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Hey Dakka! I'm a new member to the forum, don't often frequent this site for 40k (I'm an Advanced Tau Tactica long time member) but this seems to be the only place for Privateer Press stuff that I'm looking to get into!

Anyway, I've played a handful of games with my friends' armies in Mk1 (and a little in Mk2), and I have a pretty good handle on the mechanics and the changes that occurred in the Mk2 update. What I can't seem to find is any real tactica, especially for Retribution. So I thought I'd post here, ask my questions.

Questions:
-I'm a very competitive player (placed in 'Ard Boyz 3 times with my Tau and White Scars), and enjoy playing in tournaments. What are the standard formats that Warmachine/Hordes Tournaments come in? How about missions? Do most tournaments have both Hordes and Warmachine?

-I know the rules, and my friends and I have developed a variety of strategies, but is there a concise gathering of "meta game" stuff, the strongest strategies and how they work, the common builds, etc I should know about? Like in 40k you have to worry about T/SS termis in landraiders, IG chimera spam, Ork Battlewagony Goodness, Spacewolf razorback/thunderwolf spam, and Blood Angel drop parties and once you cover all those bases you're good. Basically I'm asking if there is a tactica site I should look at (besides Battle College, which I've perused and found kind of wanting), so I'm not just gleaning stuff from the stat cards.

-Does anyone live in the California Central Valley and need a gaming partner?

Iron-Fist wrote: What are the standard formats that Warmachine/Hordes Tournaments come in? How about missions? Do most tournaments have both Hordes and Warmachine?

The standard tournament format for WM/ hordes is steamroller and it contains also most common missions/ scenarios people play. The official page can be found here. In addition Privateer publishes leagues 4 times a year, and the leagues have additional scenarios, rules and special characters to be used in them. These are for more casual play, opposed to Steamroller which is intended for competitive play.

Welcome to Warmachine! I'd go register on the Privateer Press forums if I were you, you'll get access to a lot more information there.

Compettiveness: One of the major differences in WM/H and 40K is that WM/H was designed with competition in mind. Steamroller is the current tournament package, and people play the scenarios out of there for practice. And tournaments are defacto Hordes and Warmachine.

Metagame: There are some metagame things to be aware of, depending on the army build, but the thing that I enjoy is that you can see the combo's a mile away due to everyone knowing what every model does (just ask to see the card). Basically, once you get sucker punched by a combo, you'll forever be on the look out for it.

Retribution: Retribution is a strong army, but it's a force of independently strong units and solos, and not a lot of synergy outside of the Warcaster.

CA: I'm sure there's a bunch of players in California...you can probably track them down through the PP Forums.


Welcome to the game, and feel free to ask any questions you might have!

Welcome.

Retribution has the angry elves.
They are strong. Maybe a bit behind in terms of available units 'ish', but they are very strong.

Just Ravyn + MHSF is pretty scary for most situations... and there is still points left and a scond list not considered yet. Wowzors.

Though Asthetically, I do like Garryth's Themed Force, simply Assassins is pretty cool.

Iron-Fist wrote:-I'm a very competitive player (placed in 'Ard Boyz 3 times with my Tau and White Scars), and enjoy playing in tournaments. What are the standard formats that Warmachine/Hordes Tournaments come in? How about missions? Do most tournaments have both Hordes and Warmachine?

The standard format is Steamroller 2010 (SR10). The format has timed turns which require some practice to get used to, but aren't bad. Most events are 2 lists, so you can bring lists that compliment each other and have more responses. There are also standard scenarios and a fair number of them. Warmachine and Hordes are often used interchangably and most events will include both. As a general rule, WM/HD events are elimination i.e. if you lose, you're out of the running for first and second. You'll still keep playing and if you score well enough you can get third, but it isn't like 40K in that a bad matchup can be made up for by playing for a draw or additional points. Also, draws (while rare do occaisionally happen) are treated as both players losing.

