Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

 Cryogen wrote:
Yes! Between CSM and Tau, look on the GW site. Or are you taking a dig at their popularity? Cannot tell

Not taking a dig at it, really. ^^

I'd honestly totally forgotten. And I'm not 100% sure I really grasped that it was a new Codex when I was reading that WD. I think I went, "Nurgle, yuck!" and flipped through the rest of the new releases to get to the articles, and just kinda assumed it was a wave of models.

Also, I was absent from the community at the time, so I wasn't on Dakka and as such, didn't get bombarded by dozens of threads and hundreds of posts talking about it every day.

I have never even seen SoB played. I have always thought their models are kind of cool. As far as codex updates go its called google. I believe they even have 6th edition updates out .

 artofwaaagh wrote:
I have never even seen SoB played. I have always thought their models are kind of cool. As far as codex updates go its called google. I believe they even have 6th edition updates out .

...

Edited by AgeOfEgos


Not even close. The White Dwarf update is next to impossible to track down due to only being released for that one single issue and never being released again. And no it is not updated for 6th. About the closest thing they got to an update was getting some FW fliers tossed at them in Aeronautica.

There is a 6th edition Sisters update floating around, just not one released by GW.

 Ovion wrote:
There is a 6th edition Sisters update floating around, just not one released by GW.

If it's not by FW, GW, CA, or WD I'm not sure how it differs from a fandex.

 Kain wrote:

 Ovion wrote:
There is a 6th edition Sisters update floating around, just not one released by GW.

If it's not by FW, GW, CA, or WD I'm not sure how it differs from a fandex.

If it contains no fanmade content, only info originally from FW, GW, CA, or WD, it's basically a third party reprint.
That would be how it differs
A fandex creates new units / rules, or changes existing ones to expand existing content, like the ones I'm working on at the moment.

 Ovion wrote:
Yeah, I'll chime in and say that Sisters do have a Codex - just because it was released in White Dwarf, doesn't make it not an official Codex release.

Although that said, GW is certainly doing its best to make it unavailable to the general public.

 Melissia wrote:

 Ovion wrote:
Yeah, I'll chime in and say that Sisters do have a Codex - just because it was released in White Dwarf, doesn't make it not an official Codex release.

Although that said, GW is certainly doing its best to make it unavailable to the general public.

And all they have to do to do that is sit there and do nothing about it. Brilliant. Their evil plan to destroy the psyche of Sisters of Battle lovers everywhere is so intricate in its simplicity...

 Pouncey wrote:

 Melissia wrote:

 Ovion wrote:
Yeah, I'll chime in and say that Sisters do have a Codex - just because it was released in White Dwarf, doesn't make it not an official Codex release.

Although that said, GW is certainly doing its best to make it unavailable to the general public.

And all they have to do to do that is sit there and do nothing about it. Brilliant. Their evil plan to destroy the psyche of Sisters of Battle lovers everywhere is so intricate in its simplicity...

Actually even worse than that. They have to choose not to sell their codex. It's not available, legally, through Games-Workshop.com or through any of their brick and mortar subsidiaries. And this thing they have done.

Hell they could make money just putting a PDF up and selling that for ten-twenty bucks. But they haven't done so.

 Melissia wrote:

 Pouncey wrote:

 Melissia wrote:

 Ovion wrote:
Yeah, I'll chime in and say that Sisters do have a Codex - just because it was released in White Dwarf, doesn't make it not an official Codex release.

Although that said, GW is certainly doing its best to make it unavailable to the general public.

And all they have to do to do that is sit there and do nothing about it. Brilliant. Their evil plan to destroy the psyche of Sisters of Battle lovers everywhere is so intricate in its simplicity...

Actually even worse than that. They have to choose not to sell their codex. It's not available, legally, through Games-Workshop.com or through any of their brick and mortar subsidiaries. And this thing they have done.

Hell they could make money just putting a PDF up and selling that for ten-twenty bucks. But they haven't done so.

I'da bought it. My photocopied WD pages have suffered from the page slipping in the scanner, resulting in sudden jumps to the left or right.

I guess I'll be the first to do the research. The last update for SoB was 5th edition it is in white dwarf issues 379 and 380 released in Aug and Sep 2011. Both of which you can find on the internet for download. - Edited by insaniak. This is not appropriate for Dakka -

 Kain wrote:
Not even close. The White Dwarf update is next to impossible to track down due to only being released for that one single issue and never being released again. And no it is not updated for 6th. About the closest thing they got to an update was getting some FW fliers tossed at them in Aeronautica.

