Welcome to Hellfish's FC-Academy.

Of course we know all these but just a reminder .

Source:
forum.worldoftanks.eu/index.php?/topic/486640-hellfishs-fc-academy/#topmost
Welcome to Hellfish's FC-Academy.
Table of Contents:
1. Preface
2. About the author
3. Introduction
4. Chapter I: First Steps
5. Chapter II: Map Control and Key Locations
6. Chapter III: Organized Games vs. Random Battles
7. Chapter IV: Camping
8. Chapter V: The Cardinal Rules of Field Commanding
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1. Preface
For a long time I was thinking about writing a guide on one of the most complex subjects of advanced playing: Field Commanding. I have touched the subject in a couple of threads and gave advice to a couple of rising clans and FC's. But I have never found a way to get everything there is to say about Field Commanding into one article or guide. So I gave up on the attempt, instead I will write a series of shorter articles, each one about a component of Field Commanding, a different angle to look at the subject. Together I hope this series of articles will form a comprehensive compendium on the topic, which I like to call Hellfish's FC-Academy. I will post new articles every few days, but I can't promise a regular schedule.
If you have questions, comments, suggestions for future articles or anything else you want to say, please leave a post. I hope for a civilized discussion. You can also PM me with any questions you might have, however I can't promise an instant response, especially if you want me to look at your replays. Please note, English is not my native language. Cut me some slack, there will be mistakes. Now have fun reading.
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2. About the author
I came in touch with Field Commanding very early in my „career“. Joining the German clan LEOHQ in the end of 2012 we played a lot of tier 6 TC's, where I tried my first steps as an FC. Later I joined IDEAL for the first campaign. Just having unlocked my first T10 tank I was completely inexperienced in Clan Wars. But I learned quickly, when I was involved in preparing strategies, spending countless hours in training rooms to earn the first Clan Wars reward tank. Because I liked playing CW's I left IDEAL and after a short stop at ZER0 I joined KOTH/I337. After the commander of this clan went inactive, I took over commanding many (if not most) CW's. That was right in the middle of the second campaign. I did this not because I was a good FC, but simply because someone needed to do it. It was a bumpy ride, but we finished 8th, earning the second reward tank. After the campaign, the clan fell apart and many of the members went (back) to IDEAL, so I went along. At the time there wasn't much going on in terms of competitive play in the clan, so once more I started commanding and quickly became the clan's main FC. With IDEAL we made it 7th in the World on Fire event and 17th in the Twilight of Gods event. Recently we had great success in the third campaign, reaching 4th place and earning the third of the reward tanks.
After the campaign I was looking for a new field, so I tried to build a 7/54 team with mixed success, but shifted my focus to the Stronghold mode in the end. Playing skirmishes of all tiers with almost 91% wins at over 5000 battles we can consider us one of the best Stronghold clans on the server.
Over the years I have played over 660 Clan Wars, almost 1000 TC's and 900 Team Battles, many tournaments, but primarily over 2700 skirmishes, most of which I commanded myself. Of course there are more experienced Field Commanders out there, but not many with my experience in the Skirmish mode.
I am telling you all this not because I want to make myself look good, but because you should be able to judge if I am actually competent in the subject I'm talking about.
The articles I am going to write are heavily influenced by the experiences I have made as a commander. They are by no means always right. I'm far from invincible. Many defeats have proven that. If you have defeated me, I congratulate you – feel free to show me my mistakes. I do invite you to discuss what I share with you. I enjoy a good argument, but I want to keep angry comments and feuds between clans out of this thread. This is a place where new and rising clans and FC's can learn something and hopefully improve.
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3. Introduction
The first problem I encountered when thinking about how to approach this subject is the question “Where to begin?” The subject of Field Commanding is very complex, because competitive games, where you play with an organized team are so very different from random battles, where everyone plays for himself. Thus there are many sub-topics that need to be covered, but in the end they are all connected. My plan is to talk about a variety of matters, such as map control, coordinating a push, aggression vs. defense, how to use scouts properly, setups for specific game modes, how to get into Clan Wars, and many more.
It is hence even more important to find the right place to start, to create a solid fundament for the following articles.
So this is exactly where I will begin. The first article will cover the First Steps to Field Commanding. I will not go into deep and complex strategies, but look at the most essential things that you need to understand to lead a team to victory.
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4. Chapter One: First Steps.
Before we can go into matters of actual commanding, we have to look into how to become a Field Commander in the first place. There is no place so sign up, and the rank in a clan doesn't make you one either. You just have to start doing it. Gather a couple of players around you and start playing some team mode. Doesn't matter what exactly, but skirmish is probably the way to go these days. Just go into a battle and start calling the shots. At the start this will be simple things. You don't need to start with crazy complex strategies and micromanaging 15 tanks. Say which way the main force of yours will attack. Tell your scouts which flanks you want spotted. Order your team when to push and when to fall back. Maybe you can call out the target for focus fire. This is not hard to do, as most of that is something you have to do anyway if you are playing the game. Now you just say it out loud and make the decisions for everyone, not just yourself.
This sort of very basic commanding will already change everything over a random team. Because now you are pulling on one string. Of course that string will not always be the right one. Be prepared to lose. A lot. World of Tanks is learning by dying. But you can't give up. Every time you lose, you should learn something. Even if you get roflstomped in the most brutal way, try to take something away from the experience and apply it the next time you find yourself in a similar situation.
And that is how you become a Field Commander. Just start somewhere. The rest will take time, a lot of frustration, learning the hard way but the most important thing is, you need to keep going and improving.
So now that you are a Field Commander (probably not a very good one, but everyone has to start at the bottom. I did), let's look into the basic elements of Field Commanding. I will split the process of Field Commanding into 4 parts. The parts I will be talking about are:
Preparation
Briefing
Playing
Aftermath
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Preparation
Preparation is what happens before the actual game and before the briefing. The most important part of this is picking the right setup. I am going to write an article about this in more detail, for now let's keep it basic. What setup you should pick depends entirely on what you pick it for. In Clan Wars you know the map, even the spawn. So you can prepare a strategy and pick a setup for this specific map. In other modes such as skirmish you can't do that. That means you have to pick a universal setup. Of course there are many different approaches to achieve this, but for now we will just cover the most important things. We will skip the part where you prepare for a specific map or enemy at this point, and just look at the basics for a setup that works on any map.
The first thing your setup needs is a basic amount of mobility and scouting capability. You can't go with only heavy tanks. Especially in lower tier skirmishes I see many teams doing that regularly. This is a terrible idea. Yes, in a fight face to face heavy tanks are the most powerful machines on the battlefield, but this won't help you if you can't get into the fight, because you have no idea what the enemy is doing.
