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.

yukishiro1 wrote:
Photo of the codex. Look it up on youtube yourself if you don't believe me.

This is a company worth billions of dollars.

God they are stupid.

ERJAK wrote:

The weak point of Vahl is her price.

...hence why I said when a model is generically good at everything with no weaknesses, the game just comes down to dice rolls and point values. Either she's priced competitively and she appears in every single list because it's a no-brainer, or she's priced uncompetitively and you'll never see her in competitive lists ever. There's very little room for interesting list building or interesting gameplay with a model that is just generically good at everything and has no real weaknesses, and therefore conversely no real strengths either if properly pointed.

Think how boring the game would be if everyone had characters like Vahl that do everything in one package. It's just a poor way to design a game. There's a reason they've basically never done it before. Even Guilliman doesn't come close to just being all-around good at everything the way Vahl is.

Also, repentia did get wrecked pretty hard by losing advance and charge. The superior can only give them it in the command phase, which means they have to be on the table unprotected for a turn before you can do it.

yukishiro1 wrote:

ERJAK wrote:

The weak point of Vahl is her price.

...hence why I said when a model is generically good at everything with no weaknesses, the game just comes down to dice rolls and point values. Either she's priced competitively and she appears in every single list because it's a no-brainer, or she's priced uncompetitively and you'll never see her in competitive lists ever. There's very little room for interesting list building or interesting gameplay with a model that is just generically good at everything and has no real weaknesses, and therefore conversely no real strengths either if properly pointed.

Think how boring the game would be if everyone had characters like Vahl that do everything in one package. It's just a poor way to design a game. There's a reason they've basically never done it before. Even Guilliman doesn't come close to just being all-around good at everything the way Vahl is.

It's a product of the rest of the codex being designed by someone who hates playing against sisters.

They got to the end of this insane litany of nerfs to Every. Single. Unit. And looked up and saw the book was doggak and were like 'oops' how do we fix this? And so they had to add a bunch of stuff to Vahl to make up for removing 90% of the soul of the book.

yukishiro1 wrote:

Also, repentia did get wrecked pretty hard by losing advance and charge. The superior can only give them it in the command phase, which means they have to be on the table unprotected for a turn before you can do it.

Or you just deliver them via strategic reserves, with an 18 inch threat range from either neutral edge?

...which you could do before just as well as you can now, and which is vastly worse than the threat range they had before out of a rhino. Hence making my point that they got wrecked pretty hard. The most effective way to use them doesn't work any more. It's a big nerf.

Does that make them terrible? No, they were just that good before that they're still not bad even after the nerf. But Erjak said they escaped pretty lightly, and I just don't think that is true.

you're allowed to have that opinion. SR is the better delivery though.

It obviously is now that you can't advance and charge them out of a rhino. Before, the rhino was so much better it wasn't even funny. It is a truly strange take on the game to think that a max 18" threat range from a neutral table edge is better than a max 27" threat range from a mobile transport.

You don't have to take my word for it; look up some competitive sisters lists, they all use a rhino to deliver repentia as their basic strategy. SR occasionally used to make sense vs some very particular matchups, but the rhion was very much the default, and for very good reason.

What part of you're allowed to have that opinion did you not understand?

SR was always the better delivery.

No, it wasn't, as evidenced by the fact that pretty much every competitive list took rhinos to deliver their repentia, rather than relying on SR.

But it's obviously not worth arguing with you further about. If you think you know better than the people who were actually winning tournaments with the faction, nothing I say is going to change your mind.

yukishiro1 wrote:
No, it wasn't, as evidenced by the fact that pretty much every competitive list took rhinos to deliver their repentia, rather than relying on SR.

But it's obviously not worth arguing with you further about. If you think you know better than the people who were actually winning tournaments with the faction, nothing I say is going to change your mind.

