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Condemnor boltgun are just boltguns that do d3D against psykers now.

I still hold that the 6++ SoF save should be allowed against Smite mortal wounds.

All psychic mortal wounds. At least.

I'm looking for some tactical guidance for running Celestine. I bought the new plastic model because, like what I do with most of my 'new' armies, well I really liked the model. I want to run her in my IG foot list however I've never run sob before. I've read through the acts of faith and had some questions about them. Like The Passion. You have to start out within an inch of an enemy model so I'm guessing you're 'locked' in combat? Who stays locked in combat with Celestine? Can Saintly Blessing apply to Celestine's unit? I don't suppose there are any tactical articles written specifically about her...

2 main stratagies in this situation.

1) you keep her close to your infantry squads so she grants them a mostly ineffective 6++ save.

2) More commonly: faith jump her down field and have her wreck face.

Her saintly blessings does apply to her unit although the bonus to shield of faith wont apply to her as shes has a better 4++ save anyways. Yo ull be using her auto faith from the saintly blessing too as it sounds like shes your only Sisters unit, so the army wide 2+ faith is useless to her.

Passion youll be using when shes locked in combat. Youll find people will be happy to keep her in combat with chump blobs to slow her down. That or its a unit your opponent is confident will take her down. She can be killy- but this varies from person to person (ive found her performance to be average to below average due to my cursed dice rolls).
She has the Fly keyword so she can jump out of combat and still fire, but she cant charge again. Whether using Hand of the Emperor to get her out of combat before movement phase allows her to charge again, i dont know and have been meaning to ask.

Also remember she is a character so depending on the positioning of the rest of your force they may not be able to just fall back and unload on her with everything, so keeping her locked up with a less desirable target might be worth while for your opponent. As often as not I find my self moving twice, or healing, occasionally shooting twice.

 necron99 wrote:
Who stays locked in combat with Celestine?

Anyone that can mitigate her relatively high number of Attacks and the D2 on her sword stands a reasonable chance of grinding her down. As an example, Hive Tyrants have T7, a 4++, and 12 Wounds, which means she's wounding on a 4+, half of the wounds she scores will bounce off the invul, and she needs to push at least three ouchies past all that to begin wearing the Tyrant down. If your opponent is spamming Hive Tyrants they could probably use one solely to chase Celestine around without denting their army's effectiveness too much, and still be at a net gain because keeping her locked with the Tyrant or Falling Back constantly prevents her tearing through the RIppers and Mawlocs (which she will do easily, and will do a tad faster if your bring both Geminae, which you should).

 Giantwalkingchair wrote:
She has the Fly keyword so she can jump out of combat and still fire, but she cant charge again. Whether using Hand of the Emperor to get her out of combat before movement phase allows her to charge again, i dont know and have been meaning to ask.

I've been playing this as a "no". IIRC the BRB states models can't do [x] "later that turn" if they Fall Back or Advance - that's non-specific, so the restrictions apply regardless of whether you performed these actions in the Movement phase as normal or at some time prior to it (i.e. at the start of the turn when AoFs take place).

So yeah, no AoFing out of combat and charging back in. Unless there's something in the FAQ or elsewhere that contradicts this, and I don't think there is.

You can't Charge again later in the turn if you fall back, but you can pile in using an act of faith.

Martyrdom offers an occasional workaround for this when it triggers on your opponent's turn, but otherwise that's the way it should go. I do occasionally fall her back on my turn, either when she's out matched or I have arranged 8 melta shots or 40 storm bolter shots to take her place...

Also, you don't have to fall back if you pile in at the start of the turn and kill everyone in the unit she's in.

Do I bother with ablative wounds in my Dominion Squads?

 BaconCatBug wrote:
Do I bother with ablative wounds in my Dominion Squads?

I never do, I just bring more SB Dominion squads.

I've found that an extra Dominion is not only an ablative wound, but an almost-five-inch bridge into somebody's buff aura

Yeah, I don't bring extras. The bridge sounds nice, but more squads just hit more.

It works out well, but I don't make it a practice, just a way to soak 10 or 20 points after stormbolters are maxed out.

Just popping in to vote for white with green trim on MacPhail's repressor. Looking forward to seeing it done!

