Alternative Sisters

[BitsHammer]

Okay, we're on a similar page now. Ans yes, it's clear there is some differences in the scaled girth as well between the two (see: Marine ankles or that dome they call a chest plate) but it isn't as drastic enough of a difference for Sisters to have thin armor. Sure it can be shaped like their bodies, but it needs to feel like it has mass, which the current design doesn't.

[Acebaur]

Here's the thing, comparing Sisters and Astartes armor on the basis of they both have a 3+ is flawed because GW's scale for determining what protection your "armor" provides in the table top is far too small to make a realistic comparison. Instead if you want to the make the kind of comparison that you guys are seeking to here you should look at a game that has gone much more in depth with making a true comparison between humans and Astartes, namely, Deathwatch. 

 

In Deathwatch a suit of Astartes power armor provides 8 Armor to all locations save the chest which provides 10 armor. Furthermore, it gives the wearer +20 strength. 

 

By comparison a suit of Sororitas power armor provides 7 armor to all locations save the chest which provides 8. The Sororitas strength bonus is also only 10 instead of 20. 

[*Furyou Miko]

Acebaur. No.

 

Sororitas Armour has always been described, except in FFG games, as specifically "providing protection equal to that of Space Marine power armour."

 

It's in the fluff that it's just as protective. Not just the game stats.

 

Deathwatch specifically states that it gives Space Marines massive power boosts over all the other splats because the authors thought that the Marines wouldn't be 'awesome enough' in comparison if they used the same rules.

 

These are also the people who gave Sisters 'civilian bolters'. Who stated that Sisters can fight 'traitors, cultists, and sometimes even orks'.

 

The same people who turned Sisters into freaking wizards. The same people who decided that the Calixis Sector has more Battle Sisters than the entire rest of the Imperium combined.

 

Here's a hint: Sisters do not have the ability to shoot laser beams out of their eyes in anything except that insulting, belittling horror of a splat book. Blood of Martyrs is absolutely the worst thing that has ever happened to the Sisters, including Codex: Witch Hunters, which demoted them from even being a faction in their own right!

[BitsHammer]

Well more Battle Sisters than the rest of the Imperium according to bad lore on Sisters in my opinion. Then again I'm the nut who says ~10 billion Sisters to watch over ~16 quadrillion souls is more appropriate.

[Spacefrisian]

More like 10 billion over numbers beyond counting. (i think thats the official line)

[Servant of Dante]

I like to think that a large army of sisters is even more uncommon (and awe inspiring) than a large space marine detachment.

[BitsHammer]

More like 10 billion over numbers beyond counting. (i think thats the official line)

 

Here's me quoting an email I'd written with my maths some time ago:

 

About a year ago a friend of mine and myself sat down with the idea of trying to figure out about how "big" the Imperium was roughly population wise (and about how many Sisters of Battle would fit the setting). So we dug through all the information on population levels from old rulebooks and what we could find and here's what we worked out while trying to keep the numbers on the low end as possible:

 

To keep the numbers reasonably low we worked off the following rules:

 

1% of the entire Imperium meets the very basic criteria to be considered for becoming a Sororitas.

1% of those complete their "basic" training successfully

1% of those are on active status at any time (the other 99% have been deactivated for any number of reasons). This last one was to really just push the number a lot lower based on the "stuff happens" quotient.

50% of the final total is Militant Orders, the rest is divided into the various Non-Militant Orders (which makes each of those smaller than the combined Militant Orders).

 

So running some basic numbers we figured that from the Hive Worlds (all 32,380 of them) had a rough average of 50,000,000,000 (we went with 50 Billion a Hive, which is about the middle of the range (10-100,000,000,000), and 10 Hive a planet, which is a bit lower than half as the range is 5-20) 16,190,000,000,000,000 people on the hives.

 

To keep the math easy we went with an average of 5 Billion people on average on every other planet in the Imperium (working from 1,000,000 that means 967,620 worlds) which is lower than our current population on Earth. That gave us another 4,838,100,000,000,000 more people.

 

This gave us a total of 21,028,100,000,000,000 people in the Imperium on a lowball math run (that is 21 Quadrillion people for the record).

 

Of these 210,281,000,000,000 meet the very basic criteria (1% of the population).

