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ShumaGorath wrote:

They weren't excitingly powerful, but they weren't bad for their price, certainly not as bad as you make them out to be.

In fifth they were pretty poor. They didn't stack up to grey hunter, BA assault troops, anything in the GK codex, and most things fielded by vanilla marines outside of tacticals. They certainly couldn't tangle with orks or nids. They were fine in fourth, but that was a very different power level.

This is wardtime.

Yes, but that just means you need to be conscious about what you use them to assault.

You know, intelligence and tactics and good judgment, the bane of the average 40k player.

I used to be terrible at guess ranges. I would shoot at my enemy's unit in the far back corner. But somehow my guesses would always make the shot land on top of a losing close combat 6" away.

Melissia wrote:

ShumaGorath wrote:

They weren't excitingly powerful, but they weren't bad for their price, certainly not as bad as you make them out to be.

In fifth they were pretty poor. They didn't stack up to grey hunter, BA assault troops, anything in the GK codex, and most things fielded by vanilla marines outside of tacticals. They certainly couldn't tangle with orks or nids. They were fine in fourth, but that was a very different power level.

This is wardtime.

Yes, but that just means you need to be conscious about what you use them to assault.

You know, intelligence and tactics and good judgment, the bane of the average 40k player.

And you wanted eight point sisters and admitted to ceasing to play the army in fifth. There's a point at which condescension doesn't work. That's here. When the unit is bad in assault it's bad in assault. Anything can win in combat against "the right targets". Not everyone fields foot tau though, so being non specific isn't particularly helpful.

ShumaGorath wrote:And you wanted eight point sisters

No I didn't, stop making things up.

Actually, I priced Sisters at 11-12 points ideally for Battle Sisters in my codex.

ShumaGorath wrote: and admitted to ceasing to play the army in fifth

I played Sisters for most of fifth edition. In fact, the only new codices I haven't played Sisters against are Grey Knights and the new Sisters WD rule update, which isn't really a codex anyway.

ShumaGorath wrote:When the unit is bad in assault it's bad in assault.

Says the guy that thinks tacticals suck in assault, proving he doesn't really know what he's talking about when it comes to assault power because he only ever thinks in terms of MEQ?

Under the old book, Celestians with an Evisorator, using Spirit of the Martyr, were a workable assault unit against certain things. Ideal? No. But they had a use in assault to go with their other functions. The new list took that use away and they cost more on top of that.

Says the guy that thinks tacticals suck in assault, proving he doesn't really know what he's talking about when it comes to assault power because he only ever thinks in terms of MEQ?

A tac squad gets 18 attacks and 3 fist attacks on a full charge. Against MEQ they get 9 hits, 1.5 fist hits. 4.5 wounds, 1.2 fist wounds. That's 2.7 dead marines. For a 205 point squad minimum. On a full charge. Against orks that's like 5 orcs and I'll lose half the squad or more on the return.

Thats awful. Don't try and tell me that's good.

ShumaGorath wrote:

Says the guy that thinks tacticals suck in assault, proving he doesn't really know what he's talking about when it comes to assault power because he only ever thinks in terms of MEQ?

A tac squad gets 18 attacks and 3 fist attacks on a full charge. Against MEQ they get 9 hits, 1.5 fist hits. 4.5 wounds, 1.2 fist wounds. That's 2.7 dead marines. For a 205 point squad minimum. On a full charge. Against orks that's like 5 orcs and I'll lose half the squad or more on the return.

Thats awful. Don't try and tell me that's good.

And yet, against anything T3 that isn't equipped with massive amounts of power weapons, they're frighteningly deadly, especially combined with shooting.

@Shuma: Just walk away. It really isn't worth it.

I think that things are not as bad as the armchair tacticians think they are. We'll see over the next couple of months as people get in some actual games though.

Melissia wrote:

ShumaGorath wrote:

Says the guy that thinks tacticals suck in assault, proving he doesn't really know what he's talking about when it comes to assault power because he only ever thinks in terms of MEQ?