Iron-Fist wrote:-I know the rules, and my friends and I have developed a variety of strategies, but is there a concise gathering of "meta game" stuff, the strongest strategies and how they work, the common builds, etc I should know about? Like in 40k you have to worry about T/SS termis in landraiders, IG chimera spam, Ork Battlewagony Goodness, Spacewolf razorback/thunderwolf spam, and Blood Angel drop parties and once you cover all those bases you're good. Basically I'm asking if there is a tactica site I should look at (besides Battle College, which I've perused and found kind of wanting), so I'm not just gleaning stuff from the stat cards.

Each caster tends to have their own build, but there usually isn't a ton of variation (at least in competitive events) with the same caster. The downside is that reading about a caster won't fully prepare you for playing against them (classic example is that even people who have read or heard about Ravyn often get blindsided when they see her the first time). General things to note in the meta:
-Upkeep/animi removal. Not just buffs on enemy models but debuffs on your own. Even with arcane assassins, there are a number of upkeeps you wont ignore or really want to get rid of
-Focus removal. You can still kill a Hordes caster with full Fury, but some WM casters can camp so much focus on top of naturally high ARM, that they become almost untouchable.
-Magic Weapons. You don't know how badly you need them, until you need them, then you've already lost.

If you play Retribution eEiryss and Lady Aiyana can go a long way to covering potential meta game problems and since eEiryss becomes a friendly faction model as well, it's practically illegal not to take her.

Iron-Fist wrote:-Does anyone live in the California Central Valley and need a gaming partner?

Beats me.

So I assume there are no good tactica sites? *sad face* ATT basically taught me to play 40k, sad to think I won't have that for WM/H

Not really. The official PP site and various forums aren't above 40K forums in terms of how actually helpful they'll be, so you'll get an ocean of slurry with the occaisional nuggets of real help. Battle College seemed okay the few times I looked at it, but far too simple and quite a few mistakes.

Proxy models that look like they work and start playing, that's how I got started and it's worked pretty well. If you need a starting point I've been messing with Ret for a while.

@Mastershake

Ah okay. Well, I've been thinking about what to do with the different Casters, if you'd care to leave any feedback. That's actually why I settled on Retribution, because I like and can think of coherent strategies for almost all the casters. Here are some of my thoughts:

-Kaelyssa and Vyross both seem to have pretty strong assassination capabilities, using Birds Eye and Phantom Hunter you can put some of the high power myrmidon shots through screening units and into warcasters. I am underwhelmed by Vyross's feat, however, and Kaelyssa's feat overlaps with the stealth of the MHSF and MHA, which seem like almost auto-includes in most armies. They also fail vs. stealthed casters (true sight helps for Kaelyssa but I can't imagine even boosted POW 10's killing a caster remotely reliably).

-I played a lot of Cygnar in Mk1, so of course I love Ravyn. Snipe is great, I like the new incarnation even more than the old because it encourages juggling between units. I'm not sure which units this would be best on, but advanced deploying MHSF with 1st turn shots seem good, as do 16'' brutal shotting Stormfalls and18'' CRA-ing-into-melee (where they could even be boosted by vortex of destruction!) HG Riflemen. She doesn't seem to have as much of a qucik-and-easy "gimmick" as Kaelyssa and Vyross, but rather work (much like my beloved Lt. Caine) through attrition until you can finally get to that warcaster/'lock. Vortex of doom means that MHA charging her targets get 5d6, doubling their damage and ignoring focus. Talk about brutal. Still, I'm not sure about how to use her feat effectively, whether to save it for the assassination or use it for early attrition. Probably situational, but still, I'm not confident in my ability to tell the situations apart.

-Garryth is an enigma to me. He survives on stealth, and seems like a "do it yourself" caster, much like Capt. Caine, but he can't do it at range with only ROF 1 on his pistols and (while he is a weaponmaster with arcane assassin and grievous wounds) he doesn't have anything to help him get into melee or survive once he gets there. Seems like he pretty much only wants to close when he's guaranteed the assassination, but has no way of making that happen. Psychic vampire will shut down some magic-heavy lists (but not many), and his feat can stop a lot of assassination strategies, but both are defensive and require him to be within 12'' of stuff which is a terrible combination. I love his fluff and I see a lot of potential here, but I can't come up with a coherent game plan. Any ideas?

