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All in one box
Mage hunter strike force unit
Ravyn
Kaelyssa


From what I could tell was a good setup but while I am still reading up was hoping for some info on possible units, jacks etc that would make a big difference.

Also after some solid tips on how to make best use of what is there already.

Many people play elves at all?

Picked up a few more things, like cavalry, cavalry solo, another heavy jack and a character jack upgrade, chimera, couple more casters and solos as well.

No idea if it works together but feth it, might as well find out.

Honestly all the retribution units are good except the cavalry and the Heavy Rifle Team. The cavalry solos, primarily the dragoon, are good. The cavalry unit the Dawnguard Destors aren't very good. They are one of warmachines only real misses as far as units goes.

Other than maybe the houseguard riflemen, the unit attachments (the ones with officers and the standard bearer) are generally all really worth it in ret. I would defiantly get the strike force commander for your strike force unit, since advanced deployment and ghost shot are both good.

Some must haves for retribution that might not have would be Imperatus, Lady Aiyana & Master Holt, Eiryss, Angel of the Retribution, Fane Knight Skeryth Issyen, Banshee and Rahn.

Imperatus and the Banshee are both warjacks. Imperatus is probably one the best character warjacks in the game and really good melee beat stick, also he is more durable than other retribution jacks due to his special once game rule phoenix protocol. He works really well with Issyria (the caster that comes in the all-in-one box). The banshee on the other hand is brought for his gun. Slam rule on a gun is really powerful since it essentially an accuracy fixer for the rest army. The banshee is really good a lot of ret. lists that like to concentrate down heavy targets at range.

Aiyana and Holt are really good merc unit, one that lots of factions get use out of and ret. is no different. Aiyana is main reason you bring the unit sense her spells are all really good and holt is solid combatant.

Eiryss is an another merc (but counts as faction for ret.) that has really good abilities. The ability to remove upkeeps/focus at range are really good.

Issyen is just a melee beast.

Rahn is the best caster in ret. to be honest. He has the largest toolbox and is really good at assassination or attrition depending on how you build his list. He works best with the battle mages in his list that benefit from his feat. However he is probably going to be harder to play for a new player so I wouldn't start with him. But once you get the hang of him he is really good.

Also teir lists, which you can find either on the warroom app for this game or in the books are generally good. Tier lists are alternate way of making armies for warmachine, they explain them in the main rulebook I believe.

Edit: Issyria is really flexible caster in ret. and you can build her list a variety of ways but ravyn is very focused on assassinating the enemy caster. Often called "snipe feat go", which usually involves ravyn having snipe on a full unit of strike force with the ua, ravyn then feats and the strike force shoot down the enemy caster. It works rather well against a lot of warmachine casters. I am not a huge fan of Kaelyssa honestly.

Edit: Oh and pick up a second arcanist. They are really good solos to support your jacks.

All right, at least i got all the dud units out the way haha, i think imperatus and sentinels will be the next money pit.

I'd rate kaelyssa, epic vyros and especially thyron above rahn. Thyron is an absolute beast and brings great game to ret.

 Blood Hawk wrote:
Honestly all the retribution units are good except the cavalry and the Heavy Rifle Team. The cavalry solos, primarily the dragoon, are good. The cavalry unit the Dawnguard Destors aren't very good. They are one of warmachines only real misses as far as units goes.

Edit: Issyria is really flexible caster in ret. and you can build her list a variety of ways but ravyn is very focused on assassinating the enemy caster. Often called "snipe feat go", which usually involves ravyn having snipe on a full unit of strike force with the ua, ravyn then feats and the strike force shoot down the enemy caster. It works rather well against a lot of warmachine casters. I am not a huge fan of Kaelyssa honestly.

Some must haves for retribution that might not have would be Imperatus, Lady Aiyana & Master Holt, Eiryss, Angel of the Retribution, Fane Knight Skeryth Issyen, Banshee and Rahn.

Yeah the only major duds in the faction are Destors (that is the unit, Destor Thane solos are great), the Heavy Rifle Team (the Ghost Sniper isn't great, but it still completely outclasses the HRT) and Nayl (who is probably the worst model in the game).

