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I've just had an idea, I know it won't be a good idea from a competitive standpoint I think it would just be a fun army to play. And having an entire horde army of raging fanatical women wielding 2 handed chainswords would be a sight to see!

I'm seriously thinking of making a SOB Penitent Host using AOO and just spamming full squads of Sisters Repentia, Repentia Superiors and Penitent Engines and would like suggestions on the best way to do it? After some cursory research between an AOO Detachment and a Patrol Detachment I could have roughly.

1 Canoness
1 Missionary
1 Palatine

1 Dialogus

6 Repentia Superiors (4 AOO, 2 Combat Patrol)
6 squads of 10 Repentia

1 Battle Sister Squad (compulsory)

5 squads of 2 Penitent Engines.

I'm thinking assign each Superior to a squad of Repentia, use their buffs to run them up the board and straight into the enemy. In front will be my Penitent Engines to hopefully take the brunt of enemy fire and the rest of the characters will follow behind to support the units/in combat when needed while the compulsory battle sister squad will hold my home objective.

My big questions are

1. What loadouts/characters (relics, WLT, Hymns, Blessings etc) do you think would work best to support this type of army?

2. Which Order would probably be best? I think either OML or BR would be best but there may be some Minoris combos that would be fun (I'm looking at some combination of Hallowed Martyrs, Holly Wrath, Righteous Suffering and Shield of Aversion).

3. Are there any combos that I could play off of for Stratagems/abilities?

4. Has anyone done anything similar that they could share their experience with?

As always thanks for your time!

Rule of Three still exists.

 JNAProductions wrote:
Rule of Three still exists.

Doesn't apply as I don't play tournaments just my local gaming group, and even if I did I know not every tournament uses this as it's optional and up to the TO

I don't think Rule of 3 is optional in Ninth... I certainly know it isn't optional in Crusade.

Rule of 3 was a tournament guideline/suggestion in 8th.

It's a core rule in 9th.

 Warboss Imbad Ironskull wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:
Rule of Three still exists.

Doesn't apply as I don't play tournaments just my local gaming group, and even if I did I know not every tournament uses this as it's optional and up to the TO

If you play AoO it exist.

If you don't follow it you aren't playing AoO so asking comments is pointless as we don't know all your house rules. We can't comment as we don't play same game as you. You play your house rules, we play AoO which you don't. To get comments you would a) first have to provide full rules you play b) somebody here would have to bother to play your version of game and why on earth would anybody here bother to playtest your rules for your sake when they can simply play the game most people play? You better provide some cash as incentive at least rather than ask others work for you for free.

Could always houserule to ignore it, but if you are using Arks of Omen as the title suggests, that mission pack has rule of three.

You can maybe play formats that don't have rule of three, but those don't have the Arks of Omen Detachment (atm).

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Rule of 3 was a tournament guideline/suggestion in 8th.

It's a core rule in 9th.

It is a matched play rule in 9th.

This is silly anyway. All Arco Flaggelants would be far more scary.

PenitentJake wrote:
It is a matched play rule in 9th.

Which means it's a rule for most of the games people play.

The comment was "I don't play tournaments", which has exactly zero to do with the rule of 3.

@ Warboss Imbad Ironskull:
I would try to squeeze some Preachers into that list. At least one as they are only 25-30 points and one per Missionary doesn't take up a slot. My reasoning is that the Warhyms are a nice buff and a bit of redundancy is always advisable with that, especially if that redundancy comes at a relative low cost.

Wouldn't a Entirely Sisters repentia battleforce actually be thematically correct? I mean, there are the Sisters with whips marshalling them, but otherwise, one of the Sisters books talks about entire companies of Repentia being thrown at the enemy.

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
Wouldn't a Entirely Sisters repentia battleforce actually be thematically correct? I mean, there are the Sisters with whips marshalling them, but otherwise, one of the Sisters books talks about entire companies of Repentia being thrown at the enemy.

