Dealing with Keyword Allegiances

[WoollyMammoth]

A focal point of Matched Play is the new concept of keyword allegiances.

According to the Generals Handbook, all models have to be in the same Grand Alliance. Then you pick the models you like. Before the battle, you have to declare your Allegiance - the common background that all your troops share.

In order to declare your Allegiance, all models in your army must share this keyword on their scroll.

At first glance, I figured this was just a way so you cant cheat the system and have say, both Stormfiends and Plague Monks as Battleline units. You have to declare either SKYRE or PESTILENS as your Allegiance to get more powerful units as core, and skip out on fielding 60 Clanrats to fill up the 'Battleline Tax'.

If you want to mix and match, pick the strongest units in your entire grand alliance, then you are stuck paying a 'Battleline Tax' which is really a bit of a pain.

The Generals Handbook also brings in this exciting new concept of Allegiance Abilities: a Battle Trait & Command Traits for your general. But, these are tied to CHAOS, ORDER, DEATH and DESTRUCTION allegiance exclusively.

What does this mean? We'll it means as soon as you declare your Death armys allegiance as Flesh-Eater Courts, you LOSE the ability to take the Death Battle trait or give your general a cool ability. For example I can make a Crypt Haunter Courtier my general and take 3 units of Crypt Horrors as core 'battleline' units, bypassing the need to make a horde army of Ghouls in order to pay my 'battleline tax'. Seems cool right?

Except unfortunately this means that now I also forfeit my Battle Trait, and the ability to make my Courtier a respectable general by giving him a command trait. 

So who would anyone ever choose to give up all the cool new stuff just to get around some battleline issues? It really makes no sense, everyone will want to  take all the awesome new rules and to make the most optimal lists - so throw in two Bastiladons with your Stormcast, or a Necrosphinx in with your Flesh-Eater Courts, or a Thundertusk with your Ironjaws. Why not? The new rules are promoting power play and just picking whatever is best, and then dealing with the battleline tax as efficiently as possible.

Having limited armies and thematic lists is going to be for Narrative Play I guess..

The last line describing having to pick one allegiance only says:
"These restrictions aside, you can use allegiance abilities whenever and wherever you play your games of Warhammer Age of Sigmar"

But, if you chose a specific keyword allegiance, your army does not have any allegiance abilities? So you cannot use them? So - what does this line mean?

It may be a mistake in the rules, perhaps they did not mean to take away these abilities if you choose a sub-faction as your allegiance. Another theory is that they will make specific abilities for each sub-faction, giving each faction more of its own identity. This would require lots and lots of more custom rules, but perhaps in recent fashion they will be available on the app for micro-transaction sales.   

In either case, until we know more, picking a sub faction to have different battleline options does not appear to an efficient way to build your army, and it certainly does not seem fun to skip out on all the new allegiance ability rules. So we are either going to be sticking in some filler unit of 10 models, or mass assembly line painting to keep our battleline units a respectable size. This is going to be a pretty harsh point of contention for new players.

"I like that hellpit abomination, and that doomwheel, can I use them?"
"Yes but now you have to buy 3 boxes of these clanrats or you cant play matched play"
.......

Obviously this is the way it was in 8th and you have to have restrictions in your list building for fair play, but I find it very surprising that the framework is there to make battleline interesting and more manageable, yet they are pushing us all to ignore that framework or miss out on a bunch of exciting and cool new rules. The new ideas of allegiance traits and batteline seem to be at odds with each other.

Other than this, I think the Generals Handbook is really exciting and I am excited to see what this means for AoS. They will probably release sub sets of allegiance traits and abilities so that this makes more sense, but we wont know anything until the generals handbook is released.
 

[daedalus81]

I think you're missing a crucial piece - battalions.

If i want to play a Bloodwrack Sisterhood I MUST take a ton of Witch Elves along with lots of other stuff that will eat the majority of my points.  Giving the witch elves battleline still allows me to use the battalion without having to grab some other army, but my loss is that I don't get the allegiance benefits.

Do I want a free pile-in near the cauldron or reroll battleshock plus a trait?  

You can't have your cake and eat it, too.

The nice bit is that we can switch allegiances from game to game should the need or opportunity arise.

 

[WoollyMammoth]

That's a good point, however you have to pay for battalions, while allegiance abilities are free. There's nothing stopping you from fielding 3 units of 10 freeguild guard for 240 points, then using the remaining 1760 points on a shrine, a ton of witch elves and a witch elf battalion. 

3 freeguild - 240
Cauldron - 220
3 units of 30 witches - 1260
Sisterhood Batallion - 40
1760 - still 240 points for whatever else you like.

Now you make your shrine also boost all witches to re-roll failed charges, or double down on protection rolling an additional 6+ to ignore wounds/mortal. As order your entire army is re-rolling battleshock tests as well which really helps keep the witches alive. That and all the battalion goodies. Also, since you are taking a battalion you now also get TWO free artefacts.

