I was looking at my rulebook because I was seeking advice on how to give my IG some close support assistance, and looked at the SoB chart on the allies. Their ally matrix is the weakest in the IoM, and will more readily ally themselves with xenos than of the BT's who are by far the closest in alignment to their agenda. Lore aside, the SoB is by far the most expensive army remaining as the only one that is almost entirely made up of 4th edition pewter models, they have an extremely outdated codex that has been given a band-aid in White Dwarf, and they continue to be pushed aside by GK's as stewards of the Imperium's soul and vanguards to the taint of chaos.

It seems to me that SoB are now on the precipice. Either they get a true update, their models streamlined into mass produced plastic kits like the rest of the GW line, or they fade into the background to join the squats, existing purely in the lore, but as more and more distant and unimportant characters until the community thinks of them as a distant memory in the dusty chambers of the Black Library.

To me, I understand the issue GW must face with the SoB. I'm going to safely say that the price of the models with a ad-hoc codex probably makes them sell poorly overall, especially compared to the well established and famous Space Marines. GW must weigh the option of reinvesting in the SoB like any other business, but I wonder, would the community respond well to an update, or would they prefer the SoB's to remain a permanent but statuesque fixture in 40k's lore?

I think they're on their way nowhere.

As far as "or they fade into the background", that's long, long since past.

My belief is that the models never sold all that well, and they've never been able to gain enough priority for a revamp. It costs resources (sculpters) and money to turn a model line into plastic. And Games Workshop still has other model ranges to redo, update, or expand which sell more models. I don't think the Sisters have ever gotten enough priority to get access to those material assets needed to get a new line and new rules.

But, at the same time, Games Workshop learned from the Squats debacle. You don't tell a sizable number of your fans to go screw themselves, and just abandon the army. A White Dwarf codex allows Sisters players to continue using their models in an army, and they can continue to sell Sisters models if ordered by the occasional customer.

I'm going to safely say that the price of the models with a ad-hoc codex probably makes them sell poorly overall,

You're actually reversing the causal relationship.

Selling poorly overall is what left them with expensive metal models and an ad-hoc codex.

I sincerly hope they don't phase them out. They are such a huge part of Warhammer 40k. I mean, for Emperors sake, the Ordo Hereticus is a HUGE part of the Imperium and the Sisters of Battle is the militant arm of that organization. If GW started to phase them out, they would be ignoring something that is very important IMO.

Grey Knights are the militant arm of the Ordo Malleus, so why can't Sisters of Battle get a Codex too?

I would like to see them get a new Codex and new models and do not consider them to part of Warhammer 40k in the past tense.

What the guy said two spaces up above is right how often has anyone really seen a sisters army being played unless there is and tell me if i am wrong but what gw is doing or has been doing is supply and demand and there is very little demand for a new sisters codex or a re cast of their old models and again please tell me if i am wrong. My chaos marines still are lacking our helbrute and it has been what 6 months since the codex has been released.

MMJ24 wrote:
What the guy said two spaces up above is right how often has anyone really seen a sisters army being played unless there is and tell me if i am wrong but what gw is doing or has been doing is supply and demand and there is very little demand for a new sisters codex or a re cast of their old models and again please tell me if i am wrong. My chaos marines still are lacking our helbrute and it has been what 6 months since the codex has been released.

The Helbrute is in the 40k starter set. You can find plenty of them for sale on eBay.

The problem I see is that the supply isn't there to even create a demand. The supply is exactly what Veteran Sergeant said, it's enough to keep folks interested, but not enough to progress the line.

I think they are stuck on an infinite loop.
"They don't sell well, better scrap them."
"Don't do that, they're too popular."
"If they are popular, why don't they sell well?"
"Because they aren't plastic so they aren't cheap"
"Well we would make them plastic if they sold well!"

But there were many rumors of plastic sisters with people saying they've seen the models and such. I don't know how much is true, but I know that GW likes to sit on a stockpile of gold until the last possible moment to try and even out their sales across the year.

I have a hard time believing GW is going to drop the space nuns. They have been around since 2nd ed without being cut out (like slann and squats) and they have really cool models. I think that if GW is keeping an army like black templars around then sisters are here to stay too. I mean they had a dex for sisters not that long ago and added some new models even (penitent engines, repentia). I think the sisters are on the back-burner till the 4th edition codicies are all updated. Then Im expecting a new set of rules and hopefully a plastic kit (although just as likely a res kit of existing models because they are great). Then again i might be overly optimistic.

MMJ24 wrote:
What the guy said two spaces up above is right how often has anyone really seen a sisters army being played unless there is and tell me if i am wrong but what gw is doing or has been doing is supply and demand and there is very little demand for a new sisters codex or a re cast of their old models and again please tell me if i am wrong. My chaos marines still are lacking our helbrute and it has been what 6 months since the codex has been released.

Consider yourself lucky on that.

They DID make a Helbrute (as mentioned, it's in DV and easy enough to get ahold of) just like the Deffkoptas don't have an official model outside of AOBR that i know of (unless they are stills elling that godawful ancient metal one).

Nids have been waiting on their Pods for years, and only just got their Tervigon.

Orks still haven't got a model for Old Zogwort or Wazdakka since 2008 or so..

The Helbrute is in the 40k starter set. You can find plenty of them for sale on eBay.

 DemetriDominov wrote:
The problem I see is that the supply isn't there to even create a demand. The supply is exactly what Veteran Sergeant said, it's enough to keep folks interested, but not enough to progress the line.

This is a 15 year product lifespan we're talking about here.


Sisters were introduced in 1997, along with Necrons (in 1998), with approximately the same number of models. They had the advantage of even having their own Codex, whereas the Necrons only had a pair of White Dwarf issues. The Necrons are a full fledged army with plastics. So you have to question: "What's the difference?"

The only rational answer is sales. Money drives everything in 40K. So if the Necrons have a modern product line, it is because that product sells well. You can't blame it on a lack of plastics. Back when Necrons and Sisters were introduced, the vast majority of models were still metal.

Ultimately, since the release of the Sisters, we've seen the introduction of Necrons, Tau, and Dark Eldar as armies for the 40K universe. And Black Templars if you want to be complete, but I'll leave them off simply because they're still Space Marines. Even with the relatively poor reception of the first generation Dark Eldar (mediocre models, mediocre performance), they still apparently sold well enough to drive an eventual revamp.

Another thing to think about is how Codex: Witch Hunters was presented. It wasn't even a Sisters of Battle codex. There were a bunch of new models released, but ultimately, you didn't even need to have any Sisters of Battle to play that list. It could be played as "Modified IGuard" or even as "Modified Space Marines". That says a lot about GW's confidence in that model line. They even made a second attempt to gauge the interest in a Sisters of Battle line by expanding the model range.


I think the Sisters just failed to capture a significant enough share of player imagination. You can (and people will, just wait) debate endlessly about why this is. I'd suggest it's very simply that they are female army in a male dominated hobby. They alos don't have their own niche to capture. Tau have anime fans. Dark Eldar have traditional fantasy elf/dark elf connections. Black Templars stole the religious nutballs niche, and the Black Templars are also Space Marines, the most popular product for 40K.



Ultimately, I think GW treats the Sisters as a dog product. One that has no chance of increasing its market share, but not costly enough to abandon. Basically one that breaks even, and doesn't consume the resources of more profitable model ranges.

Given the extreme popularity of Kingdom Death miniatures and other "pinup" style female minis from other companies, I'd reckon a proper plastic line with attractive, well-done sculpts would make SoB one of the most popular armies, up there with Necrons and MEQ.

My wife is desperately awaiting a proper codex and plastic models. She does not like to expand her small army as the cost is so high. Damn metal figures...

I think a lot of people forget that, Sisters currently have a 5th Edition codex. Yes it may only contain a hand full of units, it may only have metal models, but it is a 5th ed codex, and that's the way games workshop will see it, and I don;t see any 5th Ed codex's except for Space Marines and Nids getting an update before the rest of the 4th Ed ones.

I'm going to bank on the tried and true argument that sex sells - especially in a male dominated hobby, and that SoB are an ... you guessed it... untapped resource. DE and even Eldar stole the show for exotic and demeaning figures, but SoB's definitely could have an allure of their own if GW thought it through.

I'll just leave this here since I'm on my way out to work:

Sexiness does not just mean proportions of flesh on certain parts of the body. Independence, success, and confidence are just as important as apperence; and having the SoB be the punching bag of the IoM's failures doesn't help promote the "coolness" of an army seemingly doomed for failure before anyone even opens an outdated codex or have to search for it online like a cheap knockoff of a "real" codex.

Assuming one day the Sisters do the get the treatment of a proper Codex, plastic kits, etc (and I feel almost obliged to type "LOL" after that part), it'll be pretty disappointing if the only way GW can think of to sell their only female army is through the route of "sex sells." It'd be better for them to just go with what works for every other army that seems to sell OK: a proper, printed Codex with fluff that talks them up (NOT just letting them play second fiddle to the Astartes or Guard or be wiped out in yet another "heroic sacrifice" ), plastic kits that mean you don't have to buy several small metal blisters just to make one squad and some strong units that people will want to take in their lists. They should go in with the attitude of "we're going to make them look like a powerful army" rather than "we're going to try to make them sexy" and let that it be it.

My guess is that GW probably does not have a clear idea of what to do about the SoB army. The chaos dwarves and squats were in limbo for quite a long time before GW axed them.

The problem the sisters face is that presently GW marketing is geared toward 11-15 year old boys and I dont see the SoB as having a lot of appeal to that demographic.

 Veteran Sergeant wrote:

I'm going to safely say that the price of the models with a ad-hoc codex probably makes them sell poorly overall,

Selling poorly overall is what left them with expensive metal models and an ad-hoc codex.

No, he had it right.

Games Workshop has done everything wrong in how they have marketed and sold Sisters of Battle. I don't think they've ever actually come up with a single good decision about them since they were created. They released a decent second edition codex-- and then immediately made it obsolete with third edition. They updated Sisters to third edition... in a new wave of poorly written, highly limited codices that the fans didn't like, and while still using the same exact old second edition models as before. Then come fourth edition Sisters got no update at all. Come near the end of fourth edition, GW did everything they could to try to prevent people from buying Sisters of Battle, raising the price, getting rid of the squad packs, getting rid of the bitz that would allow people to buy the specific models they wanted, and so on. Then there was the mess over the actual codex in fifth edition, where GW stopped selling the codex, and only finally released an edited PDF codex which sparked a controversy over whether or not it superceded the print codex, to which Games Workshop send multiple contradictory and ever-changing statements about. Then, finally, there was the so-called "codex" released in fifth edition-- which released exactly zero new models, got rid of a lot of thematic and fluffy elements of the army, and generally sucked a whole lot of ass. And through all of this, Sisters received effectively zero marketing even by GW standards-- not including the new codex, the number of White Dwarf issues which included Sisters in any way can still be counted on just one hand, even as they continue to sell overpriced older models from fething second edition in packs of three (in an army whose squad sizes range in 10-20 for troops, and 5-10 for others, and this doesn't include squad leaders, special wepaons, banners, etc, they're just a random trio of static, older models) for well over half the cost of what most armies would pay for a squad box that contains not only ten far superior models but also tons of bits.

Games Workshop has continually and repeatedly been a miserable failure when it comes to supporting Sisters of Battle and attempting to make money off of the army. I have no illusions that they will stop any time soon.

Although I hope they do.

Pretty much what Melissia said... although I challenge what TheCrazyCryptek said.

The Sisters are NOT the militant arm of the Ordo Hereticus. They are the Militant Arm of the Ecclesiarchy, which is an even bigger part of the 40k lore than any given Inquisitional order, especially the relatively unloved Hereticus (Xenos is famous because of Eisenhorn and Malleus is famous because of Grey Knights...)

Ok, several things:

-Melissia nailed this, GW are bunch of idiots and SoB suffered because of it.

-SoB are HUGE part of the lore giving how they are fighting arm of Imperial Church who also fight for the I when they need too. S othere is no way to "squat" them without rewriting huge part of the fluff.

-Few years ago one GW men who works in high staff said that GW will never again squat an army. So SoB are save when it comes to that ( ask Lynata for details ).

-GW decided to update EVERY codex to 6'th edition, so we should see SoB 6'th edition FULL codex next year or the year after that. Now entire Sister army is in metal when everybody is being made in plastic or finecast. You can bet when SoB get updated with plastic models that many will start to collect them.

All in all - I pray to the God Emperor for Sisters...

If there were plastic Sisters of Battle, I'd buy an army in a heartbeat. It is not even about the price of the metal models. I love to convert, but with metal it is just such a pain.

 Melissia wrote:

 Veteran Sergeant wrote:

I'm going to safely say that the price of the models with a ad-hoc codex probably makes them sell poorly overall,

Selling poorly overall is what left them with expensive metal models and an ad-hoc codex.

No, he had it right.

The funny part is, from here on out, Melissia will go on to explain that I was correct.

Games Workshop has done everything wrong in how they have marketed and sold Sisters of Battle. I don't think they've ever actually come up with a single good decision about them since they were created. They released a decent second edition codex-- and then immediately made it obsolete with third edition. They updated Sisters to third edition... in a new wave of poorly written, highly limited codices that the fans didn't like, and while still using the same exact old second edition models as before. Then come fourth edition Sisters got no update at all. Come near the end of fourth edition, GW did everything they could to try to prevent people from buying Sisters of Battle, raising the price, getting rid of the squad packs, getting rid of the bitz that would allow people to buy the specific models they wanted, and so on. Then there was the mess over the actual codex in fifth edition, where GW stopped selling the codex, and only finally released an edited PDF codex which sparked a controversy over whether or not it superceded the print codex, to which Games Workshop send multiple contradictory and ever-changing statements about. Then, finally, there was the so-called "codex" released in fifth edition-- which released exactly zero new models, got rid of a lot of thematic and fluffy elements of the army, and generally sucked a whole lot of ass. And through all of this, Sisters received effectively zero marketing even by GW standards-- not including the new codex, the number of White Dwarf issues which included Sisters in any way can still be counted on just one hand, even as they continue to sell overpriced older models from fething second edition in packs of three (in an army whose squad sizes range in 10-20 for troops, and 5-10 for others, and this doesn't include squad leaders, special wepaons, banners, etc, they're just a random trio of static, older models) for well over half the cost of what most armies would pay for a squad box that contains not only ten far superior models but also tons of bits.

Games Workshop has continually and repeatedly been a miserable failure when it comes to supporting Sisters of Battle and attempting to make money off of the army. I have no illusions that they will stop any time soon.

Although I hope they do.

This may well be true. Though, like I said, it still assumes the statement I made was correct. It simply affixes the blame for poor Sisters sales to Games Workshop's business decisions, instead of on the consumers for not being attracted to the product and not buying it. I can see how this version is more palatable to Sisters players, since it means their army was done wrong, and not a failed product. Either way.

The problem is, it makes a huge assumption. That the decision that the Sisters weren't slow sellers in their window. Remember, the key link in this argument comes between the 1997 release of Codex: SoB and the 1998 release of 3rd Edition. The problem is, 3rd Edition codex delays didn't kill any other armies. Tyranids didn't get one for almost 2 years. Eldar had to wait a year and a half.

Necrons had to wait four years. Four years to get a real codex for their models. I'll let that sink in for a second.

Okay. Ready? Good, Let's continue. Essentially, whatever assumed marketing failures you attribute to the Sisters of Battle apply equally to the Necrons. And yet the Necrons exist as a modern army.

The truth of the matter is, there was no marketing failure for the Sisters. They were pushed quite extensively back in 1997. Full sized codex book, front cover of White Dwarf, brand new shiny models. The result? Well, we don't have the sales numbers, but one thing seems fairly realistic: Nobody bought them in significant numbers. I work in marketing for a company that owns multiple, multi-million dollar retail websites. The company sticks with products that sell, and discontinues ones that don't.

Why? Because you don't throw good money after bad.

There's no point. Whatever "marketing failures" you perceive in 4th Edition? Irrelevant. By that time, the decision had already been made to let the line languish as a failed product. See, it's a 15 year product life. Everything past 2004? That's all the result of how it performed prior to that. The line was pushed in 1997. No significant sales. The line was revamped and expanded in 2003. No significant sales. At that point, simple analysis probably told Games Workshop "Sisters of Battle don't sell models very well". You can be upset about that basic truth. That's fair. I'm sure a lot of people wanted a second Season of Terra Nova. I don't know why, it was an awful show. There's a reason why the Sisters were the last 3rd Edition Codex. And that reason is sales. Sisters fans like to foist blame on Games Workshop for all the woes of the army. But the truth is, if the model range had been as popular as the Necrons, it would have gotten a 3rd Edition Codex earlier. If it had sold models as well as the Necrons, it would have gotten plastic models. Necrons didn't get a 4th Edition codex either. It exists as a modern army. Why? Sales.

Codex books are for closers.

 Veteran Sergeant wrote:
it still assumes the statement I made was correct.

No, that's just you presuming to speak for me. Please do not do so. You have not earned that privilege.