I wouldn't consider the Fane Knight or Rahn essential buys by any means (the all in one comes with a Banshee and you don't really need two). The Fane Knight is a melee beatstick, but he doesn't get used that much. Rahn is a strong caster but whether he is the best in the faction is very much personal opinion (I would probably have him in the top 3). More importantly though he already has 3 casters to work with which are all very competitive and 3 is more than enough to start with. All you really need for Rahn is an arc node and a unit of Battle Mages and then everything else will cross over with existing units, so you can easily pick him up later.
Imperatus is the best jack in the faction so I would definitely put him on the list and A+H and Eiryss2 are powerful utility pieces. The absolute first thing on the list should be a second Arcanist - any time you have two or more jacks you want two Arcanists.

I strongly disagree that Rayvn is focused on assassination - she can Snipe Feat Go and go for the kill but its just as powerful to just threaten the assassination to keep their caster back and play attrition with her. Ret in general is one of the best factions in the game at pulling assassinations out of nowhere/constantly having assassination on the table.

If you are just starting out with Warmachine I would recommend using Kaelyssa or Ravyn over Issyria. Issyria is imo the strongest caster in the faction and is definitely the most flexible, but she isn't really a good example of how a warcaster plays purely because she has no offensive abilities at all. In smaller point games (which I strongly suggest you start out with) having your caster being able to contribute is pretty important.

Deadnight wrote:I'd rate kaelyssa, epic vyros and especially thyron above rahn. Thyron is an absolute beast and brings great game to ret.

I respecfully disagree. Kaelyssa honestly is probably the worst caster in ret. other than Garryth. She doesn't really bring much to the table other than phantom hunter and a decent defensive feat. The only reason people take her at tournaments is her teir list. eVyros is a one trick pony caster, now he has a very good trick but he is not a very versatile caster. Which is why every eVyros list is essentially the same with minor variations. He totally wins games though. Thyron does look cool but he has weaknesses. He doesn't really deliver his army and doesn't enable the assassination like rahn or ravyn does.

Powerguy wrote:I wouldn't consider the Fane Knight or Rahn essential buys by any means (the all in one comes with a Banshee and you don't really need two). The Fane Knight is a melee beatstick, but he doesn't get used that much. Rahn is a strong caster but whether he is the best in the faction is very much personal opinion (I would probably have him in the top 3). More importantly though he already has 3 casters to work with which are all very competitive and 3 is more than enough to start with. All you really need for Rahn is an arc node and a unit of Battle Mages and then everything else will cross over with existing units, so you can easily pick him up later.
Imperatus is the best jack in the faction so I would definitely put him on the list and A+H and Eiryss2 are powerful utility pieces. The absolute first thing on the list should be a second Arcanist - any time you have two or more jacks you want two Arcanists.

We talking about the same dragoon right? I see him ALL the time in lists. The guy who just got second place with ret. at gencon had him in one of his lists. Most times I run into another ret. player at a tournament they have him in a one of their lists. He gets used quite a bit.

Also I thought the all in one box came with a phoenix instead of the banshee for some reason so nvm on that one.

Powerguy wrote:I strongly disagree that Rayvn is focused on assassination - she can Snipe Feat Go and go for the kill but its just as powerful to just threaten the assassination to keep their caster back and play attrition with her. Ret in general is one of the best factions in the game at pulling assassinations out of nowhere/constantly having assassination on the table.

But she is focused on assassination. It is exactly what she is known for. Now she can attrition as well, however assassination is often how ravyn wins. Just ask yourself why are most opponents keeping their caster back? Because otherwise they will probably lose their caster. Now you can totally use the threat of the assassination to your advantage, but that doesn't mean that ravyn isn't more focused on assassination.

Powerguy wrote:If you are just starting out with Warmachine I would recommend using Kaelyssa or Ravyn over Issyria. Issyria is imo the strongest caster in the faction and is definitely the most flexible, but she isn't really a good example of how a warcaster plays purely because she has no offensive abilities at all. In smaller point games (which I strongly suggest you start out with) having your caster being able to contribute is pretty important.

I would generally agree with this. However Issyria is the caster that comes in the all in one box though.

Kaelyssa's energy siphon is a big deal to the opponent. The ability to reduce overboosting or better yet deny transfers can be a major headache. Phantom hunter is great on a ranged jack and her feat can be a life saver against a lot of armies by denying them either a round of shooting or getting of an Alpha strike.. She may not be a top ranked caster but she is certainly one worthy of respect.

Downgrading her by saying that she only shows up at tournements is due to her tier list is kind of hypocritical in that she is showing up (which is more than can be said of a lot of other casters). A tier list is part of the caster and should be considered just like any other attribute.

