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A.T. wrote:

 Mr Morden wrote:
Ah another paltry toy - still pretty weak

But essential. You'll not be able to chase down a fast opponent like DE now that hand of the emperor is gone, and the slower seraphim are going to cut down on the melta you can get in against knights and other big targets.

It's still some considerable way short of a predator against T8, but it's cheap. And frankly what else are you going to field if not taking allies.

That's a bit how I feel about Sororitas in general. "what else will you field if you aren't taking allies?" is not a good look.

Been working on making a Sisters list that I think would be ok taking to a tournament and it's... difficult. The a detatchment that does seem decent is a Sacred Rose Outrider with 3 Dominion units. One with 5 SBs, the others with 4 meltas a combine flamer and the rest with Bolters. The SB unit to make use of Blessed Ammo, the others to allow activation of the Holy Trinity. Those Strats increase the Dom's effectiveness reasonably well. Really just using Faith to increase some to hit roll, once per turn Add a Canoness to run around a punch stuff. Not sure what to have them ride in, if anything. Rhinos I guess.
The other strat that will see some use will probably be the one to help Deny the Witch.

Beyond that I don't know. Won't need to load up on bodies for more Faith points, and really don't need a ton of CPs for Sisters Strats either. I'm just not sure what to take to do the heavy lifting, what is going to be the backbone?

The other use I've thought of is a Cheap Battalion to generate CPs for another force like Custodes or Knights. 250ish pts for 3 BSS squads and 2 Canoness, with max Storm Bolters to occasionally use Blessed Ammo. You could even take 2 of those detatchment (one would have to have a Missionary) to keep the Custodes or Knights with enough CPs. They'll be tougher to shift than the loyal 32, and might give some extra ways to deny Psychic powers, but won't generate quite as many CPs.

 Creeping Dementia wrote:
Beyond that I don't know. Won't need to load up on bodies for more Faith points, and really don't need a ton of CPs for Sisters Strats either. I'm just not sure what to take to do the heavy lifting, what is going to be the backbone?

Three exorcists, a canoness with the deny relic, and an infantry screen.

Divine Guidance unfortunately does not stack with the canoness re-roll, which throws both it and the shared faith stratagem out the window for this lot. And it all costs as much as a castellan for quite significantly less firepower. But it is what it is, and brings a fair few deny the witch rolls.

 Creeping Dementia wrote:
Been working on making a Sisters list that I think would be ok taking to a tournament and it's... difficult. The a detatchment that does seem decent is a Sacred Rose Outrider with 3 Dominion units. One with 5 SBs, the others with 4 meltas a combine flamer and the rest with Bolters. The SB unit to make use of Blessed Ammo, the others to allow activation of the Holy Trinity. Those Strats increase the Dom's effectiveness reasonably well. Really just using Faith to increase some to hit roll, once per turn Add a Canoness to run around a punch stuff. Not sure what to have them ride in, if anything. Rhinos I guess.
The other strat that will see some use will probably be the one to help Deny the Witch.

Beyond that I don't know. Won't need to load up on bodies for more Faith points, and really don't need a ton of CPs for Sisters Strats either. I'm just not sure what to take to do the heavy lifting, what is going to be the backbone?

The other use I've thought of is a Cheap Battalion to generate CPs for another force like Custodes or Knights. 250ish pts for 3 BSS squads and 2 Canoness, with max Storm Bolters to occasionally use Blessed Ammo. You could even take 2 of those detatchment (one would have to have a Missionary) to keep the Custodes or Knights with enough CPs. They'll be tougher to shift than the loyal 32, and might give some extra ways to deny Psychic powers, but won't generate quite as many CPs.

Quick note on Holy Trinity: you need one Bolter, one flamer and one melta - a combiflamer will only count as either the flamer or the bolter, but not both. At least thats how Id read it.

Yeah that is true. That's why you've got to pack in a couple extra bolter girls for the bolter component, the superior takes care of the flamer.

If these leaks are true, and unless there's all kinds of awesome we don't know about yet, this is very disappointing.

How could GW think we might like this? I mean, that's the really depressing thing- somebody actually thought this was a good idea, and editorial oversight failed to stop them from making a terrible mistake.

It's a beta, so hopefully we can still do something.

PenitentJake wrote:
If these leaks are true, and unless there's all kinds of awesome we don't know about yet, this is very disappointing.

How could GW think we might like this? I mean, that's the really depressing thing- somebody actually thought this was a good idea, and editorial oversight failed to stop them from making a terrible mistake.

