20 Strong Blobs With Priests

[Collective Consciousness]

I was browsing though peoples' posted army lists and found that people are running 20 strong sister blobs. I've never really thought much about that possibility and was wondering if people who like or dislike this build would share their experiences with this build.

[WarriorFish]

It can make for a sturdy block that can hold objectives well and throw out a punishing amount of fire power, but I've never run it so someone else will have to sing its praises for you. It's not that I think it's outright awful - in fact I've not really given it too much thought - it just doesn't mesh with my preferred method of building and playing lists.

I prefer more units for the added manoeuvring and tactical options, I want my units pressing forward and not getting bogged down. That and I'm a treadhead so I'm quite fond of mechanising, I also like to try and keep units cheaper so the largest unit I have ever run is 14 Sisters which I have found to be enough for what I wanted.

I'm sure someone will be along soon to explain to us their merits, I am ready to be convinced

[Naminé]

Since the new codex dropped I have run this unit in almost every game. It more or less wins it for me everytime for many reasons, though usually it is simply through weight of dice.

 

In my last game the blob tanked a wraithknight for 5 turns only losing 4 sisters, whilst reducing it to a single wound. There was no doubt that the wraithknight would have been killed if it had not been for its fortune rerolls and its feel no pain (the guy kept rolling 6's).

So barring the fnp they would have wiped it and the d-scythe wraithguard that came to help it... not bad to take those out of his army single-handed.

 

If you havent tried the blob yet, you should. It's an amazing steamroller of fun that you cqn throw around in the same way Celestine used to work :)

[*Furyou Miko]

Point for point, a 20-strong blob puts out more bolter fire than the same number of Sisters in 5-strong or 10-strong squads, and despite what the Marines will tell you, bolters are good at what they do. You lose out on special weapons and mobility, but if you build the rest of your army around the fact that your backbone will only be moving 6-12" a turn (6" once you reach 24" from the enemy) you can mitigate that loss quite comfortably - especially since the super-mobile enemies you have to worry about (Jetbikes, for example) still have to close within range to actually attack you.

 

Fufu, they'll struggle to take objectives... some fool flew his jetbikes over behind one of my 20-blobs, along with a warlock, unleashed the bladestorm... killed five sisters (two 6s were Faithed away, heh) and then lost every jetbike, 3+ save or no 3+ save... because 15 sisters double-tapping is still 30 shots.

[WarriorFish]

Next time you meet a Marine player that thinks bolters aren't good I want you to give them a slap from me. Preferably with the Codex Astartes, but if you don't have one handy it should be a solid backhander :lol:

 

I want to give it a go now, though Emperor alone knows when I can get my next game in. How big a difference does the priest make? Or is a case of being almost mandatory given the size of the squad? What about against certain armies, for example combat or shooting focused - there are a lot of AP3 pie plates about these days.

[*Furyou Miko]

I run them without priests normally, but given the cost of a priest there's really no reason to do so.

 

Most of those AP3 "pieplates" are really just tea saucers, so spreading out properly can protect you, especially if you can spread out AND maintain cover. If all else fails, we're significantly more survivable against them than Marines because of the Shield of Faith.

 

Marine players constantly whine about how 'crap and useless' bolters are. It's ridiculous! They always compare them to plasma guns, for crying out loud. It's like they want their entire army to just auto win because bolters, but then they never take enough bolters because they're too convinced as to their weakness to actually do so!

[WarriorFish]

Well, depends how big your pies are I suppose :P I might confiscate my friend's scatter die because you'd swear it had hits on 3 sides the way it rolls... :lol:

 

As for the complaining, it could be a local thing because I've not seen it even on the B&C which I visit quite a bit of? Maybe "one army syndrome" where they can only see things from the single perspective? Very silly.

[*Furyou Miko]

It's worse on Dakka and in my local area, but yeah.

[Fibonacci]

 How big a difference does the priest make? Or is a case of being almost mandatory given the size of the squad?

Priest are a CC godsend.  They can make a unit much more resiliant but only in close combat.

In the shooting phase, they are just a model that can take a plasmagun.