Of those 2,102,810,000,000 complete the basic training (1% of those who meet the basic criteria).

Of those 21,028,100,000 are on any kind of active duty (1% of those who complete the training).

Of those 10,514,050,000 are Battle Sisters (50% of those who are active duty).

 

With 1 Million Worlds in the Imperium this means the Sisters could in theory put as many as 10,514 Sisters on every world on average (the real spread is likely much more varied depending on combat operations, duties on Shrine Worlds, escorting pilgrimages, ect. This is just to give a rough idea of how many there could be.)

 

Now understandably 10.5 Billion sounds like a lot, but considering the scale of the Imperium it turns out to only be .00005% of the entire Imperium (for a comparative basis it'd be like 300 Sisters in the United States, or 6 Sisters to every state in the US), so still plenty "elite" for the setting.

 

Likewise the same numbers could be applied to Tempestus Scions and Commissars (as they go through similar screening processes).

 

And just for fun, if the Imperium has properly tithed their Guardsmen and there were no massed casualties there would be 210,281,000,000,000 standing Guardsmen. Definitely enough to drown the enemy in bodies, eh?

 

And yes, I know someone is going to tell me that it's too many Sisters (as they always do), but for my personal perspective on the setting it makes perfect sense to me. And it DEFINITELY makes more sense than the current official lore does on how many there are in the Galaxy.

[*Furyou Miko]

It falls apart when you realise that every Sister has to be trained on either Terra or Ophelia VII/I, and that having the Sisters outnumber the Imperial Guard destroys any claim to being elite or in any way special.

[BitsHammer]

It falls apart when you realise that every Sister has to be trained on either Terra or Ophelia VII/I, and that having the Sisters outnumber the Imperial Guard destroys any claim to being elite or in any way special.

I specifically mentioned 210 Trillion Guardsmen. That's more than 10.5 Billion.

 

And I agree about the training thing but that's an issue regardless of scale. Having only two training sites for the entire Galaxy is pretty rubbish.

 

Also the official lore breaks down when you consider every Shrine needs at least 1 Sister. That's hundreds of thousands of Sororitas alone.

[Servant of Dante]

Yes. Hundreds of thousands. I would assume that there are millions of sisters. I would not agree that a whole percent of the population meets the criteria to be a sister. That isn't to say your math is invalid. I just prefer to think that there are fewer sisters.

[taikishi]

Acebaur. No.

 

Sororitas Armour has always been described, except in FFG games, as specifically "providing protection equal to that of Space Marine power armour."

 

It's in the fluff that it's just as protective. Not just the game stats.

 

Deathwatch specifically states that it gives Space Marines massive power boosts over all the other splats because the authors thought that the Marines wouldn't be 'awesome enough' in comparison if they used the same rules.

 

These are also the people who gave Sisters 'civilian bolters'. Who stated that Sisters can fight 'traitors, cultists, and sometimes even orks'.

 

The same people who turned Sisters into freaking wizards. The same people who decided that the Calixis Sector has more Battle Sisters than the entire rest of the Imperium combined.

 

Here's a hint: Sisters do not have the ability to shoot laser beams out of their eyes in anything except that insulting, belittling horror of a splat book. Blood of Martyrs is absolutely the worst thing that has ever happened to the Sisters, including Codex: Witch Hunters, which demoted them from even being a faction in their own right!

 

 

Miko, you just reinforced why I'm terrified that FFG now owns the Legend of the Five Rings I.P.

 

Thanks a lot -.-

[BitsHammer]

Yes. Hundreds of thousands. I would assume that there are millions of sisters. I would not agree that a whole percent of the population meets the criteria to be a sister. That isn't to say your math is invalid. I just prefer to think that there are fewer sisters.

Considering the number of people who can be classed as "Imperial Servants" (largley thanks to the Guard) some percents could be higher and others lower. Still the total number is such a small portion of the Imperium by scale even if it's a.large number to us.

[Servant of Dante]

I know. You numbers probably make better sense than mine. I just like the idea of a smaller number.

[BitsHammer]

I know. You numbers probably make better sense than mine. I just like the idea of a smaller number.

That's fair. I think every Sisters player loathes the official numbers equally though.

 

United through loathing!

[Servant of Dante]

What are the official numbers?

