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The sisters rolled into Stirling for Rapid fire 2011... here are the litanies of battle!

g1 David Necrons
Game one was annihilation with a twist. 3KP for HQ, 2 for Heavy/Elite/Fast, 1 for troops. Not good news for me with my 2 HQ units (plus retinue and dedicated transport both counted as an HQ for KP purposes). I was playing Davids necrons who to my surprise had no monolith, just lots of warriors and immortals, a units of scarabs, another of destroyers, and a lord with res orb. The Immortals surprised me in this game.
Early doors:
Crons get 1st turn, and concentrate fire on the blonde seraphim, who run! And then rally. Sisters move up to engage, but second seraphim unit try and back off out of immortals range. The exorcists take out the destroyers with alacrity.

celestine leads the sisters to war!



Mid game:
Celestine flames a unit of crons, assaults and runs a unit down, but then gets killed by necron lord! Dominions outflank and face off rather ineffectively against a small unit of crons. Conclave move up and assault immortals and lord, wiping them. Sisters and seraphim play cat and mouse with a unit of scarabs, while another unit of immortals are taken out by exorcists and blonde seraphims with their double tap.

fair fight?


conclave cut down immortals and lord, but at a heavy price




Endgame:
Conclave get caught in a devastating Cron crossfire, which leaves only Uriah standing! But Celestine resurrects on turn 5, assaulting a cron unit, wiping them and phasing out the Necrons. Win for the sisters!

necron crossfire leaves few alive



g2 Craig Orks
This mission was the C&C mission, with the objective markers value weighted by their position on the field. 200 VPs for securing an obj. in your opponents deployment zone, 100 for you own.
Craig fielded 5 trukks and a Wagon full of mega nobs.
Early doors:
Well you can imagine with S8 AP 1 spam that popping vehicles wasn’t a problem for the sisters! Dealing with the contents, well…

Early moves



Mid point:
I had concentrated a lot of effort on killing the scoring units. I managed to kill all but one, but they were far from an objective, and the conclave were chasing them down. Craig was fielding small-ish units of boyz, which the sisters found fairly easy to handle once out of their rides, with the Conclave and Celestine distinguishing themselves (heavy flamers do come in handy!).

Seraphim go tank hunting.. and pay the price



Orks reach fire base



Endgame:
I managed to contest my own objective with Celestine and a rhino, and thought I had the ork one claimed as the sisters conga-lined round and their rhino blocked the last trukk from contesting. But I forgot that Trukks were fast and could move 18‘. The trukk simply took the scenic route past some ruins and contested on the unguarded side. A draw!

g3 Iain Eldar

Mission was cleanse, effectively being control of table quarters by a scoring unit with no enemy units in the quarter.
Iain had brought mech eldar, falcons galore with 2 units dire avengers, 2 of fire dragons, one of banshees and the autarch who helps with reserve rolls. His contest ability was clear!

Early doors:
Iain took first turn, and reserved everything. I sent my sisters to claim his most valuable quarter with the seraphim as bodyguard. He came on in T2, ignored the sisters and rushed my fire base.

sisters battle to open up falcons


melta bomb tastic



Midpoint:
Could I pop a falcon? No! I watched with confusion followed by horror as Iain disembarked his fire dragons (“OK”), fleeted to them to my exorcists (“eh?”), and melta-bombed them all! (“Aaaaaaargh!”). It got worse. I foolishly multi assaulted the banshees and dire avengers. Bad idea. My knowledge of banshees was clearly based on 2nd edition! My ignorance was compounded by bad luck, as both sisters rhinos got immobilized on a river they had to ford to get to the objective.

Fire dragons have a field day


lots of weapon destroyed results...




