Coalition and allied units in AoS 3rd edition question

[frenk_castle]

I have read various discussions online about how armies will be able to use units that are not in their "core" battletome.

My understanding is:

Allies are determined on Pitched Battle profile for each army. Battleplans tell me how much I can take of them. They can not be the general, can not be given relics and do not benefit from allegiance abilites.

Coalition units have no limit can take artefacts, be general and benefit from allegiane ability. They do not count toward mandatory battleline count.

My question is in what book/document is this "not count toward mandatory battleline count" specified? I managed to find all the other stuff regarding allies and coalition units.

Thanks in advance

[Kaleb Daark]

COALITION UNITS
Coalition units are ignored when determining if the units in the army are from a single faction. Coalition units cannot be generals.

Designer’s Note: Coalition units are not allied units, so the limitations that apply to allied units do not apply to them. This means that coalition units can be given one of your army’s enhancements, as long as they have the correct keywords or are of the correct unit type needed to receive it.’

 

so coalitions cant run your army but can benefit from its buffs put simply, as they get the keyword for the army.

so i can take a unit of bullgors in my blades of khorne and they get the khorne keyword, but that doombull can’t be my general- he has to come native from my battletome.

Edited July 3, 2021 by Kaleb Daark
Get khorne, not blades keyword

[Fildrigar]

2 hours ago, frenk_castle said:

They do not count toward mandatory battleline count.

My question is in what book/document is this "not count toward mandatory battleline count" specified? I managed to find all the other stuff regarding allies and coalition units.

Thanks in advance

As far as I can tell, they do count as battle line. I can't find anywhere it says otherwise. 

[Beliman]

I don't think that they gain any keyword.

Coalition rules in Cities of Sigmar has a previous rule that gives a Keyword to all Coalition units. But, fora example, Kharadron Overlords doesn't have that.

[Kaleb Daark]

49 minutes ago, Beliman said:

I don't think that they gain any keyword.

Coalition rules in Cities of Sigmar has a previous rule that gives a Keyword to all Coalition units. But, fora example, Kharadron Overlords doesn't have that.

Ok, so this them suggests that its different for every faction- ish , as the quote above was from the blades of khorne errata.

Interesting.

 

“A Blades of Khorne army can include coalition units (see below) as follows:
- 2 in every 4 units in the army can be a coalition unit from the Slaves to Darkness faction that has the Mark of Chaos keyword. Those units must be given the Khorne Mark of Chaos keyword.
- 1 in every 4 units in the army can be a coalition unit from the Beasts of Chaos faction. Those units gain the Khorne keyword.
A Blades of Khorne army cannot include coalition units with the Slaanesh, Tzeentch or Wizard keyword.“

[Painbringer]

1 hour ago, Fildrigar said:

As far as I can tell, they do count as battle line. I can't find anywhere it says otherwise. 

Yes, they definitely do. Here is the clarification from the Core Rules errata (page 5, section 27.1):

Quote

Q: If I can take coalition units in my army, can they count as some or all of the Battleline units in my army?’
A: Yes, unless the battlepack you are using specifically says otherwise.

So, I'm interested in the same thing as @frenk_castle - which battlepacks contain rulings that forbid using coalition units to fill mandatory battleline slots?

Edited July 3, 2021 by Painbringer

[Fildrigar]

16 minutes ago, Painbringer said:

Yes, they do. Here is the clarification from the Core Rules errata, page 5, section 27.1:
 

 

I went through that document twice and didn't see it. 

[Angela]

1 hour ago, Painbringer said:

Yes, they definitely do. Here is the clarification from the Core Rules errata (page 5, section 27.1):

So, I'm interested in the same thing as @frenk_castle - which battlepacks contain rulings that forbid using coalition units to fill mandatory battleline slots?

It was shown in the GHB 2021 preview videos. Coalition units cannot be battleline in the pitched battles battlepack. I did not watch the preview videos for the core book, so I don’t know about the contest of generals battlepack.

[Lurynsar]

The Generals Handbook under Matched Play Battlepack rules specifically says that Coalition units can never count as Battleline, but do count as Leaders, Behemoths and Artillery. So I imagine for the vast vast majority of games Coalition units are not going to be Battleline. 

[frenk_castle]

12 hours ago, Kaleb Daark said:

COALITION UNITS
Coalition units are ignored when determining if the units in the army are from a single faction. Coalition units cannot be generals.

Designer’s Note: Coalition units are not allied units, so the limitations that apply to allied units do not apply to them. This means that coalition units can be given one of your army’s enhancements, as long as they have the correct keywords or are of the correct unit type needed to receive it.’

 

so coalitions cant run your army but can benefit from its buffs put simply, as they get the keyword for the army.

so i can take a unit of bullgors in my blades of khorne and they get the khorne keyword, but that doombull can’t be my general- he has to come native from my battletome.

Thanks a lot for clarification. I read the FAQ after I posted the question. I basically quoted what I read online.

[frenk_castle]

9 hours ago, Angela said:

It was shown in the GHB 2021 preview videos. Coalition units cannot be battleline in the pitched battles battlepack. I did not watch the preview videos for the core book, so I don’t know about the contest of generals battlepack.

