Paragon Warsuit
This article contains something which makes absolutely no logical sense, such as Nazi Zombie Mercenaries, Fucking Space Orangutans, anything written by a certain Irish leper or Robin Crud-ace, or Wizards of the Coast hiring the fucking Pinkertons over a children’s card game. If you proceed, consider yourself warned. |
This article is about something that is considered by the overpowering majority of /tg/ to be fail. Expect huge amounts of derp and rage, punctuated by /tg/ extracting humor from it. |
- – Matrix Revolutions
Urgh... where the fuck do we begin with this bucket of doozy.
The Paragon Warsuit is a new unit released on our virgin eyes on January 2021. A device that straddles the line between Power Armour and Mecha, the Paragon Warsuit has garnered...well...let's just say that we have now a metric fuck ton of Memes now. At least it has lots of big guns.
WTF Am I Looking At!?[edit]
The thing you are seeing here is the new Sisters of Battle elite unit. This abomination is the first new sister unit since 2003 and it seem to carry on the Imperium's glorious tradition of strapping a fucking baby carrier and pushing them onto the front lines. Seriously, what the fuck is up with GW's habit of giving the Imperium fucking baby carriers? First we had the Dreadknight, then the Invictor Tactical Warsuit and now this. Thanks to this fiasco, we can finally conclude that the design of the Dreadknight may not be Matt Ward's fault after all, go on our Spiritual Liege, you're redeemed for now on this case.
And yes we did not have a typo up there. Ask any Beardy Matronly sisters of battle player and they will tell you the sisters of battle have never been one of GeeDub's favoured armies and have over the years received very little support. As such from the Witch Hunter codex released in 2003 the Sisters of battle have not had one totally new codex option (not counting the Repressor which was Forge World rather than base codex,) or special characters. Even the 2020 release had only Zephyrim and Mortifiers as new units - and both were variants of existing units, the Seraphim and Penitent Engine, respectively.
As such the Paragon Warsuit is the first 100% original, not based on any existing unit so-we-can-sell-two-unit-kits option in the sisters line up in almost two decades. So to state the least, getting what's basically Dreadknight MK2: Angry Nun Boogaloo (with most all of the original's design issues) after over a decade of model stagnation and neglect was a let-down at best in the eyes of many players.
As you know, everyone and we mean everyone has taken the piss out of this thing. From comparisons to either the infamous Dreadknight or Ellen Ripley's loader suit in Aliens, to Neckbeards projectile vomiting on the horrendous design choices (Where do the Sister's feet go? (Maybe they just go inside of the walker's legs? Does it look like there's room in those spindly legs to you?) Why are her actual arms exposed? Why the hell is she not wearing a helmet?!), and even folks laughing their asses off over the fact that after decades of SoB players bitching for new armor, they finally got it in the form of a discount Centurion warsuit.
Suffice to say, this literal walking ergonomic nightmare has become the butt of jokes at the Sisters' expense. But at least both Sisters and Grey Knight players could finally find something to bond over.
The funny thing is that, if GW wanted to give the Sororitas some form of heavy support, they could have just gone for other, more plausible options. We do know that regular humans can don fairly strong power armour, we have many examples of inquisitors doing just that, and considering how wealthy the Ecclesiarchy is, getting a special body of SoBs with a Terminator-like type of armour wouldn't be that implausible (even if they don't have the advantage of the black carapace).
Another option would be a dreadnought-like design, and while that sounds absurd at first, we have the precedent of SoB dreadnoughts from the Rogue Trader days. Hell, they wouldn't have to go that far: they could use some sort of warsuit akin to the Invictor Tactical Warsuit or the Anchorite that functioned like a dreadnought while being piloted by a regular sister. And to be fair, the Paragon essentially is that, just with some design issues that made us laugh like the sister's ostrich legs and that silly little left arm.
The Paragon is silly enough that even the Regimental Standard pokes fun at it, comparing it very unfavourably to the Sentinel. It says a lot that some of the biased points they make are actually legitimately valid, such as the fact that there’s no risk of dropping a Sentinel’s weapons in combat when they’re bolted to the chassis itself, and that (Armoured) Sentinel pilots have actual head protection; proving that the Paragon is so stupidly designed that not even blatant Imperial propaganda (or GW itself) can defend it.
