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 deviantduck wrote:
If anyone needs some heavy bolters I can cast you some. As long as you're not a prick and don't mind waiting a few weeks.

20170607_182710 by deviantduck, on Flickr

Those look fantastic! Sign me up for four, and let me know what you can use in return.

I appreciate the offer but it's quicker and easier to just convert.

 pretre wrote:
Sure. But the reverse is true as well.

How do you figure? The smaller squads kill the bigger squads faster? I don't understand how? Extra special weapons helps some, but not so much so that it accounts for an extra 50% bodies.

So.... what's stopping us from giving a Canoness a Penitent Buzz Blade and a Heavy Bolter for a total 95 pts?




Automatically Appended Next Post:
And can we give a heavy bolter to Retributor superior for 10 pts?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Nevermind, the list is in the front of their section, not the point lists in the back. I'm dumb.

The Happy Anarchist wrote:

 pretre wrote:
Sure. But the reverse is true as well.

How do you figure? The smaller squads kill the bigger squads faster? I don't understand how? Extra special weapons helps some, but not so much so that it accounts for an extra 50% bodies.

Because 15 Sisters buy 2 Special Weapons when in 1 big squad, but 15 Sisters buy 6 special weapons when in 3 small squads.

A Storm Bolter is half the price of an extra Sister, and achieves the same added shooting output [and dies last, of course].

The main drawback to MSUs is you also have to split acts of faith. Using an AoF on the 15-girl squad results in every single one getting said AoF, while each of the individual MSUs will need their own AoF.

Granted, I don't think AoFs are really going to be something you'd want to rely on heavily anyway, so I don't consider this a HUGE drawback.

 Melissia wrote:
The main drawback to MSUs is you also have to split acts of faith. Using an AoF on the 15-girl squad results in every single one getting said AoF, while each of the individual MSUs will need their own AoF.

Granted, I don't think AoFs are really going to be something you'd want to rely on heavily anyway, so I don't consider this a HUGE drawback.

I'm gonna go ahead and say that so long as they don't work on vehicles AoFs aren't even something to consider unless you plan to run Seraphim and/or Retributors. Because outside of those two units AoFs are most effective for a turn 3-4 "Gotcha Bitch!" moment and not something you build the army around.

Even acting twice a turn a squad of 15 Battle Sisters is fodder at best. Taking one for early charge blocking is decent enough but not so much that investing in an imagifier is really all that woth it, especially when you consider how good priests and hospitallers can be.

Was more thinking an additional shooting round. Because that WOULD make a difference for a 15-woman squad, especially against assault armies that try to close the gap quickly-- but wouldn't be impressive on an MSU army.

Have we determined through some means that they don't affect vehicles? I thought the wording on some sources seemed to leave room for that.

The Happy Anarchist wrote:

In previous editions, Repentia struck last always, right? Striking last while relying on toughness 3 and a 6+ save is a whole lot different than charging, striking first and then having the low save after the fact. Moreover, transporting in a Rhino is a lot different. Before, Rhino blows up, they would lose half the unit. Now Rhino blows up and you lose 1-2. So the Rhino if you take it, adds to their survivability instead of making them even more vulnerable.

Things have changed drastically enough that I think it's worth looking at, at the very least. Compare Repentia with Death Cultist for counter charging duty.

Priest with a Power Axe and 10 Death Cultist - 210 points and 2 Elite choices.
Priest with a Power Axe, Mistress with her whips and 8 Repentia. 214 points and 3 Elite choices, helpful for filling out Brigade if you are looking for that.

The Death Cultists have very slightly more survivability with a 5++ save - though it is worth noting if Celestine is hanging out the Repentia also have a 5++ save. Death Cultists are Move 7" but Repentia get to reroll advance and charge distances. Death Cultists hit on a 3+ likely with a reroll, Repentia on a 4+ with a reroll as long as Mistress is alive. Death Cultists get 5 Str 4 AP -2 D1 attacks. Repentia get 3 Str 6 AP -2 D2 attacks per model.

