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I am not sure if this is the right place for this but here it goes. Has anyone else noticed that there is a lack of battle reports for the new sisters dex. I would love to see how they are doning. If anyone has any links to battle reports, or wants to share their experiences with the new dex I would love to hear about it. Are things going well? What works, what doesn't? Are you sticking with it or going back to WH? Actual games, no theory hammer please.

What's worked best for me is 2-3 dominions with flamers in a melta immo (so you can pop and them flame the insides with rerolls) and the last slot as seraphim if I feel like it

3 exoricsts

Jacobus + 3 crusaders and the rest death cults in a rhino

Celestine

Troop choices as MM + melta, who just hold objectives and pop transports that come close, using the faith to stay in their position.

Most effective set up I've had consistantly work.

Play with the old dex though, it's far better.

I can tell you how they have been playing for me, but I have to warn you; I am one poor general. Not just in making mistakes, but if I get very far ahead I will start feeling sorry for my opponent and tend to slack off. So obviously I am not your typical tourney player. I do enjoy playing in tournaments to meet new people but I have no illusions of winning anything for my battle strategy. If I can win with a codex, anyone can.

The last tournament I played in was two weeks ago. It was an impromptu thing at out LGS. 1250 points. I took Saint Celstene, Canoness, 2 Battle Sister Squads, 2 Dominions with meltas in multi-melta Immolators and 2 Exorcists. I had a minor victory against Space Wolves, a minor loss against Dark Eldar and a draw with a Tyrinid player. That is if I am remembering correctly; we play each other so much and most of these guys have like 3 armies or more.

Are things going well?

I have been pleasantly surprised with how well my girls have been doing. They work much better than I had feared.

What works, what doesn't?

Oh, this could become some long wall of text in a hurry. Let me be as brief as I can.

Works! Saint Celestine, Jacobus and Battle Conclave. Exorcists (duh!) and melta/MM spam from the troops.

Sort of works: Repentia (which is a vast improvement from the old codex), Rending Heavy Bolters and Seraphim. The Seraphim play different now. They are neither better nor worse in my opinion, just different. If you try to use them like you once did you will think they are horrible. So don’t do that.

Does not work:

The new codex lost some options. What remains are all viable choices. Some of the choices may not be the best use of a force slot or be the best use of points with a given role, but they were all viable units in one way or another in my experience.

Are you sticking with it or going back to WH?

I am sticking with the new codex. I have already traded away my IST (I seldom took them anyway since they were not Faithful) and given my extra Inquisitorial units to a friend.



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@Spiku

agree
agree
agree
agree
agree
.. screeeetch! ... lol. Disagree! ^.^

I can only speak for my games Phimsome, and I have far better results with reliable hit n runs, 3++ saves, 4 melta immo box ;3

That's cool, and I do not fault you at all. If we had a real codex it might be a lot more popular. I like to play the new stuff justbecause it is new, and that is not just an Adepta Sororitas thing. I even bought Vista even tho I knew it had major problems because I wanted to learn everything I could and help other people work around those problems. Now with 40K, I have played Witch Hunters; I want to play Sisters of battle mostly just because it is different. Most people are not as masochistic as I can be ^.- If you would rather stay with the old codex i can fully understand why. After all, if you are not having fun, what's the point in playing?

Sarah Phim wrote:If you would rather stay with the old codex i can fully understand why. After all, if you are not having fun, what's the point in playing?

A very good point indeed.

Well, in one game, I butchered my Space Marine opponent horrifically. My Jacobus+6Assassins+3Crusaders unit slaughtered her Honor Guard, my Repentia in the same multi-combat slaughtered her Tactical Squad who'd foolishly wasted their attacks on the Battle Conclave, and the Chapter Master went down in a blaze of No Retreat! wounds. Total losses in that combat on my side were 2 Crusaders. After that, she didn't have too much left, just two Tactical Squads, a Scout Squad, and a pretty damaged Assault Squad - lots of Dangerous Terrain rolls for them. My opponent ended up surrendering after being reduced to her Scouts and nothing else by the end of turn 4.

