My Birthday Game

[Inquisitor Fox]

So for the first time in a while (since the new baby's birth really) I got to get in a game with my Witch Hunters on my Birthday a couple weeks ago (April 10th). I've been meaning to get a Battle Report up on it for some time, but a few hellacious weeks at work and a sick wife put that on the back burner. I apologize in advance for the quality of maps, I had them a bit better but in shifting image formats and sizing they worsened up on me. Due to the bad couple of weeks schedulewise I didn't have time to redo them.

 

This game saw both the introduction of my first Exorcist (from Christmas) and my second Chimera, as well as the two autocannon Chimera turrets (Birthday presents). Thus I was fairly excited to finally get to play with the list closer to what my long term goal is. Of course, I did make a few mistakes in terms of target priority but I'll get to that later.

 

I ended up walking into one of the local GW stores looking for a pickup game, there was a Tau player looking for a 2000 point Battle Missions game, already had his army out on the table and a copy of his computer typed list and everything, so that was a snap. Random Battle Mission said it was the Space Marine Vanguard mission, looking it over I decided to play my Witch Hunters force as the attacker, letting all my infantry count as scoring units, however I would have to walk on from the table edge to a fully deployed Tau force.

 

My army list was a premade 2000 generic list using IA2 rules for vehicles, as follows:

 

Inq Lord w/ bolter stake-crossbow, force weapon, digital weapons, frags, hexagrammic wards, melta bombs, psycannon bolts, psychic hood, psyocculum, rosarius, his will be done, hammer of the witches

2 acolytes w/ shotgun, bolt pistol, carapace armor, frags, kraks

sage

2 crusaders

combat servitor

familiar

2 chiurgeons

Land Raider w/ extra armor, hk missile, storm bolter, search light, smoke

 

2 DCAs

 

10 ISTs w/ hellpistol, power weapon, 2 grenade launchers, kraks

Chimera w/ autocannon, heavy bolter, dozer blade, extra armor, hk missile, heavy stubber, searchlight, smoke

 

10 ISTs w/ hellpistol, power weapon, 2 meltaguns, kraks

Chimera w/ autocannon, heavy bolter, dozer blade, extra armor, hk missile, heavy stubber, searchlight, smoke

 

10 Battle Sisters w/ VSS, bolt pistol, power weapon, meltagun, hvy flamer, imagifier, frags and kraks

 

7 Seraphim w/ VSS, plasma pistol, power weapon, 2 TL inferno pistol sisters

 

6 Retributors w/ VSS, bolter, power weapon, 4 hvy bolters, imagifier, frags and kraks

 

Exorcist w/ dozer blade, searchlight, smoke, stormbolter

 

(Yes, I know there's no Books... I was testing something :) )

 

His list contained:

 

Shadowsun

Ethereal w/ Honor Guard

 

3 Crisis Suits w/ TL fusion, shield generators

 

12 Fire Warriors w/ Devilfish w/ SMS, disruption pods

12 Fire Warriors w/ Devilfish w/ SMS, disruption pods

10 Kroot w/ Shaper

10 Kroot w/ Shaper

 

8 Pathfinders w/ Devilfish w/ SMS, disruption pods

 

3 Hammerheads w/ SMS, disruption pods, multitracker

 

(I think all the vehicles had multitrackers and possibly target locks... I don't remember to be honest)

 

He kept Shadowsun and the Crisis Suits in reserve for Deep Strike, I kept my Seraphim in reserve for Deep Strike

 

The initial deployment was as follows:

 

 

http://i434.photobucket.com/albums/qq70/Myen_Shi/WH%20Game%20001/startingmap.jpg

 

Looking over the board, I chalked the rear objective to "most likely unobtainable" and decided to ignore it, focusing my efforts on the front objective in the middle. Since I got to place the third one I picked the spot to the right, figuring on a flanking maneuver by the ISTs while the main portion of my forces would go for the objective in the woods.

 

There are many things I've considered after the game I'll go over at the end.

 

My initial turn consisted of moving onto the board and taking fire at the Tau! My Vehicles all moved under 6 inches, allowing my Land Raider to fire both lascannons via PotMS splitting fire at two different Hammerheads, doing a fat lot of nothing. For some reason I decided I wanted to soften up the Kroot on the building instead of taking out the tanks with my Exorcist on the first turn (mistake, I know... again I'll go over those at the end) killing a Kroot. Both Chimeras fired their autocannons at the side armor of the right hand Hammerhead not scoring a single hit. So far my first turn was fairly spectacularly bad.