50 Death Cultist attacks average 45 hits with the rerolls. Repentia 24 attacks average 18 hits with the rerolls. The Mistress maybe adds one kill so I'm going to discount her.

Against GEQ the Death Cultists get around 30 kills. Repentia get about 15. Clear win to Death Cultist.
Against MEQ the Death Cultists get around 15 kills. Repentia get about 12. Solid win to the Death Cultist.
Against Primaris (or most races bikers as a note), the Death Cultists get around 7-8 kills. Repentia get about 12. Solid win to the Repentia.
Against Termies, the Death Cultists get 5-6 kills. Repentia get about 8 kills. Solid win to the Repentia.
Against Marine Bikers or Deathguard, Death Cultists get 5 kills. Repentia get 8 kills. Solid win to the Repentia.

Then we get to the big guys. Against toughness 7, Str 6 and Str 4 are identical. Dreadnaughts are toughness 7. This is a best case scenario for Death Cultists against tough models, so we will start with them. Toughness 7 8 wounds 3+ save.

Death Cultists 10 wounds! It's a kill! Repentia average 8 wounds as well - though it's exactly the 8 wounds so much less reliable. Against the specific example of Toughness 7 multiwound models, Death Cultists are better!

Toughness 6 3+ save? Death Cultists still only 10 wounds. Repentia in that example get 12 wounds. Toughness 8 3+ save? Death Cultists get maybe 5 wounds. Repentia get 8 wounds.

Note that in all these cases I am discounting the input of the Mistress which is fairly mediocre over all.

The biggest difference is how commonly you expect to see multiwound things that you need to countercharge. Primaris, Terminators, Nobz, monstrous creatures, bikers. That sort of thing. It's also worth noting that more hordey infantry are also hurt by flamer Overwatch so long as they start the charge within 8", as well as being more vulnerable to all the Bolter fire and Immolation flamers and heavy bolters and the like. In contrast, we have little that efficiently kills multiwound things like bikers, Termies and Primaris. Melta weapons seem pretty heavily overkill - especially if you get unlucky and roll that 1 for damage. Exorcist seems fairly inefficient as well. We don't have quite the access to Plasma that others do. So I could easily see those being somewhat more of a problem.

The other thing to note is that none of this accounts for Acts of Faith. If Repentia or Death Cultists are involved in a multi-round combat - Death Cultists lose Zealot and Repentia gain the potential for a before combat round of attacks. Which is a huge deal. There aren't going to be bucketloads of them getting additional attacks - but even 3-4 leftover can do an extra 9-12 attacks before combat even begins. That can easily off another 2-3 models. Or potentially get them a long range reposition for a charge where the enemy wasn't expecting it. They'll leave the Priest and Mistress behind which sucks a lot, but may be worth it if they get into something the opponent thought was safe.

Could be none of that matters. Could be Primaris are a dead, people abandon bikers in droves and nobody uses Termies to assault. Death Cultists would be crazy hot in that world. I just don't think it's a good idea to discount them out of hand because of prior editions. They sucked so bad in prior editions because they were too vulnerable and they struck last, right? Now they are less vulnerable and they strike first on the charge! Worth looking at, right?

Well I'm not going to beat the dead horse too much but I think I showed that the oversimplification of Sisters Repentia in 6th/7th was to read the stat line and stop reading, and that they could be more..

I enjoyd them a lot. I am going to try them in this new edition. I have no bold predictions at this point. Looking at the buffs you can kind of pile on them, they look pretty dangerous and just like before the art of it will be getting them there...which was made imminsely easier in this edition. Striking first is sort of last on the list of bonus's this edition gave them, not first, but I am still excited about that also.

But again... No bold predictions.

The biggest criticism of Repentia in previous editions was that they had no way to actually reliably get in to combat. With them able to go in to transports and assault out of them, this is gone. But with that also came a nerf to their weaponry, which now functions as weaker than before.

