It was only fair that Suzuki Senchou was offered command of the Imperial Japanese Navy cruiser Furutaka on her addition to my fleet. It was his stellar record on the Kuma that not only drove the research of the new line of cruisers, but also drove improvements on other ships of the line. However, the deeper waters of Tier V engagements may tarnish the record that has brought my record of wins and losses almost to “average”.
World of Warships remains a great bit of fun for when I just have a few minutes to play. Matches are set at a maximum of twenty minutes, but often don’t last that long.
Since my last update, I’ve filled up my Tier IV roster with the destroyer Isokaze, the battleship Myogi and the aircraft carrier Hosho. Where the cruisers are great all-purpose ships — fast, nimble, powerful both at medium and short range — each of the others offers their own style of play.
I, naturally, can’t help comparing them to fantasy RPG classes.
Destroyers are the rogues — sneaking around, catching ships by surprise. They kill battleships and aircraft carriers.
Cruisers are the fighters. You don’t ignore a cruiser that has you in her sights.
Battleships are the rangers. They cannot hit anything at medium range, but they can stop you from getting close to a capture point by shooting you from beyond your range.
Aircraft carriers are the support. Fighters to take out torpedo planes and bombers, torpedo planes and bombers to help soften the enemy enough for allied cruisers and destroyers to move in. Nobody gives them much credit, but it’s surprising how often they’re at or near the top of the charts at the end of a battle.
I started off pretty terrible with destroyers. I can’t just run around looking for a battleship or aircraft carrier to play with; cruisers will cut me to pieces. And I really can’t do much to them. Cruisers can easily avoid torpedoes, and they have superior artillery. Most destroyer captains try to fill choke points with torpedoes and hope a cruiser stumbles into them. That actually works some of the time.
Best bet is to follow some other cruisers into battle and help out where possible until the stage of the game where the enemy battleships are spread out — and then go to town. I’ve been those battleship captains who see a destroyer blip on the radar… and then vanish. All I can do is turn toward the torpedoes I know are on their way, and hope that an aircraft carrier wasn’t sending a torpedo plane for crossfire.
I haven’t spent even a ruble on the game yet. I may never hit tier 10. But I’m not playing for that. I’m playing for a short bit of fun. Other people have their mobile games. I have Warships 🙂
