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Just a point for discussion.

I don't personally use them but if I was to play a doubles type game or some campaign I would think they were alright.

I have made some amendments to the poll in hindsight.

Not yet, but I'd quite like to. IG or Red Hunters (FW Space Marines) would go nicely with my SoB.

I hate the allies chart with a vengeance.
I'll let anything slide in a doubles game however, anyone can ally with anyone in those in my opinion.

Your poll has some errors in it. You should probably just go with:

Yes
No
Other

Not until i finish painting at least two of my armies.

Will probably do some inquisition stuff on an eventual scale if that would be considered allies (or just GK)

I've recently build up an ally detachment of Salamanders, for my Tau and Dark Angels.

The biggest reason I did this: Is that I had gotten a Vulkan and an ironclad dread as part of a lot of minis I bought. So I added a tactical squad, a stormraven and stormtalon, and have myself a nice fluffy "relief force" of all the guys they could shove into a stormraven with an escorting stormtalon.

I like fielding a CSM/CD or CD/CSM force. Feels like I get some more options to round out my army, fluffwise and rule wise. I've been toying around with an allied detachment of IG for either as well as I'd like to model and field some traitor guard. So it's not entirely fluff and not entirely for the rules, but a bit of both.

No, I hate the allies mechanic of sixth edition and would just prefer it was removed from the game.

The only time I see allies as acceptable is in games with >2 players and that is less of allies and more of 'this game is just for fun so we are going to have x and y army fight on the same team regardless of what fluff or rules say.'

I used the rules a lot before the new books came out for Space Marines and Tau. I ran an allied force of pre-heresy marines with Tau and had a good time with it. Put a bit of a story twist to it and had fun.

I love the allies system in theory but in practice it is mostly a joke because it is exploited for all its worth. Of course, I haven't played a game of 40K in about... a year since I couldn't stand playing against early 6th flyer spam.

Yes. It's a nice way to make your force stronger and I like swapping and getting tactics.

I'll use them in most games, purely because it allows me so much more variety in my lists. Almost all my armies are BB anyway, but even if they weren't, I'd avoid anything non-fluffy. GK and SM make sense as AOC, as do DA and SW, but I'll still play that as it's stiff fluffy.

So in a word: Yes. Because it's cool, fluffy and fun.

I use them at whim.

More and more now because I can play tested some armies before buying them.

None of my current lists that I have been using since the eldar book was re-done have allies.

The only reason I took them was for runes of warding.

For now I have a single army (CSM Emperor's Children). I might eventually start collecting another army as allies for them, either Chaos Daemons or (Traitor) IG, but at this point in time I think it's unlikely. When I and my gaming friends want to use more than one army per side, we simply play 2v2.

I use allies, but typically only sense making allies.

Only for large games usually. Sub 2k I like to just go mono DA

I love the allies rules simply because it allows me to buy a few models to paint from an army, without having to invest an arm and a leg. I know it was a good way for GW to make money, but I've really enjoyed it this edition and hope they keep it in the next one.

I use Allies for two reasons: To cover weaknesses in my army and for story purposes. So, really a mix of fluff and crunch.

Well, three reasons. I also use them to field an army before I really can have it at full strength to get a feel for it.

I chose no I don't want to.

The ideal option to pick would have been: sometimes and only if it is very fluffy.

I'm interested in the new inquisition codex, it should add a whole new realm of fluffy options to imperial armies.

Not that every game I play is fluffy, I'm guilty of playing imperial vs imperial and so on, which is unnavoidable unless a friend has multiple armies. I would generally prefer to play fluffy games at least in the context of which forces are fighting eachother. With that said, I wish the allies rules weren't in the core game. I deeply wish there was more compartmentalization going on in the rules. I would prefer it to work like an expansion, you obviously have to discuss with your opponent and ask them if they want to play cities of death or planetstrike. I wish allies worked the same. I think allies have greatly contributed to reducing the enjoyment of tournaments. It's a race to the bottom, even the people who don't like allies may end up using them if they find they just can't compete without compromising their posiiton on allies. The same could be said with fortifications. I would rather reserve allies and fortifications for specific narrative games.

I would much rather it worked along the lines of "do you want to allow allies this game?" as opposed to me having to say "can we play just one codex this game?".

It's much how I feel about fortifications, I would rather it was something both player collectively decided on using like forgeworld, rather than something an opponent feels entitled to use every game. Allowing all this crap in the core game is good for GW's bottom line but not much else.





It's like ordering a burger at a fast food place, I hate having to ask that certain toppings not be put on (no pickles, no onions), rather than start at a plain burger and bun and go from there. Round here, we tend to choose warlord traits, tend not to play with fortitifcations or allies and certainly no random terrain or objectives. We call it 40k light, still tastes great but 33% less fat.

