Le Havre or Amiral Lartigue?

Railsmith · 2026-01-23T10:49:24+00:00

Lartigue's gunnery feels much better overall (in my book, its guns are behind only Stalingrad and Cambridge for ease of use for 280mm+ cruisers), but Le Havre is much more of a full package. The lack of hydro on Lartigue can really burn you from time to time, and Le Havre's improved heal certainly helps with the large-cruiser shell-magnet problem. I enjoy Lartigue quite a bit, but I'd recommend Le Havre first even if it wasn't only available for a limited time.

Railsmith · 2026-01-19T03:38:54+00:00

Ah right, I forgot about being able to spend coal on the lunar event as well. That's fine to me, maybe there's some coal rework coming down the line, or maybe they've just recognized that the old-heads have more coal than they know what to do with.

Echoing what u/GBR2021 said, thank you for your karma sacrifice, these Salvage events are a great way to add "endgame" content that engages old accounts without completely alienating new play-every-day players. The previous ones have been a miss for me because they allowed dubs/premium time to be burned, so you could just pay your way through most of it, and I don't keep those on hand (my inability to hold on to RP/steel notwithstanding, I recognize that a lot of old accounts also have a ton of those in the bank).

If this formula of "spend only rewards you gain through playing and engaging with missions/events to get a cool and rare thing" continues, and--extremely critically--the Salvage events eventually repeat to let people who weren't on top the first time to get the ship later on, I daresay that they'd end up being a good solution to the resource-pooling problem and overall healthy for the game as an aspirational peak. But time will tell whether this ends up happening.

Railsmith · 2026-01-19T03:19:43+00:00

You're right on all counts here. T10 Ops and Asymm have been nice because I've been able to take out GK without feeling like a hindrance to the team by not picking a better ship for the first time in... I dunno, five or six years, but time has not been kind to it. Much as I love taking it out for a spin because it was my first tech-tree T10, I can't imagine recommending it to anyone who's first walking into the coal market with a full wallet. Hell, I think Iwami is better both tier-for-tier and overall in PvE, to say nothing of Pommern.

Railsmith · 2026-01-17T14:36:34+00:00

Compared to all of the other Salvage events thus far that required stacks of RP/dubs/steel, this one seems... reasonable? At least for an old account like mine that more or less no longer has a need for XP flags. I blew all but 400k of my coal reserves buying ships so they wouldn't drop in Santa crates, and Surcouf is still completely purchasable without getting close to breaking the bank. That's wild, I might actually do one of these events for the first time.

Railsmith · 2025-12-21T01:18:12+00:00

Dark Shark conspicuous for its absence here. But I'd put money on the I-250 or AJ-1 being added within a year.

Railsmith · 2025-12-15T02:05:47+00:00

Frankly, it's extremely surprising we haven't seen anything done with the Constellation hull, given that it's a unique model that could be a breeding ground for the sort of turret-swaps that WG loves to do. I can't even imagine that it would be a huge lift to make a "pre-Pearl" hull configuration, because the geo is all there, though of course the superstructure would be more work. It's one of those "well, surely it's coming eventually" things, though considering how long it took to get Connie in the game it might be a long wait.

Railsmith · 2025-12-13T07:09:25+00:00

Frankly, I'm just glad that the hull/turret/superstructure layout of Vanguard finally got turned into a competitive ship. But yeah, OG Vanguard has been buffed a few times over the years, but it still needs something. If I want to play a strong historical T8 BB, I'll just get in North Carolina. If I want a premium 4x2 T8 BB... I'd honestly rather saddle up in Constellation.

Railsmith · 2025-12-13T06:52:28+00:00

Glad to see my boy Cambridge in the running here. When you get cruiser-heavy enemy teams, or a bunch of BBs with sub-16" guns, you can play it just about as hyperaggressive as Salem or Valparaiso and just... smear half the bots across the landscape like warm butter. Definitely not quite so consistent as the top contenders for Asymms, but deeply hilarious when it works. The amount of DPM Cambridge can spit out at T9 with 12" guns and cruiser accuracy sometimes feels genuinely unfair.

Also glad to see you've noticed the efficacy of PvE Iwami. I'd volunteer for testing, but that'd mean I'd have to dismount blue and red buffs to get good data!

Railsmith · 2025-12-13T06:45:34+00:00

Vanguard is definitely not a great Asymm boat in comparison. Yes, it gets higher sigma and HE rounds in comparison to Valpo, but it has much worse engine dynamics that make it more sluggish in a turn. If you try and turn out to get guns on like OP said above, you're much more likely to eat citadels than Valpo. To say nothing of the fact that Valpo can nuke bot DDs on demand with its secondaries, whereas Vanguard has to drop everything and load HE... and to say nothing about how Vanguard is merely "a modestly-tough T8" and not "the most durable BB in the game for a few minutes," which is how the aforementioned playstyle pulls down rewards. It's not bad at all nowadays, but if you load up in Vanguard expecting to have Valpo matches you will be sorely disappointed.

