Man that's a lot of rockets

And yet, not really that much more "firepower" than a regular Lothar.

Looks REALLY cool, tho…

50% - 100% more damage against infantry and no Reload, that's a pretty powerful punch.

"a hard rain's gonna fall…"

What's a fair point cost for this monster?

At 3/ and 8/1, with no Reload… there are no fair point costs for this.

Ssshhh - don't tell my SSU collecting friend that

Though it is anti-air deficient, so his choppers will remain a rather large threat.

If it hints a pattern of sorts for the Axis heavies, I can't wait to see a Konigsludwig (following the reversed name convention for medium and heavy walkers) with a super-heavy-duty kampfzange…

golem101 said:

If it hints a pattern of sorts for the Axis heavies, I can't wait to see a Konigsludwig (following the reversed name convention for medium and heavy walkers) with a super-heavy-duty kampfzange…

That should be called Konigsluther. Better to have a Konigsloth with two super-Kampfzange.

Loophole Master said:

golem101 said:

If it hints a pattern of sorts for the Axis heavies, I can't wait to see a Konigsludwig (following the reversed name convention for medium and heavy walkers) with a super-heavy-duty kampfzange…

That should be called Konigsluther. Better to have a Konigsloth with two super-Kampfzange.

It's strange, but the Luther/Ludwig naming configurations don't match for the medium and heavy walkers…

Heinrich = 20 mm flakvierling

Ludwig = twin 88 mm

Luther = 50mm + kampfzange

Lothar = nebelwerfer 42

Loth = two kampfzange

Konigsluther = twin 173 mm (kinda like the Ludwig)

Sturmkonig = 128 mm flakvierling (Heinrich-type config?)

Konigsludwig = ??

Koniglothar = schwer nebelwerfer 42

Konigsloth = ??

So, the Konigsludwig (if it'll match the medium Luther) should feature a multi-purpose long-range weapon system and a super powerful close combat one…

Yeah, I'm not a huge fan of the heavy panzer names. They're just too long and clumsy, and often you can't even abbreviate them. You could call the Sturmkonig simply "Sturm", but there's nothing you can do for the Konigsluther and Konigslothar. If you call them "Konig", it could be any heavy panzer, and if you call them Luther and Lothar, well, that's just like the mediums…

I require four of these beasts.

If it's less than 140 it's OP:D

I wonder if we will see an Allied or SSU counterpart to this vehicle?

An allied Steel Storm?

How about the Enola Gay in heavy walker form?

You've gotta love the silly stats DUST Models puts out.

A model that will kill any infantry unit it fires at without the need to do a sustained attack could make observer units even more popular so it can't be attacked before it shreds enemy infantry units.

Without Sustained Attack, it would only average 2.64 hits against vehicles, but that ups to 4.41 with Sustained Attack, so medium walkers other than the SSU have to worry about even single turn exposure if they move to attack it.

All of that, and it could do it every turn because it doesn't need to reload.

Hopefully, there will be significant changes before official game stats are released.

This unit is probably designed with Warfare rules in mind, therefore Airdrop would be effective against it, but that is more of a discussion for the Warfare Forum.

If they are doing this for the Axis, they might do a Calliope variant for the Allies.

Gimp said:

One thing your forgetting though is this does nothing against flying units, so if I roll in with some choppers this thing is pretty worthless. Like all things in this game there is a strength and weakness. I think people are completely forgetting about flying units because its been such a non factor in this game until now that SSU has arrived. Allies Punisher has about the exact same ability for attack but does not have the ability to ignore cover like this, but Punisher has the ability to carry and has higher armor rating. I think people are blowing it a little out of porportion, Im pretty sure it will be around 100 AP like Punisher.

I'm not forgetting about air power. Any force has to decide how to deal with air power, and some units will be good at it, while others have no capability. That's been a fact of warfare since aircraft started participating.

Rolling 3/x against infantry with an artillery weapon means a normal attack will average enough hits to kill any unit without a hero, and severely hurt a unit with a hero. A Sustained Attack would be far worse. Against a five man unit with a hero, a normal attack will average six wounds. A Sustained attack would average ten wounds, which would destroy all current units with a hero. Against a three man unit with a hero, a normal attack will average four wounds, with a Sustained Attack averaging 6.64 wounds, so either attack would be crippling, with a good chance to kill off the entire unit with most heroes (those with four wounds).

Lacking anti-air defense does not eliminate that threat, it simply means that anti-air assets will have to be within range to protect the unit, just as they will be needed for any other unit without inherent anti-air capability.

