Blessed Sisters Tactics

Blessed Sisters

Setting:	Grimdark Future
Games:	Grimdark Future, Grimdark Future: Firefight
Species:	Human
Version:	v2.50

Note: as v2.50 is in constant development the following might not be accurate.

Why Play Blessed Sisters

The battle sisters fill a bit of a niche as being well-protected as well as being moderately effective while not being as costly as the battle brothers.

Pros:

Jack-of-all-Trades: Outside a few exceptions like Novices and Fanatics, your units have universal Quality / Defense 4+, essentially making them a veteran-tier army that can adapt against most compositions. Against armies that rely on multiple activations you can outvalue them in terms of stats, while against more elite armies you have the numbers' advantage on your side.
Very Good Mid-Range Fighting: Devout is a universal rule which gives your units an extra hit for each critical hit within 12". You are one of the strongest factions when it comes about fighting mid-range, further emphasized by your weapons selection heavily leaning towards 12" / 18" choices like flamethrowers and fusion rifles.
Lots of Flamethrowers and Fusion Weapons: Speaking of which, you have the largest amount of specific anti-infantry and anti-tank weapons available in the game. Most of your units can opt to take either a flamethrower or a fusion rifle, with a few of them having access to the heavy versions or unique ones (like the Flamethrower Sniper Rifle). Because these weapons usually have a range of 12", with the Devout rule your attacks hurt like the fires of hell.
Strong Buffs: Your heroes have exceptional buffs, especially with regards to AP. Your other units can get strong keywords or abilities for reasonable prices.
Good Selection of Units: On the infantry block you can choose between all possible kinds of units depending on what you need like bikes, blobs, specialists and so on. Your vehicles lack air support, but for anything else you're more than covered, especially when you consider that Devout, flamethrowers and fusion weapons are here as well in droves.

Cons:

Jack-of-all-Trades: Your army hits the middle spot between the extremes of having numerous cannon fodders or few elite units. However, with the strengths come also the weaknesses. You cannot win the activations and models' game against fodder armies and elite units can still outvalue yours by themselves. Your status as a jack-of-all-trades means that while you have multiple strong points, compared to more focused armies you can find yourself lacking in specific departments. You need to read well into the match up and answer accordingly, or risk to be outperformed by your opponent.
Skewed Melee: Remember how your Novices and Fanatics have worse stats compared to all of your other units? They are also the only infantry units with a dedicated melee keyword (Furious). Your melee is by no means non-existent, since you still have access to buffs, specific melee-centric units, multiple upgrades and the Assault Walker if needed, but your army still revolves more around shooting. You'll find yourself easily limited if you try to lean too much towards the slugfest.
Weak Long-Range: While you do have a useful psychic spell and a dedicated artillery unit, your units are dependent on being constantly in the mid-range to unleash their full potential. Against armies focused on long-range you can find yourself in a bad spot as you need to get close enough (and possibly survive) to actually start trading with your opponent.
Too Many Flamethrowers and Fusion Weapons: You are a shooting faction, but you don't have a lot of choices in terms of guns. Almost all of your heavy weapons upgrades are either machineguns, flamethrowers or fusion and all of your units (yes, even the vehicles) focus on these in one way or another. Moreover, your middle ground choices are very limited and your units will be tailored towards either full anti-infantry or full anti-tank picks. By itself is not as bad as it may seem, but you need to consider well how to bring the right fit unit against the right target.
Reliant on Buffs: You have access to multiple buffs which can stack, but this comes with two issues. The first one is that without buffs your units are average, while the second one is that to mix them up you are reliant on your heroes. Your units by themselves do not cost too much, but if you really want to get the most out of them then be ready to spend quite a lot.

Army Special Rules

Blind Faith: The model and any attached unit gets the Stealth special rule. A good choice to add survivability against shooty armies.
Canticle Megaphone: This model and its unit get the Fearless rule. Given the general stats, it essentially makes your units elite-tier in terms of morale tests.
Celestial Infantry: This model gets +1 to hit rolls in melee and shooting. A bit costly, but it can stack with Devout and give you essentially Quality 2+ when shooting someone within 12".
Devout: The universal rule for your army and your bread and butter, this gives an extra hit for each critical hit shooting enemies within 12".
Medical Training: Grants Regeneration for the entire unit. Another layer of defense that can be stacked with other defensive buffs
Shield Wall: Enemies get -1 to hit when they attack units where all models have this rule, further enhancing your defenses.
Spiritual Guidance: The model and any attached unit improve their AP by 1 when shooting, but given the fact that most of your anti-tank weaponry is essentially fusion spam this is more useful on your multi-hit weapons like flamethrowers, especially the heavier counterparts.
War Hymns: The model and any attached unit improve their AP by 1 when fighting in melee, giving a well-needed edge for your mano-a-mano.

