Overview
The guide describes a succesfull way to build and play a Sister of Sigmars warband in Mordheim City of The Damned. The guide includes end-game build warband (>4000 rank). The Warband is build around heavy sustain and magic damage, with some physical damage.
Team Composition
Here I will describe the team composition.
Your team must include:
1. Matriarch.
2. Sister Superior.
3. Sister Superior.
4. Purifier.
5. Purifier.
6. Sister.
7. Sister.
8. Sister.
9. Sister.
10. Sister.
The author will not describe the begining stats or skills of each unit, the meaning of stats, their weapon specialization, or available spells. All these things can be found in the game, or in Mordheim wikipedia – [link]
A detailed description of why should one use such a build will be descibed further.
Backline: Itemization, Stats, Skills, Spells
The current build introduces a team composition which relies on heavy sustain, alot of magical damage, some physical damage.
Let us describe each units role, skills, spells, and stats.
The main role of the Matriarch is to use a variation of spells – Comet of Sigmar, Divine Revelation, Sinful Speech. All these spells must be mastered. The stats require thus the maximiztation of Intelligence. After the intelligence has been maximized put all points into Leadership, for moral increase mostly. To get 20/20 Leadership we need 2 books: Training Intelligence, Book of Mental. Also you will need to get Toughness for survivability. In Martial section all points go to Weapon skill, and those left go to Accuracy.
The itemization is next:
1. Helm of Piety.
2. Light armor of Scribes.
3. Sigamrite Hammer of Devotion.
4. Sigmarite Hammer of Devotion.
5. Great Flail of Expertise.
The skillset is next:
1. Mastery Introspection.
2. Adrenalin Rush.
3. Mastery Devotion.
4. Mastery Combat Savvy.
5. Mastery Improved Prayer.
6. Mastery Piety.
You will need Tome of Abilities.
Spells have already been mentioned, once again:
1. Sigmars Might.
2. Mastery Comet of Sigmar.
3. Mastery Divine Revelation.
4. Mastery Sinful Speech.
You will need Tome of Magic.
How to play.
What we want is to most of all cast the Spell Comet of Sigmar on our enemies, standing behind our frontline. For that we use our items and skills to increase damage, spell range, gain magic resistance bypass, decrease Divine Wrath chance.
Always take helmet on Matriarch, as it allows to counter 2 Divine wraths: Judgement and Unearthly Vision. Both of wraths force a stun check, and the helmet provides additional stun resistance.
For Supporting our units we use Divine Revelation when facing a heavy ranged team composition, or just for the +10% melee resistance. With Mastery Combat Savvy we will gain +20% melee resistance.
Sinful Speech is necessary to counter spell casting, which is important. Spells are strong in late game, and when maximized can cripple your warband heavily. If it is possible to silence the enemy caster, always go for Sinful Speech and only then go for Comet of Sigmar.
When casting Spells always remember that some Divine Wraths affect not only the casting unit, but also a zone around the unit. Therefore it is necessary to cast away from your other units.
With the skills mentioned above your Matriarch will have 12 offensive points. Therefore 6 casts of Comet of Sigmar. What needs to be understood is that you do not need to always use all 6 casts, because trying to do so is very risky due to Divine Wrath. 6 casts must be used only when you are in a dangerous situation, otherwise 4 casts should be enough. To gain additional offensive points for casts we use Introspection and Adrenalin Rush. Use these skills when you already used your 8 offensive points. If you will use them immediatly after using 2 Comets of Sigmar you risk of losing all points and therefore all casts if the Divine Wrath Truce triggers.
Might of Sigmar is basically useless, for our main damage comes from magic, and we do not want to waste points on anything else.
The Purifier in most of its actions repeats the Matriarch.
Maximize Intelligence, Toughness. After Intelligence go for Leadership. To get 1313 Leadership you will need 2 Books: Training Leadership, Book of Mental, for even more moral. You should go for 20/20 Intelligence with rune of Intelligence. After Toughness is maxed out go for Agility to get better Climb,Jump,Leap chances to get you into places where nobody can get to you, and you can get to anybody. Maximize Weapon skill, everything else to Accuracy.
Itemization:
1. Helm of Piety
2. Light armor of Intelligence.
3. Sigmarite Warhammer of Devotion.
4. Sigmarite Warhammer of Devotion.
5. Great Flail of Expertise.
The skillset is next:
1. Mastery Introspection.
2. Adrenalin Rush.
3. Mastery Devotion.
4. Mastery Knowledge of Mordheim.
5. Mastery Improved Prayer.
6. Mastery Piety.
You will need Tome of Abilities.
