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ERJAK wrote:
All of this could change with a snap of GW's fingers in the February balance pass. Drop the Exorcist 10 more points, increase both missile systems Ap by 1, make devastating refrain a 1CP stratagem and that immediately puts us in a spot where we now have relatively guaranteed damage output both OoML and BR can leverage to advance their gameplans.

This I would love to see. Even 2/3 of these would make Exorcists worth taking again.

 Dendarien wrote:
Having played a few of the new missions I do feel like CA2022 missions will be tougher for Sisters. 2 missions have no objectives in the deployment zones, and none have two objectives in the deployment zones. That's a pretty big hit to the more passive playstyle Sisters have excelled at.

Rumor is that bodyguard is also being "addressed" in the February balance patch, which I assume means it will not function in its current state. While I think bodyguard is a bad rule for the game, it's been a critical part of Sisters playing the midfield objectives with Celestine.

If they hit bodyguard as well that makes the bump to Sacresancts beyond unnecessary. Without bodyguard they're just mediocre repentia in BR and a 2+ save T3 1W model to everyone else.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Andilus Greatsword wrote:

ERJAK wrote:
All of this could change with a snap of GW's fingers in the February balance pass. Drop the Exorcist 10 more points, increase both missile systems Ap by 1, make devastating refrain a 1CP stratagem and that immediately puts us in a spot where we now have relatively guaranteed damage output both OoML and BR can leverage to advance their gameplans.

This I would love to see. Even 2/3 of these would make Exorcists worth taking again.

And just this one change would be absolutely massive for Sisters. Our biggest weakness in both bloody rose and OoML is we have almost no consistent shooting pressure. Just being able to force our opponent to respond to Exorcist fire would be absolutely massive for us.

Those Exorcist changes would be phenomenal to the army as you all say, and I have especially been miffed about the reduction in AP on both missiles since the reveal that it happened in one of the packaging datasheets. Just that alone, even with the 170 points it is now with the anti-Tank missiles would at least make it a more viable choice in the "casually competitive" scene. If Refrain goes to 1CP then all the better.At this point the Exorcist needs to be like 160 max with the Exorcist Launcher, honestly I would prefer 150 or 155, and keep the anti-infantry mode at 140 base of course.

Sacresants, especially if Bodyguard is getting reworked, really only needed a one point bump to 15 at most and the Dominion nerfs just make zero sense to me. Even with the Blessed Bolts strat without rerolls from Vahl it can be a bit swingy. I have played several games where multiple strats only got me 4 mortal wounds and not the max of 6, which is always what we are looking for, even with at least base rerolls from a Canoness and Palatine.

While I am not a hardcore competitive, WAAC style player, I won't lie that since 9th started my win rate has been through the roof in my local meta, bringing what I would consider pretty "balanced and all comer style lists," and that has been really nice. If we have to endure a few months or more of returning to either low B or high C tier, I will accept it, but after 20 years of almost constant neglect it was really nice to be in the spotlight and have such a nice power boost from late 8th until now. I guess let's just be happy that, even in this "dark time" it will hopefully be better than the days of our White Dwarf codex.

My hope is that this is all fleeting and by this time next year we will be talking about a whole set of buffs the army got and a return to the sight of an occasional GT winning list that we had over the summer! I know I am new to the conversation and most of this is redundant or has already been discussed, but I have been following this thread for a while now and at least wanted to chime in with some "light" even though things look pretty dark right now.

I am a multi army player and I think that always helps you keep a broader perspective I can look at seiglers admech lvo winning list and see its losing 180 pts sure siegler can overcome that but not aj avg player. I can see custodes struggling with Rod (RnD) and engage now they require numbers to be effective. I can see space marines going from a space marine mission and a chapter mission to only being able to take one of the two and also being a little more costly if they want to build to engage while guard and knights got boosts although they were so far down the tiers it doesn't change too much


Drukhari are not gonna change but each of those armies took a hit and it isn't clear to me how big because their in different ways. No custodes won't drop 17% but swings are inverse if they drop 4% other armies increase their win% conversely if knights win 4% more games other armies drop win %

As to now I think bodyguard shenanigans was borderline before and is now too inefficient.

But with the buff of battle sanctum leap of faith board control msu seems good and we wernt really hit in the missions. With that build.

Honestly, Sisters weren't even bad when we were stuck with the White Dwarf 'dex, the lack of support just made people assume they sucked but for my money they were the best CQB MSU army - basically cheaper Space Marines with more special weapons all over the place. Definitely prefer where the army is now tho.

