Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 Sir Arun wrote:
I sincerely hope that 7th edition wont be like what 3rd edition was to 2nd edition, i.e. stripping the game off all its complexity and starting from scratch with an oversimplified ruleset that robbed a lot of fun from the game

I hope it's exactly like that because I think most of the complexity in the game at the moment is unnecessary bloat rather than genuine depth.

I disagree, although I acknowledge the fact that many of the rules now are overly cumbersome and the idea of introducing super heavies into the standard game is just a little weird but hey that being said I appreciate a complex game system one that you have to reference the rule book and study it. I honestly believe if they dumb it down too far that it will kill the game just like in my opinion Dungeons and Dragons died for me when it went from 3.5 to 4.0

 Yodhrin wrote:
It's not even about that, from my perspective; I like the fluff as it's presented(mostly, my 10th Legion bionic gauntlet is now permanently jammed in place flipping GW the bird), but there are many parts of the fluff, even just the fairly mainstream and well-detailed Imperial parts of it, which you simply can't explore properly on the tabletop when limited to a single official Codex.

Would I prefer it if I could rely on getting a game with homebrew rules, either amalgams of existing units from different codices or completely fan-written material? Definitely, but I can't, in fact I can virtually guarantee the opposite outside of my own "gaming group" who now live all over the place and can only get together once or twice a year. Allies mean my Mechanicus and Dark Mechanicus can be more than just "red Imperial Guard" and "Chaos Marines with cogs on", they allow people to create interesting Radical Inquisitorial armies, they allow Arbites to see the table more completely even than you could manage with the old Codex:Witch Hunters, they let people put together minor Xenos factions that are only alluded to in 40K or which have come out of the Heresy-era material in recent years. I and others can do all that without once having to deal with someone whinging about "bu-bu-bu-but it's not official!" or spending twenty minutes haggling over some minor point of WYSIWYG; it's brilliant.

If the price of that flexibility(and while it may technically be possible to have as much flexibility or near to it AND tight balanced rules in a general sense, in the context of 40K and the GW of the day's attitudes it is not) is giving the powergaming types a few new ways of putting together ridiculously unbalanced lists which will tear fluff and casual players apart than they had before, well who cares? Take those away and as I said, you get exactly the same problem but everybody has less options and variety available.

This... this is how I feel, expressed with a clarity and patience that you all know I don't possess.

 Yodhrin wrote:
It's not even about that, from my perspective; I like the fluff as it's presented(mostly, my 10th Legion bionic gauntlet is now permanently jammed in place flipping GW the bird), but there are many parts of the fluff, even just the fairly mainstream and well-detailed Imperial parts of it, which you simply can't explore properly on the tabletop when limited to a single official Codex.

Would I prefer it if I could rely on getting a game with homebrew rules, either amalgams of existing units from different codices or completely fan-written material? Definitely, but I can't, in fact I can virtually guarantee the opposite outside of my own "gaming group" who now live all over the place and can only get together once or twice a year. Allies mean my Mechanicus and Dark Mechanicus can be more than just "red Imperial Guard" and "Chaos Marines with cogs on", they allow people to create interesting Radical Inquisitorial armies, they allow Arbites to see the table more completely even than you could manage with the old Codex:Witch Hunters, they let people put together minor Xenos factions that are only alluded to in 40K or which have come out of the Heresy-era material in recent years. I and others can do all that without once having to deal with someone whinging about "bu-bu-bu-but it's not official!" or spending twenty minutes haggling over some minor point of WYSIWYG; it's brilliant.

If the price of that flexibility(and while it may technically be possible to have as much flexibility or near to it AND tight balanced rules in a general sense, in the context of 40K and the GW of the day's attitudes it is not) is giving the powergaming types a few new ways of putting together ridiculously unbalanced lists which will tear fluff and casual players apart than they had before, well who cares? Take those away and as I said, you get exactly the same problem but everybody has less options and variety available.

If the allies rules were in any way shape or form balanced, you might have a point.

But they're not. When you have armies that cant really ally with anyone else, and other armies that can ally with half the game, and yet another army that literally can NOT ally with anyone, then you dont have a good rule. You have a pile of gamebreaking crap that says "Oh you play Tyranids? Well frell you and the horse you rode in on!"

