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 Blackie wrote:

yukishiro1 wrote:

 Blackie wrote:


But it's not true, in fact it's a (massive) bonus even for VH. It's not worse than before, it's better since the reduction of AP now also works on AP-3 or better. And they got re-rolling wounds in addiction.

Are you missing the bit where it doesn't work on Sacresants? Because that's the only way your comment makes sense.

Why? Just because AP-1 and AP-2 weapons are now more effective against VH sacrestans? What about the rest of the army?

The rest of the army is irrelevant. At least as far as reducing AP goes. Sacresancts were the only 'tough' unit Sisters had. We tend to be mostly glass cannons (or just glass) otherwise.

Think about it this way: You need to get to the other side of a huge river, you have a leaky paddle boat, a rusty bicycle, and 2006 Hyundai Tuscon with a hole in the radiator. Now imagine someone came along and said 'you know what, let me help' and they upgraded your bicycle to a Moped and your 2006 Hyundai Tuscon to a 2012 Dodge Ram, but in doing so, took away your paddle boat.

Technically, in a pure dollar value standpoint, you're better off. The moped and the truck are a significant improvement. But without the paddle boat, you're not getting across that river anymore.

That's what happened here. Technically, the army as a whole is better. In reality, Sacresanct were, and are, Sister's of battle's only real method of contesting the mid-board. The paddleboat, in this analogy. So with them, goes the whole army, competitively.

There are ways that this can be mitigated, Junith grants cover and novitiates greater numbers alongside actually receiving the AoC benefit might be enough to make up for the ground sacresancts lost, but it'll at best net out to about the same. When it was supposed to be a buff.


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 Blackie wrote:

Karol wrote:

If you played SoB post the dual detachment nerf, you were playing VH.

And now many other orders are viable. If you were playing with tons of melee units, switch to Bloody Rose. Sacrestans would be a little less tough against a selected array of weapons (AP-1 and AP-2) but they would gain more punch.

Which they could have ALWAYS done. But didn't, because people realized immediately that the AP reductions was massively more valuable than the BR punch.

I think some people have a different definition of what viable means. Playing bloody rose vs Custodes, Tau or Eldar or the new tyranids? Why would you even come to the store to play such a game. There are limits to how unfun a game can be for the regular player. you play 3-4 games like that one week, then another next week, and after a month of playing SoB, which you painted and saved up to buy, are something you just don't want to use. And with each next codex you want to use them less and less.

Karol wrote:
I think some people have a different definition of what viable means. Playing bloody rose vs Custodes, Tau or Eldar or the new tyranids? Why would you even come to the store to play such a game. There are limits to how unfun a game can be for the regular player. you play 3-4 games like that one week, then another next week, and after a month of playing SoB, which you painted and saved up to buy, are something you just don't want to use. And with each next codex you want to use them less and less.

This was the jist of it. Bloody Rose actually did okay-ish into Custodes but the Tau matchup was so brutally one-sided that anything not VH could get tabled without killing a full unit.

I guess you could ask the custodes player to field a melee SoS army or the tau player to play his majority kroot list. Maybe ask for him to take 200-300pts less too.

Karol wrote:

 techsoldaten wrote:
Or start playing Crusade / Open Play. These rules only apply to matched play, it's not like there's only one way to play.

Yes, right after buying that flat to play games of w40k with your friends. Saying don't play match play makes as much sense as telling someone in 9th to just play 1000pts games.

Makes as much sense as complaining Bloody Rose didn't get buffed.

 techsoldaten wrote:

Karol wrote:

 techsoldaten wrote:
Or start playing Crusade / Open Play. These rules only apply to matched play, it's not like there's only one way to play.

Yes, right after buying that flat to play games of w40k with your friends. Saying don't play match play makes as much sense as telling someone in 9th to just play 1000pts games.

Makes as much sense as complaining Bloody Rose didn't get buffed.

While I'll stay out of the crusade/not crusade bit; EVERY sisters list needed a buff. They weren't as down-bad as Guard were but they ARE falling off with no help in sight. Bloody Rose isn't good. Our Martyrd lady isn't good, even Valorous Heart isn't good. The best of the best of Sisters builds were hovering in the 45% winrate space.

With strong buffs to marines and mild nerfs to Tau and Harlequins (Sisters actually do okay into custodes compared to the other two), it's entirely possible that percentage was going to dip down into the 40-42% range with no changes. WITH these changes, I can see us ending up anywhere from that same 45%, all the way down to the high 30s. I don't see those numbers getting any better though.

lol, I disagree It is a buff to sisters, Paragons, Seraphs, Zephs, Mortis, BSS, tanks, basically everything not doing well all got better.

