Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Veteran Sergeant wrote:
Seems about right. They are few in number, overloaded with short range weaponry, lacking in comprehensive armor support, and believe that the intervention of a non-existent deity will assist them in victory, lol.

Ah - but i'm referring less to in-game logic and more to Real World portrayal.

You can spin any group in whatever direction one feels like - that is the nature of fiction.

But there has been in fact a consistent trend in GW to repeatedly spin this particular group in a detrimental position vis-a-vis everyone else.

The fact that they are female only serves to reinforce a rather unfortunate stereotype.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Dannyevilguy wrote:

Veteran Sergeant wrote:

ContemplativeSphinx wrote:

Veteran Sergeant wrote:It's hard to present the Sisters of Battle as good guys

Good? Who said anything about good?

You made a comment about them being antagonists. I simply expounded on the idea. If you had read what I wrote, you'd see that I very clearly delineated that there are few "good guys" in 40K.

And what are the the SoB good at? What have they been portrayed as again and again and again?

Dying.

Seems about right. They are few in number, overloaded with short range weaponry, lacking in comprehensive armor support, and believe that the intervention of a non-existent deity will assist them in victory, lol.

6+ Invulnerable save says what?

6+ invulnerable? a minor thing when compared to:

What about those Acts of Faith that keep occurring in and around the Sisters?

Or those Miracles that occur....the ones explicitly denied by cannon to be Warp-based...

Or....those Living Saints....

Like I've said many times before, it's impossible for them to be divine in nature. The Emperor categorically refused to be worshiped as a deity, so vehemently that he ordered an entire world destroyed. The Ecclesiarchy, which the Sisters serve, has only further polluted that vein of worship and exploited it for personal gain, so he's not going to grant powers to people just for really, really being faithful to him. So the "faith" powers must be a product of something else. "Just as planned" probably.

There's a very good reason why the powers were originally described as psychological in nature, based on the Sister's steadfast faith (which didn't require divine intervention). The powers only morphed slowly into magical powers later, as GW obviously realized that nobody was playing the Sisters (or, more importantly, not buying the models), so tried to spice them up a bit.

Veteran Sergeant wrote:Like I've said many times before, it's impossible for them to be divine in nature

Yes, you can say that, but that doesn't make your statements true, nor any of the base assumptions any good.

In fact, there's a very good argument to be made that he planned to, eventually, ascend in to "godhood" when the time was right, and the Horus Heresy sped up his plans due to Magnus' stupidity.

Being able to have greater strength than a Space Marine or faster than an Eldar is not "psychological" in nature, either, that's a lazy explanation. And there's plenty of other things from FFG, such as being able to trap or repel daemons, turning a melee weapon in to a witch killing blade with a touch, absorbing another person's injuries in to your own body, and so on and so forth, which simply cannot be described as psychological in nature. Certainly the 3++ invulnerable save can't.

If you want an explanation that isn't divine, the only one that really works is based off of a line from the third edition book, which says that they practice a unique martial art that combines prayer and combat prowess to create miraculous feats, but even then the feats in question are quite powerful in nature, far more than "psychological". Bolter shells shattering armor where they would not normally before; Sisters taking hits from titan weapons and surviving; Sisters overpowering Space Marines and tossing them aside; Sisters outmaneuvering Eldar and striking them down before the Eldar can strike. Only a single one of the five acts can really be described as "psychological".

Veteran Sergeant wrote: The powers only morphed slowly into magical powers later, as GW obviously realized that nobody was playing the Sisters (or, more importantly, not buying the models), so tried to spice them up a bit.

Yeah - and that's kind of the reality we're dealing with in the current time period.

Canon is whomever/whatever is currently in the driver's seat at GW.

If someone decided the next day that the Alpha Legion were in fact loyalists Marines - welcome to the new Reality.

If someone over there decided to actually staple down whether or not the Tau are insidious manipulators or naieve do-gooders - welcome to the new Reality.


That is the nature of Codex changes.

