Think Tank: Sisters Weaponry

[Houghten]

Over the past editions, the presence of Heavy Flamers in the Space Marine codex has gradually increased, from being on Dreadnoughts (including Tactical Dreadnoughts) only, to being takeable on Sternguard and Damned Legionnaires and twin-linked on Razorbacks, and if the Kit Bash article in this month's White Dwarf is an accurate indication of the Codex and not just a chap putting a heavy flamer in his Tactical Squad because it looks cool, then they can now be taken in Tactical Squads as well.

If Razorbacks can take twin-linked multi-meltas, well, Battle Sister squads and their dedicated transports will be left scratching their heads and wondering what happened to all their unique toys. Especially since they got them by forsaking plasma guns, plasma cannon, lascannon and missile launchers.

So let's all put our crazy heads on and pretend that Sisters are actually getting a release some time this decade.

What new weapons might we see on the plastic Battle Sisters frame?

I doubt they'll get any of the things I mentioned in paragraph 2, or grav guns, but maybe some fantastical "new" Ecclesiarchical thingamubobby that wounds against Leadership like a neural whip / shredder does.

I also envision some kind of incendiary missile launcher - maybe one that fires a swarm of micro-warheads - but I'm not sure how to stop such a thing from completely eclipsing flamers.

A thought? Anyone?

[MajorWesJanson]

Over the past editions, the presence of Heavy Flamers in the Space Marine codex has gradually increased, from being on Dreadnoughts (including Tactical Dreadnoughts) only, to being takeable on Sternguard and Damned Legionnaires and twin-linked on Razorbacks, and if the Kit Bash article in this month's White Dwarf is an accurate indication of the Codex and not just a chap putting a heavy flamer in his Tactical Squad because it looks cool, then they can now be taken in Tactical Squads as well.

If Razorbacks can take twin-linked multi-meltas, well, Battle Sister squads and their dedicated transports will be left scratching their heads and wondering what happened to all their unique toys. Especially since they got them by forsaking plasma guns, plasma cannon, lascannon and missile launchers.

So let's all put our crazy heads on and pretend that Sisters are actually getting a release some time this decade.

What new weapons might we see on the plastic Battle Sisters frame?

I doubt they'll get any of the things I mentioned in paragraph 2, or grav guns, but maybe some fantastical "new" Ecclesiarchical thingamubobby that wounds against Leadership like a neural whip / shredder does.

I also envision some kind of incendiary missile launcher - maybe one that fires a swarm of micro-warheads - but I'm not sure how to stop such a thing from completely eclipsing flamers.

A thought? Anyone?

Currently, Sisters are heavy into Stormbolters, Heavy Bolters, Melta and Flame Weapons for shooting, so run with that. Additionally, GK have Psybolts to bump the strnegth of stuff, so give Sisters Blessed Ammunition to bump AP of weapons. Blessed bolters and stormbolters would be S4 AP4. Blessed Heavy Bolters and Heavy Flamers would be S5 AP3.
Add the pistol versions of flamers and meltas, and give sisters access to Torrent for their vehicle flamers and the melta cannon from the IG book.
Neural whip sounds like a good idea, but maybe make it basically a DE agonizer, a power weapon that wounds on a fixed roll.
Maybe add shotguns with specialist ammo- slug at S4, Inferno at S3 ignores cover, Flechette at S3 Shred, ect.

[DarkLink]

If they gave Sisters something like blessed ammo: grants Ignores Cover, that would be pretty sweet. Otherwise, they're just overpriced mediocre Marines with very limited options.

[DrBored]

Sisters of Battle, being an Imperium army, would probably get access to a lot of the same weapons that the Imperial Guard and Space Marines get. They definitely seem partial to Melta, Flame, and Bolter weapons, with no Plasma in sight. I think what would really set them apart more than anything would be the upgrades that they could then give those *weapons* instead of the models, such as Blessed Ammunition, different Acts of Faith, and something along the lines of 'commands' that could be given by the 'sergeants' of a squad.

