c. Games Workshop

So, over the past couple of weeks, I’ve been dabbling more and more in both Tabletop Simulator and in 9th edition 40k, and gradually figuring out how to play both. I’ve been discovering that, despite working from home, if I factor in things like cooking dinner, regular house maintenance, and semi-regular exercise in addition to work…then on an average weekday I still don’t have that much time for a regular-sized game of 40k. Hence, most of my experiments thus far have been at the 1000 points level or lower.

While I’ve gotten some games in with my fledgling Thousand Sons, and still want to go back to my Drukhari at some point (especially with their pointy, venomous new codex on the way), most of my games have been with the Sisters of Battle. In particular, ever since the new Space Marine codex dropped and brought a whole slew of sweeping changes to various weapon profiles with it, I’ve been wanting to experiment more with multi-meltas and with heavy bolters…both of which, thankfully, Sisters of Battle have in abundance.

Here is a brief (though sadly non-narrative) retelling of two battles between my Sisters of Battle and various Space Marine lists. For both games, I ran the following:

ORDER OF THE BLOODY ROSE PATROL:

Canoness- Benificence, Brazier of Holy Flame, Righteous Rage
5 Battle Sisters- 2 meltaguns
5 Battle Sisters- 2 storm bolters
Preacher
8 Sisters Repentia
6 Seraphim- 2 w. dual inferno pistols, Seraphim Superior w. plasma pistol & power sword
5 Dominions- 4 storm bolters
5 Retributors- 3 multi-meltas, heavy bolter, armorium cherub
2 Mortifiers- penitent flails, heavy bolters, Anchorite
Rhino
Immolator- Immolation flamers

The general idea behind this list was for it to be both mobile and hard-hitting, able to pack a hefty punch at both short-to-medium range and in close combat. In particular, my Canoness and Repentia were there to either counter-attack any assaulty threats to my army or to go shift enemies off of objectives where needed, and everything else was there as mobile fire support (except for the Mortifiers, whose primary job is to draw as much firepower as earlier as possible).

Note that it was only after my third or so game with this list that I noticed that it was significantly over-points– somehow I had neglected to factor in the points for the second pair of inferno pistols on my Seraphim. I have since amended the list to fit within the 1000 point limit.

GAME 1- RUN THE BULLS

For my first game, I wound up against Minotaurs, fresh off of their Forge World update.

My opponent, meanwhile, brought the following:

MINOTAURS BATTALION (Imperial Fist Successors, Duelists, Stalwart)

Asterion Moloch- Stubborn Defender
Ivanus Enkomi- Canticle of Hate, Recitation of Focus
Hekaton Aiakos
5 Intercessors- auto bolt rifles, Sergeant w. power sword
5 Intercessors- auto bolt rifles, Sergeant w. power sword
5 Intercessors- auto bolt rifles, Sergeant w. power sword
5 Assault Terminators- thunder hammers & storm shields

I was admittedly surprised by how character-heavy my opponent was going: given the sheer number of Primaris reinforcements the Marines had gotten this edition, I was expecting to run into some of the newer units like Bladeguard, Eradicators or Heavy Intercessors (or maybe even a nasty hover-tank or two). That being said, a character Dreadnought who could hide behind a screen of Intercessors was still going to be a challenge, as were the Assault Terminators with their very scary new 3 wounds per model.

For scenario, we were playing Ransack. For my secondaries I went with Engage On All Fronts, Assassinate and While We Stand, We Fight (both of my tanks and my Canoness were nominated). I figured that I wouldn’t have too much difficulty outmanouvering my opponent, and that no matter what, victory was going to hinge upon me killing off his scary special cahracters. He chose Raise the Banners High, Attrition and Engage On All Fronts

Our deployment looked like this

The Repentias went in their Rhino alongside the Canoness and Preacher, and the Retributors went in the Immolator. The Melta Sisters went into Strategic Reserve, while the Seraphim went into normal reserve. I had my Dominions holding the left flank, ready to scout forward as needed, while my Storm Bolter Sisters held my central objective.

