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 Ezr91aeL wrote:

 Brutus_Apex wrote:

close combat heavy sisters with swords and shields

Could be simple giving Celestian the possibility to substitute their Boltgun with a Chainsword (free) or a Power Weapon (10 pt) and their Boltpistol with a Praesidium Protectiva (15 pt)

PS: The Cathedral Tank is a must!

I'd like to see Celestians be able to specialize how they see fit. Do something like how IG/AM veterans take a doctrine. They may either go CC and swap bolt gun for CC w/ upgrade to PW, OR they can swap for a combi weapon and like 2-3 can go special

 Salted Diamond wrote:

 Ezr91aeL wrote:

 Brutus_Apex wrote:

close combat heavy sisters with swords and shields

Could be simple giving Celestian the possibility to substitute their Boltgun with a Chainsword (free) or a Power Weapon (10 pt) and their Boltpistol with a Praesidium Protectiva (15 pt)

PS: The Cathedral Tank is a must!

I'd like to see Celestians be able to specialize how they see fit. Do something like how IG/AM veterans take a doctrine. They may either go CC and swap bolt gun for CC w/ upgrade to PW, OR they can swap for a combi weapon and like 2-3 can go special

If this is all you change you probably still won't ever see celestians unless they're cheaper tham basic sisters. A CQC model with S3 T3 I3 could have 200 wounds and 2+ 3++ and still be worthless. The combi-weapons might be neat but i'd rather have obsec 90% of the time.

Sisters need some broken, bs rules and units if we want them to survive past the initial rush and most people here are thinking too small rules wise. Although some epic ideas for new models are getting thrown around.

Erjak. I totally disagree with you about SoB needing "broken, bs rules and units". The arms race got us in the mess 40K is in now and there needs to be a stopping point. Having a fair and balanced dex will make it so we won't compete with the super broken combos and formations but it'll grant us the ability to play against a wide range of dexes and lists without being called "that guy". It's frustrating to find an opponent, he asks what army you play and you say "Eldar" and you can visibly see him start to think about not playing you. Then you have to explain that you don't use WK's or scatbikes or spam aspect host spiders. Your list is CAD and a healthy mix of units. I don't want to see SoB become another dirty word at the gaming store like Eldar, SM and Necron. All of which are hated not because the whole codex is OP but only because a few broken units/formations that WAAC or tourney players spam.

 Inevitable_Faith wrote:
Erjak. I totally disagree with you about SoB needing "broken, bs rules and units". The arms race got us in the mess 40K is in now and there needs to be a stopping point.

Agree. Sisters should be dialed back in power so that they're totally fair to play against.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

 Inevitable_Faith wrote:
Erjak. I totally disagree with you about SoB needing "broken, bs rules and units". The arms race got us in the mess 40K is in now and there needs to be a stopping point.

Agree. Sisters should be dialed back in power so that they're totally fair to play against.

I'm not saying they need to be eldar levels of busted but they need a few units/formations that opponents look at and go 'wow that's scary!'. There needs to be a reason to play them other than just aesthetics if the line wants to survive. You barely see Tyranid or Orks anywhere anymore and those factions have large loyal followings. If sister's are on the same level of power you'll see volume sales figures that might not be sustainable in the long term (obviously the pre-orders would be so huge that pretty much every outlet that buys GW products would go down but after the initial rush they still need to move models.) If we want sisters to be a product line that gets updated again in less than 20 years we need at least some small part of the codex to be powerful enough to draw in tournament gamers. Even if it was a single 'Riptide Wing' esque formation.

ERJAK wrote:

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

 Inevitable_Faith wrote:
Erjak. I totally disagree with you about SoB needing "broken, bs rules and units". The arms race got us in the mess 40K is in now and there needs to be a stopping point.

Agree. Sisters should be dialed back in power so that they're totally fair to play against.

