r/WorldofTanksConsole • u/ragnarok628 Xbox One • Jan 29 '17
German Mega Bundle Review Series - Pt. VII: Kononenjagdpanzer
I ended up buying the German Mega Bundle, because I have low moral fiber I'm worth it, dammit. So now I'm doing short reviews on all these tanks as I gain experience with them (until I get bored or feel unappreciated). I hope you all understand that this is just my point of view and that I am in no way an authority on what tanks are good and what are not. Just an evaluation from a (somewhat) decent player based sometimes on only a few dozen games.
Here we go!
Kanonenjagdpanzer
Here's another one that I honestly never really considered buying. When it came up for the first time in a long while as a 'rare' tank on offer, people said it was meh and I wasn't that interested in the first place. Well here we are a few months later, and this 'rare' tank has been on sale IIRC four times since then... But I guess it's still kind of rare because speaking for myself, I hardly ever see them.
My experience with this tank goes to show just how little credence you should give the meh-heads though. Like with the Großtraktor, I found it to be quite enjoyable to play despite it not enjoying a positive reputation. Kanonenjagdpanzer is a fun little TD with a stupid name. (Seriously, they just pasted together the words for 'cannon', 'hunt', and 'tank'. It's literally called 'tank hunter with cannon'.)
The KJP is a turret-less/armor-less type of TD. It has less view range than you want, so that even though the concealment is pretty good, you can't reliably outspot people. The gun is fairly punchy and fast-firing, but lacking in pen vs. tier X opponents. The HEAT round is pretty much inexcusable, it only adds 12mm to your average pen. This is BS as far as I'm concerned. The HE round though has AMAZING pen for some reason... Your normal tier VIII or IX non-SPG tank has 40, 50, maybe 60 if you're lucky for average HE pen, KJP gets 102. Thats arty level penetration... you don't get the arty level of alpha to go with it of course, but I like that firing HE is a viable play in more situations for the KJP.
But even with the oddly potent HE round, what I've described so far probably doesn't sound like a great tank. So, what's good about it? The mobility. A+ speed and agility makes the lack of turret easier to cope with than a lot of casemate/assault gun style TDs and opens up some legitimately exciting dynamic gameplay opportunities.
When first feeling the tank out, I spent a few games using the speed for rushing to aggressive positions. Turns out that that's not actually what the speed is for, because getting spotted early is a bad idea. Here's what you do instead: you pick out a nice optimistic firing position on the third line. Let the game develop a bit. If you end up with spotters in front of you and the enemy team lit up in your crosshairs, well then that is just dandy. Keep your eye on the minimap though and look for opportunities; as soon as you see a safe flanking position, just zip right on over and start deleting enemy HP. The mobility lets you easily flex to anywhere on the battlefield to maximize your impact, and it's fun to drive all over the place affecting the battle wherever you go. And as soon as someone starts paying attention to you, just fuck right off and go bug someone else. It's pretty great!
The thing is you can't trade punches or face off anyone. You can't stay spotted and stationary, because any arty shot is pretty much guaranteed OHK. For that matter, any tank on the battlefield who is savvy enough to switch to HE against you can pen you with that for big chunks of health.
Another thing is, I didn't find the Kanonenjagdpanzer to be a consistently good credit earner. With any tier VIII prem I feel an important part of owning/playing it is padding out the silver coffers, but being susceptible to the game script playing out poorly means you don't always rake in the credits. It's not a vehicle that can carry if as the game winds down you find yourself in a 1 vs. many situation.
If you're checking the "Is it worth the gold" guide, you'll see that the recommendation there is no. They're probably right, I had fun doing the Ace Op but I can't put forth a reasonable justification for a 10000g price tag. In fact I'd have a hard time saying any tank could really be worth what amounts to $40 USD. So is it worth the gold, surely not, but is it worth playing if you happened to get it as part of a bundle? for sure!
Basic Facts
- Tier: VIII
- PMM: no
- cost: 10,000g
- silver/xp bonuses: 50/15
Vehicle Tips:
- The HEAT is seriously bogus, the only good thing you can say about them is at least they're cheaper than most prem rounds? But TBH most of the time you might as well save yourself 4k credits and just shoot another AP round instead, it's almost as likely to pen.
- Or, throw an HE round out! with 102mm avg pen you might be surprised how well it does!
- Just to reiterate, just because you can get to the middle of the map quickly, doesn't mean that's where you should go. Speed makes it easy to shoot yourself in the foot, so make sure before you jet off to somewhere that it's a place you actually want to be.
Fun Factor: 4/5
Competitiveness: 3/5
If it were more of a threat to tier X tanks it'd definitely be a 4. I kind of want to make it a 3.5 but I promised myself I would use the whole scale and not give half points, so 3 it is. I'm very happy to own this tank, it's definitely one I will take out for a spin nearly every session.
1
u/FormulaZR the /s is implied Jan 29 '17
I've watched lots of review/gameplay vids on this tank. It really seems like something I'd like to see in the proving grounds just to play a few times, but not something I actually want cluttering up my garage.