Allegiances and Factions and Allies

[Squirrelmaster]

@Killax If I say "there are no units in the game with the FISHMEN keyword", are you going to start telling me that FISHMEN isn't a keyword? Or would you understand that we're saying the same thing — that FISHMEN is not currently a keyword used by GW, only a potential keyword that they could use if they wanted to.

Because that's what I mean when I talk about "Disciples of Tzeentch allegiance". It is not currently an allegiance that is used by GW, because it isn't a keyword and no warscroll battalions refer to it, but it is an allegiance that could potentially exist. Just like most factions are currently also allegiances (and keywords) that are actually in use e.g. Nighthaunt, Sylvaneth.

Now, pg 74 states that your allies must be allied to your chosen allegiance. You can't take a "Tzeentch" army and then claim Plaguebearers as allies, because Plaguebearers aren't allies of Tzeentch — I don't care what you declare your "faction" to be.

[Tzaangor Management]

Coming back to this with fresh eyes today, I think we were talking at slightly cross purposes, but here is where I think the main misunderstanding was coming from on my behalf.

15 hours ago, Killax said:

Grand Allegiance armies 'fully mixed armies' are a thing of the past.

I can't find a reference to this anywhere in the book. Do you have a page number for this?

A rule that would allow the opposite is explicitly written in the book on the oft mentioned page 74. For clarity:

"PICKING YOUR ARMY

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

I get that you have to look at other pages to qualify certain things, but I can't see anything that says that a qualification for a legal army is that it is able to take allies. Therefore, I can't see anything that means that you have to start by selecting a Faction.

This is a slight offshoot of the original question and is perhaps specific to me, but my lack of understanding was gnawing at me last night and, when I traced it back, the point that you cannot make a Grand Allegiance army seems to be at the root of where the two of us are at loggerheads (in the nicest possible way ).

A final tangent of thought: The words Allegiance and Alliance are too similar in too many ways!

[Soulsmith]

12 minutes ago, Squirrelmaster said:

Now, pg 74 states that your allies must be allied to your chosen allegiance. You can't take a "Tzeentch" army and then claim Plaguebearers as allies, because Plaguebearers aren't allies of Tzeentch — I don't care what you declare your "faction" to be.

I kind of feel like this is all a cyclical debate. I am fairly certain @Killax knows that an army using the Tzeentch allegiance ability (AKA Destiny Dice) cannot take daemons of nurgle allies. You could declare the army as being Slaves to Darkness, but then you would lose your DoT units as battleline, even if your general has keyword Tzeentch. There is nothing stopping you having a StD army, using the StD allegiance abilities and artefacts, with all your units mark of T, with allies both DoT and daemons of nurgle.

[Killax]

15 minutes ago, Squirrelmaster said:

@Killax If I say "there are no units in the game with the FISHMEN keyword", are you going to start telling me that FISHMEN isn't a keyword? Or would you understand that we're saying the same thing — that FISHMEN is not currently a keyword used by GW, only a potential keyword that they could use if they wanted to.

Because that's what I mean when I talk about "Disciples of Tzeentch allegiance". It is not currently an allegiance that is used by GW, because it isn't a keyword and no warscroll battalions refer to it, but it is an allegiance that could potentially exist. Just like most factions are currently also allegiances (and keywords) that are actually in use e.g. Nighthaunt, Sylvaneth.

Now, pg 74 states that your allies must be allied to your chosen allegiance. You can't take a "Tzeentch" army and then claim Plaguebearers as allies, because Plaguebearers aren't allies of Tzeentch — I don't care what you declare your "faction" to be.

Sure things can potentially excist in the future, but that's really not the subject of the debate I believe?

What I am saying is that you can actually have a Tzeentch army and Plague Bearer Allies, because page 76 of GH2017 specifically says so. Allies do not have to have the same Allegiance.

3 minutes ago, Tzaangor Management said:

I can't find a reference to this anywhere in the book. Do you have a page number for this?

A rule that would allow the opposite is explicitly written in the book on the oft mentioned page 74. For clarity:

"PICKING YOUR ARMY

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

I get that you have to look at other pages to qualify certain things, but I can't see anything that says that a qualification for a legal army is that it is able to take allies. Therefore, I can't see anything that means that you have to start by selecting a Faction.

