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 Unit1126PLL wrote:


Lemme put this heavily armoured Sister/GK in my detach- oh wait you can't anymore. Now I have to bring a whole load of other GK, and not use their psychic powers, just to field one unit.

 Grundz wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:


Lemme put this heavily armoured Sister/GK in my detach- oh wait you can't anymore. Now I have to bring a whole load of other GK, and not use their psychic powers, just to field one unit.

Hold on, let me add this auxiliary support detachment to my ar- oh wait I can't because I've already used my 3 detachments at 2k.

Good try, though.

EDIT:
At this point, it's safe to determine 'es a troll, and ignore him.

Yeah, you can keep coming up with excuses why you can't use a solution to your problems almost as long as I can keep pointing out that they have solutions.

Your answer is universally "I dont want to"
not "I can't"

 Grundz wrote:
There is a universe of possibilities out there if you can get over the hang up of the data sheet not saying "sisters" Thats why 40k is fun.

While this is technically true, you are in the wrong forum thread for tactics regarding Saint Eldrad and her bands of shining seraphim.

Tactics, people, TACTICS!

 MacPhail wrote:
Tactics, people, TACTICS!

Please. Nothing makes me want to play less than OT bickering.

Here, I'll do my part.

Since AoFs are going to be fickle, they should be nice when they happen, but not essential. How about this for an army core that benefits from but doesn't rely on AoFs:

Run a Valorous Heart Brigade. Mount six BSS in three Rhinos. Add an Immolator with support characters. Everyone has heavy flamer and melta at their new price. Tanks advance, pop smoke, and enjoy Celestine's aura. Build a Rhino fort and disembark. Hopefully you are now midfield smothering 1-2 objectives with 30 bodies with 3+/5+/FNP, LOS and charge screening from the Rhinos, rerolls, a good chance of splashing Divine Guidance to all of them, meltas for AT, flamers for overwatch, and the option for Holy Trinity if it matters.

Same thing, but with 4++ and BR repentia/ smash canonesses.

 MacPhail wrote:
Here, I'll do my part.

Since AoFs are going to be fickle, they should be nice when they happen, but not essential. How about this for an army core that benefits from but doesn't rely on AoFs:

Run a Valorous Heart Brigade. Mount six BSS in three Rhinos. Add an Immolator with support characters. Everyone has heavy flamer and melta at their new price. Tanks advance, pop smoke, and enjoy Celestine's aura. Build a Rhino fort and disembark. Hopefully you are now midfield smothering 1-2 objectives with 30 bodies with 3+/5+/FNP, LOS and charge screening from the Rhinos, rerolls, a good chance of splashing Divine Guidance to all of them, meltas for AT, flamers for overwatch, and the option for Holy Trinity if it matters.

That sounds a lot like my 5th/6th list.

I'm thinking that the best option for the Holy Trinity is a 6-strong unit of Retributors with 4 Heavy Flamers, a Combi-Melta for the Sister Superior and the 'extra' bolter Retributor to go cruising around in an Immolator with Immolation Cannon.

Since they can disembark 9" and burn down a target within 8" (17" "range") with 4d6 autohits wounding Marines on 2's and Knights on 4's, backed up by a Melta shot and a bolter shooting in Rapid Fire range that would mean 7 or 8 dead Marines not even counting the Immolation Cannon.

Of course, the one downside is points, as this combo comes in just slightly under the cost of two Exorcists.

Right now I see primary Sisters working one of two ways (this is going off ITC guidelines for primary faction)

1: A 4++ Armor wall backed by something to bail you out of combat. Kind of unappealing with clown bikes that don't really care about your invaluable save.

2: A battalion backed by 2 Canonesses, one with the relic power sword, one with the deny relic (if needed) along side battle sisters with storm bolters, 1-2 max Seraphim squads with Hand Flamers, and 1-2 units of Storm Bolter Doms. All of who are there to support the rest of your imperial soup.