It's a beta, so hopefully we can still do something.

GW is out of touch with reality.

PenitentJake wrote:
If these leaks are true, and unless there's all kinds of awesome we don't know about yet, this is very disappointing.

How could GW think we might like this? I mean, that's the really depressing thing- somebody actually thought this was a good idea, and editorial oversight failed to stop them from making a terrible mistake.

It's a beta, so hopefully we can still do something.

We need to be sure to get plenty of play testing in. My biggest concern at this point is that no one will play the beta after a month because of how bad it is and GW doesn't fix anything in the actual release due to lack of in game feedback.

Everything seems fine to me. I've been doing well with Sisters up till now and they got cheaper and have more options. Don't see the problem.

 Sim-Life wrote:
Everything seems fine to me. I've been doing well with Sisters up till now and they got cheaper and have more options. Don't see the problem.

I don't believe that you've seen the new CA. Either that or you haven't actually played Sisters. Because they haven't really gotten cheaper, and they have less options.

Even if you're fine with what they do have now, it's definitely less options for right around the same cost.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

nekooni wrote:

 Creeping Dementia wrote:
Been working on making a Sisters list that I think would be ok taking to a tournament and it's... difficult. The a detatchment that does seem decent is a Sacred Rose Outrider with 3 Dominion units. One with 5 SBs, the others with 4 meltas a combine flamer and the rest with Bolters. The SB unit to make use of Blessed Ammo, the others to allow activation of the Holy Trinity. Those Strats increase the Dom's effectiveness reasonably well. Really just using Faith to increase some to hit roll, once per turn Add a Canoness to run around a punch stuff. Not sure what to have them ride in, if anything. Rhinos I guess.
The other strat that will see some use will probably be the one to help Deny the Witch.

Beyond that I don't know. Won't need to load up on bodies for more Faith points, and really don't need a ton of CPs for Sisters Strats either. I'm just not sure what to take to do the heavy lifting, what is going to be the backbone?

The other use I've thought of is a Cheap Battalion to generate CPs for another force like Custodes or Knights. 250ish pts for 3 BSS squads and 2 Canoness, with max Storm Bolters to occasionally use Blessed Ammo. You could even take 2 of those detatchment (one would have to have a Missionary) to keep the Custodes or Knights with enough CPs. They'll be tougher to shift than the loyal 32, and might give some extra ways to deny Psychic powers, but won't generate quite as many CPs.

Quick note on Holy Trinity: you need one Bolter, one flamer and one melta - a combiflamer will only count as either the flamer or the bolter, but not both. At least thats how Id read it.

Also, the 4 melta Holy Trinity Setup Maths out to actually be worse than 5 Meltas and a command point reroll.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Sim-Life wrote:
Tabletop Tactics batrep said Exorcists went down by 10pts and do d6 damage now.

Also Tabletop tactics is full of gak. They were going off from the index. They haven't changed points from last year's chapter approved.

So, there's a lot to digest about the Sisters Beta Codex now that I've seen some reviews and read the leaks myself.

In short: the changes are a slight nerf overall and I'll explain that as I go.

There are two parts of the Beta Codex that concern me the most. Acts of Faith and... the rest of the Codex.

The Acts of Faith system previously didn't scale well with the army. You could take Imagifiers but they'd often be left in the dust by other sisters units getting the benefit of the acts of faith. Now, it... sort of scales? There's a two-sided issue.

For one, if it was solely based on Faith Points, then you would burn through all of your Faith Points turn 1 using the +1 to hit stratagem across your army for a potent alpha strike, or move your whole army an extra 3" to get to a better position and take objectives early on, and then you wouldn't have any Acts of Faith left for the rest of the game.

On the other hand, if they only had the limit of 1 type of Act of Faith each turn, then you'd use each of the Acts of Faith EVERY turn and there would be very little flavor to your army. You'd also be throwing your army to the whims of the dice, seeing which of your units actually get a benefit and which don't.

The combination of Faith Points PLUS limiting you to one type of AoF per turn creates an odd middle ground where you're likely to still run out of Faith Points by turn 2 or 3 and not get a ton out of them.

Then the Acts of Faith themselves are... meh. They're nowhere near where they were before. Now, to be fair, moving and shooting out of sequence is garbage that people are sick of from the Ynnari faction. It needed to go. It really, really needed to go. That said, going from moving twice to only going an extra 3" is an INCREDIBLE nerf. That, on top of having a relatively lower chance of getting the Acts of Faith to pop off means the whole system is much, much less powerful than where it was.

