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.

Yes they are limited, but i can still use all 6 each turn. Tho the heal wont be used if i go 1st and most likely the No moral wont be used much either, tho i do use 10 girl units so it will still be usable.

Also i think you are under estimating how easy they will be to use.
For me everygame turn 1 i will use the stratagem to use 3 AOF without rolling for 3CP, there is no reason not too. As i play a Brigade+other detachments, normally have 16-17 CP.
I also only said other tanks are better than the Exorcist, and i said i want to see if AoF will effect them or if they will get a specialist detachment rule for them before i said they are not playable.



Well i'm going to be play testing it like crazy to see how they are, i might even take it to a local tournament (IDK i only have 3 weeks to get ready for it, i might not be bale to).

Until we play it and test somethings out (Even with Allies) you wont know the power of it. It could just be there is a gem in there (Doms +1 to hit re-rolling 1's with stratagem and some other unit like Seraphim moving faster and cheaper, with canoness and celestine outrider to play friends with SM's)

Its the edition of soup, like it or not, everything is being balance for allies.

I've always felt to be a sister's player is to be always given the short end of the stick. With that said I've always taken pride in making what limited tools we had to work. I'd rather start to plan and to play and to do my personal best with what little that has always been given to us.

Then we can politely and respectfully let GW know our feedback.

I love this army and have been playing it for a decade and it's always been a bit of a uphill battle. Nothing is going to stop me from enjoying my Sisters of Battle

I don't think the sky has fallen, but things are defiantly different and not really in what I would call a finished form. GW is attempting to give a more scalable and less powerful Acts of Faith, but have missed a bit on both sides.

Scalability: The attempt to better scale Acts of Faith is a bit of a miss. 3 + 1 per 10 Models ends up being really close to the old rules of one at a 2+ and a second at a 4+ if you took and Imagifer (5 + 3 = 8 over a 6 turn game). Celestine's auto Act of Faith is downgraded to her new Warlord Trait of 1 Faith Point per turn on a 4+ (3 over a 6 turn game). Finally, they have a Stratagem to purchase an AOF per turn and the Martyrdom Stratagem to gain d3 more when a character is killed. Basically, if they want to give us "more" with a bigger army, they need to give us more. Otherwise, we only get more by expending CP to get them.

Impact: We are given, for the most part, less impactful AOF under the Beta Codex. This would be fine expect for two problems. First should be able to use more if any one has less impact. Second, we should be able to reliable use what we get, not have to roll a die and pray it works. That being said, the new Acts of Faith are about as powerful as basic Stratagems (except Hand of the Emperor is trash compared to most movement powers).

So I'm thinking we need to actually play some games rather than armchair game design and then get back to to them with solid comments. Do have to wonder why they just didn't make Acts of Faith Stratagems and then give "Faith Points" as extra CP that can only be used on Acts of Faith Stratagems?

Well said. Of course we need to get games in. Part of that is building lists though and anticipating how the list will perform.

I agree that the core issues are:
1) faith powers just don't seem that effective. This also hurts our strats as a good chunk of them affect faith points. So if faith points don't matter much, then those Strats don't matter either.
2) not very reliable faith power
3) only being able to use each once per turn eliminates any other attempts at scalability. You can start the game with 13 Faith points but if you end the game with your 13 points having about the same effect on the outcome as my 7 Faith points, then scalability has failed.

After a few beta, see if they are actually really weak (AoF's) for sure we need to do some BatReps without the limitation of "Once per turn" and see how it is.

Remember its beta, it can change, but we need good games and write ups to really encourage changes.

If GW is seriously going to look at our feedback then id rather things be underpowered than overpowered, it can only only go up from here.

 Amishprn86 wrote:
After a few beta, see if they are actually really weak (AoF's) for sure we need to do some BatReps without the limitation of "Once per turn" and see how it is.

Remember its beta, it can change, but we need good games and write ups to really encourage changes.

I did a thought exercise for this:

Imagine every unit in the army that can get AoF, got every buff, from all 6 Acts of Faith every turn. What kind of impact would that have on the army? Then add the restrictions back in.

