2000 pts Sisters - HELP!

[Garradh]

I cannot decide what to take for a 2000 pt Sisters list I'd like to build! The problem is I'm in love with uncompetitive units . . . Karamazov, Arco-Flagellants and the Jesus-Bots.

What would YOU include in a list that had at least one of each of the three above units . . . or which would you dump completely if you could get rid of them? Standard opponents are IG, SMs, and Tyranids.

[Aegis]

As much as I love the Inquisition, drop the Throne. It is too pricey for what it does, and does not contribute any faith. You would be much better out using the HQ slot for a jump cannoness with eviscerator.

As for the PE's and Arco's, if you insist on using them, take them in numbers, and screen them as best you can. PE's, being in squadrons and open topped with AV 10 is asking them to be shot to death before they get anywhere important.

[mathhammer]

I like Arco-Flagellants it's getting them across the board is the issue, shield them with rhinos.

5xISTs + 2 melts + rhino never hurt.
Immolator spam is always nice.

The throne, just drop it.

Penitent Engine is the same as the arco-flagellents, shield them with cheap rhino bodies for the 4+ save until you can engage them.

And don't forget an immolator.

[Melissia]

P.Engines are actually AV11 front and side armor, not AV10. Still, yeah, AV11 open topped makes it very easy to klil them.

Also, ISTs suck as the core of your army (IE, troops choices).

[Frowbakk]

When you take Karamozov, remember he gets more buffs from his built-in Henchmen than are shown on his profile. Put him in cover (he's not a Vehicle, so he won't need to be 50% obscured) and snipe tanks with your Triple-Melta

Since you need a Priest to unlock the Arcos, give him a Plasmagun and stick him with =I=ST's with a Plasmagun and a Flamer in a Chimera (or Rhino if you'd rather put 35 points elsewhere). That should stop him from dragging them all headlong towards the enemy, and you have a shooty bunker which can sit and put 3 S6, 3 S5 and 2 S7 shots out at 24". Keep it in your backfield for fire support and countercharge, but keep 'em in the vehicle at all times.

Since you've taken an Inquisitor, let him unlock an Assassin for you. A Culexus might be a good choice to run alongside the Arcos, or a Callidus to disrupt your enemy plans.

The last Elite and whatever Fast Attack squads you can afford should be minimum sized Celestian or Dominion Squads with 2 Meltas riding in Heavy Flamer Immolators. These will run you 153 points each and are your answer to enemy armor as you drive 12" and pop smoke the first turn, then drive 6" and double-Melta to your heart's content.

Either run the Penitent Engines behind the Immolators or keep them in Reserve for a nasty surprise to Drop Poddders and Deep Strikers (Monoliths excluded.... )

Take two =I=ST squads with two Meltas and have them ride in Heavy Support Immolators with the rest.

Refuse the flank, STAY IN YOUR VEHICLES, and good luck.

[Garradh]

I see a couple people saying ISTs. Let me clarify that the goal is to play an SoB army. Are you recommending ISTs for simple 5-man, 2 melta Rhino squads? SoB seems to be 100% meta with a heavy flamer and a melta running around in Rhinos and I know the 5-man IST squads are just tweaking that a bit more in the favor of a melta-spammy meltaspam list anyway . . . but I don't want to lose the SoB flavor.

I'll drop Karamozov, probably wouldn't be able to find the model anyway. Should I field an Inquisitor Lord or an Inquisitor Lite instead?

Heavy Support . . . 2 Exorcists and a full group of Penitent Engines? That would leave me with (most likely) only one Immolator for the Canoness/Celestians.

Thanks for the great advice, keep it coming!

A little background - I've played IG, Chaos, and BAs for a long time and recently moved in with a guy who is in love with playing a SoB army for its theme. I want to build an army list for him that is competitive but also highly flavorful, thus why we're really into Arco-Flagellants and Penitent Engines.

[Frowbakk]

I see a couple people saying ISTs. Let me clarify that the goal is to play an SoB army. Are you recommending ISTs for simple 5-man, 2 melta Rhino squads? SoB seems to be 100% meta with a heavy flamer and a melta running around in Rhinos and I know the 5-man IST squads are just tweaking that a bit more in the favor of a melta-spammy meltaspam list anyway . . . but I don't want to lose the SoB flavor.

I'll drop Karamozov, probably wouldn't be able to find the model anyway. Should I field an Inquisitor Lord or an Inquisitor Lite instead?

Heavy Support . . . 2 Exorcists and a full group of Penitent Engines? That would leave me with (most likely) only one Immolator for the Canoness/Celestians.