So... IDK. My guess is they'll remain a niche, rarely used unit, which can surprise people that aren't used to them. And... that's it.

 Melissia wrote:
The biggest criticism of Repentia in previous editions was that they had no way to actually reliably get in to combat. With them able to go in to transports and assault out of them, this is gone. But with that also came a nerf to their weaponry, which now functions as weaker than before.

So... IDK. My guess is they'll remain a niche, rarely used unit, which can surprise people that aren't used to them. And... that's it.

Still theorycrafting for them here, is putting them in reserves for turn 1 ( to avoid getting shot up), then using them to counter attack turn 2 or 3 a better idea here? Seeing as they are better against bigger multiwound things over DCA, I'm thinking counter attacking that first turn charge trygon and genestealer squad ( and prolly dying in the process). That said, Im still a little confused as to how reserves work now.

 Twoshoes23 wrote:

 Melissia wrote:
The biggest criticism of Repentia in previous editions was that they had no way to actually reliably get in to combat. With them able to go in to transports and assault out of them, this is gone. But with that also came a nerf to their weaponry, which now functions as weaker than before.

So... IDK. My guess is they'll remain a niche, rarely used unit, which can surprise people that aren't used to them. And... that's it.

Still theorycrafting for them here, is putting them in reserves for turn 1 ( to avoid getting shot up), then using them to counter attack turn 2 or 3 a better idea here? Seeing as they are better against bigger multiwound things over DCA, I'm thinking counter attacking that first turn charge trygon and genestealer squad ( and prolly dying in the process). That said, Im still a little confused as to how reserves work now.

Can you even put them in reserves? I thought the unit had to have permission in its entry to be able to not start on the table.

The Happy Anarchist wrote:

 pretre wrote:
Sure. But the reverse is true as well.

How do you figure? The smaller squads kill the bigger squads faster? I don't understand how? Extra special weapons helps some, but not so much so that it accounts for an extra 50% bodies.

Yes. The 2 Squads of Rets for 1 squad of sisters has more reach, does more damage and is more efficient.

MacPhail wrote:Have we determined through some means that they don't affect vehicles? I thought the wording on some sources seemed to leave room for that.

They affect vehicles at least the Imag and StC ones.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Melissia wrote:
The biggest criticism of Repentia in previous editions was that they had no way to actually reliably get in to combat. With them able to go in to transports and assault out of them, this is gone. But with that also came a nerf to their weaponry, which now functions as weaker than before.

So... IDK. My guess is they'll remain a niche, rarely used unit, which can surprise people that aren't used to them. And... that's it.

I don't know if that was their biggest criticism. It was one of them. Even losing that one, they still have:
They are over costed.
They are super fragile.
They don't hit hard enough.

 deviantduck wrote:

 Twoshoes23 wrote:

 Melissia wrote:
The biggest criticism of Repentia in previous editions was that they had no way to actually reliably get in to combat. With them able to go in to transports and assault out of them, this is gone. But with that also came a nerf to their weaponry, which now functions as weaker than before.

So... IDK. My guess is they'll remain a niche, rarely used unit, which can surprise people that aren't used to them. And... that's it.

Still theorycrafting for them here, is putting them in reserves for turn 1 ( to avoid getting shot up), then using them to counter attack turn 2 or 3 a better idea here? Seeing as they are better against bigger multiwound things over DCA, I'm thinking counter attacking that first turn charge trygon and genestealer squad ( and prolly dying in the process). That said, Im still a little confused as to how reserves work now.

Can you even put them in reserves? I thought the unit had to have permission in its entry to be able to not start on the table.

This is correct. Units can no longer start the game in reserves unless they have a special rule allowing it.

 pretre wrote:
I don't know if that was their biggest criticism. It was one of them. Even losing that one, they still have:
They are over costed.
They are super fragile.
They don't hit hard enough.

Even with all of that, if they had the ability to assault out of transports, they'd have at least been a potentially useful elite slot choice. Certainly not a top tier power unit, but useful. But now they feel even more fragile and don't hit as hard, so getting the ability to assault out of a transport isn't as big of a buff...

