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 JohnHwangDD wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Just drop it and get back to sisters. You and I will never agree.

Pot,

You're Black, and should take your own advice.

Sincerely,

- Kettle


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 BBAP wrote:

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
As for "balance,", if people want to say "40k isn't balanced", they probably need to define the word "balance", because it clearly means different things to different people.

This is part of the problem, I think. People think "balanced" means "I can bring this zero-Synapse Tyranids army I found in the bin to a GT and I have as much chance of winning with it as I do with anything else".

In theory, if points were perfect, one could do that.

In practice, points are not even close to perfect, so it doesn't work.

Perfect balance is not a good thing to shoot for. If everything is exactly as good as everything else, why does it matter what you bring?


To get back to sister though, I think trying to shoehorn in CQC is the wrong way to go (although biker repentia would be awesome) I think the niche sisters have now that could be expanded is them as a shotgun army. Sisters function best in 12-18 inch range which is a rather thrilling place to be for a shooting army that sucks in combat. I think if sisters got something to get them into their effective range faster(but not instantly), keep them out of CC better(without eliminating the risk altogether), and blow serious gak up harder, they would be an excellent, unique, fun army to play. Make Sisters the most brutal shooting army in the game sub 12 inches and see what really good players can do with them.

So why do Sisters have to get shoehorned in to being cripplingly overspecialized with no variety, where other armies aren't? The Sisters concept allows for far more than just "shotgun AND NOTHING ELSE" like you're arguing for. Even Tau have more variety than that, and they have an excuse in the lore.

 Melissia wrote:
So why do Sisters have to get shoehorned in to being cripplingly overspecialized with no variety, where other armies aren't? The Sisters concept allows for far more than just "shotgun AND NOTHING ELSE" like you're arguing for. Even Tau have more variety than that, and they have an excuse in the lore.

Excellent example of a Straw man! You should teach a class!

What I'm arguing is that expanding the Sisters nasent niche of being Shotgun fighters with special rules, abilities, and even new weapons that enhance their effectiveness in the 2-18 inch range would be superior to improving their CQC ability in terms of the armies playstyle and theme. I'm not saying they shouldn't be able to do any close combat or any long range fire, I'm saying that there should be a significant portion of the army that thrives at close range and that portion, when built, supported, and played properly, should be EXTREMELY scary for other armies to deal with. It's not about gimping the rest of the army it's about buffing the shotgun part.

That said, assault is tied for the least interesting part of 40k with the psychic phase for me and I personally wouldn't mind much if Sisters assault ability went down to 'Celestine+1 Dedicated CC squad.' BUT I do understand other people feel differently and would want different things.

ERJAK wrote:
What I'm arguing is that expanding the Sisters nasent niche

No, you're not. You're saying "stay in the box while I paint it to make the box shiny, pay no mind that everyone else gets to step out of their box every now and then". Your argument that close combat is the least interesting part of 40k is your problem, not mine, and clearly biases you against things that otherwise might fit in with the army.

Me, I still remember third edition, when Sisters had one of the best tarpit-type close combat unit in the game at the time, and weren't really all that bad in assault-- solidly mid-tier. Celestians actually hit more often in CC than Astartes did, and GW did them a serious disservice with the changes made later on, and Seraphim were excellent with hit and run tactics, shooting, charging, hit-and-running, then repeating-- in fact, Seraphim at the time were better at it than either Eldar faction.

Sisters of Battle have plenty of room for more close combat, both in lore and in gameplay, and should not be shoehorned in to a single playstyle with no alternatives like you want them to be-- they should have variety, and you should be able to field them in multiple interesting ways. "No CC units or ranged units, give them more shotguns" is what you're saying, to me, but that's just not very interesting.

I think the idea of keeping sisters as a shotgun army would be pretty neat. Some sort of "stay in the 12-18 inch range" of an army. A way you could do that and still keep them unique in the imperium armies would be giving them the eldar battle focus. Move, shoot, move away. But at the same time that wouldn't make much sense for sisters. They don't exactly retreat in battle.Maybe some form of innate grav-inhibitor drone? Where anyone charging them has a negative d3 to their charge range due to their intense faith or some gak.