Before Allies there was a perfectly viable way to mix and match forces: Apocalypse. Apocalypse allowed you to field whatever you wanted, in whatever combination, and have a decent rules framework to play in. Not every Apoc game had to be 10 million points, despite what everyone seemed to think.

Instead, we have a pile of crap allies rules that allow certain armies to play, other armies to dabble and Tyranids get frelled.

Dunno about you, but I consider that a gak set of rules.

 streamdragon wrote:

 Yodhrin wrote:
It's not even about that, from my perspective; I like the fluff as it's presented(mostly, my 10th Legion bionic gauntlet is now permanently jammed in place flipping GW the bird), but there are many parts of the fluff, even just the fairly mainstream and well-detailed Imperial parts of it, which you simply can't explore properly on the tabletop when limited to a single official Codex.

Would I prefer it if I could rely on getting a game with homebrew rules, either amalgams of existing units from different codices or completely fan-written material? Definitely, but I can't, in fact I can virtually guarantee the opposite outside of my own "gaming group" who now live all over the place and can only get together once or twice a year. Allies mean my Mechanicus and Dark Mechanicus can be more than just "red Imperial Guard" and "Chaos Marines with cogs on", they allow people to create interesting Radical Inquisitorial armies, they allow Arbites to see the table more completely even than you could manage with the old Codex:Witch Hunters, they let people put together minor Xenos factions that are only alluded to in 40K or which have come out of the Heresy-era material in recent years. I and others can do all that without once having to deal with someone whinging about "bu-bu-bu-but it's not official!" or spending twenty minutes haggling over some minor point of WYSIWYG; it's brilliant.

If the price of that flexibility(and while it may technically be possible to have as much flexibility or near to it AND tight balanced rules in a general sense, in the context of 40K and the GW of the day's attitudes it is not) is giving the powergaming types a few new ways of putting together ridiculously unbalanced lists which will tear fluff and casual players apart than they had before, well who cares? Take those away and as I said, you get exactly the same problem but everybody has less options and variety available.

If the allies rules were in any way shape or form balanced, you might have a point.

But they're not. When you have armies that cant really ally with anyone else, and other armies that can ally with half the game, and yet another army that literally can NOT ally with anyone, then you dont have a good rule. You have a pile of gamebreaking crap that says "Oh you play Tyranids? Well frell you and the horse you rode in on!"

Before Allies there was a perfectly viable way to mix and match forces: Apocalypse. Apocalypse allowed you to field whatever you wanted, in whatever combination, and have a decent rules framework to play in. Not every Apoc game had to be 10 million points, despite what everyone seemed to think.

Instead, we have a pile of crap allies rules that allow certain armies to play, other armies to dabble and Tyranids get frelled.

Dunno about you, but I consider that a gak set of rules.

And I've made it fairly clear I don't. Are they crap for 'nids? Sure, but if that's the argument what you're essentially saying is "I don't get any cool toys, so everyone else should lose theirs too!". Nothing about 40K is in any way, shape, or form balanced and, perhaps excepting short periods in 3rd and 4th editions, it's never even come close. So again, it becomes a choice between more options, or less options without significantly changing how imbalanced the game is - or is your contention that removing Allies in and of itself would make Tyranids viable?

As for Apocalypse, my experience was very much in line with what you acknowledge right there in the post is what "everyone seemed to think" - that it was for massive battles, or special arranged-in-advance narrative battles, and since the entire reason that I like the Allies rules is that it lets me field the armies I want to field at normal points levels without having to endure a bloody UN Summit before every game to negotiate the terms, Apocalypse rules in a context where virtually everyone would have to be "talked into" using them for normal points level games is self-evidently not fit for purpose.

 Yodhrin wrote:

the armies I want to field at normal points levels without having to endure a bloody UN Summit before every game to negotiate the terms

I'd just like to point out that the presence or absence of Allies has no effect on this occurrence in the broader sense. Sure, with Allies you don't have to argue about fielding two different forces and how they will interact with one another, but the serious imbalances inherent to the systems (which you yourself have already acknowledged) means that many games against strangers will require this same inane level of negotiation. For example...

