SoB need t3 anti-tank

[mike07]

Excorcists suck. They take the place of our las cannon predators, leman russes, hammerheads, what have you.

Celestians are great... in t2. In t3 there are simply way too many units that can anihilate them before they get into range. Furthermore, even las cannon predtaors will beat them. I just had a game where someone managed to roll through my entire army with 2x predators and a land raider. I way out resourced him, kept rebuilding my living saint, penitent engines, celstians, but i couldnt take those tanks out! Its stupid.

Trash the excorcists, or make them anti-tank capable. The hunter killer missile is a joke.

[MarcusDW]

I've noticed this too. A Tier 3 Infantry HP upgrade is probably needed for Sister Squad's other than the Repentia's to stay competitive. They're fine on damage, but they get mowed down quicker than other tier 1 units than scale to tier 3 except maybe guardsman.

[LoRd KoRn]

Excorcists are artillery, no las pred wannabes. An Immolator with meltaupgrade would rather be AV. Yeah, SoB don't really have a "You go tanks, i go XYZ and win"-unit. They need to use faith to compete in Tier 3/4

[konfeta]

las cannon predators, leman russes, hammerheads

All of which are conveniently tier 4. And Exorcists aren't your tier 4 tanks, they are your tier 3 artillery. Penitent Engines are your tier 4 tanks.


I just had a game where someone managed to roll through my entire army with 2x predators and a land raider.

And here I will have to call bullshit... There is no way 13 vehicle pop will roll through an entire army by itself, especially considering it's generally geared for AV and you have Celestians/Emperor's Touch available.

[Garumsh-Zott]

Celestias are already tough enough thank you.(and their damage output is borderline imba imho)
And yes not every race has good enough vehicle options to take 2 of the best T4 AV tanks and a relic unit head on. Penitent engines might work but why won't you just kill them with Celestias?

[Sound_Bug]

Not trying to be a dick here, but isn't the Penitant Engine already a damn good anti vehicle weapon? I think two of them can beat a Land Raider.

And the Living Saint isn't too flash at getting vehicles, but I'm sure she could help keep the rest of the army off the Engines while they set about hurting the Land Raider.

[WDI]

SoB AV have a T3 upgrade which is called Improved reactor core which boosts AV weapons by 20%. Also celestians should have access in T3 to Imagifers which boost their health (i can understand you skip the reliquary in T2, but you really should have it in T3).

Emperor touch is also a mighty AV weapon, and in T3 you should have enough faith to spam it. A full Sob squad with emperor touch is THE most cost effective AV infantry squad in the game (~200 dps to vehicules for ~400 req).

T4 got penitent engines and research to spam emperor touch even more.

[random guy]

So do you want to add to sob already impressive AV by giving them las preds aswell?

Celestians are purely AV and they do thier job very well.

Walkers genrally screw over tanks very well.

Play them more, don't play a race 5 minutes before dismissing it.

Why are there lots of buff sob threads now?

[vampiric puppy]

agreed with the above posters; SoB AV T3 is fine.

Imagifier = health upgrade for celestians
Vehicle plating = health upgrade for immolators
reactor core = damage upgrade for celestians and immolators (!)

[DeadlyFred]

Pointless.

Sister's AV is some of the best in the entire game, try again.

[zuma]

is it fluffy that a penitent engine can take las pred or that 2 penitents can kill a land raider?

[Makenshi]

Emperor touch is also a mighty AV weapon, and in T3 you should have enough faith to spam it.

There is no such thing as "spam Emperor's Touch" because it costs 50 faith (half the maximum which is 100). If you have 2 squads with missionaries, it's two uses and then wait 180 seconds to use it again. If you can get 100 more faith in 180 seconds, that is.

Why are there lots of buff sob threads now?

Because people confuse buff and rework; the Holy Icon system is a pain, making faith really hard to get to high levels. Considering there's 95% chance that Relic will not rework Holy Icon's function (which is to enable faith levels, but should be to buff increasing gathering rate), the only way to make SoB eaisier to play is by buffs like Missionary generating faith and reducing the amount of Holy Icons required to reach 100 faith limit.

[ImmortalChaos]

But reworks that make a race easier to play are buffs...

[Makenshi]

I can live with that :D

[DeadlyFred]

Why are there lots of buff sob threads now?

Because when people fail they naturally assume the system is flawed. :p

As I said, I'm all for a reasonable reworking of Holy Icons but I really don't see anything about the SoB that requires an out and out buff; least of all their AV abilities.

[mike07]

Ok, let me explain the situation in more detail. I had an auto match vs SM that took some 20 minutes to finish (I fucked up in t1 which lost me the game.) Anwyays, I had him resourced the entire game and beat him significantly in this department.

My army roughly comprised of the following: Three sob squads with vet & max h-bolters, both health & damage upgrades, grenades, inferno pistol, etc. A confessor attatched to one, with 70 faith sitting around, and both spells available. Two celestian squads with the fixings and krak grenades. A Living Saint. An Excorcist. A penitent engine with upgraded health (built second after battle started.)

My opponent had... land raider, two las preds, assault termies w/ fc, regular termies with 2/ ac. GK/chappy.

Whenever I'd send in penitent engines to engage armor, they'd get attacked by assault terminators and rendered useless.

