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Psi, it's not just a reprint of the WD dex.

Acts of Faith have completely changed. Dominions? They get Ignores Cover as an AoF now! Which is awesome for Meltaguns, but flamers?

I guess Priests weren't selling well enough or something, since now we pretty much have to fill our army with dirty old men for our Sisters to be even near as effective as they used to be!

Yeah... just saying that I wasn't expecting much from this digital release. I'm not entirely pleased with it.... cause I really don't think the Sisters should require a priest to lead them into battle. They should be leaving the priest behind to show him how it's done... And one-off AOF suck.

... but, as I often say, hope is the first step on the road to disappointment. I try to keep this in mind with every GW announcement, and I find that I am frequently less-perturbed than I might be.

One-off, unless you bring a Simulacrum and at that point, given the variable nature of the old Faith Points/AoF system, is about as much as any squad would usually get anyway.

I half-agree with the priests. The fluff is not great, but I like having a worthwhile support unit who can turn a 20-sister unit into a Hatred, re-rolling force with some decent teeth despite the low S.

So do we actually have confirmed info on ANY of this?

Yes, I typed as I read the book.

 KalashnikovMarine wrote:
So do we actually have confirmed info on ANY of this?

Yep. It's downloadable from BL now.

 KalashnikovMarine wrote:
So do we actually have confirmed info on ANY of this?

I got the dex in front of me, Kalash, and yes, this is confirmed.

AoF are one-use per game and require an Ld test to go off. However, a Simulacrum (a 10 point upgrade on most squads) allows you a second use of the AoF provided you succeed in the first. Likewise, Jacobus allows a second use as well.

The AoF for various units are:

BSS - Preferred Enemy (used in the shooting or beginning of either player's assault phase)
Rets - Rending
Repentia - 3+ FNP
Seraphim - Shred (shooting phase)
Doms - Ignore Cover (shooting phase)
SCS - Fleet, Crusader, Move through Cover (assault)
Celestians - Furious Charge (assault)

Priests are 25 points per, and can be bought 1-5 as a 'free' HQ slot (does not count towards total) and they come with the Hymns rule. At the start of assault phase, they can choose a Hymn and pass an Ld test, the Hymns are:

Protect - Unit re-rolls armor saves and shield of faith saves
Strength - Priest gains Smash
Righteousness - Unit re-rolls to wound

My gut reaction is to hate this... but that might just be my typical curmudgeonly nature. I'm going to have to spend some time with this and think about it.

Not sure how I feel about the upsizing of the Orders. Kind of 50/50 on it.

*Really* don't like the changes to Celestine. Not at all.

*Really* don't like how they have made Priests must-have units.

Overall, I'm pretty satisfied with what we got. The fluff was really good, and the crunch changes seem to have left us a stronger army overall. Can't wait to try this out next this Tuesday.

 Furyou Miko wrote:
I guess Priests weren't selling well enough or something, since now we pretty much have to fill our army with dirty old men for our Sisters to be even near as effective as they used to be!

Priestesses. I don't recall any fluff saying the Ecclesiarchy is men-only, so just use female models for all your Priests.

Maybe the Adepta Sororitas even produces female clergy from its own ranks (ordained by the Adeptus Ministorum proper) so it has priestesses with the combat training to keep up with the Battle Sisters and the gender not to be, um, distracted. (Yes, I'm assuring they pick the strictly heterosexual ones for that job...)

Yes, all right, the Imperium is "Catholic Nazis in Space," but that high concept in itself pretty much demands deviating from strict 21st century Roman Catholic doctrine.... which Pope Francis could change tomorrow, anyway, he's moving so fast.

No anti-Catholic jokes in response to this post please. N.b. I'm Episcopalian (aka Anglican outside the US & Scotland), I just don't want a huge clusterfeth of offensiveness.

EDIT: Well, dammit, the book does seem to say only males enter the clergy.... Well, they're "counts-as" super-special Sisters then.]

Gonna try a small list out tomorrow night. I feel sad for my penitent engine but overall feel these changes are for the better. And my priests will all be females. Gonna have to look around for similarly equipped female models.

Hmm....

I would suggest using the Dialoguous models for the Priestesses. At least it gives you an excuse to use those models.

 Psienesis wrote:
Hmm....

I would suggest using the Dialoguous models for the Priestesses. At least it gives you an excuse to use those models.