As I've said in the past though, the Exorcist has traditionally been our only effective ranged anti-tank option (the Castigator tries to do that now but lol) and with all the nerfs the army's gotten this past month I think we can afford to make it good again.

 Andilus Greatsword wrote:
Honestly, Sisters weren't even bad when we were stuck with the White Dwarf 'dex, the lack of support just made people assume they sucked but for my money they were the best CQB MSU army - basically cheaper Space Marines with more special weapons all over the place. Definitely prefer where the army is now tho.

As I've said in the past though, the Exorcist has traditionally been our only effective ranged anti-tank option (the Castigator tries to do that now but lol) and with all the nerfs the army's gotten this past month I think we can afford to make it good again.

I didn't play with the white dwarf deck at all but I did play with the digital only 6th dex a lot in both 6th and 7th and hoo boy was that rough. You had a decent chance against marines if they didn't use any psykers or Battle Company but playing Eldar was so hilariously one sided it wasn't even funny. A good eldar player could table an average Sisters player without losing a single model if they killed the Exorcists first.

I actually managed to get the exorcist banned from a casual tournament we had in those days. Good times...good times.

We seem stuck in this really odd cycle now where we get absolutely busted rules and then garbage in quick succession. The Index rules for sisters were quietly beyond OP. I actually came in top 32 at a Major with that book well after most armies had gotten their codex. 5 units of full scout dominions and double moving melta seraphim were obscene. Celestine was the single best model in the entire GAME at that point. I played a thousand point tournament where she averaged 800pts killed per game by herself. If they'd have released our new units and given us Order Conviction rules on top of THAT book, we would have made Drukhari look like pre-codex GSC.

Then the beta codex came out, and with it, the dark times. It was unbelievable how much worse the beta codex was than the Index. I dropped out after two games at Adepticon because across both games the knight crusader was basically my only useful model and it was really, really boring.

Then the first REAL codex came out and was probably my favorite book GW ever printed. God it was so good with so many interesting builds and the only bad unit in the entire thing was the Immolator. Loved it.

Then the multimelta change happened and we were broken OP bullgak for a while.

Then the new book came out and was a basically Lacroix version of the 8th edition dex. The inclusion of Vahl and Sacresanct as well as fixing Celestine and Dominions did a lot to prop the book up, but it was clearly a weaker core than we had in 8th.

Now with the hits we took in CA2022 and how anemic the BR supplement was...idk, it's not looking good.

 Andilus Greatsword wrote:
Honestly, Sisters weren't even bad when we were stuck with the White Dwarf 'dex, the lack of support just made people assume they sucked but for my money they were the best CQB MSU army - basically cheaper Space Marines with more special weapons all over the place. Definitely prefer where the army is now tho.

As I've said in the past though, the Exorcist has traditionally been our only effective ranged anti-tank option (the Castigator tries to do that now but lol) and with all the nerfs the army's gotten this past month I think we can afford to make it good again.

While I did not play much with the White Dwarf dex (I was still using the Witch Hunters dex for most of when I started at the end of 4th/early 5th) I definitely remember the digital codex in 6th and 7th not being nearly as bad as people remember. I guess compared to the digital dex I just consider the White Dwarf one to be annoying because of the Acts of Faith System that was still using the Faith Point mechanic, which while I liked narratively, always seemed to be a bit janky in the game. I preferred just having a leadership test to take on each unit for their specific AoF during 6th and 7th. But I concede that the system in 5th and even 3rd for that matter at least let you give certain buffs where you needed and giving us good flexibility instead of each unit having its own AoF that it was stuck using. One thing I do wish they would have kept in the 9th codex was our ability to bring two special weapons/one special and one heavy in minimum squads of 5, and then just do up to two heavy weapons in squads of 10 and then up to four special weapons in max squads of 20. If nothing else, it at least separated us from marines a bit. Though, if we want to be the "postergirl" of 40k next to the "posterboy" I guess I am fine with accepting the "marine treatment" when it comes to 5 and 10 woman squads.

