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Mission Objective : Shatter the Alliance - 2 VP if you destroy all units from the allied or primary force detachments of your enemy.




It's easy. Non Invasive and rewards people for taking more balanced lists and also protecting their allies. No one is going to one to take one special character if they know welp, he dies I give up two victory points.

The scariest use of allies is sheltering them in Death Stars stacking special rules/Psychic Buffs.

This rule would go too far in punishing people who took allies for a thematic reason as well.

My fix:

Battle Brothers: The way in which the armies interact remains the same with the following exception:

No IC may join a unit from it's allies and no Psychic Power cast by a Psyker in one detachment may benefit a unit from another detachment.

You can still ally two armies together for thematic purposes or to cover a weakness inherent in your main army. (Ie. Drop Pod Marines in a static Guard army etc.)

You just can't use force multipliers in such abusive ways anymore.

 Eldarain wrote:
The scariest use of allies is sheltering them in Death Stars stacking special rules/Psychic Buffs.

This rule would go too far in punishing people who took allies for a thematic reason as well.

My fix:

Battle Brothers: The way in which the armies interact remains the same with the following exception:

No IC may join a unit from it's allies and no Psychic Power cast by a Psyker in one detachment may benefit a unit from another detachment.

You can still ally two armies together for thematic purposes or to cover a weakness inherent in your main army. (Ie. Drop Pod Marines in a static Guard army etc.)

You just can't use force multipliers in such abusive ways anymore.

That's basically how allies of convinience work. Like my orkses + ig where ig act as backfield pointholders and long-ranged firepower.

Here is how we fix the allies problem:

You may only take units from your own codex. If you want allies, do a multiplayer game you damn cheater.

Here's how we did ours.

Everyone can be battle brothers with anyone else, no exceptions.

If everyone is broken and overpowered, no one is.

 koooaei wrote:

 Eldarain wrote:
The scariest use of allies is sheltering them in Death Stars stacking special rules/Psychic Buffs.

This rule would go too far in punishing people who took allies for a thematic reason as well.

My fix:

Battle Brothers: The way in which the armies interact remains the same with the following exception:

No IC may join a unit from it's allies and no Psychic Power cast by a Psyker in one detachment may benefit a unit from another detachment.

You can still ally two armies together for thematic purposes or to cover a weakness inherent in your main army. (Ie. Drop Pod Marines in a static Guard army etc.)

You just can't use force multipliers in such abusive ways anymore.

That's basically how allies of convinience work. Like my orkses + ig where ig act as backfield pointholders and long-ranged firepower.

True but I wanted Battle Brothers to stand alone from AoC due to the "treats allies as enemy units" entry. It seems wrong that Rune Priests would be dispeling Librarians powers etc.

 BaconCatBug wrote:
Here is how we fix the allies problem:

You may only take units from your own codex. If you want allies, do a multiplayer game you damn cheater.

So my Traitor Guard/ monogod Daemon build, which is fluffy and a lot loss broken than many single codex combos would be banned, but the new all Knights army, Jetseer Council, or Screamerstar are totally legit and not cheating. Even though allies are every bit as legal under the official GW rules. Sounds like a fun group .

As far as the OP, it seems like an ok solution, although the easiest solution would actually be to just make everyone Allies of Convenience and let everyone ally with everyone. Whether the easiest solution is the best solution is a matter of opinion. It's not very fluffy, after all.

I saw mentioned somewhere that the simplest way to fix this was to degrade all Battle brothers down to allies of convenience. Having special rules apply accross races is the main problem and half the time makes no sense (would fighting along side vuklan hestan really make your standard issue flamer any better. And do Eldar troops really care about what an etheriel says?). This stops crazy combos but other than that no change. (and it stays fluff).

Yup drop all allies down to convenience. I'd even live with how that made my daemons work with my chaos marines if people wanted to go really hard on it.

Daemons and chaos marines, both types of Eldar. That sounds like the only ones that might deserve BB I thnk.

Provide incentive to not field allies in the form of special units, that is the best way to solve the allies problem.

My preferred rule is simply "Allies of any sort require permission from your opponent/the TO to use." Leaves them there for cheesedicks/themed missions but provides solid rules ground for someone to say "No Allies this game."

Hollismason wrote:
Mission Objective : Shatter the Alliance - 2 VP if you destroy all units from the allied or primary force detachments of your enemy.

It's easy. Non Invasive and rewards people for taking more balanced lists and also protecting their allies. No one is going to one to take one special character if they know welp, he dies I give up two victory points.

That's actually a really elegant solution to a problem that people have been moping about for a while, and it actually makes thematic sense. It's easy to imagine the backlash after the battle: "You traitorous scum, we agreed to help you and then you sacrificed our men for your own benefit!"