 

The Battle Sisters advanced up the middle supported by the DCAs, the Retributors advanced to take a firing position in the left hand building. At the end of my turn the board looked like this:

 

http://i434.photobucket.com/albums/qq70/Myen_Shi/WH%20Game%20001/top1.jpg

 

Now, the Tau opened fire. Hoping he'd focus on my tanks, I was partially right... he took a few token shots at the Exorcist and Land Raider and did rather poorly, however the two railguns he pointed at my Chimeras were right on target. That was a poor beginning and pretty much ruined my chances of successfully pulling off the flanking maneuver. I needed another 6 inches or so to be able to contest or hold that objective under cover of the vehicles. Ah well.. now things would get interesting to be sure. He advanced Kroot in the forest to act as a speed bump. Here is the board after his turn:

 

http://i434.photobucket.com/albums/qq70/Myen_Shi/WH%20Game%20001/bottom1.jpg

 

Rolling for reserves for turn 2, my Seraphim decide to come on. I chose a spot near the Hammerheads as their target. I needed to eliminate that armor with a serious quickness before the area templates slaughtered my forces. Predictably, they decided to scatter off the table and be destroyed with a mishap. Here is where my opponent proves a all around swell guy and great person to play against, he decided that a 1-3 would be back into reserves, and a 4-6 would be him placing them instead, and that I'd just owe him one. Agreeing and a roll later the Seraphim were back into reserves. I advanced with the IST's around their tanks forward, still trying to get them towards the objective, as well as keeping up my advance in the middle. After movement the board was as follows:

 

http://i434.photobucket.com/albums/qq70/Myen_Shi/WH%20Game%20001/top2.jpg

 

Remembering that my Exorcist needed to blow stuff up (and after the opponent also reminding me that with Disruption Pods his vehicles had a 4+ cover save anyway, so the treeline really wasn't doing anything) I focused fire with the Exorcist and Land Raider on his Hammerheads, managing to destroy the tank in the center. Not much, but any death was good, right?

 

Here's the beginnign of his turn: (I believe)

 

http://i434.photobucket.com/albums/qq70/Myen_Shi/WH%20Game%20001/bottom2.jpg

 

His turn saw more annihilation of my forces. Shadowsun came in from reserves, targeting a spot next to my Land Raider. She arrived, however did a fat lot of nothing in the shooting phase. He sent a area submunition towards my right hand ISTs bearing the meltaguns, otherwise I think I lost a single DCA. He also leapfrogs the two Devilfish that had been hiding behind the building and preforms a Fish of Fury maneuver against my mostly decimated IST squad (talk about overkill).

 

My vehicles were proving remarkably resilient.. I believe there was a hit on the Land Raider that the extra armor downgraded to a stunned. Not a lot of action besides 8 dead ISTs (the second squad managed to avoid being hit by a bad scatter on a submunition). He charged the Kroot towards my sisters, obviously intending to assault and wipe them out. He maneuvered his forces to also connect with the last DCA (I let it go, figured well enough and he was being a good sport). The DCA inflicted a wound or two, the Kroot and Sisters went simlutaneously, he inflicted 8 wounds, all of which were saved by the Sisters power armor. In the end it was either a draw or a minor win by one or the other of us, tests were passed and combat continued (albeit with the loss of my second DCA).

 

My movement phase wasn't very exciting. The Seraphim remained in reserves, the Retributors continued each turn to get into firing position.. they were now ready to unleash a hail of bolterfire starting in Turn 4. This makes me strongly consider the Immolator Transport I'm thinking about for them. I tried to maneuver with my remaining IST squad, getting 4 kills with my grenade launchers on one of the Fire Warrior squads. The tight bunching after the Fish of Fury was perfect for frag grenade templates.

 

http://i434.photobucket.com/albums/qq70/Myen_Shi/WH%20Game%20001/top3.jpg

 

My Land Raider rotates it's assault ramp towards Shadowsun and takes a pot shot at a Hammerhead, the Exorcist also contributes, between the two of them bringing down a second Tau tank. My Inquisitor and her retinue open fire after disembarking the Land Raider, then charge Shadowsun, handily winning the combat and destroying two of her drones. I managed to miss the psychic test for His will be done (somehow...) but it proves inconsequential. Shadowsun remains in the fight, however I've now taken her out of commission and rendered my HQ unshootable.