As for the Exorcist, I agree with you completely. Even with access to a 72" S9 Battle Cannon with flat 3 damage and 4d3 autocannon shots (which are both nice options to have) Miracle Dice make that d6 damage so much scarier than it ever was in early 8th and 3d3 S8 shots are just wonderful compared to a lowly d6 (see the Castigator Battle Cannon). I just want that AP back to -3, there was NO reason to bring either missiles AP down honestly. The iteration of the Exorcist in the 8th codex (without the T8 and 12 wounds of course since that was getting changed the moment we had a MBT like the Castigator) at its current points value would be about the closest thing to a perfect tank for us, even if Devastating Refrain remains at 2CP. I am honestly wondering, if any buffs to the Exorcist actually occur at the end of the month, if just bringing two or three again might be viable in certain builds. Only time will tell of course, but right now there are just a few too many things in the codex that make me scratch my head wondering why they did that (Tale of the Stoic) and it makes any amount of nerfs to the army or decent change to the game knock us down a tier. We just always felt fragile, teetering between upper mid-tier and lower top tier, and we got hit hard because of bodyguard shenanigans, a GT we won last summer with a list piloted by a great player, and the mixing of orders like BR/AS/EC. Compared to Dark Eldar (nope never calling them Drukhari sorry), Admech, Grey Knights, and some of the other "top factions" we just needed a limited points increase on Vahl and Sacresants and then a 20 points drop to each of our tanks and Warsuits, and maybe a 1-5 points drop on a few other units like our support characters.

I still think we will shake out somewhere in the middle of B tier moreso than C tier after all is said and done though, so let's have some faith and play around to find what works going forward, despite the lackluster supplement.

P.S (this is more of a rant you can stop reading here if you want)

Finally, I am going to go back to it one more time...WHY are Exorcist missiles, which are supposed to be STRONGER than krak missiles, JUST KRAK MISSILES NOW? Do the words "melta missile" mean nothing to them? Sorry, the Exorcist is, as anyone who has read my posts before knows, just about my favorite model in the entire line (old and new of course) and it hurts to see what they have done with my baby. It's either been okay but overcosted or not great and overcosted or undercosted but bad or just somewhere in between. Even when it has been "good" it has always felt just a bit too expensive for not having a rule to ignore LoS, and now that it finally has a way of getting it, its overcosted again with the "best" (relatively) version of its missiles. This is the one thing I will complain about until they actually get it right, so don't mind me, but it's just always so close and then takes a massive swing in the wrong direction and it is so disappointing even after the number of shots got buffed at least. Just give us Heavy 3d3 S8 AP -3 DD6 Exorcist Missiles and hell give it Blast so it can't fire in melee that made sense to me. Then Heavy 3d6 S5 (maybe 6) AP -2 D1 Blast/Ignores Cover for the Conflagration rockets and if they actually did go to strength 6 make them 10 points sure, otherwise just keep them free.



Automatically Appended Next Post:
ERJAK,

I like your analysis of the cycle we are currently in and I definitely agree with you. Additionally, I played dozens of games against Eldar in 5th-7th edition and agree with you completely. I do not believe I ever won a single game against them until we got the Index rules in 8th.

Let's just be happy we aren't stuck with the beta codex at least. The 9th book is going to keep us better than that right!

Hi, old player returning to the game here, so forgive me if I ask something that is 'common sense'.

Does a Valorous Heart list make sense right now? I'm thinking a big squad of sacresancts running with a canoness, Ephrael, dialogus, hospitaller, and some penitent engines to make a big scary centre block that can absorb an absurd amount of punishment whilst still dishing out a fair amount. Then having some 10girl squads, dominions, retributors, and 5 MM immolators to smack face and take objectives.

I can pack all this into 2000pts and it seems to have a nice balance of resilience (the canoness in particular can be incredibly tanky), firepower (30+ melta shots), and numbers.

Its one of the three bloody rose, and order of our martyred lady being the other two however due to the recent changes noone can give you a data based answer only speculation

 J.Black wrote:
Hi, old player returning to the game here, so forgive me if I ask something that is 'common sense'.

Does a Valorous Heart list make sense right now? I'm thinking a big squad of sacresancts running with a canoness, Ephrael, dialogus, hospitaller, and some penitent engines to make a big scary centre block that can absorb an absurd amount of punishment whilst still dishing out a fair amount. Then having some 10girl squads, dominions, retributors, and 5 MM immolators to smack face and take objectives.

I can pack all this into 2000pts and it seems to have a nice balance of resilience (the canoness in particular can be incredibly tanky), firepower (30+ melta shots), and numbers.

Pure VH had the best showing of any sister's setup at the LVO, so it's one of our best strategies, but there are some serious challenges going forward:

1. No other list made more use of Sacresancts, Vahl, and Retributors. Most VH lists maxed out on all 3. The point bumps to those units REALLY hurt.
2. Tau and Eldar are likely going to get plenty of tools that will bypass VH defenses easily and with both books looking extremely strong...that's not great.

