Allegiances and Factions and Allies

[TheOtherJosh]

24 minutes ago, Thomas Lyons said:

This is not correct. They have been recently updated.  That also have the Tamurkhan's Horde keyword. They can be fully included in a Chaos, Nurgle or Tamurkhan's Horde allegiance army.

Daemon-Plague-Toads-of-Nurgle-1-1.pdfDaemon-Plague-Toads-of-Nurgle-1-1.pdf

The initial question was "what can they ally with?" (Because they're not on the daemons of Nurgle list.)

The answer is still "Absolutely nothing" because Tamurkhan's Horde isn't part of any Pitched Battle Faction Ally list.

If one isn't going for a Tamurkhan's Horde Army, I was making suggestions on how they could be included as "quasi-Allies" with a non-Tamurkhan's Horde force by using Grand Alliance Chaos Army that is bound to a specific Allegiance.

[TheOtherJosh]

34 minutes ago, hobgoblinclub said:

Every time I get caught up with this thread, I go to work and I'm lost. 

@TheOtherJosh what, functionally, is a faction though? You're stating 'Faction: Grand Alliance Chaos' which in my mind isn't a thing. Factions were surely intended as subdivisions of the Grand Alliance. It seems there's needlessly two terms functioning in tandem (faction and allegiance). 

If I'm taking the Chaos allegiance abilities it's because all of my warscrolls share a keyword, therefore allowing me to select Chaos allegiance. I don't see that 'faction' serves any function but the name on a battletome. Perhaps GW need to drop the term altogether. 

I'm using "Faction: Grand Alliance Chaos"'in the same way that the Azyr app is referencing "faction" when looking at a list.

So, looking at it from an overarching perspective:

There are 4 primary "Factions" which are referred to either as "Coalitions of X" or as the "Grand Alliances".

The problem with referring to it without clarifying "Faction" is that the Grand Allliance Chaos (and all of the others) is also an Allegiance. And both Allegiance and Faction are two separate, but related pieces.

Factions being how you build your list, and Allegiances being what you choose to give it special abilities. 

Factions are not always on the Warscroll (because sometimes the Faction and Allegiance names are not identical), where Allegiances on the other hand must be on the Warscroll.

[Killax]

36 minutes ago, Squirrelmaster said:

I keep trying to pin down exactly what the issues are — what questions would we actually ask GW, given the chance.

So far I have:

1. Can I use one allegiance to determine what is battleline, while using the allegiance abilities of another? (e.g. Chaos Knights as battleline but Slaanesh Allegiance Abilities)
2. If I want to use allies, do all my non-allied units have to come from a single table in the GHB2017 (or can I use Slaanesh Marauders and Hosts of Slaanesh Allies*)?
3. If I want to use allies, do I have to use the allegiance abilities that match the faction I'm using the allies list of* (eg. can I use the Slaves to Darkness allies list but the Slaanesh allegiance abilities)?
4. Do my allies have to come from the relevant table, or is it enough for them to have the relevant keyword* (e.g. Mourngul as a "Nighthaunt" ally for a Deadwalkers army.

*all these options assume Hosts of Slaanesh = Slaanesh, etc.

Does that cover it?

5. Can Allies have their own Allegiance? Based on page 76 the suggestion is they can, does this mean armies can have multiple Allegiances and thus all abilities?

[BrAiKo]

1 hour ago, Squirrelmaster said:

I keep trying to pin down exactly what the issues are — what questions would we actually ask GW, given the chance.

So far I have:

1. Can I use one allegiance to determine what is battleline, while using the allegiance abilities of another? (e.g. Chaos Knights as battleline but Slaanesh Allegiance Abilities)
2. If I want to use allies, do all my non-allied units have to come from a single table in the GHB2017 (or can I use Slaanesh Marauders and Hosts of Slaanesh Allies*)?
3. If I want to use allies, do I have to use the allegiance abilities that match the faction I'm using the allies list of* (eg. can I use the Slaves to Darkness allies list but the Slaanesh allegiance abilities)?
4. Do my allies have to come from the relevant table, or is it enough for them to have the relevant keyword* (e.g. Mourngul as a "Nighthaunt" ally for a Deadwalkers army.

