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Deadshane1 wrote:Without BoSL, footslogging sisters (arguably one of the most competetive power builds that codex can do right now) is totally out of the window.

I haven't seen a footslogging sisters army in years in three different states and dozens of events, so I don't see how that's any different than just about any other footslogging army, BoSL or not.

It's bad for drive by units as well.

How so?

Any Veteran sisters army worth his salt would EASILY say, "take my Krak grenade option away" before "take away my BoSL"....and that is a fact.

if we were only talking about krak grenades, that may be true. But we're getting more changes than just swapping those.

BoSL saves squads from dying when they need to hang on by a thread, it's versitile, it's a wonderful ability.

It can also shield opposing units from you shooting at them as they hide in CC.

....krak grenades give you a last ditch effort against SOME tanks when your multiple melta fail you.

So anything that isn't a Land Raider or a combat walker. The overwhelmingly vast majority of tanks in the game. Hitting a leman russ for example with 10 Krak Grenades on a 4+ is more likely to result in killing the tank than 2 BS4 meltaguns, about 3x as likely if it didn't move, and it can't get a cover save from krak grenades.

Marthike wrote:

I think what people are getting at is, when have you ever assualted a tank and used your grenades? Never

With the current list? Never, because grenades are too expensive. With my CSM's? Almost every game it happens.

you will never be charging into a tank because if your melta can't kill it then you probably get assualted my whats in that tank anyway. And you rarely want to assualt when you can rapid fire or sit in your tank and wait it out.

that assumes its a transport with something inside that will want to assault, and not a gun tank or an empty transport or a transport with weeny units.

Your position is nonsensical, and always has been. Stop repeating inane ideas based off of a philosophy with no grounding in reality, logic, reason, or sanity..

aka_mythos is one of the most logical and sane persons on this board. You ought to reign in your constant accusations of everybody not sharing your opinion being children, illogical etc etc and then people will take you more seriously in return. It´s a win win really.



Krak grenades, dunno, only saw them useful once when I was rammed into by a mob of killakans, those kraks saved my behind that time.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

So anything that isn't a Land Raider or a combat walker. The overwhelmingly vast majority of tanks in the game. Hitting a leman russ for example with 10 Krak Grenades on a 4+ is more likely to result in killing the tank than 2 BS4 meltaguns, about 3x as likely if it didn't move, and it can't get a cover save from krak grenades.

This!

Grenades give more options and thus a wider range of usage on the table.
The apparent trend with GW is to drown everything in grenades so why should sisters be excepted from this?

More options in a unit is not always the most efficient use of points army wide.

When talking about Krak on sisters of battle squads, this is the case.

Marthike wrote:I think what people are getting at is, when have you ever assualted a tank and used your grenades? Never

I don't ever see people use them over their PF or melta.

you will never be charging into a tank because if your melta can't kill it then you probably get assualted my whats in that tank anyway. And you rarely want to assualt when you can rapid fire or sit in your tank and wait it out.

I use my grenades on marines and even IG plenty of times to assault tanks. Have you ever had your mech-sob transport blown up placing you in front of the enemy army (including a nasty ordnance ap3 tank)? Is it better to just stand there to fire a single additional multimelta or better to move 12" including charging while firing regular meltas and then following up with 10 krak grenades? Having grenades sure helps in that kind of situation. Is it better than a PF? No... but they're meant as a backup for when meltas miss, not as a replacement for them as your post above suggests. I run vet IG with triple meltas and meltabombs every game and I still need to assault individual tanks after shooting to get the job done 1/3 of the time due to average dice rolls. The exact situation you're saying never happens occurs at least once a game for me every time I pull out my IG (I have multiple vet squads and there's a heavy mech meta locally just like across the US). I realize that you guys aren't happy about losing some of the unique rules that you had but lets not somehow run with that to the point that adding in frag/krak/melta to units is somehow a bad thing. I sincerely doubt the decision at GW R&D came down to "Should we take away these old rules OR the grenades because one of them has to go..."

Deadshane1 wrote:More options in a unit is not always the most efficient use of points army wide.

True in many cases

When talking about Krak on sisters of battle squads, this is the case.

When they're adding 1pt for frag/krak/6++ to the base cost, it's not something I'm going to complain about. Not a bad deal. Not an *amazing* deal either, but not a bad one.

More options in a unit is not always the most efficient use of points army wide.

