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Allegiances and Factions and Allies


Gilby

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@Gilby, I think that the main cause of confusion is that GW use some terms interchangeably. Logically you would think that 'Allegiance' and 'Faction' would be siloed terms, but they are not. If you re-read point 1.1:

"1.1) Page 116 of the GHB2 answers this well. If all your starting units and warscroll battalions in the army have a common keyword you can use that allegiance. If they have more than one common keywords, you have to choose which allegiance they will be in."

Therefore a Faction is also an Allegiance, as you could not have more than one Grand Alliance listed on your Warscroll. You can see the terms Faction and Allegiance being used interchangeably in the Allegiance Abilities section, which contains abilities for both Grand Alliances and Factions. Selecting a faction allegiances involves narrowing your choices, in order to gain a different set of abilities and it's worth noting that you can do the reverse i.e. selecting all Seraphon units, but taking the Order Allegiance, as you could choose the Order keyword for your Allegiance.

The lists that you've put up are all eligible for the Tzeentch Allegiances, because they share the same keywords:

ii). Can have the Tzeentch Allegiance, because all units can be marked Tzeentch giving them the right keyword

iv). If you took the Tzeentch Allegiance, Sayl can be an ally because he has the Slaves to Darkness keyword.

All units, or at least 1600 points, sharing a keyword is what's important here, rather than which faction they're listed in on the various websites, apps or books.

Now, I'm off to build my 'Wizard' Allegiance army of Pink Horrors and casters xD

 

 

 

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This had been discussed on a number of threads. Perhaps good to bring it together for some clarity though. 

It might not be worded perfectly because it's far simpler than it seems. Any Tzeentch units retain Tzeentch allegiance, as was stated on Warhammer TV. The same is true when selecting allies. Any army of purely Tzeentch marked units (not necessarily selected from the Disciples of Tzeentch battletome) can select from the DoT allies list. 

The fact that it's causing so much debate online suggests we need some sort of clarity on the issue, but I believe it's far simpler than it's being made to seem. 

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So I suppose there are 3 main things that need clarifying:

 

  • Are the words faction and allegiance interchangeable?
  • Are units with a keyword for that faction (but not on the faction list) part of that faction?

i.e. Chaos Warriors marked Tzeentch.

  • Is a Faction implicitly it's own ally?

i.e. in (iv) Sayl could be a StD ally to a StD faction, then pick the Tzeentch allegience if rest of army is marked that way.

 

Thanks for the replies.

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3 hours ago, hobgoblinclub said:

This had been discussed on a number of threads. Perhaps good to bring it together for some clarity though. 

It might not be worded perfectly because it's far simpler than it seems. Any Tzeentch units retain Tzeentch allegiance, as was stated on Warhammer TV. The same is true when selecting allies. Any army of purely Tzeentch marked units (not necessarily selected from the Disciples of Tzeentch battletome) can select from the DoT allies list. 

The fact that it's causing so much debate online suggests we need some sort of clarity on the issue, but I believe it's far simpler than it's being made to seem. 

I've actually thought of a way to make this work even if people disagree that and Tzeentch marked warscroll is part of the Tzeetch faction (which I'm not sure I do anymore). Using (iv) as an example. Start building the list with just Gaunt, who is definitely part of the DoT faction, count Sayl as his ally. Then just add the other warscrolls to the list not as allies or faction or anything. Only warscroll you'll ignore is Sayl, the rest are marked Tzeentch so that allegiance is valid.

 

Although now I'm wondering... if the below possible?

image.png.ce58a3d78a697ba61627bd5334355ec9.png

Ignore all the Tzeentch except Marauders. Marauders are on the StD faction list and Blades of Khorne and Daemons of Nurgle are both allies of StD. So I can take them as allies and thus ignore them when selecting a faction. Remaining warscrolls are all Tzeentch so can take Tzeentch allegiance?

