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I know that I am jumping the gun, but after years of patiently waiting for plastic Sisters of Battle, the time has come to make a few decisions: mainly what to get. Money isn't that much of an issue, so be liberal with your answers! I'm somewhat familiar with their style of play but don't want to end up buying too much of one box/kit and not enough of the other. I am aware that there are only three kits coming out for pre-release this weekend, along with the codex: the Battle Sisters squad, the Retributor squad, and the Triumph of St. Katherine. Obviously the latter is going to be a unique character/model, so I only need one of them. I need a minimum of three troop choices, so 3-4 Battle Sisters squads? Retributor squads are my main problem. As far as I know, they usually come in units of 5, with 4 heavy weapons (multi-melta, heavy flamers, and heavy bolters). I've heard that "melta is trash" several times and wanted to get your opinion of that, as I don't use melta since my Space Marine force is purely Primaris. Is that all the options they have or am I missing something? If not, then how many kits should I get and what weapons to give them?

As this is only the first wave of models, I'm probably going to have to edit/amend this post along the way to see what else I should get and how many.

Thank you very much for reading and I look forward to your responses!

This may be helpful

https://www.goonhammer.com/codex-sisters-of-battle-the-goonhammer-review/

 Mr Morden wrote:
This may be helpful

https://www.goonhammer.com/codex-sisters-of-battle-the-goonhammer-review/

Ooh! Very nice! Thank you so much!

How competitive Melta is irrelevant to Sisters, given it's our only AV weapon out side of Exorcists and Penitent Evisorators. You can get away with making a squad of them if you leave room mix and match them later.

well, i an impart a thing or two from keeping track of sisters for a bit. anyone else, feel free to call me out if I give bad advice anything.

with sisters you have a limited but more up close set of equipment to sling around. if getting cheap command points is your thing, some storm bolter run squads of sisters will do backed up by canonesses and or a Missionary or special characters. canonesses are solid, though i feel nowadays they are meant to be melee attackers or deterrents depending on playstyle. the sisters box set is also the basis for the celestians, if you think they are worth it, and the dominions unless i missed something, so theres things to draw from it for certain, but you will need canonesses for certain, so don't ignore them when you can get them.

retributors are.. pretty solid, depending on Order especially. before I left focusing on sisters, i favored running argent shroud, and this is one of the heavy weapon platforms in game that can move and fire pretty well, especially with shroud. what weapon you give them depends on how much you value them if at all. personally I liked them as heavy bolters, though heavy flamers and multi-melta variants each have draws.

on melta- you really can't avoid it. melta is how sisters crack high toughness or armor, so best to roll with it. take advantage of the fact melta can be scattered into the squads and failing that, load up the exorcists and shell people with the not-melta-but-OWW swings they can do when they come out.

small aside, I don't know how viable it is, but i was rather interested in the Seraphim drops back in the day, and now there will be those zephyrim. not im a massive fan of those, but the mobility and deepstrike of both units are not something to ignore at all. if anything it will give time to bring other guns into range, and the seraphim drop strategem could surprise the unprepared.

Retributors in the new dex are the bomb, and even melta [which used to be their worst option] has some serious potential.

We now have a 2cp strat for rets;

Heavy Bolters ad +1 to the to hit for the phase
Heavy Flamers reroll wounds
Multimeltas get +12" range and +1 damage

Keep in mind the MM range also increases it lethal damage range; this is less needed though, because you could also use a miracle die to auto 6 on damage.

If you take the Cherub upgrade, one of the models can fire twice. The simulacrum lets you use miracle dice, even if you've already used one that phase.

As for troops, I'd buy lots.

When I field a brigade, I like two of my six squads to be 15 woman and the other four to be 10. Depending on options, sisters can have decent invulnerable saves, we can be morale proofed, and even when we die our hospitallers just bring us back. A 15 strong unit of sisters parked on objective can be really hard to move.

Also, the box contains enough gear to build the unit as dominions or celestians, so if you want to include those units, you'll need a box or two more to represent them. Doms no longer confer the vanguard move to their vehicle, so they aren't what they were in their prime, but Blessed Bolts is still bad news for heretics.

"Melta is Trash" has ALWAYS had a silent caveat that says "except for with Sisters of Battle". Sisters LOVE their meltas.


Priority List:

1. 45 battle sisters.
2. 3 Canonesses.
3. 2 imagifiers
4. 1 dialogus
5. 1 missionary
6. Celestine
7. 15 Seraphim
8. 2 exorcists
9. 2 boxes of retributors

That'll give you enough for a basic brigade+battalion setup.

Everything after that is just building the army in the direction you like most.

This is my personal shopping list (from Excel).


Unit: # boxes

BattleCelestianDominions 11
SeraphimZephyrim 9
ExorImmo 3
Retributors 3
Pengines 7
Repentia 2
Arcos 1
Battleconclave 1
Canoness 3
Imagifier 3
Dialogus 1
Crazy Pulpit. 1
Hospitaller 2
Triumph 1

Yeah, you're really gonna want to load up on standard Sisters as that one box makes up most of your army choices so get like 5 of those boxes. Maybe a few more if you want to run Dominion squads. Most people also seem to be going with Exorcists over Rets for armor cracking but multimelta Rets still have their place so get enough for a 10 girls squad with 4 multimeltas.

