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I've been working at a rewritten version of the Ordo Hereticus army book built for 6e, and while there are a lot of problems with the current Sisters of Battle Codex the one I feel is the most random and irrelevant is the completely unnecessary nerf to the Acts of Faith system. The 3e Ordo Hereticus book had a workable system, the White Dwarf rules cut out a lot of the flexibility by switching to a one unit-one Act system, and the new digital codex has destroyed any fungibility by making each Act a one-use power. I'd like to come up with a workable system that allows Acts to remain flexible, effective, and allow resources to be focused on specific units that need it.

I'm going to go ahead and assume that Faith Points are a better system to determine the usage of Acts than the one Act per unit per game system; it allows vastly more flexibility with the player's ability to pick which unit gets the Act every phase. The original system is one Faith Point per Faithful unit at the start of the game and one more after Martyrdom; this scales well with the size of the game and forces strict management of resources, but it's also a bit clunky to track and it steepens the learning curve of the army. The 5e Codex gave you d6 Faith points per turn, it's easier to run but it also doesn't scale with the game at all and it's pretty random. I'd like to drop both in favour of something that works a little more like channeling power dice in Warhammer Fantasy; for every Faithful unit you roll a d6 at the start of the turn, on a 6 (5+ if the unit is an Independent Character or contains a Veteran Superior, rerollable if the unit contains a Simulacrum Imperialis) the army gains a Faith Point that can be used for any unit in the army. This scales with the size of the army, it keeps the size of the Faith Pool unpredictable while tying it to more dice for a narrower probability curve, and it spreads the acquisition of resources around a little more through the duration of the game. I think Martyrdom is a good rule; it's very in-character and it increases the supply of Faith Points. One point from the Faith pool to activate an Act.

Next we get into the activation of Acts. The 5e book puts this as the primary control on how often they go off and the 3e book used this to balance the power of Acts based on squad size, but both of these are pretty random and in the second case restrictive as to which units can use which Acts when. I prefer the system put forth in the electronic Codex, a simple Ld test to activate the Act is fast, simple, easy to remember, and puts forth a small chance of failure while keeping it reliable.

The Acts themselves vary from book to book; let's get a list of the ones available:
Light of the Emperor: Regroup. Sometimes reroll 1s to hit as well, but if we're giving units access to multiple Acts this isn't necessary in combination.
The Passion: Increased Initiative, Hatred, or Preferred Enemy in some combination.
Hand of the Emperor: Increased Strength at the expense of Initiative, Furious Charge, Fearless.
Holy Fusilade: Reroll to hit
Deliverance: Reroll to wound
Eternal Crusade: Relentless and Move Through Cover
Guidance: Rending
Spirit of the Martyr: Strike back at lower Initiative after being killed at an earlier Initiative step or gain an Invul save for a turn

I'd like a minor Act for melee and one for shooting to be available to all Sisters of Battle in addition to Light of the Emperor; I'm going to stick with Hand of the Emperor for a Strength bonus and Fearless for the duration of a phase and Holy Fusilade for a reroll of 1s to hit. Spirit of the Martyr as it exists for Repentia in the 5e book is fantastic, it's in-character and quite effective, I think I'm keeping that one in place. I'm unsure about where to go with the Invulnerable save; I don't think one equal to the unit's normal armour save is a good idea, but I could see a 4+ Invul for the duration of a phase as an Act, though I need a good thing to call it. Putting the defensive Act on all Sisters would work out, I think; make them a little tougher than their current T3/3+. Beyond that I'm thinking put Divine Guidance onto shootier Sisters (Retributors, Dominions, Seraphim, Celestians, Heroines) and The Passion (going back to the 5e book for Preferred Enemy (All) and +1I) onto assaultier Sisters (some new variant units I've constructed plus Celestians and Heroines), with Eternal Crusade reserved for Celestians and Heroines.

Thoughts, suggestions, and a name for the defensive Act would be appreciated.

I've also written my own Sisters Codex, available here: http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/0/582990.page#6598123

The one thing I don't like with your system is the randomness of Faith Point availability. It also adds a roll to every turn which takes up time. Acts of Faith aren't even guaranteed they require their own check, so adding another limiting factor on top of that is too random. One of things everyone hated from 5e was that the D6 for Faith Points determined how effective you were that turn, I would rather not go back to that.

Take a look over my system, I made faith points refresh every turn, but Acts of Faith cost multiple faith points now.

I actually prefer the new system. You can easily get two acts of faith for each of your units, minus Seraphim, and Uriah will give you a third for one unit. With Laud Hailers and the like they become much more dependable. I prefer them being unit specific, that way the Acts of Faith don't turn into a machine to keep your rending heavy bolters going. Besides, now all I need to keep track of who has what are a decent stack of fluer-de-lys tokens.

