40K Tactics: Space Marine Heroes – Kayvaan Shrike
Hey guys, I am Learn2Eel and this is my Codex: Space Marines Tactica! Today, I will be looking at Kayvann Shrike – the Shadow Captain! I hope you enjoy this article!
Space Marine players have access to the most extensive roster of unique characters in the game. This provides many diverse play-styles, and inherent advantages, that encourage players to experiment with a wealth of differing army lists. Unlike some other codices, few of these characters are solely based around damage potential; instead, they provide ground-breaking support abilities and potential for thematic army creation that you simply can’t find anywhere else. Though they are restricted to their own Chapter Tactics now, the advice given in the previous Space Marines codex very much rings true to this day; these are templates for mighty heroes to lead your forces, built to give you something you simply cannot find from a kitted out regular character. Where Marneus Calgar allows you to control the morale aspect of Warhammer 40000, Kor’sarro Khan provides free early movement to an entire force, allowing them to dominate positioning and deployment. As Helbrecht is the lynchpin for an army-wide massed and devastating assault, Vulkan He’stan gives you the means to make a Salamanders army the true masters of anti-vehicular warfare. It is such that you cannot judge these characters on the merits of combat or martial prowess alone, but on how they allow for incredible strategic flexibility in the army list creation phase, and in tactical adaptability through their considerable, palpable aura on the field of battle. These Space Marines count themselves amongst the finest heroes in all of the Imperium, and each has their own mark to leave on your army.
Kayvaan Shrike, Captain of the 3rd Company
Overview – In ages past, Shrike was one of the crazier characters you could get, unlocking such combinations as ten infiltrating thunder hammer and storm shield Terminators. This fit very well into a themed Raven Guard army (hurr hurr) as many competitive players would tell you. Jokes aside, Shrike was often taken not because of his stealthy tactics, but because he could deliver any nasty melee or ranged unit into short range immediately. In an understandable effort to limit the fluff-breaking potential of Shrike conferring Infiltrate to his unit, this has now been limited to jump pack equipped units. In fact, Shrike can never join any unit that isn’t a jump unit during deployment, meaning that if for some reason you don’t include Vanguard Veterans or Assault Marines, Shrike has to sit all by his lonesome before the game starts! Annoyingly, Shrike’s ability also has not been clarified to specifically affect his attached unit as well, much like characters such as Karandras or Shadowsun that may or may not confer it to the unit – a raging debate that I choose to avoid, personally. Honestly though, it seems like the rules as intended do favour Shrike infiltrating a unit forward, but that is something to work out with your opponents. Additionally, Shrike also has the Stealth special rule which is thus conferred on to his unit; this makes up for the Raven Guard tactics not giving Bulky – including Jump units – units Infiltrate and Stealth, which again appears to fit into Shrike’s function.
So just how valuable are those abilities? Assault Marines and Vanguard Veterans all got a welcome and hefty price drop in the new codex, and the ability to use their jump packs in both the movement and assault phases gives them a very large reliable threat range. Paired up with Shrike giving them a slight defensive boost and – probably – a better deployment, these units should feasibly be able to pull off either a first player turn or second turn charge with little or no risk of failure attached. As it is, this is a big boost to one of these units, though like any good force, army composition is key to success; you can’t just throw one large or small unit of jump pack-equipped Marines at the enemy early on. You need to pair these up with Infiltrating Tacticals and Sternguard in Rhinos to overload your opponent with threats in the first game turn, but no matter how you press it, there will always be a noticeable deficiency. This is due to Marines lacking many infantry units that can keep up with Shrike, leaving the oppositions’ anti-infantry fire with one or maybe two probable and easy targets to deal with. Unfortunately, this is compounded by the fact that Shrike cannot be used as a wound tank like Vulkan or Sicarius; with only power armour and an iron halo on top of the regular Captain profile – sigh – to protect him, he can soak up some wounds but not many. Certainly, he cannot be used to save a squad from the greedy maw of a Heldrake, or those crazy Colossus’ barrages. For what will likely be an expensive unit kitted out for melee, given that they lack Hit and Run and few real good ranged options, this can be a real deterrent to even employing such a unit. Even with Stealth, that so many AP3 template or blast weapons also ignore cover – particularly when Markerlights are thrown in – means that the unit simply won’t survive long with Riptides, Ion Cannon Hammerheads, Heldrakes, and even massed firepower from Fire Warriors or Imperial Guardsmen around. This leads to a highly mobile and quite dangerous melee unit that simply doesn’t have the durability to survive for very long outside of incredibly picky deployment using large line-of-sight blocking pieces of terrain. In a force that is naturally strapped for points due to its elite nature, having a Captain that can only join a specific type of unit that itself cannot take a dedicated transport while using its’ jump packs leads to a very limited range of deployment options. You are forced to be aggressive or waste the melee talents of Shrike and his unit, but it leaves you too vulnerable to a first or second turn barrage to really worry the competitive army lists.
