Codex Incoming!

[taikishi]

Only models with the Sacred Rites ability benefit. The following models do not have the Sacred Rites ability:

 

Missionaries

Preachers

Stern and Kyganil

Crusaders

Arco-flagellants

Death Cult Assassins

Mortifiers

Penitent Engines

Battle Sanctum

 

And the answer to Celestine is no. The Passion simply generates an additional hit. The Ardent Blade only generates mortal wounds on 6s to-hit; there's no hit roll associated with the additional hit from the Passion. Instead, she deals 2MW and then you have a S7, AP -4, 2D attack she has to roll to wound for.

[SkimaskMohawk]

Just have to say the divine guidance is terrible. Best case scenario a roll will have a 17% chance to get -1 ap. So a unit of seraphim (which is I think the top potential for sheer amount of shots/hits on deadly descent and cleansing flames) nets you 59 hits and 10 6s to wound. So...congratulations?

 

Never pick it unless you're ebon chalice and it's your second basically.

[taikishi]

10 Dominions with flamer minions with a combi-flamer average 25 hits and 4 wound rolls of 6. Same for 10 Retributors with heavy flamers and a combi-flamer. 20 Battle Sisters with 4 flame-weapons and a combi-flamer average 38 hits and 6 wound rolls of 6.

 

Your math is wrong on Seraphim. 4 hand flamers average 14 hits. 12 bolt pistol average 8 hits. 22 twice is 44, with 7 of those wound rolls coming up 6s on average.

 

The big difference between Divine Guidance and Spirit of the Martyr is that you can benefit from DG every turn and your 6s from Miracle Dice trigger the Rite. Spirit of the Martyr triggers once per model (barring Hospitaller resurrection and Celestine resurrection of Geminae) and a MD can't be used in the roll.

[Blurf]

 

So if I'm reading this right, Sacred Rights are now army wide, even applying to Ministorum units.

 

So with that comes 2 thoughts. First, penitent engines will get a huge buff from this. Since they can advance and change, hand of the emperor giving them +1 to both of those rolls is gold. Divine guidance will also proc on their flamers, which will definitely come up if you use the strat for max hits.

 

And a question then, if you're using Celestine and the Passion, when you roll a 6 to hit, does it do 4 mortal wounds?

 

You can also use the Passion and a relic to make a very dangerous preacher. With War Hymn and Song of Smiting, you are looking at 5 attacks, rerolling all hits and exploding on 6s, with S6, Ap-3 and D2. And they get to fight twice. Not too bad. Alternatively, if you want to be tankier, trade out the Sigil for the Triptych for T4, a 4++ and ignore first wound through.

Sacred Rites are and have been a warscroll ability. It will state on each models datasheet whether they get sacred rights or not.

 

Pengines do not get it. Neither do Mortifiers.

 

As to Celestine, no, a 6 triggers the mortal wound ability and creates 1 extra normal wound roll.

 

Your suggested combo requires 2 priests both rolling 3+ and a relic for the sake of still less damage than a blessed blade Canoness does, minus the fight twice which is impractical considering how fragile preachers are.

 

 

 

Just have to say the divine guidance is terrible. Best case scenario a roll will have a 17% chance to get -1 ap. So a unit of seraphim (which is I think the top potential for sheer amount of shots/hits on deadly descent and cleansing flames) nets you 59 hits and 10 6s to wound. So...congratulations?

 

Never pick it unless you're ebon chalice and it's your second basically.

It's still better than the others in any shooting list. The only other contender is +1 to run and charge and if you don't have a bloody rose contingent to your force the value of that is even less than a 17% chance at -1 ap.

 

If you're charging you should be using the passion, if you get a second one take hand of the emperor. If you have a mixed detachment list, hand of the emperor might be your first choice. If you don't have Sacred Rites melee units, divine guidance is the default choice.

 

They should have either cut these down to just The Passion or let us have all 6. Look at Angels of Death, it's basically the same strength of bonus for space marines as all SR together are for us.

Edited June 10, 2021 by Blurf

[BluejayJunior]

I think Divine Guidance is one of the default ones in most situations if you are running a shooty army. 

