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At this point in the edition its fairly obvious that allies either make or break a lot of armies. DE are brought by Eldar for bonus's, as are Harlys. Imperium of Man shenanigans. The only top army I see that doesn't have any allies is the Necrons.

Do you think GW is going to allow more open ally rules in the next edition to try and balance those armies that don't really have allies? (Tyrnids, Orks, Crons) ?

and if you think they will fix it or change it how so?

Im kind of hoping they either flat out allow everyone to ally with anyone or they basically take allies away which I dont see happening because allies = more money for GW

Eldar don't need any allies.

I view allies like any other mechanic. If your goal is to push the game to it's extremes to win, then it will lead to some eye rolling moments. That said from a less competitive player i love allies. My marines can take some guard, an inquisitor can show, the eldar can unite for one doom-full purpose, and chaos gets to be one family again. I'm ok with that, and the fact that it allows for minor factions to show up and not be screwed.

We just need tighter rules. Saying that, that is completely impossible. Allies could be fine if potential stupid combos were removed (i.e. "Precious relics: Wraithguard may only be joined by Wraithseers, no other Independent Character. Zeal of the First: Azrael may grant his save only to Dark Angels models) etc, but with GW the current way it is that's impossible.

At present the only hope of GW fixing an OP combo is two editions late, and the way they're "balancing" armies at present is just dropping a blanket buff on whole factions.

Usually all that does is make the strong units stronger and forgotten units more forgotten, see Kroot and Vespids in the absurd new Tau rules. There are a few exceptions-for instance, Walkers have been getting consistent buffs to melee strength as the codexes roll out-but for the most part if there's a lazy way to do something that's how GW is gonna do it.

A lot of the issues with allies can be fixed if they take away battle brothers altogether. Prevents unit mix and matching for the ultimate combo while still allowing them in your army, just not to the extent of taking away the point of external balance by having cross-codex contamination.

 Ghazkuul wrote:
At this point in the edition its fairly obvious that allies either make or break a lot of armies. DE are brought by Eldar for bonus's, as are Harlys. Imperium of Man shenanigans. The only top army I see that doesn't have any allies is the Necrons.

Do you think GW is going to allow more open ally rules in the next edition to try and balance those armies that don't really have allies? (Tyrnids, Orks, Crons) ?

and if you think they will fix it or change it how so?

Im kind of hoping they either flat out allow everyone to ally with anyone or they basically take allies away which I dont see happening because allies = more money for GW

If GW continues on the trend they've shown from 6th through now, and with AoS, I'd hazard whatever form 8th edition takes, will basically be Unbound armies, much like AoS.

I'm not a fan of allies. I almost never see it used for fluff purposes, almost exclusively for synergistic shennanigans. I would not miss Allies being massively pared down or removed one bit. However, with the trends of GW of late, if they don't reverse course, I'd be shocked if the future didn't bring an "all unbound" or "AoS" style army composition to 40k.


That said, an easy fix for most Allies issues is to essentially bump everything"up" a level. Battle Brothers become Allies of Convenience, Allies of Convenience become Desperate Allies, Desperate Allies become Come the Apocalypse and Come the Apocalypse can't ally at all.

Would be fun if Orks could ally with Adeptus Mechanicus - lots of cool looted wagons could come from that