Battle Brothers- an idea to revamp the Ally system

[Thiagoma]

Here are the objectives around this idea:

-Increase variety of gameplay and armies pn the table, without braking the theme or lore of factions

-Solving the lack of model variety in some factions.

 

What would be the idea:

Each army would have a battle brother faction, the go to ally that makes more sense regarding lore and aesthetics. This battle brothers puld use a pool of points different from the ally one.

So you pick a Faction as usual, and your army must contain at least 1200 pts of the chosen faction.  The remaining 800 would be split into 400 ally pts and 400 Battle Brother points. Jist like Allies, the Battle Brother units would not share traits, bonuses or keywords from the original faction.

Lets pick Wanderers as an example:

Lets say their Battle Brother would be Sylvaneth. The army would have acess to 400 ally pts and 400 Sylvaneth points.

What would that acomplish: it would provide wanderers with behemots and new units to choose from, create new ways to field the army and new strategies around that particular alligeance.

The system would also help factions such as Fyreslayers, Ironjaws, FeC who lack units variety, while keeping lore and looks intact.

Also it would reduce the power gap that happens currently between mixed GA armies and "pure" ones.

What do you guys think?

 

[Galdenistal]

So it would be 1 faction that would be your 'best friend' in the lore?

Seems reasonable, although to keep things simple, I could see them just increasing the ally points %, assuming they make any changes to allies at all.

[Unit1126PLL]

I think this is generally covered by Mixed armies really.

Mixed Order can have 1200 pts of a primary, and 400 points of a secondary, and 400 pts of a tertiary, for example.

Trying to preserve each component's allegiance abilities while having 3 separate allegiances on the board sounds a lot like trying to have your cake and eat it too, and is causing problems with balance in 40k.

If you want 1200 of Stormcast, 400 of Ironweld Arsenal, and 400 of Order Serpentis, just play Mixed Order.

[Thiagoma]

10 minutes ago, Galdenistal said:

So it would be 1 faction that would be your 'best friend' in the lore?

Seems reasonable, although to keep things simple, I could see them just increasing the ally points %, assuming they make any changes to allies at all.

Yup, that would be the idea.  A single fixed faction as Battle Brother.

Other facts could separate the BB fro. The common ally, like for instance allow their battlelines to be used in the army list, or their artifacts ba avaiable as extra choices.

[Thiagoma]

11 minutes ago, Unit1126PLL said:

I think this is generally covered by Mixed armies really.

Mixed Order can have 1200 pts of a primary, and 400 points of a secondary, and 400 pts of a tertiary, for example.

Trying to preserve each component's allegiance abilities while having 3 separate allegiances on the board sounds a lot like trying to have your cake and eat it too, and is causing problems with balance in 40k.

If you want 1200 of Stormcast, 400 of Ironweld Arsenal, and 400 of Order Serpentis, just play Mixed Order.

The main difference is that the arny would use traits, artifacts and and rules from Stormcast Eternals and not the GA ones. And the Battle Brother would be determinated by GW, not a player choice. 

In the example of the Wanderers would Always have Sylvaneth as their BB.

This would create a new way to allow alternative builds and make mixed armies more competitive, since with each release the Great Alliance armies drop in power.

[PJetski]

Allies is already a good system, restricted enough to allow some creativity and open new options without breaking the internal balance of the faction or the balance of the game as a whole. 20% is a sweet spot where you can bring some cool things but not enough to really swing the identity of your faction.

Allowing some factions to double the ally maximums could upset that delicate balance. Every faction would have to be balanced around up to 40% of their army being warscrolls from another book... that sounds like a design nightmare. It also sounds awful for people collecting an army to be told that their army sucks without bringing 800 points of another faction.

Giving Allies access to allegiance abilities is a terrible idea for Matched Play.

I'm not sure I understand which problem you are trying to fix that won't be fixed by the end of 2019 when every faction has a battletome. 

[Unit1126PLL]

3 minutes ago, Thiagoma said:

The main difference is that the arny would use traits, artifacts and and rules from Stormcast Eternals and not the GA ones. And the Battle Brother would be determinated by GW, not a player choice. 

In the example of the Wanderers would Always have Sylvaneth as their BB.

This would create a new way to allow alternative builds and make mixed armies more competitive, since with each release the Great Alliance armies drop in power.

The problem is that it makes mixed armies too competitive, unless you're saying the army can only still be one Allegiance (e.g. Stormcast Eternals). In which case, it's basically saying "Allies points should double" which is whatever.
I assumed what is being asked for is for the "Battle Brothers" and the "Primary" to be equal parts of a list (except in points), so for example the Wanderers keep all their allegiance buffs and the Sylvaneth keep all their allegiance buffs, allowing for weird armies that take a Sylvaneth General with a Sylvaneth command trait and a Wanderer artifact, while both of them get allegiance abilities. That would be like how 40k has it, and it's silly.