I rolled randomly for Sacred rites and got both the Passion and Divine Guidance (lucky!)

My clustered 2 squads of Intercessors in the building along with Hekaton and Invanus, and another intercessor squad on the far right. Asterion and the Terminators went into reserve.

We rolled off and the Minotaurs got first turn.

He then tried for a long charge with his intercessors on my last Mortifier (which was on 1 wound remaining), failed, and lost 2 to overwatch for his trouble. Haw haw!

In my turn, I moved my Rhino up, readying my Repentia to disembark and charge turn 2. My last Mortifier moved up to grab an objective, my storm bolter Sisters held onto the objective in their home DZ, and the Dominions on the far left flank held onto the objective near them as well (I had decided against scouting forward with them, as all viable targets were sitting in cover). My Retributors disembarked from their Immolator to bring meltas to bear on the enemy Intercessors, while their Immolator zoomed up to deal with the Intercessors on the far left flank and try to get engage on all fronts (sadly the Immolator straddled the deployment zone and couldn’t make it– one lesson I was going to have to learn was to avoid straddling lines when playing Engage On All Fronts)

On the right flank, meanwhile, the last Mortifier tried, and failed to take out the last 3 Intercessors screening Hekaton, forcing the Retributors to power up their multi-meltas and melt them instead. This sucked, as I had been really hoping for the Retributors to get some shots in against Hekaton this turn.

In the assault phase, Hekaton charged the last Mortifier, and easily killed it with the d3 mortal wounds he does at the end of the charge phase (the Mortifier at least blew up and dealt 3 mortal wounds to Hekaton in the process). Hekaton then piled in into the nearby Rhino.

My turn, the Repentia fell out of combat with Hekaton, using Judgement of the Faithful to make sure they would be able to charge in again, and the Immolator edged closer to the last Intercessor on the left and Asterion…for…some reason. Honestly, I don’t know why I decided to move closer to the scary Space Marine beatstick hero. The Canoness broke off to go deal with the Intercessors fighting the Battle Sisters, eager to be benificent to them. Finally, my melta Sisters arrived on the right flank from strategic reserves, and ended up on the objective that the Mortifier had previously been sitting on. The Seraphim also arrived in the upper center, and proceeded to use Deadly Descent, landing an inferno pistol shot on Ivanus, getting past his invul save, and using a miracle dice to freem him for 6 wounds. One character assassinated, two to go!

In melee, the Repentia used Judgement of the Faithful to charge back in against Hekaton, while the Canoness charged the Intercessors. The Repentia, swinging with 28 attacks on the charge with rerolls, but despite inflicting a crapton of wounds, Hekaton’s 4++ and Duty Eternal proved to be a very hard nut to crack, and he managed to come out of it all with one wound remaining.

In my opponent’s turn, Asterion moved up towards the Immolator, while the Terminators went after the Seraphim.

Shooting was pretty light, with Asterion freeming a few wounds off of the Immolator with the Black spear, and Hekaton gunning down one Repentia with his storm bolter

In my turn, the Seraphim fell out of combat with the Terminators to go grab an objective, hopefully forcing the Terminators to choose between going upward to deal with them or go south to crush my Repentia and friends. I did not have enough CP left at this point for Judgement of the Faithful, and was really missing my Seraphim’s ability to fall back and shoot. The Canoness and Repentia moved up to deal with the Terminators in case they came south.

My storm bolter Sisters moved as far up as they could while still remaining in 3″ of the home objective. The Dominions then used Blessed Bolts in an effort to take out Asterion: however, between them and the Battle Sisters, I completely failed to get past Asterion’s armour (the Dominons whiffing a lot of their to wound rolls didnt help). The melta Sisters fired long range pot shots at the Terminators, for no damage

In the Minotaurs turn, the Terminators moved up and charged the Seraphim. This time, there were no dice miracles (or Miracle dice) to save them, and the Terminators hammered the flying Sororitas down into paste.