Well, permanent +3 movement would be a decent buff. We'd be around the same speed on foot as Eldar. Useful, strong even. But not incredible.
The 4++ against Psyker wounds would probably be the biggest improvement. Devastating against psychic armies.
+1 to hit with all shooting weapons would be solid. Exorcists would still be iffy, but the extra weight of fire would be worth a lot. Very strong.
Immune to Morale: Not a huge deal, to be honest. Sisters are generally better as MSU, especially in the new book. It'll help occasionally but isn't that much of a gain.
Being able to constantly pile in and attack twice would be strong. Repentia and Canonesses would see a lot of combat. Celestine would be worth 160pts. Nice bonus, though not game breaking.
Resurrect one dead model per turn. Your opponent probably wouldn't leave this one to chance, same as people do with Necrons. Still, fairly strong.

Even having all 6 on every unit all game...it still doesn't feel like they'd be broken, to be honest? Like, they're good, but I'm still not really scared of that army. Better survivability, better offense, a moderate bonus to mobility. I'd say at that point they'd probably be close to where knight Castellan lists are. They'd need a nerf, but it would be small and likely wouldn't affect things like Seraphim or Celestians.

Now add Faith points in. Right there, I'd say it was fair. The average 2k SoB army will probably have 12-15 points with OoOML. We already hit on 3+ so it's not like stacking +1 to hit helps us much. The Passion and the Healing/Resurrection ability would need to be limited to one per unit but that would be it. I would call it a fair system right there. Vessels would be a good way to for skilled player to maximize their Faith points, but would be costly at 3 CP.

Limit each ability to once per turn and now...it's honestly not that great. You probably won't use all the points you have over the course of a game, and getting +1 on a unit is pretty meh. Vessels will do SOME heavy lifting here, but you'll never use it on about half of the AoFs. The system at this point, seems pretty tacked on and like you're really not losing much just ignoring it.

Adding a die-roll makes it feel bad. Making it so that if you fail the Die roll you can't pay another point to try again makes it feel WAY worse and means you're definitely ending just about every game with extra Faith points.Vessels is a 2CP Strat AT BEST here.

TL: DR: If they want to continue to use this system, get rid of the Once per turn limit, the die-roll, or both. If they want to keep it like it is, they need WAY stronger AoFs for anyone to care about them.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 alextroy wrote:
I don't think the sky has fallen, but things are defiantly different and not really in what I would call a finished form. GW is attempting to give a more scalable and less powerful Acts of Faith, but have missed a bit on both sides.

Scalability: The attempt to better scale Acts of Faith is a bit of a miss. 3 + 1 per 10 Models ends up being really close to the old rules of one at a 2+ and a second at a 4+ if you took and Imagifer (5 + 3 = 8 over a 6 turn game). Celestine's auto Act of Faith is downgraded to her new Warlord Trait of 1 Faith Point per turn on a 4+ (3 over a 6 turn game). Finally, they have a Stratagem to purchase an AOF per turn and the Martyrdom Stratagem to gain d3 more when a character is killed. Basically, if they want to give us "more" with a bigger army, they need to give us more. Otherwise, we only get more by expending CP to get them.

Impact: We are given, for the most part, less impactful AOF under the Beta Codex. This would be fine expect for two problems. First should be able to use more if any one has less impact. Second, we should be able to reliable use what we get, not have to roll a die and pray it works. That being said, the new Acts of Faith are about as powerful as basic Stratagems (except Hand of the Emperor is trash compared to most movement powers).

So I'm thinking we need to actually play some games rather than armchair game design and then get back to to them with solid comments. Do have to wonder why they just didn't make Acts of Faith Stratagems and then give "Faith Points" as extra CP that can only be used on Acts of Faith Stratagems?

I'd like to add that one of the major problems the people who HAVE tried test games with the book are running into(there haven't been many, but there have been some), is that they have large amounts of leftover Faith points after they lose(because that't been the result mostly).

I don't mind rolling for faith to go off, but the acts have to be worth it. I liked the over/under rolls we used to have to do in the Witchhunter codex. Defensive powers you'd have to roll over your squad size, offensive powers you'd have to roll under your squad size. And it was worth adjusting your list so you could maximize your chances of getting the powers off because the powers were good.

To be honest, if they just ripped the acts of Faith pages out of the Witchhunter codex and glued them into the Sisters Codex I'd be ok with it.

