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Agreed. Its important to note that what's broken in 5th may not be broken in 6th. Psydreads will lose a effectiveness if they are destroyed by 3 shaken hits. Hydras might not be able to shoot at ground targets and be restricted to only shooting at flyers/skimmers. Parts form pancake edition may come through limiting the range/fire points shooting from transports, making chimera-vets very limited.
Today that list you proposed is quite broken. I don't know how broken it would be under 6th.

That's not entirely relevant. Whatever the new meta is will still have it's overpowered units and these rules appear to give access to those units in a quasi universal fashion.

What this does is it helps any codex stay more competitive when dealing with the codex creep. You said yourself, the list I threw together in 10 minutes is better than craftworld eldar. I am sure you could make much better lists -- like combining the Eldar with IG. What does this mean for the guy playing an older army codex? He can go "Oh, wow, that new C:SM codex came out, and it has an awesome new unit. Well, I can keep playing my Eldar, and still enjoy the new models that came out"

From a marketing standpoint its bloody brilliant.

Thats if it doesn't harm the games overall playability. More choices is good, but badly exploitable rulesets never last very long.

tuiman wrote:I kind of like the hull points one, means I can use landraiders and not be to scared of that lucky first turn lascannon shot.

I have a feeling hull points are not going to work like you think they might work. I could easily be wrong, but I'm pretty sure these aren't like structure points where you essentially can take wrecked/explodes results till you run out of points. I think it'll work something along the lines of every penetrating hit you take removes one structure point PLUS you take whatever damage result you roll on the table. If you get a wrecked/explodes result or you run out of hull points, your vehicle is done...which actually ends up being a nerf to vehicles.

Otherwise, with the amount of hull points that vehicles are being reported as having, you'll have 100-200 point vehicles that are about every bit if not more survivable as a 450 point super-heavy apoc vehicle.

I absolutely can't wait for this. Allies has got me more excited about this edition than anything else. I will finally be able to build the Chaos army I want to and which is supported in the background. The potential for an Eldar Corsair force of Eldar and Dark Eldar units? Yes please. Inquisitors leading IG units? Awesome! It's a fluff-nut's dream, and I couldn't care less about the fools who will abuse it, because I will never have to play against them. And noone else will for that matter if they don't want to.

Any tournament organizer will simply disallow allies, as has been stated on more than one occasion, which is totally understandable. However, I have to say I would really like to see the craziness people could create for events like Gladiator. It's one of the events where trying to bring the nastiest Allies combo would not only be welcome but really fun to watch.

ShumaGorath wrote:

Agreed. Its important to note that what's broken in 5th may not be broken in 6th. Psydreads will lose a effectiveness if they are destroyed by 3 shaken hits. Hydras might not be able to shoot at ground targets and be restricted to only shooting at flyers/skimmers. Parts form pancake edition may come through limiting the range/fire points shooting from transports, making chimera-vets very limited.
Today that list you proposed is quite broken. I don't know how broken it would be under 6th.

That's not entirely relevant. Whatever the new meta is will still have it's overpowered units and these rules appear to give access to those units in a quasi universal fashion.

What this does is it helps any codex stay more competitive when dealing with the codex creep. You said yourself, the list I threw together in 10 minutes is better than craftworld eldar. I am sure you could make much better lists -- like combining the Eldar with IG. What does this mean for the guy playing an older army codex? He can go "Oh, wow, that new C:SM codex came out, and it has an awesome new unit. Well, I can keep playing my Eldar, and still enjoy the new models that came out"

From a marketing standpoint its bloody brilliant.

Thats if it doesn't harm the games overall playability. More choices is good, but badly exploitable rulesets never last very long.

Not to mention that's under the assumption that all armies will have decent access to allies.

Allies honestly seem like they are unambiguously good for the game. If they're broken, then TOs won't allow them, so you'll only see them in fun games. If they're not broken, then they'll substantially add to the fun and diversity of the game. Either way, the playerbase wins.

Fetterkey wrote:Allies honestly seem like they are unambiguously good for the game. If they're broken, then TOs won't allow them, so you'll only see them in fun games. If they're not broken, then they'll substantially add to the fun and diversity of the game. Either way, the playerbase wins.

Agreed. I'm actually very excited about it, even being a competative type, id love to ally my daemons with some csm in fun games. I don't wanna have to build an entire csm army just to use some zerkers or something!

ShumaGorath wrote:Thats if it doesn't harm the games overall playability. More choices is good, but badly exploitable rulesets never last very long.

One way to look at the possibility is like multi-classing in 3.5 D&D. Through a multi-class you could get some of the best abilities of each class. There were times when you wanted to stick with one class for specific benefits of that class, but many players would splash into another class for flavor.

I agree that some combo like IG/GK might be the best. How is it different from GK being the best today?

Even if the GK/IG combo is 20% better than straight GK, if the Eldar/DE combo gains 50% power over craftworld Eldar, the overall power of the Eldar has increased, which helps to balance the codex creep. This is a good thing.