Spells

Eternal Flame (1): One enemy unit within 12" takes three hits. Useful to soften up mobs, but considering how many flamethrowers you have it is pretty situational.
Holy Tears (1): Two friendly units within 18" gains Poison when they fight in melee. This is useful when fighting regenerating enemies and when you have decent AP values.
Admonition (2): One enemy model within 12" takes two AP(4) hits. A bit underwhelming, as it won't do much besides finish off a dying hero or snipe out some special gun.
Heretics (2): Two enemy units within 12" suffers -1 defense they next get hit. Stacks wonderfully with War Hymns and Spiritual Guidance, making your guns even more devastating.
Litanies (3): Target 2 friendly units within 12” get +9" range next time they shoot, helping with your issues regarding long range, but has anti-synergy with devout. Still useful for your back line.
Righteous Wrath (3): Two enemy units within 12" take 3 AP(1) hits each. Useful for softening up or finishing off infantry.

Unit Analysis

Heroes

High Sister: Your more well-rounded leader. With a 4+ in quality and defense, they're a in a pretty good position to be built into any role you see possible. If you can afford it, you can buy Celestial Infantry in order to improve their accuracy even higher to the point where close-range is a death sentence.
- Shooting: The basic heavy rifle provides only one shot, but it's at a good range of 24" and has AP(1) to handle most infantry. If you stick with the default assault rifle, you can buy it an short-ranged attachment for a Flame-Mod (for a bunch of attacks), Plasma-Mod (for good AP) or Fusion-Mod(for tank-popping). If you instead go for a Heavy Pistol (half the range but just as powerful), you can replace that with a Gravity Pistol (for Rending), a Plasma Pistol (for good AP), shotgun (for extra shots pistol range) or a Storm Rifle if you just want a rapid-fire Heavy Rifle. If you're going all-in on melee, you can instead replace that with a Shield for Shield Wall, though this will only work if you go solo or stick her with a unit that also has shields.
- Melee: If you just don't care at all about shooting or defense, you can buy either a heavy chainsaw sword for a bunch of attacks at AP(1) or twin energy claws for a good number of Rending attacks. If you're taking the pistol+CCW loadout, you can then replace that CCW with either an Energy Sword (for a reliable AP(1) and Rending) or Energy Fist (to pop through armor).
- Special Rules: These rules will likely define what you use your leader for. Priestess provides War Hymns, making it the most useful on units focused on melee that tend to fight high-defense units. Witch gives you Psychic(1), letting you access your spells. Superior gives Blind Faith, making your force a decent bunker against most foes. Canoness gives Spiritual Guidance, which provides plenty of use for a gunline unit of sisters. In general, the larger the squad size, the better the special rules will be. It will always cost 20pts for AP +1, but it’s a lot nicer to have that apply to 25 fanatic attacks than a handful for a little squad.
- Mobility Upgrades: The High Sister is quite capable of going into multiple roles. Vanguard gives you Scout and Strider, making this the upgrade to go for an alpha-striking leader. The Destroyer Armor gives very blatant defensive boosts with +3 to Tough and Ambush so she won't immediately get shot up. The jetpack gives Flying and Ambush to get to combat immediately. The combat bike is more mobile in the traditional sense, as it grants Fast and +3 to Tough while also carrying a twin assault rifle so you have some sort of shooting.
Novice Leader: A cheaper leader, this leader is reduced to a 5+ to quality and defense in exchange for Furious, making her better suited for melee. Though this leader can't take mobility upgrades, she can pick up any weapons she wants and can pick up special rules. This particularly makes War Hymn or Blind Faith a natural fit to fill in gaps in the attached unit.

Exo-Suit High Sister: A hero in name only, the Exo-Suit High Sister does not have any buffs or benefits to units it joins with, and in fact, can’t join with units at all under competitive rules. Instead it functions as one of the only solo heroes in the whole game. Sporting Tough(9) and Def 3+, it can stand up to a good deal of punishment before going down. Starting off with a purely melee focus on its Great Energy Sword and Stomp, it can be upgraded with ranged options for a hefty price, allowing it to serve in more roles. It will always excel in melee no matter what else you attach to it.