"This is a 2000pt game, but no double force-org"
"Five Riptides is too OP, this is a casual game"
"Seerstar is boring to play against"
"Don't bring your buff-mander, please"
"I don't allow FW"
"FW is okay, but no super-heavies"
"Fortifications are a no-no"
"I'd like a competitive game, can we leave out mysterious objectives/terrain?"
"No escalation"
"Only wimps use dataslates"

These kinds of conditions and qualifications come from both casual and competitive players alike. Ultimately, one needs to negotiate these kinds of things quite often before a game, so your argument that Allies are justified because they eliminate one element of negotiation does not hold much water in my opinion. I'm not actually against Allies (nor do I necessarily disagree that they are good for the game - I actually like the flexibility), but I don't think your reasoning really stacks up all that well.

I'm still studying the 6th edition rule book! As a new player i feel this would suck lol.

Play Group - "Ok Blay, time to relearn everything you just scrutinized for the past few months!"
Me - "FacePalm"

Blaylokk wrote:
I'm still studying the 6th edition rule book! As a new player i feel this would suck lol.

Play Group - "Ok Blay, time to relearn everything you just scrutinized for the past few months!"
Me - "FacePalm"

This would be highly unlikely.

Most of the fundamental mechanics have remained unchanged since the days of RT, or 2nd Ed at least. To hit and to wound are fundamentally similar for instance.

Sure you'd have to learn what was different, but you wouldn't need to start over.

Now imagine 20 years and multiple editions down the line, my issue isn't necessarily remembering the rules, it's remembering them from the correct version!

Well that's a relief .. lol

 azreal13 wrote:
Most of the fundamental mechanics have remained unchanged since the days of RT, or 2nd Ed at least. To hit and to wound are fundamentally similar for instance.

Sure you'd have to learn what was different, but you wouldn't need to start over.

Now imagine 20 years and multiple editions down the line, my issue isn't necessarily remembering the rules, it's remembering them from the correct version!

Did you forget how 6th edition changed a crapton of rules when the game transitioned from 5th?

melee weapons having AP values, mysterious terrain and objectives, challenges, hull points, flyers, CC-AT nerf for MCs, HoW, allies matrix, overwatch, FMCs, wound allocation, fully random psychic powers section, warlord traits, secondary objectives, 'our weapons are useless',...

...to me it was like a new game.

The transition from 4th to 5th on the other hand was a lot easier to comprehend. 1 vehicle damage table (with modifiers) instead of 2; run, go to ground, redone blast rules, ramming, and of course the rending nerf. cant remember anything else, lol

 Sir Arun wrote:

 azreal13 wrote:
Most of the fundamental mechanics have remained unchanged since the days of RT, or 2nd Ed at least. To hit and to wound are fundamentally similar for instance.

Sure you'd have to learn what was different, but you wouldn't need to start over.

Now imagine 20 years and multiple editions down the line, my issue isn't necessarily remembering the rules, it's remembering them from the correct version!

Did you forget how 6th edition changed a crapton of rules when the game transitioned from 5th?

melee weapons having AP values, mysterious terrain and objectives, challenges, hull points, flyers, CC-AT nerf for MCs, HoW, allies matrix, overwatch, FMCs, wound allocation, fully random psychic powers section, warlord traits, secondary objectives, 'our weapons are useless',...

...to me it was like a new game.

The transition from 4th to 5th on the other hand was a lot easier to comprehend. 1 vehicle damage table (with modifiers) instead of 2; run, go to ground, redone blast rules, ramming, and of course the rending nerf. cant remember anything else, lol

What...you mean.....some stuff changed?!!!!!!

Quick, fetch me my astonished hat!



I am not an Alzheimer's patient, I did not forget anything, I was merely trying to assure a new player that all his carefully accumulated knowledge wasn't necessarily going to go out of the window with a new edition. Thanks for undermining my attempt.

Nah Az, quite a bit changed. The transition from 5th to 6th wasn't as big as, say, 2nd to 3rd, but a lot did change, and heaps of (needless and over-complicated) rules were added.

Agreed, but a lot didn't, or at least didn't change beyond the scope of "oh ok, we do it that way now"

But again, the degree that things changed/didn't change wasn't my objective with my original post.