Air assets can come in to attack the Konigslothar, but they will need a significant effort to eliminate it, especially if there are mechanics nearby, and they will be subject to anti-air defenses from anyone but a very foolish player while they work to eliminate the Konigslothar.

Any heavy walker will be a centerpiece for the force using it, if for no other reason than its individual point cost. That makes keeping anti-air assets near the Konigslother a logical tactical option only a fool would ignore when facing a player with air assets.

With the Konigslothar able to kill any infantry, and most walkers, with a single attack available every turn, a force with flyers would have to worry about eliminating it, which makes defensive preparations easy to set up. The Konigslothar as written here would dominate the flow of battle, which works to the advantage of the player fielding it.

Gimp said:

I dont think offical stats will ever come out for this.

Gimp said:

I think we can all agree that this thing is going to cost a boat load of points and is a infantry unit killer if you allow it to attack your infantry. The thing is you will have very little points left to field much of a AA threat, let alone things like command squads and such. My point was I bring a couple of attack helicopters in the battle and a couple of transport helicopters and you can do nothing to me. I would have my troops in the Transports waiting to deploy and the attack helicopters would kill this in one round and the Transports would help support against infantry trying to support AA for this or trying to do damage to the attack helicopters. Or even better yet just take out all of your AA support and then you can do nothing to my helicopters.

So in other words I roll in with and army with very little exposed Infantry units and this thing does nothing for a whole lot of points, also can do the same thing with the Allies Punisher becasue it has transport so I can protect my troops and it becomes a firefight of who wins out the rollout most likely to who survives. Which most likely would be punisher because it has armor 7 with 10 hit points, this is armor 6 with 8 hit points. And don't even get me started with Allies Tank Head which makes this an easy win for allies Punisher LOL

All I was trying to say is that yes this thing is going to be lot of points, but its not like it doesn't have some glaring flaws like I said especially against Flying units.

Yeah, but thats at least 180pts of fly boys, so you should take it out.

It's easy to say a few choppers will destroy a Konigslothar in one turn, but quite a bit harder to accomplish it.

Aircraft enter the battlefield by either moving on normally, or showing up in any space without the ability to do anything else. That gives the opposing side the ability to shoot at them as they advance, or pummel them with Sustained Attacks if they show up without any support but what they are carrying. I haven't seen the combat stats of the attack choppers yet, so I don't know what kind of a chance they would have of doing eight wounds to an Armor 6 vehicle in one turn. Not many units would be able to do that.

If the flying force can destroy all of their opposition's anti-air capability, they will have a significant advantage against any force, but again, there is a significant difference between saying you can do something, and actually being able to carry it out on the battlefield.

Currently, only the SSU has air units, and they have no transport to shield infantry except those air units. If the infantry stays inside and shielded, they are adding nothing to the SSU's combat capability, and allowing their opponent a significant advantage.

The Axis has several options for anti-air assets that could be close to the Konigslothar. The Heinrich is 26 points, Heavy Flak Grenadiers are 25, Heavy Recon Grenadiers are 26, Lara is 21, Heavy Kommadotrupp gives Mechanic and anti-air for 35, the Luther is 35, Recon Grenadiers are 16, and in a really big battle, you could field a Sturmkonig for 87. Any unit with an MG48 has a little anti-air capability. Unless the choppers are Armor 3, there are a lot of Axis units they need to worry about.

If the SSU can have an easy time destroying forces by simply fielding an air mobile force, it would mean game balance for DUST had been destroyed. Hopefully, FFG knows that, and has ensured it does not overpower the SSU, or any other air units.

The flip side, of course, is that the Konigslothar has to come to the battlefield as a balanced unit, or it could also destroy game balance. Even if the SSU could destroy it easily, that does nothing for balance against the Allies. You mention using a Punisher, but the Punisher has to have line of sight, and would have other units to worry about, as well. The Punisher could carry a squad protected, and add in Rosie to repair itself once per game, but that does nothing for all of the other Allied units that would be exposed.

Remember the odds I noted, because math does matter in a wargame. Any infantry unit without a hero would die in a single volley from a Konigslothar on average. That does not require a Sustained Attack. A Sustained Attack would kill most infantry squads with an included hero. If the Konigslothar is able to make four attacks againt infantry before it is destroyed, it could have more than paid for itself in eliminated points even if it cost over 100 points.

Would the Konigslothar be unstopable? No. Would it be a significant issue for game balance as suggested here? Yes.