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I'm thinking of making an entirely converted Sisters of Silence army, set pre-heresy when they were the militant arm of the Adeptus Astro Telepathica. From that one short story in the Heresy series I get a lot, but I want more if I'm converting an entire army, I need more units!

Can anyone shed some light on squad structure, organisational structure, scope of power etc? I guess people could toss in what rules they think it should use too, but that's a long way down the road.

So what we have so far is compiled in Lexicanum:

They form up Cadres similar to Astartes chapters, but I think I'll make a third Cadre of my own for this project. The Sisters of Silence are basically blanks (humans who lack psychic presence, much like Tau) but they are able to project this upon others, with training. They never speak once they take the Vow of Tranquility. This is taken when they reach a level of mastery over themselves, find inner-peace and can project themselves.

Structure:
Novice-Sisters - Blanks with the potential to become full-fledged Sisters
Null Maiden - Members of the organisation who have taken the Vow of Tranquility
Vigilator - This rank is undefined... but i'm going to assume they act as a bodyguard to Oblivion Knights, who lead Null Maidens and Novices in battle
Oblivion Knight - Military leaders, high ranking Sisters
Excrutiatus - Sisters who have had their eyes replaced with blood-red implants and wear read (badass) coats. They must kill (burn?) 100 witches personally before they take up this mantle. I'm playing these as Alucard from Hellsing, they'll be powerful fanatics.
Witchseeker Puruivant - Rank above Oblivion Knights, I speculate that these lead the Cadres
Sister-Commander - The highest rank

My idea so far is to use either the Sisters of Battle or Black Templars rules as a base for building my army. Suggestions?

Flight of the Eisenstein has some more information on the Sisters - it's not a bad read, either. Are you going to factor in the Black Ships into your army somehow?

Uh, no. Blanks are not like Tau. NOTHING, like Tau.

Tau are not completely immune to psychic powers. Blanks are.

Tau don't cause daemons to become unstable and begin to phase back into the warp just by being nearby. Blanks do.

Sounds like a fun idea, I'd had a similar thought a little while back but never really looked into it more. Sorry I can't really help out more, but I'm definitely interested in seeing what turns up.

Read Flight of the Eisenstein with a good coverage of the Sisters of Silence. Seems to be all we got.

The few pics indicate that they have a similar armour to Sororitas, but bald heads. And yes, untouchables are something different from Tau: Tau have a low psychic presence, untouchables create an anti-psychic field unnerving all psychers and negatively influencing their powers.

Kroothawk wrote:Read Flight of the Eisenstein with a good coverage of the Sisters of Silence. Seems to be all we got.

As a clarification, they get a short story in tales of heresy.

The Sisters of Silence weren't shown much in "a thousand sons" but I would guess in "prospero burns" we see more of them.
The " visions of..." books, this card game support series, had some pics of SoS.

I only used Tau as an example, sorry Melissia.

Thanks for the pics guys. I have a few models I can see i'll be able to convert from other games. The Infinity model range has a couple of decent torsos I can combine with either dark elf or dark eldar legs. Death-Cult assassins should be useful for this too.

My current project is trolling all the lore I have to find out more about the sister's ranks. Does anyone know if any of them were Pariahs, or all just Untouchables/Blanks?

if you're asking rules wise i'd say black templar with WH leaders. templar for your troops and possibly some special characters, and wh simply because it adds flavor to the army. also remember they had land raiders and hovering rhino's call emperor's gift APCs

Melissia wrote:Uh, no. Blanks are not like Tau. NOTHING, like Tau.

Tau are not completely immune to psychic powers. Blanks are.

Tau don't cause daemons to become unstable and begin to phase back into the warp just by being nearby. Blanks do.

Indeed. Whereas Tau have only a tiny warp presence. Blanks have a negative presence. Hence the feeling of wrongness some get around them and most peoples first impression of a blank is of at best an abrasive person. At worst makes them paranoid and need to get away from them. And others said about negating warp based powers etc.

TyraelVladinhurst wrote:if you're asking rules wise i'd say black templar with WH leaders. templar for your troops and possibly some special characters, and wh simply because it adds flavor to the army. also remember they had land raiders and hovering rhino's call emperor's gift APCs

No.

Try having every single member of the army have Soulless and Psychic Abomination (from the Culexis Assassin). Every one of them. And then some weaker variation of the Etherium on top of that.

