Played a few games of Warhammer Fantasy warbands today with a new dwarf player. He is just starting out, and it was good to demo some of the rules and make situations where he would get introduced to different things. Another young kid sat and watched us play and I fielded his questions too. They both seemed to enjoy themselves, and that's always great. As an added bonus the young bystander was so taken by my little demos that he has completely changed his mind about GW games (a former Privateer Press snob, those guys are worse than Apple!) and will be starting up a Wood Elf army.
Not much to show on the rhino, as I played instead of painting today.
My list for the tournament will most likely be my normal list for 1000 point Sisters of Battle.
CannonessJump Pack, Cloak of St. Aspira, Blessed Weapon, Plasma Pistol
10 Battle SistersVeteran Superior, Plasma Pistol, Flamer, Heavy Flamer
RhinoExtra Armor, Smoke
10 Battle SistersVeteran Superior, Plasma Pistol, Flamer, Heavy Flamer
RhinoExtra Armor, Smoke
5 SeraphimVeteran Superior, Plasma Pistol, Evicerator, 2 Twin Flame Pistols
6 Retributors4 Heavy Bolters
ExorcistExtra Armor
I think 5 Faith should be plenty. The games will indeed be played on a 4x4 board, which is weird. I think my flame weapons combined with rhinos at that short distance will make quick work of any troop I come across (they usually do).
For those who actually play SoBs you will notice a distinct lack of Celestians or Books of St. Lucius. I hate them. There, I said it. I consider both of those things the two worst things in the entire Codex. Now granted Repentia (and other options) suck something fierce, but it is obvious. Celestians and those Books on the other hand are sneaky points wasters, hence my dislike. They plague new lists like, well, the plague. I speak out against them wherever I can like a crusader....sorry got carried away for a second, but hopefully you now understand the depth of my loathing.
I will start out with the one main reason that they both fall under.
What type of army are you playing? Sisters of Battle are a shooty force. Granted they shoot people from right in front of their face, but they still shoot. At no point should your sisters ever ever EVER be in assault. The only exception to this is Seraphim, and then only when the time is right, as they are still better at shooting than assault.
What do Celestains do better than normal Sisters? They hit on 3+ in close combat. Where should your sisters not be? You guessed it, in close combat. Hitting on 3s doesn't matter when you are S3 T3 and only have 1 attack on profile. So in the end you are paying 2 extra points per model for a unit that can't score.
Books of St. Lucius are often just as useless. When 5th edition came out there was tons of hype about them in the Sisters community, and there still is. With combat now lowering your leadership for how much you lost by having stubborn 9 is pretty awesome, right? Yeah, it would be, if you wanted to be in combat in the first place. I tried them out for a tournament and took them back out the next day. This is something I see with a lot of gamers. They look at something and think "Wow, in this situation X would be awesome." They don't think to ask "How often will that come up?" All these players keep talking about how Celestians and Books will be awesome in case you get assaulted. Truth be told I almost NEVER get assaulted if I don't want to. Even in mid-level tournament play against armies like orks, even when I am blasting away at people in flamer range. In a foot slogging force (I will talk about their effectiveness in a later post) those Books might be more helpful.
