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kris gorham
United States
albuquerque
New Mexico
I wasn't born ! I sprang from the forhead of God , as he contemplated a particularly vile joke !
I wasn't born , I was hatched in the deepest darkest part of the ocean , and raised by sharks !
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PANZER AUFKLARERLAUFER I-M “PIFFEL”
Its easy , as the war drags on , and bigger better weapons are brought to bear , to lose sight of all the rest of needs of military planners . Battles are more than just one small grid reference on the map , they are often spread out along hundreds of miles of battle front , with formations advancing along the whole length .
With the ever increasing material demands of the war machine , its has become important to create smaller , cheaper units to fill gaps , and apply the right amount of force where it is needed most .
A tank commander only needs to worry about what’s in front of him on the battle field , and making it go away . They are more than happy to waste a HEAT round to kill an infantry man that could just as easily have been neutralized with a few rounds of machine gun fire and a little more effort , and while these points may be lost to the grunts in the field , the generals know full well that material shortages and production expenses require careful battle field planning , and resource allocation , lest they run out of equipment and supplies and end up captured or killed .
The PANZER AUFKLARERLAUFER I-M “PIFFEL” was designed to provide a light tank hunter , able to go after light and medium armor that all sides , must by necessity , still rely on .
Armed with a 38MM “BERGEN” anti tank gun , and a modified MG44 , its not what you want to go up against heavy armor , but is more than adequate to deal with the vast majority of enemy forces they will encounter in the field .
The 38mm is the centerpiece of the design , allowing the Piffel to excel at hunting other light vehicles , and the MG44 helps mop up enemy infantry as they scurry from the flaming wreckage of what used to be an expensive enemy vehicle .
While the 38mm is considered an underpowered round by most , the kill ratio of the Piffel is about 10:1 when compared to other light walkers like the allies Honey and the axis Hermann .
though it was originally designed to hunt light vehicles in support of larger walkers in front line battle , Piffels have been successfully deployed as harassing units , going behind enemy lines and reeking havoc on supply lines and command facilities . One Piffel was even credited with blasting its way into an allied camp , and freeing over 300 German POW’s ; who then took allied prisoners , commandeered vehicles , and returned to German lines .
They have also proved useful in police actions in occupied territories , helping pacify the civilian populace , and are more than capable of dealing with armed resistance groups .
Thus far , the one major weakness to the design is that its MG 44 is not able to pivot up far enough to give it any protection or offensive capability against aircraft .
The Piffel has provided the axis command with a cheaper , more rapidly producible unit , that can add a strong back bone to frontline and reserve units alike .
It very much seems like FFG is pushing this game to be extreme WH40K , to support their new table top game . Its gotten to heavy to fast .
My design idea for this walker was something lighter , to go after lighter targets , but at the same time give it enough bang to make it worth taking once in a while for a little extra spice .
To me , the game seems to be creeping to the extreme high powered units , when there are so many empty spots for lighter vehicles that many players want to see .
I realllllly like this design more so than any other I have made thus far . Though I don’t like using custom units more than once in a while to ad some more flavor to the game , I will probably use this one fairly often . The others I have done I did more so for the modeling fun than in game play , but I look at this one and wish it was a standard model for the game .
Where as the initial light walkers were hit or miss , and all felt a little too light in game play . The new ones in the “revised starter “ seem kinda geared more toward the Dust Warfare than DT . This walker just seems to feel right as a light walker , and has so much real world correlation with all the light tanks that existed in German forces through out the war . While many were considered under gunned by mid war , they still had a use , and under a reorganized Germany , I see the potential for even more use if they just put aces in their places and used them in roles that they could still perform .
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