If you are going pure VH, a couple of recommendations:

1. Either take 3 minimum units of battle sisters or a big block of 20 battle sisters and then 2 minimum squads. 10 girl squads are mostly just a waste of points, even with all the defensive buffs VH can level.

2. Pengines and Mortifiers are not nearly as resilient as you might think. Sacresancts are the most resilient unit in the army in practice and even after the nerfs every VH list should figure on taking at least 25.

3. Dominions are very questionable after the bumps. Mostly just outflanking your rets should work just fine.

4. Always take a Dogmata over a dialogus. +15 points for obsec on anything and shoot while doing actions is a steal.

5. Vahl is MANDATORY. Even Argent Shroud don't benefit from her aura as much as VH do.

GFdoubles wrote:
Just give us Heavy 3d3 S8 AP -3 DD6 Exorcist Missiles

Isn't that basically what it's now except -3? Which conveniently gets basically ignored because everything worth shooting as minimum of 5++ anyway.

tneva82 wrote:

GFdoubles wrote:
Just give us Heavy 3d3 S8 AP -3 DD6 Exorcist Missiles

Isn't that basically what it's now except -3? Which conveniently gets basically ignored because everything worth shooting as minimum of 5++ anyway.

Yeah, but it's also usually a 2+. -3 would at least let us force them onto the invul.

The bigger deal is devastating refrain. If it was 1CP, I could see taking an exorcist in every list. At 2CP it's such a drain on our resources that it's not worth it to fire the thing. Even though we are in desperate need of reliable long range firepower.

Also, give the exorcist it's extra wound and T8 back. The only reason it lost them was to make people take Castigators and no one takes Castigators anyway. In fact, I'd be very surprised if there are more than a half dozen fully assembled Castigators in the world outside of GW HQ. Even casual players and modelers looked at that thing and went 'great, bad predator.'

I don't think the Castigator is worse than a Predator. Both are pretty bad, competitively. What's more, I don't know how you would fix units like that. Reducing the points costs would only go so far; they just don't do anything special to make you want to take them over more efficient options.

 ZergSmasher wrote:
I don't think the Castigator is worse than a Predator. Both are pretty bad, competitively. What's more, I don't know how you would fix units like that. Reducing the points costs would only go so far; they just don't do anything special to make you want to take them over more efficient options.

You're right, points changes won't fix it. The Castigator does roughly the same amount of damage in shooting as an MM paragon warsuit and drastically less than Exorcists, let alone Retributors. The flat 3 damage means it doesn't benefit from miracle dice and the D6 shots make it so swingy you can't even rely on it for chip damage. It also has no utility that would make it stand out over even just bringing an Exorcist.

It needs a complete rules rewrite or a VERY pushed stratagem for it to see play. Even letting it benefit from Devastating refrain would be meaningless because it's still point for point worse than an Exorcist. If it had it's own strat that let all of it's guns shoot out of LoS AND let you roll two take the highest for number of shots AND it was only 1 CP, you might see people take (and be disappointed by) one.

Otherwise it needs just a significantly better profile. If they insist on leaving it T7 W11 then it needs either at least a 5+ invul or some way to ignore LoS.

The gun needs to be completely reworked. If they want to leave the defensive profile as bad as it is, The Auto Cannons need to be flat 12 shots and AP-2, The main Battle Cannon needs to be flat 4 or 5 shots with D3+3 damage and no blast. The pyre shell needs to be 4d3.

Those might seem like excessive numbers but with no additional utility and a defensive profile that basically guarantees it will die the moment it's in Line of Sight of ANYTHING in your opponent's army, it needs to have at least a chance to get it's points back in the one round per game on average it'll get to shoot.

ERJAK wrote:

tneva82 wrote:

GFdoubles wrote:
Just give us Heavy 3d3 S8 AP -3 DD6 Exorcist Missiles

Isn't that basically what it's now except -3? Which conveniently gets basically ignored because everything worth shooting as minimum of 5++ anyway.

Yeah, but it's also usually a 2+. -3 would at least let us force them onto the invul.

The bigger deal is devastating refrain. If it was 1CP, I could see taking an exorcist in every list. At 2CP it's such a drain on our resources that it's not worth it to fire the thing. Even though we are in desperate need of reliable long range firepower.

