Second 100 Games of Retribution (Plus Blog Update)

Second 100 games with Retribution

As I did after my first 100 games, I though it worth having a little recap of where I’m at after my second hundred games with Retribution, as well as offer a bit of an update as to where the blog will be going over the next few months.

I’ll start with this, as I wouldn’t want it to be missed by people not getting to the end of my stat-apocalypse. I decided a while ago that after the Welsh I would be taking a break from publishing my blog posts. I will still be writing them, and will put them up in time, but they will not be of the same depth that they are at the moment. The reason for this change is that I am delighted to have been invited onto the England Roses team at the WTC in September, and with that there needs to be a certain level of secrecy, not only for my own lists, but also my opponents as I play in more and more practice events. Following the WTC, everything will be published en masse, and the blog will continue as it has done so far. I hope you will all come back and continue supporting the blog as you have done so far.

Results

The main target for me in this batch of games was to show real improvement from my first 100 where I was really just learning how the faction worked, and I think the results show that I’ve been successful in this regard. In my first 100 games I won 60, a reasonable start. In my second 100 games I have pushed this up to 75, which is really where I want to be. This is down to increased experience of the faction, but also much more focus on a handful of casters and really drilling down into what they can do.

Tournament Results

Event	Date	Results	Position
Blood & Oil	11-12/11/17	5W 1L	5/82
Chorley Steamroller	17/12/17	3W 1L	-
Wirral WMHUKISS Qualifier	20/01/18	4W 0L	1/20
Southport WMHUKISS Qualifier	03/02/18	4W 0L	1/16
Sheffield WMHUKISS Qualifier	24/02/18	3W 1L	-
Preston WMHUKISS Qualifier	17/03/18	2W 1L	2/8
Powerfist Steamroller	15/04/18	2W 1L	4/8
Leeds Steamroller	29/04/18	1W 2L	6/8
Wigan Steamroller	6/5/18	3W 1L	5/16
Welsh Masters	19-20/05/18	5W 2L	20/160

Blood and Oil was a real turning point in my becoming a really competitive player with Ret. I beat both of the players who beat me in the Nationals earlier in the year, and only lost an extremely close game in the semi-final to Mickael Dick. From there I have just become really consistent in events, only going below average in an 8 man event featuring 7 England WTC players. Getting my first Steamroller wins was a great feeling as well, and the next target has to be to start seriously fighting for a major victory. The Welsh was slightly disappointing in this regard, as I lost pretty early in Round 3, though it was against Tom Escaffier, the French player who ended the event in 3^rd.

Themes

Themes continue to be the primary way the game is played currently, and there is no real impression that things will change any time soon. I did not play a single game out of theme in this batch of 100 games, and only played against 5 opponents who were not in a theme, with the latest of them being on the 3^rd of February.

Theme	Games Played	Games Won	Win %
Forges of War	36	27	75
Shadows of Retribution	7	5	71
Defenders of Ios	24	18	75
Legion of Dawn	34	25	74

Well, I guess I’ll hold my hands up and admit that I just straight don’t like Shadows. I did quite enjoy my Elara list in that theme, but it didn’t stick and I’ve really just been concentrating on the other 3 themes since. I am surprised to see such equality on my win rates on the three, but I think the Legion of Dawn result is slightly held back by some experimenting with bad lists when the theme first came out. I still feel that I need to experiment more with Defenders of Ios, as there are so many options in that theme, but so often they just feel inferior to AFGs and Halberdiers.

Casters

As with my first 100 games, I have again played 9 of our 12 available casters in this batch of games, with just Garryth, Thyron and (surprisingly) Issyria not making the cut. I am very aware that Issyria is a strong caster, and I think I’ve spent a lot of time assuming I don’t like her, wheras I think the issue is that I don’t like her in Shadows. I will definitely be testing her in Legions or Defenders at some point to see if that inspires me a bit more.

Caster	Games Played	Games Won	Win %
Elara2	13	8	62
Goreshade4	3	1	33
Helynna	3	1	33
Kaelyssa	24	22	92
Ossyan	2	1	50
Rahn	20	16	80
Ravyn	1	1	100
Vyros1	2	0	0
Vyros2	33	25	76

After my first 100 games I had a clear “top” caster in Vyros2, but was critical of myself for possibly protecting him in the list selection process slightly too often. I think I have managed to get better at that now, and he has been dropped into some really horrific match-ups. I don’t think I’ve been as protective with Kaelyssa, her only losses have been into Legion and I genuinely think the list (in Legions) is one of the strongest that we have access to. 4 casters cover 89% of my games, and I think that they, along with Issyria, are pretty comfortably our top 5 casters at the moment, but throwing a few games in every now and then with some of our lesser casters is good for the soul. Except Goreshade, he is horrendous.

Opposing Armies

I’m planning a blog post in the near future as to where I think we are against the other factions, so I won’t add too much commentary to this section, but now that factions have stabilised a bit following Theme-pocalypse it is certainly interesting to see where I am at personally.

Faction	Games Played	Games Won	Win %
Circle	4	2	50
Convergence	1	1	100
Cryx	22	16	73
Cygnar	7	6	86
Grymkin	6	5	83
Khador	11	8	73
Legion	20	15	75
Menoth	4	1	25
Mercenaries	4	4	100
Minions	4	1	25
Retribution	2	2	100
Skorne	6	5	83
Trollbloods	10	9	90

My main surprise here is the 73% win rate against Cryx, as this whole section of games is since their theme dump. They are the faction I often feel most “back to the wall” against but it looks like I am able to dig my way out of trouble more often than I thought. Menoth are one of my biggest fears, as they aren’t seen much locally and Harbinger is back in the game, which is just great… As I said, there will be a more thorough blog post on this in the near future.

The Future

As I said above, I will be taking a break from publishing battle reports until after the WTC, so I apologise for the relative silence for the next 4 months or so. I will be posting up other bits and pieces though, almost certainly including some thoughts on our upcoming CID.

On that point, I am excited for what is going to come out of it, a few leaks have come up so far and look interesting, but it is all in isolation so far so too early to say. The big question on my part is whether any changes will go “live” before WTC list submission. Either way, I feel pretty good about where the faction is out, and I can’t wait to test myself at the very highest level.

Thank you all for reading, and I’ll catch up with you all again soon.