The fix for Repentia is simple: <=9 ppm. If they were 9ppm, I would take them, even with their current stats.

 pretre wrote:
The fix for Repentia is simple: <=9 ppm. If they were 9ppm, I would take them, even with their current stats.

Of course, though I was thinking a more modest 12ppm, 9 for basic sister, 3 for the nerfed eviserator. Do you all think 17ppm would be worth it if they brought penitent eviscerator back up to -4 rend? I know I know, wishlisting. But at least we have a somewhat chance to get those points adjusted now in a somewhat decent timeframe.

 Twoshoes23 wrote:

 pretre wrote:
The fix for Repentia is simple: <=9 ppm. If they were 9ppm, I would take them, even with their current stats.

Of course, though I was thinking a more modest 12ppm, 9 for basic sister, 3 for the nerfed eviserator. Do you all think 17ppm would be worth it if they brought penitent eviscerator back up to -4 rend? I know I know, wishlisting. But at least we have a somewhat chance to get those points adjusted now in a somewhat decent timeframe.

They aren't a basic sister though. They have a 7+ save (much worse), a 3+ WS (slightly better) and 2 Attacks (better). And no, -4 rend does not make them 17ppm.

Short of a 12" move or a 3+ save, I don't see 17ppm being worth it.

Faced off against a 2000 points Chaos list today using the Dominion list I posted previously.

Belakor
Skarbrand
Kharn
Renegade knight with battle canon and gatling gun
3 x 5 Khorne Berserkers in Rhinos
Helldrake


He was going first due to have less drops than me, but I managed to steal the initiative. Turn one I boxed him in with the dominions and their Immolators. Killed the helldrake and dropped the Knight to 9 wounds. I then charged all of his rhinos with my dominions. I knew he was going to get the charge off anyway so wanted to make sure I kept him on his side of the table and not able to drive for objectives.

by turn 4 all he had left was Skarbrand daisy chaining from one combat to the next with consolidates and in the end I managed to table with him my Eviscerator Canoness bringing Skarbrand down.

I had Celestine down to 1 wound (already had died once). My squad of HB Rets, 2 Immolators, 2 Imagifiers and the canoness left.


A lot of the damage done to his army was from one of his rhino and his knight actually blowing up. Since he was boxed in, he dealt a huge amount of mortal wounds to himself in the explosions.

Was very fun game in any cases. Took a little under two hours to get those 2000 points done.

Nicely done!

Voldrak wrote:
Faced off against a 2000 points Chaos list today using the Dominion list I posted previously.

Belakor
Skarbrand
Kharn
Renegade knight with battle canon and gatling gun
3 x 5 Khorne Berserkers in Rhinos
Helldrake


He was going first due to have less drops than me, but I managed to steal the initiative. Turn one I boxed him in with the dominions and their Immolators. Killed the helldrake and dropped the Knight to 9 wounds. I then charged all of his rhinos with my dominions. I knew he was going to get the charge off anyway so wanted to make sure I kept him on his side of the table and not able to drive for objectives.

by turn 4 all he had left was Skarbrand daisy chaining from one combat to the next with consolidates and in the end I managed to table with him my Eviscerator Canoness bringing Skarbrand down.

I had Celestine down to 1 wound (already had died once). My squad of HB Rets, 2 Immolators, 2 Imagifiers and the canoness left.


A lot of the damage done to his army was from one of his rhino and his knight actually blowing up. Since he was boxed in, he dealt a huge amount of mortal wounds to himself in the explosions.

Was very fun game in any cases. Took a little under two hours to get those 2000 points done.

Thanks for the info - more I hear baout 8th the better it sounds in terms of variety of units and fun gameplay.....

Oh yeah.
The one thing I learned from that fight.

Do not let Skarbrand get into close combat with anything if at all possible. 2+ to hit. 2+ to wound and d6 dmg. 7+ attacks per round.