 

His next turn signals the arrival of his Crisis Suit team, which predictably deep strikes next to my Land Raider and destroys it. The remaining Hammerhead destroys the other IST squad with assistance from other assorted Tau units after a bit of maneuvering.

 

http://i434.photobucket.com/albums/qq70/Myen_Shi/WH%20Game%20001/bottom3.jpg

 

The combat against Shadowsun continues, with my Inquisitor Lord (Lady) activating her Force Weapon and managing a wound against both Shadowsun and her remaining shield drone. Passing the psychic test, Shadowsun falls to my Inquisitor. ... now the timing of this might be off a little... but regardless of whether the fight went two rounds or three I ended up snuffing her ;) So I apologize if the maps are slightly off due to misrecollection after the fact.

 

More notable the 8 strong sisters unit pops an act of faith, increasing their initiative to 5 and allowing them to go before the Kroot! In large part due to this they win the combat, and since their I is now 5 for the phase they run down and annihilate the Kroot, wiping them from the board.

 

We are now onto turn 4.. looking over the board I realize a win is realistically out of my reach, however a tie is still possible. I have access to my Seraphim, who deep strike in to jump the Crisis Suit team. The Sisters advance, causing the map to look something like this:

 

http://i434.photobucket.com/albums/qq70/Myen_Shi/WH%20Game%20001/top4.jpg

 

Not bad for a very crappy beginning. The Seraphim, Exorcist, and Retributors light up the Crisis Suits. The Retributors manage an impressive 9 or 10 hits, causing me to activate Divine Guidance (Successfully too! Yay Imagifier). They fail, however to roll any 6's to wound. Thankfully between the three units (and a nice instagib from the Seraphim) they destroy the Crisis Suits even with the Shield Generators before they can continue to run amuck.

 

The Inquisitor advances to support the Sisters of Battle (Since due to the scenario she and her HQ being infantry are scoring) to try and hold the central objective in the woods. Hopefully I can hold one, eliminate some fire warriors, and go for a tie.

 

His turn sees the Fire Warriors get back into their Fish, as he focuses his fire on my Battle Sisters after eliminating the Seraphim in vengence. The unit as a whole survives, weathering a storm of fire and keeping 3 or 4 of them alive.

 

http://i434.photobucket.com/albums/qq70/Myen_Shi/WH%20Game%20001/bottom4.jpg

 

He now starts moving the Kroot on the left down the building to advance them towards the central objective. There's going to be a bloody time in the forest to be sure...

 

My turn saw mostly movement. Heading into the woods, while the Retributors began advancing forward (having moved for more than half their turns on the table, only firing twice, only one of those being for noticeable effect) to try and get more scoring units towards objectives. The Exorcist attempts to down a Devilfish but fails to connect meaningfully.

 

http://i434.photobucket.com/albums/qq70/Myen_Shi/WH%20Game%20001/top5.jpg

 

Way more Tau than Imperium forces, as the tie begins to gradually slip away. The overwhelming firepower of the Tau begin to take it's toll on my poor advancing forces.

 

The Tau player moved his Kroot, and repositioned tanks, resulting in the rough following tabletop:

 

http://i434.photobucket.com/albums/qq70/Myen_Shi/WH%20Game%20001/bottom5.jpg

 

As you can see, unless I can destroy one of the Devilfish entirely by this point he will win the game. Being a good guy he offers to let me concede, I go ahead and give him the full game on general principle. (The dice end up letting us go to Turn 7 in the end).

 

I manuever my HQ to try and block the assualt and protect the smaller sisters unit.

 

http://i434.photobucket.com/albums/qq70/Myen_Shi/WH%20Game%20001/top6.jpg

 

My exorcist manages to not do a lot of anything and thats about my turn ;)

 

His movement sets his Kroot up for the assault, and solidifying his hold on the objectives.

 

http://i434.photobucket.com/albums/qq70/Myen_Shi/WH%20Game%20001/bottom6.jpg

 

I make the sisters invulnerable for his shooting phase, but the last model or so finally succumbs after weathering 2 or 3 turns of fire and armor saves. The Kroot charge the Inquisitor engaging in a long drawn out combat which I eventually lose.

 

My turn begins looking like, well.. badness ;) My only real move is to tank rush the Kroot in the woods trying to force them off the objective.

