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Looking ahead to the release of the new indices, anyone know how the allies are going to work in the new edition? Maybe I didn't get the memo on this one, but will I be able to at least throw down an army comprised of units from both of the Imperial indices? Should we expect a chart just like we have today, and would that imply that the indices are broken up into subsections that limit choices on the basis or chapter/race/etc.?

I'm betting they'll have a chart in the new BRB

 Kharne the Befriender wrote:
I'm betting they'll have a chart in the new BRB

Yeah I suppose that's probably the easiest way to do it, just so long as they clearly break up the index into army lists. No melting pot astartes on the table

I assume they are going to do something very similar to AOS, you can effectively take whatever you want, but your CPs and synergy will not stack or help anything other than what's shared on their keywords.

As the above post says, i reckon there will be few limits but you will be rewarded with extra command points etc the more keywords such as dark angels etc your armies share. Simple and allows for a lot of freedom with regards to collecting models you like

The new edition has added the 'keyword' mechanic, so every model has multiple keywords that you can form an army around with the same keyword. For example Both slannesh daemonettes and Emperors Children will have the 'slannesh' keyword, meaning I can take both slanneshi chaos space marines and daemonettes in the same detatchment, maybe a chaos lord and some daemonette troops. Similarly I imagine the imperium has the imperium of man keyword that will allow you to ally into any imperial army.

I think it will be based on command points as the incentive against doing this. Thay may even have a chart that means if certain things are allied you can get bonus CP's like marines with IoM and other bad combinations reduce your CP total

I don't think there will be CP reductions, maybe bonusses or means to get more efficient detachments so you get more.

As a general rule in gmae design. encourage the good but only indirectly discourage the bad. Just ask any tyranid player what they think of the ally chart (hell any non-imperial player).

In the second Q&A video, they said the more Keywords your force shares, the more Stratagems you have access to. Also, many abilities are Keyword limited.

So rather than limiting what you take, they are rewarding taking bigger detachments (more CP for staying in less factions) and giving more flexibility for being even more focused (more Stratagems if you match more Keywords).

Also the keywords seem to be "nested". There is an overall Imperium keyword and then underneath that you have Astartes and under that specific chapters like Dark Angels, Ultramarines etc.

Like AoS, I suspect your army will be fine as long as it shares the top-level "faction" keyword. The article on the new Detachments said that all units in a Detachment must share the same faction keyword. Beyond that I suspect that alextroy is right, taking your armies from a more restricted set like a single Chapter will likely give you more bonuses and will likely also maximise any "bubble" abilities that now trigger on keywords.

I suspect that mixed armies will be slightly more common than previously as the Indomitus Crusade provides a perfect excuse for Marines fighting alongside other Imperial units.

Here's how it works:

Each datasheet will have a set of Faction Keywords. These go from general to specific. For example, you'd have IMPERIUM, ASTRA MILITARUM, and <REGIMENT>. Each detachment you choose for your army must share at least one faction keyword.

Faction-specific stratagems are only available to detachments that are entirely composed of that faction- so if you take a mixed Imperium force, you won't have access to the Astra Militarum stratagems.

In addition, unit buffs only apply to certain unit keywords. If you take Space Marine forces alongside your Astra Militarum, the Space Marine buffs will only apply to units with the SPACE MARINES keyword.

You can also make an army of multiple single-faction detachments, each of which would then benefit from their faction stratagems and buffs. However, this gives you fewer Command Points to work with than a similarly-sized single detachment would.

That clears things up; thanks all!

Come on, Deathwing!

I heard somewhere that it's possible to take on Primaris Space Marines as a platoon option in Guard armies? Or is that incorrect?

If formerly wu is correct, yes.

They would share the imperium faction key word so they can count as troops/elites/... option in an otherwise guard army.

Like Karhedron and Formerly Wu stated, it appears that while it'll be easy to "ally" forces together in the same detachments, you'll get more rewards for going "deeper" into the same factions.

For example, you could have a detachment with Guard troops, Space Wolf Terminators, lead by an Inquisitor HQ, and Mechanicus Dune Crawlers. However, all those forces would only share the "Imperial" keyword, so the strategems or special detachments they have access to will be limited. In this way, while you have great unit options, you have poor detachment/special ability options.

Meanwhile, you could field an army of only Primaris Space Wolves, and have access to all Imperial stuff, all Astartes stuff, all Space Wolf stuff, and all Primaris stuff. In this way, while you would have great detachment/special ability options, you would have poor units options.

Ah I see, thanks for that clear up.

That definitely presents some very interesting army lists. I wonder how many people are going to prefer unit types over stratagems. If the previous formation stuff is anything to go by, then maybe pure faction bonuses could be somewhat broken, although Games-Workshop did state that they've really balanced the game this time.

 Formerly Wu wrote:
Here's how it works:

Each datasheet will have a set of Faction Keywords. These go from general to specific. For example, you'd have IMPERIUM, ASTRA MILITARUM, and <REGIMENT>. Each detachment you choose for your army must share at least one faction keyword.

