The British heavies are an odd bunch. The Matilda and high tiers are excellent while the mid tiers are some of the worst in the game. If I were to try and characterize the line as a whole, I would say it tries to focus on decent guns at the cost of mobility and develops an aptitude for hull down play later in the line. Despite the pitfalls in the middle, I would definitely recommend this line thanks to the consistently and reliably strong performance tiers 8, 9, and 10.

One thing to note is this guide was written shortly after patch 1.10 dropped, so equipment 2.0 is/was still being experimented with. Some of the equipment options are best guesses and may be proven inferior at a later date. I will do my best to update this post as these issues become apparent, but I make no guarantees.

Tier IV: Matilda

The tank the AMX 40 wants to be

Pros
– Excellent armor
– Ridiculous pen (121mm standard)
– High shell velocity
– Good gun handling and accuracy
– High RoF
– 10 degrees of gun depression

Cons
– Slow
– Pseudo-pike nose makes angling ineffective
– Low alpha

Playstyle

Ironically, the medium tank Matilda, is one of the best heavy tanks of this line. It has the speed and armor you’d expect from a heavy tank and one of the best guns at the tier. Play this tank as a frontline, tip-of-the-spear when top tier where your armor is great, but take on a more supporting role when bottom tier, as your armor becomes much less effective. Thankfully, your gun has comparable standard pen to what most tanks get on their premium rounds, so you will not often encounter things you cannot pen. This tank is a fairly common choice for seal clubbers.

Setting up the tank

Ammo
100/40 AP/APCR
Both shells are good, and you have a high enough ammo count, you can take plenty of premium shells even though you;ll rarely need it.

Equipment
Vents, then pick 2 of GLD, IRM (improved rotation mechanism), turbocharger, or optics, maybe spall liner or IH (improved hardening). Truth be told, I’m not 100% sure. The dust still hasn’t settled on equipment 2.0 at the time of writing this, so what to use for the 3rd slot is a bit of guesswork. It’s tier 4, so I’d say try whatever sounds interesting to you. It’s cheap to change if you want to and you won’t be in it long if you don’t want to spend the credits on it.

Consumables
Med kit, repair kit, and either auto extinguisher or food
Get used to this consumable load out. It’s not changing the entire line.

Directives
I recommend the sixth sense directive to give you sixth sense while you train your commander in the skill. Aside from that, don’t waste directives at tier IV, you seal clubber.

Crew skills
– Commander (Radio Op): sixth sense, recon, BIA, repairs, situation awareness
– Driver: off road driving, BIA, smooth ride, repairs
– Gunner: snap shot, BIA, repairs, armorer
– Loader: BIA, safe stowage, repairs
On the commander, normally situation awareness would be much higher, but since the commander loses the radio op role after tier V, I don’t recommend prioritizing the skill unless the crew is intended to stay in the Matilda or Churchill I

Rating: 8.5/10

Tier V: Churchill I

I hope you weren’t expecting armor

The Churchill is a pretty bad heavy tank, but a decent-ish tank destroyer. Its armor is bad, but it has a choice of two viable guns: a higher DPM (2.3k), lower pen, lower alpha 75mm, and a lower DPM (1.7k), higher pen, higher alpha, and more accurate 75mm HV. I will write this guide for the later, as I believe the higher accuracy and alpha better suit the tank, but do know that the plain 75 has some advantages.

Pros
– Good gun handling and accuracy
– Good penetration
– Above average alpha
– Excellent gold pen (202mm)
– Shares many guns with the Cromwell

Cons
– Slow
– Armor flat and riddled with weakspots
– Tank hull extends into tracks opening tank up to being tracked and damaged through the front of the front drive wheel
– Below average DPM

Playstyle

Play this tank as a second line support heavy. You don’t have the armor, even at tier V, to reliably bounce shots. Even if you sidescrape to hide the front plate, the turret is large, flat, and weak. One quirk of the armor is that the front left armor is stronger than the right, so always angle the hull to the left if given the choice so your track hides the weaker right side.

If you play in support of other, more frontline tanks, you can use the good pen and accuracy to rack up some good damage. However, and this is a flaw inherent to all Churchill-based tanks, you are slow, so if your team is losing and you need to retreat, you need to do so early, and if your team begins to rout the enemy, you may struggle to catch up with the damage. Careful attention to the minimap and team deployments will do wonders.

