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U02dah4 wrote:
Yes if you cherry pick then absolutely but noones fireing battle cannons at sisters if they can help it

for your D3 shot small blast weapons its a 33% increase

50% increase, actually.

But the only two d3 blasts I can think of are Plasma Cannons (which, to be fair, are something I could see being shot at sisters) and Neutron Lasers (which is VAST OVERKILL for sisters).

Corizin wrote:

 Sgt.Sunshine wrote:
So I've been looking a bit more closely at Celestians, but I'm concerned about taking more than one unit. Their rerolls trigger from being in range of a cannoness from their order and that seems a bit harder to manage with the VH/BR list I'd like to run.

When fielding multiple units do you just give up on the reroll for some units? Grouping up multiple together seems not ideal.

I don't think that's a question that can be answered by listbuilding alone since it's going to depend on what you want to do with your Canonesses. If nothing else bringing a squad of 5 with your Bloody Rose Canoness should work as ablative armor to ensure that your repentia swarm retain their buffs for as long as possible even if the enemy brings snipers.

So am I insane OR...

Celestians block a shot and take a Mortal Wound.

But the Ebon Chalice trait gives a 5+ save vs. Mortal Wounds (and not just in the Psychic Phase) which would mean Ebon Chalice Celestians can catch a sniper round and walk it off 1/3 of the time.

If only the Cleansing Flame stratagem were a much more reasonable 1 CP.

>sigh<

All these conversions with Brettonian bitz featuring Grails on 'em aren't going to transmute into VH or BR Icons, so I'm trying to find a way to make an Ebon Chalice list work...

...somehow.

Corizin wrote:

 Sgt.Sunshine wrote:
So I've been looking a bit more closely at Celestians, but I'm concerned about taking more than one unit. Their rerolls trigger from being in range of a cannoness from their order and that seems a bit harder to manage with the VH/BR list I'd like to run.

When fielding multiple units do you just give up on the reroll for some units? Grouping up multiple together seems not ideal.

I don't think that's a question that can be answered by listbuilding alone since it's going to depend on what you want to do with your Canonesses. If nothing else bringing a squad of 5 with your Bloody Rose Canoness should work as ablative armor to ensure that your repentia swarm retain their buffs for as long as possible even if the enemy brings snipers.

I was mostly thinking about running them with the Bloody Rose Cannoness as abaltive wounds, but also a fighty unit. 10 of them do seem to pack a punch in BR. Not as much as Repentia of course, but rerolling shooting is neat. I can see why you'd take 2 units. Blowing 2 CP on a unit on the otherside of the board for their specific strat and the BR on sound sweet, but I'm not sure I want to commit to that. The list I'm thinking of rolling with on the onset of 9th only starts with 7-8 CP.

 Frowbakk wrote:

So am I insane OR...

Celestians block a shot and take a Mortal Wound.

But the Ebon Chalice trait gives a 5+ save vs. Mortal Wounds (and not just in the Psychic Phase) which would mean Ebon Chalice Celestians can catch a sniper round and walk it off 1/3 of the time.

The Ebon Chalice are pretty sniper resistant yeah. The main problem with Celestian blocking is that it only works on <Order> characters and while GW in their infinite wisdom did give <Order> to the Canoness and Imagifier, they didn't do so with the Missionary, Dialogus, Hospitaller or Preacher so you can't really get away with playing more Characters.

 JNAProductions wrote:

U02dah4 wrote:
Yes if you cherry pick then absolutely but noones fireing battle cannons at sisters if they can help it

for your D3 shot small blast weapons its a 33% increase

50% increase, actually.

But the only two d3 blasts I can think of are Plasma Cannons (which, to be fair, are something I could see being shot at sisters) and Neutron Lasers (which is VAST OVERKILL for sisters).

Without repeats

SM

Centurian missile launchers

Wrist mounted grenade launcher

Plasma Cannon

AdM

Eradication ray
neutron lazer
Solar Atomiser

AM
Melta Cannon

Custodes
Ballistus Grenade launcher

Assassin/ Sisters of silence
Psyke out grenade

Would be what I can think of from Imperium but I don't know xenos weapons enough to know if there are commonly played D3 blasts and some of the FW models such as contemptor achillius we don't know about yet

Demolisher Cannon is d6 shots.

 JNAProductions wrote:
Demolisher Cannon is d6 shots.

Removed sorry I forgot they changed its shot profile from the index version - I never run it


So Guard tanks (Plasma cannon sponsons ), Custodes Terminators (balistus grenade launcher) and SM Centurians (Centurian missile launcher) get pretty decent buffs vs 6-10 and i didnt include xenos

Admech get a couple of incidentals on their characters but not enough to make a significant difference

So is it worth putting a pistol on a Canoness or better to put a combiplasma on a Superior?

Probably more worthwhile to put it on the canoness I guess.

A cannoness always rr1's

U02dah4 wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:
Demolisher Cannon is d6 shots.

Removed sorry I forgot they changed its shot profile from the index version - I never run it


So Guard tanks (Plasma cannon sponsons ), Custodes Terminators (balistus grenade launcher) and SM Centurians (Centurian missile launcher) get pretty decent buffs vs 6-10 and i didnt include xenos

Admech get a couple of incidentals on their characters but not enough to make a significant difference

The good news is that even before the massive nerf you weren't ever going to see Centurions with missile laumchers. The way the unit interacts with bolter discipline makes hurricane bolters much more desirable.

And now we're talking about a unit that is essentially dead.

Had my first game of 9th yesterday Vs Nids.

