Allegiances and Factions and Allies

[TheOtherJosh]

43 minutes ago, Gilby said:

GHB2017 p74 says that, "The first step in picking an army is choosing it's allegiance. All of the units in the army must either have the allegiance, or be allied to that allegiance."

The sentence is based on a falsehood. So it is either that the sentence is wrong, or the entire referencing Allies to factions is wrong.

Currently, Allegiances don't have Allies.

Since we know that Allegiances don't have Allies. (i.e. There is no ally table for Allegiance:Tzeentch) Basing your point on that piece is on shaky ground.

This is the bit where GW has been loose with Allegiance and Faction. (The writers may have been Order or Death players ....  )

If you replace "Allegiance" with "Faction" then the entire sentence is substantially clearer based on the Pitched Battle Profile tables being based on Faction, not Allegiance.

e.g. "The first step in picking an army is choosing it's Faction. All of the units in the army must either have the same Faction, or be allied to that Faction."

However, it does need an errata. One way or another.

[Killax]

7 hours ago, Tzaangor Management said:

The point I was making is that it is the army that qualifies for the Allegiance Abilities. The units can have a different Allegiance, but the whole army must have the same Allegiance in order to qualify for Allegiance Abilities. You can ignore the Allegiance of the Allies to qualify for the army-wide Allegiance.

In this case, the distinction is between Unit Allegiance and Army Allegiance and therefore the Allied units cannot access separate Allegiance Abilities, because the Allegiance is not shared army-wide.

I see the point but the issue is that the whole army with Allies cannot always have the same Allegiance in order to qualify for the Allegiance Abilities. The moment Allies can have another Allegiance the suggestion is created that an army can have multiple Allegiances because else the rule could have stopped at saying Allies do not count towards Allegiance requirements and do not benifit from them at all. 

400 points of your army is still your army aswell.
Currently "Unit Allegiances" do not excist. As Allegiances are an additional rule created to give an additional value to Keywords, being that they gain acces to additional abilities. While you say units cannot acces seperate Allegiance Abilities this is not confirmed by the current Allegiance rules. By large because the current Allegiance rules have not included the note of Allies whatsoever.

The current rules under Allies still remain to say that Allies can have a different Allegiance. This remains to suggest that they can make use of Allegiance rules and therefor do have acces to the abilities that come forth out of that.

[RuneBrush]

5 hours ago, Gilby said:

Where in the rules does it say you have to have all of your warscrolls from one faction to take that faction's allies?

GHB2017 p74 says that, "The first step in picking an army is choosing it's allegiance. All of the units in the army must either have the allegiance, or be allied to that allegiance."

800 points of StD marked Khorne and 800 points of Blades of Khorne could take 400 points of Khorne allies IF you choose Khorne allegiance. All your army is then allegiance Khorne or allied to Khorne.

However you can't take StD allies and then select Khorne allegiance as the allies are not allied to the army's allegiance. Even though (excluding allies) everything is legal in a Khorne army. The allies you get are based on the allegiance you select.

Why would you do this?  The Blades of Khorne Battletome says that you can pick Khorne Allegiance if all units contain the Khorne keyword.  No reason at all to select any Khorne allies because they can simply be included in the army as per the allegiance rules within the Battletome?

I think the only think that needs clarifying is which allies table a Khorne Allegiance army uses if it includes some marauders (for sake of argument).  Logic says that the because the allegiance came from the Blades of Khorne book it uses the Blades of Khorne section within the pitched battle profiles.

3 hours ago, Pariah-Miniatures said:

This thread has only confused me more on how allies work

Not going to deny that!  I think it's in our nature to over-complicate things too, as we try and work out unique and interesting combinations

[Killax]

Yeah for the easiest functionality to play now I would pick one Allegiance and indeed not have Allies benifit from this unless they too share the Allegiance Keyword you choose.
This is more or less how it used to work except that it gives a lot more breathing room to Allegiances (as 400 points of your 2000 point army does not have to contain Keyword X).

