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.

The more I play in this addition the more success I am having with purely one army builds. The meta has changed for allied armies where everyone is trying to find that tac list. I think a lot of allied list have balance issues and maybe thats why I am seeing more success with non allied list. Whats your alls thoughts on this?

 Tomb King wrote:
The more I play in this addition the more success I am having with purely one army builds. The meta has changed for allied armies where everyone is trying to find that tac list. I think a lot of allied list have balance issues and maybe thats why I am seeing more success with non allied list. Whats your alls thoughts on this?

It will Vary depending on your Primary Detachment IMO.

That said though I believe Allied is the way to go with the majority of armies in 6th.

An example; Necrons are great. I believe they're better as an ally though.

http://www.theruleslawyers.com/2012/10/building-the-case-giantkillers-chaos-space-marines-with-necron-allies-at-1850/

http://www.theruleslawyers.com/2012/11/1246/

DE are def better with eldar allies

I think guard are def better with SW allies

SW I think are def better with guard allies

Nids are best pure.

I only have space marine models so when I try allies it's among different SM codexes. So I have found it difficult to make lists with an allied detachment mainly because you sink too many points in that mandatory extra HQ and Troop choice (most of the time you use ally for that Elite/FA/Heavy unit you can't have in your primary detachment).

Yeah, the answer really depends on the army you are playing.

I know a lot of Chaos players who use Daemons, Orks and IG as allies. What I can say is they get a little more balance by going this route, and it amplifies some of the strengths of their Chaos army. For example:

- it's nice brining an Leman Russ squad to battle with your CSMs, their tanks are a little better than our Preds.

- it's nice bringing a squad of Nob warbikers to the party, they are a little better than our CSM bikers.

- It's nice bringing Flamers and Screamers to a battle, they give you some more shooty options that fit in nicely with other squads.

As a rule of thumb, I would say Chaos allies have to be aligned with what the rest of the army does well, and they have to do it a little better than our units. You don't just get the units you are after with allies, you also get an HQ and 2 troop options that may or may not fit with what you are trying to do.

 techsoldaten wrote:
Yeah, the answer really depends on the army you are playing.

I know a lot of Chaos players who use Daemons, Orks and IG as allies. What I can say is they get a little more balance by going this route, and it amplifies some of the strengths of their Chaos army. For example:

- it's nice brining an Leman Russ squad to battle with your CSMs, their tanks are a little better than our Preds.

- it's nice bringing a squad of Nob warbikers to the party, they are a little better than our CSM bikers.

- It's nice bringing Flamers and Screamers to a battle, they give you some more shooty options that fit in nicely with other squads.

As a rule of thumb, I would say Chaos allies have to be aligned with what the rest of the army does well, and they have to do it a little better than our units. You don't just get the units you are after with allies, you also get an HQ and 2 troop options that may or may not fit with what you are trying to do.

Well for the CSM book, I think it's balanced. That said it gains alot from allies.


Something like Chaos Daemons is not currently balanced. Taking allies is more than likely a hindrance.

Both are equally strong.

There are good combos you can make using allies. There are good combos you can make playing one army.

Play what you want. So long as your having fun, thats what counts.

What about allies with the same army? IE: Black Templar force, with another Black Templar army. I have not messed around with allies yet, as I am just a one man army. But I have thought about doing BT with BT as allies, and trying that out.

Can't do that, your ally cannot be from the same book as the primary detachment.

I"ve yet to play against an army with allies. I guess it just hasn't seemed to catch on.

I believe that all armies are self-sufficient. You can compete with them as is. However, allies do allow for some flexibility and variety. Some combinations work really well together like the harliestar. Sometimes, allies can address certain weaknesses of particular armies (like adding necron flyers to an otherwise slow army). Oftentimes, allies are used to address the local meta (like adding a RoW farseer because the local meta is psychic-heavy). But mostly, people are taking allies just because it is a trend right now. Besides taking Epidemius as an ally in my CSM army, none of my armies use allies and all are doing fine. I believe I could drop Epidemius from my Chaos list and they can still do ok. The key is to have a solid Take-All-Comer's list as a foundation.

My army seems to benefit greatly from allies, but that's because I enjoy having more options.

Most armies have an inherent weakness. Like orks, they have crappy ballistic skill and not a lot of high str low AP weaponry.

Tau suck in assault.

So you ally in some broadsides to your orks or TH&SS terminators or some nob bikers with your Tau.

You can cherry pick the most cost effective units to cover your weaknesses. The HQ and troop tax isn't that bad in most cases.

 AresX8 wrote:
Can't do that, your ally cannot be from the same book as the primary detachment.

Oh? I did not konw that. I havent looked in to making an ally, so I have never knowen the rules. Thanks!

Generally speaking, I find purist armies to be better.

The reason being that you absolutely positively have to take another HQ unit and another troops unit to unlock the allied detachment and your allied detachment's FoC is very limited so you can't spam any one good unit. Now this works fine if the HQ and the troops are what you're after, for example the guard/SW combination where you want the wolf/rune priest to give your blobs ATSKNF and Grey Hunters are just icing on the cake. However, that's not always the case.

So while there are very good combinations with allies, I'd say that the restrictions on them put purists armies on a better footing overall.

IMO Top 5 armies benefiting from allies:
IG
Necrons
Orks
Tau
Eldar/DE

IMO least benefiting armies from allies:
Nids
GK
SW
DA
BA

Notice the trend here. Xenos armies benefit more from allies then space marine armies. Most space marine army books are relative self sufficient while the xeno's armies more or so favor a certain thing they are good at. However, I cant seem to name a dex that could not build a stronger TAC without allies. If so name that combo.

