I realise the hot topic right now is the game changing SPAA additions. As a Brit main being left out in the cold, I was mildly interested in the Badger. So I grinded it out and my experiences with it are confusing.
My thoughts: massive, lightly armoured, but with ok mobility - I initially thought there was potential here. However once I unlocked apfsds, my hopes began to melt. The gun is TERRIBLE. It does so little damage with each shot, and the ROF is appallingly slow. The only success I’ve had is ambushing, and even then, if I don’t ammo rack them in the first two measly, impotent shots - the enemy will simply turn around and delete me. If the enemy has armour - just spot them and J out. You’re too big, slow and squishy to do anything other than make their track orange before you explode.
In my humble opinion, this vehicle has no business being at 9.0. As much as Britain doesn’t need another auto cannon light tank at 8.3, I believe that is the highest BR it should be given. After (only) 16 games I have a 69% WR with it, but that is entirely due to luck/other vehicles. I do not intend to play it any more.
The Badger has made me even more miserable than other British vehicles, is this the general consensus?
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i mean, isnt the case with most autocannon armed IFVs that they do better higher they go? there are all sort of superheavy tanks at 7.3-7.7.
also Badger wins by the drip factor alone because now i can LARP as fighting on Altis and Stratis (once i finish my UK grind).
The armour-level of enemies is a factor yeah. But one thing that really struck me was how utterly anaemic the firepower of the Badger is, so when you fail to one-shot an enemy light tank, they just obliterate you. Light tank firepower only gets more brutal the higher BR you go, so at least at lower BRs you can compete with other light vehicles.
I assume its similar to the ICV/RCV (P), I find more success with these vehicles at 11.3+. Though the RoF is gonna make it tough, you’d have to side-pen and try to knock out the gunner + commander.
I don’t understand why you would use it, tbh. I’ve just unlocked it:
But I would rather use Falcon, ZA-35, and ZT3A2 over it. All 3 have better uptier value, too.
Yeah… you have mobility? Cool. But you also have the annoying doof doof cannon that ruins it all.
I wont be bothering grinding it. Seems like an underpowered waste of time for a BR where we already have usable IFVs like the Scimitar, Warrior and Fox. let alone the Falcon. Why they added the Badger instead of the Ajax or a 40mm Warrior for 10.3+ is beyond me
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Yeah, I only ground it out because I finally got around to spading Desert Warrior.
(I actually don’t mind the Desert Warrior. I mean, she is slow, but it’s not as bad as people were making out. Still had tandem warhead goodness and a faster firing cannon than the Warriors/Badgers doof doof. Though, even then, I’ll still have the Falcon there at 10.0+ to back up my MBTS because that little thing is the gift that keeps on giving on city maps and other close quarters)
It was quite clear to me even from a test drive that this thing is dead on arrival. It’s a shame.
I have mixed opinions of the DW. I think its fine for 9.7/10.0 but lacking when using much higher than that and a bit too dependent on the TOWs to be effective at its BR. What we could do with is something that is Gun first rather than ATGM first. So a 40mm slinger like the Ajax, Warrior variant or Boxer variant would work well. The ajax could even come in 2 variants like the Puma. One at 10.3 and another at 11.0 with FnF Javelins.
But yeah, Badger never looked good and then they nerfed it, and I still think its overperforming in terms of RoF from what I read in the dev thread. Im really not sure why they like adding the right type of vehicle but adding one either in a useless place or adding it in a terrible state.
Like the Challenger 3TD should have been a decent new top tier MBT, instead its one of the weakest in-game and what we really needed this major was the Skysabre and yet there was no sign of it. Second best would have been an IFV for 10.3 or the Challenger 3(P) and instead we got the Badger. Just really wierd
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took it into test drive
it’s an oversized Fox with thermals
cool
wake me up when Stormer 30
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I’m just brinding it incidentally. Not actively going for it but have everything else in the brit tree so it will happen naturally.
I don’t think I’ll bother crewing it as it just looks huge with an anemic gun.
I believe it was added purely as filler to slow down the grind. I wish they’d spent the time on something useful like the land ceptor rather than some obscure IFV.
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This. They will give us any old crap (and then nerf it 'cos it’s British) to try and keep us quiet and ‘included’…
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I just tried it on test drive for the first time since it was on the dev server.
What the hell is that turret traverse and jesus, the gun is even worse than I remembered.
Yeah, hard skipping this piece of crap.
Edit - its so underwhelming there’s like, 1 video about it on youtube.
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That’s a good point, didn’t really think of that. Unfortunately for Gaijin, there are enough fun vehicles mid-tree that the British top-tier is not even a priority for me. I could live off stuff like the FV4005 for the rest of my days.
The BR is nebulously fine imo.
The Badger is just Slow, in every respect unfortunately, (I don’t even rate the Mobility much).
It’s workable though, just not something you can carry in, I have gotten a nuke in it already (not a great nuke but w/e).
nuke
The big problem is the gun though, just doesn’t fire fast enough IMO. Another mild issue is the turret basket, it’s huge and gets knocked out constantly.
(Also a niggle for people who use gun sights, the sight is really low down on the turret, you have to expose alot of the turret to see anything with out using the commanders sight.)
And for the love of all things good in the universe, no one mention the Falcon ever again. Ever.
Don’t give them any ideas to screw with ‘My Preciouuussss’…
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I don’t think the Rooikat MTTD/TTD are that popular enough to reach that conclusion.
Certainly would have been nice, but I would also have accepted obscure IFVs. Warrior CT40/VERDI/AJAX/Stormer 30 or among South African vehicles; the Rooikat 30/ZT-3, instead we got the most mid of all possible worlds.
heck, even something like the Chieftain 11, Chieftain 900 or Chieftain 2000 would have made better fillers. But yeah. A decent IFV for 10.0+ or a top tier SPAA would have been best
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