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28 minutes ago, Gilby said:

I've actually thought of a way to make this work even if people disagree that and Tzeentch marked warscroll is part of the Tzeetch faction (which I'm not sure I do anymore). Using (iv) as an example. Start building the list with just Gaunt, who is definitely part of the DoT faction, count Sayl as his ally. Then just add the other warscrolls to the list not as allies or faction or anything. Only warscroll you'll ignore is Sayl, the rest are marked Tzeentch so that allegiance is valid.

 

Although now I'm wondering... if the below possible?

image.png.ce58a3d78a697ba61627bd5334355ec9.png

Ignore all the Tzeentch except Marauders. Marauders are on the StD faction list and Blades of Khorne and Daemons of Nurgle are both allies of StD. So I can take them as allies and thus ignore them when selecting a faction. Remaining warscrolls are all Tzeentch so can take Tzeentch allegiance?

You can't take plaguebearers as allies to Tzeentch.

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2 hours ago, Gilby said:

So I suppose there are 3 main things that need clarifying:

 

1. Are the words faction and allegiance interchangeable?

2. Are units with a keyword for that faction (but not on the faction list) part of that faction?

i.e. Chaos Warriors marked Tzeentch.

3. Is a Faction implicitly it's own ally?

i.e. in (iv) Sayl could be a StD ally to a StD faction, then pick the Tzeentch allegience if rest of army is marked that way.

 

Thanks for the replies.

Good topic mate! To give my awnsers to your questions:

1. No, they are still used on a Warscroll and thus ability based wording.
There are not many rules consistent throughout the game, for better or worse EVERYTHING has to be thaken into consideration when there are possible rules disputes, making certain questions regarding AoS difficult to awnser without specifically checking the Warscrolls in question.

2. Yes, so far Factions are actually interchangeable with Keywords.
The difference between a Faction Keyword and Allegiances is that some Alliances demand a specific Keyword to be consistently part of your army, where others don't.
A Faction is usually not that restrictive or specific. To give an example of the Khorne Allegiance, this comes with additional restrictions. Bloodbound as a Faction (Keyword) does not.

3. Factions on paper have nothing to do with Allegiances other than that they can ally with X or Y. As it is the Allegiance that puts down the restrictions.
As Faction (Keywords) arn't restrictive you could indeed have Sayl be part of the Slaves to Darkness Allegiance because he has that Keyword. If Sayl has the Tzeentch Keyword he can be part of the Tzeentch Allegiance aswell. Both are an option if both Keywords are present. You can use him as either your "part of main allegiance" or "part allied allegiance" but not both at the same time, as per Tzeentch Allegiance restriction.

Specify X or Y
Almost all rules in Age of Sigmar in regards to army construction become relevant the moment you actually have an army on paper and thus Warscrolls to talk about. Age of Sigmar is indeed full of IF's and sometimes however this is rarely a problem in practice because we play this game with a pre-build army list and not something you make up on the spot (though for Open Play sometimes the latter is used and this is also why the initial reception of Open Play wasn't too cheered upon). 

More importantly though, if you have a specific list with specific questions you get specific awnsers. The Allies rule in GH2017 is actually quite clear and not difficult to understand in practice because Allegiances come with another set of restrictions and rules. So while you can have multiple Allegiances in many cases you do not recieve all the benifits of a second Allegiance.

Example
To give an example of what can be made and doesn't mean you gain all benifits:
- Say you have a Stormcast Eternal Allegiance and ally with Darkling Covens
1. You get the advantage of Lethal Coordination
2. You do not get the advantage of Tyrannical Ruler (assuming your General is not from Darkling Covens)
3. You do not get the advantage of Command Traits (assuming your General is not from Darkling Covens)
4. You do have acces to Darkling Covens Artefacts (as there is nothing stating Darkling Covens Artefacts should be put on model X or Y with Keyword X or Y) *I do think that a FAQ might eventually rule this otherwise if it becomes an issue. However due to the increase of Battalion costs I don't think this will become an issue. 

