postalpatriot said:

Legion size is a fairly vague term, given that no two legions were the same size - some of the legions numbered only a couple of thousand Astartes, while others numbered hundreds of thousands.

postalpatriot said:

Much like the actual Legions, then - seldom did the Legions fight as a single entity, but rather they were spread across the galaxy in distinct expeditionary fleets.

Codex Black Templars (2005) page 8.

There are usually no more then three crusades at any one time, though there are occassionally more.

The size of a crusade can also vary widely, sometimes as few as fifty to a hundred warriors, sometimes the equivalent of several companies from a codex chapter.

If certain accounts are to be believed, they (Black Templars as a whole) could even be as strong as five thousand to six thousand batle brethren in total...

Im pretty certain there are more then 6000 sisters of battle.

Peacekeeper_b said:

I'd say a lot more. England has 16000 (anglican) churches and 42 cathedrals, serving a population of 50 million people. I can't believe that the hyperreligious Imperium is less well provided for than post christian Britain.

If we assume that the cathedral equivalents are garrisoned, and selecting a 100 (wo)man garrison, we see there are 84 Battle Sisters per million population.

Now, we can't be sure of the average population of an Imperial World, but since some will be the teeming hive and forge worlds and others largely uninhabited, we might decide on a figure of 6.7 billion (the current population of Earth). That would give an average of 560,000 Battle Sisters per planet, or around 562 billion in the entire Imperium.

In the audio-book Fireborn the Salamander killteam mentions that a full quarter of the garrison were killed, amounting to a thousand battle sisters. Meaning, technically, the garrison had something like 4,000 battlesisters for the shrine world.

Hiromoon said:

Those BL authors really need to work on thier fluff. The largest organizational unit of Battle Sisters is the Preceptory which numbers 1000. Any more in one organized place thats not a battle and you have an entire Order present. That would be pretty unusual to say the least. Did they mention what Order they were?

Order of the Argent Shroud.

And according to the Witch Hunter's book:

Some Orders, notably the Greater Orders maintain subsidiary convents, the largest of which are referred to as Preceptories. The term is also used to define the largest organisational unit an Order is ever likely to field, numbering up to 1,000 Battle Sisters, cloistered together at one location. The Canoness who commands a Preceptory has the title Canoness Preceptor.

Soooo.... the fielded Preceptory has up to 1,000... what does that mean for a Garrisoned Preceptory?

They had a lot of Immolators....

Woops.... Order of the Ardent Veil.

My bad. I had to listen to it again.

Hiromoon said:

Thats the exact section I drew my information from. A garrisoned Preceptory is just a Preceptory. A Precepetory would be a garrison most likley. Thats why I said the Black LIbary authors need to brush up on established fluff better. I personally feel that Sisters are the punching bag for Black LIbrary authors. Despite established fluff we regularly see sisters controlled by psychic powers, fall to chaos, and be heretics (that last part was in a recent novel called Redemption Corps where they apparently hate men too), or easily killed. Sisters have been trained from early age to soldier and have a near absolute faith in the Emperor that grants them amazing feats on the field. Immolators are cool BTW. Thousands of Sisters probably have lots of Immolators and Rhinos

Really anything that crushed 3000+ sisters is goign to wipe the floor with a company of space marines that may number around a 100.

andrewm9 said:

Well, I was wrong about the Order. It is the Order of the Ardent Veil in the story... it could just be the entire order on that planet and not just a Preceptory, as a Order Minorous apparently doesn't do preceptories.

And yeah, the demon engine in the story was knocking tanks around and crushing all resistance, even the vaunted Salamander Terminators that went up against it. Course, it was a 5 man team. And there's no mention of a planetary PDF, though that might be in violaton of the 'no men under arms' rule as a shrine world.

andrewm9 said:

They were not "heretic" heretics, they were Istvanians (Spelling) and I thought it suited them just fine and made more sense then most BL space marine, space nun fluff. And I never got the vibe they hated men, just really hated Viggo Mortensen.

And why cant Space Witches, I mean nuns, fall to chaos, be mind controlled or be heretics?

Just because it has never been recorded, or it is stated that it has never happened, doesnt mean it cant, or wont, or even hasnt happened. If Space Marines can fall, Space Broads can fall as well.

And they can be easily killed, they are only T3 W1 3+ save, thats barely better then a guardsman.

Peacekeeper_b said:

Because fankly it happens in every Black Library novel just about that has them in it. Those are very out of character for them. Its remote possibility as it is, but it happens too often for my taste. I'm not against it happening at all, but as often as it does in those novels it makes me think of them as the punching bag for the authors like I said.

Before we define Sisters as only human we have to remember that their faith is so absolute that it can and does protect them from a Battlecannon blast sometimes. That's how powerful it can be. It also lets them pulverize armored vehicles etc in close combat. They can also "shrug off" psychic powers as well. That doesn't sound very human to me.

andrewm9 said:

Humanity can do amazing things if they don't know they're not supposed to be able to do it. If your faith tells you 'x' and you believe it beyond a shadow of a doubt, you can do 'x' all day long. Think of it as 'mind over matter'... or in other cases 'moron over matter' depending on your outlook on things. So, a sister of battle believes she is protected by the emperor's blessing from enemy attack, as far as she knows, the emperor is shielding her from bullets, melta beams, frag grenades and so on.

