Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

I don't think allies have increased the number of WAAC and TFG players. Sure, maybe they have more toys, but so do the rest of us. I don't really worry about them, as they are easily avoided. Just stay from their lairs and hunting grounds and you will be fine.

IG and any marine army is fluffy as fluffy gets, no matter which one is the primary and ally. It makes sense that they are battle brothers. I would have thought that IG would have been battle brothers with Chaos marines, but I guess they are thinking that other than cultists the relationship with normal humans would be a bit strained. I dunno, probably a topic for another thread.

Allies won't increase the number of waac gamers, but it will certainly reveal them.

Yes, there are lots of flffy ally things, and will probably partake myself on occasion over the course of this edition. The limit to allies in the fluff world is one's imagination.

However, tactically speaking, allies makes a mockery of game balance. There are going to be lots of crazy combos people figure out over the next couple of years, and my bet is that tournaments will be decided by who brings the most broken combination of allies, rather than who has the best codex. You're already seeing this with suggestions to put space wolf characters into guard blobs to keep power blobs viable, but this is just the tip of the iceberg.

Be prepared for hideous ally abuse. Anyone who really, really wants to win is going to need to follow suit as this meta really takes off. As such, allies will reveal the true characters of the players who take them.

Given that 6th ed, over all, discourages competitive play, this will only be made more painfully obvious as the years progress.

beerbeard wrote:
The Grey Hunters were knocked out of their razorbacks, but killed a Triarch Stalker by falling back from combat with the Our Weapons are Useless rule and then killing it with melta.

Doesnt "Our Weapons Are Useless" only work when the unit cannot harm the opponent/enemy/vehicle squad in close combat? If it can harm them, no matter how small the chance it's not allowed to break free.
(I don't know the stats of either squad, so I may be wrong here.)

Ailaros wrote:There are going to be lots of crazy combos people figure out over the next couple of years, and my bet is that tournaments will be decided by who brings the most broken combination of allies, rather than who has the best codex.

I'm not sure how having the best codex is better. I only go to small tournaments, but even there I got tired of Blood Angels and Grey Knights, not to mention having one of four IG armies out of 16. Now there is almost infinite variety and more importantly, an answer for everything. I also think it will be much harder to build an all-comers list that can beat everything, since you might run across something totally weird like a Rune Priest with 50 guard. Speaking of which...

Ailaros wrote:You're already seeing this with suggestions to put space wolf characters into guard blobs to keep power blobs viable, but this is just the tip of the iceberg.

It actually makes for a shooty blob, but yeah, it was definitely an advantage I was able to get using the ally rules. But is this any worse than a Leaf Blower, or a Draigowing? It's the same concept, but now there will be an almost infinite number of "broken" ally combinations, so none of them will be pure win. I think that's good, but I am admittedly not a "competitive" player in the GT sense. (Oh, was the iceberg bit intentional? 5 points to Folera if so.)

Ailaros wrote:As such, allies will reveal the true characters of the players who take them.

That's pretty harsh. And I don't think it's remotely true, but you probably play in a different environment than I do so it may be true for you.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

loner wrote:

beerbeard wrote:
The Grey Hunters were knocked out of their razorbacks, but killed a Triarch Stalker by falling back from combat with the Our Weapons are Useless rule and then killing it with melta.

Doesnt "Our Weapons Are Useless" only work when the unit cannot harm the opponent/enemy/vehicle squad in close combat? If it can harm them, no matter how small the chance it's not allowed to break free.
(I don't know the stats of either squad, so I may be wrong here.)

Yes. I didn't have melta bombs, and the armor on the Stalker is 13. My kraks were useless. Next time I run this list I will probably include melta bombs and possible a power fist.

bb

Ailaros wrote:Allies won't increase the number of waac gamers, but it will certainly reveal them.

Yes, there are lots of flffy ally things, and will probably partake myself on occasion over the course of this edition. The limit to allies in the fluff world is one's imagination.

However, tactically speaking, allies makes a mockery of game balance. There are going to be lots of crazy combos people figure out over the next couple of years, and my bet is that tournaments will be decided by who brings the most broken combination of allies, rather than who has the best codex. You're already seeing this with suggestions to put space wolf characters into guard blobs to keep power blobs viable, but this is just the tip of the iceberg.

