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Do sisters of silence add anything of note to a Sisters of Battle army? I would love to think they do, but the more I look at them, the less is feel like taking a detachment of them. The Vigilators seem nasty in melee, but other than that I'm not so sure.

Some light anti-psyker but other than that nothing much else. In the future I imagine they'll be fleshed out ala Custodes and/or get their FW stuff ported over.

phydaux wrote:
how is it a cripple? it lets you know that you can reliably get off X AoF when you need them, and lets you spam several Acts on the first turn to try and get a leg up early while having lettle power moves later on, use them sparingly throughout the game, or save them all for Turns 5&6 when you really need them.

Acts of Faith should be like IG orders.

 Jancoran wrote:

phydaux wrote:
how is it a cripple? it lets you know that you can reliably get off X AoF when you need them, and lets you spam several Acts on the first turn to try and get a leg up early while having lettle power moves later on, use them sparingly throughout the game, or save them all for Turns 5&6 when you really need them.

Acts of Faith should be like IG orders.

IDK, that would make them very strong. They are a full phase, i pretty sure they will be nerf a bit, a limit like Ynnari.

I'd like to see one of them being a 4++ for a turn on their shield of faith rule, that be a sweet add on, would make a melee unit more fun to play.

Call me a weirdo, but I kinda like Acts as they currently are.

They are strong, very similar to Strength from Death just with more specific timings and harder to access.

And I think that is something else that makes them good, but not too powerful. They are relatively limited access. The more that there are, the less significant any one feels.

I would propose that Acts of Faith are borderline miracles in the narrative aspect of the game... so an army ripping off 4-5 a turn seems... watered down. Keep them significant parts of the turn, but limit access to preserve the significance.

Then when the Codex gets pondered over, they could incorporate a stratagem that allows the army to rip off an extra Act of Faith at the cost of CP.

Plus, if Acts become "common place" actions for Sisters, the cost is going to be baked into every model, or the effectiveness of them are going to be hamstrung because the expectation is they will be taking these actions frequently.

The problem is that the current system highly rewards a player with a single Sisters unit in their soup army by allowing that one unit to get off an Act nearly every turn. But it punishes the player who has a full Sisters Battalion with 20+ Sisters units in but can only manage 1 or 2 Acts per turn.

The Trial Rules need to somehow normalize Acts. If al you have is a single unit, then that unit SHOULD get an Act every turn or so. But if you have a full Sisters Battalion.

IMO the only current game mechanic that is at all similar is Psychic Powers.

I say roll 2d6 for an Act, the first Act goes off on a 4+, with +1 for every Act there after. Only Sister Superiors can roll. +2 to the roll for any unit with an Imigifier in it.

phydaux wrote:
The problem is that the current system highly rewards a player with a single Sisters unit in their soup army by allowing that one unit to get off an Act nearly every turn. But it punishes the player who has a full Sisters Battalion with 20+ Sisters units in but can only manage 1 or 2 Acts per turn.

The Trial Rules need to somehow normalize Acts. If al you have is a single unit, then that unit SHOULD get an Act every turn or so. But if you have a full Sisters Battalion.

This ^

That is a problem? Wasn't aware the acts of faith from lone battle sister squads were deforming the environment in any meaningful sort of way. I also don't see 500 points as inconsequential for a suicide squad of squishy Seraphim and Celestine. Celestine is certainly worth that, but the rest is hardly going to flatten much.

Does it give imperium armies the same boost as Sororitas? Sure. But doesn't 200 points give every imperium army +5 CP?

Good things don't having to be spammed to epic extents to make your army work or make a rule fun. In fact, where a 2000 point sisters army gets a boost over a 500 point Celestine hit squad is what happens after those Seraphim die. More meaningful acts deeper into the game.

This is kind of wish-listing rather than tactics...

That being said, we should just go back to the old 'faith pool'.

My favorite version of the faith rules:


Now can we maybe start a thread for the proposed rules and take it there?

Purifying Tempest wrote:
That is a problem? Wasn't aware the acts of faith from lone battle sister squads were deforming the environment in any meaningful sort of way. I also don't see 500 points as inconsequential for a suicide squad of squishy Seraphim and Celestine. Celestine is certainly worth that, but the rest is hardly going to flatten much.

Does it give imperium armies the same boost as Sororitas? Sure. But doesn't 200 points give every imperium army +5 CP?

