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 Lynata wrote:

pretre wrote:The repentia, Canoness, Celestian Squads and Command Squad aren't THAT bad, they are just worse than the other options in those slots.

That is probably debatable.
The gap between custom Marine or Guard HQs and their Codex SCs is not that drastic that you would feel punished for not choosing the latter. Much of the issue in the SoB 'dex boils down the missing equipment, really, and you'll have to agree there was no good reason at all for it being removed.

Draigo or Coteaz vs a Generic GK?
Vulkan vs a Generic SM?
Eldrad vs Generic Farseer?
Wazdakka if you want a bike army?

Those are pretty big jumps.

I only know it was not the statement from Jervis Johnson that was released in the wake of squats being removed; that one only said they don't care how well (or bad) an army sells.

http://web.archive.org/web/20060129002420/http://forums.specialist-games.com/epic/forum_b/topic.asp?ARCHIVE=true&TOPIC_ID=2532&whichpage=3

That's the one I was thinking of.

pretre wrote:Those are pretty big jumps.

Not as big as between Canoness and Living Saint, but I suppose that may be a matter of opinion.

pretre wrote:That's the one I was thinking of.

Yep, that's the one I've seen - but it doesn't say anything about that "promise".
Was that all just the internet talking again?

Well nothing in the game is quite as good as the saint, so that's a hard comparison.

There is probably something else but I can't remember where.

The Sisters "codex" is just inherently flawed and is not a well thought out, balanced codex.

So it's not going to be very easy to talk about it positively.

Sadly we're likely stuck with it for another couple years at least.

 Melissia wrote:
The Sisters "codex" is just inherently flawed and is not a well thought out, balanced codex.

So it's not going to be very easy to talk about it positively.

Sadly we're likely stuck with it for another couple years at least.

The WD Codex has flaws like any codex but has a solid core of good units and can make a really nice list (both main and allied). It could be much worse.

I think sometimes people forget that for all the good things in the C:WH, there were plenty of bad. I enjoy not paying 50 points for rhinos. As I have said before, my favorite codex is still C: Chapter Approved.

Apart from the lack of options and the trail off in its power level above 2000 points, I don't really understand what's so inherently flawed about it, though... could you explain please, Melissia?

 Furyou Miko wrote:
the trail off in its power level above 2000 points,

I really don't think it trails off above 2000. I know this is the conventional wisdom, but you don't really need the faith that bad.

Keep in mind that you double slots at 2k and get some nastiness without really needing much faith. Here's my 30 second idea for 2k:

2 Bastions - 250
2 Ret Squads - ~200
4 Exorcists - 540
4 SOB Squads with stuff and rhinos- ~700
Celestine - 115
Jacobus - 90
Some more stuff.

It's not so much that the power trails off at that point, it's just that the smaller the game, the more powerful an impact it has and the more effective our named characters get for their points.

 Furyou Miko wrote:
Apart from the lack of options and the trail off in its power level above 2000 points, I don't really understand what's so inherently flawed about it, though... could you explain please, Melissia?

The removal of a large amount of fluffy equipment, the gakky revamp of acts of faith that removed any resemblance of adaptability to its various units, the unnecessary nerfing of squads like Celestians, the fact that it apparently didn't go through any playtesting at all before being released...

It'd be easier to list what's good about it. Which basically amounts to "the fluff sections".

My biggest complaint of all is that battle sisters are just too expensive to collect. I myself will restart my SOB once they move to plastics.

 Melissia wrote:

 Furyou Miko wrote:
Apart from the lack of options and the trail off in its power level above 2000 points, I don't really understand what's so inherently flawed about it, though... could you explain please, Melissia?

The removal of a large amount of fluffy equipment, the gakky revamp of acts of faith that removed any resemblance of adaptability to its various units, the unnecessary nerfing of squads like Celestians, the fact that it apparently didn't go through any playtesting at all before being released...

It'd be easier to list what's good about it. Which basically amounts to "the fluff sections".