Furthermore, none of your arguments actually have any merit, because they never actually bothered to try to market and sell Sisters. Even when they were first released as an army in second edition, they were ignored by GW's marketing division.

In order to successfully argue "don't throw good money after bad", you first have to prove that it was actually bad money and not corporate incompetence.

 Melissia wrote:

 Veteran Sergeant wrote:
it still assumes the statement I made was correct.

No, that's just you being arrogant and presuming to speak for me.

I'm not speaking for you. I'm telling you that's exactly what you did, whether you understand that fact or not.

Furthermore, none of your arguments actually have any merit, because they never actually bothered to try to market and sell Sisters..

If you're just going to lie about stuff, there's really no point in discussing this any further.



Never bothered.

 Veteran Sergeant wrote:
If you're just going to lie about stuff

I see you still are not actually capable of reading my posts.

I'm reading them. You're just not saying anything that holds up under scrutiny, and that's why you're getting so frustrated.

Your arguments are based from how you feel about the situation and not about the facts of the situation.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Want to see how the Necrons were marketed?

 Veteran Sergeant wrote:
I'm reading them.

As usual, I will help you read.

 Melissia wrote:
not including the new codex, the number of White Dwarf issues which included Sisters in any way can still be counted on just one hand

So, the first part of this sentence, states "not including the new codex"-- the "codex" was spread over two issues of white dwarf, but even then, it was a half-assed affair which actually used screenshots of screenshots that were in C:WH and C:SoB from previous editions, showing how little effort that they put in to it (but really, given how lame it is, that's no surprise).

Second part states "the number of White Dwarf issues which included Sisters in any way", which was four, by my count, aside from the two issues which the codex was unnecessarily split over (and which contained contradictory stats and information about the various units). That includes ANY representation of Sisters... pictures, stories, fluff bits, even just Sisters being included as enemies to be killed.

And the third part states: "can still be counted on just one hand". I have five fingers in my hand, and there are four examples.

When I specifically stated that Sisters had a very small amount of presence in White Dwarf articles, showing a White Dwarf cover does not invalidate my argument. It just proves that you don't actually bother to read my posts before you respond to them.

You're still missing the point Mel.

White Dwarf, like Codex Books, are for closers. Sell the models, get more coverage.

The reality is, and I know you won't accept it so this is the for the benefit of the other readers so they aren't fooled by your ramblings, the Sisters got a codex book. They got a White Dwarf cover. They got promoted. They had 21 models and a faction specific tank.

They didn't sell models.

The Necrons got 10 models and a corner of a White Dwarf.

They sold models.


http://www.collecting-citadel-miniatures.com/wiki/index.php/Sisters_of_Battle_-_Collectors_Guide

http://images.dakkadakka.com/gallery/2008/12/19/13280_sm-White%20Dwarf.jpg

 Veteran Sergeant wrote:
You're still missing the point Mel.

I'm not missing your point. I'm dismissing it, as it is made only by ignoring the actual facts of the issue, then pointing at a single white dwarf as if I didn't already mention it.

You're dismissing it because you can't refute it. You don't understand that single White Dwarf is the crux of the entire argument. It's irrelevant how many White Dwarf magazines the Sisters got over the last 15 years. It doesn't matter one bit. They didn't get mentioned in White Dwarf because they didn't sell. Your attachment to this idea shows a critical lack of understanding of product marketing fundamentals. They got promoted, and they didn't sell, so no effort was made to further promote them. But that's just elementary business.


Answer the question:

Prior to 2002, why did the Necrons succeed and the Sisters fail?

Because Necrons at the time were based off two very popular movie lines (Terminator and Stargate), while Sisters were based off John Blanche's artwork and some poorly understood fetishes.

THAT is why Necrons sold prior to 2002 while Sisters did not.

 Veteran Sergeant wrote:
You're dismissing it because you can't refute it.

It's already been refuted.

I never denied that Sisters didn't sell as well as they should have, I have no clue where you got that impression from. No, I stated that GW basically did everything wrong to market Sisters. You haven't been able to refute any of that-- instead trying to drag the discussion off on tangents. But no matter how much you try to do so, GW made a huge amount of mistakes, they fethed up a lot, which resulted in the codex (and associated miniatures) not ever getting up to its potential in sales.

Want a comparison? Think of Dark Eldar. They had the same treatment, arguably even worse, really, and as a result, they didn't sell well... at all. They weren't popular and really only die-hard fans actually bothered to play the army and collect the models, some people didn't even know they existed-- much like Sisters. But once they got a brand new codex, with a lot of well crafted miniatures, and some press in White Dwarf to celebrate and advertise those brand new, high-quality miniatures? They started selling a lot more than they previously had, and have risen to become arguably more popular than the craftworld Eldar codex. Quite a turn-around considering that people had been wondering if Dark Eldar was going to be squatted-- just Sisters, in this thread.

Done properly, Sisters could be the next success story in the same vein as Dark Eldar.

Answer the question:

Prior to 2002, why did the Necrons succeed and the Sisters fail?

Because one of the current editors on staff actively enjoyed the army style, and was later promoted to a position where he could influence the next codex to be produced.

Might be a bit random, but...

If a freaking 1000 strong (1200-1500 with support) Space Marines Chapter can have fething warships, tanks, various fighters, gunships, bombers, artillery, APCs, etc organic to their fething organization than the significantly larger Adepta Sororitas should have that as well. At the absolute minimum each Orders Militant is several times the size of Codex Chapter.

Also veteran, I'm sorry if I sounded hostile in my previous posts in this thread. But as you can likely tell, I am very firm in my beliefs on this topic-- even still, I don't want to antagonize you, we just happen to disagree, and it's not like it's the first time eh?

Veteran Sergeant is making an argument based on sales, but he has zero sales figures. In interviews over the years developers have stated that the main reason that the squats were dropped was because no one at the studio really could come up with a good way to go forward with them. Sales of models really has never been given as the main reason the army was dropped.

The chaos dwarfs were dropped but they have a pretty large following even after all these years. They never even had a proper army book. Their only army book was a compilation of articles from the white dwarf.

No one except management at GW really knows what the sales figures for various armies is but there is plenty of circumstantial evidence that they do not base their decision on whether or not to drop an army solely on existing sales.

At least one way to think of it is that the less Sisters of Battle players there are, it makes people like me more unique. I bought into Sisters when they first came out- Necrons, too for that matter.

I'm even thinking of stripping my army and repainting them (as I have improved in 115 years, lol) instead of buying anything new.

I agree, though, that GW has pretty much cocked-up in every way throughout the years concerning SoB.

I would bet if Sisters were released in plastic w/ a new Codex they would really sell in todays market. I know 3 or 4 people who would start a sister army and 1 who has everything sisters and is just waiting for a new codex.

 Amaya wrote:
Might be a bit random, but...

If a freaking 1000 strong (1200-1500 with support) Space Marines Chapter can have fething warships, tanks, various fighters, gunships, bombers, artillery, APCs, etc organic to their fething organization than the significantly larger Adepta Sororitas should have that as well. At the absolute minimum each Orders Militant is several times the size of Codex Chapter.

The Adepta Sororitas are banned from holding fleet assets by the Decree Passive. That's the only reason they don't have warships, fighters, gunships or bombers 'organic' to their organisation. They do, however, have an arrangement with the Imperial Navy to borrow ships and air support where necessary. They favour the Avenger Strike Fighter in particular.

Besides, there are thousands of Orders Militant Minoris, many of which are in fact smaller than a Space Marine chapter. As for tanks and APCs, they do have two APCs, an IFV and a tank. They don't have artillery, true - artillery doesn't fit into their battle doctrine and is the Guard's job. Since where there are Sororitas, there are usually also Guard, they don't really need it.

They need more vehicles in general, however. Saying "but you can just ally with the guard" is lazy, given that by the same logic, Space Marines shouldn't have certain units as well, like their own artillery.

Each codex is an army to itself. Even Imperial Guard has durable assault units.

They need a tank that has this on its roof:

It needs ot be two-headed. The gryphon I mean.

Someone should totally do a conversion where they put everything on that war-wagon from the base of the windows and up on the roof a Rhino, lol.

It would look goofy as all hell, but ironically would look like an actual GW product.

 TheCrazyCryptek wrote:
I sincerly hope they don't phase them out. They are such a huge part of Warhammer 40k. I mean, for Emperors sake, the Ordo Hereticus is a HUGE part of the Imperium and the Sisters of Battle is the militant arm of that organization. If GW started to phase them out, they would be ignoring something that is very important IMO.

Grey Knights are the militant arm of the Ordo Malleus, so why can't Sisters of Battle get a Codex too?

I would like to see them get a new Codex and new models and do not consider them to part of Warhammer 40k in the past tense.

GW often forgets about significant parts of the lore, lets acknowledge the lack of attention given to the Imperial Navy during this flyer fad

They will release plastic's, and maybe a new codex. If they still don't sell, GW will pull the plug.

But I beleive the reason they don't sell, is a combination of old/bad rules, and old/bad/Expensive models.

No one want's to pay a premium, for a bad army.

Has anyone consider the option that they may get rolled into another codex?

They tried that with third edition. It didn't work, and they moved away from that in fifth edition, which is about the only good thing to come out of fifth edition for Sisters, aside from some lore bits.

 Crimson wrote:
If there were plastic Sisters of Battle, I'd buy an army in a heartbeat. It is not even about the price of the metal models. I love to convert, but with metal it is just such a pain.

Pretty much this. I was about to pull the trigger on about 900 points worth of SoB to use as allies, but even at 30% off it was a bit expensive and I decided the spend that amount on marines, orks, chaos marines and a bit of IG instead. I like a lot of the SoB models, but the price makes it hard to justify getting them. And indeed metal is a bit tricky to work with, I don't even have the tools to deal with metal casting seams and such as this time. My 5 Sternguard, 12 Vostroyans, 10 ratlings and 3 marine scouts thus won't be seeing paint any time soon most likely.

I know as much as I would like to see GW release new models (or ones that are affordable), for the time being I'm seriously eyeing the SOB army that's languishing in my buddy's upstairs storage room.

Melissia wrote:They need more vehicles in general, however. Saying "but you can just ally with the guard" is lazy, given that by the same logic, Space Marines shouldn't have certain units as well, like their own artillery.

Each codex is an army to itself. Even Imperial Guard has durable assault units.

True, I'm not denying that. We not only need more vehicles, we deserve them. All I'm saying is that you don't have to turn us into Space Marines to get there.

Crimson wrote:They need a tank that has this on its roof:

[image snipped]

Yes. But in addition to being two-headed, it needs to be able to swing that hammer for great cleansing.

PresidentOfAsia wrote:

GW often forgets about significant parts of the lore, lets acknowledge the lack of attention given to the Imperial Navy during this flyer fad

At least Forge World are giving the Navy their due. All the FW fliers, the Valkyrie and the Vendetta are only technically on 'temporary loan' to whichever army is fielding them at the time.

AegisGrimm wrote:I know as much as I would like to see GW release new models (or ones that are affordable), for the time being I'm seriously eyeing the SOB army that's languishing in my buddy's upstairs storage room.

As them to lend it to you. Seriously. You'll never go back.

AegisGrimm wrote:I know as much as I would like to see GW release new models (or ones that are affordable), for the time being I'm seriously eyeing the SOB army that's languishing in my buddy's upstairs storage room.

As them to lend it to you. Seriously. You'll never go back.

I'm not gonna lie, but this is pretty much why I have a playable army. My brother bought a whole Sisters army off someone while he was away at uni, then agreed to lend it to me to supplement my two-squads-and-a-canoness of the time. ^^;

If the Dreamforge Black Widows are a success, that might change things. If Mantic or AoW come up with a plastic kit for warrior nuns, that might change things. It seems like GW really only notices where the market is when someone else taps it first.

Well, that's how EA and Blizzard are like, same with Microsoft.

Those companies are well-liked paragons of corporate efficiency, yes? It's a good thing GW is learning from them...

Honestly, I'm scared of what modern GW might do with the SoBs if they made a new codex. FFG's supplement has a lot of neat background, and a new codex would flush it all away. Prepare to be blown away by the Ecclesiarchy's new, entirely benevolent dogma! Thrill to the exploits of Canoness Therese, who single-handedly converted an entire tomb world to the light of the Emperor! Change your underwear as you, er drool over the magnificence of Living Saint Celestine, who destroyed an Avatar, a Swarmlord, an Astartes chapter, and three whole Dwarf holds with her tears of pure devotion! (Sorry, Karak Kadrin. It was a good run.)

I can only imagine what their rules will look after the addition of SoB Cherubim, Malachim and Righteous Gentile squads, their Instrumentaliy Faithfist walker and their flyers, the FaithCovenant Fighter and the ZealTract Bomber...

I know I have a flair for the dramatic at times, but that's a bit hysterical there.

 Melissia wrote:
I know I have a flair for the dramatic at times, but that's a bit hysterical there.

I was aiming for funny.

Honestly, I just think it would be bland, (less ambiguously) heroic and slightly higher-powered than the previous codex.

The models, however would be stunning. And for $35 each, they'd better be.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:

Honestly, I'm scared of what modern GW might do with the SoBs if they made a new codex. FFG's supplement has a lot of neat background, and a new codex would flush it all away. Prepare to be blown away by the Ecclesiarchy's new, entirely benevolent dogma! Thrill to the exploits of Canoness Therese, who single-handedly converted an entire tomb world to the light of the Emperor! Change your underwear as you, er drool over the magnificence of Living Saint Celestine, who destroyed an Avatar, a Swarmlord, an Astartes chapter, and three whole Dwarf holds with her tears of pure devotion! (Sorry, Karak Kadrin. It was a good run.)

Don't FFG's Sisters have actual, honest to God-Emperor, magic? I think GWs Sisters fluff has been much more tolerable. Yes, even if we count ending up as armour paint.

I could be wrong with this (and I'm fairly sure I am), but someone once told me that GW sponsored tournaments forbid SoB male players from participating due to the fact that they are a dude? Again, this could just be that person pulling my leg but on the one in a million chance that he was being truthful...

 Brother Captain Alexander wrote:
[...]
-Few years ago one GW men who works in high staff said that GW will never again squat an army. So SoB are save when it comes to that ( ask Lynata for details ).

-GW decided to update EVERY codex to 6'th edition, so we should see SoB 6'th edition FULL codex next year or the year after that. Now entire Sister army is in metal when everybody is being made in plastic or finecast. You can bet when SoB get updated with plastic models that many will start to collect them.
[...]

Ok, now I'm worried.
In my small 30 years of lifespan, I've quickly learned that people feels the need to reassure that something won't happen only when there is actually a pretty good chance that it may happen in the first place.

I sure hope that it won't happens though.

My guess is that, from their previous experience, they may see the SoB as a risky product and wait until they are more financially stable before retrying to make a proper codex and miniatures line. What worries me the most is that with their current business model, they may never get stable enough for such a risky ordeal. Don't forget that most people tend to never see their own errors or rationalize/justify them when someone point it to you.

 gnoise wrote:
I could be wrong with this (and I'm fairly sure I am), but someone once told me that GW sponsored tournaments forbid SoB male players from participating due to the fact that they are a dude? Again, this could just be that person pulling my leg but on the one in a million chance that he was being truthful...

They were just bullgakking you.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Static-Cat wrote:
In my small 30 years of lifespan, I've quickly learned that people feels the need to reassure that something won't happen only when there is actually a pretty good chance that it may happen in the first place.

What bizarre experience has led you to believe that? There are many people who are worried, irrationally or otherwise, about an unlikely risk.

Such as a child being afraid of the monster under their bed. Does reassuring them mean that there is likely actually a monster there, then?

 Melissia wrote:
Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Static-Cat wrote:
In my small 30 years of lifespan, I've quickly learned that people feels the need to reassure that something won't happen only when there is actually a pretty good chance that it may happen in the first place.

What bizarre experience has led you to believe that? There are many people who are worried, irrationally or otherwise, about an unlikely risk.

Such as a child being afraid of the monster under their bed. Does reassuring them mean that there is likely actually a monster there, then?

They're plenty stable as it is, pulling in a decent profit. So waiting to become stable is no reason/excuse.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
If the Dreamforge Black Widows are a success, that might change things. If Mantic or AoW come up with a plastic kit for warrior nuns, that might change things. It seems like GW really only notices where the market is when someone else taps it first.

In addition to that, Raging Heroes is going to have a Sisters of Eternal Mercy Kickstarter in the future, in as well as everything they already make for female IG, and (D)Eldar.

And Hitech makes a semi-decent (which is unfortunate, considering I love the rest of their minis) female Terminator.

Raging Heroes has decent sculpts, but their posing is annoying at best, and frankly unrealistic at worst...

 tvih wrote:
They're plenty stable as it is, pulling in a decent profit. So waiting to become stable is no reason/excuse.

If they were stable enough, it wouldn't explain the multiple and drastic price jumps they had in the last years. The simple fact that the only way they have to make profits is by high-jacking their prices is a proof that GW isn't as healthy as simple numbers may tell.

