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Weidekuh wrote:
The codex feels a bit lacklustre. Especially in the choices departement. I'm confident, that they will expand into new unit/roles for the real codex.

The problem with that tho is that we are playtesting an incomplete codex. Just one more unit with a specific role can change massively the strength and how a codex is played.

So an interesting question for the beta codex is: What (unit) is missing to make the codex more complete without losing its Sister of Battle character in giving it "every" option there could be?
- A second troop unit.
- "Shieldmaidens" Units with big shields, high defense (still T3) and some kind of protect others ability?
- "Archangels" Elite CC units with wings and flaming swords? Only 1 attack but each attack hits every model in contact?
- "Witchunters" armed with holy crossbows. Deal extra damage to psykers and demons. (may be a bit unfair to specially get a bonus against demons).

What are your opinions on this? Which slots or army functionality needs some love?

A lot of this codex needs some love. There are several VERY clear holes in the army list at present.

The biggest thing that needs immediate help (besides the Geminae) though, is the current AoF system. Now, the way getting Faith Points, Spending Spending Faith Points, Combo-ing AoFs with stratagems and Convinctions, etc stuff all works together is legitimately very good, very interesting, and very nuanced.

The problem is you go to actually USE a faith point and have to ask yourself 'Is the bonus I get from this even worth the energy it takes to roll this dice?' The answer is usually 'probably not'

Also, Celestine herself got nerfed too heavily. She needs at least some decent flavor rule going forward because right now she's a slightly overpriced Smash Captain.


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Voldrak wrote:


There's a few good things so far in that codex that I have seen could lead to decent strats.

An eviscerator canoness going up the fields with dominions could be very nice.

Give them divine guidance so that they hit on 2s instead of 3 and pop the Holy Trinity stratagem on those dominions and they are wounding on 2s or 3s (against thoughness 8).

Equip your dominions with 4 meltas and put a combi-flamer on the superior and you've got the requirements for that stratagem down.

You could do the same with retributors, 4 heavy flamers and a combi-melta on the superior and suddently you have heavy flamers that are wounding most infantries on 2s and even land raiders on 4s.

Now if we could use that stratagem more than once per turn, it would be awesome.

How is the Canoness going to follow dominions? Are you footslogging them? Don't footslog them. Also, that's not how that stratagem works. You need three separate MODELS firing the different weapons. The holy trinity setup with 4 meltaguns is actually mathematically worse than just taking 5 meltaguns and using a CP reroll.


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 pretre wrote:
So, seems like going second is going to be a lot easier for Sisters. Clump up and get a 4++ on all your vehicles? sounds decent.
edit: Removed the cover question

This is a legitimately pretty good strat...the only problem you run into is that the vehicles themselves are fairly underwhelming. I've seen suggestions and had the thought myself of doing a large blob of spider-webbing 4++ 9pt infantry but...gah that sounds so awful to play from either side of the table. Plus, it's better for castling up a Knight list than trying to win as SoB.


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 dracpanzer wrote:

 Creeping Dementia wrote:
So I played 4 games today using the rules for the Beta Codex,I was figuring that because we can't really alpha strike anymore I would put more emphasis on long range firepower, hence the 6 Heavy choices, and took less Seraphim. Also didn't use Repressors cause they are Index and I am trying to just test the Beta Codex. My points might have been off slightly but I'm pretty sure I was within a margin of ~20pts, and my opponents were ok with that. <snip> Well hopefully that helped, I'm a little depressed now. My advice, Index tactics are gone, we have to move on and try to figure out a different way to win. I don't know what that is yet, but I'll keep brainstorming.

Sisters have never been a gunline army so no surprise there. Repressors loaded with Melta Doms were the only thing allowing Sisters to punch above their weight pre Betadex that we still have left so removing them is just going to result in pain and frustration. Retributors need to ditch the hvy bolters and find some space in a Repressor as well, they can no longer look to double-shoot and without a need to use an AoF they might as well just mount up and fire hvy flamers or otherwise from inside a Repressor. Shooty units need to ride Repressors to get close enough to shoot and stay mounted as long as they can. Repentia or melee characters you bring along should probably be riding in Immolators.

Form up your invuln bubble in deployment for going second, perhaps deepstrike Seraphim into hidden spots turn 2 and look to AT turn 3, mount up and roll forward looking to get across the open ground and remember. She who bails, fails. It's going to be just like old times...

This is a very sad thing actually. Melta Doms were just about the only thing going for us in 6th and 7th and when 8th came out and other units were suddenly usable, it was great! Now we're back to Melta Doms only again. My current only real idea for a tournament list is a Min Battalion with 3 immolator/repressor melta doms and 987(ish) points of allies.

Also, for Creeping Dementia, have you tried using Vessels to give the Exorcist+1 to hit also? Because that does actually work and it maths out...bad but better than some other uses of Vessels.

 Amishprn86 wrote:

Lammia wrote:

 Amishprn86 wrote:
So after watching a video of SOB, i am sure it works this way, but will know 100% when the book comes out.

If you wanted to use Vessel of the Emperor’s Will very effectively, you can have a Vanguard of an HQ and 3 elite characters (25-30pts each and some of them are actually good, But at least 1 Dialogus for Re-rolls AoF). And they will have Eben Chalice "Daughters of the Emperor" to have +1 to AOF, now you are +1 with Re-rolls, using

Then the rest of you army can have w/e trait you wan,t, +1 faith point, 6+++, +1A, Overwatch 5+ w/e you want.

Even then, it's not worth 3CP...

I think it is

Sorry for so many posts in a row but:

For 3CP, the bonus is worse than what space marines get for bringing a chapter master, a stratagem that costs 3CP also but lasts the entire game. Compare spending 3CP per turn trying to maintain Vessels and the +1 to...just HAVING Kayvann Shrike. Shrike wins in 99% of cases. Combining with a Canonesses reroll does give you 2+ rerollable on most shots, but even then...are our shooting weapons that can afford to stand within 6" of a Canoness really worth it? You could take a Knight Crusader/Castellant or an Allied detachment of Guard tanks or Custodes bikers or even an Ultramarine block and get a lot more out of your CP than Vessels. In fact, in a lot of games that CP would be better spent rerolling Celestine's 'The Passion' roll.

Vessels-ing stuff to give out what meager boosts acts of faith offer is pretty much our best option most of the time but...honestly...that says more about how sad of a state we're in than anything.


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 Giantwalkingchair wrote:
I could see a blobbed up group of 3++/4++ sisters and tanks advancing up the field first turn, relying on that invo to weather the storm and then spearing off mid field fir objective grabs and vehicles running harassment and distraction to to cover the footsloggers.

Definately going to be an interesting time to see what works and what doesnt.

Exorcists working in concert (hur hur)to focus down large threats at least have a chance to deal some decent damage now. I know the math hammerers will decry otherwise but i know my babies; they too have been disgusted at the previous d3 damage and under performed because of their disgust. Whisper this sweet new thing to them and i know theyre gonna strike with a vengeance and carve glorious destruction...thats right math hammerers, my luck and superstition outweighs your numbers

The issue Exorcists have now(outside of their average output being pretty subpar) is that it's even more impossible to predict what they're going to than it usually is. They have something like a 27% chance to do basically nothing, and a small chance you could overkill a Knight Castellant by 8 wounds with ONE of them. It makes them funny, it makes them better than they were before, but it also makes them insanely frustrating. Sun Tzu once said: "Know your enemy, know yourself, and you need not fear the result of a hundred battles." Well with an Exorcist you know nothin about nothin and need to be afraid of every shooting phase.

The thing you picture is a nice image, but ultimately has some serious flaws. Battle sisters are still T3 and a lot of the best weapons in the game for killing them (Heavy bolters, Assault Cannons, others) won't actually hit that 4++ invul. Also the bubble is so small that you get infantry OR vehicles, not usually both. Even if you could do both, a 4++ isn't enough to weather the storm in this era. It could work, but it wouldn't be weathering the storm before cleverly rushing off to take valuable objectives, it would be 'pray you die the turn AFTER the game ends.'

My take on what works and what doesn't right now? Dominions work. Allies work. The rest...kinda doesn't.

 Amishprn86 wrote:

ERJAK wrote:

 Amishprn86 wrote:

Lammia wrote:

 Amishprn86 wrote:
So after watching a video of SOB, i am sure it works this way, but will know 100% when the book comes out.

If you wanted to use Vessel of the Emperor’s Will very effectively, you can have a Vanguard of an HQ and 3 elite characters (25-30pts each and some of them are actually good, But at least 1 Dialogus for Re-rolls AoF). And they will have Eben Chalice "Daughters of the Emperor" to have +1 to AOF, now you are +1 with Re-rolls, using

Then the rest of you army can have w/e trait you wan,t, +1 faith point, 6+++, +1A, Overwatch 5+ w/e you want.

