Tankers!

The Clan community in World of Tanks is a dog-eat-dog world, and the FURHQ Clans know all about it. They may not use Clan Wars as their cash-cow, but with an always-growing community, they must be doing something right. We'll cover everything from their days as a pup to how they deal with trolls who hound them.

Now, we'll stop beating the dead horse with these terrible puns, and let you see what they have to say, straight from the horse's mouth.

We interviewed these players to learn more about the world of the Furries:

Lorethian [FUR-E] - I am the commander of FUR-E and also the founder of FURHQ, FURST, FURRD, and FUREX

bluedogkillr [FUR-E] - Deputy CO of FUR-E

IcedSteelWolf [FURRD] - Commanding Officer of FURRD

AlfieTheFurry [FURHQ] - Commanding Officer of FURHQ

NittyKitty [FUR-E] - Clan Wars field commander for FUR-E, Joint Chief of Staff for other clan wars actions

Please visit the extended interview thread to see more from this interview

When and how did your Clan get started?

Lorethian - I formed FUR-HQ back in February 2012. I had been playing the game for about 3 months at that point, and I got a random Clan invite. "Oh, what's this clan business all about?" I wondered, and after a day or two in the clan I thought, "Well, why don't I just make my own?" That's what I did, and I figured: if I'm going to make any Clan, it had better be something that is important to me... and I decided it would be a furry clan.

What is the process for joining any of the furry family Clans?

Lorethian - Of the five clans that I run, 4 of them are casual- that's FURHQ, FURST, FURRD and FUREX - and the only prerequisite for those is to be a furry. I, or one of my officers, will sit down with you and ask you where you came from and why you applied, because we get a lot of applications that just don't know what a furry is. They just want to be in a Clan really badly. There is always some sort of screening process to go through, because, you know, there are a lot of trolls out there. Alfie and Icy, you have encountered a good number of those applications, yeah?

AlfieTheFurry - Yeah, I think it was a few days ago I checked and someone put on their application a list of tanks instead of reading the information, which clearly says on the home page of Clan that this is a furry community, etc. He didn't exactly give us the information, so I don't think he was accepted.

Lorethian - The only difference is with our Clan Wars clan, Furry Elite, you need to have a tier IX tank, simply because you're not going to compete in Clan Wars if you have tier VI max or something like that. We took a couple of lower-tier people for the campaigns just to fill out our numbers, because Furry Elite was still new at the time. We don't care about win rate. We don't care about kill ratios or personal rating or anything like that. All we care about is your physical tank that you have, got to have a tier IX; it doesn't matter if it is a scout or an arty or a heavy.

bluedogkillr - and you have to be around on Saturdays.

Lorethian - Yeah, Saturday is the day we do our main activities. Simply because we have a lot of folks in the UK, like Alfie here and a couple of our other officers, who can't really stay up that late when it comes to the weekdays.

NittyKitty - I joined FURHQ back in, like, January, with a chica named Ferrity. Literally all we did was show up with a M48 Patton and a GW E-100 respectively, and Lore was all "You're in charge of all fighting now, thanks." The process is extremely case-by-case.

Why is it so important to have the furry requirement to join?

Lorethian - I just wanted to make a community of furries. If you are not a furry and come into the Clan, it is kind of like going to a Star Wars convention and not knowing what a lightsaber is. You are going to be out of place, and while we are not an unwelcoming community by any means, you are not going to feel like part of the group. We have one or two people in the clan who are not furries but they are friends of furries, and they know what furries are. They are given ample warning ahead of time, "Hey, do you know what a furry is? because you are about to go waist deep."

What goals do you have for your Clan?

Lorethian - For the Clans in general, I just want to build a community. The only reason there are multiple Clans is because of the size limit. There is no difference from one clan to another apart from the name and the color of the emblem. That's it. My main concern is building a community of people who are like-minded and just want to hang out and have fun with people and not be worried so much about how they carry themselves. They don't have to hide who they feel they are.

IcedSteelWolf - It's a very relaxed atmosphere.