So no matter what you are playing, you should not leave the garage without at least two scouts. Two, because you will need one to spot ahead and the other one to cover your empty flank, so you won't get surprised. Personally I prefer to play with 3-4 scouts, because that allows me to use them more aggressively. Also losing one doesn't hurt as much if you got 3. If you just started with Field Commanding, your players probably don't have a big selection of tanks to chose from. So I won't go into specific tanks. Of course a T37 is probably the best tier 6 light, but any other T6 light or even a Cromwell will do if you have nothing else.
Now that you have the scouts, we need to fill up the rest of the team. I could go through the tank classes and tell how many tanks of each class you should pick, but I think this is the wrong approach, because what is important is not the class of the tank, but the role is should play in your setup and strategy. The roles I like to categorize my tanks in are Scout, Battle Tank and Support Tank. We already covered the scouts, so let's go the Battle Tanks. These are what forms the heart of your setup. They are you main strike force, dishing out the damage, but also taking the punches. Traditionally the main force consists of lots of heavy tanks. This is not a necessity though. Especially on tier 6 light and mediums tanks can very well serve as battle tanks, composing your main force. For tier 8 you probably want to look more into heavies though.
Battle Tanks should be the largest number of tanks in your setup. I would aim at 50% of your total setup. These tanks will fight in the first line. Pick tanks that can hold their ground. You want a good mix of firepower, armor and health points. Mobility is nice to have, but not your first priority. Try not to mix too many different speeds though, because the slowest tanks will dictate the overall speed of your main force. That is why 1 E 100 and 3 IS-7 are a bad idea, but 2 IS-7 and 2 T110E5 or just 4 E 100 work quite well. The same applies on tier 6. 7 T37 actually make a decent setup, 6 T37 and 1 ARL 44 not so much, because he will just slow you down.
Now that we have coverd the Battle Tanks only what I call Support Tanks is left. As opposed to the Battle Tanks, Support Tanks can't stand their ground. They usually lack the armor and hp to fight in the first line and rely either on scouts to spot targets for them or the battle tanks to distract the enemy and soak up the damage while they deliver the pain. Support Tanks may belong to various classes, they can be artillery or tank destroyers, but also medium or even heavy tanks. I would call the 50 100 a support tank, because it has neither the armor nor the hp of a real heavy tank. It depends on other tanks to make it work. Support Tanks are force multipliers. Alone they are usually weak, in the right combination with other tanks they are devastating. Support Tanks should make for a small part of your setup, no more than a third, but that depends strongly on the kind of support tank. You don't want to use more than one artillery, but 3 AMX 50 100 are perfectly fine.
Generally speaking, Support Tanks are the least important for your consideration when building a setup, but they are rather difficult to use for the Field Commander. You can experiment with different Support Tanks and setups as you get more experienced. Keep their numbers low at the start. 3-4 light tanks and 6-7 heavy tanks make a fine setup for tier 8 skirmishes.
To sum up this part: Get at least 2 scouts, fill at least 50% of your force with Battle Tanks to fight in the first line, and finally up to one third Support Vehicles, but they are not that important for now.
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Briefing
The exact shape of the Briefing depends on the sort of battle you play. For Clan Wars or Tournaments you can prepare using Training Rooms and tools such as Map Tactics (look, another topic for a future article). But for most battles you only have the first 30 seconds before the battle. In a skirmish you need to analyze the enemy setup, come up with a strategy and give orders to all your players, all in 30 seconds. This may seem difficult at the start, but it gets easier the more you do it. At the start, keep it simple. Focus on the most important things. What is the central goal of your strategy? What part of the map do you want to control? Where do your scouts need to spot to achieve this?
For many maps you have to look at the enemy setup to determine if you can go for a certain location or not. The prime example would be the hill on mines. If you setup is faster, you can take it. If not, you might want to try something else.
But what if you have absolutely no idea where to go? Well, try something. Just rush a position that seemed important to you from your experience in random battles. Push down one lane with all your tanks and just spot the rest. What's the worst thing that can happen? If you lose, you at least learn what not to do for the next time.
But please, for the love of god, do not camp. You will learn nothing, waste your and the enemy's time and you are probably going to lose. In the best case you draw, which is basically losing. Camping means giving away all initiative, all control over the flow of the battle. Even if xvm gives you a really bad chance, just try something. Have the balls to charge into a bunch of Unicums. Maybe you catch them on the wrong foot and actually win. If not, you at least learn something and go into the next battle faster.
A strategy doesn't have to be super sophisticated to work. Identify a position that will give you map control (another article) and go for it. You don't need to order every single one of your players around the map. 3, maybe 4 orders will do. That is your scouts, tell them which part of the map you want spotted and your main force. Just keep them in one big bulk and attack. By working together in this basic form you will already beat many teams, because you are working together, fighting for one goal. Do you want to know how I play Windstorm? I pretty much throw all tanks straight into the center and fight it out. Just by keeping your forces tight and pushing forwards together you are already in the driving seat and make the enemy sweat.
At this point the 30 seconds are probably over and the battle begins.
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Playing
Many Field Commanders stop commanding at this point and just let the battle play out, but that's not what you want. This part is probably the hardest to write a manual for. To make it easier, I will split this into two parts that roughly describe a Field Commanders duty during the match. That is the Macromanagement and the Micromanagement. It's probably a slight misuse of the term, but I think Macromanagement is a good way to describe the first duty of a field commander: Looking at the big picture. You always want to have one eye on the minimap to see the overall situation. You always need to know where the enemies main force is located. You should see a base capture coming before the alarm goes off and move your tanks back in time. When attacking the enemy, make sure, all your forces are in position to do so and start their attack at the same time. Macromanagement, the big picture, is the most important part of your job. You give the goal for your team, and your team executes. One of the biggest mistakes you can do is tunnelvisioning on something. You need to be on the lookout, constantly aware what is going on in all parts of the map.
But the most vital duty you have is making the big decisions. This is where most inexperienced clans and teams struggle. They don't make decisions quickly enough and with full force or they don't make decisions at all and just let the battle play out. I know, this is also the most scary part of the whole thing. Because a wrong decision probably means defeat. But try to look at it the other way: No decision is always a wrong one. If you decide to go for something, you at least have the chance to do the right thing. If you think you see an opening, a chance to strike at the enemy, don't hesitate, take it and attack! If you see an immediate threat, tanks going for your cap or an incoming enemy push, don't just sit there and let it play out. Make a choice, throw everything you got in the fight and counter what you perceive as the biggest threat. Be active, because that it the only way you can disrupt the enemy's plan.