It would only be thematically correct for Search&Destroy missions or other missions where the main objective is simply the destruction of as many enemy forces as possible. For missions where other objectives are more important or more serious things are at stake, it would be unfluffy, bordering on the heretical. After all, you can only find martyrdom or absolution in battle if you do the will of the Emperor - seeking your own retribution in death to the detriment of the larger mission is thus heretical, and should not be condoned by the Sisterhood!

Not everyone sees things exactly the same way, but obviously, I have some thoughts on Penitent Troops, their HQ's, and what might constitute a Penitent Legion. It is my namesake afterall.

So first up, units:

There are 4 penitent units in the SoB dex: Mortifiers and Repentia, who are Sisters before they do the deed that requires them to repent, an Penitent Engines and Arcoflagellants, who are not necessarily connected to ANY military organization prior to their crimes. So my preference is to let Sisters lead penitent sisters, and let non-sisters lead the secular penitent.

Now Repentia Superiors are elites, not HQs, and SoB HQs can't be equipped to reflect their role as overseers of the penitent (no neural whips, or even whip-like relics) or as penitent themselves (no eviscerators). However, the Dogmata IS an HQ, and the fluff does reflect their role as the overseers of the penitent.

On the secular side of repentance, we have Missionaries and Preachers (HQ and Elite respectively). For models, I feel like Necromunda redemptionists are where you want to look. I don't have any yet, so I can't speak about scale, and I know that they do come with equipment that you can't take in 40k... but they are plastic and they do fit the theme.

The last piece of the puzzle is Karamazov- he is defined as a judge, and thus he is thematically connected to the Penitent; as Hereticus, sister ARE his chamber militant, so his control of penitent sister units is just as fluffy as his control of secular penitent units, even by my standards. Because he is a vehicle, I don't think you can field him in an AoO detachment.

Now if I was going to field a penitent detachment, I'd probably choose to field either a sisters detachment or a secular detachment. But if it was a Penitent Legion, I'd pull out all the stops.

The difficulty is that you don't have any penitent TROOPS, and RAW, the Imperial Agent rule only works with Patrols, Battalions and Brigades.

This is just my take on penitent units; I've been looking for ways to keep my penitent units apart from my holy units since 3rd ed; my 3k Witch Hunters were built as 1500 of Sister and 1500 Penitents, lead by the Inquisition with Adeptus Arbites as the "Police" who capture, imprison and supervise the penitent... An option which will very soon return to 40k.

Sunny Side Up wrote:Could always houserule to ignore it, but if you are using Arks of Omen as the title suggests, that mission pack has rule of three.

You can maybe play formats that don't have rule of three, but those don't have the Arks of Omen Detachment (atm).

My gaming group (about 14 or so people) does exactly this. We play mainly narrative games and have made a number of our own house rules including what elements of matched/crusade we are going to use (which as stated does not include the rule of 3). We've also decided that we're going to be using the AOO detachment system for our games going forward and if we use any missions from AOO they will be used in a way that works within our gaming group.

PenitentJake wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Rule of 3 was a tournament guideline/suggestion in 8th.

It's a core rule in 9th.

It is a matched play rule in 9th.

I would like to make something clear, not a single player in this game has to play the way others do. They also do not have to explain or justify the way they enjoy the game to anyone else for any reason. Period!

Now yes things like official tournaments and such are different as they abide by the rules exactly as given by GW, however I've already made it clear that I don't play tournaments and not once was anything said about Matched play. If my GG wants to take any element of AOO or anything else released by GW and incorporate it into our games in a way we see fit we can absolutely do it. If others don't like it that's perfectly fine they are free to play the game however they choose themselves. However I've already made it clear that the "rules issues" that people seem to be so hung up on aren't actually aren't a problem in this instance.

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:This is silly anyway. All Arco Flagellants would be far more scary.

oh ABSOLUTLY!!!

