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Hello Dakka!

So I inherited a small cast-off army from a friend who decided RetScy wasn't for him. Who am I to argue with free models? He had the Army book, and I just got the MK2 rulebook. I'm still working through both of them, so I haven't yet got a good grasp on the rules but I have started painting. I have the following models, and mainly I want to know if I can make a halfway decent starter list from them, and what my next purchase or two should be:

Mittens Warcaster (doing this from memory and can't remember the names. Rahn, maybe?)
One unit of Mittens guys
One unit of Stormfall Archers (I love these guys. It's an entire unit of Green Arrows/Hawkeyes)
One light Warjack with arm-blades
One light Warjack with pike/shield
One heavy Warjack kit unassembled (what should I assemble it as? I was leaning towards phoenix, but I'll take suggestions)
One Arcanist (or whatever their engineer is called)

Where to go from here?

Just so you know, there's two light jacks with arm blades. Do you mean the Chimera (the one with Arc Nodes) or the Gorgon (the one without)?

As far as the heavy 'jack goes, if I had to pick one, I'd personally pick the Manticore. Very nasty in melee, and pretty good at taking out infantry at a range. A very versatile jack, not to mention (comparatively) dirt cheap. What I'd rather do, though, is magnetize them. It's actually pretty easy, although the hands are slightly fiddly to do, and you need to paint over the magnets for the arm blades if you don't want your jack looking weird.

Where to go? I'd grab a unit of Mage Hunters with an attachment (can't go wrong with these guys, excellent for killing infantry, and surprisingly effective against jacks), and a unit of either Sentinels, Invictors, or Halberdiers (if you want the theme list, I'd go with the Halberdiers. Rahn loves his houseguard). Any one of these units will give you a nice, effective melee core that you seem to be missing (although I'm a bit biased, as I hate Battle Mages). Finally, I'd pick up some solos, particularly Eiryss (either one), ghost snipers, narn, and Mage Hunter assassins. Solos are stupidly effective in Retribution, and make a ridiculously dangerous flanking element.

Go for the Phoenix as your heavy 'jack. Rahn really really likes his arc nodes. If you have a Chimera (light 'jack with an arc node), then that and the Phoenix will be perfect for Rahn.

I don't have it in front of me, but I think it's the one without the Arc Nodes. Why are they so useful for Rahn? (I know why they're useful in general, but why does Rahn deserve special mention?)

Ah hah! I also have a Dawnguard Scyrir (jack marshall solo guy)

Rahn is a lot more of a backfieldish spell caster and not a frontline powerhouse, so he really likes to be able to arc his spells instead of having to stand close to the action.

You could probably play him close to the action, but I think you'll have a lot of poor experiences playing him like that

Rahn doesn't have the stat line to play up, so he needs arc nodes. You could settle for a Phoenix, but it's not really an arc node, more like a heavy that just happens to have an arc node among other things. The Chimera is Rahn's favorite pet, it's fast and difficult to tie up along with being far more disposable than a 10pt heavy like the phoenix. You really two arcs for redundancy, if Rahn is casting direct you're risking assassination. Also, the greater speed of the Chimera is important to get the most out Rahn's spells. I've ran the little guys behind enemies and used Force Hammer, Force Blast and Telekinesis to shove enemies (often casters) into the middle of my army for summary execution. Which reminds me, with the ease with which Rahn and the Battle Mages can knock down targets, the Mage Hunter Assassins are pure gold in his army.

I disagree with mastershake, I would strongly suggest you assemble it as a phoenix

Or you could take the extra time to magnetize the arms and hands, and have a single plastic warjack that can fufill all 3 lists

personally I use a Phoenix and a Manticore or Hydra every game. and I have been playtesting the gorgon light mek. if that is one of yours it is better than it appears on paper

position outside of move + melee range and shoot. even if it doesnt dmg they can't charge you. follow that up next turn with a charge combo attack for decent dmg and they can't walk away!

stormfall archers rock, I think they are just fantastic.

NaZ

In Iraq at the moment, so magnetizing/painting well is rather difficult. I've got limited tools and supplies. Reading through the advice here, I think I am going to go with the Phoenix. That was my original gut feeling, and it seems to be a pretty popular jack on here.

So what tactics should I focus on, here? Area denial with Rahn and mages? Split their force and gang up on whatever I can pull away from the pack?

I like Naz's idea of using the Gorgon (especially since I have it). Thanks Dakka!

NaZ wrote:I disagree with mastershake, I would strongly suggest you assemble it as a phoenix

Or you could take the extra time to magnetize the arms and hands, and have a single plastic warjack that can fufill all 3 lists

personally I use a Phoenix and a Manticore or Hydra every game. and I have been playtesting the gorgon light mek. if that is one of yours it is better than it appears on paper

position outside of move + melee range and shoot. even if it doesnt dmg they can't charge you. follow that up next turn with a charge combo attack for decent dmg and they can't walk away!

stormfall archers rock, I think they are just fantastic.

NaZ

I didn't suggest not using the Phoenix, merely pointing out that it isn't a good choice if you're looking for an Arc node. Heavies with high P+S reach blades want to fight and fighting precludes being a reliable Arc node. As good as force blast is for board control, having to burn that much focus every time you want to cast because the phoenix didn't kill everything engaging it will cripple spellcasting. It's a nice back-up in case your Chimera bites it, but doesn't work well as your only Arc Node.

The Gorgon isn't just bad on paper. Both of it's abilities have major flaws. The Polarity Cannon only prevents the target from charging the Gorgon, not other enemies from charging the Gorgon. It also doesn't prevent other movement and considering the weapon is only range 10, it wouldn't take much buff-wise for an enemy to simply be able to walk up to the Gorgon. This is all assuming he actually wants to fight the thing which is a pretty broad assumption. Its ranged threat isn't stellar and beyond it's one combo strike can't really threaten anything heavy. The Force Lock has the major problem of opponents having to start their activations next to it to take effect. Even if you've managed to get it next to a critical enemy model, Force Lock doesn't keep other models from beating the Gorgon senseless (not terribly difficult considering the statline) or using a Throw/Slam to move it away. With only a .5" melee threat it also can't lock up much. I've actually found it to be worse than on paper simply because I thought I saw some potential in board control and the thing just got beaten senseless with negligable contributions to the game. Then there's the points, it costs as much as a batttle mage unit which can exercise infinitely more board control, generally hits harder and takes more to bring down (on top of making better use of Rahn's feat).

The strategy with Rahn should always be board control. Pulling important models out of the enemy lines to execute them while pushing other enemy models to mess up charge lanes and prevent reprisals. It's hard to get used to, but once you do, you'll easily see Rahn is the best caster the Ret has to offer.