Be prepared for hideous ally abuse. Anyone who really, really wants to win is going to need to follow suit as this meta really takes off. As such, allies will reveal the true characters of the players who take them.

Given that 6th ed, over all, discourages competitive play, this will only be made more painfully obvious as the years progress.

Everyone at my FLGS is coming up with nasty allies combos. Some will run them, most are just doing it as an way to get used to the rules, no one has actually played with any allies however. I kinda wanted to do one with some space marines, and paint them similar to my guardsmen, (an autumn camo scheme so it may need to be tweaked.) and say that they both come from the same area and are used to working together.

I don't think you need to take allies to makeup cheesy lists now. You can bring 9 vendettas if you really wanted with just the IG codex. Or take LOS saves with carnifexes for an alpha warrior with the Tyranids.

I think taking terrain is a little ridiculous. I have a hard time getting my mind around the idea that an army sent to recover an artifact in a blasted wasteland decides to carry a fortress with them to get it.

So I don't think taking allies necessarily makes you TFG. Being that TFG makes you TFG. A person like would find a way to bring the beardiest list possible under any condition.

The new rules give me an opportunity to collect some SoB units which I've been meaning to do for a while. Bringing Celestine to head up a wedge seems like it might be fun once in a while.

I will probably try to steer clear of people who bring broken lists no matter if it comes from one codex or two.

bogalubov wrote:I don't think you need to take allies to makeup cheesy lists now. You can bring 9 vendettas if you really wanted with just the IG codex.

You could take 9 in 5th too.

alarmingrick wrote:

bogalubov wrote:I don't think you need to take allies to makeup cheesy lists now. You can bring 9 vendettas if you really wanted with just the IG codex.

You could take 9 in 5th too.

You could, but it's even more obnoxious now with better squadron rules and zooming.

Technically, you could now take 18. You would win by your opponent being unable to see the board.

Ailaros wrote:
... tactically speaking, allies makes a mockery of game balance.

Be prepared for hideous ally abuse. Anyone who really, really wants to win is going to need to follow suit as this meta really takes off. As such, allies will reveal the true characters of the players who take them.

I will disagree with the general giist of your statement here.

As was stated before, previous editions largely came down to whomever had the strongest codex . I think THIS was a far worse culprit for ruining game balance than allies will be. I mean, how many new Grey Knight players showed up when GK got their new 'dex and turned into the ridiculously powerful new kid on the block?

What allies change does is allow Games Workshop to stop pretending to be "balancing" their codex's between each other. Now they can just say "shore up your armies deficiencies with allies".

And allies lets us do just this. Imperial guard has ONLY mastery level 1 psykers at this point. With how powerful some of the new psychic abilities are, this kind of sucks (especially when nids can take army lists full of the damn things). Now instead of being limited to Primaris and psycho squad, we can also pull in some nice allied librarians. Or alternatively we can address our close combat concerns with spess marines (Belial and terminators, or generic strong arm stuff with SW or BA). Oh, and as a last aside on pyskers, why in the world would IG psykers need the Biomancy tree? Really? Iron arm or Endurance for a toughness 3 psyker? Waste of space.

So, I'm going to go against the grain of what everyone else is saying, and say that taking allies isn't a sign of powergaming, but as a way to shore up Games Workshops deficiencies for failing to give everyone equally balanced codexes and making the game "Newest Codex Wins" under no-allies conditions. So instead of everyone playing variations of the most broken lists ever(tm), we'll have dozens of different "most broken lists ever(C)", each doing a different thing.

Ailaros wrote:Allies won't increase the number of waac gamers, but it will certainly reveal them.

Yes, there are lots of flffy ally things, and will probably partake myself on occasion over the course of this edition. The limit to allies in the fluff world is one's imagination.

However, tactically speaking, allies makes a mockery of game balance. There are going to be lots of crazy combos people figure out over the next couple of years, and my bet is that tournaments will be decided by who brings the most broken combination of allies, rather than who has the best codex. You're already seeing this with suggestions to put space wolf characters into guard blobs to keep power blobs viable, but this is just the tip of the iceberg.

