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What do you guys think of this chart I came up with? C&C appreciated.



Took me a while to finish, hopefully everything matches up, I wish GW had done the chart this way.

I don't have my rulebook on hand, but do you mind explaining what's different here?

 BattleCapIronblood wrote:
I don't have my rulebook on hand, but do you mind explaining what's different here?

Well basically I changed the following:

- Most astartes chapters are no longer "open" to relations with xenos, but ally themselves with them only as desperate allies. They spout bucketloads of xenophobic quotations all throughout the background and thus, should also be unwilling to ally with eldar, tau etc.

- Dark Eldar are out of the question for Astartes, Inquisition and Tau, as these pirates and slavers are the worst of all xenos in the eyes of the space marines and irredeemable for the greater good.

- The Tau will never ally themselves with demonic entities of the warp, although if desperate measures call it they will fight alongside chaos space marines whom they still consider humans.

- Templars and Sisters are fervently devout to the Emperor, and make for battle brothers. The Templars, known for their zealotry, are also less suspicious in the eyes of the Grey Knights than those chapters that have their own homeworld and their own microcosmos to rule.

- Being agents of the Emperor/Imperium, Grey Knights and Sisters are battle brothers too.

- Sisters arent as mistrusting of other space marine chapters as the grey knights are, and are thus battle brothers with all of them.

- Due to the long and bloody history of the Nimbosa Crusade, Black Templars hate the Tau Empire and want to see them eradicated.

- Sisters and Black Templars abhor witches. As such, they despise both Eldar and their dark kin.

- The Dark Eldar may be evil, but they fear the warp just like the Eldar. As such, they will not ally themselves with daemons from the empyrean, but are willing to be desperate allies with chaos space marines when going on raids.

- You will not see the Sons of Fenris ally themselves with greenskins or undead robots.

Tyranids should be able to ally with imperial guard - desperate allies - a la cult support.

Nice work. I like how you made the gks allying with another faction more sensible. BT and SOB battle bros, awesome. Sadly it wont ever be used, but its fun to look at and wish that was not the case.

I'll keep my personal feedback/suggestions limited to the Sisters of Battle:

- change BA to Allies of Convenience (negative rumours regarding their geneseed corruption, see this message)
- change DA to Allies of Convenience (secrecy and unreliability especially concerning Inquisitorial investigations; they're known to occasionally just leave an ongoing battle)
- change Necrons to Come the Apocalypse (filthy Xenos, Imperial Creed, Massacre of Sanctuary 101)
- change Space Marines to Allies of Convenience (abhumans who deny the Emperor's divinity)*
- change Space Wolves to Desperate Allies (heresy and geneseed corruption, murder of Ecclesiarchy delegation, SoB punitive expedition to Fenris)
- change Tau to Come the Apocalypse (filty Xenos, Imperial Creed)

*Note: I'm rather unsure about Space Marines as AoC as this encompasses a whole range of Chapters and the SoB are quite okay with a lot of them. I just think their special relationship with the BT deserves to stand out, which would necessitate nudging all other SM Chapters down a bit.

 Soteks Prophet wrote:
Tyranids should be able to ally with imperial guard - desperate allies - a la cult support.

Problem is, it is hard to implement that on the tabletop as the Tyranid codex doesnt have Cult leaders as HQ and if you could ally yourself with nids, there'd technically be nothing stopping you from taking Carnifexes, gaunts and such. Also, I could hardly imagine Cult stealers fighting alongside IG battle tanks and such...nid cults usually only work on planets as long as they are not detected and even if the planet is doomed, the local IG usually goes down fighting against them.

I'd put SM as allies of convenience with both Chaos sides, to allow for RenegadesnotfullychaoticSMyet

Far as I can tell, the allies chart is meant to represent the highest tier of possibility, even if it's remote. This is why you have things like marines being battle brothers with the Tau. Sure, the majority of the time, they're killing the Tau. However, it is possible for the two to team up on a battle brothers level where they even squad up with each other, because they actually DID do this in a fluff story once.

Therefore, what the allies chart is meant to say is that, "Under the "best" of circumstances, Marines can ally with Tau on a Battle Brothers level", not "Marines are always battle brothers with the Tau!"

...unfortunately, if that assumption is true (and it seems to be the case for most factions), whoever whipped the thing up wasn't paying much attention to SoB fluff, apparently. They too were stated to fight "side by side" (which is something only battle brothers allies really can do) with various space marines at various points.

