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Howdy all,

so today I went to a tourney at the FLGS to get my game on and try out my BA against some of the best in the area. My list was as follows:

Mephiston
2 sanguinary priests
Furioso dread w/ Frag cannon/BF w/ melta in pod
2 dual AC dreads
3 land speeders w mm
1 LRR w mm
10x Am w/ dual flamer, PW in the raider
10x AM w/ dual melta, PF
10x AM w/ dual melta, PF

So I massacre against mech wolves and khorne demons, and I come against my third opponent who was tied with me for first... Sisters of battle?

The guy was running (from what I gather) the following:

3 Exorcists
3 full 10 man squads w/ heavy flamer/flamer, some kind of book that gives them stubborn in rhino
1 retinue? of some sort, 3 of the str 6 chainfist things, 2 meltas, priest, cannonist, a melta pistol in rhino
1 cannonist w/ the chainfist thing, some crazy 2+ save and other jazz
7 seraphim, 2 with twin linked melta pistols, 1 with the chainfist thingger, all MB's

So, I'd never faced a really hard sisters battle... so heres the play by play:

Turn 1: he moves up, shooting sees him shake one of my dreads. My shooting wrecks 1 rhino (killing 3 sisters), immobilizes 2 rhinos, and my dread pods in and... glances an exorcist
Turn 2: He moves around, everything stays in their transports. Cannonist moves to face my podded in dread, the seraphim go to my raider and spread between my speeders. Exorcists shuffle. Shooting sees him wreck 1 speeder and 1 of my dreads. He glances my raider. He does a funky charge and somehow gets 2 vehicles into CC (this was sketchy but I didn't say anything). He wrecks my speeder with a lot of 6's, glances my raider. My turn sees me move around some more, both my DSing troop squads come in. Shooting sees me fail all my melta gun shots, my raiders flamer kills 4 seraphim leaving him with 3, my dread does squat, and meph charges the seraphim... they lose 1 from some 3+ invuns they had, and he hits and runs getting behind my raider.
Turn 3: His cannonist shoots and kills one of my 5 man DSing squads, my BF dread runs over a squad and consolidates close to a second squad. He assaults one of my marine squad after rending flamers and all sorts of weirdness, wiping them out and making my priest run off the board on T5. In my turn, my BF dread kills 6 sisters with shooting, assaults and kills 1 more (3+ invuns saves 2 more).
Turn 4: He glances the hell out of my raider, his cannonist comes to kill my dread, and his squads spread out. . My guys get out and assault his 2 remaining seraphim finally killing them. Mephiston dies to exorcists.

The rest of the game was mop up... between having 20 million chainfists (every squad seemed to have one), 2+/3+ invuns, being able to get 2+ strength whenever you want, and rending flamers, it was a massacre! not to mention I only hit 2 melta shots the entire game... how do you beat a 'ard sisters list?

Oh yeah, forgot to mention, he said he started the game with 10 faith points, so dunno if that matters at all

Zid
I've played against a sisters list that looks almost exactly like that probably a hundred times in the last 3 years. It's rough. A few things I've figured out;

1. the rhinos are your priority targets; if they have to walk it's alot harder for them to flame you; if they can't flame you they can't win. you've got to resist the temptation to shoot the exorcists. They're not the real threat. The sisters are.
2. quantity, not quality, of attacks is what you need to handle sisters. Faith helps them survive high strength/low ap/low rate of fire attacks like plasmaguns or lascannons, but it doesnt help them at all against flame throwers or bolters. Their low toughness actually makes them more susceptible.
3. keep your hqs out of close combat with the cannonness. She's cheaper than most hqs and has a good chance to beat the gak out of almost any *individual* model she assaults. however if you jump her with a squad of tacticals she won't last long. again its quantity not quality of attacks that matters against her. So in this case if you're going to run mephiston his best use is to charge a squad of sisters, not the cannonness.
4. multi assault themw henever possible. Blood Angels troopers with a priest to back them up can handle any number of sisters in close combat. Trust your guys to win up close. What you dont want is to wipe 1 squad of sisters and then get roasted by the sisters right behind them. In a squad for squad trade the sisters player wins because sisters are alot cheaper than blood angels. You need to charge more than 1 sister squad in order to come out ahead.

sisters are wicked annoying. good luck.

3 Exorcists
3 full 10 man squads w/ heavy flamer/flamer, some kind of book that gives them stubborn in rhino
1 retinue? of some sort, 3 of the str 6 chainfist things, 2 meltas, priest, cannonist, a melta pistol in rhino
1 cannonist w/ the chainfist thing, some crazy 2+ save and other jazz
7 seraphim, 2 with twin linked melta pistols, 1 with the chainfist thingger, all MB's

The Book of St. Lucius allows squads with a model within 6" to use the bearer's unmodified Ld value for Morale and Pinning checks. It's basically Stubborn Plus.