[WarriorFish]

Rubbish

Speaking of which, anyone else heard the rumblings saying GW has got rid of all the metal stock? I know metal is clearly on the way out but chucking all their current stock is a bit more than that. The GW store is still listing Sisters as in stock normally and I'm not sure what the source is yet so it's not sounding very believable.

As for the priest I've never really used them much as generally I prefer just to take Sisters (allies aside) but this sounds like it could be a good use for them. Emperor knows the models need some use..!

[Fibonacci]

There have been a few rumors around the past month or two about production.  In a nut shell, GW is to become plastic only.  All the current resin (FineCast) models will be turned over to Forge World.  From there we can only speculate about what happens to the metals.  Do they become FW resin?  Replaced with plastics?  Discontinued and forgotten?  Limp along as is so that GW is almost plactic only?

 

Don't forget, this is speculation on rumors so ... don't take any of it at face value.

[Naminé]

Next time you meet a Marine player that thinks bolters aren't good I want you to give them a slap from me. Preferably with the Codex Astartes, but if you don't have one handy it should be a solid backhander

I want to give it a go now, though Emperor alone knows when I can get my next game in. How big a difference does the priest make? Or is a case of being almost mandatory given the size of the squad? What about against certain armies, for example combat or shooting focused - there are a lot of AP3 pie plates about these days.

I must stick my neck out here and say that whilst I like bolters in general, they ARE better on sisters then on marines. In addition, marines have way more weapon options which means it's generally adviseable to stack a great variety of special, cc, combis and heavy weapons in squads rather then putting the bolter first (not always, of course, but generally speaking).

Whereabouts are you based, Warriorfish? I'm after more games at the moment too (got a tournament coming up :p). Definately give it a try, though the priest is not mandatory depending on how you want to build the unit. I say if you have no priests then keep em plain and keep em cheap.

guess I should go into some more detail for everyone's sake!

I run one blob with Uriah, and 5 priests at 2000 points. One priest has litanies of faith whilst the other 4 have power mauls.

Strengths of the Adepta Sororiblob:

1. Tons of dakka with preferred enemy that you can use twice.

2. Fearless unit that is very hard to make un-fearless.

3. in close combat you have counter-attack, re-roll to hit, re-roll to wound, re-roll your saves and have either 16 s5 ap2 attacks at initiative or 12 s8 ap2 attacks at initiative, which can also be precision hits, have concussive and even roll 2 dice (take the highest) for armour pen.

4. All of your invulnerable saves are at least 5+, and re-rollable in CC.

5. Anything designed to wipe out large squads of marines is far less efficient against this squad due to shield of faith, and t3 negating the effectiveness of plasma-shots and the like.

6. Anthing designed to kill light infantry still has to get past the 3+ armour save on 20 fearless models, that are all shooting back.

7. There is nothing that this unit cannot kill bar flyers and AV15.

8. This unit will take a whole game to die, whilst your other units run rampent. This unit is amazing at holding the relic.

9. This unit is often mistaken for a non-threat by players who don't know better, and can pretty much control the midfield single-handedly.

10. There is NOTHING more fun in 40k then punking the uber-scary monstrous-creatures and mega-killy assault units with a group of normal battle sisters :p

There have been a few rumors around the past month or two about production. In a nut shell, GW is to become plastic only. All the current resin (FineCast) models will be turned over to Forge World. From there we can only speculate about what happens to the metals. Do they become FW resin? Replaced with plastics? Discontinued and forgotten? Limp along as is so that GW is almost plactic only?

Don't forget, this is speculation on rumors so ... don't take any of it at face value.

I can see the forgeworld taking over being true, but I would doubt that they will simply discontinue the lines entirely. There is a lot of finecast models out there still.

[Collective Consciousness]

I run them without priests normally, but given the cost of a priest there's really no reason to do so.Most of those AP3 "pieplates" are really just tea saucers, so spreading out properly can protect you, especially if you can spread out AND maintain cover. If all else fails, we're significantly more survivable against them than Marines because of the Shield of Faith.Marine players constantly whine about how 'crap and useless' bolters are. It's ridiculous! They always compare them to plasma guns, for crying out loud. It's like they want their entire army to just auto win because bolters, but then they never take enough bolters because they're too convinced as to their weakness to actually do so!

