thinking of starting sisters

[undeadfilth]

so i`ve been playing tyranids for about 6 years and blood angels for about 3 and am considering sisters i already have two squads of repentia two squads of seraphim and a tac squad and was wondering how many immolaters with what loadout and squad would work well in 1500 and 2500 pt games. and are exorcists good still? they used to piss me off when my buddy ran em:P

[WarriorFish]

Good choice in you new army :) I assume you mean the models you get in the box by squads and standard Sisters when you mention tac, and if so you'll need more than a single squad of Sisters! The ordinary Sister is the core of a SoB army and you can never do wrong by adding more squads in.

 

As for the repentia they're sadly lacking currently by good for a bit of fun or for keeping your opponents' on their toes. Seraphim are great though and a couple of boxes of each will be enough - you can always get some more Seras if you want later. Yes, Exorcists are still good and more to the point nigh mandatory to provide some long range AT. Consider getting 2 at least.

 

I'd recommend that you get enough Sisters for 3 mechanised squads as you will find that's pretty much the minimum you'd need (the bolter Sister is used everywhere) even at 1500. Immolators are rarer, you'd only need to build a couple for ordinary lists unless you want to spam them - Rhinos will be your mainstay transport as ordinary SoB squads can't take Immos. Immos are best with their default heavy flamer weaponry, and SoB squads are great with melta and flamer especially with the heavy flamer each squad can take!

 

Ultimately that's it though for the current codex. Mehanised Sisters with melta and flamer supported by Exos is the traditional and an effective way to run the army. A flying Canoness of Doom works well especially with Seras but thanks to older rules you can sticka foot Canoness with a Celestian retinue (in an Immo or Rhino) and form a pretty effective close combat unit with Eviscerators and assault weaponry.

 

If you haven't already, check out the army lists section along with the general Ordos chat. It'll give you a good idea of what normally works.

[andrewm9]

so i`ve been playing tyranids for about 6 years and blood angels for about 3 and am considering sisters i already have two squads of repentia two squads of seraphim and a tac squad and was wondering how many immolaters with what loadout and squad would work well in 1500 and 2500 pt games. and are exorcists good still? they used to piss me off when my buddy ran em:P

 

The answer is it depends. :) You are looking at collecting an expensive force money wise since you are buying all blisters at this point for your troops if you want to buy new. Plus do not think of them as girl marines as they don't play liek them at all.

 

You will want to lose the Repentia off of your list. They will never be terribly competetive since they must move across the board without a transport and will always strike last in CC which is all they can do. That and you can only field one squad of 5 to 20 of them, at 20 points each they are a steep point investment.

 

If you are sticking with only Sisters, you will want enough for 3 or 4 squads if you are going for 2500 point games. Thats 30 or 40 sisters since they must be fielded in squads of 10 and cannot combat squad like Space Marines. If you want to spam Immolators you will want at somewhere between 6 to 11. I personally don't use them all that much but I know they can be effective enmasse. Immolators can't be used as transports for a Battle Sister squad since the troop capacity is 6 and the minimum squad size is 10. You can squeeze 11 Immolators in a properly built list. You can use 2 for transporting your Palatines and her Celestian retinue, 3 for you dominion squads in Fast Attack, 3 for your Celestian squads in the elite section, and 3 for just plain heavy support. You'll want to look at www.yesthetruthhurts.com for Stelek's blog and how he built the army. Its not a cheap investment since you are spending over 300 dollars US in tanks alone.

 

If you don't want to spam at all don't field them and go for 3 Exorcists as your Heavy Support. Unless you have extremely heavy terrain, you can't go wrong. Well you can can but the dice gods will have to hate you. A good list of that size for pure sisters should consist of a Canoness and retinue or a jump Canoness for HQ (I personally prefer the retinue), 3 to 4 battle sister squads with at least one melta each (maybe 2 or go with a heavy flamer instead of 1) for troops, 3 Exorcists for heavy support, and 1 or 2 Seraphim squads with 2 sets of twin hand flamers. I leave the elite choices alone when fielding pure sisters. Celestians look great but your points are usually better spent on more Battle Sisters since you need the troops for objectives in 5th edition. If you want more flamer goodness throw in a Dominion Squad in an Immolator since they can throw down 5 flamer templates but be careful as its easy to make this more expensive that a Battle Sister squad if you are not careful.

