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An allied detachment follows all the rules for that army, so using Coteaz to get the henchman as troops is good (and also probably the best/cheapest way to get dreadknights/dreadnoughts/stormravens.

What size tables is everyone playing on?

Are they consistently the same size? I'm almost have an actually 1,000 points worth of sisters, I'm trying to go for a rhino less army. (didnt have enough meltas, finally getting some in the mail, still trying to get missile launcher bitz for my rhinos to turn into exorcists)

What does your experience with the tables tell you about the difficulty or ease of getting around the board?

Here's what i got cooked up

Saint Celestine

Sister Squad w/ 2 melta guns and melta bomb

Sister Squad w/ 2 melta guns and melta bomb

Sister Squad w/ 2 melta guns and melta bomb

Exorcist
Exorcist
Exorcist

970

I know 1,000 pts isn't really the high standard of competitive games but I need to get a feel for moving around without transports if I want to play SOB like this.(and until i can take out a loan to pad out anohter 500 points into this army )

Just tried out the Avenger Strike Fighter, with mixed results. Played against orks and guard and the Hellfury Missiles plus the Avenger Bolt Cannon are fantastic against horde armies [or they would be if I could roll a hit on a scatter dice] and the blast plus 7 shots from the cannon mitigate the BS3. There's also the option to take out armour with the two lascannons although this is slightly more risky with the low BS.

Downside is at 175 points [with two missiles] the two hull points and side armour of AV10 just can't cut it. One round of shooting from a Hydra and it was dead. Not at all cost effective either and the other heavy support choices are much better bang for buck. Meh, was fun playing it and surprised the lads I was playing against, plus I love the model.

Jack of all trades, master of none. Amidst an army with other higher threat flyers, an avenger would be amazing. Sisters is not that army.

In regards to the Avenger, I am not sure extra weapons are worth taking on it. 150 pts is already expensive on a fragile flyer. Don't forget that Straffing Run also gives it BS4 when attacking ground units so it will seriously hurt most infantry not in cover as well as transports.

Priority if you're bringing it would be to kill any anti flyer your opponent has or at least paralyze them before it gets on the board. Hydra's should not last very long against focused Exorcist fireand even retributors can take them down.. and if you're in a bad position, you can most likely use your supersonic move to go back into impending reserve and get back on the next turn.

Things obviously don't always go the way you want what with dice rolls, but I think it will most likely make up it's points. Once your adversary knows what it can do, he will want it dead. So it's likely to act as a solid diversion for the rest of your army even if it does not get to kill much

I usually make an attack run, next turn leave board if alive, come back for another run. I almost always Evade if the hits come from side/back, since I plan on leaving the board anyway during my turn.

It almost always blows something up/kills a unit. Since it is both anti-tank and anti-horde it is very flexible

So tried the sisters I had the other day. I absolutly take back anything I've ever said against the seraphim's squad with 2 hand flamer sisters. It may have been a perfect storm type of thing, but they went up against 2 units of cultists (30 or so big) and wiped them out in a single turn of shooting. When my opponent realized how nasty they were he charged his deamon prince into them. I lost the champion, then jumped out of combat to burn the other unit.

Sure, that may have been the perfect target for them. t3 6+ armor isn't particularly good by any stretch, but rolling something like 44 dice in a single gout of flame was awesome!

war wrote:
So tried the sisters I had the other day. I absolutly take back anything I've ever said against the seraphim's squad with 2 hand flamer sisters. It may have been a perfect storm type of thing, but they went up against 2 units of cultists (30 or so big) and wiped them out in a single turn of shooting. When my opponent realized how nasty they were he charged his deamon prince into them. I lost the champion, then jumped out of combat to burn the other unit.

Sure, that may have been the perfect target for them. t3 6+ armor isn't particularly good by any stretch, but rolling something like 44 dice in a single gout of flame was awesome!

Now, throw Celistine into the squad for a better flamer and a little punch and it is a REALLY good unit.

Played against new Tau codex this weekend.
1500 points both sides.

Dices went average on both sides, but they are not that fearsome.

