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Mythal wrote:Lots of folks seem to be assuming we'll get to keep our specials to models ratios. I suspect Ward will have nerfed those so Dominions in Immolators will only get two Meltaguns, with ten-Dominions squads needed for four specials - same with Retributors. I'd be really, pleasantly surprised if this wasn't the case, though :-)

I knew this was going to be something of a nerf, but they could have left us with something. Thrown us one or two bones. It is going to need a really big penny to drop in the second half to really turn his around.

My biggest beef with this codex is that it takes something that was unique (faith powers) and replaces it with some poorly thought out bullshizzle. The codex now looks like some kind of crappy fandex made by 16 year olds.
But alas, what can you expect.. it has the taint of ward on it.

Actually it'd be fine if Ward had written the rules and Cruddace written the fluff, instead of the other way around.

All you need to know about the new SoB codex is summed up in the first paragraph of the actual rules.

"Yet miracles are not to be relied upon. At the heart of the Imperial Creed is the belief that the divine Emperor relies on his followers to create their own salvation."

Faith is not Power Through Pain, it is not GK Psyker powers. It is an added perk to the army. Evaluating 'new' vs 'old' faith is pointless because the 'new' SoB design philosophy emphasizes the mettle of the SoB themselves.

How this will play out I am unsure, but assume this is the philosophy and their design starts to make sense. 1d6 Faith Points a turn - unreliable. Only specific Acts of Faith for specific units - specialized powers will see less use. More difficult to pass a Faith Test, can only use Faith on your own turn. These very much suggest Faith is secondary.

What I hope to see is a big reduction in points. I am unsure if this will happen though.

Edit: Having seen the new Penitent Engine rules, they are still going to stink. Now they are even slower than before (no extra d6 from Holy Rage) and are just as fragile. A 6+ invuln doesn't add anything of significance.

The Decapitator wrote:It makes me laugh that every new Codex/Army book release, the forums go mental with people complaining about 'codex creep' and that this new army is more overpowered than the last one and that seemingly the world is coming to an end, GW are idiots and all the rest of if.

They release a 'seemingly' underpowered dex, and you're all doing exactly the same thing but in reverse! Now you hate that it's NOT as powerful as the last codex and that the world is still coming to an end, GW are still idiots etc etc.

Change the record, it's getting boring.

I agree. Wanting balanced books is wrong!

Omegus wrote:

The Decapitator wrote:It makes me laugh that every new Codex/Army book release, the forums go mental with people complaining about 'codex creep' and that this new army is more overpowered than the last one and that seemingly the world is coming to an end, GW are idiots and all the rest of if.

They release a 'seemingly' underpowered dex, and you're all doing exactly the same thing but in reverse! Now you hate that it's NOT as powerful as the last codex and that the world is still coming to an end, GW are still idiots etc etc.

Change the record, it's getting boring.

I agree. Wanting balanced books is wrong!

True Decapitator I wish they would get over it too, but as omegus said to me the web is were ****l people come to cry about real and fake stuff.

SabrX wrote:

Dr Mathias wrote:How about that standing on one leg pose on the Penitent Engine on page 97 of the WD? Finecast?

You mean the same Penitent Engine on page 51 of codex Witch Hunters with a picture taken at a different angle?

Yeah, that theory has already been debunked. It's not a new model.

I'd believe it, have you ever tried to model a penitent engine to even stand? Let alone on one leg? It's hell for the hobby, that's about the best I can say.

Melissia wrote:Actually it'd be fine if Ward had written the rules and Cruddace written the fluff, instead of the other way around.

I'm not sure if I agree there. The idea of formalising a rule that spontaneous sacrifice of SoB squads provides allied units in Apoc with saves against daemonic powers might have been too much for me to cope with.

army310 wrote:the web is were ****l people come to cry about real and fake stuff.

Oh, tell me about it. All those kids with their Smartphones and the Facebook statuses and whatnot. Terrible. Bring back the glory days of Usenet.

But on-topic, I'm sure that whatever they do to SoB in the second half of the Codex, there'll be some way to make it work. We might never be a cool army to collect, and we might never get all the pretty toys and special rules, but that's not necessarily a bad thing - at least we'll remain an exclusive collectors' club, and nobody can accuse us of being swayed by peer pressure or the inexplicable urge to hoard the latest flavour-of-the-month force. And when we win, everyone will know we're doing so against the odds.

Edit:

Also, the whole 'fluff' argument takes things out of the tabletop context. I love the fluff of 40k. I hoard the literature (including the bits that can only be described as 'literature' by a criminally generous commentator). But if we follow fluff to the letter, trying to apply it to the tabletop context, everything breaks down. In a fluff context, the Orders Militant of the Adepta Sororitas are probably the best-equipped force of foot-slogging humans in the Imperium, and trained to a standard such that every serving member is at the peak of what can be considered human condition. They're basically an army with the equipment of the Astartes, where each fighter is as skilled as a veteran guardsman of several campaigns. And in a fluff context, a single combat squad of Astartes can eradicate the population of a hemisphere. And an Inquisitor can annihilate a planet with a word (which rather makes tabletop play somewhat redundant).

