Are we a one-trick-pony?

[SmokWawelski]

Hi,

I was just looking over the GW online store, checking out the Eversor assassin model. 12" charge and 3+D6 attacks on charge are nice! I was also looking for IST plasma gun models and a Priest with plasma pistol to join that squad. Doing some quick calculations here and there, (point-wise mind you, not in $$) I, again, kind of looked at another box of basic sisters instead...

Sister with a bolter or a flamer with Divine Guidance... As much as I want to use assassins, =][=, Repentia or Penitent Engines, every time when I play with that idea the result is the same: stat lines, players here and cost seem to steer me away from investing time and effort into those models.

BUT, I am also hypocritical because I am just putting two Penitent Engines on the other side of my desk as I am typing this post :yes:

Of course, playing to win and playing to have fun are two different things, and not every army has to be "lean and mean", but experience, tactics and great deployment will not always carry us to victory.

Hence the question: Are we the army of Divine Guidance only?

Well, I do understand that Tau shoot, Nids assault and Necrons just look mean, but I wanted to vent some frustration (and I know that this is NOT THE FIRST TIME we are crying about that)...

[hs5ias]

The WH are not, and really neither are the Sisters. The Sisters cannot produce forces which are quite as variable as some other armies though. In particular the Space Marines and far more so again the Chaos Space Marines have a colossal number of tactical options as they can be excellent at shooting, assault, being vehicle heavy or troop heavy, can have uber-characters or massed rankers, have access to all sorts of special deployment and can use any combination of these. Compared to this the Sisters simply lack the range of troop types, options and vehicles needed to produce radically varying lists. What can you do when you have only two elite choices, one troops choice, two fast attack choices and three heavy support choices?

That said I can think of a few different types of Sisters list:

1. Balanced mechanised. Lots of Sisters in Rhinos, also maybe some Celestians and Dominion in Rhinos or Immolators, a few Seraphim, Retribs and Exo's in support.

2. Balanced foot. Loads of Sisters on foot, along with Celestians, Seraphim and Retributors. Exo's in support.

3. Fire and manouevre. Variation on the balanced mechanised. Several Domin squads included with five Stormbolters each in Rhinos.

4. Bouncy army from hell. Loads of Seraphim and JP Canonesses, maybe even St. Celestine, supported by mechanised or foot troops.

[MiketehFox]

The thing is, all those options rely or use exclusively use Divine Guidance, which is what SmokWawelski was say as I see it.

I think that in general, the are very few effective ways to field SoBs in a tournament setting.

Mike

[hs5ias]

I suppose so, but since Sisters are not an assaulty army and DG enhances shooting, DG is going to be applied liberally regardless of their army structure. I don't think it has much significance beyond that. It's simply an attribute of the Sisters, like ATSKNF for the Marines or WBB for the Necrons. In any case DG can also be used in assault, so even if the Sisters were transformed into a ravening army of close combat death it would still be used just as much.

[SmokWawelski]

All true, but with DG comes the economical (point-wise) Sister-with-Bolter so at the end one comes to another, and basic Sister is chosen again... No matter if the DG is used because of abundance of Bolters on the table, or if we take them to use the DG.

I bet that a lot of players find it hard to justify an assassin with the mandatory =][= (or any other less usual unit for that matter) in place of a squad of Sisters... Whenever a new list is posted on the forum here the first remarks are usually to drop =][=, Repentias or any other "unorthodox" unit selections...

[micah]

when i first got into
WH the main reason i did was because i loved all the =I= models. arco, penitent, repentia, etc. then after posting and reading here my list changed too 90% sisters.

i dunno, it just seems the most effective. i would argue that an eversor ass is a better cc unit by himself then a full squad of sisters with there low str and init lol
and i do still run a tooled up =I= lord, with an assassin.

i would say the =I= models are just much more advanced units. they allow a broader range of tactics, but are also evry situational so to be able to utilise them effectively is just not very common.
that might be one reason why new army lists are always told to switch to sisters.
also you have to remembe runtil recently this was the SoB army, it was just changed to WH to include all the =I= stuff so theres alot of players from before the change who are just loyal to the sisters and still view the WH as SoB.

[Heiromyo]

There are plenty of armies you could take without relying on Divine Guidance. It's really a matter of wether you like the way it plays or not. But anyways here are two simple ideas that some of you probably already heard of.

Inqusiitional:

An idea I've thought of (not only me but probably many others) which is to produce a personal army that belongs to an inquisitor. A very shooty based army that is typical of an imperial gaurd army but also has the mobility to charge forwards. The Land Raider, Leman Russ and Sentinals can form the basis of your anti-tank and long range shooting but there are also plenty of other options other than these. Low ap weapons and rapid firing is probably the main damage dealers in this type of army.

