Going by what someone else said above, I don't think you'd have this argument popping up over and over and over if there were more female models in 40K as a whole--OK, Space Marines are of course their own thing, but is there any particular reason why AM, Mechanicus, Genestealer Cults, Chaos Cultists, etc all need to be overwhelmingly sausage parties? I can understand the worry that making the hyper-gothic pyromaniac zealot space nuns too sensibly designed eliminates their aesthetic appeal, but I can also understand the frustration at "Men can look like anything in this setting, but women must look attractive even at the expense of practicality." that you repeatedly see throughout geek media as a whole.
It's the sort of tension that's inevitable when one faction carries the majority of female representation in the setting. Having more unglamorous but recognisably female models in the range might ease the burden a bit?
Two things are guaranteed in any Sisters of Battle thread: boob plate arguments, and demands for close combat units. We've done the former, and now we seem to be getting into the latter.
We already have Repentia. 8th Edition has fixed their main flaw (low mobility on a fragile unit), so they're almost worth using now. If you want CC units use Repentia, or ally something in. Sisters don't really need more CC.
EDIT: Also the first game I played of 8th Ed had my Sisters punching out a load of Dire Avengers. Wacky Seraphim loadouts or Spess Mehren-style COmmand Squads of doom aren't required.
Just because we have Repentia doesn't mean they're all we need, nor that they're all that can fit in the faction.
In fourth edition I had a single basic battle sister tie up Abbadon for an entire game (combination of terrible rolling and cheesy acts of faith), that doesn't mean we couldn't use more variety.
BBAP wrote: Two things are guaranteed in any Sisters of Battle thread: boob plate arguments, and demands for close combat units. We've done the former, and now we seem to be getting into the latter.
We already have Repentia. 8th Edition has fixed their main flaw (low mobility on a fragile unit), so they're almost worth using now. If you want CC units use Repentia, or ally something in. Sisters don't really need more CC.
EDIT: Also the first game I played of 8th Ed had my Sisters punching out a load of Dire Avengers. Wacky Seraphim loadouts or Spess Mehren-style COmmand Squads of doom aren't required.
I'd see a shield-equipped group of Celestians as a defensive melee unit, to act as a bodyguard for force multiplying characters and to counter-attack enemy assault units. Repentia are more aggressive. I think a melee Celestian unit would work, and be a simple dual kit.
Hell, we have official art of Sisters wielding power-glaives. Having Celestians wield them as part of their bodyguard role would actually give Celestians a purpose.
Melissia wrote: Hell, we have official art of Sisters wielding power-glaives. Having Celestians wield them as part of their bodyguard role would actually give Celestians a purpose.
Yep. 'Just like the normal Sisters but slightly better' is not particularly interesting role.
I think it is kinda granted that existing units will get some new weapon options along with new units. It's the best way to get old Sister players to buy the new stuff, and then when they have some new stuff they might end up being tempted to replace all the metal with plastic.
This is one reason I liked the new Van Saar necromunda gang. You got ladies in there, and "They're female" isn't an attribute of the whole group - it's just in there for some variety in the models.
But again, the best way to convey this on a 1.5" tall model is..molded breast armor of some form. If you look at the head on that model, it would not convey "female" just by itself. You need to keep the proportions relatively the same because the arms need to be interchangeable.
it's definitely not overdone in my opinion, but it is there.
Melissia wrote: Just because we have Repentia doesn't mean they're all we need, nor that they're all that can fit in the faction.
In fourth edition I had a single basic battle sister tie up Abbadon for an entire game (combination of terrible rolling and cheesy acts of faith), that doesn't mean we couldn't use more variety.
The main problem I have with the variety argument is that I see no way to enact it without damaging the faction's appeal. It's totally subjective, but there it is. Part of the Sisters' appeal to me is that, beneath all the power armour and high-grade weaponry and vehicles, you don't have a superhuman monstrosity with a healing factor and redundant organs - you have a normal woman who runs on faith, courage, and training. No specially engineered physical advantages, just 100% organic badass-ery. That's what their T3 represents. Thing is, T3 sets a pretty hard limit on what a model can do in close combat (where damage comes thicker and faster than in the shooting phase) without some hardcore gimmicks to obviate its inherent fragility. All that in mind, what gimmicks could you give a Sororitas CC unit to obviate the suckitude of T3 without turning them into cheesy-ass comic book superheroines?
Haighus wrote: I'd see a shield-equipped group of Celestians as a defensive melee unit, to act as a bodyguard for force multiplying characters and to counter-attack enemy assault units. Repentia are more aggressive.
I actually don't mind this idea, provided I don't have to give up the Celestians' guns for the shields. Being able to sack for characters is nice, but if that's all they're capable of doing then I'll just use normal units instead and leave the Shieldmaidens on the shelf.
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Melissia wrote: Hell, we have official art of Sisters wielding power-glaives. Having Celestians wield them as part of their bodyguard role would actually give Celestians a purpose.
... that purpose being "stand here with this powerglaive and wait for something to happen". Am I going to buy a unit that just sits in the backfield waiting for something to happen? Considering the inherent point cost that comes with power armour, I'm going to say "no". If the idea is for them to take the glaives and go looking for trouble then we already have Repentia for that.
Well, first off, T3 ain't that bad. You get wounded on 3s by Marines, true, but it's only at S6 you get wounded on 2s, and with no more instadeath... It ain't so bad.
Second of all, give them a stronger invuln. Better armor. An extra wound, maybe, or a Parry rule.
JNAProductions wrote: Well, first off, T3 ain't that bad. You get wounded on 3s by Marines, true, but it's only at S6 you get wounded on 2s, and with no more instadeath... It ain't so bad.
Dunno about anyone else, but I don't really judge a unit's CC competence on its ability to scuffle with Tactical Marines. If it can't hang with the likes of Bloodletters or Genestealers it isn't a CC unit.
By that metric I suppose Repentia still suck.
Second of all, give them a stronger invuln. Better armor. An extra wound, maybe, or a Parry rule.
Parry rule wouldn't be so bad, I guess, but the rest of it just seems a little MEQ. Why would a regular person have 2 Wounds when a Spess Mehren only has 1? I understand they could do it as a game mechanic to make the unit better at close combat, but that's pretty gamey.
JNAProductions wrote: Well, first off, T3 ain't that bad. You get wounded on 3s by Marines, true, but it's only at S6 you get wounded on 2s, and with no more instadeath... It ain't so bad.
Dunno about anyone else, but I don't really judge a unit's CC competence on its ability to scuffle with Tactical Marines. If it can't hang with the likes of Bloodletters or Genestealers it isn't a CC unit.
By that metric I suppose Repentia still suck.
Second of all, give them a stronger invuln. Better armor. An extra wound, maybe, or a Parry rule.
Parry rule wouldn't be so bad, I guess, but the rest of it just seems a little MEQ. Why would a regular person have 2 Wounds when a Spess Mehren only has 1? I understand they could do it as a game mechanic to make the unit better at close combat, but that's pretty gamey.
Yeah, I'd agree two wounds for non Characters would be a touch odd.
BBAP wrote: Two things are guaranteed in any Sisters of Battle thread: boob plate arguments, and demands for close combat units. We've done the former, and now we seem to be getting into the latter.
We already have Repentia. 8th Edition has fixed their main flaw (low mobility on a fragile unit), so they're almost worth using now. If you want CC units use Repentia, or ally something in. Sisters don't really need more CC.
EDIT: Also the first game I played of 8th Ed had my Sisters punching out a load of Dire Avengers. Wacky Seraphim loadouts or Spess Mehren-style COmmand Squads of doom aren't required.
I seriously cant undertand players with the "EVERYTHING should remain the same. NOTHING NEW" mentality.
Wirh that mentality we would have the same factions and units that we had in rogue trader! With thst mentality we wouldnt have had all the cool dead guard characters, or the daemon engines, or the civilian genestealer cult vehicles, etc...
Im definately in the "dont give sisters more close combat options" camp. Thats what ministorums crusaders are for and repentia. Seriously, with crusaders having access to AoF theyre sisters in all but name and model. Repentia might be fragile and go down quick but that is an example of a model reflecting its fluff 110%. Not everything cool is a night unkillable murder machine.
That said, Celestians still need something to make them more than basic sisters+0.5.
I wouldnt mind seeing a shield option for Celestians but instead of a cc loadout, keep to their shooty theme and let them have a pistol. A squad of shield celestians armed with inferno/handflamee/bolt pistols sounds alright (and gets away from space marine territory).
I assume he's also including my earlier concerns about new vehicle options potentially coming at the expense of existing "boring" options, while studiously ignoring the actual point being made.
In 3rd/ 4th (and part of 5th) it was possible to give all Sisters a 3++ save through AoF (easier for smaller units than larger ones IIRC but in theory everyone could get it). Thanks to T3 you were still rolling the same number of saves, hence still failing the same number of saves, thus they weren't any better in combat. Also they were still S3 so not very killy.
2+ armour save would fix the problem, but it's a gamey solution in the same way as 2 Wounds would be. 2+ is relic armour, or Terminator armour - what explanation is there for a bunch of Sisters suddenly having such rare and powerful armour when currently only Celestine has access to it? Not even the Canoness gets it yet this random bunch of Celestians do? It's possible to create a satisfying lore answer, but I can't see how.
Yodhrin wrote: I assume he's also including my earlier concerns about new vehicle options potentially coming at the expense of existing "boring" options, while studiously ignoring the actual point being made.
Actually I wasnt. And sorry but nothing comes at the expense of anything. If GW wants a faction to have something, that faction will have it, even if they give it other new options. If then dont want, that faction will not have it even without other options. Adeptus Mechanicus would never have had rhinos, etc... Even without the dunecrawler being made.
I understand your points, but your vision is just wishful thinking about how GW should behave, not how they do things.
And about CC in sisters, I dont know how 1 cc unit is enough for a faction that has never shown to be afraid of meele. Internet communities shown a serius lack of imagination at the time of designing new units for factions (myself included). Im glad GW has shown that they know how to add new units to new factions, barring units in factions so bloated like centurions.
Going by what someone else said above, I don't think you'd have this argument popping up over and over and over if there were more female models in 40K as a whole--OK, Space Marines are of course their own thing, but is there any particular reason why AM, Mechanicus, Genestealer Cults, Chaos Cultists, etc all need to be overwhelmingly sausage parties?
Just to be clear:
- Astra militarum models are super old, so any recent push for female models hasn't hit them yet.
- Skitarii are split male/female you just can't tell normally.
- Genestealer cults should have had female models for sure.
- Chaos cultists barely had any effort put into them.
Then we have the Tau (a pretty recent update) with female heads for new units. There's also the Sisters of silence. Eldar of course, as well.
Nids, orks, necrons are irrelevant.
Which leaves marines, but that's a can of worms.
So I would say that the sausage fest is simply a holdover from previous releases that haven't been updated or a resource constraint. (presumably, the Orlock gang was supposed to have female sculpts but they couldn't get it right in enough time due to the release schedule). Oh, and Marines (all flavors) take a lot of release time.
So all in all, I would guess that mixed units will be the norm going forward. Honestly though, just making guard units mixed would almost solve the issue by itself since they're the basis for most human female conversions anyway.
BBAP wrote: We already have Repentia. 8th Edition has fixed their main flaw (low mobility on a fragile unit), so they're almost worth using now. If you want CC units use Repentia, or ally something in. Sisters don't really need more CC..
They haven't really gotten any faster (if you faith them forwards they lose their support units and it halves their already questionable output with the gimpviscerators). At best they hide in a rhino waiting for something with 2 wounds a model to charge.
New model wise though repentia without the chainsword, as per the old 3e image of them, would help with their fragility. Cheap bodies to soak wounds.
Galas wrote: And about CC in sisters, I dont know how 1 cc unit is enough for a faction that has never shown to be afraid of meele
They might not be afraid of it, but that doesn't alter the fact that melee is where Sisters go to die and always has been. THe reason for this is that they're Guardsmen in melee - Guardsmen in fancy armour, but still fundamentally Guardsmen. Fortunately this has never been a crippling flaw, because they're as effective in the shooting phase as they are ineffective in close combat. They have a varied toolset for dealing with almost anything an opponent can throw at them, and what few gaps there are - long-range high-power weapons and mobility that doesn't rely on vehicles - can't be fixed by adding CC units.
The only way a Sisters CC unit could work under the faction's current design is if it's loaded down with enough gimmicks to make it function, or it defies the faction's established paradigm in some way. Simply handing shields and CCWs to the S3 T3 models is not enough, and considering CC units won't fix Sisters' current weaknesses I just feel it's an exercise in pointless vandalism.
The other way they could do it is to fundamentally redesign the faction from the ground up. That's not something I'm particularly enthusiastic to see. GW have been doing rather well for the last 18 months, but it seems that whenever Sisters get an update it screws them over somehow. Maybe that'll change now they're an established part of the lore, but I'd still rather they just l;eave things as they are.
Internet communities shown a serius lack of imagination at the time of designing new units for factions (myself included).
Very much so, as evinced by the fact Sisters players have been crying out for CC units for the last 4 Editions of the game despite the fact they fix none of the SoB's weaknesses and are wholly unnecessary.
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A.T. wrote: They haven't really gotten any faster (if you faith them forwards they lose their support units and it halves their already questionable output with the gimpviscerators). At best they hide in a rhino waiting for something with 2 wounds a model to charge.
I'll confess, I hadn't really looked at the Repentia's unit card before I started posting here. I did so in response to this reply, and I take back whatever I said earlier. What the hell happened to their Eviscerators? Why have they been nerfed so hard? I mean they were starting from a low base, why bother making them worse?
Unfortunately its a design decision that GW appears to have made that close combat weapons that double strength mostly come with a -1 to hit, as to why the spacemarine and sisters evisorator have different profiles. Ask GW marine one is Sx2 ap-4 d3 damage to Sx2 ap-2 D2. But no wonder no one wants repentia as a unit, my sisters of silence are IMHO better and they aren't realy that competitive a choice.
BBAP wrote: I'll confess, I hadn't really looked at the Repentia's unit card before I started posting here. I did so in response to this reply, and I take back whatever I said earlier. What the hell happened to their Eviscerators? Why have they been nerfed so hard? I mean they were starting from a low base, why bother making them worse?
Eviscerators in general have been gimped pretty hard with the loss of their anti-vehicle rules - they are a poor mans thunderhammer in most cases. Possibly because they are a generic assault marine weapon now.
For the repentia specifically though I don't know. Death cultists with their knives actually do more damage to vehicles on the charge unless you are facing T8 or have stacked support characters onto the repentia (which fall out of range the moment the repentia use faith to move). The unit is also more fragile now than it's ever been and worse at fighting infantry due to reduced attacks and chance to hit.
It's not all bad. They don't hit last and there are worse units in the game. But both they and penitents are rather unspectacular.
The fundamental problem with Repentia remains that "a bunch of unaugmented humans on foot with no armour and no ranged weapons" is not a viable unit concept in this game and never has been. They might look cool in the art and fiction, but there isn't really any way of making them effective in the game without either giving them special rules that trample all over the basic concept (i.e. making them no longer feel in any way like unaugmented humans with no armour) or turning them into an ultra-cheap horde unit (which just destroys any emotional significance of their whole martyrdom deal).
I guess you could make them a unit of mini-characters with multiple wounds and attacks each and say that only the most badass and experienced of Sororitas are allowed to become Repentia. But if you're going to change the fluff that much to make them work in the game, I think you have to ask if it's worth keeping them at all.
Maybe it's time to retire Repentia to being a lore-exclusive unit like SM chapter serfs?
Duskweaver wrote: The fundamental problem with Repentia remains that "a bunch of unaugmented humans on foot with no armour and no ranged weapons" is not a viable unit concept in this game and never has been.
It has been done somewhat successfully - 3rd edition zealots. You just need a way to absorb damage and the zealots brought four cheap meatshields for every multi-attack evsicerator zealot.
Repentia have had everything else at various times - better weapons, more durability (feel no pain), more speed, protection from moral. They'd be a good candidate to trigger the moral stratagem too. But the unit has never managed to quite get its ducks all in a row and ultimately I think it does just come down to the lack of non-eviscerator models. Without cheap chaff each model is either too expensive for its unarmoured T3 profile or gimped down in line with a lower cost.
Duskweaver wrote: The fundamental problem with Repentia remains that "a bunch of unaugmented humans on foot with no armour and no ranged weapons" is not a viable unit concept in this game and never has been.
Like the last dude said, Repentia have had their uses at times. They've never been a competitive unit, but they could at least hurt people who didn't deal with them appropriately. Their problem prior to the nerfbat was mainly that they were easy to predict and even easier to deal with - they were too fragile to survive a turn being shot at *and* a turn of being hit first, and didn't have the mobility to avoid damage and arrive in a decent assault position unmolested.
Ultimately though, I guess I agree with what you're saying. I remember in 5th Edition, how everyone thought Haywire Wyches were the new hotness to deal with vehicles and everyone was trying desperately to make them work, though they never did. T3 stuff just can't take damage very well - power armour helps against shooting, where you're rolling a handful of saves here and there, but in CC where everyone has 2+ attacks each it just doesn't work without gimmicks or lore-breaking changes.
Maybe it's time to retire Repentia to being a lore-exclusive unit like SM chapter serfs?
This feels wrong to me. Every faction has fluffy units that exist solely to represent the lore and are never used in anger by players - which is fine, because narrative games are a thing that happens apparently, so it's not the worst idea to have units useful here and nowhere else.
BBAP wrote: Thing is, T3 sets a pretty hard limit on what a model can do in close combat (where damage comes thicker and faster than in the shooting phase) without some hardcore gimmicks to obviate its inherent fragility. All that in mind, what gimmicks could you give a Sororitas CC unit to obviate the suckitude of T3 without turning them into cheesy-ass comic book superheroines?
Point cost.
Or a 2+.
Or a good FnP.
Or just hit very hard.
Or any mixture of those.
BBAP wrote: 2+ armour save would fix the problem, but it's a gamey solution in the same way as 2 Wounds would be. 2+ is relic armour, or Terminator armour - what explanation is there for a bunch of Sisters suddenly having such rare and powerful armour when currently only Celestine has access to it? Not even the Canoness gets it yet this random bunch of Celestians do? It's possible to create a satisfying lore answer, but I can't see how.
The wealthiest, most influential faction in the stuff, that routinely build absolutely insane vanity project just because? The one that collect tithes from almost every world in the galaxy? The only one that has usually multiple representatives among the High Lords?
How could they possibly gather the influence to get something like artificer armor?
Well, actually I can't think of a single reason why they can't…
BBAP wrote: What explanation is there for a bunch of Sisters suddenly having such rare and powerful armour when currently only Celestine has access to it? Not even the Canoness gets it yet this random bunch of Celestians do? It's possible to create a satisfying lore answer, but I can't see how.
Aspirate cloaks or praesidium protectivas - old 3rd edition stuff (and also used in the RPGs).
The praesidum shields probably suit the celestians better but also steps on the toes of the crusader unit... and frankly the crusaders aren't all that much use as a unit even with the big CC combo of storm shields, power weapons, and rerolls.
The Praesidium Protectiva could work as an explanation I suppose, but it wouldn't make the Celestians any more formidable in CC. The Cloaks were an officer-only thing too (Cloak of St. Aspira, IIRC).
BBAP wrote: Thing is, T3 sets a pretty hard limit on what a model can do in close combat (where damage comes thicker and faster than in the shooting phase) without some hardcore gimmicks to obviate its inherent fragility. All that in mind, what gimmicks could you give a Sororitas CC unit to obviate the suckitude of T3 without turning them into cheesy-ass comic book superheroines?
Point cost.
Or a 2+.
Or a good FnP.
Or just hit very hard.
Or any mixture of those.
BBAP wrote: 2+ armour save would fix the problem, but it's a gamey solution in the same way as 2 Wounds would be. 2+ is relic armour, or Terminator armour - what explanation is there for a bunch of Sisters suddenly having such rare and powerful armour when currently only Celestine has access to it? Not even the Canoness gets it yet this random bunch of Celestians do? It's possible to create a satisfying lore answer, but I can't see how.
The wealthiest, most influential faction in the stuff, that routinely build absolutely insane vanity project just because? The one that collect tithes from almost every world in the galaxy? The only one that has usually multiple representatives among the High Lords?
How could they possibly gather the influence to get something like artificer armor?
Well, actually I can't think of a single reason why they can't…
The Ecclesiarchy is rich and powerful enough to access artificer armour, I can see Celestians and especially Canonesses being justifiably equipped with it. Although Inquisitors should also get access to it (outside of the multiple named Inquisitor models who do have artificer armour, which makes it even more weird that other Inquisitors don't).
You could give them all of these buffs and they still wouldn't be scary. In my mind a CC unit that's marginally better at fisticuffs than Celestians is not particularly impressive. For my money Genestealers have been the yardstick against which CC units should be measured for the last few editions - if your CC unit isn't scaring away Genestealers, then it's not a CC unit.
The wealthiest, most influential faction in the stuff, that routinely build absolutely insane vanity project just because? The one that collect tithes from almost every world in the galaxy? The only one that has usually multiple representatives among the High Lords? How could they possibly gather the influence to get something like artificer armor?
Well, actually I can't think of a single reason why they can't…
The Adepta Sororitas aren't the Ministorum. Moreover no matter how rich a faction might be, artificer and relic armour is supposed to be rare as all hell and Terminator armour is essentially an heirloom from a forgotten age. When collecting these kinds of artefacts prestige is what matters rather than wealth; that's why the Astartes have it coming out of their ears, whilst the Sororitas have historically been lucky to have a single suit of 2+ armour per army.
Now suddenly they're all wearing it because some folk think they need to do more fisticuffs. That's C.S. Goto-tier silly.
The Adepta Sororitas aren't the Ministorum. Moreover no matter how rich a faction might be, artificer and relic armour is supposed to be rare as all hell and Terminator armour is essentially an heirloom from a forgotten age. When collecting these kinds of artefacts prestige is what matters rather than wealth; that's why the Astartes have it coming out of their ears, whilst the Sororitas have historically been lucky to have a single suit of 2+ armour per army.
Now suddenly they're all wearing it because some folk think they need to do more fisticuffs. That's C.S. Goto-tier silly.
No, but they are funded by them, and one of their most favoured branches. You don't get bolters and power armour if you are not an influential, well funded faction. The Ministorum does also have enormous influence and prestige to match it's wealth. The real question is how many Sisters are there roughly in the Imperium? It is quite possible the numbers are comparable to Marines, but I suspect there are more Sisters than Marines. Not hugely so though.
Anyway, I think giving Celestians artificer armour is probably a bit too much, but Cannonesses and Palatines should get access to it. Even so, they could have a shield that improves their armour save by 1. That would have the same effect, without being a fluff issue.
I am drawing a blank on why T3 matters to an assault unit.
Genestealers could be T3 and I am not convinced it would be a dramatic nerf. If it got them a points reduction it would only make the unit better.
T3/3+ is better protection than T4/5++ against S4/AP0. Its the same against S4/AP-1.
A melee unit just needs a reliable way of getting into assault - preferably with better odds than 50/50 on the first turn - and some good damage so it will hurt anything it connects with.
The units which struggle are those which can't easily get into assault, so are wasted points for much of the game, and/or then don't do very much when they get there. So your target just falls back (and this doesn't even cost plenty of units their shooting) and/or you get counter-charged by something nasty.
You could give them all of these buffs and they still wouldn't be scary.
So you mean that a 6 ppm model with a 2+, a 3+++, that has 3 attacks each, WS 2+, weapons that gives +5S, AP-4, D highest of 2d6 wouldn't be good?
I'm sorry I just added all of those bonuses I listed.
Genestealers are scared, titan are scared, even hordes are scared because you can almost match their number of models whilst being much more tanky and hitting harder, and also everyone is crying about how broken OP that unit is. Congrats.
BBAP wrote: The Adepta Sororitas aren't the Ministorum.
You are right. They are the ministorum's vanity project. Which makes them… even more likeley to get cool stuff.
BBAP wrote: When collecting these kinds of artefacts prestige is what matters rather than wealth; that's why the Astartes have it coming out of their ears, whilst the Sororitas have historically been lucky to have a single suit of 2+ armour per army.
Nope lololol the reason why marines have it our of their ears is because GW loves marines and always want to give them more stuff, no fluff reason involved.
Influence matters more than “prestige” and the Ecclesiarchy has more of it than any SM chapter.
Honestly both the shooty and the melee version of elite Sisters unit should have it.