Ally rules didn't even need to be in the game in the first place, since you could just apply allies for purposes of the scenario/campaign/narrative you were playing if you were going that route, and if you were going the competitive route then outside of maybe a few handfuls of army concepts there wasn't a need for allies in the rules. Same with most of the other OP garbage that GW added: The people who would likely use them for benign purposes didn't need rules outlining how to do it, and the everybody else didn't need them at all.

No man this can't be happening man. I just started getting good at 6th ed man! THEY CAN'T TAKE THAT FROM ME MAN!

 Xca|iber wrote:

 Yodhrin wrote:

the armies I want to field at normal points levels without having to endure a bloody UN Summit before every game to negotiate the terms

I'd just like to point out that the presence or absence of Allies has no effect on this occurrence in the broader sense. Sure, with Allies you don't have to argue about fielding two different forces and how they will interact with one another, but the serious imbalances inherent to the systems (which you yourself have already acknowledged) means that many games against strangers will require this same inane level of negotiation. For example...

"This is a 2000pt game, but no double force-org"
"Five Riptides is too OP, this is a casual game"
"Seerstar is boring to play against"
"Don't bring your buff-mander, please"
"I don't allow FW"
"FW is okay, but no super-heavies"
"Fortifications are a no-no"
"I'd like a competitive game, can we leave out mysterious objectives/terrain?"
"No escalation"
"Only wimps use dataslates"

These kinds of conditions and qualifications come from both casual and competitive players alike. Ultimately, one needs to negotiate these kinds of things quite often before a game, so your argument that Allies are justified because they eliminate one element of negotiation does not hold much water in my opinion. I'm not actually against Allies (nor do I necessarily disagree that they are good for the game - I actually like the flexibility), but I don't think your reasoning really stacks up all that well.

My reasoning stacks up fine, providing you don't falsely attribute equal weight and likelihood to every potential disagreement happening before every game. It also stacks up fine providing you acknowledge that those objections all have different levels of validity and so even if they do come up, are not all equally likely to be long and contentious arguments. If I go to any particular club or store on a game night, the odds are fairly good that I will find one person who is not averse to Forgeworld, Allies, Escalation, Fortifications or whatever combination of them and other things my army includes, because there is not near-universal opposition to those things.

You can not, in my experience, expect to get the same reaction if you show up at any particular club or store and ask people to play against homebrew and house-ruled lists. "My army uses a Destroyer Tank Hunter, here's a copy of the rules, is that cool?" is not going to be as likely to result in objections or contentious debating as "Here is my army list representing Dark Mechanicus, I know it's an 1850 game and we're not playing Apocalypse, but I've chosen units from a couple of different Codices, is that cool?" or "Here is my Adeptus Arbites Punitive Battalion army list, it's based on a fan Codex I wrote myself/found online, is that cool?", and that distinction is so obvious as to be self-evident.

WayneTheGame wrote:
Ally rules didn't even need to be in the game in the first place, since you could just apply allies for purposes of the scenario/campaign/narrative you were playing if you were going that route, and if you were going the competitive route then outside of maybe a few handfuls of army concepts there wasn't a need for allies in the rules. Same with most of the other OP garbage that GW added: The people who would likely use them for benign purposes didn't need rules outlining how to do it, and the everybody else didn't need them at all.

If you play with a regular group who you know. There is a great bloody chasm between "narrative campaign gaming at a mate's house" and "cut-throat tournament gaming" in which exists a massive population of players who play pick-up games with people they either don't know or who are just very casual acquaintances from the local store/club, and some of us *shock-horror* are fluff gamers who use Allies rules for "benign purposes", and are extremely grateful for them because they allow us to get a game in without dealing with petty objections.

My only beef with Allies is that a few doesn't make sens...

Because in the Fluff ONE TIME in some drastic circumstances, Crons and BA fought along side by side, they are now Allies...

A one time thing becomes the excuse for being able to do it always, now i admit that i never saw a Cron/BA army myself...

The most ridiculous is Taudar, everyone knows that, not really because of the fluff or anything, but more because How broken what you can with them is...

And seeing that Eldars are shaddy people, they really shouldn't have end up BB's with Tau's, AoC's at best!.

