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Amused people are still raging against the Tau / Ultramarines alliance when there is precedent in the plot of the old Fire Warrior computer game.

There was even fluff in the original Tau Codex where an (admittedly grumpy) Imperial Fist Captain was given a tour of a Tau city.

Look

matphat wrote:Besides, I'm pretty certain everyone has noticed by now, that the only thing driving GW in this edition is sales.

Well, I'm pretty certain the only thing driving ANY company is sales, or whatever generates profit for them. It's like you're saying "it's their goal to make money!!" like it's a bad thing. They are a publicly traded company, the only thing they exist for is to enhance shareholder value by doing X, where in this case X == selling more models.

With that said, I couldn't be more excited about the new edition and allies in particular. I already know it will result in me happily buying more models to add some CSM to my Daemons, or some DE to my Eldar. So hey GW: Mission Accomplished.

pretre wrote:

CaptainLoken wrote:Ultramarines being buddies with the Tau is like Hitler asking England to help them against Russia...

"Um...sorry about Dunkirk, and the whole Battle of Britain thing, and the London blitz, and well, you know, killing hundreds of your people for no reason...BUT, there is this REALLY big country to our east that we picked a fight with, and um...we need your help to...um...fight them. Or, they will destroy us...."

Makes me sick.

Nice. Godwin'd.

Actually if you look at the politics from around that time period this almost happened. If King Edward VIII, Duke of Windsor had his way, it would have happened.
History is stranger than fiction

Maige wrote:Still buttmad about DE CCW.

But I think I'm slowly coming to peace with 6th, I'll have my mind made up when the Erratas are done.

If they don't fix the Klaives/Agonizers/Huskblade then I'm going full Exodite mode: Min-Maxed Eldar+Dark Eldar, I'll become the worst TFG of all time.

I'll exploit psychic powers, spam rangers, darklight, dragons, splinters....whatever it takes.

I hate myself a bit for saying this...but preach on, brother.

I was so happy on my high horse, thinking "I don't run DE Venompasm lists or CSM Lash+Oblit cheese! 6th Ed will make the game so much more well-rounded!".

Lo and behold, GW is actually on the side of the VenomSpam guy who wouldn't field a wych cult, Chronos or Incubi if you paid him to.

matphat wrote:Interesting discussion on the fluff, but should you all be more concerned with the WAAC, cherry picking, min/maxing, you'll be facing on the table instead?
Wait till you have to ignore all the fluff just to have half a chance at winning against one of those lists.
I think that's a bigger problem than Tau and Chaos.
Besides, I'm pretty certain everyone has noticed by now, that the only thing driving GW in this edition is sales.

I think that's a little disappointing. We all know that's GW's eventual end goal. But pancake edition and other rumors pointed to a very different direction to the game than what we received. I'm scratching my head more at this edition change than any other I can remember. I mean, 2nd => 3rd was clearly a bigger change to the game, but at least you could clearly see the design philosophy at work there...streamlining and simplification, allowing larger battles. This time I'm just not seeing it. Seems like they added some balance fixes but then not others. They included flyers, but then added more fiddliness at the individual model level. Premeasuring is in, but combined with a lot of tables and random rolls.

I fully admit this ALL may become clearer when I get my hands on a copy. I like some of the changes and I'm sure I'll have fun. Taken as a whole, the changes just seem kinda *odd* to me, even after you follow the money.

Maige wrote:I'll completely disregard the fluff. Buy what ever beasties I want from WHFB or even LOTR and make them count as Wraiths/Grotesques/Pain Engines/Beastmasters/Avatars whatever I feel like.

Ents and Dryads everywhere with laz0rs attached to their arms, making lore nerds cry.

It'll be like Wood Elves.........in space.

lol, almost shot soda out of my nose with that one. Gonna siggy that if you dont mind.

Lysenis wrote:

Lynata wrote:

The Dwarf Wolf wrote:The fact that tau are imune to the chaos taint, and that their culture dont fear things from the warp (they barely know it) can be a great excuse for this type of alliance. They are not buddys, but are not sworn enemies too.

That's true, a lot could be explained by sheer naivety and lack of experience. Demons can be pretty convincing, at least some of them.

A good explanation also has to take into account the type of enemy this alliance is fighting, though. Demons + Tau vs Imperium? Easy to explain. But Demons + Tau vs Eldar? Or other Tau? Hmm... might require more thought.

Have people forgotten Farsight? He has a separatist empire from the Tau. . . could a Daemon not entice him with power to kill off all the orks?


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Bonde wrote:

Maige wrote:Still buttmad about DE CCW.