Be prepared for hideous ally abuse. Anyone who really, really wants to win is going to need to follow suit as this meta really takes off. As such, allies will reveal the true characters of the players who take them.

Yes. This a million times over.

I will not be selling out like this. Guard are Guard. Not, Guard with some Space Wolves or Blood Angels to cover up our weaknesses. If you don't like Guard's lack of close combat, or our cardboard armour, then don't play Guard! Otherwise what is the point? Maybe that is a bit purist, but that is the way I see it.

As I said, I am not absolutely against allies. I actually really love the possibilities it brings to modelling but also (from time to time) the actual gaming and fluff.

The trouble is, there is a real danger now that to be even half-competitive you will have to conform and follow suit with allies-lists. Which really sucks......I will definitely be staying away from all tournaments from now on and will just stick to home gaming with friends.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

beerbeard wrote:

Ailaros wrote:As such, allies will reveal the true characters of the players who take them.

That's pretty harsh. And I don't think it's remotely true, but you probably play in a different environment than I do so it may be true for you.

It is true to an extent...As he said.

What does a "different environment" have to do with it? I doubt my friends and I are going to allow Allies unless it's a mutual agreement, out of respect. Unless it's a fluffy army like Traitor Guard with Daemons.
Of course, judging what are 'genuine' fluffy armies and what are WAAC armies will be difficult. The line will be blurred. Which is why I am even more determine do stay away from tournaments now...Unfortunately.

FifteenHours wrote:

Ailaros wrote:Allies won't increase the number of waac gamers, but it will certainly reveal them.

Yes, there are lots of flffy ally things, and will probably partake myself on occasion over the course of this edition. The limit to allies in the fluff world is one's imagination.

However, tactically speaking, allies makes a mockery of game balance. There are going to be lots of crazy combos people figure out over the next couple of years, and my bet is that tournaments will be decided by who brings the most broken combination of allies, rather than who has the best codex. You're already seeing this with suggestions to put space wolf characters into guard blobs to keep power blobs viable, but this is just the tip of the iceberg.

Be prepared for hideous ally abuse. Anyone who really, really wants to win is going to need to follow suit as this meta really takes off. As such, allies will reveal the true characters of the players who take them.

Yes. This a million times over.

I will not be selling out like this. Guard are Guard. Not, Guard with some Space Wolves or Blood Angels to cover up our weaknesses. If you don't like Guard's lack of close combat, or our cardboard armour, then don't play Guard! Otherwise what is the point? Maybe that is a bit purist, but that is the way I see it.

As I said, I am not absolutely against allies. I actually really love the possibilities it brings to modelling but also (from time to time) the actual gaming and fluff.

The trouble is, there is a real danger now that to be even half-competitive you will have to conform and follow suit with allies-lists. Which really sucks......I will definitely be staying away from all tournaments from now on and will just stick to home gaming with friends.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

beerbeard wrote:

Ailaros wrote:As such, allies will reveal the true characters of the players who take them.

That's pretty harsh. And I don't think it's remotely true, but you probably play in a different environment than I do so it may be true for you.

It is true to an extent...As he said.

What does a "different environment" have to do with it? I doubt my friends and I are going to allow Allies unless it's a mutual agreement, out of respect. Unless it's a fluffy army like Traitor Guard with Daemons.
Of course, judging what are 'genuine' fluffy armies and what are WAAC armies will be difficult. The line will be blurred. Which is why I am even more determine do stay away from tournaments now...Unfortunately.

Just to play devil's advocate.

How are "auto-include" options from a single codex any worse than taking cheesy "auto-include" options from other codexes?
In the last edition how many blobs did we see out there without a commissar? The commissar made infantry hordes possible by giving them stubborn.

Now, you can take a Rune Priest or something of the sort from another codex to fill in the same role. This allows you to continue running an infantry horde. I'm failing to see how that's really bad. I'm thinking that it might be a fun conversion opportunity as well. Make a super burly guardsman and just call him a "specialist infantry model", Cpt Your Favorite Badass. Then just run the guy with the priest rules.