Isn't the fluff reason they don't have it to do with them trying to overthrow the high lords of terra hence assasins going full war on them and wiping out most of the upper managment leaving it intact but nothing like as much of a single entity so it wasn't a threat. Plus if crawl the fluff rules don't apply master can't hand out artificer armour to primaris, the golden chruch pinups ain't likely to be getting many given they would have to be especially specially made as power armour at ita fullest potential requires the black carapace? Hence most of the artisan power armour is more likely to be in that pattern over the special order human size model.
The only exception I could see would be the SoS as the were around the empiror during the crusade so probably had second dibs after custodes on the special toys.
Ice_can wrote: would have to be especially specially made as power armour at ita fullest potential requires the black carapace?
We have three known examples of human-sized artificer armour.
The armour of this chap:
This fella:
and finally this man, although he is unusually large and Space Marine-sized:
So human artificer armour definitely does exist, and provides close-enough benefits to Marine versions as to have no difference in game rules. Now, Hector Rex and Torquemada Coteaz are both very powerful Inquisitors who you could expect to have access to this kind of gear. Solomon Lok, on the other hand, is not a particularly impressive Inquisitor in rank or influence, and he is actually betrayed by more powerful Inquisitors. Therefore, the conclusion is that artificer armour is not so restricted as to be only for the most powerful of all humans, and certainly not restricted to Space Marines.
We can however, reasonably assume there are a LOT more SoB than there are Inquisitors in the Imperium, and of the Inquisitors, the majority wear Flak or Carapace armour, and a select few wear Power armour, and so the numbers who were artificer armour must be very small indeed...
Ice_can wrote: Isn't the fluff reason they don't have it to do with them trying to overthrow the high lords of terra hence assasins going full war on them and wiping out most of the upper managment leaving it intact but nothing like as much of a single entity so it wasn't a threat.
No - the high lord Vandire wiped out most of the upper management and took the dual position of lord and ecclesiarch, and basically tried to take over the Imperium. The whole age of apostasy and events leading up to it are pretty interesting fluff.
The sisters were his personal bodyguard and killed him after their leaders met the Emperor in person were told Vandire was a false prophet. The new ecclesiarch, Sebastian Thor, was the guy who broke up the power of the church and pushed through the reformation of the sisters into the militant order they are now in part as a safeguard against another Vandire.
As for the armour, it was commissioned by Vandire. Likely similar to the Immolator, Rosasius, etc with the church having a constant supply from the mechanicum in return for certain concessions, and quite possibly the same model under the boob-plate and other adornments as the elite of the old frateris templar wore
AdmiralHalsey wrote: We can however, reasonably assume there are a LOT more SoB than there are Inquisitors in the Imperium, and of the Inquisitors, the majority wear Flak or Carapace armour, and a select few wear Power armour, and so the numbers who were artificer armour must be very small indeed...
We can, but can we assume there are a lot more Canonesses? Also, as per their rules, Inquisitors come with carapace armour default when on the battlefield*. They also have access to Terminator armour in some cases. Anyway, the point is largely that the suits are available to those who have the means, and the Ministorum most certainly has the means. For a start, the fact that every Sister has power armour, despite there likely being more of them than Inquisitors, yet not every Inquisitor does*, surely speaks to the huge resources of the Ministorum?
*I think Inquisitors should have access to mesh/flak armour by default, simply because they should have just about all the Imperial options for equipment, but as it stands, Inquisitors are assumed to at least equip carapace armour before venturing onto a known battlefield in 40k. **Yes, this is likely down to personal choice in a lot of cases, although power armour is undoubtedly superior to carapace armour on a battlefield.
Just to be clear I wasn't implying that it wouldn't exsist, more that it would be more likely to be quite rare more so than human size conventional power armour. Which is rarer than marine size powerarmour. Which is still rarer than carapace armour which in turn is rarer than flak armour.
One piece of fluff said human size power armour was rare because it's hard to produce and most of the avilable power armour production capacity is given over to Mechanicus tilths which means the forgeworld ship it to someone as part of their faithful service of mars. Who presumably ship it to marines or store it for additional foundings.
Ice_can wrote: Isn't the fluff reason they don't have it to do with them trying to overthrow the high lords of terra hence assasins going full war on them and wiping out most of the upper managment leaving it intact but nothing like as much of a single entity so it wasn't a threat.
No.
None of this happened.
I mean, it looks like you hard an extremely distorted version of the Age of Apostasy stuff, but got every detail wrong.
The Ecclesiarchy is among the most hierarchical organization of the Imperium.
A.T. wrote: As for the armour, it was commissioned by Vandire.
Ice_can wrote: Isn't the fluff reason they don't have it to do with them trying to overthrow the high lords of terra hence assasins going full war on them and wiping out most of the upper managment leaving it intact but nothing like as much of a single entity so it wasn't a threat.
No.
None of this happened.
I mean, it looks like you hard an extremely distorted version of the Age of Apostasy stuff, but got every detail wrong.
The Ecclesiarchy is among the most hierarchical organization of the Imperium.
A.T. wrote: As for the armour, it was commissioned by Vandire.
Not official fluff.
Fancanon only.
It's not an area of fluff I'm familiar with hence it being a question most of it is just bits and pieces picked up in other books that I was reading that mentioned it but focoused on different factions.
Ice_can wrote: Just to be clear I wasn't implying that it wouldn't exsist, more that it would be more likely to be quite rare more so than human size conventional power armour. Which is rarer than marine size powerarmour. Which is still rarer than carapace armour which in turn is rarer than flak armour.
One piece of fluff said human size power armour was rare because it's hard to produce and most of the avilable power armour production capacity is given over to Mechanicus tilths which means the forgeworld ship it to someone as part of their faithful service of mars. Who presumably ship it to marines or store it for additional foundings.
The reasoning for human power armour being rare makes sense, but I am not sure if I agree on there being less than Marine power armour, although Marines probably get through a lot of components through attrition with their constant wars against dangerous foes, which is the same requirement as producing lots of new suits.
We know there are approximately a million Astartes, give or take a few thousand eitherway. Compared to the size and toal population of the Imperium, that is peanuts. Now, to assume there are less human power armoured suits means there must be no more than probably 4 or 5 million Battle Sisters (allowing for very generous stockpiles of 3-4 spare suits per active Astartes). Over the holdings of the Ecclesiarchy across the Imperium, this seems like quite a small number. It is not uncommon for a world to have a squad or two of Sisters manning a convent, and the larger worlds generally have contingents, and there are millions of worlds in the Imperium. I think it is likely that human power armour suits are in much greater supply than Marine ones, and exist in greater actual numbers, but in comparison to the teeming masses of humanity, they are rarer. Whereas the majority of Marines have power armour.
This isn't even counting the other suits not in use by the Sisters of Battle, such as the many Techpriest Enginseers supporting Imperial Guard units who have a suit.
But logical. They didn't have it prior to becoming the Brides of the Emperor and Katherine died wearing a suit (the same armour Celestine wears) which leaves a relatively narrow window.
I think Celestians will be a separate kit with much more orange armor and probably meaner looking weapons, even before considering whether the concept itself will be rethought.
Galas wrote:"If your CC unit isn't scaring away genestealer, then its not a CC unit", thats not how this works.
You can't compare a unit with one of the best of his type, and if it can't compete with it, it is just a useless unit.
Point costs, sinergyes, the context of the faction, all of that matters.
If the unit is ass then its synergies and context need to be seriously tight to make the unit worth taking.
The inverse is not true - a capable unit that synergises poorly or doesn't fit the context of the army is still a capable unit.
If I can't compare it to the best unit of its class then what can I compare it to? If it's not standing up to other CC units then it sucks as a CC unit, that's all there is to it.
Tyel wrote:I am drawing a blank on why T3 matters to an assault unit.
T3 means anything S3+ can make you roll lots of saves. I spent a fair chunk of 7th playing Genestealer Cults - they're a T3 5+ army and they worked in assault, but only because they had a huge raft of gimmicks backing them up. IC bubbles, Formations that gave them Shrouding and resurrection shenanigans, Telepathic Summons, etc etc.
Genestealers could be T3 and I am not convinced it would be a dramatic nerf. If it got them a points reduction it would only make the unit better.
It'd be less of an issue in CC now that chargers fight first, because Genestealers can take out a lot of models in one swing, but against anyone that can live to swing back it'd cost you Genestealers. It wouldn't be a significant nerf, but still a nerf.
Of course, it'd also make them more vulnerable to shooting, which leads us into...
A melee unit just needs a reliable way of getting into assault - preferably with better odds than 50/50 on the first turn - and some good damage so it will hurt anything it connects with.
So we need to add jump-packs to the list of stuff the Celestians require to make them work. Or CUlt Ambush, I guess.
The units which struggle are those which can't easily get into assault, so are wasted points for much of the game, and/or then don't do very much when they get there. So your target just falls back (and this doesn't even cost plenty of units their shooting) and/or you get counter-charged by something nasty.
"Counter-charged by something nasty"... A proper CC unit needs to be nasty enough itself that it can move to positions covered in "nasty" and still have a fair shot at walking away victorious. Simply being able to run down standard infantry isn't enough; they need to worry other CC units or they're just not worth taking.
Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:
So you mean that a 6 ppm model with a 2+, a 3+++, that has 3 attacks each, WS 2+, weapons that gives +5S, AP-4, D highest of 2d6 wouldn't be good?
I'm sorry I just added all of those bonuses I listed.
Behave yourself. Such a model shouldn't cost 6 points, and if it does it's massively undercosted.
Come back with a unit that's actually worth 6ppm, or cost that model appropriately. Then we'll talk.
Nope lololol the reason why marines have it our of their ears is because GW loves marines and always want to give them more stuff, no fluff reason involved.
There's that too, I suppose.
Influence matters more than “prestige” and the Ecclesiarchy has more of it than any SM chapter.
Amongst the general populace that's likely true - but iot's not the citizens of the Imperium that make artificer armour, is it? It's the Tech priests. Are they going to give 200 suits of artificer armour to a Cardinal just because he asks for it? What's he going to threaten them with? "Giz the armour or I'll set my massively undercosted Celestians on you!"?
A.T. wrote: They didn't have it prior to becoming the Brides of the Emperor and Katherine died wearing a suit (the same armour Celestine wears) which leaves a relatively narrow window.
Lots of reforms happened during that “small window”.
Manchu wrote: I think Celestians will be a separate kit with much more orange armor and probably meaner looking weapons, even before considering whether the concept itself will be rethought.
Orange???
BBAP wrote: Behave yourself. Such a model shouldn't cost 6 points, and if it does it's massively undercosted.
Come back with a unit that's actually worth 6ppm, or cost that model appropriately. Then we'll talk.
“We can make them work by making them cheap point-wise”
“No we can't”
“Yes we can, imagine if they costed this much!”
“That's cheating, they are undercosted”
Yeah I took an extreme example, that's to make it extremely obvious that you can make it work. In between the totally broken version that I mentioned and the useless version that you envision, there is some balanced version.
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BBAP wrote: Come back with a unit that's actually worth 6ppm, or cost that model appropriately. Then we'll talk.
I love how you sincerely believe that the appropriate cost for some model is a cost that makes them useless.
BBAP wrote: Amongst the general populace that's likely true - but iot's not the citizens of the Imperium that make artificer armour, is it? It's the Tech priests. Are they going to give 200 suits of artificer armour to a Cardinal just because he asks for it? What's he going to threaten them with? "Giz the armour or I'll set my massively undercosted Celestians on you!"?
Are you freaking kidding me?
"Hey we are marines we just do whatever the hell we want we don't have anything to give you because we don't make things we just destroy them, give use some armor"
versus
"Hey we are the Ecclesiarchy, we have an enormous amount of influence AND riches that we can give you back in exchange, give us some armor"
I mean, for real, if you are a tech priest and want to dedicate 100 years for a single power armor (which is sort of how you make artificer armor), then the Ecclesiarchy give you all the resources you need to do so, plus tons of money for yourself, for those whole 100 years.
Marines? Nah sorry they left in their big spaceship to go to the other side of the galaxy, and they didn't have the resources in the first place.
Oh what's that? Marine can try to threaten the Mechanicus you say? YEAH SURE THAT SOUNDS LIKE A PERFECTLY REASONABLE IDEA, THREATEN THE PEOPLE THAT MAKE YOUR WEAPONS, WHAT COULD GO WRONG, I MEAN BESIDE BEING DECLARED EXCOMUNICATE TRAITORIS?
The biggest problem is GW's fluff department isnt very good at keep all the faction fluff consistent.
Also the mechanicus doesn't have the same motivation as the rest of the imperium.
But also some fluff like one of the spacmarine books talks about techpriests in the fortress monastery forges, this maybe ment to be techmarines but again inconsistenc.
Yodhrin wrote: I assume he's also including my earlier concerns about new vehicle options potentially coming at the expense of existing "boring" options, while studiously ignoring the actual point being made.
Actually I wasnt. And sorry but nothing comes at the expense of anything. If GW wants a faction to have something, that faction will have it, even if they give it other new options. If then dont want, that faction will not have it even without other options. Adeptus Mechanicus would never have had rhinos, etc... Even without the dunecrawler being made.
I understand your points, but your vision is just wishful thinking about how GW should behave, not how they do things.
And about CC in sisters, I dont know how 1 cc unit is enough for a faction that has never shown to be afraid of meele. Internet communities shown a serius lack of imagination at the time of designing new units for factions (myself included). Im glad GW has shown that they know how to add new units to new factions, barring units in factions so bloated like centurions.
Actually GW doesn't have unlimited resources for releasing new SKU's so it's not quarantee you will get A AND B. They have only so many kits they are going to release at one time. Case in point eldar jetbikes that waited for good decade for release slot...
In 3rd/ 4th (and part of 5th) it was possible to give all Sisters a 3++ save through AoF (easier for smaller units than larger ones IIRC but in theory everyone could get it). Thanks to T3 you were still rolling the same number of saves, hence still failing the same number of saves, thus they weren't any better in combat. Also they were still S3 so not very killy.
2+ armour save would fix the problem, but it's a gamey solution in the same way as 2 Wounds would be. 2+ is relic armour, or Terminator armour - what explanation is there for a bunch of Sisters suddenly having such rare and powerful armour when currently only Celestine has access to it? Not even the Canoness gets it yet this random bunch of Celestians do? It's possible to create a satisfying lore answer, but I can't see how.
Plenty of explanations for 2+. Like that big shield they carry with it's own bespoke rule. After all GW decided every shield in the game can now work differently to other shield so provide some bespoken rules for it. Add to that power weapon or some other CC weapon with bespoken rule of it's own and suitably cheap point cost.
A lot of talk of better protection and power weapons, and the models would probably look pretty good. But with crusaders to look to as an example (they have faith and everything) - would the unit actually be any good, or even serve a role in the same faction as the crusaders?
(on the assumption the ecclesiarchy isn't getting left behind - which, as much as I prefer the power armour, would be a bad thing for the faction going forwards IMO)
True. Occams razor though - either the sisters managed to rapidly push through a mass order of power armour during a phase of enforced demilitarization and suspicion from the admech within living memory of trying to conqueror the imperium ... or the second most powerful man in the Imperium in control of a significant fraction of its wealth and military, its religion, and its government commissioned the armour for his personal bodyguard, potentially from armour his elite guard were already using.
A.T. wrote: A lot of talk of better protection and power weapons, and the models would probably look pretty good. But with crusaders to look to as an example (they have faith and everything) - would the unit actually be any good, or even serve a role in the same faction as the crusaders?
(on the assumption the ecclesiarchy isn't getting left behind - which, as much as I prefer the power armour, would be a bad thing for the faction going forwards IMO)
True. Occams razor though - either the sisters managed to rapidly push through a mass order of power armour during a phase of enforced demilitarization and suspicion from the admech within living memory of trying to conqueror the imperium ... or the second most powerful man in the Imperium in control of a significant fraction of its wealth and military, its religion, and its government commissioned the armour for his personal bodyguard, potentially from armour his elite guard were already using.
Yeah, I suspect it is a cosmetic change for an existing mark of power armour. I personally feel that the moulded breasts on the torso, for example, are entirely decorative, and are simply placed upon the actual, protective torso plate (and avoids any meaningful bullet trap. Would need a lot of reparing though!). This would basically be a minor aesthetic change to the function of the armour.
A.T. wrote: Occams razor though - either the sisters managed to rapidly push through a mass order of power armour during a phase of enforced demilitarization and suspicion from the admech within living memory of trying to conqueror the imperium ... or the second most powerful man in the Imperium in control of a significant fraction of its wealth and military, its religion, and its government commissioned the armour for his personal bodyguard, potentially from armour his elite guard were already using.
Well, to be fair, you'd also have to point out that :
a) the disgrace of Vandire meant that changing the uniform of a force strongly associated to him would make total sense
b) that demilitarization phase implied that a LOT of previously used equipment was suddenly not needed by the Ecclesiarchy anymore, so...
I'm not saying your guess is ridiculous, I'm saying it's not 100% obvious and different interpretation could make sense too .
JNAProductions wrote: So Bloodletters are a bad CC unit? They're T3, and they kick quite a lot of butt.
Do they really? I was under the impression Bloodletters were the inbred cousins of the Chaos Daemons faction, and had been for like 3 editions. I certainly never gave a gak about scrapping with them when I was playing GSC in 7th, and I don't see any major improvements in 8th either.
BBAP wrote: Behave yourself. Such a model shouldn't cost 6 points, and if it does it's massively undercosted.
Come back with a unit that's actually worth 6ppm, or cost that model appropriately. Then we'll talk.
“We can make them work by making them cheap point-wise”
“No we can't”
“Yes we can, imagine if they costed this much!”
“That's cheating, they are undercosted”
You're misrepresenting your argument here. What you want to do is load the Celestians down with a bunch of upgrades and then deliberately undercost them. I mean, that works - but it works because they're undercosted, not because you're a game design genius.
I love how you sincerely believe that the appropriate cost for some model is a cost that makes them useless.
You want them to have a 2+/3++, AP -4 CCWs, all kinds of other gak, and then want to pay 6 points per model for them? Behave yourself.
"Hey we are marines we just do whatever the hell we want we don't have anything to give you because we don't make things we just destroy them, give use some armor"
versus
"Hey we are the Ecclesiarchy, we have an enormous amount of influence AND riches that we can give you back in exchange, give us some armor"
Spess Mehrens have been the Imperium's premier fighting force for 10,000 years at this point. They're not asking anyone for anything, it's already there in the armoury.
Versus
A group that didn't exist prior to the Age of Apostasy and is currently serving as the armed wing of an organisation actively disliked by the new Lord Commander of the Imperium, and whose relations are nil to indifferent with the Tech-Priests. But no, it's fine, the Sisters all have artificer armour now because some dude on Dakka wants to make them have fisticuffs.
The point that's trying to be made is that there exist a certain set of statline (including S3/T3), rules, and points cost that makes a good melee unit. No, his example was blatantly undercosted, but the point stands.
A.T. wrote: As for the armour, it was commissioned by Vandire.
Not official fluff.
Fancanon only.
It's stated pretty definitively in Dark Heresy that it was commissioned by Vandire. It was made under the 40k licence at the time, and I can't recall anything stating otherwise.
Anything older than that and I'm pretty fuzzy, but isn't it also stated in the old Witch Hunters codex?
A.T. wrote: As for the armour, it was commissioned by Vandire.
Not official fluff.
Fancanon only.
It's stated pretty definitively in Dark Heresy that it was commissioned by Vandire. It was made under the 40k licence at the time, and I can't recall anything stating otherwise.
Anything older than that and I'm pretty fuzzy, but isn't it also stated in the old Witch Hunters codex?
I find the FFG fluff difficult to use. Some of it is contradictory to main GW fluff, and in those cases, I chose GW proper. In cases where no GW fluff exists, generally FFG is a reasonable compromise as "highly likely". 40k is somewhat of a sandbox mess of competing propagandas and narratives anyway, where the canon explicitly declares that there is no one truth per se, so I think this does work fairly well in most cases.
Manchu wrote: I think Celestians will be a separate kit with much more orange armor and probably meaner looking weapons, even before considering whether the concept itself will be rethought.
BBAP wrote: You're misrepresenting your argument here. What you want to do is load the Celestians down with a bunch of upgrades and then deliberately undercost them. I mean, that works - but it works because they're undercosted, not because you're a game design genius.
What's the right cost for this unit then?
Go ahead, tell me what the right cost is.
Then I'll just tell you "Hey look, this Sisters melee unit is perfectly fine and balanced despite having T3".
If you answer me "No it's useless" I'll just answer "Then you overcosted it!".
I'm such a genius!!!
BBAP wrote: Spess Mehrens have been the Imperium's premier fighting force for 10,000 years at this point. They're not asking anyone for anything, it's already there in the armoury.
Versus
A group that didn't exist prior to the Age of Apostasy and is currently serving as the armed wing of an organisation actively disliked by the new Lord Commander of the Imperium, and whose relations are nil to indifferent with the Tech-Priests.
Let me rephrase this:
Sisters of Battle have been the elite fighting force of the most powerful Imperium organization for 4, 000 years at this point. They already have everything in the armory, and have the money to buy much more than just replacements and repairs They own many things of interest to the Priest of Mars, and have been officially documented in the fluff as having beneficial exchanges with them.
Versus
A group that has spent 10 000 years with no resources or revenue of its own, while spending this time suffering an enormous attrition due to being constantly fighting, with barely any political power BY DESIGN, who went without having any representative among the High Lords of Terra during all this time.
Yeah I guess it still makes sense that Sisters have more artificer armors than Space Marines.
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Captain Joystick wrote: It's stated pretty definitively in Dark Heresy that it was commissioned by Vandire. It was made under the 40k licence at the time, and I can't recall anything stating otherwise.
Missed that.
Can you find the exact text easily? I'm interested now.
JNAProductions wrote: The point that's trying to be made is that there exist a certain set of statline (including S3/T3), rules, and points cost that makes a good melee unit
And more importantly, there's a solid precedent for rocket bras resulting in massive boobplate!
JNAProductions wrote: So Bloodletters are a bad CC unit? They're T3, and they kick quite a lot of butt.
Do they really? I was under the impression Bloodletters were the inbred cousins of the Chaos Daemons faction, and had been for like 3 editions. I certainly never gave a gak about scrapping with them when I was playing GSC in 7th, and I don't see any major improvements in 8th either.
Bloodletters are good now so if they work with T3...
You want them to have a 2+/3++, AP -4 CCWs, all kinds of other gak, and then want to pay 6 points per model for them? Behave yourself.
Well then. There clearly then is room for S3 T3 that's actually good if you can undercost them. After all if they aren't good CC unit then even with 6 pts then they AREN'T undercosted(well I'm assuming they aren't super shooters instead)
So then if we assume that is indeed undercosted it's then matter of upping cost until we come into point where it is overcosted. Thus we then know proper point cost is somewhere in the between. And we have unit that a) isn't sucky cc unit(as it would have been undercosted. Sucky unit cannot by definition be undercosted) with S3 T3 and b) isn't undercosted. Mission accomplished.
Racerguy180 wrote: I think they should get some variation of the predator or Leman Russ. Totally agree about Admech tho, they have a severe lack of transports which they have pretty good ones in 30k.
Sisters stuff should be OTT gothic decorations. it wouldn't take much to have a set of upgrade sprue to "pimp" out units/vehicles.
I know which Predator variant would most suit the SoB, but it is the variant that least addresses their need for long-range firepower
Combine with this kind of detailing:
and you would get a very SoB Predator.
I'm currently waiting on the Baal predator spreu to come in the mail so I can do exactly that because me and my buddy were messing around and I stuck the turret from his predator onto my immolator and it fit in the front slot pretty easily. Already have an immolator kit ready for it to do the conversion and just need to shave off the BA icons on some of the Baal predator bits and it will fit right in.
Thinking about repentia, one change that would help would be to make the mistress part of the unit again. That way they woudn't outrun all of their buffs. There's already several examples of squad leaders having different statlines from the rest of the squad (aspect warriors, ork vs nobs, ect) so that shouldn't be that big of a deal. Now, I'm not claiming that this fixes everything, but it would be a good start.
Also, give them back their normal evicerators. Cannoness and priests can still use them, so there's nothing stopping regular sisters from having them. Hell, I'm in favor of letting regular vet sisters have access, even if it's a poor choice for them.
Mmmpi wrote: Thinking about repentia, one change that would help would be to make the mistress part of the unit again. That way they woudn't outrun all of their buffs. There's already several examples of squad leaders having different statlines from the rest of the squad (aspect warriors, ork vs nobs, ect) so that shouldn't be that big of a deal. Now, I'm not claiming that this fixes everything, but it would be a good start.
Also, give them back their normal evicerators. Cannoness and priests can still use them, so there's nothing stopping regular sisters from having them. Hell, I'm in favor of letting regular vet sisters have access, even if it's a poor choice for them.