I'd suggest the following:

- Battle Brothers, 1 VP
- Allies of Convenience, 2 VP
- Desperate Allies, 3 VP

I thought about 0 VP for Battle Brothers, but then I remembered that Eldar are for some reason Battle Brothers with Dark Eldar and Tau. Really the ally chart needs a whole lot of fixing.

Are we speaking about fixing allies for competitive play? Or a way to create a more interactive method of including allies? In my mind, everyone can ally with each other in apocalypse games, so the allies chart is only really necessary for the smaller point games and even then, there could be apocalyptic style events happening at smaller points that force two factions to ally.

If someone wants to pull together a cheese list utilizing allies then more power to them, outside of those instances there isn't really much wrong with the Allies mechanic.

No IC may join a unit from it's allies and no Psychic Power cast by a Psyker in one detachment may benefit a unit from another detachmen

Because my powers of slaanesh cannot work on Slaanesh daemons..

Yeah no, stop trying to hurt my CD/CSM abilities even more, just keep IC's from being able to join and that's it.

Also the original idea is horrible because it makes things less thematic, CSM isn't able to sacrifice it's Traitor guard and instead are punished?

Ban Eldar, Tau and Daemons?

Martel732 wrote:
Ban Eldar, Tau and Daemons?

I still want to know what allies besides from Eldar/Tau are actually OP, which means it usually leads back to those two...

My suggestion;
~Allies of Convenience across the board. Allies matrix can burn in hell
~Allied troops use up slots in the primary detachment, still have minimum HQ+Troop requirement
~OP's Shatter the Alliance: -2 VP if all allied units wiped out

 TheSilo wrote:

Hollismason wrote:
Mission Objective : Shatter the Alliance - 2 VP if you destroy all units from the allied or primary force detachments of your enemy.

It's easy. Non Invasive and rewards people for taking more balanced lists and also protecting their allies. No one is going to one to take one special character if they know welp, he dies I give up two victory points.

That's actually a really elegant solution to a problem that people have been moping about for a while, and it actually makes thematic sense. It's easy to imagine the backlash after the battle: "You traitorous scum, we agreed to help you and then you sacrificed our men for your own benefit!"

I'd suggest the following:

- Battle Brothers, 1 VP
- Allies of Convenience, 2 VP
- Desperate Allies, 3 VP

I thought about 0 VP for Battle Brothers, but then I remembered that Eldar are for some reason Battle Brothers with Dark Eldar and Tau. Really the ally chart needs a whole lot of fixing.

I thought the whole idea was to put the breaks on battle brothers, not reward them vs other levels of alliance.

God knows my Orks/Daemons of Khorne don't deserve -3 VP whereas Tau/Eldar only take -1.

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Ban Eldar, Tau and Daemons?

I still want to know what allies besides from Eldar/Tau are actually OP, which means it usually leads back to those two...

Eldar+Deldar.

 Dakkamite wrote:
My suggestion;
~Allies of Convenience across the board. Allies matrix can burn in hell
~Allied troops use up slots in the primary detachment, still have minimum HQ+Troop requirement
~OP's Shatter the Alliance: -2 VP if all allied units wiped out

 TheSilo wrote:

Hollismason wrote:
Mission Objective : Shatter the Alliance - 2 VP if you destroy all units from the allied or primary force detachments of your enemy.

It's easy. Non Invasive and rewards people for taking more balanced lists and also protecting their allies. No one is going to one to take one special character if they know welp, he dies I give up two victory points.

That's actually a really elegant solution to a problem that people have been moping about for a while, and it actually makes thematic sense. It's easy to imagine the backlash after the battle: "You traitorous scum, we agreed to help you and then you sacrificed our men for your own benefit!"

I'd suggest the following:

- Battle Brothers, 1 VP
- Allies of Convenience, 2 VP
- Desperate Allies, 3 VP

I thought about 0 VP for Battle Brothers, but then I remembered that Eldar are for some reason Battle Brothers with Dark Eldar and Tau. Really the ally chart needs a whole lot of fixing.

I thought the whole idea was to put the breaks on battle brothers, not reward them vs other levels of alliance.

God knows my Orks/Daemons of Khorne don't deserve -3 VP whereas Tau/Eldar only take -1.

Fair enough. I only hesitate because it makes sense for Marines to be fighting aside Guard without a lot of negative consequences, but that reasoning would allow imperials to abuse the alliance system much more easily. I was trying to keep with the fluff, but 2 VP across the board might be best, and have the alliance penalties be enough.

Lol, Necrons are allies of convenience with Grey Knights and Chaos, but are Come the Apocalypse with Demons.

 Dakkamite wrote:
My suggestion;
~Allies of Convenience across the board. Allies matrix can burn in hell
~Allied troops use up slots in the primary detachment, still have minimum HQ+Troop requirement
~OP's Shatter the Alliance: -2 VP if all allied units wiped out

I agree with the first two. All allies are allies of Convenience and they use slots from your primary detachment. Meaning if you take Eldar with Tau allies you would have the following:

Eldar -1 HQ, 2 Troops
Tau - 1 HQ, 1 Troops

Remaining Army - 0-3 Elites/Troops/Fast Attack/Heavy Support

 ImotekhTheStormlord wrote:

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Ban Eldar, Tau and Daemons?