I'm not saying they need to be eldar levels of busted but they need a few units/formations that opponents look at and go 'wow that's scary!'. There needs to be a reason to play them other than just aesthetics if the line wants to survive. You barely see Tyranid or Orks anywhere anymore and those factions have large loyal followings. If sister's are on the same level of power you'll see volume sales figures that might not be sustainable in the long term (obviously the pre-orders would be so huge that pretty much every outlet that buys GW products would go down but after the initial rush they still need to move models.) If we want sisters to be a product line that gets updated again in less than 20 years we need at least some small part of the codex to be powerful enough to draw in tournament gamers. Even if it was a single 'Riptide Wing' esque formation.

I don't think the power level of a codex is the single largest determinant of whether an army will sell well or be sustainable. My opinion is that it isn't but I have no evidence of this so I'll not use that as a defense. I don't want to see any units that are glaringly OP though as then I'll always hear the groans from my opponents any time I play them. I want to guiltlessly be able to field any model in the range. Having said that sure why not make some Tournament level formations to compete then in the higher tier play. It's easy enough for casual games then to field whatever you want and just don't take that formation. Formations I think in the long run will be easier to fix in 8th edition if they decide to tweak the power curve of the game rather than trying to adjust the points/rules of individual units without angering the player base. As for Orks and nids I don't know much about Ork units but I hear they are pretty universally on the weaker side of things. An entire codex under the power creep makes playing even casual games tough and I can see why the player base would dwindle. After all I gave up and am selling my CSM for that reason, I couldn't even compete with casual fun lists with them and I reused to buy a bunch of supplements, daemons and FW to try to keep up. I should be able to own 1 codex and put up a fight with it. Nids have a similar issue to Eldar but on a smaller curve in my opinion. In general the Eldar codex is fairly well balanced against the other 7.5 dexes but it has a few standout units that obviously need a points adjustment or rules changes (scatbikes, WK and aspect host warp spiders), it also has a few top tier formations. ids have a few standout units that are leaps and bounds better than the rest of the dex, a few formations as well and so it makes much of the dex obsolete. Same issue as Eldar but harder to play because their low end units don't hold up in casual play like elder units do. I could see them suffering for players for that reason as well.

I feel like formations are part of the larger issue here however, they're not all created equal. Some formations are fun and fluffy and essentially just add some flavour to your army whereas others are obviously top tier and designed to play in the highly competitive field. There is no distinction by GW however as to which are which and so you get players bringing top tier formations to casual fun games and the other guy wasn't prepared to fight that or doesn't own the model range to combat it effectively (or runs one of the weaker dexes such as vanilla CSM, orks or DE).

Would it be agreeable then Erjak to have the units be well balanced and fair for all play and then have a bunch of formations that can fit in either the casual/fluffy game style and some formations that are designed for higher tier tourney play? We are wishlisting here after all and assuming that GW can write solid and consistent rules

Sisters should be on par with IG - CSM / Ork tier army, as that's the typical threat they would face.

Dead trees, I just want to see ink on dead trees. That alone will make me laugh with joy.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
Sisters should be on par with IG - CSM / Ork tier army, as that's the typical threat they would face.

In a perfect world SoB should be balanced against ALL armies because GW released 8th edition and re-wrote all the codexes at the same time with the exact same power levels and good flavourful rules. That's an ideal scenario of course and while I believe GW is improving I don't think they're capable of that yet. I really dislike the schism we have right now where SM, Eldar, Necron and Tau can all fight each other alright but trounce most of the other dexes and DE and Orks are happy to go toe to toe as they are similar power levels. Would be nice if all dexes were on the same tier.

I'm OK with the split between interplanetary/orbital armies (Necrons, SMs, Eldar, Tau, IKTs) vs local armies (IG, SoB, CSM, DE, Orks). It's at least fluffy.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
I'm OK with the split between interplanetary/orbital armies (Necrons, SMs, Eldar, Tau, IKTs) vs local armies (IG, SoB, CSM, DE, Orks). It's at least fluffy.

