What. A. Month.
We got through King of the Seas, ranked reset, and we surpassed 150 members in the World of Warship Division. But we are not through May yet and clan battles are short days away. So let's take a look at what to expect, and where to get your training resources. Also, while Memorial Day often marks the start of summer here in the states, it has a more personal meaning for those who have served in the military and for those who have lost a loved one who served in the military. Be sure to check out the details below for a Stack Up charity stream that AOD's AJAXDelta will be hosting on Memorial Day along with the Stream Team.



THE MONTHLY BRIEFING


Clan battles are back, baby! That means more steel, more glory and more power! *Queue Tim Alan/Home Improvement grunt*

Anyway, back on topic: So this season has all of our favorites: Tier X ships, aircraft carriers, cyclones and ship bans. Here’s a quick run-through of what we can expect:

Format
  • 7v7 with two battleships max, or a battleship and carrier.
  • There are no ship bans/limitations to start, but this will be implemented later in the season. This could be a straight ban on a ship, or a limitation on the number of certain ships that can be brought in. We saw this with the Musashi, Georgia and Mogador in the Tier IX season.
  • You can have three mercenaries per team this go around.
  • Don’t have a Tier X? Don’t fret. If you have a Tier VIII, you just need to play one game in it starting on May 24 to get access to the Tier X rental ships. While these ships have limitations to a regular Tier X that you own, it’s better than watching everyone else have all the fun.


I think this will be a good time to go over our resources for clan battles. Several of us were watching the King of the Seas tournament this month, and that will likely affect what we see in clan battles (adjusting for aircraft carriers). Sabre put together a handy guide here with key takeaways.

A key point from him: French DD’s are likely going to be popular. From his post:

"With their speed and short rudder shift times and a huge HP pool (25k with Survivability Expert) French DD's can hold their own against just about any light / heavy cruiser and will burn down a Stalingrad in short order just form volume of fire making Fire chance irrelevant. Best utilization of this strategy is to Wolf Pack 2 DD's to a single cap to secure it as early as possible and get the points counter ticking in your favour. Then, Re-Deploy the French DD's to the either the adjacent cap or wolf pack to the opposite side cap to assist in securing it as well."
A couple notes from me on DD play: I love the Marceau for CB’s. It’s got enough AA to make a CV debate if they are willing to throw away planes just to go after you. Halland/Smalland are also great for their AA capabilities as well, and Halland can drop torps every 55 seconds if you build the captain right. And as Sabre notes, Stalingrads burn hard with the new captain rework. I think Salem’s could be a good option because of their superheal and American cruiser AA.

Anyway, here are some quick resources to help you get ready:

And a NEW Training Resource
An extra bonus for everyone looking to learn lines, several of us are making ourselves available as shipline experts to help advise people on tactics, strategies, ship builds, captain builds, etc. The people on this list have experience in competitive/casual play using these ships. You can find the post here, but here’s the TL;DR version:

Points of Contact for Line Expertise

Destroyer (DD):

  1. Gun Boat DD (i.e. Harugumo, Kléber):


  2. Torpedo Boat DD (i.e. Shimikaze, Halland, Gearing):



Cruiser (CA/CL):

  1. Light Cruiser (i.e. Worcester, A. Nevsky):


  2. Heavy Cruiser (CA) (i.e. Des Moines, Petropavlovsk, Alaska):



Battleship (BB):

  1. Battleship (i.e. Montana, Kremlin, Yamato):



Carrier (CV):

  1. Battleship (i.e. Hakuryu, Midway, Audacious):


AOD Charity Stream

As we head into Memorial Day weekend here in the states, I wanted to plug AOD's and Ajax Delta’s charity stream for Stack Up. You can learn more about Stack Up here. The charity helps military members get through deployments and to recover from emotional/physical trauma.

The event starts at 12 p.m. CST on Memorial Day (May 31) and will go for 24 hours if he hits his fundraising goals. You can learn more about his stream and see how to donate to Stack Up here. AJAX's Twitch stream is here and AOD's is here.


PROMOTIONS & NEW MEMBERS


New Cadets
  • GoFast
  • Kaze
  • Conwaycritty
  • Thedamnredcoat
  • Rohin
  • AdmiralSturdee
  • StarWarsCat
  • Neroline30
  • Viking1955
  • Lego_Ski
  • Splendora
  • AnotherNihm
  • DoctorWeevil
  • PrettyBoiPoi
  • Theoreodude54
  • Zalo
  • Fir3bolt
  • Snickerdoodle99
  • Maglos
  • AzureWolf1994
  • Sniperaptor142
  • Grassroots77
  • XyphrOP
  • Heaf
  • Bunker00
  • Redwingnut_19
  • CarterXDXD
  • Golderwolfen
  • Nlm_mln
  • oldTrex
  • UncleDave
  • ESMF


April Promotions:
  • Cdt. Sniperaptor142
  • Cdt. Captain_Enth
  • Cdt. CrossfireX
  • Cdt. SevenDeadLeeSins
  • Pvt. CrazyNinja_INC
  • Cdt. Grassroots77
  • Cdt. Gkar4Rex
  • Pvt. GreySkull
  • Cdt. Zartuim
  • Cdt. MyNamesJebb
  • Pfc. navydork
  • Cdt. Phantom_Sniper_a
  • Tr. Lashknife
  • LCpl. Wermp
  • LCpl. Patch2
  • LCpl. Samuraisb
  • LCpl. CantHitAnything
  • Cpl. Peppelepeu
  • Cdt. Golderwolfen