Celestine - Phenomenal IC - The Best Per Point?

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**ERJAK**

Fruzzle wrote:
she's really boot that strong. what people are missing:

gemina must take wounds first.
gemina are not eternal warrior
gemina are not independent characters.
gemina have 3+ save

neither celestine not.grmina has ap2
celestine is str5, gemina str 3.
3 scatbikes will kill gaming in one turn.

they'll clean marines real good, and that's about it.

EDIT: If you can kill 2 marines and 5 terminators you can kill celestine.

2 marines and 5 terminators are more expensive then she is.

**kingbobbito**

koooaei wrote:
If you theoryhammer a bit, celestine can pretty reliably down an imperial knight. If she's lucky than two. And she still has H&R and speed to avoid any 2+.

If you think she's not resilient enough, it takes > 1000 pts of scatterbikers to kill her in one volley. And the longer you try to kill her, the more girls she resurrects.

She's top cheeze.

Oh look, more made up numbers. 11 shots to kill her bodyguards (11 shots, 7.3 hits 6.1 wounds 2 failed saves), 54 to kill celestine (54 shots, 36 hits, 30 wounds, 5 failed saves) . 65 shots, so ~16 bikes, or 432 points. I didn't realize 432 was over 1000.

**Waaaghpower**

kingbobbito wrote:
koooaei wrote:
If you theoryhammer a bit, celestine can pretty reliably down an imperial knight. If she's lucky than two. And she still has H&R and speed to avoid any 2+.

If you think she's not resilient enough, it takes > 1000 pts of scatterbikers to kill her in one volley. And the longer you try to kill her, the more girls she resurrects.

She's top cheeze.

Oh look, more made up numbers. 11 shots to kill her bodyguards (11 shots, 7.3 hits 6.1 wounds 2 failed saves), 54 to kill celestine (54 shots, 36 hits, 30 wounds, 5 failed saves) . 65 shots, so ~16 bikes, or 432 points. I didn't realize 432 was over 1000.

That's to kill her once. You don't kill Celestine once, you kill her twice. Now, that happens on two different turns, so you don't necessarily need two squads, and that's only 864 points, not 1000, but you can't do the mathhammer while leaving out her regenerative powers.

But no, she can't kill a Knight. 6 attacks on the charge will get 4.7 hits (Master Crafted), and she has S5, so will get a Glancing or Penetrating Hit 5/12 of the time, or twice. The Knight will kill both of her guards. Next combat, she deals *less* than two wounds, and the Knight just needs one '6' result between four attacks (an average of two hits) and d3 Stomps (on average, two more.) Even if he doesn't, he's dealing at least 3 wounds.
Next combat, she will only finish off the knight if she's had above average dice. Otherwise, she and her regenerated Gemeni die.

So then she regenerates and finishes off the Knight, right? But you're forgetting something: This is all assuming that Celestine charges and never gets shot. One volley from any variety of Knight would kill her Gemeni and probably wound Celestine before combat even begins. Even then, it's no garuntee she can charge. If the Knight player gets two turns of shooting, Celestine will be near death before any melee blows are struck.

**kingbobbito**

Waaaghpower wrote:
kingbobbito wrote:
koooaei wrote:
If you theoryhammer a bit, celestine can pretty reliably down an imperial knight. If she's lucky than two. And she still has H&R and speed to avoid any 2+.

If you think she's not resilient enough, it takes > 1000 pts of scatterbikers to kill her in one volley. And the longer you try to kill her, the more girls she resurrects.

She's top cheeze.

Oh look, more made up numbers. 11 shots to kill her bodyguards (11 shots, 7.3 hits 6.1 wounds 2 failed saves), 54 to kill celestine (54 shots, 36 hits, 30 wounds, 5 failed saves) . 65 shots, so ~16 bikes, or 432 points. I didn't realize 432 was over 1000.

That's to kill her once. You don't kill Celestine once, you kill her twice. Now, that happens on two different turns, so you don't necessarily need two squads, and that's only 864 points, not 1000, but you can't do the mathhammer while leaving out her regenerative powers.

Where did I say I was ignoring the regeneration? Nowhere did anyone say "kill her twice", it was just kill her. As in, drop her wounds to 0. You can't kill her twice with a single volley, so why would I do the math behind killing her twice in one volley? There is a 0% chance of killing her twice in one volley. It takes eleventy million bajillion infinity points to guarantee you kill her in one round of shooting. Better?

Regardless, you said it yourself, they'll just kill her as soon as she gets back up. They're scatterbikes, her 12" move isn't going to get her in charge range of them. They shoot her a second time, she's dead. Why would I have 864 points when the original 432 will kill her exactly the same as they did the previous turn?