Some combo's might have to be banned -- its quite possible that through force multipliers a combo might be found that is unbeatable. Do you remember back in the days of MTG when you could cast bezerk 3 or 4 times on a creature? I am sure that will be addressed by the tourney scene if its out of hand -- either through banning of combos or banning of allies alltogether.

Fetterkey wrote:Allies honestly seem like they are unambiguously good for the game. If they're broken, then TOs won't allow them, so you'll only see them in fun games. If they're not broken, then they'll substantially add to the fun and diversity of the game. Either way, the playerbase wins.

Major rule splits between tournament/competitive and casual games doesn't sound good for the game to me. I can't think of any other game that has made something like that work well.

ShumaGorath wrote:

Fetterkey wrote:Allies honestly seem like they are unambiguously good for the game. If they're broken, then TOs won't allow them, so you'll only see them in fun games. If they're not broken, then they'll substantially add to the fun and diversity of the game. Either way, the playerbase wins.

Major rule splits between tournament/competitive and casual games doesn't sound good for the game to me. I can't think of any other game that has made something like that work well.

MTG has a massive split between tournament and casual play, and that's not exactly unpopular. I also hear that Warmahordes tournaments are quite restrictive, but I have no personal experience of that

"for my allies I'd like Corteaz, 2 x 3men melta squad and a vindicare."

Since we're waaaaay off from actual rumors at this point, should we just look for the lock?

As much fun as speculating on allies for 5 pages is.

Charax wrote:

ShumaGorath wrote:

Fetterkey wrote:Allies honestly seem like they are unambiguously good for the game. If they're broken, then TOs won't allow them, so you'll only see them in fun games. If they're not broken, then they'll substantially add to the fun and diversity of the game. Either way, the playerbase wins.

Major rule splits between tournament/competitive and casual games doesn't sound good for the game to me. I can't think of any other game that has made something like that work well.

MTG has a massive split between tournament and casual play, and that's not exactly unpopular. I also hear that Warmahordes tournaments are quite restrictive, but I have no personal experience of that

But neither of those games need unofficial restrictions placed on them by the community. MTG has its dozens of formats, most of which have been created or maintained by WoTC. The same goes for WM/H - the Steamroller format, with its timed-turns and character restrictions, is PP's creation. So what does it say about GW when it's the community that has to say, 'Well, we can't possibly put this into tournament play and make it balanced', assuming that's actually the case?

ShumaGorath wrote:
Major rule splits between tournament/competitive and casual games doesn't sound good for the game to me. I can't think of any other game that has made something like that work well.

Each local meta will likely hew to either "all the gubbinz" fun play or more restrictive tournament play depending on the player mix. Tourney players won't want to waste time learning/using the funky stuff they'll never see in a tourney. More casual players won't want games with the restrictions. It'll be an ugly couple of months until the NOVA/Adepticon or other big TO groups get to some sort of usable standard.

Charax wrote:MTG has a massive split between tournament and casual play, and that's not exactly unpopular. I also hear that Warmahordes tournaments are quite restrictive, but I have no personal experience of that

A card game called "Warlord" is all the rage around here.
There is a big difference between tournament and casual play in what cards you can use.

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Arschbombe wrote: More casual players won't want games with the restrictions. It'll be an ugly couple of months until the NOVA/Adepticon or other big TO groups get to some sort of usable standard.

Agreed. Enough of the tourney organizers are dedicated and commited enough to this game to generate a standard set of acceptable rules.

One example of this would be the INAT FAQ.

A card game called "Warlord" is all the rage around here.

There is a big difference between tournament and casual play in what cards you can use.

Saga of the storm? Does that still exist? Want to buy a dragonlord?

Fetterkey wrote:Allies honestly seem like they are unambiguously good for the game. If they're broken, then TOs won't allow them, so you'll only see them in fun games. If they're not broken, then they'll substantially add to the fun and diversity of the game. Either way, the playerbase wins.

I'm pretty surprised you'd post something as daft as that. You're a clever guy, you can do better. Allies are broken. They've always been broken and they'll always be broken. TOs won't allow them. Fun games already had access to allies because people who don't play to win and generally don't care much about the outcome of the game or the rule set were already using them with their opponent's permission. What changed was that before you had to house rule to allow allies, now you have to house rule to disallow them. It's a bad signal to send about something as blatantly imbalanced as allies.

In the hypothetical scenario that I was trying to design an alliance rules set myself for competitive games:

Playing an army from just one army book would have to have distinct advantages. It could be anything, for example increased morale or some combat bonuses. The allies could or should also cost an increased amount of points, for example 25% more, because they're from a different army book. Everyone can see the advantages of covering a distinctively shooty army's codex weaknesses by taking the strongest assault units from another codex, so what are the disadvantage of doing that? In GW's system there are none (Wake up, Purifiers not being able to board a Vendetta is not a weakness) and that leads to the end result that you'll never see mono-army book armies anymore. Is that the intention? It's not even aesthetically pleasing. For twenty years I thought that the idea of an army book is to tell the player what units and options his army has access to but apparently I was wrong. You can pick and choose from as many as eight (?) army lists if you're playing Imperium. If you play Tyranids you're restricted to eight (?) times less unit options and you were already doing rather poorly.

