Verblonde

In terms of stats, gameplay, and all that jazz, they are identical in every respect. There are one or two things to have on your radar though. Although they're clones of each other stats-wise, they are still different ships. There are a number of consequences of this: Each has its own discrete record as far as WR is concerned etc. You could easily have, say, 50% WR with one version, and 48% with the other (even if you equipped them identically), if you care about this sort of thing. A mission for one won't necessarily work with the other (definitive example being the current doubloons one, which only works with the vanilla version of each ship), although it's rare that you can't use either version for most eligible missions. You get two goes at things like daily first-win bonuses, snowflakes, and stuff like that. You have to equip each version with upgrades etc. separately; but also, you *can* equip each version separately, if you want to. For example, if you have both versions of Scharn or Tirpitz, say, you could build one for maximum manliness (concentrating on secondaries), and the other in a more balanced way (typical BB build); you could build one Alaska more for AA, and the other for pure surface-to-surface, and so on.

Only have a few (three?) so far: Shima: hate it; obviously don't use it! Gearing: situationally quite worthwhile, especially in modes like clans, where you can usually rely on others to shoot what you spot. Much less useful when there are a lot of radars around. Groz: if you like the dakka, it's worth using; I currently don't, partly because I miss the shorter torp reload, and partly because I prefer to make more use of stealth than the LU lends itself to (I'm poor with gunboats generally).

Thanks for pointing that out - I'd totally missed it (because I wasn't intending on getting the ship, and fluked winning it this morning)...

I would suggest just giving the thing a serious break (like, six months at least). For example, I haven't really played WOT for almost a year; it's only now showing the first signs of starting to be interesting for me again...

Another +1 for Shinonome (with the same caveats as previous posters, especially vis-a-vis CVs). I don't know how frequently it'll be available, but there has been a 'special' permaflage available for her, which improves on the 'standard' bonuses significantly, making the ship one of the better earners at the tier. She's also quite worthwhile in things like Ranked Sprint, when they're held for T6, if you care about that kind of thing.

Did clans have bases the last time you played (I can't remember when they were introduced)? If not, it's worth joining a clan with a well developed base - it'll give you useful economic bonuses...

Besides 'play what you're best in', a few random nominations, from an unashamedly DD-centric perspective, and assuming premiums: Smith is hilarious at T2 - rapidly reloading single torp tubes. Can't go wrong with Vampire at T3. Yubari at T4 is quite fun, and sort of an honourary DD. At T5, the best DDs are no longer available; Okhotnik is glorious though, especially if the enemy is silly enough to let you get within torp range. The T-61 is possibly the best premium in the game tier-for-tier of any class (at least of those still available) - great all-rounder, with smoke/hydro. T7 simply calls for Haida - accept no substitutes (except maybe Z-39, and maybe Scharn, which I also rate as a sort of honourary - if enormously fat - DD). T8 has quite a few excellent ships (shame about the MM), but I would go with Cossack or Loyang, probably. Kidd is also nice if you want to put up more of a fight against planes (and get a heal to boot), as is Harekaze. Benham at T9, if it ever becomes available again, or Black - if you can get the steel. For T10, go with whatever is most fun for you to play, and stick a premium permaflage on it - instant premium economy (or close to it)! I get most use out of Gearing and Groz so far, with Daring showing distinct promise... Of course, if you don't like DDs (or, to use the technical term, 'wrong') ignore this list entirely!

Presumably, it needs to be things that WG can also extract money from the discerning whale for the 'vanilla' one at the same time... Jean Bart/Georgia Loyang Haida Boise maybe (what the hell - you can never have too many of the same ship) Saipan (in keeping with this year's 'mediocre CV' vibe That's a mix of what I'd like (the DDs), plus what I think WG might go for; of course, the actual selection next year will be entirely different...

Total purchases - in sequence - because I'm a silly: Shiny and Sims Black versions bought outright, because they were the ones I actually wanted and use a lot. 5 crates, because I never win anything but quite fancied the 'secondary' contents; got Graf in the second or third one opened. The 250 doubloon crate from the armoury - utterly thunderstruck to get Alaska. That's probably my luck used up for several years then (depending on your view of Graf, I suppose)...

Far too much...!

I think so, hence my warning - it caused a lot of confusion/upset last time amongst those who don't read below the first page break...

I see (on the Asia server anyway), they're being vague with the wording at the top of each ship entry on the doubloons missions again: for the benefit of anyone who wasn't here last year - read the small print at the bottom. For those who can't be bothered: if you get Black Sims (say), you can only do the doubloons mission in regular vanilla Sims, not the Black one. It's the same for all the others. If you're after easy doubloons, buying the Black version of any of the ships alone won't do it; you need the vanilla equivalents too.

I did as well, although mainly at really antisocial hours for the server - that way you mainly get bots, and they're too busy ramming each other to worry about capping...

You can do either, to judge from the OP (it was like that last year too, as I recall)...

Just in case anyone hasn't noticed (I hadn't, because I'm almost entirely playing WOWS at the moment): it's the WOT anniversary, and if you just log into your account in the game, you get a bunch of freebies, based on how long you've had your account. Besides things like training manuals, etc. - with fours years - I got a couple of premium tanks (T50-2, and a T7 'super Hellcat'). Unless you're entirely certain you'll never touch WOT again, it's worthwhile picking them up. Edit: as requested, here's the relevant news article - https://worldoftanks.eu/en/news/general-news/seniority-awards-2019/

I don't mind them on the EU server - being ironic and all that. Wouldn't touch 'em on the US server: it doesn't do to encourage the blighters...!

BTW if anyone who was was asking for advice hasn't noticed: at time of writing, port slots are 150 doubloons (half price)...

Done. I only kept it brief to start with as I didn't to go overboard on the boats forum...

I haven't tried it yet - I should have time next week. Predictably, opinion on the forum is already forming: http://forum.worldoftanks.eu/index.php?/topic/727577-can-we-agree-the-super-hellcat-needs-a-buff/

The 'solo capture' bit was a major pain in the donkey (which blithering idiot came up with that one?), but the rest was relatively painless...

My feeling is (based on my own experience) that this is fairly straightforward to explain: although the better DD, Harekaze is harder to play, mainly due to it having to use its guns, so breaking stealth, and lacking the ability to stand off and farm BB damage from 16 km (assuming you have TA). Perhaps it would be worth defining 'better' in the context of who's playing it - I get better results in Asashio, but then I'm not a good player...

Absolutely. For a start, the murals in Pompeii make quite an impression...

What sort of cad/bounder cheats on a bet? Even for beer...

I've had a few friendly Italians make spirited attempts to torp me lately; the only ship that's actually succeeded was some utter knobwurt in a Myoko (?) yesterday - I dodged his first quality second line spread, and then didn't bother with the second. It wasn't some casual idiot either - his WR was in the fifties (I checked - just curious).

This. 'P' is the default to toggle AA guns/secondaries on/off. It's worth mapping the sector reinforcement thing to something more convenient than the default (although the secondary default is tilde, which is less unhelpful) - I have mine mapped to a spare mouse button, for example.