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yeah it feels pretty meaningless to draw a line between PDF and guard. paint those cadians a different color and say it's the local uniform. GSC already can't take things like ratlings or ogryns, so it all comes down to human infantry and vehicles, which would be the two easiest things for a cult to get their hands on

 solkan wrote:
Two points:

1. From a wargame perspective, the planetary defense force may as well be the Imperial Guard. The path of least effort is going to be for a planet to use the same local forces as it tithes off, after all.

The difference in command structure isn't going to make a revolutionary change in what they've got. So you're arguing over "The GSC can take Guard Allies" vs. "For the sake of expediency, assume the PDF units have the same profiles as Guard Units."

Or I'm arguing that GSC should have their own units and leave the Guard ones alone.

It's bloody wild to me that people are fairly okay with the expansion to the Chaos Cultist range that we saw, yet for some reason GSC need to have the Guard's roster.

2. From everyone else's perspective, the Imperial Guard are the red shirts. Yeah, you're getting infiltrated.

That's fine, everyone else can be wrong.

 StudentOfEtherium wrote:
yeah it feels pretty meaningless to draw a line between PDF and guard.

Training, equipment, and logistics.

Totally meaningless, right?

paint those cadians a different color and say it's the local uniform.

lol, okay kid.

GSC already can't take things like ratlings or ogryns, so it all comes down to human infantry and vehicles, which would be the two easiest things for a cult to get their hands on

And yet, there's no Commissars, Scions, Techpriests, Servitors, or named characters.

WIIIIIIIIIIIIILD.

 Kanluwen wrote:

 solkan wrote:

 StudentOfEtherium wrote:
yeah it feels pretty meaningless to draw a line between PDF and guard.

Training, equipment, and logistics.

Totally meaningless, right?

we're talking about models, not lore

Kan, can you name a faction that, on a person-to-person level, is worse than the Guard?

Because, yes, Guard are well-trained. They’re strong and accurate and dedicated. But they’re also human.
Every other faction’s baseline is superhuman.

 JNAProductions wrote:
Kan, can you name a faction that, on a person-to-person level, is worse than the Guard?

Because, yes, Guard are well-trained. They’re strong and accurate and dedicated. But they’re also human.
Every other faction’s baseline is superhuman.

And what are GSC? What are Chaos Cultists?

 Kanluwen wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:
Kan, can you name a faction that, on a person-to-person level, is worse than the Guard?

Because, yes, Guard are well-trained. They’re strong and accurate and dedicated. But they’re also human.
Every other faction’s baseline is superhuman.

And what are GSC? What are Chaos Cultists?

Also human. AKA equal stat lined as humans. AKA representable by human models.

AKA representable by guard models. Or Necromunda models (my preference).

PenitentJake wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:
Kan, can you name a faction that, on a person-to-person level, is worse than the Guard?

Because, yes, Guard are well-trained. They’re strong and accurate and dedicated. But they’re also human.
Every other faction’s baseline is superhuman.

And what are GSC? What are Chaos Cultists?

Also human. AKA equal stat lined as humans. AKA representable by human models.

AKA representable by guard models. Or Necromunda models (my preference).

Which has what the sweet feth to do with giving them their own set units?

Guard don't get to pick and choose from the GSC roster, despite cultists being a good way of representing hivescum pressed into service.

Cultist statline

Neophyte statline

Cadian statline


all three of these units also have close combat weapons that are one attack, a 4+ WS, 3 strength, no AP, and one damage. obviously the gear besides that is going to be different (which is also the difference between cultists and the other two) but as far as their physical build, they're the same. a cultist could put on a Cadian's armour and be mechanically identical

 Kanluwen wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:
Kan, can you name a faction that, on a person-to-person level, is worse than the Guard?

Because, yes, Guard are well-trained. They’re strong and accurate and dedicated. But they’re also human.
Every other faction’s baseline is superhuman.

And what are GSC? What are Chaos Cultists?

Genestealer Cults are genetically modified, by the Tyranids. One of their battleline units is Neophytes, who are basically Guardsmen in stats. The other are Acolytes, who have boosted Strength and Toughness.
Chaos Cultists aren't the baseline of any faction. (They should be, but that's another discussion.)

 Kanluwen wrote:

 Overread wrote:


I think "lore wise" the Genestealer Cults using Imperial Guard weapons or even infiltrating the Guard on a world/system is 100% part of the setting and should be. It's exactly what a really well established Cult would do. Infiltrate the local armed forces; take them over and then cripple them from within. It's perfect Genestealer Cult activity.

