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The armour save should reflect the armour they’re wearing. Wounds and toughness should represent the resilience of the person wearing that armour. Terminators shouldn’t be getting extra wounds and toughness from their armour. It’s a way of circumventing the AP system. Everybody else plays by those rules. Sisters don’t get 2 wounds or toughness 4 because they’re wearing power armour so I don’t see why marines should be. Especially because these bonuses are never worked into points properly.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2023/05/03 23:51:14
H.B.M.C. wrote: Marines are physically tougher than Sisters though, which is why they're T4/W2.
Terminators are still marines. They get T5 and bonus wounds from their armour. Same with Gravis. There’s no reason roughness should go up because of armour.
JNAProductions wrote: I’d rather have “This unit is durable on the whole” given more credence than “This unit must be more durable in these specific ways, whether or not it works well in the game”.
Fine. A Sister of Battle should be more durable than an Eldar guardian but not as durable as a Space Marine. Since armour is trash this should be represented either by an extra wound or a pip of toughness. This represents than being mid tier in terms of durability for basic infantry. You’re not a Guardsman but your marine is still a good bit more durable.
If you’re all “oh no, the armour save covers all that mate.” Well that’s not really making a unit tough overall. AP makes armour irrelevant. I might as well just take forty Repentia because I am dead if I get shot anyway. That should not be a thing. They’re not Eldar and shouldn’t play as a glass cannon.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2023/05/04 00:55:40
JNAProductions wrote: Do you know that Sisters are still T3 3+?
You’ve got their index early? You should probably share that.
Cute.
I’d be very surprised if they made any change to the core profile of the unit. It’s got nothing to do with whether the unit needs that to be considered mid tier infantry for durability. It’s because T4 or multi wounds is associated with marines so they’re going to drag their feet on that. It’s ingrained and so it’s not as simple as with Genestealer where it’s a monster so they can do what they want.
Going to keep insisting that 8 points giving you two extra attacks, an extra wound, AP on your gun and extra WS is reasonable.
They might give them some kind of ward save. They might up the WS. That’s it. I think GW might think that they can work around this by tweaking the AP so that “oh AP minus is so rare now. So that 3 up armour is now more consistent. They don’t need any points or stat changes.”. Completely ignores that those 10 point sisters in 3rd edition weren’t having the volume of wounds thrown at them as they are now.
So armour is worthless because of ap which is getting reduced.
Yep. Your aquments still suck. Never change.
If it was third edition where two plasma guns is considered a dangerous unit sure. 3 plus armour alone is mid tier. But we’re not playing 3rd edition.
You’ve got so many attacks, rerolls and other boosts that the volume of shots just overwhelms them. Why do you think they’re boosting all these other units in the game if damage isn’t still increasing? This is because the shooting is meant to kill two wound marines. So even if you balance the game so that you kill two Intercessors which is reasonable attrition for the marines, that same damage kills most of a sisters squad and takes a whole unit out the game.
Which would be fine if Sisters didn’t have the same profile and costs as they had in 3rd edition. 11 points for T3 model with 3 up armour. In fact it’s worse since your boltgun doesn’t punch through five up Armour anymore because reasons.
Intercessor 18 points
Sister of Battle 11 points
For just 7 points you get a model whose gun has longer range and a pip of AP. It hits on 3 plus in CC. It has an extra point of strength and toughness. It has twice the wounds and twice the attacks. The only benefit is a six invulnerable save which is a you only get to use if your armours bypassed.
Now, I think that is ridiculous and ain’t remotely balanced. The intercessor should cost at least double and probably getting on to triple what the Sister of Battle costs. Instead, they’re pretty much in the same points bracket with a few extra points getting a massive upgrade in every category.
Sisters of Battle should not be a glass cannon. The selling point is that they’re an elite army in power armour. They shouldn’t play like Eldar where you have to move very fragile units to deliver an absurd amount of damage. They should be able to take a bit of Ork or Imperial guard shooting on the chin. You should be encouraged to take big blocks of Sisters and park them on objectives, not have little min size squads hiding out in ruins as objective tokens. The army doesn’t remotely resemble how it’s meant to be.
