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Hello I'm NEW to Warmachine, I only have an starter and I've played it three times, my cousin lend me one of his armies for an oncoming tournament this weekend. I'm a little scarred because I have too much to assimilate in too little time, his army is Retribution, I've made the following list using Vyros1's Dawn's Talon Theme force, but I'd like to know if it looks good. I'd like to point that he has Hyperion, but as I'm still learning the basics of WM I don't want to add difficulty with a Collosal.


System: Warmachine
Faction: Vyros - Dawn's Talon (NQ35)
Casters: 1/1
Points: 34/35
Tiers:
1: Bonus: FA increased for Dawnguard Invictors to 3 or more , Dawnguard Sentinels to 3 or more , Dawnguard Destor Thane to 3 or more and Dawnguard Scyir to 3 or more
2: Bonus: PC decreased for Hydra by 1, Manticore by 1, Phoenix by 1, RJ09 by 1, RJ10 by 1, RJ11 by 1 and Imperatus by 1
3: Bonus: in game effect
4: Bonus: in game effect
TIER 4 GRANTED
Dawnlord Vyros (*6pts)
* Imperatus (11pts)
* Manticore (7pts)
* Phoenix (9pts)
* Phoenix (9pts)
Heavy Rifle Team (Leader and Grunt) (2pts)
Heavy Rifle Team (Leader and Grunt) (2pts)


He has the folowing army, those without numbers have just one miniature/unit.

Warcasters

Lord Arcanis Ossyan
Ravyn
Garryth, Blade of retribution
Kaelyssa
Adeptis Rhan
Dawnlord Vyros



Myrmidons

Manticore 5
Gorgon
Sphinx 2
Griffon 2
Aspis
Banshee 2
Hypnos
Hydra 5
Phoenix 5
Chimera 2
Imperatus
Daemon 2
Hyperion
Discordia

Units

Heavy Rifle Team
Dawnguard Invictors
Invictor Officer and Standard Bearer. UA
Dawnguard Sentinel
Houseguard Riflemen
Houseguard Halberdiers
Stormfall Archers

Solo

Mage Hunter Assassin 2
Houseguard Thane
Eiryss Angel of Retribution


If you can make a better army I would be grateful you tell me, thanks in advance.

I have a few questions that I think will help people help you:

1. Are you using Vyros for any particular reason? Do you think he's really cool and want to run him, etc?

2. Does the tournament require you to run a theme force?

3. The numbers of models you have there look a bit... weird. Nobody owns five Hydras, and your brother can't possibly have bought 31 warjacks without owning an Arcanist. Does he have an Arcanist?

4. Sort of related, but your list has two Heavy Rifle Teams in it but you only have one listed in what your brother owns. Are there any other units or unit attachments that he has? The attachments in particular are pretty important, as it's rare to run most units without the unit attachment.

I think answers to those will help a lot in people making your list better. If nothing else, it needs to fill out that last point with an Arcanist.

P.S. Welcome to Dakka and Warmachine!

Thanks for answering and welcoming me, now it's my turn:

1. Are you using Vyros for any particular reason? Do you think he's really cool and want to run him, etc?

I chose him because I thought his abilities were awesome, making all of your army inside the control area ignore everything that could affect LOS.

2. Does the tournament require you to run a theme force?

No, it doesn't, I just chose a Theme force because of the additional benefits they give you.

3. The numbers of models you have there look a bit... weird. Nobody owns five Hydras, and your brother can't possibly have bought 31 warjacks without owning an Arcanist. Does he have an Arcanist?

Well, I think he loved the aesthetics so much he bought mindlessly, in fact he is conscious he bought too many. No, there are not arcanist, just what I posted.

4. Sort of related, but your list has two Heavy Rifle Teams in it but you only have one listed in what your brother owns. Are there any other units or unit attachments that he has? The attachments in particular are pretty important, as it's rare to run most units without the unit attachment.

It was my fault, there were two, is the only unit he have more than once, and the Assassins, and he have just an UA, Invictor Officer and Standard, as listed above.

I think answers to those will help a lot in people making your list better. If nothing else, it needs to fill out that last point with an Arcanist.

I hope so, thanks.

infoholico wrote:

No, it doesn't, I just chose a Theme force because of the additional benefits they give you.

Ok, this is a terrible way to learn the game. You don't want to add some unnecessary complications if you are just starting out. Especially theme forces which can lead to you having an unrealistic expectations of how your army plays out. Play the basic vanilla faction first before you go for theme forces.

