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Part of the post is a (lame) batrep, but only to support some questions below. Mods, please don't move me!

So I played my second game in 6E with my Sisters of Battle army, and with the WD codex. I played against my friend's Eldar. Neither list was particularly optimized ( I don't have or run Celestine, Coteaz, or allies/fortifications. This may change.) We made up some armies. His was something like:
(sadly vague here but the exact army comp is not terribly relevant to my post)


Farseer, Witchblade, and Warlock hanging with ten Guardians, Starcannon?
Warlock and another Guardian squad as above.
Ten rangers, camped in a ruin.
Three War Walkers, Brightlance and Scatterlasers
Wraithlord, close combat reroll dealy, a couple of big guns I've forgotten- scatter or starcannon and/or lance?
Six Striking Scorpions in a Falcon(?) starcannon, lance, maybe a third weapon. With Exarch,
Six Wraithguard in a Wave Serpent, shuriken cannons.


Mine:
Canoness, psword, inf Pistol, rosarius, melta bombs and command squad (tried out three MM sisters here, plus the usual Hospitaler and Dialagous. Thought I'd try the Relentless MM deal.), in an IMmolator with DB and twin HF

13 Sisters, superior, HF, Melta
13 Sisters, superior, HF, Melta, PW of some ilk
10 Dominions, superior w combi flamer, 3 flamers in a rhino, extra SB, DB
7 Seraphim, 2 Hand Flamers, Superior w plasma pistol and PSword
5 Retributors, 4 HB, superior and SB in a ruin.
Exorcist
2 Penitent engines.

I kind of knew my list was suboptimal but wanted to change it up and goof around with the new codex.

I let my frind set up the table and I would have liked more cover but was OK with what we had- a number of ruins, a few patches of cover, some hills, a wood or two). We roll mission and battlefield, and come up with Hammer and Anvil, Purge the Alien. I got table edge, set up in cover about as far up as I could get. NIght Fight turn one, he siezed the intitiative. It all went downhill from Hammer and Anvil, really. I set up a far forward as possible in as much cover as I could find (ruins mostly), he set up pretty far back, mostly the rear half of his edge. Turn one I was down something like a dozen sisters in spite of Night Fight giving them all 2++ due to sheer volume of fire coming my way- barely ranged me, hit probably fifty times between tanks, walkers, wraithlord. It was awful. No one broke. My turn one, basically nothing happened to his army, at all. Exorcist was just out of 36. HB REtributors could only shoot the Wraithlord, failed to do anything with rending shots. Pretty much everything hoofed it, running, flat out, etc. Penitent Engines screened by the Immolator.

Turn two was the only turn I did well on. I deep struck my Seraphim and annihilated one Guardian squad, the outflanking Doms got the other and the Farseer. Everything else in my army had zero range on anything they could hurt much. Faith rolls went poorly and my Multimeltas had to snap fire.

From this point, for two turns I manged (in spite of actually getting a few shots off) to do a grand total of: two dead Rangers, kill one Walker, one HP off a second, one HP off each tank, two wounds off the Wraithlord. I had lost all my Retributors, both Engines, the Immolator, my Seraphim (murdered by the WL after some truly abysmal armor saves vs a flamer of all things and some punching), and was down to maybe ten infantry, a rhino and the Exorcist on the table. I was staring down something like sixty shots in the next turn. My faith rolls all game were uniformly terrible, I made probably five out of something like twenty rolls. We called it.

Observations: digging the new Eldar, the BS boost makes them fairly beastly. The multitude of weapons wounding on 2's and able to glance my rides to death was deadly. But man oh man, the moving flamer nerfs for transports (which I honestly didn't remember) absolutely ruined me. The army has always lacked in long ranged punch (and I know the Exorcist helps but not as much as it seems it should), but between the new faith rules being unit specific (and often useless), assault and flamer driveby being nerfed, and Overwatch murdering everything fore (like, you know, meltas and flamers), I felt completely outclassed in Hammer and Anvil. My luck was a hindrance while his was solid of course, and I tried out some units that proved really innefective mostly due to the mission and janky faith rolls. I should have run more Rhinos, maybe ditched the Exorcist. Certainly should have played more boots on the table, but I was itching to play with new codex and rules and see how it worked.

