3rd edition Cleanse: Iyanden vs Sisters of Battle, 1000 points

[Alarantalara]

I've been thinking about my old Iyanden army a lot recently with an eye for playing it at the local store in the 9th edition to see if I like it. It turns out everything is different and I need to assemble more models to be able to play, but in the meantime, I got to play two games of 3rd edition with them this weekend while I'm scheming.

Thus, this game, the first 40K game I've played in almost 20 years?!

We took the book's advice for new players and chose Cleanse as the mission for the first game as well as limiting it to 1000 points instead of trying to go big to give us a chance to practice without it taking too long. We also both picked as much unit variety as possible for the same reason.

Iyanden:
HQ
Farseer: fortune, guide, shuriken pistol, witchblade
Troops
5 Wraithguard in Wave serpent with sprit stones, starcannon
Wraithlord with missile launcher
Elites
4 Rangers
6 Howling banshees, including exarch with powerblades
Heavy Support
Falcon with scatter laser, holofield, spirit stones
2 shadow weavers

Sisters of Battle - Chapter Approved list (they had lots but this one was my opponent's favourite, so we used that)
HQ
Canoness with power sword, purity seals, and more accompanied by confessor, 8 Celestians with heavy flamer and melta gun in rhino with smoke launchers and extra armour (This is the darker rhino in the images)
Troops
10 Redemptionists with 2 autocannons and a priest
10 sisters of battle with 2 flamers
Elites
9 Celestians + priest with heavy flamer and melta gun in rhino with smoke launchers and extra armour (This is the bright rhino)
Fast Attack
10 Seraphim with 2 flamers, power sword
Heavy Support
Exorcist with smoke launchers
(All of the units had veterans with pistols and close combat weapons as did the Canoness and priests, but I don't recall which types)

It seemed like 40k had more terrain on the board than fantasy from the pictures and comments about setup, so I dumped lots of what we had to see what would happen. I won to choose sides and picked the one with lots of forests. We both deployed cautiously, trying to hide as much as possible.

Deployment.jpeg (278.09 KiB) Viewed 9368 times

The howling banshees elected to start in the Falcon, all other units are visible.

The Sisters of Battle won the roll off and elected to begin the hostilities.
Turn 1:
The exorcist, troops and HQ rhino chose to move out on one side, while the seraphim filled in the space they left behind. The Celestians rhino moved a bit, but remained behind cover to wait for the seraphim to join it and coordinate.
The redemptionists fired their autocannons at the only visible target, the rangers, and believed they hit and wounded them with every shot. It was a lie, the chameleoline cloaks saved all of them from injury. Meanwhile, the exorcist fired at the wraithlord 6 times, and wounded it twice.

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The eldar advanced the tanks and shifted the severely damaged wraithlord out of sight of the exorcist, then opened fire.
The shadow weavers aimed for the redemptionists but overshot slightly, killing one redemptionist and one seraphim (seraph?) as the attacks landed between the two units. The seraphim were pinned by this unexpected early barrage, but the redemptionists held firm, even after taking sniper fire from the rangers.
The Falcon destroyed the missile launcher on the exorcist, while the wave serpent killed two sisters of battle. The wraithlord achieved nothing with its missile launcher.

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Turn 2:
The sisters continued their movement from the previous turn, other than the pinned seraphim. The exorcist placed itself as cover for the troops, enveloping itself in clouds of smoke for extra surety.
The redemptionists shot and killed one ranger. They held. No other shooting was possible.

The eldar recklessly advanced with the waveserpent and unloaded the wraithguard in front of the HQ rhino.
The falcon moved to support the wraithlord.
The rhino was annihilated by wraithcannon and the waveserpent killed a few of the occupants. The shadow weavers killed another seraphim, this time without additional effect.

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Turn 3:
(For the rest of the game, the redemptionists don't accomplish anything with their shooting and shall be ignored. They do lose 1-2 models per turn from the rangers and shadow weavers shooting them though. I'll skip that too.)

The canoness and her retinue unleash everything they have on the wraithguard and farseer, shooting everything they have, then assaulting what remained. Only the farseer survived and even he was injured.
The celestians attempt the same on the other side, but the falcon fails to break and expose the howling banshees, leaving them in precarious position.

The farseer lives on and kills the canoness with mind war (this might be a mistake, but here we are).
The howling banshees fly over the celestians and exit the falcon to prepare for the assault. Then the wraithlord shoots the celestians with everything and they run away, straight into a crossfire with the howling banshees. So much for that assault.
The wraithlord continues to demonstrate superiority by smashing the storm bolter off the rhino to finish the rampage.

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Turn 4:
The seraphim consider trying to get to the howling banshees but decide they're too far away, especially with the falcon in the way and move back out of reach rather than risk being attacked. The farseer fights on.

