Revision 1

The Strider is the Protectorate assault walker, a Tier 3 Massive unit that loads infantry, extends their attack range while they ride, heals them inside, and can siege into Fortress Mode to harden everything standing near it. It is one of only two Protectorate units built directly by a drone rather than by a production building. Figures below describe build ZS.c36778 of 11 September 2026 and move with the weekly patch cadence.

Stat Block

The Strider is the one Protectorate unit whose three conversion costs differ from one another. Everywhere else on the roster Infuse, Reanimate and Replicate are equal; here Infuse costs 100 against 25.3125 to Reanimate and 30 to Replicate, which makes a Grell ally's infusion far more expensive than a Legion or Xol conversion of the same walker. See Resources and Economy for the shared power pool all three are paid from.

Weapons

Abilities

Role

A Strider is a mobile bunker that also buffs the army around it. Infantry loaded inside keep firing at increased range and are healed while they ride, so a Strider full of Commando rifles or Sentinel rail cannons is a great deal more dangerous than the walker alone, whose own 120mm LR Rampart Cannon reaches only 6 range for 20 damage per second.

Fortress Mode is the reason the unit is built. Thirty percent damage reduction on a 1000 health Heavy chassis is substantial on its own, and the aura hands +1 armor and bonus damage to everything nearby, which is worth most to the massed small hits of an infantry line since armour subtracts per hit. A sieged Strider with a Bastion line in front of it is the clearest expression of the faction's hold the ground identity.

Status resist 50 protects the position the same way it does on the Juggernaut: a slow unit that plants itself is exactly what stuns and slows are meant to punish.

The limits are real. At 400 move speed the Strider is the slowest walker the faction fields, it cannot target air, and since 28 August 2026 it has no upgrades at all, so nothing improves it after it leaves the drone.

Faction Context

The Strider is unlocked by the War Foundry but constructed by a Protectorate Build Drone, the same way a structure is. That means committing a builder for 60 seconds and choosing where the walker appears, which is a planning decision the faction's other units do not require.

It works as the front of a combined force rather than as a solo unit: infantry inside and around it, Hellfire artillery behind it, and Titan missiles or a Griffin covering the air it cannot touch. The Strider is one of the four units shown on the official faction sample roster alongside the Titan, the Commando and Sol Invictus.

Tier and Armour Interactions

Heavy armour with 1 flat armour, 1000 health and the Massive tag. Massive is a tag rather than an armour type; it marks the largest units on the field and some weapons key off it separately from armour.

The Rampart Cannon carries no armour bonus, so the Strider is never the efficient answer to a particular armour type. Its damage contribution is the five shot volley and, more importantly, the range extension it grants to whatever is riding inside.

Counters

Strong against:

Weak to:

Balance History

• 28 August 2026: all Strider upgrades removed. Domain Protocol, which doubled Siege Mode bonuses for 100 flux at Tier 1, no longer exists.

• 28 August 2026: the Fortress Mode aura infantry damage bonus increased from 2 to 3. The entity description still reads +2 damage, so the patch note is the current figure.

• 28 August 2026: default hotkey changed from S to V.

Notes

The engine name is Troop_Prot_Strider_C.

For the rest of the roster and how to read a stat block, see Units. For the commanders that lead a Protectorate army, see Heroes and Commanders.

All figures come from build ZS.c36778, stamped 11 September 2026. ZeroSpace is in Early Access and its versus numbers change most weeks, so this page records a snapshot rather than a settled value.