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I don't understand this Allies craze, really.

For what little I've seen of 6th ed., I think the Tyranids will do just fine on their own.

Also, bear in mid that, at best, most xenos armies are going to be begrudging allies with pretty much anyone, so attempting to patch your army's weaknesses with allied troops might end up damaging your effectiveness in a myriad unexpected ways.

No way I'm taking a bunch of T:3 guys and a lumbering behemoth of a tank in exchange for morale penalties and who knows what other nasties.

Nids are going to be just fine. Namely through the flyer rules. However I get the feeling a new FAQ will help sweeten the deal.

clively wrote:Nids are going to be just fine. Namely through the flyer rules. However I get the feeling a new FAQ will help sweeten the deal.

Are Nids getting some cool new flyers (fliers?)? I don't currently have any in my army personally.

I'll gladly allow nids to have IG allies in my little 12 man club. Just no heavies or fast attack choices. But I will be surprised if genestealer cults don't get a nod in the next nid dex.

Ol'Dirty wrote:

clively wrote:Nids are going to be just fine. Namely through the flyer rules. However I get the feeling a new FAQ will help sweeten the deal.

Are Nids getting some cool new flyers (fliers?)? I don't currently have any in my army personally.

The harpy, not to mention there's new special rules for flying MC's like the Flyrant, who can do a 24" D3 + 1 strike on a unit, and fire 2 weapons afterwords.

ZebioLizard2 wrote:The harpy, not to mention there's new special rules for flying MC's like the Flyrant, who can do a 24" D3 + 1 strike on a unit, and fire 2 weapons afterwords.

Was being able to fire still ever confirmed?

And there's no guarantee that a Flyrant counts as a Flyer.
Also - that's two models in the dex. And neither ability you've mentioned is especially amazing - they're good, but not enough to make up for the fleet nerf, overwatch vulnerability, etc.

I'm still looking forward to 6th, however. I'll have fun regardless.

rigeld2 wrote:

ZebioLizard2 wrote:The harpy, not to mention there's new special rules for flying MC's like the Flyrant, who can do a 24" D3 + 1 strike on a unit, and fire 2 weapons afterwords.

Was being able to fire still ever confirmed?

And there's no guarantee that a Flyrant counts as a Flyer.
Also - that's two models in the dex. And neither ability you've mentioned is especially amazing - they're good, but not enough to make up for the fleet nerf, overwatch vulnerability, etc.

I'm still looking forward to 6th, however. I'll have fun regardless.

I never said the flyrant did, he counts as a faux flyer.

- Flying Monstrous Creature can make two mode of movement. One being 24" move, performing D3+1 "Vector Strike" on a single unit within the path and then shoot up to two weapons or run 2D6" in the shooting phase. However, it cannot assault or being assaulted unless it get shot and fall down from the sky first (can't remember how you fire at it, 6 only?) Should it fall from the sky, it will take S9 hit and can now be assaulted as normal.

Kanluwen wrote:

Zookie wrote:Do you think the tyranids will get some other kind of bonus to off set that they cannot take allies?

Why would they?

Tyranids are, quite frankly, the ONLY race in 40k which does not "ally" itself with anyone.

People keep pointing and shouting "But they should have done Genestealer Cults! Then Tyranids could have allies!".

No they could not have. Genestealer Cults are made up of random civilians and mutants; none of which currently exist in a rules format. They would not have the same stats as Guardsmen (they don't have the training for it), and would have even worse stats than the Conscripts/Penal Legionnaires.

Being under the psychic thrall of a xenos creature does not make you a competent soldier. It makes you cannon fodder.

That makes some sense...but ultimately, it's bull. It doesn't hold when you can have the double-whammy of a full detachment of Eldar Warlocks palling around with Black Templars who would sooner jump into a plasma reactor than breathe the same air as the xeno witches.

Theres examples of both stealer and mind-controlled forces being effective in fluff. Ciaphas Cain (HERO of the IMPERIUM!) has faced both, for one.

Not a nid player, but I think YES, they should have bent the rules a bit to give nids at least one aslly, for balance. They've done it before, for way, way worse reasons.

Sephyr wrote:

Kanluwen wrote:

Zookie wrote:Do you think the tyranids will get some other kind of bonus to off set that they cannot take allies?

Why would they?

Tyranids are, quite frankly, the ONLY race in 40k which does not "ally" itself with anyone.

People keep pointing and shouting "But they should have done Genestealer Cults! Then Tyranids could have allies!".

No they could not have. Genestealer Cults are made up of random civilians and mutants; none of which currently exist in a rules format. They would not have the same stats as Guardsmen (they don't have the training for it), and would have even worse stats than the Conscripts/Penal Legionnaires.

Being under the psychic thrall of a xenos creature does not make you a competent soldier. It makes you cannon fodder.

