2000 Point Army - Should I replace my Sisters of Slaughter??

[Dragonarmy]

Greetings!

I am in process of testing and painting new units for a 2000pt army. Most of my armies are shooty, however, this army is different in that I am taking the COB instead of a character bus. I, however, am stuck--I want to take just under 400 points of another DE unit. The other points are non-negotiable-I wanted around 500 points of shooting, 500 points core, Lvl4, and do the CoB. I think 20 Sisters of Slaughter a my best choice, but I thought I would seek out others advice before I paint um up! Advice?

Thanks in advance,

Dragon Army

2000 CoB List in Progress

Supreme Sorceress (Shadow, Dispel Scroll, General, On Foot)
COB & Death Hag (BSB, Cry of War)

30 Witch Elves (FC, Razor Standard)
20 Sisters of Slaughter (FC, BOSwiftness)

5 Dark Riders (Shields, RXB)
5 Doomfire Warlocks

2 Reaper Bolt Thrower
8 Shades (GW)
10 Shades (GW)

[Calisson]

SoS have inherent merits, however, I wonder how they would be best to provide what you lack?
COB WE will hit with zillion of S3 attacks. Shooting provides hails of S3 attacks.
Wouldn't you be better off with a unit with higher S attacks?

[Lord Drakon]

First of all, Sisters of Slaughter are better than all the other options in your list because of your witch elf horde (and therefore possible frenzy). But also, you don't need 20, 10 is sufficient. So you can take one of the options + the sisters.

What you lack at the moment is high strength, so kharibdyss, executioners and cold one knights are the better choice. As with only the Cauldron of Blood as large target, I would take a monster for target saturation (kharibdyss in your case). But the only thing sisters struggle with is armour, so another unit of executioners would also really fit the army.

[T.D.]

Yeah a small hit squad with the Flaming Banner or War Banner would be good support for the COB Horde. Rest of the points on something strong

[Dragonarmy]

Thanks! Good feedback.

It's true that I lack high Str.

I need to run the numbers to see against when 20 Sisters are more likely to win combat compared to 25 Executioners against units that the rest of my army would struggle against. That is the key question.

It's not ideal, but certain death stars from my opponent can countered through sisters + COB. With two banners, ranks, denying opponents ranks and having a champion minimize attacks against the unit when run 5 wide, I think it is a scary surprise to many opponents. However, certain units will kill the COB.

Executioners obviously will kill more high toughness stuff, but will they win combat as often as the sisters? Sisters take such few wounds in returns. Usually it seems that against knights and elite units, sisters win combat more often. I expect sisters would do great against high armor high str unit, while the exies would kill more than the sisters, but return fewer blows than they received.

I also never thought about kharibdyss + 10 sisters. I'll give that some thought. Or even double Kharbdyss!

This was helpful. I think my next step will be to pick two popular, scary units from some armies and see if exies or sisters are most likely to wins combat.

[Sangfroid]

Sisters are great but if you are going big then you only need 3 ranks so either 15,18,21,27,30 sisters . Also if you are going bring them larger size I'd consider a foot dreadlord (with st6 attacks) or dawnstone, sword of might, enchanted shield master to add some punch.

Also where are you putting your lvl4 if in the witches she will get minced by them :-(

I think if your taking a good amount of ranged shooting then switch your lore to metal or heavens, (metal is my pref) both synergy well with shooting and have magic missiles that can deal some threat to armour, metal in participial providers some great buffs for witches and sisters (glittering robe and enchanted blades) plus the debuffs remove the armour for your st3 attacks and shootings to get thru.

Shadow while great to lower T only really has mindrazor to deal with armour and anyone worth their salt is going to do everything o stop this, whereas with metal in particular each spell is worthwhile and incrementally tips the balance in your favor

Plus metal has final trans, heavens comet whic are both universally good spells against almost every army :-)

[direweasel]

Do you have any idea what opposing armies you're more or less likely to see? I can't imagine doing a single list no matter what, and not having any room at all to tailor it to an opponent.

[Dragonarmy]

**DANG--the formatting makes this much harder to read. May be able to post in google docs later.***

Greeting! I ran some quick numbers on my chances of doing more wounds than my opponents (remember, sisters have other ways to create combat res greater than my opponent). I wanted to see how my unit would fair if run 5 wide, which means I had 15 attacks. Then I assumed that my opponent would be either STR 4 or STR 5+, which means I gave myself +1 to hit and +1 to wound. If my opponent had STR 5+ I guessed he would have 16 attacks. If my opponent had Str 4, I guessed he would have 22 attacks. I didn't account for horde formation that could easily bump attacks to 29; however, there were only a few cases where this would be practical point wise.

List is sorted my opposing unit difficulty.

What I learned:
- Once I had combat RES, this unit can do combat against more ELITE units. However, Sisters do Struggle ALOT against 2+ armor charging knight units and may break on the charge. If the opponent has 4+, the sisters should do ok.


Notes:
I chose not to give myself nor my opponent any rerolls. This means no rerolling for marshal prowess nor ASF.
Str is opponents STR
Att is opponents attacks. My attacks are always at 15.
WS is either equal or less than mine (did not account for WS 7)
T is my opponents toughness
A is my opponents armor. 5 means a 5+ save.
Under the column "3" is the chances that I do three more wounds than my opponent's unit.
Missing is the total between 5 and -5. Numbers are off because of rounding errors or because there was chances of larger than 5 wounds differential.