Who cares that you auto include units didn't get buffed, the balance slate is to buff things you don't take. Sacs didn't need to be maxed and spammed, they already were good enough. heck they were good enough without VH.

Karol wrote:
How is losing sacrosanct and not gaining anything in return to be considered a "massive" buff?

they didnt lose sacrosants....

 Amishprn86 wrote:
lol, I disagree It is a buff to sisters, Paragons, Seraphs, Zephs, Mortis, BSS, tanks, basically everything not doing well all got better.

Who cares that you auto include units didn't get buffed, the balance slate is to buff things you don't take. Sacs didn't need to be maxed and spammed, they already were good enough. heck they were good enough without VH.

The second sentence is just factually untrue. The only Sisters lists that have had significant success since LVO have been 30 sac lists. They absolutely did need to be spammed. VH was also the only order conviction that was seeing significant success, so they also were not good enough without VH. The w/l stats back all that up.

If the best stuff gets nerfed and the worst stuff gets buffed, whether or not the army improves is entirely dependent on if the worst units got buffed enough to be better than best stuff USED to be.

I personally don't think the buffs to Paragons, Seraphim, Zephyrim, Mortifiers, BSS, or tanks were particularly relevant. I think the nerf to Sacresants was majorly relevant.

It's entirely possible I'm wrong, but I won't know until tournament results have had time to stabilize.


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 VladimirHerzog wrote:

Karol wrote:
How is losing sacrosanct and not gaining anything in return to be considered a "massive" buff?

they didnt lose sacrosants....

I mean...VH kinda did lose sacresants. The major draw VH had was that they'd allow Sacresants to weather AP-1 and AP-2 shots much more effectively. Now VH...doesn't do that, so there's no real reason to take that conviction at all. Plenty of armies don't even HAVE wound rerolls.

Honestly, an Order Minoris Chapter of 'reduces AP-1 to AP0' and '+1AP in melee' is probably stronger than current VH despite only Sacresants being able to benefit from half the conviction, it only working on AP-1 attacks, and losing the VH stratagem, warlord Trait, and Relic.

ERJAK wrote:


Which they could have ALWAYS done. But didn't, because people realized immediately that the AP reductions was massively more valuable than the BR punch.

And now BR lists get both. Also much more powerful AP reductions. Orders other than VH are extremely better now.

Overall sisters are much stronger. And sacrestans aren't much worse thanks to the dataslate. So yeah, I believe sisters got a massive buff this time and I definitely don't think that without 30 sacrestans they can't compete.

I actually don't think it's going to be too long before people are complaining about how difficult it is to kill power armour, marines included.

 kingheff wrote:
I actually don't think it's going to be too long before people are complaining about how difficult it is to kill power armour, marines included.

Which probably is how it should be...

... but there were probably better ways to reduce the AP in the game than to give about half the factions a buff and ignore the other half.

 kingheff wrote:
I actually don't think it's going to be too long before people are complaining about how difficult it is to kill power armour, marines included.

Especially marines. They were already demanding buffs to their weapons' APs .

"Heavy bolter is now inefficient in killing elites? But it's what is supposed to do. Make it flat AP-2 NOW!!!"

 Blackie wrote:

 kingheff wrote:
I actually don't think it's going to be too long before people are complaining about how difficult it is to kill power armour, marines included.

Especially marines. They were already demanding buffs to their weapons' APs .

"Heavy bolter is now inefficient in killing elites? But it's what is supposed to do. Make it flat AP-2 NOW!!!"

Wait until they take a few dozen mortals from nids, maybe gw can patch in an ignore mortals rule for power armour factions too.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 kingheff wrote:
I actually don't think it's going to be too long before people are complaining about how difficult it is to kill power armour, marines included.

Which probably is how it should be...

... but there were probably better ways to reduce the AP in the game than to give about half the factions a buff and ignore the other half.

That's the problem with GW randomly handing out AP-1 and AP-2. You can't expect to reasonably want to pay for the basic Intercessor or Tactical Marine at that price.

And now we got this dumbass dataslate. Just throw out everything and start over if you ask me.

Karol wrote:
No they aren't. As mr Erjack said all the other side builds still run Sacrosancts. It does not matter which order is picked, the builds will be weaker and ,as I said before, SoBs were already having big troubles with all the new armies coming out. Their good match ups was marines, but marines were getting worse and worse too, and now they got better, so even their good match up just got harder.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 techsoldaten wrote:


Or start playing Crusade / Open Play. These rules only apply to matched play, it's not like there's only one way to play.

