Vermintide: Oh, What a Day, What a Lovely Day!

TW: Warhammer turns to horrific DLC, and next thing you know a rat infestation sweeps over Ubersreik... Coincidence? Yes. 

Following on from my recent review of Vermintide, I wanted to announced that the game has gone into open release, and is live on Steam. There's not a lot to add at this point, since the game was already fairing so well in it's pre-release stage. This week has been tumultuous for a Warhammer fan, with the putrid news from Total War: Warhammer, and my unbridled joy at the quality of Vermintide. While I've been hard on TW: Warhammer, it is only out of love, and I know that CA will still deliver on a worthy title. Vermintide's official release has mostly just added polish and a few new bits of content, including an intro movie. My only complaint worth raising is that the game's current finale level feels a bit underwhelming, something that I hope to see rectified as new content gets added. I'll still be playing for a long time yet, as the general experience of the game-play still has great replayability. It is gratifying to see this little indie title succeed.

Total War: Warhammer, total bloody chaos!

I sat down yesterday to play a little Attila, and noticed that TW news flashed up a new trailer for TW: Warhammer. I clicked the video link, watched the content, and then proceeded to stand up and walk out of the room. I wanted to write this article yesterday. I wanted to flay the keyboard with my fists, and strangle the life out of my mouse as I made violent sweeping gestures. I wanted to scream.
Instead of ranting like a child in a tantrum, I chose to simply go back to my PC and boot up Attila. I played for a solid two and a half hours, and reminded myself just how good the game is. I reminded myself that CA can still pump out fantastic games, which deliver strategic gameplay and iconic battle imagery that no other game company does. I remembered why I love CA, and why the TW games will always be special to me.

I'm telling you this a day later so you know that I'm not simply flushing out my butthurt feels into this post. I'm not writing from the perspective of a pissing and moaning fanboy that hates on anything new or different, and begrudges any attempt by a company to profit from their product. I am putting on my journalist glasses for this one, and telling it to you the consumer, the TW gamer, and the Warhammer fan, exactly how it is.

Yesterday CA announced the Chaos faction would be added to TW: Warhammer. The faction will only be accessable to those that pre-order the game, or purchase the content DLC after the game is launched. This fits in with CA's standard business model for the last few TW releases, Rome 2, and Attila. Both previous games had factions available as pre-order/post-launch purchasable DLC, and while the TW fans begrudged it, they accepted it. As mentioned in my previous blog on the Empires of Sand DLC for TW: Attila, the practice of producing factional DLC got severely out of hand, with content being clearly cut from the core game in order to sell at a later stage. This drove fans into a fury, and led to a near community-wide boycott of some of the DLC. Fans have been speculating for months now as to how Warhammer would monetize itself, and how factions would be accessed.

In the case of Warhammer, the game will ship with 4 factions included in the standard game. The game will likely be priced as a full retail product, probably $80-100AUD or regional equivalent, and DLC was to be expected post launch. The game's native factions would be The Empire, Orcs, Dwarves, and Undead, all of whom are iconic races in Warhammer Fantasy Battles. The Warriors of Chaos is a faction that literally any fan of Warhammer would tell you is one of the core races, and most famous icons of the Warhammer world. Virtually every Warhammer game, or book will include them in some form or another. They are a staple of the series, and the fact that they were absent from the initially announced lineup of factions for TW: Warhammer got many people nervous. Now it would seem that CA, likely under instruction from their publisher, Sega, has announced that Chaos will be available, but not as part of the core game, and will only be available to those that pre-order the game, or purchase the content at additional cost after launch.

Why does this infuriate me? Why does this infuriate so many of the TW and Warhammer community? It shows a reckless, and uncaring disrespect for us as consumers. This content pack is being announced 6 months in advance of the game's release. It is displayed in full high-definition glory in the announcement trailer, showing that the content is already under construction, and will be ready for the game's launch. This content will be in the game whether you have bought it or not, and be locked behind the scenes until you pay. This is a piece of the game, a piece of the product, and most importantly, a piece of the Warhammer franchise that is iconic and much beloved by its public, and the company selling the game is extracting it from the product you have bought specifically to make you purchase it at additional cost.

I don't play Warhammer anymore, but there was a time when I was a youth with cupboards full of unpainted miniatures. When I was sick I would sit in my room and paint them. I would read their literature at night, and my mind would fill with images of great heroes, and horrible monsters. It fed my imagination, and inspired me, much like Warhammer has inspired a whole generation of pop culture. Look at things like Master Chief, Starcraft, and Warcraft. Look at half of the modern fantasy and sci-fi genre, and you'll see the effect that Warhammer has had on the pop culture landscape. This is a series that people will rightly defend when it is mistreated, and yesterday it was mistreated. A key part of the franchise has been mishandled, and ripped off to be sold for profit (a bit like your rights as a consumer). Warhammer is being sold on the street corner, and I am not pleased.

