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Well, that's the thing. I mean, you can disagree, but that would be like me disagreeing that Horus turned against the Emperor. It's the information presented to us, time and time again, in the Codices and rulebooks of the game as well as many of their supporting novels. The Sisters are badasses. It's pretty much all there is to it.

Got a Space Marine Chapter turning Renegade? Send the Sisters.

Got a planet breaking away from the Imperial Creed? Send the Sisters.

Got a suspicion that this planet has been infiltrated by Xenos and breeding with the local populace? Send the Sisters.

Need to defend the billions of light-years of pilgrim's paths that criss-cross the Imperium from the threat of pirates and Xenos? Send the Sisters.

Need to guard an ancient holy relic or Shrine? Send the Sisters.

So, in a sense, you're disagreeing with the faction being cool because you don't like the way that the studio has presented the faction being cool and explaining why they're cool. That would be like me arguing that SW aren't cool because they ride wolves... I mean, sure, that's kind of silly... but it is also kind of awesome.

Psienesis wrote:Yeah, I'm with you on Wolf & Sister. I like the art, but I just can't get into the fundamentals of the story.

Mirrors my thoughts exactly. You did a good review in the following post.

If you want another fan comic about Sororitas and a blood relationship, I think this one does a much better job in terms of faction portrayal:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/55346463/warhammer-40k-Farewell-Sister#

(I could nitpick some minor fluff details, but it's no worse than the average Black Library novel and at least the correct spirit is there )

curran12 wrote:This is just painfully lazy writing.

I'm not sure I'd call it "lazy" - it just caters to a very specific group of fans, who may prefer to let various rather sexist clichés creep into the stories, ranging from the Damsel in Distress to the pretty female sidekick for the actual hero (only made even more obviously masculine by being a Space Wolf). It's pretty much like a 1950s pulp magazine in this, and it's a bit sad that a lot of people seem to have no use for the SoB faction beyond serving as eye candy.

90mm wrote:Power Armor?
-Check
SM Weaponry?
-Check
Worse Stats?
-Check

Second-rate SM

Only if you go by those players - often Marine fans - who seem incapable of accepting their spot as Badass Warriors, maybe even feel threatened by the existence of the Sisters of Battle and thus compelled to ignore GW own writings in favour of some vision that makes them less capable. There's a lot of background being passed on via "word of mouth" in this community, and I've seen quite a few posters (and even novel authors or P&P designers!) propagate a version of the Sororitas that seems very different from the one in the Codex, to the point where I no longer wonder why a lot of fans don't have much faith (hah!) in them. It's almost like some sort of revisionist movement trying to push the SoB away from the top.

"As the Chamber Militant of the galaxy-spanning Ecclesiarchy, the Sisters of Battle are fierce warriors that are equals to their brother Space Marines. What the Sisters lack in genetic enhancement they make up for in faith and devotion."
- GW website

Fortunately, there's quite a number of Marine players who feel different, mimicking the relationship that both forces have on the tabletop:

"Occasionally the Battle Sisters will have common cause with the firce Space Marines of the Adeptus Astartes. Although the relationship between these two organisations is only civil at best, the Space Marines and Battle Sisters both respect each other's prowess and skill at arms. Many times, the foes of the Imperium have been eradicated by a combined attack from these two elite forces."
- 2E C:SoB

Call me an idealist, but to me, that's how it oughta be between the fans, too.

 Lynata wrote:


I'm not sure I'd call it "lazy" - it just caters to a very specific group of fans, who may prefer to let various rather sexist clichés creep into the stories, ranging from the Damsel in Distress to the pretty female sidekick for the actual hero (only made even more obviously masculine by being a Space Wolf). It's pretty much like a 1950s pulp magazine in this, and it's a bit sad that a lot of people seem to have no use for the SoB faction beyond serving as eye candy.

I'm going to have to both disagree with you and agree at the same time. You're very spot on about how catering to a certain taste allows those tropes and cliches to enter into the story, but I am going to stick to that allowing those slips is the mark of lazy writing, especially if you consider what the story's future would look like.

By making the Sister character mute and having no memory of her past (double your cliches, double your fun!), you've created the laziest zero-effort protagonist ever. The "Sister" has pretty much become an inventory item. She doesn't speak, so she has no way of showing much of an opinion on anything (because hey, who wants their women to be too lippy? Look at what happened to the woman who talked back to the Space Wolf in the comic! She got insta-demoned!) and has no way of doing anything other than being led around or following another character around. It's already portrayed her as weak, so it isn't like she has the power to overwhelm Slab Chunkhead and his Wolf buddies.

And what better way for a lazy author to have a 'female protagonist' by setting her up so that it is impossible for her to communicate, there's no channel to her past and there's absolutely no potential for her to grew as a character unless Biff Punchfist is there guiding her around.

Well, I suppose you have a point there ...