Now a lot of Imperial alliances, makes sens, and its amongst the only ones that does...

And then...we have Chaos...BB that can't join each other, there was ONE faction in the whole game that would end up with something has strange and stupid has this, and it was of Course Chaos...

Also something i don't get is that Tau's and Orks can ally with each other..., i mean wasn't they supposed to be Mortal ennemies?

Now a few of those alliance even if weird, give some modeling opportunities, like Crons with Chaos, if you want to make a Dark Mech allied detachement, with Chaos Androids like in RT.

Or Mutants ala Lost and the Damned with Chaos+Orks.

But the Allies matrix need some reworks in the end.

 Sir Arun wrote:

 azreal13 wrote:
Most of the fundamental mechanics have remained unchanged since the days of RT, or 2nd Ed at least. To hit and to wound are fundamentally similar for instance.

Sure you'd have to learn what was different, but you wouldn't need to start over.

Now imagine 20 years and multiple editions down the line, my issue isn't necessarily remembering the rules, it's remembering them from the correct version!

Did you forget how 6th edition changed a crapton of rules when the game transitioned from 5th?

melee weapons having AP values, mysterious terrain and objectives, challenges, hull points, flyers, CC-AT nerf for MCs, HoW, allies matrix, overwatch, FMCs, wound allocation, fully random psychic powers section, warlord traits, secondary objectives, 'our weapons are useless',...

...to me it was like a new game.

The transition from 4th to 5th on the other hand was a lot easier to comprehend. 1 vehicle damage table (with modifiers) instead of 2; run, go to ground, redone blast rules, ramming, and of course the rending nerf. cant remember anything else, lol

The small transitions and alteration aside, I think the point being made is that fundamental mechanics have not changed at all throughout the course of the game. Models have wounds to determine how long they live, they fire with their BS, combat foes based on WS, go in I order, compare S and T values, or armour values when necessary, etc. The way in which a certain mechanic is used or expanded upon can change (i.e, giving vehicles wounds with hull points, altering which value you need for a given mechanic, psyker levels, etc.)

Some of the few new mechanics that were actually added this edition:
- How to interact with flyers, an entirely new breed of vehicle.
- How to treat psyker abilities, powers, and the targeting of them.

Many other things that are, indeed, "new" merely alter an old mechanic, instead of introducing something entirely new and fresh. Throwing a grenade is just another ranged weapon, only moving 6" before disembarking is just a new way to disembark, passing a feel no pain on a 5+ instead of a 4+ is just a new statistic, etc. etc.

Had they started making rules like units no longer have to maintain coherency, weapons can be picked up from fallen enemies and used by your troops, vehicles can be stolen and piloted, forrests can be burned to the ground, buildings can be erected mid-battle, etc., those would account for entirely new mechanics, instead of just a rehashing of the old ones.

tyrannosaurus wrote:This thread seems to have captured all of the vocal anti-GW crowd. Please don't make the assumption that the majority of 40k players don't like 6th edition.

It is not posters in this thread leading to assumptions about the majority of the player base disliking 6th ed. It is the plummeting sales of 6th ed and its projected future when you look at what is happening in Warhammer Fantasy 8th ed.

Porting fantasies more disliked features and then adding even more random bloat just killed the game for a great number of players.

tyrannosaurus wrote:I personally much prefer it to 5th, particularly in terms of wound allocation, flyers, hull points, pre-measured range, etc. etc. I also think, from a casual player's perspective, that allies are brilliant. I now have a fluffy, themed Sisters force allied with Inquisition.

Good for you, though you might want to avoid blanket statements where you claim to speak for all casual gamers.

As a casual gamer myself your list of what you like about 6th ed has only one item I agree with. Wounds from the front...everything else like fliers, hull points, pre-measured range and allies are complete rules bloat rubbish. For me, these rules do not add to the game being more immersive. Rather they detract from the experience by creating situations that cause a suspension of disbelief.

Hull points add more book keeping hassle to a game that already pushes the limit on amount of record keeping one is normally willing to do for a "casual" game.

Flyers that "circle" a 48 yrd x 72 yrd "active" battlefield at supersonic speeds requires more than a casual amount of imagination to ignore the "wow, I'm playing one stupid game" logic alarm in my head.

