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My wife has been casually dropping hints that she wants an Adepta Sororitas army as her next one, since her Orks are essentially "done" (she owns every viable unit, multiples of all the essentials, and some of the fun "out there" choices too). Her favorite model is the Penitent Engine and she was hoping to use some, and hopefully have them being viable.

I bought her the Codex, or rather bought it for myself to try to surprise her with Christmas purchases, and I noticed that there is a Penitent Engine and Repentia Squad formation. On paper it sounds good, but again, I have never played, or even seen a Sisters army in action.

Can anyone speak to how this formation is? It doesn't need to be tournament OP OMG WTF BBQ.... but i'd like to not buy her an absolute turd (plus these models are hella expensive). Is there a good/decent list for say 1850pts that I can build around it? Something that might let her win the occassional game at the hobby shop? If so, what else would I need to buy in edition to those six (iirc) units?

The formations in the back are apocalypse only...

 pretre wrote:
The formations in the back are apocalypse only...

What a weird choice. I am so used to the recent Dataslates, etc... having formations that can be used in non-Apoc games.

Damn.

Well... I guess the core of my question stands. Formation aside, can lists with bunches of Penitent Engines and (I'm guessing here), Repentia Squads in Immolators, be any good?

Yeah, it's a legacy thing from before the current group of codexes.

And not really. Penitent engines are too expensive for what they do (explode) and Repentia are better off walking or finding an assault vehicle.

In 6th edition pretty much ALL the formations were Apocalypse formations.

I wouldn't have any issue with my opponent running those formations in a regular game.

The purge squadron one is actually pretty decent...

The one with Celestine is pretty powerful, IIRC because you can put 4 meltas one each squad and deep strike with less randomness than normal.

Well, I am working towards putting one together. I plan on running it regardless of apoc rules or not. I don't see the IWND and rerolls of FNP being that game breaking considering what you are fielding.

I am also toying with adding priests and as many arco-flagellants to the list as well..... because..... well, just because.

In my brief use of PE's, they weren't as bad as I thought they would be. They survived longer than I thought they would and once they reached my opponent's lines..... it was BBQ time.

I've tried to use PE's and Repentia and even when they "do good" they still never come close to earning their points back. Whoever wrote the rules for them should have been paraded around backwards on a donkey through a medieval town.

Penitent Engines - if they can get into close combat and don't get krak grenaded to death, they can absolutely destroy people with 6 S10 attacks on the charge. It's getting there that's the problem, as AV11 is very fragile (although never forget its 6++ save). It doesn't help that they're competing for an HS slot against the AWESOME Exorcists.

Repentia - epic models, and they also have the potential to be deadly as feth with an obscene number of S6 AP2 armourbane attacks. However, their lack of a save (aside from the 6++) outside of acts of faith means that to make them viable you need to do some jiggling. They work best as multiple small units, or as a deathstar (allied Land Raider and a tanking character)... however, they still aren't the most points efficient unit (certainly fun though). They're lovely models though, they make great DCA proxies!

Penitent Engines are workable. Fleet means you have a good chance of charging a decent range, so you can 'cover hop', then charge from 13-14" away.

Krak grenades really aren't much of a threat. 1/2 to hit, 1/6 to wound, 1/6 save= requires just over 100 attacks statistically to damage, and marines get 1 attack each.

I've never had a worthless Penitent. Either they get to combat and kill everything, or they function as good distractions (80pts, who cares?). They aren't as fragile as people say, and in CC wreck the enemy. Best I've had is my singular one in a 1500pts burgle game killing 350pts of plague drones.

Repentia I can't speak for, haven't used mine yet, but hope this helps.