Opponent
Str Att WS T A 5 4 3 2 1 Tie -1 -2 -3 -4 -5 Missing %
5 16 less 3 5 8% 12% 15% 16% 14% 11% 7% 4% 2% 1% 0% 89%
4 22 less 3 5 7% 11% 14% 15% 14% 12% 8% 5% 2% 1% 0% 89%
5 16 equal 3 5 4% 8% 12% 16% 17% 15% 11% 7% 4% 2% 1% 96%
5 16 less 4 5 3% 7% 11% 15% 17% 16% 12% 8% 5% 2% 1% 97%
5 16 less 3 4 3% 7% 11% 15% 17% 16% 12% 8% 5% 2% 1% 97%
4 22 equal 3 5 4% 7% 11% 14% 16% 15% 12% 8% 5% 2% 1% 96%
4 22 less 3 4 3% 6% 10% 14% 16% 16% 13% 10% 6% 3% 1% 96%
4 22 less 4 5 3% 6% 10% 14% 16% 16% 13% 10% 6% 3% 1% 97%
5 16 equal 4 5 2% 4% 7% 12% 16% 17% 16% 12% 7% 4% 2% 98%
5 16 equal 3 4 2% 4% 7% 12% 16% 17% 16% 12% 7% 4% 2% 98%
5 16 less 4 4 1% 3% 6% 11% 15% 18% 17% 13% 8% 4% 2% 98%
4 22 equal 4 5 1% 3% 6% 11% 15% 17% 16% 13% 9% 5% 2% 98%
4 22 equal 3 4 1% 3% 6% 11% 15% 17% 16% 13% 9% 5% 2% 98%
5 16 less 5 5 1% 2% 5% 9% 14% 18% 18% 15% 10% 5% 2% 98%
5 16 less 3 3 1% 2% 5% 9% 14% 18% 18% 15% 10% 5% 2% 98%
4 22 less 4 4 1% 3% 5% 10% 14% 17% 17% 14% 10% 6% 3% 98%
5 16 equal 4 4 0% 2% 4% 8% 13% 17% 18% 16% 11% 6% 3% 98%
4 22 less 3 3 1% 2% 4% 8% 13% 16% 17% 15% 11% 7% 3% 97%
4 22 less 5 5 1% 2% 4% 8% 13% 16% 17% 15% 11% 7% 3% 97%
5 16 equal 5 5 0% 1% 3% 6% 12% 16% 19% 17% 13% 7% 4% 98%
5 16 equal 3 3 0% 1% 3% 6% 12% 16% 19% 17% 13% 7% 4% 98%
5 16 less 4 3 0% 1% 2% 6% 11% 16% 19% 18% 13% 8% 4% 98%
5 16 less 5 4 0% 1% 2% 6% 11% 16% 19% 18% 13% 8% 4% 98%
4 22 equal 4 4 0% 1% 3% 7% 11% 16% 18% 16% 12% 8% 4% 97%
4 22 equal 5 5 0% 1% 2% 5% 10% 15% 18% 17% 14% 9% 5% 96%
4 22 equal 3 3 0% 1% 2% 5% 10% 15% 18% 17% 14% 9% 5% 96%
5 16 equal 4 3 0% 0% 1% 4% 8% 14% 19% 19% 16% 10% 5% 97%
5 16 equal 5 4 0% 0% 1% 4% 8% 14% 19% 19% 16% 10% 5% 97%
4 22 less 4 3 0% 1% 2% 5% 9% 14% 18% 18% 14% 10% 5% 96%
4 22 less 5 4 0% 1% 2% 5% 9% 14% 18% 18% 14% 10% 5% 96%
5 16 less 3 2 0% 0% 1% 3% 7% 13% 18% 20% 17% 11% 6% 96%
5 16 less 5 3 0% 0% 1% 3% 7% 13% 18% 20% 17% 11% 6% 96%
4 22 equal 4 3 0% 0% 1% 3% 7% 12% 17% 19% 16% 12% 7% 95%
4 22 equal 5 4 0% 0% 1% 3% 7% 12% 17% 19% 16% 12% 7% 95%
5 16 equal 3 2 0% 0% 0% 2% 5% 11% 18% 21% 19% 13% 7% 96%
5 16 equal 5 3 0% 0% 0% 2% 5% 11% 18% 21% 19% 13% 7% 96%
4 22 less 3 2 0% 0% 1% 2% 6% 11% 16% 19% 18% 13% 8% 94%
4 22 less 5 3 0% 0% 1% 2% 6% 11% 16% 19% 18% 13% 8% 94%
5 16 less 5 2 0% 0% 0% 1% 3% 8% 16% 21% 21% 16% 9% 94%
5 16 less 5 2 0% 0% 0% 1% 3% 8% 16% 21% 21% 16% 9% 94%
4 22 equal 3 2 0% 0% 0% 1% 4% 9% 15% 19% 19% 15% 9% 93%
4 22 equal 5 3 0% 0% 0% 1% 4% 9% 15% 19% 19% 15% 9% 93%
5 16 equal 5 2 0% 0% 0% 0% 2% 7% 15% 21% 22% 17% 10% 93%
5 16 equal 5 2 0% 0% 0% 0% 2% 7% 15% 21% 22% 17% 10% 93%
4 22 less 5 2 0% 0% 0% 0% 2% 6% 13% 19% 21% 17% 11% 90%
4 22 less 5 2 0% 0% 0% 0% 2% 6% 13% 19% 21% 17% 11% 90%
4 22 equal 5 2 0% 0% 0% 0% 2% 5% 12% 19% 21% 18% 12% 90%
4 22 equal 5 2 0% 0% 0% 0% 2% 5% 12% 19% 21% 18% 12% 89%