Also, give the exorcist it's extra wound and T8 back. The only reason it lost them was to make people take Castigators and no one takes Castigators anyway. In fact, I'd be very surprised if there are more than a half dozen fully assembled Castigators in the world outside of GW HQ. Even casual players and modelers looked at that thing and went 'great, bad predator.'

Honestly at this point I would be happy if the Exorcist at least went back to 12 wounds even if it stayed T7 and if the Castigator gained AP -2 on the Autocannons and "roll 2d6 take the highest" on the battle cannon sanctified shell. I know all of that alone would not be enough, but combined with the anemic points drop both tanks got it would at least be a bit more "feel good." Honestly, while I know the Castigator is not good (I have one because I need, with the exception of a few units, one of everything when it comes to Sisters) I see it more as a source of S9 than anything else. I like the number of shots on the autocannons and know that the d6 shots for the S9 profile is just bad, but other than the Castigator, Warsuits with maces, the Our Martyred Lady relic pistol and Holy Trinity (barring a few other combos that I may be forgetting), we are usually stuck with a 50/50 chance to wound T8 things. That alone makes me see the S9 battle cannon as having some value, I just wish it was actually somewhat reliable. In every game I have brought the Castigtor so far, I have always used the battle cannon and it at least made it points back (or just about) the last time I brought it, wiping out a squad of 3 Deathrsoud Termies and mowing down poxwalkers on some home objectives. My opponent got a bit reckless of course but at least the tank got to do something, and didn't even die for once! Any game before that...yea it was pretty much a non-factor lol.

Personally, I really hoped that the nerfs to the Exorcist meant the Castigator was going to at least be T8 and have a S9 gun that got some of the Basilisk treatment, but all we got was a worse tank, it's frustrating. So any buffs that these vehicles (or vehicles ingeneral) see in the balance dataslate at the end of the month will make me happy even if they just are not enough.

ERJAK wrote:

 ZergSmasher wrote:
I don't think the Castigator is worse than a Predator. Both are pretty bad, competitively. What's more, I don't know how you would fix units like that. Reducing the points costs would only go so far; they just don't do anything special to make you want to take them over more efficient options.

You're right, points changes won't fix it. The Castigator does roughly the same amount of damage in shooting as an MM paragon warsuit and drastically less than Exorcists, let alone Retributors. The flat 3 damage means it doesn't benefit from miracle dice and the D6 shots make it so swingy you can't even rely on it for chip damage. It also has no utility that would make it stand out over even just bringing an Exorcist.

It needs a complete rules rewrite or a VERY pushed stratagem for it to see play. Even letting it benefit from Devastating refrain would be meaningless because it's still point for point worse than an Exorcist. If it had it's own strat that let all of it's guns shoot out of LoS AND let you roll two take the highest for number of shots AND it was only 1 CP, you might see people take (and be disappointed by) one.

Otherwise it needs just a significantly better profile. If they insist on leaving it T7 W11 then it needs either at least a 5+ invul or some way to ignore LoS.

The gun needs to be completely reworked. If they want to leave the defensive profile as bad as it is, The Auto Cannons need to be flat 12 shots and AP-2, The main Battle Cannon needs to be flat 4 or 5 shots with D3+3 damage and no blast. The pyre shell needs to be 4d3.

Those might seem like excessive numbers but with no additional utility and a defensive profile that basically guarantees it will die the moment it's in Line of Sight of ANYTHING in your opponent's army, it needs to have at least a chance to get it's points back in the one round per game on average it'll get to shoot.

IMHO the problem with the Castigator is that it's not really filling a role that the Sisters wanted filled. Its armaments make it best suited for hunting heavy infantry, but it's not really worth 160pts for that role, nor is it worth the opportunity cost of forgoing Retributors, Exorcists (even in their current, sub-optimal status), Mortifiers and Penitent Engines to take one. If it had, like, multi-melta sponsons at the same cost it is currently then it would probably see some actual consideration, and even then it would probably be a worse pick than Retributors for the cost unless you're going for complete armour saturation.

 Andilus Greatsword wrote:

ERJAK wrote:

 ZergSmasher wrote:
I don't think the Castigator is worse than a Predator. Both are pretty bad, competitively. What's more, I don't know how you would fix units like that. Reducing the points costs would only go so far; they just don't do anything special to make you want to take them over more efficient options.

You're right, points changes won't fix it. The Castigator does roughly the same amount of damage in shooting as an MM paragon warsuit and drastically less than Exorcists, let alone Retributors. The flat 3 damage means it doesn't benefit from miracle dice and the D6 shots make it so swingy you can't even rely on it for chip damage. It also has no utility that would make it stand out over even just bringing an Exorcist.

