My problem with the AT series (and slow tanks in general) is they plopped down in a single direction. With those tanks its feast or famine. If you happen to be in a choke point with lots of little tanks, you'll utterly destroy them. If you get caught in the open field with any tank that's not another AT, you're fucked. If the other flank fails, you can't support them because you're too slow.
Against bads that use auto-aim, your tank is invincible. With any player that's semi-knowledgeable (or at least runs tank weakspot skins), you're getting penned 100%.
The tank's armor is only reliable at mid to long distances (when they can't really get a good shot at your copula with tier 5 guns), but then your 6 pounder can't thread needles either.
So its a very situational tank, which I hate. It does have its shining moments but those rely on how bad the other team is, not how good the driver is.
and versus a KV, you have to be really up close to hit the driver hatch or MG port, and if they're angled only gold will go through those. Any good KV player will rip you apart.
I somewhat disagree. Not in that those tanks aren't situational, because they are. But in that it entirely relies upon how bad the enemy team is.
The T95 is one of my favorite tanks. It's my most driven tank in fact, so I have a lot of experience in it. Almost done with my third skill for the crew. It doesn't get more slow in the game than a T95.
After about 400 games in the T95 I started to get pretty good at it. I found that playing such a slow, lumbering beast takes a lot of tactical analysis and map knowledge to be effective.
With some tanks, I hit the "play" button, and then alt-tab out and do something else until WoT tells me the game is about to start, then come back in and do a quick analysis as to where to go. Can't do this with the T95. You need the full load time to do a complete analysis of the situation.
Look at the composition of your team and enemy team by tank class and ability. Do they have a lot of fast tanks? Do they have a lot of tanks that can pen you anywhere, or will they need to aim at weak points (this will determine optimal engagement range)? How gold dependent are their pen values?
How skilled is the enemy team (xvm)? What routes are they likely to go based on skill value, tank composition, and map.
Are you likely to have support to prevent flankers, or will your team most likely leave you alone?
How is the map going to most likely play out?
Taking in all this and more, you need to decide on a destination that will most likely be involved in heavy action as you are arriving. So you need to know where the chokepoints are initially, where you think your team will fall back or push forward, and then decide based on that information where to head. Generally you don't head (except on certain maps where the chokepoints last most of the game) where initial contact is made.
If you get good at all of the above, you change your involvement from a crapshoot to something that you can have an influence on most of the time (there will still be games where you just arrive too late or get flanked or whatnot).
Something else that can be interesting driving a slow TD is you get a lot more time than others to look at the entire map and tactical situation as it developes because you are still driving to your location. So you can help to direct the overall strategy for your team while leaving your tank to drive on autopilot. Usually the first full minute or two in my T95 is me typing and directing the action, and calling out the enemy moves.
Anyway, that's my take. There are certainly disadvantages to a slow mover. They can't react to quickly changing situations (like an unexpected breakthrough or getting back to defend the base), but smartly played you can still have a good influence on most fights.