A tac squad gets 18 attacks and 3 fist attacks on a full charge. Against MEQ they get 9 hits, 1.5 fist hits. 4.5 wounds, 1.2 fist wounds. That's 2.7 dead marines. For a 205 point squad minimum. On a full charge. Against orks that's like 5 orcs and I'll lose half the squad or more on the return.

Thats awful. Don't try and tell me that's good.

And yet, against anything T3 that isn't equipped with massive amounts of power weapons, they're frighteningly deadly, especially combined with shooting.

On a full charge they kill like 4.5 sisters and the only shooting i'm getting before hand is pistols and maybe a melta gun. That's still awful for how much I pay. Sisters are the best case scenario opponent too. Everything else i lose to or the assault is meaningless since ill wipe them by shooting first (ig vets).

If that's awful for how much you pay, then Sisters are even MORE awful for the same reason.

Tacticals get more for their points than Sisters do. For a mere four points more per model, they get +1 WS, +1 S, +1 T, +1 I, Combat Tactics, ATSNKF (like Light of the Emperor, but better!), and access to a better variety of wargear on their sergeant.

Melissia wrote:If that's awful for how much you pay, then Sisters are even MORE awful for the same reason.

Tacticals get more for their points than Sisters do. For a mere four points more per model, they get +1 WS, +1 S, +1 T, +1 I, Combat Tactics, ATSNKF (like Light of the Emperor, but better!), and access to a better variety of wargear on their sergeant.

And you get twin specials and heavy flamers. You do much more by double tapping then i do by pistol + assault. The math is in your favor against most opponents. Somehow that's lost here though.

ShumaGorath wrote:Thats awful. Don't try and tell me that's good.

And yet, when a 185 point tactical squad (sergeant w/ power weapon, flamer, multimelta) assaults another tactical squad, it inflicts on average 2.5 unsaved wounds.

When such a tac squad is assaulted by a 180 point Celestian squad (superior w/ power weapon, flamer, multimelta), the Celestians inflict on average 2.3 unsaved wounds (assuming no shortage of Faith Points).

Now, I'm not one of the doomsayers saying the new Codex is thoroughly unworkable - but saying that a 'good' Assault unit inflicts 9% fewer wounds on a charge than a 'bad' assault unit that costs 2.7% more is a bit disingenuous. Celestians aren't being taken for their assault capabilities in the new Codex, any more than they were under the old Codex - to competitive players, Celestians are not the absolute elite of the Adepta Sororitas - they're just two melta guns in a transport with gold trim.

Mythal wrote:Celestians are not the absolute elite of the Adepta Sororitas - they're just two melta guns in a transport with gold trim.

lol Excellent. At least something good came out of this thread.

Mythal wrote:

ShumaGorath wrote:Thats awful. Don't try and tell me that's good.

And yet, when a 185 point tactical squad (sergeant w/ power weapon, flamer, multimelta) assaults another tactical squad, it inflicts on average 2.5 unsaved wounds.

When such a tac squad is assaulted by a 180 point Celestian squad (superior w/ power weapon, flamer, multimelta), the Celestians inflict on average 2.3 unsaved wounds (assuming no shortage of Faith Points).

Now, I'm not one of the doomsayers saying the new Codex is thoroughly unworkable - but saying that a 'good' Assault unit inflicts 9% fewer wounds on a charge than a 'bad' assault unit that costs 2.7% more is a bit disingenuous. Celestians aren't being taken for their assault capabilities in the new Codex, any more than they were under the old Codex - to competitive players, Celestians are not the absolute elite of the Adepta Sororitas - they're just two melta guns in a transport with gold trim.

Wasn't that the point I was making? That both were bad assault troops? As an aside a power fist in a tac squad puts it at 195 points. They're 170 for 10 and the fist is 25.

Guess-ranging has nothing to do with skill, and opens the door wide open for cheating.