Previously it was Planetary Defence Forces that were subject to that infiltration. Because THAT is the "local armed forces" that would be subject to infiltration.

Them having stolen weapons or whatever is fine. Them infiltrating the Guard to the point where they get every single thing isn't. It becomes disillusioning, from my viewpoint as a Guard player, to have the faction portrayed as being so inept that they get mind-controlled every which way.

I think it makes a lot of sense to keep some of the more exotic weapon systems and units out of the hands of the Cults. But I'd absolutely believe that the PDF has relatively common access to LR chassis, superheavy tanks, Basilisks, flyers of various types, etc. alongside your typical platoons. Lots of opportunity there for allies.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Kanluwen wrote:

Guard don't get to pick and choose from the GSC roster, despite cultists being a good way of representing hivescum pressed into service.

Sure they do, they're called "Infantry Squad". Or "Conscripts" if those are still a thing.

 Insectum7 wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:

 Overread wrote:


I think "lore wise" the Genestealer Cults using Imperial Guard weapons or even infiltrating the Guard on a world/system is 100% part of the setting and should be. It's exactly what a really well established Cult would do. Infiltrate the local armed forces; take them over and then cripple them from within. It's perfect Genestealer Cult activity.

Previously it was Planetary Defence Forces that were subject to that infiltration. Because THAT is the "local armed forces" that would be subject to infiltration.

Them having stolen weapons or whatever is fine. Them infiltrating the Guard to the point where they get every single thing isn't. It becomes disillusioning, from my viewpoint as a Guard player, to have the faction portrayed as being so inept that they get mind-controlled every which way.

I think it makes a lot of sense to keep some of the more exotic weapon systems and units out of the hands of the Cults. But I'd absolutely believe that the PDF has relatively common access to LR chassis, superheavy tanks, Basilisks, flyers of various types, etc. alongside your typical platoons. Lots of opportunity there for allies.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Kanluwen wrote:

Guard don't get to pick and choose from the GSC roster, despite cultists being a good way of representing hivescum pressed into service.

Sure they do, they're called "Infantry Squad". Or "Conscripts" if those are still a thing.

I don't see Conscripts in the latest Legends thing or the Index, so I don't think so, no. Also soft no on the Infantry Squad - the Guard receive more training than "Here gun, point that over there and pull this", which is what "pressed into service" would entail (how much more than that, and how much better they are than impressed hivescum can vary, of course *cough*Savlar*cough*, but the whole point of Conscripts as a unit was to represent the actual chaff where Infantry Squads were just comparatively chaff).

Also, re: access to units - LR/Chimerae, sure. Bassies and Flyers, OK (at a premium), but I have a hard time accepting Superheavies in that list. If you want Superheavies, ask your opponent if you can run an allied Guard formation.

Can we not do this again? We've recently had a thread of Kan getting upset that gsc get guard units, do we need another?

Dudeface wrote:
Can we not do this again? We've recently had a thread of Kan getting upset that gsc get guard units, do we need another?

Its not just GSC with Guard. Though a lot of people are trying to mix top level factions, soup can also be sub-factions. Blood + Dark Angels (which we just had a story about to recreate on the tabletop), Cadians + Mordians, etc Not just UM using Cadians as Cultists.

Breton wrote:

Dudeface wrote:
Can we not do this again? We've recently had a thread of Kan getting upset that gsc get guard units, do we need another?

Its not just GSC with Guard. Though a lot of people are trying to mix top level factions, soup can also be sub-factions. Blood + Dark Angels (which we just had a story about to recreate on the tabletop), Cadians + Mordians, etc Not just UM using Cadians as Cultists.

I understand, but the "gsc can go and get their own units" was taking over a little again.

Personally having used allies in 10th, I often found myself feeling like I'd have been better off simply using more from the parent codex. The lack of support and army/detachment rules makes whatever you include flatly worse in most circumstances.

I have a small WE force I padded out with knights, it never felt "good" having the yahtzee table not apply to all the units.

Based on that anecdote I'd say go for it, it's unlikely that units without support cause many upsets, but ther would need to be additional restrictions for multiple chapters in an army I think to stop them triggering keywords etc and make the "allied" part not have additional benefits.

I really want to mix factions for the fluff. But balance gameplay says it's probably not going to happen.

I feel if this is something you and your opponent want to play with then go nuts. If my friend doesn't have enough points for say a 2k points game, - but does if he mixes his Death Guard and Sisters of Battle, and for fun I'll mix my Dark Eldar with the Ad Mech I've been working on, then who cares?

