Don't know if this is out there yet but I will relate what I heard at Gencon:

1. Allied walkers are armor 7 with 10 wounds

2. Allied walkers can transport 6 troops

3. Fireball has flamethrower with range 3

4. Axis walker that looks like a flak cannon (sorry can't remember its name) is armor 6

5. Axis walkers are not transports

6. All walkers will take up 4 squares: 2x2

7. None will have bases

Thank you very much for that info!

1. Wow, didn't think they would already go to the furthest end of the vehicle armor range. Kinda limits them early, but if these things are as big as people are saying, then I guess there isn't much room to go bigger anyway.

2. Now that's REALLY interesting. Had never considered a heavy tank as a troop transport. Cool strategic option to have a squad with hero tucked away inside one of these beast, move them towards the objective and suddenly let them lose. I'm thinking the troops will be kept on top of the tank's card until they are moved onto the board.

3. Figured as much. And it better be a killer flamethrower, at least 2/+.

4. I believe you mean the Sturmkonig? The one with 4 cannons? Armor 6, cool to see that the allied and axis walkers are significantly different.

5. Once again the axis is the weaker side when it comes to unit mobility. Nice.

6. On one hand this is a relief, meaning these monsters won't be pushing my 3D walls aside and they'll have limited movement on the battlefield, but I wonder what special rules they'll have to come up to handle this.

7. Very cool, it would be awkward to have these beasts sitting on dinner plates.

Looking at the cards, there's currently virtually no difference with them being armor 6 and 7. The only weapon I could find that does different damage to each is the pounder, that does 5/1 and 4/1 respectively and the 8.8 (6/1, 5/1). All other weapons with sufficent damage treat them equally. Actually, with the majority of weapons there's no difference between hitting armor 4 and armor 7. A bazooka does just as much damage, a flamethrower as well, a Petard Mortar is still a one-hit-kill just the same as an armor 1 vehicle. The Laser Grenadiers will be powerless against the heavy walkers, however, as the werfer stops at Armor 5, and at least the napalm thrower is not a one-hit-kill against them. It seems the big difference will be the extra Health, cause the armor itself doesn't seem to be that much of an advantage.

Sturmkonig:

Konigsluther

Punisher:

Fireball:

While I like the designs I have to say I'm not thrilled with the idea that the heavies are more like walking bases. I would have rather had a dedicated troop transport, a heavy flamer, an engineering walker and so on. But hey, that's just me.

Maybe we will see dedicated medium walkers in the future.

BTW, thanks for the info!!

-Jeff

Thanx for the report, man!

Found some newer pics with some differnet angles of the heavies

Im really liking the looks of these beasts. Just click on image properties for larger pics.

Bulk101 said:

Ok, initial impressions for what is pointed above. From the looks of it, the Allies have it going for themselves once again. Better armor with troop transport capability while the axis has lower armor that cannot transport. Currently, it is the axis that has a problem with mobility as the allies have multiple fast, move 2 jump units. Axis have 4 assault heroes to help compensate (but see the redundancy of many axis heroes while allies get variety). Allies get more tactical options with transport while axis continue to footslog behind cover or dig in. Curious that it was the axis that developed the blitzkrieg (lightning war) tactic.

Presumably

Allied Heavy Flamer Walker (zombie and gorilla list fear me!)

Allied Heavy Anti-tank Walker

Axis Heavy Flak Walker

Axis Heavy Anti-tank Walker

I dunno how the designers balances both factions but right now, majority of the Allied unit are mobile/offensive while majority of the Axis units are slow/resilient. Allied hero with variety. Axis heroes AND unit some of which are redundant. True that you can build a list around on how you want to play your army on both faction, but for the axis... I'm getting a bit restricted because I usually build a theme list rather than min/max. So a bit weary of having zombies along with gorillas. But hey, that's just me.

Axis though, can get a much flavourful list when seen on the table.

D.Azriel said:

Axis players always forget how many U weapons they get

Wow these are fantastic. I cannot wait. I really hope the price point isnt too rough. I like the idea of being able to transport troops inside of them but I would also like to see a fast dedicated transport (think Rhino).

With armor 7 they really need to create some new anti-tank troops. Its too one sided if the only thing that can take out Heavies is other Heavies.

DoctorDH said:

Don't think that's neccessary as all the anti-tank weapons damage the heavies exactly the same as the mediums and lights normally 1/3 or 1/4 and the Axis mechs will be a risky purchase when faced the allied auto-kill flamers.

Nice to see clear close ups of the mechs, thanks, it now does confirm the little Crusader turrets are mg turrets (ouch! 1 twin .50's and 2 twin .30's) and you can see that the Axis mechs have twin MG's to. These don't look much different to the Jagdluther (same hull) just has an extra pair of legs and bigger guns - loving the design of them though

The Axis did use Blitzkrieg first, but near the end of the war, they were fighting defensive battles mostly, as the Allies began to overwhelm them. You start to see a focus on heavy, slow tanks, while the Western Allies keep cranking out quantity and speed. Anyone who has ever used a JagdTiger in any game knows it has the biggest nastiest gun, but is the slowest and least reliable vehicle, and is usually squashed by Allied airpower.

I would still like to see the dedicated medium walkers, like the Loew, some sort of engineer. It would be really nice if they just put out boxes of weapons you can use to modify your existing walker bodies. I like having more walkers, but this would increase the effectiveness of peoples forces without breaking their gaming budget.

Nice info, the Punisher looks awesome cant wait to use em.

blkdymnd said:

Major Mishap said:

Ah, but the flamers aren't one-hit-kill against armor 6 (not if the tank has more than 8 Health as I'm imagining). Currently the only one-hit-kill weapons against the heavies is the Steel Rain's Petard Mortar.

Loophole Master said:

We might actually see more of Steel Rain in higher point games then. Makes artillery strike crew and command squads more applicable.

On another note: The current possible max health of a tank is 15hp, I wonder if there's gonna be a walker who will use that. Axis, Allies, SSU, Xenos?

D.Azriel said:

More Steel Rain, sure. More artiilery strike crew, not necessarily, since the Petard Mortar isn't an Artillery weapon.

Loophole Master said:

Oops, sorry. I was told the price for unpainted would be $34.95 each.

Bulk101 said:

How about releasing the current release to Europe

D.Azriel said:

+1 That is a seriously fair price for such cool models.

rwwingate said:

His price quote is correct !! I was there and saw these awesome models and got to talk to one of the FFG guys who works mainly on Dust. He is beaming with pride over these and the " other awesome models to come".

If you guys like these photos in this thread wait till you see them in person. I was stunned and then my jaw dropped when I heard the price of "$35.00". These are large models and means I'm going to need a bigger game table for when Dust Warfare shows up !

I'm just stumped at how a 2x2 walker will be able to operate in almost any of the past scenarios. With luck it will be able to take 3 moves at most and then just sit there firing away at anybody stupid enough to pass by.

I think they are going to be released when dust warfare is released because they aren't practical for the boardgame because of their size. The axis bots look great but the allies bots look like a roach on steriods.

marcemtp said:

Too true on all accounts...

I'm really worried now about the use of these heavy walkers due to their mobility. At 2x2 they seem to be unable to even deploy at about half the current scenarios. And other than very few exceptions, when they are able to deploy, they can only move around a very restricted corner of the board, not really bringing the fight to the enemy at all.

I am really withdrawing my intention of acquiring them until I see how their movement is going to be handled.