As of right now - we have Saints that resurrect from the Dead courtesy of Dan Abnett. And so that is the new reality.

Until tomorrow comes.

ContemplativeSphinx wrote:As of right now - we have Saints that resurrect from the Dead courtesy of Dan Abnett. And so that is the new reality.

That's not new.

Melissia wrote:

Veteran Sergeant wrote:Like I've said many times before, it's impossible for them to be divine in nature

Yes, you can say that, but that doesn't make your statements true, nor any of the base assumptions any good.

And, strangely enough, you telling me that I am wrong still hasn't yet made you correct about me being wrong because all of your arguments are more porous than a colander. Indeed, we've analyzed this a half dozen times, and strangely enough, all half dozen times, you've been unable to present a solid argument to counter anything I've said. You seem to think that being obstinate equates to victory. Very well, lol.

Someone who claims to be as knowledgeable as you pretend to be, would know that the original Sister's powers made them: Immune to fear, frenzy, +1 Leadership, hatred, immune to psychic powers, immune to psychology, choose their own targets, or fire a second time. You don't get to quote a different book to prove that argument wrong, lol. Good lord you're terrible at this.

Veteran Sergeant wrote:

Melissia wrote:

Veteran Sergeant wrote:Like I've said many times before, it's impossible for them to be divine in nature

Yes, you can say that, but that doesn't make your statements true, nor any of the base assumptions any good.

And, strangely enough, you telling me that I am wrong still hasn't yet made you correct about me being wrong because all of your arguments are more porous than a colander. Indeed, we've analyzed this a half dozen times, and strangely enough, all half dozen times, you've been unable to present a solid argument to counter anything I've said. You seem to think that being obstinate equates to victory. Very well, lol.

Someone who claims to be as knowledgeable as you pretend to be, would know that the original Sister's powers made them: Immune to fear, frenzy, +1 Leadership, hatred, immune to psychic powers, immune to psychology, choose their own targets, or fire a second time. You don't get to quote a different book to prove that argument wrong, lol. Good lord you're terrible at this.

Well you, lol, should really, lol, try and make your point in an, lol, more condescending manner, lol. It really is not coming across enough yet. lol.

And just cause the Emperor did not want to be a god, does not mean he did not become one. May not have been up to him. The fact that so many people worship him could have very well made him a god in the same line of thought how the Eldar created Slaanesh.

Melissia wrote:

ContemplativeSphinx wrote:As of right now - we have Saints that resurrect from the Dead courtesy of Dan Abnett. And so that is the new reality.

That's not new.

I stand corrected.

But the point i was trying to make is that one can't "freeze frame" a version of WH40K and pat themselves on the back saying "this is True for all time."

It may have been True at one point (like the whole Star Child business) - and now its not.

I mean, the GK "Bloodtide" business is an excellent example of this.

And the fact that Space Marines woke up one morning to discover that Robert Guilliam was their Spiritual Liege.


And as it stands now, we've got Mystically Powered SoBs with Resurrecting Saints.

Until..someone decides to chuck that out the window, that's Truth.

I believe the only faction that gets beat up on a more routine basis then SoB would be the PDF.

"Some Sisters were getting slaughtered, the PDF tried to respond and were killed to a man"

ContemplativeSphinx wrote:But there has been in fact a consistent trend in GW to repeatedly spin this particular group in a detrimental position vis-a-vis everyone else.

Nonsense. If you want to throw down claims like that, you really want to do some research first. As a matter of course I would like to see:

The number of battles that each race has fought, as mentioned by either Black Library or GW proper, and the number of those battles expressed as a percentage that each race has won and lost.

Kaldor wrote:

ContemplativeSphinx wrote:But there has been in fact a consistent trend in GW to repeatedly spin this particular group in a detrimental position vis-a-vis everyone else.

Nonsense. If you want to throw down claims like that, you really want to do some research first. As a matter of course I would like to see:

The number of battles that each race has fought, as mentioned by either Black Library or GW proper, and the number of those battles expressed as a percentage that each race has won and lost.