Sisters of Battle, even now, still have a few unique weapons. Their Penitent Engines, Sisters Repentia, and especially the Exorcists all have the potential to be devastating weapons, given the right statline, weapon profiles, and different realm of options.

Really though, the problem is that the Codex is so old, and the White Dwarf added absolutely nothing to the army, that when a Codex for them DOES come out, it'll probably end up being a radical shift from what we think we know.

[Gleipnir]

Wouldn't shock me to see sisters get rolled into a codex again with Grey Knights and Inquisitors/Ecclesiarchy/Assassins etc... with the Supplement treatment for one or both, get same box set treatment Grey Knights currently have with lots of options for squad types in less boxes. Whatever they do to differentiate Sisters though I'm sure it will be distinct and if its among the last codices from 6th to come out if past experience with codex creep can be relied upon I'm sure it will play well.

[DrLove42]

I see Penitent engines being a nice shiny new plastic kit...the original Dreadknight after all

[Dimitrios]

To me the weaponry aspect of the sisters of battle is not, and should not, be the main focus of the Sisterhood. For me the aspect that defines them (ignoring the lady lumps) is their religious devotion to the emperor and all of the mystical powers that bestows them. Equally we have not truelly seen the full weight of their NULL aspect represented on the field of battle. Blessed ammuntion and blessed weapons could be a very interesting dynamic (as already mentioned) but I would rather see the following:

1. A focus on Devine Powers and Mystical abilities (These would be psykic styled powers that would work through faith as apposed to pyskic ability - No rolling for pyskic test - No pyskers). Very much akin to Warrior Priests in the Warhammer Empire codex.

2. An army wide Null affect, in the same vein as the Tyranid Shadow In The Warp power however with the additional affect of reducing the leadership of nearby enemy models (fearless would obiously be unaffected).

3. Amplification of their faith points and martyr unique mechanic.

4. Prefered enemy (or better) on all non Imperial Forces.

5. Allow certain characters to "enlighten" the sisterhood to view selected units as tainted bestowing further bonuses to damage against them (be they Imperial forces or otherwise - this would represent the church launching attacks against imperial positions in the belief that they may have fallen to chaos or are about too).

All of the above would make sisters unique, but wouldnt be tied to or require "unique" wargear. Why should every imperial army have unique wargear anyway?

[Houghten]

I'm not going to pretend I know why they should have. I just know that they do.

And the Sisters are already at least partially defined by their weaponry, what with the whole "holy trinity of bolter, flamer and melta" thing preventing them from accessing a lot of the weapons that your bog-standard Guardsman (or a pair of him) can take.

So as interesting as your ideas are about what you'd prefer to see instead, this thread is for baseless speculation about possible new weapons. It is not "Gentlemen, how do we fix Sisters?"

--

Wes' idea about blessed ammo as a counterpoint to psybolt ammo is an intriguing one.

[Clockwork]

I just wanted to point out that Sisters already have a Nueral Whip, it's S8 vs unmodified Ld. And against most things it SUCKs because it'll typically wound on a 4+ AT BEST.

[Bigred]

This conversation is all well and good (please continue ladies and gentlemen) but I'm going to relocate it into 40K General.

-Larry

[daboarder]

I'm not going to pretend I know why they should have. I just know that they do.

And the Sisters are already at least partially defined by their weaponry, what with the whole "holy trinity of bolter, flamer and melta" thing preventing them from accessing a lot of the weapons that your bog-standard Guardsman (or a pair of him) can take.

So as interesting as your ideas are about what you'd prefer to see instead, this thread is for baseless speculation about possible new weapons. It is not "Gentlemen, how do we fix Sisters?"

--

Wes' idea about blessed ammo as a counterpoint to psybolt ammo is an intriguing one.

So you give them more flame, melta and bolt weapons.

How about something like a heavy flamer with torrent? or a melta weapon with blast, or more than one shot. How about inferno bolts for a bolter, Or heavy bolters that can take (fusion rounds) giving them say armourbane.

