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As far as dead special characters go, the Space Wolves codex has at least two, as does Codex Imperial Guard. The Guard ones even got miniatures (Al'Rahem, and later in 3rd edition, Macharius)! The thing that did confuse early-teen me was that their Rhinos were assembled in such a minimalist way - no grab rails, aerials or door handles, in contrast to the ones painted for the Marine forces. (oh, and Redemptor Kyrinov ain't still in production - he disappeared in 3rd edition, save for a brief reappearance in a Made To Order wave recently). Anyway, there's now five Sororitas models with names now, and the Codex isn't even out.

As far as allies go, that doesn't really restrict the army much - everyone used allies back then.

 The Power Cosmic wrote:
To me, this codex screams "interrupted project." I'd imagine there was a fuller version of the SoBs being worked on that got overtaken by 3rd edition. GW decided to release what they had, and so they have mostly languished. If not for Inquisitor (and the subsequent 40k codecies), I'd imagine the sisters would still be languishing, if not squatted.

I think the 'interrupted project' was the frequently referenced Imperial Agents codex. They ended up scattering its contents across various publications, Codex Sisters of Battle, Codex Assassins, Adeptus Arbites (from Battles), Grey Knights (from DM) etc., what never got a proper release outside of the black codex was Adeptus Mechanicus and Inquisitors etc.

 AndrewGPaul wrote:
(oh, and Redemptor Kyrinov ain't still in production - he disappeared in 3rd edition, save for a brief reappearance in a Made To Order wave recently).

Both he and Jacobus were taken off the shelves somewhere between the end of 2nd edition and the release of the WH book. They dug them back out again for the 5e codex but Kyrinov only lasted a couple of months, perhaps problems with the mould as I don't think he's been seen since.

Weird I could have sworn I got Redemptor Kyrinov from GW fairly recently (meaning 3-4 years ago). Ah well, great, great mini one of my favorites.

sniffer_squig wrote:

 The Power Cosmic wrote:
To me, this codex screams "interrupted project." I'd imagine there was a fuller version of the SoBs being worked on that got overtaken by 3rd edition. GW decided to release what they had, and so they have mostly languished. If not for Inquisitor (and the subsequent 40k codecies), I'd imagine the sisters would still be languishing, if not squatted.

I think the 'interrupted project' was the frequently referenced Imperial Agents codex. They ended up scattering its contents across various publications, Codex Sisters of Battle, Codex Assassins, Adeptus Arbites (from Battles), Grey Knights (from DM) etc., what never got a proper release outside of the black codex was Adeptus Mechanicus and Inquisitors etc.

This.

Yeah this was the odd feeling I had, that this was sort of a shift in midstream. The 2nd edition IG book mentioned an upcoming Agents Codex (and a Squat Codex ) so this, along with the Assassins, the Arbites, the old Skullz Adeptus Mech and maybe some Inquisitors may have been the original plan.

But for whatever reason the decision was made to focus on the Sisters but leave in the crazy guys in their bathrobes.

Not as odd as the decision to mate the iPhone army with the Cannibal Chickens From Space, but still odd.

Were there Grey Knights in the old black book from the 2nd ed. box?

Also I remember using an Inquisitor from an Imperial Agent list the back of the 3rd ed. book, so I was stoked when the Ordo codecies came out in a later edition. Anything that fleshed out that side of the Imperium tickled my mini-bone. That includes all the weird and wacky priests and confessors and all the rest.

 The Power Cosmic wrote:
Were there Grey Knights in the old black book from the 2nd ed. box?

Also I remember using an Inquisitor from an Imperial Agent list the back of the 3rd ed. book, so I was stoked when the Ordo codecies came out in a later edition. Anything that fleshed out that side of the Imperium tickled my mini-bone. That includes all the weird and wacky priests and confessors and all the rest.

Good call, they were in the Black Codex and probably meant for the Agents book too.

I had an inquisitor with the teleport jump thing and a vortex grenade, lots of fun

 The Power Cosmic wrote:
Were there Grey Knights in the old black book from the 2nd ed. box?

Yes. They were also updated in the Dark Millennium release.

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
But for whatever reason the decision was made to focus on the Sisters but leave in the crazy guys in their bathrobes.

Again, I don't see why this is odd. The Adeptus Ministorum is intrinsically linked to the Adepta Sororitas. Why is their inclusion so strange to you?