Wrong. It takes 3 seconds to track down. It was 2 issues. The closest thing to an update if a fan made collection of all their rules.

Edited by AgeOfEgos



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 DeffDred wrote:

 Kain wrote:
Not even close. The White Dwarf update is next to impossible to track down due to only being released for that one single issue and never being released again. And no it is not updated for 6th. About the closest thing they got to an update was getting some FW fliers tossed at them in Aeronautica.

Wrong. It takes 3 seconds to track down. It was 2 issues. The closest thing to an update if a fan made collection of all their rules.

Edited by AgeOfEgos

Why am I edited but not the post above I was refering to with the same quote?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
So... 3 seconds to crack down on me.... but no answer to any questions I have post or PMs? Well, I'll just take this as a personal attack against me by the Mods.

 DeffDred wrote:

 Kain wrote:


Why am I edited but not the post above I was refering to with the same quote?

I think that is why he used that fancy video. He knew he could get by admin by posting the link.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
Necrons, GK and SM.

This. A thousand times this -_-

 DeffDred wrote:



Why am I edited but not the post above I was refering to with the same quote?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
So... 3 seconds to crack down on me.... but no answer to any questions I have post or PMs? Well, I'll just take this as a personal attack against me by the Mods.

 Melissia wrote:

 Ovion wrote:
Yeah, I'll chime in and say that Sisters do have a Codex - just because it was released in White Dwarf, doesn't make it not an official Codex release.

Although that said, GW is certainly doing its best to make it unavailable to the general public.

Does this not suggest to you that the SoB are on the way out? Wouldnt the following steps be a good way to kill off an army?

1 Very expensive miniatures, even by GW standards

2 Very limited range of models

3 No Codex available

4 Miniatures only available by direct order

Black templars i would say

JWhex wrote:

 Melissia wrote:

 Ovion wrote:
Yeah, I'll chime in and say that Sisters do have a Codex - just because it was released in White Dwarf, doesn't make it not an official Codex release.

Although that said, GW is certainly doing its best to make it unavailable to the general public.

Does this not suggest to you that the SoB are on the way out? Wouldnt the following steps be a good way to kill off an army?

1 Very expensive miniatures, even by GW standards

2 Very limited range of models

3 No Codex available

4 Miniatures only available by direct order

Very doubtful numerous informal interviews with GW people have claimed their wish to avoid 'squating' another faction. As it is the army is harder to come across and would most certainly qualify as a 'labor of love' for most people.

 Wilytank wrote:

Wolfnid420 wrote:
Until just now, I didnt know that Squats were a real army at any point in time.......

Well not all of us could have been playing since 2nd ed. could we?

The Squats only existed at a very basic level in 2nd Edition. Honestly, without an actual Codex, I saw very, very few Squat armies in 2nd Edition.

Realistically, the Squats have been out of the game since 1992 or so. They were finally put to rest with 3rd Edition where no rules exist for them at all.

So I don't think you can count Squats as the "under-used" army since they don't actually have an army, lol.

JWhex wrote:

 Melissia wrote:

 Ovion wrote:
Yeah, I'll chime in and say that Sisters do have a Codex - just because it was released in White Dwarf, doesn't make it not an official Codex release.

Although that said, GW is certainly doing its best to make it unavailable to the general public.

Does this not suggest to you that the SoB are on the way out? Wouldnt the following steps be a good way to kill off an army?

1 Very expensive miniatures, even by GW standards

2 Very limited range of models

3 No Codex available

4 Miniatures only available by direct order

Thing is, you could have made pretty much this exact argument for the Dark Eldar, and look what happened there.

GW knows that big model/codex updates make them a lot of money. There's a definite precedence for it.

And besides, why bother casting new ones and giving them FAQs and such if they're going to kill them off?

lazarian wrote:Very doubtful numerous informal interviews with GW people have claimed their wish to avoid 'squating' another faction. As it is the army is harder to come across and would most certainly qualify as a 'labor of love' for most people.

