Stryker Attrition

[VintertheElder]

I've recently been playing a few friends and I feel that my play style leans more to attrition than caster kills. More because the people I play are well versed in screening properly from say my Magnus's Pop and Drop and Siege's Drop and Pop. I was looking to put together a fun and general all comers list and Stryker came to mind with Earthquake and AS. This is my list idea.

Commander Coleman Stryker
Stryker
Hunter
Lancer

Jr
Defender

B13
Alexia Ciannor & the Risen
Max Sword Knights
Rhupert

Stryker giving AS to the Lancer puts it in the middle of the SK's to give them Flank on top of putting an earthquake in the middle of the opponent before charging. Hunter runs up the side of the board and harasses the flank. Unit of Risen stand beside the SK and Rhupert gives them Tough and they CMA the big stuff. Alexia as the SK's die puts more risen into play. Holding off on burning the risen to cast spells until I get to max unit or it becomes too good of an opportunity to pass up. Jr gives Arcane Shield to the Risen and shoots with the Defender as long as possible then the Defender goes in to take out the softened heavies, Snipe on B13 and they win me the game.

My usually opponents play very little range so there is little to fear for Alexia and if there is I can put AS on her instead of the Lancer considering it may be gone by 3rd round anyway.

I thought this gives me some stopping power while I work on whittling my opponent down.

I'm open for any criticism or suggestions.

[VagrantPoet]

I don't know that its really attrition if your not killing much of the other guys stuff.

Neither sword knights or Alexia are great at killing stuff, Lancers are a lot of points which don't do much killing, so all of your damage is in two jacks guns and the b13th.

I'm not sure how good this list is at the whittling down part of the plan.

[LordCommaderCavanaugh]

So, this list looks a little like the fabled earthquake lists.

Typically in an earthquake list you will see:

pStryker
Ol' Rowdy
Journeyman Warcaster
Sword Knigts (max)
-Sword Knight officer and standard bearer
-Lancer (marshaled)
Archduke Alain Runewood
Rhupert Carvolo, piper of Ord

So, basically the idea here is this:

Use the arc node on the lancer to cast and earth quake and knock down some infantry. Then activate runewood and give path to victory to tohe sword knights, Then pronto up the lancer then activate the sword knights Charge all the sword knights in as much as possible near the lancer to take advantage of flank, while using path to victory from runewood. Essentially, if the unit is not immune to knock down then you will be able to just about auto hit assuming they are knocked down, not including snake eyes, and do some serious damage. You can just about guarantee that the sword knights will take out any infantry they come up against on a flank charge. Cryx, Circle, and Trolls players will attest to that.

Sword knight MAT: 7
Sword knight with Flank MAT: 9
Sword Knight with Flank and path to victory MAT: 11

So you are pretty much going to hit whatever you charge. Personally speaking I have been able to hit DEF 20 on the Khador Acrobats.

Then since you are utilizing flank you will be charging on 4d6 on POW 10, which essentially amounts to about a POW 22 attack. So, light jacks and some heavies are within damaging range. Warbeasts are pretty much going to die real fast when the sword knights get the charge on them. I personally have a lot of legion and circle in my meta so I used them regularly to dispatch heavies.

If you don't want to use the high damage out put of the Sword knights to wipe out other infantry then you can use them for precision strike and penetrating strike. You can take out the cortex on any jack in as many attacks as you need to and render a jack completely useless.

You can always use Ol' Rowdy to run and charge for free to help get more flank attacks, and he can also add more knock down as well, which is always nice on a knock down list. The black 13th will also be really helpful at eliminating any remaining knocked down units. Black penny will be really helpful when they are advancing up the field behind the sword knights killing a few units each turn. Then properly utilizing the magestorm cloud effect AOE will be really nice at charge denial/board control for your sword knights. If you have the points you might rather run a centurion then march up the sword knights behind the centurion so that anything that tries to charge the word knights will take free strikes from the centurion. The centurion will not be getting charged, because of magno shield.

disallowing charges and board control along with knocking down lots of infantry will be your best friends for attrition.

[VintertheElder]

Thanks for the help guys. I figured the SK's with flank on a warjack that had AS wasn't a bad place to start. The risen individually start at a low POW but with CMA it gets pretty good. When the SK's die if they are close enough to Alexia they automatically become risen (with a few exceptions) and none of this even includes Alexia and her shenanigans yet. But I should still get the most out of SK's while they are alive and Runewood sounds like a good idea to do just that. I have to say I like of using KD spam as part of my attrition strategy. Not that it'll work all the time but it might slow down my opponent for a turn or two and that may make all the difference.

[sleet01]

Marshaled Lancer? Does not compute! If you're marshaling a Reach light for Flank, the Firefly is cheaper and more flexible. If you're taking a Lancer, might as well keep it on Stryker for arcing. In fact, if you're not marshaling you could drop the SK UA and take Thorn on Stryker for more mobility.