That’s only going to get worse if they keep boosting other factions like doubling Genestealer wounds for literally no reason. Giving Orks toughness 5 which makes no sense.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2023/05/04 22:07:00
alextroy wrote: By the Throne, can you stop wailing until you actually have something to wail about? T
he Faction Focus article will come out soon enough and give us an idea of just what a Battle Sister Squad looks like if the past articles are any indication of what we will see. Then we will have something beyond the wildest speculations of your brain to discuss.
Because as hilarious as it would be for people to complain about 2W Sisters of Battle after being silent on T5 Orks, 2W Genestealers, 2W/3A marines and T5 Terminators; I don’t see them ever doing that.
They should either be cheaper or get a stat increase.
The focus should be -
- Move away from glass hammer. Lower damage and boost durability for power armoured units. They aren’t Eldar. Moving AP around isn’t going to cut it if all heavy weapons are hitting on 2 plus with exploding 6s.
- Provide a reason to take Sisters of Battle in larger squads. They should be the core of the force.
- Find some army wide act of faith system that keeps the spirit of the earlier one.
- Redo the Paragon warsuit profile to work.
- Points shouldn’t make “elite” sisters infantry almost the same cost as their troops.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2023/05/05 00:43:46
novembermike wrote: I'm not sure what the arguments about sisters are. They were never an "elite" army, they have always been sort of a middle ground where they're surprisingly numerous but still have some decent defenses. If AP is going down that's still how they'll look.
If there's a decent miracle mechanic then they'll likely also do well with the melta. It's easier than ever to deliver with reworked transports and if you can miracle then the strength gets less important.
Because theyre not a mid tier unit. An intercessor is a 2 wound and 2/3 attack character one thunder hammer away from being an independent character. They haven’t given every battle sister the same attack and wounds as a Canoness from third edition. Times have moved on.
Sisters of Battle troops are hideously overcosted for what they are. Which is why people go out of their way to take as few of them as possible with little five model units hiding out as objective tokens. Even within the army itself you can get Xephrim or Sacrosanct or Repentia for a very modest few extra points.
Guard with lasguns can put out far more dakka than a few boltguns yet cost a fraction. In 3rd, those boltguns would chew up T3 5 up armour infantry.
Karol wrote: Isn't the basic sister to the SoB army the same as a marine basic infantry for a marine army? As in something that is run in minimal numbers, and would be run at zero. If only the SoB players could run just the good non troop stuff from the codex.
Because theyre not a mid tier unit. An intercessor is a 2 wound and 2/3 attack character one thunder hammer away from being an independent character. They haven’t given every battle sister the same attack and wounds as a Canoness from third edition. Times have moved on.
This means one of two things. Either mid tier is another word for bad. Because no one is running intercessor, especialy if they can avoid it. Or the other option, the bread and butter of SoB armies aren't SoB, something maybe not intuitial, but marines of all types know what it is, but all the Elite/HEAVY/FA options that make the army. Which makes the basic SoB a unit of paragons, repentia or the shield carrying ones, etc and always spamed and run in unit groups of 3 and combined with other units that do the same, also run in groups of 3. If a SoB player could run 6-12 units of repentia and 6-12 units of the shield ones, they would do it. Marines have done it for ages. Intercessors or tacticals, csm squads are tax. The SM armies are build around multitple bricks of possessed, terminators, 30 interceptors etc. Now is this fun? No. But if you want to have fun playing with a lot of troop units, you have to play custodes in w30k. Or an army that doesn't really care what it runs, because it rules have been optimised to function, no matter what the player does. Like for example WE or sometime ago Necrons.
That’s a separate issue. The game as whole has never been able to balance troops against elite units. I am firmly of the view that every army should be built around its troop slots and I don’t like the five unit objective tokens. It’s incredibly silly and immersion breaking. You shouldn’t be able to double the number of objectives you control, force the opponent to waste shots overkilling your unit, for no extra points and no drawbacks. Frankly I think 5 man units shouldn’t be able to claim objectives, you get less objective points or suffer some massive morale penalties to stop the “I’ll get four units of five sisters randomly hiding out in buildings whilst the actual battle goes on”. Like, no, they should be holding the objective and fighting off units trying to secure it, not hiding whilst your actual army does the fighting.