But I think I'm slowly coming to peace with 6th, I'll have my mind made up when the Erratas are done.

If they don't fix the Klaives/Agonizers/Huskblade then I'm going full Exodite mode: Min-Maxed Eldar+Dark Eldar, I'll become the worst TFG of all time.

I'll exploit psychic powers, spam rangers, darklight, dragons, splinters....whatever it takes.

I'll completely disregard the fluff. Buy what ever beasties I want from WHFB or even LOTR and make them count as Wraiths/Grotesques/Pain Engines/Beastmasters/Avatars whatever I feel like.

Ents and Dryads everywhere with laz0rs attached to their arms, making lore nerds cry.

It'll be like Wood Elves.........in space.

Hehe, you post really made me laugh. I really don't hope that it will have to go that far

The main two things that matter to me in a 40K game is that the background within each army is alright and that the game is somewhat balanced.
I play in a private gaming club, and we pretty much modifiy the GW rulesets as we please to better balance the different armies we play (we almost have one of each army, and they all have a fighting chance.), and then just publish the updated rules on our forum. The only thing that GW could do better for us here is that if they could write bettter rules, we would save a lot of time and effort balancing them ourselves.

Fluff reasons for armies fighting each other are not so hard to come up with in a universe as grimdark as 40K, so that does not tend to be an issue at all.
I could always make something up like my IG army has been tainted by a Daemonic influence by laying eyes on them and therefore they have to be purged by the GK. They of course don't want to die so they fight back with all they have - easy!

What is actually harder to come up with are reasons for the different armies outside the obvious Imperium alliances to not kill each other on sight. You have to take further leaps in logic and bend the fluff even more for armies like Necrons and IG not "just" to fight the moment they are ready. That is why I both like the allies system, as it allows for more fluffy armies, and look at it with great care, as it can completely feth up both fluff and game balance.

Sadly we wish that we all wish that we could have a gaming group that sounds that mature.

I know, and that is why I really appreciate playing with these guys. There are no TFG's or WAAC players (unless agreed upon in advance ) We play with painted armies on nice tables filled with fully customized and painted terrain whenever we can, nobody takes internet spam lists and we have generally balanced the GW ruleset to make all armies equal, so that only the tactical skill of the general matter. We all have good sportsmanship and are friendly towards eachother, and we have our very own gaming locales in the middle of the city centre. The guys I play with are mature, but still nerdy and can make fun and joke around. It's pretty much every hobby gamer's wet dream and it have done my hobby well.
I know everyone can't be that lucky to have a private club to join, but in general, good sportsmanship and taking balanced lists help a lot towards making each game a greater experience.


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Lynata wrote:

Kanluwen wrote:Even when Chaos forces were on the planet during the 13th Black Crusade, the Traitor Guard regiments planetside were not made up of Cadians.
Cadian regiments don't turn. Maybe a few Cadians here and there will out of a regiment, but whole regiments going traitor is unheard of.

Right, I misremembered - the traitors who slaughtered the Cadian High Command were an offworld regiment; it's been some time since I read that story in the 3E 'dex.

Still, "Cadian regiments don't turn" is an assumption that strikes me as somewhat naive. Wasn't there something about many Cadians now being born with purple eyes like the Chaos-worshipping natives that were wiped out a couple millennia ago? Shouldn't be hard to come up with some fluffy concept built around this ... like a dormant "sleeper taint" that has been growing stronger and stronger with every past generation but waits for some trigger event to become active. There, Chaos Cadians!

undertow wrote:I really don't see why so many of you have your panties all bunched up about who can ally with who, and why the fluff doesn't support that. You are so worried about the fluff for your armies but when the dice hit the table, the fluff goes away. You can have GK fighting GK, or SoB fighting SoB, who cares if one of them has a couple of units from another army with them. Is that 'fluffy'? If you're that concerned about fluff, there are many games you should just walk away from, as the 'fluff' would never allow such a battle to occur.

Maybe in your games the fluff goes away. Some of us see more in 40k than a bunch of dice and stats.

I for one have never played a battle that "wouldn't have been allowed to occur". The previous editions lended themselves well to make almost anything explainable. In fact, some Codices even offered "battle narratives", showing you reasons why your army would fight this enemy or that one. Pretty cool stuff.

And like I said, I wouldn't mind if GW would simply allow everyone to ally with anyone, leaving it to the players to sort out what they think is fluffy and what not. But this "neither nor" approach just strikes me as if GW sorta tried to stick to the fluff ... but then didn't. You know what I mean? Some combinations make sense, others don't - and the cop-outs that might "excuse" some of the nonsensical combinations might just as well be applied to combinations that, under this chart, are forbidden. It's really random.

