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Personally I think it was an interesting idea, but poorly executed. The allies table really needs tweaking when you have things like tau being BB with spacemarines (what happened to purge the xenos?) not with IG (what happened to gue'vessa?).

I find it highly unlikely that Blood Angels would be more likely to team up with Necron than Dark Angels would be to team up with the Space Wolves. Or even more ridiculous is that every single marine chapter covered in C:SM would be more likely to team up with tau than space wolves/Dark Angels.

squidhills wrote:

 Sparkadia wrote:


I simply can't bring myself to Ally because it makes no sense for Orks to ally with anyone except more Orks.

Well.... if you tilt your head and squint a bit, you could maybe see Blood Axe Orks being hired as mercenaries to augment a sad sack PDF army (represented by IG on the table)... that would be one explanation of Orks allying with something other than Orks. Of course, that's pretty much the only one I can think of.

I have Ork zombie slaves.

So far, they''re just cut up and repainted Ork boys playing as CSM zombies, but it could extend to mind parasites in a living Ork.

And then we have Eldar manipulating the Orks...

I think it is a good idea.
But the Alliance Level should not depend only from who you ally with, but also who you ally against.

For exemple, Space Marine can be BB with Tau but only if they fight against Tyranids, if not they are just AoC.
Same goes for BA and Necron.

Moreover I think, it should have a worst level where allies start to fight each other.

It's good in terms of - you can recreate some of the battles from the fluff, such as 80% imperial guard 20% marines taking on chaos etc.

but it usually works like everyone says, people take the cheesiet from each list!

Wehn we play, we play larger games, usually 6k per side, (we usually play apocalypse), but we play the allies matrix, rather than "play whatever you like" - this starts to get daft, and limit the allies to maximum 25% of the list

Talking about Allies makes me want to ally some IG to my SW to represent some Aettguard, or maybe even the crew of one of their ships. That's fluffy. Soooo.... Why can't SoB ally wit BT as battle brothers??? Some of the matrix makes sense, while others (I'm looking at you SM and Tau) are just ridonkulous...

Allies are cool.

The random way GW determined who was BB is not.

It was not random but don't think fluff was the primary consideration

I still hate allies, but in response to the Ork guy, Blood Axe orks will ally with IG. There is fluff mentioning after battles with orks, IG commanders would have their troops scour the field collecting teeth to pay Blood Axe mercs with. The BA after all are trying to emulate the IG with their own orky style. That's actually one of the few non-Imperial/imperial team ups that make sense.

From a rules standpoint, Allies was fun and interesting up until recently.

Fulffwise- hey, Pedro Kandor, here are some Orks your forced to work with.

Definately does not work from a fictional point of view.

The basic theory behind allies is cool, but the implementation by 90% of players is not. To most players allies are just a way around the weaknesses of a Codex, by adding all that stuff from another army, rather than the basis for a really cool army theme.

 AegisGrimm wrote:
The basic theory behind allies is cool, but the implementation by 90% of players is not. To most players allies are just a way around the weaknesses of a Codex, by adding all that stuff from another army, rather than the basis for a really cool army theme.

The wonky allies matrix hurts that too. When I first heard of allies, I was exited because I thought of making a fluffy tau list with IG (gue'vessa) allies, but for some reason the tau are AoC with IG. I then found out that they were BBs with SM. Dammit GW...

I don't think that the Allies system is good or bad on its own, so I voted for 'middle'. There are a lot of pairs one can justify with fluff, so I'm not going to touch the 'what makes fluff sense' aspect of the Allies rules. When it comes to game mechanics, however, the problem isn't anything unique to the much-maligned Allies Chart, but rather a problem inherent in the the game as it stands: imbalance. If the game were properly balanced for the allies system then all mono-builds and all allies builds would be equally viable. In this ideal image of the game BA/SoB should be evenly matched with Tau/'Dar...which is not at all the case. At the same time, BA/SoB (using the 'advantage' of having the allied force org) is still going to get roflstomped by mono-Eldar, as are mono-BA and mono-SoB (this is assuming cutthroat competitive play).

I don't think the Allies rules themselves are the cause of the most the problems they're blamed for, but as things stand I also don't think they're helping either. I would prefer a no allies and a balanced game over an imbalanced game that included allies...but in the case of a severely imbalanced game with no allies versus one with them...might as well go for the extra options.

