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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 KAMPFLAUFER II-R MEINRAD
With the success of the PANZER KAMPFLAUFER II-M “FRITZ” , designers sought to improve on another design , and create a unit that would let artillery advance across cluttered terrain as the front lines moved .
Enter the Meinrad ; a variant on the Ludolf , the Mienrad lets commanders move artillery into position as the front lines move through tight cluttered terrain , AND protect them selves at the same time .
Designed with urban combat in mind , the Meinrad is becoming increasing popular with jungle commanders where hostile terrain limits their ability to use artillery to weaken enemy positions . While their snub nosed 88 has a shortened range , its perfect for the battle fields it was designed to be employed in .
Because the primary role of the Meinrad is STILL to launch artillery on enemy positions at range , standard walker combat training is sufficient and pilots are easy to come by .
While some commanders originally complained about the reduced launch ability of the Mienrad , compared to the LOTHAR , the substitution of the snub nosed 88 has lead to a much higher rate of survivability , and a better average rocket delivery ratio than most Lothar units in similar battle field conditions . They are now much in demand .
Another of the variants I did with the walkers I got for trading star wars figs to a comic store .
After I did the Ludolf and Fritz , I wanted to do this unit , just because IMHO it looks so cool , and seemed like the next obvious progression , based on real world WW2 tanks with snub barrels .
As with my other conversions , its fun to play , but is something I only plan to play once in a while , to add a little flavor , or perhaps an objective to a game .
Although the only difference between this walker and the Ludolf is the range for the 88 , they play MUCH differently .
During play testing , I found it worked wonderfully as a support unit , but that its limited range on the 88 leaves it at a serious disadvantage if you try to use it to aggressively .
Like most , I try to keep my command squad and artillery safe in the rear of the combat area . But the problem with that is that all your other units really need to be moving up to the front to fight , so its easy to let the command squad and artillery units get caught up and killed if an opponent slips in behind your force , and spending to many points on other units to guard the rear areas takes away from points you could spend on units to attack with .
The problem is that the command squad doesn’t have an anti vehicle weapon , and the artillery walkers are weak at attacking close up infantry due to their min. ranges .
Because the Meinrad has a range of 6 with its 8.8 , its not necessarily something you want going out to hunt an opponent . With its artillery ability , its perfectly suited for sitting in the rear , with the command squads and other artillery walkers . With its 8.8 it’s a great guard unit to protect other rear area units , while at the same time adding into the artillery fire .
While I don’t plan to play it very often , I am considering making another , just so I have 2 to use to protect my flanks . Between this and the Ludolf , this was a much better unit in general , because of its contributions to the battles later on in the game , after both sides had taken a pounding , and closed range .
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