Neither build relys or needs our one cool mechanic (faith) to function.

If you just want to ally option 2 really isn't bad for any imp list. Lots of denys and 5 fairly cheap CP.

I'm really hoping GW FAQ's the beta book as we go prior to release.

The point of the beta is for GW to show the direction they are going and for us to play test if its to strong or weak.

They will for sure do some minor changes, but dont have you hopes up for majors ones.

The AOF system will most likely stay the same, but it will easily be tweaked, maybe 4+ to cast instead of 5+, maybe +6" movement instead of +3" movement (tho in their eyes the think sisters with large movement is scary, no joke, there was an interview with one of the play testers and he said that) Or instead of +1 to hit, maybe it can be Auto hit.

We already are very tight on points, so i dont see much point changes.


The BIGGEST things we need to make sure GW knows is, the AoF needs to be slightly better and some units like Exorcist just dont fundamentally work and needs something to make sure they have a better avager (B.c its not fun to have a D6 into a D6, WAY to random to relay on).

Anyone know how we give them play testing feedback?

40kfaq@gwplc.com

I'd even be OK if GW scrapped all the Acts of Faith as it's own separate thing and instead rolled them into being Stratagems, but at a reduced cost.

Everyone else gets to Fight Twice for 3 CP, Sisters can do it for 2 CP.

Bad Moon Orks can Shoot Twice for 2 CP, let Sisters do it for 1 CP.

Auto pass Morale with 1 CP cost instead of the 2 CP everyone else needs.

Etc, etc for the other Acts of Faith.

Their reduced cost would prioritize their use over other Stratagems, but would also keep them from getting too far out of hand, because Cp's are a limited resource.

Have Martyrdom be an army-wide rule to return CP while we're at it.

The point of AoF is that they are not Stratagems. I would hate them being stratagems.

I would really like to see acts of faith points refresh each turn. In my ideal world you would auto pass and act of faith if you want to spend the points on it but different ones have different values.

I.E.

Move twice/double your move - 2 Points
Shoot Twice - 4 points

etc...

That would be a good mechanic that you can scale based on total number of models with that rule and would give you a reason to take lots of sisters models.

The more im thinking about it, the more i think just removing the "Once per turn" will make it work perfectly till more testing is done.

Going to compare the previous Act of Faith system to the new one real quick.

Previously, you got a 2+ for the army, a free one for Celestine, and a 4+ for up to 3 imagifiers, for a potential of five per battle round.

Now you get 3+(Sisters/10) points for all battle rounds.

On average, the Acts of Faith would go off on a 3.

On average, the new AoFs go off on a 4.

Assuming you run 100 Sisters, which is almost undoubtedly going to be close to twice what you actually run because of the removal of double-shooting, you would get 13 tests of faith per game (assuming no other sources of faith are taken).

So without any other inputs, in a six round game, the previous system you would have had THIRTY Acts of Faith that go off on a 3 and are strictly stronger (double move, double shoot, etc.), compared to THIRTEEN that go off on a 4.

Not only are the new Acts of Faith significantly worse in function, but you get less than half the number (more realistically less than a third).

Realistically though, the only one that has enough of a game impact to remember that the AoF system exists is Passion, and it goes off on a 5.

So the new system would be best described as less than half the attempts, that go off less than half as often, for less than half of the benefit.

 Frowbakk wrote:
I'm thinking that the best option for the Holy Trinity is a 6-strong unit of Retributors with 4 Heavy Flamers, a Combi-Melta for the Sister Superior and the 'extra' bolter Retributor to go cruising around in an Immolator with Immolation Cannon.

Since they can disembark 9" and burn down a target within 8" (17" "range") with 4d6 autohits wounding Marines on 2's and Knights on 4's, backed up by a Melta shot and a bolter shooting in Rapid Fire range that would mean 7 or 8 dead Marines not even counting the Immolation Cannon.

Of course, the one downside is points, as this combo comes in just slightly under the cost of two Exorcists.