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
I had an inquisitor with the teleport jump thing and a vortex grenade, lots of fun

You don't know power until you've used a 300+ point Level 4 Psyker Inquisitor Lord packing Terminator Armour, a Nemesis Great Sword, a Psycannon and a Displacer Field.

Sisters of Battle was the first time I bought an army in one go; saved up my pocket money and ordered a big box of them. All I’ve got left is the original box set of six that kicked the whole thing off.

I wish I’d also kept the Sister Superior during her bolter one-handed while gripping her rosary; that was a cool pose.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
This book seems to make Kyoto really angry for some reason.

I mean, the book's about the Sisters of Battle and the Ecclesiarchy in general, as the two things are interlinked in a way that is completely intrinsic.

I get SoB players being annoyed that they had their stuff tied to the Ordo Hereticus in 3rd Ed, but being annoyed that the SoBs have a lot of Ad Ministorum representation seems about as absurd as being annoyed that Space Marine Scouts are part of Marine armies.

I wouldn't say angry, I hope it's obvious I like this book a lot. I've dragged it to seven countries now so there's that.

I'm just trying to reverse engineer the design process and figure out what Codex Sisters of Battle is about 1/3 men with a completely different aesthetic. I think the Imperial Agents theory makes the most sense. Which might again help explain the seven and FIFTEEN year gaps between releases. If this is not only the girl army, not only the nun army, but ALSO was never supposed to be an army but just a unit or three in Codex Imperial Agents then it makes a lot more sense.

I think you are spot on with the idea that SoB were planned as a part of an army and that their true potential was recognized much later after their fans' reactions.

I bet in the beginning someone had read "God Emperor of Dune", liked the "Fish Speakers" (all female nun like army worshipping their god emperor) and wanted to have something similar in 40k at least as a fraction of a faction. And then we loved it and it became an army.

I forgot about the Dune Fish Speakers, and the Bene Jeseret as well. Good catch

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
I'm just trying to reverse engineer the design process and figure out what Codex Sisters of Battle is about 1/3 men with a completely different aesthetic.

It's codex:ecclesiarchy, but the sisters were the interesting part of that so got the headline role.

Much in the same way that the chaos space marine codex contained a significant % of non marine units (daemons).

I'm going with the unit composition being what it is based on what was furthest down the design pipeline.

As to why it's such a high percentage of male figures, I'd go with the same reasoning why action figures were almost exclusively male characters until very recently: Suits didn't think boys wanted to play with girl toys. I'd bet if the Imperial Agents "codex" were completed, it would've had overwhelmingly male models too.

A.T. wrote:

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
I'm just trying to reverse engineer the design process and figure out what Codex Sisters of Battle is about 1/3 men with a completely different aesthetic.

It's codex:ecclesiarchy, but the sisters were the interesting part of that so got the headline role.

Much in the same way that the chaos space marine codex contained a significant % of non marine units (daemons).

Pretty much this. The SoB are and always have been the footsoliders of the Ecclesiarchy, giving them Ecclesiarchy options is no more bizarre than putting the Storm Troopers in Codex: Imperial Guard.

Great stuff Kid_Kyoto!

To misquote Doctor Who: 'It's the 41st millennium. The Church has moved on.'

This retro review, along with the upcoming plastic Sisters release, inspired me to finally sort out and base up my old metal Sisters that have been praying in a toolbox for a dozen years. (I bought them secondhand and they were all on square bases for some reason.)

It also occurred to me that both the Sisters and the Necromunda Escher from around the same time were both sculpted by Jes Goodwin. Which means the faces look kinda similar. Conversion city, here we come...


I agree with other posters that the 2nd edition codex is really Codex: Ecclesiarchy, and was probably intended to be part of a still greater whole (Codex: Imperial Agents). Here's the relevant quote from the end of the 2nd ed Guard codex:

2nd ed Codex: Imperial Guard p82 wrote:IMPERIAL AGENTS
Imperial Agents covers several quite separate and independent fighting forces. At the time of writing [1995] this Codex is in preparation, but it is intended to represent forces of the Inquisition and Grey Knights, the Adeptus Arbites, the Ecclesiarchy including Adeptus Sororitas, the Adeptus Mechanicus and the Ordo Assassinorum.

That's... quite a lot of ground to cover. Not surprising they had to break it up and change plans when 3rd edition loomed.

