Salvaging Retributors

[Flake]

Been thinking lately about Retributors. At 88 points for 4 HB and a Storm Bolter with a 50% chance of rending on any given turn, they were fantastic.

 

Now to get the same effect, it's 105 points. 125 if you want decent leadership and an extra turn of rending. Everyone's own mileage may vary but I feel safe saying that the HB Retributor's day is over.

 

I've considered 4 Heavy Flamers and hiding them out of LoS to respond to deep strikers or maybe just taking ten bolter nuns in a Rhino, driving up, and making that one round of rending really special.

 

Are there any other builds with the unit that make sense?

 

 

[Fibonacci]

The bigest hurdle for taking Rets is the same as taking Penitent Engines -- Exorcists rock and are now cheaper!

They were already a tough sell but their smaller size and cost helped justify their use. In their new version they just don't bring anything new to the army that other units do not.

 

Why hope for Rending when every shot can be AP1 for the same price? I just know with my luck that I would use up my Act of Faith and not roll any 6's to wound :(

 

But I will still take them. I hate spam and it's not like a single unit of Retributors is going to cost me a game. Besides, someone has to fire the quadgun.

 

[edit]

On the bright side I think the changes in Retributor's cost and AoF will mean my PE will be used more often. :)

[greggles]

Use the models as a command squad with a canoness now.  Sure they don't get rending, but you can take five heavy bolters now, and you free up a heavy slot!

[*Furyou Miko]

Bolters and Heavy Flamers in a Repressor or Rhino seem the best option to me, or maybe in an Arvus if you want to take that risk. The biggest thing about the way acts of faith work is that they encourage a far more aggressive, throw-away style of combat - before, both Bloody Rose and Sacred Rose tactics were equally viable, we could afford to sit back and hose down anything that came for us with our retributors. Now they're basically "heavy dominions".

[oreaper84]

Bolters and Heavy Flamers in a Repressor or Rhino seem the best option to me, or maybe in an Arvus if you want to take that risk. The biggest thing about the way acts of faith work is that they encourage a far more aggressive, throw-away style of combat - before, both Bloody Rose and Sacred Rose tactics were equally viable, we could afford to sit back and hose down anything that came for us with our retributors. Now they're basically "heavy dominions".

 remeber to and the priests with combi flamers and a litnies for smore pain

[*Furyou Miko]

Won't fit in a rhino like that, but I guess combi-priests might be more valuable as an addition than bolters, lol.

[derpasaurus]

50% chance to get rending isn't really accurate. you had a 50% chance to get the 18% chance to rend. Now you have like an 80ish% chance to do the same thing. You can only do it twice with a simulacrum, sure. I agree they were hit hard, and probably hardest out of all the units. Most others were situational or would only live a turn or so anyway, (repentia, seraphim, dominions) but retributors buttoned down in cover was the one unit I could reliably get an AoF off nearly every turn of the game.

But still, if you're within range you can put a blistering amount of fire downrange with that squad, and hell, why not rend when you see an opportunity? I dunno, I still see them being useful.  

[tvih]

Use the models as a command squad with a canoness now.  Sure they don't get rending, but you can take five heavy bolters now, and you free up a heavy slot!

Huh. I guess that'd actually be a decent option, considering that I use SoB mostly as allies and thus FOC slots are at a premium. Could then use an Exorcist without putting the expensive (money-wise) HB models out of work. Granted, as a Command Squad you can't really get "ablative" wounds like you can with Retributors, which is unfortunate.

 

I had been dreaming of a HF command squad, but much like Seraphims and even a Dominion squad it's very hard to justify money-wise. Well, I guess withe Battle Sisters now being able to be 5 models I could convert one of the two squads into Dominions by buying only two more special weapons, but then I'd have to decide whether the BS or the Doms have flamers, as the other would then have meltas. Well, since the Doms have ignore cover as their AoF, I suppose the meltas would make more sense.

 

Anyway if I do get the Exorcist, there's the matter of which one, GW or FW. Price is basically the same (factoring that I can get a discount for the GW ones) but the FW one doesn't even come with the SoB doors and such, making it a poorer value. Just that I've heard so many horror stories about trying to actually fit the metal parts into the Rhino hull with the GW kit... I could just use the Whirlwind turret with an Immolator kit, but alas I only have one turret and that'd preclude me from using both in the same list.

[*Furyou Miko]

I personally like the forge world exorcist better.