The answer to the OP's question is neither, as what the allies consist of will determine the answer, and will vary from case to case. For example pure Grey Knights are better than GK/SM, but SM/Guard are better than pure Space Marines. Specific combos are usually very important in making such allies work though.

Well playing SW I prefer no allies below 2000. At 2000 IG really enhance the army although straight up SM can work. That said a competitive list can be made at even 2000 with pure SW. SW's weakness is flyers but with enough MLs and a quad gun it can be done.

I think my IG really helps out my deamons. Screamers and flamers are real mean, but they are not troops. Guardsmen give me cheap bodies that are scoring units, 10 of them for the price of 2 screamers.

 schadenfreude wrote:
I think my IG really helps out my deamons. Screamers and flamers are real mean, but they are not troops. Guardsmen give me cheap bodies that are scoring units, 10 of them for the price of 2 screamers.

CSM are even cheaper and can get FnP guys.

As a broad statement, neither is stronger than another, however I'm inclined to prefer purist armies because it is often better to focus on doing one thing well rather than trying to do a little bit of everything. The only times I would suggest taking allies are when some number of these criteria are met:

Whatever you want the allies for can be satisfied by their troops and/or HQ choice.
You want the allies to suplmenent some element of your army to make it better (ie, Taking Rune Priest with blob Guard)
You need the allies to deal with a specific type of target your opponent may bring (note: this isn't for doing something like bringing allied Orks because your Tau can't fight in close combat, as you can still respond to that unit by just shooting it. This is for when an army has NO response to a specific unit type what-so-ever, such as Orks bringing allied Tau Broadside Suits to deal with AV13/14, or SW bringing allied vendettas to answer fliers).
Allies effectively offer a better version of a unit that you want from your codex (ie, DA and GK have scoring terminators, so you would want to bring allied DA with your C:SM over your own Terminator Squads)

Army with carefully chosen allies that maximizes synergy between the two forces and effectively treats the allies like a bonus fast/heavy/elite slot > pure army > army with poor use of allies.

I don't know, whats better, yellow or purple? Impossible to say really. Some lists benefit from allies. Other lists just have their effective parts diluted by them.
Example: Tau suck in assault, true. But getting some assault allies isn't always the best thing. To do that you're spending less points on great shooting, and making the Tau shooting less potent. You don't always want to be spending points on a phase if you can just compensate for somewhere else.

Farseers seem to be a near universal good ally though. They are just good force multipliers to most armies that can take them.

 felixcat wrote:

Well playing SW I prefer no allies below 2000. At 2000 IG really enhance the army although straight up SM can work. That said a competitive list can be made at even 2000 with pure SW. SW's weakness is flyers but with enough MLs and a quad gun it can be done.

Why even take the Quadgun?

At 2k, you can take 6 Squads of Long Fangs, 5 units of Grey Hunters in Rhinos (3 melta sets, 2 plasma sets), and 2 Rune Priests.

30 Krak Missiles flying around? God damn.

This question makes me squirm.

I'm sure there are some allied lists that are pretty potent and some one codex lists that perform well, I don't think it's easy to make a dumb blanket statement like that.

If I'd have to fall into the black and white of it, I'd say lists willing to use allies have potential that "pure" lists do not. If there are things worth taking advantage of, by all means go for it. People who want to play allied or pure for the sake of it feel like people who make fluffy lists or people who only want to make foot lists. It's a whole new game, maybe not in your environment, and I won't say I don't miss the old character and division of it, but there is a lot more to think about now.

I for one hope I get to see more 1750 no allies tournaments at my hangouts. I've got to say though, when your army can benefit from what an HQ and a troop or two brings to the battlefield while only giving up something it was doing poorly, why not?

I find my Orks do not benefit well from allies. I tried using Tau allies before and it just didn't work very well. I think this stems from the concept that orks anti tank solution is a PK, and you generally want to crack open tanks from range. I decided to go with the ork solution over the tau allied one and found the army a bit more predictable. Ork shooting is also better at taking care of anti air as volume of fire works better than precision fire. also, tau shooting sucks almost as bad without markerlight assitance (bs 3 isnt all that better.)

Tau dont need melee allies either if you work it right, you can do the angry wanda again in an odd way (disembarking shooting then flying the devilfish over the troops as its 6" flat out move) and eldar allies can make for devastating results. (farseer and dark reaper squad with an ILC getting two shots tl'd) Though tau do benefit from allies greatly, I think Eldar are their better choice.

Nids are best pure.

As has been said (I think)
It very much depends on what army, what build of that army, etc.

Personally - I'll be doing Eldar Allies with my DE while I build up my Eldar, I'll be doing a Slaaneshy Daemons allied force for my CSM... I don't know how well they do, it's just for fun.

Then there's my silly allied-detachments I'll be doing, such as Adeptus Orhodontus (500~pts and a £10 budget, because Chain Brushes are funny), a small GK detachment, mostly for the sake of monkeys... iunno, there's more but not in the forefront of my brain atm.

Alright what would you all say would be the strongest alliance then and explain why. So far I have had a good amount of success with both:
IG/SW and surprisingly IG/SoB

Normally a list that doesn't take allies does better, unless the allies taken provide something the main army doesn't have, such as psy defense.

The strongest alliance is fking nercons and GK, and it's stupid on top of that.