I confess, I only read half the comic until I grew bored of how the Sisters are "portrayed" there. I've got no problem with male power fantasies (I like the old Conan movies!), but sheesh, there are lines that don't have to be crossed.

 Lynata wrote:
Well, I suppose you have a point there ...

I confess, I only read half the comic until I grew bored of how the Sisters are "portrayed" there. I've got no problem with male power fantasies (I like the old Conan movies!), but sheesh, there are lines that don't have to be crossed.

Right.

And this is not to say that the author of Wolf and Sister had some kind of sexist agenda. I doubt the thought even crossed their mind. It's just the situation where old and boring tropes are a lot easier than figuring out a development arc for the Sister character when, in all honesty, they are more interested in Crunch Bonemeal and his adventures. It is not like this guy was rubbing his hands together at how he was sticking it to women.

The guy most likely started planning out Gristle McThornbody's plot and got to the point where he wants a big action piece to open his story with. Not a bad idea, it grabs the reader and sweeps them up into the flow of events. But they wanted to show that he is more than just some berserker, so instead of just going in to club heads, he has to have some wider goal, like a rescue. But who do you rescue in 40k?

Civilians? Eh...not really, as anyone with any handle on 40k fluff knows that civilians are just not priority things for anyone.
Other Space Marines? Not a good fit, as it is two of the same things. Marines, especially in the hands of an amateur (and even professional) writer, just are not different enough. Plus you don't want Marines bailing out Marines.
Guard? Much more likely, but...they're guard...eh...
Sisters? Hey! They aren't marines, and they are more like guard...and they are cute women! Winner!

But he ran into a problem...he had no idea to do with a Sister sidekick or ancillary character. So we take the easy path of removing their voice and memory, thus giving you the cute girl without the needless burden of figuring out anything to do with her.

They don't have to be useless, it's just they're so neglected by GW that they've become useless.

 Harriticus wrote:
They don't have to be useless, it's just they're so neglected by GW that they've become useless.

Don't think I understand your reasoning, here. A lack of updates doesn't retcon the things that've been referenced in this thread. They're still quite useful.

And, as I said earlier, the neglect has largely been due to modelling issues preventing the creation of plastic Sisters minis. But, those have, according to the developers, been overcome now.

 Psienesis wrote:
I been sharing this around a bit, it's a tumblr-blog dedicated to Sisters of Battle art from all sorts of sources. It's not a super-huge archive or anything right now, but it's got some good pieces in it.

http://spacenuns.tumblr.com/

Nice, even had a few I hadn't got yet. Edit: Oooh, quite a few I haven't got yet. My Sororitas folder will be even more stuffed after this. I really must try to organise that thing sometime.

Speaking of SoB art, I wish that art thread hadn't been locked. I had a lot of cool SoB art I wanted to post. :-/

 Psienesis wrote:
Well, that's the thing. I mean, you can disagree, but that would be like me disagreeing that Horus turned against the Emperor. It's the information presented to us, time and time again, in the Codices and rulebooks of the game as well as many of their supporting novels. The Sisters are badasses. It's pretty much all there is to it.

I think that this is a problem that the Sisters face. Sure, the average 40K fan is going to know about the Horus Heresy quite well. But the Sisters? Their fluff is much more obscure. A lot of it's in older publications, and the more recent stuff (their WD codex and BL novels) might not cross the path of the average fan either. Because of this, it's easy for people to get impressions like "they don't do anything" or "they're weak". While the codex fluff and a lot of the non-codex fluff says quite the opposite.

This is why I'm hopeful that a new codex will have lots of good fluff. That should hopefully make their true character more known to people, as well as encouraging more fluff to be written about them.

 Psienesis wrote:
It's unfortunate, too, because I think a good story could be told about a priory of the Sisters of Battle deploying alongside (though not according to plan) a squad of the nearly-pagan Space Wolves...

Indeed. Tensions would be high, but they'd have to work to overcome the mutual distrust in order to unite against the enemy. In fact, a recent BL novel, Blood of Asaheim, apparently does this quite well, having a somewhat strained SoB and SW team-up. A guy who read it tells me that it portrays the Sisters well, too, and has them as badass in their own right.

 Lynata wrote:
It's almost like some sort of revisionist movement trying to push the SoB away from the top.

As I've said, I think of lot of that is partly, perhaps even mostly, due to popular misconceptions about the Sisters, largely due to their fluff being fairly obscure. For example, them being a very limited, specialised force unable to fight under certain conditions is a very common one, despite there being codex fluff disproving this. People often do reconsider their views when they see the appropriate codex fluff.

Troike wrote:

Harriticus wrote:They don't have to be useless, it's just they're so neglected by GW that they've become useless.

Don't think I understand your reasoning, here. A lack of updates doesn't retcon the things that've been referenced in this thread. They're still quite useful.

