Commanders!
The Black Sea Incursion Season is in full swing and we’re happy to introduce you one of its biggest features that are coming in its second part – meet the new Israeli branch dealer, Solomon Schreiber!
Solomon Schreiber is one of the most efficient agents of the Israeli Defense Forces procurement agency, he deals in both the export of IDF vehicles and the import of modern military technologies from all over the world – from cutting edge military laboratories to defunded old bases hiding technical marvels of the old world, nothing is beyond the reach of Sol’s agents.
He often likes to say that his friends call him “Sol” – but make no mistake, none that do are his true friends. His outgoing appearance hides a calculating mind set on a single objective – the advancement of the state of Israel.
Sol Schreiber’s offer consists of the following vehicles:
- M50 Super Sherman Tier 1 Main Battle Tank
- M51 Super Sherman Tier 2 Main Battle Tank
- Sho’t Kal Dalet Tier 3 Main Battle Tank
- Magach 5 Tier 4 Main Battle Tank
- Magach 6B Tier 5 Main Battle Tank
- Merkava Mk.1 Tier 5 Main Battle Tank
- Merkava Mk.2B Tier 6 Main Battle Tank (unlockable only from Tier 5 Merkava Mk.1)
- Magach 7C Tier 6 Main Battle Tank (unlockable only from Tier 5 Magach 6B Gal Batash)
There is no Tier 7 Progression Main Battle Tank in Sol’s offer – the branch continues straight to Tier 8 as such:
- Merkava Mk.3D Barak Zoher Tier 8 Main Battle Tank
- Merkava Mk.4 Tier 9 Main Battle Tank
- Merkava Mk.4M Windbreaker Tier 10 Main Battle Tank
Apart from these progression vehicles, the deal will offer two new in-game Premium vehicles for Gold:
- Tiran 6 Tier 3 Premium Main Battle Tank
- Magach 7A Tier 6 Premium Main Battle Tank
Finally, the Merkava Mk.2D Tier 7 Premium MBT will be moved to Sol Schreiber’s tree as it fits there the best.
Overall, the lower Tiers of the tree – the Super Sherman, the Sho’t and the Magach series – will offer sniping playstyle (at least within the confines of the MBT class). These vehicles will be reasonably well protected but their true strength will lie in their accurate guns and long range firepower in the best Israeli tactics tradition.
The Merkavas will be, however, a bit different. Where the German MBTs are the class snipers, the British MBTs offer excellent armor thickness and the Russian MBTs are close range brawlers, the Israeli Merkavas will rely not only on passive, but also on active defense in combination with burst-oriented firepower.
While their armor may not be the thickest in the game, they will feature the most advanced Active Protection Systems available with the Tier 10 Merkava’s “Super Trophy” system being able to defeat any type of shell – including the APFSDS shells.
The Merkavas will also feature a Ready Rack mechanism, allowing them to fire faster than other tanks of their class and Tier – for a certain period of time, followed by a longer reload period. Additionally, the later Merkavas will feature LAHAT gun-launched missiles. To experience a typical Merkava gameplay right now, try out the currently available Merkava Mk.2D Premium vehicle or one of its special camouflage variants available in the Web Shop!
All in all, Sol Schreiber’s vehicles are – in their philosophy – the polar opposite of the previous dealer, Oscar Faraday. Where Faraday’s offer consisted of specialist vehicles intended for advanced players, Sol Schreiber’s vehicles are generally very friendly to new players, offering a great starting vehicle set without massive disadvantages or special tactics requirements. Additionally, Tier 1 to Tier 6 tanks are unlocked faster than for the other dealers (it’s worth noting, however, that the Reputation tokens available for Experience are more expensive to unlock than on the other vehicles).
More details will be disclosed in the upcoming articles.
Special Dealer Features
Connection to other Dealers
The absence of a Tier 7 progression vehicle is but one of Sol Schreiber’s special features. First and foremost, unlike any other Dealer tree in the game, Sol Schreiber’s vehicles will be tied to other trees. After all, most of the early Israeli machines were closely tied to other existing vehicles.
Simply put, it will be possible to unlock other dealer branches from Sol Schreiber’s (and vice versa). This way, it will be possible to unlock the following vehicles:
- Tier 3 Sho’t Kal Dalet – T-72 Ural (Marat Shishkin) and M113 ACAV (Sophie Wölfli)
- Tier 4 Magach 5 – M551 Sheridan (Marat Shishkin) and Type 85-IIM (Zhang Feng)
- Tier 5 Magach 6B Gal Batash – M1 Abrams (Sophie Wölfli) and BVP Šakal (Zhang Feng)
This tie-in along with its vehicles’ new-player-friendly gameplay makes Sol Schreiber an ideal dealer for beginner players – starting with Sol Schreiber allows them to unlock multiple various branches of their choosing along the way.
