Inexperienced with Strakhov, what are your thoughts?

Search auraco 's old posts. He inspired me to get into Strak 1. My 2 cents.

1. List is fine. Go play it and adjust.
2. The one game I played with Yuri and friends was great. All 3 were stars. Treewalker is boss and AD + sr2017 mean you will capture the prime forest. Do,it turn 1 and present an impossible question.
3. Occultation on Strak. Sentry on Behemoth. Superiority on Grolar or Torch for assassination. You can put it on a cheap jack turn 1 but cycle it turn 2 to your assassination jack if you do.
4. Ram activates on a hit, before you roll damage. This is balls good. Don't forget it. Remember the gun has dual attack.
5. You can cast Overrun twice to create multiple threats. If you don't have a top of 2 assassination use it to launch a Marauder or your Juggernaut. Big B is your Overrun trigger.
6, Don't be afraid to run-use the elims to box in an important model with dodge or Admonition.

It is really, really hard to protect against a 20" non linear assassination threat unless your enemy is ambackline caster. Killbox is your friend.

Hi Growl,

Cool to see you hopping onto strak1 as well, he is a lot of fun!

Not that much feedback, in comparison to my own list you opt for a more melee approach. I prefer a bit more ranged presence (widowmakers and a marshalled jack for magical attacks) but looking at it, yuri and the treewalker guys might actually be nice with the sr2017 terrain ruleset. Let me know how they work out! (+4 range is sweet on them, don't forget that strakov has to be within 12 of that model as well though)

Armchairwarrior posted most of the pointers I would point out as well.

As for the side list, I ran strak2 beside him for a while but found some matchups hard to cover. Although this depends on your meta, you cover Cygnar, circle, ret, skorne, menoth and legion for sure. Some others might still give you trouble.


Don't forget that late game strak1 can shoot, overrun himself and shoot some more. He has d3 plus an aoe shot. Some casters are not very happy if you already got some damage on them in earlier rounds.

Torch, have him assault, kill something in melee, overrun 4/6 back, sprint 4/6 back. Rinse and repeat every turn.
He can assault and place his beacon so potentialy a 21 (23 with sup) inch stealth removal under feat.

Eliminators are really good in clogging up non boostable infantry attacks and can really set up your feat turn.
Speaking for my own list I whittle the army away at ranged, then when opportunity presents itself go for the assassination or scalpel out key targets that are troublesome for my list. I can imagine you can pressure a lot with the manhunters and yuri behind a forest.

And last reminder, even in turn 6/7 the assassination can always be there with overrun (melee or ranged, why not both?! )

cheers,
Utility

It was pre-Jaws, but I liked Strakhov1 with the Manhunter package. They're a nasty threat with Treewalker, especially on his feat turn.

Something to consider is how much you think you need the two Forgeseers. Obviously the focus is great, but I found that the Widowmaker Marksman worked brilliantly with Strakhov and is conveniently available in Jaws. Sentry gives you a fairly reliable 6 points of damage a turn on a single target. It's great for taking out arc nodes and the like. With two Behemoth Bombard shots as well, that's even a decent chance of taking out a light jack/beast a turn.

Alternatively he is just a really nice sniper. So far as I could see, Sentry interacts well with Swift Hunter (Swift Hunter requires a basic ranged attack, which Sentry provides, and there is no limitation to in activation only) - shoot in maintenance phase, kill a model, Swift Hunter move; move in activation (if required), kill a model, swift hunter move. [Please do correct me if I've been playing this wrong - I'll have apologies to make!]

That will cost you the extra Empower focus and cost you one further focus a turn in upkeep (no free upkeep for non-battlegroup), but it might be worth experimenting with it.

Sentry is well Good on the Marksman. Unless he dies I normally shove it on him. It's also pretty good on Stakhov himself.

I run (atm)

Strakhov
War Dog
Behemoth
Grolar
Grolar
Juggernaut
Juggernaut

Forge Seer
Forge Seer
Marksman
Battle Mechanics
Kayazy Eliminators
Kayazy Eliminators

It's pretty good. Grolars are very good with Strakhov. And they often get the kill off.

True, but I guess on the FEAT turn, I would probably take my Sentry shot in the maintenance phase and then not upkeep it in my control phase to save the one Focus.

Yeah, Sentry occurs in the maintenance phase, you can then upkeep it or not in the control phase.

Strakov1 has been my favourite Caster since I play (somewhere start of MK3).

In Khador many things often play very "vanilla" and straight forward.
Which, in my opinion, is one of the reasons why khador may be well balanced atm but is not very succesfull.
We are very predictable and often our list just ask math questions.
Can you deal with 7-10 Arm20-23 Jacks?
Can you deal with 30 dudes with High arm and tough?
Can you deal with a Gunline on Steroids?

Strakov1 changes that a bit. Oftern there are too many vectors for your opponent to keep out of. Its up to you as the player to leverage that correctly.
That means Strakov1 needs some time to get into.
I can't count how often my Jacks where just a bit out of position. You often find yourself in situations where you wann switch Superiority, cast Overrun and feat. And really often that doesn't work because you can't get everything in 6" to cast all spells and also get the target in the feat. (not to mention beeing in a safe position with Strak himself)

When it comes to builds, especially with themes Strakov is crazy flexible.
Out of theme he works great. Often times you end up running a small force with an even deadlier Assasination. (21", Eyriss, etc.)
Auraco showed in his threads that WGK is not a bad thing either. Conquest may not be as good as Behemoth when it comes to triggering Overrun, but a 14" charge threat on a Colossal is nothing short of impressive.
LoS is something I did not test very much, but in theory he likes Uhlans and melee Units love his feat. The army would probably play a little diffrent
And finally Jaws. He likes everything about Jaws and everything in Jaws likes him.
The only question is the loadout. Besides having what feels like a million Jack combinations, all of the Units fit him well too.

I found the Yuri package enticing to be honest. They need the feat, but then they can go really deep and fit Strakovs gameplan of cutting out the enemys key pieces very well. The reason I rarly choose that package is because a) Yuri isn't free and B) the other opions are better. Be it getting the free UA for the Assasins or my standard loadout of 2 Forge Seers + Marksman.
The Marksman is just a beast with Strakov and Sentry, and he is sooo good in SR17. Rng stealth solo that camps a flag is awesome!
The Forge Seers are the reason to go into Jaws to be honest. Getting them is really good with Strakov. He is still very focus hungry and I rarely end a turn with any camp on him, so 2 Focus is a lot (and I still want more...what I would give for a squire!).
Strakovs army can be really expensive quick since he prefers Elite-Jacks over a lot of Jacks.

But I am really curious how the Yuri package turns out. I would run them in an enviroment with less Jacks (Behemoth +2/3), so you don't need the Focus that bad, and can include Assasins, Eliminators, Widowmaker or Kossites.