Warhammer 40K: Two Sisters Of Battle Lists To Bring The Pain

6 Minute Read

Nov 26 2019

Let’s take a look at a couple of solid lists built using the new Sister of Battle Codex.

Over the last week, we’ve been diving into the new Sisters of Battle book. Like a lot of players, we were eager to get a look at what was packed within its pages. I’ve written a bit about the codex already, both about the new units and about how I think Sisters face an uphill battle in the current meta. Now the critical thing to note here is that I don’t think the book is terrible. It’s got a lot going for it, both from a power-level perspective and from a flavor perspective. Overall they are a lot to work within the Sisters’ Codex, and I’ve been excited to play with some of the ideas there. Today I want to look at two vastly different lists I’ve come up with and see how they might perform.

List 1- The Penitent

Battalion- Order of the Valorous Heart

Canoness- -brazer of holy fire Pts 53- Relic – Brazier of Eternal Flame

Missionary- 38 pts

6x Battle Sisters Squad x2 Storm Bolter- 58 pts

5x Battle Sisters Squad x2 Storm Bolter- 49 pts

4x Penitent Engines (2x Heavy Flamer, 2x Penitent Flail each) – 224 pts

Spearhead- Order of the Valorous Heart

Canoness- 45 pts- Warlord Indomitable Belief

5x Mortifers, 1x Anchorite (2x Heavy Bolter, 2x Penitent Flail each) – 342 pts

Pts. 1999 CP 9/9

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Running To Assault

This list is a pretty straightforward list that packs one heck of a punch. It’s rather obviously built round fielding 30 Penitent Engines/Mortifers, which combined put out 108 Heavy Bolter shots, 24d6 Heavy Flamer shots, and 450 close combat attacks around. That’s a lot of shooting and an ungodly amount of close combat potential. This is rather obviously an aggressive list, and you’ll want to rush forward to put and keep the pressure on the enemy. By advancing and using the Holy Rage stratagem, you can get off a first turn charge with a unit of Mortifers, if you roll well.

The actual Sisters infantry part of the army is pretty limited. You’ve got a couple of units to grab objectives and throw out a few extra bolt rounds. I’ve gone Valorous Heart to make the Sisters a little more survivable, but given that only a small part of the army is effected by army-wide rules, it’s a pretty minor consideration. Likewise, miracle dice aren’t really important here. All in all, the Sisters should hang back and grab objectives.

I think this could be a fun army to run, and pretty quick to play. It’d absolutely wreak some armies, though others would be hard to face. Still, it’s got a lot of high toughness multi-wound units to be hard to kill. I’ve gone with Penitent Flails across the bored here because I think when you do the math, they are almost either a ton better than buzzsaws or only slightly worse, you could, of course, mix some stuff up in there.

N.B There is a bit of a dispute about how many Mortifers you can take in a unit. The Points Values sections lists them as having a unit size of 1-4. Conversely, their datasheet lists them as being able to field 1-6 woman units. I’ve chosen to go with what’s printed on the datasheet.

The Pious

Brigade – Order of the Valorous Heart

Canoness-45 ptc- Heroine in the Marking – 1cp (Indomitable Belief)- Relic- Litanies of Faith

Missionary-38-pts

Triumph of Saint Katherine -185-pts

Celestine -160 pts – Warlord (Beacon of Faith)

10x Celestian Squads 2x Storm Bolters, Simulacrum Imperialis- 109 pts

Imagifer- 45-ptsRelic book of Saint Lucius- 1CP

Inagifier-45 pts

Hospitaller-35 pts

5x Battle Sisters Squad, 2x Storm bolters, Simulacrum Imperialis -54 pts

5x Battle Sisters Squad, 2x Storm bolters -49 pts

5x Seraphim 2x pairs of inferno pistols – 69 pts

Exorcist, w/ Exorcist missile launchers-170 pts

10x Retrubutor Squad, 4x Multi-melta, 2x Armorium Cherub, Simulacrum Imperialis- 203 pts

Fortification Network

Battle Sanctum-50

1999 pts 13/15 CP

Running the Pious Throngs

In contrast to the last list, this list is supposed to make as much use of miracle dice as possible and play to the SoB ability to field lots of cheap infantry. Now in the current book, I think Celestians are a steal, for a single point more than a Battle Sister they get an extra point of WS, an extra attack, and extra point of LD, the ability to reroll all hits when near a Canoness and can act as bodyguards. That’s a ton of buffs for 1 point. To take advantage of them, this list has a solid block of 30; this is designed to push up the table throwing down a ton of very accurate bolter shots. With the Missonary, they also aren’t horrible in combat.

The list should get a ton of miracle dice, 2 at the start of each battle round, one each turn, and one on each of your turns, plus the standard extra dice. St. Kat lets you modify them as well, so make good use of them. I’ve gone with Valorous Heart again because it makes you just have a crazy though army. Ultimately this army works in a few parts. You’ll have a backfield firebase with the Retrubutors parked in the Battle Sanctum for cover. They can use Storm of Retribution to give them extra range. Keep the Exorcists with them and one Imagifer so they can ignore a lot of AP, and this will provide you with powerful down range firepower.

The second block you have is the 2 saints, the 30 Celestines, the Canoness, Missionary, and 2nd Imagifer. This gives you a giant block of 3+/4++/6++ troops that ignore ap -1 and -2 and put out lots of accurate shots. In combat, you’d be getting 3 attacks each, at S4 (use the strat to get two songs on your Imagifer), hitting 0n 2+s and rerolling misses. The saints also pack extra close combat punch. In addition to those two blocks, you’ve still got 30 Battle Sisters to use as needed. They can be used to reinforce either block or on their own to garb objectives, but are a not inconsequential force of their own. Finally, 3 Squads of Seraphim wait to drop down and either tie up units or throw out some anti-tank shots, using deadly descent to get in 4 – melta shots can help. Overall its an army with a good amount of firepower and a lot of units for the enemy to deal with.

Let us know what you think of these lists, down in the comments!

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Author: Abe Apfel

Abe is that rare thing, an Austin local born and raised here. Though he keeps on moving around, DC, Japan, ETC., he always seems to find his way back eventually. Abe has decades of experience with a wide range of tabletop and RPG games, from historicals, to Star Wars to D&D and 40K. He has been contributing to BOLS since almost the start, back when he worked at and then owned a local gaming store. He used to be big into the competitive Warhammer tournament scene but age has mellowed him and he now appreciates a good casual match. He currently covers 40K tactics and lore, as well as all things Star Wars, with occasional dabbling in other topics. Abe remains in mourning over the loss of WFB to this day.

Armylists Sisters of Battle - Adepta Sororitas Tactics Warhammer 40k