To be fair plasma grenades was a common thing for Seraphim in 2ed.
But that was also when we threw glass vials of tears from weeping statues of the Emperor that killed demons super quick and if they survived they lost their demonic aura
So there are actually 2 major uses for Cult Mech allied with SoB that I see being a huge boost to the army.
1) Heavy Grav cannons provide an answer to things like wraithknights that SoB just don't do efficiently.
2) Raiment of the Technomartyrs gives a pretty good answer to AA, just throw it into a decent sized unit of grav cannons and if it is a vehicle use The Scryerskull Perspicatus to reroll armour pen against it. The best part is you can GtG behind an ADL and still shoot at BS2.
I think there is a lot of synergy to be found especially with some of the formations.
I'd probably agree if I had the codex in my hands, but I'm telling myself there's no point mainly because my Inquisition, IG, and SM allied detachments are nowhere near done painting and it wouldn't hurt to do a few SoB vehicles either :(
ansacs wrote: So there are actually 2 major uses for Cult Mech allied with SoB that I see being a huge boost to the army.
1) Heavy Grav cannons provide an answer to things like wraithknights that SoB just don't do efficiently.
2) Raiment of the Technomartyrs gives a pretty good answer to AA, just throw it into a decent sized unit of grav cannons and if it is a vehicle use The Scryerskull Perspicatus to reroll armour pen against it. The best part is you can GtG behind an ADL and still shoot at BS2.
I think there is a lot of synergy to be found especially with some of the formations.
Yeah had a little game against Cult Mechanicus today, and those Heavy Grav Cannons on the Kataphrons are nasty as gak especially if they have the Phosphor Cannons to reduce your Cover Saves too.
My other game I used my Black Templar allies for a Holy Ecclesiarchy Approved army and had some good fun. Had a Cannoness and two Ministorum Priests riding around in a Land Raider Crusader with an Artificer Armour/Relic Blade Captain and a Crusader Squad. Charging out with a blob of Marines into Close Combat, with the Priests providing Hatred, Re-rolls to Wound and re-rolls of failed saves is pretty fun. Glorious Moment of the Game - the Black Templar Captain and Initiates failing to kill any Assault Termies that charged me through cover, only for one Priest to step up to the Challenge of a TH/SS Terminator and kill it before it could strike (the Priests only armed with Chainswords mind you lol), while the other Priest killed 2 (!) Lightning Claw Terminators himself and then the Cannoness cleaned up the remaining 2 with her Eviscerator. Was hilarious.
I feel like when you ally something you want your allies to fill holes that your main army doesn't cover, not replace the stuff that already works. If not, why bring sisters at all, since they are a relatively weak army.
Grav cannons are insanely good, but they do the same job that th 20something S8 AP2/1 shots on the table already cover.
Acidian wrote:I feel like when you ally something you want your allies to fill holes that your main army doesn't cover, not replace the stuff that already works. If not, why bring sisters at all, since they are a relatively weak army.
Grav cannons are insanely good, but they do the same job that th 20something S8 AP2/1 shots on the table already cover.
Grav cannons are a weapon to kill MC or GMC. They can also be effective against FMC with the reroll to hit and cognis artifact. If you play SoB against nids or 2+ wraithknights you will very quickly realize that SoB have two major weaknesses; 1) they are very poor at dealing with MC and FMC, 2) board control against melee threats (aka why most SoB lists include an imperial knight now days).
SoB have a pretty good amount of Str8 AP1 however it is all relatively low rate of fire and has a very hard time getting reroll to hit to allow BS1 snap shots to hit FMC. You say SoB can get 20 Str8 AP1 shots and that is good enough but that is almost an entire army of SoB shooting mostly at short range. A single 165 pts heavy grav cannon cult unit can put out 18 heavy grav cannon shots at 30" range and will would a wraithknight on a 3+ rather than a 4+, this unit can also gain reroll to hits (of various levels) and can snap fire on BS2 therefore making an effective FMC killer.
The other great unit that can really benefit SoB is the Kastelan Robot Maniple...which no one gives credit for. This unit can put out 3-9 Str 10 attacks per Kastelan, depending on what abilities used. Most of the time these things would be putting out 5 attacks and 6 on the charge. Units of melee kastelans are actually really nasty for their damage and toughness. This might be a really good fit with SoB who often struggle with holding their ground against melee powerhouses like daemonkin of khorne.
GoonBandito wrote:Yeah had a little game against Cult Mechanicus today, and those Heavy Grav Cannons on the Kataphrons are nasty as gak especially if they have the Phosphor Cannons to reduce your Cover Saves too.
My other game I used my Black Templar allies for a Holy Ecclesiarchy Approved army and had some good fun. Had a Cannoness and two Ministorum Priests riding around in a Land Raider Crusader with an Artificer Armour/Relic Blade Captain and a Crusader Squad. Charging out with a blob of Marines into Close Combat, with the Priests providing Hatred, Re-rolls to Wound and re-rolls of failed saves is pretty fun. Glorious Moment of the Game - the Black Templar Captain and Initiates failing to kill any Assault Termies that charged me through cover, only for one Priest to step up to the Challenge of a TH/SS Terminator and kill it before it could strike (the Priests only armed with Chainswords mind you lol), while the other Priest killed 2 (!) Lightning Claw Terminators himself and then the Cannoness cleaned up the remaining 2 with her Eviscerator. Was hilarious.
Yeah they are pretty nasty however the units are farily fragile and lack the reroll and BS that make the centurion units so TAC devastating.
So I'm playing in a 1K point tournament today with a SoB/SM army. So far 1-1 vs. Necrons. First game reanimation protocols and amazing rolling from my opponent meant I didn't fully kill any unit. I could have still won if I'd moved a single unit back to the objective in my backfield. We had to call it turn 4 due to time being called. By turn 5 I could have had a scoring unit back where it needed to be. I had everyone of his models tied in melee other than some immortals who were running.
Thoughts: with no ruins to hide in on the table Space Marine scouts are worthless. Wraiths were a decent tarpit, but inflicted 0 damage. I need to remember Hit and Run lets me run through the guys I'm fighting. I could have been tearing out the center of his army turn 2 if I had. I almost swept his warlord and friends turn 3, but he rolled well.
Honestly the two grav guns in the bike squad aren't doing much, but the SMCM tanked really well. Most of the necron army hitting just him Turn did nothing.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Game three was vs. orks. They had a lot of open topped vehicles... yeah. It went exactly as you'd expect lots of melta vs. open topped to go.
I kept both BSS embarked the whole game because I would have felt bad pointing out that I only about 25% of my force. (Would have tabled the orks on turn 6.)
It was one of the few times that having the initiative stolen from me went really well. I lost both grav gun bikers and the immolator turn 1. (I'd scouted forward onto the relic.)
Losing the immolator let me pick it up before starting to move my doms, but ultimately my initial plan of grabbing it and running with it was abandoned in favor of shooting megaNobz in the face with melta guns, then popping their AV14 transport. The doms were definitely they MVP in this one. They also snapfired the dakkajet out of the sky and held the relic the whole game.
With the grav gunners down, the SM chapter master was able to just fire his orbital strike at all the lootas hanging out in the back, killing 8 out of 9.
I think in the future, I will try to field him in a squad that doesn't make him want to shoot specific targets? The bikers were fine as T5, 3+/6+++ guys (which also hid Celestine), but a more melee focused squad would have synergized better and against T5 necrons with RP, I wished I had S10 to double them out (so SW guy on TW would have been way better there). OTOH, 6+++ and IWND meant my chaptermaster never went below 2/4 wounds. Celestine "died" twice, but never permanently.
In one game, it even allowed her to leave a combat involving the bulk of the necron army and the CM (who could easily shrug them all off) and go kill a squishier squad.
curran12 wrote: Hmmm, I read it as one item, pretre, but I'll be at my store today, will ask for their opinions as well.
Whenever it says "may take one item, or one of the following" it always means one and only one. Otherwise my broadsides can take skyfire, interceptor and feel no pain, but they can't
Automatically Appended Next Post: When did grav cannons get an extra 6 inches on their range? According to the Sapce Marine 6th codex they are 24
curran12 wrote: Hmmm, I read it as one item, pretre, but I'll be at my store today, will ask for their opinions as well.
Whenever it says "may take one item, or one of the following" it always means one and only one. Otherwise my broadsides can take skyfire, interceptor and feel no pain, but they can't
Automatically Appended Next Post: When did grav cannons get an extra 6 inches on their range? According to the Sapce Marine 6th codex they are 24
curran12 wrote: Hmmm, I read it as one item, pretre, but I'll be at my store today, will ask for their opinions as well.
Whenever it says "may take one item, or one of the following" it always means one and only one. Otherwise my broadsides can take skyfire, interceptor and feel no pain, but they can't
Automatically Appended Next Post: When did grav cannons get an extra 6 inches on their range? According to the Sapce Marine 6th codex they are 24
Perhaps you are mixing up grav guns and cannons? Grav guns are 18" Grav cannons are 24"
Firsty i must salute the combined effort generated that made this monster of a thread possible. Secondly if i may present the thread with my conumdrum.
I am a long time Guard player and have a smattering of Inquisition models. I was always interested in Sisters but the prices.... Now howevver Icame upon a deal and I wander if the models i have picked are any good in a list.
Celestine
10 sisters in a Multimelta Immolator with 2 Melta guns
7 Seraphim w/ 2 hand Flamers
5 Retibutors w/ 4 H. Bolters.
It comes at a measly 506 points and was wandering a) if it is a good setup, b) how can i expetct it to interact with my Mech Vets, ABG tank collumn and Horde Guard.
My knowledge of tactics could be inscribed upon a (particularly small) pin, so I'll just mention a rules issue: immolatars can only fit 6 models, not 10. The sisters can still take the dedicated transport, it's just they're too many to actually use the transport. They retain the option because Reasons.
konst80hummel wrote: Thanks for pointing that out. and the plan is to march them behind Helhounds/ Chimeras so maybe i can hide them.
The better tactics for Sisters is to have those 10 model in a Rhino, driving 12"+ turbo on the first turn, and then driving around getting your 2 Meltas in range of things. If you have a mechanised army, get them all to keep up.
This works best with 5-girls squads though, as you still get 2 Melta guns, and whether you have 5 or 10, once your Rhino blows and you get charged, the results are usually the same. Unless of course you get 8-9 of them and fit a priest in that mix.
Then you have armour re-rolls, and that usually makes you pretty tar-pitting.
If you have 5-girl squads (+priest) then the immolator is also an option.
In any case, that 1 Unit within your mechanised IG will attract attention, so either ride up on a flank, or block LoS/give cover with a chimera driving in front.
Secondly, if your Warlord is another model, Celestine+Seraphim can run around flame stuff and charge stuff to their hearts content (and Deep Strike quite happily)
For that mix of Sisters, I'd organize them like this in a single allied detachment:
HQ: Celestine
Troops: 5 BSS, no upgrades
Fast Attack: 5 Dominions, 2 meltas, Immolator
Heavy: 5 Retributors, Heavy Bolters
This lets you make the most out of the models you have. You'll get two ignore cover melta shots to support your AM advance and Celestine should get out of LOS behind all the vehicles pretty easily.
Once you look at expanding, I'd pick up a HF and flamer model for the troops as well as a Rhino or Repressor for them. I'd also pick up the two extra meltas for the dominions. Last thing would be to upgrade the Immolator to a Repressor.
As an aside, anyone looking to sell a couple of Repressors?
I brought an 650 points army with 14 flame templates against a friend who is starting Legion of the Damned. Even though my 5-flamers dominions failed all the reserve rolls, and when they automatically showed up, arrived on the wrong end of the board, my Celestine + Seraphim unit won me the day. As you can see, I am trying quite hard to convince him to stick to Warmachine ^^.
Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote: I brought an 650 points army with 14 flame templates against a friend who is starting Legion of the Damned. Even though my 5-flamers dominions failed all the reserve rolls, and when they automatically showed up, arrived on the wrong end of the board, my Celestine + Seraphim unit won me the day. As you can see, I am trying quite hard to convince him to stick to Warmachine ^^.
Another note for new players is that GW might actually be the cheapest place to get single special weapons. EBay may be host to some larger lot deals, but they'll scalp you for minis that are still available from the manufacturer. Same with immolators, the kit is barely more expensive than a rhino.
Yeah I understand that the Repressor is better but a) where can i find it's rules. b) I know my way around converting Chimera and Leman Russ hulls but that Immolator will be the first ever Rhino hull I get. Anyone has a good guide?
And on the subject of model allocation would those 5 Sisters be any good manning (ha) an Aegis with an Icarus? I planed to put the Retributors there but i recognise the glory that is scouting Meltas.
And Yea the initial plan was to have Celestine and Her Girls do Counterattack duties protecting Battletanks.
konst80hummel wrote: Yeah I understand that the Repressor is better but a) where can i find it's rules. b) I know my way around converting Chimera and Leman Russ hulls but that Immolator will be the first ever Rhino hull I get. Anyone has a good guide? And on the subject of model allocation would those 5 Sisters be any good manning (ha) an Aegis with an Icarus? I planed to put the Retributors there but i recognise the glory that is scouting Meltas. And Yea the initial plan was to have Celestine and Her Girls do Counterattack duties protecting Battletanks.
Repressor is IA2, iirc.
Easy conversion is Immolator kit, plus cupola with SB (add Heavy Flamer from Immo kit), Leman Russ Bulldozer, Penitent Engine Driver 'armor' on the front. I have pics in my gallery.
If you're going to do a fort, get a bastion and put Retributors in it.
From a counter-attack standpoint, Celestine or Jacobus plus a priest or two in a Combined Blob squad is hilarious.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Here's my repressors before I got Leman Russ dozers:
Automatically Appended Next Post: They are magnetized to swap to Immolators.
Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote: I brought an 650 points army with 14 flame templates against a friend who is starting Legion of the Damned. Even though my 5-flamers dominions failed all the reserve rolls, and when they automatically showed up, arrived on the wrong end of the board, my Celestine + Seraphim unit won me the day. As you can see, I am trying quite hard to convince him to stick to Warmachine ^^.
5 Flamer Dominions? Why?
4 and a combi. Because that is the best loadout against a legion of the damned unit. Just kill one guy for each flamer, and you got your points back!
Also it is very energy-efficient: you can just turn off the lighter. Just throw the promethium at the legionnaire and it will ignite. Hum, barbecue!
(He gave up when Celestine (who had already died once) along with the two surviving seraphims with pairs of flamers act of faithed them into loosing 7 HP on his 10 man squad. So I could not use my 5 flamers.)
Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote: I brought an 650 points army with 14 flame templates against a friend who is starting Legion of the Damned. Even though my 5-flamers dominions failed all the reserve rolls, and when they automatically showed up, arrived on the wrong end of the board, my Celestine + Seraphim unit won me the day. As you can see, I am trying quite hard to convince him to stick to Warmachine ^^.
