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 pretre wrote:
I'm thinking that most folks are going to splash Sisters into soup for Canoness with Brazier, Canoness and 3 BSS to get a cheap battalion with killer DTW. What is that, Faithful 17 for 225? 5 DTW rolls at 24" and 3 obsec troop units.

Take a Missionary instead of the second Canoness.

Gives the girls more swings in melee, and shaves 10 points off the buy-in.

PuppetSoul wrote:

 pretre wrote:
I'm thinking that most folks are going to splash Sisters into soup for Canoness with Brazier, Canoness and 3 BSS to get a cheap battalion with killer DTW. What is that, Faithful 17 for 225? 5 DTW rolls at 24" and 3 obsec troop units.

Take a Missionary instead of the second Canoness.

Gives the girls more swings in melee, and shaves 10 points off the buy-in.

Already responded to that on the previous page.

Mine was focused on max DTW.

 pretre wrote:

Already responded to that on the previous page.

Mine was focused on max DTW.

Max DTW should have a MSU squad of Dominions in it: the scout move allows you to daisychain the DTW out 6+d6 inches before the first turn, potentially covering your opponent's entire deployment zone in the Dominions' DTW+Purity of Faith threat bubble.

I generally refer to this one as the Devoted22 (or Faithful22, whatever).

If the Faithful 22 are allying in with Astra Militarum then it might be worth it to take a Missionary with the only Relic he can use: the Book of St. Lucius.

If you're providing anti-psyker duty to Catachans then having the +1 Ld and +1 A aura out to 9" could be pretty useful.

 Frowbakk wrote:
If the Faithful 22 are allying in with Astra Militarum then it might be worth it to take a Missionary with the only Relic he can use: the Book of St. Lucius.

If you're providing anti-psyker duty to Catachans then having the +1 Ld and +1 A aura out to 9" could be pretty useful.

Missionary is only +1 attacks to IG.
War Hymns is AdMini only.
+1 LD comes from Uriah Jacobus specifically (who I do think IG will take if they Faithful22; but I doubt IG will faithful 22 instead of taking a Castellan and either Smashcaps or Shieldcaps).

Probably a silly question but does anyone use the relic Bolt Pistol (Wrath of the Emperor IIRC)?

Otherwise, does anyone take a Combi-Plasma on their Canoness?

I almost always take the combi-plasma. I'd be more interested in the Relic pistol if I didn't need other relics more.

 vipoid wrote:
Probably a silly question but does anyone use the relic Bolt Pistol (Wrath of the Emperor IIRC)?

Otherwise, does anyone take a Combi-Plasma on their Canoness?

The only model that can take a Bolt Pistol and also be a Character who can take relics is a Canoness.

As such, there is a very clear hierarchy of what the best three relics are: Invuln Aura, Brazzer, and Blade of Admonition.

So even in a situation where you don't end up taking the Brazzer because your opponent has no Psykers, the relic bolt pistol is not worth both the 2 CP needed to take it and the opportunity cost of not switching the bolt pistol out for a stormbolter.

PuppetSoul wrote:

 vipoid wrote:
Probably a silly question but does anyone use the relic Bolt Pistol (Wrath of the Emperor IIRC)?

Otherwise, does anyone take a Combi-Plasma on their Canoness?

The only model that can take a Bolt Pistol and also be a Character who can take relics is a Canoness.

As such, there is a very clear hierarchy of what the best three relics are: Invuln Aura, Brazzer, and Blade of Admonition.

So even in a situation where you don't end up taking the Brazzer because your opponent has no Psykers, the relic bolt pistol is not worth both the 2 CP needed to take it and the opportunity cost of not switching the bolt pistol out for a stormbolter.

I've tried it out, it's not remotely worth the relic slot for even 1 CP. A 2-damage heavy bolter turned into a pistol is just mediocre. I'd take any other relic over the Emperor's Wrath.

PuppetSoul wrote:

 vipoid wrote:
Probably a silly question but does anyone use the relic Bolt Pistol (Wrath of the Emperor IIRC)?

Otherwise, does anyone take a Combi-Plasma on their Canoness?

.
As such, there is a very clear hierarchy of what the best three relics are: Invuln Aura, Brazzer, and Blade of Admonition.

The invuln aura is a warlord trait, not a Relic. Unless you mean the book, but that isn't an invuln aura.

He’s talking about the Mantle of Ophilia, which gives the beater a 3++.

 alextroy wrote:
He’s talking about the Mantle of Ophilia, which gives the beater a 3++.

I had assumed the Book, pretty useful even without the invuln. Book, Blade, and Brazier are the only three I'd spend up on.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 MacPhail wrote:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Huh, I just noticed that Beacon of Faith says Guard units, not Guard infantry. So it would still cover the Russes (if they were close enough).

ERJAK wrote:

 MacPhail wrote:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I'd argue that we have decent offensive options in-codex, our issue is delivery systems. If we can get our Repentia all the way across the board and into melee range, they do good damage output. A Canoness with the Blade of Admonition and Bloody Rose does good damage output. Seraphim with Fusion Pistols do... Okay damage output, maybe not great. Unfortunately, outside of Seraphim these are also some of our squishiest units, and while Seraphim can get a silly invuln if you stack the buffs properly, actually getting those buffs stacked means either slowing them down or getting a +3" Act of Faith and a lucky Advance roll every turn on a canoness to have her sprinting along with the jump pack infantry.