Of course a lot of advice/opinion is biased by your local meta and as such may not be applicable to anyone else's specific situation.

My buddy plays Kaelyssa quite a bit. Neither of us are hardcore tourney players (we play the occasional LGS tourney) but she does just fine.

She may not be one of the high level power casters of Ret. I couldn't tell you. But she has game and has beaten me plenty of times. From what I've seen she seems to be well rounded and have a number of answers for others problems and problems she presents right back.

In short, she isn't going to autolose you games.

Leo_the_Rat wrote:
Kaelyssa's energy siphon is a big deal to the opponent. The ability to reduce overboosting or better yet deny transfers can be a major headache. Phantom hunter is great on a ranged jack and her feat can be a life saver against a lot of armies by denying them either a round of shooting or getting of an Alpha strike.. She may not be a top ranked caster but she is certainly one worthy of respect.

Downgrading her by saying that she only shows up at tournaments is due to her tier list is kind of hypocritical in that she is showing up (which is more than can be said of a lot of other casters). A tier list is part of the caster and should be considered just like any other attribute.

Of course a lot of advice/opinion is biased by your local meta and as such may not be applicable to anyone else's specific situation.

Ok first thing is I don't really judge the caster based on teir lists. The main reason is that you can't always play in teir in this game for various reasons. I think if you going to do caster to caster comparisons, then will do caster to caster comparisons. Things like tier lists should stay out of it. That is IMO of course.

Second while energy siphon is good, but a lot of casters aren't going to die to boosted pow 10s. The big problem here is that ret. has really good assassination casters/lists that all do that game much better than Kaelyssa. The rahn assassination list is the big example here. Spells like telekinesis and force hammer to knock down the caster or place it help more than energy siphon. Or you can look at the ravyn theme list that I keep seeing.

Third her feat isn't as good as you seem to think it is. For example: 1. A lot of ret. models already have stealth, 2. a lot of models ignore stealth (legion warbeasts for example) 3. models with sprays essentially ignore the feat 4. it is only really useful on the first few turns before the armies engage. 5. it does nothing to protect a lot of ret. models against common anti infantry tactics (blasts, sprays, lots of auto hitting effects such as chain lightning, etc.) 5. is just straight up worse than a lot of other defensive feats on other casters.

And all of this is without mentioning that she has no damage fixer, no accuracy fixer, no way of increasing threat ranges, etc. She does however have a lot of good anti spellcasting tech which means she does have a better game against cryx players using casters like pDenny. The Feat is much better against some cryx lists as well.

The main problem I have with her is that if I am playing an opponent that doesn't cast offensive spells a lot on my models (which is most lists in the game) then all she has is energy siphon, phantom hunter and a decent feat which not as useful compared to what some other casters in ret. bring to the table.

Edit: I am not saying she is a bad caster, just that ret. has better ones.

I've never heard of a restriction against playing in tier in any event. So, to the best of my knowledge it should be considered when comparing casters.

2) The boosted POW 10s aren't meant to kill the opposing caster directly but rather set up your opponent for another model to finish them off. Take away a warlock's ability to transfer damage and they are in big trouble. Not every caster has to be a butcher in order to finish off an opposing caster. There are other ways to deal with them.

3) Not being able to be charged is a big thing. It means that you can position your models in more favorable places without worrying about taking massive amounts of melee damage. Also stealth is a great help especially early in games when your models would otherwise be exposed to gunline damage. If you are waiting to pop your feat and the opponent is in spray range then you waited too long. Also when you are picking your list I would hope that you don't take a stealth list against legion and expect it to do well.

Any caster can be the best against certain listsand any caster is dead meat against certain other lists and that is why you usually get to take more than one list to an event. Rahn, the caster you like, is pretty much dead vs Menoth or anybody who techs against magic attacks

And yes, you did say that Kaelyssa is bad. You said that barring Garyth she is the worst caster Ret has. I'm saying that, at least in my meta, she is a very worthwhile caster to use.

Leo_the_Rat wrote:
I've never heard of a restriction against playing in tier in any event. So, to the best of my knowledge it should be considered when comparing casters.

First I am not talking about tournaments that straight up disallow tier lists. There are things like mangled metal and the new iron gauntlet format where taking a very limiting teir list like force wall would create problems for iron gauntlet rounds. Also a lot of tier lists don't work as well at lower pt value games and others are the opposite.

