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These casual gamers everyone speaks of, the ones who knowingly take underpowered units and repeatedly get stomped, I don't believe they exist.

Ahem. I exist. I don't purposefully take underpowered lists/units for "fluff reasons", but I have never fielded an army that adheres to any established "winning meta". I actually like all the niche armies. Like Kroot Mercs, and Legion of the Damned from the Cursed Founding rules. Of course, I own a 2,000pt Sisters army, too.

Most of the underpowered units I field are ones that I doggedly use because I like how they look as models, and after buying and painting them, I'll be damned if I leave them on the shelf . Like my Scourges that use carbines to count-as Swooping Hawks. Swooping Hawks have never been a very good unit, but I think they look cool and fit with the theme of my personal army.

Well in that case I not sure I believe in the existence of casual pickups then. Point is that I haven't encountered anybody other than those new game with these kind of soft casual list people seem to be talking about on this thread. Maybe its the local gaming culture, but I have my doubts. It seems rather natural that people are going to include in their list those units that are actually effective.

What is being referred to as casual games in this thread really sounds like games with unwritten houserules where it is forbidden to spam the most effective units available. Quite honestly, it sounds like a poor argument that 40k rules as they stand are beneficial to casual players, as said casual players are essentially making gentlemen's agreements to amend the way the game is played to correct for the inherent inbalances found within the game.

That's true about the gentlemen's agreements. Although I know I am coming from a slightly unique angle as I play among friends rather than strangers in pick-up games. I am there to hang out with friends above a fun game of 40K, not boredly push around a bunch of spammed units, and so are any others I will be playing. All lists tend to be take all comers-lists, rather than niche metas, because those types are easier to change-up so things don't get dull.

I can see a lack of existence of casual pickups, as most people who go to that sort of game want to have the best chance to lock in a win against an unknown opponent. I'm not there to play a stranger, I am there to hang out with my "friend who plays Black Templars", for example. You can;t really have a "casual" pick up game unless you know it's going to be against someone you know.

Kangodo wrote:

 DarthOvious wrote:
Magic has no limitations either. You can take all the cards you want. That doesn't necessarily mean you have to run with 5 colors but the vast majority of players run with at least 2 in tournaments and a 3 color deck is usually not a problem either. However I haven't seen a monocolored deck do too well in a magic tournament.

I just read this and had to respond.
As a Magic-player myself I have to tell you that that is untrue for Legacy.
In Vintage it are usually even the decks with 0 colours that win the tournaments

One such deck would be the Eldrazi deck.

Fair enough, Thats a point I can concede but I don't think it affects the overall point of my argument. Some cards in MTG are just useless. I was thinking more along the lines the pro tour magic tournaments I have been watching. Monocolored decks don't tend to do well in those.

My favourite thing about MTG is the card-prices. If something is better, you are paying more for it!
Not like WH40k, where 10 Flayed Ones are as expensive as a Helldrake.
Friendly games are usually balanced around a budget, not around a 'card maximum'.

It becomes an expensive hobby that way though, but then this is why decks have different power levels. My Angel deck costed me quite a bit to put together and even then its certainly not a competive deck. Its just a deck I like the theme of. It includes 1 Avacyn of Hope, 1 Angel of Sereneity and 4 Baneslayer Angels. Thos 6 cards cost me about £50 alone.

 DarthOvious wrote:

Kangodo wrote:

 DarthOvious wrote:
Magic has no limitations either. You can take all the cards you want. That doesn't necessarily mean you have to run with 5 colors but the vast majority of players run with at least 2 in tournaments and a 3 color deck is usually not a problem either. However I haven't seen a monocolored deck do too well in a magic tournament.

I just read this and had to respond.
As a Magic-player myself I have to tell you that that is untrue for Legacy.
In Vintage it are usually even the decks with 0 colours that win the tournaments

One such deck would be the Eldrazi deck.

Fair enough, Thats a point I can concede but I don't think it affects the overall point of my argument. Some cards in MTG are just useless. I was thinking more along the lines the pro tour magic tournaments I have been watching. Monocolored decks don't tend to do well in those.

My favourite thing about MTG is the card-prices. If something is better, you are paying more for it!
Not like WH40k, where 10 Flayed Ones are as expensive as a Helldrake.
Friendly games are usually balanced around a budget, not around a 'card maximum'.