5 Flamer Dominions? Why?
4 and a combi. Because that is the best loadout against a legion of the damned unit. Just kill one guy for each flamer, and you got your points back!
Also it is very energy-efficient: you can just turn off the lighter. Just throw the promethium at the legionnaire and it will ignite. Hum, barbecue!
(He gave up when Celestine (who had already died once) along with the two surviving seraphims with pairs of flamers act of faithed them into loosing 7 HP on his 10 man squad. So I could not use my 5 flamers.)
I just would never take a flamer dominion unit unless I was tailoring against an opponent.
konst80hummel wrote: Yeah I understand that the Repressor is better but a) where can i find it's rules. b) I know my way around converting Chimera and Leman Russ hulls but that Immolator will be the first ever Rhino hull I get. Anyone has a good guide?
And on the subject of model allocation would those 5 Sisters be any good manning (ha) an Aegis with an Icarus? I planed to put the Retributors there but i recognise the glory that is scouting Meltas.
And Yea the initial plan was to have Celestine and Her Girls do Counterattack duties protecting Battletanks.
As PanzerLeader said, the 5-Girl squad would do really well with a Heavy Flamer in a Rhino, as another MSU Unit for you.
Until then, then could sit on any backfield objective quite cheaply.
Retributors work really well in a combo with Bastion + Canoness + Command Squad, but i don't think that's a feasible route for you. They're probably quite happy on the Aegis with the Vet sergeant on the Quad Gun.
Converting a Repressor from Immolator kit should not be too hard, just have a look at the FW Kit. As pretre said for the Rules, IA Vol 2.2
BlackTalos wrote: Retributors work really well in a combo with Bastion + Canoness + Command Squad, but i don't think that's a feasible route for you. They're probably quite happy on the Aegis with the Vet sergeant on the Quad Gun.
Why would you take a canoness and command squad? Just take rets with 7 girls, simulacrum and 4 hb, jacobus optional.
BlackTalos wrote: Retributors work really well in a combo with Bastion + Canoness + Command Squad, but i don't think that's a feasible route for you. They're probably quite happy on the Aegis with the Vet sergeant on the Quad Gun.
Why would you take a canoness and command squad? Just take rets with 7 girls, simulacrum and 4 hb, jacobus optional.
Because the entire set, though more costly, is much more effective:
9 Heavy Bolters, BS5 Quad Gun, dialogus and 2 Turns of rending. It really is a set-up you should play-test and come back with results. It just doesn't sound as good on paper
Full set-up:
6-Girl Retributors, 4 HB, Simulacr
Canoness, no upgrades, joined to Rets on the Roof of
Bastion, Quad Gun, Void Shield
Command Squad, 4HB, dialogus, inside Bastion, dialogus gets an emplaced HB.
Best use of dialogus upgrade i've seen so far, having a Heavy bolter :p
pretre wrote: I just would never take a flamer dominion unit unless I was tailoring against an opponent.
I was tailoring against him, but I do regularly field a flamer dominion unit because it is fun.
Agreed. Melta doms are the way to go for general effectiveness but a bit dull (for me) running them all the time, flamer units liven things up a bit and are good for a grin.
But then again I use penitent engines for the same reason.
pretre wrote: I'd rather just use the rets inside for the 2 extra HB and the Quad all rending. Dialogus buff isn't really that big a deal is it?
2 Extra? You have to point the emplaced Weapons, like vehicle weapons, so it's already a stretch saying they cover 360 vision, let alone getting 2 at 45*....
Dialogus buff is useful for the Rets getting their 2 Acts off, since you're on Ld8, and being inside the Bastion, you measure "from the bastion", for all the Units outside. Measuring from the circumference of a Bastion is a relatively large footprint
pretre wrote: I'd rather just use the rets inside for the 2 extra HB and the Quad all rending. Dialogus buff isn't really that big a deal is it?
2 Extra? You have to point the emplaced Weapons, like vehicle weapons, so it's already a stretch saying they cover 360 vision, let alone getting 2 at 45*....
Dialogus buff is useful for the Rets getting their 2 Acts off, since you're on Ld8, and being inside the Bastion, you measure "from the bastion", for all the Units outside. Measuring from the circumference of a Bastion is a relatively large footprint
I didn't say 360. It is quite common to get two of the HB on a target though.
pretre wrote: I'd rather just use the rets inside for the 2 extra HB and the Quad all rending. Dialogus buff isn't really that big a deal is it?
2 Extra? You have to point the emplaced Weapons, like vehicle weapons, so it's already a stretch saying they cover 360 vision, let alone getting 2 at 45*....
Dialogus buff is useful for the Rets getting their 2 Acts off, since you're on Ld8, and being inside the Bastion, you measure "from the bastion", for all the Units outside. Measuring from the circumference of a Bastion is a relatively large footprint
I didn't say 360. It is quite common to get two of the HB on a target though.
It would have to be very close and quite spread out?
The emplaced Heavy Bolters on the bastion cover about 45 arc total, and if you stand a model directly diagonal to the Building, none of your emplaced HB should be able to turn enough to point at it... ?
When i said 360, i mean that being anywhere around the bastion *should* put you in LOS of a Heavy Bolter on the Bastion, even though technically it has 4 blind spots. Tried to find a top-view image, but this will have to do: Somewhat large blind spot between both red Line of Sight markers
BlackTalos wrote: Retributors work really well in a combo with Bastion + Canoness + Command Squad, but i don't think that's a feasible route for you. They're probably quite happy on the Aegis with the Vet sergeant on the Quad Gun.
Why would you take a canoness and command squad? Just take rets with 7 girls, simulacrum and 4 hb, jacobus optional.
Because the entire set, though more costly, is much more effective:
9 Heavy Bolters, BS5 Quad Gun, dialogus and 2 Turns of rending. It really is a set-up you should play-test and come back with results. It just doesn't sound as good on paper
Full set-up:
6-Girl Retributors, 4 HB, Simulacr
Canoness, no upgrades, joined to Rets on the Roof of
Bastion, Quad Gun, Void Shield
Command Squad, 4HB, dialogus, inside Bastion, dialogus gets an emplaced HB.
Best use of dialogus upgrade i've seen so far, having a Heavy bolter :p
Since the girls inside can run the quad gun, I would have the canonness joined to the unit inside for better protection, the sisters on top will die fairly quickly to anything that has some volume of fire, no need to expose the cannoness nedlessly. The advantage of having the retributors inside is to have rending on the emplaced bolters (and rending on quad gun which is nice against flyrants).
I have been thinking of going with the Bastion + ADL combo, so I can have another quad gun or las cannon on the ground. For that I might put a HB command squad behind ADL, without a dialogus but maybe with an hospitaler. Also think I rather go Ammo dump than void shield for bastion.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Actually, it might be good to have on of the guns run by a solo cannonnes or Uriah, so I don't have to waste up to 9 heavy bolters on snap shots at flying units (flying units can even be AV12, even more of a waste).
Before running my HB sisters as rets for the rending AoF I used to run them as a command squad with hospitaller.
The rets with rending have been ok, to be honest I haven't found them stellar though. Most of the time I find what I'm shooting them at is in ruins or otherwise has cover (jinking light skimmers) so the rending has been more or less a waste for me. Back when I ran them with the hospitaller the FNP actually saved them quite often from what would have been crippling damage. I'm thinking I may swap back to the command squad for my next few matches and see if I like them as much as I remember.
You get to choose when to use the rending though... I mean, do what makes you happy, but I'd rather have and potentially not use rending than have an expensive FNP squad and a useless canoness. If you really like survivability more than rending, just take more models in the retributor squad. How many more can you get in the squad for the same cost? Or put them in a bastion or Imperial Bunker. Either one probably still keeps the squad cheaper than command and canoness and makes them a lot more survivable.
The only downside of rets is that they aren't Exos. The downside of a command squad is that they aren't rets, are more expensive than rets and saddle you with a milquetoast hq.
I use my SCS as a mini-retributer squad as well. But I use multi-meltas. Yeah, I know the problem of getting multi's up to where you need them, but I've found they work well to help guard from faster vehicles, out-flanked vehicles, and faster things like knights. Basically, I hold them for things that want to get right in my face (so I don't have to move them), so the regular meltas can move on to other targets.
What are people's thoughts on a retributor squad with 4 heavy bolters over a 3rd exorcist? If I have no designated anti air or allies at all is the 3rd exorcist too important to drop?
Edit: Is it worth running HBs at all (as a command squad) in a mech list?
I normally run 2 Exorcists and 1 Heavy Bolter Ret squad (although I don't have a 3rd Exorcist anyway). The Ret's usually seem to do well enough to keep holding down a spot in my lists.
I dunno if I'd go so far to put another 4 HB's in a Command Squad though. It's not so much about having Rending or not, but more so than not really need another 4 HB's. I feel my anti-infantry firepower is covered enough by the BSS and Ret squad already. I'd run a Command Squad with 4 Multi Meltas or kitted out for melee before I'd run them with HB's.
pretre wrote: You get to choose when to use the rending though... I mean, do what makes you happy, but I'd rather have and potentially not use rending than have an expensive FNP squad and a useless canoness. If you really like survivability more than rending, just take more models in the retributor squad. How many more can you get in the squad for the same cost? Or put them in a bastion or Imperial Bunker. Either one probably still keeps the squad cheaper than command and canoness and makes them a lot more survivable.
The only downside of rets is that they aren't Exos. The downside of a command squad is that they aren't rets, are more expensive than rets and saddle you with a milquetoast hq.
Which is why they work well in the example above:
- Dialogus over FNP: Same price, much more gain
- "useless" Canoness sits on the Quad Gun: At least her BS5 is on a 4-shot S7 weapon that loves it.
That removes both "downsides", so all you have left is the benefits
What are people's thoughts on a retributor squad with 4 heavy bolters over a 3rd exorcist? If I have no designated anti air or allies at all is the 3rd exorcist too important to drop?
Edit: Is it worth running HBs at all (as a command squad) in a mech list?
I think HBs can be very handy against massed infantry targets (I'm looking at you Orks and IG) or soft vehicles like Dark Eldar but any tough nuts really need the Exorcists or you are left trying to get close up and personal with meltas.
BlackTalos wrote: The only downside of rets is that they aren't Exos. The downside of a command squad is that they aren't rets, are more expensive than rets and saddle you with a milquetoast hq.
Which is why they work well in the example above:
- Dialogus over FNP: Same price, much more gain
- "useless" Canoness sits on the Quad Gun: At least her BS5 is on a 4-shot S7 weapon that loves it.
That removes both "downsides", so all you have left is the benefits
So for your 5 more points, you get BS5 instead of BS4 for the quad, FNP on 8 Wounds vs 10 wounds straight up, no rending. I still don't see the benefit. As I said, no rending, more expensive, milquetoast HQ.
Heck, if you're looking for a cool bubble, do this:
6 Rets with 4 HB, Sim, Jacobus - 222
At least then, you've got more wounds than the Canoness, a big fearless/counter-attack bubble, another faith act, etc so on.
What are people's thoughts on a retributor squad with 4 heavy bolters over a 3rd exorcist? If I have no designated anti air or allies at all is the 3rd exorcist too important to drop?
Edit: Is it worth running HBs at all (as a command squad) in a mech list?
I typically run a fully mech list, so I go with the third Exorcist over Rets. And honestly, I think the Exorcist is just better overall, but that just might be my experience with the Rets. Even if the Rets do rend, you're looking at only 1.5 rends in a 12-shot volley, which is nothing to write home about.
GoonBandito wrote: I normally run 2 Exorcists and 1 Heavy Bolter Ret squad (although I don't have a 3rd Exorcist anyway). The Ret's usually seem to do well enough to keep holding down a spot in my lists.
I dunno if I'd go so far to put another 4 HB's in a Command Squad though. It's not so much about having Rending or not, but more so than not really need another 4 HB's. I feel my anti-infantry firepower is covered enough by the BSS and Ret squad already. I'd run a Command Squad with 4 Multi Meltas or kitted out for melee before I'd run them with HB's.
I have tried RETs and just found them to be underwhelming to what an exorcist can do. Prior to this codex, when I could do it every turn, I thought it more of a fair comparison. But now, you get it once or you can spend 30ish extra points to pick up a simulcrum to get it twice.
I mean really. 12 shots. Hit with 9. So 1, maybe 2 rending hits? Don't get me wrong, I am not saying they are awful, but for me it is exorcists all the way.
pretre wrote: The only downside of rets is that they aren't Exos. The downside of a command squad is that they aren't rets, are more expensive than rets and saddle you with a milquetoast hq.
Which is why they work well in the example above:
- Dialogus over FNP: Same price, much more gain
- "useless" Canoness sits on the Quad Gun: At least her BS5 is on a 4-shot S7 weapon that loves it.
That removes both "downsides", so all you have left is the benefits
So for your 5 more points, you get BS5 instead of BS4 for the quad, FNP on 8 Wounds vs 10 wounds straight up, no rending. I still don't see the benefit. As I said, no rending, more expensive, milquetoast HQ.
Heck, if you're looking for a cool bubble, do this:
6 Rets with 4 HB, Sim, Jacobus - 222
At least then, you've got more wounds than the Canoness, a big fearless/counter-attack bubble, another faith act, etc so on.
I'm talking about when you've bought the Command Squad WITH 4 HB Rets and a Bastion with Void shield
It's going to be about 400pts, but the 175 on Command+HB+Canoness is worth much much more than them standing behind an Aegis or for the same effect from within the bastion of just 2 Ret squads.
Also i said Dialogus over FNP = Replace the (IMO pointless FNP) with a much more useful "Bastion with Laud hailer".
So:
- BS5 Quad Gun
- Certain Double Rending (no need to pay for Vet, you're re-rolling that act...)
- 9 Heavy Bolters every Turn
- Rending Quad
- Massive Laud Hailer bubble
As for the "downsides":
- No more expensive (than 2 X Retributor squads)
- No milquetoast HQ (she's got 2 Rending turns, Interceptor at BS5 at flyers or skimmers)
But the real downsides:
- Expensive combo. Compare it to Imperial Knight Paladin. I think this does better.
- Snap Shooting most targets if no flyers, though she can "separate" from Retributors if needed.
[EDIT]: Found the list:
Bastion: Quad gun upgrade, Void generator upgrade = 150pts
5xRetributors, extra Retributor, 4xHeavy Bolters, Simularcum = 122pts
Canoness = 65pts
Celestian Command squad: 5xCelestians, upgrade to Sister Dialogus, 4 x Heavy Bolters = 115pts
I see what you're getting at. I still wouldn't field a second unit on top. The unit inside is fine and can run the quad. If I was going to run a unit on top, I definitely wouldn't run the SCS.
