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hey all , starting with Warmachine in our local club , but i was wondering as a new player if i should try out Retribution of Scyrah , cause they are not mentioned in the prime MKII rulebook...
for now i'm playing Cryx , but i want to try out the Scyrah for a change...
any tips or comments

greetings

They are decent if a bit limited at the moment as they have more limited selection of units currently as they have only one book available.

The one book does have what most other factions had after two expansions, though. There
are five warcasters, a unit that functions as artillery, cavalry models (though the models
haven't been released yet), four types of unit attachments, a weapon attachment, and
multiple solos including several character solos.

What they currently lack is a character warjack and maybe two to three
different warjack designs.

The army is a very versatile one. Its warjacks mostly have both ranged and
melee options, and the units have abilities that really complement other
abilities in the army.

Did you have a particular 'caster or army style in mind?

In general they tend to be a bit better facing a Warmachine army as opposed to a Hordes one... but that's more dependent on the build you run. They might be a bit more limited in the choices they have but their choices can fill just about any roll you need already.

From what I've seen they will tend to run a bit better Troop Heavy but they can run their jacks ok... they just don't seem to have as many ways to boost jack performance out side of Focus at this point.

If you do go with them and go the Mage Hunter route be wary of lists with a lot of AoE's. AKA don't put all your eggs in one basket.

The only real limitation I've noticed with Ret is a lack of caster attachments or other methods of augmenting focus. Aside from Rahn the focus of the ret casters is low or average on top of usually having one or more upkeeps to maintain this means the pool is running dry when it comes time for jacks. None of their jacks generate their own focus or run/charge for free either, so in general you shouldn't count on a caster being able to operate more than 2 at a time. The arcanist can be a patch for this issue, but can only give one focus to a jack that doesn't already have any and you'll usually find his melee damage buff more useful.

That being said though, all of the units in the list are at least compitent and many can be elevated to good or great with the right caster, so going truly wrong is difficult. Most of the jacks are solid (don't bother with the Gorgon) or great, so again going wrong is difficult here too. The array of solos at the army's disposal is solid as well with many of them packing lots of hitting power and abilities like Stealth, Pathfinder and Arcane Assassin handed out like candy.

That does bring up another point though, mixing stealth and non-stealth is not a good idea. With the exception of Dawnguard Destors nothing in the list is resilient enough to take dedicated long-range shooting, so if you only have 1 unit of non-stealthed models they'll be resigned to target practice for any long range assets your opponent has that would otherwise be bored out of their minds. A few stealthed solos isn't a bad idea, but when you're non-stealthed count doesn't even break 10, you might want to have a close look at those 10.

If you do go with them and go the Mage Hunter route be wary of lists with a lot of AoE's. AKA don't put all your eggs in one basket.

The problem I have with this statement is that the MHSF has a built-in way to deal with AoE's in the form of the UA i.e. not needing LoS. If they're benefiting from Snipe, they match or outrange most massed AoE units as well. Even when you factor out the UA, the unit still has PF, so staying out of fire lanes until you can gets shots off isn't out of the question. It took some getting used to, but I've gotten to the point where even when fighting against alot of AoE's the MHSF thrives.

i'm a strange dude in a way , that i play an army with models i like and that i like painting , so i'd rather go for cool looking models then good ones ( stat wise ) if you get where i'm going...
so i thought about using Adeptis Rahn , cool looking model , and use a Phoenix and Hydra as Jacks , start with that and then i have no clue yet what to use for bigger games , i like the archers for a unit , and Nayl is a cool solo , so...

do they already have the MKII stat cards included in the blisters / boxes

Leone wrote:do they already have the MKII stat cards included in the blisters / boxes

Ret is a purely MkII army. The only MkI stats were in an issue of No Quarter so people could try out the new models before MkII came out.

Retribution is fun, but the design philosophy takes some getting used to: A lot of units tend to have nonsensical stat lines at first. For instance, our Mage Hunter Strike Force (a sneaky, primarily ranged unit), have combined MELEE attack, not combined RANGED attack. Our cavalry (Destors) seem primarily ranged, but have Gunfighter and a power that encourages them to get stuck in melee. The best way I can describe it is that they're multi-purpose, but instead of making them multi-purpose by giving them bland stat lines and weapons, they did it by taking a focused model and then giving them something to offset their glaring weaknesses.

Rahn likes the Phoenix as it could be arguably thier best jack. I always get the Hydra and Manticore mixed up... either one has their place.

I've not seen him run too much but he's who I plan to use when I actually get a chance to field my Retribution. I have seen some crazy movement shenaigans with Battle Mage units. Done right they can look like they will be a blast... and on his feat turn it's even better.

I have a bunch of Retribution and have to say that I hope you think that Sentinels look cool...

Sentinels and Mage Hunters (especially with attachments) are the best units available. Also, Arcanists are really good with your jacks. Invictors are also a really good unit.