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So some of may have seen my last attempt at an 8th edition codex for Adeptus Ministorum, well a while back I set about working on all new version in InDesign, and went massively overboard, and never quite got around to declaring it finished enough to post online.

Well (un)fortunately, GW aren't far from rendering it obsolete, with an actual proper new release for Sisters of Battle, though I still haven't completely ruled out it being a massive hoax (and still may not believe it even when I have new models in my hands). So anyway, I decided to post my effort anyway to see what people think, and so I can prove I did do it

Downloads

• Codex: Adeptus Ministorum (8th Edition) v2.0

Highlights

• Fluff! Mostly lifted from the old 2nd edition codex, with some tweaks where necessary to fit with newer lore. Also includes a timeline with as much information as I was able to gather (remarkably few dates for Sisters background out there!). Also collected some great artwork, mostly from GW but also from other great artists (credited at the start).
  
• Rules:
  
  • Army Rules: Acts of Faith are basically the same as Index: Imperium 2, without randomness and costed accordingly. Shield of Faith is the same, but with more ways to boost it. The basic idea for Acts of Faith is that they are Sororitas (and Crusaders) only, and tied to characters that an enemy can attempt to pick off, so it's up to you whether you purchase more, work to screen them, or risk acts of faith trailing off in the late game, though there are a few other sources.
  
  
• HQ:
  
  • Canoness: With or without Jump Pack, the canoness is a fighty character that bolsters hit-rolls. Not much else to say.
    
  • Confessor: On foot or mounted on an Oratorium (pulpit) Rhino, they're not terrible dangerous on their own, but grant a leadership bubble, give Zealot (first round of combat re-rolls) to Frateris Militia, and can whip up nearby Zealot units to do even more damage once per game.
  
  
• Troops:
  
  • Battle Sister Squad: 5-15 models, pretty much as you're used to, with some options a little cheaper. Endless Crusade gives them a 5+ chance to perform an Act of Faith upon themselves while holding an objective (handy if your Imagifers are dropping like flies).
    
  • Frateris Militia Mob: Imagined human swarm unit comprised of bases of multi-wound nutters. Weak, unpredictable (and mostly bad) damage, leadership based on unit size of presence of a clergy model (Confessor or Priest), capable of recovering wounds (to represent rallying or fresh reinforcements). Cheap chaff unit, good for mobbing objectives or screening better units.
  
  
• Elites:
  
  • Priest: Basically the same.
    
  • Battle Conclave: Single mixed unit of Arco-flagellants, Crusaders and Death Cultists. Some equipment options, unit with Crusaders can take hits for nearby characters, unit of mostly Crusaders can benefit from Acts of Faith, unit of mostly Arco-flagellants have PENITENT keyword (interacts with other rules). Death-Cultists can switch between paired (more attacks) and two-handed (better Strength and AP) fighting styles.
    
  • Palatine Champion: Similar to an Astartes company champion, must challenge when able, Blessed Greatsword makes them good character killers, Praesidium Proteciva gives increasing Invulnerable Save (equal to wounds remaining).
    
  • Dialogus: Each turn can choose to gain the aura abilities of another ministorum character for the turn. Super flexible, but very fragile.
    
  • Hospitaller: Basically your typical medic, but when used on a unit with Acts of Faith is equivalent to the full-blown Spirit of the Martyr Act of Faith.
    
  • Imagifier: Main source of Acts of Faith, able to apply any act to one unit within 6".
    
  • Mistress of Repentance: Fighty character. Can perform Acts of Faith like an Imagifier, but only on units with the PENITENT keyword.
    
  • Repentia Squad: Back to full-blown Eviscerators, can gain regular Acts of Faith and Shield of Faith by killing an enemy. Flails of Chastisement wargear option trades huge damage for extra attacks and penalty for enemies to hit in close combat.
    
  • Celestian Squad: Good all-rounders with lots of wargear options, making Morale tests easier for nearby units and bolstering Shield of Faith. Great placing between other battle-line units. Stratagem allows them perform a Acts of Faith (for Command Points).
    
  • Sacristan Squad: Honour Guard type unit focused around blessed weapons and shields, combined with same aura effects as Celestians for a 4+ Invulnerable save, also can take wounds for nearby order characters.
  