We did get Codex: Assassins at the end of 2nd ed (which was more like Pamphlet: Four People You Wouldn't Want To Meet On A Dark Night, Plus Early Mention of Dark Eldar And Sneaky Setup For C'Tan).

Amusingly the same thing happened in 3rd edition. IIRC there was going to be an all-in-one Imperial Agents codex for 3rd called 'Codex Apocalypse', but that project strayed within the Roche limit of the Inquisitor game and broke into several codexes--Daemonhunters, Witch Hunters and the missing-in-action Alien Hunters.


Structural reorganisation (or, the first time we had to to destroy the 40K universe in order to save it)

Looking at it now, it's intriguing to note that the structure of the SoB codex foreshadows the transition from 2nd ed to 3rd.

Previous 2nd ed codexes split the troop type info into two sections. Midway through the book you'd get a 'forces/bestiary' section with all the fluff for each troop type, a stat line and any special rules. Then at the back you'd have the army list, with the stat line again, the points cost, some (but often not all) the special rules, and the weapon options. This used to annoy the God-Emperor out of me. You had to flick back and forth between sections to make sure you didn't forget any rules that were mentioned in one place but not the other, such as 'dispersed formation'.

In 3rd ed, after the big rules bomb changed a Rick Priestley game into an Andy Chambers game, they slimmed down the Codexes and consolidated the two sections into one. You had a sidebar with the fluff for the troop type on the same page as the points, stats and special rules. All in one place. I loved that format--it made army list construction and mid-game reference a breeze--and was infuriated when the 4th ed Eldar codex went back to the old system. If you want a big separate background section, great, but don't stick rules in it!

The 2nd ed Sisters codex does the 3rd ed thing: it incorporates the fluff for the troop types into the actual army list. No doubt this is one reason why the book is slimmer than the other 2nd ed ones. As a sign of things to come it's an interesting development.


It's so fluffy!

As for the fluff itself... I'm not exactly Gav Thorpe's biggest fan, but I reckon he did a good job with this one. The background has a few wobbly bits, but it's mostly solid work.

However, even though the focus on the Ecclesiarchy is understandable, I do find it a bit annoying that most of the cool fluff and stories are about the preachers, cardinals and so on, rather than the Sisters themselves. We don't really get an insight into what life is like inside a convent, or what it's like to be a Sister. We get very little on the Saints, for example.

Even in 3rd ed, when they leaned heavily into 'in-universe' first-person fluff snippets, there's not much. The bit with the spiky pen from the 3rd ed rulebook is the only one that springs to mind.

Some of this might be due to GW's... hesitant... attitude when it came to portraying women. They often seemed to be operating from a bewildered male "but what do women WANT?!" perspective. (Except maybe for Richard Halliwell, who was all about the Amazons and the oldhammer Witch Elves.)

But it could also just be that if Sisters are uncompromising religious fanatics, there's not much of interest to show 'from the inside'. At least the Ecclesiarchy is full of dissenting views and arguments over finer points of theology, along with the uneasy tension between spiritual authority and temporal wealth that has dogged the Catholic Church. Plus the occasional power-mad lunatic who takes advantage of his position. There's plenty to explore there. Sisters feel one-dimensional by comparison.

The other issue with the Sisters, for me, is that they're so tightly defined that there's not much room for creativity. It makes sense in fluff terms--any deviation from correct strictures could be a sign of heresy and would be stamped out ASAP--but it makes them very samey and predictable.

People joke about there being a zillion variations of Space Marines, but at least Space Wolves feel recognisably different from Blood Angels. But Sisters? It's as if every single Space Marine Chapter in the 40K universe was Ultramarines with a different colour scheme. (No Mat Ward jokes, please. )

Even their colour schemes in the 2nd ed Codex are limited to black, white, silver and red. IIRC we didn't get suggested Minor Order alternatives until Witch Hunters, and that was mainly in White Dwarf.

All this is of course fine if you assume they're meant to be just one of several unusual allied organisations, alongside the Ad Mech, Inquisition and so on, which you'll include as part of your regular Guard or Space Marine force. It's only when silly people (such as me) want to treat them as a full army in their own right that the limitations of the concept become apparent.


Weird detail #1: Convent swapsies

In the 2nd ed starter box's Codex Imperialis (still my favourite all-in-one guide to classic 40K fluff), the Convent Sanctorum is on Earth. Meanwhile, the Convent Prioris is on 'the Eastern Fringe' at 'Ophelia IV'.

