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I was trying out a tournament setup idea for my sisters and another tourney player from my local game store offered me a game vs blood angels. The deployment type was spearhead with a seize ground mission and 4 objectives. After placing objectives in about the center of the 4 quarters we diced off and I won the initiative. The lists to the best of my memory were as follows.

Me: Gunline attempt at sisters of battle.
115 St celestine
135 Excorcist
135 Excorcist
85 5x Retributor w/ 4x Heavy Bolters
145 10x BSS w/ Melta, MM
145 10x BSS w/ Melta, MM
145 10x BSS w/ Melta, MM
145 10x BSS w/ Melta, MM
145 10x BSS w/ Melta, MM
80 Immolator w/ twin linked MM
80 Immolator w/ twin linked MM
80 Immolator w/ twin linked MM
80 Immolator w/ twin linked MM
80 Immolator w/ twin linked MM
80 Immolator w/ twin linked MM
90 Immolator w/ twin linked MM
90 5x dominions w/ 2x melta
90 5x dominions w/ 2x melta
75 5x dominions w/ melta bombs

His list: Assault Marines, Assault Marines everywhere.
9 Death company mix of power weapons and other power types
3 squads of 11 assault marines w/ 2x melta and priest in 2 of them
5x vanguard vets
Land raider w/ ea
Ironclad equiv in drop pod with frag cannon and heavy flamer. pod had a locator beacon

I set up evenly spacing out my sisters with immolators in between each squad to minimize his capabilities for a multiple assault. Excorcists holding the back lines and using my sisters as cover for the remaining 4 immolators. He had his assault squads following the land raider carrying the death company. pod in reserve as well as vanguards. Blood rage whatever gets applied to vanguard vets and a squad of assault marines with priest.

He seized initiative and the game began.

Turn 1: His drop pod lands in front of my sister gunline on target and unloads a dreadnaught almost point blank to 2 sister squads. Land raider moves 12" along with all 3 assault squads keeping up behind it. The dreadnought proceeds to unload on a squad of sisters destroying all but the melta. She makes her LD and chooses to fight on. land raider pot shots an immolator and makes it unable to shoot for the turn.

My immolator unloads its dominions point blank to the dreadnought. St celestine hops forward and prepares to intercept the assault squads. The lone melta moves up a bit to get into melta range of the naught and drop pod. The shaken immolator makes a 12" move and pops smoke for the turn. The rest of the gunline holds position. The firing begins. The dominos pass their faith test and proceed to twin link melta the naught exploding it. The lone battle sister takes down the drop pod in one shot with her melta freeing up the rest of my army to shoot at very little. The immolator that had moved forward to drop off the dominos notices it's within 12" of the land raider so fires at it penning and gaining a wrecked result on the raider. The death company bails out the front of the raider bringing them into sight of 2 more immolator meltas along with both excorsists. 2 get picked off by melta shots and both excorsists roll 5's for shooting wiping the death company off the board turn 1.

Turn 2: Vanguard vets decide it's time to come in yet without a locator beacon are forced to attempt to land on 1d6 scatter close enough to assault my sisters. Unluckily for him they scatter 4 inches directly away from me resulting in to great a distance for an assault that turn. The 3 assault squads move up 1 aiming for the dominions outside their vehicle + the vehicle itself. Another squad went for the last remaining sister from the first squad. Shooting phase 3rd squad hits celestine with 2 meltas failing both invuln saves she drops like a rock. other 2 squads decide not to shoot but absolutely decimate both sister squads in melee combat. Against the immolator however he pens once and glances 5 times. The dice rolls were as follows Pen: 1 Glance: 1 1 1 1 1. Crying at his horrid luck he prepares for my turn 2.

Celestine decides this was not her time to die and stands up with all 3 wounds back. nothing moved this turn except the one immolator in CC with the marines drives off to not provide cover. The veterans learn what pain is when the combined forces of an immolator and 2 squads of sisters unload upon them destroying them utterly. an entire squad of assault marines is wiped out from the combined excorsists shots and 2 immolators (the excorsists rolled a 5 and 6). Celestine seeking revenge assaults the 2nd closest squad after dealing 1 wound with her heavy flamer. The retibutors rain upon the third squad rending 2 of them and 2 more falling to normal shots. Celstine kills the priest and manages to take a wound tying combat.

