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Yes, I do think Sisters of Battle should be better in close combat. According to their fluff, they basically started as an order of "Shaolin nuns in space". They should have awesome kung-fu skills. This means, better close combat skills and some dedicated more dedicated close combat units beside Repentia and Penitent Engines should you consider them Sister of Battle units (I personnaly consider them like an Inquisition/Ecclesiarchy unit). If it was only left to me, they would WS 3+, BS: 3+. An army that is short range and in the medium level of firepower like the SIsters do need some good melee to survive on board. Plus it jt make sense fluff wise.

Ozomoto wrote:
Celestine...nuff said

You are paying daemon prince prices for not daemon prince punch there.

Now if the blade canoness could take a jump pack you'd be in business. She's nothing close to a smash captain or a chaos mortal wound lord but she does good work for her points.

 Elbows wrote:
Simply put, too many units in armies have 3+ abilities when they shouldn't, and inexplicably so. Guardians should still be 4+/4+...as should Space Marine scouts, etc.

Gaurdians never should have been 4+ to hit. Unskilled Eldar are more dexterous than even skilled humans. This is well established in the fluff.

"He's actually a poet, but we handed him a gun this morning" Guardians should be 4+/4+.

"Standing militia"/"Black Guardians"/"Was an Aspect yesterday" Guardians should be 3+/3+.

They're +1 WS/BS over humans - the first grouping being Conscript-equivs (no training), the later grouping being Guardsmen-equivs (extensive training).

The problem is that the Guardian fluff is a mix of both groups.


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"Untrained Human", or even "Poorly Trained Human" is WS/BS 5+, not 4+. "Well-trained well-equipped human" is WS/BS 4+ with a 5+ and a Lasgun.

It's just every faction is super awsome in every way, so you rarely ever see "Like a well-trained, well-equipped human, but worse.".

You should definitely be allowed to use pistols as melee weapons....THE GUN KATA!

A.T. wrote:

Ozomoto wrote:
Celestine...nuff said

You are paying daemon prince prices for not daemon prince punch there.

Now if the blade canoness could take a jump pack you'd be in business. She's nothing close to a smash captain or a chaos mortal wound lord but she does good work for her points.

Actually celestine with 1 less attack(can make up for it with preacher) but better ap hits most targets the same as a DP, some worse, some better. Without needing cp to fight twice and generally being able to be affected by buffs easier (as she can belong in tank castles etc) she brawls better then Dps on the table and I have a lot of games with both under my belt. The only argument for the DP at all actuality being better in CC in the herald buff which suffers from the same issues you have with the smash nun. Shes also 20 points less, is all around more survivable (extremely difficult for mono shoot/cc armies to deal with, she frequently dies comes back up and tags 2 tanks_mortars where as a dp would just be straight dead) and +1 invul psychic power that cant be denied and doesnt need to go first is waaayy better then having 2 psychic powers.

No one said she was? in fact in my post I even aluded to allying such thing as smash captain to make up for sisters cc weaknessess. A smash captain costs you roughly 6-11 cp to use effectively and costs more then twice as much. Ive never used the lord so idk how much cp he eats but he eats cp + points into guys that cast pyshic powers. She costs you faith points to use which is fantastic because its making use of a garbage mechanic and no cp, captains are aggresive and need support. She can just be your generic reroll 1 buff for your infantry and tanks and not ever hit cc and have made her points back. The same is not true of the smash captain. Shes would actually be crazy with a jump pack yes; but as she is shes not a hyper aggro tool shes more akin to a point efficient lite abadon, guiliman, cawl whom have utlity jobs to do but offer powerful counter attack options. That being said I have basically had her in combat in almost every game I have played with sisters boosting her movement with faith when need be. Its comparing apples to oranges, shes not trying to replace anything.

Ozomoto wrote:
Actually celestine with 1 less attack(can make up for it with preacher) but better ap hits most targets the same as a DP, some worse, some better. Without needing cp to fight twice and generally being able to be affected by buffs easier

5 hits, 3x2 wounds before saves. An ardent blade canoness out-damages her while princes have various mortal wound sources or just outright strength builds like diabolic strength & intoxicating elixir (and still lag behind the bigger hitters of their faction).

She's not bad as such, but if jump canonesses were a thing you'd get two and change from her points and it'd only be the stacking save aura keeping her in lists. It doesn't help that she neither generates nor benefits from reroll 1s as the one HQ that can keep up with the seraphim, and she is decidedly shaky on her faith.

