So if someone else wants to start a legitimate thread for this be my guest, but I haven't seen anything up yet so I thought I would at least get the ball rolling on Tactics for our Index.
Overall I think we did pretty okay now that points are out and for the most part it seems like we have either remained about as cheap as we were or even come down on a few key units (Exorcist, Vahl, Celestine, and a few minor point drops on units like Dominions and Sacresants). There is definitely a lack of effective anti-tank in the Index rules short of the S12 Paragon Maces and S14 Hunter Killer Missiles (and those options really are not great for us for plenty of reasons, especially the AP -1 on the Maces). Other than that its mostly S10 AP -2 in the Exorcist and S10 AP -1 in the Castigator. I definitely think we as a a faction are going to struggle with cracking hard targets, especially anything T11+ and the shorter range on Multi-Meltas is going to hurt. I have seen plenty of first impressions so far from various social media groups and it looks like dealing with anything beyond T10 is a struggle unless you are making use of the Dialogus+Retributor+Triumph combo for infinite Acts of Faith with all of them being changed to 6s for wounds and damage on Multi-Meltas. I have also heard that the ability to "combat squad" units in Immolators like Dominions is relatively powerful/useful.
Obviously we will need a bunch of playtesting as a community before coming to any real conclusions, and I am hoping to get a small game in relatively soon to see exactly how we are going to play going forward, but what are our thoughts so far in general? There is no doubt we are going to play MUCH differently now at least when compared to the age of Bloody Rose dominance, but I think we are just going to shift more toward playing the mission well constantly instead of actually causing major damage and trying to all but table the opponent. I am hoping to get some data soon though, as I am going to try some Rets with Heavy Bolters or even Ministorum Heavy Flamers again to see how that does for us. I will mainly be using melta on Warsuits with Vahl for those sweet full rerolls along with Melta Dominions backed up by a Palatine perhaps to give them lethal hits on their meltas so they can punch up against T10+ targets a bit. I also want to try a Canoness with Sacresants and then swap the Palatine and Canoness to see how they do leading Sacresants and Dominions, respectively. I know at first glance it doesn't look great for us so far, especially if it becomes a vehicle heavy meta, but I think with enough testing we will start to settle on builds that are interesting to play and are effective at a few different things while still having the Dialogus+Retributor+Triumph combo to fall back on if necessary. Granted, I have neither a Triumph or Dialogus so I will be trying to avoid that combo for the foreseeable future and just try and play with my collection.
I'm for sure looking forward to try out our index. Looks like it has plenty of interesting things to play around with. My biggest gripes is the inferno pistol being nerfed while it wasn't strong to begin with and the canoness only able to lead regular battle sisters and sacresants. Can't put her with those dominions for whatever reason...
Us3Less wrote: I'm for sure looking forward to try out our index. Looks like it has plenty of interesting things to play around with. My biggest gripes is the inferno pistol being nerfed while it wasn't strong to begin with and the canoness only able to lead regular battle sisters and sacresants. Can't put her with those dominions for whatever reason...
I do know I'm gonna have to do some work to make my collection viable for the new edition. I built my Sisters with 5-girl squads in mind, and now I have to take 10 (except Retributors obviously). I've got 50 Battle Sisters/Dominions, but won't be able to run more than 4 squads at most, probably only 3 because I have too many special/heavy weapon models. Plus I only have 2 Simulacrum models, so I'll either have to buy another box or modify my existing models.
ZergSmasher wrote: I built my Sisters with 5-girl squads in mind, and now I have to take 10 (except Retributors obviously).
Not sure if this is gonna help, but you can still field 5 girl squads if you attach them to Immolators.
1: I don't own any Immolators (well, I have one older Sororitas Rhino that I built to be swappable to an Immolator)
2: You still need the full 10 girls even if you don't run them together
Yea my collection, despite being about 150 infantry Sisters strong, now feels "small" since I only have around 30 bolter Sisters. I have dozens of special/heavy weapons and superiors but the basic Sisters I have were always meant to be 6 squads of 5 girls instead of 10 woman units. It is definitely something that I am going to have to address but I am hoping to only use about 2 squads of BSS mostly anyway so I am hoping between using special and heavy weapons it all works out even if I end up running 3 squads. The more annoying part of this for me is actually the Dominions. I wish they could be taken in 5-10 again, it just feels so weird to HAVE to bring 5 bolter girls. I know Immolators help but it is still a bit rough for list building.
I should have a game against Necrons tomorrow so I will see just how tough the new Reanimation is with d3/d6/d3+3 wounds coming back against me each turn. I am planning on bringing mostly melta with maybe a few Heavy Bolters just to help against any Warrior bricks the guy brings. Granted I think most of his units are Destroyers, Skorpekhs and Immortals so melta is probably still the answer against those. I am planning on bringing an Exorcist and an Immolator or two as well just to try them out and see how tough T10 really feels. With only 2 shots for the Immolator now I think the Flamers are the way to go most of the time since S6 seems like a nice sweet spot against most of the T4 and T5 infantry in the game. Especially since plenty of infantry went up to T5 from T4. I will let you know my findings as I start playtesting!
The worst part is that it feels like it was made bad VERY CAREFULLY.
Like, they assigned the new dev, for his first index, to do Sisters. And they were like, 'Okay, so this edition is much less lethal and slower and will have less rules and crazy interactions. That's what we're going for. So be very careful with the way you write things.'
So the New Guy took the index and very carefully built it so that no unitended interactions could peak through. No multiple miracle dice without a special character, no using 2 dice to guarantee a charge, no devastating wounds except in melee with a really bad special character, Oops, can't let an infantry unit have a 2+ save, that could be really strong! Oh, but I don't want them to have rerolls AND a 2+ AND a 4++ either, so I'll limit what character attach. And he very meticulously went through the army exactly how his boss described it.
Then when he went to turn it in, he found the guy writing marines smoking a joint going 'what if...Desolation Squads...had 420 shots, for 69 damage. Bro, that would be sooo lit bro. That'd be like...totally based bro...'
Meanwhile the guy writing eldar was doing cocaine off of 3 strippers arses screaming 'feth it, 20 fething dice, let's go!!!! 200 MORTAL WOUNDS PER TURN! WRAITHKNIGHT FOR A NICKLE! And then he punched his head through the dry wall.
Automatically Appended Next Post: I did find one incredibly impractical, bad, and stupid wombo combo though, so that's fun.
Triumph
Hospitaller
BSS
3x10 Dominions with 4 Stormbolters Each
3x Palatine for Lethal Hits.
In the Triumphs Aura, at 12 inches, those 3 squads shoot 132 shots with Lethal Wounds, which is 22 auto wounds (which goes up to a hilarious FORTY if exactly one model from each squad is dead.).
Even then, it's terrible and only kills 13ish marines on average for almost 800pts. But it is VERY funny.
I also tried to figure out some combos or strategies. Here's what i've figured out so far:
"The Damage Sponge":
1 Triumph of St.Katherine leads
1 BattleSistersSquad (Simulacrum, Cherub, CondemnorBoltgun,2StormBolter) to benefit from RapidFire +1A. Place on middle objective to spawn Miracle Dice and threaten with 31 Boltershots in 12" radius.
Add 1 Hospitaller nearby to heal the Triumph.
"The Horde Killer"
10 Arco-Flagellants with 1 Preacher, with the "trigger-word" that's 60 A, hitroll of 6 does add. hit, S5, +1to wound, reroll wound rolls, AP0, D1. Maybe put in reserves or a transporter to make sure, they survive until they hit the chaff infantery blob.
"The Canopener-Battlebots"
1 Morvenn Vahl with 3 Paragon Warsuits with three Multi-Meltas, Grenade Launchers and War Blades. Just walk straight forward right into the pit and fire out of all holes. Take any chance to double fire, e.g. with "Fire Overwatch" the full rerolls come in handy. Charge with "Tank Shock" stratagem for mortal wounds. If engaged in combat, then Fall Back and Shoot and Charge again.
"The OC-Doubling Scouts"
1 Palatine leads 1 Dominion-Squad (Cherub, Simulacrum, Boltgun/Chainsword, 4 Stormbolters). Put that unit in an Immolator with Immolation-Flamers.
Split the unit into Palatine/Simulacrum/4 Stormbolters embarked in Immolator. Prioris with 4 Boltguns securing one objective in the backfield.So you have two units with each OC2 plus the Palatine in the frontfield adding OC1. Deploy in the frontfield, scout move 6" before the game, Turn 1 advance towards the objective in nomans's-land. Turn 2 disembark the unit, move+advance (reroll advance) the unit, move the Immolator next to the unit. Shoot Immolator first with autohits on 18", then shoot assault stormbolters from the unit on rapidfire-range with lethal hits/hitroll of 6=autowound and reroll woundrolls (from fire supporting Immo). When engaged in combat, fall back into the Immolator and drive away to the next objective.
"The Fire & Forget Auto-Eraser"
1 Retributors unit with four MultiMeltas, two Cherubs, CombiWeapon/PowerWeapon, lead by 1 Sister Dialogus
put in strategic reserves. Turn 3 deploy from any table-edge in 9"/18" range to the BigBug, use your MiracleDice-Pool and two Cherubs, turning one Miracle-Dice (e.g. damage-roll) into an auto-6 with the Dialogus. When the enemy shoots back, first kill the Prioris and then use the "Rejoice the Fallen" Stratagem, while counting as being "stationary" (i guess that's how it works), hitting on 3+, rerolling hitrolls of 1 for being under starting strength, maybe use another MiracleDice that is an auto-6. If anything left is engaging your Retributors, in the charge phase you can "Fire Overwatch" and use another auto-6 from your MiracleDice-Pool/Cherubs. Always Rerolling Woundrolls of 1.
"The Anti-Heavy-Infantry-Partybus"
1 maxed out Repentia-Unit with the Superior, one unit of 2 Death-Cult Assassins, all together driving in a Rhino with Hunter-Killer-Missile. Just drive the Partybus right into the heavy armoured infantry blob. *transmission error* Let them try to open your Rhino while using "Smokescreen", then disembark, charge with the Assassins and the Repentia. Assassins Fight First, trying to take out the leading character for possible debuffs, then the Repentia fight with rerolling hits and rerolling wounds. If any of your models survive the slapback, then crawl back into the Rhino.
Update: i call this one "The Force of Negation" (in reference to the MtG Card):
1 St.Celestine with her two Geminae are leading a unit of 10 Zephyrim (with PlasmaPistol/PowerWeapon/Banner) and are deployed in Deep Strike. Use Junith Eruita and Inquisitor Coteaz to farm CP.
Use a cheap unit as a sacrifice lamb, run right into the pit and challenge the enemys strongest unit and sneak your enemy into the trap. Then on your enemy's Turn2 end of movement phase, use "Rapid Ingress" for 1CP, to bring St.Celestine and her unit down on the battlefield right next to where the lamb awaits the enemy. Then when the lamb is being charged, use "Heroic Intervention" (2CP) on St.Celestine and the Zephyrims to make a 6" charge into engagement range, so the Zephyrim get +1S and reroll the charge roll. Then activate the "Suffering&Sacrifice" stratagem (1CP) to redirect all the attacks to the Zephyrim and add the "Spirit of the martyr" stratagem to fight on death with the Zephyrim. If you have the 7th CP in your pool you can add the "Holy Rage" stratagem to gain +1 to wound.