If they were really rolling on the money, they wouldn't hesitate to lower their prices to boost demand and get nearer of the market potential (Where your production equals what clients buy).

Of course, if GW production capacities really diminished over the time, they may try to put high price tags to counter demand, but I somewhat doubt it. While it is normal that metal miniatures has gone up (by almost 10 times, to be exact), it doesn't really explains the price-boost on the Cadian Shock troop for half the plastic figurines that was in that same box. (20 Cadian for 30$ against 10 Cadians for 40$). Maybe that the metal ones cost so much that they were forced to compensate with the plastic figurines? I don't think so, but I still a possibility, I may be wrong.

Also, as I'm currently studying economics; there is a LOTS of ways to cheat your business health for people who aren't in the know-how.

Anyway, I'm sorry for my somewhat out-of-subject post.

 Static-Cat wrote:
If they were really rolling on the money, they wouldn't hesitate to lower their prices to boost demand and get nearer of the market potential (Where your production equals what clients buy).

You're assuming rational, intelligent decision making on GW's part.

Mind you, I'm not necessarily disagreeing with your sentiments. Just saying... GW doesn't always make good business decisions.

 Melissia wrote:

 Static-Cat wrote:
If they were really rolling on the money, they wouldn't hesitate to lower their prices to boost demand and get nearer of the market potential (Where your production equals what clients buy).

You're assuming rational, intelligent decision making on GW's part.

Mind you, I'm not necessarily disagreeing with your sentiments. Just saying... GW doesn't always make good business decisions.

No, I was hoping for intelligent decision making from their shareholder ... But I admit that I may be wrong there, lol.

I don't know which one is less likely to make rational decisions, CEOs or shareholders...

 Melissia wrote:
Raging Heroes has decent sculpts, but their posing is annoying at best, and frankly unrealistic at worst...

But at least they're trying. Realistic sculpts and poses are going to be a problem no matter who is making the models. Not to mention we play a fantasy game (sorry, sci-fi)... "unrealistic" is the least of our worries.

Some of them almost look like they were sculpted based off of a Rob Liefeld drawing.

Well, I see we are pulling no stops on insults here.

I did say SOME of them. Not all...

 Crimson wrote:

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:

Honestly, I'm scared of what modern GW might do with the SoBs if they made a new codex. FFG's supplement has a lot of neat background, and a new codex would flush it all away. Prepare to be blown away by the Ecclesiarchy's new, entirely benevolent dogma! Thrill to the exploits of Canoness Therese, who single-handedly converted an entire tomb world to the light of the Emperor! Change your underwear as you, er drool over the magnificence of Living Saint Celestine, who destroyed an Avatar, a Swarmlord, an Astartes chapter, and three whole Dwarf holds with her tears of pure devotion! (Sorry, Karak Kadrin. It was a good run.)

Don't FFG's Sisters have actual, honest to God-Emperor, magic? I think GWs Sisters fluff has been much more tolerable. Yes, even if we count ending up as armour paint.

I thought it was supposed to be a subtle form of thaumaturgy. You know, like Ned Flanders.

Considering their god is real, it makes as much sense as anything in the setting.

I could see the All the orders of the inquisition combined into one book where you can take GK, SOB, or whatever all int hte same codex. Maybe have restrictions on having SOB means no GK or something, but they end up making battle sisters and pentient engines just another troops choice/ heavy support choice for the Grey Knights to use. It could satisfy GW's business ploy and it could still allow the SOB fandom to remain. Probably, this is a stupid idea, but I am throwing it out there anyhow.

I dunno, if they release a proper codex ill probably pick it up to take a look but model-wise i don't think ill buy unless i REALLY like the 'dex due to forementioned problems (no squadpacks metal etc.)

 Da Kommizzar wrote:
I could see the All the orders of the inquisition combined into one book where you can take GK, SOB, or whatever all int hte same codex. Maybe have restrictions on having SOB means no GK or something, but they end up making battle sisters and pentient engines just another troops choice/ heavy support choice for the Grey Knights to use. It could satisfy GW's business ploy and it could still allow the SOB fandom to remain. Probably, this is a stupid idea, but I am throwing it out there anyhow.

It's been suggested time and time again. I doubt GW will go for it. They have actually moved in the opposite direction as far as Sisters go.

 Melissia wrote:

 Da Kommizzar wrote:
I could see the All the orders of the inquisition combined into one book where you can take GK, SOB, or whatever all int hte same codex. Maybe have restrictions on having SOB means no GK or something, but they end up making battle sisters and pentient engines just another troops choice/ heavy support choice for the Grey Knights to use. It could satisfy GW's business ploy and it could still allow the SOB fandom to remain. Probably, this is a stupid idea, but I am throwing it out there anyhow.

It's been suggested time and time again. I doubt GW will go for it. They have actually moved in the opposite direction as far as Sisters go.

Yeah pretty sure that is the old Witch hunters codex? When I suggested that they may get rolled into another codex, I meant maybe something like IG? Or maybe they'll shoe horn them into the new Mechanicus codex..

Eldercaveman wrote:

 Melissia wrote:

 Da Kommizzar wrote:
I could see the All the orders of the inquisition combined into one book where you can take GK, SOB, or whatever all int hte same codex. Maybe have restrictions on having SOB means no GK or something, but they end up making battle sisters and pentient engines just another troops choice/ heavy support choice for the Grey Knights to use. It could satisfy GW's business ploy and it could still allow the SOB fandom to remain. Probably, this is a stupid idea, but I am throwing it out there anyhow.

It's been suggested time and time again. I doubt GW will go for it. They have actually moved in the opposite direction as far as Sisters go.

Yeah pretty sure that is the old Witch hunters codex? When I suggested that they may get rolled into another codex, I meant maybe something like IG? Or maybe they'll shoe horn them into the new Mechanicus codex..

What do you mean by something like IG? A book with lots of variation or simply more options than there are now (as i understand it they are very limited currently) but IG is by no means close to a multifactional book (unless this happened sometime in the far past)

 Somedude593 wrote:

Eldercaveman wrote:

 Melissia wrote:

 Da Kommizzar wrote:
I could see the All the orders of the inquisition combined into one book where you can take GK, SOB, or whatever all int hte same codex. Maybe have restrictions on having SOB means no GK or something, but they end up making battle sisters and pentient engines just another troops choice/ heavy support choice for the Grey Knights to use. It could satisfy GW's business ploy and it could still allow the SOB fandom to remain. Probably, this is a stupid idea, but I am throwing it out there anyhow.

It's been suggested time and time again. I doubt GW will go for it. They have actually moved in the opposite direction as far as Sisters go.

Yeah pretty sure that is the old Witch hunters codex? When I suggested that they may get rolled into another codex, I meant maybe something like IG? Or maybe they'll shoe horn them into the new Mechanicus codex..

What do you mean by something like IG? A book with lots of variation or simply more options than there are now (as i understand it they are very limited currently) but IG is by no means close to a multifactional book (unless this happened sometime in the far past)

No by something like IG, I meant get rolled into IG, for the next release. It is highly unlikely, I'm just trying to call every option so when it happens I can say, called it

Actually, I was talking about the fifth edition "codex", which was split between two issues of White Dwarf.

Which separated Sisters from the Inquisition, effectively leaving the Inquisition to the Grey Knights codex and the Allies rules they no doubt had already planned in sixth edition (making it all the more bizarre the stupid debacle they had over the C:WH allies rules in fifth edition...).

Sisters have moved from having their own dedicated codex in second edition -> Witch Hunters added to the Sisters army in third edition -> Witch Hunters moved to Grey Knights and Sisters given their own codex again in fifth edition.

Ugh, again with the Inquisition stuff.

Sisters are NOT Inquisitorial troops.

Hell, even in C:WH, they weren't really an Inquisitorial force.

 Melissia wrote:
Hell, even in C:WH, they weren't really an Inquisitorial force.

Which is why it was called C:WH not C: Inquisition, prehaps they'll be added to new BT codex?

That's really desperate.

 Melissia wrote:
That's really desperate.

Yeah I should stop suggesting silly things, incase GW is listening in.....

Eldercaveman wrote:

 Melissia wrote:
Hell, even in C:WH, they weren't really an Inquisitorial force.

Which is why it was called C:WH not C: Inquisition, prehaps they'll be added to new BT codex?

Codex: Religious Nutjobs? Hey, that's an idea that could work if we had a competent writer. Of course, if we did this issue wouldn't exist in the first place, eh?

I still think GW should have done one Codex for Inquisitorial forces or do an "addon" codex that allows all Imperal forces to take various Inquisitors, one codex for Grey Knights, one codex for Deathwatch, and a codex for Ecclesiarchy forces to include Adepta Sororitas.


The Adepta Sororitas are not the official military arm of the Ordo Hereticus, but they do often serve as such. Another option would be to do a Codex for each Ordo and include their military arms within them ie Ordo Malleus + Grey Knights, Ordo Xenos + Deathwatch, and Ordo Hereticus + Witch Hunters + additional Ecclesiarchy units.


I don't have any issues with the Adepta Sorotitas serving as the military arm of the Ordo Hereticus. I've noticed some people appear to do. All I can say fluff is fluid and everchanging.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
Codex: Religious Nutjobs?

That would include the majority of the IoM.

The most likely thing to happen, imo, is a dedicated codex that's kind of slipped in alongside some other under-played faction.

So about six years ago I decided to start saving up for a sisters of battle army. I put aside some cash every month and, at first, was setting aside quite bit. But as time went on I started to put aside less and less and now I've quit because I can't fathom adding more money to a large sum that would probably buy me an apocalypse army outright. So here we are, 6th ed 40k and I'm still waiting for plastics.

 ShatteredBlade wrote:
So about six years ago I decided to start saving up for a sisters of battle army. I put aside some cash every month and, at first, was setting aside quite bit. But as time went on I started to put aside less and less and now I've quit because I can't fathom adding more money to a large sum that would probably buy me an apocalypse army outright. So here we are, 6th ed 40k and I'm still waiting for plastics.

With that mentality, you should just invest everything you've saved so far and then sell your stock when the SoB have a plastic range. Two things are bound to happen:

Either:

1. You sell your stock for a massive army of SoB (and likely have plenty of cash to spare)

or

2. You retire.

If GW wanted to save the Sisters all they have to do is release a new 6th ed. Codex that puts them at the top of the power creep. Imagine logging in and reading endless posts about how over-powered Sisters are and veteran players complaining about all the new players jumping on the Sisters bandwagon.

But seriously, it would be nice to see GW release a nice plastic kit for Sisters. Something like the Grey Knights Strike Squad were one kit can be made into just about any Sisters unit.

I have no desire to do a Sisters army but if updated rules and some nice models were released I would certainly like to build a small allied for force to play with my Inquisition list.

If GW wanted to save Sisters, all they'd have to do is use their pewter molds for injected pastic and put together 5-girl sets of the existing models at a more affordable price. The cost to do that would be significantly less than a full release (make new molds from the old masters, brief QA, and all other costs are already rolled into day-to-day operations with, what I assume, are full-time graphics, White Dwarf, and online editors).

Unless you already have a full SoB army, you can't say you wouldn't jump at the chance to fill up your army for less money.

But this is just one man's opinion.

Solis Luna Astrum wrote:
If GW wanted to save the Sisters all they have to do is release a new 6th ed. Codex that puts them at the top of the power creep.

It'd take more than just overpowered rules to sell Sisters models. They need new, high-quality sculpts as well.

Brother Captain Alexander wrote:Few years ago one GW men who works in high staff said that GW will never again squat an army. So SoB are save when it comes to that ( ask Lynata for details ).

Ouphhh ... I'm afraid I can't add any detail to that, as it was just internet scuttlebutt that I had repeated. I've since become a bit more sceptical as far as repeating hearsay is concerned.

I keep seeing "GW promised to never squat an army again" all over the internets, but I have no idea where it originates from, or whether there's any truth to it. I just have no idea where it originates from, or whether there's any truth to it (a lot of stuff that gets repeated often has little substance, especially amongst 40k fans).

What I do know is, however, is that Jervis Johnson (in a statement following the Squats' removal) said that Squats were not dropped because of poor sales and that, in fact, GW has no problem maintaining armies in spite of any sales figures. So sales should not threaten the Sisters' continued existence, even should they be almost non-existing by comparison (which I think none of us really knows).

Veteran Sergeant wrote:Want to see how the Necrons were marketed?

To be fair, that was when they still did not have a Codex of their own but were marketed as Necron Raiders.

This was the issue of WD by the time of their Codex release:


The Sisters' first miniatures and rules to use them (as attached components to Marine and Guard armies) were introduced with this issue:


Granted, the gap between the Necrons' WD list and their Codex release was considerably larger than for the Sisters (years rather than months). Another two things that may deserve to be mentioned, however, was that the WD issue you posted came with a free Necron mini, something which never happened for Sisters. Also, letting Necron Raiders win against SoB in the battle report ("Massacre at Sancruary 101") just after having released the latter's Codex may have been a weird decision, from an advertising PoV, given that it's an unwritten rule to have the new army win in every WD battle rep.

Melissia wrote:Second part states "the number of White Dwarf issues which included Sisters in any way", which was four, by my count, aside from the two issues which the codex was unnecessarily split over (and which contained contradictory stats and information about the various units). That includes ANY representation of Sisters... pictures, stories, fluff bits, even just Sisters being included as enemies to be killed.

Okay, I can safely say you're missing a bunch of WD issues there...

Sisters have unfortunately never been popular compared to the other armies, but GW did not ignore them that much.

Amaya wrote:If a freaking 1000 strong (1200-1500 with support) Space Marines Chapter can have fething warships, tanks, various fighters, gunships, bombers, artillery, APCs, etc organic to their fething organization than the significantly larger Adepta Sororitas should have that as well. At the absolute minimum each Orders Militant is several times the size of Codex Chapter.

The six Major Orders are (maximum size 7.000, average 3.500 by accounting for attrition), the smaller ones tend to be only around a hundred Sisters large (single convent, locally limited). The Major Orders are, however, also dispersed all across the galaxy in smaller task forces with temporary convents. The largest organisational unit they may deploy is called Preceptory and may contain as much as 1.000 Sisters.

That being said, GW fluff did say that the two Major Convents (Ophelia and Terra) have "their own fleets and conduct their own affairs in much the same way as the Space Marine Chapters", so there is certainly some room to expand the Sisters' armouries with things like the Lightning fighters they had in Dawn of War, or Valkyrie drop-ships for launching their Seraphim. GW might also re-introduce the Dominica-pattern Drop Pods from the Citadel Journal army list that Andy Hoare once wrote.

However, let's not just turn themmop into Marine clones any more than they already are. The Astartes are specialised shock troops for surgical raids into heavily defended territory, whereas the Sisters are a crusaders focused chiefly on defense and purges. Each of these two armies occasionally does the other thing as well, but their wargear and vehicle garage represent the role they are intended to fill. Also, the Sisters are much better connected to the Imperium than the Astartes and will usually conduct major fighting with support of other military forces such as a seconded regiment from the Imperial Guard.

Furyou Miko wrote:The Adepta Sororitas are banned from holding fleet assets by the Decree Passive.

That's a popular assumption, but may not be entirely correct, at least going by Codex fluff:

Amongst other prohibitions on military activity, the Decree Passive forbade the Ecclesiarchy from controlling any 'men under arms'. Sebastian Thor was ordered to disband the Frateris Templars of Vandire and any armies and fleets assembled by other members of the Ministorum while seperated from Terra. This was duly done, but for one exception."
- 3E C:WH

In short, the Decree Passive does not apply in full as far as the Sisters are concerned.

Don't get me wrong, I do believe that the Decree Passive puts at least some limitation on the Sisters - but that's more of a perceived thing rather than anything official. In short, how far can the Ecclesiarchy/Sororitas push the limits until either the Ordo Hereticus or the High Lords feel it's "too much". They also have the Frateris Militia, which obviously are "men under arms" as well.
Ultimately, the Sisters operating their own fleets was said in 1E and 2E, the Decree Passive was introduced in 2E, and the Designer's Notes for the 3E Codex (which can be found in WD #292) greenlighted any SoB fluff ever having been printed by GW as still being valid, even going so far as to directly quote the Rogue Trader description.

BobtheInquisitor wrote:Honestly, I'm scared of what modern GW might do with the SoBs if they made a new codex. FFG's supplement has a lot of neat background, and a new codex would flush it all away.

Ehh... FFG had some nice ideas, but ultimately ended up nerfing the Sisters. Wow, according to Blood of Martyrs they can actually fight Orks and even the Imperial Guard! Gee, thanks, I think I'll stick with my GW-Sisters that can purge entire Space Marine Chapters.
Not fond of how FFG made them shoot lasers out of their eyes, too, turning Acts of Faith into full blown space magic rather than the vague mix of superstition and harsh training that they represented in the Codex fluff.

Lynata, there is no established size for the Adepta Sororitas. I've seen anywhere from millions of them to only a few thousand per Order.