I think the best fix for repentia is actually to drop the PPM on them down to 14-15, drop the mistress down to 20-25, drop a rhino down to about 65, and make a strategem that allows vehicles to use Acts of Faith. That means a unit of 8 repentia with a mistress and a priest in a rhino would be about 245pts and be able to send the repentia 15(ish) inches down field, let them disembark 9 and then charge another 9ish on average, even using the rhino to soak overwatch. A CC unit that hits like repentia do and can reliably hit something 31-35 inches away would be a decent little suicide squad.
You can design the faction in a billion different ways and yet all Sisters players on dakka seem to think about is how they compare to Marines and how similar their equipment is to Marines.
Mmmpi wrote: Thinking about repentia, one change that would help would be to make the mistress part of the unit again. That way they woudn't outrun all of their buffs. There's already several examples of squad leaders having different statlines from the rest of the squad (aspect warriors, ork vs nobs, ect) so that shouldn't be that big of a deal. Now, I'm not claiming that this fixes everything, but it would be a good start.
Also, give them back their normal evicerators. Cannoness and priests can still use them, so there's nothing stopping regular sisters from having them. Hell, I'm in favor of letting regular vet sisters have access, even if it's a poor choice for them.
I think the best fix for repentia is actually to drop the PPM on them down to 14-15, drop the mistress down to 20-25, drop a rhino down to about 65, and make a strategem that allows vehicles to use Acts of Faith. That means a unit of 8 repentia with a mistress and a priest in a rhino would be about 245pts and be able to send the repentia 15(ish) inches down field, let them disembark 9 and then charge another 9ish on average, even using the rhino to soak overwatch. A CC unit that hits like repentia do and can reliably hit something 31-35 inches away would be a decent little suicide squad.
I think even 14ppm is too conservative. Repentia are a suicide unit- there is basically zero chance that they're going to survive past the first turn of combat- and that should be reflected in their points cost. I don't remember what the WS of repentia are but assuming it's a 3+ I'd say that 4-5ppm with an additional 5 for the swords would be totally acceptable.
BlaxicanX wrote: You can design the faction in a billion different ways and yet all Sisters players on dakka seem to think about is how they compare to Marines and how similar their equipment is to Marines.
Mmmpi wrote: Thinking about repentia, one change that would help would be to make the mistress part of the unit again. That way they woudn't outrun all of their buffs. There's already several examples of squad leaders having different statlines from the rest of the squad (aspect warriors, ork vs nobs, ect) so that shouldn't be that big of a deal. Now, I'm not claiming that this fixes everything, but it would be a good start.
Also, give them back their normal evicerators. Cannoness and priests can still use them, so there's nothing stopping regular sisters from having them. Hell, I'm in favor of letting regular vet sisters have access, even if it's a poor choice for them.
I think the best fix for repentia is actually to drop the PPM on them down to 14-15, drop the mistress down to 20-25, drop a rhino down to about 65, and make a strategem that allows vehicles to use Acts of Faith. That means a unit of 8 repentia with a mistress and a priest in a rhino would be about 245pts and be able to send the repentia 15(ish) inches down field, let them disembark 9 and then charge another 9ish on average, even using the rhino to soak overwatch. A CC unit that hits like repentia do and can reliably hit something 31-35 inches away would be a decent little suicide squad.
I think even 14ppm is too conservative. Repentia are a suicide unit- there is basically zero chance that they're going to survive past the first turn of combat- and that should be reflected in their points cost. I don't remember what the WS of repentia are but assuming it's a 3+ I'd say that 4-5ppm with an additional 5 for the swords would be totally acceptable.
3 points for human +1 point for 3+ WS +1 for shield of faith and AoF access +1 for +1 attack +5 points for an evicerator Total 11 points. Maybe give them -1 or -2 points for the whole package. so 9 points.
Mmmpi wrote: Thinking about repentia, one change that would help would be to make the mistress part of the unit again. That way they woudn't outrun all of their buffs.
Characters just need to be able to share the faith of nearby units (still only 1/turn). It's going to be an issue with the jump canoness losing her seraphim, imagifiers keeping up with infantry.
I'd guess it's the reason behind Celestine getting an extra act, a band-aid fix to the wider problem.
Blood of Martyrs, page 118.
And the 2nd ed rulebook page 19 for the sisters explicitly wearing uniforms based on those worn as the brides of the Emperor.
JNAProductions wrote: The point that's trying to be made is that there exist a certain set of statline (including S3/T3), rules, and points cost that makes a good melee unit
And more importantly, there's a solid precedent for rocket bras resulting in massive boobplate!
Get the tits right, and the rest will follow.
This man speaks the truth. Just take a look at his avatar.
JNAProductions wrote: The point that's trying to be made is that there exist a certain set of statline (including S3/T3), rules, and points cost that makes a good melee unit. No, his example was blatantly undercosted, but the point stands.
This is the point I made two pages ago; we're past it now. Currently we're trying to decide how to give our T3 unit a bunch of close combat advantages without gaking on existing Adepta Sororitas lore.
Actually scratch that. I'm reading through the stuff I missed and it seems our current efforts are focused on undercosting Repentia so their inclusion in a Sisters army can be justified. I'm still none the wiser as to why people think Sisters need CC units at all, other than "because it's cool". Which is fine, I suppose, but... meh.
JNAProductions wrote: The point that's trying to be made is that there exist a certain set of statline (including S3/T3), rules, and points cost that makes a good melee unit. No, his example was blatantly undercosted, but the point stands.
This is the point I made two pages ago; we're past it now. Currently we're trying to decide how to give our T3 unit a bunch of close combat advantages without gaking on existing Adepta Sororitas lore.
Actually scratch that. I'm reading through the stuff I missed and it seems our current efforts are focused on undercosting Repentia so their inclusion in a Sisters army can be justified. I'm still none the wiser as to why people think Sisters need CC units at all, other than "because it's cool". Which is fine, I suppose, but... meh.
Undercosted...you keep using that word but I don't think it means what you think it means. As far as I can tell based on your posts so far 'undercosted' seems to mean 'good' and 'overcosted' seems to mean 'bad, but I want everything to be bad anyway' and 'appropriately costed' apparently doesn't exist. And the reason people want a CC unit in a sisters army is because *drumroll please!* Sisters Already Have CC units! They're just not very good.
Appropriately costing repentia and penitent engines combined with giving them some method of reaching their destination at least some of the time would make them an interesting and fun tactical option that SoB players could build lists around(or even just splash in because they're cool).
Also, just a side note: Can you point out the alternate universe where repentia would be worth even 14ppm because that sounds like a fun place to live?
Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote: Sisters of Battle have been the elite fighting force of the most powerful Imperium organization for 4, 000 years at this point. They already have everything in the armory, and have the money to buy much more than just replacements and repairs They own many things of interest to the Priest of Mars, and have been officially documented in the fluff as having beneficial exchanges with them.
Most powerful? Not really... generally speaking they actually have little other factions want. Wealth sure, but it isn't like wealth is an issue for the priesthood of mars, or really any of the major branches of the imperium. In point of fact the administratum and mars probably have more access to wealth as a whole. Beyond that they have few bargaining chips. They mostly keep normal citizens in line and satisfied. Denouncing figures and heretics will generally just make the inquisition wonder why their toes are being stepped on. Imperial governors and their enforcement arms also keep people in line and doing their jobs and it's a brave priest who tries to disrupt that process, given that will lead to the imperial guard being called in to suppress it at best.
The ecclesiarchy also actively antagonizes a lot of the most important factions in the imperium. Many of the factions actually essential for the continued existence of the imperium (navigator houses, tech priests, and the sanctioned psykers/astropaths) are wary of them, due to the clear hostility many members hold for their organizations.
In particular, consider how much closer the average space marine chapter is, with individual space marines who are full members of the mechanicus and will act in the defense of nearby forge worlds if needed. Honestly, just having access to power armor and bolters as a whole is impressive.
I don't think the Ministorum is the most powerful, but they do have one of the permanent 7 members of the High Lords of Terra, which makes the Ecclesiarch one of the 7 most powerful people in the Imperium (now 8th, after the return of Guilliman), and shows how much clout the organisation has as a whole.
The Ecclesiarchy has a lot of power in that it holds sway over much of the common people, and is able to whip up a lot of fervour and hysteria through religion. They can also wield a lot of influence through the threat of heresy. It is very similar to the medieval Catholic church, in that their actual power is technically limited, but their influence was generally similar to the more powerful kings and emperors in Europe.
What I'm not seeing in this thread is ideas on how to fix A0cts of Faith.
Right now you get one, maybe two AoF per turn. That's great for a soup army that has only 1-2 Sisters units in it - Each Sisters unit gets one AoF per turn every turn. But for an all Sisters army this stinks. you have to pick and choose what unit gets to use an Act each turn. Some units might go an entire game without ever getting to use an AoF.
^ Making imagafiers(?) better, a trait that gives another AoF and another act of faith if the entire detachment is battleforged. I could see a stratagem that can be used multiple times a turn being useful on paper but 1-3 CP just to make a single unit shoot again doesn't sound too good to me for some reason.
Acts of Faith are pretty awkward as they are, that's for sure. As it is, they're like pseudo stratagems, which is a little bit bonkers IMO. Imagine of Necron Warriors or Space Marine Hellblasters got to fire a second time? Devastating. As is, Bolters, Flamers, and Melta Guns aren't nearly as devastating, compared to many of the other weapons that either have many more shots, better rend, or higher strength. In that way, Acts of Faith are about as good as the unit they're used on.
What I'd rather see is Acts of Faith become a sort of pseudo psychic power. Maybe Sisters of Battle could get access to the psychic phase, but instead of psychic powers, you have Prayers, much like the Daughters of Khaine. The DoK have priestesses that enact 'prayers' that give buffs to nearby units or themselves.
Then, the sky's the limit. Buffing the strength, rend, fire rate, or range of your weapons, or, indeed, allowing a unit to fire, move, or assault all over again. If the prayers are focused on buffing your army instead of debuffing the enemy, that would work well, in my opinion. Then, you could have Imagifiers, Canonesses, or other units perform these prayers, perhaps getting one or two inherently and then having an option to take another from a list depending on your strategy.
drbored wrote: Acts of Faith are pretty awkward as they are, that's for sure. As it is, they're like pseudo stratagems, which is a little bit bonkers IMO. Imagine of Necron Warriors or Space Marine Hellblasters got to fire a second time? Devastating. As is, Bolters, Flamers, and Melta Guns aren't nearly as devastating, compared to many of the other weapons that either have many more shots, better rend, or higher strength. In that way, Acts of Faith are about as good as the unit they're used on.
What I'd rather see is Acts of Faith become a sort of pseudo psychic power. Maybe Sisters of Battle could get access to the psychic phase, but instead of psychic powers, you have Prayers, much like the Daughters of Khaine. The DoK have priestesses that enact 'prayers' that give buffs to nearby units or themselves.
Then, the sky's the limit. Buffing the strength, rend, fire rate, or range of your weapons, or, indeed, allowing a unit to fire, move, or assault all over again. If the prayers are focused on buffing your army instead of debuffing the enemy, that would work well, in my opinion. Then, you could have Imagifiers, Canonesses, or other units perform these prayers, perhaps getting one or two inherently and then having an option to take another from a list depending on your strategy.
Pass.
The current acts of faith system is amazing and changing its core would be a devastating loss to the army. Even the replacement prayers system you've suggested would be a MASSIVE nerf.
Side bar before I get to my next point: The DoK prayer system works because DoK use massive units of Witch Aelves and Blood Sisters that mean the buff is hitting a ton of models. Also, there are no vehicles so the characters can actually keep up with the units they're buffing. Almost every single viable build of SoB is MSU, and most make heavy use of transports that can't usually afford to cart a character around, which means the units that need buffs outrun their buffers turn one. Giving buffs to single units would horribly underwhelming, unless it was ridiculously powerful like say...letting a unit move, shoot, or fight twice in the same turn. And trying to tie them even more heavily to characters would be a straight up shackling.
I'm adding this because I really want to emphasize this point Sisters are NOT space marines. They don't play ANYTHING like space marines and the biggest difference is that sisters are actually REALLY REALLY fast in 8th edition. Celestine is the only character in the SoB army capable of keeping up with dominions and to a lesser extent seraphim. Sisters can't afford to be tied down to 6" move characters. The canoness is lucky if her reroll 1s aura hits 1 other unit per turn. And since I'd rather give up my left leg than my scout move, putting characters into vehicles is a no go. Any expansion or change to the AoF system needs to keep in mind that the characters are likely to only get maybe 1 turn where they're anywhere near other SoB units.
What the Act of Faith system needs is more ways to generate AoFs. Strategems are the obvious answer. Combine that with some way to use Acts of Faith to generate CP and bam, good to go. You'd have to balance out the numbers a bit so it's a push pull rather than an infinite fountain of CP, but it would work.
Could have the faith system reworked to all sisters getting faith on a 4+. Roll for each unit. Celestians and seraphim could do on 3+ and cannoness on 2+. Celestine can keep auto as it is.
Imagifiers could then have a 6" bubble buff of +1 to faith rolls.
Just a thought. Scales with army rhen but might be too powerful?
Giantwalkingchair wrote: Could have the faith system reworked to all sisters getting faith on a 4+. Roll for each unit. Celestians and seraphim could do on 3+ and cannoness on 2+. Celestine can keep auto as it is.
Imagifiers could then have a 6" bubble buff of +1 to faith rolls.
Just a thought. Scales with army rhen but might be too powerful?
Giantwalkingchair wrote: Could have the faith system reworked to all sisters getting faith on a 4+. Roll for each unit. Celestians and seraphim could do on 3+ and cannoness on 2+. Celestine can keep auto as it is.
Imagifiers could then have a 6" bubble buff of +1 to faith rolls.
Just a thought. Scales with army rhen but might be too powerful?
It could work if the Acts were nerfed.
The only new bonus AoF roll that I would like to see, would be to give the Cannoness a chance to generate an AoF on a roll (4+ or 5+) or an upgrade/wargear to give the cannoness that option.
AoF could be roll a D6 for each unit at the start each turn and it goes off on a 6+. Then you have a series of modifiers:
+1 for being within 6” of any Imagifiers
+1 for being within 6” of Celestine
+1 for a Stratagem
+1 for being within 6” of a Relic
Seraphim have a native +1 (not an aura) - maybe give Repentia a +1 natively too but prevent them from getting any other bonuses to it?
(Possibly) -1 if the unit failed a Morale Check last turn
Then hard cap it at a 4+, except for Celestine who natively gets it on a 3+.
There’s room for fine tuning in there but I think it would scale nicely (certainly better than the current system does).
For Repentia, I agree they should be dropped to the low-teen points range (12 or so?). For the Mistress, either make her be part of the squad and worth 20pts or something or let her be affected by her own Repentia aura so she can keep up.
Celestians are a hard one, but for a melee build I would suggest:
- Str +1 AP-2 Dmg1 sword (essentially a Power Axe in profile)
- Shield that gives +1 to saves, making them a 2+/5++ with Shield of Faith
- A special rule to bump them up a little bit - something like a reroll to hit/wound or +1 to hit/to wound/attack in the first round of combat. It doesn’t have to be world-beating, just a little boost.
- A relevant Stratagem. It doesn’t have to be Celestian-specific but something they can make use of.
- 20pts a model, tops. Maybe 11 for the body, 5 for the sword, 3 or so for the shield.
This would make them a reasonable assault unit that could handle Assault Marines or something but wouldn’t go hunting Berserkers.
Edit: I would also make the Shield of Faith a 5++ rather than a 6++, since the latter is all but useless - it’s only useful against things like Melta which are usually targeting tanks, and even on the rare occasion you can use it it’s only a 1/6 chance of doing anything.
Your above mentioned AoF system would crush sisters. It would force them to be foot based when they need to be screaming about in much faster transports. Going transpports would effectively sacrifice all faith there as as you said for SoF, a 1/6 is rare. Not to mention it reeks heavily of the disgusting way they did faith in that horrible white dwarf not-codex they got in 6th.
Oh random stratagem that just came to me. 2 or 3 cp cost. Hits inflicted by flamer weapons in a unit count towards morale resolution in addition to models the target unit lost. Or maybe make it flamer weapons lower targets Ld value by the amount of hits they cause for the rest of the player turn.
Would never happen but would be a nice way to see a wall of flame coming at you being scary.
Just add a 2+ AoF per detachment that is completely SoB.That would give you Celestine and 3x 2+ a turn in a lot of games.Give the canoness a jump pack and you got yourself a crazy fun army. Come up with a new flyer or give the SoB the Avernger Strike Fighter or Xiphon so they get the shield of faith. Also, give Celestians the Dominion treatment. Let a squad of 5 take 4 power weapons. Give them 2 attacks and WS3+. It makes them a glass canon in assault, but probably fun.
deviantduck wrote: Just add a 2+ AoF per detachment that is completely SoB.That would give you Celestine and 3x 2+ a turn in a lot of games.Give the canoness a jump pack and you got yourself a crazy fun army. Come up with a new flyer or give the SoB the Avernger Strike Fighter or Xiphon so they get the shield of faith. Also, give Celestians the Dominion treatment. Let a squad of 5 take 4 power weapons. Give them 2 attacks and WS3+. It makes them a glass canon in assault, but probably fun.
I wouldn't mind if sisters just got access to some of the IG fliers. Fliers are in such a weird place in 8th. I don't see them nearly as often, and if GW has limited time/resources to make Sisters of Battle into an army, I'd rather they flesh out other vehicles like the Exorcist and Immolator rather than a tacked-on flier.
But, I do agree with you on the Act of Faith. An extra Act per detachment would make things run smoother, as long as it wasn't limited to be used on a unit within that detachment, because that could get silly. Having a pool of Acts like Command Points wouldn't be bad.
I definitely think that there should be ways to generate extra Acts of Faith by achieving certain army or even Ordo-specific objectives. Kill a squad of heretic astartes? on a 4+ gain an Act of Faith. Defend an objective for a turn? on a 4+ gain an Act of Faith. Squad of Seraphim wiped in martyrdom in assault? roll that 4+. That's what the Sisters are all about.
Sisters are already an incredibly strong army in and of themselves.... giving them more acts of faith would make that army ridiculously OP. As we saw with Ynaari, shooting multiple times per turn out of phase is really, really strong, as is moving, and fighting. There are built in controls for Ynaari and there should be for sisters. The current implementation of acts of faith - while very strong - is good enough.
I'd much rather any individual Act of Faith be weaker, but allow access across more of the army. I do like the idea of using them similar to Psychic Powers, in the form of Prayer.
Marmatag wrote: Sisters are already an incredibly strong army in and of themselves.... giving them more acts of faith would make that army ridiculously OP. As we saw with Ynaari, shooting multiple times per turn out of phase is really, really strong, as is moving, and fighting. There are built in controls for Ynaari and there should be for sisters. The current implementation of acts of faith - while very strong - is good enough.
When was the last time we won a major event, again?
Marmatag wrote: Sisters are already an incredibly strong army in and of themselves.... giving them more acts of faith would make that army ridiculously OP. As we saw with Ynaari, shooting multiple times per turn out of phase is really, really strong, as is moving, and fighting. There are built in controls for Ynaari and there should be for sisters. The current implementation of acts of faith - while very strong - is good enough.
When was the last time we won a major event, again?
Or got into the top eight?
I mean top 10 @ LVO is pretty good, right? Better than Ultramarines, Death Guard, Tyranids, Orks, Tau, Astra Militarum, etc
Marmatag wrote: Sisters are already an incredibly strong army in and of themselves.... giving them more acts of faith would make that army ridiculously OP. As we saw with Ynaari, shooting multiple times per turn out of phase is really, really strong, as is moving, and fighting. There are built in controls for Ynaari and there should be for sisters. The current implementation of acts of faith - while very strong - is good enough.
Sisters don’t have anywhere near the individual unit power of Eldar though. Ten Dark Reapers shooting twice is terrifying. What’s the worst a Sisters unit double shooting could do? An extra 4 meltaguns and half a dozen bolters? It’s hardly a fair comparison.
As for being out of phase, Acts of Faith don’t trigger on your opponent’s turn - which is far, far more powerful than at the start of your own turn before you’ve had a chance to move.
Marmatag wrote: Sisters are already an incredibly strong army in and of themselves.... giving them more acts of faith would make that army ridiculously OP. As we saw with Ynaari, shooting multiple times per turn out of phase is really, really strong, as is moving, and fighting. There are built in controls for Ynaari and there should be for sisters. The current implementation of acts of faith - while very strong - is good enough.
Sisters don’t have anywhere near the individual unit power of Eldar though. Ten Dark Reapers shooting twice is terrifying. What’s the worst a Sisters unit double shooting could do? An extra 4 meltaguns and half a dozen bolters? It’s hardly a fair comparison.
As for being out of phase, Acts of Faith don’t trigger on your opponent’s turn - which is far, far more powerful than at the start of your own turn before you’ve had a chance to move.
Marmatag wrote: Sisters are already an incredibly strong army in and of themselves.... giving them more acts of faith would make that army ridiculously OP. As we saw with Ynaari, shooting multiple times per turn out of phase is really, really strong, as is moving, and fighting. There are built in controls for Ynaari and there should be for sisters. The current implementation of acts of faith - while very strong - is good enough.
Sisters don’t have anywhere near the individual unit power of Eldar though. Ten Dark Reapers shooting twice is terrifying. What’s the worst a Sisters unit double shooting could do? An extra 4 meltaguns and half a dozen bolters? It’s hardly a fair comparison.
As for being out of phase, Acts of Faith don’t trigger on your opponent’s turn - which is far, far more powerful than at the start of your own turn before you’ve had a chance to move.
They do through that CA Stratagem, though!
Which requires you to lose a character. Not exactly a great option.
Marmatag wrote: Sisters are already an incredibly strong army in and of themselves.... giving them more acts of faith would make that army ridiculously OP. As we saw with Ynaari, shooting multiple times per turn out of phase is really, really strong, as is moving, and fighting. There are built in controls for Ynaari and there should be for sisters. The current implementation of acts of faith - while very strong - is good enough.
When was the last time we won a major event, again?
Or got into the top eight?
I mean top 10 @ LVO is pretty good, right? Better than Ultramarines, Death Guard, Tyranids, Orks, Tau, Astra Militarum, etc
The reality is about halfway between these two. Allowing for more acts of faith is fine but Sisters are already so vastly ahead of where most index armies started (only guard and pre-nerf stormraven Space Marines were definitively superior) that giving them too much all at once would be brutal. And if I recall correctly, SoB DID win a GT level event in the index days.
I would say 2-3 table wide AoFs would be about the max I would feel comfortable asking for out the gate. If imagifiers could also get jump packs and possibly a relic to boost their AoFs those 2 changes would establish a strong, tweakable baseline. (for the record I'm in favor of a more robust system using CP but this is a perfectly acceptable start.)
Oh, and for the record I hate the idea of them being even vaguely similar to psychic powers, or like the prayer system DoK have, or the unit by unit system we had in 7th, or the faith point systems from 5th and earlier. AoFs as they exist now are just about perfect, they just need to be expanded a bit.
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Giantwalkingchair wrote: Could have the faith system reworked to all sisters getting faith on a 4+. Roll for each unit. Celestians and seraphim could do on 3+ and cannoness on 2+. Celestine can keep auto as it is.
Imagifiers could then have a 6" bubble buff of +1 to faith rolls.
Just a thought. Scales with army rhen but might be too powerful?
this would be insanity, actually. AoFs are powerful enough that they should be a limited resource that you have to invest in generating and be sure to utilize properly. Allowing every unit to generate their own AoF would be just...wooo...so op.
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kombatwombat wrote: AoF could be roll a D6 for each unit at the start each turn and it goes off on a 6+. Then you have a series of modifiers:
+1 for being within 6” of any Imagifiers
+1 for being within 6” of Celestine
+1 for a Stratagem
+1 for being within 6” of a Relic
Seraphim have a native +1 (not an aura) - maybe give Repentia a +1 natively too but prevent them from getting any other bonuses to it?
(Possibly) -1 if the unit failed a Morale Check last turn
Then hard cap it at a 4+, except for Celestine who natively gets it on a 3+.
There’s room for fine tuning in there but I think it would scale nicely (certainly better than the current system does).
For Repentia, I agree they should be dropped to the low-teen points range (12 or so?). For the Mistress, either make her be part of the squad and worth 20pts or something or let her be affected by her own Repentia aura so she can keep up.