H.B.M.C. wrote:

PenitentJake wrote:
It is a matched play rule in 9th.

Which means it's a rule for most of the games people play.

And it's been made perfectly clear that my gaming group does not use it and falls outside of most.

Pyroalchi wrote:@ Warboss Imbad Ironskull:
I would try to squeeze some Preachers into that list. At least one as they are only 25-30 points and one per Missionary doesn't take up a slot. My reasoning is that the War Hymns are a nice buff and a bit of redundancy is always advisable with that, especially if that redundancy comes at a relative low cost.

I'm definitely considering it! Playing around with some initial lists I'm a bit shy of 2k points so I definitely have room to add some units, any suggestions on what Hymns would work best to support Repentia?

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:Wouldn't a Entirely Sisters repentia battleforce actually be thematically correct? I mean, there are the Sisters with whips marshalling them, but otherwise, one of the Sisters books talks about entire companies of Repentia being thrown at the enemy.

I'm still working on my fluff for the force but I'm thinking along the lines of an order that failed in some way (such as protecting an sacred shrine world or Ecclesiarchal figure) and is undertaking a penance crusade to atone!

PenitentJake wrote:Not everyone sees things exactly the same way

100% this, I just find it interesting that some people can't get past the fact that others don't have to do things EXACTLY the same way they do!

PenitentJake wrote:So first up, units:

There are 4 penitent units in the SoB dex: Mortifiers and Repentia, who are Sisters before they do the deed that requires them to repent, an Penitent Engines and Arcoflagellants, who are not necessarily connected to ANY military organization prior to their crimes. So my preference is to let Sisters lead penitent sisters, and let non-sisters lead the secular penitent.

Now Repentia Superiors are elites, not HQs, and SoB HQs can't be equipped to reflect their role as overseers of the penitent (no neural whips, or even whip-like relics) or as penitent themselves (no eviscerators). However, the Dogmata IS an HQ, and the fluff does reflect their role as the overseers of the penitent.

On the secular side of repentance, we have Missionaries and Preachers (HQ and Elite respectively). For models, I feel like Necromunda redemptionists are where you want to look. I don't have any yet, so I can't speak about scale, and I know that they do come with equipment that you can't take in 40k... but they are plastic and they do fit the theme.

The last piece of the puzzle is Karamazov- he is defined as a judge, and thus he is thematically connected to the Penitent; as Hereticus, sister ARE his chamber militant, so his control of penitent sister units is just as fluffy as his control of secular penitent units, even by my standards. Because he is a vehicle, I don't think you can field him in an AoO detachment.

Now if I was going to field a penitent detachment, I'd probably choose to field either a sisters detachment or a secular detachment. But if it was a Penitent Legion, I'd pull out all the stops.

The difficulty is that you don't have any penitent TROOPS, and RAW, the Imperial Agent rule only works with Patrols, Battalions and Brigades.

This is just my take on penitent units; I've been looking for ways to keep my penitent units apart from my holy units since 3rd ed; my 3k Witch Hunters were built as 1500 of Sister and 1500 Penitents, lead by the Inquisition with Adeptus Arbites as the "Police" who capture, imprison and supervise the penitent... An option which will very soon return to 40k.

I like this it's definitely a fluffy take on the force! To stick with the theme I was thinking about getting some Redemptionists and using them to represent the Battle Sister squad. Or the Canoness/Battle Sister squad would be tasked with witnessing the Penitent Hosts redemption.

 Warboss Imbad Ironskull wrote:
They also do not have to explain or justify the way they enjoy the game to anyone else for any reason.

Sure. You're always free to walk away from the conversation and go back to playing with your house rules. Nobody is holding a gun to your head and forcing you to continue to engage in a discussion of the merits of your rule changes. But the only way you can have meaningful discussion about how to play the game is within the shared framework of the standard rules of the game. If your game uses D8s instead of D6s and doesn't have a melee phase while mine uses the standard D6s and house rules that all units begin the game in melee with all other units we're playing two completely different games and there's nothing useful that can be said. None of us can give any useful advice on how to make a good Repentia list in your house ruled version of the game because none of us know your rule changes or the unwritten rules you expect people to comply with. So if you want to just say "this is how it is and I'm not discussing it any further" we can acknowledge that you did in fact write a list of units but there's nothing else to say.

