tanan
Junior Strategist
Posts: 209
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Post by tanan on Nov 10, 2017 8:25:28 GMT
In my opinion, Ret themes issues are … complicated.
The Mk2 mindset is still strong In my opinion, the biggest problem in at the moment in WMH community is still clinging to MK2 thinking. Vyros2 box spam and synergy-abuse is dead. MHSF spam creates more problems than it solves, because it can no longer ignore concealment or cover*. Stop trying to make these antiquated lists work! It’s time to move on. The MK3 battlefield is far more deadly than MK2 battlefield. Only heavily buffed multi wound units or recursion units can be expected to survive in the middle of the board. This is ofc bad news for ret, because ret is/was an infantry faction that doesn’t have good defensive buffs, good multiwound units or recursion.
What is good and bad in ret Ret solos are all better than their counterparts in other factions. Only Legion and PoM solos are comparable. There is apparently something about pointy ears that buffs heroes. On the other hand, our infantry units are lacking. They have their strengths, but compared to units like revenants, banes (of any sort), storm lances, gun mages, cephalyx (of any sort), press gangers, HACs, winter guard (of any sort), shocktroopers, trollkin champions and hellmouths they have significant weaknesses that can be easily be exploited. It’s also a not a surprise that Legion and PoM infantry units have similar problems, because we are somewhat similar factions**.
About themes While our themes are extremely limiting, they hand out sweet theme benefits and more importantly give discounts to our excellent solos. In a way, themes help us relatively more than other factions. My advice for competive and new players is to choose couple of solos that you want to play and build your lists around them. If you are playing theme don't try to maximize the free solos because in a way you have to include subpar models to get them. If anyone is interested, I can go into more detail what are the most powerful solos in each theme.
* It’s kinda funny that a unit that can ignore LoS, concealment and cover always seems to bend the meta, regardless of editions.
** Of the three, PoM is the most honest/boring/least capable of surprises and Legion is the sneakiest. Ret is somewhere in the middle.
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dagowit
Junior Strategist
Posts: 171
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Post by dagowit on Nov 10, 2017 9:08:07 GMT
I find it a little surprising that many of you seem to be down on the competitive state of Retribution. Locally, Ret is considered in a good place - primarily because they deal well with the two major boogeymen: Cygnar and Cryx. In fact, one of our local WTC Cryx players just started Ret (I don't know if he intends to make them his main army but I'm sure he would not touch them unless he considered them competitive).
I agree that Ret takes a certain amount of finesse. There are few "auto-pilot" armies in Ret (by which I mean an army which can play almost the same game of running at people every turn and still do decently) and opponents usually come prepared for 'jack spam lists (making Vyros2 less scary than he was in mk2).
Would it help if we started a thread on competitive lists/pairings we have had success with and explained the thought process behind them?
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Gwydion
Baby's First Wargame
Posts: 8
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Post by Gwydion on Nov 10, 2017 11:27:56 GMT
Would it help if we started a thread on competitive lists/pairings we have had success with and explained the thought process behind them? Personally I´d really appreciate that. Please do that.
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isotope
Junior Strategist
Posts: 634
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Post by isotope on Nov 10, 2017 17:14:51 GMT
I think the issue with Ret currently is that we are average at everything. If you look at other factions and things they do they are good at something. Like Khador has stupid high armor and poor def and MAT 7 and good melee dmg, Cygnar has average defense but MAT 7/RAT6, Menoth is slow but has denial and plays a good long game, Mercs is average but their stuff is cheaper than ours and they have more tools.
When you look at a ret jack and you see MAT6/RAT5 decent but not great POW ( mechanik tax),average defense. While all of our jacks offer more versatility but are not great at anything. For some reason PP values versatility more than specialization. We pay more for out jacks than others do for all the things they have the potential to do. We have to rely on what caster we bring to make our jacks good at one thing. Want to be good at melee? Better bring Vyros or Thyron, Want to do the ranged game? Ravyn, Ossyan got you covered. The problem with this is that when it comes down to it you have to completely cripple your opponents ability to do their thing in order to win. While we have a lot of tools to accomplish this through strong alphas and such a lot of our strategies are very predictable and static, making our plan easier to prevent/soften and dismantle. Have a strong alpha feat? Well if they only give you a little to chew on each turn you never have a good turn to feat. While on the topics of feats... ours are well, boring. While extra dice on this or that can make for a good turn they lack much flavor and depth yet they define the way we are supposed to play.
Most of our infantry seem to be in a good place. They all have a purpose and fill the role well. There's not a lot of units I can look at and say "this unit is pointless, I can't think of a list for them", maybe electromancers but I haven't tried to build anything with them so I wouldn't know. Having units that excel at one thing makes them very potent when you can apply them properly which is in stark contrast to our jacks who are very broad in their abilities. The problem with having specialized units is themes.
