Tuesday, August 23, 2016

Unlocking Sisters Repentia

The elites choices of the Adepta Sororitas might have been one of the most epic fails in Games Workshop design history.  These are terrific looking models, that have absolutely not seen their day in court.

In the Beginning...

In the Witch Hunters Codex, they were FAR too expensive to justify, especially considering that Arco-flagellants were available and pretty awesome once you learned how to use them.

In the White Dwarf Codex that came afterwards, the Arco-Flagellants ceased to be part of the Elites slot, and ceased to be elite for that matter.  Assassins disappeared entirely from the Codex.  That left the Elites slot with Celestians, and Sisters Repentia, basically.  However in the White Dwarf codex, their cost came down and they essentially gained the ability that Wulfen now have:  Once per game their Act of Faith was that upon dying, they still got their attacks.  This made them far more appetizing to use, and I suddenly took interest..  Getting them across the board was a big challenge and that in turn made me start to see that a mechanized Sisters of Battle Force was sadly going to be the way of the future.  Having said that I was able to get them to many fights at the end of 5E and into early 6E using the expedient of armored walls to protect them on the way in and sheer numbers.

Even this was more or less too expensive, and 6E ushered in a whole lot of things that made Sisters Repentia fade in excellence again.

Finally, a new actual codex came and with it yet another points cost reduction for Sisters Repentia, but the same dearth of options in the Elites slot as before.  After decades of futility it is small wonder that Sisters Repentia have seen little or no interest by the generals of the Adepta Sororitas.  With tools in your force like Dominion and Exorcists dominating the points expenditures, and Celestians being a complete joke in the new codex (yet again) the Sisters Repentia now stand as really your only true choice in the Elites slot.  I can count on one hand how many people I have seen field them... and I only need two fingers on that hand to do so.

I did however have a day in the sun using the White Dwarf version and so I set about finding a way to make use of this unit now.  I have discovered the way to do it.


The Secret Combination

The combination you need to turn this into a truly terrifying unit is affordable and explodable (meaning it can separate when appropriate when going second to take objectives or to disassemble when the unit is weak to join other units and maintain utility even beyond the life of the Sisters Repentia group itself).  The ingredients are as follows:

1 Canoness
1 Priest
1 Uriah Jacobus
1 unit of 7 Sisters Repentia

Let's Start With The Canoness

She is maligned among internet personalities and long threads have been devoted to this negativity.  I have been in the maelstrom of some of those discussions defending her, which is how I know.  Even as far back as the White Dwarf "Codex" wherein she was improved a bit, my use of her Sororitas Command Squad to good effect was questioned again and again.  That squad at the time was actually much better than people gave it credit for, but of course all they saw in it were T3 models that die the same as everyone else and were expensive.  As usual, I was the odd duck who found use in it.

In the new codex, she is a very affordable HQ with completely unremarkable "Space Marine Captain like" stats, maybe slightly worse but the price is right.  She is not a combat beast, but she does buff her unit with Hatred as her once per game Act of Faith.  She also gets the effect of the old Book of St. Lucius making her Stubborn (and therefore obviously her unit).  BOTH abilities, largely, are emulated already by Uriah and the Priest being Zealots, and in Uriahs case, the banner he carries, which might be a good reason why people haven't really gravitated to this particular build or seen her value. Sisters Repentia are already Fearless as well.  Yet she is pivotal to the units success.

So then why take her?

She is important because she can take two items you will want.  The first is the Mantle of Ophelia which St. Celestine cannot have, and the second is a plain old Rosarius.  You literally need take nothing else on her.  What this does is allows her to become an Eternal Warrior.  In addition, it gives her the 4+ invulnerable save.  These two things make her the perfect "tank" for the unit.  Her purpose in life is not to kill anything, it is to die for her cause and become a martyr.  How appropriate, don't you think?  In combat, when wounds are normally being allocated, she will be the first to take wounds, but she will be equipped to take any STR of wound and any AP.  Even a WraithKnight won't kill her before the Sisters Repentia get to strike, as you will see.  In fact it is quite likely that none of the Sisters Repentia will die no matter the enemy they strike, while the Canoness lives.

To make sure of this we add the next ingredient.

The Priest.