Yes, right after buying that flat to play games of w40k with your friends. Saying don't play match play makes as much sense as telling someone in 9th to just play 1000pts games.

Odd, later today I've got a Crusade game scheduled at the local shop.....
They provide the tables & terrain, we players decide what games/versions of games to play on them. In this case, a Crusade match.

Doesn't your shop support you like this?

 Blackie wrote:

ERJAK wrote:


Which they could have ALWAYS done. But didn't, because people realized immediately that the AP reductions was massively more valuable than the BR punch.

And now BR lists get both. Also much more powerful AP reductions. Orders other than VH are extremely better now.

Overall sisters are much stronger. And sacrestans aren't much worse thanks to the dataslate. So yeah, I believe sisters got a massive buff this time and I definitely don't think that without 30 sacrestans they can't compete.

What unit do you see as being meaningfully stronger?

I'm genuinely curious, because one of the issues I'm having with this change is that I can't get out of the mindset of 'sacresants are so good, everything else is so crap, what does this change?'

I do tend to...fixate with things like this so it's entirely possible I missed something.


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 kingheff wrote:

 Blackie wrote:

 kingheff wrote:
I actually don't think it's going to be too long before people are complaining about how difficult it is to kill power armour, marines included.

Especially marines. They were already demanding buffs to their weapons' APs .

"Heavy bolter is now inefficient in killing elites? But it's what is supposed to do. Make it flat AP-2 NOW!!!"

Wait until they take a few dozen mortals from nids, maybe gw can patch in an ignore mortals rule for power armour factions too.

Sisters already have that. It's one of the few things we're good at.

I'm just gonna bookmark this thread.

I'm interested to see how the hottest of takes ages.

Uh... Valorous Heart got like... good.

Considering most of the Sisters armory for vehicles rely on armor and Miracle Dice to deflect wounds... reducing AP of anything Plasma and below now is not without value. I'd much rather have 5+ against massed -3AP shots than the 6+ I previously had as VH.

Additionally, I think the downplaying of shutting of re-rolls to wound is a bit disingenuous.

How many times do heavy tank obliterating weapons roll a 1 or a 2 and is quickly saved by a CP re-roll? That's gone. Doom a problem in your meta? That's gone. SM Lieutenant auras are pretty popular, too. NOPE vs VH. Enjoy your 5-6PL coaster. Heck, even lightning claws from warp talons (hear that's a fun trick to push through wounds from things like Night Lords)... yeah, that's all gone, too. Heck, even Morven Vhal is on the list of things that'd make angry faces at Valorous Heart, and that's a Sororitas unit.

Like re-rolling hits is a massive buff and pretty much a mainstay across a lot of codices, but re-rolling wounds is typically seen as a more powerful buff... and uh... Valorous Heart now gives 0 forks about them.

Pretty sure crying salt over VH getting 'nerfed' won't age well.

Also:

Sacresanct is not a Sister in Terminator Armor. It is a Power Armored sister with a Storm Shield - same for ALL stormshields. How quickly we forget the +1 save that got rolled into Stormshields pretty much game wide at the start of 9th. So, yeah, Stormshields still enjoy a better buff than Armored with Contempt (+1 save > reducing AP by 1).

Quasistellar wrote:
I'm just gonna bookmark this thread.

I'm interested to see how the hottest of takes ages.

Well I'm still waiting for those 4 Hammerhead lists to wreck the meta.

ERJAK wrote:


What unit do you see as being meaningfully stronger?

I'm genuinely curious, because one of the issues I'm having with this change is that I can't get out of the mindset of 'sacresants are so good, everything else is so crap, what does this change?'

It isn't a unit that has improved; it is every non-VH sororitas units.

Every Bloody Rose unit in the game kept every rule it ever had, but now they also have part of what Valorous Heart used to have all to themselves.

Same is true of Agent Shroud or Ebon Chalice or OoOML.

It is true that VH are not as good as they were- the rule that replaced their AP reduction is a very poor substitute. It's also true that no bodyguard unit is as good as it was before; I hate the fact that the fact that previous rules allowed bodyguards to confer protection against targets from which they are hidden- but I would have preferred that GW find another way to fix the problem- bodyguard units don't really "feel" different than anyone else in the army- they can't do anything special, they just get to do a thing that everyone can do in less than ideal circumstances. Bodyguard is now just "Look Out Sir" that is slightly more flexible for some units.

