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Here's what I feel GW was aiming for with their Faction keywords. Whether they hit the mark or not is a different matter. From page 156 of the Warhammer Age of Sigmar - General's Handbook:

ALLEGIANCE

Every unit and warscroll battalion in Warhammer Age of Sigmar is part of one of the Grand Alliances – either ORDER, CHAOS, DEATH or DESTRUCTION. Many units and warscroll battalions also have more specific allegiances, for example, STORMCAST ETERNALS or SYLVANETH. If all the units and warscroll battalions in your army are ORDER, for example, then it has the ORDER allegiance. An army with the ORDER allegiance – sometimes known as an ORDER army – can use the potent allegiance abilities rules found on the following pages.

When your army qualifies for more than one allegiance – e.g. all of the units are ORDER and STORMCAST ETERNAL – you must choose which allegiance your army will use before each game. These restrictions aside, you can use allegiance abilities whenever and wherever you play your games of Warhammer Age of Sigmar.

 Ghaz wrote:
Here's what I feel GW was aiming for with their Faction keywords. Whether they hit the mark or not is a different matter. From page 156 of the Warhammer Age of Sigmar - General's Handbook:

ALLEGIANCE

Every unit and warscroll battalion in Warhammer Age of Sigmar is part of one of the Grand Alliances – either ORDER, CHAOS, DEATH or DESTRUCTION. Many units and warscroll battalions also have more specific allegiances, for example, STORMCAST ETERNALS or SYLVANETH. If all the units and warscroll battalions in your army are ORDER, for example, then it has the ORDER allegiance. An army with the ORDER allegiance – sometimes known as an ORDER army – can use the potent allegiance abilities rules found on the following pages.

When your army qualifies for more than one allegiance – e.g. all of the units are ORDER and STORMCAST ETERNAL – you must choose which allegiance your army will use before each game. These restrictions aside, you can use allegiance abilities whenever and wherever you play your games of Warhammer Age of Sigmar.

While we will eventually get to that point where having matching legions give a benefit, it still does not prevent using the overarching keyword as your army keyword.

No, but using the first prevents you from using the second and thus no Noise Marines as Troops as you wouldn't be an Emperor's Children army.

That's all well and good, and 40k might get there eventually. But as it is right now, that isn't how it works based on the way they wrote the rules.

 Gordon Shumway wrote:
That's all well and good, and 40k might get there eventually. But as it is right now, that isn't how it works based on the way they wrote the rules.

Yes, I noted as such. I also noted that I feel that was their intention, both with what 40K has taken from AoS and what GW themselves have said in one of the live FAQs.

The AOS equivalent specifically says that you need your entire army to have say, the Ironjawz keyword, to have certain Ironjawz units become battleline. I'm not seeing that here.

So..

If you take a Detachment of 'Deathguard' Plague bearers within this detachment can be taken as troops

The intention is that you cannot take Plague bearers as troops if the detachment isn't 'Deathguard'

But how the rules are written there is nothing stopping you taking Plaguebearers, WE Khorne Beserkers, Noise Marines and Rubics as Troops.. as long as each unit has their own legion key word.

But for the purposes of this question.. The army itself wouldn't be a 'Emperor's Children Army' as not everything listed above is <legion Emperors Children>

Also doing such a thing wouldn't be optimal as the majority of Character buffs are <legion> based so only certain units would be buffed by certain Characters

It's possibly worth pointing out that with the new detachments, an Elites choice changing to Troops isn't actually a very big deal. Even without this rule, you could take different cult units as compulsory choices in a Vanguard Detachment anyway.

Far as I believe you can..

However the plague marine, beserkers or others who do not say share. Emperors children key word cannot pass its buffs onto the others.

Ie ...

The old using dark angel to invul a conscript blob as super friends.

Not work.
Because they are buff guard key word . Not dark angel.
The difference is they can share a army as impirium but not buff as not matching key words.

This seems similar to the Ynarri mixed with Covens question, but people seem comfortable that you can only give the Ynarri keyword if the whole army has it. I think the legions and Ynarri are meant to work the same way, I don't know which way that is though.

This isn't 7th ed, this is a new edition. You can do these things now, I have a hunch that now due to wording or should I say lack there of, that I can now take cypher and the fallen in the same army as dark angels. Bonkers right?

But honestly if you give a cult marine a keyword to make it a troop then it's a troop, it just doesn't benefit from synergy of your main army faction.

Honestly you have lost this argument and at this point just running against a wall. GW won't FAQ it cause it is probably intentional. It has its pros and cons and in no way broken.