Thanks for the great advice, keep it coming!

A little background - I've played IG, Chaos, and BAs for a long time and recently moved in with a guy who is in love with playing a SoB army for its theme. I want to build an army list for him that is competitive but also highly flavorful, thus why we're really into Arco-Flagellants and Penitent Engines.

A 5 man =I=ST's with 2 Meltas in Heavy Support Immolators with Smoke (and the same price as an Exorcist with Smoke for the combo) or a squad of 10 Sisters with Heavy Flamer/Melta and VSS with Book of St Lucius in a Rhino whith Extra Armor & Smoke (the 209 point special) are your most efficient picks for your Troops choices. It's been my experience that it takes three full units of Rhino Sisters shooting with Divine Guidance to reliably take out a Marine Tactical Squad, so I suggest taking three units of Rhino Sisters for that reason.

=I=ST's are the go-to for Immolator Spam armies, but I have had a better track record with the units of 3 Rhino Sisters.

If you can get away from taking an Inquisitor, you should. They can end up being a big points sink for not much payoff. Instead for your HQ consider a Palatine (or Canoness if you have 10 points to spare at the end) with 5 Celestian Bodyguards with 2 Meltas riding in an Immolator with Smoke for a bit less than 200 points.

I would still take the unit of 5 =I=ST's with 2 Plasmaguns for the Priest with Plasmagun to pal around with, and even though the WH Chimera costs 30 points more than the IG version, have them ride in that for the protection, long(ish) range firebase parked on your home objective. The Plasmagun kind of 'short circuits' the Priests tendency to move towards the enemy since you can keep him stationary in order to get off a single shot at 24".

With the Immolators and Rhinos forming a pretty good pocket of moving terrain, you have a place for the Arcos and PenEngines to advance. However, even the 4+ cover provided by the vehicles in front won't buff the surviability of the Penitent Engines that much.

You'll advance with half of your vehicles popping smoke the first turn and the rest hiding bhind the smoked vehicles and out of range to do anything (aside from the "homeboy" =I=ST's in their Chimera), second turn you'll maneuver the other vehicles which can pop smoke to the front and get off a few Immolator Flamer shots, or even Meltas from the passengers if you moved 6" or less. Third turn is where you hit the enemy as hard as you can, piling on to just two or maybe three units in order to completely destroy them. If your PenEngines made it this far, here's where they'll shine.

[Melissia]

Immolator spam armies are laughable, kinda like ISTs. Because immolators suck. They are nothing more than overpriced Razorbacks, and always have been. Immolator "spam" is very inefficient. Yes, they can kill things, and they are nowhere near as bad as repentia, but when you're paying as much as a predator for what amounts to a rhino with a multimelta, you're never going to be as good as a Marine army doing razorback spam. And their razorbacks are cheaper and better equipped than your expensive razorback wannabes.

[Garradh]

Aha! I can see an IST squad parked in a Chimera for the priest to hang out with . . . was kinda unsure what to do with him otherwise and yes that does add some much-needed ranged shooting.

Seraphim . . . the only envelopment unit in the list. How many and how equipped? Infernos and eviscerator? 1 squad of 5, 2 squads for faith points?

[Melissia]

I'd reccomend seven or eight per squad, with inferno pistols and a BP+PW. A squad of five just doesn't have the survivability for the expense.

[Frowbakk]

Immolator spam armies are laughable, kinda like ISTs. Because immolators suck. They are nothing more than overpriced Razorbacks, and always have been. Immolator "spam" is very inefficient. Yes, they can kill things, and they are nowhere near as bad as repentia, but when you're paying as much as a predator for what amounts to a rhino with a multimelta, you're never going to be as good as a Marine army doing razorback spam. And their razorbacks are cheaper and better equipped than your expensive razorback wannabes.

Note: I never said to upgrade the Immolators to MultiMeltas. That way lies madness.

The "stock" Immmolator with Twin HeavyFlamers gets to move 12" and still shoot the re-roll-to-wound S5 template as if it were a Fast vehicle. This adds much needed mobility to the army as a whole and an extra layer of durability to the squad inside shooting their 2 Meltas when the Immolator moves 6" or less. This fulfills a different role than SM Razorbacks, getting the close range Sisters shooting to where it needs to be.

If you're going to go with the Pentient Engines, I think that getting as many other armored targets in your opponent's face as soon as possible is key to any of the PenEngines surviving long enough to get into assault. Provide too many AV11 targets to take down with the 2 Exorcists at longer range also being tempting targets for your opponent's anti-tank weaponry.

