Allies and allegiance abilities

[Matthew Noble]

TL:DR Do you believe gw intend allies never gain from allegiance abilities or do the rules allow for it to potentially apply?

Hi, please discuss and be nice to everyone. I want this to be a thought provoking process not a how to break the system. No one wants that.

With that allow me to explain a theory I have with allies having recently purchased the Legions of Nagash battle time. 

Reading the allegiance abilities of each kind of army I've noticed the rule for Deathless minions is this, 

'Roll a dice each time you allocate a wound or mortal wound to a friendly DEATH unit within 6" of your general or another friendly DEATH HERO. On a 6+ the wound is negated'

This is the same as it is for the Grand Alliance AA. 

Now I'm building a Legion of Nagash force (not yet decided on the specific legion yet). But I'll likely want to use some of my painted Flesh Eaters to get me into a game sooner. But this got me thinking, when do these abilities apply to allies if at all. 

In the GHB17 for the Flesh Eaters AA it has a similar except it specifies FLESH-EATER COURTS as the keyword which 100% rules out applying to any allies. So again does that mean in the LoN book was it a deliberate choice to keyword DEATH instead of LEGION OF NIGHT for example.

So again in GHB17 on page 76 I decided to read up about allies. It states

'Allied units are treated as part of the player's army, except that they are not included when working out the army's allegiance  or the number of battleline units in the army, and an allied unit cannot be the general.'

So that states they are part of your army for all intents and purposes. Other than the general it doesn't state allied heros can't have an artifact thought I'm not 100% convinced they can. However the next bit in GHB17 is telling when it comes to AA, 

'Remember that in most cases allegiance abilities only work for units with the appropriate keyword, '

and then the book provides and example. 

I underlined 'most' because that is what got me thinking that the GHB17 isn't ruling out AA applying the allies. 

So going back to LoN book, Deathless minions for each of the 'Legion of xxx' and the Grand host of Nagash' AA  may now mean that even an allied DEATH HERO can provide the ability.

There is more to discuss, especially concern the Magic selection but I think the above is at least a good starting discussion. 

It also makes me wonder if anyone has noticed in other battletomes similar keyword uses that may have been missed that could apply to allies.

 

[EMMachine]

Okay, let's roll up this topic entirely:

At first we have the Allegiance, Allegiance Keywords and Allies. (Generals Handbook 2017)

First the Allegiance

Page 116, Allegiance

Quote

Every unit and warscroll battalion in Warhammer Age of Sigmar owes allegiance to one of the Grand Alliances - either ORDER,CHAOS, DEATH or DESTRUCTION. The Grand Alliance a unit belongs to is determined by the keyword on the warscroll; so if a unit has the ORDER keyword, it is part of the ORDER Grand Alliance

Many units and warscroll battalions also have more specific allegiances, for example, STORMCAST ETERNALS or SLAANESH. An army can have a specific allegiance if all the starting units and warscroll battalions in the army have the keyword for that allegiance, including any units that you assign a keyword to during set-up. ...

When your army qualifies for more than one allegiance you must choose which allegiance you choose yill apply for the duration of the battle, even if you add new units to the army during the battle that have a different allegiance

So, the Alegiance is based on on a Keyword of the Warscrolls or Warscroll Battalion you include into your army. And if you have more than one Keyword you can choose one of the Allegiances that all your units have.

Next Alllegiance Abilities:

Quote

An army with an allegiance can use the allegiance abilities specific to that allegiance in any game of Warhammer Age of Sigmar. Allegiance abilities allow your army to use certain battle traits, command traits and artefacts of power. Only units in the army with the appropriate allegiance keyword can benefit from these abilities.

...

So Allegance Abilites are keywordbased and can be chosen for the Allegiance the army has. This is interesing in cases where more than 2 Keywords are possible

Next we have Allies. There Rules are on page 76 for Pitched Battle. Here we have to parts with the paragraphs 3 and 4

Quote

Allied units are treated as part of the player's army, exept that they are not included when working out the army's allegiance or the number  if Battleline units in the army, and allied models cannot be the army general. ...

Remember, that in most cases allegiance abilities only work for units with the appropriate keyword. So, for example STORMCAST ETERNAL allegiance abilities would only apply to the STORMCAST ETERNAL units in the army, and not their allies.

