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Here's an idea for true fairness...

GT special rule: Win at all costs! All armies realize that this is the big one. The only priority is survival, and all allegiance is discarded... all armies treat all other armies as Allies of Convenience.

The OP's suggestion is a less drastic version of that, though, allowing some benefits of battle brothers, but just not the joining of characters to allied units. That'd be my preference over straight-up allies of convenience, personally.

@Yakface

I see where you're coming from on the background not matching what you're seeing but it would limit what I'm loving right now which is designing an army from the ground up and matching up the allies to make it a single cohesive force. A few examples would be Mechanicus, Blood Axe Orks, Lost & the Damned, Tau Expeditionary Forces, New Alien Races, Exodite Eldar. All of those can be built to accommodate the background visually with almost any mix of allies.

The list on paper won't look like anything from the "fluff" but the actual tabletop will.

 Hulksmash wrote:
@Yakface

I see where you're coming from on the background not matching what you're seeing but it would limit what I'm loving right now which is designing an army from the ground up and matching up the allies to make it a single cohesive force. A few examples would be Mechanicus, Blood Axe Orks, Lost & the Damned, Tau Expeditionary Forces, New Alien Races, Exodite Eldar. All of those can be built to accommodate the background visually with almost any mix of allies.

The list on paper won't look like anything from the "fluff" but the actual tabletop will.

Brad, I wish everyone were like you . Sadly they aren't! No sarcasm was used in the posting of this message.

 Hulksmash wrote:
@Yakface

I see where you're coming from on the background not matching what you're seeing but it would limit what I'm loving right now which is designing an army from the ground up and matching up the allies to make it a single cohesive force. A few examples would be Mechanicus, Blood Axe Orks, Lost & the Damned, Tau Expeditionary Forces, New Alien Races, Exodite Eldar. All of those can be built to accommodate the background visually with almost any mix of allies.

The list on paper won't look like anything from the "fluff" but the actual tabletop will.

Two things:

You're one of the few people who actually goes out of their way to create armies that have a coherent tabletop theme regardless of what the rules you're using 'under the hood'. If everyone did that, maybe I wouldn't mind so much.

But more importantly, removing battle brothers from the game doesn't prohibit any of the things you describe above. Makes those combos less attractive in some cases, for sure, but they're all still possible. Like I said in one of my posts above, It's the joining of the IC battle brother to an allied unit to combo a special rule that the army can't get that's the really big issue. I also personally think it helps make the game worse allowing sub-codexes to ally with their parent codex as a way to spam even more of the same unit into the army.

Those are the two things I'd personally like to see removed to help put some theme back into the game, while still allowing allies in general to exist so that players can realize some of those fluffy army combos.


But certainly if I had to choose between no allies at all (losing those fun pairings you mention as part of that deal) or dealing with what we have now (Tau Buffmanders joining Dark Reaper units...wtf???), I'd prefer the former. And I recognize that I'm in the minority, but that's why I'm just not attending tournaments anymore (this may even be my last Adepticon this year). I just do not enjoy what the game has turned into.

What about allowing BB and ICs to join their battle brother units, but the only thing they bring with them is their leadership.

I think this will allow some cinematic pairings like a marine taking charge of IG defenders to lead them to victory, but prevents the broken combos. I'm not quite sure how the buff mander can upload his targeting data to a unit of centurions. Or how one dude's helmet powerfield is protecting a whole platoon.

 yakface wrote:


Two things:

You're one of the few people who actually goes out of their way to create armies that have a coherent tabletop theme regardless of what the rules you're using 'under the hood'. If everyone did that, maybe I wouldn't mind so much.

But more importantly, removing battle brothers from the game doesn't prohibit any of the things you describe above. Makes those combos less attractive in some cases, for sure, but they're all still possible. Like I said in one of my posts above, It's the joining of the IC battle brother to an allied unit to combo a special rule that the army can't get that's the really big issue. I also personally think it helps make the game worse allowing sub-codexes to ally with their parent codex as a way to spam even more of the same unit into the army.