He kills whatever he touches and anything within 8 inches of him cannot fall back. If you get multi assaulted, you basically are waiting for him to consolidate from one fight to the next and eat everything up.

Voldrak wrote:
Oh yeah.
The one thing I learned from that fight.

Do not let Skarbrand get into close combat with anything if at all possible. 2+ to hit. 2+ to wound and d6 dmg. 7+ attacks per round.

He kills whatever he touches and anything within 8 inches of him cannot fall back. If you get multi assaulted, you basically are waiting for him to consolidate from one fight to the next and eat everything up.

He's on my painting table right now. I'm glad they kept the fluff of him and let him get better as he takes wounds. Angry Skarbrand for the win... unless he's facing Sisters, then there's no hope for him.

This is my working list right now. What do you all think? I'd love to squeeze a third canoness in but have no idea where the points would come from.

Battalion Detachment

HQ 1: Canoness

HQ 2: Canoness

Troops 1: 10 Sisters of Battle, Heavy Flamer, Flamer, Combi-Flamer

Troops 2: 10 Sisters of Battle, Heavy Flamer, Flamer, Combi-Flamer

Troops 3: 10 Sisters of Battle, Heavy Flamer, Flamer, Combi-Flamer

Elite 1: Imagifer

Elite 2: Imagifer

Heavy 1: 7 Retributors , 4 Heavy Bolters

Heavy 2: 6 Retributors , 4 Heavy Bolters

Fast 1: 5 Dominions, 4 melta gun, combi-melta, Immolator w/ twin-multi melta

Fast 2: 5 Dominions, 4 melta gun, combi-melta, Immolator w/ twin-multi melta

Detachment Total: 1275

Spearhead Detachment

HQ1: Celestine

Heavy 1: Exorcist

Heavy 2: Exorcist

Heavy 3: Penitent Engine with Buzz Blades, 2x Heavy Flamer

Heavy 4: Penitent Engine with Buzz Blades, 2x Heavy Flamer

Detachment Total: 728

Points Total: 1994 points
CP Total: 7

Not so sure about the brigade. Also, that's a lot of points in Combis. Let me know how the PEs work out. I'm still curious.

 pretre wrote:

The Happy Anarchist wrote:

 pretre wrote:
Sure. But the reverse is true as well.

How do you figure? The smaller squads kill the bigger squads faster? I don't understand how? Extra special weapons helps some, but not so much so that it accounts for an extra 50% bodies.

Yes. The 2 Squads of Rets for 1 squad of sisters has more reach, does more damage and is more efficient.

Well sure, but 2 squads of Rets is 2 heavy support choices costing substantially more than 1 squad of Sisters as one troop choice. Heavy vs Troop isn't quite the big deal it was, but troop detachments do give you way more command points.

The more relevant questions to me are comparable points and comparing choices to themselves. For example, 15 sisters vs groups of 5 sisters in a troop squad, or 5 Rets vs 10 Rets for the extra protection for the special weapons and cheaper cost. It's hard to determine the examples though. 5 sister squads are frequently taken in transports with close range weapons like flamers/meltas. Conversely, 15 sister squads are by definition walking and far more likely to take weapons like Heavy Bolters, possibly MultiMelta and Stormbolters/Combi Plasma on the Superior.

Still, lets try to get a baseline comparison going. I'll compare sisters with 2 Flamers & Combi Flamer in 5 vs 15 squad and I'll also compare 5 Retributors with Heavy Bolters with the 10 Retributor versions of the same. It's harder to compare melta/multimelta sisters across categories because they prefer to shoot tanks rather than sisters, but I included the relevant point costs. I also want to point out just how much more vulnerable 5 person units with 4 heavy weapons will be to eating a bunch of anti-infantry fire now that units can split fire. Losing 27 point multimeltas rapidly seems terrible.