"The first wave"
10 Novitiates (Superior with BoltPistol/PowerWeapon; 1Novitiate with Sacred Banner and CC Weapon/Autopistol; 1Novitiate with Simulacrum Imperialis and CC Weapon/Autopistol; 7 Novitiates with MeleeWeapons/Autopistol) are lead by 1 Missionary with PowerWeapon/HolyPistol. So they can reroll advance & charge-rolls,all together have 21 attacks, when near an objective reroll hitrolls, and hitrolls of 6 make an add. hit.
And here's my last one for now: "The Celestian Deathstar"
Use 1 Canoness with PlasmaPistol/PowerWeapon/Rod of Office, enhance her with the BladeOfSaintEllynor and let her lead a unit of 10 CelestianSacresants (Superior with PlasmaPistol/SpearOfTheFaithful; nine Sacresants with anointed halberds). Let them ride in a Rhino right to where the action is. In melee that's 21A from the Sacresants plus 5A from the Canoness each with S5/AP-2, rerolling the hitrolls, add the "Holy Rage" stratagem for 1CP (which you get back on a 4+) to gain +1 to wound, while the unit is -1 to wound (Sworn Protectors) with a 3+ save, and a 4+ invuln.
Azrael-Malecant wrote: Use the "Tank-Shock" Stratagem with your HKM, thats 16x 5+for mortal wounds (to a max of 6).
This part doesn't work. Tank Shock only uses the strength of a melee weapon. That said, if you give one of your paragon warsuits, a mace, they get to tank shock with 12 dice, and 14 against anything T11 and lower. Average Mortals from this is just over 4. Warsuits also get to fall back then charge again, so they can recycle this stratagem every turn.
Also, the auto-wound on 6s that the Palatine gives Stormbolter Dominions is less impressive than I want it to be. In rapid fire range, you get 16 shots. That's somewhere between two and three auto wounds on an AP0 gun. Even if you don't split the squad with an Immolator, you still don't really get all that many attacks, and again, AP0.
The thing that bugs me about the index is that a lot of units have basically worthless melee buffs. It's like they're trying to blend in the flavor of some Bloody Rose in with the heavy Martyred Lady main dish. And the limitations of what leaders can go where means that you've often got bizarre additions to units that don't benefit from the thing that the leader is supposed to be good at.
Azrael-Malecant wrote: I also tried to figure out some combos or strategies. Here's what i've figured out so far:
"The Damage Sponge":
1 Triumph of St.Katherine leads
1 BattleSistersSquad (Simulacrum, Cherub, CondemnorBoltgun,2StormBolter) to benefit from RapidFire +1A. Place on middle objective to spawn Miracle Dice and threaten with 31 Boltershots in 12" radius.
Add 1 Hospitaller nearby to heal the Triumph.
"The Horde Killer"
10 Arco-Flagellants with 1 Preacher, with the "trigger-word" that's 60 A, hitroll of 6 does add. hit, S5, +1to wound, reroll wound rolls, AP0, D1. Maybe put in reserves or a transporter to make sure, they survive until they hit the chaff infantery blob.
"The Canopener-Battlebots"
1 Morvenn Vahl with 3 Paragon Warsuits with three Multi-Meltas, Grenade Launchers and War Blades. Just walk straight forward right into the pit and fire out of all holes. Take any chance to double fire, e.g. with "Fire Overwatch" the full rerolls come in handy. Charge with "Tank Shock" stratagem for mortal wounds. If engaged in combat, then Fall Back and Shoot and Charge again.
"The OC-Doubling Scouts"
1 Palatine leads 1 Dominion-Squad (Cherub, Simulacrum, Boltgun/Chainsword, 4 Stormbolters). Put that unit in an Immolator with Immolation-Flamers.
Split the unit into Palatine/Simulacrum/4 Stormbolters embarked in Immolator. Prioris with 4 Boltguns securing one objective in the backfield.So you have two units with each OC2 plus the Palatine in the frontfield adding OC1. Deploy in the frontfield, scout move 6" before the game, Turn 1 advance towards the objective in nomans's-land. Turn 2 disembark the unit, move+advance (reroll advance) the unit, move the Immolator next to the unit. Shoot Immolator first with autohits on 18", then shoot assault stormbolters from the unit on rapidfire-range with lethal hits/hitroll of 6=autowound and reroll woundrolls (from fire supporting Immo). When engaged in combat, fall back into the Immolator and drive away to the next objective.
"The Fire & Forget Auto-Eraser"
1 Retributors unit with four MultiMeltas, two Cherubs, CombiWeapon/PowerWeapon, lead by 1 Sister Dialogus
put in strategic reserves. Turn 3 deploy from any table-edge in 9"/18" range to the BigBug, use your MiracleDice-Pool and two Cherubs, turning one Miracle-Dice (e.g. damage-roll) into an auto-6 with the Dialogus. When the enemy shoots back, first kill the Prioris and then use the "Rejoice the Fallen" Stratagem, while counting as being "stationary" (i guess that's how it works), hitting on 3+, rerolling hitrolls of 1 for being under starting strength, maybe use another MiracleDice that is an auto-6. If anything left is engaging your Retributors, in the charge phase you can "Fire Overwatch" and use another auto-6 from your MiracleDice-Pool/Cherubs. Always Rerolling Woundrolls of 1.
"The Anti-Heavy-Infantry-Partybus"
1 maxed out Repentia-Unit with the Superior, one unit of 2 Death-Cult Assassins, all together driving in a Rhino with Hunter-Killer-Missile. Just drive the Partybus right into the heavy armoured infantry blob. *transmission error* Let them try to open your Rhino while using "Smokescreen", then disembark, charge with the Assassins and the Repentia. Assassins Fight First, trying to take out the leading character for possible debuffs, then the Repentia fight with rerolling hits and rerolling wounds. If any of your models survive the slapback, then crawl back into the Rhino.
Update: i call this one "The Force of Negation" (in reference to the MtG Card):
1 St.Celestine with her two Geminae are leading a unit of 10 Zephyrim (with PlasmaPistol/PowerWeapon/Banner) and are deployed in Deep Strike. Use Junith Eruita and Inquisitor Coteaz to farm CP.
Use a cheap unit as a sacrifice lamb, run right into the pit and challenge the enemys strongest unit and sneak your enemy into the trap. Then on your enemy's Turn2 end of movement phase, use "Rapid Ingress" for 1CP, to bring St.Celestine and her unit down on the battlefield right next to where the lamb awaits the enemy. Then when the lamb is being charged, use "Heroic Intervention" (2CP) on St.Celestine and the Zephyrims to make a 6" charge into engagement range, so the Zephyrim get +1S and reroll the charge roll. Then activate the "Suffering&Sacrifice" stratagem (1CP) to redirect all the attacks to the Zephyrim and add the "Spirit of the martyr" stratagem to fight on death with the Zephyrim. If you have the 7th CP in your pool you can add the "Holy Rage" stratagem to gain +1 to wound.
"The first wave"
10 Novitiates (Superior with BoltPistol/PowerWeapon; 1Novitiate with Sacred Banner and CC Weapon/Autopistol; 1Novitiate with Simulacrum Imperialis and CC Weapon/Autopistol; 7 Novitiates with MeleeWeapons/Autopistol) are lead by 1 Missionary with PowerWeapon/HolyPistol. So they can reroll advance & charge-rolls,all together have 21 attacks, when near an objective reroll hitrolls, and hitrolls of 6 make an add. hit.
And here's my last one for now: "The Celestian Deathstar"
Use 1 Canoness with PlasmaPistol/PowerWeapon/Rod of Office, enhance her with the BladeOfSaintEllynor and let her lead a unit of 10 CelestianSacresants (Superior with PlasmaPistol/SpearOfTheFaithful; nine Sacresants with anointed halberds). Let them ride in a Rhino right to where the action is. In melee that's 21A from the Sacresants plus 5A from the Canoness each with S5/AP-2, rerolling the hitrolls, add the "Holy Rage" stratagem for 1CP (which you get back on a 4+) to gain +1 to wound, while the unit is -1 to wound (Sworn Protectors) with a 3+ save, and a 4+ invuln.
I am liking some of these combos, especially the Canoness with the Sacresants and the Rets with a Dialogus (I really do not want to get the Triumph but I would not mind getting a Dialogus or even kitbashing one as long as I can play around with some of the head options and make her a little less "over the top").
In other news I had my first game of 10th against Necrons today. Overall both armies were probably suboptimal. He did bring a brick of 20 warriors and 10 Lychguard that I really could not put down despite using about half my army to do so. it was only 1500 points so we couldn't bring every toy, but it was an interesting game that helped me at least learn a few things. I will caveat everything I say here with the usual "this is only one game" and honestly most of my dice rolls in this particular for both Miracle Dice and everything else felt below average until around the end of Turn 4 when it seemed too late to really affect anything (out of the 10-15 MD I had throughout the game at least half of them were 1s, about 7 or 8, and even recycling them with cherubs only got me 2s usually or just more rerolled 1s, so it was rough). Here are some of the biggest takeaways about the army from this first brush:
1. Exorcists are definitely usable and serve a really nice role. I only brought one today but I honestly think at least 2 of them are going to be somewhat necessary in most lists. The ability to just sit back and at least put most things on a 4+ or 5+ save is pretty nice. D6+2 still feels a little bad when you roll that 1 or 2 but even 4 shots can reliably knock something meaty out. In this game it did decent work against Heavy Destroyers and the standard ones too and would have put more hurt on the Lychguard if they did not make about 95% of their 4++ saves over the course of 2 turns. I will not sit here and say they are great or auto-includes but they serve a role even with only 36" range. S10 feels nice against most things even though there was nothing over T9 on the other side of the table today, so it is tough to say how we will fare against T10+ units.
2. Vahl+ Warsuits were MVPs for most of the game even when Vahl whiffed 4/8 of her strikes at a crucial time (four 1s rerolled into four 1s). They annihilated some Skorpekhs, took out a Doomstalker, and just cleared certain objectives I needed toward the end of the game all while tanking some dedicated anti-tank fire with those clutch 4++ saves. The 4++ on the Warsuits especially feels really nice though it is sad that D2 weapons with decent AP just go right through them most of the time. I lost 2 Suits to some basic Destroyers even while they were in cover. The -1 damage being gone hurts. But still, I honestly think most lists are going to want Vahl and a unit of Suits. Again, they are not great but they are definitely good for 375 points.
3. Repentia still hit hard but without the ability to negate invulns they will bounce sometimes. Again the guy I played was making just about every 4++ I put him on so while they did well against his heavy infantry without invulns the harder targets just survived full rerolls to hit and wound, wounding on 2s from the stratagem. They aren't bad at all, and still are melee monsters against the right targets, but they feel less general purpose than before.
4. +1 to hit is incredibly easy to get from the detachment rule and definitely nice just for negating those pesky hit modifiers from some armies but +1 to wound is underwhelming more often than not. By the time we get it (other than on vehicles or maybe some characters like Vahl/Celestine) most units are just too depleted to make use of it effectively. There is just so much RNG to that part of the ability, and honestly it feels like Magikarp Flail strats from Pokemon (bring the Magikarp into super low health without it dying so that way the Flail can one shot everything) but the issue is by the time you are getting +1 to wound you only have a few models left to make use of it. I am sure there will be times, such as on vehicles or special characters, where it feels great, but in this game it just did not come up enough at all.
