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In response, pretre, I would just say I think that if GW ever does get around to doing another codex with Sisters I'm confident that it will be better than C:WH even if it is C:WH 2.0. This discussion is about how that better C:WH could be done. I wouldn't be happy with Ecclesiarchy gone (actually, it was Melissa and Necrosis who finally convinced me of this and to stop "screaming" as you mentioned). I also wouldn't be happy to see no Inquisitor. It's just that the book needs--in my view at least--Sisters in the spotlight with everything else secondary.

Kanluwen wrote:

Manchu wrote:Kanluwen, once again you are right on the money. But why no Repentia? I think they're a must.

Honestly? Because I get the sneaking suspicion that once they lose their faith---they'd probably be put to death, as quietly as possible, to show that "The Daughters of the Emperor" are as uncorrupted and pure as the Angels of Death.

Because, remember, the average Imperial Citizen and even the Guardsmen who are hard campaigners?

They don't know that the big guys leading Chaos incursions are, in fact, fallen Space Marines.

That's why Repentia are the ones leading the way. The only way to show how faithful they are is to die horribly to atone for their sins. It balances the fact that they can sin with the fact that they are the most faithful.

Becoming a Repentia is technically a punishment for some infraction but seemingly never for losing their faith. In fact, some of them seek "exile" as Repentia for the slightest of reasons. So, in other words, it's voluntary in some situations. The unit's fluff even makes it sound like something of an honor.

Like I said:
Repentia just strike me as something we shouldn't really see on the field.

With the Imperial Guard's Penal Legions? Yeah. I can see those on the field--given that the Guard uses them as meatfodder

But we don't see Battle-Brothers who exile themselves for penitent crusades or the like on the field because even though they've lost favor--they're still too valuable to lose.

It's just something I don't see as "fitting" on the field.

Well, I can't argue with your opinion so we'll agree to disagree. Suffice it to say that Sisters are nowhere near as valuable on an individual basis as Marines; probably more than Guards of course. Crunch-wise, it'd be neat to see them surging forward with Frateris Militia.

pretre wrote:I guess my problem with this discussion is the all or nothing approach that people take.

That's probably because you actually give a damn about the Inquisition units. I don't, and I wish that trash was kept out of my third edition Sisters of Battle codex I don't like them from an overall fluff standpoint (They belong in Dark Heresy, not in tabletop 40k), and I don't like them from a codex fluff standpoint (Excuse me, what you doing in my Sisters codex again?) and I don't like them from an internal balance standpoint (they suck), and I don't like them from an external balance standpoint (especially with Allies rules).

So I'd rather them be removed entirely. Which leaves us with Sisters and Ecclesiarchy to fill the codex. And there's more than enough room for expansion in Sisters alone, nevermind with Ecclesiarchy.

The Inquisition belongs on the tabletop for 40k as much as the Sisters, Grey Knights and Deathwatch do.

That is to say that:
None of them belong on the tabletop, barring special scenarios or Apocalypse games with very specific things in play or as support units available to Imperial Guard/Space Marines when facing a particular foe in those kinds of scenarios/Apocalypse games.

Kanluwen wrote:The Inquisition belongs on the tabletop for 40k as much as the Sisters, Grey Knights and Deathwatch do.

That is to say that:
None of them belong on the tabletop, barring special scenarios or Apocalypse games with very specific things in play or as support units available to Imperial Guard/Space Marines when facing a particular foe in those kinds of scenarios/Apocalypse games.

So, are you trying to tell me that Marines, whom are far less common than Sisters to the point of being nothing more than legends to most Imperial citizens, somehow deserve to be in the tabletop game... but Sisters, whom are more common and have a bigger effect on more worlds, do not?

*slowly shakes head*

Marinewank. Great.

If we went by your definition Dark Eldar wouldn't be on the table either. None of us share your point of view. Sisters is a full fledged army, it says so in their codex.

Who the hell says Sisters are "more common"?

The Marines are not in any way, shape, or form a defensive force(unlike the Sisters, who are commonly used as a garrison force for Shrineworlds. Entire Orders are formed for that purpose and they never leave their planets).