But I don't think its good to have in "official" 40k for the reasons people have outlined. Its hard to balance and it dilutes faction identity. It creates non-fluffy combinations. (And sorry, Loyal 32, 3 BA captains and Knight etc is not a standard formation the Imperium regularly deploys to all known trouble spots...)

GW could sift through codexes and create new "factions" drawn from the roster which have their own points and rules. I have however no confidence of them doing this well - and its likely to just lead to the arguments we see here. I mean from a fluff perspective I think "Guard" can easily be GSC-ified, or Chaos Cultified. But this obviously dilutes Guard rules/mechanics. If you could have essentially the whole Guard roster plus Genestealers or Accursed Cultists, why wouldn't you? Unfortunately you then see the other way round.

As someone mentioned earlier, its perfectly fluffy for Eldar and Dark Eldar to ally against other species. But if they can do so by showing up, a list drawn from the synergies of 2 books is almost certainly going to be stronger than just one. I'd rather have no soup than all soup.

I guess there are exceptions. For example, I'm not really a fan of Skittles Daemons - and think say some Plague Bearers showing up to support Death Guard, or Tzeentch Daemons supporting Thousand Sons etc, is far more fluffy than say Belakor and his 3-5 Greater Daemon friends jogging round the table.

bibotot wrote:
I really want to mix factions for the fluff. But balance gameplay says it's probably not going to happen.

A lot of people do. I want to mix SM Factions into a "Crusader Force", I want to mix SM and Guard - I even want to stick individual marines in Guardsman Squads like a Wolf Guard. I want to mix and match Biel Tan and Iyanden.

Allies should be part of the game with a bigger emphasis on playability than fluff/current model existance.

Example 1: Imperial Guard should be able to show up in nearly every other army as an ally or have the biggest list of potential allies.

Imperial factions? Self-explanatory.
GSC? Brood Brothers.
Chaos? Traitor Guard.
Tau? Gue'vesa.
Orks? (Orks as) Mercenaries.
Eldar? Allies against a bigger threat.

Example 2: AdMech should be able to ally with Chaos as long as we don't have a proper Dark AdMech faction or rules.

Allies need to be restricted to something that makes sense in the current way how you select units in an army. With the super open way of 10th edition this is a bit tricky, but the older version of
"1 HQ
1-2 Troops
0-1 Elite, Fast Attack, Heavy Support, but you need bring a Troops selection for each." was a good foundation for fine tuning.

I'm not sure how well this would translate to Battleline and the rest, though.

a_typical_hero wrote:
Allies should be part of the game with a bigger emphasis on playability than fluff/current model existance.

Example 1: Imperial Guard should be able to show up in nearly every other army as an ally or have the biggest list of potential allies.

Imperial factions? Self-explanatory.
GSC? Brood Brothers.
Chaos? Traitor Guard.
Tau? Gue'vesa.
Orks? (Orks as) Mercenaries.
Eldar? Allies against a bigger threat.

Example 2: AdMech should be able to ally with Chaos as long as we don't have a proper Dark AdMech faction or rules.

Allies need to be restricted to something that makes sense in the current way how you select units in an army. With the super open way of 10th edition this is a bit tricky, but the older version of
"1 HQ
1-2 Troops
0-1 Elite, Fast Attack, Heavy Support, but you need bring a Troops selection for each." was a good foundation for fine tuning.

I'm not sure how well this would translate to Battleline and the rest, though.

I'm not even sure that a force org is needed as long as the allied units get no benefits or army rules.

Conversely the detachment system actually should allow them to break things open - imagine a nurgle resplendent detachment that specifies units across 4 books, gives them a unifying army rule and set of upgrades - because it's limited to a specific detachment, you could even tweak points values on the page for the detachment if needed.

I hope not. There is a enough variety for the official lists to not need it. And the balance goes more out the window. Play some narrative games, do it to your hearts content.

The ally faction is less one of the, can I ally a unit of ork commando mercs to my DE pirate force, and more one of the if you play X, then you will take Y from that other codex, because we designed your army to not work if you don't.
8th was like that, 9th was like that and 10th is like that too.

There is only one exeption to this, which is intentionaly done by GW, and it is, as with many expetions, eldar. GW design them, nerf them with Inari being a thing.
Then they act the fool, acting as if they didn't knew in 9th what super cheap, super durable harlequin gunboats would do in an eldar army or we all get a hearty chuckle when the worse army in the game gets it one good unit nerfed, because some dudes were having success runing it in their Inari listss.

Honestly, I can straight face explain any combination of factions, there doesn't have to be Imperium/Chaos restrictions. Want Orks running with Tau? Fine. Want Chaos Daemons running with Eldar, good. Want Sisters of Battle running with Drukhari? Awesome. It's not hard to make believe this.