In Codex: SoB it's the other way around. The Sanctorum is on Ophelia VII (note the different planet number), while the Prioris is on Earth. Ophelia VII itself has apparently spent most of 2nd edition migrating across half the galaxy to be much closer to Earth, presumably to make the backstory of the Ecclesiarchy work.


Weird detail #2: Where's Sabine?

There doesn't seem to be any mention of the Order Sabine in the 2nd ed codex. (That's the order that 'goes native' and infiltrates newly discovered worlds that are likely to put in a complaint when the Imperium shows up in force, so that they can lay the groundwork for the Imperial cult, pave the way for the Missionaries and pull all kinds of prearranged prophetic shenanigans.)

The Order Sabine turns up in 3rd ed Witch Hunters, or at least in one of the White Dwarf articles by Andy Hoare around the same time, along with Pronatus.

And yet... despite their apparent absence from the 2nd ed Codex, the page with all the John Blanche conversion ideas features 'Corvus Corax, Sister Sabine'. She's the one made from a Necromunda Escher gang leader. Maybe the background for the Order Sabine had already been worked out, but didn't make it into the book for space reasons? She certainly looks like she's 'gone native'...


Weird detail #3 that isn't really weird at all: This army was brought to you by the letter I

You know that symbol with the capital letter 'I' and the skull with a spiky halo around it? The one on every Sisters model, hanging from her waist?

Because I only started collecting Sisters post-3rd edition, I always thought it was the symbol of the Ordo Hereticus. After all, it looks like an Inquisitorial symbol. I for Inquisition, see?

But upon reflection, that made no sense. It was on all the Sisters models, which as far as I knew had mostly stayed the same since 2nd ed. Since the Witch Hunters connection only showed up in 3rd, GW would have had to resculpt that tiny detail on all the models--possible, but unlikely.

And when I got hold of the 2nd ed SoB codex, I was baffled to see the I-with-skull-and-halo everywhere in the art and on the models. The fleur de lys is described as the symbol of the Adepta Sororitas, but the Codex doesn't explain the I-symbol anywhere, and there was no Inquisitorial connection back then. What heresy was this?

After a bit of internet digging I eventually learned that the I-symbol had nothing to do with the Inquisition at all. Other Imperial organisations had similar motifs (like the Imperial Navy). If the letter I stands for anything, it's 'Imperium'. Or it might not even be a letter I at all. It might be a pillar instead.

So this allegedly weird detail actually makes perfect sense. The I-with-skull-and-halo is the symbol of the Ecclesiarchy, denoting one of the pillars that holds up the Imperium, with a representation of the Emperor (the skull face) and his divinity (the spiked halo). Meanwhile, the pillar with three horizontal bars is the Inquisitorial symbol. The latter just became so prominent in 3rd edition compared to the other 'pillar' symbols, thanks to all the attention the Inquisition got, that it all got a bit confused in my brain.



Future developments may affect you in the future

A.T. wrote:
Chapter Approved 2002 saw a the first revised Sisters of Battle list, including the original exorcist rules (AV 11, BS3, and AP3 missiles), and the first version of the faith rules.

It also included rules for the hospitaller, dialogus, and famulous. All three had models produced but not released for the sisters themselves - the first two becoming inquisition henchmen while the famulous model was never released. It was not until the 5th edition White Dwarf codex that the hospitaller and imagifier could be taken as sororitas units.

I was a bit startled to realise this recently. I went back through all my White Dwarfs, trying to figure out when the Forgeworld Exorcist (the Whirlwind-esque one) came out vs the organ-gun GW version. I was surprised to find that I couldn't find the SoB in-progress army list anywhere. Wargear options and Sacred Rites, yes, but not the actual WIP army list between the 3rd ed rulebook and Witch Hunters. I didn't play Sisters at the time, so had never noticed the omission.

I never owned the Chapter Approved compilations, as I assumed I already had all the articles in my WD collection, but it turns out I was wrong. No wonder the Exorcist seemed to come out of nowhere...

(For the record, yes, the Forgeworld Exorcist came out before the GW model, which is why it has that 2nd ed minimalist Sisters look rather than going full gothic bling.)


Other random thoughts

-The special character Praxedes amuses me. She supposedly led a guerilla warfare campaign against Tyranids. Um. Good luck with that.

-Helena the Virtuous is technically an Order Famulous special character. Which is cool.

