Allies?

[Chaplain Lucifer]

After the initial shock and having read something more about this, I'm more comfortable with the idea. For my DA I probably won't use allies (probably as a matter of principle), but I'm digging the idea of having allies with my Ork army for some laughs and/or plug some gaps.

[Brother-Chaplain Nemiel]

Well i think 40k is developing into more and more powergaming friendlyness esp with those alliance rules...i already heard some horribly cheesy ideas from my friends who still actively play...

 

The fluff is what got me into 40k...sure i play to win but im no powergamer, but playing vs such ppl i learned i dont have much fun one reason for me to stop the hobby some years ago...when i play i want to have fun, no matter the result

 

Esp if those powergamers know all rules to the letter and use that against you...thats why i only play blood bowl vs some ppl via PC, on the table one powergamer dont need to buy any traing markers(rerolls), for he gets one for each mistake you make...

 

But i surely try my "fluffy" gaming approach!

[facmanpob]

Fortunately the guys I play against aren't power gamers at all, and we will all enjoy the allies rules a lot I think.......

 

I'm slowly building up an Ork army, so if I can get to field it occasionally as an allied force to my marines then that will be fun! I'm not too bothered about whether or not its "fluffy", so long as its fun.

[The DIA!]

I might have to agree with lucifer here, i probably wont use allies, at least not for my DA. Chaos marines is a different story for another forum.

[interogatortech]

my bother and me we are incredibly happy.as twins we pick space marines i picked dark angels and he picked space wolf even before we knew about their story,so now we can alie our armies and have fun( i mean ill borrow some of his stuff and hell borrow some of mine).also maybe some GK and necrons just so i can play something different .

[The DIA!]

my bother and me we are incredibly happy.as twins we pick space marines i picked dark angels and he picked space wolf even before we knew about their story,so now we can alie our armies and have fun( i mean ill borrow some of his stuff and hell borrow some of mine).also maybe some GK and necrons just so i can play something different .

 

Dark angels siding with Space Wolves and then with Necrons? *head explodes* :D

[Bryan Blaire]

Dark angels siding with Space Wolves and then with Necrons? *head explodes* ;)

Well, the Space Wolves thing is fine depending on what fluff you've read and how you interpret it, as you could view the two Chapters as having a brotherly/friendly rivalry, rather than a totally hostile one.

 

Necrons isn't that strange if you take the viewpoint that given the Necrons newer, anthropomorphic fluff, while they want to dominate all life, they are not mindless life destroyers, they can make conscious decisions to "use" some of their opponents, especially if it benefits directly their goal of domination while removing rivals. While I don't see this coming up much, they would probably accept ignoring living beings in favor of destroying something like Tyranids.

 

Now where it would get tricky to me is if you are playing a two man team, and both people want to try and have a non-allowed ally choice to the other army they are working with.

 

Also, you can't take more than a single ally choice in any given game.

[lost_angel]

Well i think 40k is developing into more and more powergaming friendlyness esp with those alliance rules...i already heard some horribly cheesy ideas from my friends who still actively play...

 

While I think there is some potential for abuse within the system (possibly IG blobs), I can only think of one or two specific builds right now that may be described as cheesy. With a couple of exceptions, the good stuff in most armies is generally in the Elite and Heavy sections and access to these seems pretty limited under the allies rules (you won't see Deathwing spamming longfangs or thunderwolves). Additionally, don't forget that any allies must be led by their own hq so you can generally expect what amounts to a 100 - 250pt 'tax' on top of the cost of your units.

 

In addition to some of suggestions outlined in earlier posts I can only think of a couple of extras that may prove truly beneficial for my death-raven right now:

 

• Libbies - be nice to have some decent psychic powers
  
• Riflemans - (see my earlier post)
  
• Long fangs/devs - in smaller games 1 fully kitted out squad would go nicely with my termies
  
• SM bikes with bike command squad - would go nicely with deathraven
  

 

 

Hardly cheesy. With our older 'dex, I view it as a simple way of giving us access to units we should have had all along at a more suitable price.

[rifter72]

So the allies can be a good thing, using the Space Marine Codex you could make Deathwatch unit that is lead by a Chaplin or Librarian.

[shabbadoo]

...and you could make a Deathwatch unit made up of only DA and DA successors. Not like the Inquisition would do that, but... :)

[Droma]

As a primarily deathwing player the things I can really see adding would be IG or possibly BA jumpers(maybe death company jumpers). An SM libby would be nice as well but I'm not sure what troops we'd add, a basic tac squad wouldn't add much to a DW army.