 Soteks Prophet wrote:
Tyranids should be able to ally with imperial guard - desperate allies - a la cult support.

The reason they are not is because cults don't fight with the hive fleet. They will cause mayhem weakening the planet, but as soon as the fleet arrives anything not pure stealer by that point will offer itself as genetic and intelligence material to be processed in to something more useful.

Stealer cults do not fight along side nid forces as far as I know.

And, yes, the chart represents the best possible outcome. Sisters may hate xeno, but if faced with a chaos incursion or Ork warband and there happen to be Tau attacking them they will ignore each other. However, they would never ever join a bunch of deamons to fight anything.

I think the bit about necrons being AOC with CSM is so players can represant Crons and stuff a warpsmith made.

I don't see why Dark eldar and Tau would not be able to be allies.....

They are allies in the fluff with the ethereals sacrificing thousands of Tau to the dark eldar (to be used genetic experiments/creation of fighting machines) - the dark eldar do betray the Tau..... but if the dark eldar were truly threatened by a common foe, they would uphold there end of the bargain.

Dark Eldar and Eldar should be Battle Brothers, they have allied many times in the fluff more often then they have fought. People don't really understand the relationship between the two. Its the kind of relationship you have with your weird cousin who lives in his dark basement watching Baywatch all day and your really want to avoid. They have different ideals, they don't hate each other, they just don't like each others choices. Who would you rather ally with, a weird Human Murderer who you can convince not to murder you as long as he can Murderer some Monkeys (as I said, weird...) or a Baboon who is as likely to rip your face off as who you tell it to?

Edit. Dark eldar and Necrons? Really? What fluff are you reading

TiamatRoar wrote:
Far as I can tell, the allies chart is meant to represent the highest tier of possibility, even if it's remote.

Yep that was my understanding too. Sucks that CSM and IG aren't battle brothers though since CSM and renegade guard work together a lot.

I'd prefer an allies chart that was completely or near-completely open with slight bonuses for armies that can't ally with some factions.(Black Templars can't ally with psykers, gain adamantium will)

To me it makes more sense to allow potentially non-fluffy armies than to disallow potentially fluffy armies.

 Yonan wrote:

TiamatRoar wrote:
Far as I can tell, the allies chart is meant to represent the highest tier of possibility, even if it's remote.

Yep that was my understanding too. Sucks that CSM and IG aren't battle brothers though since CSM and renegade guard work together a lot.

Yea, people hate on the official allies chart saying that "These guys hate those guys! They should not be battle brothers or allies of convenience!" without noticing that in the fluff, these examples actually HAVE happened. If anything, the biggest failing of the allies chart is that it didn't consider the occurrences of two factions allying in the fluff ENOUGH. Imperial Guard, if truly meant to represent Renegade Guard (and all indicates are that they are) should be battle brothers with chaos marines and maybe even chaos demons (considering that such renegade guard would worship those daemons). And as I mentioned before, SoB really should be Battle Brothers with the marines since they actually have been that way in the fluff.

(although it is somewhat notable that the renegade armies from Forge World for Siege of Vraks ally the same way that CSM do, which means they are Battle Brothers with both CSM and Daemons, so at least Forge World took that into consideration. It'd be kinda silly if they didn't, though, considering those army lists include some CSM units)

The reason why the allies chart needs to take into consideration the "best" possible circumstances is in part so you can replicate fluff battles, I think. After all, if Marines and Tau were just AoC at best, you'd never be able to replicate the time they actually DID squad together. And that'd be dumb. Why should the fluff be allowed to have alliances that you, the player (and the one that's in charge of whatever story you're creating at the time) can not? I think GW had this in mind when they made the AoC chart.

On a tangential note, some elder do hate or revile dark elder. Again, though, AoC represents the "best" of situations, so as long as other elder can work with dark elder on a battle brothers level (something which happened even before the allies chart with Harlequins and Elder Corsair armies), the allies chart should have them as battle brothers for times when you the player wish to replicate that.

As an aside, the "worst" tier of ally relations in the alliance chart isn't "never ally". It's "come the apocalypse". GW actually stated that this is literal. IE, in apocalypse settings, you're allowed to ally anyone with ANYONE (including Tyrannids, though good luck figuring out a narrative for that). That's because "apocalypse" is meant to be able to represent the most LUDICROUS of situations, presumably down to including things like "This entire subsector is going to implode on itself leaving a big gaping hole in both the chaos gods' and the emperor's metaphorical foreheads if these Space Marines don't ally with these Chaos Space Marines".