One could say that the lack of updates has made them useless in the eyes of the average fan, perhaps.

Troike wrote:Sure, the average 40K fan is going to know about the Horus Heresy quite well. But the Sisters? Their fluff is much more obscure. A lot of it's in older publications, and the more recent stuff (their WD codex and BL novels) might not cross the path of the average fan either.

Or even worse, what does cross their path is the BL and FFG books where the Sisters were "nerfed" compared to their original fluff.
Part of my scepticism regarding non-GW material is due to how it sometimes portrays entire factions (and not just the Sisters) in a completely different light - and I worry how this would affect the "victim's" reputation in the community. A lot of people still assume there is a sort of "universal canon" for 40k, and even more have never seen the original GW material about something and thus are unaware of any contradictions.

Troike wrote:For example, them being a very limited, specialised force unable to fight under certain conditions is a very common one, despite there being codex fluff disproving this. People often do reconsider their views when they see the appropriate codex fluff.

Really? The most common view I encountered is the one where they are a very large (talking millions or billions) but weak force, much closer to Guardsmen than Space Marines, essentially being "Guard +1" but handicapped by a lack of armoured vehicles. As if every world would have a bunch of Sisters hanging around, but who aren't capable of doing much aside from getting killed when things get tough so the real heroes can take over.

I'm not sure I've ever seen someone openly sceptical of the Sisterhood reconsider their opinion, but I like to think that a lot of people who still had an open mind and were just reading along were swayed that way. Most people who actually bother to argue something are already so convinced of their position that the chance to change it is very low. Besides, given how the fluff works in 40k, the others would be just as "right" as we are, so it's really just a matter of personal preferences...

 Lynata wrote:
One could say that the lack of updates has made them useless in the eyes of the average fan, perhaps.

I'd take it a little further and say it's a combination of the Sisters not being a mainline army that everyone sees and reads about all the time, and a misconception caused by people who look at their statline and assume they're watered down Marines instead of the whole picture.

 Lynata wrote:
Or even worse, what does cross their path is the BL and FFG books where the Sisters were "nerfed" compared to their original fluff.
Part of my scepticism regarding non-GW material is due to how it sometimes portrays entire factions (and not just the Sisters) in a completely different light - and I worry how this would affect the "victim's" reputation in the community. A lot of people still assume there is a sort of "universal canon" for 40k, and even more have never seen the original GW material about something and thus are unaware of any contradictions.

I wouldn't say FFG "nerfed" Sisters but perhaps Flanderized them a bit as supernatural walking Miracle Dispensers in Power Armor. And don't get me wrong, I love the more gray areas of their fluff with how the Living Saints work and the fact that their faith is strong enough to give the the ability to survive what should kill them, but FFG definitely took it a lot farther and made it more blatant and common. It makes the true Miracles in the fluff less miraculous to me.

And I've got mixed feelings about BL's use of Sisters. In the Word Bearer books we have a very quick mentioning of some rather horrible things happening to a coven of Sisters (basically a "Kick the Dog" moment to establish that they're the BAD GUYS....as if we didn't know).

On the flip side we have Hammer and Anvil, one of the best Sister stories I've read to date where .

I love that book.

 Lynata wrote:
Really? The most common view I encountered is the one where they are a very large (talking millions or billions) but weak force, much closer to Guardsmen than Space Marines, essentially being "Guard +1" but handicapped by a lack of armoured vehicles. As if every world would have a bunch of Sisters hanging around, but who aren't capable of doing much aside from getting killed when things get tough so the real heroes can take over.

I'm not sure I've ever seen someone openly sceptical of the Sisterhood reconsider their opinion, but I like to think that a lot of people who still had an open mind and were just reading along were swayed that way. Most people who actually bother to argue something are already so convinced of their position that the chance to change it is very low. Besides, given how the fluff works in 40k, the others would be just as "right" as we are, so it's really just a matter of personal preferences...

I've run into the "not very many Sisters" thing more than the one you have. 5th Edition really screwed up people's perceptions on how many there are, and I still scratch my head trying to figure out why it's such a small number.

 Lynata wrote:
One could say that the lack of updates has made them useless in the eyes of the average fan, perhaps.

Sure, but that doesn't mean that they actually are useless.

 Lynata wrote:
Or even worse, what does cross their path is the BL and FFG books where the Sisters were "nerfed" compared to their original fluff.

Indeed. The Cain books are perhaps the greatest example of this. Very popular books, bad depiction of the Sisters. Especially that one Sister who goes around drinking and having secret affairs.

 Lynata wrote:
Really? The most common view I encountered is the one where they are a very large

I meant limited in the tactical sense. People who say things like "oh, they can't fight under x condtion because they're not trained/equiped for it". That sort of thing.

