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

Not to mention the Schola involves live fire exercises, so its not like the battlefield is going to be the Novices' first experience of being shot at.

 Psienesis wrote:

 koooaei wrote:
Novice should be ws2 bs2. How come your teenage girls fight like a trained imperial guardsman. Ld6 would be reasonable too. One thing is when you get brainwashed at Scola Progenium and think you're ld10 and ATSKNF. And on a real battlefield when the bullets are flying and you're covered with brains blood and guts of your merry friends, it's another experience.

Because the Schola also trains Commissars and the Storm Trooper Regiment. This is a private military-religious academy that produces some of the hardest, all-human fighters the Imperium fields. A Schola Graduate *is* a better soldier than a rank-and-file Guardsman.

This. The Schola Progenium isn't just a school. It's a military school run by religious fanatics. They're doing target practice and drills after morning prayers. Conscripts, on the other hand, are mostly a bunch of factory workers that have had a lasgun shoved in their hand and been shown which end to point at the enemy when they pull the trigger. Game stats are broad categories. BS 5 is a really good marksman. BS 4 is a veteran gunner. BS 3 is a decent shot, and BS 2 is someone with almost no firearm experience, or who simply doesn't care to aim (Orks).

Giving them the strength of a Gretchen doesn't make sense either. Gretchen are about three feet tall, max, and really spindly. A literal child soldier of eight or nine years old would have that strength (BTW, the thread title's a little misleading, I was thinking of actual child soldier units raised by the Ecclesiarchy, like the Child Crusades from the Dark Ages, which could make for a very uncomfortable game of 40k) but a young woman who's already gone through her full growth spurt (which women hit earlier than men), not to mention living a very active lifestyle that would keep her in near peak physical condition, should be S 3. One book I read also suggested that Sororita initiates tend to be bigger, stronger, and more aggressive female Schola members. Of course, that was a Cain novel, so you can take it with a bit of salt. Again, game stats use broad categories: 6+= monster, 5= really strong superhuman, 4 "average" superhuman, 3= average human, 2= someone really weak, old, crippled, etc, 1= in a coma.

So keep the Guardsman like stats. Overall I like the idea of being able to field novices. Sisters always seem to be getting attacked at their abbeys and training grounds, where there'd be plenty of novices around (ex: the infamous Massacre at Sanctuary 101). It doesn't make sense that they wouldn't fight back. However, personally I'd lower the points cost slightly and give them shotguns instead of bolters. As novices, they wouldn't be any worthier of the holy (and really complicated) bolter than the holy (and really complicated) power armour. I'd also make a rule that if the Mistress dies, the entire unit has to take a morale check at the end of the turn, regardless of their unit size or whether they lost or won combat. She's the one they look to for both inspiration and combat expertise. If she dies, it should be fairly devastating. Lastly, I'd make Sacrificial Lambs rule have the nearest SoB unit in range get a free snap fire instead of preferred enemy, as someone previously suggested. It's just less complicated. I don't have a problem with them getting an Act of Faith. It helps keep them Sisters, instead of Guardsmen in a Sisters army. Maybe if the Mistress dies, they lose their Act of Faith thought?

Like J3F, I always felt jump packs were more in character for Sisters than bikes. Much more angelic religious imagery. That's a personal preference though.

For the Vigils, you may not like the idea of special bolter rounds, but what about letting squad members take plain ol' sniper rifles as upgrades? It's simple, seems to fit thematically, and could be a fun addition to the army since no other squad has access to them.

Lots of good suggestions here.

Making the Mistress the linchpin of the Novices' morale and Act of Faith: Yes, absolutely. Adds a lot of character -- and adding this weakness would make offset making Sacrificial Lambs more powerful.

Simplifying Sacrificial Lambs to a free out-of-sequence snap shot: Interesting. Would require some careful rule writing, rather than just saying "these guys get this special rule now," but requires no keeping track of after it happens.

