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Just because it's rare doesn't mean it hasn't happened. If you dislike allies, make your own little bubble of house rules that prevent it. The rest of us will be having fun following the rules.

By your logic because Blood Angels and Necrons worked exactly one time, I should be able to ally Blood Angels and Necrons.

It also happens that the planet explodes and everyone dies. That's not a good mechanic either.

 BaconCatBug wrote:
Just because it's rare doesn't mean it hasn't happened. If you dislike allies, make your own little bubble of house rules that prevent it. The rest of us will be having fun following the rules.

By your logic because Blood Angels and Necrons worked exactly one time, I should be able to ally Blood Angels and Necrons.

That's more like your logic, I would think. After all, your justification for necron and tyranid soup is that as it might have occurred at some point, such compositions are fluffy. As BA+necrons has occured in the fluff, then a logical extension, going by your justification, would be that such a combination in game should be permissible.


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pm713 wrote:
It also happens that the planet explodes and everyone dies. That's not a good mechanic either.

Its a cinematic rule though, so GW approves

Allies are a good mechanic. Tons of other companies do it with their games and theres 0 balance problems.

GW do it, and it is unbalanced. But thats like... with everything else. To say that, as allies are imbalanced, they should be removed, is like saying that as psychic powers have never been balanced... or vehicles, GW should just remove them.

Vehicles are a bad mechanic in a infantry-based game!

The problem with allies is that people just has a hate boner agaisnt them because they wherent present in the old glory days (Barring some exceptions), so that means they are absolutely impossible to make them right.

But they did remove vehicles. Vehicles had rules that clearly differentiated them from monstrous creatures, which were really just big infantry. Now they aren't really any different from them.

 Galas wrote:
Allies are a good mechanic. Tons of other companies do it with their games and theres 0 balance problems.

GW do it, and it is unbalanced. But thats like... with everything else. To say that, as allies are imbalanced, they should be removed, is like saying that as psychic powers have never been balanced... or vehicles, GW should just remove them.

Vehicles are a bad mechanic in a infantry-based game!

The problem with allies is that people just has a hate boner agaisnt them because they wherent present in the old glory days (Barring some exceptions), so that means they are absolutely impossible to make them right.

Or you're just like me and you think the game would be nicer without allies. Plus it would make balance easier.

pm713 wrote:

 Galas wrote:
Allies are a good mechanic. Tons of other companies do it with their games and theres 0 balance problems.

GW do it, and it is unbalanced. But thats like... with everything else. To say that, as allies are imbalanced, they should be removed, is like saying that as psychic powers have never been balanced... or vehicles, GW should just remove them.

Vehicles are a bad mechanic in a infantry-based game!

The problem with allies is that people just has a hate boner agaisnt them because they wherent present in the old glory days (Barring some exceptions), so that means they are absolutely impossible to make them right.

Or you're just like me and you think the game would be nicer without allies. Plus it would make balance easier.

No-one forcing you to use allies.

pm713 wrote:

 Galas wrote:
Allies are a good mechanic. Tons of other companies do it with their games and theres 0 balance problems.

GW do it, and it is unbalanced. But thats like... with everything else. To say that, as allies are imbalanced, they should be removed, is like saying that as psychic powers have never been balanced... or vehicles, GW should just remove them.

Vehicles are a bad mechanic in a infantry-based game!

The problem with allies is that people just has a hate boner agaisnt them because they wherent present in the old glory days (Barring some exceptions), so that means they are absolutely impossible to make them right.

Or you're just like me and you think the game would be nicer without allies. Plus it would make balance easier.

Not really? If anything, the shown abuse makes it easier to pinpoint what the actual issues are.

And that's the divide- I understand the frustration with soup from a competitive/ rules mechanics point of view; I also understand the idea of Imperial bloat.

I just wouldn't try to fix the problem by nerfing an army or limiting a range- I'd do it by empowering the weaker armies and expanding their ranges.


There's strong evidence that GW is doing exactly that, because they've taken small, virtually unplayable armies and given them full 'dexes. Eventually I think assassins and Sisters of Silence will get HQ choices so that they can be fielded as detachments without a penalty- this has already happened for Knights and Custodes, neither of whom had HQ choices before their dexes were released.