Ah. I disagree. Dominions are still workable in larger squads. Retributors are completely kickarse. Seraphim are arguably the best jump infantry in the game.

Melissia wrote:It'd be easier to list what's good about it. Which basically amounts to "the fluff sections".

Ouphh... all in all the fluff wasn't that bad, however I'm still angry that whoever wrote it retconned Praxedes' legend. Was that really necessary. :(

Yeah, that's an awful lot of hyperbole. Good to great fast, heavy and hq. okay troops. Missing options? Sure. Bad elites? Sure. Bad list? No.

None of them are better than what we had before.

And they weren't exactly great back then.

Dominions, exorcists, rets and seraphim are all better.

Doms got scout. Exos got an invul. Rets got cheaper and usable. Seraphim got Celestine.

 pretre wrote:
Doms got scout.

I'll grant you that much at least.

Hell, that's how I made Dominions useful in my own fandex. Sisters needed more deployment options and Scout is one of the better ways to give them such.

How many games have you played with the new dex?

Five or six. I haven't played Sisters since sixth edition however.

Or much at all really. Haven't had any motivation to play.

If I play any games with my SoB, it will probably be with older editions, probably using Witch Hunters.

 Melissia wrote:
Five or six. I haven't played Sisters since sixth edition however.

Or much at all really. Haven't had any motivation to play.

There's your problem. It's a whole new game. Hard to judge the codex off of 5th when we are playing 6th. Although, to be fair, sisters were brutal in 5th and are still nasty in 6th (allies helped keep the curve).

I wouldn't say they were brutal in fifth but six really did give them a boost. Where most armies in sixth had to adjust to half their army becoming worse while the other half became awesome Sisters became awesome across the board. The only thing that got worse was the battle conclave.

I think what most SoB players want (or at least myself) is really just more options again. We have a grand total 1 possible troop choice, 5 hqs the majority of which are non-customisable SCs and no more than 3 options in our other slots.

 Madcat87 wrote:
I think what most SoB players want (or at least myself) is really just more options again. We have a grand total 1 possible troop choice, 5 hqs the majority of which are non-customisable SCs and no more than 3 options in our other slots.

And a very short list of wargear. Although what hurts me most is losing the Psyker defense we had - the 5+ chance to ignore psychic attacks, the anti-psyker wargear and the cheap WH Inquisitor/Lord with Psychic Hood meant people rarely brought psykers against me. Now they do, every game. It hurts double because psykers also became better with the BRB powers and SoB became worse against them.

 Lynata wrote:

Melissia wrote:It'd be easier to list what's good about it. Which basically amounts to "the fluff sections".

Ouphh... all in all the fluff wasn't that bad, however I'm still angry that whoever wrote it retconned Praxedes' legend. Was that really necessary. :(

I hate the fact they retconned Arabella (She died instead of disappearing into the Eye) and Silvana (she vanished instead of being replaced with a silver skeleton).

The only good thing about the fluff in the minidex was that they didn't mention the damn Inquisition anywhere and a couple of new things on the timeline.

 Furyou Miko wrote:
Well, tvih, if you were ever going to exercise you heavy bolter fetish, Sisters are the place to do it. They're 5 points each, and some of them Rend.

True, points-wise it's great (85 points for 4 heavy bolters? Yes please!), cost-wise not much - 11,5 euros per heavy bolter, with all of them looking the same (as much as I like that model, 4 100% identical ones is a bit much for the cost). Damn you, GW

Though another problem with the Retributor squad is that taking them means not taking an Exorcist as far as allies go. Although unless house-ruling it, only my C:SM would be able to effectively have SoB allies, thanks to GW's retardation in making BT and SoB desperate allies And from all accounts the current Exorcist is a pain to build thanks to the metal "organ", so I suppose any Exorcist purchase would have to wait until a fully plastic kit is released anyway.

Speaking of Retributors though, 4 heavy flamers in a single squad has a strange appeal as well, despite the points cost

Heavy Flamer retributors are... fun, although vulnerable to plasma cannons.

