Making Sisters of Battle (somewhat more) Competitive

[madlants]

Okay soooo... Sisters of Battle...

To make a long story short, they're currently strong contenders for the unenviable title of most screwed over army by GamesWorkshop.

The White Dwarf list seems to be universally considered to be quite mediocre, with only one troop choice, which doesn't seem to do it's job as well as other armies troops do. The fast attacks are generally well thought of, as are some of the special characters and Exorcist tanks. Other than that, they're generally not considered very good.:( So here's the question, how can the allies rules be used to remedy this? Preferably in a way that allows for some more original builds, since right now the choices are considered so limited. What can be used to make Sisters interesting to play and keep them from getting stomped all the time?

IG seem like an obvious choice, what with being battle brothers to the Sisters and a very solid army, and some IG can work with the fluff as Inquisitorial forces as well (since the Sisters had their Inq forces rudely torn from them to make GKs seem more super special:mad:). But we don't want to use IG as a crutch that the rest of the army leans on while weighing things down. So what allies can be taken and what strategies can be used to really help the Sisters of Battle shine?:) Let's hear some army list ideas!

[ElectricPaladin]

The Sisters are a little overcosted, but they're still a decent horde army. You can cram a lot of Sisters into an army list. I'd say that IG is a bad choice. What the Sisters want is something that can insert itself in-between the Sisters and the opponent to slow them down. Maybe, Space Marines in drop pods?

[daboarder]

I have thought of adding a pair of battle sister squads in arvus lighters to my BA jump army, with the obligatory celestine of course.

[desert_hack]

I have thought of adding a pair of battle sister squads in arvus lighters to my BA jump army, with the obligatory celestine of course.

Apart from you can't buy Arvus Lighters anymore!

[daboarder]

huh, what the model?

[Katharon]

I'd do some things like: make flamers of any kind a free upgrade for all squads; no melta upgrade cost more than 10 pts; +1 S and T for Saint Celestine; give the SoB the option to take Drop Pods, but without internal weapon systems (or only stormbolters).

[Anggul]

I don't think they're all that weak. Their rules aren't exactly exciting, but they aren't awful. I think the main reason they aren't played much is the insanely expensive and repetitive metal models which make them both inaccessible and not very desirable. If they had plastics, I think you would see a lot more of them.

Some awesome holy relics would be really nice, if only to make Canonesses (and well, any HQ that isn't Celestine or Jacobus) more appealing. Blessed weapons should make a comeback at least, they were a great way of making SoB HQs more of a force to be reckoned with. Also a more regulated way of generating faith would probably be appreciated.

[madlants]

Those are all decent and interesting suggestions for a way to improve the army Katharon, (another suggestion is that upping the number of faith points the army gets would help it immensely) but I wanted to focus more on working with the White Dwarf list as it currently is.

I was trying to think of interesting combos. The main reason I mentioned IG is because of such a combo. Since SoB and IG are battle brothers, they're considered part of the same army and use each others special rules. This means that you could take an IG command HQ with Creed and use his tactical genius ability to deep strike squads of Repentia up nice and close to the enemy army to tear up some heads instead them hoofing it across the battlefield and being shot to pieces like they normally are. That's doable, right? Unless I'm missing something, I think it is. Those are the kinds of shenanigans I'm thinking of. Ways that the Sisters can work with allies to make their units more deadly.

Edit: Creed would allow Repentia to deploy like scouts, not deep strike. Same principle, different method. It's late, and I need to hit the hay.

[ElectricPaladin]

I don't think they're all that weak. Their rules aren't exactly exciting, but they aren't awful. I think the main reason they aren't played much is the insanely expensive and repetitive metal models which make them both inaccessible and not very desirable. If they had plastics, I think you would see a lot more of them.

I have a bunch of the metals, and while they aren't bad, I'm not going to expand my collection until there are plastics.