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i guess in fluff, SOB have always been = to Space Marines

is this true.?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
in terms of combat prowless

invidivudally a sister vs. an astarte

Probably not. Sisters don't get the implants that space marines do.

Cleanse_and_burn wrote:
Probably not. Sisters don't get the implants that space marines do.

i meant in combat, not genetically...

in single combat a sister vs. an astarte

But it's in part their genetic implants that let them be tougher. I mean they are literally connected to their armour through the Black carapace. This lets them move their in their armour a LOT easier and thats just one the many implants.
So no I don't think a SOB could beat a SM in combat.

Space Marines have more strength and toughness than a Sister of Battle. Sisters sit between IG vets and Space Marines.

Not at all. Sisters are a little better than Arbites basically.

Sororitas are generally Marines +1, as far as the fluff is concerned.

In single combat, a Sister's superior faith, training and equipment would give her the win, though a Marine could feasibly win via out-strategizing her, given he has some prep.

Space Marines hold the advantage in strength, durability, endurance, speed, reaction-time, equipment, and likely martial and ballistic skill.

Sisters have the Acts of Faith.

Do they bridge the gap? Who knows?

Nope, they lack the enhanced strength, speed, toughness and enhanced senses of a marine, as well as all the other goodies like black carapace and memory theft. The marines will also have the edge in training and likely experience.

Just kidding. Space Marines are superior to Sisters in everything except faith I guess.

In a one-on-one fight, in a vacuum, an Astartes would romp a Sister. In a real combat scenario, it depends on the individuals, with marines having the advantage. Armed with bolters, either one could feasibly kill the other.

 BlaxicanX wrote:
Just kidding. Space Marines are superior to Sisters in everything except faith I guess.

In a one-on-one fight, in a vacuum, an Astartes would romp a Sister. In a real combat scenario, it depends on the individuals, with marines having the advantage. Armed with bolters, either one could feasibly kill the other.

or feesable not kill the other as boltguns aren't nesscarily the ideal "power armor popper"

Again, read the fluff. All of the genetic modifications that a Marine has is solely to make them better in combat. Otherwise there would be no point in modding them.

1 on 1, a space marine will slaughter a sister.

The sisters have 2 advantages - Numbers and Faith.

Are they more numerous?

There are like, 6 major orders right? And each of roughly 3000?

That leaves a lot for them to reach the Astartes' 1 million, assuming the SoB are not 99,9% minor orders.

IDK really, Sisters are not my speciality.

Heh, thought they were. Their organisation isn't entirely clear. From what I found on wiki, if you were to just count the Major Order, then I think there's something like 6000 sisters.

However, there are a bunch of other orders and parts of the Adepta Sororitas as well.

Wait, there a million Space Marines? That number seems a little high. I thought it was closer to 10,000.

According to the latest SoB Codex ther is an unknown number of SoB. Each of the major order is split into a number of different sections each of which can number up to 1000 sisters.

There is no mention of how many segments there are per order.

Though since they have to enforce the Ecclesiarchies will throughout the entire Imperium as well as going on crusades and guarding shrine worlds (The largest of which can have up to 1000 sisters guarding them) I would assume there is no shortage of sisters.

 Mythantor wrote:
According to the latest SoB Codex ther is an unknown number of SoB. Each of the major order is split into a number of different sections each of which can number up to 1000 sisters.

There is no mention of how many segments there are per order.

Though since they have to enforce the Ecclesiarchies will throughout the entire Imperium as well as going on crusades and guarding shrine worlds (The largest of which can have up to 1000 sisters guarding them) I would assume there is no shortage of sisters.

Ah, thanks for clarifying that. The wikia wasn't entire clear on the structure.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
Heh, thought they were. Their organisation isn't entirely clear. From what I found on wiki, if you were to just count the Major Order, then I think there's something like 6000 sisters.

However, there are a bunch of other orders and parts of the Adepta Sororitas as well.

Wait, there a million Space Marines? That number seems a little high. I thought it was closer to 10,000.

There are supposedly a thousand chapters, each comprising of roughly a thousand marines.

Yes, roughly one million Marines are supposed to be in existence. Really shows their role as super-elites, one million sufficing for the massive Imperium!

LightKing wrote:i guess in fluff, SOB have always been = to Space Marines
is this true?

