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That’s pretty similar to what I run, Mac.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
My list, since I mentioned it:

I'm interested in Dakka's take on this list right here:

750pts - PL: 44 - Command Points: 7

Battalion - 536pts (+3 ComPoints)

2x:
- Canoness, Chainsword, Combi-Melta

3x:
- 10 Battle Sisters, Heavy Bolter, Meltagun, Combi-Melta


Vanguard - 214pts (+1 ComPoint)

- Canoness, Chainsword, Combi-Melta

- 3x Imagifer

- Hospitaller


I've run a game with it already, but I'd like some feedback from Sisters players with a little more 8th Ed experience.

 BBAP wrote:
I'm interested in Dakka's take on this list right here:

750pts - PL: 44 - Command Points: 7

Battalion - 536pts (+3 ComPoints)

2x:
- Canoness, Chainsword, Combi-Melta

3x:
- 10 Battle Sisters, Heavy Bolter, Meltagun, Combi-Melta


Vanguard - 214pts (+1 ComPoint)

- Canoness, Chainsword, Combi-Melta

- 3x Imagifer

- Hospitaller


I've run a game with it already, but I'd like some feedback from Sisters players with a little more 8th Ed experience.

I'm not sure what the plan is here. Just big blocks of sisters?

If you're at low points values, Celestine is gold. Also, if you're going to keep the Canoness, get her a Power Weapon and give her the blade of admonition. Are you playing on smaller boards or something? Because walking isn't going to get you far. I feel like you take Celestine, Seraphim, maybe a Dom and the rest BSS and you're good to go at 750.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Or how about this at 750:

Spearhead -
Celestine - 200
5 Rets with 4 HB - 85
5 Rets with 4 HB - 85
5 Rets with 4 HB - 85
9 Seraphim with 4 Inferno Pistols, Chainsword/BP - 135
5 BSS with 3 SB - 51
5 BSS with 3 SB - 51
Imagifer - 40
Dialogous - 15
747

That's a pretty nasty 750.

 pretre wrote:
I'm not sure what the plan is here. Just big blocks of sisters?

Why not? Flak armoured CC hordes seem to have gotten a bump in 8th, so I figure BS3+ power armour hordes with massed bolters must be better. So, blocks of Sisters, and maximised AoFs per turn via lots of Imagifers and Lone Wolf Canonesses whose only job is to run forward and die so I can Martyr up some more AoFs.

The game I played was against a Chaos soup army that had no choice but to run right into boltgunning range and die, so I can't really draw any conclusions from it. I feel like it'd benefit from Seraphim or Dominions against stand-off armies, something that can land in an opponent's face and either stay there killing stuff or at the very least cause a disruption while the rest of the Sisters mongle up behind it at 6" per turn. If they move faster, that's great - if they don't, either because the Imagifers whiff or the AoFs need to be used on other things, that's fine too.

If you're at low points values, Celestine is gold.

She's awesome, but I'm trying to get as many bodies as possible on the table. The Chaos soup army I played had wretched trouble trying to chew through 36 Sisters, so I figure more Sisters might be worth taking rather than better Sisters at low points.

HBs are handy beasts, but I feel like you really need the D6 damage from Meltaguns or MMs against certain things. The bolters made a dent in my opponent's DP but it'd have stuck around much longer if I hadn't had the Combis. Also they blew up his other HQ in a single hit, which was amusing.

I dunno - I feel like this could work. What's the absolute worst match-up Sisters have in this edition?

@pretre: Very similar indeed. Im working on a 3rd squad of Rets to free up some points for flexibility... I'd love to get some Seraphim back in the list. An attempt with 3rd party bits was a bust... might just have to shell out $50 for a GW squad.

@ BBAP: One of the worst matchups I've had is assault cannon Razorback spam. They have the speed to stay out of melta range if they want to, S6 volume fire will chew through minmaxed Sisters squads, and they can nerf your shooting with a charge.

 BBAP wrote:

 pretre wrote:
I'm not sure what the plan is here. Just big blocks of sisters?

Why not? Flak armoured CC hordes seem to have gotten a bump in 8th, so I figure BS3+ power armour hordes with massed bolters must be better. So, blocks of Sisters, and maximised AoFs per turn via lots of Imagifers and Lone Wolf Canonesses whose only job is to run forward and die so I can Martyr up some more AoFs.

The game I played was against a Chaos soup army that had no choice but to run right into boltgunning range and die, so I can't really draw any conclusions from it. I feel like it'd benefit from Seraphim or Dominions against stand-off armies, something that can land in an opponent's face and either stay there killing stuff or at the very least cause a disruption while the rest of the Sisters mongle up behind it at 6" per turn. If they move faster, that's great - if they don't, either because the Imagifers whiff or the AoFs need to be used on other things, that's fine too.

If you're at low points values, Celestine is gold.

She's awesome, but I'm trying to get as many bodies as possible on the table. The Chaos soup army I played had wretched trouble trying to chew through 36 Sisters, so I figure more Sisters might be worth taking rather than better Sisters at low points.

HBs are handy beasts, but I feel like you really need the D6 damage from Meltaguns or MMs against certain things. The bolters made a dent in my opponent's DP but it'd have stuck around much longer if I hadn't had the Combis. Also they blew up his other HQ in a single hit, which was amusing.