Good things don't having to be spammed to epic extents to make your army work or make a rule fun. In fact, where a 2000 point sisters army gets a boost over a 500 point Celestine hit squad is what happens after those Seraphim die. More meaningful acts deeper into the game.

Some of us would rather it be a army wide rule than a 1-2 unit rule.

https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/758712.page

There. I'm helping.

 pretre wrote:
This is kind of wish-listing rather than tactics...

That being said, we should just go back to the old 'faith pool'.

My favorite version of the faith rules:

Spoiler:

Now can we maybe start a thread for the proposed rules and take it there?

I'm ok with the current Faith mechanism, like it has been said it isn't like every imperial army is taking a Sisters unit just to get the easy AoF off. Weakness of the current system being scalability and the fact that Celestine is practically mandatory to keep AoFs going.

If it were to change right now I would definitely prefer going to the old school system. Of course that system had it's flaws too, like my Seraphim chewed through 3/4 or more of my faith points doing their unit-tie-up-shenanagans, but man that was good times. Wouldn't work the same way with the current ruleset without a bunch of changes, but it's a good mechanic and one that would be unique.
I hate the idea of just reskinning faith to be like Orders or Psychic powers or Ynnari or whatever.

 Amishprn86 wrote:

Purifying Tempest wrote:
That is a problem? Wasn't aware the acts of faith from lone battle sister squads were deforming the environment in any meaningful sort of way. I also don't see 500 points as inconsequential for a suicide squad of squishy Seraphim and Celestine. Celestine is certainly worth that, but the rest is hardly going to flatten much.

Does it give imperium armies the same boost as Sororitas? Sure. But doesn't 200 points give every imperium army +5 CP?

Good things don't having to be spammed to epic extents to make your army work or make a rule fun. In fact, where a 2000 point sisters army gets a boost over a 500 point Celestine hit squad is what happens after those Seraphim die. More meaningful acts deeper into the game.

Some of us would rather it be a army wide rule than a 1-2 unit rule.

That would be shield of faith. While not the best rule ever... it does get better as more AP comes pouring out of the GW presses.

 pretre wrote:
https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/758712.page

There. I'm helping.

Thank you

Have to agree that i like faith system as it is. Its simple and straight forward. Also detest the idea of counting them as orders or especially psychic phase stuff.
1 guaranteed with Celestine
1 on a 2+ which can fail (had a game where it failed the whole game)
1 on a 2+ if a character dies
Max 3 more at 40pts a pop for 50/50 chance.

Perfectly fine in a pure sisters force. Any perceived problems are the cause of metagamers.

That said, rumour says faith system will be reworked for new dex.
So enjoy it while it lasts. Hopefully instead of being nerfed it instead gets better because gw want to sell minis.

But back to tactics...

 Giantwalkingchair wrote:
Have to agree that i like faith system as it is. Its simple and straight forward. Also detest the idea of counting them as orders or especially psychic phase stuff.
1 guaranteed with Celestine
1 on a 2+ which can fail (had a game where it failed the whole game)
1 on a 2+ if a character dies
Max 3 more at 40pts a pop for 50/50 chance.

Perfectly fine in a pure sisters force. Any perceived problems are the cause of metagamers.

That said, rumour says faith system will be reworked for new dex.
So enjoy it while it lasts. Hopefully instead of being nerfed it instead gets better because gw want to sell minis.

But back to tactics...

Killing our characters is certainly something that opponents who regularly see Sisters on the table learn to avoid doing. It's situational at best and might get you 2-3 a turn if you try real hard and that Dialogus you put in your BSS transports actually does get killed. I like the AoF as they are, scaling being the only issue. I think allowing a 2+ roll for each battalion and outrider/vanguard etc formation rather than just a 2+ for each SoB army isn't out of the question. I wouldn't give it out for patrol detachments, auxiliary or HQ detachments however. With the need to balance it with CP's you wouldn't be able to spam AoF but they would scale better.

Spamming Imagifers isn't my favorite way of bringing them to the table, but if the Imagifer had options to allow her to travel properly with our units I would be okay with that to. Would it be unheard of to allow the Imagifer to not negate Dominions Vanguard move or be able to get a jump pack and ride along with Seraphim?

Scaling isn't the only issue we have, there are a lot of tactics involved in getting the most out of the Imagifer and her AoF, it's difficult at best.

Dominions, yes (because I would be putting a Canoness in the ride in place of the Imagifier, most likely)...

Seraphim, no. Imagifiers should not get jump packs. Pretty sure their more passive Orders would not have the nice equipment for war that the Orders Militant would have on hand.