I think that's silly. You basically have 2 different games at that point. You'd have real 40k with the worthwhile armies and other 40k with some kinda homebrew looking things I've never seen before. Power level is important and I would rather have people buy sister's the way they buy riptides than worry about that guy that still wants to play single CAD footslog CSM whining about exorcists being D3+3.

ERJAK wrote:

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
I'm OK with the split between interplanetary/orbital armies (Necrons, SMs, Eldar, Tau, IKTs) vs local armies (IG, SoB, CSM, DE, Orks). It's at least fluffy.

I think that's silly. You basically have 2 different games at that point. You'd have real 40k with the worthwhile armies and other 40k with some kinda homebrew looking things I've never seen before. Power level is important and I would rather have people buy sister's the way they buy riptides than worry about that guy that still wants to play single CAD footslog CSM whining about exorcists being D3+3.

I can agree to a point here. I'm less concerned with where the power level is sitting as long as all the available forces are sitting in the same spot. Erjak is right, you might as well have two separate games if you accept power level differences like that. And I don't think it's all that fluffy either, for example why are SM super-interplanetary-awesomesauce powerhaouse but CSM are just a fluff army? Why are DE, portrayed in the fluff as just as dangerous if not more so than their Craftworld cousins, sitting at the galactic kiddy table? Set one power level, adjust all available forces to meet that bar and I feel the game would be better off for it.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
Sisters should be on par with IG - CSM / Ork tier army, as that's the typical threat they would face.

Not if you want them to sell, which is what we all want neh?

People will buy new models mainly based on aesthetics and rules, often a mixture of the two.

(Like all the other armies) they need to be on a par with the cheese dexes - Eldar, Marines, Necrons and Tau.

At the very least they must have formations and such.

I'm OK with the split between interplanetary/orbital armies (Necrons, SMs, Eldar, Tau, IKTs) vs local armies (IG, SoB, CSM, DE, Orks). It's at least fluffy.

What is remotely fluffy in that statement - nothing - All the races fight small actions, even the Eldar occasionally carry out invasions - although they and the specific Marine Chapters have the lowest available manpower to do so. All the races have void and orbital assets.

Agree. Sisters should be dialed back in power so that they're totally fair to play against

This makes zero sense unless the same happens to Eldar, Tau, Necrons and Marines.

 Mr Morden wrote:

Agree. Sisters should be dialed back in power so that they're totally fair to play against

This makes zero sense unless the same happens to Eldar, Tau, Necrons and Marines.

I'd actually like that. SM, Necron, Eldar power builds getting dialed back (because I'm sure we can at least agree it's not the codexes as a whole that are OP but rather specific units and formations and combinations thereof) and then seeing general buffs given to the lower tier such as Orks, DE, CSM, Nids and the like. Meet the power levels in the middle. I feel the game has gotten far too killy at the top end and tabling people is far too easy with very strong builds so a sweet spot in the middle I think is preferable to having everything cranked to 11 (scatbikes) or tuned down to 2 (hellions). Were too deep in 7th to make big changes anymore I think but the release of 8th would be a good place to hit the reset button on power levels for all the factions, these staggered codex releases (which I'm sure are better for sales) really hurt the armies that wait years and years to get a current edition dex, I feel it's not viable for the game.

There's a thing where an army has a "concept", and if that concept aligns (accidentally, the rules writers have no idea how the meta is at any given time) with the meta the book will tend to be strong, otherwise weak.

From that perspective, sister theme is something like "marines that have t3 and like flamer/melta weapons". Odds are it'll be a loser. They are squarely in Necron territory (short range shooting) and instead of being t5 with 2 saves they are t3 with 1.

In terms of a rule to change this, how bout something like:

"Slaughterface: Wounds caused by models with this rule can only be saved against once, no rerolls, and no FNP or Reanimation Protocols or anthing else."