5. 18" for Multi Meltas is short. I actually brought a bunch of Heavy Bolters everywhere today just to test the exploding 6s and see how good they are now. They still aren't the answer I think, so I will probably try MMs on Rets again in the next few games, but I think it will be necessary to put those Rets in Strat Reserve now every single game. I had about 5 or 6 MMs in total today and other than all the suits everything else just felt too far away to effectively use them on my opponents army.
6. Combi Weapons are actually really nice for those random mortals to plink wounds off a squad. Obviously against Necrons it doesn't mean much, along with other armies that can regenerate models like GSC, but I think in most matchups you should be taking combis on every superior. Those extra mortals added up throughout the game against his smaller squads like Immortals. They can possibly make a difference here or there.
These are some of the biggest things I found in this game. There were plenty of other things that I wanted to test but just couldn't or when I tried it just completely bounced. My Melta Dominions with a Canoness in an Immolator bounced despite full rerolls to hit and wound because he made 75% of his 4++ (it was just a theme of this game) so I only got one through for a little damage (remember all my MD were 1 or 2 at this point). Divine Intervention with the cheeky 2++ from the Canoness is actually really interesting, she was annoying for him to put down and tied up a unit or two for a few turns, so that was cool. The Palatine and Sacresants pretty much became DOA as their transport went down Turn 2 from a lucky S14 Damage 6 Heavy Destroyer shot and I ended up rolling four 1s dealing 4 mortal wounds to the squad and then they got wiped by Lychguard. The combat squad system of Dominions and BSS in an Immolator definitely has its uses but in this game just too much went wrong to really see the potential manifested
All in all, it was a good first game to at least understand what the army sort of wants to do, though I think my synergies are a bit off from this first game. The Litanies Enhancement also barely did anything for me (though when I did get to use it I just rerolled 1s into 1s anyway) since the character that had it on them died almost instantly. If you are bringing it that should definitely be on something sitting in the backfield with a BSS or something. We played the core book mission which we know isn't even remotely balanced so I lost narrowly on points in the end but then thanks to the battle ready bonus I ended up technically winning since half the Necrons were gray lol. By the end of Turn 5 I still had a damaged Immolator, damaged Vahl, undamaged Exorcist, a few Rets, and a single Dominion compared to about 8 or 9 Lychguard and about 12 Warriors along with the Crypteks and Overlord as well as a few standard Destroyers. Obviously I was not winning on the table much either, but it was interesting to see so much (relative to 9th) of both armies still intact, though most of my points left were in Vehicles of course. There is still so much testing to do but while this Index isn't "good" I don't think its truly "bad" either. We are probably a slightly below average army unless we use the crazy combos like Triumph+ Dialogus to turn a bunch of MD that are 1 or 2 into 6s. Against armies with mostly T10+ I think we will struggle (Imperial and Chaos Knights, maybe Guard because of the T11 Russes and other tanks) but against T9 and below we still hit pretty hard. its not the same amount of damage we are used to but thats sort of the MO of this edition. There is still plenty of lethality in the game, but I think we can survive and play the objective game better than you would think, and I think Indirect Fire will not be as punishing to us as first believed, especially now that we have some sort of answer to it in the Exorcist.
Anyway, just my thoughts on where we are. Plenty more games to play but 10th at this point at least feels a bit less taxing than 9th. The worst part is all the subtle changes in the core rules that make me have to think of course, but that will get better.
Additionally, we ran into a few things that maybe the Rules Commentary discusses but that did not seem apparent from the core rules at least. One of them was about characters and their abilities while leading a unit. I know that once the unit is destroyed they just become a separate unit again and technically are not "leading a unit" anymore so for example Vahl would not get her full rerolls if she is by herself, but in the leader rules on I believe page 56 of the core rules it says something about the character is considered to be leading a unit for the rest of the battle, so we were a bit confused by that. I think the intent is for them to not get those abilities after the unit is destroyed, but it felt a little unclear. I know in some sections of the datasheet rules it seems to confirm the leader just becomes a separate unit again after the bodyguard unit is destroyed but does the fact they are considered leading a unit until the end of the battle override that somehow? Again, I think its intended to be that someone like Vahl doesnt get rerolls after the unit of Suits is gone, but it just seemed a bit confusing in the moment. Also certain unit abilities like the cherubs affecting both units of combat squad BSS or Dominions, that also seems a little unclear but since its a unit ability it feels like it should affect both units of 5. Just things that I do not think got addressed in the rules commentary, but I will look again.
Sorry for this became so long, but hope this helps give us some food for thought at least.
The 'leading a unit until the end of the battle' thing is part of the rules that A. Don't let your character leave the unit, and B. Don't let your character join a new unit.
Thanks a ton for that insight GFdoubles, it's awesome and super appreciated.
One question I had was regarding this part:
"18" for Multi Meltas is short. I actually brought a bunch of Heavy Bolters everywhere today just to test the exploding 6s and see how good they are now. They still aren't the answer I think, so I will probably try MMs on Rets again in the next few games"
Forgive me, as I'm probably missing something obvious here, but what was the question you were trying to answer? These weapons aren't intended to be used on the same targets, so was the question whether Rets would be best brought as anti-horde, or as their traditional anti-heavy role?
Here's a list idea I had, it's called 'FEED ME SEYMOUR'
FEED ME SEYMOUR Vindicare 80 Triumph 150 Exorcist 140 Exorcist 140 Exorcist 140 Crusaders 3x2 60 BSS 110 MM, M, CB, Sim Seraphim 70 4hF, PP, PS Seraphim 70 4hF, PP, PS Seraphim 70 4hF, PP, PS Pengine 60 TBB, PF Pengine 60 TBB, PF Pengine 60 TBB, PF BSS 110 MM, M, CB, Sim, Combat Squad Immolator 130 BSS 110 MM, M, CB, Sim Rhino 80 BSS 110 MM, M, CB, Sim Imagifier+Litanies 65 Mortifier 60 MF, TBB, Anc Mortifier 60 MF, TBB, Anc Mortifier 60 MF, TBB, Anc
Total 1995
Basically the idea is to exploit how quickly our units die to generate an absoluely ABSURD amount miracle dice and then use the Triumph to feed them into the Exorcists.
Min Squads of Crusaders+Pengines+Morties means we're pretty much guaranteed a fistful of dice every turn. Additionally, there are a metric tonne of flamers here to make movement very frustrating thanks to overwatch.
BSS are hopefully generating 2-3 dice per turn and helping recycle dice. Imagifier gives you a shot at rerolling a bunch of dice every turn. Combat squad 1 BSS squad into the immolator. With full reroll wounds on disembark and otherwise not very useful 4s on your miracle dice, you should hopefully be able to kill one unit to generate dice with the simulacrum before they die.
Seraphim are just pretty good cheap objective scorers.
Once your pool gets up and running, every 5 goes into an exorcists wound roll, every 6 goes into the damage roll. If they use indirect to go after the Exos, they better kill them because Hitting on 2s, wounding on 4s against anything will not be awesome for them.
Stratagems: If it isn't Tank Shock, Overwatch, Rejoice the Fallen, or Reroll Exorcist shots, don't worry about it.
The best part of this list is that you absolutely do not care about things dying. Every unit that dies is another bullet in the chamber. You can play the mission hyper aggressively and be fine.
I was thinking something like this... Arcos are probably our best unit now so three max squads and then spam the hell out of the other penitent units and just zerg the opponent.
BSS squads, celestians, and the triumph make about as solid a centre as we can have.
Ephrael stern included simply because the model is awesome 🖤
Have you had enough yet? (1995 points)
Adepta Sororitas
Strike Force (2000 points)
Hallowed Martyrs
CHARACTER
Daemonifuge (80 points)
• 1x Ephrael Stern
• 1x Bolt pistol
1x Sanctity
• 1x Kyganil of the Bloody Tears
• 1x The Outcast’s Weapons
Mostly because I modeled them this way (because I think they look downright awesome), I'm going to use 10th edition as an opportunity to throw in my flamer models into BSS units given how effective overwatch can be in a pinch.
I'm also going to brush the dust off my meltagun totin' sister models and throw them in an Immolator just to see what a scout moving fire support platform can get up to with Dominions.
None of these things were, or are, effective enough on paper but it's a new edition so I might as well use this as an excuse to get the neglected models on the table.
First takeaway is that Miracle Dice are a lot easier to use throughout the turn since it's not difficult to get a few per turn (and cherubs certainly help).
Melta is not nearly as reliable as before and we may struggle a bit with wall of tank, or monsters with high Toughness. While I eventually did the job, two boss models on Squigisaur, squighog boys, nobs with warboss and a bunch of speed freek buggies proved a tougher nut to crack than I expected. Also, that 6 inch reduction in range for multimedia hurts.
Canonesses are weird now, they aren't really a combat asset anymore, not enough attacks.
Flame weapons are extremely useful. Ignores cover is great, simply because it's very easy to get cover.
The units that stood out most were Seraphim, of which i had 2 squads of 5 with flamer ×2, pistol and 2d6 autohit shots is bonkers and did tons of work, and the fire and move abilitymeans you can often kill even a pretty tough unit like a vehicle and then move to contest or control an objective.
Penitent Engines also stood our as being very good for the points.
I can't say I agree on the Acros. I think they're good, but they suffer from the same problem that repentia have.
If there's a flamer within 12" of them at any point in your turn. They die.
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aushlo wrote: I had my first game of 10th tonight against Orks.
First takeaway is that Miracle Dice are a lot easier to use throughout the turn since it's not difficult to get a few per turn (and cherubs certainly help).
Melta is not nearly as reliable as before and we may struggle a bit with wall of tank, or monsters with high Toughness. While I eventually did the job, two boss models on Squigisaur, squighog boys, nobs with warboss and a bunch of speed freek buggies proved a tougher nut to crack than I expected. Also, that 6 inch reduction in range for multimedia hurts.
Canonesses are weird now, they aren't really a combat asset anymore, not enough attacks.
Flame weapons are extremely useful. Ignores cover is great, simply because it's very easy to get cover.
The units that stood out most were Seraphim, of which i had 2 squads of 5 with flamer ×2, pistol and 2d6 autohit shots is bonkers and did tons of work, and the fire and move abilitymeans you can often kill even a pretty tough unit like a vehicle and then move to contest or control an objective.
Penitent Engines also stood our as being very good for the points.
Isn't that 4d6 shots? Two models with 2 handflamers?
I think Sisters have many problems here at the start of 10th, but the main ones are Indirect Fire, and Overwatch. Overwatch completely feths our best melee units (Arcos and Repentia), and a lot of Indirect has decent AP and at least S6 (meaning they wound any of our infantry on 2's). Lack of significant anti-vehicle/monster is another weakness, but that one can be mitigated somewhat with miracle dice. The best solution to indirect fire is to put units in reserves or transports. But reserves have restrictions on where they can come in, and transports cost points (and $$$ if you don't already own a bunch of them). About the only way to mitigate Overwatch is to really abuse terrain, but depending on the board you're playing on there might not be convenient terrain near where your melee units want to stage.
I'll admit I'm really struggling to figure out a decent list for Sisters in 10th. They are on the struggle bus for sure. Morvenn and a unit of Paragons seem like a no-brainer, but otherwise?