 Sir Arun wrote:

 BattleCapIronblood wrote:
I don't have my rulebook on hand, but do you mind explaining what's different here?

Well basically I changed the following:
- Most astartes chapters are no longer "open" to relations with xenos, but ally themselves with them only as desperate allies. They spout bucketloads of xenophobic quotations all throughout the background and thus, should also be unwilling to ally with eldar, tau etc.
- Dark Eldar are out of the question for Astartes, Inquisition and Tau, as these pirates and slavers are the worst of all xenos in the eyes of the space marines and irredeemable for the greater good.
- The Tau will never ally themselves with demonic entities of the warp, although if desperate measures call it they will fight alongside chaos space marines whom they still consider humans.
- Templars and Sisters are fervently devout to the Emperor, and make for battle brothers. The Templars, known for their zealotry, are also less suspicious in the eyes of the Grey Knights than those chapters that have their own homeworld and their own microcosmos to rule.
- Being agents of the Emperor/Imperium, Grey Knights and Sisters are battle brothers too.
- Sisters arent as mistrusting of other space marine chapters as the grey knights are, and are thus battle brothers with all of them.
- Due to the long and bloody history of the Nimbosa Crusade, Black Templars hate the Tau Empire and want to see them eradicated.
- Sisters and Black Templars abhor witches. As such, they despise both Eldar and their dark kin.
- The Dark Eldar may be evil, but they fear the warp just like the Eldar. As such, they will not ally themselves with daemons from the empyrean, but are willing to be desperate allies with chaos space marines when going on raids.
- You will not see the Sons of Fenris ally themselves with greenskins or undead robots.

What about the fluff in the DE codex of DE allying with Tau. They also ally with space marines. while they might be evil, they are master manipulators, can easily pass themselves off as slightly trust worthy if it is in their interest. Similarly even if the Astartes did suspect how creepy their DE allies might be, they still would happily work with them to subdue a rebellion or fight CSM or Daemons. Hey there is a mindless Waaagh or Tyranid fleet heading our way and the only way to stop them is to temporarily ally with these S&M freaks. Seems about right.

Why arent IG and CSM battlebrothers. This is the most glaring fluff oversight of the current chart and you leave it out. Chaos has huge reserves of traitor guard and additional entire regiments go traitor every day. Alpha Legion make extensive use of regular human soldiers

DE and Eldar should be battle brothers(as they are in the current allies chart). Despite their misgivings about each other, they would rather ally with each other than any non eldar race.


So basically you have taken some high and mighty, good boys, idealistic approach to this. The IoM is a mess, they might have high morals and good intentions but often they are spread thin(really thin). When the options are allying with Xenos or allowing a dozen worlds to fall to the ruinous powers most of the IoM will choose the Xenos. Im not sure battlebrothers is right, but certainly allies of convience. The space marines are not going to betray tau or eldar fighting with them, they have honor and arbor treachery.


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 Yonan wrote:

TiamatRoar wrote:
Far as I can tell, the allies chart is meant to represent the highest tier of possibility, even if it's remote.

Yep that was my understanding too. Sucks that CSM and IG aren't battle brothers though since CSM and renegade guard work together a lot.

this is the most glaring problem with the current chart

Well my understanding for Dark Angels and Space Wolf relationships has always been that its more of a friendly rivalry, more stable and friendly than lets say tau SM alliances, but thats just my craziness speaking

I think Tyranids should be capable of being desperate allies with Tau/Eldar/Necrons.

I don't claim to be the biggest 40k lore buff, but I would assume that if the Tyranids were attacking the mutual enemy of one of the more crafty factions, said faction might be capable of lending support to the Tyranids as long as they managed to stay under the Hive Mind's "radar".

This might be even simpler for the Necrons (allies of convenience might be plausible) as the Tyranids would have nothing to gain from attacking the Necron units as long as they stayed out of the Tyranids' way.

 Blackhair Duckshape wrote:
I think Tyranids should be capable of being desperate allies with Tau/Eldar/Necrons.

