Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

So I'm wondering, who knows how allies work? I'm sort of tempted to try some eldar with my tau, but I'm not sure if I can, or to what extent that's possible (still haven't got the 8th ed rulebook). Could anybody summarise how allies work, or link to someplace that does?

Allies don't exist anymore as a mechanic per se. Open play or narrative play: take whatever you like. Matched play: you're restricted to taking only taking units with at least one shared faction keyword.

For matched play, all models in your army must have at least 1 keyword in common (e.g. Imperium, Chaos or Aeldari), so Taudar is out (thankfully).

As others have said, allies are pretty restricted in 8th. Allowed allies in battleforged (matched play) armies would be

All imperial stuff can ally with other imperial stuff
GSC can ally with either Nids or Guard (but not both at the same time as I read it)
Eldar, DE, Harlies, Ynnari can ally with each other
CSM (of all sorts), Chaos Knights, and Daemons.


As far as I recall that is it. Also of note most buffs will not effect allies.

Please read and understand how faction keywords work with matched play army construction. Basically each unit in your army must have one common faction keyword with all other units. (Eg: Imperium, Adeptus Astartes, Ultramarines, Aeldari) These are listed in the data sheet as (shockingly) "Faction Keywords". If you don't meet this requirement you're not "Battle Forged" and likely not tournament legal. Although technically allowed in Open and Narrative play, with the caveat being you lose 3 command points, please discuss with your opponent. (Why is this so difficult for our community?)

Thanks for the replies guys.

So... can us Tau have ANY allies?

 SevenSeasOfRhye wrote:
Thanks for the replies guys.

So... can us Tau have ANY allies?

Nope. Tau, Necrons, and Orks have no options for allies. Theoretically this will be less of a problem when codexes come out and the stratagems are strong enough you don't really want to utilize allies, but... the first four announced codexes are all marines.

Well. I play Chaos Marines, so I'm fine. :v

 SevenSeasOfRhye wrote:
Thanks for the replies guys.

So... can us Tau have ANY allies?

No allies at all. In effect, there are 8 main armies in 8th edition...

1. Imperium... tons and tons and tons of options.
2. Chaos... Various types of Marines and various types of Daemons.
3. Eldar... Craftworld, Dark, Clown and Death varieties
4. Tyranids with bugs... Bugs + Cultists
5. Tyranids without bugs... IG + Cultists
6. Tau... no allies
7. Necrons... no allies
8. Orks... no allies

Allies are primarily only a thing for Imperium in 8th. Kinda sucks for non-Imperium players and REALLY sucks for non-Eldar Xenos players.

The rules for battle forged don't place any restriction on how many factions you can take in the same army. All the detachments currently available have a restriction that all units within them must share a faction keyword but that only applies within the detachment. So you can take detachments from multiple factions and your army will still be battle forged.

The restriction that all units in the army share a faction keyword or be unaligned is a matched play restriction, not a battle forged one.

As long as you and your opponent agree you are playing "narratively" you can design armies using the rules for battle forged and have allied detachments from whatever factions you like, all totally legal.

Of course, since there aren't any restrictions on what factions can be in the same army it's totally "legal" to ally Eldar and Slaneeshi daemons for example. If your opponent objects to what you're doing you can expect them to insist on matched play restrictions, so in friendly play it basically boils down to "with opponents consent".

Isnt there something where you can take a single auxiliary detachment nit of a non-same-faction at the cost of 1CP?

Giantwalkingchair wrote:
Isnt there something where you can take a single auxiliary detachment nit of a non-same-faction at the cost of 1CP?

In a Matched Play game, the Auxiliary Support Detachment still has to have a Faction keyword in common with the other detachments in the army.

If you guys play Narrative, which uses power level, you can add whatever you want in your army

In Matched Play, that uses points... nope.

 Vector Strike wrote:
If you guys play Narrative, which uses power level, you can add whatever you want in your army.