Themes have hurt us. Having a large assortment of troops available to a force makes us more versatile, and since we're supposed to be the versatile army we need to have a lot of options available to combine them into a strong army. The current themes force you pigeonhole even further into a single strategy than before. A lot of factions had this issue before the change to themes allowing a single merc solo/unit to join any theme. Well, for us with our extremely limited merc selection that didn't help much. I think if ret themes allowed one ret solo/unit not allowed by the theme restrictions it would open up our list building a lot while letting us play in the themes.
As far as what they could do to make Ret stronger without breaking us? I'm not sure. The new lights look pretty good. with a 6MAT/6RAT stat line they beat out everyone else. I'd like to see the rest of our jacks gain a point in RAT. I also thing our gun ranges on our jacks could use a slight bump. A 10" RNG typically leaves your jack in threat range of far to much. Without a repo 3" or Rhythm of War you can get into trouble trying to use your guns. Cygnar's guns are all like 14-16, I don't think it would be asking too much to have 12" guns on our jacks. Maybe a few other tweaks here or there, like Thyron's spell list ( i also think he should have a way to upkeep things for free like "resourceful").
I don't think we need a lot, but there are some things that need attention.
As far as lists I've currently been exploring ( since the theme drop):
Kaelyssa LoD with double sentinels Vyros1 Shadows Helynna "All the Kings Horses" ( all characters heavies and AFG) Ossyan DoI
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Post by psycomonky on Nov 10, 2017 21:56:35 GMT
This has been one of my desires since they came out with the merc inclusion. I also think it would really help out and with many other factions having ranking officers to make things friendly faction I don't see how it can be an issue at all.
I dont think a bump in rat is what the jacks need, they just need to be cheaper across the board. The same goes for a bunch of the infantry. Halbs + ua + thane, Swordsmen + UA, nyss + priest, sentinels + UA. All are in the 20-22 pt category and they are not all worth that.
There are many things that could happen. The biggest, aside from the theme change, is just buff all the casters power level some. Our casters are almost all sub par compared to other factions. Seriously, take a caster and see which faction would actually run that caster, its depressing.
But all of that will wait for a year until PP gets around to ret. Until then i think we are stuck in the sub-par range.
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Post by psycomonky on Nov 10, 2017 21:58:16 GMT
What solo are you referring to here? We have some decent ones but none jump out at me as awesome or even faintly better than the option of giving a unit of choice pathfinder. Nothing that approaches the utility solos that other factions have.
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Post by loadeddice on Nov 10, 2017 22:43:02 GMT
Two things here Firstly something that really pissed me off is the two latest infantry releases. The two melee infantry units they gave us just pale in comparison to halberds plus UA slow weak weapon masters and faster defensive reach unit that kills infantry ..- kind of Second The unit I believe Retribution are wanting is a legitament fast cavalry unit. ala Khador Spray donkeys or blazers. It's been a long time coming and it's still not here. Bloody Gore shade left Cryx before Ret has noticed fast cavalry are a strong unit. / Rant
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isotope
Junior Strategist
Posts: 634
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Post by isotope on Nov 11, 2017 2:43:50 GMT
Two things here Firstly something that really pissed me off is the two latest infantry releases. The two melee infantry units they gave us just pale in comparison to halberds plus UA slow weak weapon masters and faster defensive reach unit that kills infantry ..- kind of Second The unit I believe Retribution are wanting is a legitament fast cavalry unit. ala Khador Spray donkeys or blazers. It's been a long time coming and it's still not here. Bloody Gore shade left Cryx before Ret has noticed fast cavalry are a strong unit. / Rant Ellowuyr Swordsmen are stupid good in the right list. Forcing your opponent to take losses or commit a warjack to kill infantry is nice.
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tanan
Junior Strategist
Posts: 209
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Post by tanan on Nov 11, 2017 7:32:31 GMT
What solo are you referring to here? We have some decent ones but none jump out at me as awesome or even faintly better than the option of giving a unit of choice pathfinder. Nothing that approaches the utility solos that other factions have. Barring few exceptions (such as Rhupert, Journeyman warcaster and Shepherds), Mage Hunter assassins, Elara1, Arcanists, Artificers, Ghost snipers, Houseguard thanes and Lys Healers are better than similarly costed solos in other factions.
