The future of Sisters

[BitsHammer]

Anyone whose only understanding of the Sisters is from Daemonfuge might make that mistake since the Thrice-Borne is a psyker in everything but name.

 

She's a nice lady though and I don't hate her for being a xenos allying witch. :P

[Servant of Dante]

*Sees the Heresy...*

 

No. Just no.

Yeah, that might actualy be the point where I say "screw it" and give up on Warhammer. I'm not sure if I could take it.

 

Oh, who am I kidding, I don't think there's anything that will stop me from playing this game. And besides, GW doesn't hate us THAT much, right?

[BitsHammer]

GW -could- make the AoF work like psychic powers with a rule that they can't be denied and don't suffer perils...

 

"Faith Charges".

[Teetengee]

Immunity to perils + a line saying that it is just rules expediency would keep me happy. Denial being allowed would be fine by me, as it could just represent the foul witch testing your faith.

[BitsHammer]

Foul witches get stitches.

[Goonbandito]

Since I have this window open . . .

 

Pulled this from a comment on a miniwargaming video on youtube.

 

"I'd love to see Acts of Faith turned into a psychic discipline, sisters need a lot of updating to make them worth using (and for the love of the emperor give us plastic models already)."

 

Of course, we all want plastics, but holy Emperor on Terra, the very thought of making AoFs PSYCHIC POWERS?!? Immediate Exterminatus!

I actually love the idea of Acts of Faith essentially being Psychic Powers - I mean if the Chaos Gods are powered by the collective faith in them, and they can grant psychic boons to their followers, couldn't it stand to reason that belief in the God-Emperor could do the same?  The idea of faith in the God-Emperor being fundamentally linked to The Warp, especially when the Sisters themselves so fervently oppose any presence of the Warp/Psykers, makes for that great hypocritical ignorance that makes the Imperium the grimdark setting we all love.

[Servant of Dante]

 

Since I have this window open . . .

 

Pulled this from a comment on a miniwargaming video on youtube.

 

"I'd love to see Acts of Faith turned into a psychic discipline, sisters need a lot of updating to make them worth using (and for the love of the emperor give us plastic models already)."

 

Of course, we all want plastics, but holy Emperor on Terra, the very thought of making AoFs PSYCHIC POWERS?!? Immediate Exterminatus!

I actually love the idea of Acts of Faith essentially being Psychic Powers - I mean if the Chaos Gods are powered by the collective faith in them, and they can grant psychic boons to their followers, couldn't it stand to reason that belief in the God-Emperor could do the same?  The idea of faith in the God-Emperor being fundamentally linked to The Warp, especially when the Sisters themselves so fervently oppose any presence of the Warp/Psykers, makes for that great hypocritical ignorance that makes the Imperium the grimdark setting we all love.

 

But I love being a part of the ignorance, so I am strongly against gameplay that forces me to acknowledge it. And, I don't think it's as similar as you say it is. The chaos gods' influence is very different from that of the Emperor. I don't think that psychic acts of faith would be fluffy. They would not be (IMO).

 

The Emperor's influence is mostly subtle. There are exceptions of course (Celestine).

 

Mostly, SoB hate witches, so I don't want to use the psychic phase for AoFs

 

In closing, I refer you to this comment:

 

*Sees the Heresy...*

 

No. Just no.

[GogglesDown]

I would like to be able to generate extra faith points to deny the witch. Adamantium will just isn't enough for me.

[Knight of the Raven]

Weren't Sisters of Battle immune to psychic powers at some point? That could work.

[BitsHammer]

Weren't Sisters of Battle immune to psychic powers at some point? That could work.

Minor psychic powers and force weapons lost the force rule against them.

 

And as for the not wanting AoF to work like psychic powers, we've already had that when they were leadership tests to use. There was even a note saying that despite working like psychic powers they didn't count as actually being psychic powers.

[Servant of Dante]

 

Weren't Sisters of Battle immune to psychic powers at some point? That could work.

Minor psychic powers and force weapons lost the force rule against them.

 

And as for the not wanting AoF to work like psychic powers, we've already had that when they were leadership tests to use. There was even a note saying that despite working like psychic powers they didn't count as actually being psychic powers.

 

But now there's a psychic phase, and it really emotes the randomness of the warp I think. So I'd rather stay away from it. What, will units randomly generate AoFs before the game?

[BitsHammer]

No random rolling (see 90% of C:GK for a way to do thay eith assigned options like we have now) but having a pool of charges brings us closer to the superior C:WH setup. Plus the option to use more or less dice to activate an Act of Faith would be nice for when you need a particular unit to be EXTRA FAITHFUL.

 

And it just crossed mind but 5tb ed's WD Codex was the test bed for how warp charges work. Pool of dice and Acts of Faith activated on a 5+. Sound familiar?