And then use this to stand in for a Dialogous.

Jinkies. :1

 Dannyevilguy wrote:

 Psienesis wrote:
Hmm....

I would suggest using the Dialoguous models for the Priestesses. At least it gives you an excuse to use those models.

And then use this to stand in for a Dialogous.

Paint that sweater black and her hair white and you're in business.

AoF being once per game is a fairly big change. Apparently Priests are more zealous than Sisters now that they can pull their act every single round? Meh.
Nice to see that we got Adamantium Will, though. I think this is actually something that we wished for in this thread?

Psienesis wrote:Not sure how I feel about the upsizing of the Orders. Kind of 50/50 on it.

Technically, it's not a change - previously we've been given the 100 as an average, so there had to be larger convents.
I'm guessing the Minor Orders that have around 1k would be responsible for a bigger area, though, or at least some rather special task that requires them to maintain such comparatively massive numbers that they'd start to rival or even exceed the Major Orders on the latters' bad days.

It does read like a "shift in tone", though, so this will probably influence future debates concerning interpretation of SoB numbers. My personal opinion still stands.

SisterSydney wrote:Maybe the Adepta Sororitas even produces female clergy from its own ranks [...]

That doesn't sound very likely, given that priests are an alternate path that branches off in the Schola already ...
But hey, who's saying that it has to be Priest-Priests? It could also be fluffed as yet another Sister from yet another Non-Militant Order accompanying the Battle Squads into war.
Given how the Priest's buffs are about singing, why shouldn't there be an Order that has specialised on providing choirs?
They could basically be the Sisters' marching band!



I'm kinda left wondering if we've also just witnessed a bit of a retcon in terms of Novices. Not only is there a story where a Battle Sister is approached by one as she prepares for battle, but there is also the title "Mistress of Recruits" in the convent hierarchy.

Also, another title I spotted: "Abbess of the Armoury"! ... has a pretty weird ring to it, though, given that Abbess also happens to be the title for the overall leader of all Sisters anywhere. I think I may just stick to my own idea for the name, as far as my headcanon is concerned.

Oh, and did anyone note how the Codex re-introduced the "utterly incorruptible" into our fluff description? So much for Fallen Sisters.

Eh, the having Minor Orders with thousands of Sisters is, I think, sufficient enough to significantly increase the total number of Sisters.

Since we don't know how many Orders Minor there are, even having just 10 of them across the galaxy with 1000 Sisters each is a significant increase to the number of Sisters.

10 with 1.000 is the same as 100 with 100. I don't think it really changes much, considering how vague our guesses for total numbers have been in the past.

What was your guess, by the way? I've always guesstimated their numbers at around ~100.000, with ~30k coming from the Major Orders.

Anyone else a little confused about Celestine's fluff? It seems like she's unchanged, still totally undying and popping up randomly before vanishing, but then there's a quote in there where a Famulous talks about Celestine's "disappearence". Doesn't seem to sync with the rest of the fluff.

One thing I liked seeing in the fluff was the reiteration about the Sisters policing the Ecclesiarchy. A vital duty of theirs that wasn' present in the WD codex, IIRC.

 Lynata wrote:
Nice to see that we got Adamantium Will, though.

Heck yeah. Pretty much everywhere, too. Very useful, very fluffy.

 Lynata wrote:
I'm guessing the Minor Orders that have around 1k would be responsible for a bigger area, though, or at least some rather special task that requires them to maintain such comparatively massive numbers that they'd start to rival or even exceed the Major Orders on the latters' bad days.

It does read like a "shift in tone", though, so this will probably influence future debates concerning interpretation of SoB numbers. My personal opinion still stands.

I found it interesting that nothing was said about the numbers of the Major Orders, beyond the two Convents starting out housing "tens of thousands of Sisters" and growing larger from there. Not exact numbers, but it sounds like there's maybe slightly more of them, now? Guess we'll have to wait to see what the next codex says.

But yeah, personally I'm very happy that Minor Orders got retconned up in terms of numbers. Have to say, having my own Minor Order limited to around 100 Sisters felt a little underwhelming. This way, people have more free reign in making their own Minor Order.

 Lynata wrote:
'm kinda left wondering if we've also just witnessed a bit of a retcon in terms of Novices. Not only is there a story where a Battle Sister is approached by one as she prepares for battle, but there is also the title "Mistress of Recruits" in the convent hierarchy.