When talking about Krak on sisters of battle squads, this is the case.

Sure I too would like 3 meltaguns on my SM squads instead of grenades but this is irrelevant as GWs path is apparently to give variability of play to units so suck it up.

Hell, I want my SM, sisters etc to get 4 meltaguns per squad too.
Say can I have meltaguns on my grey knights too and stormshields as well, those are far more effective then grenades...


Seeing the current trend to give out grenades I fully expect sisters to get them too...and pay for them as well since they will be up against mostly equally "ineffective" grenades on other armies troops.

It's also 1 point more for much worse faith powers that are less dependable and loss of the 5+ save against psychic powers.

Pyriel- wrote:eeing the current trend to give out grenades I fully expect sisters to get them too...and pay for them as well since they will be up against mostly equally "ineffective" grenades on other armies troops.

The only army grenades will help Sisters against are Orks. And that's only a marginal, laughable help.

There's no difference between a battle sister squad assaulting a longfang squad to tie it up with frag grenades or one doing the same without. Or Eldar. Or Tyranids. And if you really have to assault guard or tau, you WANT the assault to last two phases, not one.

If you honestly think grenades on sisters are worth as much as grenades on Marines, you have never played fifth edition 40k.

Melissia wrote:The only army grenades will help Sisters against are Orks. And that's only a marginal, laughable help.

*assault* grenades sure (well, Orks, some daemons, Tau and IG and Necrons, other sisters, various units from other armies, etc), but Krak grenades are useful against every army but Tyranids and Necrons.

It's also 1 point more for much worse faith powers that are less dependable and loss of the 5+ save against psychic powers.

Eh, if you factor in that squads will take casualties and that you can't always use all powers under optimal conditions, reliability probably isn't too effected. The loss of the 5+ save is a bit of a blow true, but also highly situational as many armies either don't have psykers or won't be using offensive psychic powers, though yeah, that one does sorta suck.

Vaktathi wrote:

Melissia wrote:The only army grenades will help Sisters against are Orks. And that's only a marginal, laughable help.

*assault* grenades sure (well, Orks, some daemons, Tau and IG and Necrons, other sisters, various units from other armies, etc), but Krak grenades are useful against every army but Tyranids and Necrons.

Against shooty armies, winning assaults faster is actually often a bad thing as it leaves you open to their shooting phase afterwards.

Melissia wrote:

Pyriel- wrote:eeing the current trend to give out grenades I fully expect sisters to get them too...and pay for them as well since they will be up against mostly equally "ineffective" grenades on other armies troops.

The only army grenades will help Sisters against are Orks. And that's only a marginal, laughable help.

There's no difference between a battle sister squad assaulting a longfang squad to tie it up with frag grenades or one doing the same without. Or Eldar. Or Tyranids. And if you really have to assault guard or tau, you WANT the assault to last two phases, not one.

If you honestly think grenades on sisters are worth as much as grenades on Marines, you have never played fifth edition 40k.

I'm just going to flat out say that SoBs were and still are significantly better then tactical marines and that the addition of a grenade isn't making them useless. The basic troop is not what made the witch hunters army uncompetitive, they have a better basic troop then most. The sister is a cheap, durable, and high output squad with good options for fighting both mech and horde. That didn't change. This entire argument is idiotic, 30-40 point increase in your full 2000 point army for the grenades and 6+ saves is a wash. You roll three sixes in the entire game and you made those points back.

Complain about something sensible please.

Vaktathi wrote:

Deadshane1 wrote:More options in a unit is not always the most efficient use of points army wide.

True in many cases

When talking about Krak on sisters of battle squads, this is the case.

When they're adding 1pt for frag/krak/6++ to the base cost, it's not something I'm going to complain about. Not a bad deal. Not an *amazing* deal either, but not a bad one.

We're losing so much though. Reiterating everything that's gone seems pointless now look at any given page of this thread or the last one. The ones that hurt the most to me are the tank cannoness and the super faith powered bolters and heavy-flamers. These, and others, were fundamental to the play style of the army. Now we have something else, and it's worse in almost every way. Faith is a joke, 6++ and grenades? Seriously? I'm supposed to feel better about that? The army that they've given us isn't the same one as we had before. Almost everything is there with the same names but the it's not the same thing.

Go have fun with it though, it's your game too. But I think most of us Sister's player are pretty annoyed by this and pointing out how well you did with krak grenades one time isn't going to make us feel better.




