Lophius

I can't lose them too... Not again.
The following article contains significant spoilers and/or ending details of
Valkyria Chronicles 4. If you don't want to get shot, tread carefully!

Lophius was an unusual and powerful tank used by Heinrich Belgar in Valkyria Chronicles 4.

Profile[]

An amphibious tank contained within X-0's massive submarine. Named after an anglerfish. Designed as a last line of defense, it's reinforced with anti-blast armour thick enough to withstand a Valkyrian Bomb, for safe observation of the blast from within.Though only for short periods of time, its design allows for total submersion. Belgar exploited this to sneak onboard the Centurion unnoticed.

Description[]

Lophius was a large and ungainly submersible running on four sets of tank treads and two augers, boasting incredible firepower and nigh-invulnerable protection, as well as the ability to transport infantry.

While effectively a mobile fortress, Lophius had an Achilles' heel in the form of heat build-up while submerged, requiring it to deploy its vulnerable radiators after surfacing. It also lacked the ability to punch through thick ice while surfacing, limiting its ability to move around the ice field where the final battle took place.

Operational history[]

Belgar deployed Lophius from Orcinus Magnus as Squad E fought to stop the latter from dragging the Snow Cruiser Centurion out to sea, using the submersible tank to insert his forces directly onto the Federation ship so he could rig the Valkyria Bomb on board to detonate. With this achieved, he surfaced the tank to prevent Claude Wallace and his troops from interfering with the "test."

Despite the immense power of the experimental tank, Squad E ultimately emerged victorious. While they assumed Belgar had perished in the burning wreck of the vehicle, he managed to crawl out of it, only to be faced with his deranged "creation" Nikola Graf, who reminded him of his own words that failure would not be tolerated. Ignoring his protests, she detonated the suicide bomb she had been equipped with, obliterating herself, Belgar, and the Lophius.

Technical Information[]

Body Specs:[]

No body specs: Body does not take damage, movement is scripted / automatic (AP not shown). The hard version of the mission does not change Lophius' Def values or the hitpoints of its components.

Left Front Radiator, Right Front Radiator, Left Rear Radiator, Right Rear Radiator:

5,000HP, Body Def 700 (Armour-Grade Steel)

Armament:[]

Oddly, the gun in the primary turret has two names: it is called "Tr M65" when Lophius is moving or firing its area strikes, and "Kr N-520" when Lophius uses the cannon to attack point targets. The rear-facing gun calls itself "Kr N-520 GmS 1" since it typically fires mortar rounds: this gun has a deceptively large fire arc of about 270 degrees. None of these weapons display their stats.

As with the frontal gun on the Vulcan, all of the secondary weapons listed below will fire Interception fire when Lophius is moving on its own turn. Belgar routinely uses the Order "All Units Attack" during the battle: if this is active, there is a +10 bonus to the vs Pers stat of every one of Lophius' secondary guns.

Left AT Cannon, Right AT Cannon:

3,000HP, Body Def 500 (Armour-Grade Steel)

These weapons cover an arc of about 90 degrees to Lophius' left and right sides. They function in the same way as Anti-Tank Cannons, only delivering interception or on-the-move fire against vehicles.

Equipment	Aim	Range	vs Pers	vs Armor	Shots	Ammo	Area	Effect
Kr N-552	D	1000	300	1800	1	∞	X	-
Intercept Fire	D	400	220	1050	1	∞	X	-
Kr N-552 GmS 1	C	250	390	420	1	2	O	-

Right Front Turret, Left Front Turret, Left Middle Turret, Right Middle Turret, Right Side Turret, Right Side Turret, Left Side Turret, Left Side Turret, Left Rear Turret, Right Rear Turret:

2,000HP, Body Def 400 (Armour-Grade Steel)

Equipment	Aim	Range	vs Pers	vs Armor	Shots	Ammo	Area	Effect
Ur pMG 9	D	200	43	219	7	∞	X	-

Notably, the very high vs Armor stat of these machine guns means that they can severely damage the Cactus thanks to its low Body Def: even a fully-upgraded Cactus will still take 27 damage per shot from them. Because Lophius moves slowly, characters along its route will be exposed to extremely protracted fire from its weapons.

If a character who can die is run down by Lophius as it is moving, they will be killed instantly: if they cannot die, they will be evacuated.

Gameplay[]

Lophius is the final boss of the game and is fought on an ice field map similar to the one that the battle with Orcinus Magnus took place on, along with a fairly large unit of Elite Imperial infantry (or level 30 Paragon infantry in the Hard version of the map) with several base flags.