The only real issue remains is that RAW the interaction between Allegiances and Allies is worded differently or likely too ambigiously. In the following form:
1. Page 74 states Allegiances have Allies (which they don't).
2. Page 76 states Allies can have a different Allegiance (which some posters actually do not think they can have, based on what an Allegiance means as a rule).
3. Page 116 states that in order to have an Allegiance all the starting units in the army must share the keyword for that Allegiance (which cannot be done with Allies).

TLDR: Basically Allies allow for an additional Allegiance while Allegiance does not allow for Allies. 

It's still a relatively easy fix though, as it has to do with intention more than anything. It's also not too difficult to fix with a House-rule at the time being. This is what I could agree upon (basically another rule of one):
- An army can have only one Allegiance, Allies do not have to match this Allegiance.  If Allies do not share the chosen Allegiance Keyword they do not benifit from any Allegiance abilities. Inform your opponent of which units are Allies at the start of the battle if you use Allies.
- When you create an Army declare which Faction you use to see which Allies you have available. *Order, Chaos, Death and Destruction count as Factions aswell and only have acces to all models within their respective Order, Chaos, Death or Destruction Pitched Battle Profile unit entries.

*I do not know if this part is intended with GH2017 or not. Don't know the rest either but I do assume the intention indeed still is to have one Army only have acces to one Allegiance. Regardless of size of the Army, regardless of points spend on Allies.

[Xasz]

Is it only StD where the problem of faction/allegiance comes up? (Khorne and BoK etc.)

[Killax]

10 minutes ago, Xasz said:

Is it only StD where the problem of faction/allegiance comes up? (Khorne and BoK etc.)

No, it can also apply to Everchosen. However the problem in itself with the way the rules are written isn't exclusive to Chaos either.
Because as before, page 74,76 and 116 can't come to an agreement on how Allies and Allegiances should interact. 

The fact that StD and or Everchosen has acces to all kinds of Allies is allright. The true question is wether or not those Allies are intended to work out that way and if they also recieve their own Allegiances.

Page 74 states Allegiances have their own Allies, which they don't.
Then there is unclearity about Allegiances in general because based on page 76 Allies can have their own Allegiance. Whatever this might entitle is unknown.
Page 86 then proceeds to make a difference between Faction and Allegiance, which in turn suggests they are in fact not the same. 
Lastly Allegiance rules on page 119 do not leave room for (starting) Allies to begin with.

[Gilby]

53 minutes ago, RuneBrush said:

Why would you do this?  The Blades of Khorne Battletome says that you can pick Khorne Allegiance if all units contain the Khorne keyword.  No reason at all to select any Khorne allies because they can simply be included in the army as per the allegiance rules within the Battletome?

I wasn't disagreeing with what you're saying here.... 

 

5 hours ago, TheOtherJosh said:

The sentence is based on a falsehood. So it is either that the sentence is wrong, or the entire referencing Allies to factions is wrong.

Currently, Allegiances don't have Allies.

True. But you can make it work by saying, for example, "I pick Slave to Darkness Allegiance. Now all my Allies must be Allies from Slave to Darkness" (which is a faction). Where that falls apart is where an Allegiance isn't named the same as a Faction.

GHB2017 also refers to the list at the bottom of the faction table and says that it is a list of the Allegiances of Allies you can take, but then puts BoK, DoT, HoS etc. in that list which aren't Allegiances, they are Factions.

If you just assume that the writers are using Khorne/Blades of Khorne and Tzeentch/Discpiples of Tzeentch interchangably (which they are based on the above) then it makes sense, in fact all the rules make sense.

 

I'll make the checklist of how I think it works as clear as I can... if you disagree with me please explain through example where this breaks down as people seem to keep disagreeing with something and then writing what they think, but it's just the same thing in different words. It's just making everything confusing.

 

1. Pick ALLEGIANCE you want your army to be
2. Look at the corresponding FACTION table for that ALLEGIANCE (from step 1) for the list of allegiances you can take as ALLIES
3. Identify the warscrolls in your list that don't have the keyword to be in your army's ALLEGIANCE (step 1)
4. IF that list is wholly from the list of ALLIES (step 2) AND is less than 400 points, your army is your chosen ALLEGIANCE (step 1)

 

Again if you disagree show me a list that can either be built using the above that isn't legal or a list that can't be built using the above that is legal.