All of that could be limited to only the shooting units as well. If they recieved any real cqc units, they would be able to be charged as normal. But I agree that some sort of repentia squad on bikes would be AMAZING.

ERJAK wrote:
What I'm arguing is that expanding the Sisters nasent niche of being Shotgun fighters with special rules, abilities, and even new weapons that enhance their effectiveness in the 2-18 inch range would be superior to improving their CQC ability in terms of the armies playstyle and theme. I'm not saying they shouldn't be able to do any close combat or any long range fire, I'm saying that there should be a significant portion of the army that thrives at close range and that portion, when built, supported, and played properly, should be EXTREMELY scary for other armies to deal with. It's not about gimping the rest of the army it's about buffing the shotgun part.

Did you not see how many meltaguns you can pack into a Sisters army? I field my Sisters with 24 ignores cover, scouting in AV 13 transports that have fire points for every one of them. I would agree to buffing their AoF to usable every turn until they fail an AoF check, Simulacrum gives a re-roll though Other than a logical buff to AoF bringing them up to snuff with SM Chapter Tactics I don't see where they aren't already what you want to turn them into.

The Sisters real shortcoming is in their AoF mechanic. They already have the rules to make their existing units great at their given role (apart from their three stinker units...) Who doesn't want Retributors that could rend EVERY TURN without gobbling up every Faith Point the player gets throughout the game. If they can keep using the AoF till they fail the check, you could finally remove a lot of the book keeping by keeping a Faith token with the unit until they fail.

What I would do about their three stinker units.

1. Give Repentia a 5+ FnP base and change their AoF to allow them to charge in the same turn they disembark.

2. Give Pen Engines 4 wounds, IWND and Shrouded. CC hits granting additional attacks like they used too would be great, but if you gave me the rest I could say goodbye to them forever.

3. Celestians, the Dex's only real problem children. If and when the Sisters get a new Dex GW doesn't fix Celestians I will just continue to play a bunch of sisters with power swords grouped with a bunch with flamers as "counts as" Sisters of Silence. Personally I think they got every rule the Celestians needed to give the Sisters a good Elite unit that helps with CC and in the psychic phase. Can't ride in a Sisters transport, but they are at least aimed at where the Sisters weaknesses are.

If I could redesign the Celestians I would drop their bolters. Give them a Protectiva for a 4++ and Flaming Maces with rules as a power maul except they count as a hand flamer when issuing defensive fire. AoF for Celestians would grant their attacks the psi-shock rule during CC. Squad could be upgraded with a Superior who could upgrade to carry an Eviscerator. Squad could also upgrade one Celestian to a Hospitaller for FnP. Each Celestian squad on the table grants one dice to your pool during your OPPONENTS psychic phase.

I would love to give them infiltrate rule where they can only infiltrate under the usual rules but also only on to an objective. The idea being that they are shrine guardians who regularly defend places of worship. Just my personal favorite for them, I would be open to others, but they need to be aimed in the direction of fixing the Sisters major weaknesses. They suffer in the CC phase and in the Psychic phase. Buff their AoF and somehow address these weaknesses and they would be a force to be reckoned with.

Bikes would conflict with Dominions for FA slots, not good considering how good Doms are.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
"Zealots"? What are those? Frateris Militia, perhaps?

They were a WD unit, if I remember right. A bunch of peasants with rusty pitchforks and "mob weapons" (shotguns with Gets Hot) led by a Priest. You could take them in stacks of 20 and they fulfilled essentially the same role as Conscripts do for the Guard.

ERJAK wrote:
Perfect balance is not a good thing to shoot for. If everything is exactly as good as everything else, why does it matter what you bring?

It doesn't. That's the point. Under a system with perfect balance I can run my Penitengines and old-school metal Wulfen and Callidus Assassins, and all these other awesome models I love but can't use in "srs bzns" games that I want to win. I could beat face with an army that makes me happy, not just one that I've been forced to buy because it fits the meta. Sounds good to me.