Amaya wrote:Lynata, there is no established size for the Adepta Sororitas. I've seen anywhere from millions of them to only a few thousand per Order.

Where exactly?

"Two and a half thousand years later, two more Orders were created by Deacis VI ( the Orders of the Bloody Rose and Sacred Rose) and the Convent buildings were extended to accommodate almost 15,000 warriors each. In recent years, the number of the Militant Orders' members has declined slightly and each Order now number between 3,000 and 4,000 Battle Sisters, of which perhaps 500-750 will be trained as Seraphim.These warriors are spread throughout the galaxy in various battle zones and on extended tours of duty. The size of an Order waxes and wanes irregularly, depending on the quality of recruits availble and battle losses. On occasion an Order may number no more than a few hundred warriors, all fighting the enemies of the Emperor while at other times it may reach a peak of six or seven thousand warriors, with much of the Order fighting in distant wars but still leaving a reserve of several thousand Battle Sisters and Seraphim that can be despatched if needed."
- 2E Codex SoB

"There are three major Orders of Adepta Sororitas, the fighting strength of each numbering several thousand warriors, as well as many lesser sisterhoods comprised of around a hundred or so Battle Sisters."
- 5E Rulebook

And check out their representation on Armageddon or the 13th Black Crusade compared to, say, the Marines...


Unless of course you are referring to the issue that 40k has no canon and thus we will have different sources telling us different things. Sadly, I am very much aware of certain licensed products ascribing them much larger sizes than Games Workshop's own fluff.

Let's just say it has about 47 levels of a canon and it would take years to organize it all to the point where it was internally consistent.

That too. And they'd have to actually want to do something like that first.

The only place I know talking about millions of Sisters was Dawn of War and how Kaurava became a holy site visited by them, although one could even rationalise that by simply assuming that it'd refer to "over the millennia" rather than at one point in time.

But as mentioned above, FFG bumped up their numbers a lot as well. Black Industries, the original creators of the Dark Heresy RPG, actually had a (subjectively) better idea there by only assigning 50 Battle Sisters to the Calixis sector (newly arrived and under leadership of some Palatine Rhiannon) and calling that an unusually large force that has caused a lot of nobles to speculate on what they could be there for.

Then FFG released Blood of Martyrs and, boom, thousands of Sisters all over the place.

 Lynata wrote:
maximum size 7.000

That's a bit of an ass-pull, Lynata. You know GW isn't that specific.

 Melissia wrote:

 Lynata wrote:
maximum size 7.000

That's a bit of an ass-pull, Lynata. You know GW isn't that specific.

Glad to see you're bringing your own brand of polite to SOB threads again, M.

edit: Also entertaining because she quoted at least one source that was that specific.

Dakka could really live without any Pretre-Melissia arguments over SOB guys.

Guy stop. Stop guys.

 Amaya wrote:
Dakka could really live without any Pretre-Melissia arguments over SOB guys.

Guy stop. Stop guys.

Awww. I stopped debating with her a while back.

I just stepped into see how the monthly 'why do SOB have no minis' thread was doing. About the same as ever is the answer.

 Amaya wrote:
Let's just say it has about 47 levels of a canon and it would take years to organize it all to the point where it was internally consistent.

Millions of Sisters? Never in a GW publication.

But millions of Battle Sisters in the galaxy should be quite realistic number.

Only if you're including the 3 non-militant Orders of the Sororitas as well (the Dialogus, Famulous and Hospitaler). These aren't Battle-Sisters, though.

pretre wrote:

 Amaya wrote:
Dakka could really live without any Pretre-Melissia arguments over SOB guys.

Guy stop. Stop guys.

Awww. I stopped debating with her a while back.

I just stepped into see how the monthly 'why do SOB have no minis' thread was doing. About the same as ever is the answer.

That's good. Someone might get banned.

Brother Captain Alexander wrote:But millions of Battle Sisters in the galaxy should be quite realistic number.

Yes, it really would be, but...

Psienesis wrote:Only if you're including the 3 non-militant Orders of the Sororitas as well (the Dialogus, Famulous and Hospitaler). These aren't Battle-Sisters, though.

...apparently a trillion odd guardsman makes senses, as does one million Space Marines, but there are only 42,000~ actual Battle Sisters.

It's even better when you consider that the Grey Knights killed 100+ of them during the Bloodtide incident. Thats the equivalent of wiping out over 2000 Space Marines at once, relatively speaking.

Heck, extrapolating from the casualty numbers in the fluff, the entire Adepta Sororitas should be wiped out several times over.

 Psienesis wrote:
Only if you're including the 3 non-militant Orders of the Sororitas as well (the Dialogus, Famulous and Hospitaler).

It would be realistic even not including them. The Imperium is huge, and the Ecclesiarchy is as well. A few million is pocket change to them, a dropped penny to a millionaire-- not worth the time to pick up in a literal sense.

Yeah, it does. The IG recruits from just about every planet in the Imperium, including the ones who haven't even discovered digital watches yet (there are Feral World regiments in the IG, after all). The Schola Progenium is the *only* source of recruits for the Sororitas, and it has *one* Order Militant plus *three* other Orders to fill... and compete with the Administratum, the Munitorum, *and* the Commissariat (to name just 3 massive organizations) for members.

It also has a grueling recruitment process, requiring not only absolute, profound faith that many people simply aren't capable of, but also physical requirements (that, likewise, many people simply aren't capable of meeting) just to become an Initiate! This is before they get tracked on to whichever Order is going to be their "home Order" once they "graduate" to it, which has its own set of requirements and standards to meet.

Where does it say that the Schola Progenium is the only source of Sisters?

 Psienesis wrote:
The Schola Progenium is the *only* source of recruits for the Sororitas

The Schola Progenium is also massive.

It isn't just a single college campus on some remote world nobody knows about.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Amaya wrote:
Where does it say that the Schola Progenium is the only source of Sisters?

I don't have exact page numbers to answer this... but the only other place that Sisters are known to recruit from is Feral Worlds, and that's only if you include FFG's supplements.

And that's probably just FFG being silly and trying to make Sisters more like Space Marines.

The Schola Progenium are schools run by Missionaries of the Ecclesiarchy. These schools teach and train orphans of Imperial officials who have given their lives in the service of the Emperor. Orphans are educated by the Missionaries and receive a strong Imperial cult upbringing, and soon learn to regard the Emperor as their spiritual father. Graduates of the Schola are known as Progena, and because of the loyalty their training has instilled in them, graduates are sent for further training and service within another Imperial organization, often becoming Storm Troopers and Commissars in the Imperial Guard, Imperial assassins, and Inquisitors. Many girls join one of the Orders of the Adepta Sororitas.

http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Schola_Progenium


Even with a limited supply of female orphans they would still be churning out hundreds of thousands at a minimum.

We also have lore stating that the Schola Progenium tries to push female candidates to joining the Sororitas over the other organizations, such as the Commissariat-- which is why, fluff-wise, female commissars aren't as common as male ones.

They might push them to do so... but also remember that the Ecclesiarchy has other orders of its own to fill, and not every girl is going to be able to make the grade.

I know that the Schola system is large, but let's look at who gets to go to it. It is said that "these schools teach and train orphans of Imperial officials who have given their lives in the service of the Emperor. " This is usually said to refer to the IG, though I imagine that other Adepta could also be included (more on those in a moment). Using the IG as our baseline, the vast majority of people in the Guard are not "officials", they're rank-and-file, and so are disqualified. For those who are "officials", not all of them have children, and thus have no offspring to send to the Schola. For those who *do* have children, not all of them are single parents, nor are all of them serving in a combat theater alongside their spouse (or, alternatively, have their spouse serving in another combat theater elsewhere), and with a surviving spouse thusly leave no orphans. So while the IG is absolutely huge, the actual chances of one being an orphan of an IG official is very, very remote. Like, one in a billion remote. So even if the IG has 1 trillion soldiers (it is more likely that it has hundreds of billions, though), you have (statistically) 1000 candidates for the Schola... and this assumes that all viable candidate-parents are killed. Of course, this assumes only 1 child per IG Official family, but even if we stuck with the average 1.5 children, it's still only 1500 kids. It's unlikely that these sorts of people have broods of 5 or 6 or more kids.

Now, to extend to other Adepta, while they may be more numerous than the IG, they are also less likely to die in the Emperor's name in the course of their jobs. Sure, a particularly famed Administratum clerk might be crushed by a falling book-shelf... but again we get into the same problem as with the IG. How many clerks are married? Have children? Also have a deceased spouse? So, again, while I'm perfectly sure that the orphans of famous Bursars, Tithe-Accountants and Gelt-Counters are inducted into the Schola... feasibly, how many children can we be talking here? Five thousand a year? Maybe ten thousand?

There's roughly a million worlds in the Imperium. Most of them don't lose a Planetary Governor and his/her spouse every year to then send all of their kids to the Schola. That event is probably exceedingly rare, in fact, and also enters into the same requirements as previously mentioned (requiring having kids already, having a deceased spouse, etc.) so as to be statistically insignificant.

So the Schola is getting... what? Let's be generous and say thirty thousand children a year, seeded into the Scholas scattered around the Imperium, though I think that is a *very* generous estimate.

Sure, it takes years to graduate from the Schola and get on the track to whatever your calling is going to be, but not everyone's parents die when they're infants. What about the kids entering the Schola in their early teens? Based on fluff, the generally-accepted age of majority in the Imperium seems to be 16 (following the British standard, of course). That's not a lot of time to turn what could be some spoiled, corpulent little noble-brat into Stormtrooper or SoB material. These kids are going to end up in the Administratum or the Ecclesiarchy as priests, rectors, reves, whatever.

How the hell are the odds of being an orphan remote when we are talking about 40k? Hello McFly, there is war every day and casualties abound at astronomical amounts.

Even if there are only 500 billion soldiers in the Imperial Guard (just the Imperial Guard) you're looking at at least 5 billion officers and that is an extremely low estimate. It may be as high as 5 to 10% of their military are officers. A basic rifle company for example would have a CO, XO, a few staff NCOs, and 3 to 4 40 to 50 man platoons led by an officer. That is at least 6 officers to around 200 enlisted. Just under 3% of the company would be officers. I think it would be reasonable to put the number of officers in the IG at over 10 billion.

Then you have the entire Imperial Navy (which has somehow been forgotten) to think about. There's another several billion officers.

Then we have ALL the various officials and nobility of the Imperium. The IoM has a population well into the trillions. Even if there is only some form of an official for every hundred thousand you're looking at several hundred million officials.

So now we have a total pool pushing twenty billion. Even if only one out of 50 has a daughter that leads us to as many as 400 million daughters right there. Even if only one out of a thousand of those daughters becomes an orphan that is four hundred thousand orphans alone. Even if only one out of four of them become a Battle Sister that is at least 100,000.


One hundred thousand total in the Adepta Sororitas is on the extremely low end. It could easily be ten times that number.

I think I illustrated the points quite well, but for those missing at home...

One: These officers need to have families. The IG is extremely mobile, it's unlikely that any offspring they do have is recorded anywhere, or even recognized by the officer parent.

Two: Same with the Navy. Lots of officers, relatively few with families. Might have a woman (or man) in every port.. but they're not going to recognize the children they have with prostitutes. Those kids don't go to the Schola.

Three: All other officials... the odds of them dying in the exact circumstances that would allow the Schola to get involved are extremely remote. Also, nobility is *not* an official. You might be a high muckety-muck on a given planet, but that simply makes you wealthy, *not* an official of the Adeptus Terra. In fact, it is only going to be the Planetary Governor (appointed by the HLoT) who fits this bill. Everyone else on the planet under him/her is a local, and not a representative of the Imperium Itself.

And your incredibly thought out conclusion would provide the Adepta Sororitas with less than a thousand fresh recruits a year.

They would be struggling just to replace losses.

Millenia of war, genetically modified super soldiers who can't reproduce (I'm probably wrong there), forced service to the IoM military... All that adds up to an unsustainable birth-to-death ratio.

As soon as you start trying to figure out how logistically feasible 40k is, you start running into problems. Just accept the silliness and move on.

 Amaya wrote:
And your incredibly thought out conclusion would provide the Adepta Sororitas with less than a thousand fresh recruits a year.

They would be struggling just to replace losses.

Yes, yes it would, and yes, yes they would. That's kinda my point. I can hand-wave that there are only ~50,000 Sisters in the entire Imperium because what I've done is provide a statistical model for how the Schola Progenium gets its students. There will, of course, be outliers to my model, as well as the possibility that there are more potential donators of children to the Schola than I am figuring for... but I've provided a baseline scenario that explains *why* the Stormtrooper Battalion is only 10,000 soldiers strong, why the Sororitas is only 50,000 total strong (note: They're not recruited all at the same time every year, there are young Sisters and there are old Sisters and there are Sisters in between), why not every regiment of the IG gets a Commissar, why the Administratum gets the bulk, etc.

Matney X wrote:
Millenia of war, genetically modified super soldiers who can't reproduce (I'm probably wrong there), forced service to the IoM military... All that adds up to an unsustainable birth-to-death ratio.

As soon as you start trying to figure out how logistically feasible 40k is, you start running into problems. Just accept the silliness and move on.

Space Marines actively recruit new members, reproduction by the actual Marines is not necessary.

Humanity is capable of breeding very quickly. It's not entirely inconceivable that the population would remain static or grow slowly.

Over 87 million people were killed in WW1 and WW2 combined. 87 million just from those two wars alone...in less than 4 decades.

You might find this interesting.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_and_anthropogenic_disasters_by_death_toll

Also, remember, for every War World where a million people die in battle every day, there are 10 Hive Worlds where five million are born every day.

 Psienesis wrote:

 Amaya wrote:
And your incredibly thought out conclusion would provide the Adepta Sororitas with less than a thousand fresh recruits a year.

They would be struggling just to replace losses.

Yes, yes it would, and yes, yes they would. That's kinda my point. I can hand-wave that there are only ~50,000 Sisters in the entire Imperium because what I've done is provide a statistical model for how the Schola Progenium gets its students. There will, of course, be outliers to my model, as well as the possibility that there are more potential donators of children to the Schola than I am figuring for... but I've provided a baseline scenario that explains *why* the Stormtrooper Battalion is only 10,000 soldiers strong, why the Sororitas is only 50,000 total strong (note: They're not recruited all at the same time every year, there are young Sisters and there are old Sisters and there are Sisters in between), why not every regiment of the IG gets a Commissar, why the Administratum gets the bulk, etc.

The problem is that both of those numbers are so low as to render them useless in the actual setting and both organizations could easily be wiped out in very little time.

Well, blame GW for providing the numbers like they did.

*shrugs*

As a snapshot, however, it makes the Sisters even more bad-ass than the Space Marines, because the Sisters do a lot of the exact same jobs (including taking down Renegade Space Marine Chapters) without all the fancy bio-tech and with fewer numbers.

 Amaya wrote:

Matney X wrote:
Millenia of war, genetically modified super soldiers who can't reproduce (I'm probably wrong there), forced service to the IoM military... All that adds up to an unsustainable birth-to-death ratio.

As soon as you start trying to figure out how logistically feasible 40k is, you start running into problems. Just accept the silliness and move on.

Space Marines actively recruit new members, reproduction by the actual Marines is not necessary.

Humanity is capable of breeding very quickly. It's not entirely inconceivable that the population would remain static or grow slowly.

Over 87 million people were killed in WW1 and WW2 combined. 87 million just from those two wars alone...in less than 4 decades.

You might find this interesting.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_and_anthropogenic_disasters_by_death_toll

Touche, and thanks for the link.

Psienesis wrote:Only if you're including the 3 non-militant Orders of the Sororitas as well (the Dialogus, Famulous and Hospitaler). These aren't Battle-Sisters, though.

Yeah, not to mention the Pronatus and Sabine orders that everyone keeps forgetting about...

I put my homebrew (Dialogous) Order at about one thousand strong over-all - but they've shaped a planet to provide them with recruits and (in the spirit of, although independently from FFG's feral world fluff) get most of their inflow from them. They operate in small groups, combing the galaxy for lost books and knowledge (a Sacred Tome mission usually consists of between one and ten Sisters) The Ecclesiarchy as a whole barely knows they exist. They get tithes from them, and occasionally someone will say, "Wait, wasn't that Inquisitor accompanied by a Sister of the Sacred Tome?" or "Blue robes? Which Order has blue robes?! [checks archives] Oh, right...". But it's entirely possible that there are other orders that are in a similar position - too minor for the Ecclesiarchy's census data to record properly, but much stronger if gathered together than anyone realises.

But hey, none of this is substantiated and I made half of it up, it's just my opinion on how things might work to get a number higher than the suicidally tiny 42,000 Sisters Militant.

 Brother Captain Alexander wrote:
But millions of Battle Sisters in the galaxy should be quite realistic number.

In a galaxy with quadrillions of guardsmen, they'd be rarer than a Hindu steak. Heck, 7000 sisters doesn't make sense for one planet, let alone a million.

And I thought Space Marines were ridiculously under represented...

Aren't Pronatus and Sabine Orders Minor though?

