Codex: Order of the Faithful Blade

[Rev. Tiberius Jackhammer]

Looking better, I'm still a bit iffy about having a blanket -1 applied to enemy reserves due to just how variably it can affect armies with different strategies, although considering it's coming from a targetable model this time, rather than an asset, and this model is somewhere in the assassin points class (presumably), it's not as much of a problem. Still, I miiight suggest just allowing him to force the re-roll of 1+D3 units instead. Reactive is good, maybe buff Perfect up to 1+D3, so the player can rely on having at least two outflankers to work in concert.

 

Personally, I had assumed all assassins would have the modifications and training that results in S4/T4 and 4++, although I can see the reasoning that the Vanus might not have those. Still, I can also see them being trained to that level from a "Protecting the Temple's investment" angle, each Vanus would be a master of their own set of contacts and local knowledge, after all; you could even argue they're more irreplaceable than every other type, maybe excluding the Culexus. Since it's a largely non-combatant model, I don't think buffing it to S/T/I4, BS/WS5(?) and 4++(this might even be a Refractor field instead of a "dodge" save) would really merit more than a 10-15 point buff on the model, considering that the S/WS buffs are negligible on a model with little close combat ability, BS buff is of low value since he needs to be dangerously close to the enemy to actually use it (putting the Vanus at extreme risk) and 4++ isn't as valuable on a model buried in a unit than on a solo.

 

But other than those small quibbles, the unit's looking good.

[Chengar Qordath]

Well, a blanket -1 to reserve rolls has precedent going for it, so I'm not too worried about breaking the game; If the Imperial Guard can get a model who does it is cheap, and (until it got FAQed) had no rule preventing multiples of them from stacking, then the Officio Assassinorum can get a model with a similar effect.

 

As for bumping up the Vanus' profile, I'm wary of doing that when all the background we have on them suggests that they really don't have much in the way of combat training or ability. After all, there's no reason a Vanus would need combat training when the defining trait of the entire Vanus Temple is that they never need to go out into the field since they can kill their target from within the confines of their own Temple grounds half a galaxy away. If a Vanus assassin needs to rely on their own personal combat skills to survive, then something has already gone horribly, horribly wrong. Of course, that just brings up the problem, once again, of why a Vanus would be on the battlefield in the first place; the only example we have from fluff of a Vanus actually being near an active combat zone had multiple characters pointing out why putting a Vanus in the middle of combat operations was a bad idea, and it never should have happened.

 

Then again, most of the statements about the Vanus temple's lack of combat skill were comparing them to other Temple Assassins, and there's a decent-sized gap between not being as good as a Temple Assassin and being bad, so I could see bumping WS and BS up to four, and giving the Vanus a Refractor Field seems reasonable. Strength, Toughness, and Initiative buffs would be out though; from the background material, we know the boosted Temple Assassin statline is from a bunch of genetic and augmentic enhancement, which the Vanus is confirmed to have never gotten (or rather, he got enhancements like boosted memory/brainpower and enough tech-interaction augmentics to make a tech-priest jealous).

[Rev. Tiberius Jackhammer]

Oh, the background straight-up says they lack those upgrades? Nevermind then, I'd assumed they had them based off the short blurb on lexicanum and the Tempus Fugitives packet.

 

Out of curiosity (I'm assuming you're getting this info from Nemesis), was there any description of their appearance? Outfit, tech etc. I'm assuming they have various mechanical bits sprouting from their head and the synthskin, anything else?

[Chengar Qordath]

Nemesis is pretty much the best/only real source of in-depth info on the Vanus and Venenum temples; it's also where I got the Venenum Assassin's wargear from. The book has it's share of problems, but I have to give it credit for finally fleshing out the two Assassin temples we knew nothing about.