But with Sisters the issue is a lot greater because
1) They should be the absolute core of the army. You can just about handwave an elite or tank heavy marine army as being some sort of strike force. Not really the case with Sisters. The army should encourage you to take blocks of 20 of them that form a core part of the force.
2) I am using the term mid tier sarcastically because your standard Sister of Battle was a mid tier unit back in 3rd edition. But that the gap between them and a marine has become far greater and isn’t reflected in points. You’re paying almost as much as intercessor for a unit that is worse in every regard and where the thing they used to be able to do like tank small arms fire on objectives or use bolters to kill T3 5 armour infantry doesn’t work anymore. They got worse, everybody got better and they’re still the same points.
3) Their elite units are stupidly cheap and many times better. You can still get a block of Intercessors and use strats to have them do a reasonable amount of damage to light tier infantry and park them on an objective. It’s not the most efficient or best bang for your buck; but it’s pretty solid. Whereas twenty sisters of Battle is a massive opportunity cost and you’re getting a really substandard unit that isn’t tough and can’t do all that much damage.
4) Because damage has went up they’ve pushed the army towards being a glass cannon. Sure retributors and Repentia hit like a truck. But this idea that it’s an all or nothing and you have to destroy the enemy in a single devastating attack or be cut down. That’s not Sisters of Battle. That’s Eldar. Sisters should be able to fight a battle of attrition using numbers in place of some of the better marine stat profiles. But individually they should still be able to be tough enough individually that you need to commit serious dakka to shift them. It shouldn’t be the case that you might as well take Repentia because you die anyway. Repentia should be a gamble.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2023/05/06 09:49:18
Karol wrote: Isn't the basic sister to the SoB army the same as a marine basic infantry for a marine army? As in something that is run in minimal numbers, and would be run at zero. If only the SoB players could run just the good non troop stuff from the codex.
Because theyre not a mid tier unit. An intercessor is a 2 wound and 2/3 attack character one thunder hammer away from being an independent character. They haven’t given every battle sister the same attack and wounds as a Canoness from third edition. Times have moved on.
This means one of two things. Either mid tier is another word for bad. Because no one is running intercessor, especialy if they can avoid it. Or the other option, the bread and butter of SoB armies aren't SoB, something maybe not intuitial, but marines of all types know what it is, but all the Elite/HEAVY/FA options that make the army. Which makes the basic SoB a unit of paragons, repentia or the shield carrying ones, etc and always spamed and run in unit groups of 3 and combined with other units that do the same, also run in groups of 3. If a SoB player could run 6-12 units of repentia and 6-12 units of the shield ones, they would do it. Marines have done it for ages. Intercessors or tacticals, csm squads are tax. The SM armies are build around multitple bricks of possessed, terminators, 30 interceptors etc. Now is this fun? No. But if you want to have fun playing with a lot of troop units, you have to play custodes in w30k. Or an army that doesn't really care what it runs, because it rules have been optimised to function, no matter what the player does. Like for example WE or sometime ago Necrons.
That’s a separate issue. The game as whole has never been able to balance troops against elite units. I am firmly of the view that every army should be built around its troop slots and I don’t like the five unit objective tokens. It’s incredibly silly and immersion breaking. You shouldn’t be able to double the number of objectives you control, force the opponent to waste shots overkilling your unit, for no extra points and no drawbacks. Frankly I think 5 man units shouldn’t be able to claim objectives, you get less objective points or suffer some massive morale penalties to stop the “I’ll get four units of five sisters randomly hiding out in buildings whilst the actual battle goes on”. Like, no, they should be holding the objective and fighting off units trying to secure it, not hiding whilst your actual army does the fighting.