I use allies because nothing irritates the fluff monkeys like running Karandras in a unit of Incubi led by Drazher.

Allies weren't done well in my opinion. First I don't like the extra FOC slots. Allies if they took away from the main FOC so you are not getting extra slots to power game with would have been fine to me. I think the chart is a little off as well To many battle brothers. I see SM's and IG battle brothers, but not SM's and Tau. Many Xenos armies really shouldn't have Battle brothers Eldar don't like anyone neither do Orks, Dark Eldar, or Necron, they would work together to stop a bigger threat but that's about it. but I could go on for a while about the chart so I will cut that short. In the end the whole you can ally Black legion to CSM's for a 4th helldrake or I ally Iyandin with Eldar for a forth Wraith Knight is dumb. Allying Should be for story purpose not to enhance the number of the same model you can take.

I really enjoy adding some CSM allies to my Daemons to help create a more story-driven theme to my games.

Right now, I've got a small group of Fallen Angels who's motives are entirely unknown...
Then there's the CSM Daemon Prince who is waiting to be 'awakened' and released from his prison, alongside his Thousand Sons groupies.
Or else I can bring in a Daemon engine and Warp Talons. (yes, I use Warp Talons... but mine get a 2++ save so there! )
Pulling all the strings, (or are they?!), is a small detachment of the Alpha Legion led by their Sorcerer.

I'm even thinking of converting up a group of 'counts as' Black Templars to represent a last stand vs. the daemonic hosts, and maybe some Feral World Guardsmen who've come under the sway of a Radical Inquisitor. (because of course, they don't know any better! )

I love allies. My favorite change in the game. Ever. I love being able to expand into a new army one unit at a time, while still playing with my growing force. I like being able to forge a narrative with my own army, even if other people lack the mental flexibility to accept it. I've always wanted to have a couple of units from some armies, and to have just a little taste of many of them, and the Allies rules make that a legitimate option now.

I really like the allies mechanism. I regularly play CD+CSM, IG+SM, and CD/CSM+IG. I even a small allies only detachment of SoB (which I had never gotten to play for over a decade because I never intended to collect more than the HQs and a single sister squad).

For everyone that talks about power gaming and allies abuse. Did any of you play WAAC players in 5ed? There were basically 4 armies and builds that existed at all with little to no variation; BA jump priests, IG leafblower, SW long fangs, and GK. That was it. Now there are sevel combinations of armies which are very very good; IG/SW, Necron/CSM, CD/CSM, CD, IG/SM, Tau/SM, Tau/Tau, Tau/CWE, CWE/Tau, CWE, CWE/DE, SM/SM, SM/SW, DA/SM, Necron, and probably some I am not thinking of. All of these armies can and have taken GTs and are entirely capable of fighting on an even level with top level armies. How is going from 4 builds to 15+ builds a bad thing?

I also think there is a major misunderstanding of BB allies and what that means. In my mind they should be considered just trustworthy enough to be allowed into your units, ie America/France in the American revolution where Americans were convinced the French would turn on us and try to conquer us immediately afterward. Or American/USSR in WW2 where we were ready to turn around the next minute to fight each other but we trusted each other enough to have attache officers embedded. Allies of convenience are those who would not deign to ever join the other persons unit for any reason and desperate allies are stuff that if you look away from them they will try to steal your soul or convert you into a meat puppet. They probably should have named them differently and there are plenty of arguments that can be made of what the allies matrix should look like but I cannot fathom how any fluff bunny worth his fluffiness could ever hate a system that allows IG+SM and CSM+CD to be fielded. Heck I would go further and say that SM without IG above 500 pts is not fluffy and CSM with named characters committed to a fight should probably have some daemons. The worst offender is inquisition without IG support. What type of inquisitor doesn't hijack the local IG regiment?

I think it's fun. I have a half Imperial Fists / half Raven Guard army.

I think it was done with good intentions over all for gamers that want casual games or fluff games, Its a great way for players who like a model or two of an army but dont have the time or maybe money to buy the full army to add it in a little bit to their exsisting army.

However on the flip side of that it is abused by power gamers like it or not.

Maybe orkhead nailed it with them not adding FOC slots and just using them from standard FOC.

Overall A great addition to the game if it is maybe tweaked or tamed to prevent spamming etc etc. , I guess it depends how your meta uses it really.

 squall018 wrote:
I love the allies rules simply because it allows me to buy a few models to paint from an army, without having to invest an arm and a leg. I know it was a good way for GW to make money, but I've really enjoyed it this edition and hope they keep it in the next one.

In the immortal words of Archer, "Also, yes."

I have SM allies built and ready to roll, but I often use too many points of my primary (IG) to use them. I've seen allies used by others almost constantly. like Tau and Gk.... or Eldar and Tau.....