Aren't Arcos significantly tougher than repentia? 2W and 4+FNP means the oppo needs on average more than 10 flamers to delete a squad (yes I know this can vary with the type of flamer). Not arguing that flamers aren't good against them, simply that for the points they chuck out a lot more hurt than most of our other units.
The more I look at seraphim the more I like them ... 4d6 flame shots from deep strike with a fire and fade ability is going to be very difficult to defend against.
Do we think that with the reintroduction of fire ports we might see mech lists again? Hide all the T3 bodies in metal boxes and just shoot out the hatches? Spam tanks for firepower?
Isn't that 4d6 shots? Two models with 2 handflamers?
Yeah. That's what I meant, just 2d6 per model.
Also, Immolators with flamers are going to be very important. Between boosting retributor/dominion output and overwatch being very useful out of phase shooting they did tons of work- ditto seraphim overwatch. Out of phase shooting is very strong and you can do so both in overwatch and with rejoice the fallen, if you have the points. The latter is of course very situational but hits normally with non torrent weapons which is a bonus.
I didn't really find occasion to use fire points, immolators don't have them now a d my sisters largely had to disembark to take objectives.
Aren't Arcos significantly tougher than repentia? 2W and 4+FNP means the oppo needs on average more than 10 flamers to delete a squad (yes I know this can vary with the type of flamer). Not arguing that flamers aren't good against them, simply that for the points they chuck out a lot more hurt than most of our other units.
The more I look at seraphim the more I like them ... 4d6 flame shots from deep strike with a fire and fade ability is going to be very difficult to defend against.
I think Seraphim are straight up our only 'A-Tier' unit. They move block a lot things just by existing on the table. A unit of 10 has 8D6 heavy flamer shots for overwatch. If your opponent is setting up to grab an objective with a horde-ish unit, you can deepstrike them down on it and now even attempting to go after it will have them eating a huge amount of our S4 handflamers. They even have enough shots to threaten smallish marine units.
Vilgeir wrote: Thanks a ton for that insight GFdoubles, it's awesome and super appreciated.
One question I had was regarding this part:
"18" for Multi Meltas is short. I actually brought a bunch of Heavy Bolters everywhere today just to test the exploding 6s and see how good they are now. They still aren't the answer I think, so I will probably try MMs on Rets again in the next few games"
Forgive me, as I'm probably missing something obvious here, but what was the question you were trying to answer? These weapons aren't intended to be used on the same targets, so was the question whether Rets would be best brought as anti-horde, or as their traditional anti-heavy role?
Thanks again!
Hey there thanks for the appreciation!
I understand some of the confusion, as I really did not mean for that to come off as "me answering a question." That entire part of the post was just to say that I was trying different things in that game with the Rets. I have another game or two coming up soon and plan on going back to MMs and probably putting them in Strategic Reserve to see if they can just come in and delete something T8 or below. In that particular game I was just trying to check on "how good" exploding 6s were on HBs against most targets in the T4-T9 range. Back in early 8th edition and until the start of 9th HB Rets were pretty viable for various things like just having a backfield bunker to clear certain firing lanes so I just wanted to confirm that since the Multi Melta changes in 9th they are still meh at best. I just think having some kind of long range option like HBs is useful especially since the MM range is so short comparatively now. I think the only question I was trying to answer was "is having another backfield ranged option now that MMs are short, Castigators, are shorter, and the Exorcist is the same range as a Heavy Bolter worth it?" and I think in that game I came away saying, "probably not."
Sorry for the confusion! As I play more games and get more experience with the index I will be sure to update this thread!
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ERJAK wrote: The 'leading a unit until the end of the battle' thing is part of the rules that A. Don't let your character leave the unit, and B. Don't let your character join a new unit.
It's not relevant for anything else.
Thanks for the confirmation here! I was pretty sure it did not actually matter but wanted to get some confirmation regardless! Thanks again ERJAK!
Working on a new iteration of FEED ME SEYMOUR that doesn't give up 2000VP to Bring it Down (I HATE that card. If they're 5 wounds or less, they should only be 1 VP).
Couple of new things: 1. The Miracle Dice Party Bus. 5 Miracle dice all in one convenient package. Not sure if it's better than just one big squad of Arcos or Repentia, but it's certainly funnier. Plus it would be a laugh riot to waste some necron cryptek with 24 precision attacks.
The other thing is something I call 'the retributor Landmine'. You take a retributor and a Dialogus (with Litanies) and then you camp them within 6 of the Triump, but out of LoS.
If your opponent has enough indirect shooting, you're boned. If they DON'T anything that gets within 18" of that unit and in LoS WILL die (provided you have enough miracle dice).
On Overwatch, you can guarantee all 8 shots hit, all 8 shots wound, and all 8 shots do 6 damage at the low, low price of 24 miracle dice!
Okay, you're most likely just guaranteeing hits, but the high-end potential late game is staggering.
Bonus, the Dialogus' second ability prevents battleshock from stopping Stratagems.
List looks fun! Not y'know good or anything, but if we're going to be rubbish we might as well at least try and have a laugh.
I'm just not sold on the Zephyrim. Unless going from str4 to str5 on the charge is much better than I think it is, they are just meh. I suppose they can be ablative wounds for Celestine and just float around looking threatening?
J.Black wrote: List looks fun! Not y'know good or anything, but if we're going to be rubbish we might as well at least try and have a laugh.
I'm just not sold on the Zephyrim. Unless going from str4 to str5 on the charge is much better than I think it is, they are just meh. I suppose they can be ablative wounds for Celestine and just float around looking threatening?
Generally, we're not going to be killing things. What does die is going to die to the Exorcists, or Celestine's Dev wounds. The rest of the bodies are for scoring.
All these people bringing dominions or sacresants like 'oh, I'll shoot at my opponent and do melee' are stupid. You need exactly enough firepower to have more OC on the objective than your opponent and nothing more.
Zephryim are fast and kill enough to take objectives. That makes them better than 3/4ths of the codex to me.
Generally, we're not going to be killing things. What does die is going to die to the Exorcists, or Celestine's Dev wounds. The rest of the bodies are for scoring.
All these people bringing dominions or sacresants like 'oh, I'll shoot at my opponent and do melee' are stupid. You need exactly enough firepower to have more OC on the objective than your opponent and nothing more.
Zephryim are fast and kill enough to take objectives. That makes them better than 3/4ths of the codex to me.
Meh, they're cool looking models, I loved painting them, and I love fielding them. Sure, call me stupid, but at least it'll be a fun time.
Our poor Exorcist just cannot have its time in the sun for more than a few minutes it seems. Honestly though, I am fine with points nerfs for indirect fire at the moment (maybe in a later balance pass or points update they will do more to curb the units that really need it, the Exorcist I think was fine when taken in the context of the faction as a whole) but it started 9th edition at 170 for the Exorcist Missile Launcher and then slowly came down to around 150 which is where it should be now as far as I can see. Last edition it really needed to be priced somewhere around 125-135 at most but 140 for a T10, 36" range, S10, D6 damage indirect fire option was probably just about right for it. I think at most it should have gotten hit with about a 20 point nerf similar to most of the Guard indirect units. I still think I will be taking at least 1-2 in most lists, but again, a 30 point hike just seems like too much for our only indirect fire option. If they had nerfed it to 150 or 160 points I think you still would have seen 2-3 in many lists but it would have at least paid the premium that they usually want. Additionally, now it is almost completely useless to use the Conflagration Rockets, the Missiles are pretty much the only weapon you take on it now. Not like I was taking anything other than the missiles since the 8th edition book dropped, but now, similar to Field Ordnance batteries, the rockets are just paying a premium for what the missiles do so might as well only take missiles 99% of the time unless you know you are ONLY facing 250-300 model horde armies. Also, unlike much of the other indirect, the range nerf on it from 48 to 36 inch range really makes it pretty meh in direct firefights with other indirect units that probably outrange it by at least a foot or more.
I am not saying the Exorcist was holding the faction together but it was one of our best ways to deal with most light-medium vehicles, so I think they should have a bit less heavy handed with its points nerfs. 150 or 160 for what it does is a price I would usually pay, but 170 starts to put it into 1-2 territory, with 2 being a max for me. At least I don't feel like I have to get a 3rd now!
I think I have just accepted that early 10th is gonna be a bit of a slog for us, and hopefully by the time our codex is out they have worked out most of the "kinks" in the edition so that way we join a pretty "balanced" roster of other books, with plenty of interesting and fairly costed choices. As far as I can see, no vehicle we have right now should really cost above 150 even with an indirect premium, hopefully with enough points updates we find the Exorcist back there soon enough.
With the way so many different weapon options got rolled into a single profile for many armies, I had hoped that Exorcists would simply allow you to choose which missile to use when firing rather than at army construction.
I suppose there's still a slim chance that this occurs come Codex time, but that will be a while yet.
Well, we can keep sitting around feeling sorry for ourselves that the Exorcist got nerfed, or we can get our heads in the game and try to figure out ways to make our lists work in our brave new meta. To that end, I've been tinkering with lists and came up with this one:
Spoiler:
Hallowed Martyrs Detachment
Morvenn Vahl
3 Paragon Warsuits (Vahl goes here obviously)
Canoness: Power Weapon, Plasma Pistol, Rod of Office
10 Battle Sisters: Combi-weapon and Power Weapon on Superior, Meltagun, Multi-melta, Simulacrum (attach Canoness here)
10 Battle Sisters: Combi-weapon and Power Weapon on Superior, Meltagun, Multi-melta, Simulacrum
10 Battle Sisters: Combi-weapon and Power Weapon on Superior, Meltagun, Multi-melta, Simulacrum
Saint Celestine
10 Zephyrim (Celestine goes here)
Palatine
10 Dominions: 4x AC Storm Bolter, Combi-weapon and Power Weapon on Superior (Palatine goes here)
5 Retributors: 4x Multi-melta, Combi-weapon and Power Weapon on Superior
Dialogus (attach to Retributors)
Triumph of Saint Katherine
Exorcist: Exorcist Missile Launcher, HK Missile
2 Death Cult Assassins
Sororitas Rhino: HK Missile
Sororitas Rhino: HK Missile
Sororitas Rhino: HK Missile
Obviously this is pretty rough, I came up with it using only the models I own currently. I need to probably lay my hands on a couple of Immolators stat. I was also wondering if I should drop the utility Assassins for an enhancement or two. Yes I realize Crusaders are cheaper, but I don't currently have any (might 3d print some though; the GW ones look like ass).
An exorcist nerf ... Just what we needed... Winning far too many tournaments recently with those things
GW just increased points for all non-los units (except admech's scorpius). They just ignored overall balance of exact index.
Take Cassie.
Castigator's still worse.