Turn 3: His last squad of marines jump over and assault the nearest squad of battle sisters. Celestine wins combat causing 4 wounds to his 0 and then another 2 to fearless checks when she sweeping advances them. the sister squad takes 6 losses and proceeds to run for the hills causing 0 wounds but managing to escape the melee.

The battle sisters see the light of the emperor and rally (gotta love that stupid faith power). The squad of marines still left meets the combined shooting power of 7 immolators, 3 full squads of battle sisters, 1 dominion squad, 2 excorsists, and a partial squad of sisters. Needless to say feel no pain did not help them for that phase. St celestine finished off the rest of the squad she was fighting 3 wounds and 2 from fearless (god I love you initiative 7) thus ending the game with a table with my army only suffering the casualties of 1 BSS and 1 domino squad.


Things I learned in this battle:

1. I'm getting rid of that domino squad with only melta bombs and using those points to toss combi meltas in my other squads. The scout move dominos give is useless when 3/4 of my army is going to stand in one place anyways

2. I've been learning that excorsists are wasted on armor. It's better to aim them at squads over trying to break the random tank unless it's imperative that I do so.

3. Never expect that 6++ save on the vehicles to do anything. Failed every freaking one of them.

What did your opponent run as his HQ? Didn't see one mentioned?

Exorcists are absolutely not wasted on armor. They are AV 11 wrecking machines and a complete waste on Infantry. That said, do not waste them on AV13 or 14 unless there are no other targets.

I agree that the 6+ is basically worthless...

Well done with this sisters gunline. All this faithful bodies standing ready to unleash Emperor's wrath should be very nice to see !

6++ is nothing you can count with. It is only an extra.
I find exorcists dreadful for MEQ infantery and light vehicle. They can save your day against heavy vehicle, but they are a little too inconsistent to properly rely on for the job.

I must admit I was very curious about your Melta bombs dominions squad ! I agree with your afterthought : it seems there is better use for these points.

I hope to see some photos of your sisters, next !

I'm sorry I completely forgot the HQ. There was a chaplain with the death company. I just didn't see him much since he took a hit from a excor missle and insta died.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I'm working on painting about 2 more squads and 3 vehicles. I have a bunch of the army finished just have to get unlazy and paint the rest. will post pics once at least the vehicles are complete.

Regular sisters can be given immolators?

They can take any dedicated transport. They come in minimum size 10 though so you need to get 4 killed off before you can get into the Immolator.

Grenat wrote:I find exorcists dreadful for MEQ infantery and light vehicle. They can save your day against heavy vehicle, but they are a little too inconsistent to properly rely on for the job.

Granted this is your experience, but this is just wrong.

Exorcists tear through light vehicles like paper. If you are firing against AV11, you are taking it down. Sure you could roll low, but you could also roll 6 shots.

3.5 Shots, 2.33 hit. 1.16 Pen, 0.38 Glance. Pens destroy on a 4+, Glances destroy on a 6. Not to mention suppression results (Stun, Weapon Destroy or Immobilize depending on target).

Against MEQ, you're putting down two models unless they're in cover. against TEQ, the same, basically.. Against heavy vehicles, on the other hand, they just aren't effective (AV13/14) (AV13 is .38 glance, .38 pen, AV14 is just .38 glance) I'll use them there if I have nothing else, but generally you have enough melta to not worry about it.

Also, Exorcists are mobile. I will often set them up far left, center, far right behind cover first turn (assuming pitched battle). With 48" range, you will get side shots with all three depending on your opponents deployment. Turning a Predator/Vindicator into AV11, makes things a lot easier.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also, re: your Dominion squad with Meltabombs.

Drop something else and give them Meltas or Flamers. Melta bombs are wasted on their scout move since you don't have assault ramps and cannot assault after movement. Best you're going to get is a second turn assault unless you go second and your opponent charges them.

pretre wrote:

Grenat wrote:I find exorcists dreadful for MEQ infantery and light vehicle. They can save your day against heavy vehicle, but they are a little too inconsistent to properly rely on for the job.

