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Like the title says, why did Sisters of Battle lose Inquisitorial support?

The Grey Knights still have them, and they even took Inquisitor Karamazov away from the sisters.

Just curious...

The Inquisition can still call upon the Sisters of Battle, just as it can call upon any other Imperial force including Space Marines, Navy warships or Titan Legions.

I for one am glad that the Sisters have reverted to the status of a standalone Ecclesiarchal army they have been in 1st and 2nd Edition. Even though this status has never actually changed in the fluff even as 3rd Edition merged them into the Witch Hunters (something that was rumored to have been done to accompany the launch of GW's Inquisitor RPG), a lot of people lately mistook the Sisters to be the Inquisition's lapdog, and for an army to share its Codex with another faction can only mean less pages and with that less options as well as less fluff.

Are the Sisters of Battle still the Chamber Militant of the Ordo Hereticus? Good question. The 5E minidex doesn't talk about this at all, so I have no idea if that tie still exists as far as GW is concerned - but even if not, as mentioned above there would still be occasional co-operation.

As for the rules themselves, it was not done very elegantly and screwed a lot of people who had an army with an Inquisitor over. Were it up to me, I'd have given the Sisters their own (proper) Codex and would have released a special Inquisition Minidex in WD - with which you can field Inquisitors with any Imperial force in existence. As that is how it works in the setting as well.

1.) The Sororitas don't have a proper Codex currently other than the 3rd edition one. The WD Codex is just an improvised stop-gap thing so that people can't say that this army is lagging 2 (or soon 3) editions behind, while they actually do.
2.) Rumours have it that the proper Codex, which was started soon after the Grey Knight Codex development began, will focus on ecclesiarchy with enough new units to fill a whole book just with that. I am quite excited about that and don't see that as a bad thing. Hope they don't retcon the connection to Ordo Hereticus completely, because Inquisitor Karamasov et all were charatcerful.

So your saying to just have 'Faith in the Emperor.'

It was a good idea to make the Sisters back into the Ecclesiarchy's army rather than the "Witch Hunters". However it was dumb to still lump them in with the Grey Knights, it creates the wrong impression. There's no fluff to contradict that the SoB's are no longer the Ordo Militant of the Ordo Hereticus, and my rule on fluff at least is that it isn't false until contradicted by something newer.

Really, they should just make Inquisitors + Retinues + Assassins available HQ choices for any Imperial force.

Ray Age wrote:So your saying to just have 'Faith in the Emperor.'

Pretty much, I think for now they are waiting 6 edition rulebook and then they will dropo the Sisters.
But we wil lhave to wait for few more years.

Harriticus wrote:Really, they should just make Inquisitors + Retinues + Assassins available HQ choices for any Imperial force.

This. Well, almost.
Mehreens don't get along all that well with the Inquisition in the first place, the Space wolves being but the most blatant example.
Also, I find it a bit silly to have all Ordo treated as one ; the Grey Knights have basically no business teaming up with the Ordo Xenos, nor do the Sisters with the Ordo Malleus.
To me the "X" Hunters codices were very flavourful, with each having their own specific role and identity ; I remember GW describing the Ordo Malleus as heroic and majestic whereas the Ordo Hereticus Inquisitors are more sinister and menacing. This meshed very well with their respective Chamber Militant. It feels almost like it has been retconned now, which is sad.

Anyway, looking forward to a real codex for the sistas ; I think they are the human faction that best depicts the glorious grimdark madness of the Imperium. They deserve that book.

Hyd wrote:Mehreens don't get along all that well with the Inquisition in the first place

Some do. Not every Chapter tries to be a dick on principle of independence.
And since an Inquisition Minidex would naturally be optional to each army, it'd be left to the individual player whether he wants to include them or not.

Hyd wrote:Also, I find it a bit silly to have all Ordo treated as one ; the Grey Knights have basically no business teaming up with the Ordo Xenos, nor do the Sisters with the Ordo Malleus.

Wellll ... an Inquisitor is first and foremost still an Inquisitor; the Ordos (of which there are more than three) are nothing more than networks of likeminded people. Also, Sisters of Battle have fought both daemon and alien in the past.
Though I'll admit that it is left open whether their ties to the Ordo Hereticus mean that they will only answer to them (meaning if when another Inquisitors asks the Ordo may simply block the request because he's not a member of their VIP club)...