Omegus wrote:

The Decapitator wrote:It makes me laugh that every new Codex/Army book release, the forums go mental with people complaining about 'codex creep' and that this new army is more overpowered than the last one and that seemingly the world is coming to an end, GW are idiots and all the rest of if.

They release a 'seemingly' underpowered dex, and you're all doing exactly the same thing but in reverse! Now you hate that it's NOT as powerful as the last codex and that the world is still coming to an end, GW are still idiots etc etc.

Change the record, it's getting boring.

I agree. Wanting balanced books is wrong!

I have a Pen Engine modeled so it's charging, only one leg is firmly planted on the ground and the model is swept forward. The back leg is kicked back from running, only the toe touches the ground base. So ya, it is possible to model a metal Pen Engine on one leg.

calypso2ts wrote:Evaluating 'new' vs 'old' faith is pointless because the 'new' SoB design philosophy emphasizes the mettle of the SoB themselves.

If it's meant to emphasise the mettle of the Sisters, then they should have actually made changes to emphasise the mettle of the Sisters. As-is, all they've done is remove the old design philosophy and add nothing to replace it.

AlexHolker wrote:

calypso2ts wrote:Evaluating 'new' vs 'old' faith is pointless because the 'new' SoB design philosophy emphasizes the mettle of the SoB themselves.

If it's meant to emphasise the mettle of the Sisters, then they should have actually made changes to emphasise the mettle of the Sisters. As-is, all they've done is remove the old design philosophy and add nothing to replace it.

It looks like we will need to build armies that are not based on the Faith mechanic...That will be a big change to a good amount of Sister players. I am just trying to figure one out without Immolator spam. Heck, with Celestians as troops, Immo spam will be even easier to build.

Indeed, that's probably gonna be the only tactic that's going to work for the army. Razorback... I mean Immolator spam with lots of dominions and triple exorcists. It'll still be inferior to Marine versions though, as Marine razorback spam has more variety and better payload...

Also, the whole 'fluff' argument takes things out of the tabletop context. I love the fluff of 40k. I hoard the literature (including the bits that can only be described as 'literature' by a criminally generous commentator). But if we follow fluff to the letter, trying to apply it to the tabletop context, everything breaks down. In a fluff context, the Orders Militant of the Adepta Sororitas are probably the best-equipped force of foot-slogging humans in the Imperium, and trained to a standard such that every serving member is at the peak of what can be considered human condition. They're basically an army with the equipment of the Astartes, where each fighter is as skilled as a veteran guardsman of several campaigns. And in a fluff context, a single combat squad of Astartes can eradicate the population of a hemisphere. And an Inquisitor can annihilate a planet with a word (which rather makes tabletop play somewhat redundant).

Pfft Astartes wish they could take out a whole hemisphere's population. Kinda hard to do that with only one magazine for your weapon on you when there are millions to billions of targets.

Melissia wrote:Indeed, that's probably gonna be the only tactic that's going to work for the army. Razorback... I mean Immolator spam with lots of dominions and triple exorcists. It'll still be inferior to Marine versions though, as Marine razorback spam has more variety and better payload...

Indeed. Sisters never fared well against superior ranged fire power. And a squad on squad fight against Space Marines also isn't in the Sisters of Battle's favor. The only way around this is fielding a sufficient amount of cheap Chimeras and have Sisters hijack them on turn 1. Front AV12 combined with the choo-choo train formation will at least boost the chances the Immolators survives the trek across the board.

Sigh.. if only GW gave us cheap Repressors with front AV12...

SabrX wrote:And a squad on squad fight against Space Marines also isn't in the Sisters of Battle's favor.

I don't know about you what codex you were playing, but Space Marines would just get melted by AP 1 in the previous codex, so much so that I think that a Sister Squad is much more point effective than a normal space marine squad.

Well on further review it looks like sisters have good morale. Ld 9 is meq, and the scoring sisters aof can regroup the squad on a 3+ as long as the squad leader is alive. The regrouping aof makes the prospect of walking scoring units off the table or tank shocking scoring units off an objective both questionable.

Kreedos wrote:

SabrX wrote:And a squad on squad fight against Space Marines also isn't in the Sisters of Battle's favor.

I don't know about you what codex you were playing, but Space Marines would just get melted by AP 1 in the previous codex, so much so that I think that a Sister Squad is much more point effective than a normal space marine squad.

*points toward the thread title*

Who cares what codex Witch Hunter's Sisters of Battle were capable of? The topic of this thread is the new Sisters of Battle, which is sourly lacking in Divine Guidance.

And BTW, even codex Witch Hunters failed against Razor-spam. Anti-mech range shooting is the 'Achilles Heel' of Sisters of Battle.

schadenfreude wrote:Well on further review it looks like sisters have good morale. Ld 9 is meq, and the scoring sisters aof can regroup the squad on a 3+ as long as the squad leader is alive. The regrouping aof makes the prospect of walking scoring units off the table or tank shocking scoring units off an objective both questionable.

Thing is, that's actually the sign of a nerf.