It becomes an expensive hobby that way though, but then this is why decks have different power levels. My Angel deck costed me quite a bit to put together and even then its certainly not a competive deck. Its just a deck I like the theme of. It includes 1 Avacyn of Hope, 1 Angel of Sereneity and 4 Baneslayer Angels. Thos 6 cards cost me about £50 alone.

Well the previous block was all about the dual colored, so that's why the recent pro-tours have been all about them. The new block seems to be trying to buck that trend considering the Devotion to X mechanics.

Kangodo wrote:

 Ailaros wrote:
Does that mean that you think only rich people should have the good armies in 40k?

No, I would like it if 'bad' units would be cheaper.
In MTG I have a couple of decks who are 'utter crap' but still enjoyable to play against newer players, they top at 50 Euro each.
They actually have a format where you can only play cheap cards.
A local gaming site actually hosts tournaments where decks may cost no more than 35 Euro.
And it's quite "hardcore" and competitive.

The 'tournament-list' for Necrons is around 570 to 600 Euro, that's around the same price as a good MTG-deck.
I wanted to start a melee-list with Flayed Ones, but I gave that idea up when I saw they were 36 per 5 models.
My "fun" and at the same time "crap" army-list was actually more expensive than a strong tournament-list.
But something like that can't be achieved in a game like Warhammer because of the way the models work, too bad.

Its unfortunate but costs on models are usually conected to the cost of plastic to make the models. Cards however are usually pretty cheap to make. For MTG cards you are really paying for the rariety of them.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:

 DarthOvious wrote:

Kangodo wrote:

 DarthOvious wrote:
Magic has no limitations either. You can take all the cards you want. That doesn't necessarily mean you have to run with 5 colors but the vast majority of players run with at least 2 in tournaments and a 3 color deck is usually not a problem either. However I haven't seen a monocolored deck do too well in a magic tournament.

I just read this and had to respond.
As a Magic-player myself I have to tell you that that is untrue for Legacy.
In Vintage it are usually even the decks with 0 colours that win the tournaments

One such deck would be the Eldrazi deck.

Fair enough, Thats a point I can concede but I don't think it affects the overall point of my argument. Some cards in MTG are just useless. I was thinking more along the lines the pro tour magic tournaments I have been watching. Monocolored decks don't tend to do well in those.

My favourite thing about MTG is the card-prices. If something is better, you are paying more for it!
Not like WH40k, where 10 Flayed Ones are as expensive as a Helldrake.
Friendly games are usually balanced around a budget, not around a 'card maximum'.

It becomes an expensive hobby that way though, but then this is why decks have different power levels. My Angel deck costed me quite a bit to put together and even then its certainly not a competive deck. Its just a deck I like the theme of. It includes 1 Avacyn of Hope, 1 Angel of Sereneity and 4 Baneslayer Angels. Thos 6 cards cost me about £50 alone.

Well the previous block was all about the dual colored, so that's why the recent pro-tours have been all about them. The new block seems to be trying to buck that trend considering the Devotion to X mechanics.

Thats true. There is also Renounce the Guilds as well. So they have been recently adding some things in to encourage less multicolored decks.

 jeffersonian000 wrote:
The only issue I have with allies in 6th is the additional detachment they fill, rather than taking up space in a single FoC. While no one really cares if you take 7+ troops, it becomes game breaking when you have 3 HQs, 4 Elites, 4 Fast, and 4 Heavies. If we were restricted to the same allied limits yet within the standard FoC matrix, there would be less imbalance. As it is, you are penalized if you don't take allies simply because you give up those extra FoC slots.

Not saying allies are a bad thing, just that the expanded FoC is the real problem versus a non-allied/single-FoC army.

SJ

Wow, what a great and simple idea! Nice.

I feel a bit like my gaming group was a calm island in the webway. That's why I sometimes feel a bit stupid for being opinionated on this topic - I shouldn't be. Anyways, I have never been flattened by a player, and if it was it was due to my errors rather than what list my opponent has got. I have played some really tough lists, and come out on top too, but I maintain this is more due to that player's lack of any real wargaming experience, and a bit of luck. I guess that the reason other people on this forum have a hard time because they find an experienced player with a optimised list - it's just a deadly combination. At the end of the day I believe the skill of the player through his decisions is a greater factor than the list he brings to decide victory. Perhaps some lists really don't require any 40k knowledge to function well - the only thing you can really do is avoid them. If that is how that person wishes to play his game of 40k then so be it - it might be how he enjoys the game....