I still want to know what allies besides from Eldar/Tau are actually OP, which means it usually leads back to those two...

Eldar+Deldar.

I should have said Eldar & Tau rather then the slash, but it still involves Eldar, so the point somewhat stands that it's still part of those two

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:

No IC may join a unit from it's allies and no Psychic Power cast by a Psyker in one detachment may benefit a unit from another detachmen

Because my powers of slaanesh cannot work on Slaanesh daemons..

Yeah no, stop trying to hurt my CD/CSM abilities even more, just keep IC's from being able to join and that's it.

Also the original idea is horrible because it makes things less thematic, CSM isn't able to sacrifice it's Traitor guard and instead are punished?

While that would help it would still leave Divination/Runes buffing armies who are (supposedly) balanced around low ballistic skill (Tau mostly but also Guard to a lesser extent)

 Eldarain wrote:

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:

No IC may join a unit from it's allies and no Psychic Power cast by a Psyker in one detachment may benefit a unit from another detachmen

Because my powers of slaanesh cannot work on Slaanesh daemons..

Yeah no, stop trying to hurt my CD/CSM abilities even more, just keep IC's from being able to join and that's it.

Also the original idea is horrible because it makes things less thematic, CSM isn't able to sacrifice it's Traitor guard and instead are punished?

While that would help it would still leave Divination/Runes buffing armies who are (supposedly) balanced around low ballistic skill (Tau mostly but also Guard to a lesser extent)

Which is another problem considering Divination is one of the most powerful psyker paths, also tau based? They still have markerlights and guard can twin link things with orders.

I thought I had a pretty decent solution: steal from 2nd edition (I mean GW is already doing that anyways). Basically:

Allies follow all the restrictions already outlined in terms of the number of units they can take, but they count against your available slots for other units (so Desperate Allies troops actually eat into your potential available scoring unit slots).

Also for Tyranids: If the army contains at least 1 unit of Genestealers Tyranids may ally with Astra Militarium (aka Imperial Guard) as Battle Brothers.

Because Genestealer Cults exist and should be a proper thing on the table again.

If I ever run another tournament it'll likely use a 1 VP version of Shatter the Alliance. Best to keep it with the other secondaries rather than worth more IMO

I was trying to keep with the fluff,

Yeah unfortunately I think the only fair way is to make it across the board. Tournaments don't give a gak about fluff anyway, so people could just have an optional battle brothers rule for friendly games.

"Shatter the alliance" is a golden idea.

 Kain wrote:
Here's how we did ours.

Everyone can be battle brothers with anyone else, no exceptions.

If everyone is broken and overpowered, no one is.

This is probably the best solution. Allies are part of the game now, and people have built armies around them. It isn't really fair to punish them for taking allies just because they don't fit your version of the fluff. So instead, just let everyone ally with everyone and get rid of the ridiculous advantage imperial armies get from their tons of battle brothers options.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Kain wrote:
Here's how we did ours.

Everyone can be battle brothers with anyone else, no exceptions.

If everyone is broken and overpowered, no one is.

This is probably the best solution. Allies are part of the game now, and people have built armies around them. It isn't really fair to punish them for taking allies just because they don't fit your version of the fluff. So instead, just let everyone ally with everyone and get rid of the ridiculous advantage imperial armies get from their tons of battle brothers options.

Actual renegade marines with the tech they've stolen allying with actual chaos marines..

I like it, more.

Most problems with allies solve themselves if you play 40k as it was meant to be played - at the skirmish level. If you play at 750 or 1,000 points (which are the new 1500 and 1850), then allies become much less of a problem as you just don't have the points to ally two deathstars into each other, and the troops tax is actually meaningful.

It's only when you're playing at 1500+ points that allies become just as bonkersly weird as apocalypse.

Much of the remaining balance issues, at least, would be fixed from a simple change to make it so that allies use the primary detatchment's force org, rather than their own. Allying in tau+tau for four riptides is silly - if you didn't get the free, bonus extra FOC slots, then you wouldn't be able to do such obvious sillinesses.

But really, even that wouldn't be necessary if you just didn't have the points to buy that many riptides in the first place. Just stop playing apocalypse-esqe points values, and you'll stop having apocalypses problems (that includes the problems with superheavies as well).

In the dark future there is only war.















And under no circumstance should any faction friend or foe leave their commanding officers / HQ choice in any allied unit that aren't a direct extension of the same faction.

I.e: Imperial guardsmen leader in a space marine unit (why you would even... idk) OK!

Eldar far seer in a unit of Dark Eldar! NO!
=============================================

Would solve a lot of problems, most of the ab-usable cheese with allies are the most unrealistic, unlikely scenarios.