This is a slight offshoot of the original question and is perhaps specific to me, but my lack of understanding was gnawing at me last night and, when I traced it back, the point that you cannot make a Grand Allegiance army seems to be at the root of where the two of us are at loggerheads (in the nicest possible way ).

A final tangent of thought: The words Allegiance and Alliance are too similar in too many ways!

I can point you towards that using Pitched Battle Profiles means you are using the rules attached to that, Factions and Allies are a rule attached to PBP GH2017. This is page 86, FACTIONS & ALLIES.

'Picking your army' is not a rule, instead it refers to two other rules that are explained on the pages this paragraph includes. That being the rules of Allies and rules of Allegiance. 
As per Pitched Battle Profile rules, the moment you use them you have to check page 86 for the rules that are attached to the PBP.

I completely agree that where it gets vague is in terms of how we are to use the Factions and Allies. What I believe Picking an Army should have said is that the first step is to pick a Grand Allegiance, but as mentioned that's not what it says and the denotion of Grand Allegiances seems to be removed partially...

What I agree with is that it would be very helpful to have an actual video with designer intentions.
 

[Killax]

13 minutes ago, Soulsmith said:

I kind of feel like this is all a cyclical debate. I am fairly certain @Killax knows that an army using the Tzeentch allegiance ability (AKA Destiny Dice) cannot take daemons of nurgle allies. You could declare the army as being Slaves to Darkness, but then you would lose your DoT units as battleline, even if your general has keyword Tzeentch. There is nothing stopping you having a StD army, using the StD allegiance abilities and artefacts, with all your units mark of T, with allies both DoT and daemons of nurgle.

I am exactly saying the opposite  With all respect to others.

- Using the Tzeentch Allegiance forces you to have Tzeentch Keywords on all starting units. However the Allies rule circumvents this mandatory rule as it says that Allies do not have to follow the same Allegiance.

My point is that Allegiances arn't tied to Factions whatsoever. They are tied to Keywords. This currently applies for the Khorne, Tzeentch, Nurgle an Slaanesh Allegiance in particular. Which in return means that if you pick Slaves to Darkness as your Faction, apply Tzeentch Allegiance, your Allies can still follow another Allegiance. You can add Nurgle Daemons to your Slaves to Darkness Faction, regardless of Allegiance. Because not a single page in GH2017 actually states that Allegiances have Allies, but Factions do. 

In practice this is no different in other Factions either. If you play Fyreslayers with Dispossessed you can have your Fyreslayer Allegiance and your Allies can have a Dispossessed Allegiance. Or if you want you can have a Fyreslayer Allegiance and Order Allegiance OR Order Allegiance and Dispossessed Allegiance OR Order Allegiance on all of them.

[Soulsmith]

Hmmm, in fairness, I think we are both right. The way it is currently written, there is nothing saying you can't do it how you just stated. In fairness, I don't have the GHB2017 with me so I can't check myself, but I know from warscroll builder you can set allegiance as StD, and StD can indeed ally with nurgle daemons, so you aren't wrong. Feels a bit having your cake and eating it is all  Would it not still cause the DoT units to be in the ally contingent as well?

[Killax]

In all fairness I think the design team of GH2017 opend up a bottle of complexity in Factions and Allies that is both inconsistent and very difficult to follow because all these rules are spreaded on several pages.

Page 74 speaks of Allegiances and a technical 'allies to allegiances', the latter doesn't actually excist.

Page 76 then states Allies "are not included when working out the army’s allegiance or the number of Battleline units in the army". 

Page 86 clarifies on Allies and Allegiances. It states "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."

Page 116 goes back on Allegiances and is a direct copy of GH2016 which causes additional confusion because it does not include any mentioning of Allies. "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".

So what we are left with is two conflicting messages:
1. The suggestion that Allegiances have Allies.
2a. The suggestion that Allies can have a different Allegiance.
2b. The Allegiance rule that still states every starting unit in an army must have Keyword X, Y or Z to apply for Allegiance X, Y or Z.

As before, would be wonderful to hear someone from the design team about their intentions.

