I think that it’s about time that I give you my opinion about these 2 premium ships that freshly arrived and that are now finalized.

Ladies and Gentlemen, let’s talk about the tier VII premium cruiser Lazo and the tier VIII premium battleship Lenin!

Soviet Tier VII Premium Cruiser Lazo: The old Chapayev brought at tier VII

Her camouflage gives the standard tier VII Premium ship bonuses:

The Good and the Bad

The Good

Great firepower

Good ballistic

17.3 km range

Very good firing angles

Good speed

Special spotter plane with a short cooldown

Good HP pool for this tier (36 300 HP)

Good concealment (11.6 km when fully specced for it)

The Bad

Weak armor protection (16 mm except the citadel belt with 100 mm)

Turns like a brick (890 m turning radius)

Only 3 torpedoes per side with 4 km range

Meh anti-air

My opinion

If you want a quick summarize of Lazo, here it is: If you enjoyed the Shchors, you will enjoy the Lazo a lot.

Also, this ship is like the Irian which means that (at least for now) she is only available in the Armory for 1 500 allowance tokens.

Her firepower is very good for this tier with 4×3 152 mm guns that with Inertia Fuse for HE shells will allow you to melt enemy ships while keeping the distance. The ship just loses 1 second reload compared to the Shchors, reaching a reload time of 9 seconds but she compensates well with her 17.8 km range. On top of that, she also has a special gimmick, her spotter plane.

As you can see, with superintendent and with the premium version, you can get a total of 6 charges on this consumables. On top of that, the cooldown is very short with only 10 seconds (or 15 seconds with the standard version but why would you use that one in the first place?). If you want to enhance your gimmick, you can use the Spotting Aircraft Modification 1 available in the Armory for 17 000 coal. With this upgrade, the duration of each consumable goes up to 78 seconds for a total of 7 minutes and 48 seconds of active spotter plane during the game.

When it comes to her torpedoes, they are really only useful for yolo pushes and desperate moves. Even then, they aren’t the greatest as it’s only 3 per side.

As for her armor… well… basically, you don’t want to get shot at. The ship is covered by 16 mm of armor on the bow, the stern and the middle section. The only part where she has a strong armor is her main belt with 100 mm so it might help you at bouncing battleship AP. This armor makes this ship very reliant your ability to judge who can shot you at any point in time unless you want to be back in port after 5 minutes because a battleship touched you in the wrong place.

While the speed of this ship is nice at 33.5 knots, she turns like a brick. Her turning radius is an awfully huge 890 m with a base rudder shift of 9.7 s.

Her anti-air is nothing exceptional, far from that. It will be decent against tier VI carriers but against tier VIII ones, it will be a different story.

4 x 2 100 mm/56 B-54 Sector range 3.5 km – 5.8 km Hit chance 83 % Sector’s damage per second 56 Flak clouds number 2 Flak cloud damage 910 6 x 2 37 mm 66-K Sector range 0.9 km – 3.5 km Hit chance 83 % Sector’s damage per second 93 Flak clouds number 3 Flak cloud damage 560 4 x 2 12.7 mm DShKM-2B Sector range 0.1 km – 0.9 km Hit chance 79 % Sector’s damage per second 83 Sector reinforcement Sector reinforcement bonus +25% Sector reinforcement time 10 s Sector reinforcement shift time 10 s

Another strength of the Lazo is her concealment. Once fully specced for it, you reach 11.6 km detection range by sea and 5.8 km detection by air. This will give you a relatively comfortable space to get into a good position to shoot at your opponent.

For the rest of the consumables, they are as follows:

Slot 1 Slot 2 Slot 3 Work time: 5 s Cooldown: 90 s Number of charges: 2 Work time: 40 s Cooldown: 120 s Number of charges: 4 Work time: 60 s Cooldown: 15 s Range boost: +20% Work time: 5 s Cooldown: 60 s Number of charges: 3 Work time: 40 s Cooldown: 80 s Number of charges: 5 Work time: 60 s Cooldown: 10 s Range boost: +20% Number of charges: 2 Work time: 100 s Cooldown: 180 s Torpedo spotting range: 3.0 km Ship spotting range: 4.0 km Number of charges: 3 Work time: 100 s Cooldown: 120 s Torpedo spotting range: 3.0 km Ship spotting range: 4.0 km

Conclusion

The Lazo is a ship that requires solid situational awareness if you ever want to do well with her. Wargaming gave this ship everything to keep the distance, you will most of the time have to rely on this. If you enjoyed the playstyle of the Shchors or the Chapayev, I can safely say that you will also enjoy this ship.

Also, it will be a decent captain trainer for the Russian cruisers until Moskva.

Recommended build

Here is the build that I recommend to run for the Lazo:

Captain build:

Priority Target

Preventive Maintenance

Expert Loader

Adrenaline Rush

Superintendent

Demolition Expert

Concealment Expert

Inertia Fuse for HE shells

Upgrades:

Spotting Aircraft Modification 1

Damage Control System Modification 1

AA Guns Modification 1

Steering Gears Modification 2

Soviet Tier VIII Premium Battleship Lenin: Nelsonsky

Her camouflage gives the standard tier VIII Premium ship bonuses:

Now, if you are a firm defender of the motherland (and that you have 5 000 doubloons to waste), there is an alternative camouflage.