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ShumaGorath wrote:

Melissia wrote:

Pyriel- wrote:eeing the current trend to give out grenades I fully expect sisters to get them too...and pay for them as well since they will be up against mostly equally "ineffective" grenades on other armies troops.

The only army grenades will help Sisters against are Orks. And that's only a marginal, laughable help.

There's no difference between a battle sister squad assaulting a longfang squad to tie it up with frag grenades or one doing the same without. Or Eldar. Or Tyranids. And if you really have to assault guard or tau, you WANT the assault to last two phases, not one.

If you honestly think grenades on sisters are worth as much as grenades on Marines, you have never played fifth edition 40k.

I'm just going to flat out say that SoBs were and still are significantly better then tactical marines and that the addition of a grenade isn't making them useless. The basic troop is not what made the witch hunters army uncompetitive, they have a better basic troop then most. The sister is a cheap, durable, and high output squad with good options for fighting both mech and horde. That didn't change. This entire argument is idiotic, 30-40 point increase in your full 2000 point army for the grenades and 6+ saves is a wash. You roll three sixes in the entire game and you made those points back.

Complain about something sensible please.

If you think that the grenades and a 6++ justify an addition point to the costs you're either delusional or intentionally obtuse. I'd rather still have a 3++ if I wanted it and the free faith from the squad dying when I didn't. To blast whomever killed them with another power I don't have anymore.

When just about everyone posting in a thread suggests that your comments indicate you're not overly familiar with how an army plays or its tactics, then it's probably time to either put up (i.e. link to an After Action Report that demonstrates otherwise) or shut up.

sleezesteve wrote:
These, and others, were fundamental to the play style of the army. Now we have something else, and it's worse in almost every way.

And yet we have no wargear listing or options list for units. Lets wait to see those.

Faith is a joke

it's not as extensive sure, the abilities are more limited, that doesn't mean they aren't useful.

6++ and grenades? Seriously? I'm supposed to feel better about that?

I sure don't mind it for my sisters. It's certainly not a bad things.

The army that they've given us isn't the same one as we had before. Almost everything is there with the same names but the it's not the same thing.

And Codex: Witch Hunters wasn't the same as 2E Codex: Sisters of Battle, that was bound to happen updating a book 8 years and 2 editions later to some extent. Lets wait for the wargear and options before screaming the sky is falling. If they suck, then yeah, sure, we can rail about how the list sucks donkey butt.

That said, 12pts for a Bolter wielding 3+/6++sv BS4 Ld8/9 unit with a special (if not 100% reliable) ability is bad at all, I'd take them over many other similarly costed or stat'd units like dire avengers, stomtroopers, carapace vets, SM scouts, etc.


Far more important is going to be how the support options measure up.


Honestly, more than anything I'm mad about Seraphim getting dumped to Init3.

Go have fun with it though, it's your game too. But I think most of us Sister's player are pretty annoyed by this and pointing out how well you did with krak grenades one time isn't going to make us feel better.

If it were only one time I wouldn't be touting the awesomeness of krak grenades. The fact that my CSM's use them damn near every game, and I get them routinely used against me by armies equipped with them (read: every late 4E/5E SM army), I understand their value quite well.

Vaktathi wrote:

sleezesteve wrote:
These, and others, were fundamental to the play style of the army. Now we have something else, and it's worse in almost every way.

And yet we have no wargear listing or options list for units. Lets wait to see those.

Why would you want to wait?

Every time you wait, it gets worse and proves the pessimists right.

I come back from 3 days camping to a gakstorm. Well, I'm going to just say the same thing as before anyways... I'll believe it when I see the scans or have it in my hands on Saturday.

Melissia wrote:Why would you want to wait?

Every time you wait, it gets worse and proves the pessimists right.

Because nobody knows for sure yet. Yeah, there's good chance of things being bad. There's also a chance of it being decent. Just wait 3 days and we'll all find out for real and can quit all this conjecture.

Melissia wrote:Why would you want to wait?

So we have a full picture of what we are talking about here?

Every time you wait, it gets worse and proves the pessimists right.

Possibly, this *is* Games Workshop, but still, before people go running around screaming about the sky falling because they're being given some not-useless-at-all wargear, we should see the full setup. If it turns out that the list as a whole is putzed, which is entirely possible, then fine, I'll join in the whining too. But the crying over the not-yet-confrimed loss of a crutch piece of wargear (BoSL) and how anti-tank grenades are useless (they're not) and the automatic equating of one with the other, I find it a bit melodramatic on the part of some posters.