Some of my friends and I are going to play a campaign. Special characters aren't allowed.
We play 850 points due to the size of my friends kitchen table
Only reason I would run a command squad would be to run a second quad gun or icarus. I feel they need rending to be worth it, as the heavy bolters are too expensive for what they do. However, if you already have a bastion with heavy bolters and a quad gun, and you want a second quad gun or icarus, then you can take an ADL and have a unit with 3+ armor, 4+cover and 5+ FNP to run the gun, gun which is T7, so they wont die immediately. Then having bolters so they can shoot at stuff while standing there is great. The only other option is to put on heavy melta on the command squad, which is great if anything comes close enough for them to actually use them.
Rending on bolters is great because that means they can hurt up to av14 vehicles, and with 15 bolter shots from a bastion that's about 2 6s. I run ammo store so they can reroll 1s, and I don't find the void shield worth it because enemies just ignore the bastion. I agree that you often shoot at stuff in cover, then rending is useless but then you can just chose not to use the act of faith that turn.
Exorcist is great, but doesn't have volume of fire. BS4 3,5 S8 AP 1 shots each turn compared to 15 BS5(-ish) S5 bolter shots and a BS4 S7 quad gun. Against air units you have at least 2 HB hits and 3 quad gun hits, which is scary enough to force a jink. So I think the bastion is good because it can deal with some things that the rest of the army can't. Besides, I think 3 exorcists is kinda boring fluff wise, so I like having some retributors because they look awsome (especially the melta/hf sisters!).
I like that list at 850. Very solid with a ton of firepower. I think at that level the Canoness is the best HQ choice. Celestine is too expensive when considering the lost firepower.
PanzerLeader wrote: I like that list at 850. Very solid with a ton of firepower. I think at that level the Canoness is the best HQ choice. Celestine is too expensive when considering the lost firepower.
At 850? Celestine is a beat stick at low points levels. She is better than any other 70 points you could add to your list.
PanzerLeader wrote: I like that list at 850. Very solid with a ton of firepower. I think at that level the Canoness is the best HQ choice. Celestine is too expensive when considering the lost firepower.
At 850? Celestine is a beat stick at low points levels. She is better than any other 70 points you could add to your list.
But where do you strip those 70 points from to upgrade the canoness? Everything else is pretty minimal as it is. I'd prefer the resiliency of multiple units everywhere and 6 vehicles is hard to crack at that point level, especially two with AV13.
PanzerLeader wrote: But where do you strip those 70 points from to upgrade the canoness? Everything else is pretty minimal as it is. I'd prefer the resiliency of multiple units everywhere and 6 vehicles is hard to crack at that point level, especially two with AV13.
I think HB are going to become more useful with the increase in Armor 4 targets. Skitarii, Ad Mech, Eldar, and Necrons all have a large amount of units which have armor 4+.
Space Marine Scouts in their new codex cost 10ppm for the same statline now as a Marine (bar a 4+ save)... Meanwhile Battle Sisters are 12ppm with clearly worse statline (less WS, S, T and Init). I assume the Scouts still don't get access to Special Weapons other than Sniper Rifles and a Heavy Bolter, but still seems BS to me, considering Scouts get ATSKNF, Chapter Tactics, Infilitrate, Scout and Move Through Cover...
I also would like to know peoples strategies for this. I have very little luck fighting Necron, regardless of what army I play, but I'm interested in hearing what builds/strategies have worked for you guys thus far.
SisterSydney wrote:So how do your Sisters slaughter Necrons? Tips please!
Heh, I didn't say we slaughtered Necrons, just that we slaughter Necron warriors. Still, its mostly through careful application of massed heavy bolter and heavy flamer fire that overwhelms their 4++/5++ in the same way that regular shooting overwhelms a regular army's 4+/5+ saves with small arms - once they're only rolling the same number of saves as any other army, they're significantly less scary.
GoonBandito wrote:Space Marine Scouts in their new codex cost 10ppm for the same statline now as a Marine (bar a 4+ save)... Meanwhile Battle Sisters are 12ppm with clearly worse statline (less WS, S, T and Init). I assume the Scouts still don't get access to Special Weapons other than Sniper Rifles and a Heavy Bolter, but still seems BS to me, considering Scouts get ATSKNF, Chapter Tactics, Infilitrate, Scout and Move Through Cover...
Marines keep getting cheaper, Sisters haven't yet. Used to be, they were 14 or 16 ppm - 2 or 4 points more than Sisters per model. Now Scouts are getting silly cheap and Marines reasonably priced for their abilities, we just have't caught up yet.
GoonBandito wrote: Space Marine Scouts in their new codex cost 10ppm for the same statline now as a Marine (bar a 4+ save)... Meanwhile Battle Sisters are 12ppm with clearly worse statline (less WS, S, T and Init). I assume the Scouts still don't get access to Special Weapons other than Sniper Rifles and a Heavy Bolter, but still seems BS to me, considering Scouts get ATSKNF, Chapter Tactics, Infilitrate, Scout and Move Through Cover...
The move from 4+ armor to 3+ armor alone is worth the 2 points when you look at everything that is AP4 base.
Now if you want to talk about comparisons, vanguard vets getting 5 point power weapons...
Still, I'm generally disappointed with the new SM codex. There's no detachment/formation that allows empty drop pods, so in a tournament setting where duplicate named detachments are not allowed, codex marines can bring us at most 1 pod in an allied detachment, and if you want their demi-company you have to bring 3 tactical squads...
Raven Guard lost scout, so no more opportunity to bring 4 scouting ICs to get the rest of my army to keep up with the doms (I never got around to trying this one).
I'm still a nub but to me it seems the role of BSs is a necessary tax to get special/heavy weapons. So comparing the stats and points of a sister vs a scout seems a bit moot.
To be fair, all Sisters pretty much have the same base stats, except doms who pay 1 for scouting and seraphim who pay 3 for jump packs and rerollable 6++.
I haven't really thought that regular sisters were overcosted. However, I think T4 vs T3 is about the same as +3 armor compared to 4+ armor, with that in mind I also think the prices on regular sisters needs to go down 1-2points. If the point is that we are paying a tax for special weapons, then the answer is to make the special weapons 1-2 points more expensive. On the other hand, sisters have adamantium will and 6++, which counts for something, so maybe a 1 point reduction would be ok.
There is just so much other stuff in our codex that could be fixed before we start complaining about point costs.
What really annoys me with the codex is what Rihgu said. Allowing rending on space marine heavy bolters. Because we only have one unique thing with sisters, removing that and giving it to other factions just annoys me so much. Let us keep the few unique mechanics we have please.
I really love the SoB faction, and have been playing them since Dawn of War: Soulstorm was released, since I didn't think there was a faction in 40k I wanted to play before that point. 7 years later we have never gotten any new models and what codex updates we get just removes more units from our lists and nerf what few good units we have. Every year there are rumors of plastic sisters, which I think we have even seen pictures of, and codex with new units, but every year those hopes are crushed. That said, I did like the addition of faith powers in the WD codex we used to have, I just wish they would have kept how faith and Celestine worked in the latest codex.
On the bright side, sisters was the faction that got me into 40k, and I have played Black Templars, Grey Knights, Eldar, Tau and now Harlequins since then.
7 years later we have never gotten any new models and what codex updates we get just removes more units from our lists and nerf what few good units we have.
I think we're in one of the best places we've been since C:CA in 2001/2002.
Now if you want to talk about comparisons, vanguard vets getting 5 point power weapons...
Still, I'm generally disappointed with the new SM codex. There's no detachment/formation that allows empty drop pods, so in a tournament setting where duplicate named detachments are not allowed, codex marines can bring us at most 1 pod in an allied detachment, and if you want their demi-company you have to bring 3 tactical squads...
Raven Guard lost scout, so no more opportunity to bring 4 scouting ICs to get the rest of my army to keep up with the doms (I never got around to trying this one).
Still have Flesh Tearers Strike Force detachment (1 troops, 1 HQ, 6FA - all of which can be drop pods), and Chapter Tactics: Raptors I believe still gives scout until updated by Forgeworld.
What could be fun though would be to bring a demi-company alongside a Sisters CAD. You'd get a Captain, 3 tactical squads, a choice of FA squads, and either Devastators or Centurions (plus a choice of optional command squad and Dreadnought unit). It's a relatively cheap detachment, lets you add a ton of special weapons (including grav cannons) and the entire formation is ObSec. ObSec Ironclad dreadnaughts are pretty sick now at five attacks each, six on the charge. You could also use the FA squad slot to buy 3 attack bikes, giving you quick heavy bolters or multi-meltas on a 24" movement ObSec unit when you need it.
I really dislike Tactical squads. The grav cannons help, but they have insufficient range to be able to just stay put.
I've had good luck in my last few games running a CM with TH and Shireld Eternal with a bike squad and Celestine. She hides out with that squad and Hit and Runs them until turn 3 or so when the CM ties up something big and Celestine breaks off to sweep away backfield objective campers.
That said, I've not in the last 5 games needed the EW from the shield and a Wolflord with his S10 attacks would have been better vs. Necrons and anyone with FNP.
BA also do choppy, but jump units are T4. The whole purpose of these allies was to give my opponents something to shoot at while I moved my meltas into position.
The tac squads themselves are only ok. But if you keep them cheap (5 marines, special, combi, drop pod) they supplement your dominion alpha strike nicely. The formation as a whole adds a ton of ObSec to a Sisters army though and is a huge boon to solving counter assault problems (say, 2 ironclads that also boost your AV13 saturation) and help with target overload by adding centurions.
I've not had counter assault problems in awhile, but my enemies have generally brought shooty armies.
5 man Vanguard Vets w/jump packs and power weapons at 135 points are way better than a Tactical squad, but unless I'm allowed to bring the 3-5 formation of those guys without the demi-company, I'm stuck having a single Elite slot which should go to a CCS because Ironhands bikers with FNP fulfill the escort/distraction role better than T4 vets.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Target overload is also generally not a problem I need to solve if Celestine and the CM have a solid unit to escort them. Between that unit and the doms my BSS can generally go wherever they want and remind enemies that every sisters squad I being has a minimum of 2 Meltaguns.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Being able to bring scouts in an LSS would also give me mobile scoring units that the enemy would be too busy to shoot.
PanzerLeader wrote: What could be fun though would be to bring a demi-company alongside a Sisters CAD. You'd get a Captain, 3 tactical squads, a choice of FA squads, and either Devastators or Centurions (plus a choice of optional command squad and Dreadnought unit). It's a relatively cheap detachment, lets you add a ton of special weapons (including grav cannons) and the entire formation is ObSec. ObSec Ironclad dreadnaughts are pretty sick now at five attacks each, six on the charge. You could also use the FA squad slot to buy 3 attack bikes, giving you quick heavy bolters or multi-meltas on a 24" movement ObSec unit when you need it.
Yeah, I think my biggest problem is my army is becoming less and less Sisters as new releases leave us further behind. I'm just not willing to pay 300+ point tax in marines.
I guess I could always try the Inquisition LR full of crusaders and DCAs, as I consider Inquisition allies to be more normal.
Or I could paint my Knight Acheron bring the plasma obliterator and break out both types of apocalyptic templates.
Mavnas wrote: Yeah, I think my biggest problem is my army is becoming less and less Sisters as new releases leave us further behind. I'm just not willing to pay 300+ point tax in marines.
When I feel like having fun I run my FT Strike Force with a scout squad, sang priest with jump pack to run with my living saint, the rest is drop pods loaded up with PenEngines. They are still cheap, and Alpha Strike drop pod PenEngines scare the crap out of most everything. Coupled with double CAD doms, it's a fun and destructive list.
I don't expect my double CAD sisters to kill everything, but they do fairly well. Is everyone frustrated with their pure Sisters lists or is everyone just trying to enjoy the new options coming along with 7ed dexes that Sisters haven't gotten to tap into yet? Not criticizing in anyway, I've just been pretty happy with the 7ed changes for the Sisters and have my Raven Guard to play with all the new Marine bling.
Maybe I'm feeling less of the frustration and don't need to explore ALL of the new options?
Well, I'm trying to build a tournament list, and unfortunately double CAD is out. If it weren't there'd be no issue.
Also, if I painted faster, I could switch to SW or BA and use one of their cool detachments. Unfortunately, while I bought some of each of those when they came out, it will be a long time until I get around to painting them.
What chapter did you paint for? Any specific Chapter tactic? And Tac squads are better with Raptors CT. Scout, Stealth and Heavy 1 Rending bolters, though with the buff to scouts the Scout Squad may be better since they have longer range and precision shots from Sniper. Just no rending.
Acidian wrote: What really annoys me with the codex is what Rihgu said. Allowing rending on space marine heavy bolters. Because we only have one unique thing with sisters, removing that and giving it to other factions just annoys me so much.
But what about Eviscerators? Those are pretty emblematic of the Ecclesiarchy, right, so marines should not get them?
Next C:SM will include the Exorcist, Astartes pattern that shoot 2D6 missiles and is AV14/13/12…
Ugh, at least you're in the right thread to complain about it this time. I don't see eviscerators as uniquely SOB. They started as a redemptionist weapon.
It is annoying that once again our special toys have been stolen for use by the abhuman freaks... at least ASMs didn't get the option for dual pistols yet.
Furyou Miko wrote: It is annoying that once again our special toys have been stolen for use by the abhuman freaks... at least ASMs didn't get the option for dual pistols yet.
Except, as I said, we stole them from human freaks first.
What chapter did you paint for? Any specific Chapter tactic? And Tac squads are better with Raptors CT. Scout, Stealth and Heavy 1 Rending bolters, though with the buff to scouts the Scout Squad may be better since they have longer range and precision shots from Sniper. Just no rending.
I painted all my generic marines as a chapter of unknown founding that matches my Sisters' color scheme. I was intending to do any squad that is specific to a chapter like death company or grey hunters in the appropriate colors (I also just got really tired of painting things white.) I am generally skeptical about adding more bolters, and I definitely don't want tactical squads. I feel like tactical squads are too similar to what I already get from every Sisters squad and what I'm looking for from allies is something different, like the mobility of bikes or jump troops that actually serve a purpose other than ablative wounds for Celestine. I like how I painted my Seraphim, they look cool, but they're literally just there to die for Celestine and occasionally get a lucky kill.
It is annoying that once again our special toys have been stolen for use by the abhuman freaks... at least ASMs didn't get the option for dual pistols yet.
To be fair, I saw the Salamanders special objectives, and I was thinking, someone should just cross out the word Salamanders and pencil in Sisters of Battle on those.
pretre wrote: They started as a redemptionist weapon.