It needs a complete rules rewrite or a VERY pushed stratagem for it to see play. Even letting it benefit from Devastating refrain would be meaningless because it's still point for point worse than an Exorcist. If it had it's own strat that let all of it's guns shoot out of LoS AND let you roll two take the highest for number of shots AND it was only 1 CP, you might see people take (and be disappointed by) one.

Otherwise it needs just a significantly better profile. If they insist on leaving it T7 W11 then it needs either at least a 5+ invul or some way to ignore LoS.

The gun needs to be completely reworked. If they want to leave the defensive profile as bad as it is, The Auto Cannons need to be flat 12 shots and AP-2, The main Battle Cannon needs to be flat 4 or 5 shots with D3+3 damage and no blast. The pyre shell needs to be 4d3.

Those might seem like excessive numbers but with no additional utility and a defensive profile that basically guarantees it will die the moment it's in Line of Sight of ANYTHING in your opponent's army, it needs to have at least a chance to get it's points back in the one round per game on average it'll get to shoot.

IMHO the problem with the Castigator is that it's not really filling a role that the Sisters wanted filled. Its armaments make it best suited for hunting heavy infantry, but it's not really worth 160pts for that role, nor is it worth the opportunity cost of forgoing Retributors, Exorcists (even in their current, sub-optimal status), Mortifiers and Penitent Engines to take one. If it had, like, multi-melta sponsons at the same cost it is currently then it would probably see some actual consideration, and even then it would probably be a worse pick than Retributors for the cost unless you're going for complete armour saturation.

It's interesting, the Castigator as it is, manages to be worse even accounting for the price differential than the Exorcist. An exorcist at 170 is still almost infinitely preferable to a Castigator with battle cannon at 155.

But it ALSO manages to be worse than Immolator, irrespective of the price difference. It hasn't come up as much in the comparisons but a twin MM immolator ALSO does more damage on average than the castigator. Even if the immolator had been upped 5 points instead of dropping 10 it'd still be better as a main battle tank than the Castigator is at 155.

So we have a transport that's a better battle tank than our battle tank and we have an 'artillery' that's a better battle tank than our battle tank AND we have an infantry unit that's a better battle tank than our battle tank.

It isn't something that blows the argument wide open, but it is worth pointing out that the Castigator also has 3 Heavy Bolters. I've not been blown away by the Battle Cannon, but having a touch of STR 9 hasn't exactly been useless. Flat damage also opens up miracle dice usages for other units, as not everything in the army has a Simulacrum hanging around.

Castigator can't do the job all by itself, which seems to be the major complaint, but it can definitely contribute in a few different sectors simultaneously.

Not saying it is the best tank, especially in an edition where armored boxes seem to be in short supply, but it isn't exactly a shoddy excuse for a vehicle that has no use. Perhaps the biggest flaw it has is that it doesn't synergize with a lot of the units that the competitive folks are clamoring over. The Castigator feels like it wants to sit somewhere between our frontline transports (Immolators) and the artillery (Exorcists). Just another annoyance that must be prioritized and dealt with before getting to the deep targets.

Just sharing some of my thoughts while we're dog-piling on the unit.

Purifying Tempest wrote:
It isn't something that blows the argument wide open, but it is worth pointing out that the Castigator also has 3 Heavy Bolters. I've not been blown away by the Battle Cannon, but having a touch of STR 9 hasn't exactly been useless. Flat damage also opens up miracle dice usages for other units, as not everything in the army has a Simulacrum hanging around.

Castigator can't do the job all by itself, which seems to be the major complaint, but it can definitely contribute in a few different sectors simultaneously.

Not saying it is the best tank, especially in an edition where armored boxes seem to be in short supply, but it isn't exactly a shoddy excuse for a vehicle that has no use. Perhaps the biggest flaw it has is that it doesn't synergize with a lot of the units that the competitive folks are clamoring over. The Castigator feels like it wants to sit somewhere between our frontline transports (Immolators) and the artillery (Exorcists). Just another annoyance that must be prioritized and dealt with before getting to the deep targets.

Just sharing some of my thoughts while we're dog-piling on the unit.

The thing is, it DOES synergize with everything competitive in the army. It should, theoretically, cover the single biggest weakness of Sisters competitive builds: Lack of long range shooting pressure. ANYTHING that shoots further than 24" at better than AP-1 D2 has excellent synergy with the rest of what Sisters bring to the table.