In response, I moved up with the Canoness to confront Asterion, though my Repentia were so mired by difficult terrain that I knew they wouldnt make a charge. At this point, I had a decision to make: I had only one command point left, and I was torn between trying again for Blessed Bolts on the Dominions, or going for Tear Them Down with the Canoness for when she charged into Asterion. (At the time we had both forgotten that my opponent had given Asterion the Stubborn Defender warlord trait, which reduces all incoming damage by 1)

In the end I settled for Tear Them Down. Combined shooting from the Dominions and the Canoness’ brazier managed to do 2 wounds to Asterion, and then the Angry Nun charged in…

In the ensuing heroic duel between our commanders, the Canoness used Tear Them Down, and, after much clashing of blades, managed to inflict enough unsaved wounds on Asterion to cut him down!Asterion, however, apparently has a special rule where he gets to attack back before he dies, and he did so, cleaving the Canoness apart with the Black Spear even as he fell. And with that, both of our warlords had slain each other!

At that point, my opponent conceded, as, with only the Terminators left, he couldnt get rid of all of the scoring units on my objectives. After the final tally, though, it was surprisingly close: i had gotten assassinate, and plenty of rounds of Engage on all Fronts, but completely failed to get While We Stand We Fight. For his part, my opponent racked up plenty of points with Raise The Banners High and Attrition.

In the end it though, it was a 56-51 victory for the Sisters of Battle!

GAME 2: GOTTA GO FAST

The second of these test games was against an acquaintance of mine, Tim, and his fledgling White Scars. I had previously fought Tim and his Death Guard back in my LGS’ Escalation campaign, before Tim abruptly had to move back to Australia…and then, before the worldwide pandemic swept the globe. As it had been a while since we had last played, we decided to have a friendly game on TTS.

Once again, I ran:

ORDER OF THE BLOODY ROSE PATROL:

Canoness- Benificence, Brazier of Holy Flame, Righteous Rage
5 Battle Sisters- 2 meltaguns
5 Battle Sisters- 2 storm bolters
Preacher
8 Sisters Repentia
6 Seraphim- 2 w. dual inferno pistols, Seraphim Superior w. plasma pistol
5 Dominions- 4 storm bolters
5 Retributors- 3 multi-meltas, heavy bolter, armorium cherub
2 Mortifiers- penitent flails, heavy bolters, Anchorite
Rhino
Immolator- Immolation flamers

Tim, meanwhile, ran the following:

WHITE SCARS PATROL

Primaris Master of Sanctity- Wrath of the Heavens, Exhortation of Rage, Canticle of Hate, Wise Orator, Master of Snares, Tempered By Wisdom
10 Assault Intercessors- Sergeant w. power fist
10 Assault Intercessors- Sergeant w. power fist
Redemptor Dreadnought- macro-plasma incinerator, Onslaught gatling cannon, 2 storm bolters
3 Outriders
3 Outriders

In true White Scars fashion, Tim was plenty of bikes (in particular, the very scary new Outriders with their 4 wounds apiece and half a billion attacks on the charge). I was also intimidated by the sheer number of Assault Intercessors coming my way, though I was still encouraged by the fact that I had a very significant firepower advantage: at the end of the day, I had more tools with which to kill his Marines at range than he had to kill my tanks or massed ranks of Battle Sisters.

For the scenario, were were playing Divide and Conquer. For secondaries we both took Engage on All fronts and Thin Their Ranks. I took Bring It Down, my opponent took Repair Teleport Homer.

Deployment looked like this. Pregame move sent my Dominions into a building on the far right. My Dominions went into deep strike reserve, while Tim used the Encirclement stratagem one unit of Assault Intercessors into outflanking reserve. As before, my Canoness, Repentias and Preacher went into the Rhino, while my Retributors went into the Immolator.