The Battle Sanctum might well end up being an auto-include as its cheap as hell and actually pretty good for a structure. Everything else you can probably get a way with a single squad of each (so two boxes as Repentia and Seraph/Zephyrs look like they'll be 5 to a box) except for Penitent/Mortifiers which tend to get pushed out of lists for Exorcists so i doubt you'd ever want more than one unit of them. Current guess is that the box will be two models per and we're awaiting an FAQ on the maximum squad size. How many boxes you'll need depends on how much you like magnetising things.

I'd snag 3 boxes of battle sisters to start with.

sisters are an army that's really easy to run as a brigade so 6 squads of 5 sisters seems a good "core" to build around

Exorcists, Penitent Engines/Mortifiers, Seraphim

Retributors look like they're going to be good.
You need a lot of special weapons, we're a high special weapon density.


I'm going to be running a brigade with 3 sections of Seraphim, some exorcists and pengines, Repentia & Imagifier, a bunch of min infantry. Then I'm aiming to also have a battalion with either a thunderfire gun or a basilisk for overwatch suppression.

Are Seraphium really that good? Not sure how many I want to run due to those fething flying bases.

Do we not like those flying bases, as a community? I honestly thought they were pretty neat.

I feel compelled to support the Adepta with at least a token purchase of a Kill-Team, despite my open disdain for all things IoM, but those flying stands have made me think I might end up doing a proper army.

I think they're elegant AF, to coin a Norman phrase.

 Excommunicatus wrote:
Do we not like those flying bases, as a community? I honestly thought they were pretty neat.

I feel compelled to support the Adepta with at least a token purchase of a Kill-Team, despite my open disdain for all things IoM, but those flying stands have made me think I might end up doing a proper army.

I think they're elegant AF, to coin a Norman phrase.

the flight stands are fragile and make transport a bit of a pain.

BrianDavion wrote:
Are Seraphium really that good? Not sure how many I want to run due to those fething flying bases.

hard to say to be honest, but considering we can't vanguard move vehicles via dominions anymore, the seraphims and zephyrim deepstrike got better by proxy as a general mobility option. failing that, they also have good mobility themselves, being the sisters jetpack units.

then there's that one strategem that lets the Seraphim shoot as they arrive in movement, with extra range on some of their pistol variants. this allows for inferno pistol drops if you want to go for that, or a mass bolt pistol drop to try and clear chaff (should point out this could result in movement phase miracle dice gen). the Zephryim drop has it's own merits, but the pennant allows for rerolled order charges, so being able to deep strike melee charge rerolls within an aura may well be worth it's time if your intending to get punchy with the sisters portion of the codex (which is mostly them and Repentia).

yeah over all sistyers seems to have pretty good internal balance, there's no units that are obviously crap and none that are "obvious must takes"

I'd wager thats more the case because the army hasn't really changed much on any individual datasheet. any losses or gains or gamestate changes more or less effected the whole army equally, and about the only unit that directly took a loss going to codex was dominions, and thats only IF you run transports.

things like lost weapon loadouts or superiors using special weapons, something sisters could do easily, was a thing lost on each unit that could do it, and the options are still just storm,melta, and flamer, so the armies pretty close together overall. you take the sisters that suit your playstyle most with whatever bonus effects they have. Because the seraphim and zephyrim are so different from the rest of the core, id say it does make them a bigger must take than before since they are now the mobility top, and as some have pointed out, a heavy zephyrim drop can at least tie up and take some lower T heads with the spotter unit to reroll charges. Also, the Seraphim's ability to damage things in movement probably shouldn't be overlooked if they do in fact generate a miracle dice that can be put to use, or to simply land on an objective needing taking.

BrianDavion wrote:

 Excommunicatus wrote:
Do we not like those flying bases, as a community? I honestly thought they were pretty neat.

I feel compelled to support the Adepta with at least a token purchase of a Kill-Team, despite my open disdain for all things IoM, but those flying stands have made me think I might end up doing a proper army.

I think they're elegant AF, to coin a Norman phrase.

the flight stands are fragile and make transport a bit of a pain.

Let's find out. https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/784296.page

Bdrone wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:
Are Seraphium really that good? Not sure how many I want to run due to those fething flying bases.

hard to say to be honest, but considering we can't vanguard move vehicles via dominions anymore, the seraphims and zephyrim deepstrike got better by proxy as a general mobility option. failing that, they also have good mobility themselves, being the sisters jetpack units.

then there's that one strategem that lets the Seraphim shoot as they arrive in movement, with extra range on some of their pistol variants. this allows for inferno pistol drops if you want to go for that, or a mass bolt pistol drop to try and clear chaff (should point out this could result in movement phase miracle dice gen). the Zephryim drop has it's own merits, but the pennant allows for rerolled order charges, so being able to deep strike melee charge rerolls within an aura may well be worth it's time if your intending to get punchy with the sisters portion of the codex (which is mostly them and Repentia).