Long angry rants are not my thing, but when something dear to me is hurt, I can't help but fight back. I want so badly for the melding of Total War and Warhammer to go well that it pains me to write something so damning about it, but if this announcement sets the standard for TW: Warhammer, then I have little hope for the future of this partnership. Already the internet is abuzz with furious reactions that make mine look positively sane. Angry Joe's reaction during one of his live streams summarizes my own reaction. First he screamed and said no, no, no. He denied his own eyes what he was seeing. He then settled into a cold chill and stared down the camera, shaking his head. Finally he posted a clearer video where he explained his feelings. We are alike in our reaction. I am hurt, and very pissed off with CA and Sega for this announcement. I wanted to scream, and then I wanted to hurt them back, and now I simply look at the keyboard and appeal with this article, for CA to change this. Do not break what could be a perfect union of talents. Do not take Warhammer, and introduce it to Total War in such a shoddy and shameless way. Do not fall to greed and temptation. If Sega has demanded this, then tell them of the public's reaction. Tell them of the ire that has been stirred throughout the community. Do not believe for a moment that we will allow apathy to prevail, and that we "idiot consumers" will simply buy it anyway. I want to love this product. CA, don't destroy this before it can live.

Vermintide: I never knew that a horde of seething rats could make me so happy.

For those who never knew my in my misbegotten youth, I was a huge fan of the Warhammer games. Whether it was the uber-grim-dark of the 41st millennium, or the world of fantasy battles, I had a crush on everything that Games Workshop produced. The history of Warhammer games is long, and at times pretty weird, but nothing has surprised me more than the spree of games released in the last year or so. The long-standing arrangement for GW was that its intellectual properties would always be handled very safely by a select group of publishers. The whole 40k license was handled purely by THQ, who made the outstanding Dawn of War series, and the brilliant, if not repetitive, Space Marine. With THQ down the plughole, and GW going through some strange times as a company, the licenses for video games seems to have been given out freely with every fifth purchase of model paints. For an intellectual property (IP) that only ever had about 20 games since around 1990, it has seen an utter explosion of adaptations in the last year, with around 15 games released, or due in FY15-16. This has led to fears that the license is being "whored-out", and that low quality games will be the result. At first this looked possible, with games like Storm of Vengeance being pretty damn underwhelming. However, with games like Total War: Warhammer being handled by the grand-strategy veterans at Creative Assembly, and other titles proving to be shockingly above expectations, such as Battlefleet Gothic, and Deathwing, the IP seems to be getting ho'ed out to the right people, namely people who give a shit, and aren't just doing it for a quick cash in. Time and again, I've been expecting utter failure, and cynical game publishers to go for the quick money, but every interview and release lately seems to be coming from a genuinely passionate standpoint. The game devs love this IP, and are putting their all into it. And today I played the first of these releases to really stoke my belief, and kill some of that nagging cynicism: Vermintide.

I seriously did not see this one coming. With the flood of GW licensed games coming out, it was hard to keep up with it all, and even easier to overlook some of the more minor titles. Vermintide is not based on a specific GW game/spin-off game, such as Mordheim, or Battlefeet Gothic. Instead, Vermintide seems to be its own little project, loosely based on the "end-times" saga of Warhammer Fantasy. The game is, oddly, a bit of a Left 4 Dead clone, with the players teaming up in a co-op survival. This kind of seemed a little bit of a bad idea at first. It really is a L4D clone in virtually all respects. You and three others sneak through the streets of a city during a full blown invasion of creatures that swarm you, and occasionally bushwhack you by deploying some kind of super-powerful devious monster that forces you into teamwork. Your goal is usually to survive a journey to some kind of mission objective, or just make it to the next safehouse or evacuation point. The general principle comes close to being copy/pasted, but somehow, in the totally different environment of Warhammer Fantasy, replacing the cast of survivors with a D&D team of heroes, and the zombies with a horde of Skaven (rat-men), this clone burst out of the screen as a superior game experience that defies expectations. Vermintide is awesome.

Rise, brothers! Last one to shank a humie is a dirty rat that stinks of cheese... So, pretty normal, then.