[lost_angel]

Judging from what's been going around on the internet the allies rule is something like this:

 

 

Mandatory

• 1 hq
  
• 1 troops
  

 

Additionally you may add

 

• 1 troops
  
• 1 elite
  
• 1 heavy
  
• 1 fast attack
  

 

Now I don't know if this limits your main armies foc. I'm thinking it won't. Regardless, your choice of allies will hinge somewhat on the troops and hq; it's hardly worth bagging that sternguard squad you fancy unless you're going to get some benefit from the the hq and troops you're also having to purchase.

 

@Droma - Looking at my own Deathraven list I'm trying to figure out what could be added. If I was going BA maybe something like a BA libby on bike along with some assault marines and an attack bike squad. Just a thought.

 

R

[Ajax Tlamunus]

Looking at my own Deathraven list I'm trying to figure out what could be added. If I was going BA maybe something like a BA libby on bike along with some assault marines and an attack bike squad. Just a thought.

 

But the key limiting factor with taking Allies, which I think has been lost in the great rush by "teh internetz" to declare it "BROKEN FOREVER!", is that the Allies still have to come out of your standard points allotment. In this case, are the slight advantages that a Blood Angels Assault Squad has over a Dark Angels squad worth the opportunity cost? Do the Allied units really "mesh" with the rest of the army? Are you really gaining , overall?

 

Mind you, I'm looking forward to using my massive Imperial Guard force and my (still being collected) Dark Angels at the same time, but that's for the convience of getting to use my whole collection, not so much for the tactical advantage.

[lost_angel]

An excellent point. It's very tempting to go crazy and splurge without thinking of the total cost. In the example above my initial idea would be as a compliment to the RW part of the force although I admit the concept needs work.

 

On a slightly different note, has anyone given any thought to how DA units would sit as allies to another force? At higher points levels I can see Belial and a couple of DW squads being a great way to shoehorn in some fearless, 2+/5++ troops...

[Ajax Tlamunus]

If I was going BA maybe something like a BA libby on bike along with some assault marines and an attack bike squad. Just a thought.

(Emphasis Added - Ajax)

 

An excellent point. It's very tempting to go crazy and splurge without thinking of the total cost. In the example above my initial idea would be as a compliment to the RW part of the force although I admit the concept needs work.

 

You want to use a Blood Angels Attack Bike squad to support Ravenwing!? See what I mean about being attracted to the "Ohh Shiny!" aspect of the Allies rules over the "Boring, but Practical." of just sticking to your original codex? I mean, go put the kettle on, have a cuppa, and think that through...

[lost_angel]

Actually, I was thinking that a 3 man AB squad would be a solid and fairly cost effective way of getting around the ravenwing squad restrictions (i.e. 1 AB per RWAS) or/and shoehorning a couple of typhoons and ABs at the same time without breaking the foc. Not exactly shiny. I'm sure there's many more DA/BA combos that could be open to abuse. See what I mean now?

 

R

[Ajax Tlamunus]

Oh, that's right, I keep forgetting that the Dark Angels don't field Attack Bike Squads (just Bikes and Land Speeders). Mea culpa.

[RayJ]

The biggest things you will want to ally for with DA are to get access to the Biomancy psychic discipline, to get more mech saturation, or to get small pocket buffs (Sanguianry Priests are the big one there).

 

Blood Angels can do 2 of those really well, but mech saturation will come from GKs or IG with the infantry platoon / veterans and inquisitorial henchmen.

 

Really, allies won't be the huge deal everyone is fretting over. There will be some really good combinations worked out, but they won't be massively better than what we already get, especially with the opportunity cost of spending points on a 2nd HQ. Very few competitive lists right now run multiple HQs so that they can maximize points on efficient units. In most cases you're not gonna be getting enough better units for allies to be an obvious choice, and special combinations are really the best (or only) situation where you would want to use allies.

[Ajax Tlamunus]

Really, allies won't be the huge deal everyone is fretting over. There will be some really good combinations worked out, but they won't be massively better than what we already get, especially with the opportunity cost of spending points on a 2nd HQ. Very few competitive lists right now run multiple HQs so that they can maximize points on efficient units. In most cases you're not gonna be getting enough better units for allies to be an obvious choice, and special combinations are really the best (or only) situation where you would want to use allies.