While rumors have abounded for years, I definitely agree that GW has no plans to abandon the Sisters of Battle completely. They learned their lesson with the backlash over the Squats. The Sisters will continue to exist, albeit most likely in the very limited form they are in now. As long as GW continues to publish rules every few years, the army stays playable, even if they have no plans to do anything other than continue to sell the same existing models in a limited quantity. It makes sense from a customer service perspective.

I think the problem for the Sisters is, and this will be fiercely contested by the usual suspects because it always is, that they just never sold enough models to gain substantial backing. Games Workshop acts like a big company, but it really isn't. They only have a limited number of modelers and writers that can be kept on payroll and be tasked with generating new material. And we know that GW is incredibly secretive and protective of the IP, so it isn't like they are going to use any true freelance or fan generated support.

Because there are only so many designers to go around, and GW has so many existing armies, it's fairly clear that the "fringe" armies often get pushed back because there's just no time to develop them. Hence why Black Templars, Dark Eldar, or Eldar (which is kinda sad given the fact that they used to be a core army), and such all went so long without a new codex book.

I will agree that it's fairly confounding why GW hasn't made a .pdf copy of the Sisters codex available for sale. I mean, I "get" delaying it so that it drives sales of White Dwarf, but at this point, it seems they could pop the thing online for $15 and make a killing on it. But hey, not everything GW does has to make sense.

 Troike wrote:

Thing is, you could have made pretty much this exact argument for the Dark Eldar, and look what happened there.

GW knows that big model/codex updates make them a lot of money. There's a definite precedence for it.

And besides, why bother casting new ones and giving them FAQs and such if they're going to kill them off?

Only time will tell. As ex-SoB player, I'm really disappointed by the lack of update, but I never lost hope. Maybe some day... a dreamer can dream, right?

 Veteran Sergeant wrote:
they just never sold enough models to gain substantial backing

Yes, becuase of the expensive metal models and lack of substantial updates. I've seen so many people say that they'd pick up some SoB if not for their high prices.

GW cannot be unaware that the SoB's poor sales are, more or less, due to their own inaction.

 PunkNeverDie110 wrote:

 Troike wrote:

Thing is, you could have made pretty much this exact argument for the Dark Eldar, and look what happened there.

GW knows that big model/codex updates make them a lot of money. There's a definite precedence for it.

And besides, why bother casting new ones and giving them FAQs and such if they're going to kill them off?

Only time will tell. As ex-SoB player, I'm really disappointed by the lack of update, but I never lost hope. Maybe some day... a dreamer can dream, right?

As some guy I don't remember said in an SoB thread a while ago, SoB fans aren't called "the faithful" for nothing.

 Troike wrote:

As some guy I don't remember said in an SoB thread a while ago, SoB fans aren't called "the faithful" for nothing.

Yeah, sooner or later the army main theme, faith, must have rubbed off on us. Asd

 Troike wrote:

 Veteran Sergeant wrote:
they just never sold enough models to gain substantial backing

Yes, becuase of the expensive metal models and lack of substantial updates. I've seen so many people say that they'd pick up some SoB if not for their high prices.

GW cannot be unaware that the SoB's poor sales are, more or less, due to their own inaction.

 PunkNeverDie110 wrote:

 Troike wrote:

Thing is, you could have made pretty much this exact argument for the Dark Eldar, and look what happened there.

GW knows that big model/codex updates make them a lot of money. There's a definite precedence for it.

And besides, why bother casting new ones and giving them FAQs and such if they're going to kill them off?

Only time will tell. As ex-SoB player, I'm really disappointed by the lack of update, but I never lost hope. Maybe some day... a dreamer can dream, right?

As some guy I don't remember said in an SoB thread a while ago, SoB fans aren't called "the faithful" for nothing.

 Furyou Miko wrote:

 Troike wrote:

 Veteran Sergeant wrote:
they just never sold enough models to gain substantial backing

Yes, becuase of the expensive metal models and lack of substantial updates. I've seen so many people say that they'd pick up some SoB if not for their high prices.

GW cannot be unaware that the SoB's poor sales are, more or less, due to their own inaction.

 PunkNeverDie110 wrote:

 Troike wrote:

Thing is, you could have made pretty much this exact argument for the Dark Eldar, and look what happened there.

GW knows that big model/codex updates make them a lot of money. There's a definite precedence for it.

And besides, why bother casting new ones and giving them FAQs and such if they're going to kill them off?

Only time will tell. As ex-SoB player, I'm really disappointed by the lack of update, but I never lost hope. Maybe some day... a dreamer can dream, right?

