Even though Space Marines and Sisters of Battle fight along side as brothers and sisters against the enemies of the Imperium, there are times when they come into conflict. As the fighting arm of the Ordo Hereticus, Sisters sometimes need to be used against wayward Space Marines who have gone renegade, or simply have an interpretation of the imperial creed which is judged to be heretical. A good example of the first is the Soul Drinkers, and a good example of the second is the Space Wolves.

Now,in the tabletop game this could be done because troops were more comparible, but in the RPG this becomes tricky. Using the stats from Ascension for sisters (near the back) and comparing them to your average Marines, it appears that there is a huge imbalance. Sisters, though fine soldiers, would be shot to hell fighting Space Marines. Their armour is lighter, they do not have unnatural toughness, and they have really girly bolters compared to Astartes. In an exchange, a sister might be able to scratch a marine if she rolls high, and can only do serious harm though Righteous fury, while most Space Marine bolter hits will knock the poor girl to the floor. Add to the fact that there are far fewer Sisters than Marines (I reckon about 20,000 across the imperium but I could be wrong), and all of a sudden going after wayward marines is asking for a thrashing. How does this reconcile with the fluff?

My brief an unreliable glimpses of the future show me that the Dark Heresy Source book 'Blood of Martyrs' might have the answer in the form of specific Sisters power armour (maybe light PA with armour 8 or even 9 on the chest with many useful systems and bonuses), better bolt guns and lots of funky special abilities.

That's if they are even bothering trying to reconcile DH and DW.

I think there are far more sisters then marines. Afterall, to be a sister you just have to be born, trained and so forth (yes, of proper faith and what not) and to be a space marine yo have to be born, selected, trained, implanted, survive, survive and survive. Oh, and there is a market cap of how ,amy we can employ here at Space Marine Co. 1000 here, 1000 there and so forth.

Plus, by the very nature of Space Nuns, each and everyone of them has to have the Touch by the Fates trait, as many of thier abilities work on fate points.

Now, horde them up.

And to mimic what Face Eater said, it wouldnt surprise me to see some variation of the devastator and other SPace Marine-ish carers or at least ranks and abilities for the sisters.

Then they will be the it career for a while.

I agree with all your points. I would also say that Renegade Space Marines are thankfully rare. The Soul Drinkers debacle was an event which happens rarely in Imperial history. Usually when Marines go Renegade they do it individually or in small groups, rarely does the whole chapter go bad. There was an incident in the new Space Wolves book where the Sisters tried to tame the Space Wolves, but after a 3 week fight they probably got thrashed and decided to the issue.

Plus, Sisters probably ride into battle with lots of Imperial Guard cannon fodder to soak up attacks and buffering their numbers. I would actually leave the stats pretty much the same as they are. Sisters of Battle in my mind are Space Marines light (or Girly man Space Marines if you like), Superior to Imperial Guard but not as good as Astartes (Astartes are suppost to be the best many times over), Making them more powerful for playbalance purposes does not seem necessary. It just shows that Renegade Space Marines ought to be a terrifying thing and that any Inquisitor that decides action against an Astartes Chapter must take the decision very seriously.

I think, there should be more Sisters of Battle than Spacemarines.

And while their Boltguns are much inferior to those the astartes use, they have lots of Melta Weapons at their disposal, more than enough to kill a SM. And in addition to that they can field tanks very similar in power to those the astartes use.

So I think the Sororitas could very well defeat some spacemarines.

Even one on one a Sister of battle stand a good chance of winning against a SM, when you compare a starting SM with a Sororitas who has ascended to Crusader or hirophant.
In the latter case for example she could be using her Powerarmor she got as a Sister of battle plus the Rosarius the Hirophant gets.

And even if the SM has higher stats, the SoB will have much more talents and skills.

When I got the DW book I did some math and came to the conclusion, that my melee guardsman from DH (on the brink of ascension) could, with some luck, beat a SM in melee (unless ist's a assaultmarine)

Taking into account that the standart SM has no melee weapon that can withstand a powersword it doesn't even take that much luck.

There are millions more Sisters of Battle than Space Marines, I have no doubt of that.

Current wargame fluff has there being more Black Templars then Battle Sisters.

aiui, the approved method of dealing with one rogue chapter is to request aid from other chapters. Take the Badab War for example.

Spook said:

Source?

Face Eater said:

Wouldn't that require that they get extra buff vis-a-vis an analog to the Solo/Squad Mode abilities? Things would get rather complex rather quickly...

Kage

guest469 said:

And if the nearest "other chapters" say no for whatever reason? Then what? I can think of a few legitiment reasons for why someone with as much clot as a Space Marine chapter could refuse a Witchhunter. There'd be hell to pay later for sure, but if Hive Fleet Whatever decides to send a tendril through the sector... yeah, that Inquistor's going to end up put on hold until after the Tyranids have been put on bed. If he dies, the chapter will avenge him. If he survives, then the chapter master will just have to compose a good apology for why they're so late.