Now, that depends entirely on who writes the fluff - both about the Sisters as well as the Marines. A question like this taps into the perception of not only one but two forces.

Games Workshop once had this on their website:
"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."
- src

To propose an argument based around this notion, consider that the vast majority of a Space Marine's implants, just like most of the additional gadgets of his power armour, are highly circumstantial - abilities like spitting acid, being able to gain another's memory by eating their brains, or putting yourself in artificial coma may give you an edge in very specific situations, but won't mean squat in a straight shoot-out. What might aid the Marine here are his reinforced bones, the fast-clotting blood, the secondary heart and his genetically enhanced physical strength.

However, one of 40k's most important themes is the terrible destructive power of its futuristic weaponry, and even ceramic-reinforced bones may not stop an armour-piercing miniature missile with an explosive warhead, whereas the heart and the blood are more about making sure the Marine does not die from critical injury rather than being able to prevent them.
The Sororitas, on the other hand, even though having trained for a longer time than the Marine (assuming they are both of the same age), is still a pure human being behind an equally protective suit of armour, which means that anything that punches through that inch of ceramite will ultimately hurt her a lot more than it would hurt the Marine. Yet, what the aforementioned quote is referring to is a Sister's ability to channel her faith in a way that lets her potentially ignore these injuries and just keep moving and fighting even though she is mortally wounded.
Ultimately, this creates the possibility of a Marine and a Sister both "surviving" the same kind of physical punishment, with the Sister dying after the battle has ended whereas the Marine can be medevac'ed and returned to active duty after some time in his Chapter's apothecarion. In tabletop terms, this is represented with the Marine's more reliable T4 as opposed to a T3 Sister's potentially more powerful but less reliable Shield of Faith.

tl;dr: Generally, I would say that Sisters of Battle, lacking the genetic enhancements of the Space Marines, are overall less capable, but that their Acts of Faith allow them to temporarily surpass even the Astartes. In a way, that may well suffice to say they are equal - in-universe, both forces at least share respect for each other, and one of the Sisterhood's tasks is hunting down rogue Astartes Chapters.

"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


Obviously, with the fluff being somewhat malleable and open for interpretation, GW's vision of the Sororitas may not be shared by everyone. Certain Black Library novels in particular paint the Sisters in a much less capable way, usually to make the Marines look more awesome (*coughcough*). In the end, the Sisters are about as equal as you, the individual gamer and reader, want them to be.

Mythantor wrote:According to the latest SoB Codex ther is an unknown number of SoB. Each of the major order is split into a number of different sections each of which can number up to 1000 sisters.

Not quite - you are referring to the Minor Orders, which have split off from the Major ones. These subsidiary conventy can vary in strength from 1.000 members to a single Sister, with the average at about a hundred. They operate independently from the Major Orders and tend to be limited to local operations, lacking both the (wo)manpower and the means to participate in the really big conflicts, which is why you tend to only ever read about the six Major Orders (each of whom "currently" has about ~3.500 Sisters, though at peak times this number has been known to rise to 6.000).

The total number of Minor Orders is unknown - one could theorise based on the 2.500 years it took the Sororitas to reach the 30.000 mark, or on GW's force disposition charts for the Third Armageddon War and the 13th Black Crusade, but ultimately it remains a matter of speculation. My own guesstimate is at around 100k, maybe 200k. The Major Orders, being a crusading force, are bound to have a lot of attrition, which is why earlier Codex fluff mentioned their numbers fluctuating so much, posing a constant drain on the influx of new recruits from the Schola Progenium.

 Mythantor wrote:
Each of the major order is split into a number of different sections each of which can number up to 1000 sisters.

There is no mention of how many segments there are per order.

Not quite. The way it's organised is that there's six Major Orders. These Major Orders are the main ones, numbering 4000 to 7000 Sisters depending on recruitment and casualties (I think there was a more exact number given, but I can't remember it. Here is a picture of them:


Then, there's Minor Orders. These are detachments of Sisters from a Major Order that have "settled down" to guard somewhere specifically (these were what you meant by "segments", I think). Eventually, they "split off" when they start to develop their own unique heraldies and identities, becoming a Minor Order rather than just a detatchment from a Major Order. They can number from 100 to 1000 Sisters, and there are an unknown number of Minor Orders in the galaxy, so we don't know the total numbers of SoBs.

Though, Orders are sometimes sort of split into "segments", when a part of it is deployed somewhere. From the Lexicanum.