Faction-specific stratagems are only available to detachments that are entirely composed of that faction- so if you take a mixed Imperium force, you won't have access to the Astra Militarum stratagems.

In addition, unit buffs only apply to certain unit keywords. If you take Space Marine forces alongside your Astra Militarum, the Space Marine buffs will only apply to units with the SPACE MARINES keyword.

You can also make an army of multiple single-faction detachments, each of which would then benefit from their faction stratagems and buffs. However, this gives you fewer Command Points to work with than a similarly-sized single detachment would.

I think that in order to be in a FoC (eg: detachment) you have to have all faction keywords be the same. Allies (people who share at least one faction keyword but not all faction keywords) will need to be in a separate FoC. So you can have Space wolves and ultramarines in your army, they will just need to be in separate FoCs, one probably in the small 0 CP FoC and one in the standard sized one that grants 3CP. To continue the example of the space wolves and Ultramarines, they would be able to use Imperial and space marine Stratagems, but not ultramarine or space wolf stratagems. Buffs that affect space marines would affect them all, but buffs that affected only ultramarines would not affect the space wolves.

The issue is you are unlikely to get to the 9 CP FoC in non-apoc games, and the 3cp formation is pretty trivial to get (2 HQ and 3 troops). That would seem to encourage bringing multiple detachments, because there is no downside to bringing allies unless the lowest level keywords have some silly awesome CP uses. Even then at 3cp in the average game you might get to use them once or twice. We are missing some aspect of this, because this looks like an even bigger ally cluster than 7th ed.

I am interested in how taking Inquisitors from Imperial Agents will effect my Guard army. I am hoping that they are like they are now (not having any real drawbacks to being taken in another Imperial army) and have an ability to take on a keyword to better blend with the army they are being attached to... I mean the army they requisitioned to help them complete their task.

I just hope that I can use ONE Imperial Knight in an army with Guard or Space Marines. I'm sure I can as they are Imperium units, but I would like to see the Detachment that asks for just one Lord of War unit.

 Grimgold wrote:

I think that in order to be in a FoC (eg: detachment) you have to have all faction keywords be the same. Allies (people who share at least one faction keyword but not all faction keywords) will need to be in a separate FoC.

I'm basing the "share at least one faction keyword" bit off their answers in the Facebook Q&A. So unless those were incorrect/poorly paraphrased, I think you only need one.

The issue is you are unlikely to get to the 9 CP FoC in non-apoc games, and the 3cp formation is pretty trivial to get (2 HQ and 3 troops). That would seem to encourage bringing multiple detachments, because there is no downside to bringing allies unless the lowest level keywords have some silly awesome CP uses.

Maybe, but that's a lot less trivial than the current system. Like you say, a lot is going to depend on how desirable the faction stratagems are.

We've also only seen four of twelve detachments.

The FoCs are pretty specific on the point that they have to have the same faction, It's not phrased as share at least one faction keyword. As a programmer that seems pretty clear, and the gamer in me sees the consequences of doing it otherwise being mixed Eldar, Necron and Ork FoCs since they all share the xeno keyword.

 BunkhouseBuster wrote:
I just hope that I can use ONE Imperial Knight in an army with Guard or Space Marines. I'm sure I can as they are Imperium units, but I would like to see the Detachment that asks for just one Lord of War unit.

No reason not to afaik. You can already do that, and from what I can tell, they aren't changing up those rules too much.

 deltaKshatriya wrote:

 BunkhouseBuster wrote:
I just hope that I can use ONE Imperial Knight in an army with Guard or Space Marines. I'm sure I can as they are Imperium units, but I would like to see the Detachment that asks for just one Lord of War unit.

No reason not to afaik. You can already do that, and from what I can tell, they aren't changing up those rules too much.

I agree, there is a precedent for it to happen, just no confirmation as of yet. My plan for my next army is to have some Primaris Marines, Militarum Tempestus, and a Knight all together in a cohesive color scheme for personal fluff reasons. I guess I am just cautiously optimistic.

I wonder if we will see a Lord Commissar perform a Summary Execution on Logan Grimnar again

Part of me hopes that all your detachments must share at least 1 keyword. That way Imperials can still alley, Chaos and all Aeldari with each other.
This would be a great way to encourage "fluffy" armies, especially if you gained CPs for sharing more faction keywords

However, it would also mean that my counts as GK Eldar conversions would have no way to be played alongside my regular Eldar. I'm not sure how I feel about that.

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 Grimgold wrote:
The FoCs are pretty specific on the point that they have to have the same faction, It's not phrased as share at least one faction keyword. As a programmer that seems pretty clear, and the gamer in me sees the consequences of doing it otherwise being mixed Eldar, Necron and Ork FoCs since they all share the xeno keyword.

