New SoB Codex = Ashcan Copy?

[MaltonNecromancer]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashcan_copy

So anyway, last night I was in Asda (which is, I recently discovered, the UK equivelant of Wal-Mart), and found the latest White Dwarf. After sifting through page after page of tedious WHFB nonsense, I had a read through the new SoB "codex", and have come to the conclusion: what a dreadful, dreadful waste of everyone's time.

Now, I'm not going to lambast it for being uncompetetive or "nerfed". I'm not going to decry it for the lack of new miniatures. Well, maybe a little.

No, my overwhelming feeling was how tedious it was, because as everything is relatively weak (low T, basic bolters, etc...) with no real compensating powers (acts of faith are a minor buff at best as they currently stand), it has to play like another horde army. And those just personally bore me to tears. Everything about them is depressing, from having to spend a fortune on models, having to spend far longer painting them ("factory" style painting is soul-destroying). And that's without the game time spent setting them up, moving them, endlessly removing them when they inevitably die... Just emotionally draining.

Unlike other codicies, there's nothing new, or exciting or cool. Just rehases of prexisting stuff, and rules that have been simplified (which is good) without being exciting (which isn't). Literally nothing in the "codex" makes me (in wrestling parlance) "mark out", which is just a bit depressing.

Now, I'm not too worried by this - the BA "codex" that appeared in White Dwarf prior to the new one was equally dreadful, so the actual book codex will be better.

My thought is: does this whole thing have the feel of a gaming "ashcan copy" to anybody else? Because that's entirely how it feels to me.

[AngelsofDeath]

Well I played my Blood Angels when they were a White Dwarf (pdf) print out. So if your playing Sisters and I was your psychologist I would tell you that it is ok, and that it will all get better. But since I am not then I will just laugh and tell you its about to suck real hard for a long time.

What a joke again. C'mon Man!!! Couldn't they find someone to write a real Sisters codex and put it out. There has to be a receptionist or janitor at GW HQ that could have written something better on their lunch break than the crap GW is trying to pass as a white dwarf codex.

I feel bad for the people who have the army and who have taken the time and painted it. Even more for the players who were using the old codex and were wining with it, and not just had the rug pulled out from under them.

Good luck Sister...I have felt your pain

[MaltonNecromancer]

Couldn't they find someone to write a real Sisters codex and put it out. There has to be a receptionist or janitor at GW HQ that could have written something better on their lunch break than the crap GW is trying to pass as a white dwarf codex.

And the thing is, I'm fairly sure they're trying to push White Dwarf's sales by increasing the "quality" of the content. As a dedicated 40K player, I'm not paying £4.50 for a magazine that 90% WHFB with the only 40K element feeling like it's been written to keep hold on an IP (whether it has or not), and then for it to be in two halves! (In a shameless marketing strategy to get me to buy both copies... Gues what GW; I can wait for the actual book.)

If they want us to buy a magazine whose only mention in mainstream entertainment is on Peep Show, where is is synonymous with shame, they really have to do better. Much, much better.

[Lerra]

I would actually feel better about GW's competence if I learned the SoB codex was an ashcan copy and not just a failure.

[Wildeybeast]

It feels like a rushed and quite possibly botched job. Based on this is no way on earth that there is a proper SoB codex ready to roll out and any time soon, and the guy in the store told me that there are currently no plans to update any of the models to plastic (how reliable that is is up to others to decide) and the lack of finecast models is worrying. This is a 'get you by codex that lets you know we haven't completely forgotten about SoB and might get round to giving you proper codex at some time during 6th edition'.

I do however have a rules question about it: when do you take the invulnerable save for the vehicles? Given that they don't get 'wounded' as such, i'm assuming it follows the same mechanic as cover saves for vehicles, but WD helpfully forgot to include while they were knocking this codex up during their lunch break.

[Lord Azaghul]

no shocker here, SoB's have never been a large seller. IF indeed GW needs to drive up sales a major resource commitment toward SoB is not the right move for them to make.
A token dex for a token army = pretty much just tying up those lose ends closely all IG/GK allied gaps remaining.
Sorry boys and girls

[Tynskel]

I like what I have read so far of the codex. Of course, it would be nice to see a full fledged book, but, this is cool.

I especially like what they did with the seraphim and retribution. Rending Hv Flamers. :) I like that. Two shot infernus pistols. Two template hand flamers. I like these things.

[MaltonNecromancer]

no shocker here, SoB's have never been a large seller.