 

Appearance-wise, the Vanus do have quite a few mechanical bits; the character in Nemesis a bunch of augmentics on his head (though they were subtle enough to be half-concealed by thick hair) and a cybernetic arm with a built-in cogitator and holograpic projector. Synskin wasn't part of the description, but it is standard-issue on all other Officio Assassinorum operatives, and it makes the Vanus slightly less squishy, so I threw it in. He's already the easiest Assassin to kill as it is; no reason to make him even less durable.

[Chengar Qordath]

Well, I've come up with one more area where the content could stand a little more padding out; the Acts of Faith. Right now, all we have is adjusted versions of the original five acts of Faith, which is a good start, but does seem a bit lacking in variety, especially since most of them are pure stat boosts or new rules. I feel like adding a couple new acts of faith that are a bit more unique.

 

Holy Radiance: The Sisters of Battle glow with the holy light of the God-Emperor, temporarily blinding their foes as they are forced to avert their eyes. Any successful rolls to hit against the unit must be re-rolled.

 

Blessed Celerity: The unit gains the Fleet USR, and may roll three dice and pick the highest to determine how far it moves when running.

 

Resurrection: A previously slain Palatine, Cannoness, or other model from the HQ section of the Force Organization Chart with the Adepta Sororitas rule returns to life with a single wound, and may be placed on the board following standard Deep Strike rules with no scatter. If this power is used, no other Faith abilities may be used this turn.

[*Furyou Miko]

Ressurection... "Martyrs Arise"? :confused:

 

I like the idea, but how do you stop her just getting insta-gibbed all over again? A single round of attacks doesn't seem like much value for a whole turn's faithing in the middle of a knife-fight.

 

Celerity I like - the Fleet at least - but 3d6 run is too much. It takes "faith enhancing the powers of the faithful" to "Marvel super-powers" levels. 3d6 would mean that they've got the potential to run 18", or move 30" in a single turn - that's faster than a turbo-boosting Jetbike. Almost as far as a flat-out Vyper with star engines. They're Sisters, not The Flash.

 

I think "roll 3d6 and pick the highest", or even (maybe) "roll 3d6 and discard the lowest" would be more appropriate.

 

Holy Radiance is fine as-is.

[Chengar Qordath]

It was supposed to be roll 3d6 and pick the highest, but someone is a foolish, foolish, fool who doesn't always remember to double-check his own posts for errors before putting them up. I'll go fix that.

 

For Resurrection, while it does seem a little weak in its current form, it definitely needs some sort of limiting factor/downside on it, since bringing the dead back to life is a pretty powerful thing. For once I actually regret the way I re-worked the Faith System, since as much as I hate the old Faith Point mechanics, it would be pretty simple to handle the Resurrection power by just giving it a higher Faith Point cost.

[*Furyou Miko]

How about limiting it to "The character inspiring the act of faith cannot use another Faith ability that turn", since most of your faithful types can incur 2?

[Chengar Qordath]

How about limiting it to "The character inspiring the act of faith cannot use another Faith ability that turn", since most of your faithful types can incur 2?

That could work, though I should probably also include an option for non-ICs to trigger the act since otherwise it would only be usable if you had a pair of Sororitas HQs. How about adding that it can also be triggered by two Supremely Faithful units giving up their Acts of Faith?

[Rev. Tiberius Jackhammer]

One random thought, perhaps allow Resurrection to be used multiple times, each time adding another wound to the revived character (but adding a small chance of failure, a la Yarrick's resurrection-esque special rule)? Something along the lines of:

 

"At the start of the owning player's turn, up to three units with either the Supremely Faithful, Inspirational, Lead From the Front or Wellspring of Faith special rules may choose to forfeit those special rules for the duration of the Player Turn to attempt to resurrect a previously slain Independent Character with the Adepta Sororitas special rule. For each unit which forfeited a special rule, role a d6; if one or more results of 3+ are rolled, the chosen Independent Character is placed in coherency with one of the units which chose to forfeit a special rule, with an amount of Wounds equal to the amount of 3+'s rolled. Note that this may not take a model higher than its base Wounds value."