It's far more believable that you'd see Marines at some point in an offensive role given that while yes, Marines are "rare" they do also break their forces up to engage in combat zones across the Imperium at their discretion.

Kanluwen wrote:Who the hell says Sisters are "more common"?

The Marines are not in any way, shape, or form a defensive force(unlike the Sisters, who are commonly used as a garrison force for Shrineworlds. Entire Orders are formed for that purpose and they never leave their planets).

It's far more believable that you'd see Marines at some point in an offensive role given that while yes, Marines are "rare" they do also break their forces up to engage in combat zones across the Imperium at their discretion.

Lets not forget about wars of faith which is made up of sisters and Frateris Militia.

Kanluwen wrote:Who the hell says Sisters are "more common"?

I do. The Marines have an upward limit of what they're supposed to be. Of one million. There are likely several times more planets in the Imperium than there are Marines. Marines are so damn rare that many Imperial citizens don't even believe they exist any more than they believe that, say, Ork Kommandos exist. Which they don't, the very idea is hilarious to them.

Sisters have no such limits, and indeed, GW has left the upper limits of the numbers of Sisters EXTREMELY vague, and has given no limits on the number of minor orders in the galaxy. They are present wherever the Ecclesiarchy is present, which means they are present in some form or other in just about every single Imperial planet. While some Orders do indeed defend specific worlds, others go on Wars of Faith, propogating the cause of the Ecclesiarchy and destroying its enemies.

And again, the "number of planets versus the number of Marines" argument is a joke.

Marines don't care about defending planets. They don't care about wars of faith or other nonsense.

They care about destroying the foe, and that's it. Their entire existence is predicated upon the fact that they are always, always, always going to be engaged in combat somewhere, somehow.

The only times they're not are when they're in between deployments, wherein they're generally en route to another warzone.

Kanluwen wrote:Marines don't care about defending planets.

So they don't care about war? Indeed, then, perhaps they SHOULD be removed from the game.

Marines barely even matter in M.41. They barely even EXIST in comparison to the rest of the Imperium's forces; the Guard and PDF do the overwhelming majority of warring int he Imperium's name, both offensive AND defensive. If all Marines in the Imperium suddenly vanished, sure, the Imperium would regret their loss. But then the Imperium would move on, as it is wont to do, and step up the Guard recruitment for a bit,.

So what happens when their recruiting world gets attacked?

You tell me Necrosis, since you're so up and up on fluff.

And Melissia: You're right.

Since the Guard and PDF do so much, let's squat everything in power armor.

Coming next year:
Codex: Cadian Shock Troopers
Codex: Elysian Drop Troops
Codex: Gudrunite Planetary Defense Force(featuring both renegade AND loyalist lists! OMG!)

This argument is going nowhere. Kanluwen has a point: Sisters shouldn't need to move around a lot, as per their fluff. But by that logic, IG shouldn't need to move around either. The reason that they do, I'd argue, is a conceit. (A pretty common conceit in 40k. SM are the only truly "amphibious" Imperial faction around.) There's no reason why Sisters can't partake in this same illogic--which they do in Faith & Fire, IIRC. The Sisters also seem to have an exploration/missionary bend in Daemonifuge, so I could see SoB armies following along with them. In any case, the SoB are not just the Ecclesiarchy's army. By Sebastien Thor's design they are supposed to be a check on the Ecclesiarchy. I can see them being a true army. Also, let's not forget CTGamer's (and often HBMC's) point: fluff can change.

Guard deserve multiple codices just as much, if not moreso, than Marines do. There's more variation within the Guard than the Marines.

As the Imperium is powerful, so, too, is the Guard. As the Guard is powerful, so, too, is the Imperium.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Manchu: You are ignoring Sisters fluff, then, where especially the smaller Orders do indeed move around a lot. Indeed, there was an Order of Battle Sisters that was created specifically to hunt down and retrieve holy artefacts in a subsector. The Guard also moves around quite a bit. The PDF (which, while not technically part of the Guard, I tend to include when I say "Guard) does most of the defending... while the Guard actually assaults planets.

