Time to climb out and walk away, for a short while.

With June right around the corner and my real life about to become very busy, I have to step back from this blog for a while. Between some intense training and employment activities, I will be putting this hobby on hold, but I do look forward to returning to this and continuing on, as time permits.

Before I pause my current adventures and commentary in World of Warplanes, I want to thank all of those who took the time to read this and the other posts I have made previously. Even if a few people got some entertainment/information value from this endevour, than one of my goals for doing this has been satisfied.

Anyways, on with my final train of thought.

With the "Planes Birthdays" on activated, I figured I would take a shot at collecting either from my tier VII American Multi-Role Fighter, F2G Super Corsair and/or tier VII Soviet Fighter, La-7.

Despite giving it my best shot, I failed miserably with the Corsair and through persistence (or, stubbornness, depending on how you could view things) I pulled it off with the La-7.

I lost track of the amount of times I was shot down and my team was defeated, but in the end, I achieved this little mini-goal. During the process, I came to the conclusion, despite my best efforts, Fighters and Heavy Fighters are just not my thing. Funny, you would think after all this time I would have known this, but I kept at it with hopes my skills would improve, relying less on luck to pull off the impossible.

So, with this "insight" fresh in my mind, I recalled something that happened during the 1.8 Common Test server. While tring to complete the Missions to pick of a "Testers emblem" I achieved a Meyer Medal Class II. Along with the Thunder achievement, the Meyer Medal is one of those coveted tokens that Ground Attack players strive for, much like the Galland Medal and Ace for Fighter/Heavy Fighter players. Dusting off my trusty old tier VIII IL-20, I took to the skies to see if I could close that chapter where it would really count....

....and the second battle produced the results I was looking for.

Now, I can go away and deal with other things, since my house is now in order, for when I will return.

The party is over and a trend is emerging.

War Cache is now over and regular programing has returned to World of Warplanes. The next talked about event is the "Planes Birthdays", as seen on the 1.8 Common Test server. Honestly, I have a very neutral feeling about this. Sure, it will be another "something to do" series of tasks, where players will have the ability to earn emblems and other small rewards, but I am just not too excited about it, personally.

Something that has been discussed before on the forums, but now seeing it with my own eyes; the disproportionate amount of players flying attack aircraft. Long ago and up until very recently, GA players were often labeled as being "low skilled" and often shunned/ridiculed over their choice of aircraft. To be honest, comments along those lines did bother me, but I soon just as laugh after reading them now. Some players are very good at flying Fights, others have mastered Heavy Fighters and the "boom and Zoom" playstyle that comes with that. If what I do as called "mowing the lawn" or "tending to the rock garden", then so be it, that is my pleasure from this game.

However, players have discovered the German line of attack aircraft offer much more flexibility over their Soviet counterparts.

The IL series aircraft are very much like taking a Greyhound bus to a Rally race.

The German aircraft are akin to taking a tuned pickup to the same event (ladies are not included, sorry).

What are the benefits? Well, attack aircraft tradeoff maneuverability for armor, a larger hitpoint pool and usually, a greater selection of optional weapons, such as bombs and rockets. While some Heavy Fighters and Multi-Role Fighters offer the same kind of ordinance selections, GA's can hang in the fight just that little bit longer, in an attempt to get the job done. In essence, a Very Heavy Fighter, if you will.

It will be an interesting trend to observe, over the long run.

Spining wheel, got to go round.

With the War Cache event in World of Warplanes about to come to a close, I spent the last two days using the login tokens to play the Wheel of Fortune. Here are the results of all my spins....

My first crack at the Roulette wheel. Now, the odd bird emblem is decorating my Me 109 TL....

The second spin rewarded me with mostly credits and a very small shark emblem for my American aircraft. I am sure the equipment and consumables will come in handy for something....

And, for what I have written off as my last day with this event, three spins for the price of two. This time, nothing really spectacular to report.

War Cache offered me a chance to collect my highest tiered premium vehicle, at a substantial discount and a few little "trinkets" along the way. While I did spend some of my Gold that I have been saving for sometime now....

....thanks to another event going on, I am slowly building that "nest egg" back up.

War Cache made it worth it.

After cashing in on the once-in-a-lifetime deep discount, I have put my first tier VIII premium aircraft into my hangar. So, was it worth it? Well, here are the first three battles with it....

The very first battle was a "successful failure", the success is from the fact my team pulled off the win. The failure, I didn't do much of anything, poor choices lead to my poor performance. Still, despite all of that, I didn't lose my shirt in the encounter.

While I did somewhat better this time around, the results were not enough to help with the win for my team. I had to get my head into the game and get a real feel for this plane.

Now, this is what I was wanting to happen, from the first battle. I secured a rocket kill on the enemy IL-8 and really had the opportunity to spread around as much damage as I could. The credit earnings alone made my jaw drop, considering my highest tiered premium aircraft, before now, was only tier VII....

The whole point of high tiered premium ingame assets in the WarGaming titles is for crew training through extra experience gained from battles and for increased credit generation over their regular tech tree counterparts. I have never had a game that has delivered the same results from my Me 262 that was even on par with the Me 109 TL.