The Priest upgrades the Sisters Repentia greatly.  Youu gain Zealot, meaning re-rolls to hit on the charge.  That is important.  To add to the picture, he will take the Litanies of Faith, which is why Uriah isn't enough for this squad to do its work, for he cannot take it.  The Litanies make your Acts of Faith and War Hymns instantly successful when normally you would have to roll a LD check to pull them off (Priest LD is only 7).  No rolls necessary with this guy on the job.  No chance for failure.  Pretty big deal.  He himself requires no armaments.  After all, look at the unit he is attached to.  If they fail in their duty when re-rolling hits and wounds, no amount of points wasted on his puny butt will matter.  The Priests Warhymn of choice on the charge will be to re-roll wounds, so that the units already incredibly potent strike on offense will be compounded against tougher opponents like WraithKnights.

Uriah Jacobus Ascendant


The next ingredient is Uriah.  Now it is debatable whether he is a must include in general, but Uriah Jacobus shows up in a lot of competitive Adepta Sororitas lists, so taking him would be a relative normality in the list you probably would take anyways.  More common would be St. Celestine (or both) but not in this case.

Uriah is perfect for his job in this unit.  He comes with Indomitable will as his Warlord Trait and so you would choose him to be your Warlord in this instance.  The net result is that his unit gets a +1 to their 6+ Shield of Faith saves!  That means that the Sisters Repentia are now getting a 5+ Invulnerable save to replace their complete lack of armor.  To make this more impressive, he would choose in melee to use his War Hymn to re-roll all saves.  As he is also Protector of the Faith, he will allow his unit to use their Act of Faith one additional time for free, so he acts somewhat like a Simulacrum Imperialis for the unit which would do the same thing and Sisters Repentia normally cannot take a Simulacrum Imperialis, so this is quite useful.

The Banner he wields makes the units within 12" Fearless and the BIG deal with him is that he gives them all Counter Attack which as you will see, serves this unit devastatingly well, and it would serve the Battle Conclave well if they too were near him...and they should be, forming a wall of very mean, very fearless and very deadly killers.


The Guests of Honor

The final ingredient is the Mistress of Pain and her Sisters Repentia.  The Mistress is important because you will need her to accept challenges.  Worst case, she can also be used to pass a wound off from the Canoness, as the Canoness will always be leading the charge here.  Always.

The 6 Sisters Respentia come with an Act of Faith that gives them a 3+ Feel No Pain save in the Assault phase.  Because of the way the Act of Faith is written, this is activated at the beginning of the phase and therefore affects them even against Overwatch.  The unit itself whallops opponents, pumping out 24 STR 6 AP 2 chainfist attacks.  The Act of Faith can be repeated thank to Uriah which mans that unless the enemy is using something that is STR 6, that Canoness could perhaps survive 36 wounds on her own at STR 5 or less!

Putting it all Together

What does it all mean?  It means that whether you charge them or they charge you, this is what will happen:

The enemy will likely have initiative and go first or at the same time as the Canoness.  The wound pool from the enemy will be allocated to her first because she led the charge.  She is an Eternal Warrior.  Because of the War hymns, the Canoness will get a 3+ re-rollable save against these wounds!  If they are of a sufficient AP, her saves will be a 4+ re-rollable with the ability to pass off one to the Mistress or even to Uriah if necessary.  Uriah and the Priest all have 4+ invul saves (again, re-rolling failures) so this represents a pretty significant number of saves that should result in the unit taking no real damage of note barring fantastically unlikely rolls.  the 3+ Feel No Pain is just insult to injury.

The next thing that will happen is the Canoness will swing, re-rolling to hit and wound, and then Uriah and the Priest alike, along with the Mistress of Pain if she was able to be preserved.  Her Neural whips go off of majority leadership, and have shred if the majority is 8 or less, so this is a pretty mean weapon at AP 3.  Finally, the 24 STR 6 AP 2 attacks re-roll to hit and to wound.  the sheer volume of attacks and wounds suffices to demolish nearly anything.
This will happen even if the enemy charges because of Counter Attack.  If the enemy is an Imperial Knight, or anything else really, there simply won't be one at the end of the turn.  No unit in 40K can do much about Stomps, but with that many re-rollable saves, the only thing you'r really worried about on Stomps is the roll of a 6.  Yup it happens but that would be true for any unit, so no sense bemoaning that.  It's more a reflection of the Knights awesome nature than the Sisters Repentia failings.

But, But, But...

All of this should impress any opponent you use it on.  The standard argument against this will always be the same: "Yes but how do you get them there".