Lots of games = experience = skill = be able to guess better.
Zero games = no experience = not be able to guess as well.
If you want to mix in cheating then anything goes.

I can accept that this is a placeholder to get rid of allies, because GW is sick of answering questions about it. I can accept that they wanted to remove confusion between the GK and SoB versions of the same units. But Cruddace is a moron of Gav Thorpian proportions, when it comes to codex design and internal balance. Further, stupid choices he has made in this list have a good chance of finding their way into the final propper book, meaning the taint of Cruddace may have irrevocably hosed this army forever.

Could have been worse, I still shudder when thinking of Hines and his favorite iron warriors or Chambers and his orks.

(though every MAREENZ character seems to get a 3+ to go with their T4 seems ok for some reason)

Difference between a foot 3++ that you pay for or a jumping 2++.

Pennitant Engines-
No rage rule and no fleet? Yeah, an open topped killer kan at twice the cost has no business being in heavy support. Armored Sentinals are cheaper, more durable, and they are Fast Attack. This unit will never reach hand to hand against any army with even a passive relationship to the word competitive.

Agree.

Battle Sisters-
Welcome to the world of Eldar, where troops are taken for no other reason than the fact that you have to have something to hold objectives that tries not to die.

Welcome to the wonderful world of SM tactical squads.
In other words, live with it!

But hey, lets foget that comparision for a moment and do the comparison that Cruddace was undoubtedly doing when he wrote this list. A typical Demo Melta Vet squad in a Chimera weighs in at the same cost as the typical double melta rhino kit battle sister squad. Does anyone actually think that the Mech Battle Sister Squad is superior? And whats worse is that the Melta Vets are not that much worse in close combat than the sisters (certainly less helpless against walkers) and the chimera gives the unit a much longer threat range, thanks to AV12 front and 36" Multilaser.

Did not know IG vets had 3+ saves.

As someone who played Sisters, and even won with them, I hate this list more than anything I have seen in 40k, and thats including me being a Tyranid player and getting Cruddaced once already, this edition. My wife basically lost all interest in finishing the army, after reading the list, and she mostly plays for fun.

Sorry to hear, that sucks. At least my gf likes the sisters more now since she is a casual gamer and the old faith rules were just to complex and hard to keep track of.

Also, he can eat my poo for removing all psychic defense from the book. Hooray for Jaws of the World Wolf rapign half the army!

Strikes me as really weird to not give the foremost witch hunter army any means to counter what they are supposed to be fighting the most.

You keep telling yourself that.

Shuma happens to be right about this.

When the unit is bad in assault it's bad in assault.
Says the guy that thinks tacticals suck in assault, proving he doesn't really know what he's talking about when it comes to assault power because he only ever thinks in terms of MEQ?

Tacs do suck in assault point for point with pretty much everything else they meet.

And yes, theoretical on paper discussions about a unit facing just the right target all depending on the intellect of the player is irrelevant. You have an opponent whos primary goal is to make stick your units in non favorable situations. Ergo: a bad assault unit like old celestians were on average a bad choice in melee since far from all melee happened according to plan.

Sure, celestians suck even more today but they were far from good back then.

And yet, against anything T3 that isn't equipped with massive amounts of power weapons, they're frighteningly deadly, especially combined with shooting.

Hardly frighteningly deadly.
Model for model they are better mostly due to the T4 but model for model is not the correct way to count.

And you get twin specials and heavy flamers. You do much more by double tapping then i do by pistol + assault. The math is in your favor against most opponents. Somehow that's lost here though.

Selective argumentation for the win

And yet, when a 185 point tactical squad (sergeant w/ power weapon, flamer, multimelta) assaults another tactical squad, it inflicts on average 2.5 unsaved wounds.

When such a tac squad is assaulted by a 180 point Celestian squad (superior w/ power weapon, flamer, multimelta), the Celestians inflict on average 2.3 unsaved wounds (assuming no shortage of Faith Points).