 

http://i434.photobucket.com/albums/qq70/Myen_Shi/WH%20Game%20001/top7.jpg

 

This works, only to have his turn render the Exorcist Immobilized, which then means the Kroot charge it and destroy the tank.

 

http://i434.photobucket.com/albums/qq70/Myen_Shi/WH%20Game%20001/bottom7.jpg

 

The game ends with a solid objective claiming victory for the Tau, which doesn't necessarily reflect how well I did overall.

 

In kabitzing with my opponent apparently I am the first player to have managed to destroy any of his tanks, typically he said that all hammerheads were alive at the end of the game. Considering I was close to eliminating all of them, I'll take that ;)

 

I made several errors which I felt made the game worse off than if I hadn't made them. Due to rusty not playing as much, and a few oopses I hampered myself.

 

First, I should have put the third objective on the left side of the table instead of the right. My thought was to draw the Tau out into the open to have to claim it, however the opponent (smartly) focused fire on my transports and eliminated them leaving me high and dry.

 

Once detransported I should have advanced my ISTs towards the left behind the building, letting them claim the center objective while I pushed forward with my troops towards the rear objective or the right one. Keeping the ISTs forward helped lead towards their gradual elimination as the tanks didn't get rid of the Hammerheads fast enough.

 

I made a mistake once or twice with target priority of my brand new Exorcist. I should have fired on a vehicle EVERY turn regardless of cover saves or other situation (with the potential correct judgement of sending my Exorcists missiles into the Crisis Suits after their deepstrike as I did). By not keeping up the heat on his tanks I let them live longer, helping kill off my ISTs.

 

I think a better battle plan would have been to reserve the Chimeras, letting the initial advance be by the Land Raider (with support from the Exorcist) and Battle Sisters. This would then let me bring in the more fragile Chimeras behind the wall of my stronger vehicles, helping shield them from the Railguns. Going for the flanking maneuver seemed like a good idea at the time, but exposed them to instant death against the Hammerheads. Chalk that one up to not having faced AGAINST Tau before (my experience being playing my own Tau instead).

 

All in all, a good game, a great opponent, and a lot of fun even if I lost ;) The Seraphim performed relatively well (Even if not their primary purpose), my retinue performed nicely. I am considering dropping the Extra armor from the vehicles, dropping the 2 DCAs and getting an Immolator and Repressor to mechanize the entire force. That will take a while purchase wise though, which means that for now I wont be changing the roster that much.

 

Thoughts, comments, heckling and jeering are welcome should anyone wish to contribute or offer insight on my (albeit typed up quickly due to time restraints) Battle Report ;)

[Magnus Thane]

A late happy birthday and from the pieces I read... looked like a good game!

^___^

[Validar]

you managed to explain it with the thing with paint pictures, impressive ^^

 

Looks like a good game, that he allows you to reroll crappy mishap that could turn out to be fairly important tells something about your opponent too, which helps making the game good even if you loose.

A tough mission for witch hunters driving into the map against the oncomming tau gunline

[Warhorse47]

Thanks for a good report and a belated happy birthday and especially congrats on the new baby!

[Oiad]

Ah, it may not have been the complete result you wanted in battle but I hope the day will more than make up for it in all. Congrats on another year.

[Inquisitor Fox]

The day was definitely a good one :( Great good food (the wife is an awesome cook, and anyone's birthday means a custom meal chosen by them), and the game helped show the Land Raider and Exorcist combined is a great deal of anti-tank firepower. The Chimeras combined too should help with the heavy weapons problem (generally speaking the Inquisition lack of them) so I look forward to using the list again to see how it goes, perhaps with a few minor tweaks by dropping the extra armor and getting some points to work with for books and possibly a third DCA.

 

Thank you for all the good wishes for the Birthday and Richard's birth. He's 9 months now and definitely a little Kroot :sweat:

 

Edit: The opponent being such a great guy to play helped a lot, made everything a great deal of fun. I hope to get another game against him sometime to see how I do in a different scenario :pinch:

[number6]

Thanks for the battle report! And congrats on a happy baby, a healthy wife, and a great birthday! :P

 

This is another Tau list that makes Shas'o Six very unhappy. :( I was really hoping you'd stick it to him. Glad you came pretty close! Somebody's gotta teach that guy how to play Xenos properly. Only some righteous Xenos cleansing will accomplish that. Better hunting next time!

[calypso2ts]

Interesting game, thanks for sharing. I really hate playing Tau, since the major factors that have made Tau 'unplayable' are not readily available to a WH army (mainly outflanking).

