SoB WD codex 'leaked'

[eldargal]

Lots of bodies and tanks is still the fluffy option for IG, and it still works well enough even if it isn't what a minority of players favour for tournaments. I want SoB to be a fun, fluffy army to play, and as it stands I wouldn't even bother using most of the Acts of Faith or half the units in the list. I couldn't care less how competitive it is, but I want to be able to field an army that fits in with the lore. A handful of useless acts of faith a turn doesn't really do it.

[Lancel]

I shot down the idea that you have a piece of wargear that you would have to include in your army to be competitive - assuming Faith is a necessary property of the army which it should be. When wouldn't I take this item, I DISLIKE choices being made for me on such a specific basis.

This made me think about the wargear miracle theory. It's not going to be much of an option if it's the only thing that makes the army viable. Kinda like how BoSL was pretty much standard equipment I mean what's the point in wargear options if you HAVE to have them?

[wallweasels]

You mean, aside from the fact that you want your army to be "like everyone else's." To me, this indicates MEQ.

I'll give you the BS 4, absolutely. But beyond that, shouldn't the basic Sisters have the profile of a guardsmens, with perhaps higher leadership? The fact that changing one stat profile adds "character and depth" is a bit ridiculous to me. So they're IG Vets? Thanks.

If you put the girls in transports, then they would need the potentiall 'null maiden' buff less, wouldn't they? Because they're more protected. From everything I've read, Sisters take to the field of battle on foot more often than in Rhinos. I disagree that it's ill conceived. It would allow a foot slogging Sisters army to be a ton more survivable. Not every army armor spams, despite what the tournament meta would suggest. And really? A gun line of psychically untargetable boltguns with power armour isn't distinguishable? No other army offers that.

So, how often is a Sisters player actually going to have to roll a 5+ for their AoF? Are there gonna be an abundance of squads without a leader? No? Well shoot. So their AoF roll is a 4+, or 50% chance? That's just unfair that a miracle is only going to happen half the time. And the modifiers being "too complicated?" Gimme a break. Dammit, I have to bring some counters now. No one else has to do that. Wait, what? DE use pain tokens to modify? They must have HUGE problems with that counting, too!

As for "Acts of Faith" being the distinguishable trait of the army? Guess what? Distinguishing traits of plenty of other armies aren't used in "competitive" lists? What is supposed to be the IG "distinguishing trait?" What's that? An abunance of bodies and firepower using orders? That's the norm, right? Wait, no it isn't. It's MeltaVets in Chimeras with Vendettas. How about Blood Angels? They're supposed to be jump pack masters, utilizing their mobility and Descent of Angels, right? Oh wait. No. Their "competitive" lists revolve around tired razorback/predator spam. How about Space Wolves? Tenacity and counter-attacks, right? Oh wait. No. Long Fangs and Razorback spam again.

So what is it you are trying to actually say here Dooley? I mean you talk a lot but you haven't said much, no offense.
Are you implying in your last section here that we should just give up on faith being the distinguishing traits of sisters because "distinguishing traits...aren't used in competitive lists"? Is it possible that MAYBE someone might want the traits that make an army special to actually be USED? That sure is a strange thought. Since you seem just want us to abandon what was our namesake, just because other lists are poorly written and have to abandon their core concepts due to badly balanced units.
Maybe Long Fangs were meant to give cover fire while your counter-attack bolter force advanced forward...well some of thats true. Blood angels do heavily utilize their mobility...just not the jump pack part to much. So GW gets it half right...but never goes full circle on it.
I believe I can expect my rules to be useful, personally. Is that wrong?

Personally, I would love an all sisters on foot army to be viable. I ran an infantry heavy sisters army for a long time, usually with some mixed transported units. I found it worked because my LGS used some pretty hefty terrain that supported it. But when you play on a table that has a 4"x4" half inch tall mole hill for terrain...usually walking up 6" at a time isn't always best. You can be a marine in all senses of profile and not be MEQ because you are S/T3. S3 to S5 is what most weapons in 40k are, and that one point of toughness makes a heavy bolter from "pretty harmful" to "oh god why". its why Sisters have always been kind "miniMEQ". Not horde, not MEQ, just...between it. Lets call it "SMEH" or "Semi-Marine Equivalent Horde" I am proud to be a SMEH player.

On faith...honestly I hear about players saying they have a hard time understanding how many faith a sister player they have played has. HOW? Seriously I make it clear, I indicate dice that show the amount...and every sister player I have known has used some form to keep that obvious as well. The modifiers are not complicated here...but it is really boring. GW has done more annoying systems to remember: Like me trying to remember what buffs each of my ogre units have, or what my opponents chaos lord/trolls/chosen have for buffs from eye of the gods. Hell Pain Tokens are almost more bothersome to remember than the amount of faith points an army had. Keeping tabs PER unit is just silly.
Although as someone who spent a good year writing a fandex on C:WH, I always tried to make faith into three things: Easy to get off (it was a leadership test), Powerful in effect (they'd sway the outcome of a units fight), yet limited in quantity. Because of their finite nature you want faith to be MORE viable in MORE situations. The more choices the sister player has...the more tactics involved. If you had 5 faith points to use...but you had 10 situations to use it in, which do you pick? Save that squad or let them die to use faith on that other unit to wipe out that expensive squad the enemy has or gib their leader, etc. Kind of pointless to mention now, since usage is hardly going to be subject to debate. Especially since its useless in the enemy turn and you cannot plan for next turns faith usage due to the randomness of it.

