Today I shall go over the basics of faith in 40k and no I don't mean the religious values of the different races I of course mean that ever cool mechanic unique to the adeptas sororitas.

THE BASICS
so first off how do you get faith? simple put every sister's specific HQ, seraphim squad, celestian squad, and every veteran sister superior (sergeant upgrade for all sister units) gives you a certain amount of faith points, usually about 1 point per with the hq units giving you a little more, 1 for palatines, 2 for canoness, and 3 for the living saint.
So now we have our army and we have our faith how do we use it? Well first we declare we are using a power and spend a faith point then you roll 2d6 and compare the number to the size of the squad using the power. if you succeeded the role the power goes off if you don't you still use up a faith point and can't use that power again on that specific squad in that phase.
That’s the basics now we will go over each of the powers and discuss how and when to use it
FAITH POWERS
Some the SoB have 5 faith powers they can use two of which you have to roll equal or under your squad size for and the other 3 you must roll equal or higher to succeed obviously lending the first 2 to large units and the latter 3 to small units ( oh and by the way independent characters have to roll a Ld check instead of the squad thing if they are by themselves)

Mob powers
These powers are the ones meant for big squads and they are Hand of the Emperor and Divine Guidance

HAND OF THE EMPEROR
This little power pops your squad +2 strength but drops your initiative to 1. Now this power is what is my normal answer to t5 enemies such as well any kind of biker that comes my way and charges me. frankly S3 doesn't cut it against T5 (u need 6's to wound and that is not good enough) so choosing to go last, which frankly in a lot of cases you are going to anyways, and get a chance to wound on 4+ is great. Frankly whenever you get stuck in against someone with a I6 or higher or a T5 or higher this is a good choice. also if you have a eviserator in the squad it goes from being a S6 power weapon with 2d6 armor pen to a S8 power weapon with 2d6 armor pen and the I1 draw back does not apply because you are already I1 so this works well with the emergency charge of a land raider or the needing to kill of that big'ol monstrous creature. I do not recommend this power for use against anything you can easily wound (T3 or lower) or in situations where you really want to go first obviously).

DIVINE GUIDANCE
This is probably the most flexible power you have at your disposal in my opinion. What you have here is that after you roll to hit in either the assault or shooting phase you may choose to use this power. if you do all your rolls to wound of a 6 either count as AP1 for shooting or power weapon wounds for assault, either way you deny armor saves and that’s what’s important. the nice part is that you get to choose after rolling to hit so you really save this one until you roll lots of hits, say with your dominion squad with its 4 flamers dropping all their templates to cover the same 5 man tac squad 4 times over for 20 wounds. in this example if you do so first off your doing an average of 10 wounds just in general (which is why this kind of squad is the awesome) but for every 6 you roll you basically just killed a marine since they get no armor save from the power and no cover due to template rules this makes from some killer awesomeness. This power of course works well with hand of the emperor or with the passion either giving you decent strength or high initiative power weapon-esque hits in close combat. Though I will say I never roll enough hits with my sisters to really warrant the use of this in close combat but hey if the dice gods are nice do not pass up the opportunity.

Elite Powers
These next three powers our those that your need to roll equal or over the squad size for so obviously these work best with small squads like seraphim, dominions, and whittled down battle sister squads. These powers are Spirit of the Martyr, the Passion, and Light of the Emperor.

SPIRIT OF THE MARTYR
This power is probably the one I use the most. Basically at the begging of either yours or your opponent’s shooting or assault phase you can activate this power which gives the unit using it a invuln save equal to their armor save, so basically it gives you a 3+ invuln save for those sticky situations where your girls are either being hit with serious artillery or power weapon toting assaulters. This power is pretty self explanatory the hard part of it is figuring out which units should use it when because you must choose who is going to use it at the beginning of the phase (in other words before your opponent decides to shoot or assault anything). It serves to note that if you intend to use this power that you should ask your opponent as soon as their turn starts to state when they are going to start their shooting and assault phases so that you don’t miss the chance to use the power. In close combat it is easy to tell if you want to use this power. First is your unit being or about to be assaulted and if yes is it with power weapons (or an equivalent). If no then don’t worry. If yes then you must decide whether or not it is worth attempting to keep the unit alive a little longer. Remember you can’t make an omelet without breaking some eggs. Also you can use this as a “denial” strategy to an extent in the shooting phase. If you think a unit might get shot with some low ap weapons and you don’t want them to die then obviously use this power because if your opponent still shots you got that 3+ no matter what, and if they decide not to shot that’s great too because you just scared your opponent into not even trying to shoot what may be a key part of your strategy… though they may then decide to shot another weaker target instead so watch out for that. I can also say that this power is responsible for keeping my canoness alive for more than 4 turns of close combat and has there by slowed down and mudded up a section of my opponents army all because she went from have a 2+ regular save to having a 2+ invuln which will stop just about everything that swings at her.

THE PASSION
The Passion is yet another combat enhancer power giving you a +2I (this may not be combined with hand of the emperor just so you know). I personally use this power with reckless abandon against elder guardians and imperial guardsmen letting me get the drop on then and smash them in their faces before they can respond and also against most other elder infantry since it will allow me to go at the same time as them (I5) therefore increasing their losses in close combat. I also use this all the time with my seraphim just because they have so many attacks and this pumps them to I6 making for certain they beat most MEQ to the punch (pun intended). The hardest part about this power is figuring out whether you want to use it strength of the emperor or nothing at all in close combat and only your personal play style and experience will be able to answer that

LIGHT OF THE EMPEROR
This last power is usually over looked by many. At the start of any phase you use this power and the selected unit if successful will become fearless until your next movement phase. Now there is the obvious use of it to make sure your units do not turn tail and run while under heavy fire but the thing I use it most for is regrouping. You see the SoB do not have the marine’s wonderful “and they shall have no fear” rule allowing them to regroup even under half strength, nor do they have war gear like tau bonding knives which do the same thing. Instead they have this because as stated in the WH40K book “if a unit that is falling back suddenly gains this rule, it will automatically regroup at the beginning of its next movement phase, regardless of all normal restrictions on regrouping.” (Warhammer 40K pg 75). So basically instead of having a unit with a built in we always get to roll or an unit what can by war gear to make this possible, you have a unit that may choose to spend its built in power in this way if it has to. And frankly just based on this if your sister squad is below half strength (so we will say 4 sisters assuming a 10 sister squad) you only need a 4 on 2d6 to have them get back in there and hold that objective to win the game. And hey if your down to just the veteran sister superior then well technically she is not an independent character so she is just a squad of one meaning that she will always pass this test as well as the tests for the passion and spirit of the martyr for that matter making her one tough cookie to take out.

Well that’s pretty much all there is to using faith the rest you just have to figure out on your own, which is really just faith point management and when to use them to be the most effective. Sorry for not posting this about 2 week ago but I was kept away from the internet by real life which hopefully won’t happen again soon. Next week should either be another tau bfg post or maybe an introduction to my Imperial Guard army the Hera 57th mobile infantry.
Until next time
May the Emperor Protect.