Hobby Update: Herd Centaur Bray Striders

It has been a few weeks now, and I am still struggling to catch up on my update posts and move things off of the hobby table. Project-wise, progress is slow, but points-wise and space-wise, this post is a big step for me. Up now are some Centaur Bray Striders!

A doctored group shot. The original was somehow super dark, I was too lazy to dig these all back out for another attempt.

Just like the Hunters, the minis are Centaurs from RGD Games, and you can learn more about the sprues and such in that post. Suffice it to say here, that the kits are neat, especially in bulk, and could be a very nice way to jumpstart a melee-focused Herd army on a budget. 

Both Regiments, for the first horde's worth.

Crunch-wise, the Centaurs are bizarre, and even with some games played already, they have been hard for me to get a feel for. Centaurs can be described as liminal beings, so I’ll be pretentious and presume  that this is a conscious design choice from Mantic. For the sake of all of our brains, let’s focus on just comparing some regiments for now, and mostly focusing on damage output, since the Centaurs are cavalry and should be charging.

Four troops, for the second horde's worth.

With their Melee 3+, CS1 and TC1, they look a bit like knights, or other heavy cavalry units. The kicker here is the Centaurs have just 12 attacks as a regiment, where a normal Knightly regiment, such as from the Kingdoms of Men would have 16. Compared to vanilla knights, the Striders should actually do slightly better for in a grind, thanks to CS, but worse both clear and hindered charges, since the Knights have more attacks. It is complex, but this is a neat comparison as the knights cost 30 points more.

With Defense 4 and fewer attacks than a usual knightly unit, the Centaur Striders could be compared to more medium or light cavalry, like the Kingdoms of Men Mounted Sergeants. Despite the Striders having fewer attacks, with Melee3+, TC1 and CS1, the Striders perform better than Sergeants in every instance, while costing just 10 points more.

With just 12 attacks, the Strider regiments could be compared to elite-but-mundane infantry regiments, like the Kingdoms of Men Foot Guard with two-handers, who also hit on a 3+ and also happen to have 12 attacks. On a clear charge, the Centaurs are obviously better since they have TC, but in hindered charges and grinding combats, the Foot Guard perform just as well as the Centaurs, while costing 25 points less. You could even compare them to some other elite infantry units, like Abyssal Guard (Regen, but 10 points cheaper; Riftforged Legionaries (Def5 but 10 points cheaper) or Elf Palace Guard (better all around due to Elite, and the same cost).

These are all neat comparisons to make! Viewing Centaur Striders as knight-equivalents doesn’t make much sense. While smart play could give Striders the edge on offense, generally most knights are going to be fulfilling other roles, and operating on a different level and at a different price-point. 

A comparison to Mounted Sergeants and to medium cavalry seems like the best comparison, both for points and for role on the battlefield, but it is still a weird and unintuitive comparison to make since those kinds of units aren't found in every army, or even popular within armies that do have them. I don't think I have run any Mounted Sergeants in my 3rd Edition games yet, for example. 

I don't know if I'll get many data points for medium cavalry unit in order to calibrate a comparison there, so I think my personal shorthand will just be to think of them like a speedy infantry regiment for now? They'll hit a little harder on the charge, but probably won't be break anything in one go without help. My approach with the Herd right now is to try and get more units on the battlefield to help with my staying power, so this kind of speedier generalist should hopefully fit in nicely to that plan while also contributing while keeping my expectations of them in check.

Even after all this, the Centaur Strider regiments are still an odd unit, and we haven't even looked at troops or hordes! More testing is clearly needed, and we'll try to get these on the table again soon!