Infantry

Fanatic Sisters: These sisters sacrifice protection to go all in. That 5+ defense is pretty measly, but Fearless at least gives them a chance to still keep it together before they get to the fight and you can buy Regeneration if you want to make that chaff be annoying to kill. The charge is where they want to be, as each of them only has a heavy chainsaw sword to swing and Frenzy for an extra swing and AP(+1). If you want more than AP(1), you'll need to buy everyone Dual Arc Whips to chance Rending. Despite their fragility, they can do nasty damage to unattended vehicles if brought close enough.
Novice Sisters: While just as defenseless as the Fanatics, these sisters get Devout and the ability to shoot. These are also your most numerous unit, making them a decent chaff unit. While only given rifles for shooting, you can freely swap any number of them out for either paired CCWs for a barrage of attacks or great weapons for some AP in combat. If there's any issue with their loadouts, it's that they only have two options for special weapons: Flamethrowers or Fusion Guns. Pick one to focus your unit on that role. In addition, they can purchase Fear, Medical Training, or a Canticle Megaphone.
Battle Sisters: Your workhorse infantry are quite flexible. Aside from the generous list of weapons they can pick up, they can also select Celestial Infantry to improve their effectiveness as well as one out of three other upgrades: The Canticle Megaphone for Fearless (worthwhile considering how easy it is to make you test morale), the Sacred Banner for Fear and Medical Training for Regeneration.
- Shooting: While one model can take any sort of melee weapon or rifle-mods like the heroes, another model can pick up either a Plasma Rifle (for cheap anti-armor), a Flamethrower (Rapid-fire at short range), Shred Rifle (for mid-range rapid-fire Rending), Heavy Flamethrower (a Flamethrower with AP), Storm Rifle, Heavy Machinegun (long-range firepower), or a Missile Launcher (Tank-busting but with Lock-On to take out aircraft).
Vanguard Sisters: Sisters with Scout and Strider. This works particularly well for them, as each one comes equipped with either the basic Heavy Rifle or a shotgun for extra focus on Devout's bonuses. Alongside all of the non-heavy weapons available to your base sisters, up to two sisters can also grab a Flamethrower Sniper Rifle, a short-ranged sniper weapon that gets multiple shots in exchange.
Protector Sisters: These sisters are as tanky as you can get short of resorting to destroyers. Though you lack any non-pistol weapon options, they all come stock with halberds for Rending and shields to protect from shooting. If you want guaranteed AP, you can buy Maces for AP(2) - and then spend more money to replace that with a Sacred Spear for Deadly(3) in case you need to drop a hero.
Pistoleer Sisters: Surprisingly higher quality than the normal sisters, though they're stuck with jetpacks and dual pistols. Though they're mobile, this leaves two glaring issues: They're quite short-ranged (and grabbing other pistols can shorten that range even further) and their melee game isn't too hot. Sure, you can give one a power sword, but that won't give much more than another attack.
Assault Sisters: Pistoleers who turned in a pistol for Energy Swords, making them much deadlier in combat for a considerably modest price. Your melee now has more bite, though you're stuck with only one pistol to swap out for something else.
Support Sisters: A pack of Battle Sisters with Extra Devout, a special version of your army rule that allows for a chance of adding an extra hit on a 5-6 instead of just a 6. Starting off with Heavy Flamethrowers, this makes them entirely dedicated to shooting. The entire squad can pick out either Heavy Machineguns or Heavy Fusion Rifles depending on what you intend on aiming them at.
Destroyer Sisters: These sisters have Ambush and Tough(3), making them quite beefy. Each of them totes a pair of Energy Claws for Rending. If you're fully committed to melee but wanted something more survivable, you can give them shields and Energy Hammers to flatten crowds. If you're looking to retain shooting, you can default to the costly CCW+Storm Rifle. You can swap that rifle for either the heavy flamethrower or fusion rifle give you some more punch on shooting while the energy fist and energy sword give you options in melee.
Biker Fanatics: Fanatics benefit a lot from grabbing bikes. Not only do they get Fast so they can get stuck in faster, but they also gain access to twin assault rifles so they can actually shoot and Devout to ensure that they can do something even if outside of charging range.
Biker Sisters: These sisters on bikes remain very flexible. Granting them all twin assault rifles gives them a lot of shooting on top of their options for two non-heavy guns on top of the once pistol option.
Exo-Suit Sisters: The missing link between heavy infantry and armor. Sporting Tough(6) but only Def 3+, it’s a relatively fragile unit compared to a squad of Destroyers or a fully fledged tank. It's a relatively cheap melee unit, costing only a little more than a squad of fanatics and being much tougher. It's primary weaknesses are its lack of ability to benefit from most buffs.

