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Hey all, brand new here (to dakka and 40k in general). Quick question- are allies required in order to have a competitive army list? Battle Brothers seems cool fluff wise, but seems somewhat intimidating for a new player such as myself. It seems to be that GW is turning 40k into a game where whoever spends more on their army by adding allies tends to have a better chance of winning. Is that true? Are there any armies out there that can do just fine without allies?

Required? Not at all.

Nice to have? Maybe. Depends on what your main army is and what holes need plugging.

Define competitive. If you are talking national level tournaments, expect to get your gak packed in by crazy battle bro synergy deathstars if you aren't running the same.

Virtus wrote:are allies required in order to have a competitive army list?

You can certainly compete without allies. Not having allies doesn't mean you can't put minis down and roll dice.

Or did you mean that do you need to have allies to have one of the highest-powered lists so that you can win games? In that case, yes, you do, but you have to be careful which allies you pick. Certain combinations will help you win games, and certain combinations won't.

Necessary for the game as a whole? No, far from it.

Necessary to compete with actual competitive lists? Yes.

Adding allies fully broke the fragile balance 40k used to have and allowed for insane, game-breaking combinations that currently dominate the competitive scene.

In theory, an allies concept isn't such a bad idea and it makes sense for some armies, e.g. the different Space Marine orders or Chaos Space Marines and Demons of Chaos. The problem is the poor implementation and players abusing Games Workshop's short-sighted approach to said concept, resulting in the most boring and stale meta 40k has seen in a long time. Once again, it is up to the players, or rather TOs, to come up with restrictions in order to live up the game and create another fragile balance.

This happened in WHFB a long time ago and now it's happening in 40k as well. It is sad that GW purposefully dropped their interesting in creating a well-balanced ruleset in order to boost profits, especially given their recently increased quality of army book / codex balance.

Allies are cheese. Play without them. If you ever start getting into tournaments, think about them then.

For what its worth, Necrons definitely do NOT need allies to be competitive.

 jasper76 wrote:
Allies are cheese.

I don't agree with this at all. Allies CAN be cheese, but so can many single-codex builds. Taking allies does not automatically make you a cheese-player in the same way that, just because Tau can pull some evil in-codex lists, playing Tau does not make you a cheese player either. Yes, they can be abused, but so can anything else. But like everything else, if used for a reason other than exploiting broken combos for the aim of being better at toy soldiers, they can add a lot to the game.

Ultimately, cheese lists are a product of attitude, not of any army or combination of armies.

@OP: Welcome to Dakka!

 Paradigm wrote:
I don't agree with this at all. Allies CAN be cheese, but so can many single-codex builds. Taking allies does not automatically make you a cheese-player in the same way that, just because Tau can pull some evil in-codex lists, playing Tau does not make you a cheese player either. Yes, they can be abused, but so can anything else. But like everything else, if used for a reason other than exploiting broken combos for the aim of being better at toy soldiers, they can add a lot to the game.

Ultimately, cheese lists are a product of attitude, not of any army or combination of armies.

@OP: Welcome to Dakka!

Sorry. Misuse of the word cheese Let me rephrase:

Allies are cheesy fluff-wise.

Again, not necessarily. I agree when you get combos like GK and Crons (cheesy in both senses of the word) but SM and IG or CSM and Demons can be perfectly fine. I'm not trying to put your point down, I just don't want to scare the OP off allies if he wants them.

Well, truth to be told, what we see in top tier of competetive gaming, it usually is cheese. And Im not talking about fluff heresy, because that would be one big rant. But worse than allies is simply formation abuse.

 Paradigm wrote:

 jasper76 wrote:
Allies are cheese.

I don't agree with this at all. Allies CAN be cheese, but so can many single-codex builds. Taking allies does not automatically make you a cheese-player in the same way that, just because Tau can pull some evil in-codex lists, playing Tau does not make you a cheese player either. Yes, they can be abused, but so can anything else. But like everything else, if used for a reason other than exploiting broken combos for the aim of being better at toy soldiers, they can add a lot to the game.

Ultimately, cheese lists are a product of attitude, not of any army or combination of armies.

@OP: Welcome to Dakka!

While using allies is by no means a cheesy thing, it seems that allies are used a significant portion of the time to exploit Battle Brothers rules, so they come off as cheesy. At least that's been my perspective on it.

Virtus, you don't need allies to play regular games as everyone said. And there's no real reason you need to invest in any one in particular since the meta changes frequently enough that a particular list won't be optimal for too long.

 Paradigm wrote:
I'm not trying to put your point down, I just don't want to scare the OP off allies if he wants them.

That's quite alright. I agree with this completely, and retract my statement. First and foremost, do what is fun for you!

And it's annoying because I've long flirted with the idea of including inquisition allies in my guard army (since 4th ed), but now that "everyone" is taking allied inquisitors, well... my special little snowflakeness...

... ruined.


Not as bad as what happened to grey knights players when they got their current codex, but still...

Allies have been a "boon" to competitive players and to fluff players.

Really depends on what you want to achieve.

A cool background story of a mixed army or a way to remove the weaknesses of one codex by boosting with another: your call.