My usual 2000 point Sisters list has 6 Immolators (1 HQ, 3 Celestian, 2 Dominion) with the squads toting 2 Meltas apiece. Add in 3 Rhino Sisters squads and 3 Exorcists and that's my army.

I have been swapping one Rhino for 5 =I=ST's with 2 Plasma in a Chimera for fire support (the remaining points go to changing the loadout to 2 Celesian Squads and 3 Dominion squads with 2 melta and 2 Flamer for when Termagants need to be thrown on the 'barbie) and have found it to be a relatively solid choice.

I haven't used Seraphim much lately (too many IG players in love with the Colossus locally) but a squad size of 7 or 8 will let you get off the Faith rolls you need to keep them going and tie up enemy units.

But I still suggest spamming armor with the PenEngines to give your foe too many armor values to deal with effectively.

[Melissia]

Celestians are nice, but they're really ovepriced for what they do. My typical army list has the same amount of exorcists but double the amount of infantry models on the field compared to yours, it's much harder to destroy.

That is to say---

Two Canonesses with Celestian Retinues in Rhinos (flamer/flamer/frags on the squad, eviscerator/book/cloak on the canoness, eviscerator on the veteran)

Five-Six Battle Sister Squads in Rhinos (heavy flamer / meltagun / combiflamer)

three Exorcist Squads.


For a total of around sixty to eighty models and ten to eleven tanks (depending on how you load it out). IF you really want, you actualy have enough anti-tank with my list that you could swap the exorcists with five penitent engines, and still have more than enough AV11 armor to take fire away from the penitent engines-- yes, they're rhinos rather than immolators, but that means there's more infantry in them, and the Sisters' biggest asset has always been infantry. I can reproduce the list later in the army list section.

[DarkLink]

Right, my Sisters lists follow this pattern:

A celestian squad to escort my Cannoness(es)

As many Sisters squads as possible, with basic upgrades

As many exorcists as possible

If I have the points, a squad of Seraphim

[Melissia]

Mind you, I'm not saying you can't win with other combos. But then, you can win games with repentia and chaos spawn, too.

[Garradh]

My next big concern is the Canoness. Looking at her statline, she is the only thing the SoB have to a melee character, and yet she clearly isn't a melee character with a whopping WS4. Given that the army will already have Arco-Flagellants and Penitent Engines as the super-assaulty elements, should the Canoness worry about playing a counter-charge role?

Penitent Engines are clearly shock-value attack units, but I could see hiding Arco-Flagellants behind Rhinos long enough for the baddy's Land Raider to drop its happy cargo of Terminators. Maybe not.

Do I give the Canoness a holy weapon and Praesidium Protectiva and send her off chasing enemy characters? Do I load up on meltaguns and hope one of them picks off the opponent's assaulty units that don't die to flamers?

As a Guard player I've always kept a countercharge, can-opener unit. Do I do the same with SoB, or is that a waste of an expensive unit?

[Frowbakk]

My next big concern is the Canoness. Looking at her statline, she is the only thing the SoB have to a melee character, and yet she clearly isn't a melee character with a whopping WS4. Given that the army will already have Arco-Flagellants and Penitent Engines as the super-assaulty elements, should the Canoness worry about playing a counter-charge role?

Penitent Engines are clearly shock-value attack units, but I could see hiding Arco-Flagellants behind Rhinos long enough for the baddy's Land Raider to drop its happy cargo of Terminators. Maybe not.

Do I give the Canoness a holy weapon and Praesidium Protectiva and send her off chasing enemy characters? Do I load up on meltaguns and hope one of them picks off the opponent's assaulty units that don't die to flamers?

As a Guard player I've always kept a countercharge, can-opener unit. Do I do the same with SoB, or is that a waste of an expensive unit?

Under 4th Edition the "Flying Nun" Canoness loaded for bear was pretty good, but under 5th with the reaction move into combat means she usually gets swamped by sheer numbers of counterattacks.

Play a few games without the Canoness & Retinue (she can't be singled out in asault due to the old Codex rules) tooled up for countercharge and see if you feel the need. Until then, take your own advice to load up on Meltas and shoot 'em before they get to you.

The 5 =I=ST's and Priest sitting in your deployment zone may come close to filling that role as well, but as as an IG player you know not to expect much from a normal human statline in assault.

[Melissia]

A Canoness attached to a Dominian or Retributor squad with a book and storm bolter is cheap and still quite useful (for the faith points and the leadership boost, but also because of a BS5 storm bolter).