u/PlainAluvium

(Illustrative image: Necromunda Cawdor Ridge Walkers or "Way-Brethren")

Armoured flanks, couched lances, and waving banners, all steeped in wafts of holy incense.

The concept of Sister Cavalry seems to be pretty popular: model conversions, fan art, and the monthly "What do you want to see in the next codex?" discussions.

But I always ask myself: why?

I'll admit I'm not experienced yet. I struggle to understand what "problem" or gap in our army list a mounted unit would actually fill. Don't we already have a unit of fast-moving close-combat specialists in the Zephyrim? From a competitive standpoint, would Sisters really gain anything from a unit of 3-6 horse girls making a suicide charge and martyring themselves for the glory of the God-Emperor?

What roles do cavalry and mounted units serve in other army lists?

• Astartes Outriders
• Guard Riders
• Xenos Jetbikes
• Deffkoptas (with one or two devastating shooting phases I'm always envious of)
• Custodes Bikes

(Note, I understand the flair and aura reasons. I ask from a gameplay perspective)

Last addition to my order. I had to fight my painting fatigue to get them done, the missing 5th sister is still waiting for the second try.

While I adore the Sororitas models, after roughly 8 months of painting whites & blues, I'm really looking forward to the Penitent Engine.

Just completed my first Castigator: "Stossgebet"

I'm now extremely close to painting fatigue and had to fight myself to not rush it. It's far from perfect (both paint and build quality). But I guess showing her off is just a way of closing the book and moving on before I burn out...

I played a 1000 pts Campaign - Game against a shooty Freebooter Krew Ork List and came out 75 to 73 (Orks got +10 points for Battle Ready Standard, so 75 to 63).

As we were playing campaign we had the twist that every movement is -1 (or -2 for vehicles).

The Lists

Freebooter Krew	Army of Faith
Big Mek w/ Shok	Canoness w/ Plasma, Powerweapon, Rod of Office [due to Campaign, she has Triptych of Judgment from CoF and can ignore modifications to BS, giving her and her unit essentially ignore cover)
Attached to: 2 Bubblechukkas	Attached to: Retributors w/ Heavy Bolters + Combi [in Reserve]
Weirdboy	Dialogus Enhancement: Divine Aspect
Attached to: 10 Boyz	Attached to:10 BSS w/ Melta + Multi-Melta + Condemnor
Tankbustas + Big Mek	JPC w/ Blessed Halberd
Tankbustas + Big Mek	10 Dominions w/ Flamers + Handflamer
10 Flashgitz	Immolater w/ Flamers (for Dominions)
Truck (for Flashgitz)	Castigator
5 Stormboyz	5 Seraphim w/ Handflamers [in Reserve]
	5 Seraphim w/ Inferno Pistols
	2 Death Cult Assassins[Legends-Unit, would have become 3 Arcos if my opponent were not ok with Legends]

My Gameplan

I was anxious beforehand, as I do not see Sisters as an army which can do Take & Hold particularly well. As this was a campaign game, and not having a vast collection yet, I was a bit constricted in list building. Like lacking a Sacresant + Hospitaler brick.

 So, the plan I came up with:

• As taking Objectives early on seems to be a promising idea most of the time, Death Cults seem particularly useful because they can infiltrate and are small enough to hide behind walls.
• Equally, Dominions with Scout Moves are also a great option to get additional Simulacrums onto Objectives (Expansion or even Center). And with 5 Model, a demi-squad can JUST fit behind most ruin walls it seems.
• Lastly, if the enemy is too occupied killing trading pieces in their half, they can’t get to my scoring units.

 

Let us see how that played out?

The Game

-1st Round

Sisters got the first round, and I was on 3 Objectives thanks to Infiltrating and Scout Moves. I threw the Assassins into the Tankbustas on the right flank and tried to Precision the BigMek. If I had remembered they can Reroll wounds and give them Lance, it MIGHT have worked.

 

Orks called out the Waagh!, the BigMek with Guns went into Reserve while the Weirdboy and his boyz used Jump to get into my backline and assault my home objective. They kill 5 Sisters on my home. Tankbustas kill 3 of my Seraphim on the right flank.

 

-2nd Round

I try to use the remaining Seraphim by pushing them forward, but with only 6 inch range on the Inferno Pistols they are pretty useless in the middle of the field. My JPC attacks the Tankbustas on the right flank, kills two and survives the swing back thangs to good dice.
Seraphim arrive from reserve and take the Home objective from the Orks. Together with the advanced Dominions they flame the Tankbustas on the left Flank to little effect. But suddenly the enemy home objective is no longer sticky! (1)
Immolater and Castigator decimate the Ork Boyz, leaving only the Weirdboy alive after the Castigator crushed the Nob under its tracks.