 BaconCatBug wrote:
What if they gave choppy SOB units WS3+ and BS4+ aka the Blood Claw treatment? Would also incentivise using Hand Flamers.

This is simple and reasonable.
Not going to happen.

They have a 3+ save. They are better in close combat than other humans.

 Xenomancers wrote:

 Elbows wrote:
Simply put, too many units in armies have 3+ abilities when they shouldn't, and inexplicably so. Guardians should still be 4+/4+...as should Space Marine scouts, etc.

Gaurdians never should have been 4+ to hit. Unskilled Eldar are more dexterous than even skilled humans. This is well established in the fluff.

Which is why a Guardian called up from his normal day job was on par with a "highly trained" Imperial Guard soldier. Guardians being 3+ also make Aspect Warriors look completely gak by comparison. Guardians should be 4+, no questions asked.

Another reason why D12 would be better.

A.T. wrote:

Ozomoto wrote:
Actually celestine with 1 less attack(can make up for it with preacher) but better ap hits most targets the same as a DP, some worse, some better. Without needing cp to fight twice and generally being able to be affected by buffs easier

5 hits, 3x2 wounds before saves. An ardent blade canoness out-damages her while princes have various mortal wound sources or just outright strength builds like diabolic strength & intoxicating elixir (and still lag behind the bigger hitters of their faction).

She's not bad as such, but if jump canonesses were a thing you'd get two and change from her points and it'd only be the stacking save aura keeping her in lists. It doesn't help that she neither generates nor benefits from reroll 1s as the one HQ that can keep up with the seraphim, and she is decidedly shaky on her faith.

It wouldn't just be the invulnerable(which btw makes her outclass DP's by a massive margin in power while also being less points imo). It would be the resurrecting 2+/4+ 6 wounds. Many things in this game dont actually need to be killed, mortars, bassilisk, leman russ, kastellan robots, broadsides the list is endless. The fact that celestine can yolo into gunline armies to fight something up front, inevitably get knocked down, come back up and tag 2 tanks and mortars the same turn while flaming some infantry already puts her WORLDS apart from a dp who would just die to some basilisks or something. likewise mono cc armies like cults any alpha would just murder a dp where as she gets back up for a counter attack.

Why not give them S4 and T4 (powerarmor and stuff)?
Why not give them Dreadnoughts and Terminators and Bikers?
Why not paint them blue?

Because they are NOT Space Marines. They are humans.


When I started SoB they had the same statline as a Linemember in the guard +1LD.
They are humans. Faithful humans in very good armor with very good guns. But they are humans.
I would even reduce their BS to 4+ and lower the point cost. I don't need another faction of "we are the elite"-Models.

And as written in the post above: SoB ARE scary in CC if you want them to be.
I had a game just the day before yesterday. I managed to roll the fight twice act on a charakter and spend the 3CP to make it work on every squad in 6". A full squad off repentia had just disembarked from a Rhino and there where 30 Sisters nearby. Thats 180 S4 Attacks (That`s 25 dead orks) and 72 S7 A-2 D2 Attacks (another 36 dead orks or 1 dead Knight). You need some luck to pull this of, but it wins you games. With SoB in CC.

I just want to point out, while their close combat prowess is very much up for debate (in fluff better than guard, worse than marines), in terms of shooting, they're as good as space marines.

Ozomoto wrote:
The fact that celestine can yolo into gunline armies to fight something up front, inevitably get knocked down, come back up and tag 2 tanks and mortars the same turn while flaming some infantry already puts her WORLDS apart from a dp who would just die to some basilisks or something.

You must have the new codex (or still be using the old index), because you are playing an entirely different celestine to me if she's yoloing unopposed into the opposing army and killing two tanks and change a turn.
She averages what, 4 wounds against a rhino?

Ozomoto wrote:


(edit: idk what you guys are on about one intercessor, 92Ax0.58x0.5x0.33=8.89 wounds dealt with there 75% to fight twice or 4.4 if they fail the 75%), but there your chaff and should be brawling chaff anyway, they kill 22.2 orks for example on the charge. Even then who cares about intercessors, all your chaff need to do is let celestine, smash nun, eviscerater cannoness etc get to them and they will kill them in droves. Its not like wyches, plaugebearers, horrors, hormagaunts, ork boyz etc are killing intercessors in droves either; they dont need to.