I dunno - I feel like this could work. What's the absolute worst match-up Sisters have in this edition?

MEQ hordes are not. Guardsmen, Tyranids, Orks, Cultists, etc. are something MEQ units are not: cheap.

The reason those hordes are good is because they don't have armor and don't pay for armor.

 MacPhail wrote:
@ BBAP: One of the worst matchups I've had is assault cannon Razorback spam. They have the speed to stay out of melta range if they want to, S6 volume fire will chew through minmaxed Sisters squads, and they can nerf your shooting with a charge.

Thanks, man. Unfortunately all my 40k friends are hipsters who refuse to play Space Marines because they're too mainstream, but I'll bear this in mind when looking for match-ups. Seems like the stuff that'd kill minmaxed Sisters will do for my blobs too.

Has anyone played against these "unbeatable" lists I keep seeing on BoLS? The Flyrant spam thing and the Ynnari Reapers? I'm guessing the Meltas would rip through Monster-spam but playing Sisters against Ynnari Reapers seems like a recipe for disaster - which of course means I have to try it out.

 Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote:
MEQ hordes are not. Guardsmen, Tyranids, Orks, Cultists, etc. are something MEQ units are not: cheap.

The reason those hordes are good is because they don't have armor and don't pay for armor.

I reckon I could fit 100 Sisters into a 2000pt list - not just Battle Sisters either, but Seraphim too. I'd never be able to afford to run such an army in my wildest dreams, but I could do it on paper.

How many models are other horde armies running at 2000pts? I know my old GSC army had 120 dudes at 1850 and 135 at 2000, which isn't that huge a disparity when you consider how many models 100 Sisters could mulch in a single Shooting phase.

 MacPhail wrote:
I'd love to get some Seraphim back in the list. An attempt with 3rd party bits was a bust... might just have to shell out $50 for a GW squad.

I've got some bad news... They definitely aren't $50 a squad.

 pretre wrote:

 MacPhail wrote:
I'd love to get some Seraphim back in the list. An attempt with 3rd party bits was a bust... might just have to shell out $50 for a GW squad.

I've got some bad news... They definitely aren't $50 a squad.

Well, 4 at $14 each is $56, and I can ship for free to my local GW, but they're out of stock again...

 MacPhail wrote:

 pretre wrote:

 MacPhail wrote:
I'd love to get some Seraphim back in the list. An attempt with 3rd party bits was a bust... might just have to shell out $50 for a GW squad.

I've got some bad news... They definitely aren't $50 a squad.

Well, 4 at $14 each is $56, and I can ship for free to my local GW, but they're out of stock again...

Last I checked they were only selling groups of 10.

 pretre wrote:

 MacPhail wrote:

 pretre wrote:

 MacPhail wrote:
I'd love to get some Seraphim back in the list. An attempt with 3rd party bits was a bust... might just have to shell out $50 for a GW squad.

I've got some bad news... They definitely aren't $50 a squad.

Well, 4 at $14 each is $56, and I can ship for free to my local GW, but they're out of stock again...

Last I checked they were only selling groups of 10.

I misled you... I just need four heavy bolters. I bought some bits off Shapeways to convert one of the two 4x squads of heavy flamers I had run during 7th, but the scale wasn't a good match. I might need to add a Superior given how much MSUing I'm doing, but that's just a bolter Sister in a pinch.

 pretre wrote:

 BBAP wrote:
I'm interested in Dakka's take on this list right here:

750pts - PL: 44 - Command Points: 7

Battalion - 536pts (+3 ComPoints)

2x:
- Canoness, Chainsword, Combi-Melta

3x:
- 10 Battle Sisters, Heavy Bolter, Meltagun, Combi-Melta


Vanguard - 214pts (+1 ComPoint)

- Canoness, Chainsword, Combi-Melta

- 3x Imagifer

- Hospitaller


I've run a game with it already, but I'd like some feedback from Sisters players with a little more 8th Ed experience.

I'm not sure what the plan is here. Just big blocks of sisters?

If you're at low points values, Celestine is gold. Also, if you're going to keep the Canoness, get her a Power Weapon and give her the blade of admonition. Are you playing on smaller boards or something? Because walking isn't going to get you far. I feel like you take Celestine, Seraphim, maybe a Dom and the rest BSS and you're good to go at 750.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Or how about this at 750:

Spearhead -
Celestine - 200
5 Rets with 4 HB - 85
5 Rets with 4 HB - 85
5 Rets with 4 HB - 85
9 Seraphim with 4 Inferno Pistols, Chainsword/BP - 135
5 BSS with 3 SB - 51
5 BSS with 3 SB - 51
Imagifer - 40
Dialogous - 15
747

That's a pretty nasty 750.

I'd drop the imagifier, dialogus, and 2 stormbolters for the Gemini on Celestine. At 750 points she's a goddam blender. The rest of the army is mostly just there to not die until Celestine has killed everything. And I don't really think taking chainswords over double bolt pistol is useful enough to justify going through the effort to kitbash metal seraphim.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 BBAP wrote:

 MacPhail wrote:
@ BBAP: One of the worst matchups I've had is assault cannon Razorback spam. They have the speed to stay out of melta range if they want to, S6 volume fire will chew through minmaxed Sisters squads, and they can nerf your shooting with a charge.

