Grimdark Future/Tactics/Battle Sisters

Why play Battle 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.

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Pros

• Quite a lot of support from the heroes
• Your troops have good armor for the most part

Cons

• Your troops are relatively average in combat
• Your melee troops are much squishier

Psychic Spells

• Holy Tears (4+): Friendly unit within 12" gains Poison when they fight in melee. This will ramp up how much damage you make.
• Eternal Flame(4+): One enemy unit within 12" takes 4 hits.
• Heretics (5+): Enemy unit within 12" suffers -1 defense they next get hit. Again, your forces aren't the best in combat, so you'll be wanting to make what you have count.
• Admonition (5+): One enemy model within 12" takes a single AP 3 hit. A bit underwhelming.
• Litanies (6+): One friendly unit within 12" can immediately shoot. Quite a nice power since this lets them shoot twice in a round.
• Righteous Fury (6+): Two enemy units within 12" take three AP 2 hits per unit. Pretty mean for crushing heavies.

Unit Analysis

Heroes

• Greater High Sister: Your equivalent of the daemon units, as in something very powerful but quite expensive. 2+ on quality and defense, a very dangerous weapon for short-range and melee and Ambush, Fear, Flying and Regeneration make sure that all your bases are covered. Any turns that the high sister spends keeping the enemies occupied is a turn that your other sisters can spend unharried.

• High Sister: Your more well-rounded leader. She's got a few choices to work with, though shooting finds your options limited by either range or by effectiveness, though Relentless can help. In melee, you have either the basic energy sword or fist (which provide you shooting) or the heavy chainsaw sword, which gives a flurry of attacks but no shooting. Her upgrades are plenty: a jetpack for flying, a bike for fast and extra shooting, destroyer armor for tanky and the holy ant-grav pulpit for a mix of the others with Tough 9, Strider and a super-flamethrower. You also have two upgrades to pick up: Celestial Infantry essentially turns your quality to 2+ and Blind Faith gives her unit one of four boosts per turn (+3" movement, +1 AP in either shooting or melee, -1 to get hit in melee).

• Champion Sister: A High Sister lacking Relentless and thus 10 points cheaper. This sister's slightly better inclined to go into melee and can be used to cover any gaps your high sister leaves open.

• Psychic Sister: Your psychic is actually as strong as your other heroes and isn't suffering for options. In truth, all they don't have is Blind Faith, but you have psychic powers anyways. Though your powers give you a mix of offense and defense, your support spells are what you need more.

• Priest: The priest is pretty measly, but they're also very cheap. They can tote any of the weapons available to the other heroes, which gives them quite a bit of punch, but melee is where you want them. War Hymns gives an attached unit AP +1 as well as a bonus attack in melee, so even a mere CCW and pistol can become quite the threat. Just make sure they actually survive to get there.

Infantry

• Battle Sisters: Your workhorse infantry are quite flexible. Aside from the rather 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.

• Support Sisters: Your sisters have Relentless. While any of them can pick special weapons now, their choices are restricted to only heavy flamethrowers, heavy machineguns and heavy fusion rifles. Each of these cost quite a bit so you should be sure you're going to make the best use of them.

• Vanguard Sisters: Sisters with Scout. Though they lack relentless, they have free reign to pick between flamethrower, storm rifle and fusion rifle for what you see as most valuable. One of the sisters can also grab a flamethrower sniper rifle, a fairly short-range sniper weapon that gets of multiple shots in exchange.

• 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 there. The charge is where they want to be, as each of them only has a heavy chainsaw sword to swing. If you feel inclined, you can make one of them grab two shock whips for Rending for no cost, or spend 5 to give either plasma whips for AP 2 or poison whips for Deadly 3.

• 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 shortens that range even further) and their melee game isn't too hot. Sure, you can give one a CCW or 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 a plasma pistol as an option.

• Destroyer Sisters: These sisters have Ambush and Tough 3, making them quite beefy. Each of them totes a storm rifle and energy sword, but you have quite a few options above that. If you're fully committed to melee, then you can slap them all with energy claws. If you're looking to retain shooting, the heavy flamethrower or fusion rifle give you some more punch on shooting while the energy fist and heavy chainsaw sword improve punching.

• 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 guns while giving everyone CCWs provides some additional offense on top of Impact.

• Biker Fanatics: Fanatics benefit a lot from grabbing bikes. Not only do they get Fast and Impact (both incredibly good for getting them stuck in), but they also gain access to twin assault rifles so they can actually shoot.

• Crusaders: Big tanky bunkers. Shield Wall makes them harder to hit, which is important for a hero.

• Flagellants: Glass cannons bar none. 3+ quality and AP 1 flails make them very dangerous, but they're relying on Regeneration to last.

• Cult Assassins: Essentially slightly improved flagellants. Their weapons have Rending on top of AP 1, while their defense is now up to...5+.

Vehicles

• APC: The run-of-the mill well-rounded Transport. 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.

• Infernal APC: This APC has half the capacity but comes with a twin heavy flamethrower. This gun can be swapped out for either a twin heavy machinegun or twin heavy fusion rifle so you can pick out whatever you want in order to kill.

• Armored Truck: A more all-terrain vehicle, though it also has limited inventory in the twin heavy volley gun it has stock. If that's not your style, you can make it a twin autocannon. You also have access to some big guns here between the light battle cannon (for smashing hordes), the twin gatling gun (because you have absolutely no faith in that 4+ quality) or the missile volley. Also of interest is the ability to make this a secondary APC by giving it a Transport capacity of 11.

• Organ Tank: So here's your artillery. The organ mortar gives you a pretty small blast, but you have three shots with it. Your only alternative is the organ missiles, which trades the coverage for direct damage with AP 3 and Deadly 3 - just the thing to punch holes in tanks. Since both of them are Indirect, you need to keep them away from the front so you don't throw away the points.