Endgame:
Iain cleaned me out. The fire dragons melted the sisters transports and the sisters didn’t last long after being assalted by a scary power weapon-toting special character whose name I don’t recall. If Celestine hadn’t resurrected in turn 7 it would have been an annihilation, so it was essentially a tabling. Loss for the sisters!

eldar autarch makes short work of sisters






g4 David m Grey Knights

After the humiliation at the hands of the Eldar yesterday, it was hopefully time for the sisters to get second wind in this tourney. And in drawing David I was lucky for three reasons. First, because my army was far better suited to killing his paladins than the first opponent I drew for this round (there was a mixup due to a repeat matchup on a nearby table) who was essentially running a GK horde, which I think I can say with confidence I would have lost to. And second because we got to play on the coolest cities of death table, which I think you will agree is awesome! Finally I had played David at a previous tourney and knew we shared a similar approach to the game, and that this game would be pleasure whatever the outcome.

The mission was a variant of table quarters, but to control a quarter you had to have a scoring unit with no enemy unit in that quarter. Deployment was split, with half your force each going in to opposing quarters. Possession of each quarter was worth 200VPs.

David got the first turn and deployed 2 units of Paladins with libby in one quarter, and in the other was Drago with a unit of GK Termies. The final unit of Paladins arrived via deep strike. I countered the Paladins with 2 units of seraphim, Celestine, Conclave and an exorcist. Facing off against Drago and chums were the dominions, 2 exorcists and 2 mechanised sisters units. I felt with my overwhelming numerical advantage, plus ap1 coming out of my ears, that I had a good chance against David.

Early doors:
Both flanks engaged quickly, as the forces were very close due to the deployment described above. On the right, the seraphim got whittled down, but stood firm, flew forward, and helped wipe one paladin unit. Celestine tried to get the other but got munched in assault. On the left, the termies blew up the dominion rhino with their psycannons, but then got annihilated by AP1 spam. Drago wisely disengaged to hunt down the scoring units on his own. The second unit of paladins appeared in turn 2.
Mid game:
The libby paladin unit assaulted the blonde seraphim and routed them, but were then charged by the conclave. The death cult assassin killed the libby, but after a couple of rounds the conclave got butchered, unable to make their 3++ count. Luckily this happened in Davids turn of combat, so the wounded remenants of the paladins were wiped out with AP1 firepower. On Dragos side, one of the sisters units disembarked to try and kill Drago but he survived this, as well as a hail of exorcist missiles, bloodied but unbowed! There followed a hilarious close combat lasting several turns. Drago assaulted the sisters, butchered 3 for no reply, but the sisters held firm. This continued for about 3 rounds of combat, the sisters happily passing their 6 or under morale check. Drago was protected in combat for most of the game!
Endgame:
Drago would not die! Missile after missile bounced off his blessed armour! However the sisters had a scoring unit left, which drove away from Drago and secured a table quarter. Victory for the sisters!

GKs left flank


GKs right flank




g5 James T Orks
I had enjoyed all my games immensely, so again I was lucky in my final game of the tourney to draw James’ Ork horde, who were awesome and full of Orky character. James clearly loves his boys so I immediately knew I would enjoy this game too.
The mission was the same as mission one, that is annihilation with a twist. A terribly bad twist for the sisters! 3 KP for each HQ, including 3 for retinues and 3 for dedicated HQ transports. Ouch! I was thus giving away 30 KP while James had 15. Note to self: read the mission pack!

Early doors:
Sisters seize the initiative! The dominions immediately marauded forward and blew up big D, the Ork dread! Their transport was then predictably popped by the tank hunters.. but they were pinned! Their dread-busting days were over. Actually any type of their days were over. Exorcist missiles rained down on the Kans but only one unit was wiped, the KFF doing it’s job. The conclave had moved up towards the Ork lines ready to wade in, but got immobilized by missile spam. The blonde seraphim got riddled with high volume ork firepower and failed their morale check, but thankfully rallied.

Big D before dominion treatment



Mid point:
The conclave disembarked, ready to assault the big mek and tank hunters, to earn 5 KPs and redress the balance somewhat… and rolled a 2 on their move through cover. Hmm. Roll to assault the Big Mek. double ones. Oh dear. They were now sat in the open, and were assaulted by a Kan. Which they couldn’t damage. Oh dear. At least on the right flank, the sisters and seraphim managed to double team a mob of boyz and whittle them down to 7 or so, the seraphim charged, missed, and were run down. Oh dear. Then snikrot appeared on turn 2, multi assaulting 2 exorcists, wrecking one and stunning the other. Bah!

