Need advice on hobby direction... to Sister or not to Sister

[jacqualine47]

I'm absolutely in love with the Sisters fluff and style... they were my first army and I've been working on a repaint (I really need to get around to posting more pictures in my WIP thread), but I stalled out on it because I got a bit despondent about the lack of options and getting my tush whooped (I mean flat out ROFL-STOMPED) every single game against my spouse's Eldar, my friend's IG, and my other friend's Death Guard.

 

So I thought about just having my Sisters use the Space Marine codex so that I'd have more toys to play with - but doing that in sixth would have either have severe limits from the Allied FoC or it would deny the use of cool fluffy Sisters units like Seraphim and the Exorcist if I just went full-marine on the rules.  Then I had the 'brilliant' idea to kitbash/sculpt my own female space marines and make another army that could be kinda-sorta like Sisters but could use the Space Marine codex...

 

 

I did a lot of work and spent more than I should have collecting parts and working on that project, but it just didn't feel right with me for some reason... and I figured out that it was because I really wanted the robes and religious vibe.

 

Then 7th Edition came out followed by rumors of new models (I know, we've heard it so many times that they're hard to even consider)... but more importantly Battle Brothers being changed up along with the unlocking of the FOC.  So now it is perfectly feasible to mix and match Sisters and Space Marine units - even doing Battle Forged lists... and I can stuff Repentia into Land Raiders or Storm Eagles etc etc.

 

So that gave me a few ideas:

 

1: I can forget the fem-marines and just do Sisters, and bring in 'Space Marine' codex units by making a Biker Canoness (Captain on bike), biker sisters for troops (SM bike squads), and whatever SM vehicles I want done up in OoOML colors and iconography.  This however would require me to kitbash/custom sculpt a multipart kit and therefore has the drawback that it will be a LOT of wasted effort if by the time I finish GW releases new plastic models.

 

2: I can just do the fem-marines, but make them a bit Sistersy with the same paint scheme and lots of religious-type stuff.  I'm torn on whether I'd want to use the Fleur or make up a different 'chapter' symbol for them.  I also noted that pre-heresy Word Bearers could fit the bill rather nicely since they're all about the religous worship-the-emperor stuff and have a lot in-common with Sisters - even colors.  The question here is what to put on the fem-marine's shoulder-pads.  I could make my own symbol, use the pre-heresy word-bearers symbol, or just use the Fleur and OoOML symbol and come up with fluff to justify the Sister-Marines with marine-style armor (I was thinking something along the lines of them being a form of the religious super-soldier Replicae from Red and Black to whom the Mechanicum returned free will and gave to the OoOML to soothe over the political trouble caused by the actions of the 'rogue magos' in Hammer and Anvil).  The way those Replicae are described, I think that it would totally justify the Strength and Toughness 4... and as for the Canoness - plenty of humans are as tough as a Marine captain, just look at Iron Hand Straken or Commissar Chuck Norr... I mean Yarrick.

 

3: I can hedge my bets and do the fem-marines as straight-up marines, but magnetize all the doors/iconography so that I can swap them out for fleurs and OoOML symbols at any time in the future should I want... this would add a lot of work and limit my use of my beloved decal sheets though.

 

4: I can just shelf everything until Sisters get an update and work on my Imperial Guard.

 

Any thoughts or suggestions?  I've been flip-flopping on this a lot - I just can't make up my mind and unfortunately need to make a decision before I can really work on anything further.  Regardless of what choice I make I'm pretty confident in my Fluff-fu being enough to justify any of it.

 

Thanks everyone!

 

PS

Please don't derail my thread by starting a debate on why Fem-marines shouldn't exist.  I know all the arguments, have counters, etc, but the bottom line is that I don't care for this thread to turn into that sort of argument rather than simple advice on whether to Sister or not to Sister - so if you are mortally offended by the idea of the existence of fem-marines then just either don't post or post to suggest I take one of the other options and leave it at that without going into the whole 'no girl marines evaaar' schtick.  Thanks!