[Nabterayl]

Lots of bodies and tanks is still the fluffy option for IG, and it still works well enough even if it isn't what a minority of players favour for tournaments. I want SoB to be a fun, fluffy army to play, and as it stands I wouldn't even bother using most of the Acts of Faith or half the units in the list. I couldn't care less how competitive it is, but I want to be able to field an army that fits in with the lore. A handful of useless acts of faith a turn doesn't really do it.

Out of curiosity, eldargirl, what is it that strikes you as unfluffy about this? Most of the Acts of Faith are not so much miracles as expressions of zeal. The statlines seem appropriate for a service made of human beings that has always de-emphasized CQB. The implied army structure matches up with what we've always known (with the possible exception of specialized dominion squads, which has always been a pet peeve of mine). We have Ecclesiarchical instead of Inquisitorial auxiliary elements. We have limited vehicular support, based on the traditional chassis for elite Imperial forces.

This all seems to me like it fits very much with the lore - if anything, moreso than the 3rd edition army of pseudo-sorceresses. Are you objecting to the fluffiness of what's presented, or how useful you think it will be?

[eldargal]

Unfluffy in the sense that there is hardly any point in bothering with AoF even in a friendly game, if you see what I mean. Instead of being an integral part of the army, helping seperate it from, say, a hypothetical Stormtrooper list, its just a mechanic one could easily ignore in most cases, for all the good it does you.

[isotope99]

The problem at the moment for sisters IMHO is that they don't have a real role in the 40K system that defines them.

Some examples:
Tyranids - Hordes and big monsters
Grey knights - Super elite marines
Imperial guard - Cannon fodder and lots of tanks (although veterans are too common for my liking)

I'd describe Sisters based on what I've seen so far as lame T3 salamanders with no Vulkan, drop pods, land raiders or terminators (i.e the best bits). Not exactly inspiring.

Having said that, the right wargear could still make a difference. If seraphim could take inferno pistols and hand flamers for example.

[Nabterayl]

Unfluffy in the sense that there is hardly any point in bothering with AoF even in a friendly game, if you see what I mean. Instead of being an integral part of the army, helping seperate it from, say, a hypothetical Stormtrooper list, its just a mechanic one could easily ignore in most cases, for all the good it does you.

Hmmm ... not to be dense, but I'm not sure I agree. I can't think of anybody else's "distinguishing characteristic" that is required to use. Space Wolves would be pretty darn good even without Counter-Attack, Red Thirst can't be relied upon, ATSKNF doesn't come up very often in my experience, at least, orders are useful but I don't think they're necessary, synapse can be largely ignored these days, and so on.

When I think of battle sisters, I think of them as zealous, not miraculous. Battle sisters who can rally better than space marines, celestians who can charge better than space marines, seraphim who can shoot better than space marines, dominions and retributors who are willing to expend massive amounts of ammunition, repentia who die like frenzied tyranids ... these are the sorts of effects that it seems to me should be the bread and butter of sisters' faith, fluff-wise. Power armor that can stop plasma cannons and power klaws virtually on demand always seemed over the top to me; I much prefer (from a fluff standpoint) the 17% chance that a sister who should have died doesn't.

I think it's premature to say that the various AoF we now have useless. Divine Guidance, Holy Fusillade, and The Emperor's Deliverance all seem comparable or better to me than the old Divine Guidance. Endless Crusade is something new and good, Spirit of the Martyr seems like a pretty excellent accompaniment to eviscerators ... with the exception of the loss of the 3++ switch, which always seemed to me the least fluffy of the 3rd edition Acts of Faith, I'm not sure I buy that the new Acts are useless. And useless or not, I'm certainly not convinced that they don't fit the background to a T.

The problem at the moment for sisters IMHO is that they don't have a real role in the 40K system that defines them.

Some examples:
Tyranids - Hordes and big monsters
Grey knights - Super elite marines
Imperial guard - Cannon fodder and lots of tanks (although veterans are too common for my liking)

The Orders Militant are to the Imperial Guard as the United States Marine Corps is to the United States Army. They have inferior armored support but even their basic infantry is better than the Guard's elite. They don't have the mobility or the special operations capability of space marines, but unlike space marines, they can and will smash you to bits, and nothing you can do will stop them from coming at you.

If space marines are the scalpel of the Emperor, and the Imperial Guard is the twenty-pound sledgehammer of the Emperor, the Orders Militant are the battle axe of the Emperor. A scalpel won't worry my mail, and a sledgehammer will crush me but only if you can hit me with it. A battle axe will still crush me and is a hell of a lot handier.

