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I'm pretty immediately tired of all of this 'internal balance' and 'adjust playstyles' nonsense. Sisters were pretty much in a perfect spot; they could place in tournies and get wins every now and then. Their win ratio wasn't insane, they weren't oppressive or impossible to beat, they weren't trivial/skilless to pilot.

This was a bad move. They didn't bring other orders up to compete with BR/VH, they brought both of them down significantly.

Rets and repentia were extremely powerful; but when has any codex with top tier potential not had 1-2 extremely powerful units? Like, that is kind of required to be a top level army.

But beyond them, they nerfed almost every good-maybe-makes-it-into-a-list unit. Triumph, zeraphym, seraphim, exos, immolaters, mortifiers. Imigifiers. Heck, pretty solid argument for priests/missionaries ultimately being a nerf though at least they got more interesting. Plus the entire miracle dice mechanic?

And almost nothing really got cooler or more interesting either. Sure some of the orders are a bit better, but BR still feels mandatory to make melee work and everyone else is just competing for which is the least bad for shooting. But no interesting new mechanics, new spins, no dark horse models suddenly getting to shine. You're not going to play with a new feel; you're going to play the exact same general way with fewer and worse tools for the job.

I mean, maybe the whole horde blob sisters will have some play? But no one has explained to me how they're supposed to survive a real melee unit crashing into them. 10 wyches will demolish them and every blast weapon in the game will love to shoot into them.

It doesn't fix any sisters problems either. Perhaps, I dunno, a second or third troops choice? Like, would it have been so bad to makes celestians and/or sacrosancts troops? Make the elite buff characters take up fewer slots like every other new army? Maybe made one of the cannoness upgrades flying and 12 inch move?

The more I look at it the more it feels bad. They brought everything in the codex down a peg and called it internal balance. Sure; everything is balanced if everything is mediocre.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:
I want to say Retributors were changed because of the smaller board size, but then Argent Shroud lets them run and shoot, so maybe they were nerfed so people would remember the Exorcist exists?

Then why did they also nerf the Exorcist? And make the Immolators so damned expensive for that matter.

I think that GW sees the Retributors and goes "Well, they're a Sisters Dev Squad, so we'll treat them as such!", forgetting that one of their weapons is a 12" ranged weapon, and another of their weapons has an effective range of 12". They're not Devs/Havocs by any stretch. They don't have the durability of either, or the range. And I don't think the enhanced lethality of the Multi-Melta in 9th is a good excuse, because if it's better, then you make it more expensive. You don't change the base rules for the entire unit because one weapon is better. But then again, using a pile-driver when a scalpel will do is GW's MO when it comes to rules. Gross overbalancing seems to be the only way they do things.

Oh... it just occurred to me. I guess that means Havocs might end up losing Move & Shoot. Cool.

It was pointed out that Retributors likely lost it because of the melta buff, but then again Argent Shroud says "hold my beer".

My guess is they looked at the Exorcist and felt it should be more like a Whirlwind, but honestly that's one of the ones I don't get either. Like I said, some of the changes make sense if you think about them, but I won't claim every change does.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Mmmpi wrote:
Which sucks. It takes away a big chunk of the army's flavor, needlessly nerfs the ONLY troop choice, and I'll stop there while I'm still being polite.

It only nerfs the MSU build. Honestly I've always liked my BSS at 10 because it was a good balance of extra wounds to protect key weapons for more than a turn. Now that 20 doubles your weapon options (2 special and 2 heavy -or- 4 special weapons) I think the horde unit finally has something going for it beyond taking 16 bodies to protect your weapons, Superior and Simulacrum. Then again I'd probably only run that in OML with a lot of support characters.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

drakerocket wrote:
I'm pretty immediately tired of all of this 'internal balance' and 'adjust playstyles' nonsense. Sisters were pretty much in a perfect spot; they could place in tournies and get wins every now and then. Their win ratio wasn't insane, they weren't oppressive or impossible to beat, they weren't trivial/skilless to pilot.

This was a bad move. They didn't bring other orders up to compete with BR/VH, they brought both of them down significantly.

Rets and repentia were extremely powerful; but when has any codex with top tier potential not had 1-2 extremely powerful units? Like, that is kind of required to be a top level army.