Thommy H wrote:
It's possibly worth pointing out that with the new detachments, an Elites choice changing to Troops isn't actually a very big deal. Even without this rule, you could take different cult units as compulsory choices in a Vanguard Detachment anyway.

The difference is 4 CP at least probably more. Espically when you consider each one of the cult units can basically replace either a HS, FA, or Elite Choices. So a 12 unit army with 6 HQ choices has 12 CP while Vanguard detachments would only get you 6 CP.


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 Solosam47 wrote:
This isn't 7th ed, this is a new edition. You can do these things now, I have a hunch that now due to wording or should I say lack there of, that I can now take cypher and the fallen in the same army as dark angels. Bonkers right?

But honestly if you give a cult marine a keyword to make it a troop then it's a troop, it just doesn't benefit from synergy of your main army faction.

Honestly you have lost this argument and at this point just running against a wall. GW won't FAQ it cause it is probably intentional. It has its pros and cons and in no way broken.

Yes it can all you have to do is bring 1 HQ choice that shares thier legion, and bam 3 elite units that would have gotten me 1 CP now get me 3 CP.

Not to mention if you read the rule the way I do having every unit in an Army having the WE key word would get you more CP.

 Thousand-Son-Sorcerer wrote:
The difference is 4 CP at least probably more. Espically when you consider each one of the cult units can basically replace either a HS, FA, or Elite Choices. So a 12 unit army with 6 HQ choices has 12 CP while Vanguard detachments would only get you 6 CP.

Yes, and if you're doing that with cult units as the troops choices, you're sacrificing the ease to have auras that can affect them all. Also, if you're running cult units as your troops choices, you're already invested in some of the more expensive 'troops' in the game, which means you're going to start running out of points trying to fill all those other slots.

I honestly don't see the issue at all.

Remember, in order to field a Khorne Daemonkin army, the ONLY way to do that in 8th is to use the world eaters keyword on Berserkers. Same goes for the 1000 Sons Daemonkin-style build from the campaign books. I dare say it is completely intentional to be allowed to just use the keyword for the cult legions in order to unlock them as troops.

 ClassicCarraway wrote:
Remember, in order to field a Khorne Daemonkin army, the ONLY way to do that in 8th is to use the world eaters keyword on Berserkers. Same goes for the 1000 Sons Daemonkin-style build from the campaign books. I dare say it is completely intentional to be allowed to just use the keyword for the cult legions in order to unlock them as troops.

What? There is no Khorne Daemonkin in 8th, nor are there any campaign books.

In 8th edition the actual rules allow you pick any keyword to build your army around (such as 'CHAOS') and then you're free to pick any legion keyword for any of your Heretic Astartes units that you want. If you take the 'real' legions for each of the cult units, then they count as troops units.

Its in the rules. There is nothing saying you have to take ONLY World Eaters legion units in your army in order to get Bezerkers that are troops. The rules just do not say that.

 yakface wrote:

Its in the rules. There is nothing saying you have to take ONLY World Eaters legion units in your army in order to get Bezerkers that are troops. The rules just do not say that.

well if you want to use Kharn to his full effect.. you better off as World Eater

I think the issue is the forces listed as being able to be in the deathguard legion, the name of the table is "DEATH GUARD ARMY LIST". At the top.

Generally an army is made up of detachments.

Generally a detachment can have units in it that share the same keywords.

Specifically in RAW a deathguard army list is made up of the units in that table due to the words quoted above.

Unless someone knows some other meaning to "Death Guard Army List"

Not death guard legion units, it actually says army list.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also to note, generally an army is made up of detachments.

Generally units must share the same keyword to be in a detachment.

Specifically an Ynnari army cannot include coven units, and some others even if they share keyword s.

If you read the Death Guard section,

That list is just the restriction on who can use 'Death Guard Legion' as their key word

while building a detachment they as long as the detachment shares a key word it is legit.. in the case of CSM and Daemons you can just use Chaos

The only list to have an actual restriction on mixing within a Detachment is GSC and Guard

blaktoof wrote:
I think the issue is the forces listed as being able to be in the deathguard legion, the name of the table is "DEATH GUARD ARMY LIST". At the top.

Generally an army is made up of detachments.

Generally a detachment can have units in it that share the same keywords.

Specifically in RAW a deathguard army list is made up of the units in that table due to the words quoted above.

Unless someone knows some other meaning to "Death Guard Army List"

Not death guard legion units, it actually says army list.

Also to note, generally an army is made up of detachments.

Generally units must share the same keyword to be in a detachment.

Specifically an Ynnari army cannot include coven units, and some others even if they share keyword s.

And what's the point? You still haven't quoted any rules.

