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Post by lyrael on Sept 10, 2017 6:24:13 GMT
I was running a journeyman league demo for two people new to my store, and one of them wanted to pick up Retribution. This person seemed fairly interested in playing in tournaments and the like eventually, and I had to bite my tongue pretty hard from trying to recommend another faction that has been out longer if his goal was to enter the Warmachine tournament circuit.
What I'm not saying: - Retribution is garbage/unplayable tier (they're definitely not) - You're stupid if you pick Retribution (they're the only faction I play, so not really that either)
What I am saying: - For competitive people (those people whose goal is to win, and thus find ways to eke out those last couple percentage points in their win rate), they would be better served by picking another faction which has a deeper bench. Less effective models in other factions hurt less because there are more of them.
This was brought up for me because of another former Ret player in my store who abandoned them, because his goal was to win tournaments too. He ended up leaving because there don't seem to be that many really good tournament lists (Issyria Double MHSF, Vyros2 Forges), and he got tired of playing them. Another person who ended up picking Retribution and goes to tournaments all over the country stopped playing Ret as well, and started playing Cygnar, for what seems like the same reasons (felt he could win more against a wider field with Cygnar).
Personally, I think Retribution has a lot of potential, and is already fun to play locally. But then, I don't go to tournaments. I was curious what this board thought, and why?
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bluebeard
Junior Strategist
crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and hear the lamentations of their women
Posts: 293
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Post by bluebeard on Sept 10, 2017 13:22:36 GMT
Competitive play takes all the fun out of it, haha. I play Ret because they are awesome to look at and fun to paint. Plus, the psycho-xenophobic fluff is a great selling point to me as well. If all you're interested in is simple competitive play, just go buy Cygnar...the PP golden faction. For me, I do believe Ret is competitive, but maybe not top tier at the moment. There is a fine balance that needs to be honed in our elite units, elite solos, and moderate warjacks. What your friend needs to consider is how does he like to play. Is he ranged or melee? Board control or assassination? This will help them decide what casters to get. Personally I like Rahn and Ossyan or sometimes Garryth/Kaelyssa in theme. Ossyan for the ranged type warfare list, and also a great answer to ghost fleet. Rahn because...Rahn is the best caster we have!!...*cough* excuse me. I just really like him. Assassination is real and controlling opponents movement is icing on the cake. And Garryth; the most interesting elf in Ios, and Kaelyssa with the shadows theme, can be quite a pain for your opponent. But, again, those are my personal picks. Many will argue against my picks, but they are what I find fun to use, and use well. Isotope here on the forums can probably answer you better though.
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isotope
Junior Strategist
Posts: 634
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Post by isotope on Sept 10, 2017 13:43:08 GMT
They do fine in tournaments. You just have to be a good player to do well with them. Locally I've gone 3/0 at tournaments with my Ret. At NOVA Open ( my first ever con) I went 2/2 ( one loss due to dropping wrong list and then lost to mike ireland who went on to qualify for masters finals)
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SeBM
Junior Strategist
Posts: 102
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Post by SeBM on Sept 10, 2017 16:29:38 GMT
Retribution has game into pretty much every faction, but there are very few very easy wins unlike some of the top dogs out there. We also lack a top tier caster with a top tier theme list unlike the top factions. That being said, the power level difference is very narrow and should not come into play for his choice. If the faction clicks, he should go for it.
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Post by Tom_Bombadil_ on Sept 11, 2017 16:45:56 GMT
Retribution has game into pretty much every faction, but there are very few very easy wins unlike some of the top dogs out there. We also lack a top tier caster with a top tier theme list unlike the top factions. That being said, the power level difference is very narrow and should not come into play for his choice. If the faction clicks, he should go for it. This is the opinion I am of we may not be number one of the power ranking of factions but we have plenty of very viable options with one of the best internal balances of all the factions out there. We still do great at the comparative level those 2% increased winrate shouldn't steer him/her away from the faction they want to play.