Lynata wrote:

Hyd wrote:Mehreens don't get along all that well with the Inquisition in the first place

Some do. Not every Chapter tries to be a dick on principle of independence.
And since an Inquisition Minidex would naturally be optional to each army, it'd be left to the individual player whether he wants to include them or not.

There are even some Chapters who could be considered a 'secondary' Chamber Militant, who wear the Inquisitions badge on their armour to show their ties with the Inquisition.

They never did make a Codex Alienhunters (to keep the same naming scheme) did they? Ordos Xenos was my favorite Ordo, well after Ordos Chronos. And it would have been cool to have a book solely for Xenos, but uncool since it would be yet another mahreens book.

I like running a pure sisters army myself but think there should be some changes in our selections. For instance, sisters are all about purification so why can't they have redeemers without the assault cannon, switch to hvy bolters, the baal predator with the flame cannon and either of the side sponsons( I know it's supposed to be BA only) just saying these things are all about purifying. The faith points do NEED a serious work over and even tho it isn't much I love the shield of faith. The hvy flamer should have a bigger template maybe by 2' longer and 3/4" wider, we lose some of the template when firing from an Immolator. I also believe that since sisters are supposed to be all about purging chaos then there should be some sort of weaponry that helps with this i.e. force weapons or the equevilent there of. Hopefully these things will be addressed when they get back around to us. I think their WD article was a good attempt at passifing us but turned out to be more of a let down.

Sorry.Rant over.

Another question would be why are the Immolators slower with the flamers than they were before.

Lynata wrote:Some do. Not every Chapter tries to be a dick on principle of independence.

Not as much being a dick as being unruly and unorthodox at best and having embarassing secrets at worst (mainly thinking about the Founding Legions here). Inquisitors could feature in a generic SM army though.

Lynata wrote:Wellll ... an Inquisitor is first and foremost still an Inquisitor; the Ordos (of which there are more than three) are nothing more than networks of likeminded people.

There's more to it than just that, the fighting Ordo (which are the ones we're interested in since they are the most likely to actually end up on a battlefield) are dedicated to opposing their chosen enemy. They retain all the prerogatives and motives of an Inquisitor, but they're specialists.
You're right to wonder though ; it is likely that the Grey Knights would only answer the call of a Malleus Inquisitor (who would be among the select few to know about their existence to begin with), but technically any Inquisitor could require the Sisters to fight under him/her since they are more or less omnipotent in the Imperium's hierarchy.

ObliviousBlueCaboose wrote:They never did make a Codex Alienhunters (to keep the same naming scheme) did they? Ordos Xenos was my favorite Ordo, well after Ordos Chronos. And it would have been cool to have a book solely for Xenos, but uncool since it would be yet another mahreens book.

It would have been good to just complete the trilogy of Codices for the main Ordo's. Of the official main ones I liked Xenos and was disappointed when they didn't bother with it.

Even more disappointed when you realized it was actually planned at some point. There's references about the 3E Inquisition Ordos Codex trilogy in the existing books. At one point they also planned a 2E Codex Imperial Agents for Sisters, Mechanicus, Assassins, etc before this plan was canned, too.

Though I always thought it would have made more sense to just create a small Inquisition Codex that simply deals with all three major Ordos, since you're bound to have a lot of overlap (Inquisitors, ISTs, vehicles) in there. They might throw the Deathwatch Kill Team rules into it as well, tho, as those weren't really big anyways. Then, to top it off, a few simple "allies" rules for Grey Knights, Sisters, IG and Marines and you're done.

Alas, it was not supposed to be, and somehow I doubt GW will pick this topic up again in the next couple years.

I just want an expansion book called 'Codex: Inquisition'... throw in allies rules and divide the book up with options from all three branches...

The SoB are rightly the army of the Ecclesiarchy. I believe they're only obligated to the Inquisition by treaty anyway.

Henners91 wrote:I just want an expansion book called 'Codex: Inquisition'... throw in allies rules and divide the book up with options from all three branches...

Yes this is probably the best idea...

The SoB are rightly the army of the Ecclesiarchy. I believe they're only obligated to the Inquisition by treaty anyway.