 

A shooting army doesn't care about +1 to charge or exploding 6s in melee. 

Aegis is good, but I won't take it if my opponent doesn't have psykers.

I'm not going to pick Spirit of the Martyr if my opponent isn't melee heavy.

Ignoring leadership/attrition modifiers isn't terrible, but probably not useful unless I'm running lots of large units or playing against someone that has lots of negative modifiers.

 

 

And IMO, saying SotM is bad because trading 11 sisters to kill 1 intercessor ignores the fact that without it, you're just losing 11 sisters. I'm not going to say it's great, but making your opponent take MWs that they wouldn't normally take or making them more reluctant to charge something can have its uses.

[Blurf]

I think Divine Guidance is one of the default ones in most situations if you are running a shooty army. 

 

A shooting army doesn't care about +1 to charge or exploding 6s in melee. 

Aegis is good, but I won't take it if my opponent doesn't have psykers.

I'm not going to pick Spirit of the Martyr if my opponent isn't melee heavy.

Ignoring leadership/attrition modifiers isn't terrible, but probably not useful unless I'm running lots of large units or playing against someone that has lots of negative modifiers.

 

 

And IMO, saying SotM is bad because trading 11 sisters to kill 1 intercessor ignores the fact that without it, you're just losing 11 sisters. I'm not going to say it's great, but making your opponent take MWs that they wouldn't normally take or making them more reluctant to charge something can have its uses.

SOM is bad because it doesn't do anything to help you win the game. It can't be used proactively and only triggers on the destruction of models in melee, which for a shooting sisters list is a failure state. 

 

SoM is worse than Divine Guidance 100% of the time (should you be in a position to choose between them: I.e. No melee at all.) because it requires you to already be failing for it to get value. It's a consolation prize in a losing game, not a bonus ability. It's also very limited in what it can actually get you. Sure it's mortal wounds vs -1 ap, but it's also limited to 1/6 the number of models in your army that die to melee. Divine guidance is 1/6th your wound rolls in shooting. In a shooting list that could be 20+ to 1 ratio. Even more if you take flamers.

 

If you wanted to argue that The Passion is better than Divine Guidance just for Vahl and Celestine, I think that would have some merit. Not SOM though.

[taikishi]

I would rather take any other Sacred Rite than SotM with two exceptions:

 

If my opponent has no Psykers, I'll take it over Aegis.

If I'm playing Sacred Rose or maybe the Unbridled Valor minor conviction, I'll take it over Light of the Emperor.

 

---

 

+1 to advance and charge rolls can come in handy even for gun line lists for getting to objectives faster and it's always on. Especially for Argent Shroud, who counts as remaining stationary.

 

Divine Guidance will get more mileage over the course of a game for non-BR lists than SotM because most of your models are going to shoot more times than they'll die. It also works with Guided by the Emperor's Will, Perfervid Belief, Slayer of Heritics, Unshakable Belief, and Witch Hunters due to having more chances to hit, rerolls on wound rolls, or just making the wound roll a 6 by discarding an extra MD.

 

The Passion is the go-to for Bloody Rose. Ebon Chalice can consider it as a second Rite since a number of your units might get stuck in melee before the game ends, possibly for multiple turns. It also works well with the Holy Wrath, Guided by the Emperor's Will, Perfervid Belief, and Witch Hunters as they either grant rerolls to hit, modify MD, or in the case of Holy Wrath it makes the additional hits more lethal. It does not work with Devout Fanaticism because one adds to the attack roll and the other looks for unmodified attack rolls.

 

Light of the Emperor, if nothing else, lets you ignore the penalty for being below half strength in Attrition test, which can be useful for every order but Sacred Rose and is less useful for Unbridled Valor.

 

There's also the Hymn that gives a unit an additional Sacred Rite and a relic that lets a unit have two Sacred Rites, one or both of which can be different than the ones for your army but any from your army that the unit doesn't have stent in effect.