And this then really starts to tie in with just why Shrike is a mediocre at best commander for your army. As a Warlord, he concedes Slay the Warlord easier than most or all other Captains, while his abilities for being a Warlord aren’t even that great. His guaranteed warlord trait is arguably the worst of the bunch, as giving both he and his unit the Fear special rule is unlikely to really make a difference most of the time. Against Tau and Imperial Guard, you don’t need Fear to beat them in combat, and against the forces where you could really use it – such as Daemons, Space Marines and monstrous creatures – they are always immune to Fear anyway! The few times it might be useful are when trying to fight units such as Raveners out of Synapse range – who are as fast as Shrike’s unit anyway – or Chaos Marines without Fearless. But then, most don’t even take such units, at least not for their melee capabilities; you may see Raveners, but it is rare indeed that they show up and are also outside of Synapse range when they need to be. So between being relatively fragile compared to Captains that have artificer armour or a storm shield and having one of the worst Warlord Traits you could possibly ask for, taking Shrike as a Warlord really shouldn’t happen outside of a themed army list.
Now, you might be thinking that despite the downsides, Shrike at least makes up for it in combat. Thankfully, this is partially true; he can be quite damaging against most opponents, but he really doesn’t work as a character killer of any note. His twin lightning claws afford him an extra attack, giving him four base at Weapon Skill 6 and Initiative 5 which, with frag grenades, means he will be striking at Initiative on the charge with five attacks. His attacks are AP3, he re-rolls failed to wound rolls, and to wound rolls of a six are also Rending; this does apply to vehicles as well, but outside of strong luck it really doesn’t outshine a mere krak grenade that much. Rending lightning claws are pretty decent, particularly as each is master-crafted, giving Shrike two re-rolls to hit in each combat. This means he is very reliable against most enemies, as he will almost never need 5s to hit outside of a charge from Jain Zar and the like, re-roll his misses – meaning he will usually hit four or five times with five attacks depending on the opponents’ Weapon Skill – and he re-rolls all failed to wound rolls at a decent Strength of 4. Not bad at all! This makes Shrike a bit of a blender against enemies such as Fire Warriors, power-armoured Space Marines and 3+ armoured HQs. Unfortunately, even with Rending, he can’t really engage 2+ armoured enemies with a great deal of efficiency, and despite his re-rolls to wounds, he isn’t going to harm monstrous creatures like Trygons or Wraithknights any time soon – something to note is that with Rending, Shrike actually can harm the latter without using a krak grenade. Besides, most commanders either sport a 2+ armour save or a decent invulnerable save, so while Shrike will do quite well against a lot of enemies, he isn’t that much more effective than a regular Captain would be when equipped similarly.
And therein lies the issue; for a staggering half a century of points more than a Captain equipped in the same way, Shrike really doesn’t give you that much value for the price increase. His melee capabilities are only boosted slightly by the additions of two re-rolls to hit and potential Rending, but the difference really isn’t noticeable enough to justify such a cost, nor are his rather mediocre abilities. The kicker here is to compare those abilities to someone like Khan or Vulkan, both of whom provide far more for the army – rather than a single unit – and really affect the way your army list is written and how it plays. Where Shrike gives a single unit Stealth and Infiltrate, giving them a slight defensive boost against shooting and some extra deployment shenanigans, Vulkan master-crafts all melta weapons in your army and is a stronger overall character for shooting, durability and melee. In the same breath, Khan gives most of a force – or all of it depending your unit composition – the Scout special rule and, with a Bike, is as mobile, tougher and almost as decent in a combat, as Shrike. The former of these is only marginally more costly than Shrike, and on top of having superior special rules, he is far harder to kill with stronger saves across the board and the ease of being able to really choose what unit or transport to deploy with. The latter is quite a bit cheaper and provides large boosts to his own ‘Chapter Tactics’, whereas Shrike has to make up for deficiencies in his own ‘Chapter Tactics’ so that they can affect but a single jump unit. This contrast in fortunes between White Scars and Raven Guard, for example, really highlights the lack of value in Shrike in contrast to other special characters in the codex. He isn’t cut out to be a dedicated combat monster like Lysander, but nor can he provide the amazing support abilities of someone like Tigurius. Instead, he tries to ply both trades and fails pretty badly at both, leading to an over-costed and pale imitation of the other more specialized characters.
Does this mean that I think Shrike is terrible though? No, I don’t think so; he is too expensive by far for what he does, particularly as Vulkan and Sicarius are both almost identical in price to him and offer so much more to your army. He also doesn’t really get that much more over a similarly equipped Captain when it comes to combat; when those Rending hits matter will often be against enemies who will squish Shrike anyway due either to his lack of a 2+ armour save or no Eternal Warrior. In practice, he isn’t even a well equipped Captain; a jump pack, even for Raven Guard, is almost universally inferior to a Bike, particularly for a costly multiple wound model that is likely to be the army Warlord. A pair of lightning claws isn’t terrible, but it pays a lot for an extra attack; often a power weapon, preferably a maul, with a pistol is better overall for the points. It also leaves the Captain quite bare when it comes defence, with no storm shield or artificer armour. Essentially, you really pay through the nose for decent buffs over a regular Captain which doesn’t work at all when representing a themed Raven Guard force is likely easier done, both ironically and sadly, with a White Scars force led by Khan. That a Captain equipped like Shrike really isn’t worth it in the first place seals his place as a themed choice to play on the hopes that your opponent doesn’t have potent first turn shooting, or that you can find a lot of terrain on your game board to hide them. Even then, Shrike just isn’t the melee monster you would want him to be; why not instead take Lysander in an Allied Detachment with a group of Assault Terminators or a Command Squad? Shrike really needed to be a good twenty or thirty points cheaper, that or his special rules really needed to be more pronounced and affect more than just one unit. As it is, I would only ever take Shrike in a themed list; outside of those, you are probably just wasting your points.