That makes some sense...but ultimately, it's bull. It doesn't hold when you can have the double-whammy of a full detachment of Eldar Warlocks palling around with Black Templars who would sooner jump into a plasma reactor than breathe the same air as the xeno witches.

Theres examples of both stealer and mind-controlled forces being effective in fluff. Ciaphas Cain (HERO of the IMPERIUM!) has faced both, for one.

Not a nid player, but I think YES, they should have bent the rules a bit to give nids at least one aslly, for balance. They've done it before, for way, way worse reasons.

Glad I'm not the only one open for making some fluff (so long as it's reasonable) and that also thinks BTs allies are ridiculous.

Sephyr wrote:

Kanluwen wrote:

Zookie wrote:Do you think the tyranids will get some other kind of bonus to off set that they cannot take allies?

Why would they?

Tyranids are, quite frankly, the ONLY race in 40k which does not "ally" itself with anyone.

People keep pointing and shouting "But they should have done Genestealer Cults! Then Tyranids could have allies!".

No they could not have. Genestealer Cults are made up of random civilians and mutants; none of which currently exist in a rules format. They would not have the same stats as Guardsmen (they don't have the training for it), and would have even worse stats than the Conscripts/Penal Legionnaires.

Being under the psychic thrall of a xenos creature does not make you a competent soldier. It makes you cannon fodder.

That makes some sense...but ultimately, it's bull. It doesn't hold when you can have the double-whammy of a full detachment of Eldar Warlocks palling around with Black Templars who would sooner jump into a plasma reactor than breathe the same air as the xeno witches.

"Alliances of convenience" do not mean people are palling around.
This same discussion was done when the Blood Angels/Necron thing went around, and it's still the exact same discussion. People are too focused on the word "alliance" and deciding to ignore the "of convenience" part.

Look at WWII. The United Kingdom and United States were allies with Russia. That doesn't mean we were palling around with them or saying "Oh Russia!" when we found out about how they were treating political dissidents within their country.

It means we had a common enemy who outweighed our differences and it was far more effective to keep them supplied while they kept that enemy busy.

There's examples of both stealer and mind-controlled forces being effective in fluff. Ciaphas Cain (HERO of the IMPERIUM!) has faced both, for one.

Ciaphas Cain is not fluff.

Really. It's not. It's a parody of Gaunt's Ghosts, putting it bluntly. I don't know how many times I have to say this, but Ciaphas Cain is a very "light-hearted" take on the 40k universe.

Not a nid player, but I think YES, they should have bent the rules a bit to give nids at least one ally, for balance. They've done it before, for way, way worse reasons.

Examples. Please give some.

Kanluwen wrote:
"Alliances of convenience" do not mean people are palling around.
This same discussion was done when the Blood Angels/Necron thing went around, and it's still the exact same discussion. People are too focused on the word "alliance" and deciding to ignore the "of convenience" part.

Look at WWII. The United Kingdom and United States were allies with Russia. That doesn't mean we were palling around with them or saying "Oh Russia!" when we found out about how they were treating political dissidents within their country.

It means we had a common enemy who outweighed our differences and it was far more effective to keep them supplied while they kept that enemy busy.

There's examples of both stealer and mind-controlled forces being effective in fluff. Ciaphas Cain (HERO of the IMPERIUM!) has faced both, for one.

Ciaphas Cain is not fluff.

Really. It's not. It's a parody of Gaunt's Ghosts, putting it bluntly. I don't know how many times I have to say this, but Ciaphas Cain is a very "light-hearted" take on the 40k universe.

Not a nid player, but I think YES, they should have bent the rules a bit to give nids at least one ally, for balance. They've done it before, for way, way worse reasons.

Examples. Please give some.

It doesn't matter is allies love each other or are just trying to survive the current engagement. All that matters is that you allow that for that battle/campaign theyr are working together or not.

spanking a bit off topic here, but the western powers were reasonably friendly with the USSR for the duration of WW2. Not just the 'Uncle Joe' stuff, but the average american GI and russian soldier knew barely anything about each other and certainly nurtured no deep-set animosity toward each other.

Here, we are talking about armies in which every single soldier, pilot, grunt and scrub has been raised on a litany of "HATE THE ALIEN" and "ABHOR THE WITCH" for millenia. Black Templars are not willing to tolerate their OWN psykers. I doubt even the most extreme ethnic hatreds we have seen in the real world can mirror the level of intolerance of even the most laid back SM chapter, honestly.

As for Examples, well, let's see. The 5th edition book's storyline section had a section describing how a mutant enslaved entire -planets- psychically, and hit death sent a wail through the Warp that burned out every Astropath in three segmentums.

