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If two Space Marine Chapters ally, then the librarians in one detachment can forego casting in order to give librarians in the other detachment more dice to roll. This seems fine and fluffy. I can picture the librarian channelling his psychic effort over to his brother.

If Space Marines ally with Eldar, it seems fine and narrative to me, as long as the enemy is chaos or nids. However it does not seem right that a farseer can increase the power of a librarian.

I'm going to ignore come-the-apoc allies, as that already has worse problems in the fluff.

I can't think of a reasonable solution that would make it feel more fluff-compliant for those allies of convenience that is not overcomplicated. Any thoughts?

I always figured it as having that many psykers in close proximity just concentrates more warp energy, which is why any given psyker has more dice to use. It doesn't necessarily have to represent an intentional effort at bolstering.

Now, that does get really weird with CTA allies, nids specifically, since their powers aren't exactly psychic, per the fluff, but we'll ignore that for now.

 ColonelFazackerley wrote:
If two Space Marine Chapters ally, then the librarians in one detachment can forego casting in order to give librarians in the other detachment more dice to roll. This seems fine and fluffy. I can picture the librarian channelling his psychic effort over to his brother.

If Space Marines ally with Eldar, it seems fine and narrative to me, as long as the enemy is chaos or nids. However it does not seem right that a farseer can increase the power of a librarian.

I'm going to ignore come-the-apoc allies, as that already has worse problems in the fluff.

I can't think of a reasonable solution that would make it feel more fluff-compliant for those allies of convenience that is not overcomplicated. Any thoughts?

I can't say for CTA allies, but if the Eldar were fighting with the Imperium, it's because they need to win or something much worse than allying up is going to happen. Something so bad that a farseer strengthening the mental fortitude of a space marine librarian secures a victory for the day.

If you don't fancy that gamewise, maybe having it so each faction rolls their own channel dice and can only use their own powers. A big advantage in the fact that you get more power dice, but the downside of that being that you cant use space marine power dice to cast eldar powers. Could even take it a step further and only allowing Eldar Spells on Eldar Units and such.

jade_angel wrote:I always figured it as having that many psykers in close proximity just concentrates more warp energy, which is why any given psyker has more dice to use. It doesn't necessarily have to represent an intentional effort at bolstering.

If that was true, the presence of enemy psykers should make you stronger. this sounds wrong.

gradyhawks wrote:
I can't say for CTA allies, but if the Eldar were fighting with the Imperium, it's because they need to win or something much worse than allying up is going to happen. Something so bad that a farseer strengthening the mental fortitude of a space marine librarian secures a victory for the day.

If you don't fancy that gamewise, maybe having it so each faction rolls their own channel dice and can only use their own powers. A big advantage in the fact that you get more power dice, but the downside of that being that you cant use space marine power dice to cast eldar powers. Could even take it a step further and only allowing Eldar Spells on Eldar Units and such.

I just get the impression from the fluff that the way the warp is harnessed is different, so desperate allies would not be able to help each other in this way.

yeah, splitting the dice pool is the most obvious perhaps you could roll the D6 and decide how to divide that. the psychic levels in each detachment would go to those detachments. kind of end up with one player having 2 mini pschic phases.

it is already the case that eldar psykers cannot bless marine allies, so I dont get your last point.

Both the Librarian and Farseer both force their wills upon the Immaterium, and have it manifest in the Materium.

It kinda works fluffwise.

One rule option, though, is the d6 is shared, but dice from psykers belong to only that detachment. We've done it in some ally games.

No matter how crazy the Cult of Lokus is, Lokus isn't passing his dice to the Nids he's helping. But the d6 is the currents in the Immaterium, which could be exploited by either the Nids or Eldar, but not both.

It feels much more fluffy. An oddity of using it for allies is when my Shadow Seer can't rely on the Warlocks like the Spirit Seer can, but that would be acceptable.

This is sort of how I've always fluffed multiple psykers in my head. Why isn't my warlock casting in the same turn my farseer is? He's clearly aiding the farseer in skimming the skein.

Making it an allies-specific thing seems odd though. Not only do CTA allies start to feel weird, but surely a librarian in the same detachment as another librarian can lend his warp charges more easily than an allied rune priest can.

It seems like a fine but unnecessary rule. I mean, by simply not casting powers, one psyker is already leaving more WC to go around for the other psykers, right?

@Bharring: I found it odd that such a rule wasn't packaged with the new 7th edition ally rules.