Ogres, Sisters and other news

It's been a long time since I made an update and I apologize for that.

First, I'd like to say that I'm officially an homeowner.  I'm now knee deep in moving so I'll remain elusive until that's all done.  Then there's a few repairs I need to do with the house so who knows when I'll get back to minis.  However, I have been keeping up with my minis news via White Dwarf, updates from every known forum on the internets and from my fellow bloggers.  Thanks everyone!

The second thing I'd like to talk about is the Sisters codex.  I was disappointed when I checked out the first WD where it had the special rules.  I was disappointed again after seeing their point costs in the 2nd WD.  Needless to say, I think they're going to be a middle of the ground army that adheres to fluff and fun more so than competitive play.  They're just not that good, especially now that their Faith points are not guaranteed and the powers themselves are weaker.  Kirby said it pretty well in his review here.  One of my biggest gripes with the codex is how unreliable their FP system is.  Sure, you can stack HQs in the unit to make it more reliable, but putting more RNG in a RNG-based game is not good game design imo.  It simply takes away with what you can do with them in the future.

I guess my only other follow-up for 40K is the Nova open.  It's been a while since I commented on the metagame, and the only thing I have to say about it is that it sucks.  There's just so many MEQ players these days that tournaments don't facinate me anymore.  Grats on the Draigo player taking GK to the final rounds, can't say I saw that coming.  Wonder what his list was.

And lastly, I want to say that I'm very excited to get my Ogre Kingdoms book in the mail.  For the first time in a long time, it appears that GW has finally gotten their shit together in terms of designing books.  If you look at the current trend of 8th Ed. books, all the books are balanced and tame compared to the 7th Ed. atrocities.  I still think the super killy spells is bad news bears in terms of game design, but the balance of 8th Ed. Fantasy is going in a great direction.  This, on top of the ridiculously awesome models they've been putting out is nothing short of awesome.  Let's just hope GW keeps this up.

That's it for now guys.  Let me know what you think.

Sisters Rumors, part 2

Straight from BoK!

It is that time again, thanks for reading and posting your questions. Let me start by letting everyone know I have no idea (or will never know for sure) about new model releases. I don’t know if the new sisters release will be resin or plastic or the numbers in the boxes, but like I said before my bet is on Finecast re-release. Now with that out-of-the-way on to new rules…

What is not in the Codex

Repressors

Arbites

The Units (some more information than others)

Canoness: Here is my special shout out to the Canoness: you are terrible. I mean grossly underpowered. Now this is going to sound like a cop-op, but I am not going into details because my hope is that she will be changed before release. It just sounds and looks like she is an unfinished product. She gets her own retinue that cannot do anything; she starts out cheap, but her upgrades are expensive and lame when you compare to everything else. So here is hoping to GW getting her fixed.

Repentia: Forgot to mention they have fleet

Celastians: Cheaper than a Marine, but not really anything going for them (that I know of)… extra attack. Re-roll hits for act of faith

Sister Battle Squad: Can still get a Heavy Flamer

Shraphim: They are pretty amazing. Cheaper than a Space Marine you get a Jump Packing, Hit and Running, and an act of faith that has them re-rolling wounds. You can also upgrade them to run with double hand flamers and melta pistols. They act both as an extra close combat weapon and become assault 2 instead of being twin-linked. So that means Assault 2 melta weapons.

Dominion Squads: Still get 4 special weapons. Act of Faith twin-linked.

Retributor Squads: Pretty fantastic. CHEAP! Talking under Long Fang cheap to fully kit out. Expect the return of the Heavy Bolter with these. Act of Faith is Rending.

Penitent Engines: Again fantastic. Same statline (Walker). No Scout or Infiltrate. Cheaper and can be a squadron aka 9 Engines. They still get the 1D6 attacks, but any wounds generate additional attacks (don’t know if they work like Blood Talons). 6+ Invul (don’t know if they generate faith)

That is all I got guys, if I get more will let you know. As always you can get a new developments by following Blood of Kittens.

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First batch of SoB rumors from BoK

Click this for SoB confirmation!

Updated: 1:19pm PST, 6-12-11

Thanks BoK for the awesome rumors:


Sorry for the delay real life got in the way for once. Before we get started just want to drop two cents to some comments made in my last post: the only reason I could come off as gloating or soap boxing about rumor vindication is because the instant I post a group of rumors across the Internet on forums elsewhere they are quickly discounted (which is fine), but many times it pretty venomous and my attitude is just a little way of defending myself; by pointing out who was right and who was wrong. So sorry to everyone that just wants rumors and no ego every time I post something, it is only directed at the certain naysayers and shouldn’t be taken as me trying to tell you how awesome I am. I am not always right, but for the most part I am pretty damn close so let us leave it at that.

Ok, with that said let us get on with why you are really here some SoB rumors.

As always let us start with the easy ones that pretty much everyone figured was going to happen.

Allies gone
Inquisition gone
Faith streamlined
USRs updated to 5th
Cheaper Unit costs
Inquisition elements gone

So let start with the big one and perhaps most controversial change to Sisters of Battle: Faith

I am amazed reading around the Net how quite few people had great guesses on how the new faith works. One caveat about the faith rules: I only have most of the story so let us hope someone else can pluck the rest from the aether. The only thing that really stays the same is only faith producing units can use faith. Gone is the over and under rules based on model count and gone is faith powers that everyone can use. It is replaced with every unit has its own unit specific act of faith to call upon.

So for instance Repentia Act of Faith allows them to always land an attack even if they are killed before they can swing. They are little bonuses like re-rolling to wound and hit, no USRs. Now this if fine and dandy if you just pop a faith point and bam! power goes off, but not so fast. Acts of Faith require that you roll 5+ to activate . This makes faith much more unreliable… maybe. In addition every unit that can get faith generates 1d6 faith points per turn. This also means that a new faith pool is generated each turn with no storing of past faith. As well faith can be activated in multiple phases of the game, so for instance you can re-roll to hit in your shooting phase or in your assault phase. What is not clear is a few things. Like how many dice can you throw at a single act of faith? How many times can you attempt to activated a power? If you get an act of faith to go off in one phase does it carry over to the next phase? If you fail an act of faith does that mean you cannot try again in another phase? I don’t have the answers, but what do you think?

Random tidbits

All Faith generating units get +6 invul save
All units that can get transports get Immolators or Rhinos
Assassins gone (Death Cult still in)
Wargear with the same names as GK wargear stay and get changed over. (e.g. Psybolt Ammo)
Karamazov gone
Priests in, pretty much same as before.
No change to the general Bolter, Melta, Flame concept of the Sisters

Specifics

Sisters have about 5 HQ choices including Special Characters

St. Celestine: Same price as a Grand Master you get 2+/+4 saves, WS/BS 7 Jump Pack, Fleet, Power Weapons always wounds on 4+ Has the power to come back like GK Thawn if killed.

Confessor: Takes the slot of the old Inquisitors. Cheap HQ (Warboss). Can create a henchman band using most of the henchman found in the GK codex. What makes the Confessor extra deadly is the ability for it to re-roll hits and wounds for her and the squad. This is the translation of the rumor matrix. So think for one second about her and the Death Cult together?

Repentia: Cheaper close to SM cost. FNP, Rage, Fearless, 6+ invul, no transports

Battle Sister Squad: Cheaper 10-20 unit size (no combat squads), but has access to Immolators which begs the question… Immolators either get increased transport capacity or Sisters break the rules concerning model count and buying transports. Multiple acts of faith.

Exocists: Pretty much same as before.

This is it for now gents and dames. If you have any questions let me know I can see if can get them answered sometime this week with another post.