You might be asking for the wrong type of data Kaldor - but first logistical matters.

1.) While I have had access to almost every product pushed out by GW - i can't necessarily claim ownership (and my access remains limited dependent upon the schedules of the various different owners).

I'd do this off Lexicanum - but given the amount of criticism the website gets from colleagues on warseer, hersey online, and this very forum - it makes me a bit perturbed.


That said, back to the original point -

2.) Undertaking a historical analysis of the percentage of battles won per race would definitely be an interesting study.

However Statistics is not PR or Marketing. In fact the latter two fields purpose is generally to distort the former.

And in my case - my target is the latter, not the former.

How do i put this....

I think its safe to say that the people one encounters in real life generally do not think or seek verification of things in terms of statistics. What is relied upon in order to make assessments about matters is a mix of their own intuitive thinking,anecdotal experiences, and the supposed "Common sense" that exists.

In fact these ruminations often override the reality represented by statistics. As my old Linear Regression/Time Series analysis prof. used to say - "Numbers are powerless before a mob."

Its that ineffable sentiment? (stereotype? geist?) that needs to be accessed and changed - not the number of battles won (although battles wouldn't really suffice, now that i think about it. Positive and Negative portrayals - in terms of effectiveness, not morality - would be more accurate).


ie: One Gaunt or Cain or Yarrick can wipe away the overwhelming losses suffered by the IG in a person's mind.

Why? Because you have a very positive portrayal that a wide number of readers can in fact relate to.

The IG are still dying in droves (and in further consideration of this, i should amend my original statement) - but there are enough positive images to counterbalance their losses.


Can the same necessarily be said for the Sisters?

Acts of Faith exist in the 40k universe, even when the Emperor was walking on Earth (see first HH novels). And Sororitas can do them.

Durza wrote:There was a bit of fluff in the CSM codex where a group of Night Lords attacked a training planet for them, then used the bones of the dead to summon thousands of daemons to kill the rest of the world.

Sounds like a Grey Knight rite

Grey Templar wrote:I believe the only faction that gets beat up on a more routine basis then SoB would be the PDF.
"Some Sisters were getting slaughtered, the PDF tried to respond and were killed to a man"

Don't forget Eldar Avatars! Killing at least one in every Codex seems standard now

A great deal of 40k is powered by the fact that in that universe, belief/thought has a direct and tangible impact.

Lopping off heads in the name of Khorne doesn't just make you a crazy person. It actually DOES fuel an existing entity. The Orks entire kulture is held together by the lynch pin of their collective belief in how things are supposed to work actually making it work sorta. The Eldar thoughts and actions in excess gave birth to an entity that continually devours their souls at every opportunity.

The Imperium and big E are arguably little different. The Emp, by some fluff, was already a collective expression of psychic effort. He then became revered, then worshiped. On top of that, he has an obvious presence in the warp through the Astronomicon, and, depending on what fluff you want to take, varying levels of more specific impact on the warp. It stand to reason that, at this point, 10,000 years of intense worship, combined with his already existing state, has produced some entity that is the Emp of old, and at the same time, is the Emp as the ecclesiarchy sees him.

The SoB can call them acts of faith, or whatever else. In reality, they're probably a bit like Ork psychic abilities- powered by the unified beilef system, and/or the actual warp presence of big E himself. Some middleground between the Orks and Chaos sorcery.

On top of that, I'd argue that ressurected saints are the equivalent of Greater Demons of the Emperor. I mean, Saint Sabbat even needed a "host" in the Gaunt books. The loyalist Primarchs could easily be the Emperor's "deamon princes" at the end of the day, and given enough presence. It would explain the various-but-often-aligned end of days scenarios for the Imperium- Wolftime, the Tome of Fire, etc. If the Emperor rises completely, and establishes himself as a warp god, then it makes sense that the loyalist primarchs would be in his controlled areas of the warp.

So, to me it is entirely practical within the setting for the SoB to actually be using "magic". It certainly isn't any more out there than what Chaos is doing, and nobody is complaining about that.