I may try multimeltas in troop squads, and obtain another rhino or two. I now know how the stupid flamers work (or fail to) at cruising speed.

So without allies, playing old-school ladies in power armor, am I missing something or is Hamer and Anvil versus high volume, long range fire just always going to feel like you're hoping for your opponent to roll poorly? Does not taking Coteaz and Celestine or allies in general make this particular mission structure our bane? I would imagine Sisters are not the only army to feel this way but they do have singularly poor long range threat level overall, which in the past was offset by their insane short ranged power. I have always done very well with my Sisters, even won a small tourney (under 4th rules), but I was really disappointed in what the WD book omits or alters, combined with the 6th ed. rules set (which with the exception of wound allocation for blasts I mostly like quite well). An army wide 6++ is a terrible consolation prize for the loss of Eviscerators on superiors, the Blessed Weapon and other interesting wargear, HF tanks that actually work, Inquisitors worth using, and flexible faith point usage. I know it may in the next decade get a real update, but at the moment I honestly have no idea why they bothered with the updated codex. An in depth FAQ would have been sufficient, I would think.
Has anyone else run into all these issues? How much did you all need to rely on allies or entirely restructured army composition?

I'm not a Sisters player, so I've not got much to help you with.

That said, Celestine is one of the best Warlords in the game. She can deny Slay the Warlord and/or an objective, and she's an excellent way to get Linebreaker. She's not half-bad at killing stuff either.

I think the general consensus is that Celestine is an auto-include, always play her... There's nothing more worth the points she'll take up.

Your friend probably limited the amount of cover unintentionally. It's common for someone who is harmed by heavy cover games to assume that low-cover maps are balanced...

Sisters are going to have to work very hard against Eldar, tau, and Necron without taking allies. I'd recommend allies.

Well, I have never run Penitent Engines, as much as I love the models, but they seem fragile and easy to break (both in real life and in game play). I am not a fan of Retributors either since I never seem to pass my Act of Faith when I need them. I run triple exorcists.

But, I like how you are going outside of the standard sisters list. My biggest critique of this (and I am sure it is limited by models you own) is that it is too much of a mix of up close and range. If you are going to run penitent engines, I think you need more to get in your opponents face. I would also back them up with repentia sisters. This would make a great list in both fluff and game play. They would synergize well with scouting Dominions as it would force your opponent to deal with the dominions. Hopefully, by the time they have done that, it has given your PEs and repentia time to cross the board and wreck face.

Interesting list, do like some sisters.
I'd probably drop it down to 2x10 BSS, put a Power Maul on things instead of Swords.
Then I'd trim things down to get a squad of Repentia to support the Penitent Engines.

I'd also say, Deep Striking the Seraphim was probably the bad plan, being it restricts their effectiveness, and risks them dying from mishaps.

Otherwise, good times!

I may just have to get Celestine and run Allies occasionally. If I ever have a few extra dollars I will probably obtain some Repentia too. I agree with the power mauls on Superiors, but don't want to convert my Superior models since they are not easy to come by anymore. I do have a few unpainted sororitas in the wings though.

I love pure Sororitas, and it's a shame to have to change it up due to one scenario making things hell for the army. I do think that the flamers were mostly ineffective due to my forgetting they weren't snap-fireable. Once I get the Exorcist I will be able to run the model as a Rhino, Immolator or organ which will give me the option for a more mobile force. Foot sisters have been gimped pretty hard by the loss of a 3++, I see the Rhino and Immolator as much more crucial to success now.