Even then, it's not worth 3CP...

I think it is

Sorry for so many posts in a row but:

For 3CP, the bonus is worse than what space marines get for bringing a chapter master, a stratagem that costs 3CP also but lasts the entire game. Compare spending 3CP per turn trying to maintain Vessels and the +1 to...just HAVING Kayvann Shrike. Shrike wins in 99% of cases. Combining with a Canonesses reroll does give you 2+ rerollable on most shots, but even then...are our shooting weapons that can afford to stand within 6" of a Canoness really worth it? You could take a Knight Crusader/Castellant or an Allied detachment of Guard tanks or Custodes bikers or even an Ultramarine block and get a lot more out of your CP than Vessels. In fact, in a lot of games that CP would be better spent rerolling Celestine's 'The Passion' roll.

Vessels-ing stuff to give out what meager boosts acts of faith offer is pretty much our best option most of the time but...honestly...that says more about how sad of a state we're in than anything.

For me 3CP to give my army a buff is worth it, im not talking about 2-3 units, im talking about 6-7 units, also if gaining that +1 to hit or the +3" will win me the game, then it will always be worth it.
SoB are not Custodes, they are not SM, we dont get all those captains, and uber buffs, for us to get them shouldnt be the same style of cost as Custodes/SM. I also play with about 18-20 HB's and 24-30 SB's so yes, being within 6" is easy, especially if im against Orks, Nids, or DG, armies that are moving closer to you every turn. Dont forget, you only need 1 model within the 6" range.

At this point its hard to say what is good and what isnt with all the other point drops from everyone Else, If Necrons become meta, its a completely different game.

Also BSS are suppose to be T3, but in 8th T3 vs T4 isnt that big of a deal like it used to be.

Vessels is limited to within 6" of a character. It will hit EXACTLY the same the same number of units as any other Aura ability, including the Chapter master aura. I 6-7 units is the BASELINE I assumed you would be getting before you tried to use the stratagem at all. Being able to use it on different character is a slight buff over the other stratagem, but in all likelihood you'll just use it on the same Canoness every turn. There are some fringe cases where you might have two clumps big enough to be worth it but...honestly probably not.

'If the ability will win me the game it will be worth it' What if they're part of the reason you didn't win before that? They clearly won't win you the game the vast majority of the time. It's entirely likely that something you could/should have gotten INSTEAD of those abilities would have won the game more easily. If you had brought allies with better stratagems, you would have likely won the game easily and not needed the extra 3+ move or +1 to hit. If they hadn't made the AoFs at all and instead every unit had gone down 1ppm, there is a strong possibly that that slight reduction in points would have been be FAR more impactful than those abilities.

Not being the same as the other armies doesn't mean you should be be worse. 18 Heavy bolters means you either aren't playing Matched play or have at least 6 Battle Sister Squads equipped with heavy bolters. Either way, that's...not an ideal loadout. You're paying almost 900pts(assuming you also want the 4++ and reroll AoF) and 3CP in the setup you described and it's pretty lacking in firepower compared to what other armies are going to do for the same investment. Even with Vessels and the Canoness rerolls you're only doing about 17 wounds to marines(only 13 to ravenguard) with the heavy bolters and 8 wounds with the stormbolters and another maybe 5 or so with the rest of the bolters. Don't get me wrong, you'll absolutely mulch through hordes, but other armies can do the same thing without needing half their army to hug each other in the center of the board.

You're also very vulnerable to charges. The first time something makes it into charge range, you're going to lose that whole block because of how stuck together they have to be to benefit from Vessels. And with only Heavy Bolters and Stormbolters and the unit being its own chaff...it's likely to be more of a sitting duck than a firebase. Custodes Jetbikes would close you down and kill you fairly quickly. Even a single rhino that made it in would likely be able to lock up a fair handful of the squads. Sure, you could 'the passion' at that point but it probably won't help much with Sister's melee stats.

If you go up against a Guilliman gunline...that's probably going to be a problem. Even if you do the 4++ thing you just won't be able to compete with their output. Plus the whole 'Mortal wound bomb' stratagem they can hit your entire army with. Guard will also be quite difficult. Your best matchup is probably CWE but Alaitoc is going to completely counter Vessels basically for free while you still have to blow 3CP per turn. Even then, you can definitely still just fail the Act and not get any benefit at all, which will be a terrific opening for your opponent.

Everyone else got point drops and we pretty much didn't. At the same time they removed an incredibly powerful system for the sake of a mediocre system that doesn't really seem to mesh with the army's toolkit. It doesn't matter who's meta now when just about every army got better and we saw, at best, no significant improvement. Even if you're fine with the new system, it's very hard to argue that it isn't weaker than the old one.
.

It used to be that T3 was wounded on 3s by S4 and 2s by S5. Now we're not wounded on 2+ until S6, which is a +1S buff
T4 on the other hand, USED to be wounded on 3s by S5 and 2s on S6. Now they're not wounded on 2s until S8, which is a +2 buff. So relative to T3, T4 is actually better than it used to be.

Weidekuh wrote:

 Amishprn86 wrote:

 deviantduck wrote:
I still don't agree with calling her an overpriced Smash Captain. They still have to kill her twice. Last I checked Smash Cap had 5 wounds, not 12. She's still really good for 160 points of beat down that doesn't require any CP to excel. It's the same tasty beer we've been drinking for almost 2 years. They just watered it down a little.

Before she was a tank, now they can kill the geminis and they dont came back easily. She is just as she was in 5th times, a mosquito to get in the way, she isnt strong enough to tie up units, she cant go off alone any more and be effective.
She will be good still, just not that center piece as she was, and i missed that survivability she had. In many ways she is more like a Shield Captain now.

Yeah i'd say she is a shield cap on dawneagle equivalent, sure she will have more "wounds" but at T3 many things will wound her on 2+/3+ compare to 4+/5+ on the shield captains on dawneagles.

I;d rather her str with the sword go down to S5 (so +2) and keep some of the survivability than be Str 7.

I like Celestine getting weaker. I hate it, when something is an auto-take. Especially named characters. It's so stupid that every sister army has celestine in it. Every single one! Balancing out Celestine is the right thing to do. Now the army just needs options that make it viable to run the army without her and be fun and viable.

So while playtesting I think it would be very important to play without Celestine too. What is the army missing without her? Is the army playble? If not give your suggestion! I'd hate it if when the codex comes out there is only one way to play sisters, Celestine + other stuff.

No. Celestine has been in every Sisters of Battle list I've ever played. She will be in every Sisters list I play for the rest of my life. I'd rather quit 40k than leave her behind.

I don't need her to be what she was at her best, I played her when she was 135pts and died to harsh language. I just want her to be unique and interesting, which she is not right now.

Also, totally unrelated to the quoted comment:

Vessels of the Emperor's Will on +1 to hit(the clear best use of the ability) costs 3CP(6" range), is an 8% boost over a standard Chapter Master reroll assuming you have a Canoness and no -1s to hit. (It's 3% worse at -1), and can only be used once per turn.

Space Marine's 'Chapter Masters' stratagem (6" range) Costs 3CP and is only 8% worse(or several percent better against Eldar Flyers) than a BEST CASE usage of Vessels of the Emperor's Will. That stratagem lasts the entire game. And literally no one anywhere uses it.

Even accounting for the fact that Vessels can target different characters AND the fact that it can spread other bonuses(paltry as they are. The Passion is almost impossible to use with this for about 2 pages worth of reasons I won't get into right now) it is STILL weaker than a 3CP stratagem, in an army better suited to take advantage of that stratagem, that no one ever bothers to use.

Oh YEAH, I actually totally forgot, Vessels is only active for one PHASE. The chapter master reroll buff is active 100% of the time in both turns! Man AoFs suck.


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 deviantduck wrote:
I still don't agree with calling her an overpriced Smash Captain. They still have to kill her twice. Last I checked Smash Cap had 5 wounds, not 12. She's still really good for 160 points of beat down that doesn't require any CP to excel. It's the same tasty beer we've been drinking for almost 2 years. They just watered it down a little.

Smash Captains are T4 and will have a 3++ bout half the time. That means they're likely about as durable as Celestine's poor T3 body and 3 extra wounds. Her damage output is also not not that much better than a Smash Captain's, especially against T8. Also, Smash Captains don't NEED stratagems to excel relative to Celestine, they have stratagems they can use TO excel relative to Celestine.

Even if you're okay with her price point, I would still argue that it's hard to be okay with how dull her rules are now. I love her, and I'll take her forever, but boy are we going through a rough patch at the moment.

