Steelhead Riflemen

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Steelhead Riflemen Mercenary Steelhead Unit

Steelheads are willing to fight anyone, anywhere, anytime—as long as the pay is right. Working in concert, Steelhead riflemen thin out enemy lines with concentrated fire before the halberdiers charge in to cut down foes with practiced precision. Numerous, well-trained, and well-equipped, the soldiers of the Steelhead Mercenary Company are the best money can buy.

Basic Info

Steelhead Riflemen
Missing Info
	COST {{{cacost}}} UNIT SIZE {{{casize}}} FA {{{cafa}}} Warcaster 0 BASE Small SPD 6 STR 6 MAT 5 RAT 5 M.A. N/A DEF 13 ARM 13 CMD 7 ESSENCE {{{essence}}} FOCUS N/A FURY N/A THRS N/A HP 1 F. Field N/A WJP {{{wjp}}} WBP {{{wbp}}} IHP {{{ihp}}} FA 2 UNIT SIZE 6 or 10 COST 8 or 13 1.3 pts each N/A N/A Warcaster 1 COST N/A N/A Understanding the Statblock

Mercenary - This unit will work for Crucible Guard, Cryx, Cygnar, Khador, or Protectorate.

Abilities

• Combined Ranged Attack
• Combined Arms - When this model misses an attack roll for a combined ranged attacks, it can reroll that attack roll. Each attack can be rerolled only once as a result of Combined Arms.
• War-Tempered - This model can make combined ranged attacks targetting models in melee.

Weapons

• Military Rifle - 10" range, POW 11 ranged attack
• Sword - 0.5" reach, POW 3, P+S 9 melee attack

Theme Forces

• Mercenary
  • Operating Theater (Only if a Cephalyx Dominator is attached)
  • Soldiers of Fortune
  • The Kingmaker's Army. Steelhead Riflemen gain Feign Death in this theme.

• Other Factions
  • Infernal players can use this unit in the Hearts of Darkness theme, but only if Crosse2 is leading the army.
  • Furthermore, Mercenaries can be hired by other Factions. Normally those Factions' themes will have a limit on how many models they can hire. Refer to #Other Theme Forces, below.

Recent Changes

No changes since 2019.03

Thoughts on Steelhead Riflemen

Steelhead Riflemen in a nutshell

Steelhead Riflemen where the cheapest 10 gunmen you could buy, now technically beaten by the Hammerfall High Shield Gun Corps but the dwarves are the more defensive of the 2 options and in faction there is no theme crossover so they aren't in competition. Unlike the dwarves the Steelheads can actually cause casualties with their special rules helping them hit infantry.

The Steelhead Rifles are a 16" walking threat with rerollable CRA's. There is nothing fancy whatsoever about them other than being able to CRA into melee (but still taking the penalty), but they can probably accomplish something useful from range every turn.

Combos & Synergies

• Captain Damiano - they love his coins. +2 to hit and damage for each of them can be lethal both with and without the two person CRA (a two person CRA is effectively RAT 11, POW 15), however Reposition 5" will keep them alive quite a bit longer as infantry that shoot 10" don't last long.
• Warwitch Deneghra - cheap shooters on the Cryx debuff-and-shoot gunline. Parasite makes their shots hard hitting.
• Snipe means a lot to them.
• Theme - Soldiers of Fortune gives you access to Mark Target, and +2 to hit on RAT 5 models is awesome. Especially if you have an Alexia producing disposable Thrall Warriors.
• Sergeant Nicolas Verendrye gives reinforcements and Stannis Brocker gives Tactician to Steelhead units.

Drawbacks & Downsides

• Low RAT, meaning that you frequently miss infantry unless you pair up or have one of the combos above.
• Awful in melee.
• 10" range means they can't play forward or they die fast.
• In general if you're not playing with one or more of the synergies above (not counting Sgt. Nick and Stannis Brocker) they are too impotent and squishy to be worth using. (If you are on the other hand using multiple things that make them more able to hit they are actually pretty good).

Tricks & Tips

• With them being so cheap it's worth risking two of them to snipe a solo.
• If one Steelhead is already in range, have that one aim and lead a CRA, allowing a second Steelhead to move into range for a two person CRA with an effective RAT 9.
• Their role is to unjam your forces and pick off targets after the lines close. Keep them behind the halberdiers and CRA into melee.

Other

Trivia

Released in Forces of Warmachine: Mercenaries (2010)

Other Theme Forces

Cryx (Edit)

• Black Industries
• Dark Host
• The Ghost Fleet
• Scourge of the Broken Coast

Cygnar (Edit)

• Gravediggers
• Heavy Metal
• Sons of the Tempest
• Storm Division

Khador (Edit)

• Armored Korps
• Jaws of the Wolf
• Legion of Steel
• Winter Guard Kommand

Protectorate of Menoth (Edit)

• Exemplar Interdiction
• Guardians of the Temple
• The Creator's Might
• The Faithful Masses

Crucible Guard (Edit)

• Magnum Opus

Rules Clarifications

Rules Clarification : Combined Arms - None yet. (Edit)

Rules Clarification : Combined Ranged Attack      (Edit) CRA cannot target models in melee ... unless the target is a huge-based model or the attacker has War-Tempered. If you give the attack-leader a buff to their attack (such as Guidance) then that buff applies to the combined attack (even though the other participants don't have the buff). (Locked thread) Assault & CRA (Edit) You cannot mix Combined Range Attacks with Assault shots, as CRA works during your combat action and Assault shots occur before it. (Infernal Ruling)

Rules Clarification : War-Tempered - None yet. (Edit)