 

For the Hymn, I'd be willing to consider SotM for a suicide unit like Repentia, but only if I don't need the bonus from HotE and already have the Passion. Even then, War Hymns and Hymn of Blazing Piety are better choices, especially since the latter averages 1MW per attempt without any of my models dying in the process. And Catechism is even better in a shooting army because it double dips with Divine Guidance:

* 6s to hit with bolt weapons auto-wound

* If the attack came from a bolt weapon within half range, the AP goes up 1, or 2 if you roll a 6 to-wound.

 

For the relic, I'm either picking a second rite that the unit will benefit from + my core rite OR tailoring the unit for a specific job, like hunting character/psykers/vehicles, and want them to have two rites to help that role. I do not feel comfortable paying a CP to make one unit a suicide unit that might do 1MW when they die, assuming they even die in melee.

Edited June 10, 2021 by taikishi

[BluejayJunior]

 

I think Divine Guidance is one of the default ones in most situations if you are running a shooty army. 

 

A shooting army doesn't care about +1 to charge or exploding 6s in melee. 

Aegis is good, but I won't take it if my opponent doesn't have psykers.

I'm not going to pick Spirit of the Martyr if my opponent isn't melee heavy.

Ignoring leadership/attrition modifiers isn't terrible, but probably not useful unless I'm running lots of large units or playing against someone that has lots of negative modifiers.

 

 

And IMO, saying SotM is bad because trading 11 sisters to kill 1 intercessor ignores the fact that without it, you're just losing 11 sisters. I'm not going to say it's great, but making your opponent take MWs that they wouldn't normally take or making them more reluctant to charge something can have its uses.

SOM is bad because it doesn't do anything to help you win the game. It can't be used proactively and only triggers on the destruction of models in melee, which for a shooting sisters list is a failure state. 

 

SoM is worse than Divine Guidance 100% of the time (should you be in a position to choose between them: I.e. No melee at all.) because it requires you to already be failing for it to get value. It's a consolation prize in a losing game, not a bonus ability. It's also very limited in what it can actually get you. Sure it's mortal wounds vs -1 ap, but it's also limited to 1/6 the number of models in your army that die to melee. Divine guidance is 1/6th your wound rolls in shooting. In a shooting list that could be 20+ to 1 ratio. Even more if you take flamers.

 

If you wanted to argue that The Passion is better than Divine Guidance just for Vahl and Celestine, I think that would have some merit. Not SOM though.

 

To be clear, I'm not saying SOM is better than DG. I play shooting heavy Ebon Chalice, so I will probably be using DG in most of my games. 

But I think SOM is being underestimated. It is not a "consolation prize for losing" as you said. If you are playing a melee heavy army, you are going to be losing models to melee, even if you are winning the game. Making your opponent take damage for doing what they're going to do anyway isn't useless. Your army may benefit more from another Rite even then. But I think it is still more useful than ignoring morale modifiers. 

[taikishi]

I think Divine Guidance is one of the default ones in most situations if you are running a shooty army.

 

A shooting army doesn't care about +1 to charge or exploding 6s in melee.

Aegis is good, but I won't take it if my opponent doesn't have psykers.

I'm not going to pick Spirit of the Martyr if my opponent isn't melee heavy.

Ignoring leadership/attrition modifiers isn't terrible, but probably not useful unless I'm running lots of large units or playing against someone that has lots of negative modifiers.

 

 

And IMO, saying SotM is bad because trading 11 sisters to kill 1 intercessor ignores the fact that without it, you're just losing 11 sisters. I'm not going to say it's great, but making your opponent take MWs that they wouldn't normally take or making them more reluctant to charge something can have its uses.

Trading 1 Intercessor to kill 11 Battle Sisters is a trade I'll make every day. Even trading 3 to kill 11 is a trade I'll make.

 

9 attacks from the remaining Battle Sisters might inflict 1W. Average is 0.5 damage. Then, in addition to the 11 lost Sisters it most likely fails morale without using a MD, losing a 12th. If the unit isn't Sacred Rose, the rest then take an attrition test, failing on 1s and 2s so potentially 2-3 of the remaining 8 flee. Your unit of 20 is now a unit of 5-6. I've killed a minimum of 165 points and have lost at most 38 points, 57 if you're really lucky and I'm very unlucky. At worst that's a 3:1 ratio for me.