 

And at the end of the day, you still only have your initial pool of 1,000 or 1,500, or 2,000 Points. Sure, instead of just picking the best stuff from one codex you can attempt to brew a better combination from 14² mixed codices. I'm still thinking that, most of the time, you'll be better off just focusing on the one list... After the "Ooh shiny!" wears off, I suspect that the popwer gamers will return to single-book lists.

[LidlessPraetor]

The biggest things you will want to ally for with DA are to get access to the Biomancy psychic discipline

 

 

Totally agree with everything you just said, except this^ I'm personally a HUGE fan of the Divination tree. It's gonna be sort of like playing Eldar with all of the buffs/debuffs...

 

The point on opportunity costs is the nail on the head, as far as I'm concerned. That's why I think Guard will be the only ally I'd use (if I actually ever do it). There's some pretty cheap HQ options for the guard, and what I'm thinking right now is a primaris psyker fighting alongside Ezekiel. Then throw in either an infantry platoon for cheap bodies, or just a lone grenadier squad for low opportunity costs. Sprinkle in a psyker battle squad, a Russ, and/or a Vendetta, and that's pretty low costs for what I get out of it...

 

But here's the silver lining for everyone not looking to take allies: Depending on the Russ, that's roughly 4-5 hundred points spent for a grand total of 5 kill points. In addition, it's only got 1 scoring unit to get those Victory Points for holding objectives. so yes, it'd be adding in support in the form of ordinance, extra psychic goodness, and flying anti-tank; but it'd take away alot of the strengths of my elite space marine army in low kill points, and tons of scoring objective grabbers...

 

All in all, there's some great combinations to build out there, but just about every single one that I've seen will water down the main force's main sticking point. I don't really see allies as being game breaking/power gaming but more for fluff and of course: sales :)

[Ajax Tlamunus]

All in all, there's some great combinations to build out there, but just about every single one that I've seen will water down the main force's main sticking point. I don't really see allies as being game breaking/power gaming but more for fluff and of course: sales :)

 

What!? How dare the manufacturers of this game make a rule that encourages fun! Oh, those greedy bastards!

 

Oh, wait, I forgot I'm not on 4Chan's /tg/ board...

[RayJ]

The biggest things you will want to ally for with DA are to get access to the Biomancy psychic discipline

 

Totally agree with everything you just said, except this^ I'm personally a HUGE fan of the Divination tree. It's gonna be sort of like playing Eldar with all of the buffs/debuffs...

 

 

I think you misinterpreted this sentence. I didn't mean to imply that DA generals would regularly use allies for this purpose. I merely stated that this is one of the few reasons a DA general would consider it. I fully agree that the Divination discipline is one of the best for us. Also, if our Librarians remain at Ld 9, you could see us buying up another Libby to get the boost on casting (assuming that works the same way).

[march10k]

Hmmm. I think allowing allies is wise, but some of the armies that can be combined are completely unfluffy. I do see much potential for abuse, but the point that the main army and the allies come from a fixed pool of points indicates that there will be trade-offs. So I don't see too many OP cheesefests coming out of this, but I do see some armies combining "because it's fluffy" (IG/Chaos to make traitor guard, chaos marines and daemons, and so on), and some armies taking carefully chosen units from another codex to make up for a serious shortcoming (tau taking a farseer to have a psycher, along with some banshees, scorpions, or harlies to have some melee)... In the case of fluffy comboes, I'm not sold that there's any serious powergaming advantage, since the allied units don't seem like they're inherently more capable than what the host codex can provide. And in the other case, can you really call the inclusion of a single credible melee unit in a crippled army like tau "powergaming?" It really only boosts the army from pitiful to mediocre once you account for what you have to take out in order to put the farseer, troop, and melee unit (with waver serpent?) in.

[Bryan Blaire]

I'll reiterate a point I made in the main Allies thread: GW is focusing on fluff/narrative games this edition, they aren't concerning themselves with hard-core competitive or tournament games. It's fine if that's what you want to play, but they really don't seem to care to gear this edition toward that, they've mentioned the narrative "concept" in their videos and in the recent White Dwarf a bunch though. They don't seem to care about power-gamers, hard core builds, etc.

[lost_angel]

@Rayj - just noticed the BA FAQ - priests only give FNP to BAs so bang goes any allies related shennanigans:( Saying that, the shooting rules for fast vehicles could make for some interesting combinations.