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So I was reminded today of a particularly egregious lore contradiction at my local game store, I played against chaos daemons and deathwatch army with no particular reason for their alliance. It definitely grinded my gears a little lore wise but it was a particularly dry day for games so I played none the less without any complaints. It got me thinking of what other heretical combinations people might have seen or played against on the tabletop, tau and tyranid allies? harlequins and slanneshi daemons maybe? Would love to hear about the reasoning or lack there of for fielding such armies. Look forward to hearing what people have to say!

May the lore cringe fest begin.

Daemons and Grey Knights

Riptide wing to a 3rd ed Tau player?
oT: FSE and daemons?

my friends dark elder bikers painted in my little pony colours.

 CrownAxe wrote:
Daemons and Grey Knights

This don't mind that much. It could be not the grey knights but just the allied forces of a creative inquisitor.
Its things like Riptide wing + Flyrant spam + Servitor skull inquisitor or the super friends lists with all sort of not at all good mixing sm chapters.

Necrons and Eldar, Chaos, Orks - I see zero reason why the Necrons would ever side with their eternal foe. Maybe the Orks could be on the Necron side if Imotekh is the warlord because the Orks are so confusing to him that he would never expect them to become allies.

Necrons and Gene Stealer Cult - This would be such an odd team up that it would probably be the basis of some 41st millennium reality television show produced by the Dark Eldar.

Orks and Eldar - bunch of pointy eared gitz I tell ya. No self respecting Boss would ever work with those posh gitz and no self respecting Nob would ever follow a Boss that thought that working with the Eldar was a good idea. No self respecting Boy would not take the opportunity to smash an Eldar in the face when given the chance. Nobody gives a squig what a self respecting grot would do because they are grots and they are lucky they aren't getting stomped because the Orks are too busy stomping the Eldar that wanted to team up.

Eldar and Slaanesh Daemons - Theres probably a joke in this but this is a kid friendly forum so I won't bother.

Tau and Tyranids -
(Tau Water Caste Ambassador) "Hello there friend.... err do you want to join the Greater Good?"
(Nid) "nom nom nom nom nom"
"......I'll take that as a maybe"

Dark Angels and Space Wolves because why let a little primarch rivalry, accusations of heresy, orbital bombardment of Fenris, and general all around jerk face/hypocritical behavior stand in the way of putting 2+ rerollable jinking DA bikers in your Thunderwolf Deathstars?

Ultramarines + Daemons - Does the codex astartes say anything about not working with the Daemons?


My personal mix of fluff heresy that I will field once I paint up the 11 remaining models will be the following in a single 2000 point list.
Grey Knights
Inquisition
Space Wolves
Deffwotch (Deathwatch but made up of Orks pretending to be Deathwatch Space Marines).

 Vankraken wrote:

Orks and Eldar - bunch of pointy eared gitz I tell ya. No self respecting Boss would ever work with those posh gitz and no self respecting Nob would ever follow a Boss that thought that working with the Eldar was a good idea. No self respecting Boy would not take the opportunity to smash an Eldar in the face when given the chance. Nobody gives a squig what a self respecting grot would do because they are grots and they are lucky they aren't getting stomped because the Orks are too busy stomping the Eldar that wanted to team up.

There's a mission in Dawn of War: Dark Crusade that offers up a good justification for this. The Eldar are using Orks as a cat's paw, to distract the enemy/be a roadblock while they execute their own mission objective.
If I remember correctly, the Eldar also manipulate Chaos into that role during the mission.


