Sisters of Battle Guide

Basic Guide to using Sisters of Battle in Multiplayer

Overview

This guide will cover the basics of playing as the sisters of battle in multiplayer. I can't claim to be a great player but I like to think i can share some knowledge around. This guide will cover:

• Infantry units
  
• Vehicles
  
• Relic Unit
  
• Faith

Also at the end I will suggest some opening tactics for Sisters of Battle, which admittedly seem to revolve around crisping your opposition with flamers.

The Sisterhood at a glance is an order of fanatically zealous battle nuns with an obsession for burning things that rivals the burniest of Orks. The people in charge of the church are generally bearded old people with superb hats, somewhat like real life. In terms of gameplay they are like a blend of Space Marine and Imperial Guard gameplay. The Battle Sisters are not female space marines but instead akin to improved guardsmen with superior armour and bolters. The faction as a whole revolves around the faith resource to be competitive. WIthout it their units are inferior to every other race in one way or another. Powerful abilities can be unlocked to turn the tide of a battle at the expense of the Faith resource.

*I may later bother to do a summary on buildings and research but thats pretty boring really. Theres no real advice I can give on using a building because its inherently just a building* Credit for the art goes to the talented people who made them. I don't claim credit because I couldnt draw pac-man convincingly.

Infantry Units

Canoness

The Canoness at first appears relatively weak in comparison to other races heroes. She is outmatched by the Space Marine Force Commander and pales in comparison to the Chaos Lord. The Tau Commander obviously destroys her at range. Her health is nothing to boast about either. She is still a good choice to build first due to her commander armour which allows her to provide decent service as a tank. The research for inferno pistols improves her ranged damage drastically because the inferno pistol is effective against a wide range of armour types, particularly improving her damage against commanders and light vehicles. You can also upgrade her melee if necessary. She has useful faith abilities also. She can blind enemy infantry in an AOE around her temporarily. This is useful against ranged units such as Tau Fire Warriors and various bolter balls that rely on line of sight. She can also expend the entire faith bar to summon several invincible angels temporarily. These can be used to tie up many enemy squads in an ultimately pointless melee or to rush and destroy a high-value target.


















Confessor

The Secondary Commander for the Sisters of Battle. A melee beast who also gives out a general damage buff. He can be upgraded to utilise several abilities including stunning a squad for a considerable time and dealing extreme aoe damage. He can be attached to squads to provide some melee muscle, but attaching him to a Sister Repentia squad is the best way to use him. I suspect his beard and pope-hat gives him his power. No one likes him much so theres no good art of him.



















BattleSisters

The basic chump unit of the Sisters of Battle. The only thing they can boast about at the start is relatively high durability for a basic unit. Damage is mediocre. Can become exceptionally good when given a Superior leader with an inferno pistol. With a small investment sisters can be given flamers which allows the Sisters of Battle a powerful early game especially against mob races such as Orks and Imperial guard where their large squad size is vulnerable to aoe damage.















Missionary

Scout unit for the Sisters of Battle. Cannot be reinforced but is cheap, has disruptive melee and can later expend faith to buff attached squads with powerful abilities. At the start building 2-3 of these while your chapel builds can offer unmatched early capping without breaking the bank at a cost of 75 req each. Decent melee damage yet is unlikely to deal any due to constantly knocking enemy back. Decent health. Missionaries are excellent detectors for the Sisters of Battle. Use them individually or choose the far safer option of joining them with your sister squads to provide detection while not being vulnerable to focus-firing. They don't look like this guy but I couldn't find a decent picture.











Seraphim

Seraphim are the fast attack unit of the Sisters. Their melee damage is average, their ranged damage is average and their health is average. The potency of this unit is in its ability to move fast and fire in any direction while moving. Seraphim can indefinitely kite melee enemies while dealing their full DPS. Upgrade with a Superior + Inferno pistol to effectively kite commanders like the Chaos Lord. Their ability (once unlocked) can boost the attack of both the Seraphim and surrounding allies for a time.

















Celestian

Celestians are the heavy weapons team for the Sisters of Battle. They do more damage with their bolters than normal Battle Sisters. They can be upgraded with 4 meltas for immense short-range anti-tank damage. As with most squads they can be upgraded with a Superior effective at melee and at killing infantry. A banner bearer to increase their effectiveness can be added at tier 3. One overlooked aspect of the Celestian is her large reserve of health and surprising effectiveness at melee. With missionaries attached in order to heal a Celestian squad can be sent into melee and often emerge victorious even against enemies such as Chaos Marines and Kroot. Against melee specialists such as Khorne Berserkers they will lose though. Along with Seraphims they can be upgraded to have anti-vehicle Krak grenades. Seemingly the only difference between these and normal sisters is that they wear helmets. This suggests the sisterhood has more common sense than the other forces of the Imperium where the more important people wear less protection.













