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Allegiances and Factions and Allies


Gilby

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19 hours ago, Pariah-Miniatures said:

This thread has only confused me more on how allies work

I thought it was simple before this thread started! 

7 hours ago, Iain said:

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

Indeed it is. It's a thread unlike any I've read. It's going round in circles so much I thought about closing it, but I feel like it's still being enjoyed!

There was two new pages of posts since last time I looked. I genuinely hoped someone from GW had posted a clarification. ?

I'm pretty sure that applying the logic of other factions and allegiances (all of which are clearly linked) doesn't work with the Chaos gods.

The way I see it, with Tzeentch you can take all the Tzeentch marked stuff freely. By doing so, they effectively all become the same army. Not 'Grand Alliance Chaos' with 'Tzeentch' allegiance, as some have suggested, but they become a 'Tzeentch' army with 'Tzeentch' allegiance. 

In terms of allies, I'm also pretty sure that 'Disciples of Tzeentch' allies are intended to be used with all Tzeentch armies. It doesn't matter if it's Tzeentch marked StD or units from the DoT book, they are all counted as unified Tzeentch/DoT for the purposes of adding allies. 

I totally get the confusion though. Maybe take a fat pen and scribble out 'Disciples of' at the top of the Tzeentch list in the Pitched Battle Profiles?

Has anyone else been on Twitter about this? There seems to be far less confusion on there. There's a few threads on TGA that have fallen into this topic but this thread is pretty intense even among those!

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2 hours ago, hobgoblinclub said:

...

In terms of allies, I'm also pretty sure that 'Disciples of Tzeentch' allies are intended to be used with all Tzeentch armies. It doesn't matter if it's Tzeentch marked StD or units from the DoT book, they are all counted as unified Tzeentch/DoT for the purposes of adding allies. 

I totally get the confusion though. Maybe take a fat pen and scribble out 'Disciples of' at the top of the Tzeentch list in the Pitched Battle Profiles?

...

GW had the option to do that with the Faction: Daemons of Nurgle into "Alliance:Nurgle with the first errata FAQ.

And they chose not to.

I don't see it likely they will follow down the route of the solution you suggested. :/

Being able to add Allies to a Grand Alliance Chaos list with an Chaos deity Mark merely means that you don't have to make the hard choices. :(

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4 hours ago, TheOtherJosh said:

Being able to add Allies to a Grand Alliance Chaos list with an Chaos deity Mark merely means that you don't have to make the hard choices. :(

I honestly don’t get this. It doesn’t make sense to have a grand alliance chaos list with allies because you already have a completely open choice of warscrolls. There’s no benefit to taking only a particular mark unless you benefit from that god’s allegiance abilities, ‘battleline if...’ options, and allies list. What’s the point in limiting yourself to one god and then taking the grand alliance allegiance?

What would the allies pool for GA Chaos even contain?

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4 hours ago, inunn said:

I honestly don’t get this. It doesn’t make sense to have a grand alliance chaos list with allies because you already have a completely open choice of warscrolls. There’s no benefit to taking only a particular mark unless you benefit from that god’s allegiance abilities, ‘battleline if...’ options, and allies list. What’s the point in limiting yourself to one god and then taking the grand alliance allegiance?

What would the allies pool for GA Chaos even contain?

Correct, giving a Grand Alliance Chaos list Allies doesn't make sense. (In part Because there is no Allies pool.) But IF there was the ability to take Allies, that basically would wreck factions for chaos and make factions "useless". Factions allow GW to better control the game meta from a list building perspective. 

Limiting to one god and doing Grand Alliance opens the option to take units that are not in an allegiance list but have the ability to be keyworded and get access to battleline if and Allegiance Battletraits. (As Allegiances don't have Allies, they don't get them.)

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Some more random musinhs after a reread of GHB:

P76: players can spend points on allied units. Battalions are not units so i infer i could take an everchosen battalion from my core army points.

P76: remember in most cases allegiance abilities only work for units with the appropriate keyword. So allied Slaves with the same mark can at least use the abilities of a core Blades/Disciples/Hosts army, if youre building your army that way.

P77: your general must be a Leader and cannot be an ally. I didnt pick up on this on my first read!

P77: you can choose the allegiance abilities for the allegiance your army belongs to, or your Grand Alliance. RAW that says Slaves can only have Slaves or Chaos allegiance... and Disciples/Blades/Hosts can only take Chaos, as there is no 'Disciples of Tzeentch' etc allegiance. Of course none of this makes sense as GW have not distinguished between faction and allegiance here!

