Ladies, Gentlemen and Weebs, I salute you.

I will kill 2 birds with 1 stone in this article (technically even 3) by treating first the case of the upcoming Azur Lane loot boxes/crates as well as giving you my 2 cents on the finalized Montpelier and Yukikaze. Let’s not waste any time and move on to the first topic.

Azur Lane Collaboration Premium Crates.

Wargaming recently credited me with 15 of the premium crates from the Azur Lane collaboration. Now, to maybe help you to spare your money or on the contrary, motivates you to buy some, here is what you can get from these boxes.

What is in the box?

Each premium crates will give you 3 items, always in the same order.

A bundle of 5 Syren camouflages: +100% XP and +50% Commander XP

A 10 points captain: It can be any of the 8 new collaboration captains. Each captain comes with her port slot of course.

Important to note, you CANNOT drop the captains from the first part of the collaboration!





A bundle of 10 “Dragon” flags:

Flag Name Effect Dragon +333% Commander XP earned for the battle. Wyvern +50% credits earned for the battle. Red Dragon +100% XP earned for the battle. +100% Commander XP earned for the battle. Ouroboros +777% Free XP earned for the battle. Hydra +50% XP earned for the battle. +150% Commander XP earned for the battle. +250% Free XP earned for the battle. Basilisk +75% to XP per battle +30% to credits per battle. Scylla +50% to XP per battle. +150% to Commander XP per battle. +25% to credits per battle. Leviathan +50% to XP per battle. +100% to Commander XP per battle. +200% to Free XP earned per battle. +20% to credits per battle.



Now, when it comes to my rolls, I had the following loot. I will not mention the camouflages as you are guaranteed to get them each time.

Prinz Eugen and 10 Red Dragon flags (Boy, the only captain I really wanted on the first roll)

Montpelier and 10 Scylla flags

Dunkerque and 10 Ouroboros flags

Neptune and 10 Dragon flags

Prinz Eugen and 10 Red Dragon flags

Neptune and 10 Dragon flags

Montpelier and 10 Scylla flags

Yukikaze and 10 Leviathan flags

Azuma and 10 Wyvern flags

Yukikaze and 10 Leviathan flags

Atago and 10 Hydra flags

Kaga and 10 Basilisk flags

Yukikaze and 10 Leviathan flags

Kaga and 10 Basilisk flags

Dunkerque and 10 Ouroboros flags

As you can see, each captain is bound to drop with a certain type of flag. However, for 9€ per crate… unless you are really a fan of Azur Lane, not sure if it’s worth the money.

Now, if you really want to buy them, unless you get screwed as much as Azur Lane players do during limited constructions, you shouldn’t end up with too many duplicate captains.

Ships review

Here is my review of the 2 new special premium ships coming with the collaboration with the mobile game Azur Lane. Montpelier, U.S. tier VIII cruiser and Yukikaze, Japanese tier VIII destroyer are now considered final. Are they worth it or not? Well, let me give you my opinion.

U.S. Tier VIII Cruiser Montpelier: The Cleveland with 10 km radar

Her camouflage gives the standard Tier VIII Premium camouflage bonuses.

The Good and the Bad

The Good

Solid firepower

Good anti-air

Very good concealment

10 km Radar

Decent HP pool

Both defensive AA and hydroacoustic search

The Bad

Thin armor

Lazy shell ballistic

Somewhat limited range

A loss of reload time for a forgettable gain of accuracy

My opinion

Let’s go point by point here to give you a bit of an in-depth description of that ship.

First, the firepower of the ship is very solid. The ship, just like the Cleveland is carrying 4 x 3 152 mm guns. These are the same guns as Cleveland so the shells are not the fastest but they will allow you to use a lot of island covers and also with the HE, you will deal consistent damage without issue. Compared to the Cleveland, she loses 0.5 seconds of reload (7 seconds instead of 6.5 seconds) but in exchange, she gets a sigma buff to 2.15. Now, let’s break a dream, this improved sigma is completely forgettable. You really have to try hard to notice a difference.

The armor is identical to the Cleveland so 25 mm plating on the bow, stern, and middle section. Just like her sister-ship, Montpelier doesn’t like being shot at so use your concealment and the terrain at your advantage. One advantage of the ship is that her citadel is very small so battleships, if they don’t demolish you, will get a lot of overpenetrations on you.

Her maneuverability is good. It’s nothing groundbreaking but it will still make the ship quite comfortable to play with. She goes at 32.5 knots, has a turning radius of 660 m and her base rudder shift time is 7.2 s.

Her anti-air is fairly strong as you can see here:

6 x 2 127 mm/38 Mk32 Sector range 3.5 km – 5.8 km Hit chance 85 % Sector’s damage per second 155 Flak clouds number 5 Flak cloud damage 1330 12 x 4 45 mm SM-20-ZIF Sector range 1.5 km – 3.5 km Hit chance 85 % Sector’s damage per second 280 Flak clouds number 7 Flak cloud damage 770 18 x 4 25 mm 4M-120 Sector range 0.1 km – 1.5 km Hit chance 81 % Sector’s damage per second 652 Sector reinforcement Sector reinforcement bonus +25% Sector reinforcement time 10 s Sector reinforcement shift time 10 s

Overall, a smart CV player will try to avoid you.

