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Faction Focus - Adepta Sororitas


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https://www.warhammer-community.com/2018/12/06/6th-dec-faction-focus-sisters-of-battlegw-homepage-post-1/

 

Posted 06/12/2018

Faction Focus: Adepta Sororitas

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Now is that a headline you ever thought you’d see on this website? Chapter Approved 2018 would be exciting enough if all it had was a tonne of rules for matched, open and narrative play – but it also contains the beta version of Codex: Adepta Sororitas.

In a radical move, we’re looking to employ the biggest playtest group in the world to make sure the codex is as awesome as it can possibly be – that’s you guys!

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The codex in Chapter Approved is but a taste of what we’ve got planned, but it’s already incredibly expansive, featuring a reworked and improved Acts of Faith system, Order Convictions, Stratagems, Warlord Traits and Relics. To help you prepare and stoke the fires of your hype, we’re previewing all of them today.

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The Sisters of Battle are renowned for the sheer force of their faith, their belief so strong that it seems to allow them to overcome their physical limitations and perform incredible feats of strength. In the new codex, Acts of Faith are powerful abilities. To cast one, you spend a Faith Point, then see if you can roll over the act’s Devotion Value. Take The Passion:

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With a Devotion Value of 5, you’d need to roll a 5 or over – at which point, you can proceed to turn your enemy into heretic-themed bolognese with your eviscerators. You’ll be able to influence this roll in a number of ways, particularly by using a Simulacrum Imperialis and Dialogus.

Unlike in the previous system, Acts of Faith are designed to scale up based on army size, with you getting an additional Faith Point for every ten models with the Acts of Faith rule in your force. This makes the Sisters of Battle incredibly flexible, with Acts of Faith, combined with Stratagems, allowing them to adjust their tactics on the fly.

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This codex also offers Sisters of Battle a host of sub-faction rules with which to customise your army even further, representing the unique battle tactics employed by the various Orders Militant. Each gives your army a distinct flavour, as well as being pretty powerful. The Stoic Endurance of the Order of the Valorous Heart makes them even harder to kill, and is fantastic when combined with the 6+ invulnerable save that all Sisters of Battle have:

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The Daughters of the Ebon Chalice, on the other hand, are particularly good at pulling off Acts of Faith, and make those trickier Acts that little bit easier to use:

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There are six Order Convictions to choose from in total, giving you yet more options when building your army, and letting you represent your favourites from the lore as never before.

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With Acts of Faith representing the divine powers of the Sisters of Battle and Order Convictions the character of their sub-factions, a host of Stratagems allow you to use their particular tactical abilities. Turns out it’s a lot more complicated than “burn anything that looks like a heretic”. Suffer Not The Witch, for instance, allows you to put the hurt on your chosen Psyker, whether it’s a Hive Tyrant or Magnus the Red himself!  

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The humble storm bolter is also getting a massive upgrade in the new codex, with squads of Dominions wielding them suddenly a very appealing prospect indeed, thanks to blessed bolts:

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The new Stratagems are designed to interact with and complement the Acts of Faith, making the Sisters of Battle incredibly deep and tactically rewarding for a forward-thinking general. Vessel of the Emperor’s Will is a great example, maximising the effectiveness of your chosen Act of Faith:

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Last, but not least, you’ll have a host of Warlord Traits and Relics with which to customise your Characters. These range from options that make a Canoness or Missionary even deadlier in close combat to some great support choices. By combining the Book of St Lucius and Indomitable Belief, for instance, you’ll have a key defensive lynchpin for the rest of your forces:

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Alright – one more preview! Penitent Engines have got even better in the beta codex, and we can’t resist sharing just how. For one, these war machines now always fight twice in the Fight phase, and for another, they’ve been given an ability to ignore wounds:

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Like the sound of the above? Think it’s too powerful – or not powerful enough? Well, like we said, we’re looking for your feedback! Everything you send us about this beta codex will help us balance Codex: Adepta Sororitas when it comes out in full.

You’ll be able to pre-order your copy of Chapter Approved this weekend. In the meantime, if you missed them, check out our previews of matched, open and narrative play.

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Devotion Values for Acts of Faith... probably on a d6, given that the 'fight twice' AoF is on a 5+ and an entire "Chapter Tactic" is +1 to AoF rolls.

One AoF per ten Faithful models... Kinda anti-MSU, but I'm still going to try to run all-Mechanized/Immolator (Repressor, really) Spam.

Another "Chapter Tactic of 6+++ to go with the 6++.... meh on T3.

1 CP to re-roll failed wounds vs Psykers in either the Fight or Shooting phase from one unit.

1 CP to give Storm Bolters AP -2 and 2 Damage... Somebody on the Design Team wants Sisters to take down Primaris Marines.

3 CP for the AoF made for (vs. made BY? would that make any difference.) a CHARACTER affects units within 6". It looks like the example made later of giving a 5++ within 6" for a Warlord trait a 3" aura range boost due to Book of St. Lucius would work with this as well. That's a BIG zone for re-rolling wounds v. Psykers.

Given that most of the examples are for close-combat (with a S3 T3 WS 4+ army, for the most part) I hope the Shootier buffs are equivalently good. Or they let Sister Speriors start swinging Eviscerators again.

The Penitent Engine fighting twice... When? Immediately after swinging? Just bump up the Attacks instead. After Opponents fight back? At the end of the Fight Phase (like the 'fight Twice stratagem for Orks was FAQ'd to be)?