My more recent game is a little less promising. I didn't take Jacobus, didn't take a Battle Conclave, didn't take any Fast Attack choices, instead opting for a Canoness and Command Squad who've been far from the fighting all game, a large unit of Repentia, 4 Battle Sisters Squads, an Exorcist, Retributors with Heavy Bolters, and 2 Penitent Engines. I seem to be having my forces dismantled, but it's hard to tell whether that's because of my terrible command decisions or what units I chose. Honestly, I've been rushing forward like Orks, I dunno why I didn't expect to be charged by melee-focused Space Marine units and predictably fold like a house of cards. I get the impression I'm being slaughtered terribly, but I've had that feeling before and ended up turning the tables a couple of turns later - and this game is only at the beginning of turn 3. [Edited to add: Okay, maybe my current situation isn't so bad as I thought. I'm about to lose a Battle Sisters Squad in melee with an Assault Squad, but other than that, casualties on both sides seem about even.]

And I've started two other games with the new Sisters dex, but never finished them or even got past turn 2, because I got distracted by Chaos Daemons and Eldar.

As indicated in a previous thread however, Pouncey's opponent in that first game didn't know what the conclave could do;

I would say that whilst I do love the little repentia, and it means you could take say, retributors and stuff them in a rhino using LoS blocking on first turn, they are of course useless =D Their act of faith only working on your turn, and their forced approach, can really scupper you. I've yet to find a reason to take Rets over Exorcists other than: I like their models~

What I didn't make clear in -this- thread, is that I've tried out all the unit choices apart from Arcos and Penitent. Arcos have no place whatsoever, and Penitents I've just heard nothing good about, I can't see where I'd field them, and I don't have the models. Everything else I've tried and dismissed, and elite canoness group costs so much and often have no "free" wounds to discard. There's a reason no one touches Kyrainatoriov, but in fairness he would let you take a second conclave, but meh to his points and what he has.

I'll point out for a general, FNP rarely does anything for you, given the T3, and usually you're relying on killing the opponents outright with your power weapon spam

Spiku wrote:As indicated in a previous thread however, Pouncey's opponent in that first game didn't know what the conclave could do;

I would say that whilst I do love the little repentia, and it means you could take say, retributors and stuff them in a rhino using LoS blocking on first turn, they are of course useless =D Their act of faith only working on your turn, and their forced approach, can really scupper you. I've yet to find a reason to take Rets over Exorcists other than: I like their models~

What I didn't make clear in -this- thread, is that I've tried out all the unit choices apart from Arcos and Penitent. Arcos have no place whatsoever, and Penitents I've just heard nothing good about, I can't see where I'd field them, and I don't have the models. Everything else I've tried and dismissed, and elite canoness group costs so much and often have no "free" wounds to discard. There's a reason no one touches Kyrainatoriov, but in fairness he would let you take a second conclave, but meh to his points and what he has.

I'll point out for a general, FNP rarely does anything for you, given the T3, and usually you're relying on killing the opponents outright with your power weapon spam

:: nods :: Indeed. The Honor Guard and Chapter Master were guarding the Tactical Squad as it camped an objective. I came out from behind LoS-blocking terrain, got the charge, and that was all she wrote. The actual situation was a little more complicated, but it involved some homebrew rules that ended up having the effect of what I just described.

Repentia only seem to do well - speaking from VERY limited experience - if the unit they're in melee with isn't directing their attacks toward them. Generally that means setting up a multi-assault with a much scarier unit, which means a Battle Conclave. And generally the Battle Conclave will not need any help anyways, and multi-assaults with units with Rage are kinda tricky, especially for a newb like me - Emperor's Name, ten years and I still feel like a newb sometimes. Sometimes, I kinda wish I hadn't bought 9 more Repentia just before the dex came out, which gave me about 21 Repentia and 1 Mistress.

The Penitent Engines have been fairly useless so far. One got wrecked from an Immobilized result, and the other is taking down a Combat Squadded Tactical Squad. Not really a good investment for my points, but my opponent was smart and focused her efforts on the opposite half of the table from where I'd deployed my Penitent Engines.