 

The wording's quite different from other acts of Faith, but as it's a single event rather than a turn-long buff, that's appropriate. Since Supremely Faithful units aren't super common unless the player's rocking as many Devoted as possibly (which would have disadvantages enough to make up for the benefit), allowing them to trigger Resurrection shouldn't be too OTT.

 

Like the look of Celerity and Radiance, but one thought - maybe instead of expanding acts of faith through adding more general ones, add some acts which are either specific to special characters/HQs, or unique to certain units among the Order's elite (I like this one, personally). Perhaps the Celestian Gunners could have access to an act which would allow them to shoot, then run in the shooting phase (mebbe Celerity becoming unique to Celestian Martyrs)? Pegasus Knights could maybe get an act along the lines of the Reaver Jetbike's fly-by turbo-boost attacks.

 

Also, another random thought on the Fallon - perhaps Warp-hardened might turn her into some sort of Psychic Lightning Rod? Like any enemy Psykers within x" must target her when using a psychic power (which she would then have a high chance of nullifying). You could also probably bump the points cost for the trait down to 10, even before playtesting, since it's a heavily situational power.

[Chengar Qordath]

I like the idea of including a failure chance on Resurrection: instead of needing to create a mechanic to give it an increased cost, just have a chance it will fail. Having the possibility of reviving with more than one wound is nice too. How about something like this:

 

Roll a d6 and apply the result on the following table; for each additional use of the power after the first, add +1 to the result of your die roll

1-2: No effect

3-5: Model returns to life with one wound

6: Model returns to life with two wounds

7+: Model returns to life with all of its starting wounds

 

While I'm inclined to keep Radiance and Celerity as general acts open to everyone, I do like the idea of also including a few unit-specific acts and/or having special characters grant access to unique acts of Faith.

[*Furyou Miko]

If you're bringing a dice roll into it, Necron Lords have a 15 point piece of wargear that improves WBB as follows:

 

1-3: No effect

4: Stand up with 1 wound (as normal)

5: Stand up with 2 wounds

6: Stand up with 3 wounds

 

On the other hand, he already has the ability to get back up on a 4+ at the start of the turn.

 

I don't like the idea of unit-specific faith, personally. I think that they're all Sisters - all Faithful - they should all be able to achieve the same feats... they just aren't as useful for some units compared to others.

[Chengar Qordath]

I had the Necron bit of wargear in mind when coming up with the new rules for resurrection.

 

For unit-specific Faith abilities, I would agree that sisters should generally have the same Faith abilities; any unit-specific faith powers would need to be very unit-specific, as in the sort of powers that would be completely useless to anyone other than that specifc unit.

[Rev. Tiberius Jackhammer]

Like the new Resurrection idea, much more streamlined than my suggestion with the multiple 3+ rolls.

 

My thoughts on the unit-specific faith were that it'd be something that the elite (celestian and cavalry) Sisters could pull off due to a combination of their experience and their more specialized fighting styles, and in some cases would be impossible for other Sisters to perform - such as the Knights performing a Faith-based charge with their lances from atop their Pegasus Mounts. If the unit-specific faith is used, what about the Blangels Blood Talons effect being worked into a Celestian Martyrs act of faith? Probably toned down a bit (say, make another attack for each to hit/wound roll of 6 rather than for every unsaved wound) due to the unit's greater number of attacks.

[*Furyou Miko]

Eldar used to have an ability called "Sustained Assault". Only Swooping Hawk Exarchs could have it, I believe, but it was the same as the Blood Talons - an extra attack for each unsaved wound in close combat.

 

They lost it as "stupidly overpowered". This is on single Strength 3, 2 attack shooting based models who probably don't even have power weapons.