So that's the first part. On the whole, Acts of Faith are down. It's sad because it's the most unique thing about this faction. In my opinion, you could play the Sisters of Battle entirely without using Acts of Faith as they are, and you're likely to have the exact same outcome than if you had actually used them. That's how meh they are.

The rest of the codex is... pretty good. Points decreases across the board, really fantastic stratagems, some really solid non-faith-based Orders and warlord traits and relics. Overlapping invul saves that also apply to vehicles is also amazing. Your rhinos, immolators, and repressors can potentially have a 4+ invul save just for hanging around a Cannoness and Celestine. I see castling lists being very powerful for that, slowly trundling up the table and blowing things away once they get into melta range. Now, that's not great because Sisters NEED to get up close where their flamers, bolters, and meltas can do the most damage, but having a 4+ or 5+ invul save across a bundle of units is really, really nice, especially in a meta where there's a LOT of high ap and high strength weapons.

I think there are going to be lists that do well with Sisters, but they aren't going to rely entirely on Celestine and Acts of Faith. I think that was GW's plan all along. The trouble is, they've given us no 'generic' living saint that could benefit from Order bonuses and the Acts of Faith system now is flavorless, cumbersome, and frankly, just weak.

My main feedback when CA comes out is to find a better balance of points, because as it stands, Faith Points are just Command Points that can fail :/

ERJAK wrote:


Also, the 4 melta Holy Trinity Setup Maths out to actually be worse than 5 Meltas and a command point reroll.

That is a good point. Bolter and flamer emphasis with a combimelta will be the better use of that Strategem. Real question is should Sisters be involved in anti-tank at all, or just focus on anti-horde/elite infantry and soup in decent anti-tank.

drbored wrote:
Points decreases across the board

I've not seen much on that front. Repentia may have shed a couple of points, Jacobus isn't ludicrous anymore, and Celestine is cheaper (though arguably not enough to cover her nerfing).

The rest are game wide changes with the sisters just keeping pace on weapons. Need the book of course but at least one unit (the dialogus) has gone up and the core sisters and vehicles haven't moved.

drbored wrote:
My main feedback when CA comes out is to find a better balance of points, because as it stands, Faith Points are just Command Points that can fail :/

Raises the interesting though of going all the way - making faith abilities cost different amounts of points just like stratagems and ditching the roll.

A.T. wrote:

drbored wrote:
Points decreases across the board

I've not seen much on that front. Repentia may have shed a couple of points, Jacobus isn't ludicrous anymore, and Celestine is cheaper (though arguably not enough to cover her nerfing).

The rest are game wide changes with the sisters just keeping pace on weapons. Need the book of course but at least one unit (the dialogus) has gone up and the core sisters and vehicles haven't moved.

drbored wrote:
My main feedback when CA comes out is to find a better balance of points, because as it stands, Faith Points are just Command Points that can fail :/

Raises the interesting though of going all the way - making faith abilities cost different amounts of points just like stratagems and ditching the roll.

I'd honestly be down for that, but they'd have to give us more points to work with and figure out a way to make that scale with army size without using detachments.

I think a better system would be to get rid of faith points and keep the randomness, but say we can only use two or three Acts of Faith per turn. Gives us tactical flexibility, keeps us going even to turn 6, but there's always that chance that a sister's faith isn't strong enough, which I think is better from a fluff standpoint even if it's worse from a competitive standpoint. Competitive types tend to hate randomness after all.

I mean, if you're going to have the abilities be a lot weaker, you may as well let us use them for the full game instead of giving us another arbitrary point value to keep track of throughout a game.

 Creeping Dementia wrote:

ERJAK wrote:


Also, the 4 melta Holy Trinity Setup Maths out to actually be worse than 5 Meltas and a command point reroll.

That is a good point. Bolter and flamer emphasis with a combimelta will be the better use of that Strategem. Real question is should Sisters be involved in anti-tank at all, or just focus on anti-horde/elite infantry and soup in decent anti-tank.

Sisters should have workable mid range anti tank to at least have the ability to work as a mono faction without having to constantly rely on triple doms, also we should have a flyer since forge world took away access to the avenger strike fighter.

drbored wrote:
I'd honestly be down for that, but they'd have to give us more points to work with and figure out a way to make that scale with army size without using detachments.

Points per unit taken (multiple points for characters) and the same again when the unit is destroyed.

Right out of codex witch hunters. Small units give more points but less bang for buck and faith is gradually restored throughout the game so it never entirely dries up, but you don't have enough that you can just throw out the 3 point powers all of the time.