To start building some credit for it, I will say that when it copies L4D, it copies the best parts, and where it diverges, it leaves behind some bits that I'd rather do without. The situation is that the apocalypse is nigh, and the city of Ubersreik has been infested by the Skaven. The rat-men are one of the coolest things to ever come out of Warhammer, as they are a lot like goblins, or something recognizable from Tolkien, but have such a unique personality that they bring immediate character to this game. Like the zombies of L4D, the Skaven are vicious and rely on their numbers to overwhelm their victims, but the decisive difference is that Skaven are quite obviously intelligent, and actually quite cowardly. The zombies of L4D would hurl themselves at you the moment you are spotted, while the Skaven skulk and stalk you, retreating if the situation isn't entirely favourable. The Skaven almost always favour striking from behind, or above, or worst of all from below. L4D achieved spectacular atmosphere by having zombies pour out of alleyways and scale fences to get to you, but the Skaven feel even more insidious. The Skaven linger out of sight, chittering and whispering curses at you, only to burst from the walls, up through the drains, or from underneath carriages. In Vermintide, it is impossible to feel safe, and the looming apocalypse feels ever more real, while salvation feels ever more unrealistic.

His battlecry: Free Hugs!!! Yes, yes!

What is perhaps most surprising is how the other L4D trope of "special zombies" works so brilliantly here. GW has always brought cool ideas to the table for unique and wacky monsters. The classic L4D cadre of specials are mostly here, with the Hunter, Tank, and Smoker loosely represented. The Skaven equivalents are the Gutter Runner acting mostly like the Hunter, stalking you before pouncing and ripping into an isolated player, the Rat Ogre filling in for the Tank, and the Packmaster taking over loosely for the Smoker. However, their flavour is unique, with a distinctly ratty behaviour. The Gutter Runner has some cool ninja tricks, such as smoke bombs, allowing him to retreat and find a new attack route when things go poorly for him, while the Packmaster feels a little less cheap than the Smoker, since he actually gets quite close, and garrotes you from behind, before dragging you by the neck into an alley, or swarm of rats which descend on you. What sets them apart the most from L4D is that constant feeling of intelligence, cowardice, and oddly enough, teamwork. The L4D zombies never really felt like they were operating on anything but instinct (appropriate), while the Skaven truly feel smart. On top of that, Vermintide offers a few completely new challenges, such as high-tech opponents like the Ratling Gun (a machine-gun wielding rat), which requires the players to fix and flank it, or the Stormvermin: armoured rat patrols that the players can choose to avoid or fight for a reward, who are not especially unique tactically, but bloody powerful and could wipe your game.

You get a free hat if you can kill all of them... worth it.

Perhaps the most important differentiating factor in Vermintide is the setting. Vermintide is set in the Warhammer Fantasy universe, specifically a Gothic, filthy medieval setting, with rickety old buildings, scummy pubs, wooden carts in the street, and everything lit by candlelight. The world is utterly beautiful and grotesque, inspired mostly by games like Mordheim, which was set in a similar "city of the damned". The atmosphere is assisted by a perfect musical score which captures both the Gothic grotesque atmosphere, but also the otherworldly and skittering nature of the Skaven. Harsh, alien twanging instruments and screeching strings unravel the player's sanity every bit as much as the tense environment, evoking games like American McGee's Alice, or the cinematic works of Jean Pierre Junet.

This was before the apocalypse? Yeesh, maybe the rats could add a touch of class to this place.

A welcome addition to the L4D formula is the inclusion of a more in depth melee combat system. In L4D the aversion to melee made a lot of sense, as you were fighting infected zombies. Here, in this medieval world, swords and slow-firing flintlock pistols make melee a necessary focus. Instead of mowing down hordes, you cut a swathe through them, and combat get's especially dangerous when special opponents arrive, forcing frenetic and violent teamwork. The game also differs in that it offers a much more RPG focused game, with each team-member taking a character class, rather than a generic survivor, defined solely by which weapon they pick at the start of the game. Each class has a few inherent traits, with the Dwarf being a little slower and tougher, while the Wizard can explode masses of Skaven from range. However, the classes are also load-out based, allowing them to pick different fighting styles between games (choosing a shield/weapon combo for tanking, or a bigger weapon for damage). New gear and aesthetic options get unlocked over time, and with special loot drops. The game doesn't just reward you arbitrarily either; sometimes you'll be faced with picking up a tome which prevents you carrying other essential items, and the player must decide between finishing the quest with bonus rewards, or dumping the tome in favour of a potion of bomb that might save them. Other rewards also lie hidden, such as Pack Rats that you must chase and kill, which could lead you astray from your team, and get you killed while isolated. Rewards and risks must be weighed at all times, and the RPG elements that Vermintide brings to the table add replayability to the game that I felt L4D was lacking.