[Disciple of Caliban Sgt]

It seems to me you like the sisters "vibe" more than anything. With the way 7th seems to be (I don't have the rulebook yet) I would say go with all Sisters add in the space marine stuff to taste and enjoy your army. I personally would enjoy playing an army like that especially if you have a story behind why they are borrowing each unit i.e. Land Raiders etc. People who are going to have a problem playing against that type of army are probably not going to be a lot of fun to play against anyway honestly. unless there is a mass confusion over what units are armed with what then it can be annoying but overall I would say go with it as Battleforged but don't spam the OP units and you should be fine. You may of course have issues playing against the people who say I'm bringing Battleforged and drop down 9 Riptides.

 

Just my thoughts.

DoC

[Thoqqu]

All that you listed are battle brothers, make couple of different kind of lists with them and focus on the one that seems most appealing and go from there.

 

Be it repentia charging out landraiders or marines supported by am artillery or some ragtag officer leading hundreds of conscripts in frontlines to distract enemies from the sneaky workings of a kill team...

[MoreMelta]

Can we see more pictures like this!? Awesome. I think they are awesome battle brothers in 7th. I think it would be great to run them together. What percentage of your stuff is metal and what percentage are these color marine conversions? The canoness biker is a fantastic idea. I have been scouting Khan bikers with grav and dominions together and your army would look awesome doing that. Do you really like the churchy religious style? I run an entire Sisters army that are the DE wytches converted with Marine back packs and arms. They look both toughness three and more "we can fight" versus we are stepping on our big religious outfits". You could run your space marine women (awesome conversions) as your SM and then take DE wytches converted as you more modern Sisters of battle chapter? It's easy to tell the difference in the tough three and tough four by their size.

[Eddie Orlock]

Might depend on just how long you think you're going to want to be able to use this army. I suspect your most stable rules configuration would be your third option, 'Dex Marines standing alone. Allies rules have a long history of mutability for Gee Dub, and not always to increasing flexibility.

 

If you plan to complete the project expeditiously, and only harbour expectations of using them without significant modification in the current edition, than your own counsel is your best counsel. They're your figures, little that we can say here will make you enjoy them more or less than your pursuit of the themes you're enamoured with.

 

I might suggest that some options in the Legion list may be able to more closely reflect the typified Sororita combat doctrines.

 

The yellow figure appears to be modelled in the process of falling away from the viewer, you might consider a more aggressive pose in future works.

[Fibonacci]

Jacquie, I have seen the work you have done and you are light years beyond what I could even imagine, much less accomplish.  I feel like a McDonalds burger flipper giving Bobby Flay advice on how to grill.  But if I were in your shoes, I would go with option 1 because I am reasonably confident that your kit bash and custom sculpts will be on par or better than what GW might release in the future.

[thade]

Your sculpt work there is really quite stellar; no matter what else you do, I encourage you to put those models into combat haha. I don't see any reason why your Sisters couldn't have different tactics/better gear/whatever and use the SM codex instead of their own. Just a handshake away from a fun game with some well presented and tailored conversions.

[jacqualine47]

Thanks everyone for the kind words :)

 

Right now I'm still pretty torn on what to do - I unfortunately work at a glacial pace (that whole 2 jobs plus owning/running a business thing pretty much means that lately I'm lucky to get an hour or two of hobby-time a week) so somehow I just know that if I put in the effort to put together my own SoB multipart kit then the day after I finish it the GW plastics will appear from thin air LOL.

 

I'm leaning towards doing the fem-marines - I just need to decide whether I want them to use sisters-esque iconography, keep them as a completely separate army, or magnetize all the vehicles' iconography so that they can hot-swap between being Sisters or Marine vehicles.

[Eddie Orlock]

I'm leaning towards doing the fem-marines - I just need to decide whether I want them to use sisters-esque iconography, keep them as a completely separate army, or magnetize all the vehicles' iconography so that they can hot-swap between being Sisters or Marine vehicles.

I almost never bother with 'hot swap' gear. By the time I've installed all the magnets, acquired all the second copied of the key parts, and made jigs to make the fits precise enough, I tend to find it'd have been considerably faster to just build a second kit. Sounds like you've enough time consuming income streams that the marginal savings from swappable kits would be worth the lost time. Naturally, this leads to just using separate iconography.

 

This does have the feel of a retread project though, so be careful to steer clear of the hazards of earlier passes so things don't wind up flat.