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Can it be used on (non Grey Knight's) allies???

Please do not post the army vs detachment arguments. I think those have been successfully rebuffed enough times.

It's really a toss up as there is no clear answer. As how it's worded I would think that it would as long as they're brotherhood Allies.

Grand strategy requires you to nominate units in your army. It does not specify friendlies, nor does it (via any FAQ) specify within your codex.

Assuming you consider allies to be "in your army" then yes, you can Grand Strategy allies.

If that isn't the case, then you cannot.

For the record, I've usually considered allies to be "in your army" for simplicity's sake, though I vaguely recall there was a lot of debate about it on Dakka awhile back.

Strangely enough the fact that 'non-battle brother' allies cannot benefit from psychic abilities is explicitly stated, but a similar rider to that included in the battle brothers section regarding other special abilities is conspicuously missing.

Battle Brothers:
...Are counted as being friendly units for the targeting of psychic powers, abilities, and so on...

Allies of Convenience & Desperate Allies:
...Are not counted as friendly units for the targeting of psychic powers...

Typically GW has made a point of FAQing most ambiguously listed abilities to only apply to the codex-specific units which the ability can be found in found in, but hasn't (yet) done this in the case of Grand Strategy.

So, in light of the above two facts? i'd say it's currently legal within RAW, so feel free.

 Neorealist wrote:
Strangely enough the fact that 'non-battle brother' allies cannot benefit from psychic abilities is explicitly stated, but a similar rider to that included in the battle brothers section regarding other special abilities is conspicuously missing.

Battle Brothers:
...Are counted as being friendly units for the targeting of psychic powers, abilities, and so on...

Allies of Convenience & Desperate Allies:
...Are not counted as friendly units for the targeting of psychic powers...

Typically GW has made a point of FAQing most ambiguously listed abilities to only apply to the codex-specific units which the ability can be found in found in, but hasn't (yet) done this in the case of Grand Strategy.

So, in light of the above two facts? i'd say it's currently legal within RAW, so feel free.

It also lists them and says they're some of the examples, not all of them.

For the rules-text in the 'battle brothers' section? yes; that is what 'and so on' means, presumably.

The similarly formatted rules-text found in the 'allies of convenience' section however ends quite definitively at 'psychic powers' however; there is no 'and so on' (or anything similar) to be found there.

 Neorealist wrote:
For the rules-text in the 'battle brothers' section? yes; that is what 'and so on' means, presumably.

The similarly formatted rules-text found in the 'allies of convenience' section however ends quite definitively at 'psychic powers' however; there is no 'and so on' (or anything similar) to be found there.

Alright however as it does not list all possible examples it's left to players/TO's to hash out what can be used where if it's not one of the listed examples.

The levels of allies makes absolutely no difference. The Grand Strategy never makes "friendly" a requirement.

So even if we say that "allies of convenience" are not counted as friendly for the purposes of The Grand Strategy, it doesn't matter, because as long as the units are in the army, The Grand Strategy may affect them, friendly or not. The only question is whether allies are "in the army."

 Xca|iber wrote:
The levels of allies makes absolutely no difference. The Grand Strategy never makes "friendly" a requirement.

So even if we say that "allies of convenience" are not counted as friendly for the purposes of The Grand Strategy, it doesn't matter, because as long as the units are in the army, The Grand Strategy may affect them, friendly or not. The only question is whether allies are "in the army."

If they're not able to be targeted by abilities than it would make a huge difference.

But that isn't what the Allies rules state:

"Units in your army treat Allies of Convenience as enemy units that cannot be charged, shot, targeted with psychic powers or have templates or blast markers placed over them."

Period. End of explicit restrictions. It goes on to clarify the meaning of those restrictions by saying: "However, if a psychic power, scattering blast weapon or other ability that affects an area hits some of these Allies of Convenience, they will be affected along with any friendly or enemy units. This means that, for example..."

Then it specifies that they cannot benefit from warlord traits, cannot be joined, and are not friendly units w.r.t allied psychic powers.

Now, Grand Strategy is NOT "charging, shooting, targeting with a psychic power, or a template." That clears the explicit restrictions. It is NOT a Warlord Trait, Independent Character, nor is it a psychic power.