That's more like Open Play. Narrative Play is you and your opponent get together and work out a scenario (either based on a historical battle or one of your own choosing) and agree what forces are appropriate for your chosen scenario.

 Ghaz wrote:

 Vector Strike wrote:
If you guys play Narrative, which uses power level, you can add whatever you want in your army.

That's more like Open Play. Narrative Play is you and your opponent get together and work out a scenario (either based on a historical battle or one of your own choosing) and agree what forces are appropriate for your chosen scenario.

Nope, what you wrote is open play. narrative is the middle ground.
narrative even has missions (crucible of war), much alike eternal war/maelstrom of war from matched play

 Vector Strike wrote:

 Ghaz wrote:

 Vector Strike wrote:
If you guys play Narrative, which uses power level, you can add whatever you want in your army.

That's more like Open Play. Narrative Play is you and your opponent get together and work out a scenario (either based on a historical battle or one of your own choosing) and agree what forces are appropriate for your chosen scenario.

Nope, what you wrote is open play. narrative is the middle ground.
narrative even has missions (crucible of war), much alike eternal war/maelstrom of war from matched play

No. Go reread page 192 of the rulebook:

Most games of Warhammer 40,000 tell a story. Every time players get together and talk about why their armies might be fighting each other, they are working out a narrative game. Once objectives have been decided, there are endless ways to build that story into the game. Armies might be modified to better reflect the protagonists of the story, specific scenery might play a part in recreating the landscape, ‘house rules’ might be invented to represent the consequences of victory and defeat – even the paint schemes can be developed to reflect the narrative the players are trying to create. This element of planning and storytelling sets narrative play apart from open play, embedding the games firmly in the worlds of Warhammer 40,000.

You can have a battle forged army that includes Tyranids, Genestealer Cult and Astra Militarum (as long as each is a seperate detachment and the number of Astra Militarum detachments never exceeds the number of GSC detachments).

It's mentioned explicitly in Xenos 2 FAQ

 Ghaz wrote:

No. Go reread page 192 of the rulebook:

Most games of Warhammer 40,000 tell a story. Every time players get together and talk about why their armies might be fighting each other, they are working out a narrative game. Once objectives have been decided, there are endless ways to build that story into the game. Armies might be modified to better reflect the protagonists of the story, specific scenery might play a part in recreating the landscape, ‘house rules’ might be invented to represent the consequences of victory and defeat – even the paint schemes can be developed to reflect the narrative the players are trying to create. This element of planning and storytelling sets narrative play apart from open play, embedding the games firmly in the worlds of Warhammer 40,000.

May I introduce you to pg. 171:

OPEN PLAY (PG 188)
The first of the three distinct ways to play Warhammer 40,000, open play is the most free-form and adaptable. It can be as simple or as complex as you like – you can
literally just pick any Citadel Miniatures you have and start playing.

And pg. 172:

Unlike open play, which leaves the impetus on the players to determine their own story and victory conditions, narrative play gives a somewhat tighter framework to operate in. Examples of this can be found in the seven new missions found in this section of rules. Going beyond the straightforward battle fought in the Only War scenario, games such as Patrol and Ambush alter the parameters of your games and provide players with differing roles and objectives where one plays as the attacker and the other as the defender.

When you read open play and narrative rules, it's obvious that open play is, as it name states, more open for players to do as they want. Narrative is the bridge between open and matched play and have stricter rules. you use power level in both, and both allow you to field 'allies' as OP asked.

(I don't think this is really worthy of discussion, though...)

 Kriswall wrote:

 SevenSeasOfRhye wrote:
Thanks for the replies guys.

So... can us Tau have ANY allies?

No allies at all. In effect, there are 8 main armies in 8th edition...