ContemplativeSphinx wrote:But the point i was trying to make is that one can't "freeze frame" a version of WH40K and pat themselves on the back saying "this is True for all time."

Indeed.

Claiming that a decade old codex is "new material" that shouldn't be referenced makes Veteran's entire argument nonsense.

ContemplativeSphinx wrote:And as it stands now, we've got Mystically Powered SoBs with Resurrecting Saints.

There are a few good explanations (which Vet chooses to ignore of course) of Sisters' powers, some of which are worse than others. That they're literally martial art skills (their kung fu is greater than yours, taken from a line in the codex), that they're divine blessings (as stated in the codex itself), that they're a gestalt psychic power created by group faith (directly contradicted by all source material, including FFG and black library books), and so on are all explanations people have tried to give to it, and they're all far better reasoned than Vet's attempts at claiming they're "psychological".

DrimGark wrote:In reality, they're probably a bit like Ork psychic abilities- powered by the unified beilef system

They are specifically stated, in every single source book that mentions the miracles, that the miracles are not psychic and have no psychic element to them. Therefor this is wrong.


The answer is quite simple-- there's more to the 40k universe than we currently understand and know, although if I were to try to explain it, the two good explanations above (not the psychic one, which is provably bogus) are the ones I would use.

Erp Melissia - that was Veteran.

Kaldor was asking for something different. Although i do have to wonder what his opinions regarding the whole SoB matter is..


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Kroothawk wrote:

Grey Templar wrote:I believe the only faction that gets beat up on a more routine basis then SoB would be the PDF.
"Some Sisters were getting slaughtered, the PDF tried to respond and were killed to a man"

Don't forget Eldar Avatars! Killing at least one in every Codex seems standard now

Templar's quote is spot on.

Although - that's another matter that slightly irks me. Technically Khaine is a God. Or fragments of a God. Shouldn't he have cache as a superweapon for the Eldar?

But if his Avatars keep taking dives in fights.....


Meh. Another topic for another thread.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

DrimGark wrote:So, to me it is entirely practical within the setting for the SoB to actually be using "magic". It certainly isn't any more out there than what Chaos is doing, and nobody is complaining about that.

I think the reason why Chaos doesn't ever attract criticism is because it, ironically,doesn't suffer too much from each transition from edition to edition.

The core fundamentals generally remain the same.

Not so with the Imperium and its foundational myth - the Horus Heresy and the Role of the Emperor.


Take a step back from all of this and look at it all from a bird's eye view. Its kind of funny the amount of effort that goes into debating sections/episodes of the Heresy and this almost obsessive need to prove one particular rendition/version of the Emperor as "correct."

Whoops. Early mornings hate me

Veteran Sergeant wrote:Like I've said many times before, it's impossible for them to be divine in nature. The Emperor categorically refused to be worshiped as a deity, so vehemently that he ordered an entire world destroyed. The Ecclesiarchy, which the Sisters serve, has only further polluted that vein of worship and exploited it for personal gain, so he's not going to grant powers to people just for really, really being faithful to him. So the "faith" powers must be a product of something else. "Just as planned" probably.

I'm just gonna add my 5c here (2c not legal tender in Aus)

The Emperor was only pushing that Flat-Earth Atheist view knowing full damn well that Gods and Goddesses, Chaos and otherwise, all exist.
This was simply because reason and ignorance are highly beneficial to resisting Chaos. No literally, it's the truth. By not knowing of it and refusal to see it weakens any warp-based beings ability to affect you. Have all of Humanity just like this and Chaos is reduced to nothing but mummers to your instinctive mind.

This evidently didn't workout how it was planned.

Now, if refusal to know weakens, then knowing with full certainty strengthens. The Emperor was already far above humans in the scale of things, now that most of humanity all see him as not only their god, but are unified in this belief, he is even stronger.

Also, something many people don't realise is that full and complete belief in something effects reality itself.

Meanwhile...