-The total number of Battle Sisters in the galaxy is absurdly small even by GW's 'oops we forgot a few zeroes' standards. It made sense when they were Vandire's personal guard, but not later on.

-The 2nd ed Immolator is rapidly becoming my favourite Immolator. Compared to later models, it's just so minimalist and severe. "Extravagant gothic bling? What is this, the Age of Apostasy? There's only one true bright shining way to honour the Emperor, and that's the holy light of our GIANT HERETIC-COOKING FLAMETHROWER. Prepare to be... enlightened."

-Despite popular belief, there's nothing in this Codex about the Sisters being incorruptible or that 'only one Sister has ever fallen to Chaos'. That came from licensed material (a Sabretooth card game IIRC). Sisters are probably hard for Chaos to get its claws into, but I'm sure it's happened now and then.

-Frateris Milita can take heavy stubbers. In fact, if you have at least 11 models you could have four heavy stubbers in the same squad. But only hand flamers, not proper flamers.

-When the Sisters were released, White Dwarf featured a few small-game scenarios. And some kind of flimsy card chapel, I think. Unfortunately the Sisters came out around the time White Dwarf was experiencing a bit of a low point. Issues #212-217 were unusually garish, full of 'HEY KIDS!!!' layouts, eye-watering backgrounds that made the text hard to read, hard-selling of official GW terrain kits (contrasting with the DIY advice from just a few issues earlier), battle reports that suddenly used photos instead of maps and skimped on the detail, and generally dumbed-down articles. #216 (with the Falcon on the cover) is the worst of the lot--ye gods, the typos! Looking back, it's almost like a dry run for 'Buy The Giant'. Fortunately the magazine pulled out of its nosedive a few issues later. Paul Sawyer took over around that time and WD rapidly improved from #218 onwards. Pretty much every issue from then until the early 300s is a classic. Or at least I think so. The fact that my subscription started with #218 is a total coincidence.

-Because the metal Sisters models stayed the same into 3rd ed and well beyond, they kept their old-style bolters. I only just noticed that their bolter pattern is referred to in the 3rd ed Witch Hunter codex as 'Godwyn-Deaz'.

And finally, apart from the Blanche cover, this is probably my all-time favourite Sisters piece of art:

Zenithfleet wrote:
-When the Sisters were released, White Dwarf featured a few small-game scenarios. And some kind of flimsy card chapel, I think. Unfortunately the Sisters came out around the time White Dwarf was experiencing a bit of a low point. Issues #212-217 were unusually garish, full of 'HEY KIDS!!!' layouts, eye-watering backgrounds that made the text hard to read, hard-selling of official GW terrain kits (contrasting with the DIY advice from just a few issues earlier), battle reports that suddenly used photos instead of maps and skimped on the detail, and generally dumbed-down articles. #216 (with the Falcon on the cover) is the worst of the lot--ye gods, the typos! Looking back, it's almost like a dry run for 'Buy The Giant'. Fortunately the magazine pulled out of its nosedive a few issues later. Paul Sawyer took over around that time and WD rapidly improved from #218 onwards. Pretty much every issue from then until the early 300s is a classic. Or at least I think so. The fact that my subscription started with #218 is a total coincidence.

This was exactly the time I stopped buying WD.

Those so-called "battle reports" were just crap.

2nd ed Codex: Imperial Guard p82 wrote:
IMPERIAL AGENTS
Imperial Agents covers several quite separate and independent fighting forces. At the time of writing [1995] this Codex is in preparation, but it is intended to represent forces of the Inquisition and Grey Knights, the Adeptus Arbites, the Ecclesiarchy including Adeptus Sororitas, the Adeptus Mechanicus and the Ordo Assassinorum.

Every time I see this I wish we'd get it Rogue Traders with insane wargear, Imperial Ministry of Agriculture Pest Disposal Servitors, Hoards of scribes, farmers and factory workers controlled by chips in their brain and one angry Bureaucrat, an Imperial accountant who joins your army and gives you a bonus if you can keep him alive, Arbites...

Just give me more Imperial craziness, not another lollypop colored marine chapter.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Y'know since the Sisters were founded AFTER the 'reformation' it occurs to me there are not Space Catholics as long believed. They're Space Protestants. Anglicans or Episcopalians at the very least. that would explain their sinfully uncovered hair.