So we get the information that allied units are ignored when the allegiance is chosen and the minimum requirements and that allegiance Abilities are keyword based and only apply to the keyword.

On page 77 Army Roster we have the additional information about Allegiance Abilities in the last paragraph

Quote

You must also record the allegiance abilities for your army. You can choose to take either the allegiance abilities for the allegiance your army belongs to, or the allegiance abilities for the Grand Alliance your army belongs to. For example, an army with the STORMCAST ETERNALS allegiance could either use the Stormcast Eternals allegiance abilities or the Order allegiance abilities

So, we can have the Battlelines of the specific allegiance and the allegiance abilities of the Grand Alliance. After all we had now that everything is based on Keywords a Order Unit that is Allied with Stormcast Eternals can't benefit from Stormcast Eternals Allegiance Abilites (do to the lack of the STORMCAST ETERNALS Keyword, but could benefit from Order Allegiance Abilities because it has the Order Keyword.

Now there is a strange part of the Generals Handbook, the Pitched Battle Profile Explanation on Page 86

Generals Handbook 2017, Page 86, Factions & Allies

Quote

Some factions include a list of allies.

For example, the BRAYHERD faction can have Chaos Gargants, Monsters of Chaos, Thunderscorn and Warherds as allies. 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.

...

This would allow the BRAYHERD units - but not there allies - to use Brayherd allegiance abilities.

Additionally, any Bestigors and Ungors Raiders in the army would count as Battleline units.

Here we get the Information that Allies of Brayherd cannot use Brayherd allegiance abilities but not mentioning the lack of Keyword (if we look into the Allegiance Ability of Brayherd we see that all abilities require the BRAYHERD Keyword, so it is somehow correct but I don't know why this time the mentioning of the keyword is missing on Page 86).

And now we get to Legions of Nagash.

In the end its working the same way like the other rules do to Page 60, Most importent the Point Legions of Nagash

Quote

When you are choosing your army, you may decide it is taken from one of the Legions of Nagash. If you do, choose one of the following faction keywords. All units and warscroll Battalions in your army are selected from this battletome gain that keyword.

• GRAND HOST OF NAGASH
• LEGION OF SACRAMENT
• LEGION OF BLOOD
• LEGION OF NIGHT

So now we know that in case of the Legions all Warscrolls of the Book can get an additional Keyword if they want to use one of the Legions. This prevents that an Allied Hero would get an Artefact because the mentioned Ghul, Mourngul or Knight of Shroud don't get the Legions Keyword

Now we get to the second strange part of the day. In this case that "Unquite Dead" mentioning DEATH HERO for setting up a SUMMABLE UNIT, Deathless Minion mentioning DEATH and DEATH HERO in case of the feel no pain roll. Why didn't they simply use  LEGION OF BLOOD and LEGION OF BLOOD HERO in the Legion of Blood Allegiance Abilites like in the Rule Favoured Retainers? Why Death this time? Because they have these rules 4 times in the books?

Looks a little like an error here, GW made, if units that aren't part of the Legions shouldn't be affected by those rules (after all points we had in this post).

[EMMachine]

I first thought that allies would't be affected by allegiance stuff, but in the end everything that is part of the allegiance Ability stuff is Keyword Based not Allegiance Based.

I mean, in case of the rules of Allies the last paragraph says:

Quote

Remember, that in most cases allegiance abilities only work for units with the appropriate keyword. So, for example STORMCAST ETERNAL allegiance abilities would only apply to the STORMCAST ETERNAL units in the army, and not their allies.

So for example in the case of Artefacts we have to look what the requirement of the artefacts are.

A Duardin Runelord can't take a Artefact of the Stormcast Eternals after the requirement is STORMCAST ETERNALS HERO, but in a Stormcast Allegiance with Order Allegiance Abilites it should be possible after the Order Artefacts have the requirement ORDER HERO.

I don't have the Nagashbook at this moment, but if the Abilites only have DEATH or DEATH HERO as a requirement a Flesh-Eater Court Model that fits with these Keywords should be affected even if he is an ally.

[AmurayiWestgate]

Allies don't profit from allegiance abilities. The army clearly defines which models can be part of it.

 

i.a. If you play "Legion of Night", Legion of Blood"... they only cover warscrolls in this book. This clearly defines which warscrolls are part of that allegiance.
This means any ghouls, FW's Mourngul and the new harbinger "Kendrek, Knight of Shrouds" don't profit from "Deathless Minions".