Hope it clears it up a little for you. The Allies rule only comes into effect if you actively choose to use it. It's important to keep track of the fact that quite some Artefacts and Command Traits (which are all Allegiance Abilities) are very specific and thus restricted in one way or another.

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Pg 74: All of the units in the army must either have that allegiance, or be allied to that allegiance.

In other words, if you want allies your chosen allegiance must be a faction, and you must use that faction as the basis for determining allies. You can't use Slaves to Darkness as your main faction for determining allies and Tzeentch as your allegiance for determining allegiance abilities.

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I think in general this falls under the preforance of many players wishing rule X or Y was consistent throughout the game. Which it isn't but as said it's for better and worse and does require you to actually read the Warscroll/rules and not go by assumption. Other examples who follow this path in sometimes being restrictive and sometimes not are:
- Not all units can only have one Icon per unit, some have the option to run with two (or more).
- Not all units can only have one type of equipment, some have the option to mix it in the unit.
- Not all Artefact lists are accesable to all models the Allegiance has acces to. For example Blades of Khorne has several Artefact lists that are exclusive to either Bloodbound, Mortal, Bloodbound Totem or Daemons. 

Reading the specific rules is extremely essential to know what you can and what you can't do. Many players seem to like to hop to the "good stuff" but in all cases AoS is very much written in chapters and thus start with 1 before you go to 3.

In another example of the past there was also some dispite on wether or not Gaunts would have two spell lists or one. When a player then clearly reads how the Tzeentch Allegiance works it is stated that one spell list must be chosen. This part of the rule is not found on the same page as the spells in question but still is part of the Allegiance Ability rules, which Command Traits, Artefacts etc. are all part of. In that same vein many seem to miss the fact that all these are in fact Allegiance Abilities and thus also have to abide to general Abilty rules.

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6 minutes ago, Squirrelmaster said:

Pg 74: All of the units in the army must either have that allegiance, or be allied to that allegiance.

 

Key importance is how Allies work, that quote directly refers to page 76 for more information.
 

Quote

ALLIES
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 number of points that can be spent on allies from the player’s total points allowance is shown on the Pitched Battle chart on the previous page. For example, a player playing a Battlehost game could spend up to 400 of their 2,000 points on allied units.

Allied units are treated as part of the player’s army, except that they are not included when working out the army’s allegiance or the number of Battleline units in the army, and an allied model cannot be the army general. However, note that allied units do count towards the maximum number of Leader, Behemoth and Artillery units that can be included in the army. Remember that in most cases allegiance abilities only work for units with the appropriate keyword. So, for example, STORMCAST ETERNAL allegiance abilities would only apply to the STORMCAST ETERNAL units in the army, and not their allies

With all respect to those who want to join the topic, quote directly and complete from the GH2017 or not at all.

One of the prime reasons as to why AoS can become difficult to understand is because way too many write down something, refer to a page and state something that actually isn't written at all down to the direct quote from the book, Warscroll or Errata in question.

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pg 74.

Quote

The first step in picking your army is choosing an 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).

Nothing on page 116 or page 76 changes this. Your allies can have a different allegiance to the rest of the army, and are not included when working out the army's allegiance, but they must still be allied to your army's chosen allegiance.

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2 minutes ago, Squirrelmaster said:

pg 74.

Nothing on page 116 or page 76 changes this. Your allies can have a different allegiance to the rest of the army, and are not included when working out the army's allegiance, but they must still be allied to your army's chosen allegiance.

What does this have to do with anyone's question?

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2 hours ago, Gilby said:

Although now I'm wondering... if the below possible?

image.png.ce58a3d78a697ba61627bd5334355ec9.png

Ignore all the Tzeentch except Marauders. Marauders are on the StD faction list and Blades of Khorne and Daemons of Nurgle are both allies of StD. So I can take them as allies and thus ignore them when selecting a faction. Remaining warscrolls are all Tzeentch so can take Tzeentch allegiance?

