Sisters of Battle

You have been put in charge of launching a new line for SoB at GW. You have to make them sell to people who just want to paint models and you have to revamp the army to be powerful enough to be competitive with armies like Eldar in order to sell more models because that is what the company head demand. How do you do it?

First, I remove them completely from the game. They are in the lore, but I cut them out from rules.
I keep them in such limbo for entire edition.
I then relaunch them as units with rules. And because I gave myself few years of rest, in the meantime I've collected the extensive data what people liked in them in the past, what annoyed them about SoBs and what should be improved. Also running a trial designs among both regular players, new players and people not playing W40k at all to see what pleases who and why.

In short - buying myself a lot of time, creating a demand and then delivering what people want to get, potentially in few different flavours, as there is no way to simply satisfy everyone with single line of figures.

>keep them in limbo for an edition
>run a year-long focus group
>not knowing the subject already

Welp ...

1. give them back their stormtroopers
2. let them run blobs of orange jumpsuit "penitent" fodder
3. unfuck faith points
4. give priests a nice Ld bubble
5. artefacts and anti-psi relic options

And, finally, make the new plastic range so beautiful that buying an army will be a Pavlovian response.

Give the faces some much better details

I'd redesign the whole game, honestly. Each army should feel unique with specific game plans. Sisters get caught in a strange limbo of what they want to actually be. They're better equipped than IG with less units and some special rules for faith, but not running the raw combat stats of a group of marines. Their position as the force of the Ecclesiarchy should probably sit central to their playstyle. They aren't the special ops group marines play as and not the en masse standing force the IG run.

... maybe a strong inspire mechanic that plays off of meltas and flamers? Like they get buffs for killing enemies of the emperor that have the potential to snowball, and have to clump together to take advantage of it.
>Sister burns heretic
>Other sisters that see it now excite and get better at burning heretics
>Burnt heretics everywhere, everyone is happy

Let's see....

Create the Sororitas Auxilia, which is composed by girl that have not been deemed worth of entering the order but are still voluntering to be like serfs. Those will have lasguns, be slightly better at aiming than a guardsmen and otherwise have the same status for a slightly greater point cost. Auxilia will have a larger variety of weapons per squad to add flexibility to the army.

then i create like, 4 new vehicles for the sisters. 1 very fast land vehicle that works as a quick but weak transport with a heavy bolter on top. 1 non transport heavy tank with options for two heavy meltas, 1 large blast or 2 rocket burst weapons. Give them an upgraded penitent engine and a named character who is actually a heroic penitent engine. Make them all monstrous creatures.

Give sisters 2 exclusive air units, one is a valkyrie like transport that has a 'gunship' loadout, and the other is a fighter with a VTOL mode that is competitive to kill land units.

I release a codex, thick one, filled with good art and stories about sororitas victories, including wiping out the grey knights in one occasion, then using their weapons to kill daemons and having the ecclesiarchy shield then from retribution, Space Wolf style. And then another story where they actually save the lives or some of the mary sue space marines character and he says that he only wishes astartes loyalty to the empire was as unwielding as the sister.

then I'd bath in the butthurt generated and watch as everyone foam from the mouth because they can't handle the girl army being almost as good as the others, or better than some.

Maybe also a couple stories about eldar and sister alliances too, just cuz.

I'd change the theme ever so slightly to give more unit options. Rather than just being Faithful, I'd go with Soulbound. Those are are tied to the emperor not in blood like the Marines but in spirit.

Give the SOB Astropaths as a Psyker unit they can take. Terrible combatants and limited in the disciplines they can learn but very good at divination and telepathy.

They can take a Custodes as a terrifying melee shitstomper HQ as every army needs one to sell well. Make the purpose of the Cannoness HQ more in the fact you can give her a grav-harnessed Heavy Bolter or Multimelta.

A full faith points system is going to be a bitch and a half for newer players and fiddly, I'd instead make it more passive.

So Retributors give Rending on all ranged attacks to themselves and any Soulbound HQ that joins them. An Astropath allows any Soulbound unit they join to make Snap Shots at full BS. By their powers combined, they make Flyers sad.

Give them a big, scary walker. It's a penitent engine being crewed by a penitent Alpha psyker. Smaller than a Knight Titan but very much a match for it due to both passive abilities and psyker powers.

Move them combat-wise higher up the Init zone. SOB at Init 4, Seraphim at init 5. The reasoning being a combination of The Quickening and that unique SOB martial arts style that turns up decently often in fluff.

The SOB fill an area between Marines and Eldar. Not quite as tough as marines, not quite as fast as Eldar but better than each in the weaker area.

