im a noob, i need help ;D

[Littha]

Well as the title says I'm new to inquisitor and some fine people directed me here where I'm likely to actually find someone who knows about the subject. 

I'm trying to make a Sisters of Battle band led by a canoness and I'm worried i might be making them too strong.

2 Battle Sisters
2 Repentia
Canoness

the sisters have:
WS BS St To In Wp Sg Nv Ld
60 65 55 55 55 60 65 75 75

Both have power armor and helmets, one has a heavy bolter and the other has a boltgun with a bayonet (sarissia) attached

repentia have
WS BS St To In Wp Sg Nv Ld
70 65 55 60 55 70 65 80 60

both have eviscerators but no armor

Canoness has
WS BS St To In Wp Sg Nv Ld
70 65 60 60 60 70 65 75 80

Bionic Eye, Power armor, Master crafted bolt pistol and Power sword.

My friend is making 6 characters so i thought id best go with 5 if more than 1/2 were going to be in power armor and have bolt weapons.
I have no idea about skills and things though, want to finalize all that before i start writing character backgrounds for them.

i tried to keep the canoness in line with an inquisitor...

Anyway critiques and suggestions are heartily welcomed   

[RobSkib]

Well, seeing as nobody's said it yet...

Welcome to the Conclave!

Let me be the first, however, to say that your warband stinks. I've seen warbands like this umpteen times, so I'll just summarise my critique into bullet points, starting with things I like:

-You are attempting to make 5 54mm Sisters of Battle models in full power armour - Kudos to you, if you do it well, you could get away with having such a boring warband! If you're going to use 28mm models, then shame on you...

Now things that I don't like:

-You use stats in multiples of 5. For tidyness sake it looks good, but makes them too boring. There's no variation. They just look like clones rolled off the manufacturing line.

-You have two sets of identical characters. In a game where every model is unique, don't use identical character sheets for similar models.

-AAAARGH BOLT WEAPONS D':

-No backgrounds, personalities, trademarks etc - they're all just faceless goons lifted from 40k and unimiginatively shoe-horned into the Inquisitor universe.


What I'd seriously advise doing is having a serious think about what you want this warband to be - having repeated generic goons isn't great for your first warband in Inquisitor, especially not repeated generic goons with power armour and bolt weapons. One Battle Sister, One Repentia and a Canoness would be more than adequate, you could then set about individualising each one and fleshing them out to be interesting characters to play with.

[DapperAnarchist]

....
........
..........

I would never, ever, ever play against this group with any models I currently have.

A Canoness is the leader of an army. She is not to be found on the Inquisitor board as a PC. Its similar to a Chapter Master appearing on the board. These characters should really be targets, GM tools, and the like, not PCs.

Power armour should be a major rarity, not the rule.

Same for Bolt Weapons.

Same for Power Weapons.

Your "in line with an Inquisitor" is based on the sample characters, right? Yeah. well they're broken. Check page 15 of the LRB, that has the proper suggested stats

... HEAVY Bolter? Wow.

Is there a Master-Crafted rule in Inquisitor? It might be in a sourcebook, but I can't remember it...

And I agree with everything RobSkib has said.

[Vladimir]

So, you've got some Adaptes Sororitas. The profiles seem to be fairly standard Sororitas, but it strikes me you're missing the point here. Inquisitor is

not

about taking a few fighters strait from 40k and letting them duke it out. The point is that you get to explorfe the dark and forgotton areas of the 41st millenium that go unnoticed on the battlefield.

What I think is indicative of this is the fact you have included no background whatsoever about your warband. Who are the'se girls? The following set of questions tend to be thrown at players who don't give much background.

•Where is your character from? Be specific, not just a planet or a city.


•Does your character have a family? Give details; who are they?


•What does your character look like? Not numbers or clothing but style, looks, et cetera


•How does your character dress? Does their wardrobe contain twenty identical outfits or do they have dress-up/dress-down clothes? Go mad, look in your own wardrobe for ideas.


•Does your character have physical quirks, ticks or habits? Does he sweat profusely when nervous? does he scratch himself in unflattering places or chew his fingernails? has his nose been broken and never set properly?


