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 BBAP wrote:
Right, but would that change even if GW pushed Sisters harder? They're not a very exciting army to play - they're solid, reliable performers who always give a good account of themselves, but their options are limited and they only really do one thing well (mid-range light mech). That's not the kind of army you can sell to new players. If you want to change that, you need a full reboot of the faction and its fluff, which costs money. You'd need to justify that expense, which you could do if all the existing players who say they'd play Sisters "if only" are serious, but I don't think they are.

So, we are where we are.

That sounds pretty much what dark eldar were before their reboot...Which sold pretty well then.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 BBAP wrote:
Right. Your argument is that GW spent loads of money producing this character and her artwork, hence they could've spent a bit more updating the SoB rules. What I see is some corny spiel about a woman in power armour somersaulting off a tank and one-shotting a Lictor with a bolt pistol. This was clearly written by C.S. Goto at 4:55pm on Christmas Eve. I haven't seen the artwork, but you can commission a digital artist for a couple of hundred quid per image. Paying game designers to redo a Codex is more expensive than that, whether or not you care about game balance.

You know they don't have to redo whole codex to give new rules...There's you know alternatives:

a) redo old digital codex. Keep's the fluff and layout pretty much as it is. Just add in couple pages for formations and maybe some new wargear. Fix units.
b) utilize old codex but give them say new special character and couple formations in the campaign that had that art. It's just couple pages more. Any game designer who isn't too concerned about balance(that's every GW designer therefore) can do that much quickly. Cheaper than the art most likely since it's quicker to do. Doubtful game designer hourly rate is higher than artist. Pretty sure it's actually reverse as it seems that game designer wages are pretty low on priority.

tneva82 wrote:
That sounds pretty much what dark eldar were before their reboot...Which sold pretty well then.

In 5th Edition that was all you needed to succed 9/10ths of the time. Nowadays it's not enough - hence why nobody plays Sisters or DEldar anymore. Sisters need to be retooled for 7th if you want people to play them, which seems to be what's happening.

You know they don't have to redo whole codex to give new rules...There's you know alternatives:

a) redo old digital codex. Keep's the fluff and layout pretty much as it is. Just add in couple pages for formations and maybe some new wargear. Fix units.

Unless the Formations give the vehicles extra HP or make Immolators free then it's unlikely to increase their viability in competitions, and neither would change the "push and shoot" style of play.

b) utilize old codex but give them say new special character and couple formations in the campaign that had that art. It's just couple pages more. Any game designer who isn't too concerned about balance(that's every GW designer therefore) can do that much quickly.

So you don't care about balance either, because you're suggesting this as a poitential redesign strategy. Again, they **could** do this, but fixing a faction is only worth the commitment in time and money if it's going to bring in a return. That's just how it works if you have investors to pay.

Cheaper than the art most likely since it's quicker to do. Doubtful game designer hourly rate is higher than artist. Pretty sure it's actually reverse as it seems that game designer wages are pretty low on priority.

You're looking at it wrong. You don't have to hire an artist onto staff; just go to deviantart or somewhere similar and commission one. A couple of pictures won't cost you more than a few hundred quid or so. The game designers, on the other hand, are salaried staff members who probably have other things to do when they're not designing the rules for a single faction. Their time doesn't just cost you money; it costs you productivity in other areas.


This is all moot now, though. New Codex in Jan/ Feb next year. i predict the Sisters will still be "push and shoot" units, but they'll have enough back-up to make that stick. I'm looking forward to it.

 Melissia wrote:
Nah, I'll keep being bitter and cynical. Because SOMEONE has to counterbalance the hype train before it causes people more misery.

Stay strong brave soul!

