War Thunder is best played with patience. Patience in waiting for your enemy to come to you sometimes, but also patience in leveling. It’s a very grindy game, but you can overcome some of the grind with some patience and a little planning. I can’t help you with the patience, but I can help you with the planning. I’ve been playing War Thunder for over 2 years now and have over 700 hours in game. Below I’m going to share with you all the tips and tricks I’ve learned for War Thunder from other veteran players, as well as what I learned for myself.
Look for Invite Codes
Before you sign up to play, look for an invite code. Several content creators have invite codes that will start you off with some free stuff for War Thunder (look in the YouTube video description). Usually a low level premium vehicle and some Golden Eagles (the premium currency in War Thunder which we’ll cover later). The vehicles are all low level, but they’ll give you a little extra help leveling when you’re just getting started. You can also ask a friend for their invite code and it’ll get Golden Eagles for you and your friend.
My invite code if you can’t find one.
Join A Squadron
There are several tanks and planes that you can get for each country in War Thunder. You can only get these vehicles by using Squadron XP, which you get for being in a Squadron. The more active your Squadron, the more XP you will get towards your vehicles. It is essentially a free premium vehicle for War Thunder and could be tanks or planes, probably boats in the future too.
What to Buy In War Thunder
What to buy in War Thunder really depends on you. What game mode you like (Tanks, planes, etc), and what kind of vehicles you are good with (Heavy Tanks, bomber planes, etc). I would recommend at first that you buy Premium time. It will benefit you no matter what you like, and give you time to figure out what you enjoy most in War Thunder. Premium goes on sale 2-3 times a year for half price. You can get a full year for $40 USD, or you can get 6 months for $20 USD. When I buy premium time, I only buy 6 months at a time because I like to play other games. When it runs out, I have a nice stash of Silver Lions that will get me through until the next sale. If you want to buy a premium vehicle, War Thunder has 3-5 good vehicle sales throughout the year. Premium vehicles will be 30%-50% cheaper during these sales. May, November, and December are the big 3 sale times, though there are some smaller ones as well.
Purchasing premium time vs premium vehicles has a lot to do with your wallet and your playstyle. Premium time boosts every vehicle you take into combat. Premium vehicles only boost your score with that vehicle. The boosts are more substantial then premium time as well. Also, if you play every day, premium time is going to be more valuable to you. If you only play sporadically, premium vehicles are going to be the better choice.
Min Maxing XP and Silver Lions
Every day you will get a random booster for XP or Silver Lions. Depending on which one you get, you can prioritize whether you want to grind a new vehicle or modifications with an XP booster, or just goof off helping friends or grinding silver lions with a Silver Lions booster. The more consecutive days you log in, the better the booster gets.
Assault Arcade mode for tanks and planes will give you an extra boost every day, based on your performance. It’s a PvE horde mode where you defend your base from attackers, so it’s something you can just chill out with. You can play this mode multiple times, but you only get one booster per day. I wouldn’t recommend tanks beyond BR 4 as the enemy AI tanks have insane targeting and rarely miss. Air Assault Arcane is fun for any BR.
Free boosters as well as Assault Arcade mode reset at the same time every day. That time changes with daylight savings, but is 7/8pm EST or 12/1 am GMT. You will have to log out of the game and back in to get these boosters.
I also recommend you try to keep all the tanks on your bar close to the same BR. Don’t always upgrade to the highest tank. War Thunder puts you in queue based on your highest level tank. So if you have a 3.0 and 5.3, you will queue in the 5.3 queue. This means you could potentially face 6.3 tanks with your 3.0 tank. I would always recommend having your bar filled with the same BR (4.0, 4.3., 4.7 for example). When moving up to the next BR, just remove your lowest BR tank. (4.3, 4.7., 5.0). Or you could even research a full bar of the next BR, and only put them on your bar when you have enough to fill your bar. Either way will keep you facing similarly ranked tanks, and keep uptier pains to a minimum.
Grinding Silver Lions
War Thunder often has sales on in-game currency purchases too. During special events throughout the year, the silver lions cost of vehicles and modules are discounted.
War Thunder is a bit grindy starting around BR 3. You’re going to need a lot of Silver Lions to buy your vehicles as well as pay for crew training. One of the most often questions I get asked while streaming is “What is the best way to grind silver lions?”. First you need to find out what tanks or planes you are good with. I recommend the website thunderskill.com. You can search through your profile and see which tanks you win the most with or get the most kills. Also, only use fully upgraded vehicles to grind silver lions. That way you can use a tank or plane at maximum efficiency, isntead of one that still needs upgrades. Additionally, you will probably want to go grind at lower BRs. You will be more familiar with your vehicles, and the ones you will be facing. They will also be the ones that you have researched all modifications for.
Crew Skills
I’ve gotten A LOT of advice about different crew skill strategies. While they don’t all agree, the skills below were recommended to me most often.
Commander Leadership gives bonuses to all of your other crew. While your commander is alive, he makes all your other crew members do what they do better.
Gunner Loading means the faster you load, the faster you can shoot. Fractions of a second count when you and your enemy both have giant 105mm barrels pointed at each other.
Vitality for all crew members keeps them in the fight when you get hit. Even just a few health left means they’re alive to perform their skills, and keeping another crew member from performing their duties. For pilots, this should be your priority.
Misc Tips and Tricks
The first 10 games with a tank or plane have no repair costs. Don’t get frustrated while trying to feel out a new vehicle, there is no penalty for losing it. By the time you have to start paying for repairs, you’ll already have a few modules researched.
Every country is different. Russians have really good armor, Germany has a great balance of guns and armor, and American tanks are very fast. Each faction has pros and cons. You can choose a faction based on which aesthetic looks best, or how it plays.
A consideration for choosing a country is also matchmaking. If you want to play with a group of friends, you may want to coordinate countries, or maybe you can focus on grinding 2 countries. War Thunder will not matchmake the same country on opposing sides. Russia will never fight Russia, Germany will never fight Germany, etc. Germany, Russia, and America are the largest playerbases, so trying to play a squad with all 3 will be very difficult. If you try to squad up with smaller countries, you may find it easier to play with anyone.
Knowing is Half the Battle
I’m constantly learning new things about War Thunder, both from queuing with veteran players and of course learning the hard way. If there’s one tip you could give new players, what would it be? Drop that tip in the comments below. Happy tanking people, good luck out there.