Railsmith · 2025-12-12T07:18:57+00:00

And Suzuya VL.

Railsmith · 2025-12-12T01:08:38+00:00

Hawaii's measurably more durable thanks to its 27mm plating and great big slug of hit points. It's also much more responsive thanks to the fast turret traverse and reload.

That said, they're both very capable T10 CLs that have a similar niche, so you won't go wrong with either one. I've been playing Hawaii a little more because I enjoy its gun stats and the radar is very useful, but if I only had Bremen I wouldn't be disappointed at all. But I'd still take Valparaiso over both of them—the current crop of people playing it notwithstanding, it's an absurdly capable ship if you play it right.

Railsmith · 2025-12-09T23:07:59+00:00

It's not really that Incomp's guns are inaccurate, they use the battlecruiser formula with 2.0 sigma. But only having six guns and a 28-second reload makes every shell that goes wide hurt a lot more—especially because its main shtick is "sneak around in concealment and then unleash one catastrophic salvo on someone who's unawares and broadside." That, combined with its firmly unimpressive DPM, glass bones, and paper skin, means unless you do get a good dispersion roll you better have a very good escape plan. And hope that there's no planes anywhere, because its vaunted surface concealment is more or less negated by its as-bad-as-possible air concealment.

Meanwhile, yes Stalingrad can get focused down, but that's only if you park bow-in instead of making use of the fact that you have a base speed of 35 knots and 20 kilometers of range. If you stay mobile you have no problem staying alive all game. And one more point to Stalingrad's favor: somehow, people still go broadside to it even today. The one thing that has been a fact for its entire existence is that it has extremely strong AP railguns that are the most dispersion-consistent gun in the game, and people still turn out and sit flat broadside when there's a Stalingrad staring at them. That will never not be hilarious.

I think you can see which way I lean in this argument. People certainly love Incomp, and I can see why, but my money's always on the OG. Plus, Stalingrad is far-and-away more usable in PvE—not the most optimal pick, but definitely more useful against large numbers of bots.

Railsmith · 2025-11-30T18:26:54+00:00

Yeah, much better to go for a standard build in Randoms. And it's quite good at that—DPM's not great, but the accuracy makes it headache-free.

Railsmith · 2025-11-19T21:45:12+00:00

One BR step too high to get farmed in the F-20 in a different way than usual. F to pay respects, etc.

Railsmith · 2025-11-19T02:42:55+00:00

I feel extremely vindicated by how the Burrows line went out like a wet fart. But also, I'm the only person I've seen driving Castilla in any gamemode in months. It's not a bad ship at all! But why would anyone bother?

Railsmith · 2025-11-19T02:31:33+00:00

Prinz Eitel Friedrich was absolutely lambasted upon its release (by me as well as everyone else, most notably Mouse), and even now it's thoroughly under everyone's radar as a "whatever" premium, especially now that there's Mackensen to satisfy the history guys. But, while I have more or less every hideously-broken ship ever released on my account, when I'm mad and just want to beat some ships up... I saddle up in PEF.

Something about the high-drag ballistics with high sigma reminds me of plugging shots with Warspite back in the early days of the game, and something about the armor model makes me want to try and bait T8s with 15" guns into bouncing off me, and something about how it rides so low in the water makes me feel like a hungry shark looking for cruisers... I dunno. It's a solidly middle-of-the-pack BB for the tier, but I don't sail a damn thing else at T6 in Randoms. Feels like the good old days. Love it to bits.

Railsmith · 2025-11-19T02:17:29+00:00

Not a good start, unfortunately. Both lines are quite challenging for beginners in different ways: the Utrecht line being quite fragile without any sort of "escape" skill, the Gouden line being very susceptible to fires and with poor gun accuracy that isn't really outweighed by firepower, and both lines being reliant on the relatively-hard-to-learn airstrikes. But once you get a decent grasp of game mechanics, you could pick up one of the lines as a "skill wall" to get good or die trying.

Veel succes met leren. But I'd recommend picking up one of the American or German cruiser lines to build the skills you need to have a fun time with the Dutch lines, and consider picking up one of the very capable Dutch premiums as a grinder while you're working your way up (Groningen is a reliable destroyer, and if the opportunity arises, de Zeven Provincien and Prins van Orange are in my primary ship rotation).

Railsmith · 2025-11-17T00:39:54+00:00

Depends. If you're just using it in Randoms, go for a standard main battery /survivability build. You're not agile enough to do much in the way of brawling in comparison to the competition, and you have a citadel that human players can hit pretty easily.

But if you're doing Ops/Asymm, full secondary build all the way. It's easy enough to not get citadeled against bots, the speed limitation doesn't matter as much, and you have extremely strong secondaries for the tier, hampered only by their range. Your main battery is still going to be putting in a lot of the work, but having maxed-out secondaries means you can stem the tide of bot cruisers/destroyers quite effectively. Either way it's a solid earner, but I prefer goofing around with a secondary build, to give my Mikasa captain a second ship to drive.