They're also lumped together as the Ordo Hereticus' and SoB's missions frequently overlap so much. Both are dedicated to rooting out "heretics" and geared more towards internal security/operations. The Ordo Hereticus was also created originally to root out corruption/Vandire's supporters in the Ecclesiarchy, so naturally the Sisters played a big role in that kind of operation.

It was best to split them apart though. I always want the Ordo Hereticus to be the feared secret police/"KGB" of the Imperium, something every Imperial looks over their shoulder for. And that doesn't match the righteous defenders of the faith the Sisters have and require.

Ray Age wrote:Like the title says, why did Sisters of Battle lose Inquisitorial support?

The Grey Knights still have them, and they even took Inquisitor Karamazov away from the sisters.

Just curious...

Because the Sororitas are literally nuns with guns. They are the militant arm of the Imperial Church, and not at all related to the Inquisition.

Having said that, obviously the Church and the Ordo Hereticus will have a lot of areas of influence and interest that over-lap, and very often an Hereticus inquisitor would find that the Sororitas are the most effective troops at his call.

I honestly don't see how removing the inquisition would help the Sisters. It's not like there's some kind of page premium. If it gives choices to the players, then all the better.

In White Dwarf there probably was

I think it'd be nice if they replaced 'em with some more Ecclesiarchial units: Warbands of the faithful, a holy relic being led in a procession of some kind, a psychic choir, more vehicles, a giant pulpit on treads, etc.

Ray Age wrote:Like the title says, why did Sisters of Battle lose Inquisitorial support?

The Grey Knights still have them, and they even took Inquisitor Karamazov away from the sisters.

Just curious...

Because GW wanted to focus on the militant arms, hence why we don't get Codex Inquisition, but Codex grey Knights; even though with henchmen etc you could legitimately make an all Inq army.

Also, some people argue SOB are the Church army and that should be their focus; so Inq units don't really fit into it.

To be fair, even before the Inq element was very minor. When you think about it, assasians and Inquisitor retinues are small individual units that don't form the bulk of the army. SOB kept penitent engines and lost arco-flaggelents (for reasons lost to us since they're both ecclesiarch units in their description needing a priest to use). But the only significant unit lost to SOB (and kept by Grey knights with the customizable henchmen) were Inq Stormtroopers. Given that there was little point in taking sotrmtroopers at their stats when you could take a SOB for 1pt more and get bolter+power armour+faith, GW probably assumed most of the people with Inq stormtroopers would be Grey Knights players. So there was no need to keep them. It would also put the same units in different codex's which they don't like. So they did it for a bunch of reasons.

Totalwar1402 wrote:

Ray Age wrote:Like the title says, why did Sisters of Battle lose Inquisitorial support?

The Grey Knights still have them, and they even took Inquisitor Karamazov away from the sisters.

Just curious...

Because GW wanted to focus on the militant arms, hence why we don't get Codex Inquisition, but Codex grey Knights; even though with henchmen etc you could legitimately make an all Inq army.

Also, some people argue SOB are the Church army and that should be their focus; so Inq units don't really fit into it.

To be fair, even before the Inq element was very minor. When you think about it, assasians and Inquisitor retinues are small individual units that don't form the bulk of the army. SOB kept penitent engines and lost arco-flaggelents (for reasons lost to us since they're both ecclesiarch units in their description needing a priest to use). But the only significant unit lost to SOB (and kept by Grey knights with the customizable henchmen) were Inq Stormtroopers. Given that there was little point in taking sotrmtroopers at their stats when you could take a SOB for 1pt more and get bolter+power armour+faith, GW probably assumed most of the people with Inq stormtroopers would be Grey Knights players. So there was no need to keep them. It would also put the same units in different codex's which they don't like. So they did it for a bunch of reasons.

Err, actually, Sisters of Battle still have access to the Arco-Flagellants. They're in the Battle Conclave.

Luke_Prowler wrote:I honestly don't see how removing the inquisition would help the Sisters. It's not like there's some kind of page premium. If it gives choices to the players, then all the better.

Both organizations were awkwardly sandwiched into a single book despite having a unique focus each and not really more overlap than any other Imperial force. How would you feel if your army suddenly had to share its pages with a force you have no interest in fielding? Though there were lots of people who ended up using both, it's not like players asked for it to happen beforehand, so the move was seen as unwarranted by a lot of fans of pure Sisters armies. And for the Inquisition it has always been more reasonable to be able to ally to any Imperial force anyways.