Celestians are a hard one, but for a melee build I would suggest:
- Str +1 AP-2 Dmg1 sword (essentially a Power Axe in profile)
- Shield that gives +1 to saves, making them a 2+/5++ with Shield of Faith
- A special rule to bump them up a little bit - something like a reroll to hit/wound or +1 to hit/to wound/attack in the first round of combat. It doesn’t have to be world-beating, just a little boost.
- A relevant Stratagem. It doesn’t have to be Celestian-specific but something they can make use of.
- 20pts a model, tops. Maybe 11 for the body, 5 for the sword, 3 or so for the shield.
This would make them a reasonable assault unit that could handle Assault Marines or something but wouldn’t go hunting Berserkers.
Edit: I would also make the Shield of Faith a 5++ rather than a 6++, since the latter is all but useless - it’s only useful against things like Melta which are usually targeting tanks, and even on the rare occasion you can use it it’s only a 1/6 chance of doing anything.
This is not an iteration of the AoF system I'd use. It's managed to make AoFs tedious, time consuming, more random, less tactical, frustrating(either they'll hit the correct units and be blisteringly op or not hit the correct units and be totally worthless), swingy(see above), and with just an avalanche of book-keeping.
Honestly, i think GW will completely rework the faith system and its abilities for the codex. GW just cant seem to get through a single source for sisters without completely changing how it all works.
5th and before different to 6th which was different to 7th which was different to 8th. So yeah, fully expecting them to mess with it for the dex.
Honestly, i think GW will completely rework the faith system and its abilities for the codex. GW just cant seem to get through a single source for sisters without completely changing how it all works.
5th and before different to 6th which was different to 7th which was different to 8th. So yeah, fully expecting them to mess with it for the dex.
Which would be heartbreaking. AoFs are amazingly fun and incredibly powerful. All the system needs is a way to jump through some kind of hoop or pay some kind of cost to generate more that DOESN'T revolve around near useless 6" move characters or Celestine.
Scout moves and free out-of-phase actions are incredibly strong. It should surprise no one that sisters are the best index army, and are better than some codex armies.
If new units and wargear are added to the range, and AoF stay the same, sisters will be #1 for the same reason Ynaari was number one, out of phase, extra actions are incredibly powerful. When you scout your open topped stuff forward and fire a few melta-volleys before the movement phase even happens, yeah, we've got a problem.
Normally this goes without saying, but since i'm in a sisters thread, i'll just say it: I'm not advocating that Sisters get nerfed, or anything like that, just that they're already strong and GW should take that into account when updating & balancing the faction.
A.T. wrote: Blood of Martyrs, page 118.
And the 2nd ed rulebook page 19 for the sisters explicitly wearing uniforms based on those worn as the brides of the Emperor.
Marmatag wrote: Scout moves and free out-of-phase actions are incredibly strong. It should surprise no one that sisters are the best index army, and are better than some codex armies.
If new units and wargear are added to the range, and AoF stay the same, sisters will be #1 for the same reason Ynaari was number one, out of phase, extra actions are incredibly powerful. When you scout your open topped stuff forward and fire a few melta-volleys before the movement phase even happens, yeah, we've got a problem.
Normally this goes without saying, but since i'm in a sisters thread, i'll just say it: I'm not advocating that Sisters get nerfed, or anything like that, just that they're already strong and GW should take that into account when updating & balancing the faction.
(sidebar: Units inside vehicles can't be target for acts of faith, even the repressor. If someone is doing this in your area, they're wrong)
I agree that GW has to be very careful about how they go about updating SoB, and that they're already very strong. I also agree that giving us new STUFF and new RULES together would send sisters skyrocketing into 'pre-nerf index stormraven spam' levels of OP, with no other changes; but the difference between SoB and Ynnari is that SoB's AoFs are better designed as a mechanic than soulburst.
Once they shore up the wording(there's some weird edge cases that the community basically said 'RAI I guess?' to), the AoF system is inherently limited in ways that make it tweakable. It happens at the start of your turn(outside of rare cases in martyrdom) it can only target infantry, the same unit can't benefit from AoFs more than once per turn, each act of faith beyond the first one has a cost associated to it (AoFs cost about 40pts for a 4+ chance and are heavily constrained in terms of usability outside of the 2+ and Celestine's). Your opponent always knows exactly how many AoFs you're going to get and can do things during HIS turn to prepare for them.
Acts of Faith should have a cost associated to them, they should be a limited resource that has to be spent wisely, and they should scale to the size of the army (both in raw points, and the amount of available AoF targets). We already have the first 2, the goal is to move toward getting #3. Currently, the average 2000pt SoB army get between 1.833 and 2.833 AoFs per turn(statistically. Many armies don't take imagifiers and the ones that do don't take many.). I'd like to see that range go to 2.5-4.5. From that point it would come down to what cost would be appropriate for the amount of power those extra AoFs would give. Command points? Points increases? Wargear Purchases? Compositional requirements? Some combination?
"All the system needs is a way to jump through some kind of hoop or pay some kind of cost to generate more that DOESN'T revolve around near useless 6" move characters or Celestine."
What if Cannonesses got access to Jump Packs again?
phydaux wrote: "All the system needs is a way to jump through some kind of hoop or pay some kind of cost to generate more that DOESN'T revolve around near useless 6" move characters or Celestine."
What if Cannonesses got access to Jump Packs again?
Imagifiers are the characters that give extra chances at AoFs and yes, you are correct, that would be very helpful to the army if Imagifiers could get jump packs. For free. Because at 40pts considering the only other wargear they have is a bolter and their iteration of AoF goes off on an emperor damned 4+, 40pts for the body and the jumppack wouldn't be unreasonable.
And you're right, canonesses should get jumppacks too.
ERJAK wrote: From that point it would come down to what cost would be appropriate for the amount of power those extra AoFs would give. Command points? Points increases? Wargear Purchases? Compositional requirements? Some combination?
Whatever they do they need to have it tested by someone who plays Sisters and understands the army, because otherwise the power generated by AoF will be vastly over-valued. The old 3rd ed WH Codex had comp requirements - Faithful characters gave you extra Faith Points which could be used by any squad to perform their Acts - but the points you spent including Canonesses over Palatines and upgrading to VSSes simply didn't make up for the guns, bodies, and Immolators you had to trim out to fit the extra Faith Points in. The AoFs were situiationally awesome, don't get me wrong, but bolters and meltaguns and tanks have general utility that a 3++ save for one phase just can't compete with.
EDIT: I'm not so enthusiastic about the return of the JP Canoness. Always felt they were a bit of a points sink myself. The JP Eviscerator Canoness did a job, but she cost a lot of points for such a fragile model and while she'd draw a lot of fire away from the rest of your army, she had too few Wounds and too little Toughness to tank all that attention. I also saw a few people running JP Power Sword Canonesses, which just seemed like a waste of time when Celestine was such a combat monster and only cost a couple more points.
ERJAK wrote: From that point it would come down to what cost would be appropriate for the amount of power those extra AoFs would give. Command points? Points increases? Wargear Purchases? Compositional requirements? Some combination?
Whatever they do they need to have it tested by someone who plays Sisters and understands the army, because otherwise the power generated by AoF will be vastly over-valued. The old 3rd ed WH Codex had comp requirements - Faithful characters gave you extra Faith Points which could be used by any squad to perform their Acts - but the points you spent including Canonesses over Palatines and upgrading to VSSes simply didn't make up for the guns, bodies, and Immolators you had to trim out to fit the extra Faith Points in. The AoFs were situiationally awesome, don't get me wrong, but bolters and meltaguns and tanks have general utility that a 3++ save for one phase just can't compete with.
EDIT: I'm not so enthusiastic about the return of the JP Canoness. Always felt they were a bit of a points sink myself. The JP Eviscerator Canoness did a job, but she cost a lot of points for such a fragile model and while she'd draw a lot of fire away from the rest of your army, she had too few Wounds and too little Toughness to tank all that attention. I also saw a few people running JP Power Sword Canonesses, which just seemed like a waste of time when Celestine was such a combat monster and only cost a couple more points.
The JP Canoness does something completely different in 8th than she did before. She doesn't have to tank anything due to the new character rules, you don't have to give her any wargear(although inferno pistols are still awesome), all she needs to do is actually be able to keep up with the rest of the army. Actually being able to get reroll 1s to hit on dominions would be a huge buff. Oh, and canonesses are 45pts, and inferno pistol and jump pack would put her at... 68ish? Yeah, that seems worth it to me. Add in the fact that most lists NEED at least 3 HQs and yeah, I would kill for a JP canoness.
In regards to the rest, AoFs are so massively powerful right now that it'll be hard to make them NOT worth it. They succeeded with the imagifier by making it dramatically too expensive, highly random, and anti-synergistic to all but 1 unit of the army. Literally all they have to do is keep the imagifier at 40pts and give it a jumppack and 2 would be basically mandatory. If they made it a 3+ that would be even better.
ERJAK wrote: The JP Canoness does something completely different in 8th than she did before. She doesn't have to tank anything due to the new character rules, you don't have to give her any wargear(although inferno pistols are still awesome), all she needs to do is actually be able to keep up with the rest of the army. Actually being able to get reroll 1s to hit on dominions would be a huge buff. Oh, and canonesses are 45pts, and inferno pistol and jump pack would put her at... 68ish? Yeah, that seems worth it to me. Add in the fact that most lists NEED at least 3 HQs and yeah, I would kill for a JP canoness.
I guess I can see that - but why would she not be able to keep up with the rest of the army as is? Can you not just chuck her in an Immolator and have her roll alongside a BSS?
In regards to the rest, AoFs are so massively powerful right now that it'll be hard to make them NOT worth it. They succeeded with the imagifier by making it dramatically too expensive, highly random, and anti-synergistic to all but 1 unit of the army. Literally all they have to do is keep the imagifier at 40pts and give it a jumppack and 2 would be basically mandatory. If they made it a 3+ that would be even better.
I can definitely see that. The current incarnation of AoF is crazy good.
BBAP wrote: ... but the points you spent including Canonesses over Palatines and upgrading to VSSes simply didn't make up for the guns, bodies, and Immolators you had to trim out to fit the extra Faith Points / I'm not so enthusiastic about the return of the JP Canoness. Always felt they were a bit of a points sink myself / I also saw a few people running JP Power Sword Canonesses, which just seemed like a waste of time when Celestine was such a combat monster and only cost a couple more points.
It's like we played with completely different Witch Hunters books.
I appreciate that as 5th rolled on the 'optimal' WH list was stormtroopers and immolators but for a more normal sisters list the VSS was a sunk cost to get faith for your drive-by divine guidance.
The jump pack canoness was one of the better HQs in the game for ages, and Celestine (while good with her I5) had the triple drawback of high cost, de-faithing on death, and not being able to match the canoness for S8 instant death and anti-vehicle.
In 8th jump packs are a flat 25% increase so at current values you are looking at 68pts for a model that moves 12" with a 4++, 4 eviscerator attacks, and a reroll 1s aura. Inferno pistol optional.
-and that's before any of the traditional codex price cuts, relics, and a hopeful de-nerfing of the eviscerator. Just the aura alone is a huge benefit for seraphim and in support of Celestine.
Can we not have Imagifiers because the rules would be good for your competative list, please? The idea of someone holding such an unwieldly sign, two handedly, while zooming through the air on a jump pack is one step of silliness too far.
A.T. wrote: I appreciate that as 5th rolled on the 'optimal' WH list was stormtroopers and immolators but for a more normal sisters list the VSS was a sunk cost to get faith for your drive-by divine guidance.
My 4th Edition Sisters army didn't have many vehicles (because they sucked in 4th) and I tried to play the book as it was intended to be played, with AoF being a core part of the set-up. As 5th rolled on and it became apparent that Melta-Mech MEQs were king I added more vehicles and firepower and removed some Faith Points, and as I did the army magically became more effective. The army still had Faith Points, it just wasn't built around them. Laud Hailers on the Dom's rides were my only concession to AoFs by the time a certain Spiritual Liege shat on the faction, and I never felt the army's performance suffered for it.
Also I'm getting a total nostalgia lump thinking about how awesome Sisters were in 5th Edition. They had the tools to take on everything.
The jump pack canoness was one of the better HQs in the game for ages, and Celestine (while good with her I5) had the triple drawback of high cost, de-faithing on death, and not being able to match the canoness for S8 instant death and anti-vehicle.
HQs in general were not an important part of an army back then, so while it's correct to say the JP Canoness was one of the better ones (and she was), she was still an unnecessary points sink in an army where you could buy a Melta death-ride for less than 130pts (JP Canoness with Eviscerator was around 150 with all the Relics, I believe). Celestine was likewise awesome in context - the context being a Jump Pack melee HQ, which isn't something the army ever really needed IMHO. Again, a points sink, but pretty nasty in CC if you were into that kind of thing, and definitely a better option than a JP Canoness with Power Sword (or Ardent Blade, or whatever the +2S relic was called).
Changed days now, though. Your HQs apparently matter now, so having a good one seems like a good idea. Maybe the time of the Jump Pack Canoness has finally come.
AdmiralHalsey wrote: Can we not have Imagifiers because the rules would be good for your competative list, please? The idea of someone holding such an unwieldly sign, two handedly, while zooming through the air on a jump pack is one step of silliness too far.
Silliness is 40k's stock in trade. Heaven forfend that the grimdark becomes earnest and the setting starts taking itself seriously. That would be wretched.
Looking at making AoF scale somewhat better, perhaps a return of the Simulacrum Imperialis as a squad upgrade? Each squad with a Simulacrum has a chance to generate an AoF that only the unit itself can use on a 6+? Put it at perhaps a 10 point upgrade?
Seraphim and Celestians as Veteran units that have a deeper faith than their junior Sisters could grant a bonus of +1 to all rolls to gain an AoF within 6". Celestians could carry a Simulacrum themselves but I agree that jp troops carrying a holy relic around seems a bit off.
Though opening up the options for wargear to the Imagifer would be a nice addition to our character ranks. Either that or have the Palatine and Canoness provide the same +1 bonus to gain an AoF for having deeper faith that would allow units that otherwise wouldn't be able to roll for an AoF to do so.
AdmiralHalsey wrote: Can we not have Imagifiers because the rules would be good for your competative list, please? The idea of someone holding such an unwieldly sign, two handedly, while zooming through the air on a jump pack is one step of silliness too far.
Well currently we don't have imagifiers because they're terrible doggak unless you have retributors for them to pocket so...
Make it a magical...faith...thing...instead. I don't care how, they just have to be able to keep up with the rest of the army WITHOUT getting into a transport.
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dracpanzer wrote: Looking at making AoF scale somewhat better, perhaps a return of the Simulacrum Imperialis as a squad upgrade? Each squad with a Simulacrum has a chance to generate an AoF that only the unit itself can use on a 6+? Put it at perhaps a 10 point upgrade?
Seraphim and Celestians as Veteran units that have a deeper faith than their junior Sisters could grant a bonus of +1 to all rolls to gain an AoF within 6". Celestians could carry a Simulacrum themselves but I agree that jp troops carrying a holy relic around seems a bit off.
Though opening up the options for wargear to the Imagifer would be a nice addition to our character ranks. Either that or have the Palatine and Canoness provide the same +1 bonus to gain an AoF for having deeper faith that would allow units that otherwise wouldn't be able to roll for an AoF to do so.
I wouldn't mind some kind of squad upgrade that contributed to AoFs but I hate the randomness factor.
Acts of Faith are so pivotal and so powerful that trying to balance them with randomness will just end up being frustrating and unfun for both players. 'Ope, all 6 of my dominions squads rolled 6s this turn, hope you didn't like anything that was within 12" of them very much because it's dead now.'
Maybe something like if you have X number of banners on the field you get an extra 2+
AdmiralHalsey wrote: Can we not have Imagifiers because the rules would be good for your competative list, please? The idea of someone holding such an unwieldly sign, two handedly, while zooming through the air on a jump pack is one step of silliness too far.
Sanguinary Guard Ancients have it worse - would you want to be using a jump pack with a flag in one hand? That's got to be a "No capes!" moment waiting to happen...
AdmiralHalsey wrote: Can we not have Imagifiers because the rules would be good for your competative list, please? The idea of someone holding such an unwieldly sign, two handedly, while zooming through the air on a jump pack is one step of silliness too far.
Sanguinary Guard Ancients have it worse - would you want to be using a jump pack with a flag in one hand? That's got to be a "No capes!" moment waiting to happen...
Commander Dante: Good news Brother Vardus you have earned the honour of carrying the sacred chapter banner into battle
Vardus: I'd rather not.
Commander Dante:What?
Vardus: After watching Brother Victinis get the material sucked into the intake of his jump pack and explode I'd rather not, unless you're going to let me walk.
Commander Dante:No Sanguinary guard walks!!!
Vardus: Then give the banner someone else please.
ERJAK wrote: Acts of Faith are so pivotal and so powerful that trying to balance them with randomness will just end up being frustrating and unfun for both players. 'Ope, all 6 of my dominions squads rolled 6s this turn, hope you didn't like anything that was within 12" of them very much because it's dead now.'
This got me thinking - I'm not sure 40pts, an Elites slot and a Character is an unfair price to pay for a shot at extra AoF, purely because they *are* so powerful and pivotal. We've already got one per turn on a 2+ - is the army so dysfunctional that it requires more in order to work? Or are people just looking to beard it up?
BBAP wrote: This got me thinking - I'm not sure 40pts, an Elites slot and a Character is an unfair price to pay for a shot at extra AoF, purely because they *are* so powerful and pivotal. We've already got one per turn on a 2+ - is the army so dysfunctional that it requires more in order to work? Or are people just looking to beard it up?
There are four problems with the current faith/imagifier system -
1) Inverse ninja rule - the more sisters you have, the less powerful they are. A single unit of allied sisters have almost twice the firepower of the same squad in an sisters army.
2) It's 40pts for a coin-flip, so statistically you are paying 80pts to shoot twice with... what, an 85pt unit of retributors?
3) En-mass it becomes a coin flip to see if your army will be weak or strong in any given turn with no element of tactics or strategy involved.
4) The imagifiers and timing are somewhat detached from the army - they can't keep up with a unit that uses faith to move, they don't function when disembarking in a commonly mechanised faction, they can't join either of the fast attack units effectively, they are extremely localised to the point of being a squad upgrade rather than an army upgrade, and so on.
Personally though as an army ability, given the strength of faith, the two things i'd be most interested in seeing fixed are 1 & 4 - make sisters better at faith as an army than allies and reduce the fragmentation of faith (by allowing characters to share in it). Frankly the imagifiers are probably better off doing something different like allowing a sisters player to use their faith later in the turn (making them a tactical tool) and leaving faith generation down to detachments and stratagems.
A.T. wrote: 1) Inverse ninja rule - the more sisters you have, the less powerful they are. A single unit of allied sisters have almost twice the firepower of the same squad in an sisters army.
They have the same firepower in either case if you use the AoF to shoot them twice.
I'm not sure I buy the Inverse Ninja thing. With an all-Sisters list your AoF is diluted across the entire army, rather than being used by a single squad every turn - but by the same token it's diluted across the whole army instead of being used by a single squad every turn. If you have one unit of allied Sisters I know what the AoF is going to do every turn. If you have a whole army it's easy to position your units so any one of half a dozen can make best use of the extra action. It's not less powerful - it's more tactical.
2) It's 40pts for a coin-flip, so statistically you are paying 80pts to shoot twice with... what, an 85pt unit of retributors?
I'm not sure what relevance the squad's point cost has here.
What's actually happening is you're paying 40pts for a 50% extra shot to perform 1 extra action per turn, every turn, across a 5-turn game. You're not going to land it every turn - but if you did, how beardy would that be? You already get one extra action on a 2+, you can't expect to pay peanuts for more, and should expect to pay *something* towards even the chance at more.
3) En-mass it becomes a coin flip to see if your army will be weak or strong in any given turn with no element of tactics or strategy involved.
If the army's so weak that they require a gimmick to function then the army is badly designed. I haven't played much with my Sisters in 8th, but I honestly don't think that's the case. The Imagifer gives your already-capable troopers a shot at an extra-extra action - i6t's a coin flip, but given the prize for a win you have to expect to pay for it, and to be restricted in how you can use it.
4) The imagifiers and timing are somewhat detached from the army - they can't keep up with a unit that uses faith to move, they don't function when disembarking in a commonly mechanised faction, they can't join either of the fast attack units effectively, they are extremely localised to the point of being a squad upgrade rather than an army upgrade, and so on.
I mean, this all sounds fine to me. It's fine that they can't power units of Seraphim across the field, and that they can't be used on a turn which they disembark from a transport. The latter is a tactical thing, while the former seems like an attempt to prevent Seraphim becoming backfield workhorses powered by Faith.
BBAP wrote: I'm not sure I buy the Inverse Ninja thing. With an all-Sisters list your AoF is diluted across the entire army, rather than being used by a single squad every turn
1) Exactly.
You ally in a single retributor squad it shoots twice a turn
You have a sisters army with three of the same retributor squads and one of them shoots twice per turn. Possibly, unless you are using your single army-wide faith ability on any of a dozen other units.
Ergo inverse ninja - the more sisters units you have, the worse the performance of the average unit in your army.
I'm not sure what relevance the squad's point cost has here.
2) You are paying 80 points to double the firepower of an 80 point squad. Instead of buying another identical 80 point squad.
This kind of ties into the sisters other more expensive choices either being poor (melta rets), or unsuitable for imagifiers (seraphim), unable to join with them effectively (doms), unable to stay with them effectively (repentia), unable to use them at all (exorcists)... well you see the point.
If you were buying extra army-wide faith rolls at 40pts a pop that would be one thing, but the imagifiers are basically unusable outside of slow moving foot units and a chance at throwing an extra first turn seraphim squad forwards. They can't even be used to throw repentia up field because the squad would outrange its support characters.
If the army's so weak that they require a gimmick to function then the army is badly designed.
3) Flipping coins for such a large shift in capability is poor design regardless.
And the imagifiers don't generally "give your already-capable troopers a shot at an extra-extra action" - they give a specific single heavy bolter retributor squad a chance at an extra shot because that's their practical usage past turn 1.
Well, that and getting themselves killed to trigger off a martyrdom strategy.
dracpanzer wrote: Looking at making AoF scale somewhat better, perhaps a return of the Simulacrum Imperialis as a squad upgrade? Each squad with a Simulacrum has a chance to generate an AoF that only the unit itself can use on a 6+? Put it at perhaps a 10 point upgrade?
Seraphim and Celestians as Veteran units that have a deeper faith than their junior Sisters could grant a bonus of +1 to all rolls to gain an AoF within 6". Celestians could carry a Simulacrum themselves but I agree that jp troops carrying a holy relic around seems a bit off.
Though opening up the options for wargear to the Imagifer would be a nice addition to our character ranks. Either that or have the Palatine and Canoness provide the same +1 bonus to gain an AoF for having deeper faith that would allow units that otherwise wouldn't be able to roll for an AoF to do so.
I wouldn't mind some kind of squad upgrade that contributed to AoFs but I hate the randomness factor.
Acts of Faith are so pivotal and so powerful that trying to balance them with randomness will just end up being frustrating and unfun for both players. 'Ope, all 6 of my dominions squads rolled 6s this turn, hope you didn't like anything that was within 12" of them very much because it's dead now.'
Maybe something like if you have X number of banners on the field you get an extra 2+
Maybe Simulacra Banners adds a cumulative +1 chance for the army to gain an additional AoF. Limited perhaps by detachment or just overall to a 2+ chance (with 5 Simulacra) and only usable by one of the units that has a Simulacra. It would allow the AoF to go with the squads as they move about the table. It wouldn't interfere with Dominions vanguard moves being a squad upgrade and a yahtzee of 6's wouldn't make it the most powerful army in the game.
I like it by detachment a bit more, and it puts a price tag on it rather than just giving out free AoF's. I'd be open to doing away with the army wide AoF on a 2+ for free and changing it to each SoB detachment being able to purchase squad upgrade Simulacra to build up that detachments chance at an AoF only available to the units within that detachment with the Simulacra upgrade.
A.T. wrote: 1) Exactly.
You ally in a single retributor squad it shoots twice a turn
You have a sisters army with three of the same retributor squads and one of them shoots twice per turn. Possibly, unless you are using your single army-wide faith ability on any of a dozen other units.
Ergo inverse ninja - the more sisters units you have, the worse the performance of the average unit in your army.
This seems like such a strange perspective to me. Your squad shoots twice per turn in either case, but it's somehow less valuable and powerful because you're not limited to how you use the AoF with a full-SoB army, is that what you're saying? You're still acting twice with a squad in the same turn. Your army is still much more able to affect the game than it would be if it couldn't do that - and because you don't need to use the AoF on your single Sisters unit you can do so in far less predictable ways.
I just can't see the validity of the Inverse Ninja thing here. I get that the AoF doesn't scale, but I don't see that that's a flaw.