 

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A pretty conclusive statement on the AoS Facebook page. 

Question: Is there any reason why Nurgle Rotbringers can't ally with Nurgle Daemons? 

Community Team's Answer: Rotbringers and Nurgle Daemons are effectively the same faction with the 'Nurgle' allegiance ability. 

Note the word 'faction'. Unlike anything else in AoS, using a chaos god allegiance 'effectively' creates a united faction.

Take what you want with the 'Nurgle' keyword. And then use the allies list from the (obviously) upcoming battletome. Just as you can do with Tzeentch and Khorne. 

Screenshot_20170907-173248.png

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31 minutes ago, hobgoblinclub said:

A pretty conclusive statement on the AoS Facebook page. 

Question: Is there any reason why Nurgle Rotbringers can't ally with Nurgle Daemons? 

Community Team's Answer: Rotbringers and Nurgle Daemons are effectively the same faction with the 'Nurgle' allegiance ability. 

Note the word 'faction'. Unlike anything else in AoS, using a chaos god allegiance 'effectively' creates a united faction.

Take what you want with the 'Nurgle' keyword. And then use the allies list from the (obviously) upcoming battletome. Just as you can do with Tzeentch and Khorne. 

Screenshot_20170907-173248.png

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GW customer service has always been a poor place to get rules interpretations, and they'll be the first to admit that they aren't part of the development team. 

I posted a response to the post imploring them to pass the question on to the development for a quick errata or FAQ, which is necessary in this case.

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Here's the thing.

Theyre just reiterating what we already know. 

If you're just staying inside the "Nurgle Bubble" (yech ... that's probably infected... ;) ) for units then talking a Grand Alliance Chaos Army and only choosing units with the Nurgle keyword then "effectively" they can "not-really-ally" but be used in the same Army. And still keep Alliance:Nurgle. 

 The only caveat is that they can't take (non-Marked) Allies.

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3 minutes ago, TheOtherJosh said:

Here's the thing.

Theyre just reiterating what we already know. 

If you're just staying inside the "Nurgle Bubble" (yech ... that's probably infected... ;) ) for units then talking a Grand Alliance Chaos Army and only choosing units with the Nurgle keyword then "effectively" they can "not-really-ally" but be used in the same Army. And still keep Alliance:Nurgle. 

 The only caveat is that they can't take (non-Marked) Allies.

Ninja'd! The Nurgle/Rotbringers thing is irrelevant - because at this time, Rotbringers or Daemons of Nurgle does absolutely nothing.

The only factional condition in either of those lists is that Blightkings become battleline if the army has NURGLE allegiance. It doesn't require any errata.

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1 hour ago, Captain Marius said:

Soooo if i take all Slaves and Khorne/Tzeentch allegiance, i get access to the Blades/Disciples allies lists and can now take Monsters of Chaos, which Slaves inexplicably cant take as allies!?

If I'm understanding you correctly, no. Giving all of a StD list the KHORNE keyword doesn't suddenly make it a Blades of Khorne list. All Blades of Khorne units have the KHORNE keyword, but not all units with the KHORNE keyword are Blades of Khorne.

Picking units from the StD faction list means they are StD models, regardless of what other Keywords you give them.

Given that there's been an errata for the GHB already, I doubt the Monsters of Chaos thing is an accident.

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27 minutes ago, TheOtherJosh said:

Here's the thing.

Theyre just reiterating what we already know. 

If you're just staying inside the "Nurgle Bubble" (yech ... that's probably infected... ;) ) for units then talking a Grand Alliance Chaos Army and only choosing units with the Nurgle keyword then "effectively" they can "not-really-ally" but be used in the same Army. And still keep Alliance:Nurgle. 

 The only caveat is that they can't take (non-Marked) Allies.

The question specifically uses the word "ally", meaning the answer is worth confronting. 

However....what's important is that the rule is poorly written and conceptually confusing, so needs an errata or FAQ. 

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1 minute ago, decker_cky said:

The question specifically uses the word "ally", meaning the answer is worth confronting. 

However....what's important is that the rule is poorly written and conceptually confusing, so needs an errata or FAQ. 

No, it's really not. Factions are a method of organising units so GW can better control and compare loadouts.

