Ret and High Def

[PG_Draxos]

So how does Ret deal with high def? This came up at my LGS and we couldnt really find a good answer other than a Pheonix blowing up. Thougths?

[MikeC103]

I guess it depends on what exactly you are having a hard time with. The first and easiest answer is our many things that shoot. Ravyn's Feat makes ranged attacks hit a lot of targets. Also most of our shooters are Rat 6, so if they can get the aiming bonus they go up to Rat 8, which should also his a lot on average rolls. Both versions of Eiryss have good Mat and Rat, and of course the Mage Hunter Assassin is Mat 7, which on average rolls should hit Def 14. Also with Stormfall Archers we have 3" AOEs that even if they scatter, but still catch high def models, the blast damage should be enough since usually high Def models have low Arm.

[DesertSpiral]

Maybe it's just me but I look at high def as 16+

In saying that one has to look at hhow it's getting that high. Usually spell effects and conceal/cover are the culprits with occasional boosts from orders and generic actions (bob and weave and veil of mists).

For raw spells and conceal/cover mhsf are a great answer as they ignore it putting the def (usually ) back to manageable levels.

On top of this ret has access to some exceptional Combined attacks. House guard and invictors are all good at combining for appreciable success. A lot of people frown on combining as losing volume - but what's is the point of rolling ten attacks where most of them
miss if with five most will kill. Invictors are great for high natural talent as well as combined arms (the skill that lets them refill missed cra's) letting them turn marginal odds into significant success. Halberdiers similarly can swing above their weight class with brutal charge and team effort (1/game Gang). This gives them all the ability to wreck something be it high def hhigh arm or jacks making them top shelf.
The riflemen get a bad rap but they excel at high def removal. They can soften a (non stealth) target at range with high yield combinations bbefore closing and offloading with 'whites of their eyes' (additional dice to hit) letting them pin down the most nimble of targets. As they can also cra into melee they maintain their use on e the lines have closed too.

There is also a lot of accurate cav in ret. mat 10 or 9(for destors) on the cavalry charge allows for quite pprecise removal of annoying solos especially the flanking crossbow wielding kind.

After that you get into casters and all of them have. Arious means of shifting the odds, but the troops that can hit high def reliably are the ones above - without adding any support to them.

[Marshal Wilhelm]

So how does Ret deal with high def? This came up at my LGS and we couldnt really find a good answer other than a Pheonix blowing up. Thougths?

Do you mean of 'jacks & 'beasts or Infantry?

[PG_Draxos]

Do you mean of 'jacks & 'beasts or Infantry?

I mean dealing with things liked Kayazy with Iron Flesh

[drachenfels]

numerous jacks have an AOE, also an option of covering fire template or 2

[Night Haunter]

force hammer and positioning is how i deal with high defence. almost nothing mocks a high defence stat like knockdown.

[Tirrith]

It really depends on the caster you are using. I regularly play against Khador, with Garryth. He puts death sentence on the Winterguard. Mirage on the Mage Hunters which generally lets them get the aiming bonus. They ignore iron flesh and have re roll's for the misses. Even if they don't aim they still do a fair bit of damage.

[Shiasai]

Maybe it's just me but I look at high def as 16+

In saying that one has to look at hhow it's getting that high. Usually spell effects and conceal/cover are the culprits with occasional boosts from orders and generic actions (bob and weave and veil of mists).

For raw spells and conceal/cover mhsf are a great answer as they ignore it putting the def (usually ) back to manageable levels.

On top of this ret has access to some exceptional Combined attacks. House guard and invictors are all good at combining for appreciable success. A lot of people frown on combining as losing volume - but what's is the point of rolling ten attacks where most of them
miss if with five most will kill. Invictors are great for high natural talent as well as combined arms (the skill that lets them refill missed cra's) letting them turn marginal odds into significant success. Halberdiers similarly can swing above their weight class with brutal charge and team effort (1/game Gang). This gives them all the ability to wreck something be it high def hhigh arm or jacks making them top shelf.
The riflemen get a bad rap but they excel at high def removal. They can soften a (non stealth) target at range with high yield combinations bbefore closing and offloading with 'whites of their eyes' (additional dice to hit) letting them pin down the most nimble of targets. As they can also cra into melee they maintain their use on e the lines have closed too.

There is also a lot of accurate cav in ret. mat 10 or 9(for destors) on the cavalry charge allows for quite pprecise removal of annoying solos especially the flanking crossbow wielding kind.

After that you get into casters and all of them have. Arious means of shifting the odds, but the troops that can hit high def reliably are the ones above - without adding any support to them.

Completly agrees with spiral

[bakaryu]

Mage Hunter Strike Force ignore just about every buff that you can give to a unit outside of Occultation. They are our number one answer to high DEF, especially considering that more often than not you will get to aim for a pretty juicy RAT8 (9 on the officer).

Invictors with their UA are also fearsomely accurate, 2man CRAs with a RAT of 8 and rerolling misses will hit a LOT of stuff. Add their mini feat into the mix for that RNG14 goodness and you know you are onto a winner.

Most models that can achieve very high DEF and/or stealth generally (with the exception of Bane Thralls) have very weak ARM and subsequently are extremely vulnerable to blast damage. Carpet bombing with the Stormfall Archers in this case works out very well, with a RNG of 16 and POW6 blast you can count on them to usually score at least two maybe three out of a unit such as Ironfleshed Nyss or Kayazy.

And finally most recently my Sentinel marshalled Daemon tends to kill infantry very well. More often than not he is packing RAT7 from his aiming bonus and as a result will hit DEF17 on average rolls, and a hellmouth type gun with POW12 magical damage is pretty fearsome for any single wound infantry unit killing even ARM18 on average rolls.

Then you can add in our warcasters, Ravyn is the obvious choice here in combination with her feat and Snipe your MHSF will just about always be RAT8 and have boosted attack rolls on the feat turn. There is a reason why they so often spell the end for most warcasters, let alone high DEF infantry.

Ossyan can help reduce the DEF of a hard target (such as a warpwolf) with his gun, and Chronomancer can surprisingly often let you get away with only one focus point on a ranged attack for his jacks, especially in combination with his gun as mentioned above.

Garryth's Death Sentence is more often than not exactly that, it is extremely rare for me that a unit I tag with Death Sentence survives the round. Especially when it is usually impossible to keep the MHSF in melee combat thanks to Mirage, which in turn can give them a potential 14" aiming threat range and 20" threat range overall.

eEiryss has already been mentioned above, more often than not she is aiming at RAT11 which will hit even Ironfleshed Kayazy on 6's, stripping that buff off the enemy for you as well as guaranteeing the death of a single wound infantry model.

Ghost Snipers often get to aim as well, and at RAT9 they are hitting DEF16 on averages and have Stealth to help keep them safe. Considering most solos with 5 boxes rely on a DEF of 14-16 to keep them alive this is usually where they excel.

Finally a word should also be said about the Arcantrik Force Generator, never underestimate the accuracy and killing potential of d3+1 RNG16 RAT9 POW14 shots (or a single RNG16 RAT9 POW16 AOE4). With decent ARM, charge immunity and just shy of two dozen damage boxes it is almost (but not quite) as durable as a warjack with a better range than RAT than any of our options.