In reality, she's probably just working on adrenaline as she's been wounded in multiple locations not severely enough to impede her forward progress.

andrewm9 said:

Well, perhaps it is because it is the only way to make them actually interesting to the majority of the readers.

Peacekeeper_b said:

Istvaanian.

Istavaanians are Radical Inquisitors who believe that mankind must be strong to survive and ascend to its rightful place amongst the stars.

So Mortensen's survival of the destruction of his homeworld, and the strength he gained from it is really why they were so interested in him. And they're crazy folks who used a 'borrowed' Apocalypse-Class Battleship to destroy a dockworks that supplied a crusade as a way of getting the crusade back on the "right" path...

I read a lot of the books as i find them an entertaining read but i havent read them all.Cant say i've read any novels where the sisters are rubbish.They always seem pretty capable to me.Below astartes but above any other humans.What books are they crap in?

douglas9521 said:

Apparently any book where they dont win hands down.

But honestly, while some of the sisters were taken out easily by "Viggo" Mortensen and his Storm Troopers in Redemption Corps, "Viggo" and crew were the protagonists, he was given quite the write up of being a bad ass, as was the undercover Inquisitorial Agent former Inquisitorial Storm Trooper Officer posing as a Cadet Commissar.

And it seems to me that that group of sisters were being led astray by their leader, so not all of them were Istvaanian militant heretics, but just following the lead of their leader whom they trusted and faithfully believed she was doing the work of He on Terra.

I personally cannot believe how bad ass the Redemption Corps were in the book, but when I compare (table top) Storm Trooper stats to Sister of Battle stats, the only difference is weapons and armour. And that hokey "its magick" but it isnt "magick" faith stuff. Which, could be some what represented by the Orders rules in the IG Codex.

To a Sister dealing with aliens and setting them up to overthrow worlds is heresy. The only good alien is a dead alien. Sisters shouldn't be dealing in things Istvaanian especially a Canoness. Mortenson kicks the crap out Celestians, a Seraphim , and a Canoness. He reads more like a Space Marine than a guardsman. At least he breaks a sweat though. I woudln't describe his actions as easily performed but he's like some kind of movie action hero (ala John McClane). Its lacks the characteristic grimdark of 40K IMO. Personally I didn't like the book for the writing style more than anything else. I didn't empathize with most of the characters becuase I knew so little about them.

In the Cain novels we have Sisters mind controlled by Chaos. In daemonifuge and entire order is swayed by Chaos. In Shira Calpurnia, half a dozen sisters are killed by a guy with a las pistol and a battle servitor. In most of these the Sisters failt ogive a good accounting for themselves. It just fails to uphold their image of elite troops with a will of iron.

But also in the Cain novels we have some Sister noviates and a Sister Superior I believe make a very strong accounting of themselves in Cain's Last Stand if I remember right.

andrewm9 said:

Because mind control cant affect a sister? Sorry, not buying it.

The image of elite troops? Storm Troopers are also elite troops. In TABLE TOP THEY HAVE THE EXACT SAME STATS!

And nothing in the fluff leads me to believe that a very capable, well trained, experienced and talented soldier, lie "Viggo" wouldnt be able to go all John McClane on the Sisters. As I said earlier, the role the sisters played in this novel was by far the most interesting variation of Sisters I have ever read.

Peacekeeper_b said:

Well they do have psychic resistance built in and the kind of stalwart insane levels of discipline as a Space Marine so yeah, how many novels have you read where there's a group of mind controlled Grey Knights cause that's about the same level we are talking about.

Basically it sounds like the Sister get plot turned against Imperial Forces because writers want to include them fighting but don't want to go to the trouble of writting about them or from from the Enemies point of view.

Peacekeeper_b said:

They also have the exact same origin - the Adepta Sororitas draw recruits from the same group of "highly-trained from childhood and extremely devoted to the Imperium" individuals as the Storm Trooper Regiment, the Commissariat (many of whom are actually former Stormtroopers) and a variety of other organisations.

Miraculous acts of faith, bolters and power armour are pretty much all that distinguishes the Orders Militant of the Adepta Sororitas from the elite soldiers of the Storm Trooper Regiment.

Face Eater said:

I have Codex Witch Hunters. Where is this power?

Peacekeeper_b said:

Page 8 (of the DL 5th Ed version) Shield Of Faith special ability, basically a 5+ save against any psychic powers and immunity to minor psychic powers, what ever they are?

Admittedly it's probably not as good as the GK ability in most situations, which is probably more like 50% save, but the fact that it exists means that GK will NEVER be shown to be vulnerable to mass mind control etc. Hell, I don't think you'll ever see that of normal Space Marines who are more vulnerable to Psychics than Sisters.

N0-1_H3r3 said:

Well, that and the fact that really only the "church" gets to call them up...

Face Eater said:

Ah.

But they can be mind controlled. As they can fail a 5+ save. Often.

So again, nothng wrong with how they have shown up in the novels. Im sure they are quite bad ass in the novels where they are the stars.