Must have be a retcon if they're out and about in warzones now. Maybe we'll be getting that Novice unit that some people wanted, in the future? I'm certainly interested to see if there's any further developments on this.

 Lynata wrote:
Oh, and did anyone note how the Codex re-introduced the "utterly incorruptible" into our fluff description? So much for Fallen Sisters.

I noticed this too! Very glad to see it. Nice that we now have an up to date studio source to counter all of those third-party things that have Sisters falling.

Also, zero mention of Miriael. Not even the "only one has fallen" line. Not gonna lie, don't mind this at all. Never really liked Miriael.

Looks like I'll be converting some priestesses in the near future.

Got a direct quote about how there are Battle Sisters guarding "Every shrine and fortress-cathedral in the Imperium", too...

Also, yeah. Gonna have to convert some priestesses somehow... guess I need another box of wood elves. >>

That alone would indicate, potentially, millions of Sisters.

Indeed, although it does say that some shrines are guarded by a single Sister. heh.

Does anyone know where the rules for the Relics are?

Oh, and I'm ignoring the AoF nerf and using AoFs each turn. I think it's ridiculous to have the Acts nerfed twice over like this, making them only once-per-battle and also require a LD test has taken them from the army's key unique trait to completely trivial.

Reliquary section just after the vehicle wargear.

 Furyou Miko wrote:
Reliquary section just after the vehicle wargear.

That tells me what they are and their point values. Where are the rules for using them?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Casbyness wrote:

 Furyou Miko wrote:
Reliquary section just after the vehicle wargear.

That tells me what they are and their point values. Where are the rules for using them?

LOL, nevermind. The reader I am using is stupid (me too!) and hides a lot of info. Found them now, ty

Troike wrote:I found it interesting that nothing was said about the numbers of the Major Orders, beyond the two Convents starting out housing "tens of thousands of Sisters" and growing larger from there. Not exact numbers, but it sounds like there's maybe slightly more of them, now?

That section describes the Convent buildings in their current post-extension condition ("are massive fortresses housing tens of thousands of Sisters").
Even if it would be written in the past form, however, it would make no difference, as it includes the Non-Militant Orders, whose Major Orders have their headquarters in the Convents Prioris and Sanctorum as well. The quote from the 2nd Edition Codex, on the other hand, very specifically referred to "15.000 warriors each".

Troike wrote:But yeah, personally I'm very happy that Minor Orders got retconned up in terms of numbers. Have to say, having my own Minor Order limited to around 100 Sisters felt a little underwhelming. This way, people have more free reign in making their own Minor Order.

I still don't see the retcon. The 100 was the average, there was no upper limit aside from "not larger than the Major Orders".

Troike wrote:Also, zero mention of Miriael. Not even the "only one has fallen" line. Not gonna lie, don't mind this at all. Never really liked Miriael.

That "only one has fallen" line was also never printed anywhere outside the short story. People who claim otherwise, including certain Lexicanum editors, need to re-read the Codices.

That being said, I actually like Miriael. It's fine to have exceptions, as long as they just remain special and don't become a running gag like it almost did for Sisters in Black Library stories. As far as I'm concerned, very few things are "absolute" in 40k, which is why I was also fine with the Grey Knights' resistance to corruption apparently not being built-in but requiring special rites and paraphernalia. It's only a matter of time until we see Fallen GKs.
Also, Miriael was pretty badass, showing how utterly dangerous a Battle Sister can become if her intense faith is turned upside-down, and her skills turned against those she used to serve. If even CSMs go "whoah, she's cool, I want to serve her", then in my book this totally justifies the character's existence.

Furyou Miko wrote:Indeed, although it does say that some shrines are guarded by a single Sister. heh.

Indeed the sentence implies that this is the norm (I'm interpreting "the bones of a fallen saint" = shrine), with larger numbers reserved for stuff like cathedrals.
Nothing new, by the way - this bit is a copypaste from the 6E Rulebook's SoB section.

It did make me pause back then, though, thinking how this could be brought in line with earlier statements. Given the description in the fluff ("priceless sacred relics"), perhaps the Ecclesiarchy has a different idea of what constitutes a shrine than we do today? ("place that features an important relic" vs "simple altar")

Well, if we assume the smallest, least-important shrine has 1 Sister, with more Sisters at more-important Shrines, this potentially leads us to hundreds, if not thousands, of Sisters of Battle on the Shrine Worlds.