The Intercessor comparison/point is this - they're the tactical/basic shooty troop unit. But they're close combat-ing close to as well as the basic bashy troop unit. And it's a whole lot easier to shoot every turn than it is to bash every turn. Ergo- the bashy troop unit should be better at bashy than the shooty troop unit should be at shooty by some margin roughly equivalent to how much harder it is to bashy the enemy than shooty the enemy. Not only is this not the case, the shooty unit is just as bashy as your bashy unit in addition to being shooty.

As a rebuttal to your "Just Use Smash-Captain/Nun/etc which are perfectly fine at close combat". I've seen multiple editions of Hero Hammer across the various systems. They're rarely good, and usually end up with a massively over-corrected followup edition. 2nd Ed was something of a Herohammer. 3rd Ed characters were garbage. I think that was when they introduced instant death, and took away invuln saves from every character at the same time. A smash captain/nun etc should need a supporting smash squad, not die laughing at one.

 von Hohenstein wrote:
Why not give them S4 and T4 (powerarmor and stuff)?

Actually, no. S4 and T4 for Marines are more biology than power armor. See also: Scout Marines, whom don't have power armor but are still S4/T4 (though IIRC scouts used to be S3? so you could argue that I suppose, but scout marines are still a world apart from normal humans even if both are S3).

The power armor primarily provides marines their armor save more than anything. For Sisters, it provides an armor save and the ability to carry heavier weapons without slowing them down (thus why a Retributor can carry a heavy bolter by themselves, where a common Guardsman needs a team to move and set their heavy bolter up quickly, and why Sisters commonly use weapons like bolt guns en masse).

Sisters can reach higher than a human's S3 with Acts of Faith, various kinds of power weapons, and so on. But their base should and will always be S3. But just because something is baseline S3 doesn't mean that it can't be good in close combat, because while the to-wound roll is important, there's more to the game than that-- if they have the possibility of many attacks that hit more frequently, for example, they can typically do better than you would expect an S3 unit to do in close combat. Or if they're given wider access to power weapons or other close combat boosters, for example, the option to purchase the Sarissa upgrade letting them reroll all to-wound rolls on the charge or something like that.

Bharring wrote:
"He's actually a poet, but we handed him a gun this morning" Guardians should be 4+/4+.

"Standing militia"/"Black Guardians"/"Was an Aspect yesterday" Guardians should be 3+/3+.

They're +1 WS/BS over humans - the first grouping being Conscript-equivs (no training), the later grouping being Guardsmen-equivs (extensive training).

The problem is that the Guardian fluff is a mix of both groups.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
"Untrained Human", or even "Poorly Trained Human" is WS/BS 5+, not 4+. "Well-trained well-equipped human" is WS/BS 4+ with a 5+ and a Lasgun.

It's just every faction is super awsome in every way, so you rarely ever see "Like a well-trained, well-equipped human, but worse.".

i mean eldar are supppossed to perceive things better (keener senses), and humans move in a sort of slow motion to them outside of astartes who similarly are on another level from humans.

put another way compared to a sloth most people would be WS 3 BS3 simply because the opponent is so much slower and cannot react quickly to you

I think they should have WS3+. They're highly trained elites. Marines still have S4 (and nowadays two attacks) so they would still clearly be better, but it would allow the sisters to be better in melee than the guard, which is how it should be.

I'm inclined to agree. There's still some granularity between GEQ and MEQ.

I am disappointed they are BS3+... Being neither elite soldiers nor veterans that have survived where everyone else died. And very tough $+ troops would be a neat niche as opposed to tougher Scions.

The_Real_Chris wrote:
I am disappointed they are BS3+... Being neither elite soldiers

Sisters of Battle are elite soldiers.

Agreed, BS 3+ is absolutely warranted on Sisters.

 Melissia wrote:

 von Hohenstein wrote:
Why not give them S4 and T4 (powerarmor and stuff)?

Actually, no. S4 and T4 for Marines are more biology than power armor. See also: Scout Marines, whom don't have power armor but are still S4/T4 (though IIRC scouts used to be S3? so you could argue that I suppose, but scout marines are still a world apart from normal humans even if both are S3).

