Greetings, Commanders!

The winter holidays are here, and Arcade Cabinet returns with a couple of very fitting and suitably chill activities: Snowballs and Ice Age. Both sets of rules change the game’s physics for the sake of sheer light-hearted fun. The battles take place on six snow-covered maps in Tier VIII or Tier X vehicles.

In the Snowballs mode, your shells turn into lumps of snow, flying by ballistic trajectories and leaving snowy splashes on enemy vehicles—that is, if you score a hit! The Ice Age mode is all slippery: Your mammoth machine has much less traction than usual and can be easily sent drifting—with style and some consequences, including smashing into an unlucky opponent‘s ride. Ouch!

Mode Availability

The snowy and icy fun modes will be available on a special schedule. First, Snowballs will pop up on December 23 and stay until December 25, followed by Ice Age from December 30 through January 1. Both modes will make a double comeback on January 6 and will be available simultaneously until January  8.

You can enter the Snowballs and Ice Age modes via the mode selector or via a special window in the lower-right corner of your Garage.

The Maps

We mentioned above that all the snowy and icy frolicking will happen on SIX wintry maps. Sure, the basic game has three of these for 15v15 battles—Mannerheim Line, Erlenberg, and Glacier—but we have also given the winter treatment to three more locations: Karelia, Prokhorovka, and Malinovka. Have a look at these classic open-air maps covered in snow and ice!

Snowballs

In this mode, your shots look like veritable snowballs instead of fireballs, and they even crash onto enemy armor plates like them! (As you know, ice will suffice for destruction just as well as fire.) Out of all the shell types, high explosive ones are the most like snowballs, so they are the most efficient in the mode. We also tweaked the way they travel to make you feel like you are lobbing these snowballs rather than shooting them. To recreate the brutal and unpredictable nature of snowball fights in the game, we shortened reload times and boosted engine power for every vehicle.

Battle Modifiers

Ice Age

Sliding on slippery slopes is not all this mode is about! It's quite logical that while drifting, you need better aiming for the entire process to be fun. Therefore, while in this mode, you will get less dispersion from movement and traverse, and all rounds will fly faster. (There are a lot of action movies with precision shots taken while sliding, but none of them feature tanks.) Together with increased turret traverse, a higher top speed, and double the engine power, this produces some neo-tank (or matrix tank) effects—icy cool AND on ice!

Battle Modifiers

The Rules

Except for different physics, Snowballs and Ice Age have the same set of rules, as follows:

• Battles are all single-tiered, fought in either Tier VIII or Tier X vehicles.
• You receive XP and credits for battles, and you can use all types of regular reserves (Personal and Clan ones).
• XP multipliers for the first victory of the day work in the modes, and credits are put into the vault.
• Snowballs and Ice Age battles don‘t contribute to Daily Missions or Personal Missions, but they count towards the mode progression.
• Snowballs and Ice Age battles do not give you bonds, except for the event progression rewards—see below.
• Holiday Ops bonuses to XP and credits earned apply to Snowballs and Ice Age battles.
• You may play in Platoons if you wish (and are eligible for the bonuses if you do).

The Rewards

For every launch of the modes, you can complete a short series of Battle Missions and earn some bonds.

Are you ready for cold weather fun? Put your warm padded helmet on, and prepare to shoot snowballs and drift on ice!