Those are the two things I'd personally like to see removed to help put some theme back into the game, while still allowing allies in general to exist so that players can realize some of those fluffy army combos.


But certainly if I had to choose between no allies at all (losing those fun pairings you mention as part of that deal) or dealing with what we have now (Tau Buffmanders joining Dark Reaper units...wtf???), I'd prefer the former. And I recognize that I'm in the minority, but that's why I'm just not attending tournaments anymore (this may even be my last Adepticon this year). I just do not enjoy what the game has turned into.

I'm not sure your the minority, you may be online you are.

Any special rule prohibiting BB is just a buff to Eldar, because they still monobuild better than anyone else.

I'm not coming at this from being a tournament player, but from being a long time hobbyist and collector, but I'd like to agree with HBMC and amplify/expand on some of the stuff he has said.

I really like the idea of Allies. I appreciate it for the gamer and collector, and I appreciate it from the GW perspective. As a player, you can experiment with different armies and units. As a collector you can add things to your collection which 'fit' in your army, and as a modeler, you can do all sorts of interesting things. For a company, giving your customers encouragement to buy more things is just a great idea.

There seem to be two valid concerns. One is abusive/exploitative/broken/under-costed combinations, and the other is dire violence to the background. I agree that 'bad combos' are a problem, but I'd much rather be sure that the Alliances you see at a tournament are 'appropriate' for the 40K background. Combos will change and evolve as new rules come and go, but emphasizing the 'feel' of Warhammer should always be a goal, I think.

I'm wondering about fixes that would not ban allies or ban combinations, but also enhance the representation of the background on the tabletop.


Given that these are all 'rules-hacks', I don't see any reason to limit the idea to simple combination bans.


First, I think there needs to be a broader selection of ally conditions. To me, Battle Brothers is just that. These should be armies which have a deep level of trust, AND a strong shared set of equipment and tactics. It should be more than just being a trusted ally. For instance, Space Marines and Blood Angels might be Battle Brothers, but Space Marines and Imperial Guard would not, not because the Guard doesn't trust the marines, but because their technology and tactics and command structure are so different. This would drastically reduce the number of Battle Brothers, because there would be only a few qualifying groups. Battle Brothers could still join allied units and share their special rules and abilities. I know that would still allow some evil combinations, but it would seem to stop a lot of them outright.

Then, below Battle Brothers, but 'stronger' than Allies of Convenience, would be trusted allies. These would be armies which have a strong level of trust, but don't share in tactical doctrine, or have cross purposes, or varying goals. They would be able to be joined by allied Independent Characters, but would NOT get to use shared special rules, Warlord Traits, Chapter Tactics, etc. They could still be counted as friendly units for allied psychic powers, but would have to roll to Deny the Witch (as they aren't as trusting or acclimated to being 'helped' by friendly pyschics). Most of your current Battle Brothers would move here. For instance, while the Imperial Guard might trust and idolize the Space Marines, they are still a bit wary of being teleported by Tigurius. I would probably even consider moving Dark Angels/Space Wolves to here (they are allies, but are not the best of friends!).

Then you could use Allies of Convenience and Desperate Allies as listed.


Second, I think that tournaments should possibly consider providing their own Ally Matrix. I still think the current one is too lenient (even without the Battle Brothers/Trusted Allies hack above) and this could enhance the gaming experience and possibly reduce the abusiveness. If Eldar and Dark Eldar weren't Battle Brothers, but, at best, Allies of Convenience, then a lot of their nasty hijinks would be diminished. Providing a custom Allies Chart doesn't seem to be much more work than providing the (awesome and extensive) ForgeWorld lists from Adepticon.