Fortunately there are answers to that questions.  Consider that the question isn't entirely meritorious to begin with,  Many excellent armies, the Wolfstars among them, are assault oriented and have strong assault elements in any event as part of their key strategy.  Chaos Cabals in Khornate Hound packs and Daemonkin in general as well as Tyranids and Bullyboy Orks.  So in many cases you'll never have to worry about that, because many good forces have no choice but to close if they wish to survive the Exorcist barrage and the like.  Also, objctives are a thing and in any ITC tournament, standing back all game simply won't be possible if you wish to win.

Lets assume we are talking about that percentage that does indeed have the means to stay away and just shoot you off  the table given the opportunity.  There are enough of them to address it.  Against them, the answer isn't much more complicated: Move flat out, preferably to cover in round one and get out round 2 or possibly sooner if you think terrain will permit.  The Sisters of Battle do have the means to shoot the enemy as well, and it is a rare army that will ignore 3-4 Dominion Squads on their doorstep to deal with a melee threat that will get their eventually.  If they do choose that route, the rhinos and wreckage should provide the unit plenty of space to go from cover to cover if you plan accordingly and the Dominion can feast on the enemies decision.

One underlying assumption when using this unit is that you are committed to playing as an armoured column and not primarily on foot so there will be many chances to take advantage of all that mobile cover as you approach.  You just have to keep the pressure on up front long enough to get them there, and we have those tools.

In Closing

This article is long enough so I will leave you with this thought.  The Adepta Sororitas are an army that is alive and well,  Many people wonder from afar if they could make such an army work and i can assure you that you can.  The Warhammer 40,000 game has grown somewhat complicated and the power curve has reached a deafening crescendo; but despite the many cool things armies can do and the ways they can be built, this unit can contribute an enormous amount to your win column if you undertake collecting this army.  I strong recommend considering not just this unit but the army itself.  It has literally, not figuratively, won me more tournaments than any other force, in 5h, 6th  and 7th Edition.  Not even the Tau Empire for which I am most known for playing, has done better.  With so little time left in the ITC season, I am going to be finishing up using this force and seeing how far I can take it in the standings.  I hope you do the same.  Feel free to ask me questions about the unit or the army.


17 comments:

  1. The problems of delivery and cost are paramount, and you largely gloss over both of them. From inside a Rhino, it will be at _least_ turn 3 before the unit has a chance to make an assault- halfway through the game, by any measure, and plenty of time for most shooting lists to have long since dealt with your Exorcists/Dominions as needed. That also presumes that you will be in range to charge at all- and since eliminating a single Rhino is a pretty trivial task for any decent army, that is far from a guarantee. Warp Spiders and Jetbikes should easily stay out of your range for as long as they please to do so, other Rhinos will block you or drive away from you, etc.

    There are, of course, melee-centric (or exclusive) armies that have no choice but to allow you the assault, but these armies typically are strong enough in a fight to roll over the Repentia with little trouble. A Wolfstar or Cabalstar, for example, can expect to pile so many wounds onto you that that Canoness's 3+ armor save simply won't last very long, even with a reroll- and S6+ hits will quickly eliminate the Repentia, since you will not always have the luxury of putting every wound on the characters. 24 S6 AP2 swings sounds like a lot on paper, but only in the rarest of circumstances will you get anywhere near that many, since most of your defensive buffs work _only_ in the assault phase, and against a "proper" deathstar the damage you cause will be pretty minimal indeed. (~3 wounds to an Invisible Wolfstar, for example, or less if they have Endurance, Sanctuary, or Veil of Time as well.)

    Compounding that is the issue of cost- with a Canoness, Uriah, Priest, seven Repentia, and the rhino the total price on the unit comes near to 400pts- points which contribute nothing to the game at all until turn 3 and which can relatively easily be move-blocked, slowed to a half, or dealt with by shooting. If (like a true deathstar) the unit would guarantee annihilating most targets while surviving to fight in subsequent turns this wouldn't be such an issue- many armies employ hard-hitting melee presences, as you note- but their inability to weather much damage outside of the single turn of Faith activation as well as losing a fight with most melee units in the environment leaves them in a bad position.

    Repentia themselves are not actually a bad unit; they hit very hard for their cost and with 3+ FNP active they will typically live through the assault phase to get most of their swings in. The problem, as ever, lies in the delivery- as Sisters have no cheap assault transports nor other protective tricks it's all but impossible to get them to the enemy reasonably intact. Over-investing in the unit with a series of characters does them no real favors, since it bloats their cost significantly (the core Repentia + Rhino unit is only ~150pts) without actually adding that much to the unit's functionality.

