They’re baaack! Both the Adeptus Sororitas Sisters of Battle, and Tau’s Commander Farsight are back with new rules in 40k’s Chapter Approved 2018.
Sisters of Battle just got a huge reveal. New images of their stats, stratagems and more from Chapter Approved are here!
Spotted on Imgur, we now have a full inside look at Sisters of Battle. Let’s break down what they’re getting and see if the rumors were accurate.
Sisters of Battle Point Values
Celestine looks to have dropped about 40 pts with her base cost sitting at 160 and her optional Superia at 21 a pop.
All of the Sisters point cost look to be around where we would expect after seeing where their Marine counterparts were adjusted. At only 9pts per Battle Sister squad, you’ll be able to spam some decent S4 firepower and still reap the benefits of Acts of Faith.
Other items of note are the Exorcist down to 125 from 160, a new HQ level character for 35, and Repentia lost a few points as well. Penitent engines seemed to have gone up 20 points as well.
Shields of Faith & Faith Points
Shield of Faith: All Sisters in your army have a 6+ Invulnerable save and can Deny the Witch on 1d6.
Sisters of Battle will also be getting a new mechanic called “Faith Points” You can spend a Faith Point and roll dice to see if you meet the Devotion value for an Act of Faith. If it’s successful, you perform the act! It looks to be vaguely similar to a Psychic power.
Faith Points: Faith Points are something outside of CP. But when you’ve gathered enough “faith” your sisters can do incredible feats that seem to defy the odds.
Faith point generation has been changed a bit. Now armies start with 3 points and get +1 for every ten models with the rule “Act of Faith”. You’ll also find further along in the preview that there are plenty of ways to generate Faith Points.
Acts of Faith
Unlike in the previous system, Acts of Faith are designed to scale up based on army size, with you getting an additional Faith Point for every ten models with the Acts of Faith rule in your force. This makes the Sisters of Battle incredibly flexible, with Acts of Faith, combined with Stratagems, allowing them to adjust their tactics on the fly.
As for Acts of Faith, It looks like each Faith Point will allow you to roll ONE D6 and attempt to get the Act to pop off.
So what are some of the Acts of Faith?
- Hand of the Emperor (4): Add 3″ to Movement.
- Spirit of the Martyr (3): Heal a model D3 or Resurrect a (unit/model)
- Aegis of the Emperor (3): (Looks to be cut off on the page) Grants a 4+++ against mortal wounds.
- Divine Guidance (4): Add +1 to hit rolls for the unit’s ranged weapons.
- The Passion (5): The selected unit can fight twice in the combat phase.
- Light of the Emperor (3): Automatically pass morale.
Order Convictions (Chapter Tactics)
As for the Convictions, there will be six total and only apply to Infantry models.
- Valorous Heart isn’t bad if you’ll be spamming Infantry models. a 6+++ FNP sounds nice until it comes to rolling dice. You won’t be saving too many.
- Our Lady Martyred is the order that will make your opponent think. If they kill one of your units, they’ll get a FP which you can use on someone else.
- Ebon Chalice are the most faithful of the bunch adding an automatic +1 to whatever your Faith Test is.
- Argent Shroud look like it’s one of the more powerful ones giving you a FP on a 4+ every time you kill an enemy unit.
- Blood Rose are the brawlers of the Sister Orders. They get +1 Strength and +1 Attack when anything forces them into combat. (These girls could beat down some Space Marines).
- Sacred Rose is similar to the Death Korps of Krieg in that they can only lose a single model when they fail morale. They also overwatch on a 5+…gross.
Sororitas Stratagems
Blessed Bolts is outright absurd. 1CP to turn ALL storm bolters in a unit into the bolt guns the lore describes. This stratagem tacks on -2AP and upgrades the damage to a flat 2.
Martyrdom lets you net D3 Faithpoints when a character is slain. If the model was your Warlord, you automatically gain three.
Looking at Holy Trinity, if you need to squeeze out the last bit of damage on a tank that’s hard to crack, you can use this stratagem and have your flamers and Meltas get +1 to wound. Not too bad for only 1CP. The only stipulation is that there has to be a Bolt weapon in range of the target and everyone has to be shooting at it.