Exactly, they had incredible threat range with 3" +6" +D6" (Miracle Diceable) +2D6" (Miracle Diceable) whilst now they just have a 3"+6"+2D6" with FAR FEWER miracle dice available (2/3 per Battle Round generally whereas they had 6+ before with all the tricks)

Nice change to sisters deny. nat 6 shuts off the power (or if you roll higher like normal)

 warmaster21 wrote:
Nice change to sisters deny. nat 6 shuts off the power (or if you roll higher like normal)

I'm quite sure they are not allowed anymore to use miracle dice on deny the witch. I'm not 100% sure, but I thought that I read it from somewhere.

Can't use MD on Deny and don't gain MD for denying or for rolling nat-1 on morale.

The Sacred Rite modifies SoF so that you auto-deny on a natural 5+, Pure of Will allows your warlord to deny twice a turn with +3 to the roll, and one of the custom conviction traits is +3 to your roll to deny with Shield of Faith.

What a trash book. Every time I look at it gets worse. Every time you think you've scraped the bottom of the barrel you realize you're not even halfway through the muck yet.

Like, you pretty much CAN'T run a single detachment. You can't make a shooty list because our shooting was never good and the hit to retributors and exorcists make it worse. so you need melee. For your melee units to be any use at all they have to be bloody rose. But you can't be pure bloody rose either because Retributors are your only shooting option and there's no way you can protect them well enough to leave them on the table. They HAVE to come in from a table edge or go into a rhino. If you do that with not-argent shroud retributors you're hitting on 4s, which is far too pillowfisted for 32 points per model.

You can't ally in anything to fix our doggak shooting because then we lose miracle dice for charges and can't do melee either.

It's a spin cycle of suck.

Battle Sanctum has been made even worse somehow. you have to have a unit performing a prayer action (end of movement phase to end of your turn, to get the +1 miracle dice. going to have to have the dogmata? babysit the unit if you want it to shoot, thereby making the entire process extremely expensive...

though on a positive note, our Grail Reliquae, i mean the Triumph of Saint Katherine gets character protection now, though the relics are changed, miracle dice 1/round instead of 1/turn.

also celestians can bodyguard alot more things now, and get +1 to hit when nearby instead of re-roll

definately seems like were getting massively less miracle dice overall for the army even if you go out of your way to take the things that generate miracle dice.

Imagifiers cant double up on prayers until 1 of each has been taken (like old wych drugs) -1ap prayer is gone, +1 strength is still there, re-roll advance/charge, new prayer is -1 to wound rolls from s3 (or less) weapons.

Most of the custom order traits are just weaker versions of traits of the main order traits, though there are a few decent ones.

Archo flagellents are now 2 hit rolls per attack instead of d3, and 1 can be upgraded to +1 strength and +1 attack

Hospitaler can no longer bring models back from the dead, has to use a 1cp strat to do it (brings back d3 infantry models though) its base heal is d3. there really isnt any targets for it to heal outside of infantry characters

Retributer heavy weapons ignore terrain, but no longer have ignore the move/fire penalty

Celestine's healing tears is now an action she has to perform if you want to bring a dead geminae back (or fully heal a wounded model including celestine!) (from end of command phase to end of shooting phase)

celestine also has -1d and 6" heroic intervention

there are so many weird changes in the codex im not sure what to think of it so far.

I'm deeply disappointed in this book. Everything that was first tier got nerfed (repentia made it out ok, rets got slammed); that's tolerable I guess.

But then they drilled down to second tier and pretty pointlessly smashed all of it. Zeph lost reroll wounds, seraph lost burning descent with metals, mortifiers lost 1/3rd of their melee output, Triumph got hit in multiple ways, Celestine isn't sufficiently smashy to be worth her points, priests feel cooler but are probably worse, Exos got nerfed. Immos got nerfed. Even the bloody rose smash cannoness doesn't really work because beneficence got neutered.

Like, almost the entire codex got nerfed and what got better? I guess some orders which no one used, but none of them were brought up to old bloody rose level. Dominions are better...okay? Were there lots of die hard dominion fans clamoring for improvements?