The power armor primarily provides marines their armor save more than anything. For Sisters, it provides an armor save and the ability to carry heavier weapons without slowing them down (thus why a Retributor can carry a heavy bolter by themselves, where a common Guardsman needs a team to move and set their heavy bolter up quickly, and why Sisters commonly use weapons like bolt guns en masse).

Sisters can reach higher than a human's S3 with Acts of Faith, various kinds of power weapons, and so on. But their base should and will always be S3. But just because something is baseline S3 doesn't mean that it can't be good in close combat, because while the to-wound roll is important, there's more to the game than that-- if they have the possibility of many attacks that hit more frequently, for example, they can typically do better than you would expect an S3 unit to do in close combat. Or if they're given wider access to power weapons or other close combat boosters, for example, the option to purchase the Sarissa upgrade letting them reroll all to-wound rolls on the charge or something like that.

If that's true, that's REALLY dumb. A mechanical exosuit is probably stronger and tougher than a space marine. They are still just flesh and blood.

Martel732 wrote:

 Melissia wrote:

 von Hohenstein wrote:
Why not give them S4 and T4 (powerarmor and stuff)?

Actually, no. S4 and T4 for Marines are more biology than power armor. See also: Scout Marines, whom don't have power armor but are still S4/T4 (though IIRC scouts used to be S3? so you could argue that I suppose, but scout marines are still a world apart from normal humans even if both are S3).

The power armor primarily provides marines their armor save more than anything. For Sisters, it provides an armor save and the ability to carry heavier weapons without slowing them down (thus why a Retributor can carry a heavy bolter by themselves, where a common Guardsman needs a team to move and set their heavy bolter up quickly, and why Sisters commonly use weapons like bolt guns en masse).

Sisters can reach higher than a human's S3 with Acts of Faith, various kinds of power weapons, and so on. But their base should and will always be S3. But just because something is baseline S3 doesn't mean that it can't be good in close combat, because while the to-wound roll is important, there's more to the game than that-- if they have the possibility of many attacks that hit more frequently, for example, they can typically do better than you would expect an S3 unit to do in close combat. Or if they're given wider access to power weapons or other close combat boosters, for example, the option to purchase the Sarissa upgrade letting them reroll all to-wound rolls on the charge or something like that.

If that's true, that's REALLY dumb. A mechanical exosuit is probably stronger and tougher than a space marine. They are still just flesh and blood.

If they increased marines to str and t 5 it would be ok. The power armor a marine wears is after all probably twice the weight of the armor a sister wears and much more integrated with the marine due to the black carapace.

It isnt effortless to use the exoskeleton in battle for non marines. So like mentioned before getting that 3+ save and being able to use marine weapons is a huge upgrade already from what guardsmen get.

Sisters should get a big boost too. There's no point in manufacturing crappy power armor.

Martel732 wrote:
If that's true, that's REALLY dumb. A mechanical exosuit is probably stronger and tougher than a space marine. They are still just flesh and blood.

An exosuit is as strong as you build it. In the case of the sisters it's barely more than required to counteract the weight of the armour (hence the use of a secondary exoskeleton on the heavy weapon models).

The_Real_Chris wrote:
I am disappointed they are BS3+... Being neither elite soldiers nor veterans that have survived where everyone else died. And very tough $+ troops would be a neat niche as opposed to tougher Scions.

Battle Sisters train at the Schola Progenium. That's the same place that turns out Stormtroopers, Commissars, Arbites, Officers, and Inquisitors. Every single Battle Sister goes through the same school as the most elite special forces available to the entire Astra Militarum. What in the world makes you say that they're not elite soldiers?

A.T. wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
If that's true, that's REALLY dumb. A mechanical exosuit is probably stronger and tougher than a space marine. They are still just flesh and blood.

An exosuit is as strong as you build it. In the case of the sisters it's barely more than required to counteract the weight of the armour (hence the use of a secondary exoskeleton on the heavy weapon models).

Why would you build it to suck?

Because easier to fit armor on without adding additional bulk that way. Also because it's easier to maintain, cheaper to mass produce (we still don't really have a solid definition on how many Adepta Sororitas there are in the galaxy, there could be as few as a few hundred thousand, or as many as hundreds of millions), and also is as much as they need to do their jobs..


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Bear in mind, Marines are not just taller but also wider, they're massive. Their power armor just has more room to incorporate strength-enhancing servos to begin with.