[Captain Marius]

Does this make sense:

Chaos Allegiance: any Chaos unit, no allies, no BLifs

Khorne Allegiance: any Khorne unit, no allies, Khorne BLifs

Khorne Allegiance: Any Blades unit, Blades allies, Khorne BLifs

Khorne Allegiance: Any Khorne Slaves unit, Slaves allies, no BLifs

Slaves Allegiance: Any Slaves unit, Slaves allies, Slaves BLifs

So, if you take more than 400pts of Slaves and more than 400pts of Blades, you can't ally in any bullgors or gargants etc.

If you take 1600+ pts from Blades you can ally in stuff from their allies list.

If you take 1600+ pts from Slaves you ally in stuff from their allies list. You can use Khorne Allegiance if you want, or you can use Slaves Allegiance to unlock knights, chariots and horsemen as BL.

Ive not seen anything to suggest Khorne Allegiance = Blades of Khorne Faction. You can take a Khorne Allegiance Slaves to Darkness army that uses no units from the Blades list just fine.

[RuneBrush]

20 minutes ago, Captain Marius said:

Ive not seen anything to suggest Khorne Allegiance = Blades of Khorne Faction. You can take a Khorne Allegiance Slaves to Darkness army that uses no units from the Blades list just fine.

The Blades of Khorne Battletome, encompasses slaves to darkness as "mortal khorne" - they even have their own artefacts and command traits but no warscrolls in the book.

[Captain Marius]

Thats true, but the GHB pitched battle profiles are a totally distinct bolt-on to the Blades of Khorne rules, which assume youre picking an army using the basic open method of plonk down what you want.

In Pitched Battle I see it as clear that Blades of Khorne and Slaves to Darkness are two separate factions, which can both take Khorne (or Chaos) allegiance, meaning they can be freely merged if you sacrifice being able to take Allies and the BLifs from the Slaves faction.

[Xasz]

I personally see two ways, how our club/tournaments will manage it until GW releases a clarification.

Overall I'd go with more of an RAI approach than RAW, as later has proven inconsistent and more confusing than anything else.

A.) Pitched-battle-profiles are super strict lists. You take some StD units, everything from another list has to be allies. Regardless of marks and keywords. After that you check for available allegiances ignoring allies. (clear distinction between factions and allegiance)

B.) There are "meta-factions" in the chaos grand alliance. Namely, Blades of Khorne, Desciples of Tzeentch, Hosts of Slaanesh. (+ Nurgle Rotbringer if you want to).  They are special, as marked units can become part of this faction instead of their usual one (not decided individually but rather armywide). If you want to use this faction/allegiance and the rules from their books/tables, everything in the non-ally part in your army has to be properly marked and you have to abide by their ally-list. If you want to use StD abilities and stuff, you have to follow their faction and ally restrictions beforehand. It's definitely messy... and blurs factions and allegiance but offers more freedom.  (I think this is pretty much what  Gilby suggests but poorly written by me)

Other than that,  whole allegiance problem is not a new one, every week the same questions about battalions and so on can be seen but it somehow worked till now. Allies and factions are a true mess and GW will have to clarify probably sooner than later.

[Tzaangor Management]

3 hours ago, Killax said:

I see the point but the issue is that the whole army with Allies cannot always have the same Allegiance in order to qualify for the Allegiance Abilities. The moment Allies can have another Allegiance the suggestion is created that an army can have multiple Allegiances because else the rule could have stopped at saying Allies do not count towards Allegiance requirements and do not benifit from them at all. 

400 points of your army is still your army aswell.
Currently "Unit Allegiances" do not excist. As Allegiances are an additional rule created to give an additional value to Keywords, being that they gain acces to additional abilities. While you say units cannot acces seperate Allegiance Abilities this is not confirmed by the current Allegiance rules. By large because the current Allegiance rules have not included the note of Allies whatsoever.

The current rules under Allies still remain to say that Allies can have a different Allegiance. This remains to suggest that they can make use of Allegiance rules and therefor do have acces to the abilities that come forth out of that.

I think you may have been looking at this for too long, I know I definitely have . 

1. The existence of unit allegiance.

Pg 116.

"Every unit and warscroll Batllion in Warhammer Age of Sigmar owes allegiance to one of the Grand Alliances... Many units and warscroll battalions also have more specific allegiances".

