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Everyone is busy discussing the 6th edition rule rumours, but not many have bothered with the fluff.
Most everyone has seen the new Allies Matrix and that Tau are "Brothers in Arms," with Eldar and Space Marines(Codex).
Where am I going with this?

Well, a while back, BoK posted this:
http://bloodofkittens.com/blog/2012/05/05/network-news-the-6th-edition-leak-and/

The pertinent quote:
"At a time before right before the Horus Heresy the Emperor had intrusted Roboute Guilliman in the protection of one Xenos race that was completely immune the temptations of Chaos and would prove the ultimate key to the destruction of Chaos. The Horus Heresy ended such plans. Fast forward today with discovery of these lost correspondences, it is believed by the Ultramarines and others that the Tau are that lost race. So now instead of being charge with their destruction the Astartes are the Tau protectors."

At first, this sounded completely ridiculous, but with the new chart, could there be some credence to this rumour?
Would explain why only the C:SM are brothers and arms.

As for the Eldar, remember the old Xenology entry that implied that Ethereals, and by extension the modern Tau Empire, were created by Eldar, is this a continuation of that idea or is it just because they're Chaos immune?

Matt Ward probably just got a hold of the rulebook and said that the Tau threw a bitchin' party for Guilliman. So now they are best buds.

Kind of how the Blood Angels seem to be best friends with every xenos species except Tyranids.

Eldar could make sense because, remember, they're always your best buddies while they're manipulating you. And then they finish and stab you in the back.

The Tau are young enough that they probably haven't seriously ticked off the Eldar yet (i.e. settling on Maiden Worlds, etc...), and so haven't experienced the full extent of Eldar fury, and innocent and gullible enough (remember what the Dark Eldar pulled on them...) that they're willing to believe that the Eldar might voluntarily come around to the Greater Good.

And the Eldar, being the conniving manipulative pointy-eared schemers that they are, would probably be keen to encourage that sort of thinking on the part of the Tau.

Right up until the Tau try and settle on a Maiden World, of course.

Maybe they are reverting to some of the early tau fluff where they had magic friendship powers.

Wasn't the BoK stuff debunked already though by that guy posting on reedit?

Someone coming up with a shiny happy peace-and-love plan to make Warp-immune aliens that immediately turn around and blast their creators to smithereens with plasma rifles? Sounds like 40k to me!

From what I've heard, part of the shtick of 6e is going to be the Adeptus Terra losing its iron grip on the Space Marines, some Chapters finding writings about how the Emperor wanted to eradicate religion or some Chapters finding records that the Tau are part of the Emperor's grand plan for the galaxy could very well lead to some pretty big ideological schisms. It seems plausible.

acekevin8412 wrote:Most everyone has seen the new Allies Matrix and that Tau are "Brothers in Arms," with Eldar and Space Marines(Codex).

...for a Doubles tournament that happened some time ago.

Yet again, that allies matrix is not the one from the 6th edition rules. Who can ally with whom is the same, but we haven't yet seen a full break down of the types of alliances.

Hikaru-119 wrote:Wasn't the BoK stuff debunked already though by that guy posting on reedit?

He debunked a lot of the rules, but he hasn't said much in terms of fluff, which is what I'm talking about.

insaniak wrote:

acekevin8412 wrote:Most everyone has seen the new Allies Matrix and that Tau are "Brothers in Arms," with Eldar and Space Marines(Codex).

...for a Doubles tournament that happened some time ago.

Yet again, that allies matrix is not the one from the 6th edition rules. Who can ally with whom is the same, but we haven't yet seen a full break down of the types of alliances.

If I remember correctly, the reddit guy confirmed that the 6th edition alliance matrix said the same thing as the Doubles Tourney one.

Hold on lemme check.

All right, it's not 100%, but I still think it's likely.
Here's the link:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Warhammer/comments/vj64o/im_sitting_here_with_a_new_40k_rulebook_ama/?limit=500

And here are some quotes:
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[–]Rixitotal[S] 14 points 1 day ago
no battle brothers. allies of conveniance with chaos marines, gery knights (!!), tau and orcs. cant ally with deamons, any eldar or nids. all the rest are desperate allies.
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[–]MandorOfSawall 11 points 1 day ago
Seems like this ally matrix from the GW 2v2 tournament is correct. Can you confirm?

acekevin8412 wrote:If I remember correctly, the reddit guy confirmed that the 6th edition alliance matrix said the same thing as the Doubles Tourney one.