Zephyrim deepstrike is SAVAGE. Why? Because you can EASILY have a 100% guranteed, 0 chance of failure 9+ inch charge. 31 AP4 attacks at +1 to wound, rerolling will take a big chunk out of just about anything.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Bdrone wrote:
I'd wager thats more the case because the army hasn't really changed much on any individual datasheet. any losses or gains or gamestate changes more or less effected the whole army equally, and about the only unit that directly took a loss going to codex was dominions, and thats only IF you run transports.

things like lost weapon loadouts or superiors using special weapons, something sisters could do easily, was a thing lost on each unit that could do it, and the options are still just storm,melta, and flamer, so the armies pretty close together overall. you take the sisters that suit your playstyle most with whatever bonus effects they have. Because the seraphim and zephyrim are so different from the rest of the core, id say it does make them a bigger must take than before since they are now the mobility top, and as some have pointed out, a heavy zephyrim drop can at least tie up and take some lower T heads with the spotter unit to reroll charges. Also, the Seraphim's ability to damage things in movement probably shouldn't be overlooked if they do in fact generate a miracle dice that can be put to use, or to simply land on an objective needing taking.

For direct losses:

Immolators got triple butt-fethed. Losing dominion scout made them massively less useful, gaining a heavy bolter makes them 10pts more expensive for a weapon you'll get no value out of, then they went up 2 points for no real reason.

Quadruple; lost the 4++. And they weren't great in the beta codex.

ERJAK wrote:


Zephyrim deepstrike is SAVAGE. Why? Because you can EASILY have a 100% guranteed, 0 chance of failure 9+ inch charge. 31 AP4 attacks at +1 to wound, rerolling will take a big chunk out of just about anything.

For direct losses:

Immolators got triple butt-fethed. Losing dominion scout made them massively less useful, gaining a heavy bolter makes them 10pts more expensive for a weapon you'll get no value out of, then they went up 2 points for no real reason.

Quadruple; lost the 4++. And they weren't great in the beta codex.

yeah, some folk sing the praises of them, and ill relent they have good merits, but i felt like pointing out the pennant in specific because it can sync with other units and other units.

as for the immolator, i ignore it because at this point i smell giving people anti-tank targets in general is probably not the best idea. the gamestate made them far less useful than these hits. that said, screw the heavy bolter addition and extra points on top of that. i never got to try them with a 4++... but it does suck.

best use I can think of for an immolator is a distraction carnifex to soak up firepower that might instead go at an exorcist.

BrianDavion wrote:
best use I can think of for an immolator is a distraction carnifex to soak up firepower that might instead go at an exorcist.

Well, they cost too much for that, but yes.

Lammia wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:
best use I can think of for an immolator is a distraction carnifex to soak up firepower that might instead go at an exorcist.

Well, they cost too much for that, but yes.

ohh agreed. it's a shame, as the model looks pretty bad ass :(

The Immo still has a place.

Remember that while we lost a few things, they can use miracle dice, they do benefit from rites, and until they FAQ it away, 5/6 Order traits.

This can mean, among other things, you can have a guaranteed threat range of 30" on an immo flamer, which could have +1 AP on a wound roll of 6. It could have a chance to take death shots, confer a miracle dice when it blows up AND there's a strat to guarantee that it blows up.

The heavy bolter should have been optional, certainly, but it's extra shots, and they might have their uses,

I don't have my old Beta dex to hand, so I forget the 4++ effect that we lost, but didn't it have something to do with being affected by the aura of another model?

Finally, I think I remember reading that the immo/exo is a dual kit. Either set of those spare parts would look great on a custom baneblade or knight conversion, or possibly as part of a custom fortification.

That's not a rules based reason to include it in your army, but it is extra incentive to buy one.

I think the Repressor got hurt by the Dominion scout-move nerf more than the Immolator did.

I still run an Immolator in most lists because I usually have a unit of something (acros or death cult assassins generally) that needs to get somewhere. Immolators ARE a good distraction fex IMO. Your opponent can't really ignore them while they have models in them unless they want a bunch of nasty melee units in their face and once its empty they're pretty good for zipping about grabbing objectives.

 Sim-Life wrote:
I still run an Immolator in most lists because I usually have a unit of something (acros or death cult assassins generally) that needs to get somewhere. Immolators ARE a good distraction fex IMO. Your opponent can't really ignore them while they have models in them unless they want a bunch of nasty melee units in their face and once its empty they're pretty good for zipping about grabbing objectives.

I usually use a Rhino for carting around stuff because it has more slots for riders. A Immolator is better at doing stuff once unloaded, but it also more expensive individually and takes 2 to hold the same number of people. It was convenient for Doms since Doms inherently filled the thing and couldn't accept hanger-ons, but for Repentia who I want to bring with a stick, a priest, and a mistress for, I want to have the larger transport for the larger unit.and it's followers.