2. Army Allegiances

Pg 116

"An army can have a specific allegiance if all starting units and warscroll battalions in the army have the keyword for that allegiance"

3. Ignoring Allies Allegiance

Pg 86.

"In a Pitched Battle, you can spend some of your points on allies without changing the army's allegiance"

4. Qualifying for Allegiance Abilities

pg. 116.

"An army with an allegiance can use the allegiance abilities specific to that allegiance".

5. Dealing with more than one Allegiance

pg. 116

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

So, your Allies can have a different allegiance to the rest of your army, but they cannot use different Allegiance Abilities because it is the army that qualifies for the abilities and not the units. Your Allies retain their Allegiance, because it is based on keyword, but the army ignores your Allies Allegiance in order to select it's own Allegiance.

 

 

[inunn]

37 minutes ago, Tzaangor Management said:

I think you may have been looking at this for too long, I know I definitely have . 

I share this sentiment - probably the thing I am most sure about in the whole thread! ?

[EMMachine]

Before the GH17 came out, I thought the alliedsystem would be a good thing, but it's executed quite badly, as the rules are written.

There are only two reasons you need the alliance System.

1. You want to use a more specific allegiance to use these battletraits, command traits and artefacts.
2. You want to play units as battleline that are only battleline if your models have a special keyword.

These are the only points why you need alliances in the first place, that you don't need 100% models and/or battalions with that keyword.

And it feels quite wrong, when units that are legit part of a certain allegiance are downgraded to allies because of a bookname.

It's mostly Slaves of Darkness who can get a god keyword but in case of nurgle also clan Pestilence (who share the keyword nurgle).

One point thats interesting is, that in the errata, where Daemons of Nurgle get there Allies table, Slaves of Darkness is part while Rotbringers isn't. There is only one point why this could make sense. Rotbringers and Daemons of Nurgle don't have differences that would make it nessessary. Both share the keyword Nurgle and Daemons of Nurgle don't have units that are only battleline when the entire army is daemons of nurgle. The Point why Slaves of Darkness are part of the Alliestable should be mostly because these could also have Mark of Khorne or Mark of Slaanesh instead of Mark of Nurgle.

(I don't have my GH17 at the moment so I don't know the allies really exist in that case it's only as an example)

Take Daemons of Nurgle and Clan Pestilens for a Moment.

If Nurgle is the allegiance there would be no need for Pestilens a Allies (the same point as for Rotbringers), but if you want to use Plague Monks as Battleline and/or want to use Pestilens Allegiance the Daemons have to be allies because the don't share the Pestilence Keyword.

The factions point (as booknames) doesn't make sense for that entire ruleset because it's denies possible combinations. If there would be a "celestial" allegiance you could mix Stormcast Eternals and Seraphon, but would be unable to mix battlelines because allied battlelines don't count to the Minimum of battlelines with those factionsrules.

Another interesting will be when there are completly new armies (like when Kharadron Overlords came out), how will these armies integrated into the allieslists? They will have there only allieslist that only count's if they are the mainfaction, but how will they be shared as allies into other armies (after we see with Eldritch Council and Sylvaneth that the the alliance system don't have to work in both directions)?

It's another case where the games narrative is alienated by the matched play rules.

 

[Nico]

It might be as simple as they didn't want to write out the Slaves to Darkness ("Derping") units in 5 places and trusted players to figure out that Mortal Tzeentch and Mortal Khorne armies hadn't suddenly been invalidated.

[TheOtherJosh]

On 9/3/2017 at 9:08 AM, 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. ....

Sayl is a bad example.

He is actually on the Tamurkhan's Horde Pitched Battle Profiles (from forgeworld) even though he has the Slaves to Darkness Keyword....and Tamurkhan's Horde is not on any of the Ally lists.

So to use him, one has to move to a broader army selection criteria of Grand Alliance Chaos. (As Tamurkhan's Horde can't make a valid army as it currently has no battleline.)