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    1. Abusepuppy, You make the point that one shouldnt gloss over movement and thats true, except this article really isnt centered around that as much as it is the way in which the unit works and can perform its duty very admirably. I will be happy to write an article at some point on the virtues of how to move them and when, but situation is King. That rule is absolute. So given the infinite possibilities in terrain and enemy makeup, deployment, enemy temperament and so on... I think that thearticle was plenty long wenough without trying to tackle such an enormous subject. But you're not wrong. it's important. You are probably wrong on one point however: it isnt going to be necessarily turn three before they strike. That's simply not true. For one as I already said, armies have elements that do them no good so far from me. Second, the objectives drive the action. Third, terrai nis unpredictable and the enemy may simply be forced to move early and often to ULTIMATELY reach their goals. There are so many archetypes of forces now, that i think i am better off tackiling that at another time. I think you overestimate peoples ability to "deal with" the Exorcists and Dominions so quickly. going first, they are on you quickly and doing damage and force spent on them is not force spent on stopping Sisters Repentia and their fellow Battle Conclave from approaching. there is a choice to be made. You also wrongly state that the unit will get its swings in with no help. I have many moons of experience in thsi category and i can tell you this: You're wrong. You will encounter FAR too many things now that can blaze through FnP on a T3 model. Nearly every single unit in YOUR army DOES, Abusepuppy. this is not rare. Not even close to it. Wolfstars, Wulfen, Black Knights, Grey Knights, Tyranids, Meganobz and the list goes on. Its quite disingenuous to suggest that you don't need the help to make sure that unit can maul and maul again.

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  2. BTW... Here are the Batraps I did on another site. May as well transplantthem here.

    Vs. Bullyboyz Formation list:
    Very well painted. He was a trukk army with trukks filled with Meganobz and his commander trucking in a Battle Wagon with normal Nobz, plus a bunch of boyz on foot. The game was Kill Points, so he was very much favored in this one, as my army has about 21 and he had 13 or something. He shoved himself up my nose Ork Style and I let him have a mulligan when he forgot to move all his trucks in the shooting phase flat out. He swing ten of his meganobz to my right flank and started smashing on Rhinos I had placed there midfield on round 2. My Sisters Repentia and Assassins combined to butcher the first unit of Meganobz. His second unit of them took exception and crashed into the Sisters Repentia to rob them of their charge attacks and hopefully stomp them out, and he hit me plenty of times. The setup on my unit allowed me to weather it. I then spent his turn and my next killing them all. The left flank was under attack by his bikers and they can really shoot, killing a rhino on the come and then because I failed to kill them all, his Klaw got another one. That flank was kind of me pushing everything over there and waiting for his big ork blob to come on and when they did, they actually shot me pretty good, but then...the flames came and ended all that. I washed away the orks that showed up after their initial shock and awe attack. Final score was 12-7 Adepta Sororitas.

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    1. Vs. Lamenters Chapter w/ Forge World Land Raider and Death Company Deathstar w/ Characters
      Mission was to control at least two objectives for 1 point and to control MORE than the opponet for an additional +1 or +2 depending on how many.

      The general and I have known each other for quite a while but never played so it was GREAT to get to play him finally. He's won best painted at this tournament 3 straight years and he's quite a good fellow. This time he brought his Lamenters, the Successor Chapter, and he loaded a ton of Death Company, his Libby, his Commissar and Corbulo all into some kind of crazy Forge World Land Raider that has serious punch. His IG melta vets came in via pods (yes they are still allowing that until the FAQ's and such are approved) while scouts held the Rearguard and his Hydra prepared to scan the skies for trouble. Mission? roll forward and crush the enemy to take their things. he had two objectives in his deployment zone and he was camped on them. I had both of mine midfield and needed to go get them. Into the maw of madness we go.
      As I was going first, I scouted up and stayed in the Rhinos, taking a hull Point off the big Land Raider but that was okay. My Sisters Repentia and Assassisn shifted around and waited for the inevitable Drop Pod landings while the Sisters of Battle jetter to midfield to get closer to them thar objective points.
      His first drop went off perfectly and he attempted to assassinate the Exorcist but missed with all three attempts. While it was no guarantee that he was going to kill it anyways, that was kind of hard medicine to take. To make matters worse, his Land Raider rumbled forward and immobilized itself on terrain, grinding to a halt where it had started. Fortunately for him, I had come way forward. So he hopped out and started jetting towards my Dominion Rhinos intent on their destruction. They did in fact tear one into smithereens in melee making a pretty good charge. so he got First Strike at least. what was a real downer was the explosion caught a ton of his guys and he actually lost 5 of them! geeeeeez. It was maybe the worst first round ever?
      In round two I got my retributors out who had swung out to the left flank at full speed, and between them and my dominions they did a ton of wounds but his commissatr of all things took like 18 wounds before dying! Good LORD that guy was a champ. That made up for a LOT the previous round but it still meant his unit was dwindling very quickly. I also shoved my assassins into his veterans and they got a bit lucky, surviving it and even getting away! More good rolls for him so his second round went about as well as it ever was going to go. The Sisters Repentia blew the Drop pod up and sent it to the great Scrap heap in the sky. the Lamenter responded by nuking more transports nad more of my dominion, but I made him go through those Rhinos first. I was not going to give ground on that objective any faster than i needed to.
      Round three was the end of all but his Librarian and a couple of Death Company. Corbulo took ti to the face from an Exorcist and the Retributors actually did their job this time as did the remaining Dominion etc...

