WOTBB 71 – Fantasy tanks

Hy there!

Over time, the fact that Blitz is seeing more and more fantasy tanks is quite the subject of debate. There’s basically two camps – those that love and those that hate them. A lot of players know their war-history, know their tanks, and they like the fact that the tanks in the game have historical background. Of course, there’s tanks in the game that were never actually made, but for which the concepts were drawn up. The fantasy tanks are nowhere near even that.

Of course, there’s the “light” version, of tanks that get their own spiffy camo and are sold as separate tanks like that, like the Type 62 dragon, the T34 independence, the T34-85 Victory, and the Shinobi.

The T34-85 Victory and the Independence (and the Jagdtiger 8.8 Snowstorm) are still separate tanks in the game, but the Type 62 dragon and the Shinobi are now just legendary camouflage on the Type 62 and the Chi-Nu. On these tanks, the camouflages are purely cosmetic and though they look unlike any tank you would actually encounter on a real battlefield, they’re not quite fantasy tanks.

The first real fantasy tank we got in the game was for Halloween 2015, and it was named the Tankenstein.

The thing is truly FUBAR, and a mix of several tanks in one. I still call it the Frankentank, which was how it was named when information about it leaked into the community before the event for it started. It was also the first grind event we got into the game. It’s one of the tanks that has been collecting dust in my garage since I first got it, because tank-wise, it’s really not my thing. I am a collector however, and it was a free tank, so I made sure I got it all the same.

Since then, we’ve gotten a number of fantasy tanks in the game, and people still make quite a fuss about them whenever one is about to hit the store – the real vs fantasty discussion always starts up again. But to be honest, I’m quite a big fan of some of them.

There’s the O-47 Mecha tank, which was designed especially for Blitz, and even though I don’t think it’s very pretty, I can say that it’s a quirky tank and that can make it fun to drive.

Both the Edelweiss and the Nameless are quite a lot of fun – especially the Edelweiss is a tank I adore, with its general mobility and armour. It’s a heavium more than a medium, and that makes it just the tank for me. The Nameless is good, but I’ll be honest – I’ve not driven it that much, mostly because I drove the Edelweiss a heck lot more.

The Lupus is a different story altogether. Now, I’m not good with rear-mounted turrets, but the Lupus, especially in the hands of someone that -can- drive rear-mounted turreted tanks, is incredibly OP. The armour is amazing, the gun is good. The only problem is that it looks like Quasimodo.

These three tanks came from the anime Valkyria Chronicles and they were slightly overpowered when they first came out. Though, now, with all the other OP tanks at tier VII, that’s by far no longer the case. They’re also not the only tanks we’ve gotten that stem from anime.

These three horrors come from Girls und Panzer, and though the tanks themselves aren’t that bad, the Anko (left image) is one of my most hated tanks. Not because it’s a bad tank. It’s not. In the right hands, it can be an utter bully. But because whereas all the tanks have the same voices in the game, the Anko has squeaky Japanese schoolgirls voicing it, and they talk Japanese at that. I really really really really really dislike it.

The Kuro Mori Mine (middle) isn’t that bad, but since it’s at the same tier as my beloved Fury, if I have to pick at tank, the Kuro isn’t it. As for the Hetzer Kame SP (right), it’s just not as good or nice as a real Hetzer. Like the others, I do have them in my garage though, looking pretty and dusty.

Aside from anime tanks, we’ve gotten tanks from the Chinese New Year events, like the Glacial and the Blaze. Both alright tanks on their own, and they do look very pretty, with the dragon painted on them. But just like the Type 62 Dragon, these are more superficial tanks than anything else.

But then we get back to the Halloween tanks. Halloween has had special grind events for tanks three years in a row now, and from these events come the most special and exclusive tanks in the game. Well, I say exclusive, but WG actually sold the Tankenstein this Halloween for a extortionate amount of money while we were grinding for this year’s addition: the Predator and the Vindicator.

The Predator and the Vindicator don’t stem from an anime, they stem from Warhammer. They look a little “special” in my opinion, and they drive like that too. The lack of gun depression really necks them. With the Predator this is up to the point that it can’t shoot someone that’s hugging his flank. But, again, they’re rather much collectible.

But for me, the most fun, and most special tanks in the game are the Halloween tanks of 2016 – the Dracula and the Helsing.

Aside from looking incredibly cute, they’re quite overpowered, and especially in toon form, they’re just evil. The Helsing has a shotgun, which makes it even funnier – it fires two shots in very quick succession with just one press of the firebutton. Of course, this also means you miss or bounce one of the shots quite a bit of the time, but it’s still very OP. The fact that it has wolves engraved on its flank is just an extra bonus.

The Dracula is basically roadrunner in the shape of a tank. It’s wicked fast, very mobile, has a good gun and just amazing. I can never be quite serious when I drive this tank, because I tend to start battles by saying “nananananananana BATMAN” because to me, it’s much more Batman than Dracula. And if you had the choice, which of the two would you rather be anyway? Exactly.

Everything taken into account, I’m a big fan of the fantasy tanks, and for the most part, I adore driving them. But I can also understand the players that would like things to be more historically correct. I don’t know a lot about tanks though – I have a hard enough time recognizing what I’m up against in the game, let alone know anything other than their name and the type of tank – so for me, the accurateness of the tanks themselves doesn’t matter that much.

For me, it’s all about just how cute the tank looks, and because of that, I’m still a sucker when a fantasy tank hits the store, or if there’s another grind event – despite my utterly hating grind events to begin with, I always end up competing because I want the cute or special tank at the end.

The discussion on what’s right or wrong will keep rising whenever we get something new that never existed, or that comes out of a game or anime. In the end though, I don’t think there is really a wrong or a right to it. It’s all personal preference, and the most important part of it is that you enjoy the tanks you drive.

There’s people that only drive German tanks, and I know someone that refuses to drive British tanks because of the history of his country with the UK. Or the guy that drives only American tanks because he’s American. As long as they enjoy the game and this works for them, who are we to judge? And likewise with the fantasy tanks.

I’m looking forwards to the next cute addition to my garage, though not so much to the hole in my wallet it’ll no doubt come with. Batman out.