Clan Spotlight: [HARM] 8/25/2014

HBFT: Tankers!   It has been a while since our last Clan Spotlight and this week we are jumping right back into the fray with HARM, direct proof that sometimes the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.  Through discipline, clear organization, and tenacity, HARM has succeeded at earning the respect of a number of more experienced Clans.   As a group greatly focused on building teamwork, HARM has created a system that allows any of its tankers to improve under the direct tutelage of its veterans.   We interviewed with the following players to learn more about HARM: Zemke – Commander of HARM and HARM Nation (HARM / 2HARM). Docskaets – Commander of 2HARM. Dagelt – Field Commander, veteran tanker and strategist. WithoutPantz – Deputy Commander, veteran tanker in charge of recruiting.   How did HARM Nation form in the beginning?  When and how did your Clans start? Zemke – HARM has a direct lineage to a clan called TOTH (which stands for Tough Old TreadHeads).  That clan was formed from a bunch of friends from the 334th fighter squadron.  We were all playing “IL-2” and we were really good at that game.  “IL-2” held a huge tournament and we won that like three years in a row.  After a while, we were getting bored of that and we’d been playing that since 2004.  One day, one of our friends sent a link to me through e-mail about this World of Tanks game, and he was like “you gotta check this out…it’s FREE!” (Laughs)   We started playing it and it caught hold, so we all jumped over here.  From there, one of our guys formed the Clan TOTH.  Well anyway, a little over a year ago we dissolved the clan. At that point, we almost joined another clan.  They had some good tankers but they just weren’t very organized and how they did things didn’t really suit us so I decided “Well, we’ll just form our own Clan” and that was how we formed HARM.  That was July 30th, so we’ve been in existence just over a year.     What made you choose the name HARM? Zemke – Well, we struggled with all kinds of different names.  I wish CAMN were here…I think we just came up with HARM because it was simple.  It was very direct and not very fancy.  We didn’t want to be “cutesy” and we didn’t want to be strictly military-ish so we just kind of came up with HARM and it just stuck.  Everybody liked it and we kept it and used it.  At one point, one of our new guys asked me, “What does HARM stand for?” and I go, “Well…it stands for...Heavy...Armored…RegiMent!”  He goes…”Wow! I didn’t know that’s what it stood for!”…which it really doesn’t. (Laughter)   You mentioned that you look for good people before good tankers.  How would you describe the environment in HARM and 2HARM? Zemke – I’ll let Dagelt answer that because Dagelt joined TOTH when we didn’t even have Tier Xs.  That’s the thing…we all learned this game together.  We didn’t have any beta testers.  We didn’t have anybody like that to show us anything.  There were no [-G-] guys or those type of players that were there to sort of mentor us along and go, “You need to do this and this is how you play”.  We literally learned everything the hard way.  Dagelt joined HARM and has been in other clans when we dissolved TOTH.  I think his perspective on what type of group we are would be insightful.   Dagelt – Again, I was in TOTH and when it collapsed I decided to go somewhere else.  They just did not have the organization that I knew Zemke had.  TOTH was Zemke, or Zemke was TOTH.  So I knew how he would run the clan.  I knew the hard work that he put into it and I knew the training that he taught us.  Every night, he taught us a lot of the basics repeatedly, so we knew how to fight.  It was all about learning.  When I was in TOTH, I had just started the game and I didn’t really know what I should be doing.  I did a lot of YOLO-ing (You Only Live Once).  Just with the fundamentals that he has taught me, I have been able to take that and really improve my WN8, my gameplay, my situational awareness, and all of that.   The other clans, they just didn’t have all that training, that organization.   I tried a few different clans and they didn’t seem to have the teamwork or camaraderie that we promote in HARM.  They’re all out for their own.  It just seemed like everybody went…”I don’t care about you.  I just want to do what I want to do and I’m going to do it.”  No matter what it does to the Clan, Clan Wars battle, anything.  I knew the way that Zemke operated.  My last clan was just so unorganized.  Actually, I would say the average team member was better than HARM, but things just bothered me so much there that I ended up coming back because I knew what the structure was going to be like in HARM.   Zemke – Dagelt is one of our best players now.  He’s way better than me and we try to take average guys and show them fundamentals.  I can take them to a certain point and then I hand them off to guys who are even better.  You can ask WithoutPantz, who joined us about three or four months ago.  His WN8 has increased probably 200 points since he joined us.  We put a lot of investment and time into people.  