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    2. Long story short his Librarian took soooooo many saves and made them that it was incredible but he protected his men from harm. My Assassins and Sisters Repentia chased after the fleeing Guardsmen while this was going on. His onslaught continued and he smacked into more Dominions and killed more tanks with that LandRaider of his. that thing hits hard. Anyways, the second pod came in and put two hull points on the Sisters of Battle Rhino I had far to the right on an objective and that was not what he wanted either.

      The rest of the game was pretty much just Assassins chasing across the table and eventually (like i mean waaaay eventually) getting to his backfield and slaughtering the scouts by the Hydra..

      In the end the game was much closer than the story suggests. We both held two objectives for most of the game and it was only at the end that I broke the gridlock points wise because he kept me from reaching his Objective the Land Raider was on and the other took me all game to get to with Assassins. Still, final score was 8-3. More importantly, he and i finally got a game in.

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    3. ]Vs. Vs. Nurgle Chaos Marines with dual Princes[/b]
      I have no anti-Air, it was hammer and Anvil and his Typhus and Terminator buddies went into deep strike. The idea was to bring up the Princes and the troops, sit on objectives and keep me pinned i nmy backfield to the extent that he could. he had a laspredator to shoot at my tanks which took me all game to kill (though cover was on my side so that was a saving grace).

      His Nurgle Marines were incredibly resilient and took shooting like champs. It took me a long time to whittle them given that he used his rhinos like I do, to shield his men from harm and give them a home to hide in and plasma things to death. His Cultists were safely waaaaay far away from me and standing on an obIective doing their thing. I do not think he was ready for how good the Sisters Repentia were though. His Terminators swung first and I think with that many attacks and str and their FnP and all that jazz, he was confident he could end them. he could not and we ate him and all his friends as well as the Daemon Prince which alighted to the ground eventually to engage me. The Daemon Prince took two wounds from the Retributors as he killed them which was kinda cool and then it turned to kill more things before finally being stopped. My favorite moment was a brilliant move where i kind of managed to get all my rhinos JUST SO, and my Dominion JUST SO and then instead of shooting his Rhino, I charged it and killed the Rhino with grenades. the reason was because i needed to take an objective and the only possible way was not to shoot the rhino because if i did, it might explode and leave them sitting on it. But if i assaulted it, it would just force them in the only direction they could go which was away from the objective. It was a calculated risk since grenades arent nearly as sure as Meltas but it was the situation and I went for it and got it! In the end, he ended the game with exactly ONE Nurgle Marine on the table, and nothing else.

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    4. Vs. tool'd up Forge World Zombie Nurgle list using a Sicarian Tank, Forge World Cannons, HQ's and stuff

      This was a tough game. the list had a Forge World Character and Forge World rule zombies with 4+ fnp and fearless and so on. He pushes the zombies outto keep you from ever getting close to his firing line which contained IMPRESSIVE STR 9 AP 1 TWIN LINKED lascannons (essentially) and then the Sicarian Tank which was insanely good at its job. He had a little extra zombie action to mill around the firing line and protect it as well. His force included a Plague Drone, which I am surprised I don't see more of and his commander in one Rhino with Plague Marines while his other character on bike accompanies the Spawn the streak forward and smash things. His 3 Obliterators were deep striking. I lost tank after tank. I couldn't make the saves when I even got them (mostly just Shield of Faith Saves since the Sicarian tank ignores cover). he lost a small melta Raptor squad jumping into my corner with no room for error and the Obliterators did the same albeit he didnt lose them and they came back to wreak havoc as usual. My defense was a good offense. I pushed the field HARD and made movement my priority.

