Sisters speculation topic

[Beams]

If celestians get something to make them useful in melee they could be really good.

 

Heck, if they gave them the option that our command squad used to have, where you could choose any louadout you wanted, it would help a ton.

[A.T.]

All Exorcists need (imo) is Dd6. Be happy to pay their original pts for it.

 

It is remarkably poor in terms of firepower right now, between the statline and lack of stratagems.

Trying to engage something big like a knight with one is utterly futile, and even smaller vehicles tend to shrug off the first couple of salvos.

[Purifying Tempest]

That was perhaps the biggest let down for me when I got into the Index.

 

I was finally getting a Celestian Command Squad to escort my Canoness.  They had a banner and were equipped for melee.  A priest with them, too.

 

Now the Command Squad is entirely gone, and the Index can barely scratch melee with enough force and staying power to beat out a squad of Astra Militarum infantry.  I believe the most melee I've done with any of my armies has been Seraphim slapping around tanks or lone characters they get tangled up with.

 

Would love to see the return of the Command Squad, maybe in the Elite slot with a restriction much like the Drukhari Court of the Archon.  And well... since I'm slotting stuff up here's my wishlist:

 

HQ1) Canoness with a Jump Pack.  I know I really want it, there used to be an option to do it, and I'm sure there's lots of people still unhappy that it vanished all together.

HQ2) Prioress or Abbess, something that outranks a Canoness.  Or the current Canoness needs to be reworked to up her cost and effectiveness while replacing her old HQ slot with like a Palatine or something.  Right now, we have a 45 point HQ, and a 200 point unique one.  1 More data slate in this slot would ease a lot of the grumblings about silly things like fielding 2 BNs with the rule of three in play and no named characters.

 

EL1) Celestians need some love.  Put them on par with Chaos Chosen and open the options up to them.  These are the elites of the Orders with resources that could probably make the smurfs blush.  Why do our Celestians feel like paupers who are there to merely take one on the chin for their ward?  I like the bodyguard rule, but until the unit is relevant, the rule is just as irrelevant as they are.

EL2) Repentia.  I don't play with them much, so I cannot go into great detail about them.  They look fine until I see they have like 0 durability on a 3T model.  I would start by looking at their wound count (up it to 2 with no real save worth mentioning) or their defense (a 5+ FNP wouldn't be terrible).  Give them a Stratagem for increased resilience like they used to have, maybe a 3+ FNP for a CP or two.  Revisit ways to get them across the table early in the game, so they have the opportunity to hit the lines before being shot down.  Otherwise, turn their points to dirt, because that's where they'll be in most normal games.  A lot of this can be wrapped up with the Mistress, who could also be a Character if she is not currently for more CP gimmicks off the Repentia when she dies.

EL3) Command Squad is what?  See above.

 

FA) I think overall, this slot is pretty good, and if things are being balanced internally, balance against these units.  I would take a strong look at the Hand Flamer and Flamer weapons, though, because they are depressing.  Stormbolter does about the same work at upwards of triple the range for less than a third of the points.  Hand Flamer cannot even compete with the Inferno Pistol, probably even against stuff the hand flamer is supposed to be good at.

 

TR1) Battle Sisters are actually... pretty good.  I've played them with a variety of loadouts and haven't been disappointed with their performance.  Maybe think about doubling their options at squads 11+, kind of like Kabalites.  But even that is just meh.  I would like to see some sort of support for larger blobs again, though.

TR2) Acolyte or something.  Lightly armored like IG infantry, novices or initiates, whatever.  A 3-5 point model to show the grim life of getting pressed into service before being anointed a battle sister.  I like it for fluff more than anything, but if the side perk is we get a little more screen time due to having another supply of cheap models with decent rules (hi IG!), well... then that is a good thing too!

 

HV1) Retributors are another unit that I think are pretty darn good right now.  I'd like to see things, probably stratagems, that help make the Heavy Flamer and Multi-melta relevant.  I think both of those weapons take a back seat to the work Heavy Bolters are doing right now.  Heavy Bolters are REALLY good, especially compared to something like the Heavy Flamer.  7 points less for 3.5x the range.  Sure BS counts, but the STR and AP are similar.  The range and cost of the HB is murdering the HF's chance in the sun.  Really unfortunate because I love the Heavy Flamer.