It's more like they traded out the Old Milwaukee we had in 6th for a Miller Lite, tbh.

 MacPhail wrote:

 godswildcard wrote:
So I may be late to the party, but can you use the +3” move AoF on an immolator using its vanguard move? Cause that’d be kinda nice if so...

Also, I think I’ve figured out my qualm with the Repressor, and I’m sure someone else has already mentioned it, but here goes:

I like the repressor. I really do, but I HATE that we are tied to a transport that doesn’t even get made anymore. We really either need to see the Repressor become the new plastic transport hotness of the Sororitas, but I have a feeling they won’t do that because Sisters already have two dedicated transports. Hopefully I’m wrong, but my playtesting results will mention this often.

Any chance GW feels trapped by the Repressor? If the Codex is too strong, the Repressor unleashes an unstoppable army, so they backed off a bit?

No, there's no chance of that. The repressor is good, it's not that good. Plus they can just change the point value. Not like they've never repointed forgeworld stuff before.


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 Grundz wrote:
TBH I like the idea of super fast sisters the most

They aren't great up close, and all their assault units are fragile

This this, 100000000% this. Make them a shotgun, not a turtle.


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Rynner wrote:
GW has shown time and time again that cardboard boxes don't get chapter tactics/convictions.

I think it's dumb that Chimera gets it but a Rhino doesn't. However debating it right now is a waste of time. Hopefully in the future they'll fix it but right now they have shown no desire to.

Anyway I'm thinking our best play (as mentioned by someone above) is deep striking Seraphim and using them to clear a screen for a BA captain. The fatal flaw is that you can only ever 2 it twice a game and that you are relying on a bunch of hand flamers/bolt pistols.

Our best play is what it has been since 6th: Melta Dominions. No matter what else changes, that always seems to stay the same.

Mmmpi wrote:

 Grundz wrote:

 deviantduck wrote:

 MacPhail wrote:
Where does the 4++ come from? 6+ from SoF, +1 from Celestine's aura, and... what am I missing?

Warlord trait on the canoness that gives her the same AoF improving bubble like Celestine. There's also a strat that buffs a single squad's simulacrum imperialist for 1 phase, too.

the strat can only be used once per game

It's a warlord trait. Every unit in 6 inches improves their shield of faith to a 5+ (specifically a 5+). Then celestine cranks it up to a 4+, and any seraphim would have a 3+.

You...kinda just repeated what he said only you traded out what bonus gets you to 3++. +1 for Celestine +1 for WT, +1 for being a Seraphim, +1 for the Simulacrum strat.

Amishprn86 wrote:And you can also improve the range by 3"

Not...really. Sure, you can improve the Canonesses range by 3"...doesn't help you much when you have to stay within 6 of Celestine anyway.

 MacPhail wrote:
Okay, I got access to the digital 'dex and put together a list to play tomorrow.

2003 points, pure Sororitas Valorous Heart Brigade, 15CP, 8 FP

Spoiler:

56 Canoness
Inferno Pistol, Blade of Admonition
47 Canoness (Warlord, Indomitable Belief)
Stormbolter, Brazier of the Eternal Flame
45 Canoness
160 Celestine

21 1x Geminae
30 Dialogus
30 Dialogus

51 Stormbolter BSS
51 Stormbolter BSS
81 Trinity BSS (2x Melta, Combi-Flamer)
81 Trinity BSS (2x Melta, Combi-Flamer)
75 Rhino
45 Stock BSS
45 Stock BSS

70 Stormbolter Doms
100 Immolator
126 6 Melta Doms
4x Melta, Simualcrum
100 Immolator
87 IP Seraphim
67 HF Seraphim

125 6 HF Rets
4x Heavy Flamer, Combi-Melta
75 Rhino
85 HB Rets
100 Penitent Engine
125 Exorcist
125 Exorcist

I went for a little of everything. Lots of Canoness auras, 2 Relics, a bunch of bodies, six tanks, and a wide range of specials and heavies. Roughly speaking, there are several forces here: An alpha strike of two Immolators with Dominions, one with Stormbolters, one with Meltas. Following them at normal speed are two Rhinos, one with Heavy Flamer Rets inside, the other with two Melta-heavy BSS squads, escorting the aura-support characters between them. The last Canoness castles up with Exorcists and Retributors. The BSS screen the backfield, and the Seraphim and Penitent are harassment and countercharge units. I plan on pushing Divine Guidance, Blessed Bolts, and Holy Trinity while looking for other opportunities.

I'll report after tomorrow's game... feedback welcome.

Gemini are 25. No free swords. You'll certainly get to try out a lot of unit types with a setup like this.

 davidgr33n wrote:
After the Ro3 and the nerf to my Doms I’ve been lurking while awaiting this beta codex, and I gotta say I’m extremely disappointed. The tools that worked (fast Seraphims and Celestine) have been trashed and the new faith mechanic is silly considering the acts of faith themselves are nearly useless. The army has no focus - it’s not fast anymore, it doesn’t want to get close, gunline sisters won’t work, and hordes will get smashed by true hordes. Mech isn’t competitive considering the cost of our transports and lack of ranged weapons. And no new choices other than Gemina (who now can’t soak up woundsnfor Celestine). The Convictions don’t make any builds competitive either.
I’ll stick to my allies and the paltry Sisters battalion of 3 BSS in Repressors with 2 Canonesses.
I was hopeful for this Codex but truthfully I’d rather use the index than this beta gak

Basically. The index is far stronger overall, and even that didn't really function that well post rule of 3. We can come up with all the 'combos' or w/e we want to but the end result is polishing a turd at the absolute best.

 Amishprn86 wrote:
Does it actually say somewhere in CA 2018 that 2017's CA is removed for all purposes of rules? (Ive read it and i ddnt see it state this, tho i might have just over looked it)

B.c if not we still use any of those point changes that didnt make it into 2018, no?

If you're playing somewhere where you can't just ask your bro to let you mix and match rules because the beta codex is stupid, just use the unmodified index rules. They're significantly better, especially for ministorum stuff.

Eldenfirefly wrote:
There is some kind of weird expectations mismatch going around if you ask me. There is a 17 page thread on people crying about power armor. And yet, sisters of battle have troops which are just 9 points a model in power armor. You would have thought that's great. But I see so much gloom and doom on this thread after the beta codex came out. So, models in power armor at 9 points hardly seems to solve any problems. Yet, when I brought this up on that power armor thread. People there seem to think that that sisters are a powerful army...

I guess the grass always looks greener on the other side...

Sisters WERE a powerful army. The new beta codex nerfed us from 'surprisingly good considering we're an index force' to 'better go pull my Grey Knights out of storage I guess :('.

 Mmmpi wrote:

Eldenfirefly wrote:
There is some kind of weird expectations mismatch going around if you ask me. There is a 17 page thread on people crying about power armor. And yet, sisters of battle have troops which are just 9 points a model in power armor. You would have thought that's great. But I see so much gloom and doom on this thread after the beta codex came out. So, models in power armor at 9 points hardly seems to solve any problems. Yet, when I brought this up on that power armor thread. People there seem to think that that sisters are a powerful army...

I guess the grass always looks greener on the other side...

There is a 17 page thread that has one page complaining about power armor, and 16 pages complaining about T4 being worse than T3, and that plasma is more effective against marines than guard.

Aka standard "Marines aren't mary sue's on the tabletop" thread #34,578

As you were told in the other thread, sister's main issues aren't their power armor. It's their S3/T3, and the fact that using their army rule suddenly became a game of chance. And they lost their ability to actually hurt things. Or move quickly.

I only realized it during that thread but, we literally did end up trading everything good and fun about the army for a shot at a 4++ invul. That's a really bad trade and I wish they hadn't of done that.

Playing Horde sisters sucks not just because any horde lists is obnoxious bullcrap to play against(no, I don't mind at all that your first movement phase took 25 minutes) but because sisters horde lists aren't very good. Once you get sisters in combat with something that can survive the OoBR turn, the whole blob just comes to a standstill. You could destroy that entire list with 2 rhinos. It's not like they have enough long range firepower to get you off of objectives even if their bubblewrapping was perfect.

 davidgr33n wrote:
My “feedback” to GW (40kfaq@gwplc.com) regarding the beta crapdex-

I’ve been playing Sisters since 2nd, so I’m devout for Sisters.
This beta Codex took away all our competitive edge (Celestine and Seraphim double moves and Retributors double shooting) and gave us the POSSIBILITY of MAYBE doing something a lot weaker.
Please do something different than this weak wanna-be Codex.
I’ve played Sisters a long time and have been hopeful, but I’m almost to the point of giving totally up on them and never buying another Sisters model again.
Read all the competitive Sisters blogs and you’ll see how disappointed Sisters players are across the board.
I’m glad you’re listening to us this time, but obviously Sisters are too difficult to write good solid rules for.