Unfortunately GW seems to want to go the other way by removing "competitive" from the game, probably because it's cheaper to develop rules if you're not worried about competition or balance. They haven't succeeded yet, thankfully, but I reckon when they do they'll start dying in earnest, because who wants to play a game where there's nothing at stake? I know I don't.

 Melissia wrote:
Sisters of Battle have plenty of room for more close combat, both in lore and in gameplay, and should not be shoehorned in to a single playstyle with no alternatives like you want them to be-- they should have variety, and you should be able to field them in multiple interesting ways. "No CC units or ranged units, give them more shotguns" is what you're saying, to me, but that's just not very interesting.

Right, but I mean, nobody else gets that. Want to run AdMech and win? War Convocation for you. Eldar? Scatbikes and Wraithknights. Want to step out of the box and run Aspect Warriors that aren't Warp Spiders for a change? You can do it, but you're going to lose games. I'd rather have a specialised army that's **good** at its specialism than an army that tries to be everything and ends up sucking at it all. That's where Space Marines are right now. They are successful because they have a Formation that allows them to spam their sucky units so hard that the suck gets diluted to a workable level, but their units still suck.

The problem Sisters have isn't that they're not good at what they do - they're capable of putting out ferocious amounts of damage at 18" already. The problem is, that's not good enough to be competitive in a meta where vehicles - which Sisters rely upon for mobility - are a liability and everyone else can dunk you from 24-36 inches away. Long range shooting and resilient mobility would sort that out. You could probably fix it with close combat units, but they'd need to make sense in the context of the army if they were going to be useful. Judging by the number of melee HQs that sit neglected in the Space Marine Codex alone, just bringing back Praxedes of Ophelia wouldn't be enough.

For what it's worth I agree that that Sisters don't have a very engaging style of play (it's not boring or dull by any means but it's nowhere near as dynamic as, say, Scatbike Eldar or Genestealer Cults). Changing how the army plays to inject more variety and dynamism would require more than just a few new units or special rules here and there. You'd need to retool the whole Codex, and I doubt whatever we came up with would look anything like the Sisters I know from the fluff.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 dracpanzer wrote:
Bikes would conflict with Dominions for FA slots, not good considering how good Doms are.

+1

They'd need to be providing something really special to convince me to drop my Doms.

Also Sisters don't use Bikes. They use Jump Packs and tanks. Bikes are cool, and quite powerful in 7th, but Sisters don't use them. If we're going to turn them into T3 Marines then why bother wishlisting? Just use them as counts-as Codex:SM so they can be T4 and have Bikes.

 BBAP wrote:
Right, but I mean, nobody else gets that.

Really, your argument is that EVERY single codex there's only ONE way to build. That's an argument which not only you take seriously, but you endorse.

 Melissia wrote:
Really, your argument is that EVERY single codex there's only ONE way to build.

It's not a question of army building. It's a meta-game thing; mobility is powerful as it always has been, but vehicles suck now so Infantry just aren't cutting it any more unless you're bringing a tonne of them. You either build an army that can cope with that meta or you get tuned up by armies that can. Sisters cope better than most, but they don't have the mobility or range to beat fast, hard-hitting armies.

That's an argument which not only you take seriously, but you endorse.

I actually don't. Read what I wrote about perfect balance in 40k.

If you want variety for the sake of having it, fine. Just know it's not a lack of variety that cripples Sisters, so it's not going to fix the book.

 Melissia wrote:

 BBAP wrote:
Right, but I mean, nobody else gets that.

Really, your argument is that EVERY single codex there's only ONE way to build. That's an argument which not only you take seriously, but you endorse.

After coming off an extremely long argument around this very point elsewhere I'd suggest you guys get what "way to build" means nailed down pretty quickly, anything afterwards is just shouting if you're working from different definitions.

 BBAP wrote:

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
"Zealots"? What are those? Frateris Militia, perhaps?

