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Hello everyone. I'm new to warmachines and I've decided to go with a Retribution army, but I don't know what would make a good army and I don't want to buy things at random.
My friends primarily play small 15 point games, so I was wondering if anyone had any good pointers on what is a good 15 point list and what are some tactics I should employ? Any help would be greatgreatly appreciated. I'm partial to odd or unusual lists and I tend to play more aggressive.

At the 15 point level there's too few models on the table to be able to make a good general list. At that level the game will basically just be a little brawl in the middle without much tactics involved other than jostling for the first charge.

That said, Lord arcanist Ossyan has both a speed buff and a buff that lets you walk away from a charging model, and both those spells are really good when there's only a few models on the table.
I would think something like this would work pretty well:

Points: 15/15
Lord Arcanist Ossyan (*6pts)
* Banshee (10pts)
Houseguard Halberdiers (Leader and 9 Grunts) (7pts)
* Houseguard Halberdiers Officer & Standard (2pts)
* Soulless Escort (1pts)
Arcanist (1pts)

You have Admonition up on the Banshee, which means you can play agressively with it and still be pretty safe since it can walk away when charged, and you have Quicken on the Halberdiers which makes them really fast. With the Team effort ability the Halberdiers will hit hard enough on the charge to break warjacks or warbeasts with ease.

Do your friends play primarily with warjacks/beasts or do they use a lot of units as well?

Finally I would really recommend trying to increase the point level of the games you play. Personally I think the game works best at 50 points, but even just increasing it from 15 to 25 pts will see a lot more tactics and flexibility available to you as a player.

Ret's not exactly great at 15 pts. The issue is Ret relies on a lot of combos & synergies that we just cannot get at that low level.

Some good units to pick up:

Battlebox
House Shyeel heavy kit (For the phoenix)
MHSF+UA
Houseguard riflemen + UA
Dawnguard Sentinels +UA
Mage Hunter assassin
Arcanist
epic Eiryss

You can make a decent 15 pt list out of what's there and you'll use pretty much all of those at higher pts.

Yeah, 15 points isn't exactly where the game is functional. Thats only for getting to learn the game. You really need to be playing 35-50 points for list building to be a factor.

I agree with the above recommendations.

I would recommend that you pick up the all in one box at your FLGS. It's a great deal.

I haven't had the chance to play myself yet but I was advised to pick up the all in one box and the battlegroup. With those two it gives you two different warcasters to choose from and plenty of myrmidon options to field.

Yeah, 15 points does make it difficult to make a balanced list as I'm finding out. The people I play against the most run protectorate and khador, usually 2 Jacks and a unit. Their tough to crack for sure.

The list I have run so far is
kaelyssa
2 ghost snipers
Griffon
Manticor
Chimera

I've also been considering a shooting list with Ryan or an assassin list running Garryth and MHA.

Answer: Convince them to move up to 35 point games.

Or at least go to 25. You could also try a Journeyman league or even just make up your own slow grow system. 15 points just isn't enough for anything more than assassination games and the steamroller scenerios add so much more (and they're free).

Garry isn't a great caster. If you want a mean assassination froce go Rayvyn, MHSF+UA, Phoenix, Arcanist. Should be 15 exactly.

Snipe. Feat. Go.

The issue with 15 pts, especially V Menoth & Khador is armor. Menoth, Cryx & Khador are VERY Strong at low pts. Where as ret / cyganr are relatively weak. You need to up the pts you're playing.

OK. So I am now working on getting everyone up to 25 and 35 points. I've played a few games and retribution definitely feels like a movement based army. I can't just go toe-to-toe with Khador and Menoth, I need to use my movement to open up opportunities and weaken my enemy before I move in.

I've ordered a MHSF+UA, Ravyn, Phoenix, and Arcanist. So what should I look at for going forward into the 25 and 35 point range. Should I get more units or a few more jacks? I think I'm going to go with an assassination style army.

The jacks you have should be fine. You should probably be looking at picking up another unit, either sentinels or halberdiers probably. Our infantry are excellent compared to our jacks (not that they're bad), and MHSF has a fairly narrow focus in that they're not particularly useful against Hordes and you'll only get one or two wins with Snipe-Feat-Go. They also struggle against armour, and their defensive stats aren't 'that' great.

Maybe you should look at solos. We have some of the best. Magister and Narn spring to mind, along with the arcanist. MHA's I've never had much luck with (most things they can hurt they'll often miss, and those they can hit they'll have trouble hurting), but they have huge potential, and I'm sure most other people can tell you how good they are. Personally though, I prefer the Magister and Narn.

I honestly don't like narn. He doesn't have reach which severely limits his usefulness. MHA tend to work better for me and are cheaper.

 Shas'O Dorian wrote:
I honestly don't like narn. He doesn't have reach which severely limits his usefulness. MHA tend to work better for me and are cheaper.

Makes perfect sense. Like I said, it's just me personally. I've never had a MHA do anything, while Narn delivers for me. I tend to think of him more as a guided missile then the control piece a lot of people say they use the MHA as. Keep him near the halberdier front wave, find a good target and send him to hell, before running off to do it again.

Yeah, I tried narn for that. Even then without reach is easy to block off the target..

The MHA I usually use for dropping that key UA then using her reach & Df-Dumb in melee against shooting to hold the unit up for a turn. I mean if a MHA MAT-7 isn't hitting I doubt Narns MAT-8 will make that much of a difference.

I wish narn was better, and I'm hoping for an eNarn somewhere with reach but I doubt it.

Using a MHA to take out UA? I've found that key units like that usually have LOS blocked by their troopers, which is actually why I prefer Narn, with his charge over models rule, which, IMO, compensates for his lack of reach. I think him hitting more has less to do with MAT7 over 8 (although that's a big thing), but more to do with him having 2 attacks. That makes him great.

It seems we just do things different ways. I get that the MHA is a good model, I'm just worried that telling new players that something so hugely dice dependent is awesome is contributing to a disillusionment. We have so few +S/MAT buffs outside of feats (barring Thyron).

In regards to epic solos, I'd prefer an epic Skeryth. Ravyn's quote about 'I fear for his soul', and his little bit of fluff about him becoming disillusioned would make for a great dark hero.
Although, Cryx would probably steal him.

MHA are guided missiles. On a good day they one shot a key model, but on a bad day they miss and then just die on the following turn.

Narn is a more of a skirmisher that can but out solid damage output from turn to turn. Also sprint, pathfinder and acrobatics is a really powerful combo.

Which one is better IMO depends on the list. I usually run a attrition based Rahn list and I have found Narn to really good in that style of list. But a more assassination rahn list or something like Ravyn would probably much rather have a 2 MHA.