 

If pure sisters is not your thing you can play aroudn with your list more and maybe use an IG platoon for more long ranged support which is something the codex severley lacks. Actually 1 IG platoon can pack more long range firepower than the rest of your army combined since in theory it can field 15 or more autocannons. The trick is how much to field without marginalizing the Sisters and reducing their Faith total too much. Too much and you might as well play IG.

 

Also while I hate to say it since I love Sisters, you'll either spend a small fortune making your army buying new straight from GW or be forced to pick through Ebay (or something similar) to build you army as you can longer buy them at brick and mortar stores.

 

Hopefully this helps somewhat. Good luck building your army.

[DarKHaZZ13]

2 or 3 exorcists.

sit back and enjoy :(

[melvinmcsnatch]

Starting a Sister army is quite the endeavor these days. The used pieces are still selling around 75% the new price. Your best bet is to buy a complete used army if you see one come up.

 

When people say you'll need 3 Sisters squads minimum, they're only counting the Sisters models you'll be using as TROOP choices. You'll actually be using the same models as Celestians, Dominions or Retributors.

 

So I'm gonna go ahead and suggest you'll need 50+ Sisters models PLUS special weapons to be hitting 2000 pts. Lots of Heavy flamers, flamers and meltas.

 

For the Immolators, I keep the turrets detached so I can use them a Rhinos or Immos, but in a fully mech Sisters force, I'm running 4 (I should be using 5) at 1500 pts. My 1850 list I'm working towards throws at least 2 more Immos into the mix.

 

Your bread and better are going to be 10 Sisters squads w 2 special weapons, Rhinos-Immos and the Exorcist. 2 Exorcists are a must have for 1500+. They're extremely good elite and light armor killing. 3 can fit into a 2000.

 

Seraphim are dissapointing. They're good, but 100% of the time they're shot up before they're useful. They are taller than rhinos, so they can't hide.

 

Repentia have extremely limited use. Besides footslogging, low armor, expensive point cost, and striking last -- they have low toughness. They're "best" against power armor, but after your opponent strikes you with his MEQ, your 2 surviving Repentia might kill 1 or 2 of them. I've had a squad of 10 wiped out by kroots... that's just embarrassing.

 

Save your money, don't buy arco-flags (they're ultra-suicidal), eversor, cullexus, vindicare assassins.

 

For tourny list ideas, talk to Fish (he seems to be with it) and look for stJohn's "Immo Spam" list for ideas.

 

Goodluck.

[Chengar Qordath]

Repentia have extremely limited use. Besides footslogging, low armor, expensive point cost, and striking last -- they have low toughness. They're "best" against power armor, but after your opponent strikes you with his MEQ, your 2 surviving Repentia might kill 1 or 2 of them. I've had a squad of 10 wiped out by kroots... that's just embarrassing.

Repentia are not good at killing MEQ, and especially not things like Kroot; if you're using them that way, then you're using them wrong. If you want your Repentia to shine, throw them at anything with an armor value; not even a Land Raider is going to like having that many eviscerator attacks coming after it. They can also do decently against some monstrous creatures since their toughness and poor armor saves wouldn't make a difference, and their armor ignoring strength 6 attacks are still pretty good. Naturally, they also do well against anything like Tactical terminators that hits at the same initiative they do.

[Eltnot]

A good core for your army would be something like this:

 

Canoness (either with jump pack or in a retinue of Celestians in an Immolator)

 

Squad of Seraphim with either two sets of flamers or two sets of Inferno pistols.

 

Three squads of battle sisters in rhinos (you can try dropping one squad for a unit of storm troopers in a chimera with plasma or better yet, an IG platoon with missile launchers)

 

Two Exorcists.

 

From there, try options out and work out what works best for you in your area. However keep in mind that you have to be tenacious and keep at the enemy. If terrain is in the way, go over it, not around it. If you can't hit the enemy hard in one area of their battle line, then you lose, so getting up to that nice 12" range ASAP is imperative.