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Post by Ianassa on Nov 12, 2017 11:58:57 GMT
What solo are you referring to here? We have some decent ones but none jump out at me as awesome or even faintly better than the option of giving a unit of choice pathfinder. Nothing that approaches the utility solos that other factions have. Barring few exceptions (such as Rhupert, Journeyman warcaster and Shepherds), Mage Hunter assassins, Elara1, Arcanists, Artificers, Ghost snipers, Houseguard thanes and Lys Healers are better than similarly costed solos in other factions. We also get Eryriss1 with reposition 3" for free, and same with the pain knight. I wouldn't put ghost snipers and Lys healers in the top tier though, they are not always that relevant and don't annoy the opponent as much as say gremlin swarms do.
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Post by loadeddice on Nov 12, 2017 13:47:37 GMT
It's almost becoming a new thread.... why do Ret theme lists suck?> But I seriously miss being able to play Mage Hunter assassins as added cheap punch to finishing off a target damaged by ranged attacks, outside of just one theme list. Combined arms is Ret's shtick, but these theme's want you to skew, Mage hunters, dawnguard, Warjacks or, the refugees.
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Post by psycomonky on Nov 13, 2017 20:46:19 GMT
So, lets compare some of them to the models in other factions that do the same thing.
Elara1 isnt particularly good though that may change with the Harpy. Prior to that you always have the problem of her getting killed and among the journeymen she is the easiest to kill by a long stretch. She also has the lowest personal output of all the journeymen.
Arcanists don't hold a candle to the obvious comparison to the circle stoneshaper solo who also has concentrated power, 15/15 statline, boxes, and A SPRAY. Still have to take em though.
The houseguard thane is just a desperate pace bot these days and others of that sort such as MOW kovnik just have more to do than just the desperate pace option. When he granted fearless and that was important the thane was costed well, now he lost that and gained nothing while staying the same.
And remember, combat solos almost always lose out int his game just because of how things play out. Support type solos are almost always the ones that see consistent play.
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tanan
Junior Strategist
Posts: 209
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Post by tanan on Nov 14, 2017 7:34:07 GMT
Elara1 isnt particularly good though that may change with the Harpy. Prior to that you always have the problem of her getting killed and among the journeymen she is the easiest to kill by a long stretch. She also has the lowest personal output of all the journeymen. If you know what you are doing, Elara1 is very difficult to kill. She is an amazing combat solo and has the best battlegroup spell in the game. Arcanists don't hold a candle to the obvious comparison to the circle stoneshaper solo who also has concentrated power, 15/15 statline, boxes, and A SPRAY. Still have to take em though. Arcanists are 33% cheaper can and aren't restricted buffing to overcosted and pillowfisted warbeasts. The houseguard thane is just a desperate pace bot these days and others of that sort such as MOW kovnik just have more to do than just the desperate pace option. When he granted fearless and that was important the thane was costed well, now he lost that and gained nothing while staying the same. Thane is cheaper and on-demand stealth negation for an a entire unit can be very useful in certain matchups. I mean, imagine the amount of whining if Khador had access to a FA:2 solo that granted +2 move and stealth negation for winter guard units. And remember, combat solos almost always lose out int his game just because of how things play out. Support type solos are almost always the ones that see consistent play. It's difficult to say this nicely, but have you tried playing better?
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Post by psycomonky on Nov 14, 2017 23:18:53 GMT
Thats what I was missing!!! You crack me up man.
Explain to me how a 15/14 solo with no defensive tech and two pow 10 mele attacks is harder to kill or personally hits harder than.. a 15/13 solo with access to +2def making her 17/13 immune to push/slam/place with a handcannon and a pow 10 mele attack a 14/13 solo with sucker, a handcannon, and a pow 11 mele attack a 14/14 solo with stealth, a pow 10 ranged attack, drag, jump and a pow 12 mele attack
most of which have access to support from the caster that makes them better or in the case of kador enhances what they already do (readline + boundless charge makes for fast jacks). And don't say hang at the back of the army as the others can do that equally easily and still be more survivable.
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isotope
Junior Strategist
Posts: 634
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Post by isotope on Nov 14, 2017 23:20:37 GMT
Thats what I was missing!!! You crack me up man. Explain to me how a 15/14 solo with no defensive tech and two pow 10 mele attacks is harder to kill or personally hits harder than.. a 15/13 solo with access to +2def making her 17/13 immune to push/slam/place with a handcannon and a pow 10 mele attack a 14/13 solo with sucker, a handcannon, and a pow 11 mele attack a 14/14 solo with stealth, a pow 10 ranged attack, drag, jump and a pow 12 mele attack most of which have access to support from the caster that makes them better or in the case of kador enhances what they already do (readline + boundless charge makes for fast jacks). And don't say hang at the back of the army as the others can do that equally easily and still be more survivable. Easy. allocate 2 to your harpy, upkeep speed of death and camp the flag
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