The above is not possible under the Tzeentch Allegiance.

1. Skarr Bloodwrath is from Blades of Khorne.
2. Plaguebearers is from Daemons of Nurgle.

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@Killax in @Gilby's example above,  Plaguebearers are treated as allies because the "Slaves to Darkness" faction is being used for determining allies, then the Tzeentch allegiance is being used for determining allegiance abilities.

I'm saying that you can't do that — in order for your army to qualify for Tzeentch allegiance, your allies must be allied to the Tzeentch faction. Your army might qualify for more than one allegiance, but which units are allies is determined by which allegiance you chose. You can't chose one allegiance to decide which units are/are not allies, and then chose a different allegiance for allegiance abilities, ignoring the units that you've already labelled "allies".

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16 minutes ago, Squirrelmaster said:

I'm saying that you can't do that — in order for your army to qualify for Tzeentch allegiance, your allies must be allied to the Tzeentch faction. 

I hear ya and agree! It's the quoteless responce that I didn't understand. Now that's cleared up.
As above, the example army in question is indeed not legal to play.  As it uses units from different Factions that the Desciple of Tzeentch do not have acces to.

Allies from the Desciple of Tzeentch armies can indeed only be units from: Chaos Gargants, Everchosen, Monsters of Chaos, Slaves to Darkness (excluding units with mark of NURGLE) and Thunderscorn Pitched Battle Profiles. Allies cannot have allies  either because they do not meet the minimum requirement for Vanguard, Battlehost or Warhost points. 

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 That army can't select StD allies though as it doesn't qualify for StD allegiance. The pink horrors, for example, aren't StD. In fact, the only unit that's StD are the marauders. 

In order to claim allegiance abilities, your army must have the required allegiance. In order to select allies,  your army must all belong to a single faction and you must select from that factions allies. 

The issue seems to be when it comes to the choas gods, due to the factions having different names to the allegiance. GW have confirmed, first for Tzeentch, then for Khorne, and now for Nurgle, that you can take any unit marked by that god and retain allegiance. 

For example, taking an army of all units from the DoT battletome is no different, when it comes to allegiances or allies than it would be choosing an army of entirely Tzeentch marked StD (other than being able to pick StD instead if you wanted to). You would still have access to all the Tzeentch allegiance abilities, destiny dice etc. And you would still select from the DoT allies list. 

Does this all make sense? 

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As far as I can tell, it doesn't actually matter which units are listed under which faction, they're just grouped like that for convenience. What matters is that a unit either has allegiance to a given faction, or not, and your army's allegiance is to a given faction, or not.

If your army's allegiance is to a given faction, then that determines the allowed allegiances of the units you can take as allies.

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5 hours ago, tolstedt said:

You can't take plaguebearers as allies to Tzeentch.

But you can take them allied to slaves to darkness (the Marauders). And an allied unit can be ignored when determining allegiances.  Everything else in the army is legal in a Tzeentch army. However... someone pointed out the rules that said you can't do that!

3 hours ago, Squirrelmaster said:

Pg 74: All of the units in the army must either have that allegiance, or be allied to that allegiance.

 

This again comes back to my question about whether faction and allegiance are interchangeable. Because here is clearly talks about being allied to that allegience. Whereas on pages 76 and 86 it only talks about being allied to a faction. There is no list for Tzeentch allies, there is a list for DoT allies. StD marked with Tzeetch are not DoT but are Tzeentch.

Are the allies to the DoT faction the same as the allies to the Tzeentch allegiance?

 

The easiest answer to all this that I can see is an errata that says "the words faction and allegiance are interchangeable and that you pick allies based on your chosen allegiance (with DoT=Tzeetch and BoK=Khorne)".

 

Thanks for the replies everyone!