Sacred Banner of the Militant Order has to be used before the battle on a model with a Simulacrum Imperials. In-game, they can use their power to increase the Invulnerable save in their unit by 1 to a maximum of a 3++. Depending on what unit you pop this stratagem on, you could make a unit absurdly tanky.
Sacred Rites is nice as it lets you trade in 1CP for a FP.
Burning Descent is pretty good when you drop a unit full of flamers that are automatically hit their target, have their range increased to 12″ AND get to shoot again later in the turn.
If your Sisters find themselves in a situation where they can attack a Psyker, spend 1CP to make them outright bully him by rerolling all failed wounds with Suffer Not the Witch.
Extremis Trigger Word literally triggers your Arco-Flagellants into a swirling flailstorm. They don’t care what they hit. Each attack that lands counts as three hit rolls instead. However, you have to roll a D6 for everyone in the unit after it’s done and for every 6+ a model is slain. (Totally worth it in every way).
If you nail an Act of Faith test on a character, you can pop 3CP on Vessel of the Emperor’s Will to make it an aura around the character affecting every unit within 6″. It doesn’t cost anything extra. You can see where the power level multiplies ten-fold when you’ve got three units fighting twice.
Relics of the Sororitas
Starting with the Blade of Admonition, this sword SLAPS. At being decent Strength, High AP, and 3 flat damage, this might be the go-to relic for a battle-hungry Canoness.
Mantle of Ophella: (Cannonness model only) Grants a 3++ invulnerable save.
The Book of St. Lucius is decent as it essentially gives your Character’s aura a 9″ bubble.
The Litanies of Faith relic is almost exactly like the Blood Angels Veritas Vitae except this is for Faith points. (Notice how it doesn’t say you can only refund one per turn.)
Wrath of the Emperor is like an autocannon pistol for Space Marines. Terminators should be afraid of this pistol. Past that, we think the other relics are much better.
Warlord Traits
- Inspiring Orator lets your Sisters stick to the table a bit better and saves you CP by not having to drop 2 every turn to make a squad fearless.
- Righteous Rage would be a perfect addition to the Canoness with the nasty 3 damage Power Sword relic.
- Executioner of Heretics is the one that you’re never going to take (let’s be honest).
- Beacon of Faith may be a good trait if you plan on keeping your Warlord back and sitting in one corner of the map. At least she’ll be relevant by netting you Faith Points.
- Indomitable Belief is one of the stronger ones here by giving your Sisters a 5++ invulnerable base. This can be increased with the Stratagem Sacred Banner of the Militant Order that we talked about earlier.
- Pure of Will is another one that isn’t too flashy. You can deny an extra Psychic power but it all has to be on 1D6. And Psykers within 12″ have to subtract 1 from their roll. There are still better options.
Sisters of Battle look like they’re decently equipped to tackle the meta-armies of 40k. They’ll be the new kid on the block in terms of tactics and stratagems.
Tau Commander Farsight’s Eight
Farsight’s Loyal eight are getting a deeper preview today after some pictures of their stats were spotted on Imgur, and we can see exactly what the Eight are bringing to the table.
Prepare yourself because these stat sheets are LOADED with information. It looks similar to the Kill Team sheets for Deathwatch.
Clocking in at a massive 52 Powel Level, the Eight have set-wargear that you can’t change. They also come with For the Greater Good obviously. You’ll also have to set the Eight up all at the same time. However, they don’t need to be placed in unit coherency. On top of that, each Character in the unit is treated as a separate unit after deployment and have a Power Rating of 7.
Now looking at the stats of the Eight, Everything aside from the drones and two Battlesuits (The Broadside and Riptide) have a 2+ Ballistic Skill. When you think about how devastating Tau shooting is on a 4+, imagine what these guys can do in the right circumstance.
Signature Systems of the Eight
Each of the Eight is bringing some kind of signature trick up their sleeve. Looking at a few for example:
- Commander Farsight: is the leader of the bunch. He can still call Mont’ka once per game and reroll hit rolls of 1 for friendly farsight Enclaves within 6″ of him in the fight phase. (Or any phase if the target is Orks).