(Also, an Exorcist actually does pretty great damage for its cost if you can roll a 5 or 6 with it, and is average if you roll a 4. Which is to say, it does below-to-awful damage half the time.)

 alextroy wrote:
He’s talking about the Mantle of Ophilia, which gives the beater a 3++.

I'd buy it for wargear but not as a relic - there trinity of standard relics are what i am looking mainly.

PuppetSoul wrote:

The only model that can take a Bolt Pistol and also be a Character who can take relics is a Canoness.

As such, there is a very clear hierarchy of what the best three relics are: Invuln Aura, Brazzer, and Blade of Admonition.

So even in a situation where you don't end up taking the Brazzer because your opponent has no Psykers, the relic bolt pistol is not worth both the 2 CP needed to take it and the opportunity cost of not switching the bolt pistol out for a stormbolter.

Waaaghpower wrote:

I've tried it out, it's not remotely worth the relic slot for even 1 CP. A 2-damage heavy bolter turned into a pistol is just mediocre. I'd take any other relic over the Emperor's Wrath.

The thing that confuses me, though, is that I see plenty of people using one of their relic slots to take the Blade of Admonition.

Is is really that much better than just using an Eviscerator? You hit on 2s with D3 damage, sure, but the Eviscerator has +1S and better AP.

And if you take an Eviscerator with Bolt Pistol (as opposed to a Power Sword and Combi-Plasma, which is the most comparable weapon for ranged damage), then the Canoness actually ends up 3pts cheaper.

Or am I just underestimating the appeal of having a Canoness in combat? I thought they were closer to support units with a little melee ability, hence I'd have thought enhancing their ranged abilities would be preferable to enhancing their melee.

 vipoid wrote:

PuppetSoul wrote:

The only model that can take a Bolt Pistol and also be a Character who can take relics is a Canoness.

As such, there is a very clear hierarchy of what the best three relics are: Invuln Aura, Brazzer, and Blade of Admonition.

So even in a situation where you don't end up taking the Brazzer because your opponent has no Psykers, the relic bolt pistol is not worth both the 2 CP needed to take it and the opportunity cost of not switching the bolt pistol out for a stormbolter.

Waaaghpower wrote:

I've tried it out, it's not remotely worth the relic slot for even 1 CP. A 2-damage heavy bolter turned into a pistol is just mediocre. I'd take any other relic over the Emperor's Wrath.

The thing that confuses me, though, is that I see plenty of people using one of their relic slots to take the Blade of Admonition.

Is is really that much better than just using an Eviscerator? You hit on 2s with D3 damage, sure, but the Eviscerator has +1S and better AP.

And if you take an Eviscerator with Bolt Pistol (as opposed to a Power Sword and Combi-Plasma, which is the most comparable weapon for ranged damage), then the Canoness actually ends up 3pts cheaper.

Or am I just underestimating the appeal of having a Canoness in combat? I thought they were closer to support units with a little melee ability, hence I'd have thought enhancing their ranged abilities would be preferable to enhancing their melee.

The Blade is 2+ to hit, -3 AP, Strength 5 and 3 damage of 4 pts (plus a CP if other relics taken)
The Eviscerator is 3+ t hit, -4 Ap, Strength 6 and d3 damage for 12pts

So they are reasonably different - Also the number of 2's I roll when In am 3+ to hit and re-rolling 1's is really annoying, the 2+ re-rolling ones is about as reliable as you can get. Also 3 damage is very nice.

Hey,

I've played 4 games with the new Sisters under ITC rules. So far I've only gone pure sisters so far I've found -

Horde sisters play ITC missions stupidily well. You will almost always score recon, have enough left to score 3-4 points on end game objectives and be able to max some other tertiary. Your opponents will almost never kill or hold more than you.

I've found that I was always holding more and at least killing the same. 15 Woman ld10 4++ squads are really hard to deal with. With 3 storm bolters and blessed bolts they can threaten a lot.

Some take aways:

Horde sisters are really powerful but need allies to deal with knights or morty. However you need about 80-100 basic battle sister bodies plus a lot of storm bolters to play it. I think I might be one of the few people who actually have the models to play this.

Every single time I've used Vessel of the emperor's will I've found it to be a massive waste of CP. Being able to have your whole army hit on 2s is cool but those 3CP would have bene far more valuable later on. I'm pretty sure I'm going to stop using it unless it's 100% critical and a clutch moment.

I tried out holy trinity on a dominion squad with 3x storm bolters, a melta gun, and a flamer. It cost 2 (well 3 cp to reroll the act of faith) to take out a chimera. It was a waste of resources and I probably won't build for this again.