Also... Seraphim have access to the best Imagifier in the game: Celestine.

Purifying Tempest wrote:
Dominions, yes (because I would be putting a Canoness in the ride in place of the Imagifier, most likely)...

Seraphim, no. Imagifiers should not get jump packs. Pretty sure their more passive Orders would not have the nice equipment for war that the Orders Militant would have on hand.

Also... Seraphim have access to the best Imagifier in the game: Celestine.

However you like it, something to address the availability of the Imagifers possible AoF around the table would certainly help. They're great for Retributors, but other than that generally just BSS, which isn't even close to being the best use for an AoF.

Another big problem with Imagifiers in rides with Dominions is that Dominions draw a LOT of hatred once they get out of their ride. Probably why people crate them in Repressors. So 2 scenarios, and we will hypothesize that Dominion moves aren't stopped by an interloper in their ride:

1) Dominions + Imagifier in Immolator scout forward. Then comes the Acts phase. Imagifier is in the crate, so she cannot try to perform her Act. Dominions and Imagifier disembark and move. Some shooting happens, and then it is the opponent's turn. Dominions get shot right back to the Emperor, because no reasonable person is going to let them sit around.

2) Dominions + Imagifier in a Repressor scout forward. Then comes the Acts phase. Imagifier is in the crate, so she nor her sisters embarked can perform any sort of test (extra Act or even the Army act by the Dominions). Which just loops back to scenario 1, if you want to perform an act of faith with an embarked Dominion squad.

Imagifiers are GREAT for Retributors. They are less great for Battle Sister Squads. I totally agree there. They're great for Seraphim, too, if any yet live from their suicidal dive on Turn 1... but Seraphim still likely have Celestine lurking around there, too, unless the two units went in drastically different directions on Turn 1. Imagifiers are also outpaced greatly by Seraphim, and I don't think Imagifiers need jet packs, though maybe putting them back on the Canoness would be a good idea.

There is still always the option of using your Army wide act of faith to support the units that stray too far away from Imagifiers and find themselves in a position to take advantage.

I respect the ability of plain Battle Sister Squads, too, and a big blob (7-8) supported by a Imagifier and/or Canoness may not be able to kill a Primarch, but they can clean up the tatters of what was left by the Dominions and Seraphim while drawing little to no fire.

In the name of keeping this purely tactical (I'll have to go check out the wishlisting/proposed rules thread later), I have been experimenting with actual means of getting an Imagifier up with the Dominions... The mechanized contingent of my army lately has been two transports with max-melta Dominions taking their Vanguard up the board followed by 2x transports with stormbolter BSS, a Canoness, and an Imagifier moving at normal pace (although I could AoF one of them if needed). By Turn 2 there's a little knot (usually in cover) of stormbolter troops with re-rolls and a potential AoF to give cover and buffs to whichever Dominion squad needs to fall back first. That little island of Sisters in the middle of the board usually endures until Turn 4 or longer against all but the most CC-oriented armies (I've been overrun by berserkers, 'stealer cult, and big blobs of boyz).

 MacPhail wrote:
In the name of keeping this purely tactical (I'll have to go check out the wishlisting/proposed rules thread later), I have been experimenting with actual means of getting an Imagifier up with the Dominions... The mechanized contingent of my army lately has been two transports with max-melta Dominions taking their Vanguard up the board followed by 2x transports with stormbolter BSS, a Canoness, and an Imagifier moving at normal pace (although I could AoF one of them if needed). By Turn 2 there's a little knot (usually in cover) of stormbolter troops with re-rolls and a potential AoF to give cover and buffs to whichever Dominion squad needs to fall back first. That little island of Sisters in the middle of the board usually endures until Turn 4 or longer against all but the most CC-oriented armies (I've been overrun by berserkers, 'stealer cult, and big blobs of boyz).

I think this is a solid approach to the problem. I've used a similar 'wait for me' approach to catching up to them in the past.

On the subject of bringing Dominions up the table ... Knights.

A common knight using shield rotation would expect to see a single wound from an exorcist salvo, or around three wounds melta doms or seraphim on average.

In terms of mathhammer the only thing that makes any real dent in them are penitent engines.

Thoughts/strategies?

A.T. wrote:
On the subject of bringing Dominions up the table ... Knights.

A common knight using shield rotation would expect to see a single wound from an exorcist salvo, or around three wounds melta doms or seraphim on average.