[Occam]

Not a Sister, sistah or a player of battle *****es, but I like their style and think they would be the only imperial army i'd ever play.
I'd say some good equipment upgrade ideas would be, in no particular order:

1) White phosphorous rounds as ammo. Warning, gory pictures inside:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_phosphorus#Effects_on_people

could auto-wound non-vehicle units on a 3+ or something. If fired with 12", could give 6+ smoke cover to that unit.

2) Allow certain characters to "enlighten" the sisterhood to view selected units as tainted bestowing further bonuses to damage against them (be they Imperial forces or otherwise - this would represent the church launching attacks against imperial positions in the belief that they may have fallen to chaos or are about too). [thanks for the idea dimitrios!]


3) I like the idea of the holy hand-grenade of antioch. Enough said.

4) Null rods, available as 1/HQ choice. The idea is that these would either immobilize vehicles in a stasis field for 1 turn or something, or automatically allow a given unit to fully protect itself against all psychic powers. ["But it doesn't do anything." "Wrong, it does nothing!"]

5) Lay on Hands special power: Can restore 1 model, up to full model count of original squad, for every 1 faith point spent that turn. [or spend x points and roll # of dice to units lost; 5+ restores that model.]

6) Priests' indulgence: Each unit with a priest that bought this ability gets Feel No Pain on a 6+ [better or henchmen and stuff].

7: Battle bros. with Grey Knights, Black Templar and IG. May take more than one attachment [?] but no more than 3 [?]

8) Now i'm just spit-ballin here, but how abouts: An order/psychic power system like what the IG have, but you spend a given faith point use them? Dimitrous had the right idea.

9) Shotguns, heavy stubbers, and plasma make their way in. Plasma is just super-heated gas, so it works. And what else is super-hot? Fire.

10) Sacred wargear--really things just stolen from other codexes, like tesseract labyrinthes. 1/army.

11) Sacred reliquary/ark: 1/army. [1/game useage?] Costs a large number of faith points, but unleashes a str 10 ap 1 large blast upon the enemy, ignoring cover.

Hope you enjoyed my ideas.

[Colten Long]

I've been brainstorming on what the Sisters could use for our codex and have compiled it into the following file Colt's Codex: Sisters of Battle (https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B4b_KTNZ_-75NXFjTFVZMnE5YVE). As Houghten pointed out, this thread is about the wargear, so see the Armory section near the end.

Within, I included a number of changes to the Sisters' current armaments. I think that the Sisters distinguished their weaponry through the avoidance of the Lascannon and Plasma weaponry (and likely the new Grav weaponry). To this end, I have removed Plasma pistols from the characters (even though most current models have them). With those heavy weapons scratched off, I went about filling in the gaps in the Sisters as I saw them. To this end I added access to a couple of Auto-guns (which people take anyway with the defense line), several missiles and the woman-portable missile launcher (because we need anti-air), a sniper rifle more suited for a sniper in power armor that isn't afraid to leave the backfield, several grenades, Torrent flamers, and specialty ammunition.

As to the suggestions that others have made, I'll try to cover them as follows:

Orders: I don't feel that the Sisters need orders, they already have a squad based buff system in the form of Acts of Faith and I think that adding orders would detract from the single most unique portion of the Sisters. That being said, I have included a number of ways to better manager Faith so that a competent commander will not view it as a dire limitation.

Preferred enemies and null effects: I have included these in a limited form by including two convent artifacts that grant similar abilities to the HQ equipped with them and to her squad. I didn't want to give widespread access to either ability as they could be tremendously powerful against certain armies and could prevent your opponent from using any of his fun abilities (because, honestly, this is a game and both players should be having fun).

Blessed ammo: Special ammunition has been included, but I chose to borrow the bolter ammo from the Astartes rather than creating psy-bolt equivalents or special blessed ammunition, though there are a number of unique choices for the sniper rifles and flamers and scaled-up heavy bolter specialty ammo.