As some guy I don't remember said in an SoB thread a while ago, SoB fans aren't called "the faithful" for nothing.

I think I take exception to that. :p I'm not a guy.

Heh, sorry 'bout that.

Should have played it safe and gone with a gender-neutral pronoun.

 Troike wrote:

 Veteran Sergeant wrote:
they just never sold enough models to gain substantial backing

Yes, becuase of the expensive metal models and lack of substantial updates. I've seen so many people say that they'd pick up some SoB if not for their high prices.

GW cannot be unaware that the SoB's poor sales are, more or less, due to their own inaction.

That's really just a supposition.

If you consider the fact that nearly every successful business operates by pushing strong products, maintaining solid ones, and not expending resources on underperforming ones, that logic doesn't really hold up.

Sisters were introduced, like Necrons, at the very tail end of 2nd Edition. They both had ridiculously small model lines (1 troop, 1 heavy, 1 fast attack, 1HQ), though at least with Sisters they could piggyback off of the Space Marines' vehicles. A dedicated converter didn't even have to wait for the "official" models since the Immolator and Exorcist are basically just fancy Razorbacks/Whirlwinds.

And yet the Necrons have gotten two full Codex updates since then, including a full-plastic re-release to shore up their original plastic troops and metal HS/FA/HQ.

Now, it's easy to look at this "chicken before egg", and say "Sisters don't sell because they don't have plastic models". But every other army at this point has plastic models, even the ones like Dark Eldar that seemed all but abandoned too. In fact, the Dark Eldar and now Tau have been plastic twice.

So we have to examine causal relationships. Why don't the Sisters have plastic models? Well, we know that the investment involved in creating plastic models is high. The Dark Eldar and Tau were lucky. They were born into plastic. But the Necrons were not. So there has to be a reason that the Necrons became a full fledged army, with two unique codex books, and the Sisters did not. The Sisters have technically not had an official Codex since 1997, since Codex: Witch Hunters doesn't actually require you to use any Sisters models.

It stands to reason then, that the reason Sisters didn't get expanded was because it wasn't deemed profitable enough to do so. Remember, simply making money isn't the driving factor of business. Driving the most profit is. Sure, Games Workshop could "make money" (most likely) by revamping the Sisters. But do they make enough money doing that to incur the production costs of doing so? The answer was probably "No". How do we know? Well, it never happened again. There was a small investment made in the Sisters in 2003, expanding the model range, giving it access to even more toys (Guard, Witch Hunters, etc). But never again. The clear assumption we can derive from this was that the 2003 revamp of Sisters did not gather interest like the 2002 revamp of the Necrons did. Thus, the Necrons were identified as a profitable product, and the Sisters were not. Two armies started under almost identical circumstances, and yet today are in almost diametrically opposite positions on the product spectrum.

Remember, nothing happens in a vacuum. Sisters don't have plastic models because they probably didn't sell well enough before plastic models were the standard for all armies. The fact that they don't sell well now because they cost so much more due to a lack of plastic models is just a side effect of that.

I mean, sure, any army in 40K is one overpowered codex away from blockbuster status. But that's really not the point.

Though there is clearly some "chicken-and-egg" problem to the Sisters being hard to track down and rare, some market research tools certainly can be (and likely have been) used by GW to assist them in the decision on what to launch and what not to launch.

And it's certainly not limited to GW. Companies constantly face the dilemma of needing to have a rough idea on how good or bad a product would be received BEFORE they release it. It's not an exact science and may go wrong spectacularly (hello New Coke), but spectacular outliers aside, most market research these days is fairly robust.

 Veteran Sergeant wrote:

 Troike wrote:

 Veteran Sergeant wrote:
they just never sold enough models to gain substantial backing

Yes, becuase of the expensive metal models and lack of substantial updates. I've seen so many people say that they'd pick up some SoB if not for their high prices.

GW cannot be unaware that the SoB's poor sales are, more or less, due to their own inaction.

That's really just a supposition.

If you consider the fact that nearly every successful business operates by pushing strong products, maintaining solid ones, and not expending resources on underperforming ones, that logic doesn't really hold up.