And on, this time killing the confessor.
The howling banshees get back in the falcon and chase the seraphim.
The wave serpent meanders around the battlefield, firing at random units to weaken them and keep them from contesting table quarters.

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About this time I also realize that the sisters of battle troops unit I've been carefully avoiding approaching has flamers, not meltaguns. I start wondering why I was as cautious as I was with the wave serpent. Oh well.

Turn 5:
The seraphim continue to evade the falcon. The farseer won't die.

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The howling banshees prepare to attack the redemptionists. The wraithlord destroys the exorcist. Combined shooting from the wave serpent, falcon and rangers causes all sisters of battle units to be below half strength. With only a rhino left able to claim territory and no way to damage the eldar tanks, the sisters of battle concede the field in the middle of the shooting phase. I forget to take a picture of the end.

We were both struck by how free the movement was compared to fantasy and had quite a bit of fun. So much so, that we decide to play again.

My opponent wanted to try something different since he felt like there wasn't enough stuff that could really hurt the tough eldar vehicles. So the next day we try a 1500 point game and end up randomly playing Take and Hold. Unfortunately, I forgot to take pictures of that game after turn 2, so there probably won't be a battle report for it.

[Just Tony]

Good report, and a rough showing for the Sisters. I'm thinking that your opponent could definitely benefit from some meltas in that army.

[Alarantalara]

I'm thinking that your opponent could definitely benefit from some meltas in that army.

Indeed. There were rather more of them in the second game beyond the two featured in this one: as I recall, the seraphim picked up melta bombs, and a retributor squad with 4 multi-meltas in an immolator with another multi-melta along with a second exorcist joined the two melta guns and exorcist this game had for strength 8 attacks. There were also 4 more autocannons for good measure.

It helped a bit: two wave serpents were destroyed turn 1 and one wraithlord suffered two wounds, but the nature of the scenario meant that a second wraithlord then made it into assault with the retributors, and all the strength 8 guns were destroyed by turn 3. The seraphim were still around, but they had to focus on the objective and fighting the wraithguard there over killing tanks by that point.

I feel like the Sisters don't shoot well enough with enough high enough strength weapons to really threaten wraithlords. For everything but celestians, it takes an average of 12 shots from S8 weapons to kill a wraithlord assuming the wraithlord doesn't hide in cover. That's the entire army's supply of long range guns on average using the increased number in the second list. This in turn means you have to ignore the tanks to do it. The end result is target saturation, just too many responsibilities for the same weapons.

If we play again, I think I'm going to cut back on the wraithlords by 1 to try and make it less oppressive. I'm not sure how much it will help though, since the models I have to replace it are: guardians with a starcannon, even more wraithguard, and striking scorpions, none of which are particularly friendly to the army.
We also talked at the end of the second game about the Sisters picking up a dominion squad instead of celestians. They can also take melta bombs (and lots of melta guns), which would keep the seraphim from having to double as assault units for both tanks and infantry, giving them more freedom of action.

[Jonathan E]

So firstly: nice job on getting that Eldar army to look good. Yellow is a curse.

Secondly: you're correct about terrain but I think you still need more. The trick with 40K in my opinion is to put the big interesting bits in the middle where they can block lines of sight and lanes of movement and have a definitive effect on the game. The instinct for WFB players is to have an accessible space in the middle for rank and flank play and have the big bits on the edges to denote scale and location - you need to flip that on its head, since the higher lethality of 40K shooting and the reduced impact of difficult terrain on mobility demand more clutter in the middle.

My home board doesn't have enough either, for what it's worth.

Thirdly: you're also correct about target saturation and Wraithlords in particular. Wraithlords are so strong because whatever else happens they're going to need three successful wounds to drop and nothing wounds them on twos, and they simply don't care about small arms fire. A conventional vehicle can go down to one hit with a bit of luck and usually has at least one facing where boltguns might glance and get lucky. Trading in the Guardians is probably the most "feelsgood" option to replace the second Wraithlord as it puts something fragile in there, it's the biggest concession.

Dominions might help the Sisters somewhat but they still need to get there. Their biggest problem in my experience is all their high Strength guns living in the small arms range bracket, barring the Exorcist, and isn't that a bit... swingy in third? One hates to go around giving fifth edition advice but "mech up or go home" is usually the answer for units who need to be within 12" to make a difference. Again, I don't own enough Rhinos for someone with this many Chaos Space Marine bodies and so few heavy weapons in their collection, but I never claimed to be good at this - merely aware of how I'm bad.

[Kakapo42]

I like the sound of more Wraithguard personally. They're the most thematic troop option for an Iyanden army, and they're armed entirely with guns that are short ranged and slow firing. Run them without a transport vehicle, turning the game into more of an infantry fight, and you should be looking good.