The way GW tried to implement allies failed (if any of these rumours and the information in White Dwarf is true) and it'll cause nothing but grief and annoyance. Most of the people who are in love with this system either don't understand the repercussions yet or were already using allies against their friends so nothing changed except they'll know they're playing legal armies now. Everyone else will just have to check the 30 page tournament or club house FAQ each time before attending in order to know whether anyone is playing mono-army book lists or in fact non-Imperials altogether.

Charax wrote:

ShumaGorath wrote:

Fetterkey wrote:Allies honestly seem like they are unambiguously good for the game. If they're broken, then TOs won't allow them, so you'll only see them in fun games. If they're not broken, then they'll substantially add to the fun and diversity of the game. Either way, the playerbase wins.

Major rule splits between tournament/competitive and casual games doesn't sound good for the game to me. I can't think of any other game that has made something like that work well.

MTG has a massive split between tournament and casual play, and that's not exactly unpopular. I also hear that Warmahordes tournaments are quite restrictive, but I have no personal experience of that

Magic endorses those formats in its basic rules and the split between casual and format play is minor at best given the rotating block sales method card games use. If you are still buying then you're in current format and thus tourney. If you're not you're irrelevant. 40k does not work this way and can't.

To be honest im looking forward to the inclusion of allies immensely, daemonhunters are back and more customisable, chaos/LatD is back, and better than ever, and the sheer scope of the use of counts as now is wonderful. Full admech armies are now possible id imagine, eldar corsairs, exodites, expanded units that only exist in fluff for some armies, and ways to buff units that suck by count-asing them as something more up to date and fitting while keeping your armies flavour.

Sure some dicks will abuse it to no end, but those people will always find a way to ruin the game no matter what your playing so why worry? It seems to me like the rule of cool just got a massive buff

infinite_array wrote:So what does it say about GW when it's the community that has to say, 'Well, we can't possibly put this into tournament play and make it balanced', assuming that's actually the case?

GW has never cared about competitive tournament play, and that is not exactly a secret.

So I'd rather ask what it says about (a particular part of) the community? That they have unrealistic expectations?

infinite_array wrote:But neither of those games need unofficial restrictions placed on them by the community. MTG has its dozens of formats, most of which have been created or maintained by WoTC.

EDH (WotC calls it "Commander") was created by the community, with a whole set of new rules or rules changes (100 card minimum, deck construction limitations, special rules for generals, and an entirely new win condition). This format was incredibly popular with judges, so the rules were very carefully refined over time. Wizards now "supports" it, but it is still not sanctioned.

Two Headed Dragon was another community-created format because there wasn't anything official for multiplayer games. A couple of judges put a lot of work into refining the rules and pushing it as a standard format, and it was eventually accepted as a sanctioned format.

There are many common multiplayer variants as well, some of which have been "supported" by Wizards (featured on their site, or supported in MODO). These are all casual.

My main issue with allies is that not only do you have to balance the actual codex but you must also balance WHO they can ally with now as well.

Imperium has access to virtually everything where as other books are limited to a vastly smaller selection of combos. Granted, combos are a huge part of other miniature games but have never been that important to GW games. I understand the purpose of this is to A) Sell 1 or 2 units to people who play different armies so that you generate more $$$$$ and B) Wait, there is no B.. please refer to A. I hope the "fun factor" doesn't take a back seat to broken combos (i imagine it will as it does in other combo based games where players have to regulate themselves)

pretre wrote:Since we're waaaaay off from actual rumors at this point, should we just look for the lock?

As much fun as speculating on allies for 5 pages is.

That's what News and Rumours threads usually contain; the odd rumour, followed by large amounts of discussion upon said rumours.
Thankfully, this is actually staying on-topic.

That said, a new thread could be made by someone who would keep the title and opening post updated as rumours are posted; which is always much more practical (than searching for specific pages).

I don't really like the random charge length, as I try to reduce the randomness in my DE lists as often as possible.

From the latest teaser trailer:


I'd happily spend some extra on one of the special edition rulebooks for this.

oh i know...

Thats sexy that is....

Allies are going to rock.

Ogryns. In. Battewagons.

Comparisons to MtG are pretty flawed because it is a very different game to 40K. I don't think I need to go into why, but really, it is not the same at all. Apples to oranges doesn't even cut it, more like apples to pennies.

Is that Urien Rakarth?

Great pic. Too bad the DE seem to be getting the shaft in a lot of these rumors. We'll see. If they make skimmers harder to shoot, lose penalties for open-topped, and dark lances are deadlier, then maybe the trade-off is valid.

Jidmah wrote:Allies are going to rock.

Ogryns. In. Battewagons.

Depending on the restrictions, I would imagine Necron Lords with single Cryptek Solar Pulses will be everyones friend (that the matrix allows).