So yes, VH got nerfed, and yes, Sacressants got nerfed. Everything else got buffed, which means there is a net gain for Sisters as a whole.

The only way to come to terms with the changes is to rebuild armies from scratch under the new rules. You never looked for synergies with - 1 AP in a Bloody Rose list, because you've never had a reason to do so. I'm curious about the impact on OoOML; the AP reduction isn't so powerful that it's going to prevent squads from getting a Martyrdom power up, but once they ARE powered up, it might be powerful enough to help you make that Martyrdom count by keeping survivors in the game longer.

Siegler: Sororitas, Space Marines, and Thousand Sons are the biggest winners here. In particular Varlous Heart, Salamanders, and Scarab Occult Terminators received massive boosts to their durability with the former taking on board the Armour of Contempt changes with an updated trait of “no rerolls to wound!” Wow! That is now one of the best traits you can have in the entire game, especially against other recent books where re-roll wound abilities are prevalent.

https://www.goonhammer.com/the-april-2022-40k-balance-dataslate-competitive-roundtable/

Purifying Tempest wrote:
Uh... Valorous Heart got like... good.

Considering most of the Sisters armory for vehicles rely on armor and Miracle Dice to deflect wounds... reducing AP of anything Plasma and below now is not without value. I'd much rather have 5+ against massed -3AP shots than the 6+ I previously had as VH.

Additionally, I think the downplaying of shutting of re-rolls to wound is a bit disingenuous.

How many times do heavy tank obliterating weapons roll a 1 or a 2 and is quickly saved by a CP re-roll? That's gone. Doom a problem in your meta? That's gone. SM Lieutenant auras are pretty popular, too. NOPE vs VH. Enjoy your 5-6PL coaster. Heck, even lightning claws from warp talons (hear that's a fun trick to push through wounds from things like Night Lords)... yeah, that's all gone, too. Heck, even Morven Vhal is on the list of things that'd make angry faces at Valorous Heart, and that's a Sororitas unit.

Like re-rolling hits is a massive buff and pretty much a mainstay across a lot of codices, but re-rolling wounds is typically seen as a more powerful buff... and uh... Valorous Heart now gives 0 forks about them.

Pretty sure crying salt over VH getting 'nerfed' won't age well.

Also:

Sacresanct is not a Sister in Terminator Armor. It is a Power Armored sister with a Storm Shield - same for ALL stormshields. How quickly we forget the +1 save that got rolled into Stormshields pretty much game wide at the start of 9th. So, yeah, Stormshields still enjoy a better buff than Armored with Contempt (+1 save > reducing AP by 1).

My counter argument to the first point would be that none of this matters if no one takes any of the tanks. The Exorcist was essentially eliminated from contention by the indirect fire change and it's 9th ed book nerfs and The Castigator's durability is only one of its many problems.

The immolator is better but it's still extremely expensive for what it does. The primary beneficiaries are the Rhino and the Paragon Warsuit. Buffing a Rhino is always nice but the jury is honestly still out on Paragon Warsuits. They could finally have been dragged over the line of viability.

About the CP reroll, I almost never see the wound roll rerolled. People normally wait until the damage roll to spend CP. Doom isn't a problem because we're T3 and arguably the best anti-psychic army in the game. Being able to ignore lieutenant rerolls and things like Deathwatch and Lightning claws is nice, but those are very specific and no one was struggling to wound us in the first place.

Ignoring reroll to wounds is situational, ignoring a point of AP was universal. Regardless of the overall efficacy of the army post AoC, I'll doubt you'll see Valorous Heart see anywhere near the amount of representation just on the basis of the offensive increases from BR and OoML being more valuable than a much more situational surviveability increase.

The last bit was more about them both being a 2+ save.


I'd rather be wrong, but I haven't seen anything that convinces me that AoC builds are better than VHS30 was. Or that we didn't lose ground to space marines, even as we gained ground on Eldar and Tau.



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Dudeface wrote:

Siegler: Sororitas, Space Marines, and Thousand Sons are the biggest winners here. In particular Varlous Heart, Salamanders, and Scarab Occult Terminators received massive boosts to their durability with the former taking on board the Armour of Contempt changes with an updated trait of “no rerolls to wound!” Wow! That is now one of the best traits you can have in the entire game, especially against other recent books where re-roll wound abilities are prevalent.

https://www.goonhammer.com/the-april-2022-40k-balance-dataslate-competitive-roundtable/

That is exactly as anecdotal as what I have said, yes. Just with less explanation behind it.