I think you just need to manage your interactions with your player base better - find everyone who agrees with you, and single out the ones who don't. I'm not saying that bringing a competitive list is bad - when the sun sets we will all have different opinions on how this game should be played. All that matters is that we enjoy playing the game the way we want to. But I do believe in a necessary divide - most (not all!) cases, competitive players who use optimised lists cannot blend with fluffy, "organic" or non competitive players. As I have said previously, pick up games sometimes do not always go how you wanted them to. Just check the player's attitude, list build and approach to 40k as a gamer before you begin a game, and you should no longer have the problem.

Hopefully this has helped. I say just play the game how you want to, with people who also want to play it in roughly the same style you want to as well. Leave the others - they will play the way they want to with other like minded people, like you would do - the only difference is the way you and they play.

G.A.

First I want to say hi to this community as my account has just been activated. Been years I was here. I read this discussion with interest and would like to share my point of view as well.

I started with 2nd edition so I have seen many rules and codices come and go. I was a kid that time, went to my local games store where we used to play and had a very hard time collecting an army because as a kid you could not afford building an army from scratch. Fortunately, you could play Necromunda-style as the system was good for a few models on each side and a real pain when lots of units and vehicles were fielded. The game had its flaws and with each ruleset it improved a bit. Sometimes new things were broken as well or one could scratch ones head if one was confronted with a situation the rules resolved poorly. As an example I could field the deathwind-pod from the SM drop-pods. A thing designed to clear the landing site and provide covering fire while during the very crucial step when the unit disembarks - when it is most vulnerable. Maybe a good comparison are paratroopers. While they ditch their chute they are vulnerable.
And I say "Huzzah! What a great thing to have! An always-landing parachute that provides covering fire....unless you read in the rulebook's fineprint that it cannot use the deathwind the turn it lands. Template weapons may not snapshot by default and landing under shock rules means, that this vehicle has used cruising speed thus only snapshots are possible. Working as intended or coherent with fluff? No, Sir!
Well, either you are competitive and are annoyed because of this and some guys may or may not start flame threads like "Dr0p-Pod is da f4il! Nevah use 'em again..yadda yadda curse GW yadda!" or simply shrug their shoulders and go with it. There is always the possibility - and i guess GW politics encourage you to do so - to make house-rules. If you max out the fun by doing so, then do it.

I only atttended to local tournaments and really was annoyed at maxed-out armies and still am. It is a pain to play against those and honestly, i have not the time to learn the rule to the point that I could see any loophole. I am no lawyer
That is, why I play the social game with fellow players. Playing Ultramarines since early 90ies I always have in mind what they represent and try to think about what troops may be available to the commander. It is more fun for me to do so. I do not care about maxed efficiency really. But I care about my friends and am always looking forward to another game chatting about good times and eating a pizza. The game is a means of social interaction to me and my guys. But there are also people who play games to get recognized by their archievements related to the hobby. Either they want to have the best-painted models or the most efficient army. And they are by no means better or worse than oneself. GW provides a game that satisfies a broad spectrum of profiles. It is up to you whether you want to play against a "munchkin" although I dislike this word as learning the rules that good to make them work in your way is some feature to be respected. Before play talk with the guy, talk about what you expect from the game and If you do not match expectations enough to have fun then do not play. Talk about the hobby instead, paint a model, exchange painting tips or talk about the latest movies. But do not play each other if one would ruin the fun for another.

IMHO there is only one true way of playing: when after the game all agree they had fun. Just my 5 cents...

I think allies was one of those things that started off with good intentions and a "narrative" mechanic (ie. CSM w/ daemons , traitor guard , marines w/ guard etc) and went horribly wrong.

I just see 6th edition "allies" as 5th's "wound shenanigans"- a set of rules that got exploited (although perfectly legal to do so) and was embraced by some and called cheese by others. I honestly don't know what happened in previous editions, but it's one of those things that we're probably stuck with until 7th.