1750pts:

I had BR battalion with:

Admonition Canoness IP
Beneficence Canoness NullRod IP Righteous Rage
Celestine

8 Celestians PM, Triple Melta Simulacrum
7 Repentia
Imagifier
Preacher
Repentia Superior Wrath of the Emperor

3 basic BSS

2xIP Seraphim 1 SS with PP
1x10 Zephyrim

2x3 Units of HB/Flail Morties(with one anchorite that had buzz blades)

2 Rhinos

His army was lots of gaunts and gargoyles, HVC Tyrant, Maleceptor, Neurothrope, Double Carnifex(the short range anti-infantry special variant) Shrikes, big unit of dakka warriors, and some spicy SR pyrovores. Also Hiveguard.

Started the game with 8 CP and the Passion, Vital intelligence. Picked Abhor the Witch, Raise the banners, Engage on all fronts.
He picked bring it down(duh), engage on all fronts, and the mission specific one.

I won roll off and gave him first turn, he jumped on all 5 objectives did some very mediocre shooting that also included me saving one of the rhinos from an HVC with the expend miracle dice stratagem. Nothing else really of note.

Took the turn, advanced up, disembarked both melee units in rhinos, shot the melta from the Celestians at the fex on an objective, did 1 wound. Killed 2 hiveguard with HBs, killed a bunch of gaunts with the other HBs. Charge phase, in position to kill his HT, last hiveguard, all of his gargoyles, a carnifex, all of his gaunts, and take 3 objectives back, fail 5 out of 8 charges. Still killed the hiveguard and took 6 wounds off the HT with double fight, also killed half the squad of gargoyles with just the Beneficence canoness.

Still results in him controlling 5 objectives at the start of his command phase, he's now up 18 to 3 with bring it down still pretty much guaranteed by the end of the game. So i'm essentially at 33 to 3. He has an abysmal turn 2, doing very little to anything.

My turn two I basically break his lines and am in the mop up stage. He has such a huge lead that I'd need all 5 turns to score enough points on an empty board, but I am pretty confident I can do it. End of turn 3 ran out of time when the store closed.

Takeaways, beneficence canoness is crazy, the passion is amazing for bloody rose, wrath of the emperor is better than I though, still maybe not worth 1 CP, Celestians will absolutely butcher anything with 3+ Armor or worse with the passion and 3CP, but it does cost 3CP, repentia hit really hard, rhinos and mortifiers are more survivable than I thought, probably still pretty papery though. Mortifiers rock, I really wish the penitent buzzblades were the best general use weapon because the flails are really annoying to roll for and don't feel as good.

We don't really have any CP. I ran out turn 1 and needed the turn CP just to use Deadly descent. I would probably limit myself to 2 relics and a WT in most games just to give myself a fighting chance. For sure no more than that if anything is going SR.

Lemondish wrote:

U02dah4 wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:
Demolisher Cannon is d6 shots.

Removed sorry I forgot they changed its shot profile from the index version - I never run it


So Guard tanks (Plasma cannon sponsons ), Custodes Terminators (balistus grenade launcher) and SM Centurians (Centurian missile launcher) get pretty decent buffs vs 6-10 and i didnt include xenos

Admech get a couple of incidentals on their characters but not enough to make a significant difference

The good news is that even before the massive nerf you weren't ever going to see Centurions with missile laumchers. The way the unit interacts with bolter discipline makes hurricane bolters much more desirable.

And now we're talking about a unit that is essentially dead.

I don't think the point was simply to say "these are the only things to consider". I mean, while i agree BLAST isn't going to be a huge deal for Sisters, we will see d3 Types that become much stronger against most everyone. Plasma Cannon, or its like with Necrons, etc, getting cheaper is going to skew a few Heavy weapons pickups for a 36" range that can punch thru SMs on a single shot at D2. This was the end meta of 8th and with the prevalent SM models being introduced, i don't see this vanishing soon.

We'll also get that against us, but they wouldn't need to supercharge to be devastating at that point. 1 squad of Devastator equivalents would get 12 shots default of S7/-3/D1, mathematically coming out to 7.08W, which you'd save 1 on average outside cover (without better invuln bubble). In a 10 man squad, that is 6 dead girls needing a 1 or 2 on morale to not lost another to run and a test for the other 3. Compare that to a 5 man squad, same shooting averaging 2 shots each now, at 4.7 wounds, saving 1, and you end up with usually 1 girl who needs a 3 or less on moral (unless you saved the Superior), giving you 50/50 if your squad survives at all, but you're still mathematically 2.4 wounds less because you simply split your unit. That is 30% increase in survivability without actually doing anything or accounting for dice rolls. The true benefit with the MSU build there, though, is even ignoring the fewer wounds profile that the other 5 girls standing right next to you had 0 chance of being wounded, fleeing, or any general impact to them. This is the MSU argument and blast has 0 influence to it while showing you save 30%. It is simply A squad has wounds while B squad sits pretty. The higher the random roll of shots, the less influence BLAST has to its characteristic outside of horde armies.

In either circumstance, if your BSS are pulling higher end damage shooting than our actual damage dealers, then who cares. For sisters, i think it is a moot point and most of our squad would be removed if we're having that level of weaponry shot at them unless we wrap Celestine or Indomitable, and at that point you care about volume of shots then anything specific. This make split fire that much more appealing, forcing the hand to either over or underkill being where we save the most with MSU builds on them.

Now, my counter to this, and i agree with higher #s, are where you have your damage output and either need ablative wounds or you want more damage output. Repentia are fantastic in full squads out of a Rhino. You're hard pressed having BR Repentia charge otu of a rhino doing 27 S6/-4/D2 hits, mathematically coming out against a T4/5 target with 20.25 hits after rerolls (4+ following 4+), wounding on 3s for 13.5 successful hits forcing an invuln on anything that has one. that's an entire SM squad of anything, and your 135 pts of Repentia have paid for themselves. And they are surprisingly durable units too en bulk due to FNP. Having less than the 9, unless you're riding in something besides a Rhino (no idea why?) doesn't make sense. I feel the same goes for Dominions where you want to keep the SBs up as much as you can for Blessed Bolts on the 4 that have them. I personally still like the MSU aspect of them, but 24% increase in price on them has me considering them as shelf dust for the moment. Similar in ablative Seraphim, 4 pt increase is just killer to having anything but 5 women squads of them. 36% increase to protect inferno pistols is just bad math even if you get the extra shots on the strategem on drop.

