Verblonde

(From the entry in the shop - you need to be logged in to see it, BTW) Edit (per @kfa):

This is my view - as far as I can tell, these are just a couple of fairly dull BBs, and all you can get from the boxes, besides them, are cammos. Oh well, perhaps WG will be able to persuade me to part with some money for the KM CV event...

Nothing really; for a couple of reasons: If I hadn't wasted the money on pixel ships, I probably would have wasted it on something even more ephemeral like beer etc. Even the most flaky premium ship has a use i.e. preventing you from getting it again from Xmas boxes, with the result that almost all my T9 premiums were - kind of - ludicrously inexpensive (at least in relation to normal price). I've had fun with almost every single premium I've bought, even if it's just via messing about with Coop.

I may be being a bit slow here, but are we saying that some, otherwise rational, unfortunate soul had a thought process along the lines of "By George, I fancy - voluntarily and of my own volition - spending actual hard-earned money on VU; here's my credit card WG - please help yourself!"?!

I'd pay money for Zapp Brannigan (complete with Kif sighing in the background)... " Stop exploding, you cowards!" " Now here's a course with some chest hair." " We were doomed from the start. I guess all that remains now is for the captain to go down with the ship." and so on...

Besides what @MacArthur92 said, premiums and semi-premiums get reduced service costs; this makes a significant difference to profitability, especially at higher tiers. If you want to get a sense of this, the economy page of the wiki is worth a look (the relevant table is about 3/4 of the way down): https://wiki.wargaming.net/en/Ship:Economy Besides what you get from the cammo, xp bonuses are - I believe - sekrit, although the Sims is notorious for having a ludicrous base xp boost, assuming it hasn't been quietly fixed and I missed it.

I have a memory of one of the official WG folk (can't remember who though) saying that TYL containers give you two 'rolls' at a SC, rather than a simple doubling of the odds i.e. if, say, the chance of a SC is 1.5% then you have a 1.5% chance of getting a SC (well, duh!) for 'normal' containers, whereas the TYL give you that same 1.5% chance, followed by a second 1.5% chance if the first was negative. TYL doesn't give you a single 3% (if we're using 1.5% as the base chance) chance. I always take Resources containers as they guarantee a known minimum useful reward (400 coal), plus they're normally more useful than SC contents (although I did get a coal SC last week) for me, as I already have all the premiums that - as far as I know - drop from SCs.

On the face of it, I feels like a less idiotic idea than if they did it in WOT - at least in WOWS, you can actually damage higher tier ships reliably. Just have to wait and see how the detail turns out...

Besides GZ, I suppose it's remotely possible that the upcoming T6 premium may get released this patch (although I'd be surprised). Presumably the logic is along the lines of 'please buy GZ - she's very nice and everything, honest!' and anyone without her can go back later and complete the 'missing' directive if the rewards are any good (I haven't looked).

C'mon - he's quality! Being slightly less silly, it's a pity Max von Sydow is no longer with us - he'd be a glorious captain's voice...

FWIW I tend to think of Cossack's sneakiness as a) a way to avoid CVs (which is essential, given her poor AA) and b) a tool to allow you to get into an optimal position for laying out your opening negotiating position i.e. unleashing the dakka. Cossack (a bit like Haida a tier lower) tends to reward a fairly aggressive and noisy playstyle, but it's helpful to be able to blow your stealth at moments of your choosing...

BTW @Spearhawk1969 - keep an eye out for free captain resets; although they happen rather less often these days (thanks for that, WG - tightwads!) they're a great opportunity to play with different builds - if you aren't overflowing with suitable captains, it's worth messing about with different builds for the one(s) you do have. Just make sure to set them to whatever your keeper configuration is (or have them 'zeroed') before the end of the reset!