Famulous, Dialogus and Hospitaler are... well, calling them Orders is actually a mistake on my part. They're a classification of Sisters, and each encompass Orders of their type... so the Orders Dialogous, for example, might have three dozen (or more, or less) Orders under them, with anywhere from a handful to a few hundred or more Sisters in each of them.

The Orders Pronatus seem to be a sub-sect of the Orders Dialogous, while the Orders Sabine seem to be a sub-sect of the Orders Famulous.

There's so little fluff on the Sabines and the Pronatus that it's frustrating in the extreme. ><

They're just preachers in the wild and Tomb Raiders. That's really all you need to know to develop a character for either one.

Perhaps, but the tomb-raider aspect seems in-line with what the Orders Dialogous are for... finding ancient, possibly-heretical texts, reading them to find out if they are, and then either keeping them for record, or destroying them if necessary.

The Famulous being diplomats also seems to tie into the Orders Sabine, only being diplomats to the faithless and lost rather than high society.

They are going to be in the next gk codex....

Please, people have been saying that for over a decade now. And then it didn't happen when fifth edition's "codex" came around.

Maybe they'll pull something like they just did with Tau.

On Thursday, they'll say "you can no longer sell GW stuff online, period, or we'll sue you for unlawfully selling our product," followed by a huge release of Sisters stuff on Friday. That we'll have to buy directly from GW.

I think sfshilo was being a troll, there.

The difference between the Pronatus and the Dialogous is that the Dialogous deal with texts and translations, while the Pronatus are more familiar with general archaeology and non-written artefacts, I think.

Also, Dialogous literally deal with language in general-- decoding alien languages and enemy ciphers, for example.

The Inquisition has Dialogous teams working on decoding BInary, for example.

Right, which is why Pronatus seems more of a sub-group of Dialogous to me. Where the Dialogous, in general, are all about texts, there's gotta be a part of them that deals with the nitty-gritty of obtaining, preserving and transporting said xeno/heretical texts, which, at least in my mind, would extend to other relics and such.

I mean, I'm fine with them being a rarely-mentioned, mostly-forgotten order as well, but it just seems to me that if they are so small, it makes more sense to wrap them into one of the larger groups, that way you can establish a precedent for having "specialist" Sisters of the major divisions.

I don't disagree. I'm just expounding upon the Sisters as is my wont.

Melissia wrote:but the only other place that Sisters are known to recruit from is Feral Worlds, and that's only if you include FFG's supplements.
And that's probably just FFG being silly and trying to make Sisters more like Space Marines.

I think it was Feudal Worlds (you could even get feudal plate armour as starting gear for the Sister), and the Inquisitor's Handbook was still written by Black Industries.
And then there are some Black Library novels where we read about the Sisterhood just randomly recruiting people off the streets, like that noble daughter in the Shira Calpurnia omnibus.

I agree with it being silly, though. Especially when the original source material has always pointed out rather explicitly that it's only the Schola.

Psienesis wrote:So the Schola is getting... what? Let's be generous and say thirty thousand children a year, seeded into the Scholas scattered around the Imperium, though I think that is a *very* generous estimate.

Given the size of the Imperium ("a million worlds" ) and that the Schola does not only take kids from dead people but also of adepts who simply get posted to a different location, I could believe that the number of progena is higher.

However, y'all seem to forget that the Schola is responsible for supporting many more organisations than just the Sororitas, the Commissariat and the Storm Trooper regiment. In fact, these three groups receive only a minor part of graduates.

"By the time a progena reaches early adolescence they will have displayed skills in a certain direction, and their tutelage to the age of sixteen will focus on these talents and hone the pupil to a career in one of the Imperial organisations. Most of the progena will end up in the Adeptus Terra as scribes, clerks or overseers. However, a few will be assigned to higher positions. Male progena may become Commissars in the Imperial Guard, petty officers in the Imperial Navy, or enter the priesthood itself and become a Preacher or Dean (a subordinate to a Deacon). Female progena may well be entered into the Adepta Sororitas. Progena of both sexes may be recruited into the Inquisition or even the Officio Assassinorum."
- 2E C:SoB, The Schola Progenium

Fun fact: all Sororitas novices go to Terra to take their vows in the presence of the Ecclesiarch himself. I'd like to see how this is supposed to work with "millions" of Sisters ...

Amaya wrote:One hundred thousand total in the Adepta Sororitas is on the extremely low end.

That's about my personal estimate for the Sisters of Battle. 12.000-18.000 from the six Major Orders, and some tens of thousands more from the Minor ones.

Amaya wrote:And your incredibly thought out conclusion would provide the Adepta Sororitas with less than a thousand fresh recruits a year.
They would be struggling just to replace losses.

Maybe that's why the Major Orders have on average only about ~3.500 Sisters in M41? Maybe that's why the loss of Armageddon's Hive Tempestora and the companies of Sisters within caused an entire Major Order (Our Martyred Lady) to change the colour of their robes from black to blood red? This hasn't happened for several thousand years - the last time they did this was when their founder was killed.

"The size of an Order waxes and wanes irregularly, depending on the quality of recruits available and battle losses. On occasion an Order may number no more than a few hundred warriors, all fighting the enemies of the Emperor, while at other times it may reach a peak of six or seven thousand warriors with much of the Order fighting in distant wars but still leaving a reserve of several thousand Battle Sisters and Seraphim that can be despatched if needed."
- 2E C:SoB, Organisation of the Major Orders

It may also be of note that it took the Ecclesiarchy 2.500 years to scrape together enough Sisters to sponsor the formation of two new Major Orders (Bloody Rose and Sacred Rose) in addition to the four that existed by M37.

Amaya wrote:The problem is that both of those numbers are so low as to render them useless in the actual setting and both organizations could easily be wiped out in very little time.

Not at all. It renders them less important in the grand scale, but you could say the same about those one million Space Marines. Each of these organisations still leaves their mark where they do show up. They just aren't a common sight at most places.

Which becomes evident when we take a look at GW's force disposition charts for the various larger conflicts, and compare the number of Sisters to, say, the number of Astartes.



It gets much easier to understand and believe the provided numbers when we take a look at their purpose as explained by GW. The Sisters of Battle are not some sort of line troops to be thrown at random enemies like cannonfodder, regardless of how much certain authors like to portray them as such. Depending on the Order, they fulfill a wide range of specialised tasks:

The Major Orders are crusaders and a quick-reaction force, headquartered on Terra and Ophelia but sending out missions throughout the galaxy and maintaining temporary outposts to support their operations. These are the gals you keep hearing about most of the time, both due to their mobility enabling them to show up virtually anywhere, as well as their size allowing them to engage in larger military operations, such as liberating a bunch of worlds from Chaos cults, purging a renegade Marine Chapter, or invading a Tau colony.

The Minor Orders, on the other hand, are "daughter convents" occasionally spawned from the aforementioned temporary outposts, a sanctioned stay-behind force granted their own livery and tasked with a specific assignment that binds them to this one region. They can be the guardians of holy sites or protectors of pilgrim routes. They can act as bodyguards for the clergy and engage in purity control sweeps. Thanks to being found in most major systems (as opposed to the Major Orders' task forces that are sometimes here, sometimes there) they can also supply kill-teams for Inquisitorial operations whenever necessary, which is particularly important whenever some influential cleric of the Imperial Cult strays too far from approved dogma and becomes an Apostate.

Needless to say, there will be some overlap, but by commiting the Minor Orders to administrative duties the Major ones are freed up to go burn heretics all across space. And honestly, compared to certain popular Space Marine Chapters, the frequency of SoB involvement in high-profile military campaigns seems rare enough to be deemed "fitting", does it not?

BobtheInquisitor wrote:In a galaxy with quadrillions of guardsmen, they'd be rarer than a Hindu steak. Heck, 7000 sisters doesn't make sense for one planet, let alone a million.

Why? If the Ecclesiarchy goes to war, the bulk of its firepower comes from the Frateris Militia. The Sisters merely provide an elite core around which the mobs will gather.

"A single man with faith can triumph over a legion of the faithless. Untold billions of the faithful can never be opposed."
- Sermons of St. Sebastian Thor, Vol. XI chapter IV

And that's not even counting the Guard regiments and Navy fleets whose Confessors will "arrange" to show up just at the right place and at the right time to participate in a little holy war.

Psienesis wrote:As a snapshot, however, it makes the Sisters even more bad-ass than the Space Marines, because the Sisters do a lot of the exact same jobs (including taking down Renegade Space Marine Chapters) without all the fancy bio-tech and with fewer numbers.

My thoughts exactly.

Psienesis wrote:The Orders Pronatus seem to be a sub-sect of the Orders Dialogous, while the Orders Sabine seem to be a sub-sect of the Orders Famulous.

Nah, they're Orders in their own right. The Liber Sororitas offered some explanation on them, and the Pronatus in particular have a very different focus compared to the Dialogous. Whilst I suppose there is quite some overlap and co-operation between both (-> language and cyphers), the Pronatus focus on recovering, safeguarding, and sometimes analysing, replicating or destroying relics as well as technology. The latter tends to result in a neat little rivalry with the Mechanicus' Explorator Corps which doesn't like to see Archaeotech in the hands of "zealots". Ultimately, it's just another chip on the bargaining table that forms the basis for their relationship...
The Famulous on the other hand are able diplomats and teachers, whereas the Sisters Sabine are infiltrators.

What really gives the Sisterhood an edge is that it has some representation in all of these facets of Imperial life, and is quite able at networking its capabilities.

"With members in every aspect of society, the Sisterhood can maintain a close eye on the affairs of the Imperium. The Orders Famulous report on the activities of the Noble Houses, the Orders Dialogous can inform their seniors of the deals and agreements binding the Imperium together and the Orders Hospitaller witness many things unseen outside their wards. All of this makes the Adepta Sororitas a useful political as well as social tool, and with the armed might of the Orders Militant, the Sisterhood has the protection and power it needs to operate successfully."

Just as planned ...

 Lynata wrote:
Fun fact: all Sororitas novices go to Terra to take their vows in the presence of the Ecclesiarch himself. I'd like to see how this is supposed to work with "millions" of Sisters ...

It works with millions of psykers. The Ecclesiarchy is the richest organization in the Imperium, I'm fairly certain they have the ability to send a few dozen thousand novitiates to Earth every year as they graduate from their schola progenium programs. Keep in mind, it's not like we're suggesting a million novitiates EVERY YEAR, but rather, that it's a constant stream of novitiates which adds up to millions as the years go on.

Melissia wrote:It works with millions of psykers.

Good point.

Melissia wrote:Keep in mind, it's not like we're suggesting a million novitiates EVERY YEAR, but rather, that it's a constant stream of novitiates which adds up to millions as the years go on.

Well, what are people suggesting, per-annum?

It could well be "millions as the years go on" - at least the Major Orders just tend to have a high rate of attrition (similar to the Storm Trooper regiment) resulting in their numbers still remaining steady when we look at the bigger picture. Simply replacing combat casualties seems to consume almost all new recruits, making new foundings so rare (depending on how often we assume a convent splits away from its maternal Major Order to form a new Ordo Minoris).

Given the size of the Imperium ("a million worlds" ) and that the Schola does not only take kids from dead people but also of adepts who simply get posted to a different location, I could believe that the number of progena is higher.

Hrm, I've always read it/heard it as the Schola taking the orphans of Imperial heroes. I'm not quite so sure you get the "orphan" status without having your parents/caregivers be dead. I mean, it makes some sense, but I am not sure the writing is intended to be read that way.

"From the favoured sons of an Imperial Guard colonel to the children of a scribe posted to a distant world, the Schola Progenium cares for them all."
- 2E C:SoB

Granted, this is a part that isn't mentioned often when you read about the Schola - and given the usual inconsistencies between sources, I could well imagine licensed products evoking a contradicting image.
"Everything and nothing is true" :(

Personally, I think.... if we have a million worlds, and lets say a schola in every ten... each Schola sending two suitable Sororitas recruits to Terra a year, you're looking at what, two hundred thousand recruits a year?

That's probably high, since the majority of those worlds are going to be Feral or Feudal worlds whose main Ecclesiarchy oversight is a missionary or Sabine on a three year circuit, but you get my drift. So call it a hundred thousand initiates a year.

Divided up between twelve Major Orders, you're looking at eight thousand recruits a year per Order, plus four thousand for Sabine, Pronatus and the assorted minor orders (to make the rounding neat).

Even if we assume the Inquisition poaches ten percent of those suitable recruits, you're still looking at a significant influx of Sisters per Annum. If we assume a 70% casualty ratio for combat actions from a starting point of 3,500 Sisters per Order, you're still looking at a growing population.

The popular idea that the Schola only takes in the children of dead Imperial heroes actually comes from Gaunt's reflections in First and Only.

Hmmh. Well, you seem to assume that Sororitas recruits would be divided up equally amongst all the Orders, be them Militant or Non-Militant, which personally I could not agree with. Whilst all Sororitas would share a certain basic training when it comes to combat, I would expect the Orders Militant to have even more stringent requirements to the physical and mental capabilities of their recruits than the others. This is not to say that the Non-Militant Orders are somehow relegated to personnel of lesser quality, but simply going by biological standards - it may seem probable that it's easier to find a girl with skills suitable for the somewhat less demanding duties of a Sister Hospitaller or a Sister Dialogous, whereas the warriors of the Orders Militant really only take the creme de la creme.

Also, the Adepta Sororitas are actually made up of 18 Major Orders, not 12 - 6 Major Orders Militant, and 12 Major Non-Militant Orders with 4 of the Hospitaller, Famulous and Dialogous each. Not counted amongst this number are the Orders Minoris of each department.

Sidenote: Turns out that the Orders Pronatus and Sabine do not show up in the list of Major Orders at all - provided they were not just "forgotten" they have to belong into the Minor Orders section, which would indeed make them a spin-off from one of the Major Orders.

Unfortunately, we lack proper numbers for the Non-Militant Orders*, so it's impossible to say how large they are or how many recruits they might draw away from any pool open to the Militant ones. Just like we have zero knowledge about exactly how many Minor Orders are in existence. All I can do is point at the Sisterhood's seemingly slow expansion within the scope of over 5.000 years and their small presence in the force disposition charts of the Third Armageddon War or the 13th Black Crusade. I'm afraid it all boils down to a matter of interpretation, as usual.

*: although the Liber Sororitas does say this:
"Some orders, such as the Orders Dialogous and Famulous, are known to be as large as the Orders Militant, whereas others may be little more than a handful of Sisters pursueing their obscure specialisation."
Even limited to the Orders Dialogous and Famulous, this would already make their grand total larger than the six Major Orders Militant, as it'd be 8 vs 6. Of course, the Militant Orders will likely have a higher turnover due to more frequent casualties.

Personally, I also do not think that every single Schola graduates two Sororitas every year, though. From articles hosted on GW's website, it appears that a potential recruit needs to be submitted by the Head Abbot of the Schola, at which point the Orders Famulous (hey, yet another thing they seem to do!) will dispatch a senior Sister to evaluate the candidate and, if deemed suitable, ship her out on the next available vessel. Following this are five years of a harsh novitiate, during which I assume an applicant may still fail and be kicked out or at least reassigned to a lesser role. Only then, at the age of ~17, will the remaining novices proceed to a nightlong ceremony in the Ecclesiarchal Palace, which ends with each of the five hundred fledgling Sisters being "adopted" by one of five hundred Sisters Superior present, leading the girl away to don the armour of her new Order.

It just makes it sound as if a Schola managing to sponsor a true Sister of Battle would be an exception to be proud of rather than a yearly quota for each facility, regardless of how many there may be (which is yet another unknown quantity). Of course, there may be some who graduate Sororitas candidates with a certain regularity, just like there might be other facilities who only manage to do so every few decades, all depending on the quality of their progena as well as the Schola itself.
But yeah, that's just how I see it.

For what it's worth, I also do not assume such a high casualty rate for the Major Orders Militant - although of course there would be events that will punch down their numbers again and again, such as Armageddon for the Martyred Lady.

Another possible aspect that springs to mind just now could be that the military capabilities of the Sisterhood are intentionally capped so as to not stretch that little loophole in the Decree Passive too much.

Even ten million Adepta Sororitas would amount to, at most, a slight annoyance to the Imperium should they rebel. The Tau would remain a much bigger threat and they are the weakest of the xenos.

Amaya wrote:Even ten million Adepta Sororitas would amount to, at most, a slight annoyance to the Imperium should they rebel.

I suppose that depends entirely on where they strike.
You're talking about an army that is on occasion deployed to kill off Space Marine Chapters, and which is flaunted by GW to be their equals. How many Space Marines did it take to pull off the Horus Heresy?

Conveniently ignoring the fact the Imperial Army also splintered during the Heresy as did the Mechanicum...

Matney X wrote:
Maybe they'll pull something like they just did with Tau.

On Thursday, they'll say "you can no longer sell GW stuff online, period, or we'll sue you for unlawfully selling our product," followed by a huge release of Sisters stuff on Friday. That we'll have to buy directly from GW.