They were a WD unit, if I remember right. A bunch of peasants with rusty pitchforks and "mob weapons" (shotguns with Gets Hot) led by a Priest. You could take them in stacks of 20 and they fulfilled essentially the same role as Conscripts do for the Guard.

OK, Frateris Militia by another name.

ERJAK wrote:
Perfect balance is not a good thing to shoot for. If everything is exactly as good as everything else, why does it matter what you bring?

Um, perfect balance doesn't mean every unit does EXACTLY what every other unit does, or that every Troop unit across the board is specifically identical to every other Troops unit stat and rules wise. Balance comes from the fact that 1,500 pts. from ANY direction should equal 1,500 pts. from any OTHER direction. Granted, if you had 1,500 pts. of Chaos Land Raiders vs. 1,500 pts. of Grots there is a bit of a rules disparity preventing it from being an even match up, but that is why you have OTHER balancing tools like the FOC. Also, knowing armor is a possibility, you build around having at least a couple of options for dealing with it, so the chances of seeing such a one sided match is slim. Not none, but slim. Unbound makes that sort of match up possible, but that is why you had so much blowback from Unbound appearing in the first place. Perfect balance isn't achievable since there are too many variables in the game, but you can get pretty damn close, and that IS something to strive for.

My thought is that I just want to see plastics of what is coming in the codex, period. As long as at least the 3rd Ed. units are rendered in plastic, I'll be good.

Some people on here have no idea on what balance is. Balance is not everything being functionally identical. It's when every unit has a reasonable number of scenarios where their cost is justified.

 Just Tony wrote:

ERJAK wrote:
Perfect balance is not a good thing to shoot for. If everything is exactly as good as everything else, why does it matter what you bring?

Um, perfect balance doesn't mean every unit does EXACTLY what every other unit does, or that every Troop unit across the board is specifically identical to every other Troops unit stat and rules wise. Balance comes from the fact that 1,500 pts. from ANY direction should equal 1,500 pts. from any OTHER direction.

Correct. Balance means that once can choose to take X points of Tactical / Assault / Devastator units, and have equivalent chances of winning across the breadth of scenarios, assuming that one plays each unit correctly. That is, each choice averages a .500 overall win rate across the full range of opponents playing each of the various missions in turn. Where a unit might be weaker in one scenario, or against one opponent, it is comparably stronger in another scenario, against a different opponent. Strengths and weaknesses offset.

In such a situation, balance means that you play what you like, according to your personal playstyle, and it doesn't impact your ability to win.

JohnHwangDD that was incredibly well-said. Have an exalt good sir.

In other news, apparently, we've been very good, because, at long last, we're finally getting the definitive Sisters model:

One can only imagine Melissa's delight at this coming to pass...

I already gave my opinion. "It's better than the art, but still crap posing and uninteresting composition."

Basically, John Blanche made the pose based off of what he imagined his dominatrix might look like while stepping on his back.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
In other news, apparently, we've been very good, because, at long last, we're finally getting the definitive Sisters model:

Who the feth goes to war wearing shoes like that?

Coming in January: Immolators with pink fuzzy dice and a (male) techpriest to change tyres. Also, boobplate.

 BBAP wrote:

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
In other news, apparently, we've been very good, because, at long last, we're finally getting the definitive Sisters model:

Who the feth goes to war wearing shoes like that?

Who would dare criticize her choice of lovely fetish footwear?

Nothing wrong with a lady being hell on heels.

That said, want I want is a flyer and more importantly an assault transport, and really just give us the Land Raider Redeemer. It's perfect for the Sisters, it's got flamey and melta death and it's the perfect thing to ram down my opponent's throat when it's full of Repentia. Also a female tech-priestess would be nice since I went through the trouble of making my own.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

 Just Tony wrote:

ERJAK wrote:
Perfect balance is not a good thing to shoot for. If everything is exactly as good as everything else, why does it matter what you bring?

Um, perfect balance doesn't mean every unit does EXACTLY what every other unit does, or that every Troop unit across the board is specifically identical to every other Troops unit stat and rules wise. Balance comes from the fact that 1,500 pts. from ANY direction should equal 1,500 pts. from any OTHER direction.