It gives the exact same bonuses as the previous one so would be purely cosmetic.

The Good and the Bad

The Good

Great armor when angled and against HE

All guns forward

Very good firing angles

Short cooldown of the Damage Control Party

Relatively good maneuverability for a battleship

The Bad

Vulnerable citadel (DO NOT GIVE BROADSIDE TO A BATTLESHIP)

Meh anti-air

Limited number of Damage Control Party

My opinion

The Lenin is overall a very solid battleship that will reward good angling and positioning but you will regret it if you give broadside to the wrong enemy.

The main battery consists of 9 406 mm guns in 3 triple turrets. These guns are slightly different from those of Vladivostok, have less penetration above 4.5 km and a higher air drag meaning that they lose more speed.

Now, don’t get me wrong, these guns still pack a serious punch. The ship has the same dispersion formula has the rest of the Russian tech tree battleships (except Slava). This means that the closer you will be from your target, the better it will be. Do not try to sit at long range with that ship, you will not enjoy the experience. You don’t necessarily have 18.4 km range to use that range all the time.

The Lenin armor compensates very well her low HP pool of 63 200 HP. Her 45 mm deck and 50 mm side at minimum give her solid protection against HE shells combined with a small superstructure. the bow and stern are the classic 32 mm armor with extended belts of 100 mm. All of this makes the ship very resistant to AP and HE while it’s angled.

Now, here comes the problem, her 350 mm main belt (citadel). When angled, she does the job perfectly. Problem is when it’s caught full broadside. This main belt is flat like a Ryujo instead of being incurved to increase the effective armor. This means that battleships will have no issue to go through it (As a side story, I almost gave a devastating strike to someone on my first game. I overestimated stalinium.)

I almost forgot to mention something VERY important. The turrets of the Lenin are FRAGILE. The face of the turret is very flat which means that shells will come at an angle that limits a lot the effective armor. I heavily recommend running preventive maintenance and main armaments mod 1

So basically, stay angled and have a good situational awareness to avoid getting spanked by enemy battleships.

Her maneuverability and concealment are decent. She does 28.5 knots to speed with a base rudder shift of 13.5 s and a turning radius of 840 m. These are nice stats but not groundbreaking for sure.

As for the concealment, with a full build, she reaches 13 km detection by sea and 8.91 km detection by air.

6 x 2 100 mm/56 MZ-14 Sector range 3.5 km – 5.8 km Hit chance 71 % Sector’s damage 370 Sector’s damage frequency 2.88 s Sector’s damage per second 128 Flak clouds number 5 Flak cloud damage 1190 8 x 4 37 mm 46-K

10 x 2 37 mm V-11 Sector range 1.0 km – 3.5 km Hit chance 71 % Sector’s damage 190 Sector’s damage frequency 0.53 s Sector’s damage per second 358 Flak clouds number 9 Flak cloud damage 770 Sector reinforcement Sector reinforcement bonus +25% Sector reinforcement time 12 s Sector reinforcement shift time 12 s

Her anti-air is not really the best with relatively low dps and also flak damage that don’t deal that much damage. Against tier VI and for some tier VIII planes, it will be fine but against tier X, you will need your fighter planes to scare them away.

Slot 1 Slot 2 Slot 3 Consumable charges: 3 Work time: 10 s Cooldown: 60 s Consumable charges: 2 Work time: 28 s Cooldown: 120 s HP regeneration speed: 0.005 % HP/s Consumable charges: 2 Work time: 30 s Cooldown: 135 s Radius: 3 km Consumable charges: 4 Work time: 10 s Cooldown: 40 s Consumable charges: 3 Work time: 28 s Cooldown: 80 s HP regeneration speed: 0.005 % HP/s Consumable charges: 3 Work time: 30 s Cooldown: 90 s Radius: 3 km

Just like the other standard Russian battleships, she has a limited number of damage control party so superintendent is simply a must-have on this ship.

Conclusion

The Lenin is a ship that does great in the hands of people who has good situational awareness and positioning. It will reward you for angling properly and getting in position to use her guns at an effective combat distance (15 km and under) but it will punish you for giving broadside without paying attention or for sitting far from the objective.

Also, it’s an amazing captain trainer for the Russian battleships that will soon be fully released.

Recommended build

Here is the build that I recommend to run for the Lenin:

Captain build:

Priority Target

Preventive Maintenance

Expert Marksman

Adrenaline Rush

High Alert

Superintendent

Concealment Expert

Fire Prevention

I use the unique Russian Captain but considering the new Kuznetsov captain coming with the Update 0.8.4, you might prefer to use him on the Russian battleships.

Upgrades:

or

Main armaments modification 1

Damage Control System Modification 1

Aiming System Modification 1

Steering Gears Modification 2 or Damage Control System Modification 2

Concealment System Modification 1

This wraps up my review of the Lazo and Lenin, there will soon be a giveaway for these 2 ships on the Discord of The Daily Bounce so stay tuned!

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