Map Mondays: El Halluf

DomoSapien: Hey Tankers, Time for another edition of Map Mondays! This week's map has been around for a while, but it's gone through quite a bit of change since then. What I used to refer as "El Bored-of" is now one of my favorite maps for heavies and hulldown mediums. It's pretty straightforward, with the majority of the action taking place around the Northwest corridor, but it's important to keep the valley honest as leaving it unchecked can quickly lead to the enemy team gaining a snowball advantage and pinching your main push in the Northwest from both sides. Fire up the video below, and listen to some dry desert tunes while taking a scenic flyby of the El Halluf valley, and dive on into the guide.  Last week's guide: Paris
Map Mondays Master List There were some bad spots on my last minimap that folks pointed out, so I'm going to try something a bit different and feature a community minimap guide.
This week's minimap comes from wotguru.com
Check out their site for more tips and strategies!EXPAND  THE VALLEYThe Valley is a dangerous place. Without much hard cover to offer, it claims the lives of many a bold tanker and often is congested with TD's and heavies lining the ridgeline near each spawn. Something to note about the Valley: If you're not in a TD, and you're not scouting the valley in a Light Tank, well, you might be in the wrong place. Your team could likely use your support in the Northwest. However, if unchecked, a valley push could result in some beefy hits dished out by your allies on targets you spot camping the enemy ridge. If you're in an LT, you'll want to push down to the small town in the valley and poke up that ridgeline searching for that spotting damage. When it appears to be safe, you'll want to push up to the enemy ridge because they probably won't have the gun depression to hit you on your way up without exposing themselves to allied fire. EXPAND   THE NORTHWEST CORNERThis is where you'll want to go if you're in an HT or MT, most of the time. Things will get pretty exciting here, guaranteed. You have quite a few different firing angles to be aware of, and playing corners to trade effectively here is crucial. If you have the mobility and want to brave crossing early to take the rock in the very Northwest corner, you can create a crossfire for the enemy team to deal with. If you push up the small hills near the castle/archway in the center of this area, vehicles with strong hulldown characteristics will have a more favorable position. Taking out an enemy's tracks as they try to cross usually will be the end of their health bar, or at the very least a good chunk of it. Be aware of enemy SPG fire and enemy mediums playing the small hill on the other side.EXPAND  DEFENDING CAPIf you should be so unfortunate as to lose the main push, all isn't lost! Well, maybe not. Sometimes a push will snowball out of control, but you can take that opportunity to farm some nice damage, which means taking home more Credits and XP. As the enemy team pushes into your cap from the Northwest, you can set up behind hard cover and light them up; while you're hanging out behind a nice rock, they have to cross a wide open field. Utilize that cover and get as many shots off as you can!EXPAND EXTRA NOTESEXPAND  If you're new to the game, or returning after a long break, hopefully this helps you get a bit more familiar with El Halluf.
As always, let me know what you think of the guide!
Good luck, and have fun out there