This kind of ties into the sisters other more expensive choices either being poor (melta rets), or unsuitable for imagifiers (seraphim), unable to join with them effectively (doms), unable to stay with them effectively (repentia), unable to use them at all (exorcists)... well you see the point.
If you were buying extra army-wide faith rolls at 40pts a pop that would be one thing, but the imagifiers are basically unusable outside of slow moving foot units and a chance at throwing an extra first turn seraphim squad forwards. They can't even be used to throw repentia up field because the squad would outrange its support characters.
So why not use the Imagifers to boss your back-line and save the 2+ for the Seraphim or Dominions? Maybe that's what they were designed to do? I dunno.
Also, I can see a synergy between Imagifers and Melta Rets now. I love the models, but the role they're best suited to (midfield anchor/ firepower multiplier for your faster units) requires speed they just couldn't generate in the days of no shooting Heavies on the move. That's no longer an issue; you could probably get them into a commanding position on turn two or three (or potentially turn one, even).
3) Flipping coins for such a large shift in capability is poor design regardless.
And the imagifiers don't generally "give your already-capable troopers a shot at an extra-extra action" - they give a specific single heavy bolter retributor squad a chance at an extra shot because that's their practical usage past turn 1.
They do if you deploy them to do that - which seems a fine idea to me. Putting them in a transport cuts down their useful life and makes the return on your 40pts worse, but it's still a coin-flip to get an extra-extra action.
Well, that and getting themselves killed to trigger off a martyrdom strategy.
So that's two uses. It no longer gives the same returns it used to in C:WH (unless I'm doing Strategems wrong - they're once per game, right?) but it's still an extra 2+ for the cost of 1 CP.
BBAP wrote: I just can't see the validity of the Inverse Ninja thing here. I get that the AoF doesn't scale, but I don't see that that's a flaw.
Because the cost and capabilities of the army factor faith in - or not, either way a special rule that doesn't scale with the units in the army cannot be balanced against the army.
Consider faith as a 1 point excess you pay on every single SoB model. You take 5 as allies and you get a dozen heavy bolter shots a turn for 5 points, you take 100 as an army and you get the same dozen heavy bolter shots but they now cost you 100 points a turn.
So why not use the Imagifers to boss your back-line
Because I have enough heavy bolter models to field the second squad instead.
And because i'd like a unit as iconic as the imagifier to be more relevant to the army than a marginal efficiency vs reliability choice for a single unit with a single weapon choice.
AoF are basically sisters Strategems before they existed as such. Turn all AoF into Strategems, make them cheap, and allow SoB to get CP 'refunds' on a die roll, influenced by Celestine/Imagifers/Canoness/Seraphim/Martyrdom. Limits the frequency of AoF (only one unit is double shooting, only one is double running, etc) but the SoB have staying power thanks to CP refunds and units dying to give back CP.
Give Sisters Orders appropriate traits to make up for the difference.
John Prins wrote: AoF are basically sisters Strategems before they existed as such. Turn all AoF into Strategems, make them cheap, and allow SoB to get CP 'refunds' on a die roll, influenced by Celestine/Imagifers/Canoness/Seraphim/Martyrdom. Limits the frequency of AoF (only one unit is double shooting, only one is double running, etc) but the SoB have staying power thanks to CP refunds and units dying to give back CP.
Give Sisters Orders appropriate traits to make up for the difference.
I'd say they're way closer to Guard orders than Stratagems. They fit a lot of the same categories of extra movement, extra shooting, etc. In that sense I think the AoFs themselves could stay much as they are, with their frequency, reliability, and scalability being the main issues at this point.
I thought the CA stratagems were very good in terms of fluffiness, effectiveness, and balance. I hope to see more in a similar vein. If the designers recycle some 7th ed. detachment bonuses as stratagems as we've seen before, we might find ourselves in a very good place. Seraphim get a buff when they drop, squads with the Holy Trinity get to select from three shooting profiles, etc. Those were all Apocalypse formations then, but I feel like most of those benefits are appropriate for matched play in 8th.
John Prins wrote: AoF are basically sisters Strategems before they existed as such. Turn all AoF into Strategems, make them cheap, and allow SoB to get CP 'refunds' on a die roll
Could work, though ~6 acts in a game before refunds could squeeze the army somewhat on faith and other stratagems.
A thought along the same lines would be to buy up the faith/turn in the same way as relics - an upfront spend to get 1/2/3 acts a turn.
A.T. wrote: Because the cost and capabilities of the army factor faith in - or not, either way a special rule that doesn't scale with the units in the army cannot be balanced against the army.
Maybe it's balanced against the army and it's the use by allied Sisters that's too powerful. Seems equally feasible to me - or at least it would if I didn't suspect 8th Edition was balanced around soup armies.
Either way I don't think it's currently imbalanced in any major way, certainly not to the extent that the mechanic requires renovation.
Consider faith as a 1 point excess you pay on every single SoB model. You take 5 as allies and you get a dozen heavy bolter shots a turn for 5 points, you take 100 as an army and you get the same dozen heavy bolter shots but they now cost you 100 points a turn.
This is pure economics, though. The economics are less efficient in an all-Sisters army, but the effect on the tabletop is not reduced - and is in fact expanded in a tactical sense. I find it hard to get worked up about the former while the latter remains the case.
Because I have enough heavy bolter models to field the second squad instead.
An Imagifer isn't a substitute for a second squad, though. That's why she's cheaper than one, hence easier to squeeze into an army. A second squad doesn't allow you to shoot and scoot (and shoot again) in a single turn.
And because i'd like a unit as iconic as the imagifier to be more relevant to the army than a marginal efficiency vs reliability choice for a single unit with a single weapon choice.
I wouldn't say Imagifers were iconic. I knew they existed - and have seen a few beautifully executed models - but had never seen them used in anger prior to 8th Edition.
BBAP wrote: I'm not sure I buy the Inverse Ninja thing. With an all-Sisters list your AoF is diluted across the entire army, rather than being used by a single squad every turn
1) Exactly.
You ally in a single retributor squad it shoots twice a turn
You have a sisters army with three of the same retributor squads and one of them shoots twice per turn. Possibly, unless you are using your single army-wide faith ability on any of a dozen other units.
Ergo inverse ninja - the more sisters units you have, the worse the performance of the average unit in your army.
I'm not sure what relevance the squad's point cost has here.
2) You are paying 80 points to double the firepower of an 80 point squad. Instead of buying another identical 80 point squad.
This kind of ties into the sisters other more expensive choices either being poor (melta rets), or unsuitable for imagifiers (seraphim), unable to join with them effectively (doms), unable to stay with them effectively (repentia), unable to use them at all (exorcists)... well you see the point.
If you were buying extra army-wide faith rolls at 40pts a pop that would be one thing, but the imagifiers are basically unusable outside of slow moving foot units and a chance at throwing an extra first turn seraphim squad forwards. They can't even be used to throw repentia up field because the squad would outrange its support characters.
If the army's so weak that they require a gimmick to function then the army is badly designed.
3) Flipping coins for such a large shift in capability is poor design regardless.
And the imagifiers don't generally "give your already-capable troopers a shot at an extra-extra action" - they give a specific single heavy bolter retributor squad a chance at an extra shot because that's their practical usage past turn 1.
Well, that and getting themselves killed to trigger off a martyrdom strategy.
I mean, this all sounds fine to me.
I refer you to answers 1, 2, and 3.
It's not quite double. With 2 4+ you have a 75% chance of success and you also risk wasting AoFs if they only have 1 squad of rets to go after.
A.T. wrote: Because the cost and capabilities of the army factor faith in - or not, either way a special rule that doesn't scale with the units in the army cannot be balanced against the army.
Maybe it's balanced against the army and it's the use by allied Sisters that's too powerful. Seems equally feasible to me - or at least it would if I didn't suspect 8th Edition was balanced around soup armies.
Either way I don't think it's currently imbalanced in any major way, certainly not to the extent that the mechanic requires renovation.
Consider faith as a 1 point excess you pay on every single SoB model. You take 5 as allies and you get a dozen heavy bolter shots a turn for 5 points, you take 100 as an army and you get the same dozen heavy bolter shots but they now cost you 100 points a turn.
This is pure economics, though. The economics are less efficient in an all-Sisters army, but the effect on the tabletop is not reduced - and is in fact expanded in a tactical sense. I find it hard to get worked up about the former while the latter remains the case.
Because I have enough heavy bolter models to field the second squad instead.
An Imagifer isn't a substitute for a second squad, though. That's why she's cheaper than one, hence easier to squeeze into an army. A second squad doesn't allow you to shoot and scoot (and shoot again) in a single turn.
And because i'd like a unit as iconic as the imagifier to be more relevant to the army than a marginal efficiency vs reliability choice for a single unit with a single weapon choice.
I wouldn't say Imagifers were iconic. I knew they existed - and have seen a few beautifully executed models - but had never seen them used in anger prior to 8th Edition.
The imagifier is ABSOLUTELY a substitute for a second squad of rets. I just recently rebuilt my adepticon list with an imagifier and 1 unit of rets instead of just 2 squads for this exact reason. The only purpose the imagifier serves is to give AoFs to retributors, and if you find that your list has a hard time utilizing the second squad of rets, but needs to have the possibility of putting out 2 squads worth of shots, BAM, imagifier. Buying an imagifier is just buying half a squad rets, only not as good because you don't get to decide when they shoot.
Also, if you're shooting AND scooting, you're using AoFs wrong and if you're scooting with retributors, you're playing retributors wrong.
Balancing an army based on how allies might use it is the cheapest cop-out I've ever heard btw. GW hasn't balanced anything this edition with allies in mind (at least the first time around) why would they start with us? Plus, it's not that hard to make extra AoF generators too expensive for other armies to get enough utility out of. The trick is making it so that the AoF generator is still useful to SoB, which the imagifier is not unless you bring retributors.
Sisters need new ways to generate Acts of Faith down field. Whether that means speedboosting imagifiers, deepstriking imagifiers, giving more table wide AoF triggers, or something else is up to the designers, but 1+Celestine is not going to be enough if they want us to be able to hold our own in an 'all codex' world.
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John Prins wrote: AoF are basically sisters Strategems before they existed as such. Turn all AoF into Strategems, make them cheap, and allow SoB to get CP 'refunds' on a die roll, influenced by Celestine/Imagifers/Canoness/Seraphim/Martyrdom. Limits the frequency of AoF (only one unit is double shooting, only one is double running, etc) but the SoB have staying power thanks to CP refunds and units dying to give back CP.
Give Sisters Orders appropriate traits to make up for the difference.
This would be a straight nerf and is a terrible idea.
John Prins wrote: AoF are basically sisters Strategems before they existed as such. Turn all AoF into Strategems, make them cheap, and allow SoB to get CP 'refunds' on a die roll, influenced by Celestine/Imagifers/Canoness/Seraphim/Martyrdom. Limits the frequency of AoF (only one unit is double shooting, only one is double running, etc) but the SoB have staying power thanks to CP refunds and units dying to give back CP.
Give Sisters Orders appropriate traits to make up for the difference.
I'd say they're way closer to Guard orders than Stratagems. They fit a lot of the same categories of extra movement, extra shooting, etc. In that sense I think the AoFs themselves could stay much as they are, with their frequency, reliability, and scalability being the main issues at this point.
I thought the CA stratagems were very good in terms of fluffiness, effectiveness, and balance. I hope to see more in a similar vein. If the designers recycle some 7th ed. detachment bonuses as stratagems as we've seen before, we might find ourselves in a very good place. Seraphim get a buff when they drop, squads with the Holy Trinity get to select from three shooting profiles, etc. Those were all Apocalypse formations then, but I feel like most of those benefits are appropriate for matched play in 8th.
Giving seraphim a buff when they drop wouldn't work anymore. Seraphim have 6" and 8" range guns and have to drop 9" away. There is no possible stat buff you could give them besides 4" increased range on shooting weapons, that would make deepstriking them a good idea.
The trouble we have is that Sisters have been shoehorned into a particular army design because their line hasn't been properly updated in so long. Things like the Imagifiers and Mistresses SHOULD be attached to squads as squad upgrades, not individual characters that provide aura buffs, because that's where they came from. They came from an edition where they /were/ attached to those squads or purchased as squad upgrades.
GW's boner to create lots of little 'combo characters' that give auras is a little unwieldy with certain other things. The Dark Eldar suffer much the same, where their minimum squad sizes are 5 and 10, which is also the same size as their main unit transports, the Venom and Raider. That means accompanying leaders and characters need to footslog or have their own transports carrying JUST THEM to function.
Both the Dark Eldar and Sisters of Battle need a minor adjustment to get rid of these oversights. For the Drukhari, increasing transport sizes to 6 and 11 would fix their problem. For the Sisters of Battle, turning the Imagifiers and Mistresses into a squad upgrade would solve a lot of the issue.
The Imagifiers would then be able to keep up with the squad they are bought as an upgrade for, and I'd be happy to pay 40 points for an upgrade that maybe doesn't have a bolter, but can at least keep up with the Battle Sisters or Celestians they were assigned to. Perhaps you can still keep their ability to buff /other/ units to give you that flexibility, but they are effectively part of the unit they are bought for.
I'd say the main thing Sister need in the AOF arena is additional units that allow for chances at AOF. Here is just a few possible ideas that would make sense besides Celestine and the Imaginer:
* The Canoness. The one holding that scroll or book so that she can chant out the blessed words of the Emperor.
* Celestans: The most experienced Sisters in the army. Perhaps they should be capable of generating an Act of Faith for themselves.
* Seraphim: The beacons of the faith who drive their fellow sisters to perform at their best.
ERJAK wrote: The imagifier is ABSOLUTELY a substitute for a second squad of rets.
It's not. A second squad of Rets is a second squad of Rets. An Imagifer is a means to give your Rets (or whoever) a shot at AoFs.
Also, if you're shooting AND scooting, you're using AoFs wrong and if you're scooting with retributors, you're playing retributors wrong.
If you're not redeploying your Heavies in response to game developments then you're doing Heavies wrong. They're not a mobility unit, so you're not taking them to have them shuffling around every game. Thing is, now that moving costs Heavies -1 to hit instead of a turn of shooting it's no longer such a bad idea.
Balancing an army based on how allies might use it is the cheapest cop-out I've ever heard btw. GW hasn't balanced anything this edition with allies in mind (at least the first time around) why would they start with us?
That's not the argument I made - in fact I said the opposite - although they might start with us because the Sisters have historically been an Ally faction that was awesome by accident.
Sisters need new ways to generate Acts of Faith down field. Whether that means speedboosting imagifiers, deepstriking imagifiers, giving more table wide AoF triggers, or something else is up to the designers, but 1+Celestine is not going to be enough if they want us to be able to hold our own in an 'all codex' world.
They don't "need" that. It'd be nice if they got it, sure, but they don't need it.
Giving seraphim a buff when they drop wouldn't work anymore. Seraphim have 6" and 8" range guns and have to drop 9" away. There is no possible stat buff you could give them besides 4" increased range on shooting weapons, that would make deepstriking them a good idea.
I was thinking more along the lines of the GSC Cult Ambush table, which has a few ways to enhance their arrival, especially with an HQ nearby.
Brain dump:
One idea could be the AoF phase take place during the Psychic Phase. Then you have more meaningful opportunities for Imagifers to be useful in different ways. It would then make Seraphim worthwhile to drop in, then move on a 2+. You could also disembark units from transports and then use AoF. However, I still like one 2+ army wide AoF per detachment.
In most of my lists I run 2x rets and 2x imagifers. I've done the math a lot and had a lot of internal struggle/debate. End result, the 80 points of imagifers greatly outweigh the extra 87 points of Retributors. In addition to the shooting they can heal the ret units. Being in the backfield, there's not a lot of high RoF weapons being thrown back at the Rets. Usually a lascannon or 2. They pick off a Ret, you can bring it right back. Do that once and they tend to stop shooting at them. You can always use a CP to re-roll the 4+ if the shots are really pivotal. Imagifers are great for a late game objective grab. If both Ret squads are dead, the imagifers can stand out in the middle of the open and most of the time your opponent can't target them. I'll just go ahead and set this box of bones on an objective. How's the war going at your end ladies?
Giving Imagifers jump packs is dumb.
Giving Canonesses jump packs is necessary.
I could see upping the imagifer AoF range to 12", 18" or 24" being viable. After all, It's still a 4+ coin flip. Then turn 1 they could assist your front line ladies without changing anything else in the rules.
Every idea I think of pertaining to AoF I think would be best left as a stratagem. For instance, 1 CP increase a unit's AoF by 1 until the end of the phase. Stack it with Celestine and you've got some re-rollable 4++ seraphim. That could be invaluable to weather a shooting phase in turn 1.
We need a reason to take troops. Less points? Special rules? Troop buffing stratagems? Come on GW. Flesh it out.
Can we all just agree that AoF function perfectly well as it is, and the tweaks we're asking for are purely wishlisting to increase the power of an already capable army?
deviantduck wrote: Brain dump:
One idea could be the AoF phase take place during the Psychic Phase. Then you have more meaningful opportunities for Imagifers to be useful in different ways. It would then make Seraphim worthwhile to drop in, then move on a 2+. You could also disembark units from transports and then use AoF. However, I still like one 2+ army wide AoF per detachment.
In most of my lists I run 2x rets and 2x imagifers. I've done the math a lot and had a lot of internal struggle/debate. End result, the 80 points of imagifers greatly outweigh the extra 87 points of Retributors. In addition to the shooting they can heal the ret units. Being in the backfield, there's not a lot of high RoF weapons being thrown back at the Rets. Usually a lascannon or 2. They pick off a Ret, you can bring it right back. Do that once and they tend to stop shooting at them. You can always use a CP to re-roll the 4+ if the shots are really pivotal. Imagifers are great for a late game objective grab. If both Ret squads are dead, the imagifers can stand out in the middle of the open and most of the time your opponent can't target them. I'll just go ahead and set this box of bones on an objective. How's the war going at your end ladies?
Giving Imagifers jump packs is dumb.
Giving Canonesses jump packs is necessary.
I could see upping the imagifer AoF range to 12", 18" or 24" being viable. After all, It's still a 4+ coin flip. Then turn 1 they could assist your front line ladies without changing anything else in the rules.
Every idea I think of pertaining to AoF I think would be best left as a stratagem. For instance, 1 CP increase a unit's AoF by 1 until the end of the phase. Stack it with Celestine and you've got some re-rollable 4++ seraphim. That could be invaluable to weather a shooting phase in turn 1.
We need a reason to take troops. Less points? Special rules? Troop buffing stratagems? Come on GW. Flesh it out.
That's all for now...
Yeah, 2 imagifiers outweigh 1 squad of rets(slightly) but that was never the issue. The issue was without that squad of rets(and rets aren't super fantastic to begin with, good but not great) the imagifier is totally worthless. You can't splash an imagifier into a dominion or seraphim list, they're too random and too slow, and not worth the extra points. The 12" range would be functionally the same as a jumppack, so cool.
Also, if you move AoFs to the psychic phase as is, that's a ridiculous power boost. Oh, I get to move my dominions into melta range, shoot, and then shoot again with no penalty? Thank you very much! AoFs work BECAUSE they're at the start of the turn. Letting us move first would break seraphim AND dominions(while leaving retributors actually worse off.)
And increasing 1 units SoF by 1 would be nice, but doesn't really work that well with the inherently MSU nature of SoB. You'd protect what...146pts of seraphim? maybe? If you were running ten? I think more ambitiously. I'd like to see a strategem for 4 or 5 CP that increases the entire army's SoF by 2 for a single phase(usable once per game). Stonewall alpha AND beta strike lists at the cost of almost every other stratagem for the rest of the game? Sounds fair to me.
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BBAP wrote: Can we all just agree that AoF function perfectly well as it is, and the tweaks we're asking for are purely wishlisting to increase the power of an already capable army?
We could if it were true, but it's not so we can't. There are things in the AoF system that just don't work quite right(imagifiers) and there just aren't enough in the army for any infantry based list to thrive. As it stands now, the more sisters infantry you have, the less useful acts of faith get. If you focus all your 1 AoF per turn into a unit of 10 seraphim with maxed out pistols, it ends up being unfairly more efficient than trying to spread out 2 maybe 3 aofs(if you shelled out the 160pts for the 4 imagifiers you'd need for 2 extra per turn to be statistically likely) amongst multiple troop squads, retributors, etc. Fix imagifiers, add 1 more way to AoF isolated units and THEN it would function perfectly fine.
ERJAK wrote: Also, if you move AoFs to the psychic phase as is, that's a ridiculous power boost. Oh, I get to move my dominions into melta range, shoot, and then shoot again with no penalty? Thank you very much! AoFs work BECAUSE they're at the start of the turn. Letting us move first would break seraphim AND dominions(while leaving retributors actually worse off.)
Well.. You can already do that after turn 1. Move within Melta range turn 1. Start of next turn you can AoF at melta range. All it would change is you could theoretically do it top of 1.
After my seraphim die I often find myself going, Oh, hey, other units can use my 2+ AoF. How novel.
I also hope there's a lot of stratagems revolving around the holy trinity. Such as 2 CP reroll all missed bolter shots, etc. (tweak as necessary for balance)
In most of my lists I run 2x rets and 2x imagifers. I've done the math a lot and had a lot of internal struggle/debate. End result, the 80 points of imagifers greatly outweigh the extra 87 points of Retributors. In addition to the shooting they can heal the ret units. Being in the backfield, there's not a lot of high RoF weapons being thrown back at the Rets. Usually a lascannon or 2. They pick off a Ret, you can bring it right back. Do that once and they tend to stop shooting at them. You can always use a CP to re-roll the 4+ if the shots are really pivotal. Imagifers are great for a late game objective grab. If both Ret squads are dead, the imagifers can stand out in the middle of the open and most of the time your opponent can't target them. I'll just go ahead and set this box of bones on an objective. How's the war going at your end ladies?
I've also been using my Imagifiers to hold off for a turn on buffing Rets and instead use their Turn 1 AoF to fling a wall of Inferno Seraphim across the table in lieu of Vanguard Dominions. Then they spend the rest of the game cranking out the HB volume fire.
BBAP wrote: Can we all just agree that AoF function perfectly well as it is, and the tweaks we're asking for are purely wishlisting to increase the power of an already capable army?
Except some of us are saying "Make Acts of Faith not as strong, but more available across the army". So, you know, it's more powerful to take a Sisters' ARMY than a single Sisters' unit in a patrol alongside any other Imperium army.
This is AWESOME. The last several pages has been a rational back and forth discussion over how the new codex can best correct the most glaring deficiency in the current Sisters rules set - The Inverse Ninja AoF system.
BBAP wrote: Can we all just agree that AoF function perfectly well as it is
No.
Not just no but Hell No.
The current rules make Sisters an excellent choice for a soup list but a poor choice for an army.
I have one unit of Sisters in a soup list. Because of Sisters special rules that unit gets one Act of Faith each turn on a 2+. The other units in the soup army get to take full advantage of their special rules every turn as well.
I have an all-Sisters army with eight units of infantry. Those 8 units must share ONE Act of Faith each turn on a 2+. No other special rules.
I'm sure I saw someone mention it before, but I don't recall a discussion for or against the idea. What about one 2+ act of faith per Sisters detachment, each usable only by Sisters in the associated detachment? It scales based on the size of the army decently,without becoming super cheap and easy to get. Clever killing by your opponent reduces the number of acts you've got available per turn, but also lets you try and force them to kill Characters for the off turn act of vengeance.
It discourages the larger battalion detachments, but sisters as they are now just want the fast attack one for the most part anyway.
ERJAK wrote: We could if it were true, but it's not so we can't. There are things in the AoF system that just don't work quite right(imagifiers)
Imagifers don't function as you'd like them to, but just because she can't fly and only grants a full five turns of AoF coin flips if she's outside a transport, doesn't mean she's useless. I wouldn't mind paying 40pts for a few throws at some extra shooting for my Dominions or extra movement for my BSS - in fact I might just do that. Saves painting up more Immolators.
Things aren't broken just because they don't function like you want them to. What you're asking for is an upgrade, not a fix.
there just aren't enough in the army for any infantry based list to thrive.
I mean, I get more AoFs with my Sisters than I do with my Daemons or GSC, wether or not I take an Imagifer. How many AoFs do you want?
As it stands now, the more sisters infantry you have, the less useful acts of faith get.
I've been hearing that for 3 pages now and remain unconvinced.
