8th Edition Adepta Sororitas Acts of Faith

One of my favorite armies over the years has definitely been the Sisters of Battle so I took pretty keen interest in what the new Acts of Faith looks like.  I'll give my thoughts here.

The Beta Codex says you can only use each the Acts of Faith once in a battle round.  For perspective, in the Index iteration before this, you got VERY few Acts of Faith. In fact, just 1. Celestine could use/give 1 more to herself or someone within 6” but that assumes you take her (and why wouldn’t you be FORCED to if you’re only getting 1 Act of Faith army wide?). Key here is they could both do the same Act of Faith. Imagifiers allowed it also. They could trigger an Act of Faith on a 4+ to do the same Act of Faith for a unit that was close enough. With Command Points re-rolls, that allowed for a faaaaair certainty that you’d get 2-3 Acts off in round one to launch your assault with.

Sisters being as easy to kill as they are, you kinda’ need to be aggressive. This level of mobility made the army a very fun army, just because you could do so many interesting little tactics while getting where you needed to go. When the Chapter Approved 2017 Martyrdom Stratagem came along, it made it even more fun because it could be executed on the opponents turn to extricate a unit from a bad combat situation. I cannot begin to tell you how often that was useful.

In the new Beta Codex, you can only ever use the same Act of Faith once per battle round as I mentioned. Even if there were still an Act of Faith that let you move again as if it were the movement phase, it would be once and done for the round in the new rules. It’s even worse than that. No such “free move” Act of Faith exists now.  In it's place is a 3” addition to your move on a roll of a 4+  Just  3”. Not very reliable.

I was understandably floored by that revalation.  Only one unit can use the Act of Faith, making things very different for Sisters of Battle now.  It seems fairly obvious that this will be for Celestines use alone now, who can now move 15” instead of 24”, making her ABSOLUTE best case scenario a 9” charge round one. I say best case because someone would have to be fairly stupid to get caught by this more than once by lining up right on the deployment line instead of an inch or two behind. There wasn’t much you could do to hold her back in the Index.  She was going to get her pound of flesh. Now she’s just basically deep striking round one, and that’s not even a fair approximation because at least with Deep Strike you’d be wherever you wanted and for sure within 9” of something. . I am sure many opponents will be crying very hard about that change. Not. But it actually affects all the Seraphim too, who were using it. So it’s a pretty big deal.

It changes EVERYTHING about the army really. Adepta Sororitas are hardly good at taking a beating so to be caught out in the open with a bunch of Sisters with no way to act (meaningfully) puts a sudden premium on Retributors, and even Exorcists which can at least impact the battle in the early stages without imminent fear of loss. Those units cannot be seen as replacements though for what the Seraphim and Celestine could do.

So whats the trade off? Well it’s not more Faith Points at first blush. Before this Beta, in 5 rounds you might go through 2 Acts each round that were important.  You’ll have about the equivalent of 10 in most games now, because you start with 3 Faith points and then gain +1 per 10 faithful models. It’s pretty much exactly the same number in that sense. You’ll likely need all of them FAR more often now. That’s because they are all useful to multiple units, and every unit will want to use them.

What are the other Acts of Faith? Well the 3” move on a 4+ has been discussed, but there’s also healing as before but on a 3+ (d3 wounds or resurrect a model). There is a 4+ Feel No Pain, which only works on Psyker mortal wounds such as Smite (3+ to make it work), and a +1 to shooting Act of Faith on a roll of a 4+. You can Fight again on a 5+, and auto pass Morale on a 3+.  Here's a change that might slip past some people:  You could use every Act of Faith on one unit!  There is no current prohibition on using more than one on a given unit.  Handy.

Healing was usually reserved for Celestine and still will probably be. The Psyker Phase Act of Faith is new, but you have to choose the unit at the start of the psyker phase and the enemy will know who it is, and it only works half the time anyways. Lame. That leaves the +1 to shooting as the most useful of them.   It screams to be used by Retributors or storm bolter armed Dominions. Fighting again will be Celestines thing most likely. Auto passing morale makes larger Sisters of Battle units more viable, because you can auto-pass once with the Act of Faith plus once with 2 Command Points (Insane Bravery).