I think the answer is that the MSU build should really only be considered with BSS and the other units need to given their purpose to determine their squad size benefits.

@ERJAK

Nice write up and agree you’d probably have won that game. My experience in 9th so far is we’ve got the tools for board control (mainly through BR) though getting to the center will take us longer than most factions.
Since 9th dropped I’ve said we will be short on CPs this edition especially if we take more of the Relics and WLTs that make us more competitive, even so I will always take 2 WLTs and at least 3 to 4 Relics in all my lists.
The Passion is crazy good with BR though sometimes I take Hand of the Emperor just to make sure I get that extra movement in charges or advances.
And Celestians have been under rated in our new Codex. Never a fan of Celestians until this codex, but in BR Celestians are murder machines.... nearby a Canoness, Priest and an Imagifier they can both shoot and melee like gods. I run 30 in all my lists as a core. They go center of board protecting the characters and buffed by them.
I still don’t like vehicles for us for this edition but interested in your overall effectiveness with Mortifiers. Given PENengs are 10 points cheaper would you consider those instead?

 davidgr33n wrote:
@ERJAK

Nice write up and agree you’d probably have won that game. My experience in 9th so far is we’ve got the tools for board control (mainly through BR) though getting to the center will take us longer than most factions.
Since 9th dropped I’ve said we will be short on CPs this edition especially if we take more of the Relics and WLTs that make us more competitive, even so I will always take 2 WLTs and at least 3 to 4 Relics in all my lists.
The Passion is crazy good with BR though sometimes I take Hand of the Emperor just to make sure I get that extra movement in charges or advances.
And Celestians have been under rated in our new Codex. Never a fan of Celestians until this codex, but in BR Celestians are murder machines.... nearby a Canoness, Priest and an Imagifier they can both shoot and melee like gods. I run 30 in all my lists as a core. They go center of board protecting the characters and buffed by them.
I still don’t like vehicles for us for this edition but interested in your overall effectiveness with Mortifiers. Given PENengs are 10 points cheaper would you consider those instead?

I like celestians in bloody rose but I'm always leery of using more than one or two units because A. BR runs out of slots and there is not a single unit in our codex that is worth picking up a new detachment by itself. B. They're actually fairly limited in what targets they can reliably go after and if they have to hit something like a carnifex(like my celestians did) they become CP sponges. I like them now, but I think 2 squads of 9 is about all I'd ever take in BR. And they shoot okay. If sisters had better infantry weapons they'd shoot extremely well but 3 melta shots or 2 melta shots and 2 plasma shots, or whatever other combo you have is decent with full rerolls but it's still just a couple melta. If the palatine lets us reroll wounds of 1 I'll definitely revisit this but rerolling all hits on 3 meaningful shots sounds better than it is when you roll 2-1-1 on the wound roll with no help in sight.

I think the nature of the missions and just of the way we do damage now means we're always locked in to either the passion or divine guidance (or aegis against greyknight and Tsons) now. We have to lean even more heavily into miracle dice for charges. I can tell you that I'm never rolling for Sacred rites ever again. Rolling double reroll morale, battle rites-ing to reroll morale, and rerolling into reroll morale, was painful enough when it happened to me in the last tournament I played, it could potentially be a death sentence now.

To me, it seems like CP are more valuable than any of our relics except beneficence. Litanies is my go to but I'm only taking it in pure VH lists now, blade of admonition is a hard sell when in most situations it only give +1 damage per hit, I've always thought the book of St. Lucius was more of a crutch to help take the sting out of bad movement than an actual value add(unless you're only running 1 canoness) the iron surplice I would only take if sniper is still showing up in the meta a lot. The marginal benefit of any one of these just doesn't seem to match the value you could get out of situations like: Triple melta, simulacrum squad in defensible, showing 5-6 on miracle dice, celestian with imagifiers charging assault intercessors getting+1 to wound, deadly descent, run and charge, etc. It's why 2 relics and Heroine is my new army standard with a 3rd relic being a very painful maybe if I don't SR anything. Double tales would only be for mass infantry builds where the relative value add of the -1 immunity(br) or the +1S(VH) is spread across enough models that it makes up for the loss of something like saving an exocist from a lascannon shot with the spend miracle dice strat.

And no, I wouldn't use penitents over mortifiers, at least not in the way I was using them this game. Despite being really similar statwise, I think pengines have very different usages. Mortifiers have 2" extra movement, a usable ranged weapon (every flamer weapons sucks so so hard), and the incredibly valuable adepta sororitas keyword in exchance for being about 9% worse in CQC, and being slightly less tanky thanks to only a 6+++. Being able to run and shoot+charge or fallback and shoot+charge is HUGE, so any attempt at using them offensively, I would take the mortifiers 100% of the time.

Penitent engines I would take as sort of a very cheap distraction carnifex/look out sir option that could potentially also SR if the situation called for it. At 50pts a unit of 3 is pretty fairly priced and can easily bait a bunch of anti-vehicle fire and discourage deepstrike while being models you honestly care very little about.

Basically it's kind of like Arco-flags, they're really good but if you're BR you could take repentia and repentia have a wider range of target and stratagems they can use; but if you're in VH repentia aren't an option so arcos are the best melee add. Penitent engines are better in VH where they're shielding your backline, eating anti-tank guns and outflanking than they are in BR where Mortifiers would be able to both provide covering fire and a pressing threat to your opponent's lines.