HV2) Penitent Engine.  This model just feels like it is missing like... 1 thing.  I think the biggest thing holding it back is the fact that it plays counter to a lot of the rest of the army and just plays a little out of place.  It may be the cost of that Heavy Flamer rearing its head again?  Maybe it is something as simple as a good stratagem or two for them?  Advance and Charge Order trait?  Beuler?

HV3) Exorcist took a beating in the conversion from 7th to 8th.  Those missiles either need to be 2d6, 3d3, something else for shots... or the damage needs to go up to d6.  Either way, keep it in the 150+ point range for a tank, but make it so it can compete with a quad-las Predator, not get dwarfed by it.

 

I shy away from the Minustornum stuff because... well... it isn't sisters.  Adding them in is just going to dilute the codex because now it is 50/50 sisters and imperial agents.  I think the priests, assassins, crusaders and all of that ilk needs to be rounded up in a book without a prevailing theme and given their individual rules there.  Keep the focus on the faction of Sororitas, since they organize and fight pretty different from the Inquisition at large.

 

Edit: Should put a disclaimer that this is all opinion and subject to my bias.  If it seems off to you, it is probably because we play way different, and that's cool :)

[Mekhitar]

They could start by giving ministorum a rule like IG auxiliaries where it stops busting up our detachments, for starters.

 

I love running penitent engines but am a little weary of continually plopping them in their own spearhead.

[Ficinus]

I feel like the priests, crusaders, arco-flagellants, and penitent engines all make sense in a Sisters codex since they are Ministorum affiliated units (priests are priests, crusaders take up the sword for the Ecclesiarchy, and arco-flags and pengines are created and maintained by the Ecclesiarchy). The death cult assassins are also sort of Ministorum affiliated, but also sort of weird and only vaguely/semi-officially/not officially part of it. I'd be very disappointed if priests, crusaders, arco-flagellants, and penitent engines were dropped.

 

I also don't get some of the above people saying that the rule of three is only bad for army building: canonesses are amazing little close combat murderers. The Blade of Admonition is just awesome, but the eviscerator is also pretty awesome. You just have to use them to mow down elite units and assassinate characters. They're best mid to late game when they can pop out of a rhino and just obliterate stuff.

[Purifying Tempest]

I feel like too much Ministorum influence will turn Codex: Adepta Sororitas into something very similar to Codex: Thousand Sons.

 

How many Thousand Sons have been seen since that Codex dropped?  Not that Rubrics and Scarabs were really rocking the scene before then, but now they're just the side-show for the Tzaangors.

 

That's why I want the rag-tag Ministorum units to get bottled up with the rag-tag Inquisition stuff into a book that dedicated to those fringe parts of the Ecclesiarchy.

 

Otherwise, the Sisters of Battle will kind of fade back to being not featured, but instead supplemental to a very patchwork greater force.

 

All the units should have Imperium and Ministorum keywords, so you can make an Army where the two can still cross.  But Adepta Sororitas should be Adepta Sororitas.

[A.T.]

I feel like too much Ministorum influence will turn Codex: Adepta Sororitas into something very similar to Codex: Thousand Sons.

 

The original sisters of battles faction was very much codex: adeptus ministorum. The army lost a lot of that when they were squeezed down to fit into codex:Witch Hunters.

 

It's a real shame as the two-page battle scene from the WH book with the masses of repentia/priests/arcos, etc supported by sisters and warmachines made for a really interesting looking army.

[Servant of Dante]

Even though I play pure Sisters, I’d prefer the codex have all the Ministorum stuff in it personally.

[Purifying Tempest]

I was under the impression that sisters players wanted to play sisters :)  I thought that was why so many were happy to see them start to separate and start taking on their own form.  Now wrapping all of the other stuff back in would seem like a step back from what we had.  But, if the community wants the entirety of the Ecclesiarchy wrapped into a bigger codex... whatever :)  I'm all for anything that keeps the army relevant (not like Eldar Corsairs).

 

There's just another heap of problems with the Ministorum that I'm probably not that capable of hypothesizing on!  So, onward with speculation!

[Mekhitar]

I don’t want us to go the route of Codex: tzaangors, where all the new, good stuff and supporting rules and strats were tzaangor-based, and the rubrics themselves largely unchanged from the index. I also run a Thousand Sons army, and I minimize the tzaangors influence (they sometimes replace cultists for my chaff). It’s rubric marines I “want” to run.

 

Similarly with sisters, I would be depressed if all the “new” units we got, and the various force multipliers, were all adMin. I’d like new Sororitas stuff. Absolutely.

