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Q: If my army is led by a Chaos Space Marines Warlord, and
I have a Detachment of Death Guard, can I use the Gifts of
Decay Death Guard Stratagem to include a Relic on a Death
Guard Character?

A: Yes. The only requirement to have access to
Stratagems is that you have a Detachment of the
appropriate Faction. If you have a Death Guard
Detachment, you have access to their Stratagems.

Alright, so it seems GW allows us to use Stratagems from another codex as long as it's a codex from the same faction. Now at first I was deeply struck (and still am somewhat) by what seemed to be like a massive mistake from GW's FAQ team, because it looks so much like a blatant rule abuse any TFG would use and they're like "No it's okay you can do that". But after having read my own codex (AdMech) there's not a single Stratagem that could be applied to another army because of the keywords. Now I don't know if the Astra Militarum codex has the same strictness but people are already adding more ingredients to their Imperial soup thanks to that, and to me it strongly looks like something that could break the game because of two reasons:

- The stratagems were written with their own codex in mind, and were not balanced for use with another codex's entries (it seems you can use "Get Cover" for any Imperium unit, giving a +1 to the save to anything for 1 CP);
- This means if you're playing Astra Militarum and you have a Tech-Priest Enginseer in your army, you can have in total three relics for 2 CP: the free one, another bought with the relic stratagem of the Astra Militarum, and a third one with the relic stratagem of the AdMech, so you're bypassing the 3 CP cost for having two additional relics. And GW wants us to believe this is totally intended ? They intend us to bypass their own rules and actually encourage us playing another codex because of that ?

They originally wanted to reward "themed and fluffy armies" and then they made the Regiment doctrines (and equivalents) Detachment-wide instead of army wide, and now this ? There's no support for themed armies, it's starting to be an ally-fest like 7th was, at least you're stuck with a shared Faction keyword this time.

So bear in mind I don't own the Astra Militarum codex and so have no way of knowing how much of their Stratagems are usable by other armies, so I may be triggered for nothing, but even then, does this looks normal to you or should GW FAQ their own FAQ to clarify this ?

It's mostly going to benefit the marine mini-factions; the main beneficiary at the moment is Death Guard, who can pick up Tide of Traitors with a CSM detachment to get refreshing cultists to turn into poxwalkers.

 Aaranis wrote:
Alright, so it seems GW allows us to use Stratagems from another codex as long as it's a codex from the same faction. Now at first I was deeply struck (and still am somewhat) by what seemed to be like a massive mistake from GW's FAQ team, because it looks so much like a blatant rule abuse any TFG would use and they're like "No it's okay you can do that"

Everyone I know and most of the people online I discuss the game with has been playing this way since 8th edition came out. Even tournaments, the major ones especially, have been allowing this. The game literally makes it clear at the top of the Stratagem page that the only requirement for having a Stratagem is to have any number of that faction's detachments. As there are no rules limiting what they can target other than what's on the Stratagem themselves, people have already been targeting whatever they wanted. This FAQ simply catches up everyone else who was slow to arrive at the same conclusion.

 Aaranis wrote:
The stratagems were written with their own codex in mind, and were not balanced for use with another codex's entries (it seems you can use "Get Cover" for any Imperium unit, giving a +1 to the save to anything for 1 CP);

Not necessarily. They were made similar to Sigmar, which came first and has alliance abilities of its own. They were balanced with the entire alliance in mind because these codex books have been finished and playtested ages ago. They're merely releasing them one by one to stagger the releases for hobby purchasing purposes. They could have dropped all the codex books day 1 of 8th edition but that would mean less money for them. Even within a faction, like Chaos, some Stratagems only work on Alpha Legion while others work on any <Legion> and still others work on any Heretic Astartes (instead of <Legion>, which means Thousand Sons and Death Guard can use them). This seems specifically intended and breaks Stratagems up into multiple levels of exclusion even within the same faction.