The problem with the Castigator is it's offense statline suggests that it's intended to sit back and plink away damage on a couple of different units (3 heavy bolters plus a low output cannon support that idea) and build up advantage over several turns. However, it doesn't have any of the other tools necessary to fill that roll. It doesn't ignore LoS, it's not resilient, it doesn't have any utility, it doesn't have any tricks to help keep it alive.

Compare the Castigator to the Plagueburst Crawler, a tank that excels at that same "build advantage over multiple turns' strategy and is almost the exact same price. The Castigator has a slightly higher damage output but the Plagueburst Crawler has: Native ignore LoS on its main gun, T8, 12 wounds, Disgustingly resilient, 5+ Invul(with potential for a 4+), a -1 toughness aura, and Disgusting Force (a great strat that improves its damage enough to overtake the Castigator).

The Castigator is a PlagueBurst Crawler's weapon system put on a (worse) hammerhead chassis and is the worst of both worlds as a result.

Well, another argument with the Castigator harkens back to 8th edition Exorcist: d6 is very unreliable. They fixed that with 3d3, which definitely makes the Exorcist have quite the upside while giving it some base level of performance above "roll 1 shot and miss...".

And even with the Heavy Bolters, a lot of how I walk out of a game with the Castigator hinges on how that main cannon performs. So I know how easy it is to ignore what those HBs are adding.

I normally have been running the Castigator alongside of a more mechanized approach with Immolators and a Rhino. It doesn't wow me, but it normally can grind its way into the mid game where it can help me cap or block mid-field objectives. Normally the saturation of armor makes the other player have to make some tough choices, but I understand it isn't going to be the best against players who really come to smash face.

An extra wound or two, ESPECIALLY with the new Hammerhead set to square off against it, would definitely be welcomed. I'd like to see it start filling a more heavy tank role (like the LRBT) with the Exorcist more filling that traditional Basilisk role.

But more than anything, I think the main gun is really just a tweak away from not being just... bad Maybe it is time to start breaking away from everything has to have a random profile number of shots to just making it flat Heavy 4 or 5. Let the chance reside in the following 2 rolls, not the first roll to see if you got 1 shot or not.

Again, we lived through the 8th Exorcist and GW listened well enough to acknowledge that d6 shots wasn't a good answer for a tank. And then turned right back around and slapped it on the new hotness... only to be received with the same tepid response for the community. I still like it though, just a tweak away! And we play Crusade... you think these things are overpriced in Matched Play? Lol, you cannot even add the Hunter-Killer to get these things to the 1:20 PLoints ratio. I think 1 with all the expensive options is 185, the other tank is 175... and both are 9PL.

Purifying Tempest wrote:
Well, another argument with the Castigator harkens back to 8th edition Exorcist: d6 is very unreliable. They fixed that with 3d3, which definitely makes the Exorcist have quite the upside while giving it some base level of performance above "roll 1 shot and miss...".

And even with the Heavy Bolters, a lot of how I walk out of a game with the Castigator hinges on how that main cannon performs. So I know how easy it is to ignore what those HBs are adding.

I normally have been running the Castigator alongside of a more mechanized approach with Immolators and a Rhino. It doesn't wow me, but it normally can grind its way into the mid game where it can help me cap or block mid-field objectives. Normally the saturation of armor makes the other player have to make some tough choices, but I understand it isn't going to be the best against players who really come to smash face.

An extra wound or two, ESPECIALLY with the new Hammerhead set to square off against it, would definitely be welcomed. I'd like to see it start filling a more heavy tank role (like the LRBT) with the Exorcist more filling that traditional Basilisk role.

But more than anything, I think the main gun is really just a tweak away from not being just... bad Maybe it is time to start breaking away from everything has to have a random profile number of shots to just making it flat Heavy 4 or 5. Let the chance reside in the following 2 rolls, not the first roll to see if you got 1 shot or not.

As I stated previously, I have brought the Castigator in a few casual "beer and pretzel" lists, always with the Battle Cannon (maybe I will try the Autocannons one day) and I have been disappointed about 75% of the time. I LOVE that it fills that niche role of having S9 to actually have a better than 50/50 chance of wounding T8 targets at long range (like PBCs) and that it also packs enough anti-infantry firepower to realistically put a dent in hordes. I agree completely that the biggest issue with the Battle Cannon is definitely that d6 number of shots, and GW had the answer but just chose not to implement it. All the Castigator needed to make it [i]okay[i] in fluffy, casual, and maybe even casually competitive lists was either a Basilisk treatment of roll 2d6 and take the highest or a Leman Russ style rule that allowed it to fire twice if it didn't move or only moved half its movement or something. Even with its only defensive play being holy smokescreen I think it would have actually seen some more play in the casual matched play scene.