It's phrased as "must share a faction." But CHAOS, IMPERIUM, etc. are all faction keywords. So unless faction keywords don't actually define your faction ( ), that means anything IMPERIUM can share a detachment.

We haven't actually seen any full xenos datasheets, have we? We don't know that there is a XENOS faction keyword, and personally I doubt there will be one. Perhaps there will be a unit keyword to allow Deathwatch or other abilities to trigger.

 Formerly Wu wrote:

 Grimgold wrote:
The FoCs are pretty specific on the point that they have to have the same faction, It's not phrased as share at least one faction keyword. As a programmer that seems pretty clear, and the gamer in me sees the consequences of doing it otherwise being mixed Eldar, Necron and Ork FoCs since they all share the xeno keyword.

It's phrased as "must share a faction." But CHAOS, IMPERIUM, etc. are all faction keywords. So unless faction keywords don't actually define your faction ( ), that means anything IMPERIUM can share a detachment.

We haven't actually seen any full xenos datasheets, have we? We don't know that there is a XENOS faction keyword, and personally I doubt there will be one. Perhaps there will be a unit keyword to allow Deathwatch or other abilities to trigger.

What I suspect is when you pick your Foc you choose which faction keyword you want it to be.

Lets go with Astartes Darkangles for example.

Well, in that case you have access to darkangles specific units and characters.

You could take that same FOC and have it be Imperium.

Now you could fill it with guard, spacemarines, inquisition, and admech, but you won't be able to grab any specific characters or special unit unique to the more specific keywords. It will be all generic because I think those very specific very special units and characters are going to have more specific faction keywords and less of them.

Just a guess.

Yeah, I really am thinking that a "faction" is defined by a faction keyword.

So if a detachment includes all units with faction IMPERIUM, than it does not matter if they also have some with <Dark Angels>, <Ultramarines>, Mechanicus, or whatever. As long as they all share IMPERIUM, they are legal.
Hopefully though, you get bonuses if ALL your units share more than 1 faction keyword

And with that level of "freedom" you really don't need an Allie Matrix. Kinda would suck to be non-Aeldari Xenos though.

 Formerly Wu wrote:

 Grimgold wrote:
The FoCs are pretty specific on the point that they have to have the same faction, It's not phrased as share at least one faction keyword. As a programmer that seems pretty clear, and the gamer in me sees the consequences of doing it otherwise being mixed Eldar, Necron and Ork FoCs since they all share the xeno keyword.

It's phrased as "must share a faction." But CHAOS, IMPERIUM, etc. are all faction keywords. So unless faction keywords don't actually define your faction ( ), that means anything IMPERIUM can share a detachment.

We haven't actually seen any full xenos datasheets, have we? We don't know that there is a XENOS faction keyword, and personally I doubt there will be one. Perhaps there will be a unit keyword to allow Deathwatch or other abilities to trigger.

"All units must be from the same faction"

Once again, it's pretty specific that they have to be the same faction. Thus I don't think we are going to see demons in a single FoC/detachment with Chaos marines ala KDK, but Chaos marines can take an ally FoC/Detachment of demons because they share faction keywords. Also if something like the Xenos keyword doesn't exists, and shared faction keywords are required to ally, then you created a whole bunch of second class armies that can't ally with anyone, namely tau, necrons, and orks.

 Grimgold wrote:

Spoiler:

 Formerly Wu wrote:

 Grimgold wrote:
The FoCs are pretty specific on the point that they have to have the same faction, It's not phrased as share at least one faction keyword. As a programmer that seems pretty clear, and the gamer in me sees the consequences of doing it otherwise being mixed Eldar, Necron and Ork FoCs since they all share the xeno keyword.

It's phrased as "must share a faction." But CHAOS, IMPERIUM, etc. are all faction keywords. So unless faction keywords don't actually define your faction ( ), that means anything IMPERIUM can share a detachment.

We haven't actually seen any full xenos datasheets, have we? We don't know that there is a XENOS faction keyword, and personally I doubt there will be one. Perhaps there will be a unit keyword to allow Deathwatch or other abilities to trigger.

"All units must be from the same faction"

Once again, it's pretty specific that they have to be the same faction. Thus I don't think we are going to see demons in a single FoC/detachment with Chaos marines ala KDK, but Chaos marines can take an ally FoC/Detachment of demons because they share faction keywords. Also if something like the Xenos keyword doesn't exists, and shared faction keywords are required to ally, then you created a whole bunch of second class armies that can't ally with anyone, namely tau, necrons, and orks.

The point is that the definition of "faction" has changed. It used to be defined by a SINGLE symbol on your datasheet. Now it is defined by several keywords on the "faction line" of the datasheet.
So does that mean that a Faction is a group of units that share EVERY SINGLE keyword, or just share 1 Faction keyword.

I suspect that all you need to be a "faction" is a single keyword in common on the faction keyword section of the datasheet. That removes the need to create an allie matrix and levels of allies.
You either share a keyword, or you don't

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