ERJAK wrote:

 davidgr33n wrote:
@ERJAK

Nice write up and agree you’d probably have won that game. My experience in 9th so far is we’ve got the tools for board control (mainly through BR) though getting to the center will take us longer than most factions.
Since 9th dropped I’ve said we will be short on CPs this edition especially if we take more of the Relics and WLTs that make us more competitive, even so I will always take 2 WLTs and at least 3 to 4 Relics in all my lists.
The Passion is crazy good with BR though sometimes I take Hand of the Emperor just to make sure I get that extra movement in charges or advances.
And Celestians have been under rated in our new Codex. Never a fan of Celestians until this codex, but in BR Celestians are murder machines.... nearby a Canoness, Priest and an Imagifier they can both shoot and melee like gods. I run 30 in all my lists as a core. They go center of board protecting the characters and buffed by them.
I still don’t like vehicles for us for this edition but interested in your overall effectiveness with Mortifiers. Given PENengs are 10 points cheaper would you consider those instead?

I like celestians in bloody rose but I'm always leery of using more than one or two units because A. BR runs out of slots and there is not a single unit in our codex that is worth picking up a new detachment by itself. B. They're actually fairly limited in what targets they can reliably go after and if they have to hit something like a carnifex(like my celestians did) they become CP sponges. I like them now, but I think 2 squads of 9 is about all I'd ever take in BR. And they shoot okay. If sisters had better infantry weapons they'd shoot extremely well but 3 melta shots or 2 melta shots and 2 plasma shots, or whatever other combo you have is decent with full rerolls but it's still just a couple melta. If the palatine lets us reroll wounds of 1 I'll definitely revisit this but rerolling all hits on 3 meaningful shots sounds better than it is when you roll 2-1-1 on the wound roll with no help in sight.

I think the nature of the missions and just of the way we do damage now means we're always locked in to either the passion or divine guidance (or aegis against greyknight and Tsons) now. We have to lean even more heavily into miracle dice for charges. I can tell you that I'm never rolling for Sacred rites ever again. Rolling double reroll morale, battle rites-ing to reroll morale, and rerolling into reroll morale, was painful enough when it happened to me in the last tournament I played, it could potentially be a death sentence now.

To me, it seems like CP are more valuable than any of our relics except beneficence. Litanies is my go to but I'm only taking it in pure VH lists now, blade of admonition is a hard sell when in most situations it only give +1 damage per hit, I've always thought the book of St. Lucius was more of a crutch to help take the sting out of bad movement than an actual value add(unless you're only running 1 canoness) the iron surplice I would only take if sniper is still showing up in the meta a lot. The marginal benefit of any one of these just doesn't seem to match the value you could get out of situations like: Triple melta, simulacrum squad in defensible, showing 5-6 on miracle dice, celestian with imagifiers charging assault intercessors getting+1 to wound, deadly descent, run and charge, etc. It's why 2 relics and Heroine is my new army standard with a 3rd relic being a very painful maybe if I don't SR anything. Double tales would only be for mass infantry builds where the relative value add of the -1 immunity(br) or the +1S(VH) is spread across enough models that it makes up for the loss of something like saving an exocist from a lascannon shot with the spend miracle dice strat.

And no, I wouldn't use penitents over mortifiers, at least not in the way I was using them this game. Despite being really similar statwise, I think pengines have very different usages. Mortifiers have 2" extra movement, a usable ranged weapon (every flamer weapons sucks so so hard), and the incredibly valuable adepta sororitas keyword in exchance for being about 9% worse in CQC, and being slightly less tanky thanks to only a 6+++. Being able to run and shoot+charge or fallback and shoot+charge is HUGE, so any attempt at using them offensively, I would take the mortifiers 100% of the time.

Penitent engines I would take as sort of a very cheap distraction carnifex/look out sir option that could potentially also SR if the situation called for it. At 50pts a unit of 3 is pretty fairly priced and can easily bait a bunch of anti-vehicle fire and discourage deepstrike while being models you honestly care very little about.

Basically it's kind of like Arco-flags, they're really good but if you're BR you could take repentia and repentia have a wider range of target and stratagems they can use; but if you're in VH repentia aren't an option so arcos are the best melee add. Penitent engines are better in VH where they're shielding your backline, eating anti-tank guns and outflanking than they are in BR where Mortifiers would be able to both provide covering fire and a pressing threat to your opponent's lines.

I'm curious why you feel Beneficence is better than a blessed blade? i understand in your setup you apparently wanted it with the Null rod, but is the +3A substantially better than wounding most infantry on 3s instead of 4s? I'd think the +2S would be better and save your Relic slot for Litanies for a low 10 pts when you want a melee beat stick. I haven't tried Beneficence myself, but i also find myself a bit more melee with my list in 9th than in 8th on my VH/BR split leaning more towards BR offense with VH capture/holding obsec.

I still don't know how i feel on Pen/Morts given your description since they are relatively easy for Bring it Down points. Given characters for Assassinate, we're then giving up 2 easier secondary objs for them to cap out at the full 15. Since these are a threat anyways, they aren't doing much by drawing fire either, so you're not putting shooting where you want it. Do they do enough that we shouldn't care about that?

combineing beneficence with the rage WL trait to RR Wounds and if your near an imagifier your wounding them on 3 anyway?

@Dragonbeef4Life +3 attacks is WAY better than +1 to wound, mathematically speaking, it also synergizes extremely well with the passion. If you haven't used beneficence before, trust me, admonition is nowhere near as scary. Gak, my last game she aced a maleceptor and overkilled it by about 4 wounds in one round of combat.