 MacPhail wrote:
Martyrdom offers an occasional workaround for this when it triggers on your opponent's turn, but otherwise that's the way it should go. I do occasionally fall her back on my turn, either when she's out matched or I have arranged 8 melta shots or 40 storm bolter shots to take her place...

can’t you still fall back and then heroically intervene within three inches?

Resipsa131 wrote:

 MacPhail wrote:
Martyrdom offers an occasional workaround for this when it triggers on your opponent's turn, but otherwise that's the way it should go. I do occasionally fall her back on my turn, either when she's out matched or I have arranged 8 melta shots or 40 storm bolter shots to take her place...

can’t you still fall back and then heroically intervene within three inches?

Heroic Intervention is only on your opponent's turn.

 pretre wrote:

Resipsa131 wrote:

 MacPhail wrote:
Martyrdom offers an occasional workaround for this when it triggers on your opponent's turn, but otherwise that's the way it should go. I do occasionally fall her back on my turn, either when she's out matched or I have arranged 8 melta shots or 40 storm bolter shots to take her place...

can’t you still fall back and then heroically intervene within three inches?

Heroic Intervention is only on your opponent's turn.

Yeah you're right I had a lapse in thought

Resipsa131 wrote:

 pretre wrote:

Resipsa131 wrote:

 MacPhail wrote:
Martyrdom offers an occasional workaround for this when it triggers on your opponent's turn, but otherwise that's the way it should go. I do occasionally fall her back on my turn, either when she's out matched or I have arranged 8 melta shots or 40 storm bolter shots to take her place...

can’t you still fall back and then heroically intervene within three inches?

Heroic Intervention is only on your opponent's turn.

Yeah you're right I had a lapse in thought

But always try to keep Celestine within 3 inches of an enemy unit at all times, so if any unit in your entire army gets assaulted, she can HI and pile in.

 BBAP wrote:

 necron99 wrote:
Who stays locked in combat with Celestine?

Anyone that can mitigate her relatively high number of Attacks and the D2 on her sword stands a reasonable chance of grinding her down. As an example, Hive Tyrants have T7, a 4++, and 12 Wounds, which means she's wounding on a 4+, half of the wounds she scores will bounce off the invul, and she needs to push at least three ouchies past all that to begin wearing the Tyrant down. If your opponent is spamming Hive Tyrants they could probably use one solely to chase Celestine around without denting their army's effectiveness too much, and still be at a net gain because keeping her locked with the Tyrant or Falling Back constantly prevents her tearing through the RIppers and Mawlocs (which she will do easily, and will do a tad faster if your bring both Geminae, which you should).

 Giantwalkingchair wrote:
She has the Fly keyword so she can jump out of combat and still fire, but she cant charge again. Whether using Hand of the Emperor to get her out of combat before movement phase allows her to charge again, i dont know and have been meaning to ask.

I've been playing this as a "no". IIRC the BRB states models can't do [x] "later that turn" if they Fall Back or Advance - that's non-specific, so the restrictions apply regardless of whether you performed these actions in the Movement phase as normal or at some time prior to it (i.e. at the start of the turn when AoFs take place).

So yeah, no AoFing out of combat and charging back in. Unless there's something in the FAQ or elsewhere that contradicts this, and I don't think there is.

You're absolutely correct on the rule there.

As for the hive tyrant, I'd say that trade works out about 50/50. A winged dakka tyrant is what...230pts? And has a snowballs chance of killing Celestine and Celestine will kill it in two full battle rounds if you AoF both times(even without the geminii) Obviously it's something you should be avoiding because it can just drop out of combat and waste your infantry whenever it wants, but it wouldn't be the end of the world.

Default FHT is 184 points rending claws are free, devs are 14 points, and the tail is 27 points. FHT are pretty undercosted

Righto so if no AoF move out with bss and shooting them at the assaulting squad either?
So really the only ones to benefit from AoF move out of combat are Seraphim and celestine as they can still shoot due to Fly.

One last one to clarify for me. AoF move with advance. Move again without advance, can shoot still? Can shoot with assault weapons for sure, what about other weapons? They affected by the AoF move advance?

Probably silly questions but ive pulled these a couple of times in games and i want to make sure im not cheating anyone and correct myself if i am.

All the language around the constraints imposed by Advancing refers to the turn, not the phase. Also, AoFs are worded "as if it were the ____ phase" so there's nothing special about Advancing during a start of turn AoF. You Advanced, so penalties apply.