1. Imperium... tons and tons and tons of options.
2. Chaos... Various types of Marines and various types of Daemons.
3. Eldar... Craftworld, Dark, Clown and Death varieties
4. Tyranids with bugs... Bugs + Cultists
5. Tyranids without bugs... IG + Cultists
6. Tau... no allies
7. Necrons... no allies
8. Orks... no allies

Allies are primarily only a thing for Imperium in 8th. Kinda sucks for non-Imperium players and REALLY sucks for non-Eldar Xenos players.

Just going to clarify a bit here....

1. Imperium - no different from 7th. Note that the SM Chapter traits will probably trim back the allied bloat and some armies already have requirements for entire detachments to be Faction X to benefit from certain special rules.
2. Chaos - again, no different from 7th. If anything it adds a new level of flexibility and is also the ONLY way to make a Daemonkin army. Against, I expect the Legion traits will cause some of this to be trimmed back and force people into set faction detachments or armies.
3. It's almost like this is exactly the same as 7th yet again as far as the ally matrix was concerned. Shared keywords are the only way to make Ynnari armies at the moment as well as Corsairs - if anything they benefit from the added flexibility.
4 and 5. Let's look at the FAQ.

Q. Can I have a Battle-forged army that consists of one
Detachment of Genestealer Cults, one Detachment of
Astra Militarum (using the Brood Brothers rule) and one
Detachment of Tyranids?
A. Yes

Now we have put that myth of having GSC and AM or GSC and Tyranids BUT NEVER BOTH to bed.

6. Are we really crying about Taudar? Really? Is this the state of the world? We're weeping for the fact that your Riptides can't jump in bed with Wraithknights again? This is bad how? Taudar was a toxic pile of gak. Good riddance to it. I'd perhaps expect though for there to be a Sept trait when Tau get a book that allows them to take some AM (similar to GSC and Renegades) to represent Gue'vesa. That'd be a nice touch.
7. Necrons having allies never really made sense. And the ally options in 6th and 7th...never really worked. So no big deal.
8th. Again, Orks never had much to go with. Though it'd be nice if the Blood Axe Klan trait let them ally in AM similar to GSC/Renegades.

Also, fun fact for Iron Warriors players.

Using the Renegades and Heretics Rules from IA:AM you can select Basilisks for your IW - enjoy!

 Vector Strike wrote:

 Ghaz wrote:

No. Go reread page 192 of the rulebook:

Most games of Warhammer 40,000 tell a story. Every time players get together and talk about why their armies might be fighting each other, they are working out a narrative game. Once objectives have been decided, there are endless ways to build that story into the game. Armies might be modified to better reflect the protagonists of the story, specific scenery might play a part in recreating the landscape, ‘house rules’ might be invented to represent the consequences of victory and defeat – even the paint schemes can be developed to reflect the narrative the players are trying to create. This element of planning and storytelling sets narrative play apart from open play, embedding the games firmly in the worlds of Warhammer 40,000.

May I introduce you to pg. 171:

OPEN PLAY (PG 188)
The first of the three distinct ways to play Warhammer 40,000, open play is the most free-form and adaptable. It can be as simple or as complex as you like – you can
literally just pick any Citadel Miniatures you have and start playing.

And pg. 172:

Unlike open play, which leaves the impetus on the players to determine their own story and victory conditions, narrative play gives a somewhat tighter framework to operate in. Examples of this can be found in the seven new missions found in this section of rules. Going beyond the straightforward battle fought in the Only War scenario, games such as Patrol and Ambush alter the parameters of your games and provide players with differing roles and objectives where one plays as the attacker and the other as the defender.

When you read open play and narrative rules, it's obvious that open play is, as it name states, more open for players to do as they want. Narrative is the bridge between open and matched play and have stricter rules. you use power level in both, and both allow you to field 'allies' as OP asked.

(I don't think this is really worthy of discussion, though...)

So you've just proven my point. Open Play is bring whatever you want and when you said "If you guys play Narrative... you can add whatever you want in your army." fits more for Open than Narrative.