Now, I'm not one of the doomsayers saying the new Codex is thoroughly unworkable - but saying that a 'good' Assault unit inflicts 0.2 fewer wounds on a charge than a 'bad' assault unit that costs 5 points less is a bit disingenuous. Celestians aren't being taken for their assault capabilities in the new Codex, any more than they were under the old Codex - to competitive players, Celestians are not the absolute elite of the Adepta Sororitas - they're just two melta guns in a transport with gold trim.

Amen!

ShumaGorath wrote:Wasn't that the point I was making? That both were bad assault troops? As an aside a power fist in a tac squad puts it at 195 points. They're 170 for 10 and the fist is 25.

Then I apologise - I completely misunderstood the thrust of your argument, and thought you were saying they were one of the CC units that were 'improved' by the new Codex. They haven't been improved, and are still outperformed in assault point for point by Tacs. And yeah, I noticed your points error earlier, but felt it would be churlish to mention it. For my maths, I had both 'sergeants' equipped with power swords, since Celestians have no access to a power-fist equivalent.

Mythal wrote:

ShumaGorath wrote:Wasn't that the point I was making? That both were bad assault troops? As an aside a power fist in a tac squad puts it at 195 points. They're 170 for 10 and the fist is 25.

Then I apologise - I completely misunderstood the thrust of your argument, and thought you were saying they were one of the CC units that were 'improved' by the new Codex. They haven't been improved, and are still outperformed in assault point for point by Tacs. And yeah, I noticed your points error earlier, but felt it would be churlish to mention it. For my maths, I had both 'sergeants' equipped with power swords, since Celestians have no access to a power-fist equivalent.

i was arguing that the celstians got worse, but that it's irrelevant since they were bad before. They won against things a basic sisters squad would win against and they lost against the same. It's a wash as far as they're concerned. With the advent of better repentia, celestine, and DCAs the sisters book got a better push for knocking things off objectives overall in my opinion.

ShumaGorath wrote:And you get twin specials and heavy flamers. You do much more by double tapping then i do by pistol + assault.

No, the math does not favor them.

Pistols = 1 shot each, assault = 2 attacks each, all S4 against T3, and WS4 against WS3, and I4 with frags against I3. Let's assume the flamer hits three models. That's 30 attacks that need rolling to-hit for. 23 hits including the three flamer hits. 15.3 wounds. 5.1 models lost in one turn if the sergeant has no power weapon-- half the Sisters squad is dead. They make one attack per model each at WS3, T3 in response. Only a fifty percent chance of removing even a single Marine model, meaning they more than likely have to make a leadership check at Ld6, and thus they stand a good chance of retreating, thus forcing a Sweeping Advance roll at d6+3 vs d6+4, giving the Marines a decent chance of wiping out the entire squad in one turn.

Now compare the Sisters. Boltguns rapid firing = 2 shots each. 14 boltgun shots. heavy flamer we assume hits three enemies at S5, three flamer hits at S4. May not assault afterwards. 12.3 S4 hits, of which 6.19 wound, and 2.1 models are removed. Of the S5 hits, 2 wound, and there's a 2/3rds chance of removing one Marine. A total of about 2.7-2.8 Marines removed in one turn. Assuming they use the Act of Faith to re-roll to-hit rolls, 14 shots, 9 don't need a re-roll, the remaining 5 hits get three more from the re-roll, and add another 2/3rds chance to wound one Marine, raising it from ~2.78 to ~3.46.

Then the seven Marines pistol, flamer, and assault the Sisters and wipe them out in two assault phases.

Pyriel- wrote:

Also, he can eat my poo for removing all psychic defense from the book. Hooray for Jaws of the World Wolf rapign half the army!

Strikes me as really weird to not give the foremost witch hunter army any means to counter what they are supposed to be fighting the most.