And how would you play Redemptionists in 40k? As Frateris Militia. Well, you would back when we had rules for them. Hence ours. Certainly not something for marines or regular IG. Priests are part of the Ecclesiarchy delegated to the guard, so they get a pass. Chaplain are horrific abhuman heretics, so they do not get a pass.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Mavnas wrote: like the mobility of bikes or jump troops that actually serve a purpose other than ablative wounds for Celestine. I like how I painted my Seraphim, they look cool, but they're literally just there to die for Celestine and occasionally get a lucky kill.
What? The special pistols are just so cool. You can just kill stuff dead with 5 flamers template that get reroll to wound. And you can pop vehicles dead with 4 melta shots too!
pretre wrote: They started as a redemptionist weapon.
And how would you play Redemptionists in 40k? As Frateris Militia. Well, you would back when we had rules for them. Hence ours. Certainly not something for marines or regular IG. Priests are part of the Ecclesiarchy delegated to the guard, so they get a pass. Chaplain are horrific abhuman heretics, so they do not get a pass.
Actually, redemptionists are separate from FM. They started in Necromunda, again external to SOB, and later were added to Codex: Chapter Approved with SOB.
Actually, redemptionists are separate from FM. They started in Necromunda, again external to SOB, and later were added to Codex: Chapter Approved with SOB.
Redemptionists are separate from FM.... but would be played as Frateris Militia. Both are religiously motivated zealots that have banded together to slay the heretic, purge the unclean, and burn the witch! Burn, burn I say! Sorry, sorry.... I got a little carried away there.
They would also defend shrines. But probably with flamers.
Actually, redemptionists are separate from FM. They started in Necromunda, again external to SOB, and later were added to Codex: Chapter Approved with SOB.
Redemptionists are separate from FM.... but would be played as Frateris Militia. Both are religiously motivated zealots that have banded together to slay the heretic, purge the unclean, and burn the witch! Burn, burn I say! Sorry, sorry.... I got a little carried away there.
They would also defend shrines. But probably with flamers.
Trust me, I'm well aware.
I used to play 60 of them in 3rd edition. And they had their own rules, much different than FM.
pretre wrote: Actually, redemptionists are separate from FM.
As Mallich noted, I said “Would be played with”.
If you look at the fluff for the frateris militia, redemptionists are just one specific subtype of what frateris militia is supposed to cover.
Would you deny that Sisters of Battle and Redemptionists are both heavily linked in the fluff to the Ecclesiarchy and the religious fanatic theme? Would you deny that Redemptionists and Sisters make much more natural allies than Redemptionists and Marines or Marines and Sisters ?
PenEngines can't go in Drop Pods. They aren't infantry and they aren't dreadnoughts.
Well, that's just, annoying... my RG just inherited five more I guess. Going to be forced to spring for wings and beer for my local opponents, they've been being nice too me.
Acidian wrote: What really annoys me with the codex is what Rihgu said. Allowing rending on space marine heavy bolters. Because we only have one unique thing with sisters, removing that and giving it to other factions just annoys me so much.
But what about Eviscerators? Those are pretty emblematic of the Ecclesiarchy, right, so marines should not get them?
Next C:SM will include the Exorcist, Astartes pattern that shoot 2D6 missiles and is AV14/13/12…
My main issue with the new SM dex.
No real care for the new shinies apart from all the ones that were unique to AS last month......
PenEngines can't go in Drop Pods. They aren't infantry and they aren't dreadnoughts.
Well, that's just, annoying... my RG just inherited five more I guess. Going to be forced to spring for wings and beer for my local opponents, they've been being nice too me.
Thx much pretre!
If your group tolerates homebrew, I've got a Dominica-Pattern Drop Pod that can carry a Pengine here. Also highly customizable Frateris Militia that you can turn into anything from Guard Lite to Eviscerator-wielding Redemptionists.
pretre wrote: Actually, redemptionists are separate from FM.
As Mallich noted, I said “Would be played with”.
If you look at the fluff for the frateris militia, redemptionists are just one specific subtype of what frateris militia is supposed to cover.
Would you deny that Sisters of Battle and Redemptionists are both heavily linked in the fluff to the Ecclesiarchy and the religious fanatic theme? Would you deny that Redemptionists and Sisters make much more natural allies than Redemptionists and Marines or Marines and Sisters ?
No, you're changing the goalposts.
I'm simply saying that Eviscerators are not some special to sisters thing, as you were both in this thread and every new marine thread. BTW, I think the over-evangelization of SOB in non-SOB threads is actually harmful for our cause.
Hi all, I'm a recently rebooted Sororitas player learning the new edition. I've been playing on and off since RT, but the most recent hiatus has been 10 years, so the learning curve is steep. This thread has been exceptionally useful, especially the last several dozen pages since the digital codex met 7th edition. I built my first lists with your discussions in mind and would love any feedback anyone has to offer.
Here's the 1500 I took this evening in an 8-1 loss to Dark Eldar/Harlequins/Haemonculus Coven:
Doms x5, Melta x3, Simulacrum, Priest, MM Immo, Laud Hailer
Seraphs x10, Hand Flamers x2 (w/ Celestine)
Rets x10, Heavy Bolters x4, Simulacrum
Exorcist
Exorcist
It wasn't the most balanced or focused list, but I was eager to try both characters with their bodyguard units and as many unit types as I could squeeze into a game. The basic story went like this: I went first, scouted the Doms, and killed his Harlequin psyker; he got an Exorcist on each of the first turns. His Reserves arrived on turn 2 without issue. Doms got shot out of their transport and had to hunt for more targets. They eventually found the Haemonculus Coven, which they only got a couple of wounds into. Rets got castled up in a ruin and ran low on targets. Seraphs took down a skimmer but bogged down on the DE character inside, who was a match for Celestine. Foot mob and Jacobus got slowed down by a terrain squeeze and eventually took out a skimmer full of warriors. In the end we called it in Turn 5, he with 2 objectives and two dead Exos for the scenario VPs (Big Guns?), I with undamaged but isolated Rets, Jacobus and a third of his blob, and two melta Doms running for their lives.
My top moments were Ignoring Cover on that sneaky psyker for First Blood, rounding up the rest of the Harlequins, and getting the classic one-two punch: MM Immo pops a transport and Flamers from an adjacent squad finish the survivors. Biggest issues on my side: forgetting Acts of Faith and War Hymns half the time, some clutch rolls (failed AoF, failed Hit & Run), lack of fire discipline. Big things on his side: the Coven is a tough nut to crack, the skimmers full of Warriors put out a high volume of fire, and three rogue Harlequins take a while to track down.
Overall it was a great return to the hobby, but I got thoroughly trounced. I feel like I am redundant in some areas and could economize on Priests and Simulacra, but I was missing the Veteran Superiors in the game as far as LD and answering challenges. Not sure about squad loadouts, but I liked the melta Doms running ahead of a Rhino full of flamers... the 2000-point list I'm working on adds another of each of those. I'm also considering footslogging Troops, 3x Immo Doms, 3x Exos... I only have six Rhino hulls to work with.
Anyway, thanks for a great and informative thread so far... feedback and suggestions most welcome!
I generally don't find veteran superiors useful. Most of your units, if they get in melee can only really hope to slow down the enemy (mind you, this is useful if you're say preventing a Riptide from shooting).
I think the biggest issue is your squads are too big. For example the 4 extra sisters in the ret squad are probably not doing much if you're castled up deep in your half.
Seraphim are not good in melee other than preventing Celestine from being overwhelmed. They're only S3 with nothing special :(
MacPhail wrote: Biggest issues on my side: forgetting Acts of Faith and War Hymns half the time, some clutch rolls (failed AoF, failed Hit & Run), lack of fire discipline.
Remembering Acts of Faith is a tricky one, though War Hymns is easier if you keep thinking "yay Close Combat, i can re-roll my saves"... "oh wait, Hymns!"
Did you roll a 6 for Hit & Run? tough luck, because with Celestine in that squad, that's the only fail result (with her Initiative). (checking you knew this)
I feel like I am redundant in some areas and could economize on Priests and Simulacra, but I was missing the Veteran Superiors in the game as far as LD and answering challenges.
The standard superiors can still accept/issue challenges, though i'm not sure, as Mavnas says, there is much point. CC=death is usually the best way to see it. Apart from that 16xSister+All the priests Squad. They steam-roll anything.
So, for the comments on the list (and yes, some extra Priests and Simulacra in there) i'll just colour code: Green = perfect, no change Orange = change needed Red = probably best removed.
Doms x5, Melta x3, Simulacrum, Priest, MM Immo, Laud Hailer
Seraphs x10, Hand Flamers x2 (w/ Celestine)
Rets x10, Heavy Bolters x4, Simulacrum
Exorcist Exorcist
Dominions (YMMV) tend to jump out, kill something, and die. If that happens to you too, make sure you've only spent the points you needed on them: - 4 Melta guns, possible Superior combi-melta, but only if you have spare points, The MM Immo and Laud Hailer. They don't need anything else to kill what they need to kill. Don't forget you re-roll that Act of Faith with the Laud Hailer...
Seraphim work well as 5-girls just to shield celestine. Depends how long you want her around i guess, but in my experience, they die quite fast in CC anyway.... 5 or 10.
I'd go 5 Rets and save some points, but they need survivability: A Bastion, Aegis, or just have 6-7 of them rather than 10, but that might be just me....
Same for the small BSS: Drop the priest, the 4 extra girls, and just do as much Drive-by shooting as you can before you bail and die. With the spare points, just get a copy of the same Squad. Then you have 2 Rhinos of 5 girls shooting and flaming around the board.
As for the big squad, just max out to 20 Girls. You could have 3 priests, but 2+Jacobus is more than enough. At 2000 Pts, i've had a good game where you add Celestine to that Squad, drop the seraphim. She tanks most of the incoming fire until they find something to get in CC with. Walk them right through the middle of the board, i'm sure the enemy will either stay well away (you deny the whole centre board) or just die when you assault them.
To put it into context, that same 20-girl squad + Jacobus +2 priests + Celestine won me a 2000pts game of The Relic because Ultramarines Scouted a Landraider with Grav-Centurions+Tigurus+Librarian, where my Exorcists got the Land Raider, his FellBlade (7" template, S7 AP3) shot twice at the Squad and Celestine Tanked all 18 Wounds (over 2 Turns) but died after tanking another 3 on Turn 3, only for that Squad to then charge the centurions, kill them and claim the Relic.
Mavnas wrote: I generally don't find veteran superiors useful. Most of your units, if they get in melee can only really hope to slow down the enemy (mind you, this is useful if you're say preventing a Riptide from shooting).
I think the biggest issue is your squads are too big. For example the 4 extra sisters in the ret squad are probably not doing much if you're castled up deep in your half.
Seraphim are not good in melee other than preventing Celestine from being overwhelmed. They're only S3 with nothing special :(
I put veterans in my dominion squads for the LD9. I like the extra reliability for the AoFs.
I'm not sure if this belongs in the YMDC thread but since this is my go to sisters thread i thought i would ask it here. If Celestine joins another unit (without AoF or Hymns) can she still use her AoF since she is technically dead or does she still count as being part of that unit? I wanted to stick her with some deep striking grey knight allies.
Mavnas wrote: I tend to be hesitant to allow Celestine to take S6+ hits, even if they're AP3. I am very good at rolling 1s.
But that was basically her only Role in that squad. Either that, or that entire (Game-winning) Squad would be instantly removed.
I'm not sure how Celestine solo does against Centurions + Tigurus + Libby, but probably not that well...
Sure, but you must have gotten insanely lucky to not roll a 1 in that many dice. I generally don't :(
Haha true, it's all about Faith! lol
I just had a massive pile of Dice and rolled 3 at a time, never getting a 1. (until the 22nd roll, then she just went *splat*)
It makes up for the 2 Exorcists though, on 3 Turns they BOTH fired 1 missile that either Hit then Armour Pen = 1 or just failed to Hit 50% of the time.... Or the dominions that got right behind the Fellblade (Outflank) and caused a total of 1 Hit, that rolled 2+1 for the Rear armour of 11, getting a Glancelol
I just Held that Relic and prayed.
Ended up winning the game because those were the only 3(?) points to get
Mavnas wrote: I generally don't find veteran superiors useful. Most of your units, if they get in melee can only really hope to slow down the enemy (mind you, this is useful if you're say preventing a Riptide from shooting).
I think the biggest issue is your squads are too big. For example the 4 extra sisters in the ret squad are probably not doing much if you're castled up deep in your half.
Seraphim are not good in melee other than preventing Celestine from being overwhelmed. They're only S3 with nothing special :(
I put veterans in my dominion squads for the LD9. I like the extra reliability for the AoFs.
I use Celestine as my warlord keep her within 12" of at least one model in the squad on the turn they need it. 10 > 9
PanzerLeader wrote: I use Celestine as my warlord keep her within 12" of at least one model in the squad on the turn they need it. 10 > 9
Exactly this.
Yeah. I use Celestine differently then most I think. My dominions tend to be alpha striking or outflanking while Celestine tends to be more back towards my BSS squads acting as a reserve/counter attack unit. Its also one of the main reasons I prefer having the random BSS warlord and rolling on strategic.
I recently embarked on a project to create a 'decurion-style' Core/Command/Auxiliary detachment for every faction. The Sisters of Battle were the second faction to get a detachment, but unfortunately I don't have the experience to accurately gauge whether I've buffed where buffs are due. I have done a reasonable amount of research in an attempt to get a better idea of what I'm doing, but I'd really appreciate it if some experienced sisters players would take the time to provide some feedback.
If you'd like to help out, you can find the link in my signature.
Can you post that link? Sigs don't show on the mobile site (err, at least on my iPhone).Here's that formations thread by Eldar Vampire Hunter, who's got some cool ideas. I've posted a few thoughts and urge everyone to read & comment.
BlackTalos wrote: So, for the comments on the list (and yes, some extra Priests and Simulacra in there) i'll just colour code:
Green = perfect, no change
Orange = change needed
Red = probably best removed.
Perfect... Just what I needed. Thanks!
Yes, I actually rolled Celestine's only possible H&R failure... sometimes the dice betray you. The 3x melta Doms are just due to not having the models for 2 squads of 4, although I feel like three should be enough for most tasks, and maybe even that 4 is overkill?
Dumping priests and simulacra as you described frees quite a few points. If I really squeeze the troop count by dropping some Rets and Seraphs, I can clear enough for an extra Dom squad instead of another flame-spewing Rhino. I'm guessing that's the better option... or is that too few power-armored bodies? It's a 50-point difference between the two units, so 4 extra sisters could go somewhere. Here's the list with the extra Doms, no veterans, priests limited to the blob squad, and just 1 simulacrum with the Rets.
pretre wrote: Have you thought about getting a bastion?