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ZergSmasher wrote: Well, we can keep sitting around feeling sorry for ourselves that the Exorcist got nerfed, or we can get our heads in the game and try to figure out ways to make our lists work in our brave new meta. To that end, I've been tinkering with lists and came up with this one:
Spoiler:
Hallowed Martyrs Detachment
Morvenn Vahl
3 Paragon Warsuits (Vahl goes here obviously)
Canoness: Power Weapon, Plasma Pistol, Rod of Office
10 Battle Sisters: Combi-weapon and Power Weapon on Superior, Meltagun, Multi-melta, Simulacrum (attach Canoness here)
10 Battle Sisters: Combi-weapon and Power Weapon on Superior, Meltagun, Multi-melta, Simulacrum
10 Battle Sisters: Combi-weapon and Power Weapon on Superior, Meltagun, Multi-melta, Simulacrum
Saint Celestine
10 Zephyrim (Celestine goes here)
Palatine
10 Dominions: 4x AC Storm Bolter, Combi-weapon and Power Weapon on Superior (Palatine goes here)
5 Retributors: 4x Multi-melta, Combi-weapon and Power Weapon on Superior
Dialogus (attach to Retributors)
Triumph of Saint Katherine
Exorcist: Exorcist Missile Launcher, HK Missile
2 Death Cult Assassins
Sororitas Rhino: HK Missile
Sororitas Rhino: HK Missile
Sororitas Rhino: HK Missile
Obviously this is pretty rough, I came up with it using only the models I own currently. I need to probably lay my hands on a couple of Immolators stat. I was also wondering if I should drop the utility Assassins for an enhancement or two. Yes I realize Crusaders are cheaper, but I don't currently have any (might 3d print some though; the GW ones look like ass).
I think if you're taking Dominions, Canonesses, or more than 2 units of battle Sisters, you're creating a hole the rest of the army has to dig you out of.
We currently have 2 big things going for us: Seraphim are great, and the exorcist is still decent...enough.
Our best lists are going to be Go-wide MSU that focuses on using Seraphim to score secondaries and clear out infantry and the Exorcist to shave down their big guns with lots of miracle dice.
I'm still not sold on Morvenn and her unit, but if I was going to take her, it would looks something like this:
I have been trying to make them work for the last few games because fellow Sisters players at my FLGS (including one who I actually "trained" a bit when they first started playing the army) keep saying they are "GOOD." I have tried them with a Palatine mostly, trying to give them lethal hits on those mostly S4 and S5 attacks along with the -1 to wound, but I am thinking of a Canoness with them just to help them reroll hits and get every ounce of damage through. I really would LIKE to try them with an Imagifier just so they can go back to feeling as tanky as they should be, but it really irks me that ONLY Battle Sisters can take multiple characters in them. This seemed like an obvious combo that SHOULD be in the index, with a Canoness/Palatine+ Imagifier leading the unit as the Imagifier should read that it can be attached to a Battle Sisters OR Sacresants squad even if a Canoness/Palatine is already leading them. -1 to wound, 2+/4++ on a T3 unit really does not feel that busted at all. I have tried footslogging a unit of 10 as well as throwing them in a Rhino to get up the board and both times it just has not gone well. That 3+ save on them just really makes them so much squishier than previously. They either get shot by indirect of course if I footslog through cover, or their ride gets shot up quickly and they end up getting charged and neutered before they can do much. I am definitely playing them as if they had a 2+ save still thinking that -1 to wound will be enough but I am finding more and more that its just not. My list for my game tomorrow doesn't have them as I am trying out more Seraphim just to see how best to use them to clear objectives and "move shoot move" (not as many as you suggest in your list ERJAK as I just do not have enough hand flamer models/Seraphim for more than 2-3 minimum squads or 1 max and 1 minimum squad at most) but I want to return to Sacresants at some point and figure out how to make them work as midfield objective holders/sturdy-ish walls that the enemy has to deal with in the early turns at least. I have heard that giving them all maces and putting Thurga and Dolan in the unit is one way to make them really punch up with Devastating Wounds and dealing 2 mortals on each wound roll of a 6 (or just by using an MD on them) but I really do not want to get those models and I am strictly trying to play with what I have outside of a Dialogus I picked up for the combo with the Rets. Even then, do we think the Devastating Wounds combo is good enough to warrant those leaders?
Just to clarify, as I said, I am mostly trying to play with my relatively decent collection at this point without picking up a bunch of new models as GW probably wants me to. While Thurga and Dolan, the Triumph, and the Ministorum Auxillary models are all pretty cool in their own way, I really just have the rest of the line along with a Preacher or two that could be proxied as either a Preacher or Missionary, some Mortifiers and Penitent Engines (2 of each) and a few Arcos that I happened to pick up in the combat patrol I got last edition (so no Crusaders or DCAs). I easily have most of the characters other than the ones I mentioned above, about 150+ Sisters models of varying kinds (bolters, SBs, flamers, meltas Superiors with chainswords and combis, and at least 4-8 of each of the heavy variants of each special weapon) along with 2 of each vehicle other than the Cassie that I only have one of plus 2 squads of Warsuits. It is by no means a "small" collection, but something like the Triumph that seems almost like an "auto include" is just something I am not interested in getting right now so I would rather work with lists that can be made up of my collection.
Sorry for the tangent! Anyway, any ideas on how to make Sacresants work right now would be appreciated! Thanks!
I have been trying to make them work for the last few games because fellow Sisters players at my FLGS (including one who I actually "trained" a bit when they first started playing the army) keep saying they are "GOOD." I have tried them with a Palatine mostly, trying to give them lethal hits on those mostly S4 and S5 attacks along with the -1 to wound, but I am thinking of a Canoness with them just to help them reroll hits and get every ounce of damage through. I really would LIKE to try them with an Imagifier just so they can go back to feeling as tanky as they should be, but it really irks me that ONLY Battle Sisters can take multiple characters in them. This seemed like an obvious combo that SHOULD be in the index, with a Canoness/Palatine+ Imagifier leading the unit as the Imagifier should read that it can be attached to a Battle Sisters OR Sacresants squad even if a Canoness/Palatine is already leading them. -1 to wound, 2+/4++ on a T3 unit really does not feel that busted at all. I have tried footslogging a unit of 10 as well as throwing them in a Rhino to get up the board and both times it just has not gone well. That 3+ save on them just really makes them so much squishier than previously. They either get shot by indirect of course if I footslog through cover, or their ride gets shot up quickly and they end up getting charged and neutered before they can do much. I am definitely playing them as if they had a 2+ save still thinking that -1 to wound will be enough but I am finding more and more that its just not. My list for my game tomorrow doesn't have them as I am trying out more Seraphim just to see how best to use them to clear objectives and "move shoot move" (not as many as you suggest in your list ERJAK as I just do not have enough hand flamer models/Seraphim for more than 2-3 minimum squads or 1 max and 1 minimum squad at most) but I want to return to Sacresants at some point and figure out how to make them work as midfield objective holders/sturdy-ish walls that the enemy has to deal with in the early turns at least. I have heard that giving them all maces and putting Thurga and Dolan in the unit is one way to make them really punch up with Devastating Wounds and dealing 2 mortals on each wound roll of a 6 (or just by using an MD on them) but I really do not want to get those models and I am strictly trying to play with what I have outside of a Dialogus I picked up for the combo with the Rets. Even then, do we think the Devastating Wounds combo is good enough to warrant those leaders?
Just to clarify, as I said, I am mostly trying to play with my relatively decent collection at this point without picking up a bunch of new models as GW probably wants me to. While Thurga and Dolan, the Triumph, and the Ministorum Auxillary models are all pretty cool in their own way, I really just have the rest of the line along with a Preacher or two that could be proxied as either a Preacher or Missionary, some Mortifiers and Penitent Engines (2 of each) and a few Arcos that I happened to pick up in the combat patrol I got last edition (so no Crusaders or DCAs). I easily have most of the characters other than the ones I mentioned above, about 150+ Sisters models of varying kinds (bolters, SBs, flamers, meltas Superiors with chainswords and combis, and at least 4-8 of each of the heavy variants of each special weapon) along with 2 of each vehicle other than the Cassie that I only have one of plus 2 squads of Warsuits. It is by no means a "small" collection, but something like the Triumph that seems almost like an "auto include" is just something I am not interested in getting right now so I would rather work with lists that can be made up of my collection.
Sorry for the tangent! Anyway, any ideas on how to make Sacresants work right now would be appreciated! Thanks!
So the best way to run Sacresants right now, is to clear a nice spot on a shelf or bookcase, preferably with clean lighting but not too much direct sunlight, and set them so that the beautiful models really look their best.
And then leave them there until the codex comes out.
There is currently no use for Sacresants, your friends are wrong.
If by making them 'work' you mean using them as damage dealers, I don't think you will get them to.
Our index isn't just underpowered, it's straight up poorly designed and badly written. Broadly speaking we should have damage dealing units, damage soaking units, and some units that fall in the middle. On top of that we should have options that allow us to push units in one direction or another not only to give us balance and flexibility, but also to give us the opportunity to double down on extreme damage or survivability.
With a couple of exceptions everything falls into the hybrid use category with the added insult of the upgrade option generally only being good at pushing units back towards the middle ground.
Sacresants perhaps epitomise this poor design the best. Sure, they can absorb a bit more damage, and pump out more wounds than our other options; but both these are still very middling in the larger context of our forces. Repentia massively out damage them, and I'd argue that Arcos are just as survivable with their 2W and 4+ FNP. Yes we can take a character to push the sacresants a little bit in either direction, but for some reason we are denied the option of doubling down on either the survivability or damage output.
We have better options for dealing damage. Repentia, Arcos, seraphim, Zephyrim, exorcists, mortifiers all hit harder and can be further tuned in that direction. Sacresants can be used as a tarpit to some extent, but the lack of leader options and the unit size restrictions kinda put the brakes on this.
If you have to take them to use your collection, I would honestly just stick a min squad with a palatine somewhere near a midfield objective and use them either as a counter charge threat or a speedbump for a more threatening unit.
I do not have enough Exorcists in my collection currently, and my hobby dollars are sparse for the next few months, so would a Castigator fit into a similar role even if it isn't as good?
Vilgeir wrote: I do not have enough Exorcists in my collection currently, and my hobby dollars are sparse for the next few months, so would a Castigator fit into a similar role even if it isn't as good?
Or extra Immolators?
Both of those are good. Exos just got more of a glow up because they got Indirect fire
I just want to check that I am not missing anything. I have a fun army that is heavily flamer-based. Am I right in thinking that none of the character units do anything offensively for flamers? If I have a retributor squad with four heavy flamers then, as far as I can see, none of the character abilities are of any use to them. The palatine used to help, but not any more.
Basically tabled him, but had trouble scoring the first few turns.
Unit by unit: Celestine and 5 Zeph are surprisingly useful. I think it might be better than 10 because they'll still wreck favorable targets without being a 300pt investment. The shenanigans with the Geminae are also fun.
Seraphim are truly absurd. Easily my current favorite unit. Was killing 2 infantry squads every battle round and was insane for objective play. Glad I have 25 now.
Immolator was fine, rets were meh. Rets need a very specific target (like a Land Raider, or a pricey Leman Russ) to be worth it because they're only shooting once.
Both the Pengine and the Mortie were very useful.
Crusaders are great. Can't argue with them for 20pts.
Rolled an absurd number of 6s for miracle dice, so that was very lucky, and as a result was able to use almost all the ones I had.
Had exactly 2 units actually get to use the +1 to wound from HM. +1 to hit didn't really matter.
ERJAK wrote: Celestine and 5 Zeph are surprisingly useful. I think it might be better than 10 because they'll still wreck favorable targets without being a 300pt investment. The shenanigans with the Geminae are also fun.
Do you mean at 1000 pts specifically, or are you also thinking to go this way for 2000 point games? I would be concerned with durability but I imagine anything that would blast through five bodyguards could probably do the same to ten anyway. My next chance to play won't be for a few more weeks, so I'm eager to learn from others with more opportunities to get games in.
