I found a nice tool to see "expected damage" for your tank.  Somewhat like a goal if you want to bring up your ratings (WN8 and such) or just to become a better player.  Here it is. 

Here are TDs I currently play.

Marder is a boring one.  I feel so will be all other German TDs up to Borsig.  I already opened the next tier 4 Stug, but need to collect more XP on Marder to open the gun on the way to "the bathtub"  Pz.Sfl.IVc.

Compare the crew.  I started from zero except for one guy I had in barracks for a while - he was not needed for Pz B2.  Unfortunately I retrained his old crew mates for that heavy.  But who knows, maybe I'll give up on Gernam TDs if they are that boring...

One more High Caliber - and defeat.  Yes, I'm the best of the worst :)

My WN8 is slowly climbing up from "orange", based on damage.  Used to be comfortably "yellow", but then the color scheme was changed by devs (or with their "blessing", guess for what reason).  But my winrate is down to 50% again.  It was up and down a lot recently, but somehow stays between 50% and 51%.  And I'm not that "wealthy" to use "golden-silver" ammo to assure the wins...

Ok, no clan events during the week, so I decided to keep going with my TDs.  

I was always looking at German TDs, especially the Rhm.-Borsig Waffentrager  (tier 8).  But the reviews and clan recommendations confused me so much I started looking at German heavys ant retrained my best crew 2 times.  I ended up loosing 50% of the 2nd skill, also re-trained it from camo to repair.  And then just gave up on German line, concentrating on clan-recommended GB and USSR tier 6s.     Any way, turned out I don't like those tier 6s as much as I like my TDs.  So I'm partially back to my initial plan.  I know the road to Borsig is difficult, those tier 5-6-7 TDs are all meh.  But at least they are TDs, I understand this class and like it.  

I still have to work on KV-1S to open KV-85 (28k XP).  Still have to fully upgrade T-34-85 and T-150.   But I don't enjoy the games where I cannot do anything to pull the battle out - and the stupid "team" loses time after time.  With TD - I can.  Or at least I can try.  Not like with a useless heavy. 

We'll see how it goes.  I bought Marder38 any way...

Happy Birthday, Ukraine!
Independence day parade in Kiev.  This army did not exist 3 years ago.  More photos here.   Video.

Another good game today.

I didn't have many High Caliber medals till yesterday, suddenly received 3 of them within 2 days plus a Top Gun.  Didn't think I was doing any different then usual.  Yet I helped to pull out several games where XVM was giving my team less then 50% chance.

I've reset the T-67 commander's skills (90%, for silver) just as I planned - to get the "6th sense" skill. 

Not bad, it helps.  I had several really good games this evening.  Sometimes I was playing over-careful, being not sure if enemy spotted me after a shot.  Now I can relax a bit, especially on the maps I like.

First I trained all crew to get camo skill up to 100%.  Then I kept collecting commander's experience (with no 2nd skill) till his crewmen got their 2nd skills up to 40%.  This way my commander got the "6th sense" 100%  plus 13% leftover for another skill (camo again) after the reset.  Now, why I didn't just train the "6th sense" right away?  'Cause it doesn't work at all till you make it 100%.  Other skills like camo, repair, recon etc - they start working right away, from 1% and up.

The best game today.  

Guess I played much better, then XVM expected, lol :)  See our chance to win?  Pretty much the same story as the previous post, low chance to win, but ended up with a victory.  But so many games were opposite story!  No matter how I do - bad or ok or good. I'm a "below average" player, so it cannot depend just on me.  And it's  the same story for any tank I use - T-67 or any other mediums or heavys I have.  Not even mentioning the Crusader, it's cursed :)

I'm so tired of idiots who want to be commanders.  Especially if they try to make me go spot for them.  I'm T-67, yet I suppose to be a light tank for their pleasure.  And if I say no or just ignore - they start calling me names and "reporting a bot".  Ok, I report them back for insulting.  As a rule, it's arty players.  Dumb useless idiots.  The worst part - I had to win the game for him any way.  Yes, I stayed back and finished 2 enemies after the idiot died (but he started barking at me much earlier, not after his death).

Discounts!

Mostly for prem tanks, but for some regular ones too.  I just payed a bit over 600k for T-150 (reg. price 880k).  Another example: Lowe (german tier 8 prem) is 10k instead of 12k.  Hurry up if you planned to buy :)

Yippie!  100% crew.  I used up the 1-hour hour 300% crew bonus (received it some time ago for competing a mission), and got enough experience for the last 2% my crew missed.  I was fed-up with all those defeats recently.  Like the one on the screenshot.  HOW the heck these teams manage to loose?

