Tactical Help

[ZenPaladin]

So due to a security glitch I can access this site at work and can not access most others.

So to those of you who are more skilled in Warmachine I put forth this request... HELP!

I'm new to the game and looking for idea's and insperation for my Retribution army. I'm enjoying the game a lot but suffering some fairly crushing defeats.

I've two casters. Vyros and Rayven.

5 jacks, Gorgon, Phoenix, Griffon and uh,,, the teleporting one and the three shot one.
3 units, Battle Mages, Houseguard Halbradiers and Dawnguard Invictors
1 attachment a souless escort and 1 solo an Arcanist.

Anyone have any good general stratigies? My main oponent is a Menite who loves to run his Exemplars and Crusader up into my face and tear my fragile army apart.

[GentleBen]

Well I've never run a ret army but I play Protectorate regularly so I know their weaknesses. One big thing that sticks out is that Crusaders are slow. If your opponent isn't running Amon ad Raza, Epic Feora, or the Harbinger the Crusader has a max threat range of 7.5". That means if its not already in melee with you, it should probably only take 3 (max 4) of your battle mages to push it somewhere it won't be bothering you. The Exemplars are a pain because their armor gets higher and higher the more of them you kill. Any attacks where multiple damage rolls are resolved simultaneously (AoEs, some spells, thresher) won't let their armor jump until the entire attack is resolved. Problem is I don't know what Ret has that does that.

Let me know what caster your opponent is taking and maybe I can give some more specific help.

[Lux]

How many points are you typically playing? What do your typical lists look like? And as GentelBen asked, what do your opponents run?


Lux

[ZenPaladin]

My honorable foe normaly uses Kreos or Sevarious I think...

Its knockdown man and his buddy focus stealing boy! Yeah I try to use my mages to push the crusader around. They can't stop both his power units though and once the Exemplars have suffered a few causalties they can't hurt the reaminder at all.

My warcaster can Thresher but if I don't whipe out the squad the weapon master's return blows should kill her. I've got AoE from my Heavy Myrmidon and my caster's in one form or another but once their armor goes up the 1/2 damage power seems highly unlikely to cause any pain.

Though it could just be my lousy rolls...

[GentleBen]

My honorable foe normaly uses Kreos or Sevarious I think...

Its knockdown man and his buddy focus stealing boy! Yeah I try to use my mages to push the crusader around. They can't stop both his power units though and once the Exemplars have suffered a few causalties they can't hurt the reaminder at all.

My warcaster can Thresher but if I don't whipe out the squad the weapon master's return blows should kill her. I've got AoE from my Heavy Myrmidon and my caster's in one form or another but once their armor goes up the 1/2 damage power seems highly unlikely to cause any pain.

Though it could just be my lousy rolls...

Well it looks like in both those cases you probably have the added insult of defender's ward on those knights to make them extra hard.

Only other thought I have without checking my ret book involves the Halberdiers. Are you always putting them in shield wall? Shield wall is a great ability but just because you have it doesn't mean you should always use it. KE or the crusader will easily kill the halberdiers, even in shield wall. If you spread them out you will have some to counter charge the KE after they hit your line. With Brutal charge a halberdier should be able to kill even the last surviving KE on average rolls. If you shield wall, the surviving halberdiers will not be able to get a charge bonus being too close to their targets, and the knights will shrug off their blows.

[ZenPaladin]

Maybe I just got seriously un-lucky last game then.

I charged my 10 man halbradier's at his 6 man KE unit and killed one single knight. I do believe he's using his armor buff on them too.

[Lux]

One other question I have: are you playing the steamroller scenarios or simple caster kill? Playing the scenarios changes how we might answer you since you have to concentrate on the objectives as well as on not dying.

If you're only playing assassination games, then your strategy should probably be to stay back a little more and whittle him down at range instead of rushing head-on into melee. Your faction has a lot of good shooting abilities; if you're not using that, then you're not playing to your full strengths.

I'd like to follow off of Gentleben's response and remind you that you have a number of advantages over Menoth. The most important advantage is speed. Your guys are faster, which means you should almost always be the one getting the initial charges. Use your speed to concentrate on killing a few of his things as opposed to damaging multiple things. A damaged warjack is still an angry warjack; dead warjacks don't hit back.

A few 2-3man CRAs on sniped, standing-still invictors should kill all his exemplars over 2 turns (even if the exemplars are buffed), especially if the boosted feat is going. I'm assuming that he's using a choir to keep his jacks safe from ranged, so use your ranged abilities to nail his infantry. You can use your mittens to push his jacks farther away from you, splitting up his forces and allowing you to deal with one section of his army at a time. One question, how many jacks are you running in both lists? Rayven doesn't seem to really like more than 2-3 warjacks. Any more than that puts too much strain on her focus management. Vyros likes more, of course, but even then I wouldn't go completely overboard. 3-4 is enough.

