Clan Spotlight: [_BAD_]

[_BAD_] The Brotherhood Armored Division Clan Website

Tankers!

This week we shine the light on [_BAD_], The Brotherhood Armored Division. You may recognize these heavy hitters as part of that big purple blob that is a mainstay of the Clan Wars map, but they'll be happy to tell you that they are just one of the divisions that make up the conglomerate known as The Burning Legion. Read on to see how these great players and true masters of diplomacy can help you and your clan to excel!

We interviewed these players to learn more about The Brotherhood Armored Division:

BadLion [_BAD_] - Commander of BAD. I oversee pretty much all the functions they mentioned including recruiting, etc. I am also one of the senior leaders of The Burning Legion which includes the Clans [HAVOK] and [_UF_].
ThatDarnEwok [_BAD_] - Field Commander.
CallmeDash [_BAD_] - Deputy Commander with BAD. I take care of IT infrastructure, communications and treasury.
theonesavior [_BAD_] - Deputy Commander of BAD and in charge of Field Commanders.
watson1002 [_BAD_] - I do the diplomacy for Legion and BAD. My role is I look at more of the long term of the metagame and look towards the future of where we are going to be; what we are going to do, who we are going to be friends with, what's our best positioning on the maps and things like that.
AMartin223 [_BAD_] - I used to be a Field Commander in BAD and I would run battles. Then I lost a pretty ugly one and gave up on that, but I have been running a tournament team, The Cunninghams, which is a lot of admin work basically and little bit of fun.

How would you best describe your clan?

BadLion - Well, for the most part, we are in it to have fun, but also to be very competitive at the same time. BAD actually stands for "The Brotherhood Armored Division," and that word "brotherhood" we take very seriously. We tend to be focused around having a clan that works together. Our clan specifically was built to be highly competitive, but very social at the same time. The metagame is a big part of what we do -- it encompasses lots of things from posting ability, to diplomacy, to gameplay, to actual friendships and personal relationships. The metagame in World of Tanks is huge and encompasses many different aspects. If you are good at one aspect but you suck at another, you can pretty much write yourselves off. But if you are good at diplomacy, if you are good at fighting, and if you are good at personal relationships, then it's pretty much a win-win.

Which is more important: skill or diplomacy?

AMartin223 - I think knowing your skill level is more important than where your skill actually is. Your skill level gets you a certain level of respect with your opponents, then what you do with it defines where you are on the map.

theonesavior - They definitely complement each other to where I'd say it is almost split even. Whereas if you are a really good fighter but metagame isn't that great or you don't build relationships very well. you can easily lose by being outnumbered by clans chipping you every night and you get exhausted. That is a huge aspect of the game. And then the other way around: if you are really good at building relationships but you just can't back it up on the field, that is also another inevitable outcome.

AMartin223 - Also, FC skills are incredibly more important than individual player skill. There are different brackets of player skill. I mean, if you have the worst possible players, there is only so much you can do. But within a skill bracket that is very wide, the FC can make a huge difference. If you have a player who wins more pub matches than they lose, you can do pretty much anything.

What does it take to make a great FC?

theonesavior - Every now and then you get an FC who -- and mind you, the ones who do this don't last very long -- blames the players. "The players screwed this up," or "These guys went around a corner when they shouldn't have," but in reality, it all falls back on the FC. If something doesn't go right, it is 99% due to a lack of preparation or oversight.

ThatDarnEwok - It really starts at the platoon level. A good Field Commander will go into TeamSpeak, find their players, and platoon with the tier X's to gauge how they play and what play style they have. Then that Field Commander can then move to Tank Companies and judge that player in a team setting. When you take that player into the field, you know exactly what kind of role he will fulfill and how well he will do it without even having to worry about it. That is what a great field commander will look into.

theonesavior - Another thing that is huge: You can be a great FC, call really well and come up with good strats, but if you have a one-track mind -- like you only run no-arty or always run a ton of mediums, etc. -- then a lack of imagination will always penalize you. No matter what kind of strategy you run and no matter how good it is, every strat can be easily countered, and it doesn't take a lot of imagination to see a predictable FC on the other side of the field. Sure, you never communicate with this guy, maybe all you see of him is in Clan Wars, but if that guy sees a trend, you will get crushed every time. The key is to not be predictable.

BadLion - Field Commanders need to be very map-aware. They need to understand what is going on at any time. They need to be able to read what the other team is doing by scouting and understand the map as a whole -- understanding where most teams will go to. You need to be very aware of tactics on that map, learning those maps and be map-aware in-game. Pay attention to that mini-map.

