In keeping with my tradition of writing entertaining but ultimately terrible lists, I decided to have a look at the new Adepta Sororitas codex just to see what nonsense was available. And there certainly is some busted units in there, but only one of them is a sister...
In addition to the usual smattering of sisters units in each force org slot, all of which function roughly similar to how they did before, there are a few key points that immediately jumped out. The first was the points of the Immolators and Exorcist tanks, which have both gone down in cost to quite the bargain. Though unfortunately these are both vehicles, and you all know how terrible I am with them...
Next up are the two special characters, Celestine and Jacobus. Jacobus has had a bit of a change, and is not quite as scary when combined with death cult assassins. However, he does give a very nice large fearless and counter-attack bubble, in addition to being a priest, which we'll get to in a bit.
Celestine isn't quite as infuriating to deal with anymore, she's gone up in points (but is still a cheap date), and can't get up as often as she used to, but can give Hit & Run to a unit she joins, which in itself is very useful.
So now we get to the really fun part, the priests:
These guys are fairly unassuming at first look, coming in at the price of a power fist with the stats of a guardsman sergeant. But then the list of special rules kicks in. First up, you can take 5 of these guys, and they don't take up a force org slot. They come with a rosarius, which starts making them fairly good value. Next, they all have zealot: giving a unit fearless and hatred is now very much worth the points cost.
But why do you need 5 sets of fearless in one unit? Hymns, that's why. Let them sing you the song of their people.
There are 3 Hymns to pick from each assault phase, requiring a leadership test to activate. The first allows the entire unit to reroll armour and invulnerable saves, the second allows rerolls to wound, and the final one gives the priest smash. All of those are pretty tasty, and scale out of control with bigger units. And the 'free' smash attacks mean that some points can be trimmed by not needing to buy power weapons.
Let's see what kind of death blob we can make:
Celestine: Warlord
Jacobus
5 Priests: 1 Litanies of Faith, 5 Condemnor Boltguns
3* 5 Battle Sisters: Condemnor Boltgun
Company Command Squad: Vox Caster
Platoon Command:
5* Infantry Squads: 5 Autocannons, Vox Caster
Platoon Command:
5* Infantry Squads: 5 Autocannons, Vox Caster
2 Vendettas
Ordo Xenos Inquisitor: Rad Greandes, Psycho Greandes, 3 Servo Skulls, Hammerhand
Ordo Hereticus Inquisitor: Psyocculum, Liber Heresius, Hammerhand
Aegis Defense Line
So, everyone joins a 50 man guard blob, bringing their toys to the party. A quick count gives the unit:
- Fearless
- Counter-Attack
- Hit & Run
- Psycho Grenades
- Rad Grenades
- Psych-out Grenades
- +2 strength with Hammerhands
- A potential scout move at the start of the game
- BS10 against psykers
- Reroll saves in combat
- Reroll hits in the first round of combat
- Reroll wounds in combat
- Four characters with smash attacks, in addition to Celestine's high number of attacks
- Adamantium Will.
- Oh, and imperial guard orders.
- And an ADL to hide behind.
Yeah, that will do.
And if something goes wrong, there is a spare blob tagging along behind just in case.
To explain some of the choices a bit:
The Condemnor Boltguns are combi-weapons that cause a perils on any psyker hit. There is a bit of a grey area with regards to what happens when a psyker is part of a normal unit, but the wording suggest that they would take a perils, as it refers to any unit hit, not model. Traditional scary things such as Fateweaver, Nurgle Daemon Princes, Mephiston, Jetlock Councils and even Screamer Councils suddenly evaporate.
The Litanies of Faith allow the Priests to automatically pass the test to activate the hymns, which makes them much better than the inquisiton equivalent, as normally they only have ld7.
And the vendettas are there because PQ keeps complaining that I never bring any anti-air...
Building a list around a single expensive unit, what could possibly go wrong?
No comments:
Post a Comment