I agree with you that the way GW have done allies this time around doens't seem balanced. It's just an "in the middle of the road" option. If it was a balanced rule, it would allow everyone to ally with everyone at equal terms. If it was a fluffy rule, it should be so strict that it should have at least half the number of possible alliances that it has now. it's not like 'Nids are so horribly OP that if they were allowed to ally with anyone else, it would completely break the game. And jugding from the number of people raging and threatening to quit the game, it doesn't exactly look like the fluffiest rule ever to be in a new ruleset.

I created a semi-organized output of the REDDIT QnA over here:

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/457714.page#4447980

Have a nice day.

Maige wrote:Still buttmad about DE CCW.

But I think I'm slowly coming to peace with 6th, I'll have my mind made up when the Erratas are done.

If they don't fix the Klaives/Agonizers/Huskblade then I'm going full Exodite mode: Min-Maxed Eldar+Dark Eldar, I'll become the worst TFG of all time.

I'll exploit psychic powers, spam rangers, darklight, dragons, splinters....whatever it takes.

I'll completely disregard the fluff. Buy what ever beasties I want from WHFB or even LOTR and make them count as Wraiths/Grotesques/Pain Engines/Beastmasters/Avatars whatever I feel like.

Ents and Dryads everywhere with laz0rs attached to their arms, making lore nerds cry.

It'll be like Wood Elves.........in space.

I don't think it will be that bad. The only big issue would be something like BT shooty termis that can be essentially spammed. It really would help explain why implossion missiles are 30 pts each. All of a sudden one or two of those and their are no more termis to deal with. Ignoring that ignore the termis! Kill everything else we should still be able to keep away from their charge range since I feel DL get a buff in 6th. No one ever said DE had to be an assaulty army.
Personally I plan on something like this.

Archon w/ Agoniser, SF, Drugs, PGL
5 Incubi Raider.
4-5 5 man warrior squads w/ blaster in venom w/ 2 SC
3 Ravagers
3 Beastmasters w/ 5 Khyemerae, 4 Razorwings
Allied with :
Farseer w/ Doom, Fortune, both runes
5 Pathfinders (Finally something to hold that home objective)
5 Firedragons in a Wave Serpent w/ Cannon and TL lasers.

It's far from top tier but it's fluffy and I get to use a lot of the new rules, plus fortuning a shadowfield is awesome. I would love some wyches to fortune but with FNP being weak...

So then up comes my question. What is the point of flickerfields if skimmers get a built in 5+ cover?

Why does Denmark have to be so far away. . .

Flashman wrote:Amused people are still raging against the Tau / Ultramarines alliance when there is precedent in the plot of the old Fire Warrior computer game.

There was even fluff in the original Tau Codex where an (admittedly grumpy) Imperial Fist Captain was given a tour of a Tau city.

Look

We've always known the Tau and Marines can work together if the situation gets desperate enough. But that's gone out the window now. They don't work together when the going gets tough, they're brothers in arms, the same as the Astartes and the Guard. That's what makes absolutely no sense.

Thimn wrote:So it looks like Tyranids are unable to even ally with themselves so all the people hoping for access to more elite slots will be more disappointed now.

Black Templars like the Tau and Eldar more then the Sisters of Battle, its very odd.... almost.... heretical!

Ya know... I am not surprised that people are that stupid to think that you could ally with yourself. I cannot believe that people actually thought this...

spaceman spiff wrote:I created a semi-organized output of the REDDIT QnA over here:
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/457714.page#4447980

Is that a copy paste from my first post reddit coverage, just without the colours?

Harriticus wrote:We've always known the Tau and Marines can work together if the situation gets desperate enough. But that's gone out the window now. They don't work together when the going gets tough, they're brothers in arms, the same as the Astartes and the Guard. That's what makes absolutely no sense.

If you look at the Allies Rating as being a sign of how likely it is that they share a common goal, rather than how well they get along, it probably fits a little better.

Kurce wrote:

Thimn wrote:So it looks like Tyranids are unable to even ally with themselves so all the people hoping for access to more elite slots will be more disappointed now.

Black Templars like the Tau and Eldar more then the Sisters of Battle, its very odd.... almost.... heretical!

Ya know... I am not surprised that people are that stupid to think that you could ally with yourself. I cannot believe that people actually thought this...

You're not surprised people thought it...but you can't believe they did?

Kurce wrote:

Thimn wrote:So it looks like Tyranids are unable to even ally with themselves so all the people hoping for access to more elite slots will be more disappointed now.

Black Templars like the Tau and Eldar more then the Sisters of Battle, its very odd.... almost.... heretical!