I don't claim to be the biggest 40k lore buff, but I would assume that if the Tyranids were attacking the mutual enemy of one of the more crafty factions, said faction might be capable of lending support to the Tyranids as long as they managed to stay under the Hive Mind's "radar".

This might be even simpler for the Necrons (allies of convenience might be plausible) as the Tyranids would have nothing to gain from attacking the Necron units as long as they stayed out of the Tyranids' way.

The thing is, how would they stay under the hive mind's radar if they're there on the battlefield in the first place? Tyrannids pretty much attack anything that moves (and there has NEVER been a fluff case where they haven't, really), so just the fact that you're there on the same battleground as them makes you their target. What are you going to do if you're in the same battleground as the tyrannids yet one of your other enemies are there and you want the tyrannids to go after them instead of you? You can't negotiate with the tyrannids (never EVER in any fluff case have they ever communicated with anyone at all, whatsoever), so your only hope is to HIDE. At that point, hiding from another force so they don't see you and instead go after the other guy isn't even "Desperate Allies" level.

Trying to ally with a tyranid is like trying to ally with an NPC monster in an MMORPG that's programmed to attack you as soon as you step within its radius of awareness, no animal taming skills allowed. You have a better chance of negotiating with and allying with a rabid dog than you do a tyranid.

TiamatRoar wrote:

 Blackhair Duckshape wrote:
I think Tyranids should be capable of being desperate allies with Tau/Eldar/Necrons.

I don't claim to be the biggest 40k lore buff, but I would assume that if the Tyranids were attacking the mutual enemy of one of the more crafty factions, said faction might be capable of lending support to the Tyranids as long as they managed to stay under the Hive Mind's "radar".

This might be even simpler for the Necrons (allies of convenience might be plausible) as the Tyranids would have nothing to gain from attacking the Necron units as long as they stayed out of the Tyranids' way.

The thing is, how would they stay under the hive mind's radar if they're there on the battlefield in the first place? Tyrannids pretty much attack anything that moves (and there has NEVER been a fluff case where they haven't, really), so just the fact that you're there on the same battleground as them makes you their target. What are you going to do if you're in the same battleground as the tyrannids yet one of your other enemies are there and you want the tyrannids to go after them instead of you? You can't negotiate with the tyrannids (never EVER in any fluff case have they ever communicated with anyone at all, whatsoever), so your only hope is to HIDE. At that point, hiding from another force so they don't see you and instead go after the other guy isn't even "Desperate Allies" level.

Trying to ally with a tyranid is like trying to ally with an NPC monster in an MMORPG that's programmed to attack you as soon as you step within its radius of awareness, no animal taming skills allowed. You have a better chance of negotiating with and allying with a rabid dog than you do a tyranid.

I figured that the Tyranids might choose to first neutralise the force that is actively trying to kill them (which kind of works with your MMO analogy as some games have threat tables).

I think a proper allies chart would shift depending on who the Primary Detachment is.

For example, Dark Eldar primary should be able to bring in an allied detachment of Nids. This would represent captured Nid beasts; where as Nid Primary could not bring Dark Eldar. However, Nid primary could bring in Guard as an allied detachment to represent in Genestealer cults, but IG Primary could not bring in Nids.

 Blackhair Duckshape wrote:
I figured that the Tyranids might choose to first neutralise the force that is actively trying to kill them (which kind of works with your MMO analogy as some games have threat tables).

I imagine the tyranids would probably multi-task things, if there's more than one. Not shooting a tyranid probably wouldn't stop the others from going after you even as the first set are going after a bunch of guys shooting at them.

That said, does it really count as Desperate Allies level if your "ally" is 100% guaranteed to attack you the instant there's nothing else in range, before the battle is even over? At least on the table top, those Dark Eldar fighting the same foe as those Chaos Space Marines without shooting each other, even if keeping "one eye open", sounds plausible. A bunch of tyranids and whoever focusing until the enemy army is dead without the tyrannids ever stopping to take a bite out of their "allies" whatsoever before the game ends just seems bizarre, as does one player controlling them. At least when controlling most desperate allies, you can kinda envision these two forces of sentient beings coordinating their tactics as one player controls both of them. But one player controlling both Imperial Guard (or whatever else) and Tyrannids, coordinating the two to strategically attack an opponent together, is just WIERD and nothing like that ever happened or ever will happen in the fluff (again, basic communication would be impossible, even, unlike other desperate allies where they can at least scream at each other, "You go over there while I go over here").