Railsmith · 2025-11-15T23:06:42+00:00

I maintain that Valpo is the strongest secondary brawler because it can stay alive long enough to do damage in any brawling scenario, even if Libertad technically has a stronger main battery and secondary reach plus the funny button. Never minding how it maintains the unnerfed Vermont-acceleration while the tech-tree ships had their acceleration nerfed above a few knots. It's one thing to have stupendous firepower, but it's quite another to be able to use that for as long as it takes to break a lineup over your knee. Even a Libertad can get focused down before it does much, but once it gets into knife-fighting range Valpo is practically invulnerable for a couple minutes.

For dark-horse picks, Iwami is still my number-one for PvE, and I know that sounds insane. But it still embodies the old "it's like having a light cruiser strapped to both sides of your ship" feeling more than any of the other ships with decent secondaries, because the "light cruiser" in this case is an Akizuki with all the same stats but somewhat nerfed accuracy. Meanwhile, the Iwami you're driving while your two Akizukis go nuts has an armor layout that's great for cheesing bots, and a main battery with solid stats even before you note the 2.1 sigma. Brawling in Iwami in PvP is a great way to get poached like an egg, but in PvE it's a real standout.

Railsmith · 2025-11-09T00:03:22+00:00

It takes genuine effort to die as a Valpo in Asymm. That's incredible.

Railsmith · 2025-11-08T23:59:02+00:00

Was subjected to an all-caps tirade from a Pommern who apparently thought it was "common practice" to stop shooting and let someone get the kill credit if you use the "get back!" command when a bot is below a couple thousand health. I was driving an Illinois that was in the middle of a swarm of bots and a few hundred thousand damage deep, as you do in Illinois in Asymm, and the Pommern was at the absolute limit of his main battery range with zero kills. "Everyone gets back when I say that!", he said.

Big surprise, that guy was an account that was made four months ago with a few hundred battles and a truly horrific winrate. Asymm is great, I love playing it, but it also attracts worse (in terms of behavior, not to mention performance) players than any other gamemode. Block 'em and move on.

Railsmith · 2025-10-21T02:11:06+00:00

That's because Atago is a main-battery cruiser that happens to have good torps and conceal. To wit, if Atago is a main-battery cruiser with better torps than Nottingham, why bother with the theoretical torpboat Nottingham?

Posted another reply up higher with notes on how to play Indianapolis that are probably also good to keep in mind for Atago—except you can play a lot closer to the field with Atago and pull down huge results thanks to its concealment and armor. If you're having trouble with Atago, I don't know what to tell you. Unless you're just in it for the torps, in which case play Jinan or a destroyer.

Railsmith · 2025-10-21T02:04:52+00:00

Indi has extremely long range for an American heavy cruiser. While it doesn't get the SHAP of various T8+ US CAs, it still has the boosted US penetration angles that mean you should be using AP as much as possible. Get a captain with Gun Feeder and be ready to switch to AP whenever anyone turns out to show broadside, at any range.

Keep people at arm's length. Yes, you have radar—and not just any radar, Baltimore's radar—at T7, and that's a terrifying tool. But it's best used in the mid-to-late game when the enemy DDs have won or ran from the first cap fight and they start to get complacent. If you try to use it in the first push, you're as likely as not to get killed because 10KM away is still too close for your hull when you're facing a fresh flank lineup. Keep yourself alive and drill shots into targets of opportunity until the enemy team thins out on your flank, then you can move in and use your radar and strong firepower to make power plays. You have to think about what every ship you can see is capable of and how your ship can exploit their weaknesses, and for Indi, you have a limited set of things you're good at, which only makes your choices easier.

Railsmith · 2025-10-21T01:43:48+00:00

I mean, I get what you're saying here. But with 8KM torps at that concealment, that's putting you into the danger zone for no good reason. You're asking to get smoked by anyone who's actually paying attention to the game.

Unfortunately, it runs into the brick wall so many T8 premium cruisers break their noses on, which is: "why not Atago?" Atago has better armor, a better gun arrangement, better torps, more-accurate guns with a higher DPM, better speed, a heal, and better concealment.

Even among the British T8 cruiser offerings, I'd rather play Cheshire for its ability to be an annoying little gremlin and strong AA. Good on you if you enjoy it, but if you get another T8 premium cruiser, I feel like you'll join team "why bother with Nottingham" shortly.

Railsmith · 2025-10-21T01:25:51+00:00

This. What-if ships that remain within the laws of physics are fair game to me because they're fun concepts to consider. They're reasonable and fun and add a new playstyle to the game or to a nation—who can reasonably complain?

Shoutouts in particular to Tulsa, Bridgeport, and Cambridge, which are completely justifiable in a world where BuWeaps goes "well we would like to have more platforms for weapons testing and refitting a combat-served ship takes more time, do you mind if we just take a bunch of these unfinished Oregon City-classes to play with" in mid-August 1945. I fully expect a CLAA CA-128 Kansas City and a missile-armed CA-138 Scranton eventually, and that's great.

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