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Howdy Dakka.

I'm planning to purchase small Retribution Force (25 points). Starter set, however I'm in a bit of dilemma what to add. Mage hunters or Infiltrators, I'm a bit inclining towards Infiltrators. Any thoughts? Maybe something else to consider?

Anyone also has Retribution in various-grey brown scheme to show?

Cheers

Strike Force.

Infiltrators are a tertiary purchase for a completionist. The Strike Force are a core purchase.

Depends on what you're fighting; the Strike Force is more versatile but the Infiltrators have a lot more raw damage output. If you're fighting people with lots of support solos and light warjacks I'd take the Strike Force, if you want to crack an infantry deathstar or beat down a tough warcaster I'd take the Infiltrators.

That said just starting off I might suggest looking at Battle Mages; they're difficult to use but they let you pull screening units out of the way and charge the enemy warcaster relatively easily.

The Battle Mage push/pull assassination is something that works once. Then your opponent is wise to it and it never works again. Battle Mages are still good at messing up positioning after that though.

 Grey Templar wrote:
The Battle Mage push/pull assassination is something that works once. Then your opponent is wise to it and it never works again. Battle Mages are still good at messing up positioning after that though.

You can come up with a lot of uses for Battle Mage push/pull.

I'd say it depends on the caster. If choosing between the three, most casters would probably prefer the Strike Force. If Rahn, though, it's very easy to choose.

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
The Battle Mage push/pull assassination is something that works once. Then your opponent is wise to it and it never works again. Battle Mages are still good at messing up positioning after that though.

You can come up with a lot of uses for Battle Mage push/pull.

I said that.

They're a very good shooting unit and good at messing up positioning too. Its just the assassination trick only works once.

Honestly its the strike force hands down. Infiltrators are 'fine', but they aren't really anything special and not every caster wants them. Strike Force with UA is probably as close to a 'core' unit as you will get in Retribution. They are strong, flexible, and a good example of what you are getting into with the faction.

 Grey Templar wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
The Battle Mage push/pull assassination is something that works once. Then your opponent is wise to it and it never works again. Battle Mages are still good at messing up positioning after that though.

You can come up with a lot of uses for Battle Mage push/pull.

I said that.

They're a very good shooting unit and good at messing up positioning too. Its just the assassination trick only works once.

I disagree that it only works once. The really straightforward 'run arc node, Force Hammer something into your caster, TK then drag you across a zone' is probably only going to work once, its similar to the Molik missile in that it becomes much easier to deal with once you have seen it work once. However its definitely still a threat, almost all my wins with Rahn have been assassinations - against an experienced player they are definitely still a factor. And yeah as you mentioned Mittens have plenty of other uses as well, you can use them to pull out a heavy to get an attrition edge or push things out of zones.

Anyways, for the original question the answer is definitely Strike Force. They are one of our signature units and are in the vast majority of my lists, Stealth and the abilty to ignore LOS lets them do something unique for Ret. Infiltrators compete with all our other melee units, they don't hit anywhere near as hard as Sentinels or Halberdiers and fall in the middle in terms of speed (but lack reach, which can be a big deal). After the Strike Force I would definitely recommend the Halberdiers as a second unit, they are cheap, hit hard from a long way away and are largely self contained - (MAT8 POW14's on the charge don't really need much support) the only buffs they tend to want/need are speed or DEF/ARM buffs.

 Grey Templar wrote:
Strike Force.

Infiltrators are a tertiary purchase for a completionist. The Strike Force are a core purchase.

I completely agree with this. There is almost never a reason that you shouldn't at least be looking at taking a Strike Force+UA if your list allows it.

I am a huge fan of both, but have to agree if you're looking at one or the other the Strike Force is the way to go.

Great, awesome input. I'll go with MHSF, though I find them a bit underwhelming against Hordes.

 Knight wrote:
Great, awesome input. I'll go with MHSF, though I find them a bit underwhelming against Hordes.

I find they are still good against Hordes, they just have different targets. The thing with Hordes is that its sometimes less straightforward to see the effect of killing its support pieces - a Shepherd clearing the Fury off a Ravagore often doesn't seem like its having as much of an impact as something like a Power Booster solo, but having 3 additional Fury on the pitch is a huge problem. Basically against Hordes MHSF should be going after support solos hiding at the back - killing stuff like Beast Handlers, Shepherds, Krielstone or Druids can have a huge impact on the game. I find it very rare that they end up shooting casters anyway, its nice having the threat there, but mostly they end up killing light infantry or light jacks.

I was planning to use Mage Hunter solos for this task. I guess I can go with UA - Eiyrss. Should mess their fury management and upkeeps as well as still be able to take out solos, if there's opportunity.