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anonymou5 wrote:
I think a proper allies chart would shift depending on who the Primary Detachment is.

For example, Dark Eldar primary should be able to bring in an allied detachment of Nids. This would represent captured Nid beasts; where as Nid Primary could not bring Dark Eldar. However, Nid primary could bring in Guard as an allied detachment to represent in Genestealer cults, but IG Primary could not bring in Nids.

While it's true that various factions have utilized captured nids, it's only been individual specimens. I don't think any have ever managed to capture and control an amount large enough to make up an allied attachment to my knowledge. I'm not sure if multiple captured nids could even be coordinated together, unlike solitary specimens.

TiamatRoar wrote:

 Blackhair Duckshape wrote:
I figured that the Tyranids might choose to first neutralise the force that is actively trying to kill them (which kind of works with your MMO analogy as some games have threat tables).

I imagine the tyranids would probably multi-task things, if there's more than one. Not shooting a tyranid probably wouldn't stop the others from going after you even as the first set are going after a bunch of guys shooting at them.

That said, does it really count as Desperate Allies level if your "ally" is 100% guaranteed to attack you the instant there's nothing else in range, before the battle is even over? At least on the table top, those Dark Eldar fighting the same foe as those Chaos Space Marines without shooting each other, even if keeping "one eye open", sounds plausible. A bunch of tyranids and whoever focusing until the enemy army is dead without the tyrannids ever stopping to take a bite out of their "allies" whatsoever before the game ends just seems bizarre, as does one player controlling them. At least when controlling most desperate allies, you can kinda envision these two forces of sentient beings coordinating their tactics as one player controls both of them. But one player controlling both Imperial Guard (or whatever else) and Tyrannids, coordinating the two to strategically attack an opponent together, is just WIERD and nothing like that ever happened or ever will happen in the fluff (again, basic communication would be impossible, even, unlike other desperate allies where they can at least scream at each other, "You go over there while I go over here").

I picture it happening more along the lines of a small detachment going "it looks like those Hormagaunts are going to charge those Havoks, let's snipe that intercepting squad of Berserkers so they make it."

That's probably a bit too small scale for the table top, IMHO.

I'm mostly with Lynata on the Sisters options (and I defer to her on canon in general), but the "allies chart represents best possible relations" and "Space Marines are really diverse" -- it's not just the Black Templars who worship the Emperor as God, I recall -- persuade me that "Space Marines" generically maybe should be Battle Brothers with Sisters.

Err, you know what I mean, GW's highly gendered use of language makes it difficult to talk about female personnel...

SisterSydney wrote:it's not just the Black Templars who worship the Emperor as God, I recall -- persuade me that "Space Marines" generically maybe should be Battle Brothers with Sisters.

Yeah, I'm not entirely sure myself - it's just that ... I guess I find it a bit "sad" if the special relationship between SoB and BT would get lost by basically declaring it "equal" to, say, how they view the Ultras or the White Scars.
Let's just say this is an area where I'd certainly be willing to compromise, depending on how liberal we want the Matrix to be. Making them BB with SM could make Sisters more attractive as an Allies choice for Marine players. Hypothetically speaking, of course.

SisterSydney wrote:Err, you know what I mean, GW's highly gendered use of language makes it difficult to talk about female personnel...

Generic SM and Black Templars should both be battle-brothers with Sisters of Battle. Blood Angels, Space Wolves and Dark Angels should be desperate allies.

That was easy.

Desperate Allies implies you distrust your allies so much that you're worried they'll shoot you right in the middle of battle at any single moment (hence "One Eye Open" rule). I don't think SoB's relations with wolves and angels are THAT bad.

TiamatRoar wrote:Desperate Allies implies you distrust your allies so much that you're worried they'll shoot you right in the middle of battle at any single moment (hence "One Eye Open" rule). I don't think SoB's relations with wolves and angels are THAT bad.

Last time the Sisters saw the Wolves, they did shoot at each other.
To the Sororitas, the Space Wolves a bunch of mutant heretics who murdered a priestly delegation in cold blood. I think a rather high amount of distrust would be understandable.
Likewise, the Wolves are well within their right to assume the Sisters would attack them, given that this is precisely what they did at Fenris, and that the SoB regard it as their mandate to purge heretical elements from the Imperial forces.

I do agree about the Blood Angels and Dark Angels, though.