[Tzaangor Management]

Clarification now would indeed be good. I'd fallen so far down inconsistent rules rabbit hole that I realised that I'd spend about 5 hours on and off thinking about whether I would be able to run a mixed Faction Grand Allegiance army when I have neither the inclination, nor the models to do so 

[Gilby]

21 hours ago, Gilby said:

1. Pick Allegiance you want to use
2. Look at the corresponding Faction table* with the same name as chosen Allegiance for the list of Allied Allegiances*
3. Identify the Warscrolls in your list that don't have the Allegiance keyword you selected in step 1
4. IF that list is wholly from the list of Allies (step 2) AND is less than 400 points, ignore them
5. Rest of army should now have desired Allegiance keyword, making your army a legal list for that Allegiance

*DoT/Tzeentch and BoK/Khorne are interchangeable here as confirmed by AoS twitter.

I'm going to just keep saying the above.  This topic is easy to escalate into a long discussion that will end up confusing everyone. What I have above agrees with what AoS twitter clarified I believe? And I can support it with all the rules without having to ignore any. So I think that makes it a good and simple way to check if a list is legal.

[TheOtherJosh]

7 minutes ago, Gilby said:

I'm going to just keep saying the above.  This topic is easy to escalate into a long discussion that will end up confusing everyone. What I have above agrees with what AoS twitter clarified I believe? And I can support it with all the rules without having to ignore any. So I think that makes it a good and simple way to check if a list is legal.

Please post up your supporting official twitter link. 

GW doesn't appear to post any Twitter feeds on their official Warhammer community site. They show Facebook, Twitch and YouTube.

and all of the old official GW twitter feeds haven't been updated in ages. (Except for he recruitment feed which is still active.)

[hobgoblinclub]

Whilst I enjoy a debate into rules minutiae as much as the next man, this one has disappeared down a deep, dark rabbit hole. Lengthy lists of the process army selection are definitely over complicating things. 

In reality, pick an army. If all the warscrolls share a keyword, you can select that allegiance. 

GW could help the matter by changing the names of the chaos gods' factions to avoid confusion (DoT could change to Tzeentch for example). Or they could do away with the term 'faction' altogether. Battletomes could be 'Allegiance' books or whatever. 

I get the loophole of being able to take a Tzeentch marked StD army with Nurgle allies (I think @Killax pointed this out) but it's ultimately fairly pointless. You only be able to take StD allegiance, wouldn't get any of the Tzeentch allegiance abilities (destiny dice etc) and would be Tzeentch in name only (other than StD Tzeentch buffs such as the Warshrine). 

7 hours ago, TheOtherJosh said:

The only Official twitter feed for GW I'm aware of (outside of the one for recruitment) hasn't posted in ages.

What twitter feed are you talking about?

GW does Facebook, Twitch and YouTube.

Sorry, I missed the word 'staff' out of my post. Members of the Community Team and Design Studio were among those commenting and liking relevant Tweets. All of them seem in agreement with the 'Tzeentch is DoT' way of thinking. 

I appreciate this isn't official but you can take it as good as. I can't imagine the staff in Nottingham are playing it wrong. 

Basically, chaos god players can select from boat loads of stuff and take allies on top of that! Whoop! 

[Squirrelmaster]

@Killax The way I see it, the rules do not explicitly state anywhere that you chose a faction, or that all non-allied models in your army must come from a given faction, or indeed anything else about how exactly an army gains access to a given army. The closest we have is the example stating that a "BRAYHERD Battlehost" can use the BRAYHERD allies — but there's no explanation as to what, exactly, a "BRAYHERD Battlehost" is.

You are assuming that we can simply pick a faction and take only units from that faction, and allies.

I am assuming that if you pick an allegiance that also happens to be a faction, you gain access to that faction's allies. In other words, factions are a type of allegiance, the same way that the Grand Alliances are types of allegiance.

Neither is entirely consistent with RAW. Your version requires that we dismiss pg 74 as being not an actual rule (because it references other rules), and that we assume pg 76 also contains a mistake when it states that the list of allies is a list of allegiances, not factions. Your version also implies that we can have a Tzeentch army with Plaguebearer allies, which just seems counter-intuitive to me. On the other hand, you aren't adding any rules, just assuming permission to chose whatever faction you want in the absence of anything being spelled out.