      the mission was 5 relics, the one on the middle and one in the middle of every sector. Table Quarters deployment (cool).

      so we both started on one and were fighting over the other three. I decided to go for broke and reserved a lot in order not to lose tanks AS quickly and so i seized three of the objectives by turn two. His Spawnstar came to have a little say about that and assaulted my Sisters Repentia in the far corner after wrecking their rhino with his "Lascannons". this was a fatal error as he came to learn. In two rounds of combat there were no more spawn nor his character left. Here again he wanted the weight and superior initiative of his attacks to waste me. Again the build i described earlier paid off and I wrecked him. that objectives was safe for the rest of the game. I ran the Sisters repentia forthe rets of the game behind a Dominion Rhino, never getting them out because I needed the shielding and eventually made it to near the center where his Zombies had taken the objective. Took all my shooting to make them drop it and then we looked at the charge and it was like 12" to get the Repentia Sisters in there. I rolled Box cars. Wow. We both couldnt even beleive it because we spent a good five minutes bs'ing about how impossible it was and how he had seen it before and i was like "I dunno..." and then he's like "Well I have no overwatch" and so I went for it. Bayam. So those zombies are not zombies anymore. This in turn placed me next to his warlord as well and by this point he had seen enough ofthat unit and jumped in a rhino to avoid giving up the Warlord.

      Final score was 14-2 Adepta Sororitas.

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    5. Vs. Dark Eldar venom spam with Eldar biker allies and Warp Spiders

      Intense game . We were doing 3 hour rounds and we used literally every second to finish that game.

      It was the Scouring but the twist was that Objectives explode on a 4+ when a unit moves within 3". He had a very well equipped force to deal with mine. Warwalkers to outflank (lances), Warp Spiders, venom spam, and of course Eldar allies for Scatterbike support and Objective stealing goodness and of course the Autarch. His beastpack was well built, and the Autarch on bike did a lot to bolster them. His Haywire Scourges were of course perfect for sniping out Exorcists. He had all the tools he needed there.

      I chose to let him go first which threw him, but I REALLY needed to know where he was going to put everything. He ended up deciding to Deep Strike the Warp Spiders, outflank the War Walkers (which I expected) and to leave his Grotesque bomb with Webway portal in Deep Strike as well. Maximum flexibility to go after the objectives once they were revealed.

      I decided to reserve everything except for the Sisters Repentia Squad, the Assassins and the two Exorcists.

      His Talos and bikes all shot up the field, while hugging cover and his Scourges moved around the cvorner to make their shots. The shield of Faith saved my exorcist but ti took a hull point. His Scatterbikes hit the Rhino with the Repentia in it and stripped two points despite excellent cover and Night Fighting. Otherwise it was mostly movement and jockying for shots as i had given very little to him in that regard. My first priority was killing Scourges, so i shot and killed 4 with Exorcists and sent them running and they never regrouped. Repentias got out. I moved the Assassins around and made a mistake doing it which left a gap for him, which he did not miss. On his second turn he exploited it killing the two Crusaders attached to the unit, he killed the Repentia rhino as expected with his Stinger Pods on his Talos as it approached again. His War Walkers outflanked on me and shot at my Exorcists but they survived thanks to cover. His Spiders dropped in and put hull points on my Assassin Rhino. His Reaver bikes moved forward and got blown up by the sabotaged Objective and fled the rest of the game off the board. WOWA. He never saw that one coming but we BOTH got more careful about those things at that point. His only unit that didn't come in was a unit of Kabailites and his Grotesque bomb.

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    6. Reserves went poorly and i basically only got two units of Dominion in. The Assassins attacked the beastpack and it held, but would break in the bnext turn. Dominion attacked his War walkers and proceeded to kill one and put a hull point on each of the other two. Not good. His windshield save was on point all game and I never killed either of those things all game long. Thats how that went.

      The Exorcists fired down on the Warp Spiders, causing them to move towards the Exorcists with their flicker jump, and away from my assassins who were down to like three dudes thanks to my positioning error. That made it a 9 inch charge. they made it and smashed up the Warp Spiders, leaving only two alive, who they then improbably failed to catch. Grrr. So they went a runnin and I had two Deathcult assassins left. The Sisters Repentia moved up and prepared to meet the Talos head on next turn if they could survive the enenmy shooting.

