Serberys Raiders
"We already know how great Skitarii are, but you know what would make them even better? If they rode cyber-beasts into battle! And if some of those mechanical quadrupeds also breathed fire?!"
- – Men of culture at Warhammer Community
"Yee, and I cannot stress this enough, haw!"
- – The creed of the Serberys Corps (translated from binary)
- – A Raider whenever it strikes noon
The Serberys Raiders are new Adeptus Mechanicus units playing My Little Horsie shown off at Las Vegas. Looking like Death Riders of Krieg, but with robot horses they look absolutely awesome.
Overview
The Serberys Raiders ride swift quadrupedal constructs whose razor-clawed limbs allow them to manoeuvre easily over the most shattered terrain, while their riders are mag-locked in gyro-stabilised positions.
Serberys Raiders are long-range scouts and outriders in contrast to the more close-assault cousins of the Sulphurhounds. They excel at outflanking enemy forces and picking off unprotected assets. Advanced ocular arrays implanted into the riders’ skulls are noospherically linked with their mounts, ensuring maximum accuracy, while finely calibrated olfactory sensors and a suite of sensitive augury equipment make them dogged and feared trackers.
Serberys Raiders are well equipped for combat at every distance, with Galvanic Carbines offering ranged punch and finely crafted Cavalry Sabres for melee combat. The squad’s alpha is also armed with a hard-hitting Archeotech Revolver. They make for a versatile vanguard unit, able to ride ahead of their fellow Skitarii and even snipe at enemy command assets.
Tabletop
Crunchwise, the first thing to understand about them is that, on a point per wound basis, they are extremely cheap and efficient. They clock in at just under 5 points per wound and 3 wounds per model. To get the same number of wounds in a unit of vanilla rangers, you would have to pay about 20 points more. The raiders are also fast, with a free scout move at the beginning of the game and a 12" move standard. However, they are something of a distraction carnifex. They are not great in melee, have a mediocre WS of 4+, and three attacks per model, all at strength 4 with barely any ap.
They can snipe characters, causing mortal wounds on a wound roll of 6, but a bare minimum squad will only be popping off a mere 6 shots at 18 inches. Lastly, despite riding a giant, cybernetic greyhound, they have the same toughness and armor save as their troop counterpart. Overall, the raiders function best as a harassment unit. They are too fast for your opponent to fully ignore, lest they go after vulnerable backfield support characters and small units, but also so cheap that losing them doesn't hurt you much.