Imo, pre-measuring moves the game away from immersing one in tactical game play. Instead it creates a detached moment where one consciously decides to abandon the battle plan in order to gain advantage for the win. For me, pre-measure is a competition based rule.

Slayer le boucher wrote:
The most ridiculous is Taudar, everyone knows that, not really because of the fluff or anything, but more because How broken what you can with them is...

While I agree with your overall theme that allies either need a major rework or just should be tossed, Tau and eldar are one of the few ally groupings that makes sense. This is due to the fluff always alluding to a connection between these races.

The problem with Taudar alliances being unbalanced and ridiculously powerful just illustrates how little thought GW put into how these books would work together.

Both Tau and Eldar were released after 6th and GW's lack of design coordination is for me the most damning reason of why the allies matrix should just go away.

Let us, the players work out alliances in our casual games. By codifying allies in the rules GW catered to the waac rules lawyers. Leave them out of the rules and there is nothing for the waac rules lawyers to exploit.

 Yodhrin wrote:


My reasoning stacks up fine, providing you don't falsely attribute equal weight and likelihood to every potential disagreement happening before every game. It also stacks up fine providing you acknowledge that those objections all have different levels of validity and so even if they do come up, are not all equally likely to be long and contentious arguments. If I go to any particular club or store on a game night, the odds are fairly good that I will find one person who is not averse to Forgeworld, Allies, Escalation, Fortifications or whatever combination of them and other things my army includes, because there is not near-universal opposition to those things.

You can not, in my experience, expect to get the same reaction if you show up at any particular club or store and ask people to play against homebrew and house-ruled lists. "My army uses a Destroyer Tank Hunter, here's a copy of the rules, is that cool?" is not going to be as likely to result in objections or contentious debating as "Here is my army list representing Dark Mechanicus, I know it's an 1850 game and we're not playing Apocalypse, but I've chosen units from a couple of different Codices, is that cool?" or "Here is my Adeptus Arbites Punitive Battalion army list, it's based on a fan Codex I wrote myself/found online, is that cool?", and that distinction is so obvious as to be self-evident.

If you play with a regular group who you know. There is a great bloody chasm between "narrative campaign gaming at a mate's house" and "cut-throat tournament gaming" in which exists a massive population of players who play pick-up games with people they either don't know or who are just very casual acquaintances from the local store/club, and some of us *shock-horror* are fluff gamers who use Allies rules for "benign purposes", and are extremely grateful for them because they allow us to get a game in without dealing with petty objections.

I guess we must have pretty different experiences then. I've seen a lot more angry tirades and petty objections to players using 5 Riptides than players who want a game with their homebrew fandex. Often times, this type of contention actually arises during a game instead of before, which just makes everything a whole lot worse. So in my experience, yes, I've seen much greater opposition to tiny differences in rules-interpretations than I have opposition to the concept of Allies in general. Most people I knew in 5th would have been far more upset to see a GK Purifier Spam list than two codices working together.

 azreal13 wrote:
Now imagine 20 years and multiple editions down the line, my issue isn't necessarily remembering the rules, it's remembering them from the correct version!

Yup. This is a huge problem for me. I keep telling people Furious Charge gives you +1 I and Str, and it's not true anymore. Little tweaks like that are the annoying ones - like, in my opinion, it didn't really make that rule make any more sense to take away the initiative bonus (probably the opposite if anything) so I remember the version that makes the most sense in my head and that I played with for four years over the "basically the same but very slightly different, and not in a good way" new version.

Still no news on this one? I wonder if we can keep all the speculation and moaning going until july when this turns out to be bogus?

Well, there was a french guy stating that the new dex is with the printer. I'd love to know, which printer that is. Maybe it's easier to find out whats happening when you know who's printing the stuff instead of trying to get GW to actually shed some light on their machinations.

So who's producing the books for GW?

WayneTheGame wrote:
Ally rules didn't even need to be in the game in the first place, since you could just apply allies for purposes of the scenario/campaign/narrative you were playing if you were going that route, and if you were going the competitive route then outside of maybe a few handfuls of army concepts there wasn't a need for allies in the rules. Same with most of the other OP garbage that GW added: The people who would likely use them for benign purposes didn't need rules outlining how to do it, and the everybody else didn't need them at all.