A.T. wrote:

drbored wrote:
I'd honestly be down for that, but they'd have to give us more points to work with and figure out a way to make that scale with army size without using detachments.

Points per unit taken (multiple points for characters) and the same again when the unit is destroyed.

Right out of codex witch hunters. Small units give more points but less bang for buck and faith is gradually restored throughout the game so it never entirely dries up, but you don't have enough that you can just throw out the 3 point powers all of the time.

Yeah, that might be the way to do it if that's the way they decide to go.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
Well the Sisters fanbase on this forum is at minimum proving him right about how entitled they feel.

Oh look who's talking! The resident entitled Chaos player! How cute! Can you make a cute smile when you say this? Are you going to give us a small speech on how chaos marines deserved new models more than Sisters of Battle? I'm really looking forward to hearing it you know!


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also can't believe they kept the stupid shield of faith as is. One part only work of AP-4 weapons (not on mortal wounds, not on ap-3 weapons, …) and the other one only work on WC5 spells that are cast with rolling EXACTLY a 5. And in both case, they then require a 6 to work. Ridiculous waste of ink.

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
Well the Sisters fanbase on this forum is at minimum proving him right about how entitled they feel.

Oh look who's talking! The resident entitled Chaos player! How cute! Can you make a cute smile when you say this? Are you going to give us a small speech on how chaos marines deserved new models more than Sisters of Battle? I'm really looking forward to hearing it you know!


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also can't believe they kept the stupid shield of faith as is. One part only work of AP-4 weapons (not on mortal wounds, not on ap-3 weapons, …) and the other one only work on WC5 spells that are cast with rolling EXACTLY a 5. And in both case, they then require a 6 to work. Ridiculous waste of ink.

They actually do need some new official models, so you would be correct.

However I'm primarily a Necrons player. You just wouldn't guess it because the army is bad enough I hardly join that Tactica thread and Marines create more discussion.

drbored wrote:
So, there's a lot to digest about the Sisters Beta Codex now that I've seen some reviews and read the leaks myself.

In short: the changes are a slight nerf overall and I'll explain that as I go.

There are two parts of the Beta Codex that concern me the most. Acts of Faith and... the rest of the Codex.

The Acts of Faith system previously didn't scale well with the army. You could take Imagifiers but they'd often be left in the dust by other sisters units getting the benefit of the acts of faith. Now, it... sort of scales? There's a two-sided issue.

For one, if it was solely based on Faith Points, then you would burn through all of your Faith Points turn 1 using the +1 to hit stratagem across your army for a potent alpha strike, or move your whole army an extra 3" to get to a better position and take objectives early on, and then you wouldn't have any Acts of Faith left for the rest of the game.

On the other hand, if they only had the limit of 1 type of Act of Faith each turn, then you'd use each of the Acts of Faith EVERY turn and there would be very little flavor to your army. You'd also be throwing your army to the whims of the dice, seeing which of your units actually get a benefit and which don't.

The combination of Faith Points PLUS limiting you to one type of AoF per turn creates an odd middle ground where you're likely to still run out of Faith Points by turn 2 or 3 and not get a ton out of them.

Then the Acts of Faith themselves are... meh. They're nowhere near where they were before. Now, to be fair, moving and shooting out of sequence is garbage that people are sick of from the Ynnari faction. It needed to go. It really, really needed to go. That said, going from moving twice to only going an extra 3" is an INCREDIBLE nerf. That, on top of having a relatively lower chance of getting the Acts of Faith to pop off means the whole system is much, much less powerful than where it was.

So that's the first part. On the whole, Acts of Faith are down. It's sad because it's the most unique thing about this faction. In my opinion, you could play the Sisters of Battle entirely without using Acts of Faith as they are, and you're likely to have the exact same outcome than if you had actually used them. That's how meh they are.

The rest of the codex is... pretty good. Points decreases across the board, really fantastic stratagems, some really solid non-faith-based Orders and warlord traits and relics. Overlapping invul saves that also apply to vehicles is also amazing. Your rhinos, immolators, and repressors can potentially have a 4+ invul save just for hanging around a Cannoness and Celestine. I see castling lists being very powerful for that, slowly trundling up the table and blowing things away once they get into melta range. Now, that's not great because Sisters NEED to get up close where their flamers, bolters, and meltas can do the most damage, but having a 4+ or 5+ invul save across a bundle of units is really, really nice, especially in a meta where there's a LOT of high ap and high strength weapons.