Setting up the tank

Ammo
60/25/5 AP/APCR/HE
The HE on this gun isn’t particularly good, but you carry enough shells to have a decent stockpile for the numerous lightly armored tanks at this tier. You also have enough space to pack a good number of APCR rounds for those bottom tier matches

Equipment
Rammer and vents then your choice of GLD, IRM, IH, turbocharger, optics, or binos.
GLD and IRM work best if you're planning to play a poke-and-shoot type of support role. Aiming faster means you have to expose yourself less and will hit more of your snap shots. GLD is better if you plan to fully or near-fully aim your shots, while IRM is better if you aren’t always fully aiming and comes with the added bonus of faster turret and tank traverse. Improved Hardening gives a number of bonuses, but the most important two are (1) it will let you repair your very exposed tracks quicker and fully restores the hitpoints upon repair and (2) ir provides extra hitpoints. Turbo provides a flat +4km/h top speed, which for a tank that only goes 25, provides a respectable + ~18% top speed. Optics gives a decent buff to view range in all situations. Binos lets you hit a 445m view range, which is very powerful, but the question is can you afford to stop moving when you are that slow?

Consumables
Med kit, repair kit, and either auto extinguisher or food

Directives
It’s tier V: unless you are trying to mark it (cough cough IcedTeaWithNoIce), the only one I would recommend is the 6th sense directive to give you 6th sense while you train up the crew.

Crew skills
– Commander (Radio Op): sixth sense, recon, BIA, repairs, situation awareness
– Driver: off road driving, BIA, smooth ride, repairs
– Gunner: snap shot, BIA, repairs, armorer
– Loader: BIA, safe stowage, repairs
On the commander, normally situation awareness would be much higher, but since the commander loses the radio op role after tier V, I don’t recommend prioritizing the skill unless the crew is intended to stay in the Churchill I

Rating: 4/10

Tier VI: Churchill VII

Upgrade. Go back. I SAID GO BACK!

Although definitely an upgrade, it’s not enough of one to keep up with the tier jump. And no one was saying the Churchill I was good to begin with. This is terrible tank.

Pros
– High RoF
– Good gun handling
– Armor has improved over the tier V, especially in sides
– Shares top gun with Comet

Cons
– Glacially slow (20kph)
– Armor isn’t that good, very flat
– Still has weakspot behind the front of the tracks
– Mediocre pen
– Poor alpha
– 4 Degrees of gun depression
– Light for a heavy tank

Playstyle

Side scrape when you can, using the good side armor to bait out shots. Be warned, that when side scraping to give your sides a very effective 200mm of effective armor, at the very back of your hull is a section that will have only ~40mm of effective armor. You probably won’t have to worry about it though as most enemies will prefer to shoot you in your flat turret face, overmatchable turret roof, or frontal track weakspot.

Your quick firing gun allows you to keep many tanks perma-tracked, but that’s about the only good thing I can say about it. Your pen isn’t much improved from the previous tier nor is your alpha. It basically feels like the same gun, but now you can run into IS-3s. There is not even good DPM to make up for the deficiencies.

Don’t worry though; in exchange for all these “upgrades” your tank now goes almost 20% slower. So you may never even have to worry about how to sidescrape or how bad your gun is. You may never even make it to the battlefield.

Setting up the tank

Ammo
50/30(min)/4(max) AP/APCR/HE
Thoroughly unimpressive gun, but at least the shell count is ok. Bring plenty of gold for those bottom tier matches. There are plenty of tier 8 tanks conspicuously lacking in weakspots that you’ll struggle with even with gold.

Equipment
Rammer and vents then your choice of GLD, IRM, IH, turbocharger, optics, or binos.
See Churchill I section for details.
This is the first tier that has a boosted equipment slot. Like all heavy tanks, this a boost to survivability and should probably be used for vents but could conceivably be used for IH.

Consumables
Med kit, repair kit, and either auto extinguisher or food
How original.

Directives
Same as Tier V: 6th sense if you don’t have it trained, otherwise nothing unless marking.

