My Sisters (Order of the Vermilion Veil)

[tvih]

A bit of a belated update. Haven't been getting much done due to working on marines (and yet still miserably failing at getting them painted for a tournament):

 

[Bjorn Firewalker]

Good job.

[tvih]

Only about two months later than intended, finally got around to playing a game with the new Codex. Actually it was also my first game with pure Sisters, as I always ran them with allies before due to not having enough painted. To try and keep things simple and quick (ahahahah, as it turned out) it was a 1000-point game. Opponent: Red Corsairs regenade marines.

My list:

Celestine + 1 Geminae
Canoness with inferno + Blade of Admonition + MD-generating WL trait
Hospitaller with Heroine in the Making & invul-improving WL trait
3x5 Battle Sister Squads (mix of melta and flamer upgrades)
1x5 Seraphim (hand flamers)
1x4 Repentia (only plastic models in this list!)
1x5 Retributors w/4xHeavy Bolter
Exorcist
Immolator w/multi-meltas

Enemy list roughly:
Sorcerer
Huron Blackheart
Exalted Champion (2x Lightning Claw)
10-man CSM w/2x plasma
10-man CSM w/2x melta
10-man CSM w/melee weapons
8-man? Khorne Berserkers
3 Rhinos

-

Turn 1:

Going first. Got TacObj to grab 3 objectives, so two BSS rushed to one (I misread and it was for my turn only rather than battle round, so one would've sufficed...), while the third & Exorcist held backline objectives. Characters and Seraphim hid behind the ruin containing the objective, as seen in pic 1 (3rd BSS and Retributors were in the upper right ruin, Repentia & Canoness in Immolator). Managed to blow up one Rhino with Exorcist, second with infantry & Immolator & Retributors, and also killed some infantry.

His turn, he shoots & charges the two BSS at the objective, taking some casualties from overwatch (though my flamers rolled terribly). Less than surprisingly both BSS are wiped out. Celestine, who did a Heroic Intervention, whacked some Khorne Berserkers in retribution. Oh, and my Immolator blew up to melta fire, taking three Repentia with it. Ugh.

-

Turn 2:

Funnily having gotten an Advance TacOps previous round, now I also got Hold the Line, the two being opposites of each other. Hospitaller brought back a Repentia. Seraphim & Celestine (who fell back) burned the remaining Khorne Berserkers into crispy critters, while the rest that were nearby shot the remaining CC CSM to bits. This left the Champion character as the closest model to my Retributors, who shot it down to 1 wound. I also shot at least half of one CSM-squad, the one with the meltas.

On his turn he respawned said melta squad, a nasty surprise. He spawned it to my table edge. His remaining Rhino rushed the middle objective for some reason. His characters also came towards there. My Canoness ended up shot a bit, and Exorcist lost 2 wound as well to the melta squad, and due to terrible save-rolling the Seraphim died as well in the hands of the plasma squad's shooting.

-

Turn 3:

The leadership of my Order being even more in disarray about what they want apparently, I gained Behind the Enemy Lines TacObj. What's going on? Another Repentia brought back to full health, and they charged the Rhino only taking two wounds off (forgot rerolls). The Champion character was assassinated for some VP. Sorcerer was cut to bits by Celestine's Ardent Blade, after which she and the Geminae consolidated into CC with the Rhino to avoid getting shot. Exorcist & co only managed to a few of the outflanking melta dudes. Canoness charged the plasma squad with the help of Miracle Dice, killing 4, taking two wounds in return, leaving her at 1. Further two died from morale.

His melta squad decided to hide behind a rock, not really doing anything. Plasma squad respawned from the "southern" edge (bottom in pics, and seen in pic 3) and shot at my Canoness. Luckily she survived the plasma shots, with her Rosarius working overtime and me spending my last CP for a reroll on one of them. Bolt shots went to Hospitaller who shrugged them off. Huron charged Celestine & Geminae... didn't really get much done? One or two wounds to Celestine? Plus one to Geminae with witchcraft prior. Celestine caused two wounds back, not great either.

