BREAKING! Warmachine – Lord General Stryker Knee-Jerk Reaction
Lord General Coleman Stryker Unveiled! TempleCon is upon us, which means that spoilers and new information on upcoming Privateer Press releases are pouring out.
The most obvious change to Stryker3 is his mounted status. At SPD 8 with P+S 14, Reach, Field Marshal [Assault] and access to the Fury spell to make his melee attacks effectively P+S 17, Lord General Stryker is not to be dismissed in his ability to deal out death and destruction in melee. The Thunderous Impact rule grants d3 POW 10 lightning arcs from Stryker3 to nearby models if any of his impact attacks hit. His Quicksilver Blast attack also brings an additional POW 14 to bear as well. While he may not be able to achieve the crazy spike damage of his previous iteration, he certainly has the tools to do serious work if he needs to. His feat, Lightning Charge, allows impact and charge attacks made by friendly Faction models to automatically hit with an additional die of damage, letting his initial blows potentially tear a bloody path.
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| Storm Lances |
His Elite Cadre with Storm Lances grants them Reform, allowing them to move 3″ after they have completed their action. This gives them greater mobility in a number of useful ways, from great repositioning on ride-by attacks, to the ability to push deeper into enemy lines after charging in. However, keep in mind that this ability does not apply to Katherine Laddermore, as she is labeled a Storm Knight and not a Storm Lance. Lances are also made quite frightening with access to Fury to make their charge attacks effectively P+S 18. Combined with Stryker’s feat, their charge and impact attacks automatically hit with an additional damage die, meaning that once per-game, a unit of Lances will likely destroy the world.
Field Marshal [Assault] combined with the spells Iron Aggression and Escort give Stryker3 the ability to bring and support a few warjacks as well. Iron Aggression greatly increases warjack efficiency by granting boosts on all melee attacks in addition to allowing free charges, runs, tramples, or slams. This can be extremely handy in Cygnar, particularly on a Stormwall or Hammersmith, which both have solid paired melee attacks albeit with MAT 6.
Escort grants all warjacks in his control area +2″ of movement while giving Stryker +2 ARM while within 3″ one or more warjacks in his battlegroup. This, of course, is pretty amazing on just about any Cygnar warjack, and certainly appropriate given Stryker’s stats. On his large base with DEF 15/ARM 16, the ARM buff will be pretty important for keeping him safe from ranged threats, and the SPD bump to his warjacks will allow them to keep pace with Stryker and his coterie of Storm Lances in addition to giving them increased threat, particularly scary on a Stormclad or Stormwall for their native SPD 5 with Reach and powerful ranged attacks to take advantage of Stryker’s Field Marshal [Assault].
Lord General Stryker’s two offensive spells are Chain Blast, a 3-cost infantry clearing spell, and Arcane Bolt, your cheap, standard magic missile. Given Stryker’s rather limited Focus stat, I wouldn’t count on seeing this cast particularly often.
Our new incarnation of Coleman Stryker seems to be strongly about delivering a decisive, crushing blow that the opposing player will be hard-pressed to recover from. With a strong leaning towards offensive buffs, initial thoughts are that you’ll want to build your list to make this initial attack as effective as possible, so let’s jump into a quick 50-point list build.
Lord General Coleman Stryker (*5pts)
* Sentinel (4pts)
* Stormwall (19pts)
* Squire (2pts)
Black 13th Gun Mage Strike Team (4pts)
Rangers (5pts)
Storm Lances (Leader and 4 Grunts) (11pts)
Journeyman Warcaster (3pts)
Major Katherine Laddermore (5pts)
Stormblade Captain (2pts)
The Stormwall is present for its ability to interact strongly with Field Marshal [Assault], Iron Aggression, and Escort, making it the picture of efficiency. On opening turns, Covering Fire will allow me to manipulate my enemy’s placement while the Lightning Pod will let me clear lanes for the Storm Lances. The Sentinel is effectively a guard dog for Stryker, staying near the warcaster in order to proc the ARM bonus on Escort while also providing Shield Guard once per-turn for ranged protection. This combined with Plasma Nimbus, which deals a POW 10 damage roll to models that hit him with melee attacks, should make for a nice combination.
The Squire’s presence took some thought for me. With three very attractive upkeep spells, Sylys Wyshnalyrr would certainly be a fine option, however the high-mobility of this list demands a larger control area, which the Squire can provide while Wyshnalyrr cannot.
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| Rangers |
The Black 13th and Rangers are in the list to increase the list’s ranged prowess, with the Rangers providing increased accuracy and the Black 13th acting as troubleshooters for solos while assisting the Stormwall in denying placement via Ryan’s Mage Storm attack, often best fired on an appropriately-placed Lightning Pod.
The Storm Lances are the fulcrum of the list, and consequently will be the focus of my efforts. The first turn or two will likely see them benefiting from Arcane Shield from the Journeyman Warcaster to allow them survive opening ranged fire. When the turn arrives for them to charge in, Arcane Shield will probably be replaced with Fury, allowing them to do the most damage possible. Laddermore is present to give them increased ranged threat while also providing impressive personal combat stats on the Stryker’s feat turn as well. The Stormblade Captain is in the list to give the Lances and Laddermore Relentless Charge to help deliver them to their target while also granting increased flexibility by allowing them to move through each other via Tactician [Storm Knight]. Like Laddermore, he is also a beast in melee that shouldn’t be ignored, particularly when he automatically hits at 13+5d6 for damage under Lightning Charge.
There is certainly loads of room to play around with this list. The Stormwall could easily be replaced by a Stormclad and ‘Ol Rowdy as well, which I feel would be just as strong. Laddermore, the Rangers, and the Black 13th can be swapped for dedicated melee elements like Nyss Hunters with Murdoch, who can also interact strongly with Lightning Charge and Fury. You could also squeeze in Eiryss2 to strip unfriendly upkeeps from the Storm Lances like Crippling Grasp.
In my mind, however, the Storm Lances are really where it’s at. The damage they are capable of dealing under Fury and Lightning Charge from extreme range is too difficult to pass up.
With several new warcaster spoiled, Vengeance is promising to have an exciting effect on the Warmachine and Hordes metagame. With the Privateer Press Keynote happening tomorrow morning, things will likely only get more exciting over the next 24 hours!
