New Year’s Day Game: Warhammer 40k 5th Ed - Sisters of Battle vs Red Star Orks

So in accordance with ancient tradition, I hosted a game on New Year's Day. We've had some really fun ones in the (fifteen or more?) years I've hosted them, but the best ones were those that my late wife Pam helped organize. While I'd plan the game, she would plan a menu appropriate to the setting. Operation Sea Lion? British pub food and the best pork-and-apple pie I've ever tasted. Winter War? Finnish cuisine, but delicious meatballs and such, not disgusting herrings kept in a jar under the stairs for a year. Chicago gangster skirmish? Why deep-dish pizza of course. And there were many more. The meals were always awesome and it was so much fun to have the boys' spouses come by after the game to visit and enjoy the food. Now it's typically pizza, which is great, but working together with Pam on planning the game and food is just another one of the innumerable things I miss.

Anyway... this year I wanted to have a 5th Ed Warhammer 40K game. I've written here before that for me, 5th Ed is the best edition of 40K. We played a lot of it back in the day and the rules come back to mind pretty quickly. Also there's no mind-numbing Command Points, Strategems, or other mind-bending complications apparently lifted from competitive card gaming. Just pretty straightforward miniatures gaming. Yes there's some special rules, and we always forget some in the course of the afternoon, but nothing too taxing on the noggin. Plus it lets me get out the old metal models from my favourite period of 40K history.

I also wanted to inaugurate the Cathedral shown in the picture above... so it made the most sense to have a game where a couple units of Sisters were holding out against an Ork horde while both sides' reinforcements came on from Reserve. The scenario was based on one in the Bolt Action 3rd Ed rulebook that we've played before. It was a pretty big game too - just about 10 points shy of 2,000 points a side.

Half of the Orks came on in the first turn and the rest were in Reserve. Conscripts Mike and Hugh ran the Ork side while Dave and Chris played the Sisters. They chose a squad of Battle Sisters and a Retributor (heavy weapons) squad to start in the Cathedral while the rest would come on later. The Orks sent two Battlewagons (one carrying the Mega-Nobz, Warboss Ugrod Neksnappa and Big Mek Tarik Gutsmirk, and the other with a mob of 15 Boyz), another mob of Boyz, the Stormboyz, and a Deff Dread straight towards the Cathedral. You can see them in the first picture at the top of the post.

 

The Orks got to deploy their Kommando squad as Infiltrators and Scouts which was fun. They started on the far side of the Cathedral.

Eventually more Sisters arrived, followed by an Ork Deff Dread that appeared uncomfortably close to the Exorcist. Unfortunately for the Orks it was only able to immobilize the vehicle.

A buggy squadron also came on from Reserve on the same short table edge!

Meanwhile the Seraphim dropped in from Deep Strike to take on the Ork Stormboyz.

Back on the south side of the table the Penitent Engines charged the Deff Dread... while we all expected the Dread to be annihilated it actually took out one of the Engines!

The Seraphim were overwhelmed by the Mega-nobz with some help from the Kommandos.

 

Meanwhile north of the Cathedral things were going little better for the Sisters as a squad was charged and wiped out by a 15-strong mob of Boyz...

On the second-last turn of the game, though, Uriah Jacobus and nine Arco-Flagellants arrived and they were looking to get stuck in...

On the last turn the ideal opportunity presented itself with a mob of 15 'Ard Boyz just on the other side of the Blasted Terrace. The Arcos just needed a decent charge roll to get into close combat.

Back up north the Tankbusta Mob disembarked from their looted Rhino and started blasting away, while the Sisters who'd come in behind them set up a gunline.

You can see the charge roll for difficult terrain at the top of the photo... four inches was enough to get the Arco-Flagellants stuck in.

It wasn't even a contest. With Uriah Jacobus' Banner of Sanctity and the charge the nine Arcos added two more attacks to the four already on their profile... so that's 54 WS5 S4 attacks, plus four more from Uriah himself. Even with 'eavy armour giving them a 4+ save, the 'Ard Boyz were never gonna stand up to that.

Here's some more pictures of the battlefield at the end of the game:

Each side scored one VP for each enemy unit completely destroyed. As always happens in that kind of game there's always a couple units that are just barely hanging on with a couple of models left alive... but those don't count for any VPs. The final score was Orks 5VP, Sisters 3VP.

Although Conscript John visited before the game and Conscript Hugh had to leave near the end, we had a good visit and a fun game. Above (L to R) you can see me, Chris, Dave and Mike.

I love hosting the New Year's Day game and it was unfortunate that some of the guys were sick and couldn't make it. But I have resolved to try and host more games this year so we'll see how that goes.

Happy New Year and all the best in 2026!

Sisters of Battle Canoness and Heavy Weapons

Back again with a few more Sisters of Battle from the Plano case. I wanted to get a few more heavy/special weapons girls done before my planned New Year's Day game and the Canoness managed to sneak in there too.

What a superb model this is eh. I love painting Sisters from the '90s and this is one of the best ones. Unfortunately her original backpack got lost by a previous owner (it had a flaming brazier or two on it) so she's sporting a regular one.