 

Tankbustas fall back from my JPC and pick her up with shooting.
Truck moves back towards home objective, Flashgitz pile out. Them and Tankbustas on left flank pick up my Serpahim on the enemy home objective. Stormboyz come down and pick up my Dominion Demi-Squad with Flamers.
BigMek with his two guns ingresses on the right flank, due to terrain they are forced to split fire: big mek and one gun go into my 2 lone Inferno Seraphim, 2nd gun goes into my Castigator. Seraphim survive due to good throws, Castigator survives with 2 sixes from my miracle pool.  

 

-3rd Round

Seraphim get picked up by Flashgitz-Overwatch, Retributors ingress on the left Flank and handily pick up the Tankbustas there with Re-Rolls galore and thrice blessed Heavy Bolters. Immolater flames the Stormboyz to ash and the Battle Sisters turn the Weirdboy to slack with a well-aimed Melta shot. Castigator blasts the Bubblechuckkas to bits and kills the Big Mek Warlord with a miracle enhanced Hunter Killer Missile.

 

Tankbustas on the right flank move up and kill the Castigator, but they stay in the vicinity of the Ork Expansion Objective. Flashgitz move into Ork home objective and take out 4 of my Retributors. For the first time in the game, I lose the central objective because I only have 2 Dominions on its edge against the Truck.

 

-4th Round

By now both our armies are exhausted. I have 1 Heavy Bolter with attached Canoness, one unscathed Immolater on my Expansion, 1 Demi-Dominion Squad on the Central Objective and 5 Battle Sisters with Dialogus on my Home.

The Orks have their brick of Flashgitz on their Home, Tankbustas on the Expansion and the Truck on the Central Objective.  Keep this situation in mind for a second. Both sides settle into their positions and hope for good secondaries. (2)

 

I fortify my position and try to get my units into good positions should a 5th Round Push happen. More Dominions toe into the center objective, outscoring the Truck again.

 

Tankbustas move into the Ork Expansion Objective, Flashgitz stay put on home, Truck moves forward to assault my home objective.

 

-5th Round

Not much movement, but the Multi-Melta on my home objective can reach the Truck and take him down to 4 Wounds.

 

Orks decide to move the Truck back, not wanting to risk a Multi-Melta with guaranteed 6s on Overwatch, denying me Bring it Down in the last round.

Conclusion and Observations

 It was a great game and for the first time I felt confident with my decisions about where to deploy and move. Especially if you have read my last report where I made one misplay after another. This time I really felt good afterwards.

 There were still some things regarding terrain, cover and hidden I need to learn and keep in mind. I'm quite sure I could have saved my Castigator with better positioning, for example. Or scored better if I hadn't forgotten to move my Dominions just a fraction further onto the central objective.

 

(1) In the Take and Hold Mirror, you score more if you hold your home. By taking the Ork home objective with my Seraphim, I effectively neutered the scariest unit in the Ork List: the Flashgitz. My opponent was forced to keep them back to not lose the points race. Take and Hold is not necessarily "Standing on Objectives and Survive" but can also mean "the Enemy can't kill your scoring units when they are busy fending off multiple units in their backline".

 

(2) Sightlines, Solid Cover, Hidden and Gone to Ground seem to favor MSU and scoring much more than you might think. Yes, you can put the 10 Celestians with Hospitaler and Junith on the central Objective, or 10 Battle Sisters with Triumph and watch how the enemy tries to chew through them. But you can also try to put 3 Arcos there and watch how the enemy has to maneuver into range… 

 

Caveat, I have no idea yet how this works in bigger games with more moving parts. Or against Purge the Foe yet.

On Sunday I played my first 11th edition game, a small and cozy 750 pts affair against Iron Warriors.  I wanted to share my thoughts and experiences as a beginner with you, and I have identified some key points throughout this report to go into depth at the end.

 

I played a list with Chorus of Condemnation & Sanctified Orators and chose the Reconnaissance disposition

• Jump Pack Canoness with Halberd and Clarion of Urgency (90 pts)
• Dialogus (40 pts); attached to
• Battle Sister Squad with Condemnor Boltgun, Melta, Multi-Melta (100 pts)
• Death Cult Assassins (55 pts) \[ would have swapped with Arcos if Legends weren't ok with my opponent\]
• Dominion Squad with Handflamer, 4 Flamers (100 pts)
• Exorcist with Symphonic Payload (190 pts)
• Seraphim with Handlfamers (85 pts) \[in Deep Strike\]
• Seraphim with Inferno Pistols (85 pts)

 