As to the Sisters, the lack of meltas is one thing already touched on, but I also feel like they were too cautious for their own good in this game, and going by the pictures a lot of their combat power looks like it was committed to a long flank attack that never really came. I feel like they would have probably been better served with a more aggressive deployment and a bold thrust down the centre, taking advantage of that first turn to ram their mass of bodies down the throat of the Eldar and present a little target saturation of their own, and leaving the two Rhino mounted units as a mobile reserve to reinforce the attack or zoom over to capture table quarters as the situation dictated. As it stands, that cautious first turn ceded the initiative over to you.

As a rule of thumb, Sisters of Battle are an aggressive force, and work best with an aggressive approach, treated as a close combat army that happens to have some guns rather than a short ranged shooting army. This is especially true with the Witch Hunters codex which also gives them more tools to deal with things like Wraithlords, between ready access to Eviscerators, heavy bolters with on-demand AP1 (sure you're still fishing for 6s to actually hurt the thing, but now any wounds that do come up stick) and extra stuff like Penitent Engines. Of course that's all very cold comfort for your friend running the Chapter Approved list, and I'm sure they've got their reasons for sticking with it.

Did they make much use of Acts of Faith during either game? I believe they were a thing for the Chapter Approved list, but I did not see them mentioned here.

[Alarantalara]

As a rule of thumb, Sisters of Battle are an aggressive force, and work best with an aggressive approach, treated as a close combat army that happens to have some guns rather than a short ranged shooting army. This is especially true with the Witch Hunters codex which also gives them more tools to deal with things like Wraithlords, between ready access to Eviscerators, heavy bolters with on-demand AP1 (sure you're still fishing for 6s to actually hurt the thing, but now any wounds that do come up stick) and extra stuff like Penitent Engines. Of course that's all very cold comfort for your friend running the Chapter Approved list, and I'm sure they've got their reasons for sticking with it.

Did they make much use of Acts of Faith during either game? I believe they were a thing for the Chapter Approved list, but I did not see them mentioned here.

Actually, it's the Penitent Engines and the like that are the problem. The Chapter Approved list has lots of religious elements, but it's presented as fanaticism and dedication. The Witchhunters list pushes that into mortification and even mutilation, which felt distasteful. The characters in the Chapter Approved list want to kill the enemy for the Emperor, the new ones in Witchhunters feel like they're willing to kill themselves so long as their opponent goes with them. It also has a lot less emphasis on the Sisters of Battle, what with inquisitors, assassins, imperial guard storm troopers and more getting added to the list.

The act of faith to make 6s ignore armour is present in the Chapter Approved list, and he has plenty of heavy bolters (at least 8), so I'll pass that on. While every model in a redemptionist model can take eviscerators, he doesn't have the models. Also, since they have no transport option, it's a bit too easy for them to get forced to fight one of the faster close combat specialist units in the Eldar army rather than getting a chance against a wraithlord.

As for use during the game, there were lots, mostly trying for 6s to kill wraithguard in close combat and reducing casualties from the rangers' sniper fire (and other weapons until we realized that it didn't work against instant death and virtually everything was S6 and so caused that). The list provided started at 8 faith points and was down to 1 at one point. For the other acts, there was no falling back to rally from, and the only close combat the sisters started they decided it was better to shoot first instead of getting an extra lower strength attack.

Secondly: you're correct about terrain but I think you still need more. The trick with 40K in my opinion is to put the big interesting bits in the middle where they can block lines of sight and lanes of movement and have a definitive effect on the game. The instinct for WFB players is to have an accessible space in the middle for rank and flank play and have the big bits on the edges to denote scale and location - you need to flip that on its head, since the higher lethality of 40K shooting and the reduced impact of difficult terrain on mobility demand more clutter in the middle.

My home board doesn't have enough either, for what it's worth.

We have more terrain, but it doesn't block line of sight. Something else to do if we continue these games.

Dominions might help the Sisters somewhat but they still need to get there. Their biggest problem in my experience is all their high Strength guns living in the small arms range bracket, barring the Exorcist, and isn't that a bit... swingy in third? One hates to go around giving fifth edition advice but "mech up or go home" is usually the answer for units who need to be within 12" to make a difference. Again, I don't own enough Rhinos for someone with this many Chaos Space Marine bodies and so few heavy weapons in their collection, but I never claimed to be good at this - merely aware of how I'm bad.

The exorcist is swingy with its D6 shots, yes. It's hard to give up when everything else is lower strength, shorter ranged, or both, though.

As for the dominion squad, I'm certain it would get a rhino if fielded, or at least get to ride in an immolator from a heavy support section.

[Just Tony]

There are some cheap "bucket" toy sets at Walmart that usually come stocked with some trees and the like as well as animals or, in one case, military stuff. Those trees are right about the correct size and would do well in clumps of area terrain to break up line of sight. Remember that in 3rd Ed you can't see through a clump of woods no matter how narrow it is.

[TinyLegions]

Nice Batrep and a good paint job. As said by Jonathon, yellow is very trickey to get right.