Now, let’s talk about what makes the Montpelier a serious threat to destroyers. Once fully specced for it, her concealment goes down to 9.3 km of detection by sea and 5.8 km of detection by air. No need to tell you that it is very good concealment at this tier. That concealment isn’t coming alone though. To differentiate the Montpelier from the Cleveland, Wargaming gave it a 10 km range radar! Yes, you read that well. The rest of the characteristics of the radar remain the same as Cleveland so 30 s duration, 2/3 charges and 180/120s cooldown. This means that once you are surface spotted, the destroyer that got too confident will be 700 m deep in your radar range.

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

Slot 1 Slot 2 Slot 3 Slot 4 Work time: 5 s Cooldown: 90 s Number of charges: 2 Work time: 40 s Cooldown: 120 s Number of charges: 2 Work time: 30 s Cooldown: 180 s Ship spotting range: 10.0 km Number of charges: 2 Work time: 100 s Cooldown: 180 s Torpedo spotting range: 3.5 km Ship spotting range: 5.0 km Work time: 5 s Cooldown: 60 s Number of charges: 3 Work time: 40 s Cooldown: 80 s Number of charges: 3 Work time: 30 s Cooldown: 120 s Ship spotting range: 10.0 km Number of charges: 3 Work time: 100 s Cooldown: 120 s Torpedo spotting range: 3.5 km Ship spotting range: 5.0 km Number of charges: 3 Work time: 100 s Cooldown: 360 s Range boost: +20% Number of charges: 4 Work time: 100 s Cooldown: 240 s Range boost: +20%

Conclusion

In the end, is the ship worth it? If you enjoyed the Cleveland, you will obviously love that ship as it’s simply better. The ship loses a tiny 0.5 s reload for more HP, a better sigma and, the most important, 10 km radar. Frankly, that’s a trade that I would take any time.

Now for those that didn’t experience Cleveland yet, if you want a good Captain trainer for the U.S. Light cruiser line, I really recommend Montpelier. Of course, if you don’t appreciate the tier VIII matchmaking, it’s up to you.

Recommended build

During the testing of the Montpelier, I used the following captain build and upgrades:

Captain build:

Priority Target

Preventive Maintenance

Adrenaline Rush

Superintendent

Concealment Expert

Inertia Fuse for HE shells

Manual AA

Upgrades:

Main Armaments Modification 1

Damage Control System Modification 1 (Alternatively, if you have it, use the Surveillance Radar Upgrade 1)

AA Guns Modification 1

Steering Gears Modification 2

Concealment System Modification 1

Japanese Tier VIII Destroyer: A Kagero clone with F3 torpedoes

Her camouflage gives the standard Tier VIII Premium camouflage bonuses.

The Good and the Bad

Good

Strong alpha damage of the guns

Great concealment

High damage of the torpedoes

Very fast torpedoes

Bad

Can only use F3 torps with 8 km range

Weak anti-air armament

Is completely vulnerable to aircraft carriers

Low HP pool

My opinion

Wargaming missed such a huge opportunity with that ship… Now, the Miracle ship is just a Kagero clone with 8 km F3 torpedoes and this is just sad. (Plus I hate the voice of Yukikaze).

The Health pool of the ship is like the rest of the Japanese torpedo focused destroyers pretty low with 15 100 HP. In general, avoid getting shot at with this ship unless you want an Adrenaline rush buff.

Now, as an IJN destroyer, the firepower isn’t to be underestimated. The ship is armed with 3 x 2 127 mm guns and they do pack a good punch. The reload is of course not great at 7.05s. If you really want to take on gunfights with her, I advise you to plan them in advance properly or to choose situations where you are guaranteed to start with a good advantage.

Thankfully, the ship comes with a good advantage and it’s her concealment. Fully specced for it, she reaches a fantastic 5.4 km spotting range by sea and 2.5 km by air. This will allow you to pick your engagement in a pretty comfortable way. As for the concealment by air, it will also allow you to avoid planes without too much issue by not taking completely predictable paths.

Now… let’s talk about the main thing of Yukikaze, her torpedoes… As I said, she carries F3 torpedoes with 8 km of range. These torpedoes hurt a lot with 21 367 damage, go very fast (76 knots) and have a decent detection range (1.8 km).

The big issue with them is that they force you to go close from the enemy to use them. Considering the current matchmaking at Tier VIII and the meta, I’m not sure if these torpedoes are the best option.

When it comes to maneuverability, the ship does fairly well. The speed is a bit meh with 35 knots but the rudder shift time is very good at 2.7 s and the turning radius as well (640 m).

The Anti-air isn’t really worth mentioning and will tickle the enemy planes more than anything else.

The consumables are the standard IJN destroyers ones so Damage Control Party, Smoke Generator and Engine Boost.

Conclusion

Considering the current meta, I have a hard time recommending this ship. In the first place, she brings nothing compared to Kagero except much more risky to use torpedoes but also, it really isn’t a ship that I would play often considering the fact that it relies a lot on its torpedoes and I’m really not a fan of that kind of ship.

Now, if you are a big fan of Azur Lane, you can go for it buuuuut… really not sure if the ship is worth it.

Recommended build

During the testing of the Yukikaze, I used the following captain build and upgrades:

Captain build:

Preventive Maintenance

Last Stand

Adrenaline Rush

Torpedo Armament Expertise

Survivability Expert

Concealment Expert

Radio Location

Upgrades:

Main Armament Modification 1

Propulsion Modification 1

Aiming System Modification 1

Propulsion Modification 2

Concealment System Modification 1

Welp… that’s it. That was my first review on finalized ships. I know that there are things that I will need to improve but I still hope that you enjoyed this article. Thank you for reading and have a good one!

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