 

>> But then, they gave it wholesale to fricken' close combat dreadnoughts. You can see why this might erk me a little tiny bit, as a one-time Eldar player. >>

[Chengar Qordath]

Miko: Codex creep is funny that way. Yesterday's stupidly overpowered becomes today's reasonable upgrades.

 

I don't think the cavalry units need a faith-based boost to their charges; Knights already have Furious Charge, and the Holy Lances essentially grant Furious Charge except moreso. If we get unit-specifc AoFs, I would be more inclined towards things like, say, deep-strike protection for Seraphim (making it an Act of Faith would make it a nice trade-off; safe deep-strikes means giving up on protection/attacking power).

 

Also, I'm toying with a couple of Seraphim-related options; how about bumping our Seraphim SC up to an HQ-level character, and having her unlock Seraphim as troops? With how much more expensive Seraphim are when compared to normal troops, I don't think it would cause balance problems, and the list is a bit short of FOC-changing HQs. On a related note, how about stealing a page from the Marines, and letting Seraphim trade jump packs for a discount on transports?

[Rev. Tiberius Jackhammer]

Whoops, I was kinda unclear - when I said "faith-based charge" I was referring to something along the lines of the Dark Eldar Reaver turbo-boost based attacks. It would probably do less damage than a genuine charge, but would still be useful against units which would be too damaging to the Lancers to make standard charges practical. The deep-strike protection sounds interesting, doable. What form would it take? Re-roll scatter, d6 scatter etc.? I like d6 scatter, personally.

 

Personally, I'm pretty fond of Mika Allard as-is - how about just allowing Seraphim to be troops in an army lead by a Jump-pack Cannoness? (Similar to SM captains on bikes.)

 

Not too hot on the idea of ditching the jump-packs for a transport though, they're kind of the defining aspect of the unit (well, along with the twin pistols). Seraphim without jump-packs just wouldn't seem that seraphim-like, and since there are already Blade squads, there isn't much need for foot-seraphim in the list from a tactical perspective either.

[Chengar Qordath]

For Deep Strike protection, my first thought was actually to steal the rule from Drop Pods where any scatter result that would result in a mishap instead moves them to the closest safe distance. Re-rolls and d6 scatter both get used more often, and I like the idea of an act of faith guiding them to s safe landing spot without neccessarily making them any more accurate; to me, it seems a bit more faith-y that way.

 

Having a JP Cannoness/Palatine unlock Troop Seraphim could work, but I don't really see it; Seraphim are supposed to be fairly rare and highly-trained elite troops. The only reason I could justify Mika taking an all-Seraphim force is that Mika, being the impetuous hot-blooded flight-jockey that she is, would probably leave any troops that couldn't keep up with her behind. Then again, given her background as a troublemaker explaining how she made it up to Palatine might be problematic, and my desire to give Mika a promotion might be linked to the fact that she's a Dark Heresy character of mine, so I've got a bit of soft spot for her.

 

Have to agree that throwing out the jump pack probably isn't a good idea; it works for Marines since their JP squads are close combat specialists who just happen to use jump packs, but Seraphim are much more closely tied in to the jump pack as a part of their identity and rules.

[Rev. Tiberius Jackhammer]

The drop-pod scatter sounds reasonable, especially considering the force would be giving up rending/inv. or whatever on another unit.

 

Mika's fluff definitely precludes a level of authority beyond squad-leader - the level of ceremony/responsibility likely required of a Palatine would probably be a bit unbelievable.

 

Hmmm. Maybe only Jump-pack Palatines unlocks Seraphim, since they were presumably promoted from a Seraphim Superior (fitting with their frontline, combat leader styling). Maybe reinforce this link by giving the Jump-pack option on the Palatine suboptions for Seraphim paired pistols, and the Seraphim become troops if those options are taken, as in that case the Palatine would be some sort of "Seraphim Supreme" or whatnot.

[*Furyou Miko]

Then again, given her background as a troublemaker explaining how she made it up to Palatine might be problematic, and my desire to give Mika a promotion might be linked to the fact that she's a Dark Heresy character of mine, so I've got a bit of soft spot for her.