To put it another way, suppose the Imperium is attacking a large, well-defended target such as a fortified city. A lord general tells three Imperial commanders that the city must fall, because time is of the essence.

Space Marines
The space marine force commander says, "My scouts can infiltrate the city and I can assassinate the enemy general, or sabotage their water works."

The lord general says, "As always we value the assistance of the Astartes, my lord, but that will not cause the city to fall tomorrow. Can your battle-brothers not smash a hole in the main defenses for the guardsmen under my command to exploit?"

The force commander says, "They could, but we will not. I will not throw away the lives of my battle-brothers and the Chapter's war machines in so crude an assault."

Imperial Guard
The Imperial Guard colonel says, "My regiment will smash this city flat. Give me two weeks to prepare the assault and I assure you, the city will fall."

The lord general says, "We don't have two weeks. Assault the city immediately with what you have."

The colonel says, "Yes, my lord ... though I warn you, without proper logistical support such an attack has a low chance of success, and we will lose many men regardless."

Sisters of Battle
The Sororitas palatine says, "My sisters and I will lay waste these heretics' fortifications. We will attack tomorrow."

Somewhat surprised, the lord general says, "I thank you, my lady. Will you not suffer heavy casualties by launching a direct infantry assault?"

The palatine says, "My concern is not that my sisters may lose their lives, but that the Emperor's foes will lose theirs. Tomorrow we will send our dead to the Emperor's side on a funeral pyre made of this city's defenses, and your guardsmen can finish the heretics within - if they get to them before we do."

The space marines simply refuse to attack. The Imperial Guard attacks quickly and fails. The Sisters of Battle attack quickly and succeed.

[Fibonacci]

I am coming off the bench to add a few points about points.

First, think about the basic SoB strat as it is now. Get 12" away and unload rapidfire bolters. Any marine army can do that. Sisters also have a 3+ save like any other marine. So why are Sisters loath to go into assault?

S3 T3. It is that big of a difference. It means that vs a marine squad I am taking wounds on a 3+ and causing wounds on a 5+. Those one point differences mean that a Sisters squad will take twice the number of casualties. It is a small shift, but it is also critical one.

Sister troops do no assualt. Given the choice of rapid firing or fireing once and assualting, it is better to stand and fire. Currently Sisters do not come with pistols or grenades. You do not buy them frag grenades because they are not going to assualt. Bolt pistols are not an option and not missed because they will not be assualting. Those points are better spent elsewhere.

So now we see the new codex. Grenades and bolt pistols all around. Why? So we can die twice as fast in CC? Even without seeing the wargear or unit costs I can tell you those are points we no longer have the option to spend elswhere. They will be spent on CC gear for troops that will never assault. Every one knows the Sisters are poor in CC. It seems to me like R.C. thought he would help them out a little by equiping them for CC for us, but failed to realize that these few things will not change the fact that SoB troops will still die twice as fast due to combat mechanics, not lack of gear.

Witch Hunter players, I feel for you. You got shafted. Not only did your effectiveness get reduced but your story lines are kind of flat now. I can see if they wanted to take SoB in the direction of a horde army. They can be a lot of fun; I never met an ork player that did not love his army. But this whole thing is kind of ... amaturish. Renaming old models and reducing choices in both unit types and abilities is just. I'll say it. It's ****ed up. Lazy. thoughtless. The last PDF did nothing but reduce your choices from the printed codex and now this WD slashes it even more. Why not just make Sister of Battle a troop choice for Grey Knights and drop the whole facade of actually working on a Witch Hunter update?

[Fibonacci]

celestians who can charge better than space marines

10 elite Cel vs 10 tac SM:

Celestines get 2 attacks, plus one for pistol and CCW. 30 attacks.
WS 4 vs WS4 so 15 hits.
S 3 vs T 4 so wounds on 5+ for an average of 5 wounds.
3+ armor save means 1.6 average unsaved wounds.

SM get 1 attack pluse one for pistol and CCW. 20 attacks.
WS 4 vs WS 4 so 10 hits.
S 4 vs T3 so wounds on a 3+ for an average of 6.66 wounds.
3+ armore save means 2.22 average wounds.

Elite vs the most basic troop. Celestines take about 39% more casualties. If you want to compair charges it gets worse. A basic SM causes 56% more damage than the elite Celestines. And this is with the 2 attacks the Celestines get in the WD codex.

What's the chance that a Celistine model will cost about 60% of a basic SM?

[Melissia]

Amusing. Ogres get bold text, and Sisters are a side note "well, we couldn't find anything ELSE to put in here..."....

It's frustrating to me that you find it so hard to be civil without lobbing out the requisite insult. I made my comment purely because everything he said indicated that he basically wanted a female marine army with acts of faith.

I wasn't responding to you in specific.

And I don't really find it hard to be civil so much as I have no desire to be civil to the people who continually argue that Sisters are MEQ despite all logic and reason. My opinion of them is lower than my opinion of the turd my cat laid on the carpet this morning.