I haven't really. Some people have mentioned the Aegis/Quad combo when I ask if Sisters are hopeless without fliers. The one group I'm trying get in with has quite a few fliers and I'm sure I'll encounter them at the FLGS. I'm not sure how either the Bastion or the Aegis functions in terms of gameplay beyond making a unit hard to shift and giving them some artillery.
Also, Petre:
I'm waiting to see the legality of ICs and the Sky Hammer formation. Sticking celestine with some assault marines giving her drop and charge top of turn 1 goodness is... it's just neat.
Looking good. I can understand the 3 x MeltaGuns rather than 4, but 4 will clear anything. They might not always face a Land raider where 1 Pen gets you a kill. Some enemies which would need 4+ Meltas:
- Imperial Knight
- Daemon Prince
- Baneblade
- Wraith Lord
etc
Did you say spare points? I'd want to see to big squad at 20, but as is looks good! Just play a few games and see what works well (or not).
Also, Petre:
I'm waiting to see the legality of ICs and the Sky Hammer formation. Sticking celestine with some assault marines giving her drop and charge top of turn 1 goodness is... it's just neat.
There's a lengthy debate underway in YMDCatm.
pretre wrote: My opinion is that it shouldn't be allowed, but we'll see.
It's one where the Rules say you can (i'm sure), but you'd really feel it shouldn't be allowed.
Kinda like keeping Celestine dead to not award a VP
I still have to see a SM Codex..... But most of "Unit gets X when it does Y" in detachments apply to ICs. I just really hope they change that in an FAQ or something.....
BlackTalos wrote: I still have to see a SM Codex..... But most of "Unit gets X when it does Y" in detachments apply to ICs. I just really hope they change that in an FAQ or something.....
It's not in the codex, it is a direct only formation with a bundle.
I think they're perfectly clear. Any IC attached to those units doesn't have a rule allowing a charge after deepstrike, therefore the whole unit can't charge.
You could pull off some stuff attaching a divination psyker to the devs and giving them ignores cover or whatnot.
I am typically a fan of less rule mashing for super combos. But I am torn on the raw.
It depends on how you interpret:
ICs joining a unit become a part of that unit for all rules purposes
vs
ICs do not benefit from any special rules conferred to the unit they join.
AM Allies
Company Command Squad, 4x Plasma, Chimera
Veterans, 3x Plasma, Chimera
2x Wyverns
Inquisition Detachment
Ordo Hereticus Inquisitor, Pssyoculum, Liber Heresius, 3x Servo Skulls
General plan is to support the dominions with the company command squad + inquisitor. This gives me 15 scouting melta weapons and 4 scouting plasma guns, all with the potential to ignore cover. I made Celestine the warlord since I lost the veteran dominions and laud hailers to squeeze it all in. The Pssyoculum will give the shooting a nice boost against psykers.
If you turn the heavy flamers into regular flamers in the BSS, and drop the pair of melta-bombs you can get 2 Laud Hailers for the Dominion Immos. That bubble should be pretty sufficient.
I could see wanting to keep the HF though, so even if you just drop those 2 meltabombs and grab 1 Laud Hailer and continue to use Celestine as warlord, you should be in pretty solid shape.
pretre wrote: This is solid, although I still think you need repressors.
Its pretty much a case of "play whats ready to go" since I fly down to TX on Friday. This army should let be do some nifty board control things though. I've figured out to how force enemy infiltrators into outflank/reserves now.
What do you all equip Superiors/Veteran Superiors with? The default models have bolters, but I have a few empty-handed conversions I want to finish up that could get pistols. Does anybody do BP/CCW for a cheap extra attack, or is the extra 24" long shot/12" rapid fire more useful?
Does it differ in the Jacobus+Priests blob seeking out combat with all those War Hymn buffs or in the Dominions who are up close so quickly?
pretre wrote: I mostly do BP/CCW or leave them with BP/Bolter.
If they are doms, BP/Bolter. If they are BSS in a blob, BP/CCW.
This.
I usually stick with the BP / Bolter, and will only have CCW in the blob when I use it. I find that the BSS rarely get to their I in CC, especially the Sgt who will accept the challenge of some beast melee Lord or other....
I find the Heavy flamer killing the chargers on over-watch more effective than the sgt is in melee
All my Superiors use bolters expect for the blob. Which was unfortunate as I realized i didn't have a bolt pistol ccw sister painted up when I wanted to run Jackie boy and his death blob
I had to paint one up a day before my game. Good thing I had a model lying around.
If there's one thing i hope they bring back in a new Codex, it's "Power Weapons" options for the Seraphim. Rather than the current "Power Sword" Restriction.
Power Lances tend to work quite well with Hit and Run... And looks pretty awesome, shameless plug:
Nice indeed. My Saint Celestine has a power lance too. With a fleur de lys as the spear tip, and a lion's head around the handle. Old Bretonnian SC bitz.
BlackTalos wrote: If there's one thing i hope they bring back in a new Codex, it's "Power Weapons" options for the Seraphim. Rather than the current "Power Sword" Restriction.
Power Lances tend to work quite well with Hit and Run... And looks pretty awesome, shameless plug:
If only my local Meta accepted Home-brew. I'm already pretending the Codex says Lance Lucky it's a digital dex and people don't want to look at it too closely...
A really Good Fan-dex though, i hope GW takes notice...
Got seriously destroyed tonight by a different DE army than last week. It sort of went wrong from the beginning when he seized the initiative on me and took out an Exorcist and an Immolator on Turn 1-- all my stuff was pretty exposed in the deployment. Dark Lances popped all my transports by Turn 2 and his jetbikes would run in, shoot about a million splinters at me, then assault-move away out of range. I ended up with a knot of power armor in the middle of the board that he just ground away at with splinter cannons... I got his Mandrakes (Doms), 2 units of Scourges (Rets), and some kind of Elites with his Warlord (Doms + blob), but I couldn't counter his mobility and ended Turn 3 with only an Exorcist, Celestine, and a unit of Dominions in a 1500-point kill point game.
I did enjoy having the extra Dominons and I didn't miss the extra Faith leverage from Simulacra and Priests... but then most of those units never had a chance to use theirs. I think losing the initiative was what turned this one into a rout, but this player was good and really knew his army. I'm struggling with the fact that the Immos have no Fire Points, so to really use Ignore Cover, you have to disembark, and the chance of mounting up again to go after a different target is slim. The Immo itself doesn't get the AoF, so against jink saves they just don't seem effective. The Doms should have been my answer to his jink saves, but they got stranded without transports in the middle of the board with nothing in range while he chewed at my flanks. A Sororitas army with no transports is slooooooooooooow.
Anyway, not to complain, just trying to contribute and of course looking for guidance. The game was fun, the opponent was a good guy, and I enjoy the shop and the staff... Games Workshop on Colorado Blvd. in Denver is one of the better ones I've been in. Very friendly and welcoming, except for the systematic trouncing of a guy with an army from the 90s.
This is the reason Immolators are out of favour as transports for Dominions - as the old adage goes, "you bail, you fail". Rhinos have two fire points. Repressors more.
Repressors are awesome. But if you're like me and don't have them, then it's critical to time when your dominions hop out correctly. If you don't have the right target, stay inside and wait a turn so you can maneuver into a better position. 40K is all about creating favorable situations where the balance between risk and reward is in your favor.
PanzerLeader wrote: Repressors are awesome. But if you're like me and don't have them, then it's critical to time when your dominions hop out correctly. If you don't have the right target, stay inside and wait a turn so you can maneuver into a better position. 40K is all about creating favorable situations where the balance between risk and reward is in your favor.
PanzerLeader wrote: Repressors are awesome. But if you're like me and don't have them, then it's critical to time when your dominions hop out correctly. If you don't have the right target, stay inside and wait a turn so you can maneuver into a better position. 40K is all about creating favorable situations where the balance between risk and reward is in your favor.
When i saw that i wondered how easy it could have been (I can see the Bottom part of the turret used, the rhino hatch, front cover slits) though it must have take a while to measure it all up. The result is astounding though...
Everybody posting their Celestine, I got to post mine :
Very old pic, I have seen green stuffed the gap between the wings. It looks terrible on that picture!
You will also notice that she is weeping blood, and that the earth is weeping blood on her passage too, because martyrdom, and blood-weeping statues, and rule of cool.
It is a bit harder to see that she is weeping blood because she is black, though.
I would love to add a shield to the hand she holds the dove with.
Doms in repressors or drop pods. That's all about risk vs reward. You can be reasonably confident that your repdoms are going to stick around long enough to do something. Dropdoms have been working out pretty well for me lately but they've been a little too swingy for my tastes. Things really started to sour when I dropped three units around a wraithknight and ended up doing two wounds, at which point it just ran off to kill my HQ squad.
Zefig wrote: Mine could arguably be considered a lance...
Spoiler:
Notice me Sempaaiiii. I've already told you I followed your step by step guide to make mine right?
Yes! It's hard work, innit? :p I like your wings, I still second-guess my decision to pattern mine. Definitely love the blending on your sword, too. Blending is not my thing.
Very old pic, I have seen green stuffed the gap between the wings. It looks terrible on that picture!
You will also notice that she is weeping blood, and that the earth is weeping blood on her passage too, because martyrdom, and blood-weeping statues, and rule of cool.
It is a bit harder to see that she is weeping blood because she is black, though.
I would love to add a shield to the hand she holds the dove with.
Okay, all that blood is awesome. Nice! Definitely like the look of the lance too.
Zefig wrote: Doms in repressors or drop pods. That's all about risk vs reward. You can be reasonably confident that your repdoms are going to stick around long enough to do something. Dropdoms have been working out pretty well for me lately but they've been a little too swingy for my tastes. Things really started to sour when I dropped three units around a wraithknight and ended up doing two wounds, at which point it just ran off to kill my HQ squad.
Depends on the list too. If I'm going to do drop doms, I want to be all drop.
Zefig wrote: Okay, all that blood is awesome. Nice! Definitely like the look of the lance too.
Thanks! I got the lance from the same place I got the wings, Louen Lion-hearth old model.
I wonder why they sold her without wing, maybe it was to encourage awesome conversions like we all did. But what is the most puzzling is: why did they sold her with a small base, iirc? We all had the common sense to use a big one .
Zefig wrote: Okay, all that blood is awesome. Nice! Definitely like the look of the lance too.
Thanks! I got the lance from the same place I got the wings, Louen Lion-hearth old model.
I wonder why they sold her without wing, maybe it was to encourage awesome conversions like we all did. But what is the most puzzling is: why did they sold her with a small base, iirc? We all had the common sense to use a big one .
So this is the first draft, taken some community ideas and added a lot of my own.
It contains a few historical special characters, including the Sisters of silence.
New unit options, a new flame tank, upgrades to Seraphim, Redepmtionist, ect
Rules for the big Orders Militant (Ala Chapter tactics) new formations and a detachment.
Still needs some work so I'd appreciate the help.
It's set up like the new 7th edition codexes but with a few blank pages so I can shift stuff
around. My photoshop fu is weak so it's set up on a spread sheet but its a viewable PDF.
Zefig wrote: Mine could arguably be considered a lance...
Spoiler:
Notice me Sempaaiiii. I've already told you I followed your step by step guide to make mine right?
Yes! It's hard work, innit? :p I like your wings, I still second-guess my decision to pattern mine. Definitely love the blending on your sword, too. Blending is not my thing.
I think the pattern works really well with the colour scheme. As my scheme was Black & Caliban i thought about doing the pattern but i needed a bright colour and decided to go the easy way out.
Same for the modelling, i kept it to a minimum: Cut torso, add legs, add wings, modify left arm and left it at that. Considered your amazing conversion of the right arm but left it. Put the weaving scrolls on her waist instead.
For the Sword it is no blending but a layer of pure white, dry-brushed thinly with yellow mixed with blood red until pure.
Dry-brushing is very easy (Again - Easy way out lol)
I'm looking for a bit of advice I was pondering on taking my Sisters to my next tournament, only thing is its going to be 1850 points with all the toys allowed so there will be a few Warhounds and Revenants.
I cant afford one of these so I'm looking for a counter tactic or something cool and cheap (money wise) that could handle one of these bad boys, thoughts on a postcard please. I don't mind using allies but don't have any guard at present so would have to be minimal models if it went that route.
I'd personally ignore a Titan at 1850 and focus on killing its supporting units first. Bringing the TWC unit plays into the strength of ranged D though (it's ability to quickly remove multi wound models). If you really want to go with the TWC, use the Wolves Unleashed detachment or the Champions of Fenris detachment. Drop the BSS transports to Rhinos so they can flame from the inside and replace the Grey Hunter tax with some Iron Priests on TWCs with cyber wolves to get some bodies to LOS D hits. Also gives you more S10 for melee.
BlackTalos wrote: IIRC Space Wolves have access to Fast Attack Drop Pods?
As pretre suggests: Put 2 Squads of Dominions in Drop Pods, keep a 3rd empty (or fill with a spare BSS Squad for ObSec)
Drop Both up the Titan's bu** and watch it go down nicely.
Bonus if you get its Void shields down with exorcist fire first.
Will it? Lets assume everything goes perfectly average against armor 12. Your dominions will get between 6 and 7 hits, of which ~5 will penetrate on AV12 inside 6". 5 pens results in about ~2 explosions. That averages to about 9 hull points to a super heavy (3 from each explodes result plus 3 from the additional penetrations that had other results). 9 hull points will kill the average titan but remember, I just made the assumption that the titan had no saves and all your melta made it inside 6". As soon as you start adding friction (cover saves, invulnerable saves (sky shield, ion shields, etc.),holo-fields, bubble wrap to reduce the number of meltas in ideal threat range, etc.) the odds of success go down dramatically.
I stand by what I said earlier: you are better off killing all of the titan's supporting units and ignoring it. Accept the damage it does and try to mitigate the bulk of it through spacing and use of terrain (since only a "6" ignores your cover and almost all weapons still need LOS for the initial shot). MSU does this best. Even if the 900+ point titan kills two exorcists in a turn (highly unlikely), you still come out ahead if you peel away his support units and spread the board to cover all objectives. Remove his obsec and even the largest titan can only contest/control one objective at the end of the game.
With the assumption of 5 Melta shots (each squad), within 6", and with successful Ignore cover Act of faith (removing some of the "friction"), on AV12 i get:
10 Shots, 6.67 Hits, 0.56 Glances and 5.56 Pens.
With the Pens, you get 1.85 explosions, and add aprox 2HP for each. I conclude 11HP down, you could round down to 10.
Agreed on the no saves, which is why I mentioned removing the Void shields with Exorcists, though anything but the much larger Reavers or anything of similar size would not go down, but compare points.... How much is a Reaver V 2 Dominions Squads in drop pods? Make that 4 Doms V the Reaver and you're stripping 20HP, most likely at a cheaper cost anyway.