 

Aww, and there I thought she was named after me. :)

 

While I love the idea of Seraphim-as-troops, I don't really think the Faithful Blade is large enough as an organisation to warrant such a radical shift. How many Seraphim does the Order have, in total, considering all the other troop types - Battle Squads and Blade Squads (like Tactical and Assault squads) are interchangeable because they have the same stats and special rules, you can chalk it up to which weapons they strapped on that morning, but Seraphim, Lancers, Celestians, Celestian Blades, Knights, Dominions - these are all specialist, uniquely trained squads that can't be shifted around the force organisation chart depending on the needs of the day. Even to be able to field three full units of each would need 165 Sisters.

 

For any given Convent, I'd have trouble imagining most Orders Minoris being able to raise more than 10 Seraphim-level (by which I mean Seraphim and Celestians) Sisters, let alone the 60 you'd need for a full troops slot.

 

What I could imagine happening, however, would be the HQ choice making Seraphim a scoring unit. They remain Fast Attack, but gain the ability to claim (rather than merely contest) objectives. Mika... not so much. She strikes me as the "Annihilate is always a win condition" type to me.

[Chengar Qordath]

Then again, given her background as a troublemaker explaining how she made it up to Palatine might be problematic, and my desire to give Mika a promotion might be linked to the fact that she's a Dark Heresy character of mine, so I've got a bit of soft spot for her.

 

Aww, and there I thought she was named after me. :D

 

Well, if I named a character after you then everyone else would want one too; not sure how I could justify naming a sisters of battle Tiberius...

 

While I love the idea of Seraphim-as-troops, I don't really think the Faithful Blade is large enough as an organisation to warrant such a radical shift. How many Seraphim does the Order have, in total, considering all the other troop types - Battle Squads and Blade Squads (like Tactical and Assault squads) are interchangeable because they have the same stats and special rules, you can chalk it up to which weapons they strapped on that morning, but Seraphim, Lancers, Celestians, Celestian Blades, Knights, Dominions - these are all specialist, uniquely trained squads that can't be shifted around the force organisation chart depending on the needs of the day. Even to be able to field three full units of each would need 165 Sisters.

 

For any given Convent, I'd have trouble imagining most Orders Minoris being able to raise more than 10 Seraphim-level (by which I mean Seraphim and Celestians) Sisters, let alone the 60 you'd need for a full troops slot.

 

What I could imagine happening, however, would be the HQ choice making Seraphim a scoring unit. They remain Fast Attack, but gain the ability to claim (rather than merely contest) objectives.

Have to agree that numbers-wise Seraphim-as-troops are a bit problematic; the only reason I could justify it with Mika is that if she were put in charge of a convent she would go out of her way to encourage the development of a large Seraphim corps at the expense of other units. IF Mika had the resources to either field three Celestian squads or one Seraphim squad, she would pick the Seraphim without a moment's hesitation.

 

I like the idea of being able to make certain units scoring though; it has precedent, adds new options for list-building, and doesn't throw things quite as badly off-balance as making those units Troops. How about having a JP-Palatine make a unit of Seraphim scoring, a Grox-mounted Palatine make a unit of Knights scoring, etc. It would give the Palatine something else to set her apart from the Cannoness beyond being less broad with her faith abilities and costing fewer points.

 

Mika... not so much. She strikes me as the "Annihilate is always a win condition" type to me.

She does have a bit of a reputation for being laudably eager to purge things that are foul within the sight of the Emperor with holy fire. I've actually toyed with giving her a Holy Rage-like rule to represent her tendency to be hot-headedly eager to get into the fight.

