Sisters of Battle: Not so bad after all? (And a note for Orks.)

Before I get into talking ’bout dem umie gitz, here’s quick tip for dem proppa boyz out dere!

Mob Rule states that you can replace your leadership with the squad size at any point. It doesn’t say that you have to, and it doesn’t say that the modified leadership has to be higher than your natural leadership. What does this mean? It means you can intentionally try to fail leadership tests by substituting a tiny number or just using base leadership instead of Mob leadership. What’s that? A furioso is about to assault your expensive squad of 30 boys, but eight of them were already killed by shooting? Why, take a leadership test, my good fellow! Leadership seven provides a fairly good chance to fail. Run 2d6 away, get out of charge range, and then on your next turn you can automatically regroup by reminding your boys they are fearless.

This has saved my Warboss and some Biker Nobz of mine more times than I can count. (Actually, I can. It’s saved them like five times. Still, that’s pretty good.)

EDIT: Looking at RAW, any squad above 10 models just ‘Counts as Fearless.’ You don’t get to choose. Still, if you have small squads of Nobz or stuff like that, it could be used pretty well… Though you wouldn’t get your auto-regroup, just a LD9 regroup.

Food for thought.

ANYWAYS: Today I’m going to talk about the ever-neglected, rather terrible Sisters of Battle.

Since 2011, when their actual codex was replaced by a 12-unit White Dwarf chunk of suck, they’ve been shelved by basically everyone. You can’t find the codex except on Ebay for exorbitant prices (Or shadily legal PDF version.) There’s a reason that they were nerfed, though, and I’ll get to that in a minute. The point is, they lost most of their best rules, got little good things in return, and were left with a very limited codex and no way to play competitively.

As to why they were nerfed? That requires a way-back machine. In 2003, Codex: Witch Hunters was released. It contained a few underpowered (compared to now) Grey Knights, the Inquisition and everything related to it, and of course our favorite Sisters of Battle. For a while, it was pretty competitive, but after 2 rulebook changes and 8 years, they slowly turned from a deadly super-army to a mediocre and ineffective codex that nobody ever used.

So, Games Workshop decided on a solution. Witch Hunters didn’t sell well, but Space Marines did. Plus, if they added another Space Marine army, they’d have a bunch of bases to start with in terms of releasing new models to sell. So, they decided they would release Grey Knights as a way to get more sales and keep them competitive. But there was a problem: Sisters of Battle were scattered everywhere in the fluff, and couldn’t receive a Squat treatment. (That is, they couldn’t just be removed from history.) Besides, a bunch of people had the SoB models, and wouldn’t appreciate it if their models were completely removed. The Inquisition and Grey Knights were both being moved to the new codex, but Sisters of Battle weren’t. There wasn’t enough time to release a new Sisters codex, and there certainly wasn’t enough time to add any official models or kits to the Sisters either. So, they took only the Sisters models that currently existed, (minus everything else from their codex,) wrote them a mediocre rules set, and released it in White Dwarf issue 379-380. In effect, the Sisters had all their rules safely put aside, the Grey Knights were free to be released with any rules that Games Workshop wanted, and everything was grand.

Except the Sisters of Battle now really, really sucked.

Still, they aren’t completely worthless. I could easily see them functioning as effective allies or doing pretty well in small games. Let’s go down the list and talk about what they’ve got going for them.

The Good:

Saint Celestine: This HQ is a must-have. While not amazing at any particular thing, she’s harder to kill than a Necron. What’s that? You shot her with a Lascannon on turn one and blew her head off? (Next turn. 4+ roll.) Nope! She’s fine. What’s that? A Chainfist just cut her in half? (Two turns later. 4+ roll.) Nope! She’s fine. Any time she dies, you place a marker on where that took place. Every turn ever after it, you roll a D6 and on 4+ she comes back to freaking life. No matter what.

Seraphim: Mobile, fairly cheap, and all armed with pistols. And since you can fire both pistols at the same time, this leads to some awesome combos. 4 hand flamer shots, for example, or 4 melta shots into a Land Raider. I would recommend 1 pair of hand flamers and 1 pair of melta pistols if you’re going for a good-at-everything list. Oh, and did I mention they all have jump packs? And since they all have 2 pistols, that means 2 attacks each, putting them at a combat advantage over most everyone else in their army. And did I mention they can re-roll to wound rolls if you get their Faith test?

Retributor Squad: Essentially, these guys are the Sisters equivalent of Devestators… But they can give all their guns Rending. Including, like, Heavy Flamers and stuff. Which is pretty awesome. Mount them in a Aegis Defense Line with a Quad gun and 4 heavy bolters, and you’ve got a fairly effective way to kill most enemies.

Shield of Faith: Everyone in your army is guaranteed a 6+ invuln. Not amazing… but it’s free.

