We may earn a commission when you buy through links in our articles. Learn more.

World of Tanks: Generals is out now, it’s card games on tanks

world_of_tanks_card_game

Are you one of many recently converted card game fans? Do you like ridiculous live action trailers? Are you a fan of tanks? Who am I kidding, everyone loves tanks. Wargaming.net have officially released World of Tanks: Generals – Order of Battle, the first non-beta version of their free to play digital card/turn based tactics game. It comes with a ludicrous launch trailer that explains nothing, but thankfully also me to tell you what it’s like. Onward!

Don’t pretend you don’t play Hearthstone. Here’s our constantly updating League of Explorers guide.

I can’t decide if the monocle, the board being on fire or the plane flying out of the thrown card like some sort of World War Yu-Gi-Oh is my favourite bit. I can only commend the actors for their ability to keep a straight face, I’d have been wheezing on the floor within moments.

As for the game itself, it bares almost no resemblance to what you may be used to from Hearthstone, Magic and the like, both in terms of how it plays and progression. There’s a battlefield on which cards are deployed into zones, usually producing tanks that are then moved towards an enemy base. This base has a HP value that once depleted means game over. It also has artillery that can shoot at enemy tanks once per turn, meaning you always have some form of defence and makes card advantage hard to achieve.

It’s very weird and means games are quite long, but I’d be interested to see how optimised decks and strategies look. Unlocking new cards uses the same system as World of Tanks and its various spin-offs, experience in different factions giving access to higher tiers of cards that can then be bought with seperately earned currency. I vastly prefer it to Hearthstone’s totally random system, and like it as a satisfying way to progress, but it is very obviously made to support a grindy free-to-play system.

I did enjoy my time with the beta, though, and it will be fascinating to see what the massive WoT community and Wargaming.net fanbase (not to mention the company’s ludicrous capacity for spending money) makes of it. You can now play it on the official site via your browser, or on any iOS tablet you happen to own.