-

Turn 4:

Another Repentia returns. Rhino takes a beating as I finally remember rerolls too; still survives though despite Celestine and Hospitaller attacking it too. Exorcist & remaining BSS blasted the hiding melta squad into oblivion and finally securing Hold the Line, while Geminae went forth and grabbed Behind the Enemy Lines. Retributors managed to kill half of the respawned plasma squad. Canoness continues his murder spree by charging and killing Huron and his pet parrot. She then consolidates onto the Rhino-hugging party.

Opponent opted to stop the game at this point because we had been at it for 4h 45min (45min being setup). Ridiculous, I know, hence the ahahahaha in the beginning. He only had the near-wrecked Rhino and 5 marines. He could only achieve one VP that turn anyway, at which point the game would've ended 6 (or 8, if using First Blood & Slay the Warlord) to 5 in my favor. I still had fully intact Repentia (thanks to the hard-working Hospitaller), BSS and Retributors, as well as all my characters.

-

Overall fun game despite being sloooow going, me my usual slow self and with a new codex to boot, while he was quite new to the game as whole (his third game or something?). It didn't help that I forgot my datacards. In the start I remembered the Miracle Dice quite well, but later on I missed many good opportunities, remembering I should've used 'em only after doing a roll already. I ended the game with 5 of them. Overall I did roll quite poor numbers for them most of the time. My Sacred Rites were +1 to advance and charge and the anti-psyker thing, but sadly I didn't manage to deny any witch powers at all due to bad rolls.

[tvih]

Made myself a little MD tracker tray from foam. Alas the stony look didn't quite come through as well as with the small bases, but visuals aside it should get the job done. The fit of the dice is snug enough that they currently don't fall off even if I turn the tray upside down, though over time I expect that'll change. Still, should prevent most cases of accidentally knocking over pooled MD/CP/VP dice.

[tvih]

Been hard to find painting motivation, even less so after getting my marines destroyed in last week tournaments, but at least I managed to finish the highlights and such on this Superior:

Still need to scrape together a basic battalion with the also-in-progress Exorcist accompanying, but it's taking its time for sure. This one's the first magnetized Sisters model I've painted. Loving the Condemnor, and definitely planning on using it instead of a regular Boltgun if not using a combi-weapon. Kinda wanted to add a scabbard but tricky when you can be using either type of sword. Mostly expecting to use a chainsword, but if running a Celestian squad I could see a power sword getting use as well.

[Bjorn Firewalker]

Not bad.

[bkde]

How does the condemnor compare in size to the old metal BSS boltguns?

[Dread]

I really like the dice holder. It's inspired me to make one. I like your choice on the ss, paint too.

[tvih]

Just a pic from my last game of 8th that I played last week, a 1000pt battle against Harlequins.

Technically a victory, but it was a bit messy, even the opposing player changed in the middle of the game. Haha. Both sides kept forgetting rules etc all the time. Still, at least it was a win to end the edition. Probably having my first game of 9th tomorrow, but I'm not sure if it'll be with Sisters or marines yet.

[tvih]

Aaaand it looks like I'm in "paint scheme decision hell" all over again (rant incoming, you've been warned - run while you can). Having just painted the SM Judiciar this week, with its brown surcoat, I got the ol' urge to try out more browns for my Imperials (my orks already have various browns in their clothing, for Imperials before Judiciar it's only been two Vostroyan vehicles and the obvious small bits and pieces like belts, holsters etc).

 

So... cue in a Battle Sister with brown instead of red cloths. And as expected it looks very nice. A very leathery look, like with the judiciar. And it's at least five times faster than red cloths, probably even faster. Red requires many layers with basecoat, then some brighter parts and shading etc. Brown? One layer of Rhinox, drybrush with Mournfang. Done. Maybe another quick drybrush of Skrag brown for increased contrast, but even that's not necessary. Airbrushing the reds might be somewhere in between, but all the cleanup you have to do on the airbrush might negate much of the gain compared to brushed-on red.