Crew skills
– Commander: sixth sense, recon, BIA, repairs
– Driver: off road driving, BIA, smooth ride, repairs
– Gunner: snap shot, BIA, repairs, armorer
– Loader: BIA, safe stowage, repairs
– Radio Op: Situational awareness, BIA, Repairs
As if this tank didn’t already have enough working against it, for some reason it and the Black Prince are the only two tanks in this line to get a radio operator.

Rating: 1/10

Tier VII: Black Prince

Slow, antiquated, weak, best attribute is leading on to better things. Insert UK comparison joke here.

This is the ultimate Churchill. Sadly, that means it shares the slow speed, poor armor layouts, and anemic guns that make all the Churchills mediocre at best (except maybe the premium one). This tank does have two key upgrades that make this tank stand out compared to its predecessors, though. Number 1: twice as much gun depression. Number 2: an actually decent turret with no overmatchable forehead or easily penable face. It even has a mantlet for once! Unfortunately, these are not really enough to redeem the other qualities of the tank. If this was a tier lower, it would be pretty good, but it isn’t.

Pros
– Pretty cool name
– Good gun handling and accuracy
– 8 Degrees of gun depression
– Actually good turret
– Top gun can be unlocked on the Centurion
– Decent health pool

Cons
– Slow (20kph)
– Same armor layout as previous 2 tanks, but a bit thicker
– Front of track weakspot
– Abysmal alpha (150)
– Low pen (171mm)
– Surprisingly light for a heavy
– Mediocre DPM

Playstyle

The side scraping playstyle of the Churchill VII continues in the Black Prince, but now your turret isn’t so much of a liability. The added gun depression actually lets you pay ridges for the first time since Matilda. The gun is awful, though. It has no redeeming qualities other than being quick to aim and good at perma-tracking. If you can track something, go for it. It can mean a tasty feast, but such opportunities can be a bit hard to come by in most games. You aren’t a true front line tank, but be careful not to play too far back, as you don’t want to be left behind while your team mops up.

Setting up the tank

Ammo
50/30(min)/4(max) AP/APCR/HE
The pen on this tank is too low to not carry significant reserves of gold. Luckily, it has the space to do so.

Equipment
Rammer, vents, v-stab, optics (pick 2-3) other possible options: IRM, IH, turbo
British tanks get access to v-stab a tier earlier than most nations, which is a nice little bonus. V-Stab is the best equipment that helps aiming; IRM only provides half its benefit, but also boosts turret and tank traverse. Hardening provides some nice extra hitpoints and makes your tracks fully repair and repair faster (along with a few other minor bonuses). Turbo, as mentioned in the Churchill I section provides a flat top speed buff, meaning it disproportionately boosts slow tanks. The Black Prince, for example, gets a 20% buff to top speed.
Use the boost slot for vents or maybe IH.

Consumables
Med kit, repair kit, and either auto extinguisher or food
Oh, daring today, aren’t we?

Directives
6th sense if you don’t have it trained, otherwise nothing unless marking.

Crew skills
– Commander: sixth sense, recon, BIA, repairs
– Driver: off road driving, BIA, smooth ride, repairs
– Gunner: snap shot, BIA, repairs, armorer
– Loader: BIA, safe stowage, repairs
– Radio Op: Situational awareness, BIA, Repairs
Note: the Radio Op will not carry on to the rest of the line

Rating: 3/10

Tier VIII: Caernarvon

A strong contender for the best tier VIII heavy, premium or otherwise.

This tank may be the greatest redemption story in World of Tanks history. What was once the worst tier 8 heavy with bad DPM and alpha, is now arguably the best tier 8 heavy with ungodly DPM and better alpha. This thing is an absolute monster that somehow gets slept on. This tank is so good that it is one of the few tech tree tanks that is better than its corresponding premium (post T26E5 introduction). Seriously, look at this thing compared to some of the other excellent tier 8 heavies. It’s absurd and a much needed change of pace from the Churchills

Pros
– Ungodly dpm (2600 base)
– Superb accuracy
– Good pen
– Good gun handling
– 10 degrees of gun depression
– 400m view range
– Significantly more mobile than its predecessors (34kph)
– High HP