My version adds rules that aren't explicitly stated, but it means that pg 74 and 76 make sense. The only other problem I can see is that it makes DoT and BoK unusable, since no warscrolls or battalions have that allegiance. In turn, this implies that since Tzeentch isn't actually a faction, an army using Tzeentch allegiance abilities cannot have any allies at all. It's only actually a problem in the sense that it seems strange for GW to write several pages of completely redundant rules (why state the allies for DoT if you can't ever actually use them?).  I think this is most easily resolved by assuming Tzeentch and DoT as being the same thing, same with BoK and Khorne. Again, that's not explicitly stated, but I don't see any other problems occurring if we do make those two assumptions.

[Gilby]

16 minutes ago, TheOtherJosh said:

Please post up your supporting official twitter link. 

Was the one mentioned by hobgoblinclub, although not seen it.

9 minutes ago, hobgoblinclub said:

I'm pleased to say that the GW on Twitter this morning agree, it's very simple. If you all of your warscrolls have the Tzeentch keyword, you may use the Tzeentch allegiance and the DoT allies. They're one in the same. If it's the way the GW studio are playing it, that's the debate sorted. 

Even still, my original supporting evidence for it was that GHB2017 says that the you can used warsscrolls from the allegiances in the lists of allies at the bottom of a faction, but then puts BoK and DoT in those lists. It also says you can use allies from your chosen allegiance elsewhere (p74?) even though factions have allies, not allegiances. Essentially they seem to use the term faction and allegiance with some interchangeability.

[TheOtherJosh]

4 minutes ago, Gilby said:

Was the one mentioned by hobgoblinclub, although not seen it.

Even still, my original supporting evidence for it was that GHB2017 says that the you can used warsscrolls from the allegiances in the lists of allies at the bottom of a faction, but then puts BoK and DoT in those lists. It also says you can use allies from your chosen allegiance elsewhere (p74?) even though factions have allies, not allegiances. Essentially they seem to use the term faction and allegiance with some interchangeability.

Until we get an official FAQ otherwise Factions and Allegiances are not the same. There is mis-verbiage in many of the sections surrounding the two. Mainly in the differentiation between them.

I've spoken with GW staff who completely differentiate Faction and Allegiance, who told me that if you're choosing a "Faction:Grand Alliance Chaos" army with "Allegiance:[insert chaos god name here]" you don't get Allies (how are you allying a grand Allegiance with itself? And where is your Faction ally list?)

If they're going to do that level of Allegiance, then why were they quite so explicit in regards to Faction names?

As has been said before. This will require some level of FAQ to at least fix the language in the GHB (or completely rewrite the Battletomes). 

Remember: This technically only matters in Pitched Battles. Technically Narrative and Open don't use the Pitched Battle Profiles. (Though taking Allies in Open and Narrative would become more complicated in combination with Allegiance Abilities.)

[Killax]

1 hour ago, Gilby said:

I'm going to just keep saying the above.  This topic is easy to escalate into a long discussion that will end up confusing everyone. What I have above agrees with what AoS twitter clarified I believe? And I can support it with all the rules without having to ignore any. So I think that makes it a good and simple way to check if a list is legal.

It works out well enough if it works out for you. At the end of the day legality checks for Allegiances are made after a whole list is presented and not before. For sure you can use an Allegiance to keep in mind and filter per Keyword but there are several Warscrolls that are elligable for multiple Allegiances, which is why I personally would pick one at the end and not before it.

All Chaos models have Chaos Allegiance as an option however the real question then is, what is then the "worth" of the Factions and Allies?
Can we use everything with the Chaos Keyword and create an legal army? If this is the case we can mix as we please and the whole mentioned Allies actually add nothing in terms of a rule.

The way Picthed Battle Profiles describe Factions and Allies suggests that the moment you are going to use it you will have to pick units from those Factions and not the Keywords, which is the conflicting issue for me.

1 hour ago, Squirrelmaster said:

@Killax The way I see it, the rules do not explicitly state anywhere that you chose a faction, or that all non-allied models in your army must come from a given faction, or indeed anything else about how exactly an army gains access to a given army. The closest we have is the example stating that a "BRAYHERD Battlehost" can use the BRAYHERD allies — but there's no explanation as to what, exactly, a "BRAYHERD Battlehost" is.