I've barely played 2 hours of this game, and already I had so much to say. As soon as I'm done here today, I'll be charging straight back into the game. I will warn all of you now that the game is currently in its pre-release phase. It is purchasable on Steam as an early-access pre-order. You can purchase it today for $26.99 AUD, or your regional equivalent, which is apparently a 10% discount on its post-launch price. As with all early-access games,  I cannot stress enough that it cannot be judged as a complete product yet, and bugs will occur. My second game ended when I picked up an item that was essential to finish the level, and the game immediately hung. It didn't crash, however, and simply reset the level without booting me to the desktop. Since then, the game has run flawlessly. Other things to note are that there is currently no tutorial level (though, game hints are present), and menus are not yet fully implemented. You can jump right in today, and I recommend you do so, as my own expectations were shattered by the game's current level of quality, but you can also wait until the game goes into its official release if you'd rather experience it in its final form. If you liked L4D, or anything Warhammer Fantasy related, you will adore this. Now, I'm going to shut up and get back into the game.

He makes the house smell of sawdust and piss, but at least I didn't end up a cat person.

World of Warship: The Lion of the Sea

I know I haven't really said much about battleships in WoWs yet, but I felt like the Tirpitz was a big enough problem that I should address it. For those that are new here (and this blog is mostly aimed at you guys), the Tirpitz is a tier 8 German battleship, based on the Bismark class of BB. It's a premium ship, so you can only access it using real money, which sucks for those who don't want to spend money, but is great for those that don't want to sink time into the game, grinding for the top tier ships. This blog will be a basic introduction into BBs, but also a caution for you new players about why you should save your money, and start out at tier one like everyone else. There are a lot of great ways to spend a little green in this game to improve the experience, and a few really bad ones. The Tirpitz is what I'd call one of the worst.

Why so bad? Well, the problem really isn't with the ship, but with you as the new player. Back in my earlier WoWs blogs, I strongly suggested that new players get started in cruisers over other ship classes. The reasons still stand: cruisers are flexible, tactically forgiving when you make mistakes, and still super enjoyable, especially when they are breaking destroyers over their knee. I also practically threw myself on the mercy of new players, begging them not to use ships armed with torpedoes, at least until they learned how the bastards worked, and stopped randomly firing them off at nothing. I didn't really weigh in much on battleships, mostly because BBs are a little too complicated for the average newby, but not such a hazard to their own team that new players should avoid them entirely. Frankly, BBs are a bit of a boring ship compared to others. For new players, BBs kind of speak for themselves when it comes to why you should avoid them. Don't get me wrong, I've enjoyed the shit out of the ones that I've played, and had a few monster games, but they're frankly a total bore compared to some of the games I've had in cruisers and DDs. As for the Tirpitz, it is a bit of a complicated ship, and it only fights at high tiers, where gameplay gets pretty advanced, and teamwork becomes essential, particularly for BBs. Add to that the fact that the Tirpitz is especially complicated, and has torpedoes (holy shit, run, a new player with torpedo launchers!), and you've got a ship that won't be very interesting to play, will risk a lot of friendly fire, and is actually exceptionally vulnerable when not played exactly right at top tier.

And yet, the Tirpitz has become a popular ship. Swarms of new players, spurred on by YouTube videos, and promises of how fun the game is, have bought the Tirpitz on mass, and are so bloody awful at the game that the Tirpitz has now earned a reputation as a terrible ship. These ships, despite actually being quite competitive, have terrible win ratings, and have led to the high tier community declaring that, "the team with the most Tirpitz is the one most likely to lose." Again, non of this is the fault of the ship, but those who are captaining them. New players, especially ones that are fresh off other games where acting independently is encouraged, are the worst people to captain BBs in high tiers. The Tirpitz in particular has stats that support it best when it acts as part of a fleet. Its anti-aircraft rating is a bit low for its tier, which means that it either needs dedicated AA support from cruisers and carriers, or it needs to stick very close together with other BBs. So peeling off from the pack, and lone-wolfing like an MLG pro is basically the worst thing imaginable for this ship. This problem of new players, acting alone, and completely not understanding their expensive ship has also earned the Tirpitz names like, "The Derpitz", or most appropriately, "The Löwe of the Sea". The Löwe (Lion) was a high tier premium tank from World of Tanks, and it had a near identical reputation. It was a paid vehicle that gave a new player, with literally no games under their belt, the ability to jump straight into top tier matches, and pretty much fuck their team's chances of victory. The mere sight of Löwes on a WoT team indicated the presence of players that simply could not be trusted to fight effectively, let alone know the button that makes the tank go forward (it's W, for you Löwe drivers out there). And the same pretty justified thinking applies to the sight of Tirpitz in WoWs.

