The chainsword's another iconic 40K weapon, and when I pick my first one up, squeezing the trigger to rev it, that feels pretty rad. Mostly because you never know if drawing a chainsword to deal with them will work. Some of the enemies who charge-assault marines with jetpacks or daemons with blades-are more intimidating. Occasionally a Word Bearer in terminator armor will teleport in, then shoot continuously at a column between us while I pick him off. Marines from the heretical Word Bearers chapter slowly sidestep into view, moving in a pattern that's predictable enough I eventually start taking them on casually, saving bolter ammo by using a lasrifle held in one hand. When the controls work the way they're supposed to, Battle Sister is much easier. The security handscanner has a skull and needles on it, which is extremely 40K. It casts you as one of the adepta sororitas, the Sisters of Battle who protect the Imperium from Chaos, and an early level has you walk through a temple-fortress past armored warriors praying and gigantic candles burning. There's plenty of ornate stuff to get close to. I'm playing it on an Oculus Quest 2 (the headset it was released for in 2020, with a Rift version following this year), which means I don't have to worry about cables and can walk around really rubbing my face on the 41st millennium. A bolt isn't a bullet, it's what you get nine months after a bullet fucks a grenade.īattle Sister does get other stuff right. Bolters shoot mass-reactive rounds designed to detonate inside their targets. The bolter doesn't feel like much of an upgrade over a standard infantry gun, and it should. Sure, you can flick that cultist's gas-masked face clean off with a single headshot, but the same is true with Battle Sister's lasrifle. But having to land multiple body shots to drop a weeny cultist with one just feels wrong.

They sound right too, coughing out a throaty hack.

They're chunky boys, even the pistol versions, first designed to be easily readable when molded onto a figurine made of 1980s lead. In Battle Sister, the bolters look right.

Sisters of battle terminator