If you focus all your 1 AoF per turn into a unit of 10 seraphim with maxed out pistols, it ends up being unfairly more efficient than trying to spread out 2 maybe 3 aofs(if you shelled out the 160pts for the 4 imagifiers you'd need for 2 extra per turn to be statistically likely) amongst multiple troop squads, retributors, etc
If you're taking 1 unit of Seraphim as an Allied Detachment then your AoF is only affecting one squad in your army every turn. It'll be the same squad every turn, so if I want to deny you the advantage of AoFs I will kill that one squad and now your "efficiency" is worthless because nobody else can use the AoF.
If you're taking a full army of 8 Sisters squads then your AoF is only affecting one squad in your army every turn, but it'll be one of 8 squads and there's no way for an opponent to control where or how you use it. It's up to you to make sure it is used decisively, as it was meant to be.
The idea that "efficiency" can be modelled with a crude division - in this case number of AoFs divided by number of eligible units - is almost always facile, because crude division is an arithmetical operation that can't take into account a lot of the important subtleties and nuances involved in whatever you're trying to model. You can't boil these factors out; they need to be considered if you want to talk about how efficient things are, and more especially if your proposed solution is just stuffing the numerator to decrease the "inefficiency".
In this case, I think stuffing the numerator with ever increasing numbers of bonus actions will simply break the army. Let's say they make Imagifers more reliable. At a stroke that solves Sisters' long-standing problem of slowness outside vehicles, so the first thing I'd do is dump all my transports and use my Imagifers to shunt my Sisters around, then use the extra points to buy more Sisters. Would it work? I dunno - new To Wound and AP mechanics have upped the survivability of T3 5+ gribble-hordes against shooting, so I can only imagine they'd do likewise for a T3 3+ horde with boltguns, bolt pistols and Melta weapons. Would it be broken? Again, I dunno. How many Sisters can you fit in an army if you're paying a 40pt tax per squad instead of 85-110pts for an Immo/ Repressor (which also limit the max size of your squads with their transport capacity)?
It'd be awkward to make it work what with the limited range of the Imagifer, but I reckon it could be done, and if it were done it'd be beardy.
Fix imagifiers, add 1 more way to AoF isolated units and THEN it would function perfectly fine.
It functions fine now. You want upgrades, not fixes.
there just aren't enough in the army for any infantry based list to thrive.
I mean, I get more AoFs with my Sisters than I do with my Daemons or GSC, wether or not I take an Imagifer. How many AoFs do you want?
True, you do get more AoFs with Sisters than with Daemons or GSC - but you also get more Cult Ambush with your GSC than your SoB or Daemons, and more summoning options with your Daemons than the GSC or SoB. Different armies have different special rules. What's your point?
Fix imagifiers, add 1 more way to AoF isolated units and THEN it would function perfectly fine.
It functions fine now. You want upgrades, not fixes.
What people appear to want is a signature special rule that scales with the number of units in the army that can benefit from it. Whether this means weakening AoF so this can happy is something people don't seem to have reached a consensus on yet. If it does get scalable, I think a "Units can only be affected by one AoF a turn." addition to the mechanic seems reasonable at first glance (if it isn't already there - can't find my copy of Index Imperium 2 at present).
I don't have all the books to hand, but I can't - off the top of my head - think of another faction whose core special ability does not affect more units the larger the army is.
The idea that "efficiency" can be modelled with a crude division - in this case number of AoFs divided by number of eligible units - is almost always facile, because crude division is an arithmetical operation that can't take into account a lot of the important subtleties and nuances involved in whatever you're trying to model. You can't boil these factors out; they need to be considered if you want to talk about how efficient things are, and more especially if your proposed solution is just stuffing the numerator to decrease the "inefficiency".
Let’s try this again.
Consider two identical factions. They have the same units, same options, same costs, but one difference: their faction bonus.
Faction A’s bonus gives them a 10% increase in firepower. I don’t care how this is achieved, so let’s just say they have the rule ‘For every 10 shots fired by this army, fire an 11th shot for free.’
Faction B’s bonus gives one unit per army a 100% increase in firepower. Say, ‘Each turn, pick one unit. That unit shoots twice this turn.’
At tiny points values, where each side can only field a single 10-model unit, Faction B is going to wipe the floor with Faction A. They have 20 shots per turn to Faction A’s 11 shots per turn. Faction B’s faction bonus is ten times stronger than Faction B’s.
At a points value high enough to field ten units of ten models each, the two Factions are balanced. They go about it slightly differently, but each puts out 110 shots. Faction B can better concentrate their firepower but equally Faction A exerts more firepower over the whole board.
At arbitrarily large points values, say Legion strength of 10,000 units of 10 models each, Faction A puts out 110,000 shots per turn to Faction B’s 100,010 shots. Faction A’s bonus is a thousand times as powerful as Faction B’s.
If you still can’t see the issue then... we’ll, you’re beyond what I can help you with. That’s as clearly as I can put the Reverse Ninja problem of only having a set number of AoFs rather than a number that scales with army size.
Dysartes wrote: True, you do get more AoFs with Sisters than with Daemons or GSC - but you also get more Cult Ambush with your GSC than your SoB or Daemons, and more summoning options with your Daemons than the GSC or SoB. Different armies have different special rules. What's your point?
That infantry-based armies don't need ever increasing numbers of free actions to thrive. Daemons and GSC might not be the best example considering neither is "thriving" at the moment for different reasons - but they'd be doing much better if I got to make a free move with them on a 2+ every turn. I'd trade Summoning and Cult Ambush for that no problem at all.
What people appear to want is a signature special rule that scales with the number of units in the army that can benefit from it.
What people want is more free moves every turn. I don't blame them, because I also want more free moves every turn - but I have the self awareness to recognise that I want more free moves every turn because it makes my army exceptionally powerful.
The idea of scaling the number of free moves I get every turn is just a limp-wristed attempt to "balance" the addition of more free moves every turn. In my mind the only way to balance more free moves every turn is with a massive HQ tax and the loss of other special rules, as is the case with Ynnari armies, so you can't have 100 Sisters running around at 1250pts making free moves every turn and ripping up everything with their 6++ and mini-DTW on every fething unit in the army.
At the very, very least your army should lose Shield of Faith and be forced to take Celestine if you want more 2+ AoFs every turn, and even that wouldn't be a huge trade-off because Celestine is awesome and most people are taking her anyway.
Whether this means weakening AoF so this can happy is something people don't seem to have reached a consensus on yet.
You're the first person I've seen make this argument - and if we're going to water down AoFs in order to get more of them then why bother changing them at all? Why not keep the awesome AoFs we have at the moment and just leave them at one per army per turn on a 2+?
If it does get scalable, I think a "Units can only be affected by one AoF a turn." addition to the mechanic seems reasonable at first glance
At first glance maybe. Apply this "balance" to three squads and you'll see why it's unreasonable.
If you're stuck I'll give you a hint; all three squads can shoot twice each turn with only one AoF apiece. Jiminy jillickers, that's kinda cheesy, isn't it? How do we balance that, Radioactive Man?! "Well, you just restrict the number of AoFs available to the army every turn!", right? Okay - how many AoFs per turn is reasonable? Two? So two of my squads can shoot twice every turn - which would be 48 HB shots from two units of Rets, or alternatively 72 bolter shots plus quadruple shots from whatever specials my two 10-strong Sisters squads are carrying. Nice - I'll take it!
Then people start whining that Sisters are rinsing everything off the table with their uber-fast quickdraw powers, and we all decide one 2+ punt per turn is enough.
Alternatively we make AoFs suck so their impact on the game is reduced. No thanks.
I don't have all the books to hand, but I can't - off the top of my head - think of another faction whose core special ability does not affect more units the larger the army is.
The Acts of Faith special rule already affects more units the larger your army gets, in the same way Cult Ambush does (and Summoning doesn't). The only difference is you don't get more free moves the larger your army gets - and you shouldn't, because free moves are powerful and having too many of them is borked.
BBAP wrote: Can we all just agree that AoF function perfectly well as it is, and the tweaks we're asking for are purely wishlisting to increase the power of an already capable army?
Except some of us are saying "Make Acts of Faith not as strong, but more available across the army". So, you know, it's more powerful to take a Sisters' ARMY than a single Sisters' unit in a patrol alongside any other Imperium army.
BBAP wrote:[
Whether this means weakening AoF so this can happy is something people don't seem to have reached a consensus on yet.
You're the first person I've seen make this argument - and if we're going to water down AoFs in order to get more of them then why bother changing them at all? Why not keep the awesome AoFs we have at the moment and just leave them at one per army per turn on a 2+?
No. They're not the first one to make that argument.
Consider two identical factions. They have the same units, same options, same costs, but one difference: their faction bonus.
Faction A’s bonus gives them a 10% increase in firepower. I don’t care how this is achieved, so let’s just say they have the rule ‘For every 10 shots fired by this army, fire an 11th shot for free.’
Faction B’s bonus gives one unit per army a 100% increase in firepower. Say, ‘Each turn, pick one unit. That unit shoots twice this turn.’
At tiny points values, where each side can only field a single 10-model unit, Faction B is going to wipe the floor with Faction A. They have 20 shots per turn to Faction A’s 11 shots per turn. Faction B’s faction bonus is ten times stronger than Faction B’s.
At a points value high enough to field ten units of ten models each, the two Factions are balanced. They go about it slightly differently, but each puts out 110 shots. Faction B can better concentrate their firepower but equally Faction A exerts more firepower over the whole board.
At arbitrarily large points values, say Legion strength of 10,000 units of 10 models each, Faction A puts out 110,000 shots per turn to Faction B’s 100,010 shots. Faction A’s bonus is a thousand times as powerful as Faction B’s.
If you still can’t see the issue then... we’ll, you’re beyond what I can help you with. That’s as clearly as I can put the Reverse Ninja problem of only having a set number of AoFs rather than a number that scales with army size.
This makes the complaint a little clearer - but at the end of the day it's still "AoF divided by number of units equals quotient too small for my liking". The impact of the single free move is reduced at arbitrarily high points values, but so is the impact of everything. At the end of the day you're still getting an extra free move. I'll trade you my Summoning for that no problem at all. Hell, you can have all of my God-specific bonuses too.
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JNAProductions wrote: Except some of us are saying "Make Acts of Faith not as strong, but more available across the army". So, you know, it's more powerful to take a Sisters' ARMY than a single Sisters' unit in a patrol alongside any other Imperium army.
Right - so basically "give me more free moves every turn".
EDIT: Wait, no - you're not saying that, you're saying "give me sucky special rules I can use more often"? What's the point of making that change?
BBAP wrote:
Whether this means weakening AoF so this can happy is something people don't seem to have reached a consensus on yet.
You're the first person I've seen make this argument - and if we're going to water down AoFs in order to get more of them then why bother changing them at all? Why not keep the awesome AoFs we have at the moment and just leave them at one per army per turn on a 2+?
No. They're not the first one to make that argument.
So more than one person would like suckier special rules they can use more often than awesome special rules they can only use sparingly? Fair enough. I guess.
BBAP, you yourself say that AoF are far too strong to give to an entire army right now. So, if the buff(s) from an AoF are made not as strong, you can give them to more units without breaking anything.
The rules don't have to suck, they just have to be less powerful. Less powerful than an entire free phase does NOT equal sucking.
JNAProductions wrote: BBAP, you yourself say that AoF are far too strong to give to an entire army right now. So, if the buff(s) from an AoF are made not as strong, you can give them to more units without breaking anything.
So essentially you want to change a perfectly good faction trait in order to be able to justify using it more often. That seems senseless to me. Agree to disagree, I suppose.
JNAProductions wrote: BBAP, you yourself say that AoF are far too strong to give to an entire army right now. So, if the buff(s) from an AoF are made not as strong, you can give them to more units without breaking anything.
So essentially you want to change a perfectly good faction trait in order to be able to justify using it more often. That seems senseless to me. Agree to disagree, I suppose.
A good faction trait should be usable by the entire faction.
This is not a good faction trait-it's POWERFUL, but powerful=/=good.
Part of the reason this debate has ground on for so long is the vagueness of the terms we're using. "Good" and "powerful" can mean different things to different people. In an attempt to focus it a bit I'm going to try and be a bit more precise in my responses from here on out.
In 7th, nearly every unit in the Genestealer Cults army could Return to the Shadows. They could do this more or less at will, with a few restrictions - this is an example of a trait that affected the entire army. It was also a very silly idea. The ability to remove squads from the table, have them restore dead models (via the Decurion bonuses) and then arrive back in play on the very next turn more or less wherever I wanted them gave GSC a mobility and resilience that obviated the army's balancing weaknesses (footslogging T3 5+), made it far too easy to disrupt an opponent's game, and to score cheap VPs without giving my opponent a chance to stop me.
I've recently learned that RttS is back, in Strategem form. It does the same thing it always did (i.e it hasn't become "weaker" or "less powerful") except now it costs a Command Point to use it, which denies me the ability to use it as a crutch in the way I was doing in 7th.
tl;dr - Abilities which affect the entire army are not "good" solely by dint of their doing so, and in fact it can be a bad idea to have abilities affect an entire army if they grant the army too much capability with too little cost.
This is not a good faction trait-it's POWERFUL, but powerful=/=good.
AoFs allow you to advance time. They give whatever squad uses them the opportunity to degrade your opponent's army or cover table-space that they wouldn't otherwise be able to do until your next turn. They also allow you to rez a model but nobody really cares about that - it's all about the increased ability to effect the game your squads gain with AoFs. That's both powerful, since it takes some of your opponent's initiative away from them by dragging game events from next turn into the current one, and is also good, because this ability is conducive to winning games (provided you use it correctly).
To remove this ability and replace it with something less "powerful" simply for the sake of allowing it to be used more often seems like wanton vandalism to me. Quite apart from the fact you can actually build a Sisters army to maximise your chances of scoring bonus AoFs, I'm just baffled as to why people want to do this or think it's a good idea. To me this whole shenanigan feels like the "CC units please" complaints all over again. You have this perfectly serviceable army which has a solid toolset with some glaring omissions, yet instead of asking GW to fix the flaws people are asking for the faction to be revamped so it conforms to their desires.
So are you just incapable of listening to other people? Clearly, GW is perfect and they made the perfect sisters army, and because you think so and are always right, it must be so.
phydaux wrote: This is AWESOME. The last several pages has been a rational back and forth discussion over how the new codex can best correct the most glaring deficiency in the current Sisters rules set - The Inverse Ninja AoF system.
Did you type this with a straight face? I ask because you misrepresent what I'm saying in the very next sentence, so you're either being ironic or you have a critical lack of self-awareness.
Clearly, GW is perfect and they made the perfect sisters army, and because you think so and are always right, it must be so.
I can't let this stand, given it's a complete misrepresentation of everything I've been saying in this thread thus far and for years beforehand.
To reiterate:The Sisters have flaws. In fact they have the same flaws now as they did in the Witch Hunters book - they lack reliable long-range high-power shooting, and they lack mobility that doesn't require vehicles. The army has a lot of functional aspects alongside these flaws, and I've always liked the challenge inherent in an army that demands you aggressively close with an opponent without allowing them to charge you - but their flaws mean there are hard counters and hence Sisters aren't perfect.
In 8+ years of bitching about Sisters with other Sisters players not one of them has explained to me how you fix these flaws by fething about with the stuff that actually works. The flaws were what they are now in 5th Edition, and people wanted CC units and Celestian Terminators. Now they've revamped AoF so they're awesome, and people want to feth about with them so they get to do more stuff in a turn.
Stop asking for upgrades to stuff that works and start asking GW to fix the gak that needs fixing. Or learn to love Guard allies.
Did you type this with a straight face? I ask because you misrepresent what I'm saying in the very next sentence, so you're either being ironic or you have a critical lack of self-awareness.
Sorry but I agree 100% with him and I find the “critical lack of self-awareness” coming from pretty funny .
To drag this conversation in a direction other than "AOF", I'll follow up on my earlier post.
alextroy wrote: What does this tell us? If GW sees SOB as a major release, we can expect :
4+ Clampack Character models just like Primaries, Death Guard, and Kharadron Overlords, the three larges releases
3 Multipart Unit Kits that may be for multi-units or may include character upgrade bits
2-3 Vehicle Kits
Let's talk Multipart Kits. I think it i highly likely we will get a Troops Kit (duh), an Elites Kit, and at least a 3rd Infantry Kit.
The Troops Kit is a no-brainer. Need to put out a Battle Sisters Kit to form the core of the army. Depending upon how many models and how much wargear they cram into the kit, this can easily cover Battle Sisters Squad, Dominion Squad, and Retributor Squads. It might be snug, but if the Tactical Marine box can fit 10 models with 10 bolters, 4 special weapons, a heavy weapon, 3 melee weapons, 3 pistols, and a multi-option Combi-Weapon, we stand a chance of fitting the Holy Trinity as both Special and Heavy weapons along with sergeant weapons in a a 10 Sister box. Squeeze in a few extra specials and we are a go for all three squads.
It think there will be an Elite Unit Kit. Everybody is getting them lately: Thousand Sons, Death Guard, Adeptus Custodes. This means a Celestians box, Sisters in more ornate or accessorized armor. Probably a 5 model kit, possibly with options to make a character or two, which seems to be a thing lately. A few bits will allow an Imagifier to be made with the kit and if they go crazy they could include a cloak for a Cannoness model or a new Palatine (aka Sisters Lt.). Never know with GW.
The third kit becomes a toss up between Seraphim and Repentia, unless GW goes all out and give a 4th Unit Kit for sisters to get both out. I've seen many suggest that Celestians and Seraphim could be in the same box, but I don't see that happening. Flying models and walkers don't make good combo kits, especially if they make new Seraphim match the Geminae Superia. More likely they will add more options to the Seraphim to encourage players to purchase the box to add to their collection. I'll buy one just to get my hands on some real Inferno Pistol Seraphim.
I really don't have a clue what they will do about Repentia. Might not be a look they want to keep in the Sister of Battle Army. It's one thing when you have an army of half naked elfin ladies in Age of Sigmar, but BDSM nuns in 40K might not be appropriate for this day and age.
Did you type this with a straight face? I ask because you misrepresent what I'm saying in the very next sentence, so you're either being ironic or you have a critical lack of self-awareness.
Clearly, GW is perfect and they made the perfect sisters army, and because you think so and are always right, it must be so.
I can't let this stand, given it's a complete misrepresentation of everything I've been saying in this thread thus far and for years beforehand.
To reiterate:The Sisters have flaws. In fact they have the same flaws now as they did in the Witch Hunters book - they lack reliable long-range high-power shooting, and they lack mobility that doesn't require vehicles. The army has a lot of functional aspects alongside these flaws, and I've always liked the challenge inherent in an army that demands you aggressively close with an opponent without allowing them to charge you - but their flaws mean there are hard counters and hence Sisters aren't perfect.
In 8+ years of bitching about Sisters with other Sisters players not one of them has explained to me how you fix these flaws by fething about with the stuff that actually works. The flaws were what they are now in 5th Edition, and people wanted CC units and Celestian Terminators. Now they've revamped AoF so they're awesome, and people want to feth about with them so they get to do more stuff in a turn.
Stop asking for upgrades to stuff that works and start asking GW to fix the gak that needs fixing. Or learn to love Guard allies.
You're the one asking for upgrades to stuff that works and trying to keep GW from stuff that needs fixing.
We are asking to fix stuff that needs fixing. The AoF system is more limited than it needs to be and has entire subsections of it(imagifiers) that are useless garbage.
You are asking for long range firepower that is largely superflous to SoB. Get retributors and Exorcists up to snuff so we can reach out and touch things a little bit easier and that's all we'd need. We're a short-midrange 'shot-gun' style shooting army. Our goal should be getting up into the opponents face, and then melting it off.
You're trying to make a guard parking lot out of an army that isn't a guard parking lot. We're never going to be able to compete in the long range shooting game, we just won't. It doesn't make any sense from a fluff perspective, a solid dozen other armies play the same game only they have 5+ editions of model releases backing them up, and splitting the army's focus just makes it bad at both. It makes more sense to improve our mid-range and short-range shooting, and the tools we have to get there. Things that could all be done BY EXPANDING THE ACTS OF FAITH SYSTEM.
Also, yunno what would make us more mobile without vehicles? More acts of faith.
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alextroy wrote: To drag this conversation in a direction other than "AOF", I'll follow up on my earlier post.
alextroy wrote: What does this tell us? If GW sees SOB as a major release, we can expect :
4+ Clampack Character models just like Primaries, Death Guard, and Kharadron Overlords, the three larges releases
3 Multipart Unit Kits that may be for multi-units or may include character upgrade bits
2-3 Vehicle Kits
Let's talk Multipart Kits. I think it i highly likely we will get a Troops Kit (duh), an Elites Kit, and at least a 3rd Infantry Kit.
The Troops Kit is a no-brainer. Need to put out a Battle Sisters Kit to form the core of the army. Depending upon how many models and how much wargear they cram into the kit, this can easily cover Battle Sisters Squad, Dominion Squad, and Retributor Squads. It might be snug, but if the Tactical Marine box can fit 10 models with 10 bolters, 4 special weapons, a heavy weapon, 3 melee weapons, 3 pistols, and a multi-option Combi-Weapon, we stand a chance of fitting the Holy Trinity as both Special and Heavy weapons along with sergeant weapons in a a 10 Sister box. Squeeze in a few extra specials and we are a go for all three squads.
It think there will be an Elite Unit Kit. Everybody is getting them lately: Thousand Sons, Death Guard, Adeptus Custodes. This means a Celestians box, Sisters in more ornate or accessorized armor. Probably a 5 model kit, possibly with options to make a character or two, which seems to be a thing lately. A few bits will allow an Imagifier to be made with the kit and if they go crazy they could include a cloak for a Cannoness model or a new Palatine (aka Sisters Lt.). Never know with GW.
The third kit becomes a toss up between Seraphim and Repentia, unless GW goes all out and give a 4th Unit Kit for sisters to get both out. I've seen many suggest that Celestians and Seraphim could be in the same box, but I don't see that happening. Flying models and walkers don't make good combo kits, especially if they make new Seraphim match the Geminae Superia. More likely they will add more options to the Seraphim to encourage players to purchase the box to add to their collection. I'll buy one just to get my hands on some real Inferno Pistol Seraphim.
I really don't have a clue what they will do about Repentia. Might not be a look they want to keep in the Sister of Battle Army. It's one thing when you have an army of half naked elfin ladies in Age of Sigmar, but BDSM nuns in 40K might not be appropriate for this day and age.
Personally I think every single current power armor foot-infantry unit will come out of the Battle Sister kit. Expect it to be about the same price as the intercessor box, but hopefully with 10 models. The Seraphim kit will have some sort of dual kit option. Making a character out of a 5 model kit doesn't make any sense for us, it worked for custodes because 1 custode costs more than an entire unit of battle sisters. So I don't think they'll go down that route.
Then I think the repentia kit will have some sort of secondary build option(and will have a mistress of repentence). Then an elite kit with dual build options. Could be FA like bikes, could be 'sister centurions' could be something totally off the wall.
They'll rebox the Exorcist/Immolator with a plastic turret sprue(and some additional options that make it a juicy kit again)
For Clampacks I would say they'll likely ditch the dialogus so it'll be a canoness, an imagifier, a hospitaller, and a new HQ choice. At least one of these will have some kind of dual build option. They may also make Veridian a named character again.
For the vehicle kits I would expect a Flyer, a Heavy(land-raider+) vehicle and a light vehicle. All with either multiple build options or tons of weapon options.
And I'm gonna throw out their that they'll likely do a big centerpiece of some type. Could be a Sisters specific terrain piece or fortification that synergizes with the army (both nurgle and the new idoneth deepkin have something similar) could be a Sisters super-heavy, could be a giant angel monster.
Basically, I think they're going to be cramming options into these boxes and I would be a bit surprised if ANYTHING didn't have multiple units it could be.
ERJAK wrote: They'll rebox the Exorcist/Immolator with a plastic turret sprue(and some additional options that make it a juicy kit again)
Immolator is already plastic - though there was something about the clear plastic section mentioned earlier in the thread. I'd like to think plastic Exorcist is a given - hopefully keeping the pipe organ look, for my money.
ERJAK wrote: They may also make Veridian a named character again.
You say again - has she ever actually been a playable named character? I didn't think so.
ERJAK wrote: They'll rebox the Exorcist/Immolator with a plastic turret sprue(and some additional options that make it a juicy kit again)
Immolator is already plastic - though there was something about the clear plastic section mentioned earlier in the thread. I'd like to think plastic Exorcist is a given - hopefully keeping the pipe organ look, for my money.
ERJAK wrote: They may also make Veridian a named character again.
You say again - has she ever actually been a playable named character? I didn't think so.
alextroy wrote: To drag this conversation in a direction other than "AOF", I'll follow up on my earlier post.