 

As a random thought, maybe we could follow the precedent set by Mordrak and make Mika and her Seraphim ther own unique unit? After all, her squad is supposed to be the best-performing (and worst-disciplined) unit in the entire Order, so giving them a unique statline/rules wouldn't be out of the question. It also has the bonus of giving me an excuse to come up with an appropriately badass nickname for her squad (suggestions welcome).

[Rev. Tiberius Jackhammer]

Seraphim!Troops

Personally, I prefer to allow list options which allow most all alternate-forms-of-travel units to be taken as Troops, mainly for the fun of it. Since most often these units are supporting elements to the core of the army, it's rarely unbalanced. As long as the unit isn't too self-sufficient, it'll be balanced enough (probably a bit weaker than using them as standard alongside normal troops) to be taken as troops (hence why allowing, say, Space Marine Bikers as troops is kosher, but why Thunderwolves would be a big noooooooo.)

 

I don't think it would be too unbelievable for an Order which has been established for nearly a millennium and a half to have enough Seraphim for this, especially considering that the Order has outside of the Schola Progenum recruitment sources. The size of the Order is a part of the fluff which allows for plenty of wiggle room, I think. Anyways, seeing as the Blood Angels are capable of maintaining 30 Sanguinary Guard in addition to their additional Vet.s and other specialized troops, I don't think the largest possible amount of 60 Seraphim (can't really see more than 40 being fielded in typical games, though) would be too horrible.

 

Still, the "one scoring unit" approach could also work (although in case you haven't guessed, I'd be all for having them set as troops by correctly equipped HQs.) This is mainly a question of ruleswriting style, I fall a bit on the looser side of the restrictions line.

 

Mika

Hmmmm, if Mika has her own squad, probably bump her down to standard leadership 9, and maybe even prevent the leadership from being raised higher than that (compare to Space Wolves' Lukas the Trickster). Having characterful weaknesses (well, when compared to the other Sisters characters) is probably a more compelling trait than characterful traits.

 

Would you be looking to create a set-in-stone setup for the squad re: wargear and such? Or something customizable (maybe even Mika wouldn't have preset wargear.) If the latter, perhaps she and her squad could have access to non-standard wargear (still paired pistols, though.) Hellpistols, Needle Pistols, perhaps revive Web Pistols and give 40k-scale rules to Rogue Trader Belasco Dueling Pistols.

 

Presumably she bugged/requested/puppy-dog-eyesed Inquisitor Kolbe until she got access to the Inquisitor's armoury (perhaps they might even gain access to some of the "non-evil" Xenos Pistols this way; Fusion, Pulse, mebbe Shuriken, but that would just be aesthetic. These would be more of a stretch than just obscure Imperial pistols, though.) I can definitely picture Kolbe giving a rousing speech to the Sisters who had assisted her in fighting back a Chaos incursion, and saying something along the lines of "words cannot express my gratitude."; at which point Mika would subtly produce a list of interesting weapons she saw Inquisitorial agents wielding.

 

This would mainly be a "fun" option, although granting the Web Pistols an ability to slow down/halt enemy units would be tactically useful and unique within the army.

 

As for names, I'm thinking bird imagery, maybe "Mika's Sparrows"? (I'm kinda big on sparrows, my Thousand Sons squad matches the coloration, and have feathers painted onto their armour.) Still, that's not really that badass. Having them be "Mika's" whatevers would fit the feel of the unit, I think.

 

Names

Well, if I named a character after you then everyone else would want one too; not sure how I could justify naming a sisters of battle Tiberius...

Awwwwwww. ...how would you feel about Sister Repentia Mistress Jackhammer?

[*Furyou Miko]

I dunno, 'Sparrows' is just one of those bird names that has its own charm quite aside from its badassness. Eeh, I can't believe I just conjugated that. >>

 

Mika's squad of irregulars does seem amusing as a concept. Sparrow Squadron? (Like Skull Squadron! Or Blue Angel Squadron, or Red Arrow Squadron... colloquially, respectively, the Sparrows, the Skulls, the Blue Angels and the Red Arrows...)