Spells:
1. Mastery Comet of Sigmar.
3. Mastery Divine Revelation.
3. Blessing of Athleticism.
4. Mastery Hearts of Gryphon.
You will need Tome of Magic.
How to play.
As mentioned above in its major part you play the Purifiers in the same way as it was described for the Matriarch. Main spell – Comet of Sigmar. The difference is that we do not need another Sinful Speech, it would be a waste. Instead we take Hearts of Gryphon for additional sustain.
We also take Blessing of Athleticism to have better climb chances, for we will be wearing heavy armor mostly, so we will need this against sneaky units like skaven, for example.
Frontline: Itemization, Stats, Skills
The Sister Superior is your frontline tank, which can also deal medium damage when it is needed. Her main role is to stand in the frontline and soak up damage and debuffs while your Purifiers and Matriarch are killing enemies with Comets of Sigmar. Thus we maximize Toughness, Leadership, Weaponskill. Go for 16/18 Toughness, for that you will need Book of Tougness. After Toughness go for Strength. Get 9 Intelligence, then go for Leadership and then for Intelligence, the rest to Alertness. With Book of Mental get 10 Alertness. Maximize Weaponskill, then Accuracy.
The itemization is next:
1. Amulet of Constitution.
3. Heavy armor of Toughness.
2. Mace of Warding.
4. Shield of Spellbreaking.
5. Great Flail of Expertise.
The skillset is next:
1. For Sigmar!
2. Safe Stance.
3. Mastery Ignore Pain.
4. Armor Proficiency.
5. Knowldge of Mordheim.
6. Mastery Hardy.
7. Mastery Protection of Sigmar.
8. Mastery Resilient.
9. Strong Blow.
You will need Tome of Abilities.
How to play.
As already mentioned Sister Superior is a frontline tank. For that we need heavy armor, which applies a movement debuff -2 movement range. To get rid of it we take Knowledge of Mordheim and Armor Profficiency for 4 skill poins instead of Mastery Armor Profficiency for 6 skill points. Additionally we do not have to go for 12 Strength to get it and can use points to increase Toughness. As a tank the Sister Superior wont be able to deal big amounts of damage, but she can soak up damage and decrease the damage of enemy units with Mastery Ignore Pain. For even better tanking we take Mastery Hardy. Mastery Protection of Sigmar together with Shield of Spellbreaking and Mace of Warding will give you a big amount of magic resistance against anybody who would try to destroy your tanking capabilities with Sorcerers Curse of Rust Armor. Mastery Resilient and Safe stance against Critical hits. Strong Blow is a good skill to gain a +50% damage increase for a low cost – 2 skill points, 6 Strength required.
Our playstyle is about standing in front and tanking all the damage. We can also cast For Sigmar! on some of our Sisters with dual flails to organize a flank. If it is possible fight in narrow passages where you can tank one enemy at a time. No matter what do not allow her to be surrounded, for even though she is a tank, she cant tank forever. Do not get overconfident. If you know that you are safe or can kill, you can switch your weapon set to Great Flail to do additional damage with Strong Blow.
Sister represents a lesser version of Sister Superior. She is a tank, which is also used to apply the Enervation debuff, which is key to winning games. We go for 6 Strength and 9 Intelligence to gain movement radius increase. Go to 15/15 Toughness, for that you will need Book of Toughness. After getting 9 Intelligence maximize Leadership, then go fo 6 Allertness and 11 Intelligence. With Book of Mental go for 9 Alertness.
The itemization is next:
1. Amulet of Constitution.
3. Heavy armor of Toughness.
2. Mace of Luck.
4. Shield of Spellbreaking.
5. Dual – Mace of Enervation, Flail of Enervation (can go for dual maces of enervation).
The skillset is next:
1. Repentance.
3. Ignore Pain.
4. Armor Proficiency.
5. Knowldge of Mordheim.
6. Hardy.
7. Adrenalin Rush.
8. Resilient.
9. Insult.
10. Safe Stance.
You will need Tome of Abilities.
How to play.