Some interesting options and changes I thought of include paying the extra twenty points per squad for Imagifers in a few key squads like Dominions, HB Retributors and possibly Command Squads. I have the old model with Plasma Pistol and Eviscerator, I could use it as a second Canoness backed up with the mobile, Relentless Multimeltas and see how that works. I always used to use Imagifers to seal the deal with Faith rolls, but the increase to the cost of the basic squad plus weapons (getting taxed for the mandatory grenade upgrade, effectively) has probably eaten up around two hundred points in my list at 1400 and up. When my old (effective) army gets pointed up it's probably ten per cent more expensive than it used to be. Not sure that the frag and krak grenades are helpful enough to warrant the increase honestly.

It sounds like you had some bad luck to be honest (either that or you're selectively remembering all the bad things that happened). I think his army has fewer than 40 shots at over 12" so if you're losing 12 Sisters with 2+ Cover you're just rolling really crapily. If that's the case, don't worry too much about an outlier like this.

Since we can't do anything about luck, we'll address your list. The Canoness and Command Squad is just about the worst thing you can take in 40K. If you're not able or willing to take St Celestine, keep the Canoness's upgrades to a minimum. Give her a power maul, stick her with some Battle Sisters and tell her to shut up.

Trade that Command Squad for anything else and you'll already be ahead. Since you've got a free FA slot, another unit of Seraphim or Dominions is probably what you want.

There are some general inefficiencies in your list that probably are a result of playing with whatever models you have on hand. In your Dominion squad, you only took 3 special weapons, but gave the VSS a combi-flamer. That costs 10 points when you could have paid 5 for a flamer on a Dominion. The Plasma Pistol + PS combo on your Serphim VSS is a big point sink too. It's WYSIWYG but it costs almost as much as two more Seraphim and you want to max out that squad to make it as killy as possible.

I'll gently disagree with Ovion. I'm pretty ok with Deep Striking the Seras especially against an army with a lot of shooting (although you had night fight on your side in this one so it probably wasn't an obvious decision). You have to be really careful dropping in on Eldar though because Bladestorm will wreck you. That's where Celestine can be helpful. She can sink a bunch of Shuriken wounds on her 2+ armor.

Unfortunately, SOB are fairly limited. There are a few things you can do to change it up, but with our lack of variety there are some units we have to take. St. Celestine is #1. You have to take her. There's not a choice there. She does so much for so few points. With the Penitent Engines either go big or go home. One or two won't make it to their target. They'll get shot to pieces. Run 3 at the least with lots of support such as another 3 PE's or Repentia or Dominions in an Immolator. You can play around with it. I love my Exorcists. They're my #2 unit for me. (I use whirlwinds for mine.) If you go heavy bolter Rets, give em a simalacrum so they'll have a better change to get off their act of faith because rending Heavy Bolters are Boss.
You have some choices, but either focus on long range (retributors, Exorcists) or assault. (PE's with a ton of backup.)

It's fairly terrible that a codex has pretty much been assessed to only have a fifty per cent useful units count, most of those only run in one or two of several builds, and two of the playables being special characters. Assuming like me you can't really afford FW models. I used to use all sorts of odd builds and they killed things dead!

I suppose my philosophy about the game is mostly that the player loses games, not the dice. In this game I may have been proven wrong, as my supporting units with key strategic roles tended to fail spectacularly due to one or two bad rolls. I'll update with my results next time around. I am guessing on anything other than Hammer and Anvil it would have been much less lopsided. Pretty lame that command squads, canoness and celestians are weak now. I used to rock them to great effect.

It's also the case that I tend to struggle in Purge since I tend to run large TAC lists with my armies with a lot of small specialist units rather than spam one thing like big blobs. I probably would have had a better chance in an objective mission where I could control the field of battle a bit more.

aushlo wrote:
It's fairly terrible that a codex has pretty much been assessed to only have a fifty per cent useful units count,

Good: St C, Kyrinov, Jacobus, Battle Conclave, Seraphim, Doms, Exorcists, Retributors
Okay: Celestians, Repentia, BSS, Rhino, Immo, Penitent Engines
Bad: Canoness, SCS, Confessor, Preacher

Umm, that's 4 bad units out of 18. Not 50%.

most of those only run in one or two of several builds, and two of the playables being special characters. Assuming like me you can't really afford FW models. I used to use all sorts of odd builds and they killed things dead!