ERJAK wrote: Celestine and 5 Zeph are surprisingly useful. I think it might be better than 10 because they'll still wreck favorable targets without being a 300pt investment. The shenanigans with the Geminae are also fun.
Do you mean at 1000 pts specifically, or are you also thinking to go this way for 2000 point games? I would be concerned with durability but I imagine anything that would blast through five bodyguards could probably do the same to ten anyway. My next chance to play won't be for a few more weeks, so I'm eager to learn from others with more opportunities to get games in.
The unit is a scalpel. It's best for attacking flanks and taking objectives back that have already suffered some chip damage. It's okay into rhino/razorback type vehicles, but excels at stealing objectives from GEQ squads, MSU marine squads, or wounded Terminator units. Anything heartier than that and you should soften them up first or give the unit a wide berth. Also, you need to exploit cover and LoS blocking as much as possible to keep them alive for any significant amount of time.
Adding 5 more models doesn't really change any of that, it just makes it better at the first thing(killing) while be worse at the second thing(hiding). Therefore, I don't see myself using 10 until points come down.
I might take 2 more squads of 5 though. Fast movers are very strong with tactical objectives.
Played my first game of 10th last night vs Orks, 1500pts. It was a pretty casual game and this was only the 2nd game my opponent had ever played of 40k and he hadn't familiarized himself as well as I had with our armies, so there was some skew in my favour. I ended up winning, killing most of his units by Turn 5, but (predictably) my infantry suffered heavy losses through the game.
My list was: Triumph of St Katherine 10 Battle Sisters (Flamer, Heavy Flamer, Power Sword + Condemnor)
Palatine (Litanies of Faith) 10 Celestian Sacresants
10 Dominions (Storm Bolters, Power Sword + Combi-weapon) Immolator (Multi-meltas)
I had a few things I wanted to test in this battle: -Triumph: legit? -How tough is Palatine with Sacresants? -Exorcist vs Castigator? -Are Repentia screwed this edition?
Triumph did really well, I was rocking the +1A rapid fire and 6+ FNP relics all game and I had like 4 units in range of my aura on the first turn so I was getting a lot of value out of it. Its 18A and 18W is also just ridiculous, it's basically tripling the wounds on a Battle Sister squad just by existing and its damage output is pretty decent at that. So glad this is finally a viable unit in the army (in a casual setting anyway, all my analysis here is from that perspective).
Palatine + Sacresants were extremely hard to crack. -1 to wound mattered a lot because every gun and melee weapon the Orks put at me would have been wounding on 2s and 3s, which lost them a lot of potential damage. In return, the Lethal Hits and the Palatine's mortal wound ability scored me way more Meganobz kills than I was expecting it to. Honestly, not a bad investment for 210 (with Litanies of Faith), I wanted them to take a lot of heat and they did so brilliantly.
Exorcist was definitely more impactful than the Castigator. The Castigator maybe got 1 wound off a Battle Wagon, but it honestly had more impact killing infantry even with the battle cannon. Meanwhile, 170pts for the Exorcist is still worth it, it blasted everything I wanted it to with little effort (helped that I was rolling like 5 or 6s for my number of shots) and they really couldn't do much about it being in cover.
For Repentia... the jury's out, I reserved them, then they came in and failed a charge, but didn't get to do anything because their target died next turn. Only lost 3 Repentia off the squad to Ork shooting and an exploding Battlewagon.
All-in-all, I was surprised at how well the Sisters did compared to my expectations, but hot damn are our infantry (barring Sacresants) extremely fragile. Oh, other thoughts - 5+ to wound tanks is definitely brutal, I was kinda lucky that the Orks had the same issue (for my vehicles I only lost 1 Mortifier in the whole battle and the Immolator had 1 wound left). This is part of the reason why the Exorcist is so good, 4+ to wound a lot of tanks makes it even more reliable.
It's a weird list, especially with the missionary apparently attaching to either the BSS or the Crusaders? (It's possible the attachment was something illegal, but we'll assume it wasn't for the analysis). Also, some of the games seem incredibly low scoring for victories.
If I had to guess, I'd say the Rets are outflanking or hiding with the Triumph, waiting for opportunistic shots. I think you put the Repentia in the Rhinos. No Seraphim seems silly to me. Still hate sacresants, but hey, worked this time.
There's a lot of good objective control here and the two units of BSS with the Triumph are surprisingly effective at taking out GEQ models.
To go 4-1 at a large tournament is no easy feat, regardless of army, and is certainly a testament to the players skill. However, the matchups you find yourself in are also very important.
Round 1 was against a sort of 'this is what I have' Thunderwolf list with a ton of terminator characters. 44pts in a win, opponent ended up second to last.
Round 2 was against Custodes with 2 big blobs. 54pt win, opponent ended up 2-2-1. Custodes are a strong army, but this list relied too much on Fights First guarding objectives, which sisters can sort of bypass using suffering and sacrifice. I imagine the repentia went pretty hard this game, actually.
Round 3 was against an extremely infantry heavy GSC list. Another really good army, but another strong matchup for sisters, compared to something like Eldar. I imagine that Repentia and BSS with extra shots from the triumph did a lot of work here. 75pt win, opponent actually finished 4th. Probably the most impressive win of the day.
Round 4 was against a Guard vehicle skew. Baneblade+Dorn tanks+Basilisks. I imagine he popped one or two tanks pretty quickly and then just outscored the rest. The tanks didn't have great profiles for killing SoB statlines, which doesn't help. 49pt win, opponent took 22nd.
Round 5. Tsons. 53 to 76. Bad matchup for any sisters lists, but especially this one. Winner took 3rd.
based off the scores, the player focused more on denying his opponent points than scoring his own. Add some favorable matchups and you have a pretty solid run of a list punching above its weight.
I have a friend who's really struggling with his SoB against our local meta (Orks, Necrons and Eldar atm), since a lot of killing power of meltas has dropped and they're really floundering on what units can act as proper hammers/anvils now that things are either much more expensive for the cost or feel much more pillow fisted compared to 9th. This thread has already been pretty helpful in compiling some combos but I did want a general consensus of what some of the major toolkits/strats you guys have been using that might be useful for him.
So far I've been able to get some of the following as the top competing units:
Celestine 1-2 Exorcists in backfield shooting at vulnerable units. Seraphim (usually 2 units, some can be max 10, or MSU 5) Retributors, usually with Dialogus Repentia, usually in a Rhino combo'ed with Holy Rage Triumph to help generate 6's for MD and opportunities to blow your load on a unit for MD multiple times and provide additional auras for different situations.
I've seen somewhat mixed approaches in people using MSU mortifiers/penitent engines, and some who have arco flagellants with a preacher. Is there anything I missed or further suggestions from you guys? A sample 1500 points list would be great for what might be good for a beginner.
Vilgeir wrote: With the way so many different weapon options got rolled into a single profile for many armies, I had hoped that Exorcists would simply allow you to choose which missile to use when firing rather than at army construction.
I suppose there's still a slim chance that this occurs come Codex time, but that will be a while yet.
Unlikely as they have different builds using the kit. You can model either the small missiles or the big missiles.
As for the codex as a whole here is my thoughts.
The basic means of getting miracle dice, i.e. where your own units have to die is terrible from a game design standpoint. A primary mechanic for a faction where you have to be lsing to get the most out of it is just feels bad. It actively punishes you if you are doing well. The mechanic also scales really badly with larger games.
The other faction mechanic where you get bonuses for squads being damaged is also kinda bad as Sisters units tend to be really fragile making it unreliable at best.
The strange limitations as to which squads characters can attach to are both annoying as well a ripe for accidental illegal plays as theres seems to be no pattern, it just seems arbitary.
Most units special rules seem kinda bad and dont synergise well with what seems to be their intended role. Examples being Retributers seem to be designed to jump out an immolater and erase something yet the immolaters special rule of granting rerolls makes the retributers redundant. Also Mortifiers gain sustained hits when they charge but penitant engines just get it by default with the exact same weapon? Its like they couldnt think of a rule to to give Mortifiers.
Alot of units are either overcosted, punished by squad size restriction or by only working if they have a specific character with them (Sacrosants not getting a 2+ unless they have a character with them) which can translate to being a tax to use the unit in what seems to be its intended role? (Again sacroscants seem to be intended as a bodyguard for a cannoness but need a different character attached to get a 2+ and cannoness are not even really worth guarding.
I will not go into the the multimelta problem as that will just result in a rant, but a lack or reliable high strength ranged options and our melee units being mediocre at best is a major weakness.
Overall the current 10th edition codex is flawed at best and often just feels bad to play. While it may be possible to find some gimmicky list that kinda works to exploit some of the mechanics (spamming 2 man crusader squads to farm miracle dice for example) The index itself makes it feel bad to try and play Sisters as faction using their iconic models and units. Note most proposed "good" lists have very few actual battle sisters in them.
Also true of the Whirlwind, which used to have different missiles represented with different sized missiles on the model.
Now it just has a single profile.
Shoot. I've been holding off on fielding my sisters because of the melta nerf. I just realized that basic sister squads became min squad size 10 at some point. And I just finished building the trio of immolators that I wanted at the core of my army.
Am I just screwed until I invest in some elites that can fit inside the immolators?
Just note you still need 10 models for your Battle Sister and Dominion squads. The Immolator allows you to split those squads in half, with half starting in an Immolator and the second half wherever you want them, even in a different Immolator.
On the Tactics side, I got in my first game of 10th with my Sister of Battle. It was a slaughterfest against unoptimized Space Marines. I squeezed out a victory in the Core Rules scenerio against the Marines mostly because I had two objectives in my deployment zone to his one. This allowed me to keep the third objective contested all game long even after he tagged and ran the one in his zone. Things are learned are:
Sister have no good anti-tank options. Meltaguns and Multi-melta burn through Space Marines, even Terminators, but just don't cut it against a real tank (like a Sicaran Battle Tank). The Exorcist is also much more useful helping them stop scoop up their marines than trying to hurt a tank. Our melee options are fragile, making them bullet magnets. Seraphim with Saint Celestine are a good combination. They bring weight of fire while she brings the melee.
And most importantly, use those Faith Dice. They come fast and furious, so don't be afraid to use them.
alextroy wrote: Just note you still need 10 models for your Battle Sister and Dominion squads. The Immolator allows you to split those squads in half, with half starting in an Immolator and the second half wherever you want them, even in a different Immolator.
On the Tactics side, I got in my first game of 10th with my Sister of Battle. It was a slaughterfest against unoptimized Space Marines. I squeezed out a victory in the Core Rules scenerio against the Marines mostly because I had two objectives in my deployment zone to his one. This allowed me to keep the third objective contested all game long even after he tagged and ran the one in his zone. Things are learned are:
Sister have no good anti-tank options. Meltaguns and Multi-melta burn through Space Marines, even Terminators, but just don't cut it against a real tank (like a Sicaran Battle Tank). The Exorcist is also much more useful helping them stop scoop up their marines than trying to hurt a tank. Our melee options are fragile, making them bullet magnets. Seraphim with Saint Celestine are a good combination. They bring weight of fire while she brings the melee.
And most importantly, use those Faith Dice. They come fast and furious, so don't be afraid to use them.