That they will only produce 500 kits for and it will sell out in 2 hrs.

This thread seems derailed beyond repair.

Assumptions were made because I hate maths rather than because I wanted to cleave closely to the fluff. ^^;

I agree that it seems likely that the recruits would probably be balanced differently than simply "eight thousand into Martyred Lady, eight thousand into...", but that would require guesswork and more assumptions.

Good catch on the number of Major Orders - I actually worked it out as "Six Militant plus three from each Non-militant" and forgot about the Hospitallers temporarily. ^^; Well, I'll put it down to being 01.38 AM when I posted.

Non-militant Orders will have lower casualty rates, therefore need fewer recruits to maintain their numbers - however, they will also have special criteria for recruits.

Militant: "We want the big, strong, disciplined ones."
Hospitaller: "We need the ones who care."
Famulous: "A good memory is the most important qualification."
Dialogous: "Give us someone who shows great fortitude and integrity."

Casualty rates were pulled from my battlefield experience - I usually lose the majority of my army even when I win, due to a preference for aggressive tactics.

Famulous run the Imperium. Seriously, without them the whole thing would fall apart. I'd missed the part about five years training - would this be done in the Sanctorum or Prioris, or could it be farmed out to any Convent, do you think? Where does the 500 figure come from?

The Ecclesiarchy seems more the type to push their loophole as far as they can get away with than to handicap themselves.

Amaya - You say that the Sororitas rebelling wouldn't have much of a chance since there's only ten million of them and discounting the Heresy because the Imperial Army split, but if the Sororitas go I expect so would a HUGE number of Priests, and the Imperial Guard rely on the Emperor's protection. You have to factor in the number of Guardsmen who will also switch sides because the Sororitas are - Sororitas are the closest thing most Guardsmen will ever see to a Space Marine, and they are the Church's holy representatives. If the Sororitas rebel, then there are going to be a lot of people who assume that it's the Emperor's will, because who ELSE is going to be telling them to do it?! Thus, you'll end up with maybe even more of the Guard turning on the Custodians and the Admech than did during the HEresy.

Amaya wrote:Conveniently ignoring the fact the Imperial Army also splintered during the Heresy as did the Mechanicum...

Not at all.
But you're ignoring that the Ecclesiarchy has more troops at its disposal than just the Sororitas.

Also, the Imperial Army wasn't as important then as the Imperial Guard is post-Heresy, from what I've read. Auxiliaries <-> primary military force, etc.
Either way, there's a reason that quite a number of people were going mad when Thor said "Okay, I'll disband everything, but I'm gonna keep these 4.000 Sisters here".

Furyou Miko wrote:Casualty rates were pulled from my battlefield experience - I usually lose the majority of my army even when I win, due to a preference for aggressive tactics.

Aggressive sounds fitting for the Sororitas.
That said, I suppose most engagements would not be as fair as a game of 40k TT. Just like the Space Marines don't tend to attack a foe with equal strength, but rather focus on a weak spot in the defense and punch a hole through it.

Furyou Miko wrote:The Ecclesiarchy seems more the type to push their loophole as far as they can get away with than to handicap themselves.

Absolutely! But perhaps only over a long period of time rather than all at once. Slowly eroding resistance against a resurgence in Ecclesiarchal power. Like, waiting 2.500 years until founding two new Major Orders.

Furyou Miko wrote:I'd missed the part about five years training - would this be done in the Sanctorum or Prioris, or could it be farmed out to any Convent, do you think? Where does the 500 figure come from?

The location of training is hard to say. Ephrael Stern had her novitiate in the Convent Prioris on Terra, yet her eventual assignment with the Order of the Martyred Lady saw her transferred to the Convent Sanctorum on Ophelia VII. Undoubtedly, the two Major Convents would also be very well equipped to facilitate the training of new recruits (better than some frontier convent), and given that all Minor Orders are connected to one of the Major Orders it may be reasonable to assume that this means distribution of reinforcements is organised by an administrative section in the maternal Ordo Majoris the lesser convent split from.

On the other hand, however, I very much like the idea of novices "helping out" with the day-to-day running of a convent, performing menial duties and receiving some hands-on training, perhaps even a "trial by fire" like a squad of novices with lasguns and carapace going on a mutant hunt in a Hive.

I have a feeling that my preferences might clash with GW's interpretation, though, for I have to admit that it makes more sense for those mini-convents on the ass-end of the galaxy to receive only fully-fledged junior Sisters rather than novices they'd have to train themselves. Perhaps a compromise could be found by splitting it up? After all, some Minor Orders are larger than others - there are places with hundreds of Sisters enforcing the local Cardinal's will just like there are places where you have only a single aging Battle Sister playing shrine maiden for a mini-temple with a relic on some forgotten world. This may be one of those rare cases where I appreciate the freedom GW leaves us when it comes to fleshing out the world.

As far as the 500 figure is concerned, this (as well as the age of recruitment and ascension) is from two archived articles that used to be hosted on the GW website:

Villainy & Infamy : Ephrael Stern

Inquisitor RPG : Sister Anastasia

It's rather cool stuff with a lot of interesting detail, so enjoy the read! They are not well known even amongst Sisters fans, which made me feel particularly fortunate when I dug them up. I keep combing the interwebs for stuff exactly like this ... and occasionally I get lucky.

xraytango wrote:

Matney X wrote:
Maybe they'll pull something like they just did with Tau.

On Thursday, they'll say "you can no longer sell GW stuff online, period, or we'll sue you for unlawfully selling our product," followed by a huge release of Sisters stuff on Friday. That we'll have to buy directly from GW.

That they will only produce 500 kits for and it will sell out in 2 hrs.

A handful would go to actual players, while the rest would go to eBay sellers, bits sites (by whatever scandalous way they're going to continue operating), and GW collectors[read:hoarders].

Cool, I'll take a look at those. ^^

Ephrael Stern, though... there's a confusing one. She was, after all, a member of the Order of the Blessed Enquiry, who (while not specified) appear to have been either Pronatus or Dialogous. She was then either inducted into or restored to the Martyred Lady as a Seraphim after the first time she was investigated for Taint (when she physically ripped a bloodletter out of a possessed Sister). That's not from the article, it's from the first chapter of Daemonifuge.

Daemonifuge has its own issues, however, such as an Inquisitor infiltrating the Black Templars to the point where his own squadmates thought he was a Space Marine.

Furyou Miko wrote:Ephrael Stern, though... there's a confusing one. She was, after all, a member of the Order of the Blessed Enquiry, who (while not specified) appear to have been either Pronatus or Dialogous. She was then either inducted into or restored to the Martyred Lady as a Seraphim after the first time she was investigated for Taint (when she physically ripped a bloodletter out of a possessed Sister). That's not from the article, it's from the first chapter of Daemonifuge.

That's not how I understood it from the book. Rather, that Ephrael was part of either an earlier investigating force. Note how Ephrael first identifies herself whilst still held in chains during her interrogation by Silas Hand, and before receiving the Rite of Reaffirmation: "I am Ephrael Stern, Sister of Battle."

Most remarkable, however, is this line:
"When you and your comrades arrived, Asteroth was waiting and claimed those of you not strong enough to resist him. Sister slew Sister - it was not long before you alone remained."
- the Screaming Cage during the psychic "link"

tl;dr: the Sisters Pronatus became the Screaming Cage, whereas the Battle Sisters arriving later were either killed or turned into Chaos Sisters, with the sole exception of Ephrael.

I also don't think you can become a Seraphim in such a short amount of time (Canoness Ramientes' company and Inquisitor Hand departed to Parnis fairly soon after it became clear there's more to Ephrael's story), and there's no actual reason to make a Non-Militant Sister into one either when she did not qualify for assignment to the Orders Militant in the first place. The Seraphim are the elite of the Orders Militant, and I would presume it takes many months of training to operate the jump-pack alone.

Furyou Miko wrote:Daemonifuge has its own issues, however, such as an Inquisitor infiltrating the Black Templars to the point where his own squadmates thought he was a Space Marine.

Heh, I remember that one.
It can be rationalised (Book 2 establishes he was a recent addition to the squad assigned for the recovery mission), but I agree it's fishy ... the usual stuff when you begin looking outside studio sources, I guess. I still love the series just for its story and the artwork.

I lend Ephrael's article on the website a bit more credence than the book itself, as the Villainy & Infamy series appeared on GW's own website and White Dwarf, which does show a bit of endorsement (similar to things like the Blood Pact article etc ... occasionally, GW does adopt bits and pieces from licensed material). Parnis was also mentioned in Andy Hoare's Liber Sororitas article in WD #293:
"Some Orders Pronatus are known to have given all in the defence of the artefacts they guard or study, and the fate of the Order of Blessed Enquiry is a salutory lesson in the risks involved with the evil of the Ruinous Powers, even if the intent is to safeguard Humanity from their corrupting influence."

OK, I'll buy into that interpretation. Makes more sense than how I was reading it - although I still refuse to believe that they were outright Chaos Sisters. Confused, illusioned and tortured, sure - but they probably thought they were attacking daemons.

Furyou Miko wrote:Makes more sense than how I was reading it - although I still refuse to believe that they were outright Chaos Sisters. Confused, illusioned and tortured, sure - but they probably thought they were attacking daemons.

Oh, that was referring to those twisted "daemonified" Sisters that were summoned by the Keeper to deal with Ramientes' force.

That said, I prefer to see them as daemon-possessed corpses rather than turned Sororitas - this interpretation fits better to how quickly they changed their appearance, and better preserves the Sisters' innate resilience against corruption. Plus, the Screaming Cage did say that only Ephrael remained, insinuating that everyone else was dead.

Zombies works too. ^^

I meant during the original mission though. Sisters are practically immune to moral corruption because of their blinding faith, but sadly that doesn't render them immune to illusiory psychic powers.

Agreed. The Shield of Faith even used to represent this in the tabletop, cancelling out minor psychic powers and granting them a bonus to resist others.

Needless to say, Ashtaroth would be a fairly powerful opponent though ...

 Amaya wrote:
Even ten million Adepta Sororitas would amount to, at most, a slight annoyance to the Imperium should they rebel. The Tau would remain a much bigger threat and they are the weakest of the xenos.

The thing to remember about the Sisterhood is what they represent to the average citizen of the Imperium as a whole. While the Space Marines are mythical figures, they live apart from the average person. The Ecclesiarchy? The Ecclesiarchy is *everywhere*, and affects the lives of every citizen in the Imperium. If the Ecclesiarchy decides that someone, somewhere, needs to burn, a few fire-and-brimstone preachers in the pulpit can raise armies of the faithful from the local populace, including people of considerable power (Rogue Traders, Chartist Captains, Planetary Governors, etc) who can, caught up in the rising tide of righteous indignation, provide necessary materials for this militia (not to mention inter-stellar transport and similar resources).

If the Sisterhood was a much more prevalent organization, with members in numbers on every world, they could pose a very real threat to the Imperium, should they decide that the High Lords (or any other faction) are not performing their duties in keeping with the will of the God-Emperor. Just look back four thousand years and look at what one guy started.

How can the Adepta Sororitas be a prevelant organization if there are only 42,000 of them?

Even if there were ten million of them, that's only ten per world Imperial World. Most worlds would go centuries with never seeing a Battle Sister. We're talking about a population in the trillions defended by a military in the billions. Even if a Sister was somehow worth one hundred guardsmen, they'd still amount to less than 10% of the Imperium's fighting strength.

Because they have the might of the Ecclesiarchy behind them, which is, in turn, supported by the faith of trillions of Imperial Citizens. They are, in many ways, representatives of the Ecclesiarchy, servants of the God-Emperor who move amongst mortal men, and certain factions of them (notably Famulous and Hospitaler) are popular amongst certain segments of the population out of all proportion to their numbers. As representatives of the Ecclesiarchy, the Sisterhood has the adoration and devotion of Imperial society at large. At her word, people will set aside their work, their families, their very livelihoods to join her in defending the Imperial Faith (whatever flavor it may have locally). Sure, the IG may have billions of soldiers, but they're never in one place at one time... and if the local IG Lord General is also a man/woman of faith? Well, that lone Sister may have just received the support of an entire Crusade. Even if the IG isn't there, she may end up with a Hive World's entire PDF rallying behind her. Even though the AdMech controls the forges of a Forge World, their indentured servants actually run the machines, and these are regular folks. "Workers control the means of production" and all of that.

As the saying goes: "No army is big enough to conquer the galaxy. But faith alone can overturn the universe."

Amaya wrote:Even if a Sister was somehow worth one hundred guardsmen, they'd still amount to less than 10% of the Imperium's fighting strength.

How is this a problem?
The Imperial Guard is responsible for the defense of the Imperium. Marines and Sisters are useful add-ons.

I had an amusing thought earlier. To represent the Sisters' incredible faith protecting them from enemy psykers... all Sisters count as Mastery Level 4 Psykers, but do not have access to any power tables.

This is silly, of course (you could just say "Deny the witch on a roll of 3+, modified by the enemy psyker's mastery level"), but the thought tickled me.

 Furyou Miko wrote:
I had an amusing thought earlier. To represent the Sisters' incredible faith protecting them from enemy psykers... all Sisters count as Mastery Level 4 Psykers, but do not have access to any power tables.

This is silly, of course (you could just say "Deny the witch on a roll of 3+, modified by the enemy psyker's mastery level"), but the thought tickled me.

I actually brought that up right after 6th came up.

Mine was a bit different, basically I said that SoB squads could Deny the Witch on whatever roll they would make their Faith check on.

(so 5+ normally, +1 if casualties, +1 for Sgt, +1 for IC)

IMO, the Sisters should get a default DtW roll in most cases through some means, whether this is a Faith power or Purity Seals on their armor or simply Armor of Contempt.

I had toyed around with a psychic-suppression effect for their units, to a range of 6", but could never get something that was feasible and easy to use, but also balanced. Was thinking it might make a good AoF, "Abhor the Witch" that caused affected enemy units to take an automatic Peril when using psychic powers, or lose the benefits of previously-cast psychic powers... but never really got past the planning stage.

 Amaya wrote:
We're talking about a population in the trillions defended by a military in the billions.

You're pretty heavily lowballing the populations there. Going off the most solid numbers there are, one gets a Guard population somewhere in the range of 2-20 trillion (approximately one billion regiments, of an indeterminate number of thousands of guardsmen each), and a population in excess of one thousand times that (the Guard codex giving a recruitment rate of ~.1% as particularly high (one hundred million per year from a population in the hundreds of billions).

Of course, extrapolating numbers like that also gives us several trillion Eldar, and a Tau population in the tens of millions...

Actually Tau populations in the tens of millions makes sense if you only count the fire caste.

I just wanted to post this from Faeit 212:

Sisters of Battle
I swear they started these right after Grey Knights.

I have never been in a position to "spot" any sculpts, or 'see anything being worked on'. (Ever)
I heard they had started work on a dex and models for Sisters right after I heard they had started work on Grey Knights ... consequently I assumed we would be seeing the results of this project pretty soon after Grey Knights were released ... It never happened. I guess the WD dex was the result of the work being done on the book ... I have no idea what happened to the minis. There were some rumours at the time that they were not happy with them .... but it was nothing I ever heard anything about one way or the other. As far as I am concerned ... it remains a mystery.

What the hell GW? You start working on army two years ago and done nothing since?

Two years is normal. Supposedly, they start writing the next version of a codex before they finish the previous one.

 Furyou Miko wrote:
Two years is normal. Supposedly, they start writing the next version of a codex before they finish the previous one.

Supposedly, every sentence starting with "supposedly" is false.

There have been rumors of sisters since I started 15 years ago. I'm not going to hold my breath.

Since I started 40k it was, " Sisters will be updated just around the corner." as well as, " Dark Eldar are next". And, while I suppose they were both updated, I'm still waiting on new Sisters models.

Just to clarify, Sisters will be getting a new codex at some point? I don't mind if it takes a while to be released, but if they're going to be phased out then there's no point in building a Sisters army anyway.

Troike wrote:
Just to clarify, Sisters will be getting a new codex at some point? I don't mind if it takes a while to be released, but if they're going to be phased out then there's no point in building a Sisters army anyway.

Yes. No. Maybe. We don't know. GW has said that they won't squat another army, but that doesn't really matter.

Troike wrote:
Just to clarify, Sisters will be getting a new codex at some point? I don't mind if it takes a while to be released, but if they're going to be phased out then there's no point in building a Sisters army anyway.

 pretre wrote:
There have been rumors of sisters since I started 15 years ago. I'm not going to hold my breath.

Yyyyyyyep.

On the subject of codex releases: There's a reason long-term Sisters players are known as "The Faithful".

Troike wrote:
Just to clarify, Sisters will be getting a new codex at some point? I don't mind if it takes a while to be released, but if they're going to be phased out then there's no point in building a Sisters army anyway.

The answer is kumquat. In other words no one has a clue.

Okay. The way I see it is something like this:

So far the 6th edition releases we've seen have been to armies that needed more updates in rules then in models. Sure they needed new units, but the model range themselves were still solid. (( Look at DA and demons for example)) So they are pushing out the armies that don't need a lot of updating in an effort to get all armies updated to 6th.

