Penitent Engines?

[Nicodemus Doloroso]

I’ve searched through several pages and haven’t been able to find any discussion of these. I’ve always liked the models and the concept and always wanted them to be good ... but am I correct to assume that they’re rubbish in 8th based on their lack of mention?

[Commander Dawnstar]

Think of Penitent Engines as more fragile double-fist Dreadnoughts (-1 Toughness, -1 Wound, 4+ save). They certainly can do a fair bit of damage once they reach close combat with two Heavy Flamers and the potential for eight attacks with Zealot each, but getting them into their threat range is a bit of a problem and they're not exactly cheap. Indeed a Penitent Engine barely costs less points than your standard Dreadnought with Assault Cannon.

[Beams]

The penitent engine will kill pretty much whatever it hits, and has dual heavy flamers to burninate whatever comes near her.

 

Unfortunately, they usually explode before combat.

 

My advice: take them in multiple squads, instead of 1 squad of 3. That way the enemy has to specifically target the individual engines, instead of just firing all of their anti tank at one girl.

[Atrus]

Rubbish? No, not rubbish. Just...theres more options that suit our army better.

It is an amazing model with a lot of potential damage output. But thats its problem. Its all potential. A bowling ball at the top of a hill has pote tial energy but until it starts rolling down the hill, its all talk.

 

Penitents suffer from what theyve always suffered. No reliable delivery method. They have to foot slog across an entire battlefield with t6 and 4+sv. Because tjey look so scary, they get focused down quick for good reason.

Theyre probably better served as back field counter chargers on accou t of them being too slow.

No faith moving and cant charge after advancing. Theyre an expensive bullet magnet on front lines.

 

Back in the witch hunter dex they could move 6+d6 and then run. They had a place there as they were FAST.

Today, theyre too slow to keep up with the ever shifting lines of battle.

 

Thats just my opinion. I have fielded them in one game and they performed very well. But when they didnt get the charge they went down in no time to plain close combat weapons.

[Nicodemus Doloroso]

Do you think they could work in conjunction with Karamazov and some foot-borne ecclesiastiarchy stuff? Ever since the witch hunters codex I wanted to build an army of inq. storm troopers plus ecclesiarchy stuff and Karamazov as a representation of my inquisitor who’s been in my various army fluff storylines since early 3rd.

[dracpanzer]

I still only have the one put together but I have brought it to two seperate tournaments. Over six games it only failed to get its points back once. In that one instance I ran it into a corner to deny my opponent bringing deepstrikers in, which it did well, but I wasn't able to get it into range to cause trouble after that.

 

I ran SB/Melta Doms in Repressors, started with the PenEngine nestled behind three Repressors and just had the PenEngine advance up behind them, or stand by for deepstrikers. None of my opponents gave the PenEngine a second look. Got a turn two charge off once, the rest were turn three charges or dealing with deepstrikers.

 

I think it does well behind a Repressor screen and afterwards simply because there are so many other things they should be shooting at. The 4+ for a second round of attacks popped twice on its own and twice with CP re-rolls. Even if you just use it for deepstrike defense. I think deployed close to your AoF hungry Rets you will get more out of it than 129 points of BSS or other screens.

 

It features heavily in my 610 points of "let's see what this does" I put in all my lists.

[Servant of Dante]

I’d agree that if you run PEs you’re probably best off doing so in an aggressive (Dominion heavy, probably with Celestine and/or Seraphim) list, which is fortunately the most competitive build for Sisters right now :P

 

You basically have to give your opponent more pressing concerns, I’d think. That being said, this is basically conjecture on my part since I tend to only play Adepta Sororitas units.

[ValourousHeart]

Servant of Dante is correct, PEs are good at what they do but like most things in our codex need a little help getting where they need to be.

 

If you want to use them you have to design a list that puts pressure on your opponent from turn 1 from multiple angles.

With that play style, you also have to accept that you still might not get your PE into CC, so don't have it be your only option for what you want the PE to deal with.

 

I'd say that Dominions are less important than the transports they are in because you can create the same pressure using normal BSS in Rhinos.

Exorcists also help keep the pressure up, because of their reach.

[CaptainHelion]

Threat saturation is the way to run Engines, certainly. They're best against heavy infantry and light vehicles, in my opinion. Things with several wounds and not much shooting.

[dracpanzer]

I'd say that Dominions are less important than the transports they are in because you can create the same pressure using normal BSS in Rhinos.

I think you are over looking the value of the Dominions Vanguard rule. Even in transports BSS create a lot less pressure than Dom's.