- Commander Brightsword: has a pair of Warscaper Drones that subtract 2 from enemy unit’s charge roll while they are within 12″.
- Commander Bravestorm: has a 6+++ FNP with his Advanced Support Cocoon.
- Sha’vastos: is taking the Index relic which lets someone reroll a hit, wound, or damage roll as well as generate a CP on a 6+.
- Arra’kon: has a couple of drones that do a mortal wound to a unit on a 2+. Not bad considering there will almost always be a cost to get into contact with him.
- Torchstar: has one of the more oppressive systems preventing enemy units arriving from reinforcements to be set up within 12″ of him. Any unit also has to subtract 1 from hit rolls that target him.
- Ob’lotai 9-0: Ignores the penalty to moving and firing heavy weapons as well as taking 1 less damage from whatever manages to wound him.
- O’vesa: is the Riptide of the bunch. He comes stock with a 5++ invulnerable save and can reroll hit rolls of 1. Each time he charges his Nova Reactor, he ignores the mortal wound on a 4+. (The Nova Reactor overcharging is the same as a normal Riptide)
The Eight’s Weapons
As for their wargear, they can’t be changed (because they’re all named characters). The stats for all of their firepower is in one section for you to refer to.
Key Points to Taking The Eight Detachment
- Commander Farsight has to be your Warlord if you take this detachment.
- Your Warlord (Farsight) gains Hero of the Enclaves and can heroic intervene 6″ and re-roll all failed hit rolls.
- The Eight’s Sept Tenet is Devastating Counter-Strike: Re-roll wound rolls of 1 for models with this tenet for shooting attacks against enemy units that are within 6″ of the firing model. (Get up close and personal to have this pop off).
- Drones are considered to have a power rating of 0 and are deployed with their Character when you put them on the table.
- Saviour Protocols is brutal on Farsight Enclaves. Their drones can intercept the wound on a 2+ and take a mortal wound.
The Eight Points Cost
Looking at the points value, it looks to be cut off. However, we can make out what looks to be 1120 pts.
The Eight are a Lord of War detachment that look to be able to dominate most of the table. No matter where the enemy goes, there will be a Farsight character lurking around that they’ll be forced to deal with. Rest assured, these Suits will be sticking on the table for quite a while as they’re mobile and there are so many untargettable characters.
What do you think about the Eight coming to Tau? Will these be able to compete with Knight bruiser lists or focus more on board control?
Will we see Imperial forces run one or two units of Sisters or will these be best operated as a full fighting force? Let us know what you think of theses previews in the comments of our Facebook Hobby Group.
About the Author: Rob Baer
Rob Baer
Job Title: Managing Editor
Founded Spikey Bits in 2009
Socials: Rob Baer on Facebook and @catdaddymbg on X
About Rob Baer: Founder, Publisher, & Managing Editor of Spikey Bits, the leading tabletop gaming news website focused on the hobby side of wargaming and miniatures.
Rob also co-founded and currently hosts the Long War Podcast, which has over 350 episodes and focuses on tabletop miniatures gaming, specializing in Warhammer 40k. and spent six years writing for Bell of Lost Souls.
Every year, along with his co-hosts, he helps host the Long War 40k Doubles Tournament at Adepticon and the Long War 40k Doubles at Las Vegas Open, which attracts over 350 players from around the world.
Rob has won many Warhammer 40k Tournaments over the years, including multiple first-place finishes in Warhammer 40k Grand Tournaments over the years and even winning 1st place at the Adepticon 40k Team Tournament.
With over 30 years of experience in retail and distribution, Rob knows all the products and exactly which ones are the best. As a member of GAMA (Game Manufacturers Association), he advocates for gaming stores and manufacturers in these difficult times, always looking for the next big thing to feature for the miniatures hobby, helping everyone to provide the value consumers want.
While he’s played every edition of Warhammer 40k and Warhammer Fantasy (since 5th Edition) and has been hobbying on miniatures since the 1980s, Titans of all sizes will always be his favorite! It’s even rumored that his hobby vault rivals the Solemnance Galleries, containing rulebooks filled with lore from editions long past, ancient packs of black-bordered Magic Cards, and models made of both pewter and resin.