My Canoness and her Command Squad, yeah, they've done nothing so far, but they haven't been in a position to do much anyways. I can't imagine them doing much, either, as the only power weapon they have is the Canoness' Eviscerator. I'll probably swap them out for Jacobus and a Conclave, as I know what their purpose is, and they've proven themselves effective - we'll see how long that lasts, of course. They're a deterrant if nothing else. As much as I like the Hospitaler mini, I also like the Death-Cult Assassin minis, and I'm looking forward to those Crusader and Jacobus proxies I've ordered from Reaper. I'll have to recommend to my opponent that she try to keep units near the Conclave in cover, as the Conclave has no assault grenades. I like the Canoness mini, and I ended up getting one for my birthday just before I picked up the second half of the WD dex. Enh.

My Battle Sisters Squads fold to Space Marines in melee combat, though one of them managed to survive a single round with a 7-man Assault Squad - used to be 10 before the Retributors shot em up - and miraculously did not run away. But they're not really a melee unit, they're more of a shooting unit that likes to group-huggle objective markers.

My Retributors can do some damage even if they don't get their Act of Faith off. They've made their points back already, and it's only the start of turn 3. Kinda unimpressive, but I like the models, so I'll keep fielding them.

My Exorcist has thus far managed to kill off a Vindicator, getting lucky with 6 missiles in the top half of turn 1. I have plans for it to try to kill some more of that kitted-out Command Squad that took down my Repentia and are currently threatening a Battle Sisters Squad near an objective, as it'll ignore their armor saves, ignore FNP, cause ID to the Chapter Master if I score enough hits and wounds to force my opponent to allocate a wound to him, and the only vehicle my opponent has left on the board is a Razorback with heavy bolters.

My Seraphim have been able to do some nice damage in one of the games I started but didn't finish. They're not in my current list, though, and that game didn't last past... maybe even the first turn, second at the latest. In my first completed game with the new dex, they didn't manage to do much, as all the heavy lifting was done by other squads - notably the Conclave.


Sorry, I like to type. ^_^

Repentia's Mistress of Repentences are a little underwhelming. 2 Srtr weapons sounds good, but the fact it wounds vs Ld means that it is only effective VS horde models. Anything that it would ID has Ld 10 and is actually not ID because they count their Ld as Toughness for this purpose.

However, 9 Str 6 Chainfists for 175pts? I'll have that!!!

"See that Battlewagon over there?"

"No"

"Didn't think so...."

Deadshot wrote:Repentia's Mistress of Repentences are a little underwhelming. 2 Srtr weapons sounds good, but the fact it wounds vs Ld means that it is only effective VS horde models. Anything that it would ID has Ld 10 and is actually not ID because they count their Ld as Toughness for this purpose.

However, 9 Str 6 Chainfists for 175pts? I'll have that!!!

"See that Battlewagon over there?"

"No"

"Didn't think so...."

Mmm, I guess the Eviscerators are good against vehicles. And with some luck with LoS-blocking terrain, you could probably get them to attack the right target by loading them up in a Rhino and driving them over to the right place.

The problem with vs vehicals is they tend to move; you get somewhat reminded of the days of watching Berzerkers jump out of their rhinos to chase after an empty rhino on foot for the rest of the game. Moreover, you'll get better vehical hunting from your FA choices ;3

You'll find that if you can get them in a rhino, or block LoS with troop ones, they can be a minor deterrant or counter charge unit in your turn due to their act of faith, but in a serious game there's no real reason to take them.

Due to the nature of the rolls, and weapons out, you should always have 2+ exorcists; and yeah they work well vs anything, though cover bites.

In the Battle Rep in the WD 382, the one with the sisters army list, a trygon was 1 shotted by an Excorcist firing 6 missiles, and wounding witjh all of them. I am sceptical of the nature of that Battle Rep. I have a conspiracy theory regarding GW trying to show up the nids.