- You are assuming that we can simply pick a faction and take only units from that faction, and allies.
- I am assuming that if you pick an allegiance that also happens to be a faction, you gain access to that faction's allies. In other words, factions are a type of allegiance, the same way that the Grand Alliances are types of allegiance.

Neither is entirely consistent with RAW. Your version requires that we dismiss pg 74 as being not an actual rule (because it references other rules), and that we assume pg 76 also contains a mistake when it states that the list of allies is a list of allegiances, not factions. Your version also implies that we can have a Tzeentch army with Plaguebearer allies, which just seems counter-intuitive to me. On the other hand, you aren't adding any rules, just assuming permission to chose whatever faction you want in the absence of anything being spelled out.

My version adds rules that aren't explicitly stated, but it means that pg 74 and 76 make sense. The only other problem I can see is that it makes DoT and BoK unusable, since no warscrolls or battalions have that allegiance. In turn, this implies that since Tzeentch isn't actually a faction, an army using Tzeentch allegiance abilities cannot have any allies at all. It's only actually a problem in the sense that it seems strange for GW to write several pages of completely redundant rules (why state the allies for DoT if you can't ever actually use them?).  I think this is most easily resolved by assuming Tzeentch and DoT as being the same thing, same with BoK and Khorne. Again, that's not explicitly stated, but I don't see any other problems occurring if we do make those two assumptions.

Completely agree here. Neither is indeed consistent with all RAW, it's just consistent with some pages and not with others

What could indeed very well be the case is that we indeed pick an Allegiance first (optional but illogical as the Allegiance rules itself say that you check this once you have made an armylist) and then can proceed to continue with picking units available to that Allegiance. The issue that comes up at that moment though is again that if you pick Chaos for example you'd have acces to all units and not a single Ally rule at that point seems to matter.

Perhaps the eventual intention is indeed to either go for A) Pick one Allegiance and follow options as you like OR B) Pick one Faction and Allies and follow options as you like. The thing is that both seem to conflict with each other because the Allegiance has no Allies in RAW. Or if it has we cannot find out how Allegiances can obtain Allies in GH2017 with RAW.
 

[Squirrelmaster]

Yeah, I feel like the intention is that you can take a Chaos army and field whatever Chaos units you like (no need to worry about allies), but then you can only use the generic allegiance abilities. Or, you can pick, say "Slaanesh" as your allegiance, and then only field stuff that has Slaanesh allegiance or allegiance to one of the "Hosts of Slaanesh" allies (up to a given points value), but still use Slaanesh allegiance abilities. The tricky part is it's not specified anywhere whether "Slaanesh" and "Hosts of Slaanesh" are the same thing, and whether I can field a unit like Slaanesh marauders as non-allied battleline in such an army. I mean, they are "Slaanesh", but they aren't "Hosts of Slaanesh".

I suspect the issue over picking allegiance before/after army selection is that there must be at least one allegiance that your army conforms to, but there might be more than one. So it's a good idea to pick one allegiance to start with (to make sure your army follows that allegiance), but if it later turns out that you could field the exact same units and warscrolls with a different allegiance, you can change your mind and go with a different allegiance instead.

[inunn]

I've made some of these points elsewhere on the forum but I think they bear repeating here because I feel like this is being made far more complicated than it really is. I think that the kind of distinction between allegiance and faction that is being made here requires such a convoluted logic that it's probably not real.

It might help to see that the problem is only present in Chaos armies due to the incomplete process of integrating the formerly separate mortal and demon factions. In every other grand alliance there is no discrepancy between the faction listing of matched play profiles and allegiance keywords. Try drawing a distinction between Deathrattle the faction and Deathrattle the allegiance. It doesn't make sense because there is no difference. The same goes for pretty much all factions outside chaos (as far as I know).

Before allies rules were introduced allegiance abilities and 'battleline if...' both depended solely on the keywords of the units in your army list. In the context of such a streamlined game I don't think it's likely that GW have decided to overlay a completely different method for dividing warscrolls into groups. They could be clearer about the way that chaos factions relate to their keywords, but I think its much less of a reach to assume that factions/allegiances are still keyword dependent than it is to try and infer some really convoluted process of determining allegiance and faction that is not explicitly laid down in the rules.