 

But I would like to be able to take a lone penitent engine in my Sororitas battalion and still keep access to <Order> traits, like a cadian gunline can boast some Ogryn and still be cadian, or a Mordian brigade can include a few units of Scions without losing “form firing squad”.

 

Don’t make us choose between putting a priest on the table and actually getting rules for our Bloody Rose or Ebon Chalice faithful; that’s all.

[Purifying Tempest]

Make order traits and such read "While all of the units in this detachment are <Adeptus Ministorum>, friendly <Order> units in that detachment gain..."

 

I'd be all for that.  That way adding in a random priest or crusader or DCA doesn't actively break stuff (thanks Big FAQ).

 

I'm also for AdMin getting their own codex and Sororitas getting a totally separate one.  The two have their own things, but can bring it together for personal tastes and flavors.  Granted, you could also take advantage of Supreme Command and Vanguard Detachments for AdMin models, since those are the slots they historically populate.  3 Priests, or a Priest with an entourage of Crusaders and Arcos... all seem reasonable.  Either way should be workable.

 

I just think cramming it all into 1 codex creates a scenario where both forces suffer and a lot of stuff gets "passing" treatment because there's so much more internal balancing to do.

 

They also have what... a year to crank out our Codex?  And with only 3 real big factions left (Orks, Wolves, GSC), they should have plenty of time to give AdMin a pass and ramp the Sororitas hype up in the process.

[dracpanzer]

My problem with the Rule of 3 has little to do with the Canoness and more to do with the fact that Sisters struggle to fill up detachments of any size.  We have a ton of Elite choices, but very little of anything else.  I loved pre FAQ 8ed where you could change up your army fighting style just by taking a different detachment.  The FAQ just pushed Sisters into a box because we have so few units where as a lot of the lists (and the offending ones that brought the rule on in the first place) have enough options in each slot that they could care less.

 

I loved the DOM rush, it was fast and surprising and could largely overcome the Index list handicaps.  Taking it away hasn't changed the way my list looks much, I still field most everything mech'd up (I have since 3ed) and just don't get the Vanguard move anymore.  Instead of spamming Dominions I bring even more BSS.  So it cost me speed, took away my ability to fight where on the table I wanted too and put me in a box where I don't really have any chance to give my army any character except BSS character.  But I get to put a Canoness,  Imagifer and 3 Repentia in a Repressor with Dominions now because I don't even bother to use Vanguard at all anymore. 

 

No reason to get them killed first when they aren't going to burn down what I need them too in time for the second wave to hit anyhow.  Might as well saturate the battlefield with equal value targets and deny my opponent the juicy targets of opportunity. 

 

If GW gave us different data-slate unit types for each version of our Dominions, Retributors and the like, they'd fix it for the most part, but I don't see that happening.  Maybe they can fix Celestians and make the PenEngine cheaper and give us a third character that can go without a name to help out with detachments. 

[Ficinus]

I don't think the choice is between separate Adeptus Ministorum and Adepta Sororitas books. I don't think the choice is even a Sororitas book and all the other Ministorum stuff going in an Inquisition grab bag (since there seems to be no indication of an Inquisition book on the horizon). I think the choice is between the Sororitas book having some Ministorum stuff in it or the Ministorum stuff staying Index (except for Priests being in the IG codex). Maybe I'm being pessimistic, but I'd rather have arco-flagellants, priests, penitent engines, and crusaders (and maybe death cults) updated in the book than never updated.

[Servant of Dante]

If the non-Sisters Ministorum stuff isn’t in the Sisters codex the only place I could see it going is an imperial agents book alongside Inquisition, assassins, sisters of silence and so on. A just-Sisterscodex would be neat, but I think we’d lose any chance for the other Ministorum units to be really useful and flavorful if they’re concined to a Codex that covers a bunch of small disparate factions.

 

Even though I don’t play the other Ministorum units, I still want to see them given fun rules.