FWIW the captain I run on my MAs (and GA) looks like this: Like I said though, a tank build is optimal, and you want manual secondaries for full manly; my logic for this semi-manly build is as follows FWIW: It's a lot easier to hit specific bits of the ship at 'manly' ranges, so making them harder to shoot off is no bad thing, hence PM. AR for obvious reasons, and EM to make it slightly easier to get main guns on target at manly ranges. BFT and AFT for maximum boost to secondaries (plus, they both help AA, which is a bonus given all the CVs about). SI gives me an extra healing potion (and engine boost, when the captain is on GA). FP is my main concession to being a big softy (tank build), because it's disproportionately useful against HE spam (it turns the two middle fire locations into one; most people shoot centre mass, so the effective fire reduction tends to be rather more than the theoretical 25%), quite apart from the -10% fire chance. To be clear, this is in no way optimal (or fully manly, for the true secondary aficionado), but rather something that works well for me; if I was taking MA into randoms (except by accident, which has happened), I would probably take a more conventional tank captain. P.S. If you want to easily take screen grabs of discrete bits of your screen, Greenshot might be worth a look (that's where my above grab came from).

FWIW I keep my secondary flags for 'special occasions'; to maximise secondary range: AFT captain adds 20% to the range of your secondaries (BTW Ship Comrade is worth a look when planning captain builds, although the skill pop-ups appear to be out of date: http://shipcomrade.com/captcalc). Secondary Battery Mod 1 adds another 20% to the range (it can be worth taking the Aux Armaments Mod too - it makes it harder to shoot off your secondaries); have a look at the fitting tool: https://wowsft.com/ship?index=PASB518&modules=1111&upgrades=212120&commander=PCW001&consumables=111&pos=0. Those two combined give a secondary range of 10.8 km (according to fitting tool - I haven't checked, but it sounds right).

Probably not - you're showing 11 random cruiser battles; if you dropped into T9 you'd almost certainly be crucified.

Heh! If you want a more constructive answer: I'm afraid this is what some might refer to as a L2P issue: At time of writing, you have 750 randoms under your belt, of which 77% (+ change) are in CVs. Your highest tier silver BB is T7. Neither of these things is a bad thing (CV haters - behave yourselves!), but it does mean you're trying to play a high(ish) tier BB without the necessary skills/experience. MA also benefits from a high point captain (although that's true of most things in the +2 MM bracket); you may well not have one that's good enough yet? You probably won't get a refund on MA (too many battles), but you can take some useful steps to make the purchase a lot more worthwhile (she is a good ship, and I don't really like BBs): Short term, play her in Coop - MA is a hoot against bots as she's ideal for the more manly playstyle that'll get you horribly sunk against real people (she's an easy way to bag the 'secondaries/main gun hits' mission in the second directive too). You'll make a profit and your expensive ship won't be a port queen. In the meantime, play a lot more BBs against real people, but lower-mid tier ones; I'd suggest trying some of the other lines besides the US too - it's horribly tedious trying to learn to BB with mid tier Americans due to their being painfully slow (speed improves at T8).. It's also worth playing at least a bit in cruisers and DDs; HE spam from the former and torps from the latter are threats; a good way to understand how they work is to play them yourself. You already know all about CVs. Develop a 'good enough' captain for your US silver BBs (or at least one of them): although MA is most fun with a manly build captain, the optimal choice is still a vanilla 'tank' build which coincides with what you want for the regular line. Once you've got the hang of the essentials of BBing (perhaps forgo the excessive Cheeto consumption between salvos though?), and do so nearer T8, then switch back to playing MA against real people again.

<sets out lawn chair>

I salute you, sir! (Actual porridge is a bad idea - hedgehogs are lactose-intolerant)

With all due solemnity:

Cossack, or *maybe* Orkan, for DDs. The latter lacks smoke, but it does get a heal (and radar)....

I'm not sure it needs to be: if karma actually did anything meaningful, it would get abused. I think @lovelacebeer covers it off well - although it's irritating to be reported for no good reason, I suspect it's mostly working as intendedTM Edit: I would like the number of available compliments to increase though; *might* (says he with delusional optimism) marginally increase the positivity about the place...?

I have clearly been neglecting my chucking-virgins-in-volcanoes duties lately - lots and *lots* of apparently Cursed ships. Halland springs to mind at the moment - love the ship, but spectacularly unable to win in her. Clearly Cursed (and under absolutely no circumstances is it just me being utterly incompetent)!

[Awaits Muppets chef memes]

According to Wikipedia, the class remained in service until the fifties; with a bit of serious tinkering (and scarier weapons?) a fifties version might be a doable T8? Think a slightly more extreme version of what happened to Cleveland, perhaps?

Exactly, that was what I meant with the 'for doubloons' bit in my post.