Three special characters are playable. There are several good builds with sisters (Mixed Mech, Heavy Mech, Foot Sisters, CeleJacoBlob, SOB/Coteaz). Repressors are easily convertible if you want them, even without FW, same as Avenger. How do I know, I did both!

Pretty lame that command squads, canoness and celestians are weak now. I used to rock them to great effect.

The first two, yes. The last one, no. Celestians are not weak, just outshined by better or scoring units.

Yeah, and even things that are 'bad' are usable at the end of the day.
Apart from maybe Preachers...

I mean, I'm holding off on the hope for some plastic (or even finecast at this point) kits, as I want to run a Celestine + 5 Seraphim, 3x9 Repentia, 2-4 BSS, 3x3 Penitent Engine foot list.
(Maybe with some Avenger support for AA).
Buying that now, even with converting some parts, would run upwards of £620 for 87 models / 2500 points (£7.13 a model / 4 points per pound.)

To put this in to harsh perspective, my entire collection, some 710 models / 25000 points only cost £300 more than that. (£940, or £1.28 a model / 27p/p£... )

 pretre wrote:

aushlo wrote:
It's fairly terrible that a codex has pretty much been assessed to only have a fifty per cent useful units count,

Good: St C, Kyrinov, Jacobus, Battle Conclave, Seraphim, Doms, Exorcists, Retributors
Okay: Celestians, Repentia, BSS, Rhino, Immo, Penitent Engines
Bad: Canoness, SCS, Confessor, Preacher

Ooh! Let's quibble!

I don't have quite as rosy an opinion of our units as you do. I don't think I'd consider Jacobus or the Conclave "good" anymore. Similarly I'd consider the HF Immo, HB Immo, and Repentia as "Bad". I'm OK with PEs being "Okay" but I'm not convinced that they aren't "Bad". Hell, I'm not even sure I'd consider Kyrinov to be Good. He's good in comparison to a Confessor but in reality he's more "meh" than anything else.

Good: Celestine, Seraphim, Dominions, Exorcist, Retributors
Okay: Kyrinov, Jacobus, Conclave (I guess), Celestians, BSS, MM Immo, Penitents
Bad: Canoness, Command Squad, Confessor, Preacher, HF Immo, HB Immo, Repentia

Jacobus is awesome right now (as is Kyrinov) in Allied lists.

I rank repentia higher than pen engines. Flamers that move 6 inches are rather crappy and the pen engines die in hand to hand long before they get to attack against most things. Repentia are generally good for 1 killed unit, then they are useless due to lack of figures.

As for the rest... Uriah isn't bad, he's a force multiplier with the extra attack/FNP, but only really helps DCA's. When I use him sometimes he doesn't do anything outside of re-rolling 1's and 2's when I have a poor faith roll.

its ashame you need a canoness to get the command squad. Relentless multi meltas would be useful. The others... i'd have to agree with most of the list. Some seem useful for a gimic but outside of making a weird list for the sake of making a weird list... not so useful.

Well, it may be a while before I get a Celestine but I will try her out, I'm sure she's great, just never got the model. I did take a closer look at the Grey Knights book though and in the meantime I was thinking I might run a counts-as Coteaz and a Troops retinue (I already have one of those lady Inquisitors and her retinue), and I have a Land Raider Crusader that I can do up in Inquisition style. I'm thinking that the Psybolter upgrade is fantastic, and the AV14 will make it a tough as nails target. Also seems like a nice flyer deterrent potentially with all the TL fire at str 5 or 6. It pains me to abandon the pure sisters but this seems pretty close to what I used to be able to do. It's funny that Coteaz lets you run an Arco Flagellant squad again, although it's funny how nerfed they are. It's hilarious that they became so much weaker when no one at all played them before that I recall, why the crazy stat gimp? T4 would make them worth trying (maybe). I may get a game in today and if so I'll check back in later.