We have 5 Sisters. Each Sister is a frontline tank, although not as tanky as Sister Superior, bit still very tanky. To get rid of -2 movement range debuff we get Armor Profficiency and Knowledge of Mordheim. Hardy and ignore Pain for tankiness. Resilient and Safe stance against Critical attacks. Insult for better hitting chance. Adrenalin rush for more aggresion. Do not use Ignore Pain and Adrenalin Rush together, you will lose 50 wounds. Do not spam either of them. Use Adrenalin rush after switching your weapon set to Dual weapons, so that you will be able to land 2 attacks. 2 attacks will debuff 40 magical resistance, so that even units with very high magical resistance will become defenceless to Comet of Sigmar. If the unit has 15 magical resistance there is no need to go for dual unless you want to deal more physical damage, because Mastery Improved Prayer already give 15 magic resistance penetration.
Overall we have 2 stances for Sister – weapon set 1 for tanking and weapon set 2 for damage-debuff.
Warband Gameplay
In previous sections we described team composition,spells, skills,items and some game mechanics in “How to play”. Now we will have a detailed look onto how to play the warband.
We have 10 units, 7 frontliners, 3 casters, which stand in the backline. Our main objective therefore is to create a frontline, using 7(or less if neccessary) units, and to keep our casters as far as possible on one side, on the other side as close to the battlefield, so that they will be able to cast spells.
By the word frontline we mean a line or curve on which your and your enemies frontliners are tied up to each other. In order to create a frontline it is necessary to first of all understand the faction you are playing against, and its team composition. By understanding its team composition we mean the frontline-backline ratio and the main source of damage. If the enemy warband has 7 frontliners and 3 backliners, then creating a frontline should not be a problem. However if the enemy warband has a frontline quantity advantage, for example 9 frontliners, then creating a frontline becomes a problem, for you have only 7 frontline units. This means that your enemy can tie up your frontline, and still have 2 melee units, which he can use to flank your frontline, and go directly for your backline. In order to prevent such situations you will have to pick the places where you want to fight, and understand where you can be flanked, and therefore do not want to fight. If you know that the enemy team still has units, which are not currently seen on the map, there is a high probability that they are preparing for a flank, or they want to swarm one of your frontliners, and make a breach. If you have a frontline advantage, then you should use a part of your free units either to swarm the frontline, or to flank the enemy, and go for his backline.
The second most important thing you want to understand in order to create your frontline is the main source of your enemies damage. If your enemy has a ranged set warband, then his main damage is located in his backline. If his warband is melee centered, then his damage will be in the frontline, or near it.
Your entire game will be defined by how you created your frontline, and how does it look like.
If you have a bad frontline you will face 2 possible situtations:
1. Breach.
2. Flank.
In the first situation, your frontline was either outnumbered, or faced heavy damage, after which a hole appeared in your line, which the enemy will use to rush to your backliners. In the second situtation, your frontline is tied up, and the enemy also has free units, which he uses to flank your frontline, and go directly for the backline, or he swarms one of you frontliners. All possible frontline construction fails lead to these 2 conditions.
We have 7 units for our frontline: 5 Sisters, 2 Sisters Superior.
Our main stance for tanking will be weapon set 1, with weapon set 2 being for damage and debuff.
Sister Superior is a heavy tank, which would be better to use against more damaging enemy frontline units, and the Sister should be used against less damage dealing units.
If one of the units you have tied up with one of your frontliners has a high critical hit chance use safe stance in the end of your turn, in other cases parry stance. If you are facing a parry-bypass unit you can go for dodge stance. Also, if some of the units are not yet seen, it might be a critical build melee unit, waiting for an opening, so do not forget about safe stance.
If one of your priority targets has magic resistance tie him up with a Sister, then switch weapons, insult if necessary, adrenalin rush, followed by 2 attacks. This will apply a -40% magic resistance debuff, after which you can kill him with Comets of Sigmar.
You can also use the Sisters weapon set 2 for damage if neccessary. The same can be done with Sister Superior – switch weapons, followed by 2 strong blows.
If you are facing a heavy direct damage build, then you should use Ignore Pain, it will increase your tankiness and counter some armor bypass from your enemy.
If you are facing a frontline, which is using alot of Web os Steel’s and Sidestep’s, then do not try to attack them. Just finish your turn, and let them attack you. If they attack they will have to go out of the stance, and you will be able to counter-attack. You wont be able to use switch weapons, adrenalin rush, strong blow while counter-attacking, but it is better than not hitting at all.