Thanks a lot for the information.

[frenk_castle]

8 hours ago, Lurynsar said:

The Generals Handbook under Matched Play Battlepack rules specifically says that Coalition units can never count as Battleline, but do count as Leaders, Behemoths and Artillery. So I imagine for the vast vast majority of games Coalition units are not going to be Battleline. 

Thanks a lot. Was really helpful. I haven't got GHB through my store yet so count not read that one.

[Beliman]

After reading again all the FAQs, I saw that each army that use Coalition untis had their own system to give some keywords.

-Cities of Sigmar gives exactly the armies and sub-faction keyword:

Quote

- 1 in every 4 units in the army can be a coalition unit from the Stormcast Eternals faction. Those units gain the Cities of Sigmar keyword and the city keyword chosen for your army

-Nurgle, Khorne, Tzeentch and Slaanesh gives only the god specific keyword, not their army keyword, that it's changed to Blades of Khorne, Disciplines of Tzeentch, etc... written in the same FAQ (but not as a Keyword? I don't know how this armies work, maybe someone could clear it out for me).:

Quote

Replace all references to a ‘Khorne army’ with ‘Blades of Khorne army’.

Quote

- 2 in every 4 units in the army can be a coalition unit from the Slaves to Darkness faction that has the Mark of Chaos keyword. Those units must be given the Khorne Mark of Chaos keyword. - 1 in every 4 units in the army can be a coalition unit from the Beasts of Chaos faction. Those units gain the Khorne keyword.

-Kharadron overlords don't gain anything:

Quote

‘1 in every 4 units in a Barak-Thryng army can be a coalition unit (see below) from the Cities of Sigmar or Fyreslayers faction that has the Duardin keyword.

 

[yukishiro1]

The Cities FAQ managed to mess up Living City too, now it only gives Sylvaneth coalition units LIVING CITY, but not CITIES OF SIGMAR (lol). Making it unlike every other faction in the book, which give their coalition units both CITIES OF SIGMAR and the sub-faction keyword. Pretty obviously a typo given how everything else works, but just thought I'd point it out. 

The thing in GHB2021 is a little confusing IMO as to what it actually means re: coalition and battleline. It says coalition and allied units "don't count as battleline" in the section on army-building for the purpose of meeting the requirements, but that leaders, behemoths, etc still do. It seems unclear from this whether they mean that coalition and allied units that have battleline lose that attribute for all purposes, i.e. for the missions that give a battleline bonus, grand strategies, etc, or only don't count for meeting the 3 battleline minimum. Needs a FAQ imo. 

Here's the exact wording:

Quote

Allied / Coalition units do not count towards the number of Battleline units in your army. However, they do count towards the maximum number of Leader, Behemoth, and Artillery units in your army.

So I guess I would read that as saying that they don't count as battleline for purposes of list-building...but I'm not sure if they'd still count for the missions that give battleline a bonus. It doesn't say they aren't batteline, it just says they don't count towards the number of such units in your army, which seems to imply they still are batteline. Weird. 

Edited July 4, 2021 by yukishiro1

[Zeblasky]

4 hours ago, yukishiro1 said:

The Cities FAQ managed to mess up Living City too, now it only gives Sylvaneth coalition units LIVING CITY, but not CITIES OF SIGMAR (lol). Making it unlike every other faction in the book, which give their coalition units both CITIES OF SIGMAR and the sub-faction keyword. Pretty obviously a typo given how everything else works, but just thought I'd point it out.

Yea, an obvious oversight for Living City and Tempest Eye, yet all is correct for Settler’s Gain and Har Kuron for some weird reason. Good thing that for now it only cancels Amplified Sorceries trait for Sylvaneth and some keyword buffs for CoS units from certain Stormcast warscrolls.

By the way, even without CoS keyword, Sylvaneth and Kharadon units still count for 1 in 4 rule for Stormcast, correct?

[yukishiro1]

Oh, yeah, you're right, they screwed up Tempest's Eye too. 

Yes re: whether they count as the 1 in 4, it's just a question of whether they count as allies, coalition, or actual cities.

I.e. in these armies you actually only need 1 in 4 to be pure cities - you could in say Tempest's eye 1 unit of cities, 1 unit of sylvaneth as allies, 1 unit of Kharadon as coalition, and then 1 unit of Stormcast. And each would fit the 1 in 4 requirement. 

[Zeblasky]

Oh, I've also realized that Sylvaneth and Kharadon can no longer benefit from Hurricanum and Luminark AoE buffs as well. That's kinda sad.

[yukishiro1]

Yeah, it's a significant nerf not gaining the CITIES OF SIGMAR keyword. On the plus side, it's pretty obviously just GW up to their old "we don't know what an editor is" tricks. Send in a message, if they get enough of them they'll fix it, and in the meantime surely anyone sensible will allow you to play them how it's obviously intended to be played. The fact that Stormcast, DoK and Lumineth coalition kept the keyword makes it super clear this is just a careless error. 