Shotguns instead of boltguns for the Novices: Interesting. Conflicts with my headcanon, though. And the bolter, while special, is less rare and expensive than full Power Armour -- even I.G. Commissars go around with bolt pistols sometimes, and everyone knows they're, like, totally the dumbest graduates of the Schola. Even dumber than Arbites.

Sniper rifles for Vigils: I went back and forth on this a lot. Thematically, I wanted to keep the Vigils using Holy Trinity weapons. Tactically, the dealbreaker for me is that Sniper Rifles are Heavy weapons: You have to stay still to fire them, which is not the Sororitas style of war and a very bad idea when you're a small band of infiltrators with lousy melee abilities... Basically Vigils are not snipers but infiltrating Dominions with an Act of Faith to kill high-value-targets, be they monsters, vehicles, or characters.

Why careful?

"The first time each turn a unit of Novices suffers a casualty, a Sororitas unit within 6" may immediately snap-fire at the unit that inflicted the casualty."

Yeah, but does it count as your chance to Overwatch, what if the target is locked in combat, etc? I try to be more careful about GW.

I am sorely tempted to make Novices pass a morale test when they lose their Mistress and, if they fail, lose Shield of Faith and Act of Faith ("she's dead! God has forsaken us!"), but if they pass, they gain Hatred and Rage ("she's dead! Vengeance is mine, saith The Lord!").

Also I've started a new thread with four homebrewed Sisters formations, all using at least one homebrewed unit. Comments welcome!

 SisterSydney wrote:

Sniper rifles for Vigils: I went back and forth on this a lot. Thematically, I wanted to keep the Vigils using Holy Trinity weapons. Tactically, the dealbreaker for me is that Sniper Rifles are Heavy weapons: You have to stay still to fire them, which is not the Sororitas style of war and a very bad idea when you're a small band of infiltrators with lousy melee abilities... Basically Vigils are not snipers but infiltrating Dominions with an Act of Faith to kill high-value-targets, be they monsters, vehicles, or characters.

As I pass this thread in my regular orbit, I call "Stalker Bolters" from above. I'm only suggesting it again because it'd be really cool.

Stalkers are a special character item though, despite they shouldn't be. For a regular squad, I'd call them like a Bolter but with the Sniper rule.

I'm still not completely convinced by the Novice Squad idea; least of all fluff-wise. Firstly, I think you need to fully commit to whether they're a group of young, naive children who're still halfway through their training or if they're older, soon-to-be-Sisters sitting for their final assessment. If it's the latter (based on your comments that they're a bunch of 17-year old girls, etc), then the special rules like "sacrificial lambs" and "children's crusade" don't really fit any longer since they aren't really children anymore (i.e. Sisters shouldn't feel any more protective towards them than towards their other Sisters).

Also, in terms of the army roster, I don't really understand the need for them or the role that they fill. From what I can see, they pretty much do what Battle Sisters do except are worse at doing it in every single way. Instead, their main function gameplay-wise is to get themselves killed in order to trigger their special rule which really doesn't feel like the Sororitas and runs contradictory to the fluff you've lain out. In contrast, novice Space Marines serve as forward scouts - giving them unique wargear and function from their fully trained seniors.

Now, if the Novice Squad was being homebrewed for a specific scenario/campaign setting, then it's very flavourful. But as a general unit that the Sororitas brings on a mission? It feels less useful.

An alternative perhaps, if you're keen on introducing novices, is to have them accompany their seniors into battle much in the way squires used to do in medieval times - supporting their mentors in the battlefield, and thereby learning through observation and on-the-job training. Perhaps allow 1-3 Novices join certain squads; keeping your stats and equipping them with Bolt pistols. And as a special rule, each Novice may allow another model in the squad to reroll a failed "To Shoot" instead of shooting her own weapon (essentially giving your special weapon(s) twin-linked). Gameplay-wise, it provides an interesting scenario where players may want to strategise which models they are more willing to lose - the rank-and-file Bolter Babe who can shoot better and who actually contribute to the unit's overall firepower, or the Novice who occassionally help the special weapons shoot a little more accurately.

