Friday, August 5, 2011

A very dry run

Last evening I tried a small experiment.  Being as GW has decided to frustrate the hell out of us by dividing the Sisters codex between two White Dwarfs I have been really unable to fully test the new rules.  So what I did was decide to play the new rules using the old point system and org chart.  I tried to keep the wargear to a minimum as we have no idea what is going to be availible.  More or less things went OK.  I faced off against Dan and his proxy Chaos Marine army, we both spent the evening looking up rules and numbers.

We drew Dawn of War and Capture and Control...yeah fun.

I tried to give most of the major units a good going over.

Basic sister squads are very nice.  I won't have a full opinion till I see what they get for wargear, or the Sgt does or does not have available.  The ability for one act of faith to cover a different aspect each phase is really nice, and the invul 6 is quite handy.  Over all they didn't get any worse, and they got one or two small things better.  Small considerations like grenades standard, as well as a bolt pistol and bolter.  Doesn't seem like much but it allows you to preemptively assault and get some shots in.

Dear god please let the Rhino be cheaper.

 At this point, before seeing wargear and upgrades all I can say is Seraphem have been gutted.  From everything I can see, and perhaps I'm not seeing the designers vision, they have gone to a really nice close combat unit, capable of great counter strike and tank hunting.  To shooters with jump packs.  Their act of faith, their drop to sub par leadership all point to more shooty less close combat. 
Seraphem are just unable to stand up in close combat. Dropping int to 3 and giving them only one attack in close combat even with matched pistols means even when they do get to attack they have already suffered losses and have fewer attacks.  Their faith act is great for shooting not so much for close combat.

Looking across the page the act of faith for celestines seems better fit for serephem. In fact I would love to trade the two skills.  Give the Celestines rerolls on to hit and the jump troopers a better str in close combat.   The celestines also got the serephims second attack, now looking at the old rules the serephim only had one attack and 2 pistols....who else has two close combat weapons and only one attack???  That really is just not fair.

Penetant Engine looks nasty on paper, lots of attacks, generate extra attacks, heavy flamers, ignores shaken and stunned.  Problem is its too easy to knock out.  In a world where Meltas are handed out like flash lights most folks will have a weapon that gets a +1 to die roll for being a melta weapon, then you add another +1 for open topped.  That means we will never get a result of 1, and mostly likely will be getting higher results on lower end shots.  I know its been open topped but I guess I just had hoped they would make it a touch more survivable.

6+ save is awesome. NO it really is.  It saved quite a few girls last night when normally they would have just been off the board.

Outflanking dominions cool, bring them in the back line with meltas blazing.  Just don't expect them to live long past your bringing them on the board.

As long as they keep the exorcist missile stats the same and give the sisters a good selection of vehicle upgrades most of the vehicle changes should be solid.  It would be nice if the immolator still got to fire the flamers on the move at 12.

Here is also a hope for blessed ammo!

Cool moment of the evening.  Korn bezerkers charge a poor squad of battle sisters and after 5 power weapon wounds and 15 normal one sister remained.  Before her moral check I got my single attack back in.  What did she do?  She punched Karn smack dab in the face doing a single wound.  She then proceeded to fail her moral check and was run down by the rest of his squad.  But for a breif moment we had punched chaos in the face!