-Adeptis Rahn similarly mystifies me. I really enjoy playing magic-centric casters (Haley and Denny were my girls in Mk1) but again I can't see the plan with this caster. His feat makes you want to take Battle Mages, but it really looks to me like battle mages kinda suck for what they cost. Best ideas I can come up with is using a quick arc node and your feat to get some boosted chain blasts in among a formation early, use polarity shield to keep a Halberier and Riflemen/Stormfall block from getting charged, and try to force hammer intervening 'jacks/beasts into their warcasters. There has to be some aspect of Rahn that I'm missing, what is it?

Iron-Fist wrote:-Kaelyssa and Vyross both seem to have pretty strong assassination capabilities, using Birds Eye and Phantom Hunter you can put some of the high power myrmidon shots through screening units and into warcasters. I am underwhelmed by Vyross's feat, however, and Kaelyssa's feat overlaps with the stealth of the MHSF and MHA, which seem like almost auto-includes in most armies. They also fail vs. stealthed casters (true sight helps for Kaelyssa but I can't imagine even boosted POW 10's killing a caster remotely reliably).

Vyros has...problems. In most games he's basically lacking a feat, or a feat that does anything of note. It rarely does anything signifigant. Without that you've got a few decent spells like Mobility, Invioble Resolve and to a lesser extent Hallowed Avenger. He can hit really hard when flanking with a jack, but otherwise both Ravyn and Garryth hit harder. His spells and abilities aren't terrible, but they don't carry a list well. You've got it about right with Kaelyssa's gun, boosted POW 10's have serious problems against casters even with her Energy Siphon ability (maybe if she had arcane assassin it would work better). She's got a solid feat, but it favors units that don't already have stealth like either Dawnguard infantry unit who love being stealthed and unchargable. The biggest problem with both casters is weak assassinations, the best either can manage is gimmicky assassinations that involve Hydras and that has it's own set of problems. For starters the Hydra is anti-good in general, so if you run into situations where it can't assassinate you're left with a lot of points that won't do much. On top of that RAT 5 and only a limited ability to ignore buffs with Phantom Hunter and Birds Eye means the #1 trick of the Hydra is missing with its only shot and getting jumped by the opposing army. It fails more often than it works. When you take that out of the equation, you're left with some really unimpressive assassination options with both casters. Kaelyssa can be solid in in scnenario play and mangled metal, but is less good in straight assassinaitons as her DEF heavy statline makes her vulnerable to a lot. Vyros is just unadvisable, when he gets going with the flank it's cool and he can camp pretty well, but compared to other casters he just falls really short.

Iron-Fist wrote:-I played a lot of Cygnar in Mk1, so of course I love Ravyn. Snipe is great, I like the new incarnation even more than the old because it encourages juggling between units. I'm not sure which units this would be best on, but advanced deploying MHSF with 1st turn shots seem good, as do 16'' brutal shotting Stormfalls and18'' CRA-ing-into-melee (where they could even be boosted by vortex of destruction!) HG Riflemen. She doesn't seem to have as much of a qucik-and-easy "gimmick" as Kaelyssa and Vyross, but rather work (much like my beloved Lt. Caine) through attrition until you can finally get to that warcaster/'lock. Vortex of doom means that MHA charging her targets get 5d6, doubling their damage and ignoring focus. Talk about brutal. Still, I'm not sure about how to use her feat effectively, whether to save it for the assassination or use it for early attrition. Probably situational, but still, I'm not confident in my ability to tell the situations apart.