Two words: Dark Eldar. A terrible, terrible army, with the worst, most godawful, wretched, big-hands-for-a-lady, why-have-you-glued-a-bat-to-your-chest? sculpts in the history of wargaming (Nagash and his clown hat excepted, obviously - off-topic: how did Gary Morley ever find employment sculpting?), dreadful fluff and a sub-par (yes, workable, but still, sub-par) ruleset suddenly becomes an ultra-competitive glass cannon army that redfines the metagame and has beautiful sculpts and fluff that magnificently rips off Vampire: The Masquerade fluff that's no longer in use (the Kabalites are the Lasombra and the Haemonculi are the Tzimisce, and DE society is basically the Sabbat with hypertech - pure awesome. Yes, I would run a Dark Heresy game with Dark Eldar, and yes, it would melt your brain.)...

and all this largely due to Jes Goodwin's lifelong Eldar boner.

The SoB need revamping in the same way, and the Ashcan Codex is nowhere near good enough. Do you hear me Goodwin? Plastic Repentia, dammit!!!


Rending Hv Flamers. I like that.

True... but Rending Multimeltas?! *facepalm*

[spectre113]

When i read the rules, i felt the same way as i did when i saw the Chaos Dwarves in the Ravening Hordes book after 5th edition. "This army just got the bullet and we'll never see them again."

It could be throwing a bone, like the blood angels codex, but the entry didn't exactly read that way. I get the feeling that we may not see a Sisters of Battle codex ever again. The fan base of the Witch hunters book has dwindled to twelve people and a duck somewhere in Scotland, and those devoted few were eagerly anticipating support (in particular, plastic Battle Sisters). Now deprived of new models, new rules entries, and real rule support, the final fans will probably lose their interest and wander elsewhere (except the duck, who has unlimited patience) so when a reappraisal of a sisters of battle book comes up, they'll decide it will be too difficult to move and go on to reprinting other books.

Bottom Line: The sisters of battle don't seem to appropriately fit into the universe that Games Workshop has been creating. Unsure of how to handle an all female faction, it is an appendage that has been hanging off awkwardly for years and they have decided to retire (or at least sideline) them. It is a very real and terrifying possibility that the Sisters of Battle have just had their last shred of support.

[Anggul]

Well yeah, this was just meant to be a fix to the previous rules to make them a bit stronger, we all knew that and none of us (or at least I hope) expected the entire overhaul to come yet. It's just a stepping stone to advance them a bit while the real thing is worked on. SoB have essentially gotten a midpoint, which if you think about it is great, and much better treatment than any other army has gotten. Can you imagine the joy of a Necron player if a while ago they'd written a white dwarf dex pretty much just bringing their costs and a few of their rules more into line with today's standards? It would have been great.

You say it's a waste of everyone's time, but really they didn't need to do this at all, they could have just waited until the entire re-do. For once they've actually vaguely thought about players, they probably know that apart from a couple of new kits they won't actually get that much money out of this, not until the main release, so to do what they did is actually pretty damn generous compared to their usual... 'actions'. You appear to be complaining about something which we just as easily could not have had.

Last of all, I imagine they'll play more like Eldar than horde, with mid-costed troops (like Dire Avengers) and specialised weapon squads (Dominions=Fire Dragons?) only instead of higher combat skills and manoeuvrability, they have faith and power armour. Also unlike Dire Avengers battle sisters can have melta and flamer, which is a significant advantage. Obviously I don't know this for sure as I haven't seen the codex yet, but I imagine it being something like this, feel free to correct me if you know the points costs but obviously can't tell them to us straight.

[Xas]

From concept you can see the WD codex as an Ashcan copy:

It is meant to preserve the status quo with the army and update it to the new rules (streamlined faith and equippment, re-scaled unit/vehicle costs).

I like the codex (and added value to WD) and would approve if GW would make it a regular or semi regular (say two issues per quartal are used for a WD codex and the third is codex-free) occurance because it will be better than the outdated codex we had to use before.

I'd love to have some rules-update to armies which aren't yet inline for a complete codex-redo but still show the signs of aging rules (tau, eldar, chaos marines / deamons).

Not haveing new models isnt that bad as it isn a codex release of any kind but just an addition to GWs release schedule. Compared to other tolder lines it isnt as if the sister's needed new models anyway. They are gorgeous models (and if you hate hybrid kits you can get exorcists from FW) that superceed many newer/plastic models in quality and esthetics (I'm looking at you, tau line...).






True... but Rending Multimeltas?! *facepalm*

it has a practical application: you are able to penetrate AV14 from further than 12" away.

and you arent forced to spend your faith on a job that makes no good use of it.

like you wouldnt use the totally cool seraphim power to reroll to-wounds in the turn you use the meltapistols to blast open a vehicle, would you?