Which is kind of intensive, but it’s sort of a military way of doing things where you might take an average guy and train him into a soldier.  We also stress discipline when we do Clan Wars battles.  Which is different from a lot of Clans and we have to do that to even remotely compete with some of these Clans that are theoretically better than us.  I don’t think they are as disciplined as we are sometimes.   WithoutPantz – One thing when I first came into the clan. I was in three or four clans before this one and I was looking for somewhere that didn’t have drama, that was run strictly, but still had a fun-based style of play.  Somewhere where you can meet up with various people in the clan and just have fun.  It took me about a week and half of being in TeamSpeak with the people in HARM before I even joined.  When I originally talked to Zemke, he said “Listen, when you come in here this is what we want: No drama. We do everything by the book.  It’s very structured.”   With the other clans that I’ve been in, you just didn’t have that.  The structure was not there.  With everybody from HARM being polite, when platooning or whenever, there isn’t a lot of screaming and yelling to other people through chat because we don’t promote that.  We try to be respectful to everybody else because that’s how we want to be treated.  With regards to growing in the Clan, I’ve been in the Clan for almost 5 months and have been promoted to Dep. Comm.   He [Zemke] recognizes what people do and people get moved up very quickly in here.  Even if you have a lot of people who have been in the Clan for a very long time, he recognizes merit and you can see that if you ever come into our Teamspeak.  People that have been here for a month or two have been promoted relatively quickly because of their gameplay, their attitude, and everything else.  HARM is just a really nice place to be!   Zemke – Well, we put people in positions of responsibility not based on how well they play the game.  For instance, to run General Motors, you don’t need to be able to build or drive a race car, you have to be able to manage an organization.  So that’s what I look for, like in DocSkaets, he is probably statistically one of the worst tankers you’ll ever find, but…   Docskaets – Don’t take bets on that, it’s probably true!    Zemke – …but managerially, he excels in the leadership he brings to 2HARM.  That’s why I have him running that because he can do it.  Running the clan is not the same as being able to drive your tank, which is also not the same as being good at calling a battle.  Those are all different skillsets.   That’s what I try to do, is find what someone is good at doing and give them the authority to do it and just let them run with it.   What is your recruitment process generally like? Zemke – I will let Pantz answer that, but I’ll caveat it with this.  The first thing that we try to do is find good people.  In other words, we’ve had people with big egos come into the clan before and they don’t last long.  Frankly, I don’t really care how good they are at tanks.  If they have a prima donna attitude, they are just not going to make it in HARM, no matter what.  However, if they’re a down-to-earth person, “good people”, and generally not…well, crazy… (Chuckles)  At that point, they would have to meet our basic requirements to get into HARM.  I’ll let Pantz kinda talk about that because he’s sort of the chief of personnel, is what I like to call him.   WithoutPantz – When we look for personnel, we try not to send out blind invites, what a lot of Clans were doing with the recruiting portal and stuff like that.  The people that we want to get, we send a personalized letter to that person and we ask them to come into our TS, so that we can talk to them.  From there, we go over stats and how they play, but it’s more about seeing what kind of personality that person has.  We want to see if they’d fit with the people in here.   When they do come in, we tell them that they’re more than welcome to play with us for a while before they actually join the Clan.  This allows them to see if it’s something that they want to be a part of.  It isn’t a rushed process.  I mean we do have people that join HARM right away, but there are a lot of guys that we’ve got recently that have been sitting on the fence for a week or two and they’ve been looking at other Clans and stuff.  When they come and play with us, they usually like what they see.   What have you learned about Clan Wars, maintaining a Clan that you might have wanted to have known when you started? Zemke – I pretty much ran TOTH, so I kind of knew when I started HARM what I wanted to do differently and what I wanted to do better.  It’s just like football or baseball where you can have the best football plays, but if I don’t have the players that can execute...  That’s kind of the big epiphany that we had.  We have to get better players or we have to grow our own better players somehow.  That’s how we ended up with 2HARM and we’ll probably create a third clan (for people without Tier Xs) so they can try to grow them in the clan.   