Thanks, man. Unfortunately all my 40k friends are hipsters who refuse to play Space Marines because they're too mainstream, but I'll bear this in mind when looking for match-ups. Seems like the stuff that'd kill minmaxed Sisters will do for my blobs too.

Has anyone played against these "unbeatable" lists I keep seeing on BoLS? The Flyrant spam thing and the Ynnari Reapers? I'm guessing the Meltas would rip through Monster-spam but playing Sisters against Ynnari Reapers seems like a recipe for disaster - which of course means I have to try it out.

 Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote:
MEQ hordes are not. Guardsmen, Tyranids, Orks, Cultists, etc. are something MEQ units are not: cheap.

The reason those hordes are good is because they don't have armor and don't pay for armor.

I reckon I could fit 100 Sisters into a 2000pt list - not just Battle Sisters either, but Seraphim too. I'd never be able to afford to run such an army in my wildest dreams, but I could do it on paper.

How many models are other horde armies running at 2000pts? I know my old GSC army had 120 dudes at 1850 and 135 at 2000, which isn't that huge a disparity when you consider how many models 100 Sisters could mulch in a single Shooting phase.

True horde armies in 8th are between 125-250 models depending on how hard they want to commit.

Horde sisters have a couple of major problems over other horde armies. One is that SoB are relatively expensive. Ork Boyz are 4ppm, infantry squads are 4ppm, poxwalkers are like 4-5ppm, Horrors are some ungodly low amount, plague bearers are 7 and are WAY tougher than SoB, cultists are 6 and can regenerate, I believe termagaunt are between 5-7. Basically SoB BSS spam is the absolute most expensive you can be and be considered a horde army .

Another issue is that SoB hordes don't kill things very well. Guard have mortar teams and cadia to buff themselves, Orkz have brutal melee, gaunts have actually quite a bit of firepower, even plaguebearers get exploding 6s on their attacks. All SoB really have is stormbolters and maybe a melta or heavybolter here and there.

Sisters are not as survivable as other hordes. Orkz and Guard are so cheap you have to kill 2 for everyone one sister you'd lose. Most of the daemon hordes can regenerate models and have some form of damage mitigation, cultists can basically go back up to 40 from 1 in a single round, poxwalkers are literally infinite if they get going, gaunts can be regenerated.

Sisters are slower than most hordes. Orkz have Da Jump, guard don't really care about how fast they move, Gaunts have ways they can teleport, daemons can teleport, cultists can teleport, poxwalkers and plaguebearers can't really be shot to death so you have to go to them. etc.

The biggest problem you run into with horde sisters is morale. Sisters don't have great ways of mitigating morale and losing 6 girls in a 10 girl squad is enough to potentially wipe the unit. If you go up to 20 and lose 10 girls, you basically lose an extra 6 off the top. And being as expensive as they are, brigades are tough to do, so you'll likely only be getting 9-10 command points. Consider you'll have to save a squad per turn for the first 3 you'd be at functionally 3-4.

And for the record, 100 sisters shooting would kill 5 tactical marines in cover or strip 7 wounds off a rhino(4 off of a leman russ). Bolters don't do much.

ERJAK wrote:
Horde sisters have a couple of major problems over other horde armies. [...]

You've just listed the properties of other horde armies, and your argument seems to be that horde Sisters are a bad idea because they don't play like other horde armies do. I get that you'd need to construct and play them differently, because Sisters have different properties to Orks and Tyranids - but I think it's do-able.

For a start it's a Sisters horde, so it's going to play like Sisters do - stand-off shooting, avoiding close combat like the plague, using power armour to bounce small arms, dropping Seraphim on people out of nowhere, etc etc. Instead of mongling forward to charge and kill something in CC, you're playing a hammer and anvil game.

Your BSS are the anvil; their job is to stay at arms' length from targets (either by backing away from CC units or advancing on mobility units) and whittle them down with their bolters, Meltaguns and Heavy Bolters. It's a trickle, not a tidal wave - you're not trying to wash away huge chunks of an opposing army in a single phase like Orks do, but rather erode it over a period of time. Your Imagifers are there to score the anvil a few extra actions - you're not relying on them to carry your army, you're using the odd AoF you'll get from them to increase your capacity to move, deal damage, or do something unexpected. The Meltas and Combis you bring primarily to provide a damage boost.

Your Seraphim are the hammer; they arrive in awkward positions to disrupt an opponent's backfield or help out your anvil where needed.

Your Canonesses are Lone Wolves - they run upfield and make a nuisance of themselves, hoping your opponent kills them so you can use Martyrdom to get AoFs. You're not doing so willy-nilly, because their buffs are quite nice and only a single AoF is generated no matter how many Characters die in a single phase, but sliding a Canoness forward every couple of turns doesn't hurt.

It needs testing, but I reckon it's got legs. I think it'd do well against low model-count armies that can't kill or lock down enough Sisters every turn to prevent significant return fire, but it's going to have a tougher time against other horde armies. I really need to test it against some of them at higher points values to find out what the issues are.

And for the record, 100 sisters shooting would kill 5 tactical marines in cover or strip 7 wounds off a rhino(4 off of a leman russ). Bolters don't do much.