[taikishi]

Though it was just Ministorum Priests and Crusaders, I think the IG book has already shown we'll keep the Ministorum stuff though I suspect the following changes, similar to the SM book:

 

* Ob Sec for Ministorum detachments

* Order abilities for pure Sororitas detachments but priests/Jacobus/crusaders don't turn them off (the rest might)

* Stratagems, warlord traits and relics just like every other book (tied to larger army with some order-specific ones thrown in)

 

As for Rule of Three, part of my issue is how we only have 1 HQ that isn't unique and two FA units. Part of my issue is that the rule is too broadly based; it should be shutting down Flyrant spam, Dark Reaper spam, etc. but there's a number of units where spamming them really isn't an issue and some where Ro3 doesn't amount to much (darn, I can still bring 9 mortars in an IG spearhead + however many mortars I put in line squads). Then there's the fact that an army like Space Marines can bring three each of:

 

Captain/Captain with jump pack

Terminator Captain

Cataphractii Captain

Bike Captain

Primaris Captain

Gravis Captain

 

Whereas an army like Dark Eldar is limited to three HQs (total) if they want to play pure Kabal, or four HQs (total) if they want to play pure Cult or pure Coven.

[CaptainMarsh]

I mostly just want new HQ options, new options for the Cannonness, changes to the BSS to make them beefier (more models, special rules at above 10 and above 15 preferred, access to moar dakka), and some new weapons.

[ERJAK]

100'ish point HQ? Canoness with a Jump Pack :)

 

Granted, she'd only come in as like 60-75+ upgrades... but... still. Give her a power sword (Blade of Admonition) and an inferno pistol and go to work.

 

Getting an Abbess or Prioress or something would be great. Maybe a Canoness with a touch better statline merged with like an Imagifier/Dialogus/Hospitaler/whatever.

 

The rule of 3 really doesn't hurt Sisters, exactly. What it does hurt is army selection when scaling up to 2000 points and you've filled up on the good units (Dominions and Seraphim) or you bought 40 Stormbolters to spam Stormbolter Dominions in Repressors or something. After awhile, though, you do have to start making sub-optimal choices with organization and units, though, purely due to how thin the unit selection is.

 

I don't think it hurt Sisters nearly as much as other armies (Dark Reapers, Hive Tyrants, Berserkers, whatever other flavor of spam would be dominating now (Lascannon Havocs vs Knights?)), but it can rear its head unexpectedly.

It hurt sister quite a bit, to the point where running vehicle heavy lists is extremely difficult and running pure sisters is almost impossible. We used to be a pretty consistent 32-80 army without allies now we're barely breaking top 100.

 

I'll also say that there is no amount of standard equipment upgrades that would make a canoness worth 100pts. She just isn't a strong enough body for CQC.

 

Plus, I don't get the obsession with combat characters anyway. Outside of CRAZY strong characters like a Blood Angels Smash Captain, or Custode Biker, or Celestine, combat characters are almost universally terrible. Her reroll 1s aura is and will remain the most valuable thing about her (and 90% of the other HQs in the game).

[Lord Grimskull]

Equating sister performance to the rule of 3 is inefficient at best. It fails to take into consideration the changing meta and the continued addition of army books. Look at the FotM effect the Drukhari book has had on itc events.

 

I agree the ladies in power armor need at least one more hq choice, but I gotta be honest I also want a main battle tank (equivalent) even if it's based on another tank chassis (preditor? Leman Russ?) A chapel on tank treads with pipe organ flame throwers and statues of imperial saints armed with heavy bolters. Emperor be praised!

[Atrus]

Rule of 3 only effects the tournament and waac players who took advantage of spamming doms.

To the casual player, the affect of Ro3 is minimal at worst.

 

A rolling Cathedral would be amazing :) Maybe it could be based off the Land Raider chassis as that would be big enough to suit such a thing?

[Montford]

I would love to see a Unit, probably would have to be a vehicle, with a multi-melta like the one carried by Inquisitor Karamazov: 30" range and Assault 1.  :)

[dracpanzer]

Rule of 3 only effects the tournament and waac players who took advantage of spamming doms.

To the casual player, the affect of Ro3 is minimal at worst.

 

A rolling Cathedral would be amazing :) Maybe it could be based off the Land Raider chassis as that would be big enough to suit such a thing?

Of course casual players aren't affected by it, it doesn't pertain to them because they aren't facing players who are still capable of and willing to put more top tier units then Sisters ever had on the table even with the Ro3. Its a bad rule because it hurts armies that weren't upending anything (i.e. Sisters) while the armies that were dominating through Spam before are still top tier.

 

WAAC players are on both sides of the casual/competitive side, and I don't buy in to the notion that casual = bad player and competitive = good player. Far from it, but a bad rule that supposedly targets the worst abuses but instead slaps down everything else so hard the abuser still runs the show isn't helping anyone. It's not like anyone was blowing up the meta with Dom spam.

