If you were to start Sisters again...

[Brother Captain Ed]

So, in talking to some folks, we went over SoB's long and winding road to get to where they are now and noted many Sisters armies were built due to necessity and lack of prescience regarding future events.  Who can blame you? 

 

Anyway this question was posed to me over the course of a conversation and I honestly wasn't sure (not being a very competitive player and easily distracted by other projects): if you were starting a Sisters army, knowing what you know now what would you buy/build?  Assume money is no object, but leave the Forge World models off the table.

 

Personally, I thought "Living Saint, 30 battle sisters or so, two squads of Seraphim, two squads of Dominions, a Canoness, three priests, and....well..."  I faltered at that point because then you have Rhinos vs rented Drop Pods, the right balance of Immolators and Exorcists, Fortification concerns, possibly an Inquisitor or Assassin, and, heck, I wasn't even sure about kitting out the choices I had listed.  Ultimately, I think I helped nobody.

 

What do you think?  What would you have said?

[*Furyou Miko]

Same army I have now, basically!

[CaptainHelion]

Not a huge difference to what I have no, honestly. More battle sisters, maybe.

[Naminé]

My army would look identical as well. I spent a long time playing it, testing unit combinations and throwing it up against horrible competition (Eldar shenanigans, Tau triptides, summoning deamons, etc. I've even played it versus higher point opponents, sometimes in excess of a 600 point advantage when practising for a tournament).

I think it's a solid list and I'd like to think I know how to play it by now! Sometimes I go with other units and combinations for variety/fun but I still enjoy my 'main' list.

Model collection wise I have plenty of infantry but lack on vehicle options. I wouldn't mind some more Repentia and Penitent Engines (just don't want to build them!) So I could make some crazy lists. A few more seraphim would give me the option of two full units as well, but there's nothing I've bought for Sisters which doesn't see at least some table time

I don't have any Forgeworld or allies, though the former is what I would branch into afterwards, if money were no object as you say :p

[Spacefrisian]

Guess it would be my order of the Shield maidens again...although iam planning a true battle sister component to it as i finaly found the Corair kit mentioned on this board for my Avenger Strike fighter conversion.

[WarriorFish]

Canoness, Celestine and plenty of Sisters and Rhinos - enough to get a good 40 odd on the table at least to cover the bases. Add some Seraphim and Exos and that's a core Sisters army ready to do battle in most situations :)

[Warsmith Aznable]

I would have started buying figures earlier. That it took me so long to have a playable force is my only regret.

 

As soon as I decided I liked this faction and wanted to play it I should have just started buying them rather than agonizing over the cost and believing anybody who told me plastics would be "soon."

 

The way I got my SoB army was that first I acquired some SoB secondhand in a lot of random figures. Then I bought a Canoness for them on impulse because she was the only SoB figure left in a store I visited and I wanted a game souvenir from my trip to England. Then I found a full BSS box covered in dust and shoved to the back on a bottom shelf and with a very old price sticker on it that was by then a steal, so I had to buy it.

 

From that point I realized I finally had a small playable force, so I bought Celestine and a couple Immolators, and the White Dwarf codex came out, so I finally started to actually play them. I made a fantastic trade with a fellow B+C user for a lot of SoB that bulked my collection out, and I started buying models from GW website and ebay to fill I out squads from what I had so far acquired.

 

Where I'm at right now is that I've played enough games to know what works better, so I've made a project list for a useful collection and I'm working on filling specific needs for it.

[Brother Captain Ed]

Hmm.  Clearly, I did not do a good job explaining the premise of the thought experiment.

 

I'm glad folks are happy with their collections, but to say so doesn't address what a new player should buy, in what order of importance models and units should be acquired, and why.  As happy as we are or are not with our armies, they did not spring fully formed from the head of Zeus and the point is to examine how a modern Sisters army ought/ought not be acquired or played in each person's humble opinion. 