Third, I would really suggest the use of asymmetrical allies. Sure, the Allies chart is easy to read as is. but it wouldn't be hard to do this at all. Your allies would very depending on what your primary contingent was, vs. your allied contingent. This idea would assume that your Primary Contingent is the 'army in charge' on the ground, and your allies are the 'odd men out'. That doesn't have to be reflected in model count or points value, but it's the background assumption of the theme of your list. If IG is your Primary, and Dark Angels are your Allies, then, even if metric craptons of Terminators show up to help out a Lord Commisar and two squads of vets, it's the Dark Angels showing up to help an Imperial Guard action. It seems like, to me, that how you feel about your allies might vary if YOU are the boots on the ground, or you are a relief force/reinforcements/fortunate happenstance. This would also allow you to represent forces that don't fully trust allies who idolize them, or forces that behave differently when they have the upper hand.

For example, while the Imperial Guard might be Battle Brothers with allied Sisters of Battle (they all share the same equipment and tactics and the Sisters are beloved of the Emperor), the Sisters might only be Trusted Allies with allied Imperial Guard (the guard are sinful and impious by comparison). Similarly, while Space Marines might welcome Allied Grey Knights with open arms (Battle Brothers), a force of Grey Knights might only regard the Space Marines as Trusted Allies (given the GK's penchant for working at their own, opaque agenda).
For another example, a huge ork army, happy to make use of some convenient mercenaries, might regard the Imperial Guard as allies of convenience ("We's not worried about that lot. We outnumber them a hunnert to one). On the other hand, an unscrupulous Imperial Guard commander might watch his Blood Axe allies very closely ("Keep an eye on the orks, Sergeant. See that they observe their place in this war.")

Other than the addition of Trusted Allies (which would be optional---since you could just downgrade a Battle Brothers listing to Allies of Convenience), all of this is just an alteration to the Allies Chart. it seems like it would be an easy thing to post for your tournament ("Here's the Allies Chart that we will be using.") and doesn't nitpick particular combos. It also could be used to quash problematic team-ups (which I am less exerted about) or to help underscore the existing 40K background (which I am more excited about).

 yakface wrote:

GW has said time and time again that the rules for the game are there for the players to use as their own. If you like certain rules, use them, if you don't like other rules, don't use them. They have now really kicked that concept into high gear and are challenging everyone to decide what type of 40K game they are interested in playing. If the answer is: a competitively balanced one, then you're going to need to take your pruning shears to the hedge that is the current set of 40K rules and carve that game out yourselves.

Also, I love this. While I wish (futilely) that GW would be a little more concerned with competitive balance, HBMC is right. They aren't. Not now, and not likely in the future.


We need to pull our heads out of the sand and realize that we don't have to pick between abandoning 40K and playing the game that GW shows in White Dwarf. Not only can (and should) tournaments take control of this, we also need to realize it as players.

Just because GW includes Apocalypse/Escalation/Giant Models/Flyer, doesn't mean that every board and every scenario has to be friendly to all of those things. Just because GW makes the Helldrake doesn't mean that you can't do a battle set in a Space Hulk, or a dense city board. Heck, Forgeworld MAKES Zone Mortalis boards, and those are off-limits to flyers, Lords of War, and a lot of walkers and vehicles.It's not attacking your local CSM player (or IG player) by playing games which don't allow them to use their fliers (or their Knights).

By assuming that every board needs to be so large and open that vehicles/walkers/Monstrous Creatures/Flyers can easily be deployed on it, we are prioritizing those models. It's not much different than making all of your games on tables with no LOS blocking terrain, which prioritizes your shooters. If people knew that some games wouldn't literally accommodate Heldrakes/Valkyries/Vendettas/Battlewagons/Wraithknights, then maybe you'd see less armies spamming them.

I understand that you need to know what to bring when you are playing in a tournament, but I'm not sure what's wrong with a tournament saying, for example, one of your tables may be set in a Space Hulk, so here's the rules for that. Another may be set in dense Cityfight Ruins. You will be allowed a 500 pt sideboard which can be swapped out between tables.

Everything goes is GW's mantra, but it isn't a rule.

 Asmodai Asmodean wrote:
Any special rule prohibiting BB is just a buff to Eldar, because they still monobuild better than anyone else.