"Strip 7 wounds off a Rhino (4 off a Leman Russ)" he says, then in the next breath "bolters don't do much". How many of your other horde armies are taking 4 wounds off a Russ from 24" away? :-P

PS: Show me an army that's bringing 250 models to the table.

 BBAP wrote:
It's a trickle, not a tidal wave - you're not trying to wash away huge chunks of an opposing army in a single phase like Orks do, but rather erode it over a period of time.

I can't agree with this... most of what you've said fits somewhere on the casual to competitive scale in terms of where it might have merit, under which circumstances it might play well, etc. I've messed around with foot-blob Sisters and it isn't a bad approach. But the idea the Sisters can grind down an enemy over several turns-- in my experience-- isn't ever true. In most of my winning games, I strike decisive blows in turn 1 and turn 2 and spend the rest of the game avoiding retaliation from strong centerpiece units I can't go toe to toe with. Seraphim and Dominions target the opponent's range and mobility up front, and from then on it's board control, objective scoring, and casualty mitigation.

 BBAP wrote:

ERJAK wrote:
Horde sisters have a couple of major problems over other horde armies. [...]

You've just listed the properties of other horde armies, and your argument seems to be that horde Sisters are a bad idea because they don't play like other horde armies do. I get that you'd need to construct and play them differently, because Sisters have different properties to Orks and Tyranids - but I think it's do-able.

For a start it's a Sisters horde, so it's going to play like Sisters do - stand-off shooting, avoiding close combat like the plague, using power armour to bounce small arms, dropping Seraphim on people out of nowhere, etc etc. Instead of mongling forward to charge and kill something in CC, you're playing a hammer and anvil game.

Your BSS are the anvil; their job is to stay at arms' length from targets (either by backing away from CC units or advancing on mobility units) and whittle them down with their bolters, Meltaguns and Heavy Bolters. It's a trickle, not a tidal wave - you're not trying to wash away huge chunks of an opposing army in a single phase like Orks do, but rather erode it over a period of time. Your Imagifers are there to score the anvil a few extra actions - you're not relying on them to carry your army, you're using the odd AoF you'll get from them to increase your capacity to move, deal damage, or do something unexpected. The Meltas and Combis you bring primarily to provide a damage boost.

Your Seraphim are the hammer; they arrive in awkward positions to disrupt an opponent's backfield or help out your anvil where needed.

Your Canonesses are Lone Wolves - they run upfield and make a nuisance of themselves, hoping your opponent kills them so you can use Martyrdom to get AoFs. You're not doing so willy-nilly, because their buffs are quite nice and only a single AoF is generated no matter how many Characters die in a single phase, but sliding a Canoness forward every couple of turns doesn't hurt.

It needs testing, but I reckon it's got legs. I think it'd do well against low model-count armies that can't kill or lock down enough Sisters every turn to prevent significant return fire, but it's going to have a tougher time against other horde armies. I really need to test it against some of them at higher points values to find out what the issues are.

And for the record, 100 sisters shooting would kill 5 tactical marines in cover or strip 7 wounds off a rhino(4 off of a leman russ). Bolters don't do much.

"Strip 7 wounds off a Rhino (4 off a Leman Russ)" he says, then in the next breath "bolters don't do much". How many of your other horde armies are taking 4 wounds off a Russ from 24" away? :-P

PS: Show me an army that's bringing 250 models to the table.

My argument isn't that horde sisters are bad because they don't do what other armies do, my argument is that horde sisters are not generally as good as other horde armies because other armies have better tools to do the things horde armies need to do. Horde sisters could work, it's just limited in what it's capable of and a very weak matchup against most other horde lists and several melee lists, and flyers.

Sisters don't do hammer and anvil well. With T3 and a 3+6++, you'll be picking up squads of 10 at a time. Against melee armies it'll be more. It's entirely possible for you to lose 50+ sisters in a turn. A popular build is to use 3-5 blood angels characters and a large squad of deathcompany to deepstrike and 3d6 charge with a reroll into enemy line. Each character will kill a squad of 10 battle sisters in a single round of combat and the large death company unit could kill anywhere from 20-40 depending on strategems, ranges, and how many SoB are available to kill. You'll basically have concentric circles of sisters to die so that the row behind them has a shot to fire back. But you have to be careful because the enemy can consolidate 3" so they have to be perfectly spaced apart

Sisters only method of staying at arms length in 8th is to bubble wrap sacrifice units around you. Blood angels will be in combat first turn every game. Tyranids will be in combat first turn every game. Chaos will be in combat first turn every game. You can't kite the enemy, SoB are not fast enough, you have to absorb them and counter attack and you'll be losing sisters by the handful as you do it. Meltas and combis are expensive and short range. If you're going up against a shooting army they'll be useless, you'll never get close enough. If you're against a melee army you'll get to fire them roughly once per squad. Could be worth, but personally stormbolters would be better. Imagifiers are fine in this set-up but keep in mind that you could have 4 battle sisters with 2 stormbolters for the same price and that imagifiers can't be relied on to buff you when you want them to. Also, what actions you can take get less and less valuable as time goes on. Double shooting is great, double combat with WS 4+ and S3 is not.