I can't recall the numbers, but I know when they showed the battle report to go alongside the initial SoB Codex, they had too many meltas in the dominion squad; I don't really see a reason to pay attention to their reports

That report was fixed. They could have had a 2000pts list playing a 500pts luist for all we know,. They didn't even give an army list, just a pic of they forces.

Deadshot wrote:In the Battle Rep in the WD 382, the one with the sisters army list, a trygon was 1 shotted by an Excorcist firing 6 missiles, and wounding witjh all of them. I am sceptical of the nature of that Battle Rep. I have a conspiracy theory regarding GW trying to show up the nids.

It's possible, hell, it's even plausible, as it would hit on 3s and wound on 2s and ignore its armor save, but it's not the norm. My first volley with my Exorcist in my current game had it firing 6 missiles at a Vindicator. Some hit, one glanced, one penetrated, and the vehicle exploded. In the 2 turns since, it's fired a total of 2 missiles. One shook up a building housing a plasma cannon Combat Squad, and the other failed to hit a lone Captain - his Command Squad had been washed away with cleansing flames and melta rays.



Oh, and I'm now down to one 8-woman Battle Sisters Squad - luckily far away from trouble - a Penitent Engine who's probably going to go eat some Scouts and then an immobilized Razorback, a Rhino with Eviscerator-equipped Canoness and fairly bare-bones Sororitas Command Squad, Retibutors slowly eating away at the Space Marines with their heavy bolters - they killed four Scouts, three Assault Marines, and a silly Command Squad member whose Apothecary failed to heal him - and a lone Sister Superior on the run after her squad was shot to pieces by Sternguard Veterans. Oh, and an Exorcist.

My opponent has 3 Scouts in 2 different combat squads, a Captain, 5 Assault Marines, 13 Tactical Marines - 2 Combat Squads with plasma cannons hiding in buildings and taking potshots at my vehicles and a third, somewhat depleted Combat Squad moving across the board - an immobilized Razorback, and 7 Sternguard Veterans who've been shooting up my Sisters.

Pouncey wrote:

Deadshot wrote:In the Battle Rep in the WD 382, the one with the sisters army list, a trygon was 1 shotted by an Excorcist firing 6 missiles, and wounding witjh all of them. I am sceptical of the nature of that Battle Rep. I have a conspiracy theory regarding GW trying to show up the nids.

It's possible, hell, it's even plausible, as it would hit on 3s and wound on 2s and ignore its armor save, but it's not the norm. My first volley with my Exorcist in my current game had it firing 6 missiles at a Vindicator. Some hit, one glanced, one penetrated, and the vehicle exploded. In the 2 turns since, it's fired a total of 2 missiles. One shook up a building housing a plasma cannon Combat Squad, and the other failed to hit a lone Captain - his Command Squad had been washed away with cleansing flames and melta rays.

No, I agree that it is quite opossible. I was talking about th battle report as a whole. The Nids seemed to have all ther bad *luck*. They could have easily won that battle.

Deadshot wrote:

Pouncey wrote:

Deadshot wrote:In the Battle Rep in the WD 382, the one with the sisters army list, a trygon was 1 shotted by an Excorcist firing 6 missiles, and wounding witjh all of them. I am sceptical of the nature of that Battle Rep. I have a conspiracy theory regarding GW trying to show up the nids.

It's possible, hell, it's even plausible, as it would hit on 3s and wound on 2s and ignore its armor save, but it's not the norm. My first volley with my Exorcist in my current game had it firing 6 missiles at a Vindicator. Some hit, one glanced, one penetrated, and the vehicle exploded. In the 2 turns since, it's fired a total of 2 missiles. One shook up a building housing a plasma cannon Combat Squad, and the other failed to hit a lone Captain - his Command Squad had been washed away with cleansing flames and melta rays.

No, I agree that it is quite opossible. I was talking about th battle report as a whole. The Nids seemed to have all ther bad *luck*. They could have easily won that battle.

:: nods :: I don't read battle reports in WD anymore. I didn't even read the Sisters of Battle one. But I wouldn't put it past GW to fudge the dice rolls on a Battle Report to make the FotM look appetizing.