My feedback was 3200 words long and only covered Celestine and Acts of Faith. And not in anywhere near the depth I wanted to. I've said it before and I'll say it again, the book is a russian nesting doll of badness. The more I thought about it, the more problems I found.

 davidgr33n wrote:
Celestine in the current story line is supposed to be this bad ass bitch that is amazing, the game Celestine is barely better than an Adeptus Astartes captain with jump pack.

Yep, that was part of my feedback. Compare her to a Custodes Jetbike captain(who is the same price she is) with the 3++ bike and an actually usable warlord trait for extra sadnesses.

Anyone else ALREADY tired of the backseat Generals? Most of these mouth breathers probably couldn't name 2 Sisters of Battle units before CA dropped and now they're experts on an army I've been playing for 3 editions now.

Rynner wrote:
You can get a 3+/4++ lD10 unit that can deny like a psychicer and has a 4+ save against running way.

It requires a canoness with the 5++ WL trait, the brazier of holy fire, Celestine, a priest and a diaglolgus to do. At 141 points for 15 women with 3x storm boilers it becomes quite a slog for your opponent to deal with and chances are they wont be able to remove a unit of them a turn.


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PuppetSoul wrote:
Okay, now that there hasn't been a zeroday errata and the podcast is done, I can freely explain The Pink Tide to everyone.

https://commandpoints.podbean.com/e/command-points-bonus-episode-2-beta-sisters-%F0%9F%98/

Why not? Do they not have bolters? This is the big problem I think that's getting ignored when people talk about horde sisters lists:

The 4++ doesn't really matter. It's not any better on defense than it was when we could actually move the goddam army around the table. How many people are really shooting AP-2, AP-3(in the old setup MSU sisters almost always had cover because 25mm bases.) weapons at battle sisters? Sure, you'll do what every horde army does at first, gunk up balanced lists. But once you run up against a guilliman gunline, or an Ork horde, or even just someone who realizes they lock up half your army with a rhino, the lists will fall down exactly the same as it did pre-codex.

If it works it's because the meta is revolving around knights at the moment, not because Horde Sisters are suddenly massively better, being 16% more difficult to kill with RFBC.


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 Amishprn86 wrote:
Its not going to be as strong as shooting, so i dont see it getting faq, we already talked about this, players are already talking about Celestian squads in Bloody Rose rushing into melee with fire support from Serahpim and Doms.

Those units all move at very different speeds and are incredibly unlikely to be hitting peoples lines at the same time. Also, Celestians are just gakky bloodclaws and those don't see any play either. People can talk about it all they want, that doesn't make them good.

 pretre wrote:

PuppetSoul wrote:
There's no way they didn't realize this was an option during playtesting,

Betcha an imaginary nickel that it gets FAQ'd if people actually start using it.

I'll betcha a real nickel that it absolutely gets FAQ'd if people start using it and a BILLION dollars that they missed that and A LOT of other things in playtesting.

GW don't design stuff like that, ever. They're just loosey-goosey with their language because they couldn't imagine anyone ever doing something that rules lawyer-y. Despite all evidence to the contrary.


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 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Interested in hearing especially how Foot Horde sisters is competitive, and why? I've been keeping up with the thread, but I didn't read it super seriously...

is it really just the 4++ blob on tons of girlies?

It's the same reason any horde is competitive. Most armies aren't designed to shed that many models, games don't usually finish, the current meta is built around knights.

Horde sisters just as strong as it was before, trading most of its mobility for extra defence against AP-2 weapons, and most of its CP for +1 to hit with bolters. It seems stronger than it is because of how much the other strategies sisters have got nerfed.

Purifying Tempest wrote:
You guys have seriously gone off the deep end in your quests to be the uberzbest! GL rules-lawyering that in a game, and gl getting a follow-up game from that person when it happens.

Seriously, stuff like that makes it so hard for GW to make interesting rules... frothing hordes of munchkins trying their darnedest to win regardless the cost or interaction, forcing them to constantly issue erratas because common sense and social contract left the building years ago.

I played the codex, brought about 85 sisters, and rides for just over 20 of them. I had a great time, we had a great fight, and my opponent didn't feel steamrolled by crummy rules that made the army powerful, but was about as fun of an interaction as tides of 'zerkers running over armies turn 1 in the early days of 8th.

The codex played sisters-y, the power can be fixed. I'm honestly glad that the power level of the codex is more down the middle, maybe a little lower if you honestly want to hammer it hard, but gives a good feel of playing Sisters of Battle when on the table. That's my opinion on all of this bickering and fussing, so... feel free to reject it and move on. But this whole mentality is getting irritating to hear all the time.

Seriously... Grey Knights better than Sisters? I honestly lol'd until I realized he was likely serious.

The Grey Knights thing was a joke, they still suck worse. It's just so incredibly unpleasant the way the army plays if you want to keep to the same level of strength we had in the index, that even though Grey Knights are weaker than Sisters in the Beta dex, they seem like they're a better overall play experience. For me, being stuck doing Infantry blobs just to stay relevant is my own personal nightmare situation.

I've always loved sisters of battle as an 'in your face, do or die' shotgun style army; martyring themselves valiantly slaying the unclean for the glory of the emperor. Not 100 25mm bases in my backfield slogging their way up and hoping my opponent is kitted out to kill knights. Being stuck with...this is exactly my worst fear and has been since the beta codex was announced.

Lanlaorn wrote:

 Creeping Dementia wrote:

Further, I would like to see Vessel of the Emperor get removed simply because of the playstyle that it incentivizes (The Pink Tide), and the amount of time that playstyle takes to execute in a competitive setting.

Well, people used to hate playing Sisters because of Celestine and her Seraphim thugs, those got nerfed into oblivion. So now people will have to hate playing Sisters because of the horribly named Pink Tide and 2 turn tournament games.

I do agree though, Vessels has got to go if we are going to have any hope in having individual Acts of Faith matter at all.

The other option would be to have Vessels only affect a limited number of units within 6 inches of the character. So 1 CP, it affects one other unit, 2 CPs = 2 units, ect. So the more CPs you feed it the more units it affects.

No one will have to worry about a "Pink Tide" because no tournament will allow The Passion to be abused in that manner.

Even without actual abuse, the setup itself is still bs. If Acts of Faith are powerful enough that individual units can utilize them effectively, then Vessels means that same ability breaks the crap out of the blob.

Personally, I'd rather the blob not be a thing. Get rid of Vessels and the 4++ and find a more interesting army setup than 'everyone hug in the center.'

Voldrak wrote:
I start 60 sisters on my deployment line. Spread the other 30 to deny deepstrikes behind you as you move up.


Assuming a Dawn of War scenario, It does not really matter if I go first or second.

I start with 60 sisters on my deployment line. Use the rest to deny your backfield from getting deep striked into.

I will move those sisters forward, hopefully, 9 inches on turn 1. If there's nothing to shoot at, advance the army as well and be careful not to break aura buffs.

Turn two is where the game will likely play itself.

You might be in double tap range with the majority of your army after moving up 15-21 inches. You can vessel divine guidance for (assuming all sisters are still alive) 144 bolter shots hitting on 2s and re-rolling 1s.
Anything that is not a tank is likely to be crippled.

Next phase, if you charged in any units, vessel the passion and laugh at the amount of dices being rolled. Even if the passion fails, by then you should have crippled your opponent and ability to react.

Rinse and repeat for the next rounds.


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Stratagems being once per phase, vessel begs to be used during all your phases and command points should be as high as you can.


Once you're done moving, you could even start using vessel on Spirit of the Martyr and just start healing everything around you and resurrecting 6+ models per turn would be so annoying for your opponent.

This with a is probably the best list possible for Sisters to build at the moment but there are a few major problems with it:

1. The movement you described would take an eternity. With decent terrain down it'll take two. The precision of movement necessary to maintain both Vessels and the 4++ range will mean a 9" move with a ton of models means you could be looking at first turn movement phases in the dozens of minutes. Another sidebar on this is that you don't really get to choose where the sisters deploy if you want them to stay in range for the 4++. 90 models, even on 25mm basis takes up a good chunk and 6" isn't really that big of a bubble. It's actually fairly likely that you won't be able to move the full amount you can just because you have to maintain the bubble.

2. Even with 4++ you'll be losing between 20-30 sisters per shooting phase against any army with reasonable anti-horde. Sisters are incredibly vulnerable to even just bolt guns. Even marine's basic 3 units of bolter scouts can kill 9 girls per turn.

