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Never played it. Bought it on a recommend from a clan mate.... OMG.... First 2 bursts, 2 dev strikes..... If I can get my potato into a flank, awesome... Kiting and deleting. First match all AP. How WG didn't nerf this thing I don't know, but I'll take it...

Normally I don't get ships in Early Access, but I saw a review on HMS Queen Mary & thought I'd go for it. I also wanted to one-up the resident teaboo in my Discord server. So I used some Community Tokens to buy enough British Tokens to buy HMS I-keep-forgetting-this-thing-has-torpedoes. I love her already, and so far I haven't even hit anything with the torps. And then Wargaming gave me a shocker: a doubloon supercontainer! That put me past 4125 dubs, enough to get the OTHER battlecruiser I had on my wishlist: MN Dunkerque. Not only did that happen on the same day I got Queen Mary, but it was my 2nd supercontainer out of my last 3 Try Your Luck rolls. The other was coal, now closing in on Lutjens. Sadly I didn't win either the supercontainer or coal bids, so I won't finish my coal grind this week. Can't wait till Raptor Rescue comes into rotation! ♦

I am seeking opinions on a new captain/ship build archetype for cruisers that has emerged from the captain skill rework. For those of you who don't already know, there is a bit of a fad build going around for some cruisers that goes against traditional wisdom for how to run a ship in the game in the name of boosting reload rate and damage output. There are some people running this kind of build on almost every cruiser line, although much like the over-hype with Dead Eye and battleships, playing this new style can take a ship right out of its ability to affect wins and losses in the name of damage farming. For those of you who don't already know what I am talking about, this new archetype is known as "Anti-Concealment". The premise of Anti-Concealment is to always have the Top Grade Gunner skill engaged as long as any enemy ships are visible within the firing range of your main battery. To do this, you have to make your concealment bad. Really bad. Unfathomably bad. Holy crap, I can see that cruiser from orbit bad. This is done in three ways. 1) Take the skill "Heavy HE and SAP shells" as this not only provides a damage boost to the HE, it also provides a concealment penalty on any cruiser with guns above 149mm. 2) Do not take Concealment Expert. You want to be seen, and the four points will go elsewhere. 3) Do not take the concealment module in slot 5. There are 2-3 better options if you are running anti-concealment, including going double rudder shift, taking the module that provides extra consumable time for engine boost and main battery reload boost, or even the UU for Henri IV. Once these three things are in place, you are left with a cruiser that could not sneak up on Helen Keller, but can rain down large amounts of HE or SAP damage at very long range very quickly. I have already had some brain storming with some really good players about the pros and cons about this build, and concluded that with most cruiser lines in the big picture, it usually is not worth running this build. If you are a cruiser with radar, or any kind of smoke, your ability to affect cap presence is just too important to sacrifice in the name of damage farming, so American, Russian, British light, and Italian cruisers are a big no for this kind of build. Japanese cruisers are as stealthy as some destroyers, and with their low HP pool, it isn't worth sacrificing to this kind of build (Although Yoshino may be an exception). Germans and British heavies are almost interesting, except they have shorter gun range, and running this kind of build wastes their awesome hydro and ability to hunt destroyers with it, not to mention makes them even more vulnerable to Dead Eye in the current meta. This leaves only French cruisers, and they may be the champions of this unusual new build. They have long range, great speed, good turning, outstanding DPM, and really nave no cap presence to lose in the first place. They are the best cruisers at damage farming already, and this build may take them to another level. The question is: Is it worth going over the top for damage farming in French cruisers, or is it better to stay more traditional to maintain the ability to drop off concealment from time to time? What are your opinions? Do any of you like running anti-concealment?

As the current French event requires a lot out of French ships, I have currently been trying to get the hang of Algerie. Having felt rather comfortable using La Galissonniere in operations, I thought I could handle the tier 7 cruiser decently. However, I must say right now I do not understand how to do consistent damage with it. Get too close and you get focused and torn apart by shells of just about any caliber. Open up the range and even though the enemy now has a harder time hitting you, both the DPM and hitting power of Algerie feels lacking at that distance. All help is appreciated.