Having said that, I think GW missed expansion opportunities to expand ranges with both the Drukari and Harlequin 'dexes- I wanted to see cool characters like Duke Sliscus, Baron Sathonyx and Decapitator given models or at least rules so that we could convert until official models were released. It's RIDICULOUS that there is no Vect model.

Achieving balance or addressing inequities in the various ranges by bringing everyone down to the lowest common denominator just doesn't seem as fun to me as addressing it by bringing everyone up to match armies that are at peak performance and representation.

That being said, I couldn't care less about tournaments or competitions, and I understand that for many of you, that might actually be your priority concern. For those of you who feel this way, I can see how you might be concerned about power creep, and how you may find it more fair to play with the leanest, most streamlined set of rules possible. It's not how I choose to play, but that doesn't make you wrong.

And BTW @baconcatbug, I'm not sure I get your sig; a lot of your orange lettered rule breaks are things that I can't comment about because I don't play the armies in question, and as such I haven't read the relevant books. But as for the first two rules you cite, about assault weapons and pistols, it was my understanding that these two exceptions are explicitly included in the descriptions of the respective weapon types. Am I missing something, or did I misunderstand your sig?

I just think there should be some kind of incentive to not use allies, instead of the current system where not taking allies usually makes for a worse army.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
I meant in regards to my suggestion, as all the Primarchs are in a LoW slot, so they wouldn't be able to be Warlords otherwise, or are you suggesting they need to go up in cost?

Oh, I see what you're saying, the warlord's detachment has the 25% test, not the faction. IMO the way to resolve it is to make the 25% (or higher) test be for the most specific faction keyword. So you can have a primarch in a separate LoW detachment as long as that LoW detachment plus the other detachment(s) from that chapter meet the minimum point requirement. But you can't take a LoW detachment with a primarch from a different chapter, as you won't have 25% of your points spent on that faction.


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PenitentJake wrote:
I just wouldn't try to fix the problem by nerfing an army or limiting a range- I'd do it by empowering the weaker armies and expanding their ranges.

The problem is that you can't do that because there just isn't enough background material. The Tau are never going to have as much stuff as the Imperium, especially as your "codices for small factions" approach has GW releasing even more new Imperial stuff to take in your soup. The only way to have faction parity is to get rid of soup and force each faction to stand on its own.

 Peregrine wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
I meant in regards to my suggestion, as all the Primarchs are in a LoW slot, so they wouldn't be able to be Warlords otherwise, or are you suggesting they need to go up in cost?

Oh, I see what you're saying, the warlord's detachment has the 25% test, not the faction. IMO the way to resolve it is to make the 25% (or higher) test be for the most specific faction keyword. So you can have a primarch in a separate LoW detachment as long as that LoW detachment plus the other detachment(s) from that chapter meet the minimum point requirement. But you can't take a LoW detachment with a primarch from a different chapter, as you won't have 25% of your points spent on that faction.


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PenitentJake wrote:
I just wouldn't try to fix the problem by nerfing an army or limiting a range- I'd do it by empowering the weaker armies and expanding their ranges.

The problem is that you can't do that because there just isn't enough background material. The Tau are never going to have as much stuff as the Imperium, especially as your "codices for small factions" approach has GW releasing even more new Imperial stuff to take in your soup. The only way to have faction parity is to get rid of soup and force each faction to stand on its own.

So Harlequins get 6 units and Marines get 60.

Fair!

 JNAProductions wrote:
So Harlequins get 6 units and Marines get 60.

Fair!

Harlequins go back to being a unit in the Eldar codex. They never should have been an entire separate faction.

So to preface I think disallowing allies etc is a bad idea.

That being said, I could see one of the following being done in the next round of balance updates.

1) Command Points generated by detachments may only be used on stratagems that detachment unlocks. The 3 base command points for being Battleforged are Wildcard points (can be used anywhere) or are locked to your Warlords faction. If a detachment doesn't unlock stratagems for some reason, those command points are lost.