I never said it was the very best tactic, but "Ignoring it" is not always the best option. I have played an 8 Turbo-lasers Reaver and "Ignoring it" will have you tabled fast. (This was before 7th ed. and Cover/Invuns on D-weapons)
Also, the maths above can really go both ways. If you get a few more "explodes" than that 2 or get a bit more lucky on the +D3 I've seen superheavies go down very fast. They also usually try to go for your Doms if you did not finish it, where your 6+ Invun might save them for another salvo. (Just a game where this happened: Titan was firing from backfield with most of the army at deployment line. Only Titan would fire/charge at (outflanking) dominions and failed to kill all of them. The second turn of fire took him down)
@BlackTalos: Ignoring it has worked well for me, especially if its an Eldar superheavy with holofields. You might get a turn to pounce when he forgets to move (dropping the holofield from a 3+ to a 4+). Dominions coming out of pods generally won't have any buffs for the LD 8 check for the act of faith (no laud hailers on pods and Celestine most likely out of range). In 6th edition ranged D was killer. I used to have to spread bikes out with super odd angles to prevent the blast from ever catching more than two on a direct hit. In 7th, ranged D is much more manageable-especially if you get something like conqueror of cities for your warlord trait and your whole army gets Stealth ruins.
The other challenge is GiraffeX still has to have some TAC capability for the tournament. He can't just bring an anti-titan list because then he might hit a horde army and be SOL. A TAC sisters list has enough AT to threaten a titan if it needs to without having to tailor and sacrifice utility.
Of course, it will vary for every list faced, but these were comments looking at his current list. I'd echo pretre's comment that those 3 Dominion Squads could really do well with Drop Pods, even if they don't actually drop just behind the Titan (if there is one).
Problem is the Wolves are an Allied Detachment, so no 3 Drop Slots (although even 1 could work quite well in that list).
Saying that, i've never actually played "Drop Doms" but on paper it just sounds completely over-kill.....
So here is the list I ended up bringing. After much thought, I decided not to make Celestine my warlord. I deliberately traded tactical reliability for some strategic flexibility. I'd rely on the solo laud hailer and LD8 for the dominions leadership tests for Acts of Faith and hope to get army wide buffs via the warlord trait.
Spoiler:
Ordre de Notre Dame d’Aqutaine [Order of Our Lady of Aquitaine]
(Adepta Sororitas Combined Arms Detachment)
HQ St. Gudula de Brabant IV
Saint Celestine (135 points)
TROOPS
Les soeurs de gloire
Battle Sister Squad: Sister Superior [WARLORD] + 4 sisters, flamer, heavy flamer, Rhino APC (115 points)
Les soeurs d’honneur
Battle Sister Squad: Sister Superior + 4 sisters, flamer, heavy flamer, Rhino APC (115 points)
FAST ATTACK
Les chasseurs de victoire
Dominion Squad: Sister Superior + 4 sisters, 4x meltagun, combi-melta, Immolator APC with twin-linked multi-melta, dozer blades and laud hailers (190 points)
Les chasseurs dominantes
Dominion Squad: Sister Superior + 4 sisters, 4x meltagun, combi-melta, Immolator APC with twin-linked multi-melta, dozer blades (180 points)
Les chasseurs volants
Dominion Squad: Sister Superior + 4 sisters, 4x meltagun, combi-melta, Immolator APC with twin-linked multi-melta, dozer blades (180 points)
HEAVY SUPPORT
Le tueur fantome
Exorcist (125 points)
HQ Kapitán Kazimir Preben
Company Command Squad: Captain + 4 veterans, 4x plasma gun, Chimera APC with heavy flamer (185 points)
TROOPS
Stárshiy Serzhánt Vladimir Yaromir i d'yavol sobak (The Devil Dogs)
Veteran Squad: Sergeant + 9 veterans, 3x plasma rifle, Chimera APC with heavy flamer (170 points)
HEAVY SUPPORT
Ad Burya (Hell Storm)
Wyvern Battery with 2x Wyverns (130 points)
Force de la Pureté Albigenses (Albigensian Purification Force)
(Inquisition Detachment)
HQ Pierre de Castelnau
Ordo Hereticus Inquisitor, Carapace Armor, Bolt Pistol, Chainsword, 3 Servo Skulls, Psyocculum, Liber Heresius (74 points)
Total Points: 1849 points
Game 1: I played a TWC deathstar supported by a DA librarian conclave led by Ezekial in Emperor's Will. For my warlord trait I rolled "Conqueror of Cities." The move through cover ruins was awesome for this table as there was a big center ruin and several smaller ones my vehicles could now rumble through without penalty. My opponent rolled up two invisibilities, so I choose to go first to try and cripple his death star before he could get them buffed. I scouted the dominions and CCS forward and then did a ton of shooting. I used the transports flatout move to block off most of the direct assault lines to my now disembarked infantry. I actually thought my shooting phase was underwhelming. I only managed to kill off the cyber wolves and sprinkle some wounds around the TWC (I might have killed one as well). The TWC assault my transports but didn't manage to kill one. Ezekial being in the deathstar cost them fleet and prevented them from hitting my infantry in the disrupted charge (he rolled a 5). My surviving infantry hopped back into transports and then fled into all four directions. My goal was to have his deathstar either chase one to stay buffed or break apart so I could pick on individual units. This work pretty good as he broke the TWC apart to chase units and between surviving special weapons and the ranged exorcists, I managed to pick everything off over two turns. Ended up winning 7-4. My opponent won the maelstrom mission because I kept rolling objectives he could easily deny.
Game 2: Played a Necron Decurion in Kill Points. I rolled "Master of Ambush" for my trait and gave infiltrate to both BSS squads, the CCS, and the IG veterans. I then outflanked those four plus all my dominions. The plan was to try to spread the board so I could win Maelstorm and the secondary points to squeeze out a win. I actually had most of my army alive at the end of the game, but was still behind on KP by 3 or 4 points. I rolled poorly for my Maelstorm and my opponent rolled fairly well (lots of hold home objective or kill a unit points) and I ended up losing 10-2.
Game 3: Played the new marine battle company. Poor deployment by my opponent resulted in me tabling him on the bottom of turn 1. 11-0 win.
Game 4: Played a Knight list with a baronial court supported by an Inquisition detachment of a single big DCA retinue in a landraider. Mission was scouring with hammer and anvil deployment. Rolled conqueror of cities for the warlord trait. I outflanked the CCS and the dominions, deployed the wyverns and exorcists in the ruins in my deployment zone and put everyone else in regular reserves. The stealth ruins paid off big this game because the exorcists were sitting in 3+ cover against his knights shooting and I knew I'd take virtually no damage early on. He ended up crowding his knights on the left flank and my rolls allowed all three dominion squads to pop up on that flank in unison on turn two. As a result, I stripped 16 hull points of the three knights in a single shooting phase, killing two and leaving the third crippled. The game turned into a mop up mission from there. I ended up winning 11-1.
Game 5: Played new marines using a White Scars CAD supported by SW champions of Fenris. I used the servo skulls to deny all scout moves and my opponent decided to deploy only his command squad with 3 SW characters, chaptermaster, and Khan attached. My alpha strike knocked 3 wounds off the chaptermaster, 1 wound off Khan, killed all three SW characters, and 2 of the 5 bikers. He killed off some of my infantry in the return assault, but his reserves made a virtual no-show on turn two (he only got a single drop pod with 5 marines and none of his bikes) and that let me concentrate my fire too much for him to handle. Won 11-1.
I finished the tournament at 4-1, with 42 out of 55 possible battle points and 6th overall. Taking the strategic warlord trait paid off huge in 3 of my 5 games and it gave me deployment options in the other two (I rolled +1 to seize, reroll reserves but ended up deploying everything because of the situation). Being able to throw Celestine around with worrying about giving up warlord was fantastic and I don't think I'll change how I use her in the near future. She's much more valuable as a disruption unit to me than as a force multiplier.
The biggest change I need to make is adding repressors. I'll have to drop the inquisitor for most tournaments so finding the points won't be hard. AV12/13 is super tough again now that most shooting needs 6 to damage them. I'm going to keep the 4x plasma CCS for now too. They worked better as a support unit than the Master of Ordnance/Lascannon version with the extra chimera.
pretre wrote: "Game 3: Played the new marine battle company. Poor deployment by my opponent resulted in me tabling him on the bottom of turn 1. 11-0 win. "
Holy crap. What'd he do?
He deployed only three centurions supported by two librarians inside ruins well within scouting melta/plasma range and had only one drop pod come in with a 5 melta command squad. The drop pod landed deep inside my zone to try and kill the wyverns but this meant the marines were surrounded by both BSS squads, Celestine, the AM veterans and all three exorcists. The dominions and CCS killed the centurions and librarians handily with all the ignore cover and AP1/2. The mass flamers killed the command squad in shooting before Celestine even had to charge and the drop pod died to exorcist fire.
My opponent left a second drop pod with 10 tac marines, two 10 man squads with Rhinos, and the flyer formation in reserve. The stormraven had his last librarian and assault centurions embarked on it.
The French names seems a bit… off to me.
A few change I would make would be :
« Le dissipe démon » → « Le dissipe-démon »
« Force de la Pureté Albigenses » → « Force purificatrice Albigeoise » or « Forces de purification des Albigeois » (I had to Wikipedia the reference here).
Should those not be huntresses rather than hunters too?
Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:The French names seems a bit… off to me.
A few change I would make would be :
« Le dissipe démon » → « Le dissipe-démon »
« Force de la Pureté Albigenses » → « Force purificatrice Albigeoise » or « Forces de purification des Albigeois » (I had to Wikipedia the reference here).
Should those not be huntresses rather than hunters too?
Thanks. I was trying that off high school French from 13 years ago. Definitely making those changes.
MrFlutterPie wrote:Great job and thanks for the write up
I'm still giggling over that marine player How embarrassing
Yeah. It was late in the day and I think he just underestimated how much damage I'd be able to put out.
Great batrep. Poor Marine player. It makes me think of Panzer Leader and the Marine staring awkwardly at each other for a moment before one of them suggests playing another game just to fill the rest of the time slot.
"And, uh, I'll stick with the same deployment to save time, but why don't you, um..."
"Yeah, I'll do this a little differently."
PanzerLeader wrote: Game 1:I used the transports flatout move to block off most of the direct assault lines to my now disembarked infantry.
Random Note while still reading this:
Are these the Transports from the disembarked Units? Depending on when you disembarked, Flat out is not permitted.
(BrB:If the vehicle had already moved before the unit disembarked, the vehicle cannot move further that turn (including pivoting on the spot, moving Flat Out, Running or charging) )
Automatically Appended Next Post: Read through, great reports ! I'd just like details on this one:
PanzerLeader wrote: Game 5: My alpha strike knocked 3 wounds off the chaptermaster, 1 wound off Khan, killed all three SW characters, and 2 of the 5 bikers.
Scouting all 3 Dominion Squads+CCs with Liber forwards, jumping out and melta, plasma + Exorcist fire? Or just a few of those, etc?
PanzerLeader wrote: Thanks. I was trying that off high school French from 13 years ago.
Nice work then. French is pretty hard ^^. If you have any question, please ask.
By reading again the name of the Exorcists, I think you meant that they were killing ghosts and purging aliens? Here it sounds like the first one is a ghost who is also a killer, and the second one is a foreigner ^^.
I would suggest naming them « Le tueur de fantômes » (possibly « Le tue-fantôme » to keep the same structure as with the other two) and « Le purge-alien » or « Le purge-xénos » (or « Le purge-extraterrestre », but that is a bit long and unwieldy).
The end result would be the French equivalent of « The ghost-killer, the alien-purger and the daemon-dispeller ».
PanzerLeader wrote: Game 1:I used the transports flatout move to block off most of the direct assault lines to my now disembarked infantry.
Random Note while still reading this:
Are these the Transports from the disembarked Units? Depending on when you disembarked, Flat out is not permitted.
(BrB:If the vehicle had already moved before the unit disembarked, the vehicle cannot move further that turn (including pivoting on the spot, moving Flat Out, Running or charging) )
Automatically Appended Next Post: Read through, great reports ! I'd just like details on this one:
PanzerLeader wrote: Game 5: My alpha strike knocked 3 wounds off the chaptermaster, 1 wound off Khan, killed all three SW characters, and 2 of the 5 bikers.
Scouting all 3 Dominion Squads+CCs with Liber forwards, jumping out and melta, plasma + Exorcist fire? Or just a few of those, etc?
Whoops. I've been misplaying that for a long time then. Its not something that comes up frequently.
So all the damage was from my entire army in range: scouting dominions and CCS, three exorcists, two chimera multi-lasers and my wyverns. He rolled a little above average on his 3++ save for the chapter master but he also rolled a little below average across the board on FNP so I think it evened out.
Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:
PanzerLeader wrote: Thanks. I was trying that off high school French from 13 years ago.
Nice work then. French is pretty hard ^^. If you have any question, please ask.
By reading again the name of the Exorcists, I think you meant that they were killing ghosts and purging aliens? Here it sounds like the first one is a ghost who is also a killer, and the second one is a foreigner ^^.
I would suggest naming them « Le tueur de fantômes » (possibly « Le tue-fantôme » to keep the same structure as with the other two) and « Le purge-alien » or « Le purge-xénos » (or « Le purge-extraterrestre », but that is a bit long and unwieldy).
The end result would be the French equivalent of « The ghost-killer, the alien-purger and the daemon-dispeller ».
Scouting all 3 Dominion Squads+CCs with Liber forwards, jumping out and melta, plasma + Exorcist fire? Or just a few of those, etc?
Whoops. I've been misplaying that for a long time then. Its not something that comes up frequently.
I kind of know how you feel. 7th is the first time I've played 40k since 3rd Edition, so I keep wanting to assault after disembarking, only assault 6", treat rapid fire as "one shot within 12" if moved", assault after firing rapid fire... >.>
It's going to take a while to break those habits, but I'm getting better. They tend to creep up (other than the only 12" after moving with rapid fire) rather than be a constant thing
PanzerLeader wrote: Whoops. I've been misplaying that for a long time then. Its not something that comes up frequently.
Yeah, you'd think the Flat-out move is not affected by anything but the shooting phase, however disembarking is one of them.
It gets even more confusing when you can disembark before moving the Transport, and then it can move + Flat out with no restrictions.... So:
Move - Disembark - Flat out. Denied (max move = 6")
Disembark - Move - Flat out. Allowed (max move can be 18" or more with Fast, skimmer...)
Yeah, the first time someone disembarked from a zooming flyer and kept zooming I was confused, but that's totally legal as long as you disembark before the move.
On the condition that said flier has Grav-Chute Insersion, Skies of Blood, or Invasion Beams at any rate. Otherwise it has to go to Hover to let anyone disembark.
PanzerLeader, nice job and great battle reports. Pretre, thanks for those links... I think Repressor conversions are pretty high on my list.
