[2019] Kami's Early Match Tips!

Tips on Early Match Actions!

Hey Captains,

Today we are going to go over the early part of the match. We will cover what you do before you even click the "battle button" until a few minutes into the game and the action has started. Now, please note this will not be the same for every ship class, map or tier but we will try to cover it in general terms and give some examples. With the tips in this part of the guide I hope you will become more comfortable in your early match decisions and see how they can lead you to success later in the match.

Before Clicking the "Battle Button":

There are a few things I would suggest you check before you even hit that "battle button". Preparation before you go into battle is something that might be forgotten or downplayed as "routine".

This might sound funny but make sure you are in the correct ship. You don't want to end up in a situation that you go into battle in the wrong ship. I am sure some of you have seen in chat where someone says, "Oh I meant to take out such and such ship but now I am stuck in this one".


Make sure you have the correct captain equipped to the ship you want to play. Typically if you are grinding a line this is not a problem but you might have switched captains around for some reason. Take the few seconds to make sure your captain skills and the captain is correct for the ship you are about to use.


Check your ships to make sure you have the correct signal flags, modules, camouflage, and consumables equipped. This is another small thing that takes a few seconds but can mean a lot during the match.


Make sure you have the right game mode selected, whether that be randoms, co-op, scenario or any of the other modes that come up during the different patches.

These are the things that you should definitely make sure you check before you go into battle. These all will have some type of positive or negative effect on how the games goes for you and your team.

After Clicking the "Battle Button":

Once you have done all the checks needed before entering the battle, it is time to hit the "battle button". This can be to any of the modes available in the game and these tips will not be mode specific unless said so. I am going to use Trident as the example map, the image is taken from a training room that I setup just to show opening ship positions (I believe these positions might change a little when it is Epicenter Mode) correct me if I am wrong about that =).

This is a screenshot from a training room depicting spawns.

Random Battle, Co-Op, Scenarios:

The first step is always to look at the team lineups while you are loading into the game or shortly after you load in. You want to make sure you are looking for radar, certain types of ships on the enemy team i.e. DDs and what the tier spread is. These are all important and will help determine your opening maneuvers.


Next, you want to see where you spawn and what friendly ships are around you. Depending on what ship you are playing this can determine where you are going to head at the start of the game.

I am going to ask your captains, in the image above what would you do and where would you go? You can choose to be any ship in the image above by ship type. I will give you the weekend to answer this question and then we will discuss it. I will update what I would do in each ship on next week!

Good luck and I look forward to the answers on what you captains would do with this spawn and lineup (you can interchange ships as you like, this was just an example lineup).

Hey Captains,

Sorry for the delay in discussing this today, I look forward to doing this tomorrow.

Please if you have any other ideas on this spawn arrangement and what you would do, let us know. Play close attention to the size of the map and the side of the map this is showing you spawned on.

Hey Captains,

I see some good ideas to what you would do in the spawn position used as the example.

So I will first tell you what I would do and then we can go over what you guys would do. Remember the ships can be anything of the same type and tier 6-8 at least on this map. I am actually not big on this side of the map because I am not a fan of the north spawn and the C cap. This is also a great learning experience for all of us together!

First off, I would check the team screen by hitting tab and seeing what the enemy has and what ships I have on my team.


Second, I would look at the map like we all have and see what objective I am close and where I think the enemy team will amass across from me.


In this spawn position my initial though is moving towards C with my guns trained to starboard. You would hope your team would split pretty evenly and move towards A and C. You want your team to divide evenly and get the BBs moving to different sides of the map so you can get that crossfire.


Depending on what cruisers you have in front of you it will determine where they go. The island north of B is decent for cover as long as the enemy team doesn't flank you. You would like cruisers with radar (if in the match to take advantage of the big island by B or the smaller island north of B.


As a BB on this map, my goal is to try and get cross shots across b towards the ships moving towards A and also at the cruisers that would be south of B/C.

Red: My original movement (the arrow is long and you would be slowing down and maneuvering in here).

Yellow: This is where I would be looking for shots and aiming to get early shots.

Orange: typical enemy movement at middle tiers (of course ships will not all go this way).

After the initial movements you will have to readjust and move to other parts of the map. For instance your cruisers and DD in front of you get blasted early, you will want to turn around and kite away.


Once the battle starts to develop and if you are not committed to far towards the 8-9-10 line, you can always turn around and provide shots towards the other side (this is most likely what you will do unless the enemy team sent no one to C and you get a free flank).

This is what I would do initially so let us take a look at what y'all did and see!

Good! I believe we kind of had the same thinking!

I see what you did there!

Thanks Capn_Nugget, I have played the game since CBT and have learned a lot. I feel like it is definitely important to pass along this information to other players and hope they learn as well!

This is something that I want to try and do more often with different maps and movement.

Feel free to ask any questions and discuss this more!