Prepping for Skirmishes

Friends love Team battles

That is what they are for right? It is crucial for a clan to have its members actively manage their friend's list. There is a 300 Wargaming limit and that may seem like a lot, but with out strict and regular management you will run out of room and this will hinder your skirmish battles. This guide will teach you how to build medium size clan from a small one through the usage of in game friend's list  and also guide the building up of the clan's stronghold with skirmishes.

Make Friends

Adding people to your friend's list is simple, just right lick on a person's name from anywhere in the game. In this case however we will want to control our friends we add because we will be using the friend's list for a very special purpose. Finding good team players that meet the clan's requirements.

Any time you see someone that is not affiliated with a clan, after battle you can look at their service record, query them on WOT Labs for WN8 or any specific information the clan may require (e.g. specific Tank availability). Each clan has it's own specifications and should be understood by the Recruitment Officer. If you follow this practice regular enough you can get really good at it and do it really quick. To focus the selection we will use teammates and more specifically those that accept a dynamic platoon.

Dynamic Platoon

Dynamic platoons were introduces shortly after the campaign series but are a great recruitment tool.
Rather than spamming the public airwaves with recruitment messages a more personal approach can be made, which in general improves the quality of the recruits. To start a dynamic platoon just press Ctrl and mouse over to the left of the teammate you want to platoon with (for that battle and potentially more). You will see a small icon with a "+" and pressing it will send a platoon request to the teammate turning the symbol into an envelope.

If you send requests to tanks of the same tier you will earn additional XP, but if you also platoon with non clan members you will increase in chance of just having people that can actually join the clan. At this point you do not know much about the person. It is easy (but not reliant) to do a Mic check, and just say "Hi" or something clever. This does not however guarantee anything and may prove to not be reliable anyways. In stead, as stated earlier use player record and a source whether purely in game or using something like wotlabs. With that said, if a person does speak to you it can't hurt to add them to your friend's list right away from battle. A person at least having coms ready in a dynamic toon alone is worthy of consideration for the clan regardless of statistics.

Good players make good teammates

Since you have a limited amount of friend's you can add, it is a good idea to check out a tankers service record before you let them use up one of those slots. This is easy to do right after the match as you can right click the player and look at their service record very fast and some people will just drop the platoon right after (if) they die.

If the tanker fits the bill then right click to send a message. Opening up this window will ensure the player is "tagged" for you to talk to or send an invite. Try and do this real quick after the battle if the player looks like a good recruit. If the player fit's the clan needs send a recruitment message. Keep it simple and a small personal touch helps. For example:

"Thanks for the toon. Interested in joining the DRPSD? We need officers in order to join clan wars and they can earn monthly gold stipends. Find out more @ www.derpside.com"

This phrase starts out by connecting with the player and building a relationship. If nothing else it is polite and does not cause provoktion such as that caused by in game spamming. After the message is sent there is no reason not to extend the player an immediate clan invitation, however they are not likely to accept at this point. If they even message back it is a good sign though.

Friends make great teammates

Regardless of weather or not the toon player from weeks ago accepted your clan invitation it is possible they accepted your friend request and are still not in a clan. The recruitment was polite, friendly and they have no reason to not accept a Team request (team or skirmish) if they enjoy team play. After doing this for a couple weeks you will eventually have a fair amount of clanless friends that can come to your rescue to save a dieing skirmish. It is even possible to get a skirmish going with mostly your friends as you are limited to 5 legionaries meaning you only need 1 clansmen online!

If your friends are good you can further try and recruit them and it is an easy sales pitch at that point since you are winning resources. Another option is to start a Unranked Team battle. This can pull in your friends and you can even publicly list and gain the assistance of other clan players. Assistance how you ask? Recruitment.

By having a good solid team, more players will stay and want to play. Use the same tactic as you did for dynamic platoons and friend's list your Teammates that have no clan. At a later date, you will likely be able to get them to help you and your clanmates in a skirmish.