Had a game last night, 3k vs Black Legion.

I took
Mission+Immolator+SupCom 400
Mission 275
Retributors 250
Retributors 250
Dominions 200
Seraphim 200
Repentia 225 (no rhinos)
Exorcists+Hunter 300
6 Penitent Engines 245
Lightning Fighters 150
Cathedral of Purification 500 (carrying the repentia)

They took something like 2x chaos marines in rhinos, chaos marines+2 obliterators, bikes, 2x 4 landraiders, 2x chosen with rhinos, 6 terminators+demon prince, doomwings(?), 5 demons in the pool.

Deployment

All objectives pretty much piled up in the middle, slightly offset to my right hand side. Blitz diagonally opposite either side of the objective pile up in the middle.

I get my penitent engines garrisoned up in the middle in some trees >10cm into them so they can;t be shot right away. They get 2 sets of chosen on overwatch in th eother good places for garrisons. Dominions have nowhere good so deploy as normal. I get my AA on either side of my deployment giving full coverage and otherwise deploy on foot, touching transports, as far forward as possible.

Turn 1. Marines in rhinos surge to the middle, disembark into the trees to shoot penitents. Kill 1. Penitents engage, fight through 2 rounds of combat before all 5 remaining penitents are dead and all 8 marines also dead, only their 4 rhinos remain, broken. Several advances from both sides, staying out of sight or range. Cathedral doubles forward to blast one of the chosen on overwatch, they fire and miss. The Cathedral shoots them and is dissapointing, killing 1 stand but placing BMs. Land raiders come forward and strip one shield from the Cathedral, Exorcists bow up one land raider, planes fail to turn up. Seraphim engage the weakened and BMd chosen. Lose with 2 casualties to none and flee behind some trees. Lots of chaos marines piled up on my left, my right flank is held only by some damaged chosen and strung out land raiders.

Turn 2. Terminators appear with 1 BM, engage my exorcists and wipe them out for no casualties and place BMs on the supporting retributors. They consolidate into firefight support range of my supcom mission. Chaos retains with bikes and support fire from terminators+chaos marines+bikes in CC wipes them all out, destroying a few bikes in return. Dominions engage rhinos in the center, wiping them out. Chaos planes come in and kill 2 retributors. Second set of retributors move into range of terminators claiming crossfire and killing 2, breaking them, they flee too far for the Cathedral. Chaos marines and landraiders move up and make my left flank a nightmare to counter but quite isolated from all but one of the objectives so plan to screen them out of relevance while I concentrate on the right and center. Cathedral moves to my left as it was out of engage range for the repentia the right, it shoots and places a BM. Some shuffling for position and some few casualties, engagement from mission on the right chases and almost wipes the chosen there.

Turn 3. Chaos repel my forces from their objectives and prevent me from hold the line. Not a lot of high action or drama except for an engagement to wipe out me leftmost retributors. Cathedral still can't engage anything with the repentia and its guns never fail to disappoint with 1 kill. Suicide gambit from undamaged retributors going fearless and dashing out to shoot and wipe out bikes and contest one obkective in Chaos half, they dogpile and break them with weight of fire. Chaos 2 Sisters 0. Hold all objectives in your half, BTS.

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NEVER EVER MOUNT CC TROOPS IN THE CATHEDRAL.

- Cathedral was utterly disappointing, dead slow and guns pretty pathetic once it did lumber its ass into position.
-- It has to double to do much meaning its template is hitting on 5/6+ getting maybe 2 hits, those 2 inferno cannons hit on 4s so 1 hit, the HB hits on 6s so is mostly a miss and the excommunicator hits on a 5 so 1 hit. 4 hits total, 5+ saves are common reliably expect about 2 kills from it if it fires everything at a target.
- Main use I see for the big vehicle is as an objective holder, drive up on a march turn 1 to contest objectives, preferably deep into some cover and shoot stuff.
- The Black Legion list CAN be very similar to the sisters, lots of well armoured, competent firefighters and combat specialists in rhinos. It felt pretty fair between the two with the longer ranged game favouring chaos and the numbers advantage evening that out for SoB.
- Penitent Engines are really fun, vulnerable, but fun.

Maybe try Repentia/Arco-Flagellants without rhinos and garissoned forward for an early 30cm infiltrate engage...but it's a one shot attack if something is available and after that they're probably doing nothing useful afterwards.