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Tucker
Junior Strategist
Posts: 103
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Post by Tucker on Sept 12, 2017 2:10:33 GMT
I think Retribution is a very strong tournament faction because they have so many good answers for skew armies. Any Shadows of the Retribution army will smash a jack-heavy opponent, especially if you take Ossyan, Kaelyssa, or Issyria as your warcaster. I can't remember the last time I've lost with Kaelyssa against Cygnar, and that's playing against some top-level players (FYI I am not a top-level player). Retribution also strong answers for a number of other popular armies, like Ghost Fleet. The only thing I've struggled against is particular sorts of warbeast-heavy armies, and that's probably only because I don't own either Vyros.
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Post by ComboSmiteNick on Sept 12, 2017 4:24:42 GMT
Your thoughts on the power level of Ret may have been true a year or 2 ago but definitely not now. Ret is perfectly competitive in high level competitive play.
I would concede that Ret is a bit of a finesse faction that relies on good positioning to keep their stuff alive because nothing we have is particularly durable but that by no means implies that playing Ret is "Hard Mode".
Ret has strong answers to pretty much any boogeyman lists out there.
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dagowit
Junior Strategist
Posts: 171
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Post by dagowit on Sept 12, 2017 6:52:50 GMT
I think the problem with Retribution is that the power curve is less of a curve and more of a line. What I mean is that there are many strong and competitive choices but less models (and Themes!) which stand out as being obviously good. Yes, Cygnar is probably easier to play than Retribution - but I rarely see more than a few 'casters (specifically Haley 2&3, Sloan, Nemo3, Caine3 and rarely Stryker1). Considering that there are 20 choices available, I feel like Retribution has a larger percentage of viable 'casters (pretty much all of them - given a decent pairing).
I also feel like many players have begun to think that Issyria Shadows + Vyros2 Forges is the only viable tournament pairing for Retribution, which is sad and gives the faction a much more limiting reputation than it really deserves.
I went 3-2 at the last tournament I played in (which was Champions) and copuld have done even better if I had brought a different second list (Thyron was my main list) and played enough to roughly know what my opponents are capable of. Based on personal experience, I might recommend another faction if the new player hates finesse armies but I certainly think Retribution has what it takes to win competitively (and it only gets better when Cryx and Theme Forces lead to more well-rounded armies across the table).
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Post by sunrunner on Sept 15, 2017 14:06:01 GMT
Things are still in flux right now as all the Theme forces are not out yet, this goes for Ret and alot of other factions. The Dawnguard theme drops and gets the Trencher treatment where we get some new DG units and solos and maybe gasp some fixes to Destriders to make them good and playable and we may suddenly be top tier or move up and then it could all go away when another theme comes out for another faction. Right now its hard to judge faction power in that its a moving target and what you say my be right at the time you say it but it wont be right 3 months down the road. That said I think they are doing pretty well balancing stuff right now and you need to play the stuff that fits how you like to play the game and is hopefully visually and aesthetically pleasing to you.
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Post by loadeddice on Nov 9, 2017 0:21:57 GMT
Here is a little thing about Retribution. Once they are being played at the top level, let's say 90%-100% of the factions capacity, they are a real force to be reckoned with. They can easily be considered on par, or better than other factions at time when played at that high level. I say this with experience, as i have represented my country twice in the WTC with Ret. The issue one would have and i think it relates to what the OP was discussing. The jump it takes to get from playing at 0% effectiveness to 90% playing effectiveness takes an incredible amount of time. And the amount of time is noticeably longer than some other factions. Maybe Sans Circle, Retribution is possibly the hardest and least forgiving factions to learn, and will often have new players scratching their head post loses. With this faction it's all about the micro manuvouring decisions you make that lead towards you veiled macro plan of victory. Although, a lot of the time it is easier for people to just pick up a Cygnar, Khador faction and use popular things that have a track record for working. This faction takes time, patience and a lot of effort for new players to get the most out of them, but because of this, those that stick through are the most rewarded.
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Post by psycomonky on Nov 9, 2017 1:10:06 GMT
I'm going to disagree with the glory sayers here. Without themes Retribution is in a decent spot. With the advent of themes Ret is far worse off than the majority. This is partially due to how constrained the Ret themes are compared to everyone else, minimal merc/minion options being part of this, and partially due to how poorly the themes are organized as to which models go where. Retribution models are the epidomy of glass cannon most of the time which means that when a game goes badly it goes badly really quickly.