ERJAK wrote:
As for the hive tyrant, I'd say that trade works out about 50/50.

That's not how I read it. As a match-up Celestine vs netlist Flyrant is pretty even, hence both models have better targets in the opposing army - but while the Nids player will have 3+ Flyrants, the Sisters player only has one Celestine. Using one Flyrant to keep her busy prevents her pulping juicier targets like Monsters with no invul or ObSec infantry, and still leaves you a few free to shoot up the rest of the Sisters army.

A winged dakka tyrant is what...230pts? And has a snowballs chance of killing Celestine and Celestine will kill it in two full battle rounds if you AoF both times(even without the geminii) Obviously it's something you should be avoiding because it can just drop out of combat and waste your infantry whenever it wants, but it wouldn't be the end of the world.

The netlist Flyrant is significantly cheaper than Celestine And Friends, and I think it's cheaper than Celestine would be alone (190pts or so, IIRC). Statistically she's unlikely to take one out quickly, and that's certainly my experience of the exchange.

As a combat it's pretty even, all things considered, perhaps with an advantage for the Flyrant. The Flyrant has a lot of sticks to wave at Celestine - at 7+ wounds it's hitting and wounding on 2+ (with RRTW due to Rending Claws) with D3 Damage attacks, and Toxin Sacs mean any 6s to wound are dealing +1 damage. With the Gertrudes up Celestine has a sump for these wounds, but once they're gone Celestine, with her 2+/4+ hit/wound and only 7 wounds to spare, can start to get overwhelmed quite quickly. That's a problem, because the Flyrant has little trouble killing off the Fan Club. It also has The Horror, which forces Celestine to swing last, and Smite, which I'm told can be used in CC and deals Mortal Wounds. You *can* block one of the powers, but it'll cost you a Strat, and means you can't block subsequent psychic powers in the same turn (which may be another net win for the Nids player depending on what else he's doing).

There may be situations where a Sisters player would want Celestine to duel a Flyrant, but in most cases it seems like a bad idea to me.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Resipsa131 wrote:
Default FHT is 184 points rending claws are free, devs are 14 points, and the tail is 27 points. FHT are pretty undercosted

The tail isn't really necessary IMHO - Toxin Sacs, Rending Claws and 2 Devs give you a pretty fearsome beast. They are a tad underpriced (compare and contrast Daemon Princes, which do far less but cost about the same) but fearsome as they are I'm not sure it's a game-breaker.

 BBAP wrote:

ERJAK wrote:
As for the hive tyrant, I'd say that trade works out about 50/50.

That's not how I read it. As a match-up Celestine vs netlist Flyrant is pretty even, hence both models have better targets in the opposing army - but while the Nids player will have 3+ Flyrants, the Sisters player only has one Celestine. Using one Flyrant to keep her busy prevents her pulping juicier targets like Monsters with no invul or ObSec infantry, and still leaves you a few free to shoot up the rest of the Sisters army.

A winged dakka tyrant is what...230pts? And has a snowballs chance of killing Celestine and Celestine will kill it in two full battle rounds if you AoF both times(even without the geminii) Obviously it's something you should be avoiding because it can just drop out of combat and waste your infantry whenever it wants, but it wouldn't be the end of the world.

The netlist Flyrant is significantly cheaper than Celestine And Friends, and I think it's cheaper than Celestine would be alone (190pts or so, IIRC). Statistically she's unlikely to take one out quickly, and that's certainly my experience of the exchange.

As a combat it's pretty even, all things considered, perhaps with an advantage for the Flyrant. The Flyrant has a lot of sticks to wave at Celestine - at 7+ wounds it's hitting and wounding on 2+ (with RRTW due to Rending Claws) with D3 Damage attacks, and Toxin Sacs mean any 6s to wound are dealing +1 damage. With the Gertrudes up Celestine has a sump for these wounds, but once they're gone Celestine, with her 2+/4+ hit/wound and only 7 wounds to spare, can start to get overwhelmed quite quickly. That's a problem, because the Flyrant has little trouble killing off the Fan Club. It also has The Horror, which forces Celestine to swing last, and Smite, which I'm told can be used in CC and deals Mortal Wounds. You *can* block one of the powers, but it'll cost you a Strat, and means you can't block subsequent psychic powers in the same turn (which may be another net win for the Nids player depending on what else he's doing).

