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I'll just say it outright. I'm not buying 40k anymore. I love the models, but they just keep getting more expensive, and as someone who loves building/painting as much as play (if not more) 40k is just to costly for me. So I'm looking for something new.

I've been stalking around for a few days reading the new player threads but would like to ask more pointed questions before spending money. So far, I'm interested in Cygnar and Retribution. Cygnar seems pretty straight forward to figure out and has some nice looking models, but I LOVE (emphasis) the look of the Retribution models. They are amazing. Something I have had a hard time with though, is getting a feel for how to play Retribution.

So, questions:

What style of army is Retribution of Scyrah? Combined arms, melee, ranged?

Are they more warjack or infantry focused? The appearance of the warjacks is very appealing for me so having two or three in an army would be fun, but the infantry are also pretty nice.

EDIT: How powerful are Retribution jacks compared to those in other factions in a fight? Do they need lots of focus, supporting infantry, or can they scrape by on their own?

What are some good models to start with? Especially a warcaster who isn't to hard on beginners but takes a little work to figure out. Right now I' looking at this Rhan character whose model is very nice. I'm going to pick up a complete faction deck for whichever army I ultimately go with along with the core rules, but if the Battlebox isn't the most useful set of models I'll just buy what I want separately.

EDIT: Also, I've seen reference to both metal and plastic battleboxes. Are the current ones plastic or metal?

Im sure someone will be able to answer your questions with more depth but just to start out

1. Retribution doesn't have it's own starter box as of yet. All Retribution heavy jacks are plastic

2. All armies can run different ways. Retribution can definitely be both melee and ranged or combined arms, it just depends on your caster and troop choices

Pick out a caster your like the look and fluff of and go from there their spells will usually point out what direction theyd go in

Cygnar is often described as 'combined arms.' However, most any faction can do most any thing with a sufficient arrangement of warcaster, troops, and mercs. That having been said, most factions have a focus and theme. I've heard Retribution is shooting, self sufficiency, and anti-magic. That certainly describes the lone Ret army I've played against.

Cyngar depends on warcaster/infantry synergy a lot. Your 'caster defines what you should be taking for infantry based on what 'holes' in the infantry units you can fix. Making Stormblades work without a defensive effect or Long Gunners work without Snipe is hard.

Cygnar also doesn't seem to hit very hard.

LordofHats wrote:
What style of army is Retribution of Scyrah? Combined arms, melee, ranged?

I guess combined arms is the best description since one-dimensional units are pretty rare. Many units can shoot and fight or cast spells and fight and do both at somewhat compitently if not well. Even if you have an army built around ranged attacks it should by accident still be able to fight which makes Ret somewhat unique since Cygnar has almost nothing that both shoots well and can fight it's way out of a wet paper bag. In general though I'd add a 4th option of "assassination". Most Ret casters have some kind of BS assassination they specialize in and many of them have ways around buffs and or the entire enemy army. It's not that their bad in the attrition fight, they have some of the best infantry in the game, but they also have a lot of really nice assassination options.

LordofHats wrote:Are they more warjack or infantry focused? The appearance of the warjacks is very appealing for me so having two or three in an army would be fun, but the infantry are also pretty nice.

EDIT: How powerful are Retribution jacks compared to those in other factions in a fight? Do they need lots of focus, supporting infantry, or can they scrape by on their own?

They tend to be more infantry focused since most of their infantry units are well equipped enough and bring their own buffs to the battlefield while their jacks are often hampered by low MAT and RAT stats and all of them are in the same cost category of a full sized unit. They can still hit hard with the help of an Arcanist, but buffs for accuracy are pretty rare so unless their target has trash DEF they're often less efficient for the task than more infantry.

LordofHats wrote:What are some good models to start with? Especially a warcaster who isn't to hard on beginners but takes a little work to figure out. Right now I' looking at this Rhan character whose model is very nice. I'm going to pick up a complete faction deck for whichever army I ultimately go with along with the core rules, but if the Battlebox isn't the most useful set of models I'll just buy what I want separately.

Rahn is solid and high tier caster, but to be fair, none of them are excessively tricky to get a handle on and Ravyn is at about the same level both in learning curve and ability. In general I've found Ravyn to be better if you're looking for a caster that it takes a while to really understand since once you've gotten down Arc Node + Telekenisis + Force Hammer you've basically got everything Rahn does while she's got a more diverse spell list and ability list. Garryth probably takes the longest to figure out since he has to live really close to the front line and doing that without getting assassinated takes a good bit of experience.

LordofHats wrote:EDIT: Also, I've seen reference to both metal and plastic battleboxes. Are the current ones plastic or metal?

Neither, Ret has no battlebox.

The Grog wrote:Cygnar also doesn't seem to hit very hard.

Which is the reason for combined arms approach is needed. The are very few options in Cygnar that can alone drop a heavy jack in turn, but as you stack some buffs and soften the target with some shooting it goes down. Cygnar is also a faction that has more use for Mercs than the other factions for this reason.

LordofHats wrote:Also, I've seen reference to both metal and plastic battleboxes. Are the current ones plastic or metal?

The current Cygnar starter is plastic.

Metsuri wrote:The current Cygnar starter is plastic.

You can still get the metal boxes, though.

If there´s artwork on the front, it´s the metal box (with older minis).
If there´s a picture of actual minis on the front it´s the plastic one.

Specifically, the Charger, Lancer, Firefly, Ironclad, Defender, and Cyclone are plastic. Maybe the Grenadier too?

Cygnar metal jacks are a little smaller in scale than the plastics, which bothered me enough to sell the metal lights I bought and magnetized.