Nothing really got cooler in exchange. The priest shift is actually kinda fun but is also way worse. But like...would it have killed them to make one of the upgrades give a cannoness wings so everyone's desperate desire for a jump pack cannoness could appear?

 warmaster21 wrote:
Battle Sanctum has been made even worse somehow. you have to have a unit performing a prayer action (end of movement phase to end of your turn, to get the +1 miracle dice. going to have to have the dogmata? babysit the unit if you want it to shoot, thereby making the entire process extremely expensive...

though on a positive note, our Grail Reliquae, i mean the Triumph of Saint Katherine gets character protection now, though the relics are changed, miracle dice 1/round instead of 1/turn.

also celestians can bodyguard alot more things now, and get +1 to hit when nearby instead of re-roll

definately seems like were getting massively less miracle dice overall for the army even if you go out of your way to take the things that generate miracle dice.

Imagifiers cant double up on prayers until 1 of each has been taken (like old wych drugs) -1ap prayer is gone, +1 strength is still there, re-roll advance/charge, new prayer is -1 to wound rolls from s3 (or less) weapons.

Most of the custom order traits are just weaker versions of traits of the main order traits, though there are a few decent ones.

Archo flagellents are now 2 hit rolls per attack instead of d3, and 1 can be upgraded to +1 strength and +1 attack

Hospitaler can no longer bring models back from the dead, has to use a 1cp strat to do it (brings back d3 infantry models though) its base heal is d3. there really isnt any targets for it to heal outside of infantry characters

Retributer heavy weapons ignore terrain, but no longer have ignore the move/fire penalty

Celestine's healing tears is now an action she has to perform if you want to bring a dead geminae back (or fully heal a wounded model including celestine!) (from end of command phase to end of shooting phase)

celestine also has -1d and 6" heroic intervention

there are so many weird changes in the codex im not sure what to think of it so far.

Spoilers: It's not very good. Let's cover the negatives of what you've posted.

Sanctum is even worse than that. It has obscuring now which makes it a goddam liability but doesn't have any way to help make sure you actually get to deploy it. It also went up TWENTY FIVE points for no reason.

The Triumph didn't just get its miracle dice generation halved, it also lost it's simulacrum ability and its dialogus ability. They took a buffing unit, tried to make it a melee unit by giving it character protection, without ever noticing that the Triumph is fething terrible in melee. It also went up 30 points for no fething reason.

All the weird changes to Celestians equal out to them being worse. They don't shoot as well, they don't fight as well. And they were never good at those things anyway.

Only maybe 2 combinations of the custom traits are as good as AS, OOML, VH, or BR and those lock you out of Order relics and stratagems. And Junith for whatever that's worth.

The changes to Arcos and Hospitallers are fine. Woo.

Retributors also lost Storm of fire and their access to strong defensive buffs. Which means that our best 'long range' shooting unit can't start the game on the table, can't start the game off the table, can't come out of transport, and can't shoot over the neutral zone in most deployments. They also got limited to 1 cherub per turn. Which means you only get one cherub, they're still gonna die the moment they're in LoS. Also, getting ignores cover is fething riot because the majority of their shots has always been on vehicles.

Celestine lost +1 invul, lost the ability to give morties and penitent engines a 6++ AND her warlord trait got nerfed into the dirt. Her melee is much better, her survivability is much better, but that's really all she is. They finally made her as cool as she was in the index at the cost of taking away her frankly irreplaceable utility.

Not much more to say that hasn't already been said by the two posters above. I am really disapointed so far by the codex.

I don't understand why they have been so heavy handed on the retributors? Assuming they wanted to hit the retributor hard to make the tanks more appealing, why they had to make our battle tanks garbage tier (while they weren't exactly top1+++ tier). What the hell did they do to the Triumph, what is their idea of this unit, was-it under priced ? Last, what is the point to play baby melta seraphim without the range bump of deadly descent?

