I played a game with a player in Evansville named Dave. We wanted to get a game in at 2,000 points. And I can tell you that they surprised me.....
The mission we rolled up was Annihilation with spearhead deployment. I only had 16 kill points to his 21 so I knew I had the advantage already. He did win the roll to go first and put me in a corner that had very little cover. His list was approximately:
3x10 sisters, heavy flamer, meltagun in Rhino
3x5 Celstians w
X 3 I am sure I am missing something but this was the basic idea. I have never worried about Sister's of Battle because they didn't have any close combat to worry about and my type of play doesn't really care that much about the firepower as long as I have cover.
Well him putting me in a bad quarter caused me to play slightly different than I normally do. I reserved 4 units of my army to make him think and cause massive damage when they came in.
What I am impressed with was the ability for the immolaters to scout and therefore get multi-melta shots at my TWC. I deployed them out of sight of 2 exorcist but moved them in error which allowed him to see me with all 3. I took 1 wound on every model in his 1st turn shooting, The game was really going my way until Celestine got back up and was able to kill 3 TWC in an amazing show of 4+ rolls. I was also impressed that Celestine got up every turn with 2 or 3 wounds on and was harassing my back line. He also had his henchman unit with Uriah who with the ability to give them +1 attack, feel no pain, and re-roll misses on the charge is a nasty unit for about the cost of my Thunderwolf Lord. St Celestine got up 5 times!!!!
I ended up winning by a comfortable margin of 5 killpoints, but this type of build would be exactly what I would play with few tweaks like a 4th scoring unit instead of a celestian squad or so. The added addition of Celestine's low point cost, the counter assault or assault unit of henchman, the exorcist's firepower, and rhino hulls with muti-melta, flamers, more melta, and acts of faith and you have a pretty decent army.
My hats of to Dave!!! Keep up the good work.
Farmpunk, I think you should break them out again!!
What type of sister's armies are you seeing? Does anything impress or not impress you with the updated version?
I still don't see sisters on the table, but to be honest I think that has more to do with their price point more than any thing else.
ReplyDeleteFor less money you can get a different army that will out preform the sisters almost every time.
I like the idea of killpoint denial with large numbers of sisters using Karamazov to gain fearless.
ReplyDeleteSt. Celestine is simply awesome. She can be used to deny the enemy their home objectives and trying to grind through 50 odd fearless power armoured troops is tough.
In KP games you go for pure denial, moving depleted squads out of the front lines and cyling in fresh ones. I've seen mass marines played like that and it's really tough to try and get through that many heavy infantry.
I've been kind of waiting for GW to release a PDF of the Codex.
ReplyDeleteCelestine's crazy now. Uriah's necessary too. After taking those two almost mandatory HQ's, there's not a lot of variety to take.
I'll probably toy with 2 exorcist, 1 retributor squad for heavys, and scouting dominions.
Man Uriah with the henchmen unit are nasty!! Almost grey knightish!!!
ReplyDeleteNow I have heard players only wanting 3 scoring choices. I think you need at least 4 at 2000 if not 5. What do you think?
ReplyDeleteDepends on the army. Bare minimum is 4 at 2K. Squishy armies like the IG need 5 or 6 .
ReplyDeleteWith Sisters only being T3, the 3+ save doesn't really vindicate them in my eyes, I'd lean towards 5, the issue there being cost of course. :(
ReplyDeleteDoes not one think Uriah and the henchman pack are nasty besides me?
ReplyDeleteI think they can be mean.
ReplyDeleteI'd have to get some models for DCA's and Crusaders.
I think Arch-confessor Krynov's not bad. (and I have him. I'd have to buy Jacobus)
but it looks like Celestine and a unit of Celestians might find their way to the board for me.
On 2000 it's what I'm proposing:
ReplyDelete2 confessors
2 conclaves: 3 crusaders, 6 dc assasins in rhino
4 BSS, multimelta, melta ("stationary razorback")
2 squads of dominions 2 melta, combi-melta, t-l mmelta immo.
3 exorcists
(no special characters because in Poland they are mostly forbidden on tournaments)
They are forbidden? Why then are they in the codex. That is plain silly!! Sorry Kriss
ReplyDeleteFrom what I understand Poland is still a Comp Heavy land. (like Australia).