On the other hands: Sisters of Battle need alot of work. They need a complete reworking of the whole model range, not just some new flashy units.

There are players like myself, that the only reason they don't collect SoB is because they don't want to shell out 17 usd for 3 pewter minis, and virtually haunt Ebay for the WD codex.

... they also haven't had a real honest Codex in... gods... how many years now?

 Psienesis wrote:
... they also haven't had a real honest Codex in... gods... how many years now?

SOB have not had a codex since 2nd edition. They have had:

Codex: SOB 2nd edition
BBB List in 3rd edition
Chapter Approved WD Codex in 3rd edition
Codex: Witchhunters in 3rd
WD Codex in 5th

Best was probably CA WD Codex in 3rd.

In terms of sheer power, the current codex is one of the better ones though.

 Furyou Miko wrote:
In terms of sheer power, the current codex is one of the better ones though.

Agreed. The new codex alone is powerful. Combined with allies, it is nasty as all hell.

I don't really consider that WD spread to be a real Codex.

 Psienesis wrote:
I don't really consider that WD spread to be a real Codex.

It isn't a 'real codex' but it is a decently competitive 'book'.

I haven't considered anything since 2nd edition a real Codex for SOB, but it is easier just to say codex rather than 'book that is not a codex but I use because I want to play my army anyways'. Simply a word saver.

Eh, for rules, sure, fair enough.

I dunno... I like both the mechanics and the fluff aspects that are generally present in a full Codex, even if I don't particularly like the army the codex ... artwork, the whole chebang.

Like, I love the latest Necron Codex, even if I don't particularly like the Necrons as an army or a faction.

 Psienesis wrote:
I like both the mechanics and the fluff aspects that are generally present in a full Codex, even if I don't particularly like the army the codex ... artwork, the whole chebang.

Then we definitely haven't had a sisters codex since 2nd if we're counting fluff and artwork. C:WH was okay for that, but really the last good one was C:SOB.

 pretre wrote:

 Psienesis wrote:
I like both the mechanics and the fluff aspects that are generally present in a full Codex, even if I don't particularly like the army the codex ... artwork, the whole chebang.

Then we definitely haven't had a sisters codex since 2nd if we're counting fluff and artwork. C:WH was okay for that, but really the last good one was C:SOB.

Kinda my point, tying it into a few other threads with SOB featured. Though, sure, a lot of Codices simply reprint the fluff from previous versions, a new, honest-to-the-God-Emperor Codex for the SoB would be a perfect opportunity for GW to introduce some new fluff and stories, and maybe dispel some of the fandom myths about the faction.

Oh, gods, please yes.

A new Codex: Sisters of Battle in the new style with the hardback and the giant fluff sections and the half dozen special characters and...

*whimpers*

As a potentially new SoB player (crossing fingers on an army acquisition), I can't wait to sport the underplayed army of the decade. I'm very excited to see it on the table top.

If I don't get it in trade, I'll be buying (slowly!) 2 special weapons, Celestine and doing some conversions for Serephim. Then I'll have an allies detachment of 10 Sisters w/ 2 Flamers, Rhino, Seraphim, Celestine and an Exorcist. I'll at least be placing allies on the battlefield!

GW for ruining your own product, in large to lack of "proper support of product"....

has been noted elswhere here that GW do not advertise, well they sure advertise space marines of all flavours.

and that was predating dow and spacemarine. it is really because GW are Mysogenous (possible typo-dislike women gaming or gaming supplies modelled as women- only one reason they don't scrap DE is because Wyche Cults Are male as well, if GW had it's way 41st millenium would be 100% men- Speculation only folks ).

evidence is in form of old female guardsmen you could buy for 2nd/3rd edition and i don't mean gaunts ghosts or last chancers or Esher gangers. each edition of 40k features less and less female influence/interaction and more Xenos influence/interaction. which is fine but i think women would play a role in 40k as well (atleast 45-55% of the imperiums population and all/ 5% variable either way for both genders) Again the above is Speculation and Presumption/Assumption.......mixed with a partial rant....but i don't think i am alone in that department (this thread has quite alot of content, i wonder if it could be turned into a BL novel )

On the subject of SoB prices... I just noticed that the prices for Battle Sisters have actually gone up since I last looked at them in December! As if they weren't high enough. For example the box of 3 battle sisters is now 14 euros, up from 12,5, and special weapons are 8 euros, up from 7,8. Non-Seraphim Superiors have gone from 9,75 to 10. Other models haven't gone up thankfully, at least on a quick lookover, but even so that's a bit silly.

I should've gotten that allied contingent when I had the chance of getting 'em at -30%. But ~200 euros for ~800 points just felt a bit... high. I suppose a minimum-size contingent wouldn't have been that bad. Something like Celestine, 3x3 Battle Sisters plus a Superior with Bolter, an Immolator and an Exorcist. Would've been somewhere around 110 euros. Still a bit nasty. Never mind now at full retail. And still missing would be some of the nice models I would've wanted. Topping that list are Canoness, Heavy Bolter (I have a heavy bolter fetish regardless of the army), the two Superiors with Sword and Maul, and some of the Seraphims, Bah. I suppose I'll have to get some of them at some point, as display figs if nothing else.

Well, tvih, if you were ever going to exercise you heavy bolter fetish, Sisters are the place to do it. They're 5 points each, and some of them Rend.

'nuff said.

As for the 5E Codex (I still think "minidex" is a viable term ) ... hit and miss, really. I guess I'm one of the few people who like the new Faith Point generation, but making AoF unit-specific is a major turd, as is not taking army size into account (fortunately it is easy to houserule the latter if your opponent consents).
Also, competitive lists should not rely on SC (especially as none of them is a true Sister Militant) over custom HQs. Poor Canoness. That really is my biggest gripe with it.

If only production models had such detail. I'd pay extra for an engraved heavy bolter.

Oh yeah ...

... it might actually be possible with Finecast, but from what I've seen those minis have a high chance of being bent and disfigured. The metal ones have good detail as well, and I've grown to love their weight so much that I don't even want plastic Sisters anymore ... the latter would be better for conversions, tho, and to reinvigorate the army in general due to (hopefully!) being not quite as pricey.

What I did was using gold paint to draw small gravures onto the Celestians' guns, though. With a fine enough brush it works out okay, though I'm sure a pro could do a better job than me.

 Lynata wrote:
Also, competitive lists should not rely on SC (especially as none of them is a true Sister Militant) over custom HQs. Poor Canoness. That really is my biggest gripe with it.

Why not? Competitive has nothing to do with custom HQs.

 Lynata wrote:
Oh yeah ...

... it might actually be possible with Finecast, but from what I've seen those minis have a high chance of being bent and disfigured. The metal ones have good detail as well, and I've grown to love their weight so much that I don't even want plastic Sisters anymore ... the latter would be better for conversions, tho, and to reinvigorate the army in general due to (hopefully!) being not quite as pricey.

What I did was using gold paint to draw small gravures onto the Celestians' guns, though. With a fine enough brush it works out okay, though I'm sure a pro could do a better job than me.

Spoiler:

(in my defense, this was my "test" Sister for trying out some different colour schemes - originally primed and coloured black, hence such a thick coat of white right now)

Not bad, and I like the color scheme, though darkening the armor would help the cloth pop.

 pretre wrote:
Why not? Competitive has nothing to do with custom HQs.

Every option should be viable for a competitive build.

Melissia wrote:

pretre wrote:Why not? Competitive has nothing to do with custom HQs.

Every option should be viable for a competitive build.

^ This. I mean, of course there will always be options in any army that may appear more effective than others - but the reduction in wargear available to the Canoness makes her entirely useless. The gap is too big, so much so that there's no good reason to take her at all, unless you're okay with gimping yourself.
She used to be awesome because of toting around a ton of relics such as Aspira's cloak or blessed power swords. Now she's ... just kind of redundant.
The Command Squad was a neat idea, but it's just not good enough to replace something as awesome as the Living Saint or Uriah. Now, if they would've given the Celestians more oomph in close combat, such as turning the bodyguard into pseudo-crusaders with storm shields and power swords, ... that would've actually made the Canoness' AoF useful.

Matney X: Thanks! I ultimately settled on red robes for more contrast - although I still like the knight'ish white/silver combo. A darker shade of the latter would've probably looked better indeed. Maybe I'll get back to experimenting some day.

 Lynata wrote:

Melissia wrote:

pretre wrote:Why not? Competitive has nothing to do with custom HQs.

Every option should be viable for a competitive build.

^ This. I mean, of course there will always be options in any army that may appear more effective than others - but the reduction in wargear available to the Canoness makes her entirely useless. The gap is too big, so much so that there's no good reason to take her at all, unless you're okay with gimping yourself.
She used to be awesome because of toting around a ton of relics such as Aspira's cloak or blessed power swords. Now she's ... just kind of redundant.
The Command Squad was a neat idea, but it's just not good enough to replace something as awesome as the Living Saint or Uriah. Now, if they would've given the Celestians more oomph in close combat, such as turning the bodyguard into pseudo-crusaders with storm shields and power swords, ... that would've actually made the Canoness' AoF useful.

Sure. Every option should be available for a competitive build. Also, I should get free unicorns and puppies every time I play. Name one codex that does that.

I'm not saying that the Canoness and Command Squad aren't flawed, but 'I should be able to play whatever I want and still win.' has never been true in 40k.

There's a great thread about the difference between list writing and tactics over in the 40k Tactics subforum.

I agree with pretre on this one, the idea that each unit will be as good as every other unit in terms of list building is dramatically far-fetched.

Seems to me Sisters got a solid core out of the WD book. Without new models, however, it doesn't really matter.

 pretre wrote:

Sure. Every option should be available for a competitive build. Also, I should get free unicorns and puppies every time I play. Name one codex that does that.

Grey Knights!

 AtoMaki wrote:

 pretre wrote:

Sure. Every option should be available for a competitive build. Also, I should get free unicorns and puppies every time I play. Name one codex that does that.

Grey Knights!

O RLY?
Stern
Brother Captain
Assassins other than Vindicare
Daemonhost squads.
Purgation Squads
Land Raiders

 pretre wrote:

 AtoMaki wrote:

 pretre wrote:

Sure. Every option should be available for a competitive build. Also, I should get free unicorns and puppies every time I play. Name one codex that does that.

Grey Knights!

O RLY?
Stern
Brother Captain
Assassins other than Vindicare
Daemonhost squads.
Purgation Squads
Land Raiders

The BC, the Assassins, the Purgation Squads and the LRs aren't that bad. And for the others, you can only take one, so the rest of the army will be still A-OK. With the GK codex, you literally have to focus on the most sh*tty stuff to make a bad army. Like, you bring Coteaz and 6 12-stong squads of Eviscerator Banishers or something similarly mind blowing.

 AtoMaki wrote:
The BC, the Assassins, the Purgation Squads and the LRs aren't that bad. And for the others, you can only take one, so the rest of the army will be still A-OK. With the GK codex, you literally have to focus on the most sh*tty stuff to make a bad army. Like, you bring Coteaz and 6 12-stong squads of Eviscerator Banishers or something similarly mind blowing.

The repentia, Canoness, Celestian Squads and Command Squad aren't THAT bad, they are just worse than the other options in those slots. (Although, I will concede that there are no good elite slots in the WD Codex) You have to focus on taking them over better units to make a bad army.

Again, there are always less optimal choices in every codex. There is no codex where you can take anything you want and still have a competitive army.

I would love it if SoB got updated; I would go out and buy an army straight away. Although it wouldn't suprise me if they get squatted; GW only cares about little Timmy now and Timmy wants sphess mehreens.

 MetalOxide wrote:
I would love it if SoB got updated; I would go out and buy an army straight away. Although it wouldn't suprise me if they get squatted; GW only cares about little Timmy now and Timmy wants sphess mehreens.

My score? 4/10
GW has said that they aren't squatting any further armies.
Bonus points for getting squatted and 'little Timmy' in the same post though.

 pretre wrote:

 MetalOxide wrote:
I would love it if SoB got updated; I would go out and buy an army straight away. Although it wouldn't suprise me if they get squatted; GW only cares about little Timmy now and Timmy wants sphess mehreens.

My score? 4/10
GW has said that they aren't squatting any further armies.
Bonus points for getting squatted and 'little Timmy' in the same post though.

Well, with no support, aging miniatures ( except the Celestine one, which is one of the best sculpts GW has ever produced ) and almost no way to aquire the current codex legaly one could say that sisters are almost squatted. GW simply avoids the outrage of getting rid of them.
Don't get me wrong, i would love to see them getting the Dark Eldar treatment. The Sisters have the potential to become the best looking of all imperial armies but sadly, so far GW seems to ignore them.

KingDeath wrote:

Well, with no support, aging miniatures ( except the Celestine one, which is one of the best sculpts GW has ever produced ) and almost no way to aquire the current codex legaly one could say that sisters are almost squatted. GW simply avoids the outrage of getting rid of them.

The same argument has been used since 3rd edition launched. SOB have always had aging miniatures with little to no support. We have been basically in the same position 2004 (no new models). And the 2004 release was about 5 infantry sculpts, a Canoness and the Exorcist.

pretre wrote:The repentia, Canoness, Celestian Squads and Command Squad aren't THAT bad, they are just worse than the other options in those slots.

That is probably debatable.
The gap between custom Marine or Guard HQs and their Codex SCs is not that drastic that you would feel punished for not choosing the latter. Much of the issue in the SoB 'dex boils down the missing equipment, really, and you'll have to agree there was no good reason at all for it being removed.

On a different note, however ...

pretre wrote:GW has said that they aren't squatting any further armies.

Do you remember who said that where? I've seen this sentence all over the web for years, but never the actual source. I don't really doubt it - it's just one of the things that occured to me the other day.

I only know it was not the statement from Jervis Johnson that was released in the wake of squats being removed; that one only said they don't care how well (or bad) an army sells.

KingDeath wrote:The Sisters have the potential to become the best looking of all imperial armies [...]

You say that as if this wasn't already the case...

 Lynata wrote:

pretre wrote:The repentia, Canoness, Celestian Squads and Command Squad aren't THAT bad, they are just worse than the other options in those slots.

That is probably debatable.
The gap between custom Marine or Guard HQs and their Codex SCs is not that drastic that you would feel punished for not choosing the latter. Much of the issue in the SoB 'dex boils down the missing equipment, really, and you'll have to agree there was no good reason at all for it being removed.

Draigo or Coteaz vs a Generic GK?
Vulkan vs a Generic SM?
Eldrad vs Generic Farseer?
Wazdakka if you want a bike army?

Those are pretty big jumps.

I only know it was not the statement from Jervis Johnson that was released in the wake of squats being removed; that one only said they don't care how well (or bad) an army sells.

http://web.archive.org/web/20060129002420/http://forums.specialist-games.com/epic/forum_b/topic.asp?ARCHIVE=true&TOPIC_ID=2532&whichpage=3

That's the one I was thinking of.

pretre wrote:Those are pretty big jumps.

Not as big as between Canoness and Living Saint, but I suppose that may be a matter of opinion.

pretre wrote:That's the one I was thinking of.

Yep, that's the one I've seen - but it doesn't say anything about that "promise".
Was that all just the internet talking again?

Well nothing in the game is quite as good as the saint, so that's a hard comparison.

There is probably something else but I can't remember where.

The Sisters "codex" is just inherently flawed and is not a well thought out, balanced codex.

So it's not going to be very easy to talk about it positively.

Sadly we're likely stuck with it for another couple years at least.

 Melissia wrote:
The Sisters "codex" is just inherently flawed and is not a well thought out, balanced codex.

So it's not going to be very easy to talk about it positively.

Sadly we're likely stuck with it for another couple years at least.

The WD Codex has flaws like any codex but has a solid core of good units and can make a really nice list (both main and allied). It could be much worse.

I think sometimes people forget that for all the good things in the C:WH, there were plenty of bad. I enjoy not paying 50 points for rhinos. As I have said before, my favorite codex is still C: Chapter Approved.

Apart from the lack of options and the trail off in its power level above 2000 points, I don't really understand what's so inherently flawed about it, though... could you explain please, Melissia?

 Furyou Miko wrote:
the trail off in its power level above 2000 points,

I really don't think it trails off above 2000. I know this is the conventional wisdom, but you don't really need the faith that bad.

Keep in mind that you double slots at 2k and get some nastiness without really needing much faith. Here's my 30 second idea for 2k:

2 Bastions - 250
2 Ret Squads - ~200
4 Exorcists - 540
4 SOB Squads with stuff and rhinos- ~700
Celestine - 115
Jacobus - 90
Some more stuff.

It's not so much that the power trails off at that point, it's just that the smaller the game, the more powerful an impact it has and the more effective our named characters get for their points.

 Furyou Miko wrote:
Apart from the lack of options and the trail off in its power level above 2000 points, I don't really understand what's so inherently flawed about it, though... could you explain please, Melissia?