 

What were you trying to test out by dropping the books?

 

Did you consider outflanking the DCA? They may have been able to slide in and eat up some dismounted units.

 

Also, I have found armor on the transports to be a bargain at 5 points.

 

With Exorcists, unless the only thing left on the board is Armor 14, I tend to shoot at any vehicle possible. They tend to be rhino (and equivalents) wrecking mahchines with their AP 1 missiles. Running 1 is great, but I have found you need two to balance out the inevitable sting of bad luck. (yesterday I played a game and one Exo rolled all 1's while the other rolled all 5's or 6'...them's the breaks!)

[Inquisitor Fox]

Under the IA2 points system (which I was using) the extra armor is 15 per vehicle, so a bit more spendy.

 

I was actually testing if I would notice the lack of books, really how many times in a game did those leadership tests come up. In this game, I didn't notice not having them. Granted I'd need more games to really see if I could go without them though.

 

I considered outflanking the DCAs, but since each would be considered a seperate unit and the only ones really dismounted and vulnerable were 10 man or larger squads in buildings, I decided they'd be shot to pieces before getting to do anything. So I thought having them assist the Battle Sister advance would be a better use for them.

[calypso2ts]

I forgot that IA has the expensive armor, at 15 points I would never buy it either. The reduced Rhino cost and the possibility of Repressors are the two things that have me looking forward to a new WH/SoB codex the most. I figure I will save around 100 points on transports alone!

 

Good point on the DCA, I have found it is really hard to use assassins in 5th edition...unrelated 'epic moment' was playing a game yesterday with a buddy who fielded a Vindicare. I was playing Orks and one SM sergeant was holding up a 25 man Ork mob...that is until the Vindicare shot the Orks out of combat so they could assault that turn! It also Turbo Penetrated a LR, Iknow it is the exception but those moments are the ones that make you think maybe it would work...

[ArmouredWing]

Having had a fair amount of experience against Tau there's a few observations that may help you in the future.

 

Firstly, his list isn't great.

 

Ethereals aren't widely used and for good reason. They're costly and the pros they can give tau in death are well balanced with the cons so all in all an interesting and ineffective choice.

The Crisis suits are ok but then looking down the rest of the list it looks pretty sub par. The 12 FW's in the fish don't do enough in terms of shooting and the extra points from the +6 FW's should have been put into the kroot units which are undermanned and underpowered. Big squads of kroot are lethal, small squads are BBQ.

 

The other thing here is there are no broadsides. In a competative list at least one of those HH@s would have been dropped to get the more accurate broadsides into the list which gives a better chance of popping tanks.

So when I look at this list it doesn't instill a sense of fear in me that, for instance, Gonefishing's Ninja Tau does.

 

On the flip side however there are some issues with the WH loadout here and I think the fact it is a generic list worked against it in many ways.

 

We've discussed the =][= loadouts at length previously but here in lies a good example of how it can result in wasted points. Looking at the amount of anti psyker wargear and powers on the =][= it's easy to see how many points will not see a return for the game. With Tau having no pyskers/psychic abilities it means that the combi x-bow, psychic hood, psyocculum, hexagramic wards & hammer of the witches are without use.

 

The IST's are fine and dandy but then we come to the battle sisters squad and here there is a question of how you really want to use them on the table.

The issue is that you're running them as footsloggers but they're a mechanised build, a unit of 10 with a MG & Hvy Flm need the speed and security of a transport to get the to target where they can deliver their blow because without it they're going to get whittled down pretty quickly.

Looking at the rest of the unit there's some other excessive points spent in terms of frags, kraks and the costly imagifier which adds an extra 50+ points to the unit. Frags are an ok option but my take on battle sister squads is that they should very rarely charge into CC, their bolter shots are far better at dealing with a target than they could ever manage in CC.

So, for this unit? Either get a rhino in there or get more bodies but either way they're running below their optimum at the moment.

 

The seraphim are ok but I'd recomend dropping the PP on the vet purely because of the 'gets hot' rule.

 

The rets again have wargear that you should never expect them to use. They're a long ranged support unit equipped with frags which are only useful when they charge into CC in cover. Drop the frags and consider dropping the kraks because chances are they'll rarely use them.

 

The exorcists is a good build but you should look at getting at least 2 in the list to even the chances of poor roll on the number of shots.

