hopes, dreams, and fears for sisters in 8th

[Red_Shift]

Servanteofdante, incidentally, do you by any chance have four fingers on your left hand?

[Beams]

I'm really hoping Martyrdom does something cool...

[Commander Dawnstar]

Similarly I hope GW comes up with a decent implementation of Acts of Faith. It's hard to know what to expect from them given how much of a culture-shift this new edition is proving to be.

[Daimhin]

The latest white dwarf points out that sisters were first previewed July 1997 and released with the iconic John Blanche cover in August 1997 - wishlist prediction is new sisters on the anniversary!

 

Showing my age, but this was the core of my army comes from that day! Went to the grand opening of the 100th Games Workshop store on release day and used some of my first student loan to purchase a small army. Never looked back!

[Daimhin]

I wouldn't really mind getting rolled into another "witch hunters" codex.  I don't have a problem sharing a codex with inquisitors and the like... my worry is more that the flavor of the army changes.  Its kind of hard to put into words, but I hope things like our special rules and acts of faith don't come out feeling wrong.  

 

Overall, I am really looking forward to 8th ed.  I like a lot of the changes to the core rules, and I am really interested to see how sisters end up playing.  I am sad to see the flamer template go, but for the most part I think that with the new flamer rules we are going to still be putting out a lot of damage.  In fact, with the amount of heavy and special weapons we can run, we should be sitting in a pretty good place in 8th.

 

As an interesting point, if you want to kill marines then model for model flamers are now the way forward for Sisters:

 

4 Bolter Sisters                 0.88 MEQ kills per turn (in rapid fire range)

4 Melta Dominions           2.22 MEQ kills

4 Flamer Dominions         2.33 MEQ kills

[Ficinus]

As an interesting point, if you want to kill marines then model for model flamers are now the way forward for Sisters:

 

4 Bolter Sisters 0.88 MEQ kills per turn (in rapid fire range)

4 Melta Dominions 2.22 MEQ kills

4 Flamer Dominions 2.33 MEQ kills

I think my problem with this sort of calculation is that it does not take into account the high degree of variance that flamers will now have. This calculation assumes 14 hits from 4 flamers. There is only an 11.625% chance of rolling a 14 exactly and a 55.633% chance of rolling a 14 or higher. While it's true that over a high number of games and flamer shots you'll average that many hits and wounds, the addition of randomness to the hits for flamers makes them less reliable than they are now, and I think that's my largest fear.

 

As of right now, I can make a decision in the movement phase to move a retributor squad closer to an enemy, further from an enemy, or into a tank with near total certainty of how many hits they will inflict on an enemy unit by simply measuring. Now, we'll have to deal with an extra round of randomness when determining their potential efficacy, which is incredibly dangerous for short range weapons on a fragile unit. And that's not to mention that the holy flamer's efficacy against hordes has taken a massive hit.

 

I'm probably over dramatizing the importance of this one rules change, but I already don't like using Exorcists due to their random shots (despite the beauty of the model): I'm not eager to add more randomness into my army (we're not Orks or Daemons after all).

[Montford]

And don't forget the flamers shorter range when compared to other weapons, even pistols.

[Servant of Dante]

It's six fingers Red_Shift :P

 

I have that White Dwarf too, though in my case I got it off eBay :D

 

As for random flamers, all weapons already roll to hit, other than flamers. At least flamers are guaranteed at least 1 hit.

[Beams]

...right now it isn't uncommon for me to get around 10-20 hits from 2 flamers in a BSS when fighting guard or Genestealers, and up that when using Rets or Dom's.

 

Flamers got nerfed when used against horde armies. Which is fine, because ive tabled genestealers turn one a few times due to having tons of flamers and tons of meltas and a small amount of Bolters to pick up what's left.

 

It does mean they will help against single models more, but it's sad to see the templates go.

[Commander Dawnstar]

One thing that comes to mind, and I don't know if this has been addressed anywhere, but does that mean that Flamers have the potential to be twice as dangerous on Overwatch?

[Knight of the Raven]

It does mean they will help against single models more, but it's sad to see the templates go.

Yeah, holding templates over enemy models is like the main reason to take flamers in the first place.

 

I don't actually have a sister army, but I certainly loved using my flamers with my Salamanders tactical squads (houseruled to have two special weapons because the local GW manager is awesome). Genestealer cults really didn't like it.

 

Of course, I'm the kind of player who charges their power sword captain at the enemy broodlord (or was it the lictor special character?) instead of gunning it down because GLORY, so yeah. And I'd have charged my World Eater terminator HQ with power axe and stormshield at the swarmlord if he hadn't deep stuck next to it and its killer meatbags with his own bodyguards too.