To copy a post of mine from another thread over:
To get some context, I looked at Death Guard as a recent major faction update. In terms of sprues, the have the following:
- 8 Infantry Sprues
- 5 Vehicle Sprues
- 6 Characters
- Additional sprues for the Dark Imperium starter set and Easy to Build versions of the above
Setting that as my limit, I would propose the following for how I would do plastic Sisters:
- 5-strong Sisters sprue with Bolters and option for Sister Superior
- 5-strong Sisters sprue with Bolters and option for Imagifier
- Special and heavy weapons sprue with assorted bling
- 5-strong Repentia sprue
- 2 sprues for a 5-strong Seraphim squad
- 2 sprues for a 5-strong kit to make Celestians with options for ‘Command Squad’ Characters - Dialogus, Hospitaller etc
- Combined plastic sprue for Immolator/Exorcist upgrade from a Rhino
- Plastic sprue to turn a Rhino into another tank - my suggestion would be along the lines of a Vindicator with Melta/Flamer/Bolter weaponry
- 2 sprues for a plastic Penitent Engine
- Half sprue of ‘Sisters vehicle bits’ similar to the Black Templars and Deathwatch vehicle sprues - Rhino doors/hatches/icons etc
- Cannoness
- Palatine
- Cannonness with Jump Pack
- Mistress Repentia
- Named character
Plus Celestine. That totals up to 8 infantry sprues, 5 vehicle sprues and 5 characters - a touch under the Death Guard release. The first three sprues could be mixed and matched - one of each would yield a Battle Sister Squad, one of the first and two of the third would give a Dominion/Retributor squad, the third could be included in the Celestian Squad.
Now, in the Death a Guard list I left out Mortarion, and large, centrepiece models are all the rage at the moment. So I think there are two ways to use that opportunity:
- the Rolling Cathedral idea; this could piggyback off the Baneblade chassis (like the ForgeWorld Fellblade does) to save on the number of new sprues to be designed
- a walking cathedral, like a supersized cross between Inquisitor Karamazov’s Throne of Judgement and a Penitent Engine the size of a Daemon Primarch (similar in high level concept to Raging Heroes’ Sisters War Pulpit - which is worth a google if you haven’t seen it)
I think what I’ve listed above, plus a Codex with the special editions, datacards and dice would give a release of a similar size or a little smaller than the Death Guard, which isn’t beyond the realm of plausibility.
Don't apologise for believing something, it smacks of low self esteem.
ERJAK wrote: You're the one asking for upgrades to stuff that works and trying to keep GW from stuff that needs fixing.
Sisters have no S8 weapons that can fire beyond 24" aside from Exorcists, which fire D6 shots. Exorcists are awesome, and can now be taken in greater numbers than ever before, but they're too expensive on their own to constitute a firebase.
Sisters have a single unit that can move more than 6" natively without the use of a vehicle. That's an issue, right?
We are asking to fix stuff that needs fixing. The AoF system is more limited than it needs to be and has entire subsections of it(imagifiers) that are useless garbage.
The AoF system is exactly as limited as it needs to be, because getting huge numbers of extra actions every turn allows you to affect the game far too much to be fair. Also, units aren't "useless garbage" just because they don't function as you'd like them to.
You want the AoF system to conform to your desires. It doesn't need to. It works fine as it is.
You are asking for long range firepower that is largely superflous to SoB
When I ask for it, it's superfluous...
Get retributors and Exorcists up to snuff so we can reach out and touch things a little bit easier and that's all we'd need.
... but when you ask for it, it's fine! You understand this is exactly the kind of change I'm asking for, right? The reason I'm asking for it is because...
We're a short-midrange 'shot-gun' style shooting army. Our goal should be getting up into the opponents face, and then melting it off.
... which I've been saying the whole time. The problem with being a mid-range shotgun army whose mobility is primarily vehicle-based is that armies which can shoot your vehicles out from under you can dance away from your melting attempts, and since Seraphim are the only unit in the army that can move 12" a turn and act, being de-transported is a serious flaw. That's why Sisters need both long-range firepower *and* mobility that isn't based on vehicles.
Imagifers suggest a solution for the latter, but nobody will bother with them because they're "useless garbage".
You're trying to make a guard parking lot out of an army that isn't a guard parking lot
No I'm not. Re-read my posts.
Also, yunno what would make us more mobile without vehicles? More acts of faith.
Yunno what unit gives you more Acts of Faith? Imagifers. Not just on a 4+, but also through the Strat in Chapter Approved - although the 4+ is fine for 40pts.
The AoF system is exactly as limited as it needs to be, because getting huge numbers of extra actions every turn allows you to affect the game far too much to be fair. Also, units aren't "useless garbage" just because they don't function as you'd like them to.
You want the AoF system to conform to your desires. It doesn't need to. It works fine as it is.
Just quoting the portion I want to address.
You're basically saying here that what YOU think is a good system is therefore objectively good. I and a good number of other people disagree with that, but you seem incapable of understanding that other people might hold other opinions than you and be correct with them.
The AoF system is exactly as limited as it needs to be, because getting huge numbers of extra actions every turn allows you to affect the game far too much to be fair.
Basically it seems that AoF are so powerful they have to be heavily limited, but it has some issues IMO scaling up with higher point values. It's very strong at low points (2-3 AoF reliably), but at higher values the number of AoF per turn varies wildly because it's mostly on 4+ rolls, and as noted previously, heavily dependent on positioning and really restricts certain kinds of builds - someone who wants a Seraphim army is out of luck.
That said, this is a solvable problem - Jump Pack Canonesses with AoF providing Relics would fix that. Expanded Relics, Warlord Traits and faction Traits might solve a lot of problems.
The AoF system is exactly as limited as it needs to be, because getting huge numbers of extra actions every turn allows you to affect the game far too much to be fair. Also, units aren't "useless garbage" just because they don't function as you'd like them to.
You want the AoF system to conform to your desires. It doesn't need to. It works fine as it is.
Just quoting the portion I want to address.
You're basically saying here that what YOU think is a good system is therefore objectively good. I and a good number of other people disagree with that, but you seem incapable of understanding that other people might hold other opinions than you and be correct with them.
Looking at BBAP's posts in the Sisters Tactics thread I think its safe to assume they haven't played Sisters that much. The apparent belief that one Imagifer per BSS is a great use of the AoF system so long as its used in a 750 point environment lets us know where they are coming from.
The AoF system is exactly as limited as it needs to be, because getting huge numbers of extra actions every turn allows you to affect the game far too much to be fair. Also, units aren't "useless garbage" just because they don't function as you'd like them to.
You want the AoF system to conform to your desires. It doesn't need to. It works fine as it is.
Just quoting the portion I want to address.
You're basically saying here that what YOU think is a good system is therefore objectively good
I said nothing about "good" - vague terms, remember?
I said it works fine - and it does. AoF as currently written provides your army a single extra action per turn on the roll of a 2+, and you can pay points to get the chance of more extra actions. You can run an army just fine on this. It's not broken, one way or the other. It's not particularly unique as faction traits go - Ynnari get something similar but can do it much more often and at much more inconvenient moments - but it's a serious boost to the army's capacity to affect the game and broadens the capabilities of your units. Bringing Imagifers to get extra shots at more free actions likewise expands your ability to affect a game, so it's worth doing that too.
A general statement of the opposing position is that the current AoF system does not work in the way a particular player would like it to, and thus instead of taking the time to learn and understand said system, they'd like it to be redesigned instead. That's asinine in the extreme. If you disagree that it's asinine, then tell me if there's ever been a game where you didn't bother to roll for your AoF every turn.
... yeah, I thought not. Now tell me why you never forget to use your AoF every turn. Because it sucks and needs to be redesigned, right?
... wait no
I and a good number of other people disagree with that, but you seem incapable of understanding that other people might hold other opinions than you and be correct with them.
The popularity of an opinion is irrelevant - give me a compelling reason that AoF should be redesigned and I'll drop my objections.
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dracpanzer wrote: Looking at BBAP's posts in the Sisters Tactics thread I think its safe to assume they haven't played Sisters that much.
Since 4th Edition, friend. This is only my second game in 8th, though.
The apparent belief that one Imagifer per BSS is a great use of the AoF system so long as its used in a 750 point environment lets us know where they are coming from.
I prefer the pronoun "it", if you don't mind.
As to the Imagifers thing - what can I say? I tried it out once and scored a pretty crushing win with it - but like I said in the other thread, the dude I was playing had an assault-centric Chaos soup army, so the game went about as well as games usually go for assault-centric armies versus Sisters. We deployed, his army rushed into boltering range, the inevitable occured (i.e. he got boltered to death). Major Victory on the ITC Scenario we were running (The Relic, if anyone cares - one of my Canonesses scooped it on turn 2 and AoFed her way into a corner with it), but it's not a game I can draw any real conclusions from because his army was poor, and had no option but to run at my bolters and die.
Again, like I said in the other thread, the build has some serious weaknesses - it's not fast enough to hit backfield units and against Monster-spam I can see it coming unstuck hard if a few of its D6 damage weapons whiff, but I think it has potential. I'd like to get a few more games in with it against some tougher match-ups before I pass judgement for reals though - I don't like dismissing army builds out of hand until I've tried them once or twice (unless they obviously suck, and this one doesn't).
PS: Thanks to the three Imagifers and Martyrdom I ended up using 9 AoFs in a 4-turn game (he conceded at the start of turn 5). That's double the number of free actions you get natively if you're stuffing your Sisters into boxes. May be my inexperience with Sisters talking here, but I find it hard to see how double AoFs equates to "useless garbage".
If i might chip in only momentarily. Its been my observation that competitive mondsets will never ever be happy; they will always find something wro g with a system or an army or anything. Its like theyre not happy unless theyre complaining about something.
So i feel this argument about the AoF system wont really find a reaolution.
As a casual player, i find the current AoF system to be alright. I dont play sister net lists. I dont spam seraphim or dominions out the wazoo so i dont have a problem with imagifiers falling behind into uselessness. Ive found a 50/50 chance to do an undeniably powerful extra action to be alright. It is a lot better than a 0/100.
Would the ability to do more of these AoF be great? Yes. Would it run the chance of getting watered down if we could do more of them? Yes.
If i want more faith, i just throw in more of my nicely kitbashed imagifiers which look great in the army. We have a built in tax that removes an opponents whining privelidges in our AoF. It is unique to us. When all those imagifiers go off in a turn which has happened for me (5+ AoF in a turn) is tasty but crazy strong; its worth it. Or flip side nothing could happen. I find our army can hold its own reasonably well without using AoF as a crutch. Our opponents cant complain as were paying for a model that takes an elite slot and costs a fair amount for a chance of pulling off a powerful ability. Its not free. Its not assured. Its dare i say almost balanced.
This is just the view and opinion of a lowly casual player.
AdmiralHalsey wrote: I can get 8 acts of faith in a 4 turn game with just Celestine and zero imagifiers.
Celestine actually does stuff too, and if she dies she's _Still_ good for another AOF.
She also costs 200 points - 250 if you bring her extra wounds along with her (which you'd need to do considering she's T3 so she'll be rolling a lot of saves). Just seems... inefficient to me, especially in smaller games. Maybe once the army gets big enough to allow for Seraphim, but otherwise... meh.
Giantwalkingchair wrote: If i might chip in only momentarily. Its been my observation that competitive mondsets will never ever be happy; they will always find something wro g with a system or an army or anything. Its like theyre not happy unless theyre complaining about something.
That's not a necessary feature of a competitive mindset, in my opinion. For instance, I see it all the time in work; lads will muck up a task and blame the tools ("Knives aren't sharp enough to pare the bones properly!"), blame the time of day ("We shouldn't be doing this more than 4 hours anyway!"), blame management, blame the weather... they'll complain about absolutely everything to avoid responsibility for working with the stuff they've been given, even if the stuff they've been given is perfectly functional.
It's the same thing here. AoF are perfectly functional and, moreover, they're great - but the system doesn't mesh with how some people want to play the army, and it's much easier to complain about something than it is to realign your desires to conform to reality. So, that's what they do.
Then I spend six pages arguing back and forth with them on Dakka because I am a masochist.
So i feel this argument about the AoF system wont really find a reaolution.
You';re right - the irrelevant forum arguments won't end until someone takes 7 Imagifers and 100 Sisters to a GT and wins with them. Thing is, GW successfully resisted the fan-spank demands to add pointless CC units to the Codex thus far, so the upshot of all the whining will be GW paying no heed and doing whatever they like, just as they always have done.
Will that stop everyone shouting at me because I don't agree with their snowflake redesign demands? lol no
This is just the view and opinion of a lowly casual player.
We're all casuals here. Your opinion is no less valid than anyone else's.
AdmiralHalsey wrote: I can get 8 acts of faith in a 4 turn game with just Celestine and zero imagifiers.
Celestine actually does stuff too, and if she dies she's _Still_ good for another AOF.
She also costs 200 points - 250 if you bring her extra wounds along with her (which you'd need to do considering she's T3 so she'll be rolling a lot of saves). Just seems... inefficient to me, especially in smaller games. Maybe once the army gets big enough to allow for Seraphim, but otherwise... meh..
She's also, like... A really good model. Her extra wounds come back to life, she can move 24 inches and then charge, is armed with a heavy flamer, has a 2+ sav, a reasonable Inv save, seven wounds of her own, Comes back to life and teleports often onto an objective miles away. [And this ona 2+! and can do up to 12 wounds in melee, [Up to 18 including her friends.]
It's not like I'm paying 200pts for an extra AoF, here. She pops up in competative tournament lists, [including my own] without even bringing any sisters, because she's _That Good_.
She always has been - but for what she costs she'd better be really good. Old Celestine was a melee monster *and* cheap(ish) to boot; I still didn't take her much.
She pops up in competative tournament lists, [including my own] without even bringing any sisters, because she's _That Good_.
I dunno - I can maybe see a place for her as part of an allied detachment in a Guard army or something, kicking ass upfield with a unit of Seraphim (or three) backing her up while the AM do whatever it is AM do these days (Lascannon spam, right?), but she pushes a lot of bolters and bodies out of a Sisters army. Too many for my liking. I'm also a little wary because I've seen much tougher models killed by boltguns inside a turn - Miraculous Intervention makes this less of an issue for her, but still, it's gonna suck reeeeally hard if you roll that 1.
On-topic for a brief moment, I hope whoever did the new sculpt for Celestine and her Canonesses is doing the plastic Sisters next year, because they're wonderful looking models if nothing else.
She always has been - but for what she costs she'd better be really good. Old Celestine was a melee monster *and* cheap(ish) to boot; I still didn't take her much.
She pops up in competative tournament lists, [including my own] without even bringing any sisters, because she's _That Good_.
I dunno - I can maybe see a place for her as part of an allied detachment in a Guard army or something, kicking ass upfield with a unit of Seraphim (or three) backing her up while the AM do whatever it is AM do these days (Lascannon spam, right?), but she pushes a lot of bolters and bodies out of a Sisters army. Too many for my liking. I'm also a little wary because I've seen much tougher models killed by boltguns inside a turn - Miraculous Intervention makes this less of an issue for her, but still, it's gonna suck reeeeally hard if you roll that 1.
On-topic for a brief moment, I hope whoever did the new sculpt for Celestine and her Canonesses is doing the plastic Sisters next year, because they're wonderful looking models if nothing else.
Command Re-rolls were made for that sort of thing. Sure you'll double 1 once in 36 games, but that's an acceptable risk.
Did I mention character protection? Play it right and she'll never be a target for more than a fraction of their firepower, and 2+ saves are remarkably effective against boltgun fire.
ERJAK wrote: They may also make Veridian a named character again.
You say again - has she ever actually been a playable named character? I didn't think so.
She had specfic rules in 7th when she came out.
I must've missed them entirely - thanks for letting me know.
kombatwombat wrote: - Combined plastic sprue for Immolator/Exorcist upgrade from a Rhino
OK, I'm going to ask the question - why do people keep thinking the Immolator needs a rework, aside from a new box?
And even if it did, why the frak would it be combined with the Exorcist? Other than the Rhino at their heart, the designs are very different (assuming pipe organ artillery remains as the design).
Not sure why people think the Immolator needs to be redone. It is fine as it is. Probably because the Exorcist metal parts are attached to the Immolator pieces.
Now the Exorcist needs to be converted to plastic to get rid of those metal parts. The question is will we get a plastic pipe organ or will GW go in a different direction to give themselves an easy opportunity to build a second tank off of the new sprue they create for the Exorcist?
After that, I expect GW will want to create a plastic Penitent Engine to allow them to check that vehicle off the list. It is possible they decide to go in an entirely different direction, but that's the easy pick.
alextroy wrote: Not sure why people think the Immolator needs to be redone. It is fine as it is. Probably because the Exorcist metal parts are attached to the Immolator pieces.
Now the Exorcist needs to be converted to plastic to get rid of those metal parts. The question is will we get a plastic pipe organ or will GW go in a different direction to give themselves an easy opportunity to build a second tank off of the new sprue they create for the Exorcist?
After that, I expect GW will want to create a plastic Penitent Engine to allow them to check that vehicle off the list. It is possible they decide to go in an entirely different direction, but that's the easy pick.
This is hilarious to me. People think the Immolator DOESN'T need to be reworked?
Compare the new Death Guard models to the old ones. Have you seen the old metal Plague Marines? They're a head shorter than normal Tactical Marines by this point. The new Death Guard models are now similar in size to the new Primaris, not to mention the incredible level of detail that's packed into those models.
By ignoring kits like the Immolator, you open the army up to look horribly mixed between the old style of models that are 20+ years old, and new models that will have a much higher fidelity. It'd be like playing a video game where all of the graphics are hyper realistic, but once in a while you'll face an enemy that looks like it was dragged out of the original Pacman. How distracting!!
More importantly, I think that GW needs to prepare for the time when eventually the Rhino will be changed as the end-all be-all tank of the Imperium. That kit is showing its age. I understand that its versatility is impressive, covering multiple Imperium and Chaos factions with minor bits swaps, but it still will suffer from that difference in resolution of detail without some help.
I'd actually prefer to see the Immolator and Exorcist totally replaced by a new kind of transport option that's not based on the Rhino at all.
alextroy wrote: Not sure why people think the Immolator needs to be redone. It is fine as it is. Probably because the Exorcist metal parts are attached to the Immolator pieces.
Now the Exorcist needs to be converted to plastic to get rid of those metal parts. The question is will we get a plastic pipe organ or will GW go in a different direction to give themselves an easy opportunity to build a second tank off of the new sprue they create for the Exorcist?
After that, I expect GW will want to create a plastic Penitent Engine to allow them to check that vehicle off the list. It is possible they decide to go in an entirely different direction, but that's the easy pick.
This is hilarious to me. People think the Immolator DOESN'T need to be reworked?
Compare the new Death Guard models to the old ones. Have you seen the old metal Plague Marines? They're a head shorter than normal Tactical Marines by this point. The new Death Guard models are now similar in size to the new Primaris, not to mention the incredible level of detail that's packed into those models.
By ignoring kits like the Immolator, you open the army up to look horribly mixed between the old style of models that are 20+ years old, and new models that will have a much higher fidelity. It'd be like playing a video game where all of the graphics are hyper realistic, but once in a while you'll face an enemy that looks like it was dragged out of the original Pacman. How distracting!!
More importantly, I think that GW needs to prepare for the time when eventually the Rhino will be changed as the end-all be-all tank of the Imperium. That kit is showing its age. I understand that its versatility is impressive, covering multiple Imperium and Chaos factions with minor bits swaps, but it still will suffer from that difference in resolution of detail without some help.
I'd actually prefer to see the Immolator and Exorcist totally replaced by a new kind of transport option that's not based on the Rhino at all.
The immolator already is the best looking rhino chassis vehicle out there and the rhino isn't going anywhere anytime soon. I honestly think they're unlikely to ever redo the rhino. Likely the most we'll see is sprues like the immolator has to gussy them up a bit.
Immolators look brutally out of place compared to battle sisters NOW because of how much nicer and newer they look. Oh and the vast majority of people who play SoB will be mixing and matching the old and new for years after release. Plenty of people will NEVER upgrade models that still fit in the codex, so get used to that.
Using the deathguard as an example is weird, they still have the same rhino everyone else has. A rhino that is actually nowhere near as nice looking as the immolator is with its extra sprue. I mean the plagueburst crawler, mephitic blight hauler, and Foetid bloat drone are all better looking models, but it's not like the rhino sticks out really. (side note: all nurgle models are overrated and overly busy)
Finally, you're throwing the baby out with the bathwater. You don't like immolators. Good for you. They're still an all plastic option in our incredibly small codex that we can't afford to lose. They're only going to release a maybe 3 vehicle kits, 4ish infantry kits, a big centerpiece, and a handful of characters. That doesn't leave enough room for throwing out perfectly fine unit options with perfectly fine models(assuming the exorcist turret gets a plastic upgrade sprue) because you're not a big fan of 'rhino chassis'. Otherwise we could end up like deathguard where we don't have enough good units to put together a decent list anymore.
ERJAK wrote: They may also make Veridian a named character again.
You say again - has she ever actually been a playable named character? I didn't think so.
She had specfic rules in 7th when she came out.
I must've missed them entirely - thanks for letting me know.
kombatwombat wrote: - Combined plastic sprue for Immolator/Exorcist upgrade from a Rhino
OK, I'm going to ask the question - why do people keep thinking the Immolator needs a rework, aside from a new box?
And even if it did, why the frak would it be combined with the Exorcist? Other than the Rhino at their heart, the designs are very different (assuming pipe organ artillery remains as the design).
Actually, the exorcist isn't an upgraded rhino, it's an immolator with some metal bits stuck to it. Look closely at the picture on the store and you'll see that the Exorcist's turret is actually seated on top of the extra top hatch piece from the immolator kit. Actually when the immolator went off the store for about a year, the best way to get a new immolator was to buy an exorcist and just chuck out the metal parts. Making a combined kit would just be a rebox of the immolator with a sprue for the turret bits that are currently metal.
That's actually what I meant for the previous comment too. They'll rebox the immolator/exorcist with a plastic version of the EXORCISTS turret bits(again, alongside some new vehicle upgrade options to make the kit more appealing to the seasoned collector). The immolator is fine as is.
The AoF system is exactly as limited as it needs to be, because getting huge numbers of extra actions every turn allows you to affect the game far too much to be fair.
Basically it seems that AoF are so powerful they have to be heavily limited, but it has some issues IMO scaling up with higher point values. It's very strong at low points (2-3 AoF reliably), but at higher values the number of AoF per turn varies wildly because it's mostly on 4+ rolls, and as noted previously, heavily dependent on positioning and really restricts certain kinds of builds - someone who wants a Seraphim army is out of luck.
That said, this is a solvable problem - Jump Pack Canonesses with AoF providing Relics would fix that. Expanded Relics, Warlord Traits and faction Traits might solve a lot of problems.
See, this is all I'm really asking for. Making the AoF system a bit more usable. Expand it a bit so that it's not as antithetical to how the rest of the army plays. Fix imagifiers. A fair system would be 1 free AoF, 1-2 mdeium-low cost AoFs, Celestine(who doesn't really count, she's costed assuming you AoF HER every turn so it's a 0 sum game) 1+ High cost AoFs for an average of 3-5 per turn depending on how much you invest in them. Also not hamstringing the rest of your army for a chance at double shooting something on turn 3, which is what imagifiers are now.
And I don't care what BBAP says, if you don't have retributors, more than 1 imagifier is absolute garbage. Even then, that one imagifier is mostly going to be used for trying and failing to AoF ITSELF to catch up with the rest of the army, and the 2+ you get for desperately suiciding it in a sad effort to make it somehow worth 40pts.
I'm looking at the Immolator as we speak and all I see are lumpy, outdated details that really need an update. If the rest of the line gets an update but the Immolator stays the same, it's not going to look great.
For every player that will be using old Sisters models I predict that there will be two more that will be buying fresh sisters armies, either because they are coming back to the hobby, or because they've been waiting for this army for a long time but were always dissuaded by local grognards into picking up something else, OR because they saw it for the first time when it gets updated and want to hop in on nuns with guns.
A lot of people will not be happy if the Immolator isn't improved upon and updated.
A simple solution, then, to make everyone happy, is a new upgrade sprue that includes Immolator and Exorcist bits in fresh, new, redesigned plastic, with a few new options to boot.
dracpanzer wrote: Looking at BBAP's posts in the Sisters Tactics thread I think its safe to assume they haven't played Sisters that much.
Since 4th Edition, friend. This is only my second game in 8th, though.
Point stands, two times.
