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Author Topic: Battle Sisters Redux  (Read 1842 times)

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Offline Gornon

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Battle Sisters Redux
« on: November 21, 2011, 09:03:35 PM »
All right, many of us were disappointed in the Battle Sister Codex.  Crud messed us up.  I was thinking of forming a little thread, and, like the Eldar, see if we can come up with an interesting 5th Ed Codex.  The one we have now is...dry...to say the least.  I want to go hog-wild with the fun rules, but I think we should focus on taking base list and adjusting it by the minimum to bring it up to par.  Consider baking a good cake before adding the dressing.  I figure we can start with the HQs and Acts of Faith and move down.  40k, after all is often about the heroes.  Once we get HQ down, we can move down the list to Elites.

Acts of Faith: They need to scale, and it should not be complicated, more so considering how unreliable they usually are.  1d6+1 per 500 points seems reasonable enough for me.  At 1,500 this gives us a swing of 4-10 Faith Points.

As for Sisters forgetting their previous Acts as they get promoted, have Light of the Emperor be available to every squad, have Celestines be able to pick one additional Act from the Retributers, Dominions, or Seraphem, to represent their previous position (Thus, giving them Light, Hand, and one of their choice).  Give the Command Squad the same choice, but add the Celestine's Act onto the list.  The Canoness gets to pick one additional Act from any squad type.  Thus, the basic BSS gets one Act, the Seraphem, Retributers, and Dominions get two, and the elite Command, Celestines, and Canoness get three.

Saint Celestine
Way undercosted.  An Archon with Agaonizer and Shadowfield costs about the same, but the Living Saint comes back from the dead, is almost as durable, and has a Jump Pack and Heavy Flamer.  Her rules are fine as is, as I think Living Saints should be awesome.  I see them being almost the Imperium's version of a Deamon Prince, being exalted by a god, and thus, raised up high.  We just need to adjust her price a bit.  I would say adding 25 points to her cost might even things out a bit.

Canoness
Poor girl.  She got slapped hard with the nerf bat.  To start, I would give her a free Rosarius, and open up the option to buy a Jump Pack and a Blessed Weapon.

Sororitas Command Squad
Let them buy more members at the price of a normal Celestine.  Give the option to take Evicerators and Power Swords.

Confessor
Drop him to 55 points base.

Conclave
Its fine.

Kyrinov
Fine as is.

Jacobus
Fine as is.

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Offline Wombats

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Re: Battle Sisters Redux
« Reply #1 on: November 22, 2011, 01:32:38 AM »
I was disgusted at the general lack of thought or acknowledgement of past mistakes (no-one liked fat bastard Confessors in the 2nd edition codex, etc.) and haven't touched them. 

It seems really quite dramatic, I Googled white dwarf sisters of battle and came up with one serious army and that is a bloke who lives in my city. 

No-one seems to be playing them much. 

Has anyone actually given them a spin?

Scout on Dominions is nice and Retributors are great.   

I keep wanting to put a list together but when I see my Eviscerator Veteran Superiors languishing, Celestine unable to Hit and Run, silly points costing of Death Cult Assassins and Crusaders to hock more Finecast.   

It just makes me want to put a bullet in my head for being loyal to GW for so long and I go play Malifaux or Warmachine/Hordes. 

It really looks like they pointed a work experience student at the 2nd edition codex and told him to update it to 5th edition USR's. 
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Offline Koval, Master Verispex

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Re: Battle Sisters Redux
« Reply #2 on: November 22, 2011, 11:00:01 AM »
Given as I missed the WD(s?) in which this Codex appeared, I'm A) going to wait for an official 'dex B) going to advocate the continued use of the (now discontinued) Codex: Witch Hunters. At least it looks more professional than carrying around a WD or two.

Offline Benis

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Re: Battle Sisters Redux
« Reply #3 on: November 22, 2011, 03:07:28 PM »
I think the failure of the WD armylist is a bit too profound for an easy redux fix, the style of the Sisters of Battle is badly mishmashed within the list with far too much of a Space Marine approach.

In my opinion Sisters of Battle should be a force mainly aimed at vicious close quarter gunfire supported by some crazier close combat element and the odd units of ranged support with a reliance on boots on the ground and the innate capacities of the Sisters. The WD list does this some justice but also throws a lot of strange curve balls, there are too many close combat aimed traits thrown in with units that should have no business in close combat and the flexibility of the Acts of Faith that meant a unit could perform in various roles is completely removed. Sisters of Battle are not female Space Marines and cannot be expected to work like Space Marines yet the Celestians, Canoness and her retinue feels like Space Marine units with a mashed in Sisters of Battle profile.

The Canoness is particularly badly done in my opinion, you cannot have an Imperial T3 character that is meant to be only fighty, she is not a Space Marine Captain yet she is treated exactly in that way. I understand somewhat that they ditched the jump pack since free-roaming jump heroes are sort of out of style but she should have been given something in return, she should be a leader and add support to her soldiers beyond the light Faith boost, not even her specific Act of Faith is particularly useful or impressive. In general I think she would have been better off if they started her from a Grey Knights Inquisitor instead of a Space Marine Captain, an Inquisitor in power armour costs about half the points and has just a point weaker BS and WS, are the Sisters of Battle specific special rules truly worth almost doubling the cost for the Canoness?

I like the idea of a return of 'common' Acts of Faith, it is quite cool that each entry has its unique one but there should be some flexibility, it isn't psychic powers after all so no need for the Grey Knights route.

As for the Confessor special characters, I think they get a little too much for their price. There is little reason to take a normal Confessor instead of either one of the Special Characters.

The Command Squad could also have been spruced up with some additional capacity, right now it is probably only useful to get some relentless multi-meltas on the table and that doesn't exactly feel like it should be their only purpose. Their Simulacrum could be given an area effect and combined with the Blessed Banner for example, that could be very good but would of course mean a bit of a price increase.

Offline Sgt. Backhand

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Re: Battle Sisters Redux
« Reply #4 on: November 22, 2011, 03:19:53 PM »
I broke out my old sisters army and played some 1,000 point games with the new list.

Overall, I don't think it was broken so bad, but I did put them back in their case.

The big problem I had was whenever I got to do the close range fire fight, my opponent was able to easily dictate that he was fighting different. He could charge me for CC, or just set up far away for the long range gunfight. I was able to bring to bear a lot of flamer templates to clear objectives, but if anything survived I had a really hard time moving them in CC.
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Offline Allegiant Thorn

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Re: Battle Sisters Redux
« Reply #5 on: December 30, 2011, 03:55:30 AM »
I agree...allow the sororitas command squad to take more celestians, give them all storm bolters, and allow the cannoness her blessed weapon.


 


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