Dominion Squad

The most likely to suffer the 'Red Rage' among the Sisters.

Dominion Squads are made up of the most ferocious and aggressive members of the Sisters of Battle who desire nothing more than to be the first to meet the enemy and destroy them so they can move on to the next as quickly as possible.

Deployment

Perhaps the opposite end of the scale from Retributor Squads, Dominions are singled out for their sheer aggressiveness in battle and their utter lack of patience. As with Retributors, the Dominions can be gathered into squads of their own or they may be seconded to squads of regular battle sisters to provide the necessary support and experience for them to complete their tasks.

Dominions are armed with the traditional apparel of the Battle Sister: the Boltgun and SoB Power Armour, so the distinction between them and normal Sisters might not be entirely obvious to an outside observer. But on the battlefield they may have a higher proportion of specialist weaponry; such as Storm Bolters, Flamers or Meltaguns than normal squads. This is because they are trusted to appraise their target and select precisely the right weapon for the job.

Their duty is to clear trenches, fortifications and important objectives before moving on to the next while their other sisters follow behind to consolidate their gains. Dominions act as the vanguard to their army, always deploying in advance of the rest of the force and are usually carried in a transport of some description to assist with their mobility.

Tabletop

Occupying the Fast Attack slot alongside the Seraphim Squad, the Dominions are notable for having up to four special weapons and the ability to Scout.

The traditional loadout was fairly unimaginative, because there really was only one way to use them: give them four Meltaguns. Anything else was a waste of potential:

• Taking Flamers means there is no benefit in ever using that Act of Faith, and the same role can be filled with a Retributor Squad with even heavier Flamers.
• Taking Storm Bolters in such small numbers only adds four more shots between 12"-24" than they would have had than if they had kept their standard bolters, so you need more regular sisters with boltguns to make the most out of that enhanced range bracket, but that also removes their ability to charge following the shooting attack. That's before you consider that while you might ignore cover for a turn, AP5 bolters aren't cracking the carapace or power armour behind that wall.
• Four Meltaguns means four AP1 shots that are guaranteed to ignore everything between you and the meat of your target short of an invulnerable save and when concentrated into four at a time will make short work of any tank stupid enough remain close to your scouting, mobile Dominions on the tabletop.

However, 9th edition has shaken things up considerably thanks to the addition of the Artificer-crafted Storm Bolter. This absolute monster of a weapon has the same fire rate of the regular Storm Bolter you know and love, but with two key differences. The first, is that it's damage 2, meaning unsaved wounds will one-shot marines of both flavours and giving you four times the effective firepower of a regular bolter for less than half the cost of another model.

But the real killer here is the second difference; the Blessed Bolts stratagem, which means that every 6 to hit inflicts 2 mortal wounds. With the sheer fire rate of the storm bolter, if you're in half range and have a way to re-roll 1s you're looking at an AVERAGE of 6 mortal wounds! With good rolls and/or miracle dice, it's of course possible to push this even higher, plus whatever damage you do with the remaining 'normal' hits.

Make no mistake; meltas are still an excellent choice for Dominions in 9th. However, even against most heavy infantry targets the meltas will actually kill fewer models on average due to the combination of low fire rate and the bulk of their damage overkill against single targets. Plus, the obvious visual threat of a melta blob tends to draw more firepower, while a unit of 'mere' bolters is far more likely to be overlooked until they have a chance to unleash their deceptively powerful shooting.

All this for the bargain price of just 80pts worth of models and a single command point, making them one of the most efficient sources of command point mortal wounds in the game!