2) An army that has every unit in the army share two faction keywords that are not on the Battle Brothers list gain a bonus 5 command points. Alternatively if you're willing to throw Index units under the bus, just make it if an army has every unit from a single rulebook, they get the command points. I can't think of any examples where 2 keywords matching would result in a multi-book army though.

Explanation of 1) This prevents battery detachments fuelling the "good" stratagems of other codexes. In all honestly all this hurts is Custodes, Deathwatch and possibly Eldar Soup, so not a very good solution. Marines don't have "good" stratagems in general. In addition "punishing" players for "bad" behaviour feels a lot more unfair than "rewarding" players for "good" behaviour. See below.

Explanation of 2) This is my preferred solution. This means that a mono-build army (one that takes all it's units from a single book) gets a free battery battalion.

 Peregrine wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:
So Harlequins get 6 units and Marines get 60.

Fair!

Harlequins go back to being a unit in the Eldar codex. They never should have been an entire separate faction.

They should just be the 4th subfaction included in the drukhari codex, simple.

 Blackie wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:
So Harlequins get 6 units and Marines get 60.

Fair!

Harlequins go back to being a unit in the Eldar codex. They never should have been an entire separate faction.

They should just be the 4th subfaction included in the drukhari codex, simple.

That's like including Imperial Guard in the Space Marines codex because both come from Planets.

 BaconCatBug wrote:

 Blackie wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:
So Harlequins get 6 units and Marines get 60.

Fair!

Harlequins go back to being a unit in the Eldar codex. They never should have been an entire separate faction.

They should just be the 4th subfaction included in the drukhari codex, simple.

That's like including Imperial Guard in the Space Marines codex because both come from Planets.

No, harlequins were part of the dark eldar codex in the past and divided from that only for selling two books instead of one. Harlequins have 8 units in their catalogue.

SM and AM were always two independent factions. A fair comparison would be divinding primaris to regular marines, which is also silly.

 Peregrine wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
I meant in regards to my suggestion, as all the Primarchs are in a LoW slot, so they wouldn't be able to be Warlords otherwise, or are you suggesting they need to go up in cost?

Oh, I see what you're saying, the warlord's detachment has the 25% test, not the faction. IMO the way to resolve it is to make the 25% (or higher) test be for the most specific faction keyword. So you can have a primarch in a separate LoW detachment as long as that LoW detachment plus the other detachment(s) from that chapter meet the minimum point requirement. But you can't take a LoW detachment with a primarch from a different chapter, as you won't have 25% of your points spent on that faction.


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PenitentJake wrote:
I just wouldn't try to fix the problem by nerfing an army or limiting a range- I'd do it by empowering the weaker armies and expanding their ranges.

The problem is that you can't do that because there just isn't enough background material. The Tau are never going to have as much stuff as the Imperium, especially as your "codices for small factions" approach has GW releasing even more new Imperial stuff to take in your soup. The only way to have faction parity is to get rid of soup and force each faction to stand on its own.

I can agree with a Faction Keyword requirement instead. I just figure, with the restrictions already in place due to the beta rules, it's just easier to do it by points and make Primarchs the exception. After all, none of them are being taken outside their factions to be Warlords for a reason.

 BaconCatBug wrote:
That's like including Imperial Guard in the Space Marines codex because both come from Planets.

It's not the same at all. Harlequins are space elves with slightly different rules and a very small number of units. They used to be in the space elf codex and only very recently got an independent "codex" that can't really function without a normal space elf army next to it. Take away GW's need to sell you another $50 book and there's no reason for them to be a separate faction. Imperial guard, on the other hand, are a full faction with a full list of units and have nothing to do with space marines rules-wise.

I do think that in a perfect world, the baseline rule would be no allies in matched play (narrative should have as few rules as possible, as it's goals are different), and then there could be exceptions made to that rule.

First of all, it seems like it would be objectively easier to balance the books if each book was expected to stand on it's own. You would also be able to balance units against each other. It would be okay to have a unit be really powerful at one thing or another, because you couldn't just take 3 of them and ally them with the other 3 strong units from another codex. This fact alone seems like enough reason for me. If anyone has any arguments to this I would love to hear them.