Formations for Sisters would be freakin' easy, is the thing.
If you take their Decurion style, everyone gets +1 to their Shield of Faith invuln and a second Act of Faith. (And Warlord Trait rerolls, I guess.)
1-3 Exorcists and 1-3 Priests would grant, say, a re-roll on number of shots fired, or else maybe the ability to pool all their missiles and gain some special rule. (Re-rolls to hit?)
1+ Peninent Engines and 2+ units of Repentia gives you Fleet or maybe Crusader, and Furious Charge for the Repentia.
One Cannoness and a Command Squad gives everyone involved +1 WS and Fearless.
2+ Seraphim units give, say, re-rolls on their Deep Strike and Re-rolls to hit on the turn they come in from reserve. (So that way there's a reason to go for Inferno Pistols.)
Since you need a big, large troop-centric detachment, 3-6 units of Battle Sisters, a Cannonness, 1-3 units of Dominions, 1-3 Retributors, 0-1 Celestians, 0-3 Priests. (Uriah can be taken instead of one of the priests.) Everyone involved gets an extra Act of Faith, and the Cannonness's AoF becomes a 12" bubble instead of only affecting her unit.


This took like, five minutes to throw together. It's not overwhelmingly powerful, but it does provide a lot more utility to certain units, bump Sisters durability to something at least half decent, and gives players a reason to take some units they might otherwise avoid.
(And yes, BTW, I know that the +1 Invuln could stack with the Warlord Trait which does the same. I don't see one unit getting a 4+ Invuln as all that bad. Even with Allied psykers giving Sanctuary, there's no way to get a save better than 3++, and Seraphim can't get better than a 4++ rerollable unless they slow down to foot traffic speed.)

I disagree that Wraithknights are OP/ undercosted, and I think you're just wrong in general - but I've said all this before. I think we're done on this point.

Wraith Knights are fine and not OP / undercosted - hmm - really?? - what is you opinion on multiple Riptides, Eldar jet bikes - fair and balanced?- as in Fox News style Fair and balanced?

Your argument is that GW spent loads of money producing this character and her artwork, hence they could've spent a bit more updating the SoB rules. What I see is some corny spiel about a woman in power armour somersaulting off a tank and one-shotting a Lictor with a bolt pistol. This was clearly written by C.S. Goto at 4:55pm on Christmas Eve. I haven't seen the artwork, but you can commission a digital artist for a couple of hundred quid per image. Paying game designers to redo a Codex is more expensive than that, whether or not you care about game balance.

Ah now you are twisting things - you were the one who said that GW would not spend any money on Sisters without a return - I showed that they had in fact spent money - on multiple pieces of artwork and whatever your own opinion of the text - someone to write lots of words. I hate the current Wolfy mcWolf riding a wolf with a wolf sword version of the Spacec Wolves - byu your reasoning that means they should not be there? The entire Space Wolves fluff has gone for cool to (IMO) dire.

Asd you say you haev not seen the art work - I have - its clearly taken from the specific mdoel they sell - as is now usually thee case and So easily lends it so

And someone could not have spent 2 mintues creating a coupe of formations to go woth that stuff - I do not believe that would haev cost more than they spent on art and text.

If you want to believe they care about balance you are not reading their own articles or posts - they don't care as they donlt see it as a important elemnt of the hobby - which for them is buying, making and paiting the models, then maybe messing about with them a bit.

 BBAP wrote:
...I can also bring her as part of an Invisible deathstar so the whole unit gets HnR and can reroll charges if she walks...

Not true anymore. Only Celestine gets the reroll, now per new BRB FAQ.

 Mr Morden wrote:
...I hate the current Wolfy mcWolf riding a wolf with a wolf sword version of the Spacec Wolves - byu your reasoning that means they should not be there? The entire Space Wolves fluff has gone for cool to (IMO) dire wolf.

Updated for you.

 Mr Morden wrote:
Wraith Knights are fine and not OP / undercosted - hmm - really?? - what is you opinion on multiple Riptides, Eldar jet bikes - fair and balanced?- as in Fox News style Fair and balanced?