The HQ I you speak of I believe is:
Canoness w/Eviscerator, Inferno Pistol
Retinue of 4 Celestians, 1 Celestian Superior w/Eviscerator
1 attached Priest w/Eviscerator

Unless I'm mistaken? These use the older retinue rules-- the Canoness counts as an upgrade character until the last member of the squad other than her dies. IE, she can't leave the squad, but she also can't be targeted individually. The "chainfist" you're talking about is the Eviscerator, which is basically a two-handed chainfist. It strikes at double strength, and has 2d6 penetration against vehicles. Keeping in mind that Sisters are S3, this means it hits at S6.


The second Canoness had the Cloak of St. Aspira, which gives a 2+ save (basically an artificer armor upgrade). What else did she have? I assume a jump pack as she's by herself and there's a Seraphim squad for her to go with... Really, the list looks kinda weak when it comes to anti-tank. Most of hte better Sisters builds have at least one meltagun in each Battle Sister Squad.

Against sisters of battle meph hits on a 3+, wounds on a 2+, and they can have a 3+ invo save.

Jo Blow assault marine with FC hits on a 3+, wounds on a 2+, and they have a 3+ armor save.

You can look at that as meph being nerfed down to the level of an assault marine, or an assault maring being boosted up to the level of meph.

The solution is simple, get as many assault marines into cc as fast as possible. Also a regular libby or rec works better against sisters than meph so they can join a squad and give the entire squad rerolls to hit.

schadenfreude wrote:The solution is simple, get as many assault marines into cc as fast as possible. Also a regular libby or rec works better against sisters than meph so they can join a squad and give the entire squad rerolls to hit.

You'd think so, but when they're stubborn with all of those Eviscerators it's not quite so simple.

Kill their transports and shoot them until they're down to manageable numbers for assault. I happen to disagree with the advice to ignore the Exorcists, as they play hell on my Rhinos in most games. Ideally, you'd have enough dakka to deal with both the Exorcists and the Rhinos...

Frankly, i don't see why you had trouble.

30 assault marines with FNP should kill sisters pretty quick and those AC dreds should pop those rhinos pretty quick.

Sisters have a severe disadvantage when it comes to transports. their rhinos have the old, more expensive, points cost, but sisters NEED to use them to be effective.

You have plenty of melta in your assault squads so i would reccomend changing your Land speeders into Typhoons. get the points for swapping Meph for a Jump pack Chappy. the Typhoons will pop Rhinos just as easily as MM Speeders and will be far more likely to survive.

Meph is good, but not having an Invuln save means the melta happy sisters will just roast him with a bunch of melta shots he has no protection against. a stock Jump pack chaplain will mean more points to spend on other, more important, things.


other then that your list was ok and i really don't see how that sisters list gave you trouble.

Grey Templar wrote:Frankly, i don't see why you had trouble.

30 assault marines with FNP should kill sisters pretty quick and those AC dreds should pop those rhinos pretty quick.

Sisters have a severe disadvantage when it comes to transports. their rhinos have the old, more expensive, points cost, but sisters NEED to use them to be effective.

You have plenty of melta in your assault squads so i would reccomend changing your Land speeders into Typhoons. get the points for swapping Meph for a Jump pack Chappy. the Typhoons will pop Rhinos just as easily as MM Speeders and will be far more likely to survive.

Meph is good, but not having an Invuln save means the melta happy sisters will just roast him with a bunch of melta shots he has no protection against. a stock Jump pack chaplain will mean more points to spend on other, more important, things.


other then that your list was ok and i really don't see how that sisters list gave you trouble.

Well lets see:
- I missed all but 3 melta shots all game. The melta shots I did hit, only 1 resulted in anything "good" (I got 2 immobilizes, 1 wreck, a bunch of glances on a 1)
- Meph getting caught in the open after a hit and run
= the guy rolled 6 on EACH exorcist on turn 5.... 18 shots, he wrecked my raider pretty good
- He got the charge on my AM's when BOTH meltas missed, I assaulted the rhino to salvage it, and guess what? Yeah... no glances or pens.
- I deep struck 2 meltas behind the exorcists and still only managed 1 hit and an immobilized, which did me no good.
- My Autocannons hit a lot... too bad I only rolled 2 pens in all that time and wrecked a rhino on T5 with it :/

I think a combination of poor rolling, the str 8 eviscerators, and just general bad luck did me in, but even so, it was a tough fight. I learned a lot from it and will definitely carry that into further games, and as others pointed out, now that I know they're stubborn, have these invuns, and to try and keep clear of the cannonist in 1v1 combat, I should have no issues next time.