You'll almost never erode armies as SoB. Your attrition rate is much, MUCH higher than other armies, you are racing against a clock to kill them(or cap enough objectives) before they kill you. Having large numbers of BSS means you have more time than other builds but it doesn't mean you'll be able to out attrition many armies. A deathguard army for example, is literally impossible to beat for horde sisters. One unit of poxwalkers can kill everything(due to shenanigans). Most games you'll be trying to use your large foot print to grab as many objective points as possible, and shearing off their objective camping infantry, while trying to avoid being tabled.

Seraphim can NEVER be deepstruck, infernus pistols are a 6" range and hand-flamers are 8" you have to land 9" away. You start seraphim on the table and AoF them around with Celestine. Big groups of seraphim supported by celestine are good, but they don't synergize well with the rest of a horde list. Rynner's lists are about as good as seraphim blobs get.

Your canoness are reroll auras. What you're suggesting is suiciding them into an open field to get a 2+ AoF, which is nowhere near as valuable. They don't have the movement, range, output, or resilence to lone wolf. The second they're the closest model to the enemy they're going to die. Keep them behind for the reroll aura and sacrifice them when you need to, a single AoF at the cost of command points you will desperately need isn't as valuable as their consistent buffs.

The only low model count armies are space marines who will be using flyers you won't be able to hurt, and custodes, who are 2+4++, T5, and can get into combat from deepstrike. You won't be able to kill them, you'll be trying to beat them on objectives, which is definitely possible to do.

You understand that you payed NINE-HUNDRED points to strip those 7 wounds off right? 900? With 2 zeros? Off of a 70pt tank? Guard hordes can kill 2-4 rhinos per turn for a similar points investment at longer ranges and orkz and demons can kill 4-6(badly deployed) rhino chassis per turn, regardless of range. 7 wounds off a rhino is pathetically little damage. You'll wind up winning games off of early objective control, and killing their objective campers most of the time.

Ork boyz and imperial guardsman cost 4ppm. You could bring 250 of them in a 1200pt game. Players CHOOSE not to bring that many models, it's not that they can't or even that they're not good. They're just a pain to play. When conscripts were big you'd see 3+ blocks of 50 in most imperium lists.

People have done horde sisters before and had some success. It is workable, it's just not as good as other builds we have available to us. Rynner's Seraphim bricks are probably the best thing we have and the standard mech-dominions list are better against most meta armies than our hordes. I appreciate that you want to 'forge your own path' so to speak, but you're not inventing fire here.





Automatically Appended Next Post:

 MacPhail wrote:

 BBAP wrote:
It's a trickle, not a tidal wave - you're not trying to wash away huge chunks of an opposing army in a single phase like Orks do, but rather erode it over a period of time.

I can't agree with this... most of what you've said fits somewhere on the casual to competitive scale in terms of where it might have merit, under which circumstances it might play well, etc. I've messed around with foot-blob Sisters and it isn't a bad approach. But the idea the Sisters can grind down an enemy over several turns-- in my experience-- isn't ever true. In most of my winning games, I strike decisive blows in turn 1 and turn 2 and spend the rest of the game avoiding retaliation from strong centerpiece units I can't go toe to toe with. Seraphim and Dominions target the opponent's range and mobility up front, and from then on it's board control, objective scoring, and casualty mitigation.

This ^ is 100% correct.

Even if you spam out the 150-175 bodies you could fit into a 2000pt list you won't be grinding anyone off, you'll be sitting on objectives praying the game ends on turn 5.

While I agree that straight horde sisters is probably not great, some of the misinformation here about other hordes is appalling. Ork boys are 6 points per model, as such are less durable than sisters point for point. Pox Walkers are 6 points per model. Cultists are 4 points per model.

900 points for ork Boyz is 150 ork Boyz against Rhinos in the off chance that all 150 get to swing (they won't) that is 600 attacks, 400 hits, 133 wounds, 44 unsaved wounds, so kills about 4 Rhinos, but this will never happen.


I think if you are going "horde" sisters you are probably looking at 100 models total in the army with many being heavy bolter retributors, and lots of seraphim with inferno pistols. All 5 sister squads to avoid morale issues.

Really the largest issue is that few horde armies win the game because of the horde (orks, pox walkers are really it) but instead because of what the horde is protecting that does the real damage. Sisters lack the killing power/super durability from a horde aspect, to be a horde wins the game army, and the ranged shooting to be a screening force.

If I were using horde foot sisters (no seraphim) I think it would probably look something like
Brigade.+ outrider + Spear head
5x canonness
6x 5 battle sisters
4x imagifier
8 x 5 dominions with Storm bolters
11x 5 retributors with 4 heavy bolters

It is definitely lacking but you have 134 3+ save models, you have a screen that can push foreword with the dominions, who can put out 160 bolter shots, and then you have 132 heavy bolter shots + probably 3 squads getting to shoot a second time, so about 147 heavy bolter shots. Honestly it still isn't that impressive because no anti-high toughness no AP, no close combat.

 MacPhail wrote:
I misled you... I just need four heavy bolters. I bought some bits off Shapeways to convert one of the two 4x squads of heavy flamers I had run during 7th, but the scale wasn't a good match. I might need to add a Superior given how much MSUing I'm doing, but that's just a bolter Sister in a pinch.

I used Chaos Space Marine HB for more of my conversions and they worked great. I can give you pics if you want.