Well, I played a quick game of 40k the same friend the other day, this time against his Space Marines. It was an 1100 point game, he was playing a small unit of combi-weapon Sternguard, two tac squads, a techmarine with conversion beamer, lascannon razorback, Drop Pod with Missiles, and two dreadnaughts. Played Vanguard Strike, The Emperor's Will. I ran two Sisters squads of ten and twelve, Canoness, melta and MM in the foot squad, HF and melta in the other in a rhino, eight HB Retributors and Imagifer, Coteaz plus a Troops choice of Henchmen of 2 Assassins, one priest dude with Eviscerator, and six Arcos, in a Land Raider Crusader with Psycannon Bolts and an extra SB. It worked way better than the last game, as I now understand the flamer nonsense and my Imagifer helped a lot. We had to call it early but as it stood it was looking like a one-point win in my favor was highly likely. I had First Blood and had a solid shot at Slay the Warlord and Linebreaker, and possibly to knock him off his objective. I wiped out his Sternguard, one Tac Squad, the Pod, and the Razorback and lost about half the squad on foot. All in all a much better experience. The Land Raider worked wonders, it basically acts like two nigh-invulnerable Retributor Squads on one chassis. The Henchmen were far more nasty than I imagined they would be as well. Allies are kind of fun, but I felt sort of like it was cheating really as two of the MVP's weren't even from my base codex. Has anyone used the Bastion to good effect?

aushlo wrote:
It's fairly terrible that a codex has pretty much been assessed to only have a fifty per cent useful units count,

Tell that to space wolves.

If I was to lobby my suggestions...

1) although nice, Heavy Flamers are to damn expensive unless you have very specific plans for them.

2) even tho I think they are fun as heck... pentient engines are just nil surviveable, I have some custom ones I made that I am very proud of but they live at the bottom of my battlefoam stack

3) VSS = Combiflamer, beyond that I dont kit them. The way I see it, SoB are terribad in assault denying assaults with twin or triple overwatched flamers has stopped quite a few assaults for me.

4) I like Saint C, and her jump squad... check that I love them. However I made a habit of running a Cannoness and Command squad, in lower point games having the extra mobile heavy weapons have done great things. Also the scoring HQ warlord trait has been very kind to me since they tend to get forgotten by my opponets.

5) Retribuitors with 4x heavy bolter, and sim imp to nearly ensure the rending are hands down the scariest thing in that codex. Alot of folks just cant fathom how you can hull out armor 14 with some hot dice. I make a habit of making my community knowing that can be a threat

6) Dominions are my high point game unit of choice. Taking a group of 10(4x flamer, vss w/ combiflamer) in a rhino. You want to watch a deathstar disappear, drop 5 twinlinked templates and reroll them 8 bolter shots, and 50ish flamer hits. At that point who cares what the rhino is equiped with(additional stormbolter tho for me)

7) Uriah Jacobs is sadly an auto include for me, I prefer to run 100% SoB but since I rely on faith so much. I know I know... people just love running him with deathcults/crusaders but its not my style and crazy expensive.

blah done wasting time at work. enjoy.

aushlo wrote:

So without allies, playing old-school ladies in power armor, am I missing something or is Hamer and Anvil versus high volume, long range fire just always going to feel like you're hoping for your opponent to roll poorly? Does not taking Coteaz and Celestine or allies in general make this particular mission structure our bane? I would imagine Sisters are not the only army to feel this way but they do have singularly poor long range threat level overall, which in the past was offset by their insane short ranged power. I have always done very well with my Sisters, even won a small tourney (under 4th rules), but I was really disappointed in what the WD book omits or alters, combined with the 6th ed. rules set (which with the exception of wound allocation for blasts I mostly like quite well). An army wide 6++ is a terrible consolation prize for the loss of Eviscerators on superiors, the Blessed Weapon and other interesting wargear, HF tanks that actually work, Inquisitors worth using, and flexible faith point usage. I know it may in the next decade get a real update, but at the moment I honestly have no idea why they bothered with the updated codex. An in depth FAQ would have been sufficient, I would think.
Has anyone else run into all these issues? How much did you all need to rely on allies or entirely restructured army composition?

