Khorne Bloodbound Allegiance?

[prometheus]

Hi there, I've got a question.

On page 152 of Blades of Khorne, under notes for the Mighty Skullcrushers it says "Battleline if army has KHORNE BLOODBOUND allegiance and its general is a Lord of Khorne on Juggernaut".

Now, this seems pretty straight forward. Effectively Mighty Skullcrushers can't be battleline if you bring units that don't have the KHORNE and BLOODBOUND keywords. It seems odd though, as Skaarac is a no-go in this case. As are all KHORNE DAEMONS. Odd, but I can accept that.

Here's where it gets weird: On page 78 the ALLEGIANCE sidebar says:

Quote

"When your army qualifies for more than one allegiance – e.g. all of the units are KHORNE and CHAOS – you must choose which allegiance your army will use before each game."

Okay, so the army can be either KHORNE or BLOODBOUND? Or can't we have a BLOODBOUND allegiance? If we can't, then the note for the Mighty Skullcrushers makes no sense. But okay, I'm assuming we can.

And here's comes the kicker. Page 78 also says:

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Battle Traits: An allied army fights with unity and cohesion, granting it additional boons. See opposite for the battle traits available to KHORNE armies.

That effectively means that blood tithe is only available to KHORNE armies - not BLOODBOUND armies. And we can only choose one.

So, my question is as follows: How does it make sense that you need to have the BLOODBOUND allegiance to field Mighty Skullcrushers as battleline, but you must have the KHORNE allegiance to generate blood tithe?

Also KHORNE and BLOODBOUND are separate keywords. So how is a KHORNE BLOODBOUND allegiance even possible? By that logic you could field a CHAOS KHORNE army, a CHAOS BLOODBOUND army, or even a MORTAL BLOODBOUND army as well. None of which would qualify for blood tithe.

I can't wait for an updated FAQ.

[Killax]

@prometheus Well the narrative remains the key essence of Age of Sigmar. This is why it's a bit more difficult to transform into matched play.

See it like this:
- All forces in the Chaos Grand Allegiance are part of Chaos. You can pick this if you want to have the most Unit choices.
-  A smaller group of Chaos forces  are part of Khorne, they can choose to fight for what used to be known as Chaos Undivided (Chaos mixed) or Khorne (Khorne mixed). You can pick this if you want to have Khorne starting Unit choices.
- A specialist group of Khorne forces are Mortals, Daemons and Bloodbound. This means that sometimes you'll encounter an army completely made up of that type, but they are still part of Khorne and Chaos. You can pick this if you want to have Khorne X or Y Units only. 

Age of Sigmar is designed to give you all the choices. 9/10 designs are created so you can choose, not limit youself in model choice. Buy and play what you like, not what book A or B tells you to do. 

For game rules this translates to:
ARMY 
- You pick Grand Allegiance Chaos so your forces are Chaos
- If your army is made up of Khorne starting units or units that can gain the Khorne keyword you can be Khorne Allegiance
- If your army is completely made up of Khorne Bloodbound or Khorne Daemon units you can become Khorne Bloodbound or Khorne Daemon Allegiance, 

What you see is that restricting your choices can grand you small bonusses. Age of Sigmar is full of this type of design because what you essentially lose in quantity of choices slightly improves the quality of your choices. Battalions work in the same way. 

The only thing that makes this confusing is that you have to look at 3-4 sources to figure out what's going on. I too wish that GW would have clearified this in the Blades of Khorne book because at the end of the book you suddenly see 'Khorne Bloodbound Allegiance' and it's not mentioned anywhere on any of the 140+ pages before that. 

 

[BaldoBeardo]

Nah, it's quite simple.
If you can take blood rushers as battleline, then every unit in your army will be CHAOS KHORNE BLOODBOUND. Keywords just concatenate.
However, FAQ (and rules stated above) confirm that allegiance for army list is not the same as allegiance for abilities.
So you can go for BLOODBOUND for your list, and KHORNE as your ability/artefact list for tithe.

Sent from my Nexus 5X using Tapatalk

[prometheus]

Thank you for the clarification.

Can you point me to where it states that they are separate allegiances?

Also, would it also be possible for an army to have separate allegiances for abilities and artefacts?
KHORNE allegiance for blood tithe and CHAOS allegiance for Dark Avenger command trait, for example?

[Gilby]

If all your units have the CHAOS keyword then you are CHAOS allegiance.

 

If all your units have KHORNE and CHAOS keywords then you are CHAOS and KHORNE allegiance, but must pick which you use for the battle traits, artifacts and abilities etc.

