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I have always liked the Penitent Engines and Arco Flagellants of the Witch Hunters. I know how people feel about the Arcos, but are the Penitent Engines any good? What if they are used in numbers, do there stock go up? I will admit I ask this because I have been playing Soulstorm quite a bit. I know they won't be that good, but can they be competitive?

Sorry, but they're horrid. Perhaps you can make them workable if you play with magic cylinder LoS, and can therefore hide them behind Rhinos while you advance, but that's still not very efficient. The biggest problem--bigger than the already significant matter of their being an easily destroyed points sink--is that every slot you fill with a PEngine or squad of PEngines is an Exorcist that you're not taking. Can you afford that? Even if you can, would you not be better off with Retributors?

I don't know what you mean by "competitive," by the way. Do you mean in tourneys? If so, I would forget it. In friendly games, well, they're not autolose, but they are pretty bad.

They are very vulnerable because they have low armor and are open-topped. Adding to this is the ease of targeting them and their movement restrictions.

They are about as fluffy as you can get and the models are beautiful. But they won't be at the top of the "competitive units" list for a tournament army.

The circus troops Andy Hoare added are rubbish.

The only real uses I have found for them are

1: Fire magnet to protect the Exorcists. Most people are horrified of the concept of letting a PE hit their lines, so they shoot them down the first turn. Sometimes this keeps enough fire off your Exorcists to keep them alive, sometimes not.
2: Possible 1st turn assaulter with help of a Callidus and skill at rolling 6's for Holy Rage. Risky.

They are fun, and I like them pretty well, but only because they are funny and look cool. They are pretty much the definition of non-competitive, and having to take a priest to get them is even more irritating. For 60 points I might consider them really good, or even for 70 I would think "ok, they take heat off the other tanks." But at current, no, sadly.

If you do take them, bear in mind that Holy Rage ignores terrain (always moves full d6) and that the Engines are immune to Shaken and Stun. Those two rules help them a fair amount, but don't expect big things from them.

In the couple of times I've played with them (I recently bought a WH army), I've found them to be fairly random, but devastating when they hit close combat.

After deployment they play themselves, so really the only question is where to deploy them.

As far as useful/useless, I'd say that in the current environment where heavy weapons are plentiful and cheap (compared to newer codexes), they're not very useful. They have rhino armor, are open topped, and the way that they move makes it hard to keep them within any sort of cover.

Assuming that the rumored SM revision has vanilla tac squads matching BA/DA tac squads for heavy weapons costs and availability, the penitent engines will become quite a bit more useful. AV11 really limits their vulnerability in close combat, and fewer heavy weapons with higher priority targets (e.g. exorcists) will allow the penitent engines to reach close combat and wreak havoc.

For myself, I generally use them. Mostly, I do that because nobody else seems to. I often take units that other people avoid, just to try to make them work. The same goes for <the squad of SoB who have the 2handed chainswords that count as chainfists>.

I use them and against any decent shooty army they will die before they do anything, but they are wonderfully effective against Orks and horde Bugs. I love the models, so I use them, but when I take them, I overload as many as I can put in. One engine is a waste of points. Two is still a waste. 3+ and it gets better, but unless you know you are facing a horde army and have a callidus to position Lootas/VC away from them for at least a turn, they are pretty much going to die the first turn or two at best.

And as others pointed out, Penitent means one less exorcist, the best Heavy Support option WH have access too.

But chances are if you are using a PE, you don't care about that at all and more power to you.

SOB excell at short range shooting. aside from seraphim every single one of thier CC units is more for looks than effectiveness.

lets look at them-
seraphim-marine level shooting, fast, andhave hit and run to save them from thier T3 in CC
best unit by far-

penitent engines-
expensive, poor armor, open topped, slow, uncontrollabel once they rage, hard to hide.

repentia-
slow, weak save, uncontrollabel once they rage, to expensive for what they do.

arco's-
free points for your enemy, slow, unable to kill most vehicles, uncontrollable once they rage.


unless your playing for fun and fluff you either take seraphim to boost your faith or take grey knight terminator allies for some good CC support.

I like them better than Sisters Repentia (going last is what takes this unit from mediocre to terrible) but they are not worth equal points against an Excorsist.

I use Repentia and Penitents, just because I like the models. Plus the Repentia squad is a good place for the albatross... er "priest" you need to take for the Penitents. Neither is good, but they can be fun. Especially in Apocalypse where Flank March/Tunnels lets you move in and assault first turn before they get sprayed to death.

Penitent Engines are super in Combat Patrol -> nothing else with dreadnought ccws can get into the game under the restriction and squads tend to be small. Every time I've played against/with PEs you can expect 1 out of 3 to make it into assault, but once they are there they tend to be golden.

At least Arcos have an 'on' button, so they can act as counter attack if anything too scary gets to your lines.

Repentia... well, I've had surprising success with them at every point level! They've carved through dreadnoughts, hive tyrants, tactical squads, and I even had a small 5-woman squad kill off an entire Tau Combat Patrol army! Yes, they are a liability, but if you can find a way to get them into combat, you won't be let down.

and I even had a small 5-woman squad kill off an entire Tau Combat Patrol army!

LOL

well they are TAU in CC.



seriously though you must have some good luck and the blessings fo the dice gods, every time i have played with or against them none of the SOB CC units do very well save the seraphim.

40K is a very different game when playing Combat Patrol. Many units which are marginal at 1000+ point games will shine in the points-starved arena of CP.

Some of the units that become quite powerful in CP:
Rhino
Chimera
Penetent Engine
Stormtrooper
Havoks/Devastators
Kroot
Gaunts

All of these have caused nasty suprises in our local campaigns during CP missions. It shakes up the metagame and really makes things fresh again!

But in a normal game, the Penitent Engine is still a poor vehicle.

Penitent engines are decent in COD, thats about it.

Pretty situational at that.