Allies, to me, doesn't necessarily represent that the two armies teamed up and trotted off to the battle field, lined up with the enemy, and had a go at it. Allies could very well represent something like

- the Orks are getting stuck in with some Chaos, Grey Knights need to kill the Prince/Sorcerer leading the warband, so they teleport in, execute the mission, and leave.
- Sisters of battle are purging a heretical Slaaneshi cult when the bloodshed accidentally triggers an ancient ritual circle laid down millenia ago, summoning Khorne Daemons, who set upon the followers of their hated rival god before turning on the Sisters.
- Blood Angels and Necrons are fighting a battle with eachother when they see the remnants of a hive fleet descend upon their system. Knowing that NEITHER side will survive if they keep fighting eachother, they form a temporary truce and defeat the Tyranid threat. And as soon as the battle is over, destroy eachother
- An Inquisitor comes back from an important mission to find the planet he operates from is a Tomb World, and also being invaded by Tyranids! But, he left some Important Documents in his desk, so he has to go down and retrieve it under the cover of battle. He sends Servo skulls to scout out ahead so he can determine the perfect timing to swoop into his office.

Rihgu wrote:

 Vankraken wrote:

Orks and Eldar - bunch of pointy eared gitz I tell ya. No self respecting Boss would ever work with those posh gitz and no self respecting Nob would ever follow a Boss that thought that working with the Eldar was a good idea. No self respecting Boy would not take the opportunity to smash an Eldar in the face when given the chance. Nobody gives a squig what a self respecting grot would do because they are grots and they are lucky they aren't getting stomped because the Orks are too busy stomping the Eldar that wanted to team up.

There's a mission in Dawn of War: Dark Crusade that offers up a good justification for this. The Eldar are using Orks as a cat's paw, to distract the enemy/be a roadblock while they execute their own mission objective.
If I remember correctly, the Eldar also manipulate Chaos into that role during the mission.


Allies, to me, doesn't necessarily represent that the two armies teamed up and trotted off to the battle field, lined up with the enemy, and had a go at it. Allies could very well represent something like

- the Orks are getting stuck in with some Chaos, Grey Knights need to kill the Prince/Sorcerer leading the warband, so they teleport in, execute the mission, and leave.
- Sisters of battle are purging a heretical Slaaneshi cult when the bloodshed accidentally triggers an ancient ritual circle laid down millenia ago, summoning Khorne Daemons, who set upon the followers of their hated rival god before turning on the Sisters.
- Blood Angels and Necrons are fighting a battle with eachother when they see the remnants of a hive fleet descend upon their system. Knowing that NEITHER side will survive if they keep fighting eachother, they form a temporary truce and defeat the Tyranid threat. And as soon as the battle is over, destroy eachother
- An Inquisitor comes back from an important mission to find the planet he operates from is a Tomb World, and also being invaded by Tyranids! But, he left some Important Documents in his desk, so he has to go down and retrieve it under the cover of battle. He sends Servo skulls to scout out ahead so he can determine the perfect timing to swoop into his office.

I agree with you somewhat, but such scenarios would take a fair bit of prep and require co-operation with your opponent. Its fine if Genestealers ally with guard to defend their infested planet from necrons BUT that would only work if your opponent played necrons, if you were to take that combo to your local game store and your opponent was playing something like tyranids or tau its just an un-fluffy mess.

Random pickup games are more likely unfluffy than they are fluffy, in ANY case, considering half the armies in the game are Imperial. Oh, wait, it's a "training exercise"...

Genestealer Cult + IG in general makes sense because the IG can be brood brothers, so I don't see any problem with them going against any force except Tyranids, and even then... since different Tyranid hive fleets will battle eachother to determine the stronger one, it's not hard to imagine that a cult with Leviathan origin would battle against a Behemoth invasion. Not even necessarily to improve the swarm through natural selection or whatever, but to keep the planet for THEIR progenitors to consume.

You can justify basically any combo of allies against any army if you actually bother to try. It's easy to decry something as un-fluffy at the surface level but it's not really that hard to figure out a scenario where it IS fluffy.

I actually haven't run into this issue. Most of the people play care about the lore more than the list, really. The only person who I know who tries to push it is a buddy who really wants to run an apocalypse game with my Tyranids. He's afraid of them, and I keep telling him the only way it will happen is if it is a X vs Me kinda deal. I do not play with my food.

If someone is about to run a very unfluffy list against me and doesn't want to use the ally matrix (one-eye-open) stuff, they have to give me a good lore backstory (or make it up on the spot) before i play them.