As for the exceptions, I am imagining things like Assassins, Inquisitors, and so on.

I would also think that some kind of allied detachment FOC would be plausible, but would have to be cautiously implemented. Each faction could have their own unique FOC they can use as allies in another force, a list of factions they could ally with, and probably a limit to the number of total units that could be in it. these would have to be tailored to each army so that it was possible to add in a little flavor but nothing too overpowering. And perhaps these detachments would only give 1 CP. Or 0. I really think allies should be something a player has to think hard about, and i would err on the side of making them weaker than stronger.

However, I don't think we'll see anything like that this edition, so the simpler CP penalties seem like the way to go.

 Peregrine wrote:

 BaconCatBug wrote:
That's like including Imperial Guard in the Space Marines codex because both come from Planets.

It's not the same at all. Harlequins are space elves with slightly different rules and a very small number of units. They used to be in the space elf codex and only very recently got an independent "codex" that can't really function without a normal space elf army next to it. Take away GW's need to sell you another $50 book and there's no reason for them to be a separate faction. Imperial guard, on the other hand, are a full faction with a full list of units and have nothing to do with space marines rules-wise.

And yet if they rolled Harlequins into the Dark Eldar book, you'd complain that you have to buy a book where 90% of the units are of no interest to you, so it's Lose-Lose for GW and they rightly ignore you.

 BaconCatBug wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

 BaconCatBug wrote:
That's like including Imperial Guard in the Space Marines codex because both come from Planets.

It's not the same at all. Harlequins are space elves with slightly different rules and a very small number of units. They used to be in the space elf codex and only very recently got an independent "codex" that can't really function without a normal space elf army next to it. Take away GW's need to sell you another $50 book and there's no reason for them to be a separate faction. Imperial guard, on the other hand, are a full faction with a full list of units and have nothing to do with space marines rules-wise.

And yet if they rolled Harlequins into the Dark Eldar book, you'd complain that you have to buy a book where 90% of the units are of no interest to you, so it's Lose-Lose for GW and they rightly ignore you.

Didn't seem to be a problem before, back when harlequins were just an elite option for Eldar.
Also, if Harlequins can't function as a stand alone army and require allies, how is that any different from incorporating them into another army as a unit choice? You are still forced to take non-harlequin units to cover the gaps in your woefully limited army comp.

 niv-mizzet wrote:
So this is kinda half proposed rule/half discussion. I erred on the side of discussion since I'm not seriously trying to make a rule/get feedback, but rather just want to see some hypothetical opinions on what the different abilities would be.

So the setting is that all armies receive an additional ability that is similar to army tactics, but is only active if all units in all detachments share the same most-specific faction keyword. (IE army is 100% Raven Guard, no IG, assassins, knights etc.)

What would you expect to see from some of the specific army abilities?

I would expect Blood Angels to get something like "Accurate descent: units that have an ability that allows them to enter play > 9" away from enemies may instead be > 6" away instead."

Whatcha got?

As someone who loves seeing special rules that represent a faction's fluff, I'm all for this. I actually pitched this as part of a thread a few months back (https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/752564.page), but no one opted to respond at the time. :(

As others have pointed out, awarding bonus CP for having the same <Chapter>-level trait army-wide isn't a bad way to go. However, I'd make the argument that some armies are already so good at farming CP that they won't really be all that tempted to avoid souping for even more CP. So what you end up with is a system where the have nots feel left behind in the CP race while those already harvesting tons of CP will now have all the CP they need while also retaining the ability to soup up.

...But then, I'm biased and really enjoy seeing more special rules. Just to toss it out there, unlocking special mono-faction stratagems as a reward for not souping might be a fun middle-of-the-road approach. You'd get powerful and flavorful new stratagems to play with, but they'd be somewhat restricted by your CP budget.


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 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

 BaconCatBug wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

 BaconCatBug wrote:
That's like including Imperial Guard in the Space Marines codex because both come from Planets.

