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Is this character useful for the points? Your experiences?

yeah. he's a rude surprise for charging marines. for the guard player he can really save your bacon in assaults. and he's an officer too. I think hes good.

He also counts as a character, not an IC, so he can't be picked out in close combat.

I used him for awhile with a power blob army (which is basically the only time to take him) and I wasn't particularly impressed.

Part of the problem is his buffs. On the one hand, countercharge really isn't that great, and it doesn't stack with things like righteous fury. On the other hand, furious charge is, in theory neat, but it only works on the opening charge. This makes it much less useful because the best recipients (power blobs) do their damage by attrition, not a single, knock out punch (and the buff doesn't help for the turn after turn), while at the same time the ability is at its best when you get charge after charge in, which isn't likely (once again, because you're killing slowly over attrition).

And that's when you're even giving buffs. I found that I spent so much time moving in such a way to give orders, taking things down with the squad's meltaguns, and chasing ogryn with a standard, and playing it safe early on in order to keep the astopath alive among other "officer" things, that I often found myself out of buff range when I needed it.

In the end, he wound up being a space marine with a chainfist. Hardly seemed worth spending the 90 points on, especially when I oddly found myself in close combat with him so relatively rarely, given that that was pretty much all the rest of my army was trying to do.

If you've got someone good to give buffs to and you have another CCS to chill out and give orders, he's perhaps a good deal. My own experiences found him lacking, so I replaced him with a lord commissar. Nearly the same CC punch, but I actually get to USE the Ld10 buff quite a bit.

The fearless buff is great, plus S6 PW attacks are also good. He's a good choice if you like using your HQ actively.

Would he be useful per say to add some protection for an infantry platoon thats covering multiple heavy weapons teams?

Why would he be?

He's not an IC, so he'd be a countercharge unit. A rather expensive one at that.

I'd think a lord commissar would be useful, as it IS an independent character, can be made decent in close combat, and makes heavy weapons teams take orders better.

@ Ailaros

I know if buffs only work the first assault pahase and I agree that blobs do damage over time plus i'm not going to argue with your conclusions as I have read all your reports (thoroughtly enjoyed them by the way) and have never run him myself but did you really find that he added nothing?

countercharge and furious charge only work first turn, so the majority of damage is still done over time put didn't they give that first round a little extra punch?

do think the problem is that you run so many assault orientated units that he couldn't always be where you wanted him?

I'm not a fan of him, costs too many points for the way I play guard. Shooty > Assaulty

IG player here,haven't seen Straken get used here,probably because he often gets paired with a power blob, which tends to stay put and gets charged rather than the other way around?
Anyway Straken could be usefull for a bunch of ogryns, don't you think? has anybody tested this theory,yet?

SpankHammer III wrote:did you really find that he added nothing?

No, it's not that he added NOTHING, it's that he didn't add 90 points worth to my list.

Like most special characters, he's overcosted for what he does, and it's surprisingly difficult to actually get the best out of most of his abilities. It's the same reason I'll never take Creed, as he suffers even worse from this problem.

Not to say that all special characters are bad. Marbo is a no-brainer, and I've actually used every single one of Al'Rahem's abilities except for instakilling something with his power weapon (often I use at least two or three per game). Straken, on the other hand, is tough to really get the mileage out of him.

So tough that even with a list that was basically perfect for taking Straken in, I wound up dropping him after a handful of games.

I'm going to counter alarie here.

Straken can be very useful, furious charge is nice, his orders are nice.
His issue is, you want to fill his squad with meltas and make them anti-vehicle, then his roll is mediocre, you want him to run out and kick people around, but his squad is tying him down, so he's not really 90 points for himself, he's 140ish. but then you still need anti vehicle, so you have to buy a special weapon squad, now your entering 200+ range in overall cost.
Creed has the same issue, he has an awesome 24" order radius, sp you want to keep him right in the middle of your army and give our orders like bacon, but his squad (and probably chimera) force him into a roll where you aren't really using the unit to its fullest.
that being said, he encourages good blob strategy, he makes you really consider charging over standing back, he pumps up the units around him and makes you play aggressively and not-guardish, so while you'll drop him after a while, if you are just learning how this brown tide thing works, he's a good idea.

Wont be dropping my creed though

When (if) the enemy gets to my gunline I do this. All vets are in Chimeras leaving only a sniper platoon and a crapload of tanks out, they probably die (the platoon) but just in case they get counter-attack and any orders. I then unload Straken and vet squad those being:

Straken w/ 4 meltas
Vets w/ shotguns, 3x flamer, power weapon + missile

The missile fires from the (chimera)

They unload and shoot (most squads won't survive 3 flamers if bunched then meltas and shotguns, they then get some angry furious charge guardsmen and a S7 monster, they almost always die.

My most common enemy is Chaos and they rip apart Raptors and Berzerkers, Straken even reliably kills Daemon Princes (when wounded by meltas).

Straken can be seriously killy by himself if pumped up.

and you have to build your list around him. Blob infantry does not use his bonuses very much:

1. They almost never charge
2. They win by attrition, not by fast damage

So you have to make sure that your attacking forces dont stay in combat for a long time.

My sneakiest approach is using Straken together with this kind of backbone:

Veterans with forward sentry upgrade and powerfist sergeant (and weaponry according to their job). 2 squads of ogryn, strakens full command (standard+doc+melta+bodyguard+armour)+some choppers for fast relocation.

So concerning veterans, we have the the possibility to turn things upside down. If they get charged, their defensive grenades together with counter attack create a situation as if they would attack by themselves. This gives me the freedom to rapidfire without serious counter problems. And this actually works quite well.
OK I have to admit, I did it in the small amount of time, where counter attack+furious charge was eventually possible due to the wrong SW-FAQ, but still it is somehow interesting. (tested this just in vassal, but I want this in RL)

Normally I dont play Straken, but I wil try him out soon in my usual list.

My friend fields him, and the guy is pretty good.

He's like an Ork Warboss, I mean look at his statline.

However, every matched Straken has been used against me, Straken dies.