Uriah Jacobus: I hesitate to put him in the ‘Good Things Sisters Have’ section. On the one hand, his ability is really useful because you get to re-roll Faith Points (more on that later.) However, this isn’t so much ‘A great buff to the army’ as it is, ‘Making the army competent.’ Still, he also lets you take a Battle Conclave and gives his unit Feel No Pain. And he’s got a big freaking shotgun.

Battle Conclaves: Another pretty good unit. Either you get a crapload of S5 attacks (4 per model) or else a whole lot of Power attacks. Also, you can get a good amount of 3+ invulnerable saves, so that’s neat. Other than the 3++, though, they’re pretty vulnerable. (Toughness 3.) And, you can’t assault out of Rhinos anymore, so that’s no good. Still, you get these guys in combat and they’ll rip up most anything they’re designed to kill. (Except 2+ armor. Oh well…)

The Mediocre:

Ecclesiarchy Confessor: Meh. Let’s you take a Battle Conclave, but Uriah is better. No need to pay for hamburger when you’ve got steak for 15 more points.

Arch-Confessor Kyrinov: Another Meh. He’s also better than the Ecclesiarchy Confessor, but once again he’s out-done but Uriah and made pretty well worthless.

Rhinos: Not much to say here, just your standard, run of the mill, rhinos. They can take ’em.

Exorcists: Really expensive and not too sturdy. However, it gets D6 S8 AP1 shots every turn. Die, Terminators, Die!

Penitent Engines: If you get these guys into Close Combat, they’re pretty awesome. D6+1 attacks, Rage, and every unsaved wound caused in Close Combat gives them an extra attack. (Does not stack infinitely, unlike the Furioso…) That means that each of them could get 18 wounds in one assault phase, if you’re lucky. But, they’re pretty bad until you get really close (They have Heavy Flamers, but nothing long range,) and are easy to shoot up. And 85 points a model. Not bad, but not amazing either.

The Bad: (Here’s where it gets ugly. Get it? Get it? Ah, never mind…)

Faith Points: Faith points are the buff everyone gets. When you use them on a squad, that squad gets some kind of buff maybe. You roll, and on a 5+ (+1 if you’ve taken a wound in the squad, have a character leading you, or an independent character. So it could be 2+ if you have a fully set up squad) you get some kind of buff. Dominion Squads all get rending. Troops get to re-roll 1s to hit. Seraphim get to re-roll wounds. Awesome, you say? Why is this in the Bad section? Well, this isn’t so much an ‘Awesome army-booster’ as it is a ‘Competence-maker.’ You see, without Faith points your army is totally screwed. And you only get D6 per turn… No matter how big your army is. 500 point mini-game? D6 per turn. Awesome! 3000 point throwdown? D6 per turn. Hey! (I suggest a house rule of D3 per 500 points, but you’ll have to get approval from your opponents on that.) So on any given turn your army is either competent, or you roll a 1 and your army does practically nothing. (That’s why Uriah is almost a must have: Better Faith control.)

Sisters of Battle: That is, the troops. Not much cheaper than normal marines, T3, and no close combat ability whatsoever. Even marines, (1 attack base,) have WS4. They’re not bad at shooting, but they’ve really got no effective uses on board besides ‘Existing.’ Take 2 of them because you have to, but don’t ever take more than that.

Canoness: I hear the Canoness used to be a really awesome HQ. Now she’s expensive and mediocre, taken only as an excuse to take an expensive and mediocre command retinue. Unfortunately, she’s so bad that you won’t ever take her… Meaning you never get to take a Dialogus. 

Everything in the Elites section: Seriously, was Games Workshop even trying? They’re expensive, mediocre, and it’s hard to tell what they’re trying to accomplish. I think they’re supposed to be the Close Combat guys? But the Celestian Squad is still mediocre in Combat (Ork Boys are better,) and the Repentia are too fragile. Yes, you can get basically 4 Chainfists for 90 points… but they’ve got no armor save except for their 6+ invuln and Feel No Pain. And they can’t take a transport. These guys are gonna be SOOO dead before they get into combat.

Immolators: Okay, these aren’t so terrible… But they are worse than rhinos and more expensive. Therefore, they are completely worthless.

Dominion Squads: Uh, I’m not quite sure what these guys are supposed to do. They’re fast attack, and they have scout? I think the idea is they scout forward with Melta guns, but… I’m really unsure. That’s really the only thing they can do. Really.

Also, that’s it: I just told you about every single model in the Codex. I hear there are Forge World something-or-others, but that’s everything you can take from the White Dwarf codex. That. Is. It. Completely it. I’m pretty sure that some armies have more options than that in just the HQ option. Really, this is just so limited. There’s some good things, sure, but it’s like unto the Tyranid Codex: There are good things, but you have to take all of them to do well.

Say… The Cruddace wrote both of these. I wonder…

Nah. Coincidence.

 

 

ADDITION: Chicop over at SecondSphere.org wrote an excellent rebuttal with some more good points and a differing opinion, which I believe is worth sharing here:

I disagree with some of your assesment.

