Stats
In terms of their stats Man O Wars have good stats barring their SPD and DEF, meaning they are both slow and easy to hit. However, given the number of damage boxes and the base ARM of a Man O War more often than not each one will take a fair beating before going down, more so given their special abilities.
Weapons
Shocktroopers come with two very distinctive weapons, the first being their Annihilator Blade, giving them Reach (which can compensate for the lack of speed), as well as a pretty good P+S behind it (only just falling short of the P+S of Khadoran Open fists). More often than not if Shocktroopers are doing anything they will be moving forward to hit something with these. If the Blade can't quite reach the target then the second weapon comes into play, the shield cannon. Whilst it's range is less than the MOW's charge range it is still useful as there are occasions when a group of medium based infantry charging may block a charge lane, this Cannon (with the same POW as the Annihilator blade) is a respectable alternative. Though situations where it's use is preferable over charging are rare and the MOW's poor RAT making it difficult to hit much shy of a Warjack, it's always far better to have that choice than not to have it.
Abilities
The first ability you look at when you think Shocktroopers should always be Shield Wall, when in Base to Base with another affected model in the unit they gain a very respectable ARM buff. The ability to field infantry whose armour can exceed Khadoran jack's ARM is incredible, whilst they are still easy (in infantry terms) to hit, it will take either a lot of firepower, or a lot of luck to knock off all the damage in one go. However, it is worth noting if your opponent is about to charge this unit with a unit or solo with Weapon Master, Shield Wall will not work as well as it would against regular units after all even a low P+S sword has the potential to hurt a Shield Walled MOW on 4d6. Secondly there is an often forgotten ability that I myself overlook quite often, Combined Melee Attack, quite simply for each member of the unit that sacrifices their action the attacking model gains +1 to hit and damage rolls, making a full unit hit almost anything you'd care to name and probably kill it, or in the case of warjacks be doing straight damage. This makes MOWs incredibly good when you don't want to lose Shield Wall by charging, (both are orders so you can't charge and use Shield Wall in the same activation) as it then means you effectively have the opposite situation to Kayazy when in combat, where Kayazy are impossible to hit, MOW Shocktroopers become very difficult to hurt. Finally the last ability and one that is standard across all MOW units is Fearless, this simply means that MOW's never have to make a command check for any reason, be it losing 50% of the unit, facing a Terror/Abomination model or any other reason that would normally cause you to possibly face a unit turning and fleeing. Put simply the guys in the steam powered suits aren't going to run for anything, which makes them useful for screening Doom Reavers who cause any non fearless model within a set distance to take a command check, including allies. This Tactic works incredibly well in an eIrusk list, where firstly everything in Irusk's Command Area is Tough and Medium and Small Based models can move through each other as long as they have enough movement to get all the way past the other models. So using the Shoctroopers as a bullet shield with Doom Reavers just behind, you can then effectively, albeit slowly walk to your opponent's front line and drop the squad of Doom Reavers directly at the opposing Caster.
Essentially Shocktroopers are the durable MOW's designed to be a defensive unit, but with the options to go on the offensive if the situation calls for it. The best way to view them is as stated in the background, MOW's are made to replace light warjacks, only instead of one for the same price you get three and for little more than two you get a unit of five. Ideally when using MOWs the first turn should be spent running to compensate for the low speed, then if you can charge do so, but keep in mind a canny opponent will seek to flank the unit as MOWs are incredibly easy to out manouver, so it may be worth taking a Manhunter on each flank to discourage any attempts. Also to improve the survivability of the unit consider taking a full unit of Battle Mechaniks and the Officer, allowing you to heal your MOWs and stopping annoying knock down effects when in base to base with the Mechanik Officer. If you want a unit that does the heavy lifting both taking units and jacks down with surprising impunity I'd advise you choose the Demo Corps, but do consider taking the Shocktroopers as a road bump, as Demo Corps don't recieve chrages anywhere near as well as the Shocktroopers can.
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