I wonder if this is intended, in some way, to bridge the gap between previous Codex fluff and the Calixis Sector in DH, which has a *whole lot* of Sisters for a relatively small area of space. Could also just be coincidental.

Sure, 100 Orders Minor with 100 Sisters is the same as 10 with 1000, but I was just using that as an example. Again, we aren't given a limit on the number of Orders Minor, so we might have, across the galaxy, 1000 Orders Minor of 100 Sisters, 500 of 1000, 4500 of 10 Sisters, 37 of just 2 Sisters (ever), and so forth and so on... potentially leading to a million-plus Sisters, especially if we have one at every shrine and temple of the Ecclesiarchy. That could, conceivably, be dozens on every major Imperial World. Hell, a Hive World probably has scores to hundreds of Shrines and Temples on it.

I'm sure that I read the Miriael thing in the codex. But now I can't even find where it says none have ever fallen. ><

Well, how important is a shrine that contains the bones of an Imperial Saint? This is the bit that makes me think that whoever wrote these pieces of fluff may just have a different idea of shrines than I or we have, for by definition, a shrine does not have to contain such relics, and indeed you could have Imperial worlds where every single family has a small shrine in their home (such as with the Chinese today) - does that mean that there's a Battle Sister stationed in every single house?
Also, the very same section was present in the 6E rulebook, which has reprinted the Force Disposition Charts about the 13th Black Crusade and the 3rd War for Armageddon, including its very low numbers of Battle Sisters, which, to me, thus remains a good indicator for their size.

Psienesis wrote:Again, we aren't given a limit on the number of Orders Minor, so we might have, across the galaxy, 1000 Orders Minor of 100 Sisters, 500 of 1000, 4500 of 10 Sisters, 37 of just 2 Sisters (ever), and so forth and so on... potentially leading to a million-plus Sisters

It doesn't really make sense to try and come up with detailed numbers of how many Orders there would be of different types, as we have absolutely no basic data to go from. We don't even know how many Shrine Worlds there are - it could be a dozen, it could be a thousand, and arguably this would influence the total numbers of SoB greatly. I could easily counter your numbers and say "there's 800 Minor Orders of a hundred Sisters and 10 of a thousand, and they also supply the single Sisters for the shrines", and that would be just as good a guess as yours.

And unfortunately, I think this is what GW intended, too. Details such as these have become fewer and fewer ever since the 3rd edition rulebook (which still told us how exactly a las- or a plasmagun works), and the 3E codices already were a far cry from the level of detail we were offered in earlier material. How many Storm Troopers are there? How many Sisters do the Major Orders train as Seraphim? How well does a suit of Astartes power armour protect against small arms fire? All of this we were told in 2E Codex fluff, but since that time we have never seen such detailed info again. This vagueness gives the individual gamer more room for their own ideas, but obviously it makes for a poor common ground when discussing this stuff in a larger community.

Psienesis wrote:I wonder if this is intended, in some way, to bridge the gap between previous Codex fluff and the Calixis Sector in DH, which has a *whole lot* of Sisters for a relatively small area of space.

No Sisters from Minor Orders, though - it was all various Major Orders, one of which has apparently stationed a full third of its warriors there.
The numbers from the Inquisitor's Handbook were much more in line with the original material. Perhaps because Black Industries was a bit closer affiliated with GW? Blood of Martyrs really contained a lot of strange things, which unfortunately led me to dislike the book. The only good thing about it was the excellent artworks and some few clever ideas regarding the thin line between miracle and coincidence (which were then thrown out of the window by the actual rules for AoF).

It's a bit of a shame, actually. They could have used that book to come up with a Calixis-specific Minor Order, but instead they literally piled troops from almost every single Major Order onto the sector as if it'd be Ophelia itself.

Furyou Miko wrote:I'm sure that I read the Miriael thing in the codex. But now I can't even find where it says none have ever fallen.

Are you sure you're not thinking of the fake quote that was listed in the Lexicanum article about the Sisters? Because I fell for that as well, until I eventually tried looking it up...
In the Lexicanum article, both was the same sentence, iirc - something like "only a single Sister has ever fallen" and then a reference to Miriael.