Then spam that like candy all over their dex. Make them the army that you can't be durable vs. Best anyone can do vs a particular roll is a 2+, so if you inflict 6X their wounds you kill them.

 Pouncey wrote:


The reason stems back to 2012, when I was talking to a long-term Grey Knights player on Dakka, and he described what it was like for him in 2011 when the 5e Grey Knights Codex came out.

Those FotM comments that people make about people who people who play the most powerful army... Those comments are indiscriminatory. No one who makes those comments bothers to find out anything about the person they're making them about. They are not limited to only people who did switch armies to be the most powerful, they are also leveled at long-term players of the army who would've been playing it anyways.

A particular situation he described was the most damning evidence of all that no matter what, you cannot get people to stop making those comments until your army is no longer the overpowered one. He was setting up for a game against a buddy he'd been playing against for years, who knew how long he'd been playing Grey Knights and that they were his main army the whole time. That friend, who knew him, who knew how long he'd been playing Grey Knights, who had the most first-hand knowledge that is possible that the Grey Knights player he was facing was not a FotM army switcher, looked at the Grey Knights, and made one of those rude comments people make when they're up against the FotM army. The Grey Knights player pointed out how he should know Grey Knights was his main army. The answer was, as I recall, "Oh. Yeah. Been a while since you've pulled them out though."

Same situation holds true for people who played Eldar before the 6th Ed codex came out. We get called Power Gamers, WAAC players, and all the other FOTM names just because the army we've played for over a decade suddenly became the big kid on the block. It's not our fault and if you don't like it, then quit spamming SM Razorbacks for free and pairing them with Skyhammer Annihilation Forces.

Basically, people are always gonna complain about a codex they perceive as more powerful than what they play. Whether it is or not. ESPECIALLY if there's something spammable, broken, or loop holey about it.

When you get into where any army "should" be you're dealing with overall game design and balance. If power level is dictated solely by your codex the book is flawed, if power level is solely dictated by all other codices besides your's the game is flawed. This is why you can forever argue about power balance. While it is easier to adjust power levels on a book to book level it will always fail to address the imbalances.

Where should SoB be? Somewhere between Space Marines and Tempestus Scions, as unhelpful as that is to say.

SoB are trained in Schola Progenium, just like Tempestus Scions and Commissars but with further faith teaching from the Ecclesiarchy and better equipment that is most similar to Space Marines. That should be central to how they are designed as an army and how their rules are approached. Going too far beyond that I think is wishful thinking.

Jathom wrote:

 Pouncey wrote:


The reason stems back to 2012, when I was talking to a long-term Grey Knights player on Dakka, and he described what it was like for him in 2011 when the 5e Grey Knights Codex came out.

Those FotM comments that people make about people who people who play the most powerful army... Those comments are indiscriminatory. No one who makes those comments bothers to find out anything about the person they're making them about. They are not limited to only people who did switch armies to be the most powerful, they are also leveled at long-term players of the army who would've been playing it anyways.

A particular situation he described was the most damning evidence of all that no matter what, you cannot get people to stop making those comments until your army is no longer the overpowered one. He was setting up for a game against a buddy he'd been playing against for years, who knew how long he'd been playing Grey Knights and that they were his main army the whole time. That friend, who knew him, who knew how long he'd been playing Grey Knights, who had the most first-hand knowledge that is possible that the Grey Knights player he was facing was not a FotM army switcher, looked at the Grey Knights, and made one of those rude comments people make when they're up against the FotM army. The Grey Knights player pointed out how he should know Grey Knights was his main army. The answer was, as I recall, "Oh. Yeah. Been a while since you've pulled them out though."

Same situation holds true for people who played Eldar before the 6th Ed codex came out. We get called Power Gamers, WAAC players, and all the other FOTM names just because the army we've played for over a decade suddenly became the big kid on the block. It's not our fault and if you don't like it, then quit spamming SM Razorbacks for free and pairing them with Skyhammer Annihilation Forces.