 

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Both Allegiance Tzeentch and Allegiance Khorne do not care for Factions, they specifically care for Keywords, which was the previous point I was also making with the restrictions. To completely understand the process an army build has to be made because there is a case by case scenario and multiple options are available.
 

27 minutes ago, Gilby said:

This again comes back to my question about whether faction and allegiance are interchangeable. 

Are the allies to the DoT faction the same as the allies to the Tzeentch allegiance?


1. Desciples of Tzeentch as a Faction displayed per Pitched Battle Profiles has X Allied options, these options however only apply if both players agree to use GH2017.
2. Desciples of Tzeentch as a Faction has acces to the Tzeentch Allegiance but also Chaos. Both are optional but you can only choose one of either.

So when you use Desciples of Tzeentch's Pitched Battle Profile from GH2017 you have to restrict yourself to those rules in particular. There is nothing forcing you to use the Tzeentch Allegiance with Desciples of Tzeentch as a Faction, you can use the Chaos Allegiance  option aswell because you are presenting an army with all Chaos Keywords (also). 
So to give an example for Slaves to Darkness, they even have the option to be Chaos Allegiance, Tzeentch Allegiance or Slaves to Darkness Allegiance. This is because it's possible for them because many of them to gain specific Keywords in addition to which they allready have.

To repeat again, No, Allegiance and Faction are not intercheangable. Both have different sets of rules. Difference:

Quote

ALLEGIANCE
Every unit and warscroll battalion in Warhammer Age of Sigmar owes allegiance to one of the Grand Alliances – either ORDER, CHAOS, DEATH or DESTRUCTION. The Grand Alliance a unit belongs to is determined by the keywords on its warscroll; so, if a unit has the ORDER keyword, it is part of the ORDER Grand Alliance.

Many units and warscroll battalions also have more specific allegiances, for example, STORMCAST ETERNALS or SLAANESH. An army can have a specific allegiance if all the starting units and warscroll battalions in the army have the keyword forthat allegiance, including any units that you assign a keyword to during set-up. For example, if all of the starting units in an army have the STORMCAST ETERNAL keyword, then the army can either have the ORDER or STORMCAST ETERNAL 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. The allegiance you choose will apply forthe duration of the battle, even if you add new units to the army during the battle that have a different allegiance.

Page 116, GH2017

 

Quote

FACTIONS (and Allies)
FACTIONS & ALLIES Pitched Battle profiles are split into a number of factions. For example, Gors and Ungors are part of the BRAYHERDS faction. A model or warscroll battalion’s faction will usually appear as a keyword. Some factions include a list of allies. For example, the BRAYHERD faction can have Chaos Gargants, Monsters of Chaos, Thunderscorn and Warherds as allies. In a Pitched Battle, you can spend some of the points for your army on a faction’s allies without changing the army’s allegiance. For example, a BRAYHERD Battlehost could include 400 points of Chaos Gargants, Monsters of Chaos, Thunderscorn, and/or Warherds, and still have the BRAYHERDS allegiance. Thiswould allow the BRAYHERD units in the Battlehost – but not their allies – to use Brayherd allegiance abilities. Additionally, any Bestigors and Ungor Raiders in the army would count as Battleline units.

Page 86, GH2017

E.g. 

Blades of Khorne (now) is a Faction. This Faction has acces to a particular set of Allies and in practice Chaos Allegiance and Khorne Allegiance.
Khorne Allegiance is an Allegiance. This Allegiance is accesable for armies who consist out of Khorne starting units. It is not exclusive to Blades of Khorne.
However some of the newer Allegiances are tied to the same name as their Faction but most certainly not all.  (E.g. Hosts of Slaanesh and the Slaanesh Allegiance).

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33 minutes ago, Killax said:

Both Allegiance Tzeentch and Allegiance Khorne do not care for Factions, they specifically care for Keywords, which was the previous point I was also making with the restrictions. To completely understand the process an army build has to be made because there is a case by case scenario and multiple options are available.
 


