Sisters are doing it for themselves.

You'll need a bigger gun to keep me off you, Sister.

Well not quite doing it for themselves as they've a man overseeing everything to make sure things go right. As it should be. I've been hankering after trying out the Ecclesiarchy's finest for quite a while now and at a recent tournament (Itzacon, with a set of reports from Dispatches from the Front) one of the lads in our group (Nick at 4+ This!) tried the Paul Quigley challenge (set out in W-ired's 12.2 podcast available here) and was unlucky to finish just outside the 10th place cut-off point that would make Mr. Mandragoran look like a pussy, because he hasn't attempted to fulfil his own boastful challenge. Just because he writes an article for BOLS he thinks he can say anything and not have to back it up. For shame...

I've been playing Wolves at every tourney I've attended in the past 2 years (bar two) and I figured that a change is as good as a rest so I went looking for something else to have a crack off of. I looked at GK (too easy), Guard (taken), BA (lots of them down here already), Newcrons (no love for the models) and even Tau (taken) but after reading some of the lad's thoughts over on Sons of Sanguinius and Hive Mind Hangover (they're so purple!), along with getting the opportunity to wave my balls in Quigley's face if I did finish a tourney within the top 10 (but this time he would be awake and not in a foreign country...) I figured that for MooFool's (or Little Dave's Birthday Bash) I'd plumb for the WD dinner ladies: the Sisters that serve pain.

Or rock-hard food. Which is often the same thing.

Btw - apologies for the random nature of the text formatting in the article. I've tried formatting the shite out of it through deleting copypasta, Word and Notepad but nothing's worked so far because Blogger seems to have a mind of its own today and the paragraphs just jump around the page.

So not even rumours of Dark Angels being the new poster-boys for 40k nor the promising Chaos Legion rumours could tempt me to give them a final run-out in favour of the nuns with guns. Nick had asked me for advice before heading up to Galway and we came up with something along the lines of some of Stelek's suggested lists which tend to be very shooty heavy. I know that he has lots of detractors but Stelek does pump out lists which can often work even in a non-NOVA setting which he favours which I feel is advice that can be, arguably, to the detriment of more standardised missions. But that's for another day.

The list we conjured up was:

Celestine

Kyrinov

There's even Sisters Cosplay out there.

10 Sisters with 2 Melta

Rhino with Extra Armour

10 Sisters with 2 Melta

Rhino with Extra Armour

10 Sisters with 2 Melta

Immolator with MultiMelta

10 Sisters with 2 Melta

Immolator with MultiMelta

5 Dominions with 2 Melta, CombiMelta

Immolator with Heavy Flamer, Dozer, Searchlight

5 Dominions with 2 Melta, CombiMelta

Immolator with Heavy Flamer, Dozer, Searchlight

5 Dominions with 2 Melta, CombiMelta

Immolator with MultiMelta, Dozer, Searchlight

6 Retributors - 4 Heavy Bolters, Extra Girl, Storm Bolter

6 Retributors - 4 Heavy Bolters, Extra Girl, Storm Bolter

6 Retributors - 4 Heavy Bolters, Extra Girl

Some stuff was a compromise (I prefer Jacobus to Kyrinov myself) while others were taken to accommodate models that Nick had access to. The 3 Dominion squads were a no-brainer, but their
rides weren't and in the end Nick went for the grunts wrecking vehicles and the vehicles killing grunt while the 4 Troops were taken so that the army stood a chance in the ETC-style missions that rewarded players for having lots of Troops. 

Celestine sticking it to the man. You go girl.

And Celestine. She is demented: she's on the rag every 28 days, for 28 days and keeps coming back for more: just like as if she's been publicly dumped because she's a fecking wallflower. Yes, her ressur-erection is a gimmick but it's something that an opponent can't ignore because she has a move of 13" plus assault range when she gets back up and is free to assault with 6 attacks so she mangles infantry. The only problem is she has to be hidden til you are able to get stuck is as she's very susceptible to instant death. And does very little against vehicles. You can't have everything I suppose.

Having tried something similar to this in practice games I was able to see that the 3 Retributor squads were Long Fang-lite: static firepower with good saves but unlike the Marines they didn't have Missiles to double up on anti-infantry as well as anti-tank and were reliant on Fantasy-style lolrandom shenanigans in order to get their vehicle-busting on. Plus, 36" range restricts their deployment options and can mean they have to get close to the centre of the board in order to guarantee they're in range of targets every turn. That's not good for them with T3. So they had to be either pared down or given lots of support to draw attention away from them. A bit of both was required with Abe Simpson saying it best with 'A little from Column A, a little from Column B.'

So I had a look elsewhere and had a crack off of Pentitent Engines. LOL, only joking. AV 11, Open-Topped and Rage makes me think of a guy on Crystal Meth in an out of control wheelchair that is covered in spinning blades while spewing flames. o_O I went for something that was a bit more reliable but still suffered from the lolrandom that plagues the army: the Exorcist. It might give D6 shots but if I took 2 I'd have better odds of averaging out the number of shots and if I picked on one target per turn I'd strongly boost my chances of killing it outright (AP1 helps a lot) before moving on to another target. It also allowed me to perform the 'quarters game' - that is deploying or coming from reserve into a table corner with the front armour pointed at the enemy and advancing along a table edge while pouring fire into the enemy (often into their side armour) while the rest of the army pressed into the middle of the board.