The combi-flamer is pretty cool as well.

She's got the classic white bob, I took the opportunity to change the hair colour on some of my previously painted Sisters, just to make sure all of the Sisters Superior and Canonesses have white hair. Apparently in the lore it's a tribute to Saint Katherine, the original Martyred Lady.

Another heavy flamer and a meltagun, which may come in handy.

And two girls with heavy bolters. These will be great fighting Orks as there's sure to be a target-rich environment.

That should do it for now. May the light of the Emperor shine down upon you!

Killzone Upgrade: Shrine Statue

I'm always on the lookout for terrain and other stuff for my Sisters of Battle, so when I got an email from Games Workshop back in July to say that the Shrine Statue would be made available on a temporary basis, I couldn't get my wallet out fast enough. Of course GW themselves operate on a different timeline...

 

One of the annoyances in ordering stuff for delivery to our local Games Workshop WARHAMMER store is that the company gives you no idea when your stuff has arrived. After waiting four months I decided on a whim to check the order status on my Warhammer account... was I ever surprised to see that the order had been delivered two weeks before. They certainly kept that to themselves.

So off I went on Thursday night to the Warhammer store to pick up my goodie, assembled it on Friday night, and painted it on Saturday. It's a pretty neat terrain piece and is certainly impressively large, I guess that explains the $50CAD price tag (not unreasonable for a GW kit nowadays I s'pose). But it was pretty easy to put together.

As for paint, I hit the Internet for ideas and found a chap on Reddit who helpfully explained how he painted his model in one day. "That'll suit me down to the ground," I thought. The formula was to spray undercoat the statue part with Wraithbone spraypaint, apply some Seraphim Sepia shade, then drybrush back up with Wraithbone. I certainly wasn't up for paying $30 for a can of spraypaint that I'd use once, so I undercoated with Krylon satin white and brushed on the Wraithbone. I left the "statue part" separate from the base and painted each separately for ease of access. The base part I attached to a 3" round base and sprayed black, then painted the skulls with Celestra Grey, then Wraithbone. I washed both the statue and the skulls with Seraphim Sepia then drybrushed back up with Wraithbone, done.

I drybrushed the base bit with Dark Rubber and Mechanicus Standard Grey, then painted the brass bits Retributor Armour washed Agrax Earthshade. The candles were painted Khorne Red, then highlighted Mephiston Red and Evil Sunz Scarlet. The flames were painted Corax White then Imperial Fist contrast paint. Looks OK I reckon.

Here's the piece alongside the giant Sisters Cathedral, I think it'll fit in nicely on an urban table for the Sisters - the next outing I have planned for them is a game vs Orks for New Year's Day. I managed to pick up a used copy of the 5th Edition Ork Codex on the weekend so that should do.

Lastly... a bit of a Warhammer rant. I was surprised but not surprised to see some shrinkflation on the GW paint front. Wash pots were 24ml but now are down to 18ml. Was there a corresponding 25% reduction in price? I think you know the answer.

Cheers!

Pegasus Models Gothic Cathedral and Ruined Building

Big terrain pieces are cool. They make awesome centrepieces for a table. If they're buildings with detailed interiors, they can drive some very fun and engaging gameplay too. But they do have one drawback - they take up a ton of storage space.

There is a bit of a backstory on this amazing piece. It was built by friend of the Conscripts Paul K., from whom I recently picked up a bunch of models in a bit of a hobby selloff. One of Paul's conditions, though, was that I take this as well. 

It's an injection-molded plastic model kit from Pegasus Hobbies. I'm not sure exactly what exact kit(s) this was built from but it's the Gothic City for sure. The parts are super-detailed and very sturdy; this is injection-molded plastic, not brittle 3D-printed resin, and is all the better for it.

As the model didn't have floors, I made some out of plasticard. Otherwise the second-floor doors would be opening out into empty space and we cannot have that can we!

You can see the scale of the structure more clearly here. The Dialogus is proclaiming from the balcony, accompanied by a Sister Superior and Imagifer standard bearer.

You get an even better sense of the scale here when vehicles come on the scene.

Throw a nice statue on a pillar in there too!

Paul also made me take gave me another ruined building made from the Pegasus parts.

This'll made a nice addition to the Cathedral surrounds on the table.

I did a bit more detailing on the Cathedral before calling it done...

The kit included a ton of cool detail parts, like these light sconces and all the gargoyles you saw in the other pics.

I painted the doors dark brown as shown in the Pegasus promo pics, but didn't do a lot of detailing on them. Honestly once the doors are assembled on the model, it's very difficult to get your brush in to paint the details. If I was building this kit I'd paint the doors before final assembly.

This is gonna be super-fun to play a game on. Maybe Orks vs. Sisters in the battle for Armageddon...?

That's likely enough pics of these buildings but I can't help snapping away, they're just so photogenic. Despite the space they take up in storage I'm really glad to have them, they look so cool (especially the giant Cathedral) and they should be fun to play a game with! Thanks Paul!