List building and allies

[xcom99]

Hello everyone!

I decided to take the plunge into AoS and start up my own army.  Even though I am a long time tabletop gamer.  The way AoS does army list building just utterly confuses me.  The way Azyr and Warscroll work doesn't help much to understand this.  It also seems like the local "veteran" players don't agree with how it's really suppose to work either.  Can someone please, in the most simple and basic way, not assuming I know anything, on how the heck army list building works with these various key words thing.  The main problem I'm having is what is considered a "ally" and what is considered "core troops".  With the way things are, it's not real clear, at least to me, on what is considered what.  So let me first start on what army I do want to run.

I want to run a Slaanesh Chaos army.  I would like to pull options from the "Host of Slaanesh" and "Slaves to Darkness" factions if possible.  It was to my initial understanding that if I ran them both under the Allegiance: Slaanesh, that they both would be considered "normal troops".  I've had a couple people tell me that this is valid, and others tell me that it's not, and that one of them is considered an "ally" of the other.  To run both in a list as "normal troops", they are telling me I have to run it as Allegiance: Chaos.  Of course what is considered a "ally" is important, because you can only spend 20% of your points on them. 

So I guess my question comes down to this.  How do I tell what is a ally, and what is a "normal" choice when list building?  Can I run "Host of Slaanesh" and "Slaves to Darkness" faction together, or is one a ally of the other, with or without the Slaanesh allegiance?

[jkav86]

You can run it all as a Allegiance: Slaanesh army, as long as the Slaves to darkness units you are using allow you to take a mark of chaos and you pick Slaanesh. You can ally in non-Slaanesh marked Slaves to Darkness if you want but they will go towards your allies count. As far as I know, as long as everything has the keyword Slaanesh you are good for that allegiance!

[FRoper]

if you built a slannesh army, you would have to take units from hosts of slannesh, and units of slave to darkness that have the slannesh keyword.  if your army has all the keywords (SLANNESH). you c0an take the alligence abilities of slannesh

. you would ally anything in that hosts of slannesh ally list.

[Myzyrael]

Both @jkav86 and @FRoper have already properly answered your question but I think it's possible to expand the answer a bit for clarity. 

When the Generals Handbook 2017 (GHB17) came out and introduced the allies, some things were quite confusing. Some armies (like chaos) have the problem that the units are listed in different tables of the GHB17, for example Hosts of Slaanesh with the Slaanesh daemons and Slaves to Darkness, with units like Warriors or Knights. 

Age of Sigmar is a keywords (the words written in UPPER CASE) based game, so the keywords that are listed on the bottom of a warscroll determine a lot when it comes to list building. Most important, all units need to share the keyword of their grand alliance (ORDER, CHAOS, DESTRUCTION, DEATH). Then you can use the allegiance of your grand alliance. Next, if all units in your army (not considering allies at this point) share the keyword of a more specific allegiance (for example all units have the SLAANESH) keyword, then you are allowed to choose the slaanesh allegiance. So if you pick all your units from the Hosts of Slaanesh table, you could either choose the Chaos or the Slaanesh allegiance (but not both). 

But some units can gain keywords, either when writing your list (like Chaos Marauders, Warriors, Knights, .. with their mark of chaos) or upon deployment. If you can assign them the correct keyword latest at deployment, you can still go for a specific allegiance. So when you want to run Chaos Warriors with your Hosts of Slaanesh, that's fine as long as you give them the Mark of Chaos: Slaanesh, as they will gain the SLAANESH keyword at the time you are writing the list. 

Your allegiance also determines the allies you are allowed to take. And here comes the brainf****. Slaanesh is your desired allegiance, but there is no Slaanesh table in GHB17, only Hosts of Slaanesh. They didn't put it in the FAQ as far as I know, but there was some article on their site, saying that Host of Slaanesh and Slaanesh allegiance indeed can considered to be the same for the purpose of choosing allies. So, when you want to go for allegiance: Slaanesh, you can take up to 20% of your points (400 in a 2000 points game) of units without (!) the SLAANESH keyword, as long as they have a keyword listed under the eligible allies underneath the Hosts of Slaanesh table in GHB17. But if you include any unit that is neither SLAANESH, nor listed as an ally, the most common keyword all your units share should be CHAOS, so you can only go for chaos allegiance. 

You also asked for core troops. I think the battle line units are what you are asking for. When you look at the tables, some units will have Battleline listed next to them. You need to have a specific amount of them (3 in 2000 points). Some units will be battle line if you have the allegiance of the GHB17 table they are listed in: called "battleline if".

Hope this helps.

[xcom99]

Sorry about the delay.  It's been a crazy couple days for me.

Okay, so if I understand it correctly, then the following should be a correct 1k list. 

Please no, you should take this over this because this is better comments.  This just a example list to make sure I understand list building correctly.

Allegiance: Slaanesh
- Host: Invaders
Daemon Prince Of Slaanesh (160)
- General
Exalted Hero Of Chaos (80)
- Mark of Chaos: Slaanesh
30 x Daemonettes Of Slaanesh (270)
10 x Hellstriders Of Slaanesh (200)
- Claw spear
10 x Chaos Chosen (280)
- Mark of Chaos: Slaanesh

Total: 990 / 1000
Allies: 0 / 200

This would be correct and the Slaves to Darkness units are not considered allies because of the Slaanesh Mark. 

If I didn't give them the Slaanesh mark, and let's say I gave them Tzeentch's  mark, then they would be allies instead and limited to the 20% of total points rule.  

 

[brimmstorm]

I'm new too and am working on building a Mortal/Everchosen list, and it's way more complicated than the olden days.  Is the only option for a battleline unit in a Everchosen army Varnagard? Or can I use use Marauders because they are Mortals? 

[BaldoBeardo]

On 21/12/2017 at 9:32 PM, brimmstorm said:

I'm new too and am working on building a Mortal/Everchosen list, and it's way more complicated than the olden days.  Is the only option for a battleline unit in a Everchosen army Varnagard? Or can I use use Marauders because they are Mortals? 

No, you can't use Marauders because if you have an Everchosen army then Marauders are allies and so don't count towards minimum requirements. (GHB2017 p.78)

[Snakeb1te]

Hi could someone help me out with two questions regarding allies/allegiance?