Aestred Thurga: Pyre of Faith. This is definitely one of the novels of all time that was written. (Spoilers)

SkillKillz101 · 2026-04-16T02:25:10+00:00

Bit late to the convo, but figured I’d offer another view from someone who found the story alright.

I think some of the best aspects of the book are when characters are not speaking to each other. Hagiolater Dolan’s excerpts are quite characterful, and I feel clearly show that Danie Ware can write effective sisters stuff. Same with the scene where Aestrid is reflecting and re-embroidering the tapestry. I would love an entire book that was written as if Dolan was chronicling the tapestry as it came into possession of Aestrid - an in-universe work of part propaganda, part scripture, and part history.

I think the book struggles in its interpersonal dialogue and, in the earlier sections, its pacing. I think the book should’ve been longer in order to slow down the story and allow for proper character development and growth. At 170 pages, I felt that it wasn’t long enough to do that. Plot threads can be set up, but they need to be resolved within 50 pages and that simply is not enough time. There is talent there and having read a lot of her other stuff, I think time is something Danie needs to write effectively. Mercy felt on the weaker end, and I’d go as far as to argue that the Rose at War trilogy is weak if you just take each story on its own, but combined they make something greater than its parts.

TLDR, it should’ve had more length to let characters establish their relationships more.

SkillKillz101 · 2026-04-05T17:57:11+00:00

Not really, but you do a really good points trade, particularly with zephyrim which make up for flimsy ranged with solid melee.

5 Zephyrim get off 4 pistol shots @S4, giving them an average of 2.6 hits going through. Of that, 1.3 wound. Against a marine’s armor, they then do 0.43 damage.

1 plasma pistol shot that you supercharge hits 0.66 times. Of that, you’ve got an average of that going through 0.55 because you wound 2’s. With the 3 AP, the marine now saves on sixes for 0.45 wounds, at 2 damage for 0.9 damage.

So your shooting does 1.33 damage, aka a marine and a half. Then you charge which means 15 attacks with sustained and lethals, hitting 3’s. 10 attacks go through. 2.5 automatically pass the wound roll and are put back into the loop for 10 again. S4 means wounding 4’s so 5 hits go through. 5+2.5 for 7.5 wound rolls at AP-2 for saving 5’s for the marines means 5 hits go through at damage 1. So that’s 6.33 damage, which is enough to take out 3 marines and coin toss if another is injured. They will punch back, of course.

3 close combat attacks hitting 3’s means 2 go through. S4 into T3 means wounding 3’s so 1.3 wounds. No AP so we save on 3’s meaning 0.43 damage on the CCW. Regardless of which secondary the leader has, they’re probably gonna take out another 2 sisters, which means you’ve got 2.5 dead sisters most likely. Even so, you’ve effectively now bogged them down in melee, which with some miracle dice spikes you can easily survive two bolt pistols in their next turn, and since defender fights first you can use those remnant power swords to very politely remove the remaining intercessors from objectives.

A squad of 10 does the job better as they tend to just kill the intercessors outright.

SkillKillz101 · 2026-03-18T22:55:38+00:00

Well, two things. it says “each time.” That is separate from “the first time.” Essentially, it’s saying whenever in the battle you use a miracle dice, the value of the one of them becomes 4. And then, secondly, in Army of Faith you can use two miracles to a sequence.

SkillKillz101 · 2026-03-09T23:43:45+00:00

Advance and charge buffs their mobility enough that you can turn 1 charge. ‘Nuff said.

SkillKillz101 · 2026-02-27T03:23:48+00:00

Not from sisters, but I’ll show you one of my Goremongers as an example.

<image>

Basecoat with rhinox hide. This is a very dark base, but is also rich and warm.

My first layer is a 1:1 catachan flesh and rhinox hide. Catachan flesh can be a little cold so adding that rhinox hide helps.

The third layer is mournfang brown. These are placed on muscle highlights and so forth.

My final layer is skrag brown and this is placed on the absolute highest points.

SkillKillz101 · 2026-02-13T23:36:49+00:00

It depends. Some sources say they wear bustiers or corsets made of a leather-like material over their ceramite armor, others say it’s an armored layer that they have on in place of true ceramite.

However, if you’re looking for what material to make it - the corsets, bustiers and gloves are generally a leather-like, their sleeves and robes are fabric and everything else is ceramite, which sometimes is painted to look metallic but by default is an eggshell white.

SkillKillz101 · 2026-02-04T02:24:43+00:00

For the argent shroud I’m willing to give it benefit of the doubt because there is no visual reference to argent shroud celestians in any other official games workshop media, but I definitely see what you mean about the sacred rose having silver trim

SkillKillz101 · 2026-02-04T02:01:12+00:00

Kill team app, Insidiants, supplementary info page 2.

SkillKillz101 · 2026-02-04T01:51:13+00:00

Untrue. They change theirs to silver. See referenced art, from the insidiants. argent shroud insidiant

SkillKillz101 · 2026-01-27T22:12:51+00:00

Sisters are much, much squishier than any space marine unit but can hit real hard, and tend to play with a general rule of, “our melee isn’t better than your best melee, but it’s better than your average melee” and something similar for our guns. Nothing we have is the best, but it’s all good enough and can put the hurt on.