The Meteor, on the other hand, has been a disappointment in the premium department. I have yet to have "one of those battles" where it's "special status" has really shone through. Granted, I didn't fly it anywhere as close to how it should be, but neither did I with the 109 TL. Then, there was the XP-75 Eagle....

....where I lost credits due to my own dismal performance. I am sure there are players out there, right now, who could produce screenshots of stellar games with fantastic returns on these tow aircraft. But, to not break even on a loss? The way I see it, all I have to do is show up to a battle in my tier VIII TL and it's "money in the bank" while I have to work both my tier VII Meteor and XP-75?

I dunno about you, but something seems a little wrong to me, about that.

Making my Saturday morning move.

Sticking to my word, the second thing I did this morning, after logging into World of Warplanes and collecting my two War Cache tokens for the day, was cashing them in on a new tier VIII premium aircraft. I took my accumulated total of 120 of those tokens, with some additional ingame Gold and purchased one with a deep discount.

As tempted as I had been to spend the tokens on the Wheel of Fortune option, I just couldn't pass up the "more certain" price reduction on these upper tiered aircraft, as opposed to chancing on luck with an even greater discount on lower tiered premium planes. Plus, I am not that much of a lucky gambler.

Plus, after this was brought to my attention, how about no thanks. So, before I talk about the plane I did acquire, I will give my reasons for those I didn't.

Mitsubishi J8M Shusui. I have seen videos and replays of this plane in action. Being a rocket powered glider, it has a ludicrous climb/dive rate when boosted. Once I took away that "awe factor", I realized that's about all it's got going for it. Armed with only 2X30mm cannons and built with Japanese frailness, I doubt I would have much success with it. However, I predict seeing future comments from those that own one, sharing great tales of their battle performance. I know I won't, after exercising foresight into avoiding this, for me, "incompatible" aircraft.


Lavochkin La-11. Once I first learned about the three aircraft that were part of the War Cache event, I was almost immediately disappointed with seeing this plane in the lineup. I looked very closely for any legitimate reason to consider this aircraft, over the others and couldn't find any. Other than increased credit generation and pilot training, it brings nothing to the table, that both the La-7 and La-9, from the Soviet tech trees, don't already do.

With two out of three planes eliminated, the choice I made should be quite obvious. Now, I will explain why. First, it's the only one out of the bunch that has a previous history in the game....

Long before I started playing World of Warplanes, the Me 109TL was already there, but it did undergo a few changes along the way, here are the two most notable ones....

Version 0.4.3 June 2013

Me. 262, Bf. 109TL, Me. 262 HG III - moved to the Heavy Fighter branch, maintaining the same tiers. If you own the Me. 109TL, you will receive the Me. P.1092 with the top configuration.

Version 0.5.3 September 2013

Me. 109TL - replaced in German heavy fighters tree with Me. 262HG II. If you own the  Me. 109TL, you will receive the Me. 262HG II with the top configuration.

Then, there were the opinions of the aircraft, during those times....

Written by Reagalan

Tier IX

"Messerschmitt Me 109TL
By virtue of being the least-bad tier 9, the 109TL was good last patch. It maintains it’s supremacy, being challenged only by the La-160, the only other not-entirely-awful plane in this tier. The firepower is very good, turn rate amazing, but it
does have very poor low speed handling, and the acceleration isn’t too good either."

Source: http://guidescroll.com/2013/02/world-of-warplanes-best-planes-per-tier-guide/

Written by AdmiralKird

"Me109TL – Possibly better than all the tier tens. It can out turn everything at high tiers in a prolonged fight, has great guns, great climb, stores energy well, great speed. There’s really no learning curve, as it flies like most lower tier planes. There’s nothing to not love about it. It’s only downfall might be its engines are easy to pick off sine they lie closer to the wingtips of the plane, but their separation also makes it so you will rarely lose more than one at a time, unless its hit by the spray of a P51JP.
Bonus: You are afraid of NOTHING.
Grade: A+"

Source: http://guidescroll.com/2013/02/world-of-warplanes-fighters-tier-6-to-10-guide/

Just before the end of the Open Beta testing period in November, 2013, it was announced that the Me 109TL and a few other planes that had been "grandfathered" to players during the changes, were to vanish, with an unknown return date, if ever.

Although I don't perform nearly as well as I hoped to, I do have experience with German jets. Despite the low battlecount, my Me 262 has been in my hanger for a very long time, part of a stalled attempt to climb that nation's Heavy Fighter line. I do like it for the speed and firepower, but haven't become too proficient with handling it properly. And, when I do very poorly with it, I pay most dearly.

Which brings me to my final decision. Here are two planes that are very similar to each other in a lot of ways, but have enough differences to make them very distinguishable as well. It's the similarities that I am banking on, the hope between flying both of these aircraft, I can improve on the upper tiered German jet Boom and Zoom playstyle. However, the TL should bring a lot more flexibility to the fight, over the 262.