Vs. Iron Warriors with "Veterans of the Long War" (Take & Hold)

• Warpsmith
• Vindicator
• 10 Cultists
• Chaos Lord; attached to
• 5 Legionnaires with Heavy Bolter
• Venomcrawler
• 2 Obliterators \[in Deep Strike\]

 

Game Plan

For detachment, I wanted to try out using two 1 DP Detachments. As beginner, I still focus on smaller games. And as rules currently stand, we can't bring Bringers of Flame to small games. I'll be pivoting into Army of Faith anyway, but first I wanted to try out something different.  AoF is a "Take and Hold" Detachment which I see as pretty limiting to Sisters. Standing on a spot and surviving is not something I see Sisters do especially well. When brainstorming AoF lists beforehand, I saw the 200 point-brick for 10 Sacresants with their Emotional-Support Hospitaler as essential. (1)

 

So, I went with Chorus because I both love Seraphim and Exorcists, Orators because I didn't have Sacresants in my list and +1 LD might have come in handy. Yes, I know, the Exorcist is about the same cost as the Sacresant-Phalanx. But I think they are neat! (2)

 

• I had earmarked the JPC either as distraction, killing off small units or to score secondaries
• Dialogus with the Battle Sisters and the auto 6-miracle dice should hold one flank, Meltas and Condemnor discouraging vehicles and Characters.
• Inferno-Seraphim to move up quickly and kill vehicles, supporting in the direction of the Flamer Dominions.
• Flamer-Seraphim to kill off light infantry and take objectives or using the DevWound Stratagem against Heavy Infantry
• Flamer Dominions moving forward as dangerous overwatch threat.
• Assassins infiltrating forward to deny early objectives to my enemy or take on off them.
• Exorcist supporting across the map from its central position.

 

Deployment

 (I was defender and so could react a bit to the deployment of the Iron Warriors)

• Assassins infiltrating into Terrain across from CSM home objective (held by Cultists)
• Dominions on the line and scouting into my expansion objective to get a chance for an additional miracle dice
• Seraphim w/ Inferno Pistols, JPC and Exorcist in the middle, across from the Warpsmith and Demolisher which are deployed together to receive LoneOp and repair (3)
• Battle Sisters holding my home, across from the Legionnaires, Lord and Venomcrawler

 

Game

1st Round

• Saw both sides moving forward under cover. Exorcist hit the venom crawler 3 times with indirect fire but scored no damage.
• Assassins tried to charge into the Cultists but failed their charge.
• JPC took to the skies because one, I was unsure where to put her and two, I had drawn the Beacon Secondary.
• nferno-Seraphim move forward behind the central ruin objective.

2nd Round

• Due to lone op, the Demolisher couldn’t shoot at the Assassins. Instead it took down 4 of my 5 Inferno-Seraphim because I messed up their positioning.
• Obliterators deep struck next to my Exorcist. Organ-Overwatch caused only 1 Damage to the Obliterators despite 4 hits. But thanks to the amount of Holy Incense (Smoke Screen Stratagem) they only managed 3 damage with their Meltas.
• Cultists charged and killed my Assassins. Exorcists rolled over the toes of one Obliterator and caused 1 further point of in close combat damage.
• Exorcist shuffled to the left out of combat, while my Sisters shuffled 3-inch to shoot with their Multi-Melta, again just one damage to the Obliterators. Canoness returned from the skis beside the obliterators only to fail her charge despite miracle dice and rerolls. 
• The lone inferno Serpahim bounced off the Demolisher, one shot missed and the other failed to wound. Angelic ascent saw her in the 3rd table quarter to score primary. (Recon can score primary despite battle shock!)
• Dominions flamed the Cultists to ash and assaulted the Demolisher to no effect, but with the hope of being save from the Demolisher cannon next turn (Spoiler, they aren't….)

3rd Round

• Warpsmith picked up the last Inferno-Seraphim
• Thanks to its special rule, Demolishershot its cannon into close combat and takes down most of the Dominions save the Superior
• Obliterators split their fire into Exorcist and Canoness but and fail to wound both, then they charged again into the Tank.
• Canoness moved forward on the right flank to score primary and secondary (Beacon).
• Flamer-Seraphim deep struck into range of Venom Crawler and Legionnaires to use Devasting Reprise against them and spot the Crawler for the Missile Tank. But the Marines used their reactive move to run away towards my Battle Sisters, putting them outside flamer range. (4)
• Instead, Exorcist and Seraphim took the Venom Crawler down to 3 wounds. Thanks to Harmonized Exorcism, my Missile Tank could still hit on 4+ despite being in close combat and damaged.
• Seraphim charged the Venom Crawler but bounced off, Venomcrawler took down 1 Seraphim.
• Their reactive move brought the Legionnaires behind cover, so the Battle Sisters couldn’t shoot. Instead, they charged them, taking 1 wound off. Most of the Sisters die in return
• The lone Dominion Superior used Insane Bravery to avoid Battle Shock and fell back into the Chaos Home Objective Ruin.
• Exorcist died in melee to the last Obliterator after the first one was suicided via Dark Pact.