Sisters used to have that act of faith available to the ENTIRE ARMY.

SabrX wrote:
And BTW, even codex Witch Hunters failed against Razor-spam. Anti-mech range shooting is the 'Achilles Heel' of Sisters of Battle.

I concur with SabrX's assessment across the board, this statement is true. I am not sure if it has changed - probably not because that is just not the design 'style' of the army.

I agree that I do not see how the old Faith has been replaced by 'new mettle' sisters. That said, the design philosophy remains the same at least. I hope they still are not 11 points because 'look they got grenades' I actually liked not having grenades, it stopped me from doing something stupid like assaulting with my Sisters!

Meh, the only uint that really needed grenades was celestians. And they got nerfed to the point where they're now only really useful with an attached canoness against dedicated assault armies, so....

Melissia wrote:Meh, the only uint that really needed grenades was celestians. And they got nerfed to the point where they're now only really useful with an attached canoness against dedicated assault armies, so....

I have the feeling Repentia and the henchmen will be the populr choices for cc.

Was the old regroup miracle roll under or over squad size?

schadenfreude wrote:

Melissia wrote:Meh, the only uint that really needed grenades was celestians. And they got nerfed to the point where they're now only really useful with an attached canoness against dedicated assault armies, so....

I have the feeling Repentia and the henchmen will be the populr choices for cc.

Was the old regroup miracle roll under or over squad size?

equal or over

Which made sense. A unit falling back usually had suffered casualties.

We still need the 2nd half of the book. Do imagnifiers do the same thing as before,and if so how much? That would up the odds to 8/9 times regardless of squad size.

Mythal wrote:Also, the whole 'fluff' argument takes things out of the tabletop context. I love the fluff of 40k. I hoard the literature (including the bits that can only be described as 'literature' by a criminally generous commentator). But if we follow fluff to the letter, trying to apply it to the tabletop context, everything breaks down. In a fluff context, the Orders Militant of the Adepta Sororitas are probably the best-equipped force of foot-slogging humans in the Imperium, and trained to a standard such that every serving member is at the peak of what can be considered human condition. They're basically an army with the equipment of the Astartes, where each fighter is as skilled as a veteran guardsman of several campaigns. And in a fluff context, a single combat squad of Astartes can eradicate the population of a hemisphere. And an Inquisitor can annihilate a planet with a word (which rather makes tabletop play somewhat redundant).

I'd actually flip your argument, Mythal - in the interests of making a "balanced" game (yes, I know...) the stats given for models in the game do not correspond with how they should be. If Marines were given stats appropriate for their background, we end up with Movie Marines - which don't require as many figures, aren't as balanced, and ultimately don't make GW enough money.

The background is the benchmark for how things should be, while the tabletop is the benchmark for how things need to be abstracted to get a game which can be enjoyed.

For a better example than SM vs. SoB stats/costs, I give you weapon ranges...

Indeed, one should never mix fluff and rules. It doesn't make sense and it sucks all the fun out of the game if one side always has an advantage.

Having said that though, the game itself isn't completely balanced. For an example, a well tailored Grey Knight list going first could make it almost impossible for a Daemons of Chaos army to deep strike without mishapping. There's no counter to that other than Daemons winning first turn, which already puts them at a disadvantage. There's definitely a tier of top armies and bottom armies.

I fear the new Sisters of Battle might fall into the lower tier, next to Tau and Necrons.

SabrX wrote:

I fear the new Sisters of Battle might fall into the lower tier, next to Tau and Necrons.

Good - I like a challenge.

If anything it will be interesting to play and we never know what the armoury will bring us.

Although it best not change our Exorcist ;-) THEN I would be mad :(

Dysartes wrote:I'd actually flip your argument, Mythal - in the interests of making a "balanced" game (yes, I know...) the stats given for models in the game do not correspond with how they should be. If Marines were given stats appropriate for their background, we end up with Movie Marines - which don't require as many figures, aren't as balanced, and ultimately don't make GW enough money.

The background is the benchmark for how things should be, while the tabletop is the benchmark for how things need to be abstracted to get a game which can be enjoyed.

I'm not entirely sure we're disagreeing here, since that was the sentiment I was trying to convey in my own post. It's no fun to set out a couple of hundred guardsmen on the tabletop only to have the planet they're on abstractly destroyed by cyclonic torpedoes while never firing a shot. The tabletop rules have to be balanced around enjoyment of both parties more than fluff.

gr1m_dan wrote:Good - I like a challenge.

If someone wants a challenge, they should start bringing 1,500 point armies to 2,000 point games. They shouldn't be picking factions that are significantly weaker than their competition because the factions should be relatively balanced.

If anything it will be interesting to play and we never know what the armoury will bring us.

This is a 5th edition codex, remember? That means there's nothing as interesting as an armoury available.

AlexHolker wrote:

If anything it will be interesting to play and we never know what the armoury will bring us.

This is a 5th edition codex, remember? That means there's nothing as interesting as an armoury available.

For Armoury, read "List of wargear where access will be determined by unit entry" if that makes you feel better/calmer, Alex.