You can't take both assasinate and bring it down together, so if one is easy, who gives a feth about the other? Also, shooting the pengines is a trap, 3 pengines and 2 exos is only 12 bring it down points and the pengines are easier to score, so they put their lascannons there trying to play the mission, bounce off the 5++ and invul(celestine's), and get eaten by exos. Distraction carnifex.

Though again, it's not necessarily a recommendation just how I see them if you wanna use them.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
So watching Nick Nanavati play Sisters(poorly to be perfectly honest) made me realize something:

The battle sanctum is fething huge. Like seriously fething huge.

It is also area terrain with scaleable and breachable. Which means only beasts, infantry, and swarms can go in it or through it(unless fly).

Which means vehicles, bikes, monsters, and anything else that isn't the classic IBS category can't go in it or through it.

With how small the board is now, 2 battle sanctums could theoretically(depending on terrain setup) completely lock your opponent's non-ibs units out of your deployment zone. Especially if you pull some shenanigans with the statues.

If you set up a list that was either infantry only or just had Exos that don't care about moving, you would be totally unaffected by the Battle sanctums locking down multiple objectives while your opponent's discolords have to look on forlornly at objectives that are literally impossible for them to capture.

ERJAK wrote:
@Dragonbeef4Life +3 attacks is WAY better than +1 to wound, mathematically speaking, it also synergizes extremely well with the passion. If you haven't used beneficence before, trust me, admonition is nowhere near as scary. Gak, my last game she aced a maleceptor and overkilled it by about 4 wounds in one round of combat.

You can't take both assasinate and bring it down together, so if one is easy, who gives a feth about the other? Also, shooting the pengines is a trap, 3 pengines and 2 exos is only 12 bring it down points and the pengines are easier to score, so they put their lascannons there trying to play the mission, bounce off the 5++ and invul(celestine's), and get eaten by exos. Distraction carnifex.

Though again, it's not necessarily a recommendation just how I see them if you wanna use them.

@ERJAK
Agreed with the math, but it isn't much difference. Blessed: 5A, 2+TH (4.86),3+TW (3.24), D@d3 (2) averages 6.5W v Beneficence: 8A, 2+TH (7.78), 4+TW(3.89) D@D2 has you at 7.78W. However, that is 10 pts vs a Relic (or CP) for 20% increase in wounds from a single model. Is that worth it over Litanies to ensure I get better Miracles if I'm generating at least 3 every turn? Now, if you're using The Passion, the synergy puts the relic into the winner since you have more opportunities to explode = far superior and much more a consideration to character assassinate. I like that a Maleceptor was fodder, so makes me def consider it viable. And the math isn't taking into account an imagifier that might make your TW better as well. I would consider that above the Wrath if we're talking weapons at that point, though a walking 4 shot 18" S5 -3 (if BR) D2 pistol is amazingly appealing to me for Intercessor eating since you can shoot within combat and STILL get that blessed blade output above. And admonition doesn't seem to be great when you compare its a relic that is only +1D on average over a blessed. Totally not worth it, fully with you there.

And you make a great point on the Assassinate vs BiDT. I was thinking that you're giving any army (as most are going to be either snipe or anti-tank i think at this point), which just makes it that much easier for any army you face to know they have a good chance of easy points. A sniper army usually has a harder time with armor, and vice versa. I personally like forcing the hand to know that they are going to have to go after my characters to get the 15 which leaves my Exos to wreak havoc. if they spend a lot trying to pierce the T8 behind my lines with an Imagifier usually near them, they aren't getting the objective done well and that means i'm usually fortified on Obsec and LOS becomes an issue for them if i can place them correctly with Obscuring. but as you say, if you're built knowing that they are going to pick the easy one and you know how to make that work in your favor, still gives us an advantage with tactics. And distractionfex makes perfect sense if you're pulling out the lascannons on them instead of the Exos.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

ERJAK wrote:

Automatically Appended Next Post:
So watching Nick Nanavati play Sisters(poorly to be perfectly honest) made me realize something:

The battle sanctum is fething huge. Like seriously fething huge.

It is also area terrain with scaleable and breachable. Which means only beasts, infantry, and swarms can go in it or through it(unless fly).

Which means vehicles, bikes, monsters, and anything else that isn't the classic IBS category can't go in it or through it.

With how small the board is now, 2 battle sanctums could theoretically(depending on terrain setup) completely lock your opponent's non-ibs units out of your deployment zone. Especially if you pull some shenanigans with the statues.

If you set up a list that was either infantry only or just had Exos that don't care about moving, you would be totally unaffected by the Battle sanctums locking down multiple objectives while your opponent's discolords have to look on forlornly at objectives that are literally impossible for them to capture.

Also to this, because objectives are set before regular terrain, they can't be on the normal pieces now. But, because you place the sanct as a deploy, you can certainly encase any in your deployment and prevent LOS behind some of the doors, or in such a way that any LOS would cause them to be completely out of position on their own obj. That 55 points is fantastic. It shuts down some T1 charge units, like White Scars on their bikes. I've just used 1 and had great success with it in 9th testing and the end of 8th. The Miracle dice is also great. I have yet to have the LD mean much of anything. I've also posted a Vindicare on the top, since it default to providing a very high elevation line of sight to the board, as well as cover to him and where i want him. I've taken out Imotekh and Calgar T1 with him in my local stores. That fortification is amazing.

ERJAK wrote:
@Dragonbeef4Life +3 attacks is WAY better than +1 to wound, mathematically speaking, it also synergizes extremely well with the passion. If you haven't used beneficence before, trust me, admonition is nowhere near as scary. Gak, my last game she aced a maleceptor and overkilled it by about 4 wounds in one round of combat.