I don't want house rules, Melissia. I think that maybe Black Temps would be best because they have initiate type troops, which seems fitting. I'll make a Librarian themed force with anti-psyker wargear, it's not accurate but it's the best I can do.

Thanks for all the ideas guys. I'll take Assassins as allies with an Inquisitor to be my Excrutiatus.

Any other good looking slim-power armored females? The Pan-Oceanic faction in Infinity looks good but it's hell expensive, and there are a few privateer press models that look like good torsos.

If you don't want house rules, you can't play Sisters of Silence.

Period.

You cannot play Sisters of Silence with any current army.

Melissia wrote:If you don't want house rules, you can't play Sisters of Silence.

Period.

You cannot play Sisters of Silence with any current army.

Sorry, Ordo Dakka, but Melissia is right on this one. I suppose a "Counts As" army is possible, but I have no idea what you'd base it on.

Emperors Faithful wrote:

Melissia wrote:If you don't want house rules, you can't play Sisters of Silence.

Period.

You cannot play Sisters of Silence with any current army.

Sorry, Ordo Dakka, but Melissia is right on this one. I suppose a "Counts As" army is possible, but I have no idea what you'd base it on.

Yeah... I meant counts as Black Templars! I'm not so arrogant as to suggest people just play my rules!

Revised army make-up, i'll be as true to lore as I can but it's all pretty murky :/
-Novices for basic squads, probably counts as either Black Templar intiates or Inquisitorial Storm Troopers
-Null Maidens, probably counts as Sisters of Battle or Space Marine Tactical squads
-Oblivion Knights <-- squad leaders
-Vigilators/Prosecutors, as yet undecided elites
-Excrutiatus probably counts as assassins or Exarchs if I go that way
The rest will be HQ units

Actually I had a few ideas for counts as armies. Eldar were one, it sounds weird but aspect warriors could work. Another was Sisters of Battle, because the Excrutiatus and Prosecutors are quite fitting as Officio Assassinorium units or Repentia. I'm open to any suggestions.

EDIT- My conversions are probably going to be inspired by this guy's, Death Cult Assassin torsos with Dire Avenger legs and greenstuff fur capes. The Dark Elf Fantasy Witch Elves look good for legs too, but they'd require a lot more sculpting work. Any model suggestions?
http://www.warseer.com/forums/showthread.php?t=262181&highlight=sisters+silence

Ordo Dakka wrote:

Any other good looking slim-power armored females? The Pan-Oceanic faction in Infinity looks good but it's hell expensive, and there are a few privateer press models that look like good torsos.

Infinity models do indeed look good, I will be able to post some pictures next week. I made a small squad of Battle Sisters out of what I got of them but they have a couple drawbacks, namely:

The models are pretty expensive, for 6 pounds / one.

There is only around 15 suitable models that you could use as sisters, with only about 10 of them actually weaing armour, the rest have mini skirts, jumpsuits etc.

Pan Oceania is a good place to start, I also got 2 models from the Asian faction, and 1 from the Muslim one, I think.

Try looking for "Morat Zerat Hacker" and Panoceania "Swiss Guard" or "Nisse", those are all the power armoured models you will be abe to find. There's some more ninja style models in the asian faction but they lack the armour.

Also, dont get discouraged by overtly negative people. There will always be some.

Warmachines might have some interesting models from that elf faction (or are they from that Hordes game? I dont remember). Anyway, all these models are to be found at maelstromgames.

Someone had done an army of them for a doubles tournie with another guy. The other guy did the emperors bodyguards (whose name i cant remember). I'll go fishing for pics.

Ordo Dakka: If you are not playing by House Rules, you are not playing Sisters of Silence. I don't think you seem to understand the consequences of an entire army made of blanks.

They are completely and utterly immune to psychic powers, and just being around them effects the psychology of most races. Every. Single. Soldier.

This is no mere RESISTANCE to psychic power. It is complete and utter immunity. As in, no psychic power can target them, and any psychic power that includes them in their area of effect has no effect on them. Any psychic power manifested near them has a difficult time manifesting. Daemons near them have a difficult time maintaining their physical forms and begin to quickly break down.

There is no army which represents this in tabletop. Frankly it'd probably be too powerful anyway. If you attempt to represent this with Black Templars (Why would you use a Marine faction to represent humans in the first place?), you're not playing Sisters of Silence. You're playing Black Templars with [Mod Edit - Do try to remember that this is a family friendly forum!].