This is another topic that boils down to "If you play with like minded individuals, you'll be ok. If not, you'll have a bad time"

Well, the strange thing is how arbitrary and unbalanced it is. Most armies could make use of 5th ed's wound wrapping. Tyranid, meanwhile, can't take allies at all, and nobody allies like tartau or taudar.

 Ailaros wrote:
Well, the strange thing is how arbitrary and unbalanced it is. Most armies could make use of 5th ed's wound wrapping. Tyranid, meanwhile, can't take allies at all, and nobody allies like tartau or taudar.

At least the Tyranid thing makes sense as flesh eating bugs bent on eating everyone in order to reproduce are not likely to make alliances. However, the Tau are just weird. There is no reason given why Tau and Space Marines are best friends. As for the Eldar, they're not really friends with anyone and are always following their own plans.

What they should have done was allow allies, but not allow the cross pollination of ICs into allied units.

Dr.Desastro wrote:
First I want to say hi to this community as my account has just been activated. Been years I was here. I read this discussion with interest and would like to share my point of view as well.

I started with 2nd edition so I have seen many rules and codices come and go. I was a kid that time, went to my local games store where we used to play and had a very hard time collecting an army because as a kid you could not afford building an army from scratch. Fortunately, you could play Necromunda-style as the system was good for a few models on each side and a real pain when lots of units and vehicles were fielded. The game had its flaws and with each ruleset it improved a bit. Sometimes new things were broken as well or one could scratch ones head if one was confronted with a situation the rules resolved poorly. As an example I could field the deathwind-pod from the SM drop-pods. A thing designed to clear the landing site and provide covering fire while during the very crucial step when the unit disembarks - when it is most vulnerable. Maybe a good comparison are paratroopers. While they ditch their chute they are vulnerable.
And I say "Huzzah! What a great thing to have! An always-landing parachute that provides covering fire....unless you read in the rulebook's fineprint that it cannot use the deathwind the turn it lands. Template weapons may not snapshot by default and landing under shock rules means, that this vehicle has used cruising speed thus only snapshots are possible. Working as intended or coherent with fluff? No, Sir!
Well, either you are competitive and are annoyed because of this and some guys may or may not start flame threads like "Dr0p-Pod is da f4il! Nevah use 'em again..yadda yadda curse GW yadda!" or simply shrug their shoulders and go with it. There is always the possibility - and i guess GW politics encourage you to do so - to make house-rules. If you max out the fun by doing so, then do it.

I only atttended to local tournaments and really was annoyed at maxed-out armies and still am. It is a pain to play against those and honestly, i have not the time to learn the rule to the point that I could see any loophole. I am no lawyer
That is, why I play the social game with fellow players. Playing Ultramarines since early 90ies I always have in mind what they represent and try to think about what troops may be available to the commander. It is more fun for me to do so. I do not care about maxed efficiency really. But I care about my friends and am always looking forward to another game chatting about good times and eating a pizza. The game is a means of social interaction to me and my guys. But there are also people who play games to get recognized by their archievements related to the hobby. Either they want to have the best-painted models or the most efficient army. And they are by no means better or worse than oneself. GW provides a game that satisfies a broad spectrum of profiles. It is up to you whether you want to play against a "munchkin" although I dislike this word as learning the rules that good to make them work in your way is some feature to be respected. Before play talk with the guy, talk about what you expect from the game and If you do not match expectations enough to have fun then do not play. Talk about the hobby instead, paint a model, exchange painting tips or talk about the latest movies. But do not play each other if one would ruin the fun for another.

IMHO there is only one true way of playing: when after the game all agree they had fun. Just my 5 cents...

This.... this sums it up perfectly in my mind. What a good first post.

bogalubov wrote:

 Ailaros wrote:
Well, the strange thing is how arbitrary and unbalanced it is. Most armies could make use of 5th ed's wound wrapping. Tyranid, meanwhile, can't take allies at all, and nobody allies like tartau or taudar.

At least the Tyranid thing makes sense as flesh eating bugs bent on eating everyone in order to reproduce are not likely to make alliances. However, the Tau are just weird. There is no reason given why Tau and Space Marines are best friends. As for the Eldar, they're not really friends with anyone and are always following their own plans.

What they should have done was allow allies, but not allow the cross pollination of ICs into allied units.

Or just allow Ultramarines to ally with them rather then the whole codex.

