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BlaxicanX wrote:
One can only hope.

You want them gone?

BoomWolf wrote:You seriously underestimation imperial requirement scales.
Heck, the recruitment rate here is IL is a few thousands every four months, and we have less people ten the number of PLANETS in the 40k imperium.
Even if the sisterhood was reduced to a mere 10000, they should be more then able to get back into the millions range within 3-4 years.

Actually, he does not underestimate anything. I'm not sure where you got the "millions" from, but it isn't GW's books. In the studio material, they're more rare than the Space Marines - in part due to their rate of attrition (the six Greater Orders of the Battle Sisters bounce back and forth between 3.5k and 7k members on average), and in part because it's rare for a progena to meet the Sisterhood's high physical and psychological requirements. The Schola trains mostly Administratum scribes, with a smaller part to join military service or the Ecclesiarchy. And of those, the majority end up in the Arbites or as IG/Navy NCOs. Then there's the Commissars, and the Sororitas' non-militant Orders. Only the best get to join the 10k strong Storm Trooper regiment, or one of the Militant Orders of the Sisterhood. And every once in a while, somewhere a progena might even become a Temple Assassin or Inquisitor.

At least according to Codex fluff, anyways. Novels and stuff written by Black Library's freelancers tend to depict a lot of things a little different. And it's not as if they'd be "wrong" in doing so, as 40k background mostly has only interpretations, but not truths. But Psienesis certainly isn't wrong just because he seems to prefer what it says in GW's books.


As for the topic: There are rumours, apparently even statements from GW - and they did rework their webshop, make a new "Codex" and even released some articles on White Dwarf. But personally, I'm not holding up hope that there'll be more anytime soon. They just seem to have different priorities, I guess, and the Sisters don't really have anyone at the studio pushing their agenda right now, as they did back then with Mr. Hoare.
For what it's worth, their rarity makes their appearance on a game table truly special, and the metal minis are, I think, beautiful, with a nice weight in your hand feeling very much superior to that of some light, flimsy plastics, as much as the latter may be better for conversions (or for your wallet). They're basically a collector's army right now, akin to some of the stuff that Forgeworld has released, just that they've got an actual GW Codex and a place in the core rulebook.

I wonder how the SoB players would react if when their codex does come out, it turns out that it's 7th edition daemons of chaos level broken with grey knights esque fluff.

Well until the grey knights meet them, no.

Thatguyhsagun wrote:
Well until the grey knights meet them, no.

The sisters and Eldar can form a whipping boy/girl's club with how frequently they get punked.

 Lynata wrote:
In the studio material, they're more rare than the Space Marines

Looks like it might be suffering from some of GW's lack of focus on Sisters. Half of the main Orders are absent from the biggest heretic smackdown going, and only two lesser Orders showed up. Though it does note that more Imperial forces showed up later.

 Lynata wrote:
(the six Greater Orders of the Battle Sisters bounce back and forth between 3.5k and 7k members on average)

Source? Not asking in a "you're wrong" way, just interested to know.

 Kain wrote:
I wonder how the SoB players would react if when their codex does come out, it turns out that it's 7th edition daemons of chaos level broken with grey knights esque fluff.

I'll admit, I would like the fluff to an extent. Grey Knights level fluff would mean that they'd get a good, badass portrayal, even if it would be a little over the top in parts.

Sisters are alive and well.

Another thing to keep in mind, regarding the White Dwarf codex, is that the Blood Angels rocked the White Dwarf codex for 3 years before they got their own new one.

There's nothing greatly worrying here for me.

 HisDivineShadow wrote:
I've long been wanting a unified Inquisition dex.

You got one already. It's called Codex:grey Knights. The Sisters do not belng and never have belonged with the Inquisition. Their mission often puts them towards working to the same goals, but they are nt part of the Inquisition any more than Imperial Guard working alongside them.

Troike wrote:Looks like it might be suffering from some of GW's lack of focus on Sisters. Half of the main Orders are absent from the biggest heretic smackdown going, and only two lesser Orders showed up. Though it does note that more Imperial forces showed up later.

GW most certainly does have a lack of focus, but that wouldn't explain why they keep them small even where they do mention them. No, it is in fact part of their theme, and can be seen across their entire presentation in GW's own material. Here is another example, the Third War for Armageddon.