So there it is. Acts of Faith are officially back to being available to everyone whose faithful as they were in the Witch Hunters Codex (and rolling to see if they go off like it used to be, albeit in a different way); but only once per battle round unlike then. You’ll blow most of those points in round two if I had my guess. All six could easily be used in round two and you almost assuredly used Move, shoot and Morale Acts turn 1. That means you’ll have used 9 of them by turn two in a very large number of your games.

What can you really do about it? Well Celestine is FORCED to have Beacon of Faith as her trait. It lets her get a Faith Point back on a 4+. The thing about this is, there are better Warlord traits, making it frustrating to make her Warlord.  You probably shouldn’t. Righteous Rage would have allowed the now MUCH slower Celestine to re-roll charges and re-roll wounds which makes her frighteningly better at her job, but you just can’t do it because Beacon of Faith is built in to her.

You can also use a Command Point to trigger the Sacred Rights Stratagem which gains you a Faith Point. That’s pretty useful. Martyrdom still exists as a Stratagem so if you get a character killed, it will generate D3 Faith Points but again, no longer can you use them at the end of a phase which was THE key to why it was so good before. Now it’s just more juice in the juice box.

Relics are here to help as well. Litanies of Faith will refund successful Test points on a 5+. It’s not the bees knees, but does it suck for 1 CP to add it as a second relic? Newp. It will almost certainly pay you back better than the aforementioned 1CP Sacred Rights Stratagem and doesn’t preclude you from doing both if need be.

Another thing you can do about running low on Faith Points: The new <order> Our Martyred Lady lets you get a Faith Point any time you lose a unit. The <Order> Argent Shroud gives you one on a 4+ when enemies are destroyed, which I definitely don’t think is a better solution as enemies will so often be harder to kill than you are, and it's only half of the time.

Trouble is, both of these <Order> are moot solutions because Faith Points basically aren’t worth crap if they don’t go off. As the Faith Points are the defining characteristic of the force it’s kind of hard to see a lot of people choosing either of these when they can instead choose <Order> The Ebon Chalice, which provides a +1 to the rolls to make the Acts of Faith actually work. I mean if you can already pop the Sacred Rights Stratagem, the Martyrdom Stratagem and hell even the bat shit crazy 3 CP Vessel of the Emperors Will Stratagem to maximize Faith Points (character becomes the epicenter of a single Act of Faith and shares it with all within 6”), it seems scarcely necessary to go with either the <Argent Shroud> OR <Our Martyred Lady>.

The Simulacrum lets you get another +1 to the roll.  The new Simulacrum Imperialis is now PART of the unit instead of being a floating character, helping the inevitable popularity of the Ebon Chalice.  Trouble is some units can’t include one (including…Celestine herself...).  So a cumulative +2 for most units to use their defining trait? Seems legit to me. Given this, the Ebon Chalice may be all you see much of.

The one possible alternative to this would be if you invest in the Dialogus. They allow you to re-roll Faith Tests and while it’s more of a gamble (what isn’t?) it might allow you to consider another <Order>. The Dialogus costs 30 points, and it’s radius isn’t great nor is its speed. So you would be advancing him often to keep up or disembarking him from transports turn 2 to make sure he can assist.  One solution is The Book of St. Lucius.  It's a relic and if installed with the Dialogus, it would expand his radius from 6” to 9”. This would not be a bad idea in any list. If you were to do this, suddenly it’s at least feasible to take an <Order> other than the default one if you’re willing to bet on re-rolls to get it down over raw statistical fury.  Do you like Bell Curves punk?  Well do ya'?

Only practice games will teach me how best master this and utilize the new tools at hand. One thing is for sure: many opponents will be pleased with the difficulty of Sisters getting into combat.