Mr. Peasant, you've really got me thinking about the Novices now. Maybe the problem with Sacrificial Lambs isn't the complexity, it's having an incentive to get the Novices killed in the first place -- I may have gotten too grimdark.

Maybe, instead -- playing off Fallinq's idea that the Mistress of Novices is the squad's linchpin -- the unique thing about Novices should be that they're untested and therefore unpredictable under stress: on a bad Ld check they fall apart, on a good one they get bonuses and potentially outperform regular Sisters on the "fools rush in where angels fear to tread" principle.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
PS: The age of Novices and what counts as a "child soldier" is tricky. The girls in my fanfic series (sig'd below) deploy to a war zone for the first time at 15, though they never see battle "onscreen." The UN and human rights groups are pretty adamant anyone under 18 is a "child" and shouldn't be in the military -- which technically means the US has child soldiers as we allow enlistment at 17 (though no one's deployed until 18; training takes too long). As for full Sisters in their early 20s (and unlikely to live to 30) feeling protective of Novices in their teens -- well, look at any family and see how protective older siblings can be of "babies" just a year or two younger. In combat, especially, you grow up fast....in Vietnam a hardened veteran of 19 with a whole year in country could easily take a naive new replacement of 18 under his wing.

 Furyou Miko wrote:
Stalkers are a special character item though, despite they shouldn't be. For a regular squad, I'd call them like a Bolter but with the Sniper rule.

That's the thing! They're supposed to be a lot more common than they are, but Telion has the only one. I'm not really sure how many points they should be, but they should definitely be more available. Best of all, they fulfill a ranged role while still being part of the Holy Trinity.

 SisterSydney wrote:
Mr. Peasant, you've really got me thinking about the Novices now. Maybe the problem with Sacrificial Lambs isn't the complexity, it's having an incentive to get the Novices killed in the first place -- I may have gotten too grimdark.

Maybe, instead -- playing off Fallinq's idea that the Mistress of Novices is the squad's linchpin -- the unique thing about Novices should be that they're untested and therefore unpredictable under stress: on a bad Ld check they fall apart, on a good one they get bonuses and potentially outperform regular Sisters on the "fools rush in where angels fear to tread" principle.

Here's a thought... consider that the Sororitas' future leaders, commanders, and even saints are amongst this group. Perhaps their Mistress dying would be a sort of "moment of truth" for them where one of them might decide to "step up" to hold everyone together? So perhaps instead of "Sacrificial lamb", give them this special rule:

Untapped potential:
In the event of the Mistress dying, roll a D6. On a 1, nothing happens. On a 2+, one Novice rises to the occassion and takes charge of her unit. She becomes an Infantry (Character) and gains +1 BS and +D3 Ld. She does not however gain any of the Mistress' wargear.

 SisterSydney wrote:
Automatically Appended Next Post:
PS: The age of Novices and what counts as a "child soldier" is tricky. The girls in my fanfic series (sig'd below) deploy to a war zone for the first time at 15, though they never see battle "onscreen." The UN and human rights groups are pretty adamant anyone under 18 is a "child" and shouldn't be in the military -- which technically means the US has child soldiers as we allow enlistment at 17 (though no one's deployed until 18; training takes too long). As for full Sisters in their early 20s (and unlikely to live to 30) feeling protective of Novices in their teens -- well, look at any family and see how protective older siblings can be of "babies" just a year or two younger. In combat, especially, you grow up fast....in Vietnam a hardened veteran of 19 with a whole year in country could easily take a naive new replacement of 18 under his wing.

I got the impression that the 40K universe tends to skew younger, with Cadians and Catachans being in the army pretty much from age 12 and up. However, as long as you have a rationale for it, that works.