Inquistors are by the nature of their job skilled at assessing a problem then applying a solution based on whatever resources are available. If a Marine has gone rogue and the nearest other Marines are tied up with legitamently more important battles, the Inquistor better just figure out how much firepower he can weedle out of the Guard and/or Sisters Militant to get the job done.

peterstepon said:

Just a side note "only" half the Souldrinkers turned renegade during the first chapter war.

Peacekeeper_b said:

Yeah, I queston that, too.

In any event, in Deathwatch, you won't be dealing with any signifigant segment of a Space Marine chapter (were you really prepared to roll for a thousand boltguns firing on full auto each round...?), so a few squads of SoB should pose a fair threat to a single squad of Astartes, especially if they have a few special/heavy weapons in tow...

Spook said:

I third a request for the source of this statement. It has been mentioned that Black Templars have a tendency to bend the rules when it comes to that thousand man limit but still, more then the Battle Sisters? I don't think so, but then I've been given the impression that Battle Sisters are "like Space Marines but not quite." They don't have any of the weird abilities, their kit is a grade below Space Marines, perhaps the only similarities would be in the training schedules (barring that the Sisters would logically need more time to sleep) so logically Sisters would be cheaper to deploy and available in larger numbers.

Peacekeeper_b said:

Here is my contribution to the nerd Conclave.

I am pretty sure in the 2nd Sisters of Battle codex. It mentions that, when the order began, it was about 4,000 strong. Since then, it expanded to 6 orders and each one would have between a few hundred, and several thousand troops each (depending on how many casualties they have sustained or nuns they have trained). The average is between 3,000 to 4,000 each. So 3 thousand and change times 6 militant orders is about 20,000 fighting nuns in the Imperium. Remember that in Calixis sector, there is a Mission of about 50 troops which represent the best fighers in the sector. In addition, they are the fighting arm of the Order Heriticus. The Orders Mallus and Xenos each have a Chapter of Space Marines instead (Grey knights and Deathwatch respectively)

peterstepon said:

Codex Witch Hunters, pages 10-11.

"Every major world in the Imperium belongs to one of the Cardinal Dioceses, and will therefore host at least one Ecclesiarchal cathedral and a multitude of servants, dignitaries and clerics. Such a concentration of the Ecclesiarchy's power must be defended, and so a SIGNIFICANT FORCE OF BATTLE SISTERS WILL BE PRESENT AT MANY SUCH SITES. The sisters provide a visible presence, guarding holy sites, escorting hierarchs, ensuing that the common citizen is suitably deferential in the presence of the great and good of the Ecclesiarchy, and that the coffers are filled at collection time."

As a side note, the side bar (page 11) entitled THE STRUCTURE OF AN ORDER states that each order is made up of many Preceptories, each one numbering up to 1000 battle sisters.

Plus, on page 6 it mentions that there are many minor/lesser orders. And there is no set number of orders (though I beleive there are only really "6" major orders).

To me, this implies that there are many, many millions of battle sisters. The fact that it clearly states on page 10, under the heading THE ORDERS MILITANT that many of the Ecclesiarchy sites have significant force of space nuns, implies that they do indeed out number Black Templars.

Even if you take the notation of many to mean, say 25% of these sites, and significant to only mean 100 space nuns, and cap the imperium at 1 million worlds. That would still be 250,000 ecclesiarchy locations with significant sisters of battle, which would number 25,000,000.

It may have started with 4000 sisters back in M30, but that is 10,000 years ago.

Peacekeeper_b said:

There wouldn't have been any Sisters of Battle in M30 - the Adepta Sororitas weren't founded until M36.

The rest of the point still stands, thought.

N0-1_H3r3 said:

oops

Yeah they should be weaker but have access to nice tools like sister repentant, arch-flagelant, Heavy Flamers by the dozens....

a few full squad of sister jumpaking on your devastator positions etc.

Just make them prepared for a SM squad (while still giving them a chance of course) but it shoudl be a very tough fight for the SM. Sisters are dedicated to the last one and will not falter or do a stupid head on assault without enough back up to threaten or kill the SMs.

One thing that's missing currently, is real acts of faith, I mean, they have their rubbish little FP abilities but those are limited by FP which, for some reason, space marines have more of and actually have abilities that use them which was limited to faith abilities previously.

But in the TT they are much more powerful abilities which require whole squads of Sisters to use but is really their stock in trade and they are much more limited without them, even if they do have much improved gear.

Plus I guess there'sno reason why they wouldn't have their own squad mode abilities.

Face Eater said:

Let them use the space marine fate point rules and let them use space marine solo and squad modes, most likely Black Templar or Dark Angel styles.

Peacekeeper_b said:

The Black Templar especially, still needs those acts of faith though. A field save would go a long way to making up for their squishyness for example.

One of the Cain books has a minor Monastery on a planet being attacked by Tyranids, and even that one was supposed to have a few hundred Sisters present.

Peacekeeper_b said:

I have heard mention that The Black templars are **** near :LEGION size, just split into a a whole lot of diffrent crusade fleets. Not sure i really agree they never opperate as a single chapter though. And i am confused as to how some one fighting an endless battle even manages to build crusades up in numbers .

That being said Things to remember there are more then just Battle sisters, a Sister repentia for example with her Giant Fing Envisorator, Is going to Damage a space marine.