The Cathedral (and the Chapels) need something to make them feel worth the effort of getting to fight with them. Their guns don't do much, they don't fight in engagements particularly well, they are poor transports and their cost is enough to reduce the overall activation count by 1-2 activations for that privelege. They're fairly tough being about their only real selling point but anything carrying meaningful TK will destroy them.

yeah they might need something akin to the stormlord's battle platform allowing a small number of troops embarked to FF from. That's a bigger boost for guard than sisters, however.

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Or field them in a unit of three and make them similar to the Stormsword formation. A slow moving unit, but one that generates a lot of threat.

I have these units built in my army for completion sake... but I just don't know what role they are supposed to play in the list. If anything we are still dealing with a lack of a way to deal with titans above 3DC, let alone running into an army that has a lot of armor and range

Thanks for the report Scutarii. I think mounting CC troops in the chapel/cathedral is a bad idea once people are savvy to them their too slow too deploy effectively. I have had success mounting things like repentia/arco's in rhinos although they tend to be a one hit wonder.

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Does the CC unit help provide protection against CC anti-WE specialists (terminators)

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Yes they would as long as they don't get pinned in the warengine.

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Is spending some 200+ points to make a 500+pt warengine a bit more survivable worth it to you? Bear in mind having them in the way means they'll almost certainly die with their low armour, giving up plenty more points in the combat res.

If the Cathedral was throwing out some serious, consistent hurt and was a major threat all its own then I could see the need. Right now it's not. It's a mildly tough BTS, but anyone with TK will murder it.

Yes Scutarii is right on that one, do you really want too spend points on for a bit more protection personally I wouldn't.

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At this point I don't really see a reason to field the cathedrals or chapels

I've been thinking on this, I reckon giving them a slight speed increase might work upgrade too 20cm move. This will bring their short range weapons to bear more often and make them better transports.

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That and I'd also recommend giving them Walker (they smash aside rubble, walls and trees with the might of the Emperor!).

That feeds into their anti-cover firepower and allows them to take the direct route to an objective/position/etc. rather than the roundabout one which also increases their speed without actually making them fast.

Yeah I'll go with that one.

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is the problem speed or the weapons though?

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In my - limited - experience it's both in the current incarnation. Fixing the speed though might help the damage output too.

Currently
4BP on a good day gets 8 things under the template, of those some are likely to be transports, let's say a 6/2 infantry/av split.
AP5+ heavy bolter
2 AP3+ inferno cannons
3 AP6/AT4 excommunicator shots.

Unloading in full it's not bad.

But currently it's always doubling. Ignore Cover on a lot of that helps.

- 8 things under the template, 4+/5+ but doubled means 5+/6+. Gonna get 2 hits on infantry and probably none on the tanks.
- Heavy bolter hits on a 5, doubled 6, then the target in this hypothetical formation has a transport to hug for cover and 7+ so probably a miss
- Excommunicator will shoot tanks, 3x5+ average 1 hit
- 2xAP3, doubled AP4, average 1 hit.

So we're looking at 3 infantry hits and 1 tank hit. Most things have an armour in the 5+ region. Odds are the tank will fail and one infantry passes.

So the thing shoots and gets 2 infantry and 1 tank kill on an ideal mixed inf/transport formation. 4 blast markers.

I mean...it's not bad but for 500pts, being BTS and a giant target that can't escape and has a real hard time hiding and that is a net negative as a transport (anything you'd want to mount up loses faster, free or cheap transports making their formations smaller in the process) it doesn't really feel like it's worth what you sacrifice to take it.

Oh, engagements too. DC6, FF4+, Inspiring. 6x4+ averages 3 hits, again 5+ saves common so 2 kills and Inspiring that's hard to shift.

Again, in an engagement it's not bad to have around. It's just not really a stand out.

Remember, most lists are built with at least some consideration as to how they will deal with Titans or equivalent heavy war engines. Anything intended to handle those kinds of engines will handle the Cathedral pretty handily.

However, if it's that bit faster and more flexible in its movement it might actually get to shoot without having to double which increases the damage output.

Playing devil's advocate here, but that seems to compare reasonably favourably against a Reaver titan;
5cm slower for 150 points cheaper and similar shooting capabilities.
Arguably it actually shoots too well for that reduced price.

If you want to improve things, shouldn't this come with a price hike as well?