Edited June 10, 2021 by taikishi

[TheFinisher4Ever]

Only models with the Sacred Rites ability benefit. The following models do not have the Sacred Rites ability:

 

Missionaries

Preachers

Stern and Kyganil

Crusaders

Arco-flagellants

Death Cult Assassins

Mortifiers

Penitent Engines

Battle Sanctum

 

And the answer to Celestine is no. The Passion simply generates an additional hit. The Ardent Blade only generates mortal wounds on 6s to-hit; there's no hit roll associated with the additional hit from the Passion. Instead, she deals 2MW and then you have a S7, AP -4, 2D attack she has to roll to wound for.

Ah a bit of a bummer. Thanks for correcting me though! I was looking in the keywords and at the rule itself, not on the datasheet abilities.

 

As for divine guidance, it's not great when looking at in a vacuum with one unit. But you are using it on almost every unit in your army, every turn. For a shooting list, that starts to add up, especially for higher damage shots like heavy bolters and exorcists.

Edited June 10, 2021 by TheFinisher4Ever

[SkimaskMohawk]

@taikishi my math is wrong? First up you did 12 Bolt pistol shots/6 seraphim instead of 16 shots/8 seraphim. Second I said with cleansing flame, which means the flamers average 38 hits.

 

@blurf ya I didn't mean to seem like I was comparing guidance to spirit of the martyr. It's definitely better than that, but still a hard sell as the only sacred rite for an army, because (as I mentioned earlier) all the new melee units are good, as well as most of the old ones as well. Going 100% pure sororitas shooting with only penitent engines/mortifiers/Arcos as your melee might make for a thematically great concept, but a terrible result.

 

It's just wildly incomparable to passion as an anologue.

[taikishi]

You mean Cleaned By Fire?

 

I wasn't trying to be a jerk and didn't see mention of Cleansed By Fire in your post when I read it. I blame that on being mobile. 6 Sera instead of 8 was a brain fart on my part, and I apologize for my errors. Also, my numbers were all without CBF. 3 CP for 59 hits. 10 dominions get 37.7 hits, 6 of which net improved AP via cleansing fire. Same for Retributors. 20 battle sisters get 51 hits with just cleansing fire, 8.5 of which get improved AP.

 

Seraphim, for 3CP, are definitely more effective but once you run out of CP the larger BSS comes out ahead. Even then, as TheFinisher said, it's more about what Divine Guidance gets you over the course of a game.

[SkimaskMohawk]

Didn't mean to come off as rude; I obviously missed stuff (like the strat name) too.

 

My over arching point is that divine guidance only converts a small portion of wounds into a bonus ap point, which is both a harder to achieve and worse bonus than passion (in terms of hitting vs wounding, I understand that you get more shots over the course of a game than melee attacks).

[Blurf]

@taikishi my math is wrong? First up you did 12 Bolt pistol shots/6 seraphim instead of 16 shots/8 seraphim. Second I said with cleansing flame, which means the flamers average 38 hits.

 

@blurf ya I didn't mean to seem like I was comparing guidance to spirit of the martyr. It's definitely better than that, but still a hard sell as the only sacred rite for an army, because (as I mentioned earlier) all the new melee units are good, as well as most of the old ones as well. Going 100% pure sororitas shooting with only penitent engines/mortifiers/Arcos as your melee might make for a thematically great concept, but a terrible result.

 

It's just wildly incomparable to passion as an anologue.

I agree that The passion is always the best bet when you can use it. No one is playing Divine Guidance when they have significant melee in their army.

 

 

I disagree with the idea that having Pengines, Arcos, or Morties as your melee is bad if you're trying to run a mono-non-BR-army. All of the standard Bloody Rose units are still very mediocre without bloody rose. Sacrosants hit like wet noodles outside of Bloody rose, Paragons don't hit that hard WITH bloody rose, Zephyrim require the full combo to be a real threat, only Repentia have any real damage dealing ability without the <Order> conviction and that's only thanks to Repentia Superior seeing a big upgrade. You still wouldn't take more than a small unit or two to hide in the backfield and counter charge deepstrikers.

