Vicarious Competition

Hello everyone. World's worst blogger reporting in.  My life's been fairly busy and my painting spree is still kicking in full force. To top things off, my parsnips have been growing beautifully on my farm in Stardew Valley.  All of this combines into massive neglect into my little project here. Let's pick up with a State of the Faction Address based on my experience at the WTC. The lists I ran were Vyros2 with Helios and Imperatus paired with Elara2 triple halbs. People often look towards tiers, or power rankings, or quantifiable lists to compare factions to one another and to see where stand within the meta as a whole.  While I’m not the biggest fan of this method, I do feel like Retribution held a solid position somewhere right in the middle of the pack.  We can look at a few core concepts of competitive WMH and how they relate to us as Retribution players. The Pairing.  I liked my pair for the WTC, but I didn’t love it.  Vyros2 continues to bring valuable t

I’m back in the states and won’t be traveling again until WMW in November.  Will be resuming a normal update schedule for the foreseeable future.  WTC Recap will be coming after the weekend, let’s look at our new theme force for now! Legions of the Dawn focuses on our Dawnguard units, and gives a teaser of Nyarr models to be introduced in the future.  The benefits give out the free points that are all but mandatory to stay competitive as Mk3 matures, extend our deployment zone which is useful no matter what your list looks like, and gives flank to myrmidons marshalled to our Scyir which we’ll talk about towards the end. I built a list using Magister Helynna who loves to have the weaponmaster infantry supporting her battlegroup. Magister Helynna - Sylys Wyshnalyrr, The Seeker - Manticore - Manticore - Phoenix max Dawnguard Sentinels - Officer and Standard - Soulless Escort Max Dawnguard Sentinels - Officer and Standard Arcanist Mechanik Arcanist Mecha

I took the opportunity to do a last minute stress test on my WTC lists at NOVA this year.  Got lots of great games in against lots of great dudes.  With Templecon dead and gone, NOVA Open is quickly rising to the challenge and growing into one of the best events on the East Coast. Lists I ran throughout the weekend: Vyros2 - Forges of War - Helios - Imperatus - Griffon x4 - Aspis Shyeel Mechaniks - Soulless Arcanist Mechanik x2 Shyeel Magister Elara2 - Defenders of Ios - Banshee - Phoenix Halberdiers x3 - UA - Soulless AFG Houseguard Thane x2 Rahn - Forges of War - Helios - Manticore - Discordia - Chimera x2 - Sylys Arcanist Mechanik Shyeel Arcanists Shyeel Mages Shyeel Magister x2 Vyros2 has been previously discussed and there wasn’t much new based on my matches over the weekend.  What surprised me most was how little I wanted to drop this list.  This is mostly based on the matchups I was seeing across the table, but als

Welcome to the world of salt and misery that was my Gencon performance this year.  The US WTC Team chose Gencon as our “practice event” this year.  At our practice events, we typically are bringing our proposed lists for the event and testing them against each other and play a few trial runs into perceived problematic matchups we might be concerned about.  This led to a very high talent ceiling for the event from an excellent pool of players.  One could easily go 0-3 in a qualifying event and not feel too bad about it given the caliber of opponents. Personally I’ve never done particularly well in the first round of tournaments and events.  I don’t wake up well and my auto-pilot doesn’t always protect my fragile Retribution models as well as it needs to.  This is coupled with my own personal unlucky black cloud/tendency to hit some of my strongest opponents also in round one. My lists: Elara2 - DoI - Phoenix Banshee 3x Halbs with UA and Soulless AFG 2x Thane Vyros2

Welcome back everyone!  In proper form with my chaotic blend of topics, I wanted to try out a buzz article featuring a hot new topic some folks are getting excited about:  The AiTC lists!  Ret being the most represented faction is super fantastic and I hope our faction has a strong showing! The lists can be found here: https://conflictchamber.com/?event=12 I have precious few Retribution players in my local meta, so there are only a few folks I get to bounce ideas off of and get mirror games in with.  It’s always neat to see what other communities come up with and what combinations they are trying.  Until very recently I’ve always felt like list building was one of my weaker points, but Mk3 has been much easier for me. The one list that has been generating the most discussion from what I’ve seen has been Vyros1- Forges of War with 6 Hydras!!  I’m told it’s very op and impossible to hide from all the Hydra guns.  You just shoot their warcaster or warlock until they're dead

This season’s ADR gifts us with a questionable stable of Warcasters to try and cobble together into a pair: Magister Helynna; Lord Ghyrrshyld4, The Forgiven; Thyron, Sword of Truth; and Dawnlord Vyros1.  This feels like one of our least exciting Active Duty Rosters since the program’s inception, but I feel like it’s still workable. The frustrating problem of this season’s ADR is not as simple as the lack of strong casters, but more focused on the lack of a strong pairing.  There is a tremendous amount of overlap in Battlegroup diversity, spell kits, and overall functionality/gameplan of what we have to work with. We can start by looking at the two obvious power picks:  Helynna and Vyros1.  Both are very competitive warcasters that have seen consistent play in Mk3 and have the tools you need to place well in an event.  The catch is you only get one of them to work with.  Reason being the overlap in what they do.  Both warcasters want to run a heavy, resilient battlegroup.  They’

This week’s entry brings us to one of my favorite local-ish stores, Nerdvana Games in Egg Harbor NJ.   https://www.facebook.com/groups/632985093478693  The ownership is top notch, they keep their shelves well stocked, and generally put on a really great show for their Warmachine Community. A close friend of mine, Brad Park of Fully Boosted, has been running their Warmachine events since the store’s meta first began to grow.  It’s since become tradition that when I play at Brad’s events, he selects the warcasters that I need to build a pair out of to add an extra layer of fun for both of us.  This month we had Vyros1 and Ghyrrshyld4.   I modified an early Mk3 list with Vyros1 into a Shadows of the Retribution theme since most of the models were overlapping with what I wanted to bring anyways.  I have been experimenting with Ghyrrshyld using a Nyss-based force in anticipation of a frozen theme coming out in the future.  I mostly want to jam my opponent with Reviving Spears of

One of my most played and all time favorite warcasters has seen competitive play since his release, and shows no signs of slowing down in Mk3.  He is the poster boy of House Nyarr, born into privilege and leveraging that hard for both his personal gains and that of the Retribution.  Vyros2 is defined by his Synergy spell which allows you to ramp up the attack and damage rolls of your battlegroup to +3/+3 and high base stats that make him durable and capable of getting work done even towards the later turns of the game. Here’s a look at the list in it’s present form: Theme: Forges of War Vyros2, Incissar of the Dawnguard - Helios - Imperatus - Griffon - Griffon - Griffon - Griffon - Aspis House Shyeel Arcanists - Soulless Escort House Shyeel Artificer (free) Arcanist Mechanik (free) Arcanist Mechanik (free) This list has been freshly modified to adjust for the changes in SR17 with the addition of the Shyeel unit. Early playtests have been overwhel