Allies Predictions

[RuneBrush]

1 hour ago, Auticus said:

I don't think normal hordes are going to be much more powerful.  At the end of the day they are largely still junk and any powergamer worth his salt is going to see that the slight efficiency increase to normal hordes will probably not be worth the time in buying, assembling, and painting all those models.

However, things that already get free bonuses for their size, like skeletons, will be going from already-very efficient, to even more efficient, and I think we'll be seeing more of those when a deathrattle book drops.

Not entirely sure that's true.  Horde armies appear to be more popular at the higher end in recent months, fielding huge numbers of wounds can help against certain army builds - who cares if you're removing a goblin with a mortal wound or a regular attack?  They're cheap as chips!

[Tidings]

From a super high level look at the meta, we see SCE being OP at the start with all the options they have, being the first army with proper support and rules, and really high armor. The meta shifted towards ways to spam mortal wounds, really high volume of rending attacks, or alpha-strike lists that get to go second and abuse a double turn. This shift happened in large part because of how strong SCE were, and now they are less strong because of it. The shift to horde armies is the next natural progression because it is a counter to the prevailing lists that are out there - mortal wound/rending spam. Hordes take value away from the opponents list. Paying more points for the mortal wound output is a waste when your only real targets are 6+ save minions in hordes. 

I think hordes will sort of soften the meta a bit, but I don't think they will become dominant. I think it's an indirect buff to SCE because it takes value away from mortal wound spam, which is the primary counter to SCE. When mortal wound spam works against less opponents, there's less point investing as much in it. The alpha-strike double turn lists will remain because they will work great against hordes still. High volume attack lists will remain because they also work well against hordes. 

We'll just see the meta shift slightly and SCE probably get 5 new box sets designed to eliminate hordes lol. 

[Naflem]

18 hours ago, someone2040 said:

It's possible. I don't necessarily think it should, but perhaps that's just my old worldness clouding judgement (What Duardin would work with a mage? or Aelves should work with Aelven mages). So yes, you're quite possibly right that races like Stormcast will get access to the Collegiate Arcane.

It'll definitely be interesting to find out what races do end up as allies, as the Order preview didn't really reveal anything new in this respect.

I think I misremebered what it said, looking back it was " The Collegiate Arcane Mystic Battle Wizards, for example, is a great way to add some much-needed magical support to your forces of Order" - does kinda imply that they'd be largely available but its not explicit and not like universal or anything. 

[Aelfric]

What I'm curious to see is if any faction can take allies from any new factions soon to be released, such as Shadow Aelves.

[someone2040]

31 minutes ago, Aelfric said:

What I'm curious to see is if any faction can take allies from any new factions soon to be released, such as Shadow Aelves.

I would guess not as I don't think they're going to spoil any new factions (From what it looks like, the next AoS faction is likely to be late September/October if Death Guard are next month).

I'd hazard a guess that either, they'll have a list of factions inside future battletomes that can take this faction as an ally (So the battletomes will lost both ways, what can take said faction as allies, what said faction can take as allies), or they'll just release errata for the GHB to allow other factions to take the new faction as allies.

It's not really an ideal way to do it, but I can't imagine that it'll be a one way street.