 

If all your units have BLOODBOUND, KHORNE and CHAOS keywords then you are KHORNE BLOODBOUND, KHORNE and CHAOS allegiance, but again must pick one of the three for abilities etc. (in this case there are only two to choose from KHORNE and CHAOS).

 

You have the an allegiance to any keyword that is common among all the warscrolls on your army list.

[prometheus]

6 minutes ago, Gilby said:

If all your units have the CHAOS keyword then you are CHAOS allegiance.

 

If all your units have KHORNE and CHAOS keywords then you are CHAOS and KHORNE allegiance, but must pick which you use for the battle traits, artifacts and abilities etc.

 

If all your units have BLOODBOUND, KHORNE and CHAOS keywords then you are KHORNE BLOODBOUND, KHORNE and CHAOS allegiance, but again must pick one of the three for abilities etc. (in this case there are only two to choose from KHORNE and CHAOS).

 

You have the an allegiance to any keyword that is common among all the warscrolls on your army list.

I am well aware of those things.

The problem, as I see it, is that Mighty Skullcrushers can only be battleline in a KHORNE BLOODBOUND army (which is odd as those are two different keywords), while battle traits (and khorne artefacts) can only be applied to a KHORNE army.

BaldoBeardo answered that, though I'd love to be pointed to where exactly it states that allegiances for an army list is not necessarily the same as allegiances for battle traits and artefacts. I can't seem to find it.

[Gilby]

40 minutes ago, prometheus said:

The problem, as I see it, is that Mighty Skullcrushers can only be battleline in a KHORNE BLOODBOUND army (which is odd as those are two different keywords), while battle traits (and khorne artefacts) can only be applied to a KHORNE army.

Not that weird:

Putrid Blightkings : MORTAL NURGLE

Fleshhounds/Bloodcrushers: KHORNE DAEMON

Burning Chariots Of Tzeentch: TZEENTCH DAEMON

 

To name a few.

 

Not entirely sure what you're after with rules bit? Page 156 of General Handbook talks about picking an Allegiance before starting the game in the section regarding traits etc.?

[Choombatta]

I would assume Skullcrushers are written that way to give you the choice of Unpredictable Destruction or Blood Tithe while keeping them battleline.

I was not aware you could pick artefacts/abilities for heroes separate from allegiance abilities for the army, but never really looked into it either.

[Gilby]

52 minutes ago, Choombatta said:

I would assume Skullcrushers are written that way to give you the choice of Unpredictable Destruction or Blood Tithe while keeping them battleline.

I was not aware you could pick artefacts/abilities for heroes separate from allegiance abilities for the army, but never really looked into it either.

Ah no you can't do that. You pick CHAOS and take everything under CHAOS (in the general handbook) or you pick KHORNE and take everything under KHORNE (Blades of Khorne book). No mixing and matching. You have CHAOS and KHORNE allegiance in both cases.

[prometheus]

It makes perfect sense, I just feel the rules are overly complicated.

The word allegiance is used interchangably for two different things then, assuming I understand you guys correctly.

A breakdown:

1. I build an army. Every unit shares the following keywords: CHAOS, KHORNE, BLOODBOUND, MORTAL

2. I go with Mighty Skullcrushers as my battleline as I have the KHORNE BLOODBOUND allegiance

3. Before setup, I declare that I have the KHORNE allegiance and choose battle traits, artefacts, etc. from that allegiance

It just seems very counter intuitive that the word allegiance is used for both steps 2 and 3, though it never means the same.

Before this thread, I was under the impression I could pick one allegiance, not different ones at different times during army creation and before setup.

[rokapoke]

3 hours ago, prometheus said:

Before this thread, I was under the impression I could pick one allegiance, not different ones at different times during army creation and before setup.

This is covered in the General's Handbook FAQ:

 

[Killax]

@prometheus Lastly, keep in mind that this is not how Battalions work! Battalions completely made up of Khorne Daemon or Khorne Bloodbound units DO NOT suddenly gain the Khorne Daemon or Khorne Bloodbound Keyword.

Keywords in general arn't gained unless the Warscroll specifically says so. Battalions can be part of Khorne or Khorne Bloodbound armies because for Army Allegiance a different check is made (that of Units) in that sence Battalion Keywords arn't that essential. 

Last but not least (to confuse you even more  ) Keywords on Battalions do count towards possible Unit inclusion as long as they are part of that Battalion.

In theory a Khorne Battalion could include non-Khorne units and could still be part of a Khorne army. In theory a Khorne Bloodbound Battalion could include non-Bloodbound models and still be part of a Khorne Bloodbound army. Again the Keywords are not gained however, this is an important thing to keep in mind while playing.

Moral remains, buy what you like, create an army out of that, then design lists for what you have and like.