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As a new edition dawns, let us review what the Sisters have in store for us. What has gotten better, worse, or made a side grade. And then look at what Sisters might need to do to play in this new edition. I have had some thoughts and want to know what the rest of the y'all think. Let's pool our thoughts, expertise, and experience to get the best start of the edition possible.
The Good:
Spoiler:
We get three new workable detachments and did not lose our grotmas detachment. This brings us up from the tied lowest detachment count of the game to above Imperial Agents, T'au, and both knights. Only one of the new detachments comes with tags to prevent combinations, so Sisters comes with options in detachment choice.
The Equipment point costs means that some units can forgo melta guns to be substantially cheaper. Against MEQ, a heavy bolter is still a deadly weapon and this swap saves 30 pts on the paragon warsuits and 20 pts on the retributors and dominions. Taking the meltas on the paragons and dominions only takes them back up to their previous point cost so it is not really a tax if you need the old loadout.
Leaders always leading a unit and being able to double up with support is big for the survivability of some units. Celestian sacresants with a character and a hospitaller are a defensive block that will take some dedicated shooting or combat to kill off the central objective as they can keep reviving the bodyguard. This really benefits Hallowed Martyrs, where lone characters, which might be more common with the new fast rolling, will be able to enjoy the bonuses of the detachment.
Sisters has a diverse range and are pretty well set up to be able to compete in any of the five force dispositions. We have fast units, sneaky units, and units that can sit on an objective with high OC. As GW rebalances the mission decks, Sisters are set up to be able to take advantage of any opportunities presented.
The Bad:
Spoiler:
Miracle dice are now worse. We generate fewer of them due to attached units changes and they cannot be used in the same way as in 10th. Unless there is a rule that has yet to be released about how the bodyguard is a units that counts as having been destroyed before the loss of the character, we do not generate a miracle dice from them anymore. Due to fast rolling, we now have to decide if we want to substitute any miracle dice before any of the dice are rolled. We can no longer slow roll armor saves to see if substituting in a six would save the character or fish for critical sixes before subbing in the final roll. This change really hurts our survivability and anti-vehicle ability.
The increased cost for doubling up on units really hurts some sisters lists. A lot of lists, especially Champions of Faith, liked to rely on blocks of Celestian Sacresants to hold objectives and break the enemy. In addition to a points hike, these units are now a whopping 3 ppm more expensive past the first unit on what is a T3 W1 body. Taking any units past the first is now an expensive order.
Two of our characters ate a substantial points increase. Junith Eruita goes up by 35 pts due to her ability to give out a -1 to hit that stacks with the benefits of cover and being a CP battery in a world where discarding secondaries is riskier. The hospitaller goes up by 15 for the first model and 25 for the second onwards due to her being able to stack with more characters and revive more units.
This edition makes leadership and battle-shock more important, and Sisters are not a high leadership army. At ld7, our elite units and generic leaders have the same leadership as guardsmen. We do have tools to mitigate this, but it is a problem of which we will need to be wary.
The Ugly:
Spoiler:
GW did not rewrite or change any of the rules or detachments, only updating some of the wording to be compatible with the new core rules, leaving some ugly holdovers into 11th. They discovered the magical rules text "at or below half strength" for the sake of leadership but did not apply it to the Hallowed Martyrs. The Champions of Faith (and Sacred Champions for some reason) buff celestian sacresant units while ignoring the celestian insidiants and Celestian Sacresant Aveline. GW did not touch any of the -1 to hit abilities, meaning that they stack with the benefits of cover, though this has had a negative on effect on some point costs.
The force dispositions are a bit all over the place. Hallowed Martyrs is the only Priority Assets detachment, which feels like it should be a core disposition of the army as one of its missions is "extract relic". Army of Faith (the high speed jump pack sisters detachment) and Penitent Host (frothing naked zealots) both being Take and Hold is a baffling choice. Even if the thought that Army of faith would naturally be paired with Chorus of Condemnation for Reconnaissance, this still leaves it neutered in 1000 pt games. Champions of Faith on Disruption feels like the GW mandated every faction gets every disposition, rather than something that the list is designed to perform.
We got a good ol' day 0 typo in that the Sanctified Orators' Hagiomnifex never says "until end of turn" so the buffs stack. It also never says anything about not taking repeats (which would be fine if the effects wore off) so if you keep taking the +1 M or the +1 S, you can end the game either very fast or very deadly. Do with this what you will.
Detachments:
Spoiler:
Hallowed Martyrs:
Probably still the default pick for competitive play, but this detachment was hit by some of the rule changes. This detachment relied on setting up combos to use multiple stratagems on a single character which is no longer allowed in 11th. No more fighting on death with +1 and reroll hits and wounds and getting to stand back up for our jump pack canonesses by chaining three stratagems together.
The change to attached characters is a boon for this detachment as the final character is able to enjoy the full +1 to hit and wound from the detachment rule. Morvenn Vahl finally gets to enjoy the full bonuses before her bodyguard are all killed and her model is reduced to 3 wounds remaining. It would have been nice if they had changed the rule to get the bonus at "at half or below starting strength" but what can you do.
A surprise nerf is that the divine intervention stratagem had to be updated to work with 11th edition attached units and so revives the last slain model in the unit if the destroyed unit had the character tag. This would normally be the character as before, unless you are running multiple characters that were killed in the same round, in which case you do not get a choice as to the character revived, or if your opponent is running precision weapons and manages to kill the character in a unit. In the precision case, the stratagem requires that the unit be destroyed and so cannot be activated if a bodyguard remains. Snipers are now a lot more dangerous for this detachment.