It isn't that AoF's themselves are bad, unless you play pure foot Sisters they don't scale. There is simply no way to make the AoF's available to the units you want to use them on. Celestine is almost always going to be using her own, which gives us the sole 2+ army wide AoF to divide between all the Seraphim, Dominions and otherwise mech'd up units that spend the entire game moving away from your Imagifers.
Like many have said the AoF's themselves are fine, Sisters just need a way to make them available to the units we actually use while they do the things they do. One Imagifer is good for Retributors if you can't afford a second squad of them, after that, not so much.
AdmiralHalsey wrote: Command Re-rolls were made for that sort of thing. Sure you'll double 1 once in 36 games, but that's an acceptable risk.
Totally forgot about Command Rerolls.
Did I mention character protection? Play it right and she'll never be a target for more than a fraction of their firepower, and 2+ saves are remarkably effective against boltgun fire.
2+ saves will help you bounce a lot of wounds - but T3 helps you take a lot of wounds, which helps you fail saves. Then she dies, you roll a 1... so you Command Reroll, she gets back up 35/36 times and your opponent sighs and tries to find more bolters to kill her with. That's actually really nasty - she's sucking in the same kind of shooting as a Daemon Prince or Hive Tyrant.
I just can't get past that price tag, though. So, so many bolters - and they can get back up too.
ERJAK wrote: See, this is all I'm really asking for. Making the AoF system a bit more usable. Expand it a bit so that it's not as antithetical to how the rest of the army plays.
... to how you want to play the army. MSU Sisters in tanks don't take best advantage of the AoF system - but that's the price you pay for extra mobility and protection. You gain an advantage in one area, you lose it in another. The AoF system is fine.
A fair system would be 1 free AoF, 1-2 mdeium-low cost AoFs, Celestine(who doesn't really count, she's costed assuming you AoF HER every turn so it's a 0 sum game) 1+ High cost AoFs for an average of 3-5 per turn depending on how much you invest in them. Also not hamstringing the rest of your army for a chance at double shooting something on turn 3, which is what imagifiers are now.
If you're only using Divine Guidance you're missing 3/4ths of the AoFs you can use. My footsloggers used AoFs every single turn, sometimes to move, sometimes to fight (I know, right?), on one occasion to Fall Back. That's the bonus I get for not riding in vehicles - the trade-off is my Sisters are slow and unprotected.
And I don't care what BBAP says, if you don't have retributors, more than 1 imagifier is absolute garbage. Even then, that one imagifier is mostly going to be used for trying and failing to AoF ITSELF to catch up with the rest of the army, and the 2+ you get for desperately suiciding it in a sad effort to make it somehow worth 40pts.
You want more AoFs. Imagifers give you more AoFs. More Imagifers increase the odds of more AoFs. What more can I say?
drbored wrote: I'm looking at the Immolator as we speak and all I see are lumpy, outdated details that really need an update. If the rest of the line gets an update but the Immolator stays the same, it's not going to look great.
I disagree completely. As long as the rhino stays the same for SM's, the look of the Immolator will stay the same.
drbored wrote: I'm looking at the Immolator as we speak and all I see are lumpy, outdated details that really need an update. If the rest of the line gets an update but the Immolator stays the same, it's not going to look great.
For every player that will be using old Sisters models I predict that there will be two more that will be buying fresh sisters armies, either because they are coming back to the hobby, or because they've been waiting for this army for a long time but were always dissuaded by local grognards into picking up something else, OR because they saw it for the first time when it gets updated and want to hop in on nuns with guns.
A lot of people will not be happy if the Immolator isn't improved upon and updated.
A simple solution, then, to make everyone happy, is a new upgrade sprue that includes Immolator and Exorcist bits in fresh, new, redesigned plastic, with a few new options to boot.
That's still 1 out of 3. Which means you're going to see a lot of old sisters, for a long time, just like I just said. I doubt anyone else will be angry about immolators being not being updated. I've been scouring every square inch of the internet for anything even vaguely SoB related for years and this is 100% the only time I've seen someone have any issue with the immolator beyond 'repressors are better' or 'they're not in stock right now.'
The immolator will look just as good(actually better) next to the new stuff as rhinos look compared to deathguard and primaris now. If you have a problem with rhino chassis, take that up with GW. As for right now, I'd rather have an immolator and a NEW tank than an immolator but with like...3 extra purity seals or whatever nonsense on it.
If they did make a new sprue or someting, cool. Whatever. They don't need to and you're literally the only person in the entire world who will notice, but sure. Go for it.
We also have this problem of the Repressor no longer being sold, but being one of the most popular transports for the Sisters, so much so that 3rd party 3D printers are now supplying the majority of parts for it.
I definitely see GW releasing an Immolator/Repressor updated kit, and then maybe changing the Exorcist to be more of a centerpiece kit that's not based on the Rhino.
AdmiralHalsey wrote: Command Re-rolls were made for that sort of thing. Sure you'll double 1 once in 36 games, but that's an acceptable risk.
Totally forgot about Command Rerolls.
Did I mention character protection? Play it right and she'll never be a target for more than a fraction of their firepower, and 2+ saves are remarkably effective against boltgun fire.
2+ saves will help you bounce a lot of wounds - but T3 helps you take a lot of wounds, which helps you fail saves. Then she dies, you roll a 1... so you Command Reroll, she gets back up 35/36 times and your opponent sighs and tries to find more bolters to kill her with. That's actually really nasty - she's sucking in the same kind of shooting as a Daemon Prince or Hive Tyrant.
I just can't get past that price tag, though. So, so many bolters - and they can get back up too.
ERJAK wrote: See, this is all I'm really asking for. Making the AoF system a bit more usable. Expand it a bit so that it's not as antithetical to how the rest of the army plays.
... to how you want to play the army. MSU Sisters in tanks don't take best advantage of the AoF system - but that's the price you pay for extra mobility and protection. You gain an advantage in one area, you lose it in another. The AoF system is fine.
A fair system would be 1 free AoF, 1-2 mdeium-low cost AoFs, Celestine(who doesn't really count, she's costed assuming you AoF HER every turn so it's a 0 sum game) 1+ High cost AoFs for an average of 3-5 per turn depending on how much you invest in them. Also not hamstringing the rest of your army for a chance at double shooting something on turn 3, which is what imagifiers are now.
If you're only using Divine Guidance you're missing 3/4ths of the AoFs you can use. My footsloggers used AoFs every single turn, sometimes to move, sometimes to fight (I know, right?), on one occasion to Fall Back. That's the bonus I get for not riding in vehicles - the trade-off is my Sisters are slow and unprotected.
And I don't care what BBAP says, if you don't have retributors, more than 1 imagifier is absolute garbage. Even then, that one imagifier is mostly going to be used for trying and failing to AoF ITSELF to catch up with the rest of the army, and the 2+ you get for desperately suiciding it in a sad effort to make it somehow worth 40pts.
You want more AoFs. Imagifers give you more AoFs. More Imagifers increase the odds of more AoFs. What more can I say?
Celestine is better than any other 250pts the army can bring to bear. It's not even close. And if you really think resurrecting 2-3 9pt sisters per turn(assuming you have the 200pts of imagifiers you'd need to do so consistently) is enough to say 'they get back up too', then you're wrong.
The price tag on the extra mobility and protection is the extra points they cost, that's why they cost more points. And I can't even say 'why does the way you want to use the army get better use out of AoFs for no reason' because they can't, because horde lists are where you go from 'imagifiers are too slow to be worth it' to 'imagifiers are too expensive and too random to be worth it.' You'll figure that out eventually, once you start catching up to the rest of us.
Your foot sisters aren't using an AoF every turn unless you only have 4 units and 7 imagifiers. If you're using them to move, then that's a fine use of it, but you're not using them to move turn 2 or 3 because they'll be in range of what they need to hit, or in combat where the extra move doesn't matter. You'll start moving them again turn 5-6 to cap objectives but those middles 3 turn you'll be either shooting or fighting(let's be real though, you'll be failing AoF rolls). In an ideal situation you'll do extra move turn one, extra shoot turn two, extra fight turn 3, extra shoot turn 4, extra move turn 5. You'll never use the resurrect on battle sisters(unless you're trying to bring back a melta girl or heavy flamers) because resurrecting 1-3 of anything less than a sister with a heavy bolter will be less AoF efficient than simply taking another action. In fact, if resurrecting things is your best option, something most likely went seriously wrong.
You could say 'I understand the AoF system well enough to know that imagifiers are seriously flawed in terms of being extremely unreliable, overly expensive, and far too short of a range'. Or 'I understand opportunity cost enough to know that the value of an AoF that I cannot count on and likely won't hit the unit I need it to when I need it to is a hard sell over what I could have instead of it.' You're not that far along yet. You'll get there though.
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drbored wrote: We also have this problem of the Repressor no longer being sold, but being one of the most popular transports for the Sisters, so much so that 3rd party 3D printers are now supplying the majority of parts for it.
I definitely see GW releasing an Immolator/Repressor updated kit, and then maybe changing the Exorcist to be more of a centerpiece kit that's not based on the Rhino.
That's actually fair. The Exorcist has a lot of metal on it and is a pretty iconic part of the army. Making a more elaborate version of it might be worth the investment, and remaking the Repressor would be a way of putting out stuff while also saving money in the design process.
The issue with redoing the exorcist though, is that most people who play SoB already have several and if you make a new one without completely upending its physical profile (like making it landraider sized) people are just going to keep using the old one or possibly even just converting whirlwinds and razorbacks if the new model is pricey enough. I don't know that GW would see it as a sound investment over just making a single upgrade sprue.
The biggest issue I see with a plastic Repressor shared with an Immolator is that the Repressor is also mentioned as being used by Arbites. I can see the Arbites being a 40k release in the relatively near future, what with the other armies that have been released. If the kit is too dressed up with Ecclesiarchy symbols, it won't look right in an Arbites army. So the base kit should be like the Rhino, fairly plain, but able to be easily dressed up by a Sisters upgrade sprue.
Of course, this only makes sense if Arbites are a nearish-future release in any capacity. But GW does like keeping their options open when it comes to getting lots of use out of plastic kits. The poor Rhino moulds must be battered.
This is why I am amazed there is no plastic Priest character yet, seeing as it covers a unit entry in three separate codices!
Aside from the models-- which I agree need a reboot across the board, Immolator, Exorcist, and all-- how confident are we that there will even be a plastic Repressor? For GW to swing it from Forge World to their main product line (is there precedent for this?), they'd be making a major change to their stance on fire points. They pretty deliberately eliminated those from non-open topped vehicles in 8th, and I'm not sure they'd want them back. It seems like a pretty spammable and exploitable aspect of the rules that they maybe just wanted to wash their hands of it. If the Repressor appears in the Sisters codex, will generous fire points even be its main gimmick, or would they judge good transport capacity, lots of flamers, and the dozer ram to be enough?
The Repressor is also out of production, which does make it more likely to be plasticked- it won't be stepping on FW toes if they don't sell it any more.
It is still a long shot, but there are only 5 vehicles available to a Sisters army, and 2 of them are FW, with one of the latter being OOP. Seems like a fairly low-hanging fruit to add to the line up in a big release to me.
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alextroy wrote: Is there a precedent. Yes says the Baneblade (and varients), Stompa, and Valkyrie. Has it happened recently. Don't think so.
The most recent is the Hydra, with a vastly inferior model to the awesome FW one. The FW Leman Russ variants also jumped into plastic for the most part, except the Annihilator and Conqueror. The Medusa never made it, and I'm not really sure why, as they updated the Basilisk kit after the Medusa was added to the 5th ed codex, and the two kits seem very dual-kit compatible.
I wasn't aware the Stompa was a FW product previously? I know they made some upgrade parts for the plastic version. They also made a Battlewagon model, and some fighters which were clearly the inspiration for the plastic GW ones (although the latter are technically different units).
Cool, so precedent says it's possible... I'd forgotten about the Baneblade. So the remaining question is whether they want to mess with balancing fire points in 8th or whether they'll go some other direction.
dracpanzer wrote: It isn't that AoF's themselves are bad, unless you play pure foot Sisters they don't scale. There is simply no way to make the AoF's available to the units you want to use them on. Celestine is almost always going to be using her own, which gives us the sole 2+ army wide AoF to divide between all the Seraphim, Dominions and otherwise mech'd up units that spend the entire game moving away from your Imagifers.
Like many have said the AoF's themselves are fine, Sisters just need a way to make them available to the units we actually use while they do the things they do. One Imagifer is good for Retributors if you can't afford a second squad of them, after that, not so much.
Pretty much this. I like the AoFs themselves, myself. But the implementation of how you actually use them needs fixing.
dracpanzer wrote: It isn't that AoF's themselves are bad, unless you play pure foot Sisters they don't scale. There is simply no way to make the AoF's available to the units you want to use them on. Celestine is almost always going to be using her own, which gives us the sole 2+ army wide AoF to divide between all the Seraphim, Dominions and otherwise mech'd up units that spend the entire game moving away from your Imagifers.
Like many have said the AoF's themselves are fine, Sisters just need a way to make them available to the units we actually use while they do the things they do. One Imagifer is good for Retributors if you can't afford a second squad of them, after that, not so much.
Pretty much this. I like the AoFs themselves, myself. But the implementation of how you actually use them needs fixing.
I would definitely say that if, say, EVERY sister unit got a 2+ AoF without any other changes, it'd be way too strong. Even if it's just one per detachment, that's potentially too strong. It's certainly a POWERFUL ability right now, but it doesn't do much more for 2,000 points of sisters than it does for 500, which to me, is not good.
drbored wrote: We also have this problem of the Repressor no longer being sold, but being one of the most popular transports for the Sisters, so much so that 3rd party 3D printers are now supplying the majority of parts for it.
I definitely see GW releasing an Immolator/Repressor updated kit, and then maybe changing the Exorcist to be more of a centerpiece kit that's not based on the Rhino.
I saw 4 different custom Repressors at Adepticon. They all looked good and easy to reproduce. Made me bold enough to make my own after I finish my current project.
Automatically Appended Next Post: I wouldn't be surprised if we see one or 2 new units as well.
They sure got their money's worth out of them. How many kits use the same Rhino chassis? A Repressor upgrade would be one sprue, probably with room for Exorcist parts.
John Prins wrote: A Repressor upgrade would be one sprue, probably with room for Exorcist parts.
Though the repressor is notably different from the immolator/exorcist - the roof pieces have nothing in common. There is nothing that would suggest a shared sprue as nothing more than icons would be used by both.
MacPhail wrote: Cool, so precedent says it's possible... I'd forgotten about the Baneblade. So the remaining question is whether they want to mess with balancing fire points in 8th or whether they'll go some other direction.
...why would they need to deal with firepoints?
Repressors can already have units shoot of them, as can most of the drukhari and Harlequin vehicles. There's really no need to do fire points again.
drbored wrote: We also have this problem of the Repressor no longer being sold, but being one of the most popular transports for the Sisters, so much so that 3rd party 3D printers are now supplying the majority of parts for it.
I definitely see GW releasing an Immolator/Repressor updated kit, and then maybe changing the Exorcist to be more of a centerpiece kit that's not based on the Rhino.
I saw 4 different custom Repressors at Adepticon. They all looked good and easy to reproduce. Made me bold enough to make my own after I finish my current project.
Automatically Appended Next Post: I wouldn't be surprised if we see one or 2 new units as well.
We WILL see new units. It's not even a question. Seeing stuff we have now invalidated is possible, not seeing new stuff is laughable.
EVERY kit will be at least dual build and that leaves new seraphim, repentia, and penitent engine based units at the absolute minimum.
MacPhail wrote: Cool, so precedent says it's possible... I'd forgotten about the Baneblade. So the remaining question is whether they want to mess with balancing fire points in 8th or whether they'll go some other direction.
...why would they need to deal with firepoints?
Repressors can already have units shoot of them, as can most of the drukhari and Harlequin vehicles. There's really no need to do fire points again.
My point is that everything used to have them... Chimeras, Rhinos, etc. in addition to rules for open-topped. In 8th they appear to have done away with fire points, given the Chimera a special rule to cover models shooting from inside it, and let open topped cover everything else. Maybe bringing them back is no big deal, just write it up as a special rule in the vehicle stats, but it does raise the question of why we can no longer shoot out of Rhino hatches. It just seems like it's a rule GW wanted to see the end of but FW is keeping it alive, and I'm wondering if it makes the transition if GW adopts the Repressor.
MacPhail wrote: Cool, so precedent says it's possible... I'd forgotten about the Baneblade. So the remaining question is whether they want to mess with balancing fire points in 8th or whether they'll go some other direction.
...why would they need to deal with firepoints?
Repressors can already have units shoot of them, as can most of the drukhari and Harlequin vehicles. There's really no need to do fire points again.
My point is that everything used to have them... Chimeras, Rhinos, etc. in addition to rules for open-topped. In 8th they appear to have done away with fire points, given the Chimera a special rule to cover models shooting from inside it, and let open topped cover everything else. Maybe bringing them back is no big deal, just write it up as a special rule in the vehicle stats, but it does raise the question of why we can no longer shoot out of Rhino hatches. It just seems like it's a rule GW wanted to see the end of but FW is keeping it alive, and I'm wondering if it makes the transition if GW adopts the Repressor.
I still have this weird feeling that GW is going to be playing a long game of phasing out the Rhino. It's not going to be this year, or next year, or even the year after that, but what we will see are fewer and fewer kits that use the Rhino chassis. Yes the Custodes and Sisters of Silence, some of the newest factions, still use it, and yes the Stalker and Hunter came out not very long ago using the Rhino chassis... but I still have this gut feeling that eventually all of the purpose that the Rhino served will be replaced by other more specialized vehicles, like the Primaris Repulsor.
This feeling I have is why I feel that things like the Repressor and Immolator might be the last of the Rhino chassis upgrades. I could be completely wrong, it's just a hunch I have.
John Prins wrote: A Repressor upgrade would be one sprue, probably with room for Exorcist parts.
Though the repressor is notably different from the immolator/exorcist - the roof pieces have nothing in common. There is nothing that would suggest a shared sprue as nothing more than icons would be used by both.
It really depends what they decide to do with them. I don't expect copies of previous models, aside from sharing a Rhino chassis.
John Prins wrote: A Repressor upgrade would be one sprue, probably with room for Exorcist parts.
Though the repressor is notably different from the immolator/exorcist - the roof pieces have nothing in common. There is nothing that would suggest a shared sprue as nothing more than icons would be used by both.
It really depends what they decide to do with them. I don't expect copies of previous models, aside from sharing a Rhino chassis.
If GW dose do the Repressor, it would be cool to get some sisters re-styling of the roof addition like how some of the ShapeWays bitz have done.
MacPhail wrote: Cool, so precedent says it's possible... I'd forgotten about the Baneblade. So the remaining question is whether they want to mess with balancing fire points in 8th or whether they'll go some other direction.
...why would they need to deal with firepoints?
Repressors can already have units shoot of them, as can most of the drukhari and Harlequin vehicles. There's really no need to do fire points again.
My point is that everything used to have them... Chimeras, Rhinos, etc. in addition to rules for open-topped. In 8th they appear to have done away with fire points, given the Chimera a special rule to cover models shooting from inside it, and let open topped cover everything else. Maybe bringing them back is no big deal, just write it up as a special rule in the vehicle stats, but it does raise the question of why we can no longer shoot out of Rhino hatches. It just seems like it's a rule GW wanted to see the end of but FW is keeping it alive, and I'm wondering if it makes the transition if GW adopts the Repressor.
Why wouldn't they just reprint the 'open topped' rule but call it like...'oh hey, this tank has windows!' and limit the number of people that can shoot out to 6? It's not like open topped is a USR. Look at all the different names they gave deepstrike. The rule the repressor currently has is just open-topped but without any of the restriction that make open-topped balanced.
It seems to me that you're still associating being able to shoot out a tank with fire-points and that's just not how it is anymore. The only functional difference between fire-points and open-topped is the name.
As for GW wanting to see the 'end' of shooting out of vehicles, I really think you're making an overly dramatic conclusion off of very little evidence. Who knows why they decided to not let people shoot out of rhinos or chimeras or w/e but I sincerely doubt it was because they straight up wanted to wash their hands of things shooting out of vehicles.
Well with Trukks and DE pirate ships, open topped gives them a lot more shots coming out. So the trade off for less shots is less restrictions on those shots. All SM and SoB Rhinos should get the exact same worded rule for Repressors except 2 models may fire instead of 6.
ERJAK wrote: Why wouldn't they just reprint the 'open topped' rule but call it like...'oh hey, this tank has windows!' and limit the number of people that can shoot out to 6? It's not like open topped is a USR. Look at all the different names they gave deepstrike. The rule the repressor currently has is just open-topped but without any of the restriction that make open-topped balanced.
It seems to me that you're still associating being able to shoot out a tank with fire-points and that's just not how it is anymore. The only functional difference between fire-points and open-topped is the name.
As for GW wanting to see the 'end' of shooting out of vehicles, I really think you're making an overly dramatic conclusion off of very little evidence. Who knows why they decided to not let people shoot out of rhinos or chimeras or w/e but I sincerely doubt it was because they straight up wanted to wash their hands of things shooting out of vehicles.
I don't think I'm being dramatic and I don't think the bar for evidence is particularly high when making theoretical inferences about game design and intent. That said, you make some good points, and I think I'm convinced. I've been looking at 8th as an outgrowth of previous editions and need to shake the USR mindset. I do look at 8th as a deliberately streamlined edition with a lot of caution against carrying over aspects of the game that don't favor quick and easy play. In the same spirit as "everything can wound everything" I don't think it's crazy to read another 8th ed. universal principle to be "only models on the table affect the game," and it's clear that fire points challenge that. But in 8th the datasheets are self contained and a rule may or may not show up on various places under various names. Maybe a well written shoot-from-your-tank rule fits easily into the guiding principles. If the Repressor's point cost reflects its value over 5-7 turns of dispensing the Emperor's judgment, then that's good enough.
A related question... does any iteration of open topped (orks, deldar, etc.) still make passengers vulnerable to flame weapons? I had so much fun killing dark eldar in 7th with 4x heavy flamer Rets. I suspect not, but I'm in a pretty small meta and don't face open topped much.
deviantduck wrote: Well with Trukks and DE pirate ships, open topped gives them a lot more shots coming out. So the trade off for less shots is less restrictions on those shots. All SM and SoB Rhinos should get the exact same worded rule for Repressors except 2 models may fire instead of 6.
Why would you ever take a razorback then? For 12 more points you could put a dev squad with 2 lascannons in the back of rhino and have essentially a 15 wound razorback that doesn't degrade its profile, can advance and shoot, and can't be stopped by melee.
I don't really see any big pressing need to give rhinos or w/e fire-points personally. Yeah they use to have but...meh. Not a big deal. I'd actually prefer that they just get a cheaper hull anyway.
Racerguy180 wrote: I think they should get some variation of the predator or Leman Russ. Totally agree about Admech tho, they have a severe lack of transports which they have pretty good ones in 30k.
Sisters stuff should be OTT gothic decorations. it wouldn't take much to have a set of upgrade sprue to "pimp" out units/vehicles.
I know which Predator variant would most suit the SoB, but it is the variant that least addresses their need for long-range firepower
Combine with this kind of detailing:
and you would get a very SoB Predator.
WIP, but i think it gets the idea across. Would have loved to do multi-meltas though.
I think using that same weapon loadout (bhaal predator, correct?) you would get a better looking tank if you included the Exorcist armor plating for the front and side panels.
probably just a ball predator as rules and points wise it is less of a hassle, would love to have the main gun be an immolation flamer though.
dracpanzer wrote:I think using that same weapon loadout (bhaal predator, correct?) you would get a better looking tank if you included the Exorcist armor plating for the front and side panels.
Yeah its a ball predator. Would have loved used the exorcist armor plates if I had them but I only had 3 (now 2) un-built immolators and was the easiest to do at the time. If money was not an issue i would have purchased an exorcist for this project as well for the extra armor.
I was at my local GW today and the guy said he wasn't sure about full beta rules vs. just previewing a few stratagems for CA this year, but he said Q3 2019 for the full release was likely. Take that with many grains of salt... I don't know much about his sources.
Automatically Appended Next Post: And like EVERY other edition, Sisters will get their Codex just in time for the new edition's rule book to make it invalid.
I wouldn't be too worried about a new edition. We've seen that with AoS 2.0 that it'll likely just be a relatively minor refinement of the current rules, and every Battletome that was released this year was written with the new version in mind.
If the Sisters drop anywhere near a new edition I'd fully expect the Codex to be written with this in mind.
AoS was out for 3 years before 2.0 hit. Warhammer 8th should follow the same vein and be out until at least 2020, which means the new Sisters should have a good year before a new edition hits.
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. Is that better on the self-esteem side?