 Lynata wrote:
I'm not sure I've ever seen someone openly sceptical of the Sisterhood reconsider their opinion, but I like to think that a lot of people who still had an open mind and were just reading along were swayed that way.

Wasn't necessarily just referring to the ones who are very critical of the Sisters, can be the ones who just have misconceptions, too.

ClockworkZion wrote:
I've run into the "not very many Sisters" thing more than the one you have. 5th Edition really screwed up people's perceptions on how many there are, and I still scratch my head trying to figure out why it's such a small number.

5e made an error, they missed out half of the major Orders, which has been corrected since.

Indeed. The Cain books are perhaps the greatest example of this. Very popular books, bad depiction of the Sisters. Especially that one Sister who goes around drinking and having secret affairs.

Actually the Cain novels have a very accurate depiciton of the Sororitas with the exception of that often quoted and debated character.

Every other member of the Sisterhood described in the books are brave, fanatical and devoted warriors who the rest of the Imperial forces (in universe) are respectful off downright in awe of - including the Guard veterans..............the only person in universe to have an issue with them is Cain himself and thats only because he thinks they are too gung ho................and he keeps his opinions to himself for the most part.

 Mr Morden wrote:
Actually the Cain novels have a very accurate depiciton of the Sororitas with the exception of that often quoted and debated character.

Every other member of the Sisterhood described in the books are brave, fanatical and devoted warriors who the rest of the Imperial forces (in universe) are respectful off downright in awe of - including the Guard veterans..............the only person in universe to have an issue with them is Cain himself and thats only because he thinks they are too gung ho................and he keeps his opinions to himself for the most part.

Eh, I can't really agree with you. In it, we have:

- Sisters who recklessly charge alone and unsupported into Tyranids. The Sisters are elite soldiers as well as zealots, it's odd for them to make such a tactical blunder. The Order these Sisters belong to are also massively duped by an Inquisitor, to the point where he is somehow able to store a Lictor in their base, and end up blowing themselves up (IIRC, maybe it was a last stand. I do remember that they all got killed).
- A Sister who drinks, gambles, and has secret affairs. Needless to say, this completely contradicts their fluff of being insanely dedicated to their duties, spending their days praying and training.
- A whole group of Sisters being mind controlled into giving up their faith and helping Space Hitler. It's a well established part of their fluff that they have extremely storng willpowers, and can resist warp stuff like that.

So overall, every major depiction of them is negative or inaccurate. I will agree that Mitchell also treats them well at times, like Cain's disbelief at Sisters turning traitor or him describing them as "the Emperor's most dedicated servants", but the overall depiction is still not good, IMO.

As for the Cain being an unreliable narrator thing, doesn't really change anything. Yes he's clearly quite biased against them, but they still actually do the stuff I've mentioned.

OP: Because not everyone has to have a hard-on for Space Marines. Variety of forces in a game is a good thing.

Sisters of Battle don't seem to be relevant lately , but all the wondrously over-the-top gak about the Space Marines is a recent innovation to get more fanboys for GW's flagship army. For example, Grey Knights seem so much cooler than the SoB as a force unless you are a old-timer that remembers that they used to be a shadowy organization that was represented by a single squad entry in the game until the Daemonhunters codex was written.

Sisters of Battle are cool, but in the realm of "cool" modern 40K fluff and rules, they are just suffering from being woefully out-of-date.

In 40K fluff, they represent the special-ops segment of the most powerful organization in ALL of Humanity, aside from the Adeptus Mechanicus. If you go by how fluff should work in the 40K setting, a Sisters force should be able to do practically what they want to on a world, because everyone is either fanatically supporting them, or terrified of angering the church.

 AegisGrimm wrote:
Sisters of Battle are cool, but in the realm of "cool" modern 40K fluff and rules, they are just suffering from being woefully out-of-date.

Their own codex fluff is fine. Consistently badass, captures their character well. It's just not in the spotlight much due to the obscurity of their 5e codex. And hey, from what I've heard their rulebook fluff is rather good too. Seems that their fluff is just under-represented. I can agree about their rules, though. Those certainly need updating.

 Troike wrote:

 AegisGrimm wrote:
Sisters of Battle are cool, but in the realm of "cool" modern 40K fluff and rules, they are just suffering from being woefully out-of-date.

Their own codex fluff is fine. Consistently badass, captures their character well. It's just not in the spotlight much due to the obscurity of their 5e codex. And hey, from what I've heard their rulebook fluff is rather good too. Seems that their fluff is just under-represented. I can agree about their rules, though. Those certainly need updating.

True. My last statement was probably brought on by hearing so many people on Dakka think that an army is gak if it's not right up to date with all the others. I personally think that Sisters have always had a cool codex. I got into them when they first came out in the tail end of 2nd edition, and I think their rules were good then, through Witchhunters, to the WD codex.