Our hope is that when we grow ‘em up like Dagelt (a great tanker) that they will stick around.  Or that if they do leave, that they will come back.  Now, we’ve had our share of difficulties, in the sense that we don’t like to lose because we try so hard to win.  When you do go up against clans like [RS], they’re very good clans.  Way ranked above us and we fought and won several battles against them.  We beat [DICE], we beat [QC], and we beat several clans that should theoretically be beating us without much problem, but we are beating them.  I think that’s because we just want to win and we really try hard to do it and I let anybody call a battle if they show some sort of ability or talent.  There have been guys that have been promoted really quickly that can call a battle.  We say, “Hey, you kind of got a knack for this” and we start grooming them for that.   WithoutPantz – One thing that I do want to say about the Clans that we’ve come up against, every Clan that we’ve come up against, and have had dealings with, has always come back to us in some way and said that they like the way that we handle ourselves by being polite and honest.  Honesty is one of the biggest things that we have in our clan.  When we say that we’re going to do something in diplomacy on the Clan Wars map, we do it.  We don’t sidestep it and we don’t lie about it.  We do exactly what we’re going to say and we’ve got a good reputation from that.   Zemke – That’s probably what allowed us to build a good reputation with [-G-] and [OTTER]  When we’re sitting there [on the Global Map] you might be curious as to why this Clan such as ours is sitting amongst all these powerful Clans.  That’s the other piece of it…diplomacy.  We don’t go out of our way to start fights.  We’re trying to make gold for our members and grow our Clan.  I have a good relationship with Allurai in [OTTER] and I have a good relationship with Nemesis in [-G-] and I think they understand what kind of Clan we are.  I think they also respect that if I say we are going to do something, we’re going to do it.  I think that carries a lot of weight.  Our word is our bond.  Period.   What would you say was your toughest, most exciting battle?  What really stood out to you? Zemke – Probably our [RS] battles.  Also, our battles with [DICE] were pretty challenging.  Before we came down to North America, we were in Greenland.  We didn’t even have any thoughts of coming down here until we thought, “Heck, let’s try it”.  We landed, hit [D-O-S], took one of their properties, and beat them.  I think they weren’t really prepared for it.  I mean they had a fifteen man team, but I think we kind of shocked them by doing it.  Then we threw chips everywhere on all of their stuff and took a couple more provinces until they finally rallied and kicked us off of there.   I think that kind of opened our eyes to what might be possible.  So then we decided to try somewhere further south and land down there (this was in April).  We landed there just before this latest event was about to start and as we landed, Clans were pulling off the map which created a lot of open space.  We kind of occupied this space because they’d abandoned it.  People left to go do the event and we sort of moved in.  When the event ended and these Clans came back to the map, we used good relationships, diplomacy, talked to them, and basically have been able to kinda stay on the map.   We’ve been mapped twice, last night and by [DICE].  When [DICE] mapped us, they had a riot, we landed on it, and we did the same thing to them.  We chip spammed them and forced them into a lot of battles at the same time just like they did to us and we finally got them to the point where they gave up and pulled off the map.  We never pull off the map in a battle like that.  We will fight to the bitter end.  They’re gonna have to map us like [RS] did.  I would say our most exciting battles have been recently with [RS].  We’ve learned a lot from them.  We’ve learned that speed is very important and flexibility and map control and vision control.  They kind of took our game to a different level.  Wouldn’t you agree, Dagelt?   Dagelt – Oh yeah.  We’ve learned a lot just from battling with them.  I was just talking to Zemke that we needed to kind of change some of our strategies.  We’ve learned a lot from them so it’s helped us out.   WithoutPantz – Our plans overall have totally changed.  The way that we’re looking at our strategies and plans is just a lot better.  We’re looking at more ways of keeping our tanks together.  “Don’t split up our forces” and that type of thing.  That’s working really well for us.   What advice do you have for Clans that want to land and take territory? Zemke – I would say that you have to practice on a map you’re going to be landing on.  You gotta know the plans.  If you don’t have very good strategies for those maps then try to develop some, or talk to people who have some.  We don’t come up with all of our plans.  We borrow plans from members who used to be in CHAI, members who used to be in Mexican Army, etc.  