[Aqui]

I don't know whether it's because I'm a Liber member, but I quite like there not being an official number of Sisters, if not for the fact that it gives Sisters players a measure of wiggle room when creating their own Orders (or collecting official ones for that matter). I think the ambiguity can be beneficial to the fluff and the creation of fanon - The Orders number a fair number, but compared to the number of Imperial citizens as a whole, they're a drop in the bucket, whether that number is in the thousands, millions or even billions

[BitsHammer]

What are the official numbers?

I don't have the core rulebook handy to look, but less than the Marines.

[Servant of Dante]

 

What are the official numbers?

I don't have the core rulebook handy to look, but less than the Marines.

This is the representation that I prefer, personally

 

Well I guess a case should be made for being more neumetpus than marines since there are so many shrines, and some places have several thousand sisters.

 

My order numbers just over 200 in fluff

[Noeh]

I like how the sisters look in the artwork, and it being futuristic and what not, the sleeker armor doesn't bother me much. Sadly my models aren't that sleek looking. In my fluff, they'd probably be in the same armor, but slimmer overall. With all the crazy things my fluffy "chapter" has though...there's certainly  more than a few mad tech priests running around on the planets indulging in all their weird tech fantasies that the Imperium wouldn't allow.

[Servant of Dante]

Herecy!

[Noeh]

Herecy!

W-well at least they haven't JOINED CHAOS!

 

[Acebaur]

Acebaur. No.

 

Sororitas Armour has always been described, except in FFG games, as specifically "providing protection equal to that of Space Marine power armour."

 

It's in the fluff that it's just as protective. Not just the game stats.

 

Deathwatch specifically states that it gives Space Marines massive power boosts over all the other splats because the authors thought that the Marines wouldn't be 'awesome enough' in comparison if they used the same rules.

 

These are also the people who gave Sisters 'civilian bolters'. Who stated that Sisters can fight 'traitors, cultists, and sometimes even orks'.

 

The same people who turned Sisters into freaking wizards. The same people who decided that the Calixis Sector has more Battle Sisters than the entire rest of the Imperium combined.

 

Here's a hint: Sisters do not have the ability to shoot laser beams out of their eyes in anything except that insulting, belittling horror of a splat book. Blood of Martyrs is absolutely the worst thing that has ever happened to the Sisters, including Codex: Witch Hunters, which demoted them from even being a faction in their own right!

 

 

Well I didn't read any of those books, I drew my information directly from the Deathwatch books. Which incidentally are not splat books, it is it's own game system that uses the same percentile system as Dark Heresy. I've found that the fluff and info in DW is actually quite good and accurate regarding marines. 

 

You say that it says in the fluff that it's as protective so therefore it is. But did you ever consider that fluff was written that way because they were given the same save on a d6?  I'm not disagreeing that it provides a similar level of protection(as evidenced by the DW book) but certainly not the same. I'm sure everyone will disagree with me, but that's my opinion. 

[BitsHammer]

Same save doesn't mean Sisters had to have Power Armor. They could have just said "a combination of carapace armor and fanatical devotion".

[*Furyou Miko]

Well I didn't read any of those books, I drew my information directly from the Deathwatch books. Which incidentally are not splat books, it is it's own game system that uses the same percentile system as Dark Heresy. I've found that the fluff and info in DW is actually quite good and accurate regarding marines. 

 

You say that it says in the fluff that it's as protective so therefore it is. But did you ever consider that fluff was written that way because they were given the same save on a d6?  I'm not disagreeing that it provides a similar level of protection(as evidenced by the DW book) but certainly not the same. I'm sure everyone will disagree with me, but that's my opinion.

It's all one game system, they're all cross compatible by design.

 

This was back in late second/early third, when game followed fluff, so I'm pretty sure that no, they weren't described that way just because they had 3+ saves. I feel like you're grasping at straws here.

 

As for Deathwatch accurately representing Marines... I offer you the example of the Terminator-toss.

 

 

What are the official numbers?

I don't have the core rulebook handy to look, but less than the Marines.

 

As for Sisters numbers, the rulebook gives us six Major Orders of between 6,000 and 10,000 and an unknown number of Minor Orders that range in size between 1 sister and 1,000 sisters.

[Acebaur]

What is the Terminator toss?