If you are a seasoned player, or a new one, know this: the Tirpitz is a damn fine ship when it is captained well. Its strengths are its high volume of fire, its excellent armour, and good mobility. The AA isn't up to much scratch, so stick with your friends, and its torpedoes should be left in their tupes until you've actually mastered difficult concepts, such as firing them at the enemy instead of your friends. It is a ship that rewards advanced tactics, and patient strategic plays over brisk, impulsive ones. When fighting enemy BBs, you'll fire faster, meaning that you can test your accuracy, and not feel so cheated by missed shots. It relies above all else on understanding the place of BBs in a fleet, which is why next time, I'll be weighing in a little on how to get started in BBs and what you need to know as a new player.

I'd beg new players not to get this ship, but to be completely frank, they are doing the high-tier carrier and DD players a great service by steaming away from their fleets and acting as great big damage pinatas. I think high-level carrier masters, like iChaseGaming, would probably feel very sad if new players didn't dump money on the game just to be slaughtered by the dozen at the end of an air-dropped torpedo. If you want to spend some good money at the high-tiers, I'd suggest you get your butt into the Atago, or maybe the Atlanta. Those ships are far more flexible, and forgiving to new players. For those of you who can't say no to those beautiful battleship guns, wear them proudly, but don't be surprised when your team automatically assumes the worst of you, and learn your craft so you can prove them wrong.

Geek Control 2 Major Tim, World of Warships: Cleveland Class Cruiser, the popular chick of the seas

So the other day I teased an image of the Cleveland class cruiser, and while I've had barely any time to play it, I can say that it is like riding a bike, and getting behind the rudder felt just as good as it did in the closed beta version of WoWs. The Cleveland is one of those ships that needs little introduction to anyone even remotely familiar with WoWs. Famous commentators, such as Jingles, QB, iChaseGaming etc, have all given this thing sparkling reviews and praised it as the messiah with a keel. In a lot of respects the Cleveland is one of the poster-girls for the game, and is kind of like that one popular girl that everyone knew a story about, and all the popular guys bragged about. As a former fat kid with no social skills, I find myself wanting to find something negative to say about the Cleveland, especially since it never used to speak to me, or even make eye contact... wait, uh...

No matter how hard I tried, though, I really couldn't find much fault in returning to this thing after a few months of separation. The meta of the game has changed a bit since the closed beta test, but the Cleveland really hasn't changed much at all. For those who have never heard of it, and are perhaps following this blog to get an introduction to the game, the Cleveland class American cruiser, unlocked at tier 6, is a ship that stands out from the crowd because of its outstanding armament, its superb anti-aircraft capabilities, and the fact that it is the first of the truly high-tech feeling ships in the American cruiser line. Something about the way that the Cleveland looks, or perhaps its all turreted armament (the t5 Omaha still had some of its guns in casemate barbettes, which is so WW1), make the Cleveland just feel more modern than its predecessors. Its Japanese counterpart, the Aoba, is an excellent ship, but somehow just doesn't earn the same appreciation that the Cleveland does. Topping it all off is the fact that the tier 7 cruiser, the Pensacola class cruiser, feels less competitive for its tier, and sometimes gets beaten up by the Cleveland, makes the Cleveland leave a better impression on the player. Hell, I actually felt like the Pensacola was a downgrade when I first captained it (more on that later).

Why? Well, the Cleveland seems to gain much of its love from one fact, which is that its guns are smaller than it contemporaries. Oh, I'm not kidding, in fact its guns are smaller than the Furutaka, the tier 5 Japanese cruiser. So what the hell is going on, how can smaller guns be better? It gets a lot of them, and they fire bloody fast. As a cruiser, the Cleveland typically takes up a supporting role rather than a primary one, and they also specialize in mauling destroyers by saturating the seas with fire rather than taking precision shots. For cruisers, having fewer guns of a bigger calibre is a double-edged sword, as it means less shots per minute. Cruiser guns, even the big ones, are typically used to splam out high-explosive rounds, cause fires, and immobilize destroyers. The only real use for a cruiser's armour piercing rounds is in fighting other cruisers, where they can reliably penetrate armour (which they can't do to battleships), and not overpenetrate the paper armour of destroyers. Hence, many cruiser captains will favour volume of fire over slower, harder-hitting guns. Like the St Louis at tier 3, the Cleveland is an artillery machinegun, capable of hosing the ocean with fire.