However, I will say, my dice were rolling pretty damn well my first 2 games... hell, I killed skarbrand with 1 turn of shooting @_@

Oh, and great suggestions, list changes I'm not looking for. The list was pretty damn solid, as I said, i tabled mech-space wolves w/ 2 vindis and dual rune priests, and beat an all khorne army down to 5 bloodletters hiding in a forest, it was working quite great. I still love my list, its just against sisters it seemed nothing I had worked lol. Plus when he charged my AM's with his retinue the 9 str 8 power weapons with rerolls pretty much owned my ass :/

so you had very bad rolling in one game.

that sisters list is pretty hard, but you had about as good a counter as one could wish.


just goes to show that the dice are the deciding factor

Monster Rain wrote:

schadenfreude wrote:The solution is simple, get as many assault marines into cc as fast as possible. Also a regular libby or rec works better against sisters than meph so they can join a squad and give the entire squad rerolls to hit.

You'd think so, but when they're stubborn with all of those Eviscerators it's not quite so simple.

Kill their transports and shoot them until they're down to manageable numbers for assault. I happen to disagree with the advice to ignore the Exorcists, as they play hell on my Rhinos in most games. Ideally, you'd have enough dakka to deal with both the Exorcists and the Rhinos...

You're light on assault marines.

FC mathammer for FC=2/3 hit 5/6 wound 1/3 failed armor saves=10/54=18.5% fatality rate per swing

Assault squad's 7 grunts and 2 melta guns have 25 attacks on the charge=4.6 dead sisters per squad.

You have a speed advantage over sisters, so you should be getting the charge in, and should be outnumbering the sisters by charging 2 squads into 1 of theirs.

The problem I see is you're running a mixed land raider/rhino mech list, and 3 exorcists are outstanding at popping rhinos.

Meph doesn't bring anything to the table here, the 3+ invo act of faith neuters him to the point any sisters unit can tarpit him, and exorcists are a perfect mephi killing weapon.

The list isn't unbeatable, it's just good and stomping mech BA. DOA/Jump spam BA would probably stomp that list as exorcists can't take away their speed by popping rhinos.

Also, eviscerators sound mean, until you realize that most of the time they're S6 power weapons for 25 points on a WS3 model. On two squads and the HQ unit they're WS4 instead. Still nothing special and rather overpriced for anti-infantry duty.

Melissia wrote:Also, eviscerators sound mean, until you realize that most of the time they're S6 power weapons, that strike at I1, for 25 points on a WS3 model. On two squads and the HQ unit they're WS4 instead. Still nothing special and rather overpriced for anti-infantry duty.

Fixed it for you

Right, I intended to put power fists, not power weapons.

Melissia wrote:Also, eviscerators sound mean, until you realize that most of the time they're S6 power weapons for 25 points on a WS3 model. On two squads and the HQ unit they're WS4 instead. Still nothing special and rather overpriced for anti-infantry duty.

Against large Numbers of Infantry, I agree.

Against expensive troops like Space Marines an Eviscerator pays for itself in two hits.

And that matters, how?

That seven member HQ squad? It costs 250 points bare minimum with no other upgrades to it. And it only has THREE Eviscertaors, and the priest doesn't even have an armor save. The cost of a Land Raider and it kills on average three marines per turn, while being easy to destroy (seven T3 models), and it requires another fifty points minimum for a transport to get anywhere without taking casualties first. So that's really 300 points minimum. If it isn't in a transport, expect them to take casualties before they can ever use those eviscerators, making them even weaker in close combat due to the lack of ablative wounds.

Compare that to, say, six TH/SS terminators for merely 200 points. More survivable (2+ saves, permanent 3++ saves), does more damage, and can deep strike without a transport.

Why are you trying to frame the discussion to be simply about the HQ squad? But anyway, a stubborn squad with Chainfist equivalents and a 3+ invulnerable save is pretty good.

And Deep Striking Assault Terminators is nearly always a bad idea.

Monster Rain wrote:Why are you trying to frame the discussion to be simply about the HQ squad? But anyway, a stubborn squad with Chainfist equivalents and a 3+ invulnerable save is pretty good.

They gain a 3+ invulnerable save only upon rolling 7 or higher on a 2d6-- IE, just above 50% of the time. And only for a single phase per use. If you fail, you must wait for the next phase. And each use of this drains a Faith Point, which weakens the rest of the army's ability to kill things / survive.

No, it's not as good as you think it is.