 SisterSydney wrote:

Maybe, instead -- playing off Fallinq's idea that the Mistress of Novices is the squad's linchpin -- the unique thing about Novices should be that they're untested and therefore unpredictable under stress: on a bad Ld check they fall apart, on a good one they get bonuses and potentially outperform regular Sisters on the "fools rush in where angels fear to tread" principle.

What about something like the Uncertain Worth from the new LatD codex? Like, the first time the Novices take an Ld test, roll a D6:
- 1: they have Ld6
- 2: they have Ld7
- 3: they have Ld8
- 4: they have Ld9
- 5: roll D3+1 on this table again, and they also have Stubborn
- 6: roll D3+1 on this table again, and they also have Fearless

I guess, i've missed stuff about scola progenium. Guess bs3 ws3 is reasonable than. Not sure bout s3 though.

If 12 year old Whiteshields have S3, then so can Sororitas Novices.

Conscripts ain't children mostly. Just civilians. And if they were, they should have been s2. And your squad is constructed explictly of teenage girls and one mentor.

I'm not trying to insult anyone, it just seems strange that a female teenager is exactly as strong as a Schwarzenegger catachan jungle fighter.

Novices are at least physically trained, while Conscripts are unlikely to even visit the gym.

Adepta Sororita novice?



But yep, i guess ith's the inevitable evil of 1-10 stat range system.

No, THIS is an Adepta Sororitas Novice:



Actually, it's the captain of the female boxing team at West Point, the US Military Academy, so she's about three years too old and 38,000 years too early, but you get the point. Astartes she ain't. Kick my ass handily? Sure. WS:3 S:3 T:3? Yes.


I'm definitely liking the ideas about making the Novice Squad potentially erupt into awesomeness under pressure. It's important to keep rules playable, so giving every single squad the potential to develop unique stats is probably too complex to keep track of, but some kind of three-mode switch should be doable: pass your first Leadership test, get Rage & Hatred (for example); fail it, lose Act and Shield of Faith. And definitely the death of the Mistress of Novices should trigger a Morale test right then and there.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
PS: Oh yeah, Stalker Bolters. The fluff says Telion's is highly customized, even though it's the only "Stalker Pattern Bolter" I've ever heard about. I hesitate to give an entire Sisters unit access to a Space Marine special snowflake's custom kit. I could just add the "Sniper" special rule, but I wonder then whether to give it to the whole unit, to their Act of Faith, or to a special weapon. Hrmm.

 SisterSydney wrote:

I'm definitely liking the ideas about making the Novice Squad potentially erupt into awesomeness under pressure. It's important to keep rules playable, so giving every single squad the potential to develop unique stats is probably too complex to keep track of, but some kind of three-mode switch should be doable: pass your first Leadership test, get Rage & Hatred (for example); fail it, lose Act and Shield of Faith. And definitely the death of the Mistress of Novices should trigger a Morale test right then and there.

This is probably the best way to do it. Simple, wrapped up in a single morale check, and has all the flavor of everything we've been trying to do. It wouldn't have to be Rage and Hatred, it could be Rage and Stubborn or whatever, but this is how the basic mechanic should work, I think.

Hm, I'd say a watered down version of the three main Acts of Faith - Light of the Emperor, Holy Fullisade and Divine Guidance.

1-2: The unit may reroll failed shooting attacks of a 1 for the remainder of the game.
3-4: For the remainder of the gamy, any unit the target shoots at must reroll all successful Cover saves.
5-6: For the remainder of the game, the unit's weapons become AP1 against non-vehicle models on a to-wound roll of a 6.

That's Preferred Enemy but only when shooting, Ignores Cover half the time and Rending but without auto-wounding on a 6 or any effect on vehicles.

Stalker Bolters also appeared in the AU game Space Marine as the tier 1 sniper weapon, essentially being a scoped bolter with no full auto setting and an eighteen round magazine that does extra damage on headshots.

 koooaei wrote:
Conscripts ain't children mostly. Just civilians. And if they were, they should have been s2. And your squad is constructed explictly of teenage girls and one mentor.