I only atttended to local tournaments and really was annoyed at maxed-out armies and still am. It is a pain to play against those and honestly, i have not the time to learn the rule to the point that I could see any loophole. I am no lawyer
That is, why I play the social game with fellow players. Playing Ultramarines since early 90ies I always have in mind what they represent and try to think about what troops may be available to the commander. It is more fun for me to do so. I do not care about maxed efficiency really. But I care about my friends and am always looking forward to another game chatting about good times and eating a pizza. The game is a means of social interaction to me and my guys. But there are also people who play games to get recognized by their archievements related to the hobby. Either they want to have the best-painted models or the most efficient army. And they are by no means better or worse than oneself. GW provides a game that satisfies a broad spectrum of profiles. It is up to you whether you want to play against a "munchkin" although I dislike this word as learning the rules that good to make them work in your way is some feature to be respected. Before play talk with the guy, talk about what you expect from the game and If you do not match expectations enough to have fun then do not play. Talk about the hobby instead, paint a model, exchange painting tips or talk about the latest movies. But do not play each other if one would ruin the fun for another.

So another words you picked a weak faction long ago, never even tried to learn the game , played in a closed in enviroment with odd house rules and other people playing the game the same way ,and that means that anyone who learned the game , picked a good army is suddenly TFG.

GW doesnt enforce narrative only , because it is a way for them to cover up how bad they realy are at making rules . This is their 6th ed , there are people in the firm that worked on design longer then I live and they still are unable to have 1 way of writing rules .

Phanixis wrote:
Well in that case I not sure I believe in the existence of casual pickups then. Point is that I haven't encountered anybody other than those new game with these kind of soft casual list people seem to be talking about on this thread. Maybe its the local gaming culture, but I have my doubts. It seems rather natural that people are going to include in their list those units that are actually effective.

This is a perfect example of a point I brought up earlier. It is all too common and natural for humans to assume because they would do something a certain way, that's how everybody would do it. Maybe all of the gamers where you are from only pick units for effectiveness, but plenty of gamers pick units they just think are cool. I've known plenty of them over my 10yrs of gaming, and still know some of them to this day and they haven't changed. The idea that these people "don't exist" or are being forced to play this way by house rules is absolutely absurd.

I guess the ally matrix is a construct resulting of the necessity of having more than two players play the game allowing them to use different armies but also satisfying the hobbyist's wish to make it in a kind of canonical way. Sure - most armies battle each other more often than sharing a common goal and allying. There are certain logics in that matrix.

Tyranids will not ally anyone - they EAT them...period
Necrons regard everyone worthless but even someone inferior might have a use....and so on.
The matrix just shows how likely it would be to see other armies fighting together while sticking to 40k fluff. It is a compromise. And also you can make your own decisions and play with whoever you want.
Just bringing in 'Nids as allies for an Ultramarine army just feels wrong. There might be places where this is allowed, but i guess, they are scarce.

I for myself, use Inquisition troops working together with my Marines or the Imperial Guard I also have. Inquisition working together with guard and Eldar can be fluffy. Ever read "Ghostmaker" from Dan Abnett?
Remember: YOU tell the story. YOU play it. YOU and your pal must have fun.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Makumba wrote:


So another words you picked a weak faction long ago, never even tried to learn the game , played in a closed in enviroment with odd house rules and other people playing the game the same way ,and that means that anyone who learned the game , picked a good army is suddenly TFG.

GW doesnt enforce narrative only , because it is a way for them to cover up how bad they realy are at making rules . This is their 6th ed , there are people in the firm that worked on design longer then I live and they still are unable to have 1 way of writing rules .