[Thiagoma]

Only the main force would keep its alligeance.

[Unit1126PLL]

9 minutes ago, Thiagoma said:

Only the main force would keep its alligeance.

In that case, all you're advocating for is shifting around the Alliance points. No need for some complicated "Battle Brother" system. Just say "Allies can now be 800 pts. They still get no allegiance abilities, still don't make up your mandatory selections, etc." and be done with it. That will allow greater freedom and less complexity.

[dekay]

Coming to AoS from 40k:

Giving allies access to anything more they have now is.. risky. It's easily doable in 40k and is a source of most broken things game has to offer in its current state. What I like about current ally system is that it's limited - just a few units, and no option to give them their army-wide skills they would have on their own.

And if it's not enough for you, there's an option to build a Grand Alliance army - you sacrifice *all* the bonuses for full freedom with building your army and it's up to you to make it work. Or, in some cases you fit into a free city or such with your selection and get a small bonus anyway. 

I think they way to make it work, avoiding the mess that 40k ally system is, would be to just add more options similar to free city rules. It's a grand alliance army, but if it uses only this specific set of factions, it gains a bonus (weaker one than a single faction army would get). Thouse would be a fun and probably nort broken additions.

I can imagine some just 2-3 faction sets (Sylvaneth+Wanderers, 3 Duardin factions, and so on) getting a suitably bigger bonus compared to 6 faction free cities though.

 

 

[willange]

I like the idea and my group already plays similarly to this.  We are pretty lenient on how many points of allies can be brought, and we also only give the allegiance abilities to the primary faction.  From what we've seen, there comes a point where brining, say, 800 points of allies can be a detriment to your army rather than a boon since you miss out on lots of abilities.  However, there are ways to "game" this system with certain factions benefiting a lot more from certain allies than most would.  For that reason, it could be a problem in matched play where people are trying to win first and be thematic second.  My group generally tries to be thematic during list building and then focus on winning once the match actually starts.

[SwampHeart]

In 40k soup is terrible - I don't want it in AoS. 

[Murder Pancake]

Soup armies have made 40k fairly miserable. I don't want to see it in AoS.

[Chikout]

I don’t think this is really necessary. There are only a handful of armies where this is a problem. One thing I would like to is for certain sub factions to be able to slot into specific armies with taking up allied points. For example it would be cool if ironweld arsenal could be taken in a free peoples army or a dispossessed army. Eldritch council could go into free peoples, Phoenix temple or order draconis. The same for lion rangers. Firebellies could go into gut busters or beastclaw raiders. 

This might be a bit tricky with regards to alliegence abilities which we have already seen with grimghast reapers, but it would solve the fractured order problem. Essentially, Free peoples, order Draconis, Phoenix temple and Dispossessed become full factions. Eldritch council, lion rangers, and ironweld arsenal become special ally factions. 

[Undeadly]

1 hour ago, Chikout said:

I don’t think this is really necessary. There are only a handful of armies where this is a problem. One thing I would like to is for certain sub factions to be able to slot into specific armies with taking up allied points. For example it would be cool if ironweld arsenal could be taken in a free peoples army or a dispossessed army. Eldritch council could go into free peoples, Phoenix temple or order draconis. The same for lion rangers. Firebellies could go into gut busters or beastclaw raiders. 

This might be a bit tricky with regards to alliegence abilities which we have already seen with grimghast reapers, but it would solve the fractured order problem. Essentially, Free peoples, order Draconis, Phoenix temple and Dispossessed become full factions. Eldritch council, lion rangers, and ironweld arsenal become special ally factions. 

Or, hear me out on this crazy idea.... We just put those factions in the same book! 

[Chikout]

6 minutes ago, Undeadly said:

Or, hear me out on this crazy idea.... We just put those factions in the same book! 

That would make an 80 warscroll book. Not exactly practical, especially if you want to preserve the unique factions within the book. 

[King Taloren]

10 minutes ago, Chikout said:

That would make an 80 warscroll book. Not exactly practical, especially if you want to preserve the unique factions within the book. 

Yeah at least they spread Nagash over three books so far. 

[Kaleb Daark]

you could take this to an extreme. In the original Realm of Chaos; Slaves toDarkness book, khorne couldn't have any allies - since nobody in their right mind would ally in with khorne knowing that the minute the battle was over they'd be next for the skull pile.