That isn't to say they cannot win, obviously they can as this isn't a huge disadvantage. However, as you get going, especially if you pick up a 2nd faction you will notice that they are under the curve rather than over the curve. Some of this may change in a year or two when all factions have made it through CID but don't hold your breath. Properly built they can fight anything but with such limiting themes the overall options of the faction are limited.
As you mentioned if you go to larger tournaments then the list options are slim. This is because you have to have remove from play in the one list which constrains you to mage hunter theme and its limited selection of models that work with about 2 casters or ossyan, one of those two casters. If you want a complementary list then most of our options go out the window. At that point it is jacks in jack tier with one of the vyross's or some sort of dawnguard army which is new and not really fleshed out yet.
The other issue with Ret is they have no real tricks. Outside Rahn or mages which are now constrained to an all jack army Retribution doesn't offer any interesting avenues to victory. They are easy to predict which makes countering them on the table that much easier for opponents.
So, thats my 2 cents. Many will disagree and sure they are playable but if you want to really push into tournament play you will likely have better success with another faction.
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Post by etheric42 on Nov 9, 2017 6:30:49 GMT
Do you think the current CID nerfs will stop RFP from being a tournament mandatory inclusion?
Why gloss over Defenders? It is a very versatile theme that lets you build what you want.
When Mk3 dropped everyone was flocking to Ret, what happened in between (other than ghost fleet, which may be fixing itself right now, and SR2017, which I think Retribution benefits from it's combined-arms history).
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Post by loadeddice on Nov 9, 2017 8:48:14 GMT
Theme's really hurt Retribution, IMO. People in the know are saying, you are not suppose to be playing out of theme, and the future of the game is when everyone is playing theme lists. I say this hurts Ret in particular because the army was all about it's flexibility and design. Being able to have MHSF do the shooting while you charge with Halberds or Sentinels is almost a thing of the past.
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Post by psycomonky on Nov 9, 2017 22:45:15 GMT
Do you think the current CID nerfs will stop RFP from being a tournament mandatory inclusion? Why gloss over Defenders? It is a very versatile theme that lets you build what you want. When Mk3 dropped everyone was flocking to Ret, what happened in between (other than ghost fleet, which may be fixing itself right now, and SR2017, which I think Retribution benefits from it's combined-arms history). Not sure on how CID will turn out so I'm not going to speculate. Defenders is ok but look at what it really offers. 3x units of infantry that kill infantry. 3 shooting units, one is good and benefits from the theme, the others don't. Its really odd in that all the anti infantry options are in defenders and the overlap between what the units do is huge. Add to it that the theme benefits only benefit two units (halbs and stormfalls) and the theme is ok but back to constrained. List versatility in that theme is caster, aft or not, how many halb units you take. As loadeddice said, between mk3 dropping and now Themes happened and ret got hit harder than most by them. Without themes i think Ret is in a decent spot, not top but not bad off. With themes its close to bottom tier.
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Post by etheric42 on Nov 10, 2017 3:15:52 GMT
I look at Defenders and see quite a different situation. On the melee side halbs don't have that much overlap with swordsmen (halbs crack armor better and alpha better, swordsmen are better versus infantry and can pull some tricks), I don't have any experience with Ryssovass but they seem to have some anti-heavy functionality. On the ranged side you have SFA for armor cracking, riflemen for stealth, electromancers for infantry clearing and I still don't have any experience with Nyss, but they seem to be a versatile ranged/melee unit I guess. The unit with the most overlap is riflemen since drifting AoEs and e-leaps can clear a lot of stealth infantry.
The theme benefits all those units since it grants free models based on points spent on units (and battle engines!). Most people don't want to play without theme not because of missing benefits but because they don't want to be points down. I'm sure units like the Nyss boat will be better when we get a Nyss theme, but Retribution is already better off than people like Legion who get swordsmen in a theme that gives points for beasts.
I have seen really diverse Defenders builds: Thyron delivery lists, Kaelyssa combined arms, Ossyan gunlines. I'm assuming the full Nyss experience is viable too I guess.
Now hopefully we'll get a theme that gives models for Vyre jacks.
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