[Brother Sefiel]

Greetings

 

 

Weren't Sisters of Battle immune to psychic powers at some point? That could work.

Minor psychic powers and force weapons lost the force rule against them.

And as for the not wanting AoF to work like psychic powers, we've already had that when they were leadership tests to use. There was even a note saying that despite working like psychic powers they didn't count as actually being psychic powers.

 

But now there's a psychic phase, and it really emotes the randomness of the warp I think. So I'd rather stay away from it. What, will units randomly generate AoFs before the game?

 

Just change the name to "Special Effects Phase" or something similar, and have everyone use their unique powers then no matter how they are actually generated.

[BitsHammer]

"Special Effects Stage" would allow Noise Marines to use pyrotechnics before they used their weapons (+1 to awesome) to rock out.

[Servant of Dante]

No random rolling (see 90% of C:GK for a way to do thay eith assigned options like we have now) but having a pool of charges brings us closer to the superior C:WH setup. Plus the option to use more or less dice to activate an Act of Faith would be nice for when you need a particular unit to be EXTRA FAITHFUL.

 

And it just crossed mind but 5tb ed's WD Codex was the test bed for how warp charges work. Pool of dice and Acts of Faith activated on a 5+. Sound familiar?

Fine. Fine. Fine. I guess I could live with it. Maybe a simulacrum could allow you to reroll faith dice.

 

Oh, and I'll definitely be happy if I get to call them faith dice.

[BitsHammer]

Faith Charges. :P

[Servant of Dante]

Faith Charges.

But if they're faith dice, i ca buy Black and Gold d6s to use . . . probably can do that anyway . . .

But charges sounds a little too much like witchcraft

[Interrogator-Chaplain Ezra]

A potential hitch is that by turning them into psychic powers we open them up to being nullified (clearly those cultists had more faith!). We might even see some armies steal our Faith to power their own denial of it, or even steal our Acts to use for themselves.

 

By all means, use a similar mechanic. But don't actually make them Psychic powers, usable only in the Psychic phase. Hell, bring back the Sacred Rites of 2nd edition, that'd be far better. Roll a D6, add a bonus for certain characters, -1 of there are any psykers in the army. The result tells you what you get in terms of benefits, from Fearless to something like the 30K Fury of the Legion. Or perhaps better, use the mechanics from the WD Codex (spend one point from a pool before the unit acts in that phase, roll a D6, add a bonus for certain things, if the result is 5 or more, you succeed), but make it scale with the size of the army (say, 1 point for each squad/vehicle, 2 for each HQ, that sort of thing). There are so many better ways of doing it.

 

One thing that puts me adamantly against making Acts psychic powers from a fluff point of view, even just as a game mechanic, is the blurring of lines between withcraft and faith. It also messes with the whole "no psykers" bit. The argument that Acts once were very similar to Psychic powers doesn't really matter: at one point there weren't even Acts, so if we're going to bring up the past, why not just drop Acts (and perhaps hand out USRs as replacements)?

[BitsHammer]

We where psychic powers all in but name before, had the rules for psychic powers before 6th edition rolled out with them and frankly I wouldn't mind if we had them again (as I've said).

 

That said Interrogator-Chaplain Ezra has a nice idea about the similiar mechanics but Inquisitors shouldn't trigger the negative as clearly they aren't heretical witches using their foul powers and aren't at all at risk of becoming daemonhosts (which really should be a perils option in my mind since that's one of the most common concerns of what can happen to a unshielded psyker, you lose your psyker and instead you have a neuteral daemonhost creature that always chases the nearest unit (starting with the one that spawned it).

 

And the line should be blurry. It lets people fluff it as Corpse God cultists, or true miracles without forcing one viewpoint or another. That blurring is what fits 40k the most and should stay as a feature instead of treating it like a bug.

 

As for USRs I'm still waiting for Militant Traits to be handed out so we can better represent the 6 major orders (and their minor order offshoots). Then again I feel every army needs their own variant of Chapter Tactics to represent different varieties of armies better. Marines shouldn't be the only ones getting the free flavoring on the side afterall.

[ValourousHeart]

The problem that I have with each of the Faith systems and even the Rites of Battle is that we don't seem to be that skilled just merely lucky.

 

In the fluff we are supposed to be highly trained AND our faith is so devout that it manifest itself in tangible ways.

 

But in game play our "highly trained" aspect gets rolled into our "faith" aspect with the result being that we get random access to a veteran skill once or twice a game.

Where other armies with "highly trained" units get veteran skills all game long AND access to what ever army wide special rules they have.

 

Once we separate those 2 aspects from one another the possibilities for what effect Faith could have become limitless.

It could be some cute minor buffs we might get every turn or it could be a full on miracle that might not happen every game, but will make our opponents worry when it does.

