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Kevin's Ship Reviews

Hello, and welcome to Kevin's Honest Ship Reviews. Today, we will be examining the level 60 British battleship HMS Lion.

"Take the armor of the Nelson class, the speed and handling of the Admiral class, turn up the firepower, and you have the Lion class."

- Me on the Lion

The Lion class is the final battleship in the British battleship line, and the lone level 60 British warship. She is preceded by the King George V class, and is more or less an enlarged version of that ship. Capable of mounting any gun in the British arsenal, and able to make 31 knots at full load, this is an exceptionally powerful warship. Let's examine her in detail.


 * Armament: As mentioned above, the Lion can mount any gun in the British arsenal. But, of course, we're not going to be mounting the 12" from HMS Dreadnought! No, we're mounting the level 60 guns. Guns like the 16" MK III, known as the most powerful 16" gun in the game, or the 16" MK IV, slightly less powerful but with greater range. And of course the legendary 15" gun returns in level 60 form, with 350 range to boot. Now, you're probably thinking, "don't go with the 16" guns, they have terrible accuracy!" And you would be right, if we were talking about the MK I or MK II versions, but the MK III and MK IV guns, in addition to excellent damage, have good accuracy too. Not as laser like as the 15" family, but enough to reliably land hits with all shots in a salvo. Range is a bit short, with 333 on the MK III, and 345 on the MK IV. Traverse speed on the top level 16" guns is also good. But, the Lion can make up for this lack of range in our next discussion point below. But before we move on, I'll mention that the secondary guns give a choice of guns up to the 9.2" single, have 14 slots, and can fit guns even with a full load of armor. On to the next part!


 * Speed and Handling: Remember when I said the Lion has the speed and handling of the Admiral class? I wasn't exaggerating. At full load, the Lion will make 31 knots, and that's if you somehow reach full load! (More on that later) Shave off a bit of tonnage, and you have a ship that will barrel along at 32 knots, faster than most battlecruisers, and definitely faster than anything that could give you trouble, except maybe another Lion class;) The Lion also is quite maneuverable, allowing tight turns and giving the ability to dodge things like torpedoes with ease. These two factors combine with the insane armor, which we'll discuss below, to allow the Lion to close quickly with an enemy and pound them to pieces with their powerful guns, or snipe from afar with their 15" guns.


 * Armor: This part is incredible. With a full load of 16" MK IV guns (the heaviest variety), a full load of lightweight 4.7" guns (the 20 ton level 1 variety) how much armor can you fit? Turns out, the maximum possible armor. A 20" uniform deck and 30" uniform belt is easily attained in the Lion, even with the heaviest guns mounted, just reduce your HE load a bit. Want a bit more speed, load up the 16" MK II, and thin your end belt armor to a "mere" 28" thickness with the same secondary battery, and you get 32 knots speed. Either way, armor isn't going to be a concern with the Lion. There's also a decent amount of health behind the armor, which means the Lion is very tough.


 * Overall Playing Style: Lion is a brawler. Or, Lion can be a sniper. It depends on how you have her configured. If you go for high died and mount either the 16" MK II, or 15" MK II RP12 or whatever, (the level 60 15") you can snipe your enemies from a range of about 350, and dance along at far range without taking much fire. What fire you do take will be easily yanked by your insane armor. Or, you can load up with the short range, high damage 16" MK III, or MK IV, and charge in for a close range brawl. With 32 knots easily attained, and an insane armor load out, even the fastest battlecruiser will be luck to escape Lion's fury. Either way, I'm sure you're going to have a smashing good time in this ship, weather you like a strong hard to kill tank, or a nimble speedster, you'll love Lion, as she does both superbly.

I rate Lion 10/10, and would definitely recommend her to anyone who likes a big fast ship. For my playing style, she's probably the perfect ship. I like speed, and she delivers. I like firepower, and she delivers that too. And I like a nice thick skin of armor, and she definitely delivers on that too. I'll elaborate more on her later, as I get more time in on this wonderful beast of a ship.