The other half of your job is the Micromanagement. The term refers to controlling individual units. At the start you have probably all your hands full with driving your own tank and looking at the big picture, how can you possibly play part of the game for 6/9/14 other tanks? Well, it gets easier. Don't try to micromanage too much at the start. All your team mates have a functional brain and should be able to drive their own tanks. Trust them to do their job and only micromanage when you see something really important. Two rather simple things will go a long way to winning fights. Call out targets to focus at. Don't stay zoomed in between your shots, but look around you. Look for the enemy tank with the lowest hp and shout at your guys to shoot him. Make it easy to identify the target, something like “IS-3 with half hp” is a good way to go. That is easy for your mates to pick up. Keep doing that until one of the teams is dead. Shooting the same target is so important in this game, it can't be said too many times. And you are in the position to do that. Focus fire!
The second rather simple form of micromanaging is making sure all your tanks join the fight. Are you fighting every single enemy tank and one of your scouts is just sitting in a bush on the other map, doing nothing? Order him to attack. You need all the tanks in a shootout. Throw everything you got at the enemy. See a heavy tank with full hp peek-a-boo'ing a corner, while the rest of you is in a brawl? Shout at the guy to move is butt into the fight. Conserving hp is good, but not once the shootout starts. Then it is all about sharing hp. If one tank doesn't take damage, that means the other tanks get shot even more and will die earlier. You want all your tanks to take damage to keep your guns in play. Everyone who is not low on hp needs to be in the front line, taking some hits for the team. Doesn't matter if it's a reloading autoloader with no armor to speak of, if he can keep his mates alive and win the fight by taking some hits, that's what you need to do. Get in the fight!
With those two basic commands, you can already decide many battles for your team. You don't have to tell every single tank what to do and shoot. Keep it simple.