I know many marine players and never have I heard of someone complaining about bolters. You must play with people who have never seen other infantry wepons.

[Fibonacci]

7. There is nothing that this unit cannot kill bar flyers and AV15.

Some flyers. 18 bolters + extra weapons will put FMC on the ground.

And any flyer with AV 10 will have to jink or take a glance per turn (more or less).

[Naminé]

 

 

7. There is nothing that this unit cannot kill bar flyers and AV15.

Some flyers. 18 bolters + extra weapons will put FMC on the ground.

And any flyer with AV 10 will have to jink or take a glance per turn (more or less).

Lol almost word for word what I was thinking as I wrote that sentence :)

[Collective Consciousness]

There have been a few rumors around the past month or two about production.  In a nut shell, GW is to become plastic only.  All the current resin (FineCast) models will be turned over to Forge World.  From there we can only speculate about what happens to the metals.  Do they become FW resin?  Replaced with plastics?  Discontinued and forgotten?  Limp along as is so that GW is almost plactic only?

 

Don't forget, this is speculation on rumors so ... don't take any of it at face value.

I've heard that GW is going to be releasing new plastic kits such as hellbrutes, chaos lords and harlequins so I can see them going to plastic. I've never heard of GW models going to FW (I may be wrong). And supposedly fine cast is on the way out. I could also see them getting discontinued like BFG or EPIC. :(

[WarriorFish]

Bolters are indeed better on Sisters, but their complaint is that bolters are not good. Bolters and Tacticals routinely win me games and not just because they're scoring. Some people just like to complain, especially on the Internet and you can't fight that level of wilful ignorance. That aside there's also selfish reasons not to: the more opponents who don't understand their army the easier it is to win right? :lol:

 

As for rumours it has been clear for a while that GW is ditching Finecast for plastic which is good but the fate of metal hasn't been mentioned other than it being phased out which we already know thanks to Finecast. It's one thing for GW to go all plastic but another for them to just ditch all metal stock without having plastic replacements. Until we hear more I'm placing this firmly in the "heavy salt" category.

 

To take the post back on track, sadly I am quite far away from you Naminé as I'm on the south coast and I'm juggling seemingly 1001 things at the moment so it's more lack of time than opponents lately :( The large squad sounds like you need to forge your list around it a bit but that's to be expected, it seems effective for it so I'm keen to try it out :)

[Naminé]

True enough, though generally speaking, building your list around troops choices is never a bad thing! :p

[WarriorFish]

I do like the list building aspect of the game, it's the first and probably most important step on the road to victory! As you must have Troop choices in your army it makes sense that you should build a place for them too - even more so if you're putting quite a few points in to them such as a 20 Sister unit.

It is easier for us though, as Sister squads are amongst the best Troop options in the game I reckon. As everyone is surely tired of hearing me say: you can never go wrong with more Sisters

All this said, is it a bad time to say I'm sort of in the middle of repainting? I thought the new plastics when they eventually come would be a good excuse but I'm trying new schemes out. It seems I didn't learn my lesson when I decided to repaint my Guard and Marines (at the same time)

[IK Viper]

I think there is alot to be said for how you use Saint in conjunction with these blobs.  She CAN DIE NOW, so throwing her forward will often result in her gettin quadruppled out (Doubled out twice... lol) and then she is gone.  My wife gets alot more use out of her in these large blobs of Battle Sisters.  They are fearless so the problem with them is they get stuck in combats and can't get out some times...  Most of the time you see a charge coming, jump Saint into the unit and then you can Hit and Run whenever you want, plus the War Hymns ramp Saint up alot.  Hatred plus Reroll to wound or reroll armor is devistating.  Unless the attacks will double her out, her 2+ save rerolling will often tank everything a normal enemy unit can put out, then you leave so you Exocist can clean up.  Not to mention a 3d6 move followed by your regular movement can slingshot a big scoring unit across the board. 