I'm a pretty seasoned SOB player. Hammer and Anvil has one solution and its a highly effective one: Dominion squads. Fast attack units are the Strength of the codex, though Heavies will always receive more press. Outflanking on Hammer and Anvil missions should get you going in the right direction.

St. Celestine is as all here have said pretty much, the bee's knees. Unlike some, I don't consider her auto include. But she's one HELL of an upgrade to the list and you'd be wise to make her your next purchase and almost...but not quite... I'd ALMOSt say that by taking her you're nearly always going to want the Hit and Run ability of Seraphim at that point.

Rhinos will solve a TON of concerns. Moving Flat out, you're up 18 inches round 1. Your range ceases to be the issue it was a second before. Here again, Dominion can scout up 12" and ram a LOT of firepower down someones gullet. Again, a very strong unit.

So as a Core:

Celestine
2 units of 10 SOB squads (2 x flamers) in Rhinos
10 Dominion (4 x Flamers) in Rhino
10 Dominion (4 x Meltas) in Rhino
6 Seraphim (2 x Dual Hand Flamers)

It is exceedingly hard for you to go wrong with this core in place. It is uber flexible, deals with all the mission typoes well (in particulr the Relic) and it will burninate the face off of any units you need them to.

I'd put one more thing in the analysis of BSS superiors and Dom superiors. I've had a lot of luck with BSS sup's with combi-plasma. If your BSS is going to use their bolters to rapid fire at something, the double shot of a plasma does wonders. It gives you some anti armor if you can get behind a vehicle/walker and some anti-terminator firepower to clear some tanking issues. One thing I really like about it is the BSS's faith ability to re-roll 1's. Makes plasma a very useful and much safer option.

The Dom superiors I usually give combi-melta. I tend to run them in small units of 5 or so as a suicide unit to eat a threatening vehicle in round 1 or outflank and solve a problem quickly. Every twin-linked melta shot is welcomed against high AV vehicles and sometimes the combi-melta has significantly helped.

Be careful not to fill your rhino's too full though. Dom's don't get their 2nd set of special weapons until they reach 10 figs. If you have 10 figs then IC's can't ride with them in rhinos unless someone gets martyred first. Ashame sisters cant use chimeras... oh well

 ImotekhTheStormlord wrote:

aushlo wrote:
It's fairly terrible that a codex has pretty much been assessed to only have a fifty per cent useful units count,

Tell that to space wolves.

Really? The only ones I thought were meh were the fenrisian wolves and Blood Claws. Other than that it looks like a very solid list to me, and quite fun to build.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I need another rhino or two I suppose. I probably would skip the combi-weapons personally unless I came into a bunch of free sisters models, although it seems good. Just seems like if they reprint the book it's one of those things I could see them making obsolete. GW likes to go that way at times.

You never really know what GW will do or when they will do it. I have the combi figures so I don't worry about it.

Hard mode? Not yet. They're hard to learn with but once you get some experience SOB aren't bad at all. However, with codex creep in full effect, they're going to be left behind to a painful degree.

war wrote:
Be careful not to fill your rhino's too full though. Dom's don't get their 2nd set of special weapons until they reach 10 figs. If you have 10 figs then IC's can't ride with them in rhinos unless someone gets martyred first. Ashame sisters cant use chimeras... oh well

There aren't any ICs that are worth putting in a Dominion squad, so I wouldn't worry too much about it. Take 5 or 10, nothing in between.

Yeah there are no IC's that Dominion squads cant do without. And the one they might like to have can just trail behind them (Kyrinov is an excellent boost to their push forward, just tuck him in the rhino behind and move flat out)