[Warsmith Aznable]

Well, money being no object and starting from scratch, as a

 

To start:

Canoness

Celestine

x2 BSS

X2 Immolator

 

To expand:

x2 melta Dominions

x2 Seraphim

x2 Immolators

 

to expand again:

x2 Heavy bolter Retributors

x2 Exorcists

x2 Immolators

 

preference expansion:

Repentia full squad

or

Battle Conclave

 

whenever expansion:

another x2 BSS

another x2 Immolator

however many priests

icons and banners as desired

command squad as interested

[*Furyou Miko]

I'd second that.

[Sororita Katya]

Because sisters are sold in blisters and not squads I would be advising to build groups up in squads knowing exactly what you want in each, for example two packs of three battle sisters plus two flamers and a superior. Continue on with this until you have a reasonable amount of decent units with their heavy and special weapons covered. My problem is I have a heap of battle sisters and flamers but only two heavy Bolters and one multi melta out of 30 sisters.

 

Once you have the core of your force then it's practically up to you.

 

Want to go foot slogging blob then get a priest or Jacobus.

 

Mechanised then start buying immolators and rhinos.

[Brother Captain Ed]

Boy... Sororitas players sure do not like theory discussions.  :P

[*Furyou Miko]

We love theory discussions.

We've just had them all before at this point, so when one person posts the answer, we already had our input months/weeks ago.

[WarriorFish]

How much detail are you looking for? I listed what I'd start with, but listing exact weapons and upgrades seems a little excessive - besides people want to run their own lists and not mine right? The Sisters codex is old in the sense of it having the same model choices for years so the ones you need aren't expansive. Aside from commanders it's mostly lots of Sisters and a selection of special and heavy weapons (which are limited too). Add your Immolator/Rhino transports and some Exos plus some Seras if you want them and that's pretty much every Sisters list.

 

This isn't because we don't like theory discussion; it's because GW has not given us much to theory with. As Miko said the core of how Sisters work/play has been unchanged so we pretty much know Sisters like the back of our hands.

[CaptainHelion]

If you wanted, we could have a discussion about whether you should be getting Heavy Flamer Sisters or Heavy Bolter Sisters first? I understand there may be some mild contention there.

[Brother Captain Ed]

We love theory discussions.

We've just had them all before at this point, so when one person posts the answer, we already had our input months/weeks ago.

Sorry, Miko. Mod or not, that is an incredibly arrogant, unhelpful statement.

I realize that I'm not exactly a super poster down here in the Sisters forums, but they are my project de jour and the fact is nobody talks about them. If you Google "Sisters of Battle Tactica" you get maybe a couple articles from this YEAR, much less this edition. Granted, the codex is anemic by comparison, but the application of it should still change, however mildly, as other armies change. Now, if I missed substantive theorycrafting, please point me to it. Because there doesn't seem to be any of it on the internet.

[WarriorFish]

I see, it felt like more of a figurative OP but you're looking some detail on people's approaches? As I mentioned that depends on what you want to do, with allies you can make various SoB list with different themes but even if you're sticking with pure Sisters there are different army builds despite GW's lack of love. Even if this chiefly boils down to foot slogging, mechanised or a hybrid in some form.

Arguably mechanised Sisters are the "best", in that they're the most competitive and easily used build. Trundling around in Rhinos bolter shocking people is effective especially with two special weapons - the question is which one. The eternal debate is generalise or specialise and that's as much personal preference as the army list itself I think. I like to generalise for flexibility and look at maybe the odd specialist unit. For foot units 14 is the sweet spot I've found; more bodies to put some shots out and have staying power but not too many as to be unwieldy or too expensive

So to prevent this post getting too long my approach is generally shoving in Battle Sister squads with melta and flamer in a Rhino until I'm happy with numbers (3+ at 1500 is best) and then supplementing that. Couple of Exos always goes down well (opponents may disagree) and some Dominions to intercept and melta hard targets. These days I'm less inclined to consider Seraphim as in a mech list infantry alone get eaten quick. Squads are 10 Sisters aside from the non-line units that may have less, never been big into MSU.