If GW came out and slashed the points costs of ogryn to 15 points a model, would that not make ogryn an "auto-include" unit? Just because it is within the Guard codex, would not make it any less gakky to play against a swarm of cheap ogryn.

Hell, the new defense lines seem like auto-include choices for heavy weapons teams. Few people are denouncing those or quad guns.

Overall, I have no interest in playing against Blood Angel-Necron armies. It doesn't make sense on the fluff level and it doesn't seem fun to play against on the table top. The allies though do offer possibilities of finding synergy that's both creative and not over powering. The second part of that is as always dependent on who you choose to play against.

bogalubov wrote: Overall, I have no interest in playing against Blood Angel-Necron armies. It doesn't make sense on the fluff level and it doesn't seem fun to play against on the table top.

But that's the problem, IMHO. We're still going to see crap like that, ala WAAC players. That's why I don't like it.
And I still haven't found anything I want to cut out of my lists to free up even MORE points for pricey Marines.

kir44n wrote:

Ailaros wrote:
... tactically speaking, allies makes a mockery of game balance.

Be prepared for hideous ally abuse. Anyone who really, really wants to win is going to need to follow suit as this meta really takes off. As such, allies will reveal the true characters of the players who take them.

I will disagree with the general giist of your statement here.

As was stated before, previous editions largely came down to whomever had the strongest codex . I think THIS was a far worse culprit for ruining game balance than allies will be. I mean, how many new Grey Knight players showed up when GK got their new 'dex and turned into the ridiculously powerful new kid on the block?

What allies change does is allow Games Workshop to stop pretending to be "balancing" their codex's between each other. Now they can just say "shore up your armies deficiencies with allies".

And allies lets us do just this. Imperial guard has ONLY mastery level 1 psykers at this point. With how powerful some of the new psychic abilities are, this kind of sucks (especially when nids can take army lists full of the damn things). Now instead of being limited to Primaris and psycho squad, we can also pull in some nice allied librarians. Or alternatively we can address our close combat concerns with spess marines (Belial and terminators, or generic strong arm stuff with SW or BA). Oh, and as a last aside on pyskers, why in the world would IG psykers need the Biomancy tree? Really? Iron arm or Endurance for a toughness 3 psyker? Waste of space.

So, I'm going to go against the grain of what everyone else is saying, and say that taking allies isn't a sign of powergaming, but as a way to shore up Games Workshops deficiencies for failing to give everyone equally balanced codexes and making the game "Newest Codex Wins" under no-allies conditions. So instead of everyone playing variations of the most broken lists ever(tm), we'll have dozens of different "most broken lists ever(C)", each doing a different thing.

This is my view as well, and I don't even play guard!

beerbeard wrote:

Ailaros wrote:
Automatically Appended Next Post:

loner wrote:

beerbeard wrote:
The Grey Hunters were knocked out of their razorbacks, but killed a Triarch Stalker by falling back from combat with the Our Weapons are Useless rule and then killing it with melta.

Doesnt "Our Weapons Are Useless" only work when the unit cannot harm the opponent/enemy/vehicle squad in close combat? If it can harm them, no matter how small the chance it's not allowed to break free.
(I don't know the stats of either squad, so I may be wrong here.)

Yes. I didn't have melta bombs, and the armor on the Stalker is 13. My kraks were useless. Next time I run this list I will probably include melta bombs and possible a power fist.

bb

In that case I was wrong and I apologize for that. Either way, thanks for your posts.

About allies.

There are some army lists, which are not competitive or half competitive or even really bad, but some people want to play those lists because of the unit models or fluff reasons or whatever else.

The problem is, players usually want to win. They do. Is there anyone who can honestly say "I do NOT want to win"? I doubt that.

If someone want to play an army, which is too bad to have good winning chance (which can be discovered by long playing and seeing you can almost never win, even with luck) he needs some way to make that army better. With allies, you can do this. You can make some bad army setup viable. Sure, you are not making some auto-win list or tournament class list, you are making a viable list from bad one.

