Lycan

Lycan is a tier 7 hybrid nation heavy tank. It features high alpha damage, great armour, and is very flexible with good mobility and very good gun depression.
Its the 4th tank of WoT Blitz’s “stereotype Halloween character” tanks. Its visual design and name clearly imply the tank is meant to be a werewolf.

1. Armour
2. Playing against a Lycan
3. Gun
4. Mobility
5. Equipment, provisions, & consumables
6. Gameplay advice
7. Overall
8. Is it worth getting?
9. Most recently sold for:
10. Camo cost:
11. Special features:

Armour

(The Lycan in the images is using Enhanced Armour)
Image slider may take a few seconds to load

Drag slider Right –> to view 180mm AP
Drag slider <– Left to view 220mm APCR

vs 180mm AP
Armour when hull is flat:
Upper plate 280-295mm
Angled area above upper plate 220mm
Lower plate 140mm
Gun mantlet 212mm
Turret roof weakpoints 160mm

Armour when hull is turned (at angle shown above):
-Closest upper plate 214mm
-Furthest upper plate 670mm+
-Lower plate 155mm
-Front track wheel 245mm

(Note that though the upper plate when angled is 214mm thick, the image showing 220mm APCR still sees red, due to this Lycan using enhanced armour, which increases the upper plate at that angle from 214mm up to around 223mm.)

VS tier 6:
Against tier 6 enemies, the Lycan has pretty much impervious frontal armour. Most enemy tanks won’t be able to penetrate the hull nor the turret with premium ammo, even if the armour is angled poorly.

There are a few exceptions to this, as some tanks have high premium penetration and will be able to penetrate the tank (such as Sherman Firefly, ARL-44, VK 28.01, BLTZ 9000, and of course TDs). 

VS tier 7:
Facing same tier enemies, the Lycan’s armour is still very strong, as you can see with the armour images.

180mm penetration is average heavy tank standard penetration, and 220mm APCR is average heavy tank premium penetration. Note that most medium and light tanks have roughly 20mm less penetration on their ammunition types.

The hull can be angled to the point where its weakest, and same tier enemies (with exception of TDs and high penetration HT like T29 or Tiger I) will be unable to penetrate the upper plate with standard ammunition. Tanks with only around 200-210mm premium ammunition will also find it hard to penetrate.

When the tank is not angled, no enemy can penetrate the upper plates, and the lower plate is the only hull weakpoint.

When using gun depression, the turret neck behind the gun mantlet will be weak to all enemies, and the mantlet can be penetrated by most same tier heavy tanks’ premium ammunition.

VS tier 8:
Against tier 8 tanks, the Lycan’s armour still holds up very well when not angling. The upper plates are strong, and the gun mantlet can still bounce many enemies.

Try to avoid angling the hull when faced against a tier 8 enemy. While there is some leeway with angling before the hull becomes weak, most tier 8 heavy tanks have more penetration on standard ammunition than tier 7’s have on their premium ammunition, meaning they can penetrate far more reliably.

Premium ammunition will still struggle against the Lycan’s pike nose when its un-angled, however will easily go through with even just a slight angle. The turret will still be fairly reliable, but the mantlet and turret neck can be penetrated.

Playing against a Lycan

Pike nose armour:
Pike nose armour is generally known for not being a very effective or strong type of armour layout, however the Lycan is an exception, with an extremely resilient pike nose for its tier.

Look at the above image, this shows the Lycan at 4 different angles, facing a tier 7 premium ammunition round, 220mm APCR.

The Lycan’s hull has to be turned to quite far before it becomes penetrable, and note that this is premium ammo, tier 7 standard ammo can’t even penetrate the upper plate of the Lycan when its at the weakest angle.

Avoid being baited by the Lycan’s upper plate armour, as even though its a pike nose, it is very strong.

Hull armour weakpoints:
The hull weakpoints are the two flat bars above the upper plate. These are at a far worse angle than the upper plate, and can be penetrated by most tank’s premium ammo when the tank is angled slightly.

When sidescraping, the Lycan has a hull weakpoint right in front of the engine deck, slightly behind the turret. This is a weak and reliable point to hit if you can’t penetrate the tank in a sidescraping position.

Gun mantlet:
The gun mantlet is composed of 2 angles, which produce the same effective thickness on flat ground (about 215mm), but different thicknesses when the tank uses gun depression.

If the Lycan is using gun depression, try to always shoot the lower part of the gun mantlet, as its much weaker than the upper part.

