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Sisters of Battle

2000 pts

HQ
St. Celestine
Canoness with command squad.

Troops
x3 Sister squad 13 girls + priest

Fast Attack
Seraphim 5 girls
x2 Dominions with immolators

Heavy
x3 exorcists

Inquisitor detachment

Inquisitor
acolyte
crusader
x2 jakero
x3 servitors w/plasma cannons


Chaos

2000 pts
HQ
warpsmith
sorcerer w/ jumppack

Troops
x2 cultists of 17
x2 marines 10

Elite
terminators 5

Fast Attack
Raptors 5
bikers of nurgle 7

Heavy support
x2 forgefiends
havocs w/ autocannons

aegis with comm relay

Mission: Capture the relic

The Inquisitor Placidia requested help from the local convent of the Penitent Lady. A Word Bearer battalion lead by a Warpsmith had discovered the location of an STC that contained the schematics of an ancient Ordinatus Engine. Canonness Helena responded with a strike force of her most faithful sisters. The living saint, Thekla of Nilbog II accompanied Helena, lending her the shinning light of the Emperor.

Mechantrik the Supplicant of the Word Bearers marched with Lorgar during the Heresy as a humble Engine Seer. Over the millennia he gained power and rose in authority on the demon forge world of the Dark Mechanicum. Let the Word Bearers believe in their foolish Chaos gods. The warp was just another power source: a tool to be used, just like the astartes beneath him.

Helena looked over the ruined city from the top of her rhino. The city was founded by humans from the first great colonization before the Long Night. Now it was a skeletal ruin and on the far side she could see the moving forms of the traitor Astartes. They were setting up with what looked like digging equipment. Monsterous creatures that she couldn't tell if they were beast or machine, roamed around the red armored forms.
She looked down at her command squad and gave a nod. Sister Irena signaled for the Sisters to advance. They had the drop on the heretics and it was her duty to bring the burning light of the emperor to the apostates.

Her three squads were in the middle ready to move forward and capture the STC before the heretics could reach it. The dominions and Seraphim with St. Thekla were outflanking from both sides. The Inquisitor with all her cannon toting machines took up position in the top two stories of a ruin. The exorcists were on each flank, ready to lend their firepower.

Turn 1
Sisters.
The exorcists opened fire on the demonic cannon bearing fiends. The barrage of missiles blew the multi-barreled cannon off of one and the Inquisitor's heavy weapons finished it off. The squads moved up.

Chaos
The remaining forgefiend, enraged at its companion's destruction opened its demon forge protocols and green flames burst out its top. It opened up with its cannons and blew one of the exorcists to shreds. The rest of the traitor army moved forward.

Turn 2
Sisters
The Seraphim deep striked in with Thekla leading the way. An Immolator loaded with dominions disgorged from behind and fired at the bikers, only killing one of them. The other Immolator, far away from the fighting, accelerated at top speed to join the action. The exorcists and Inquisitor's plasma cannons opened fire and destroyed the remaining forge fiend in a burst of green flame and black smoke. One of the squads reached the building where the STC was located. The seraphim shot at a squad of heretic marines.

Chaos
The Supplicant saw the illuminated figure of a saint of the False Emperor and charged. (Needed an 11 and rolled double sixes for his charge distance!) He charged in and challenged St. Thekla. The two fought and though Thekla had superior swordsmanship, The Supplicant's armor denied her any openings. One of his mechadendrites wounded her on her arm. The Nurgle bikers charged the dominions. The bike sergeant called out the Sister Superior and slew her in single combat. For his dedication he turned into a demon prince. The terminator squad teleported in along with the raptor squad. The raptors with the sorcerer flammed and spelled a squad of Sisters, killing half of them. But thanks to the singing of hymns of the priestess, the Sisters held their ground.

Turn 3
Sisters
The Inquisitor unleashed her jakero and servitors at the raptors and fired their heavy weapons, destroying them completely. The Squad grabbed the STC memory crystal and flammed a squad of cultists that were running up at them. They slaughtered enough to chase them off and the bolters finished them off. The seraphim charged a squad marines and got thick in it. The immolator charged at a squad of Marines but the traitors held their ground. Thekla failed to penetrate The Supplicant's armor again and he landed another wound.

Chaos.
The Havocs opened up on the Immolator and blew the turret off. The terminators charged into the Inquisitor squad and killed the inquisitor and a few others of her retinue. The bikers finished off the immolators. The Supplicant struck St. Thekla with his axe and she fell at his feet. The marines moved toward the center where the STC was and the cultist went before them like a screen.

Turn 4
Sisters
St. Thekla picked herself off of the ground, renewed by her faith in the Emperor. The smoking but still operational Immolator charged the same squad of marines and the fell back, right into the burning swords of St. Thekla. She was the vengeful hand of the Emperor and slew every traitor marine. The Supplicant, angered at the loss of his useful tools, charged St. Thekla again. The two blasted walls of flame at each other and collided in thunderous combat. Her swords cut gouges in his armor but did not penetrate. The Supplicant caught her by the throat with one of his mechadendrites and the spike on the head of his axe dug deep into her stomach. He tossed the bleeding saint to the ground and turned toward the battle. Cannoness Helena moved forward to take up position by the retreating squad with the STC. More cultists fell to the burning vengeance of the faithful's purifying flames. The command squad's heavy bolters opened up on the demon prince, wounding him, but not slowing him down.

Chaos
The bikers moved forward along with the newly blessed demon prince. More marines moved into combat and charged the sisters. The terminators moved out of the building toward the squads of sisters. The havocs fired at the immolator but none of the rounds penetrated. The Marines fought with the Sisters but the fighting was inconclusive.