•Where did your character learn their skills? Where did they first shoot a gun, wield a sword et cetera?


•What else does your character know, stuff that doesn't come into the combats like a passion for Terran Wines for example. Where did he learn it? How did it develop?


•Where did he get his goodies?


•Where does your character live? Again, be specific.


•Who does your character know? Some of these may be warband members, others not. Detail them, do the twenty questions for them if you have time.


•Who are your character's enemies? Does he have any? Or are enemies something that will only come in here? If so, What are your character's primary threat. Tyranids? Eldar? Mutants? Psykers?


•How did your character develop their psychic abilities; a special question, if your character is a wyrd or non-psychic you have one less question to answer.


•What are your character's likes and dislikes? Is he nervous of space travel? Does he hate cabbage? Does he love to drive ground cars at ludicrous speeds?


•What is your character's Moral Code? Where does he draw the line? Where does radicallism or puritanism become Heresy?


•Does your character have goals? Is he a point and shoot weapon for the heirachy or is the vaguest hint of Ork stink going to have him running off to find Orkimedes?


•Does your character have personal beliefs? Does he follow the Imperial creed to the letter? Is he a Thorian et cetera?


•Does your character have any personality quirks? Is he Arrogant? Humble? Laid back? Stressed out? Opinionated? Superstitious? Paranoid?


•How did your character become an <Inquisitor/Rogue Trader/Arbite/Whatever>?


•How does he see his role? Is he a crusading knight? A subtle schemer? A Diplomat?


•Are you happy with that? If not - go back and change things. If you are then congratulations, you're done.

[TheNephew]

It's a fairly harsh board as far as character criticism goes.
But you'll probably survive.

You've given us a Kill Team squad, rather than an Inquisitor warband.
If this is how you want to play your games, then go ahead, but The Conclave really isn't the Inquisitor community for you.

I assume you're working off your 40k collection, since you are starting with a Sororitas squad.
If that's the case, I'd recommend you select a few of the most lightly armed models you can find (that is, carapace armour and lasguns as the heaviest kit they have), download the issue of Dark Magenta with the set of introductory scenarios (located in the subforum) and play through it with stats worked out from page 15 of the LRB.
This will give you an appreciation of why the kit your squad has is obscene by Conclave standards.

As said before, faceless goons are boring. Write a couple of paragraphs on each member of the band, ideally with a full name, why they're in the band, relations to the other members, personal quest/why they joined the leader's quest. Your leader deserves a little more writing, focusing on the motivations behind the character, as this is how you would be justifying most of the scenarios they wind up in.

Anyway, good luck.

[precinctomega]

Ooh!  Feel the hate!*

*For your characters, that is, not you: we're strictly "attack the post, not the person" here on the 'clave and you are still very welcome and we hope you'll stay.

I want to modify some of the above posts to point out that a warband of this nature, even in 28mm, is fine if your opponent is running a similar "battle standard" warband of, say, marines or Necron Warriors or something.  But you need to bear in mind that INQ was not written with such characters in mind.

Even though a Space Marine character appears in the LRB, a few games are sufficient to illustrate the fact that the character's rules are hopelessly broken.  For much better marine rules (if you want to run marines) check out Dark Magenta Issue 2.

Perhaps more importantly, a warband of this nature fails to grasp hold of the true and abiding appeal of the INQ ruleset.  If what you want is a simple skirmish between small numbers of models, then you'd be better off playing Necromunda or something of that kind (and there are plenty of conversion rulesets to let you play NEC with Sororitas or Astartes "gangs" on the fansites).

Inquisitor is all about the story.  And as any writer will tell you, a good story is a balance of plot and character.  So scenarios need to be more than straight-up slugfests (they need a plot) and models need to be more than a statline (they need characters).  That's not to say that you can't play INQ without these things - after all, you can write a novel without a plot or characters.  But who would want to read it?  Similarly with INQ.  If you play games with not plot and no characters, you will, after a couple of pointless exchanges, wonder what the point is and quickly drift back to rules better suited to faceless exchanges of fire (q.v. 40k).

