Sisters of Battle Review: Keep the faith – Acts Of Faith Throughout 8th Edition

Hey! I’m Jeremy and I’m here to talk to you about how Adepta Sororitas (Sisters from here on out) or more specifically “Acts of Faith” have changed throughout 8th Edition of Warhammer 40,000. If you have no idea who am I here’s a short blurb:

I’m currently the IL (and sounding states) ITC rep, I co-admin the Chicago Land 40k Facebook Page, and for the past 3 years I finished 3rd, 3rd, and 2nd in Sisters for ITC.

Sisters have always behaved significantly different than every other army out there. Their special army-wide ability has always been called Acts Of Faith. Acts of Faith have meant different things over their three iterations of 8th edition 40k (Index, Beta, and Codex).

Index Acts of Faith

Old Acts of Faith – AKA: Free Actions – was very a powerful ability. It was one of two reasons I decided to stick with my Sister’s in 8th edition, rather than jump from faction to faction. Being able to clear a screen in the movement phase with shooting, double move Celestine (or really anything) or fight again was incredibly powerful! If Sisters units back then had the stats they have in their current codex (Other than Celestine…) they would have been just as powerful as Ynnari. But alas they did not, and were hampered by a lack of unit choice and being expensive, old, fairly ugly, and outdated models.

Time went on and in late 2018 we got …

The Beta Codex

Acts of Faith in the Beta Codex went from Free Actions (AKA amazing) to a weird hybrid limited resource type ability.

If your army includes any models with this ability, you will start the battle with 3 Faith Points, plus 1 additional Faith Point for every 10 models with this ability in your army (rounding down). These can be spent to attempt the Acts of Faith listed below. Each can only be attempted once per battle round, and you must spend either one or two Faith Points each time you do so (if you have no Faith Points remaining, you cannot attempt an Act of Faith).
To attempt an Act of Faith, select a unit in your army that has the Acts of Faith ability and then choose the Act of Faith you wish to attempt. Choose either the effect for one Faith Point, or the effect for two Faith Points and the Act of Faith takes effect.

You could either:

1:- Move +3″ (roll at 4+).

2: Auto pass moral (roll a 3+).

3: Fight again (roll at 5+).

4: Hit on +1 in the shooting phase (roll a 4+).

5: Have a 4+++ vs mortal wounds in the psychic phase (roll a 3+).

6: Heal/bring a model back to life (roll at 3+).

You had to roll at the start of the phase for what you wanted. If you failed it still cost you a faith point. It was unreliable at best. When you passed an Act of Faith it felt like “So what?” or “Eh?. It should have felt like “Wow that’s cool” or “That swung the game in my favor”.

The Codex

Pretty much every Sisters player, myself included, were really let down by this version of the rule. We prayed to the Emperor the full codex would bring something better!

The full codex didn’t disappoint! Enter Miracle Dice. For those of you who don’t know Miracle dice are basically Tzeench fate dice from Age of Sigmar. It is a pre-roll.

This doesn’t seem very good at first glance. On paper, it looks like the worst iteration of the rule we’ve seen. It’s the most wonky and requires the most bookkeeping. However, after playing with it for a few months and watching 8th evolve I also think it’s the strongest iteration of the rule so far! The ability to remove a random element from a dice game is very powerful.

Need a lucky 6 in overwatch to hit with your melta? Suddenly that’s a guarantee. What about that 9″ charge from deep strike? Not a problem at all! Have to roll one single 4+ invaluable to keep your Warlord alive? Don’t even sweat it! Fail morale on anything but a one? Easy.

You can start to see the potential here. The rule becomes even more powerful when you see how it messes with your opponent’s head. Anything that makes your opponent overthink and gives them more chances to make the wrong call is a good thing!

There are so many more ways to use Miracle Dice than one article go over! The possibilities for how to use this ability are endless!

Until next time, keep the faith and please follow us on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and check out our new and growing YouTube channel for all of the latest GDFC content!

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