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.

Every time I play a game involving allies I always think that they took something that is a neat idea from WHFB, removed all the non 40k relevant stuff, and condensed it down to one page. I feel as though it's largely incomplete. So I saw this forum and thought why not give it a shot, and see what others think.

*Allies Detachment can never be more points than the Primary Detachment they are brought with. ALT: Or Allies can never make up more than XX% of your total force.
*Special/Named Characters can not be included in an Allied Detachment. They are too busy/important leading their own forces. ALT: Special/Named Characters cannot join Allied units, they are too important to risk...(You get the idea)
*Codex specific Wargear/Options doesn't extend to allied models in mixed units, they don't have the training or are unfamiliar to benefit from them.
*Characters that modify the FOC of units should only apply to the Detachment, and not the 'army'. (New Books are addressing this, but not hard to fix for everything else)

NONE of these are game breaking. Just seeing an Eldar Detachment of Eldrad, 10 Wraithguard, and some Fire Dragons in a Wave Serpent, or Draigo, 10 Paladins, Stormraven and DreadKnight all showing up to 'help' whatever army you're bringing these for seems off. On a 1500 pt game these could easily be over 1/2 your points. At what point do you think that you're really playing Eldar, but don't like any of the other Troop Choices. While plausible, It seems odd that allies would agree to commit to a battle that the primary force isn't committing an equal force to as well? Are you really playing the lesser 1/2 as your 'Primary' detachment when you're relying on your allies to do all the dirty work, while your Primary Detachment sits back on the objectives and watches the show? The Wargear thing would just be to settle how the two interact, instead of any debate every time a new codex comes out and needs to be discussed. Yes, this would include the new Dark Angels Codex and whether or not the 'Fearless' part of the Inner Circle rule would extend to any attached characters, etc.

*Why not allow Tyranids to ally with themselves?

There are a few 'funny' allowances on the table as to who are allies and who aren't. The one fix that could be done here that I really hope they fix when they get around to the new Dex, is Tyranids. They don't have any allies, which they shouldn't since they want to eat everything. From a player side, they're losing out having access to those additional slots (HQ,2 Trp, 1 Eli/Fst/Hvy), that every other army HAS access to. I have a soft spot for the bugs since they were my first army back in 2nd, and Im not sure if this would break them or not. Allowing them to have that extra Hive Tyrant, or Tervigon, would allow them more flexibility to accurately represent a swarming invasion race. Especially since their enemy is allowed to team up against them.

So there it is, my first 'proposed rule' thoughts! Thx for reading!

I think personally tyranids should be allowed to ally with imperial guard, to better represent a genestealer cult or some kind of mind control spores taking over the enemy.

I agree with that as well, but I also think that the Eldar/Dark Eldar shouldn't happen, while Im surprised that 'he that shall not be mentioned' didn't make Necrons and Blood Angels Battle Brothers for the 'Fist Bump' picture and story. I decided to leave that bit out as they have their reasons. Just feel bad that SW w/Allies can run 8-10 HQ's on 2k, while Nids are stuck with just the 4. It's not so much the HQ's it's the access to additional Scoring Troops that makes me feel real bad for em.

I like your idea for the Tyranids and would happily try it out (but I have yet to play against a Tervigon spam list even without allies )

Personally I think the swapped the charts for BA and BTs. If you look at it the allies for BA would make way more sense if they were for the Templars (no Xenos, a better relation to SoB).

I also think that the BB between DE and CWE is to represent a Corsair force without having you to use IA.

I actually really like this idea. I never really understood why people would take more stuff in their allies than their primary. At that point, you might as well be playing the other codex.

At first glance, I would allow Nids with IG. But, the more I think about it the less right it becomes. While it would allow fluffy Genestealer Cults (and if someone showed up to me wanting to play a Genestealer Cult involving allies, and it actually had mostly Genestealers and IG infantry I would allow it), you would get those people that would abuse the "WE CAN ALLY WITH IG NOW" thing that so many people seem to do. Especially since strong ranged support is a exactly what the Tyranids seem to be missing

EDIT: Dangit, hit the submit too soon. But I put my stamp of approval on all of this,and I would allow Nids to ally with MOAR Nids. That just makes sense hahaha

Nids can only eat living materal so they would not attack necrons so mabey desperate allies nids necrons.

wargey wrote:
Nids can only eat living materal so they would not attack necrons so mabey desperate allies nids necrons.

Nids can eat metals.

Humans have metal in them.

They eat organic matirals

On the fluff side for Tyranids / Guards :
There should definitely be some kind of Genestealer cult army, one guy at my FLGS plays one and it's fine (basically some IG units and genestealer broods + broodlord= patriarch & magus = Psyker Primaris)
But the genestealer cult is supposed to destabilise and weaken the planet's defenses and not fight alongside the Tyranid swarm
If the cult manages to wrest control of the planet from the imperium (or Tau / Orks, Chaos / whatever for that matters ...), they'll simply be happily digested by the swarm when it arrives
So they fight for the same "greater food", but they don't happen to fight alongside each other

I feel like the solution to Allies and choices should come from SC's, there should be certain SC's that allow certain allied detachments.

IE: A Genestealer SC could enable Guard as an Ally.