Guys who knew of their “strats”, we’ll take that “strat”, change it around a bit, or tweak it and go, “I like this and I don’t like that.”  Reach out to all your resources.   Ask members, “Hey when you were in this Clan, did you guys do this? Tell me what they did on this map.”  Bounce it off of what you already have and just kind of build on it and then practice that.  You can’t just go into a battle and just expect to win if you haven’t rehearsed it.   In the Army, we rehearsed everything from squad all the way up to brigade level operations.  It is rehearsed and that’s kind of a tenet of the military.  You rehearse what you’re going to do and then you go into these battles.  It never happens like you expect it, but you’re prepared for what you’re gonna probably see and then you’re more prepared to flex off of what you’re seeing.  Frankly, that allows us to beat a lot of clans that we shouldn’t be beating at all.   How have you gone about earning the respect of larger Clans, and what do you think other Clans can do to start earning it for themselves? Zemke – I think you have to be able to “carry your own water”, to some extent.  In other words, you have to show that you deserve to be there.  We won occupied lands that weren’t of particular value to bigger Clans.  They were fairly low in gold yields.  A lot of those bigger clans will jump on the high money-pot territories, so they don’t mind if you sit there.  If you’re sitting there, what the larger Clans want are people who will not be a threat to them, or will not be a problem.  So, you assure them that, “Hey, we’re not going to be a problem.  We’re going to cooperate.  If you need something, we understand the deal that (like [-G-]) you guys are far more powerful than us and we’re not going to rock the boat.”   I’ve had several long conversations with Nemesis about this.  He said, one of the things that he respected about us was our tenacity.  We may have been mapped, but we came right back.  We might get beat and get pushed down to one territory, but we fight our way back come right back.  He goes, “A lot of clans don’t do that.  They give up and try somewhere else.”  I would say the biggest thing to earn respect is to keep your word and don’t give up.  Be tenacious.  Just fight.  You gotta fight and want to win.   It seems that both HARM and 2HARM have gone pretty deeply into Strongholds.  What is your Clan’s attitude towards that?  How are you approaching playing Strongholds and what are you trying to get out of it? Zemke – Well, it’s a new mode of play and we were really excited when it came out.  Our goal was to get to level 4 on the structures that we selected and Docskaets kind of has their own program going on Strongholds too.  I got guys every night playing Strongholds.  They really love the format and they love the quickness of the battles.  They love how easy it is to get a Tier VIII, or even a Tier X skirmish battle going in Strongholds.  We love doing company battles, but Tier X battles are almost impossible to get and Tier VIIIs are pretty rare.  Usually it’s just Tier VIs and that kinda gets old after a while.  We really like the ability to form a Tier X, fifteen-man team and go in there and build that teamwork that you’re going to use in Clan Wars.   Dagelt – Yeah, it’s great training for Clan Wars.   Zemke – Our winrate may not be the greatest, but it’s good training.   WithoutPantz – It also allows us to bring up other callers.  The callers that we don’t normally use in Clan Wars are people that just get into the Clan and want to get into calling.  We can test them through the Stronghold Skirmishes.   Is training new callers in skirmishes your biggest focus in Strongholds or is it just something fun to do that you like to play? Zemke – For a couple of nights we’ve had some structured, “Hey, we’re going to do Strongholds and we’re going to form as many teams as we can”, but by and large it’s been mostly guys just doing it for fun because it IS fun.  That’s what’s really great about it.  It’s so much fun that we don’t have to tell them to play.  They just do it on their own.   WithoutPantz – It allows you to bring a lot of different tank sets even when you’re doing a Tier VI skirmish.  Before, you couldn’t run some lights in a Tier VI tank company battle where you can in strongholds.  You can use tanks like the Type 64, the new Chinese Light, where you couldn’t use that before.    Is there anything else that you want add in? Zemke – I really want to give a lot of credit to DocSkaets.  He’s really put in a lot of work and built our second clan up to the point where they’ve come, in the last two or three months, a long long way.  And so, Doc, if you want to say anything. I open the floor to you before we end this.   Docskaets – Well, I guess I would say it’s HARM Nations influence that made 2HARM what it is now. We focus on attendance training, discipline, the types of thing that we want to send to HARM.  They do that themselves as an aggressive group.   Zemke – Oh, put in the interview too, that HARM is looking…just imagine what we could do if we had a few more purple players!