  
• Fast Attack:
  
  • Missionary Squad: Unit of mini heroes. I envision this like a combined kit for building either missionaries or multiple preachers. Lots of wargear options, including sniper rifles and missile launchers (with Flakk missiles), can deploy well ahead of army, have a few stratagems for causing trouble.
    
  • Redemptionist Mob: Alternate build for Frateris Militia, combat focused mob that's still pretty fragile but hits a bit harder, and starts ahead of your main force, always has Zealot, and can take flamers for decent shooting or chain blades to take on (slightly) more armoured enemies.
    
  • Dominion Squad: Same as normal.
    
  • Seraphim Squad: Mostly unchanged, option for Blessed Sword & Shield for melee staying power.
    
  • Immolator with Overcharged Engines: Immolator that trades transport for speed (2D6 removing lowest to Advance, can make 6" move before game begins). Works well with Immolator stratagems.
  
  
• Heavy Support:
  
  • Retributor Squad: Mostly unchanged, can take Armorium Cherub (one model can shoot twice, once per game).
    
  • Exorcist: Two firing modes; Adagio is a bit less random anti-armour, Requiem is random blast that doesn't require line of sight.
    
  • Penitent Engines: A bit more expensive, but have the PENITENT keyword, meaning they can potentially fight three times per Fight phase, however they are individual units (so you can only affect one per act of faith). Deal damage to nearby units when slain.
  
  
• Dedicated Transports: Transports do not have Shield of Faith themselves, but gain it from passengers.
  
  • Immolator: Mostly unchanged except for new stratagems.
    
  • Sororitas Rhino: Mostly unchanged.
    
  • Sororitas Repressor: Slightly tougher Rhino (2 more wounds) with firing slits for six models. Dozer Ram grants up to 9 attacks at WS 5+ when charging.
  
  
• Special Characters:
  
  • Celestine: Mostly the same; character killer that grants Shield of Faith to nearby Imperium units, boosting save for units that already had it. Miraculous Intervention is an Act of Faith that takes the place of your wildcard (can target any unit) Act of Faith for the turn, so less of a no-brainer when to invoke it.
    
  • Canoness Veridyan: Bonus Command Point if Warlord, can snipe characters or allow another unit to do-so.
    
  • Ephrael Stern: From the Daemonifuge book, super easy conversion (psychic Seraphim). Is not considered friendly by anyone, but is a psyker that can hit hard, especially against CHAOS and DAEMONS.
    
  • Redemptor Kyrinov: Confessor that boosts Frateris Militia self-healing, and can grant Zealot to more unit types nearby (more potential targets for oratory power).
    
  • Uriah Jacobus: Elites choice. Can deploy like missionaries, brutal shotgun attack, war hymns, Banner of Sanctity limits max losses to failed Morale to 1 model per turn.
  
  

Precepts: Order-specific bonuses, tried to make these as unique as possible without being too overpowered.

Stratagems: Three pages worth. Many are just Ministorum flavoured variants of common stratagems. Unique highlights include:

• Martyrdom: If a Sororitas character is slain, can perform an Act of Faith on a unit with 12".
  
• Immolator Stratagems: Variants for flamer, melta and holy trinity Immolator combos against a single target; Wall of Fire boosts AP of immolation flamers, Purgation allows Twin Multi-meltas to deal Mortal Wounds (more damage on average against very tough targets), while Holy Trinity boosts Strength of all three weapon types.
  
• Inferno Bolts/Holy Promethium: Boost effectiveness of flamer/bolter weapons, best used on front-line infantry.
  
• Order Specific: Each order has one unique stratagem, again tried to keep these interesting. Only one has a truly unforgivable pun (Holy Terror for the Order of the Bloody Rose, making enemy Morale test harder).
  
• Untold Billions: Enables a slain Frateris Militia unit to be re-deployed as reinforcements.
  
• Wall of Steel: Three Repressors hit on 3+ if they charged (9 attacks vs. Infantry remember).
  
• Weight of Numbers: Enables MOB units (Frateris Militia and Redemptionists) to actually drive enemies backwards, potentially pushing them from an objective, out of an aura etc.

Warlord Traits: Unique warlord traits for each order, plus one common table that applies just as well to Sororitas and Ministorum specific Warlords.