Correct. Balance means that once can choose to take X points of Tactical / Assault / Devastator units, and have equivalent chances of winning across the breadth of scenarios, assuming that one plays each unit correctly. That is, each choice averages a .500 overall win rate across the full range of opponents playing each of the various missions in turn. Where a unit might be weaker in one scenario, or against one opponent, it is comparably stronger in another scenario, against a different opponent. Strengths and weaknesses offset.

In such a situation, balance means that you play what you like, according to your personal playstyle, and it doesn't impact your ability to win.

This is such a ridiculous notion that I'm having a hard time expressing all the ways it doesn't make any sense. A big one is that it wouldn't stop the game from FEELING unfair, even if it was fair. Say you only have 3 opponents available to you and all 3 of them use strategies that are in the pool that have advantage over you, or you all play missions that your army is weaker in without doing so intentionally. You're still going to lose >50% of the time and you're still going to moan on forums about it. If you play someone who is simply better than you at the game, human psychology says you will blame one or both player's list before you ever acknowledge that it's your play and then you're back whining on the forums. Also, losing 50% of your games is going to make you feel as if your army is poor as the losses naturally crowd out the wins in your memory, again due to basic psychology and again, to the forums.

Creating custom missions becomes almost impossible, with that razors edge of balance something as simple as the number of objectives could tip the scale radically in one armies direction.

All armies would have to be the exact same level of difficulty to use properly, each army would have to have the exact same margin for error, if any army was even slightly more difficult to play it would get left in the dust; a relic for players who could have won with anything to handicap themselves with.

How could you possibly design a game where every strength is matched by an equivalent weakness when it's completely impossible to know how people are going to play? Games like League of legends and Dota spend huge amounts of money, thousands of man hours, and patch their games every few weeks and the best they can get to are a series of hard counters or a pool of slight overperformers. So go ahead, design that jetbike to be quick but fragile and lacking in killing power, if the playerbase decides that mobility is king, people are going to cry and moan about how OP it is until your ears bleed. So instead you make a unit that is very slow and pretty frail but shoots well, if the meta swings around to being all about gunlines now he's super OP. That's not even taking into account the fact that any 2 units are going to have entirely different curves on the skill-to-power ratio chart, the curve on something fast and fragile (like a reaver jetbike) will never be the same as something that sits back and shoots (Like a Leman Russ) How do you account for that kind of thing?

Now lets say you got a perfect system of balance, let's say you found a way to force everyone to play the exactly fair missions in the exactly fair set of games against exactly fair opponents and everyone realizes that you can play literally anything and win the exact same number of games on average, then what is even the point? If what you play doesn't impact your ability to win, then it doesn't matter what you bring. Your choice of army becomes largely irrelevant. If picking a specific unit, piece of wargear, or formation doesn't give you some kind of advantage then why bother even writing a list? You could show up at a tournament with a baggy full of bottle caps and plunk them on the table and have the exact same chance to win as anyone else.

ERJAK wrote:
How could you possibly design a game where every strength is matched by an equivalent weakness when it's completely impossible to know how people are going to play?

I'd imagine you start by centralising the points values of things like inches moved per turn and strength of attack, then go from there, handicapping as necessary. It'd take serious investment (and a deep understanding of your own game system) at the start, but once it's done it's done forever and just needs tweaks.(FAQs, patches) from there on out. The job of the game system is to ensure that the rules are balanced enough that, with perfect play, anyone can win with whatever they bring.

You'll always have the zomgop whine brigade who think the universe is the problem, but that's not an excuse to neglect balance.

Wait, I'm confused. Is someone asking, unironically, "if I can't figure out what overpowered unit to spam, how do I even play?"

Just a heads up. This time around on the Made-to-Order are some Inquisition and Sisters Models. Particularly, there are a couple of priests and a Superior Seraphim with Power Sword.

 KingmanHighborn wrote:
Nothing wrong with a lady being hell on heels.

This is "hell en pointe" though, or "hell on hooves". I'm warming up to Canoness Montana the more I see her, but those disco platforms have got to go.

