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Well, my local store finally got its copy of the GH in, but I've not been able to pop by to check it out in person. I've seen a few of the leaks/reviews etc, but one thing I want to know is how battleline works if one is, say, trying to make an army using their High Elf models. As far as I can tell, nothing is Battleline if you don't declare one of the very limited subfactions, so barring houserules or taking stuff that isn't ex-Ulthuan, is there a way to build an army for Matched Play? Do I just declare a broader Order faction and use the Battleline units from the High Elf list?

On that note, given I also have some Wood Elves and Lizardmen, how do the 'compendium' rules and the newer factions interact? Do Wood Elves and Wanderers just count as two separate factions? Mainly curioisty here - I'm wondering if Araloth/Nomad Prince and other models with two warscrolls are best thought of as two completely unrelated models in the rules that happen to share the same physical representation.

So basically is it the case that if you declare your allegiance as order, you can take any scroll from any order subfaction, including the compendia? Presumably some of the subfactions like the new Sylvaneth sorts will get a different allegiance trait if you limit yourself, and those free artifacts you can give out to battatlions. Does the GH say anything about whether, if you take a Sylvaneth army (getting the traits, artifacts, and spells unique to that allegiance) you're thus barred from the traits and artifacts if you were to take an Order army?

Thanks all!

There are a large number of units which are always battleline regardless of your allegiance. Right now the sole benefit of a specific faction allegiance ("Ironjawz" "Seraphon" etc) is that they get a wider selection of battleline units BUT they give up the benefits of their grand alliance allegiance to do so. This is to say an army with Sylvaneth allegiance cannot also benefit from Order allegiance -- it's one or the other. So for you specifically if you do not need the extra battleline options you are much better off declaring Order allegiance which means that anything you spoke of is fair game.

Thanks for the reply! That's helpful, for my High Elves.

If I read you correctly then, if you were to declare Wanderers for example, you would give up the general Order allegiance bonuses (traits and artifacts, from what I understand?) to get access to alternative battleline units? That'll of course also have other benefits once factions beyond just the Sylvaneth get allegiance specific mechanics.

I'll have to go through the GHB again today, but I think if you are faction allegiance you can choose either your faction traits or your alliance traits. The only time at the moment this becomes a decision is for the Sylvaneth because every other faction at the moment doesn't have any specific traits.

So if you were to go 'Stormcast' allegiance, you could still use the Order traits, but once the Stormcast specific ones come out you would have to choose either or.

This is because you choose where your allegiance lies. If all my units are Sylvaneth, they are also all Order, so I could ally my allegiance to either.

Thanks! Sets me up with all I need to know for now. Looks like matched play will work for me. Though some things seem very weirdly costed, so there's an argument for just using one of the fan made points systems. Guess we'll see how it's going after a few months of gaming.

Not to necro a thread, but how to Beastmen work within this system? Are we essentially bound to using the 'Chaos' Allegiance because our units were barfed into 3 unnecessary categories?

Longstrider wrote:
Thanks! Sets me up with all I need to know for now. Looks like matched play will work for me. Though some things seem very weirdly costed, so there's an argument for just using one of the fan made points systems. Guess we'll see how it's going after a few months of gaming.

If you don't mind the added complexity the points from Project Points Cost are the same scale (a large number of models are roughly the same cost, even) but have been playtested and adjusted extensively to ensure balance. Just ignore the bit about summoning and use the GHB summoning rules instead.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 dragoonmaster101 wrote:
Not to necro a thread, but how to Beastmen work within this system? Are we essentially bound to using the 'Chaos' Allegiance because our units were barfed into 3 unnecessary categories?

Unless you need the battleline options Chaos allegiance is better anyway.

 dragoonmaster101 wrote:
Not to necro a thread, but how to Beastmen work within this system? Are we essentially bound to using the 'Chaos' Allegiance because our units were barfed into 3 unnecessary categories? [/quote
If I'm understanding your question correctly Beastmen (Beastherds) are in GA Chaos but in GHB Warherds shall be baller! On the last page of points so follow the leaks there, Warherds I think they were called. I'm resurrecting my longterm desire to start a Beatsmen army. In AoS they're fantastic and that Khorne army with Gothar the Beastherd on that chariot delivered a round 1 charge on my army, obliterating some good chunks.

I'm still confused I guess. Does your "allegiance" have any other purpose besides defining what is Battleline and what isn't?

Does it limit you to not taking other models/units?

For example, if I want to take Chaos Warriors and Demons, if I choose my Allegiance as "Slaves to Darkness", would I not be able to include demons, or would I be able to but they just wouldn't be "battleline" units?