Also: news flash, literally none of that matters. The only thing that might be affected is balance. And that would shake out in rules/points. But be honest. Don't hide behind lore justifications for whether or not plastic miniatures can be on the same table or not. It's literally the silliest argument available. Hit me with rules, or wombo/combos, or anything, but "Sisters can't be with demons!!!"? That's your angle?

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
Honestly, I can straight face explain any combination of factions, there doesn't have to be Imperium/Chaos restrictions. Want Orks running with Tau? Fine. Want Chaos Daemons running with Eldar, good. Want Sisters of Battle running with Drukhari? Awesome. It's not hard to make believe this.

Also: news flash, literally none of that matters. The only thing that might be affected is balance. And that would shake out in rules/points. But be honest. Don't hide behind lore justifications for whether or not plastic miniatures can be on the same table or not. It's literally the silliest argument available. Hit me with rules, or wombo/combos, or anything, but "Sisters can't be with demons!!!"? That's your angle?

Conversely, why are you playing warhammer 40,000 if you don't care about the integrity of the setting? I do agree that you can fluff most combinations, but there needs to be a support structure for it and there needs to be some rules padding around it in the name of integrity of the setting.

I'd be displeased seeing black templars rolling up the table with a pair of eldar flyers and GSC, fighting against space wolves, tau and orks in one force.

I really liked the look of 8th edition armies personally. My Sisters/DW/GK army is probably my favorite ever. Having a bit of guard everywhere really made battles look like 40k is generally presented and smooth over a lot of the FOC issues from past editions. It also did a pretty solid job of reducing spam in armies; at least compared to what came before. The Xenos disparity never really bothered me because Xenos generally get to keep their variety in faction. GW doesn't spin of Sompas into a subfaction for example.

It was, however, EXTREMELY gamey in its incentive structure and really broke down as codices added more and more bloat to mixed armies. I think there's a lot of value in containing armies to a codex as something GW needs to make stand alone.

I still overall like mixed armies though and I think there's a lot of value in it. Just fielding multiple armies for fun is a great answer, but I'm also rather fond of the implementation of Imperial Agents. It's easy to forget but Knights also still have that functionality.

I think doing an Allies index could be a cool solution. A collection of specific datasheets designed to work for global keywords. Imperial Guardsmen, Agents, Knights, for Imperium, Cultists, Chaos Knights, etc. Xenos are obviously harder. Basicallly just an expansion of what we have now. It doesn't even need to be highly competitive. I think its the kind of thing that can work similar to the Armour Indexes as a way to officially provide a framework for armies out of the tournament balance scope.

Dudeface wrote:

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
Honestly, I can straight face explain any combination of factions, there doesn't have to be Imperium/Chaos restrictions. Want Orks running with Tau? Fine. Want Chaos Daemons running with Eldar, good. Want Sisters of Battle running with Drukhari? Awesome. It's not hard to make believe this.

Also: news flash, literally none of that matters. The only thing that might be affected is balance. And that would shake out in rules/points. But be honest. Don't hide behind lore justifications for whether or not plastic miniatures can be on the same table or not. It's literally the silliest argument available. Hit me with rules, or wombo/combos, or anything, but "Sisters can't be with demons!!!"? That's your angle?

Conversely, why are you playing warhammer 40,000 if you don't care about the integrity of the setting? I do agree that you can fluff most combinations, but there needs to be a support structure for it and there needs to be some rules padding around it in the name of integrity of the setting.

I'd be displeased seeing black templars rolling up the table with a pair of eldar flyers and GSC, fighting against space wolves, tau and orks in one force.

Then the option is yours to not play at that table. That is always YOUR option. It is my option to buy the models I want, paint them with three drops of paint, call it good, and then play them within the game's rules. That is it. I am under NO obligation to adhere to the fluff or Lore. For all I care, the Emperor is a Ork and the Custodes are just really smart orks. You cannot state there are facts in a completely BS madeup world, where literally everything is tinged with subjective untruths, or lies, and nothing is actually true. The entire imperium is a lie. All of it. That means the "bedrock" of the universe, and those rules, crumble away. All it takes is the holy GW to swoop down and write "Nope, Arch Magos Ploticus Changus revealed that the Emperor is actually a very smart Jokero in a man suit, and the Sisters are very cleverly disguised Eldar Harlequins." Case and point - Primaris. All the lore and rules, undone in an instant.