And it's also valid to question why you would get rid of an important balancing rule and encourage spammy nonsense lists. Or why you'd claim to use the AoO detachment rules but then break those same rules by taking an illegal patrol detachment. Why even have detachments at that point?

 Warboss Imbad Ironskull wrote:

Pyroalchi wrote:@ Warboss Imbad Ironskull:
I would try to squeeze some Preachers into that list. At least one as they are only 25-30 points and one per Missionary doesn't take up a slot. My reasoning is that the War Hymns are a nice buff and a bit of redundancy is always advisable with that, especially if that redundancy comes at a relative low cost.

I'm definitely considering it! Playing around with some initial lists I'm a bit shy of 2k points so I definitely have room to add some units, any suggestions on what Hymns would work best to support Repentia?

Note that I'm currently only collecting and have so far only really dived a bit deeper into the IG and Admech rules. So anything I say is purely from a theoryhammer perspective and what I find online about the rules. I might overlook interactions etc. None the less as you ask:
Looking at Repentia as a unit I (comming from IG) see a pretty squishy melee unit that hits like a truck (unfortunatly only on a 4+).
Comparing that to the Hyms I would say:
good:
Edit: warhymn: +1 attack would be awesome
Litany of enduring faith (turning 6++ into 5++ sounds juicy and doubles the survivors of an attack - on a still unfortunatly low basis)
Verse of holy purity (having hand of the emperor AND holy purity on the repentias sounds nice, but the LoeF sounds better)
bad:
Psalm of righteous smiting (the repentias already hit hard in melee, the priest should stand back and buff)
Catechism of Repungance (they don't shoot, so this seems pretty useless)
situational
Refrain of blazing piety (I think d3 mortals are seldom worth it compared to the good ones, but when facing demons with their demonic saves 3 mortals sound pretty useful)
Chorus of spiritual fortitude (maybe when the enemy is massively using psykers like some flavors of demons, Tyranids and grey knights?)


So my verdict would be: Missionary with Litany of enduring faith, Preacher also with litany of enduring faith and if you can somehow squeeze in another Missionary and Preacher those two take Verse of holy purity. Should you face psyker heavy Demon lists I would switch out the backup of both litanies for Refrain of blazing piety and Chorus of spiritual fortitude.
Edit: I overlooked warhymn, but as I understand they get it on top of the second one. So use LoeF to let them survive until they crash into something, than switch to Warhymn if necessary. Why do I say "if necessary": keep an eye on the unit they hit. It might be that they can kill it without problem on their normal attacks, so the extra attacks from warhymn might sometimes be obsolete.

Edit: or for a mean surprise against Demons: take 3-4 Missionary/Preacher types all with Refrain of blazing piety... 12 mortals sounds pretty mean coming from units only costing 130 points and taking up only 2 HQ slots.

Going from a 6++ to a 5++ doesn't double survivors, it increases by 25%.

Doubling would be 3+ save to 2+.

6++ means 1/6 of those hit survive. 5++ means 2/6 of those hit survive, so double the number. But the number of models that die is reduced by 20% (from 5 in 6 to 4 in 6)
3++ save means 4/6 make the save, 2++ means 5/6 make the save, so +25% survivors (5 instead of 4). Which means the models that DIED are halved (from 2 in 6 to 1 in 6)

Or did I missunderstood something?

Edit: given that whatever hit them doesn't degrade invulnerability saves

 Pyroalchi wrote:
Or did I missunderstood something?

No, you have it correct. JNAProductions is calculating damage inflicted from the attacker's point of view, you are correctly evaluating models remaining from the defender's point of view.