Turn 5
Sisters
The command squad, led by Sister Irene fired on the demon prince. The heavy bolters wounded the beast, making it stumble. Irene aimed her plasma pistol, a gift from Helena herself, and shot the demon in the head, killing it. The beast fell to the ground and black smoke enveloped the creature until it vanished from this world. The exorcist "Eternal Hymn" fired at The Supplicant, blowing him almost in half. Helena saw the nearly destroyed warpsmith crawl away to safety. A sister superior, in a duel against a Chaos champion, cut his head off with her power sword. Cannoness Helena hit a nurble biker with her power axe, but the unnatural traitor only laughed at the wound that would have felled any other mortal.

Chaos
The traitor marines now stood virtually alone. The cultists were now burning husks around their feet and the terminators were too far away to reach them in time. The Supplicant, (now out of action) called a general retreat and what was left of his forces pulled back under covering fire.

Chaos had two bikes and four terminators left. The one squad of the Marines left were locked in combat and loosing.
He would have chased off and destroyed two squads of my Sisters if I didn't have those priestesses giving me fearless. They were worth their weight in gold. I was seriously impressed by the staying power a Sister blob had. He just couldn't kill enough of them. Also, I just couldn't wound anything with a 2+ save. Terminators and the Warp Smith were in a sweet spot where I didn't have the volume of fire or the big guns enough to kill them. The presienced plasma cannons of my Inquisitor squad was almost too deadly. I felt bad for using them. And flammers against cultists was just brutal. Don't underestimate a warpsmith. That guy took a lot of firepower to down. St. Celestine and 2 exorcists had a hard time killing him. But Chaos's MVP was his nurgle bikers. I flammed them, shot them, stabbed them, hacked them and buttstroked them and they just wouldn't die. I think my cannoness killed a grand total of one of them. It was a hard fought battle that could have gone either way.

Helena took the cogitor machine her Sisters found. It wasn't an STC, but it was the directions to one. The Warpsmith would be back looking for it and she had to be prepared. Next time the traitors would be more prepared and familiar with her tactics. But what the heretics failed to remember was that she had faith in the Emperor and whatever demon engine they sent against her would break like waves against a stone wall.

very interesting list :3.

I have been running 2 exorcists and 1 retributor squad and a canoness with her cmd squad. They will sometimes be armed with power weapons and combi's or some heavy bolters to increase the dakka.

Cheers on the report mate

That was a hard fought battle! Lessons learned: Warpsmiths are tough SOBs and forgefiends put out a heck of a lot of dakka.

Nice batrep, loved the flavour/narrative writeup! Easy to read, not too long, and fluffy fun rolled into one package.

Awesome seeing a warpsmith get some love, kicking butt and taking names.
Curious what gear and upgrades the Sorcerer/Warpsmith had other than the regular.
Awesome seeing chaos boons turn out well for the CSM, doesn't happen often enough.

Looks like you had some excellent luck with the dice rolling plasma vs the Forgefiends' AV12; congrats on putting them down before they could tear you up.

 Laughingcarp wrote:
Nice batrep, loved the flavour/narrative writeup! Easy to read, not too long, and fluffy fun rolled into one package.

Awesome seeing a warpsmith get some love, kicking butt and taking names.
Curious what gear and upgrades the Sorcerer/Warpsmith had other than the regular.
Awesome seeing chaos boons turn out well for the CSM, doesn't happen often enough.

Looks like you had some excellent luck with the dice rolling plasma vs the Forgefiends' AV12; congrats on putting them down before they could tear you up.

I know the Warpsmith had the Mark of Tzeentch because it helped his invul save and he fended off hits from my exorcists with that pesky force field of his. After he killed the living saint he got a boon that gave him extra str to his attack or some such thing.

But yes, I knew I had to take out those forge fiends or they would have torn my army up.

Yeah, he was rolling hot on his armor penetration for his plasma. On the second fiend he did get side shots. My warpsmith had the 5+ invul save plus the mark of tzeentch. My sorc had jump pack, mark of slaanesh (to go with the icon of excess), 4+ invul, spell familiar and mastery 2.

Interesting list you brought with three mid-sized squads of foot sisters -- neither 6-girl MSU nor 2-girl blobs but something in between. Do you think the 13 Battle Sisters + Priest was too many bodies, too few, or just about right?

As for the Chaos Terminators, they certainly hurt your Inquisitorial allies, but then they seem to have been out of position to do anything else the rest of the game. I don't get the impression they made back their points, but then maybe you had to spend a lot of energy maneuvering away from them? Or were they just so fething slow your army could kinda ignore them on its way to targets it could kill?

Also, I'm impressed you put that Daemon Prince down so quickly. I'd have thought a 30-point biker sergeant suddenly turning into a 145-point Monstrous Creature would have made a bigger difference, but apparently good old bolters and plasma work just fine...

Yeah daemon princes without wings are actually pretty easy to kill.

That is a very strange sentence to read out of context.

I guess the fluff of OMG WTF GIANT DAEMON WE'RE ALL DOOOOOOMED kind of overwhelmed my reason. Then I looked at my Chaos Marine codex and went, "oh."

The Chaos player considered the demon prince to be a downgrade. He'd rather have kept his biker champion.
As for the three mid sized blobs, I really liked it. Having three manuevering elements allowed two to hold of threats without being wiped out easily and allowed the third to grab the objective. They were not unweildly and not too easily killed. I think I'll stick with the mid blobs for a while longer to test them out futher.
The Inquisitor allies more than earned their points back. They killed two forgefiends and a squad of raptors.

Sister Sydney, you are absolutely correct. The terminators were effectively out of the game. They tried to foot slog back in...but didnt get there in time. A demon prince -wings - armour = useless.

So Terminators really need to teleport in right next to something critical (e.g. an objective) that the other side has to fight for, so their targets are coming to them?

Pretty much. That or a land raider.