Go with the Forge World exorcist model. It's slightly cheaper these days, looks better and is much easier to build.

You can use desperate allies with BT and Sisters - your BTs will want to be mixing it up close while the Sisters will be providing fire support, so it's easy to stay outside 6" of each other.

If you're buying Heavy Flamer or Multi-Melta sisters, you can swap them round a little to get different Retributors, but the fact the basic model is mono-pose is somewhat irritating, I'll grant you. I mostly use my storm bolters as counts-as heavies. ^^;

 Furyou Miko wrote:
Heavy Flamer retributors are... fun, although vulnerable to plasma cannons.

Go with the Forge World exorcist model. It's slightly cheaper these days, looks better and is much easier to build.

You can use desperate allies with BT and Sisters - your BTs will want to be mixing it up close while the Sisters will be providing fire support, so it's easy to stay outside 6" of each other.

If you're buying Heavy Flamer or Multi-Melta sisters, you can swap them round a little to get different Retributors, but the fact the basic model is mono-pose is somewhat irritating, I'll grant you. I mostly use my storm bolters as counts-as heavies. ^^;

Gives you something to do with all those extra storm bolters you got when buying squad sets hunh?

The current codex can be effective IMO, but tactically I don't find it very diverse. With so few units and so few options it generally unexciting to me. The 30 or so games I have played with them in 6th left me kind of cold with them as I find them just dull. Also the games tend to run one sided. Either the Sisters just roll the opposition or they just die horribly. Scouting Dominions are amazing. It's priceless the first few times you see your opponents land raiders evaporate before they get to go and the surrounding marines just die. Faith on the other hand is mostly pointless. I rarely use the Acts to be honest, except on my Dominions and my Seraphim. I personally have found Retributors to be lack luster but that's because I never sent to have any luck with their Act. Personally I'd rather have more Exorcists.

I guess I am ready for something new with Sisters both models and rules wise. That and I want GW to give them some love in supplements and WD. If the company never speaks about the line and never supports them ever past an out of print codex it's no wonder they will never sell.

The biggest thing that pulls my strings is that Sisters went from having amongst the best troops choice under C:WH, to probably the worst with the new book. I used to be able to build a battle plan around a solid core of Battle Sisters who could adapt to any situation, would sit fearlessly against all odds, and looked awesome. Now I have a unit which is bad at everything, extremely expensive, but at least it looks awesome.

 Still Standing wrote:
The biggest thing that pulls my strings is that Sisters went from having amongst the best troops choice under C:WH, to probably the worst with the new book. I used to be able to build a battle plan around a solid core of Battle Sisters who could adapt to any situation, would sit fearlessly against all odds, and looked awesome. Now I have a unit which is bad at everything, extremely expensive, but at least it looks awesome.

Yeah, I have found they don't hold objectives very well which is bad when most missions are about claiming objectives. Their ability to kill at range is merely adequate. The amount of kills I generate per unit isn't high enough really to justify their cost IMO. Despite their power armor they just take too many wounds for their saves to keep them around

Also remember that they are over 200 points for a 10 strong squad in a Rhino. Space Marines are 5% more expensive for a similar squad... Outrageous.

 Still Standing wrote:
Also remember that they are over 200 points for a 10 strong squad in a Rhino. Space Marines are 5% more expensive for a similar squad... Outrageous.

Umm no.

BSS - 125
2 Meltas - 20
Rhino - 35
That's 180.

I guess you could make them over 200, but that's silly.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Still Standing wrote:
The biggest thing that pulls my strings is that Sisters went from having amongst the best troops choice under C:WH, to probably the worst with the new book. I used to be able to build a battle plan around a solid core of Battle Sisters who could adapt to any situation, would sit fearlessly against all odds, and looked awesome. Now I have a unit which is bad at everything, extremely expensive, but at least it looks awesome.

Umm no. Sister Squads have always been the albatross around the neck of SOB lists. They were better with C:WH because of the variety of faith types, but not awesome. Now Redemptionists... That was an awesome troop choice.