 Pyroalchi wrote:
6++ means 1/6 of those hit survive. 5++ means 2/6 of those hit survive, so double the number. But the number of models that die is reduced by 20% (from 5 in 6 to 4 in 6)
3++ save means 4/6 make the save, 2++ means 5/6 make the save, so +25% survivors (5 instead of 4). Which means the models that DIED are halved (from 2 in 6 to 1 in 6)

Or did I missunderstood something?

Edit: given that whatever hit them doesn't degrade invulnerability saves

You're on the right track. The bit you're forgetting is that, while 20% less casualties are inflicted, that means that those models that didn't die have another chance to make a save. As you approach infinity, it approaches 25% more durable.

To calc it out the easy way, just take the number of failed saves on the original number, then divide by the number of failed saves on the improved number.

6+ to 5+ is 5/4, or 1.25.
3+ to 2+ is 2/1, or 2.

 JNAProductions wrote:
while 20% more saves are made

But going from a 6++ to a 5++ isn't 20% more saves made, it's 100% more saves made. It's 20% less damage from the attacker's point of view but 100% more surviving models (assuming, as always for these calculations, an infinitely large defending unit).

Aecus Decimus wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:
while 20% more saves are made

But going from a 6++ to a 5++ isn't 20% more saves made, it's 100% more saves made. It's 20% less damage from the attacker's point of view but 100% more saves.

Nitpick accepted.

20% less casualties is what I should've said.

OK, thanks. Regardless I think my point would stand either way. In my completely theorethically based view I would deem LoeF the most useful hymn, as anything keeping those repentias alive long enough to hit the enemie lines seems a perfect buff.

 Warboss Imbad Ironskull wrote:
[
My gaming group (about 14 or so people) does exactly this. We play mainly narrative games and have made a number of our own house rules including what elements of matched/crusade we are going to use (which as stated does not include the rule of 3). We've also decided that we're going to be using the AOO detachment system for our games going forward and if we use any missions from AOO they will be used in a way that works within our gaming group.

Yes. But then you don't gain anything by asking opinions from others who don't play same rules. What are you asking for? Can you do it? House rules always possible. Tactical help? Here lies issue. Others can't help as they don't play same game as you do. And unless you pay veal cash nobody has inclination to play same game to help you. And if they don't play same game they can't offer any valuable comment.

So can you do it and tactical help is out so what are you looking for?

I think we can still make some educated guesses as this form of play isn't fundamentally different from the book.

 Pyroalchi wrote:
I think we can still make some educated guesses as this form of play isn't fundamentally different from the book.

Can we? Eliminating rule of three is a pretty significant change and enables spam lists that don't work in normal 40k, especially when combined with changing the AoO rules to allow you to take multiple detachments from the same faction. It's a very different meta when you can do things like take 18 mortar HWS for under 1200 points and have 54d6 indirect fire shots every turn.

I meant that a tip like "build in some redundancy in your buffs" is universal enough that it also applies in a houseruled setup
And questions like:

 Warboss Imbad Ironskull wrote:

[in response of additional preachers]
I'm definitely considering it! Playing around with some initial lists I'm a bit shy of 2k points so I definitely have room to add some units, any suggestions on what Hymns would work best to support Repentia?

Can also answered, as which buff synergizes well with repentia should be pretty independent from quite a lot of houserules.
As would be "which order might be good?" or "If I would include an Agent of the imperium, do you know of one that can hand out a buff to Repentia?"

On that later topic: IF you should have trouble with moral (I don't know if that is an issue with repentias) a psyker Inquisitor with Psychic Fortitude or maybe even Karamazov with his LD10 and 12'' aura if he is your warlord might be worthwile to think about.

 Pyroalchi wrote:
I think we can still make some educated guesses as this form of play isn't fundamentally different from the book.

At this point he's just being obstinate about the FACT that I don't have to play the way he does