 

ADL played at midfield makes these blobs super hard to kill at range.

[greggles]

Anyone who says bolters suck, has never faced the wrath of two stormraven's coming on board the same turn, bristling with 4 hurricane bolters. Anything that forces handfuls of saves in this game is amazing.

[Smurfben]

Viper: That's actually pretty clever :) I'm terrible at spotting USR's and their uses so thanks for pointing that out to me. I was going to run the Saint in a unit of 10 Seriphim, maybe I'll re-think a little!

 

Greggles: I completely agree with that statement. As an ork play predominantly (i've seen the light no worries!) I see time and time again that by forcing your opponent to make lots of armour saves, he quickly loses units. It's not uncommon for me to kill most of a terminator squad with just 30 ork shoota boys.

[Fibonacci]

 Unless the attacks will double her out, her 2+ save rerolling will often tank everything a normal enemy unit can put out,

Plasma is her kryptonite.  Stay away from Chaos Chosen!

[IK Viper]

Which is why you run her around IN THE MIDDLE of 20 Battle Sisters, dont even trust that LOS roll, if you lose her you loose Hit and Run and alot of CC power.  Also with her faster speed she can often jump up to the front of the unit before charging to stretch out and get an additional 2 inches plus a base width of movement on the blob, which really helps when trying to make a charge. 

 

If you are running multiple blobs she can also easily hop between them and use a "Slingshot Engage" to make it into combats far, far away.   

 

In the right situation she can turn those blobs into a little wrecking crew, so long as you can engage units without high volumes of  AP2-3 CC attacks. 

 

The tactic works deffensively too.  You can bubble wrap with a Battle Sister blob, absorb a charge with Fearless and Emperor Protects, then Hit and Run away which really sets you up to gun down whatever you bounced out of combat with, or even single tap and then assault.  This bubble wrap idea works great with Uriah as well as you are getting Counter Attack from him.  You can let the enemy come within 18 inches, step up and double tap them, add Saint to the squad and then wait.  If they charge you, overwatch, throw up Emperor Protects, Challenge out any real beatsticks with the superior, and then Hit and Run away only to do the same dance all over again if you need to, or use it to bounce that blob forward to midfield and let you backfield clean up. 

 

When it works it really shocks people. 

 

It really kills single model combat units that are charactors like DP's becasue you accept the charge and either Krak Granade them to death, or challenge with the superior and leave.  You have then traded one battle sister for the privilage of grounding a DP so your Exorcists can light him up.  (bear in mind that most of the DP's I am seeing don't really assault much any more, instead they fly around and shoot/ vector strike)  Regardless, this tactic makes a Sisters Blob threatening enough to usually keep them off the ground where they can really wreck things.   BUT YOU MUST HAVE HIT AND RUN, otherwise the DP can just jump into your unit and safely bash girls every turn knowing they are safe in combat b/c your fearless and sister rarely have a counter assault unit that can clean out a DP in combat. 

 

Couple other things we have been trying to make these unts nasty:

 

Pay for a Power Maul on your Min. Priest b/c he is now S5 when using this weapon.  Smash Attacks are double your strength and AP2 ...  gives a priest 3 attacks at S10 AP2 base.  That will really scare a DP from coming down to play, many of which are T5,  also works great on Centurions/Oblits, Bike IC's etc.

 

Add Inquisition Allies.  The Liber Hereticus relic, Ordo Mallious Inquisitors with 1 power and psycannon, and access to servo skulls are not bad.  Same with Coteaz.  Divination powers are mostly force multipliers which have a greater effect on big units, for example the 4++, Full BS Overwatch, Misfortune, and Ignores Cover are all great on a Sister Blob.  These Inquisitors also intorduce another 2+ save in the unit for the Reroll armour save trick (we assume it works on them b/c they have Priests too that do the exact same things)

[IK Viper]

One last thing, Coteaz in particular is obviously really good b/c of all his special rules but that 2nd power on Divination will always help your army.  Even Precoc makes him a wound sink and Scryers Gave makes your Dominions show up when and where you want 8 out of 9 times... Last but not least, who can argue about an Exorcist with Prescience?