3. The offense is still pretty poor. 144 bolter shots, even on 2s rerolling only kills 24 marines. Less if they get cover(which will be a very hard thing for you to do but will be pretty simple for them). Vessels divine guidance is also EXTREMELY vulnerable to -1 to hit rules because it means you're not getting that sweet 97% hit chance.

4. You're vulnerable to things like Leman Russ tanks, or Rhinos, or even Bloat drones charging your lines and gumming up your movement. Even with the Bloody Rose boost, a good opponent will be able to take 2-3 units out of the bubble in a way that faces minimal retaliation.

5. Faster armies will be able to dodge out of your offensive range. Faster Hordes will be able to charge you before you get to them, which is a massive hit. A unit of 30 ork boyz will likely kill enough girls before they go down that the blob is essentially crippled.

6. You're currently using 6CP per turn with just 2 casts of Vessels. It means that taking something like a Castellan to be your offensive backbone won't work because even a brigade will be out of CP by turn 2. You're looking at Exorcists or Heavy bolters for damage and those aren't quite on the same level of the options Knights have.

These things don't mean that the list isn't still very strong. It absolutely is. I'd argue that it's the strongest list we have available to us in the new book. BUT, it's going to be time consuming, not as good as it seems on paper, unwieldy and unlikely to be an enjoyable play experience for either you OR your opponent.


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 warmaster21 wrote:
Seconded, Get rid of Vessels.

As long as Vessels exists the entire codex is going to be held hostage by 1 command ability which is terrible design, and you can see the effect 1 powerful strategem has had in many codex's

Also get rid of repressors. Other OOP forge world models got squatted and are not match play allowed yet the repressor is there (and yes i know there are plenty of good 3rd party repressors out there) but while the repressor is there GW has to keep that in mind and its power is so great it can also limit any codex growth.

I think it can work if it only applies to a set number of units, rather than every dip-stuff that happens to be close enough.

 Mmmpi wrote:
Only get rid of vessels if you're going to make the Acts better.

And make repressors actually part of the codex, not a removal piece.

From how the acts of faith system is designed I am 100% sure they're as weak as they are BECAUSE of Vessels. They designed the whole system, had everything all setup and ready to go. Then somebody had a BRIGHT idea to add a thing that definitely broke whatever that system was. Instead of just ditching vessels though, they ditched the other AoFs trying to make Vessels work.

 Drider wrote:
I think you are comparing the wrong things. Dominions aren't fighting for a slot VS Exorcists, but i'll give you that they do have similar roles.
I posted this on B&C the other day as part of a play test report and it seems relevant so i'll repost it here.

I think the status of HB Rets Vs Exorcist should be reevaluated for the fire support role. They do different jobs, yes, but I feel like we have so many options in competition for killing the same stuff HB rets want to kill that the exorcist may well be a viable pick. Especially if you're sacking melta doms for SB doms which seems like a smart move given the value of Blessed Bolts. Still a bit fickle with number of shots but it feels closer to it's 6E roll of cleaning up units that aren't quite dead and focusing down T6 MCs or T7 tanks.

Touching on Melta Doms for a moment, I think they're old hat. They struggled to do there job in Index and even with the additional tools we've been given in Beta they still struggle to do there job. I'm personally thinking about dropping Melta Doms completely.

My thought train on the list build are leading me towards something that looks like: Bloody Rose, Celestine, some Smash Canonesses, a big squad of troops for spaghetti with an upgraded stick for tactical stormsheilds, a couple small squads of troops to fill out detachments, a few Exorcists, a few units of repentia, preacher, mistress, dialogus, a few rhinos and some SB dominions. Vanguard push forward the rhinos pre game while keeping the 4++, doms jump out, repentia and support jump in. Hand+advance the warlord canoness and push forward the rhinos, pop smoke and sit mid field with -1 to hit and a 4++. It would be nice to try to fit in a big unit of seraphim for tactical spaghetti. Maybe sprinkle in some melta on the troops to help prop up the anti tank. Trinity HF Rets are good too but they're a bit unwieldy, they're good when they're used but they don't get to be used every turn.

I can see running SB doms instead of Melta but repentia? I know the math on them with OoBR and The Passion kicks out some pretty impressive numbers, but they're still not very good. They die to a stiff breeze even with the 4++ bubble and they're painfully slow. You'll lose half a squad to every overwatch unless you're sacking rhinos and stuff to eat it. Even then, once they hit something your opponent will know what they do and kill them immediately. They're not cheap enough or hard enough to dispense for them to be a good distraction carnifex. Finally, it's not like the rest of the army is that threatening. They'll have 2-3 free turns while the blob slogs up field to pick out the repentia's transport and the repentia to cut off the majority of you blob's total damage output.

 RenegadeKorps wrote:
I played this list yesterday against a Custodes list (16 bikes) with 3 BA jump pack captains.
An easy win. He was almost table by turn 2. We played the new Maelstrom mission #1.
I played second and use the +1CP stratagem for the whole army. Everything had a 2+/4++ with seraphims at 3++.
In the end, whatever you take besides these leman russ doesn't matter (being the best unit of the game, they palliate the rest).
When you compare a Canoness (with her six s8 ap-4 attacks at 3+ re-rolling 1s) with a custodes guard, for about the same price the Canoness wins out in my opinion (being a character and having an inferno pistol). 3 of them and the fight twice AoF + vessel means 38 attacks (52 with celestine herself)... If only we could negate invulnerable save!

I think the changes to the Beta Codex make Custodes the second easiest matchup we could ask for. The easiest being Grey Knights. When Blessed bolts is capable of turning 51pt infantry into a Custodes buzzsaw and the whole army has a 4++ and large body count, that's not a great situation for a 19 model army to be in.


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Voldrak wrote:
If the changes in the scoring system that came with CA2018 are an indication of where the game is going, the sisters having extremely durable troops that can be fielded in mass will be good for them.

Score the objectives long enough and even if you get tabled in the end, you will still win.

They're not that durable, they're bouyed by being very cheap for the durability they do have. The 4++ is more for stonewalling things like SmashCaptains, Custodes Jetbikes and Daemon princes. Things that have high quality, low quantity attacks. Things like Assault Cannons and even our own arcoflagellents trash battle sisters just a well as they ever have.


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PuppetSoul wrote:

 RenegadeKorps wrote:
Leman Russ in my list instead of Exorcist. Well, each of them killed 2.5 custodes bikes per shooting without luck. An exorcist can kill 1 with luck. I see no reason to take an Exorcist in no match up whatsoever. (Plasma LR are overpowered right now, that's the way it is.)

Plasma Cannons are undercosted (they cost 10 points, and a regular plasma gun costs 11... wtf).

I do not think that LRs are overpowered though, because they essentially don't have a save versus anti-tank weaponry.
They're very glass-cannony, where they're essentially immune to sub-Str5 weaponry, but they pop like a pinata to high strength, high AP weaponry.

 RenegadeKorps wrote:

I use the Canoness datasheet from the Index with the most recent point costs. CA2017 point cost for eviscerator is still the most recent one for that weapon option. Go read CA2018, p.124, first paragraph. It's very clear. It says basically : «new point values below for a weapon replace old ones». But there's no new point value for eviscerator «below».

Does CA2017 exist anymore? Or was it completely replaced by CA2018 and the reason most things are just relisted with the same point cost as they had in CA2017 (e.g.- Repressor) is because of that invalidation (see: how it works with General's Handbook for AoS)?

The general's handbook is a bit different because they print the point cost of every unit in the game, so it doesn't matter if it changed or not, what's in the book is the correct value(unless the printing department fs up like they did with Deepkin).

Waaaghpower wrote:
Is it just me, or does it seem like we have a few relics and options that are "Mandatory" to fill out our army?
Book of St Lucius + Indomnitable Belief is pretty much an auto take for durability reasons.
Brazier is mandatory in any situation where we need psychic defense.
Blade of Admonition is not a must-take, but is at least a should-take if we want anything in melee that isn't also repenting for something.


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Unrelated, but I'm toying around with a potential detachment that could be slotted in to other armies to act as the "Melee punch" for otherwise shooty detachments.

Vanguard Detachment
Bloody Rose

Canoness, Blade of Admonition (49pts) [Warlord - Give her Indomitable Belief)
Celestine (160pts) [Optional - If this is being added to a Sisters list, she can be part of the main detachment.]

Preacher (25pts)
Mistress of Repentance (38pts)
9x Repentia (135pts)
9x Repentia (135pts)

Rhino, 2x Storm Bolters (77pts)
Rhino, 2x Storm Bolters (77pts)


In total, it's 696 points - 536 if you aren't counting Celestine, 746 if you include the Geminae.

Both Rhinos get packed full of Repentia, one gets the Preacher, the other gets the Mistress. Celestine and the Canoness run behind, (giving the Canoness +3" Act of Faith when possible so she can keep up more easily,) giving the Rhinos a 4++ to keep them alive against antitank fire.