Maximising their Abilities – When using Shrike, you really need to make the most out of his See But Remain Unseen special rule; this means taking a large and decently equipped Assault Marine or jump-pack equipped Vanguard Veterans squad. As Shrike must join a jump unit in deployment and only one of either units’ dedicated transports can carry bulky models, this means your deployment options are quite limited. Taking a transport will also limit the number of models you can transport due to Bulky, so I probably wouldn’t advise that outside of maybe a Land Raider Crusader. If only Shrike could join non-jump units and only take up two slots in a transport instead of everyone in the squad doing so as well! Depending on how generous your opponents are, the ideal deployment scenario is to Infiltrate Shrike with his unit to close with the enemy for a first turn charge – if you go second – and hide from as much enemy firepower as well. With Stealth, even sitting in cover may be ideal, but you really need to be wary of your problem units; Riptides, Hammerheads, Colossi, Griffons, Basilisks and the like should not be able to draw line of sight to you on the first turn. If any such unit can, then you are in a lot of trouble; in the case of the last three units, of course, it may not matter, but it boosts your chances of avoiding their shots.
Infiltrate does give you a lot of leeway for deployment though which always helps, allowing you to get as close to ideal targets and away from those problem units as you need to. That the unit can re-roll their assault moves while moving 12″ in the movement phase – provided Shrike is attached to a Raven Guard squad of course – means that they have an incredible threat range early on, which few other dedicated assault units can lay claim to. This doesn’t make them invincible though; even with a power weapon or a few more, depending on the squad, they simply can’t handle some units in combat. Trygons, Wraithknights, ‘Screamerstars’, Flesh Hounds led by a Herald, Spawn with a Khorne Chaos Lord, Nurgle Bikers and the like are all deadly melee units that are often seen in a competitive sense, all of which are easily capable of tearing apart Shrike’s unit. For how to equip Shrike’s attached unit, I would definitely take a power weapon on a Sergeant if you can manage it so that Shrike doesn’t stick out like a sore thumb on an opponent’s list of “models to kill first”, but only if you have the points spare as it is expensive and probably not very efficient. For an Assault Squad, I recommend flamers over plasma pistols due to the cost difference and the real lack of reliably for the latter; the former also lets the squad effectively engage massed infantry that can harm them greatly in Overwatch, like a bunker of multiple Fire Warrior or Kroot units with a nearby Ethereal. A graviton pistol is an ideal purchase on the Sergeant as its’ Concussive effect and lack of Gets Hot! make it an ideal replacement for a plasma pistol, as well as giving the unit a better chance against high Initiative monstrous creatures like Daemon Princes. In the case of Vanguard Veterans, as ‘alluring’ as it might be, I would avoid giving them a lot of power weapons. While it is cheaper than before, the cost increase is so significant that it effectively leaves your force a unit short; given how important target saturation is to support a dedicated assault unit, I really recommend only taking one or two at most. In the same breath, storm shields are in a bit of a similar boat; they are cheap for what they do, but you still get left with Toughness 4 models with only 3+ saves, meaning they can and will be gunned down by massed firepower. This does make them a lot less vulnerable to the weapons that are usually their bane – the AP3 cover-ignoring variety – but it also makes them a good deal more expensive. Adding in a handful is a safe bet, but no more.
To the choice between each unit, this is pretty tough as while Vanguard Veterans will have more flexibility and the important option to multi-charge in such large numbers with no loss of charge bonuses, they do get a lot more expensive very quickly. I’m really undecided on which unit will prove to be more effective in the long run, so I would leave this to personal preference. Regardless of how you choose, be very aware of their limitations, and prioritize units that you can engage without suffering too many casualties. There is nothing worse than losing a likely 200+ point unit in the space of a few turns because of exposing your unit to firepower it otherwise should have hid from. Your unit is very mobile with a 12″ movement and has natural Stealth; never forget either of these, as they are key to their survival and chances of reaching combat in repeated turns. On Shrike himself, I would avoid making him the Warlord simply because he has the worst of the Warlord Traits by far, though this is obviously only if you are taking another HQ. On that note, don’t just “take” another HQ, even one as cheap as a Librarian, just to avoid using Shrike as the Warlord; those points are almost always better spent on more bodies if you don’t have a clear cut purpose for the character.
Thanks for reading everybody and by all means chime in down in the comments. How have you been running Shrike?
