Sisters of Silence - Combat Doctrines: Beyond their unique abilities as psychic Nulls, the Sisters of Silence are also a highly-trained and relentless paramilitary and special operations force, ably equipped to their task and skilled in overcoming any opposition they may encounter in their sworn duty, be it deluded bystanders, mind-ridden soldiers, hordes of psychically-puppeted corpses or even armed cults sat at the heart of a world's ruling caste.The Sisters of Silence are as remorseless, dedicated and as formidably skilled as any Human fighting force of the Imperium, while the cold darkness of their minds makes them a more terrible foe than any to the witch, the rogue psyker and the Warp-touched.Given their particular duties, their training and tactical bias focuses on close-quarters combat, short-ranged, high-intensity warfare which often sees them fighting from a position of numeric inferiority and on unfamiliar ground, and their skill in such conditions is supreme. Fear is alien to them, their conditioning and experiences exposing them to horrors against which even a veteran of the dark frontiers of the Great Crusade could not have readily endured.Glory and honour -- as these things are generally understood -- are of little value to the Sisters of Silence; theirs is a higher calling and only the attainment of their goals has meaning to them. Given this, stealth, covert surveillance and torture are all tried and tested weapons in their repertoire to be used when needed, and they know well the value of mystery, shock, awe and terror in their work.They will readily invoke their Emperor-given authority to use and discard any intermediaries and agencies of the Imperium as they require, and "collateral" destruction in pursuit of their targets is judged as a thing to be avoided as a matter of course, but irrelevant in cases of necessity.Beyond their extreme training and coldly rational tactical discipline, there was also something that had been quite deliberately invoked of the barbaric and the arcane about the Sisters of Silence as a militant order. This was not simply to provoke fear in others, although clearly this effect was ably achieved, but also it lent them a distinct and singular entity, as well as a murderous intensity in combat seldom encountered beyond the Imperium's transhuman fighting forces such as the Legiones Astartes.This deliberate element of feral barbarism found its expression in many forms, ranging from the totem-like names chosen to designate their tactical sub-units during deployment, to the aesthetic design of their ornate battle gear, which was styled to invoke imagery of the Human warriors of ages past but match the function of the finest power armour, to their manes of long hair, said to remain unshorn unless the sister had a sworn quarry escape them.In the present era, when the Silent Sisterhood take to the field in conventional warfare, they take commands from none outside their order -- they answer only to the ultimate power of the Golden Throne. Fully ordained sisters communicate only via Thoughtmark, dealing with others via interlocutors from the Sisterhood's lower echelons who have not yet taken the Vow of Tranquility. Each such exchange is still fraught, for the would-be allies of the orders cannot help but feel the shadow of the Null-Maidens upon their souls.When these lithe warriors come close to normal Humans, such as the soldiers of the Astra Militarum, even stoic veterans find cold sweat prickling across their skin, eyes itching and stomachs churning. The touch of a Sister of Silence, should it ever be felt skin on skin, is enough to make a mundane man or woman convulse with repulsion.Space Marines grimly endure their presence, aware that they stand in the presence of the Emperor's own elite. The Grey Knights are the exception; relying on psychic warfare as they do, they cannot bear the company of the Silent Sisterhood, and are content to watch them from afar. To a Daemon Hunter, the power to send a Warp-fiend shrieking back in horror merely by advancing upon it is impressive indeed.The weapons of the Silent Sisterhood are trusted mainstays of the Imperial arsenal. Their gleaming gunships and transports are much like those of the present-day Adeptus Astartes, for it is imperative the Sisters of Silence strike fast and hard, then withdraw to fight again. A force so small in number has no other option if it wishes to make its mark upon a hostile universe. Their most trusted weapons are the bolter, the Flamer and the Power Sword. They tend to use these in overlapping wave assaults.First, Prosecutor Squads unleash a deafening, flesh-shredding hail of bolt shells, then their Witchseeker sisters incinerate those who skulk in cover to escape retribution. Should an adversary prove tough enough to survive this double salvo of firepower, melee specialist Vigilators will dart forward with gleaming, powered Execution Blades, their immaculate sword-form seeing enemy heads fly from necks as they slash, cut and slay.The sisters have more esoteric methods for hunting foes whose sorcerous abilities make them proof against physical harm. Psyk-Out Grenades, for instance, contain the ground-down ashes of cremated martyrs from the ranks of the sisters, bodily remains that have lost none of their potency as weapons of psychic nullification. The foe reels after each detonation as the Sisterhood close in to deal the final blow.