Thanks for the report! With that in mind, do you think it's viable to basically give up on hurting enemy vehicles and instead focus on clearing their infantry and winning by standing on objectives slightly more often than they do?
Personally I was thinking that hurting vehicles with meltas is a good use of Miracle Dice. Guarantee a successful wound roll. It's not a perfect plan, especially if the enemy vehicle in question has a good invulnerable save and might just shrug it anyway, but it beats only wounding a third of the time with our hardest-hitting weapons.
The need for anti-tank is part of why I think a unit of Paragons with Morvenn Vahl is almost an auto-include. 6 Multi-melta shots that reroll all hit and wounds is decently reliable (plus you get 2 krak missiles and the shoulder grenade launchers), and you can clean up in melee against anything short of a big Knight. That package is expensive, but I would run it if I were to run Sisters in 10th.
The only flaw I see there is that T6, Sv 2+/4+ will be a magnet for all the light AT in your opponent’s army. Might even get heavy AT fired at it. At 4 wounds each over 3 models, I fear for how long the Paragons can survive.
ph34r wrote: Given that meltas and multi-meltas are now quite bad vs tanks, is there any possibility that the bolt weapons are a viable alternative?
By which I mean, storm bolters and heavy bolters for battle sisters, retributors, etc. My gut says they’re probably terrible but I figured I’d ask.
HB are good on castigators. Basically because they're free. But 4 HB on a squad for 130 points and for 5 wounds in 3 toughness... Well I'd say it's pretty worthless. Bolt weapons against vehicles to wound on 6 without any re-rolls you can take a shot but I don't believe in that tactic. As antitank we have castigators and exorcist. Yeah they're not as good as it seems but you can also try armigers
Big Points Changes for the Adepta Sorortas with the new MFM:
Average Points Change: -4%
Average Points Change (non-zero): -7%
Average Points Change (reductions only): -12%
Our two units with points increases are Crusaders (+25% to 25 per 2 models) and the Exorcist (+14% or 160 points).
The units with no points deductions are: a full squad of Acro-flaggents, Celestants Sacresants, Daemonifuge, Death Cult Assassins, Mortifiers, Penitent Engines, Seraphim, and Zephrim.
The last 1000 point list I made dropped 50 points.
Not sure having more stuff is going to help us when we still can't reliably kill anything big. At least the Towering changes will keep our units from being wiped out from across the map by Knights, and Desolation Squads have been sent to the bone zone and therefore don't get to just wipe out our squads for free anymore.
alextroy wrote: Big Points Changes for the Adepta Sorortas with the new MFM:
Average Points Change: -4%
Average Points Change (non-zero): -7%
Average Points Change (reductions only): -12%
Our two units with points increases are Crusaders (+25% to 25 per 2 models) and the Exorcist (+14% or 160 points).
The units with no points deductions are: a full squad of Acro-flaggents, Celestants Sacresants, Daemonifuge, Death Cult Assassins, Mortifiers, Penitent Engines, Seraphim, and Zephrim.
The last 1000 point list I made dropped 50 points.
Arco-flagellants went down from 150 for 10 to 130 for 10. With 2 wounds and a 4+ shrug, they're deceptively durable. Definitely one of the better units in the index already prior to the points reduction.
So I have been seeing most post balance dataslate faction tier lists from the major 40k Youtuber community placing us at the very bottom lately. While I agree that point cuts alone are not enough to fix the faction especially when compared to the other help the factions lower than us received (however minimal it was), I still think we have some kind of play into most of the C tier armies and below at least. While we will give up assassinate and bring it down pretty regularly I still think our armor is good enough to be "spammed" with the points cuts or we just play massed infantry lists that just try to win through sheer board control. I am not saying we are winning any major GTs or anything, but I don't think we are truly the "worst faction" in the game right now.
How do others feel? Again, I concede we are probably one of the lowest tier factions especially from a purely competitive perspective, but I still think we are above a few other armies despite what the dataslate gave them.
I think armour is bad choice largely because there are other factions who do armour better especially once sm get there codex. I also don't like giving up two secondaries it just makes it easy for your opponent.
Board control I think is therefore the better strategy. But the strength of that strategy is going to be dependent on your opponent's list and anyone tabling you before turn 3 will win.
As for worse factions I'd go admech and imperial knights and that's only because knights were balanced even sub par in a competitive setting but got triple nerfed
They are usually not as good so you probably won't unless you play into lists that give away both bring it down and assassinate. Either on its own is fine both and yout giving your opponent easy mode.
U02dah4 wrote: They are usually not as good so you probably won't unless you play into lists that give away both bring it down and assassinate. Either on its own is fine both and yout giving your opponent easy mode.
One of the best performing lists this last weekend was like 35pts of bring it down and 25pts of assassinate. So it's not impossible to win against someone who goes fixed, even with skew.
Not impossible but given the number of shooty lists your makeing it hard for yourself.
If you have one kill mission the opponent has to devote some resource to action or board control if they want fixed. If you have two they only need to shoot you off the table which plays nicely to eldar, tau, ik, ck, sm lists as they can effectively ignore secondary and just try and wipe you.
I get its difficult celestine is potentially worth 8 assasinate as is any character you divine intervention.
vahl and warsuits is 4 assasinate and 8 bring it down or if you devine intervention 8 assasinate and 10 bring it down.
U02dah4 wrote: Not impossible but given the number of shooty lists your makeing it hard for yourself.
If you have one kill mission the opponent has to devote some resource to action or board control if they want fixed. If you have two they only need to shoot you off the table which plays nicely to eldar, tau, ik, ck, sm lists as they can effectively ignore secondary and just try and wipe you.
I get its difficult celestine is potentially worth 8 assasinate as is any character you divine intervention.
vahl and warsuits is 4 assasinate and 8 bring it down or if you devine intervention 8 assasinate and 10 bring it down.
All of which has been determined to be mostly irrelevant by every top placing Sisters list we've seen so far.
Truly, our non-jump infantry is so bad that most competitive players participating in tournament post points drop have decided that giving 40 relatively easy secondary points is worth not being forced to run battle sisters, more than 1 unit of sacresants, or novitiates.
For me unless points changes get to silly levels it wont matter because half our units just don't really do anything.
Dominions got cheaper? They still have no damage output.
Retributers? Unless I can buy about 3 of them for the price of 1 that tank is still not going down...
I find I always have at least 1 Exorcist, it is so valuable at forcing opponents to close in. Vahl and a squad of Paragon suits is auto-include, the amount of damage they do in shooting alone is bonkers! Junith giving a free CP every round means more Grenades, Tank Shock and Overwatch. More than makes up for her cost, -1 to hit to her squad makes her great to chill in the back with a split 5-sister squad to farm miracle dice and stick around.
Penitant Engines getting to advance, flame and charge is great. Haven't had much luck with Celestine and a Zephyrim squad, I think I will try Seraphim and see if that makes a difference.
Game-wise, my biggest weakness is being aggressive too early. Each time I try to charge up the board I open too much. A few little units (Daemonifuge, Penitant Engine, Seraphim) keep the opponent from honing in too hard, force them to get close and the counter-punch is good. Mass melta is pretty swingy, Immolators when ignored are pretty good damage dealers too. The bonus to wound rolls on disembarked models is pretty great, and can always jump back in and go again!
Haven't had too much luck with Repentia/Sacresants/Dominions/Retributors yet, going to see in my next game if a hospitaller/Junith/10Sacresant blob can be fun.
A game against big demons I got dumpstered, then I flipped the script on the next one (I have a feeling the deployment being longer helped me get more shooting in).
How have people found the Triumph? I was playing some narrative games so I haven't used it quite yet.
I agree we can't win by out shooting Armour therefore I feel the focus needs to be on flooding the mid board and controlling objectives and and passive scoring through clense/Deploy teleport Homers and part of that means preventing your opponent maxing there secondary's. The positive news is that with IK out the meta all Armour match ups should be slightly less frequent.
And to the early comment pt reductions can make all the difference to this strategy the more models I have the harder it is for my opponent to wipe me. I'm trying to wipe my opponent i'm only trying to survive long enough. If I can only survive till T2 my opponent has won by a mile T3 its a small loss T4 A small win and T5 a big win.
So, all of the Sisters lists that are doing well on paper are wacky. In response, I played a game today with one of the more experienced players in my area rocking Custodes (Which I was blind on), using a sort of hodge podge of what I'd seen in the other lists.
I had Junith+Imagifier+Melta BSS squad, Murder Palatine+Melta BSS squad, Immo with Split BSS squad, Celestine+Seraphim, Morvenn+Paragons, 10 Arcos in a Rhino, 2 Individual Morties, Rets in an Immo, Castigator, Exorcist.
He had a pretty standard Custodes list with 2 of the forgeworld tanks.
I ended up winning on points, but also shaving him down to just the two tanks left. Sites of Power, GW terrain layout 4, Hammer and Anvil.
Finer Points:
Morvenn and the Paragons: If used very carefully, punch absurdly above their weight. I never even charged with them and I was mulching through things. For 325pts they do an unbelievable amount of work. That said, I got was able to avoid letting them take damage for most of the game. They're still fragile so you need to know basically your first 3 movement phases with them on deployment.
Jun+Imagifier+Melta BSS. I 100% admit I was sleeping on battle sisters. The OC, extra miracle dice, and decent midrange damage output are way better than they look on paper. This unit wasn't particularly successful this game, but that was down to my poor movement, not the unit itself.
Palatine+Blade+Melta BSS. I massively underrated the palatine with blade. I wish she had 4 wounds so you could plasma her on purpose, but alas...anyway, her sword with the Blade of Saint Ellynor does decent damage on its own, combine that with rapturous blows and she was single handedly threatening (weakened) custodes units. I rolled REALLY poorly with her, too. If I had a little more luck, she would have been a monster.
Love immos at 115. I just wish I could combat squad 2 BSS units and still fit rets into them. The one with the BSS gave me backline objective holders, 5 victory points at the beginning of the game, and extra miracle dice every turn. I would probably take that combo every game.
Rets in an Immo. I fethed up their disembark and didn't get the rerolls and they still did good work. Not my favorite unit, but the only other thing that does what they do is Morvenn.
Arcos...hilarious. That FNP is so obnoxious. Ate TWENTY 2 damage attacks and had 2 live because they're so frustrating to get rid of. Damage was useless against Custodes, but I still loved having them on the board.
Morties were great for cleaning up assassins and other light backfield problems.
Celestine and Seraphim were good for objective control on the backline. I didn't use them the best I could have. Want more practice with them.
Castigator was nice for some longer range damage projection.
Exorcist is awesome.
What was most interesting for me was how much it played out like the battle of Cannae. He dove into the center of my lines, the center held, then I was able to killbox toward the middle. I was pushed into my own deployment zone for the first 2.5 turns, but had the tools to break his lines.
It feels like it shouldn't work, but it worked pretty well.
Well had my first sisters tourney of 8th at the weekend came 8th overall losing 2 games.
I played Cleanse and deploy teleport homers every round except vs CK when I swapped cleanse for bring it down. The main strategy was to flood the central objectives with bodies. The triumph and demonifuge were both awesome. I always held the two arcoflagellant squads in reserve along side one seraphim squad and demonifuge.