I'm not saying "don't do it", I'm saying that don't do it under the delusion that you're at all following the fluff, or that you're actually playing a Sisters of Silence army. Do whatever you want with your models, it's your money.

I understand that. The Black Templars with their anti-psyker vow is as close as I can get. That's all I didn't mean to say I was playing by fluff.

I don't see what the problem is with converting an army to look a certain way.

Who cares about the rules for it anyway?

My friend is making an Orky army that counts as SpaceMarines, so that he can use droppods and Deff Dreads as dreadnaughts. Also a ton of stolen Vindicators and such. Basically he wanted an Ork Army that wasn't so 'boring' to him.

It doesn't matter if the rules match it, more that you're following the fun fluff of an idea.

Melissia, you need to lighten up a little. Ordos Dakka's suggestions sound interesting, and if that's what he enjoys then power to him.

If you're going with Sisters of Battle equivalents, then I'd imagine Novices would be sisters of battle, and Null Maidens as Celestians. I'm not familiar with the BT codex so I can't comment.

Melissia wrote:Ordo Dakka: If you are not playing by House Rules, you are not playing Sisters of Silence. I don't think you seem to understand the consequences of an entire army made of blanks.

They are completely and utterly immune to psychic powers, and just being around them effects the psychology of most races. Every. Single. Soldier.

This is no mere RESISTANCE to psychic power. It is complete and utter immunity. As in, no psychic power can target them, and any psychic power that includes them in their area of effect has no effect on them. Any psychic power manifested near them has a difficult time manifesting. Daemons near them have a difficult time maintaining their physical forms and begin to quickly break down.

There is no army which represents this in tabletop. Frankly it'd probably be too powerful anyway. If you attempt to represent this with Black Templars (Why would you use a Marine faction to represent humans in the first place?), you're not playing Sisters of Silence. You're playing Black Templars with [Mod Edit - Do try to remember that this is a family friendly forum!].

I'm not saying "don't do it", I'm saying that don't do it under the delusion that you're at all following the fluff, or that you're actually playing a Sisters of Silence army. Do whatever you want with your models, it's your money.

Take it easy, re the power curve OP already said he's using it as counts-as BT :\

And there's nothing wrong with counts as per se. Look at all the cool Admech armies in the gallery for instance.

Anyway I think its a cool project, an obscure faction using an underpowered codex. What kind of vehicles would you use? I don't think there's been any references to the Sisters using vehicles though I could be wrong.

Not too related tot he subject at hand but back to the main idea. When you do figure all this out it would be epic if you could post it or pm it Im also trying to recreate a Sisters of Silence army (more for a recreation of the Battle of Prospero)

The battle at (of?) Prospero would be so amazing to see... i'll start work on these soon as the uni semester ends hopefully.

Best of luck as its a rarely used theme to base an army off. And theres nothing better than something unusual/fresh/new for an army.

Melissia wrote:Ordo Dakka: If you are not playing by House Rules, you are not playing Sisters of Silence. I don't think you seem to understand the consequences of an entire army made of blanks.

They are completely and utterly immune to psychic powers, and just being around them effects the psychology of most races. Every. Single. Soldier.

This is no mere RESISTANCE to psychic power. It is complete and utter immunity. As in, no psychic power can target them, and any psychic power that includes them in their area of effect has no effect on them. Any psychic power manifested near them has a difficult time manifesting. Daemons near them have a difficult time maintaining their physical forms and begin to quickly break down.

There is no army which represents this in tabletop. Frankly it'd probably be too powerful anyway. If you attempt to represent this with Black Templars (Why would you use a Marine faction to represent humans in the first place?), you're not playing Sisters of Silence. You're playing Black Templars with [Mod Edit - Do try to remember that this is a family friendly forum!].

I'm not saying "don't do it", I'm saying that don't do it under the delusion that you're at all following the fluff, or that you're actually playing a Sisters of Silence army. Do whatever you want with your models, it's your money.

Melissia, don't be so obstinate. You can play an army of whatever you want with whatever you want. They're your models, after all. If I was doing this, I'd also take it as counts-as. Lest we forget, a marine army isn't nearly as powerful in the codex as it it is in the fluff, therefore, by your definition, Codex:Space Marines only allows you to field a counts-as Space Marines army, since it doesn't match the fluff.

Anyway.

I hate to say it, but I'd probably take them as sisters. Availability of Psychic Hoods and plenty of stuff to counter psykers. Shield of Faith rule gives them an invulnerable against any psychic powers. Plus, access to Culexus Assassins. I think an Astartes stat line would be a bit TOO much.