In such instances you could I suppose, create a battalion within the Blades of Khorne much like the brass despoilers battalion in beasts of chaos that allowed anything with a chaos keyword to also gain the khorne keyword if it wasn't already a wizard or aligned to another chaos god for example.

the brass despoilers does this very well for beasts, and ensures that if you really want the thematic of this, you pay for the privilege - 200 points iirc.

What I never want to see in AoS is the cherry picking that we saw in 40k, where some dude would rock up with say a load of tau big things, a couple of grey knight terminators and a character and for some reason that was "a Grey Knight army" or something like that.  And in reality there will always be players that will pull that one in AoS if the legitimate mechanics allowed it - and why not some might say.

Grand Alliance armies strength comes from the fact that they can cherry pick from the whole lot.  Nothing is barred to them.

In many ways that's the trade off for not having artefacts and allegiance abilities to pick from, but lets face it, Malign sorcery et al half way cures that for players who prefer the freedom that GA armies give them.

But that's just me, hell, I don't even put the free auto have scenery down in some of my games if I don't think it fits in with what I've dreamed up for the army.

Edited April 25, 2019 by Kaleb Daark

[Thiagoma]

Great Feedback!

I will start by saying i decided to post this idea reading the small cut from the Fyreslayers new tome witch mention a possibilityof common ground and peace among Duardin factions.

That pe

Pompted to thinkof a sort of  "favored Ally " model that would be in acord tp the lore of the faction and as such have some form of advantage over other allies.  Maybe granting a greater number of allies or use the ally battleline and so forth.

That kinda thing happened sometimes but never as a cohesive matched play format, such and the guard of Spire of Dawn. 

Many people are bringing the fact that it ruuned imersion on 40k ( new to me since i do not play it).

Maybe if the faction received 600 ally ppints for their battlebrothers, if not takingany pther faction allies or such. 

It is just a silly ideia that came to mind and to be taken lightly. I am not trying to fix the game or something like that, Just rollong some ideas that came to mind really

 

[Dai-Mongar]

I like the idea of mixed faction battalions better for representing that kind of thing. Like the sylvaneth and stormbros ones.

[King Taloren]

I don’t really think it’s a good idea to open up such a thing for allies in such a way. Like most have pointed out this has become the worst piece of 40k armies with allies of the most broken units they can put together while keeping allegiance abilities.

Depending on how these Battle Brothers if they are considered like allies I can posit the most broken combo in the game.

Ionrach Idoneth Deepkin combined with Hag Naar Daughters of Khaine. Not only do you have rerolling everything witch elves but now they strike first in turn three as well.

[Takaloy]

just popping in to say I really hate this idea on different levels. 40K is a good precedence where I don't really enjoy the game as there's really just 7 "real" factions in the game (Imperium, Chaos, Tao, Necrons, Orks, Tyranids, Eldar). 

suddenly to play the game, for example you'll need a Guard book, a Blood Angels book, a Knights book, a custodes book depending on meta?

it's not entirely translatable but the general idea is that it's impossible to balance for a single sub-faction (say Stormcast).

Blood Angels have been consistently nerfed because one stratagem and one model is considered broken in Mixed Soup. I like the diversity of AOS, where every army has something different. I think allies is a good compromise, small enough it allows for special flavour without taking away the key piece of the main army. I wish 40K would do it the AOS way.

[Unit1126PLL]

"Favored Allies" just sounds like a really good way to upset some people.

E.G. "Why are Ironweld Arsenal favored allies with Free Peoples but not Dispossessed?"
So in this example, you make Ironweld Arsenal favored allies with both! And then thrown Kharadron in there two, because they're both steampunk and the Kharadron are duardin anyways. Then throw in Elves, because this one free city in the lore has X...

at that point you've just diluted the concept to nothingness. Play with different "Ally Points" levels, or fold in battalions with "ally" units like Alarielle's Guardians.

[firebat]

I think they should just get rid of the allies list really. Let any army take the allies allowance from anything they want in their Grand Alliance. It's based on Oldhammer anyway so doesn't really make a lot of sense.

There should also be a lot more allegiances. Chaos is hands down the best out of all of them at the moment and the rest should have cross faction allegiances in a similar (or more themed for their alliance) way. Could be an Aelf allegiance or a duardin one or based on the city ones they had in firestorm or anything else really. 

[Lucio]

In general, the Ally's in AoS are good for adding in Forgeworld Monsters (though not all!), and for bringing in the handful of mini factions like Death Mages, Eldritch Council etc.

 

It needs tweaking but doesn't warrant doubling the points allowance