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So if your opponent wanted to go against the allies matrix for whatever reason, would you allow it? What would it take?

"A combination of both", as well as a very good effort and a friendly game.

I don't think the Allies rules are that restrictive anyway, staying 12" away from each other is usually quite easy if it's something like Tau+ Khorne Berzerkers or Deep Striking Daemons + Marine Gun line, etc

A combination of fluff and models.

I don't want to be on the receiving end of some new power combo the guy came up with to steamroll me, but I'm happy to to let him have factions X and Y tea up for fluff reasons. Maybe he wants to run a dark eldar coven alongside a tau force to represent their whole first contact event. Cool.

Conversely, I will probably gripe just a little when my opponent has Space Wolves and Grey Knights teaming up despite the fact that they don't get along in the fluff unless he has a good justification for it. Even if this combination is legal.

I think of it the same way I think of unbound armies. Silly when abused, but potentially a lot of fun. Breaking the allies matrix would actually be a good reason to use the unbound rules, I think. Genestealer cult guard/tyranid combo anyone?

fluff + models. if the guy can give me a non-convoluted reason to have eldar + knights, sure why not.

What's wrong with the Allies matrix? You can put anything on the table together anyhow; you just have to keep natural enemies separated, which fits the fluff.

CTA is not that horrible a penalty. Personally, I think secondary detachments under CTA should have bigger penalties, like rolling snake-eyes on a 2d6 means each turn means your opponent gets to control that unit for a turn ^.^ BETRAYAL!

I don't like your "no" option, but I'm against it. The current allies matrix prevents the horribleness that is the invisible Riptide. It'd take a REALLY good excuse to change my mind on it.

Gue'sava should be battle brothers with Tau, but for balance, would probably play against them as AoC.

Traitor Guard + Demons/CSM too (yes, renegades exist, but some people just want standard Traitor Guard.)

Harlequins + Slaneshi Demons? Probably wouldn't want to play even at CtA.

I don't care how converted an Imperial Knight is, I won't be cool with it being allied in with every race under the sun. I hate them, I don't run them, I'm not going to give an inch on the established rules for Imperial Knights. You want it in a non-Imperial army, then use the matrix.

If someone wanted to run Gue'vesa or my own Tyrant's Legion (that for some reason can't ally with Space Marines even with Astral Claws tactics), I have no problem ditching the rules for that because of fluff. But fluff isn't 'I want the current big bad boss and I'm gonna find a way to include it in the army!' Give me a reason, a real reason, and I'll bend the game over backwards to make it a good time.

Depends on what you're trying to do. "I don't have enough CC in Tau, can I bring a super-battlesuit that uses Imperial Knights rules?" doesn't fly no matter how cool your conversion is, "I want to run a Genestealer Cult, would you be okay with me taking 'Stealers with Guard?" is more acceptable.

Given how open & lenient the matrix is, and that the the allies matrix does not prevent you from fielding anything together, the only reason I can think of "breaking" it is to exploit some sort of rules advantage. Even CTA allies have relatively few restrictions or downsides. There's only a couple instances I can think of where this would be appropriate, things like Chaos Knights or the like which exist in the background of the universe but have no existing rules functionality.

I was thinking more along the lines of gue'Vesa or some traitor guard. I didn't even think about gene stealer cults

I think there really shouldn't be Battle brothers at all.

Otherwise the matrix is generally fine in my books with the odd tweek.

Each faction should be able to win it's battles on it's own using it's own flavor to overcome advisarys.

Allies should only be used occasonally not all the time as it seems it is now.

There should be 2 lvls of allies

Reluctant and CTA

This is only my opinion I'd play anyone with a good story behind their armie.

Well, since no one plays it correctly when it comes to Eldar/Imperium psykers summoning daemons, I bow to public pressure and allow this defiance of the rules.

Outside of that, I'd allow it in a friendly game if they asked me beforehand.

 Vaktathi wrote:
Given how open & lenient the matrix is, and that the the allies matrix does not prevent you from fielding anything together, the only reason I can think of "breaking" it is to exploit some sort of rules advantage. Even CTA allies have relatively few restrictions or downsides. There's only a couple instances I can think of where this would be appropriate, things like Chaos Knights or the like which exist in the background of the universe but have no existing rules functionality.

This. There's very few reasons I'd break the matrix, outside of a fluff campaign.

the allies matrix is pretty open to use anyway. I'd be hesitant to allow anyone to declare something as a battle brother.
Alies of conveniance for the right fluff is a bit of a differnt story mind you
but if someone was trying to run a gene stealer cult style list or a "Traitor guard with deamons" list I'd certinly be open to them running as allies of conveniance.

If their explanation for why they want to break it makes sense, sure, but as others have said, there's very little reason to need to do that except for trying shenanigans, so I'd be a little leery going in.

Timeshadow wrote:
I think there really shouldn't be Battle brothers at all.

Otherwise the matrix is generally fine in my books with the odd tweek.

Each faction should be able to win it's battles on it's own using it's own flavor to overcome advisarys.

Allies should only be used occasonally not all the time as it seems it is now.

There should be 2 lvls of allies

Reluctant and CTA

This is only my opinion I'd play anyone with a good story behind their armie.