Endgame:
If you thought this was bad, well it did get worse. The Conclave failed a morale check, rolled a 1 for their init and were run down, drop kicked by a killer kan. By this point I had hardly anything left, and the end of the game was something of a relief. Major loss for the sisters!


Record W-D-L-W-L, 16/32

Interestingly this is pretty much where I usually come with Tau in tourneys (the Tau player came 11/32) which was a surprise as I’ve found winning with sisters much easier than Tau since I started using them this summer. Thinking about the Tau gun line I would have taken to the tourney (Maxing fire warriors and broadsides), I think I would have had the same results, except I think I would have lost vs. the mech orks in game 2.

Reflections on the sisters performance:
As always I was pleased with the decent results but ended up having a think about the defeats.
I think the Eldar one was a combination of a good opponent and my ignorance of the Eldar dex. This resulted in the annihilation of my heavy support units, the only thing that could hurt the falcons. Multi charging the banshees ranks up there as a major faux-pas. My regular eldar opponents Brother Bartius runs a footdar list so the melta-bomb assault of the fire dragons was a shock, as was the counter assault and init. 10 of the banshees. Without these two bits of idiocy, a draw at least was possible against the Mechdar.
Against the Orks in game 5, the mission rules definitely hurt me (read the mission pack you fool!). I needed to kill all the walkers to have a chance. Another turn of exorcist missiles would have been enough, but the tank hunters rocket spam stunned my long range fire support, and my failure to make contingency plans for snikrot was a killer. Even without the terrible move thru cover on the Conclave, I would have comfortably lost.

Reflections on the dex:
Celestine: Amazing at 1k. Not particularly great at high PV.
Seraphim: Great with their close range shooting against super elite infantry but really lack bite in assault. They are rock-paper-scissored against quite a lot of decent assault units.
Conclave: Get munched by walkers in assault. Also it was a surprise to see them bounce off the Paladins. Would it make sense to drop a crusader and put a priest with eviscerator in with them (Conversion project 2012!)?
SoB: Nice anti infantry fire and decent sticking power!
Exorcists: Auto-selection for heavy slots. Though an unlucky turn of low rate of fire can be costly. Should I try running a unit of PEs (conversion project 2012!)?



PS the tourney was won by a GK with 2 dreadknights and Draco!

Thanks for the writeup!

Glad to see your army out and about!

I think I need a nap. At first when I glanced at "here are the litanies of battle!" I read it as "here are the tanlines of battle!"

Thanks guys. Need to add some more pics.

I just gave my dominions a wash of devlan mud, and they look a little tanned now...

can you post your list?

On the Priest idea, 70 points for a 1 wound Eviscerator at S6 that goes at I1 with 2 attacks..no thank you, keep the crusader.

Wow very quick. I think you should have included your army list, especially since you were speaking like we knew your army.

NIce one david. Your sisters sound pretty scary. I personally think the girls are one of the best armies out there these days.

I think the scary Eldar character you on about is Yriel (sp), the autarch of Iyanden - with a s6 power weapon and a crazy exploding blast thingy?

Sean

OK dudes list posted!

Sean you are correct it was Yriel!

Calyposo I do take your point, however if the conclave do end up facing a full mech force they are kind of redundant if the shooting phase goes badly. It is alot of points, but the priest does get a 4++ rosarius which might save him. Hmm alot of conditional clauses there.

List:

HQ: Celestine, Uraiah, Conclave (8 crusaders 1 DCA) Rhino

Fast: 2 x 10 seraphim, 2 melta pistols, power weapon and 5 dominions 2 meltas, rhino

Heavy: 3 exorsists

Troop 2 x 10 sisters, 2 flamers, combi melta both in rhinos

troy_tempest wrote:

Exorcists: Auto-selection for heavy slots. Though an unlucky turn of low rate of fire can be costly. Should I try running a unit of PEs (conversion project 2012!)?