In terms of mathhammer the only thing that makes any real dent in them are penitent engines.

Thoughts/strategies?

Focus fire with multiple units. Also, make your units able to hit multiple knights. Target the first knight with a unit and force the ion shield. Then fire at the other one. I used to do the same thing with Ion Shield facings in the previous edition.

 pretre wrote:
Focus fire with multiple units. Also, make your units able to hit multiple knights. Target the first knight with a unit and force the ion shield. Then fire at the other one. I used to do the same thing with Ion Shield facings in the previous edition.

The trouble with meltaguns/inferno pistols is that it's a big of a giveaway which knight(s) are going to get shot at, and with so little damage if you split your units two ways you just end up with two mildly scorched knights instead of one slightly more mildly scorched knight.

Shoot inferno pistols from Seraphim first to draw out the Rotating Ion Shields, then Melta from Repressor ensconced Dominions from that back corner of the tank "coincidentally " placed with 6" of the other Knight.

A.T. wrote:

 pretre wrote:
Focus fire with multiple units. Also, make your units able to hit multiple knights. Target the first knight with a unit and force the ion shield. Then fire at the other one. I used to do the same thing with Ion Shield facings in the previous edition.

The trouble with meltaguns/inferno pistols is that it's a big of a giveaway which knight(s) are going to get shot at, and with so little damage if you split your units two ways you just end up with two mildly scorched knights instead of one slightly more mildly scorched knight.

It's a bit of an art. As Frowbakk says, you setup each Repressor/Seraphim squad so they are within 6" of two targets.

"Spamming Imagifers isn't my favorite way of bringing them to the table, but if the Imagifer had options to allow her to travel properly with our units I would be okay with that to. Would it be unheard of to allow the Imagifer to not negate Dominions Vanguard move or be able to get a jump pack and ride along with Seraphim? "

As it stands you take three HB Ret squads and you put an Imagifier next to each one. With a Cannoness standing between two of the Rets. The Acts from the Imagifiers get dedicated to those Heavy Bolters, along with the Cannoness's re-roll bubble.

phydaux wrote:
"Spamming Imagifers isn't my favorite way of bringing them to the table, but if the Imagifer had options to allow her to travel properly with our units I would be okay with that to. Would it be unheard of to allow the Imagifer to not negate Dominions Vanguard move or be able to get a jump pack and ride along with Seraphim? "

As it stands you take three HB Ret squads and you put an Imagifier next to each one. With a Cannoness standing between two of the Rets. The Acts from the Imagifiers get dedicated to those Heavy Bolters, along with the Cannoness's re-roll bubble.

Or increase the imagifer AoF bubble range to 12" and call it a day.

 pretre wrote:

A.T. wrote:

 pretre wrote:
Focus fire with multiple units. Also, make your units able to hit multiple knights. Target the first knight with a unit and force the ion shield. Then fire at the other one. I used to do the same thing with Ion Shield facings in the previous edition.

The trouble with meltaguns/inferno pistols is that it's a big of a giveaway which knight(s) are going to get shot at, and with so little damage if you split your units two ways you just end up with two mildly scorched knights instead of one slightly more mildly scorched knight.

It's a bit of an art. As Frowbakk says, you setup each Repressor/Seraphim squad so they are within 6" of two targets.

Lies. 8th edition doesn't actually have any tactics.

 pretre wrote:
It's a bit of an art. As Frowbakk says, you setup each Repressor/Seraphim squad so they are within 6" of two targets.

The trouble is that doesn't solve the original problem of doing too little damage.
While the meltas can always get lucky you have, on average, only upped your damage by a little while halving your firepower any given knight.

Even with several squads odds are it's going to take several turns. Durability of repressor doms vs martyr-shot possibilities of the seraphim... the latter could really do with a jump canoness here.

A.T. wrote:

 pretre wrote:
It's a bit of an art. As Frowbakk says, you setup each Repressor/Seraphim squad so they are within 6" of two targets.

The trouble is that doesn't solve the original problem of doing too little damage.
While the meltas can always get lucky you have, on average, only upped your damage by a little while halving your firepower any given knight.

Even with several squads odds are it's going to take several turns. Durability of repressor doms vs martyr-shot possibilities of the seraphim... the latter could really do with a jump canoness here.

Yes, if we skip the stratagem and go for normal, you take ~4 (3.97) wounds off per 4 meltas. You will need something else to help even things out, although you will at least be degrading them.