There are some factions that are just too incomplete, or are primarily meant as supplementary units -- Harlequins, Assassins, Inquisition, that kind of thing. Besides, why wouldn't two Astartes Chapters be 'battle brothers' from a narrative perspective?

You forgot AoC, too, which might make sense, between, say Guard and SM, or Eldar and DE.

 Talys wrote:

Timeshadow wrote:
I think there really shouldn't be Battle brothers at all.

Otherwise the matrix is generally fine in my books with the odd tweek.

Each faction should be able to win it's battles on it's own using it's own flavor to overcome advisarys.

Allies should only be used occasonally not all the time as it seems it is now.

There should be 2 lvls of allies

Reluctant and CTA

This is only my opinion I'd play anyone with a good story behind their armie.

There are some factions that are just too incomplete, or are primarily meant as supplementary units -- Harlequins, Assassins, Inquisition, that kind of thing. Besides, why wouldn't two Astartes Chapters be 'battle brothers' from a narrative perspective?

You forgot AoC, too, which might make sense, between, say Guard and SM, or Eldar and DE.

I dunno guard and SMs being battle brothers makes a fair bit of sense. there are more then a few examples in the fluff of space marines fighting with guards shoulder to shoulder.

BrianDavion wrote:

 Talys wrote:

Timeshadow wrote:
I think there really shouldn't be Battle brothers at all.

Otherwise the matrix is generally fine in my books with the odd tweek.

Each faction should be able to win it's battles on it's own using it's own flavor to overcome advisarys.

Allies should only be used occasonally not all the time as it seems it is now.

There should be 2 lvls of allies

Reluctant and CTA

This is only my opinion I'd play anyone with a good story behind their armie.

There are some factions that are just too incomplete, or are primarily meant as supplementary units -- Harlequins, Assassins, Inquisition, that kind of thing. Besides, why wouldn't two Astartes Chapters be 'battle brothers' from a narrative perspective?

You forgot AoC, too, which might make sense, between, say Guard and SM, or Eldar and DE.

I dunno guard and SMs being battle brothers makes a fair bit of sense. there are more then a few examples in the fluff of space marines fighting with guards shoulder to shoulder.

It's all fun and games unti somebody tries to.make a Black Templar invisible

 Vaktathi wrote:
Given how open & lenient the matrix is, and that the the allies matrix does not prevent you from fielding anything together, the only reason I can think of "breaking" it is to exploit some sort of rules advantage. Even CTA allies have relatively few restrictions or downsides. There's only a couple instances I can think of where this would be appropriate, things like Chaos Knights or the like which exist in the background of the universe but have no existing rules functionality.

This is also how i tend to look at the question.

The current matrix works. Sure, you have to be careful which Units are close to each other, but that's part of Tactics anyway

Easy solution: everyone is allies of convenience with everyone. Now every army has the exact same allies options, and balance is restored.

My last game was my wolves against 2 dudes - 1 with 'crons and the other with Eldar....I didn't mind 1 bit

With two-person teams, we ignore the table because each army is totally separate already (no shared warlord traits or anything) and it'd screw over our nids and daemons players disproportionately.

With a single force, though, we follow the table. My buddy runs Tau/Ultramarines (his own fluff army) and simply avoids the One Eye Open rule by keeping his gunline Tau and assault heavy drop pod marines apart.

The point of the table is more than just fluff; it keeps armies more balanced. Combining a standard Tau gunline with a psyker-based assault force defeats the balance of the Tau codex; it removes their only weaknesses which are supposed to be the payment for getting such a strong gun line. I'd actually go further and say the non-traditional ally penalty needs to be universal but weaker to compensate.

I voted stay with the rules. The day an AM can train a Carnifex to fetch the paper off the front lawn will be the day to break the matrix.

 Peregrine wrote:
Easy solution: everyone is allies of convenience with everyone. Now every army has the exact same allies options, and balance is restored.

Sounds fair for balance reasons.

Obviously, things like Chaos Knights, Genestealer Cults and similar could get exceptions in fluff-driven games, because things like invisible riptides are far less likely (and obviously the exception should not be allowed if invisible riptides is the reason).

I'd really like to take a thunder-fire cannon and a centurion squad for my SM allies as GK. I can't though. I'm fine with that.

lustigjh wrote:
Combining a standard Tau gunline with a psyker-based assault force defeats the balance of the Tau codex; it removes their only weaknesses which are supposed to be the payment for getting such a strong gun line.

So then why is it ok for an IG gunline to have that psyker-based assault force and remove their intended weakness of being poor in melee?

 Ashiraya wrote:
Obviously, things like Chaos Knights, Genestealer Cults and similar could get exceptions in fluff-driven games, because things like invisible riptides are far less likely (and obviously the exception should not be allowed if invisible riptides is the reason).

This is why everyone is AoC in my proposal, not BB: you can't cast psychic powers on allied units. No invisibility exploits (though IMO invisibility needs to be removed anyway), no ICs buffing allied units, etc. Everyone can take any allied force and put the models on the table next to their main army without any conflicts, but buffs/special rules/etc are never shared.

 Xenomancers wrote:
I'd really like to take a thunder-fire cannon and a centurion squad for my SM allies as GK. I can't though. I'm fine with that.

whats stopping you?