*all these options assume Hosts of Slaanesh = Slaanesh, etc.

Does that cover it?

This is the sort of post that is constructive, rather than endlessly flogging the same points back and forth.  I would add in #2 "and do the Chaos god keywords count as synonymous with the battletome/faction title for the purposes of allies (eg Hosts of Slaanesh = Slaanesh)".

48 minutes ago, TheOtherJosh said:

The initial question was "what can they ally with?" (Because they're not on the daemons of Nurgle list.)

The answer is still "Absolutely nothing" because Tamurkhan's Horde isn't part of any Pitched Battle Faction Ally list.

This is still your opinion and not "the answer".  When GW get around to FAQing this issue, surely those arguing in favour of this viewpoint will not be wishing it to end up being ruled this way, and I'm sure it won't be as GWs intent is clear, even if their execution is sloppy.

[Xasz]

29 minutes ago, Killax said:

5. Can Allies have their own Allegiance? Based on page 76 the suggestion is they can, does this mean armies can have multiple Allegiances and thus all abilities?

Are you really trying to twist the first couple sentences about allies, in a way that they get their own abilities and artifacts?

Good luck with that.

[Killax]

1 minute ago, Xasz said:

Are you really trying to twist the first couple sentences about allies, in a way that they get their own abilities and artifacts?

Good luck with that.

Are the first couple of sentences mend to say that would be your question.

[TheOtherJosh]

54 minutes ago, BrAiKo said:

1 hour ago, TheOtherJosh said:

The initial question was "what can they ally with?" (Because they're not on the daemons of Nurgle list.)

The answer is still "Absolutelynothing" because Tamurkhan's Horde isn't part of any Pitched Battle Faction Ally list.

This is still your opinion and not "the answer".  When GW get around to FAQing this issue, surely those arguing in favour of this viewpoint will not be wishing it to end up being ruled this way, and I'm sure it won't be as GWs intent is clear, even if their execution is sloppy.

Based on how all of the other Pitched Battle Faction Army lists work, this is RAW at this moment. Allies come from the Pitched Battle lists.

Until we see a FAQ (from either FW or GW mainline) updating the Allies lists from the GHB 2017 to include Tamurkhan's Horde, or an errata changing how Allies are determined, this is (unfortunately for those wishing it to be otherwise) what we're working with.

I'm not expecting to see a change in how Allies are managed, mainly because we have seen two Pitched Battle Faction lists get updated (Daemons of Nurgle and Tamurkhan's Horde) and they used the same model as currently exists in the GHB 2017. 

[hobgoblinclub]

1 hour ago, TheOtherJosh said:

Factions being how you build your list, and Allegiances being what you choose to give it special abilities. 

I thought we'd agreed that the first thing you do when building a list was to select an allegiance, not a faction. Factions seem to have no in-game function as they don't appear on warscrolls or in the rules. The only thing that matters is the keywords warscrolls share. You're right that the Grand Alliances do function in a similar way the smaller allegiances. In fact, it's exactly the same way, as far as I can see - if units share a keyword, functionally 'Order'  does nothing different to 'Seraphon'. Both simply unlock a set of possible allegiance abilities. 

GW definitely need to clarify things here (10 pages of discussion are testament to how ambiguous it has become). I'm becoming more convinced removing the term 'faction' would be productive step.

[Thomas Lyons]

37 minutes ago, hobgoblinclub said:

I thought we'd agreed that the first thing you do when building a list was to select an allegiance, not a faction. Factions seem to have no in-game function as they don't appear on warscrolls or in the rules. The only thing that matters is the keywords warscrolls share. You're right that the Grand Alliances do function in a similar way the smaller allegiances. In fact, it's exactly the same way, as far as I can see - if units share a keyword, functionally 'Order'  does nothing different to 'Seraphon'. Both simply unlock a set of possible allegiance abilities. 