Vaktathi wrote:

Melissia wrote:Why would you want to wait?

So we have a full picture of what we are talking about here?

Exactly, and it ain't gonna be pretty.

Vaktathi wrote:I find it a bit melodramatic on the part of some posters.

There's no "crying" except by people who are complaining about people who don't like what they see.

"JUST WAIT, IT'LL GET BETTER! IT'LL CURE FIVE KINDS OF CANCER! EVERYTHING IS POSSIBLE!".

Yes, I get it, you have unreasonably high expectations, but I prefer to keep my feet well grounded in reality. Stop annoying the pessimists already It's like talking to a friggin' gambler. "I could win this next one." "You probably won't." "But I could!" "Dude, just shut up and waste your thrice-damned money already."

Brother SRM wrote:Because nobody knows for sure yet. Yeah, there's good chance of things being bad. There's also a chance of it being decent. Just wait 3 days and we'll all find out for real and can quit all this conjecture.

There's a chance that looking at it will fill people with orgasmic bliss, too, but I doubt Slaanesh will spare the attention.

Tabitha wrote:Hey I read the rumors.

Good bit of them from that page are wrong.

Which rumours specifically? That Sisters of Battle and Celestians have had a points cost increase? Or that Heavy Flamers now cost 20 points for BSSs? Or that Blessed Ammunition and Blessed Weapons have been removed? Please, any information you can provide would be wonderful

Things I really liked about the WH Codex was the faith system was really cool and the flying nuns. Well last issue they neutered the faith system and now I hear there are no more flying nuns? :(

12 points per sister if you get frag and krak grenades and a 6+ invuln isn't too bad in itself just they took a lot away in the old faith system it doesn't seem like they gave back much. Squad heavy flamers cost 20 pts in the Guard Codex so I'm not surprised they cost 20 in sisters.

Edited by Manchu

The only army grenades will help Sisters against are Orks. And that's only a marginal, laughable help.

As Vaktathi said, other sisters, tau, IG, deamons, necrons etc so what´s all the whining about again?

There's no difference between a battle sister squad assaulting a longfang squad to tie it up with frag grenades or one doing the same without

So? There is no difference using SM grenades assaulting deamonettes or wyches either. Cry me a river.
Why again must sister wargear be inherently better?

If you honestly think grenades on sisters are worth as much as grenades on Marines, you have never played fifth edition 40k.

They both suck and I would like more assault weapons on the SM instead but GW stuck us with grenades, deal with it!
Also I really hope the SM grenades are more worth since they are placed on more expensive and thus less numeral models.

Hell lets cry rivers over ork claws being so much better then SM powerfists or SoB eviscerators when we are at it again since orks claws get more attacks for the same pointcost wargear, boo hoo.
Apparently other places in the respective armies balance out things in the end.

Against shooty armies, winning assaults faster is actually often a bad thing as it leaves you open to their shooting phase afterwards.

Damn, that means SM squads are even more worthless in melee vs tau, how unfair, whine whine etc etc etc.
You get the point yet?

We're losing so much though. Reiterating everything that's gone seems pointless now look at any given page of this thread or the last one. The ones that hurt the most to me are the tank cannoness and the super faith powered bolters and heavy-flamers. These, and others, were fundamental to the play style of the army. Now we have something else, and it's worse in almost every way. Faith is a joke, 6++ and grenades? Seriously? I'm supposed to feel better about that? The army that they've given us isn't the same one as we had before. Almost everything is there with the same names but the it's not the same thing.

I agree, you´we lost a lot but I don´t for a second thing GW is going to make a totally undrepowered crap army that will always come last in every tournament.
We havent seen the whole picture yet.

Just look back a couple of months where hordes of GK players (including myself at the very start) were whining and crying rivers that GW took away everything powerful with the already underpowered GK.
We lost WS5, we lost S6, we lost stormshields, how can this crap be competitive, how can it be fun etc etc and look now, more fun to play then ever before and not the slightest underpowered but still with huge weaknesses to cope with.

Sure people like melissia wants the very best, toughest, most powerful sister units in the whole game or else they are broken and woe anyone who dares give them ANY wargear that is not at least as effective, worth and powerful as their equivalent in another codex. I can go on for hours about this but in the end after the whining orgies have eased an people learned the new army I am sure you will get a good and fun army.

