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.

Im not 100% sure how AoS works, but I've been looking at the models lately as they look fun to paint. What I noticed is that while there are 4 grand alliances, there are a lot of factions. Can factions from the same alliance be played together like battle brother allies for example? How does this aspect of the game work?

While part of me is excited for this if it is possible, I also don't want it to enable un-fluffy conglomerations like the 7th ally matrix does. Would hate to see a Cron/Eldar mix be possible.

People have a say in this as well. If it isn't cool, don't do it.

With the new rules for characters and keywords, at least the very strong independent character units are no more.

Oh I wont myself, not at all. I like the fact it seems that GW are buffing mono armies by giving them more CP and therefore more stratagems.

I don't mind playing the bag guy in a thematic game, I would just like to use other bad guys at the same time, an orc/cron double team would be fun for instance

 Klowny wrote:
Im not 100% sure how AoS works, but I've been looking at the models lately as they look fun to paint. What I noticed is that while there are 4 grand alliances, there are a lot of factions. Can factions from the same alliance be played together like battle brother allies for example? How does this aspect of the game work?

While part of me is excited for this if it is possible, I also don't want it to enable un-fluffy conglomerations like the 7th ally matrix does. Would hate to see a Cron/Eldar mix be possible.

If those questions are about AoS, yes, they can play together w/in their Alliance, afaik, in Matched Play. I believe (correct me if I'm wrong, anyone) that those "factions" are basically just broken down for keywords, formations, etc.

For 40k 8Ed, I suspect the core "alliance" books won't be Alliances at all. If they do have a Xenos book, I doubt they'll cross-over all factions included to be allies (i.e. if the Xenos book has Necrons, Orks, Nids, I doubt they'll let any of the 3 be allies in Matched Play). Eldar may be a different case. IoM obviously will be.

Open Play is another story, of course...

 Dr. Cheesesteak wrote:

 Klowny wrote:
Im not 100% sure how AoS works, but I've been looking at the models lately as they look fun to paint. What I noticed is that while there are 4 grand alliances, there are a lot of factions. Can factions from the same alliance be played together like battle brother allies for example? How does this aspect of the game work?

While part of me is excited for this if it is possible, I also don't want it to enable un-fluffy conglomerations like the 7th ally matrix does. Would hate to see a Cron/Eldar mix be possible.

If those questions are about AoS, yes, they can play together w/in their Alliance, afaik, in Matched Play. I believe (correct me if I'm wrong, anyone) that those "factions" are basically just broken down for keywords, formations, etc.

For 40k 8Ed, I suspect the core "alliance" books won't be Alliances at all. If they do have a Xenos book, I doubt they'll cross-over all factions included to be allies (i.e. if the Xenos book has Necrons, Orks, Nids, I doubt they'll let any of the 3 be allies in Matched Play). Eldar may be a different case. IoM obviously will be.

Open Play is another story, of course...

You can take allies by taking 2nd detachment. One detachment all units must share keyword but nothing stops you from taking 2nd detachment. Of course that means harder to get as much command points.

But allies are still in there.

Do they have the same restrictions as the allied matrix now? As in if i take two detachments, Space marines and tyranids for exmaple, can they then start and play within 6" of each other etc?

Or are they considered one army?

 Klowny wrote:
Do they have the same restrictions as the allied matrix now? As in if i take two detachments, Space marines and tyranids for exmaple, can they then start and play within 6" of each other etc?

Or are they considered one army?

Well that is not been revealed yet. All we know for sure is that allies are still in(GW has stated as much) and that you can take more than 1 detachment and that detachment must share same faction keyword.

How they work in game is still up for grasp.

Looking at AoS you want leaders to command your troops, and each improve his own kind in various ways. So space matines and tyranids would like not have as much synergy.

Now the most successful chaos armies have for a long time cherry picked the best units, across subfactions, to magically teleport super ratogres wielding warpfire throwers.

From a "Matched Played Pitched Battles" perspective in AoS, you have four big, broad "Factions"- Chaos, Death, Order, Destruction. If your entire army comes from one of those "Factions", you get army bonuses. Battalion Warscrolls are like Formations in 40K. They cost points, and they use Key Words. Finally, most armies (those with a book in AoS) have further abilities if your entire army comes from that book. For example:

Ironjawz are a Destruction army. If my entire army consists of nothing but Ironjawz, I get all the bonuses from my army being a Destruction army, and all the bonuses from being Ironjawz, and on top of that, bonuses from a Battalion Warscroll (if I paid the points for the Warscroll).

There is nothing in AoS stopping me from using whatever models I want in an army- except that I wouldn't get the Faction bonuses, army bonuses, and probably wouldn't be able to take any Battalion Warscrolls. Abilities from models also use key words- so even if I had a character that granted automatic hits to a unit within 6", it would probably have the limitation that it could only be used on Death, Skeleton models. So that awesome unit of Ironjawz Brutes would get no benefit from such a character. You can take "allies" in AoS, but they basically don't do anything for your army, and it's really not worth it.

GW did a great job in encouraging you to play mono-armies with those bonuses in AoS, and I'm sure they are going to take that same route with 8th ed.

The Battle-brother mechanic is gone. No more stars, no superfriends etc.

There will likely be allied synergy but not the min-max way we see now between allies and formations.

There will always be min max, characters can't join units but can still hide in them. It'll go the way AoS did and give aura abilities out. Really it gives snipers power (they ignore the cannot target a character with 10 or under wounds if a unit is closer rule) and if he's anything like he is now I see the vindicare actually being a very useful assassin to toss into armies when possible.

The thing is the keyword system makes it a bit less clunky than it was. Although not entirely gone, death stars will likely be at least harder to make for now.

That's how I'd read it too. There are some guys in AoS whose bonus covers a larger swath of units - all Chaos, say, rather than just Hosts of Slaanesh - but those broader bonuses are usually weaker. Which isn't to say there are never any nasty combos, but you usually have to give up a lot of faction-specific shinies to get at them, so those kind of combos are a sidegrade, rather than just straight-up better than playing a single faction.

There are still issues with single factions not having access to certain things, but not to the extent that there are in 7e 40k (like, egregiously, Sisters having an assault unit that direly needs an assault transport, but needing to use allies to bring one).

The net upshot of all that is that while balance isn't perfect (folks could, and probably do write whole rant threads about brokenness), the gap between the highest and lowest power levels is a lot closer. I'm really hoping that holds true for 8e 40k, too.

 More Dakka wrote:
The Battle-brother mechanic is gone. No more stars, no superfriends etc.

There will likely be allied synergy but not the min-max way we see now between allies and formations.

Not necessarily. We don't know how Transports work, much less Characters with them.