It’s not like new ships aren’t being added all of the time, either. There’s new ships coming with more on the way. Here’s a quick look at four that are on my plate right now.

Wow, it’s been a bit of a drought for premium ship reviews. It’s not that I haven’t been busy — I just don’t know exactly when the next full review will be published. This all hinges on when Wargaming decides to lift the content embargo. I’m done writing my T-61 review. Gascogne is well underway and so too is my write up on Massachusetts. There’s a whole list of premiums still stuck in limbo and I have no idea when any of them are coming out.

The following is a PREVIEW of some of the upcoming Premiums which Wargaming very kindly provided me. The statistics discussed here are still being evaluated by Wargaming’s developers and do not necessarily represent how the ship will appear when released.

As a Canadian desperately waiting upon HMCS Haida, I have a vested interest in how HMS Cossack’s development proceeds. This British Tribal-class destroyer has had a lot of teething problems, most notably caused by her single torpedo launcher and the limited firing arc of her gun turrets. Wargaming is handling this ship well, in my opinion, providing small improvements with every new build. Currently, she’s a wonderful support ship. Between agility, stealth and her Hydroacoustic Search consumable, she plays well on the front lines. I treat her like a 4-gun destroyer and she doesn’t disappoint me. It’s only when I sit in smoke that I’m ever able to bring all 6 guns to bear reliably and this is working out.

As comfortable is she is in terms of handling and spotting, she doesn’t deal damage very well at all. I’ve made a few suggestions — my favourite being to give her the equivalent of British cruiser AP shells for her 120mm while still retaining her HE shells too. This would make her feel like a specialized gunship and it would give her some teeth against larger vessels while still maintaining some flexibility against other destroyers.

Oh boy, am I going to be glad to see the tail end of the review on Graf Zeppelin. My experience with Graf Zeppelin, particularly out-of-game, wasn’t exactly pleasant. Still, she appears ready — maybe even a little over tuned in regards to her striking power. However, the struggle with her fighters makes her feel closer to balanced; at least so long as you’re not the ship she instantly deletes.

Sung to the tune of Disney’s “Gaston” from Beauty and the Beast. Like Cossack, Gascogne started off underpowered and has slowly (ever so slowly) crawled her way towards relevance. Her biggest flaw is that she’s under-gunned. Still, the ship itself is very nice in almost all other categories. If you can look past her gunnery problems, she’s a nice ship. Still, fewer ships have given me as much grey hair as this one and I haven’t enjoyed my time with her at all.

This one was a complete surprise. While some people have compared Asashio to Shimakaze, the more apt comparison, in my opinion, is to the pre-nerf Shiratsuyu. Good gravy, is this boat hella fun to play. She’s going to be one of those ships that doesn’t have a particularly high win rate, but good lord, the damage she does will be insane. I expect nerfs before release here.

Conclusions

I’m expecting to see Gascogne and Graf Zeppelin make it out of testing in their current builds. Asashio, in my opinion, could be released as is too, but I fear she’d do a little too well. Cossack, meanwhile, still needs some TLC — particularly in regards to giving her some striking power. I don’t want to see her with Torpedo Reload Booster, though that may seem like an obvious fix. Maybe Cossack (and Haida after her) will need to be down-tiered. I suppose we shall see.