There is no conceit there. The galaxy is large, after all, as is the Imperium. Movement is necessary. The Marines, due to their independence and the illogical amount of resources gifted to them, are undeniably the best at moving around, but they are hardly the only ones.

@Melissa: see my post edit

RE: IG--I don't see why it is necessary to have both an Imperial Guard and a PDF. Seems like just having the Guard would be more than enough. Instead, we have Cadians and Catachans shipped to all parts of the Imperium. Seems silly.

And my own We should probably stop that.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Manchu wrote:@Melissa: see my post edit

RE: IG--I don't see why it is necessary to have both an Imperial Guard and a PDF. Seems like just having the Guard would be more than enough. Instead, we have Cadians and Catachans shipped to all parts of the Imperium. Seems silly.

The same reason we have the National Guard and the Army in the united states. The National Guard handles minor internal affairs, while the Army tends to handle major affairs and offensive action. The National Guard has units within each state, which obey the orders of that state's governor (to an extent, of course), while the Army is under the direct command of the White House and Congress.

PDFs defend individual worlds, and are under the command of the governor of that world. They're basically 40k's version of the National Guard. Meanwhile, the Imperial Guard are professional frontline units which propogate the wars of the Imperium, and are ostensibly under much higher ranked command.

What I meant is that IG could easily be organized by subsector or a smaller jurisdiction and be used only in that part of the Imperium. But instead, I read novels where Tallarns and Valhallans are deployed to the same planet despite coming from two different segmenti. If this is the way that IG are shipped about (i.e., CONCEIT) then I can't see why we should be so strict about Sisters not getting away from Ophelia VII every once in a while. And, as I said, I think the existing fluff supports that idea. This is getting pretty off-topic and we don't seem to disagree anyhow.

@Kanluwen: Do you get upset when you see people playing Ultramarines against Craftworld Ulthwe?

Your use of the term conceit does not match any definition I know.

Regardless, the Administratum is not the most efficient organization in the history of Mankind, so these kinds of things happen.

Melissia wrote:Your use of the term conceit does not match any definition I know.

Really? All I meant is that it's a strained idea that we just sort of buy into without being too critical.

It's not really strained though, not to me. I buy into it because it makes sense given how the Administratum has been described (it is said that planets have been lost because of rounding errors in tax returns, for example).


Automatically Appended Next Post:
To bring this back on topic: Which actually could be a good argument that the Sisters may indeed be more mobile than the Guard, though probably not as much as the Marines-- at least Sisters have less bureaucratic incompetence to deal with! Middle of the road indeed.

Sure, I buy into it as well. I was trying to illustrate that Sisters travelling around isn't the hardest thing to believe about the 40k universe.

Even so, I still agree with Kanluwen that Sisters probably aren't even as widely deployed as Guard. But what does that really matter to the tabletop game? Hence my question about getting mad seeing Ultramarines v. Ulthwe.

Melissia wrote:

Kanluwen wrote:Who the hell says Sisters are "more common"?

Sisters have no such limits, and indeed, GW has left the upper limits of the numbers of Sisters EXTREMELY vague, and has given no limits on the number of minor orders in the galaxy. They are present wherever the Ecclesiarchy is present, which means they are present in some form or other in just about every single Imperial planet. While some Orders do indeed defend specific worlds, others go on Wars of Faith, propogating the cause of the Ecclesiarchy and destroying its enemies.

One big point of debate: Page 120 of the BRB 5th ed has in fact set an approximate cap on the Sisters. It says and I quote, "The Adepta Sororitas, or the Battle Sisters of the Orders Militant
as they are known, are the mainstay of the Adeptus Ministorum armies." Then says stuff about utmost training and found fighting enemies to the last, then the next paragraph is this gem.
Again I quote, "There are three major Oders of Adepta Sororitas, the fighting strength of each numbering several thousand warriors, as well as many lesser sisterhoods comprised of around a hundred or so Battle Sisters." Then it continues on to say, "An Order's warriors rarely fight as a unit, but instead are commonly spread throughout the galaxy in various battlezones."