Granted this is your experience, but this is just wrong.

Exorcists tear through light vehicles like paper. If you are firing against AV11, you are taking it down. Sure you could roll low, but you could also roll 6 shots.

3.5 Shots, 2.33 hit. 1.16 Pen, 0.38 Glance. Pens destroy on a 4+, Glances destroy on a 6. Not to mention suppression results (Stun, Weapon Destroy or Immobilize depending on target).

Against MEQ, you're putting down two models unless they're in cover. against TEQ, the same, basically.. Against heavy vehicles, on the other hand, they just aren't effective (AV13/14) (AV13 is .38 glance, .38 pen, AV14 is just .38 glance) I'll use them there if I have nothing else, but generally you have enough melta to not worry about it.

Also, Exorcists are mobile. I will often set them up far left, center, far right behind cover first turn (assuming pitched battle). With 48" range, you will get side shots with all three depending on your opponents deployment. Turning a Predator/Vindicator into AV11, makes things a lot easier.

I think there was a misunderstanding here, because I totally agree with the way you present things.
Sorry, I can have trouble expressing my thoughts accurately in english...

Oh, I get it. Like they make MEQ and light vehicles feel dreadful, gotcha. /highfive

Ah ya... misuse of the word dreadful.
I'll be careful in the future.

/highfive

Actually you really did not misuse the word dreadful, it definitely could go either way. I read it as Exorcists being bad against those units, but I definitely see it as those units being scared as hell of an Exorcist!

Edit: One thing I have found with Exorcists is after the third turn or so they tend to run out of good targets to shoot at. I have toyed with fielding 3 instead of 2, but it seems they are less necessary late in the game.

Nonsense! That's a non-problem. If your problem is that you have run out of targets to shoot at, then the exorcists did their job.

That doesn't mean there is nothing to shoot at of course! It means that they are shooting at things that they are generally less effective against like a horde of Boyz...

calypso2ts wrote:That doesn't mean there is nothing to shoot at of course! It means that they are shooting at things that they are generally less effective against like a horde of Boyz...

Well, I suppose. I haven't run into a lot of horde ork players though.

I agree the 6++ on vehicles isn't great, but on the infantry I think it is stellar. Having an army that, while not immune to it, can bounce AP1/2 shooting is nothing to sneeze at. I honestly think that is one of the most overlooked things in this "codex".

How often do you have to take 6++ saves (rather than 4+ cover) against AP 1, 2 or 3 weapons when you are not losing pretty horribly.

I will agree though, that on some occasions the 6++ can randomly make interesting things happen. I happened to roll 4 6's against a Chaos Dreadnought a few weeks ago and tarpitted it for 3 or 4 turns with lucky rolls.

Totally agree with calypso2ts. It is very much a happy surprise when it happens. I have made few of them, but in every case my opponent started swearing. lol

The most memorable: One on an exorcist that should have died horribly and ended up enacting vengeance next turn and two at once on a Sister Superior who ended up holding the line against a whole boyz mob and bounced the power klaw.

Well its sort of a silly assumption that you always have cover. Its nice to know you always have that faith save to fall back on if you do need it. It just makes people think twice about that krak missile shot, thats all I'm saying.

PraetorDave wrote:Well its sort of a silly assumption that you always have cover. Its nice to know you always have that faith save to fall back on if you do need it. It just makes people think twice about that krak missile shot, thats all I'm saying.

I would never fallback on a 6+ anything. That is like deploying out in the open and relying on seizing the initiative.

That T3 squad stuck in the open is dead anyway, you just haven't removed them from the table yet.

calypso2ts wrote:

PraetorDave wrote:Well its sort of a silly assumption that you always have cover. Its nice to know you always have that faith save to fall back on if you do need it. It just makes people think twice about that krak missile shot, thats all I'm saying.

I would never fallback on a 6+ anything. That is like deploying out in the open and relying on seizing the initiative.

That T3 squad stuck in the open is dead anyway, you just haven't removed them from the table yet.

This! Shield of Faith is nice, but not to be relied on.