The Witch Hunter thing was shoehorned in in the 3rd edition C: WH to support the Inquisition push which was to support the Inquisitor game. Previous to that SoB were no more Witch Hunters than any other Imperial Force and were not tied to the Inquisition in any way. In fact in 2nd Ed SOB, there is one sidebar on Witch Hunts which is kind of a 'Yeah the Ministorum hates us some witches and gets bored sometimes and rustles up a good ol fashion witch hunt.'

Further more, IIRC, sisters had no psychic defense before C: WH. I still don't have a copy of Codex: Chapter Approved, but that's what I remember.

We're -considerably- worse in CC because we lost AoF that let us tarpit, and more importantly we can only AoF in our own turn.

And seraphim lost their version of hit n run, and have 3 init.

Repentia are better, definately; able to get in transports if the enemy don't have anything they can see, FNP (on T3...).

DCA are great because of Uriah.

Lack of Canoness options also hits us in the CC

Melissia wrote:

ShumaGorath wrote:And you get twin specials and heavy flamers. You do much more by double tapping then i do by pistol + assault.

No, the math does not favor them.

Pistols = 1 shot each, assault = 2 attacks each, all S4 against T3, and WS4 against WS3, and I4 with frags against I3. Let's assume the flamer hits three models. That's 30 attacks that need rolling to-hit for. 23 hits including the three flamer hits. 15.3 wounds. 5.1 models lost in one turn if the sergeant has no power weapon-- half the Sisters squad is dead. They make one attack per model each at WS3, T3 in response. Only a fifty percent chance of removing even a single Marine model, meaning they more than likely have to make a leadership check at Ld6, and thus they stand a good chance of retreating, thus forcing a Sweeping Advance roll at d6+3 vs d6+4, giving the Marines a decent chance of wiping out the entire squad in one turn.

Now compare the Sisters. Boltguns rapid firing = 2 shots each. 14 boltgun shots. heavy flamer we assume hits three enemies at S5, three flamer hits at S4. May not assault afterwards. 12.3 S4 hits, of which 6.19 wound, and 2.1 models are removed. Of the S5 hits, 2 wound, and there's a 2/3rds chance of removing one Marine. A total of about 2.7-2.8 Marines removed in one turn. Assuming they use the Act of Faith to re-roll to-hit rolls, 14 shots, 9 don't need a re-roll, the remaining 5 hits get three more from the re-roll, and add another 2/3rds chance to wound one Marine, raising it from ~2.78 to ~3.46.

Then the seven Marines pistol, flamer, and assault the Sisters and wipe them out in two assault phases.

If you're in assault range you're hitting more then 3 marines with the heavy flamer. Put that number to five. Then account for the 10 regular flamer hits and 10 bolter hits. 13 bolter/flamer wounds, 3.6 heavy flamer wounds, I'm losing about 5.25 marines. That's without the act of faith which will bump that number up to about 6.5ish. I'll really put a dent in your army with the remaining 3.5 marines. Thats assuming you don't just shoot them with another squad. It's not like the tacs are going to be in land raiders so I'm not going to get to avoid your flamer bubble with them.

This entire situation is ridiculous anyway. The chance of these two units punching eachother is minimal in a basic game, just as the chances of them even seeing eachother is minimal since no one plays sisters. The meta for sisters is close range focused firepower, not assault. If you're assaulting me you're doing it wrong. Since I'm in your grill why don't you just use two sisters squads and wipe me out entirely.

ShumaGorath wrote:If you're in assault range you're hitting more then 3 marines with the heavy flamer.

And the Marine gets the same number of hits against the Sister force, except the flamers wound the Sisters more often because, and you don't seem to notice, T3 versus S4. A lot of Marine players don't understand just how important that T4 statline is.

You're the one who said the math supported you. It doesn't, so now you say it's not important.

pretre wrote:Further more, IIRC, sisters had no psychic defense before C: WH. I still don't have a copy of Codex: Chapter Approved, but that's what I remember.

2nd Edition Purity Seals, IIRC. And one of the Sacred Rites, I think, but I can't get to my book to verify.