 

However, mine is more expensive since it now uses a deimos rhino chassis to match my converted mkII exorcist. ^^;

 

If you have an Immolator, don't you have enough spare Sisters bits to just use a regular rhino and decorate it?

[tvih]

Meh, not nearly enough spare bits in the Immolator kit. Actually, looking at this sprue there's none to speak of. If I was any good at casting I guess I could replicate the door icons, but alas I'm not, especially as I don't currently even have "stuff", green or otherwise (green sucks anyway).

[*Furyou Miko]

... you actually managed to fit all those icons and plaques on a single tank? Wow.

[tvih]

I haven't assembled it yet, but no, it wouldn't take much effort to put them all there :P Still, I guess I could try making do with just fleur de lys door panel in the Immolator and put another on a Rhino. If I made a Ebon Chalice Rhino I could even swap it between BT and SoB just by swapping doors... but I guess we'll see.

[greggles]

Buy neither. Buy an immolator, then make your own turret, or get a 3rd party cast.

Here are some examples for you. The left is my black templars whirlwind (but you could easily use the turret as a exorcist, as its very nearly the same as the forgeworld). The casting wasn't the great, but it was 14 bucks. It's sitting on a standard rhino with razorback top in this photo.

http://gravengames.co.uk/torquemada-launcher-review/

The turret on the right, is made from a whirlwind turret, and a dreadnought torso + missile launcher, with a laud hailer glued on top. (on top of a plastic immolator). In the back is an immolator for comparison.

http://www.3dluvr.com/crossbow/templars/turret1.jpg

http://www.3dluvr.com/crossbow/templars/turret2.jpg\

http://www.3dluvr.com/crossbow/templars/turret3.jpg

No reason to mess around with that metal monstrosity unless you really want it. And no reason to shell out tons of cash for the forgeworld bit, when you can basically get the same thing for half the price. Kit bash, it's what everyone not yelling at metal is doing . Keep in mind the forge world exorcist doesn't include the doors, or the extra armor side bits. It's basically a rhino + tiny turret. (It doesn't come with the immolator sprue)

[tvih]

Yes, I know the FW one doesn't come with the doors etc, I mentioned as much - that makes it effectively more expensive than the GW one if you want decorations to come with it. Though who knows, I might get one set of FW doors at some point just to have a different-looking SoB Rhino converted from a SM one. Though I must say the Rhino made from the Immolator kit looks pretty cool and distinctive with the cupola turret, so in that sense it'd be nice to use the whole kit... but also expensive. And about the cupola, it seems the kit only came with one cupola bit despite apparently otherwise having the parts to make both the Rhino turret as well as the Immolator turret separately? Bummer. Oh well, just gotta blu-tack it Iguess.

As for the Exorcist turrets, yeah conversions are possible, but I'm not a big fan of many of the third-party ones, and I don't have suitable conversion bits outside of simply using the WW turret as mentioned.

Anyway, this suddenly seems to be turning more into an Exorcist/Immolator rather than a Retributor thread

[Naminé]

I haven't used Retris since the change, though I used to run a Heavy Bolter squad to man a quad-gun, they were rarely that effective,  Despite a simulcrum on the unit I always managed to fluff the AoF roll so them turning to once per game is not much different to me.  What is an issue is the unit cost going up, to the point were it's really not that good of a choice anymore.

The frustrating part for me is that for only 10 points more you can take a Space Marine Devastator squad with 4 Heavy Bolters,  1 model of which hits on 2's and all of which can re-roll 1's and have tank hunter.   It's frankly a bit ridiculous in comparison. 

 

I tried the Heavy Flamer squad before, and it did well enough, so I may end up using that unit instead for a while, especially now since flamers on Doms are far worse then before.

[derpasaurus]

I tried the Heavy Flamer squad before, and it did well enough, so I may end up using that unit instead for a while, especially now since flamers on Doms are far worse then before.

 

I thought the dominions with flamers idea I had was done for, too, until I realized that if you run 10 deep in a rhino or repressor (which I was going to try anyway) there are suddenly 5-6 more boltguns and maybe a plasma pistol or something that also starts ignoring cover all of a sudden. That's just fine and dandy if you have to constantly put up with stupid stupid guard digging in or going to ground behind an aegis line, or maybe the bonus to cover in ruins warlord trait. Still have to use it in practice but sounds pretty great to me for a larger squad.