1. Desciples of Tzeentch as a Faction displayed per Pitched Battle Profiles has X Allied options, these options however only apply if both players agree to use GH2017.
2. Desciples of Tzeentch as a Faction has acces to the Tzeentch Allegiance but also Chaos. Both are optional but you can only choose one of either.

So when you use Desciples of Tzeentch's Pitched Battle Profile from GH2017 you have to restrict yourself to those rules in particular. There is nothing forcing you to use the Tzeentch Allegiance with Desciples of Tzeentch as a Faction, you can use the Chaos Allegiance  option aswell because you are presenting an army with all Chaos Keywords (also). 
So to give an example for Slaves to Darkness, they even have the option to be Chaos Allegiance, Tzeentch Allegiance or Slaves to Darkness Allegiance. This is because it's possible for them because many of them to gain specific Keywords in addition to which they allready have.

To repeat again, No, Allegiance and Faction are not intercheangable. Both have different sets of rules. Difference:

 

E.g. 

Blades of Khorne (now) is a Faction. This Faction has acces to a particular set of Allies and in practice Chaos Allegiance and Khorne Allegiance.
Khorne Allegiance is an Allegiance. This Allegiance is accesable for armies who consist out of Khorne starting units. It is not exclusive to Blades of Khorne.
However some of the newer Allegiances are tied to the same name as their Faction but most certainly not all.  (E.g. Hosts of Slaanesh and the Slaanesh Allegiance).

All very true. Do you therefore agree that the Chaos god allegiances work slightly differently to all the others?

a) As far as I can think, the battletomes for DoT and BoK are the only two so far that aren't exactly the same name as the allegiance they can take (and are therefore the route of much of this debate). 

b) Both DoT and BoK can include units not their battletomes. For example, anything keyworded Khorne may be included under BoK for the purposes of defining factions when picking allies? 

I can see both sides of the argument to 'b)' at the moment. The counter argument being that a Khorne force with StD can't be BoK and therefore can't take BoK allies. Logically, however, I'm wondering why a unified Khorne army wouldn't have allies available to it. 

Much of the difficulty here would be fixed by naming the Tzeentch and Khorne factions invt GHB17 simply Tzeentch and Khorne. Wouldn't it? 

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17 minutes ago, hobgoblinclub said:

All very true. Do you therefore agree that the Chaos god allegiances work slightly differently to all the others?

a) As far as I can think, the battletomes for DoT and BoK are the only two so far that aren't exactly the same name as the allegiance they can take (and are therefore the route of much of this debate). 

b) Both DoT and BoK can include units not their battletomes. For example, anything keyworded Khorne may be included under BoK for the purposes of defining factions when picking allies? 

I can see both sides of the argument to 'b)' at the moment. The counter argument being that a Khorne force with StD can't be BoK and therefore can't take BoK allies. Logically, however, I'm wondering why a unified Khorne army wouldn't have allies available to it. 

Much of the difficulty here would be fixed by naming the Tzeentch and Khorne factions invt GHB17 simply Tzeentch and Khorne. Wouldn't it? 

Yes, as per AoS' standard, everything applies in it's own ways :)  There really is no standard, so to me all Allegiances work slightly different (just compair the Khorne Blood Tithe ability to that of the Flesh-Eater Delusions!)

A. There are more though! As the above example of Hosts of Slaanesh and also how the "old" Grand Allegiances are now just Allegiances aswell. Meaning that Fyreslayers have acces to the Order Allegiances options and that of the Fyreslayers. What is quite unique is that Slaves to Darkness in particular has acces to 5 to 6 Allegiances, being 1. Chaos, 2. Tzeentch, 3. Khorne, 4. Slaves to Darkness, 5. Slaanesh and 6. (upcomming) Nurgle.