ERJAK wrote:

Ignoring reroll to wounds is situational, ignoring a point of AP was universal.

Maybe you're not a native english speaker, but I don't think that means what you think that means.

PenitentJake wrote:

ERJAK wrote:


What unit do you see as being meaningfully stronger?

I'm genuinely curious, because one of the issues I'm having with this change is that I can't get out of the mindset of 'sacresants are so good, everything else is so crap, what does this change?'

It isn't a unit that has improved; it is every non-VH sororitas units.

Every Bloody Rose unit in the game kept every rule it ever had, but now they also have part of what Valorous Heart used to have all to themselves.

Same is true of Agent Shroud or Ebon Chalice or OoOML.

It is true that VH are not as good as they were- the rule that replaced their AP reduction is a very poor substitute. It's also true that no bodyguard unit is as good as it was before; I hate the fact that the fact that previous rules allowed bodyguards to confer protection against targets from which they are hidden- but I would have preferred that GW find another way to fix the problem- bodyguard units don't really "feel" different than anyone else in the army- they can't do anything special, they just get to do a thing that everyone can do in less than ideal circumstances. Bodyguard is now just "Look Out Sir" that is slightly more flexible for some units.

So yes, VH got nerfed, and yes, Sacressants got nerfed. Everything else got buffed, which means there is a net gain for Sisters as a whole.

The only way to come to terms with the changes is to rebuild armies from scratch under the new rules. You never looked for synergies with - 1 AP in a Bloody Rose list, because you've never had a reason to do so. I'm curious about the impact on OoOML; the AP reduction isn't so powerful that it's going to prevent squads from getting a Martyrdom power up, but once they ARE powered up, it might be powerful enough to help you make that Martyrdom count by keeping survivors in the game longer.

Repentia and Sacresants don't get AoC. The 2 good Bloody Rose units.

This sentence "So yes, VH got nerfed, and yes, Sacressants got nerfed. Everything else got buffed, which means there is a net gain for Sisters as a whole." Is where my entire argument comes in.

I do not believe that is true at all. If you nerf the best units and buff the worst units, the army as a whole ONLY gets better if the combined value of the nerfs is LESS than the combined value of the buffs. And that's in a vacuum.

If you extend that out to external balance, a buff is only a buff if the value of your buff is greater than or equal to the overall average buffs of factions also changed during that time period. (There's more factors, such as gatekeeper matchups, but that's the general rule)

The general consensus among everybody BUT me is that the value of the buffs is greater than the value of the nerfs and the consensus among everyone BUT me is that the buffs to Space Marines do not represent a meaningful depreciation of ability, especially in the face of TauStodesClown nerfs.

I understand I'm alone in this, I still don't think I'm wrong. I believe that the change is a slight nerf or, at best, a net 0 change.

There are extenuating factors. While I have, in fact, looked for BR synergies with ignoring 1AP (old tale of the stoic) novitiates weren't around back then are numerous enough that, even with only a 4+, the change in resilience could push them into being highly competitive. Problem is, they lose the BR AP bonus against 2/3rds of the factions in the game now. You also have a BSS tax for them. Still, possible option.

OoML is more interesting. Junith's Cover aura has immense synergy with AoC, as does the OoML trait and suite of stratagems. The problem is that OoML is relatively anemic offensively and didn't necessarily gain enough resilience vs. other armies to play the board control game.

If either one of these Convictions sees more benefit from AoC than I'm projecting, they would certainly prove me wrong. And I'm sure many people on this site can't wait to rub it in my face.


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Quasistellar wrote:

ERJAK wrote:

Ignoring reroll to wounds is situational, ignoring a point of AP was universal.

Maybe you're not a native english speaker, but I don't think that means what you think that means.

It means, not every army even HAS reroll to wounds(excluding CP rerolls) and even the ones that DO don't always bring it. But EVERY army has SOMETHING they bring that's got at least 1 point of AP.



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Dudeface wrote:

Quasistellar wrote:
I'm just gonna bookmark this thread.

I'm interested to see how the hottest of takes ages.

Well I'm still waiting for those 4 Hammerhead lists to wreck the meta.

I absolutely could be wrong. Wouldn't be the first time, as I'm sure many people on here are super happy to point out.

The easy answer was 'aw yeah NUMBERS!!!!' but I didn't see it that way.

If nothing else, I'll take pride in knowing I've made several 'I told you so!!!!-ers' very happy.