 

My final comment would be that in a list of 2000pts 3 FP's leaves you no room for failure. Imagifiers are ok but there's still a chance that you'll fail to get an AoF on demand. Are IST's your best option for the bulk of your troops? Lower Sv, lower BS, weaker weapons and they don't contribute to your faith pool. If you want to run IST's then it best to go either with lots of cheaper small units or fewer units with the rest of your troops made up of sisters.

 

All in all hats off to you for running this list but to take on all comers it needs some modifying.

[Inquisitor Fox]

I was half waiting and hoping that you'd take a look at the topic here ;)

 

We actually chatted a bit after the game, specifically about dropping one of his Hammerheads for a unit of Broadsides, and dropping one of the Kroot squads for the point difference, then putting the leftover points back into the other unit of Kroot (my suggestion based on my own experience with Tau). Personally I'd NEVER run a unit of Crisis suits with that build... they're asking to be sacrificial deep strikers and then get pasted. My own Crisis suits are burst cannon/missile pod/multitracker, with the upgrade getting a Cyclic Ion Blaster, Missile Pod, Shield Generator, hard-wired multitracker and pair of gun drones along with a bonding knife. I like them much better :P

 

The Battle Sisters is intended to (once my budget permits) run around in a Repressor. My considerations for this list in particular actually is to drop the extra armor from the vehicles, and replace the DCAs (possibly) with an Immolator and Repressor as transports for the foot units (Retributors and Battle Sisters). I was also going to gradually start peeling away the wargear from the Inquisitor that was some of the 'extras' (meltabombs, hexagrammic wards, etc). For a while I was spending the last few points here and there on wargear to allow myself to get used to the squad size that I 'wanted' to use so I'd know what they could do.

 

Part of the reason to run ISTs in my opinion is for their transport. The Chimeras generally allow for a pretty good amount of long range firepower, which we know is otherwise lacking in the Codex. Tau railguns are kind of an extreme case, otherwise a front armor 12 while not being great isn't that bad... it's no worse than anyone else's transport like Falcons or Devilfish. Having now the Forge World autocannon turret helps a lot in giving me 48" firepower while still operating as a transport... a win-win scenario.

 

I've had that same plasma pistol save my butt enough times as well as it still putting out wounds on things like hive tyrants and Crisis suits to keep it in. Once in a while she blows herself up, but for the most part she's been alright. 5.56% of the time she dies for the Emperor and the good of the Imperium, but ya gotta break a few eggs :P The frags and kraks are a bit of a conundrum. I mentally like knowing that even if they're out of weapons and guns, my Sisters can engage a vehicle in melee and have a chance at damaging it (as well as say, Dreads). I also like to uniformly have all my IST's or all my Sisters have the same grenade options, so in the game itself there's no confusion or mentally forgetting that 'that unit is the one without kraks' after declaring they're charging a vehicle or something. I'm always attempting to find the middle ground between trimming off the fat so to speak, and having a list that is a bit more fluffy, personal preference, and easy for my own brain to handle.

 

I also include the combi-crossbow as it can double as an assault weapon even against non-psykers, allowing a chance at a few wounds before charging into combat. Mostly because I really like the look of the model and the weapon itself too ;) I readily admit that this wasn't a tailored to Tau list, part of the pitfalls of looking for pickup games and just making a single list for whatever. I figure I can get another 10 to 20 points of wargear pretty easily dropped from the Retinue, which combined with shavings elsewhere should help as I tinker with things now that I've got more transports and a better idea of where exactly my own style lies. I've been transitioning over years from playing Bretonnians and a knight mindset to 40K ;)

 

I actually found that the Land Raider balanced out the Exorcist fairly well, especially with Power of the Machine Spirit. This again was a multi-tasker (which I am fond of) as it combines anti-tank firepower with durability, as well as transporting the Inquisitor and Retinue. A second Exorcist would require a lot of tinkering with the list to try and squeeze it in somewhere.

 

EDIT: The Repressor VSS is actually probably going to lose her power weapon.. I'm debating between leaving it to help with the 'don't assault my shooters' threat and the fact it's almost never used so I could use a different model for her entirely and not worry about it. Being a dad on a budget these are the small things that I try to use a great deal before having to buy things or order them specifically as money is a lot more valuable than time in a sense... I often have time, but no cash!