As in "play against them with a decent army and they're fine" balanced. These units are fine. If you're taking Battleforce armies in cack-hand Formations and whining because they roll you... I dunno what to tell you. Git gud, maybe.

Ah now you are twisting things - you were the one who said that GW would not spend any money on Sisters without a return

My position hasn't changed. Nothing has been twisted.

I showed that they had in fact spent money

You showed a cheesy sidebar story of the kind they chuck into all the splatbooks as an afterthought.

on multiple pieces of artwork and whatever your own opinion of the text - someone to write lots of words.

What you wanted was an investment of time and effort to retool the faction such that it can work as a top-tier 7th Edition army. What you got was a few pieces of fluff in splatbooks that were going to be written anyway. These books aren't about the Sisters; the Sisters are merely relevant to them, so whoever was writing them chucked a few sidebar stories in there and comissioned a few images. Now here you are trying to pretend that because GW sometimes remembers the Sisters exist, there's no reason they shouldn't make a significant investment of time and effort to produce new rules for them.

Nothing is being twisted. You're clutching at straws is what's happening.

I hate the current Wolfy mcWolf riding a wolf with a wolf sword version of the Spacec Wolves - byu your reasoning that means they should not be there?

My reasoning is that GW haven't made the effort to retool Sisters as a stand-alone faction because the potential for a return isn't there. How is what you or I dislike relevant to that in any way?

Asd you say you haev not seen the art work - I have - its clearly taken from the specific mdoel they sell - as is now usually thee case and So easily lends it so

So you think, what - that they made this piece of artwork to try and punt the model? Is that the only feasible explanation here? Did the artist maybe use the model as a reference for the picture?

What point are you trying to make here?

And someone could not have spent 2 mintues creating a coupe of formations to go woth that stuff - I do not believe that would haev cost more than they spent on art and text.

Depends how good you want them to be, I suppose. You seem to think you can chuck a usable Formation together in the time it takes to write a cacky sidebar story. I'd suggest that's not the case, and it's evidently not what GW does. Frankly if they're going to put out gak-ass nonsense I'd prefer they just not bother.

If you want to believe they care about balance you are not reading their own articles or posts - they don't care as they donlt see it as a important elemnt of the hobby - which for them is buying, making and paiting the models, then maybe messing about with them a bit.

I know from their AGM that they don't consider gamers an important sales demographic (or at least Tom Kirby didn't - he was all about the impulse buyers, or "collectors" as he calls them), but that doesn't mean they don't balance units against one another when designing the game. They evidently do, considering balanced armies hold up reasonably well against other balanced armies. gak-ass armies get rolled hard by balanced armies, which is fine - that's how it should be. If the game was poorly balanced then there'd be units which insta-win against everything. No such units exist.

inb4 Wraithknights/ Imperial Knights - If I can't ignore them, then my Claw-Morphs and Acolyte Hybrids will kill them. So will Invisible deathstars. So will Grav weapons.
inb4 Invisible deathstars - massively expensive, have almost no hope of winning missions against balanced armies that are played well, easy to pin down and chip to death, die like flies to D weapons.
inb4 D weapons - Go ahead and fire your D weapons at my 24 GSC squads or one of the 7 Rhinos in my Gladius. See if I care.
inb4 Gladius - Tough opponents for GSC but Scatbike Eldar, WarCon, and Invisible deathstars will smush them.

GW cares about balance. You don't think they do. That's fine. Doesn't change the fact that they do.

As in "play against them with a decent army and they're fine" balanced. These units are fine. If you're taking Battleforce armies in cack-hand Formations and whining because they roll you... I dunno what to tell you. Git gud, maybe.

That this is even a consideration should tell you that they're fundamentally broken. That an army can be considered "decent" or "not decent" should tell you that they're broken. That the game is in this state is all the evidence required that GW could not write a balanced game if you put a bolter to their head.