Does anyone get any use out of the formations in the Codex? In particular I'm looking at the Angelic Host. That's the only one I have the models for, but it seems like it might be advantageous in bigger games to have 3x Dominions and 2x Seraphim. Any experience? If so, how do you equip the second squad? I converted Inferno pistols years ago, but I also have enough hand flamers to go that way, and I have some Veteran Superior models to choose from.
I hadn't realized there was a distinction. So those Sisters formations are considered too powerful for regular play, but the Space Marine drop pod monstrosity that has whole threads devoted to it is just the direction the game has taken these days? That seems a little lopsided.
They're apoc only because our codex came out before they started doing the formation thing in general play.
Automatically Appended Next Post: The Angelic Host is pretty nice though I would attach some non-sisters ICs maybe? Or have something to reduce scatter.
The ability to reroll Celestine's invuln and also her ability to show up whenever. I wonder if this applies to other ICs attached to these units because RAW they can show up Turn 1 with no roll.
For 475, the angellic host lets you deep strike turn one, and gives celestine a rerollable 4++. it's 21 models and they all get a free automatic act of faith. I'd certainly try it a few times. But.. then i really like the seraphim models.
So I was looking at maybe bringing some DA allies to fill the role of scary bullet sponge distraction unit, but I just realized Celestine would murder Sammael in a challenge. (Which calls into question their utility as a counter-assault unit).
Mavnas wrote: So I was looking at maybe bringing some DA allies to fill the role of scary bullet sponge distraction unit, but I just realized Celestine would murder Sammael in a challenge. (Which calls into question their utility as a counter-assault unit).
Bring a Ravenwing Strike Force. 1 HQ plus two units of Black Knights = WINNING at the Tiger Blood level. You get rapid fire, twin-linked plasma talons and rending close combat weapons on MEQ bikes with 2 attacks base each that, as a bonus, have scout, skilled rider, and reroll failed jinx saves. A squad of three is 120 points base so you could get two squads of three for 240 points + the HQ. Great support for dominions and very versatile.
Mavnas wrote: So I was looking at maybe bringing some DA allies to fill the role of scary bullet sponge distraction unit, but I just realized Celestine would murder Sammael in a challenge. (Which calls into question their utility as a counter-assault unit).
Bring a Ravenwing Strike Force. 1 HQ plus two units of Black Knights = WINNING at the Tiger Blood level. You get rapid fire, twin-linked plasma talons and rending close combat weapons on MEQ bikes with 2 attacks base each that, as a bonus, have scout, skilled rider, and reroll failed jinx saves. A squad of three is 120 points base so you could get two squads of three for 240 points + the HQ. Great support for dominions and very versatile.
Sammael is a 200 point tax I'm not willing to pay (Because he's not sturdy enough to alleviate my need for a melee monster who can distract my enemies while Celestine mirders their troops.) And the black knights will also crumble in melee against anything dedicated to the role. The rerollable jink is nice but makes the talons a waste. For the same price I could get double the rending attacks out of TWC.
Mavnas wrote: So I was looking at maybe bringing some DA allies to fill the role of scary bullet sponge distraction unit, but I just realized Celestine would murder Sammael in a challenge. (Which calls into question their utility as a counter-assault unit).
Bring a Ravenwing Strike Force. 1 HQ plus two units of Black Knights = WINNING at the Tiger Blood level. You get rapid fire, twin-linked plasma talons and rending close combat weapons on MEQ bikes with 2 attacks base each that, as a bonus, have scout, skilled rider, and reroll failed jinx saves. A squad of three is 120 points base so you could get two squads of three for 240 points + the HQ. Great support for dominions and very versatile.
Sammael is a 200 point tax I'm not willing to pay (Because he's not sturdy enough to alleviate my need for a melee monster who can distract my enemies while Celestine mirders their troops.) And the black knights will also crumble in melee against anything dedicated to the role. The rerollable jink is nice but makes the talons a waste. For the same price I could get double the rending attacks out of TWC.
So you don't really want a counter assault force then. You want a true melee unit. Black knights are the epitome of a counter assault force because they are fast, shooty and between HoW and S5 rending decently choppy.
For a pure melee unit, I'd do either a DW strike force centered around death wing knights or a simple marine allied detachment with assault terminators. Both have the all important 3++ and can drop a ton of AP2/3 close combat attacks. The DW would let you bring Belial and his I5 flesh bane attacks and with the marines you could bring a chapter master.
Mavnas wrote: So I was looking at maybe bringing some DA allies to fill the role of scary bullet sponge distraction unit, but I just realized Celestine would murder Sammael in a challenge. (Which calls into question their utility as a counter-assault unit).
Bring a Ravenwing Strike Force. 1 HQ plus two units of Black Knights = WINNING at the Tiger Blood level. You get rapid fire, twin-linked plasma talons and rending close combat weapons on MEQ bikes with 2 attacks base each that, as a bonus, have scout, skilled rider, and reroll failed jinx saves. A squad of three is 120 points base so you could get two squads of three for 240 points + the HQ. Great support for dominions and very versatile.
Sammael is a 200 point tax I'm not willing to pay (Because he's not sturdy enough to alleviate my need for a melee monster who can distract my enemies while Celestine mirders their troops.) And the black knights will also crumble in melee against anything dedicated to the role. The rerollable jink is nice but makes the talons a waste. For the same price I could get double the rending attacks out of TWC.
So you don't really want a counter assault force then. You want a true melee unit. Black knights are the epitome of a counter assault force because they are fast, shooty and between HoW and S5 rending decently choppy.
For a pure melee unit, I'd do either a DW strike force centered around death wing knights or a simple marine allied detachment with assault terminators. Both have the all important 3++ and can drop a ton of AP2/3 close combat attacks. The DW would let you bring Belial and his I5 flesh bane attacks and with the marines you could bring a chapter master.
Termis lack mobility.
What I use is a force that can charge the biggest, baddest enemy unit and live. Not necessarily kill it, but tie it up. On the way in should draw fire away from my doms and my BSS who then get to survive long enough to get into Melta range. With celestine there, I can hit and run to break off, split her off to cause havoc in the enemy back field while my melee unit ties theirs back up. It's worked decently well. At first I was impressed with rerollable jink from Ravenwing, but the more I think about it, the more I think it's a recipe for them getting meleed down while my sisters eat a lot of the enemy firepower. I need a unit that is vulnerable/scary enough that the enemy is willing to focus on it (even while there's 12 melta guns moving towards him in squishy metal boxes).
The SMCM with shield eternal isn't very killy. Or at least not with me rolling. (I've been known to inflict 1-2 wounds with 4 TH attacks), but he can tie up a lot of enemies usually.
That said, if I can up my painting rate, I could try a knight soonish, though I think it would actually be more vulnerable to enemy S10 attacks and easier to Tar Pit (since I can't attach Celestine).
What I really want to try is a Wolf Lord on a Thunderwolf with the Black Death. That should be 10 S7AP2 attacks on the charge as long as he's outnumbered, but he won't be an EW and will strike at I, and his unit needs to be smallish if I want him to get all his attacks. (If the enemy doesn't have too many uber melee guys, I could see him and Celestine by themselves putting out 16 attacks on the charge and making anyone without an AP2 weapon sad.)
@ Mavans: The tradeoff you have to make in building that unit is between killing power, survivability and mobility. Most units with high killing power are corresponding lower when it comes to survivability. This is especially true in melee situations where invulnerable saves are relatively rare on rank and file models.
So for comparison quick comparison:
5 hammer/shield terminators, landraider = 430 points
5 thunderwolves with fists and shields = 400 points
Mobility advantage is about equal in this set up, with a slight edge for the wolves because of fleet. The termis are vulnerable to being stranded if the raider is destroyed early and have a smaller threat range on the turn they disembark and charge because the wolves have fleet. Termis can gain a little bit of an edge if you use WS chapter tactics to give them hit and run and reroll run distances.
Survivability is also about equal, with an advantage for the terminators. The extra pip of toughness for the wolves is offset by better armor save of the terminators. The wolves have the extra wound, but the terminators real advantage is that while embarked on the landraider, they can't be targeted at all while the wolves can be attrited through focused enemy firepower. This makes it much more likely for the terminators to reach their target at full strength.
Killing power: At 4 S10 attacks each, clear advantage to the wolves. Termis get a small boost if you use UM tactics but not enough to make them better.
On an initial look, I'd say the wolves are what you want but the next step is to put your unit into the context of your list. If you're running heavily mechanized sisters, the land raider and terminators might be your better option. It would add to your vehicle saturation and take the limited dedicated anti-tank weapons fire off your dominions. The wolves, being exposed by nature, would be the only viable target for his anti-infantry weapons and I'm not sure it would have the desired effect of pulling fire off your approaching meltas because there isn't any competing demand in the weapons required to handle each threat.
The comparison between chapter master and wolf lord is very straight up. Equally mobile, the wolf lord kills more but the chapter master can tie up any unit in the game by himself for multiple turns unless it as a "D" close combat weapon because he just doesn't die.
If I built a land raider, it would contain that DCA/Crusader/Priest/Inq squad I keep fantasizing about not terminators. (Mainly because I like the idea of Psybolt ammo and at some point I bought FW Inquisition Landraider Doors.)
In the above comparison though, don't terminators have a single wound? If so, survivability is clearly on the side of the TWC unless the opponent just can't handle AV14. At any rate, I wouldn't pay that many points for the unit itself. Frost axes will be just as effective in many situations and Frost Swords hitting at S6 AP3 at initiative might be more effective against everything but super hard deathstars. My biggest problem with a PF/Shield TW is that against bolter fire/other massed fire, he's still just T5, 3+, two wounds, but costs 80 points. One thing I like about bikers is that Jink makes buying shields less necessary. So I keep toying with the idea of IH command squads for the 4+++ and Jink.
I mean I would like to run a heavily mechanized sisters list, but I'm just not there yet in terms of number of painted transports.
Mavnas wrote: If I built a land raider, it would contain that DCA/Crusader/Priest/Inq squad I keep fantasizing about not terminators. (Mainly because I like the idea of Psybolt ammo and at some point I bought FW Inquisition Landraider Doors.)
In the above comparison though, don't terminators have a single wound? If so, survivability is clearly on the side of the TWC unless the opponent just can't handle AV14. At any rate, I wouldn't pay that many points for the unit itself. Frost axes will be just as effective in many situations and Frost Swords hitting at S6 AP3 at initiative might be more effective against everything but super hard deathstars. My biggest problem with a PF/Shield TW is that against bolter fire/other massed fire, he's still just T5, 3+, two wounds, but costs 80 points. One thing I like about bikers is that Jink makes buying shields less necessary. So I keep toying with the idea of IH command squads for the 4+++ and Jink.
I mean I would like to run a heavily mechanized sisters list, but I'm just not there yet in terms of number of painted transports.
The advantage is that your opponent would have to deal with the AV14 separately before even thinking of going after the contents. That's way more valuable than the 2nd wound. Especially when you consider that his best anti-teq weapons are also the ones needed to reliably kill AV14.
What's in your typical list? If you dont have a lot of mechanized threats, the TWC would be a great fit. I'd go at least 50% power fists though. AP2 is invaluable and S10 is what makes them amazing at crushing Decurion necrons.
Bikers won't do what you're looking for in combat without shields. The type of units you're looking to tie up will bypass 3+ saves and leave you with only the FNP. Command squads are worse than ravenwing in assault too (only S4, no rending).
Command squads have power weapons on every model if I'm paying 40 points per, but yeah they're mostly there so my CM and Celestine aren't taking 100% of the damage. (Or rather so that when the CM is in a challenge someone can eat the S6+ hits for Celestine... I could see the shields being good there and the TWC getting the better deal since each shield covers two wounds.)
The termis don't let me bring Celestine forward safely.
And yes last time I faced a Decurion I really wished I had S10 :( Though I could have won without it if I had been paying closer attention to objectives or had played fast enough to let the game last past turn 4.
So, I've had a few Sisters minis for a while, but rarely ever get to bring them out because of the incompleteness of my collection. Looking for some advice on what to prioritize getting to get a workable list.
What i have:
Saint Celestine
A priest
4 Crusaders, 2 Arco-flagellants
Sister Superior with Storm Bolter and Chainsword
Sister Superior with Plasma Pistol and Chainsword
Sister Superior with Bolter and Power Sword
11 Battle Sisters with Bolters
4 Battle Sisters with Heavy Bolters
5 Battle Sisters with Storm Bolters
1 Battle Sister with flamer
2x Seraphim Superior with Power sword and Bolt Pistol
6 Seraphim with dual Bolt Pistols
2 Seraphim with dual Hand flamers
Exorcist
3 Rhinos
I usually run it as an allied detachment for my Grey Knights with Saint Celestine, 10 Sisters with a flamer, the retributor squad OR the exorcist, and 9 seraphim with 2 dual hand flamers and am looking to make it a standalone army of it's own.
my current thoughts are:
4 melta sisters
another flamer sister
2 heavy flamer sisters
a sister superior (with whatever loadout)
That would let me run:
Celestine
2 5 man Sisters squads with flamer/heavy flamer each (in Rhinos)
a Dominion squad with 4 meltas in a rhino
2 Seraphim squads with a dual flamer sister each
a Retributor squad with 4 heavy bolters (Might get an Aegis defense line for these?)
an Exorcist
Does this sound like a sound plan or would I be better off acquiring something else?
Rihgu wrote: So, I've had a few Sisters minis for a while, but rarely ever get to bring them out because of the incompleteness of my collection. Looking for some advice on what to prioritize getting to get a workable list.
What i have:
Saint Celestine
A priest
4 Crusaders, 2 Arco-flagellants
Sister Superior with Storm Bolter and Chainsword
Sister Superior with Plasma Pistol and Chainsword
Sister Superior with Bolter and Power Sword
11 Battle Sisters with Bolters
4 Battle Sisters with Heavy Bolters
5 Battle Sisters with Storm Bolters
1 Battle Sister with flamer
2x Seraphim Superior with Power sword and Bolt Pistol
6 Seraphim with dual Bolt Pistols
2 Seraphim with dual Hand flamers
Exorcist
3 Rhinos
I usually run it as an allied detachment for my Grey Knights with Saint Celestine, 10 Sisters with a flamer, the retributor squad OR the exorcist, and 9 seraphim with 2 dual hand flamers and am looking to make it a standalone army of it's own.
my current thoughts are:
4 melta sisters
another flamer sister
2 heavy flamer sisters
a sister superior (with whatever loadout)
That would let me run:
Celestine
2 5 man Sisters squads with flamer/heavy flamer each (in Rhinos)
a Dominion squad with 4 meltas in a rhino
2 Seraphim squads with a dual flamer sister each
a Retributor squad with 4 heavy bolters (Might get an Aegis defense line for these?)
an Exorcist
Does this sound like a sound plan or would I be better off acquiring something else?