      On his turn 3 he shot the crap out of my Canoness and her unit. Couldnt make a save no matter how hard we tried and his dice were near perfect. The Eldar eneded up slaughtering them all except my Warlord and one of the Sisters Repentia. Ouch. So much for that plan, and that was the only game where they never got to perform something cool. every other game they were MVP's. The Talos which moved forward, had nothing to charge so it just kinda stood there. His Warp Spiders kept running, but his WarWalkers smashed up another rhino and then got the Dominion inside charged by his Wyches from a Venom (that combat lasted to the end of the game but stopped me from shooting with them). His shooting otherwise was to rhinos and largely he therefore had nothing to do.

      My reserves came in, but this time I only got the last Cominion squad and the Sisters of Battle. So i sent the Sisters to take over where the Sisters Repentia had been on the 2 point objective and had the Sister Repentia back up intio the cover and Uriah got into the Rhino with the Sisters. The Dominion came in to the enemy backfield to linebreak and start shooting war walkers. which bounced every single shot. Again. windshiled Saves. Gotta love it. The other Dominion tried again but...no. wow. windshild Saves everywhere! Not a single one got through. so....

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    7. turn 4 in came the Grotesquebomb. they annihilated the Dominion that were closest to my 3 point objective and that putthem right there to multi-charge the Exorcists out of existence the next round etc... i had to stop them. His Scatter bikes came up and killed my sisters of Battle Rhino on the other three point objective to my left where the Repentia sister was cowering in the shadows after their abject failure. The venoms shot up anything not in a rhino which was my assassins and i think they killed the other Dominion squad that was line breaking so i was down to just their rhino back there.

      On my four i pushed my rhino up onto his backfield 2 point objective. Retributors came on and baked the insides of the Grotesque Raider, then blew the Raider up with Storm Bolters and they actually failed their morale and ran. No impending assaults which was good because even though I hit a lot with the Flamers, his FnP was insanely good and so it took all the shooting I had just to force that.. The sisters of Battle who came on from reserve in the center took the 2 point objective and shot up the Mandrakes that had been skulking among obscuring terrain for some time and i really had no way to get to them until then.

      The 5th round he had to make his move and so he brought everything up and prepared to end me. He auto-regrouped the Grotesques, but they were nowhere near anything they could affect. The Mandrakes shot at the rhino just because and Jetbikes came up to fire but for once i didnt take it entirely in the shorts.

      On my turn, I killed all six Scatter Bikes with fire from Exorcists and mostly Bolters and Storm Bolters. Uriah took two out on his own with a shotgun from 20" away. Hilarious. I tank shocked the Mandrakes but they held, and continuedtrying to hide my sisters of battle in their cubby hole. the objective didnt explode which was nice.

      This left him with two venoms to move to objectives and a couple War walkers to try and save the day plus a single WarpSpider (he lost one to flicker jumping). His Mandrakes were there too but really in no position to help. So in the fastest round ever of 40K he flew to the objectives he needed to in order to hold them and killed the Rhino that was trying to take his 2 pointer in the backfield. That was all he could do.
      final score 16-12 (because of Fast Attack kills he racked up quite a few points that way)

      Delete
    8. Vs. 5 Flyrant list with special pinpoint deep strike Formation using Lictors and Mucolid spores

      Loved this list. shows that Tyranids are alive and well. this game is easily summarized. i backed away, he came at me and repeat only he dropped his pinpoint Lictor drops right in there and Mucolid spores gummed things up too so i spent a lot of time killing them before they could charge me but that meant his Flyrants were Psykering and running free, shooting me to death. I however did have superior position from an objective standpoint and eventually i got him out of good position because of his flying. I just needed his Warlord to die and I would win 7-6. I wounded his warlord three times in round one, and needed just one more wound I got a hit on him with no cover saves with meltas in rounds 3, 4 and 5. All three times, i rolled a 1 to wound. it made an enormous difference. Ended up losing 10-1 but even in the last round had he failed it, i win. So i felt like ultimately it was just "one of those games". Great game, and very skilled opponent. He has done very well at other tournaments that i have seen him in more locally so i know what he can do and it was good to face that kind of competitor.

      Delete
    9. Vs. Heavily Forge World special Terminator list with Storm Raven and Land Raider

      nearly 100% Forge World goodness. He had a Contemptor and al kinds of fun stuff. he essentially only deployed 1 Land Raider and his thing that does Orbital blasts which is some kind of rhino chassis thing. I dunno frankly what it was. Everything else was in a Raven or dropping in.

