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This is a thought that I have had after theory crafting several times on what I am doing wrong in GK, that it seems like GW has been designing into the game that you need to take allies in order to have a complete well-rounded army. It just seems that with the exceptions of codices like SM and Eldar that a lot of armies have blatant holes they need to take care of. Some do have options to take care of it "in house" but adding in an ally certainly helps to fill that spot a bit better. What do you guys think? Am I just crazy or does it seem like GW is slowly trying to put into the meta that they want us to at least use two armies? Look at me as a GK player who used to have the Inquisition all to himself but now they have their own supplemental e-codex. The Legion of the Damned used to be just for SM but now, any Imperial Force can take them. I know from a narrative perspective it makes sense to split those but it does seem like they want us to be using multiple codices.

Nope, you are right. GW is pretty blatantly pushing the 'add allies to fill gaps in your preferred codex's FOC' angle.

After all, if they can get you buying models for a second or third army, you are just a short hop away from filling out those armies in their own right after you see more of their cool bits. If not, at least you bought a new codex and a bunch of models you probably otherwise would not have.

See, that bothers me because imo, GW doesn't need to force its fan base to buy a different army. Usually people just want something new after spending so much time with one army. I love my GK but still wanted to make an Eldar army to do things different every once in a while. Most guys at the shop I go have multiple armies as well even before allies. It is just subversive and I don't like it one bit.

I agree, they don't 'need' to prompt people to buy additional armies, but it is a pretty clever way to work it in. Not to mention it also opens design space for these supplements they seem to be releasing as of late, mini-codices that do not really stand on their own but attach nicely to any number of different army lists. Stuff like codex: inquisition and codex: imperial knights

I get it that they are pushing this whole "Forging a narrative" which is interesting considering this is a table top strategy game and not an RPG. Should the Inquisition be allowed to ally with other Imperial armies? Yeah, the books are riddled with how the Inquisition takes control of Imperial army, regardless of who they are.

The one problem is that not everyone plays for the fluff. I myself am a fluff fan and there are fluff reasons for my army as much as there is tactical reasons so some of the stuff doesn't really bother me like from a fluff stand point, Eldar allying with Inquisitorial for various reasons is interesting but from a balancing issue, that is whole other story. So I understand why people who play the game for the game get mad.

It is a business first and they are trying to make it more enjoyable at the same time and I feel like they painted themselves in a corner.

Well, maybe its like obsolescence built into products.

 Envihon wrote:
I get it that they are pushing this whole "Forging a narrative" which is interesting considering this is a table top strategy game and not an RPG. Should the Inquisition be allowed to ally with other Imperial armies? Yeah, the books are riddled with how the Inquisition takes control of Imperial army, regardless of who they are.

Too bad it isn't even very fluffy. The narrative is "inquisition takes control", not "IG commander conscripts some inquisitors to act as psyker slaves to make his artillery battery more accurate" or "Coteaz, lord of an entire sector, is assigned to meatshield duty to protect the Baneblade from deep striking melta". But somehow the first option is much less common than the other two...

And that is one thing that kind of bothers me and why they should balance the game for fluff reasons. People don't take the Inquisition because they want an Inquisitor leading their army, they do it because the amount support abilities they can get from an Inquisitor. It is more of a tactical decision. Balancing the game allows not only for tactical players to get what they want but they also allow for people to take fluffy armies and not to worry about how much their army is going to be hurt since they took fluff over tactics.

Example is I have a friend who plays CSM except he doesn't play much anymore because its not that CSM isn't competitive,it's that he hates how you have to play in order to be good with CSM.

 Envihon wrote:
I get it that they are pushing this whole "Forging a narrative" which is interesting considering this is a table top strategy game and not an RPG. Should the Inquisition be allowed to ally with other Imperial armies? Yeah, the books are riddled with how the Inquisition takes control of Imperial army, regardless of who they are.

The one problem is that not everyone plays for the fluff. I myself am a fluff fan and there are fluff reasons for my army as much as there is tactical reasons so some of the stuff doesn't really bother me like from a fluff stand point, Eldar allying with Inquisitorial for various reasons is interesting but from a balancing issue, that is whole other story. So I understand why people who play the game for the game get mad.

It is a business first and they are trying to make it more enjoyable at the same time and I feel like they painted themselves in a corner.

Forge the Narrative is rubbish anyways when the most popular army, Space Marines, can't fight each other without breaking the narrative and ignoring the fluff. At least you could maybe kinda explain IG vs. Marines or Inquisitors vs. anybody else, but Marine v. Marine breaks everything outside of the Badab War and the HH itself - you can only play "Who's the Heretic" so many times before it's just a lame, contrived scenario that doesn't even attempt to tell a story.

To be honest, armies have always had holes in their playstyle. It's kind of what defines one army compared to another.

Both Tau and Guard have a tough time in CC, but Guard is defined by an overall lack of mobility compared to Tau, while Tau lack in long range punch compared to IG.

That's a glass half empty approach, though. Armies could also be viewed as having a specific strength to work with. IG don't really need CC punch when they can blast stuff off the map. Further, they don't need much in the way of outside defensive measures since their stuff is reasonably cheap so you can just buy two.

I remember Andy Chambers addressing that issue in a Games Day seminar quite a few years ago.

He said; "I don't care if people complain about the Orks having no reliable long-range Anti-Tank. That is part of the Ork ethos, and people should just live with it".

If you buy two armies, you are spending twice as much on models,

in addition, you have to buy two codexes. Two supplements, even. Obviously this is an attempt at monetization first and foremost.

 Envihon wrote:

Example is I have a friend who plays CSM except he doesn't play much anymore because its not that CSM isn't competitive,it's that he hates how you have to play in order to be good with CSM.

Only a handful of good units in each and every codex....the first advice anyone says in Tactics subforum is to get rid of this unit or that unit. It's not right - telling people that they must use only one model type.

People say that Orks should buy a Stompa in order to be able to compete against an Imperial Knight, which counters and confounds any attempt at close range anti-tank in the Ork Codex (Initiative 1-2, Stomps, D weapon IDs). I don't want to buy a Stompa because Stompas are piss-ugly.

Likewise I don't want to buy allies, I want to play orks

That is virtually where I am at. I went to the tactics forum when my GK army was falling flat on the board and they told me to take henchman even though I never wanted to take henchman. All I wanted was an Inquisitor at the head of my GK army, for fluff reasons he doesn't work with henchman, only GK. But the advice was to drop most of the GK for favor of henchman and that is what I did with taking a heavy weapons team with Coteaz in a Chimera that sits across the board acting like we are IG or Tau.

I have gotten away with from that and instead I am doing Mordrak and a shunting army. I don't take a Librarian because of points and I want my Inquisitor in there even if he doesn't have a teleport homer. You know what? I have a lot more fun too.