One game was lost to the purge (I scored 62 and lost on primary as he got kill more every turn) the other loss was to death guard on search and destroy the DG player went 1st and got on to the centre objective and by spamming -1to hit and WS/BS managed to hold it to win on primary (76 wasn't quite enough but it was a really close game). I absolutely massacred Chaos knights armiger spam (97-26) who just could not take any of the middle objectives with two comfortable wins vs marines (98 and hoard nids (96) who were just out tanked)
List was
Demonifuge
3 Imagifiers
3 Hospitallers
Celestine
Missionary (with shotgun)
Triumph of Saint Katherine
6 Battle sisters (Melta)
3 Novitiates (Flamer/CC)
3 Seraphim (5) (Flamer)
2 Arcoflagellants (10)
1 zephyrim (5)
1 Crusader (2)
Overall Celestine and the zephyrim didn't do anything that a 3rd arcoflagelant squad couldn't have done. So I will make that change that frees enough pts to swap the crusaders for Junith as the back line objective holder to give me CP for the grenade strat and the ability to come back from the dead and hold an objective one more turn vs inceptor type DS shooters, This leaves 10 pts for saintly example on the missionary as he was always one of the first characters to die.
Asside from that the only significant things were that at the start of the event I was using the old version of teleport homers by mistake and in one game I brought back the wrong character preventing me from teleport homering had I not made those mistakes I it would have placed me 7th on tiebreakers instead of 8th.
Overall really happy with the list and it was fun to play and I like that it shows you can do well despite not taking any of the vehicles
I wanted to come in and share my experiences with sisters here. I have played the following list 4 times now and won all 4 games. I played vs guard, world eaters, tyranids, and necrons.
Spoiler:
2k Sisters of the Machine (1995 points)
Adepta Sororitas
Strike Force (2000 points)
Hallowed Martyrs
CHARACTERS
Saint Celestine (135 points)
• 1x Celestine
• 1x The Ardent Blade
• 2x Geminae Superia
• 2x Bolt pistol
2x Power weapon
Triumph of Saint Katherine (125 points)
• Warlord
• 1x Bolt pistols
1x Relic weapons
BATTLELINE
Battle Sisters Squad (100 points)
• 1x Sister Superior
• 1x Bolt pistol
1x Close combat weapon
1x Plasma pistol
1x Power weapon
• 9x Battle Sister
• 9x Bolt pistol
7x Boltgun
9x Close combat weapon
1x Ministorum flamer
1x Ministorum heavy flamer
1x Simulacrum Imperialis
Zephyrim Squad (140 points)
• 1x Zephyrim Superior
• 1x Plasma pistol
1x Power weapon
1x Sacred Banner
• 9x Zephyrim
• 9x Bolt pistol
9x Power weapon
Exported with App Version: v1.8.0 (32), Data Version: v317
I put the melta gun dominions into the immolators and leave the bolter girls as separate units. This gives the immolators scout 6" beginning of game (useful) and if I go first (which I have twice) they are able to really get up close, drop the meltas off, then thanks to the immolator ability for rerolling wound rolls those melta will do some serious work. Wounding on 5's sucks, wounding on 5's with full reroll.... thats money.
The castigators i alway take autocannons. Again thanks to twin linked i would rather have str 9 and normally 8 shots (i play them for the mid field) over the battle cannon. The chip damage these things can do adds up quick and obviously it also removes enemy infantry very quickly.
Exorcist hang back in own deployment zone. Small 5 man sister squads move around them for screening purposes. Crusaders hang out in my back corners for again screening and investigate signals if that comes up.
Finally Celestine and her girls deep strike when a target of opportunity appears or if my opponent is pushing through and one of my flanks need support.
I think sisters are fine at the moment, I think the issue is gw made the cc sister units much harder to get value from in an edition change that completely changed how we were running sisters. 9th edition we were using a lot of melee tricks to get the job done. 10th edition we need to go back to shooting and the melee stuff just isn't quite as good.
Yeah the only melee stuff that seems to be working (aside from action monkey Crusader/DCA units) is big bricks of Arco-Flagellants. Repentia, Sacresants, and to a certain extent Zephyrim are all taking a back seat. It's made it where I can't really play competitively with my current Sisters collection, as I lack the current meta goodstuff (I have no Castigators or Immolators and only one Exorcist, but plenty of Sacresants and Repentia).
Game 1: Mixed Guard with a shadowsword. Couldn't really hurt the shadowsword, killed everything else. Guard Artillery gets absolutely shredded by Exorcist fire and can't afford to shoot back for fear of making it even stronger. Won the middle, won the game.
Game 2: Guard Parking Lot, terrible matchup for me. Still might have taken it if I hadn't failed both the Palatine AND Morvenn's squad charging on turn 2. Couldn't survive the sustained fire, couldn't shred the armor fast enough.
Game 3: Custode. Incredibly close until Morvenn landed 6 Dev wounds in one round and wiped a full squad.
I need a lot more practice with the army. I straight up didn't use my combis or Cherubs, didn't use my strats very often, didn't use the mission deck well, didn't really know the primaries, forgot twin linked on a BUNCH of guns. Wasn't great, but the army still played REALLY well. I want to try it again soon.
I MIGHT drop the Triumph and the Preacher for more anti-tank, but not sure yet. I also just might make it a Saintly Blessing missionary and attach it to one of the junk squads for 2d3+1 Miracle Dice if I save a CP for DI.
Depends on the role of the unit the superior is in. For passive units meant for actions/ babysitting home objective I'd go vor one of the 24" guns, favorably the condemnor because it helps against targets we might struggle against (tough monsters are often psykers), although basically neither choice will have a big impact on the game. For units going close and personal (dominions with flamer or melta), I'd go with hand flamers. Inferno Pistol is just to bad with low range, 3" melta range and d3D - I only take it on my sacresant superior as a surprise shot in engagement range.
Hey guys so I am finally back to playing more standard sized games. I took about 4 months or so off from them due to a myriad of IRL commitments and instead participated in a Combat Patrol League at my FLGS but I am getting back into 2k games again now that I finally have the time.
I have played a few games so far against the new Marine Hellblaster spam and TSons Cabal/Flamer spam with Magnus and got rocked that latter matchup especially. The marine matchup was way better and honestly without a few key misplays in the final turn (like forgetting to tank shock onto an objective) I probably win since it was so close, but the TSons cabal/flamer spam with double move/doombolt was rough to deal with. My luck was pretty terrible until about Turn 3 but even with some more average rolls I think I would still narrowly lose. I am trying to come up with more list ideas but honestly while my collection is fairly large I just have no interest in playing any Arcos or the Triumph or Junith or even Morties usually, though I will play them over Pengines at least. I would need more Arcos to run a full squad and I have no intention of getting 30 and then I also just do not enjoy the Triumph or Junith models so I have never picked them up. I was wondering if anyone had any advice on certain more competitive list builds that include most of the units I have and would like to use. For reference I am usually bringing the following in most of my lists (obviously in different combinations as I test different things):
-Vahl with Paragon Suits (usually with a mace for tank shock)
-Celestine with either Zephyrim or Hand Flamer Seraphim
-2 Exorcists (with the good missile launchers)
-1-2 Battle Cannon Castigators (sometimes I play 1 with Autocannons)
-1-2 Immolators
-2-3 BSS w/Meltas
-Palatine with the Blade
-1-2 MM Retributor Squads
-An additional HF Seraphim squad
-Sacresants
-Dominions
-1-2 Rhinos
-Dialogus with one of the Rets
These are usually the models I am running in most of my lists and usually the models I most enjoy playing. I will split BSS or Dominions in the Immolators and usually have the Palatine run with either Sacresants or Dominions but I want to try how she does with a BSS too. My base setup in any list is usually Vahl+Suits, Celestine+Zeph/Seraph, 2 Exorcists, Castigator with Battle Cannon, MM Retributors, 2 BSS w/Melta, Palatine with Blade running with Sacresants or something else, and then an Immolator to split one of the BSS. Then everything else gets mixed in depending on the type of list I am trying out or based on what I might know I am up against.
Honestly coming back into 2k games after several months has just made me feel so rusty and inadequate and I am just looking to see if I am on the right track with list building for us right now. I am not trying to be hyper competitive since I do not plan on getting the big combo models like the Triumph or 30 Arcos, but I also do not want to be building parking lots all the time either. I know that flooding the board with models has been working for us to some degree and have plenty of girls that I can run but I also like to bring at least a few Exorcists, a Castigator, and an Immolator. I guess I am just looking for a semi competitive, well-rounded, all-comers list using the units that I enjoy and primarily know how to use.
Game 1 was Orkz, He Waaghed Turn 1 and sat on the midline objective after I went first and just put some junk bus units on the objective. Giving Sisters a free counter punch is a bad idea. Tabled turn 4. Also, I had just an insane setup for the 'I choose who you fight' strat.
Game 2 was also Orkz. He Waaghed turn, but it was Hammer and Anvil so he probably should have waited until turn 3. Ended up winning on points, though he scored very well by flooding the midline.
Game 3 was Votann. Hammer and Anvil made this really hard, but I was only slightly behind when it was time for Morvenn and her Suits to come in from outflank...problem was there wasn't a single useful position for them to come in. Because I wasn't able to bring them in...I wasn't able to clear him off the objective enough to reel the score back in. I would have tabled him turn 6 but he was up 91 to 44.
Pretty good event, all things considered: Changes: Deployment game 3 was bad. Put the Triumph squad up front and the Palatine squad in back for reasons I no longer understand.
Retributors are bad. I never got anything useful out of them. Another BSS with the Immo is just better.
The junk bus was still awesome, but I actually had a pretty serious issue getting people to kill the character for the blessing bonus dice.
Either adding an Imagifier/Hospitaller and a unit of Crusaders, or dropping a unit of Crusaders and adding Junith would probably be better than trying to exploit the Saintly Blessing thing.
So looks like we are getting a Jump Canoness, which is definitely nice though the model is kind of meh imo.
More importantly it looks like our codex is only going to have 4 detachments, one based on jump infantry, one based on repentia and other melee focused units, and one based on the holy trinity of weapons along with supposedly a slightly tweaked version of the Hallowed Martyrs detachment. Overall it seems like a bit of a disappointment but we obviously won't know anything until the book either comes out or leaks over the next few weeks along with the standard warcom articles. I was really hoping for 6 detachments at least themed on the main orders but if they at least give us decent detachments in these 4, similar to the Tau codex, then I think it could be fine.
What are we thinking so far? Worst case we become the next Custodes codex I guess lol
I got used to six sub-groups over 8th and 9th, and I miss that. I really like Sacred Rose, with their focus on serenity, and now that's gone. Also, Argent Shroud's speed/ mobility niche will be missed.
However, I've always had a kick for Penitent Legions, and I like the idea of an angelic jump force, and none of the old six were exactly those things, though Bloody Rose was a good fit for a penitent legion since penitent units tend to be close combat focused...
Anyway, I'm likely to have a Cult of Martyrs detachment and a Penitent Legion and a Angel detachment. Sisters are my primary, and I've really been trying to step up building and painting. The Penitent Legion will be heavy on walkers, and will include cameos from Karamazov and Arbites.
I just hope something works well with the current collection of models I have; my stuff is more optimized for last edition and a lot of it isn't terribly good in 10th, and financially I'm in a bit of a bind and can't just go get more models. Otherwise I'm gonna stick with my Dark Angels for this edition, as at least they have some workable builds that my collection will support.