Relics: Three sections; Ministorum Relics (most characters can take), Sororitas Relics (Sororitas only, includes sacred standard of order militant for bonus attacks, and sacred standard of orders hospitaller for two Spirit of Martyr per turn on any unit), and finally Order specific relics (one each, except Ebon Chalice who have two).

Tactical Objectives: Killing enemies (especially damn dirty witches), staying pure (no failed Morale tests), bonus VPs for holding a specific objective as long as possible until game end, and one that actually makes an objective marker moveable to score bonus VPs.

Points Costs: Unlikely to be properly balanced, but probably well enough to be fun for a casual game.

Exorcist: ... Adagio...Requiem....

My muso eye twitches. Why Requiem? Why not Allegro? Or Presto? Vivace?
Adagio referred to tempo. While a section of music can be referred to it eg: "Second movement of Mozarts Clarinet Concerto, Adagio." Is because it is played at Adagio tempo.
Requiem on the other hand is a style of music which is also typically slow.

 Giantwalkingchair wrote:
Why Requiem? Why not Allegro? Or Presto? Vivace?

Because I liked the sound of it better

Adagio is specifically quoted somewhere, I think in the background for the Exorcist in one of the Imperial Armour volumes that has it, but then no other names for firing modes are given, and I didn't think other terms for tempo were that interesting. Otherwise my intended alternative was Overture (area blast, softening up targets) and Crescendo (concentrated high damage). Even that wouldn't be musically accurate because the latter should really be finale if the aim is for one to soften up the enemy and one to finish them off, but again finale just don't sound as interesting as a name to me.

Crescendo doesn't have to be a finale, it can be a build-up. Still, the random blast as a song could be reflective of predetermined commands that will fall where they lay, while a certain tempo is specifically calibrated to hit one unit.

Huh. I love the work you’ve put into this, but I don’t get Frateris militia and Redemptionists as multi-wound models representing multiple dudes, which just seems out of place for humans. Also not sure about infiltrating squads of Missionaries.... what in the fluff suggests they are subtle enough to sneak up on anyone?

Apologies for the slow response, e-mail notifications from this site just do not work for me at all, something about the site's e-mails seems to prevent them from being delivered, so I only see stuff when I remember to check (which isn't often)

 SisterSydney wrote:
I don’t get Frateris militia and Redemptionists as multi-wound models representing multiple dudes, which just seems out of place for humans.

I envision them more like a teeming mass compared to imperial guard, or even Chaos Cultists (who represent a whole mix of things including heretic guardsmen); they're scribes, civilians etc. who've taken up arms out of religious fervour rather than with any kind of martial training at all, so individually they'd be killed pretty quickly in a 40k battle. I could make them super cheap individuals like penal legions, but I just don't find that kind of thing fun to play with at all as you spent 90% of your game removing models (and replacing them if you have the means to do-so). With multi-wound you can still represent massed mobs without having to remove models quite so frequently.

 SisterSydney wrote:
Also not sure about infiltrating squads of Missionaries.... what in the fluff suggests they are subtle enough to sneak up on anyone?

Subtle maybe isn't the word I would use, but the missionaries are despatched well in advance to assess worlds and whether they can be reintegrated into the Imperium, which means checking for signs of heresy, xenos worship etc. In the 2nd edition sisters codex there are snippets about essentially two types of missionary, you get those who keep their distance and observe/surveil a population before making any kind of contact (and may even do so undercover at first) and then you got your Uriah Jacobus types who just walk right up to the populace, shotgun in hand, trusting in the Emperor to keep them from harm. Either way they get closer than more sensible, organised forces, whether or not they are subtle beyond that point is up to you

You’re right, I hadn’t thought about that. There’s the Sisters Pronatus and Missionaria Galaxia and all that jazz.

 Haravikk wrote:
I envision them more like a teeming mass compared to imperial guard, or even Chaos Cultists (who represent a whole mix of things including heretic guardsmen); they're scribes, civilians etc. who've taken up arms out of religious fervour rather than with any kind of martial training at all, so individually they'd be killed pretty quickly in a 40k battle. I could make them super cheap individuals like penal legions, but I just don't find that kind of thing fun to play with at all as you spent 90% of your game removing models (and replacing them if you have the means to do-so). With multi-wound you can still represent massed mobs without having to remove models quite so frequently.

You could model them on larger bases as a swarm type unit. That would be fluffy and unique.