Lorethian - Most of the time. We are not a top-level Clan in terms of competition. With the steady defeats that we inevitably face, for a lot of people that would be demoralizing and grounds to quit, but the fact that we are a furry clan is what keeps them (our members) here. They are not here for Gold. They are not here for the glory so much, but they are here because they want to try and help get our name on the map.

NittyKitty - I don't even get paid for this. Literally all of my gold goes into everyone else's paychecks. I got 14 gold at the end of the first campaign. We basically rummage around until we work up the guts to go put our emblem all over the clan wars map, then we kinda get wiped off. It's not really epic or anything.

Are you guys preparing for the next Campaign? And how did you prepare for Campaign 1?

Lorethian - I just basically sent a call out to all of our Clans and said, "Anyone who wants to do the campaigns, come over to our FUR-E division. It doesn't matter what tier you have, we'll use you in whatever bracket you'll fit in." At the time, FUR-E was really small and only had about 20-30 members. We needed some way to bolster the ranks, and that was the easiest way to do it. I don't think we'll resort to that this time since FUR-E has grown so large now, it's at 60-70 members, which is a good medium-size for a CW Clan. We might have all 5 clans do something now rather than just the one.

bluedogkillr - It made it easier too, since FUR-E was so small, to just have everyone join that one, so any medals or achievements that we got will actually show up for everyone.

Lorethian - It would have been a logistical nightmare to organize four clans to do the same thing. My officers are awesome, but they all have lives... I don't.

NittyKitty - There was a lot of drama just in organizing and theorycrafting what tanks we were going to bring. That was a mistake. (T1 Cunninghams with the autogun next time.)

What is your history on the Clan Wars map?

Lorethian - Well, about back in November I would say, before we started organizing into Clan Wars and not-Clan Wars Clans, back when I was in FURHQ, there were only three of us: FURHQ, FURST, and FURDD. At the time, we invaded North Africa when it was still around. After several weeks of trying on Sand River, it wasn't panning out for us. So we decided to take a break and train ourselves up and let our numbers grow for a little bit. About a month after, I figured it would be a good idea to consolidate all our Clan Wars capable members into one Clan. That way, it makes communication so much easier; you don't have people in the Clans asking, "Oh, what's this special battles button?" and they join and only have a tier III tank. It's a very chaotic atmosphere when you try to thrust a largely casual Clan into Clan Wars. Whereas, when we formed Furry Elite, everybody got on board with the understanding that we are still a casual Clan, but we are coming here for Clan Wars and this is what you got to do.

How did your first battle go with Furry Elite?

Lorethian - We did training for about 2 weeks after forming FUR-E. Then, we decided to go back to North Africa and do this. We chose the Airfield map; I think the province was called Tlemcen. Our caller at the time, Nitty, managed to get everyone disciplined and really committed to it. On our first night of actually going back into it, we got land, which was mind blowing. I thought we would be throwing ourselves against Clan Wars for months and months before we got land. As low-value an area as it was, we got land and that was great. We lost it the night after on defense because not enough people showed up and because we were still a smaller clan, which was fine. So, we tried it the next week and got land and then moved further inland and took another territory. Then, when Campaigns came along, we tackled that head on.

bluedogkillr - I think we did pretty well, considering. Basically, it was very stressful trying to get everything organized, but once we got rolling with it, we had the regulars show up, and we just went through the first stage.

Lorethian - Yeah, we did tiers I to VI. It was awesome. The first night, we tried landing in Philadelphia, and we managed to get it. The folks who we squared with in the finals were SIMP, whom we actually managed to beat. It was quite amusing. Literally like 30 minutes after, on the WotLabs forums, Deusmortis posted the thread of great shame and posted the battle results of FUR-E beats SIMP.

bluedogkillr - That was satisfying!

Lorethian - Now, of course, right the next day, they came in and absolutely stomped us, which is understandable, but I think that was one of our greater moments in Clan Wars.

NittyKitty - SIMP was super-cool about it, though. They had rallied 15 Tetrarchs to give us a death by firing squad, it was awesome.

Is that what you consider your Clan's greatest achievement?