If we go further, and assume that the last bullet point should reflect the "Battle Brothers" bullet point and have the "...abilities and so on." attached to the end, Grand Strategy still doesn't care, because all that means is that AoC are not "friendly" for the purposes of Grand Strategy, but as we know that is not a restriction that pertains to the way Grand Strategy is applied.

 Xca|iber wrote:
But that isn't what the Allies rules state:



Now, Grand Strategy is NOT "charging, shooting, targeting with a psychic power, or a template." That clears the explicit restrictions. It is NOT a Warlord Trait, Independent Character, nor is it a psychic power.

.

However these are examples listed. Not every possible possibility which leaves certain things in the open. Which will have to be hashed out between players and TO's, or a nice FAQ would be awesome.

I'm actually For Grand Strategy, however I feel it's fenceline.

I'd say it's pretty clear cut.

Every example listed clearly requires a friendly target (except for IC's starting the game with a unit, where this restriction is omitted - this is then explicitly clarified by the Allies rules).

There is no precedent for any un-FAQ'd ability (for which there are many) that affects "models in your army" to not affect allies as well. If people want to argue that allies are not "in your army," that's fine, but aside from that I'd say by strict RAW, the Grand Strategy is perfectly fine to use with allies. (Especially as it has not been FAQ'd for two revisions now - even the Stormraven oversight was fixed within one revision cycle).

Obviously, a TO can do whatever they want, but since YMDC likes RAW arguments, I'm presenting it.

 Xca|iber wrote:
I'd say it's pretty clear cut.

Every example listed clearly requires a friendly target (except for IC's starting the game with a unit, where this restriction is omitted - this is then explicitly clarified by the Allies rules).

There is no precedent for any un-FAQ'd ability (for which there are many) that affects "models in your army" to not affect allies as well. If people want to argue that allies are not "in your army," that's fine, but aside from that I'd say by strict RAW, the Grand Strategy is perfectly fine to use with allies. (Especially as it has not been FAQ'd for two revisions now - even the Stormraven oversight was fixed within one revision cycle).

Obviously, a TO can do whatever they want, but since YMDC likes RAW arguments, I'm presenting it.

A,B, and C are examples of the alphabet.

Yet we all know that's not the whole alphabet.

I concur with x on this.

 Mannahnin wrote:
I concur with x on this.

As do I, just wouldn't mind getting it in stone opposed to wet clay

It doesn't get much clearer than "This is what it says and more importantly what it doesn't say" james.

There is nothing in the rules that precludes the use of Grand Strategy on allies as written, either in a FAQ or in the book itself. Until such time as there 'is' an update which forbids that specific use, following the literal rules for it is a close to a ruling as you are going to find.

 Neorealist wrote:
There is nothing in the rules that precludes the use of Grand Strategy on allies as written

Until you look at the context of the Grand Strategy rule, and find out that Army, as referenced in the GK book, means GK Army list.

I've no wish to touch on that particular debate, except to say the official definition of what an 'Army' explicitly consists of within the context of 40k is currently undefined so far as i am aware; so your interpretation of what it represents is only as valid as anyone elses.

Actually the GK codx does define what is the "army" in reference to the codexs understanding of such - only units selected from within the codex.

The BRB may be unclear, but the codex is not.

nosferatu1001 wrote:
Actually the GK codx does define what is the "army" in reference to the codexs understanding of such - only units selected from within the codex.

The BRB may be unclear, but the codex is not.

Page #?

Being one of the biggest proponents of the "GK were never OP" that's appeared on this forum, and playing GK, amongst a lot of other armies, I gotta say, I don't think they should be able to use this on non-GKCodex stuff. Of course, I didn't think Dreads should count as scoring even with GS, so I'm not always right. From a RAW point-of-view, it comes down to what you estimate "your army" to mean. This isn't the first time I've suggested this, and people usually get very angry when I boil it down to that, but it's how it is, but I think "your army" means your "primary detachment". Anything that's been suggested otherwise has been quelled with an equal amount of resistance, such that "your army" can only mean "your primary detachment, except when convenient to either your opponent or yourself".

From an RAI point-of-view, the GK look at pretty much everyone else as though they're utterly disposable. To me, that says: "Invest no resources in them. Put no faith in them. Trust is the mind killer." They don't trust them enough to be capable of whatever GS can do. They're useless as far as scoring goes, they're certainly not capable of counterattack simply because a GKGM demands it; they're simply there to die gloriously for the Spesh Emporer.