Ironically the worst lists are mono-lists, which is amusing when one thinks about it,

I love the concept. It allows great conversions such as Imperial guard style riptides or chaos Imperial guard, but the allies chart I think was done in a pub by throwing darts while drunk. When you get Space Marines more willing to ally with xenos than Sisters of Battle, something is wrong. Very wrong. I voted 'for' though because it allows people to buy a few units of a new army and test them out on the table and for conversion possibilities.

A number of the negative pairings (like Marines and Sisters not really liking each other and DA/SW not liking each other) are fine, the problem is just the weird ones like all the aliens that get along with imperials because they did in one story ever

The allies matrix should be fairly simple.

Imperial Guard, pretty much battle brothers with everyone except Eldar/Dark Eldar. That reflects Tyranid cults, Chaos cults, Tau auxiliaries, and of course good loyal servants of the Emperor. They could be allies of convenience with Eldar, and desperate allies with Dark Eldar.

Sisters of Battle, battle brothers with all Imperial Forces. Come the Apocalypse with anything Chaos or Dark Eldar, desperate allies with any other Xenos force.

Orks fight with anyone, but don't respect anyone. They'd be allies of convenience with all other forces. Good Orky motto, the enemy of my enemy dies second.

Necrons again should be allies of convenience with most other armies (including Tyranids, no biomatter, no reason for the Hive Mind to eat them). They'd be desperate allies with Dark Eldar, and CtA with Chaos Daemons (abominations from the warp) and Eldar (if the whole war in heaven thing is still in play).

Space Marines, all Space Marines are battle brothers except Dark Angels and Space Wolves who are allies of convenience.

Inquisition (except Grey Knights), battle brothers with all imperial forces and (this might be controversial) Chaos representing Radical Inquisitors who think they can use Chaos to fight Chaos.

Grey Knights, allies of convenience with all Imperial forces, desperate allies with all Xenos. CtA with anything Chaotic.

I usually don't mind. It's already easy to be OP with spammable units of different books (Serpent, Riptide, Heldrake). Adding allies will rarely make that much of a difference if you choose to go all-out competitiveness.

On the other hand, it can be used into firing armies' weakness, which can make the game more balanced.

Overall, I'm fine with them. But what really pisses me off is seeing some idiotic alliances. I know, I know. The game isn't only about the fluff. But when I see IG & Daemons vs. BT & Chaos... Just... No.

Freman Bloodglaive wrote:
The allies matrix should be fairly simple.

Imperial Guard, pretty much battle brothers with everyone except Eldar/Dark Eldar. That reflects Tyranid cults, Chaos cults, Tau auxiliaries, and of course good loyal servants of the Emperor. They could be allies of convenience with Eldar, and desperate allies with Dark Eldar.

Sisters of Battle, battle brothers with all Imperial Forces. Come the Apocalypse with anything Chaos or Dark Eldar, desperate allies with any other Xenos force.

Orks fight with anyone, but don't respect anyone. They'd be allies of convenience with all other forces. Good Orky motto, the enemy of my enemy dies second.

Necrons again should be allies of convenience with most other armies (including Tyranids, no biomatter, no reason for the Hive Mind to eat them). They'd be desperate allies with Dark Eldar, and CtA with Chaos Daemons (abominations from the warp) and Eldar (if the whole war in heaven thing is still in play).

Space Marines, all Space Marines are battle brothers except Dark Angels and Space Wolves who are allies of convenience.

Inquisition (except Grey Knights), battle brothers with all imperial forces and (this might be controversial) Chaos representing Radical Inquisitors who think they can use Chaos to fight Chaos.

Grey Knights, allies of convenience with all Imperial forces, desperate allies with all Xenos. CtA with anything Chaotic.

Those are some pretty Imperial focused proposals. Eldar have no Battle Brothers?

DISCLAIMER: Have yet to play 6th edition game

Honestly, from what I've read I'm torn. I like the idea of allies when it makes thematic sense for a scenario/campaign, and it's a neat way to start a smaller, secondary army that you branch out later with.

I strongly dislike the idea of just taking the best parts of two armies to have some min/maxed uber list with almost no disadvantages, and I'm a little disgusted that they are encouraging this sort of behavior when I fondly recall old White Dwarf articles about how bad it is to be "cheesy" or "beardy" versus playing in the spirit of the game.

Steelmage99 wrote:

Freman Bloodglaive wrote:
The allies matrix should be fairly simple.