That would free up some of the units in midfield to open up on other targets or even allow me to disembark and blast units up close with lots of bolter fire. Hell, even GK are afraid of being pummelled by a hail of Bolter fire when it's a 5 to 6 man squad in case they lose one of the fancier fellas in the unit.

I wondered about the Transport options that were available to the units and while Nick went for the Immolator, I did a bit of reading and saw that it had fallen out of favour with a few people as the 24" range means that you have to get close in order to get a result, similar to an Asscan Razor in MEQ armies, which means that your AV11 vehicle is within retribution range of everything so after popping something with the Melta (or not) it's quite likely to get hammered to bits, or at the very least it won't be able to move/fire next turn, whereas a unit with some Meltas will be able to keep pouring fire into the enemy and with Faith points they can re-roll to hit and not really care if their cheap ride (the Rhino) can move or not. Note: I know that I've got to have Faith, Faith, Faith, Faith but I'm actually going to play the army as if there is no Faith in the list so I'm going to omit the possibilty of re-rolls/rending, so when I do get a buff I'll be doubly happy, and not play trying to rely on pulling off gimmicks to win, because they usually don't work. I'm a glass-half full guy fwiw by the way.

As a result I've chosen to go with Rhinos over Immolators as I would get two things:

1. The ability to shoot melta out of the vehicles and not really care when they were shot at

and

2. Points for other units.

With the freed-up points I'm able to splash out on a combat unit to bail the ladies out of trouble when abusive ex-boyfriends show up ('What do you mean I can't wear your blood to protect me from Daemonic forces?') to start battering them. I looked first at the Battle Conclave, and then at Sisters Repentia. Yes, I'm serious about the latter. Their profile is shite but they can do a lot of damage when they get stuck in, especially when combined with Jacobus and another unit of Sisters charging in to soak up damage. Because 3+ saves are still pretty decent even when you're T3. When the Repentia charge in with Jacobus they get 4A each and re-rolls to hit and though they're I1, this isn't so bad when another unit is taking the brunt of hits back. Plus you get the odd Act of Faith through to get more hits in after the enemy have fought so that's even more S6 Chainfists swinging to do damage. But Conclaves have Power Weapons at normal I values. And don't need to rely on Faith to do additional damage freeing it up for other shooty units. And are tougher than the repenting Sisters too.

I thought about this for a while and considered adding Repentias to the list until Alan and his diabetes showed up to my place for a game one Thursday. He scoffed when I suggested Repentia and reckoned that a Conclave was the best of a bad situation so I went with them. It paid off when they were charged by a unit of Death Company and instead of folding, they mangled the DC over two rounds of combat. It did leave me wondering about whether I'd be better off with more mobile guns instead of a half-decent combat unit because a unit of Dominions would be an expendable suicide Melta squad that could also be used to cock-block and keep the other units alive so they could pour more melta into offending units that fell out of transports, whereas one of the combat units is likely to get torrented away by small-arms fire,

The only thing is that while the enemy can't return fire and thus damage my units in my turn when I shoot, assaults tend to be fairly conclusive with the Battle Conclave as they wreck face against MEQ's and will typically kill 3-4 Terminators (assuming a 3+ save) but mostly it gives the Sisters *something* that can fight a bit in combat beyond Celestine flying around irritating stuff before she gets mulched and eventually gets back up. However, for a big unit of these you can get another scoring unit or have another Melta-heavy unit, like Dominions or else a dirt-cheap Canoness with a Command Squad sporting dirt-cheap Heavy Bolters or Meltaguns.

The list has ended up being:

Celestine

Jacobus

Battle Conclave - 5 DCA, 3 Crusaders
Rhino - Dozer

10 Sisters - Melta, MultiMelta

Rhino - Searchlight

10 Sisters - Melta, MultiMelta

Rhino - Searchlight 

10 Sisters - Melta, MultiMelta

Rhino 

10 Sisters - Melta, MultiMelta

5 Dominions - 2 Melta, Combi-Melta

Rhino - Dozer, Searchlight

5 Dominions - 2 Melta, Combi-Melta

Rhino - Dozer, Searchlight

5 Dominions - 2 Melta, Combi-Melta

Rhino - Dozer, Searchlight

5 Retributors with 4 Heavy Bolters

Exorcist

Exorcist

* See this pic for reference.

I've already submitted the list so I'm hoping to get another game or two in during the week before I get fully comfortable with it. Well, as comfortable with a list as I can be after 4 practice games. Here's hoping they'll be successful on their latest sexually-repressed genocidal crusade because it can be a dangerous place in the grimdark future for a lady.*

BTW: Quigley calling Bullshit on Kev Rynne for not using Brets at Gnoblars on the Phantom Podcast: you're a bad man. Ah Quiggles, I jest - Buffo despises you, so all is forgiven. ;)