Yes, as I said... he confirmed that the matrix is the same. But the ally ratings are different. There are no 'brothers in arms'.

im gonna be useing the BA libby in my DA to acess Fear of the dark (very DA power that) and soul snare (another DA one) also will be taking BA scouts and the stormraven, that will be the extent of my BA allies, now they will be painted as RW and will leave one shoulder red so my oponents know what is what for simplicity.

So for my ravenwing its basically gonna be some psy powers that fluff wise fit my theme (fear the dark and Ravenwing.. very thematic) and a storm raven for close air support of a scout force (again fits the theme of a light scout force with a single aircraft for heavy hitting) the scouts are there to fill a gap ravenwing (in the fluff) have, who does the ACTUAL scouting (no ravenwing do not do the scouting, how you gonna sneak up on some fallen marines on a bike lol) and DA scouts are an elite choice!!

insaniak wrote:

acekevin8412 wrote:If I remember correctly, the reddit guy confirmed that the 6th edition alliance matrix said the same thing as the Doubles Tourney one.

Yes, as I said... he confirmed that the matrix is the same. But the ally ratings are different. There are no 'brothers in arms'.

Whatever the name is, there are 3 tiers of allies right? Like the matrix?
Brothers in Arms: ICs can join allied units and psychic powers can be cast on allies. Not sure about AoE abilities like beacons or Sanguinary Priest FNP.
Grudging Allies: ^None of the above benefits, but no negatives. I think he said it was something along the lines of, "Playing two separate armies."
Desperate Allies: Within 6" roll a d6 and if it's a one both units can't do anything.

Well this is great. As you can see I have ultras and Tau ready to go. Hello stern guard and meltabikes with kroot fodder and broadsides.

Looks like my brother will be able to have some fun with his 'Nilla Marines and Tau. Unlike me, who will have to somehow talk him into letting my Eldar team up with the Hive Mind.

Happyjew wrote:Looks like my brother will be able to have some fun with his 'Nilla Marines and Tau. Unlike me, who will have to somehow talk him into letting my Eldar team up with the Hive Mind.

The 'ell would the Hive Mind ever team up with anyone?

Unit1126PLL wrote:The 'ell would the Hive Mind ever team up with anyone?

Genestealers?

Makes more sense than DE and SoB, anyways...

acekevin8412 wrote:Whatever the name is, there are 3 tiers of allies right? Like the matrix?

That seems to be the case, yes. But I haven't seen any confirmation that the tiers are the same as the 5th ed Doubles matrix, just that the allies are the same.

Yeah, I need to ask people to let my Alpha Legion have Craftworld Eldar allies.

Do we know if the 6th ed rulebook is going to have a big summary of the "fluff"? I don't know it that well and 6th will be the first rulebook I pick up (started real recently and didnt want to buy a 5th ed rulebook right before the rules changed), so it'd be nice if I could get a better idea of what all the hell is going on in the universe w/o having to find and read the codex for every army.

It's a gazillion pages, so I would be very surprised if it doesn't.

Unit1126PLL wrote:

Happyjew wrote:Looks like my brother will be able to have some fun with his 'Nilla Marines and Tau. Unlike me, who will have to somehow talk him into letting my Eldar team up with the Hive Mind.

The 'ell would the Hive Mind ever team up with anyone?

Early fluff had genesealer cults, brain worm mind control and zoat negociators.

So that's 3 right there.

As long as the story moves forward I'll be happy. I love the idea of the Space Maines starting to separate from Imperial control and do their own thing more, if what these rumors are saying is true that could bring the Ultramarines, who I've always thought were pretty boring, into a really good light.

I also would love to see Abbadon have some success and drive his crusade farther into the Imperium.