Do not spam Adrenalin Rush and Ignore Pain.
First of all, your backline should be always near your frontline, so that it can support it with buff skills and spells. If your backline is isolated, then you wont be able to do anything, and your frontline will be slaughtered. Therefore you always keep your frontline and backline with each other.
Secondly, your backline must never be disintegrated over the map, you must be able to create focused fire on 1-2 units which need to be taken down as fast as possible.
Thirdly, you do not use your backline to go into unexplored area, you always keep them in the back. If your purifier gets ambushed you wont be able to disengage.
The last point is that your backline should be in a covered position, not standing on a plane space, where anything can happen. You want to be in cover, run out of the cover to use your offensive points, and then return to the covered position, for example – building.
Overall you keep your backline grouped, connected with your frontline, in the back, covered. This is what your backline should be.
Your entire game will be defined by your ability to manage your backline properly.
The 3 casters we have, the backline, will be used to deal damage with Comet of Sigmar, or support units with Hearts of Gryphon, Divine Revelation, Combat Savvy. Our top priority is damage-dealing, however if our units are being outnumbered, or taking big damage from a frontliner, or they are taking big damage from the enemy backline, we can support our units with spells and skills. Do not use support skills and spells when your frontline does not need it, every time you cast a supporting spell, you lose a damage spell. Do not overcast when you do not need it, or you can face the results of using alot of spells, which can be catastrophical.
Gameplay against other Factions.
Skaven represent a very mobile and fast warband. In the same time they dont have alot of damage, usually their main source of aggression lies not in dealing a huge amount of damage, but rather crippling your warband to such a level, when it cant do any damage, and applying damage over time effects. Therefore we have a warband which possesses high mobility and high debuff-damage over time potential. The good thing is that our warband has ~50% poison resistance, thanks to us maximizing Toughness. However it can be countered with a rune which reduces your poison resistance and skill Poison Expert, which gives direct poison resistance bypass.
As already mentioned above, this warband has very high mobility and speed. Therefore they will try to use their mobility as their main source of sustain, rather than tankiness, and frontline mechanics. Instead of frontline tanking, you will be dealing with kiting mechanics, which will include fleeing and disengaging, and just alot of movement. To better utilize thieir mehanics, they wont be attacking from one direction, but will engage from several directions, as it provides more space for maneuvers. The worst thing you could do in such a situation, is to split your warband and start chasing skaven across the map. Because of their speed and mobility they will be able to fastly regroup as one force, and swarm one of your groups, before you can regroup. You will simply be caught out of position in during the maneuvr, your units will be isolated from each other, and killed. So dont try any mobility-based maneuveres, because you will lose. Always move as one force, pick one skaven group and send everyone to corner that group and kill it, instead of splitting. If he engages from one direction, just send everybody in that direction, and corner him, so that he wont be able to move anywhere. If a skaven cant move, then he is dead. Therefore we come with the statement that in order to defeat skaven you need to cut off their main strength – mobility. In order to do these we pressure them, reduce their movement capabilitites on the map, or saying in one word – corner.
The entire game versus a skaven is an attempt to corner him where he wont be able to run across the map.
If the Skaven is massively using warpguards and has a rat ogre, then it is a basic game with frontline-backline.
Progression
Now we will go to the description of how you progress your warband.
You start your game with 1 Matriarch, 1 Sister Superior, 3 Henchmen.
1. Matriarch.
2. Sister Superior.
3. Sister.
4. Sister.
5. Sister.
Weapons.
What we want is to avoid great hammers, as they give a +10% dodge, and dodge in early game is very strong. What we also want is to get maximum hit chance as possible, so we need maces, alot of maces. We also dont want shields in early game, since they are pretty useless. Therefore we go either two-handed or dual-wielding. For dual-wielding we take either dual maces, mace and flail, mace and hammer.
For two-handed we go for great flail, it does not give a +10% dodge.
Armor.
We do not put heavy armor on our henchmen, it will make them too slow. However we can put heavy armor on our Matriacrh and Sister Superior, as they have more strategy points than henchmen, therefore they will be able to stay in the group, even with -2 movement range debuff.
On the henchmen put light armor.
Rush for 6 strength and 9 intelligence on your frontliners. You can start putting heavy armor on your henchmen after you get armor profficiency.
Get all the helmets you can. Top priorities are Matriarch and Sister Superior.