Necrons. Changed from omnicidal killing monsters to a reviving necrocracy. I now see that they likely changed that BECAUSE the allies system was on the way. Remember that since Necrons didn't really die, they really had no reason to need an alliance, even for 'survival'. Now they are feuding lords who want the universe to recognise how awesome they are or get zapped.

Grey Knights, changed from grim specialists who went through such horror that they often refused to be entombed in Dreadnaughts so they could finally die and forget what they had seen; now an ace-of-all-trades, ever-winning army of incorruptible pure pureness spamming Dreads, with a leader routinely achieving the impossible in exile.

Orks, from tribal hooligans who went 'lookin' fer sumthin' ' when it was time to breed to an engineered, fungal ecosystem geared for war. (I actually like this one!)

And ultimately, the conflicts represented in 40K are not common occurrences. The Imperium is millions of worlds. Certainly they aren't being invaded and wrecked constantly. Do we think the Mymeara campaign was an example of something that happens often? They still wrote a FW book about it and even released a bunch of new models. Maybe an organized, trained PDF being subverted by Genestealer cults isn't normal. But then again, neither is a massive Dark Eldar incursion, or hoards of Chaos Daemons getting loose from the Eye of Terror. And I'm fairly sure the Grey Knights aren't engaged around the galaxy fighting everybody.

If 40K was about demonstrating "typical" battled in the 40K universe, the figures would consist entirely of PDF troopers, criminals, and minor xenos. There would be limited edition figs to depict Space Marines in various training poses and companion servitor models cleaning and servicing the power armor. However, the player base of 40K seems to desire more heroic, grandiose battles it seems.

Amaya wrote:Are there even set rules regarding how allies will work that we know of?

Yes, you must take 1 HQ and 1 Troop choice, which then opens up one slot each in Elite/Fast/Heavy.

Brothers in Arms = ICs can join allied squads, psychic powers work on everyone
Allies of Convenience = ICs can't join allied squads, psychic powers only work on their faction
Desperate Allies = as allies of convenience, plus any allied squads within 6" of parent list (and vice versa? not sure) must roll a D6 at the start of the turn, and on a 1 do nothing that turn.

Lobukia wrote:I'll gladly allow nids to have IG allies in my little 12 man club. Just no heavies or fast attack choices. But I will be surprised if genestealer cults don't get a nod in the next nid dex.

I would like that, something like an HQ system like the Orks, take X model as your HQ and you can take X unit as troops. Perhaps have various genestealer cult units that cannot be used at all unless you have some sort of Genestealer Cult HQ.

rigeld2 wrote:And there's no guarantee that a Flyrant counts as a Flyer.

Wasn't it said that flying monstrous creatures gained the require 6 to hit them benefit, and the ability to vector strike if they fly high? They're not strictly speaking flyers, but they gain some good benefits.

overwatch vulnerability

To be fair, this vulnerability means statistically losing two gaunts. More if they have a flamer, but flamers are already ungodly good against nids and people favour meltas in an effort to make an all comers list. Over watch doesn't worry me at all.

-Loki- wrote:

rigeld2 wrote:And there's no guarantee that a Flyrant counts as a Flyer.

Wasn't it said that flying monstrous creatures gained the require 6 to hit them benefit, and the ability to vector strike if they fly high? They're not strictly speaking flyers, but they gain some good benefits.

I haven't seen that confirmed just posited.

-Loki- wrote:

rigeld2 wrote:overwatch vulnerability

To be fair, this vulnerability means statistically losing two gaunts. More if they have a flamer, but flamers are already ungodly good against nids and people favour meltas in an effort to make an all comers list. Over watch doesn't worry me at all.

And if the gaunt that was getting you into combat was one of those two?
I've made base to base with just one model plenty of times (and then the enemy piles in to base the rest). With Overwatch those will end up being failed assaults and the unit will be stuck in the open to die.
That doesn't sound fun

rigeld2 wrote: I've made base to base with just one model plenty of times (and then the enemy piles in to base the rest). With Overwatch those will end up being failed assaults and the unit will be stuck in the open to die.
That doesn't sound fun

Combine that with random assault distances, and we're going to have a great time getting into close combat!

Do we even have an accurate allies chart yet? I have seen three different charts so far, but one was from Apoc, another was from a con game, and the third one was completely unsourced and looked conspicuously like someone's homemade excel sheet.

When 'crons can have allies, then so should 'nids. Genestealer cults = 'nuff said. And that's not even touching the very real possibility of GW simply saying "here's a retcon for you lol" like they did with the Necrons.

I'm also at a loss for why Templars are the one Marine Chapter the SoB are supposed to have a problem with. Say whaaaat?

It was confirmed that the team tourney one that has been posted around for a few months is the same as the new BRB one.

In other words, no Tyranid allies.