But beyond them, they nerfed almost every good-maybe-makes-it-into-a-list unit. Triumph, zeraphym, seraphim, exos, immolaters, mortifiers. Imigifiers. Heck, pretty solid argument for priests/missionaries ultimately being a nerf though at least they got more interesting. Plus the entire miracle dice mechanic?

And almost nothing really got cooler or more interesting either. Sure some of the orders are a bit better, but BR still feels mandatory to make melee work and everyone else is just competing for which is the least bad for shooting. But no interesting new mechanics, new spins, no dark horse models suddenly getting to shine. You're not going to play with a new feel; you're going to play the exact same general way with fewer and worse tools for the job.

I mean, maybe the whole horde blob sisters will have some play? But no one has explained to me how they're supposed to survive a real melee unit crashing into them. 10 wyches will demolish them and every blast weapon in the game will love to shoot into them.

It doesn't fix any sisters problems either. Perhaps, I dunno, a second or third troops choice? Like, would it have been so bad to makes celestians and/or sacrosancts troops? Make the elite buff characters take up fewer slots like every other new army? Maybe made one of the cannoness upgrades flying and 12 inch move?

The more I look at it the more it feels bad. They brought everything in the codex down a peg and called it internal balance. Sure; everything is balanced if everything is mediocre.

When the only book above them in terms of power is pre-nerf Drukhari it's clear that they should have come down. I get it that people are feeling a bit sore that their combos were broken and they need to sit down and adjust their armies if they play competitively but that is literally something that happens for every army whenever an army is updated.

As for troops, I feel like making Arco flagellants troops who can't perform actions (could also not give them Obsec since they're too worried about running into battle to die) would have been interesting. It'd at least fit well with the Ministorum and wouldn't take away from the Sisters as a whole.

 ClockworkZion wrote:

 Mmmpi wrote:
Which sucks. It takes away a big chunk of the army's flavor, needlessly nerfs the ONLY troop choice, and I'll stop there while I'm still being polite.

It only nerfs the MSU build. Honestly I've always liked my BSS at 10 because it was a good balance of extra wounds to protect key weapons for more than a turn. Now that 20 doubles your weapon options (2 special and 2 heavy -or- 4 special weapons) I think the horde unit finally has something going for it beyond taking 16 bodies to protect your weapons, Superior and Simulacrum. Then again I'd probably only run that in OML with a lot of support characters.

I should point out that 4 special/heavy weapons in twenty is still less than the current codex gets in four units of five. That's not including a combi weapon on the sargents either, which drops it from 4/8 to 5/12. Less than half the amount.

And while you took 10 girl squads, that's not what the majority of players were doing. If they made it so it was 5=2, 10=3, and 20=4, sure. The didn't do that. Besides, it's a horde unit that is just going to die to massed blasts, so it's not like most of that firepower is going to see much use anyway.

drakerocket wrote:


And almost nothing really got cooler or more interesting either. Sure some of the orders are a bit better, but BR still feels mandatory to make melee work and everyone else is just competing for which is the least bad for shooting. But no interesting new mechanics, new spins, no dark horse models suddenly getting to shine. You're not going to play with a new feel; you're going to play the exact same general way with fewer and worse tools for the job.

I think this is the biggest disappointment. There's nothing that really screams out to be tried. When the previous codex dropped, I was pretty excited to try out everything. Now it's like...I mean, there's new stuff and old stuff but the existing stuff is objectively worse or less interesting. No one wants a new codex that can be described as "the same but worse."

All the youtubers who seem to have gotten advanced copies look like they're tip-toeing around the codex and grasping at straws on what to play. Contrast that with the Drukhari codex where they were all "look at all this cool stuff!"

Yep. I like that it doesn't seem to be ridiculously over the top the way the last two releases were in terms of power, but the book does seems like it was written by someone who didn't really love the faction but was rather just going through the motions - or even, in places, by someone with a positive chip on their shoulder about the faction. Most of the cool unique parts of the army got nerfs, and none of the new stuff is particularly interesting or, well, new. Prayers - never seen those before! Upgrades you pay points for that give you one effect base and then a second effect once per game - hmm, that sounds familiar, but I just can't put my finger on whe...ohhh.