So it's a HE spamming hussy then? Well, I'd love to call it a noob ship, a one trick pony, or the bandwagon boat, but that would be a little uncharitable. The Cleveland actually rocks at a lot of other stuff, too. The Cleveland is a mobile ship, with acceptable armour for a cruiser. It has the option of either the acoustic search ability, or the anti-aircraft defensive fire ability, and can also launch a float-plane fighter to beef its considerable anti-aircraft armament. This makes the Cleveland pretty damn flexible, since it can double-down on AA abilities and become the premier AA escort of its tier, or it can use the float-plane and the acoustic search ability to become a flexible destroyer-hunter and still be the terror of the skies.

In the beta test I burned as much free experience as I could to rush it to the Cleveland, and so I've been trying to rediscover what I'd missed in the Omaha in my recent playthrough. As my previous blog suggested, I was pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed it and the Phoenix before it. In trying to find a fault in the Cleveland that I could harp on, and deflate its hype, I really couldn't find much. The ship is the first of what we'll call the "true" American cruisers, in that it totally shirks the use of torpedoes in favour of an all-gun armament. And while its guns are no pea-shooters, they certainly don't pack the headshot punch of the Aoba's, or the Pensacola's for that matter. In a cruiser gunfight, the Cleveland can feel a little like it's a cruiser squaring off against a battleship, since its AP shells have limited effect, and the enemy cruiser can score a much more potent citadel penetration. Even with that put aside, the Cleveland will often trounce its contemporaries through sheer volume of fire, and its lack of torpedoes becomes moot when it performs its proper role as a fleet escort and AA platform.

Tactics? I know this is the point where I am supposed to espouse a miracle tactic that makes you a god in the Cleveland, but honestly, it is one of the purest examples of a gunline/fleet escort cruiser. Most of the decisions you'll need to make in this ship are strategic as opposed to tactical. Always be wherever AA and anti-destroyer capabilities are needed the most. The tactics I've covered in previous cruiser blogs still stand, and I would say that they are more important than ever. In the Omaha and Phoenix you could peel away from the supporting role a lot more, and act as a roided up destroyer. Here, without torpedoes, an with a full cruiser hull, your job is simple: be ubiquitous. You stop the aircraft and destroyers from coming anywhere near your battleships and carriers. You offer your gunfire to your big brothers in the battleships. Never be the first ship targeted, always redeploy to save the lives of your fellows, and never be complacent. Don't lone wolf, unless there is a destroyer that needs to be nailed before it reaches your fleet.

The Cleveland is no hussy. It's a society girl, for sure, but it is a classy girl none the less. Sinatra would sing about how she is never late for the theatre, and how she earned being the object of desire, but never let it change her inside. I'm glad to have my baby back, and won't let her go to no server wipe. Who loves you, baby?

Geek Control 2 Major Tim, World of Warships: Slack Day

Today I had a lovely day off from writing and instead spent some quality time with people that mattered to me. I'm writing because you all matter to me too, so here's a screencap from a few seconds ago. My latest game in the Omaha hasn't finished, and I sunk a few ships, so something tells me that this screencap will soon be out of date :P

Geek Control 2 Major Tim, World of Warships: Destroyers, The Mother in Laws of the Sea!

A short while back, I started this series of WoWs blogs to try and encourage better behaviour, and good game play habits among low tier players. One of my first points that I made was that new players should avoid torpedo-armed ships, and admittedly, on the day that I started the blog, I had just been team-killed about six times in a row by friendly torpedoes. I'm not kidding you when I say that it was a single gaming session that pushed me over the edge, and with the exception of the matches I survived, and one instance where I yolo'd into the enemy team and died, every single death that day was friendly fire. I specifically warned new players that they should avoid playing destroyers until they'd matured a little as WoWs players and come to understand the basics by playing safer ships, like the American cruisers. However, the torpedo problem wasn't just the fault of destroyers. In fact, I'd say it was just as common to see friendly cruisers sending off a salvo of torpedoes at ranges that match their gunnery range (10-14km), which is well beyond any effective torpedo range. These low tier cruiser players were arguably the worst offenders, since they were usually stationed behind friendly destroyers, who were up front doing their jobs as scouts and hunters. In fact, the final act of that day of team-killings that I mentioned was not a friendly destroyer sinking me, but a friendly Japanese cruiser. I'd been keeping my eye on the guy the whole match, as he'd been thoughtlessly derping out torpedoes from the moment the enemy was sighted 24km away. It was genuinely hard to tell if he was intentionally trying to fuck with his own team, or if he was simply that clueless as to how the weapons worked. The game was one of the best I'd ever played, with my Wicks class destroyer bagging 5 enemy kills (only 5, no MLG here), and pus
hing our team into the enemy capture zone. At that point we should have had it in the bag. As the first ship to enter the cap circle, I had the majority of our capture points, and so I ducked and weaved, and focused on not getting hit by enemy gun fire (which would reset the capture). Our enemies had ships in our capture zone, who were beating down on an "away from keyboard" (afk) battleship on our team. We had the victory at hand, and I would gain a massive bonus to experience earned, as it would be my first victory for the day in that ship. At that point, a salvo of friendly torpedoes detonated my ship. It was our friend in the cruiser, who was sitting completely still behind me, making an easy target of himself, and blind firing torpedoes at enemy ships that were well beyond his torpedo range. He quite literally snatched defeat from the jaws of victory, since all my capture points were lost, and then he proceeded to sit still and let himself get hit, losing his points in the process. Why am I telling you all of this? Because I want you to understand not only why I do what I do with these blogs, but also why it is that I am finally going to start telling you about how to not suck at playing destroyers.