All this goodness merely at the cost of fielding some cheap "human slave" units to screen your witches advance, which also provides a tactical advantage.

lots of cake there, and nothing stopping you from eating it all. 

[daedalus81]

That depends on what function battleline units will play in the scenarios.  If all I have to worry about is 240 points of battleline to win then it may not be a huge advantage.

[WoollyMammoth]

That's another good point, cant really hold an objective with some junk unit. I think that will be a major factor.

While functional, its very saddening to have to give up all these cool new rules for allegiance if you want to run a list like witches. I hope they make individual allegiance traits and command traits to make up the difference, then I think it will be perfect. 

[daedalus81]

Yea, it seems like an easy reach for them.  There will no doubt be some lists that focus more on beating the ****** out of anything in sight that could cause some heartburn and hopefully GW is a little more lithe with point changes this time.  I feel like I can make a far better all-comers list now than I ever could with plain WoC in 8th - WLCs, stormfiends, flamers, LoC...

I do wish we had more info on the scenarios.  Hopefully they are creative and useful to the meta game.

[mmimzie]

 theres two things here.

1 yes you can only get one allegiance. This means to get those exclusive battleline units you gotta loose out on your grand alliance buff.
 

2. It's more than very likely that each sub faction will eventually get thier own allegiance bonus.This is basicly our big book of rules. So, it's got lots of generic stuff. Once we have more development it's very likely we'll get alliegances for each subfaction. This of the grand alliances as CADs from 40k. 

[Veterannoob]

I guess I don't see the issue. I know I. Won't and many of my fellow gamers won't be min maxing or taking best units but for those of us with solo faction, expensively ones with so few unit choices, we get to have a fluffy rule which helps us compete more with mixed GA armies.  

[PJetski]

You can't have mixed GA armies in Pitched Battles

[WoollyMammoth]

Lately I've been working on Stormcast and FE-Courts. Comparing these two factions you get a good idea of the natural trend to just take the best units in your grand alliance.

First off you have stormcast. Theres no reason to even take the stormcast keyword. You got liberators and judicators, filling BL is easy. Liberators are going to carry their weight and, properly supported are going to be able to do whatever you need them to do in a scenario. Now with the allegiance trait, all your troops are going to re-roll battleshock - which for stormcast means very little fleeing. Since battleshock is covered you can take a cheap 100 point Lord-Celestant with an amazing command ability and powerful mortal wound shooting. You can then make him reckless so you can re-roll run and charge rolls for everyone near him, countering the slow speed of stormcast. As youre building your list, there are no limitations so you mine as well throw in whatever you feel like - some empire cannons, bastiladon, treelord and whatever else you can fit in.

This is not necessarily about "min maxing" or whatever you want to call it. I have a awesome painted treeman that I'm proud to take, and a bastiladon that i'm working on as part of a decent size seraphon force I'm making. You might just happen to play empire and want to take some of your cannons, I see a lot of stormcast doing that now. Then someone at your club is just taking legal lists that have a lot of powerful units and you just have to keep up. Everyone is forced to migrate toward the strongest list which is natural for competitive games. 

In contrast there is FE-Courts. The only BL option is ghouls. You can make a Crypt Haunter Courtier and make him your general so you can also take Horrors as your BL units. Since he has no command ability youre stuck with Inspiring Presence which really doesn't do much for undead, and you're stuck with a rather mediocre general with no command trait. So this is just completely plain and boring way to go. You make an Abhorrant your general and now you are forced to have only ghouls as BL. This is fine except that 10 ghouls aren't worth their weight and can easily be killed so you need at least 20, optimally 30 per unit. With 3 units that's 60-90 ghouls you have to have to keep your thematic list.

We'll I'm a realist and I don't really want to buy and paint 90 ghouls just to fit in their rules, and I don't have to - I'm not forced to pick only FE-Courts so I can fill in my BL with my unit of 30 ghouls, then bring my skeletons and throw some zombies in too. (Making some of the various BL troops throughout your grand alliance is a lot more fun than assembly line painting 100 of one kind).  Now my army is ignoring death on 6+, an extremely potent ability. I can give my general red fury to become a wrecking ball. Mine as well throw in a necromancer and of course, my beast of a necrosphinx.

In conclusion, most people are not going to want to buy a ton of the same boxes and paint the same models over and over to fill out their BL, and why should they, you are penalized for doing that anyway. If you are just really into making a thematic list you might. So armies with one core option are going to be mostly ignored, and everyone is going to be drawn to making generic lists and as a result every death player is going to have a necrosphinx, every destruction player is going to have a tundertusk, every order player is going to have a bastiladon and every chaos player is going to have a Lord of Change (or whatever unit is figured out to be too powerful for its points). You're either going to be the kind of person who takes the most powerful units to stay competitive, or the kind of person who's just trying to make a thematic list, and doesn't mind losing (and in many cases paying an annoying 'battleline tax')

I expect they will make traits for thematic lists to avoid this issue and make specific lists really fun and competitve, but you never know with GW.     

