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I was wondering how dakka feels about letting xenos have some degree of alliance so we can either specialize or diversify the way GW keeps saying <sub>are supposed to encourage.

I am thinking "units with the <sfA> keyword may join an army that includes units with the <sfB> keyword without losing battleforged status" where a is for example a T'au sept and <sfB> is an aeldari craftworld. Not being able to take named characters and other codex goodies for sub-faction is a strong trade off.

Proposed heavy limitations:
Can not be in same detachment as non- faction units
Penalized for being within 3" of non- faction allied unit
Can not deploy within 9" of non - faction unit.
No other <sf> stratagem or codex special abilities

Proposed light limitations
Can not deploy within 6" of non - faction unit.
Limited stratagem and wargear from codex for these <sf>


Having this option would even be good for gw as it encourages xeno players to buy into new armies. Ad Mech might be ok with doing one or two, SM probably won't be up to it since chapters are so prominent.</sub>

In general this seems like it's bad for faction identity and bad for individual factions. I mean, look at what we've got right now where there are distinctive Eldar, Tau, Ork, Necron, and Tyranid factions that look and play differently. Meanwhile there's a single Imperial Soup faction and then a catch-all Chaos faction. Lots of players probably want to take an army which is just their favorite regiment of Guard or their favorite Marine Chapter, but unless they're aiming at very particular spam lists this is just kind of dumb. Space Marines aren't a real faction anymore, and trying to put together a pure Marine list is a little like trying to put together a pure Howling Banshee list. Sure, you can do it, but it's probably not going to work very well and the units are balanced with the expectation that you're going to support them with other things. Likewise all Chaos subfactions need to be balanced around their ability to bring Horrors and Magnus and Nurgle Daemon Princes along for the ride. It's really annoying for people who don't want to play Imperial/Chaos Soup or Stormraven spam.

Granted, Imperium subfactions can be mixed and matched almost without restriction, but I suspect that what you're proposing either works out to basically the same thing or else it's almost never worth using (and then what's the point?).

If Orks and Tyranids need better anti-flyer options, just give them distinctive anti-flyer options. I don't want to see them bringing along a Necron Gauss Pylon as a superheavy auxiliary, and I don't think they really want that either.

No, I want the Imperium separated, not more things muddled together.

I think this will just end up further eroding faction identity and give GW more excuses to not give certain armies proper solutions ("it's fine, they can just take an allied unit to solve that").

 Purifier wrote:
No, I want the Imperium separated, not more things muddled together.

I think the Imperium should be split in two - with the various SM factions in one half and the remaining factions (IG, SoB, Inquisition etc.) in another half. Maybe both can get Assassins and Knights, though I don't think the latter belong in standard 40k in the first place.

 vipoid wrote:
I think this will just end up further eroding faction identity and give GW more excuses to not give certain armies proper solutions ("it's fine, they can just take an allied unit to solve that").

 Purifier wrote:
No, I want the Imperium separated, not more things muddled together.

I think the Imperium should be split in two - with the various SM factions in one half and the remaining factions (IG, SoB, Inquisition etc.) in another half. Maybe both can get Assassins and Knights, though I don't think the latter belong in standard 40k in the first place.

Yep, that's basically exactly the first step I'd take. Few years down the line I might be inclined to separate them again, but for now, that is exactly what I would do.

I would be cool with a separate set of Mercenary units, rather than actual "alliance structures." Each army gets rules for including Mercenaries (Ex: Mercs in a Chaos army get Marks, Mercs in a Tyranid army *must* take the Genestealer Cult template, etc), while mercenaries get rules for being included in "main" armies (for example, Kroot get access to armory options of the army they're being taken for).

Rather than printing the same auxiliary units multiple times, or allowing for idiosyncratic combos (Eldar with Riptides), this would be a more tiered approach to handling allies/auxiliaries.

Interesting, I didn't have any idea that space marines lacked any role in particular. I can see some people taking it too far now that you mention it, though those people always will. I kind of felt that this was generally the gene stealer cult purpose, combine nids with astra and bonus stealth. It's also pleasantly surprising that some imperium people want better division. I'll admit to being salty that imp has so many options for any role.

I do agree that each faction should be able to cover all the bases with their own flavour. Ideally using a homogenous, sept or craftworld or forgeworld detachment would give enough bonus to make faction mashing un-necessary. O well maybe this is why open play is technically an option.

No. Taudar must never be a thing ever again.

 BaconCatBug wrote:
No. Taudar must never be a thing ever again.

I second this.

 Purifier wrote:
No, I want the Imperium separated, not more things muddled together.

This~!
Imperium Segregation!

I'd rather instead GW bring in new things, like make farsight enclaves it's seperate faction etc.

BrianDavion wrote:
I'd rather instead GW bring in new things, like make farsight enclaves it's seperate faction etc.

There is a reason why factions get squated.

 Talamare wrote:

 Purifier wrote:
No, I want the Imperium separated, not more things muddled together.

This~!
Imperium Segregation!

Perhaps make it so that units within IMPERIUM detachments must have a keyword in common in addition to IMPERIUM, but the detachments themselves only need IMPERIUM.

e.g. I can take a detachment of Astartes and a detachment of Guard but I can't put conscripts in my Astartes detachment.

teknoskan wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:
I'd rather instead GW bring in new things, like make farsight enclaves it's seperate faction etc.

There is a reason why factions get squated.

Squats where squatted because GW detirmined they didn't really fit with the setting where they where taking it., by and large GW's supported* every other army. yes sisters are sort of in a weird Limbo, but all the rules for their units etc are still there.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 BaconCatBug wrote:

 Talamare wrote:

 Purifier wrote:
No, I want the Imperium separated, not more things muddled together.

This~!
Imperium Segregation!

Perhaps make it so that units within IMPERIUM detachments must have a keyword in common in addition to IMPERIUM, but the detachments themselves only need IMPERIUM.

e.g. I can take a detachment of Astartes and a detachment of Guard but I can't put conscripts in my Astartes detachment.

chances are that'll slowly come out anyway, if what we're seeing is true you need a pure detachment for chapter tactics

Shas'O'Ceris wrote:

I am thinking "units with the <sfA> keyword may join an army that includes units with the <sfB> keyword without losing battleforged status" where a is for example a T'au sept and <sfB> is an aeldari craftworld. Not being able to take named characters and other codex goodies for sub-faction is a strong trade off

Yes, let's revive TauDar and other such synergy problems.
No rules-permitted implementation of alliances in 40k has ever proven to be a good thing. And most of it was some combination of unfluffy, unbalanced, or nonsensical.

If you want to have two sides work together, play 2+ vs 2+ where players on one or more sides have different armies.

The only thing that I see making sense with this is if they implemented Dark Mechanichus as a way for Chaos to take AdMech models with a system like this, which doesn't help your Xenos problem.

I'd just prefer a bit more attention paid to Xenos armies (and SoB), though overall my Tyranids and Dark Eldar are both on better footing than they've been in a while.

I wonder if we'll see actual sub-factions when the DG codex comes out. They already previewed different vectors in DI and hinted at specializations. Those vectors would have to have the DG keyword as well as their vector. Maybe the forgeworld units that have DG as well as The Tainted can be taken as a model of what's to come.