Unit Grades, Index 40k Sisters of Battle

[Blurf]

So the Index is bad. I'm going to do a unit by unit grading to explain why it's bad.

No, the lack of Anti-tank isn't the biggest issue.'

 

To understand the primary issues with this index we must first establish the 3 most problem units.

 

Battle Sisters Squads: They are locked at 10 per unit now. This makes them incredibly terrible. Their only value was the extra miracle dice. Now you'll be paying upwards of 200pts to have what Eldar get for cheaper (with a better unit). D. It's the only unit a lot of characters can attach to and the only unit MULTIPLE characters can attach too.

 

Celestian Sacresants: Terrible. 3+ Save, no unit ability unless you attach a canoness, Can't attach ANYTHING ELSE WITH a canoness. Truly a terrible unit. This single unit is SO AWFUL that it makes the rest of the codex nonsensical. F.

 

Dominions: Locked at 10. You can combat squad them with an immolator. Still can only take 4 special weapons. So you have 5 COMPLETELY WORTHLESS BODIES you have to pay for to put them in an immo. F.

 

These three units are so completely terrible and so centralizing based on the characters that can attach to them, that it absolutely handicaps the rest of the army.

 

Lets go through the rest.

 

Canoness: F. Only attaches to BSS/Sacresants. Nothing else about her datasheet matters. Not good.

Palantine: C+ At least she attaches to Novitiates. gives Lethal Hits and scout and lets you Cycle MD.  Decent enough body.

Morvenn: B+ Makes Paragons go Godmode. If Paragons were good, she'd be an A. Hopefully MUCH cheaper.

Celestine: B+ Lost A LOT of stats, but hopefully attach to Zephyrim+ a points drop+Free tears makes her still solid. New FNP makes the backup dancers weird.

Junith: A. Basically mandatory. 1CP per turn is huge. Only attaches to terrible BSS and terrible Sacresants though. Hopefully cheap.

Missionary: C Sustained hits is worse than Lethal Hits for Novitiates. No reason to take over Palatine. Especially because Novitiates already reroll. Okay on Arcos.

Stern: F Doesn't do anything.

Aestrid: F. Devastating wounds on MELEE WEAPONS ONLY, can only attach to 1 Melee unit. TRASH. Miracle dice ability might get her hooked to rets if she's exactly 4 points.

Imagifier: F. Only attaches to BSS if she attaches with another character. Useless unless rets have literally nothing else.

Hospitaller: F. FNP and Heal mean nothing when it can only attach to BSS unless it's the only character.

Dogmata: F. Crap.

Dialogus: C. Finally SOMETHING that attaches to something decent with a usable buff! Staple her to a ret squad and call it a day.

Preacher: C-. +1 to wound Arcos and Novitiates. If he could double attach, he'd be a C+

Novitiates: C. Better than BSS at least. Native rerolls are nice. Probably not worth it to bring any of the extras unless they're free.

Paragons: C+. Only good if Morvenn attaches. 4+ invul is nice?

Repentia: C+. Full rerolls are nice. Too bad no character buffs and only 2 attacks each. Why no devastating wounds? Stupid.

Seraphim: C-. Has some moderate utility as a deepstrike objective taker with Handflamers. That's about it though.

Zephyrim: C, only 3 attacks, only damage 1, only Celestine can attach, only unit buff is +1S on charge. Mid. At least a good target for the strat.

Rets: C. Cherubs are gone (no one cares about the dice) Reroll wounds is mid. Decent out of Rhinos or Immos. Dominions make them look better than they are.

Mortifiers: C-. Good if cheap.

Penitent Engine: C-. Good if Cheap.

Exorcist: B+. Aura DOES NOT matter, but D6+2 S10 shots ignoring LoS, Cover, and the penalty for LoS is huge.

Castigator: A-. Predictably, the absolute best unit in the army. Because no one had the old one. The Autocannon are arguably our best form of anti-tank.

Rhino B+: Maybe makes Dominions somewhat useful? Doubt it.