Trinity becomes absurdly strong when you exceed your basic 10 man sisters squad

Against most targets, 2 meltas and a combiflamer with the 10 man squad + trinity does about 40% more wounds than with 3 meltas (at any toughness) this balloons up to almost twice as many wounds at T8
I'm considering nixing one rhino/repressor and just having one trinity full 15 man sister squad following up the rear, instead of an expensive countercharge unit they can wipe out quite a lot of things with trinity + possibly +1 to hit Its really not expensive in cp or points to hurl 16 average wounds at a target. at ~170pts

They do suffer terribly against units with large numbers of wounds but there should be enough melta rolling around to deal with it.

Also don't forget that you can pick up a melta trooper on a 4+ on any squad, once a turn, so unless units are wiped out they are always fairly dangerous

I've had a couple days to comtemplate the codex and how I'll revamp my approach to the Codex. I'm getting ready for a couple more games (hopefully this weekend). I'm trying to really get down to the actual strengths of the new codex and focus on maximizing them. I think the real strengths now are:
1) Invuln saves- having a solid core of units that will benifit most from good stacking invuln auras. Meaning stacking Celestine and a WL trait Canoness in the middle of Repressors, immos, and Exorcists.

2) Psychic defenses- one of the better selections we have is the ability to make our Deny the Witch into a real 2D6. That plus the strat should make playing against sisters a royal pain for any psycher heavy army.

3) A Counter-attack element- a lot of people are hinting at Repentia. IMO the hidden gem here are Arcos, particularly with the help of the trigger word strat. I think they will be best in small to mid sized wood-chipper squads with Priest backup. Max sized squads are tempting, but you really don't need 81 rerolling S5 attacks on a suicide squad. 45 attacks on the other hand, cheap enough to throw away but strong enough to mulch many units in the game.

Apparently I was insane for trying to test out the units in the Codex last time, so I will include Repressors this time. I agree that it might not be possible to build a solid list using only the Codex.
So my next list is going to be something like:
Brigade + Spearhead. 6+ FNP trait.
3 Exorcists
3 Repressors w/2 HF
3 Dom squads w/ 5 melta
3 Min sized BSS squads w/ 3 SBs
2 Immolators
2x 5 Arco-flagellants
A Priest, a missionary, a Canoness, and Celestine

Faith is not a priority, neither are CPs to be honest. Sisters currently aren't really CP hungry as many of our strats just boost faith anyway. Really just need to be sure I can get Trigger word off a couple times, have some rerolls, and maybe a Deny and Blessed Ammo.
If that doesn't work out, I'll move on to the next idea.

As much fun as it may be to try to find the "best builds" for the Beta Codex or to dream up your favorite "correction" to the Faith Rules in the Beta Codex, that is not what we really need. We need to play the codex we are given and provide solid feedback on what those rules have done to the army.

Don't dismiss units because you theory-hammer them as bad.
Don't ignore Faith because you theory-hammer it as too low in impact, too much trouble to bother, etc.

Play as many aspects of the Beta Codex and then provide feedback on what isn't working and why. Only with such experience backing your feedback will GW pay any attention to your input.

I'm really going to need to scare up some games once I get CA so that I can provide some input. And I'm going to start by taking my unoptimized Index Army and playing it with the Beta Codex to tell how it is different and if it end ups being better, worst, or just different.

Okay, I think I've got a pilot list together. It isn't meant to be super competitive, but to get as many newish units out as possible. I'll be playing a casual game this weekend with the digital BetaDex. I'm not sure of the exact costs yet, but I think I can run something like this at 2k:



My basic tactics would be to run the Immos in with Dominions, followed by a Rhino with Heavy Flamers and HQs/Elites for support, followed by a wall of infantry, leaving stock BSS to screen the Exos. Celestine and the Seraphim are more support/relief units, probably going in on a soft flank to disrupt the backfield.

Not sure about the cost... could be way over or under. Thoughts and insights welcome.