Leo_the_Rat wrote:
2) The boosted POW 10s aren't meant to kill the opposing caster directly but rather set up your opponent for another model to finish them off. Take away a warlock's ability to transfer damage and they are in big trouble. Not every caster has to be a butcher in order to finish off an opposing caster. There are other ways to deal with them.

The problem though is that Kaelyssa has no accuracy buffs, so she can hit that enemy caster standing behind the wall or obstruction with phantom hunter and maybe take away some transfers but nothing else in your army has any real chance of hitting them. Even MHSF need some sort of accuracy buff (ravyn's feat, knockdown, back strikes from telekinesis, etc.) to have much of a chance at hitting most casters since their average rat only gets you so far. Most smart players try to keep their caster behind terrain if they can.

Leo_the_Rat wrote:
3) Not being able to be charged is a big thing. It means that you can position your models in more favorable places without worrying about taking massive amounts of melee damage. Also stealth is a great help especially early in games when your models would otherwise be exposed to gunline damage. If you are waiting to pop your feat and the opponent is in spray range then you waited too long. Also when you are picking your list I would hope that you don't take a stealth list against legion and expect it to do well.

Not charging for one turn is a big deal for some lists. Also you can't really position your models in favorable places where the feat would save you from charges and be safe from models with sprays. Models with sprays all have threat ranges greater than most melee threats including charges. I mean winterguard are the easy example here. They have 14" threat with sprays which is higher than the threat range of most khador melee units. Also legion isn't the only faction that has tools to deal with stealth.

Leo_the_Rat wrote:
Any caster can be the best against certain listsand any caster is dead meat against certain other lists and that is why you usually get to take more than one list to an event. Rahn, the caster you like, is pretty much dead vs Menoth or anybody who techs against magic attacks

Rahn is not dead meat against menoth. I have played into that faction quite a few times and it is not bad match up. Rahn's only really bad match ups are shadow pack casters and circle with druids. My only loss against menoth with rahn was against the Kreoss2 theme list and that was more player error than it being a bad match up.

Leo_the_Rat wrote:
And yes, you did say that Kaelyssa is bad. You said that barring Garyth she is the worst caster Ret has. I'm saying that, at least in my meta, she is a very worthwhile caster to use.

No I said that Kaelyssa is not as good as the other ret. caster excluding Garryth. That doesn't mean she is bad caster just not as good as the others. All the casters in ret. are "good" other than garryth..

We'll just have to agree to disagree. Our metas are obviously different so to each their own.

Sprays really aren't common though, as a design choice. AOE are easier to get, but most aren't exactly spammable, too many points per blast.

Mage Hunters, I'd argue, shouldn't really be shooting at all but a few casters. Their low RAT and pitiful strength really hamstring them, and I find that they end up in few of my lists. Their stats aren't really good enough to keep them alive, and being able to shoot through terrain is nice, but when all they can really kill are infantry, well Ret doesn't really have a problem with that.

I will agree that Kaelyssa is rather niche and finicky, but her tier is excellent, and Mangled Metal is rather unusual to play, while Iron Gauntlet... well, thats even more unusual.

Kaelyssa probably ranks above pVyros and Ossyan, as well as Garryth.

Just my experience/viewpoint.

So ive bought a lot of dud things apparantly hahaha.

I legit emailed the company i bought the destors from because they are sitting on processing forever. Hoping to swap them out for some sentinels.

So:

All in one box
Mage hunter strike force
Kaelyssa
Ravyn
Garyyth
Narn
Chimera
Destors (if i cant change it)
Destor thane
Another heavy kit
Discordia
Pvyros

Plan is to magnetise all the jacks etc and rotate parts out

Back of my head is looking at:
Dawnguard sentils plus the UA
Imperatus
Evyros
Griffon
Hypnos kit and the jack body for it
And when i can find them in stock, 2 lots of stormfall archers

Feedback on how to best learn with this at 15/25/35 etc and what good options are id like to know.

Personal meta i think is grindy and tough melee khador, stealthy and theme lists in cryx, trollbloods and firey menoth.

Definitely glad i paint with an airbrush

Destors gone. Sentinels in. Great success.

Wish i could find some damn stormfall archers!

Sentinels are a unit that work rather well with issyria that comes in the all in one box. The UA is good but you lose vengence if he dies even if your opponent triggered it on the turn the UA died. So you have to keep him alive.

Stormfalls are really cool. They really need some sort of accuracy fixer in the list to be most effective. The banshee works here for the momentum shot.