Hmmm no sisters and only Storm troopers. They can pack a huge puch when given plasmaguns. Each squad can have up to two plasmaguns and the sergant himself can carry a plasma weapon. With 4-6 shots of plasma weaponary per squad they threaten pretty much anything the game has which doesn't come in the form of a vechical. Even so they can harm any vechical up to armour 13.

A good opitunity comes with storm troopers since it opens up the chimera transport option that gives your army a nice boost of long range shooting. Although it doesn't have the best Ballistic skill in the world the nice 12 armou up front means it can withstand a fair bit of puncishment. Not bad for a fire base for a little while.

The Inquisitor Lords themselves can be hard hitting when it comes to shooting. You can have up to seven plasma weapons in this squad (Three on the warriors, three on the acolytes and one on the Inquisitor him/herself). Like the storm troopers but even more of a threat. This also opens up a very solid vechical choice, the land raider. Many of you can imagine what one of these do to opposing vechicals. A nice option to take over the usual exocists, not to mention aple protection.

Lastly the imperial gaurd options. These open up a large variety of weapons that out range what the usual witch hunter options. The Leman Russ and sentinal squadrons can add a large amount to your armies potential. Don't forget the basic gaurdsmen too. They can form up heavy weapons teams or monvuerable foot slogging/ armour fist squads. Like storm troopers they can have plasma weapons but less of them.

Combat Monster:

I quite like this idea, many of you may remember me stating it before. This involves the use of Space Marines. Basically it works like a tyrannid army but can be a lot more scary as the these can move at monster speeds and carry a large punch.

This requires extensive uses of Arco-flaggelants and Penitant Engines. We all know how fear some these can be but what if they were used in mass.

As the HQ choice you could go as a cannoness, this is a rather simple build that includes a jump pack. Everyone has made one of these before at least once. But if you used an inqusitor the assasin slots open up, I don't think I need to mention the power of the eversor and callidus.

For the basic troopers you can use Arbites. Being equipped with a shotgun means they can move, shoot and assault. The total damage can cause a fair bit of damage, even to power armoured foes. They can even be given meltaguns so you can deal with vechicals. You could just go plasmagun set-up as mentioned above too, doesn't have to be all combat.

Seraphim offers a fair bit of speed and hitting power. They can be used as anti-tank infantry since the idea here is that we avoid using Divine Guidance. Basically give them inferno pistols and the veteran a master crafter inferno pistol, this should offer enough power to destroy any tank in range. Remember to keep the squads small though since killing infantry is not an issue you don't want to waste points on more bolter fire.

Now from the Space marin side we can add a Commander who can be a monster in combat himself (especially with a jump pack), Assaut Marines, Terminators and Dreadnoughts (nice sturdy anti-tank from range before reaching combat with twin-linked lascannons). Terminators may be a tad too expensive, I personally don't like them since they suffer from low ap weapons and small squads, the rest however are fairly cost efficent and deadly.

The Compulsory marines can be given combat weapons (I think) all round, even if not so you can deep strike them for a quick unexpected strikes. The nice toughness and power armour can garentee their survival, this is more so the case when the rest of your army is speedily racing up the board for combat. You could even armed just one or two with meltaguns for unexpected anti-tank potential.

[SmokWawelski]

You know - there is a light of hope in my heart now. I go to finish putting those PEs together now. Emperror bless you!

[Ryiax]

I was just thinking myself that the one trick pony rule applies only if you really want to win everything, WH can be a pretty hard force to counter act with a regulation tooled cannoness and a few Exorcists, half the fun in a WH army is the variety, my regular armylist includes a Callidus, Inquisitor with 3 gun servitors 1 x PC and 2 x HB and 2 sages along with 2 Exorcists and a RET squad in 1000 points.

Now they can't fight in HTH to save themselves but very few things make HTH with that set up, even Gaunt heavy armies, the second army i will be putting togther is just gunna be filled with emperor loving religious fruit cakes with the exception of a few IST's.

I can think of nothing more fun than loonies plugged into lumbering walking robots, or a group of already severely unbalanced individuals who are then supplied with combat stimulants and pacifier helms in the OFF position, not to mention scantily clad females carrying huge F**K-OFF swords that would attack a piece of furniture for looking at them and the mistress has whips! (Yahoo!!) Its a sadist's dream army and you may even win a few games, watching a whole group of people off their collective trolley just surge forward and chop his prized units to shreds is great. I also tend to play them as such focusing on one objective and annihilating it them moving on to the next 90% of the time it doesn't work but hell its fun

[Red Zinfandel]

Celestians have a couple of tricks.

For 13 points, they can go up to INit6, autohit on 3s, and if they make a lot of CC hits, throw divine guidance on the roll as a free "virtual power weapon". The secret to getting the most value from them in CC is to not take the Vet upgrade.

And think about a 7 Assasin Army.
All infiltrating. All power weapons. Each one independent. Intit5.