Bringers of Flame No changes. They made this detachment three detachment points out of spite from when Sisters were briefly the best army but other than that I do not see these lists being at all effected. I haven't been able to get this detachment to work with the increased CP costs, but some people seem to make it work competitively.
The changes to how damage from destroyed vehicles is applied to the unit does hurt this detachment with its general reliance on transports to get within 6" of the enemy. Losing twice as many models to the hazardous test and being at risk of the explosion does hurt the survivability of the small units.
Army of Faith Except for the force disposition, this detachment gets a lot better in this edition. We retain a cheap way to use an enhancement to cast a -1 to hit buff or an ignore modifiers buff to all units near a squad of jump pack sister. Blobs of units built around a supporting squad of seraphim are defensive block that may let us hold objectives against a lot of ranged fire.
The general decrease in miracle dice generated from losing units is also not as bad for this army, as Army of Faith encourages miracle dice generation through stratagems and enhancements while preserving your sisters.
While defensive blobs supported by seraphim can play some Take and Hold, this feels like it was written with being paired with Chorus of Condemnation in mind as they support the same units and are not tagged. This combo encourages a reconnaissance plan of fanning with your out while exorcists hold the home objective and provide supporting fire. Can also be paired with Sacred Champions if you want to go all in on the defensive nature of the detachment, with the seraphim giving bonuses to buffed sacresants that are impossible to shift from the center objectives. Should be some fun lists to try.
Champions of Faith This detachment got hit hard by the penalties on doubling up on celestian sacresants. Three full strength units of sacresants are now taxed as much as bringing an extra character. GW saw that people were doing spamming this unit and decided to penalise this choice instead of wondering if it might have been because they wrote a detachment around a single unit.
The force disposition of this detachment is also difficult. The high OC, defensive blobs are great at hold objectives but were given disruption, meaning that they need to be paired with another detachment. Unfortunately, the one point Take and Hold is the incompatible Sacred Champions leaving them with Chorus of Condemnation (no) or Sanctified Orators with Purge the Foe. This might be workable as the from this detachment can be quite deadly and the new Hagiomnifex upgrade seems useable to buff the sacresants, though the -1 to wound cannot stack (probably, GW is unlikely to change this in 11th).
Penitent Host The detachment to make us feel better because at least we are not that guy. Was the worst detachment, remains the worst detachment, simple as. Take and Hold is just a final cosmic jest that the universe plays upon us foolish mortals that dare seek meaning in the darkness outside of the light of the Emperor.
None of the detachments synergise with this. Sanctified Orators' upgrade cannot be paired with the enhancement needed to lead a unit of repentia and cannot be put on a priest, but it does provide Purge the Foe. You could take either of the other two detachments and pretend that you are playing a different detachment. My advice is to add insult to injury by taking Sacred Champions and giving yourself the choice of which Take and Hold you want to play today.
I think that it will be interesting to see how Sisters adapts from these changes. There will be growing pains as we adapt to some of our nerfs and changes, but with our diverse range, after a balance dataslate or two to work out some of the kinks, I could see Sisters well set up to take advantage of 11th edition. For now, I see Hallowed Martyrs remaining the default competitive pick for most Sisters players. Bringers of Flame remains steady for the people that are still on that train. Army of Faith could see a large upswing with how their stratagems and enhancements interact with the 11th core rules changes. Finally, it is a dark day for the people playing Champions of Faith and relying on celestian sacresant blobs.
I will probably be running Army of Faith with maybe Sacred Champions for my first few games to try them out.
I'm still amazed at how BoF, despite all nerfs sisters are getting over and over and over again and those 6 nerfs to BoF in the previous Christmas patch, yet got a 3DP cost,... while Salamanders sibling one remains untouched, plenty of units get buffed, much higher durability and powerful combo options and variety,... and all at 2DP. On top of that it combos with the Psyker detachment for some absurd dakka potential.
Both Hospitallers and Celestial Sacresants increased cost should be from 3rd+ model, not 2nd. Its insane nerf. I dont use more than one unit, so it does not affect me, but its just 1W infantry with 2 detachments dedicated,... GW encourages to use them yet gets these insane price spikes? must hurt for whoever uses it, and Hospitallers are easy to get killed by cheap snipers. even the kasrkin sniper can one-tap her with ease. They're making 2nd unit more expensive than 5 termis with character,... but its vastly over-shadowed by those in all departments.
Both Celestial detachments,... still not buff Celestial Insidiants new unit at all. Guess they are not Celestial enough.
Saint Celestine still costs an arm and a leg, used to have WS7 and Inititative 7 with 5 attacks (while a Chapter Master was 5 & 5) in older editions, yet now every single Space Marine character hits as much if not harder than her. I dont want her to be cheaper, i want her to actually strike as hard as it should. She at least should have one extra attack and [Anti-Character 5+].
Repentias could use a small points drop. Sanctifiers still no [Penitent] keyword (or [Hereticus] in Imperial Agents).
Also, I dont think either Castigator or LR Exterminator ability should reduce armor Army-Wide. I much prefered their old rule that makes Cannon or Autocannon better at killing tanks or infantry. It'd be a nerf at 2k battles, but Army-Wide buffs like that are obnoxious.
Regarding changes to Miracle Dices, I must admit I was already doing it like that except for some rare invulnerable saves for tanks or characters, so wont change much for me.
This message was edited 5 times. Last update was at 2026/06/19 11:01:39