 

Seraphim spam has been our best showing in 8ed, and now we just get BSS spam whether you want it or not. If all the Index lists had been updated and given bucketloads of data-slates, squadron rules or had their Troop choices buffed in to stars we might be in a different spot. As it is, competitive all Sisters armies got hit hard by it.

 

Maybe we'll get some new data-slates in CA18, until then I'm playing double battalions with two units of Repentia and a Mistress stuffed in just because I like chainsaw sword wielding martyrs on my tournament table. At least the Ro3 didn't take them away from me!

 

Baneblade chassis makes a better cathedral tank. I've tried and Land Raider cathedrals look way too small.

[Eddie Orlock]

Baneblade chassis makes a better cathedral tank. I've tried and Land Raider cathedrals look way too small.

I think it's an aspect ratios thing. Land Raiders are already fairly tall and narrow, and the chapel up top only makes this impression worse. I've seen some interesting concept sketches and mock-ups on a double-tracked basilisk chassis that seemed almost reasonable. The suggested some enclosing fenders/track guards that were wide enough to plant some sisters on with building kit railings on the outside and the chapel in the centre.

 

 

It wasn't the chapel most people envision from a rules stand point that sports a mammoth flame thrower, but more of a repressor on 'roids that carried a squad and a half and via quasi-open-toppedness allowed them all to shoot from the firing decks.

[wraithman]

I would like to see the Jump-Pack Canoness make a return. I have a really cool one which has never made it to the table. I also want to see a Palantine, as the Canoness should not literally be leading every op like an SM Captain. Another thing I want to see more non-named characters, as well as the return of the Special Characters that were in our original codex but have since vanished. The Canoness leading two squads shouldn't be the same charrie leading two battalions. What might help our girls would be to give the Canoness (as well as her entourage) the option of fielding Terminator suits. Expensive, you betcha, but how better to show these are your Elites? I also want my Melta-Bombs back, as I used to salt those through my force, so I always had some level of anti-vehicle nastiness at any given time. I would certainly be happy to get some sort of main battle tank, and not just yet another Rhino variant. What would be cool, and cheap for GW to do would be to bring back the old Frateris Militia. By cheap, I mean, repackage the new Cawdor Necromunda gang, maybe add an option sprue, and have them do the job done by Chaos Cultists. They already look the part, they just need a few weapon options and some other artistic bits. While we're at it, how about a plastic PE with options to create a ranged version. 8th ed. isn't kind to melee Dreads, and the PE is a suckier, more expensive melee Dread. An all-plastic Repressor would be helpful, as would rules and keywords cleaned up so we don't have to ask if the Hospitaller can get a ride in our transports. We also need Flyers and better means to swat them down, and not some repurposed 300 USD import from Forge World.

 

As for a cathedral, I'd say create a new unit, say a 'Knight Templar', which would be a cross between a Knight and a cathedral, with all the bling, natch, maybe with a huge sword and some sort of heavy gun, with rockets on the carapace (Kazamarov on steroids, as it were), accompanied by Armigers (with an option sprue) appropriately themed. This would fill out a Lord of War slot which is quite empty, kinda like our Flyer options. A lot of these things could be done with existing kits, just by adding a new sprue or two and a new box.

[Beams]

No fratis militia, please. The whole point of the battle sisters is no men at arms, so adding men defeats the purpose of the army?

[dracpanzer]

Frateris are great in a Ministorum army. Though if memory serves the GW survey was overloaded with call for plastic Sisters of Battle not Imperial cultists. Cawdor make great Inquisitor henchmen, though the new ones would probably make better T'zeentch cultists IMO. Chapter Approved Betatest won't have new models in it, might be something to it if they give us dataslates for different versions of the same units we akready have.

 

I like the current AoF for the most part, really think just removing the Imagifers 6" range for her 4+ AoF and letting it be army wide would fix all the scaling and availability issues for AoF. If every other AoF rework is any indication we won't get anything like that.

 

Veridyan making a debut would be a nice way to give Sisters at least another HQ choice. A few more Strategems, perhaps one that allows you to give an AoF to a unit beyond the normal range of whatever provided it. Another that allows a units attacks to ignore invulns or cause perils on witch targets.

 

Maybe a few point changes. Does anyone expect much more than that from the CA update? Maybe give Celestians the Imperial Agents CCS profile?