Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

I started playing SOB when they got their codex, and I started playing the game at the very end of 7th edition. I've heard a lot of people complain about Celestine being busted in 7th. What made her busted?

To me, as she is now, she's kind'of OK, but I don't run her because I like to run Junith and the Triumph.

cjmate8 wrote:
I started playing SOB when they got their codex, and I started playing the game at the very end of 7th edition. I've heard a lot of people complain about Celestine being busted in 7th. What made her busted?

To me, as she is now, she's kind'of OK, but I don't run her because I like to run Junith and the Triumph.

She had a lot of wounds for 7th, was dead killy, had Hit And Run in an edition where Fall Back was NOT a standard rule, and was generally aggressively costed.

Also, wrong subforum.

 JNAProductions wrote:

cjmate8 wrote:
I started playing SOB when they got their codex, and I started playing the game at the very end of 7th edition. I've heard a lot of people complain about Celestine being busted in 7th. What made her busted?

To me, as she is now, she's kind'of OK, but I don't run her because I like to run Junith and the Triumph.

She had a lot of wounds for 7th, was dead killy, had Hit And Run in an edition where Fall Back was NOT a standard rule, and was generally aggressively costed.

Also, wrong subforum.

Oop, yeah sorry. Meant to click general.

Yeah, I spent some time looking today, and I saw the Sacred Rights had like a double move or double combat back then. I imagine what happened was that people were moving her like 24" in a turn, or double-fighting with her. Also, I think the geminae were apart of her own unit, so she could bring them back even if both died. And she also had the 3+ invulnerable.

It sounds like Lord of Change on crack.

cjmate8 wrote:
Yeah, I spent some time looking today, and I saw the Sacred Rights had like a double move or double combat back then. I imagine what happened was that people were moving her like 24" in a turn, or double-fighting with her. Also, I think the geminae were apart of her own unit, so she could bring them back even if both died. And she also had the 3+ invulnerable.

The double moving was the index sisters acts of faith. Celestine has always had a 4++ (though you could faith it up to 2++ in 3rd edition)

8e Index - She was popular as an allied unit because the sisters faith didn't scale with army size - taken alone or with a squad of seraphim or retributors they would be double-activating every turn, whereas in an actual sisters army you'd have to stretch the same amount of faith over the entire list.

7e Celestine was the first time she got the eternal warrior rule along with 5 wounds, two lives, and two meatshields that kept coming back to life. And an orbital bombardment for some reason.
She also lacked the act of faith rule and so crippled any sisters unit you put her with but worked just fine when attached to marine units. Very near the end of 7th so wasn't around all that long.

Late 5e and 6e Celestine variants were nothing special and fairly easy to kill (no gemini, no eternal warrior) but were cheap enough and the sisters lacked alternatives at the time (jump canoness squatted).

Original 3e-5e Celestine looked good on paper but was almost never taken - she had major drawbacks if killed and you could get two powerful jump canoness HQs for the same cost.

You could also take her twice; which was fun.

The version from the Sisters list and the version from Fall of Cadia didn't prevent the other from also being taken.

AT pretty much nailed it. She was on the long list of 7th edition units that were killy enough to remove most targets from the table in a single turn of combat. She moved fast enough to be an immediate threat. Her bodyguards + ressurection mechanics made her relatively tough to kill.

So in effect, she was this threat that you couldn't ignore because she was so fast and killy, but you had to point a big chunk of your army at her (a tiny chunk of your opponent's army) to make sure she died. And that meant you were leaving most of your opponent's army untouched on your first turn.

Basically, imagine if you could pay 150 points (or whatever she cost in 7th) to prevent your opponent from attacking the other 1850 points of your army on turn 1.

Wyldhunt wrote:
Basically, imagine if you could pay 150 points (or whatever she cost in 7th) to prevent your opponent from attacking the other 1850 points of your army on turn 1.

That was how she ran in early 8th - across the board double quick and when she died the first time you just put her down anywhere else on the board and carried on.

7e Celestine was a 200 point character that would have probably looked playable at 400 back in 3rd-5th edition, but she was so late to the game her impact was lost amongst far worse shenanigans. A strong meatshield/anti-tank unit to add to something like a GK strike squad and/or invisible marine deathstar.

A.T. wrote:


Late 5e and 6e Celestine variants were nothing special and fairly easy to kill (no gemini, no eternal warrior) but were cheap enough and the sisters lacked alternatives at the time (jump canoness squatted).

Original 3e-5e Celestine looked good on paper but was almost never taken - she had major drawbacks if killed and you could get two powerful jump canoness HQs for the same cost.

The WD sister codex Saint Celestine was fun in that she could come back to life every time. Just roll a +4 and she comes back, fail and you get to try again next turn. There was no limit. I pissed off more then a few FOTM players with her shenanigans. Power sword acts a HF in shooting, charge in, high I get to hit first, would usually survive to attack in enemy turn to hopefully die, resurrect and repeat. Rending HB rets killing AV14 were also a ton of fun back then,