There may be situations where a Sisters player would want Celestine to duel a Flyrant, but in most cases it seems like a bad idea to me.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Resipsa131 wrote:
Default FHT is 184 points rending claws are free, devs are 14 points, and the tail is 27 points. FHT are pretty undercosted

The tail isn't really necessary IMHO - Toxin Sacs, Rending Claws and 2 Devs give you a pretty fearsome beast. They are a tad underpriced (compare and contrast Daemon Princes, which do far less but cost about the same) but fearsome as they are I'm not sure it's a game-breaker.

The thing you missed is that the Flyrant also aren't usually going to have toxin sacs and they only have 4 attacks. Even hitting on 2s wounding on 2s rerolling they'll only kill 1 gemini per combat phase on average.

Netlist Flyrant lists don't have 3+ flyrants, they have 6+ flyrants. The average Netlist flyrant list is 6-7 flyrants, 3-5 Mawlocs, Bunch of spores(which are absolutely awful for celestine to deal with), bunch of rippers, which celestine can't go solo roam after because the mucolid spores and smite will do enough mortal wounds to pulp her pretty much per turn, which means they don't have juicier targets. If you kill every troop and spore in the army without dying, you'll be maybe 50pts in the black. That's how little they spend on not killing you. Mawlocs are largely irrelevant (3-5 don't have enough wounds put together to survive being that close to sisters with no invul)after they pop up and there just isn't anything else in the list.

Literally every single unit in the army that has any kind of rend is going to killing hive tyrants, except for the turn the mawlocs pop up. The bolters and stormbolters are going to be going after the rippers and mucolids and basically all you'll be doing is praying to last longer than them. Celestine really has nowhere else to go but after the most isolated flyrant, a mawloc, or face first into a hilarious barrage of mortal wounds.

That said, it's more efficient for her to be killing Mawlocs, but there will only be 1-2 turns of that. They die pretty quick. And you'll probably be out of units to...be alive with around turn 3 unless you're really mulching through.

Just for completeness sake, I'm looking at winning Nids list from 2 different GTs and Adepticon and they're all almost exactly the same. The only change you ever see is doing 6 flyrants for a biovore and more rippers or 5 flyrants for a several biovores and more rippers.

ERJAK wrote:
The thing you missed is that the Flyrant also aren't usually going to have toxin sacs and they only have 4 attacks. Even hitting on 2s wounding on 2s rerolling they'll only kill 1 gemini per combat phase on average.

They have 5 attacks - 4 with the Monstrous melee weapons and one with the Prehensile Tail. The 2x Monstrous Scything Talons aren't mega-impressive, but can be swapped for Monstrous Rending Claws (which *are* impressive) for free - which is silly, because RRTW should not be free for a WS2+ AP-3 S6 spammable model. Toxin Sacs cost about 3pts (maybe 4, I can't recall off-hand) - they only function on a wound roll of 6, but your Flyrant is WS2+ (lots of hits) and has RRTW (extra chances to fish up a 6, more economical against T4+ than T3 but still has a chance to change 1s into 6s), so it's a reasonable investment.

On top of that each of those attacks deals D3 damage. The attacks listed on the Flyrant's profile don't give a proper estimation of how much damage these things can do against multi-wound characters - without Toxin Sacs every failed save has a 2 in 3 shot of killing a Geminae outright, and with the Sacs it's very slightly higher. That 4++ is a big roll, and you're going to be rolling it a lot given the Flyrant is WS2+ S6 with RRTW. Even supposing you chip 11 wounds off the thing it never goes below WS4+ S6 with RRTW... they really are very nasty.

Then there's the Leviathan 6+++ and Catalyst. Don't get me started on that nonsense.

Netlist Flyrant lists don't have 3+ flyrants, they have 6+ flyrants.

At 2000pts they do - but my point stands firmer the more Flyrants you put on the table. I'm unlikely to miss one Flyrant out of 3, and I'm certainly not going to miss 1 out of 7, especially not if it's going to trap a model as nasty and versatile as Celestine.

