Kriegschatten said:

That's a you problem. And Hellboys say Hi.

Mattador Actual said:

The Hellboys aren't bad, but I think I prefer the BBQ Squad. The BBQ Squad already has plenty of anti-infantry punch, so getting the second flamethrower that the Hellboys have isn't really adding that much--especially since it costs you your demo charges (i.e. most of your anti-armor capability) and 4 more points.

The BBQ Squad gets really fun against armor with Johnny One-Eye added since they can toss around five demo charges every turn if they want to.

Anyway, to get things back on topic, considering that the Laser-Jagdgrenadiere hit armor just as hard as a Wotan, have better anti-infantry and anti-air numbers than the Wotan, and cost less than half as much, there doesn't seem to be much reason to use the Wotan (yeah, range 10 is nice, but range 6 is usually more than enough).

The Wotan AR is immune to the Honey's phaser guns - which is the reason I field it - while the Laser Jagdgrenadiere squad is definitively not..

However, it's the second time an AR3 Axis infantry squad makes a walker obsolete, once again with laser weapons. Maybe there's a pattern.

golem101 said:

Wait, people actually use the Honey?!

On a more serious note, the problem with the Wotan AR (as I see it) is that, for one point more, you can get a Ludwig and a Laser Jagdgrenadiere squad. You can then send the Ludwig to hunt down the Honey (possibly from outside of the Honey's range) while the laser squad hunts down something else.

Well, I do use the Hermann in place of the Heavy Laser Grenadiers*, so the Honey isn't really too far - please notice that ours are friendly yet competitive house games. The only walker that has been sent to the scrapyard is the Blackhawk, deemed a complete waste of points. Even the Loth pops up sometimes, and once managed to almost waste a Punisher all by itself!

The Wotan is often fielded as a centerpiece unit, a flagship of sorts, and its higher than usual armor and resistance has an undeniable psychological effect. Having two good units instead of one makes sense at the planning table, but in the battlefield the plan does not carry the same impact.

* I positively despise the look of AR3 infantry, doubled up when they make another unit obsolete. No Allied AR 3 squads at all, and only the Heavy Flak Grenadiers to team up with Lara for the Axis.

golem101 said:

Has anyone made up some house rules to make the Blackhawk more tempting to use? Its a shame to have a walker that no one will ever choose.

I guess the thought process for the RCS was to balance its fast with the range 3 of Hans. Once you have any other walkers however that "balancing' is clearly unbalanced.

Take care and have a great day.

The Blackhawk is less problematic than the Hot Dog, in my opinon. Sure, Blackhawk is crap, but at least it's cheap crap. The Hot Dog has potential, but it's too hard to use effectively, which makes it not worth the high cost.

TallDwarf said:

A few here have suggested its range be increased to 3 (i think). Things like that make me okay with updated/errataed card packs (though that could get scary also).

Yep, Range 3 would be a small change that would benefit it a lot.

Shame to admit but i used blackhawk in my last game of crossroads mission. . it even killed a monkey after 8 misses. . and in previous mission it took down a LUDWIG

I use Blackhawk all the time, but it's the only light walker I have at the the moment.

But back to the original topic, one thing to note is these guys are mounted on a 50mm base and not the 60mm vehicle size base.

Loophole Master said:

Something I noticed today makes me think that they will be treated as a single figure, even for damage from flamethrowers and the like.

What I noticed is that the card clearly states that the unit only has one combat knife.

The rules for knives say "When using this weapon, roll the number of dice indicated in the combat value for each miniature currently in the squad".(Revised Core Rulebook pg. 25)

Note that it clearly says that there is one knife per miniature . So, since there is only one knife for the Laser-Jagdgrenadieres, I think that they are going to be treated as one miniature.

Since the rules for incendiary blast weapons say "To apply this type of damage, roll “X” dice for each targeted miniature and inflict one point of damage for each result" (Revised Core Rulebook pg. 24), I think that they will only take one point of damage from flamethrowers.

I guess we'll see!

I assume that if there are new rules for these types of units, they will be in the Operation Hades book.

The rules in Hades doesn't say much about these units, except. Since the three soldiers are on the same base, it's not possible to remove them when they are casualties, you mark one box for each casualty. It also says that when you get down to one box, you have to choice which weapon you want to fire. You can't fire both weapons.

I think when attacked with a flamethrower you roll based on the number of health points remaining, but that is just my interpretation of the unit.

Wow, they're being very vague about it.

Well, the model is not actually available yet, correct? Maybe they'll explain it then