You have to walk Celestine and Seraphims up behind cover, hopefully blocking LOS completely, or they will get destroyed by massed fire from fire warriors if there's an ethereal nearby... but once they make it into flamer range, it's over for them.

Make good use of cover, had an aegis line shielding my two exorcists, and their long range firepower drops down considerably.
He did outflank 20 kroots behind my lines to shoot at an 18 sisters blob squad with Kyrinov... but still didnt have the firepower to drop that many sisters. Once I returned fired on them, they vaporized.

I can see Tau being very good at killing MSU armies since they will remove a target completely every time they shoot, but against Sisters, I was not impressed.

Interesting. It is a new codex, so the tactical awareness is probably still evolving for Tau players. I know I am personally really enjoying this new codex. Beat a Space marine 11-1 (BATREP is on my blog now).

Haven't faced Sisters with it yet though. Sisters are GOOD so w will see how that goes if I can find a half way decent General to play them against me.

Did he have much in the way of markerlights?
Being they're really good at stripping cover, ADLs may not be that useful against Tau.

The Tau player I went against had player two games against space marines earlier in the.

He tabled an ultramarine list on turn 4 and had a decisive victory against a death wing list shortly after.

He did have solid tactics, moving a vehicle carrying a drone to outflank kroots on the table border he wanted or setting up pathfinders in a spot where he could mark my blob of sisters sitting on my objective. He also prioritized targets fairly well.

Problem was that sister units are going to be durable for Tau's to face being at least 10 sister strongs in a troop choice (and my going sometimes up to 20 if Im not carrying them in a repressor, He may wound on 2s, but that 3+ save will save you tons.

I never let him close to my Exorcists to mark them, but I do not think it would have mattered. He had superior range on his hammerheads so ignored my exorcists mostly and tried to manoever to shoot at Celestine and friends as I moved her up.. which proved to be a mistake for him.
I used them to deal with the 2 fire warrior squads he had on his objective. That probably did not matter to him, but it sure did to me since every dead warrior meant 4 less shots coming into my Seraphims once I jumped them out of cover to flame the rest of the squad... and after that deal with the Ethereal's squad that was behind.

Having my dominion come in on the side where he had moved his drone to outflank and then having them use the tanks heavy flamer and their own guns to bear on the drone and the pathfinders that had left the vehicle at that point proved to be a crippling blow for him.

The big problems Taus players will have will be not taking enough troop choices. Once the warriors are gone, they are done for and they are much easier to kill than sisters are.

Sounds like he knew what he was doing which is a good sign.

Sisters of Battle are just great, so it is no surprise that they id well.

What was the mission? The score?

Voldrak wrote:
The big problems Taus players will have will be not taking enough troop choices. Once the warriors are gone, they are done for and they are much easier to kill than sisters are.

I'm glad you think this as my starting point for my Tau armies is generally 6 squads of Firewarriors and go from there.
Still need to start my sisters though. :(

6 Fire Warrior Squads? Yikes. In the lists I pondered so far I take 2 and in one list 4. But never 6. Too many good options in the codex and only so many points to go round. =). You can buff a ton of them if you're willing to keep them together, but there's risk in that against some armies. Sisters of Battle who roll up and tank shock all of them at once not being the least amongst them, followed up by the flamer chix of doom to roast whoever was silly enough to get clustered by it. Grisly fate. Maybe send in the Manticore to finish what was started. Barrages and all.

Sisters of Battle are so cool. I swear. i really was worried when the White Dwarf came out but all for nought. Turned out to be pretty good.

Yes, 6. Standard is 6x6, but only because I only have 36 Firewarriors atm!
As I buy more boxes in the coming months, it'll be expanding to 6x12

Aside from they're part of why I started the army in the first place, you also need lots of troops for objectives.

6 x 6 makes some sense. I could see that. Not 72 of them though. Too clustered that way with an Ethereal at the head of the Vortex no doubt.

Haven't used new codex yet.
But I'm also working towards a 72 Firewarrior + 27 Sniper Drones list (no suits, no vehicles) with the new codex.

Might go for 2 Ethereals (though means buying another one), definately going for a Fireblade to start though.