I have MANY armies that have many good excuses to play together so I am not an opponent of their use.

Why limit your options, looks like GW wont.

Allies can increase the adaptability of your army and plug weakness that a faction on its lonesome would suffer from. For example I have a dark angels army and have also started a regular SM army since they works well as allies for the former. I do this because DA have week anti-flyer units but SM has some units that work very well against flyers. I would say that allies are not necessary but they are very powerful as they remove the limitations that hold a single army behind.

I really like the concept. It provides a cool way to field many different armies that you cannot field otherwise, and it helps people to try another faction.

I do not like the way it is done. The Battle Brothers thing has proved too strong a weapon to give to competitive players, and the allies matrix makes no sense from a background point of view.

Virtus wrote:
Hey all, brand new here (to dakka and 40k in general). Quick question- are allies required in order to have a competitive army list? Battle Brothers seems cool fluff wise, but seems somewhat intimidating for a new player such as myself. It seems to be that GW is turning 40k into a game where whoever spends more on their army by adding allies tends to have a better chance of winning. Is that true? Are there any armies out there that can do just fine without allies?

I have had tremendous success without allies. My Tau, Sisters of Battle, Dark Eldar, Eldar and ESPECIALLY now my IG all do not require allies for me to win and win often.

Most would agree that Tau and Eldar are powerful on their own and need little help but the others I mentioned aren't in that echelon and they dont need to be. My Chaos DO use Black Legion allies, so are you talking about allies that don't use the base codex? I'm not sure it matters but just curious.

Rules stacking is the goal when you ally things in. But it's not free and I think that the love of a units potential rules stack is sometimes leading people down the path of defeat. I feel like the Astra Miltarum will break up that tendency once Deathstrikes start going off. =)

Allies are not necessary to win. In fact nids don't even have allies. Most of the new dexs do fine on their own without allies. CSM and DA struggle without allies and supplements though. Some of the older dexs lack key abilities to win high level play.

Funnily enough people keep going on about how GW has made the game into a "pay to win" game...except the cheapest army in the game FMC chaos daemons is one of the strongest armies in the game.

It's important to know what allies can often lead to.

Here's an example of allies list, 2000pts (so double foc is in) and fw allowed (your mileage may vary there, still makes the point)


Neal from the 11th company ran this list:

The troll-lol-lol star.

Deathstar:
Severin Loth (gate, biomancy if otherwise)
Tank/Buff Commander (kitchensink)
Tank Chapter Master (shield, artificer)
Shadowsun (stealth/shroud/infil-cheat)
6 x Centurions gravs/missile/omniscope
2 x Tau Missile Commanders (target locks, skyfire, double missile pods)

Troops:
4 x 10 Kroot + dog
2 x 5 tactical squads (free Feel no Pain)

----------------------------------------------------------

That's a legal list and one unit is worth over 1700pts on its own. Let that sink in.


Allies are terrible for the game, there's been some in the community thinking that just axing battle brothers will fix the stupid, it will certainly help allies be less stupid but it's like hoping a good frame will save a terrible painting.

 Ailaros wrote:
And it's annoying because I've long flirted with the idea of including inquisition allies in my guard army (since 4th ed), but now that "everyone" is taking allied inquisitors, well... my special little snowflakeness...

... ruined.


Not as bad as what happened to grey knights players when they got their current codex, but still...

Why don't you make yours special little snowflakes then?

Sadly, you are quite correct: everyone seems to take inquisition allies now. But most people just do it to increase their chances at winning: they mindlessly copy netlists and, sadly, are even successful as it's a very easy "tactic" to pull off.

You seem to be interested in adding them because you want to have a strong narrative element with your Imperial Guard army. Why don't you do so? The easiest thing to do would be to write a nice little background on your army and print it on the back of your army list(s). I've done the same thing for my Necrons and it most matches so far, my enemies have picked the list up, read the story and applauded me on the well-written story, claiming it's rare to see people doing this. Write a short, but interesting background story, add some images and ornaments to make it look cool and offer reading it to your opponent.

The second, although more work-intensive, possibility would be to convert your inquisitors to some degree in order to make them fit to your army's general theme. I'm not familiar with their or IG fluff, but would it be possible to give them armor ressembling regular IG trooper armor? Or give them small insignias, hats or any other small details to make them look more like an actual part of your army instead of just being a feature slapped on the army to be a cheap WAAC player?

I am certain that there are many other ways to achieve the same goal, I just wanted to throw some ideas out, maybe you feel inspired to do something. My point is: although it certainly sucks seeing a lot of people jumping on a trendwagon and you maybe just looking like a copycat, there are possibilities to stand out from the others and show that you're invested in your army.

If you can take codex inquisition as ally you should. Not runing coteaz , when you can run him seems stupid.

Dude. You are playing in a regular game that ammounts to somewhere between one and three platoons, so a regular company at best. If you want to stay on the sane side of fluff and sense, there should be no superheavies, close air support and allies from 2 other codices on the table.

If you are playing with some buddies, you'll be definitely fine by just running a single codex or some sensible combination, like Inquisition + IG/SoB/SM.