ERJAK wrote:
You'll basically have concentric circles of sisters to die so that the row behind them has a shot to fire back. But you have to be careful because the enemy can consolidate 3" so they have to be perfectly spaced apart... Sisters only method of staying at arms length in 8th is to bubble wrap sacrifice units around you.

This is me in four out of five games-- I face lots of Blood Angels, Tyranids, and Chaos. Three layers of expendable and/or collapsing fronts. The outer shell is Dominions pushed forward pregame and Seraphim launched by Imagifier catapult turn 1. That crowds my enemy's DS options and stalls his advance. The second layer is a wall o' stormbolters looking to micromanage RF range and maximize reroll auras while staying out of harm's way as long as possible. The juicy nugget at the center of my backfield is HB Retributers with Canoness and Imagifiers. My new mech list will call for something different once I get these Repressors built, but that's the core Sisters tactic AFAIK.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 pretre wrote:

 MacPhail wrote:
I misled you... I just need four heavy bolters. I bought some bits off Shapeways to convert one of the two 4x squads of heavy flamers I had run during 7th, but the scale wasn't a good match. I might need to add a Superior given how much MSUing I'm doing, but that's just a bolter Sister in a pinch.

I used Chaos Space Marine HB for more of my conversions and they worked great. I can give you pics if you want.

Are you able to source those bits reliably online? I'd love a tip to a source, and sure, pics are always appreciated!

Breng77 wrote:
While I agree that straight horde sisters is probably not great, some of the misinformation here about other hordes is appalling. Ork boys are 6 points per model, as such are less durable than sisters point for point. Pox Walkers are 6 points per model. Cultists are 4 points per model.

900 points for ork Boyz is 150 ork Boyz against Rhinos in the off chance that all 150 get to swing (they won't) that is 600 attacks, 400 hits, 133 wounds, 44 unsaved wounds, so kills about 4 Rhinos, but this will never happen.


I think if you are going "horde" sisters you are probably looking at 100 models total in the army with many being heavy bolter retributors, and lots of seraphim with inferno pistols. All 5 sister squads to avoid morale issues.

Really the largest issue is that few horde armies win the game because of the horde (orks, pox walkers are really it) but instead because of what the horde is protecting that does the real damage. Sisters lack the killing power/super durability from a horde aspect, to be a horde wins the game army, and the ranged shooting to be a screening force.

If I were using horde foot sisters (no seraphim) I think it would probably look something like
Brigade.+ outrider + Spear head
5x canonness
6x 5 battle sisters
4x imagifier
8 x 5 dominions with Storm bolters
11x 5 retributors with 4 heavy bolters

It is definitely lacking but you have 134 3+ save models, you have a screen that can push foreword with the dominions, who can put out 160 bolter shots, and then you have 132 heavy bolter shots + probably 3 squads getting to shoot a second time, so about 147 heavy bolter shots. Honestly it still isn't that impressive because no anti-high toughness no AP, no close combat.

My bad on the ork cost, but the poxwalkers were close enough and the cultists were actually cheaper, so it sort of evens out.

It also doesn't actually affect the point I was trying to make either.

And keep in mind that 900pts of sisters won't get to shoot, you'll likely lose close to half on your first turn and they likely won't all be able to close down the distance necessary to hit the same target. It was an ideal vs ideal scenarios and SoB do roughly 1/6th of the damage, 1/3rd in rapid fire range, probably back down to 1/4th if you included the Orkz shooting and the SoB's combat. I also should have emphasized that many of the horde armies that are more efficient than SoB, but don't have tricks like chaos and guard do, still aren't great.

You're also missing out the relatively low range of the list. Bolters, even stormbolters, really struggle at 24 inches and while 36" on heavy bolters is nice, it's far from impressive for 40k. Plenty of common competitive options will be able to single out the rets(the ever popular mortar teams for example) and the rest of the army is very manageable at that point. (sidebar, Just doing quick maths, you're 70pts over. You'd have to drop an imagifier and 15 stormbolters.)

I think the major issue we are all missing in this horde discussion is this - does your horde list take advantage of one of the few things that keeps Sisters semi top tier? Is your list fast? Sisters are one of the fastest armies out there. Most games are won in movement, if your not taking advantage of Sister's speed you should reconsider your list.

 MacPhail wrote:

 pretre wrote:

 MacPhail wrote:
I'd love to get some Seraphim back in the list. An attempt with 3rd party bits was a bust... might just have to shell out $50 for a GW squad.

I've got some bad news... They definitely aren't $50 a squad.

Well, 4 at $14 each is $56, and I can ship for free to my local GW, but they're out of stock again...

God I really was lucky that I got 5 for 8$

I posted a page or so ago that I had picked up a couple of Repressor conversions and now I'm listbuilding around them. The mechanized infantry core of both lists is the same: mount up 4x melta Doms and 4x stormbolter BSS. I'm down to two lists at 2k, and here's the question: do I trade away a Penitent Engine, an Imagifier, and 3 CP in exchange for 2 Inferno Seraphim squads and an extra Canoness... basically, do I run a Brigade or two Battalions? I am loving Seraphim lately, and in a pure Sisters list I think I can spare the CP, but y'all can talk me out of it...