You can't take both assasinate and bring it down together, so if one is easy, who gives a feth about the other? Also, shooting the pengines is a trap, 3 pengines and 2 exos is only 12 bring it down points and the pengines are easier to score, so they put their lascannons there trying to play the mission, bounce off the 5++ and invul(celestine's), and get eaten by exos. Distraction carnifex.
.

Generally i assume to not play against idiot so not counting opponent to fire lascannons at walkers. They are mortificators or penitent engines. They have zero durability really. Pointing lascannons is inefficient when they have better weapons for it.

Lascannons at exorcists, anti-walker guns at pengines which will kill those at ease but suck vs exorcist. Both are facing fire.

Dragonbeef4Life wrote:

ERJAK wrote:
@Dragonbeef4Life +3 attacks is WAY better than +1 to wound, mathematically speaking, it also synergizes extremely well with the passion. If you haven't used beneficence before, trust me, admonition is nowhere near as scary. Gak, my last game she aced a maleceptor and overkilled it by about 4 wounds in one round of combat.

You can't take both assasinate and bring it down together, so if one is easy, who gives a feth about the other? Also, shooting the pengines is a trap, 3 pengines and 2 exos is only 12 bring it down points and the pengines are easier to score, so they put their lascannons there trying to play the mission, bounce off the 5++ and invul(celestine's), and get eaten by exos. Distraction carnifex.

Though again, it's not necessarily a recommendation just how I see them if you wanna use them.

@ERJAK
Agreed with the math, but it isn't much difference. Blessed: 5A, 2+TH (4.86),3+TW (3.24), D@d3 (2) averages 6.5W v Beneficence: 8A, 2+TH (7.78), 4+TW(3.89) D@D2 has you at 7.78W. However, that is 10 pts vs a Relic (or CP) for 20% increase in wounds from a single model. Is that worth it over Litanies to ensure I get better Miracles if I'm generating at least 3 every turn? Now, if you're using The Passion, the synergy puts the relic into the winner since you have more opportunities to explode = far superior and much more a consideration to character assassinate. I like that a Maleceptor was fodder, so makes me def consider it viable. And the math isn't taking into account an imagifier that might make your TW better as well. I would consider that above the Wrath if we're talking weapons at that point, though a walking 4 shot 18" S5 -3 (if BR) D2 pistol is amazingly appealing to me for Intercessor eating since you can shoot within combat and STILL get that blessed blade output above. And admonition doesn't seem to be great when you compare its a relic that is only +1D on average over a blessed. Totally not worth it, fully with you there.

And you make a great point on the Assassinate vs BiDT. I was thinking that you're giving any army (as most are going to be either snipe or anti-tank i think at this point), which just makes it that much easier for any army you face to know they have a good chance of easy points. A sniper army usually has a harder time with armor, and vice versa. I personally like forcing the hand to know that they are going to have to go after my characters to get the 15 which leaves my Exos to wreak havoc. if they spend a lot trying to pierce the T8 behind my lines with an Imagifier usually near them, they aren't getting the objective done well and that means i'm usually fortified on Obsec and LOS becomes an issue for them if i can place them correctly with Obscuring. but as you say, if you're built knowing that they are going to pick the easy one and you know how to make that work in your favor, still gives us an advantage with tactics. And distractionfex makes perfect sense if you're pulling out the lascannons on them instead of the Exos.


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ERJAK wrote:

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So watching Nick Nanavati play Sisters(poorly to be perfectly honest) made me realize something:

The battle sanctum is fething huge. Like seriously fething huge.

It is also area terrain with scaleable and breachable. Which means only beasts, infantry, and swarms can go in it or through it(unless fly).

Which means vehicles, bikes, monsters, and anything else that isn't the classic IBS category can't go in it or through it.

With how small the board is now, 2 battle sanctums could theoretically(depending on terrain setup) completely lock your opponent's non-ibs units out of your deployment zone. Especially if you pull some shenanigans with the statues.

If you set up a list that was either infantry only or just had Exos that don't care about moving, you would be totally unaffected by the Battle sanctums locking down multiple objectives while your opponent's discolords have to look on forlornly at objectives that are literally impossible for them to capture.

Also to this, because objectives are set before regular terrain, they can't be on the normal pieces now. But, because you place the sanct as a deploy, you can certainly encase any in your deployment and prevent LOS behind some of the doors, or in such a way that any LOS would cause them to be completely out of position on their own obj. That 55 points is fantastic. It shuts down some T1 charge units, like White Scars on their bikes. I've just used 1 and had great success with it in 9th testing and the end of 8th. The Miracle dice is also great. I have yet to have the LD mean much of anything. I've also posted a Vindicare on the top, since it default to providing a very high elevation line of sight to the board, as well as cover to him and where i want him. I've taken out Imotekh and Calgar T1 with him in my local stores. That fortification is amazing.

The battle sanctum itself is super good, no doubt. It's absolutely a must take in valorous heart lists in my opinion, but I'm not really talking about that here. I'm talking about the insane area denial two of them could give you.

If you position the dual sanctum correctly it doesn't shut down their first turn charge for their bikes, it shuts their bike's charge off permanently, at least in your deployment zone. All you'd need is enough terrain on the board that the footprint of the two sanctums and the statues is large enough to lock off all bikes or larger bases to permanently lock off their deployment zone.

LoS is largely irrelevant in this case because any army that was relying on bikes, vehicles, or monsters to charge just lost any ability to contest your backfield objectives.

TO BE CLEAR, this is a gimmick that won't work in every situation or on every table, but it is hilarious to think about a white scars army impotently sitting out in front of your line of buildings getting shot to hell by untouchable 2+ save battle sisters.