Some of the new acts of faith are very powerful. 4+++ vs mortal wounds is great as is auto passing moral. Given that I always had 15 AoFs per game I always attempted divine guidance once a turn, when I got it it was cool but even when I didn't it never seemed to matter that much. Hand of the Emperor was underwhelming. Really needs to be a +6 move or easier to get off. The passion was largely a waste. Every time I got it off I killed what I wanted to in the first go around.

Overall thoughts -

I said it in the Episode of Command Points where we went over the new sisters book and I'll say it again: The book is (probably) more powerful than the index but it requires way more models, book keeping, and resources to do so which feels like a new loss in my opinion. It's an absolute pain to have to keep track of my CP, my AoFs, my opponents CP, as well as victory points each game.

Rynner wrote:
I think I might be one of the few people who actually have the models to play this.

I'm converting 16 sets of the Dark Vengeance budget marines with Statuesque heads for this purpose.

Rynner wrote:
The passion was largely a waste. Every time I got it off I killed what I wanted to in the first go around.

Rynner wrote:
Every single time I've used Vessel of the emperor's will I've found it to be a massive waste of CP.

I see someone still isn't exploiting RAW on the stratagem to turn his entire swarm into Khorne Berserkers.

Yes, yes, I get that it's very likely that The Passion will be changed to be as minimal impact as the rest (and hopefully its trigger value is brought down to compensate), so it's not fruitful to do dry runs with pre-nerf rules, but on the off-hand they DON'T change in the FAQ, or god forbid they say its working as intended...

I see no point in playing it that way till we know for sure. If it doesn't get faq'd game on.

 vipoid wrote:
Or am I just underestimating the appeal of having a Canoness in combat?

They just struggle to get there.
If packs (and eviscerators) were in the beta then you'd be looking at ~200pts for a supreme command of them that would maul all kinds of units. Still a long way short of a smash captain but cheap on the CP front.

PuppetSoul wrote:
I'm converting 16 sets of the Dark Vengeance budget marines with Statuesque heads for this purpose.

/shudder

I hope there's more conversion work than that.

A.T. wrote:

 vipoid wrote:
Or am I just underestimating the appeal of having a Canoness in combat?

They just struggle to get there.
If packs (and eviscerators) were in the beta then you'd be looking at ~200pts for a supreme command of them that would maul all kinds of units. Still a long way short of a smash captain but cheap on the CP front.

If you look at the Warlord traits and relics, they clearly had Smashcanoness in at one point, because the traits that would go on her need to be auras, and were clearly scaled back because she existed. And then she was still too strong as a cheap deepstrike detachment of Smashcanonesses with eviscerators that deny psychic powers and land in the Burning Descent hole and auto-succeeded on the charge by exploiting The Passion, so they removed the jump packs and eviscerators from the beta dex.

This is probably also why all of the people who seem like they should have been in the playtest group all consistently say that the new Sisters are "Very very good", when they are clearly mediocre at best outside of The Pink Tide.

PuppetSoul wrote:
If you look at the Warlord traits and relics, they clearly had Smashcanoness in at one point, because the traits that would go on her need to be auras, and were clearly scaled back because she existed. And then she was still too strong as a cheap deepstrike detachment of Smashcanonesses with eviscerators that deny psychic powers and land in the Burning Descent hole and auto-succeeded on the charge by exploiting The Passion, so they removed the jump packs and eviscerators from the beta dex.

This is probably also why all of the people who seem like they should have been in the playtest group all consistently say that the new Sisters are "Very very good", when they are clearly mediocre at best outside of The Pink Tide.

This is a great story, but Jump Pack canonesses never had a model so never were going in the beta dex. Also, I hate the Pink Tide as a name. lol

 pretre wrote:

PuppetSoul wrote:
I'm converting 16 sets of the Dark Vengeance budget marines with Statuesque heads for this purpose.

/shudder

I hope there's more conversion work than that.

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

I will not be fielding those.

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

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

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

PuppetSoul wrote:

A.T. wrote:

 vipoid wrote:
Or am I just underestimating the appeal of having a Canoness in combat?

They just struggle to get there.
If packs (and eviscerators) were in the beta then you'd be looking at ~200pts for a supreme command of them that would maul all kinds of units. Still a long way short of a smash captain but cheap on the CP front.

If you look at the Warlord traits and relics, they clearly had Smashcanoness in at one point, because the traits that would go on her need to be auras, and were clearly scaled back because she existed. And then she was still too strong as a cheap deepstrike detachment of Smashcanonesses with eviscerators that deny psychic powers and land in the Burning Descent hole and auto-succeeded on the charge by exploiting The Passion, so they removed the jump packs and eviscerators from the beta dex.

This is probably also why all of the people who seem like they should have been in the playtest group all consistently say that the new Sisters are "Very very good", when they are clearly mediocre at best outside of The Pink Tide.

Ok first, please stop trying to make "the Pink Tide" happen. It's not going to happen. No tournament organizers and few casual opponents will stand for it. It's a waste of our time to even discuss something obviously against the rules.

Next, that's some great fiction and I'm sure it'll earn clicks on your blog or whatever but none of that is likely. Occam's Razor answer is "no model, no rules" for the jump canoness and the playtesters said the rules were good because they're incompetent (this is the same reason the rules aren't actually good btw).