4th Round

• Venom Crawler bravely ran away from the Seraphim and is flamed down by their Overwatch
• Warpsmith caught up with the Dominion and takes her down easily
• Demolishe moved forward, shot the Canoness with everything it had and failed to cause a single wound. Crushing Impacts, however, sealed her fate. (Due to the German pro-verb “to shoot with cannons at sparrows”, my JPC is now known as Jacquelin Sparrow)

Start of my turn, I concede the game with around 20 to 50 points.

 

 My Observations

Overall, it was a great game. With the new objective and terrain rules, the dispositions and primaries, games fell much more narrative already. And everyone that watched agreed that the table looked great.

(1) In retrospect, at a small game size like this, having a unit of 5 Sacresants to hold on to something like the middle objective doesn’t feel like that oppressive anymore. With the creative use of sight line blocking terrain, Infantry feels much more survivable than in 10^(th). This could be, however, a syndrome of being bad at positioning on my part. But after the first game I see certain units differently.

(2) Chorus of Damnation feels fun but is questionable at lower point games. The adage that Exorcists should be played only above 1000 points seems to still hold true. With rerolls of Attacks and Indirect it really caused some concern on my opponent’s side. But a Castigator would still have been more useful in raw damage output.

Using two 1 DP detachments doesn’t seem like a good way forward when small point games are concerned. In retrospect, the Army of Faith Stratagems would have come in handy several times while my enemy didn’t have enough units on the field at the start to stop me from scoring a less taxing primary from Take and Hold. But let’s come to my big handicap…

(3) Positioning…oh Emperor… I still very much suck at it after 6 games. For one, Reconnaissance wants units to be fully within table quarters. I lost several primary points due to my Exorcist standing on the line between quarters. Or Dominions being a bit too far back.  It’s a very cool detachment because you can just hide behind terrain and if the enemy has nothing to dig you out you score, but it certainly requires the player to be actually aware of what they are doing (Make of that what you will about how much Brain is behind me playing :D )

For two, Terrain and sightlines. The number of occasions my units couldn’t shoot due to intervening terrain. But, on the other hand, my units felt much more survivable. Many games in 10^(th) I’ve lost most of my army in the first or second turn due to questionable positioning and too many open sightlines.

This was the first time I played with tournament-style terrain footprints and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Felt like we needed about 30 to 45 minutes to set up the table, but the game experience was worth it. My opponent and I concluded that next time, we would put down the footprints according to the map but not follow the exact measures to save time for playing. That the terrain is the objective now and you can hold it and not stand in the open to get shoot to death feels so liberating in regard to list building.

This harks back to (1). Until Sunday, I felt really constrained in my list building. Feeling like I really needed Transports to get anywhere, to survive anything. Now it feels like I broke free from the mental walls that I constrained myself with. There is a game outside the holy Immolater. I’d probably be able to write a whole essay on this, so let’s move on to….

(4) “Mental framing”, what do I mean with that? Let’s explain with an example:

• Deep Strike range is 8”, yes?
• Harmonized Exorcism requires a Fly unit within 9” of the target, yes?
• Explosives range is, correct, 8”

So, can you guess how many inches from the Venom Crawler my Seraphim came down?

9” … Because I was so focused on wanting to use at least one stratagem of my Detachment.

On one side, it’s an experience and skill issue on my side. And there are so many instances of me lacking skill and/or experience. Positioning strikes again…

On the other side, I really like the idea of smaller 1 DP detachments and hope GW will develop this idea for beginners. Like using the Combat Patrol Detachment in “proper” games as well. Giving beginners a smoother transition into bigger games.

 

So, that’s it. Hope you enjoyed reading all my mistakes and maybe you learn something from it. Both the game and now the retrospection with this battle report felt great and fun. If you have the time, would be great to read your perspective on things.

 

Emperor, salva nos!  

Looks like there are some good bits from the app update. Celestians can have a Hospitaller and Junith attached. Other fun combinations do work as well. Like BSS with Triumph and Support.

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As SoB were one of the few armies where multiple characters worked before, I expected to see an errata in the faction pack and was disappointed that juicy combos wouldn't be a thing. Now I wonder if the app shows the intention of GW or if we lose these combinations in the next update again because it was a programming oversight...