Death-Cult Assassin

Stealthed melee unit. Cannot be reinforced. High melee damage useful for eliminating commanders. Personally I don't find this unit particularly worthwhile due to low health. Even when you ambush an enemy commander the damage seems too little to kill him before detection turns up. It can be hard for the enemy to spot the unit even when it is attacking though, since it is a melee unit without even the glowy effects that give mandrakes away when they are stealth attacking.


























Sisters Repentia

The heavy hitting melee unit for this faction. Fanatics wielding huge two-handed chainswords. Not much armour on these lot but seemingly they don't need it. Can be upgraded with a Mistress leader for even more melee damage. They can be told to fight harder at expense of their health. After the relevant upgrade, only if in assault state, they will charge to close quickly and knock down their targets. A decent choice for attaching the Confessor to since they will benefit greatly from his melee damage and general damage buff. A crucial unit in the endgame since they provide the health and damage necessary to close with superior ranged enemies such as Tau without being eviscerated.






















Ecclesiarchal Servitor

The builder for the Sisters of Battle seems to be a Space Marine Servitor given a cloak to make him holy and stuff. Nothing special about him except his ability to deal large damage to enemy structures using a long-recharge ability. You will have to be inventive to get him close enough to use it and it often requires multiple servitors to destroy the building. They don't look as cool as this guy.

Vehicles

Rhino Transport

"Taste my storm bolter!" The Rhino Transport is exceptionally cheap, only costing 70 req and 70 power. You get ALOT for your investment. 2000 health with vehicle armour and a bolter that does around 110 damage. If this weren't enough, it can be upgraded with Lawd Hailers to deplete enemy morale and boost your own. Quickly teching to Machinarium and spamming these can quickly plow through an enemy still lingering at tier 1. Obviously it can also transport. These can be used in powerful killing strikes in the transition between tier 1 and tier 2. This is especially useful against the Tau. If your flamer balls of Battle Sisters are still alive, load them into your Rhinos and drive them into the enemy base to kill their Path to Enlightenment. This will leave them without decent AT capability and fire warriors will be mown down by the Rhinos alone. The troops inside and the Lawd Hailers are just icing on the cake.












Immolator

The Immolator is a powerful yet expensive tank. It has good durability but dissapointing given its costs. The Immolator begins with a powerful twin flamer that can slaughter infantry and does exceptional building damage. It can be upgraded to a twin multi-melta which of course does savage damage to vehicles. I generally prefer the Rhino over this unit because of the Immolators high cost and horrifically lengthy build time.















Exorcist

A pipe organ mounted on the Rhino chassis performs the role of artillery. Don't be fooled into thinking this vehicle is akin to the Imperial Guard Basilisk. Instead it is a powerful tool for disrupting enemy infantry such as heavy bolter teams and fire warriors. It does little damage but disrupts over a huge area to keep these teams from setting up. The Exorcist does provide one damage-dealing weapon which is the HK Missile. This can be periodically used to deal extreme damage to enemy vehicles from across the map. Since this is technically an artillery unit it should be kept well back and will quickly die to anti-tank fire.














Lightning Fighter

The Sisterhood's aerial unit is a paper airplane with four guns mounted on it, two autocannons and two lascannons. The lascannons are used to engage aerial targets while the autocannons mow down infantry. Be warned the paper has the tendency to burn to ash the moment the Lightning Fighter comes under attack so it is decidedly a hit-and-run unit. Watch out for the extreme range of the Imperial Guard Heavy Weapons Team equipped with a heavy flashlight. The complicated manufacture and delicate launch of a Lightning Fighter is featured below:



















Penitent Engine

Fantastic walker for the Sisters. Unfortunately it is in the final tier of technology so often arrives somewhat late in the game. Immense damage in melee and comes equipped with two flamers to devastate infantry at short range. Sisters who have had their faith found lacking are confined to these until they die.

Relic Unit: The Living Saint

The Living Saint is the powerful Relic Unit for the Sisters of Battle. As with all relic units it is exceptionally powerful and this one has Daemon armour to which there are few counters. However the Saint's stats are very poor when compared to the Bloodthirster and the Squiggoth that serve similar roles.



The Saint is a jumpable unit and therefore can fly large distances over impassable terrain. However this is nothing the Bloodthirster cannot do and better. She has one useful ability which is to cast fire in a straight line dealing extreme damage to enemies caught in it. Her other ability is interesting but still mostly useless. If the Saint is killed she will quickly resurrect with a fraction of her health. She can only do this every 10 minutes. Its far easier to just have her resurrect and die again rather than keep her hanging around your base for a massive 10 minutes. A cost of 400/400 for replacing her should be far less costly than having her out of action for the greater part of the game. She could serve as defense against raiding jumping/teleporting units while waiting for the ability to recharge but she would still be fairly worthless. Overall one of the worse relic units.

