It's more difficult then I thought.  As you can see, I'm still missing 5 pieces for the tree and 3 for the tank. Last time I converted tier 4 ornaments - I received the damn useless star - I already have the WoT top.  There is the way to get what you want for sure (convert only blue ornaments to receive the ornament, only the garlands to receive a garland etc), but I don't receive enough tier 4 pieces to be patient :)  Any way, I still have some time till Jan 16.

The recent x5 XP for the 1st win gave me a nice boost for my not-fully-upgraded tier 6 tanks.  I finally installed M-10 on KV-2 and collected some XP towards top guns for Hellcat and T-34-85.  But to be honest I don't like playing tier 6 yet.  Just 'cause I don't have nice crews for my tanks.  It's hard to play with no 6th sense perk.  I got used to it on T-67.  I put the same crew on Hellcat and other US TDs, but without retraining it's a meh any way.   At least 6th sense works, but Hellcat feels sooooo slow.  I normally lose more games then I win on KV-2, Hellcat and T-34-85, so then I have to play several T-67  games just to "fix" my stats :)  

I'd like to get AMX ELC, but after trying AMX 40 on my other account... no way :)  It's terrible.  I'll have to collect enough "free XP" to skip "the duck".  But first things first.  Right now my free XP will go to german TDs.

Here is a bonus code from Advent Calendar (official WoT website) which will give you 3 consumables for each nation: NZGJK3HKB6M45Y2S

Get in for x3 XP week-end and discount for free-XP conversion! :)

X-mas/New Year missions are pretty fun.  I don't have many tanks of tier 6+, but even with little guys of tier 4 and 5 it's doable.  Even if you play (and win) only the 1st game on each - you have plenty of time til Jan 16.  I have to admit - I played a lot recently (up to completing 20k daily New Year missions).  And I was lucky enough with my tier 6 (Hellcat, Crom and T-34-85) to receive level IV rewards for them (even lvl IV-V mix once, for 4 frags).

You can "convert", say 5 ornaments/decorations of tier 1 to receive one tier 2.  Just remember, a) you cannot choose what you receive, it's random; and b) do not convert lvl 5s!  All you would receive is ONE lvl 5!  Lvl 6 does not exist!

Now, I collected almost-full Sweden female crew with "festive atmosphere IX".  Still missing a gunner.  Maybe I'll be lucky enough to bring it all up to X, maybe not, I care less.  I'll have to play mostly my tier 6 tanks for that, and I don't like them that much - yet.  Actually I managed to bring my stat up to 51% win two days ago, but now I'm back down to 50.8%  Time to get back on my TDs, normally I have better results with them - or T-34.  I don't like heavies that much and I don't have light tanks atm.  Actually I played Crom as light recently, 'cause MM was bringing me to tier VIII games :)

Any way, there are 2 pictures under the cut, that's how my decorations look like right now.  Note that I have 2 lvl 5 ornaments and 2 or 3 lvl 5s.  It doesn't matter if you mix or not, each ornament gives you points (3 for lvl 3, 4 for lvl 4 etc).  You just need to make a total for "festive atmosphere" level.  I didn't note all of them, but some are like this:

lvl 3 - 10

lvl 4 - 16

lvl 5 - 24

lvl 6 - 32? not sure, maybe 30 (a free garage slot here too)

lvl 7 - 42

lvl 8 - 52

lvl 9 - 64

lvl 10 - 80

That includes both X-mas tree and the snow-made-KV2.  So you have 16 slots total.  Do your math :)  Basically you need all lvl 4 ornaments to reach lvl 9 and get a 4-girls Sweden crew (not mentioning other rewards).  All lvl 5s ornaments will give you a gunner for your full-girl-crew.

I exited the clan.  Just like most of the people I had a chance to play with there.  Looked like this WoWS-based clan gave up the idea of expending to WoT.  Oh well...  

I may give up on OMC modpack as well, as it is not working - again - just after the main update 9.17 was done.  But then this snowitzer-event update came up (and it's cool, I like it.  I do not push it, just play as usual).  2 days - no new OMC update, and now their website is down.  Maybe it's time to go with the original XVM.

Lol :D

This is my 2nd account.  I haven't played for a while again.  Decided to try it tonight - and voila, Master on my little Marder.

Unlocked Hetzer and AMX40 on french line to ELC. It's going to be a loooooong road.  "The duck" is terrible.