I've given DDs a bad rap so far. Sure, low tier players should be banned from playing them until they've at least played a thousand games, but they aren't always to blame for a team's shitty performance. I've played games where our battleships have sat with their thumbs squarely up their asses, and blown the whole match through inactivity. I've seen cruisers completely abandon any kind of supporting role, and sail straight into the enemy fleet, before exploding in a dazzling fireball. I've seen carrier drivers drop anchor in the first second of the match and sit there even when their defenses collapse and the DDs close in with stiffies in hand. So, why do I discourage new players from DDs? The honest answer is that DDs require the most experienced captains in order to perform well, and they bear the biggest margin for error of any ship class. If you screw up in a battleship, you've got a lot of hitpoints to play with, and repair party abilities to recover. If you screw up in a cruiser, you can always improvise. DDs have to play in a pretty specific way, or they risk immediate death, or worse, they have a high chance of hurting their own team.

The biggest reason that I promote cruisers as a new player's first port of call is because they are a bit hard to screw up. As fairly versatile ships, especially in the early game, cruisers can adapt to changing circumstances. If a DD screws up, they have about 3 seconds to decide on how to fix it, and being such role-specific ships, DDs cannot simply adapt and change tactics, they must withdraw and reset the circumstances to suit them. If any of that sounds complicated, stick to cruisers.

DD gameplay can be summarized thus:

• DDs are scouts and hunters, they can always detect their opponents before they are detected in response.This means that they can always choose the terms of the engagement. It is there choice when to reveal themselves, and when to stay silent. For new players, staying silent is pretty much unthinkable. Remember, you are often providing a better service to your team by merely spotting the enemy than fighting, so keep calm and hush.
• DDs are ambush predators. They choose the exact moment of attack, and must time it to cause the maximum damage with the minimum amount of reply. They excel at killing battleships because they do so much damage in such a short amount of time that the battleship won't have time to put their repairs into effect. 
• DDs are fragile. DDs cannot stay alive long while they are spotted. Enemy ships, particularly cruisers and other DDs, will prioritize a DD for fire. While they are fast, small targets, it only takes a few lucky hits, or one well focused hit to bring them down. Not being spotted, or breaking line of sight is the DDs first priority. 
• DDs can support. While the enemy is distracted, the DD can offer gunfire and torpedo spreads in order to distract and confuse the enemy. Setting fires with HE rounds will make the enemy use their repair abilities at inopportune times, and putting wide torpedo spreads in the water will make enemies maneuver and pull their guns off target. This is adds an extra dimension to DDs that broadens their gameplay options, though they should never prioritize it, and should break contact immediately if the enemy shifts attention to the DD.
• DDs have the greatest initiative of any ship (the ability to act instantly and decisively), which is a quality built from their speed and stealth. You should always consider it your duty to react to calls for help in your fleet, but also your duty to exploit openings in the enemy lines.

They stalk you from the shadows, noting your every move. They always join in thrashing you when they have someone else to hide behind, and fade the moment things are looking bleak. They wait until the perfect moment to torpedo you and your lady, ruining your day. The destroyers are truly, mother-in-laws of the sea. But I've always been a charmer when it comes to the mature ones, so how about we discuss ways of getting you and DDs working together.