And is there any reason to even bother?

 whitedragon wrote:
I'm still confused I guess. Does your "allegiance" have any other purpose besides defining what is Battleline and what isn't?

Does it limit you to not taking other models/units?

For example, if I want to take Chaos Warriors and Demons, if I choose my Allegiance as "Slaves to Darkness", would I not be able to include demons, or would I be able to but they just wouldn't be "battleline" units?

And is there any reason to even bother?

As of right now, grand alliances are where it's at. You can mix and match the best units and armies like order and chaos have great battleline units to choose from without need to take a narrow alligence.

But, based on the slyvanth leaks that outlook will likely change in the future. Keeping to that narrow alliegence, for example, grants you not only different battleline units but new traits, artifacts, and batallions. I image future releases will mirror this style.

Longstrider wrote:
Thanks! Sets me up with all I need to know for now. Looks like matched play will work for me. Though some things seem very weirdly costed, so there's an argument for just using one of the fan made points systems. Guess we'll see how it's going after a few months of gaming.

The GH just took the most tested fan made point system and copy pasted it into a GW book, so in a way you already using fan made points.

 buddha wrote:

 whitedragon wrote:
I'm still confused I guess. Does your "allegiance" have any other purpose besides defining what is Battleline and what isn't?

Does it limit you to not taking other models/units?

For example, if I want to take Chaos Warriors and Demons, if I choose my Allegiance as "Slaves to Darkness", would I not be able to include demons, or would I be able to but they just wouldn't be "battleline" units?

And is there any reason to even bother?

As of right now, grand alliances are where it's at. You can mix and match the best units and armies like order and chaos have great battleline units to choose from without need to take a narrow alligence.

But, based on the slyvanth leaks that outlook will likely change in the future. Keeping to that narrow alliegence, for example, grants you not only different battleline units but new traits, artifacts, and batallions. I image future releases will mirror this style.

I guess that still doesn't really help me. I'm really just not sure about what "picking an allegiance" means. Is it determined by my general, or the majority of units in my army, or do I just nominate myself at the beginning of the game?

Also, if I choose a narrow allegiance, am I then barred/disallowed from taking units from another allegiance, or restricted from them in some way other than that they don't count as battleline?

And final question, what are the allegiances, are they just determined by Keywords, or by the heads in the general's handbook?

Your army is part of an allegiance if all the models in the army have the keyword of that allegiance.

It rewards themed armies, from subfactions like All Orruks or Sylvaneth keywords or I believe eventually even more narrow, like it is laid out in GHB points section. So think Dragon Ogres, minotaurs, etc. Everybody wins, and Brets and TK are in there.

Spoletta wrote:

Longstrider wrote:
Thanks! Sets me up with all I need to know for now. Looks like matched play will work for me. Though some things seem very weirdly costed, so there's an argument for just using one of the fan made points systems. Guess we'll see how it's going after a few months of gaming.

The GH just took the most tested fan made point system and copy pasted it into a GW book, so in a way you already using fan made points.

I don't think SCGT is more or less tested than the other fan comps out there. The other fan comps went through a ton of testing as well. The SCGT was the one that happened to be used next door to GW Nottingham. Thats not a knock on the SCGT guys work either, they did put a lot of effort into their stuff as well.

However... I'm not a fan of how cheap the heroes and monsters are.

 whitedragon wrote:

 buddha wrote:

 whitedragon wrote:
I'm still confused I guess. Does your "allegiance" have any other purpose besides defining what is Battleline and what isn't?

Does it limit you to not taking other models/units?

For example, if I want to take Chaos Warriors and Demons, if I choose my Allegiance as "Slaves to Darkness", would I not be able to include demons, or would I be able to but they just wouldn't be "battleline" units?

And is there any reason to even bother?

As of right now, grand alliances are where it's at. You can mix and match the best units and armies like order and chaos have great battleline units to choose from without need to take a narrow alligence.

But, based on the slyvanth leaks that outlook will likely change in the future. Keeping to that narrow alliegence, for example, grants you not only different battleline units but new traits, artifacts, and batallions. I image future releases will mirror this style.

I guess that still doesn't really help me. I'm really just not sure about what "picking an allegiance" means. Is it determined by my general, or the majority of units in my army, or do I just nominate myself at the beginning of the game?

Also, if I choose a narrow allegiance, am I then barred/disallowed from taking units from another allegiance, or restricted from them in some way other than that they don't count as battleline?

And final question, what are the allegiances, are they just determined by Keywords, or by the heads in the general's handbook?