In this post thread, I will be dealing with my approach to this final section of Fly-Strike-Win with all the rich prizes it offers. I want the permacamos for the T9 Saint-Louis and Buffalo, T8 Charles Martel and T7 Algerie. Even though I have the Congratulatory permacamo for the Martel, it does not offer ship XP bonuses; only captain and free XP. With a T9 permacamo to act as a carrot to grind beyond T8 in the French cruiser line, boosting ship XP becomes more important than it previously was. Directive 1 had a series of tasks which in my opinion was best undertaken in co-op. Wins were easy to come by, as were kills. Even aircraft kills were not hard to farm in co-op, relying entirely on spotter and fighter aircraft launched from bots, and despite going into randoms and even getting carrier games, I didn't get focused there and only got three of the fifteen necessary in PvP (and then got extras in the final battle that finished out this mission for me). I did not have a Nueve de Julio or Boise, and thus was reduced to doing the missions for the grinding scrubs. I did it in two nights and still have time to spare before the next directive starts. The ship XP task remains unfinished, but that will complete all by itself. The first two Air Supply crates from this phase yielded only a handful of flags and camo. I am aware of one person who defied RNGesus and unlocked a Graf Zeppelin. Directive 2 consists of a series of XP-grinding missions in cruisers, destroyers, battleships and carriers (25,000 XP each after bonuses), a 1,000 ribbon farm, a farm for 45 ribbons of any of (incapacitations, set fire, cause flooding), spotting 15 torpedoes, and get 25 bomb hit, torpedo hit, rocket hit or flooding ribbons, plus a 25,000 free XP farming mission. The full task list for this directive (shamlelessly copy-pasted from @Kizarvexis's excellent threads on the topic) is as follows (spoilered for post-volume reasons): Bearing in mind the old adage that no plan survives first contact with the enemy, I intend to approach it as follows: 1) Finish the greatest number of tasks as quickly as you can. 2) Look for tasks that help to finish other tasks, and select your ships appropriately. 3) Think about the things you are NOT OBLIGED TO DO, and cast those worries aside. In fact, dwelling on the fact that you do not HAVE to do them will make you a happier person. Note that despite its name, the "Piloting Expert" task does not demand that you use a carrier; it merely specifies Tier 5-plus SHIPS. Torpedo hit and caused-flooding ribbons can be achieved in cruisers, destroyers and the occasional battleship. This is important, because the "Assorted Damage" task wants FORTY-five Incapacitation, set-on-fire and (conveniently) flooding ribbons. So it is quite probable that completing this task alone will finish "Piloting Expert" at the same time, or at the very least help you with it. Also pay attention to that "set fire" condition. The secondary guns of British cruisers WILL set fires if you YOLO hard enough, though this is something I would only do in co-op. While you are setting fires in this brave and reckless manner, you can also be firing main gun AP that will break modules and incapacitate things, and you have torpedoes that can and will cause flooding. So if you are on the 25,000 XP cruiser grind and the only cruisers you have are British tech-tree cruisers, consider that. "Watch out for torpedoes!" is something we all have to do, and I don't doubt that this task will finish itself long before you do all the others. If you are a kind soul, think about taking a Shiratsuyu or Shimakaze (if you have one) and delivering your full salvo in the direction of some poor soul on the Red team. That will assist them with this task and hopefully also assist you with the torpedo hit and flooding missions at the same time.\ For the FXP grind, note that the 4th, 9th, 14th etc. of this month offer free XP for the dailies, which is counted as part of your ship's winnings and will assist in the completion of this task. Unless you are on a specific FXP grind at this time, this should be the last mission you think about trying to complete. It will happen eventually by the end of the event, and you will almost certainly get six others first. Note that at least ONE of the grind missions MUST be completed, even if you have a Boise/Nueve, and you cannot do it all in the Boise/Nueve because they don't have torpedoes. For the XP grinding tasks, Randoms is the best place (though I have on occasion ground out 30K XP in co-op by spamming flags and camo; this may be worth it for you). Here is where having a wide variety of T5+ ships helps, because you can just spam random games in one ship after another, then if you die early, go instantly into the next battle. Make best use of your time. I am not advocating YOLO-ing and dying wastefully here; I am advocating giving it your best shot but wasting no time if you don't last out the entire battle. Note also that the Cruiser, Battleship and Destroyer XP grinds and the FXP task can be done in Space Battles. Space Battles mode is not for everyone, sure, but it gives us all at least one T5-plus destroyer, cruiser and battleship, so no matter where you are in your own grinds (provided your account level is high enough), you will have something to complete the XP grinds with in all three categories. Hold your nose if you have to, but the tools are there to get these missions done. I would not bother with the Aircraft carrier XP grind unless I was really confident in carriers. However, the first stages of this event should have given anyone at least as good as me (and I am a 50% win-rate seal-potato who's never ranked out) a Tier 6 aircraft carrier to play with. USE IT if you have to, if you want to, or if you merely want to get a few extra rocket, bomb or torp strike ribbons for that first task. In addition, the Space Battles captains are 19 pointers, and you WILL earn elite commander XP from them even if you don't have one of your own. There's at least 75,000 ECXP up for grabs here, because commander XP is NEVER less than ship XP. Remember that ALL ribbons count towards the thousand-ribbon mission. I know some of you will want to grab your Harugumos, Worcesters and Minotaurs and go right out there for this one, and you will be more than justified (especially for the Worcester; those fire ribbons should stack up nicely at the same time). But if you don't have a fast-firing hell-boat, those ribbons are going to stack up over the battles you need to grind out the XP; you could easily find this one auto-completing. Do not count out scenarios if you have the right ships for them, where the bots are scripted and vulnerable and the right sort of ship can rack up ribbons like a boss, with no fear of team damage. So to summarise: Unlike the previous directives in this event, YOU DON'T HAVE TO GET IT ALL DONE IN ONE NIGHT. These directives open three or four days apart, so there's more than enough time to get it all done if you pace yourself. Remember you only have to finish six out of ten missions, so NOT having a Boise or a Nueve de Julio isn't going to stop you. You're only missing out on ONE flag. Don't sweat. 1000-ribbons - likely to auto-complete over one or more of the XP grinds, arguably requires no special effort. Spot 15 torpedoes - likely to auto-complete over one or more of the XP grinds, arguably requires no special effort. XP grinds and ship availability - we are given Space Battles ships in three of the four categories, likely to be all you need. Do not neglect to use them if your own port does not have one or more of battleships, carriers or destroyers, and don't forget that you get elite commander XP in the process. Winning a battle or surviving the battle are NOT conditions of this upcoming directive, so don't sweat too much if your team derps or you die early; keep calm and press on with the next battle. Getting kills is NOT a condition of this upcoming directive (though every kill ribbon adds its own little bit to the 1000), so don't sweat the kill-stealers. If you finish the XP grinds and the ribbon-farming missions are somehow not done, consider your best ship for the task and run to co-op or operations. TRY not to get yourself confined to co-op. 25,000 XP in a night isn't impossible, but you'll be throwing flags and camos at it to get it done in a sane number of battles. Maybe this is worth it for you, or you are a co-op exclusive; in that case, pick your ships to get all the ribbon tasks done in the most effective manner. Carriers are NOT essential to complete any of the tasks except the specific Carrier XP grind. And since you only have to complete six of ten, it's easy to put this one dead last if you want. I will keep you updated with my progress and how theory meets reality. Good luck, everyone.

