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Hi guys forgive my ignorance on the lore but I’ve looked up Sisters of battle and from my understanding they’re supposed to be the equivalent of female space marines correct? Curious how do they compare? Are they biologically enhanced like the space marines are? Do they have power armour? How do they work exactly?

They are not biological ally enhanced, but they are fanatical and they do wear power armor. There are orders of magnitude more Sisters than Space Marines, and sometimes they are able to perform miracles or manifest saints.

Space Marines are the poster boys for the company, though. They’ll always be (portrayed as) the best, even when they aren’t.

Sororitas are the baddest assed humans in the galaxy.

They have no physiological enhancements & are the largest non-guard military organization in the imperium.

They regularly face the xenos, the heretic, & the traitor. With their faith at their side.

I'd liken them to an entire army of Ripleys from Alien. Badass

 Mistresspaige wrote:
Hi guys forgive my ignorance on the lore but I’ve looked up Sisters of battle and from my understanding they’re supposed to be the equivalent of female space marines correct? Curious how do they compare? Are they biologically enhanced like the space marines are? Do they have power armour? How do they work exactly?

They have powered armour that in most respects is on par with the Space Marines in terms of protection and longevity. Like their armour it also increases the strength of the user, making them physically stronger than, say, Guardsmen. However, Sisters lack the Black Carapace implant that lets Space Marines interface directly with their armour, so they aren't as nimble or effortless in their movement as Marines are. For them the armour is like a second skin.

They are not enhanced, at least not to nearly the same degree. A Space Marine is stronger, more durable, faster, and more enduring than a Sister of Battle or any human being that isn't heavily enhanced themselves.

These physical enhancements make Space Marines more formidable on an individual basis than Sisters of Battle most of the time. A Sister of Battle that catches shrapnel through her heart is going to die, whereas a Marine's second heart will compensate for the first one's loss and the Marine will be able to keep fighting. A Sister of Battle when grabbed by an Ork in close quarters will be overpowered, whereas a Marine will be able to fight back and most likely kill the Ork.

Now, there is an ex-factor to this, and those are the Acts of Faith, seeming miracles that the Sisters of Battle can rely on to win the day for them that the Marines don't have. With that said, I'm not much of a Sisters expert so I can't cite examples of this occurring in the fluff.

Like all factions it depends on what books you read.

In Gaunt's novel one of the Saints rips the turret off a Baneblade with her powered armoured hands, in Cain they are wiped out by gargoyles. If you read one of the Grey Knight books they are on par with Marines, almost.

If you read the Sister's books they are about even with most antagonists.

They are better trained, better armoured and have better guns than the Imperial Guard. Does that make them on par with Astartes? Not really but on a Guard-Astartes scale they are closer to Astartes.

All the above responses are pretty much correct.

They are pretty much as well-trained as marines, but they don't get the genetic enhancement - they're "just" incredibly well trained, incredibly dedicated veterans with the best weapon and armour the ecclesiarchy's near-limitless wealth can buy (far, far better than the mass-produced crud the guard get). The upshot is that in a fire-fight they're pretty comparable but in close in a knife-fight the marine is bigger, faster, stronger and tougher.

Of course, that's not a problem a divinely guided inferno pistol shot to the face can't cure.

Power armour does boost your strength, but sororitas eagle-pattern armour doesn't boost it enough for it to register in your S score in the 40k rules (it does in stuff like Roleplaying games). It is represented in more subtle ways, though (for example the reason Retributors can just hump heavy bolters around solo rather than being in a two-man heavy weapons team like the Imperial Guard).

Where they have a unique feature is that their faith is so pure and so strong that they actually get literal miracles happening in their favour.

They're definitely one of the most skilled military forces in the imperium, but they're one with a lot of legal restrictions to them - essentially they exist on the scale they do as a sort of legal loophole - the Ecclesiarchy (the 'church' in 40k) caused a massive civil war due to a psychopath named Goge Vandire ending up in charge.

After he was rather justifiably decapitated, one of the reforms was that the Ecclesiarchy signed the Decree Passive, which essentially forbids it to maintain any trained force of 'men at arms'.

