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My friends have been bugging me to play warmachine for over a month and I had bought some Retribution last year but was never interested in playing Warmachine in the first place. So I just need to know, are they worth investing in?

Every faction is good and competitive. Retribution specifically has very good medium infantry, insane board control tricks, and some scarily accurate assassination; what have you got for them so far?

Retribution is a solid faction. Everyone is competitive, except possibly Pigs(and only because they literally only have 3 options for list building). But pigs aren't a full faction so its not a problem.

Retribution does have fewer models than every other main faction except Cyriss. But they're definitely competitive.

 Harukae wrote:
My friends have been bugging me to play warmachine for over a month and I had bought some Retribution last year but was never interested in playing Warmachine in the first place. So I just need to know, are they worth investing in?

Yup. They're a solid faction. There's Plenty to be wary of.

I don't have experience to judge them on the competitive level, however they feel to be a rather solid army. I had more fun with them than Cygnar, even though the Swans have more options.

Yes.

Definitely yes. Ret have some amazing infantry and interesting multi purpose jacks. I feel their biggest weakness compared to other factions is purely their limited number of options (by that I mean less units to choose from), which is mostly because they are newer than the original 4 Warmachine factions. They also seem to generate somewhat less buzz that many of the other factions, possibly because they aren't played as much - particular by many top level players/podcasters etc.

They are, but you don't usually see them in the national levels, however they show up from time to time. For instance, there was a Gigantorcon 2014 in November, and 4th place was a Ret player using Rahn and Kaylessa's theme force. 2nd place with similar lists won the Australian Invitational.

So yes, they are as competitive as everyone else, just not always well represented. Plus they look cool, they were one of the factions I was looking at before I chose Khador.

And thats more due to less people playing them.

There is also the fact that most, if not all, of the top tier players usually have multiple armies and they'll usually stick with one faction for the year while they're trying out some particular tech. So that can lead to a lot of wins being the same faction, or simply lacking a certain faction.

There is also the anti-X factor. There are some things and lists you just have to have an answer for. So while X is really strong, because everyone is teching a counter for it then it doesn't do as well as it might appear. Retribution has a couple of the powerful combos that you just need to possibly have an answer for.

Snipe-Feat-Go and Charge of the Battle Mages are 2 examples.

They can be very tricky to play, but they are competitive like all the factions. Very much about order of activation. They will wreck shop when your plan on the board comes together, however.

 AnomanderRake wrote:
Every faction is good and competitive. Retribution specifically has very good medium infantry, insane board control tricks, and some scarily accurate assassination; what have you got for them so far?

I've only got what came in the battlegroup, so Kaelyssa, Chimera and Griffon light myrmidons, Manticore heavy myrmidon, and a magehunter strike force. I know I need more than that, personally I'd like to run a myrmidon based army if possible so ideas would be useful.

Ret don't usually run too many jacks, most lists are going to have 1-2 jacks and then heaps of infantry. Our 'jack casters' are eVyros, pVyros and Kaelyssa (in tier). eVyros usually runs 5+ Griffons + a heavy to leverage Synergy, pVyros usually has 3+ jacks and Kaelyssa's Force Wall tier usually runs 3-5 Heavies + a couple of lights (and a heap of free Arcanists). These are all skew lists which I wouldn't recommend for a newer player though, they all require multiples of the same jack which you aren't going to use outside of that one specific list. Starting out I would get one of each jack kit (build a Banshee and a Phoenix if you don't want to magnetise, they get the most use) and some form of melee unit (Sentinels or Halberdiers) and work from there. Kaelyssa can run 3 heavies outside of tier.

As above, in Ret the only truly myrmidon-based lists are the eVyros griffon spam (amazing list, and found in a large number of competitive list pairings) and Kaelyssa's Force Wall, which I don't have much experience with, yet.

The problem, as above, is having to buy upwards of 7 griffons and a couple Aspis to fill out the list (and I use Imperatus in tier, as well!) It is a fantastic list, but you need to commit to it, since you will never use 7 griffons anywhere else, lol.