Either way, the Witch Hunter stuff was shoe-horned in, as you said. Still, Space Marines aren't technically Witch Hunters, and their army lists include at least a modicum of psyker defense. I honestly expect something will be added when we eventually get the book Codex Tabitha tells us is due out within a year, if only for mechanical rather than fluff purposes.

They actually had two items that were anti-daemon. The Staff of Belief and the Vials of Emperor's Tears. Purity Seals do indeed give you a 4+ against Psychic in 2nd, but was allowed to any Imperium model and not sister specific.

"Unlike other Relics, a Purity Seal can be taken by any character allowed to take ' imperium only' wargear and is counted as a Wargear card."

Melissia wrote:

ShumaGorath wrote:If you're in assault range you're hitting more then 3 marines with the heavy flamer.

And the Marine gets the same number of hits against the Sister force, except the flamers wound the Sisters more often because, and you don't seem to notice, T3 versus S4. A lot of Marine players don't understand just how important that T4 statline is.

You're the one who said the math supported you. It doesn't, so now you say it's not important.

ok, 10 flamer hits, 5.28 bolt pistol hits.
11.88 wounds
3.96 dead sisters
18 close combat attacks, 3 with fist
12 hits, 2 hits
8 wounds 1.66 wounds
2.66 dead 1.66 dead

You have 1.8 sister left. You break, maybe I catch you. Oh look it's exactly the same as the scenario you outlined. Looks like those flamers didn't matter. Nor does ATSKNF when you're just going to wipe out the 3 marines i have left after double tapping. The two squads kill eachother in their semi preferred environments in this fight that theoretically wouldn't occur anyway. Shock. It's as if this entire thing is idiotic and both squads are bad at assault. LIKE I'VE BEEN SAYING THE ENTIRE TIME

If you're assaulting or getting assaulted without firing with celestians then you're doing it wrong. You're playing the army wrong. If that's the case it looks like I win anyway since you're probably not a very good player. This is an imaginary scenario that isn't likely to happen if you have any skill at all.

ShumaGorath wrote: It's as if this entire thing is idiotic and both squads are bad at assault.

LIKE I'VE BEEN SAYING THE ENTIRE TIME

Told you to just walk away.

ShumaGorath wrote:You have 1.8 sister left. You break, maybe I catch you. Oh look it's exactly the same as the scenario you outlined.

I'm not even sure you actually have a point anymore (if in fact you ever did), beacuse this certainly isn't what you've been saying all along.

Melissia wrote:

ShumaGorath wrote:You have 1.8 sister left. You break, maybe I catch you. Oh look it's exactly the same as the scenario you outlined.

I'm not even sure you actually have a point anymore (if in fact you ever did), beacuse this certainly isn't what you've been saying all along.

I don't think you've ever understood what I've been saying, but that's par for the course with my conversations with you. Everyone else seems to get it just fine while you run off in an unrelated and wild tangent. My point from the start was the celestians suck in close combat. That they always did.

It appears that you agree with me, but I like your shifting sands arguments anyway. They sure don't make me want to self immolate at all.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

pretre wrote:

ShumaGorath wrote: It's as if this entire thing is idiotic and both squads are bad at assault.

LIKE I'VE BEEN SAYING THE ENTIRE TIME

Told you to just walk away.

Done.

ShumaGorath wrote:It appears that you agree with me, but I like your shifting sands arguments anyway.

I'm not "shifting" anything. I've argued the same things rather consistently this entire time

pretre wrote:They actually had two items that were anti-daemon. The Staff of Belief and the Vials of Emperor's Tears. Purity Seals do indeed give you a 4+ against Psychic in 2nd, but was allowed to any Imperium model and not sister specific.

"Unlike other Relics, a Purity Seal can be taken by any character allowed to take ' imperium only' wargear and is counted as a Wargear card."

That's the bunny. Also, just managed to check, and there was a Sacred Rite that granted them Psyker defense - it was the sixth one.