The game would actually lose quite a bit of appeal to me if the Space Marines started to become more rogue elements. I love where they are now as pillars of the Imperium and heroes to every human who encounters them...If that aspect of their fluff changes then I will be disappointed, regardless of these silly allies rules that are coming into effect (you can always tell your opponent no or not play with them, after all)

Ol'Dirty wrote:Do we know if the 6th ed rulebook is going to have a big summary of the "fluff"? I don't know it that well and 6th will be the first rulebook I pick up (started real recently and didnt want to buy a 5th ed rulebook right before the rules changed), so it'd be nice if I could get a better idea of what all the hell is going on in the universe w/o having to find and read the codex for every army.

Every rulebook so far had a fluff section. Don't expect it to cover much aside from the basics, however - that'd simply be too many pages. What you can expect is probably the same stuff as before: General description of the galaxy, a dozen pages about life in the Imperium, and another 2-4 pages for every army (except possibly the SoB and the various sub-variants of Marines).

MandalorynOranj wrote:the Ultramarines, who I've always thought were pretty boring

Wait, the Ultramarines are boring because they are the one Chapter that isn't made up of egoists, emos/or and spoiled brats? Shouldn't they be interesting specifically because they are the odd man out in that they actually stick to the rules and have a genuine interest in the Imperium they belong to?

Yeah, I'm exaggerating. Still feels as if half the Marine Chapters behave like rebellious kids because "that's cool".

The Tau turning into a protectorate race of the Smurfs has Ward written all over it. I'm not surprised. Expect Codex: Space Marines 6th Edition to have it revealed that Guilliman is actually powering the Golden Throne.

The justification for this is very slim. The Tau were only elevated from a feudal state by the Ethereals 6,000 years ago. Was the Emperor planning on doing it for them after the conclusion of the Great Crusade instead? I'm confused.

MandalorynOranj wrote:As long as the story moves forward I'll be happy..

You'll probably be disapointed then.

The studio has said on more than one occasion that they have no plans to advance the storyline further, but would prefer to flesh out the 10000 years worth of backstory instead.

The 'current' time is just setting the stage for the game. There is no need for it to advance.

Harriticus wrote:Expect Codex: Space Marines 6th Edition to have it revealed that Guilliman is actually powering the Golden Throne.

You jinxed it!

Lynata wrote:

MandalorynOranj wrote:the Ultramarines, who I've always thought were pretty boring

Wait, the Ultramarines are boring because they are the one Chapter that isn't made up of egoists, emos/or and spoiled brats? Shouldn't they be interesting specifically because they are the odd man out in that they actually stick to the rules and have a genuine interest in the Imperium they belong to?

Yeah, I'm exaggerating. Still feels as if half the Marine Chapters behave like rebellious kids because "that's cool".

Without turning this into a discussion on the merits of Marine chapters, I'm not a fan of their only real character trait being a super-hardcore dedication to the rules, same goes for Imperial Fists to a lesser extent I guess. That being said, the only Marine chapters I really do like are Iron Hands, Raven Guard, and Salamanders. Outside of the Horus Heresy, I much prefer Xenos, some Guard (mostly Gaunt's Ghosts ), and the Adeptus Mechanicus. Loooooooove me some Adeptus Mechanicus!

And I am really disappointed that they said they won't advance the story. Is it really so much to ask for them to move a year or two down the line and see the fruits of everything that's previously been built up? Nobody's asking them to move a few thousand years, I'd just like to see some cool storytelling. Oh well, I guess that's what we have Black Library for...

Lynata wrote:

MandalorynOranj wrote:the Ultramarines, who I've always thought were pretty boring

Wait, the Ultramarines are boring because they are the one Chapter that isn't made up of egoists, emos/or and spoiled brats? Shouldn't they be interesting specifically because they are the odd man out in that they actually stick to the rules and have a genuine interest in the Imperium they belong to?

Yeah, I'm exaggerating. Still feels as if half the Marine Chapters behave like rebellious kids because "that's cool".

Ultramarines are complete pricks , if that counts as being unique

insaniak wrote:

acekevin8412 wrote:Whatever the name is, there are 3 tiers of allies right? Like the matrix?

That seems to be the case, yes. But I haven't seen any confirmation that the tiers are the same as the 5th ed Doubles matrix, just that the allies are the same.

Confirmed:

http://natfka.blogspot.com/2012/06/pics-pages-from-rulebook-force-weapons.html