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I've decided to try a Canoness and a retinue of 9 Celestians with my Guard. The Canoness will have a Combi-Flamer, Melta Bombs and the Book of St. Lucius. The Celestians have an Imagifer, Heavy Flamer and Melta Gun. And they'll all have Frags.

But the question then becomes how to use them. With 3 Faith Points and the Imagifer I roll 3 dice and choose the two I want. So they are going to be really good at beating up heavy infantry with a chance at a ridiculous number of AP1 wounds. But am I better served by putting them in the Vendetta and using them like Sternguard or will I get better results from treating them like elite infantry and having them support my tanks and infantry blob? The rest of the army includes Straken in a CCS w/Chimera; a Priest; Harker's Vets w/Demolitions, MG, HF, GL; another Vet squad w/Autocannon, 2 MG and a GL; PCS w/4 GL and Chimera + 31 man Blob w/Commissar, power swords, bolt pistols, 2 MG and a GL; a HB HWT; a Vendetta; Exterminator w/HF, HS and Plasma; LRMBT w/HB and Plasma and finally a Manticore.

What do you guys think? How do I get the most bang for my buck from the Order of the Bloody Rose?

Aren't IG about to lose the ability to take sisters as allies?

If so, would it really be wise to start playing and learning a style that is momentarily going to be illegal?

If not, feel free to ignore this.

I think that the current position is that you can only take sisters in an IG force IF you have a paper copy of the codex, but ont if you only have the online version....something strange like that.

The rumors for the replacement Demon Hunter Codex (grey knights) is that it will not allow allies, and If/When a new Sister's of battle book comes out, it is rumored to be the same. It may be that you will only have a short time to use this combination.

I am not sure what a sister's squad would offer the imperial guard.

You want a BS4 melta squad?- veterans are SO much better, as you can take 3 meltas per 10 people.
You want flamers? Almost every vehicle can (should?) have a heavy flamer on it. If you are running a bunch of chimera, you should have plenty of holy fire.
You want LD10 Stubborn? well you can have Commissars for that and the Lord Commissar LD aura is better as you can use it for Orders.


I think your best bet would be to make them into a close combat squad.
You can take a squad with a Canoness, Sister Superior, and Priest (maybe) all with Eviscerators. Then take a heavy flamer, flamer, book and Imagifier.
Total: 302 points with the priest....
I am not sure if I can recommend this, but it might be worth giving it a try I guess. You can tarpit with the 3++ save act of faith while the 3x Eviserators go to town.

Since there aren't even any whispers, of hints, of shadows of rumors about a new Witch Hunters book I think I've got time.

I want to use them as both a distraction (Facing psychers? Keep them close to the blob and CCS to negate any area effect psy powers.) and as basic ass kickers. I figure that with two templates and 14 shots I could generate a lot of hits with a decent chance of AP1. And in HtH having a unit in Power Armor with I4 and, effectively, anti-personnel Rending that always hits on a 3+ is a really good thing. And if they charge while ≤12" from Straken it's even better.

@svendrex - Converting them to uber-CC is just too damned expensive and not all that interesting to me. But to cover your 3 comparative points:
1) The Vets with 3 Meltas would be somewhat cheaper. And have more shots per turn of Melta. But they wouldn't have Bolters, or flame templates, or PA, or I4, or Acts of Faith, or Shield of Faith, or...
2) I've got Heavy Flamers on both Chimera and one of the Russ. But none of them can turn into S5/AP1.
3) But the Commissar is an IC and while his bubble is nice, he tends to shoot failures and isn't all that impressive in either shooting or CC. He's also more expensive with no gear than my Canoness with all her equipment.