I see allies as a nice chance to play units or whole army setups, which are rarely used, because they are not good enough.

alarmingrick wrote:

bogalubov wrote:I don't think you need to take allies to makeup cheesy lists now. You can bring 9 vendettas if you really wanted with just the IG codex.

You could take 9 in 5th too.

There is no comparison to 6th.

In 5th, they were simply AV 12 skimmers, and hit allocation in squads meant that a single lucky salvo from a psydread could destroy all

In 6th, they are hard to hit, and the allocation vs squadrens has completely changed -- now you keep hitting the closest vehicle until its destroyed.

Lothar wrote:About allies.

There are some army lists, which are not competitive or half competitive or even really bad, but some people want to play those lists because of the unit models or fluff reasons or whatever else.

The problem is, players usually want to win. They do. Is there anyone who can honestly say "I do NOT want to win"? I doubt that.

If someone want to play an army, which is too bad to have good winning chance (which can be discovered by long playing and seeing you can almost never win, even with luck) he needs some way to make that army better. With allies, you can do this. You can make some bad army setup viable. Sure, you are not making some auto-win list or tournament class list, you are making a viable list from bad one.

I see allies as a nice chance to play units or whole army setups, which are rarely used, because they are not good enough.

Good point. It could make all those poor or useless units usable when combined with Allies. In theory I don't see anything wrong with this. But I think a line is crossed when it involves combinations like Necrons and BA. Trouble is it's hard to judge whether someone would do this out of genuine love of both armies and the fluff it entails, or if they are doing it to WAAC. And do we have a right to judge when it's perfectly legal to do this? I'm not even sure. It could breed elitism which is never nice.
Of course, we can always choose not to play when just playing with friends or at a local gaming score if we feel the opposition is bringing WAAC allies, but obviously it's going to be a different story at tournaments where you can't do this. The end result is essentially going to be a drift towards Allies for everybody if they want to remain competitive at tournaments. I think this was what GW wanted partly because it could make people buy more models, or at least more paints to paint their Allies. Not sure how I feel about that, but that's the way it seems to be in 6th edition so we have to live with it. It's not all negative though... Allies really is a double-edged sword. I'm excited about the options it brings, but feel much less enthusiastic about the swing towards Allies-dependency...

beerbeard wrote:Technically, you could now take 18. You would win by your opponent being unable to see the board.

@ 2340 points!

Like many have said, TFG will be TFG, no matter what. Yes, Necron/BA lists are kind of stupid, and certainly annoying. But what allies does is make for dozens, if not hundreds, of annoying WAAC powered up douchy lists. At least there will be some variety. I also think because of that variety there will be less of the rock-paper-scissors effect, where you look at the board,, scenario, and your opponents list and realize the game could well be over before it starts. I've had that happen to me, from both sides, and it's no fun.

Main point is, though, is that it is way to early to be making these pronouncements of doom and gloom. I will make allies list because it's fun, and different. I'm still as guardy as I ever was, now I just have a bit of wolfy frosting.

bb

I almost hate it that Space Wolves allied with Guard is so damned in line with the background. They are two excellent armies that really don't need the help, yet they can be combined to be made even stronger. I feel like if someone is going to ally two high powered armies, they should at least get crap from their fellow gamers for being transparently unfluffy for the sake of army power.

Well with the whole allies thing, one does have to remember that taking an ally detachment does eat into points for your main force, and eats into points faster than one would think.

Will I be running them? Sometimes, mostly for friendly games. Since I'm starting a blood axe ork army, and I already have a large IG force, I see no issue allying them for fluff terms. The IG are modeled as inquisitorial troops, and Blood Axes are well known as working as mercenaries. It will take some work on the modeling side to make them really fit, but I'm more than happy to do so. It'll make my army unique and more fun to play. Plus, orks and IG kind of have a hard time making anything truly "broken" list wise, and the sheer variety of both codexes should keep my army fun to play against. I've already played two games with my ork/ IG force and both games were a blast, for me and my opponent. Something about removing handfulls of guardsmen and orks per turn seems to have that affect

Sadly though, most players are not going for fun, fluff, or modeling as their goal with allies. Most are going to come up with the most face smashing combos possible. The rune priest uber blob is a good example of this. However, I still think these lists will remain inferior to single codex lists. We've got an IG player in my store who is very experienced in the tournament scene, and I saw his list in action the other day. He absolutely wrecked a guy playing the IG/ SW combo, by doing what guard do best, putting down so much armor there was no humanly possible way to kill it all. 6 russes, a couple vendettas, and as many chimeras as he could fit (armored fist platoons no less!) even with HP's he showed, to me at least, single army lists are still completely viable this edition.