The before/after selection thing is a red herring. Your list might validly belong to several allegiances depending on its composition. Once the allegiance/faction distinction is dissolved then talking about the timings of selecting one or the other becomes irrelevant.

[hobgoblinclub]

1 hour ago, TheOtherJosh said:

Until we get an official FAQ otherwise Factions and Allegiances are not the same. There is mis-verbiage in many of the sections surrounding the two. Mainly in the differentiation between them.

I've spoken with GW staff who completely differentiate Faction and Allegiance, who told me that if you're choosing a "Faction:Grand Alliance Chaos" army with "Allegiance:[insert chaos god name here]" you don't get Allies (how are you allying a grand Allegiance with itself? And where is your Faction ally list?) 

By this, do you mean an army that takes all different Nurgle stuff for example? Like something with StD and Pestilens so it's like a mixed Chaos army but all with the Nurgle keyword? The faction for this wouldn't be 'Chaos'. It'd effectively be 'Nurgle'. This is why the Chaos gods work differently. By taking Nurgle allegiance you effectively call them a united faction/army whatever. All of them are united by the keyword. Anything without that keyword would need to be allied.

 

53 minutes ago, Killax said:

All Chaos models have Chaos Allegiance as an option however the real question then is, what is then the "worth" of the Factions and Allies?
Can we use everything with the Chaos Keyword and create an legal army? If this is the case we can mix as we please and the whole mentioned Allies actually add nothing in terms of a rule.
 

Yes you can create an army using everything with the Chaos keyword. You'd take allegiance 'Chaos'. 

Allies allows you to take random units, which don't share the keyword of the rest of the army, without breaking allegiance. Not only does it add to the game it's massive! It's probably the single biggest change in GHB17. It allows even the smallest factions, those with limited unit choices, to suppliment there forces where there are deficiencies. This leveling the playing field for all. 

2 minutes ago, inunn said:

I've made some of these points elsewhere on the forum but I think they bear repeating here because I feel like this is being made far more complicated than it really is. I think that the kind of distinction between allegiance and faction that is being made here requires such a convoluted logic that it's probably not real. 

This. One hundred times this. I agree wholeheartedly with your whole post @inunn. It's so convoluted it can't possibly be the intended design. It'd make army composition by far the most complex part of the game. 

[TheOtherJosh]

27 minutes ago, hobgoblinclub said:

 

2 hours ago, TheOtherJosh said:

Until we get an official FAQ otherwise Factions and Allegiances are not the same. There is mis-verbiage in many of the sections surrounding the two. Mainly in the differentiation between them.

I've spoken with GW staff who completely differentiate Faction and Allegiance, who told me that if you're choosing a "Faction:Grand Alliance Chaos" army with "Allegiance:[insert chaos god name here]" you don't get Allies (how are you allying a grand Allegiance with itself? And where is your Faction ally list?) 

By this, do you mean an army that takes all different Nurgle stuff for example? Like something with StD and Pestilens so it's like a mixed Chaos army but all with the Nurgle keyword? The faction for this wouldn't be 'Chaos'. It'd effectively be 'Nurgle'. This is why the Chaos gods work differently. By taking Nurgle allegiance you effectively call them a united faction/army whatever. All of them are united by the keyword. Anything without that keyword would need to be allied.

 

No. The faction IS "Grand Alliance Chaos". 

There is no "Faction:Nurgle" Pitched Battle list.

The Allegiance is Nurgle.

AND the list, because it is a full  Grand Allegiance Chaos (that has been limited to only units that can be keyword NURGLE) there is no Faction (OR Allegiance for that matter) Grand Alliance Chaos "Ally List" so they can't take actually take Allies.

(Grand Alliance Armies taking Allies of themselves probably should be FAQ'd for clarity as well if it is a legitimate option.)

So, a Grand Alliance Army that is mono-Allegiance (e.g. Khorne, Tzeentch, Slaanesh, etc) can keep the Allegiance abilities, (because it meets the requirements for the Allegiance) but doesn't get Allies because there is no Ally list that has been provided in the Pitched Battle Profiles.

[inunn]

56 minutes ago, TheOtherJosh said:

No. The faction IS "Grand Alliance Chaos". 

There is no "Faction:Nurgle" Pitched Battle list.