 

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Well, Vessel of the Emperor's Will looks interesting. We'll have to see what the other Acts of Faith are. I agree that the 6+ FNP is underwhelming, though, and that the Penitent Engine needs clarification on exactly when it fights again. Does it fight like a normal unit and then you can select it to fight again after your opponent has selected a unit? How does that work with charges? Will the Engine fight twice before the unit it charged gets to fight, and can you interrupt it between those two fights? It's a terribly confusing ability.

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We need to see full details and actually see them on the table to really know how it's all going to come together, but at least it's looking like they actually gave it a real try rather than just phoning it in.

1 hour ago, Frowbakk said:

The Penitent Engine fighting twice... When? Immediately after swinging? Just bump up the Attacks instead. After Opponents fight back? At the end of the Fight Phase (like the 'fight Twice stratagem for Orks was FAQ'd to be)?

The way it reads to me, you can simply select them to fight a second time in each Fight Phase, whenever you would normally have the option to select a Unit to fight. Which is less awesome than Khorne Berzerkers, but better than the second time always being at the end of the Phase. Also, being able to fight twice is much better than just getting more Attacks, because you also get to Pile In and Consolidate twice, which opens up all kinds of shenanigans.

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3 minutes ago, WestRider said:

The way it reads to me, you can simply select them to fight a second time in each Fight Phase, whenever you would normally have the option to select a Unit to fight. Which is less awesome than Khorne Berzerkers, but better than the second time always being at the end of the Phase. Also, being able to fight twice is much better than just getting more Attacks, because you also get to Pile In and Consolidate twice, which opens up all kinds of shenanigans.

That's what I was getting too on the fighting twice, but they're still going to need to FAQ that to make it clear. And good point about getting to pile in and consolidate twice when it fights twice. As well as being better than simple additional attacks gameplay-wise, it also fits better with the cinematic aspect of the Engine tearing into enemy units like an unstoppable whirlwind.

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2 hours ago, Frowbakk said:

 

One AoF per ten Faithful models... Kinda anti-MSU, but I'm still going to try to run all-Mechanized/Immolator (Repressor, really) Spam.

 

 

Anti Mounted MSU. I'm wondering if I could get 3 Brigades of foot sisters with foot MSU.

Edit: Yes, I know, not enough Heavy choices. Most is two.

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1 hour ago, Ish said:

I dunno, I think 6+ FNP on Battle Sisters has the potential to make for some seriously tough units, although that’s going to depend a lot on how much they cost per model. 

Having played with this in my ulthwe army for a long time, I can assure you it's pretty underwhelming/unnoticeable. It's exciting when it happens, but nothing to write home about.

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Ulthwé isn’t clad head-to-high-heels in 3+ Power Armor. I’m not saying this is a sub-faction trait that’s going to redefine the meta and sweep every tourney, but I don’t think it’s going to be useless either.

Hard to say definitively without knowing the full context.

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I have to say, as someone who played against Iron Hands a lot in 7th, it's really annoying to have to deal with a 6+++. It doesn't work so well for Ulthwe because they tend to be both individually fragile and relatively lacking in numbers. But for a Faction that either has massive numbers (Snakebites, where you're rolling enough that it comes up fairly often) or durable individual Models (Iron Hands, Valorous Heart, where the effort needed to take out any given Model is greater, as are the consequences of failing to take one out) it can be pretty powerful. It can turn a tank into a tougher tank, but it can't turn a glass cannon into a tank.

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1 hour ago, Dusldorf said:

I mean, it's exactly the same in both cases...you just ignore 16% of wounds. If your army has more wounds, then the absolute number of ignored wounds is higher, true, but the rate at which this occurs isn't really anything to write home about.

Yeah, but the high numbers make it more reliable, and the more durable Models make it way more impactful when you hit the far end of the bell curve and make a bunch in one game. Don't get me wrong, it's a gambler's choice for any low wound-count Army, but the potential payoff is bigger with something like Marines than with something like Eldar.

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Lorin, stop being obtuse.  😛

Its the same emotional difference between saving a 6+ Ork save in melee as failing a 2+ termie save.  Yes, they are statistically identical, but each carries a different emotion.  

The weapons that can reliably tackle a guardian are more numerous than those that can reliably tackle a sister or IW.  Ergo, the emotion is greater.

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47 minutes ago, fluger said:

Lorin, stop being obtuse.  😛

Its the same emotional difference between saving a 6+ Ork save in melee as failing a 2+ termie save.  Yes, they are statistically identical, but each carries a different emotion.  

The weapons that can reliably tackle a guardian are more numerous than those that can reliably tackle a sister or IW.  Ergo, the emotion is greater.

Someone should write a list-building program that maximizes the frequency of events that make people feel warm and fuzzy inside during games. Apparently there'd be a sizeable demand for it 😛

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That's value added by the model's stats, not the 6+ FNP. The stats mean you would take fewer wounds overall, and the FNP--no matter what unit it applies to--stops 16% of those. As Fluger pointed out, you feel better about the 6+'s you make on an elite model because they're scarcer. But the value added by the FNP to the elite model and the cheap infantry is exactly the same.

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1 hour ago, Dusldorf said:

Someone should write a list-building program that maximizes the frequency of events that make people feel warm and fuzzy inside during games. Apparently there'd be a sizeable demand for it 😛

I like it. Just kidnap some scientists and force them, under inhumane conditions, to create a a list building program that allows other people to feel warm and fuzzy while they play 40k...

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