 

Now, if I hadn't started the project up until this point, it'd be no problem, I'd probably just go with brown. But there's over a dozen models with red cloths already. Including five Seraphim, of which more in a bit. Mind you, I like the red cloths. But they're a pain to do. So much layering, at least when done over black. I considered trying over a lighter spray, and perhaps then even doing the armor with Contrast, but I dunno. It'd look quite different too. I'd really need to speed up the armor painting too though, and maybe I'll try some drybrushing instead of actual edge highlighting. Sigh. I still might even backtrack to silver armor like with my metal models if not for the vehicles looking bad that way*, it was so easy for the infantry. And I guess I could just mix red and brown cloth models but that just feels like laziness, even if you could easily enough come up with lore-excuses for such. Though if I made silver armor, painting red on top of silver spray would in turn be fairly easy too, for a not-100%-Argent-Shroud look. Technically for this look I could just paint over the black parts of existing models to "convert" them, as well. But... the frickin' vehicles, and all that.

 

And yeah, the Seraphim... the current five are basically done bar armor highlights. But I've been re-thinking about making the BR detachment actually in the BR scheme again, which then would require repainting them entirely. What a pain. I do have the red base color in an airbrush paint format so that'd help, but still undoing a fair few hours of work.

 

I really hate being lowkey (or less so "low") OCD about these things. It really makes enjoying the hobby more difficult than it should be.

(* I actually ended up selling my older Exorcist because it looked crappy in silver and the metal parts were such a PITA. Also sold a bunch of unpainted infantry, about a dozen power armor and a a full repentia squad... for a decent enough price locally that I can buy an equivalent bunch of models in the new plastics.)

[tvih]

Finally got some reinforcements in the form of multipart Seraphim/Zephyrim as well as Repentia. And a second Exorcist, not that I've even finished painting the first one.

But my army set Seraphim have been waiting half-finished all this time for the multiparts to switch some bits around. As such the two duplicate Seraphim poses now got recruited into the Zephyrim for variety. I had originally been contemplating magnetising the weaponry, but I figure for my sanity in this case I may just glue the arms for everyone, or at least a unit of Zephyrim and Seraphim each. With a total of 15 plastic jump models then I could field 10 of one type and 5 of the other. The other option is to buy another box later for 10+10 (of plastic... of course I have the hand flamer unit for the Argent Shroud).

I started building the Repentia Superior as a Canoness as well. I still haven't finished any plastic canonesses, so it's about time. This one's probably gonna be the "Beneficence smash Canoness" since I'll probably just build the army set one with the sword it normally has, to be Blade of Admonition if I'm not playing a BR detachment. And speaking of BR and whatnot... I guess I'm just going to keep painting my almost-OML in the end, even for the "BR" units. I don't want to start painting black cloth.

Also I finally got myself an Assassin. Not strictly a Sisters unit obviously, but acquired it mainly to bolster my Sisters who of course have no snipers of their own:

I suppose I still need to get another Retributor kit at some point to get that full multimelta unit, especially now that they've been buffed, as well as make one more conversion for Argent Shroud for them to have the same. Also at least one new-style Immolator, maybe a Rhino. Beyond that? Not sure if I need anything that's currently out. It'll certainly take decades to finish even the current units, especially considering all my other projects.

Edited August 21, 2020 by tvih

[Bjorn Firewalker]

Good job on the Assassin.

[tvih]

I've gotten a bunch of models sprayed, but not much progress beyond that. Trying to get as much sprayed as I can before the weather gets too cold to do it outside. This includes some arco-flagellants and repentia to make a full squad of the latter and enough to fit into an Immolator for the former. This time around I fully assembled them before painting, because with the Army Set repentia I've been having problems with the arms coming off due to gluing after painting. Gonna be a pain to paint them this way though. Oh well. Other additions include Imagifier (where I completely messed up the the "join" between the statue and the stick) and retributors.

And then there's Tariana Palos, who I actually had to finish up as soon as I got her, took me all day trying to get it done with my attention-deficiency:

Such a great model for sure, easily one of my favorites. I'm not sure if I'll use her as just a superior, or Palatine, or what. I suppose it depends on what options palatine gets, but since Canoness can't use a bolter, I have a feeling Palatine can't either.

I'll probably give her a chainsword at least in any case. It'd be possible to glue one to her left hand, but I'm not sure if I want to do it that way. Amalia Novena is nice in that you can stick a power sword or chainsword into the "crook" of her left arm without need to glue, magnetize or anything. It'll stay in place nicely. For Tariana would probably have to have the sword in a "reverse grip" and the tip glued to the base instead. But we shall see, any unalterable decisions will have to wait until the palatine datasheet is shown.