I generally agree with BBAP on all points above. It's not an accident that the top tier of long-popular armies with new Codices has decent external balance among themselves. If GW believed Sisters of Battle would justify the investment, they would already be in plastic today.

I, for one, look forward to Exodites, Hrud, and Kroot Mercs.

 Psienesis wrote:
That this is even a consideration should tell you that they're fundamentally broken.

You think the fact you can't beat certain armies with your Battleforce means the game is not balanced correctly? I disagree.

That an army can be considered "decent" or "not decent" should tell you that they're broken.

No, it **should** tell you that the army contains an inappropriate assortment of units/ Formations and is therefore not balanced. 40k is balanced around armies, not individual units; when designing your army you need to make sure you have a means to meet any threat the opponent can hold over you, and that your army is capable of covering its own weaknesses. The fact some Codexes can't manage this is a problem with those specific books, not the game system.

That the game is in this state is all the evidence required that GW could not write a balanced game if you put a bolter to their head.

"Balanced". You keep using that word. I don't think it means what you think it means.

 BBAP wrote:

tneva82 wrote:
That sounds pretty much what dark eldar were before their reboot...Which sold pretty well then.

In 5th Edition that was all you needed to succed 9/10ths of the time. Nowadays it's not enough - hence why nobody plays Sisters or DEldar anymore. Sisters need to be retooled for 7th if you want people to play them, which seems to be what's happening.

Dark eldars got new codex and entire line pretty much redone. Do the same with sisters and why you think it wouldn't succeed where de did?

You're looking at it wrong. You don't have to hire an artist onto staff; just go to deviantart or somewhere similar and commission one. A couple of pictures won't cost you more than a few hundred quid or so.

Couple formations and rules for special character costs like one or two hours(and that's giving them leeway for taking coffee break or two in between). How high hourly salary rule designers have? Hundreds of quids per hour?

We can dial it down a bit here thanks.

Comments like ". I dunno what to tell you. Git gud, maybe. "

do not help.

tneva82 wrote:
Dark eldars got new codex and entire line pretty much redone. Do the same with sisters and why you think it wouldn't succeed where de did?

Did DE succeed? Some people bought new armies, sure - but was it enough to offset the cost of development? That's what I'm asking.

Even supposing it did, for every such success story there's also a failure. Harlequins springs to mind immediately.

Couple formations and rules for special character costs like one or two hours(and that's giving them leeway for taking coffee break or two in between).

Yes, but doing it that way will produce a cack-handed Formation that's likely to be awful. If they're going to do that, I'd prefer they not bother.

How high hourly salary rule designers have? Hundreds of quids per hour?

Two hours they spend doing that is two hours they don't spend doing something else. If that two hours produces something that'll shift models - great, that's a productive expenditure. If it produces a gak-ass Formation for the Sisters of Battle? Not so much.

Does your boss often have you spend a quarter of your working day doing stuff you don't need to do? If not, why do you think that is?

 BBAP wrote:

Yes, but doing it that way will produce a cack-handed Formation that's likely to be awful. If they're going to do that, I'd prefer they not bother.

You're kidding, right? That's how every formation has been produced so far. In fact, if it took them two hours to come up with 99% of the legal formations, the developers belong nowhere near a game company.

" 40k is balanced around armies,"

No, it's not, because it's not balanced at all.

Martel732 wrote:
" 40k is balanced around armies,"

No, it's not, because it's not balanced at all.

I wonder how much effort it'd take to write a bot that'd detect when people say "40k is not balanced" in some fashion and post some kind of cliche alert.

(Before I get reported this is idle speculation, would violate forum rules against spamming, and none of us should try to do it)

Doesn't make it any less true.

GW's players policing themselves doesn't work at all because you've got Eldar players who won't acknowledge how crazy their base codex is.

Martel732 wrote:
Doesn't make it any less true.

GW's players policing themselves doesn't work at all because you've got Eldar players who won't acknowledge how crazy their base codex is.