**Fruzzle**

Waaaghpower wrote:
Fruzzle wrote:
she's really boot that strong. what people are missing:

gemina must take wounds first.
gemina are not eternal warrior
gemina are not independent characters.
gemina have 3+ save

neither celestine not.grmina has ap2
celestine is str5, gemina str 3.
3 scatbikes will kill gaming in one turn.

they'll clean marines real good, and that's about it.

EDIT: If you can kill 2 marines and 5 terminators you can kill celestine.

Except that 3 Scatbikes won't actually put as much of a dent in them as you claim - See, you have to kill the gemeni and put wounds on Celestine. Otherwise, they're just going to regenerate. We're not missing anything. It's not just that the units are durable, it's that they regenerate, and are fast enough to chase down enemies or run away as needed.
Let's try an equal points cost of Scatterbikes against Celestine and her Geminae. 9 Scatterbikes gets 36 shots, which is 24 hits. Of those 24 hits, you get 20 wounds. 6 of those wounds is all you need to kill the Geminae, then it's another 14 wounds against Celestine - Just over 2 wounds on her.
But, now it's Celestine's turn, and she gets to regenerate a Geminae.
So, you shoot again. This time, you manage to kill the Geminae and put just under wounds on her. Yay, she's dead!
Except she gets back up, regenerates another Geminae, and continues on her merry way.
You kill the Geminae AGAIN, and then put three more wounds on her. She gets that Geminae back up.
You kill the Geminae for a fourth time, and finally put Celestine down for good.

That's what it takes. Four uninterrupted turns of fire that isn't blocked or weakened by anything, assuming you take no damage in return, with a unit that is generally considered to be OP in its own right and that is ideally suited to killing Celestine.

If Celestine manages to assault one of your units (Difficult, but certainly not unheard of,) then that unit is going to die, your damage output is going to be reduced, and instead of putting 2-3 wounds on Celestine you're going to be putting maybe one on her. If she kills that unit early enough, you aren't even going to be able to kill her.

And this is also assuming that she's standing out in a vacuum, unsupported, and without anyone else in her army. (Or yours, I suppose, but that gets into a big can of worms that doesn't need to be opened right now about army balance and tactics.)

still the same as killing (Cathapractii) at toughness 3(maybex2). I would shoot scatbikes until Gemini are dead than use other platform (like D or spiders) wraithknight would wreck them in assault.

Any way I'm not disputing she's good. I'm saying she's not OP.

**koooaei**

Wraithknights, supremacy suits and 2++ re-rollable deathstars can also be killed - means they're not op, right?

You're forgetting one little thing. Being ok in cutthroat meta vs top cheeze only means you're ok vs 5% of the units in the game.

She's better than most if not all other IC that cost the same.

**Poly Ranger**

kingbobbito wrote:
Waaaghpower wrote:
kingbobbito wrote:
koooaei wrote:
If you theoryhammer a bit, celestine can pretty reliably down an imperial knight. If she's lucky than two. And she still has H&R and speed to avoid any 2+.

If you think she's not resilient enough, it takes > 1000 pts of scatterbikers to kill her in one volley. And the longer you try to kill her, the more girls she resurrects.

She's top cheeze.

Oh look, more made up numbers. 11 shots to kill her bodyguards (11 shots, 7.3 hits 6.1 wounds 2 failed saves), 54 to kill celestine (54 shots, 36 hits, 30 wounds, 5 failed saves) . 65 shots, so ~16 bikes, or 432 points. I didn't realize 432 was over 1000.

That's to kill her once. You don't kill Celestine once, you kill her twice. Now, that happens on two different turns, so you don't necessarily need two squads, and that's only 864 points, not 1000, but you can't do the mathhammer while leaving out her regenerative powers.
Where did I say I was ignoring the regeneration? Nowhere did anyone say "kill her twice", it was just kill her. As in, drop her wounds to 0. You can't kill her twice with a single volley, so why would I do the math behind killing her twice in one volley? There is a 0% chance of killing her twice in one volley. It takes eleventy million bajillion infinity points to guarantee you kill her in one round of shooting. Better?

Regardless, you said it yourself, they'll just kill her as soon as she gets back up. They're scatterbikes, her 12" move isn't going to get her in charge range of them. They shoot her a second time, she's dead. Why would I have 864 points when the original 432 will kill her exactly the same as they did the previous turn?

Thing is though that's how equivalency works. If it takes 1/4 of your army 2 turns to kill her then if you are talking what will kill her in the equivalent of 1 turn, then it's half your army. And lets just put aside scat bikes being very op and optimal against her a minute... whilst 1/4 of your army is engaged for the (most important) first two turns in taking down 1/9th of the imperial army, that means that your remaining 3/4 is having to deal with 8/9ths of the Imperial army in that time.