Veteran Sergeant wrote:Someone who claims to be as knowledgeable as you pretend to be, would know that the original Sister's powers made them: Immune to fear, frenzy, +1 Leadership, hatred, immune to psychic powers, immune to psychology, choose their own targets, or fire a second time. You don't get to quote a different book to prove that argument wrong, lol. Good lord you're terrible at this.

See, this is called Cherry Picking. You are selectively choosing one book, and old one at that, to enforce you points when the Sisters Faith Powers have had 3 rewrites since 2nd ed. As well as Dark Heresy's Inquisitors Handbook and Blood of Martyrs splatbooks giving an assortment of new faith powers from instant wound healing, faith manifested as a ranged, anti-daemonic spear to objectively knowing someone's innocence and guilt.

And also...

Veteran Sergeant wrote:And, strangely enough, you telling me that I am wrong still hasn't yet made you correct about me being wrong because all of your arguments are more porous than a colander. Indeed, we've analyzed this a half dozen times, and strangely enough, all half dozen times, you've been unable to present a solid argument to counter anything I've said. You seem to think that being obstinate equates to victory. Very well, lol.

Well lets have a go then.

It's hard to present the Sisters of Battle as good guys, because they really aren't. They're agents of the Ecclesiarchy which means at best they are delusional, fanatical followers of an oppressive state sponsored religious organization whose sole purpose is the manipulation and oppression of the masses.

Second most incorruptible force in the Imperium.
Most professionally trained non-augmented force in the Imperium.
Most tactically capable and adaptable non-augmented force in the Imperium.
Best armed and armoured non-augmented force in the Imperium.
Just those points alone is more then enough to write about.

But also, they are not the slaves of the Ecclesiarchy, because of their history, they have one (metaphorical if not literal) gun pointed at whoever gives them orders as much as they follow them.
The Ecclesiarchy is what ties the Imperium together spiritually, remove them and it isn't some bright shining new dawn that approaches the citizens of the Imperium but instead the endless laughter of Chaos.
Sisters are not delusional, they are involved deeply with the Imperium's populous. Whilst it's up the the Ecclesiarcy greater to handle to gritty side of things, the Sisters are the ever present symbol of the Ecclesiarchy's strength and security. They will be guarding the priests as they are distributing aid down at the EccleSalvation army center, they will be guarding the halls that the threatened and less-fortunate will cluster to for shelter and safety.

Just because they believe fanatically in the Emperor, and the Emperor was good, doesn't mean they themselves are good. Ultimately, the Sisters are going to be difficult to properly portray in the fluff. They have good intentions, but that's only because their values are so twisted that their definition of "good" is often quite bad. Besides, you know what they say the road to Hell is paved with.

Funny you should mention this. Space Marines, for example, are no where near any definition of 'good' yet there is no end of the novels starring them as the 'good' protagonists.

They can easily be written as fanatical, headstrong, stubborn, and narrow-minded because, well, they probably are.

Which is not the case. The Sisters are a massively competent and capable army. BL writers just hate them. Pure and simple.
Read Inquisitor's Handbook and Blood of Martyrs both by FFG and both written in part by Andy Hoare who was the reason the Sisters existed in 3rd ed onwards at all. Both these books are considered canon by GW and go deeply into the Sisters as an organisation and how they function, how they associate with the Imperium at large and how they are probably the MOST LOVED force in the entire Imperium.

since the Space Marines know that the Sisters' devotional worship is misguided and not in accordance to the Emperor's will.

Kettu wrote:The Custode leads Alicia and her five closest officers of the Brides of the Emperor into the very throne room itself.
What happened in their is not given but when they come back out they had changed and each had received a separate vision that became their guiding principal and ideal since then.
It's believed that the heads of each of the Big Six Orders all know and still follow these visions.

That and the head of the Custodes defended the Sisters post-Vandire in keeping them on as the Ecclesiarchy's Chamber Militant.
The Custodes are likely the only remaining people in the Imperium that hold the Emperor's vision true to how it was. So that likely also counts as well.

