Tips for retreating in time

Is there any rule of thumb everyone uses?

I just can't play anymore at a high level. Always lose too many units. What is the secret to retreating?

I'm not like a veteran or anything but I'll give my 2 cents since nobody's said anything yet:

Number one, know matchups. If you know what the average battle between two units looks like, how long it lasts, etc, you'll know beforehand how likely it is that you'll have to retreat them in the first place.

Number two, consider the enemy squad. Is it a close range specialist squad with SMGs? Do they have high moving accuracy? It's much safer to retreat earlier against these squads, because they are more likely to deal damage to retreating squads.

Number three, it's probably better to play it safe than to stand your ground to the last man. In my understanding, if you're at a point where you're considering retreating, you're already in a precarious position to begin with. If you aren't fighting to keep the last VP friendly while the last few tickets count down, it's probably not worth losing a squad to defend.

More complicated than you think.

Firstly having a good feel for where and when the enemy is. Are they flanking you with a blob? etc. This comes down to experience and good game sense. But also scouting is important, having units giving you vision to give you advanced warning of being out manouvered (some units have abilities for map hacks like OKW Kubel).

Over extending is also when you are most likely to be wiped, obviously due to longer retreat higher chance of being flanked.

When you are getting lots of units and your micro is probably getting overwhelmed, get in the habbit of putting some units in strong defensive positions while you micro some intense stuff, like a tank push, that can help avoid units just blundering into danger.

Secondly to that point, use attack move a lot. Simply so when units encounter enemy, they stop, preventing them getting too close into a range they would get wiped faster when you are not watching.

Blob. blobbing can help you focus your attention on more units at once = less likely to lose them. You just have to be ready for counters e.g. rocket arty.

Any squad that has access to larger squad size upgrade will obviously help its survivability.

Dont just watch how many models you have, but the squads health. a 5 man squad can get wiped quick on retreat if all the models are low health.

An important aspect is retreat paths. 1v1 pros know each retreat path.

Pathing in the game is wonky. And it seems when you need a good retreat path, the game will give you the worst possible path. Like moving INTO the enemy.

Get Cheatmods and retreat units from points on your fav maps. plop down a squad and hit retreat. Maps like Lienne have complete shit pathing that cant be fixed, we tried every patch.

When doing deep flanks be aware of where you will be retreating.

very true, you should be aware of what you are going to have to retreat through. Sometimes you need to soft retreat a unit a certain way to try give it a safe retreat. Or other times you even need to hide a low health unit while you try clear the enemys units off their retreat path

retreat the unit when it is close to diying