 AegisGrimm wrote:

 Troike wrote:

 AegisGrimm wrote:
Sisters of Battle are cool, but in the realm of "cool" modern 40K fluff and rules, they are just suffering from being woefully out-of-date.

Their own codex fluff is fine. Consistently badass, captures their character well. It's just not in the spotlight much due to the obscurity of their 5e codex. And hey, from what I've heard their rulebook fluff is rather good too. Seems that their fluff is just under-represented. I can agree about their rules, though. Those certainly need updating.

True. My last statement was probably brought on by hearing so many people on Dakka think that an army is gak if it's not right up to date with all the others. I personally think that Sisters have always had a cool codex. I got into them when they first came out in the tail end of 2nd edition, and I think their rules were good then, through Witchhunters, to the WD codex.

My personal experience is that current codex is functional, isn't that bad to play, and it's actually pretty fun.

The problems I've got with it is the lack of options in the book. After a while you've done everything the book has to offer you and run out of real options and things start getting stale because there are a lot of bad choices in the current game. The other issue I've got with it comes from how it stacks up against other books. We're far too highly costed, even counting in bonuses from Acts of Faith and the Shield of Faith a possible reason why. There is really no reason we should be 2 points cheaper than a Space Marine. I'm not trying to sound like I'm whining but without some sweeping changes 10 points is a much more fair cost for what we're fielding.

Otherwise the whole the army is great, and once you get past Internet hyperbole the model selection isn't that bad, nor are they that badly sculpted. The only real models I have actual qualms with are the Repentia Mistress (because she stole Madonna's bra apparently) and the Dialogus (because they really phoned it in on her face and it looks pretty freaky).

Though a Finecast Penitent Engine would be alright. At leas then I wouldn't have to work so hard to assemble it, and then pray that it doesn't decide to fall apart when breathed on. Great looking model, horrible thing to put together.

Other than that I have no real complaints about the army. It's aged far better than most armies from the same era, it has the tools to handle most things (save for fliers naturally, but FW and Fortifications have us covered there) and really I have a hard time being upset with it and end up inspired to play them again everytime I end up running into a thread like this one.

They're halfway between a guardsman and a grey knight. Used to fight corruption when the grey knights aren't available.

Model wise GW are currently having a lot of trouble putting their intricate designs into plastic moulds and sprues, that's why we haven't seen anything yet... but watch this space.

 Brother SRM wrote:
People defend them because they're pretty much the only representation of women in 40k. People also tend to get defensive about their own armies being distinct.

They're also people in power armor who aren't genetically enhanced, which is unique. There hasn't been much fluff around them recently because GW haven't totally known what to do with them. When they get a new codex and new models, you'll see a lot more of them in the background.

I wouldn't say they are the only representation of women in 40k, I mean, we have the Eldar, Dark Eldar, Inquisition, and Chaos Daemons. Moving out of the model range, there are female members of the guard and most of the Imperium's military organisations. I'm not saying their a bad army or anything, but I don't believe GW really knows what to do with them, or if they even want to. Nuns with guns might be a cool concept to some, but I'm not sure GW is confident with their selling ability towards their target demographic.

Now before someone comes at me with the infallible word of the design team, I'm someone doubtful we'll be seeing the Sisters in their own codex. Not squatted, just a diminished in game role.

 phantommaster wrote:
They're halfway between a guardsman and a grey knight. Used to fight corruption when the grey knights aren't available.

Model wise GW are currently having a lot of trouble putting their intricate designs into plastic moulds and sprues, that's why we haven't seen anything yet... but watch this space.

Sisters burn witches and heretics. Grey Knights fight Daemon incursions. They aren't between a Guardsman and a Grey Knight. It's between a Stormtrooper and Space marine at best.

ClockworkZion wrote:I wouldn't say FFG "nerfed" Sisters but perhaps Flanderized them a bit as supernatural walking Miracle Dispensers in Power Armor. And don't get me wrong, I love the more gray areas of their fluff with how the Living Saints work and the fact that their faith is strong enough to give the the ability to survive what should kill them, but FFG definitely took it a lot farther and made it more blatant and common. It makes the true Miracles in the fluff less miraculous to me.

There is that - which keeps bothering me to no end .. it also makes the Sisters less badass because, in FFG's world, they are basically "just space magicians", and what lets them overcome various obstacles is less their own badassness but rather some unseen divine force intervening on their behalf.
But I was also referring to how their equipment is utterly subpar to that of FFG's Space Marines, to the point where their guns aren't even able to hurt them (1d10+5 Pen4 vs, in extreme cases, AP10 TB10+) and their armour is considerably less protective, both things directly contradicting the Codex fluff - and in FFG's background they are said to be capable of "turning back armies of Orks or renegade Imperial Guardsmen" as if this is the best they could do, totally glossing over the fact that GW background has them being the go-to killers for when the Ordo Hereticus condemns a Space Marine Chapter to excommunication and purging.