[undeadfilth]

Thanks for all of the awesome replies^.^ I'm considering running as many immolators as possible with 3 exorcists. I noticed that exorcists can take twin-linked multi-meltas which seems pretty hawt to me. how many can i run at 2500 if i run three exorcists? 8 right? that's not too bad. are any of the upgrades for the immolators worth taking or should i run the heavy flamers over the twin linked multi-meltas? and i'm thinking of running the squads with as much melta as i can.... i has a melta fetish:P you has armour? i melta it! you has t6 with 6 wounds? i melta it! its amazing^.^ anyways yeah, immolators, exorcists and 400 meltas on the field sounds amazingly hawt to me. but is it tourney worthy? i tend to be really competitive so i don't wanna play them and get all butt hurt cause i get my face melted:P part of the reason i only owned my tau for a couple months:P anyways lemme know your thoughts^.^

[WarriorFish]

If you're set on tourney then SoB can be a strong army but you'll need to get quite a few games in beforehand as they're not an army you can be proficient in right out of the box. This is chiefly down to Acts of Faith. Though it's sad to say SoB show their codex age in performance and against the builds you'll likely face at a tourney you'll be at the disadvantage so you'll have to play well but it's by no means insurmountable.

 

MMs on Immolators is unfortunately a poor choice as it raises the cost of an already more expensive transport for little gain. No opponent will let it near their tanks/MCs and with AV11 they won't have much difficulty either. Heavy Flamers is a better choice by far - cheaper and more effective as you can move 12" and still fire, re-rolling wounds too - it's not really a contest. Keep them cheap, but Extra Armour is a good idea to keep them moving so they can still drop off Sisters to bolter/melta/flamer shock - nice and cheap for us too.

 

That aside, Immo spam requires lots of foot troops too, as they compete for HS slots with the prized Exorcist. Celestians as Elites and HQ and Dominions as FA are the only other ways to get Immos, but they work well carrying infantry as they can leap out and melta, especially Doms with up to 4 special weapons! Don't discount flamers though, as they'll annihilate hordes and with Divine Guidance they'll do the same to even Marines - Doms with 4 flamers is brilliant for this but don't forget heavy flamers on standard SoB squads as the extra strength and AP4 make a big difference.

 

 

I'd say try to keep things cheaper where possible (don't forget the Book of Saint Lucius) and maintain large numbers of ideally mechanised Sisters. Sisters are like Marines when shooting (better actually) so if you can get enough bodies in you can lay waste to anything especially if you take loads of melta. Sisters are a good price too (not £ wise though...) so it's not too difficult to do. I'm not much of a tourney player though but I'm sure someone else can give some more advice.

[melvinmcsnatch]

undeadfilth, Exorcists can't run multi-meltas. You may want to clarify. They only get Exorcist launchers and wargear storm-bolter or hunter killer.

 

My favorite Immolators are heavy-flames turrets with 2 melta Celestians inside. Yummy. When you're running a bunch of Immolators, you're gonna find your optimum blend of MMelta and HFlames.

 

And you're going to be doing the same thing to Tau that they did to you! Hahaha. A couple weeks ago I killed an entire Firewarriors squad and a Kroot squad with a heavy flamer (seperate times). Exorcist killed every suit in view (insta-death!). And melta Sisters took down his Devilfish from outside of melta range and caused mass casualties. Orks like to eat flames too. Funny, burnt flesh makes Orks smell better.

 

You'll have to play harder against everyone else I suppose. I think the Astartes definitely have a bit of advantage over Sisters. But competitively, I can promise you that you'll put a few in the win column.

 

Remember to use Divine Guidance. Rending flames? Yes please!

 

You'll love it. It's a way of life.

 

Chengar, you're absolutely right. But never in a million years will they ever get close to enemy armor, because as you said they're not for fighting infantry of any kind! They're not for taking bullets or CC, then what are they for? The fraction of success I've had with them is in ignoring power armor saves after some lucky saves.

 

And no one give me that "stay out of line of sight" crap. You damn well know that's rarely an option. I can cower like the best of them, but I think the points are best spent elsewhere.

[Brother_Fatiswon]

do pure sisters need the IA2Update to compete? i've been liking the idea of the Repressor x6 (troops/Fast x3 of each) and x3 exorcists...

[Chengar Qordath]

do pure sisters need the IA2Update to compete? i've been liking the idea of the Repressor x6 (troops/Fast x3 of each) and x3 exorcists...