I hate when people talk about ally rules like they're some new GW gimmick. Ally rules have been present in one form or another almost entire existence of 40k, save for end times of 5th edition (about a year). Even some 5th edition competive list archetypes used allies.

Now, sure that modest ability of some Imperial armies to ally with each other as it was in 4th and 5th edition was not quite pervasive as today's ally matrix - which I agree is not the best way to implement the concept - however, allies as such are not a new phenomenon.

I remember when I started playing the rhino rush was the meta. I don't think that any of the current meta even comes close to as strong as the rhino rush was. That was some real first turn my whole army assaults you I win meta. The meta changing gives a freshness to the game that keeps it fun to play. If you really want a balanced game that never changes you should think of taking up chess because that is the closes you are going to get to game balance. Even in chess white is considered by many to be OP. My only problem with a new rulebook so soon is have to pay for a new rule book so soon.

 Captain Avatar wrote:

The problem with Taudar alliances being unbalanced and ridiculously powerful just illustrates how little thought GW put into how these books would work together.

Both Tau and Eldar were released after 6th and GW's lack of design coordination is for me the most damning reason of why the allies matrix should just go away.

The idea is sound, but you just need to bear in mind when designing the models how they'll work with not just their own faction but also everyone they can ally with. Other games have the concept of mercenary or allied units, but add in a condition to limit how much they synergise with other armies. Warmachine has the "faction" tag, where mercenary units won't benefit from certain spells or effects. Malifaux has a surcharge for hiring Outcast models in a non-Outcast faction, or has certain models / upgrades open up non-faction models.

40K could have done that by being far less liberal with which combos were Battle Brothers, or eliminating that level of alliance entirely. If there are limits on models from one faction buffing models from another, you can have your sensible combos that represent unusual armies, but you don't need to worry about the horror combos of, say, Tau + Eldar.

 Yodhrin wrote:

And I've made it fairly clear I don't. Are they crap for 'nids? Sure, but if that's the argument what you're essentially saying is "I don't get any cool toys, so everyone else should lose theirs too!". Nothing about 40K is in any way, shape, or form balanced and, perhaps excepting short periods in 3rd and 4th editions, it's never even come close. So again, it becomes a choice between more options, or less options without significantly changing how imbalanced the game is - or is your contention that removing Allies in and of itself would make Tyranids viable?

As for Apocalypse, my experience was very much in line with what you acknowledge right there in the post is what "everyone seemed to think" - that it was for massive battles, or special arranged-in-advance narrative battles, and since the entire reason that I like the Allies rules is that it lets me field the armies I want to field at normal points levels without having to endure a bloody UN Summit before every game to negotiate the terms, Apocalypse rules in a context where virtually everyone would have to be "talked into" using them for normal points level games is self-evidently not fit for purpose.

Whereas your argument is basically "I can do what I want to, but you don't get to so I'm okay with that!" Or more succinctly, "Frell you, got mine!"

I understand that nothing is 100% balanced. No game is that uses an IGOUGO system, even basic board games. As we have both agreed, the option to ally any forces you want already existed in the game via Apoc. People's collective ignorance of the system doesn't change the fact that it was there. So this isn't really a choice between "more option vs less options". The option hasn't changed. What the current system creates is "these armies are special snowflakes, these others are plainer snowflakes, and this last army is the gray gunk that gets stuck to your shoe". To be clear, I was never pointing out the imbalance towards Tyranids specifically as much as pointing out the inherent imbalance for almost all armies. There is not even an attempt to make the system balanced for the armies out there (regardless of the overall balance of the game). Your argument basically boils down to "the game will never be 100% balanced, so why bother balancing anything at all?".

But hey, what do you care, you get to be a special snowflake right?

 streamdragon wrote:

 Yodhrin wrote:

And I've made it fairly clear I don't. Are they crap for 'nids? Sure, but if that's the argument what you're essentially saying is "I don't get any cool toys, so everyone else should lose theirs too!". Nothing about 40K is in any way, shape, or form balanced and, perhaps excepting short periods in 3rd and 4th editions, it's never even come close. So again, it becomes a choice between more options, or less options without significantly changing how imbalanced the game is - or is your contention that removing Allies in and of itself would make Tyranids viable?