• 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 fists it can swap with either sawblades or flails (exchanging the low attacks and high AP of the fists for more attacks) at no cost.

• Support Walker: This walker doesn't have Furious, but it has Relentless and the choice to replace those heavy flamethrowers with heavy machineguns 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.

Army Building

Tactics

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Pros

• Quite a lot of support from the heroes
• Your troops have good armor for the most part

Cons

• Your troops are relatively average in combat
• Your melee troops are much squishier

Psychic Spells

• Holy Tears (4+): Friendly unit within 12" gains Poison when they fight in melee. This will ramp up how much damage you make.
• Eternal Flame(4+): One enemy unit within 12" takes 4 hits.
• Heretics (5+): Enemy unit within 12" suffers -1 defense they next get hit. Again, your forces aren't the best in combat, so you'll be wanting to make what you have count.
• Admonition (5+): One enemy model within 12" takes a single AP 3 hit. A bit underwhelming.
• Litanies (6+): One friendly unit within 12" can immediately shoot. Quite a nice power since this lets them shoot twice in a round.
• Righteous Fury (6+): Two enemy units within 12" take three AP 2 hits per unit. Pretty mean for crushing heavies.

Unit Analysis

Heroes

• High Sister: Your more well-rounded leader. She's got a few choices to work with, though shooting finds your options limited by either range or by effectiveness, though Relentless can help. In melee, you have either the basic energy sword or fist (which provide you shooting) or the heavy chainsaw sword, which gives a flurry of attacks but no shooting. Her upgrades are plenty: a jetpack for flying, a bike for fast and extra shooting, destroyer armor for tanky and the holy ant-grav pulpit for a mix of the others with Tough 9, Strider and a super-flamethrower. You also have two upgrades to pick up: Celestial Infantry gives her a 2+ to hit and Blind Faith gives her nearby allies one of four boosts per turn (+3" movement, +1 AP in either shooting or melee, -1 to get hit in melee).

• Champion Sister: A High Sister lacking Relentless and thus 10 points cheaper. This sister's slightly better inclined to go into melee and can be used to cover any gaps your high sister leaves open.

• Psychic Sister: Your psychic is actually as strong as your other heroes and isn't suffering for options. In truth, all they don't have is Blind Faith, but you have psychic powers anyways. Though your powers give you a mix of offense and defense, your support spells are what you need more.

• Priest: The priest is pretty measly, but they're also very cheap. They can tote any of the weapons available to the other heroes, which gives them quite a bit of punch, but melee is where you want them. War Hymns gives an attached unit AP +1 as well as a bonus attack in melee, so even a mere CCW and pistol can become quite the threat. Just make sure they actually survive to get there.

Infantry

• Battle Sister: Your workhorse infantry are quite flexible. Aside from the rather 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 giving allies Regeneration.

• Support Sister: Your sisters have Relentless. Their choices are now restricted to only heavy flamethrowers, heavy machineguns, or heavy fusion rifles. Each of these cost quite a bit so you should be sure you're going to make the best use of them.

• Vanguard Sister: Sisters with Scout. Though they lack Relentless, Aside from the base flamethrower, fusion rifle, or storm carbine, they can also grab a flamethrower sniper rifle, a fairly short-range Sniper weapon that gets off multiple shots in exchange.

• Fanatic Sister: 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 there. The charge is where they want to be, as each of them only has a heavy chainsaw sword to swing. If you feel inclined, you can make them grab two shock whips for Rending for no cost, or spend 5 to give either plasma whips for AP 2 or poison whips for Deadly 3.

• Pistoleer Sister: 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 shortens that range even further) and their melee game isn't too hot. Sure, you can give one a CCW or power sword, but that won't give much more than another attack.

• Assault Sister: 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 a plasma pistol as an option.

• Destroyer Sister: These sisters have Ambush and Tough 3, making them quite beefy. Each of them totes a storm rifle and energy sword, but you have quite a few options above that. If you're fully committed to melee, then you can slap them all with energy claws. If you're looking to retain shooting, the heavy flamethrower or fusion rifle give you some more punch on shooting while the energy fist and heavy chainsaw sword improve punching.

• Biker Sister: 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 guns while giving everyone CCWs provides some additional offense on top of Impact.

• Biker Fanatic: Fanatics benefit a lot from grabbing bikes. Not only do they get Fast and Impact (both incredibly good for getting them stuck in), but they also gain access to twin assault rifles so they can actually shoot.

• Crusader: Big tanky bunker. Shield Wall makes them harder to hit, making them great for closing the gap to combat.

• Flagellant: Glass cannons bar none. 3+ quality and AP 1 flails make them very dangerous, but they're relying on Regeneration to last.

• Cult Assassin: Essentially slightly improved flagellants. Their weapons have Rending on top of AP 1, while their defense is now up to...5+.

Army Building

Tactics

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Grimdark Future Tactics Articles
General:	General Tactics
Alien Hives:	Alien Hives - Soul-Snatcher Cults
Aliens:	Dwarf Guilds - Eternal Dynasty - Jackals - Orc Marauders Robot Legions - Saurian Starhost - TAO Coalition
Battle Brothers:	Battle Brothers - Custodian Brothers - Prime Brothers
Elves:	Dark Elf Raiders - Elven Jesters - High Elf Fleets
Havoc:	Havoc Brothers - Machine Cult Defilers - Wormhole Daemons
Humans:	Battle Sisters - Feudal Guard - Gangs of Hive City Human Defense Force - Human Inquisition - Infected Colonies Machine Cult - Titan Lords - Rebel Guerillas
Ratmen:	Ratmen Clans - Vile Rattus Cult