Immolator: B+. Probably our most viable anti-tank with Rets. The combat squad ability is cute, but not useful. Dominions end up with 5 useless models, BSS have to be on the board for their miracle dice ability, Novitiates want to be in large units.

Arcos: C. Good at doing something the rest of the army is already decent at. Can't see a real need for them.

 

Theoretical List:

 

Morvenn+3 MM, PM Paragons.

Celestine + 10 Zephyrim with Banner

Palatine+10 Sword Novitiates in a Rhino

Junith+10BSS (You need 1 unit, might as well attach Junith)

10 Repentia in a Rhino

3x5 MM rets with Dialogus

3x5 MM Immos

3xCastigators with Autocannons

2xExorcists with EML

 

Enhancements are kind of a problem. None of your non-Epic Hero characters are going to be on the board for very long.

 

 

 

[Emperor Ming]

Yep its horrific

 

Glad I have other armies

 

Your writeup is pretty spot on, I'm just aghast at some of gws decision making, fixed unit sizes........

 

Sisters with bolt guns have to be some of the most useless models, unless they are a pittance 

Edited June 14, 2023 by Emperor Ming

[WAR]

29 minutes ago, Emperor Ming said:

Yep its horrific

 

Glad I have other armies

 

Your writeup is pretty spot on, I'm just aghast at some of gws decision making, fixed unit sizes........

 

Sisters with bolt guns have to be some of the most useless models, unless they are a pittance 

 

Exactly how I feel

[Meister Eisenfaust]

The problem seems old.
Sisters get stuff for meele, while not being good at meele - except for a few units, that do not get the buffing characters 

Well, maybe there comes an FaQ for MSU again. at least i hope so
 

[Blurf]

It is unbelievable that this was allowed to go to print. Especially since it's incredibly easy to fix:

Let every unit double up on characters. That's it. That's all you'd have to do. If you could put a Palatine and a Canoness on Dominions, they'd be decent! But you can't! If you could put Junith AND the Imagifier on Sacresants (which seems to be what you're SUPPOSED TO DO ANYWAY) they'd be okay. Not great, but okay.

 

Also, if they want to make battle sisters relevant, LET THEM HAVE MORE GUNS. Why is it still 1 special+1 Heavy? There's no EARTHLY reason a BSS squad in 2023 can't have 2 specials and 2 heavies. If you don't want them to step on dominions toes, GIVE DOMINIONS A UNIT ABILITY BETTER THAN REROLL FREAKING ADVANCES,

[MagicHat]

6 hours ago, Blurf said:

 If you don't want them to step on dominions toes, GIVE DOMINIONS A UNIT ABILITY BETTER THAN REROLL FREAKING ADVANCES,

They also get assault on all their special weapons. 

 

Broadly agree with what you are saying though.

[mertbl]

Why do you think 10 battlesisters will be upwards of 200 pts?

[Blurf]

10 hours ago, mertbl said:

Why do you think 10 battlesisters will be upwards of 200 pts?

I figured 2 units of 10 would be upwards of 200. I was basing that whole assertion off of SoB armies wanting exactly 2 units of BSS so they can cover a deployment objective and a strong side neutral zone objective and get 2 MD per turn.

[MagicHat]

I just went back to look on the Dominion datasheet again, and I think they copy pasted the stormbolter onto the boltgun.

Tremble before the might of the dominion and her superfast reload speed!

Boltgun [RAPID FIRE 2, ASSAULT] 

[Blurf]

1 hour ago, MagicHat said:

I just went back to look on the Dominion datasheet again, and I think they copy pasted the stormbolter onto the boltgun.

Tremble before the might of the dominion and her superfast reload speed!

Boltgun [RAPID FIRE 2, ASSAULT] 

I think that's actually deliberate.

GW aren't so stupid that they don't understand that making you take 10 Doms makes the unit pretty terrible.

They're just stupid enough to do it anyway.

So they throw SoB players exactly 2 bones: 1. They can combat squad into Immolators, 2. Their bolters are only mostly useless instead of being totally useless.

Is Aestred gave Devastating wounds to shooting, they'd be a good unit.

[Dread]

Where are the indexs at?