Hey, hopefully I can answer your question, in the GH each unit is grouped into a faction and then a sub faction (so is GW's website unit listings). When you build your army if your army contains only models from a particular faction or sub faction then you can choose to give your allegiance to that faction. For example, an army consisting of:

Lord-Celestant (Stormcasts)
Freeguild Handgunner (free people)
Liberator (stormcasts)
Steamtank (ironweld arsenal)
Hammerers (dispossessed)

could give its allegiance to the order faction, it could not however give allegiance to stormcasts, free people, dispossess or ironweld arsenal even though it contains units from those factions because it contains units from other factions. However the following army could give its allegiance to the stormcast faction:

Lord-Celestant
Liberator
Judicator
Retributor
Prosecutor

this army can choose between giving their allegiance to stormcasts OR order (but not both), the only reason to give allegiance to a sub-faction at the moment (with the exception of sylvaneth) is to gain access to more thematic battleline units. Eventually all the sub-factions will have their own unique rules which you gain for aligning with that subfaction.

Hope that helps.

Fez

 whitedragon wrote:

 buddha wrote:

 whitedragon wrote:
I'm still confused I guess. Does your "allegiance" have any other purpose besides defining what is Battleline and what isn't?

Does it limit you to not taking other models/units?

For example, if I want to take Chaos Warriors and Demons, if I choose my Allegiance as "Slaves to Darkness", would I not be able to include demons, or would I be able to but they just wouldn't be "battleline" units?

And is there any reason to even bother?

As of right now, grand alliances are where it's at. You can mix and match the best units and armies like order and chaos have great battleline units to choose from without need to take a narrow alligence.

But, based on the slyvanth leaks that outlook will likely change in the future. Keeping to that narrow alliegence, for example, grants you not only different battleline units but new traits, artifacts, and batallions. I image future releases will mirror this style.

I guess that still doesn't really help me. I'm really just not sure about what "picking an allegiance" means. Is it determined by my general, or the majority of units in my army, or do I just nominate myself at the beginning of the game?

Also, if I choose a narrow allegiance, am I then barred/disallowed from taking units from another allegiance, or restricted from them in some way other than that they don't count as battleline?

And final question, what are the allegiances, are they just determined by Keywords, or by the heads in the general's handbook?

You may choose to declare an allegiance for your army. To do so, ALL units in the army must have the keyword you are declaring. Thus, to have Slaves to Darkness allegiance, all units must have that keyword. To declare Chaos allegiance, all units must have that keyword. If your whole army is Slaves to Darkness then it will also be all-Chaos, and you may declare allegiance to either one but not both. Slaves to darkness grants an extra unit as battleline (Marauder Horsemen), but no other benefits. Chaos allegiance gives you the related traits and items, but does not grant the extra battleline unit. Thus, unless a player needed Marauder Horsemen as battleline to make his army legal he would be better off choosing Chaos allegiance even if all of his units were Slaves to Darkness.

Worth noting that a Slaves to Darkness army could still summon Daemons while retaining its allegiance (since the summons are not part of the army list per say, just reserved points).

Actually, you guys have helped me out quite a bit, although I had to read through your replies a few times to wrap my head around it.

I'm coming from a 40k and Fantasy "Armybook" perspective for "Allegiance", where you select your "army", and then you can "ally" in other units if you wanted to. I was basically saying to myself, I want to run Khorne Bloodbound or Khorne Demons, but I still want to take some of the other in my army and don't want to be stuck with any limitations or exclusions because of it. Like maybe only 1 HQ and 1 Troop for an allied detachment vice running it as the CAD or whatever as an analogy.

However, I guess in Age of Sigmar they fixed it so that everything is part of one grand alliance or another, so unless I wanted to run Orks and Chaos or something, everything will usually have the "Allegiance" of the grand alliance anyway.

Plus, it looks like the only requirement is that you take a couple battleline units and then you're golden, so I guess my "fears" of trying to get an army of all Khorne boyz is unfounded.

Final question then, what are the "Allegiances". I know there is Grand Alliance: Chaos, Bloodbound, and Demons for example, but is there an allegiance for every keyword, or are the factions only what is listed in GW's webstore (or in the generals book). Could I have an army that is all "Allegiance" Khorne, for example? And is there any benefit to doing so?

Specific allegiances like khorne mortals unlocks units as battleline. IE Skullcrusher Cavalry becomes battleline in that instance.

For later books they will also get access to specific command traits. The older books are out of luck on that front though.

And per the AOS facebook page there will be no going back to the older books to bring them up to speed anytime soon.