With the images of the first Sisters of Battle model released, Warhammer 40,000 cements itself in promoting strong female characters and armies effortlessly.   

The Sisters of Battle are the all-female army in the Warhammer 40,000 franchise, which was originally a table top, model-based war game. Each player collects the miniatures for their army of choice, and each army is unique enough in style, so that there is an aesthetic almost anyone can find and enjoy.

The Sisters themselves first saw their emergence into the tabletop game in 1993 when their Codex (official book of rules for an entire army and its individual units) was released, and since then all their models have been made primarily of metal. Now, over 20 years later, Games Workshop announced the re-release of the Sisters of Battle in their community website “warhammer-community.com” on March 22.

Tournament player and popular 40k Youtuber EgoQueenAlexis (“Alexis”), offered her opinion on the Sisters of Battle. Alexis discussed why they are better than one of the most iconic forces in 40k, the heavily genetically augmented humans, the Space Marines.

“The sisters have roughly the same equipment with better tank support,” she said. “All of the augmentations of a Space Marine are rendered little to useless when facing down thousands of both rounds.”

She also explained that a sister with the same war gear costs less than a Space Marine within the virtual world, despite having “better maneuverability on the tabletop thanks to their dominions squads.”

“When it comes to both lore and tabletop, there is no army I’d rather play then my sisters of battle,” Alexis said.

Not only will longtime fans of the Sisters rejoice over their release, but they will be a solid addition to some strong female representation in a tabletop hobby that in the past has been somewhat neglectful.

Strong characters and organizations like the Sisters of Battle show extremely powerful all-female armies who can easily hold their own both in the lore and in the game itself.

This sort of design is a very good approach to female representation in both tabletop and fictional games.

The Sisters of Battle don’t seem as though they were forced into the lore just to be there for representation, and at the same time they are not made out to be a group of damsels in distress. The Sisters of Battle are one of the only groups on non-genetically enhanced humans who use power armor and bolt guns. Their design is not impractically sexualized like with other female armor designs.

40k isn’t a pretty game or a pretty story. It is a dark satirical universe; the Imperium is a totalitarian galaxy-wide government whose forces commit atrocities on more than one occasion. The countless other factions are attempting to wipe the others out with no remorse. For in the grim darkness of the far future, there is only war. And in the middle of the war are the fierce Sisters of Battle.