Ditto, BBAP. She is growing on me as well.

ERJAK wrote:

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
Balance means that once can choose to take X points of Tactical / Assault / Devastator units, and have equivalent chances of winning across the breadth of scenarios, assuming that one plays each unit correctly. That is, each choice averages a .500 overall win rate across the full range of opponents playing each of the various missions in turn. Where a unit might be weaker in one scenario, or against one opponent, it is comparably stronger in another scenario, against a different opponent. Strengths and weaknesses offset.

In such a situation, balance means that you play what you like, according to your personal playstyle, and it doesn't impact your ability to win.

This is such a ridiculous notion that I'm having a hard time expressing all the ways it doesn't make any sense. A big one is that it wouldn't stop the game from FEELING unfair, even if it was fair. Say you only have 3 opponents available to you and all 3 of them use strategies that are in the pool that have advantage over you, or you all play missions that your army is weaker in without doing so intentionally. You're still going to lose >50% of the time and you're still going to moan on forums about it. If you play someone who is simply better than you at the game, human psychology says you will blame one or both player's list before you ever acknowledge that it's your play and then you're back whining on the forums. Also, losing 50% of your games is going to make you feel as if your army is poor as the losses naturally crowd out the wins in your memory, again due to basic psychology and again, to the forums.

Creating custom missions becomes almost impossible, with that razors edge of balance something as simple as the number of objectives could tip the scale radically in one armies direction.

All armies would have to be the exact same level of difficulty to use properly, each army would have to have the exact same margin for error, if any army was even slightly more difficult to play it would get left in the dust; a relic for players who could have won with anything to handicap themselves with.

How could you possibly design a game where every strength is matched by an equivalent weakness when it's completely impossible to know how people are going to play? Games like League of legends and Dota spend huge amounts of money, thousands of man hours, and patch their games every few weeks and the best they can get to are a series of hard counters or a pool of slight overperformers. So go ahead, design that jetbike to be quick but fragile and lacking in killing power, if the playerbase decides that mobility is king, people are going to cry and moan about how OP it is until your ears bleed. So instead you make a unit that is very slow and pretty frail but shoots well, if the meta swings around to being all about gunlines now he's super OP. That's not even taking into account the fact that any 2 units are going to have entirely different curves on the skill-to-power ratio chart, the curve on something fast and fragile (like a reaver jetbike) will never be the same as something that sits back and shoots (Like a Leman Russ) How do you account for that kind of thing?

Now lets say you got a perfect system of balance, let's say you found a way to force everyone to play the exactly fair missions in the exactly fair set of games against exactly fair opponents and everyone realizes that you can play literally anything and win the exact same number of games on average, then what is even the point? If what you play doesn't impact your ability to win, then it doesn't matter what you bring. Your choice of army becomes largely irrelevant. If picking a specific unit, piece of wargear, or formation doesn't give you some kind of advantage then why bother even writing a list? You could show up at a tournament with a baggy full of bottle caps and plunk them on the table and have the exact same chance to win as anyone else.

This is an awfully long-winded response that makes very little sense. Arguing that the feeling of unfairness is somehow worse than actual unfairness? That a small variance in power is worse than a large variance in power?

if what you play doesn't impact your ability to win, then games are won on skill.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

ERJAK wrote:

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
Balance means that once can choose to take X points of Tactical / Assault / Devastator units, and have equivalent chances of winning across the breadth of scenarios, assuming that one plays each unit correctly. That is, each choice averages a .500 overall win rate across the full range of opponents playing each of the various missions in turn. Where a unit might be weaker in one scenario, or against one opponent, it is comparably stronger in another scenario, against a different opponent. Strengths and weaknesses offset.

In such a situation, balance means that you play what you like, according to your personal playstyle, and it doesn't impact your ability to win.