Add to these all the other little tweak : worse sacred rites (martyr being gakky now), worse miracle dices, worse priest (roll a 4+ to get your +1 attack aura), worse stratagems. Our secondaries are meh. Hell, correct me if I wrong but I can't even put an inquisition detachment in my list without losing my miracle dices? Isn't it a classif for SoB to collaborate with inquisition?

It's even more baffling regarding the power level of other 9th edition codex that went out since the begining of the year.

ERJAK wrote:

Eldenfirefly wrote:
I think you guys really need to not jump to conclusions so soon until you have seen the whole codex and also seen the army in action. I just watched a battle report online of the new Sisters vs the new Admech. It was a fight down to round 5 with both sides giving as good as they got. From that battle report, I didn't get the impression that the new Sisters were weak by any means. And in that battle report, the Sisters army wasn't even using the new models like those new gundams. You can also see the battle report online. Its by tabletop tactics and its on youtube.

I also saw that battle report and let me tell you, neither of those armies were examples of what those codexes are capable of. Those were fun and fluffy lists, played by people more interested in putting on a good show than winning (as they absolutely should, being youtubers) which makes for a really entertaining batrep and would make an awesome locals game, but isn't at all representative of how those armies play in a competitive environment.

I understand they aren't tourney players, outside of Lawrence. But that admech list didn't look terrible. It had a 20 man blob of vanguard, it had 3 units of 2 ironstriders. The breachers were great. Tanky, can fight, can shoot. And playing it as Mars was great, just about everything was rerolling almost all the time, which was amazing. What was so bad about that list? genuinely confused. And if the admech list was scary, while a fluffy sisters list gave it a good tight fight, then a tuned competitive sisters list should be even stronger.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Some of the stuff I saw in that video was pretty amazing. Like the ability to make the first miracle dice you roll turn automatically into a 6. That's like ... wow. The first d6 damage you get through is now an automatic 6.

Max shots on flamers, extend their range by 4 inch and something else (I can't remember). Like Immolators are so scary with that.

And Celestine is a boss too. When she rolls a 6 to wound, thats an automatic 2 mortal wounds. And she comes back to life with Full hp. Plus she reduces incoming damage by 1 like a dreadnaught. Like wow...she is tanky!

An exorcist tank was firing from obscuring terrain like it was a Manticore tank due to a strategem.

There was other stuff and they obviously couldn't show off everything, but what I saw looked pretty good.

Eldenfirefly wrote:

ERJAK wrote:

Eldenfirefly wrote:
I think you guys really need to not jump to conclusions so soon until you have seen the whole codex and also seen the army in action. I just watched a battle report online of the new Sisters vs the new Admech. It was a fight down to round 5 with both sides giving as good as they got. From that battle report, I didn't get the impression that the new Sisters were weak by any means. And in that battle report, the Sisters army wasn't even using the new models like those new gundams. You can also see the battle report online. Its by tabletop tactics and its on youtube.

I also saw that battle report and let me tell you, neither of those armies were examples of what those codexes are capable of. Those were fun and fluffy lists, played by people more interested in putting on a good show than winning (as they absolutely should, being youtubers) which makes for a really entertaining batrep and would make an awesome locals game, but isn't at all representative of how those armies play in a competitive environment.

I understand they aren't tourney players, outside of Lawrence. But that admech list didn't look terrible. It had a 20 man blob of vanguard, it had 3 units of 2 ironstriders. The breachers were great. Tanky, can fight, can shoot. And playing it as Mars was great, just about everything was rerolling almost all the time, which was amazing. What was so bad about that list? genuinely confused. And if the admech list was scary, while a fluffy sisters list gave it a good tight fight, then a tuned competitive sisters list should be even stronger.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Some of the stuff I saw in that video was pretty amazing. Like the ability to make the first miracle dice you roll turn automatically into a 6. That's like ... wow. The first d6 damage you get through is now an automatic 6.