Ya know... I am not surprised that people are that stupid to think that you could ally with yourself. I cannot believe that people actually thought this...

Can you be unsurprised AND disbelieving over this at the same time?!?

I think we need to see all of the rules before we go too nuts though...

Kurce wrote:Ya know... I am not surprised that people are that stupid to think that you could ally with yourself. I cannot believe that people actually thought this...

I was going to point out that this was bordering on the rude... but I'm still trying to figure out how those two statements manage to coexist in the same paragraph.

So how about we settle with: 'Please, keep it civil', accept that some people made judgements based on incomplete rumours or out of date information and move on?

Macok wrote:

Kanluwen wrote:It's "rumored" that it will be a fluff change; but the likelihood of such a thing being true is so far beyond the pale that discussing it is silly.

The Tau and Astartes have gotten on together in the past, when facing greater threats than themselves.

It's also worth noting that when you're discussing "Space Marines", you're discussing the myriad of Chapters which make up the "Codex: Space Marines" book....which is a ton of them.

But I don't think that right now this rumour is far fetched and THAT silly. GW is trying to make alliances between armies. Maybe even the whole "Tau live because of plot-storm" will actually be changed to "Tau live because Ultramarines like them". And C:SM is C:Ultramarines and Friends. Possibility of Orks:IG alliance (despite Yarrick) and Orks:Tau (despite Farsight) show that if part of codex is good to go, a whole codex is good to go. C:SM is battle brothers with Tau because its significant part are Ultramarines.

junk wrote:Actually yeah, it turns out that this whole time, farsight has actually been Robute inside that armor, and the Tau are going to receive his geneseed and become Tau Ultramarines. Also, they're immune to chaos, they were the ones who actually defeated the c'tan for the necrons, and a couple fire warriors walked into the warp and carved their names into the hearts of daemons because they heard some grey knight did it. Also, they eat tyranids.

I'd watch that show

to get 8 HQ's you need 4 troops

with marines and Tau it may be more of an honour thing, Tau are naive and trusting and will not break an alliance "just for lolz" some flavour of marines are the same (BT, DA and some of the other crazy chapters will just rip them apart afterwards)

I am back again,I am going sit down and try and read the book from beggining to end instead of bits here and there.

I will answer a few Q's, hopefully will even be getting in a game in sometime today.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Choose one of three tables to roll on before you deploy. The tables are:
Command Traits: Affect an area around your Warlord.
Personal Traits: Specific combat skills - these can influence others around him too.
Strategic Traits: skills that affect the entire army.

Command Traits
D6 Roll
1) Inspiring Presence - Friendly units within 12" of the warlord use his Leadership
2) Intimidating Presence - Enemies within 12" of the warlord must use lowest Ld value
3) The Dust of a Thousand Worlds - Warlord and all friendlies in 12" have Move Through Cover special rule.
4) Master of the Vanguard - Warlord and all friendlies within 12" roll an extra dice when they Run, using highest.
5) Target Priority - Warlord and all friendlies in 12" reroll to hit rolls of 1 when firing at enemy within 3" of objectives.
6) Coordinated Assault - Warlord and all friendlies in 12" add 1 to the result when rolling charge distance.

Personal Traits
D6 Roll
1) Master of Defence - Warlord and unit have counter-attack special rule when in deployment zone.
2) Master of Offence - Warlord and unit have Furious Charge rule when in enemy's deployment zone.
3) Master of Manoeuvre - Warlord and unit have Outflank special rule.
4) Legendary Fighter - Each enemy character the warlord slays gets you an additional 1 VP.
5) Tenacity - Warlord and unit have Feel No Pain when in 3" of objective.
6) Immovable Object - Warlord is a scoring unit, even if he is a vehicle.

Strategic Traits
D6 Roll
1) Conqueror of Cities - All units have Move Through Cover when moving through Ruins and Stealth (Ruins) special rule.
2) Night Attacker - You can use Nightfighting rules if you want.
3) Master of Ambush - Treat all your outflanking units as having Acute Senses rule while warlord is alive.
4) Strategic Genius - While Warlord is alive, you can reroll any reserves rolls (even successful ones).
5) Divide to Conquor - While Warlord is alive opponent has a -1 mod to reserves rolls.
6) Princeps of Deceit - during deployment, before Infiltrators deploy and Scouts redeploy you can either redeploy one of your own units within 3D6" of its current location or redeploy 3 units within D6" of their current position. can't go outside deployment zone.

Alpharius wrote:

Kurce wrote:

Thimn wrote:So it looks like Tyranids are unable to even ally with themselves so all the people hoping for access to more elite slots will be more disappointed now.