One other thing to keep in mind- AOE's, and spells of the chain-lightning variety are simultaneous effects, so his exemplars won't get the buffs until AFTER the full AOE/Spell attack is completely resolved.

A few other models that might help are the ghost snipers (the sniper ability ignores his high armor), mage hunter assassins, sentinels (P+S 12 weapon masters put the hurt on everything in melee), and the Invictor Unit Attachment.

Lux

[ZenPaladin]

we have been playing Senarios lately.

Would you say it is better to marshall a light jack or a heavy? A shooting jack or a close combat? My invictors are flankers with warjacks..

I normaly only run 3 jacks... maybe I will try cutting it to two with Ravyn.. the two shooters perhapse..

[GentleBen]

I would say if its to get the flank bonus just have them marshall that 4 point reach guy with the halberd and shield.

[gdaybloke]

You're running two casters that I'm unfamiliar with (I usually play Rahn or Kaelyssa), but you've got tools to make things work still.

Looking at your model selection, I'd say run with Vyros over Ravyn.

Vyros has a key ability in Birds Eye. His warjacks will see right through to Kreoss or Severius as they hide behind their warjacks. Chanting No Shooty won't stop you powering boosted shots right through the warjacks at whatever they're guarding. This is where the Hydra really shines, but the Manticore can cause sufficient gried with its multiple attacks.

That the Manticore can outmaneuvre the Crusader (2 higher speed) and can crack it like an egg (using its Force Generator and/or Combo Strike) doesn't hurt. If the Vassal is helping the Crusader run away, lock it in place with a Gorgon before sending in the Manticore (and of course, the Gorgon has a gun so can take advantage of Birds Eye for some more boosted attack rolls).

You don't have a lot of immediate answers to Kreoss' feat other than weathering it, or shooting him/spreading out enough that he's not in a position to catch too much of your army in the knockdown bubble. It's an awesome feat. I'd almost suggest sending in the Halberdiers as a meatshield and trying to force him to pop it early while the Invictors hang back, and then sending them in while all the intervening models are knocked down. Haven't tried itmyself, so it's pure conjecture I'm afraid.

If you're willing to make the purchase, I'd suggest grabbing Kaelyssa to use against Menoth. Menoth lives and dies by its support models - Choir, Vassals, etc. Kaelyssa can shoot through whatever's protecting them and remove them from the board. More importantly, she can cast Phantom Hunter to let a warjack do the same.

I would also suggest filling out your solos roster - grab some Assassins, Snipers and Magisters. Two snipers will kill the Covenant in a single turn. An assassin up each flank? Kreoss will either have to split his attention to deal with them, meaning he's not focussing on the meat of your army, or he'll risk them swinging in and one-shotting him with a 14" threat range. Magisters? The ability to pretty much autoslam any heavy right over whatever they're protecting, giving you knocked down targets? That's just sweet.

Hope you've found your groove with the Retribution. Enjoy!

[ZenPaladin]

OH MY FRAKING GOD!

That! That right there was what I needed! Thanks so much Bloke! I completely missed that ability of Birds Eye! Did not grasp that it let me shoot targets that had been blocked. I thought it just let me draw los but that projectiles would be stoped.

Of course my halbradiers dont block los and I was shooting right through them but... Damn. I'm pulling apart the manticore and going with the Hydra now. I also picked up an assassin.

Thanks to this ability Vyros now seems a lot more competative. Previously I thought he was quite the gimpy choice. Now I can force him to keep his casters back or risk being blown away by my two Heavy Jacks. The Hydra also works well with very little Focus investment other than the innital three points which works great for Vyros's low focus count.

Man...

Its a revolution.

[gdaybloke]

Vyros' feat is still pretty unimpressive in teh grand scheme of things, but Birds Eye and Mobility go an awfully long way! I'm glad I was able to help you come to a better understanding with him.

Don't forget with the Hydra that they gain more focus every time they're hit, over the normal 3 maximum, and don't lose it until you use it. First turn load 'em up and suddenly they're Rng15 Pow15 turrets. I'll just point out that Kreoss' control area is only 14"... place 'em right... and of course, as they take hits, they just get bigger and bigger guns. Once everyone's close enough to charge, send 'em in, use all that extra focus to boost attack and damage rolls, and get that chain attack going!

Also: Don't forget to shake off the effects of the knockdown, since they'll have the focus anyway :)

[ZenPaladin]

Hmm. Would I be right in assuming that through using Vyros' feat I can place more focus on an already stacked Hydra?

Shame that I can't plink the Hydra in the back with my own attacks but I can understand how broken that would quickly become.

[gdaybloke]

No, you can only allocate focus to a jack that has less than 3 focus on it, up to a max of 3. The Hydra can exceed the limit through the kinetic shield, but you can't deliberately bump it up beyond 3 yourself.