If you think that the grenades and a 6++ justify an addition point to the costs you're either delusional or intentionally obtuse. I'd rather still have a 3++

Nah I´m not obtuse nor delusional, rather you are narrow minded.
As said, I would rather retain my GK WS5, S6 and stormshields... oh I got a new army that wasnt as bad as I thought it would be, geez how odd things can be when you don´t look at the whole concept.
You think me delusional, you who only see a small detail and cry over it, you who dont even know what or how the new wargear will look like, you call me delusional then what are you in turn, overly hysterical or just a hypocrite?

And Codex: Witch Hunters wasn't the same as 2E Codex: Sisters of Battle, that was bound to happen updating a book 8 years and 2 editions later to some extent. Lets wait for the wargear and options before screaming the sky is falling. If they suck, then yeah, sure, we can rail about how the list sucks donkey butt.

But but but...they arent as powerful as before you know *sob*
All this whining and that even before anyone out there knows how the final thing will work and what is given in return for the things removed.
But hey, it´s us who are delusional.

Christ on a pushbike!

Honestly, more than anything I'm mad about Seraphim getting dumped to Init3.

That i agree on, seems illogical. I wonder what GW intends their fit in the whole army will be.
I have no delusions about the odd unit or units being simply to underpowered or overpriced to ever be used since this happens with e v e are y codex so some sister units are bound to become pure crap as are some GK units ans SM units and units in all codexes.

If it were only one time I wouldn't be touting the awesomeness of krak grenades. The fact that my CSM's use them damn near every game, and I get them routinely used against me by armies equipped with them (read: every late 4E/5E SM army), I understand their value quite well.

They sure have their worth, even on weak things since nothing with armour can be assured of a victory when charging anymore. Sure extra meltaguns would be better but GW decided to stuck everything with grenades so be it.

Brother SRM wrote:So they can say they updated every pre-4th ed codex by the time 6th ed rolls around. That and the idea that they're giving us a playtest codex, and trying to put more content into WD to boost sales.

I think most ignored me when I made this point before, but I wonder if one reason for this update is that it'll make the eventual 6th ed errata much easier for GW. If the 6th ed rumors are true, there'll be some extensive errata for each army...and I can imagine the errata for the quaint old 3rd ed codex being a very lengthy document.

Well, to be fair, it's not quite a points increase. Point for point, comparing a rhino squad from witchhunters to the new whitedwarf, you'll find them very comparable. You pay 10 more points per sister, but sergeant and rhino is cheaper..but some special and and heavy weapons are more expensive. It's pretty much a bump pointwise.

Also...6++ sucks. Think about it..when will it ever be used?

You won't use it that much vs. shots. Most of the time, your cover save or your armor save will be better. There are very things in the game that's ap3 no cover, but they do exist. It's also possible to be out in the open vs. something ap3. But the time you will use it the most will be in hth against power weapons and powerfists.

It's not completely worthless, but it's definitely worse than a situational 3++ or stubborn.

I do believe celestians are 2 attacks now. Is that worth it? I don't think so, but that's partially why they are going to be more expensive.

gorgon wrote:

Brother SRM wrote:So they can say they updated every pre-4th ed codex by the time 6th ed rolls around. That and the idea that they're giving us a playtest codex, and trying to put more content into WD to boost sales.

I think most ignored me when I made this point before, but I wonder if one reason for this update is that it'll make the eventual 6th ed errata much easier for GW. If the 6th ed rumors are true, there'll be some extensive errata for each army...and I can imagine the errata for the quaint old 3rd ed codex being a very lengthy document.

I imagine either that or just a 'shut up' we did all the armies when 6th drops. Also if the 6th rumours and those page scans I saw were true. Sisters are getting an early 6th ed codex anyway

That said, 12pts for a Bolter wielding 3+/6++sv BS4 Ld8/9 unit with a special (if not 100% reliable) ability is bad at all, I'd take them over many other similarly costed or stat'd units like dire avengers, stomtroopers, carapace vets, SM scouts, etc.

Dire avengers, storm troopers, carapace vets, and sm scouts are considered uncompetitive.

WHen they are taken, they tend to be taken as minimum sized squads to either max out heavy weapons or max out transports.