I think there are going to be lists that do well with Sisters, but they aren't going to rely entirely on Celestine and Acts of Faith. I think that was GW's plan all along. The trouble is, they've given us no 'generic' living saint that could benefit from Order bonuses and the Acts of Faith system now is flavorless, cumbersome, and frankly, just weak.

My main feedback when CA comes out is to find a better balance of points, because as it stands, Faith Points are just Command Points that can fail :/

There aren't any real points decreases that weren't also shared by every other army in the game. The actual units themselves are largely unchanged. Which considering how much worse their army rules got, it's a big problem.

I do absolutely agree with you about AoFs. The bonuses are so small, they're hardly worth thinking about. I mean, the shooting bonus is +1 to HIT. Why is it +1 to HIT? Half of our weapons are flamers! We can't even use this stratagem on the entire holy trinity!

When you say 'really fantastic stratagems'...there are 2 really good ones and 3-4 usable ones. The rest are all either about getting more Faith points(which you don't need) or subpar. Warlord traits and relics are solid, but the Order tactics are actually trash. +1 to overwatch is an incredibly small bonus and +1S +1A is only good for one unit and one HQ in the entire book.

We already had overlapping Invul saves. It's not very good. Even a 4++ isn't going to keep vehicles alive. For infantry, that blob is so awful to play with, and so awful to play against, that if it turns out to be even semi-competitive, it's going to need to be nerfed immediately just to keep people who play with or against sisters off of suicide watch. It's likely not good though, because Azrael already does that same thing, but in a better army, and sees only moderate success.

I don't think there are going to be lists that do well with sisters. The lists that didn't rely on Celestine and AoFs got worse and the ones that did go WAY worse. The infantry spam list will get a few people to send GW angry emails about how frustraing it is to play against, but I doubt it will start winning much.

GW's plan was to cock up this army so bad that no one asked them about plastic sisters ever again. Even the lists that look like they might be useful are an absolute slog to deal with and play. Acts of Faith aren't worth bothering with, despite the entire army being built around them.

The index is superior in just about every way. If the codex that comes out next november is anywhere near as bad as this one is, the line is going to flop FAST.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
Well the Sisters fanbase on this forum is at minimum proving him right about how entitled they feel.

Oh look who's talking! The resident entitled Chaos player! How cute! Can you make a cute smile when you say this? Are you going to give us a small speech on how chaos marines deserved new models more than Sisters of Battle? I'm really looking forward to hearing it you know!


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also can't believe they kept the stupid shield of faith as is. One part only work of AP-4 weapons (not on mortal wounds, not on ap-3 weapons, …) and the other one only work on WC5 spells that are cast with rolling EXACTLY a 5. And in both case, they then require a 6 to work. Ridiculous waste of ink.

Actually, this is the one part of the book that does kind of work.

There's a warlord trait or relic or w/e that gives everyone within 6" of the model 2d6 deny and it's possible to stack invul bonuses up to 4++(3++ on Seraphim and one Simulacrum unit) The deny one is good and the Invul stacking is fairly useful...it's just going to make the entire army unpleasant to play with or against.

It probably would have been better to just give sisters a 2d6 deny on any power targeting a sisters squad,

Or even just a flat 1d6 deny always on a 6 since we have that stratagem that makes it a 4+ deny would make it even more fitting.

How do AoF look if put into the setting of Kill Team? Not familiar with KT and am curious.

 Giantwalkingchair wrote:
How do AoF look if put into the setting of Kill Team? Not familiar with KT and am curious.

Kill Team had no official AoF rules. Trialing them, they were useful as they were. (though I didn't use the healing, Commander set wasn't available at that point)
Now they are even more of a waste effort.

ERJAK wrote:

drbored wrote:
So, there's a lot to digest about the Sisters Beta Codex now that I've seen some reviews and read the leaks myself.

In short: the changes are a slight nerf overall and I'll explain that as I go.

There are two parts of the Beta Codex that concern me the most. Acts of Faith and... the rest of the Codex.

The Acts of Faith system previously didn't scale well with the army. You could take Imagifiers but they'd often be left in the dust by other sisters units getting the benefit of the acts of faith. Now, it... sort of scales? There's a two-sided issue.

For one, if it was solely based on Faith Points, then you would burn through all of your Faith Points turn 1 using the +1 to hit stratagem across your army for a potent alpha strike, or move your whole army an extra 3" to get to a better position and take objectives early on, and then you wouldn't have any Acts of Faith left for the rest of the game.

On the other hand, if they only had the limit of 1 type of Act of Faith each turn, then you'd use each of the Acts of Faith EVERY turn and there would be very little flavor to your army. You'd also be throwing your army to the whims of the dice, seeing which of your units actually get a benefit and which don't.