Relevant point costs

5 Sisters with 3 flamers 74
15 Sisters 3 flamers 164
5 sisters with 3 meltas 96
15 sisters with 3 meltas 186

5 Retributor with Heavy Bolters 85
10 Retributor with Heavy Bolters 130
5 Retributor with Multimeltas 153
10 Retributor with Multimeltas 198

So two units of 5 sisters with 3 flamers vs 14 Sisters with 3 flamers (to make the points more even, though still in the MSU favor). Outside of flamer range it should be obvious - 6 bolters on one side vs 12 on the other. Moreover, as soon as a squad takes 3 wounds they lose one of the flamers. So we will just assume that you close into point blank range automatically. The math is easy because it's all Str 4 AP - hits.

On the MSU side, 6 flamers average 21 hits. The 4 Bolters not on the superior get 8 shots averaging just over 5 hits. The Superior gets 2 shots hitting on 4+ for another hit. 27 hits average 6 wounds rounding up, leaving 8 Sisters in the other unit. Battleshock could easily account for another d6-2 or 1-2 more kills, assuming no dialogus.

On the big unit side, 3 flamers average 10 hits rounding down. The 13 bolters on line sisters get 26 shots, averaging 17 hits rounding down. 27 total hits, which makes the math really easy because it's basically the same as the above. If you go for one squad you wipe it out with overkill. If you split 50/50 towards each squad you reliably kill all the bolters and one of the flamers from each squad. More likely though, you put all the flamers on one squad because you can't really split 3 flamers 50/50. So more likely going to end up with a 4/2 split if you try and split the fire. Same result in the end though, 2 dead flamers and 4 dead bolter sisters. Battleshock in the case of the 4/2 split is d6-4 - so you have to get lucky to get 1 kill out of battleshock.

There are positives and minuses in both direction there - but I do think it is worth pointing out that this is best case scenario for directly comparing the small elite unit vs the big unit. One thing I am wondering is if we are discounting how good basic weapons actually are now? Or maybe overestimating how good flamers are? I wonder if the variance adds up to anything? A flamer rolling a 4, 5 or 6 is getting extra guaranteed hits compared to things rolling to hit, so maybe high rolls having more impact mattes more? Or maybe Stormbolters are really a much better choice than we think?

Comparing Heavy Bolters. Two Retributor squads with Heavy bolters vs one 10 person squad is 170 vs 130. I'll just keep things simple and throw an extra 4 bolter sisters on the Retributors side to vaguely compare the value of the extra 40 points you get. Not a great comparison as 4 HB is generally speaking > 4 basic sisters and you can probably fine better uses for the points, so whatever.

MSU side gets 24 HB shots for 16 hits, about 5 unsaved wounds. With the two extra bolter shots we can round up for 6 kills. It would kill either the superior or one of the HB sisters on average, plus the potential for battleshock.

Full unit side gets half the HB shots for about 2.5 unsaved wounds from HB fire. The 10 bolters get another 1.5 wounds. So generously assuming you are within bolter range you get 4 kills. Battleshock is again, get lucky and you might get one more.

Where this makes the bigger impact is this. Those 4 kills kill 3 heavy bolters. At first, I thought this looked simple. Big units for troops and closer range because rapid fire bolters are actually pretty good. But the MSU are doing 64-82 points worth of damage depending on battlecheck results because of the big units plain sisters absorbing a lot of the damage, and still has output. The full unit side does less kills, but does 66 points of damage because of the Heavy Bolters. And that's with the cheapest possible heavy weapons. Your squad of 4 Multi Melta sisters? Loses 117 points from the same damage.

And that's the rub for me. MSU makes it really easy to defang units, even with relatively basic weaponry. You get more damage UNTIL you take damage, at which point you start doing substantially less damage. Which I guess isn't shocking - but when you add in my original issue with people getting VPs? I'm fairly certain that even with the added special weapons it seems to be much easier to score VPs off MSU than it is off of big full units. Much, much, much easier!

 pretre wrote:

MacPhail wrote:Have we determined through some means that they don't affect vehicles? I thought the wording on some sources seemed to leave room for that.

They affect vehicles at least the Imag and StC ones.