Basically, people are always gonna complain about a codex they perceive as more powerful than what they play. Whether it is or not. ESPECIALLY if there's something spammable, broken, or loop holey about it.

Agreed but what does not help anyone is that the power gap between armies is just so vast and growing. When the last Sisters codex came out they were quite effective with some very nasty elements - Dominions in particular.

However the 7.5 edition power dexes shattered any semblance of balance.

 Mr Morden wrote:

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
Sisters should be on par with IG - CSM / Ork tier army, as that's the typical threat they would face.

Not if you want them to sell, which is what we all want neh?

I'm OK with the split between interplanetary/orbital armies (Necrons, SMs, Eldar, Tau, IKTs) vs local armies (IG, SoB, CSM, DE, Orks). It's at least fluffy.

What is remotely fluffy in that statement - nothing - All the races fight small actions, even the Eldar occasionally carry out invasions - although they and the specific Marine Chapters have the lowest available manpower to do so. All the races have void and orbital assets.

Agree. Sisters should be dialed back in power so that they're totally fair to play against

This makes zero sense unless the same happens to Eldar, Tau, Necrons and Marines.

I do not care how well they sell - I only need to worry about myself. My only interest is whether the models look good and are playable against their typical fluffy opponents.

It is totally fluffy. Sisters are a local force, defensive in nature. They don't to mass battle (that's what Guard are for), and they don't do orbital strike (that's what SM are for). Sisters augment PDF and are weaker than SM and Eldar and Necrons and Tau.

There is nothing wrong with tiering the armies. Especially as hardly anybody plays particularly well nor plays in tournaments. The whole "competitive balance" thing is nonsense. So accept that Sisters are going to be non-competitive and let that be. Unless you want Sisters to be represented by WAAC FOTM jackholes instead of cool fluff bunnies...


Automatically Appended Next Post:

ERJAK wrote:

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
I'm OK with the split between interplanetary/orbital armies (Necrons, SMs, Eldar, Tau, IKTs) vs local armies (IG, SoB, CSM, DE, Orks). It's at least fluffy.

I think that's silly. You basically have 2 different games at that point. You'd have real 40k with the worthwhile armies and other 40k with some kinda homebrew looking things I've never seen before.

Power level is important and I would rather have people buy sister's the way they buy riptides than worry about that guy that still wants to play single CAD footslog CSM whining about exorcists being D3+3.

Nope. It's one game, with a competitive crowd and a fun crowd. I'm for the fun crowd.

What you are actually saying is that you want to be constantly defending how you're not actually "that guy", but that you're really into the army because you started with it in 2E / like the models / like the Fluff, etc.? Sisters already have a bad enough rep. Being labeled as powergamers doesn't help. Just be happy, like the Ork players.

I they don't sell they don't get supported - I thought that we had all agreed that - if they are not suported then they die.

Having armies at roughly the same level should be the aim of any game, it does not need to be prefect but just enough to make pick up gaems fun - not Oh you brough Eldar - ah well GG.

Gamers of all levels should be attracted to the army - for fluff, for asthetics and for rules.

The same argument holds for the Asartes - they don't do mass battle - thats for the Guard, the Eldar don't do mass battle, they don;t have the poulation, unless one its one fluff rule for one faction?

Sisters aren't dead, still hanging around. Not like, say Dogs of War. Or Squats.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
Sisters aren't dead, still hanging around. Not like, say Dogs of War. Or Squats.

I seem to recall you saying n another thread:

I think this is par for the course. Plastic Sisters of Battle is a pipe dream, and anybody who believes otherwise is in serious denial.

If sales are poor - its likely they go they way of WFB or just remain as fluff in the books - now recent fluff has been good - Sheild of Baal they kicked serious ass. If the new codex draws on this and reflects it - it will be awesome.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
Sisters should be on par with IG - CSM / Ork tier army, as that's the typical threat they would face.

Please tell me you are being sarcastic?