This is such a ridiculous notion that I'm having a hard time expressing all the ways it doesn't make any sense. A big one is that it wouldn't stop the game from FEELING unfair, even if it was fair. Say you only have 3 opponents available to you and all 3 of them use strategies that are in the pool that have advantage over you, or you all play missions that your army is weaker in without doing so intentionally. You're still going to lose >50% of the time and you're still going to moan on forums about it. If you play someone who is simply better than you at the game, human psychology says you will blame one or both player's list before you ever acknowledge that it's your play and then you're back whining on the forums. Also, losing 50% of your games is going to make you feel as if your army is poor as the losses naturally crowd out the wins in your memory, again due to basic psychology and again, to the forums.

Creating custom missions becomes almost impossible, with that razors edge of balance something as simple as the number of objectives could tip the scale radically in one armies direction.

All armies would have to be the exact same level of difficulty to use properly, each army would have to have the exact same margin for error, if any army was even slightly more difficult to play it would get left in the dust; a relic for players who could have won with anything to handicap themselves with.

How could you possibly design a game where every strength is matched by an equivalent weakness when it's completely impossible to know how people are going to play? Games like League of legends and Dota spend huge amounts of money, thousands of man hours, and patch their games every few weeks and the best they can get to are a series of hard counters or a pool of slight overperformers. So go ahead, design that jetbike to be quick but fragile and lacking in killing power, if the playerbase decides that mobility is king, people are going to cry and moan about how OP it is until your ears bleed. So instead you make a unit that is very slow and pretty frail but shoots well, if the meta swings around to being all about gunlines now he's super OP. That's not even taking into account the fact that any 2 units are going to have entirely different curves on the skill-to-power ratio chart, the curve on something fast and fragile (like a reaver jetbike) will never be the same as something that sits back and shoots (Like a Leman Russ) How do you account for that kind of thing?

Now lets say you got a perfect system of balance, let's say you found a way to force everyone to play the exactly fair missions in the exactly fair set of games against exactly fair opponents and everyone realizes that you can play literally anything and win the exact same number of games on average, then what is even the point? If what you play doesn't impact your ability to win, then it doesn't matter what you bring. Your choice of army becomes largely irrelevant. If picking a specific unit, piece of wargear, or formation doesn't give you some kind of advantage then why bother even writing a list? You could show up at a tournament with a baggy full of bottle caps and plunk them on the table and have the exact same chance to win as anyone else.

This is an awfully long-winded response that makes very little sense. Arguing that the feeling of unfairness is somehow worse than actual unfairness? That a small variance in power is worse than a large variance in power?

Obviously, dakka post formatting strikes again, and when he said,-

ERJAK wrote:
This is such a ridiculous notion that I'm having a hard time expressing all the ways it doesn't make any sense.

-it was supposed to be about everything that FOLLOWED.

To move it back on what I want to see in the codex:

I'd like to see Sisters gain close-combat focused bikers-- think jousting knights, with power lances, stormshields, and chainswords or power swords.

I'd like to see Sisters gain additional tanks. In addition to having more options for the Exorcist (including a skyfire mode), I think Sisters deserve something along the lines of a tank with a boltcannon on it, for example.

I'd like to see a rework of Acts of Faith that doesn't limit acts of faith to particular units.

I'd like to see Sisters gain a flying transport that's a variant of the strikingly beautiful Aquila Lander, which would fit them very well.

I'd like to see Sisters gain more special and heavy weapons that are better than the standard weapons while staying true to the Bolter/Flamer/Melta standard they use-- melta missiles, torrent flamers, the aformentioned boltcannon, and so on.

I'd like to see Sisters gain a bolter-based sniper unit (preferably veterans, not initiates), because the stalker pattern boltgun is a thing and if sisters are going to be stuck in bolter/flamer/melta, they might as well use ALL of bolter/flamer/melta to their advantage.

And so on and so forth. I could go on, but I created two (2) fandexes in the past, so the amount of ideas in my head would take the entire thread to go through. There's so much that could be done with Sisters, GW has only scratched the surface of the concept.

At least the Sisters got *A* new model and GW brought back *A* discontinued Sister model right?

Of course, it's a half-dozen not-Sisters dominating the M2O, and most of them are really meh. Except for the Space Pope. And the nostalgia Assassin.