Including Non-Alleigance Units

[Lucio]

Was thinking the other day about how hard is it with the new battle tomes to include anything from outside your allegiance without sacrificing big benefits and thematic mechanics.

For example, most Monsters only work if you're taking your core alliance allegiance, often limiting choices of battleline or encouraging a more mixed force

 

With that in mind, should Matched Play include an option to add 1, 2 or 3 (based on game size) non allegiance units without sacrificing your allegiance. You could then include things like Monsters, or a Hero from another allegiance. Maybe your Stormcast units are accompanied by a Witch Hunter, or your Tzaangors have herded a Slaughterbeast into a position where it attacks your enemies or your Death army has a lone pair of Mortiarches sent by Nagash to ensure their loyalty.

What pitfalls do people see with this? For clarities sake not suggesting the attached counts as part of the same allegiance, only that taking it doesn't break allegiance

[Sleboda]

Pitfalls? I think the whole reason all the allegiance benefits/freebies are ok is that you are limited compared to when you mix and match.  In other words, it seems intentional to me that you can't have your cake and eat it too.

Plus, Sayl.

[BaldoBeardo]

The whole point of allegiance is that in exchange for limiting your choices, you gain benefits.
The grand alliances still provide benefits if you want to go off-piste a little - like taking grots with Ironjawz - but allowing non-allegiance units without breaking allegiance would inevitably lead to some absolute donkey-cave shenanigans at tournaments.
I can understand it's a bit stifling for some nice army ideas (as we can't say fluff anymore, cheers@Turragor [emoji6] ) but matched play is the AoS competitive format and this kind of thing needs to remain pretty structured for vanilla purposes.

Sent from my Nexus 5X using Tapatalk

[BobTheKnight]

I like including them in formations like the Sylvaneth battalions that include an order wizard or a unit of stormcast. It's a nice way to mix and match while still being fluffy and it's more balanced. 

[Vasshpit]

I'm hoping that the GHB2 expands grand alliance to be on par with going any specific alliance.

And I really do feel there should be some sort of free agent keyword for a few units throughout the game.

 

[chord]

18 minutes ago, Vasshpit said:

I'm hoping that the GHB2 expands grand alliance to be on par with going any specific alliance.

 

I agree,  with new allegiance abilities for single factions there is almost never a reason to do a grand alliance unless you want to for a themed army.

I'd like to see Grand Alliances at least be on par with single faction armies.

[Criti]

9 minutes ago, chord said:

 

I'd like to see Grand Alliances at least be on par with single faction armies.

I would not.

And here's why - Faction Allegiances provide extra power for sticking to a specific battletome or overall theme. 

Grand Alliance Allegiances provide extra power by alowing you to take whatever the hell you want.  I'm not convinced that an army capable of taking Kurnouth Hunters buffed by Hurricanums protected by Retributors being buffed by a Castellabt, a Mystic Shield off a Wizard, and the +1 to hit from a Celestant  (and possibly the Hurricanum!) needs extra buffs.

[Aginor]

In general I think it would be too much cherry picking.

What I would like though is some sort of "free agent" keyword, especially for some units that are part of a very small army or Monsters/warmachines not bound to any army much anyway.

For example an Aleguzzler should not break any Destruction army's allegiance. Or Jungle Swarms, they fit Sylvaneth and some others quite well fluff-wise.

Come to think about it, that's already the case for warmachines isn't it? Using a cannon doesn't break allegiance. Using its crew does. Give me Skink handlers with the right key word and I'll use a Aelven Ballista thingie in my Seraphon army.

[chord]

2 minutes ago, Criti said:

I would not.

And here's why - Faction Allegiances provide extra power for sticking to a specific battletome or overall theme. 

Grand Alliance Allegiances provide extra power by alowing you to take whatever the hell you want.  I'm not convinced that an army capable of taking Kurnouth Hunters buffed by Hurricanums protected by Retributors being buffed by a Castellabt, a Mystic Shield off a Wizard, and the +1 to hit from a Celestant  (and possibly the Hurricanum!) needs extra buffs.

There are such few generic battleline units I feel that creates enough restrictions on grand alliances (at least in order)

[Lucio]

3 minutes ago, Criti said:

I would not.

And here's why - Faction Allegiances provide extra power for sticking to a specific battletome or overall theme. 

Grand Alliance Allegiances provide extra power by alowing you to take whatever the hell you want.  I'm not convinced that an army capable of taking Kurnouth Hunters buffed by Hurricanums protected by Retributors being buffed by a Castellabt, a Mystic Shield off a Wizard, and the +1 to hit from a Celestant  (and possibly the Hurricanum!) needs extra buffs.