The rest of the strategy is pretty obvious. Run this forward, charge something scary. (Use the Rhinos to charge first, to absorb overwatch.) Try and activate The Passion, using a Command Point to reroll if necessary, and then use Vessel to get it onto both squads.

Best case scenario, you're getting 144 attacks at S8 AP-2 D2, hitting on 4+ with rerolls on 1s and 2s to hit, plus 12 attacks at S6 AP-3 D3 hitting on a rerollable 2+, plus 14 attacks at S7 AP-3 D2 hitting on 2s. That's going to melt pretty much anything, or more likely it's going to melt several anythings. (Of course, getting all of these is pretty unlikely, since your opponent is going to sink a ton of firepower into killing them, but rhinos with a 4++ are not bad in terms of durability and there's always an Act of Faith to bring back a model here or there as needed.)

Book isn't always all that helpful tbh. If you're not going for the 4++ and Vessels then the double bubbles are pretty huge already. If you are then you need to be within 6 of Celestine and the Canoness anyway. It does makes certain small bubble setups more practical, however. A good example would of this would be the double Rhino detachment you suggested. Book would be very useful there because the only units the bubbles need to overlap are the Rhinos. If you tried to add more infantry or more tanks, you start running into issues where you get stragglers only catching a 5++ and getting picked off.

Your setup is a pretty typical usage of Repentia but it has some problems. First is that 700pts is REALLY expensive, you could buy 4 of the melee Armigers or 2 Knight Gallants for that. It requires your canoness to be Warlord, which makes it unsuitable for allies, and you're only really going to get one shot with each unit if they do make it to combat. Repentia are devastatingly weak to both small arms fire and counter charges(even units of fire warriors can kill multiple repentia in a combat round). That said, if you can sneak them under the radar a unit of fully buffed repentia has like a 40% chance to Ace a Castellan in a single shot.

Sidebar: Don't waste points on the Geminae. They're arguably the worst unit in the game at the moment.


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 alextroy wrote:
Great report, Mr Morden. Using the rules we have to see what works is excellent.

My only criticism is it looks like you are 4 points short because you only purchased 1 of 2 Power Swords for the Gemenia.

My criticism is to not give the 4++ ball a real name, lol. 'The Center Blob' is frankly as respectful as setups like that deserve. Darn you GW !

 MacPhail wrote:

Lanlaorn wrote:
What are people doing to actually put out damage? Stormbolters with the strategem are great but that's one unit per turn and your SB Dominions will die right after they fire.

Similarly Trinity squads are a lot of effort in specific kit and getting close to the enemy for little meaningful output. A Combi-Flamer, 4 Meltas, Simulacrum Imperialis Dominion squad could use a Faith Point and 2 CP to get +1 to hit, +1 to wound and reroll wound rolls of 1, but while those modifiers would be impressive if we were firing Haywire Cannons, alas we're shooting Meltaguns...

In general while I enjoy our new strategems (better than nothing!) I feel like it's hardly worth the CP to improve MSU troops with only 3 specials per squad.and a kitted out Dominion team still outputs lackluster numbers - frankly they were balanced when they could shoot twice before they died.

Anyway as written I don't see any reasonable damage output in the book, am I missing anything?

I don't disagree about damage output. To your questions, I'm looking to fire off Holy Trinity most turns targeting either a Dominion squad with 4 meltas and a combi flamer or a Retributer squad with 4 heavy flamers and a combi melta. If I can optimize my targets for those squads, shifting the wound roll by +1 should have some observable result. Blessed Bolts likewise goes off every turn on a big unit of stormbolter Dominions. I'm going to try a Bloody Rose Canoness/Celestian/Preacher bomb to see if I can pick up some wounds there. Shooting phase rerolls will probably go to keeping up the RoF on the Exorcists.

It isn't an obvious avalanche of dakka, but once I add in all the boltguns and factor in a new degree of resiliency, I'm cautiously optimistic.

Holy Trinity isn't...a great option. Or a good one. Mathematically it gives you about the same amount of extra damage output as a CP reroll at the cost of making the unit worse without spending CP on it. Melta doms are especially poor with HT. You'll be better off just brinigng 5 melta guns 95% of the time. Even HT on heavy flamer rets, which is absolutely its best use, gets you like 2 extra wounds against a 3+ save. Holy Trinity is pretty dead in the water because +1 to wound is a very small bonus and having melta+flamer+bolter all shooting at the same target is bad.

Our best option for offense is a castellan, or a crusader if you're on a points budget, or 3 Leman Russ tank commanders. Sisters only real strengths as an army at the moment are being deeply annoying to kill and stonewalling psychic powers.

 pretre wrote:

PuppetSoul wrote:
I have a plethora of Dreamforge conversions with a mixture of forgeworld, popgoesthemonkey, and GW addon bits.

I will not be fielding those.

This Dark Vengeance spam, with Beret-wearing Statuesque miniatures heads, is going to be dipped in pink paint, exposed skin will be green, with squad-specific berets, and fielded as a protest vote that will inevitably make it on camera at some point during LVO.

This seems like the exact opposite of what you want to do to effect meaningful change and I would hate to see it across the table. Also, if I was a TO, I would deny you using it as Sisters, since it is clearly SM models.


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Rynner wrote:
Semi off topic (I know) but every time I hear a podcaster who doesn't play sisters talk about how good they are I shudder.

My W** moment was when Mike Brandt called them fringe competitive on FTN or something.

Okay, not to be a jerk here, but...

If MVB or some of the players that actually play at the top tables think they are competitive and you don't, what do you know that they don't? "I play the army" Sure, but these guys know the game.

Top table players saying an army they haven't played is competitive isn't particularly meaningful, because people are often wrong about things. Especially when they're unfamiliar with them. Reece went on record saying Grey Knights were perfectly viable a couple of times after the codex dropped and has since had to retract that statement. Generally speaking, a good player who plays the army a lot will have a more useful opinion than a great player that doesn't. The Sisters of Battle codex is also one of the most misleading books in the game for people who are unfamiliar with the army. There are traps EVERYWHERE for new players to fall into that are actually EVEN more dangerous for GOOD players than BAD players.

+1 to hit on the whole army sounds amazing, for sisters it's kinda not. Fight twice sounds amazing, for sisters it's kinda not. 'A better version of run and shoot/charge' sounds amazing but for Sisters it's kinda not, a 4++ bubble sounds amazing but it's only pretty good, Holy trinity sounds useable but it's just to trick you into taking gak loadouts, martydom sounds good but ends up being a waste of CP, etc, etc, etc. The whole book is a pitfall trap for players that don't really know what Sisters of Battle do.

Secondly, Top Table players saying an army they haven't played is competitive isn't particularly meaningful because people are often not honest about things. People being recorded are much more likely to offer more optimistic takes on army rules than when they're reading through the book themselves or BSing with friends. This is ESPECIALLY true of anyone who happens to be on the playtest team. 'Fringe competitive' is an optimistic take at best, but is more likely to be damning with faint praise. If you listen closely you can tell when the top players genuinely think an army might be really good and when they're just trying not to crap on anyone's toes. Geoff Robinson and Petey Pob talked about the book a bit on Chapter Tactics and the entire time they're pausing and thinking very carefully about how they phrase things and qualifying their statements with stuff like 'well I wouldn't recommend it to a new player but...'. It's the exact type of tone people first talked about the Grey Knight book in. If they actually like a book they'll talk about all the combos they're excited to pull and how they just bought a whole army like people did when the CWE, Custodes, and Guard books dropped. No one who reviewed the book, even the people who were very positive about it, ever sounded excited.

Also, Rynner didn't you get like 11th at LVO last year with a majority Sisters list?


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 Grundz wrote:

PuppetSoul wrote:

The real estate around your deathstar dictates how your army plays.

Anything that ends the movement phase within 8" of an enemy model is probably going to be charging at it.
So you can't have a flamer on the end of a tendril that has plot armor, and then lose the two girls behind her: if they charge her and position two bases between her and the rest of her tendril, that entire tendril is basically deleted because you can't move, pile in or consolidate them because they can't re-establish coherency.
So what you'll probably end up doing is putting the stormbolters near the center, with the power axe wielding Superior as the one furthest from the center (but not more than 5 away from it), and then taking casualties as you please from the 10-girls off the ends so that the unit still functions and secures its objectives.

I dont know where you got the full squad was being strung way out for some reason with the edge of the squad sitting in all of the auras.
We've established you're okay with not having a trinity squad and relying on bolters, its fine, enjoy.