Cons
– Still on the slower side for heavies
– Frontal ammo rack behind lower plate. Susceptible to ammo rack + tracking shot.
– Turret weak to gold/TD/tier X rounds (~260mm effective)
– Weak engine deck (17mm)
– Mediocre hull armor
– Expensive to research (same XP as the Conq)

Playstyle

This tank marks the introduction to the high tier British HT playstyle. It excels at playing ridgelines using its gun depression and strong turret to limit exposure and monstrous DPM to melt opponents. When it can’t use a ridgeline, this tank actually can sidescrape decently well despite its mediocre hull. One must be careful when doing so, as not angling enough exposes your lower plate, and over-angling makes your side pennable and opens you up to the disastrous track + ammo rack (ammotrack) combo). This is not a press W and win tank. One quark of the tank and both tanks after it is that the left side of the tank (from driver’s POV) contains most of the ammo racks, so if you have to choose between exposing your left or right side, always pick the right side.

Setting up the tank

Ammo
30/17/3 AP/APCR/HE
Nothing too special here. Solid standard round, decent gold round, and mediocre, but still useful HE. This tank isn’t too lacking in shells, so it’s not squeezed on the selection.

Equipment
Rammer, optics, v-stab, vents (pick 2-3) Other possible options: ModCon (modified configuration), maybe turbo
Fair standard equipment options. ModCon is worth considering due to the Caern’s lower glacis ammo rack. This would prevent one detonation along with boosting durability and repair speed of the modules. Turbo is not high on my recommendations list, but might be useful if the 34.3 kph isn’t cutting it for you.
Use the boost slot for vents if equipped.

Consumables
Med kit, repair kit, and either auto extinguisher or food
Personally, I prefer auto-extinguishers because I dislike being on fire, but it’s not a common enough ailment to necessitate it.

Directives
You should probably already have 6th sense by now. If you don't, run the directive to get it while you continue to train it up. I wouldn’t bother with any of the other ones unless you are going for marks, in which case run the bonus to rammer, vents, or optics or run the Firefighting one and run food in the 3rd consumable slot.

Crew skills
– Commander: sixth sense, recon, BIA, repairs
– Driver: off road driving, BIA, smooth ride, repairs
– Gunner: snap shot, BIA, repairs, armorer
– Loader (Radio Op): situational awareness, BIA, safe stowage, repairs

Rating: 9/10

Tier IX: Conqueror

A gun that comes with a tank

The conq marks the introduction of the excellent 120mm L1A1. This gun provides excellent characteristics to the tank at the cost of DPM compared to its predecessor. The DPM is now only average. Despite the lower DPM, the excellent accuracy, handling, and pen combine to make sure this tank stacks up damage quite adeptly.

Pros
– Excellent gun handling and accuracy
– 400m view range
– Strong turret
– 10 Degrees of gun depression
– Good pen
– 120mm pen HESH
– Cheap to research (same XP as Caern)

Cons
– Frontal ammo rack (ammo track possible)
– Noticeably less DPM than both its predecessor and successor
– Not fast
– Weak hull
– Very weak engine deck
– Although turret looks very similar to the S Conq, it is actually weaker with a worse cupola and a small viewport weakspot on the tank’s right
– Only 35 shells

Playstyle
This is a ridgeline tank like its father before it. It gets access to a much beefier gun than the Caern, but pays for this by losing ~600dpm. This lower DPM and weak hull mean you should probably be a little more careful than in the other high tier british heavies. This tank is all about the gun, and should try to avoid knife fights as best it can. That being said, it can still sidescrape in a pinch. The true home of this tank is playing a ridgeline at range using it’s strong armor, accuracy, and view range to dominate opponents.

Setting up the tank

Ammo
18/12(min)/5(max, unless running all gold)
All of the shells are quite good, but 35 capacity makes itself felt when you are trying to make a good mixture

Equipment
Rammer, optics, v-stab, vents (pick 2-3) Other possible options: ModCon, maybe turbo
Vents in the boost slot (if used)
See Caern for details.

Consumables
Med kit, repair kit, auto extinguisher or food
Very unique. Much wow.

Directives
Unnecessary unless you are going for marks, in which case run the bonus to rammer, vents, or optics or run the firefighting one and run food in the 3rd consumable slot.