Lorethian - I don't have any illusions that we beat SIMP because we are so good. I just think it was an amusing land mark; that would be the best way to put it. I think our biggest achievement is continually growing, because again even with the Clan Wars portion, I'm still absolutely obsessed with building a community that pretty much occupies pretty much every moment of my day. I'm impressed by the fact that we have grown to five Clans and my fifth Clan I only formed four weeks ago is already a third of the way full. I think that is our greatest achievement.

What does being a furry mean to you?

Lorethian - Now that is a loaded question. I've had to answer this question quite a few times from people who have tried to apply and things like that. It is open to interpretation. For some people, being a furry means dressing up in a suit and bouncing around in public and being very outgoing. For me, being a furry is adopting some sort of non-human character to associate yourself with. Usually, that means online, because it is kind of hard to pretend to be a pikachu in real life without looking like a total moron, but arguably I look like a moron online as well. That is my definition of it. It is different for every person.

bluedogkillr - Basically, for me what Lore says pretty much covers it. I would just see it as someone who is a fan of anthropomorphic artwork of any sort. I mean you can anthropomorphize any object, and then, I guess, you could consider it a furry. It is not furry, but it is a furry.

Lorethian - We have a desk fan in our clan.

bluedogkillr - Yes, I find that very intriguing.

Lorethian - His persona is an anthropomorphic desk fan.

IcedSteelWolf - It was a lot of what Lore and blue said as well; for me, personally, I go on the charity side. I do a lot of charity work myself. I actually have a fur suit as well, and I go around and entertain kids and make food bank appearances occasionally. There is a lot of entertainment there, especially when you can make a kid smile.

AlfieTheFurry - I am basically the same. I recently borrowed my boyfriend's fur suit and was there to entertain people. There is charity coming, and I am just wondering if he will allow me to borrow it again, as long as I don't spill anything on it this time. So, yeah, it's about charity, and I really enjoy the art work and how much effort people put into the artwork just to put it online for everyone to enjoy for free.

NittyKitty - It's like any other dorky subculture. Some people will talk to great lengths about their Tiger tank waifus, some people will meow irritatingly in TeamSpeak at people that are actually trying to play the game. I do the second one. That's being a furry.

How much of the Clan Wars drama do you guys follow, such as what's in CR/D?

Lorethian - Not a whole lot. There was one interesting time when we had migrated to the northwest of Africa under Spain. We were talking with either NUKE/NUKED, and I was talking to the leader. He was saying "I know you're in the area, I know you want to come up, but ELVIS is attacking us tonight, because they're stabbing us in the back and I want you to stay put. You're not going to win anyway, and you're just going to delay the fight and make things inconvenient for us. I felt kind of important at that point, because this was a big Clan contacting us (and he was quite polite about it). He wasn't relying on us, but wanting to make sure we didn't go up against him and screw up his plans while he dealt with some Clan drama of his own.

Anything else you would like to add?

Lorethian - I guess in closing remarks, the 5 Clans that I run are really just one big Clan that I collectively refer to as Fur HQ. That's the name of the original Clan, but it doesn't specify the one with the red paw from the blue paw or purple paw; they're all the one clan, all the same group of people. The only reason they're separate is the 100-player limit. I try to keep us together in the form of a community, especially through a chat channel, which anyone can contact me about. It's all just a big community; we're not in it for land, or badmouthing other Clans. We're just here to hang out and play games together. Also, big shoutout to our allies in CMCAW! Love and tolerance!

IcedSteelWolf - And if any furry comes across and hears about us, they're more than welcome to apply. We'll happily talk to them and have them fill out the application.

bluedogkillr - Dragons Rule!

AlfieTheFurry - I concur. And, wolves too.

NittyKitty - SuperPershing is still viable and frontal transmission fires are necessary.

Medium Tank Companies to win yourself some gold. To read the extended interview, please visit the Clan Spotlight: FURHQ 9/30/13 forum thread . You can challenge [FURHQ] this Wednesday at 3:00PM PDT inTank Companies to win yourself some gold.

Associated Clans