Allies in 2nd ed

[Mandzak-Miniatures]

Having been inundated with work, now vacation and then heading to Asia for work I haven’t had time to get the new books.

could someone explain to me how the new allies work? Also how it works with realm artifacts and such? 

My understanding is something has changed

[AaronWilson]

Allies are till 200 at 1k, 400 at 2k & 500 at 2.5k. Allies can't make use of allegiance abilities. 

[Guest]

Also there's now a unit count limit on allies (proportional to the number of units in your army) as well as a points limit. You have to conform to both.

EDIT: This only applies to Matched Play. Do whatever you like in Narrative and Open.

[RuneBrush]

4 hours ago, Jamie the Jasper said:

Also there's now a unit count limit on allies (proportional to the number of units in your army) as well as a points limit. You have to conform to both.

EDIT: This only applies to Matched Play. Do whatever you like in Narrative and Open.

The 1 in 4 limit applies to all types of play as it's now in the core rules - arguably in Open play you could run however you want though

[Guest]

2 minutes ago, RuneBrush said:

The 1 in 4 limit applies to all types of play as it's now in the core rules - arguably in Open play you could run however you want though

Hmmm. You're right. Sigh. Was there really a burning need for this kind of arbitrary restriction outside matched play?

[RuneBrush]

3 minutes ago, Jamie the Jasper said:

Hmmm. You're right. Sigh. Was there really a burning need for this kind of arbitrary restriction outside matched play?

Not sure, I guessed it was to try and ensure that armies followed a "theme" so to speak.  I've never seen a scenario where it's been abused but I'm sure it has been.

[Guest]

7 minutes ago, RuneBrush said:

Not sure, I guessed it was to try and ensure that armies followed a "theme" so to speak.  I've never seen a scenario where it's been abused but I'm sure it has been.

I can think of plenty of compelling and entirely cohesive themes using multiple factions (even combining multiple grand alliances) that are either impossible or very difficult to field 'legally' under the current rules and not even remotely game-breaking. If anything they'd suffer hugely from a lack of synergies and access to allegiance abilities.

Not a fan of adding more restrictive rules (or more layers of rules) just to appease/negate a tiny minority of people who deliberately try to break the game or ****** over their fellow players.

[AaronWilson]

To be fair Jamie if you and locally like minded players don't like it, just ignore it It's your game to enjoy and play in the way you want it. 

[Guest]

6 minutes ago, AaronWIlson said:

To be fair Jamie if you and locally like minded players don't like it, just ignore it It's your game to enjoy and play in the way you want it. 

I agree, and I'm lucky to have a very relaxed and largely like-minded group that would probably be happy to let me field some of my 'illegal' themed armies. Many other people won't be as lucky though.

We're all at the mercy of group-think to some extent, and if your group doesn't broadly share the same mindset then you're pretty much forced to default to rules-as-written, whether that's the best fit for you or not. Also, if your group or area is unduly influenced by the competitive-dominated group-think of the internet, then if you're inclined towards a more relaxed, story-driven and creative approach then you're also out of luck.

I don't have this problem personally, but it doesn't mean that I can't recognise it and make the case against things that exacerbate it.

[AaronWilson]

1 minute ago, Jamie the Jasper said:

I agree, and I'm lucky to have a very relaxed and largely like-minded group that would probably be happy to let me field some of my 'illegal' themed armies. Many other people won't be as lucky though.

We're all at the mercy of group-think to some extent, and if your group doesn't broadly share the same mindset then you're pretty much forced to default to rules-as-written, whether that's the best fit for you or not. Also, if your group or area is unduly influenced by the competitive-dominated group-think of the internet, then if you're inclined towards a more relaxed, story-driven and creative approach then you're also out of luck.

I don't have this problem personally, but it doesn't mean that I can't recognise it and make the case against things that exacerbate it.

Yeah that's totally fair, I don't think GW have exactly put any math behind the 1 in 4 number and rather thrown it out there without any logic. I hope it does hinder any local narrative / open players in creating forces that's for sure. 

[bsharitt]

1 hour ago, Jamie the Jasper said:

Hmmm. You're right. Sigh. Was there really a burning need for this kind of arbitrary restriction outside matched play?

A lot of people seem to conflate "Open Play" with being a free for all, but it's still a structured way to play with the core rules, matched play just adds more structure. In first edition RAW, I don't think allies even existed in "Open Play"(as opposed to free for all and house rules) and you couldn't technically use individual allegiance abilities with mixed armies(unless you had some of the mixed battalions). So the core allies rules now allow you to bring allies in Open Play without having to resort to open play.

[Guest]

15 minutes ago, bsharitt said:

A lot of people seem to conflate "Open Play" with being a free for all, but it's still a structured way to play with the core rules, matched play just adds more structure. In first edition RAW, I don't think allies even existed in "Open Play"(as opposed to free for all and house rules) and you couldn't technically use individual allegiance abilities with mixed armies(unless you had some of the mixed battalions). So the core allies rules now allow you to bring allies in Open Play without having to resort to open play.

 

Technically you're correct in saying that there were no allies in Open Play in 1st edition - because there were no army composition restrictions at all.

I know full well that Open Play isn't a free for all. But it's never had army composition restrictions until now. Neither has Narrative. I play Open and Narrative regularly, more so than Matched, which is exactly why I don't want army composition restrictions from Matched Play creeping into Narrative and Open for no good reason.

If rules designed solely to curb the worst instincts of a minority of power gamers find their way into the core rules that apply to everyone, then Open and Narrative start to become little more than alternative flavours of Matched Play. No one of the mindset that specifically chooses Open or Narrative over Matched is looking to exploit the game in that way anyway, so why force these needlessly restrictive rules to apply to those players?

Grrr. 

[bsharitt]

35 minutes ago, Jamie the Jasper said:

I know full well that Open Play isn't a free for all. But it's never had army composition restrictions until now

But allegiance abilities have been tied to army construction since they became a thing. The introduction off allies in matched an narrative play is also an introduction of allegiance abilities in mixed armies for open and narrative play.  Technically if you were using them in mixed armies before, you were using house rules.