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tneva82 wrote:

ERJAK wrote:
@Dragonbeef4Life +3 attacks is WAY better than +1 to wound, mathematically speaking, it also synergizes extremely well with the passion. If you haven't used beneficence before, trust me, admonition is nowhere near as scary. Gak, my last game she aced a maleceptor and overkilled it by about 4 wounds in one round of combat.

You can't take both assasinate and bring it down together, so if one is easy, who gives a feth about the other? Also, shooting the pengines is a trap, 3 pengines and 2 exos is only 12 bring it down points and the pengines are easier to score, so they put their lascannons there trying to play the mission, bounce off the 5++ and invul(celestine's), and get eaten by exos. Distraction carnifex.
.

Generally i assume to not play against idiot so not counting opponent to fire lascannons at walkers. They are mortificators or penitent engines. They have zero durability really. Pointing lascannons is inefficient when they have better weapons for it.

Lascannons at exorcists, anti-walker guns at pengines which will kill those at ease but suck vs exorcist. Both are facing fire.

Lascannons was being used here to indicate a generic anti-vehicle weapon. While Pengines are not particularly sturdy, no, they are far tougher than most people(you included) give them credit for and only need to bait a handful of shots to be worth their very low investment.

Anti-walker guns and anti-tank guns have just an incredible amount of overlap. Just about the only weapon that space marine's commonly use, for example, that is good at killing pengines and bad at killing exorcists is assault cannons and most lists don't use too many of those these days. If they're blowing heavy onslaught gatlings into pengines , those still wound on 4s and aren't targeting BSS on objectives. Any single shot that gets spent into the pengines is valuable because A. Some good FNP rolls and they could easily soak a surprising amount of fire and B. no one cares what happens to the pengines.

And cool, they shoot the lascannons at exorcists, that means the pengines are probably fine and the exorcists are probably fine considering that with 1 6 and even mediocre miracle dice generation you can guarantee two succeeded saves. They've now split their fire and killed neither.

And once again, this isn't a recommendation for this type of use for pengines, this is just the only situation I can see pengines being the superior option vs mortifiers. Their cheaper cost and slightly increased resiliency make them better at playing distraction carnifex. But you were too busy getting excited at the prospect of a(n unearned) WELL ACHTSHULLY!!! to see that part(or use halfway decent grammar) weren't you?

In reality the best option for either unit is to wait until bring it down gets nerfed for low wound vehicles and then use mortifiers to race pell mell into the thick of combat while pengines wait for the next codex.

Benefice pulls ahead, even without an Imagifier, on a BR canoness for three reasons:
3 more base attacks
More chances to proc the Passion
Vs Marines and Primaris, Benefice has less, or even no, 'lost damage' from Overkill

With the Passion, a blessed blade nets 5-6 successful hits 71% of the time. Benefice nets 8-10 successful hits almost 83% of the time (both first deviation).

After accounting for Overkill (53% chance of losing between 1.1 and 3.8 damage), a Blessed Blade deals between 5.7 and 10.1 unsaved damage to Intercessors ~79% of the time. Average is 7.9

Benefice deals between 7.9 and 14.8 unsaved damage to Intercessors 76.4% of the time with an average of 11.4, and at most 1 lost damage -- only if you attached a unit that already contained an injured model.


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Also, a Blessed Blade (after accounting for Overkill) maxes out at 16 unsaved damage 0.12% of the time and deals more than 10 damage to Intercessors 9.87% of the time.

Benefice maxed out at 26 damage, albeit only 0.01% of the time. But Benefice also deals more than 10 unsaved damage to Intercessors 54% of the time while dealing 16 or more damage 14.12% of the time.

What do we think of death cult assassins?

From what I can tell, the fact that they didn’t take any price hike and overwatch is no longer a major concern means they now hit quite hard for their price point.

I’m considering a set up like this for my VH sisters:

Rhino
5 sisters w/ 2 meltaguns
4 DCA
- 205 points all told

First turn rhino moves up and pops smoke.
Ideal second turn DCA jump out to dig something off an objective, with support from the sisters. Then the sisters take over the objective

Thoughts?

Brother carc wrote:
What do we think of death cult assassins?

From what I can tell, the fact that they didn’t take any price hike and overwatch is no longer a major concern means they now hit quite hard for their price point.

Thoughts?

Iv always liked death cult assassins, iv been using them since witch hunters. The drop from 10 to 6 unit cap hurt them a bit, but them remaining unscathed definitely makes them a more worthwhile contender vs archos now that they are no longer the same points.

They would definately work as a good counter charge threat if you can hide them behind some obscuring terrain and dont need a priest nearly as much as archos do.

Zephyrim i would view as the offensive version of death cults (though they are more expensive) and death cults being the defensive option.

Haven't looked at DCA, but I'd be more tempted to take Crusaders from the Guard as part of a second detachment, maybe even mixed since it's losing Order Convictions anyway.

The costs:
They're 4ppm more than Crusaders in the Sisters dex
There's no errata for their datasheet, so they lose Spiritual Fortitude
They also don't have the Ecchlesiarcy Battle Conclave keyword so cause detachments to lose out on Order Convictions
No access to Miracle Dice

The benefits
Their datasheet hasn't been given errata, so they can be taken in units of 10.
Because they don't have the Battle Conclave rules, you can take multiple units without taking a Priest of some kind
They always use Elites slots instead of being slotless, so can fill mandatory slots (can also be a cost)
They have access to Index Acts of Faith rules because they're written on the datasheet
They have the Ministorum keyword so don't break Sacred Rites

Taikishi wrote:
Haven't looked at DCA, but I'd be more tempted to take Crusaders from the Guard as part of a second detachment, maybe even mixed since it's losing Order Convictions anyway.