As to the 2 marines and 5 termis (realistically at least 3 marines (and even then if you are only facing st6+) and 10 termis), if I could take 10 jp bullet shield termis with 3 bullet shield jp marines for my DC for just 200pts - count me in!

**Waaaghpower**

To the people comparing her to cheezy deathstars:
Bear in mind, this mathhammer all assumes she is standing out, on her own, doing nothing. But she won't be, because she's a force multiplier as well as a tank.
Attach her to a fast close combat unit like Thunderwolves, she and her gemeni make them less tarpittable by providing a bunch of extra attacks.
Attach her to a Command Squad, whose weakness is their mediocre save, and she'll get FNP while they get a huge shield at the front of their squad.
Attach her to something more standard, like Assault Marines, she'll tank damage for them and they'll back her up in H2H.
Attach her to an actual Deathstar, with lots of librarians or some such, she'll become even tankier.

And, at any point, she can detach and go deal with other targets, either tarpitting enemies that lack AP2 or just straight-up killing lighter targets.

**AnomanderRake**

I'm not sure how OP a character who can't duel generic characters from half the books in the game really is. Point her at a generic Chapter Master on a bike with artificer armour and a power fist (195pts) and you'll stall the game out before either one kills the other (both take about 13 phases to finish the other one off, counting Celestine's respawning Geminae).

**Waaaghpower**

AnomanderRake wrote:
I'm not sure how OP a character who can't duel generic characters from half the books in the game really is. Point her at a generic Chapter Master on a bike with artificer armour and a power fist (195pts) and you'll stall the game out before either one kills the other (both take about 13 phases to finish the other one off, counting Celestine's respawning Geminae).

She's... Not a duelist? That's the opposite of her job. That's like saying that Grav-Guns must not be OP because they can't kill Orks.

**A Town Called Malus**

AnomanderRake wrote:
I'm not sure how OP a character who can't duel generic characters from half the books in the game really is. Point her at a generic Chapter Master on a bike with artificer armour and a power fist (195pts) and you'll stall the game out before either one kills the other (both take about 13 phases to finish the other one off, counting Celestine's respawning Geminae).

Well, her tying up a character of roughly equal points cost for an entire game isn't exactly a bad thing.

**pm713**

AnomanderRake wrote:
I'm not sure how OP a character who can't duel generic characters from half the books in the game really is. Point her at a generic Chapter Master on a bike with artificer armour and a power fist (195pts) and you'll stall the game out before either one kills the other (both take about 13 phases to finish the other one off, counting Celestine's respawning Geminae).

Or Hit and Run.

**Marmatag**

Maybe I'm an idiot, and that's entirely possible, but the versatility is nice.

In a game recently, I paired Tigurius with 3 grav-cents, and was casting invisibility and endurance on them. That's not always easy to do, and you can get unlucky with perils, or your warp charge rolls. And assault is still scary.

Now, that's 165 points, to buy these guys a shield.

If I put Celestine in there at 200 points, that's only 35 more points, but what I get is a far better tank, and the added benefit of not really worrying if a squad assaults me.

Maybe that's simple minded of me. I know she has better uses. But, it just seems like a cool way to go.

**TheArmorOfContempt**

As a marine player what are the methods by which Celestine can join my army?

Castellans of the Imperium Detachment
Allied Detachment of Sisters

Anything else?

**Cephalobeard**

She is a HQ for an armies of the imperium. From my understanding, you could do a SM CAD or allied detachment, for example, and just take her as the HQ.

She can literally be added to anything Imperial, for very little points.

**commander dante**

Now the REAL Question
Are Death Company still Top Tier in terms of a unit she Runs Around with?

**Marmatag**

She is definitely awesome but Toughness 3, Strength 3. Her ablative wound bodyguards are instant-death'd quite easily, they do not have eternal warrior.

Her template attacks mean that if you're using her as anything but a wound soak, she's got to get in charge range to be attacking.

Someone mentioned she is STR5. This is wrong. She attacks with STR5 because of her relic (+2 str), but her base strength is only 3.

She's strong for sure, and she's a MEQ / Tank killer / generally good blocker, but not the best in the game.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Cephalobeard wrote:
She is a HQ for an armies of the imperium. From my understanding, you could do a SM CAD or allied detachment, for example, and just take her as the HQ.

She can literally be added to anything Imperial, for very little points.

This is correct, but it would have to be a part of a CAD. You could not add her as the HQ in a Skyhammer, Battle-Demi, or what have you.

**pm713**

Isn't there a formation that allows you to take each member of the Triumvirate? It gives more bonuses depending on how many of them you have.

**Waaaghpower**

pm713 wrote:
Isn't there a formation that allows you to take each member of the Triumvirate? It gives more bonuses depending on how many of them you have.

Yes, but it's crummy. Everyone gets their Warlord Trait, but only if one of them actually is your Warlord, and being within 12" of one of them gives Stubborn/Autopass Pinning, while being within 12" of all three gives Fearless.