Vehicles

APC: The run-of-the mill tank with only Transport(11). It's not very great for combat, all you have is a Storm Rifle with options for another one and a hunter missile or a dozer blade so you get Strider. You can also purchase a second gun, giving you an option for either a Fusion Rifle, Flamethrower, or a Storm Rifle.
Infernal APC: This APC has half the capacity but comes with a Heavy Flamethrower and Twin Heavy Flamethrower for the absolute annihilation of mobs. On top of the APC upgrades, you can also swap out both of the guns. The Twin Heavy Flamethrower can be replaced with either a Twin Heavy Machinegun, a Twin Flamethrower Cannon (giving a Heavy Flamethrower with a slightly better range), or a Twin Fusion Cannon depending on what you plan on focus on. The Heavy Flamethrower can be replaced with either a Heavy Machinegun or Heavy Fusion Rifle
Organ Tank: So here's your artillery tank. The Organ Heavy Missiles provides you a decent means to pop tanks with Lock-On giving you a means to combat aircraft. Your only alternative for this is the Organ Mortar Array, a more traditional means of artillery with Blast and Indirect. Of course, this is not all it can do, as it has a Heavy Flamethrower like the Infernal APC and the other upgrades given to APCs.
Battle Tank: Your only heavy tank with Tough(12), this doesn't disappoint with a devastating Battle Cannon and three different Heavy Flamethrowers you can equip with different guns for any tasks. That main cannon can be replaced with either an Anti-Tank Cannon made for directly smashing monsters or the Twin Autocannon to shred anything that would otherwise shrug off the Battle Cannon like Destroyers and Bikes.
Assault Walker: These walkers are quite resilient thanks to possessing Regeneration on top of their 2+ defense. This one has Furious to support both Fear and Walker Sawblades you can replace with either Walker Flails for Rending on the cheap or Walker Fists for AP(4).
Support Walker: This walker doesn't have Furious, but it has Relentless and instead has long-range Quad Heavy Machineguns for excellent shooting on top of the melee weapons. This is all at the same cost as the other walker so the choice really becomes what you value the most.

List Building & Tactics

General Advice

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Terrain Matters for this Army! Make sure you don’t neglect to set up enough terrain, 10-15 for a 4x6 table. Without terrain, your girls are sitting ducks. Keep them in cover, or watch them die!
By default, sisters tend to run more anti infantry. Be sure to take this into account, as you’ll most likely need to add in some fusion weapons (anti-tank, deadly weapons) for more well rounded armies. You don’t want to just jam together a list, then suddenly realize your friend brought all giant monsters or mechs!
Trade up! Fanatics and many other units are meant to die— so make them count. Fanatic sisters in particular are amazing GLASS cannons, so have them dodge and weave between cover till you can smash them into something a lot more expensive.
Good Allies: two of the most natural allies are the human defense force and the inquisition. The HDF lets the sisters specialize as an advanced Strike team, and many HDF units synergize well with them, giving them extra staying power and better artillery and Mechs. The inquisition by contrast offers great buffs— the henchmen unit, when doubled up, gives almost guaranteed psychic buffs to your units, granting things like +1 to hit, extra Range, or extra speed (+3/+6 inches). You can also pay for an assassin, which can be… Ok. Finally, battle brother and prime brothers can offer extra punch and tankiness.

Tactics

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Assassins! Your pistoleer sisters, the ambush flying ones, can do amazing damage. If you know you’re going first on any turn, ambush with your sisters, then pop them right in pistol range and wipe them up. Destroyer squads and Assault Squads are good for this too. This is really good to help target scary units or units that add a large amount of synergy.
APC Spear Head— simple, just put some fanatics in an APC, sprint towards the enemy lines/scariest target, then ram them all in for some serious Damage. Do note that this is pretty dangerous— while fanatics are a bit cheaper, running an APC + fanatics into a death ball is just asking for 300 points down the drain. In general, this tactic works best against units/unit clusters that have already moved, or against spread out enemies. The idea is to make it so that no one is left for them to hit back with.
Defense: Sisters are generally very good at rushing into good spots of cover, like behind terrain or light cover, then shooting (getting your Devout bonus of +1 to hit), then when you get charged for melee, dishing out quite a lot of pain. This lets you utilize your devout and excellent melee together (no fatigue!). Your best units for this are exo-suits, or any sisters with shield wall. This method works especially well against melee intensive armies.

Blessed Sisters Tactics

Contents

Why Play Blessed Sisters

Army Special Rules

Spells

Unit Analysis

Heroes

Infantry

Vehicles

List Building & Tactics

General Advice

Tactics

See Also

Navigation menu

Blessed Sisters Tactics

Why Play Blessed Sisters

Army Special Rules

Spells

Unit Analysis

Heroes

Infantry

Vehicles

List Building & Tactics

General Advice

Tactics

See Also

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