Nerf for Valorous Heart, but a buff for any other order.

I am an Argent Shroud lady and I am super happy with the new Armour of Contempt.

 Eldarsif wrote:
Nerf for Valorous Heart, but a buff for any other order.

I am an Argent Shroud lady and I am super happy with the new Armour of Contempt.

Argent shroud are definitely massively improved. They used...basically 0 sacresants and almost everything they field got a resilience boost, so they have more AoC bodies than the other subfactions ever really field.

Not sure where they end up, considering how bad the FAQ rulings on remain stationary and the Retributor nerfs hit them, but they're absolutely a big winner in this change.

 VladimirHerzog wrote:

 bullyboy wrote:
But honestly, I don't care about your 30 Sacresants. Spamming units really needs to die. A list should have about 10 tops, and should contain more battle sisters.
GW might need to do more to make this viable, but stopping things like 30 sacresants being the default is a good result.

This: stop crying that the only CURRENTLY good unit didnt get buffed, instead start looking at the CURRENTLY bad units that got buffed

Looking at the bad units that got slightly buffed, straight up just shows that they're still bad XD...
Hell i'm not even convinced that ERJAK is correct about it being an overall nerf, but it is at the very best a relatively small buff and is by absolutely no means enough.

And if GW wants that people take more different kinds of Battle Sisters they should make those good, instead of making the few good non-character units in the army worse.

 Amishprn86 wrote:
lol, I disagree It is a buff to sisters, Paragons, Seraphs, Zephs, Mortis, BSS, tanks, basically everything not doing well all got better.

Who cares that you auto include units didn't get buffed, the balance slate is to buff things you don't take. Sacs didn't need to be maxed and spammed, they already were good enough. heck they were good enough without VH.

Nobody will take any of the formerly bad(and lol at mentioning tanks, the best but still not good tank even got nerfed) but not mandatory units, cause they're still bad and in fact still worse than the Sacrosancts. So if we really go by that measurement, congratulations GW just failed hard...


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Dudeface wrote:

Siegler: Sororitas, Space Marines, and Thousand Sons are the biggest winners here. In particular Varlous Heart, Salamanders, and Scarab Occult Terminators received massive boosts to their durability with the former taking on board the Armour of Contempt changes with an updated trait of “no rerolls to wound!” Wow! That is now one of the best traits you can have in the entire game, especially against other recent books where re-roll wound abilities are prevalent.

https://www.goonhammer.com/the-april-2022-40k-balance-dataslate-competitive-roundtable/

Wtf is Siegler on about? Going by all what he claimed there Sisters would be pretty much the new Meta, which is not just a hot but an utterly absurd take, except he saw some crazy interactions that just a player of his lvl can recognize.

As an additional WTF from goonhammer:

Lennon had this to say: "...The Exorcist, Castigator and Rhinos should all continue to be staples. I may even be tempted to paint some Paragons…"

Say whatever you want about my take on the AoC change for Sisters, at least it comes from THIS reality.

The only thing the Castigator has been the staple of is the bargain bin. True story, at adepticon, one of the vendors had a 30% off NO SALES TAX sale on the last day. Every single Sisters of Battle unit was gone almost instantly. They had multiple Castigators left by the time they packed up.

I actually think we should compare Zephyrim to Sacresants now. Zephyrim are 17 ppm compared to Sacresants 16ppm. I personally think Zephyrim are finally better for their points now that Bodyguard has been effectively neutered. They get +1 attack, +6" of movement, can fly, and can take a pennant to allow themselves and units close to them to reroll charges. The things Sacresants have over are better strength (with the halberds) or D2 (with the maces, but you lose AP for that), and a 2+ save that becomes a 3+ if there's any AP on the shot (which evens it out with Zephyrim who have a 3+ that reduces AP of weapons by 1), and probably most importantly the 4++ (compared to Zephys' 5++). The other consideration is which FOC slot they take. Sacresants are Elites and so there are more slots for them in a Battalion, but now that Dominions are less good our FA slots are more open, leaving plenty of room for Zephys. Neither unit has ObSec or anything (although both can get it from a Dogmata), so that's a wash. And both units can have the same number of bodies. Zephyrim also have the option to "deep strike", and can have their 5++ boosted to a 4++ in a couple of different ways: the Indomitable Belief warlord trait, and the hymn (can't remember the name off the top of my head).

Personally I think Zephyrim might be one good way forward. Paragons are also worth a look now, and honestly sticking with Sacresants isn't necessarily a mistake, although spamming them probably is.