[Fellend]

I agree that it's awesome that they get a midpoint IF, and I say IF the same way that the spartans did to Alexander the Greats father.
IF there comes a real codex soon, IF it actually is a midpoint then yay!
IF not. Then it's just crap and they could have kept it

[Wildeybeast]

I like the codex (and added value to WD) and would approve if GW would make it a regular or semi regular (say two issues per quartal are used for a WD codex and the third is codex-free) occurance because it will be better than the outdated codex we had to use before.

I'd love to have some rules-update to armies which aren't yet inline for a complete codex-redo but still show the signs of aging rules (tau, eldar, chaos marines / deamons).

I'd rather have an out of date codex than a rushed half arsed job like this one. I'm desperately waiting on Tau to get a competitive codex, but I'd hate to see it done in this format. 2 and a bit pages to sum up the entire history of the army? What a joke. If they are going to do, do it properly and give over half the magazine, not 13 pages, about a quarter of which is pictures of old models.

TBH, I can't see this being a regualr occurence, as SoB actually lent themsleves to this WD format. They have an army specific special rule that varies for each unit, with very standard, simple to use weapons that won't take much explaining = more pages for advertising. Trying to fit in all the Tau wargear would actually warrant giving over half the magazine. Either that or you uttelry cut the heart of the army and do a crap job on it.

[Gir]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashcan_copy

So anyway, last night I was in Asda (which is, I recently discovered, the UK equivelant of Wal-Mart), and found the latest White Dwarf. After sifting through page after page of tedious WHFB nonsense, I had a read through the new SoB "codex", and have come to the conclusion: what a dreadful, dreadful waste of everyone's time.

Now, I'm not going to lambast it for being uncompetetive or "nerfed". I'm not going to decry it for the lack of new miniatures. Well, maybe a little.

No, my overwhelming feeling was how tedious it was, because as everything is relatively weak (low T, basic bolters, etc...) with no real compensating powers (acts of faith are a minor buff at best as they currently stand), it has to play like another horde army. And those just personally bore me to tears. Everything about them is depressing, from having to spend a fortune on models, having to spend far longer painting them ("factory" style painting is soul-destroying). And that's without the game time spent setting them up, moving them, endlessly removing them when they inevitably die... Just emotionally draining.

Unlike other codicies, there's nothing new, or exciting or cool. Just rehases of prexisting stuff, and rules that have been simplified (which is good) without being exciting (which isn't). Literally nothing in the "codex" makes me (in wrestling parlance) "mark out", which is just a bit depressing.

Now, I'm not too worried by this - the BA "codex" that appeared in White Dwarf prior to the new one was equally dreadful, so the actual book codex will be better.

My thought is: does this whole thing have the feel of a gaming "ashcan copy" to anybody else? Because that's entirely how it feels to me.

That, or it's just the fact the Cruddace wrote it.

[Verilance]

If you read Jervis' column in the same issue, he makes it abundantly clear (to me anyway) that nothing new will come without models. If SoB were getting models now they would have their own printed Codex. They don't and they aren't. We may see finecasts of the characters but that is about it.

We got pretty much what we should have expected unfortunately.

[Xabraxis]

Off topic first, the nagash model actually went like this: The sculptor was required to make a few different heads to go with it so that the greater GW committee could decide. He really wanted one specific head, so crafted a craptastic clownhead to go with it to make the choice obvious.


GW went with the clown head.




Anyways, I feel that this White Dwarf update does breathe some life back into Sisters, and Yes updating an army creates sales, especially if you give the book its own little sparkle like with Dark Eldar. Space Marines don't sell well because they're popular, they get sold well because 1/3rd of the armies out there are spacemarines(warning, exaggerating.) and they get real support.

If GW spent a year not doing space marines, you'd see an increase in non-space marine sales.

Anyways, the point costs will be the killer here... if the sisters are weak and expensive, than they're not going to be worth it.

[Baka]

May be next months will come with a centerfold to appease MaltonNecromancer's sense of worthiness. On the other side of my brain I also think it is lacking and point less to spend that much for what should be a FAQ or Update for free. I just hope they do come out with something new instead of recycling old models as new and improved for a price increase.

[w7west]

Well yeah, this was just meant to be a fix to the previous rules to make them a bit stronger

LoL

[Wildeybeast]

Anyways, I feel that this White Dwarf update does breathe some life back into Sisters, and Yes updating an army creates sales.

Yeah, but who in their right mind is going to go and invest in a brand new, all metal army, when they know that everything is getting finecasted and that when this eventually gets turned into a proper codex, there will be shiny plastic stuff?