I don't think that's really fair to say Martel732. I'm an Eldar player, started them in 6th. I knew wave serpent spam was a problem going in so I built my initial purchases around a themed army I wanted to do that didn't have any wave serpents. I still don't own any serpents. When 7th dropped I was the first to look at the new elder jetbike rules and point out to my local group how stupid it was that they let every jetbike take a special weapon. I wholeheartedly agree that the WK is undercosted (particularly the dual D-cannon variant) and I'm not a fan of our aspect host formations ability to be abused (spamming one particular type of aspect warrior in triplicate with +1 ws/bs is too good). The aspect host could be fun if it was a little bit more restrictive or if it just took away the +1 ws/bs so what you gain from it is the flexibility to field the aspect warriors you want without a CAD limiting you. I'd also say that while we have some ridiculous standout units I feel a lot of our codex is actually really well written (balanced on par with other strong 7th edition codexes, not necessarily others like orks or DE) and I feel our 7th edition dex has some of the most fun rules I've played with added to our force. Aspect warriors are a good example of this, the exarchs all come with a bonus special rule for either themselves or their unit if you pay the points to upgrade one and it helps the fluff of the unit come to life. This is a feature I'd love to see added to all the other codexes, special rules unique to a unit as opposed to trying to shoehorn many USR on a unit to try and make them feel unique.

Eldar are also not the only codex with ridiculous units/formations. Tau have them, riptides are still ridiculously good and there's formations that make them better for no cost whatsoever, SM formations can be devastating and depending on your force the necron Decurion can be effectively invincible with their layered saves. The problem isn't unique to Eldar, it's a player problem, regardless of what army they play. Definitely not every player, many of them are very cognitive of the cheese of their army and are ok tailoring down to fight a more casual force but yes there are some bad apples out there but the army you play doesn't dictate whether you are one or not.

I used Eldar as example. But I can go dig up posts from this site where people don't think the WK is busted as hell. Eldar are just the most glaring example. It's easier to convince people that gladius is broken than scatbikes/WK for some reason.

"I can't play muh Blood Angels!" is not evidence that the game is imbalanced or that certain units are OP.

Martel732 wrote:
Doesn't make it any less true.

GW's players policing themselves doesn't work at all because you've got Eldar players who won't acknowledge how crazy their base codex is.

I've seen many, many more players whining about how Eldar players are all d***bags who won't admit their Codex is dumb than actual Eldar players not admitting their Codex is dumb. I'm sorry your playgroup is terrible but that's no reason to insult the rest of us.

I'm actually referring to many of the posters here.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 BBAP wrote:
"I can't play muh Blood Angels!" is not evidence that the game is imbalanced or that certain units are OP.

Okay, how about non-gladius non-deathstar vanilla marines. When you only have two viable builds out of the codex with the most models, that's imbalance.

Martel732 wrote:
I used Eldar as example. But I can go dig up posts from this site where people don't think the WK is busted as hell. Eldar are just the most glaring example. It's easier to convince people that gladius is broken than scatbikes/WK for some reason.

If you want to use a subgroup as an example to strengthen a point then I'm fine with that. Maybe I read it wrong but my inference from your original post was that you were lumping all elder players into the same group when saying we don't accept arguments that our codex has some OP selections. I think if a reliable survey could be done then most Eldar players would agree with you about certain options in our codex being OP/undercosted.

All I'd ask is that when you mention a subgroup as an example you also clarify that not everyone belonging to the larger group also thinks that way, it's stereotyping and pushes this sentiment of odd 40k quasi-racism (oh you play elder? well that means your a WWAC d**** who plays an OP army). I've seen discrimination against players on this site before based entirely on their army choice or seen peoples ideas and opinions completely dismissed based on their army. Things like "you're not allowed to say the riptide is OP because you have the WK in your codex" is something I've actually read here. There are good, friendly Eldar players with valid opinions and who would get behind a nerf for many things in our codex just as I'm sure there are good players of any force that would be ok with having their codex nerfed for the sake of game balance. Lumping people into groups based on the army they play just isn't fair to the community as a whole, players should be judged based on their words and actions individually, not based on what army they play.