I actually agree with this 100%, which is why I propose to allow BB to still cross streams with powers to even things out a bit. All I propose is to shut down the absurd unit combinations you get when you pile in a bunch of special rules into a unit. I have no interest in banning things because I think the other guy's army isn't sufficiently fluffy.

There is general agreement that playing against unkillable deathstars, or death stars that can remove units with no possible save, simply isn't any fun. I agree. Win or lose, it is no fun. My proposed house rule solves the problem without coming down too harshly on some of the fun army combinations. It is also one very simple rule that everyone immediately understands, and doesn't complicate things.

Yeah, you lose out on the ability to join IC's to units that don't lead to ridiculously OP combos, but the game is not significantly diminished if Marneus Calgar is not allowed to lead his plucky band of Kroot like he did that one time in that one book.

Fun is what you make of it. If you tarpit the Deathstar, bait it, or negate its effectiveness in form and still win, that's fun.

If you whine about a 2+ rerollable, and then run your entire gunline in multi-charge range and lose, you won't have fun.

Finding strategies to beat the current meta, that's fun.

 Asmodai Asmodean wrote:
Fun is what you make of it. If you tarpit the Deathstar, bait it, or negate its effectiveness in form and still win, that's fun.

If you whine about a 2+ rerollable, and then run your entire gunline in multi-charge range and lose, you won't have fun.

Finding strategies to beat the current meta, that's fun.

Tarpitting a unit that has Hit and Run plus high initiative is pretty tough.

 yakface wrote:

But certainly if I had to choose between no allies at all (losing those fun pairings you mention as part of that deal) or dealing with what we have now (Tau Buffmanders joining Dark Reaper units...wtf???), I'd prefer the former. And I recognize that I'm in the minority, but that's why I'm just not attending tournaments anymore (this may even be my last Adepticon this year). I just do not enjoy what the game has turned into.

You're definitely not alone in that sentiment or opinion. Stuff that previously was the domain of apocalypse and/or "group" games of 2v2 or 3v3 is now part and parcel of the standard 1500-2000pt game and I don't personally think it's been a change overall for the better. Other than random charge distances and wound allocation, I do like the crunchy bits of the game they added/changed but the army construction part turns me off. I've only bothered to convert my Tau out of 5 armies to a 6th edition ready status.

All BB need to be Allies of Convienance. This game is not fun to play anymore with BB abuses and those abuses outweigh any small benefit someone can find.

DarthDiggler wrote:
All BB need to be Allies of Convienance. This game is not fun to play anymore with BB abuses and those abuses outweigh any small benefit someone can find.

So...why not just ban the most abusive of them instead of a blanket ban? That's still off to me.

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:

DarthDiggler wrote:
All BB need to be Allies of Convienance. This game is not fun to play anymore with BB abuses and those abuses outweigh any small benefit someone can find.

So...why not just ban the most abusive of them instead of a blanket ban? That's still off to me.

They are all abusive to one degree or another and you will never get consensus on what is truly abusive. It also prevents new books from introducing new BB, which haven't been specifically banned, from running amok.

So what is abusive about CSM + Daemons? Adding in a heldrake to a daemon army? Adding a lord of change and a winged prince into a triple drake army? MAKE IT STOP!
/sarcasm

...Or.... That isn't a bad thing. I would love to run Lucius in a unit of daemonettes, or a herald in a unit of mutliators, but alas, I cannot. So... yeah, ALL BB are so OP >.>

 Dude_I_Suck wrote:
So what is abusive about CSM + Daemons? Adding in a heldrake to a daemon army? Adding a lord of change and a winged prince into a triple drake army? MAKE IT STOP!
/sarcasm

...Or.... That isn't a bad thing. I would love to run Lucius in a unit of daemonettes, or a herald in a unit of mutliators, but alas, I cannot. So... yeah, ALL BB are so OP >.>

Nothing, and no one is suggesting that this sort of thing be banned.

Again, the ONLY thing being proposed (at least generally by most people) is eliminating the battle brother rules...meaning you can't join ICs into allied units and they don't count as being 'friendly' units for psychic powers and such.

