Kill Team - Sisters Novitiates Assembly

For a few years now I have been brainstorming a single-player narrative campaign. I have alluded to this a few times, most recently in my End of Year Wrap Up. I’ve known basically since they were first shown off that the heroes in my story would be a squad of Adepta Sororitas Novitiates. I had originally planned to use a squad of regular Battle Sisters but as soon as I saw the Novitiates I knew they would offer me even greater narrative choices. There isn’t much to distinguish one Battle Sister from another, they perform the same battlefield role after all: use gun on heretic. However in Kill Team the various operatives give me ample opportunity to give each member of the squad a distinctive look and personality. As I was building this team for narrative purposes, I didn’t need to min-max things; I could just pick what I wanted for the characters that I wanted to create.

Novitiate Superior Palmora

First up is the Novitiate Superior, the only fully fledged Sister of Battle in the squad. She has the option for either a boltgun or a pistol and power weapon. Naturally, I chose the latter and specifically took the plasma pistol over the bolt pistol. Other options for assembly are the decorative elements on the backpack and a choice of three head options. For the former, I chose the array of candles as it did a better job of covering the mould lines in the fabric draped over the backpack. Out of the head options I chose the only one that didn’t look like a multi-tiered cake. Finally, I drilled the barrel of the plasma pistol. For ease of painting I left the backpack and head separate. 

In my mind, Palmora is a fairly strict disciplinarian but she has a genuine care for the Novitiates under her care. She is strict with them because she wants her charges to succeed and do well. I pictured Palmora as being someone who doesn’t have to raise their voice because she firstly has the respect of her Novitiates and secondly she is a veteran of many wars so she has seen it all already. 

From here on out each member of the team can be built as either a Novitiate Militant or as a specialist role. 

Novitiate Penitent Celesta

At first I was hesitant to include a Penitent in my team as for the most part I wanted each of my characters to be a blank slate at the start of the campaign. So one of them coming in already being punished for some minor transgression would run contrary to that. 

On the other hand… eviscerators are really cool and I absolutely want to carve up some fools with one. 

And so, Celesta is currently seeking redemption for what she has done. What did she do? That’s for me to know and for you to find out later. 

Novitiate Hospitaller Ephriya

Not having a healer or medic class in a narrative campaign would be a profoundly bad idea. Otherwise you would quickly run out of ways to get your operatives back in the fight when they inevitably eat dirt. 

Additionally, having a character that’s a trainee version of a unit from Warhammer 40,000 could provide some interesting character development. Will Celesta become a fully fledged member of the Orders Hospitaller? Or will she join one of the Militant Orders? Well, she has to survive the campaign first. 

Novitiate Reliquarius Freya

Not sure what a Reliquarius does but waving religious icons around is probably a good thing for a team made up of religious zealots. I assume it’s like a standard bearer. And like Ephriya, maybe Freya will grow up into waving a religious icon around as a proper Sister of Battle?

Novitiate Militant Brigella

Brigella would be the first in the squad that I chose to build as a Militant. The alternative was as an Exactor. Whilst it might be fun, and useful, to have someone on your team literally whip your squadmates into a frenzy I felt that it would be awkward to weave into a story. Also the Militant with autogun was sculpted midpose throwing a grenade, and every team of operatives needs an explosives expert. So I drilled the barrel of her autogun and got her assembled. 

Novitiate Preceptor Alicia

Alicia is the zealot of the bunch, and for the Adepta Sororita that’s saying something. She likes to get up close and personal, so it only felt right that she be given the flaming mace with which to smack people with. She is the de facto leader amongst the trainees and when the Superior isn’t around Alicia is who the rest of the squad will turn to. I made sure to give her the meanest looking face in the box. 

Novitiate Dialogus Gwendolyn

If Alicia is the zealot then Gwendolyn is undoubtedly the geek amongst the group. When not on the battlefield she can be found in the Librarium, studying scripture and the holy words of her order. As the box comes with a spare 28mm base, I stuck the little vox machine to a separate base as there was no room for it on the base along side Gwendolyn. Was I supposed to put it on a separate base? No idea. We’ll see when I read the Kill Team rules.

Novitiate Militant Decimina

I was very tempted to make Decimina a duelist, if nothing else for the alliteration. But by this point I was quite conscious of the fact that my team was very melee heavy. So I wanted to have another ‘gunner’ type character to balance things out a little more. As with Brigella, I drilled the barrel of her autogun as well. 

Novitiate Purgatus Hellana

It wouldn’t be a Sisters of Battle squad if someone didn’t have a flamer. The alternative was a Condemnor, which felt a bit like an Inquisitor-in-training. A cool thing to be sure but didn’t really fit with the narrative I was crafting for my team. As I said, Adepta Sororita and flamers go together like heretics and cleansing flames. And Hellana loves to cleanse heretics with holy fire. She’ll make a fine Retributor one day.

Novitiate Purgatus Ionda

Why have one flamer when you could have two? I didn’t need a second Reliquarius and a Pronatus didn’t seem all that interesting unless Ionda was going to be beating people to death with that giant chalice. So I went with another Purgatus, twice as many flamers means you can purge twice as many heretics. I didn’t drill the barrels of the flamers as I didn’t have a small enough drill bit unfortunately. 

Final Thoughts

With them all assembled, I should probably get them primed and make a start on getting them painted. Thankfully, I already have a colour scheme in mind so it shouldn’t take any time at all! 

Will they be effective on the battlefield? Only time will tell. Hopefully I have managed to put together a reasonably competent team and one that doesn’t get repeatedly thrashed by the enemies that I pit them against. That would be embarrassing.