Revenge line first. Go Renown for your second playthrough for a Nelly.

At least, that's what I did.

Fastest you say, well that would be the Revenge line. Because with new ships available almost every 10 levels, your crew will enjoy full exp from most battles. Going Renown > Repulse > Hood/Nelson has a pretty big level gap and you will find yourself stuck for a while with the Repulse going to Hood/Nelson.

I also had no means for premium service, but I went through the Renown line. It has taught me alot about UK BBs.

PS. Make sure you're training 7 engineers, 3 repairers and a scout pilot, cause that will be the max sailors that you will need when you get Lion 2 and Queen Victoria. (or if you have no time to roll good repairers, go 6 engy, 4 rep)

Do both lines together and alternate between BOs. This is necessary so that your support crew keep up with your BO (that's assuming you take pecuLIAR's advice on crew make-up, which you should).

If you only go up one ship line and only level 5 supports you will get to the next ship with at-level crew faster, but you won't have enough crew for any of the BBs.

BB tips? ... one final tip: Forget about levelling a scout - none of the pros use 'em.

I agree. You must have a scout on a BB no matter what nation it is. It comes in very useful to yourself as well as to your team. And to the comment about no pros use scouts....what...? About the only ships I see that dont use scouts are the low lvl ships. I know that just cos your a high lvl you arent a pro but still, there has to be a few BB6 players out there that are good...
Anyway, back to the original point:
to start with go revenge as it is far better than renown. Stick with that line through the QE as well. I find it best to use 15" mark III. After you have got to the nelson lvl it is possible to use a BO reset and use nelson but I suggest staying with the QE line as at lower lvls the acc on the nelson is pretty awful. It is possible to change later on but not advisable. I did that and am still regretting it :-(.

lol... I forgot about this post. Of course you should use a scout, I was joking ;)