Bad.

1. Sisters of Battle are not bad. I agree they suck, but are not bad. They cost 1 point more than guard veterans and the same as dark angels scouts. What is the main differance is these factors.

A. The have a 3+ save. The only model in the game that gets a 3+ save at that cost.
B. They shoot like marines, which is better than scouts

The thing that hurts them is very limited options. For example a Sister Superior can out class a veteran, but would struggle with a scout at the same cost.

Also compared to wytches they can blow wytches away or die due to weight of attacks.

If you had an option to go close combat like bolt pistol and ccw in the whole squad they can take on a wytch squad at that point in combat.

The only option you have is to sit back, push up, or jump in rapid fire range, and avoid combat at all cost.

Also unlike marines with higher toughness and some close combat you really feel forced to field rhinos. I personally feel the codex forces you to field rhinos and you really don’t have a choice to do so.

The rhino is not bad,because you need them for mobility and to get within that rapid fire range. 

Than looking at how cheap the rhino is you get what you pay for. Although having a drop pod option would be nice, or options period.

I still say compared to raw models the sisters are one of the best troops priced for what they do. The problem is the options are none which knocks them down from being the best troops. The old faith system made them the best troops for what they did. 

Even so they can re roll hits and have the ability to rally.

Krinov isn’t bad either. I have to re look at him at a latter time, bu last I look he’s not a bad choice. The problem is at the end of the day you will run Jacobs and celestine over him. That doesn’t make him a bad choice if you have 2 better ones in a slot only for 2. If you choose not to use celestine he is the next logical choice. He is better than your other HQ choices.

Exorcist is one of the good models they have, due to the only long range model they have. They are very cheap for what they do. On average rolling you should get 3-4 shots that hit 2-3 times. They are not good if you roll bad a lot. If you roll average or good they are awesome. Out of anything this unit have a great kill record in my sisters army. They eat MC’s due to wounding most on 2s and few can save against the ap unless they have invulnerable saves. On top of that anything with 13 armour and lower really feel the pain. Actually it’s 12 and below now due to the new vehicle charts. The old chart glance due to ap 1 you had a better chance of killing 13 armour. Now with a glance only doing hp damage the weapon have a tougher time dealing with 13 armour.

Even so it is well worth taking 3. Also I always field them when I take allies since they still better than the ally options and much cheaper than most tank options.

Facing with this tank is important and you do not want to field them in the middle where side armour is easily exposed.

Faith is midiocre instead of bad. If I remember correctly your troops can also rally using faith or have fearless, one of the two. The key is to selectively use faith where it is needed. If you have 1-3 faith you have to think who wil use it. 4-6 will give you more options. It forces you to not rely on faith as heavily as you did last edition. I can say last edition faith system was over the top if you realized how easy it was to abused. This system forces you to win on the army a lone and use faith

 for the extra little push. After playing away I’ll say it’s midiocre. Also it’s not bad if you take sisters as allies.

I’m confussed??? You have Dominions as Good and Bad. I got of my lasy butt and got my book.

I guess you saying the Retributor squads since you mentioned rending is in the good cat.

And you saying the Dominions with scout is bad.

I disagree on the dominions since like the exorcist if you want to be competetive you have to take them. A full squad can have 4 twin linked meltas, or flamers and each sister cost as much as a chaos marine. 

The reason they have scout is for them to be put in rhinos. For them to be effective you have to use rhinos. You than throw out re rolling to wound flamers, or twin linked melta love on a target.

The problem with the Dominion and you rarely see more than one squad of them, I mean Retributors is they going to have a rending heavy flamer, heavy bolter, or multi-melta. You’re forfieting a 48″ ranged weapon to take this squad. At the end of the day you’ll realize you need Exorcist over this squad and either not field them at all, or field at least one squad.
A. If you go the rending flamer route you could just run dominion which is just as effectice and more so against swarms.

B. The multi is a good choice, but seems a waste for rending. Helpful against a raider. The limited range how ever will make you want an exorcist.

C. The rending heavy bolters are what I see people do with them, but again it takes a slot away for actual ranged. Also it is helpful, but your whole army has a ton of mid ranged weapons and it doesn’t help with your lack of long range options.

Why run Kyrinov.

1. Makes a squad fearless
2. He has a 6″ fearless bubble 
3. Can add faith points, via laud hailer which if you have enough you can generate more faith
4. Also he makes faith more likly to happen.
5. Re roll to wound in asault

He’s not bad. He is just not as good as Jacobs or Celestine.

Also if you heaven forbid field a cannoness and use a command squad with Kyrinov you can have 2 luad hailers in your army. Essentually on average rolling that means 1 extra faith point a turn or 5 more faith points in 5 turns. Now if you roll 6s a lot like in 1 turn you can have a possible 18 faith points a turn thanks to two hailers and rolling 6 on to determining faith. Since that is unlikely it’s more common that you get an extra faith for every 3 faith you get.