Brigade, 112 PL, 1995 points, 12 CP

Double Battalion, 116 PL, 1984 points, 9 CP

List two is stronger in my opinion. Seraphim can go places dominions can’t.

Alright, I've gotten another game in with my foot-sloggers (against a sawn-off 1250pt Flyrant spam netlist). We called the game (ITC Champion Mission 1) on turn 4 - I had a lead on the Primary and Secondary, but it was pretty slim so we called it a draw. We'd both taken a pasting by that point so it might've gone either way, although I think I had just enough crap on the table to win it.

I've had a few more thoughts:

-- There's a pretty dire lack of mortal wounds in the army. I swear my opponent passed 75% of his 4++ Flyrant saves (he passed 6 saves in a single phase), and there's no way to force wounds past that nonsense. That's a problem, especially if your opponent has a load of psykers Smiting every turn.

-- The psyker thing leads me to point #2 - Sisters psychic defence is not good. Shield of Faith is poopoo and the Strat is dodgy - it works well enough, but the moment you use it your opponent is free to target your Characters in the knowledge you won't get any free AoFs out of it. Problem is, if you don't use it you get Smitten from every angle and Celestine has to fight last forever. Ho hum.

-- Sisters can kill things. Even despite the crazy non-statistical rolling I managed to kill two Flyrants, bring another one down to 2 wounds, RFP a Mawloc the turn it arrived, and bring a second Mawloc down to its last wound (then charge it with a Hospitaller because YOLO). Granted it was mostly Meltaguns, Eviscerators and Celestine doing the wounding of the big bugs, but bolters did a sizeable minority of the work too. Goes without saying the trash was rinsed off the table as soon as it arrived.

-- I see what people are saying about Morale now too. I didn't fail a single test despite taking quite a few - but that was due to luck.

Someone further up mentioned MSU - that'd solve the problem of Morale and would allow more firepower. I might try that if I can scare up some more models.

ERJAK wrote:
People have done horde sisters before and had some success. It is workable, it's just not as good as other builds we have available to us. Rynner's Seraphim bricks are probably the best thing we have and the standard mech-dominions list are better against most meta armies than our hordes. I appreciate that you want to 'forge your own path' so to speak, but you're not inventing fire here.

It's not about forging my own path, it's trying to find an efficient and effective way to play an all-Sisters army. As far as I can see the mech lists have many of the same issues as footsloggers do, except they compound some of them by having most of your firepower (i.e. your Sisters) stuck in boxes for a turn or two unable to do anything - and then, when you do get them out, you have less Sisters than you'd have if you weren't paying for tanks. Repressors get around this with their firing ports, but they come with a hefty points cost which still means less Sisters on the table. I'm also seeing a lot of people saying they need bubblewrap for their mech armies, which I can understand since tanks now engage in fisticuffs apparently - but if you're doing that then surely it'd be more efficient to just throw an AM Battalion in your army and let the Infantry Squads take the charges for you? Why bother paying for Sisters to sit in front of the hulls and die? Makes sense in a footslogging horde army because the Sisters are there anyway, but why do it in a mech list?

 BBAP wrote:



It's not about forging my own path, it's trying to find an efficient and effective way to play an all-Sisters army. As far as I can see the mech lists have many of the same issues as footsloggers do, except they compound some of them by having most of your firepower (i.e. your Sisters) stuck in boxes for a turn or two unable to do anything - and then, when you do get them out, you have less Sisters than you'd have if you weren't paying for tanks. Repressors get around this with their firing ports, but they come with a hefty points cost which still means less Sisters on the table. I'm also seeing a lot of people saying they need bubblewrap for their mech armies, which I can understand since tanks now engage in fisticuffs apparently - but if you're doing that then surely it'd be more efficient to just throw an AM Battalion in your army and let the Infantry Squads take the charges for you? Why bother paying for Sisters to sit in front of the hulls and die? Makes sense in a footslogging horde army because the Sisters are there anyway, but why do it in a mech list?

(side bar: why wouldn't you get any free aofs out of characters dying in the situation you described? Martyrdom and Purity of faith are different strategems. Were you out of CP?)

Infantry lists need bubblewrap, mech list need screens. It's slightly different in that bubblewrap units tend to be layered one over another to absorb multiple waves of damage. This is what I was getting at the 'concentric circles' thing above. Screens are single layers used to deny first turn deepstriking. It's often more about making them land in a poor position then it is denying the charge. Sisters are great for this because they're cheap enough to be expendable, good enough to still be useful, and just tough enough to resist a turn of your 'million and a half range, don't need line of sight' chaff clear units. Sisters die hilariously fast to dedicated anti-infantry, but the 3+ save buys them time against weapons that would poke deadly holes in a platoon squad. Platoon squads do make for superior bubble wrap in general but in my opinion BSS are better screens.

Sisters lists are also a bit unique in that our vehicles are so incredibly fast that we don't always need to screen the vehicles, the cost of killing an isolated immolator is usually greater than the cost of killing the unit that isolated itself by going after it.

The second bit is a bit of a misunderstanding of how SoB mech lists work. Mech lists are alpha strike lists with an approximately 36" effective first turn threat range(42 for repressors). If your sisters aren't getting out of their tanks, it's not because they're not in range, it's because you've chosen to keep them safe from incidental fire for a turn or used them as bait. Not to mention that you have an average charge range of 34" on immolators which means you can take things like Pask out of the game completely before your opponent can react.