Trinity is kind of gak. Even under ideal circumstances with a 15 girl squad with the right combination of Melta+Flamer for the target(2 melta 1 Flamer for Armor, 2 flamer 1 melta for hordes) it's pretty crap. You usually end up getting a pretty comparative boost out of not running a doofy setup and just using the CP for a reroll.


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 Grundz wrote:

PuppetSoul wrote:

Against T8 3++ that's ~4.41 wounds.

This is the kicker
Its still 4.41 wounds against a warlord titan
I wouldn't mix a stormbolter into a trinity squad even though they are neat

blessed bolts may be better, but you can only use it once per turn, you need one or two squads capable of using trinity

The numbers are wrong. That's shots, not hits. Even Divine guidance with a Canoness won't get you those numbers.

My numbers say 3.09 for CF/SB/M and 3.31 for double melta both for a 15 girl squad. This is a 1.4 damage increase over a CF/M/M squad with no Holy trinity and a 1.2 increase over a CM/M/M squad with no holy trinity.

Like I said in the previous post, even in a best case scenario where all your bolter girls are alive, it's still about as good as just using a CP reroll. If you lose 7 bolter girls, it's actually worse.

PuppetSoul wrote:

ERJAK wrote:

The numbers are wrong. That's shots, not hits. Even Divine guidance with a Canoness won't get you those numbers.

Divine Guidance with a Canoness means 2.89% of our shots will miss under perfectly controlled circumstances.

Unless you play 40k on a craps table with casino dice, that's below the margin of error for people bringing their own dice.

It's not practically relevant sure, but A. You're not getting a Canoness with holy trinity most of the time(or if you are you're sacrificing bolter shots for the sake of conga lining) and B. It is still technically not 100% chance to hit.


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Lord of Nonsensical Crap wrote:
Okay, so a few questions before I share some of my own attempts at a Sisters list:

1. Blobs of infantry: would you say they are worth taking at all now, or is mech still the way to go?
2. How viable does an Argent Shroud Spearhead sound? Everything that your Exos/Rets kill has a chance of regaining a faith point
3. Just in general, has anyone been having any success with any non-Bloody Rose order? I did see earlier on this page that someone had a good run with Valorous Heart.

1. Some people argue that infantry blobs are the overall best way to use Sisters in the new book. While I agree that the book definitely pushes you in that direction, I'm not sold that the bonuses you get for running infantry blobs make up for OUR infantry blob's inherent deficiencies in objective based games.

2. Not at all. Getting extra faith points is not really a priority. Most of the time you'll end the game with leftover faith points. If you DO need to get more FP than what you can get out of martyrdom will be more than enough in most cases.

3. Sacred rose(5+ overwatch and Morale protection) is very nearly as good as Bloody Rose is.


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 Mr Morden wrote:
I ran double batt plus vanguard at 2000pts and once I had bought relics, the 11CP I had left vanished far far too quickly.

We chew through CP faster than any army in the game by far, even only using vessels once or twice a game(despite the fact that the power of the ability is such that you need to use it multiple times PER TURN to see any real return on investment). We make Castellan soup look like space marines.


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PuppetSoul wrote:

 deviantduck wrote:

I also have no interest in running castled up horde sisters.

While I would have preferred a more interactive playstyle that had more difficult decisions than whether or not I should waste my own clock time turning models sideways when I declare charges and seeing if my opponent understands the joke, I accept that this is what Sisters are at for at least the next three months, but more likely the next twelve; remember the nine months between CA2018 development and physical release? Well if they're actually going to be reading any of the feedback, then that nine month shot clock hasn't even started yet: they likely won't start actually roundtabling feedback until after they see how LVO pans out.

That's stupid. The data set they're going to get from LVO won't be much help at all. Only like 3-4 people in the top 100 slots ever play sisters and of those AT LEAST 1 is going to stick with the index rules. The only way the LVO dataset would have been significant is if the book had received a clear buff.

In fact, this can only be bad for us. 95% chance sisters see no significant representation in the top 50, but there is that 5% chance that Nick Nanavati or Andrew Gonyo or somebody do some weird anti-meta soup build that uses the 4++ to like...deny the opponent the ability to deploy, creating an instant first turn win through some weird rules loophole we all missed or something and GW walks away going 'Well that army is far too powerful! Let's ignore all the feedback we've gotten up to now and put New Celestine to 250pts, change divine guidance to 'reroll 1s to hit' Change spirit of the martyr to heal wounds only, and make the Immolation flamer Heavy and only d3 hits.'




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 Grundz wrote:

PuppetSoul wrote:

The most exciting thing you're going to do is pray you don't get gaked by the dice for your Exorcist shots and The Passion rolls; but that's not going to feel exciting, it's going to have two modes: operating like you expect it to, and soulcrushing disappointment.

Thats why you need to save as much cp for rerolls as you can not blow it on rezzing 5 infantry :p

Or you could bring a GOOD tank.

 Drider wrote:
One big blob moving into the center field. when you take into account Cannoness base size, 9" aura, celestines base size, 6" aura, it just makes it a little bit easier to catch both auras. Brazier cannoness in the blob there too to spread her goodness over as many units as possible.

There's no point in splitting them up, 1 rhino is enough for a make shift LoS blocker and means 1 bubble wrap can pull tripple time.

That whole thing sounds miserable. Your movement phases would take half an hour on any table with reasonable terrain.

And even now I'm still not sold on the 4++ bubble for infantry. For the tanks, it's obviously fantastic. For infantry, I keep wracking my brain to try and think of any time people were throwing -2, or -3 AP weapons at battle sisters and the only things I can think of are non-overcharged plasma and DE disintegrator cannons. Those are obviously good weapons that are fairly prevelant in their respective armies, but is it worth building a 'not really a death ball' for those specific cases?

I'm starting to think that maybe full mech is the best way to play SoB atm. Triple Exorcist with a bunch of immolators/repressors all balled up around the 4++ characters. Go first and you can push out your dominions and walk the blob up the field with Hand of the Emperor on the Canoness(finally a not pathetic use for Hand of the Emperor) and a decent run roll. You can even cancel the movement penalty for the exorcists with Vessels.

If you go second, either get the dominions out of line of sight or keep them together with the 4++ ball and wait out the first turn. With immolation flamers and/or repressors you should be able to hit SOMETHING on that turn.

The big thing with this is that I think you need to do it in such a way that you can still afford at least 500pts of allies(which will NOT be easy at 100pts per transport) and since you can't make a knight your warlord, the easy Crusader/Castellan slot in probably won't work for you. I need to test this more...

 dracpanzer wrote:

ERJAK wrote:
The big thing with this is that I think you need to do it in such a way that you can still afford at least 500pts of allies(which will NOT be easy at 100pts per transport) and since you can't make a knight your warlord, the easy Crusader/Castellan slot in probably won't work for you. I need to test this more...

Agreed on all points, I've been running two battalions of OoSR with my +1 detachment of "lets see what this does" running at just over 300 points. That's running 3 Canoni, Celestine and a Missionary of one kind or another. Bringing a Missionary in each Battalion and dropping Celestine all together could get that number up over 450 points outside the two Battalions. Normally I run pure Sisters, but I have put a few Helverins in this list while leaving Celestine in. If you removed her to get above 450, what would you add?

Two Jetbike Custodes Captains and an Allarus Captain or 3 smash captains or a Knight Crusader are all possibilities. You might even be able to swing something like 3 Russ tank commanders or some Admech Shenanigans. Double Helverin works also. Some of the setups you have to be a bit...creative with your points cuts (less so if you give all your allies anti-tank and switch doms to SB) but you can swing up to 480pts of allies without giving up too much.

Or just bring 3 exorcists and some extra bells and whistles and pray the dice gods love you.


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Waaaghpower wrote:

Rynner wrote:

I'll do you one better 25 PC -

Spoiler:

Brigade:

Canoness, Storm Bolter, P Sword
Celestine
Uriah
6x 5x BSS squads w/3x Storm Bolters
3x 5x Dominons squads w/5x Storm Bolters
2x Dialogus
5x Celestians, 3x Strom Bolters
3x Excorcists

Battalion:
Canoness, Power Axe, Storm Bolter
Missionary
15x BSS, 3x Storm Bolters
15x BSS 3x Storm Botlters
15x BSS 3x Storm Bolters

Battalion:
Canoness, Power Axe, Storm Bolter
Missonary

3x 5x BSS, 3x Storm Bolters

I realize this is just a hypothetical, but it's a pretty bad list. The only source of S7+ is Celestine and the Exorcists, and three Exorcists aren't enough on their own to deal with heavy hitting targets. Even assuming you don't get back luck at a critical moment (Which is extremely common) you're only going to be averaging 9 wounds against T8 5++, (which is to say, Knights,) assuming you have a Canoness nearby for buffs. If your target has a better invuln, your DPS goes down even further. If you face an army full of transports, you're going to find yourself incapable of using most of your anti-infantry damage because you lack the ability to crack open the shells.

