Witch Hunters without Sisters of Battle

A picture of a Hammer :)

I've been doing some Theory Hammer over the last couple of days, looking at a Witch Hunters list which does not features any Sisters of Battle at all. Why the hell would you want an army without Sisters since they're the best thing in the codex? Well, fluff reasons really, nothing much more than that. I like the idea of an Inquisitor Lord and his close allies coming together to root out a nest of heretics.

Here's the list I've been messing with:

HQ:
Inquisitor Lord, Psychic Hood, Purgatus, Divine Prouncement
3 Gun Servitors with Multi-Meltas
2 Chirugeons
1 Familiar
2 Acolytes with combi-meltas
Land Raider with extra armour and smoke (549)

Priest with Eviscerator (65)

Elites:
Inquisitor, Bolter, Hammer of the Witches, 3 Gun Servitors with Heavy Bolters, 1 Familiar (123)

Inquisitor, Hammerhand and bolt pistol, 2 Crusaders, 1 Close Combat Servitor, 3 Acolytes with carapace armour, laspistol, CCW and power weapon(165)

Troops:
Inquisitorial Storm Troopers x10, Veteran with Eviscerator, 2 Flamers, Chimera with pintle mounted Heavy Flamer and hull mounted Heavy flamer, extra armour and smoke (238)

Adeptus Arbites x9, 2 Flamers, Chimera with pintle mounted Heavy Flamer and hull
mounted Heavy flamer, extra armour and smoke (193)

Inquisitorial Storm Troopers x8, 2 Plasma Guns mounted in a Rhino with extra armour and smoke (153)

Inquisitorial Storm Troopers x8, 2 Plasma Guns (100)

Heavy Support:
2 Penitent Engines (16o)

Total 1751


Battleplan:
I'll briefly explain the intention of each unit:

Lord: The Lord will be using his psychic hood to nullify enemy psychic powers (good against some armies like Eldar, not much use against Guard). He'll then be using the rest of his powers to reduce enemy leadership and force panic tests against non-Fearless units. The rest of the unit will be anti-armour hunters with potentially 5 melta shots. I've taken a Land Raider for this unit, but I could use that as a mount for the CC Inquisitor and use the Rhino from the 2
plasma gun IST choice for this unit.

Priest: Required for Penitent Engines, he'll accompany the Arbites squad. The Eviscerator is basically a chain fist for carving up any armour that fancies a pop.

Inquisitor 1: Ranged anti-infantry fire support. He'll also be using his psychic power to force Perils of the warp attacks on enemy psykers. The familiar is there so I can allocate wounds to it without losing an important model.

Inquisitor 2: This ones a close combat specialist, and so will be mounted in a transport from another unit. With 5 models with power weapons, one power fist and a psychic power which doubles the users strength. Don't forget acolytes count as armed with laspitol and CCW for free, so adding a power weapon will mean they can use it and the pistol/CCW in close combat for an extra attack.

IST squad with flamer: These guys are the close fire support units to follow in the wake of the CC Inquisitor and Penitent Engines. The units have flamers and the transports have two heavy flamers for cover save ignoring goodness. The Veteran with Eviscerator is to mash anything heavy. The Chimera has two heavy flamers for the same reason.

Arbites squad: Arbites frankly aren't even as good as IST's, but I've gone for them here as this unit will be accompanied by the Priest meaning they always count as moving and must charge is able to do so. If this was an IST squad, their rapid fire weapons would be limited to 12" (as they're moving), and they wouldn't be able to rapid fire at a unit within charge range as this would stop them from charging (this was FAQ'ed in the latest FAQ). The Arbites have shotguns which are Assault 2 with the same strength as the hellgun but AP - so they will be able to fire 2 shots at anything within charge range.

IST squads with plasma guns: These are longer ranged fire support and objective holders.

Penitent Engines: These guys do pretty much one thing: Run towards the enemy and stomp on it until either it or they are dead. They have the Holy Rage special rule so they get +D6" movement, and now in 5th ed they can run too. Potentially, you're then talking about an 18" charge range with a lucky roll (can't run and charge as they aren't fleet, so no 24" charge range). Only drawback is that they are fragile being relatively low AV as well as open topped, and they will be a massive fire magnet.


Drawbacks:

• The army is pretty squishy. Nothing has better than T3 and only the Lord has a better than 4+ save.
  
• Some of the powers I've taken target psykers specifically (psychic hood, Hammer of the Witches) so will either be useful or not depending on the enemy.
• There is a hell of a lot of kill points here (16 if the Penitent Engines count as one as they're in a squadron)
• The Elite Inquisitors are pretty weak really, their points would be better somewhere else (more Penitent Engines, more ISTs), but I like 'em ;)

I think this would be a pretty characterful army to put together. I see the Lord as a wizened old Inquisitor Lord with mighty pychic powers accompanied by his Inquisitorial allies. I had Commodus Voke from the Eisenhorn books in the back of my mind when I was putting the list together, with one of the Elite Inquisitor could easily represent his pupil Heldane. Voke even has his own black uniformed Storm Troopers.