Penitent Engines and exorcists don't gel very well in my experience... The exorcists are still random at how well they do their job, and the Penitent Engines are out there on their own doing a completely different job; one they really only do well at if there are targets other than themselves running up the board. If the enemy just fires all their anti-tank at your one AV11 open topped squadron of PE, you'll probably just lose your PE in round two or three. Running two squadrons of PE is much more survivable, but at that point your exorcist is taking away from your PE's success, and you might as well just go all out and have 3 squadrons of Penitents (which is what I run).

While they are on the board, the PE will soak up a lot of anti tank though, and they create a fair no-man's land around them that no unit wants to get into. They could be worth it for the early-mid game area denial and the pressure they take off your transports and exorcists. Run them behind a rhino for cover saves and they might spend half the game soaking up fire and scaring enemy units into avoiding the midfield, which might be worth it to you if you are smart about it. But I still think the strongest combo is 3 exorcists, or 3 squads of Penitent Engines.

I don't suppose that you have any more pictures of the orks? A deep envy of their bases is afflicting me. I am not surprised to hear that their transports got popped though, your exorcists are a nightmare.

Maybe we should use those custom KP rules in our games, so that I don't have to weep myself to sleep after trying to deal with Saint Celestine...

Thanks for your thoughts hollowman. I do like the idea of maxing PEs but doubt I could ever afford it! I may proxy a unit to try it out, and if it works I may attempt to convert some sentinels.

Charles your suggestion is eminently sensible. At out 1k points level celestine really is rather powerful. 3KP for HQs might redress the balance. Still I think when your orks are hitting 1.75k she will have much less influence, as she did at the toruney.

Sorry no more orky pics though!

I have run a squadron of 2 PE before. They did okay in 4th edition, but they really suffer from the emergence of AV 11 mech armies. Since most armies need to wreck transports, they can also wreck PE. The fact that they are Open Topped with rage is just icing on the cake.

If they did not have Rage, they could be a viable counter assault unit, but as they stand they are just too fragile overall.

As for the Enclaves, I usually consider them to be a counter-assault unit for the army. They stay in their box for as long as possible and then break out once the enemy is dismounted. For walkers, try to stay away or I just sacrifice a 5 man Dominion squad to it and try to melta it the next turn.

the ork anti tank guys, you kept calling them tank hunters, but no ork has tank hunter special rule.
I was kind of confused by that because you could have been talking about either lootas or tank bustas since both are pretty good at killing tanks, but neither is "tank hunter"

ah tank bustas, sorry

Nice rep troy.

Glad to see that you had a blast at the tourny.

I'm just sorry I missed this one. Still I'll be there next year.

I think the reason the conclave bounced off the pallies is because crusaders just aren't that fighty in CC, they are survivable yes, but its the death cult assassins that do the heavy lifting, so maybe change a few of the crusaders to DCA's

thank bartius, any plans to write up Tos?

Good point Canadianone, I only have one DCA converted from a death jester, will need to do some more in new year.

Question, when the fire dragons melta-bombed your exorcist, while didn't he shoot then assault?

canadianone wrote:I think the reason the conclave bounced off the pallies is because crusaders just aren't that fighty in CC, they are survivable yes, but its the death cult assassins that do the heavy lifting, so maybe change a few of the crusaders to DCA's

This. 7 DCA and 2 Crusaders would have made that a much different fight. You would have struck before everything but halberds with 35 WS5, I6, S4 reroll miss PW attacks.

An easy DCA conversion is Dark Eldar Wyches + Purity Seals and Scrolls.

@ Jay, he had to fleet to get to my tanks. I wasn't that worried about meltaguns outside half range on AV13. The fleet-meltabomb attack was therefore a big shock!


@ pretre, have used wyches already for my rank and file*. Unfortunately DCAs still get tarpitted by a walker, and there are alot of those around (esp. Orks as you saw!). I take your point on the DCA damage-dealing prowess, they are truly scary and I need to get my conversion hat on!


*http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/382316.page