Tactics and musings for 8th edition

[Beams]

Just played this list: http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/topic/336301-sisters-750-stormbolter-city/?do=findComment&comment=4811514

 

Our (now 12pt) stormbolter dominions are really good. Get a full squad for 15/30 shots a turn, and use an AoF to double it to 30/60, and they can put out a serious amount of hate.

 

Our cheap Cannonesses buff them pretty well, considering that's a lot of 1's, and provided a decent amount of additional shots. That said, I am looking to make a plasma-ness, to try out just because it should be fun, although more expensive.

 

As said before, Repentia are really good this edition. Their fast move, double damage and large number of attacks (27 for a full squad with a preist, rerolling 1's and 2's. But not 3. I hate 3's) makes short work of Dreadnoughts, hellbrutes, tanks and terminators. Plus their act of faith means you can move them 14" before charging, or if they are already in combat (enemy considates into you?) You can get a "free" round of combat, signifacntly increasing their potential.

 

Still, the MVP of my game was the 5 stormbolter/5 Bolter squad. It just put out so much firepower.

[Gen.Steiner]

Yeah, even having three stormbolters in a BSS is a decent bump to their firepower. A squad of 10 SB dominions really will throw out a lot of dakka.

Good to see Repentia working as expected. I plan on running them alongside some Arco-Flags and Jacobus in bigger games.

[A.T.]

Good to see Repentia working as expected.

 

I've still got mixed feelings about them next to the death cultists. With faith the repentia move faster on foot but the cultists strike me as a much cheaper and 'lower upkeep' unit.

[Gen.Steiner]

Buuuut the Repentia are better for pure Sisters players.

I also think that the multiple damage of the Penitent Eviscerator is probably better than the power weapons of the Death Cultists.

[Noeh]

Buuuut the Repentia are better for pure Sisters players.

 

I also think that the multiple damage of the Penitent Eviscerator is probably better than the power weapons of the Death Cultists.

Penitent Engines are really only good against armies that don't have a lot of tools that can handle them. They are ridiculously squishy and move far too slow. I unshelved them for the first time yesterday and watched as they moved 14 inches then died after only charging 1 unit.

[Beams]

Death cults also struggle to wound vs tougher targets, where Repentia are wounding t5's on 3's, t6's on 4's, and t7-11 on 5's.

 

Cultists aren't bad, but they strike me as more of an anti ork/guard/marine unit, where repentia are better against bigger things, like terminators, primaris, ogryns, light vehicles/dreds.

 

Also Repentia can fit in any of our transports.

 

As far as Penitent engines go, I've done some work with them, but they are not meant to fight infantry. They kill monsters, vehicles and characters fairly well, but you should save a command point for that 4+ fight again roll.

Edited July 7, 2017 by Beams

[Noeh]

It killed most of some Eldar vehicle with 3 levels of saves. I wanna say it was a wave serpent. But the sheer amount of vehicles the other guy could field and the number of rending shots he put out was just demolishing everything I had. Not having act of faith or shield of faith on a penitent engine severely hurts that unit. If the only way to make a 129 point model better is to take more of them in a group..probably ain't worth it to take in my opinion.

 

Edit: As an addition: Or don't fight Eldar I suppose. They still seem horridly undercosted. Maybe the other guy was "cheating". Any time I brought something up as sounding sketchy, he would just say that's how it is. I'm not sure he ever opened his book, but he kept sounding super offended that I was calling out things like all his vehicles making armor saves, some extra save to shrug off a wound, and then a "soulstone" save that could ignore wounds too. Oh and all my damage 3 suddenly became damage 2.

Edited July 7, 2017 by Noeh

[Beams]

Yeah, my experience with Eldar is that they are still really good... And the rumor is that they are going to get a codex wide drop in points when theirs lands. Hopefully, that's just a rumor.

 

My experience with them is that their infantry and bikes are relatively squishy, but that it doesn't matter since they are so fast and so deadly that you rarely get to take advantage of it.

[taikishi]

Sadly, he's not wrong

 

Wave Serpent: 3+ save, reduces damage taken by 1 (to a minimum of 1) through Serpent Shields, and can take a Spirit Stone that lets it ignore each unsaved wounds and mortal wound on a 6.It can also take a Crystal Targeting Matrix to ignore the penalty for moving and firing Heavy Weapons when firing at the nearest enemy unit, Star Engines to advance 2d6 instead of 1d6, and Vectored Engines so you have -1 to hit it until the start of its next movement phase if it Advanced.

 

Total cost before weapons? 142 points -- 107 base, 10 for each upgrade except the CTM, which is 5.

[Blackarmor_redtruth]

Eldar vehicle equipment:

Crystal Targeting - removes heavy weapon penalty

Spirit Stones - on a roll of 6 for wounds or MW, ignore it.

Star Engine - vehicle advances with 2d6 instead of 1.

Vectored Engine - if the vehicle advances, enemy subtracts 1 from ranged To Hit until next advance phase

 

For vehicle specific rules:

Wave Serpents have serpent shields, which does reduce damage by 1 to a minimum of 1. They can "shoot" this shielding once per game for great damage but then lose the defense benefits.

Also, most of their vehicles have obscene amount of choices for armaments, all on the same frame. So yeah, it can get hard to keep track of them all.