Seeing as Celestine's Warlord Trait is mostly useless and Inquisitors get theirs for free regardless, that first buff can be ignored. Also, it'll be rare that you want Celestine sitting around defensively on your backline, so you're mostly getting...
A bubble of Stubborn.
Wheee.

**TheArmorOfContempt**

It might be worth making a case for Vanguard Vets, often overlooked because they are delicate for expensive veterans, but 5 pts for power weapons is a steal that is only matched by honor guard. On top of this they have a natural reroll on their charges. You could give them a couple power axes to make up for her lack of AP 2, while her tanking wounds will mean they get to actually attack.

**jeffersonian000**

Celestine in a full squad of GK Interceptors loaded up with Falchions and Hammers is a pretty mobile meat grinder with +2 Str or ID on demand. Not too shabby.

SJ

**pm713**

Waaaghpower wrote:
pm713 wrote:
Isn't there a formation that allows you to take each member of the Triumvirate? It gives more bonuses depending on how many of them you have.

Yes, but it's crummy. Everyone gets their Warlord Trait, but only if one of them actually is your Warlord, and being within 12" of one of them gives Stubborn/Autopass Pinning, while being within 12" of all three gives Fearless.

Seeing as Celestine's Warlord Trait is mostly useless and Inquisitors get theirs for free regardless, that first buff can be ignored. Also, it'll be rare that you want Celestine sitting around defensively on your backline, so you're mostly getting...
A bubble of Stubborn.
Wheee.

But doesn't it let you take Celestine by herself in armies like Battle Companies by herself without using Unbound?

**Marmatag**

pm713 wrote:
Waaaghpower wrote:
pm713 wrote:
Isn't there a formation that allows you to take each member of the Triumvirate? It gives more bonuses depending on how many of them you have.

Yes, but it's crummy. Everyone gets their Warlord Trait, but only if one of them actually is your Warlord, and being within 12" of one of them gives Stubborn/Autopass Pinning, while being within 12" of all three gives Fearless.

Seeing as Celestine's Warlord Trait is mostly useless and Inquisitors get theirs for free regardless, that first buff can be ignored. Also, it'll be rare that you want Celestine sitting around defensively on your backline, so you're mostly getting...
A bubble of Stubborn.
Wheee.

But doesn't it let you take Celestine by herself in armies like Battle Companies by herself without using Unbound?

That is my understanding - CAD, Allied Detachment, or one of the new formations. There is no other way short of going unbound.

So you could do battle companies with an allied detachment, but not add her into the battle company.

**Waaaghpower**

If you're taking the Triumverate for Celestine, that's a whopping 350 Point model tax.
Or, you could bring Celestine in an allied detachment with 5 Scouts or 5 Battle Sisters: 55-70 points, depending on gear options.

Imma go with that second one.

**pm713**

Waaaghpower wrote:
If you're taking the Triumverate for Celestine, that's a whopping 350 Point model tax.
Or, you could bring Celestine in an allied detachment with 5 Scouts or 5 Battle Sisters: 55-70 points, depending on gear options.

Imma go with that second one.

If I recall right the formation let you pick which members to take. Although I could be wrong. Pretty good if not though.

**Waaaghpower**

pm713 wrote:
Waaaghpower wrote:
If you're taking the Triumverate for Celestine, that's a whopping 350 Point model tax.
Or, you could bring Celestine in an allied detachment with 5 Scouts or 5 Battle Sisters: 55-70 points, depending on gear options.

Imma go with that second one.

If I recall right the formation let you pick which members to take. Although I could be wrong. Pretty good if not though.

Not to my knowledge, though I can't look it up until I'm home.

**Marmatag**

Or just make her your HQ in your CAD. You don't need to ally her in. For instance she could be your HQ in a space marine CAD. This works for all 3. (They just can't be deployed in transports)

**Dakka Wolf**

Join her to the Heralds of the Great Wolf.
Rune Priest on Bike
Iron Priest on Thunderwolf with 4 Cyberwolves
Wolf Priest on Bike

Stupidly expensive but buy all the goodies and you have a fast unit of t5 characters with six sacrificials, two of which regenerate, a minimum of 6+ FNP, -1 to ballistic skill when targeted, three characters with the ability to shrug the first failed save of each phase and IWND.

This is sick and twisted to its very core...times like this I wish I didn't run straight wolves.

**dracpanzer**

Marmatag wrote:
Someone mentioned she is STR5. This is wrong. She attacks with STR5 because of her relic (+2 str), but her base strength is only 3.

Not disagreeing about her str 3, but doesn't she get armor bane as well as?

**arvendragon**

Anyone have plans on how to run her? I don't usually take a CAD or AD, so I'm curious to options.