This does not stop players from taking allied units that are fluffy or help to fill a tactical gap that their army lacks, which is all well and good (and generally fluffy as well). But what it does stop is those crazy stupid combinations to a large part that people take *solely* to create that rules loophole, not because they want to have CSM allying with Daemons.

And to the whole line of reasoning of: 'if you ban BBs then all of a sudden I can't have my SM commander running around in a guard unit anymore, and that's fluffy to do so.'

NOBODY is running around joining ICs to allied units to be fluffy in tournaments. The only reason people do this is to combo special rules that they can't get in their core codex.


And no, this is not a perfect solution. It still does allow certain deathstars that can be generated via a single codex left in the game, but it does go a long way towards correcting a core issue with the competitive game (that the high-level armies don't much match the game's background at all anymore).

No psychic powers buffing the others would hurt that combined army. At the LVO I ran a herald with a grimoire that was making a unit of possessed have a 3++. Not really that broken (I mean, they are POSSESSED, 28 pts for a 3+/5++, no guns). That IS a fluffy combo. I also have had that same herald give my possessed invisibility.

The whole "USR soup" that shows up in tournament play is pretty well restricted to the top 10%. Not saying I'm not competitive, or that only competitive people play those type of shenanigans, but removing even casting spells or using items on your allies (that usually fight together in fluff anyways) is kind of ridiculous anyways.

I like the OP's thoughts of just removing the fact that BB ICs can join the other allied detachment and vise-versa, and it removes a bunch of deathstar tools. What I don't like is the fact people are advocating for removal of BB period, not because it breaks my "killer" combo (which isn't that good to begin with because, you know, possessed....).

Without BB you can still have a 4+ rerollable to go seize, and all that other stupidity, but they are paying out their butts to make that combo work. The most complaints I see with BB are the USR soups, and that is easily alleviated by the OP's solution.

If we look at all the suggested changes to make the game more balance we've got the following:

1) No battle brothers
2) Space Marines can't ally with Space Marines
3) No Dataslates (including Be'lakor & Cypher)
4) No formations
5) No escalation
6) No stronghold assault
7) 2+/2++ re-rollable is always a 4+/4++ on the re-roll

This is a lot and the last one listed didn't seem to really hurt Jetseer Council in Vegas. I am okay with the last three but still it's a lot.

 Dozer Blades wrote:
If we look at all the suggested changes to make the game more balance we've got the following:

1) No battle brothers
2) Space Marines can't ally with Space Marines
3) No Dataslates (including Be'lakor & Cypher)
4) No formations
5) No escalation
6) No stronghold assault
7) 2+/2++ re-rollable is always a 4+/4++ on the re-roll

This is a lot and the last one listed didn't seem to really hurt Jetseer Council in Vegas. I am okay with the last three but still it's a lot.

So... basically 4th and 5th edition? That isn't a dig on it but the sentiment of people unhappy with 6e is pretty obvious. I would have included 3rd edition as well but chapter approved in WD was basically a print version of dataslates and caused just as much problems and arguments as the electronic version does. It went from "no permission" to "can't use without approval" in WD and most every tourney at that time pretty much excluded all of them. Expanding the game as an option like with cityfight and planetstrike is perfectly fine in my book by I don't want every single 40k game potentially turning into a mini-apoc battle.

 yakface wrote:

 Dude_I_Suck wrote:
So what is abusive about CSM + Daemons? Adding in a heldrake to a daemon army? Adding a lord of change and a winged prince into a triple drake army? MAKE IT STOP!
/sarcasm

...Or.... That isn't a bad thing. I would love to run Lucius in a unit of daemonettes, or a herald in a unit of mutliators, but alas, I cannot. So... yeah, ALL BB are so OP >.>

Nothing, and no one is suggesting that this sort of thing be banned.

Again, the ONLY thing being proposed (at least generally by most people) is eliminating the battle brother rules...meaning you can't join ICs into allied units and they don't count as being 'friendly' units for psychic powers and such.