The most egregious is probably my friend(tau) and I(daemons) vs a tyranids/adeptus mechanicus force.

The lore for us is the tau got stranded by a warpstorm and we agreed to help them get home navigating the warp as long as they helped us get off planet and find a cruiser for us to takeover. there ethereal has strangely gone absent since we boarded

I run ludicrously mixed Imperium. (Assassins, Grey Knights, Dark Angels, Space Wolves, White Scars, Blood Angels, and Skitarii.)

It's not the most fluffy, but it's at least rules-compliant.

My favorite scenario reason to why two armies would be working together that is otherwise ridiculous...is Tyranids and Imperial Guard.

The situation is something along the lines of:
The IG see a massive army coming their way on a planet with know Tyranid infestation. So they send some guys to grenade a big hole and piss off the bugs. While those guys do that the other ones just run off to hide behind anything they can find so the bugs see the other army first.

Let's look at Khorne Daemonkin. Flesh Hounds are Daemons of Khorne, and are fluffed up to be Khorne's hunter-killers of Psykers in general. The "Cabalstar" is the template for a particular Daemonkin competitive build, where you take a large unit of Flesh Hounds and attach a Cyclopea Cabal (3-5 sorcerers) to them to give them a mix of buffs, power attacks, and generally make them even punchier in a fight.

If that's not egregious lore heresy, then consider this too: Although an Independent Character with a Chaos Mark cannot join a unit that has a different Chaos Mark, there are no rules stating that a Marked Character cannot join a unit with the "Daemon of..." rule for a different Chaos God. Meaning there's nothing rule-wise stopping you from giving those same Sorcerers the Mark of Slaanesh. So you can have a unit of Daemons whose main purpose is to kill all psykers serving as a fast-moving bodyguard for Psykers of Khorne's rival god Slaanesh!

Eldar allied with Slaaneshi forces (daemons or marines) against the Harlequins allied with Necrons.

With each side fielding an Eldrad.

First off I must list these abominations:

Hello Kitty:


My Little Pony:

I must admit the chainsword horn is a stroke of genius.

And furries! they... oh yeah, we have Russ... nevermind.

And this monstrosity... is kinda neat... gah!


Orks should never be allowed to watch anime:


For the biggest lore heresy on the tabletop would be Eldar with CSM or Daemon allies as followers of Slanesh (leaning toward the daemons more).
The entire reason every single one of them wear a gemstone is so it protects/absorbs their soul when they die so it is not eaten by Slanesh.

 MechaEmperor7000 wrote:
Eldar allied with Slaaneshi forces (daemons or marines) against the Harlequins allied with Necrons.

With each side fielding an Eldrad.

You win.

Space wolves and dark angels
Space wolves and thousand sons
Slanesh and khorne
Tzeentch and nurgle
Grey knights and deamons

See what I did there?

 Vankraken wrote:

Dark Angels and Space Wolves because why let a little primarch rivalry, accusations of heresy, orbital bombardment of Fenris, and general all around jerk face/hypocritical behavior stand in the way of putting 2+ rerollable jinking DA bikers in your Thunderwolf Deathstars?
.

Regarding that first one as a fan of both chapters I feel need to point out that rivalry is way overblown! DA and SW's(at least before new crappy fluff by GW) weren't "I'm not going to fight alongside you" rivalry. The much flaunted duel is RITUALISTIC duel more than duel in anger.

Those two can fight together just as they did pre-heresy. In the end the even the two primarch weren't even holding grudge to each other as can be read from the fluff piece after battle for terra.

Fight the duel, then good natured "let's see which one of us kills more heretics" battle, after that good night on nearest bar(with wolves likely outdrinking dark angels...).

 MechaEmperor7000 wrote:
Eldar allied with Slaaneshi forces (daemons or marines) against the Harlequins allied with Necrons.

With each side fielding an Eldrad.

That is pretty impressive.

Now I want to field a combined IG/Ork army, with boy Ghazgull and Yarrick in it.

Imperial Guard and Iron Hands.