The Daughters of the Emperor were an elite force at the time, but in the centuries post-Decree Passive, the Ecclesiarchy realised they weren't covered by it and poured vast amounts of money into expanding them into the Adepta Sororitas and they're now the primary military of the Ecclesiarchy and (to a lesser extent) the Ordo Hereticus of the Inquisition (the witch-hunters)

The intro video GW did for the new 9th edition release. Gives a nice display of a Sister of Battle in battle.

In terms of gear, they are roughly equivalent. Top end stuff from what the Imperium can produce. Bolters and power armor. The sisters tend to stick to the holy trinity (Bolter/flamer/melta) but have a pretty flexible armory.

Both forces are trained from an early age, and are fanatically loyal.

Sisters have their faith, which lets them pull off literal miracles. And are about the top end of what you can get out of an un-augmented human. They are the cream of humanity’s human forces.

Marines are biologically enhanced well past that point into post-human super soldiers. Faster/stronger/tougher, with enhancements that lets them do all sorts of things, one big one being to seamlessly interface with their power armor, treating it like part of their own body. This puts them on a different level for a lot of things.

In some things they are equal. A gunline of sisters snaping out a bolter drill is not that different from a squad of battle brothers doing the same. But marines are tougher. The can take wounds that would kill a normal human and keep fighting. They are stronger. Genetic enhancements turning you into a 7 foot tall wall of muscle does have some perks. In a mess of close combat these things can be critical.

So in some ways they are the same, but there are a lot of key differences.

Marines are superhuman and extremely hard to kill, far faster and stronger than humans. They then don Power Armour that makes them even more effective and durable.

Sisters are highly trained and effective soliders, clad in the same quality of Power Armour as Marines and also using the smae powerful Bolt guns, but the average Marine is more than a match for your average Sister (despite my sig )

Sisters in lore and the game sometimes receive the blessing of the Emperor - more so than most, but others also recieve his protection.

Both are revered and feared by the citizens of the Imperium as blessed by him - Even Cain who dislikes the Sisters as fanatics liable to get him kileld notes the awe they are held in by even the veterans in his units.

There is a possibilty that he can not see their glory as he is invariably accompanied by Jurgan who blocks psychic effects....

 Mistresspaige wrote:
Are they biologically enhanced like the space marines are? Do they have power armour? How do they work exactly?

Your typical sister of battle starts off as a student of one of the many Schola Progenium - typically an orphan of someone who died in military service of that of a noble.

The top graduates of the Progenium are picked out to be trained as stormtroopers, commissars, sororitas, and occasionally acolytes of the inquisition. It is an ecclesiarchal institution so the sisterhood get the pick of the bunch.

After that the different recruits go their separate ways, recieving training at one of the orders (either militant or non-militant - the sororitas are actually quite a large and diverse organisation outside of the regular battle sisters). Unlike the stormtroopers they are not physically augmented.

Their power armour was commissioned during the age of apostasy, likely a similar deal to the rosarius fields and immolator tank agreements with the mechanicus - an ongoing, unending supply in return for some STC fragment recieved by the ecclesiarchy's followers at some point in time. It is a powered exoskeleton with armour plates and environmental seal, and relatively little else compared to the marines life support suite and other enhancements.

The militant sisters are split into groups of varying size depending on their location, typically as defenders of holy sites or a pilgramage route. As required they will gather up for a more aggressive role, though the exact number of sisters in the Imperium is a number that varies greatly from author to author.

Outside of their faith and their superior equipment they are on the same kind of level as an imperial guard stormtrooper / scion, not a space marine.

In short 1 on 1 the Marine is better but at the level where you include squads etc the increased amount of Sisters makes them equal.

pm713 wrote:
In short 1 on 1 the Marine is better but at the level where you include squads etc the increased amount of Sisters makes them equal.

I disagree. In my opinion, a squad on 10 marines (Primaris or Firstborns) will wreck a squad of 20 sisters in pretty much any scenario or circumstances, barring external interventions. They're better trained, on average more experienced, can use their equipment to a greater extent, are much much tougher, more precise, better coordinated, react faster, etc. A 2:1 ratio doesn't bring the fight in the SoB's favour IMO.