 KGatch113 wrote:

nosferatu1001 wrote:
Actually the GK codx does define what is the "army" in reference to the codexs understanding of such - only units selected from within the codex.

The BRB may be unclear, but the codex is not.

Page #?

Choosing an army, codex currently other side of world (literally, in Jakarta)

Orks and Grey Knights - Grand Strategy to buff the Orks, Cybork bodies for the Knights.

nosferatu1001 wrote:
Actually the GK codx does define what is the "army" in reference to the codexs understanding of such - only units selected from within the codex.

The BRB may be unclear, but the codex is not.

I'm fairly certain it does not actually, though it's possible i'm just not seeing it from my review of the 'dex.

It is entirely context - it talks about picking your army, and doing so from your codex. It doesnt acknowledge any ability for you to pick something from another codex to be part of your army. Its the same as most books, pre 6th

I'd agree, The grey knight doesn't explicitly allow you to take units/wargear/special rules/etc from another codex. (though it hardly needs to, the sheer depth of units available in it from all over the imperium is impressive!)

That said, it doesn't explicitly indicate what constitutes a specific 'army' either. It (like the 6th edition rulebook and pretty much all the 'dex's i'm familiar with) does frequently use the word 'army' to refer to the units found in a given codex, but no source ever goes the extra step and explicitly discludes allies from that definition.

So in short, they use the word all the time but never bother to define what it does and does not represent beyond the context it's found in.

 Neorealist wrote:
So in short, they use the word all the time but never bother to define what it does and does not represent beyond the context it's found in.

The Permissive ruleset does that for us.

 Neorealist wrote:
it doesn't explicitly indicate what constitutes a specific 'army'

The context specifically talks about a Grey Knight army. If it does not say allies are included in the 'army' then they are not.

DeathReaper wrote: The Permissive ruleset does that for us.

No it really does not, it's the lack of a specific rule (or 'permission') to count your primary detachment and/or your allied detachment as your army exclusively that results in questions just like this one.

DeathReaper wrote: The context specifically talks about a Grey Knight army. If it does not say allies are included in the 'army' then they are not.

The context? perhaps. But it's the lack of specificity that is the problem, not deciphering the context. You'd do well to note that the units in your allied contingent are often referred to as 'your army' (or some variant) in whatever codex they came from too.

 Neorealist wrote:

DeathReaper wrote: The Permissive ruleset does that for us.

No it really does not, it's the lack of a specific rule (or 'permission') [/i] to count your primary detachment and/or your allied detachment as your army exclusively that results in questions just like this one.

Again Permissive ruleset must say you can, otherwise you can not. Lack of something saying you can, means you can not.

To illustrate the point, The rulebook does not say "Players wearing a hat steal the initiative on a 2+" But that does not mean it is true. (I always wear a hat when I play).

 Neorealist wrote:

DeathReaper wrote: The context specifically talks about a Grey Knight army. If it does not say allies are included in the 'army' then they are not.

The context? perhaps. But it's the lack of specificity that is the problem, not deciphering the context. You'd do well to note that the units in your allied contingent are often referred to as 'your army' (or some variant) in whatever codex they came from too.

The GK book defines a GK army as units chosen from the GK book. This does not include any allied units. the BRB defines army differently.


The Grand Strategy rule, says "Units in your army" and in the context of the GK book that means GK units. The Grand Strategy rule does not say allied units so it does not effect allied units.

You appear to be still missing that any book you happened to take allies from says that exact same thing. (as in, it refers to your 'army' in various ways when describing it's contents)

Why for example wouldn't an allied Necron overlord and warrior blob count as your 'army' when it's codex infers that it is exactly that in a more or less identical fashion to the way the gray knight one does for your primary contingent in the above example? Simply put: the Ork codex says your 'army' is the orks found within it, the chaos marine codex says your 'army' is comprised of codex chaos marines, etc.

Ergo i stand by my original opinion that what exactly is or isn't an 'Army' is currently undefined. (or defined in as many mutually exclusive and therefore inconsistent ways as there are codexes if you insist that the codex referring to your army as being just from that codex is a valid rule)