Every single army list is called an army list. I have an Astra Militarum Army list. great. I can take an army with Astra Militarum and I can take Space Marines, Inquisition, etc, in it as well. There is nothing saying I have to build my army using the 'Astra Militarum' keyword if I don't want to.

There is NOTHING saying you have to build your army around a legion keyword to get any such benefits. Just that only certain units can be given certain legion keywords, and certain benefits some units get when having a specific legion keyword.

The Ynnari is a whole other issue, that definitely needs to be FAQ'd, but again, nothing you're implying is actually backed up by the rules, when it really easily could have been if GW wanted it that way. This entire edition is all about giving players the flexibility to take the armies they way they want. If you want to mix Crimson Fists, with Imperial Fists, with White Scars, with Blood Angels in the same army you can.

Similarly, if you want to mix Emperor's Children with Death Guard, with World Eaters, with Thousand Sons, you can.

 yakface wrote:

blaktoof wrote:
I think the issue is the forces listed as being able to be in the deathguard legion, the name of the table is "DEATH GUARD ARMY LIST". At the top.

Generally an army is made up of detachments.

Generally a detachment can have units in it that share the same keywords.

Specifically in RAW a deathguard army list is made up of the units in that table due to the words quoted above.

Unless someone knows some other meaning to "Death Guard Army List"

Not death guard legion units, it actually says army list.

Also to note, generally an army is made up of detachments.

Generally units must share the same keyword to be in a detachment.

Specifically an Ynnari army cannot include coven units, and some others even if they share keyword s.

And what's the point? You still haven't quoted any rules.

Every single army list is called an army list. I have an Astra Militarum Army list. great. I can take an army with Astra Militarum and I can take Space Marines, Inquisition, etc, in it as well. There is nothing saying I have to build my army using the 'Astra Militarum' keyword if I don't want to.

There is NOTHING saying you have to build your army around a legion keyword to get any such benefits. Just that only certain units can be given certain legion keywords, and certain benefits some units get when having a specific legion keyword.

The Ynnari is a whole other issue, that definitely needs to be FAQ'd, but again, nothing you're implying is actually backed up by the rules, when it really easily could have been if GW wanted it that way. This entire edition is all about giving players the flexibility to take the armies they way they want. If you want to mix Crimson Fists, with Imperial Fists, with White Scars, with Blood Angels in the same army you can.

Similarly, if you want to mix Emperor's Children with Death Guard, with World Eaters, with Thousand Sons, you can.

I am going to assume your being polite.

Firstly- The words "DEATH GUARD ARMY LIST" are written at the top of page 58 in the chart that shows all the units that can be included in a death guard army. The words "DEATH GUARD ARMY LIST" seems to be rules as written, as in specific permission as to what can be taken over the general of what can be taken.

That's obviously RAW the "DEATH GUARD ARMY LIST" if something is not on that list, its not part of a death guard army.

Secondly, on page 10 of the chaos book, and I will quote:

"Note that there are some additional restrictions that apply to the THOUSAND SONDS and DEATH GUARD legions- not all Heretic Astartes units are available to all chaos armies."

Seems to be rules as written, stating, that not all heretic astartes units are available to ALL CHAOS ARMIES, it then even lists thousands sons and death guard as examples.

In plain RAW in the chaos book, Chaos armies from the Thousand Sons, and Death Guard- specifically called out do not have access to all units in the heretic astartes list. It then goes on to tell you to see their sections. If you look at there sections there is a big table that at the top says "DEATH GUARD ARMY LIST" or "THOUSANDS SONS ARMY LISTS" because as referred to on p.10- those are the only units you can take in those armies.
.

I think you are missing Yakface's point, blaktoof. If you want to build an army with nothing but units that have the keyword <Death Guard> maybe for fluff purposes , then you are correct. You couldn't take many other units in your army (like any units that require other gods than Nurgle as keywords, for instance or any unit not in that dumb box). But the point is, you are the one doing the limiting here, not the rules because you are the one making the decisions you don't want any units not labeled <Death Guard > for whatever reason. There really is no gaming benefit (other than army wide synergy) for doing so at this time. And there certainly is no requirement that you have to.

What I am referencing are not fluff points, they are actually RAW restrictions as quoted from the rulebook.

You are applying the general keyword system, and ignoring the specific restrictions called out in the chaos book.

You CAN take a death guard legion unit in a normal heretic astartes army.

However if you are taking a DEATH GUARD ARMY- you have to follow those restrictions.

So you cannot take death guard as troops for example outside of a death guard army- as that is a rule of "DEATH GUARD ARMY RULES" Is the army a death guard army or a heretic astartes army? If it is a deathguard army it is adhereing to those rules, one of those rules is a benefit- death guard plague marines are troops.