Max shots on flamers, extend their range by 4 inch and something else (I can't remember). Like Immolators are so scary with that.

And Celestine is a boss too. When she rolls a 6 to wound, thats an automatic 2 mortal wounds. And she comes back to life with Full hp. Plus she reduces incoming damage by 1 like a dreadnaught. Like wow...she is tanky!

An exorcist tank was firing from obscuring terrain like it was a Manticore tank due to a strategem.

There was other stuff and they obviously couldn't show off everything, but what I saw looked pretty good.

Just as a note, Celestine does 2 MW for every 6 to hit according to Goons, not 6 to wound, which is a bit better. She also gets 6" heroic intervention and full heals herself every turn as an action (that starts in the command phase and ends in the shooting phase or something like that).

 ierp wrote:
Not much more to say that hasn't already been said by the two posters above. I am really disapointed so far by the codex.

I don't understand why they have been so heavy handed on the retributors? Assuming they wanted to hit the retributor hard to make the tanks more appealing, why they had to make our battle tanks garbage tier (while they weren't exactly top1+++ tier). What the hell did they do to the Triumph, what is their idea of this unit, was-it under priced ? Last, what is the point to play baby melta seraphim without the range bump of deadly descent?

Add to these all the other little tweak : worse sacred rites (martyr being gakky now), worse miracle dices, worse priest (roll a 4+ to get your +1 attack aura), worse stratagems. Our secondaries are meh. Hell, correct me if I wrong but I can't even put an inquisition detachment in my list without losing my miracle dices? Isn't it a classif for SoB to collaborate with inquisition?

It's even more baffling regarding the power level of other 9th edition codex that went out since the begining of the year.

IT'S 4+?!? WHY THE HELL IS IT A 4+? Had a heart attack, it's a 3+ Still bad, not THAT bad.

Audustum wrote:

Eldenfirefly wrote:

ERJAK wrote:

Eldenfirefly wrote:
I think you guys really need to not jump to conclusions so soon until you have seen the whole codex and also seen the army in action. I just watched a battle report online of the new Sisters vs the new Admech. It was a fight down to round 5 with both sides giving as good as they got. From that battle report, I didn't get the impression that the new Sisters were weak by any means. And in that battle report, the Sisters army wasn't even using the new models like those new gundams. You can also see the battle report online. Its by tabletop tactics and its on youtube.

I also saw that battle report and let me tell you, neither of those armies were examples of what those codexes are capable of. Those were fun and fluffy lists, played by people more interested in putting on a good show than winning (as they absolutely should, being youtubers) which makes for a really entertaining batrep and would make an awesome locals game, but isn't at all representative of how those armies play in a competitive environment.

I understand they aren't tourney players, outside of Lawrence. But that admech list didn't look terrible. It had a 20 man blob of vanguard, it had 3 units of 2 ironstriders. The breachers were great. Tanky, can fight, can shoot. And playing it as Mars was great, just about everything was rerolling almost all the time, which was amazing. What was so bad about that list? genuinely confused. And if the admech list was scary, while a fluffy sisters list gave it a good tight fight, then a tuned competitive sisters list should be even stronger.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Some of the stuff I saw in that video was pretty amazing. Like the ability to make the first miracle dice you roll turn automatically into a 6. That's like ... wow. The first d6 damage you get through is now an automatic 6.

Max shots on flamers, extend their range by 4 inch and something else (I can't remember). Like Immolators are so scary with that.

And Celestine is a boss too. When she rolls a 6 to wound, thats an automatic 2 mortal wounds. And she comes back to life with Full hp. Plus she reduces incoming damage by 1 like a dreadnaught. Like wow...she is tanky!

An exorcist tank was firing from obscuring terrain like it was a Manticore tank due to a strategem.

There was other stuff and they obviously couldn't show off everything, but what I saw looked pretty good.