I actually like this for two reasons:
- it's a clever "in-universe" excuse for why the Sisters don't show up as often in GW fluff .. they simply cannot be everywhere at once, at least not in force!
- it also lets them appear even more elite

Given their physical and psychological perks as well as the likely cost of their Astartes-grade equipment, it sounds at least reasonable to me that the Imperium may just not be capable of raising too many of them at once. And that's not even counting the "artificial" hurdles such as not every Imperial orphan getting into the Schola in the first place, so you've got a whole bunch of people who might be eligible but won't ever get into testing. Kind of like most Space Marine Chapters limiting their recruitment efforts on a single planet and then complaining that only a dozen aspirants seem useful or something like that.

Troike wrote:Source? Not asking in a "you're wrong" way, just interested to know.

2nd edition Codex SoB. It gives a detailed account of which of the Greater Orders was founded when, how many members they have, and even how many of them are trained as Seraphim. Generally an excellent resource for information on the Sisterhood's organisation, way more detailed than anything that came later. Excerpt:


[edit] My numbers were actually off a bit, a little higher than what the source states.

Troike wrote:

Kain wrote:I wonder how the SoB players would react if when their codex does come out, it turns out that it's 7th edition daemons of chaos level broken with grey knights esque fluff.

I'll admit, I would like the fluff to an extent. Grey Knights level fluff would mean that they'd get a good, badass portrayal, even if it would be a little over the top in parts.

Ouphh, I'd really prefer the happy medium of, say, IG. In fact, I was already happy to see the recent White Dwarf articles again pick up on the old "Sisters get to kill off Marine Chapters" fluff.
On the other hand, I know I couldn't resist checking up on the outrage from certain groups if it'd be cranked up to GW or SW levels.

On a sidenote, since that incident with the Bloodtide was mentioned ... I actually have no problem with this at all, and can't really "get" the criticism. All that this bit of fluff shows is two things:
- the SoB have an incredible resistance against corruption (which is one of the army's central themes, and fits to other cool stories such as this one), so much so that even the GK may occasionally depend on them
- the GK are extremely pragmatic, so much so that they don't hesitate to kill their allies if they judge this to be necessary for the greater good (which also fits to the whole Inquisition stuff)

 Lobukia wrote:
Who are the Sisters if Battle?

You just made my day.

 Sir Samuel Buca wrote:
Same thread, different day.
SoB don't get updated because they don't generate enough sales to justify it. Simple as. You're disgusted, big deal. GW is a business, they make business decisions. They don't care if you're disgusted by them choosing not to make changes to their own product, at great personal cost themselves, just to make the minority of their fan base happy.

Same self fulfilling prophecy too: No changes, means no newly generated interest. Same old models means no changes in player's desire to buy them. No investment no reward. Simple as.

I do agree that GW generally doesn't care about making customers happy ultimately, but acting as if it is because of "sound" business decisions is ludicrous. They released an army, gave it next to zero support and it fell flat on its face as should have been expected and they act like it is the fault of their players. They already *failed* in the business decisions with the SoB. Heck Tau weren't very popular either of late with their old, old codex, but give them a fancy new codex, a spit shine and some cool new models and they can't keep the things in stock most places. Same thing could happen with SoB with some real investment of time and energy on them. Instead GW does nothing...

Skriker

 Lynata wrote:
On a sidenote, since that incident with the Bloodtide was mentioned ... I actually have no problem with this at all, and can't really "get" the criticism. All that this bit of fluff shows is two things:
- the SoB have an incredible resistance against corruption (which is one of the army's central themes, and fits to other cool stories such as this one), so much so that even the GK may occasionally depend on them
- the GK are extremely pragmatic, so much so that they don't hesitate to kill their allies if they judge this to be necessary for the greater good (which also fits to the whole Inquisition stuff)

God please take all my Exalts. People who complain about that fluff seem to ignore the other pieces in the codex where they hunt down and kill entire regiments of poor Imperial Guardsmen just for knowing that they exist. Don't know why the Sisters would get any special treatment in the face of overwhelming pragmatism.

I'd love decent plastic sculpts for the basic troops. I could roll them into my Inquisitorial Retinues. Heck, it'd just be nice to have some normal, female armored bodies to work with for conversions rather than having to go third party.

I was incredibly sad to see the SoB shoehorned into a white dwarf release, I'd gotten excited to see if there were any new models that would be released. Alas. That said, GW hasn't removed them from their website, so they must not be looking to can them any time soon.

 gpfunk wrote:
God please take all my Exalts.

Seconded. Lynata's SOB fluff posts are how I wish I could be if I was patient and less sarcastic.

 pretre wrote:
Sisters are alive and well.

This is true in my local meta. People just think of them dead because of a lack of codex and the recent white dwarf update that some think was more insulting than helpful.

 Lynata wrote:
- it also lets them appear even more elite

Hmm. Good point, didn't think of it like that.