Why not take a look at Molotov's Inq28 thread in the P&M section?  I hold fast to the values of 54mm gaming, but he has certainly illustrated amply the potential in the 28mm range for really interesting, valuable characters - and that includes a space marine!

R.

[Inquisitor Cade]

I think you've either got it now or aren't going too.

However all the above said, I'd say the stats youve given them are generally right, and suggest that you could be very good at attributing appropriate stats to your characters. Now though you need some characters rather than some character killers.

You say that your friend is making six characters. Is he likely to be making the same mistakes because I can understand that you'd be reluctant to take some interesting characters into a slugfest with say, a storm trooper team, with no chance of survival.

There are plenty of reasons that a more interesting warband might contain a battle sister or two. I'm not a sister's expert so this might be inappropriate but what if a sister repenta took an oath to go on a penetance pilgrimage, one of her sisters swares to accompany her. They hook up with a fat old preacher and a roguish but charming scoundrel from his flock who are on a similar pilgramage and they all fly about the stars righting wrongs and getting into trouble...

Or in an order that is attached to a scola progenium, some of the sisters have a role in raising and teaching the progenii. When a grounp of the students are kidnapped, one of the sisters absconds with the gruff, bad tempered ex-stormtrooper, ageing scola instructor who deep down has a heart of gold to join the single arbites investigator in charge of finding the culprets when the full local investigation failes. Basically Julie Andrews from 'The Sound of Music' and Mr Frederickson from 'Up' albeit with more guns, join up with Agent Ballard from 'dollhouse'.

[Kaled]

I would never, ever, ever play against this group with any models I currently have.

Really?  If they were modelled at 54mm then I'd beg to play against them!  I might not expect to win, but I'd definitely want to have a go.  That said, I probably wouldn't want to play against them on a regular basis - facing a warband of characters I can barely harm and who can easily hurt me wouldn't be fun for long.

The other thing that no one has mentioned (or if they have, I missed it) is that 5-6 characters is probably too many for a warband (especially if you're just starting out with the game).  3-4 is a more normal number to have per side and will give you a game that lasts a good amount of time with plenty of interactions.  Of course, having a pool of more that 3-4 characters to choose from is normal - it's just not normal to use them all at once.

Also, you've concentrated on just the Militant Orders - what about including some of the others?  The non-Militant orders are perfect for Inquisitor.  In fact, you could create a great Adepta Sororitas warband using sisters from a variety of orders.  For example, a Canoness from an Order Famulous who is accompanied by a representatives from an Orders Hospitaller and Dialogous, and who has bodyguards from a militant Order, perhaps one of whom is a Repentia.  Another option would be to model a battle sister in robes rather than her armour.  There's definitely nothing wrong with a warband based around the Adepta Sororitas - but IMHO it'd be better if it wasn't a killteam.

[MarcoSkoll]

Really?  If they were modelled at 54mm then I'd beg to play against them!  I might not expect to win, but I'd definitely want to have a go.

While I love the opportunity to face off (once) against a well modelled "monstrosity", I at least would like there to be a shot of my winning.

The two "statues" guarding the Eldar tomb were Wraithguard? An armoured daemonic death-engine is terrorising the city? That "heat haze" is the only visible sign of the Tau Stealthsuit loose in the factory?