ReplyDeletenamed characters are unbalanced in their eyes. and because the comp police run the tourneys, comp reigns supreme. Basically, their tourney, play by their rules.
I hate comp. more rules hoops to jump through. They might as well hand you standard armylists you get to play for their tourneys.
I know this is silly but it's true, sad but true, ehh
ReplyDeleteUriah is simply overkill in with a conclave. I run 5 x DCA 3 x Flagellants and 2 x Crusaders. On the charge (which is normally as they are a counter assault unit) they're packing 20 I5 WS5 Str 4 Power weapon attacks, 15 I3 Ws 4 Str 5 attacks and 4 I3 Ws 4 Str 3 power weapon attacks. Against MEQ that's 7 dead marines (power weapons) and 5 saves on average. perfect number dead to keep you in combat and finish them off in your turn, assuming you're attacking a full squad of ten.
ReplyDeleteI find Uriah is best fielded in a unit of Celestians totting Melta in a rhino. Nine of these guys with a Superior with a combi-melta and a power weapon are ideal for popping small transports and assualting the contents. Uriah gives the celestians 3 attacks basic, 4 on the charge with thier act of faith (going off on a 3+ with Uriah present) gives them Str 4. Thats 5 power weapon attacks and 32 Ws4 Str4 attacks, plus Uriah, with re-rolls to hit on them all. Feel no pain buffs this unit no end too, adding extreem durability. I've also fielded a canoness with this unit to turn them into real combat beasts, but then on a points basis at least the unit technically becomes a 'deathstar' and not really a worthwhile investment. I also enjoy running this unit with double flamer + combi-flamer, but obviously this removes any and all anti-tank and changes the role of the unit.
I run my 2k Sisters like this (from memory)
Celestine
Uriah
Conclave - 5 x DCA, 3 x Flags 2 x Crusaders - Rhino
(2x) 10 sisters - 2 x Storm bolter, H bolter, Rhino
10 Sisters - 2 x Storm bolter, H bolter, Rhino
10 Sisters Melta, Multimelta, Rhino
5 Dominions - 2 x melta, S. Imperialis, Immolator w/ Multi melta
10 Dominions - 4 x flamer, S. Imperialis, Rhino
7 Seraphim - Hand flamers, Inferno Pistols, Melta bombs
9 Celestians – 2 x melta, combi-flamer, Power weapon, Rhino.
Penitent Engine
Penitent Engine
Exorcist
On a model for model basis, sisters will lose out to most armies, are basic troops and even our elites are simply not good enough to fight a fair fight, so don’t. This army works around the basis of out manoeuvring the enemy. With the threat caused by the sheer damage output of the dominions and the penitents, they simply must be dealt with by your opponent in the first turn or two. This gives the rest of your army a couple of turns to claim some decent firebases and hopefully objectives. With counter assault threats from Celestine, the penitents, celestians and the conclave this should dissuade your opponent from attempting to assault your scoring units early on whilst they try to whittle down your combat units, so keep them hidden and make them hunt you out. Do not underestimate the amount of firepower the basic sister’s squads can kick out at 12-24” with this weapons set up. With these fire bases and the exorcist tormenting your opponent from afar, and the dominions and the celestians tempting units into the ‘death zone’ of <12” of your sisters units and your counter assault units, this actually creates some difficult decisions for your opponent to make, I.e. hang back or charge in, which will lead to a few mistakes you can exploit.
This tactic assumes your opponent will want to assault you (which being sisters 80% of armies will want to) however for armies that want to shoot you off the table, you have enough above average combat effectiveness and speed in transports and jumpers to hit a gun line in its weak points and set up to outshoot the rest of them at close quarters.
This list is unbeaten in my FLGS, but competition isn't exactly 'top tier!' It does show however that the new sisters list can be competitive, the main downside with the new ‘Dex is the lack of viability. Too many units (Jacobus, dominions, Exorcists and to an extent Celestine) are ‘must includes’ which leads to very generic looking sisters armies. Ok, mine includes a couple of rarely seen penitent engines because these fit my play style for the army (Shoot me, Shoot me! And counter-assault threat) but bar that it is very generic.