Except 90% of Buffing units are limited to specific keywords to stop large amounts of stacking

[Vasshpit]

4 minutes ago, Criti said:

I would not.

And here's why - Faction Allegiances provide extra power for sticking to a specific battletome or overall theme. 

Grand Alliance Allegiances provide extra power by alowing you to take whatever the hell you want.  I'm not convinced that an army capable of taking Kurnouth Hunters buffed by Hurricanums protected by Retributors being buffed by a Castellabt, a Mystic Shield off a Wizard, and the +1 to hit from a Celestant  (and possibly the Hurricanum!) needs extra buffs.

They could offer just as many options but instead of buffs from going pure they could offer more oddball choices like the "Nothing left standing" from destruction.

[Criti]

21 minutes ago, chord said:

There are such few generic battleline units I feel that creates enough restrictions on grand alliances (at least in order)

Not including Compendium models, Order has 15 generic Battleline choices.  Death has 3.  Destruction has 5.  Chaos has 11.

19 minutes ago, Lucio said:

Except 90% of Buffing units are limited to specific keywords to stop large amounts of stacking

Every buff I listed above works together.

So do a number of others - such as the Vampire Lord's Command Ability, the Orruk Warboss Command ability, the Wight King's banner, the Necromancer's main spell, etc...

Even taking out buffs, combining anything is far more powerful than the benefits of Faction Allegiances.

Kurnouth Hunters for good shooting  combined with cheap Vulkite Berserkers for durable combat troops.

Bloodletter bomb with Sayl the Faithless

Sayl the Faithless with Stormfiends.

Sayl the Faithless with anything.

Thundertusk/Stonehorn combos filled out with Moonclan Grots for numbers and Fanatics.

And so on.

[Thain]

I think the easiest thing to do would be to create some sort of "multi-allegiance" keyword. So that certain units could be counted as part of more than one allegiance. I suggest calling it "Dogs of War," to harken back to the mercenaries of the older game.

It works pretty simply, you add the Dog of War (_____) keyword to the Warscoll of the unit, filling in the blank with whatever Allegiance keywords you want the unit to be able to count as. For example, Necromancers could be Dog of War (Deathrattle, Deathwalker) representing their openness to work with both "wet" and "dry" undead. Aleguzzler Gargants could be Doh of War (Any Destruction) as they'll work with anyone who can bribe/bully them into a fight.

Maybe limit the number of Dogs of War units based on the total point value of the army in Matched Play as well. Keep people mostly on theme, but allowing for some fun and flexibility. 0-1 per 1,000 Points, maybe?

[Lucio]

13 minutes ago, Thain said:

I think the easiest thing to do would be to create some sort of "multi-allegiance" keyword. So that certain units could be counted as part of more than one allegiance. I suggest calling it "Dogs of War," to harken back to the mercenaries of the older game.

It works pretty simply, you add the Dog of War (_____) keyword to the Warscoll of the unit, filling in the blank with whatever Allegiance keywords you want the unit to be able to count as. For example, Necromancers could be Dog of War (Deathrattle, Deathwalker) representing their openness to work with both "wet" and "dry" undead. Aleguzzler Gargants could be Doh of War (Any Destruction) as they'll work with anyone who can bribe/bully them into a fight.

Maybe limit the number of Dogs of War units based on the total point value of the army in Matched Play as well. Keep people mostly on theme, but allowing for some fun and flexibility. 0-1 per 1,000 Points, maybe?

Yup, pretty much my suggestion but a little more limited to specific units

[KHHaunts]

See i always felt that a simple soulution would be that alligience effects only effect the relvant units. Rather than removing the alligiance entirely.

If wanted to recreate the Lord of undeath army with Nagash his mortarchs and a group of Stormcast battling through the realm of shiyish rather than relying on GW to make a million and 1 Battleions they would simply loosen the rule on alligience a little.

So i take death a alligiance army (Perhaps your general must be the alligiance) and i get all the death army battle traits but none of them can be used or applied to any of the stormcast elements of my army. Which feels pretty fluffy.

Stormcast force with lord Castallant grymn as the general and all the stormcast alligiance effects that go with it. However the ragtag Sylvaneth force who has lost their god benefits from no alligiance abilities of any kind because i chose SC alligiance and not Order.