I love scenarios like that. A boss like character is good fun once in a while. However, five well equipped and skilled models (particularly if they're PCs rather than NPCs) wouldn't be quite such an entertaining game, especially more than once.

~~~~~

Even if we're ignoring the "power level" of such a warband, there is a more critical matter of why this warband exists in Inquisitor.

Why were they formed? What is their goal? How can they justifiably fit into the world of Inquisitor?

[DapperAnarchist]

Well... I was overstating, ok. But my mission would have to be "run away" or "sneak past"... And even then, surely that should be more under the GM's control than as "PCs" in the strict sense?

So, let me clarify - as NPC threats, oh yes. Hell, I'd try a run away/sneak past game with Pinheads growing Marine Company (well, its not 100... but still). As PC opponents, not so much. As Marco says, I'd like to feel a chance of success.

[Littha]

I'm going to be trying my hand at 54mm modeling with these models, notably 3 not 5 of them are in power armor though that's still overkill from what I'm hearing.

i did have a nice conversation with one of you guys while sat in my local Games Workshop and i have re-aimed my efforts to:

Canoness Militant
and her entourage:
Sister Diologus (scribe) in carpace with a lasgun?
Sister Hospitaler (medic) in carpace with a laspistol?

She can have quite a lot of motivations as the with hunters codex for 40k has the sisters doing anything from guarding prisoners to hunting renegade space marines, if its a high profile job like a renagade inquisitor it might be prudent to only send the most trusted sisters.

the other idea is
Mistress (with two neural whips and carpace armor)
and 2 Repentia (both with eviserators and no armor but with different traits/stats/backgrounds)

Fairly self explanatory backing on them as they set out to repent for their sins by exiling themselves and hunting for holy relics or slaying heretical enemies.

First group has one model in power armor and 2 in carpace, second has one in carpace and two with no armor at all.

however i know i need to build character backgrounds for all of them, my plan is:

Generate Stats/traits > Write Background > Create model.

and i hope i can pull off the modeling as well as i think i can.

anyway thanks for the critiques so far and if you would keep them coming i would be most greatful

[Vladimir]

Hm, the first option actually sounds rather awesome! Not sure how you'd do the figures for that, but good luck!

So, if they're on

a high profile job like a renagade inquisitor it might be prudent to only send the most trusted sisters.

then who exactly are they after? And who sent them? I'll be rather interested to see how ythis turns out...

[Kaled]

First group has one model in power armor and 2 in carpace, second has one in carpace and two with no armor at all.

Why does the first group have characters in carapace armour?  Sisters Hospitaller & Dialogous may wear carapace armour in games of 40k (I don't have my codex handy to check), but that's no reason why they should in Inquisitor.  Weaing a lot of armour on the front lines of a warzone is sensible, but Inquisitor is often set far from a warzone and your characters are likely to be in situations where a lot of armour and tons of guns are unnecessary and may even hinder them.  Personally I'd say robes would be sufficient for a Hospitaller and Dialogous - perhaps with a conversion field hidden in a holy icon or something.  Even the canoness need not wear power armour - she might always wear it on the battlefield, but for the sorts of things she'd be doing in games of Inquisitor she might prefer something lighter, a mix of carapace and robes for instance.

There's also a good gameplay reason to avoid power armour - a lot of weapons have difficulty penetrating it and you don't want to start an arms race where your opponents take ever more powerful weapons to penetrate the armour, but then less well armoured characters drop like flies.

BTW, if you're looking for a Repentia, you could do worse than start with this model;
http://www.tinsbits.com/webshop/product_info.php/products_id/63/cPath/18/54-mm/dominatrix.html/XTCsid/398d416eec8500e34f853d2773a8c71c

however i know i need to build character backgrounds for all of them, my plan is:

Generate Stats/traits > Write Background > Create model.

I'd say a better plan would be concept first, then make a model and work out background and figure out stats last of all.  In actual fact it's generally an iterative process where choices you make with the model inform the background and help define the stats and equipment and vice versa.  Certainly don't worry about a statline, skills and equipment until the background and model are done - until you know who your character is and where they came from you can't make proper choices about what stats they should have.  And until the model is done you can't finalise their equipment.  All you need at this early stage is a strong concept - then start looking for models.

[Inquisitor Cade]

my plan is:

Generate Stats/traits > Write Background > Create model.

If you ask me you've got that the wrong way around, model or background first, with stats last, as stats should be based on the background.

I thought the sister repenta misstrises had power armour?

A canoness seems inappropriate to me.

Since you clearly want a Sororitas warband, and there is certainly notrhing wrong with that, I suggests working out a reason for them to be about meddling in the affaires of the Inquisition, and then work out who would be sent.

[Kaled]

It does seem a little unlikely the Canoness would be there in person - a Sister Superior maybe...  Or perhaps make up some other rank/position?