Thats right its time for the bi annual blog post. Retribution of Scyrah has had loads of sweet releases and Ides is just around the corner. its time for me to make factless statements(aka opinions) about the new stuff, complain about my inability to write lists and rag on Will Pagani a little more.
First off.
The House Gaurd Thane :
Kneejerk reaction - omg wtf amazeballs lets a ret unit see through stealth broken -
Later assessment - Still dont want to buy riflemen -
Ok so hes a pretty decent solo, wont go around killing gators by himself but does 2 things. As mentioned he lets riflemen see through stealth or he lets Halberdiers move an additional 2 inches on an advance. Technically he lets Halberdiers see through stealth or Riflemen move 2 more inches. The latter being sweeter than the former.
So for an additional 2 points he makes Halberdiers stupid fast, bat-shit-amazing fast with other speed buffs like Mirage, Crusaders call, Hunters mark or Quicken. This is great. I cant argue with it Halberdiers are our "Jam" unit, except they are more like our speed bump unit. They will still die fast and in droves. And for equivalent points spend on the unit UA and Thane you could get full sentinels with UA.
This points out to a well designed solo, god damned Retribution being the most balanced faction. I mean, horray most balanced faction, well done PP.
Conclusion:
I'll take the thane halberdier combo in lists that can make the Halberdiers even faster. Seeing your opponents reaction when they motor across the board 18" or 13" in shield wall is pretty amusing.
Issyria Sybil of Dawn :
Kneejerk reaction - omg wtf amazeballs lets everything see through stealth and Signs and Portents v2.0 on feat broken as shit in Ret 5 stars new top faction -
Later Assessment - well balanced caster -
There was a lot of hubub about the new caster having signs and portents and how broken this would be. How game changing op signs and portents would be in Retribution and loads of maths arguing both for and against it.
So in the end she didn't have signs and portents she had her feat. Which was signs and portents 2.0 + more. For one turn your army is game changing op broken, but after that you go back to being ret with as minimal caster support as it gets. This is starting to develop a trend in Retribution where caster feats require you to optimize the use of your army during feat turn or suffer a loss by attrition. Ok many factions have feats like that but then they also have lame ass casters that will still vapourise your army or at least kill your caster with some good dice.
What I thought I saw with her was a sweet attrition caster. Maximise a strong feat turn and press the advantage late game. Unfortunately she has no late game. None. So unless your opponent presents his army to you on a platter your going to be struggling. What I think I see now is a fairly solid assassination caster with varied options for getting the job done. This fits into Retributions theme of caster assassination.
Unfortunately I picked Issyria as one of my casters for Ides because I was working on Kneejerk reaction rather than Latter Assessment. So my list is built to deal with the hard stealth heavy match ups while providing me good attrition and attempting to supplement late game where Issyria goes to have a lie down and let the troops battle on.
Some of this I put down to the Skorne effect of playing against lots of skorne and none of the normal stupid as shit no Really I'm Cygnar (4 units of mercs) armies and MC Hammer (cant touch this) Menoth. I ran Issyria against 2 of the mentioned list types and got soundly walloped. This might also just be because I'm bad at the game. Judging by how Will Pagani won a masters with her, I'm going for bad at the game
The Pagani Protocol. - A criticism on the anti net decking policy of tournament organizers -
Retribution is many things. Some of which is a collection of unique and special snowflakes trying to prove their unique specialness over each other. Another thing is its a faction of players who are constantly looking for justification or validation. "Issyria makes us good, the Thane completes us. Pagani won a tournament with us so now we are on the map."
If factions were countries in the world Retribution of Scyrah would be New Zealand. While not a nation of xenophobic genocidal political parties (excluding the New Zealand First political party...) We do suffer from little brother syndrome. If we get a medal in anything the country celebrates. If we win any competition in anything albeit maybe even a game which only Australia and India play and we get second, we still want to feel special. We constantly seek recognition on the world stage.
Unfortunately the Olympic games are as not a defining factor for nations as Lock and Load masters is for factions. And while Jon Fucking Keys wont be winning any medals except for douche-baggery Will Pagani (self asserted douche bag) did win medals. He put Ret on the map and now our un elected leader of the faction (who plays whatever he feels like on the day) has been taken as the comprehensive last word on whats what in the faction.
While its fair to say that this deification on the forums irks me its only from a deep seated jealousy that I am upset. While I am trying my darndest to be the most unique and special snowflake like a self conscious retard with a van full of window lickers in a beauty pagent, what really gets me is... most of the time I agree with everything he says, and I think he makes good lists.
Here is the kernel of the problem, he wins masters with them, I dont, I couldnt if I wanted to. This is not Americaland and my local meta is its own beast where my strange and squewey lists work for me until I come up against other validated factions net decks.
Yet the New Zealand tournament scene seems to want to resist the net decking by giving us janky points systems. Where we end up with net decks with weird additions and the same old shit. Next tournament I run will be a Netdeck Machine, where you have to come with 2 lists that at least have either been in top tier play or have been pre approved by no less than 5 other forum users.
So here I am straining to look like I'm not trying to emulate Pagani while admitting that if we had normal sized tournaments I would probably take lists just like his. Untill I saw that they were the same as his anyway. As soon as I see him make something I even remotely though of doing myself I must go out of my way to be as different as possible so I don't look like a Net Decker.
In conclusion I'm not net decking I'm just obviously making good lists at pre approved good points values to play balanced games of Warmachine!
I also that I should never check out list builds on the forums because then I will go about my way to make mine different.
WFI -wfp-
well he has been spoiled. Here is our "Apotheosis size" jack. With about 36 boxes and auto healing d6 a turn on shields + spending to heal shields and being reparied by an Arcanist he is sweet tanky, and even more so with Pheonix Protocol.
There has been no card yet but from memory he is 11 or 12 points which gets into the average points value. Its still a mat 7 rat 6 beasty however. 2 Reach attacks at P+S 17 is also sweet, side step is pretty cool. Might kill a caster, maybe... if we knock it down first cause mat 7 still wont kill a caster. It also wont chew up a load of infantry as well as Pheonix could.
Negativity aside its still a super sweet jack and i will probably find ways to run him. He is at last one of our few true attrition pieces and for that I am genuinely happy.
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