Claiming that you can take a death guard army, and take units outside of the list on p.57 is directly going against the rules on that page, as well as page 10 which tells you "Not all Heretic Astartes units are available to all chaos armies" It doesn't reference legions, it references Armies, as in all the units in all the detachments in your army. If you are taking units not on that list you are not a death guard army, and do not have the death guard army rules.

blaktoof wrote:
What I am referencing are not fluff points, they are actually RAW restrictions as quoted from the rulebook.

You are applying the general keyword system, and ignoring the specific restrictions called out in the chaos book.

You CAN take a death guard legion unit in a normal heretic astartes army.

However if you are taking a DEATH GUARD ARMY- you have to follow those restrictions.

So you cannot take death guard as troops for example outside of a death guard army.

You seem to not be understanding how army building works in 8th edition and are still stuck in the 3rd-7th mindset..

Forget everything you know and reread the rulebook.

What you are referring to.. restricts what units can use "Death Guard legion" and therefore be able to receive buffs that are for "Death Guard"

GodDamUser wrote:

blaktoof wrote:
What I am referencing are not fluff points, they are actually RAW restrictions as quoted from the rulebook.

You are applying the general keyword system, and ignoring the specific restrictions called out in the chaos book.

You CAN take a death guard legion unit in a normal heretic astartes army.

However if you are taking a DEATH GUARD ARMY- you have to follow those restrictions.

So you cannot take death guard as troops for example outside of a death guard army.

You seem to not be understanding how army building works in 8th edition and are still stuck in the 3rd-7th mindset..

Forget everything you know and reread the rulebook.

What you are referring to.. restricts what units can use "Death Guard legion" and therefore be able to receive buffs that are for "Death Guard"

you seem to be ignoring the RAW in the chaos army book, as that is all I am referencing. Do you have a chaos army? Is it a death guard army? Then you cannot take all the units in the heretic astartes list- the book even says so on p.10.

yes I know the rulebook gives general guidelines to building an army, then in the case of the chaos book there are specific limitations. Same with Ynnari. Do you ignore the specific in favor of the general rule?

blaktoof wrote:
you seem to be ignoring the RAW in the chaos army book, as that is all I am referencing. Do you have a chaos army? Is it a death guard army? Then you cannot take all the units in the heretic astartes list- the book even says so on p.10.

yes I know the rulebook gives general guidelines to building an army, then in the case of the chaos book there are specific limitations. Same with Ynnari. Do you ignore the specific in favor of the general rule?

The RAW you are quoting doesn't support your argument. Again, all it says is:

"Note that there are some additional restrictions that apply to the THOUSAND SONS and DEATH GUARD Legions - not all Heretic Astartes units are available to all Chaos Space Marine armies. Both of these Legions are described later in this book, with each description covering which units can be part of the Legions. If you wish to see which units each Legion can include, we recommend reading the relevant section first."

So the only thing in there that comes close to saying what you're contending is 'not all Heretic Astartes units are available to all Chaos Space Marine armies.' And that is correct. If I choose to make an army around the DEATH GUARD or THOUSAND SONS keyword, then rules in the index absolutely prohibit me from including some Heretic Astartes in my force.

However, what you cannot do is find any rules that refutes the following:

I build an army using 'CHAOS' as my keyword.

In that army I take Plague Marines and give them the DEATH GUARD legion keyword. I take Rubric Marines and give them the THOUSAND SONS legion keyword. I take Khorne Bezerkers and give them the WORLD EATERS legion keyword, and I take Noise Marines and give them the EMPEROR'S CHILDREN legion keyword.

Can I give every unit a different legion faction keyword? Pg 10 of the Chaos Index:

If a Heretic Astartes datasheet does not specify which Legion it is drawn from, it will have the <Legion> keyword. When you include such a unit in your army, you must nominate which Legion that unit is from.

So yes, I can give every unit a different legion keyword.

Now, what do I get for giving each of these cult unit types its 'native' legion? Again, the rules tell us (these are all quotes):

The Battlefield Role of WORLD EATERS Khorne Bezerkers is Troops instead of Elites.
The Battlefield Role of DEATH GUARD Plague Marines is Troops instead of Elites.
The Battlefield Role of THOUSAND SONS Rubric Marines is Troops instead of Elites.
The Battlefield Role of EMPEROR'S CHILDREN Noise Marines is Troops instead of Elites.

Please show me where this has broken any rules at all.

does head cannon count as a rule?

blaktoof wrote:
What I am referencing are not fluff points, they are actually RAW restrictions as quoted from the rulebook.