>Sisters of Battles having Psykers in their ranks

NO.

>Maybe also a couple stories about eldar and sister alliances too, just cuz.

So, the plot of Daemonfuge?

Because I'd like to see that re-mentioned at some point. The SOB successfully found out the True Name of Slannesh itself and the Eldar wanted to use it to destroy him.

>The two groups of people who've met the emperor in person teaming up.

One SoB meeting the Emperor 4000 years ago doesn't make another 4000 years of "Beware the Psyker and Mutant" null.

You know the SOB already team up to work with the Telepathica, right?

The SOB and Telepathica are the guys who run the Black Ships. (Source: Faith and Fire novel + Battlefleet Gothic)

The SoB help the Inquisitors who oversee the Black Ships precisely because they're effective against Psykers because they hate their guts. The Telepaths own and control the ships because they're needed to find the Galaxies Psykers.

>The SoB help the Inquisitors who oversee the Black Ships precisely because they're effective against Psykers because they hate their guts.

The Faith and Fire book has an entire scene expressly talking about how the SOB don't hate Sanctioned Pyskers. It's Witches that they hate.

user, don't want to break it for you, but either you run focus groups or you end up with shitfest that is currently the main thing going in entire GW.
Because who needs focus groups, it's so fucking obvious how to solve things, right?

The sole fact different anons in this thread have completely different solutions within mere 10 posts should ring you a bell already

>Create the Sororitas Auxilia, which is composed by girl that have not been deemed worth of entering the order but are still voluntering to be like serfs. Those will have lasguns, be slightly better at aiming than a guardsmen and otherwise have the same status for a slightly greater point cost. Auxilia will have a larger variety of weapons per squad to add flexibility to the army.
I think nobody will use regular Sisters with SoB scouts like these

Dunno, sisters still bring heavier weapon in more concentrated groups, 3+ armor, slightly better weapon skill and use of faith points. The scouts would mostly be used to shield them from fire, because it was impossible to get my dominion in melta range.

A lot of that is due to cover and armour being 'take the best'.

I personally think the Auxilla would overlap too much with Marine Serfs. I'd go with Initiates. More or less guardsmen with a Sister Superior squad leader (So init is 7(9) for them rather than 7(8) like with normal guard).

Maybe give them a different weapon to make them feel less like imperial guard.

Hunting Rifle: Range 36" Pow 4 AP 5, Heavy 1.

Good objective campers, not much good on the attack.

>Init

I mean leadership, obviously.

I am smrt.

>give them an assault vehicle
>update from the pewter models already
>make them cost less points
>maybe give them back some inquisition things, or just shove in a formation that has them and another faction because that's how they're doing things
>make the poster-child SoB not be the Order of Our Martyred Lady
>make the faces not look scary
>make them cost more

Easy

>powerful enough to be competitive with armies like Eldar
Alright nevermind, there's nothing I can do here.

Much better materials

>cover and armour being 'take the best'.

I fucking hate that shit. From a gameplay perspective, it makes everything way too easy to kill in the current meta of stupidly powerful shooting, and doesn't make sense from a simulationist aspect where you suddenly lose your massive ceramite armor just because some grot's stray shot managed to get through a hole in a wall.

The current 40k rules are stuck in this dumb limbo where some shit is based on forging the narrative and other shit is gameplay centric, but they managed to only pick the worst possible examples of both.

I can KINDA get it for speed purposes but it's still annoying.

The Adeptus Astra Telepathica isn't composed entirely of psykers, it's just the organization that oversees them in the Imperium. They gots lots of psykers, but also normal humans acting as adepts, stormtroopers to watch the recruits, and even blanks (the sisters of silence in 30k).
You don't hate an imperial guard general just because his soldiers are feral warriors or penal legion.

I've read the book, and I don't remember that scene. Plus the fact that Hammer and Anvil has them wanting to purge a xeno infected sister to be sure, I don't see them being kinder to those touched by the warp.

Condense Sisters of Battle, Inquisition, and Grey Knights back into one codex.

Sisters and Inquisitorial Storm Troopers can be the basic troops. Grey Knights make up the Elite almost exclusively. Heavy Support and Fast Attack are mixed between the two.

Make my OC Sister Order the poster children for them.

>I've read the book, and I don't remember that scene.

It's at the beginning, when she's talking to the rookie Sister who gets killed by the transported psyker. The rookie is going 'We hate all psykers, right?' and she corrects her to 'No, you fear the Witch, not the Psyker'.

>Plus the fact that Hammer and Anvil has them wanting to purge a xeno infected sister to be sure

That woman was literally a Necron Cyborg. I think that's a bit different.