Nope. In other words I do not want to write a summary of my 20 years of playing the game in my first post here so don't jump to conclusions please. Believe it or not, I read the rules now and yesterday and I understand them as well and there was a time where i could answer almost every rulequestion withing a few moments because i knew exactly where it was written in the books. I am just no little brat anymore who can concentrate on that all his free time. I have a job and a girl I spend lots of attention on nowadays. My tournament days are over and i have become a casual gamer since edition 4 which i considerede the worst personally. In the past I played Imperial Guard lots of times FYI and in tournament environment I was not complaining about success. IG never was a weak faction nor is it today.
If you like to call a games store where you play the games by the rulebook a closed environment then feel free to do so. Usually our "odd" houserules covered terrain and buildings we made and what their effects on the game would be - something what is covered by the rules today but was not during edition 2 besides modifying the to-hit-roll. I just wanted to point out that there are many ways to play the game. There is casual gaming, there is playing a campaign (did that before as well. We made house rules and combined 40k with epic and gothic about 10 years before planetary invasions came out) or playing a tournament. GW enforces narrative? Well, it is their good right to do so. They OWN the game. They OWN the idea. They make money with it and pay the paychecks of their workers. We - as gamers and fans - are entiteled to nothing. We are free to buy the game and have fun with it as it is. And we are free to write to GW to complain or to make suggestions. A whole staff of designers make the rules so of course they do not have only 1 way of writing something. This comes naturally with doing a project with a team and let other guys playtest the ideas. The result always is a group efford and a compromise.

Dr.Desastro wrote:

Just bringing in 'Nids as allies for an Ultramarine army just feels wrong. There might be places where this is allowed, but i guess, they are scarce.

Its called Apocalypse.

However they still don't get any benefits from their "allies".

The short answer the OP's question is no. I am not tired of it. It makes me want to step up my game. Someone comes to my local shop and beats me with Taudar then I go home and scan through codexs till I find something that will beat him.

On the other hand who brings triptide to a causal game with out asking if it is ok first? I personally try to play to the level of the player Im playing against. If its a friendly pickup game I throw a list together in about 2 minutes and go with it. If I'm trying some super d-bag army list I'll let my opponent know and see if they are ok with it. If its a tournament and taudar are the new hottness then i'm pulling out all the stops and playing them. Or ill sit with my group of 6-7 WAAC buddies on how can we beat these the crazy new communist-space-cow's and their sparkle dancer boyfriends.

You know how you can stop people playing these armies? Stop playing against them. Or hey, I know this is crazy, but you can ask if you can play a toned down game.

You: "You know I really don't want to play against 4 riptides today. You think we could not play with MC's today?"

Me: "Yea sure thats fine with me. I've been wanting to try something new. Let me get my Sisters of Battle"

See how that works? Worst case is I say thats all I have then we dont play.

I've only ever faced down one allied list that I would classify as broken, and that was a Necron/CSM list. And I completely agree with spacewolved in this, a list that curbstomps me can still be fun to play against, and fluff-wise you do get some absolutely shining moments of heroism. A Friendly Local Gaming Store is just that, friendly. People WANT the other players to have fun. I don't know if I've managed to find some shining utopia of a gaming store, but my personal experience is that people are reluctant to use horrendously broken tactics unless both parties have agreed to it, and that includes allied lists

In my experience, list building has been the most important competitive component for Games Workshop games for as long as I can remember.

The nameless wrote:
I think allies was one of those things that started off with good intentions and a "narrative" mechanic (ie. CSM w/ daemons , traitor guard , marines w/ guard etc) and went horribly wrong.

I just see 6th edition "allies" as 5th's "wound shenanigans"- a set of rules that got exploited (although perfectly legal to do so) and was embraced by some and called cheese by others. I honestly don't know what happened in previous editions, but it's one of those things that we're probably stuck with until 7th.

This is another topic that boils down to "If you play with like minded individuals, you'll be ok. If not, you'll have a bad time"

I agree with this assessment of GW's logic on allies.

Generally speaking, my beef with Combohammer is not with the players at all. We're all playing a competitive game. I want you to make the nastiest list you possibly can, given the army that you play, because that's what I'm going to do. However, my problem is with the poor game design that permits this to happen in bizarre ways.


If the Allies Matrix started as a way of "facilitating the narrative", which I believe that it did, then it should reflect that. We should NEVER see Grey Knights fighting alongside Necrons. A lot of people say that Tyranids shouldn't be allowed to ally with anybody - maybe you haven't been playing long enough, but Genestealer Cults were popular in 2nd edition.



Long story short, my beef is with game design allowing ridiculous combinations while disallowing others that make sense, not with the players that work within these poor mechanics to make these combinations.

Allying Imperial Guard with Nids allows stupidly unfluffy combinations like Vendettas and Manticore batteries. Yeah, cool for Cults but when you give Nids the one thing that makes them Nids by not existing (vehicles) they are no longer Nids.