As for Apocalypse, my experience was very much in line with what you acknowledge right there in the post is what "everyone seemed to think" - that it was for massive battles, or special arranged-in-advance narrative battles, and since the entire reason that I like the Allies rules is that it lets me field the armies I want to field at normal points levels without having to endure a bloody UN Summit before every game to negotiate the terms, Apocalypse rules in a context where virtually everyone would have to be "talked into" using them for normal points level games is self-evidently not fit for purpose.

Whereas your argument is basically "I can do what I want to, but you don't get to so I'm okay with that!" Or more succinctly, "Frell you, got mine!"

I understand that nothing is 100% balanced. No game is that uses an IGOUGO system, even basic board games. As we have both agreed, the option to ally any forces you want already existed in the game via Apoc. People's collective ignorance of the system doesn't change the fact that it was there. So this isn't really a choice between "more option vs less options". The option hasn't changed. What the current system creates is "these armies are special snowflakes, these others are plainer snowflakes, and this last army is the gray gunk that gets stuck to your shoe". To be clear, I was never pointing out the imbalance towards Tyranids specifically as much as pointing out the inherent imbalance for almost all armies. There is not even an attempt to make the system balanced for the armies out there (regardless of the overall balance of the game). Your argument basically boils down to "the game will never be 100% balanced, so why bother balancing anything at all?".

But hey, what do you care, you get to be a special snowflake right?

Wow. I couldn't have said it better myself. Exalted.

Can't say GW isn't putting up a fight. They're pulling out every trick they can think of in desperation.

In all this what pisses me off the most is I purchased the digital book for ease, I also own the hard copy that I got when 6th first came out....and now I have to buy a whole new book. Those of you that got the LE books deserve the right to riot on GW doorstep. I am all for fixing the broken parts of the game but I really hope they allow digital updates to the current digital copy. I doubt they will but good grief....

Allies itself as a concept is not that broken (however the matrix needs some serious work), but the units within the codices then go ahead and break the game when you allow them (i'm looking at you taudar). Also, allies are being used to cover up inherent weaknesses in lists, every race should be good at some things and suck at others, the allies matrix allows everyone to be good at everything (except you tyranids, sorry)

When the latest edition of WFB came out the first 5 books out for it were essentially balanced internally with themselves and I was thinking:

'great, they are going to follow this through when 6th ed. 40k comes out...'.

damn was I wrong, and the combo of codex creep, unnecessary rules, powergaming allies matrix abuse, and for me, the final nail in the coffin.... Escalation,

So now 40k is 'put all your toys on the table, YAY!!!', i'm less than impressed, so much so that i've chosen to sit this edition out and hope for better luck next time.

Unfortunately, now GW has opened the pandoras box that is escelation, I just dont see them ever shutting it again, last thing I want is to show up at a pickup game and my opponent puts down a warhound, or something equally daft, forcing me into that awkward conversation that goes:

Me: 'you really think this will make that will make this a fun game?'

Opponent: 'Its the rules so its ok, and titans rawk!!!'

the LOW choices just don't work for pickup games as usually you have to tailor your list to kill them, and saddly the only way to beat the allies hell or the escelation BS is to become a part of it.


I think I might have gone on a bit of a rant there, sorry for that....

edit: and another thing, digital extras, NO! just put the rules in the codex book when you actually write it, I can't keep on top of it, the hobby and codexes need streamlining, not more tat thrown on top of them!!, Write a solid ruleset with all the options in it once, if this update does that i'll be happy, but I imagine it will just be more excuses for everyone and their dog to field everything on thier hobby shelf.

 Fishboy wrote:
Those of you that got the LE books deserve the right to riot on GW doorstep.

Does anyone actually buy the limited edition books for their use as a gaming resource? Or is it just because they are pretty?

From my experience, it's more the latter. As often as not, they'll have bought a regular version as well to actually use for gaming. And if that's the case, the length of time the limited edition book remains current is kind of irrelevant. It's just as pretty when the rules it contains are replaced as it was when it was purchased.