100 Games of Retribution

Welcome all, and thanks for reading through my first 100 games playing Retribution of Scyrah. Learning a new faction is always a tricky task and Ret are hardly the easiest to get your head around. I am still loving the faction, and can’t wait to investigate the new lease of life that the theme update has given us. My next major event is Blood and Oil in November, a 3 list Masters event, where I hope to match my UK Nationals record of going 5-2. I have played (and won at least once with) 9 of our 12 casters, leaving only Ossyan, Elara and my blog’s namesake to tick off to achieve my target by the end of the year.

Results

In total, of my 100 games, I have won 60 of them. Not nearly as many as I like but when I looked into things further they started to look a lot better. Of my first 50 games I won only 26 (52%), whilst in my second 50 games I won 34 (68%). The latter is much closer to the win rate that I am looking for and is indicative of my statement above. Learning a new faction is hard, even for new players. With a bit more luck I can hopefully push my rate up to 70-75% and start looking at picking up some Steamroller wins.

Tournament Results

Event	Date	Results	Position
WGS Steamroller	25/3/17	2W 2L	-
Element Games Steamroller	23/4/17	2W 2L	9/20
Welsh Masters	14-15/5/17	3W 4L	88/122
WGS Steamroller	3/6/17	3W 1L	3/16
Element Games Steamroller	17/6/17	2W 1L	-
Element Games Steamroller	18/6/17	1L 2W	-
Powerfist Steamroller	25/6/17	1L 2W	-
WGS Steamroller	22/7/17	3W 1L	2/16
WGS Steamroller	19/8/17	3W 1L	4/16
UK Nationals	9-10/9/17	5W 2L	16/109

A good number of events for just over 6 months, the scene in the North-West of England is really thriving at the moment, with at least a Steamroller of 16 people or so every month. Again there is a real upshot in results from July onwards (I finally started playing Vyros2), with me winning only 50% of tournament games up to this point, but 73% since. The UK Nationals were a particular highlight, where I crutched on Vyros2 all event to get a great finish, only losing to Matt Townsend’s Coven and Jim Gradwell’s very strong Zerkova list.

Themes

Like it or not, themes are here to stay. Thankfully in Retribution I think we are blessed with some pretty strong ones. Nothing as daft as Dark Host or Heavy Metal, but all of the first 3 themes seem strong with the Dawnguard theme seeming to both have game now, and the promise of a further CID release.

Theme	Games Played	Games Won	Win %
No Theme	29	18	62
Forges of War	41	27	66
Shadows of Retribution	23	12	52
Defenders of Ios	6	3	50
Legion of Dawn	1	0	0

Total win percentage with ANY theme is 59%, which is fairly interesting. Basically it looks like my win rate isn’t too strongly affected by what theme I use. There is a period at the start of using any theme where results are bad due to me trying to working it out (no idea what I was thinking taking Helynna in Shadows), but then they average out to the 60%. Internal balance!

A more concerning statistic is how I do against themes. When my opponent is playing out of theme my win rate is 69&, but when they do use one my success rate is only 51%. With themes becoming far more prevalent as we move through Mk3, this is something that I definitely need to address. It is probably something symptomatic of stronger players using themes more often.

Casters

As I stated above, I have played 9 of the 12 casters that we now have available, and genuinely think all of them have merit, though Garryth and Ravyn do feel behind the pack, and Goreshade just fails to excite me.

Caster	Games Played	Games Won	Win %
Garryth	7	5	71
Helynna	31	15	48
Issyria	14	8	57
Kaelyssa	19	11	58
Rahn	3	3	100
Ravyn	5	2	40
Thyron	1	1	100
Vyros1	5	2	40
Vyros2	15	13	87

Unlike in my theme use there is some real disparity in caster performance. Whilst most of my staples are hovering around the 60% mark (Helynna is a bit of an outlier, but this is largely down to her being my go to when I want to test a theme out), Vyros2 is proving to be such a strong caster for me. My club mates have commented that this is possibly down to the fact that I am protecting him too much in match-ups, and drop my other list (most recently Issyria) when I’m uncertain. Rahn is my current boy, and it will be interesting to see how he progresses as I get more games under my belt with him.

Opposing Armies

I’m almost done, I promise. I debated whether or not to put this in, but I like stats and I’m bored to here you go. All the factions have changed so much over the 12 months I’ve been playing Retribution, Cryx more than most, so some of these numbers may show an inaccurate assessment of where we are today.

Faction	Games Played	Games Won	Win %
Circle	11	8	73
Convergence	2	1	50
Cryx	13	9	69
Cygnar	5	2	40
Grymkin	1	1	100
Khador	20	10	50
Legion	5	2	40
Menoth	5	3	60
Mercenaries	15	9	60
Minions	3	2	67
Retribution	12	7	58
Skorne	4	3	75
Trollbloods	4	3	75

I really hate Khador. It was fine when I was playing Pacific Rim, they basically had no answer to that, but the Zerkova list is so rough, and having to play into the likes of Richard Beech every few weeks make the numbers look real bad. Other than that there aren’t too many outliers in the “over 10 games” bracket, but I expect Cryx to start going very bad until I can find something reliable into Host.

The Future

Next up is Blood and Oil, and after that I will be taking a bit of a break from major events. The winter is all about my other hobby (musical theatre) so whilst I will be playing games and local Steamrollers it is likely to be more casual.

I also have a “Who’s the Boss?” event in a couple of weeks, and am super excited about that so wait and see who temporarily joins the ranks of the Retribution.

There is still a lot to explore in the faction, in the new theme and in the casters I am yet to try. Then I will deem it all rubbish and go back to Vyros2.

All there is to say now is a final thank you for those who pay attention to my ramblings on here, and special thanks to my regular club mates in Team Inverted, Mark, Paul, Rich, Chris and Adam, as well as Dave and Mel who keep the shop open for us to play.

Here’s to another 100.