I got really unlucky with Sacred Rites, getting Hand of the Emperor and the one that boosts Deny the Witch. I tried to reroll it with Battle Rites…and got Hand of the Emperor again. Sigh. (Note that I had missed the wording of Battle Rites, which states specifically that you can reroll attempts that net you an already existing Sacred Rite).

I then won the roll-off, and the game began!

At the start of turn 1, my Mortifiers moved up aggressively, while my Battle Sisters on the centre and left moved up to grab objectives. My Dominions moved up further into the building that they had scouted into but would find themselves out of storm bolter range of any Marine targets. On the right as well my Rhino, carrying my Repentias and characters, moved up down the narrow street, followed by my Immolator carrying the Retributors. I quickly found that fielding two tanks on a map with such narrow streets hadn’t been a very good idea…

In the shooting phase, I got my first real taste of the updated heavy bolters, as my Mortifiers unloaded their heavy bolters into the exposed Assault Intercessors…and proceeded to blow away five of them! To make things worse for Tim, in the ensuing morale phase, another two Marines fell, leaving just 3 standing in the unit. Holy cow, heavy bolters are amazing now! (It was at this point that I realized why Mortifiers are now considered a staple of every current Sororitas army)

In Tim’s turn, his Master of Sanctity managed to get both of his prayers off on the nearby Outriders, and both he and said Outriders then zoomed aggressively down the left flank. His other Outriders hung back, while his remaining Assault Intercessors moved to camp on an objective and start repairing teleport homers (and hide from those mean heavy bolters), and the Redemptor moved out from behind terrain to bring its guns to bear.

In my turn, the Sisters in my centre used Desperate Breakout to fall back from the Outriders, losing none in the process, while my leftmost Sisters managed to fall back as well despite Master of Snares and used Judgement of the Faithful so they could shoot again in what I can only call a ridiculously lucky break. My Retributors disembarked from the Immolator to bring their meltas to bear, and my Canoness disembarked from her Rhino to give them rerolls. After the Canoness exited, the aforementioned Rhino trundled upwards to grab an objective.

In the shooting phase, the Seraphim continued to shoot at the Redemptor, dropping it down to 1 wound thanks to their armour-piercing pistols, though their Sister Superior got cocky, overcharged her plasma pistol and fried herself. My shooting success continued as my melta Sisters levelled their weapons at the Master of Sancitity, and managed to freem all 7 wounds off of him. Woot!

In his turn, my opponent disengaged the Assault Intercessors and circled the Seraphim with them and the other unit of Outriders.

In the shooting phase, his dice rolling was hot, as his newly arrived Assault Intercessors managed to mow down the last 3 melta girls on my left flank with their pistols, denying them from scoring the objective they were sitting on! His Outriders also blasted into the oncoming Rhino and did 2 wounds to it.

In my turn, I decided that I had no choice but to disembark the Repentia to go deal with the newly arrived Assault Intercessors, though from where they were disembarking, even with Hand of the Emperor, their charged looked dicey, so I resolved to keep my last CP on hand to reroll their charge if need be.

The Rhino edged up to potentially go threaten the White Scars objective. My Preacher advanced around some of the cargo containers so that he was wholly within one of the adjacent table quarters to claim Engage on All Fronts, while still keeping within 6″ of the Repentias.

In my Tim’s turn, he moved his remaining Outriders up aggressively towards the Repentia, with his Assault Intercessors following close behind. In the shooting phase, his Outriders managed to blast down 2 Repentia.

In my turn, the Rhino advanced up to potentially threaten the White Scars’ home objective, while behind it the Immolator also moved up its max speed to claim the objective that the Rhino had been sitting on.

My Battle Sisters moved up to reclaim their objective, while the Preacher and Repentia (who were amazed, if a little disappointed, to still be alive) went after the Outriders.

With only 3 models left, Tim saw the writing on the wall, but resolved to go down swinging. Exiting their cover, the last 3 Assault Intercessors moved up to say hi to my Repentia.