 

Ehe, anyway. I think Kolbe would probably find Mika's List 'cute'. Maybe even indulge her, so it is feasible... kinda.

 

Web pistols though? I'm not sure how to implement those. Just 'moves as though in difficult terrain' has a precedent (Barbed Stranglers, Night Spinner thingies, mole mortars - I mean Thunderfire cannons), but a unit firing a web pistol won't be doing any damage, ever, so gunslingers is kinda wasted on her. >>

 

When I spoke about making things scoring, the precedent here is "all units of type" - Kantor's Sternguard is the one I was mostly thinking of.

[Rev. Tiberius Jackhammer]

Point on the web pistol, slowing down the enemy a little bit when they're within 12" of the unit is kind of useless. One thought - there's no precedent for this one, but how about having the Web Pistols only need to roll to hit - after they've hit, rather than rolling to wound, the wounded model will now be at Initiative 1 for the following Assault Phase. This would be actively helpful for the unit, since when they could use it to slow down some models in an enemy unit that's about to be charged, either by themselves or another unit. The idea would be that the esoteric selection of pistols would be available to the entire unit, so although the player might not place the webpistols on Mika, they could go on a different Mika-Seraphim.

 

I'm not sure how the Dueling Pistol would be represented if used; it's fluff states it fires a single, powerful, relatively long-range shot before needing reloading. Perhaps they fire somewhere halfway between a hellgun and a lascannon (AP3 S5?) to 18", but can only fire every other turn?

[Chengar Qordath]

Mika getting a few goodies from Kolbe would make a lot of sense; Mika played a big role in the Rudius incident (specifically, she killed the enemy commander and recovered Shea Fallon), and Kolbe was the one in overall command of said operation and its aftermath. Considering the role the Fallon have, the fact that Mika recovered the original has to count for something. I really ought to write up a proper fluff piece on the Rudius incident some day...

 

Mika and the Sparrows will definitely need some sort of rule to properly represent their rambunctiousness. I wouldn't give them a leadership penalty, since the unit is high-morale and well-led. How about a rule that the unit can't have ICs attached to it, or benefit from any leadership/special rules conveyed by other units, to represent the fact that they're a very independent-minded unit? Alternately, instead of an outright block of outside influence, we could say that attached ICs and outside benefits reduce the unit's leadership, since attempts to impose outside authority make the unit more rebellious. I'm also leaning towards giving Mika a high Ld value, but giving the Sparrows themselves low Ld, to represent the fact that Mika is the only one who can keep them in line. Anyone other than Mika who tried to command the Sparrows would probably get a reception only slightly less hostile than a Commissar attached to a Catachan unit.

 

I definitely think the unit should have options for customizing its wargear beyond standard, though I’m not sure how crazy we want to get; giving them too many goodies raises the question of why nobody else gets these toys. As a bare minimum baseline, I would suggest the following upgrade options:

• Hellpistol
  
• Bolt Pistols with Inferno Bolts
  
• Hand Flamer
  
• Inferno Pistol
  
• Plasma Pistol
  

For Mika, I would be inclined to leave her gear pre-determined, or at most let her pick which pistols she takes. Her rules let her have three sets and fire two in any given turn, so letting her pick her pistols makes her quite scary.

 

For some reason, I’m envisioning Mika’s squad as something out of Top Gunj, except they’re jetpack females instead of jet-flying men, and there’s less homosexual subtext.

 

When it comes to making things scoring, all units of type instead of just one works, though there might need to be one or two exceptions (for example, Lancers probably shouldn't be able to score since staying still and holding territory is completely antithetical to their entire raison d'etre).

 

As for Repentia Mistress Jackhammer, that could work except for the fact that the Order doesn’t have Repentia. After all, if they did Mika probably would have been busted into a Repentia squad after uttering such immortal lines as “Well of course I didn‘t follow orders; your orders were stupid.”