Ghaz wrote:
So you've just proven my point. Open Play is bring whatever you want and when you said "If you guys play Narrative... you can add whatever you want in your army." fits more for Open than Narrative.

Oh Lord. You misinterpreted what I said in my first post in this thread - I meant he can take any kind of allies in Narrative game, because I don't think many people are willing to play Open when narrative at least has some kind of comparative metric between armies. Not that he can field any stuff in no reasonable organization.
Should've been more clear. We were saying the same thing, lol

DarkStarSabre wrote:

Just going to clarify a bit here....

1. Imperium - no different from 7th. Note that the SM Chapter traits will probably trim back the allied bloat and some armies already have requirements for entire detachments to be Faction X to benefit from certain special rules.
2. Chaos - again, no different from 7th. If anything it adds a new level of flexibility and is also the ONLY way to make a Daemonkin army. Against, I expect the Legion traits will cause some of this to be trimmed back and force people into set faction detachments or armies.
3. It's almost like this is exactly the same as 7th yet again as far as the ally matrix was concerned. Shared keywords are the only way to make Ynnari armies at the moment as well as Corsairs - if anything they benefit from the added flexibility.
4 and 5. Let's look at the FAQ.

Q. Can I have a Battle-forged army that consists of one
Detachment of Genestealer Cults, one Detachment of
Astra Militarum (using the Brood Brothers rule) and one
Detachment of Tyranids?
A. Yes

Now we have put that myth of having GSC and AM or GSC and Tyranids BUT NEVER BOTH to bed.

6. Are we really crying about Taudar? Really? Is this the state of the world? We're weeping for the fact that your Riptides can't jump in bed with Wraithknights again? This is bad how? Taudar was a toxic pile of gak. Good riddance to it. I'd perhaps expect though for there to be a Sept trait when Tau get a book that allows them to take some AM (similar to GSC and Renegades) to represent Gue'vesa. That'd be a nice touch.
7. Necrons having allies never really made sense. And the ally options in 6th and 7th...never really worked. So no big deal.
8th. Again, Orks never had much to go with. Though it'd be nice if the Blood Axe Klan trait let them ally in AM similar to GSC/Renegades.

Also, fun fact for Iron Warriors players.

Using the Renegades and Heretics Rules from IA:AM you can select Basilisks for your IW - enjoy!

You're misundestanding his point. He's saying that Imperium, Eldar, Chaos and GSC have much more options to field than Tau, Orks and Necrons. This certainly creates a discrepancy of availability to the latter armies, as they can't cover their weaknesses as the former armies can.
And yes, buffs not working on non-faction units certainly helps in alleviating this - however, it's still possible for an AM army take some vanguard veterans to help their melee, while Orks can't take, let's say, an orkified Doomsday Ark to helf with their shooting. OR, as you say, the new 'alliance levels' gives flexibility to a lot of armies, but less or nothing at all to others.

Noone's crying about Taudar outside those playing with scatbikes, wraithknights and riptide wings. Those people moved on to other armies that promise to do well in 8th. But why remove the option to field units from other factions? Some have worked in the past with others or may be doing it right now.
How can a player not be able to create a fluff regarding Tau and Necrons working together (either hacked canoptek or an Overlord manipulating those naive fools, for example), or Dark Eldar and a captured batch of Tyranids? Or AM with mercenary Orks?

Isn't funny that 'your dudes', one of the things that makes this game so amazing, works better on Narrative (which should be the real fluff stuff) than Matched, which only matters for balance (again, buffs not working on non-faction units already covers that) or tourneys, where prople will only spam the best thing ad infinitum?

Finally, you make Kriswall's point for him when you rejoice at being able to take R&H stuff in your army...

Edit: forgot to mention that it makes absolutely no sense that only 1 sept could take AM as Gue'vesa auxiliaries. Every sept can and would make use of them, if available. But I don't expect such rule to show up in the codex