Engrenages wrote:

pm713 wrote:
In short 1 on 1 the Marine is better but at the level where you include squads etc the increased amount of Sisters makes them equal.

I disagree. In my opinion, a squad on 10 marines (Primaris or Firstborns) will wreck a squad of 20 sisters in pretty much any scenario or circumstances, barring external interventions. They're better trained, on average more experienced, can use their equipment to a greater extent, are much much tougher, more precise, better coordinated, react faster, etc. A 2:1 ratio doesn't bring the fight in the SoB's favour IMO.

Again, lore differs widely. I think one of the Gaunt's Ghosts books has a squad of IG taking down a chaos Space Marine. But then there's a nearly-destroyed SM chapter that still carries on the fight from INSIDE a Tyranid hive fleet, and I'm pretty sure there's a story of a single squad of SM holding a ruin against a 1000+ orks. So you'd likely never get an empirical ratio - if the Sisters are the heroes of a story, I'm betting 2-3 would take down a CSM. If you're reading a CSM story, then a squad of them would quite likely cut through an entire Sister's battleforce, all while principally focused on laughing as evilly as possible.

Archebius wrote:

Engrenages wrote:

pm713 wrote:
In short 1 on 1 the Marine is better but at the level where you include squads etc the increased amount of Sisters makes them equal.

I disagree. In my opinion, a squad on 10 marines (Primaris or Firstborns) will wreck a squad of 20 sisters in pretty much any scenario or circumstances, barring external interventions. They're better trained, on average more experienced, can use their equipment to a greater extent, are much much tougher, more precise, better coordinated, react faster, etc. A 2:1 ratio doesn't bring the fight in the SoB's favour IMO.

Again, lore differs widely. I think one of the Gaunt's Ghosts books has a squad of IG taking down a chaos Space Marine. But then there's a nearly-destroyed SM chapter that still carries on the fight from INSIDE a Tyranid hive fleet, and I'm pretty sure there's a story of a single squad of SM holding a ruin against a 1000+ orks. So you'd likely never get an empirical ratio - if the Sisters are the heroes of a story, I'm betting 2-3 would take down a CSM. If you're reading a CSM story, then a squad of them would quite likely cut through an entire Sister's battleforce, all while principally focused on laughing as evilly as possible.

Power scale and plot armor does fluctuate WILDLY across the fluff.

An interesting aspect to the sisters is that the way faith works, it allows you to guarantee certain things happen. I'd you've got a six in your MD pool, you can guarantee 6 damage on a melta hit.

Space Marines have high Toughness and Strength scores; primaris have multiple wounds. Space marines have a greater diversity of weapon options as well, and special bolter training which allows them to push the equipment to its limit.

But I space marine can guarantee you nothing; they've got a better native chance at winning the day, but they can't say, "Yep, if my Warlord fails this save, we're gonna lose, so guess I'll just use a miracle to make sure that doesn't happen."

We can.

Using Faith is tricky; it requires planning and practice. It's easier to achieve in PL games than Point games, because in PL games, you can maximize your faith buffers without having to pay for it.

But when we've got a loaded faith pool, we can do some pretty crazy things that most other armies cannot.

Individually, no. In game terms, you get twice as many Sisters as you do space marines.

In terms of the story, there are orders of magnitude more sisters than marines. if you put them all on one planet and had both fight it out, the sisters would roll right over the marines because it'd be like a couple thousand to one.

PenitentJake wrote:
An interesting aspect to the sisters is that the way faith works, it allows you to guarantee certain things happen. I'd you've got a six in your MD pool, you can guarantee 6 damage on a melta hit.

Space Marines have high Toughness and Strength scores; primaris have multiple wounds. Space marines have a greater diversity of weapon options as well, and special bolter training which allows them to push the equipment to its limit.

But I space marine can guarantee you nothing; they've got a better native chance at winning the day, but they can't say, "Yep, if my Warlord fails this save, we're gonna lose, so guess I'll just use a miracle to make sure that doesn't happen."

We can.

Using Faith is tricky; it requires planning and practice. It's easier to achieve in PL games than Point games, because in PL games, you can maximize your faith buffers without having to pay for it.

