Armored Warfare News

Commanders!

The Vanguard Raid is now available. From the yellow wastes of Venus to Saturn’s icy moons, the Vanguard stands ready to deploy against all threats alien. The Russians once claimed the Armata to be capable of fighting on Mars. But what would tanks look like, were they really required to do so? Take a peek into an alternate reality to find out. You can read more about this Raid in our earlier preview.

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This 49-day-long event will put you into the role of a raider, conquering the territory represented by a map.

You can access the event by:

• Completing 10 Contract Missions
• Purchasing access for 499 Gold (click on the Raid icon in your Garage)

Four main rewards in the form of epic skins and camouflages await you:

Vanguard prizes



































Apart from the abovementioned rewards, there will be a lot more to earn, including Boosters, Battle Coins for the next Battle Path, Premium Time, Credits and more.

For more pieces of information, please see the Frequently Asked Questions below.

Frequently Asked Questions about Raid

What is the Raid event?

The Raid is a 49-day-long event, in which you, as a Raider, conquer certain territory by moving along the lines representing roads and other paths and forming a grid. Each grid intersection has a point that is either a mission that you must complete (Mission Points), or a reward that you may claim (Reward Points). Completing the mission or claiming the reward unlocks another portion of the grid. The main prizes await you in each of the territory map’s corners. Players who complete all missions and claim all rewards receive a special reward.

Once the map is available to you (either by purchasing access or completing 10 Contract Missions), start from the center by clicking on one of the dots that show the initial direction of your advance.

What rewards are there available?

Standard Reward Points that can be found around the grid will reward you with various items such as Reputation, Boosters or even Battle Coins for an upcoming Battle Path. The top rewards that are waiting for you in each of the map’s corners are the four epic skins listed above.

Please note that these skins do not come with the vehicles themselves. The skins also work with multiple vehicle upgrades where applicable. Finally, completing all missions and claiming all rewards will unlock the top reward, the Mist camouflage.

What missions appear in Raid?

There are four categories of missions available:

• PvP missions (which require you to play either Random Battles or Global Operations)
• PvE missions (which require you to play either standard PvE or Special Operations)
• General missions (which can be completed in both PvP and PvE)
• Elite missions (which require you to complete a very difficult objective in order to access major rewards such as the abovementioned skins)

General, PvE and PvP missions have randomized requirements that may include the use of vehicles from specific dealers, or playing specific Tiers. Elite missions are not randomized.

Can I obtain the rewards only by playing my favorite mode? For example, I do not want to play PvP or PvE.

Yes.

Some missions require me to do things I do not understand, like Kill or Eliminate. Can you explain?

There are several goal categories included:

• Kill/Destroy
• Assist
• Eliminate
• Performance requirement

Kill (or Destroy, which is the same thing) simply means you have to be the player who deals the finishing blow to the target.

Assist means that you have to be the player who deals the most damage to the target (save for killing it). There is no threshold – if player A deals 40 percent of all the damage to the target, player B deals 30 percent of all the damage done to the target and then player C deals the remaining 30 percent and kills it, player A will get the “assist”. Kill or assist requirements often come together, so you can either achieve a kill, or an assist and both will count towards your mission progress.

Eliminate means that you have to destroy the target AND, at the same time, be the player dealing the most damage to it. What that means is that, in the case described above, no player would achieve elimination. However, if two players dealt 30 percent of damage each and then another player dealt 40 percent of damage and killed the target, that player would achieve elimination.

Performance is the percentage of hits that hit your target while dealing main hitpoint damage. In other words, a mission with 80 percent performance requirement requires 80 percent of all your shells to hit your target and deal hitpoint damage to it. What this means is that:

• Shells that hit and deal damage (even without penetration, like HE explosions) will count
• Shells that don’t hit but still deal damage (HE splash) don’t count
• Shells that hit but don’t deal damage (non-penetrations, ricochets) don’t count
• Shells that hit but only deal module damage (hitting enemy ERA, tracks or gun) don’t count

Is it possible to change missions if I do not like the conditions?

Yes. You may obtain a Reroll Token from a Reward Point. Using it changes the conditions of a single mission. Please note that PvP missions cannot be rerolled into PvE ones and vice versa, the main mode requirement will always remain the same. Elite missions cannot be rerolled. Reroll Tokens can also be purchased for Gold.

Is it possible to skip missions?

Yes. You may obtain a Raider Token from a Reward Point. Using it will instantly complete the mission you have selected. However, please note that these items are rare and you best save yours for a rainy day. Please also note that completing Elite missions this way will cost you five Raider Tokens. Raider Tokens can also be purchased for Gold.

What are the time limits on this event?

The Raid missions have no timers and, if you wish, the entire event can be completed even on Day 1. The only timer that is present is the 49-day deadline that starts at the event’s launch and is therefore the same for everybody. You can see the time left to complete the event in the upper right corner of the Raid window.

Good luck on the battlefield, commanders!