Double ethereal?

That list will lack badly on markerlights and at, but holy crap.

Fireblades are great for gunlines, thats for sure. he and and Ethereal can combine to REALLY make life miserable for oncomiong enemies.

Sisters of Battle who dont adapt to embrace outflanking and other less direct modes of approach are going to have a hell of a time dislodging that rock of firepower. It's just so vulnrable to an enemy that actually DOEs embrace those precepts though, and I think Tau players will find out that artillery will force the issue as often as anything does. So having some artillery seems sound as a pound for Sistrs of Battle Armies who want to deal with the Tau threat.

Nobody_Holme wrote:
Double ethereal?

That list will lack badly on markerlights and at, but holy crap.

Why? It'll probably have lots of Pathfinders too, I haven't actually costed it up yet, maybe I should do that now.

They may not know that the Ethereal ability doesn't stack. A Fireblade + Ethereal gets you the massive shooting you want. A second ethereal could be used to add the other bnefits though.

2 Ethereals means that I can split the army, as it's only models within 12", not units that benefit, so cramming 36 Firewarriors around an Ethereal is eaier than 72!...

That or yeah, a Fireblade, which is my first stop - fireblade + ethereal.

Another list I'll be doing is Longstrike in a Hammerhead, with layered sniper drones and Firewarriors behind an Aegis for a 'reverse death star', where anything assaulting them i moving through difficult terrain, into obscene numbers of overwatch shots.

I ended up playing small games (700 is about as high as I can get right now) against a tau player recently. The first one was a brutal butcher's match, appropriate for 'purge the alien' i guess. I had:

Saint with hand flamers seraphim
dom with melta in immolator
2 BSS assorted heavy weapons

He had something like:
2 units of fire warriors
commander farsight
body guards in big suits with plasma rifles and high strength missile launchers

Long and short of the fight was that the seraphim shot across the field in LOS blocking terrain jumping bounds. when they reached his fire warriors fried tau-fish was served for everyone. (it was friday and all)

He deepstriked his suit and character unit and wiped one BSS. The suit unit gave him twin linked plasma rifles that ignored cover so I decided to leave my scouts on the far side of the field and try to make the game more interesting by going after him. This game ended when the saint didn't stand up after he killed off the other BSS and Celestine's squad and we decided to go another round.

In game 2 we rolled the same mission/board but we did change armies up a bit. I droped the immolator for an exorcist and decided to outflank with the foot dom's. This was my 3rd game of 40k so I figured out the rules enough (har har). That said, by the end of the top (my) turn 2 all of the fire warriors were dead (one by flying flame throwers, the other by the rest of the army's combined firepower) and the game ended due to nothing being on the field and him rolling a "2" for deep strike.

What I learned from it was that the fire warriors can do some damage, but alone they're not THAT dangerous. The specialty suits can be unit killers. And due to the support fire rules, assault can be lethal

Game was emperor's will.

Final score was 5-2 for the sisters.

I had my objective, line breaker and warlord.
He had first blood and line breaker.

Celestine moving up cleared 2 squads of warriors from his objectives (with support from exorcists and retributors). His attempts at moving 18 fearless sisters behind an aegis line off mine did not work and not for lack of trying.

I strongly believe you will want at least 4 squads of warriors now. They support each other fairly well and are extremely dangerous to get close to. They can pop transports and clear off just about any squads caught in the open.

Played three games on Saturday with a 1000 point list. The saint w 9 Seraphim, a Dominion squad (2 meltas, MM Immolator), two SoB squads as troops (flamer and heavy flamer, Rhino) and an Exorcist to round it all out. Mission was Crusade w 4 objectives, normal deployment for all three.

First faced the new Tau and managed a win. My troops were almost wiped out by those nasty suits (one squad down to the Superior and the other to three Sisters) but I managed to cap two objectives with them as the Tau battlesuit commander with bodyguards went Exorcist hunting. He was miffed at losing the Hammerhead to it. Bad luck on his part - commander detached, assaulted the Exorcist with his new Powerglove (single S10 attack) and only stunned it. Next turn the Exorcist snapfired at him, hit with two missiles and gained me Slay the Warlord. Celestine and her Seraphim killed off two Firewarrior squads and a couple suits, and the Outflanking Kroot taking an objective couldn't turn the game. My Dominions also managed to Stun his bomber so it left the board, doing absolutely no real damage to me.

