By modest demand I'm going to start doing semi-frequent reviews of tanks that I have, with an emphasis on tanks that are currently for sale in the Premium Shop - in case you're wondering if you should get them. For time reasons I will probably do a quick review first and update it as time permits.
First up, the Tier 8 American MT - The TL-1 LPC.
Pretty Fly...for a tank
This tank is kind of unique because it's the second one I'm aware of (The Primo Victoria with the Sabaton tie-in being the other) that has a popular band associated with it. In this case it's The Offspring, an American rock band. This means three things for the tank...
- It's got a special style which, frankly, is a bit ridiculous. It's got "Pretty Fly" (the name of one of their hit songs) painted on one side in big letters, and "The Offspring" painted on the other side. The other bit that I don't really care for is that strapped to the back of the turret is a bunch of musical instruments and skateboards and such. Just seems out of place for a tank, to me.
- The soundtrack as you're playing - instead of the standard World of Tanks music, you get Offspring music. That part I kinda like. It's a nice change from the sometimes boring in-game music and the Offspring do have some catchy tunes.
- You get the Offspring as your crew: Dexter Holland, Noodles, and the rest. This crew comes with free BIA (but called "Band of Brothers") and enough skill for another fully trained skill/perk. So that's quite good.
How about just the tank qualities?
As a tank, it's not bad. It's got 280 alpha which puts it better than a lot of the Tier 8 MTs (like the T-44-100 and the Type 59) but not as good as some of the bigger boomers like the Lansen C or the French M4A1 Revalorise ("Ravioli").
Standard pen is a pretty typical 208 and the shell velocity is a mediocre 914. APCR gets you to 280 pen with 1219 shell velocity, though, which is quite good if you're willing to spend the credits.
Like most American tanks it's a bit big, and the turret armor is its strength. It also has 9 degrees of gun depression, so pretty good for peeking ridges and such, but the front of the turret is only 178 mm so don't get TOO confident with it - it's not a T29. And try not to get caught out in the open because the large hull is pretty thin; in fact a lot of tanks will pen the back with HE and it's not easy to side-scrape with successfully.
DPM is an ok 2273 with a mediocre crew and no food or boosters. (But I am running vents and a rammer).
Like most American tanks the view range is excellent (459m with optics and a mediocre crew) but the camo is pretty poor.
Mobility should be decent with a 17.84 hp/ton and top speed of 50km/h but somehow it feels a bit more sluggish than that in-game. I haven't looked it up but could be the ground resistance stats are bad so you might want to make sure the Driver has Off-Road Driving to offset that.
My opinion
I think it's fine. I expected to like it more than I do, but maybe I just don't have the hang of it yet. After about three dozen battles I have a 50% WR in it. To be fair it's a premium and like all my premiums I use it for crew training so I'm often running 1 or 2 skill crews in it, rather than prime crews. With a strong crew it will naturally perform better.
Speaking of crew training...
It only has a 4-man crew, which makes it less than ideal as a crew trainer because most of the USA tech tree MTs have 5 man crews.
What does Skill think?
See also
What's your opinion of the TL-1 LPC? Share it in the comments below!
GLHF!
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