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Aftermath

At this point, the battle is probably over and you could think your duty is done, but I mentioned a fourth part of commanding, the Aftermath. Technically not commanding itself, it is important if you want to improve as a team and as an FC. Like I said many times, no matter what happened in the battle, the most important thing is that you learn something from it. If your strategy failed on a major level, try to find out what went wrong and why. It will be a valuable lesson the next time you play that map.
Try to resist the temptation of finding excuses and shifting blame. It is human to do those things, I do it myself more often than I like to admit. But it is not going to help you at all. Don't scapegoat. You won't improve by blaming someone for a defeat, the only thing you will achieve is crushing your teams fighting spirit. With the morale down you will spiral into defeat after defeat. It recently happened to me in a couple of Stronghold attacks. If you see that you are on a tilt, you need to find a way to reboot. Take a break, try to lighten the mood and enjoy what you are doing. Internet tanks is serious business, but don't make it too serious. Your life doesn't depend on it.
Also try to resist your own ego. The better you get, the more you will be tempted to see yourself as the master, and your players as servants. It is the other way round. A Field Commander serves his team. Never forget that. You are providing leadership and a direction, but it's the players who fight the fight. Treat them properly and you will grow to become a strong team.

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5. Chapter II: Map Control and Key Locations

Map Control
Key Location
Force allocation and mobility
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If you have read my previous post, you will have noticed I was talking about map control a few times. Map Control is one of the central terms in strategy and tactics. As a Field Commander, most of your considerations will involve map control. So before we continue going deeper into the matter, let's take a look and find out what map control really means, and why it is so important.

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What is map control?

At its very core, the meaning of map control is how much of the map (the area) you have control over. Having control in turn means, the area is not usable for the enemy, but for you. This doesn't necessarily mean you have turned this area into a death trap for any tank moving there. It rather means the enemy can't afford to use that part of the map for any number of reasons, e.g. because his cap is threatened, thus he can't go away too far or he will be unable to return in time. There are many ways to get map control. The exact details highly depend on the map and the available setup. We will look into the most basic ways that apply to all or at least most maps. But before we do that we should ask the question, why is map control that important?
Map control doesn't win the game. Killing the enemy tanks or capping the base does. You can control 95% of the map but if you can't complete the mission, you won't win.
Well, map control is about tactical options. There more map control you have, the more tactical options you got. If you control three quarters of the map, you can attack the enemy from any direction. And you know where he has to come from.
By taking map control, you limit the enemies movement, you limit his options. If the enemy has very few viable options left, then you can focus more forces to counter those options. What sounds contradictory at first, is of fundamental importance for a Field Commander. By covering more ground, you need to cover less. You can also look at it this way: If you have more map control than the enemy, then you have all the options. His forces however are tied. Because you have many tactical options, you bind enemy forces. Forces he can't use for something else.
That is why, when making a strategy you don't try to figure out how to kill the enemy or cap his base. Instead you have to ask yourself how you get map control. While not being the final goal itself, taking control mediately leads there. So how do you take map control?
The first step is information. You need to know as much about the enemy's movement as possible. I will dedicate a post to scouts later, but for now let's just say, you need your scouts to spot the enemy's deployment as early as possible. It is not about spotting to get shots at the enemy (that can be a nice side-effect, but not your primary goal). Many maps offer opportunities so see on which half of the map the enemy is deploying. On Steppes you can move a scout to one of the rocks at the middle road, on Ensk you can spot along the rails, on Redshire you can spot the 8-line, on Himmelsdorf you can rush a scout to the center square and so on. These early spots won't give you exact positions and they usually won't allow you to do significant damage, but they tell you where you can expect a high concentration of enemy forces. Which means you also know where the enemy can't have many tanks. Let's say I see the enemy crossing to the outside, the “green strip” on Ensk. Then I know the city will be abandoned. Thus I won't waste any time and go up the 5-line, taking control over half the map straight away. Of course this is possible not just at the start of the battle. You should always know where most of the enemy forces are. That will allow you to roam other parts of the map freely with your more mobile units, taking map control away from the enemy.

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Identifying key locations

I define key locations as spots on the map, that will allow you to control larger parts of the map with small forces. Thus taking a key location serves as a force multiplier. A tank in such a spot will be more valuable, able to contribute more than a tank in any other location. Such a location, to provide some examples, would be the hill on Mines or Karelia, the Abbey on the map of the same name, the doughnut on Cliff and many more. Most maps have spots like this. Sometimes it is just one central location, sometimes there are many smaller ones, controlling only parts of the map.
It is of absolutely fundamental importance to know and understand those locations. I'm not saying you have to get them at all cost. What I'm saying is you should know them so you can use them if given the chance. Or deal with them if the enemy is in control. Once you have identified the key locations on the map you're playing, you need to incorporate them into your strategy. There are different ways to do that.
The most obvious is to rush a key location, throwing everything you got in the fight to take it from the enemy. This is a very common practice on maps such as Mines. Doing that however, you have to be aware that all your forces will be bound for this task. If you take the hill on Mines e.g. you can't also rush the island. Taking a key location is a good basis for building your strategy, but don't give in to the temptation to bite off more than you can chew. On the other hand don't be overly cautious. If you don't take any risks, you just give away the key locations for free. You don't want that. Find a middle ground.
So what about the key locations you don't want or can't take by force?
Well, you need to find a way to work around that and neutralize the threat. The easiest way is by simply playing over the other flank, where the key location doesn't give an advantage to the enemy. Let's assume you leave the hill on Himmelsdorf, no doubt a key location, to the enemy uncontested. Then you will need to build the rest of your strategy around that fact. You can't use the center of the map, because there you will get shot from the hill. What you can use is the 1- and 2-line, where you are out of draw range. So if you don't take the hill, you probably want to attack down that side. If you do take it, you should rather stay more to the center, where your team can work together and support each other.
You can also try to keep a constant threat up at the key location, to make it unusable for the enemy. Let's say you are playing Mines from the south. It takes just one tank proxyspotting the hill while some snipers or arty are aiming there, and the advantage, the enemy has from taking the hill is basically neutralized. If you decide not to take a key location, you should at least try to spot it with one scout. That will allow you to count the enemy tanks going for that location, thus you know what to expect somewhere else. And if the enemy is not going for it either, you get the position for free. Key locations are the primary means to get map control. But there are others.
The most common would be threatening the enemy base. If you are closer to the enemy base than he is, you will most likely win a cap race. If your enemy isn't stupid, he will know that. Thus you restrict his movement. He can't go away too far, has to keep forces back to cover his base. Now you have map control, you can freely take other parts of the map that are outside your enemy's reach. This leads us to the last part I want to talk about:

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Force allocation and mobility

To take control over a part of the map you don't need to necessarily have tanks located in that exact spot. Having tanks in a position to take effect in the area will do. This concern primarily slow tanks. By moving slow tanks to the flanks of your deployment area, they are pretty far of the action. It will take a long time to move them where you need them. If you decide to flank with your main force, you have to keep that in mind. The more central the position of your heavy tanks, the more map control they can provide.
Regularly I see teams who think the 0-line on Redshire is a good place for heavy tanks. In a random battle that may be true, in a skirmish it certainly isn't. The central hills are a much better place to go, simply because from there you can reach all important parts of the map relatively quick.
Consider the cost of your investment to take a certain location, and calculate the gain. Slow tanks are generally more powerful in a fight than faster ones, but they are harder to get where you need them. That's why a flexible setup should include both, fast tanks and slower but more powerful ones. Find the right assignment for the different elements of your setup, but remember, what works in a random is not always a good idea when fighting organized teams.

6. Chapter III: Organized Games vs. Random Battles

or: The Unicum Sickness

The Big Picture
The Little Things

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Battles with organized teams are radically different from most random battles. This applies to the big picture, the strategy of both teams, but also some little things. While those little things are not decisions, the FC usually has to make, but the individual player, the Field Commander also has the duty to educate his players and serve as a good example. So what are these differences?

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The Big Picture

On a larger scale we have already talked about some. In random battles you usually get a sort of standard deployment. Heavy tanks drive to the heavy corner, slugging it out amongst each other, mediums and lights drive to the open flank, while tank destroyers and artillery camp somewhere in the back. Forget everything about this stuff when you play Skirmishes, Clan Wars or Team Battles. There is no heavy corner. There is no medium playground.
The reason number one why standard random tactics (if you want to call it like that) won't work in any form of organized games is simple: It's a massive split. In random battles you usually try to cover the whole map, guard all approaches to your base. Sometimes that's not happening, then you see teams complaining about so called "Lemming-Trains". Most of the time that is a bad thing, but not because a Lemming-Train, all or most tanks going to one flank, is inherently bad. It's because the train stops half way, the second it meets resistance. If you play in an organized environment however, you can order that train to keep going and push straight through to the enemy base. Then it can be a very successful strategy.
A split however is a very risky proposition. Both teams will – if half way competent – try to figure out each others deployment early in the game using scouts. As soon as the split is detected, a good Field Commander will mass his forces and take down one half of the enemy. With a 2:1 overmatch and a merciless push, that inferior half will die very quickly and do very little damage in return. Then the other half is left versus an almost untouched team. The only chance would be a fast base capture, but most likely it will be too late for that already. So lesson number one for new Field Commanders: Stick together. Don't split.
But I should clarify. This does obviously not mean you have to stay in one big blob rolling straight to the enemy's cap circle. No, what you should do is keep your forces close enough to support each other. That means, the more mobile tanks are, the further you can send them away from you main concentration of forces. Because they can retreat and run away if they get in trouble, or quickly get to their mates in need. With slower machines you better stay tight and in more central positions on the map.
The part about being able to support can't be stressed enough. Only because you are very close together in terms of physical distance, doesn't mean you can support each other. I will give you an example for what I mean.
Regularly I meet teams on Himmelsdorf, usually when they play from the south spawn, who think it is a good idea to camp around the cap circle, on the J and K-line left and right of the church. The pinnacle of this was during the third campaign, when we met a team consisting of only E 100 and T110E3, not moving one inch. While this may seem like a strong defense, it is in fact super easy to break with the right tactics and a little bit of patience. I will dedicate an article to camping and how to break it at a later point. With their camping strategy, the enemy teams are within maybe 300 meters of each other. Close enough to support if one side gets attacked you would think. Actually no. Because from the G-line you have two roads giving a clear line of fire all the way to the south edge of the map, a few tanks there can cut the enemy team in half. And all of a sudden, the enemy camp looks way less scary, because you can use almost all of your forces to attack only one half of the enemy team. If the other half tries to reunite and help their mates, they are going to run into a crossfire, getting shot in the side over and over.
Don't split doesn't just mean don't go too far away in the spacial dimension, but in a tactical sense. Covering much ground is good (map control) but if you stretch too thinly, you create weak points the enemy can use to break through, isolate, and destroy parts of your forces.