I'm not trying to insult anyone, it just seems strange that a female teenager is exactly as strong as a Schwarzenegger catachan jungle fighter.

So are just about every other Human troop. The S3 is a really, really broad range of stats. It's basically "the span of just about every human being, save the natural extremes on either end", which are S2 or S4, respectively. You get into super-human Strength at S5.

Well, to be precise it is impossible with the current stat system.
It is really strange that Conscripts, who are made up of the elderly, teenagers have the same Strength as a Catachan, who has lived his whole life on the most horrible hell-hole in the universe, and with muscles that make even Orks look puny.
If they use the same stat system as Warmahorde, then it can make a difference:
For example, In Warmahorde, we have Cygnar Long Gunners, who are not trained in close combat, and are Strength 7 IIRC.
On the other hand, a Khador Winter Guard, who is borned and has survived in harsh condition, and is trained for CQC, is Strength 8.

Yes, a scale of 1-10 for everyone from cripples to gods is a tad compressed. It's something that would take a total reboot of the rules to open up....

Besides the "Crisis of Faith" special rule, as I'm starting to call the Novices' having either bonuses or penalties based on the outcome of their first Leadership test, I'm tempted to make them give some kind of boost to nearby Sisters, as their elders strive to protect them and not let them down -- a less grimdark version of "sacrificial lambs." Maybe a +1 to Ld or a reroll of failed AOF? I'd love thoughts.

How about the Novices have an Act of Faith that lets them 'refresh' the Acts of Faith of all units within range?

So kind of like an area-effect Simulacrum Imperialis, or Jacobus's special rule? Interesting. Making it an Act of Faith would put Novices very squarely in a "cheerleader"/mascot/support unit role in an interesting way.

It's not so much that it's the novices doing anything in particular, it just slots what I'm imagining neatly into the existing, balanced (however well or poorly) system.

What it actually represents is the Sisters taking heart once more after they might otherwise have spent themselves.

It also encourages you to protect your Novice squad, at least until everyone else has used up their Acts.

Novices being an additional Simulacrum are making them too essential to the army.

It's like making them Tau Pathfinders, everyone takes them to get Markerlights. the difference being that Markerlights are a well integrated system available to many Tau units.

Novices are the only unit with Simulacrum powers and having a cost effective squad that doubles your uses of Acts of Faith is very powerful.

Of course I hate the current system of 1 Act of Faith per unit per game. By my rules in my homebrew Codex Simulacrum Imperialis's allow a unit to reroll a failed Act of Faith.

If you want to give them something to show how much their Big Sisters love them, then give any Proper Sisters of Battle charging into a Combat with already containing a Novice Squad the Rage Special Rule. It's much less exploitable and should cover what you were going for.

I kept my Novices simple because they should be far from mandatory. They also get to tag along with Crusaders and Death Cultists so they're in good company.

I really like J3f's Rage idea. Or Hatred, which admittedly Sisters already have easy access to but applies in situations where Rage doesn't, e.g. a disordered charge.

Probably making the Novices an area-effect Simulacrum equivalent is too potent -- but I think making them a Laud Hailer equivalent (reroll AOF within 12" or something) would be cool without making them an auto-take.

And then there's the Novices potentially getting bonuses or penalties from their first Leadership test.

That's three flavorful things, none of them too complex to implement or overpowered.

I would actually turn it around, and make the Novices' Act of Faith an ability to copy the (already used up) Act of Faith of a nearby Sororitas unit. Like, the Novices watch as Retributor Sister Angela tears apart a heretic Land Raider with her heavy bolter and they are all like "That was awesome! Let's do the same!" With an added rule that they gain +1 Ld after successfully using an Act of Faith, because they are now filled with religious fervour.

Ha! That would be hilarious. I like that.