The removal of a large amount of fluffy equipment, the gakky revamp of acts of faith that removed any resemblance of adaptability to its various units, the unnecessary nerfing of squads like Celestians, the fact that it apparently didn't go through any playtesting at all before being released...

It'd be easier to list what's good about it. Which basically amounts to "the fluff sections".

My biggest complaint of all is that battle sisters are just too expensive to collect. I myself will restart my SOB once they move to plastics.

 Melissia wrote:

 Furyou Miko wrote:
Apart from the lack of options and the trail off in its power level above 2000 points, I don't really understand what's so inherently flawed about it, though... could you explain please, Melissia?

The removal of a large amount of fluffy equipment, the gakky revamp of acts of faith that removed any resemblance of adaptability to its various units, the unnecessary nerfing of squads like Celestians, the fact that it apparently didn't go through any playtesting at all before being released...

It'd be easier to list what's good about it. Which basically amounts to "the fluff sections".

Ah. I disagree. Dominions are still workable in larger squads. Retributors are completely kickarse. Seraphim are arguably the best jump infantry in the game.

Melissia wrote:It'd be easier to list what's good about it. Which basically amounts to "the fluff sections".

Ouphh... all in all the fluff wasn't that bad, however I'm still angry that whoever wrote it retconned Praxedes' legend. Was that really necessary. :(

Yeah, that's an awful lot of hyperbole. Good to great fast, heavy and hq. okay troops. Missing options? Sure. Bad elites? Sure. Bad list? No.

None of them are better than what we had before.

And they weren't exactly great back then.

Dominions, exorcists, rets and seraphim are all better.

Doms got scout. Exos got an invul. Rets got cheaper and usable. Seraphim got Celestine.

 pretre wrote:
Doms got scout.

I'll grant you that much at least.

Hell, that's how I made Dominions useful in my own fandex. Sisters needed more deployment options and Scout is one of the better ways to give them such.

How many games have you played with the new dex?

Five or six. I haven't played Sisters since sixth edition however.

Or much at all really. Haven't had any motivation to play.

If I play any games with my SoB, it will probably be with older editions, probably using Witch Hunters.

 Melissia wrote:
Five or six. I haven't played Sisters since sixth edition however.

Or much at all really. Haven't had any motivation to play.

There's your problem. It's a whole new game. Hard to judge the codex off of 5th when we are playing 6th. Although, to be fair, sisters were brutal in 5th and are still nasty in 6th (allies helped keep the curve).

I wouldn't say they were brutal in fifth but six really did give them a boost. Where most armies in sixth had to adjust to half their army becoming worse while the other half became awesome Sisters became awesome across the board. The only thing that got worse was the battle conclave.

I think what most SoB players want (or at least myself) is really just more options again. We have a grand total 1 possible troop choice, 5 hqs the majority of which are non-customisable SCs and no more than 3 options in our other slots.

 Madcat87 wrote:
I think what most SoB players want (or at least myself) is really just more options again. We have a grand total 1 possible troop choice, 5 hqs the majority of which are non-customisable SCs and no more than 3 options in our other slots.

And a very short list of wargear. Although what hurts me most is losing the Psyker defense we had - the 5+ chance to ignore psychic attacks, the anti-psyker wargear and the cheap WH Inquisitor/Lord with Psychic Hood meant people rarely brought psykers against me. Now they do, every game. It hurts double because psykers also became better with the BRB powers and SoB became worse against them.

 Lynata wrote:

Melissia wrote:It'd be easier to list what's good about it. Which basically amounts to "the fluff sections".

Ouphh... all in all the fluff wasn't that bad, however I'm still angry that whoever wrote it retconned Praxedes' legend. Was that really necessary. :(

I hate the fact they retconned Arabella (She died instead of disappearing into the Eye) and Silvana (she vanished instead of being replaced with a silver skeleton).

The only good thing about the fluff in the minidex was that they didn't mention the damn Inquisition anywhere and a couple of new things on the timeline.

 Furyou Miko wrote:
Well, tvih, if you were ever going to exercise you heavy bolter fetish, Sisters are the place to do it. They're 5 points each, and some of them Rend.

True, points-wise it's great (85 points for 4 heavy bolters? Yes please!), cost-wise not much - 11,5 euros per heavy bolter, with all of them looking the same (as much as I like that model, 4 100% identical ones is a bit much for the cost). Damn you, GW

Though another problem with the Retributor squad is that taking them means not taking an Exorcist as far as allies go. Although unless house-ruling it, only my C:SM would be able to effectively have SoB allies, thanks to GW's retardation in making BT and SoB desperate allies And from all accounts the current Exorcist is a pain to build thanks to the metal "organ", so I suppose any Exorcist purchase would have to wait until a fully plastic kit is released anyway.

Speaking of Retributors though, 4 heavy flamers in a single squad has a strange appeal as well, despite the points cost

Heavy Flamer retributors are... fun, although vulnerable to plasma cannons.

Go with the Forge World exorcist model. It's slightly cheaper these days, looks better and is much easier to build.

You can use desperate allies with BT and Sisters - your BTs will want to be mixing it up close while the Sisters will be providing fire support, so it's easy to stay outside 6" of each other.

If you're buying Heavy Flamer or Multi-Melta sisters, you can swap them round a little to get different Retributors, but the fact the basic model is mono-pose is somewhat irritating, I'll grant you. I mostly use my storm bolters as counts-as heavies. ^^;

 Furyou Miko wrote:
Heavy Flamer retributors are... fun, although vulnerable to plasma cannons.

Go with the Forge World exorcist model. It's slightly cheaper these days, looks better and is much easier to build.

You can use desperate allies with BT and Sisters - your BTs will want to be mixing it up close while the Sisters will be providing fire support, so it's easy to stay outside 6" of each other.

If you're buying Heavy Flamer or Multi-Melta sisters, you can swap them round a little to get different Retributors, but the fact the basic model is mono-pose is somewhat irritating, I'll grant you. I mostly use my storm bolters as counts-as heavies. ^^;

Gives you something to do with all those extra storm bolters you got when buying squad sets hunh?

The current codex can be effective IMO, but tactically I don't find it very diverse. With so few units and so few options it generally unexciting to me. The 30 or so games I have played with them in 6th left me kind of cold with them as I find them just dull. Also the games tend to run one sided. Either the Sisters just roll the opposition or they just die horribly. Scouting Dominions are amazing. It's priceless the first few times you see your opponents land raiders evaporate before they get to go and the surrounding marines just die. Faith on the other hand is mostly pointless. I rarely use the Acts to be honest, except on my Dominions and my Seraphim. I personally have found Retributors to be lack luster but that's because I never sent to have any luck with their Act. Personally I'd rather have more Exorcists.

I guess I am ready for something new with Sisters both models and rules wise. That and I want GW to give them some love in supplements and WD. If the company never speaks about the line and never supports them ever past an out of print codex it's no wonder they will never sell.

The biggest thing that pulls my strings is that Sisters went from having amongst the best troops choice under C:WH, to probably the worst with the new book. I used to be able to build a battle plan around a solid core of Battle Sisters who could adapt to any situation, would sit fearlessly against all odds, and looked awesome. Now I have a unit which is bad at everything, extremely expensive, but at least it looks awesome.

 Still Standing wrote:
The biggest thing that pulls my strings is that Sisters went from having amongst the best troops choice under C:WH, to probably the worst with the new book. I used to be able to build a battle plan around a solid core of Battle Sisters who could adapt to any situation, would sit fearlessly against all odds, and looked awesome. Now I have a unit which is bad at everything, extremely expensive, but at least it looks awesome.

Yeah, I have found they don't hold objectives very well which is bad when most missions are about claiming objectives. Their ability to kill at range is merely adequate. The amount of kills I generate per unit isn't high enough really to justify their cost IMO. Despite their power armor they just take too many wounds for their saves to keep them around

Also remember that they are over 200 points for a 10 strong squad in a Rhino. Space Marines are 5% more expensive for a similar squad... Outrageous.

 Still Standing wrote:
Also remember that they are over 200 points for a 10 strong squad in a Rhino. Space Marines are 5% more expensive for a similar squad... Outrageous.

Umm no.

BSS - 125
2 Meltas - 20
Rhino - 35
That's 180.

I guess you could make them over 200, but that's silly.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Still Standing wrote:
The biggest thing that pulls my strings is that Sisters went from having amongst the best troops choice under C:WH, to probably the worst with the new book. I used to be able to build a battle plan around a solid core of Battle Sisters who could adapt to any situation, would sit fearlessly against all odds, and looked awesome. Now I have a unit which is bad at everything, extremely expensive, but at least it looks awesome.

Umm no. Sister Squads have always been the albatross around the neck of SOB lists. They were better with C:WH because of the variety of faith types, but not awesome. Now Redemptionists... That was an awesome troop choice.

BSS - 125
1 Melta - 10
1 Heavy Flamer - 20
Rhino - 35
Combi-Flamer - 10

That's 200, and not so silly.

Without wanting to get into an argument, Battle Sister squads were amazing because you could rely on them (once or twice a game) to put out sizzling amounts of AP1 firepower or withstand battlecannon shells. I am not the only person to feel they were the best troop choice in the game (before Wolves and Knights), head over to the old C:WH tactica on Warseer and see for yourself. About the only troop choice which could stand up to them was Ork Boys.

 Still Standing wrote:
BSS - 125
1 Melta - 10
1 Heavy Flamer - 20
Rhino 25
Combi-Flamer - 10

That's 200, and not so silly.

For what you get, that 200 is really not a good investment, but that is a personal choice. I keep mine cheap.

Without wanting to get into an argument, Battle Sister squads were amazing because you could rely on them (once or twice a game) to put out sizzling amounts of AP1 firepower or withstand battlecannon shells. I am not the only person to feel they were the best troop choice in the game (before Wolves and Knights), head over to the old C:WH tactica on Warseer and see for yourself. About the only troop choice which could stand up to them was Ork Boys.

They were certainly good, but nowhere near the best in the game. I played SOB for a long, long time and BSS have gone from okay to good to okay again. Never great. Again, agree to disagree though.

Just like tau and many other army they will just be lefy to rot away till no one plays them any more

I keep everything else in my army cheap, but I feel Sisters should have a melta gun and a heavy flamer. That's about the only quirk I have with army building. Everything else is streamlined as much as possible. It still works for me though.

frogy27 wrote:Just like tau and many other army they will just be lefy to rot away till no one plays them any more

Wow. /slowclap

Have you seen the news recently? You know Tau is getting a new book next month? Okay, maybe you missed that. You know that SOB have been in the same position for 15 years and still haven't rotted away, right?

So both a historical understanding fail and a current events fail. Nice.

Still Standing wrote:I keep everything else in my army cheap, but I feel Sisters should have a melta gun and a heavy flamer. That's about the only quirk I have with army building. Everything else is streamlined as much as possible. It still works for me though.

Heavy Flamers are just too damn expensive for SOB. 20 points is crazy.

I agree! Many things in the minidex are crazy. I pay 20 points because I like the aesthetic.

 Still Standing wrote:
I agree! Many things in the minidex are crazy. I pay 20 points because I like the aesthetic.

Yeah, I did run Melta/HF in previous editions but swapped it around. I think the MM for 10 points is a pretty good deal nowadays.

I still run mine as drive-by squads, only really getting out of the Rhino when the enemy is crippled or I am forced to. Heavy Flamers work very well for this, especially in my Dark Eldar heavy meta as I can blow them up AND pop the squad at the same time.

 Still Standing wrote:
I still run mine as drive-by squads, only really getting out of the Rhino when the enemy is crippled or I am forced to.

My old maxim for SOB still stands: "She who bails, fails."

Heavy Flamers work very well for this, especially in my Dark Eldar heavy meta as I can blow them up AND pop the squad at the same time.

Eh? How do you hit the transport and the squad with the same Heavy Flamer? Or are you saying they are disembarked?

Tau getting up date is just all rumours been that for years so ill never believe any thing from gw our online just like bs you can only buy from gw now

frogy27 wrote:
Tau getting up date is just all rumours been that for years so ill never believe any thing from gw our online just like bs you can only buy from gw now

umm. You are woefully uninformed.

http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/wnt/blog.jsp?pid=8300066

Tau are announced in the new WD.

 pretre wrote:

 Still Standing wrote:
I still run mine as drive-by squads, only really getting out of the Rhino when the enemy is crippled or I am forced to.

My old maxim for SOB still stands: "She who bails, fails."

Heavy Flamers work very well for this, especially in my Dark Eldar heavy meta as I can blow them up AND pop the squad at the same time.

Eh? How do you hit the transport and the squad with the same Heavy Flamer? Or are you saying they are disembarked?

I find Dark Eldar don't stay embarked for long.

frogy27 wrote:
Tau getting up date is just all rumours been that for years so ill never believe any thing from gw our online just like bs you can only buy from gw now

And here I thought you went away.

So you don't believe anything from GW, or online? You also don't support things you can only direct order from GW? Good luck building a SoB army, or supporting one, then. Or did you change your stance on 3rd party and conversions?

Tau are coming. They have a teaser trailer, there are pictures of their new models and stuff in WD.


But I hope you're right about GW giving SoB the "Tau treatment."

Ignore frogy, he's a dumb troll.

Battle Sister squads work best specialised, I find. I either take a Flamer and a Heavy Flamer or two Meltaguns. Usually the meltaguns. Big squads can be effective too - I've had great times with 20-strong BSS squads with 2 meltaguns, especially with the move-and-shoot rules we've got now.

I'll never forget the look on my opponent's face when Typhus and five Nurgle Terminators dissolved under their sheer number of dice.

I rarely stay in transports though. My BSS squads are often too large to fit in a Rhino, and my Dominion squads usually disembark to use their full firepower - I tend to run squads of 10 in Repressors.

If I do put my BSS squads in transports, it's ALWAYS a repressor, and then I don't bother with the second special weapon, I just give them a meltagun or a heavy flamer. I just can't stand the thought of all those bolters being wasted doing nothing inside a metal box.

One of my favourite Sisters lists is a 500 point list though;

Celestine
BSS w/2xMeltagun+Power Maul
BSS w/2xFlamer + HF Immolator

I guess we should probably take a bunch of this over to the Tactics thread since we're way OT now.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I'll respond to you here, Furyou Miko:
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/434801.page

I seen nothing about tau on gw i loo,k at it ever day been then when it comes out the prices will jump 100% and sob is q dead army why can't people see that. and i still don't believe tau wlll be up dated as it would cost gw to much money and people would stop playing there. other armies then gw lose money

frogy27 wrote:
I seen nothing about tau on gw i loo,k at it ever day been then when it comes out the prices will jump 100% and sob is q dead army why can't people see that. and i still don't believe tau wlll be up dated as it would cost gw to much money and people would stop playing there. other armies then gw lose money

Yeah, that link to the teaser trailer on GW's website is just a conspiracy.


Are you for real?

Why would they redo tau it will be ten mores yrs be for a nother new book so it don't pay.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
What trailer

I knew about the Tau trailer and new models, despite the fact that I don't care and barely even read the news section of this site.

Like I said, just ignore Frogy. He's an attention-seeker with nothing meaningful to add.

frogy27 wrote:
Why would they redo tau it will be ten mores yrs be for a nother new book so it don't pay.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
What trailer

So willfully ignorant then. Good times.

What ever all believe it when i see it still.pissed that i can only get some things if i spend over 500dollars


Automatically Appended Next Post:
And you have to get ther gw as ur local game store can't care gw no you really hate that you have to order from uk now and no longer use ebay as secondhand models


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Just looked at gw ant no trailer ther

frogy27 wrote:
What ever all believe it when i see it still.pissed that i can only get some things if i spend over 500dollars


Automatically Appended Next Post:
And you have to get ther gw as ur local game store can't care gw no you really hate that you have to order from uk now and no longer use ebay as secondhand models


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Just looked at gw ant no trailer ther

Check out here then http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/wnt/blog.jsp?pid=8300066

Frogy, do you use a speech-to-text thing or do you really not understand the difference between "I'll" and "all?"

Dude, don't feed the frogy27.

Just throw him on ignore and get back to the rest of the thread.

... But, it's like watching a train wreck.

Only it's a train wreck that has an 'ignore' button.

Video don't mean any thing all they will do is make a new book big deal tau armys all the same and still will be suits fw and pathfinerds and broadsides that's all tau will be so blah

And Sisters will always be Seraphim and all Echlesiarchy, so.. Blah.

Your argument is off topic, and invalid.

Aw, and I was just about to compare it to the Space Marine codices.

Like ig are all flyers and vetsany other way to take them is not good codex should be limited to what is only good soo people don't wasy money on models that are useless but look cool

frogy27 wrote:
Like ig are all flyers and vetsany other way to take them is not good codex should be limited to what is only good soo people don't wasy money on models that are useless but look cool

Right? No one wants a choice, they only want to win. No one wants to field cool looking models, optimization-be-damned, they only want to win! That's why this is a Sisters thread, because the WD 'dex and lack of real updates is totally optimized for winning.

I fail to see how you even assume you're contributing to this thread.