 

Screw Turn Xenos. Screw Bolster Xenos. Stab Xenos all the way.

[A.T.]

A few sample detachments are out, though from what was being said last week it's only three of many.

 

Scaling command points (which may well end up being used for faith powers) for larger compulsory sets of units - the big one shown having 6 minimum troops and 3 minimum everything else.

 

If they've balanced the game well then that shouldn't be an issue, otherwise I see a scrabbling for cheap 'tax' units to meet minimums depending on how powerful command points turn out to actually be.

[micahwc]

Making a lot of assumptions here, but assuming you can still take 4 heavy bolters in a Retributor squad, and that heavy bolters still fire 3 times a turn, moving and firing 12 heavy bolter shots at BS3 sounds like it will be fun.

 

Retributor squad with 4x heavy bolters, 1x storm bolter on the superior, 5 bolter sisters: 12 shots at 36" on the move with BS3, 19 shots at 24", 24 shots up close. Not bad for anti-GEK.

[A.T.]

Retributor squad with 4x heavy bolters, 1x storm bolter on the superior, 5 bolter sisters: 12 shots at 36" on the move with BS3, 19 shots at 24", 24 shots up close. Not bad for anti-GEK.

 

As it stands though (at this early stage), the sisters are still facing the same old question of three heavy slots and their only long ranged heavy weapon being in that slot.

[robofish7591]

There are still more force orgs that haven't been revealed yet.  I would be pretty surprised if there wasn't one focusing on heavy support choices.  

[Beams]

There are still more force orgs that haven't been revealed yet. I would be pretty surprised if there wasn't one focusing on heavy support choices.

There will probably be one focusing on each slot, with a reduced number of command points as opposed to the "basic" ones.

[taikishi]

 

It does mean they will help against single models more, but it's sad to see the templates go.

Yeah, holding templates over enemy models is like the main reason to take flamers in the first place.

 

I don't actually have a sister army, but I certainly loved using my flamers with my Salamanders tactical squads (houseruled to have two special weapons because the local GW manager is awesome). Genestealer cults really didn't like it.

 

Of course, I'm the kind of player who charges their power sword captain at the enemy broodlord (or was it the lictor special character?) instead of gunning it down because GLORY, so yeah. And I'd have charged my World Eater terminator HQ with power axe and stormshield at the swarmlord if he hadn't deep stuck next to it and its killer meatbags with his own bodyguards too.

 

Screw Turn Xenos. Screw Bolster Xenos. Stab Xenos all the way.

 

 

Honestly? Templates and battle shock are the two biggest reasons I won't convert to 8th... which means I'll probably be selling my stuff since everyone else i my play group will convert, just as they did for AoS.

 

Wonder if I can convince GW to refund me that box of Centurions I bought last weekend and haven't opened yet. >.>

[BitsHammer]

One thing that comes to mind, and I don't know if this has been addressed anywhere, but does that mean that Flamers have the potential to be twice as dangerous on Overwatch?

 

Actually if Wall of Death is gone, they'd lose some teeth in Overwatch vs long charges as they only have 8" of range.

[robofish7591]

Taikishi, I would wait and see the finished rules first before going and selling off your stuff.  We all put a lot of love and effort into our armies, it would be a shame to just drop it all because of those two things.  If you find you don't like the new edition, maybe sit it out and focus more on the modeling and painting side of the hobby?  

[taikishi]

I did say probably, not definitely (on selling my stuff). I don't like these two changes for the same reasons I don't like them in Age of Sigmar, the only difference is there's even less I like about AoS (and it's all the former Fantasy players play here) but I can at least use my undead army in RPGs.The template change sucks, but it wasn't the deal breaker for me -- battle shock is.

 

Unfortuantely, it's not really worth it for me to try it then decide because I did that with 5e D&D and other games and my opinion didn't change.

[micahwc]

Anyone see the rules for patrol detachments released today?

 

1 HQ, 1 Troop, and up to 2 HS. So you could run multiple patrol detachments of 1 priest, 1 5 sister squad and 2 Exorcists. You can run multiple detachments. So the "bring two extra exorcists" tax is 5 battle sisters and a priest.

[Servant of Dante]

And a priest and a BSS are hardly bad units :D I'm really looking forward to exploring the list building opportunities with my Sisters in 8E

[BitsHammer]

Formations are dead and Sisters lost nothing of value. Praise be!

[robofish7591]

Can't loose it if you never had it to begin with!

[Atrus]

Anyone else notice the catphrase examples they gave? Tyrants, Blood Angels, Imperium. Marine chapter for special mention; methinks sisters will be thrown into the imperium catchphrase.