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The title says it all; should it be broken up?

Having half of the allies being able to battle brother is rather cheesy IMO, especially with all of the OP combos (like Draigo and Centurions) and everyone using SW/BA's drop pods, it is ridiculous!

I'd argue that it is on par with the cheese of Taudar but it isn't complained about due to it being the IoM.

I suggest returning the IoM allies to their 6th edition counterparts.

Maybe not everyone is battlebrothers at times but when push comes to black crusade it will fight together to survive.

Some chapters and groups may not fight together but for the same cause yes.

It makes for pretty bad game mechanics though when half of the amues work as one army and then there are other armies without a battle brother (Tau,Necrons and Tyranids).

Yes and no.
I don't mind the Battle Brothers and their "cheesyness".

What I care about is that apparently the Ultramarines and Blood Angels have the exact same allies.
I want my Necron-allies!

Tyranids never could have a battle brother, other life is just biomass.
Necrons see other life as meat for experiments or lower most of thee time.

Tau have farsight enclaves, maybe not perfect allies but in the end still tau.

Made a very good point on one thing though. It is quite biased on how people complained and moaned about the power of "Taudar" and even still to this day bemoan the Tau in particular of their shinanigans. The fact that ANY Imperial army can take ANY unit from another one and basically ensure their list has little to no weakness is very strong, just as strong as Taudar in some cases. But you are correct, we don't hear about it because its Imperium, you could easily break it up in regards to fluff as follows:

Grey Knights: Allies of convenience with all Space Marine Chapters and Imperial Guard and Battle Brothers with Sisters of Battle and Inquisitors. Would make sense since they would have to investigate all the Chapters and Guard Regiments for Corruption.

Space Wolves: Allies of Convenience with Dark Angels, Grey Knights, Sisters and Inquisition due to clashes in the history between all of them.

Those are only 2 examples but something along those lines would make sense in terms of fluff and maybe cut back on the shenanigans that the Imperial Armies can pull.

Dark angels should be desperate allies or convenience with every other imperial faction and come the apoc with everything else. So yes I think the allies matrix should be broken up a tad

Inquisition should be an Ally of Convenience with every faction since every faction since everyone is a potential tool and can be manipulated/persuaded to further the Inquisitor's agenda.

Also, perhaps there could be a special rule for the Armies of the Imperium where they only count as Battle Brothers when against an enemy that contains Tyranids or Chaos; which are pretty much the only two factions out there that would cause the various Imperial factions to drop their respective grudges to unite against.

Yeah, considering my Chapter preferences, it's kinda tough reconciling fluff with the allies matrix.

- Salamanders: Battle Brothers with most; Allies of Convenience/Desperate Allies with Marines Malevolent
- Black Dragons: Battle Brothers/Allies of Convenience with Salamanders; Allies of Convenience with most Imperial forces; Desperate Allies with Marines Malevolent, Inquisition, Grey Knights
- Legion of the Damned: 'Only One Allied Model Can Live'* with all Imperial

*New Allies Matrix entry

Ehh Draigostar is the only overthetop combo, that relies on random dice too much so its pretty balanced. The only op thing about it is invisibilty which basically makes them a flyer.

Honestly do I care? No because all of my lists are pure (blank), but this has already been a hashed discussion last time and the time before that.

Functionally most of the armies would remain the same, lists would hardly change, the strong lists would stay strong. Also who has been using drop pods beyond one specific faction? Are you letting your bias run rampant again? Should we nerf the Razorback?

text removed.

Reds8n

SGTPozy wrote:
The title says it all; should it be broken up?

No.

Why should it?

Members of the Imperium of Man are basically just branches of 1 Army.

Game mechanics. There's something wrong with the game when half of the armies have 8× the amount of units as the other half due to being battle brothers.

It puts non-IoM armies at a disadvantage like an example of Necron and Grey Knights' lack of ranged ap2. Grey Knights can battle brother for some whilst Necrons cannot.

SGTPozy wrote:
Game mechanics. There's something wrong with the game when half of the armies have 8× the amount of units as the other half due to being battle brothers.

It puts non-IoM armies at a disadvantage like an example of Necron and Grey Knights' lack of ranged ap2. Grey Knights can battle brother for some whilst Necrons cannot.

But......Game mechanics are Heresy.
Its Sales mechanics...


Another point to think about:
The BRB is.... IoM centric isn't it?
You bought a game with an obvious "protagonist" faction. Disadvantages if you are not a member are maybe not unexpected ,yes?

I remember a time when IoM armies could have a GK Team support them against Demons. It was also an exclusive feature. Same for Deathwatch. Or Inquisition. Or LotD.

There are just some Chapters that will not work together but under the current rules are best buddies.