B. I think that the new Pitched Battle Profiles from GH2017 overrule the old Grand Alliance Pitched Battle Profiles form GH2016 if you intend to use GH2017. Meaning that indeed many of the former accesable units now can only be attained through being Allied/Allies. In addition the Allies also seem to be able to have the same Allegiance, which in turn only makes the Allies rule a restriction in terms of points but not so much in terms of potential synergy.

So the way I see it is:
Blades of Khorne as a faction is "restricted to" the Units in their Pitched Battle Profile but can thake units from their allies aswell. The the moment when you pick your Army Allegiance (after army construction) you can pick to have the same Allegiance for the whole army (including allies) if the Allegiance allows for it, which in many cases the Allegiances allow for when we're talking about Khorne, Tzeentch, Nurgle and Slaanesh. 

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1 hour ago, Killax said:

To repeat again, No, Allegiance and Faction are not intercheangable.

Sorry, yes I completely agree, as with my original post. I was just saying that it could be easier. At the moment factions are just the lists in the pages 87 to 111. 

If you replace the word Faction with Allegiance in the below it would still make sense.

1 hour ago, Killax said:

FACTIONS (and Allies)
FACTIONS & ALLIES Pitched Battle profiles are split into a number of factions. For example, Gors and Ungors are part of the BRAYHERDS faction. A model or warscroll battalion’s faction will usually appear as a keyword. Some factions include a list of allies. For example, the BRAYHERD faction can have Chaos Gargants, Monsters of Chaos, Thunderscorn and Warherds as allies. In a Pitched Battle, you can spend some of the points for your army on a faction’s allies without changing the army’s allegiance. For example, a BRAYHERD Battlehost could include 400 points of Chaos Gargants, Monsters of Chaos, Thunderscorn, and/or Warherds, and still have the BRAYHERDS allegiance. Thiswould allow the BRAYHERD units in the Battlehost – but not their allies – to use Brayherd allegiance abilities. Additionally, any Bestigors and Ungor Raiders in the army would count as Battleline units.

Page 86, GH2017

All you need then is one more sentence stating, "Some Allegiances have their own set of rules, where one doesn't you can always use the rules for that army's Grand Alliance."

GHB2017 is actually inconsistent on it's use of the terms anyway, stating that a "faction lists the allegiances of the allied unit you can take". (page 76) But this list includes DoT and BoK which we know are factions, not allegiances.

 

36 minutes ago, hobgoblinclub said:

Much of the difficulty here would be fixed by naming the Tzeentch and Khorne factions invt GHB17 simply Tzeentch and Khorne. Wouldn't it? 

That'd be useful! :D

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Hmm… as written it seems impossible for an army to have "Disciples of Tzeentch" allegiance, because no units or battalions have that keyword. Which make the allies' list for that faction kinda pointless.

I mean, in theory anything can be an allegiance. You can have "wizard" allegiance. Heck, you can have "banana" allegiance, you just can't construct a legal list with that allegiance because no unit or battalion in the game has that keyword. So of course, that means every faction is an allegiance, but not all allegiances are factions (the grand alliances are also allegiances, after all).

I think the most reasonable assumption (although it's not spelled out in the rules) is that every unit (and warscroll battalion) has allegiance to whatever faction it's listed under in GHB2017, in addition to keyword and battalion based allegiances.

So if your allegiance is "Tzeentch", you can take anything with the "Tzeentch" keyword, but no allies because "Tzeentch" isn't a faction. If you take "Disciples of Tzeentch" allegiance, your non-allied units and warscrolls all have to come from the "Disciples of Tzeentch" section on pg 91, but you can take allied forces as defined by that faction, which do not need "Tzeentch" allegiance.

What's slightly confusing about that is that the allegiance abilities in the Disciples of Tzeentch book are for armies with Tzeentch allegiance, not for armies with Disciples of Tzeentch allegiance. At present there is no advantage to taking an army with Disciples of Tzeentch allegiance as opposed to just plain Chaos. But then again, it's not the only pointless allegiance in GHB2017.