Thanks for all the advice so far. Very helpful (and I did notice the lack of battlebox as well as a lack of a complete card deck).

For Retribution, what are some good jacks to start with. The Hydra and the Phoenix are what I'm looking at now, but how are the Griffon and the Manticore in actual play (tutorials and summaries only tell you so much)?

Cygnar does have things that hit hard in both Range and Melee, but many look at them as combined arms - I agree they work best in that role, but here are two examples of Cygnar Jacks that are top tier:

Defender - 16" range and has a Hammer that really hurts. One of the best jacks Cygnar has.

Stormclad - This monster is the best beatstick Cygnar has.

LordofHats wrote:Thanks for all the advice so far. Very helpful (and I did notice the lack of battlebox as well as a lack of a complete card deck).

For Retribution, what are some good jacks to start with. The Hydra and the Phoenix are what I'm looking at now, but how are the Griffon and the Manticore in actual play (tutorials and summaries only tell you so much)?

The Phoenix is fine, it has a lot of abilities and attributes and while you'll rarely use them all in a game they come in handy quite often. He also works well for the casters who want an Arc Node, but don't want to dedicate points to a jack that is of little use outside of that function like the Chimera. His hitting power isn't going to light the world on fire (small continous fire joke), but Combustion can be worth it's weight in gold and he still hits hard enough that you know he's a heavy.

The Hydra trades off the most of any Ret jack almost completely abandoning a credilble melee threat to anything with real armor for a gimmicky ranged attack. Some like it and feel the gimmick works, but that hasn't been my experience. To each his own, but at 9pts I consider him overcosted for what he does.

The Manticore is the incredible hulk. Between the Combo Strike and the +3 STR buff he has, he hits harder than any other Ret jack by a wide margin. His gun is also still useful being a ROF 3 hand cannon essentially. Covering Fire doesn't work well in singles, but can be useful in pairs (the bishop principle). He's also the cheapest of the lot, though at 8 pts you could still get a full sized unit for the same points and he tends to be the most Focus intensive usually needing 3 focus whenever you want him to do something. It's not a terrible thing and he does enough to deliver on that focus investment, but most Ret casters are pretty focus-starved.

Discordia is worth a look, since her imprint is solid for protecting lighter ARM models from blast damage and buffing the ARM of heavier ones. She also has some solid melee stats and one of, if not "the", best sprays in the game which is always useful (sprays are broken, especially boostable ones).

The lighter jacks tend to be more niche models and have trouble finding a role in lists. The Chimera is great if you need a dedicated Arc Node, but that's really only Rahn. There's nothing really wrong with the Griffon and he's fine for his points, but as stated earlier most Ret casters aren't exactly rocking the focus numbers or abilities that make them focus efficient enough to power light jacks when heavies give you more impact. They also have a hard time distinguishing themselves from the heavy jacks since they're both the same SPD and DEF the Chimera is only marginally faster than the Phoenix even with Apparition and the Griffon only outpaces it's big brothers if you spend the focus for Fleet (though Pathfinder is always nice). They're not bad, but you could easily go without them and not notice anything missing.

To add just a little to what Mastershake said. None of the Retribution jacks are going to win a game on their own. They are not as powerful as the 'top notch' jacks in other factions.

However, in the right combination they can be very effective. They complement other parts of the army well. Put another way, I never build a RoS list around a warjack. Instead, I pick the units I want to field and then look for a warjack that works well with that unit.

Vyros really likes Jacks with reach.
Rahn demands an arc node.
Ravyn, doesn't care about jacks she takes one because Vyros told her to.
Kaelyssa, and Garyth... I'm not certain about. Haven't logged much table time with them.

J--

Oathbreaker wrote:To add just a little to what Mastershake said. None of the Retribution jacks are going to win a game on their own. They are not as powerful as the 'top notch' jacks in other factions.

However, in the right combination they can be very effective. They complement other parts of the army well. Put another way, I never build a RoS list around a warjack. Instead, I pick the units I want to field and then look for a warjack that works well with that unit.

Vyros really likes Jacks with reach.
Rahn demands an arc node.
Ravyn, doesn't care about jacks she takes one because Vyros told her to.
Kaelyssa, and Garyth... I'm not certain about. Haven't logged much table time with them.

J--

Rahn likes multiple nodes even if one is a Phoenix. It's difficult to use an arc node without losing it and if an assassination opportunity appears you don't want to be kicking yourself for losing that Chimera to get rid of a key enemy model or two.
Ravyn likes Discordia, probably in some inappropriate ways. It's a solid jack all around, but it also shields the MHSF from blast damage and the spray on Ravyn's feat is brutal.
Kaelyssa and Garryth like either Phoenix or Discordia. Either caster can kinda get by with both, but Stealth and immunity to blast damage is really good and both have the occaisional spell they like to arc, but not enough to pick up a dedicated Node.

Mastershake wrote:...Ravyn likes Discordia, probably in some inappropriate ways...

Ravyn is oftentimes doing inappropriate things to others. Often involving the words Snipe/Feat/Go as Mastershake has taught us over on the PP forums.

We anticipate having other warjacks in the upcoming June release of Wrath. One of which has been partially spoiled over on Bell of Lost Souls.
http://www.belloflostsouls.net/2011/05/warmachine-wrath-teaser-daemon.html

We should get, at the very least, one more character jack for the new caster Ossyan which will, with luck, be comparable in quality to Discordia. Personally, I'm hoping for several extra jacks.

If you can hold off until the release of Wrath then you can see all of the jack choices we'll have available for a while.

J--