On the 28th of October 2021, starting from 8:00 CEST (27th of October, 11 PM PDT), the server will not be available for 5 hours due to the application of Update 0.37.8514



[h2]List of Update 0.37.8514 Changes[/h2]
 

• Right-clicking on a vehicle that you do not own (for example in the Tech Tree or Raid UI) now allows you to open its Visual Customization window in order to see how it would look with skins and camouflages
• M1128 MGS: Fixed the armor (missing cages) and collision model of this vehicle
• M48 GAU-8: The armor now correctly corresponds to the M48A3 MBT model
• M51: Increased the reload time from 3.3s to 7.2s
• M60A3 USMC: Fixed this skin’s appearance
• T-64A Mod.1969: Fixed the FCS module so that it can now be installed correctly along with the Stabilizer module and improves the aiming time by 20%
• TAM 2IP: The smoke grenade launcher now has 2 charges with a 3 second cooldown
• Fixed an issue where some vehicles would fire below the reticle position
• Added the assets required for the launch of the Vanguard Raid, bound to launch on October 28

Commanders!

One of the hottest topics of the past days and weeks has been the Tier 1 to 6 rebalance and today, we’d like to tell you more about as well as explain ourselves regarding some of our actions and design choices.



The Tier 1 to 6 set of changes follows the same rules and subscribes to the same philosophy as the previous high-Tier adjustments. There were issues in the earlier game balance that we specifically wanted to address. These issues included:

• Power creep between Tiers
• Expected versus real armor behavior (also known as “the indicator was green, why didn’t I penetrate the armor?”)

The first issue seems obvious enough, but the second one might not be. The armor models of Armored Warfare were – or are – quite complex. This led to a large number of situations where the penetration indicator, which works like a beam, would target one small polygon where penetration was possible, but the actual shell would hit somewhere else – a different polygon with a different thickness that would bounce the shell off. In other words, you saw the green reticle, fired and the shell would bounce off. To address this issue, we simplified the armor model significantly – this is the “weird armor” you’ve been seeing in the Armor Inspector, but we’ll say more about that below.

We’ve been working on this concept for a very long time and somewhere along the line, we realized there were compromises we’d have to make.

One of the most important compromises was that of “realism”. There are other tank games on the market that either claim realism, or have at least started that way. From them arose a certain set of paradigms that apply to you as our community even though there’s no particular reason to do so save for legacy perceptions. A few examples include:

• Poor armor of the Sherman
• Leopard 1 should have very thin armor in absolute numbers
• T-55 has 100mm thick frontal plate

And so on. We are aware that breaking such informal “rules” feels “wrong” to the community, even though, from our perspective, there’s no particular reason to adhere to them. We broke them already on higher Tiers, although there it wasn’t that visible – nobody knows how effective the depleted Uranium kit of an Abrams is (and for the record, please don’t leak any military documents to tell us).

Our concern is that of gameplay – the game has to be fun first and foremost, and any notions of realism come as a bonus. After all – realism? One of our most successful skins makes your tank look like half-ghost and half-octopus. In other words, we decided to ditch pretty much all realistic armor values and adhere to what we feel is the best for gameplay.

That’s not to say this all went without problems. There are issues that we still definitely need to address (the total firepower dominance of the M51 being a good example) but overall, the update went roughly as intended. However, ever since the launch, we’ve been bombarded with questions and today, we’d like to answer the most popular ones.

Why do all MBTs have the same armor layout?

This is a tough one because we knew this wouldn’t be popular with a certain group of players. The basic idea was this – statistically, typical gameplay against MBTs were two vehicles facing each other while standing and moving their guns left and right, up and down, searching for a “green” weakspot. Whoever finds one first, typically wins.

Our goal was to shift the gameplay focus from weakspot searching to:

• Positioning on the battlefield
• Proper shell type selection

To do that, we had to come up with an overall armor concept that would fit the following requirements:

• MBTs shouldn’t have easily targetable frontal weakspots at mid-to-long ranges in order to be able to push forward without being immediately destroyed by long-range fire
• MBTs shouldn’t have frontal weakspots their players can’t compensate for by playing, which is why we turned the lower frontal plates into weakspots since they can be hidden behind obstacles or by angling your tank
• MBTs should be able to fight each other at any distance and with any standard Tier difference (that is, 2 Tiers), which is why the lowest part of the lower frontal plate is typically vulnerable to any tank gun of any Tier the MBT can face in battle under normal circumstances
• MBT side armor should be vulnerable to medium and large caliber guns at any distance, but should be resistant to autocannons (we are currently reviewing the autocannons and preparing some changes, so take this point with a grain of salt) – either way, the idea here was to make fire support or sniper-style vehicles effective against MBTs when positioned right and to make flanking a viable tactic

Furthermore, we wanted to make all standard shell types viable in various situations. In the new meta gameplay, shell switching is important, which is why we gave the ability to switch shell types to pretty much all vehicles. As for the specific shell types:

• APFSDS (Kinetic): Universal shell type effective at shorter ranges in any battle
• HESH: Specific shell type that doesn’t deal as much damage, but is effective against sharply angled armor, including upper frontal plate, and can therefore penetrate areas kinetic shells cannot
• HEAT (Shaped Charge): Deals roughly 30 percent more damage across the board than kinetic shells but can rarely penetrate frontal armor, best used against MBT side armor or light targets
• HEAT-MP: Deals roughly 10 percent less damage than standard HEAT, but can deal minimum damage upon non-penetration, making it not only effective against side armor and light vehicles, but also against stationary MBTs in defensive positions that would normally be invulnerable to your fire
• HE (High Explosive): Deals much, much more damage than standard kinetic shells but has the lowest penetration values of all shell types. Usable against very light targets, vehicle rear areas, but also to flush out MBTs in defensive positions thanks to its ability to deal damage upon non-penetration

We also wanted to underline the differences between various classes. The result is the model you can see in the game right now. Yes, all MBTs have their lower frontal plates turned into weakspots, which is not historically accurate, but supports our vision of intended gameplay.