Foot sisters actually suffer from the 'not being able to do anything for the first two turns' problem far more than mech do. Bolters and stormbolters don't do anything significant beyond rapid fire range, melta and flamers are obviously shotgun range weapons and Heavy-bolters are solid but are more about consistent performance than devastating blows.

Also keep in mind that an immolator on average has a 27" effective range and puts out almost the exact same amount of damage as a heavy bolter retributor squad, despite having t7 and double the amount of wounds. More against things like flyers. It's not something to be discounted when talking about 'your firepower'. Think about it like this, an immolator is 103 points, 10 battle sisters with a melta gun is 107, the immolator is faster and tougher, the 10 battle sisters have a bigger footprint and aren't as vulnerable to multiple damage weapons. The immolator kills 2.33 marines from 27" away, the battle sisters kill 2.77 from 18" away. The immolator can transport a second unit both increasing its speed and protecting it, the battle sisters don't contribute much anything to other units.

Equal points of SoB and Immolators/Repressors is largely a wash in terms of raw efficiency, it's what you do with them that makes the difference and the dramatically superior speed of the immolator, along with its transport capacity, allow it do shenanigans that battle sisters can't. You don't miss additional mediocre bodies, almost everything is dead before it even might matter.

This same equation is actually why seraphim are so brutal btw. They have the best of both worlds.

As for your batrep, it's cool that you're able to hold your own thus far, foot horde sisters have some teeth to them and definitely aren't bad, but fair warning: 1. Highly competitive lists, especially net lists, grow quadratically as you add more points. At 2000pts, you'll be sweating more than at 1250, even if you're still doing well, and 2. Different tournament formats reward different builds. ITC is one of the more infantry friendly setups, but something like a modified maelstrom tournament would punish foot sisters relative immobility more.

ERJAK wrote:
(side bar: why wouldn't you get any free aofs out of characters dying in the situation you described? Martyrdom and Purity of faith are different strategems. Were you out of CP?)

One CP per phase is the limit, innit?

the battle sisters don't contribute much anything to other units

Here's where we're falling down, I think. The extra BSSquads can't carry units, but they can bubblewrap each other and provide support to one another that Immolators and even Repressors don't - the large footprint means they're able to control a pretty hefty swathe of the mat, and each one is rolling 11 dice at anything 6+24" away, and 20 dice at anything 6+12" away. Three of them sitting around one another give you a pretty solid hold on a table corner, and can hit anything that moves into their fire lanes.

Problems might arise when you're trying to answer a long-range threat to one of your squads, but that's what Seraphim and Celestine and Berserker Canonesses are for.

As for your batrep, it's cool that you're able to hold your own thus far, foot horde sisters have some teeth to them and definitely aren't bad, but fair warning: 1. Highly competitive lists, especially net lists, grow quadratically as you add more points. At 2000pts, you'll be sweating more than at 1250, even if you're still doing well, and 2. Different tournament formats reward different builds. ITC is one of the more infantry friendly setups, but something like a modified maelstrom tournament would punish foot sisters relative immobility more.

On reflection I think a lot of the success I had had to do with the mission we were playing - Seize Ground, basically. The way ITC has it the objectives are all in a box-shaped clump in the mid-board, which meant the Nids player having to walk into my shooting in order to score flags - that perhaps made up for the lack of mobility to an extent, and pushed some of his Flyrants closer than they might've been otherwise. Even still, when they arrived they were whittled down in short order - the big bugs were a tough ask, but the little ones just vanished.

I can definitely see flaws in the build now I've tried it a couple of times, but every build has flaws, and in the case of foot Sisters I'm still not convinced they're fatal. I do need to try the army in more inclement circumstances though.

The suicide Canonesses I'm also quite impressed by. They don't put out a tonne of damage and they're slow, but at the end of the day they're still WS2+ BS2+ models carrying Eviscerators and Meltaguns. If you run that model forward the opponent can either ignore it, in which case it remains a nuisance all game, blocking advances and dealing the odd D3/ D6 damage to stuff, or they can kill it, in which case I get an AoF. Losing the reroll aura is a drag, but that's why you bring two :-D

 BBAP wrote:

One CP per phase is the limit, innit?

It is not. One use of each stratagem each phase (so one martyrdom per phase but not one stratagem per phase).

 pretre wrote:

 BBAP wrote:

One CP per phase is the limit, innit?

It is not. One use of each stratagem each phase (so one martyrdom per phase but not one stratagem per phase).

Thanks for clearing that up! Someone lied to me (and in fairness I didn't bother to check).

EDIT: Also, going back to what I said earlier about pushing wounds past invulnerable saves - do Sisters have any way to do that beyond "bring more Meltaguns"? Is there a source of Mortal Wounds native to the army that I haven't seen yet, maybe?

No mortal wounds, though maybe perils from condemnor boltguns (not sure on perils, been a while sunce I tried out condemnors and rarely pay much attention during the psychic phase).

No mortal wounds and no semi reliable deny are our matching Achilles heels in 8th. I've been getting both from Allied Inquisition my last few games, but I really want to run pure Sisters and not suffer that particular hit.