The vehicle's movements are scripted, and it follows a strict turn order:

• At the start of every player turn after 1, after any requested reinforcements arrive, Lophius will place a red circular artillery strike marker.
• On all player turns, Lophius will display one or more red rectangles in front of it, showing the route it will take on land before submerging.
• At the start of every Imperial turn, after reinforcements arrive, there is a roughly 50% chance of Belgar using an Order: this will be "All Units Attack" unless one of his soldiers or part of Lophius is severely damaged: if so, he will use "Emergency Heal." He can also use "All Units Defend," but doesn't often do so.
• After this Belgar will control Lophius' main gun and fire the marked artillery shot (starting on Imperial turn 2). This attack will destroy a base flag if it targets one, and can also blast away the blue ice terrain on the map.
• Belgar will control Lophius and move along the designated route to one of the submersion points around the map, then move to one of the surfacing points.
• Lophius will open its radiators.
• Belgar will control Lophius' weapons if anything is within their arcs of fire, with a preference for using the main gun. As is typical for multi-part vehicles in the series, Lophius has to control its various turrets as if they are independent units. There seems to be a fairly strict limit on how many guns can be controlled in a given turn: there also seems to be a restriction on the number of times any given gun can be used.

Victory requires the destruction of the four radiators on Lophius' sides, which only become vulnerable after the vehicle makes its first move on Imperial turn 1. Their angle makes them immune to attacks from the ground, requiring either extensive use of anti-tank Mortars or for Squad E to gain access to the vehicle's upper walkway, something significantly easier said than done. Lophius visually has five radiators (the fifth being in the rear of the main turret), but only the rear four are targets. The front one can, however, be attacked to cancel the "Tr M65" attack of the main gun for the current turn.

Accessing the Lophius' deck requires that an Engineer move close to the vehicle, and so requires stripping away enough of the vehicle's machine gun turrets that this becomes feasible. Once this is done, moving to the bases of the four incomplete ladders on the vehicle (two on the sides and two to the rear) will bring up a context action prompt and allow the Engineer to install a full-length ladder that other units can climb. Lophius' deck is actually two half-decks, so at least two ladders must be built to provide complete access to the radiators. The radiators themselves are extremely tough, and will retract back into the hull each time one is destroyed, rather like the radiators of Batomys in the first game. After each of the first three radiators are destroyed, Lophius will spawn a Scout, a Shocktrooper and a Grenadier on the ground, two positioned roughly halfway along its sides facing in the same direction as it, and one directly behind it. It can also do this on surfacing if three radiators are destroyed.

Lophius' ability to effectively teleport around the map can be curtailed by moving Engineers to a series of ice formations close to its surfacing points: having the Engineers move close to the toppled containers near these will permanently prevent Lophius from surfacing in that location. The only location that cannot be "plugged up" in this manner is the one Northwest of Squad E's starting location, where the Lophius moves on Imperial turn 1. If all other surfacing locations are plugged, it will still move and submerge, but only ever come back up at this location.

The battle initially has a limit of three turns in the normal version and two in the Hard version before the Centurion explodes, necessitating getting Riley Miller to the designated map marker to prevent this and relax the turn limit to 20 in the normal version and 10 in the Hard version.

Trivia[]

• The four radiators each count as a "Special Tank" on the mission results screen.
• Quite a few players have encountered game mechanics issues with Lophius, most likely due to the vehicle's extreme complexity. The most common complaints are of glitchy hitboxes, or the scripting breaking in such a way that Lophius stops opening its radiators when it surfaces, making the mission unwinnable.
• There is an extremely cheap 2-turn kill possible against the vehicle (meaning getting Riley to the Centurion is not necessary), requiring positioning the Cactus with a Grenadier inside close to where Lophius will surface but not so close it can be targeted on Imperial turn 1, then deploying the Grenadier, ending their Movement Phase immediately, and using the Orders "Blast Boost" and "Attack Weak Spot" on them (Penetration and Demolition Boost can added too if the player desires). Dropping the mortar round on the small rear platform on Lophius' submarine sail, directly behind the main section with the periscope, should then damage all four radiators at the same time. An Elias anti-tank mortar should comfortably destroy all four in one shot, but multiple shots are still fine as long all four radiators take equal damage.
• Lophius is a genus of anglerfish, more commonly called monkfish.
• The tower on top of the vehicle is based on WW2 Japanese submarine sails.The forward hull and the use of double track units is based on Objekt 279, a Soviet project aimed at producing a tank that would not be flipped over by a nuclear blast wave. The fact that Lophius weighs 279 tons is probably a reference to this. The main gun also has the same calibre (130mm), length (L/60) and name (M-65) as the gun of Objekt 279. The calibre of the other form of the gun in the primary turret and presumably the rear-facing gun makes it a Soviet 122mm M-30 howitzer (with the actual barrel length of L/21.9 rounded up), the weapon used on the SU-122 assault gun. The rear-facing gun is visually based on the main 12-inch cannon mounting of the interwar-era British M-Class submarine cruiser.

v • e Valkyria Chronicles 4 Vehicles
Federation Vehicles	Cactus | Glory | Federation Tank | Hafen | Snow Cruiser
Imperial Vehicles	Assault Tank | Heavy Imperial Tank | Light Imperial Tank | Medium Imperial Tank | Ultimate Tank
Boss Vehicles	Lophius | Orcinus Magnus | Vulcan / Vulcan Procus