Just as a note, Celestine does 2 MW for every 6 to hit according to Goons, not 6 to wound, which is a bit better. She also gets 6" heroic intervention and full heals herself every turn as an action (that starts in the command phase and ends in the shooting phase or something like that).

There are some armies that literally cannot handle Celestine. Especially if she can full heal every time she gets low on hp. Some armies will literally find her unkillable. I mean, you could use high damage anti tank to shoot her, but she still gets a 4++. Once she is in the thick of combat though, a lot of melee stuff are damage 2, or d3 damage. And those weapons will mostly end up doing 1 damage to her even if they get through her saves. And then if she runs low, she can heal up to full and still charge and fight after she does that. And if its a hit of 6 do 2 MW, then she is an absolute beast in combat too.

In that video, she singlehandedly took out a whole squad of 5 dragoons, which would have smashed through that flank unopposed if not for her. 5 Dragoons are absolute monsters in combat now, they have strategem to give themselves 5s to add two additional autohits. Its a ton of Str 8 hits that can kill tanks in one round. But Celestine killed the whole unit (not in one turn of course, but she did most of the damage over a few rounds of combat).

Relic wise mantle of ophelia reduing the damage characteristics of attacks assigned to the bearer to 1 is hilarious but its weird like half the relics are super defensive relics that we dont really need and like... 2 offensive relics (for the generic relics)

Its a real shame you cant stick wrath of the emperor on a seraphim superior, the only weapon id actual consider sticking on a sergeant, but no, its not on the list of relics we can give them.

Eldenfirefly wrote:

ERJAK wrote:

Eldenfirefly wrote:
I think you guys really need to not jump to conclusions so soon until you have seen the whole codex and also seen the army in action. I just watched a battle report online of the new Sisters vs the new Admech. It was a fight down to round 5 with both sides giving as good as they got. From that battle report, I didn't get the impression that the new Sisters were weak by any means. And in that battle report, the Sisters army wasn't even using the new models like those new gundams. You can also see the battle report online. Its by tabletop tactics and its on youtube.

I also saw that battle report and let me tell you, neither of those armies were examples of what those codexes are capable of. Those were fun and fluffy lists, played by people more interested in putting on a good show than winning (as they absolutely should, being youtubers) which makes for a really entertaining batrep and would make an awesome locals game, but isn't at all representative of how those armies play in a competitive environment.

I understand they aren't tourney players, outside of Lawrence. But that admech list didn't look terrible. It had a 20 man blob of vanguard, it had 3 units of 2 ironstriders. The breachers were great. Tanky, can fight, can shoot. And playing it as Mars was great, just about everything was rerolling almost all the time, which was amazing. What was so bad about that list? genuinely confused. And if the admech list was scary, while a fluffy sisters list gave it a good tight fight, then a tuned competitive sisters list should be even stronger.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Some of the stuff I saw in that video was pretty amazing. Like the ability to make the first miracle dice you roll turn automatically into a 6. That's like ... wow. The first d6 damage you get through is now an automatic 6.

Max shots on flamers, extend their range by 4 inch and something else (I can't remember). Like Immolators are so scary with that.

And Celestine is a boss too. When she rolls a 6 to wound, thats an automatic 2 mortal wounds. And she comes back to life with Full hp. Plus she reduces incoming damage by 1 like a dreadnaught. Like wow...she is tanky!

An exorcist tank was firing from obscuring terrain like it was a Manticore tank due to a strategem.

There was other stuff and they obviously couldn't show off everything, but what I saw looked pretty good.

We've always had that first MD of the game be a 6 option. It's now got a bit funkier with other things when you take it.

Max shots on any order's flamers is the only bright light in this book.

St C is a mixed bag of npe now, lets see how good that is

Exo traded down to a basilisk statline at 1.5 times the cost and eats 1cp just to attack.