And, one of them shouldn't rob me blind when I make mistakes, if it has been implemented right.

No news is....no news.

So, with Friday coming to a close and nothing about this being mentioned on any of the regional forums....

"After the event, the War Cache menu will disappear. You will be compensated for whatever tokens you have left at that point. The amount and type of compensation will be announced at a later point when we’re closer to the end of the event."

Source: http://worldofwarplanes.eu/news/war-cache/

I guess Saturday morning will be "cash in" day.

Tokens of appreciation.

Starting my session for the day, not only did I collect another two tokens for the War Cache event, but I got this, for my limited participation on the 1.8 Common Test server.

I had read on the European Portal the requirement for achieving  this award was at least seven completed Missions/Tasks. Perhaps, my five was sufficient enough, no complaints here....

....okay, perhaps just one. The decal itself is very hard to make out, a little too subtle for me. Anyways, I will add this to my small collection of cherished trinkets from the game.

Thanks to some "eagle eyed" player on the Russian server, two planes that I have been very curious about and that are currently undergoing tested, have been spotted. While these are not the finalized statistics or characteristics, it does present a general idea of the direction WarGaming wants to go with them.

For comparison, the two aircraft on the left are fully upgraded, but not equipped with bombs or rockets. The RU captures, on the right, have been lined up through my limited photo-cropping skills. It would seem both IL-10M and NC 1070 could do very well as premium Attack Aircraft offerings.

The IL-10M is nothing more than a regular tier VII Soviet IL-10, moved up a tier, put into the Chinese nation and receiving enough "bite" to keep it somewhat competitive. The French NC 1070 is something new entirely. From these numbers, it would appear to be a blend of  Soviet toughness and German maneuverability. I can't wait for it to come.

Although I doubt the Chinese IL-10M will come to the North America server (perhaps, through a very expensive bundle with gold and premium time) the French NC 1070 is at the top of my list for "Yeah, it's coming......................soon™"

Impass.

Up until now, I have been rather surprised with my results during this War Cache event, but now I have hit that proverbial roadblock. Despite MatchMaker coming up with adequately populated battles, seems I am not collecting on the requirements to advance further. While I have been landing some very devastating shoots and getting out as much damage as I can, it hasn't been enough to secure the results I am looking for.

Couple that with "eagle eyed" teammates who just happen to be at the right place, at the right time and bank in on some of my efforts. Normally, I really won't care so much, just doing my part for the increased chance of our team winning. However, with these individual requirements to be completed, before moving onto the next stage? Let's just say I am getting a little irritated.

I had high hopes, once the momentum had started, that my chances for collecting most, if not nearly all, the event tokens would have continued. Meh, always has to be a wretch in the works somewhere, I suppose. I will keep trying, but I do have a backup plan.

As of right this moment, I have 110 tokens collected, having only spent one on the "Wheel of Fortune"....

....picking up these two items, a pneumatic restarter for which I have a surplus of and a funky Picasso-styled emblem....

Anyways, where was I? Oh right, 110 tokens now and by collecting 2 more for Daily Logins, should net me at least another 12, for a grand total of 122 tokens.

Now, the event does come with another little bonus. On top of collecting tokens from completing the Missions, the opportunity to buy them at 50 Gold for 1 token could be used to substitute the lack of progress. In World of Tanks, a similar system was used for another event.

So, if all I got for the next week was just my calculated 122 tokens, that would be over half off two out of the three premium tier VIII's being offered. Here is how I broke the math down....

Me 109 TL = 230 tokens - 122 tokens = 108 tokens. 108 tokens = 5400 Gold (around a 53% discount).

LA-11         = 238 tokens - 122 tokens = 116 tokens. 116 tokens = 5800 Gold (around a 51% discount).

J8M             = 250 tokens - 122 tokens = 128 tokens. 128 tokens = 6400 Gold (around a 49% discount).

In almost 4 years of playing World of Tanks, I have never seen a high tiered premium ingame vehicle discounted more than 50% (not saying it never happened, I just never saw it). With these new planes coming to World of Warplanes, even if I don't progress any further, the savings alone would be more than worth it. Granted, I would have to use real world money to supplement my completion of this event, or would I?

Since the beginning of the month, I have found the time to login to World of Tanks and fought my way to being in the top ten in experienced earned, collecting the maximum of 30 Gold per day. I started May with 6983 Gold, my total today is 7523 Gold. Builds up quickly, doesn't? I had this feeling, once Unified Accounts came, linking the first two titles together, that it would come in handy having some kind of activity going on.

However, there could be a last minute surprise, of sorts....

"After the event, the War Cache menu will disappear. You will be compensated for whatever tokens you have left at that point. The amount and type of compensation will be announced at a later point when we’re closer to the end of the event."

Source: http://worldofwarplanes.eu/news/war-cache/

So, I will wait until the last minute before making my move. Funny thing, I have already made my choice on which of the aircraft I would be picking up too, even got the content collected for the post, if I went through with it.

Still, I am curious to see what the vague-for-now surprise could be....