 Deadshot wrote:
Allying Imperial Guard with Nids allows stupidly unfluffy combinations like Vendettas and Manticore batteries. Yeah, cool for Cults but when you give Nids the one thing that makes them Nids by not existing (vehicles) they are no longer Nids.

Check the allies matrix sometime. You can't actually ally IG with Nids

 NuggzTheNinja wrote:

The nameless wrote:
I think allies was one of those things that started off with good intentions and a "narrative" mechanic (ie. CSM w/ daemons , traitor guard , marines w/ guard etc) and went horribly wrong.

I just see 6th edition "allies" as 5th's "wound shenanigans"- a set of rules that got exploited (although perfectly legal to do so) and was embraced by some and called cheese by others. I honestly don't know what happened in previous editions, but it's one of those things that we're probably stuck with until 7th.

This is another topic that boils down to "If you play with like minded individuals, you'll be ok. If not, you'll have a bad time"

I agree with this assessment of GW's logic on allies.

Generally speaking, my beef with Combohammer is not with the players at all. We're all playing a competitive game. I want you to make the nastiest list you possibly can, given the army that you play, because that's what I'm going to do. However, my problem is with the poor game design that permits this to happen in bizarre ways.


If the Allies Matrix started as a way of "facilitating the narrative", which I believe that it did, then it should reflect that. We should NEVER see Grey Knights fighting alongside Necrons. A lot of people say that Tyranids shouldn't be allowed to ally with anybody - maybe you haven't been playing long enough, but Genestealer Cults were popular in 2nd edition.



Long story short, my beef is with game design allowing ridiculous combinations while disallowing others that make sense, not with the players that work within these poor mechanics to make these combinations.

Gk hears about a planet that may have some chaos shenanigans going on and decide to roll out. They show up, Crons are there shooting up a chaos cult. Dragons are flying by being chased by pastries. Gk think to themselves "Hey, we could use these robot guys to kill the chaos then we will kill them later!" So they team up for one battle and purge the bad guys.

Bam, narrative forged.

Talonair wrote:

 Deadshot wrote:
Allying Imperial Guard with Nids allows stupidly unfluffy combinations like Vendettas and Manticore batteries. Yeah, cool for Cults but when you give Nids the one thing that makes them Nids by not existing (vehicles) they are no longer Nids.

Check the allies matrix sometime. You can't actually ally IG with Nids

I was making an arguement against IG and Nids being given Alliances.

 Deadshot wrote:

Talonair wrote:

 Deadshot wrote:
Allying Imperial Guard with Nids allows stupidly unfluffy combinations like Vendettas and Manticore batteries. Yeah, cool for Cults but when you give Nids the one thing that makes them Nids by not existing (vehicles) they are no longer Nids.

Check the allies matrix sometime. You can't actually ally IG with Nids

I was making an arguement against IG and Nids being given Alliances.

But Nids can't ally with anything, which is why I said go check the allies matrix

Talonair wrote:

 Deadshot wrote:

Talonair wrote:

 Deadshot wrote:
Allying Imperial Guard with Nids allows stupidly unfluffy combinations like Vendettas and Manticore batteries. Yeah, cool for Cults but when you give Nids the one thing that makes them Nids by not existing (vehicles) they are no longer Nids.

Check the allies matrix sometime. You can't actually ally IG with Nids

I was making an arguement against IG and Nids being given Alliances.

But Nids can't ally with anything, which is why I said go check the allies matrix

Can I now facepalm?

Talonair wrote:

 Deadshot wrote:

Talonair wrote:

 Deadshot wrote:
Allying Imperial Guard with Nids allows stupidly unfluffy combinations like Vendettas and Manticore batteries. Yeah, cool for Cults but when you give Nids the one thing that makes them Nids by not existing (vehicles) they are no longer Nids.

Check the allies matrix sometime. You can't actually ally IG with Nids

I was making an arguement against IG and Nids being given Alliances.

But Nids can't ally with anything, which is why I said go check the allies matrix

The guy above me (forgot your name sorry!) gave an arguement for having Nids and IG being allowed to ally in the name of Genestealer Cults. I argued against because the people who want this for their old GS Cults will be outnumbered by the competitive players who just want to spam Vendettas and whatever else alongside Tervispam.

The only thing i dont like is imperial servants allying with xenos scum.. It's just not right, man!

Even after a battle won they ought to try and annihilate eachother, yuck..