The Allegiance is Nurgle.

AND the list, because it is a full  Grand Allegiance Chaos (that has been limited to only units that can be keyword NURGLE) there is no Faction (OR Allegiance for that matter) Grand Alliance Chaos "Ally List" so they can't take actually take Allies.

(Grand Alliance Armies taking Allies of themselves probably should be FAQ'd for clarity as well if it is a legitimate option.)

So, a Grand Alliance Army that is mono-Allegiance (e.g. Khorne, Tzeentch, Slaanesh, etc) can keep the Allegiance abilities, (because it meets the requirements for the Allegiance) but doesn't get Allies because there is no Ally list that has been provided in the Pitched Battle Profiles.

The Nurgle example is interesting because it is the chaos faction which is most obviously in transition, with separate Daemons of Nurgle and Nurgle Rotbringers tables in the GH2017. But Nurgle is an anomaly, in that the other Chaos gods have one table which obviously matches their keyword. KHORNE matches up with Blades of Khorne, TZEENTCH matches up with Disciples of Tzeentch, SLAANESH matches up with Hosts of Slaanesh. All other factions have a keyword that obviously relates to the allegiance.

I fully expect that in a future publication we'll see the Nurgle anomaly being cleared up with a unified table with the same allies list. In the meantime I think that Daemons of Nurgle requires having the keywords NURGLE and DAEMON but that Nurgle Rotbringers is consistent with Blades of Khorne, Disciples of Tzeench, and Hosts of Slaanesh in that it simply requires the keyword NURGLE. This allows Nurgle daemons, Nurgle-marked StD, Skaven Pestilens, and Nurgle mortals to be combined in an army and make use of the Rotbringers allies chart. I think that this explanation requires fewer, less extravagant, assumptions than the claim that GW have created, but not properly explained, a whole new layer of army selection and massively complicated things. Occam's razor innit

Edit: I accept that my last claim goes further than the rest, but even if you don't accept that I think the rest stands. If you think that Nurgle Rotbringers is limited to units with NURGLE and MORTAL (and not just any NURGLE), then I think it's still simpler to live with the strange consequence of a mixed NURGLE army not being able to take allies than it is to think there is a faction/allegiance distinction.

[Captain Marius]

Good topic, im with Killax on this one. Here're some examples i think are legal:

Bunch of Tzeentch Disciples, Slaves and a Gargant: either Allegiance Chaos, or Allegiance Tzeentch IF Gargant+Disciples OR Gargant+Slaves equal 400pts or less, OR Allegiance Slaves if Gargant+Disciples is 400pts or less. This is 3 separate factions.

Bunch of Tzeentch Disciples and Slaves: either Allegiance Chaos OR Allegiance Tzeentch OR Allegiance Slaves if Disciples 400pts or less (would give you knights, chariots and horsemen as BL)

Bunch of Tzeentch Slaves with 400pts or less of Nurgle Daemons: Allegiance Chaos, or Allegiance Slaves... or Allegiance Tzeentch but you lose your BL knights, chariots and horsemen.

Bunch of Nurgle Rotbringers, Daemons, Pestilens and Slaves: Allegiance Chaos, or Allegiance Nurgle with added BL Blightkings!

I think the common denominator is Slaves to Darkness complicate things!

[hobgoblinclub]

27 minutes ago, inunn said:

The Nurgle example is interesting because it is the chaos faction which is most obviously in transition, with separate Daemons of Nurgle and Nurgle Rotbringers tables in the GH2017. But Nurgle is an anomaly, in that the other Chaos gods have one table which obviously matches their keyword. KHORNE matches up with Blades of Khorne, TZEENTCH matches up with Disciples of Tzeentch, SLAANESH matches up with Hosts of Slaanesh. All other factions have a keyword that obviously relates to the allegiance.