As I said, "Guardsmen +1". Much of this can surely be attributed to the extreme power gaps between Dark Heresy and Deathwatch, and the special game-mechanical issues concerning toughness bonus, but ultimately it just ends up suggesting a less capable picture than the original studio fluff.

But yes, some BL books are nice on the Sisters. Shamefully, those tend to be the less popular ones - it's a vicious cycle where people aren't interested in the Sisters and thus don't buy the books that make them interesting. Almost replicating the problem the Sororitas have on the tabletop, by being an unpopular army at least in part because it gets little support from the company, which in turn happens because few people play them.

ClockworkZion wrote:I've run into the "not very many Sisters" thing more than the one you have. 5th Edition really screwed up people's perceptions on how many there are

But the numbers in the 5E background, as flawed as they were compared to other GW books, don't seem so far removed from the studio standard. All the book did was making the mistake of saying there's three Major Orders instead of six - the statement that the Major Orders have thousands of warriors, whilst the Minor ones only have about ~100 each, is entirely in line with GW fluff prior and past this book. In essence, 5E's book has the Sororitas have about 10.000 Battle Sisters less than in any other GW source. That's not that much of a difference, is it?

ClockworkZion wrote:and I still scratch my head trying to figure out why it's such a small number

Extremely high recruitment standards, combat casualties, replacement speeds of equipment, and a political consideration of not amassing too much military might in a short time, coupled with a passive acceptance that the current numbers are sufficient for what they're meant to do - at least those are the reasons I'm seeing.
Also, the Minor Orders are basically unplanned spin-offs that separate from their maternal Major Order to take care of one specific region or task - the only convents created by Ecclesiarchal decree are the Major Orders, and those are based in the Convents Prioris and Sanctorum, with both facilities being limited in how many Sisters they can house (15.000 each). Unless the primary Convents are expanded again, there's just no room to create one or more new Major Orders.

AegisGrimm wrote:Sisters of Battle don't seem to be relevant lately [...]

Although it deserves to be said that GW has at least started to write some cool new stuff on them. There needs to be more, but it's already a step above of the silence that dominated the last couple years.
Unfortunately, half of GW still keeps forgetting about them, such as them missing from the new Apocalypse book. It really makes me think that the company isn't sure what to do with them, or that one hand doesn't know what the other is doing.

You also raise a good point about how the franchise seems to have changed over the decades ...

Imposter101 wrote:Sisters burn witches and heretics. Grey Knights fight Daemon incursions. They aren't between a Guardsman and a Grey Knight. It's between a Stormtrooper and Space marine at best.

Sisters burn pretty much anything deemed "enemy". Witches, xenos, rogue Space Marines, you name it.
The 3E Codex had a huge list for reasons why the various armies in the tabletop would be attacked by them, and the 5E Codex has them raid a Demon World. They don't have the Grey Knights' psychic powers, but they do have a conviction strong enough to have a chance at nullifying psychic powers.

 Imposter101 wrote:
Now before someone comes at me with the infallible word of the design team,

This might have been a valid point, but they've been saying it very consistently for a while now:

-Sisters of Battle are definitely in the works, but still some way off, according to Jerv

http://www.lounge.belloflostsouls.net/showthread.php?34864-Gamesday-Germany-2013-Master-Roundup/page2

He did stress that they really wanted to crack on with Sisters, but that they had been causing them technical difficulties for quite some time.

(this was Jes Goodwin)
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/328983.page

A couple of these ones got some further points. It was mentioned that originally there had been a technical problem with developing Sisters plastics, but that Games Workshop would now have the technology to be able to do them.

http://the-responsible-one.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/enter-citadel-ask-audience-we-want-to.html

As for them not getting their own codex, well, if they wanted to fold them into something else then why didn't they do it when the GKs got their own codex? That would have been a "way out" if that was their intention, but they seperated them off and gave them their own codex. And, of course, the Jes Goodwin interview above and comments from Phil Kelly at Enter the Citadel do seem to say that modelling issues were the main barrier to them getting an update. If they wanted to silently get rid of them, why worry about modelling issues? It's a significant monetary investment to develop new plastics, why have that on the agenda for an army you want to shuffle off to the sidelines?

 phantommaster wrote:
They're halfway between a guardsman and a grey knight. Used to fight corruption when the grey knights aren't available.

Model wise GW are currently having a lot of trouble putting their intricate designs into plastic moulds and sprues, that's why we haven't seen anything yet... but watch this space.

 Imposter101 wrote:
Sisters burn witches and heretics. Grey Knights fight Daemon incursions. They aren't between a Guardsman and a Grey Knight. It's between a Stormtrooper and Space marine at best.