Not bad. Here is my thoughts if you willing to take it:
1 - You need to understand that the only good way to play Sister is to be aggressive. I mean super aggressive. Parking a retribution squad w/ 4 HB behind a line will get you no where. The only good way to use Retributor is to put them in a Rihno w/ 4 Heavy flamer. Also, move your exorcist as per the situation. If its missile launcher is heavy and not ordnance is to allow you to move it around.
2 - For the Dominion, 4 MG is best you are right how ever keep in mind that they are a suicide squad. Better put them in a immolator to put move pressure on your opponent.
3 - Make a single 1 women squad of 10 seraphim and 2 HF to escort Celestine. Deep strike them be him enemy line.
4 - Troops chose, if you go for 5 women squad forget the rhino and go for immolator.
That doesn't look too bad. Another Exorcist, as well as looking at converting one of those Rhinos to a Repressor for your Dominions is probably the only thing I'd recommend. Though if you can stretch for another Dominion Squad, I'd run that instead of a 2nd Seraphim squad. Maybe you could count-as the Storm Bolter Sisters as Melta Gun Sisters?
4 - Troops chose, if you go for 5 women squad forget the rhino and go for immolator.
I strongly disagree with this. You want to keep your fragile, yet importantly ObSec, units off the board for as long as possible. A Rhino lets you shoot the squads double specials out of the top hatch while keeping them alive longer.
I'd also second going with at least two dominion squads and adding a second exorcist. The more armor on the field, the more difficult for your opponent to clean it all up.
Thanks for the advice all. Only thing holding me back from the Repressors is that I don't have the material to convert them with and Forgeworld is out of stock (and has been for a long time. When I emailed them they told me Dark Eldar pirates had intercepted their shipment but they'll email me when they get some more)
Other than that, I could probably do some counts-as to keep things within my budget.
My current plan after advice:
flamer sister
2 heavy flamer sisters
Immolator
Run the storm bolter sisters as Dominions in the Immolator
Run 2 squads of 5 sisters with Heavy Flamer and Flamer each in Rhinos
Run Celestine with 9 Seraphim (2 of which have dual handflamers)
Which gives me about 850pts... which is sad considering how much I have invested already... Probably going to supplement that with a Knight Crusader.
True, but those 35 points are 100% worth it and the conversion is easy.
I've seen several ways on how to do the conversion but none of them really seemed easy to me. I may just be overthinking it (also I don't think any of the ones I saw actually gave step-by-step instructions or even patterns for the plasticard they used...)
Rihgu wrote: Thanks for the advice all. Only thing holding me back from the Repressors is that I don't have the material to convert them with and Forgeworld is out of stock (and has been for a long time. When I emailed them they told me Dark Eldar pirates had intercepted their shipment but they'll email me when they get some more)
Get a leman russ dozer blade, penitent driver and an immolator kit and you're good to go.
I've seen several ways on how to do the conversion but none of them really seemed easy to me. I may just be overthinking it (also I don't think any of the ones I saw actually gave step-by-step instructions or even patterns for the plasticard they used...)
Check out my post in the Repressor thread or this one. Super easy.
I've been making my repressors out of Vindicator kits. whole thing has the dozer blade, upgraded armor, and two of the firing points. Just need to add the other fire-points. The way I've built mine, uses the demolisher cannon fire-point as a ram. When I have one done I'll post the pics.
Rihgu wrote: A Repressor only has 2 fire points, right? The part I'm worried about is the bulked up back, which IMHO is what makes the Repressor a Repressor.
I like the idea of putting a penitent on the front, pretre, but I would still consider that a rhino myself. I'd also have to find penitents :(
Repressor has 2 plus 6 (3 on each side).
My rhinos are stock rhinos (no immo kit).
My repressors are immo kit rhinos plus all the bits. Makes a larger profile and very distinct on the tabletop. Never had a problem with it.
Rihgu wrote: A Repressor only has 2 fire points, right? The part I'm worried about is the bulked up back, which IMHO is what makes the Repressor a Repressor.
I like the idea of putting a penitent on the front, pretre, but I would still consider that a rhino myself. I'd also have to find penitents :(
Repressor has 2 plus 6 (3 on each side).
My rhinos are stock rhinos (no immo kit).
My repressors are immo kit rhinos plus all the bits. Makes a larger profile and very distinct on the tabletop. Never had a problem with it.
I had forgotten that the immolator kit came with the raised part, I'll look into it some more. Might still be pretty expensive between the kit, the dozer blade bit, and the penitent...
Those are not the latest rules. The latest are in IA2.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Rihgu wrote: . Might still be pretty expensive between the kit, the dozer blade bit, and the penitent...
Well, the kit you need for immos/rhinos anyways. Most SOB players have plenty of PE drivers since the kit came with two per model. And any IG player worth their salt has tons of extra LR dozers. It was not expensive to build.
And it was MUCH cheaper than the actual repressor, if it was sold any where legit on the planet.
Wow! If it really has that many fire points, it looks like Repressor would be the obvious choice for Dominions. Let's you shoot all 4 meltas from the safety of the AV13! That's crazy!
With your conversion, what did you do for the turrent mounted Storm Bolter? Did you just mount it on a pintle like the Heavy Flamer?
Rihgu wrote: Wow! If it really has that many fire points, it looks like Repressor would be the obvious choice for Dominions. Let's you shoot all 4 meltas from the safety of the AV13! That's crazy!
Well, technically you're gonna have to angle the Repressor to open up the side fire points since there is only 2 fire points in the front arc, meaning you're probably gonna have an AV11 arc pointed towards the enemy. Still alot safer than disembarking to be able to fire the 4 meltas though.
I kind of tend to assume that my vehicles will be ignored or they will pop regardless of AV, but then I'm the guy with the 12 Meltaguns in a 1K point game...
Rihgu wrote: Wow! If it really has that many fire points, it looks like Repressor would be the obvious choice for Dominions. Let's you shoot all 4 meltas from the safety of the AV13! That's crazy!
With your conversion, what did you do for the turrent mounted Storm Bolter? Did you just mount it on a pintle like the Heavy Flamer?
There's a turret SB on the IMmolator kit. I use that and put a heavy flamer on it.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
THat's the older version of it. I replaced the dozer blades with LR ones since they are bigger and better.
Mavnas wrote: The issue I'd have with those is that I don't see the side fire points on them.
The little windows are pretty much perfect for that. (white on my models).
Automatically Appended Next Post: There's three on one side and two on the other (so one side, you can really only fire two out the top and two out the side).
Mmmpi wrote: Yeah, I managed to pull an 11-5 on tactical objectives. We pretty much wiped each other out doing it though.
In my experience that's how you beat eldar, because they'll rarely bother with objectives and just try and wipe you.
One of my few victories in 40k was by having a lone priest and Sister hold an objective while Celestine kited some Guardians with the flamer templates of doom (I hate those things.)
How'd the Seraphim swarm and Sister blob work out for you?
pretre wrote:Very nice! I'm curious what you might change up in your list if you had an opportunity.
Not sure just what yet. I want to add another dominion squad, and I have and Inquisitor and retinue on the sidelines, but I want to get a few more games in before I make any big changes. Actually, I think adding the inquisitor even if just for the extra warp charge would be useful. And AA would help...Though fighters and flyers arn't big in my meta.
Hoitash wrote:
Mmmpi wrote: Yeah, I managed to pull an 11-5 on tactical objectives. We pretty much wiped each other out doing it though.
In my experience that's how you beat eldar, because they'll rarely bother with objectives and just try and wipe you.
One of my few victories in 40k was by having a lone priest and Sister hold an objective while Celestine kited some Guardians with the flamer templates of doom (I hate those things.)
How'd the Seraphim swarm and Sister blob work out for you?
The sister blob had a rough time. Ra managed to get 4 rending shots (over 2 turns) with bio-acid, and managed to kill an average of three sisters per shot (One saved via SoF). After I finally caught him, that's when the wraith fighter showed up, mind-shocked and than terror-ed them. It than missed my repressors, but the blob took a volley from the reapers, lost all but the sarge, canoness, and priests, and at LD:5 ran. Didn't rally for two turns. Still, alot of that were statistic outliers (who counts on 4/4 shots to rend?), and I still managed to catch and kill the guy so I made up my points. The game ended just before they could charge the wraithlord (for funsies, I was winning by a landslide at that point).
The Seraphim blob did well considering I failed their AoF. They still managed to jet around and grab me 3 points from objective markers. The wraith blades spent several turns slogging up a 4 story building to get to them, and if I had been playing better, They would have left before they could get charged. Still managed to kill 4 of them with hand flamers though between a round of shooting and wall of death. I like how they're mobile, without the same foot-print as the repressors. Would have made it a ten girl squad if I had the points.
The funny part about celestine is after she died. The nearest spot one inch away was four stories down in the street. She died on the roof, and pulled herself out of the sewers.
Priests have Zealot, which gives Fearless. The squad that took all those casualties and only had the Cannoness, Superior and Priests left wouldn't have been able to fail a Morale check and run. The Cannoness also has Stubborn, so even if the Priests were dead the Morale test would be on her Ld10 regardless.
Mavnas wrote:Wait, how does a squad with priests run?
GoonBandito wrote:Priests have Zealot, which gives Fearless. The squad that took all those casualties and only had the Cannoness, Superior and Priests left wouldn't have been able to fail a Morale check and run. The Cannoness also has Stubborn, so even if the Priests were dead the Morale test would be on her Ld10 regardless.
There are a few very simple answers to these:
1. I completely forgot about zealot.
2. The canoness ran from shooting. Because of mind-wrack pods and terrify the unit (and canoness) was ld: 5. And I rolled an 11. Though I could be doing stubborn wrong too.
In the current MSU approach, a 5-girl unit with flamer/heavy flamer and a bare bones Superior seems to be the preferred loadout. Are there others people have tried? In particular, to get more of my models out of the box and onto the table, and to stretch the points toward 2000, I could do some combo of the following units between 70 and 80 points each. The goal would be to force the opponent to either divide or over-commit his shooting phase or otherwise ignore a small threat at their own peril.
5-girl squad with multi melta (random low AP shot, home objective campers)
5-girl squad with 2x storm bolters and BSS w/ storm bolter (8 S4 shots at 24", almost a full squad's output)
2x random wandering priests with plasma guns (could also join squads headed for combat)
This would be in addition to mounted melta doms, mounted flame sisters, HB rets, and Celestine + seraphim.
If you're looking to stretch points, I'd add more models to the existing squads first until they max out the transport capacity. 8 bolsters backing up the dual flamers with PE is a pretty good way to clear an objective late in the game when you can minimize risks from bailing out.
I want to say the plasma priests are a good idea, but outside of a drop-retributer squad, or a gun heavy command squad, I'm not really seeing it. They might add well to a BBS blob, but you also are likely to want power weapons on them, and P-priests are already 40 pts.
Adding two to a Retributer-valkyrie squad might work. Rending heavy-flamers, bolters, with the p-guns for finishers, plus if you had to, you could detach them to pop transports for the rest of the squad to shoot. And as that's an expensive unit, the two priests would be an increase to survivability, maybe even holding out for a counter-charge unit.
My thinking is Valkyrie drops the squad on a vital point. Squad flamer/plasma/rends target to death. Enemy counter-charges, getting flamed and plasma-ed again, and the priest have the re-roll armor to let the squad tank until the DCA's show up.
The only downside is the squad would have to rely on the Vet-sup's power axe and armor re-rolls to just tank the enemy.
Maybe I'll try that tomorrow...(looks for spare plasma guns for "plasma priestess" conversion)
Tanking the enemy with rerolls is awesome unless they have power weapons. I once had 5 doms beat 10 charging CSM with CCW, but in all fairness, I rolled well on attacks and he poorly on saves. Rerollable 3+ means 9 wounds to kill one thing.
Mavnas wrote: I've been tempted to drop Uriah with 9 rets in a pod for rerollable 5++ and 3 uses of rending.
I'd be genuinely surprised if a unit like this lasted long enough to use rending 3 times. You just end up too close to the enemy with a not very survivable unit.
Mavnas wrote: I've been tempted to drop Uriah with 9 rets in a pod for rerollable 5++ and 3 uses of rending.
I'd be genuinely surprised if a unit like this lasted long enough to use rending 3 times. You just end up too close to the enemy with a not very survivable unit.
Mavnas wrote: I've been tempted to drop Uriah with 9 rets in a pod for rerollable 5++ and 3 uses of rending.
I'd be genuinely surprised if a unit like this lasted long enough to use rending 3 times. You just end up too close to the enemy with a not very survivable unit.
Glad you said it instead of me.
Haha. Glad to help the cause.
I think you and I are pretty much aligned when it comes to Sisters list building. Our only real divergence comes with warlord selection. You build for tactical reliability and I can't give up the strategic flexibility of a non-fixed trait.
PanzerLeader wrote: I think you and I are pretty much aligned when it comes to Sisters list building. Our only real divergence comes with warlord selection. You build for tactical reliability and I can't give up the strategic flexibility of a non-fixed trait.
I've been trying out strategic occasionally in some of my other lists. So far, I haven't seen anything awesome come of it, but it has been fun to try.
I wouldn't drop Uriah and the rets solo. There'd be a pod of Grey Hunters, Bloodclaws, or Wolf Guard with them (Or potentially the two wolf units turn 1 and the Uriah and friends turn 2+). Of course once you start dropping 30 bodies in power armor in the enemy deployment zone...
My biggest concern is that it would overkill any enemy units whose fire it could survive, i.e. any time I'd get full use out of their firepower they would die too soon.
Got in a 2nd game yesterday, tryed out the blob again, and the Valkyrie retributers w/plasma priests. The blob did well, tearing though a 10 man Wraith blade squad (axe/shield) in just a round. The retributers will need more trial games. I tried deep striking them out of the valkyrie and they scattered and died, not a shot fired.
Mmmpi wrote: Got in a 2nd game yesterday, tryed out the blob again, and the Valkyrie retributers w/plasma priests. The blob did well, tearing though a 10 man Wraith blade squad (axe/shield) in just a round. The retributers will need more trial games. I tried deep striking them out of the valkyrie and they scattered and died, not a shot fired.
For 2 points more than the cost of one plasma priest, you can get 3 inquisition acolytes with plasma guns. It's a disposible unit your opponent must waste someone's attacks on (Except that one time I added a psyker and managed to the whole unit out with Perils while trying to cast prescience so they wouldn't get hot... did not see that one coming.)
And acolytes can't join other squads. Even if they could, they'd screw up acts of faith, and don't get squad buffing prayers.
Not saying it's the best build in anyway, but to see if it helps buff drop unit survivability. Besides, it's not like you get rending plasma guns often!
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