Flesh is weak, amiright?

 MagicJuggler wrote:
Let's look at Khorne Daemonkin. Flesh Hounds are Daemons of Khorne, and are fluffed up to be Khorne's hunter-killers of Psykers in general. The "Cabalstar" is the template for a particular Daemonkin competitive build, where you take a large unit of Flesh Hounds and attach a Cyclopea Cabal (3-5 sorcerers) to them to give them a mix of buffs, power attacks, and generally make them even punchier in a fight.

If that's not egregious lore heresy, then consider this too: Although an Independent Character with a Chaos Mark cannot join a unit that has a different Chaos Mark, there are no rules stating that a Marked Character cannot join a unit with the "Daemon of..." rule for a different Chaos God. Meaning there's nothing rule-wise stopping you from giving those same Sorcerers the Mark of Slaanesh. So you can have a unit of Daemons whose main purpose is to kill all psykers serving as a fast-moving bodyguard for Psykers of Khorne's rival god Slaanesh!

Easy - the psykers have summoned and bound/enslaved the Daemons to their will. The Hounds are loathe to go against their very purpose but what can they do when faced with powerful sorcery?

Eldar allied with Slaaneshi forces (daemons or marines) against the Harlequins allied with Necrons.

With each side fielding an Eldrad.

Crone-world Eldar + the unknowable, alien plans of the Harlequins.
2 Eldrads = a clone, a psychic manifestation, the Changeling, "the Warp", or an impostor,.

Imperial Guard and Iron Hands.

Flesh is weak, amiright?

I don't think it has ever been said that Iron Hands refuse to work with Imperial Guardsmen.

Space Marines summoning Daemons.

I've done it, but I ain't proud.

Chaplain Cassius (current, not DW) and his Tyranid Hunters with Tigrus Allied with the Swarmlord against Cato Sicarus and Cronus.

tneva82 wrote:

 Vankraken wrote:

Dark Angels and Space Wolves because why let a little primarch rivalry, accusations of heresy, orbital bombardment of Fenris, and general all around jerk face/hypocritical behavior stand in the way of putting 2+ rerollable jinking DA bikers in your Thunderwolf Deathstars?
.

Regarding that first one as a fan of both chapters I feel need to point out that rivalry is way overblown! DA and SW's(at least before new crappy fluff by GW) weren't "I'm not going to fight alongside you" rivalry. The much flaunted duel is RITUALISTIC duel more than duel in anger.

Those two can fight together just as they did pre-heresy. In the end the even the two primarch weren't even holding grudge to each other as can be read from the fluff piece after battle for terra.

Fight the duel, then good natured "let's see which one of us kills more heretics" battle, after that good night on nearest bar(with wolves likely outdrinking dark angels...).

There's very few things that can out drink a space wolf.

Yeah I would not consider DA + SW to be lore breaking. It's more like Gimli and Legolas in The Two Towers. I mean I guess if the Wolves interfered with the Dark Angels taking a Fallen, or if the DA started to torture innocents because maybe someone saw something, they might come to actual blows.

I once took Tyranids, Eldar and Choas Deamons to a tournament

Wayniac wrote:
Yeah I would not consider DA + SW to be lore breaking. It's more like Gimli and Legolas in The Two Towers. I mean I guess if the Wolves interfered with the Dark Angels taking a Fallen, or if the DA started to torture innocents because maybe someone saw something, they might come to actual blows.

In ragnar novel they came to blows over a wolf protected planet and such.
However there not attack on sight relationship.

More like brothers who have the odd scrap.

All the lists (not just BA) that can't win a thing on the tabletop but are painted as effectivein the fluff.

So as a general rule of thumb if it's ranked "come the apocalypse" it's probably not really true to fluff without serious explanation?

Not exactly. Before GS cults were a thing, Tyranids allied with IG and Inquisition would be a good representation of Genestealer Cults.

Not to mention Dark Angels are suppose to be distrustful of the Inquisition for fear of them finding out about the Fallen, but you'd never see that on the tabletop since they're Battle Bros.