What is the advantage of being part of the Burning Legion as opposed to just allying with other clans? Do you have issues with jealousy?

BadLion - Oh, absolutely. It has happened before. Unfortunately, it does happen with other clans, and a lot of time people just don't understand, but in the end, it is about the greater good of alliance. Doesn't matter what it is, it's about the greater good. It's about everyone working together. We have three clans that are Clan Wars clans, and all three of them work together as one big team.

watson1002 - Yeah. You are working towards that endgame, the metagame. If you look at the North America map, you have Havok and BAD right together, right? If you look at some of the clans that are around us, they are these big powerful clans. We have another clan called Unforgiven; they are up in the north. My talking with some of the clans around them is helping them to get battles with the right people and the right clans, and to keep them on the map so that they can keep building. The clans have to build all the time; you can't be stagnant. They are building and they are getting better. It has to be a continuously improving project, basically.

AMartin223 - Speaking to that, part of the success of the legion is shown in the fact there is conflict between clans, and clans leave. You've built them up so far that they want be on their own. It is like children growing up.

Do you think the clans that left just outgrew the system?

BadLion - We have had several instances of that, where clans that were Legion clans decided to go out on their own and do their own thing. They are all very successful and they are all great clans, so we are very proud of what they have accomplished. I personally think it was just that they outgrew. The clans just did not want to be under one banner. They wanted to get out there and make their own decisions and do what they wanted to do for themselves, and not say, "Oh well, I have to go support so-and-so because we are part of the same group." Now they can go out and do what they need to do for their members.

Why did your clan stick around for so long? What prevented the Burning Legion from breaking into many smaller clans?

BadLion - I would say that the biggest reason would probably be me. Myself and callmesarge from Havok go way back to 2011 when I was Deputy Commander in Havok. I am pretty much dedicated to what we have built as far as the Legion, and I don't see BAD ever separating from that.

ThatDarnEwok - As long as they are willing to wear that Legion tag next to their name, I am willing to stand by them through thick and thin. I'm with Lion.

watson1002 - The aspect that the Legion represents is a legion. No one single team is the Legion. Teams can come and go, but as long there is a core group of teams, there will always be a Legion. If BAD lost 60 members tomorrow, there would still be a Legion. We'd rebuild, and it would take time, but there would still be a Legion.

With such a large group, what kind of process does your clan go through to get ready for these battles?

ThatDarnEwok - I coordinate with watson1002 and Lion, to try to get an idea of what we're doing the next day. They'd tell me "between 4-5 battles," I'd look at our attendance and see that we had an average attendance of 60+ players, then go to my own personal spreadsheet and map out how many battles each player has had, give priority to low-battle players, and send people around. It got to the point where we had some players coming in late in Phase II of the Campaign, so I was triple-battling people at one point, setting up offsets by a minute. People would go in with one tank, come out immediately and go into a second battle, to make sure they'd get that 10-battle minimum for the whole campaign, plus five for that stage. I was doing that with 70+ players for the campaign.

AMartin223 - For when we have actual fights, you just prioritize the battles. The FC of each battle will pull his team, then the next priority FC will pull his players.

theonesavior - It's usually pretty straightforward too. A lot of the FCs have their preference for what maps and opponents they like. Sometimes you're lucky and the stars will align and the right people log on to the right battles on the right maps against the right people, and you almost don't have to say anything. They all kind of know who's picking first and what strats they're going to run, almost the night before.

What's something you did that you regret?

BadLion - I would say some diplomatic issues we had not too long ago. The Legion grew really large really quick, and we got a taste of the big leagues. We learned some lessons because we got schooled pretty quickly on being humble. I would say we had some diplomatic snafus that humbled us after a while.

watson1002 - It's the metagame that you have to look at. It's not just about fighting battles and being able to back up what you talk about; you've got to win in the forums, too. You also have to win the CR/D game. If you can't win it, at least be on parity. If you're not, you'll end up with 42 clans coming to get you, just because there's one clan on there that played the metagame a little bit better than you did. That's what happened, and that's what Lion is talking about. We got outplayed, outsmarted, outwitted by two clans.

BadLion - It's not about the clans in particular, but about how you get to a point where you get a little cocky, you know, you get that ego up there (at one time we controlled more than half of the NA map), and it just got out of hand and we made some mistakes diplomatically. I regret harming some of the relationships that were harmed because they thought the Legion is out of control. They put us in check quick.

watson1002 - And it was because of CR/D. We didn't lose on the field and we didn't lose because we didn't have enough players or teams to field. We lost because we couldn't compete with the game that was being played in CR/D.

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