A few years back I played a team game with my tyranids allied with my friend's Tau. Though the game was fun to play, I felt a great ocean of emptiness marching alongside all those tasty fish! Haven't played a team game with my nids since!

Now I understand that from a competitive standpoint this new allied system could really hurt the nids, but I for one would rather find other methods to even the playing table than to ally myself with...prey.

The Tyranids may ally with the Space Marines, should the Hive Mind will it...

Tyranids might ally with Genestealer Cults (read: Guardsmen with tentacly squad leaders), Eldar (Farseer taking his new telepathically-dominated Carnifex out for a joyride), Dark Eldar (we're going to load all our splinter rifles with toxins that make the enemy smell like delicious candy to the 'Nids), Chaos Marines (Chaos-possessed 'Nids)...

It's limited by your imagination, really.

AnomanderRake wrote:Tyranids might ally with Genestealer Cults (read: Guardsmen with tentacly squad leaders), Eldar (Farseer taking his new telepathically-dominated Carnifex out for a joyride), Dark Eldar (we're going to load all our splinter rifles with toxins that make the enemy smell like delicious candy to the 'Nids), Chaos Marines (Chaos-possessed 'Nids)...

It's limited by your imagination, really.

For all of those but IG it's actually limited by fluff. The Shadow In the Warp screws with pskyers so bad I don't think they could (or have an example of) a pskyer being able to control a Nid through a false Hive Mind. It doesn't matter how sugar coated you are, it's the same biomass , and I don't think Chaos could possess Tyranids. Until I hear about a chaos possessed cow I'm going to assume that animals or at least creatures with only base instincts cannot be converted. However, a chaos cow would make the whole "Milk for the Khorne Flakes" joke a good bit funnier.

AnomanderRake wrote:It's limited by your imagination, really.

imho, it shouldn't just be limited by imagination .... but 'nids and Genestealer-IG makes a lot more sense than some other combinations that would be legal on that chart.

SoB and Dark Eldar? I'd like to see the story behind that.

Lynata wrote:

AnomanderRake wrote:It's limited by your imagination, really.

imho, it shouldn't just be limited by imagination .... but 'nids and Genestealer-IG makes a lot more sense than some other combinations that would be legal on that chart.

SoB and Dark Eldar? I'd like to see the story behind that.

The Dark Eldar are fighting against a planet full of Tyranids, trying to make their escape, when the Sisters land and start slaughtering the Tyranids. the sisters see nothing but enemies on the field, but since the Dark Eldar are not trying to kill the Sisters of battle, and the Tyranids are, they focus on the Tyranids because the Dark Eldar are not trying to kill them, and they are reluctant allies of convenience.

Flying monstrous creatures are confirmed.

Shame. Could have worked great with synapse. Fail synapse and you attack the nearest non-tyranid unit ...

rigeld2 wrote:

-Loki- wrote:

rigeld2 wrote:And there's no guarantee that a Flyrant counts as a Flyer.

Wasn't it said that flying monstrous creatures gained the require 6 to hit them benefit, and the ability to vector strike if they fly high? They're not strictly speaking flyers, but they gain some good benefits.

I haven't seen that confirmed just posited.

Dannyevilguy wrote:Which means everyone is forming these alliances in order to stop the Tyranid's mega-hive fleet that will have showed up in the fluff this edition.

What do you think? Any chance this theory is correct?

Most likely has to do with the fact that the Tyranids consume everything in their path without regard for "friends" or "enemies". A genestealer cult infests a planet and eventually calls to the hive fleet drawing it in. Once there the cult is consumed just as readily as all other life on the planet, even though the cult were the agents of the hive mind.

Most rational generals don't want to ally with a force that will try to consume them just as readily as any other target. Makes for shortlived alliances to be sure.

No big conspiracy or mega-hive fleet incoming...just the simple fact that Tyranids don't play with others at all...

I did suggest in another thread it might be interesting to run a PDF list (IG) with genestealer allies only to simulate a corrupted portion of a planetary defense force representing a genestealer cult in full ascendency.

Skriker

DeathReaper wrote:The Dark Eldar are fighting against a planet full of Tyranids, trying to make their escape, when the Sisters land and start slaughtering the Tyranids. the sisters see nothing but enemies on the field, but since the Dark Eldar are not trying to kill the Sisters of battle, and the Tyranids are, they focus on the Tyranids because the Dark Eldar are not trying to kill them, and they are reluctant allies of convenience.

Come on, they're Sisters. They would simply dig in and open fire on everyone.
The Allies rules do not represent a 1 vs 1 vs 1, they explicitly mean a 2 vs 2 with teamplay and army coordination.

If you want to use simple ignorance as a cop-out, that'd work with the Tyranids just as well. Or it would at least be equally stupid, but no worse.