[Drider]

indeed. vanguard gives dominions immediate pressure where as BSS will have delayed pressure. If you're going to run penitent engines you need overwhelming immediate pressure. I was running a league list with 5 dominions in transports(played it both as immos and repressors, both have they're pros and cons), celestine, seraphim and 4 penitent engines. The entire list was built to get 1500 points in you're face on turn 1 to give the penitents a threat screen to make it up the table and get into combat. When the penitents make it they just delete things, the issue is that sometimes they don't make it in time or just don't make it at all. Mobility is a huge issue for them and for 129 points a pop you can get a lot more value for money from other things.

[CrusherJoe]

Yeah...I've been trying to crack the code on Pengines for a while. Too many people in my area know exactly what they do and that kinda ruins things real quick-like. They do make good counter-charge/assault units and aren't terrible and deepstrike blocking, but they're a lot more fragile than you think and honestly they're a bit over-priced for what they do. If they had a delivery system they would be amazing.

[Nicodemus Doloroso]

I’ll be running Scions instead of sisters for my troops but Taurox Primes are pretty quick and 10 man Scion squads get 4 specials so I am hoping they can fill a similar role as dominions.

 

How do people use he dominions to get in the enemy’s face so fast? Scout moves?

[robofish7591]

Yep, scout moves and acts of faith make sisters a deceptively fast army.

[Nicodemus Doloroso]

Well Scions don't have scout anymore but their Taurox Primes can move 14" so I guess they can be a sort of poor man's Dominion squad.

 

@Drider, how do you outfit your 5 Dominion Squads?

[robofish7591]

Tauroxes are pretty quick, but don't forget that scions can deepstrike.  It is one of the things that makes them really really good.

[Nicodemus Doloroso]

'Tis true, although they tend to die really fast once they deep strike but I guess they'd be getting out of the Taurox Primes to shoot anyway, so could do a mix of deep striking and driving as the ground dictates. Thanks for the help.

[Drider]

Until CA drops i could fit 5 dominions with 4 melta and stormbolter in repressors with 2 stormbolter and heavy flamer. But soon this wont fit anymore.

 

or 

 

3 with melta and storm bolter and 2 with either all stormbolter or 4 flamers and a stormbolter or combi if they are ridding in immolators.

[Nicodemus Doloroso]

Thanks, Drider.

 

On a different note, anyone know what paints would have been used on the brass sort of colour on this GW/'Eavy Metal team PE: https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/catalog/product/920x950/99110108053_PenitentEngineNEW02.jpg

 

I really dig that colour scheme.

[Drider]

that looks like a drybrush of some sort of non metalic brass or rust

[Servant of Dante]

It’s also probably the old color range or some other product they don’t make more since that image is in the codex witch hunters :D

[Nicodemus Doloroso]

... I'll have a look at my Codex: Witch Hunters to see if there is anything similar where colours are identified. Back in that day they used to actually tell the reader what paints they used, and while some do not exist anymore many have modern analogs. 

[Servant of Dante]

I just so happen to keep a copy of WH on my phone and . . . looks like that penitent engine only features in army’s shots. I don’t see any painting info for PEs in general in there unfortunately. Do check in person though, im really good at missing stuff in books :P Edited November 28, 2017 by Servant of Dante

[ValourousHeart]

 

I'd say that Dominions are less important than the transports they are in because you can create the same pressure using normal BSS in Rhinos.

I think you are over looking the value of the Dominions Vanguard rule. Even in transports BSS create a lot less pressure than Dom's.

 

I wasn't trying to say that Dominions are bad, just that the transport is the key.

In a list that you want to run PE, units of Dominions on foot will not give as much pressure as BSS in Rhinos will.

So yes Dominions in an Immolator gives the highest pressure... but if you don't have the points or the models, it is best to remember which part is the most important.

[Warsmith Aznable]

I ran Penitent Engines for the first time since the White Dwarf codex the other day. I was trying a different approach designed around foot-slogging Dominion spam, and wanted to have a large, dangerous looking unit to run up the middle screaming, "Shoot at me! Not them! ME!" I got mixed results on that, since my opponent was playing Punisher Pask and only needed him to shoot up my melta girls. But everything that wasn't Pask was pretty alarmed by the Penitent Engines, and reacted according to that concern letting me control what was going on in the middle of the table. I should have chosen better targets for them, but that's a lesson learned. They still managed to put out wounds before going down, which is nice considering I didn't expect them to get close enough to do that (I took two.)

 

I'm sold on them, and plan on building a squad of three (I proxied Dreads for this game.)