Warhammer 40K: Good, Bad, & the Ugly – Codex: Adepta Sororitas
Goatboy here, with what you need to know about the new Warhammer 40K 10th Edition Codex: Adepta Sororitas.
Goatboy here and we have another two codexes to talk about this week. As usual I want to gloss over what I liked about the books as both of these armies I am not personally heavily invested in. I have played versus both factions a lot, and they are just not the style of faction I normally want to collect – but’s just me. I like the Sororitas models and find their design overall is cool. But what I do know is I can tell you what I think seems good and what seems bad when weighing them against the current 10th Edition Meta. With that – let’s dive into the Sisters of Battle.
As usual will do a Good, a Bad, and the Ugly for any new Codex. I think the Adepta Sororitas seems the stronger compared to GSC – with the overall theme from the index living large and in charge in this book. You can tell this one was written or started fairly quickly after the new edition dropped, with a ton more buffs versus debuffs compared to recent codexes.
Adeptus Sororitas – The Good
Hey if you wanted ways to cheat your dice rolls – this codex is for you! Miracle Dice and Acts of Faith survived any real changes and even got some buffs with several of the new detachments. The whole “extra pool” of dice rolls remains the same, and utilizing your Faith at the right times will be important. I know from all the games I have played I really feel like shifting the wound roll to a Miracle dice and a save roll are really the best options. You could also say any charge roll as well, becasue that seems to be what I see most of the time when playing against Sisters.
Detachment – Blood of Martyrs
This codex is fully of crazy fanatics of the Emperor full of Melta nonsense, powerful heroes, and crazy rules interactions. Heck, all the detachments seem to push some of this, with each one being pretty powerful. The old Index Blood of Martyrs is still there with a whole theme of wounded Sisters units hitting better and wounding better. I think this one might just stay strong as it has a ton of good Stratagems and ways to abuse your faith points. You get to bring back Characters, get access to Enhancements that let you reroll Miracle Dice, and an auto fight on death power. Heck, it is simply the index reprinted in the codex which is a good thing if that is what you are used to playing.
Detachment – Penitent Host
There are a total of 4 detachments and we continue with books with a lower amount of options – but all of them seem interesting in their own ways. Penitent Host is for those who love those little walkers and friends. You get to choose a different Vow to start the phase and they can only be selected once. They basically make your Penitent units better by either moving faster, adding 1 to attacks/strength, or a 2+ fight on death for the units. All of these seem good and while you only have 3 you can do your mini little Waaghs and help your sisters out. This one has an interesting Enhancement that lets you discard Miracle dice when your Penitent kills something and replace that faith dice with a 6. Their stratagems all revolve around Penitent units. and while some of the Sisters units don’t have that keyword you can give it to a character and then watch it activate for the unit. This lets you do things like Auto Advance 6″ and charge, 4+ FNP, 5+ exploding Melee hits, and even a movement when getting shot at. It seems like a fun little detachment, and while it has some powerful stuff, getting locked into Penitent keyworded units will leave it less explosive than the original Index one.
Detachment – Brings of the Flame
There is the Bringers of the Flame Detachment that is all about weapons gaining the Assault keyword and anything shot within 12″ has the weapon gain a +1 to their Strength of the attack. It isn’t a bad ability and just like the Renegades for CSM – it allows an army to always be moving and doing damage. Their Enhancements all deal with Sisters being mad with a discard Miracle dice for extra attacks and strength, 2+ armor with 5+ FNP, discarded two Miracle dice to create a new one, and even just letting a character amp up their units shooting. This Detachment gains an Armor of Contempt Stratagem, Melee Lethal hits, Devastating Wounds Torrent shots, and even a disembark and shoot normally at single enemy unit strat. All of these seem good. While it isn’t the most flashy it does have a very powerful set of rules that lets your army always move and do damage which is a powerful thing.
Detachment – Army of Faith
The final detachment is the Army of Faith, with its big, powerful rule being units can use two Acts of Faith per phase. This means you could auto hit and auto wound with something you need. Or you could just bank two saves if you want to. Heck, you could really push anything through if you have enough Miracle Dice. I would expect any of the generate extra dice units would be powerful in here and just allowing you to really supercharge some of your unit’s shooting and damage potential. You of course, gain Enhancements that let you roll more Miracle dice, a weapon that lets you gain Miracle dice if you kill something with it, a battle shock testing option that if the enemy fails you gain a Miracle Dice, and even an Enhancement that lets you discard a Miracle dice to auto pass an Armor save no matter the number on the Miracle dice used. All of these fit the Detachment theme pretty well and their stratagems match up too. A lot of them get better when done on any of the Jump Pack options, which allows little Auras to activate off of them. Heck, between things like -1 to hit, FNP 5+ for Mortals, and ignoring Weapon Skill/Ballistic Skill modifiers, this army will want you to have a ton of jump options doing stuff and making the army explode in damage.
Dataslate Changes
There are a lot of changes to the Dataslates – almost too many to talk about. Things like small tweaks on the “abused” ones are expected, but overall the Sororitas got more buffs than drops. The one I really want to talk about is how Morvenn Vahl just got better in this book. Now, instead of just getting the +3 attacks once a game, she can do it all the time for discarding one Miracle dice. Vahl is going to be in every army and I would advise most people to find some way to ignore it if you can. It will be tough as nails. The other unit I expect to see is the Triumph of Saint Katherine as it seems to really activate a ton of Miracle dice. Just having the ability to auto-gain a 6 on the Miracle dice for having this model on the table seems very powerful.
The Imagifier now gives a unit they join a 2+ armor save and 4+ Invulnerable save. This seems pretty good as they can also join a unit with a Canoness, Palatine, Judith, or Astred that is already joined to it. Just creating little tougher Deathstars sounds pretty awesome. Really Codex: Ade[tus Sororitas is just full of interesting stuff and it will just have to wait on what rough armies come out of it.
Adeptus Sororitas – The Bad
Again the points in this codex are not valid. This is always an issue and makes figuring out armies as a writer hard. I get the feeling will see points go up in the codex as a ton of this seems very powerful. If you skirt the edge of having too many options, it can become a real problem with tons of Miracle Dice generated, a bunch of options to abuse said dice, and just too many things that punch up too much. We’ll just have to wait and see within the week of release how many Sisters models will see on the tabletop.
The other thing is again this army has a ton of damage-dealing options that get locked into a small handful of units. It still makes me feel bad that all this Melta damage relies on spikes of a 5+ to wound a lot of the time and this can make you feel bad. Sure if they get through it can do a ton of damage but it forces the player to save those 5+ form Miracle dice to guarantee some damage gets done. I also think some of these named characters are too good to not have in an army so a lot of the time you get a feeling of facing the same Sisters threat every time.
Adeptus Sororitas – The Ugly
A few things got lost in this codex like the Death Cult Assassins and Crusaders. I know they have plastic kits and I expect them to come out later on in some new book or option rolling all these Imperial Agents together. A lot of the 4+ Feel No Pain options went away on units and I expect this to be the norm in the future with most things hitting 5+ for all the time and only one special occasions (like when they get all A’s on their report card) would they get a 4+ or better.
Really the big bit of Ugly is the points and what Codex: Adepta Sororitas could do if things are too cheap. Thankfully these things don’t tend to last long so if you don’t already have an army together I would wait for the points, only buy staple units, and then see what shakes out as you build up your force. This is still one of the prettier armies on the table with everything in plastic, a unique look, and a ton of flavor behind each fanatical solider for the Emperor.
Faith Is My Shield!