 

Aside from a "going out of 7th" apoc game two months ago, my only regular player for the past two years is Eldar : /

[Noeh]

So still undercosted and bull:cuss, got it. The guy actually complained his sqaud of 10+ basic troop guys cost a little over 100 points. Then proceeded to roll like 20 dice and all 6's were -3 ap and decimated everything. Yeah balanced, okay  .

On topic though, probably the last game I'm taking basic battle sisters in. There's just no point to them when dominions are far better. I still gotta get my 10-15 more seraphim together as well.

[taikishi]

Falcons, Fire Prisms, Wave Serpents and Nightspinners all can take the four vehicle upgrades listed, but only Wave Serpents get the ability to reduce damage by 1.

 

Stock with all four upgrades, a Wave Serpent is 176 points. 226 gets you a Wave Serpent with all the frills armed with twin Starcannons (Heavy 4, S6, -3, D3) and twin Shuriken Cannons (24", Assault 6, S6, -0, D1 that becomes -3 on a 6 to-wound).

 

Would like to know why Assault Cannons don't get an improved AP modifier on a 6 to-wound. Especially for a weapon that, in its heyday, was S8, d10 wounds, -3 save that could throw out up to 9 shots... or blow up spectacularly 1/216 of the time.

Edited July 7, 2017 by taikishi

[Noeh]

Because Eldar writers are apparently unsupervised. GW is too focused on saying "no" to the people who were writing ministorum rules.

[A.T.]

Yeah, my experience with Eldar is that they are still really good.

 

Someone posted their tournament eldar list up on the FB page today - 8 wave serpents, a few characters to give booster auras and 51 cheap-ish infantry (with their rending attacks bolstered by rerolls as required) to either bubble wrap or hide in the transports until needed to grab objectives.

[Montford]

GW says 10 codexes out by the end of the year. Here's hoping the Sisters are in one of them, and if so it might open up some new possibilities for tactics, especially since we haven't gotten a new piece of wargear since 2003!

[Ezr91aeL]

I hope for some melee sisters with the Praesidium Protectiva and maybe a Walker (a jump-pack walker would be awesome)

[Noeh]

At this point anything would be a blessing for the sisters. There has to be somebody at GW HQ that realizes they can't float an army forever and never update it.

[taikishi]

Brettonia and Tomb Kings say hello

[Noeh]

Brettonia and Tomb Kings say hello

 

Except they just updated Sisters to 8th edition. Bretonians and Tomb Kings are officially discontinued. So they clearly have intentions of dragging Sisters along for a while longer, but yet refuse to even give affordable models.

Edited July 7, 2017 by Noeh

[Gen.Steiner]

Eldar sound sick. As usual. I beat them in my first game of 8th because I took Objectives and his sole surviving unit (Wraithknight) couldn't contest enough Objectives to win on VPs. If the game had gone on into another turn he could have tabled me though.

I think basic Sisters units do still have a place, and that place is in the face of the enemy purging them with bolt and fire. But, um, realistically speaking, ain't no way I'm adding (m)any  more actual SoB figures to my army til we get plastics.

[GodwynDi]

Interesting to hear perspectives from around. At my current lgs there are just two sisters players, out of 16 players registered for a tournament next Sunday, but yet the whole store seems to think our list is OP. It's an odd change of pace.

 

I like to think its from our superior tactical ability, from having to fight uphill battles as sisters for so many many years. I had to argue with a guy for 10 minutes that yes my dominions could disembark on turn 1 after a vanguard move. "Thats not how it used to be." No, And? New edition new rules. Do try to learn them.

[Beams]

My thought is when I can afford to, I add some models, and slow grow the army a model or two a time.

 

As for how we play: we're like space Marines, but shootier, worse in combat and easier to kill.

 

Also, we want to be 8-12" away from our opponents, which is a tough distance. Which is why I think we should have a counter charge unit behind the gunline. And use big squads to optimize our AoF's

Edited July 8, 2017 by Beams

[Sir_Gaea]

All this about storm bolters makes me wonder what to use on tanks and creatures. Does anyone have experience with just using Seraphim for hunting big things? Then what do we use the Exorcist on, anything that looks at use funny?

[taikishi]

My thought is when I can afford to, I add some models, and slow grow the army a model or two a time.

 

As for how we play: we're like space Marines, but shootier, worse in combat and easier to kill.

 

Also, we want to be 8-12" away from our opponents, which is a tough distance. Which is why I think we should have a counter charge unit behind the gunline. And use big squads to optimize our AoF's

 

I can't get behind the big squads for one reason: we don't have the means to mitigate Morale that Tyranids, Orks and Guard do. Even putting Greyfax near a 15-figure Battle Sister squad isn't the same as a Commissar going "We lost half our Conscripts? *blam* Someone clean up that mess. The rest of you, follow Private Jenkins' example and ready to fix bayonets!" or a group of Boyz going. "Oi! Doz boyz ovah der' dun got the roight ideaz! We'z gonna show dem beakies wot for! WAAAAAAAAGH!"

[ERJAK]

My thought is when I can afford to, I add some models, and slow grow the army a model or two a time.

 

As for how we play: we're like space Marines, but shootier, worse in combat and easier to kill.

 

Also, we want to be 8-12" away from our opponents, which is a tough distance. Which is why I think we should have a counter charge unit behind the gunline. And use big squads to optimize our AoF's

In my experience we actually play more like harlequins (if they had short range shooting instead of good melee) or dark eldar than space marines now.