Imperial Guard, pretty much battle brothers with everyone except Eldar/Dark Eldar. That reflects Tyranid cults, Chaos cults, Tau auxiliaries, and of course good loyal servants of the Emperor. They could be allies of convenience with Eldar, and desperate allies with Dark Eldar.

Sisters of Battle, battle brothers with all Imperial Forces. Come the Apocalypse with anything Chaos or Dark Eldar, desperate allies with any other Xenos force.

Orks fight with anyone, but don't respect anyone. They'd be allies of convenience with all other forces. Good Orky motto, the enemy of my enemy dies second.

Necrons again should be allies of convenience with most other armies (including Tyranids, no biomatter, no reason for the Hive Mind to eat them). They'd be desperate allies with Dark Eldar, and CtA with Chaos Daemons (abominations from the warp) and Eldar (if the whole war in heaven thing is still in play).

Space Marines, all Space Marines are battle brothers except Dark Angels and Space Wolves who are allies of convenience.

Inquisition (except Grey Knights), battle brothers with all imperial forces and (this might be controversial) Chaos representing Radical Inquisitors who think they can use Chaos to fight Chaos.

Grey Knights, allies of convenience with all Imperial forces, desperate allies with all Xenos. CtA with anything Chaotic.

Those are some pretty Imperial focused proposals. Eldar have no Battle Brothers?

I think this is all pretty accurate - re the question who could the Eldar be battle brothers with rather than Allies of Convenience at best?

Imperial - nope,
Orks - nope,
Tryanids - nope,
Necrons - nope,
Chaos - nope,
Tau - maybe - there is pretty much zero contact in the older fluff - I don't have the newer Tau codexes to confirm if there is any actual contact between them?
Dark Eldar - maybe but more likely Allies of Convenience

?

I think it's a great idea, but like others have said, it's not been executed well.

I'd completely cut out battle brothers and make the majority of factions distrust one another. There needs to be a risk to balance out the reward of covering your weaknesses, at the moment there are massive benefits but next to no drawbacks.

 Gorechild wrote:
I think it's a great idea, but like others have said, it's not been executed well.

I'd completely cut out battle brothers and make the majority of factions distrust one another. There needs to be a risk to balance out the reward of covering your weaknesses, at the moment there are massive benefits but next to no drawbacks.

Then Daemons needs to return to chaos, they SHOULD be battle brothers. (And without all those friggen restrictions)

Good intentions, poor execution.

 BrotherHaraldus wrote:
Good intentions, poor execution.

Very true. The "battle brothers" is what makes it bad. It allows to much in the way of shenanigans and unintended combos. it also just doesn't make sense anyway. Even the closes of forces will not trust one another to that degree.

 soomemafia wrote:
I usually don't mind. It's already easy to be OP with spammable units of different books (Serpent, Riptide, Heldrake). Adding allies will rarely make that much of a difference if you choose to go all-out competitiveness.

On the other hand, it can be used into firing armies' weakness, which can make the game more balanced.

Overall, I'm fine with them. But what really pisses me off is seeing some idiotic alliances. I know, I know. The game isn't only about the fluff. But when I see IG & Daemons vs. BT & Chaos... Just... No.

Fluff reasons:

IG + Daemons: Traitor legion heretics summoned some daemons.
BT + Chaos: Traitor BT.
GK + Necrons: Mattard.

I think the main thing I dislike about them is that everyone seems to run them, and it seems to be the best (only?) way to field a competitive army. That's not right; you should be striving to have a "pure" force unless you have some kind of theme going, for example an IG army with GK as an Inquisitor's retinue, or IG + Daemons/Chaos as a traitor guard regiment.

It seems really lame as what is basically an outsider looking in to see that the majority of armies include allies instead of having a strong cohesion.

The allies concept is a great one and is one of the best things GW has done for it's hobbyists for a long while. It allows you to dip you to into an army, without spending LOADS on it to see if you like it. I wanted to branch into Eldar from my DE, so when the allies rules came out I was straight on in! I wouldn't of been able to start eldar without this rule, because would have to have 2 troops before I could get to the units I like (Warp Spiders being the main one). It's not allies that are the problem, its people. GW didn't make the rules with the intention o allowing 5 riptides, its the people of the game LOOKING for these broken combo's that gives allies a bad name.

How about limiting the allied force organization to just troops and a HQ? This would get rid of some of the more cheesy combos.

Pretty much the same as everything GW has done over the past years..

They have a decent idea but have absolutely no follow through, don't do any kind of external testing and ultimately don't care what happens.

In other words, okay idea but the GW standard implementation.