Actually, the SoB codex has them raiding a Daemon world and escaping again. Granted Daemon hunting isn't their main job, but in their line of work, they're bound to come across Daemons sometimes They've shown that they can handle Daemons when they cross paths. And I think that the comparison to a GK is apt, in that the Sisters too are some of the best at resisting Chaotic influence.


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 Lynata wrote:
the statement that the Major Orders have thousands of warriors, whilst the Minor ones only have about ~100 each, is entirely in line with GW fluff prior and past this book. In essence, 5E's book has the Sororitas have about 10.000 Battle Sisters less than in any other GW source.

According to the codex fluff, roughly how many SoBs are there in the galaxy (not counting Minor Orders, as they're an unknown quantity)? I'll admit, the lower numbers thing is something I'm not sure I like. I feel that there should be many more Sisters than that, given the Imperium's sheer size and brutality making for a plentiful source of orphans, as well as them being less complicated to create than Marines. I've been quitely hoping that new codex might retcon their numbers up a bit, but maybe the current numbers aren't so bad, if it's something we'll have to live with. What are your thoughts on their size?

 Lynata wrote:
such as them missing from the new Apocalypse book

I put this down to the metal models, personally. I don't think that GW would want to sell massive formations of metal models, or indeed ones that they plan to update soon. I'm theorising that their plan there is an Apoc supplement to follow a new SoB codex.

And as for being a militant arm of the Inquisition, other than FFG stuff, they have more in-universe representation for Ordo Hereticus than the Deathwatch does for Ordo Xenos, which in 6th edition 40K is to say, none other than fan-builds using Sternguard as counts-as.

They should represent Hereticus as much as the Grey Knights represent Malleus. The Grey Knights just have the bonus of being "Space Marines", which automatically makes them sell better as an army, even if Sisters had better models.

 AegisGrimm wrote:
And as for being a militant arm of the Inquisition, other than FFG stuff, they have more in-universe representation for Ordo Hereticus than the Deathwatch does for Ordo Xenos, which in 6th edition 40K is to say, none other than fan-builds using Sternguard as counts-as.

They should represent Hereticus as much as the Grey Knights represent Malleus. The Grey Knights just have the bonus of being "Space Marines", which automatically makes them sell better as an army, even if Sisters had better models.

Ehhhhhh...I don't really like the Sisters going back to "Codex: Witch Hunters", at least not like it was there. Maybe if they do like the did for the Grey Knights (Inquisitor HQs and only a couple of Inquisitorial options with the ability to make them troops but not making them the auto-troops choice so they don't overshadow Sisters again) I'd be okay with it, I'm just afraid they'll take it to far again.

I don't really know, I only ever used Witch Hunters for Sisters-pure forces .

 AegisGrimm wrote:
I don't really know, I only ever used Witch Hunters for Sisters-pure forces .

Same here, but the problem I had with it was the fluff was far more focused on the Inquisition than the Sisters and it gave the book a tone I didn't like.

I think we're safe from a Hereticus merger for now. The GKs got all of their special characters. Hopefully it'll stay that way.

Troike wrote:According to the codex fluff, roughly how many SoBs are there in the galaxy (not counting Minor Orders, as they're an unknown quantity)? I'll admit, the lower numbers thing is something I'm not sure I like. I feel that there should be many more Sisters than that, given the Imperium's sheer size and brutality making for a plentiful source of orphans, as well as them being less complicated to create than Marines. I've been quitely hoping that new codex might retcon their numbers up a bit, but maybe the current numbers aren't so bad, if it's something we'll have to live with. What are your thoughts on their size?

The six Major Orders Militant are about 21k Battle Sisters in 999.M41 - the 2E Codex notes that numbers are in constant flux due to casualties and availability of recruits, with an Order sometimes not being more than a few hundred Sisters, whilst at other times capping out at ~7.000 spread across the galaxy. The Minor Orders are, as you say, an unknown quantity, although I'm opposed to the idea that these are what would boost their numbers into the millions (given the choice of the word "many" to quantify them, as well as the growth of the Sisterhood over the millennia, or the low number of Minor Orders involved in the defence against the 13th Black Crusade).

Overall, I'm estimating the number of Battle Sisters to be in the tens or perhaps hundreds of thousands, but certainly not millions. And I'm fine with this low number. It makes them seem more elite, and indicates that humans of their sort are a rare breed. The ability to more or less keep up with a Space Marine shouldn't be something that comes in large numbers.

Troike wrote:I don't think that GW would want to sell massive formations of metal models

I dunno, sometimes I almost think there's a conspiracy going on. Why did they stop selling the boxes of 10 Sisters?
Right now you can get boxes of 10 metal Valhallans for £20.50, no problem. But for SoB, you pay £10.75 for 3. Excuuuse me...?

21,000? That's actually quite a lot, I guess. And there's the Minor Orders on top of that too. Plus the "elite" thing is a nice way of looking at it. That's put me at ease a bit, thanks.

My pleasure!