We can manage without it if we have to, but the IA2 update helps a lot. Repressors are very nice, and so is getting Rhinos that aren't horribly overpriced. Unfortunately, we still pay too much for immolators even with IA2.

[ArmouredWing]

Well, I'd have to say it's a brave gamer indeed that decides to choose an army based in C:WH... and this is coming from a dedicated sisters player of a number of years.

 

The big problem you'll have is getting an army together that doesn't break the bank from the get go. Buying from GW isn't a good option, if you look at buying a basic sisters unit of 10 that includes a couple of spec weapons and a transport you'll probably be looking at forking out £60+ (or equivalent international currency) for each squad and that's a very conservative estimate.

 

Ebay is a possibility and prices have come down a little over the last couple of months but a full tournie class force is going to set you back a good £400-£500 at least.

 

That said if you're in it for the long haul then welcome to the fold, now lets see what info I can give you.

 

So, firstly you need to concentrate on building your core list and this will depend on how you forsee yourself playing sisters. The one thing to bear in mind (as previously stated but RFT) is that sisters aren't marines. They might have PA, similar weapons and similar BS stats but their lower S & T means they play in a very different way. The key thing to remember is that Sisters excell in short - medium range fire and success lies in being able to accurately estimate that 12"/template range where they do the most damage. With that being the case a good sisters player will not sit back and let an opponent come to them but advance up to that range and then let rip with a salvo that should result in your opponent's unit being significantly weakened and leave them wondering if that assault is really going to work. So my first piece of advice is to leave the bells, whistles and gadgetry that is in the wargear list and concentrate on getting bodies on the table because your basic faithful SoB squad can present a real force to be reckoned with against all but the most expensive enemy units on the table.

 

Now you'll see a number of opinions here in the OI forums, most of which promote the use of mechanised forces, however don't discount the potential effectiveness of large footslogging squads either. Bear in mind that sisters squads are a minimum of 10 and a max of 20 and then consider the effects of DG when fielding squads in the mid teens (will pass their faith roll on anything other than a double 6). That said it is also generally known that mech sisters are a lot easier to get to grips with as they are smaller units and faster and getting around in their transport, but big squads can also present a very hard target to shift off objectives. It's horses for courses and the way you play will determine the best fit for ya.

 

In terms of FA Seraphim used to be one of the very best choices in the game, however with the advent of 5th ed they lost their scoring ability and with that they became not so sure an option. That said they are still a nice unit to play around with and can really throw a spanner in the works of your opponent especially as they retain their own version of the hit and run rule that lets them split from CC without the need for an I roll. If I were to offer one piece of advice for Seraphim though it would be to pretty much always field them with IP's as apposed to hand flamers. Sure the templates are nice but you should always be hunting the big game with them given their high points cost, so the order of the day is termies/vehicles/crisis suits/characters etc and because they are TL then they have a much better chance of hitting then wounding with the S8 (instant death on MEQ characters).

 

Exorcists are a no brainer, they are one of the best HS choices in the game and have a rightly feared reputation. The thing to remember here though is that you need to field them in a pair at least and if you're looking at tournie play then 3 is virtually a must. The reason for this is that on their own they suffer way too much from bad rolls, when you're looking for a good salvo it can be a major problem if you roll low so to ofset the chance of that happening you need the extra tanks of the table. In the event that you roll good on both/3 of them then it's a bonus and they'll cause major devastation.

 

Immolators are best used as specialist transport rather than HS and as it's been mentioned you need to stay with the TL HF's rather than switching for MM's. Thier real strength is in their ability to move the full 12" and still fire and if you lose the HF's then you also lose the advantage of movement. The only time I'd swap the weapons is if I were to give a unit of Ret's a transport, in this circumstance I'd consider equipping it with TL HB's to support the Ret's long range anti infantry fire. I usually trade off this by equipping the rets with 3 HB's instead of 4 and then give the immolator the 4th HB instead. By doing this I've found it gives the unti a little more flexibility in terms of being able to split some of the fire but it's usually only an option if I know I'm facing a horde list and need the extra range early on in the game.

 

Anyway, there's a bit of food for thought. Like I say, welcome to the OI and keep us informed of how it goes. Be interesting to see you build your force up.