GW definitely need to clarify things here (10 pages of discussion are testament to how ambiguous it has become). I'm becoming more convinced removing the term 'faction' would be productive step.

This. The rules are very clear that the first step of building a list is choosing an allegiance.  In fact, that is the first step, verbatim, according to GW: 

Faction is only used to described the Matched Play Pitched Battle Grand Alliance divisions, not for actual list building.

[TheOtherJosh]

I understand what it says. However, the section that is being referenced:

"PICKING YOUR ARMY
The first step in picking an army is choosing its allegiance (see page 116). All of the units in the army must either have that allegiance, or be allied to that allegiance (see Allies, page 76)”

Is directly from the Pitched Battle section.

Additionally, we've already determined that this particular quote needs to be Erratta'd.

For the basic simple fact that Allegiances don't have Allies. Factions have Allies.

Additionally, since Allegiances are determined by the starting units in your Roster (p.116) you have to choose your units before you can actually calculate or choose your Allegiance.

“When your army qualifies for more than one allegiance you must choose which allegiance your army will use before you set up any units.”

Even the Allies section has the same kind of issue:

"A player can spend some of their points on allied units. The Pitched Battle profile for each faction lists the allegiances of the allied units you can take. Allied units can have a different allegiance to the rest of the army."

The Profiles don't actually list the Allegiances, it lists their faction....

And then goes on to point out that the Allies are: 

“... treated as part of the player’s army, except that they are not included when working out the army’s allegiance...”

So, the Allegiances have to be worked out based on units added to the overall force.... and you can't take Allies based on Allegiance, but you have to know what your Factions  allies are to be able to work out whether they can be allies ... so you can validate that they're not included when working out what the Allegiance of the army is .... 

Ergo, you have to know what your faction is to be able to determine your list of Allies so you can determine what Allegiances you can appropriately use and ensure that you aren't including your Allies in your calculated Allegiance ... and we can't even validate that one CAN take Allies until after determining what Pitched Battle faction the force is coming from... 

Could one pre-determine Allegiance before Faction ... sure... but you're looking at a multi variable equation more like "x + y = 12" than "9 + y = 12" and we went over that with the Allegiance: Nurgle example ... it wasn't anywhere near as clean as working from Faction to Allegiance. And it really has to do with the key wording in the one section that really requires some kind of errata.

Because for pretty much everyone BUT the chaos Factions/Allegiances that phrasing works. However, when looking at the chaos god Allegiances ... it doesn't work.

[Xasz]

Did anyone actually contact GW through the proper channels and exposed the problem in its entirety?

We more or less boiled it down to two viewpoints and we'll probably keep running in circles over the following pages...

[Iain]

4 hours ago, Xasz said:

Did anyone actually contact GW through the proper channels and exposed the problem in its entirety?

We more or less boiled it down to two viewpoints and we'll probably keep running in circles over the following pages...

Seems like the problem here is that there aren't really any proper channels. The social media team are seperate to the rules team, and the rules team don't have a public presence.

[EMMachine]

Hm, today I saw a case where it wouldn't work if allies where chosen by allegiance.

This case is "Monsters of Chaos", because these warscrolls does only have the CHAOS Keyword and there Name as a Keyword.

So both ways have flaws where it doesn't really fit.

[Ben]

7 hours ago, Iain said:

Seems like the problem here is that there aren't really any proper channels. The social media team are seperate to the rules team, and the rules team don't have a public presence.

The community team are the people etc talk to about ANY feedback.  They are the voice for GW in the community and will put it back to the correct department if its not their place to answer it.    

In the case of DoT and BoK alliances, I am pretty sure that this is in hand.  

[Travis Baumann]

Wow, did this get super rules-lawyery.

I am pretty sure when they came up with this idea the designer's intents were pretty simple.  

A lot of the armies in the various books got some really cool things for remaining in a tighter controlled sub-faction under a main alliance.  I think this started with Battalions initially but then grew to include Allegiance Abilities and Artifacts as more Battletomes arrived on the scene. 