For that matter, Vahl is the perfect example of a design team that clearly didn't know how to make an interesting new special character with unique, compelling rules so they instead just opted for a character that does everything generically well. Paragon suits feel like another example of the "hey, we made this thing, give it some rules" syndrome. The tank is quite literally just a reskinned predator, both in looks and rules. Sacrestans are probably the only thing in the new model releases that actually feel like they fill a gap.

We've seen this a lot in AOS recently re: books that don't seem to be written with the same love and attention as other books (e.x. Slaanesh, Gravelords vs say LRL) but not in 40k, which is a bit worrying.

Not in 40k?
Have you missed csm dexes from 4-8th?

 kurhanik wrote:
So the Combat Patrol box is literally just the monopose sisters + a Rhino? Damn, that is weak, you'd think at least they'd throw in full kits. Been waiting a year and a half to see what the Start Collecting/Combat Patrol would be and this is just sad.

Well there#s no official word on sister cp. People　use codex page as proof but marine/necron page didn't match.

Albeit odds are good. But expecting cp and those would be optimistic and those are coming one way or other

Not Online!!! wrote:
Not in 40k?
Have you missed csm dexes from 4-8th?

Or the Sisters of Battle from 5th through 7th?

 ClockworkZion wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:
Not in 40k?
Have you missed csm dexes from 4-8th?

Or the Sisters of Battle from 5th through 7th?

Orks in 7th? And don't even get the Tyranids players started.....

 ClockworkZion wrote:
It was pointed out that Retributors likely lost it because of the melta buff...

And, like I said, that's stupid. If something is better, you make its cost reflect its worth, or your make its worth reflect its cost. Instead, GW nerfed the overall unit, affecting their other options in a detrimental fashion. That's piss poor game design.

 ClockworkZion wrote:
My guess is they looked at the Exorcist and felt it should be more like a Whirlwind, but honestly that's one of the ones I don't get either. Like I said, some of the changes make sense if you think about them, but I won't claim every change does.

It just proves that, as people have been saying for years, GW plays a different form of 40K to the rest of us. If they thought that "Let's make it a Whirlwind!" was a great idea without realising that no one really takes them, and that they also put the cost of Whirlwinds up recently, then they have no right designing rules.

Zephyrm are interesting. The wound re-roll loss is sad, but since Power Swords are +1 strength that changed a lot of their math anyway. Assuming T4 target, 4+ to wound is only a few percentage points worse than re-rolling 5's. However, they gained an attack base- I think this makes them deadlier on the whole, and the change to their unique strat to being +1 to wound means they are viable in more orders than before. They do come out slightly behind on T5 and T8 targets. Still *best* in a BR, but with changes to BR you don't feel as awkward justifying them in others. They are also one point less.

They were below admech and DE. Arguably below DG. Now they got worse. Likely now below DG, necrons and probably DA.

Why would anyone feel good about that? What units everyone wished were good are now suddenly awesome? No one cared about dominions and there really were probably not many obsessed Argent shroud players.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:
It was pointed out that Retributors likely lost it because of the melta buff...

And, like I said, that's stupid. If something is better, you make its cost reflect its worth, or your make its worth reflect its cost. Instead, GW nerfed the overall unit, affecting their other options in a detrimental fashion. That's piss poor game design.

I pointed out that with Argent Shroud around it's not like it really did anything to balance them if that was the reason.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:
My guess is they looked at the Exorcist and felt it should be more like a Whirlwind, but honestly that's one of the ones I don't get either. Like I said, some of the changes make sense if you think about them, but I won't claim every change does.

It just proves that, as people have been saying for years, GW plays a different form of 40K to the rest of us. If they thought that "Let's make it a Whirlwind!" was a great idea without realising that no one really takes them, and that they also put the cost of Whirlwinds up recently, then they have no right designing rules.

GW has a long history of top down design. Everything they do seems to be based on how the model looks and the lore they wrote about the models and not much else. I don't hate it because they do try to dial the rules into "feeling" right for the unit, but the actual track record is real hit or miss on the balance side of things.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

drakerocket wrote:
They were below admech and DE. Arguably below DG. Now they got worse. Likely now below DG, necrons and probably DA.

Why would anyone feel good about that? What units everyone wished were good are now suddenly awesome? No one cared about dominions and there really were probably not many obsessed Argent shroud players.