This is under the new Defenders of the Imperium Section and I would say, as I have in the past, that this section gives an idea of what to possibly expect.

focusedfire wrote:
One big point of debate: Page 120 of the BRB 5th ed has in fact set an approximate cap on the Sisters. It says and I quote, "The Adepta Sororitas, or the Battle Sisters of the Orders Militant
as they are known, are the mainstay of the Adeptus Ministorum armies." Then says stuff about utmost training and found fighting enemies to the last. then the next paragraph is this gem.
Again I quote, "There are three major Oders of Adepta Sororitas, the fighting strength of each numbering several thousand warriors, as well as many lesser sisterhoods comprised of around a hundred or so Battle Sisters." Then it continues on to say, "An Order's warriors rarely fight as a unit, but instead are commonly spread throughout the galaxy in various battlezones."


This is under the new Defenders of the Imperium Section and I would say, as I have in the past, that this section gives an idea of what to possibly expect.

Wait I though their were 6 major orders not 3.

There are. Remember, the Codex trumps BRB.

The six orders are:

Convent Sanctorum on Ophelia VII:
Order of the Bloody Rose
Order of Our Martyred Lady
Order of the Valorous Heart

Convent Prioris on Holy Terra:
Order of the Sacred Rose
Order of the Ebon Chalice
Order of the Argent Shroud

Maybe they misprinted it like how the wave serpent only has the Front armour of 2 (page 104).

Melissia wrote:Guard deserve multiple codices just as much, if not moreso, than Marines do. There's more variation within the Guard than the Marines.

As the Imperium is powerful, so, too, is the Guard. As the Guard is powerful, so, too, is the Imperium.

Yep. But, Guard basically fall into one big catch-all:
Guy with flashlight and cardboard armor.
The differing tactics, etc are easily represented now via the Veterans.

Manchu: You are ignoring Sisters fluff, then, where especially the smaller Orders do indeed move around a lot. Indeed, there was an Order of Battle Sisters that was created specifically to hunt down and retrieve holy artefacts in a subsector.

And the same can be said of Space Marines. The Dark Angels, for example, maintain entire Successor Chapters devoted to hunting down specific members of The Fallen.

The Disciples of Caliban were founded, as per the Codex currently, to do nothing other than hunt Cypher. I'm sure there's other Chapters that have Succesors that perform specific tasks like so. Hell, the Successor Chapter(Dark Angels) I'm working on coming up with fluff for is going to be based off those general lines.

The Guard also moves around quite a bit. The PDF (which, while not technically part of the Guard, I tend to include when I say "Guard) does most of the defending... while the Guard actually assaults planets.

PDF really don't belong anywhere near being considered as "Guard equivalent". They're generally trained over the course of months, rather than years like the Guard. They're generally ill-equipped(compared to even the Imperial Guard. Yeah. That's saying something).

It's also worth noting that there are entire Guard regiments devoted to nothing more than defense of critical planets. Cadia, for example, has no PDF. They have in lieu of it, the Interior Guard.

Something like 100+ regiments of Cadian Shock Troopers and Kasrkin that never leave the planet following their assignment to the Interior Guard. Skimmed from the top 10% of the Cadian Shock Regiments.

There is no conceit there. The galaxy is large, after all, as is the Imperium. Movement is necessary. The Marines, due to their independence and the illogical amount of resources gifted to them, are undeniably the best at moving around, but they are hardly the only ones.

I'd argue that point, specifically since there are Marine Chapters whose entire basis is to do nothing more then launch assaults against random cities on random planets for things as silly as eating an Aquila Pie the "HERETICAL WAY!".

That last one is made up, but you get the point.

And as for mobility:
Manchu(as far as I know at least) and I haven't really been referring to their ability to field fast moving armies. We're referring more to them being a kind of "scorch the earth" army.

Think "Slow" and "Methodical" with endless amounts of flaming heretics fleeing before them, and that just screams the Sisters' way of war.