Any other issues?

Kettu wrote:Which is not the case. The Sisters are a massively competent and capable army. BL writers just hate them. Pure and simple.
Read Inquisitor's Handbook and Blood of Martyrs both by FFG and both written in part by Andy Hoare who was the reason the Sisters existed in 3rd ed onwards at all. Both these books are considered canon by GW and go deeply into the Sisters as an organisation and how they function, how they associate with the Imperium at large and how they are probably the MOST LOVED force in the entire Imperium.

Wait wait - wat?! Andy wrote RPG books for the SoB?


That's as close as we're ever going to get to authorial intent.

ContemplativeSphinx wrote:I think its safe to say that the people one encounters in real life generally do not think or seek verification of things in terms of statistics. What is relied upon in order to make assessments about matters is a mix of their own intuitive thinking,anecdotal experiences, and the supposed "Common sense" that exists.

I think it's safe to say that people in real life are generally useless trogolodytes.

As far as the who SoB matter goes, I believe there isn't one. The whole issue is one giant straw man.

Kaldor wrote:
I think it's safe to say that people in real life are generally useless trogolodytes.

Well that's a giant condemnation of the human race.

As far as the who SoB matter goes, I believe there isn't one. The whole issue is one giant straw man.

Penny for your thoughts?

ContemplativeSphinx wrote:
Penny for your thoughts?

I think someone believed that the Sisters just get beaten up all the time, never bothered to fact-check, and then one or two people agreed with him, and THEY never fact checked, and then we end up with this thread, which is basically one giant misconception; that the sisters are just GW and BL whipping 'boys'.

Kaldor wrote:

ContemplativeSphinx wrote:
Penny for your thoughts?

I think someone believed that the Sisters just get beaten up all the time, never bothered to fact-check, and then one or two people agreed with him, and THEY never fact checked, and then we end up with this thread, which is basically one giant misconception; that the sisters are just GW and BL whipping 'boys'.

well i wouldn't necessarily say that the opinion is isolated solely to this thread, nor has the topic been left undiscussed on other WH40K forums....so much so that its gained a bit of mockery on a 1d4Chan page apparently.

But if you've got any data to the contrary - i can't speak for anyone else watching this thread - but i'd be very interested to see it.


You have my full attention.

Kaldor wrote:I think someone believed that the Sisters just get beaten up all the time, never bothered to fact-check

That's because you never bothered to fact check.

Compared to all other factions, 40k shows Sisters of Battle overwhelmingly as rarely achieving victory. Even the IG has a better victory rate than Sisters do. This is because of the general dearth of Sisters lore from the perspective of the Sororitas or from a sympathetic perpsective; most references to Sisters being in other factions' lore, where they denigrate the group simply because there's almost nothing the Sisters have that shows otherwise. Hell, the only good thing about the pdf so-called "codex" was that it did actually add a few more lines of text showing Sisters having a unquestionable victory or two.

ContemplativeSphinx wrote:But if you've got any data to the contrary - i can't speak for anyone else watching this thread - but i'd be very interested to see it.

I don't, hence my request for some.

I'd like to believe that someone crying foul about GW's treatment of the Sisters would have some evidence to support their claim.

Melissia wrote:Compared to all other factions, Sisters lore shows them overwhelmingly as rarely achieving victory. Even the IG has a better victory rate than Sisters do.

Prove it. You've come out with the claim, now lets see the data.

And now time for the doublecheck....

Do we have every recorded piece of fluff of the SoB accounted for? Or can someone toss another piece onto the pile?

Kaldor wrote:Prove it.

Sisters of Battle have two black library books to their name, just two, no more. An equal number of Black Library books (the Cain books), Sisters are shown to be idiotic losers who get slaughtered to a woman. In other books, they're usually absent entirely even when they should be there-- there's almost no mention of the Sisters Hospitaller in most Guard lore for example, even though they're well known across the Imperium and well beloved by the populace. When they are, they're usually portrayed in a negative light because they're never the main characters of the books and the writer wanted another antagonistic force.