So I knew no one who was talking about how great Ad Mech was prior to their 9th ed codex. Like the cav units were popular but I wasn't hearing any real buzz about them. DG were definitely seeing some love from people as they got a handle on the new book though. Still a good chunk below Drukhari, but above C:SM.

And Dominions were a long time favorite of Sisters players. Just because they were bad in one codex and not popular with newer players doesn't mean people don't like them. And why are you taking shots at Argent Shroud? It did nothing wrong.

I think giving Mortifiers 2 Ministorum Heavy Flamers and using Cleansed By Fire will be pretty good. 48 automatic S6 AP-1 hits sound good.

yukishiro1 wrote:
The tank is quite literally just a reskinned predator, both in looks and rules.

I must have missed predators having a battle canon. Is that a forge world varient?
I mean sure it's a rhino hull with a turret strapped on, but honestly my gut reaction to it is that it's more a "bastard child" of a predator and a lemen russ.

BrianDavion wrote:

yukishiro1 wrote:
The tank is quite literally just a reskinned predator, both in looks and rules.

I must have missed predators having a battle canon. Is that a forge world varient?
I mean sure it's a rhino hull with a turret strapped on, but honestly my gut reaction to it is that it's more a "bastard child" of a predator and a lemen russ.

So what are the stats on that battle cannon? Goonhammer didn't give specifics.

 Gadzilla666 wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:

yukishiro1 wrote:
The tank is quite literally just a reskinned predator, both in looks and rules.

I must have missed predators having a battle canon. Is that a forge world varient?
I mean sure it's a rhino hull with a turret strapped on, but honestly my gut reaction to it is that it's more a "bastard child" of a predator and a lemen russ.

So what are the stats on that battle cannon? Goonhammer didn't give specifics.

I mean I would assume it was the standard battle canon, given the preview said battlecanon not "castigator battle canon" or something.

sadly the one preview I've seen that talks about it doesn't give me a very good look at the stats if anyone wants to zoom in on this video https://youtu.be/4IxMj7Cti_Y?t=4743 and try to get some data on it's weapons that'd be nice (ya know assuming it's possiable)

even if GWs missed a few things I gotta say it's nice to start getting NEW tools in the SOB tool kit.

BrianDavion wrote:

 Gadzilla666 wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:

yukishiro1 wrote:
The tank is quite literally just a reskinned predator, both in looks and rules.

I must have missed predators having a battle canon. Is that a forge world varient?
I mean sure it's a rhino hull with a turret strapped on, but honestly my gut reaction to it is that it's more a "bastard child" of a predator and a lemen russ.

So what are the stats on that battle cannon? Goonhammer didn't give specifics.

I mean I would assume it was the standard battle canon, given the preview said battlecanon not "castigator battle canon" or something.

sadly the one preview I've seen that talks about it doesn't give me a very good look at the stats if anyone wants to zoom in on this video https://youtu.be/4IxMj7Cti_Y?t=4743 and try to get some data on it's weapons that'd be nice (ya know assuming it's possiable)

even if GWs missed a few things I gotta say it's nice to start getting NEW tools in the SOB tool kit.

Goonhammer said the battle cannon had an "eye catching stat line". That doesn't sound like the Battle Cannon stat line on a Leman Russ. Unfortunately I can't make anything out of those videos either.

Moreover, don't forget that's a 2CP stratagem and you now can't streamline the number of shot with the said stratagem, you can't streamline your rolls without core... That's a lot of conditions to make it work. Also, can't use the HB and the HKM without LOS. No, it'has definitely became garbage tier.

Ok, from B&C, so not 100% sure about veracity: Castigator Battle Cannon, two profiles, both range 72 first: Heavy D6, S9, AP-3, D3, Blast. Second profile: Heavy 3d3, S6, AP-1, D1, ignore cover.

Wonder if thats what Leman Russes will be getting.

 Gadzilla666 wrote:
Ok, from B&C, so not 100% sure about veracity: Castigator Battle Cannon, two profiles, both range 72 first: Heavy D6, S9, AP-3, D3, Blast. Second profile: Heavy 3d3, S6, AP-1, D1, ignore cover.

Wonder if thats what Leman Russes will be getting.

Wait, the second profile doesn’t have blast?
What, some kind of flechette round? No, wait, SoB; it’ll be a canister of blessed promethium. Interesting anyway.