Eviscerators outside of the HQ squad suck even more. Especially on Battle Sister Squads where they're WS3.

Melissia wrote:Compare that to, say, six TH/SS terminators for merely 200 points. More survivable (2+ saves, permanent 3++ saves), does more damage, and can deep strike without a transport.

cough*5thunderhammerterminatorsfor200points*cough

Melissia wrote:

Monster Rain wrote:Why are you trying to frame the discussion to be simply about the HQ squad? But anyway, a stubborn squad with Chainfist equivalents and a 3+ invulnerable save is pretty good.

They gain a 3+ invulnerable save only upon rolling 7 or higher on a 2d6-- IE, just above 50% of the time. And only for a single phase per use. If you fail, you must wait for the next phase. And each use of this drains a Faith Point, which weakens the rest of the army's ability to kill things / survive.

No, it's not as good as you think it is.

Eviscerators outside of the HQ squad suck even more. Especially on Battle Sister Squads where they're WS3.

They're so awful that they get spammed like it's nobody's business.

Come on.

melissa wrote:
Eviscerators outside of the HQ squad suck even more. Especially on Battle Sister Squads where they're WS3.

ws3 has very little effect on the eviscerator's effectiveness. it will generally hit on 4s just like anyone else vs meqs, which is at least half the opponents in the game.

Here comes the cavalry.

I feel morally obligated to step in and say something whenever I see melissa post. on any topic, but espec. this one.

It's a tough list. I've only faced it once, but I managed to keep it locked down by stopping the Exorcists (which hit hard, IMO), and eventually popping the Rhinos.

Your multi-melta speeders *should* be able to at least shake 1-2 Exorcists a turn, while the other one attempts to pop a Rhino, with your Dreads as support.

As per what was said above, avoid the HQ (I hate that advice), and just whittle them down.

I'd be interested to see another re-match battle report

LOL.

Celestians (the HQ squad with all the Eviserators) have a special rule that they always hit on a 3+ regardless of their opponents Weapon Skill.

On the normal SoB squad, they're not great, but if you plan on getting out of your transports, then having the 2 Attacks, almost always hitting on a 4+ (like most other PF wielding Sarges) is decent if you're against MEQ's. They're great at doing attrition as an army.

Mech Sisters have been good for a long long time and are excellent at Grinding away at you. The best way to kill them is to overload their 3+ save, because as noted they can go Invulnerable when their squad size gets lower.

That list is not bad, but it really isn't that 'hard' of a SoB list. A more competitive list will couple those flamers with a huge number of Meltas - probably 10+ and create a veritable parking lot of Immolators.

The trick to SoB is to dismount them. The way they beat MEQ is by DG flamer template abuse to wipe squads to 1 or 2 models in one turn of shooting. If they are on foot they are fodder to be assaulted and cannot setup those flamer shots. Ignore the Exorcists - I actually prefer opponents to shoot them with the ML and Lascannons so my Rhinos can get into position to unleash Melta hell. Not to mention the mounting of the weapon makes it really easy for them to achieve a cover save.

Melissa is correct about his 'death star' unit. Even with a priest on the charge it is overcosted for what it does and it does not have an assault vehicle it can even be mounted up in. Pop it with a ML (it only has AV 11 options) and hit the canonness with FC marines.

Edit: She is also correct on Eviscerators - SoB make their living 6-12" away, not in assault. They should not be on standard squads, a Canonness is worth giving one to but even a Celestian the cost is almost 40 points (I never give the Celestians a BoSL or a Vet Sup since they are already Faithful and it is better to keep them as cheap Melta squads in an Immo)

SoB built right are a pretty rough army to face :-) I play against one locally, and it usually turns into a blood bath, whatever army I'm actually playing... Barring one of us having a particularly "bad dice" day...

Lots of "other" rules with their Faith Points, so don't assume much of anything if you're used to just facing Marines and the like... Sometimes their shots rend, sometimes their saves are INV, etc... Wouldn't bother running any special characters honestly, they're pretty good at killing them. One thing I've found useful using my BA force against them is Vanguard Vets, dropping in to assault the Exorcists, or if he happens to have some of his ladies out in the open, but the Exorcists tend to be my priority targets... Have you tried Storm Raven(s)? I know locally they are pretty much universally hated and feared... Shame no "official" models exist at the moment...

Also, faith will rape you if you don't know what it does. Everyone should know how it works to protect themselves from it, unfortunately only the sister players usually do.

Smart use of faith will make a hard fight impossible. There are ways of making them waste faith or use it in inopportune moments.

However, if this is your first couple of games against sisters, the guy actually has a pretty big advantage until you figure out what faith can and can't do.