[stratigo]

12 hours ago, yukishiro1 said:

Yeah, it's a significant nerf not gaining the CITIES OF SIGMAR keyword. On the plus side, it's pretty obviously just GW up to their old "we don't know what an editor is" tricks. Send in a message, if they get enough of them they'll fix it, and in the meantime surely anyone sensible will allow you to play them how it's obviously intended to be played. The fact that Stormcast, DoK and Lumineth coalition kept the keyword makes it super clear this is just a careless error. 

Makes me a little paranoid when the dwarves are the faction the editors mess up on repeatedly while the elves are made sure to get the proper fixes  

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

14 hours ago, yukishiro1 said:

Yeah, it's a significant nerf not gaining the CITIES OF SIGMAR keyword. On the plus side, it's pretty obviously just GW up to their old "we don't know what an editor is" tricks. Send in a message, if they get enough of them they'll fix it, and in the meantime surely anyone sensible will allow you to play them how it's obviously intended to be played. The fact that Stormcast, DoK and Lumineth coalition kept the keyword makes it super clear this is just a careless error. 

The FAQs are definitely an area that GW needs to improve on. It's intolerable that after every FAQ, there are still unresolved questions and because of GWs schedule of one FAQ every 6 months and unwillingness to provide quick clarification, we will just be stuck with them for the time being. It's just not acceptable to put out FAQs that by all rights need FAQs themself to be understandable.

Case in point: The Cities of Sigmar Handgunners/Sisters rules change. Nobody can actually figure out how many times these guys can Unleash Hell in a turn. Is it once? Is it twice, but only if you pay a command point the first time? Is it as many time as you get charged? Or maybe it's once per unit?

I don't mind if GW quickly puts up FAQs that are maybe not 100% perfect, but they need to be more willing to fix mistakes in those FAQs, so that we are not stuck with Sylvaneth not getting the CITIES OF SIGMAR keyword for 6 months, or possibly longer if they just forget to update it the next time around.

[Mephideus]

On 7/4/2021 at 12:49 PM, Beliman said:

-Nurgle, Khorne, Tzeentch and Slaanesh gives only the god specific keyword, not their army keyword, that it's changed to Blades of Khorne, Disciplines of Tzeentch, etc... written in the same FAQ (but not as a Keyword? I don't know how this armies work, maybe someone could clear it out for me).:

I am sorry for reviving an old thread, but there is one thing that this brought up that I am uncertain how to handle. 

I do agree that coalition units with the relevant God keyword do not get the faction specific keyword. So more specificly, a coalition unit in a Hedonites army, will have the Slaanesh Keyword, but not the "Hedonite" keyword.

However: The"Hosts of chaos" faction rules in the Hedonite Battletome, clearly states:

"When you choose a hedonites of Slaanesh army, you can give it a Host of Slaanesh keyword (...). All Slaanesh units in your army gain that keyword, and you can use the allegiance abilities listed for that host of Slaanesh."

So even if my Chaos Lord of Slaanesh (a coalition unit) is not a Hedonite, he will still be an "Invader", "Godseeker" or "Pretender". Which means he does not get the hedonite speciific rules such as exploding sixes to hit, but he does get whatever rules apply to the host of chaos that he belongs to, such as +1" charge distance for the godseekers. 

But can I use him as a vortex to summon daemons? "Feast of depravities" is a "Hedonite" specific rule, and considering that he is Slaanesh, but not a hedonite, then I assume that "Feast of depravities" should not apply to him? But the really confusing thing about that is that the wording for the the summoning rules specifies that the vortex for the summoning has to be a "Slaanesh hero". They could have written "Hedonite hero" but it specifically says "Slaanesh hero," So I am kinda confused

 

 

[Beliman]

14 minutes ago, Mephideus said:

So even if my Chaos Lord of Slaanesh (a coalition unit) is not a Hedonite, he will still be an "Invader", "Godseeker" or "Pretender". Which means he does not get the hedonite speciific rules such as exploding sixes to hit, but he does get whatever rules apply to the host of chaos that he belongs to, such as +1" charge distance for the godseekers. 

I think that it doesn't matter. The concensus is that Archaon and any other unit that gains the relevant god keyword is still part of the army unless any other rule says otherwise (like tzeench-marked beastmen in a tzeentch army). Tzeenchaon is a thing, so play with that in mind.

[Jymmy]

I was building a CoS list and I want to include 3 stormcast units, but my army has 10 units so I can’t take the three as coalition because I’m not fullfiling the 1 out of 4 condition. Can I take one of the SC units as an ally instead of a coalition unit? (1 ally, 2 coalition) The ally counts as the minimum of a batallion?

[readercolin]

13 minutes ago, Jymmy said:

I was building a CoS list and I want to include 3 stormcast units, but my army has 10 units so I can’t take the three as coalition because I’m not fullfiling the 1 out of 4 condition. Can I take one of the SC units as an ally instead of a coalition unit? (1 ally, 2 coalition) The ally counts as the minimum of a batallion?

No.  Cities cannot take Stormcast as Allies, which means that there can never be a case where you have more than 1/4 units as stormcast.