The Living Saint

hail and well met. today we shall do a little bit of talking about Saint Celestine. Why do you ask?
Well, because i finally based the model and instead of just showing off my mediocre painting skills I figured i would all talk a little bit about this model from both a painting and tactics view.

So here we have Saint Celestine the Hieromartyr of the Palatine Crusade (or Cel for short). for all intents and purposes this has probably been my favorite metal model to paint to date. Cel has a lot of nice flat areas of armor as well as plenty of texture and a good mix of armor, cloth, skin, and doo-dads. Now I didn't really take advantage of all that open canvas that that huge suspended robe of hers has but i am sure an experienced painter could do some sick stuff on there. also i really enjoy her base, so much so that i didn't even bother to add anything to it, i just plugged it into a slot base and painted it. I think she can make a great center piece for and army and though i didn't do it here i have seen her relatively easily converted by others to give a rather unique looking HQ.
All in all i highly recommend her as a model every witch hunter player should have whether they plan to field her or not. and for any one that just likes to paint cool minis Cel is a great and rather fun choice.

Now for tactics.
STATS: Cel here has some pretty solid stats with a WS&BS of 5 (though as we will go over in a second the BS is useless). 3 wounds 3 attacks a 5I and a 10LD but an unfortunate 3 for both strength and toughness.
WAR GEAR: The Ardent Blade, Armour of Saint Katherine. now these two things are good stuff first off the ardent blade is a blessed weapon (that for all those who don't know is a master crafted ((re rolls i miss a turn)) power weapon that gives her +2 strength) making her really a strength 5 melee character and by the by can be shot as a flamer in the shooting phase (Burn the Heretic!). and the Armour gives her a +2 save and a 4+ invuln
so this stuff definitely gives her some punch and lasting power.
SPECIAL RULES: Adepta Sororitas, independent character, fearless, faithful, wings of faith, and miraculous intervention.
OK she has a butt load of things on her, 1st the standard SoB special rule giving her a "free save"" against psychic powers sent her way and down grading all force weapons to only power weapons which is great for multi wound characters such as her. you all know independent character and fearless so we'll skip those. ok faithful means that she contributes to and can use faith points which are a special set of powers that the Adeptas Sororitas can use (and that we will go over in a later post) now whats nice about her is that instead of giving you the usual 1 faith point or 2 for a HQ she puts 3 into your faith pool thats big stuff. unfortunatly the first time she dies (yes i said first time we will get to that in a second) you lose D6 faith and if that brings you below 0 faith then you can't produce anymore for the game...bummer.
Now here is a cool one, wings of faith, this lets her move as jump infantry as well as let her hit & run as per the 4th ed version not the 5th ed version as stated in their faq (basically says her hit & run works as in codex which is the 4th ed wording for it). but wait that's not all! she can also move an additional 6 inches (moving as jump infantry so ignoring terrain unless starting or ending in it) in the assault if not engaged, or with a squad and can do this the turn she deep strikes in. this makes her an incredibly fast model.
Her final rule though is what people really remember, her Miraculous intervention. this basically states that when she loses her last wound (no matter how) you make a leadership check. if she fails.. yeah shes dead..bummer. but if she passes she goes into reserves and starting during your next turn you can start rolling for her to come back. and when she can com back she must deep strike and only has one wound. further more this can happen more than once in a game. so in other words as long as you roll well Cel will always come back to help you out.

PROS: she is an incredibly fast model with a movement max of 24 inches a turn meanig she can get anywhere. she is a great melee fighter and really probably the best in the book with that WS of 5 and a standard I&S of 5 also, which with proper faith point usage can go to 7 (for either but not both at once) for a turn which is pretty great. Cel definitely goes along great with a squad of seraphim giving you a fast moving hit & run assault squad of kill. and she is relatively hardy with a 2+ save 4+ invuln and fearless all of which will help her stay in the fight which is where you want her. and since she can technically always comeback you always have something to bother your opponent with.
CONS: ok now the bad news, first she is 201 points and for that much shes a little over priced compared to some of the new special characters for IG and SM. second T3 really sucks, i mean the saves aregreat but the more you have to make the more likely you will fail, and with T3 you will have to make a lot of saves, and instant death due to strength 6 weapons is always a downer. and my biggest complaint NO FRAG GRENADES. that I5-7 is not going to do anything if you assault into cover with her, that's probably where you are going to send her so what the heck! you can fix this problem by putting her in a squad with some (seraphim come standard) but really you would think she would have something for gosh sakes!

now personally i love this unit. Cel is not in my list right now but i have used her several times in the past and she is loads of fun. she has a great mini, and pretty cool rules. if you are going to play sisters of battle and don't intend on using that silly mech style army then i suggest her and a squad of seraphim as a quick hitting troop killer squad, its points heavy but it really causes a lot of damage.

so in parting i leave you with some more pictures of her, there would be more but the pics were just not coming out right for some reason (having problem with the focus).
Next post will be either about Faith Points, Seraphim, IG/legend of war, or Tau BFG. not sure yet really depends on what pictures i take this week.


I'll clean up that green stuff on her right arm eventually...
May the Emperor Protect