Ask almost any player of Games Workshops Warhammer 40,000, what they feel should be the next army list for the game and you will more than likely get the reply Space Nuns or Space Skaven! Well the former has now joined the ranks of the other codex’s in the Imperial stable in the form of Sisters of Battle a new format book that takes an in-depth look into these female fighting warriors and exposes some little known facts about the Imperial religion and even takes a poke at the Space Marines in the process.

Breaking with the standard formula of all the other codex’s, Sisters of Battle is set out in a much thinner volume and it is considerably cheaper too. Weighing in at sixty four pages, the first thing that hits you is the spectacular cover. Standing on a pile of bones surrounded by a legion of fanatical followers is a Cannoess. This has to be John Blanches best work since his legendary White Dwarf cover of Amazonia Gothic way back in ’87, the style and flow of the painting remind me of a more classical period in art and although I do not really like Blanches art in general. I have even gone out and bought this as a poster for my den, I was that impressed.

Well onto the main meat of the subject, and we not only find that Games Workshop has changed the format for this and future codex’s but that it seems to work! Split up into the usual history and background and army list sections, at first glance little seems to have changed with the format. But looking closer the background seems to take up far more of the book than anything else. And what a background it is.

The Adeptus Sororitas are part of the backbone of the imperial war machine and are among the elite of the Imperials troops. They live a life of total celibacy and devotion to the Emperor, and are split into six orders that are part of the two factions or convents these being Convent Sanctorum which is based on the rim world of Ophelia VII and the Covent Prioris that is based on Terra.

Each of the Convents is governed by a Prioress, who is answerable only to the Ecclesiarchy and is the leader of all the Battle Sisters in that convent. She has a hard task in front of her due to the very history of the Sisterhood.

The Sisterhood began its life thousands of years ago as the Daughters of the Emperor, a devout order of nuns who lived in total solitude and who worshiped the Emperor through inner purity. It was a time of great change in the Empire and a holy war was about to erupt on all sides that would throw Marine against Marine and brother against brother once again.

Vandire cunningly tricked the Daughters to follow him on his quest to bring order and faith back to the people, but he was in fact quite insane and led them to almost damning oblivion. A war raged for years as Vandires following grew and grew until he became a threat to the Empire itself. All the time the Brides of the Emperor (as they were now known) acted as his personal army and bodyguards and fought off many attempts on the madman’s life.

As with all things Vandire reign only lasted as long as the truth wasn’t known and once it was made clear to the Daughters that he was trying to become the new Emperor of the galaxy, Dominica the highest ranking in the order confronted him and killed him.

It was then deemed that never again should the power of the Eccleisarchy be so powerful as to cause internal war and strife. The Brides dropped the name and reverted back to being the Daughters once again. Never again would they have the power that they used to have and a new ruling from the High Lords stated that the Ecclesiarchy would no longer have the power to control Men at Arms and the Fratus Templars until then the main fighting force in the Ecclesiarchy were disbanded. But using a loop hole the great leader of the order at that time Sebastian Thor got around the fact as the Daughters of the Emperor were in fact female, and so the Adeptus Sororitas was born.

That’s just a very brief overview of the background in the codex. Its bay far the most detailed and shows how religion and war always seem to go hand in hand. Other things I haven’t covered are such as the animosity between the Battle Sisters and other members of the Imperial war machine (Imperial Guards and Space Marines in particular!).

Onto the rules now and it came as little surprise to me that the Sisters are an elite version of the Imperial Guard. They are highly trained and have access to any weapons in the Imperial arsenal, and are armed with Bolter’s and power armour as standard. Plus they are the only other troops, except Terminators that can be armed with the devastating heavy flamer.

A Sister Superior leads each unit of troops into battle and the whole army can be led by a Canoness (a character held so high she may well be a saint!). The main core of the troops is split into Battle Sisters and Seraphim squads. The Sisters are organised into small squads of five Sisters with one of them being a Sister Superior. These are the standard troops of the Sororitas and they in turn can lead Militia units. The Seraphim are all equiped with jump packs and really cause a lot of damage to your opponent if used correctly. The Sisters also have the option of taking the mighty Immolator, a Rhino variant armed with twin heavy flamers

As this is a codex, it wouldn’t be complete without a few special characters and all the ones in this codex have grand and aloof sounding names such as Saint Praxedes of Ophelia VII and Helena the Virtuous, Prioress of the Convent Sanctorum.

Another difference is that the Battle Sisters don’t use Psykers like most other troops. Instead they rely on their faith to help and guide them and before each battle the player gets to roll on the Sacred Rites chart to determine the out come of the fate for that battle. Anything could happen, from nothing at all to the entire squad being able to fire twice during the battle for a turn only. The rites are for each squad and are rolled separately so its best to keep a note of which squad has which rite.

Also the Sisters get Relics instead of the standard War Gear cards. These are items such as the Rosarius and Litanies of Faith. The Sisters can also be joined by other forces in the Ecclesiarchy such as the Missionaries, and can be used as allies to the other Imperial troops. And unlike any other troops in the game they can use 25% of their points to buy allies instead of having to take it from their support allowance.

This is the first in the planned series of Agents of the Imperium codex’s and the next one is the Assassins was followed in early ’98. All in all an excellent book and well worth buying even if just for the background of the 40K universe.

All images © Games Workshop 1997, all rights reserved.

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