Horus Heresy: Liber Imperium Sisters of Silence – The Good, the Bad, & the Ugly
Meet the all new Sisters of Silence. The army so quiet that no one heard it coming!
In Horus Heresy 2.0 the Sisters of Silence are playing second fiddle to no one. Once relegated to the Talons of the Emperor, Sisters now have rules all their own. Watch out Age of Darkness, the Sister’s of Silence have entered the fray. Today we’ll be looking at the Good, the Bad and the Ugly of the new Sister’s entries in the upcoming Liber Imperium.
The Good
Jenetia Krole
And just like that Jenetia Krole became arguably the best non Primarch named character in the game. Why you ask? Simple, her Ex Oblivio ability that reduces a target to WS 1 makes her impossibly hard to fight. If the Sister’s of Silence entries have one thing going for them its that. I foresee many player allying in Sisters for Psychic defense as well as getting access to Krole. You don’t need over the top durability if your opponents characters aren’t going to hit you and she comes in at the absurdly low cost of 150pts. So enters Jenetia Krole duelist extraordinaire.
The Silent Sisterhood
These are special rules given to certain units that belong to the Vigilence, Judgement and Oblivion Chambers. It also places contraints on the quantity of each you can have
Vigilence – Knight Vestals, Eradicator Cadres, Prosecutor Cadres, Termite Assault Drills, Sanctioner Cadres and optionally Kharon Pattern Acquistors gain Scout and Infiltrate
Judgement – Silent Judges, Silent Furies, Questora Cadres, Firebrand Cadres, Subjugator Cadres, Expurgator Cadres and Kharon Pattern Acquisitors gain Fearless when locked in combat with a Psyker
Oblivion – Jenetia Krole, Knights Abyssal, Knights Centura, Raptora Cadres, Oblivion Knight Cadres, Vigilator Cadres, Pursuer Cadres and optionally Kharon Pattern Acquisitors gain Fearless when locked in combat with any Demon or Corrupted
Warlord Traits
Holy F#$%! First of all there isn’t a single bad Warlord trait in the Sister’s index. They are all excellent and each have great application which will influence the Warlord and Unit choices you make.
Maiden of Blood – Pretty spicy, you take d6 wounds on your own unit at no AP but then grant +1 additional attack. If you’re into big blobs of Close Combat geared Psychic Nulls, this is your jam. A 20 woman block of Sisters is going to potentially get 20 additional attacks. They slice…they dice…they slay everything.
Maiden of Resolve – Buffs the hell out of your warlord and their unit at the beginning of one turn. While they can’t move for that turn they do pickup Eternal Warrior and FNP. Morale and pinning checks got you down? No worries you’re gonna ignore that as well; and just because that wasn’t enough the cherry on top is you get an additional shooting reaction. WOW
Maiden of Sorrow – Your Warlord and their Unit increase their Attack and Movement by +1 until your next turn to a max of 4 for each wound the unit sustains. Sounds like your monster Warlord just got some ablative wounds of cheap chaff along with 4 additional attacks. Consider buffing up any one of your formidable Warlords and going Ham on anything that gets in your way!
Psychic Invulnerability
So the Sister’s big schtick is that they are psychic nulls. They are impervious to psychic attacks, psychic weapons and force weapons. On top of that they reduce leadership to things within 6″ by -1 and -2 if they are corrupted. This causes huge problems for armies like Thousand Sons or corrupted Word Bearers who rely on psychic abilities to enhance their army as well as do damage.
Knight Vestal Covenant
These are excellent units as they act as an apothecary for your Sisters of Silence units. They start to get interesting when you factor in they are Agents of the Imperium which means that you can take them in an allied detachment for any loyalist army. Interestingly enough this also means that you can take attach them to Custodes units. As though Adeptus Custodes units needed to be harder to kill?
The Bad
Army Representation
I think generally we’re going to see Sister of Silence in more of a support or allied role to Loyalist armies for awhile. That has to do with lack of models and of course any new army needs time to find its fans. They do many thing well and they absolutely shut down psychers which is pretty big considering how much trouble librarians have been causing recently. With cheap allied detachments I think they will be popular so much so that Word Bearers and Thousand Sons may find themselves in completely different spots in the meta.
Hard Targets
Sisters don’t have a lot on paper right now in ways to deal with tough durable targets or vehicles. They have plenty of cheap troops and of course some can take melta and lascannons however they lack much in the way of vehicles and things that can engage those targets effectively.
The Ugly
We Have a Book and No Models
As I’m sitting here plotting out a Sister’s army, then I realized I’m missing half of the models. Thus far there has been no announcement regarding Sister’s of Silence getting a model range release. I’m sure there is a plan but currently its under lock and key at Games Workshop. So you can build what is currently available and maybe proxy the rest or start kitbashing things. If Games Workshop emulates the rollout they are doing for the Space Marine Legions I’d expect some upgrade sprew kits, resin HQ models for all the different Chamber characters and then plastic releases of the Jetbikes and other units aren’t simply weapon swaps.
Still just T3
T3 is a major pain point for any army in Horus Heresy. It means that bolters are highly effective a wounding you and anything S6 is going to potentially double you out. I’m less considered about the instant death issues because most of the Sister’s of Silence units are one wound. But T3 means that much of what you’re going to face is going to wound you on 3’s.
Final Thoughts
I’m pretty excited for the Sister’s of Silence army. It is apparent that this was a passion project for someone at GW. The units are thematic and the rules fit with the army well. I could easily see many Loyalist players taking an allied detachment of Sister’s to fill out gaps in their army. Not only are the majority of Sisters cheap but they are fairly durable and have top tier Warlord Traits and Chamber rules. I definitely miss them being part of the Talon’s of the Emperor detachment but I think its cool that they are stepping out of the shadows of the Golden Boys and will be getting their own army.
I’d say the only real downsides right now regarding the Sister’s of Silence is that the range has not been announced and there aren’t any indicators regarding when they will be getting a full release anytime soon. Also the 2 major Sister’s transports (Termite Drill and Aquisitor) are currently resin only which will be expensive and scare once someone cracks the code on an army or an optimized allied detachment that requires them. I do foresee the Termite Drill getting a plastic release because Space Marines, Mechanicum and Sister of Silence have access to it, but its presently still resin. Theres not much to dislike with this release, honestly. This was a pleasant surprise and I’m excited to see someone pull out a Sister’s army in the future. In the meantime expect to see Krole and a retinue running around the table in a Khoros Aquisitor causing havoc.
Want more hot takes from 2 nerds? Check out our video review of the Sister’s of Silence!