Basically your team should look something like this:
1. Matriarch.
Heavy armor, great flail, helmet.
2. Sister Superior.
Heavy armor, great flail, helmet.
3. Sister.
Light Armor, dual mace-mace, helmet.
4. Sister.
Light armor, dual mace-mace, helmet.
5. Sister.
Light Armor, dual mace-hammer, helmet.
Always walk as a group, do not spread your team across the map. Try to move from cover to cover, avoid open spaces. Do not collect wyrdstones or items in early game, they do not matter, the only thing which you need in early game is experience, the rest will be provided by auto-loot.
It is better to have less items and gold, than having more gold with an entirely crippled warband.
Avoid anything except normal difficulty missions.
Mission types you want to play – Rivals in the Ruins is a top priority, then go Walk in the Fog, Scavengers, anything else is dangerous and not worth the risk.
All additional wyrdstones should be sent to Sigmars Haven. Maximize this faction first.
Try to get as much killing blows on Sister Superior as possible. Henchmen are not as important as Matriarch or Sister Superior, so all kills should be donated to them first. And because Matriacrh will be in our backline later, and we want to get a frontline first, we give the kills to Sister Superior.
After getting Knowledge of Mordheim and Armor Profficiency, get Hardy as fast as possible. Then go for Resilient. After that go for Mastery Ignore Pain and Strong Blow on Sister Superior. On Sisters take Insult and then Ignore Pain. Other skills are last and can be set as you want.
When we get access to Purifiers you have 2 choices how to play:
1. Hire a level 1 Purifier and keep him hidden somewhere on the map. When your units take the enemy low you finish them with the Purifiers Comet of Sigmar, thus getting all the experience.
2. Hire Sword. You want a level 6-7 Purifier, better 2 of them.
Even in this case we are in a situation where we have no purple runes and items to lower the divine wrath chance. Therefore we also have a choice not to hire them at all. We will have less units, but so will the enemy warband. We continue leveling up our warband, when we get access to Impressive, we hire Maiden, instead of 2 Purifiers, and build her full melee-damage:
Maiden.
Items.
1. Amulet of Constitution.
2. Heavy Armor of Toughness.
3. Great Flail of Perforation.
4. Mace of Warding, Sheild of Spellbreaking.
Skillset.
1. Mastery Daredevil.
2. Mastery Frenzy.
3. Strong Blow.
4. Mastery Armor Profficiency.
5. Mastery Hardy.
6. Knowledge of Mordheim.
7. Mastery Protection of Sigmar.
You will need Book of Abilities.
Spells.
Not needed.
You rush for Mastery Armor Profficiency, Mastery Daredevil, Mastery Frenzy, Mastery Hardy.
Therefore our top priorites in stats are Strength, Toughness. In Mental section we maximize Leadership, the rest goes to Intelligence, Alertness. In MArtial go for Weapon skill and then for Accuracy.
You play her as a flanker, or breacher. In first case you tie up the enemies with your Sisters, and then flank the enemy and go for his backline, which the AI mostly does not have anyway. So most of the times she will be breaching, which means that she will be just going directly to the enemy and killing him, supported by Sisters and Matriarch.
If you choose to play with 2 Purifiers you need to be patient, knowing that Smites will happen, probably once every 3 games, maybe twice. However the Smite is not as punishing as it was in previous versions, so it is not such a big problem. It can be a problem on Deadly missions, but on Hard and Brutal it is not supposed to make a heavy impact on your team, if you did everything right.
Then we grind as much as possible, probably even going for some Brutal missions. After that it is just a massive grind game, where you will have to get access to the neccessary runes and items.
After the neccessary items and runes have been obtained, get the Purifiers.
Conclusion
In the end we have a setup which possesses heavy sustain, with low-medium damage.
Because we are playing Sisters of Sigmar we have a very big amount of sustain overall, with this build we maximize it to the absolute. Our damage wont be big, but it will be building up as the rounds go on. The longer the game goes, the stronger the Sisters are, and the weaker are their enemies. With high morale, it is possible to force trades, which will lower the moral of the enemy. No matter how low our moral goes down, the enemies will fall faster, so that he will be closer to routing than we. Our top priority is to eliminate the enemies damage dealers and let the rounds go on, until he does not rout. As Sisters we want to out-sustain our enemy, rather than kill him in a couple of rounds.
Would like to tank the developers for the great game, and the readers for having the patience to read the guide.