Now if only their fluff reflected that.

 Lynata wrote:
On a sidenote, since that incident with the Bloodtide was mentioned ... I actually have no problem with this at all, and can't really "get" the criticism. All that this bit of fluff shows is two things:
- the SoB have an incredible resistance against corruption (which is one of the army's central themes, and fits to other cool stories such as this one), so much so that even the GK may occasionally depend on them
- the GK are extremely pragmatic, so much so that they don't hesitate to kill their allies if they judge this to be necessary for the greater good (which also fits to the whole Inquisition stuff)

I think that a lot of people have a problem with it conflicting with how the Grey Knights are fluffed as being utterly incorruptible in regards to daemonic influence. It makes the slaughter of the Sisters seem a bit pointless.

Influence is different than physical corruption.

 pretre wrote:
Influence is different than physical corruption.

Oh? I thought that the bloodtide was a warp-based thing? As in, it worked on a psychic level.

Troike wrote:Now if only their fluff reflected that.

It does - it all just depends on what sources you're looking at!

I mean, at one point GW's website flat out said that Battle Sisters are equals to the Space Marines. That's a fairly huge thing to say about (semi-)normal humans.
I think the biggest problem is that their GW fluff is pretty much all over the place and hard to find, whereas the most popular and known portrayals tend to come from Black Library novels or outsourced RPGs that often depict them in a somewhat weaker or diluted fashion. Of course every interpretation is just as valid as another, but when some are just more widespread than others, it's no wonder that the Sisters' public perception is shifted in one direction more than the other. Even SoB fans may "suffer" from this simply because they've never heard of other sources such as the Liber Sororitas, their Armageddon 3 articles, or the Anti-Astartes Strike Force list.

Troike wrote:I think that a lot of people have a problem with it conflicting with how the Grey Knights are fluffed as being utterly incorruptible in regards to daemonic influence. It makes the slaughter of the Sisters seem a bit pointless.

Yeah, I suppose that's true - but to me this seems like an issue of perception. The assumption that GKs are incorruptible "just because". However, what if what makes the Grey Knights incorruptible are tricks like these? We've never been told differently, and that's how I ultimately justified it to myself, anyways. Most of the time, the GK's special genetic material and indoctrination may suffice to keep the corruption at bay, but in some cases, such as it was with the Bloodtide, they'd just have to ... well, add a bit more protection.

Troike wrote:Oh? I thought that the bloodtide was a warp-based thing? As in, it worked on a psychic level.

I've interpreted it as both. Warp-corruption always has to do with psychic energy, yet the Bloodtide was arguably also a physical (metaphysical?) manifestation ("[...] a tide of gore corrupting everything and anyone it touches"). I would assume that most Nurgle-spawned plagues work on the same level, with physical contact being either a necessary catalyst or to serve as a "boost" to a latent Warp-powered mutation of the body.

If blood somehow carries a fraction of the psychic essence of their owner (which may be why it is often used as paraphernalia in Chaos rituals), the Sisters' mental purity (see the story about Sister Anastasia linked above, as well as the Sisters' 3E Codex "Shield of Faith" negating psychic effects cast upon them) may well have it work like some sort of "antidote" that can, as it seems, perhaps even be harnessed. In their new Codex, the Grey Knights very much come across as sort of Anti-Cultists using strange Warp rituals to fight Chaos.
That being said, the internet is also prone to exaggeration, and a lot of things - including the Bloodtide incident - are at times presented in ways that does not actually reflect the original wording. Just look at how often you see someone proclaiming that "X is canon", in spite of several GW designers and BL authors saying that this isn't how the franchise works.

Yes, the tyranid ate all of their homeworlds.

The Grey Knights are incorruptible because they possess the knowledge of the blackest sorceries that make them so... and are entirely unafraid to practice such sorceries.

 Psienesis wrote:
The Grey Knights are incorruptible because they possess the knowledge of the blackest sorceries that make them so... and are entirely unafraid to practice such sorceries.

Fight fire with fire? Figures...

As for SoB I'm the only one in my little circle that has any, and I've not heard of anyone fielding them in the larger group around us (this-and-that guy's old gaming mates etc). But I'm sure a real Codex and new models would make them popular, just like the Dark Eldar and Necrons suddenly became the new sliced bread. And that was after years of being obscure armies with special rules no one knew and units no one had heard of.

Sisters aren't dead, that's for sure.
I know a few people that have them, I'm looking to start a Repentia based force when I'm not broke anymore...

