Imperium is a weekly hobby magazine from Hachette Partworks. In this 90-week series, our intrepid magazine-receiver will be reviewing each individual issue, its included models, and gaming materials. A Premium subscription was provided to Goonhammer for review purposes.
I played against Sisters of Battle all of one time before their plastic range launch in 2019, the fruits of which you, dear reader, are hopefully enjoying now. In that 2008 game, I took my heavily skewed Space Wolves list built around Wolf Guard Terminators with Wolf Charms (granting them a single armor save reroll per game) and hoped for the best. In a rare move for 5th edition, I didn’t just get my shit rocked, but was utterly tabled by the bevvy of meltaguns, church organ missile tanks, and other, more multiple meltas. The game took maybe an hour. Shellshocked, I tried to gather myself at Four Burgers, the now-defunct fast-casual burger joint near that game store. To this day, I am not sure I have ever recovered. Good waffle fries though.
The Magazine
Our lore section this week is only a single double-sided page, but it is one that is extremely my shit. There are three big ol’ tables to roll on, letting you generate grudges, heroic injuries, and squad injuries for your Sisters of Battle collection. For an idea of what you can do with these, I wrote a Battle Record for a made-up idiot:
Halloran had been having the worst Tuesday of his short life. As he fled the besieged Pringalia manufactorum on Derek’s Mom’s Dining Table IV, he was straight armed by a Necron Warrior, knocking him to the ground. He scuttled away from the xenos construct, taking cover behind a column of his former coworkers’ skulls. As he cowered, a squad of the local PDF, the Karenguard, arrived on the scene. A poorly-trained Guardsman hucked a frag grenade towards the advancing Necron Warrior, only for it to bounce off the android’s mechanical body with a dull clang and roll next to Halloran. The frag grenade exploded, perforating Halloran’s left leg and throwing him out of cover. A unit of Necron Immortals followed the advance of the Warrior, unleashing tesla fire on the Karenguard. Lightning arced between the poorly-trained Guardsmen and shocked Halloran, shattering his bones and leaving him little more than a sentient pile of injuries. Worst of all? He wasn’t even supposed to be here today.
The Hobby Materials
They’ve finally done it – they’ve finally completed the Sisters sprues from issues 46 and 49, giving us 2 Seraphim, a Repentia, an Arco-Flagellant, and 3 Battle Sisters. You’ve already built and painted these same models by now, but they really are lovely and some of the finest rank and file models GW has put out in recent years. They’re of the easy-building variety with little in the way of choices to make, but they look just as good as the multi-option kit. There’s a smidge more detail in the painting area, taking advantage of some of the more recent paints we’ve gotten. The results are starting to look rather good as our collection of paints has grown, and we’ll return to these models in the future once more paints have been sent along.
The Gaming Materials
Much like last week, we get a bevvy of Stratagems to play with in this issue. While last time it was all about Necrons, this time it’s focused on Sisters of Battle. Some of these are pretty central to the Adepta Sororitas, like Deadly Descent and Defenders of the Faith. Tutorials for some are provided, and we’re off to this week’s scenario, War of Faith. Sisters reinforcements are finally here, and they’re here to break through the Necron line and reach the Basilica of Saint Marcius. We get some fun L-shaped deployment zones in a diagonal map layout, with the mission of holding three objectives across the center. The Necrons have a Royal Warden, 10 Warriors, 5 Immortals, 3 Scarabs, 1 Wraith, and 5 Flayed Ones, while the Sisters get their whole collection thus far with a Canoness, 10 Battle Sisters, 5 Seraphim, 4 Sisters Repentia, a Repentia Superior, 3 Arco-Flagellants, and a Penitent Engine. I think it would make for a fun brawl in the middle of the map, and I’m happy to see a complete Sisters army taking the field.
Final Verdict 54/90:
When I broke down the value in previous issues, we were looking at something like $17-$20 for the included sprue based on some speedy napkin math. That means this issue’s $13.95 cover price is a decent value on its own, but when you factor in that these miniatures are the missing pieces of those previous two sprues, it becomes something of a must-buy. While this is the same sprue as issue 46, the 7 miniatures contained will fill out the units you’ve been collecting and make them ready for Matched Play. Like the previous issue, the rules content here is pretty foundational for a learning Sisters player, though the lore section is much thinner on the ground.
See you next issue, warhams.
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