Of course this also goes the other way. With an organized team you can afford to do certain things that would be complete and utter suicide in a random battle. Like pushing down the 1-line on Mines. Or driving straight through the center on Swamp. Pushing from the low ground on Cliff. There are many examples.
You can do this stuff, because as a Field Commander you have the power to concentrate your forces where you want them making sure the parts of your team going in get the right amount of support needed, and they are going in together. I can't possibly cover all those things and possibilities. It's up to you to find opportunities and create new strategies. You will have to re-learn and get a new look at the maps. Be willing to experiment. Like I said before, what's the worst that can happen?

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The Little Things

Now let's have a look at the little things, stuff on the micro level, the individual players. Of course the basic mechanics of the game don't change from one game mode to the other. Things like shooting at weak spots and tracks, using the spotting system, angling your armor and all that good stuff, nothing changes about that. But the way the individual players has to use his tank can change a lot in certain situations. The first rule of playing in organized teams is: Don't peek-a-boo.
This is something that has driven generations of Field Commanders into insanity. If you are a player reading this, stop it! If you are a Field Commander, you have to drill your players to stop this and be more disciplined.
Peek-a-boo(m)ing is something you do in random battles all the time. You wait for the enemy to not pay attention to you, or to shoot someone else, then you go out of cover, shoot, and retreat. Hopefully before you get shot back. Not the greatest thing to do in organized games, for two reasons.
Reason number one is, while it's a random team mate's or your own health that gets lost, in a competitive match it's not a random guy or you losing health. It's part of your team's health pool that gets lost. You need to learn to conserve health, because you need health for the shootout that will happen in most battles at some point. You can not afford to waste health before that. If you are tasked by your FC with holding a position, then you building a fireline or create crossfire depending on the available terrain, and you pre-aim your corners. Don't peek around the corner. Don't try to sneak in a shot. Be patient. Be disciplined. The enemy will come to you eventually.
The second reason is the number of guns in effect. We will talk about the guns in play theory in a later article.
The cornerstone of any engagement is keeping the number of enemy guns shooting at you low, and the number of friendly guns shooting at the enemy as many as possible. You can't achieve this by peek-a-boo'ing. If the enemy is disciplined and you aren't, they will have multiple guns aiming for you. When you peek out, only a few, but not all of your team's guns can return fire. This means, effectively you lose a lot of firepower, your enemy doesn't. You are taking bad trades, probably losing more health than you do damage. You need to be in strongly superior positions (hull-down or side scraping against enemies in the open) to make that work. Think twice before you take a big risk for very little gain. This problem is why I gave this article the subtitle “The Unicum Sickness”. Because it is usually not the bad players in your team to do this sort of mistake. It is the purple guys, trying to get more damage and be the hero of the game. This is because they are conditioned from tens of thousands of random battles to squeeze out every tiny last bit of damage. Certain reflexes from random battles need to go away in organized games, they do more harm than good. There are no heroes in a team. You win or you lose together, and the sooner you understand that, the better.

This is also tied to the subject of using HP. In defensive or idle situations you want to conserve them. But what when things get real and the shootout starts?
Let me clarify first, by shootout I mean a situation where both teams shoot at each other at close range, with very little cover available. A shootout is usually the deciding moment of a battle and happens when one team decides to push in.
In a shootout all gloves are off. HP are no longer what you try to conserve, they are a resource that wants to be used. Again, this contradicts your random reflexes. Why would you take a shot for someone you don't know? Well, playing in a team you know your mates, so take one for the team!
As a general rule, the more hp you have left, the more you need to try to get shot. Because if you get shot, that means the enemy is not shooting someone else on your team. Someone who may have less hp left than you, maybe even is down to a oneshot. When the shootout starts, you need everyone to go in. If you as a Field Commander see someone with full hp standing in the back, sniping, while his mates are dying in the front, you need to shout at him to get his lazy a*s in the fight. You need his hp. You need him to get shot, so someone else doesn't. This by the way includes autoloaders on reload. If you have a full hp autoloader left, and sacrificing that hp will allow others to survive and keep shooting, then that's the right thing to do.
You will also need to take one for the team when going for kills. Of course, you are also trying to get the kills in random battles, but you won't be willing to take a huge load of hits just to finish off a 100 hp target. Well, in a shootout, kills are (almost) everything. You need to get those kills. You need to focus fire. Sometimes that means you have to go around a tank or an obstacle to get your shot in, maybe taking some in return. Get those kills! Nothing is worse than almost killing the enemy team, but in the end it's a crushing 3:10 defeat with every single enemy left on a whiff of hp.

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To sum things up: Certain strategies and elements on the individual level that are basic skills in random battles, can backfire in a more organized environment. You will need to develop discipline and patience, but you can't hesitate when the time comes.

7. Chapter IV: Camping

Why it is a terrible idea and how to deal with it

Don't camp!
How to break a camp
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I define camping as extremely defensive and passive play, characterized by the camping team not playing for victory, but draw. Typically a camping team will stay close to or even behind their own base, using cover and concealment to hide their tanks.
Outside of Clan Wars and Stronghold Defense battles, where one team is actually defending and will win on a draw, camping is a major annoyance, usually done by on paper (xvm) weaker teams facing a stronger one. I will be talking primarily about Skirmishes here, but some parts can of course be applied to other game modes as well.