They currently do as written. I'd be wary about relying heavily on that as it seems like exactly the sort of thing they didn't intend and end up ruling against in a FAQ/Errata.

 pretre wrote:
The fix for Repentia is simple: <=9 ppm. If they were 9ppm, I would take them, even with their current stats.

Are you kidding me? 9 points per model! You aren't even remotely on the same planet as anything balanced. Do you also think Death Cultists should be 9ppm? I already demonstrated above that Repentia do similar levels of damage to Death Cultists WITHOUT including Acts of Faith. Remember, I was comparing like point costs as well, so it was 8 Repentia Mistress & Priest compared to 10 Death Cultist + Priest. The only thing the Death Cultists did much better against was the toughness 3 5+ stuff. They did slightly better against toughness 4 3+ save. Anything with multiwounds except for the specific category of Toughness 7 (exactly 7 only) and 3+ save, Repentia did better. And in all cases except cheap spam Repentia performed close. Your suggestion of making them half the cost would catapult them to being similarly effective against conscripts and more than twice as good against everything else including MEQ. All of this not even accounting for acts of faith. Survivability they are closer than you think. 6+ vs 5+ isn't hugely different, in both cases you absolutely have to protect them on the way in because a 5+ is certainly not saving you. If Celestine is going in with the unit, they are actually equivalent. 5++ vs 5++.

If you are looking for the role of a melee infantry unit that can walk up the board and charge into enemy combat, I don't think anything works in that role for Sisters. Maybe Crusaders, but even then 15 points is a lot to pay. They do get 3++ and access to acts of faith though so you can catapult them up a bit faster, but that's still a lot of points and their damage output on arrival is positively anemic compared to DC or Repentia. Really though, you won't find that role in the faction.

If you are trying to use them properly though, as a countercharge unit that you keep back and protected until it is time to go in? Definite potential there for either DC or Repentia and which is better depends entirely on how the meta develops. Lots of cheap spam, horde play or baseline MEQ? DC going to be better. Lots of Primaris, bikers, big bulky multiwound things or vehicles? Repentia will be better. I'm leaning towards the meta developing more towards cheap spam than tougher things, but Sisters as a faction do much better against hordes in general so it may still be better to have them in your back pocket. What I can tell you for certain 100% is that 9 point Repentia would be unbelievably, stupidly undercosted. To a degree that is almost crazy. If Repentia need to be cut in price by 50% then pretty much every other elite close combat unit does too, and then where does that leave the cheap close combat stuff?

I wouldn't take DCA at their current cost either.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I'm not even going to try to address that whole wall of text.

The difference with HB MSU vs HB big squads is threat overload. If everything I have puts threat down the table, it makes my opponent's choices harder.

Yes, they degrade faster, but they also do damage faster.

And the good comparison is
3x 5 Rets with 4 HB - 255
2x 10 Rets with 4 HB - 260


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also, keep in mind that 3 squads of Rets gets me a Spearhead, 2 gets me added into something else.

 pretre wrote:
I wouldn't take DCA at their current cost either.

I personally think Crusaders and penitent engines are the 'winners' for melee.

Crusaders at 16pts are good enough in combat to mess up deepstrike infantry charges and that 3++ makes shooting at them just such a waste of time. As a screening unit I think 10 of these guys is gonna be hard to beat in terms of efficiency, especially with them benefiting from AoF. That said, they're more viable than DCA or Repentia because they don't really do much outside of the 1 thing they excel at and as such are likely to be ignored.

Penitent engines are moderately more survivable(to much more survivable depending on how meched up you are) than DCA or Repentia while dishing out some pretty crazy damage potential.


Repentia and DCA are just...bleh. DCA I would say are slightly less effective than Seraphim at just...just everything and Repentia are a joke unit you throw into a rhino and catch someone who doesn't know anything about sisters off guard. Being cheaper than battle sisters is a bit of a stretch but being 50% more expensive than seraphim is a bit silly.

I basically agree with Erjak on this one.