The problem with this is that so many players wanted to get the special properties of a given sub-faction/allegiance that they were starting to limit the diversity of their own collection.  People were getting more and more disillusioned with playing a General Alliance army as they felt they were not getting access to the specials.  GW saw a way to still allow people to gain their specialty items/abilities AND include some additional units/monsters/characters that under previous circumstances would have disallowed them picking their specialty bits.   The entire idea of allies was to allow and encourage you to buy and field models outside of your self-imposed restraints.

Trying to remain fluffy and in character instead of allowing the Allies to come from anything and everything under the Grand Alliance, they made limitations that are meant to go with the backstory narrative (ie Khorne and Slaanesh do NOT get along as is similar to Nurgle vs. Tzeentch).  This got hugely convoluted in end times with the Archaron uniting the four gods (or I guess you could say 3).  At that point, under the Grand Alliance you could take all of them together which in the Old World and original Realm of Chaos volumes was in no way possible due to their hatred of one another.

If you were to look back at the selection of your army from an intended narrative point (not to be confused with narrative play but with actual ideology of your chosen army) it would make some decisions common sense... unless you are rules lawyering for advantage or going against a hypothetical opponent doing the same.

In the old days, you went with the rule of cool.  Beyond that, each player rolled a die and highest roll chose the outcome for that given battle ---- see what happens and play.

In all of these hypothetical lists/combos presented in this thread, are there any that actually seem that overpowering or ones any of you would actually choose to make an army with?  Does everyone love Slaves to Darkness that much that they are constantly fighting to slam them into their army as Battle Line or otherwise? 

I am not sure I see the point of this entire cyclical debate...    You either want to build a Grand Alliance army with everything possible or you want your special abilities and traits and therefore have to make some sacrifices to what is available to you in your army - including Allies.  In any of these questions/situations it most likely would be the more restrictive option of the two so as to help balance out you getting your specialty items AND getting to field some other cool units... that would probably be the most balanced - and dare I say it, FUN which is clearly the intent of the designers.

[Squirrelmaster]

@Travis Baumann Accusing people of rules-lawyering isn't constructive. The rules are confusingly written; People don't need ulterior motives to be honestly confused by them.

[Killax]

44 minutes ago, Travis Baumann said:

In all of these hypothetical lists/combos presented in this thread, are there any that actually seem that overpowering or ones any of you would actually choose to make an army with?  Does everyone love Slaves to Darkness that much that they are constantly fighting to slam them into their army as Battle Line or otherwise? 

I am not sure I see the point of this entire cyclical debate...    

One thing that usually happens with topics like these is that they reach 10+ pages and the result of it is that the initial intend behind the topic shifts so much that basically there is no good awnser to the question because the rules as written offer no clearity. 

So more than anything, this topic isn't about hypothetical lists/combos that seem overpowering. The topic is also not bound to Slaves to Darkness.
The point of the initial topic is to figure out what actually constitutes as a Faction and if the rules for Faction follow the same path of that for the rules of Allegiance, to which the awnser is no.

The reason why this causes an issue is because currently Factions (and thus also Allies) do not follow a Keyword related rule, where Allegiance does. The effect of this is that in quite some cases there is no clear Ally for a specific Allegiance so despite trying to follow a Keyword logic many of the Faction designs do not follow "Keyword logic".

[Travis Baumann]

Fair enough but when I read the GHB, none of this popped into my mind.  I was like cool, I can now use some neat abilities for my Slaanesh force and still take my unit of 3 Skyfires or maybe my unit of converted Bulgors (using the really old Keeper of Secrets bovine headed models as minotaurs).

My point was the game is about fun and reading through this made it not seem so much fun for a lot of you here.

Ask your self if the army you really want to field is in violation of the simplest and most restrictive interpretation of these rules.  If not then no need to sweat it so much.  If it is, ask yourself if any opponent would really be put at a disadvantage by what you are trying to do.  If so... 

 

 

[Killax]

Just now, Travis Baumann said:

Fair enough but when I read the GHB, none of this popped into my mind.  I was like cool, I can now use some neat abilities for my Slaanesh force and still take my unit of 3 Skyfires or maybe my unit of converted Bulgors (using the really old Keeper of Secrets bovine headed models as minotaurs).

