Originally Posted by
Melissia
Suffice it to say, Every Single Bad Thing I've had to say about this codex was absolutely right. They aren't even releasing plastics-- the codex just re-used old miniatures, art, and photos of miniatures from previous codices. No new units, three units were merged into one unit (crusaders, arco-flagellants, death cult are now one squad type where you purchase X amount of each). A couple old characters from second edition brought back; Kyrinov looks incredibly generic and not actually all that helpful to the army, but Jacobus shows promise and looks to be powerful enough to justify taking. Seraphim and Celestians have been nerfed to I3. All units have precisely ONE Act of faith and pretty much all of them suck except for the Repentia power. Which is useless if they're killed in shooting (like they usually are) instead of in assault. Acts of Faith no longer scale with army size, you get D6 no matter how many units you have-- making Battle Sisters all the worse for it. Immolators lost their fire point and the ability to fire after moving full out with TLHFs, so now they really are just razorbacks. And useless.
Only a few good notes: Bolt pistols and frag/krak are standard. Shield of Faith applies to vehicles, and they get smoke for free (but no searchlights). Seraphim shoot with each pistol individually, but they lose their special hit and run rule and must now make initiative tests to use hit and run... at their new reduced initiative of I3. The Penitent Engine gets extra attacks for unsaved wounds it makes, so it hits harder, but it's still AV11 open topped so it'll again not actually make it into combat anyway, especially since it's now slower than in the previous codex (holy rage was superior to rage). Celestians gain an extra attack, but their act of faith sucks for assaulting (+1 strength is nice, but fearless ISN'T on I3 / T3 models). Canoness gains +1 WS, but with the loss of the armoury I doubt we'll be able to use it--a nd she's still merely I4. Living Saint Celestine gains in WS, BS, and Initiative, but she's still a T3 model without eternal warrior. Her sword' wounds easier against high T models... which to her is anything other than a guardsman, whom she wounds LESS often now than before. And it's no longer master-crafted.
So every single good thing I had to say about it was countered by a bad thing. Overall, I was right, it does blow JUST as much as I was expecting... but I'm still sorely disappointed about that fact. And the sad part, it's not over yet. Now we get to see what stupid points costs they're going to give and waht we lost from losing our armoury.