[mmimzie]

4 minutes ago, WoollyMammoth said:

Lately I've been working on Stormcast and FE-Courts. Comparing these two factions you get a good idea of the inequality between races.

/snip

I expect they will make traits for generic lists to avoid this issue and make thematic lists really fun, but you never know with GW.     

You went down a dramatic road quite quickly, i suspect we'll see allegience abilities for all the subfactions rolled out slowly over the course of the next year. 

 

A counter example for your arguement. You could bring Blood knights as your battle line unit if you go soul blight. Those guys are probably the most cost effective unit point wise, and even if they don't charge they are about as good as any other unit. Plus you still have access to 3 great  leader choices. 2 of which have respectable command abilities.  

[WoollyMammoth]

probably

blood knights are $99 for 5, which presents more problems to make them unrealistic to fill out core. I made 5 dragon knights but I just don't like buying and painting a ton of something just to win games. I put a lot of work into my models and I'm not going to speed paint a ton of models just to win games with the army comp. I know there are a lot that will (or more likely play with unpainted plastic) but that's not me. If they were to release a new gorgeous kit to replace the old one I might, i'm not opposed to making a lot of something if i really enjoy making and painting it.

[mmimzie]

59 minutes ago, WoollyMammoth said:

probably

blood knights are $99 for 5, which presents more problems to make them unrealistic to fill out core. I made 5 dragon knights but I just don't like buying and painting a ton of something just to win games. I put a lot of work into my models and I'm not going to speed paint a ton of models just to win games with the army comp. I know there are a lot that will (or more likely play with unpainted plastic) but that's not me. If they were to release a new gorgeous kit to replace the old one I might, i'm not opposed to making a lot of something if i really enjoy making and painting it.

I'm thinking of doing the blood knights. My army is kinda borked out as spirits aren't battle line, and the zombies/ghouls/skels don't mesh well with my armies high speed nature.  Also i ahve a spirit paint scheme so i need things the fit well looking ghosty.

It's either I make an all spirit army. In which case i'll need more spirits and will have to shelve things like my coven throne and mortis engines. I buy zombie to fill up battleline, but they'll be about 5' behind my army being useless and loose sapce for my necromancer, vamp lord, and some of my spirits. Or i convert out some spirity blood knights and keep my favorite model the coven throne on the board, and also have every unit actually functional in my army... but shelf almost all my spirits. 

Not really sure where i wanna go.

[Druchiilord94]

Il take order alligance any day of the week just so i can take the first command ability (whats that my lord on dragon can use both her unique command ability and inspiring prescence in one turn)

[polarbear]

I'd love special abilities for subfactions. Thought it was a bit missing from the beginning. Would be real flavourful and help separate the armies a bit. Currently think a lot of factions play a bit too similarly.

[Malakithe]

What's the allegiance abilities for ironjawz? The general destruction ones are great

[daedalus81]

7 minutes ago, Malakithe said:

What's the allegiance abilities for ironjawz? The general destruction ones are great

D6 for each of your units within 6" of a general or hero.  That unit moves that many inches and can move normally, but cannot run.

[Malakithe]

18 minutes ago, daedalus81 said:

D6 for each of your units within 6" of a general or hero.  That unit moves that many inches and can move normally, but cannot run.

That's for all destruction. I thought there was more if you had one subfaction?

[Naishy]

22 minutes ago, daedalus81 said:

D6 for each of your units within 6" of a general or hero.  That unit moves that many inches and can move normally, but cannot run.

Just for clarity, with that ability a unit can move D6 inches in the Hero phase, like it was the movement phase but cannot also run.  In the movement phase you can move and then run if you wish as normal.

[daedalus81]

12 hours ago, WoollyMammoth said:

In contrast there is FE-Courts. The only BL option is ghouls. You can make a Crypt Haunter Courtier and make him your general so you can also take Horrors as your BL units. Since he has no command ability youre stuck with Inspiring Presence which really doesn't do much for undead, and you're stuck with a rather mediocre general with no command trait. So this is just completely plain and boring way to go. You make an Abhorrant your general and now you are forced to have only ghouls as BL. This is fine except that 10 ghouls aren't worth their weight and can easily be killed so you need at least 20, optimally 30 per unit. With 3 units that's 60-90 ghouls you have to have to keep your thematic list.