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Don't camp!

Let's start with the most obvious reason why you shouldn't camp. You are playing for draw. The only way you win is if the enemy is really stupid or does a massive mistake running into your defenses. Most of the time you will either draw or lose anyway. Yeah, you get a few more industrial resources for drawing, but you also waste 15 minutes on that, so you could have played another battle instead. Drawing is not worth it from an economical point. In all other respects, a draw is not better than a defeat. This means, essentially you start the battle with the plan to lose. The only “gain”, if that's what you want to call it, is denying victory to the enemy team. For me, that would be enough reason not to camp, and if you have only a shred of self respect left, you should feel the same. But spending a long time with online games, I know morale doesn't get you anywhere. Incentive does. So let's look at good reasons, why you benefit from playing an active game.

Reason 1: You give away all map control for free. Granted, there are some maps where the base is so closed down and easily defended, this doesn't matter. But on most maps, you won't stand a chance. With no map control left, the enemy will know exactly where you are and what you are doing. You on the other hand, have no tactical options left, you don't know when and where the attack will be coming from. The enemy can surround and outplay you step by step.

Reason 2: You don't have the initiative. This ties directly into the first point. If you don't have map control, the initiative lies probably on the enemy's side. By initiative I mean having the power to decide over the flow of the battle. The team in initiative decides, where and when you will fight and at what terms. Having initiative means you can fight the fights you can win, and avoid the ones you can't. Playing passive, you can't choose your engagement. A smart enemy will use that against you and force you to fight in a way you can't possibly hope to win.

Reason 3: You learn nothing. Like I said before, the most important thing is that you keep improving with every battle. If you want to be a good FC and a good team one day, you have to try things. You have to take risks, or you will never get anywhere. No matter what the outcome of your camping strategy, what lesson will you take from the battle? How to camp even harder next time? Nothing you may learn will help you actually win. See every battle as an opportunity to learn something new, no matter how bad the odds may look.

Reason 4: Good teams are experts at counter-camping. Playing thousands of Skirmishes, what do you think we do all day? The number of teams that decide to camp when they see our name or xvm colors is staggering. It feels like half of our battles we have to dig out teams from somewhere behind their base. We have all the training you could ask for, and we will most likely find a way to break your camp. Your chances don't improve. Try something, and you might actually surprise us. That's your best bet. We might be overly confident and underestimate you. A determined attack catching us on the wrong foot can turn the tables very quickly. Think about how epic your victory will feel if you actually manage to outplay us.

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How to break a camp

Now let's take a look at the other side, the team facing a camp. This part of course depends very much on the map you are playing. I'm still undecided, whether I want to talk about specific maps in this series, because I don't want to simply hand out strategies. It's about giving you the tools to create your own. So in this part I will talk about general things that apply to most maps.
The first virtue for fighting a camp is patience. Many maps don't allow a head-through-wall approach. You will have to use the available time. 15 minutes can feel like an eternity, and you and your players might become impatient. You cannot allow that. Impatience leads to mistakes, mistakes that can cost you the battle later. Taking out a camp can be a tedious process. Involve your players in your thought-process, so they understand why they have to wait and why their discipline is so important. Let's go through the process of defeating a camp step by step.

(1) Identifying the camp. Before you can attack, you need to know what's going on. Deploy your scouts to look for the enemy. Even if you don't actually spot anything, this still tells you something. Knowing where the enemy is not reduces the possible places where he can be. Reduce the positions where the enemy can hide step by step. Don't just assume, you need to know. If you see the enemy setup and expect a camp, make sure before you let your guard down and get base-rushed all of a sudden.

(2) Encircling and containing the enemy. The next thing you want to do is taking away all tactical options from the enemy. Remember, even if the enemy is camping, he might still try to counter-attack and surprise you. You have to make sure any attempt to try something will end in your enemy's demise. Don't just drive all tanks at the enemy's doorstep. Set up forward defensive positions around his hiding place, so he will drive into your crossfire if he tries to push out.

(3) Find a weakspot and soften up the enemy. No defense is perfect. Spot the different approaches to the enemy base to check for a less-guarded point of entry. Look for a smaller group of tanks that is slightly split of from the rest, tanks you might be able to isolate and take out.
Remember, spotting doesn't have to be done by light tanks. Sometimes a hull down IS-7 is your best scout (works very well on Prokhorovka for example). Any tank can proxyspot. Sometimes you don't even need to actually see the enemy. Sidescrape with an E 100 on the 1-line on Ensk. If Sixth Sense goes off, you know there is a tank at the other end.
If you have artillery, use it to work the enemy positions and weaken them for the final push. Make sure you coordinate the artillery with the scouts. Spot when the artillery is loaded and aimed. The artillery player in turn needs to communicate what he can hit so the scouts can do effective work.
If you don't have artillery you can still work with sniping tanks. And don't forget blindshots. While not very effective for a single tank, there are only so many bushes on a map. Pepper everything with 10 tanks and something is gonna stick. If you know where a scout has to be hiding, try to coordinate your blindshots and fire all at once. We have killed many scouts on Redshire that way.