In the shooting phase, they shot 2 wounds off of the Preacher, and killed 3 Repentia with a grenade. They then charged in, and proceeded to chainsword down the last 3 Repentia, giving them the martyrdom that they so craved.

They then consolidated into my Preacher, who could only slap furiously at them to no effect.

In my turn, the storm bolter Sisters moved into line of sight to the Assault Intercessors, my Preacher disengaged from combat, and the Immolator also aligned so that it could see the Marines from between two buildings.

THOUGHTS:

So, with two games, and two wins, against the new Marine codex under my belt, all the while rapidly having to learn and ingest the new 9th edition and the new weapon updates to the Sisters of Battle, while at the same time learning the ins and outs of Tabletop Simulator…this is going to be a lot to process, so let me quickly outline my thoughts in successive point form below.

• On 9th Edition: all of the games I have played so far of 9th edition (especially the two games documented above) have been characterized by being very fast-paced, with both forces scrambling to grab objectives and fulfil secondaries, all the while engaging each other in the process. I will admit, I am liking that the dynamism that the new edition and smaller board sizes encourage, and admit that it’s refreshing to see dedicated assault units seeing more play. This, combined with the absence of any bonuses to get first turn or to seize the initiative, reminds me a lot of 4th/5th edition 40k (yes, I’ve been playing for that long). That being said, I find it difficult to keep track of the new terrain rules and remember which does what. I think it will take a few more games for me to get the hang of them, and more importantly, to decide how I feel about them.
• On the big weapons update: I think it goes without saying, the newly updated meltas and heavy bolters are amazing! The updated heavy bolters, in particular, make Mortifiers now a genuinely scary unit that can fire on the move and still assault afterwards, while Retributors are able to pack a devastating amount of punch in the shooting phase (assuming they don’t get shot/assaulted off the board, as they did in these two games).
• On Sisters of battle in 9th Edition: Thus far, I am really impressed with the way the Sisters are transitioning into 9th edition. In part, this is thanks to their updated weapons (which I already covered), but also because their aggressive, close-ranged style of warfare really suits the objective-grabbing nature of the new edition. Thus far, everything that was good in the previous edition continues to be good (such as Dominions, Retributors, and Repentia), and the fact that I get an extra command point each turn is really handy when I need to use crucial stratagems such as Tear Them Down or Holy Rage. The one Immolator in my list is also turning out to be surprisingly reliable, as are my humble Battle Sisters when it comes to simple objective grabbing.
• This is my first time using a pure Bloody Rose detachment as well, and between the way they vastly improve Repentia, the ubiquitous Benificence Canoness and the improved AP on Seraphim pistols, I can see them being the way to go in the new edition…though I kind of still want to try the other Order convictions at some point as well.\
• On the Space Marines: just as before, they pack a lot of punch at both melee and range, but I am impressed to see that some of their older units have gotten very scary boosts (Terminators and Dreadnoughts in particular). I’m also admittedly surprised to see how widespread Chaplains have become in a lot of Marine lists, given how Librarians were seen as the go-to Marine support heroes in previous editions: the new prayers that Chaplains can use give them amazing and downright scary utility. That being said…thus far, the Sisters are proving very adept at fighting Space Marines, bringing a lot of damage 2 or higher weapons that can punch right through their armour. Also, I suspect they may be more of a handful to deal with in 2000 point games, where they can bring their scarier tanks out to play.
• On Tabletop Simulator: unless your internet connection suffers from really high ping (like mine does), overall I’d say TTS does a great job of emulating the wargame experience. In particular, I really like the detail and effort that a lot of the modders have put into a lot of the armies, terrain and maps (some of which even have special effects features!), and one of the more commonly-used mods I use already has dice, objective trackers and adjustable maps already loaded in. Overall, while it was off to a clunky start and has a slight learning curve, I’d say TTS is doing a lot to help fill the big miniatures game-shaped void in my life right now.

That’s all for now. Stay tuned, gentle readers, as I take on the new Necrons next!