MrMoustaffa wrote:Well with the whole allies thing, one does have to remember that taking an ally detachment does eat into points for your main force, and eats into points faster than one would think.

I think besides the whole WAAC/broken issue aside, this is my biggest point about allying with other armies. I really haven't found what I want to take out to free up 100-500 points for. As it stands right now,
the only thing I would consider adding would be another or stronger psyker. And I'm not sure I really need to add in that department.

Although i'm no guard player, so dont have the ability to hide the table under tanks, I see allies as a way to get more tanks. All I was going to do is create a stand-alone list of say my Tau (@750 lets say), then stick it on the side of my main Cron force (@2250, usually). Eureka, not broken or unfluffy, as Tau try and allie themselves with everything they can (and any self-respecting Necron overlord will accept some meat shields)

IHateNids wrote:Although i'm no guard player, so dont have the ability to hide the table under tanks, I see allies as a way to get more tanks. All I was going to do is create a stand-alone list of say my Tau (@750 lets say), then stick it on the side of my main Cron force (@2250, usually). Eureka, not broken or unfluffy, as Tau try and allie themselves with everything they can (and any self-respecting Necron overlord will accept some meat shields)

Which wouldn't make since for an IG player to do, since we already have the cheapest and best tanks already. And when it comes to CC....did I mention we're really good at shooting things?

Aye, thats my point. I bring Tau for cheap long(er) range firepower and Crisis Suits. That's all, cos Cron HS is expensive

alarmingrick wrote:

IHateNids wrote:Although i'm no guard player, so dont have the ability to hide the table under tanks, I see allies as a way to get more tanks. All I was going to do is create a stand-alone list of say my Tau (@750 lets say), then stick it on the side of my main Cron force (@2250, usually). Eureka, not broken or unfluffy, as Tau try and allie themselves with everything they can (and any self-respecting Necron overlord will accept some meat shields)

Which wouldn't make since for an IG player to do, since we already have the cheapest and best tanks already. And when it comes to CC....did I mention we're really good at shooting things?

Big things I keep hearing in the kill close up things debate are a squad of deathwing terminators, paladins, or even blood angels or space wolves. Personally, I've been finding orks to be a good fit with guard, since they share similar strengths (high numbers, able to field lots of good AV 14) as well as complimenting each other. I'm already considering trying to make a list with a couple of battlewagon's worth of nobs augmenting an armored fists list with some leman russ support.

Not the most optimal setup, but should be a lot fun!

Thinking of taking SoB. Just for the Lulz.

I'm sorry if it's been said already, this topic grows too fast to read it all. I'd like to throw this in the group because it's way at the back in the rulebook. Missile launcher got a third rocket to fire. Pg 415 in the new rulebook, in the weapon overview. str 7 AP 4 skyfire heavvy 1. It gives the missile launcher a massive boost in usefulness, it's triple purpose now. Group, single target/vehicle, flyer. You can put one in most of your squads (15 pts except in heavvy weapons team) and/or on the walkers (10 pts). With all the 'omg there are going to be so many flyers now' i'm guessing IG will spam missile launchers in response, hydra can only do snapshots against things that arent air.

So a lulz worthy tactic, get a vet squad, buy Harker, an extra HB or AC, and 3 Plasmaguns or something. Then buy forward sentries. This gives you camo cloaks and defensive grenades. Infiltrate into a ruin. Laugh at you enemy as you throw a gak ton of shots at them. Then when they shoot at you you get a 2+ cover save, wa ha ha. *


*Like i said this is just for the lulz, a 210pt ig infantry squad is too ridiculous to be serious.