But with Sisters the issue is a lot greater because
1) They should be the absolute core of the army. You can just about handwave an elite or tank heavy marine army as being some sort of strike force. Not really the case with Sisters. The army should encourage you to take blocks of 20 of them that form a core part of the force.
2) I am using the term mid tier sarcastically because your standard Sister of Battle was a mid tier unit back in 3rd edition. But that the gap between them and a marine has become far greater and isn’t reflected in points. You’re paying almost as much as intercessor for a unit that is worse in every regard and where the thing they used to be able to do like tank small arms fire on objectives or use bolters to kill T3 5 armour infantry doesn’t work anymore. They got worse, everybody got better and they’re still the same points.
3) Their elite units are stupidly cheap and many times better. You can still get a block of Intercessors and use strats to have them do a reasonable amount of damage to light tier infantry and park them on an objective. It’s not the most efficient or best bang for your buck; but it’s pretty solid. Whereas twenty sisters of Battle is a massive opportunity cost and you’re getting a really substandard unit that isn’t tough and can’t do all that much damage.
4) Because damage has went up they’ve pushed the army towards being a glass cannon. Sure retributors and Repentia hit like a truck. But this idea that it’s an all or nothing and you have to destroy the enemy in a single devastating attack or be cut down. That’s not Sisters of Battle. That’s Eldar. Sisters should be able to fight a battle of attrition using numbers in place of some of the better marine stat profiles. But individually they should still be able to be tough enough individually that you need to commit serious dakka to shift them. It shouldn’t be the case that you might as well take Repentia because you die anyway. Repentia should be a gamble.
I have a hard time agreeing with this.
It's 11/18 - 61% the cost of a marine. And the Artificier Storm Bolter is pretty damn great. I think most marine players would kill to have Sisters as their troop choice -- my presumption, in any case
Which isn’t even 2 to 1 for a model with half the wounds, half the attacks, 1 less WS, 1 less strength and 1 less toughness. The gun also has longer range and a pip of AP. In new edition they haven’t lost any of that and actually gained an attack. Is another boltgun worth that? I really don’t think it is.
An undercosted gun does not make the unit as a whole good or fun. That just means the rest of the unit are a tax and you would just end up taking Dominions if you really wanted to spam that.
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Spoletta wrote: Sister's army rule is probably going to be Shield of Faith.
Sister troops will 100% gain a bonus to the shield of faith, plus another bonus when on top of an objective.
Well if it’s their 6 up invulnerable save that’s a bit limited and dependent on you buying other stuff to boost it if they even let you do that. You’re not very likely to pass it and it’s armour or invulnerable not both. So you’re only really getting this boost occasionally.
They’d have to make a move away from it being an invulnerable save to really move the durability of the unit if they were determined not to touch wounds or toughness. Like make it feel no pain or give them transhuman where you can only wound them past a certain.
Plus the special rule could also focus on the Act of Faith system and involve some sort of reroll or dice shenanigans as the army rule. In fact I reckon that’s much more likely given that was their main rule before and so integral to the faction last two editions.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2023/05/08 06:55:00
H.B.M.C. wrote: Marines are physically tougher than Sisters though, which is why they're T4/W2.
Terminators are still marines. They get T5 and bonus wounds from their armour. Same with Gravis. There’s no reason roughness should go up because of armour.
They're Marines in mini-Dreadnought armor. Its name is Tactical Dreadnought Armor. Adding extra T and a W for extra thick armor plating - like tanks have over speeders makes sense.
Not until very recently.
Terminators always had marine profile with the assumption 2 up armour represented their armour. This has been heavily eroded because firepower has went up massively so you need to boost the profile to get closer to it. Boosting firepower whilst leaving Sisters of Battle with same profile they had in 3rd edition (less ap5) just means they’re much easily gunned down. Yet you’re still paying same points for them.
Either they make sisters very cheap and they become a horde unit or you increase the durability of the unit to justify that points cost as an actual mid tier unit. You shouldn’t be left thinking you may as well take Repentia because any shooting will kill you anyway.
It also doesn’t explain marines and Genestealers randomly getting two wounds for no reason and Orks becoming toughness 5.