Also note that this mantlet extends over the side of the turret, and moves up and down with the gun (very similar to the mantlet on the Fixer or Super Pershing). This acts as 80mm spaced protection so try to avoid hitting this when shooting the sides of a Lycan’s turret.

When using gun depression:
Due to the way the turret is angled, you can actually shoot up into the turret’s “neck”, which is below the gun. This area is only 110mm thick when the tank uses its full -10 gun depression.

Note that if the Lycan only uses 7 degrees of gun depression or less, shooting this area would result in an auto-ricochet when using AP or APCR rounds.

HE weakness:
Lycan is quite HE proof, don’t try to HE this tank, even when using big caliber rounds with 90mm penetration.

The hull rear is 90-95mm, with a very narrow bar that’s 66mm thick. The engine deck is covered in spaced armour.
The turret rear has many odd angles which just make it overall a difficult HE target, and causes armour to range from 80-130mm, with some very small 60mm points.
The hull sides are mostly protected by the tracks and spaced armour, but what areas are exposed are 90mm thick.

HESH and HEP rounds will penetrate far more reliably, but this tank is well protected from regular HE.

Gun

Lycan has a 120mm gun
-It does 400 alpha, and has a 12.6s reload. DPM is 1900
-Penetration is 175mm on AP, 217mm on APCR, and 61mm on HE
–Estimated aim time is 5.3s/5.7s
–Base aim time is 2.9s, but it can get down to 2.47s.
-Dispersion is 0.417/0.375
–Gun handling is 0.22/0.22/0.12, or 0.19/0.19/0.1 with Vertical Stabilizer. 
-Gun depression is -10 degrees

Overall this gun is decent for its tier and its type. The penetration, DPM, and reload are completely average; the base aim time and dispersion are slightly worse than similar guns; and the gun handling is slightly better than similar guns.

This gun really isn’t anything special, the main unique feature of it is the -10 gun depression, which is much more than the similar IS tanks, and makes the tank very flexible with positioning.

Mobility

-Top speed is 35km/h, reverse speed is -15km/h
-Traverse speed is 40.1 deg/s on hard terrain, and 32.1 deg/s on medium terrain.
-In game acceleration rate is shown as 16.9 hp/t, it has a strong 783 horsepower engine for its 46 ton weight.
-Actual acceleration rate is 14.1 hp/t on hard terrain, and 11.3 hp/t on medium terrain.
–Ground resistances are 1.2/1.5/1.9

This is good mobility for a heavy tank, especially considering the solid armour of the Lycan. The top speeds are fairly average, but traverse speed and effective acceleration rates are both good, which make the Lycan quite a mobile tank up to its top speed.

Equipment, provisions, & consumables

Lycan has no special provisions/consumables.

Gun Rammer:
The Lycan has quite standard penetration for a tier 7 heavy tank, and doesn’t usually struggle to penetrate most enemies. It also uses only AP and APCR as its primary shell types, so doesn’t gain any big benefit (unlike tanks that use HEAT).

Gun rammer is useful on the Lycan as it helps the tank to keep a decent reload rate, as this tank very often has to compete against tier 8 tanks with 400 alpha, and other tier 7 tanks with 400 alpha. If using calibrated shells, the Lycan will really struggle with reloading quick enough, and most enemies may be able to put in 2 shots for every time you shoot once.

Use gun rammer, it will reduce the Lycan’s reload from 13.6s down to 12.6s, and increase its DPM from 1767 up to 1900.

Enhanced Armour:
Both enhanced armour and improved assembly can work well on this tank, but enhanced armour especially benefits the Lycan due to its strong overall armour, and helps it to stand up better against tier 8 enemies.

The Lycan does rely on its armour in its gameplay, so improving it will benefit the playstyle of the tank. Enhanced armour will add between 9 to 12mm of effective armour to the Lycan’s frontal armour:

Upper plate (un-angled) from 295mm up to 307mm
Upper plate (angled) from 214mm to 223mm
Gun mantlet from 212mm to 221mm

Enhanced armour also improves the hull side armour and lower plate slightly.

Vertical Stabilizer:
Like with all inaccurate heavy tanks with poor aim time, accuracy, and gun handling, the Lycan should be using vertical stabilizer. It doesn’t benefit from refined gun, as in order for that to help the tank, you have to sit still and let the gun fully aim in with every shot.

Vertical stabilizer is the better equipment choice, as it benefits the Lycan in all situations. The Lycan is a frontline brawling heavy, and does not play passively or sit still to aim for a long time. Its constantly moving around and turning the hull and turret, and vertical stabilizer helps to improve the guns accuracy when the tank is moving and after its stopped moving.

