The Dark Angels Arrive

My partner sent me a list of his Dark Angels army for this weekend. 

HQ 
- Belial

TROOPS
- Terminators w/ 5X Twin Lightning Claws
- Terminators w/ 5X Thunder Hammers and Storm Shields
- Terminators w/ 4 Storm Bolters, 1 Heavy Flamer

HEAVY
- Predator w/ Twin Linked Lascannon and Heavy Bolters on the sides
- Predator w/ Twin Linked Lascannon and Lasconnons on the sides
- Devistator Squad w/ 4X Plasma Cannons

Add these to the Sisters of Battle posted yesterday and we should have a solid and well rounded force.  I expect to be facing a lot of  ork and gretchin walkers and more than a few Defkopters.  The only thing I am worried about is the Ork leader, Gazgul Thraka.  Neither the Dark Angels nor the Sisters will have any big, heavy hitters like that. We will need to be able to catch Gazgul in the open where we can shoot him down and even then he will be hard to bring down.  In any case, it should be fun with massive casualties on both sides. 

Working for the weekend.

I am full of anticipation for this weekend.  We are going to play a two on one game.  2500 points of Orks will be going against 1250 Dark Angels and 1250 points of Sororitas.  I last played those orks with 1500 points of my Dark Angels and was slaughtered.  Deathwing can be fun but they just did not have the numbers to overcome the horde in any sort of battle of attrition.  Every terminator lost was a significant part of the whole and it just spiraled down quickly.

With this in mind, I am thinking that a mix of Marines and Sisters will be a good fit.  They compliment each other well.  I do not normally tailor a list to the opponent but this will be a flamer heavy army since I will be intentionally playing support for the Dark Angels. 

On with my expectations. 

For the Orks, Gazgull Thraka will be leading the waaagh.  He will bring lots of defcopters I'm sure.  Probably a wall of killer kans as well.  This is going to be a 2500 point Ork list; they will fill up their half of the board completely!

My partner will bring Dark Angels, but I do not know what types.  I have seen his army once but that was with them in storage sitting on a shelf.  I think it will be more of a mechanised Space Marine army and not a wing army, but I could be mistaken.  What I remember seeing were marines and tanks.

The Sisters will consist of:

Saint Celestine

2X Battle Sister squad with Flamer, Heavy Flamer and Combi-melta in a Rhino

2X Dominion with two Meltaguns and Combi-flamer in a Heavy Flamer equiped Immolator

Seraphim Squad with two, twin flamers and a plasma pistol on the Superior.

2X Exorcists

faith /fāTH/ Noun: 1.Complete trust or confidence in someone or something.

Faith has taken a different path from the Witch Hunters codex and even the versions before that. More so than just the mechanical approach of faith points and Acts of Faith.  The rules have changed and along with that are the ways we use our Faith.

Take a typical Witch Hunters army.  One of the principal ideas when putting together a list was to maximize the amount of Faith an army had at its disposal.  One motto of mine was that if a unit was not Faithful, it did not get on the list.  The sole exception to this were my Exorcists.  Faith was everywhere.  Faith was key to a flexible army.  Faith was the hammer.  Faith was an ace in the hole. 

Lately I have had to think about what I was doing with my Faith Points.  Faith has changed, but did I change with it?  Unfortunately I had changed but not in a good way.  Often my Faith went unused, which in and of itself is no big deal since there are times when you have more faith than you can spend.  With Saint Celestine and Jocobus being Faithful but having no Act of Faith, there is no need to save points for them.  Add in Battle Conclaves, Exorcists and the Penitent Engines who can not use Faith then top it off a few troop choices spending time in the rear hiding in their box for several turns and no one has an Act that would be of use. But there have been times (way to often) when I simply do not even roll for Faith Points, much less forget to spend them.  I did not set out to design a Faithless army, but it feels like that is the direction I am headed.  This made me look at how things are evolving organically, whether or not that is a good thing and how I can best support its proper use.

At d6 Faith Points per turn (my turn only) I should average 3.5 points of faith I could use.  Right off I can see that if I wanted anyone that could use Faith to take and Act of Faith each turn in order to maximize the army's ability, I would really need to limit the number of units with an Act of Faith to no more than 4.  Even for a 2500 point battle I could never get more Faith Points than I do with a 500 point battle. 4 Faithful units.  For me that is 2 Dominion squads and 2 Battle Sister squads.  These two squads have an interesting relationship in that the Dominions will be the first to fire, scouting in or outflanking to get in close quickly.  Meanwhile, the troop squad will be held back in order to avoid loosing my units needed to capture objectives and also to keep from handing my opponent free kill points early on in the battle.  They make good mop up troops with their rapid fire and flamers but they can not take return fire well and collapse under assault from just about anything.

Now that I have a number and an argument about why that number exists, is it the best choice to build for this untested sweet-spot?  Acts of Faith will only work on average 50% of the time.  33.3% base, 50% with a Superior or after taking a wound, 66.7 with both.  It is possible to bump this up to 83.3% by adding one of the named characters to a weakened unit that has a Sister Superior.  I can see Saint Celestine joining a Seraphim squad for an assault ... maybe.  Most likely not, but that is a different tactical decision than what I am think (out loud) about here.  So, Acts of Faith are 50% reliable.

Also is should be stated that not all Acts of Faith are equal.  While one can let you re-roll and 1's, another (twin-linked) basically lets you re-roll and 1's and 2's.  Without breaking down and giving away the rules, this is what I have as Faith priority:
Repentia about to assault
Seraphim shooting
Dominion Shooting
Sororitas Command if needing to move
Retribution Squad shooting ... maybe. 
Battle Sisters shooting
Celestian assaulting
Canoness assaulting with another unit

This list is hard to prioritize and it will be prone to change depending the situation for any given turn.  I can not see taking a Celestian squad at this time.  No matter the role I want them to fill there is another unit that can do it better and cheaper. 

Now, what kind of conclusions can I draw? 
Acts of Faith are too random to rely on.
Most Acts are minor perks,  but at least they are a perk.  It is not going to hurt spending points that would go to waste at the end of my turn anyway.
Repentia: I love these girls and really wish I could get more from them but the unreliable nature of Acts of Faith coupeled with their need to use Spirit of the Martyr to get back their cost makes it hard for me to justify taking them.  Oh, I will anyway.  They may be risky on paper but I have faith in them.