The following is a PREVIEW of the upcoming release of Henri IV , a ship provided to me by Wargaming . This is how the ship appeared in the testing period up to and including the publish date of April 9th, 2017. The statistics and performance discussed here are still being evaluated by Wargaming’s developers and do not necessarily represent how the ship will appear when released.

Is this a tier 10 cruiser or a battleship? Like seriously, it’s stonkin’ huge. I know the joke’s already been made with Hindenburg. And, yes, Moskva is simply ginormous, but c’mon.

This preview will follow a different format from my usual articles. Instead of looking at the ship’s statistics in detail and theory-crafting the best use of the ship, I am equipping my ship with consumables and modules that are pretty generic and dumping a bunch of ubiquitous skills on a Captain. Then, I take her out blind with little idea of what her actual stats are like.

To this end, I equipped Henri IV with:

Damage Control Party, Defensive Fire, Engine Boost and Repair Party

For modules I used, Main Armament Mod 1, Aiming Systems Mod 1, Main Battery Mod 3, Damage Control Mod 1, Steering Gears Mod 2 and Concealment System Mod 1

I used a 10pt Captain with Priority Target, Adrenaline Rush, Demolition Expert and Concealment Expert.

As I played, I made notes of things I liked and things I didn’t like about the ship. These are not substantiated with facts — they are purely anecdotal observations. The idea here is to collect as thorough a look at the ship as I can in a handful of games. Here’s what I observed:

Positive Perceptions

She’s pretty darned fast which is great.

Her AP can be downright monstrous against cruisers. She stacks citadels in a real hurry which is awesomes but I seem to have to get in closer to do it reliably.

HE hits pretty hard.

Shell ballistics seem okay — their lead times aren’t battleship good, though.

Range is nice. Not great, but nice.

Negative Perceptions