Light tanks have the highest “skill cap” of any class in World of Tanks (WoT), as they are fragile, possess relatively weak guns, and have enough mobility to get the driver into trouble.
In this in-depth guide, we review common mistakes and break down effective tactics to help you understand how to play light tanks correctly.
What Bad Looks Like
1. Suiscouting / charging recklessly
2. Spawn camping
3. Spotting in areas where spotting can be done by anyone else
4. Overexposing your tank
5. Dumb brawling / poor trading
What Good Looks Like
1. Active scouting smartly
2. Getting early spots + damage
3. Leveraging intervening soft cover
4. Exploiting low-risk opportunities
5. Knowing when to flank
6. Knowing when to back off / run away
7. Keeping your cool when you have support
8. Beware of friendlies who’ll get you killed
9. Playing with low HP
Recommended UI Options
1. Settings → General → Enable Expanded Minimap Features → Always: this tracks the last spotted location for every enemy tank
2. Settings → General → View range indicators on the Minimap: check all 3 checkboxes. The first shows the view range circle, which is how far your tank can spot. Note that doesn’t account for enemy camo. The second checkbox shows the max distance (445m) that any tank can theoretically spot. The third checkbox shows the max distance that you will render tanks that have been spotted by an ally
Recommended Equipment
1. For the vast majority of light tanks (aside from the ELC AMX), use Coated Optics
2. For the other 2 slots, typically you want one for gun handling (VStab or GLD) and the other for reload (Rammer). For autoloaders that can’t mount Rammer, go with Vents
3. For light tanks around tier 5 that can’t get to 445m view range with Optics and Situational Awareness, I have been experimenting with replacing Rammer with Binocs and having good results. This would be regarded as a controversial choice by other Unicums and I want to emphasize that I do this to help out-spot higher-tier tanks, not to sit stationary and be passive for long stretches of time
This video is part of my “Road to Unicum” series in which I share what I learned as I progressed towards account Unicum rating (top 1%) with silver ammo only. I talk through how I’m reading the battle as it unfolds and discuss key decisions and mistakes. My hope is that these videos meaningfully help players improve their gameplay.
“Road to Unicum” full guide and FAQs:
https://taugrim.com/2015/02/19/road-to-unicum-guide-videos-for-world-of-tanks
P.S. this video was something I’ve wanted to do for a couple years – light tank gameplay is so nuanced – but I knew it would be a TON of work so I kept putting it off. It took several months to collect and catalogue the illustrative footage in the video, so I hope you find it helpful. I’m so relieved to finish it :)
Man I know nothing about this game but I can tell this will be hella helpful!
Still gunna watch!
Great work, taugrim. I really love the amout of detail you went into
You are the most underrated Unicom reviewer / tutor on YouTube. You have excellent content, delivery and ability to explain and corolate to a player base. I have learned more from your sources than anywhere else. I wish I would have seen your videos 10K games ago! Keep up the great work and hope to see you on the battlefield (on my team of course). Tim
Thanks, that is high praise.
Collecting and editing the footage for this video was a lot of work, but given the amount of positive feedback from viewers, it was worth it.
o7