Try and build a sisters army with a more close combatty theme?

Witchseekers/Knights - inquisitors with psychic hoods, psycannon bolts, crusaders and bound psykers (Vigilators, but represent the blank-ness of the higher ranking warriors)
Excruciator - Culexus or Sister Repentias?
Null Maidens - Regular Sisters.

Give your Oblivion Knights (Vet Sister Superiors) psycannon bolts, and take lots of Stormbolter upgrades, which feel more like SoS weapons than all the Sororitas flame stuff.

For theme, try and get a peek at the 'Visions of the Heresy' artbooks, that collect together all the Heresy card game art. Plenty of images of sisters. I'd convert them from the current DE plastics as a base for the bodies - very tight fitting armour plates, and look very female already. Cut off all the spikes. Then aren't there some Wood Elf heads with long ponytails? GS the masks on or use Dark Elf armour parts?

I believe these are based on DEldar bodies



Here's one of the Heresy Artbook images



ALSO, Bell of Lost Souls did a Campaign Pack for pre-heresy battles, which indluded rules for a (quite powerful) Sisters of Silence unit. Search for the Heresy-Era play aid on BOLS.

rabidaskal wrote:Take it easy, re the power curve OP already said he's using it as counts-as BT

No. I already said what I always say in these situations: do what you want, it's your money, your models; but do not expect everyone to approve. I do not like to see Counts As used to represent something that should require house rules to play properly. It's not like representing an Ork mega armor force or somesuch via a space marine army, that even makes some lick of sense (though vanilla Marines are kinda too disciplined to represent Orks, so I would think space wolves would make more sense, especially with blood claws as the main force of the army). The Sisters of Silence are an army which are so vastly different that to represent them without houserules just doesn't work.

But hey, do what you want.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

ArbitorIan wrote:Melissia, don't be so obstinate. You can play an army of whatever you want with whatever you want. They're your models, after all.

Apparntly you are too blind to actually read my posts, because I already said that. Pipe down Johnny.

modqusiition on.

Warnings have been made for posts violating Rule #1. Further warnings will lead to suspensions.

I love Sisters of Silence. Probably even more than SoB, actually. I even made a rank track for Dakka over a year ago:

Manchu wrote:Anyway: SISTERS of SILENCE! (I don't think it can be non-gender-specific)

(1) Local Pariah

(2) Identified Untouchable

(3) Unsworn Novice

(4) Marked with the Red Aquila

(5) Initiate of Tranquility

(6) Obedient Vigilator

(7) Mute Vigilator Veteran

(8) Psyker-Hunting Prosecutrix

(9) Prosecutrix Purifying With Flame

(10) Witchseeker With Vicious Cyber Hound

(11) Solemn Guardian of the Black Ships

(13) Pitiless Warden of the Black Ships

(12) Null Maiden Radiating Warp-Voiding Aura

(14) Null Maiden Leading Ruthless Prosecutor Squad

(15) Null Mistress With Devoted Vigilator Bodyguard

(16) Null Mistress Leading Implacable Witchseeker Squad

(17) Oblivion Knight Wielding Indomitable Power Sword

(18) Oblivion Knight Resplendent in Golden Mail and Furs

Spoiler:

(19) Raptor Guard Initiate Overseeing the Psyker-Tithe

Spoiler:

(20) Raptor Guard Veteran At The Emperor's Left Hand

Automatically Appended Next Post:
And just for fun . . .

Events of the Horus Heresy

(1) Excited About The Great Crusade

(2) Happy That We Found Our Primarch

(3) Changing The Name Of Our Legion

(4) Troubled By Non-Compliant Worlds

(5) Wondering Why The Emperor Left

(6) Jealous That Horus Is Warmaster

(7) Counterproductively Competing With Other Legions

(8) Thinking Of Joining A Davinite Lodge

(9) Member Of A Lodge? I Can't Say.

(10) Never Forget Isstvan!

(11) Lit By The Flames Of Prospero

(12) Did Fulgrim Just Behead Ferrus Mannus?

(13) Preparing For The Invasion Of Terra

(14) Teleporting To The Battle Barge

Spoiler:

(15) Plugging In The Golden Throne

Spoiler:

(16) Consigned To The Grim Darkness

Still not available for use, however . . . :(

There are some absolutely stunning conversions out their already. Plenty to draw inspiration from OR be totally intimidated by . . .

That model looks very slick.