Horus Heresy 3e Review: Anathema Cadre

Warpstone Flux Rating: ⭐️⭐️ 2/5 stars. The only troops choice. Over-costed compared to space marines and otherwise lacking in custom units compared to previous editions.

Background. 

These sisters of silence are organised in to a paramilitary force and able to take down anything ranging from enemy psykers through to armies of animated corpses controlled by corrupted so-called sorcerers. These are the core units of the sisterhood in short. 

Strengths. 

A 10 in willpower with 4's in WS, BS, and I, but otherwise looking very mortal on the stat line. The 3+ save is the same as a space marine, of course.

They have bolt guns as standard, and come with Fear (useful) and hatred against psykers and malefic (situationally useful).

The upgrades are mixed. Two bolt pistols is fine overall for close up work. Flamers are useful for your purification obsessed units. And Execution Blades are good enough, but you are giving up the bolt gun for these. Equally, rending and breaching at S=5 and AP=3 will quickly deal with enemy space marine squads so long as they survive the strikes coming back at them. 

Weaknesses. 

I am more than disappointed that there is only a singular unit of Sisters troops available. Seriously - all the glorious divisions and even beast handlers of previous editions have been lost. Not cool. 

Worse than this, I would contend that they are over-costed in comparison to core space marines. A tactical squad with 10 Astartes at T=4 is 100 points. Here we have 10 women mortals with T=3 (not an issue - NB), but costed at 115 points. For this, all you get is fear and hatred as extra, but they will go down to massed fire power much more easily. 

Builds.

10 Sisters with bolt guns (115 points).

Basic and reasonable. Swapping out for 2 bolt pistols each is also entirely viable and might actually be better in Zone Mortalis or similar.  

5 Sisters, All with Flamers (90 points).

Up close and personal with flame units. 

10 Sisters with Executioner Blades (215 points).

Somewhat expensive, to be sure. But if they get the charge in, then things will start falling apart in all likelihood. And I like the miniatures. They a bit like power swords, but better!