And yeah, I think it's enough to justify the Major Orders' appearances at important battles. It works for the popular Space Marine Chapters, too, and those have even smaller numbers.
Meanwhile, as the Major Orders zip through Imperial space to let the hammer come down hard on selected targets, the unknown number of smaller Minor Orders take care of local matters.

Here's the original wording, by the way, just to show that I'm not merely talking out of my blessed, power-armoured posterior:

"When Sebastian Thor ascended to the position of Ecclesiarch, there were roughly 4.000 Daughters of the Emperor under his command. Upon founding the Adepta Sororitas, these warriors were split between the Convents on Ophelia VII and Terra (the Convent Sanctorum and Convent Prioris respectively). With recruits passing through the hands of the Schola Progenium once again, the Adepta Sororitas' ranks soon grew to over 10.000 fighters, and the Ecclesiarch succeeding Thor (Ecclesiarch Alexis XXII) split each of the Convents into two Orders each, founding the Orders Militant of the Ebon Chalice, Valorous Heart, Fiery Heart, and the Argent Shroud.

Two and a half thousand years later, two more Orders were created by Deacis VI (the Orders of the Bloody Rose and Sacred Rose) and the Convent buildings were extended to accomodate almost 15.000 warriors each. In recent years, the number of the Militant Orders' members has declined slightly and each Order now numbers between 3.000 and 4.000 Battle Sisters, of which perhaps 500-750 will be trained as Seraphim. These warriors are spread throughout the galaxy in various battle zones and extended tours of duty. The size of an Order waxes and wanes irregularly, depending on the quality of recruits available and battle losses. On occasion, an Order may number no more than a few hundred warriors, all fighting the enemies of the Emperor, while at other times it may reach a peak of six or seven thousand warriors, with much of the Order fighting in distant wars, but still leaving a reserve of several thousand Battle Sisters and Seraphim that can be despatched if needed."
- 2E C:SoB

"As numbers within the Orders Militant waxed and waned, varying from a couple of hundred warriors to many thousands, the subsidiary convents began to take on an importance all their own. These small, scattered bases often proved ideal for reacting to requests for assistance from the Ordo Hereticus, and so over time became independent of the Orders that had founded them, establishing their own traditions, doctrines, livery and titles. Though the original six Orders are by far the most numerous and active of the Orders Militant, the new Lesser Orders Militant, or Orders Minoris, became especially useful in the frequent purity sweeps and pogroms instituted by the Witch Hunters."
- 3E C:WH

(sidenote: the 5E Minidex mentions the rise of the Minor Orders to have occurred in mid M38)

As you can see, I just took the mean score between 3k and 4k (3.500) and multiplied that x6 -> 21.000.

 AegisGrimm wrote:
OP: Because not everyone has to have a hard-on for Space Marines. Variety of forces in a game is a good thing.

Sisters of Battle don't seem to be relevant lately , but all the wondrously over-the-top gak about the Space Marines is a recent innovation to get more fanboys for GW's flagship army. For example, Grey Knights seem so much cooler than the SoB as a force unless you are a old-timer that remembers that they used to be a shadowy organization that was represented by a single squad entry in the game until the Daemonhunters codex was written.

Sisters of Battle are cool, but in the realm of "cool" modern 40K fluff and rules, they are just suffering from being woefully out-of-date.

In 40K fluff, they represent the special-ops segment of the most powerful organization in ALL of Humanity, aside from the Adeptus Mechanicus. If you go by how fluff should work in the 40K setting, a Sisters force should be able to do practically what they want to on a world, because everyone is either fanatically supporting them, or terrified of angering the church.

Agressive eh?
Regardless I actually kinda like the sisters. They just dont seem to do much for reasons explained.

Your estimates on the Big Six seem solid, but we have so little data on the Minor Orders Militant that you can justify almost anything. Given that there are about a million worlds in the Imperium, many of them with a significant Ecclesiarchy presence that the Adeptus Ministorum would devote resources to protecting, you could easily justify (as I do in my headcanon) tens of thousands of Orders Minoris, averaging several hundred Sisters each, which would mean millions of Sisters.

That's significantly more than the number of Marines but less than one percent the size of the Imperial Guard, which is consistently said to number in the billions. So they're still pretty darn elite even at those numbers.

That also creates a lovely progression:
A thousand or so super-superhuman Grey Knights with equipment that costs more than most planets.
A million superhuman and superbly equipped Space Marines.
Millions of extraordinary humans, very well equipped, in the Battle Sisters.
Billions of ordinary humans, decently trained and equipped (for the most part), in the Imperial Guard.
Tens or hundreds of billions of ordinary or even somewhat sub-par human beings with highly variable but generally poor equipment and training in the Planetary Defense Forces.
Trillions of ordinary, ornery people who would happily shoot you in the face with a stubber or crack your head open with a rusty pipe.