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24 minutes ago, Gilby said:

Sorry, yes I completely agree, as with my original post. I was just saying that it could be easier. At the moment factions are just the lists in the pages 87 to 111. 

If you replace the word Faction with Allegiance in the below it would still make sense. All you need then is one more sentence stating, "Some Allegiances have their own set of rules, where one doesn't you can always use the rules for that army's Grand Alliance."

GHB2017 is actually inconsistent on it's use of the terms anyway, stating that a "faction lists the allegiances of the allied unit you can take". (page 76) But this list includes DoT and BoK which we know are factions, not allegiances.

Cool! Yeah it could be clearer or easier. However as mentioned also I think it would be very helpful if the GH2017 actually mentions when you pick your Allegiance, because it seems the intend is very much to do this after you have constructed your army (first get points and pitched battle profiles, then the allegiances etc.).

The issue AoS is heading towards though is that Keywords so far largely arn't touched upon despite this being a very functional way to construct logical Allegiances. 

The way I see it the book should simply mentioned both Factions (and Allies) and Allegiances on the same page so it becomes clear it's a proces that you have to thake into account when constructing an army. So instead I would actually implement something like: "Factions have acces to Allegiance Abilities based on the Keywords found on the Warscrolls that belong to a particular Faction".  The fact that one is mentioned on page 86 and the other on 117 makes it unclear and difficult to process as there is a suggestion given that Factions are also Allegiances (which they are not) and work in similar ways (which they do not). 

I completely agree with you that GH2017 has a lot of inconsistent design, however this is very typical to AoS to this point even. As before so many things work in so many different ways that it's difficult to process for many new players (I assume). Same example with how Runes work for Fyreslayers compaired to Nurgle's Wheel of Decay. One is possible to play randomly AND pick as you like while the other is random and then continue the cycle...

All in all it isnt bad for the game but the entrance of the game becomes vague for new players. In that same vein I am not too happy about massive units gaining these types of bonusses because this too affects the entry cost of the game. WFB is the example of how things get too cloudy and too death star or monster driven, I hope AoS' design team is aware of this and considers this as how not to do it.
 

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6 minutes ago, Squirrelmaster said:

Hmm… as written it seems impossible for an army to have "Disciples of Tzeentch" allegiance, because no units or battalions have that keyword. Which make the allies' list for that faction kinda pointless.

I mean, in theory anything can be an allegiance. You can have "wizard" allegiance. Heck, you can have "banana" allegiance, you just can't construct a legal list with that allegiance because no unit or battalion in the game has that keyword. So of course, that means every faction is an allegiance, but not all allegiances are factions (the grand alliances are also allegiances, after all).

- Desciples of Tzeentch is not an Allegiance :)  It is a Faction.
- Tzeentch is an Allegiance and not a Faction. You can use this Allegiance if your army consists out of starting units that have the Tzeentch Keyword (excluding Allies). Allies in particular can have another Allegiance, if possible they can also have the same Allegiance because the Tzeentch Allegiance allows for this. As the only mandatory requirement is a Tzeentch Keyword which can be found on units from Desciples of Tzeentch, Slaves to Darkness and Everchosen.

You are right about any Keyword being able to become an Allegiance, however not all Keywords are capable of generating an additonal bonus like some do now.

I see you mixing up the terms Factions and Allegiance too, I skipped the rest of your post because I hope you will not do this for your games. Factions and Allegiances are not the same! :) 

Factions are mentioned in the Pitched Battle Profiles in GH2017
Allegiances are mentioned under the Choosing your Allegiances in GH2017


E.g. Hosts of Slaanesh is a Faction but it is not an Allegiance. Desciples of Tzeentch is a Faction but not an Allegiance. Khorne is an Allegiance but not a Faction. Nurgle is an Allegiance but not a Faction.

 

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