Skystalkers or Sterilizors?

[Bouargh]

Hi there,

 

I am planning a (second) patrol box but I hesitate on how I should build the Pteraxii.

I´ve already built a Sterilizor unit of 5 and the question is if one of these options is better (or say more pertinent) than others:

• increase the size of current Sterilizors up to 10
• field a second unit of 5 sterilizors
• field a unit of 5 skystalkers

 

I went for Sterilizors first because of their look. I also appreciated their impact for challenging ennemy controlled objectives. Yet 5 is a little bit short to get the best out of this feature. Getting to 10 might be a way to ensure that the supporting role would be more decisive. Yet, Pteraxii are already big models with huge span and I wonder if, in the end, getting 10 will not end up designing them for death - a bigger unit, hard to hide and that have low cover options....

A second independant unit of 5 may therefore be a way to go: get the same impact, more or less, splitting the risk and getting option to adress different targets if battle flows in a way tht does no stick to the plan.

Then comes the Skystalkers. Their gun fire is what it is but their movement rules make them perfect to grab objectives far away within ennemy lines. Grenades should not be underestimated neither. Yet, shall this event happen late in the concourse of the battle, I am afraid they would have been killed before doing anything (again, these models wide spanned wings are an issue. They are maybe a less generalist unit and a more adecuate one as circunstancial benefits grabbers? 

 

I usually play a rather quite mobile army: lots of rangers, a transport or two, Dunecrawlers and some units of cavalery (all falvours of Serberis + Dragoons) plus a few Sicarians. Plus a Freeblade. I also have (a lot) of Kataphrons but, lately, they tend to stay at home.

 

What are your views/opinions?

 

Thanx

[Magos Takatus]

I can't really comment from a rules perspective but my gun instinct is that a unit of ten Sterilyzors would be too impractical. As you said the wingspan makes the models have a huge footprint, and they all connect together into one ball of soon-to-be-broken models. I would also expect that although a unit of ten would have the firepower to shift units more easily they would just get mauled by small arms fire. I would personally narrow it down to a second distinct unit, but whether more Sterilyzors or Skystalkers I'll have to leave for someone that knows the rules better.

 

As an aside, I hate how I have no idea how to spell Sterilyzors or if I am doing it correctly. These IP-friendly typos are weirdly annoying.

[Bouargh]

I used them mainly in Incursion size games. Here the size up to 10 does not matter much in fact, as you rarely go up to that large units. at largest games, it may matter, especially at Onslaught  size where fire concentration may be required.

 

After all, whatever the game size will be, you can get only 3 units of one kind (if no  battleline), meaning that there is potential size inflation that shall be handled (except if you have the luxury of a codex with 40+ datasheets) sooner or later. But inbetween, 2 units of 5 may indeed make more sense than 1 big of 10.

[Xenith]

I'd make a unit of the 5 you don't have an use them in any way you see fit - I don't think I could tell the models apart, and I think many hobbyists who probably have less free time/headspace than me will be the same. So mash them together in a unit of 10 if you want that for a game, then use as 2 units of 5 whatevers.