staright to B hulls now. UPDATE: I'm flat-out mis-remembering some stuff; for something a bit more accurate please see my post further down the thread...