The costs:
They're 4ppm more than Crusaders in the Sisters dex
There's no errata for their datasheet, so they lose Spiritual Fortitude
They also don't have the Ecchlesiarcy Battle Conclave keyword so cause detachments to lose out on Order Convictions
No access to Miracle Dice

The benefits
Their datasheet hasn't been given errata, so they can be taken in units of 10.
Because they don't have the Battle Conclave rules, you can take multiple units without taking a Priest of some kind
They always use Elites slots instead of being slotless, so can fill mandatory slots (can also be a cost)
They have access to Index Acts of Faith rules because they're written on the datasheet
They have the Ministorum keyword so don't break Sacred Rites

not sure where you're getting some of that.

The costs:
They're 4ppm more than Crusaders in the Sisters dex - DCA in MFM are 13 PPM with free melee weapons (which are basically free power swords), vs Crusaders at 11 + 5 for an actual power sword for 16 each. they are 3 pts cheaper than Crusaders
There's no errata for their datasheet, so they lose Spiritual Fortitude - FNP5 is a loss
They also don't have the Ecchlesiarcy Battle Conclave keyword so cause detachments to lose out on Order Convictions. - They have this on their sheet, not sure what you're referring to? P179 has both the ability listed and the Keyword for DCA, so you don't lose order at all per P196
No access to Miracle Dice - Agreed, but that isn't a point here. This would be more a comparison of them to Repentia than to Crusaders who also don't have access to Miracle dice.

**I'd add that DCA also have a 5++ instead of the 3++ free storm shield on the Crusaders for this comparison (0 pts for SS in MFM?!)

The benefits
Their datasheet hasn't been given errata, so they can be taken in units of 10. - Codex gives them 2-6 as Warmaster indicates, so this does limit them down.
Because they don't have the Battle Conclave rules, you can take multiple units without taking a Priest of some kind- see above, not correct. Can take elite slot if no priest of free slot if priest
They always use Elites slots instead of being slotless, so can fill mandatory slots (can also be a cost) - see above
They have access to Index Acts of Faith rules because they're written on the datasheet - negative. Codex supersedes supplement per GW, so they don't have access to these.
They have the Ministorum keyword so don't break Sacred Rites - Neither DCA nor Crusaders break this (nothing in the codex does). But neither unit benefits from it either

**I'd add that DCA have +1"M, +1S, +2A, and in cover can get better than their 5+SV if you need it, compared to the Crusaders. At 19% cheaper, the DCA are going to be better overall for their offensive counterpunch than a Crusader. While you can sit on a spot with their 3++, they are still T3 and simple volume will remove them for what you're paying since they get 0 benefits from Order, SR, or Miracle dice. a 3++/5+++ can take a good deal of fire, but an 11 pt BSS girl can relatively be the same in VH (or better in cover against most shots). To me, Crusaders are a bit DOA atm since there is very little interaction with them. If they made them actual Sisters instead of Ministorum, whole different ballgame.

DCA are good for rather cheap, strong counterchargers that don't need buffs to inflict damage. 4 attacks @ 3+, S4, -3 that doesn't need buffing is durable. But the real intention here is to either use them to protect a charge against a holding unit, or you rush them into the opponent weaving LOS to try and inflict infantry casualties quickly. i think i sit with Warmaster21 here in that Zephrym do the later better because of their Sister interactions, and deep strike, but DCA do the counterpunch very successfully.

I was comparing Crusaders in the AM codex to Crusaders in the AS codex and advocating for possibly taking AM Crusaders. I would have thought mentioning taking Crusaders from Guard in the first sentence and then mentioning they're 4ppm more expensive than Crusaders in the Sisters dex would have been enough clarification, but I guess not.

And, yes, AM Crusaders are 20ppm with Index Acts of Faith on their datasheet while AS Crusaders are 16.

Taikishi wrote:
I was comparing Crusaders in the AM codex to Crusaders in the AS codex and advocating for possibly taking AM Crusaders. I would have thought mentioning taking Crusaders from Guard in the first sentence and then mentioning they're 4ppm more expensive than Crusaders in the Sisters dex would have been enough clarification, but I guess not.

And, yes, AM Crusaders are 20ppm with Index Acts of Faith on their datasheet while AS Crusaders are 16.

I think the confusion was indeed that you were comparing SOB Crusaders to Guard Crusaders and DCA wasn't even in the picture we all started talking about. So disregard my entire comment.

Also why I prefaced that I hadn't looked at DCA, but it's all good

When I have more time I'll give my own thoughts about DCA, but there's an Art of War article that seems to believe the Triumph is a competitive choice now.

https://www.theartofwar40k.com/home/adapting-to-9th-edition-sisters-of-battle?fbclid=IwAR3nQ-oexNt1kCtEvri31zNVgPi-tUB9IpSXleZeTaafZDsTY1JItOoLyhA

Thoughts?

Taikishi wrote:
Thoughts?

The inclusion of the triumph appears to be based on the principle that the sisters always roll 6 for their miracle dice - at least that is what every reference to the mechanic in the article is suggesting.

I'm guessing the target playstyle here is to take objectives early with dominions, then charge the opponents infiltrators/countercharge with mortifiers and repentia with a celestian/character blob advancing to clear the second wave and the small sisters squads just there to pick up the objectives late on - hence the emphasis on dealing with things like 'fights last' effects that will mulch the initial charge.

Not much redundancy - there is precisely one shot at hitting a backfield unit with a combined seraphim drop/reserves outflank and the character buffs/units are going to have to pick a direction and stick with it.

450 points tied up in three named characters that are supporting around 400 more points of sisters and six meltaguns. I guess my first though would be whether or not 450 points of more sisters would be more useful than the localised 4++ and the triumph who can still be shot off the board freely - it's just the building cover that it benefits from.


edit: it is curiously similar to the goonhammer sisters article.