The combination of Faith Points PLUS limiting you to one type of AoF per turn creates an odd middle ground where you're likely to still run out of Faith Points by turn 2 or 3 and not get a ton out of them.

Then the Acts of Faith themselves are... meh. They're nowhere near where they were before. Now, to be fair, moving and shooting out of sequence is garbage that people are sick of from the Ynnari faction. It needed to go. It really, really needed to go. That said, going from moving twice to only going an extra 3" is an INCREDIBLE nerf. That, on top of having a relatively lower chance of getting the Acts of Faith to pop off means the whole system is much, much less powerful than where it was.

So that's the first part. On the whole, Acts of Faith are down. It's sad because it's the most unique thing about this faction. In my opinion, you could play the Sisters of Battle entirely without using Acts of Faith as they are, and you're likely to have the exact same outcome than if you had actually used them. That's how meh they are.

The rest of the codex is... pretty good. Points decreases across the board, really fantastic stratagems, some really solid non-faith-based Orders and warlord traits and relics. Overlapping invul saves that also apply to vehicles is also amazing. Your rhinos, immolators, and repressors can potentially have a 4+ invul save just for hanging around a Cannoness and Celestine. I see castling lists being very powerful for that, slowly trundling up the table and blowing things away once they get into melta range. Now, that's not great because Sisters NEED to get up close where their flamers, bolters, and meltas can do the most damage, but having a 4+ or 5+ invul save across a bundle of units is really, really nice, especially in a meta where there's a LOT of high ap and high strength weapons.

I think there are going to be lists that do well with Sisters, but they aren't going to rely entirely on Celestine and Acts of Faith. I think that was GW's plan all along. The trouble is, they've given us no 'generic' living saint that could benefit from Order bonuses and the Acts of Faith system now is flavorless, cumbersome, and frankly, just weak.

My main feedback when CA comes out is to find a better balance of points, because as it stands, Faith Points are just Command Points that can fail :/

There aren't any real points decreases that weren't also shared by every other army in the game. The actual units themselves are largely unchanged. Which considering how much worse their army rules got, it's a big problem.

I do absolutely agree with you about AoFs. The bonuses are so small, they're hardly worth thinking about. I mean, the shooting bonus is +1 to HIT. Why is it +1 to HIT? Half of our weapons are flamers! We can't even use this stratagem on the entire holy trinity!

When you say 'really fantastic stratagems'...there are 2 really good ones and 3-4 usable ones. The rest are all either about getting more Faith points(which you don't need) or subpar. Warlord traits and relics are solid, but the Order tactics are actually trash. +1 to overwatch is an incredibly small bonus and +1S +1A is only good for one unit and one HQ in the entire book.

We already had overlapping Invul saves. It's not very good. Even a 4++ isn't going to keep vehicles alive. For infantry, that blob is so awful to play with, and so awful to play against, that if it turns out to be even semi-competitive, it's going to need to be nerfed immediately just to keep people who play with or against sisters off of suicide watch. It's likely not good though, because Azrael already does that same thing, but in a better army, and sees only moderate success.

I don't think there are going to be lists that do well with sisters. The lists that didn't rely on Celestine and AoFs got worse and the ones that did go WAY worse. The infantry spam list will get a few people to send GW angry emails about how frustraing it is to play against, but I doubt it will start winning much.

GW's plan was to cock up this army so bad that no one asked them about plastic sisters ever again. Even the lists that look like they might be useful are an absolute slog to deal with and play. Acts of Faith aren't worth bothering with, despite the entire army being built around them.

The index is superior in just about every way. If the codex that comes out next november is anywhere near as bad as this one is, the line is going to flop FAST.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
Well the Sisters fanbase on this forum is at minimum proving him right about how entitled they feel.

Oh look who's talking! The resident entitled Chaos player! How cute! Can you make a cute smile when you say this? Are you going to give us a small speech on how chaos marines deserved new models more than Sisters of Battle? I'm really looking forward to hearing it you know!


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also can't believe they kept the stupid shield of faith as is. One part only work of AP-4 weapons (not on mortal wounds, not on ap-3 weapons, …) and the other one only work on WC5 spells that are cast with rolling EXACTLY a 5. And in both case, they then require a 6 to work. Ridiculous waste of ink.

Actually, this is the one part of the book that does kind of work.