Well, since Sebastian Thor is sort of space Luther (although he got to be the Space Pope, so don’t think about the analogy too much), there’s something in that.

Zenithfleet wrote:
-When the Sisters were released, White Dwarf featured a few small-game scenarios. And some kind of flimsy card chapel, I think. Unfortunately the Sisters came out around the time White Dwarf was experiencing a bit of a low point. Issues #212-217 were unusually garish, full of 'HEY KIDS!!!' layouts, eye-watering backgrounds that made the text hard to read, hard-selling of official GW terrain kits (contrasting with the DIY advice from just a few issues earlier), battle reports that suddenly used photos instead of maps and skimped on the detail, and generally dumbed-down articles. #216 (with the Falcon on the cover) is the worst of the lot--ye gods, the typos! Looking back, it's almost like a dry run for 'Buy The Giant'. Fortunately the magazine pulled out of its nosedive a few issues later. Paul Sawyer took over around that time and WD rapidly improved from #218 onwards. Pretty much every issue from then until the early 300s is a classic. Or at least I think so. The fact that my subscription started with #218 is a total coincidence.

I loved the freebie card terrain from White Dwarf.

I have the Chapel built and another still on the card. The barricades from the Scouts/ Storm of vengeance issue were nice. The Falcon issue came with the Eldar obelisk didn't it?

For Warhammer Fantasy there was a Bretonnian jousting set up with tents and so on.

The Battle Bunker from a couple of years earlier was especially cool.

alphaecho wrote:


I loved the freebie card terrain from White Dwarf.

I have the Chapel built and another still on the card. The barricades from the Scouts/ Storm of vengeance issue were nice. The Falcon issue came with the Eldar obelisk didn't it?

For Warhammer Fantasy there was a Bretonnian jousting set up with tents and so on.

The Battle Bunker from a couple of years earlier was especially cool.

Cool to hear you still have the chapel! I'll grudgingly admit that freebies from that era were one of the higher points of the low point.

Yep, the Falcon issue (#216) had the supposedly Eldar but actually kinda Necronesque obelisk.

There was also a card watchtower for Gorkamorka in... #214?

The Battle Bunker was reprinted in the 'Warhammer 40,000 Battles' compilation along with the extra scenario for the 2nd ed starter box. (IIRC the Battles book was also the only place you could find the Razorback rules if you didn't have that particular back issue of White Dwarf.) Years ago the third-party company Conflix made a resin pre-painted 'gothic bunker' model that was pretty much a ripoff of the Battle Bunker. Looked very 40K and had a removable roof. Worth tracking down.

Apparently they eventually stopped doing the card inserts because it was difficult to produce.

WD #218 was the first issue I actually owned, so I never had any of the free card terrain. All my earlier copies are back issues that were missing the free stuff.

I'm a big fan of the more sturdy thick cardboard + plastic terrain kits they sold at the time, though. The Firebase, Command Tower, Storm of Vengeance power plant and so on. I've collected a couple in recent years, and they're surprisingly impressive.

Getting back to Sisters... a lot of people poke fun at their infamous Sanctuary 101 battle report against the Necrons in WD #218, but I always liked that one. It wasn't just a case of making sure the new army (Necrons) won for marketing purposes. Or if it was, at least the staff did something interesting with it rather than just replaying until the 'proper' side won. The whole scenario was designed around the idea that the Sisters were outnumbered, ill-equipped (in no small part due to the Studio army's limited selection of painted models) and basically doomed. But they could win if they held out long enough to send a distress call. A famous last stand always makes for a good read. Go Sister Sledge!

Zenithfleet wrote:
It wasn't just a case of making sure the new army (Necrons) won for marketing purposes. Or if it was, at least the staff did something interesting with it rather than just replaying until the 'proper' side won.

The game should have been even more one-sided, the scarabs were functionally indestructible to everything except the immolator blowing up. The only reason the sisters lasted as long as they did was that the cron player was learning them as he played, and once the destroyer pilot reanimated and started tearing into the sisters he realised all he had ever needed to do was march straight into them and the game was over.

Zenithfleet, I have all of those. Age I guess. I even managed to obtain the Ork Stockade for a decent price a few years back. I still haven't built that one but, as a bonus, the previous owner had placed the Gorkamorka tower on card in the box.

As for the Sisters of Battle, pre ever present internet, we were stoked up for the release at the time as two months before, one of my friends received a freebie of the original Seraphim Sister Superior in his GW mail Order. None of us had much of clue as to what this model was all about other than it looked good.

