Kanes Wrath

If you had been following the Tips of the Week in the last months, you might have stumbled upon one about the Scrin's main ground-based harassment unit, the Mechapede, and seen it described as the Scrin equivalent of the Tib Core Bike. Well, now here's a tip about the Scrin's aerial harassment unit, the Stormrider, which is basically a cross between an Orca and a Venom in a $1500 package. It is widely recognized for its huge speed (175, surpassed only by Firehawks and Venoms) and quite decent health, similar to that of a Firehawk. Their biggest drawback is their mediocre firepower of about 170 Rocket DPS.

The Stormrider is primarily a harassment unit, also fulfilling the roles of anti-tank and anti-air. It is highly potent in the latter one. Before tier 3 it is the only Scrin unit able to effectively chase and kill Orcas. That makes them a good choice against GDI mid-game, allowing you to access tier 3 easier. Later on, GDI regains air domination through Firehawks, but that can be too late. Devourer spam with Stormriders is a potent combo against GDI midgame, especially if you find the opponent trying the classic tank spam or Orcas.

One of Stormriders' advantages is their ability to strike fear in your opponent. Their huge damage potential is a risk too huge to ignore. It might even limit the other player a lot; for example, a GDI player is much less likely to go Orcas if there is a risk that you intercept all of them with Stormriders. Long-range harvesting will also be threatened. It's a double-edged sword though, since you're far more likely to see Firehawks if you had gone Stormriders in midgame. Still, keeping a Gravity Stabilizer can be useful even if you don't actually use it.

Against Nod Stormriders are less useful as Harvester hunters. The key to Stormrider harassment is speed; having to wait for the enemy Harvesters to dock doesn't speed up their death. The same thing doesn't apply to Black Hand, and Black Hand really is a faction vulnerable to Stormriders (assuming they haven't gone infantry). Not only do they serve well in combat—they help a lot against all Nod tier 1 vehicles and are a must-have addition to Seekers in Traveler-59 versus Nod. Still, don't rely on them for countering bikes, as a mass of bikes or a much smaller number of upgraded ones can and will kill you. Stormriders can also make good scouts (which is extremely useful against Black Hand). Against other Nod factions lategame, Stormriders are less useful mostly because of Tib Core weaponry. Still, should you find the enemy massing Scorpions or Avatars, Stormriders will prove to be a solid tech switch option and should be able to slow the opponent down. Remember to switch to something else afterward, as pure Stormrider spam is rather easy to counter with proper adjustments.

Scrin mirror matchups are particularly good for Stormriders, though their use is mostly limited to lategame. As with all Scrin air, you can use the Ion Storm boost—and it's no small thing. Aside from healing (about 18 seconds to bring an almost dead Rider back to full health), it grants Stormriders 25% more damage and armor, turning them into real mean killing machines. Of course, you aren't likely to keep a PAC nearby at all times. This means your Stormriders will mostly get a shiny graphic effect from Storm Columns. That also includes enemy columns.



The Ion boost can actually out-heal Storm Column damage—Stormriders cost effectively beat Storm Columns. That isn't exactly important though—why go for Columns when you can go for their Harvesters? This means that Stormriders can be a good followup to Mechapedes in a Scrin versus Scrin matchup. One of the favourite things a Scrin player will do is bunker up with their tier 3 Towers of Awesome, which is where Stormriders come in. Of course, the enemy might switch their Storm Columns off to disable the Ion boost—but then they aren't really doing him much good, are they?

Should your opponent decide not to make Storm Columns, in this case against your previous Mechapede attack, they will most likely employ Tripods, Devourer Tanks or his own Shard Mechas. Do these counter Mechapedes? Yup. Do these get countered by Stormriders? Yup. Most armored units do, in fact, die to Stormriders. However, remember that it might take a while to kill twelve Avatars with only four Stormriders, and four Mammoths will actually tear that number of Stormriders into little bits.

This brings us to our next point. Like virtually any air unit that isn't ZOCOM, Stormriders aren't wonderfully armored and go down to concentrated fire quickly, but they have very good speed. If the opponent prepares suitable anti-air (Tungsten Slingshots being the threat most hated), your Stormriders will prove rather useless. If they start preparing defenses once they notice 12 Stormriders over their disappearing Harvesters, then it's quite close to the state of the game commonly known as "gg wp re plz wtf dodger go drown in river win coz of bug". But I digress. The point is that Stormriders are best used èn massè, as surprise units. The ideal number for Stormriders is "a lot", although some argue that "8+" is as good. They are quite similar to Orcas—4 can work, but 8 can absolutely rape the opponent. The difference is that Stormriders don't deal damage as fast as Orcas, so you will need more of them.

Speaking of surprises, the damage potential and speed of Stormriders is enough to make even top players afraid of them. You can, however, fool them into spending on counters to air that will never come. Take a look at the screenshot below.



As you can see, active and paused Gravity Stabilizers look exactly the same. Let your opponents briefly see some active Grav portals and enjoy slaughtering their massed Mantises with Tripods. Remember that it is actually visible when a Grav has some Stormriders, even if the latter aren't docked at the moment (as seen on the far right Grav). This means that you won't always be able to fool your opponent, but the cheap price of Stabilizers makes it a good option, especially if you actually create some Stormriders from them once the enemy has assumed that the Stabilizers were just a trick.

There are also some micro-related tricks to Stormriders. The first one is the classic focus fire. Since you don't need to worry about pathfinding or overkill with Stormriders, you might as well use waypoints to pick your targets. That's especially useful with Stormrider mirror fights, where all that matters is decreasing the opponent's firepower as fast as possible. Don't forget about your Stormriders after you have given them waypoint orders though—you might have to pull the damaged ones out or avoid the 9000 Missile Squads waiting behind the opponent's Refineries.

The second trick is related more to kiting. Sometimes you might find yourself in a situation like this one. You have 4 Stormriders nearby 4 enemy Harvesters. Unfortunately, these Harvesters are just in range of 15 Tungsten GDI AA turrets. Attacking the Harvesters will turn into certain death before you can even deal any damage. There is a way to overcome that kind of defense though. Repeatedly order your Stormriders to move just out of range of the anti air. They will fire at any nearby targets without necessarily circling over them. You can do the same thing against buildings— just set your Stormriders to aggressive.

Special thanks to vOddy, Eph2.8-9, X-Flame and R Schneider.

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