Heavy Rifle Teams are just bad. Light Artillery are one area where PP poorly designed their rules. Too short ranged and cannot move and shoot. Ghost Snipers are way better, if you want a sniper.

Your list has way way too many jacks. pVyros cannot run 4 heavies by himself, especially without Arcanists. I would make your list as follows,

pVyros
-Imperitus
-Manticore

Max Dawnguard Sentinels
Max Dawnguard Invictors with UA

This gives you some good infantry and isn't too many jacks for Vyros to handles.

You put Inviolable Resolve on the Sentinals and have them be your first wave. The Invictors follow them behind and provide shooting support and a 2nd line of decent melee troops.

Thanks Grey Templar, But there are 2 points left, I could use them to add a Heavy Rifle Team (Leader and Grunt) (2pts) or Houseguard Thane

There aren't any points left. I used them for the UA.

The Jacks are 14 points(-6WJ pts), the Sentinals are 9, 2 for the Sentinal UA, and then 10 for the Invictors.

14+9+2+10=35

Tier two of this force reduces heavy manticore costs in 1 so it would be 20 -6 (warcaster) -2 (Tier 2) = 12 I'll add Riflemen because Houseguard Thane is pointless.

Right. I suppose if you don't have the solos that would be ideal to take you would go with the theme force. Your buddy really made his collection oddly.

If you can manage it, you really need to get two Arcanists before the tournament. Their biggest thing is that they can give a warjack +2 to melee damage rolls for a turn, which takes their attacks from sort of weak to good. They aren't really optional for Ret. Without them, your myrmidons will struggle to kill other myrmidons and warbeasts.

Okay, here's my attempt, which has Arcanists, and also a Soulless Escort, which you also don't have, to fill out the last point:

The Dawn's Talon, Tier 3
Dawnlord Vyros (+6)
- Imperatus (11)
- Phoenix (9)
- Aspis (4)
Dawnguard Invictors (Max) (10)
- Invictor Officer & Standard (2)
- Soulless Escort (1)
Heavy Rifle Team (2)
Arcanist (1)
Arcanist (1)

So, the general concept:

Imperatus is your main assassination threat and all-round heavy murderer. Between Vyros' Mobility spell and Imperatus' Side Step ability, it should be able to travel really far. You can also cast Inviolable Resolve on it if you want it to be even more obnoxious to kill than it already is, though you might want that on the Invictors some of the time too.

The Phoenix is pretty good at killing stuff, including heavies, and with Vyros' feat it might be able to eat an entire unit of infantry if they're too close together. Its Combustion attack could also help deal with high defense stuff for you, and its arc node might allow you to hit something with Stranglehold if that comes up.

The Aspis is there for the feat turn dream. Because it has Beat Back, it can hit a model, kill it, advance an inch because of beat back, then gain a focus point from the feat. Then it can use the focus point to buy another attack and do it all again. In the right conditions this could allow it to kill a lot of stuff. In the wrong conditions it's not going to kill anything, but that's the Aspis life for you I guess.

The Invictors are there to let you shoot stuff. It's possible you'll be able to trigger their Flank (Faction Warjack) ability with your three myrmidons if you need to, but they also have good shooting that may hopefully let you clear annoying models out of the way so that Imperatus and the Phoenix can get where they need to be. The unit has a Soulless Escort attached to fill out the last point, which you don't have. If you can find some Arcanists, you might be able to find a Soulless Escort too. It can be a niche model, but it costs one point, so it can be a handy filler, and it could be really annoying if your opponent wants to cast spells on its unit.

The Heavy Rifle Team is basically there because you don't have a lot of options available. It's a unit, so it lets you use tier 3 of the theme force and advance move one warjack. It probably won't do a lot, but you could shoot an enemy warbeast or something and do a little bit of damage. Since it's a light artillery piece it can't move and fire, so try to run it somewhere decent and hope it can reach something relevant, I guess.

The Arcanists let your jacks do +2 melee damage. That's really good! Since they're already hitting quite hard, that could be as much as 10 extra damage to an enemy model in one turn - really good against tough targets like warjacks and warcasters, and usually the difference between scrapping one or dinging them up a bit.

That's my explanation. Maybe the list will even work something like that. If you can't get Arcanists by the weekend, you could drop the Heavy Rifle Team to drop down to tier 2 of the theme force, then add a Griffon. Or you could drop the Griffon and the Aspis and add the full unit of Sentinels and you pretty much have Grey Templar's list, just with a Phoenix instead of a Manticore because of the theme benefit.