Edit: Hm, actually, we weren't the FotM in that battle report... Ogres were. All we got was a few pages at the back of the WD. I wasn't around for it, but I wonder what the Blood Angels got in their WD dex issues, whether other armies took the cover art and the bulk of the magazine. Oh right, Ogres and Vampires got new models. That explains everything.

Edit2: Great, now you're bringing me down. :: hugs an imaginary Sister of Battle plush toy :: It'll be okay... Just another decade, and we'll have our plastic miniatures. Sure, they won't be made of digital paper, so we'll have to paint them traditionally instead of hooking them up to the computer and painting them instantly and en masse, but we'll have plastics.

I think WD battle reports have a looong history of being fudged, at least according to the perception of a large number of players. I've heard rumours that it's less about faking rolls but more that they just play as many games as it takes for the "chosen" army to win, though, and that's the report that gets printed. *shrugs*

Sad to hear that the new Canoness sucks. I want my wargear back.

On an unrelated note: A SoB plushie doll would be awesome.
Should be doable, actually, just need to find someone who does custom plushies. I've seen this done for Drow characters once.

I am more worried about the fact you actually have a SoB plush toy! .

Lynata wrote:I think WD battle reports have a looong history of being fudged, at least according to the perception of a large number of players. I've heard rumours that it's less about faking rolls but more that they just play as many games as it takes for the "chosen" army to win, though, and that's the report that gets printed. *shrugs*

Sad to hear that the new Canoness sucks. I want my wargear back.

On an unrelated note: A SoB plushie doll would be awesome.
Should be doable, actually, just need to find someone who does custom plushies. I've seen this done for Drow characters once.

:: noddles and keeps huggling the imaginary one ::

They've said they don't, because apparently it's a ton of work because they record every dice roll, but I know they at least choose matchups that are favorable for the army being presented. Like that Dark Eldar one against Imperial Guard with a total of 4 Imperial tanks - including transports and artillery - at something like 2,000+ points.


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Deadshot wrote:I am more worried about the fact you actually have a SoB plush toy! .

I don't. That's why I said imaginary... :: keeps huggling it ::

I spent £4:50 on issue 382 for that Battle Report alone, no other reason! I got a pic of a half built Nid army, getting 3 pages devoted to an article that took 2 gamne turns per column. I want a refund!

I have thought that the WD battle reports are complete rubbish since 3rd ed. The last one I actually thought was a real game was in 3rd, I forget the WD #, but I do remember that DE actually lost their premier battle report, against Eldar I think. Most of the time they have lists that nobody would ever take. The non-flavor of the month usually is the worst army list you have ever seen and they give some crap explanation as to why they would take such ridiculous combos. They also make references to how things happened in their test games, so that kind of gives you a clue that they are just playing over and over until they get the result they want, or they are just taking the beast parts out of each game to make the right results .

Spiku wrote:I would say that whilst I do love the little repentia, and it means you could take say, retributors and stuff them in a rhino using LoS blocking on first turn,

I have heard this before and it still puzzles me. Why worry about LoS? I would rather they see the opponent directly across the board. Directly across from a scout unit is even better.

Spiku wrote:Arcos have no place whatsoever,

besides wounding MEQ on a 3+, each arco causes on average one glance and one penetration vs armor. But really, sending your conclave against a preditor is not the best use of resources. But al least it is an option. Arcos will generate half again as many hits as a DCA and wound half again as often. Only at I3. In my mind, that is not equivalent to "no place whatsoever." But don't worry, I won't try and make you change your mind. Play how you like. You won't need them if you only play Witch Hunters anyway. Well, yeah, you *could* take them but they were horribly expensive at 35 points and were only S4 with d6 (3.5 average) attacks and died if they rolled good. My 2 arcos get 12 attacks with Jacobus, 14 in a charge. You had to roll double 6's in the old versio to get that many attacks and then the arcos died automatically. Also, they could not ride in a vehicle, they always counted as lost for victory points and could not contest objectives or table quarters. Or are you talking about the old Witch Hunter arcos as having no place whatsoever -- I remember you saying that is what you play. If so then I agree wholeheartedly. The new arcos are a vast improvement. In fact the whole battle conclave is one of the few shining points of the new codex. But then again, it did come straight out of the GK codex; on the other hand, I have yet to see a grey knight player field a battle conclave. Funny that.