Why does the Leopard 1 MBT have so thick armor (and why are there other strange armor layouts)?

Yes, we do know the Chieftain armor doesn’t look that way on the inside, or that it’s missing its pike nose. We also know the Leopard armor looks differently. All these changes were designed to make armor performance more predictable and for all MBTs to adhere to the gameplay changes described above. We tried to preserve at least the general MBT styles – as such, the Leopard is the least armored of other MBTs of its Tier.

With that being said, there are some armor layouts that perhaps do not have the intended values. We are looking into them right now.

What about the autocannons?

As also stated above, we wanted to protect the MBT class from long-range autocannon fire. Unfortunately, in the process, we discovered that autocannon vehicles can no longer engage MBTs effectively, even at close distances. We are working at the moment to fix this.

Why does the same shell have a higher penetration or damage on Tier 1-6 than it does on Tier 7-10?

In short, this is a bug. It came to be since the Tier 7 to 10 rebalance process was for all intents and purposes separate from the Tier 1 to 6 one, which, as you know, came later. During the latter’s implementation, there was some friction between the two and we will fix any such inconsistencies as soon as possible.

Why did the Type 62 become an MBT?

Because we needed one more MBT on Tier 1 and of all the existing vehicles, the Type 62 LT was the best candidate since it kind of is a mini-Type 59. Now, you might be asking, why didn’t we just replace it with the Type 59? The answer is, that would create more issues than it was worth. We’d have to either completely replace the Type 62 (removing it from the game), or we’d be left with another legacy vehicle (like the PT-76) that serves no practical purpose, nobody would play it (as nobody plays the PT-76) but would represent more “dead weight” in a time when the costs of game development are at an all-time high.

On the other hand, we do recognize that the Type 62 has a completely wrong model anyway, but we need that MBT on Tier 1 for player acquisition reasons, so would you rather have us replace it with the Type 59? Let us know.

The same really goes for Rooikat 76. It’s a fire support vehicle, which typically translates into a Tank Destroyer in our game. That’s why we changed its class.

As for the rest...

Let’s get real. We do hear your feedback and recognize some things didn’t go as intended. There are bugs that we are still working on – 120mm AMX-40 low damage, insane damage output of the M-51, some Tier 1-6 tanks having more armor than a Tier 10 MBT. We’ll get them fixed in the near future.

And yes, this article should have been rolled out earlier. For all that, we apologize. Right now, the best thing we can do is pay attention to the lessons we’ve learned in the future features we are working on right now, such as the autocannon overhaul or in making armor more diverse.

We hope that you’ll stay with us and, as always:

See you on the battlefield!

Commanders!

Even after more than a year, the world is still experiencing the COVID-19 epidemic. We care about your well-being and want you all to be as safe as you can, given the circumstances. To make your Armored Warfare experience more enjoyable, we’ve prepared another gift for you.



The gift can be obtained until November 9, 15:00 CET and contains:

• 3 day temporary version of the Challenger 2 Streetfighter II Tier 10 Premium MBT
• 3 day temporary version of the Kornet-D1 Tier 10 Premium TD
• 3 day temporary version of the Panzer 87-140 Tier 10 Premium MBT
• 3 day temporary version of the MPF Tier 10 Premium LT
• 7 days of Premium Time
• 5 Platinum Insignia tokens (XP, Commander XP and Credits)
• 5 Platinum Battlefield Glory 12-hour boost tokens

We hope that these items will make your Armored Warfare experience enjoyable despite the unfortunate circumstances.



Stay safe, commanders, and, as always:

See you on the battlefield!

Commanders!

For today’s offer, we’ve prepared a series of Battle-Hardened bundles for three Russian progression MBTs, including the T-14 Armata. These discounted bundles contain Gold as well as the Battle-Hardened status, which will turn your Progression vehicle into a semi-Premium one by increasing its Credit income, Experience income, and by improving its matchmaking quality so that you meet lower Tier opponents in battle than usual, much like Premium vehicles do.



The discounted Battle-Hardened bundles are available for the following vehicles:

• T-14 Armata Tier 10 MBT (50% discount)
• T-90MS Tagil Tier 9 MBT (45% discount)
• T-90A Vladimir Tier 8 MBT (35% discount)

Please note that if you do not own the vehicle in question, you will receive the Battle Hardened status price in Gold instead.



We hope that you will enjoy the offer and, as always:

See you on the battlefield!