I have most of those as well. Haven't built any of them...

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
I have most of those as well. Haven't built any of them...

I dug them out for one of the entries on my blog a couple of years ago.

I have about six of the White Dwarf bunkers (four built) and am fortunate to have all the other card terrain. I think, though will have to check once I'm home again, that I even have a second Imperial Guard Command Tower. I definitely have a second Storm of Vengeance power plant plus a Bastion bought after this photo was taken.



I was even thinking of entering a retro metal Imperial Guard and card terrain Armies on Parade one year.


Twas the beginning of the end for scratch build.....

No wait, I also have the templates from WD for the DIY bunkers and connecting walkway terrain. Wait till I'm home and finished a box of breakfast cereal. Lets say late December/ early January.

Impressive stuff. Never got Storm of Vengeance.

Almost got that command tower on eBay but got distracted and missed the end of the auction.

Man, this was a great read. A lot of nostalgia. I've been playing the game since mid 2nd Ed. Had sisters since early 3rd. Never knew about the Imperial agents codex or the change in edition screwing up a wider release. Kinda wishing for an alternate timeline where 2nd edition lasted a few years longer so we could've gotten a bigger release for them.

Still bitter it took over a decade to get alien hunters and we never got arbites. But this was good stuff and I was happy to read it.

The Sisters Codex was one of the best codex reads of 2nd Edition, rife with political intrigue and history. Loved it. Still have my copy

And we're back!

Wait. What?

What do you mean back, we're done, we did it, all of Codex SoB, even tossed in the catalogue pages for good measure. What is there left to cover?

Well how about the 3rd edition lists? In 1998 - about a year after Codex Sisters of Battle came out - GW did a massive reboot of 40k, scrapping all the codexes, supplaments and rules to date and put out a new rule book, a new logo and even redesigned the marines and replaced them with larger models.



Wow. It was a huge change that totally disrupted the community, made thousands of dollars of stock worthless, but ultimately led to something better. Still I bet they'll never do that again.

Anyway the age of 3rd edition (which lasted until the 8th edition) had begun!



For me this is really where I started, I'd been buying books and played a handful of 2nd edition games, but it was the combination of the slimmed down 3rd edition rules, and returning from Japan to find an active community in New York and the return of multipart plastics that got me into playing, building and painting and buying (with the 3rd one unfortunately outstripping the first two...).

The rule book included quick 'starter' lists for all the major factions (barring squats ) which drastically simplified everything. No longer were power swords different from power axes which were different from power mauls, now all were just power weapons. In fact just about every weapon, no matter how exotic, was either a straight up melee weapon or a power weapon. Players were free to model figures how they chose without worrying about the advantages or costs of giving Sgt Sven a chainsword vs a spear vs a pointy stick. For GW it was an incredibly clean and elegant system suitable to a game with 100+ figures on the table and diverse factions with all sorts of bizarre technologies.

It lasted for a about a week till the Dark Eldar's gladiator weapons each got some bizarre bispoke rule. But GW later righted themselves and that remained more or less the standard until 7th edition.

But this is rapidly turning into a general review of 3rd edition, which I should consider doing one of these days.

We're here to talk about the Sisters.



Like everyone else they got a quick 5 pages of rules and hey, a new piece of art. A nice one too.



But like many armies they had their stat line lowered, T4 became 3, and BS4 also dropped to 3. Still they got a no-brainer elite veteran squad the Celestians, who surely would make up for...



Wait. What? BS3, WS3? The heck? I mean even Storm Troopers got to keep their BS4. Surely they got something...

An extra point of Initiative. And Leadership. Well that's useful. Really.

The Sisters also lost the Militia and, perhaps more importantly, allies. Like all Imperial forces they could still bring in priests and assassins, but no more IG or Marine support so they were on their own. Which the author of the last book specifically warned against.

And with no acts of faith or other special rules they were basically weak Space Marines or IG with better armor. Not really a good selling point.

But OK so they have lackluster starter list, but that's fine, surely an army with a new model line and new fluff will get a codex relatively soon no?

Sigh...

Tune in four years later when we look at the second 'get you by' list from Chapter Approved.

3rd was a rough shift. Sisters went from MEQ-esqe to slightly better guardsmen. Completely changed the army. Lot of our sisters players dropped the game at that point.