So anyway, if you are still playing the old arcos, you will love the effectiveness of the new ones.

Mr. S Baldrick wrote:I have thought that the WD battle reports are complete rubbish since 3rd ed. The last one I actually thought was a real game was in 3rd, I forget the WD #, but I do remember that DE actually lost their premier battle report, against Eldar I think. Most of the time they have lists that nobody would ever take. The non-flavor of the month usually is the worst army list you have ever seen and they give some crap explanation as to why they would take such ridiculous combos. They also make references to how things happened in their test games, so that kind of gives you a clue that they are just playing over and over until they get the result they want, or they are just taking the beast parts out of each game to make the right results .

Mmm, that makes sense. I never thought of the test games they mention like that. I remember the Island of Blood battle report last year, they mentioned how the test game went totally the opposite of the way it went in their battle report.

Don't mind the GW hate, but I guess it kinda emphasizes how they consider the wargaming to be a marketing tool for their miniatures.

Honestly, after the whomping I was getting today, and some very negative epiphanies while thinking, I was considering trying a different game system. But there's no game system out there that gives me everything WH40k does and more, unfortunately. Not that I've found, anyways.

Lynata wrote:Sad to hear that the new Canoness sucks. I want my wargear back.

OMG. In my mind this is without a doubt the worst bit of garbage in the whole thing. Today's canoness = last month's Sister Superior. Not veteran, regular Sister Superior. A veteran Sister Superior in C:WH had more options than a canoness does now. And i was so proud of my canoness model and her command stand.

I have the issue with the army list.


Cannoness

Has standard
PA
Bolter
BP
Frag+Krak

Special Rules
Acts of Faith
Shield of Faith
IC
Stubborn
The Passion

Options for
Chainsword
Stormbolter
Power Sword, combi weapon
Inferno (melta) pistol, plasma psitol, comdemor Bolter
Eviscerator
Rosarius
Meltabombs






That is the Cannoness. Dirt cheap but easy to kill and a free KP.

Sarah Phim wrote:besides wounding MEQ on a 3+, each arco causes on average one glance and one penetration vs armor.

DCA will kill MEQ far better than Arco's could hope, and running after the hopes of 6's vehicals, with the conclave is just a bad idea. For the functionality of the conclave, and the fact you have far better options for vehicals in the army list which will actually do the job reliably, they have no place.
In Witch Hunters, I wouldn't touch them ever =3

I can't remember who made the comment re: LoS blocking, but basically:
If repentia see a target, they go toward it. This means you can't put them in someone's rhino on the first turn. You block LoS, and hope them in the rhino of one of your other troop types; in my example, you've given them the transport that belongs to the Retributors.

Spiku wrote:I can't remember who made the comment re: LoS blocking, but basically:
If repentia see a target, they go toward it. This means you can't put them in someone's rhino on the first turn. You block LoS, and hope them in the rhino of one of your other troop types; in my example, you've given them the transport that belongs to the Retributors.

???

Weird. Why do it that way? Just put the squad 6" behind the rhino. On turn one, the repentia move 6" towards the closest enemy. This puts them right next to the doors of the rhino. So they embark.

Not weird at all, it is the most sensible option. Using your method puts you at risk of losing the embark, and then having to re-control your repentia to stop them just marching along the field:

You would need to position the troops to move 6" in a direct line toward the nearest target, and so that they are all within 2" of the vehical entrances. Given you wont be setting that rhino outside of your deployment zone, why would you risk the 6" move not allowing a full embark? Just block LoS with it, or place them where there is no LoS.

Also protects you against any of the extra deployment units moving/being placed further field at the end of deployment