 

I've seen people argue that these units are less restricted thanks to changes in the army elsewhere, but that's mostly wishful thinking. Priests are less able to dish out +1 attack, you can't combo up +1S with immune to rend -1(or 2 for VH) , Blessing of the Faithful and the other Hymns of battle require significant investment and struggle to be as useful as shooting focused ones(the melee ones both require a melee canoness, which again is very subpar outside of BR, to be on the field for a full turn before they can use their miracle ability). Zephyrim's unique strat just barely makes up for being nerfed without it. The nerf to bloody rose melee is incredibly minor, losing the AP along with the attack is unfortunate but nothing we have stays in combat more than 1 round anyway. The tear them down change leaves it roughly the same as it was, damage wise. The gains and losses of Bloody Rose vs the other Convictions in the combat phase is pretty much a wash and leaves us where we were before. If we weren't taking bloody rose units in not-bloody rose before, we certainly won't be now.

 

If you ARE including <Order> melee units in a predominantly shooting army, there's no better way to spend either 3CP or 2CP and 55pts than getting a Bloody Rose detachment for them (I'm assuming you were already taking a combat canoness so the HQ cost would be 'free'). And I mean that legitimately, what ability could you spend that 2-3CP on that would be better than '-1 AP, +1A on all melee units + great melee stratagem'? 

 

Personally, I think the majority of lists going forward will be dual detachment Bloody Rose, Argent Shroud lists for this reason.

 

TLDR: <Order> melee units are really good but bloody rose is still SO good that nothing else will get you a better return on investment than taking a bloody rose detachment for your melee units. Oh, and Mortifiers are still the bees knees.

Edited June 10, 2021 by Blurf

[SkimaskMohawk]

Oh when I say terrible it's compared to a mixed order force of argent shroud and bloody rose. Mortifiers and engines are quite good units, but eat into heavy support where I think retributors still work well in argent shroud.

[Blurf]

Oh when I say terrible it's compared to a mixed order force of argent shroud and bloody rose. Mortifiers and engines are quite good units, but eat into heavy support where I think retributors still work well in argent shroud.

Oh good, lol. I totally agree with that! Even just taking Celestine and Vahl together I could see the passion being the better take.

 

I was worried you were saying Mortifiers were bad! I've probably been the most critical person on the board of the book and even I was thinking 'what did this man just say about my mortifiers?!?'

[Slasher956]

 

I'm not going to dwell on the proofreading and production value too much outside of this:

 

I would rather have a codex brimming with flavor and options than one completely devoid of formatting and grammatical errors. If we can find it in ourselves to read past the obvious dumdum mistakes (min 1 damage to paragons, 80 points ea instead of 240), we have a nice book that is rather playable in the environment as is. FAQ and Errata makes the "common sense" interpretations law. Whatever. But if the book were 100% perfect and 100% sucked... well, this conversation would never be: "wow, this book is absolute garbage for rules, but I love how they finally landed it without needed a FAQ rewording or errata on a points value! We've reached the promised land boys!"

 

So where are our priorities? Looks like GW have expressed theirs, and I hope it stays on function over English degrees.

I disagree and blame the current status (rules and monetary pricing) on lack of competition. I would rather have a 100% air tight ruleset with no ambiguity (while acknowledging copy-paste errors happen), even if the codex was bad, than many of the interactions the game has in part because GW designs around "rule of cool."

 

As for 'bad codexes', if GW had better play testing practices (like listening to them or more than a handful who aren't GW employees) and real competition in the market, you'd see less 9E Dark Eldar and 8E Iron Hands, less 2E Sisters, less 7E Orks and Tyranids, and more balance between codexes -- and GW has always strived more for internal book balance than balance between armies. There would still be tier 1, tier 2, tier 3, etc armies and good/bad units, but the gap would be smaller between players of equal skill and players of better skill could win even with the bottom tier army.