[EMMachine]

15 minutes ago, AmurayiWestgate said:

Allies don't profit from allegiance abilities. The army clearly defines which models can be part of it.

 

i.a. If you play "Legion of Night", Legion of Blood"... they only cover warscrolls in this book. This clearly defines which warscrolls are part of that allegiance.
This means any ghouls, FW's Mourngul and the new harbinger "Kendrek, Knight of Shrouds" don't profit from "Deathless Minions".

Please Page of the book and Rule quote for that statement.

In most cases it's the lack of keywords not a rule that forbids it. See the quote from page 76 of the Generals Handbook (in my post before).

[TheOtherJosh]

For the Legions of Nagash battletome, they explicitly call out the following on p.60

“When you are choosing your army, you may decide it is taken from one of the Legions of Nagash. If you do, choose one of the following faction keywords. All units and warscroll battalions in your army selected from this battletome gain that keyword.”

Only units that are in the LoN battletome can gain the Legions of Nagash individual keyword. I.e. Not Keldrek and other NIGHTHAUNT units that aren’t in the Battletome. And they aren’t available as Allies to any army other than a SOULBLIGHT army.

In the case of Artefacts/Command Traits, If they don’t meet the Allegiance requirement they can’t be given.

In regards to Battle Traits, If they don’t meet the requirements of the Battle Trait then it wouldn’t apply.

Many of the Battle Traits don’t apply.

17 minutes ago, EMMachine said:

Remember, that in most cases allegiance abilities only work for units with the appropriate keyword. (p.76 GHB 2017)

Chosen Guardians and Legions Innumerable, as examples both would have requirements that can’t be met. (Requires Grand Host of Nagash keyword)

The requirements for Deathless Minions, however, can be met so units that can meet the requirement would benefit from the Trait.

Unquiet Dead would also apply as the requirement is friendly DEATH HERO. However, there are no units with the SUMMONABLE keyword in FEC so you could only apply the effects to an applicable unit.

[Matthew Noble]

8 minutes ago, EMMachine said:

Okay, let's roll up this topic entirely:

At first we have the Allegiance, Allegiance Keywords and Allies. (Generals Handbook 2017)

First the Allegiance

Page 116, Allegiance

So, the Alegiance is based on on a Keyword of the Warscrolls or Warscroll Battalion you include into your army. And if you have more than one Keyword you can choose one of the Allegiances that all your units have.

Next Alllegiance Abilities:

So Allegance Abilites are keywordbased and can be chosen for the Allegiance the army has. This is interesing in cases where more than 2 Keywords are possible

Next we have Allies. There Rules are on page 76 for Pitched Battle. Here we have to parts with the paragraphs 3 and 4

So we get the information that allied units are ignored when the allegiance is chosen and the minimum requirements and that allegiance Abilities are keyword based and only apply to the keyword.

On page 77 Army Roster we have the additional information about Allegiance Abilities in the last paragraph

So, we can have the Battlelines of the specific allegiance and the allegiance abilities of the Grand Alliance. After all we had now that everything is based on Keywords a Order Unit that is Allied with Stormcast Eternals can't benefit from Stormcast Eternals Allegiance Abilites (do to the lack of the STORMCAST ETERNALS Keyword, but could benefit from Order Allegiance Abilities because it has the Order Keyword.

Now there is a strange part of the Generals Handbook, the Pitched Battle Profile Explanation on Page 86

Generals Handbook 2017, Page 86, Factions & Allies

Here we get the Information that Allies of Brayherd cannot use Brayherd allegiance abilities but not mentioning the lack of Keyword (if we look into the Allegiance Ability of Brayherd we see that all abilities require the BRAYHERD Keyword, so it is somehow correct but I don't know why this time the mentioning of the keyword is missing on Page 86).

And now we get to Legions of Nagash.