If you are playing tournaments, well, have fun building 2++ rerollable deathstars and similar gamebreaking stuff. Fun levels may vary.

If you are thinking about a second army, think about what army you like. Not what the allies matrix suggests or what the current meta says. If you don't like painting Eldar, Taudar won't be much fun, even if you run some insane Taudar stuff.
If you want to paint something different from spess muhreens, get yourself a different army and enjoy the hobby.

 Jancoran wrote:
are you talking about allies that don't use the base codex? I'm not sure it matters but just curious.

I'm sorry, but I'm not really sure what you mean by this. I was referring to the Battle Brothers allies found in the rulebook. Are you talking about Forge World stuff?

....

Thanks for the great discussion everyone. Good stuff

 da001 wrote:
I really like the concept. It provides a cool way to field many different armies that you cannot field otherwise, and it helps people to try another faction.

I do not like the way it is done. The Battle Brothers thing has proved too strong a weapon to give to competitive players, and the allies matrix makes no sense from a background point of view.

The matrix itself isn't so bad, outside of the BA & Necron silliness and the lack of IG(AM) allies for Tyranid players to build their Genesneeker cults.

The Battle Bro's issue is mostly taken care of by simply implementing a house rule that disallows any and all IC's from joining each others allied units, which helps to curtail most of those stupid Deathstars!
Keeping the wargear like Teleport Homers and Psychic Blessings from working across allied units isn't too harsh, though I still wish that there were ways to actively try and counter Blessings to begin with, simply because they're way too godly at the moment. (and I say this as a Tzeentch Daemon player!)

You absolutely do NOT need to have allies in order to compete effectively. Experience both with and against the various armies will count for more than ally shenanigans will.

 Sigvatr wrote:

 Ailaros wrote:
And it's annoying because I've long flirted with the idea of including inquisition allies in my guard army (since 4th ed), but now that "everyone" is taking allied inquisitors, well... my special little snowflakeness...

... ruined.


Not as bad as what happened to grey knights players when they got their current codex, but still...

Why don't you make yours special little snowflakes then?

Sadly, you are quite correct: everyone seems to take inquisition allies now. But most people just do it to increase their chances at winning: they mindlessly copy netlists and, sadly, are even successful as it's a very easy "tactic" to pull off.

You seem to be interested in adding them because you want to have a strong narrative element with your Imperial Guard army. Why don't you do so? The easiest thing to do would be to write a nice little background on your army and print it on the back of your army list(s). I've done the same thing for my Necrons and it most matches so far, my enemies have picked the list up, read the story and applauded me on the well-written story, claiming it's rare to see people doing this. Write a short, but interesting background story, add some images and ornaments to make it look cool and offer reading it to your opponent.

The second, although more work-intensive, possibility would be to convert your inquisitors to some degree in order to make them fit to your army's general theme. I'm not familiar with their or IG fluff, but would it be possible to give them armor ressembling regular IG trooper armor? Or give them small insignias, hats or any other small details to make them look more like an actual part of your army instead of just being a feature slapped on the army to be a cheap WAAC player?

I am certain that there are many other ways to achieve the same goal, I just wanted to throw some ideas out, maybe you feel inspired to do something. My point is: although it certainly sucks seeing a lot of people jumping on a trendwagon and you maybe just looking like a copycat, there are possibilities to stand out from the others and show that you're invested in your army.

Agreed. I've read all your stuff (by that I mean Battle Reports, and some posts) Ailaros and it's pretty clear you're no WAAC player. Why not take a shot at converting one up? Personally I sourced one of the models from Warforge and converted her to be WYSIWYG... well, aside from the lack of armour, but that is part of the reason I like the model. Just because Inquisitors are effective doesn't mean that they can't also be fluffy, and awesome looking.

Sigvatr - An interesting proposition. I'd certainly read it if my opponent had written some (concise) fluff behind their force. It's yet to happen, but that would be badass if it did.

Virtus wrote:

 Jancoran wrote:
are you talking about allies that don't use the base codex? I'm not sure it matters but just curious.

I'm sorry, but I'm not really sure what you mean by this. I was referring to the Battle Brothers allies found in the rulebook. Are you talking about Forge World stuff?

....

Thanks for the great discussion everyone. Good stuff

I was referring to the idea that Black Legion (for example) is a supplement but technically can be taken as an ally, even though it uses the same base codex, but with some options and requirements attached.

I sometimes think of those supplements as not being... allies. They ARE allies by definition but they are SORT of just options they could have left in the damn codex itself, like when you make Wracks Troops choices. Lol. anyways I was just wondering how the Original post was addressing allies.

No, allies are not a must-have.
They come with a tax in form of the mandatory units that must be taken.

I honestly think it's just for looks most of the time.

 wuestenfux wrote:
No, allies are not a must-have.
They come with a tax in form of the mandatory units that must be taken.

unless they are taken from the inquisition codex. no tax , don't need to take troops , in fact they can save points by replacing an HQ slot in imperial armies. 100pts divination caster with pseudo intercept , good shoting , stubborn , buffs to rolls who start and no tax , what is not to like . Or his cheap friends with servo skulls