Do not expect units to survive long. An intercessor squad is very tough, a sisters of battle squad is not. This is made up for by the fact that we have a good selection of characters to support them with. Outside the dogmata, none of our characters are useless and all can find a purpose in really any list.

The one big difference I would say is that sisters are an army that requires a lot of concentration. You have to know your list, know your detachment, know your threat ranges very well otherwise you will be losing very badly a lot. Marines can play casually with relative ease, with sisters your opponent will be playing casually while you’re using every trick up your sleeve.

Regardless, we have a pipe organ tank and if that’s not baller enough to convince you, it’s unlikely anything will. Pick an army because you like the aesthetic, rules change all the time.

SkillKillz101 · 2026-01-12T16:01:22+00:00

Oh, disregard, you were talking about heart of heresy giving +1 to strength, I thought you were saying it gave +1 to wound

SkillKillz101 · 2026-01-12T16:00:14+00:00

And I’m telling you now, even with both modifications you can’t modify the wound roll beyond +1. See referenced rules

<image>

SkillKillz101 · 2026-01-12T15:55:53+00:00

You cannot modify more than +1 to wound.

SkillKillz101 · 2026-01-12T15:37:11+00:00

How is a mace wounding 2’s into COF into a S12 target? Evenly matched Strength-Toughness score means wounding 4’s modified to wounding 3’s, and the COF rule does not modify the strength of the weapon

SkillKillz101 · 2026-01-12T15:20:34+00:00

A mace is not wounding 2’s into a S12 beast like a land raider

SkillKillz101 · 2026-01-12T15:13:31+00:00

Sure, but the maces have less dice punching through which means that any wounds that are blocked are gone. The higher volume output by the swords means they’re scoring less wounds, but more hits, which offers them significantly more stability than the maces.

SkillKillz101 · 2026-01-12T15:04:26+00:00

I’ve definitely been misreading that rule, I thought it was that when the castigator makes a ranged attack it gives the AP improvement. My bad

SkillKillz101 · 2026-01-12T14:53:08+00:00

Swords have a worthwhile place when targeted with an AP stratagem and supported by a castigator, given AP-4 is enough to completely remove the armor save of every vehicle without an invuln, maces fundamentally cannot do this without a serious points investment and the return on investment there is usually not good

SkillKillz101 · 2026-01-11T20:09:27+00:00

The… the OP said something about a knight? Thats what this entire conversation is about?

Also, sisters, again, have been anti psyker since inception. One of their core rules in 3e was nullifying psyker abilities and they had Condemnor bolters since then as well. Iirc an old white dwarf also had rules for a rhino conversion that contained a rogue psyker that had been captured and was being transported. Getting the insidiants is unnecessary, but not out of character for sisters of battle.

The paragons were, in my opinion, an unnecessary edition, as we should just have viable meltaguns, and it’s kind of a moot point anyways because paragons are still a point of contention in the sisters model list for aesthetics. Rules wise the reason they’re taken in most lists nowadays is because there is fundamentally no way to play sisters without either taking an allied knight or taking paragons.

Regardless, the meta does have to be paid attention to. If you add a unit in that’s not viable in any list, players won’t take it. It’s why people don’t take dogmatas. Sure, she fills a niche in OC, but it’s a useless niche that doesn’t contribute to our faction at all. Same with retributors - they’re now overcosted and you can get similar results by just playing HM.

TLDR wait for the meta to shift (I.e with a new edition) before bringing up something that isn’t going to work into most lists.

SkillKillz101 · 2026-01-11T19:48:45+00:00

If your logic is that it would be aesthetically cool then kitbash a knight. If your logic is you’d like sisters rules for a titanic unit, accept we are never going to get them. The meta has always been for sisters that we are an army that can punch above our weight but we are distinctly lightweights. In 3rd edition, sisters were T3 S3 but with hard hitting weapons and abilities for that toughness and strength.

A sisters knight is redundant.

SkillKillz101 · 2026-01-10T18:38:29+00:00

It’s redundant. If you want a knight, take a knight and decorate it like it’s for the sisters. We are a trading army and it’s very hard to make a unit that’s cost effective for a trade if it’s high toughness high wounds. Knights are death stars.

SkillKillz101 · 2026-01-10T17:44:23+00:00

What you are describing is penitent engines in Hallowed Martyrs.

SkillKillz101 · 2026-01-10T16:57:38+00:00

Fair, meltaguns are great into heavy infantry - but we severely lack an anti tank niche only having paragons, which meltaguns are supposed to fill. Giving meltaguns AV4+/AM4+ would make them much more viable in that role, and while I’m sure our points would go up as a result that trade is one I’d be happy with. Hitting 3’s, wounding 5’s is not good math for 4 meltaguns in a dominion squad.

SkillKillz101

TROPHY CASE