So, looking at the new stuff I'm thinking about a list with 3-4 15 lady bss squads, with celestine and the bonus invul warlord trait on a cannoness, all with the order that gives 5+ overwatch and only losing 1 to morale and have that be a big hard to kill blob at the core of a list.
At a minimum its about 650 points for a fairly tough blob that will make anyone assaulting it miserable. Add in some long range firesupport and I think it could do well at board control.

 Amishprn86 wrote:
Yes they are limited, but i can still use all 6 each turn. Tho the heal wont be used if i go 1st and most likely the No moral wont be used much either, tho i do use 10 girl units so it will still be usable.

Also i think you are under estimating how easy they will be to use.
For me everygame turn 1 i will use the stratagem to use 3 AOF without rolling for 3CP, there is no reason not too. As i play a Brigade+other detachments, normally have 16-17 CP.
I also only said other tanks are better than the Exorcist, and i said i want to see if AoF will effect them or if they will get a specialist detachment rule for them before i said they are not playable.



Well i'm going to be play testing it like crazy to see how they are, i might even take it to a local tournament (IDK i only have 3 weeks to get ready for it, i might not be bale to).

Until we play it and test somethings out (Even with Allies) you wont know the power of it. It could just be there is a gem in there (Doms +1 to hit re-rolling 1's with stratagem and some other unit like Seraphim moving faster and cheaper, with canoness and celestine outrider to play friends with SM's)

Its the edition of soup, like it or not, everything is being balance for allies.

In order:
No you can't. 3 of them depend on what your opponent does. One of them is melee. The morale one almost no one will ever use because large squads are even worse now than they were before.

Even using all 6 each turn, the net bonus is ultimately very very small. The AoFs are not good. Did you notice that the Flamer army got +1 to hit instead of to wound? They clearly didn't care here.

That's not the stratagem. You have to succeed FIRST and THEN use 3cp to do...whatever. None of the acts of faith are powerful enough to be worth 3 CP when you can just use it on a knight Castellant instead. I also think you're underestimating how much CP that setup will eat through. You're looking at 4CP per turn for the shooting AoF (3 for Vessels 1 for rerol wounds of 1). If you want to save multiple units with the morale thing? 3 more CP. Want more than 1 model back in a turn? 3 CP. Want more than one unit to move 3"? 3CP. Want more than one unit to fight in one turn? 3CP.

You could burn through all 18 of your CP in 1 turn and the net gain would be less than what other armies get with their character auras.

There's no 'wait and see' left. Both books are out in the wild.

Exorcists do NOT get a specialized detachment rule and can ONLY be affect by an AoF when Vessels is used within 6" of them. Even being the only thing in the book that got buffed, they're still not as good as the other army's tanks WITH +1 to hit.

You can know a rough approximation of 'better/worse' off of mathhammer. It's clearly overall worse. Dominions are the one saving grace of the book, but thanks to how the AoF system works, you'll never get more than 1 of them with an AoF. And that will only be on a 3+ because the Simlacrum is TWENTY points between the extra sister and the upgrade itself.

The seraphim thing you suggest require you to take seraphim AND Celestine, both of which are massively overpriced.

Even when it TRIES to be better it's worse.

I would like them to try an balance us for anything. Currently, you would never even consider taking SoB allies. Guard and Marines are better at everything we can do, now.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

StevetheDestroyeOfWorlds wrote:
So, looking at the new stuff I'm thinking about a list with 3-4 15 lady bss squads, with celestine and the bonus invul warlord trait on a cannoness, all with the order that gives 5+ overwatch and only losing 1 to morale and have that be a big hard to kill blob at the core of a list.
At a minimum its about 650 points for a fairly tough blob that will make anyone assaulting it miserable. Add in some long range firesupport and I think it could do well at board control.

Until they realize you're T3 and just kill you with bolters. Also, we could do that list better before and it wasn't very good then either.

I feel like GW is playing it safely down the middle here guys. GW is redesigning the entire line, why on earth wouldn't they take this opportunity to make completely new units. Similar, but different if you follow.