Vehicle Trial Runs
Apart from the abovementioned unlocking mechanism, there’s one more new feature that connects Sol Schreiber to the other dealers. Starting from Tier 3 and ending with Tier 8, each vehicle has a new type of unlockable item available in its Upgrade progression.
For a little Experience, you can unlock a temporary (rental) version of various vehicles from other dealers in order for you to test them in battle. Compared to the standard Preview feature that is currently available, the difference here is that you can try out these trial tanks in real battles, not just on the Alabino Proving Grounds. The following temporary vehicles can be unlocked from Sol Schreiber’s progression ones:
- Tier 3 Sho’t Kal Dalet – LAV-300 TD
- Tier 4 Magach 5 – VBL TOW AFV
- Tier 5 Magach 6B Gal Batash – BMD-4 AFV, Stingray LT
- Tier 5 Merkava Mk.1 – LAV-600 TD, 2S3 Akatsiya SPG
- Tier 6 Magach 7C – NM142 TD, Leopard 2 MBT
- Tier 6 Merkava Mk.2B – Wiesel HOT TD, Rosomak AFV
- Tier 8 Merkava Mk.3D Barak Zoher – CRAB AFV, Terminator-2 TD, PLZ-05 SPG
This feature will allow new players to experience gameplay different from Sol’s standard branch and will help them in deciding what kind of class they prefer.
New Commanders
What would a dealer be without his trusted commanders? Sol Schreiber offers the services of two new commanders, unlockable from the Tier 3 and Tier 8 progression vehicles of the branch.
The first commander, obtainable obtained from the Tier 3 Sho’t Kal Dalet MBT, is Rachel Kramer. Aged 28, Rachel was born in Rehovot, Israel and served in the IDF. After her mandatory army service, she traveled to the United States of America where she worked for a long time for various Private Military Companies (many of them with shady reputation). That’s where she met Alexander Cortez who invited her to his unit. She didn’t have to be asked twice.
In Armored Warfare, Rachel Kramer will be a MBT-oriented commander especially suitable for new players. Her skills will focus on mitigating the consequences of bad tank decisions, for example by increasing her crew’s survivability, reducing off-road MBT penalties, reducing fire damage or decreasing APS cooldowns. Her skillset is very suitable for PvE and general MBT gameplay.
The second commander, obtainable from the Tier 8 Merkava Mk.3D Barak Zoher, is 56 year old Gia Tsiklauri. Born in Georgia, Gia never really wanted to spend his life in the military and worked for many years as a mechanic in one of Georgia’s many villages. However, in the 2020s when attacks of armed insurgent warbands became too frequent to bear, he joined a Private Military Company as a driver and a mechanic and worked his way to the position of a vehicle commander.
Gia Tsiklauri is also an MBT commander but, unlike Rachel, he’s more suitable for advanced gameplay. His Main Skill increases his crew’s characteristics (performance) whenever his tank successfully bounces off a shell. He has several interesting situational Tier 3 skills – for example, a chance to cancel his vehicle’s APS or smoke cooldown under the same condition as the Main Skill (successfully resisting a shell). Finally, his perhaps hardest to reach skill enables ATGM detection the same way as a Retrofit does, potentially freeing a Retrofit slot.
Visual Customization and Achievements
Sol Schreiber’s vehicles offer a number of visual customization additions that include:
- Four base colors (one usable for all environments and one per each environment)
- Two camouflages
- Three special decals
But that’s not all. Sol Schreiber also comes with a number of special achievements with their own rewards. These include:
- Own a certain number of Sol Schreiber’s vehicles (from 3 to all 12) for up to five decals, a title and an animated Sol Schreiber player avatar
- Destroy a certain number of enemy vehicles while driving a Sol Schreiber tank
- Resist a certain amount of damage while driving a Sol Schreiber tank
- Deal a certain amount of damage while driving a Sol Schreiber tank
And so on. There are eight basic objectives (some with multiple achievement stages), three of them are hidden. The rewards for the achievements are considerable and, apart from the abovementioned animated avatar, include:
- Loot Crates
- Credits
- Base colors
- Decals
- Titles
And more. The introduction of Sol Schreiber will certainly bring you a lot of opportunities to earn free in-game items as well as amazing customization options!
We hope that you will enjoy the new dealer and his vehicles – see you on the battlefield!