It's sparkly turd

I just saw another battle report on tabletop titans where the sisters won against Drukhari. I mean, yes the Drukhari took a fluffy foreworld unit that cost 300 points, but the other 1700 points was the usual raiders, wyches deadly stuff. And its not like that 300 point unit just sat there and be a paper weight. But the sisters still won, and again, without any of the new fancy stuff like the vundams.

It seems like they aren't as lethal as Drukhari or Admech. Because Drukhari can aim to table you by turn 3 because they are so deadly once their turn 2 charges hit in. And Admech shooting is same, super deadly. But despite that, the sisters still seem to hold up fine against both admech and Drukhari, and these two are widely seen as top tier within 9th ed codexes. Its 9th edition. You just need to get more VP than the other side to win. You don't need to table your opponent in order to win.

Bridger (the guy playing drukhari) had never played the army before and is very bad with armies like that. He played horrifically and even admits that. The other guy is an experienced SoB player.

Goonhammer's review seems pretty fair. Some nerfs they really weren't happy with, bafflement at the damage done to the Retributors and Seraphim, frustration over Vahl (for being too good points wise) and at the new tanks (for being really underwhelming).

But their overall impression is that it's a solid tier 2/low tier 1 codex with much better internal balance and no meta-defining units, probably occupying the same rough place in the meta they did before. It's tough to see after two broken factions, one almost unplayably complex and the other in need of immediate nerfs - overall, though, it's probably a good thing. I'd much rather see codexes hovering around the SM benchmark instead of warping the meta with every release, and a good internal balance makes it easy to adjust meta viability through points tweaks and FAQs.

It's clear GW "likes" the Sisters of Battle right now; I'd be surprised if they weren't a viable tournament army once the dust settles.

Idk what Goonhammer liked other than Vahl though...

Lammia wrote:
Idk what Goonhammer liked other than Vahl though...

They felt that Sacresants were quite good too. I actually am kinda amazed at how high the bar has gone up. Sacresants are 14 points for a model that is a 2+/4++ save by default. As a CSM player, I pay 14 points for a basic CSM marine that has a 3+ save and no invul. The only thing the CSM marine is better at is 1 point of toughness ? 14 points for a model that has that kind of save seem pretty wild to me... Feel free to tell me different of course. But in practise, you can only get that kind of protection by going the terminators route, and terminators are far more expensive per model than Sacresants. Heck, my chaos terminators are still only have 2+/5++ while being more expensive per model and the only way to get that to a 2+/4++ is if I bring a 90 point sorceror to cast a psychic power that can fail or be dispelled. And both has to be mark of Tzeenth for that to work too.

Putting Vahl with a big block of these and just marching both up the center sounds good. If they want to shoot dark lances at a 4++ model that only costs 14 points base, that's fine. And whatever the Sacresants can't kill in close combat, I am pretty sure Vahl can handle with ease.

I'm a little salty that my literally just-painted Inferno Pistol Seraphim are now shelf fodder. Literally just finished that unit prior to reading the Goonhammer review. Honestly Seraphim of all varieties are probably looking a little sad right now. Dominions are likely the new Fast Attack staple what with being able to take 4 meltas and a combi-flamer and use Holy Trinity, or take 4 of the new-and-improved Storm Bolters and use Blessed Bolts, not to mention the fact that they can scoot up a Rhino that also has Sacresants in it.

Sisters, on the whole, are going to be just fine, I think. Maybe kind of sad that Morvenn Vahl is pretty much mandatory in competitive lists; there's absolutely no reason not to take her. At least her model is kick-ass.

Overall, I agree with what Goonhammer had to say; there is good internal balance among the subfactions which will lead to a great variety of competitive lists. It's not like before where everyone was running Bloody Rose or Valorous Heart or some combination of the two. The custom orders might be pretty sweet as well; I look forward to trying some of those out and/or seeing what the top players come up with out of there. I'm not as good at spotting the big wombo-combos as some people seem to be, but I'm sure they'll be found pretty quick.