By Kieron Gillen on November 13th, 2007 at 3:23 pm.
The second race in the forthcoming Dawn of War: Soulstorm has been announced. It’s the Sisters of Mercy!
Thanks Gametrailers! May you continue to live in a grinning future where there is only game footage.
Battles. No, I mean, Sisters of Battle.
Oddly, it’s been announced two weeks back over at Gamespot (See here to see a member of Relic say so if you frown at quotes) and according to google the only people who appeared to have noticed were one Relic community site. Why the lack of excitement? Probably net laziness. That, or that everyone thinks the Sisters of Battle are just Space Marines in drag.
13/11/2007 at 15:29 Thiefsie says:
Probably because no one reads Gamespot. haha.
Otherwise the Battle Sisters are a relatively new race (along with the TAU) which probably doesn’t help their popularity too much in the WH40k universe
13/11/2007 at 15:30 Kieron Gillen says:
They’re quite an Old race actually. It’s just that they never had an army list.
Er… actually, pretend I didn’t say that.
KG
13/11/2007 at 15:34 The_B says:
This trailer would be improved with a better soundtrack.
#”Sisters are doing it for themselves!”#
13/11/2007 at 15:38 Nick says:
I never heard of them when I.. erm.. had a friend who played 2nd Edition.
Yes.
13/11/2007 at 15:40 wiper says:
Geeek.
The DoW games always disappoint me – graphically they please me greatly, but I can’t hack these fast-paced games with in-battle unit construction. I’m just waiting for a new non-resource oriented WH40k game; what happened to the pure real-time tactics titles like Dark Omen?
*sulks*
13/11/2007 at 15:41 Kieron Gillen says:
(Sisters were mentioned in one page fiction at the back of the first 40K manual)
(Or so someone tells me. Someone less cool than me)
KG
13/11/2007 at 15:42 I_still_love_Okami says:
Wow.. so many references in just one headline. Also, they really need a special unit called the Sister of Mercy. She could have Eldritch powers like This Corrosion, which destroys enemy tanks . Oh and they really need a structure called Temple of Love. And of course they allways want More than they can get…
Ok ok.. I’m stopping this now..
13/11/2007 at 15:46 I_still_love_Okami says:
Kieron, it’s ok… You don’t have to feel bad about it. I still have some old White Dwarf lying around somewhere where WFRP and Rogue Trader were newly announced.
Of course.. I got it from some guy.. I never really was into Warhammer. What? What’s in that carton back ther? Nothing. No, no! Don’t open it. They.. they belong to a friend of mine.. used to be a friend really.. more like a kid I knew..
Put away that photograph! Give it to me! No, don’t look at it. No, that’s not me. Just looks like.. give it back! Okay, it’s me and I really don’t know where all those miniatures came from…
No, DON’T upload it to Flickr…
13/11/2007 at 15:54 Nick says:
Didn’t you write a comic for Games Workshop KG? Sorry, offtopic a bit but I recall reading a page of it years ago (around the time of ‘Crash’ was it called?).
I never knew they were that old.. it certainly took them a long, long, long time to actually make any models then. That’s some impressive knowledge someone has.
13/11/2007 at 15:59 Kieron Gillen says:
Yeah, I wrote a couple for them before they stopped doing it in-house and gave it to BOOM! in the US to look after.
The better of the two, with incredible Steve Pugh art is here…. No letters, alas.
KG
13/11/2007 at 16:06 Mark-P says:
I’m sure that since everyone else on the Internet thinks exactly like me, the lack of excitement is entirely due to the fact that none of the last four races announced for the DoW expansions have been the Tyranids. My Hive Tyrant continues to spin in his cardboard and foam grave with this latest announcement.
God damn kids, get your Tau and bondage Eldar off my lawn!
13/11/2007 at 16:34 I_still_love_Okami says:
bondage eldar and high heeled battle nuns in power armor is what 40k is all about!
13/11/2007 at 16:46 Kast says:
Tau are the greatest race simply because they’re actually quite nice and could make a wonderful utopian galaxy if they ever won. Who would actually want to live under the Power-Fist of the Emperor when compared with the tranquil, zen-like existence as a citizen of the Tau Empire?
Unfortunately the Tau under the existing rules do not fulfill their concept as having superawsomeamazing guns. In fact, if not used intelligently, they’re rather pants. -.- For shame.
13/11/2007 at 16:56 Kieron Gillen says:
They’re a buncha Zen-fascists!
KG
13/11/2007 at 17:38 Nick says:
If you are going to have fascists, you could do worse than zen ones.
13/11/2007 at 17:54 I_still_love_Okami says:
I kinda like the good old fashioned imperial fascism better. At least they have the decency to use eagles as symbols and pray a lot and yell about purging and cleansing and that a free mind harbors heresy and all that stuff. Old school, you know.
I don’t want to be killed by extremely balanced and enlightened individuals who smile a lot and tell me it’s for the best of all of the galaxy oh and am I interested in their new zen archery program they’ve set up?
I’d rather get shot by some grim looking guy in a black leather trenchcoat decorated with a lot of skulls because I thought the wrong thoughts.
13/11/2007 at 17:58 Kieron Gillen says:
The Tau, of course, are anti-free thought – you’re tranquil, as you can do jack-all else.