[MagicHat]

6 hours ago, Dread said:

Where are the indexs at?

 

Warhammer community. 

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2023/06/14/free-imperium-index-cards-reclaim-the-galaxy-with-humanitys-finest/

[MoshJason]

Did we lose our shrine??

 

[Jorin Helm-splitter]

Well points are up vehicles are pretty cheap  gonna be rough for sisters.

[Montford]

Basic Battle Sisters remained the same points, however it looks like the characters all got points dropped, especially Stern!

[Osteoclast]

Looks like 6 Nundams, Morven Vahl, and six penitent engines (or mortifiers) would come in just under 1K and be a valid list. I suspect not competitive, but sounds like great fun. 

[Dread]

Thank you for that.

[Emperor Ming]

Anyone come up with any viable 2k lists?

[Blurf]

57 minutes ago, Emperor Ming said:

Anyone come up with any viable 2k lists?

Found my favorite on DakkaDakka:

"

So here's a pretty Standard Sisters list for 10th: Vindicare Assassin 80 Inquisitor Greyfax 65 Inquisitorial Henchman 260pts Knight Castellan 495 Celestine 150 Battle Sister Squad 110 Exorcist 140 Exorcist 140 Exorcist 140 Crusaders 20 Crusaders 20 Crusaders 20 DeathCults 35 DeathCults 35 DeathCults 35 You still have 255pts left, but it's probably best to just leave those open to try and deny secondaries."   I would probably drop 2 of the Exorcists for another Inquisitorial Henchmen Squad, but that seems about right.

[Atrus]

Not sure yet, but I'm thinking at thus stage of proxying my Doms as retributors- just for the unit size.

Thinking if I put bss into an immo and split the unit.  Set the immo on a deployment objective if present and sit the rets beside it, the rest of the split bss elsewhere.  First turn, disembark the bss onto objective and embark rets and then send the immo forth is an option to get more little objective holders on the table.

Otherwise, doing my usual outflank with the immo but the rets inside instead of Dom's will still do.

[Blurf]

 

Math on Paragons. Assumes Morvenn Rerolls (because you should only take them with Morvenn). Some of the math on swords in inflated because it doesn't take the lost wounds of putting 2 damage attacks into 3 Wound models.

Still, looks like Swords vs Maces doesn't actually matter than much.

Updated because terminators are 4++ now despite have Sacresants at 2+ save being too strong.

 

 

 

Edited June 18, 2023 by Blurf

[Blurf]

Castigator Math: Color codes are like to like, bolds are one is superior to the other. Shocker, Autocannon is always worse beyond 24".

Autocannon is better into Infantry 100% of the time and better into monsters/vehicles sometimes.

 

For specialization purposes compare Autocannon (Cover) vs Battlecannon M/V(Cover). Basically, the battle cannon is only better than the autocannon in 2 scenarios: 1. Shooting at 25+ inches out and 2. Shooting at some very specific units in cover.

[Montford]

I am going to try placing a squad of Retributors with Heavy Bolters on top of a building or ruin, perhaps with a Palatine attached, to get an extra AP on them from Plunging Fire to make them 5 -2  2. They would be good killers for W2 models and also for Overwatch of nearby Units.

[Blurf]

2 hours ago, Montford said:

I am going to try placing a squad of Retributors with Heavy Bolters on top of a building or ruin, perhaps with a Palatine attached, to get an extra AP on them from Plunging Fire to make them 5 -2  2. They would be good killers for W2 models and also for Overwatch of nearby Units.

That's a really bad idea. Retributors are 130pts, 5Ws, and overwatch only hits on 6s. Even for casual, Crusade style games, Heavy Bolters are pretty much useless on them.

Heavy Flamers have a small niche as an overwatch threat in a rhino, but that's not really worth 130pts either.

Unfortunately, a combination of being a bad index and being stuck on powerlevels now, means that we really can't afford to take silly builds like Heavy Bolter rets, without risking making the game so one sided your opponent feels bad for you.

[Lemondish]

Bring what you'd like and give it a shot. The doom and gloom will subside in time.