Order - Led by the head Canoness, called the Canoness Superior, who runs the entire Order.
Preceptory - A subsidiary convent or a large tactical detachment with up to 1,000 Sisters led by a Canoness Preceptor.
Commandery - Normally smaller convents or detachments of militant Sisters with up to 200 Sisters, led by a Canoness Commander.
Mission - The smallest organisation of Sisters, consisting of a few units and can be led by a Canoness or the lesser Palatine.

So, these are detatchments from an Order, and Minor Orders get started when a one of these detachments settles down to guard somewhere.

Huh, may have been slightly ninja'd there.

Your threads are stupid.

Sisters are just fanatical bolter bitches in power armor, created to take advantage of a technicality that the Ecclesiarchy can't have MEN-at-arms.

In general, Space Marines and Sisters of Battle consider themselves equals on the battlefield in the lore at least.

Space Marine biological superiority doesn't really matter too much when a bolter shell explodes inside their chest and takes out both hearts anyway.

Right, unless it only takes one heart out, or just collapses a couple of lungs, or rips off an arm or leg, or shatters your pelvis, or ruptures the bulkhead and shoots you out into space.

Yes, biological adaptations allowing for survival in cases of extreme trauma are totally useless.

 Omegus wrote:
Right, unless it only takes one heart out, or just collapses a couple of lungs, or rips off an arm or leg, or shatters your pelvis, or ruptures the bulkhead and shoots you out into space.

Yes, biological adaptations allowing for survival in cases of extreme trauma are totally useless.

All of those will decimate a Marine's ability to continue fighting all the same, even if they might survive for medivac.

Furthermore, merely losing an arm or having a lung punctured wouldn't stop a Sister of Battle from continuing to fight, because of their insane zeal and ability to defy their own mortal limits. They might die from their wounds after the battle, but they'll still finish the battle, arguably even where a Space Marine would not.

From the Adeptis Sororitas Codex

The greater Order Militant maintain subsidary convents across the Imperium, the largest of which are referred to as Preceptories- a military force that can overcome all but the most terrible foes. This term is also used to describe an organisitional unit of up to one thousand battle sisters

Each order maintains forces of up to 1000 sisters across the breadth of the Imperium, that seems to me to indicate that there alot more than 3000-6000 sisters in each of the major orders.

A force of Battle sisters will be present to guard every shrine and fortress-cathedral in the Imperium

Both of the seem to indicate that there is a large number of sisters. Guarding every shrine in the Imperium is a monumental task.

Each of the orders minoris that have numbers fromm 100 to 1000. As for how many there are the Codex simply says numerous.

Sometimes, there's 1 Sister at a Shrine.

Not every Imperial World has these Shrines.

 Psienesis wrote:
Sometimes, there's 1 Sister at a Shrine.

Not every Imperial World has these Shrines.

I never got that.

Surely 1 sister isn't a strong garrison? I mean, I know they are excellent combatents, but I doubt 1 single sister can turn back anything greater than a particularly large group of cultists. Or are all sisters descended from the Doom Guy?

There's not that many Sisters.

Sometimes, a Shrine is just a hut around a rock that a Saint once kicked out of his path.

 Psienesis wrote:
There's not that many Sisters.

Sometimes, a Shrine is just a hut around a rock that a Saint once kicked out of his path.

Heh. Yeah, that sounds like it only needs 1 sister after all.

 Melissia wrote:

 Omegus wrote:
Right, unless it only takes one heart out, or just collapses a couple of lungs, or rips off an arm or leg, or shatters your pelvis, or ruptures the bulkhead and shoots you out into space.

Yes, biological adaptations allowing for survival in cases of extreme trauma are totally useless.

All of those will decimate a Marine's ability to continue fighting all the same, even if they might survive for medivac.

Furthermore, merely losing an arm or having a lung punctured wouldn't stop a Sister of Battle from continuing to fight, because of their insane zeal and ability to defy their own mortal limits. They might die from their wounds after the battle, but they'll still finish the battle, arguably even where a Space Marine would not.

There is a slew of examples of Marines continuing to fight with such injuries while only displaying mild discomfort.

Are you really trying to argue that a bunch of nuns on their periods are equal combatants to genetically molded 8+ foot tall superhumans? Actually, never mind, the former sounds way more terrifying.