[Bjorn Firewalker]

I like the painting and detailing you applied to the model.

[tvih]

And finally a full squad of repentia:

The "front" five are the new ones, the rear ones the previously finished from the army set. Now I'd still of course have 4 more I could build, but I dunno if I'm gonna run more than one squad. Maybe if I can find someone to split a box or something, running a unit of just 4 is kinda mediocre after all.

There's still some detailing I'll probably do to them at some point, but for now they're good enough for the table at least. Need to get things DONE.

[tvih]

Long time no post... as per the earlier thread, I struggled with my color scheme choices a lot. While I started my plastics with OML, I was always contemplating options. Some time ago I finally (hopefully?) settled on this scheme that in retrospect is like a merging of AS and OML, with extra brown thrown in. First full squad in said scheme being the awesome Sacresant models:

Which makes it fairly easy to "convert" the OML ones I already did, since no need to redo the cloth parts, plus the Repentia work as is. I'll probably not redo the black corset parts at least for the ones where the weapons block easily painting it, since that'd just be a hassle. Black is still fine, no need for everyone to be brown.

I've also semi-solved the vehicle color issues which kept me from being AS with the plastics at the start. Drybrushing the metallic on black looks a bit nicer than just spraying the metallic and trying to work on that, even if it's still not entirely great. Trying to finally finish the Exorcist soon, since I'd need it for a battle tomorrow...

[9x19 Parabellum]

Those are some lovely Sacrosants and it's obvious your painting skill has improved over the last year.  Well done. Look forward to seeing more of your girls!

[Bjorn Firewalker]

Excellent work on the models.

[tvih]

Those are some lovely Sacrosants and it's obvious your painting skill has improved over the last year. Well done. Look forward to seeing more of your girls!

Thanks for the compliment. Though that they look better compared to the OML models is primarily due to the easier-to-make-look-good paint scheme and also the way the photo was taken. And the excessive amount of time spent, though that happens even with the lowliest of models. The Repentia on the other hand were what they were due to having no experience painting human skin. I've barely painted since COVID started, so certainly haven't had much practice. Speaking of said Repentia, at this rate they'll soon need a repaint because their arms keep coming off in general and taking chips of paint with 'em each time. Should've glued them on prior to painting and not after, and with some sort of stronger glue (even though it would've made painting them a real pain in the butt). Also they fell to the floor a couple of months ago along with some other things, which also caused arms to come off and other damage like a snapped leg. The skin section are hard to fix "seamlessly" from the damage areas, given the use of washes over all of the skin. Ugh.

---

In other news, had the battle today, 1000 pts Crusade, Sabotage mission as defender. List was:

Palatine with BP (Quicksilver Veil, SoF WL trait)

5x Sacresants

9x Repentia

5x Battle Sisters (MM)

5x Battle Sisters (SB)

5x Retributors (4 HB)

Exorcist (EML)

5x Dominions (4 SB)

Immolator (MM)

Enemy had IIRC:

Primaris Captain with ABR relic (I think)

Contemptor Dreadnought (MM+ML)

10x Tactical Marines (ML+PG)

10x Tactical Marines (ML+PG)

Devastator Squad (4 HB)

Whirlwind ("AT")

I failed in deployment off the bat because I forgot how different terrain works in 9th, and misread the mission description, not realizing you can destroy the objective on the same turn as you reach it! That's nuts. He went first, destroying two of the four objectives, and I lost my second Battle Sister squad, the Retributor squad and I think two models from the first BSS right away. Other than my fake-Exorcist (didn't bring the real one due to not having time to finish it) doing some LoS-ignoring trickery against his LoS-ignoring trickster and blowing it right up, retaliation went rather poorly - only killed a couple of tactical marines. Repentia and Seraphim were in reserves for the first turn.

Second turn was its own megafail. Immolator, damned Immolator. I already spent a MD of 6 to prevent the Contemptor's melta damage on it, but then it exploded due to the Devastators. And boy, did it explode. 3W off my Exorcist, 3W off my Palatine, three dead from Dominion squad, two dead from Sacresants. So in dealing it 11 wounds (well, more like 15 - overkill FTW), he actually did 22 wounds of damage on my army. Nice. I even used the anti-MW stratagem on one of the units (Sacresants?), but rolled bonkers of course. The rest of shooting killed off two more Sacresants, and then the damned Superior died from morale check where only the 6 could fail ( ).