What's the point in having fluff if you're just going to ignore it when making the game rules.

I'm not overly found that Imperial Knights ally with Space Marines, they always strike me as an Imperial Guard ally but then again they wouldn't sell any if that was the case.

Maybe it's just battle brothers rules that should help prevent ridiculous combos.

Or maybe it's just up to players to not cheese the cheese out of the cheese.

Having every imperial force under one banner diminishes the nuances that exist in the various factions outlook. Imperial guard are much more likely to find themselves with odd allies (especially if you throw in a corrupt planetary governor) and irregulars like Gray Knights shouldn't be able to work so perfectly with factions that don't even know they exist.
It's a bit better then the ally matrix that existed before, at least.

Honestly, Drop Pods should never have been made a Fast Attack choice.

 Kanluwen wrote:
Honestly, Drop Pods should never have been made a Fast Attack choice.

All dedicated transports are getting that treatment though.

 Kanluwen wrote:
Honestly, Drop Pods should never have been made a Fast Attack choice.

Just wait until Wave Serpents become Fast Attack.

I just wish the imperial guard could be made battle brothers with more armies. Humans are very corruptable souls, and take sides with so many other armies in the fluff

 Great White wrote:
I just wish the imperial guard could be made battle brothers with more armies. Humans are very corruptable souls, and take sides with so many other armies in the fluff

Never understood why they couldn't be Battle Brothers with Chaos and Allies of Convenience with the Tau Empire (not Farsight Enclaves). It would make perfect sense in regards to the fluff and would allow some awesome conversions of Chaos Guard armies or Indentured Humans in the Tau Empire.

 gmaleron wrote:

 Great White wrote:
I just wish the imperial guard could be made battle brothers with more armies. Humans are very corruptable souls, and take sides with so many other armies in the fluff

Never understood why they couldn't be Battle Brothers with Chaos and Allies of Convenience with the Tau Empire (not Farsight Enclaves). It would make perfect sense in regards to the fluff and would allow some awesome conversions of Chaos Guard armies or Indentured Humans in the Tau Empire.

Simples. GW is probably - or at least could be - saving it for a campaign supplement. New detachments and FOC, new Warlord traits, some new relics, maybe one or two changed orders - instant cash.

 Happyjew wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:
Honestly, Drop Pods should never have been made a Fast Attack choice.

Just wait until Wave Serpents become Fast Attack.

Hell yeah.

I know it will be nerfed from its sixth ed codex version, but god I can't wait to field nothing but tanks.

Aside from details about a couple individual Space Marine chapters, having IoM be battle brothers to every Imperial Faction makes sense, particularly as a lot of time any suspicion or hesitancy will be one-sided (e.g. most IG regiments are going to have zero clue about the history and reputation of the Grey Knights despite the GK potentially trying to destroy them after whatever battle they're in, etc).

morgoth wrote:

 Happyjew wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:
Honestly, Drop Pods should never have been made a Fast Attack choice.

Just wait until Wave Serpents become Fast Attack.

Hell yeah.

I know it will be nerfed from its sixth ed codex version, but god I can't wait to field nothing but tanks.

Doubt you actually will. They're most likely getting a desired nerf or price increase to boot. Or both like GW likes to do with overly popular models.

 koooaei wrote:

morgoth wrote:

 Happyjew wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:
Honestly, Drop Pods should never have been made a Fast Attack choice.

Just wait until Wave Serpents become Fast Attack.

Hell yeah.

I know it will be nerfed from its sixth ed codex version, but god I can't wait to field nothing but tanks.

Doubt you actually will. They're most likely getting a desired nerf or price increase to boot. Or both like GW likes to do with overly popular models.

Yes, I did write about that nerf in the post you replied to.

But honestly, I just like fielding Mech.

I will tweak it for tournaments but if I can field a ton of tanks as I used to do in 5th, I'll be happy.

You allready can. Falcons, prisms, vypers.

No but only because the IoM armies should be condensed into two/three codeces instead (for Marines and non-marines with possibly an inquisition codex).

On second thought, you could still set specific chapters as non battle brothers in the codex itself, so I vote Yes instead.

I believe so but really only for some minor changes.

I'm okay with them all being battle brothers, BUT I'd like to see IG... sorry, AM be allowed something like Allies of Convenience with Chaos for the sake of traitor guard.

I am well aware of FW's Lost and the Damned, but in my area, FW stuff generally isn't approved of outside of Apocalypse. As I intend to run a small contingent of IG with my CSM, I'd like to see the IG and CSM forces not having to maintain 12" of space between their units.

However, if GW cranked out a traitor guard supplement, I probably then wouldn't give a gak about the IoM being all battle brothers and stuffed into one ally slot.