Faith

The strength of the Sisterhood is said to come from their faith. I would say it comes from giant mechanised death machines and flamethrowers but the lore says its faith so there you go. The Faith resource has 5 stages to it. 20, 40, 60, 80 and 100. Each stage is unlocked by constructing a Holy Icon on a listening post.

Each Holy Icon increases the maximum faith you can store. Faith resource is earned by certain faithful units, particularly the Living Saint, being alive. A research can also result in faith income when your units die.

Faith is crucial to the Sisters because it compensates for much of their inferiority when pitted against the other races. A sisters repentia squad in melee against Possessed Chaos Marines becomes considerably more dangerous while they are constantly replenishing health or even reflecting the damage back. The faith abilities are channeled through attached missionaries, the Canoness and the Confessor.

General Tips

• Never neglect faith. It is deceptively easy to forget about it completely
  
  
• Your soldiers are not space marines
  
  
• Inferno pistols are a must
  
  
• Celestians are deceptively adept at melee combat especially with a missionary attached for faith abilities
  
  
• Their mines are actually useful in some situations. But still rarely. An example:

I clearly had enough soldiers to beat those two shoota squads but the mines severly damaging and morale breaking the first squad allowed me to morale break and push them back without casualty. Being at full strength meant it was easy to push for the win despite the turrets on Ork buildings.

Build order

I tend to start with:

• Missionary
  
• Missionary
  
• Builder
  
• Missionary
  
• Convent (barracks)
  
• Power Generator
  
• Power Generator

Once convent completes:

• Canoness
  
• Battle Sister
  
• Battle Sister

The rest is dependable on matchup which should obviously be discovered at this point. If Orks, Necrons or Imperial Guard I forgo listening posts and get flamers out early. Otherwise get some listening posts down. Im a pretty average player so any advice on this would be useful.

[lowgrav]

say you are VS an AI opponent and say the match is at 1 hour on the timer (just saying this time for referance so you can assume the enimy has all tech and all buildings)

what are the stratigys to break through such a heavly reinforced line (not saying every stratigy will work as differs between what the enimy got) so do you spam walkers? i notice the AI prefers to spam the anti vehical squads if you have the resources what infantry unit do people spam in the really late game and what vehicle to spam to support your saint for a line breach

[Gore242]

Great Faction

[Mjp11]

Agreed they are really strong.

[Gabor]

Celestains are the most broken unit EVER.

[Beta_8088]

You should edit it to be more accurate.

Step 1: Exist
Step 2: Win because they're fucking broken af

[Redrick]

Where did you get that Seraphim image, is there a HD copy floating around on the Internet ? I absolutely love it.

[Mjp11]

Sounds like a good plan to me. Depends who are you are fighting against I guess.

[wfrancomb]

Queue missionaries to finish taking home points
Once the first point is captured, you should have enough to queue a listening post.
Select the pristine sanctuary and spam "i" so that the infernos pistol is researched seconds after the cannoness comes out.
Continue to build listining posts and recruit 2 battle sister squads in the meantime whilst your cannoness is skirmishing and your missionaries are capturing points.

By 5 mins, you should be able to enter T2 if you don't upgrade the listening posts yet.
Once T2 is queueing, build plasma generators and get those posts upgraded and heavy blters on your sister units.

The rest will usually depend on the scenario, if you're against DE you probably want celestians before rhinos but if you're up against mob armies you want rhinos whilst also saving for T3 for excorcists and repentia.

Fastest I've been able to get St Celestine up in is 14mins using this method.

[wfrancomb]

whats the point of getting a cannoness out early game if you don't get them an infernos pistol early on? I feel like you know this, but aren't using it in your startups. Here's what I do that usually scares the hell out of my mates who I've been playing against:

Start building a Covenant

Recruit from HQ:
Servitor
Missionary
Missionary

Queue Pristine sanctuary
Get builder unit to begin building it as soon as it comes out
Select HQ and Set rally point on a nearby strategic point
Select both Builders and queue a plasma generator
Switch rally point to another strategic point because the first missionary is done.
Wait for second missionary to get out and reset rally point
By now, the covenant is almost done, so click on it and spam "C" for the cannoness to start coming out ASAP

[Mjp11]

Same thing for me Centurion Zen. Can't really get Sisters anywhere else but tabletop now.

Thanks for the info Iron Lung

Lol - Space nuns