This does not stop players from taking allied units that are fluffy or help to fill a tactical gap that their army lacks, which is all well and good (and generally fluffy as well). But what it does stop is those crazy stupid combinations to a large part that people take *solely* to create that rules loophole, not because they want to have CSM allying with Daemons.

When I'm trying to cast my Slaaneshi' daemons psyker abilities on my CSM troops or vice versa, it pretty much will hurt my army, and wouldn't be fluffy either, still fun to cast Hysterical Frenzy on a Daemonette group, get +1A and start tearing troops apart.

1) No battle brothers
2) Space Marines can't ally with Space Marines
3) No Dataslates (including Be'lakor & Cypher)
4) No formations
5) No escalation
6) No stronghold assault
7) 2+/2++ re-rollable is always a 4+/4++ on the re-roll

..So 4th and 5th edition again in terms of outside rules? I'd miss my dataslates, my formations and my BB.

I find it laughable that the complaint to not allow BB is that unoptimized combos can't be used. Then why the hell do you use them in the first place?

To you chaos guys complaining about losing your unoptimized combo. If it is so unoptimized, then it wouldn't matter if you could do it or not right? I mean it really has little bearing on whether you win or lose since it is so unoptimized.

Sorry, but for the greater good, you lose out. Suck it up and move on.

DarthDiggler wrote:
I find it laughable that the complaint to not allow BB is that unoptimized combos can't be used. Then why the hell do you use them in the first place?

To you chaos guys complaining about losing your unoptimized combo. If it is so unoptimized, then it wouldn't matter if you could do it or not right? I mean it really has little bearing on whether you win or lose since it is so unoptimized.

Sorry, but for the greater good, you lose out. Suck it up and move on.

By that logic, why not just ban Tau and Eldar then? They are the main reasons this is a concern to begin with, and for the greater good of the game it'd fix most of the major issues outright at this point, because wave serpent spam isn't going to go away just because they lost some BB with tau, nor buffmanders with riptides.

Without BB: Eldar dominate.
With BB: Eldar dominate, but Tau and SM can compete.

Which is worse?

I still think disallowing the BB character joining an allied unit is better than disallowing BB entirely. But, either is better than nothing. Dozer Blades, Seer Council IS a lot weaker without the Baron's hit-and-run, right?

DarthDiggler wrote:
I find it laughable that the complaint to not allow BB is that unoptimized combos can't be used. Then why the hell do you use them in the first place?

To you chaos guys complaining about losing your unoptimized combo. If it is so unoptimized, then it wouldn't matter if you could do it or not right? I mean it really has little bearing on whether you win or lose since it is so unoptimized.

Sorry, but for the greater good, you lose out. Suck it up and move on.

That would be because we could, you know, have fun with out optimized lists. I could, you know, take FMC spam daemons/csm, but I don't find that fun. I prefer to go up against optimized lists (4+ wave serpents or quadtides, or whatever) because I like to see what will happen. Some people could just be going to tournaments to play against people who they don't all the time, or just have fun playing. My "unoptimized" lists end up having a positive W/L ratio anyways, and I find that to be a victory in and of itself when going to events where the majority of the opponents are "optimized."

There is no need to be rude and berate others because they don't have the same mindset as you. Different people have different ideas of "fun" in tournament play. Some think fun is just winning, other such as myself, have fun, you know playing the game, because, well, it's A GAME.

And wouldn't it be more fun to not face Baron + Seer Council all the time, or Farseer + uber unit X? They could still be in the same army, but you'd see it so much less if they couldn't join allied units. Would immediately make lists closer to the background, and take out almost all the really absurd combos plaguing the game atm.

 Asmodai Asmodean wrote:
Fun is what you make of it. If you tarpit the Deathstar, bait it, or negate its effectiveness in form and still win, that's fun.

If you whine about a 2+ rerollable, and then run your entire gunline in multi-charge range and lose, you won't have fun.

Finding strategies to beat the current meta, that's fun.

Well said.

You can't tarpit the death star if the Baron is allowed to join it