On top of everything else, as many of the more /M/anly members of /tg/ has commented, it looks like a discount Landmate, from Shirow Masamune's works.
Which is also probably related to the fact that the core concept is transparently ripping off every TAG design from a far better game
TL;DR: GW cannot into designing warsuits.
Equipment[edit]
In terms of what these glorified flamingo walkers lug around, the Paragon Warsuit is equipped with firepower to rival a Space Marine Dreadnought. Their left arm incorporates a Heavy Bolter, Heavy Flamer, or Multi-Melta which is augmented by shoulder-mounted secondary weapons consisting of either twin Grenade Launchers or Storm Bolters. Its right arm wields a melee weapon consisting of a large Paragon War Blade or Paragon War Mace. Now, it looks stupid, but if it reaches melee, the poor idiots who failed to bring it down are quite screwed.
Since the grenade launcher and the mulitmelta have the SAME range, any vehicle has the potential of reciving up to 16- 22 wounds a turn (although you probebly need some miracle dice to pull this off). And this is before it gets into melee!
The paragon war mace is good for smashing vehicles and monsters with its S+4 AP -2 D3, although the -1 to hit makes this a little bit unreliable. The paragon war sword has a better AP (-3) than the mace but its S bonus isn't enough to really hurt vehicles or anything with a high T. Its D is also 1 point weaker than the mace, so it's better used to slice up MEQ, and with its additional attack it does this job very well.
So if you want to smash some Tanks: Go with the war mace / multi melta / grenade launcher variant, and watch the big guys bend over like the little bitches they are.
If MEQ are your problem: Unleash your war sword / heavy bolter / grenade launcher Paragon and enjoy throwing them down from their high horse.
If GEQ are bugging you, mow them down like weed with your war sword / heavy flamer / storm bolter variant. (Although you could take the grenade launcher here as well, since it has higher S and DS; but then again, it doesn't have rapid fire for more Dakka at 12")
As you see, the storm bolter kinda takes a back seat to the grenade launcher in S and DS so it's up to your preferences which one you use. (Bear in mind though, that the grenade launcher does cost points compared to the integrated storm bolter.)
Gallery[edit]
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GW's fetish with baby carriers truly mystifies us.
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Slightly more practical but CHONKY warsuit design with added chainblade bayonets for the heavy flamers, basically just turning it into an Assault Centurion.
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HONK HONK!
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Truly indomitable. Bet you can't unsee that now.
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Trust us, you don't wannna know.
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Even Eldrad is in agreement. This shit makes the Eldar War Walker look good.
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Original character, donut steel.
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Yeah its basically the Loader from Aliens but all 40k'ed.
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The baby carrier's baby carrier.
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Cheeki Breeki edition...
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...And suddenly grimdark fanart explanation.
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Dem legs.
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Emprah knows how much kitbashing and painting skill will take to achieve this, we are not sure if they have a back-exoskeleton, use special fibers or those are cybernetic arms, and we can skip over the mechanized high-heels.
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We leave to the skillful and elegan/tg/entlemen this grand challenge of kitbash and painting.
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And of course the new major character has to be in one. At least the personal one looks decent.
Forces of the Sisters of Battle | ||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Command | Triumph of Saint Katherine • Canoness • Ecclesiarchy Battle Conclave • Imagifier • Ministorum Priest • Palatine • Dogmata • Sororitas Command Squad | |||||||
Troops | Avenging Angel • Arco-flagellant • Battle Sister Squad • Celestians • Crusaders • Death Cult Assassin • Dominion Squad • Novitiate Squad • Retributor Squad • Seraphim Squad • Sisters Repentia • Zephyrim Squad | |||||||
Walkers | Paragon Warsuit • Penitent Engine • Mortifier (Anchorite) | |||||||
AFVs | Castigator Tank • Exorcist • Immolator • Repressor • Rhino • Samaritan | |||||||
Special Vehicles | Pulpit of Saint Holline's Basilica | |||||||
Superheavy Vehicles |
Mobile Cathedral | |||||||
Flyers | Avenger Strike Fighter | |||||||
Spacecraft | Aquila Lander • Drop Pod | |||||||
Saints | Living Saint • Geminae Superia | |||||||
Non Militant | Orders Dialogous • Orders Famulous • Orders Hospitaler • Orders Pronatus • Hagiolater | |||||||
Allies | Black Templars |