Snipe-Feat-Go, Snipe the MHSF, pop the Feat and shoot the enemy caster to death bottom 1. It's a hell of an assassination and almost everyone falls for it once. An 11 man unit of Arcane Assassins that ignore almost every defensive buff under the sun with boosted hits will drop about a third of the casters in the game with marginal effort. It's a cool trick and the mere threat can leave casters huddled in their deployment zone all game (or dead). Ravyn doesn't have a gimmick, she's just good. Vortex of Destruction and her pile of stupid abilities will make opponents hesistate about just trying to run to engage your army because Ravyn will shred an entire unit with little effort. BTW, Vortex is a boost, not an extra die so the MHA will only get 4 dice. As far as using the feat it just depends. If you need it to hit key units, then pop to kill the army, otherwise just sit on it and save it for the assassination. As an aside, I've made players cry by hitting their Shieldwalls with Star Strike rounds from 16" away, 3-4 shots and they're all on fire, funny every time.

Iron-Fist wrote:-Garryth is an enigma to me. He survives on stealth, and seems like a "do it yourself" caster, much like Capt. Caine, but he can't do it at range with only ROF 1 on his pistols and (while he is a weaponmaster with arcane assassin and grievous wounds) he doesn't have anything to help him get into melee or survive once he gets there. Seems like he pretty much only wants to close when he's guaranteed the assassination, but has no way of making that happen. Psychic vampire will shut down some magic-heavy lists (but not many), and his feat can stop a lot of assassination strategies, but both are defensive and require him to be within 12'' of stuff which is a terrible combination. I love his fluff and I see a lot of potential here, but I can't come up with a coherent game plan. Any ideas?

Dawnguard Sentinels. Mirage and Vengence is really fun. Not the fiercest or most broken of combos, but getting to move, attack and teleport all at the beginning of the turn is good times. In general Garryth doesn't have a coherent game plan, he ends up being an opportunist caster that takes assassinations however he can get em. In a lot of cases a pair of Arcane Assassin hand cannon shots will work, other times he death sentences the enemy for the Sentinels or MHSF to handle, but I've had the same trouble trying to come up with a real plan for getting the assassination beyond "these units get to you somehow". His feat is usually a plan B i.e. you failed the assassination, but your opponent will have a hell of time killing Garryth without spending focus or casting spells. If he can get into melee with the caster, they reliably die, but his threat range is just so short. Magisters can help with a little pull, but that's about it.

Iron-Fist wrote:-Adeptis Rahn similarly mystifies me. I really enjoy playing magic-centric casters (Haley and Denny were my girls in Mk1) but again I can't see the plan with this caster. His feat makes you want to take Battle Mages, but it really looks to me like battle mages kinda suck for what they cost. Best ideas I can come up with is using a quick arc node and your feat to get some boosted chain blasts in among a formation early, use polarity shield to keep a Halberier and Riflemen/Stormfall block from getting charged, and try to force hammer intervening 'jacks/beasts into their warcasters. There has to be some aspect of Rahn that I'm missing, what is it?

Rahn is a balancing act. You want Battle Mages to power the feat, but you need real units for the rest of the game. In 35 one unit of battle mages is about all you want and spend remaining points on Dawnguard infantry and other bells and whistles. Rahn feat is basically assassination focused. It allows him to Telekenisis spam and his Battle Mages to reliably push and knock down high DEF models (like a caster) to get them into a position for something else (usually a MHA, sometimes a jack) to finish off. Rahn has 3 spells that do very little outside of moving models so if the caster plays up even a little he can usually drag them out of their army kicking and screaming. He runs into issues, not just against anti-magic, but also against casters who just chill in the back and let their army fight it out as Rahn has very little in his spell list that's good at army support and using his feat to blast nameless infantry is a real waste.

@Mastershake

Thanks, really good advice. Never really thought of the MHSF as an assassination threat in and of themselves, with only pow 10's, but I guess if you throw enough rocks at something it will die.

Why can't I find a faction where I can actually use (and like to use) the majority of the casters/units? In Cygnar, for example, I love the Caines, pHaley, pStryker, and Brisbane, but hate the rest of the casters. Also, why the hell did they change the range on the Trencher smoke bomb? It used to be so cool, now its just stupid...

I have a similar issue...I've learned that if I like 75% of a faction, to go with it. I don't HAVE to use everything a faction has to offer.

Retribution is like that for me. I like the casters and unit, but am unimpressed with most of the jacks. Honestly, I'd just take a Phoenix most of the time (And a Chimera).