 Troike wrote:

 Lynata wrote:
In the studio material, they're more rare than the Space Marines

Looks like it might be suffering from some of GW's lack of focus on Sisters. Half of the main Orders are absent from the biggest heretic smackdown going, and only two lesser Orders showed up. Though it does note that more Imperial forces showed up later.

 Lynata wrote:
(the six Greater Orders of the Battle Sisters bounce back and forth between 3.5k and 7k members on average)

Source? Not asking in a "you're wrong" way, just interested to know.

 Kain wrote:
I wonder how the SoB players would react if when their codex does come out, it turns out that it's 7th edition daemons of chaos level broken with grey knights esque fluff.

I'll admit, I would like the fluff to an extent. Grey Knights level fluff would mean that they'd get a good, badass portrayal, even if it would be a little over the top in parts.

Except now you get a completely new character out of the Blue with Draigo level fluff, let's say beating Angron and all thirteen of his bloodthirster guard singlehandedly and then kicking Khorne's teeth out.

One problem that the sisters face as a poor selling army is not only competition for resources from popular 40k armies but also competition for development time and resources from the more popular fantasy armies.

No current plastic models must also be a huge drawback.

Even the failure of finecast may be playing into the mix as well. It is very clear that finecast did not work out at all like GW planned. It did not really turn out to be an alternative to metal that could be used broadly across their model range. This is clear because they have mostly stopped converting older models to finecast even though there are quite a few that remain metal other than the sisters.

No, Sisters aren't dead. But GW certainly doesn't really seem to know what to do with them.

gravitywell wrote:
Yes, the tyranid ate all of their homeworlds.

The 'Nids ate Terra? Damn.

 Kain wrote:

 Troike wrote:

 Lynata wrote:
In the studio material, they're more rare than the Space Marines

Looks like it might be suffering from some of GW's lack of focus on Sisters. Half of the main Orders are absent from the biggest heretic smackdown going, and only two lesser Orders showed up. Though it does note that more Imperial forces showed up later.

 Lynata wrote:
(the six Greater Orders of the Battle Sisters bounce back and forth between 3.5k and 7k members on average)

Source? Not asking in a "you're wrong" way, just interested to know.

 Kain wrote:
I wonder how the SoB players would react if when their codex does come out, it turns out that it's 7th edition daemons of chaos level broken with grey knights esque fluff.

I'll admit, I would like the fluff to an extent. Grey Knights level fluff would mean that they'd get a good, badass portrayal, even if it would be a little over the top in parts.

Except now you get a completely new character out of the Blue with Draigo level fluff, let's say beating Angron and all thirteen of his bloodthirster guard singlehandedly and then kicking Khorne's teeth out.

Well if we're going that far we may as well wish for something really over the top, like fluff where the Sisters defeat a Daemon invasion by making some Grey Knights cry and then somehow using the tears to win. It'll be called the teartide.

But nah. Something that wasn't too over the top would be preferable.

its easy

Step one,write a real codex,

step two create box sets of plastic sisters squads with enough options to create retributers or squads
plastic sera's
a plastic or finecast hg figure
a new saint figure
tanks are fine,

step three sell them.

That would do it, really. And, in fact, you wouldn't need to have terribly many variations on the Troop choices, just bits in a box that can be used for Battle Sisters, Retributor, Domina, and Celestian squads, with additional "bitz kits" sold if you want to convert an entire box of Battle Sisters into Retributors (for example). Being that all of these Troop choices follow a standard pattern (heh), that of a woman in power armor, equipped with either standard bolter, heavy weapon or assault weapons.

Then you have a box for Seraphim (the jump-packs are going to suggest more dynamic poses for the figs, imitating jump-flight capability) and a box for Sisters Repentia, as they don't pack the PA and carry CCW exclusively.

Then you have your individual HQs, ICs and so forth all done as Finecast. Tanks and such, too, I suppose, though you could have a Citadel version for one price and then a fancy FC or FW version if you want to spend the cash on it.

So we end up with... 3 boxes of plastic figs, 10 Sisters per, support bitz kits, and then individual ICs, HQs and vehicles.

Toss in a flier and a dedicated AA tank, print an actual Codex: Sisters of Battle, and viola, license to print money.

Hell, put Jump Packs and twin-pistols in the box, and you could cover every Sisters infantry model in the current book outside of Repentia in 1 box.
Even if it charges £20 for a box of 5, with options for buidling 4-5 different squads out of it like the GK kit, with one of each special / heavy weapon option, jump packs, 1 of each power weapon and an Eviscerator, I'd be fine with that - it's only £2 more than sisters are now... but in plastic and with proper options!