That being said, scouts and carapace vets are a much better buy than SoB imo. Scouts have atsknf, access to sniperrifles, missile launchers, and camo cloaks, as well as a marine stat line. Vets are vets...just carapace vets are overpriced vets that do the same thing as their 7 point bretheren. Of course, SoB can't take 3 special weapons, a lascannon, and a chimera in a scoring troop choice.

Pretty much every competitive build with dire avengers take 5, no sgt or upgrades just to add another scoring wave serpent.

Storm troopers are pretty junky though.

Pyriel- wrote:
I agree, you´we lost a lot but I don´t for a second thing GW is going to make a totally undrepowered crap army that will always come last in every tournament.
We havent seen the whole picture yet.

Yeah we'll see. But so far everything that has come forward looks like an ill conceived afterthought. It would be great to be proven wrong about it but you seem allot more optimistic than I am. I play grey knights too and at this point in codex discovery, or whatever you want to call it, I thought the new codex seemed awesome. Maybe because I never modeled up and termis with storm shields?

This argument about grenades is funny.

Veterans in IG are 7 points and come with grenades. Basic troopers are 5. Compared to their old codex, they went DOWN in points and gained grenades.

For SoB, compared to their old codex, they went UP in points and gained grenades.

The real problem with the basic squad isn't really their points. It's really their squad options and size for their points. If you could take only 5 with 2 special weapons and a heavy and an immolator, basic squads would be a really really good buy even at 13 points.

At 12 points, a minimum 10 and canoness can't take a jumppack..they're kinda restricted in role. Like tact marines, you have to committ a lot of points and effort into your troop choices, but unlike tact squads they aren't really very tactical, as basic sisters only really do one thing.

I'm okay with sisters of battle being 12 if they were the best close range firepower in the game like they used to be. They need it anyways. It's just that they aren't that good at close range shooting anymore. Even chaos marines pack just as many special weapons these days...

Edit: I notice too that this may be a design shift or the start of a different trend in the way army books are done. For a while, basic troopers were going down in points. Orks, space marines, space wolves, Imperial guard...a lot of these codecies made their troops cheaper when they came out. Transports went down as well...rhinos to 35, chimeras to 55.

I first noticed with Dark Eldar that this stopped being true. For the first time in a long time, contrary to expectations, troops AND transports became more expensive compared to their old codex. Now...basic sisters have gotten more expensive. Why? I don't know...but they seem to be trying to design the game differently again.

scuddman wrote:

That said, 12pts for a Bolter wielding 3+/6++sv BS4 Ld8/9 unit with a special (if not 100% reliable) ability is bad at all, I'd take them over many other similarly costed or stat'd units like dire avengers, stomtroopers, carapace vets, SM scouts, etc.

Dire avengers, storm troopers, carapace vets, and sm scouts are considered uncompetitive.

WHen they are taken, they tend to be taken as minimum sized squads to either max out heavy weapons or max out transports.

That being said, scouts and carapace vets are a much better buy than SoB imo. Scouts have atsknf, access to sniperrifles, missile launchers, and camo cloaks, as well as a marine stat line. Vets are vets...just carapace vets are overpriced vets that do the same thing as their 7 point bretheren. Of course, SoB can't take 3 special weapons, a lascannon, and a chimera in a scoring troop choice.

Pretty much every competitive build with dire avengers take 5, no sgt or upgrades just to add another scoring wave serpent.

Storm troopers are pretty junky though.

You really make it sounds like the issue is that SoB aren't space marines...

Dire Avengers, Storm Troopers, Carapace Vets, and sm scouts are relatively uncompetitive because for their point cost they aren't survivable enough. SoB mitigate that common short coming and are more survivable than all those short of Scouts with camo cloaks that are dug in, but those are pricier.

I think most of the issues SoB have are more an issue with the codex composition as a whole than their core troop choice. They aren't marines plain and simple, so they really need a volume of models in a squad to have longevity. If a 15+ model squad can bring something extra beyond numbers thats what would really help, by that I mean a greater density of specials and heavies, and vehicles. The emphasis on vehicles this edition is another thing going against SoB... they need the numbers in their squads but there vehicle selection limits that. They need either a means to do something like combat squad and take multiple vehicle or just a larger vehicle that can transport a larger squad, even if it isn't a full sized squad.

Next the troop choice suffers because unlike other armies there really aren't enough other units that really draw fire. In a marine army you can list the units that are greater priority, in a SoB army alot units just come up about the same level of priority and are all relatively fragile to the same score of weapons.