I know that the latter does have a battlion but soon there will be way to many of them if they try and please everyone.

This just seems simpler. Is there a major downside im not seeing?

[Urbanus]

This is the part of AoS I dont understand. They are constantly limiting our options.

Release: Play whatever models you wanna put on the table!

GHB: Play one of four huge factions!

Now: Play trees in three different sizes and dont you dare look at those Wood Aelfs!

 

[BaldoBeardo]

This is the part of AoS I dont understand. They are constantly limiting our options.
Release: Play whatever models you wanna put on the table!
GHB: Play one of four huge factions!
Now: Play trees in three different sizes and dont you dare look at those Wood Aelfs!
 

Release: take what you want.
GHB: Take what you want, but you're limited to the grand alliances if you choose to play matched play.
Now: Regardless of which style of game you're playing, here's some cool stuff you can have if you limit yourself to certain things.

The only thing that's been "imposed" is GA for matched play.

Also, do cast your mind back to AoS release when one of the principle complaints by detractors was that it was such a dumb idea that you could take whatever you wanted! [emoji4]

Sent from my Nexus 5X using Tapatalk

[Criti]

6 minutes ago, Urbanus said:

This is the part of AoS I dont understand. They are constantly limiting our options.

They aren't limiting anything.  They're providing incentive to play something themed (and yes, to sell multiples of certain kits).

We, as entitled gamers, are just never happy unless we get to have our cake and eat it to.

And I think I speak for most gamers when I say we could probably all stand to pass on that extra cake from time to time.

[Sleboda]

10 minutes ago, Urbanus said:

This is the part of AoS I dont understand. They are constantly limiting our options.

Release: Play whatever models you wanna put on the table!

GHB: Play one of four huge factions!

Now: Play trees in three different sizes and dont you dare look at those Wood Aelfs!

 

?

Nothing has changed ... unless you only count Matched Play as valid. 

[Urbanus]

Making "take whatever you want" less effecient is in my game the same as taking it away completely. No one takes the suboptimal option.

[chord]

19 minutes ago, Criti said:

They aren't limiting anything.  They're providing incentive to play something themed (and yes, to sell multiples of certain kits).

Themed to pre-defined themes.  You can build themed GA armies, but have less incentive to do so now.

[rokapoke]

3 minutes ago, Urbanus said:

Making "take whatever you want" less effecient is in my game the same as taking it away completely. No one takes the suboptimal option.

Interesting, considering you made an entire thread about how your regular opponent loses nearly every game against you because he doesn't optimize his list... it's almost as if there's another subgroup of players that will use points to make a list out of the units they want to take rather than the units that are "optimal".

[BaldoBeardo]

Making "take whatever you want" less effecient is in my game the same as taking it away completely. No one takes the suboptimal option.

Suboptimal [emoji818]
Efficient [emoji818] (Blame Turragor...)
Even before AoS, people knowingly took armies to tournaments that they knew would probably get hammered - but it's what they wanted to take/collect.

People still seem to do quite well at tournies with the GA armies, I thought?

Effectively, allegiance abilities reward players for limiting their options and specialising.
Some players would see that as penalising rather than rewarding.




Sent from my Nexus 5X using Tapatalk

[Urbanus]

50 minutes ago, rokapoke said:

Interesting, considering you made an entire thread about how your regular opponent loses nearly every game against you because he doesn't optimize his list... it's almost as if there's another subgroup of players that will use points to make a list out of the units they want to take rather than the units that are "optimal".

Yes let me rephrase: No one who cares about winning.

 

Honestly I wouldnt mind the restrictions as long as they where fluffy. But they just seem to have gone to far. They are killing the vareity. Once you could have goblins, night goblins, savage orcs and black orcs all in one army. Try that now and you get hammered. Themes are great but why are they so narrow in AoS? Im not saying every death model should go together but an entire army of just ghouls?

[roberto]

Just now, Urbanus said:

Yes let me rephrase: No one who cares about winning.

 

Honestly I wouldnt mind the restrictions as long as they where fluffy. But they just seem to have gone to far. They are killing the vareity. Once you could have goblins, night goblins, savage orcs and black orcs all in one army. Try that now and you get hammered. Themes are great but why are they so narrow in AoS? Im not saying every death model should go together but an entire army of just ghouls?

Q: What do you call someone who consistently wins against "optimized" armies with a "sub-optimal" list?

A: Sir

GW isn't killing the variety.  As a matter of fact, one can mix-and-match like never before.  It's those players who are risk-adverse who choose conformity.