There's a warlord trait or relic or w/e that gives everyone within 6" of the model 2d6 deny and it's possible to stack invul bonuses up to 4++(3++ on Seraphim and one Simulacrum unit) The deny one is good and the Invul stacking is fairly useful...it's just going to make the entire army unpleasant to play with or against.

I've literally never seen someone complain about having a 4++ for their vehicle not being enough until now.

That's some entitlement.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

I've literally never seen someone complain about having a 4++ for their vehicle not being enough until now.

That's some entitlement.

The problem isn't that a 4++ "isn't enough", it is that it alone won't carry the army. It is a gimmick, but not a good one. Harlequins have a 4++ on their entire army and aren't really good.

A 4++ on a Leman Russ or Baneblade would be ridiculous, because the army already does other things. A 4++ on an Exorcist (which requires investment of 2 HQs including Celestine and a warlord trait) isn't scary. It doesn't mean anything.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

ERJAK wrote:

drbored wrote:
So, there's a lot to digest about the Sisters Beta Codex now that I've seen some reviews and read the leaks myself.

In short: the changes are a slight nerf overall and I'll explain that as I go.

There are two parts of the Beta Codex that concern me the most. Acts of Faith and... the rest of the Codex.

The Acts of Faith system previously didn't scale well with the army. You could take Imagifiers but they'd often be left in the dust by other sisters units getting the benefit of the acts of faith. Now, it... sort of scales? There's a two-sided issue.

For one, if it was solely based on Faith Points, then you would burn through all of your Faith Points turn 1 using the +1 to hit stratagem across your army for a potent alpha strike, or move your whole army an extra 3" to get to a better position and take objectives early on, and then you wouldn't have any Acts of Faith left for the rest of the game.

On the other hand, if they only had the limit of 1 type of Act of Faith each turn, then you'd use each of the Acts of Faith EVERY turn and there would be very little flavor to your army. You'd also be throwing your army to the whims of the dice, seeing which of your units actually get a benefit and which don't.

The combination of Faith Points PLUS limiting you to one type of AoF per turn creates an odd middle ground where you're likely to still run out of Faith Points by turn 2 or 3 and not get a ton out of them.

Then the Acts of Faith themselves are... meh. They're nowhere near where they were before. Now, to be fair, moving and shooting out of sequence is garbage that people are sick of from the Ynnari faction. It needed to go. It really, really needed to go. That said, going from moving twice to only going an extra 3" is an INCREDIBLE nerf. That, on top of having a relatively lower chance of getting the Acts of Faith to pop off means the whole system is much, much less powerful than where it was.

So that's the first part. On the whole, Acts of Faith are down. It's sad because it's the most unique thing about this faction. In my opinion, you could play the Sisters of Battle entirely without using Acts of Faith as they are, and you're likely to have the exact same outcome than if you had actually used them. That's how meh they are.

The rest of the codex is... pretty good. Points decreases across the board, really fantastic stratagems, some really solid non-faith-based Orders and warlord traits and relics. Overlapping invul saves that also apply to vehicles is also amazing. Your rhinos, immolators, and repressors can potentially have a 4+ invul save just for hanging around a Cannoness and Celestine. I see castling lists being very powerful for that, slowly trundling up the table and blowing things away once they get into melta range. Now, that's not great because Sisters NEED to get up close where their flamers, bolters, and meltas can do the most damage, but having a 4+ or 5+ invul save across a bundle of units is really, really nice, especially in a meta where there's a LOT of high ap and high strength weapons.

I think there are going to be lists that do well with Sisters, but they aren't going to rely entirely on Celestine and Acts of Faith. I think that was GW's plan all along. The trouble is, they've given us no 'generic' living saint that could benefit from Order bonuses and the Acts of Faith system now is flavorless, cumbersome, and frankly, just weak.

My main feedback when CA comes out is to find a better balance of points, because as it stands, Faith Points are just Command Points that can fail :/

There aren't any real points decreases that weren't also shared by every other army in the game. The actual units themselves are largely unchanged. Which considering how much worse their army rules got, it's a big problem.

I do absolutely agree with you about AoFs. The bonuses are so small, they're hardly worth thinking about. I mean, the shooting bonus is +1 to HIT. Why is it +1 to HIT? Half of our weapons are flamers! We can't even use this stratagem on the entire holy trinity!

When you say 'really fantastic stratagems'...there are 2 really good ones and 3-4 usable ones. The rest are all either about getting more Faith points(which you don't need) or subpar. Warlord traits and relics are solid, but the Order tactics are actually trash. +1 to overwatch is an incredibly small bonus and +1S +1A is only good for one unit and one HQ in the entire book.