Chaos Daemons next, nasty posse with Tzeentch Herald as Warlord, couple horror mobs, 2x3 Screamers, 2x3 Flamers, a Khorne Herald w Bloodletters and a hound pack and some odd portal thing. Exorcist killed the portal first turn. Celestine went midfield and tanked an incredible number of shots, then went berserk on the hapless Daemons. One of my SoB squads did some work too, wiping out three Screamers before being totalled by Bloodletters. Celestine's squad took out the hounds and the Khorne Herald, killed off all six Flamers, then wiped out the Bloodletters and the Horror mob with the Tzeentch Herald in it. Lost all the Seraphim on it but could deny him an objective with Celestine. Ended a draw.

Last faced a Green Tide sort of Ork list - it had three large Shoota mobs, a grot mob, a unit of three Killa Kans and one with three Kannons as support and 'Eavy Boys and Warboss in a Trukk. It was a total slaughter as the orks slogged through difficult terrain on foot right into the sights of my flamers. And while Celestine still played a large role my other units actually did a lot of work here. Warboss came up the field as fast as the Trukk could drive toward one of the markers on my side, then turn two my Dominions came in and vaporized his Trukk and a couple boyz. The SoB squad guarding the objective had moved into position and promptly vaporized the poor Warboss and his mob. The Seraphim took out the grots (silly, but my plan to pull in the Killa Kans worked) and were then charged by the Kans. Silly enough overwatch from Celestine took out the first charging Kan, then her and the Superior's krak grenades both hit and took out a second. Hit-and-Run, off behind one of the shoota mobs. The Seraphim burned the mob from one end while the SoB squad from my second objective burned what was left. On the other side, where the Warboss Trukk had been destroyed another large Shoota mob took out my Dominions. They then slogged closer to my objective and got burned down to 6 orks by the fully intact SoB squad there. Ork player decided he can't win anymore and was probably correct on that. Celestine was already in position to burn his last Shoota squad off the objective they were camping.

Celestine and a large Seraphim squad with a couple double handflamers is something so nasty that hardly anything is nastier. Ork Burnas in a Battlewagon maybe.

I used the Rhinos to protect my troops as much as I could - in the last game I lost no basic Sisters at all though the Doms were wiped out and the Seraphim almost so. And I tried to remember to support squads with another squad - overlapping fire FTW. The WD codex may lack options, and people might call it weak - but when you keep your eyes on the objectives and spend Sisters at the right time it's actually very powerful. An iron hand inside a ceramite power armour gauntlet, holding a red-hot flamer.

So, I've been toying with an idea or two and wanted to get some feedback.

Due to a series of events, I now own 6 (six!) Exorcists. I plan on fielding them at them at the next 2k+ event that I attend. Since I expect them to draw so much hate in the form of ALL of my opponents' AT fire, what do you guys think the rest of my list should consist of to help mitigate this?

I don't plan on using any Allies, so please keep it SoB only. I am toying around with the ADL I have, but this would also give me an excuse to finally pick up a Bastion, maybe.

So list ideas, tactics for keeping the Exorcists alive, what have you to assist with my madness?

My aim is for both a 2k and 2.5K list.

Id bring a real world shield to deflect tomatoes thrown your way.

But if you're willing to take one, I'd say if you plan that way, better have something to hold back swarms who wont care one bit about those Exorcists.

Check the Los for the turret behind a Fortress of redemption.

Jancoran wrote:Id bring a real world shield to deflecttomatoes thrown your way.

But if you're willing to take one, I'd say if you plan that way, better have something to hold back swarms who wont care one bit about those Exorcists.

I'm also toying with the idea of HF Immos for my Doms for that very reason.

pretre wrote:Check the Los for the turret behind a Fortress of redemption.

I see what you did there

Anyway, this thread says no dice on that idea.