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So in the post ATC discussions about Ret a lot of interesting points were brought up so I decided to sit down and attempt to do a write up of my thoughts regarding the current state Ret in a competitive sense. I should note that this might get a little long and my goal isn’t to stir up a big salt storm or anything.
For some background I enjoy playing Ret even though I think it suffers from some substantial issues. There are a lot of elements of the faction that I enjoy and I am not shelving the faction or anything like that. I’m also going to try to focus my thoughts on the idea that a “competitive sense” means bringing Ret to a major event (team or solo) with a focus on making it to the second day with a serious idea of winning the overall event.
I don’t intend to play down local events or anything but I think there is such a variance in local metas and individual skill levels that it makes sense to focus this discussion on being successful in the latter parts of bigger events where the expectation is that all the remaining players are likely to have quite a bit of experience and skill. I am fortunate enough to have been able to travel to some large events (adepticon, momcon, and warmachine weekend) and also play in an area with other players that have similar experience in those types of events.
Most of my concerns about Ret focus less on an idea that the pieces in the faction are bad and more that list building in Ret is something of a frustrating experience. In many ways the shift from early mk3 to the current game dominated by theme forces has made me feel like Ret has been largely left behind. The faction in general feels either (both?) like it is missing broad swaths of models and/or was designed with a different vision in mind. To me this is not dissimilar to the early mk3 feeling of Cryx or Skorne although not necessarily to the same degree.
The intermingling of various sub factions of Retribution seems like it was more a focus of the initial concept of the faction but the shift to theme play heavily limits the ability to utilize the various tools of sub factions in a cohesive way. It leaves something of a feeling that Ret is intended to be an answer faction but struggles to actually put answers into lists.
I’m going to start to dive into individual themes with Forges partly because it was first and partly because I think it is in need of the most work. List building in Forges is incredibly restrictive and forces you to abandon what I feel are the best jacks, best individual model, and best unit in the faction. The majority of Ret jacks, particularly heavies, lack the sort of bulk to make a reliable brick list. I am of the opinion that there is virtually never a reason to play Forges at this point.
Vyros2 was always the primary Forges list but I think this has been largely supplanted by moving him into either Defenders or Legions where you are able to take the rather excellent vyre light jacks and snag an infantry unit or two to give his list additional presence and feat triggers. The other Forges list that saw initial play was Rahn.
I think Rahn is broadly underplayed because I love his style. I do, however, recognize that the current game state with cloud walls, theme granted prowl, and a number of popular casters that have other ways to mitigate his push/pull game and the entire game getting access to a very good solo (Eilish) that substantially hampers battlemages makes a Rahn battle mages list that was already fairly one dimensional even more boxed in as far as match-ups are concerned. If a theme ever gets rolled into a different CID cycle the way Banes was rolled into the Battle Engine CID I think Forges is a contender for needing it the most.
I’m going to skip Defenders for the moment and jump to Shadows. Shadows is a theme that I have personally played a lot and feel has some uses with both Issyria and Ossyan. It does suffer from again being very limited as far as model choice is concerned. One of the initial reasons to play Shadows was the mass RFP bonus but as the larger meta seems to be shifting away from ghost fleet that bonus seems less relevant and more niche (a good niche but niche). The theme also lacks consistent ways to put out good damage particularly against non warjack models.
I fully realize that not every theme is intended to have massive damage output potential, but Shadows also lacks some of the control elements found in similar limited damage themes. To look at a list that has been discussed as having issues with damage output (and also sees relatively limited play) but is ostensibly designed around control I’d reference Sons of the Tempest. Sons has access to a solo that gives the majority of the list a damage buff against a specific model as well as a number of thunder bolt attacks, deadly shots, and brutal damage. These are the sorts of elements that I find Ret seems to be consistently lacking. I’m also not saying Sons is a good theme here – I don’t think it is particularly great, but I do think the models included in that theme have broader tools to attempt to make up for the theme’s shortcomings than I think Shadows currently does.
Vyros1 gets something of an honorable mention in Shadows as he can play a much more jack orientated version of this theme and utilize the speed of infiltrators and Narn to trigger his feat. It is an interesting list but I’m not sure it is superior to Vyros1 in defenders. It is a list I think needs more exploration and play testing though.
Moving on to the newest theme I think Legions has the most potential of the first three themes mostly because Legions is an unfinished theme and is likely to see a significant release wave in the next 12 months. The biggest shortcoming here is the theme being largely empty. I find both Destors and Invictors to be less compelling options so it really becomes a theme about taking two units of sentinels and some jacks. Those jacks are likely to be vyre light jacks because they are cheap and strong and it isn’t like a list with two units of sentinels is going to want for a heavy for hitting power. Vyros2 can certainly play in this theme as is. Sentinels provide him with feat targets and he provides them with decel and as a synergy caster he loves cheap light jacks.
I know many people enjoy sentinels with Kaelyssa and I understand the concept but I have never really been able to get that to function particularly well as I found sentinels to be too slow and my opponents able to wait out the feat without losing a ton of scenario presence and momentum. Maybe SR2017 has changed the math on that – admittedly it has been awhile since I have revisited Kaelyssa sentinels.
So…Defenders. I think Defenders is clearly the best theme in the faction and the only one I’d consider to be fully functional. It has a board model pool that provides a good range of tools, allows the AFG (which I would consider to be one of if not the best model in the faction), and excellent free solo options. What I don’t like about this theme is the way the theme bonuses are structured. This theme allows 3 primary melee units - Halberdiers, Defenders, and Swordsman but only one of theme gets any bonus from the theme. Halberdiers are probably the best unit anyway given the solo support and strong array of rules but when you factor in them getting an exceptional theme benefit there hardly seems to be a reason to use either of the other two unless it is as a third unit after taking two units of halberdiers.
Largely I find Defenders lists to basically build themselves. Couple of units of Halberdiers, an AFG or 2, battle group and solos to taste. That particular list is pretty strong with a range of casters including Kaelyssa, Elara2, Issyria, and one of my personal favorites Thyron. My issue with this is that an experienced opponent is likely to be familiar with this list which leaves you in a position of probably facing the better choice into your list and a reasonable understanding of what your list wants to do.
I think it is worth throwing a brief mention of playing out of theme here. I have done a fair bit of testing of playing out of theme but came to the conclusion that the lists that can feasibly do so need to be focused around assassination. The loss of bonus rules and theme point benefits often leaves you behind on general tools or sheer volume making late game more difficult. I’d give a shout out to Rahn here as having some potential to play out of theme utilizing AFGs and a single unit of mages. I’m not sure it’s better than just playing him in theme, but I can at least see trying it.
I’m going to stop at just a theme breakdown and not get into specific models or random thoughts. I could write up more if anyone actually wants to read it but by and large I think the model Ret has access to are mostly pretty good the difficult seems to be far more in building 2 strong lists that complement each other’s strengths and cover weaknesses well enough to make it through a long event.
Again my goal with this is not to create a big salt storm or anything like that. I’d much rather this generate discussion about ways to overcome those issues and the successes other people have had particularly against the lists that seem to be the on the upper end of the power curve like Skarre1 Banes, Haley3, or Nemo3.

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