Black Templars like the Tau and Eldar more then the Sisters of Battle, its very odd.... almost.... heretical!

Ya know... I am not surprised that people are that stupid to think that you could ally with yourself. I cannot believe that people actually thought this...

Can you be unsurprised AND disbelieving over this at the same time?!?

I think we need to see all of the rules before we go too nuts though...

Its more like You are unsurprised that the Illusion was just that because you disbelieved it.

rattman wrote:I am back again,I am going sit down and try and read the book from beggining to end instead of bits here and there.

I will answer a few Q's, hopefully will even be getting in a game in sometime today.

Thanks for answering questions.

Does Ordnance still allow you to roll 2D6 and pick the best for armor penetration rolls?

Just a game fellas. The story is advancing fluff wise via new rule book. Let's see what has been cooked up for us for this edition. Then after all the fluff has been read we should start on the topic of if the fluff and allies are good great or suck

Lysenis wrote:

Lynata wrote:

The Dwarf Wolf wrote:The fact that tau are imune to the chaos taint, and that their culture dont fear things from the warp (they barely know it) can be a great excuse for this type of alliance. They are not buddys, but are not sworn enemies too.

That's true, a lot could be explained by sheer naivety and lack of experience. Demons can be pretty convincing, at least some of them.

A good explanation also has to take into account the type of enemy this alliance is fighting, though. Demons + Tau vs Imperium? Easy to explain. But Demons + Tau vs Eldar? Or other Tau? Hmm... might require more thought.

Have people forgotten Farsight? He has a separatist empire from the Tau. . . could a Daemon not entice him with power to kill off all the orks?

Farsight can slaughter Orks without any help from Gods who couldn't give him power anyway, due to the Tau races tiny presence in the warp. Farsight is a purist, he doesn't even allow Kroot in his armies, he's not about to let some random daemon/xeno he knows nothing about in.

Just because Tau have small warp presences doesn't mean they can't be empowered/corrupted/etc by it. It just means they aren't as attractive to the the powers therein and likely won't have any natural psykers amongst their kind

JB wrote:

rattman wrote:I am back again,I am going sit down and try and read the book from beggining to end instead of bits here and there.

I will answer a few Q's, hopefully will even be getting in a game in sometime today.

Thanks for answering questions.

Does Ordnance still allow you to roll 2D6 and pick the best for armor penetration rolls?

2 dice pick highest.

Rattman, can you tell me if "drop pod assault" is still in (I.e. half of your pods come in turn 1)?

Flashman wrote:Amused people are still raging against the Tau / Ultramarines alliance when there is precedent in the plot of the old Fire Warrior computer game.

There was even fluff in the original Tau Codex where an (admittedly grumpy) Imperial Fist Captain was given a tour of a Tau city.

Look

That Space Marine commander was given a tour whilst escorting a diplomat who was there to stall for time in negotiations whilst an Imperial fleet came to take back a world which the Tau had conquered. The Tau was just humouring him and showing him what his army was going to be coming up against. It was not a friendly visit.

That bit of fluff ended with the Space Marine telling the Tau that he would fight them to the last drop of blood.

In CC, is there still a 2 inch kill bubble?
Do you really remove casualties from the 'front' or base to base first?
Can a model be denied attacks? (As in the PF did not go yet--nothing left in base to base)
Does it appear Mindschackle Scarabs will work in challenges?

Thanks

A Town Called Malus wrote:

Lysenis wrote:

Lynata wrote:

The Dwarf Wolf wrote:The fact that tau are imune to the chaos taint, and that their culture dont fear things from the warp (they barely know it) can be a great excuse for this type of alliance. They are not buddys, but are not sworn enemies too.

That's true, a lot could be explained by sheer naivety and lack of experience. Demons can be pretty convincing, at least some of them.

A good explanation also has to take into account the type of enemy this alliance is fighting, though. Demons + Tau vs Imperium? Easy to explain. But Demons + Tau vs Eldar? Or other Tau? Hmm... might require more thought.

Have people forgotten Farsight? He has a separatist empire from the Tau. . . could a Daemon not entice him with power to kill off all the orks?

Farsight can slaughter Orks without any help from Gods who couldn't give him power anyway, due to the Tau races tiny presence in the warp. Farsight is a purist, he doesn't even allow Kroot in his armies, he's not about to let some random daemon/xeno he knows nothing about in.

Ahhh but hte love of the fluff and the incalculable times that some one that is a purist has turned his or her way of thinking unbeknownst to themselves. If you want a good reference go watch Machine Gun Preacher.