We already had overlapping Invul saves. It's not very good. Even a 4++ isn't going to keep vehicles alive. For infantry, that blob is so awful to play with, and so awful to play against, that if it turns out to be even semi-competitive, it's going to need to be nerfed immediately just to keep people who play with or against sisters off of suicide watch. It's likely not good though, because Azrael already does that same thing, but in a better army, and sees only moderate success.

I don't think there are going to be lists that do well with sisters. The lists that didn't rely on Celestine and AoFs got worse and the ones that did go WAY worse. The infantry spam list will get a few people to send GW angry emails about how frustraing it is to play against, but I doubt it will start winning much.

GW's plan was to cock up this army so bad that no one asked them about plastic sisters ever again. Even the lists that look like they might be useful are an absolute slog to deal with and play. Acts of Faith aren't worth bothering with, despite the entire army being built around them.

The index is superior in just about every way. If the codex that comes out next november is anywhere near as bad as this one is, the line is going to flop FAST.


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 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
Well the Sisters fanbase on this forum is at minimum proving him right about how entitled they feel.

Oh look who's talking! The resident entitled Chaos player! How cute! Can you make a cute smile when you say this? Are you going to give us a small speech on how chaos marines deserved new models more than Sisters of Battle? I'm really looking forward to hearing it you know!


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also can't believe they kept the stupid shield of faith as is. One part only work of AP-4 weapons (not on mortal wounds, not on ap-3 weapons, …) and the other one only work on WC5 spells that are cast with rolling EXACTLY a 5. And in both case, they then require a 6 to work. Ridiculous waste of ink.

Actually, this is the one part of the book that does kind of work.

There's a warlord trait or relic or w/e that gives everyone within 6" of the model 2d6 deny and it's possible to stack invul bonuses up to 4++(3++ on Seraphim and one Simulacrum unit) The deny one is good and the Invul stacking is fairly useful...it's just going to make the entire army unpleasant to play with or against.

I've literally never seen someone complain about having a 4++ for their vehicle not being enough until now.

That's some entitlement.

How many pts does that cost to make a single vehicle get a 4++ save - just the two Characters will be pushing 300pts - one of which has just suffered a major nerf as well.

If SOB vehciles had an inherent 4++ you wouild have a point - but they don't.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
They actually do need some new official models, so you would be correct.

"My army has some model that are old. That means I should have precedence over those people whose whole army is super old and in metal. I'm not entitled, you are!"

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
However I'm primarily a Necrons player. You just wouldn't guess it because the army is bad enough I hardly join that Tactica thread

Whaaa whaa whaa!
Why are you so entitled ?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

ERJAK wrote:
There's a warlord trait or relic or w/e that gives everyone within 6" of the model 2d6 deny

Doesn't make the 1d6 deny any less useful. You can keep the relic as “give everyone withing 6" the 2d6 deny" without having the useless 1d6 deny.

Acts of Faith are kind of a side bonus now, which wouldn't itself be terrible but the army-wide convictions and stratagems are treating them as a high water measurement to take into account for. If AoF remain this way I hope that at least some of the convictions change to something more consistently useful.

If players are building around AoF, Ebon Chalice wins without argument, it saves 10 points per unit (by replacing a simulacrum imperialis) and gives simulacrum imperialis to units that wouldn't be able to have one. It's almost always going to be better to have an AoF activate when you need it to rather than getting a point to spend on one later.

On the side, the fact that there's virtually no support for flame weapons in the Acts of Faith, Convctions, Warlord Traits, Relics or Stratagems makes me a bit sad. They're already a choice against Melta, which you kind of need if you aren't souping, and now you're worse off for taking them because so little of the army rules benefits their use.

I should note that I only ever play sisters casually, so I'm just going off a layman's observations. That said, I've also never met another sisters player in person, so I'm also not very familiar with facing the army.

 Sim-Life wrote:
Tabletop Tactics batrep said Exorcists went down by 10pts and do d6 damage now.

Well; that's good. Down by 10 +D6 damage is good. A unit needs to have firepower for it's toughness to be worthwhile.

The rest.... does not.

I like the Argent Shroud order ability. It's probably not the best [if you're winning, you keep winning, if you're not nothing happens], but it's fun.

Frankly, if the AoF are this unreliable and really not super powerful, they should ditch the faith points and let them be used for free. Every unit gets one attempt per turn. Bookkeeping is annoying anyway, and now they're just another set of stratagems, except you need to roll dice to see whether they actually work or whether you just wasted your points.