But when we've got a loaded faith pool, we can do some pretty crazy things that most other armies cannot.

Game mechanics are not fluff.

pm713 wrote:
In short 1 on 1 the Marine is better but at the level where you include squads etc the increased amount of Sisters makes them equal.

I also disagree with this. The astartes are superior soldiers, can operate in more environments, can operate with less supplies and can be active for longer periods of time. They also posses some abilities like eating an opponents brain to learn what it knows and being able to recover from most wounds (by never bleeding out for instance). By contrast the sisters are little more then fanatical humans with fancy gear and combat training. There are situations where sheer numbers determine the outcome of engagments, like straight up pitched battles for instance, but there’s more situations where a company of marines would be able to out perform a far larger force of sisters. Pretty much any form of guerilla warfare, battle in confined areas, especially hazardous environments, shock engagments and wars of attrition all come to mind. Besides, if numbers determine the winner of an engagement then the guard far outperform both the astartes and the sisters any day.

Edit: Also the organization of the sisters as primarily an institution of faith can work against them when it comes to warfare. There can be instances where the sisters are far more interested in objectives related to the faith rather then actually winning a war. Of course The astartes can have similar problems where glory and personal honor are concerned. Still I feel like the astarte are taught to primarily be soldiers whilst the sisters are taught to primarily be upholders of the faith.

Edit 2:

Racerguy180 wrote:
Sororitas are [...] the largest non-guard military organization in the imperium.

Pretty sure they’d be between the fourth to sixth biggest depending on how you look at things. The guard being the biggest is undeniable. Then it’d be the pdf as the second biggest. After that the skitarii or admdech depending on if you want to count them as separate organizations. After that you could make an argument for either the sisters, the imperial navy or the aeronautica imperialis. Both being huge military organizations though they are frequently treated as being part of the guard.

The Navy and Aeronautica are likely as big as the Guard - heck the Aeronautica are likely considered "Guard" by most lay people.

So those three branches are likely vastly outnumbering the others. They are the bulk of the Imperiums armies; the grunts that deal with the major wars and most of the combat.


Other groups are basically various forms or elite with the Space Marines the most elite of all, though their numbers are growing somewhat with the Primaris.



A way to think of it in lore is that Sisters of Battle are crusaders in a holy army. Space Marines are Angels given form on the battlefield. So yes they are far far more powerful in a one-on-one situation. With regard to numbers that is harder to quantify. The marines would likely destroy the Sisters of Battle if they went to war against each other. However the Sisters have far more numbers and thus could likely hold objectives and retake worlds more effectively than Marines. Marines are far more suited to the surgical strike against the heart of the enemy's power. Against greater demons and warped madness and greatest concentration of enemy power. Sisters of Battle can achieve similar ventures, but not without more numbers and resources or a LOT more faith and luck.



Note that in the lore just one Marine in a battle can turn the tide. Not just from their sheer power, but also the inspiration they create for those around them. Indeed many stories you might only see one or two Marines joining the fight.

the_scotsman wrote:
Individually, no. In game terms, you get twice as many Sisters as you do space marines.

In game terms you get ~10-11 sisters for 8 old marines. Actually been around that ratio since 3rd, and it's only the recent marine firepower/assault buffs that have thrown it out the window (discouting formations).

But that's just game rules. In terms of story the number of sisters is all over the place. Currently the codex describes six major orders of indeterminate size (older lore mentioned them growing to 6-7 thousand) with potentially dozens of thousand strong preceptories, and each with multiple hundreds strong commanderies and so on. Plus the minor orders and non-militants.

 Nerak wrote:
Still I feel like the astarte are taught to primarily be soldiers whilst the sisters are taught to primarily be upholders of the faith.

If we're talking the Orders Militant, then that faith IS warfare. They're not faithful who choose to pick up a gun; once assigned to their order, their expression of faith is violence.

Also, while Space Marines are supersoldiers, there's one area of attrition that they are far more susceptible to - chaos. Sisters of Battle have a significantly better track record of resisting corruption.

think of it on a bell curve, the best of the Soriatus are way above the rank and file marine as much as the rank and file marine is above the Soriatus however the best of the marines is around on par in terms of combat power as the Soriatus saints, Primarchs are not Marines but Saints ARE humans still just infused with massive psychic power.