Sisters vehicles have traditionally always had less guns than other Imperial tanks/artillery/etc. (hell it took until the new models to even have a built in heavy bolter, before then paying for a storm bolter was all you had over the main weapon). I think GW has just never really understood how anemic that is compared to the main gun on a Leman Russ, its hull weapon, sponsons, and any other stubbers you add on (same goes for even something bad like a Predator). Then you add the fact Leman Russes can at least fire twice with its main weapon if they barely move and the only thing that keeps it pretty balanced and far less threatening is the fact it has a BS of 4+ and Tank Commanders are limited. I know GW loves its random number of shots, and the fix to the Exorcist going from d6 to 3d3 was SO GREAT that I am honestly baffled why they didn't at least do something to help the Castigator Battle Cannon. The 3d3 anti-infantry shots on its second profile is really nice of course, but just giving it d6+2 shots on the sanctified shell would have been such a boon for this tank.

I am really praying that there is something in the Balance Dataslate at the end of this month that helps vehicles. Either some kind of massive rework or just buffs to a bunch of vehicles, including ours. I want to play mechanzed Sisters again with Rhinos, Immolators, Exorcists, and Castigators and have a reasonable chance to win in a casually competitive environment. Just to have access to that style build again would be really cool! If they can all just get a wound back and we go back to 12 wound Exorcists and Castigators at least, that would be awesome, even if we are stuck with 11 wound Immolators and the usual 10 wound Rhino of course.

The Balance dataslate comes out and with it....drumroll please...ANOTHER NERF!

Just make all of our guns S1 and get it over with at this point.

It's a double nerf, we also got clarified in our FAQ that you can't use both ammo cherubs in the same turn. Combine that with Argent Shroud now not working out of transports, our options keep getting worse and worse.

ERJAK wrote:
The Balance dataslate comes out and with it....drumroll please...ANOTHER NERF!

Just make all of our guns S1 and get it over with at this point.

Could you be any more dramatic? I guess at least you're playing the right faction to be a drama queen I suppose.

Why the heck are units not considered to have Remained Stationary when they disembark? That makes no sense.

Honestly, the balance dataslate/FAQ nerfed us less than I was expecting (Bodyguard shenanigans continue for now), but the Armourium Cherub nerf makes no sense when they also doubled their cost.

 Andilus Greatsword wrote:
Why the heck are units not considered to have Remained Stationary when they disembark? That makes no sense.

Honestly, the balance dataslate/FAQ nerfed us less than I was expecting (Bodyguard shenanigans continue for now), but the Armourium Cherub nerf makes no sense when they also doubled their cost.

LVO ruled the armourium cherub this way, so, I saw this coming. Still dumb.

Well, I won't be needing to paint my thrid and fourth armorium Cherub for quite some time now... I suppose that's a positive? The increased points cost + this update feel unnecessary. One of them was fine.

The thing about Argent Shroud makes absolutely zero sense. It was a nice niche that Argent Shroud had, which is now taken away. No idea why they thought this deserved to be ruled as such.

Yeah shroud is probably dead competitively. I think bloody rose or valorous heart is the way forward.

Well nice to see all that hope placed in the Balance Dataslate go right out the window. Nerfs galore and a "slap on the wirst" at best to one of the most broken factions in the game.

At this point let's just figure out how to be low B tier again for the next six months and hope that at some point everything gets rebalanced enough where we can return to low A tier. Space Marines have been underwhelming most of the edition, and if we want to be almost as popular as them this edition I will accept being just as underwhelming for a while.

We survived 20+ years of mediocrity and unplayability, it's not nearly as bad yet, and even if it goes that way, we can do it again!

 Andilus Greatsword wrote:
Why the heck are units not considered to have Remained Stationary when they disembark? That makes no sense.

Honestly, the balance dataslate/FAQ nerfed us less than I was expecting (Bodyguard shenanigans continue for now), but the Armourium Cherub nerf makes no sense when they also doubled their cost.

Waitwaitwait, the not remaining stationary thing overrides the Argent Shroud ability? Usually army-specific things override the BRB rules (like AS units being able to count as stationary when firing even if they Advanced). Or was this in the Sisters FAQ and I just missed it somehow?

Also, RIP Armorium Cherubs, 2020-2022.