Kinda like Chaos being able to turn a bunch of guys into deamon princes.... it isn't going to happen often... but what a game when it does.

 

I don't know how to make it work, but I am sure it is possible.

The question of when during the turn we make our Faith dice rolls, is entirely dependent upon the mechanic used.

[BitsHammer]

The problem that I have with each of the Faith systems and even the Rites of Battle is that we don't seem to be that skilled just merely lucky.

 

In the fluff we are supposed to be highly trained AND our faith is so devout that it manifest itself in tangible ways.

 

But in game play our "highly trained" aspect gets rolled into our "faith" aspect with the result being that we get random access to a veteran skill once or twice a game.

Where other armies with "highly trained" units get veteran skills all game long AND access to what ever army wide special rules they have.

 

Once we separate those 2 aspects from one another the possibilities for what effect Faith could have become limitless.

It could be some cute minor buffs we might get every turn or it could be a full on miracle that might not happen every game, but will make our opponents worry when it does.

Kinda like Chaos being able to turn a bunch of guys into deamon princes.... it isn't going to happen often... but what a game when it does.

 

I don't know how to make it work, but I am sure it is possible.

The question of when during the turn we make our Faith dice rolls, is entirely dependent upon the mechanic used.

 

Agreed, Sisters are supposed to have the best tactical training available in the entire Imperium (or did under Vandire and I imagine it was passed down much like how Marines pass their training down) and that doesn't get enough visability on the table at all.

 

And perhaps a Martyrdom table then? Roll d66 and the result causes all sorts of effects (unit/model comes back from the dead, another unit gets a buff, ect)?

 

Faith definitely has a lot of potential for interesting and fluffy mechanics but sadly none of that gets used for that instead it's "we decided to act like the well trained elite troops we are this turn".

[Servant of Dante]

True.

 

Not that this is enough, but a normal human having BS4 (and sometimes WS4) is rather impressive. Sisters are all as good at shooting as space marines (OK, in fluff, probably not quite, but on the tabletop).

 

So what you're suggesting is something like the veteran skills from chaos 3E, as well as AoFs? Sounds fun. Or maybe you're more referring to something like ATSKNF and Chapter Tactics, that really highlights the training and style of the army. I think army-wide stubborn makes sense, but again, that might be infringing on the faith side of things.

 

For faith, I love shield of faith. It's one of my absolute favorite special rules. Personally, I don't like the idea of AoFs only really going off once every few games, but that's just me. Maybe if not every UNIT gets their benefit to work . . .

 

In order to differentiate between training and faith, I would think we need to be careful about what benefits the AoFs give. For example, I like the retributors act, the rending is really useful, but maybe making it something a little more spashy would help solidify that it is more than mere training could accomplish. Depending on how difficult AoFs are to get off, maybe something like twin-linked, rending, and shred. Does that feel more like what you are looking for? I'm not sure.

 

We could go back to using the Faithful (X) special rule for generating faith points each turn, if we are going the psychic-phase-not-psychic route. I know it would crank up the complexity, but I would enjoy the old WFB system where you throw dice at it, and try to hit a target number (possibly adding in the unit's faithful value as a bonus). Of course, a bonus like that only means anything if each unit has access to multiple AoFs. Maybe you can get a bonus based on unit size.

 

Which I would like (like in 3E). But, I would want either a straight list where everyone had access to everything (which makes sense to me. Why is the way a sister's faith manifests dictated by the way they are deployed? A sister could be in a BSS one day, and a Dominion squad the next).

 

Or, you could give each unit access to a predetermined set of Acts.

 

Please don't make it random. I know some of you disagree, but I really don't want it to be EXACTLY like psychic powers.

[BitsHammer]

I'm really just a huge proponent of every army having some flavor of Chapter Tactics to better represent the different sub-factions.

 

As for ATSKNF, I feel that rule is too broad and needs to be scaled back to: auto-pass fear tests, can either be fearless in melee or break but breaking means they can be wiped (and then fearless works like it did in 5th: you take extra wounds for every point you fail a ld check by). That way it's a tactical choice, not a free ride.

[sedibear]

I like the Martyrdom table idea. Add that to the current Faith System to get two once-per-game effects out of your squads.

[Servant of Dante]

I'm really just a huge proponent of every army having some flavor of Chapter Tactics to better represent the different sub-factions.

 

As for ATSKNF, I feel that rule is too broad and needs to be scaled back to: auto-pass fear tests, can either be fearless in melee or break but breaking means they can be wiped (and then fearless works like it did in 5th: you take extra wounds for every point you fail a ld check by). That way it's a tactical choice, not a free ride.

I didn't mean exactly ATSKNF, just something that emotes discipline in a similar way. I like Stubborn for that.