Your first decision in the game is to choose between Japanese, American, and the soon to be released Soviet DDs. More will come, but let's look at what we have to play with. The main choice currently is American or Japanese, and I mostly play the American DDs. For the longest time, people always thought that the Japanese DDs were overpowered, and put the American ships to shame. This was, as usual, due to superior torpedoes on the Japanese ships. This combined with superior stealth characteristics makes most players feel superior when playing Japanese DDs. As I said in my torpedo blog, there is a sense of impunity when you play the Japanese DDs. They are universally able to fire from stealth, launching at ranges beyond their detectability range. This allows Japanese DD captains to strike without ever risking so much as a scratch to their paintwork. Comparatively, American ships typically have to cross no less than 2km detected before they can launch their own. This makes launching torps from an American boat a little less like sniping from the bushes, and more like attacking a bunker with a grenade. This is the reason that most new players chose the Japanese line, and why they generally contribute very little to their team, and score very poorly.

Japanese destroyers are excellent when used correctly. In my torpedo discussion I said that having super long range on your torpedoes is nice, but also kind of pointless. Since torpedoes have travel time, and your enemy can't be trusted to maintain a straight course, firing torpedoes at those super long ranges is rarely a successful proposition. I recommend that you always try to fire them from as close as possible without being spotted, as it increases your likelyhood of a hit. Fortunately, the Japanese torpedoes are good in almost every respect, with high travel speed, making the likelyhood of connecting even better. The real advantage of the super long range torpedoes, especially the ridiculous high tier ones (which can strike out to 20km) is that if you aim them into a corridor, or a position where they can hit multiple ships, they can be very good at disrupting an enemy fleet's formation. Most of the really good gameplay I've seen from high tier Japanese DDs involves missing the primary target, but hitting secondaries that were within the huge range. The good stealth characteristics mean that Japanese DDs can really maximize their potential as scouts and ambushers. The Japanes DDs are the purest examples of torpedo boats, since their other armament is only useful in limited contexts. They really are ninjas, since they strike from the shadows, poison their enemies (flooding and fire), and always fade when detected. Japanese DDs are not gunboats, and are significantly less effective in their supporting roles, which is why the American DD line attracted me more.

American DDs are closer to a gunboat style of gameplay. Where they beat the Japanese hands down is in their gunnery, and toughness. Japanese DDs are handicapped by slow turret traverse times, and overall inferior guns. The Americans make me think a lot of Popeye, and I sometimes hear that tune play in my head when I spot a Japanese DD and proceed to unleash a beat down that goes something like this: first impact, "What the hell was that?", second impact, "How did this guy even see me?", third impact, "I'm almost dead!", forth impact, "fuck, fuck, fuck, please don't kill me". I've made so many Japanese DDs pop smoke and flee like a startled kitten that I actually wonder how the Japanese DDs ever got such a nasty reputation in the first place. However, the American DDs do deserve their reputation for having shitty torpedoes. Their torps have ranges of 5-7km for most of the game, with 5.5 being pretty average. With detectability ranges around 7km, they can pretty much never get a stealth kill without using terrain, or ship/captain upgrades. This general opinion on the American torps is probably about to change. The Russian DDs are scheduled to be implemented into the game shortly, and their torps are looking to have even shorter ranges (3km). This is likely to re-orient the meta of the game, and people will likely start to see that such short ranges are the norm, and that the Japanese are the exception to that norm. Meanwhile, the American DDs will continue to be just plain more versatile than the Japanese equivalents. American DDs can get such a superior performance from their guns that it means they can take on a cruiser-like role, and offer gunfire support, as long as they aren't the main target. Similarly, the American DDs eventually receive the option of using the AA defensive fire ability, which allows them to either take up an even more effective support role, or make them an unstoppable nightmare as a carrier hunter.

Your choice between the two will be more about what you value as a player. Do you like that sniping, loner style of play? As long as you appreciate the need for fire discipline and discretion in the face of danger, then maybe Japanese DDs are for you. If you like versatility, and a more knife-fighting gunboat style of play, with moments of screeching terror as you plough towards the enemy, torpedoes at the ready, then American style may be your thing.

I'm hoping by this point you've come to understand that captaining DDs is a dangerous life, and that they reward understanding of the game mechanics more than they reward twitch reflexes. Your key takeaways from this should be that you really do need to understand the game's concealment mechanics, its torpedo mechanics, and the idiosyncrasies of the different ships before you can expect to play DDs with any degree of success. They are by far the hardest ships to do well in, and hopefully you've taken my advice and earned your stripes elsewhere before attempting to go balls in on this particular lifestyle. Like mother-in-laws, you'll never win in destroyers until you've come to truly understand them. Learn their ways, master them, and sooner or later your wife will crash through the front door of your house in her car, and be furious that she didn't kill you... of course, she missed because you were upstairs with your DD, scoring like a champ... I think I got muddled on that analogy, but now you know why I like DDs, and why I warn you so vehemently to learn before you take one to your bed... port... uh, TORPEDOES AWAY! Yay :D