Unless the beta changed it, BSS can't have two heavy flamers.

 Mmmpi wrote:
Unless the beta changed it, BSS can't have two heavy flamers.

It didn't.

 Mmmpi wrote:
Unless the beta changed it, BSS can't have two heavy flamers.

That's two units of ten with a melta and a heavy flamer each... although I think Frowbakk is onto something when he suggests HF Rets as the best target for Holy Trinity.

 alextroy wrote:
As much fun as it may be to try to find the "best builds" for the Beta Codex or to dream up your favorite "correction" to the Faith Rules in the Beta Codex, that is not what we really need. We need to play the codex we are given and provide solid feedback on what those rules have done to the army.

Don't dismiss units because you theory-hammer them as bad.
Don't ignore Faith because you theory-hammer it as too low in impact, too much trouble to bother, etc.

Play as many aspects of the Beta Codex and then provide feedback on what isn't working and why. Only with such experience backing your feedback will GW pay any attention to your input.

I'm really going to need to scare up some games once I get CA so that I can provide some input. And I'm going to start by taking my unoptimized Index Army and playing it with the Beta Codex to tell how it is different and if it end ups being better, worst, or just different.

It's not theory-hammer.
I've played games, Faith had little to no impact, so I'm not building to maximize it. Right now Faith is like having grenades on my Wych squads, I use it because they have them, it would be silly not to, but it's not a large or important part of the army so I'm not going to try weird or obscure tactics to try to maximize the impact of grenades (or Faith).

Same with larger Sisters squads, they are more survivable, but too slow and don't accomplish much, so I'm going to small squads in transports next.
I played a bunch of games using units from the codex, and was dismissed as insane for not using Repressors (cause they aren't in the codex).

 Creeping Dementia wrote:

 alextroy wrote:
As much fun as it may be to try to find the "best builds" for the Beta Codex or to dream up your favorite "correction" to the Faith Rules in the Beta Codex, that is not what we really need. We need to play the codex we are given and provide solid feedback on what those rules have done to the army.

Don't dismiss units because you theory-hammer them as bad.
Don't ignore Faith because you theory-hammer it as too low in impact, too much trouble to bother, etc.

Play as many aspects of the Beta Codex and then provide feedback on what isn't working and why. Only with such experience backing your feedback will GW pay any attention to your input.

I'm really going to need to scare up some games once I get CA so that I can provide some input. And I'm going to start by taking my unoptimized Index Army and playing it with the Beta Codex to tell how it is different and if it end ups being better, worst, or just different.

It's not theory-hammer.
I've played games, Faith had little to no impact, so I'm not building to maximize it. Right now Faith is like having grenades on my Wych squads, I use it because they have them, it would be silly not to, but it's not a large or important part of the army so I'm not going to try weird or obscure tactics to try to maximize the impact of grenades (or Faith).

Same with larger Sisters squads, they are more survivable, but too slow and don't accomplish much, so I'm going to small squads in transports next.
I played a bunch of games using units from the codex, and was dismissed as insane for not using Repressors (cause they aren't in the codex).

Honestly, I'm right behind not using Repressors. If the only thing that makes our Codex work is a FW unit, our Codex doesn't work. I'd rather we give feedback on our Codex units so GW can get them right on their own in the future too.

Do you guys think it is mandatory to mech up with sisters now?

I was looking forward to my Argent Shroud infantry spam list as generating tons of faith...

... but now that I know what faith actually does I'm a lot more hesitant.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Do you guys think it is mandatory to mech up with sisters now?

I was looking forward to my Argent Shroud infantry spam list as generating tons of faith...

... but now that I know what faith actually does I'm a lot more hesitant.

I'm leaning toward mechanized, but you should definitely give infantry heavy a shot. I'm not an authority on all things Sisters and we still need to develop a good consensus. It won't hurt to try a few times. I just don't recommend repeatedly bashing your head against a wall if you see something obviously isn't working though. Try something, then move on.