I like to sprinkle some Inquisition about sometimes as I've always used them and they're part of my army's fluff but that's even more dependant on personal wants, plus there's a section on the B&C to discuss that in ;) Overall my approach is to keep things cheaper and more numerous - the bread and butter wins games for me and Sisters have one of the better Troop choices, which is just as well considering but you know what they say about gift horses

[*Furyou Miko]

We love theory discussions.

We've just had them all before at this point, so when one person posts the answer, we already had our input months/weeks ago.

Sorry, Miko. Mod or not, that is an incredibly arrogant, unhelpful statement.

I realize that I'm not exactly a super poster down here in the Sisters forums, but they are my project de jour and the fact is nobody talks about them. If you Google "Sisters of Battle Tactica" you get maybe a couple articles from this YEAR, much less this edition. Granted, the codex is anemic by comparison, but the application of it should still change, however mildly, as other armies change. Now, if I missed substantive theorycrafting, please point me to it. Because there doesn't seem to be any of it on the internet.

My status as a moderator only matters when I use yellow text, or otherwise declare I'm speaking as a moderator.

The rest of the time, I'm just another user on the board. You seem to have taken my statement to be far more definitive than it was intended to be - all I meant was that we don't see the need to repeat what Aznable and Katya already posted.

The sad fact is that Sisters tactics haven't changed much. We have two anti-monster weapons in the army. Eviscerators and Meltaguns. Maybe three if you count Exorcists, but they're not so great against anything scarier than a Centurion. So when something bigger and nastier shows up, we only have more response - throw more melta at it, or do the round-robin of Borrowed Land Raider vs Borrowed FW toy in the latest desperate attempt to actually get Repentia into combat.

[Naminé]

We love theory discussions.

We've just had them all before at this point, so when one person posts the answer, we already had our input months/weeks ago.

Sorry, Miko. Mod or not, that is an incredibly arrogant, unhelpful statement.

I realize that I'm not exactly a super poster down here in the Sisters forums, but they are my project de jour and the fact is nobody talks about them. If you Google "Sisters of Battle Tactica" you get maybe a couple articles from this YEAR, much less this edition. Granted, the codex is anemic by comparison, but the application of it should still change, however mildly, as other armies change. Now, if I missed substantive theorycrafting, please point me to it. Because there doesn't seem to be any of it on the internet.

So it is Sisters Tactica you are looking for specifically? or list building help? or just a discussion on the changes to a competitive list in the latest edition?

I think that part of the reason you are not quite getting the answers you want, is that both the thread title and OP content is somewhat different to what you're really asking, as evidenced by the several posts (including my own) that followed.

However, Sisters HAVEN'T changed between editions, short of the blob squad becoming ever so slightly less viable in some matchups (still works fine though), and the severe opening up of allies for new potential options such as drop-pods and Landraiders. Generally, these things aren't talked about because again, in most circumstances, they dilute the effectiveness of the force or at best, offer something that either already exists within a pure Sisters force, or add something that simply isn't needed.

Most armies have not changed from 6th edition because there was no need to. Every time the meta changes and new xenos forces are released with crazy powers, we play the same way and keep the same force because we have very little other options and it still works anyway. A strategy that worked in 6th or 5th edition will still work in 7th.

This is part of the appeal of Sisters. You play your way or you get mullered. There's no meta train to hop onto, no month by month changes that need to be adhered to. Our lack of updates is also one of main strengths.

If you have any specific questions about tactica, list building or other aspects then ask them! We're not some exclusive, greedy club hoarding all the secrets to ourselves; we actually like to share and help new players to the army.

[Sororita Katya]

I shall try to not repeat my fellow board members but I will say you have me thoroughly confused.

