The Renegade, a new challenge tank!

Shelloooooo and welcome back!

Today I’m here to show you the new Challenge reward tank, the M54 Renegade Tier 8 US Heavy Tank.
This tank is available for free by playing all 10 stages of the new Renegade Challenge mission. Each stage reduces the cost of the tank by 10% so if you complete all 10 you get it for free (free is a great price to pay)

There are two ways to complete each stage, Commitment and Mastery. Commitment is a base XP grind (tier 6 to 10)  and  Mastery is different challenges in tier 9 and 10 and is  directed towards the better player. You get other goodies while you grind and if you hate grinding and have spare dollar then just go buy it from the shop and you still get all the extras.

The Look

It’s a typical looking US heavy with a nice big 105mm gun that packs a nice punch (you have never heard me say  I like big guns right?)
To me it looks like how a heavy tank should look like, big gun, lots of meat, intimidating, in your face and it looks ready for action!
I just love the ‘Dead or Alive’ skin that its comes with  and reminds me of a certain cowboy that hangs in my stream (Benji)….

The Stats

Tier 8 is full of premium heavies so I will just compare it to some of the other US heavies namely the T26E5, T32 and the Chrysler K.

 Tank GG shows values without equipment or consumables added so in game things will be improved.
The Renegade has the best DPM with an impressive 2,208. Its 105mm gun gives a nice 360 alpha with an acceptable 9.7 reload (8.07 with rammer, vents and coke) and a good aim time for a heavy of 2.4 seconds.
Penetration of 226 AP and  255 APCR is also but you will need to tap the 2 key for many tier 9 and 10 fights.
Shell velocity on AP is 1,080 and even faster with ‘special ammo’ so hitting moving targets is easier as you don’t need to aim to far in front with that speed.

Dispersion of 0.36 is good and it feels even better when you play it showing a pretty acceptable bloom. I found the turret rotation not to be too slow and with -10/20 gun depression and elevation ridgeline fighting is good. The tank needs to be played hull down so the depression helps with hunting good fighting positions out and making use of what’s already available.

Lets see if this heavy is heavy or if its pretty speedy.

With a top speed of 45 and a reverse of 17 its way out in front of the other heavies we are looking at and it feels nice to drive. The extra speed means it can relocate a lot better than the others and you are not wasting time staying in no damage areas or travelling across the map. Tank traverse is better also and the tank feels manoeuvrable.

How meaty is the meat?

The renegade has 250 turret and 152 hull meat (armour) so you need to play it hull down and it comes with a standard 1500 hit points for tier 8 heavies.
There is a huge weak spot on top of the turret with the cupola so moving backwards and forwards to try and put off your opponents shots is advised .

I also found a weak spot on the turret ring so you can pen them even with 190mm pen guns if you know where to shoot when they side scape against you.

The view range is a really nice 400m base so if you have a good crew and you run food you can cap view range by using vents which also adds to other stats so the overall tank performs better than if you played it with optics.

I really liked the tank and if you see mostly tier 8 battles then you can dominate a lot of the time if you can get the right fighting positions. I was happy with how the gun behaved and  I did enjoy the speed and mobility.

The fact you can get this tank for free really means it’s worth it or if you don’t want to grind all the way just grind as  many as you want and use the discount in the shop.

Good luck lovers!