The average Netlist flyrant list is 6-7 flyrants, 3-5 Mawlocs, Bunch of spores(which are absolutely awful for celestine to deal with), bunch of rippers, which celestine can't go solo roam after because the mucolid spores and smite will do enough mortal wounds to pulp her pretty much per turn, which means they don't have juicier targets. If you kill every troop and spore in the army without dying, you'll be maybe 50pts in the black. That's how little they spend on not killing you. Mawlocs are largely irrelevant (3-5 don't have enough wounds put together to survive being that close to sisters with no invul)after they pop up and there just isn't anything else in the list.

Mucolids can't charge on the turn they arrive - they have to drop more than 12" away from everything and can't move once they land. By contrast, Celestine And Friends can murder a min-squad of Ripper bases in a single turn and be gone before the fat bloaters get anywhere near them.

Personally though I wouldn't be using Mucolids to threaten Celestine. I'd rather save them for stuff that's not going to get back up on a 2+.

I'm not keen on this idea of units "making their points back" either. The effect dead models have on your opponent's ability to win the game is far more important than how much of a unit's cost I "recoup" in killing them. Mucolids are a good example, ironically enough - sitting them in cover 11" from a flag might discourage people from trying to cap it. They might not kill anything, or indeed even move, so they haven't "made their points back", and if the opponent kills them you're left "in the red" - but they likely took much more than they cost in order to remove them from play, so that's okay by me.

Literally every single unit in the army that has any kind of rend is going to killing hive tyrants

This is one of the other reasons you don't want Flyrants locked in CC with Celestine (unless you're a Nids player) - because if they are, you can't Melta them, and you have far more high-AP shooting attacks than you do melee attacks.

except for the turn the mawlocs pop up. The bolters and stormbolters are going to be going after the rippers and mucolids and basically all you'll be doing is praying to last longer than them. Celestine really has nowhere else to go but after the most isolated flyrant, a mawloc, or face first into a hilarious barrage of mortal wounds.

Maybe the corner where all the Mucolids have arrived is a bad place to be - but if you've convinced your opponent to drop a bunch of his 3"-ass Mucolids in a corner in order to protect some Rippers then I'd call that a win, right? If he expends them all to try and stop Celestine tearing his ObSec a new one, and she gets back up on a 2+... also win, I think.

That said, it's more efficient for her to be killing Mawlocs, but there will only be 1-2 turns of that. They die pretty quick. And you'll probably be out of units to...be alive with around turn 3 unless you're really mulching through.

Mawlocs do die pretty quick to everything Sisters bring to the table - Flyrants, on the other hand, don't die quickly at all. Your shooting is going to be under an enormous amount of pressure just with trying to fend off the Flyrants - why ask them to kill the trash as well? Just let Celestine do it, instead of having her duel a Flyrant for 3 turns and potentially lose to it.

Just for completeness sake, I'm looking at winning Nids list from 2 different GTs and Adepticon and they're all almost exactly the same. The only change you ever see is doing 6 flyrants for a biovore and more rippers or 5 flyrants for a several biovores and more rippers.

The "Matt Root Netlist Experience" includes Toxin Sacs and Monstrous Rending Claws everywhere. One of his Flyrants has some kind of relic too (the dude I played had a Norn Crown, which seems like an immense waste of time in a Flyrant spam army, but hey). Other than that... yeah. In lists with Biovorse then Celestine is probably going to want to be killing Biovores as well as Mawlocs - but in no case can I ever see it being a good idea to have her fighting Flyrants.

Well my list just got blasted in the pooper. I can only take 3 of my 6 dominions and I can't take my 2 xiphons without an HQ and troop tax.

How about you guys?

 deviantduck wrote:
Well my list just got blasted in the pooper. I can only take 3 of my 6 dominions and I can't take my 2 xiphons without an HQ and troop tax.

How about you guys?

My mono-Sororitas foot brigade is in exactly the same place, FWIW. But I feel your pain.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 deviantduck wrote:
Well my list just got blasted in the pooper. I can only take 3 of my 6 dominions and I can't take my 2 xiphons without an HQ and troop tax.

How about you guys?

My mono-Sororitas foot brigade is in exactly the same place, FWIW. But I feel your pain.

So while my xiphons were in the mail they went up 40 pts a piece, and while i'm in the middle of painting them they now have a detachment tax.

RIP my SOB list, 6 HB Ret and 6 SB Doms as my normal, i literally just bought plastic SoS models to convert for it too.

Literally just going to shelve them for now.