Whenever I tried to send celestians in, they would get destroyed by any of the three tanks. Or, if I couldnt tie up the terminators (thanks to Living Saint being able to be stunned by assault terminators.. also stupid) they would get mowed down by assault cannons.

Why are you guys talking about penitent engines taking out predators/land raiders? Run away with whatever is engaged. This is the inherent fault with any close combat unit.

And how are you supposed to spam a 50 faith cost ability with a heavy bolter unit? Activate it and your opponent will run away. You now have to chase with weapons that must be deployed. Woo.

The penitent engine is a glorified dreadnought. I prefer the dreadnought cus it is available much earlier for base bashing, when base bashing is more viable. TO use a close combat unit as dedicated anti tank is stupid, your opponent will run his tanks away.

Also immolators w/ multi-meltas are ver fragile in t3-t4.

I just hate games where you out resource your opponent keep trying to build an army to rival his, and just can't. I may be missing something but I don't think I am.

[Energizer Bunny]

The ranged AV sisters get in T2 (i.e. Celestians and melta'd Immolators) work fine throughout the game. Pennitent Engines are fast and decent, but have a tendancy of getting tied up.

[konfeta]

You aren't sending all these wonderful units 1 by 1, are you? Assault Termies can't surround and stun 3 godly melee units last time I checked.

[SubakuGaara]

doesn't the immolater tank have an anti tank weapon that does 150 dps to vehicle med? i'm quite sure it does and that weapon is available in t2...

[Chicken_Fodder]

Celestians should work great. The immolator against two preds and a land raider would last less than 2 seconds I am guessing but celestians should do good unless he also had a whirlwind that could mess them up pretty good but I imagine that would mess up allot of armies pretty good =P

[SubakuGaara]

um... did you just read what you said?

one immolater vs 2 preds and a land raider would last less than 2 seconds...

[konfeta]

Fully upgraded Celestian Squad DPS:
286.8 DPS versus Vehicle_Medium
95.3 DPS versus Vehicle_High

These values are further boosted by Angelic Visage, +25% max damage, from a Seraphim Squad (assuming you have some left over), and Confessor's +15% damage aura.


Fully upgraded Melta-Immolator DPS:
176.4 DPS versus Vehicle_Medium
58.8 DPS versus Vehicle_High


Emperor's Bolter on a full SoB squad:
216.7 DPS versus Vehicle_Medium
168.3 DPS versus Vehicle_High

These values are further boosted by Angelic Visage, +25% max damage, from a Seraphim Squad (assuming you have some left over), and Confessor's +15% damage aura.

A pair of Celestian Squads, an Emperor Touch Bolter Sister, and 2 Immolators (ignoring Confessor and Seraphim buffs) will...

Kill a Predator in 5-6 seconds... 1143.1 DPS... For a total of 6 infantry pop and 6 vehicle pop focusing a tier 4 tank, that's pretty damn good. The numbers versus a Landraider aren't as impressive, almost half of that, but it's a damn Relic unit that is designed to tank.


*Naturally the Preds and LR are fighting back, but this is just to give you an idea that SoB AV damage is anything but bad, if a little shorter ranged then what most people are used too.

**For reference, 2 Preds and a LR AV DPS values are around 630 total versus medium, which means the Immolators will fold damn fast, but it's expected when your enemy dedicates 13 vehicle pop of pure AV goodness against you. When you consider the range on the SM side, this is actually a more or less fair match up in terms of damage output. Too bad after the Immolators are gone, the Predators will join them shortly if not at the same time. 6 for 10 pop trade isn't so bad IMO.

***For the record, these DPS speculations are theory crafting, don't take them to heart until you actually try this out. I don't play the Sisters much, but you should know that their AV damage is potentially very damn good.


****one immolater vs 2 preds and a land raider would last less than 2 seconds..

To the defense of my favorite Rhino variant, it would last about 5 seconds. Just long enough to shut down a predator assuming you sneak your AV in a manner that lets you fire off the first shot against their AV.

[SubakuGaara]

For one thing, las predators are the supreme av unit in the game, with the close second being chaos las preds. it's a bad comparison to use them as the standard for comparing other units seeing as they are t4 and immolators are t2.

Even still, for a t2 av tank, one immolator will be all you need for t2 and t3 in terms of tank killing, just like with chaos one Hell talon is all you need in terms of tank killing. Good av dps is only about 100 dps. 100 dps is all you need in t2 for good av, meaning 2 tacs with rockets, one horror squad, one tb squad, etc.

The immolator is fine. If you're really having trouble with t4 las preds, kick out 2 t4 penitent engines and put them on f5 status.

[Chicken_Fodder]

@ Subaku
I was just pointing out that a land raider and 2 preds would make very short work of an immolator (they should since it's a lower tier and it's out numbered) But together with a bunch of celestians and other more important targets like the saint and PE's the sisters should melt those preds down pretty fast. A whirlwind throwing your celestians around could give you problems though.

[konfeta]

And Seraphim, Hunter Killers, Lightning Fighters could give problems to the Whirlwind. It's a team effort on your side as well, the SM aren't the only faction allowed to use their entire army.

[Slow_Runner]

Please read the Balance rules (http://forums.relicnews.com/showthread.php?t=183548). What boils down to "I lost to a T4 SM army" is not a balance issue.

The best idea here would be to post the replay in Battle Archives (http://forums.relicnews.com/forumdisplay.php?f=130) and ask for advice on how to do better.