I fully expect that in a future publication we'll see the Nurgle anomaly being cleared up with a unified table with the same allies list. In the meantime I think that Daemons of Nurgle requires having the keywords NURGLE and DAEMON but that Nurgle Rotbringers is consistent with Blades of Khorne, Disciples of Tzeench, and Hosts of Slaanesh in that it simply requires the keyword NURGLE. This allows Nurgle daemons, Nurgle-marked StD, Skaven Pestilens, and Nurgle mortals to be combined in an army and make use of the Rotbringers allies chart. I think that this explanation requires fewer, less extravagant, assumptions than the claim that GW have created, but not properly explained, a whole new layer of army selection and massively complicated things. Occam's razor innit

Edit: I accept that my last claim goes further than the rest, but even if you don't accept that I think the rest stands. If you think that Nurgle Rotbringers is limited to units with NURGLE and MORTAL (and not just any NURGLE), then I think it's still simpler to live with the strange consequence of a mixed NURGLE army not being able to take allies than it is to think there is a faction/allegiance distinction.

I think you're pretty close. You're right, your last point is up for debate. I think it's more likely the book will be called 'Children of Nurgle' or 'Garden of Nurgle'. And that Rotbringers will simply be the third option, after daemons and mortals, akin to Bloodbound for Khorne and Arcanites for Tzeentch. That's just my opinion though. I think you're spot on with the rest. 

[TheOtherJosh]

So, there is an amusing side note to using "Grand Alliance Chaos" and specific Marks.

By choosing the Grand Alliance Chaos, and using the Alliance:(Mark of chaos) it allows you to be more inclusive of Factions that don't otherwise have the ability to be allied.

For example:

 Daemons of Chaos and,

TAMURKHAN’S Horde

Neither of these can ally with any faction other than Everchosen.

However, by choosing Faction:Grand Alliance Chaos and then choosing a Mark of Chaos that matches the Allegiance requirement they can be pulled into any army that can meet the Allegiance requirements. (Remember that this does remove the ability to add un-marked Allies...)

As an alternate example, If one were to choose Grand Alliance Chaos, and then "Slaves to Darkness" as the Allegiance, one could take any unit that was keyword "Slaves to Darkness" such as Sayl the Faithless and Nightmaw. The pair would otherwise not be available as an option in a Pitched Battle army as they are on the Pitched Battle Profile for Tamurkhan's Horde... and Tamurkhan's Horde (again) are listed as Allies for none. (As Currently, Forgeworld hasn't provided any update/modifications.)

This requirement to make (potentially hard) choices in army creation is why I don't expect GW to go down the route of simplification for equating faction and Allegiance for those Factions names that don't match their allegiance names.

[inunn]

5 minutes ago, TheOtherJosh said:

By choosing the Grand Alliance Chaos, and using the Alliance:(Mark of chaos) it allows you to be more inclusive of Factions that don't otherwise have the ability to be allied.

For example:

 Daemons of Chaos and,

TAMURKHAN’S Horde

You have always been able to take your grand alliance as your allegiance to take any unit from that alliance. You have to rely on the grand alliance allegiance abilities and may forfeit 'battleline if...' options depending on what you take, but you can do it. The allies rules do not change this.

7 minutes ago, TheOtherJosh said:

As an alternate example, If one were to choose Grand Alliance Chaos, and then "Slaves to Darkness" as the Allegiance, one could take any unit that was keyword "Slaves to Darkness" such as Sayl the Faithless and Nightmaw. The pair would otherwise not be available as an option in a Pitched Battle army as they are on the Pitched Battle Profile for Tamurkhan's Horde... and Tamurkhan's Horde (again) are listed as Allies for none. (As Currently, Forgeworld hasn't provided any update/modifications.)

They can easily be used in a pitched battle without taking them as allies, just take Chaos as your allegiance and you can take any unit with the CHAOS keyword.

[TheOtherJosh]

1 minute ago, inunn said:

18 minutes ago, TheOtherJosh said:

As an alternate example, If one were to choose Grand Alliance Chaos, and then "Slaves to Darkness" as the Allegiance, one could take any unit that was keyword "Slaves to Darkness" such as Sayl the Faithless and Nightmaw. The pair would otherwise not be available as an option in a Pitched Battle army as they are on the Pitched Battle Profile for Tamurkhan's Horde... and Tamurkhan's Horde (again) are listed as Allies for none. (As Currently, Forgeworld hasn't provided any update/modifications.)

They can easily be used in a pitched battle without taking them as allies, just take Chaos as your allegiance and you can take any unit with the CHAOS keyword.

So, we agree.

You're taking a Faction: Grand Alliance Chaos Army. And Choosing to use Allegiance:Chaos.