 

 

 

You havent looked at any of Warlord Games rulesets lately then - they do have compition in a number of the historical sectors they do book and still require 10+ page FAQ on release /in 3 months time..... it just seems to be a problem with nottingham based games companies that proof /print reading is a job role that doesnt exist....

 

I mean a number of these issues from what I've seen would have been picked up if they had a person who isnt involved in the writting /layout of the book red penning the pdf before its sent to the printers.

 

 

[NatBrannigan]

So with the new FAQ:

 

“ Rules That Count As Remaining Stationary

Some rules allow a unit to count as having Remained Stationary, or count as if it had not moved, even if that unit has moved during its Movement phase. The following rules apply to these type of rules:

1. Such rules, if they apply in the Shooting phase, mean that a unit is eligible to shoot even if it has Advanced or Fallen Back this turn”

 

Does this mean Argent Shroud units can fall back and shoot?

[SkimaskMohawk]

No, argent shroud specifies normal move and advance, not fall back.

 

Having just played a game on tts, it kind of stings they get to put one subfaction into a different subfactions transport. Also the lack of advance and charge definitely is hard to get used to. It can really hurt if you're used to guaranteeing a huge miracle threat range.

[BitsHammer]

I'll be honest, the more I look at Paragons the more I struggle to see how to make them work. They're just so darn squishy for an 80 point model in the current game I sincerely wonder if they're going to see any real table time this edition.

[Montford]

Argent Shroud can advance across the board, shooting unhindered as they go, and then pop out Repentia / Sacresants. I think that much moving, with the kind of firepower Sisters can throw out, would surprise most opponents.

[ThePenitentOne]

I'll be honest, the more I look at Paragons the more I struggle to see how to make them work. They're just so darn squishy for an 80 point model in the current game I sincerely wonder if they're going to see any real table time this edition.

 

I'm not going to try and figure out how well they'll play by trying to piece together the full suite of rules from the various reviews  I've seen; I tried, but it will just be so much easier with the book. But suffice to say, sending a priest with them as buffer, and possibly catching them in a second aura and burning a strat with them will probably crush. The book will be in my hands on Moday at the latest.

[BitsHammer]

 

I'll be honest, the more I look at Paragons the more I struggle to see how to make them work. They're just so darn squishy for an 80 point model in the current game I sincerely wonder if they're going to see any real table time this edition.

 

I'm not going to try and figure out how well they'll play by trying to piece together the full suite of rules from the various reviews  I've seen; I tried, but it will just be so much easier with the book. But suffice to say, sending a priest with them as buffer, and possibly catching them in a second aura and burning a strat with them will probably crush. The book will be in my hands on Moday at the latest.

 

The problem isn't their damage output. I fully buy into that. It's their ability to take a hit without folding right in half. 

[SkimaskMohawk]

Yea the most you can get is ignore one point of ap, 5++ and -1 damage. But having just played against dark eldar 6 dark lances and 8 blasters kind of crushes them; a single true born raider has a good chance of wiping the unit.

 

It's not like you can make a giant brick of them like you can with Centurions either; you're stuck at units of 3 with the prayer being unable to get value. Maybe the immunity to 1 damage isn't a typo...

 

Compared to the BSS bomb with a 4++ and transhuman, I definitely felt there was a disparity for about the same cost in terms of both defensive and offensive power.

[BitsHammer]

Yea the most you can get is ignore one point of ap, 5++ and -1 damage. But having just played against dark eldar 6 dark lances and 8 blasters kind of crushes them; a single true born raider has a good chance of wiping the unit.

 

It's not like you can make a giant brick of them like you can with Centurions either; you're stuck at units of 3 with the prayer being unable to get value. Maybe the immunity to 1 damage isn't a typo...

 

Compared to the BSS bomb with a 4++ and transhuman, I definitely felt there was a disparity for about the same cost in terms of both defensive and offensive power.

As much as I hate to hear my concerns be proven true, I'll take validation for them when they come up since it means I'm not barking up the wrong tree.