There are specific posters on here that have blatantly claimed the WK is fair as currently implemented. That was my point. Not all Eldar players, or even a majority. But the fact that we have to drag up the math on WKs and Riptides over and over and over and then there is still explaining away and handwringing is absurd. And why GW's "talk to your opponent" thing doesn't work. Because too many people either can't do math or willfully ignore it.

Martel732 wrote:
Okay, how about non-gladius non-deathstar vanilla marines. When you only have two viable builds out of the codex with the most models, that's imbalance.

... in that Codex. It's imbalance in the Codex. In the Codex. Not the game. The Codex.

"But but but muh Codex is part of the game so imbalance"--- etc etc. It's part of the game. Not the whole game. Imbalance in a few units does not mean the game system is balanced improperly, it means those units are bad. Codex sucks? Codex is bad. Not game system. Can't possibly make an army that auto-wins against everything else = game system is balanced.

 BBAP wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Okay, how about non-gladius non-deathstar vanilla marines. When you only have two viable builds out of the codex with the most models, that's imbalance.

... in that Codex. It's imbalance in the Codex. In the Codex. Not the game. The Codex.

"But but but muh Codex is part of the game so imbalance"--- etc etc. It's part of the game. Not the whole game. Imbalance in a few units does not mean the game system is balanced improperly, it means those units are bad. Codex sucks? Codex is bad. Not game system. Can't possibly make an army that auto-wins against everything else = game system is balanced.

The game system makes cover useless for marines, but epic for models with poor armor. The game system allows massive tanks to be one shotted, but not any T6 MC. The Weapon skill chart. The absurd number of random rolls. Invisibility existing. The system is terrible.

 reds8n wrote:
Comments like ". I dunno what to tell you. Git gud, maybe. "
do not help.

Martel732 wrote:
Doesn't make it any less true.

Exactly. BBAP isn't wrong with he says that the OP (among others) needs to L2P; however, red's correct that it's not particularly helpful in remarking that the Emprah's running around with his butt in the breeze...

As for "balance,", if people want to say "40k isn't balanced", they probably need to define the word "balance", because it clearly means different things to different people. People used to say, "oh, Warmachine is so balanced", and that was a total crock of gak. Warmachine has never has perfect internal and external balance because there have always been glaring internal imbalances with every single edition of the game, but those imbalances would be glossed over by the fact that it was possible to be competitive with each faction, even if every one of those builds was rather specific in composition. That, and the OP-ness of Feats allowed for players to pull off lucky wins, regardless of actual tactics. Thus, if we say that Warmachine is "balanced", then have to conclude that 40k is also "balanced" - there are at least 4 factions which have similar external balance to remain top-level competitive with each other.

Finally, the WK is a clearly fair model; anybody who disagrees need to follow BBAP's advice, as quoted by red, in red, above.

And he appears.

"Finally, the WK is a clearly fair model; anybody who disagrees need to follow BBAP's advice, as quoted by red, in red, above. "

I'll give you BA and watch you fail over and over. And then get back to me.

Even the mighty Jancoran has failed to produce anything useful for BA. He doesn't play them or "get" them or something. Not surprising.

Guys... this is pretty far afield. You need to bring it back to sisters and wishlisting about sisters.

Before going back to the actual topic I'd like to remind Martel that the 'ignore' button is probably a better solution than generalizing a troll's beliefs across all Eldar players.

So with the Legion list as precedent I'm getting back behind the possibility of Sororitas bikes with flamers/meltaguns on the front instead of bolters. Possibly with some kind of extra Hammer of Wrath hits and/or immunity to fire resulting from driving forward in the middle of a giant fireball.