Well, on my turn I got absent-minded and forgot my Seraphims were supposed to not just protect the objective and stay aside from easy charge range of the tacticals on the left side, but also land within 12" so that I could give 'em proper flamering. Instead I forgot about the Descent stratagem entirely, and then only one of the hand flamers was even in range to shoot. So instead of 8D6, it was only 2D6 hits. Nice. Killed maybe one tactical with it, or at least wounded it. Yay? Remaining two Dominions moved into rapid-fire range and used Blessed Bolts again, killing three tacticals with the mortal wounds (up from just 1 last round). The rest was again ineffective due to 2+ effective saves. Palatine hid out of LoS with her single wound and no bodyguards (I had take the Survivor agenda for her, so didn't wanna die). Exorcist turned its deadly gaze on the Contemptor, dealing 6 wounds. Then Repentia, who had arrived from the right side, managed the charge to the tacticals on the right with the help of a MD of 5. They killed 6 tacticals, losing 3 or 4 in return. Had they been BR with the number of sixes I rolled... man. Although the morale check killed another two, leaving just one tactical anyway.

In turn 3, Exorcist took 3 mortal wounds from orbital bombardment. Again the anti-MW stratagem fizzled. Figures. I also lost one Dominion, I think two Seraphim, the rest of the first BSS near the Repentia, and also the rest of said Repentia, since the remaining tactical ran away, leaving them open to being attacked.

For my part... Exorcist was at it again despite now hitting at 4+, blowing up four of the five Devastators. I think one Dominion was still remaining, aand... killed one tactical with Blessed Bolts from rapid fire range, I think. The Seraphim... they shot at the tacticals, killing one or two.

Turn 4... he shot my last Dominion, and tried to put a stratagem orbital strike on my slowed-down Exorcist. But I sped away from under it, and blew up the Contemptor with some help from a MD on the damage roll. Seraphim attacked with flame and fist, leaving just one tactical alive, but only two Seraphim were alive as well.

Turn 5, his captain hid and his remaining tactical shot into the melee, killing another Seraphim. On my turn I disengaged with the Seraphim, then roasted the last tactical. Exorcist did some serious overkill on his last Devastator. And thus the battle ended, with just the Captain left for my opponent, and me with the Palatine on 1W, the Exorcist on 5W and the single Seraphim.

For score, we both had 40 from objectives. He killed more units on the first three turns, while I did on the last two. This left the score at 60-70 in his favor. If only I'd killed that sole melee survivor tactical in turn three, then it would've been a tie!

MVP was of course the Exorcist. Mainly because his army had Crusade upgrades and thus I got an extra 5 CP, allowing me to comfortably use the LoS-ignoring stratagem in the first three turns. In direct line of sight it would've gone bye-bye just like the Immolator did (well, maybe not quite as spectacularly, but who knows...). But as it is, it "soloed" the Contemptor, Whirlwind and Devastators. Not bad for a day's work. It got a total of 4 experience points too, so with an additional +3 I can give to it it'll level up for the next battle! And that shall come with a model upgrade to the actual Exorcist

Aside from the Exorcist, the multi-melta Retributor squad is on top of the priority list to finish, as well as finishing the Dominion models properly... in fact, one of the two Retributors I did yesterday ended being a Dominion today instead, with a quick arm switch. Another Dominion was only spray-painted black. Tsk tsk. I also need some basic bolters finished. Incidentally it's an annoyance in another way - I used to have way too many bolter metal models compared to specials, but I sold a bunch of them last year - now with the new Codex, I pretty much have the opposite problem. Oh well, they're gonna be mostly phased out anyway once I have enough plastics finished.

Edited August 8, 2021 by tvih

[ThePenitentOne]

Great report- the Exorcist level up/ model swap is cool. I love it when I can evolve a model to represent an upgrade.  Look forward to seeing more!

[tvih]

Sooo, next up we have... a squad of pious Dominion ladies.

Really digging how this squad came out as well. I even drilled their barrels! Which led to barrel damage on the grenade lady, but alas, such are the risks.