It's got plenty of anti-infantry, but that's not enough on its own.

A list like this actually doesn't care about heavy hitters...or really any weapons with AP better than -1. Kill your opponent's heavy bolters and melee units early with the exorcists and sit back while your opponent tears their hair out trying to kill 115 infantry models with 3+4++ models that regenerate.

You'll kill like...200pts worth of models and win because you just blob up so much of the board. You insta-lose against any army that either out-hordes you or that has enough medium strength, low AP firepower to start clearing off full squads, but against like a knight army, or a custodes list, you don't even need to actually do any wounds to win.


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 zaahul wrote:
Thoughts on a wedge formation with 3 penitent engines and Celestine in the middle. You get a nasty hth squad with 4+/6++/5+++

Just finshied a tournament, and that set up worked for me better then trying to castle the 4++ on other tanks.

That’s 460pts. I feel it was better damage and survivabilty then a OoBR repentia set up. And you could keep tacting on Pentient engines at 100pts a pop.

Full spear head maxed out would be 1060. 36a s10 -3ap 3d, fight again, no passion needed.

?

I think it ultimtely ends up being a bit meta dependent. The ITC is skewed quite a bit towards Knights at the moment so in those areas there is A LOT of anti-tank running around. If you play in a more Infantry heavy area, that many penitent engines might just overload your opponent's ability to deal with them.


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Eldenfirefly wrote:
I think knight allies go really well with sisters. Lets be honest, how many pure army lists are we seeing these days anyway. Soup is so common its more or less accepted.

Having a Castellan with two helverins ally with a sisters army seems like best of both worlds. You get doms in repulsers charging up the board with exorcists at the back raining death from afar along with the helverins and the castellan. And with all that mech, its a lot of hp to chew through.

Its still a predominantly sisters army as far as I am concerned.

You can't really fit all of those things into one list, if you want to have a good number of CP. Just a min battalion with Melta Doms is over 1000pts. Even going SB doms doesn't save you a ton. With a min battalion with SB doms, a Castellan and 2 Helverins you're looking at like 8CP and enough room for 1-1.5 exorcists.

 deviantduck wrote:

ERJAK wrote:
That's stupid. The data set they're going to get from LVO won't be much help at all. Only like 3-4 people in the top 100 slots ever play sisters and of those AT LEAST 1 is going to stick with the index rules. The only way the LVO dataset would have been significant is if the book had received a clear buff.

Reece specifically stated that the index is dead for LVO. The beta dex is the only codex you can play for sisters now.

I've been running this since the beta drop. As much as hate the new dex, I have had pretty decent results.
Battalion
Canoness - Blade
Canoness - naked
BSS 3x SB
BSS 3x SB
BSS 3x SB
Dom 5x SB
Dom 5x SB
Dom 5x SB
Repressor 2x SB
Repressor 2x SB
Repressor 2x SB

Spearhead
Celestine
Seraphim 4x Flamer
Rets 4x HB
Rets 4x HB
Exo
Exo

Super Heavy Aux
Castellan

If you go second you can castle and hide in the transports. If you go first, deploy enough so the BSS can run up and hop in, then move the tanks. Then you have 3 repressors with 1x Dom and 1x BSS or scatter as needed. If they shoot at the 4++ Exos or Repressors then you're Castellan is doing a happy dance in the corner. If they shoot at your castellan and don't get kill it, then who cares for 1cp it's 100% next turn and the rest of your crap can open fire.

We're basically hosting an RTT in my buddy's basement in January. I'll have more reports on performance later. The 9CP is right on the borderline of not enough, so i might drop the Doms for BSS and run two battalions. I'd lose out on scout and 6 storm bolters, but meh. The Seraphim are in there as a min squad for line breaker hiding on turn 3 or to drop on something squishy to take an objective with their 12" flamer strat. I've been primarily running FNP for the battalion and 5+ overwatch for the spearhead. AoF are an afterthought bonus. Pretty much Passion on Celestine and the blade Canoness and Divine guidance on the Rets. I haven't thought twice bout trying Vessels because most of my CP goes to the knight.

A Castellan soup list that uses a lot of cheap infantry for mobility, screening and CP support that does well? Who ever would of guessed. I never in a million years would have bet that a Castellan soup list would see positive results. How amazing it is to me that a setup like this works well. I am the shocked.

That list would have worked basically the same in the index except traded mobility for better defense. I think fundamentally, that's the biggest problem with this book. It needed to be better than the index if we wanted to be an actually competitively viable option and it mostly just shuffled the power around a bit(and made the army a bit boring imo).

The fact that they're banning the index rules is silly. It's a beta codex, it's not even a real book. If I bring a Dark Eldar codex I wrote in crayon on some napkins, is that legal too?


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tneva82 wrote:

ERJAK wrote:

A list like this actually doesn't care about heavy hitters...or really any weapons with AP better than -1. Kill your opponent's heavy bolters and melee units early with the exorcists and sit back while your opponent tears their hair out trying to kill 115 infantry models with 3+4++ models that regenerate.

You'll kill like...200pts worth of models and win because you just blob up so much of the board. You insta-lose against any army that either out-hordes you or that has enough medium strength, low AP firepower to start clearing off full squads, but against like a knight army, or a custodes list, you don't even need to actually do any wounds to win.

.

Is 115 3/4 save wounds that much harder than 300 no save troops? Having tried 300+ model swarm banking on that many not getting wiped off only to be wiped out in 5 turns learned you do need to kill stuff. Offence outpowers defence in 8thed. No 2++ rerollable 30 wound units with wound allocation shenigans or something like that.

It can be, depending on the matchup. People see marines get cleared off the board and forget how ridiculous 3+ actually is when costed appropriately. Offense outpaces defense in normal army situations. This is not that. Clearing that many sisters requires as many ap-0 shots at it would take to kill 345 saveless models...assuming they're out in the open. But they're not in the open, they'll be in cover everywhere, which puts them into the 2+ save territory, which is the same as almost SEVEN HUNDRED saveless models. You're basically immune to moral and you regenerate like(crappy) Necrons.

Also, you have very little offense, not none. All you have to do is kill anything that has a large number of attacks/shots. Daemonettes, aggressors, HB Devs, Sicarran infiltrators, etc. Something like a Knight Castellan wouldn't even be worth bothering with. Between divine guidance, fire and fury, blessed bolts etc, you should be able to clear off his chaff clearing units and then outright ignore anything with more than AP-1.

It's a miserable list to play and you will run into armies that happen to have enough shots/attacks to take you out anyway(Orkz come to mind) but against certain lists you can kill 2-3 units and ignore the rest and still probably win.


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Rynner wrote:
At the risk of being that guy - at a big event and you plop down a horde list I think most people will understand the lack of friendly conversation being attributed to the mad dash to finish the game.

Just don't bother. Horde lists are stronger early than they are late anyway. Play at a normal pace and end the game on 3 up by a bunch of objective points. Then convince your opponent that it was because of GW's bs pushing of horde armies and tell them to write GW to make Horde armies less prevelant.

Do that enough and the problem should solve itself.

PuppetSoul wrote:

 davidgr33n wrote:

I’m my competitive play I’ve never had to use 4++ save on footsloggers. Who shoots AP -2 weapons at footslogging infantry??? Not only that, but what use is a blobbed up horde that can’t get to spread out objectives? Any competitive player will just stay away from the horde and claim objectives at distance from the horde.

When you have 150 girls, you'll find that a lot more than just basic infantry weapons have to be aimed at them to stand any reasonable chance of clearing them before they envelope the board.

Two sets of 15 basic sisters in a staggered line can span eighty-four inches in width (wider than the board).

Assume that you're playing on a 4x6, that means even on Dawn of War, you can span between the objectives (the objectives are 36" apart, meaning a 0.28" gap between each girl), four girls deep.

 davidgr33n wrote:

And actually, T7 / T8 tanks with a 3+ /5++ / 6+++ can be quite survivable, especially as Repressors can get stuck in combat (and not totally suck) and have the Sisters inside shoot out at another opponent.

They don't get the 6+++; Orders don't apply to anything which doesn't have the Infantry keyword.

Yeah, but like...so? That's 1555 points minimum, before weapon upgrades and we could do that before. The only difference between that blob now and that blob in the index in is that we went from a 5++ to a 4++ and Vessels. Vessels is weak and all the 4++ does is make the list slower and make weapons that already weren't very good at clearing basic battle sisters 17% worse.

It'll beat armies that aren't built to deal with hordes, because it's a horde. Against armies that have decent horde clearing ability, you're mostly relying on slowplay.