      His Contemptor got eaten after showing up to kill Exorcists, by Sisters Repentia. His land Raider was killed turn one by Scouting Dominions, and the rest of his units were chewed up over time by shooting. He rolled the worlds largest quantity of 1's, ever. i dont think it would have made a difference in this game, honestly because although I caught him flat footed by the Scouting Dominion, the real issue was that i just as easily could have waited for him to come to me and done the same thing. the sisters Repentia ate everything anywhere remotely close to them and the Exorcists threw almost no shots all game (it was as bad as his saves). I genuinely felt for the guy because i am not really certain there was ever a way for him to win that missions with what he was bringing. His whole command squad even managed to jump from the Storm Raven and crash into some stuff, destroying it and then... well... Uriah and his Repentias just worked him.

      Delete
    10. Vs. Battle Company with Grav spam
      well... We had almost identical forces as far as mackeup goes: basically a lot of dudes in boxes. His boxes were free, his statline was better, his Grav Weapons were ideal for the task (two hits and the box dies. Dumb). He brought three Drop pods to the party just to keep you away from his tanks. he went first so there was that as well. Nowhere to hide, null deployment wasn't really an option in that scenario and yeah.
      Despite this adversity... I did actually have a chance to win. he droppe in round one and obliterated most of the boxes i had to hide behind and after several rules arguments that he lost (as if bringing that list wasn't unfriendly enough?) we got around to my turn. I annihilated his drop units and showed him what Sisters Repentia do. this kind of weent on for some turns and my reserves seemed not to want to come in. Finally they did and i started hitting back. Way on my right flank, i smashed up a rhino there and sort of secured the objective on my far right from getting taken. and then I kept smashing with Dominion to keep the second one over there from him. So far so good. My dominions showed up finally in turn four way behind him, onto another objecitve andI was going second so he had to now mosey over. So despite the ridiculous mismatch, I had the chance to control three fo the four objectives in the last round! I just needed to smash up his vehicle without exploding it which would ensure the far one and kill a rhino and its guys in the near one. i did everything I needed to do win except i overdid it with the meltas and ended up exploding instead of wrecking the one on the far objective. That essentially gave him the game. but it was close and i think he was surprised that there was ANY path to victory for me at the end, Lol. He apologized afterwards for being a jerk but the game certainly was a tense affair and frankly when you sling that kinda army onto a table, a little magnanimity isn't too much to ask for i think. Maybe that's just me.

      Anywho, all in all excellent. I felt like the one that got away was the Tyranid one and i really only felt outclassed in the battle Company fight.

      Throughout all these games, the one commonality is: Sisters Repentia really are great performers for me.

      Delete
    11. Ordo Demry

      : Combined Arms Detachment (Primary Detachment) (71#, 1999 pts)

      6 Retributor Squad(Simulacrum Imperialis + Heavy Flamer x4)
      1 Veteran Retributor Superior (Melta Bombs + Combi-Flamer x1)
      1 Rhino(Dozer Blade)

      1 Exorcist

      1 Exorcist

      4 Battle Sister Squad (Flamer + Flamer)
      1 Sister Superior, (Melta Bombs)
      1 Rhino (Hunter-killer Missile)

      4 Battle Sister Squad (Flamer + Flamer)
      1 Sister Superior, (Melta Bombs)
      1 Rhino (Hunter-killer Missile)

      7 Repentia Squad
      1 Rhino (Hunter-killer Missile)

      1 Ecclesiarchy Battle Conclave
      2 Crusader, 8 Death Cult Assassin
      1 Rhino (Hunter-killer Missile)

      1 Uriah Jacobus

      1 Canoness (Combi-Flamer x1+ Melta Bombs+ Rosarius, 1 Mantle of Ophelia)

      1 Ministorum Priest (Melta Bombs, 1 Litanies of Faith)

      7 Dominion Squad (Simulacrum Imperialis + Meltagun x4)
      1 Veteran Dominion Superior (Melta Bombs + Combi-Meltagun x1)
      1 Rhino

      7 Dominion Squad (Simulacrum Imperialis + Meltagun x4)
      1 Veteran Dominion Superior (Melta Bombs + Combi-Meltagun x1)
      1 Rhino (Laud Hailer)

      7 Dominion Squad (Simulacrum Imperialis + Meltagun x4)
      1 Veteran Dominion Superior (Melta Bombs + Combi-Meltagun x1)
      1 Rhino

      Delete
  3. Great write up. Very interesting to read how you make this army hum. I passed it along to a fellow member of the club where I play. He is always looking for new ways to play his sisters. He is excited to give this a whirl.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You're welcome. Glad I could be of help. It was highly effective for me.

      Delete
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