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
I'm OK with the split between interplanetary/orbital armies (Necrons, SMs, Eldar, Tau, IKTs) vs local armies (IG, SoB, CSM, DE, Orks). It's at least fluffy.

Someone needs to re-read the Armageddon fluff .
Some waaaghs could easily destroy whole chapters of space marines.

JohnHwangDD, no one would ever be called the "WAAC jackhole" player if all the armies were balanced against each other. Saying it's ok to tier the armies only achieves in arbitrarily dividing the player base.

In my case I don't have a large playing group and looking at our forces of our 6 regular players 3 would be top tier and 3 would be bottom tier. By accepting power differences in codexes we'd divide our group of 6 people who enjoy playing against each other to two group of three. No matter how you spin the fluff on that it'll never be fun to have our group divided.

On top of that you can run smaller matches with the top tier armies, smaller matches that let's say a SoB support force would realistically fight. If i'm fighting a small Eldar strike force even at a points level that the SoB would be "fluffy" to fight at I'd still be at a disadvantage because of the codex power tiers.

At the end of the day this is a game, it needs to be fun for as many people as it can to maintain a player base and so if certain fluff bits have to be ignored for the purpose of game rules to play balanced and fairly then I'm ok with that. Yes it is possible to mix both fluff and rules together harmoniously but if that can't, for whatever reason, be achieved then I think proper playable rules are more important than arbitrarily making a unit (or army) either too OP or too weak just because the fluff says so.

 Mr Morden wrote:

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
Sisters aren't dead, still hanging around. Not like, say Dogs of War. Or Squats.

I seem to recall you saying n another thread:

I think this is par for the course. Plastic Sisters of Battle is a pipe dream, and anybody who believes otherwise is in serious denial.

If sales are poor - its likely they go they way of WFB or just remain as fluff in the books

The one does not preclude the other. Dogs of War and Squats were both active lines that got discontinued; Sisters are still current. And I still don't believe we'll ever get plastic Sisters of Battle, and it is still my opinion that it is foolish to believe otherwise.

If sales are poor, then the status quo remains, because sales are poor today, and they're still around. That said, GW probably should say they're going to pull the plug at the end of the year. It'll allow them to get people to finally commit their dollars to buying, and show GW just how much latent Sisters demand exists. Or not... Then, as we saw with the IG last weekend, GW can do periodic made-to-order batches of Sisters by manipulating artificial scarcity.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 master of ordinance wrote:

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
Sisters should be on par with IG - CSM / Ork tier army, as that's the typical threat they would face.

Please tell me you are being sarcastic?

We are all wishlisting here, and I am wishing for SoB to be on par with CSM/Orks/IG, simple as that.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Inevitable_Faith wrote:
In my case I don't have a large playing group and looking at our forces of our 6 regular players 3 would be top tier and 3 would be bottom tier. By accepting power differences in codexes we'd divide our group of 6 people who enjoy playing against each other to two group of three. No matter how you spin the fluff on that it'll never be fun to have our group divided.

Maybe your group needs to play smarter, by handicapping the weaker tier against the top tier. Top tier costs +10% more; Bottom tier costs -10% less. Problem solved.

Umm, Johnny, why would you wish for a codex to be arbitrarily tiered with the weakest codex's in the entire game?

 master of ordinance wrote:
why would you wish for a codex to be arbitrarily tiered with the weakest codex's in the entire game?

Why not? Those are fun armies to play against.

Also, it's not "Johnny", TYVM. Play nice.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

 master of ordinance wrote:
why would you wish for a codex to be arbitrarily tiered with the weakest codex's in the entire game?

Why not? Those are fun armies to play against.

Also, it's not "Johnny", TYVM. Play nice.

Yeah, but they are also terrible and get roflstomped by every other codex, notably the all popular holy space elf/Space marysue/ Space communist trinity. I dont want Sisters to be murdered again :(

Play with better people, then.