It's like when they redesigned my necrons or DE, the core infantry stayed the same. HQ's, troops some vehicles but they completely redid some stuff. Mandrakes, incubi, beasts, grotesques, talos an scourge were all previously in the book but were altered. Nobody cared because the line was dead at the point they finally redid it, same with necrons btw.

I feel like this beta was never meant to attract new players, meaning they don't want it to function well, just function enough to appease older players for a time. Keep them distracted. I mean, whats the point in hammering out the rules based on the current line? Does anyone here really expect or want them to stay stuck on the current stuff? Or is it likely for example that Seraphim will be a duel kit and you can make them with the current load out, or maybe all armed with evicerators or duel chainswords or fill in the blank. Same with the immolator and exorcist, surely they will be a duel kit. I am surethey will make entirely new units for elites and fast attack as well. Who wouldn't want jetbike sisters or terminator equivalents over celestians and dominions.

Not saying you guys don't have reason to be a bit upset, this book is boring from the leaks. The sisters are decent for their cost and still have an amazing transport and hey the exorcist is crazy good for 125, but yea the fluffy stuff is all kind of meh.

I would imagine they are more focused on play testing brand new units for the eventual relaunch. There is no way they are just replacing models from this beta dex. In fact I'd be surprised if a lot of stuff isn't entirely rearmed to kick all the counterfeit designers in the teeth. It sucks to say it, but I think the best thing to do is enjoy it for what it is until they get their actual book. I bet the doctrines and acts of faith were all made bland so when the new book hits and they roll out the actual rules, everyone can feel like they contributed during this year long distraction. There is no way GW is going to filter through all the design requests people make around the globe in X amount of languages lol.

I am not usually a tin foil hat guy but if you step back and think about this, it's really strange to be beta testing rules for 20 year old models. I am sure things like bolt, flamer and melta weapons will all stay, but you never know what they could add. Heck, they could easily get a dreadnought like model (not the penitent engines but a real sarcophagus) or they might get cheap chaf units like religious pilgrims or what not lol.

No point in arguing till we have play tested it honestly.

Also i was stating you can use all the AoF, its not that hard.

ALso this is VERY strong https://whc-cdn.games-workshop.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/CASistersofBattle-Dec6-Vessel-50kx.jpg

yes you test for it 1st, but with at least a +1 (easily +2 from what i have seen) and re-rolls, it wont be that hard to past, but it lets you character and ALL FRIENDLY units, that means you can use that 1 to effect everyone, you have 3 Rets and 3 Doms? use +1 to hit, you have 3 Seraphim and other fast moving units, use +3" movement.

 Amishprn86 wrote:
No point in arguing till we have play tested it honestly.

Also i was stating you can use all the AoF, its not that hard.

ALso this is VERY strong https://whc-cdn.games-workshop.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/CASistersofBattle-Dec6-Vessel-50kx.jpg

yes you test for it 1st, but with at least a +1 (easily +2 from what i have seen) and re-rolls, it wont be that hard to past, but it lets you character and ALL FRIENDLY units, that means you can use that 1 to effect everyone, you have 3 Rets and 3 Doms? use +1 to hit, you have 3 Seraphim and other fast moving units, use +3" movement.

Yea that's a good solution but you need to basically design your army around it. I think that's why folks are not thrilled. It's like I was saying, they are not by any means bad (as a guy looking to start sisters with fresh eyes), but they are definitely a bit boring. Generally I think folks get most excited for their doctrines and then the associated stratagems, they didn't even bother adding in the six unique stratagems one would expect. Part of the reason why I think this was definitely a stop gap and they are actually play testing other stuff.

So, my silver lining - there's a Warlord trait for our back line Canoness.

 Red Corsair wrote:

 Amishprn86 wrote:
No point in arguing till we have play tested it honestly.

Also i was stating you can use all the AoF, its not that hard.

ALso this is VERY strong https://whc-cdn.games-workshop.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/CASistersofBattle-Dec6-Vessel-50kx.jpg

yes you test for it 1st, but with at least a +1 (easily +2 from what i have seen) and re-rolls, it wont be that hard to past, but it lets you character and ALL FRIENDLY units, that means you can use that 1 to effect everyone, you have 3 Rets and 3 Doms? use +1 to hit, you have 3 Seraphim and other fast moving units, use +3" movement.