It's not the same at all. Harlequins are space elves with slightly different rules and a very small number of units. They used to be in the space elf codex and only very recently got an independent "codex" that can't really function without a normal space elf army next to it. Take away GW's need to sell you another $50 book and there's no reason for them to be a separate faction. Imperial guard, on the other hand, are a full faction with a full list of units and have nothing to do with space marines rules-wise.

And yet if they rolled Harlequins into the Dark Eldar book, you'd complain that you have to buy a book where 90% of the units are of no interest to you, so it's Lose-Lose for GW and they rightly ignore you.

Didn't seem to be a problem before, back when harlequins were just an elite option for Eldar.
Also, if Harlequins can't function as a stand alone army and require allies, how is that any different from incorporating them into another army as a unit choice? You are still forced to take non-harlequin units to cover the gaps in your woefully limited army comp.

I mean, speaking as someone who started playing in 5th and loved harlequins even early on in their gaming career, the harlequin situation wasn't great. They were basically unusable when I started playing (you couldn't really put them in transports, they were overpriced, etc.) and basically remained that way until they got their book. Back then, I remember finding several homebrewed 'dexes for them. So it "wasn't a problem" in the same way that it "isn't a problem" that kroot mercenaries aren't a thing and pyrovores stink.

That said I wouldn't mind harlequins getting lumped into a larger "Agents of the Aeldari" book alongside Ynnari, Corsairs, and Exodites. I'm honestly kind of surprised that's not what they opted to do with this latest harlequin release. I wouldn't lump the dark eldar in with that though; they've been around since 3rd, have tons of their own units, and have a decidedly different flavor/play style from craftworlders, 'quins, etc.

@Peregrine: Let's give the daemon its due. The harlequin codex actually is cheaper than a larger 'dex. It's fair to dislike the price it's at, but it is cheaper than the other aeldari books.

pm713 wrote:

Which armies were incapable of being played alone pre allies?

It's a pretty bad example of game design seeing as GW can't balance anything.

Mono BA has a hard time. Because they are a melee army, and its still hard to get them (all) into melee. The units are expensive, and they are very CP hungry. Even if a BA player pulls it off to get everything into melee, the enemy can simply fallback and shred them to pieces. With the turn 1 anti deepstrike in the enemys deployment zone beta rule it becomes even harder.

Rewarding mono armies with an additional 3 or even 5 CP makes AM impossible to play against. They would have 30+ CP. Using the standard combo grand strategist/kurovs aquila the guard player could end up with 40 CP.

 p5freak wrote:

pm713 wrote:

Which armies were incapable of being played alone pre allies?

It's a pretty bad example of game design seeing as GW can't balance anything.

Mono BA has a hard time. Because they are a melee army, and its still hard to get them (all) into melee. The units are expensive, and they are very CP hungry. Even if a BA player pulls it off to get everything into melee, the enemy can simply fallback and shred them to pieces. With the turn 1 anti deepstrike in the enemys deployment zone beta rule it becomes even harder.

Rewarding mono armies with an additional 3 or even 5 CP makes AM impossible to play against. They would have 30+ CP. Using the standard combo grand strategist/kurovs aquila the guard player could end up with 40 CP.

So they're already at 25? And moreover, what stratagems are so damn scary that Guard have?

 JNAProductions wrote:


So they're already at 25? And moreover, what stratagems are so damn scary that Guard have?

Two brigades are 24+3. How about the jury rigging stratagem that lets you repair a vehicle ? It used at the beginning of your turn, so there is no limit how many times you can use it. A LRBT with only 1 wound left can be repaired to full health. How about overlapping fields of fire ? How about re-rolling a dice in every phase ? Defensive gunners, hitting overwatch on 5+ is strong, if you have lots of shots. A demon prince once got deleted with it when he tried to charge a baneblade. How about deepstriking 2-3 baneblades, or any of its variants, with the tallarn stratagem, multiple times ? Im sure guard players would appreciate 5 more CPs, their army is already one of the strongest, if not the strongest, in the game.

 p5freak wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:


So they're already at 25? And moreover, what stratagems are so damn scary that Guard have?