 

EDIT 2: I just saw your comment about ISTs and Faith Points again. They've actually got the same BS as the Sisters, so it's the hellguns being worse than the bolters (true) and the lack of FPs. Generally I like the Chimeras in the list, and the ISTs are sorta there for their special weapons really, and with IA2 the ability to just shoot out of the Chimera...

 

As far as 3 FPs... maybe it's just my style of saving them until I have a situation that needs them, but I've never ran into a FP crunch... perhaps I'm being a bit stingy with them, I'm not quite sure. Generally I wait and dont use Divine Guidance until I see a round with 8 or 10 hits from shooting, that sort of thing. I'm working up a Palatine/Canoness for the Arena of Death that I'll get to play around with from time to time in my regular list too that would add to the Faith Point pool. Of course, including her would disclude the Repressor/Immolator idea...

[ArmouredWing]

Personally I'd NEVER run a unit of Crisis suits with that build... they're asking to be sacrificial deep strikers and then get pasted.

You'd be surprised just how useful that unit can be when combined with a positional relay and dropping it in late in the game. Like I say, it works well in a Ninja Tau list.

 

The frags and kraks are a bit of a conundrum. I mentally like knowing that even if they're out of weapons and guns, my Sisters can engage a vehicle in melee and have a chance at damaging it (as well as say, Dreads). I also like to uniformly have all my IST's or all my Sisters have the same grenade options, so in the game itself there's no confusion or mentally forgetting that 'that unit is the one without kraks' after declaring they're charging a vehicle or something. I'm always attempting to find the middle ground between trimming off the fat so to speak, and having a list that is a bit more fluffy, personal preference, and easy for my own brain to handle.

Ok, I get your drift but if you add kraks & frags to each unit you're upiing your pts per model cost by 3pts, in a unit of 10? Well even I can do those maths but across an entire list it's throwing points away needlessly.

 

Whe it comes to dealing with dreadnoughts I had similar concerns and at times I added kraks in to give the unit the necessary survivability against walkers... but that issue came to a head when I realised that for all the good kraks could do they're useless against Ironclads. My solution was to equip my vets with eviscerators, S6+2d6 makes a nasty mess of even ironclads and combine that with a potential 3A gives you a good chance of knocking that dread out. I used this at the ultrameet at the weekend and the one game where I got up close to a dread they managed to deal with it in a couple of turns. Sure I lost a couple of sisters but that's acceptable losses.

 

...otherwise a front armor 12 while not being great isn't that bad... it's no worse than anyone else's transport like Falcons or Devilfish.

Never mistake Imperial AV12 for xenos AV12 because if you consider what a xenos player can add to their transport to improve survivability and compare that to us it doesn't compare. We can add smoke (a one turn cover save) or extra armour which I find isn't as useful as it sounds. Eldar holofields are pretty awesome and you need to pump a good deal of fire into a falcon to bring it down. I can't remember what the tau equivalent is but in both cases they also have the benefit of speed on their side and the fact that their a skimmer, so no difficult terrain tests which can make a tracked transport suffer.

So AV12? A chimera may have the same front armour but doesn't have the additional options to make it as survivable.

 

As far as 3 FPs... maybe it's just my style of saving them until I have a situation that needs them, but I've never ran into a FP crunch... perhaps I'm being a bit stingy with them, I'm not quite sure. Generally I wait and dont use Divine Guidance until I see a round with 8 or 10 hits from shooting, that sort of thing.

Well I guess my last point would be that although you rarely run out of faith with your sisters how often does your list work out for you? In a 1500pts list I don't run without at least 5FP and that's in a list where I'm adding in =][= + assassins. More often though I run pure SoB and in these lists I'm looking at 7-8 FP. Now I too rarely end a game where I don't have any faith left but I do burn points hard and fast when I need to. I actually build my units for how they use their FP's so that's part of the reason why I run big footslogger squads rather than mechanised, my DG only fails on a 6/6 and I maximise the amount of hits I achieve from each squad.

The other AoF that is my particular favourite is HotE when I've been assaulted. Wounding at S5 makes a fair difference and so it can be an easy task for me to use 3/4 FP's for a single unit in a single turn. Hit them hard so that they can't do enough damage back.

 

Anyway, like I said there's some areas where you need to consider changing if you want to be genuinely competative. If you're going for fluff then fair play to ya, I tried to walk that path when I first started but found I couldn't stomach the continued losses (18 months worth!!!) so changed my tac. Bear in ind though, you can strike a balance but it does mean sacrifices in certain areas.