White phosphorus: The Hellfire grenade is my version of the white phosphorus grenade. I've also borrowed a number of the specialty grenades mentioned in the Grey Knight codex for use on the Grenadier Squad.

Plasma weapons: Plasmas do not need to be hot. A plasma is simply a mass of ionized particles in which the electrons have disassociated from the nuclei. It is entirely possible that while the weapons themselves may get hot, the gas-like plasma that they spew is “cool”. Regardless of whether the plasma discharge is hot, it is, to my understanding, the nature of the ions contained and not the thermal payload that distinguishes plasma weaponry – Hence they lack the ability to “purify” that a true thermal weapon provides to our girls.

[Dalleron]

In all honesty, I was fine with the Old codex. I mean codex, not the WD travesty. The only thing the codex needed was a drop in points for rhino's to make them in line with the current SM and CSM point costs. I found everything else was fine. Getting the hand flamers and melta pistols in line with the SM stuff was to be expected. I had no problem with the weapons. Rolling a 1 for an exorcist's shots was always annoying, and wouldn't mind a change to that, like the elder scatter laser.

Why they took away blessed weapons and jump pack for the IC is beyond me. I'm not even sure a canoness can take an eviscerator anymore. I'm sure they will get some sort of armoury for relics and whatnot.

[LordGrise]

I play Tau, not SoB... but I agree that the Sisters' defining characteristic is their faith and the religious overtones. Given that, blessed ammo, blessed weapons, blessed armour and blessed vehicles would all be completely legit in my book. I also think that giving them a menu-option system as opposed to random rolling for psyker powers would be a nice defining aspect. Of course, being Sisters it ain't psykery, it's Faith.

Model-able reliquaries providing area-of-effect benefits might also be an idea, I think. Not just flags, but anything from a small box containing the left pinky toe of Sister Whozitz (her right pinky toe being in another segmentum, you understand) carried by a specific model (squad level item) to the Catafalque of Saint Whozatz, the Heroine of Alamo-13, (AoE item, requiring a dedicated squad) to the Altar of Resolve, transported on a dedicated vehicle and providing bennies to the entire army (or at least anyone with line-of-sight). The modeling possibilities are endless. I offer the concept of a super-heavy chassis transporting an entire Mass or Choir, (or ongoing sacrificial ceremony for our Chaos players) into battle...

I REALLY don't understand why SoB are so ignored by GW. Maybe they're being leaned on by the RCC in real life or something?

[Cactus]

I've always thought the religious armies should get some sort of Molotov cocktail-type bomb or missile.

Candle of Faith Missile: 48" large blast, S4, AP 5, remains in play. At the start of each player's turn roll a D6, the template is removed on a roll of 4+; otherwise blast continues to burn. Any model under the template at the end of each movement phase suffers an additional S4, AP 5 hit.

Quicksilver bullets for boltguns: S4 AP5 Ignores FNP. Ignores Daemonic Saves.

I'd also let Sisters take units of 20 models from the Troops choices.

[tallguynsc]

Sisters need to be one of the best anti-psyker army in the game.
Need more customization for characters. Make me want to choose the canoness over one of the special characters.
Re-vamp the Acts of Faith again please.
I don't want to rely on Allies for anti-flyer duties (or fortifications).

[Clockwork]

Sisters need to be one of the best anti-psyker army in the game.
Need more customization for characters. Make me want to choose the canoness over one of the special characters.
Re-vamp the Acts of Faith again please.
I don't want to rely on Allies for anti-flyer duties (or fortifications).

Preferred Enemy (Psyker) and Adamantium Will solves that nicely.

EDIT: Also porting the Avenger over from FW like they port FW IG stuff over for 5th would solve the basic flyer Valkryie. Give them the Valkryie to go with it (for the semi-mandatory transport aircraft option) and we're set.

@Cactus Battle Sister Squads can already go up to 20, what they need is a 5 model option so they can fit inside an Immolator, or the option to take the Immolator as a support vehicle despite not being able to ride inside.

That and either torrent TL Heavy Flamer or Fast with the TL Heavy Flamer.