Sisters of Battle… What is happening?

Hmmm. Suffice to say, I was deleriously excited when I saw the inside back cover of last months Games Workshop Monthly Release Catalogue White Dwarf and I noticed the little box that declared ‘Next month – Part 1 of the Sisters of Battle Codex!’. While I was disappointed initially by the fact that my girls only seemed to warrant a Chapter Approved WD codex, I got over it and moved on. I rushed up to my FLGS on Wednesday to purchase the latest issue (even after reading all the venom online about the codex) to see wtf all the fuss was about. I was pretty disappointed that a vast majority of the issue was devoted to Vampire Counts. The Sisters debut of the ‘new’ rules were stuffed at the back of the magazine almost like an embarrassing afterthought. A whopping 14 pages out of 120… I can only hope that next month will see the Sisters maybe even gracing the cover and taking center stage, although with the preview of next month being focused on Ogre Kingdoms, i’m not too sure. We are promised at batrep of the Sisters Vs. Orks, although elsewhere they said it was against  Tyranid Hive Fleet Leviathan, so either they will publish more than one batrep, or they just did a shit job proofreading before going to press.

 

Now i’m not about to launch into whether this new set of rules is going to make them more competitive etc etc, as there are a deluge of blogs out there who are already doing that (and very well, I may add). I’m just trying to get my head around what exactly GW are doing with this army. A cursory glance at the first part of the glorified pamphlet Codex shows us a little bit in the way of the origins and key conflicts, then jumps straight into the Army Special Rules. I wonder if newcomers to the game will look at this and think ‘holy shit! this looks awesome! sod the other armies out there with their shiny books packed with background fluff, i’m rolling with these ladies!’. I guess I have to ask, has this been put together with current non-sisters players in mind, or are they simply appeasing an older crowd who play them? If it is the latter, then I’d be suprised, as i’m sure GW will want to milk as much moolah out of it as they can, so if it’s the former, it’s not particularly impressive. Shit, they’re even regurgitating old artwork for filler.

 

I’m not sure how I feel about the new Faith Points system. At the start of the Sisters player’s turn, a D6 is rolled, and this is the amount of Faith Points available for that turn. As mentioned on many other blogs, it makes little sense to have this the same for forces of any size.  A 3000 point Sisters army would have a max of 6 Faith Points available? Seems a little goofy, considering the religious fervor these ladies are supposed to have…

 

Gone are Inquisitiors and their retinues, as well as allied forces of Imperial Guard or Space Marines. We do get Priests, with ‘Ecclesiarchy Battle Conclaves’ which is where Crusaders, Arco Flagellants and Death Cult Assassins have now been lumped. If I remember correctly, weren’t the arco’s weapons in the previous Codex classed as power weapons? They have added Feel No Pain, which I guess is pretty cool, and gone is that bloody horrible ‘stim injector death’ rule.

 

We don’t see an entry for the Repressor in this list. This was one of the things that was getting me excited about the new lists, was the posssibility of plastic sisters, and a plastic Repressor (any one who has attempted a FW one will know how much of a pain in the arse it is to put together). In fact, the only minatures in the book are old ones, so are they saving that up for the next issue? will they get new minis or will it be the old range redone in Finecast? No fire points on an Immolator now? No 12 inch ride-and-fire either? wtf?

 

Gone is Lord Karamazov on his toilet Throne of Judgement, and back is Arch-Confessor Kyrinov and Uriah Jacobus, who have returned from a well earned break between Codexes.

 

There are some interesting little tweaks here and there, but the army seems to be lacking the somewhat ‘medieval’ feel they had to them before.

 

On the whole, it seemed pretty anti-climatic. I can only hope that GW redeem themselves by releasing new minis, vehicles etc in the next issue, and while i’m not going to be sending my army off to Ebay just yet, their days may well be numbered.