Hmmm lets see, you look like your list should do ok, and if your dice were that bad, dude I could play a grot army and smoke you, bad dice is bad dice, nothing to be ashamed of, and nothing can be done about, frustration allowed though. So 2 suggestions, first off, try and get a rematch and see how you do in a second game, and more importantly, if you have trouble with any army, sit down with the codex for it and read the special rules and equipment. Information is ammunition. Once you see where the SoB abilities and wargear come into play you can counter them in play.

Magnalon wrote:It's a tough list. I've only faced it once, but I managed to keep it locked down by stopping the Exorcists (which hit hard, IMO), and eventually popping the Rhinos.

Your multi-melta speeders *should* be able to at least shake 1-2 Exorcists a turn, while the other one attempts to pop a Rhino, with your Dreads as support.

As per what was said above, avoid the HQ (I hate that advice), and just whittle them down.

I'd be interested to see another re-match battle report

Saddly I'll only get to play the guy that one time, as it was a finals game in a tourney and I go back to NM next week lol.

I agree with a lot of whats been said; me being ignorant to a lot of rules, being more timid than usual due to facing something I have no idea about, and absolutally TERRIBLE rolls for my game definitely did me in. On top of that, the guy made me agree to the flat hills being difficult terrain, so I lost a few key guys (priest/melta guy) moving off of them.

All in all it wasn't my best game by far, and if I hadn't missed most of my meltas or failed to pen, or had meph stuck in the open when the chicks hit and runned (and the fact somehow his 3 man group got the 3+ invuns, tho I thought he had to roll below the number in his group) REALLY jacked me up bad. I lost meph to exorcist bombardments, and even 4 melta shots to the back of exorcists completely failed me. I honestly should have won if my rolls were at least average, but thems the breaks; if your dice revolt theres really nothing that can really save you. Hell, my 9 AM's vs his retinue only managed 3 wounds.... 3 wounds! Yeah, he got the charge, but hitting on 4's and wounding on 3's I still rolled abyssmally; and then all his eviscerators hit, and wounding on 2+, I lost everything lol.

However, as everyone says, a loss is the best way to learn, and I definitely learned quite a bit about sisters; they're all stubborn (thus, don't charge your furioso into them because he'll get stuck), exorcists are AP 1, Seraphim need to friggin die quickly, don't get meph locked into CC with anything but basic sisters, cannoness is best in 1v1's and needs to be charged by a group, and never line up a squad or bunch up because rending flamers friggin hurt @_@

I really wish I could get a rematch, I definitely know the match would be completely different and I wound do a lot differently (like not reserving 1 of my AM squads to try and pop the exorcists). I'd run up the middle, break the rhinos, kill the girls. Exorcists really weren't my biggest problem; it was my fail rolls to do anything and the fact the 3+ invun kept his seraphim alive against meph so they could immobilize my raider and beat up on my AC dreads. Lesson learned for next time I meet sisters!

Though I do have a question;
1) How do you roll for faith? It was weird how its done, some squads used size, some used leadership, some squads rolled 3d6 while some rolled 2d6... I wasn't sure which powers needed which rolls, so for all I know, he could very well have failed one and I didn't know (he said he passed them all).

Ok faith as I understand it is like this, different units generate a faith point, each sister squad i think, with some doing 2, and maybe 3 ? So they can burn a faith point per ability they want to use, with each check either rolling under, or over squad str depending on the check. I think the invul is over the squad str.

The best chance to 'understand' faith is to download the codex for free from the GW site. Given the WH/DH codex costs nothing now everyone should at least give it a read through.

Here is a breakdown though - Tests of Faith are based on squad size. If a squad has an Imagifier it gets to roll 3d6 and pick 2. This is for the Seraphim mainly, noone takes it in normal squads. What you need to get the Act of Faith can be thought of as when do you 'need' the act....

Spirit of the Martyr - Invuln Save, Under squad size
Divine Guidance - 6's to wound AP 1, Over squad size

Those are really the only two you need to know. The other 3 are less used - +2 S, +2 I and Fearless

Edit: For a 9 man AM squad w/ a fist 3 wounds isn't that bad. 16 basic attacks, 8 hits, 5.3 wounds w/ 3.3 unsaved wounds plus Fist, 2 attacks, 1 hit, 0.84 wounds, 0.5 wounds

Average of 4 wounds - the Invuln tends to mess up peoples math in combat as well since a PF isnt an autokill. On the other hand, even if it is not worth it point wise...it is never a good idea to let 3 Eviscerators with 7 attacks hitting on 4+ and 3 attacks hitting on 3+ with rerolls to hit to come through. I can definitely see that wiping a squad...