[Xasz]

14 minutes ago, EMMachine said:

One point thats interesting is, that in the errata, where Daemons of Nurgle get there Allies table, Slaves of Darkness is part while Rotbringers isn't. There is only one point why this could make sense. Rotbringers and Daemons of Nurgle don't have differences that would make it nessessary. Both share the keyword Nurgle and Daemons of Nurgle don't have units that are only battleline when the entire army is daemons of nurgle. The Point why Slaves of Darkness are part of the Alliestable should be mostly because these could also have Mark of Khorne or Mark of Slaanesh instead of Mark of Nurgle.

Considering that the ally-tables for Nurgle Daemons and Nurgle Rotbringers are exactly the same, I'd argue they'll get a god specific book as well... I'd probably house-rule it for now as being the same faction aka 'Nurgle' that consists of two lists. Which is not the best solution but for some reason they didn't want to make a big list when the GHB2017 dropped. (maybe because it would be obsolete within a month or two anyway?!) 

Nurgle is weird at the moment but it should be covered by the 1-4 steps above.

I think this is the closest we'll get to a solution.

[Squirrelmaster]

I think it's pretty clear I can take an army where everything has the "Chaos" keyword, and use Chaos allegiance abilities.

Same goes for "Slaanesh".

If I want to take 1700pts of stuff from the "Hosts of Slaanesh" table (all of which has the "Slaanesh" keyword), and then throw in a Chimera as an ally, I don't think anyone would object to me doing that, and still using the "Slaanesh" allegiance abilities. Even if it's not strictly RAW-ful.

But what happens if I then add a unit of 10 marauders of Slaanesh on top of that? Can the marauders use my Slaanesh allegiance ability in a "Hosts of Slaanesh" army? Can they count as battleline, or do I have to take them as allies? That's the part I get stuck on.

I think if we want a clear answer from GW, we're going to need some simple worked examples — if we start splitting hairs over semantics I suspect we'll get nowhere with them.

[tolstedt]

4 hours ago, Captain Marius said:

Does this make sense:

Khorne Allegiance: Any Khorne Slaves unit, Slaves allies, no BLifs

 

You could not use the slaves to darkness allies list if you choose khorne allegiance.  You must use the allies table of the allegiance you take.
You could choose slaves to darkness allegiance, and then use the slaves allies list.

[tolstedt]

19 minutes ago, Squirrelmaster said:

I think it's pretty clear I can take an army where everything has the "Chaos" keyword, and use Chaos allegiance abilities.

Same goes for "Slaanesh".

If I want to take 1700pts of stuff from the "Hosts of Slaanesh" table (all of which has the "Slaanesh" keyword), and then throw in a Chimera as an ally, I don't think anyone would object to me doing that, and still using the "Slaanesh" allegiance abilities. Even if it's not strictly RAW-ful.

But what happens if I then add a unit of 10 marauders of Slaanesh on top of that? Can the marauders use my Slaanesh allegiance ability in a "Hosts of Slaanesh" army? Can they count as battleline, or do I have to take them as allies? That's the part I get stuck on.

I think if we want a clear answer from GW, we're going to need some simple worked examples — if we start splitting hairs over semantics I suspect we'll get nowhere with them.

If the marauders are marked Slaanesh in your list, then they count as part of your allegiance and count as battleline.  They can use the allegiance ability.

[TheOtherJosh]

22 minutes ago, tolstedt said:

 

5 hours ago, Captain Marius said:

Does this make sense:

Khorne Allegiance: Any Khorne Slaves unit, Slaves allies, no BLifs

 

You could not use the slaves to darkness allies list if you choose khorne allegiance.  You must use the allies table of the allegiance you take.
You could choose slaves to darkness allegiance, and then use the slaves allies list.

 

Let's step back and analyze this:

There is no Ally list for Allegiance:Khorne.

So the Faction is Slaves to Darkness as all the Units come from Slaves to Darkness.

If the Army meets the requirement for Slaves to Darkness Faction then it can use the Slaves to Darkness ally list.

So the Faction army list requirements are good.

This means that it can meet the Slaves to Darkness "Battleline If" choices. (And use Chaos Knights, Chaos Marauder Horsemen and Chaos Chariots as Battleline.)

So a look at the Allegiance side:

Does everything in the non-ally section have the Khorne keyword (or can be set to have he Khorne keyword prior to set-up?

Yes? Then it meets the requirements for Khorne Allegiance.