(4) Work hard – don't be lazy. Very much like impatience, laziness can cost you. If you have to move half your tanks three times around the map to finally get in a good positions for the final attack, that's what you got to do. Don't take an inferior approach because you are too lazy to drive to the other side of the map. I know it is annoying, but what has to be done has to be done.

(5) Don't take damage. I wrote about this yesterday, peek-a-boo is major problem in organized games. If your players try to get shots at the enemy at all cost they will most likely find themselves in a bad position. Since the enemy is camping, we can assume he is in good positions, hull-down and probably pre-aimed at you. Don't poke out. Don't make it easy. This is where discipline and patience meet once again. You can't waste your hp. You will need every single point later in the game for the final attack. Trading is not worth it, because what you need is an advantage before you can attack.
Often, players try to do damage and trade shots because they think it will speed up the game. In reality, they make it even longer. If only one or two guys take risks and throw away their life early in the game, you have to attack from a disadvantage. You may still win, but it takes even longer, because you can't afford to simply go in and fight anymore. Your players need to understand, that playing carefully and slowly will be the faster and easier way to victory.

(6) Use the cap circle. But in a smart way. Mass-capping is a very desperate solution and probably won't work. But on many maps you can go on the circle with just one tank to draw out the defenders, and then shoot them with the rest of your team. Some maps even offer cover to do that. Good examples are Komarin, Tundra and Himmelsdorf. Just make sure the sacrifice of the capping tanks is worth it, if the enemy comes for it. Set up a crossfire around the cap, and once they go for the decaps, they die in a hail of fire.

(7) Coordinate your final push. If (6) doesn't work, you can still go with the sledgehammer. I'll probably write about pushing in more detail at some point, but let's look at the most important things. You need all your tanks in play at the same time. That's why you need to prepare and set up your push. Tell the players that you are going to push, so they are not surprised. Group up and get in position so everyone can move in without delay or blocking each other. Everyone needs to know where to go when the time comes. Especially when attacking from multiple directions, you can use the ingame clock to time the attack. That way you can make sure that all tanks arrive at the same time when they have different speeds or distances.
Get tanks with the highest hp but low DPM in the fight first, so they eat the initial salvo. Use your hp. Keep going in all the way, go around the enemy to make them turn their turrets. This will make it easy for you to focus and single out a target. This part is probably the most important. You need to reduce the guns shooting at you quickly, so pick a dangerous and exposed target and take it down. Autoloaders are perfect for that. Strike hard and without hesitation. Sometimes the first tank going in will die instantly. But you have to keep going. Use your momentum and purge the campers.
Chapter V: The Cardinal Rules of Field Commanding

Recently I lost a few battles that could have been won easily, if it wasn't for some really stupid mistakes. The most painful defeat was the one in Mangled Metal, where we lost 1:2 on Cliff, primarily because we split and got pushed. This made me think about a number of rules for competitive matches, you should never break. Following those rather simple rules will increase your chance of winning in high pressure situations a lot. This part is primarily about tournaments, important Clan Wars, ESL etc. But many things also apply for other modes.

1) Don't be fancy

Nothing good comes from trying fancy strategies. Stick to the things you know. The basic and proven strategies are often the best ones. We could have won those Mangled Metal games by simply going straight for the middle with all 7 tanks. But I had to try fancy stuff and lost.

2) If you want to be fancy, prepare

So you decided to ignore the first rule? Then you better prepare for it. Test the strategy in Skirmish or Team Battles. The best thing would be a training partner obviously. Make sure every single players knows exactly what he has to do. Go to a training room with the exact players and tanks and train until everything is 110% correct. If someone has to climb a tricky spot, or you are pushing up a tank somewhere, do it at least 20 times. Need a tank to be in exactly the right bush? Show him in a training room. Because under pressure you will fail.
Let me give you an example:


Recently I was going for a south rush on Airfield. Not overly fancy you would think. The idea was to deny the north by pressuring the cap with a fast medium attack. Some players didn't know you could go up the purple path, so they went for the red way and got shot to pieces. If you are doing something that isn't standard knowledge, make sure everyone knows.

3) Never underestimate an enemy

XVM tells you the enemy is bad? Well, let me tell you something: No matter how terrible the stats, their guns still hurt just as much as yours. Their tanks have the same armor, hp and DPM. It takes only one tactical mistake, one player to screw up, one disconnect, one ammorack or fire, and you may very well lose the game. Don't lose because you had to be arrogant.

4) Play safe

This is directly tied to the point above. Often, there are two (or more) ways of doing things. One is fast and easy, the other is slightly tedious. Take the safe way. Don't throw a game, because you are lazy.
Let's look at another example:


This is the infamous Ruinberg camp. A good way to attack is from the church. But you have to get there first. The red way is the fastest. But you might get shot in the side (yellow). The purple way is the one you want to go. Your players won't be happy, but they will get there with all their hp. And that is what counts. Don't take a risk if there is a safe way of doing things.

5) Stick together

Don't split up. The less tanks on the battlefield, the more important this rule gets. If you have only 7 tanks, you can't afford to fight with 5 or 6 against the full enemy team. You will need all your tanks. Don't lose a game because you split up and got pushed.