In the end its working the same way like the other rules do to Page 60, Most importent the Point Legions of Nagash

So now we know that in case of the Legions all Warscrolls of the Book can get an additional Keyword if they want to use one of the Legions. This prevents that an Allied Hero would get an Artefact because the mentioned Ghul, Mourngul or Knight of Shroud don't get the Legions Keyword

Now we get to the second strange part of the day. In this case that "Unquite Dead" mentioning DEATH HERO for setting up a SUMMABLE UNIT, Deathless Minion mentioning DEATH and DEATH HERO in case of the feel no pain roll. Why didn't they simply use  LEGION OF BLOOD and LEGION OF BLOOD HERO in the Legion of Blood Allegiance Abilites like in the Rule Favoured Retainers? Why Death this time? Because they have these rules 4 times in the books?

Looks a little like an error here, GW made, if units that aren't part of the Legions shouldn't be affected by those rules (after all points we had in this post).

Thanks EMMachine you've put a lot of time and effort into that reply.  This is exactly the kind of thorough thought process and respectful response I was after. 

It does make you wonder if it is in fact deliberate of GW to select the  keywords DEATH and DEATH HERO for the abilities mentioned for the individual LoNagash Army Alliances. But as you said it could be a mistake. 

I feel comfortable asking for your opinion on another benefit in a  LoNagash Army Alliances due to it's odd keyword and phrasing choice that I noticed.

First  a quote from GHB17:

Quote

Allied units are treated as part of the player's army

Which may have more meaning when we read this statement under the  example I'm giving from the 'GRAND HOST OF NAGASH' Allegiance Abilities.

Quote

MAGIC

All WIZARDS in a GRAND HOST OF NAGASH army know an additional spell from on of the Lores of the Dead...

Now I first read this as everyone  else did, which tbh I fully expect to play it this way, that a GRAND HOST OF NAGASH WIZARD can have a spell from the Lores of the Dead. 

However the phrase sort makes me think if allies are considered a part of your army, your army's keyword being GRAND HOST OF NAGASH, does that mean an allied WIZARD can have an additional spell??? 

This is something I'm thinking is more likely to be a mistake or just needs re written for clarification, but it is interesting. 

Keywords are all well and good but I was wondering if GW was going to start doing interesting stuff with keyword selection to allow for combos that don't break anything but simply allow for interesting but balanced armies. I'm not sure if this is what they attempted here but absolutely wanted to talk about it cause it could be exciting if they start to do this more often.  

[EMMachine]

24 minutes ago, TheOtherJosh said:

Unquiet Dead would also apply as the requirement is friendly DEATH HERO. However, there are no units with the SUMMONABLE keyword in FEC so you could only apply the effects to an applicable unit. 

The strange part is, that with this background a Allied Ghulking could raise a unit of Zombies or Skeletons because both have the SUMMONABLE keyword. Don't know if this was intended by GW or if they messed up this part because of copy & pasting the rule 4 times.

20 minutes ago, Matthew Noble said:

Thanks EMMachine you've put a lot of time and effort into that reply.  This is exactly the kind of thorough thought process and respectful response I was after. 

If you know where you have to find all that stuff it doesn't take that long. Most of the time was typing everything. The mainpoint for making this was because I was quite sick of it, reading everytime the sentence "allies can't be affected by allegiance abilities", because every rule (perpaps exept for the strange wording with the pitched Battle profiles) only say that you need the Keyword. So page 86 is a little off in that case.

 

20 minutes ago, Matthew Noble said:

Now I first read this as everyone  else did, which tbh I fully expect to play it this way, that a GRAND HOST OF NAGASH WIZARD can have a spell from the Lores of the Dead. 

However the phrase sort makes me think if allies are considered a part of your army, your army's keyword being GRAND HOST OF NAGASH, does that mean an allied WIZARD can have an additional spell??? 

This is something I'm thinking is more likely to be a mistake or just needs re written for clarification, but it is interesting.

You can get to this oppinion after reading the Rules for the Legions Allegiance Abilities, but in case of magic there is another point to read. In fact it's page 70 "Lores of the Dead"

Quote

WIZARDS that know an additional spell (or spells) from one of the Lores of the Dead, as descripted in their army's allegiance abilities, generate their spells from the following tables.

You must generate any additional spells for DEATHMAGES WIZARDS from the Lore of the Deathmages, whilst those for VAMPIRE WIZARDS must be generated from the lore of the Vampires. For DEATHLORDS WIZARDS, you may generate eachg of their additional spells from either lore. ...

Even if the Allegiance Abilities say "All WIZARDS" in the end only Wizards with the DEATHMAGES, VAMPIRE or DEATHLORDS Keyword will get a additional Spell.