Rotbringers and Nurgle Daemons can't ally because there is (currently) no need/advantage for them to do so. If you are a Rotbringers or Daemons of Nurgle player, there is currently ZERO value in not simply doing a GA: Chaos force.

In the same way that Deathrattle allegiance does absolutely nothing at the moment. (Gee, I wonder what te next two battletomes might be...?)

However, in terms of who other people can ally with, the distinction between Rotbringers and Daemons of Nurgle is an important one - hence the need for the separate faction lists at this time.

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You're missing the point of allies, in that case. The value of allying rotbringers and nurgle daemons (which is not currently legal) is to ALSO ally in something without mark of nurgle (let's say some ungor raiders) while maintaining nurgle allegiance (let's say to count blightkings as battleline). 

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1 minute ago, decker_cky said:

You're missing the point of allies, in that case. The value of allying rotbringers and nurgle daemons (which is not currently legal) is to ALSO ally in something without mark of nurgle (let's say some ungor raiders) while maintaining nurgle allegiance (let's say to count blightkings as battleline). 

NURGLE doesn't have an ally table at this time. That's not the same as querying why DoN and RB can't ally with each other. I get your point, but the GHB tables for DoN & RB are for the benefit of other factions looking for allies, not Nurgle players.

There's no errata, FAQ or other required. The reason that Nurgle allegiance isn't properly defined in the GHB?

Because there is a chuffing great NURGLE release just around the corner.

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5 hours ago, Captain Marius said:

Soooo if i take all Slaves and Khorne/Tzeentch allegiance, i get access to the Blades/Disciples allies lists and can now take Monsters of Chaos, which Slaves inexplicably cant take as allies!?

Yep. I'm pretty sure it does fella.

 

3 hours ago, BaldoBeardo said:

If I'm understanding you correctly, no. Giving all of a StD list the KHORNE keyword doesn't suddenly make it a Blades of Khorne list. All Blades of Khorne units have the KHORNE keyword, but not all units with the KHORNE keyword are Blades of Khorne.

Picking units from the StD faction list means they are StD models, regardless of what other Keywords you give them.

Given that there's been an errata for the GHB already, I doubt the Monsters of Chaos thing is an accident.

Even though it's very different to the other armies in AoS, I think it actually does. 

The Community response uses the word 'factions'.

'Effectively' taking some Pestilens units in a Nurgle army, for example, changes them from the Pestilens faction to the Nurgle faction. Granted, this is not the way other armies work but it seems to be the way the chaos gods work.

It's also worth pointing out that the DoT and BoK battletomes have command traits and artefacts for mortals. The argument that StD aren't included in the DoT and BoK 'Factions' is certainly weakened by this fact. 

It almost certainly won't be settled for good until we get official word from a FAQ, but I've now heard confirmation from multiple GW sources that it's as simple as 'Tzeentch' is 'DoT': The community staff on the AoS Facebook page used the word 'faction' rather than allegiance, implying access to the allies list; more than one presenter on Warhammer TV has said it's that simple; a senior member of the Community Team on Twitter said 'Treat them as one army'; and I've spotted at least one member of the studio staff like a tweet I made about it being this way. This is not 'official' as such, but it's looking pretty darn conclusive at this point. 

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Also, the situation with Nurgle vs BoK and DoT at the moment is that there is no reason to take just rotbringers or just daemons, since the allegiance ability is for nurgle, AKA an army made of keyword nurgles. It currently has no allies true, but we all know the book is coming soon.

Just to check, this would mean Chaos Warriors (mark nurgle), marauders (mark of nurgle), blightkings, and plaguebearers would all be battleline? But not the slaves to darkness battleline?

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I only have the GHB to go on.

Giving all your models the Khorne keyword gives them Khorne allegiance, it doesn't make them a Blades of Khorne faction member.

The Nurgle comment supports that view.

Faction is not simply a shared set of Keywords - otherwise the Mutalith and Slaughterbrute should have been moved elsewhere.

Ally relationships are two-way - as I said with the Nurgle stuff, while it may seem nonsensical for a Nurgle player there are factions who can only ally with Daemons of Nurgle, for example.

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13 hours ago, Captain Marius said:

Soooo if i take all Slaves and Khorne/Tzeentch allegiance, i get access to the Blades/Disciples allies lists and can now take Monsters of Chaos, which Slaves inexplicably cant take as allies!?