Of course, they’re also young. The universe will rub the edges off them in a few thousand years, and we’ll have them trying to collect all their dead people’s souls or feeding psyhics to the corpse of Jesus 2.0 or killing everyone else to try and distract a God from eating them all soon enough.
KG
13/11/2007 at 18:27 Andrew Mayer says:
I’m kind of glad this isn’t due out for a while. It’ll give me a chance to get some more time in on Dark Crusade.
And finish reading my copy of Eisenhorn…
-Drew
13/11/2007 at 18:31 Dr Snofeld says:
Huh, I always figured the Sisters of Battle to be essentially inferior Sapce Marines, or at least they were back when I first started playing, but they actually have some rather cool-looking units there.
Little disappointed to see the Orks getting such a drubbing, though. From girls, no less.
13/11/2007 at 18:37 Cradok says:
The Sisters of Battle? How… boring… About as boring as the Dark Eldar… I want me my Gennies, damnit!
13/11/2007 at 20:14 Jae Armstrong says:
Still no Tyranids? For shame. Precisely what are the limitations on the engine that prevent them from being introduced? If the mod community managed to add the scuttling little bastards, I find it hard to believe it’s that hard to overcome.
And kudos for the SoM reference. “That can’t possibly-” I thought. But it was.
13/11/2007 at 20:16 Cruz says:
This still makes me laugh after several reads.
Kudos on the SoM references, and I liked what I heard of Battles. Thanks for the tip Kieron.
13/11/2007 at 20:31 Kieron Gillen says:
Idly, do you know that Andrew Eldritch likes text adventures?
KG
13/11/2007 at 21:35 I_still_love_Okami says:
That’s the best 404 page ever…
13/11/2007 at 23:30 TychoCelchuuu says:
I like how the trailer for the “ALL WOMANZ” race starts out with an all-pink planet. Which comes back a few times. Subtle.
14/11/2007 at 00:02 Nick says:
I wonder if they’ll have the allied races fighting each other for no reason again.
Space Marines vs Sisters of Battle brings back vague and painful memories of Gender Wars.
14/11/2007 at 00:04 Rodafowa says:
What, still no bloody Genestealers?
Bonus marks for your title (mis)quoting Von Eldritch’s best song ever ever ever, mind.
14/11/2007 at 01:35 Ging says:
TychoCelchuuu – the Dark Eldar trailer had the same pink planet so I don’t think it’s related to the fact that it’s the sisters of battle in this trailer.
14/11/2007 at 03:40 Tim says:
It is utterly ridiculous to me that DoW still, still has no Tyranids in it. Tyranids, the galaxy-spanning threat to all life as we know it, are once again ignored in favour of two decidedly niche races that nobody gives two wet farts about. I’m quite sure that the design decision behind this one was positively influenced by the opportunities to have a Dark Eldar Wych and a Sister Repentia entwined in a decidedly sensual battle pose on the cover, with blades and clothing and bullets in all the right places to cover up any sort of nipple that might happen to slipple out.
ARGH.
14/11/2007 at 04:15 Sucram says:
Fortunately, with all the heroin I was taking in my youth I couldn’t afford Games Workshop stuff.
Therefore I’m not disappointed by the lack of more specialised demonic Chaos forces; I experience enough of that sort of stuff in real life and have no idea what it’d mean in relation to this futuristic war hammer malarkey.
14/11/2007 at 10:00 I_still_love_Okami says:
Sucram, you lucky bastard. I think my problem is that I started gaming before I started doing drugs. Maybe if I’d done it the other way round, I wouldn’t have gotten beaten up so often as a teenager..
14/11/2007 at 10:36 moromete says:
Back when I regularly read the Warhammer 40 000 forums I seem to remember that several official representatives mentioned that Tyranids were for WH40000 2. But they also said there shall be no expansion, and that was obviously a lie, so…
14/11/2007 at 11:36 Kieron Gillen says:
They’ve said on the record repeatedly that what they want to do with Tyranids wasn’t possible in the current engine. That said, they said the same about flying stuff until they worked out a work-around so part of me was wondering whether they’d do something similar here.
Regarding heroin, I always said that Games Workshop is what middle class English kids do instead of skag.
KG
14/11/2007 at 16:36 Nick says:
it certainly costs the same.
14/11/2007 at 17:53 I_still_love_Okami says:
I think by now heroin’s cheaper than building a WH army. Have you seen what they charge for some f’ing plastic minis these days?
15/11/2007 at 01:18 Anthony Damiani says:
1) Is a third expansion really necessary? Dark Crusade felt obsolete after Dawn of War, and that was a year ago. Make a true sequel already.
2) Of those familiar with the setting, how many would have preferred the Zerg– uh, I mean, the Tyranid? I know that’s what I was hoping for.
3) Of those NOT familiar with the setting beyond the PC, who wants a third faction of fascist-theocratic humans and their power-armor, this time with boobs?
4) As to whether the Tau are awesome or pants: the Tau are fantastic because they pose a challenge to the fundamental philosophical underpinnings of the setting, and are, in their own way, as much of a threat to the status quo of the galaxy as the Necrons or the Tyranid, despite having a minuscule faction of their military power. Either they’re hopelessly naive and they’re going to get splattered like bugs on a windshield, or they’re right and the whole assumption of unending Hobbesian war is flawed.
15/11/2007 at 11:40 Kieron Gillen says:
Dark Crusade was actually the best selling of the DoW series so far, apparently. So, yeah, some people felt it was necessary.
KG