The new paint scheme now outnumbers the OML models already, with the Retributor Squad only missing two models as well. Annoyingly I'm missing two left hands for the two Heavy Bolters I was originally supposed to do, but of course I'll be doing a full multimelta squad now. Still, as I'm supposed to also make a Heavy Bolter squad later, I still would need those arms. But they magically vanished. As have a bunch of other bitz, like the pull-grenade-pin-out-with-teeth head (it was already even painted and glued in place, go figure, so had to give her another one at least for now), the pointing finger right arm, the sheathed power sword... etc. Sigh.

Anyway, the Exorcist. At least I finally got around to performing surgery on it today - necessicated by the fact that the hull-mounted Heavy Bolter and its inner frame had come loose while painting, with the latter part being stuck rattling around inside the hull. Which was why I left it alone to begin with, knowing I'd have to cut the damn thing out. Now it's fixed, but the bottom an ugly multi-segment hole with an even uglier patch job on it (of course I managed to make a mess of the whole thing). Of course it's not visible normally, but knowing it's there is a real pain in the butt and I can't help it But at least that's no longer holding up further progress.

Should hopefully have the MM Retributors, Exorcist, and one or two Canonesses by next weekend. Maybe a squad of regular Battle Sisters too, iat least if you count re-painting some OML models for that And of course the Palatine was ready for the game already as well, but forgot to take a photo of it and now it's at our "gaming bunker". If that schedule sticks - not that my schedules usually do - then might look at finding another battle for the weekend.

[Bjorn Firewalker]

Good job on the models.

[tvih]

Canoness time!

Finally a plastic one finished - the second one using the Repentia Superior as the base model is near completion as well, but wanted this completed first. The arms are magnetized, giving some leeway for melee weapon options as well as the option to not have the rod of office... too bad with the lack of weapon-less arm options in the Sisters kits, though.

And then... Exorcism time, to get rid of those pesky daemons!

Would you look at that, I actually finished it! I don't like Cherubs plus they'd just always break off, so left 'em off. Same reason for leaving off the additional decorations at the tops of the arches. Works fine without 'em anyway, looks-wise. Also had to mix the missile warhead bits, because I seem to have temporarily lost one of the bigger missile ones. Damned bitz goblins...

I also noticed that the drybrushing method of applying the silver wasn't in the end even needed. I just ended up covering over traces of that in many places. So for the Immolator, and if I ever manage to make the second Exorcist, I reckon I'll just brush it on normally or buy the Air version of Leadbelcher, seeing as my spray ran out anyway. And why, as compared to my earlier attempts? Well, simply these new kits have so much more detail that the even-ness of the hull coloring doesn't really bother me; less than the occasional coarseness of the drybrushing, in fact. Much less empty space compared to the old kits. Not entirely sure what I'll do with the two old Immolators though (sold the almost fully painted old Exorcist last year).

The multi-melta retributor squad is only missing a few bits from completion, but will have wait for tomorrow. Not too much left to do for the two 5-model Battle Sister squads and a Seraphim squad, as well. A little more for a Zephyrim squad. Should be all done in a few days, and then onto heavy bolter Retributor squad (two models already done) and the third Battle Sister squad. Then... well, second batch of Sacresants, I guess. In any case, a fully plastic 1000-point list is almost ready - only nearly 1

[tvih]

Time enact some retribution:

Now all I need to do is paint two more heavy bolters and do the finishing touches on the two Battle Sister squads and one Seraphim squad and I'll have a fully painted 1000pt list made entirely from the new model range for my next Crusade battle, whenever I get around to scheduling said battle.

[tvih]

---double post for some reason---

 

Might as well spam some more then:

 

Incidentally as I finally got a dedicated modeling table on Sunday, I was laying out all my Sister squads on it. I'll probably have to buy another BSS box at some point to be able to have wound buffer models in the special weapon squads. As is I have only two models "extra" for the footslogger squads across the 6 squads I have that could be an extra wound buffer. Oof! But I reckon I'll worry about that once everything I currently have is painted.

Though once this 1k list is ready to go, I'll probably distract myself with my 1k Custodes project for a bit, as it is very quick to complete by comparison given it's all built and gold-coated already.

Edited August 25, 2021 by tvih