Two brigades are 24+3. How about the jury rigging stratagem that lets you repair a vehicle ? It used at the beginning of your turn, so there is no limit how many times you can use it. A LRBT with only 1 wound left can be repaired to full health. How about overlapping fields of fire ? How about re-rolling a dice in every phase ? Defensive gunners, hitting overwatch on 5+ is strong, if you have lots of shots. A demon prince once got deleted with it when he tried to charge a baneblade. How about deepstriking 2-3 baneblades, or any of its variants, with the tallarn stratagem, multiple times ? Im sure guard players would appreciate 5 more CPs, their army is already one of the strongest, if not the strongest, in the game.

Jury rigging can only be used once a turn in matched play. It would be horribly broken otherwise. Overlapping fields of fire is strong, but only cadians can use it. You can only deepstrike one baneblade with the Tallarn stratagem, and you can only use it ONCE. If you are going to complain about stuff at least get it right. If you are playing against someone who does this stuff, he is cheating TERRIBLY.

 p5freak wrote:
A demon prince once got deleted with it when he tried to charge a baneblade.

Good, this should happen. A baneblade is a ~500 point lord of war. A demon prince is an HQ choice.

w1zard wrote:
Jury rigging can only be used once a turn in matched play. It would be horribly broken otherwise. Overlapping fields of fire is strong, but only cadians can use it. You can only deepstrike one baneblade with the Tallarn stratagem, and you can only use it ONCE. If you are going to complain about stuff at least get it right. If you are playing against someone who does this stuff, he is cheating TERRIBLY.

OMG, read the rules please, before you say things which are wrong You can use stratagems outside of phases as many times as you want, until you run out of CP. Check the BRB pg. 215 strategic discipline. Jury rigging is at the start of your turn, which is outside of a phase. The tallarn deepstrike stratagem is used during deployment, which, again, is outside of a phase.

 p5freak wrote:

w1zard wrote:
Jury rigging can only be used once a turn in matched play. It would be horribly broken otherwise. Overlapping fields of fire is strong, but only cadians can use it. You can only deepstrike one baneblade with the Tallarn stratagem, and you can only use it ONCE. If you are going to complain about stuff at least get it right. If you are playing against someone who does this stuff, he is cheating TERRIBLY.

OMG, read the rules please, before you say things which are wrong You can use stratagems outside of phases as many times as you want, until you run out of CP. Check the BRB pg. 215 strategic discipline. Jury rigging is at the start of your turn, which is outside of a phase. The tallarn deepstrike stratagem is used during deployment, which, again, is outside of a phase.

I'll cop to this, I was totally 100% wrong. I've been playing with the understanding that stratagems that can only be used at specific points can only be used once at that point.

However, re-reading the Tallarn stratagem it says it allows the models to be set up on a table edge, not deep striked in. So you were still incorrect on that one.

Also, for argument's sake, doesn't "the start of your turn" mean immediately at the start of your turn, as in if you use jury rigging once, it is no longer the start of your turn? I know that is kinda grasping at straws, but I refuse to believe unlimited use of the jury rigging stratagem is RAI. That is absolutely insane and that is coming from a guard player, I can pump up a baneblade so that it never dies and make my tanks practically invulnerable.

w1zard wrote:

However, re-reading the Tallarn stratagem it says it allows the models to be set up on a table edge, not deep striked in. So you were still incorrect on that one.

Ok, my fault. Still, you can use it three times to set up three baneblades/variants of it in a 2k game.

w1zard wrote:

Also, for argument's sake, doesn't "the start of your turn" mean immediately at the start of your turn, as in if you use jury rigging once, it is no longer the start of your turn? I know that is kinda grasping at straws, but I refuse to believe unlimited use of the jury rigging stratagem is RAI. That is absolutely insane and that is coming from a guard player, I can pump up a baneblade so that it never dies and make my tanks practically invulnerable.

Well, there is discussion going on when a phase is, and when its not. Its undefined by the rules. My understanding is that the start of turn/phase and end of turn/phase is outside of a phase. Same is deployment, and this is actually defined by the rules, deployment is not a phase. It would cost you 10 CP to repair 10 wounds on a vehicle, you would get 3 back with grand strategist. So yes, your baneblade would be almost indestructable.