You are applying the general keyword system, and ignoring the specific restrictions called out in the chaos book.

You CAN take a death guard legion unit in a normal heretic astartes army.

However if you are taking a DEATH GUARD ARMY- you have to follow those restrictions.

So you cannot take death guard as troops for example outside of a death guard army- as that is a rule of "DEATH GUARD ARMY RULES" Is the army a death guard army or a heretic astartes army? If it is a deathguard army it is adhereing to those rules, one of those rules is a benefit- death guard plague marines are troops.

Claiming that you can take a death guard army, and take units outside of the list on p.57 is directly going against the rules on that page, as well as page 10 which tells you "Not all Heretic Astartes units are available to all chaos armies" It doesn't reference legions, it references Armies, as in all the units in all the detachments in your army. If you are taking units not on that list you are not a death guard army, and do not have the death guard army rules.

You contradict your own point about the "restrictions". You say I can take A Death Guard Legion unit in a normal heretic asartes army, right? Now read the rule listed under "lords of the Plague Host" where it says: "the battlefield role of Death Guard plague marines is troops instead of elites." How can I take Death Guard Plague marines (which you said I could do) in a normal heretic asartes army and not have them be troops? The rules don't tell me I can, therefore I can't. They have to be troops in that case.

So I guess the point it boils down to is why would you want to take a "DEATH GUARD ARMY", limiting yourself in all of the ways you mention? The answer is either for your own personal fluff purposes (because evidently those words mean something together in that order to you) or because you want army wide synergy where all of the Death Guard characters can buff all of the units in your army. That's it. Personally, I would take a Chaos army so I could take all the Death Guard Plague Marines as troops and characters to buff them and berserkers as troops and characters to buff them any forgeworld units I want. But that's just me.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

GodDamUser wrote:
does head cannon count as a rule?

Evidently, it is to some people. What I don't get is why some people read the rules forcing certain limitations in their mind and then complain that is GW's fault for taking stuff away from them. Gluttons for punishment I guess. Too bad there aren't Emperors Children "restrictions"--those guys would be in their paradise.

I think what gives people the most trouble here is that a single detachment is no longer forced to come completely from one faction. In 7th, if I built a Space Marine CAD I had to declare what chapter the whole detachment was and I couldn't take Space Marines HQ's with Astra Militarum Heavy Supports in the same CAD.

Now they've made it so you can mix armies within a single detachment as long as they share at least one keyword. You can bring a Death Guard army that includes a few units with a Thousand Sons army that includes a few units all within a single detachment because they both have keyword "chaos".

It's the same idea as bringing CSM with Chaos Daemons. They're different armies but you can combine them within a single detachment now.

 Gordon Shumway wrote:
I think you are missing Yakface's point, blaktoof. If you want to build an army with nothing but units that have the keyword <Death Guard> maybe for fluff purposes , then you are correct. You couldn't take many other units in your army (like any units that require other gods than Nurgle as keywords, for instance or any unit not in that dumb box). But the point is, you are the one doing the limiting here, not the rules because you are the one making the decisions you don't want any units not labeled <Death Guard > for whatever reason. There really is no gaming benefit (other than army wide synergy) for doing so at this time. And there certainly is no requirement that you have to.

There would be a benefit if you can't just add a keyword and make a unit Elite unit a Troops unit. You instead decided the benefit can be gotten without adhering to the restrictions, and then state there is no benefit.

I would like to also point out the FAQ said you can't name a <Regiment> and a <Chapter> the same thing and gain benefits. It doesn't explicitly say that you can't anywhere, but it is implied just like this case.

 Thousand-Son-Sorcerer wrote:

Thommy H wrote:
It's possibly worth pointing out that with the new detachments, an Elites choice changing to Troops isn't actually a very big deal. Even without this rule, you could take different cult units as compulsory choices in a Vanguard Detachment anyway.

The difference is 4 CP at least probably more. Espically when you consider each one of the cult units can basically replace either a HS, FA, or Elite Choices. So a 12 unit army with 6 HQ choices has 12 CP while Vanguard detachments would only get you 6 CP.

My point was that the old notion that Troops = compulsory choices (and therefore a themed army like Deathwing, White Scars, etc.) doesn't apply in 8th Edition. Note that those Chaos Cult versions are the only example in the Indexes of a 'slot change' a la previous editions, because you don't actually need them now. I can field a Deathwing army without Deathwing Terminators being Troops too.

So given that you can build your army from a mix of Cult units anyway, saying you can't mix them as Troops doesn't make a lot of sense.