My interpretation (sorry, this is counter to some comments and in agreement with others).  Faction is a "new" thing and corresponds to the title used in the Pitched Battle points section of the new handbook.  Allegiance is where you use a common keyword (normally one of the first couple on a warscroll) - previously what we'd call the faction, but with some special rules (e.g. a battalion can make everything within it allegiance X even if those units don't have that keyword) or in the case of Chaos Gods their own rules within a Battletome.

If you took a Slaves list with mark of Khorne/Tzeentch, they would still be Faction: Slaves to Darkness, thus use the allies block from there.

If you took a Slaves list with exclusively mark of Khorne, it would still be Faction: Slaves to Darkness, but you could be Allegiance: Khorne and thus use Blood Tithe, artefacts etc out of Blades of Khorne (and the same with Tzeentch the other way round).  The allies block would be the slaves one.

What I'm not sure about is if you have a load of Bloodbound, with (for sake of argument) a unit of Chaos Warriors with mark of Khorne.  You would have two factions (thus two allies lists), but Allegiance: Khorne as per the BoK battletome allegiance rule.  This is pretty much unique to Chaos God allegiances at the present time.  My gut feeling is in these cases you can't use allies - or only allies that appear on both lists, either which would make narrative sense (Slaves allies includes Slaanesh for example).

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52 minutes ago, RuneBrush said:

What I'm not sure about is if you have a load of Bloodbound, with (for sake of argument) a unit of Chaos Warriors with mark of Khorne.  You would have two factions (thus two allies lists), but Allegiance: Khorne as per the BoK battletome allegiance rule.  This is pretty much unique to Chaos God allegiances at the present time.  My gut feeling is in these cases you can't use allies - or only allies that appear on both lists, either which would make narrative sense (Slaves allies includes Slaanesh for example).

I'm in the no allies camp - because you're not picking your core army from the same Faction list, you're mix'n'matching.

In effect, the faction/ally system is a way of protecting non-GA allegiance status, whist enforcing some thematic rules on army composition.

I'm a fledgling Deathrattle player, and I am wholly mystified as to why I can't have ghosts in my army while other Death factions can. But there y'go.

Good to know that we'll now have an annual bunch of threads along the lines of "why can't I use everything I like and have all the awesome rules?"

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6 minutes ago, BaldoBeardo said:

I'm in the no allies camp - because you're not picking your core army from the same Faction list, you're mix'n'matching.

In effect, the faction/ally system is a way of protecting non-GA allegiance status, whist enforcing some thematic rules on army composition.

I'm a fledgling Deathrattle player, and I am wholly mystified as to why I can't have ghosts in my army while other Death factions can. But there y'go.

Good to know that we'll now have an annual bunch of threads along the lines of "why can't I use everything I like and have all the awesome rules?"

Think you're right - and certainly the way I'll be playing things until something official comes out :)

Completely agree on Deathrattle too - I've got just over 1k of Deathrattle too and spirits were on the cards to pick up at some point.  That said, I do think it will help give each death faction it's own flavour rather than being a very similar collection of models.

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18 minutes ago, Xasz said:

It's interesting, that the Slaughterbrute and Mutalith are part of two factions tables.

Might support the claim that GW wasn't just lazy...

In all cases I don't think GW or the GH design team is lazy, I just believe they are adding rules to the game that in some cases don't add much or deviate from the orginal design concept for the game. Same example can be found between using a Leader note while there are allready Hero Keywords or using a Behemoth note while there allready are Monster Keywords.

Wether the idea is to have Allegiances and Factions be one and the same, Allegiance being more important as Faction or Faction being more important as Allegiance is what we all would like to know.

I personally don't think it's interesting that the Slaughterbrute in Monsters of Chaos is looking for a Slaves to Darkness Hero while Slaves to Darkness as a Faction cannot Ally with Monsters of Chaos. I do think it's odd. Because sure you can thake the Chaos Allegiance and "mix it all up" but then what is the point of Allies? Only to have it apply for most (note, not all) new Allegiances in the GH2017 book?

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My point is, they could have added one row to BoK and DoT saying + everything from StD with the appropriate mark and they could have added the other Gaunt Summoners to Everchosen but it seems like they deliberately did not.

Either way, we'll not know for sure until GW graces us with a clear cut solution. Until then, we'll all have to workout our own makeshift solutions.

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