Crew skills
– Commander: sixth sense, recon, BIA, repairs
– Driver: off road driving, BIA, smooth ride, repairs
– Gunner: snap shot, BIA, repairs, armorer
– Loader (Radio Op): situational awareness, BIA, safe stowage, repairs

Rating: 8/10

Tier X: Super Conqueror

What's the difference? Presentation.

When this tank was introduced, it completely invalidated the T110E5 and FV215 as hull down heavies. The S Conq was the new premier hull down tank at tier X, and it held this title for many years… and then the Chieftain happened. With better alpha, pen, view range, turret armor, and most importantly speed, the Chieftain makes the S Conq a second rate competitive tank in the very role it once made two other heavies second rate. The S Conq is still quite good, excellent in fact; it just has to compete with one of the strongest tier Xs in WoT history.

Pros
– Excellent turret with very bouncy cupola extremely difficult to pen without HEAT
– Best in class gun handling (almost, FV215b has better handling)
– Excellent accuracy
– 10 degrees of gun depression
– Lots of spaced armor around the turret and upper plate gives good HEAT and HE resistance
– Excellent DPM
– Best in class rate of fire
– 120mm pen HESH shells

Cons
– The T95/FV4201 Chieftain exists and out class the S Conq
– Frontal ammo rack behind lower plate (left side, ammo track possible)
– Fairly slow
– Very weak engine deck
– 120mm w/o HEAT gun struggles with tanks like a STRV with 40+mm of very sloped armor
– Shell count is just low enough to sometimes cause issues

Playstyle
This tank marks the peak of the playstyle you’ve become familiar with from the Caernarvon. Play ridges where you can. Track tanks if you have the opportunity; you can often keep them there permanently. In more urban maps, you can also side scrape fairly effectively. You do need to watch out for people shooting HE at the top of your turret and gold being shot just below your gun, which will often pen.

Setting up the tank

Ammo
20/15(min)/5(max, unless running all gold) AP/APCR/HESH
All the shells on this tank are quite good, but 40 shells goes fast with the excellent rate of fire, so you can’t always take as much HE or standard shells as you would want.

Equipment
Rammer, optics, v-stab, vents (pick 2-3) Other possible options: ModCon, maybe turbo.
Boost slot for vents (if applicable)
Same as Conq and Caern. See Caern for details.

Consumables
Med kit, repair kit, auto extinguisher or food
Same ole’ same ole’

Directives
Unnecessary unless you are going for marks, in which case run the bonus to rammer, vents, or optics or run the Firefighting one and run food in the 3rd consumable slot.

Crew skills
– Commander: sixth sense, recon, BIA, repairs
– Driver: off road driving, BIA, smooth ride, repairs
– Gunner: snap shot, BIA, repairs, armorer
– Loader (Radio Op): situational awareness, BIA, safe stowage, repairs

Rating: 9.5/10

This is a line of extremes. This has some of the worst tanks tier for tier in the game, but also some of the best. This was the second line I ever ground down. Back then the 215b was the tier X and the caernarvon was trash. Back then, I was too new to the game to realize how bad some of the tanks were. (One of my first reddit posts was about how I liked the Black Prince). I’m a bit sentimental about this line.

Would I recommend the line to new players? Probably not. Tier 5 – 7 are quite lacking and aren’t going to be the heavy tanks you imagine when you hear “heavy tank”. They need a buff of some sort. The high tiers, on the other hand, are excellent, even if the S Conq is in the Chief's shadow a bit. Now that the Chief is banned in ranked, the S Conq is an top tier ranked vehicle. It was my go-to chevron earner this past season.

I definitely think everyone should grind this line at some point, but knowing what you’re getting into and having some free xp saved up will make it a lot less painful. It’s rare that you get a line where all 3 top tiers are as consistently excellent as this. One final note at my editor’s request is that the entire line has AP/APCR standard/gold shells. This means there is no noticeable downside (other than cost) to firing all gold. If you are struggling with the mid tiers or are going for a three mark, it may be worth considering only packing the premium shells. The high tiers definitely don’t need it to perform well, but there isn’t any drawback to doing it if you can afford to do so.

Previous Tech Tree Tuesdays