So. It looks good from a RAW perspective ... and can use Slaves to Darkness "Battleline If" choices.

However, it Can Not use the Blades of Khorne  Battleline if ... and still meet the Slaves to Darkness Faction Pitched Battle Profile requirement. And while adding Blades of Khorne would still meet the Allegiance:Khorne requirement ... it would mean that it is no longer using Slaves to Darkness Faction, and would loose the Slaves to Darkness ally list.

[TheOtherJosh]

50 minutes ago, tolstedt said:

But what happens if I then add a unit of 10 marauders of Slaanesh on top of that? Can the marauders use my Slaanesh allegiance ability in a "Hosts of Slaanesh" army? Can they count as battleline, or do I have to take them as allies? That's the part I get stuck on.

Scenario 1: "I want to use Monsters and Get Allegiance:Slaanesh ..."

Factions List: Hosts of Slaanesh

Legal Ally: Monsters of Chaos AND Slaves to Darkness (Allies not available to be used as Battleline)

Legal Allegiance Options: Slaanesh OR Chaos

Scenario 2: "I'm not taking the Chimera and I want StoD as Battleline

Factions List: Hosts of Slaanesh AND Slaves to a Darkness Marked as Slaanesh ... (This would require using the Grand Alliance Chaos entire list) This allows both Hosts of Slaanesh and StoD forces to be used as Battleline. Final "Legal Faction is Grand Alliance Chaos"

Legal Allies:NONE (Grand Alliance Chaos has no Allies list)

Legal Alliances: Slaanesh OR Chaos

Scenario 3: "I want the Chimera... and I want StoD and Hosts of Slaanesh Battleline..."

Factions Chosen: Hosts of Slaanesh AND Slaves to Darkness Marked as Slaanesh AND Monsters of Chaos (This requires using Grand Alliance Chaos as your base 'Faction') This allows Hosts of Slaanesh and StoD as Battleline.

Legal Allies: Legal Allies:NONE (Grand Alliance Chaos has no Allies list)

Legal Alliances: Chaos

 

Remember for RAW as it exists now:

You can't take Allies if you are using multiple Pitched Army Profile faction lists to build the "non-ally" section of your list. As that means that you're using the Grand Alliance.

Determination of "Legal Pitched Battle Profiles Faction + Allies" is different than "What Allegiances can I take?"

You can still meet Allegiance Requirements and take your forces from the Grand Alliance overall list ... as long as it meets the requirements for the Allegiance. You just can't take Allies.

[Iain]

Can GW please settle this because it's painful now.

[Gilby]

41 minutes ago, TheOtherJosh said:

You can't take Allies if you are using multiple Pitched Army Profile faction lists to build the "non-ally" section of your list. As that means that you're using the Grand Alliance.

So you're saying that if you have warscrolls from two faction lists you can't have allies? Where does it say that exactly (page number)? Might have missed it, but don't remember it.

Also...

 

6 hours ago, Gilby said:

1. Pick ALLEGIANCE you want your army to be
2. Look at the corresponding FACTION table for that ALLEGIANCE (from step 1) for the list of allegiances you can take as ALLIES
3. Identify the warscrolls in your list that don't have the keyword to be in your army's ALLEGIANCE (step 1)
4. IF that list is wholly from the list of ALLIES (step 2) AND is less than 400 points, your army is your chosen ALLEGIANCE (step 1)

 

 

Please (anyone) post a list that can make the above not work. If it works then we can stop this as we have the answer! Nobody is going to read 5 pages of forum circular argument, 4 lines of simple instructions however is doable...

 

[BaldoBeardo]

14 minutes ago, Gilby said:

So you're saying that if you have warscrolls from two faction lists you can't have allies? Where does it say that exactly (page number)? Might have missed it, but don't remember it.

Also...

 

 

Please (anyone) post a list that can make the above not work. If it works then we can stop this as we have the answer! Nobody is going to read 5 pages of forum circular argument, 4 lines of simple instructions however is doable...

 

Only individual factions have ally lists.

So if you're using a mixture of (for example, battleline) units that don't come from a single Faction list then by definition you aren't using a faction and so can't have allies - you're just making a grand alliance army.