 

Let's go through the steps as to why you may be having issues;

 

1. You started with an open ended question, what would you purchase if you were starting sisters from scratch once more?

 

People answered this question, to which you changed the question;

 

2. You gave another open ended question, if someone was starting out what advice would we give them for army building?

 

Once again people answered that question quite accurately. With most of us in agreement of the approach.

 

This is where I must point out what WarriorFish and Furyou have already stated, the questions you have asked have been asked, and although editions have changed the sisters remain the same with very limited options. For four of the units in our army (Celestians, dominions, retributors and battle sisters) we have the exact same model to buy, so purchasing options are a rather simplistic topic (if we were talking about Tau or space marines this would be very different). As for building the list you want well it falls to the same principal, you need troops so why not buy the model that can be your elites, fast, heavy and troop choice?

 

3. You then get annoyed at the fact that you believe we don't like theoretical discussion and discussing our armies, which is ludicrous in itself because to own the most expensive army in 40k you have to be at least a little passionate about them :P

 

4th and final point. You state the Adepta Sororitas scene is stale across the Internet, that only three topics have been made this year. I disagree entirely, we may not be the most active board but when someone has something to say we jump to assist. When we think of something funny or related to the sisters, we post. If you want tactic talk then there are lists posted generally once a month and the tactics of using such a list are discussed below it. If you believe that's stale well then I'm sorry we disappoint, but we all chip in and keep this bored alive whilst all waiting and wishing that GW may shine the light our way once more.

 

Please do not take this the wrong way, I welcome you to post and contribute here to your hearts content. But please don't abuse and jump to conclusions when you are not very clear on your point.

 

^_^

[Warsmith Aznable]

Sorry, Miko. Mod or not, that is an incredibly arrogant, unhelpful statement.

 

I realize that I'm not exactly a super poster down here in the Sisters forums, but they are my project de jour and the fact is nobody talks about them. If you Google "Sisters of Battle Tactica" you get maybe a couple articles from this YEAR, much less this edition. Granted, the codex is anemic by comparison, but the application of it should still change, however mildly, as other armies change. Now, if I missed substantive theorycrafting, please point me to it. Because there doesn't seem to be any of it on the internet.

Outside of what has already been said about how Sisters fight, another truth is that there just aren't many Sisters players out there. Compared to other factions we are a minuscule population. So not only is there not much to say, there aren't a lot of people to say it.

 

There's a thread about best allies for Sisters, that might be a good one for you to find if you're looking for theory discussion. I think there's a specific thread about Knights as allies, too.

 

Where are you at in your Sisters project? Being specific about what you are personally doing and needing to know might get better responses than general thought experiments.

 

I've got a relatively new (and ongoing) thread where I discuss three recent games I played. If you want to discuss theory I'd be happy to answer questions and discuss more specifically about what I intended vs what happened and the choices I made in between. I imagine any of us here who post the occasional battle report would.

 

Looking again, there's like five or six threads on the front page right now that fall under theory discussion by asking after certain allies, using specific units, and reporting on recent battles. We definitely DO talk about this stuff.

[Goonbandito]

We love theory discussions.

We've just had them all before at this point, so when one person posts the answer, we already had our input months/weeks ago.

Sorry, Miko. Mod or not, that is an incredibly arrogant, unhelpful statement.

I realize that I'm not exactly a super poster down here in the Sisters forums, but they are my project de jour and the fact is nobody talks about them. If you Google "Sisters of Battle Tactica" you get maybe a couple articles from this YEAR, much less this edition. Granted, the codex is anemic by comparison, but the application of it should still change, however mildly, as other armies change. Now, if I missed substantive theorycrafting, please point me to it. Because there doesn't seem to be any of it on the internet.

Not to shill another forum or anything, but there's a huge thread on Dakka Dakka about Sisters of Battle tactics, with plenty of talk for 7th Edition play.

As for how I would build a Sisters Army today? Well I acquired my army during 6th Edition, and little has changed since then, so the answer is I would basically not change it. Mechanise with Rhinos/Immolators, stock up on Flamer in the Battle Sister Squads and Melta in the Dominion Squads and bring a few Exorcists.