Sister ------> Marine--------> Saint/Named Chapter master--------------------------------------------------------------------------------> Primarch.

While I wouldn't say the average Battle Sister reaches that level, I would definitely say that veteran Sisters such as Celestians, Seraphim, and Zephyrim all easily reach or exceed your "standard" Marine level skills, and Canonesses could give Captains / Chapter Masters a run for their money-- particularly when under the throes of fanatic belief that manifests itself in an Act of Faith. For example, I'd say that an Order of the Bloody Rose canoness could very likely shred a non-close combat oriented Captain to bits! But pit up a Blood Angels captain against a less close-combat minded Canoness, and she'd make a valiant effort and impress him no doubt, but likely stand only a miracle's chance.

The various codices have stated that sisters are considered very comparable to Marines in-universe, and their statline matches that. Unaugmented, but supremely skilled, and their fanaticism allows them to reach feats that seem impossible.

Unless they're up against Grey Knights, that is.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Unless they're up against Grey Knights, that is.

Don't want to get "rulsey" in a fluff thread, but Sisters can really augment their forces in such away to expand upon their inherent psychic resistance. Against the right kind of sisters army, Grey Knights are just expensive marines.

Conversely, neither Grey Knights nor any other faction I'm aware of has the capacity to interfere with faith.

 Melissia wrote:
The various codices have stated that sisters are considered very comparable to Marines in-universe, and their statline matches that. Unaugmented, but supremely skilled, and their fanaticism allows them to reach feats that seem impossible.

There is no particular fluff reason why, faith aside, even the best sisters should be able to match a mook space marine.
None of the fluff that I can think of since Sister Sin from rogue trader would suggest they stand a chance one on one - physically their senses, reactions, speed, strength, and durability are no better than an elite guardsman and arguably worse than the augmented stormtrooper divisions. Just as with any other human a space marine to them is still a blur of speed and many times stronger.

A.T. wrote:

 Melissia wrote:
The various codices have stated that sisters are considered very comparable to Marines in-universe, and their statline matches that. Unaugmented, but supremely skilled, and their fanaticism allows them to reach feats that seem impossible.

There is no particular fluff reason why

And yet the fluff specifically and repeatedly compares the two as equals.

Amusingly, in third edition veteran Sisters were actually better at close combat than most marines.

 Melissia wrote:
And yet the fluff specifically and repeatedly compares the two as equals.

Can you provide a source?

Way back in 5th I wrote an updated codex that involved transcribing pretty much everything from the earlier books and I don't recall any mention of this. The newest book mentions that novice sisters of battle are close to the level of veteran imperial guard while their mighiest heroes are as skilled - but by no means as strong or fast - as a space marine.

After all if a few years of prayer and training could make you the equal of a genetically engineered superhuman then you wouldn't bother with making the superhumans in the first place.

Well no, an average Sister is notably above an average Guardsman but notably below an average Space Marine(and i mean even without the thick plot-armour Marines get in too many stories). Named or faith-powered Sisters are a different story though, and someone like Saint Celestine obviously walks through average Marines like they're Toy Soldiers(which they of course kind of are XD).

However if you mean as a fraction, Sisters are probably even superior due to a massive numbers advantage. They would definitely overrun each single Chapter, and i'm not sure if there are even enough Space Marines as a whole without counting Chaos(but then again numbers in WH40K are always questionable).

gunchar wrote:
Well no, an average Sister is notably above an average Guardsman but notably below an average Space Marine(and i mean even without the thick plot-armour Marines get in too many stories). Named or faith-powered Sisters are a different story though, and someone like Saint Celestine obviously walks through average Marines like they're Toy Soldiers(which they of course kind of are XD).

However if you mean as fractions, Sisters are probably even superior due to a massive numbers advantage. They would definitely overrun each single Chapter, and i'm not sure if there are even enough Space Marines as a whole without counting Chaos(but then again numbers in WH40K are always questionable).

*Except when it's the Sisters squad with the plot Armour