My point was the game is about fun and reading through this made it not seem so much fun for a lot of you here.

Ask your self if the army you really want to field is in violation of the simplest and most restrictive interpretation of these rules.  If not then no need to sweat it so much.  If it is, ask yourself if any opponent would really be put at a disadvantage by what you are trying to do.  If so... 

Without doubt the new Allegiance abilities gained thanks to GH2017 are awesome! However that's not the focus of this topic  .

I completely agree with you that the game should be about fun however Matched Play presents a set of rules that intend to speed up the process of gaming and not confuse players.

The issue is that we don't really know what is in violation and what isn't because the current rules provide no real clearity on the subject. In addition Ally rules seem to apply for units but do not cover Warscroll Battalions, despite being a larger part of the game also. Again this does not help in knowing what can and cannot be done with Allies. What we're trying to figure out is what the complete intend actually is behind Factions and Allies.

[Travis Baumann]

Well ******, I was just going back through the Hosts of Slaanesh and they cannot take Skyfires after all.  Oh well.  Warherd unit of Bulgors and a Chaos sorcerer on Manticore coming on board instead.   I might experiment with a separate roster as Grand Alliance Chaos as even with the Allies rules I cannot mix my Tzeentch and Slaanesh forces and claim special Allegiance abilities for either so I will work it out multiple ways and play with different armies and see how it goes.

I am almost of the opinion that Slaves to Darkness should only be available as a Chaos Undivided force without marks and there should just be Mortal Chaos Warriors accessible to each individual god and therefore marked as such. 

I would also really love if Beastmen were capable of being god specific like the old days (or Tzangor currently.. Pestigors incoming?).  I am painting up a unit of Slaaneshi Ungors that are all blond haired with blue skin (the Blond Beast Brigade).   I painted up my Bulgors in  Slaanesh regalia too.  Lead by the blond haired blue skinned Bully Idol.

[Travis Baumann]

20 minutes ago, Killax said:

In addition Ally rules seem to apply for units but do not cover Warscroll Battalions, despite being a larger part of the game also. Again this does not help in knowing what can and cannot be done with Allies. What we're trying to figure out is what the complete intend actually is behind Factions and Allies.

Well not sure this is that big of issue with Battalions with most of them getting an increase for the Battalion rules itself not including the actual units under them, not sure how many battalions with units would come in under 400 (or even 500 if you go up to 2500 pnts).

[Nico]

While it's not an entirely authoritative source, this article on the Community Site shows quite clearly how GW intends allegiances and factions and allies to work: "There’s still one Battleline slot to fill, and it’s time to start adding some heavy hitters to the army – Putrid Blightkings fit the bill nicely. As part of the Nurgle allegiance, Putrid Blightkings are effectively in the same army as Nurgle Daemons (as are any Skaven Pestilens units, Slaves to Darkness with the Mark of Nurgle, and Archaon himself). This puts us up to 1830 points, with 170 left to spare!" https://www.warhammer-community.com/2017/09/14/starting-a-nurgle-army-with-blightwar-sep14gw-homepage-post-2/

[Travis Baumann]

Well, that explains a lot, including the Marks on Slaves to Darkness.   One of the members here has an awesome post in the Painting section converting Mounted Slaves to Darkness into really cool looking Nurgle cavalry.

I like their article but I don't want that many Plague Bearers so maybe more Blightkings or something.

[Captain Marius]

They dont mention which faction the Nurgle allegiance army would use to determine allies tho... which im sure at some point was the question we were trying to answer!

[Squirrelmaster]

Yeah, if everything in your army has the same keyword it's no problem. By all means, run Nurgle marauders and plaguebearers and any other Nurgle stuff you want together as one army.

Or take Daemonettes and chaos knights of Slaanesh together and call it Slaanesh allegiance, no problem.

But if you want to take allies with a different allegiance, then we have to figure out which allies (if any) you can use. That's the main problem we're having.