[Servant of Dante]

I'm not a competitive player, so when I built my army a couple months ago I just looked through the codex to find things that looked fun, and on the web store to find which models I thought where cool, although I did end up switching to storm Bolter and heavy bolter for my BSSs because I wasn't investing in transports for them.

 

For the record, I love the exorcist model. It's probably the biggest single reason I started this army. That and SoB are just awesome

[Brother Captain Ed]

We love theory discussions.

We've just had them all before at this point, so when one person posts the answer, we already had our input months/weeks ago.

Sorry, Miko. Mod or not, that is an incredibly arrogant, unhelpful statement.

I realize that I'm not exactly a super poster down here in the Sisters forums, but they are my project de jour and the fact is nobody talks about them. If you Google "Sisters of Battle Tactica" you get maybe a couple articles from this YEAR, much less this edition. Granted, the codex is anemic by comparison, but the application of it should still change, however mildly, as other armies change. Now, if I missed substantive theorycrafting, please point me to it. Because there doesn't seem to be any of it on the internet.

My status as a moderator only matters when I use yellow text, or otherwise declare I'm speaking as a moderator.

The rest of the time, I'm just another user on the board. You seem to have taken my statement to be far more definitive than it was intended to be - all I meant was that we don't see the need to repeat what Aznable and Katya already posted.

Yes, I know. I shouldn't have said it. I was irritated. Mea culpa.

Anyway, never mind. I didn't ask for myself in the first place and any interest I might have had in expanding my Sisters is gone.

[taikishi]

Brother Captain Ed,

 

I'm sorry you think we're being unhelpful, but the truth of the matter is there just isn't a whole lot to answer you with. Except against Necrons and Mechanicus, Sisters options are so few that the answer to just about every question is "more melta".

 

Consider:

 

HQ Choices: 3 - two really good special characters and a canoness who is limited to one relic, so making her your warlord is essentially conceding Slay the Warlord to your opponent.

Troops: 1 choice, three ways of fielding: 5-6 in an Immolator with flamers/heavy flamer/melta, 10 in a Rhino/Repressor with flamers/heavy flamer/melta, blob of 20 with flamers/heavy flamer/melta/maybe a heavy bolter

 

Elites: 2 choices. Celestians are an upgraded BSS squad with assault based Acts of Faith and are only slightly better than a BSS in close combat, or Repentia who crush things like knights but have no easy means of deployment because the army has no assault vehicles of its own AND have no save outside of their once per game act of faith. On top of it, their act is FNP which is denied by anything S6+ or causes instant death

 

Fast Attack: Two excellent choices. 4 Scouting Dominions in Immolator/Repressor with melta guns and a Superior with a combi-melta, or Seraphim which are great shock troops and will surprise people with their volume of fire due to gun fighter. Just accept that, due to their short range, Dominions tend to be a suicide squad more often than not. The only time I've not had a Dominion squad killed was my last game against Tyranids (took down Tervigon turn 1, Gaunts around it had no nearby Hive Mind and actually fled) and the game ended at the top of my opponent's turn 2 when all he had left on the board was a Flyrant and all I'd lost was an Immolator and a BSS.

 

Heavy Support: Avenger Strike Fighter if you want a flyer, otherwise Exorcists and Retributors make great choices. If you go allies and take a drop pod, or want them riding around in a Repressor, give the Retributors Heavy Flamers. Otherwise, Heavy Bolters all day long. Penitent Engines have the same problems as Repentia, can't be put in drop pods, and are low armor open topped vehicles.

 

Weapon options for every unit in entire army not named Repentia/Penitent Engine: Storm bolter, flamer, heavy flamer, heavy bolter, meltagun, multi-melta. Seraphim have hand flamer and inferno (melta) pistol options.

 

The only real questions you have for Sisters are: mechanized MSU or For the Horde! If you go MSU, stay in that tank as long as you can and only disembark if you must.