A long time ago I heard an argument that AoFs are a poor woman's version of IG's orders, and that its self-buff nature makes for poor synergy between the Sister squads.

So what if in addition to the vanilla self-buff versions, there were also the Buff Other Sister Squad buff, Area of Effect buff and Area of Effect buff with the other Sister Squad used as the center of bubble versions, all with increasingly harsher faith points/roll requirements?

EDIT: And rules rewriting to take the above into the account.

Now, I'm in a different direction completely.

I think that Acts of Faith should be more like the Ork Waagh - once per game, maybe fore the entire army, but it affects everyone.

Acts of Faith are supposed to be examples of the Sisters' faith allowing them to overcome their natural limitations to produce near-miraculous effects. They should be rare - they should be special - not just something you churn out to keep the army operating.

On the other hand, there's no way I want to give up Holy Fullisade ignoring cover! heh.

 J3f wrote:
I've also written my own Sisters Codex, available here: http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/0/582990.page#6598123

The one thing I don't like with your system is the randomness of Faith Point availability. It also adds a roll to every turn which takes up time. Acts of Faith aren't even guaranteed they require their own check, so adding another limiting factor on top of that is too random. One of things everyone hated from 5e was that the D6 for Faith Points determined how effective you were that turn, I would rather not go back to that.

Take a look over my system, I made faith points refresh every turn, but Acts of Faith cost multiple faith points now.

I saw yours; interesting system, but I don't like the 3e roll to activate, it's too limiting to the versatility of the system, I think.

As to randomness the 5e book made one die immensely important and didn't scale at all with the size of the game; imagining for argument's sake a 2,500pt army with eight Sororitas infantry units and two Special Characters, if you've got Veteran Superiors you're looking for a 5+ on as many of ten dice as possible you're looking at about three Faith Points a turn with a 65% chance of remaining in the 2-4 zone, as opposed to the 1d6 system getting you an average of three Faith Points with precisely equal chances of getting one as getting six. I like the fact that you'll reliably get a few but there's a small chance of getting more or fewer than your expected number.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

shinr wrote:
A long time ago I heard an argument that AoFs are a poor woman's version of IG's orders, and that its self-buff nature makes for poor synergy between the Sister squads.

So what if in addition to the vanilla self-buff versions, there were also the Buff Other Sister Squad buff, Area of Effect buff and Area of Effect buff with the other Sister Squad used as the center of bubble versions, all with increasingly harsher faith points/roll requirements?

EDIT: And rules rewriting to take the above into the account.

The idea behind Acts of Faith is you've got an army of units that aren't very scary in a vacuum that can temporarily become terrifying when the hand of the Emperor alights upon them. In my above example of a 2,500pt army with ten different Faithful units you've got eight entities using Acts of Faith (assuming your Independent Characters are joined to your squads) with an average of three Faith Points per turn that means you've got an average of eighteen Faith Points for the entire six-turn game, and since there are five phases per turn in which you can activate Acts of Faith and each Act lasts the duration of a phase that means you've got eighteen Faith Points spread out between two hundred and forty different places where you could use an Act. They are pretty special rare tricks, that's the idea.

As to buff other squad that's where the fungability of Faith Points comes into play; your Celestians might not be generating a Faith Point, but your Retributors get to hand off the one they don't need. With a broader pool of Acts available to each squad that makes allowing Sisters units to buff each other irrelevant.

If you like the leadership check, go back to the 3E version that was in Codex: Chapter Approved and update it for modern times. Great acts of faith and leadership check based faith.

 pretre wrote:
If you like the leadership check, go back to the 3E version that was in Codex: Chapter Approved and update it for modern times. Great acts of faith and leadership check based faith.

I'm looking; which compilation was it in?

Chapter Approved 2002 or 2001.

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 pretre wrote:
If you like the leadership check, go back to the 3E version that was in Codex: Chapter Approved and update it for modern times. Great acts of faith and leadership check based faith.

I'm looking; which compilation was it in?

2002, it's basically the system from Codex Witch Hunters, but units take leadership tests for Acts of Faith like Independent Characters. There's also only 4 Acts of Faiths Spirit of the Martyr, Divine Guidance, The Passion, and Light of the Emperor.

SotM and Divine Guidance are the same as Codex Witch Hunters. Light of the Emperor affects all your units on the table. The Passion gives the old school rage special rule and +2 initiative.

and +1 Attack for Passion.


SoTM was a 4+ standup, not an invulnerable save. So you took your wounds, laid your dudes over and then rolled a 4+. If you made it, your dude survived (kinda Resurrection Protocol style, but same phase).