The high tier French cruisers I've played so far (Charles Martel, Saint-Louis) have been really fun because of the reload on the guns, the speed, and the range. The Henri looks like a change from the playstyle I've grown accustomed to, is it a radical change or will it be easy to adjust to?

Just started the French cruiser line and am loving it so far. Emile is a great ship and am about through her in no time. Right now I have a 10 pointer running IFHE, but that will get respecced once I get to Alg. What have you guys had success running on the CAs? The AA is pretty horrible on these cruisers, at least in the long range department where it counts, so not going to be speccing there. My thoughts moving up. PT - AR - DE - CE as a base. Run premium consumables so unlike a lot of recommendations see no need for SI. Running speed module there isn't enough time in the game for 4 speed boosts and I have only on a handful of occasions needed or wanted 4 heals in all my T9+ cruiser games. Only so much damage can be healed back. Think of trying a little unconventional for the last 9. 11th - EL 15th - RL - For late game chasing down DDs. 17th - EM - By the time I get to St. Lous will want it to offset the MBM3 traverse penalty. 19th - JoaT - Meh not much other good T2s, Maybe LS, not sure how weak this lines rudder/engine are. Toyed with the idea of IFHE instead of RL on HIV. Would allow her to pen the 50mm decks of Moskva and most of the T10 BBs that have 50mm middle decks. Anyone tried this one on Henry? Well that's my plan. What are you running or had success with?