Sisters were introduced, like Necrons, at the very tail end of 2nd Edition. They both had ridiculously small model lines (1 troop, 1 heavy, 1 fast attack, 1HQ), though at least with Sisters they could piggyback off of the Space Marines' vehicles. A dedicated converter didn't even have to wait for the "official" models since the Immolator and Exorcist are basically just fancy Razorbacks/Whirlwinds.

And yet the Necrons have gotten two full Codex updates since then, including a full-plastic re-release to shore up their original plastic troops and metal HS/FA/HQ.

Now, it's easy to look at this "chicken before egg", and say "Sisters don't sell because they don't have plastic models". But every other army at this point has plastic models, even the ones like Dark Eldar that seemed all but abandoned too. In fact, the Dark Eldar and now Tau have been plastic twice.

So we have to examine causal relationships. Why don't the Sisters have plastic models? Well, we know that the investment involved in creating plastic models is high. The Dark Eldar and Tau were lucky. They were born into plastic. But the Necrons were not. So there has to be a reason that the Necrons became a full fledged army, with two unique codex books, and the Sisters did not. The Sisters have technically not had an official Codex since 1997, since Codex: Witch Hunters doesn't actually require you to use any Sisters models.

It stands to reason then, that the reason Sisters didn't get expanded was because it wasn't deemed profitable enough to do so. Remember, simply making money isn't the driving factor of business. Driving the most profit is. Sure, Games Workshop could "make money" (most likely) by revamping the Sisters. But do they make enough money doing that to incur the production costs of doing so? The answer was probably "No". How do we know? Well, it never happened again. There was a small investment made in the Sisters in 2003, expanding the model range, giving it access to even more toys (Guard, Witch Hunters, etc). But never again. The clear assumption we can derive from this was that the 2003 revamp of Sisters did not gather interest like the 2002 revamp of the Necrons did. Thus, the Necrons were identified as a profitable product, and the Sisters were not. Two armies started under almost identical circumstances, and yet today are in almost diametrically opposite positions on the product spectrum.

Remember, nothing happens in a vacuum. Sisters don't have plastic models because they probably didn't sell well enough before plastic models were the standard for all armies. The fact that they don't sell well now because they cost so much more due to a lack of plastic models is just a side effect of that.

I mean, sure, any army in 40K is one overpowered codex away from blockbuster status. But that's really not the point.

So what you're saying is that they didn't sell as well as the others in the early days, so GW is justified in bascially ingoring them from that point onwards? The main theme I'm seeing here is still GW's inaction.

 Veteran Sergeant wrote:
The Sisters have technically not had an official Codex since 1997

Their WD Codex is an official Codex. The fact that it's in a WD does not change this. That's what they're writing FAQs for.

 Veteran Sergeant wrote:
There was a small investment made in the Sisters in 2003, expanding the model range, giving it access to even more toys (Guard, Witch Hunters, etc). But never again. The clear assumption we can derive from this was that the 2003 revamp of Sisters did not gather interest like the 2002 revamp of the Necrons did.

Alternatively, one can take the view the Sisters were hamstrung in this regard by their expensive metal models, and weren't marketed as hard as the 'crons. GW's itself was still very much an influence here.

 Veteran Sergeant wrote:
Sure, Games Workshop could "make money" (most likely) by revamping the Sisters. But do they make enough money doing that to incur the production costs of doing so? The answer was probably "No".

Why? There's a strong history of codex/model updates, where they actually put in some effort, leading to an army becoming strong sellers. I've already covered the DE ad nauseum. But for a more recent example, look at the Tau. New codex, new models, demand rapidly outgrew supply. History shows that substantial updates (and the Sisters require nothing less) generate interest, and thus sales.

 Veteran Sergeant wrote:
I mean, sure, any army in 40K is one overpowered codex away from blockbuster status. But that's really not the point.

It kinda is. That's the situation we're in now, with GW's apathy acting as a brick wall against anybody wanting to start a Sisters army. Onus is on GW to do something or drop them (which is unlikely given that they continue to support the Sisters), not for the public to get buying.

Chicken and egg thing aside, we can at least agree that a real update would probably make them into a well-selling army?

Well, on topic, in my meta it is BT. We have 4 sisters players in my local area, and only one BT player I have seen. I think it's mainly because most of our local BT players hopped to a newer marine codex out of frustration with the age of theirs. We also only have 2 DE players in my area.

I'm sure that world wide it is probably sisters. Mostly due to their availability. Next would probably be BT due to their age and ease of codex hopping those models.