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:

Dudeface wrote:

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
Honestly, I can straight face explain any combination of factions, there doesn't have to be Imperium/Chaos restrictions. Want Orks running with Tau? Fine. Want Chaos Daemons running with Eldar, good. Want Sisters of Battle running with Drukhari? Awesome. It's not hard to make believe this.

Also: news flash, literally none of that matters. The only thing that might be affected is balance. And that would shake out in rules/points. But be honest. Don't hide behind lore justifications for whether or not plastic miniatures can be on the same table or not. It's literally the silliest argument available. Hit me with rules, or wombo/combos, or anything, but "Sisters can't be with demons!!!"? That's your angle?

Conversely, why are you playing warhammer 40,000 if you don't care about the integrity of the setting? I do agree that you can fluff most combinations, but there needs to be a support structure for it and there needs to be some rules padding around it in the name of integrity of the setting.

I'd be displeased seeing black templars rolling up the table with a pair of eldar flyers and GSC, fighting against space wolves, tau and orks in one force.

Then the option is yours to not play at that table. That is always YOUR option. It is my option to buy the models I want, paint them with three drops of paint, call it good, and then play them within the game's rules. That is it. I am under NO obligation to adhere to the fluff or Lore. For all I care, the Emperor is a Ork and the Custodes are just really smart orks. You cannot state there are facts in a completely BS madeup world, where literally everything is tinged with subjective untruths, or lies, and nothing is actually true. The entire imperium is a lie. All of it. That means the "bedrock" of the universe, and those rules, crumble away. All it takes is the holy GW to swoop down and write "Nope, Arch Magos Ploticus Changus revealed that the Emperor is actually a very smart Jokero in a man suit, and the Sisters are very cleverly disguised Eldar Harlequins." Case and point - Primaris. All the lore and rules, undone in an instant.

That's not true.
Primaris were a big change, as were Primarchs returning, but a lot is still the same as it ever was.

And yes, you can build armies how you want, paint or not how you want, etc. etc.
But you also need opponents who are willing to play with you-and that attitude is not a good way to incentivize that.

 JNAProductions wrote:
That's not true.
Primaris were a big change, as were Primarchs returning, but a lot is still the same as it ever was.

And yes, you can build armies how you want, paint or not how you want, etc. etc.
But you also need opponents who are willing to play with you-and that attitude is not a good way to incentivize that.

This.

Sorry FezzikDaBullgryn, there will always be a line on how much is "too much" and as you say it'll be down to people to want to play you if that's the case.

GW won't want their product to be represented by motley collections of random kits from random armies with blotches of random colours on. It reflects their brand and IP poorly, so you're likely going to be stuck with whoever will agree to your terms.

Dudeface wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:
That's not true.
Primaris were a big change, as were Primarchs returning, but a lot is still the same as it ever was.

And yes, you can build armies how you want, paint or not how you want, etc. etc.
But you also need opponents who are willing to play with you-and that attitude is not a good way to incentivize that.

This.

Sorry FezzikDaBullgryn, there will always be a line on how much is "too much" and as you say it'll be down to people to want to play you if that's the case.

GW won't want their product to be represented by motley collections of random kits from random armies with blotches of random colours on. It reflects their brand and IP poorly, so you're likely going to be stuck with whoever will agree to your terms.

I mean, if you've followed my posting history, you'd know I'm not a big fan of painting my minis. It's not something I enjoy.

But, I totally get that not everyone wants to play against an unpainted force. Provided they're polite in turning down a game, it's really not a big deal.

 waefre_1 wrote:

Also, re: access to units - LR/Chimerae, sure. Bassies and Flyers, OK (at a premium), but I have a hard time accepting Superheavies in that list. If you want Superheavies, ask your opponent if you can run an allied Guard formation.

So I'm not super lore-savvy when it comes to superheavy tanks, but they've never seemed particularly rare. I know some versions of them are rare, like the Plasma Blaster one (Stormsword?). But Baneblades seem like a popular item, and could/would be part of PDF armories.

"Rare" is a really hard term to wrap your head around in the 40K universe.

A lot of the RARE stuff appears a LOT in lore, stories, artwork, real armies we use on the tabletop and more. Because we often focus a lot on the rare, unique things in the setting rather than just the bog standard commonplace stuff.

So whilst something like a Baneblade might be 'rare' that many worlds might not have access too; we focus on the stories and settings where they do have them. Thus something rare appeares commonplace because we always see it.




It's also really hard because the setting is so mindbogglingly vast. There will be areas near certain Forgeworlds where Baneblades are common and others where they are just never heard of.

The vastness of the setting means terms like "rare" are really hard to wrap your head around what it means because its heavily contextual within the setting.