In SM lore, Sisters got trounced easily by Space Wolves (Space Wolf lore), and are shown to be indecisive in dealing with potentially renegade chapters that are attacking civilians (Armageddon). They were then supposedly kicked off of Cadia (Eye of Terror related lore) because of this and other incidences. In the Grey Knights lore, they're mislead and end up dying in the end, or they're all slaughtered to empower the Grey Knights. They never actually manage to win against them or survive a victory with them. There's a minor piece of lore where a Sister is able to bring an ultramarine (I believe) back from corruption, or somesuch, but outside of a few mentions in DoW2 Retribution, that's the only positive mention of Sisters in relation to Space Marines I've seen.

In CSM lore, a contingent of veteran Sisters are shown to be unable to do any real damage to a renegade marine chapter (the mary sue like "Sons of Malice"). Only in long gone history (Rogue Trader era) and recently (in the accursed pdf codex) have Sisters actually managed to show that they can have victories against chaos marines. Even though this was originally considered their traditional enemy, GW has not seen fit to have them face off against Chaos Marines except in a few scattered locations.

In Tyranids lore, they're regularly simply all eaten by the 'nids, though as a minor point they sometimes manage to stop the Tyranids long enough to let the civilians flee. They never manage to repel them, however, like the Guard (such as in Cain), Orks (depicted often as a threat equal to the Tyranids as shown by the Octavius sector), and Marines (such as on Macragge) are able to do. In Ork lore, GW has never written about Sisters winning, ever, and the primary lore with Sisters and Orks have Sisters being slaughtered and not accomplishing anything even remotely valuable or even symbolic (Armageddon). A mention of Sisters participating in these battles is shown, but aside from that they're ignored.

In Necron lore, Sisters are nothing more than victims, never being able to accomplish anything of value (Sanctuary 101). I know of no Eldar vs Sister lore, save that a certain Dark Eldar leader has a Sister of Battle sex slave. There is very little, if any, Sister vs Tau lore as well outside of DoW:Soulstorm.

In contrast, the sources of Sisters accomplishing something of value are in their codices and the FFG supplements, and are mostly accomplished against common heretics, rather than, say, Orks, Tyranids, Space Marines, or any other faction which has a codex.

Overwhelmingly, Sisters are portrayed as victims and very little else. If they manage to accomplish anything, it's against a weak opponent, or it's only with the sacrifice of an entire Order Militant. If Sisters were depicted as having greater numbers, this might even be acceptable, but without trying to abuse the vague numbers Sisters are depicted as being rarer than Space Marines, so essentially they regualrly are wiped out almost entirely.

The victimization of Sisters does nothing for the army's popularity-- even Eldar win some strategic battles, who wants to buy an army that's more doomed than the Eldar? BL authors being as generally incompetent (with rare exceptions) as they are and being generally unwilling to write believable female characters or likable religious characters, they don't do Sisters any justice. And with GW essentially doing its best to ignore Sisters as much as it possibly can, we don't have much in the way of other sources.




So... in essence, the reason that Sisters are generally viewed as GW's whipping girls is because GW uses Sisters as their whipping girls, killing them off with monotonous regularity and never giving them any real victories.

Wow that was....quick..

A small aside: Was there any definitive winner to DoW: Soulstorm? I've heard that Relic ruled in favor of the IG being the final victor (i can't substantiate that however).

Which means the SoB and the Living Saint who accompanied them on that campaign were felled by....somebody/thing/group.

The only confirmation I've seen is that Space Marines lost and viewed the whole thing as a mistake on their part. No idea who won.

I believe the IG won Soulstorm. Those 100 baneblades Mr Sturn shipped out did their job

Grey Templar wrote:I believe the IG won Soulstorm. Those 100 baneblades Mr Sturn shipped out did their job

LOL.

any description as to who did in what faction to leave the IG as Last Man standing?

Or are we left to color in the details ourselves?