Second profile has blast. Other than that, the previous post's stats looks correct.

Pity they didn't just go all in on it being a 72 inch flamer.

I don’t play sisters, but this codex seems a bit troubling.

It feels like they have an early 8th edition Marines vibe. AKA: guilleman auras busted, rest of army mediocre, forced to build everything around guilleman until he’s nerfed, then your army sucks.

Replace Guilleman with Morven Vahl

This was one of my concerns. I've been slowly building sisters, but have not got round to them in my painting queue. I liked the old codex, and from what I gathered elsewhere, it was a good book and didn't need to be replaced this soon. I know that releases are dictated by models, but I can see why some people are salty. My only saving grace (seems appropriate) is that I didn't get to play with the old codex so have no preconceptions of how it should play or what I want to play.
I originally wanted to run Sacred Rose, but it seemed pretty poor in early 9th compared to others, maybe I'll give it a look now.
I do hope that this is more of a case of a total sidegrade and players will have to change how they once viewed the codex, rather than an across the board nerf.
We'll see.

Quasistellar wrote:
I don’t play sisters, but this codex seems a bit troubling.

It feels like they have an early 8th edition Marines vibe. AKA: guilleman auras busted, rest of army mediocre, forced to build everything around guilleman until he’s nerfed, then your army sucks.

Replace Guilleman with Morven Vahl

The aura ability for her is honestly kind of meh. A palantine and a canoness can do the same aura for 175pts cheaper. She also doesn't really have anyone to hang out with. If she tries to buff rets and BSS squads she doesn't get to use any of her melee abilities, if she tries to buff zephyrim and sacrosancts she'll be all alone by the time she reaches her target. If she tries to buff Paragons, Paragons are bad.

She's mostly just 265 points you can't feth up. It's not like girlyman where he used to give full rerolls to hit AND wound so units were 90% more effective standing next to him then they were in any other capacity.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

ShaneMarsh wrote:
Zephyrm are interesting. The wound re-roll loss is sad, but since Power Swords are +1 strength that changed a lot of their math anyway. Assuming T4 target, 4+ to wound is only a few percentage points worse than re-rolling 5's. However, they gained an attack base- I think this makes them deadlier on the whole, and the change to their unique strat to being +1 to wound means they are viable in more orders than before. They do come out slightly behind on T5 and T8 targets. Still *best* in a BR, but with changes to BR you don't feel as awkward justifying them in others. They are also one point less.

Don't 'think' they'll be deadlier, just do the math. It's not reading tea leaves.

BR Zephyrim vs T4

Old: 3*.667*.75= 1.5 New: 4*.667*.5= 1.33 12% worse for equal toughness

BR Zephyrim vs T3

Old 3*.667*.89= 1.78 New 4*.667*.667= 1.78 Equal for lower toughness

BR Zephyrim vs T5-T7

Old 3*.667*.555= 1.11 New 4*.667*.333= .888 20% worse for higher toughness.

You'll never take them in non-bloody rose lists. Their overpriced stratagem won't change that, especially considering that even with it they do less damage than they do with JUST bloody rose.

Like every other <order> melee unit, you take bloody rose or you don't take that unit.

 Gadzilla666 wrote:
Ok, from B&C, so not 100% sure about veracity: Castigator Battle Cannon, two profiles, both range 72 first: Heavy D6, S9, AP-3, D3, Blast. Second profile: Heavy 3d3, S6, AP-1, D1, ignore cover.

Wonder if thats what Leman Russes will be getting.

From Mob Rule's codex coverage:


Honestly the best I could find and even then I had to make the screenshot bigger.

Are the autocannons 4d3 shots? (it isn't quite readable)
Honestly, just make it heavy 8 and stop wasting time.

Other than AP on the solid shot, the battlecannon looks really dubious.

 Gadzilla666 wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:
Not in 40k?
Have you missed csm dexes from 4-8th?

Or the Sisters of Battle from 5th through 7th?

Orks in 7th? And don't even get the Tyranids players started.....

Did y'all miss the "recently" in my statement?

Those zeraphym numbers are a bit better than I thought. Given they dropped 8% in cost, it's probably close to a wash (since their cost includes other things like their bodies and mobility).