Yea that's a good solution but you need to basically design your army around it. I think that's why folks are not thrilled. It's like I was saying, they are not by any means bad (as a guy looking to start sisters with fresh eyes), but they are definitely a bit boring. Generally I think folks get most excited for their doctrines and then the associated stratagems, they didn't even bother adding in the six unique stratagems one would expect. Part of the reason why I think this was definitely a stop gap and they are actually play testing other stuff.

They probably are testing other stuff, but I expect they'll be looking to use the stuff they publish in CA as a basis for their design for SoB. That's why the feedback is important to create and send to GW.

 Amishprn86 wrote:
No point in arguing till we have play tested it honestly.

Also i was stating you can use all the AoF, its not that hard.

ALso this is VERY strong https://whc-cdn.games-workshop.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/CASistersofBattle-Dec6-Vessel-50kx.jpg

yes you test for it 1st, but with at least a +1 (easily +2 from what i have seen) and re-rolls, it wont be that hard to past, but it lets you character and ALL FRIENDLY units, that means you can use that 1 to effect everyone, you have 3 Rets and 3 Doms? use +1 to hit, you have 3 Seraphim and other fast moving units, use +3" movement.

I guarantee Vessel will be FAQd to read all other SoB units with AoF within 6". They'll get that at the 2 week mark.

I hate that I'll have to treat Celestine with kid gloves now. My favorite thing about her was that you could play her with reckless abandon because when she dies you get to reset and try again. But, she's as slow as everything else so she won't be any fun until turn 2 or 3 now.

I also can't believe we didn't get a deepstrike/outflank strat like every other army for 1cp.

Thats something i wanted for SOB for a long time, to DS.

I dont think they want SoB DSing in any shape or form sadly.

I set up a few test games with a couple friends today, mainly want to see how the new Dex holds up, and my friends was to try a couple lists with the new CA point changes. If we have enough time I should play against Ultras w/ bobby G, a Knight/Guard/Custodes list, Orks, and I might get a buddy to run my other army against me too Harlequins/Drukhari. To make sure its a realistic test of the Beta codex I won't be running Allies or Repressors (my index Sisters list included an Assassin Detatchment), just straight Sisters today. I'll try to give brief summaries later on today/tonight, gotta start collecting data.

Sounds great, I'll look forward to those. Has it been confirmed that Celestine, Exorcist, and the common wargear are the only points modifications?

The codex feels a bit lacklustre. Especially in the choices departement. I'm confident, that they will expand into new unit/roles for the real codex.

The problem with that tho is that we are playtesting an incomplete codex. Just one more unit with a specific role can change massively the strength and how a codex is played.

So an interesting question for the beta codex is: What (unit) is missing to make the codex more complete without losing its Sister of Battle character in giving it "every" option there could be?
- A second troop unit.
- "Shieldmaidens" Units with big shields, high defense (still T3) and some kind of protect others ability?
- "Archangels" Elite CC units with wings and flaming swords? Only 1 attack but each attack hits every model in contact?
- "Witchunters" armed with holy crossbows. Deal extra damage to psykers and demons. (may be a bit unfair to specially get a bonus against demons).

What are your opinions on this? Which slots or army functionality needs some love?

 MacPhail wrote:
Sounds great, I'll look forward to those. Has it been confirmed that Celestine, Exorcist, and the common wargear are the only points modifications?

crusaders -2
dialogus +15 (+1 to faith test in an aura)
geminae -4 (but as to buy its weapons I guess so same price)
priest -> preacher -10 (dunno what's different)
repentia -2
exorcist -10
penitent Engine +17
celestine -40
jacobus -50 (dunno what changed there too)
-----
combi melta -2
combi flamer -3
combi plasma -4
meltagun -3
flamer -3
immolation flamer -5
heavy flamer -3
multimelta -5
twin multimelta -14
plasma pistol -2
inferno pistol -2
Hand flamers are D6 hits now and same price
-----
Neural whips -3 (free)
Penitent buzz-blades -40 (free)
-----
simulacrum imperialis is a 10 points option


And it looks like we lost a few options (might have missed a few but eviscerators and power axes are out of the point values)

https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/0/768006.page#10262802

let's move over there.

Locking for a fresh start.