Just keep swimming...

Too many games lost for no reason.  Or 'cause some top tank doesn't load up.  Happened 4 or 5 times last night.

The game from the screen was "a last second win" - our TD vs the red heavy, both around 30% hp and the red was capping.  So it was literally a one shot thing.  Our TD was lucky.

It's a loooooong road... (to level up the crew).

My winrate was terrible for last 2 days.  My "teams" managed to loose 60%+ chance games like 10 times or even more.  Probably those guys with high WN8 just bought their accounts from good players.  No other way to explain.  

Yet another one of those games... 

If I get "Top gun" - that means both teams sucked.  But my team also had to loose...

Any way, late night week-end is the worst time to play as for me.  Too many high-skilled players.  Maybe 'cause of this x3 thingie, this week-end is the worst I remember.  MM sucks despite what the devs said - my tier 5s were getting in tier 7 games too often, and in most cases half team were tier 7th, then all others were 6, except for me (T-67 or T-34) and the lights.  And what should we do vs tier 7s?  Stupid MM.

I did it on T-67!  A mark of excellence.  My hitrate is not that high, just above 50% and I often run out of ammo.  So looks like my kamikaze-style of running forward and "giving light" to my teammates added lots of assist points to my rate.

Slowly upping the crew and pulling up my T-67 statistics.  Weird,  my most loved tanks have the worst winrate.  T-67 is about 47%.  Poor Crusader is 44% and it seems to be cursed.  I may have a good result (2-3 frags and a lot of assist points), but then my "team" looses the game any way. 

Discounts!  

Garage slots and all equipment - 50% off!  

A free tank for 1 random battle!  

Happy Birthday WG!

I just received my free tank and purchased 2 more garage slots.  

As for the tank - looks like a meh (tier 2 soviet light), but 100% crew is nice (just 2 guys, yes). Any way, it's my 1st freebie from WG, so thank you devs!  I'll purchase some equipment too tonight.

No clan events, no people online, one of friends left the clan, I wonder if other one would stay...   The clan is concentrated on the WoWS and doesn't seem to care of tank-wing that much.  As for me - I tried to like those ships, but... It's boring.  I'd rather play Naval Action instead. Probably I will when it's finally released, right now it's too "raw" to really enjoy it, especially knowing that everything is going to be wiped soon, except for your rank and crafting xp - and I'm at the top of both :)

I'm back to solo mode and my Sergeant Wigga crew on T-67.  Last 10% are terribly long to finish.  I'll be playing T-67 at least till the end of this week.  If no tank I need goes on sale Monday - then maybe even longer.  I want to get at least half another skill for T-67 radio man - and something for his crew-mates of course.  Initially I planned to retrain this same crew for Hellcat, but I'm not sure anymore.  Tier 6 tank are a bit difficult for me to play yet.

I'm still trying to collect enough money to buy T-150.  My KV-1 crew is finally 100%.  

There was a rumor about 30-50% discount for IS-7 line and Leopard-1 line, starting August 15th.  So I I decided not to hurry with KV-1C, would be nice to buy it for 50% price.  And then maybe KV-85 if I collect enough xp.

As for the mods - well, still not enough custom configurations to pick something less annoying then the standard one.  

I tried to install OMC modpack, but figured out they still didn't update the XVM section (it's still 6.3.2.1 version while the new 6.4 was released yesterday).  So... why would I install the old version for WoT 9.15.0.1?  I'll wait a bit more I guess...

Update: Hahaha!  Did they read me?  "XVM 6.4"  in a new OMC update.

XVM mode for 9.15.1 is officially released.  What they did not add yet is minimap mod and multi-row at the garage.  They are still working on minimap and it will be fully functional "soon" (c).  The garage feature supposedly will be added to the game itself sometime "soon".  2 more patches are planned by WG this year, so maybe one of them will have it.

Ok, now I can finally install it and struggle with the config again...

I like Crusader, but despite even having a "sniper" mark on it, I cannot get a good winrate. 

But I had a pretty funny game today.  Crusader is not the best scout.  Being more "a medium tank with no armor" I didn't want to be on the way of our "big guys" fighting at those rocks.   The position I moved to was not good for shooting or even spotting, but then my solo flank attack worked out just the way I wanted.  

Too bad the other part of the team didn't reset the timer.

And how the heck I made the 2nd best damage-dealer of the team??  I was near the bottom of the list...