Gameplay advice

The Lycan features really comfortable and standard gameplay for a heavy tank. It has all the features and stats needed to be able to fit into that “standard” role.

It can go hulldown, use gun depression, play on ridegelines, sidescrape, trade alpha, and its got the mobility needed to use those positions and gameplay tactics.

General gameplay:
Take the Lycan to the heavy tank flank. Though it has good mobility and can keep up on the medium flank, its gun is too inaccurate and slow firing to be effective against smaller and faster targets (which are medium and light tanks).

The Lycan will benefit from facing against slower and larger enemies (heavy tanks), and the slower moving gameplay of the HT side. This will allow its gun longer time to aim, and also face enemies with similar long reloads.

Go hulldown:
Lycan can really use any heavy tank position, but it thrives in hulldown.

The turret is very good against most enemies, its only weakpoint is the gun mantlet, which is still fairly strong for a weakpoint.

Due to the angling above and below the mantlet, no AP or APCR type shell can penetrate these areas (except 150mm+ guns, due to overmatch), which makes it very reliable to face against any enemy.

If enemies shoot HEAT (which can penetrate, as it ignores the 70 degree auto-ricochet), they will only be able to penetrate the area under the gun, and its quite a small weakpoint.

Use gun depression:
The -10 gun depression is a highlight of the Lycan’s capabilities, and should be used as an advantage against enemies. In tier 7 there is no other tank (other than Lupus) with as much alpha and gun depression as the Lycan, which makes it quite a devastating tank to be shot by when its on a ridge.

Try to avoid poking out for too long when you take a shot. The neck (turret armour under the gun mantlet) is a weakpoint when the Lycan uses its full gun depression, and if you let enemies aim at this for too long, they will easily penetrate the turret armour.
(This is not an issue if only using 7 degrees of gun depression or less, as it will still be an auto-ricochet.)

Try to just poke out quickly, take a shot, then pull back. This gives the enemies essentially no time to react, and many won’t realize that there’s a weakpoint under the gun.

Sidescrape:
Sidescrape against tier 6 and 7 enemies. The frontal armour of the Lycan is very strong against these enemies, and even premium ammo will struggle to penetrate (shown below).

Note that there are weakpoints, so if you leave your tank exposed, enemies will realize and shoot them. With the Lycan, you have to bring your whole tank back into cover while you reload, and only sidescrape when you have a shot ready, otherwise enemies will just hit the weakpoints while you reload for 12 seconds.

Avoid sidescraping against tier 8 enemies, most heavies have more penetration on standard ammo than tier 7s do on premium ammo. The armour effectiveness will be greatly reduced while sidescraping against tier 8 tanks.

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The Lycan is just a standard heavy. Its gameplay could be compared to similar tanks, like the IS, IS-2 tanks, Bofors Tornvagn, but with a few different capabilities (better gun depression than IS tanks, better side armour than Tornvagn). It works in the usual heavy tank positions, using the usual heavy tank gameplay tactics.

Overall

Overall the Lycan is a good tank. It has very strong frontal armour for a tier 7 tank, with both a great hull and a great turret. Its got good mobility, with above average acceleration and traverse speeds, with a decent top speed. Its gun isn’t special, with poor accuracy and average DPM, but it goes feature a very unique -10 gun depression with 400 alpha.

Is it worth getting?

The Lycan is not really worth getting. While it has a few unique traits, such as the gun depression and pike nose armour, its overall playstyle still feels quite standard, similar to tanks you can get for free (KV-3, IS, IS-2).

The Lycan is worth 4,500 gold. Its a good tank that can do well, but doesn’t offer any gameplay or stats which are really worth paying much for.

Most recently sold for:

Hunters Moon event release – October 2019
Blitzfair auction – December 2020
Halloween tank crates – October 2021
Blitzfair auction – 2021
Halloween tank crates – October 2022

Camo cost:

Special features:

Halloween tanks often have special built-in features, sometimes they are intentional, sometimes they aren’t; some are visual, some are in statistics.

-Lycan cannot receive fuel tank, gun, ammo rack, or engine damage, as it has a section of 400mm spaced armour protecting the internal modules.
-Tracks and observation devices are external modules, so they can still be damaged or destroyed.
-Lycan used to have full invulnerability, meaning no modules or crew could be damaged or injured. WG removed the feature of no crew damage at the end of 2022, when they added an “undead crew” to the Tankenstein, which previously had no special features.