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Hey! I have a quick newbie question about faction keywords.

The guy at the store told me that an army needs to all have the same keyword in their faction keywords. I bought the CSM and Chaos Daemons codexes and was under the impression I could thus field anything with "Chaos" as a keyword. However, someone on this site said I actually had to use Slaanesh or Tzeentch as my keywords (the 2 daemon factions I want to field). Which is it and why?

Also a question regarding detachments. If I field Tzeentch, then the Rubric Marines have that keyword. Can a squad of them be attached to the main Tzeentch army, or do I need an entire detachment for them?

Thanks in advance! This is really confusing my 2nd ed. Tyranids player brain.

From the advanced rules in the core book:

ARMY FACTION
In a Battle-forged army, all of the units in your army - with the exception of those that are UNALIGNED — must have at least one Faction keyword in common (e.g. IMPERIUM or CHAOS) even if they are in different Detachments. If a unit does not have the correct Faction keyword, it cannot be included in your army.

In addition there are rules in the mission you may be playing which further limit your faction keywords. AFAIK the restriction on CHAOS as a faction keyword is only for matched play missions, and not for narrative/crusade or for open play, so whether or not it applies depends on the type of game you’re playing.

From the Matched Play Eternal War Mission Pack, step 2. Muster Armies:

…All of the units in each Detachment in your Battle-forged army must have at least one Faction keyword in common, and this keyword cannot be CHAOS, IMPERIUM, AELDARI, YNNARI or TYRANIDS, unless the Detachment in question is a Fortification Network (this has no effect on your Army Faction)…

As I said, this restriction seems to be in all the matched play mission packs but isn’t in the crusade or open play mission packs.

Yes, your army needs to have one keyword across all detachments. That keyword can be CHAOS, you choose whatever it is. Units in a detachment also need to share one faction keyword, its up to you to choose that keyword. In matched play, that keyword in a detachment, cannot be CHAOS. So you cannot mix CSM and chaos daemons in one detachment, when the same keyword would be CHAOS. But, you can make a detachment which has SLAANESH as the same keyword, mixing CSM and chaos daemon units. But, you wouldnt get a legion trait, or a daemonic loci, because those require pure detachments. A pure detachment is a detachment which only has units from one faction.

Also note that most detachments require all units in them to be of the same Faction, although that only requires one Faction Keyword be in common.

Right. So I think that means I could take Rubric Marines in a Tzeentch army without having an entire CSM detachment. Good to know.

And Chaos is fine outside of matched play? Sorry for the extra newbie question, but is matched play simply official tournaments? I doubt I'll be playing tournaments any time soon.

And apologies for not having the core rulebook yet. Can't afford it right now!

Thanks all!

While legal, Most factions have bonus rules for using faction specific detachments.

So in your example of a Tzeentch army, there are bonuses to be gained from having a Tzeentch Chaos Daemon detachment and bonuses to be gained from having a Thousand Sons or <Legion> detachment that you will not gain with a Tzeentch detachment that mixes Daemons and Astartes.

 alextroy wrote:
While legal, Most factions have bonus rules for using faction specific detachments.

So in your example of a Tzeentch army, there are bonuses to be gained from having a Tzeentch Chaos Daemon detachment and bonuses to be gained from having a Thousand Sons or <Legion> detachment that you will not gain with a Tzeentch detachment that mixes Daemons and Astartes.

The Tzeentch Daemon bonus SUCKS, to be noted.

Thousand Sons, though, have a pretty good purity bonus.

I see...

Thanks!

Hecate wrote:
And Chaos is fine outside of matched play? Sorry for the extra newbie question, but is matched play simply official tournaments? I doubt I'll be playing tournaments any time soon.

And apologies for not having the core rulebook yet. Can't afford it right now!

"Matched Play" is one of the three play styles given in the core rulebook, it's where armies are built with points. The "Grand Tournament" books that GW seem to be publishing yearly that give the core rules and new missions are "Matched Play". In my experience, in my area, it's the most common type of game that people are playing. If I arrange a game at my local game store then it's unspoken that it'll be a "Matched Play" game using a "Grand Tournament 2021" mission.

So, given that, the restriction that "Matched Play" adds that the keyword that the units in a detachment have in common cannot be Chaos is very important and features in every game that I play. However your world might be different, there are, as said, other was to play 40k. But "Matched Play" is not just about tournaments.

Ohhhhh...

Yeah, I'd rather play with points than power level. From what I read, it's fairer and more even.

So I guess I can't take daemons and chaos together... But Slaanesh and Tzeentch both have "daemon" which should be fine. I'd rather go daemon than chaos marines.

Hecate wrote:
So I guess I can't take daemons and chaos together... But Slaanesh and Tzeentch both have "daemon" which should be fine. I'd rather go daemon than chaos marines.

I couldn't mix, for example, Chaos Knights and Daemons of Nurgle in the same detachment as that goes against the rule of the "Grand Tournament 2021" mission packs and that's the unspoken rule that pick up games at my game store work with. But if I really wanted to then I could ask my opponent, and they'd probably be fine with it. So it does really depend on your "local gaming scene" and what you're going to be getting up to.

But even with the GT2021 rules there are plenty of things you can do.

I could build an army with a Nurgle Daemons detachment and a Chaos Knights detachment, and that's cool.

I could build an army with one detachment holding both Nurgle Daemons and Khorne Daemons, that is also fine, although the detachment wouldn't get the god specific detachment buff.

One thing people don't seem to have spelled out for you yet is that you absolutely *can* have a chaos army with a detachment of Daemons, and a detachment of Thousand Sons - and that's fine.

Crispy78 wrote:
One thing people don't seem to have spelled out for you yet is that you absolutely *can* have a chaos army with a detachment of Daemons, and a detachment of Thousand Sons - and that's fine.

We have spelled out that the army wide keyword can be CHAOS, which includes tsons and daemons.

So in matched play, is the faction keyword used for the entire army, or just detachments?

Hecate wrote:
So in matched play, is the faction keyword used for the entire army, or just detachments?

It's used for both.

However, for Detachments specifically, your unifying Keyword can't be Chaos.

So, you can have a Heretic Astartes Detachment and a Chaos Daemons Detachment. You could even have a Nurgle detachment, with Nurgle-Marked Marines and Nurgle Daemons, though they would not get their subfaction bonuses.

You CANNOT mix units who's only shared Faction Keyword is Chaos in the same Detachment, though.

So I could have a Slaanesh/Tzeentch detachment as "Daemons", and a CSM detachment as "Heretic Astartes", both in the same army within matched play?

Hecate wrote:
So I could have a Slaanesh/Tzeentch detachment as "Daemons", and a CSM detachment as "Heretic Astartes", both in the same army within matched play?

Yes. Yes you can.

Ah! Thanks!

I had an army list in the appropriate forum with daemon and heretic astartes detachments. Good to know it's legal in matched play.