 Aaranis wrote:
This means if you're playing Astra Militarum and you have a Tech-Priest Enginseer in your army, you can have in total three relics for 2 CP: the free one, another bought with the relic stratagem of the Astra Militarum, and a third one with the relic stratagem of the AdMech, so you're bypassing the 3 CP cost for having two additional relics. And GW wants us to believe this is totally intended ? They intend us to bypass their own rules and actually encourage us playing another codex because of that ?

You aren't bypassing anything. You get 1 relic free and can buy 1 Astra Militarum relic for 1 CP. If you want a third Astra Militarum relic, you need to pay the higher CP cost. But if you want a relic from AdMech, which still has to be put on one of your AdMech guys, then you don't have to pay as much. You're using two armies rather than stacking relics on one, of course they bring their own stuff. You're already limited in who can use the relic because half your army can't be given the one you purchased.

 Aaranis wrote:
They originally wanted to reward "themed and fluffy armies" and then they made the Regiment doctrines (and equivalents) Detachment-wide instead of army wide, and now this ? There's no support for themed armies, it's starting to be an ally-fest like 7th was, at least you're stuck with a shared Faction keyword this time.

Detachment-wide allows you to have themed armies without restricting players who want to ally. Again, this is going the route of what they did in Age of Sigmar. There are now these huge alliances at war and so allies are very much a thing that is going to happen. The game is becoming more like a card game similar to Magic with each player building a deck of units and cross-comboing them for synergy and effectiveness. Fluffy armies will never be rewarded over calculated armies. A fluffy army is bringing 300 normal marines with 30 rhinos and maybe one or two Captains and some heavy support. You won't see that on the board ever. You'll see a unit of Devastators in the back with some Centurions coming up in a transport ship and a bunch of Leviathan and Deredeo Dreadnoughts backed by an Imperial Knight and if you're lucky they have a normal squad somewhere acting as objective capping cheerleaders.

 Aaranis wrote:
So bear in mind I don't own the Astra Militarum codex and so have no way of knowing how much of their Stratagems are usable by other armies, so I may be triggered for nothing, but even then, does this looks normal to you or should GW FAQ their own FAQ to clarify this ?

Looks fine to me, it's how we've been doing it already. The game is still more fluffy because there are rewards for having units share keywords. If you don't want super friends then stop playing in tournaments that allow more than one detachment or allow armies to have more than one chapter/legion/regiment. GW only makes the rules, the players decide what they want to play against. Magnus technically fits in a 500 pt army and nothing stops him from coming as his own solo detachment. If you don't want to go up against lists like that then you have to self-govern what limits you're enforcing.

Take Cover is the only AM stratagem that could be used on a friendly unit from another faction.

To clarify, if I have an army which is 50% Astra Militarum and 50% Ad Mech...

I want Cawl to be my warlord, so the 1 free relic needs to be AdMech...
But I can pay 1CP to take an AM relic?

Alright guys I realised in the current of the day (and after a quick check of the Astra Militarum codex) that I got my panties in a bunch over nothing, for the reasons mentioned earlier and because I realised there wasn't much Stratagems allowed for other armies for keyword reasons. Sorry I looked so triggered, I know I made a fuss about a little thing in the end.

Silentz, I don't think so because the Stratagem for relics only works for its own characters, the Tech-Priest Enginseer could because he's got both keywords, but even then you have to pay to price in CP according to the faction from which you took the relic from. Hope I was clear sorry it's hard in English sometimes !

Thank you all for your answers guys ! I'm reassured

 Silentz wrote:
To clarify, if I have an army which is 50% Astra Militarum and 50% Ad Mech...

I want Cawl to be my warlord, so the 1 free relic needs to be AdMech...
But I can pay 1CP to take an AM relic?

Yep, if you pay 1cp for the AM relic stratagem you can put one on an AM character.

Jacksmiles wrote:

 Silentz wrote:
To clarify, if I have an army which is 50% Astra Militarum and 50% Ad Mech...

I want Cawl to be my warlord, so the 1 free relic needs to be AdMech...
But I can pay 1CP to take an AM relic?

Yep, if you pay 1cp for the AM relic stratagem you can put one on an AM character.

This is good news.

Is it worth paying 1 CP for the relic that refunds opponent CPs on a 5+?