We'll I'm a realist and I don't really want to buy and paint 90 ghouls just to fit in their rules, and I don't have to - I'm not forced to pick only FE-Courts so I can fill in my BL with my unit of 30 ghouls, then bring my skeletons and throw some zombies in too. (Making some of the various BL troops throughout your grand alliance is a lot more fun than assembly line painting 100 of one kind).  Now my army is ignoring death on 6+, an extremely potent ability. I can give my general red fury to become a wrecking ball. Mine as well throw in a necromancer and of course, my beast of a necrosphinx.

In conclusion, most people are not going to want to buy a ton of the same boxes and paint the same models over and over to fill out their BL, and why should they, you are penalized for doing that anyway. If you are just really into making a thematic list you might. So armies with one core option are going to be mostly ignored, and everyone is going to be drawn to making generic lists and as a result every death player is going to have a necrosphinx, every destruction player is going to have a tundertusk, every order player is going to have a bastiladon and every chaos player is going to have a Lord of Change (or whatever unit is figured out to be too powerful for its points). You're either going to be the kind of person who takes the most powerful units to stay competitive, or the kind of person who's just trying to make a thematic list, and doesn't mind losing (and in many cases paying an annoying 'battleline tax')

I expect they will make traits for thematic lists to avoid this issue and make specific lists really fun and competitve, but you never know with GW.     

If a new LoC comes out then i'll be using that, because I want a nice centerpiece model and I don't want to be tied to Archaon since he makes a list so unflexible (which stinks, because I really like Varanguard, but they only work with him).  

In any case regarding FE - you're focusing too much on ghouls when it should be the bonus of taking units like flayers and horrors as BL.  This is what an FE list should look like:

Abhorrant Ghoul King [100]

Crypt Ghast Courtier [80]
30 ghouls [300]

Attendants at Court [100]
Haunter Coutier [120]
3 Horrors [140]
3 Horrors [140]

Royal Menagerie [60]
Terrorgheist [320]
Terrorghesit [320]
Zombie Dragon [320]

2000 on the dot and comes with a wealth of benefits and synergy.  That's also a $400 army before discounts.

[WoollyMammoth]

@daedalus81
That's a poor list. You have to split up the ghouls into units of 10 to be legal (and more importantly, get the amazing allegiance trait and command trait). You could make the Haunter the General to make the list legal by throwing away the incredibly useful new rules for a half decent general. Meanwhile half of the point of Attendants at Court is to allow your Abhorrant General to use two command abilities - which since your Haunter is general is thrown out. Additionally Royal Menagerie requires an Abhorrant general to get the free 6" move so youre basically wasting your points on that as well.

This list does not make use of an Abhorrant on Terrorgheist which is the best unit in the book and makes for an amazing general - heal D3, insane unique spell and command ability which allows you to summon 3 horrors/flayers with unlimited range. He files into the heart of battle, becomes nearly invulnerable while providing synergy to all the ghouls/horrors around him, and then can easily eat half an army by himself.

Since the entire book is focused around Abhorrants the idea of making a courtier your general is silly and a bad idea, so you would build your list with more variety and add in the best units in the Death Alliance. The courtier thing seems like something you might try in a 1000 point battle, but is too weak for a 2000+ standard battle.

It's fun to theorycraft lists but things can look very different on the table. As someone who is playing FE-courts in age of sigmar I can tell you, you need 60+ ghouls (or other BL units) in this new system to be effective.

The point is the framework is there to make BL manageable - horrors/flayers can be core if I do all FE courts. And I am doing FE courts. But to claim the allegiance I have to miss out on a ton of stuff for no reason, and pick a non abhorrant general when all the rules, concepts and fluff demand an Abhorrant general - Its just silly.

@Malakithe
Factions don't have allegiance abilities or traits, that's the point. We're hoping they will show up

@mmimzie
A mostly spirit host list is incredibly strong. Odd that not even a mortis engine is a nighthaunt. If you make a list of all spirit hosts and a couple mourngul, well - it might be boring but youre never going to lose a game with that list. Unfortunately Hexwraiths are pretty useless.

[WoollyMammoth]

Ben Curry did a cool vid reviewing the new handbook

"hopefully down the line we'll get some race specific or faction specific abilities which i think will be very cool"

Agreed

 

[Malakithe]

That's fine for now. I'll take the potential for t1 charge with 20+ brutes lol

[daedalus81]

Yes, the Haunter would be the general.  I don't find a small summon to be a huge loss with the kind healing himself D3 already and the Menagerie getting 3 wounds a turn (and D3 if near the king).  He would still have his spell, which with FNP is nice on a big unit, but +1A on a unit of ghouls could produce more fruit.  The Menagerie is completely droppable for kings on gheists since its all the same kit anyway.  

Personally i'd probably make the horror units bigger (6 or 9) for some really thick battle line units and make use of the king's spell quite often.

[daedalus81]

I'm not trying to say using said list is the wise thing to do.  Red fury or FNP 5+ is pretty nice, but I don't see it as completely non-viable if you are benefited in some manner by having stronger battleline units.