"Does 40K Need Allies?" Topic

Writing in Ragnarok 56, Edmund Proctor makes the point:

Since I had read the Warhammer 40K rules, I have always thought that the army lists are missing "Allies". I have played other rules systems that do include them.

His article that provides rules for allowing one unit of allies per army – Squats, mercs, militia, etc.

Would you like to see GW add official Allies to the 40K army lists?

Absolutely! I like the use of "Allies" lists in FoG. I think it was well done in that set. I think similar rules which allow a set % of the overall army points to be spent on allies, or as you suggest, one unit would be great.

In nearly every 40k/30k novel you read, most of the Imperial Campaign are prosecuted by various armies on a single planet.

Yes. I think it adds another extra spice to the game. Some argue that it opens the door further for cheesy play/list building. That's true to a certain extent but I'd rather see them add it in.

Yes. I think it would be more interesting and allow further force customization. Cheese enhancer? Sure, but that assumes that you can't already make a max cheese list with the existing forces.

At the scale that 40k operates, is this practical? In epic, sure, but in a skirmish?

I agree with Wellspring. Fitting two different forces into a sensible command structure is not an easy task and at 40k scale it would have to be a extramly large battle to get proper HQ to grunt structure for the main force and an allied force.

Epic it could easily work.

x42

For bigger games I suppose, or in special scenarios, like an Inquisitorial force with space marines and especially with Chaos marines and daemons all yes. But in normal circumstances I agree with Wellspring too.

In Apocalypse there are rules for allies. But these are huge forces.

I'm not sure, but this series of threads reminds me that I really ought to pony up for an SFSFW membership. :)

Note that Inquisitorial forces can use marines and IG as written, so the "borrow from another codex" thing isn't quite 100% dead yet. When/if they redo those books that may change.

The army I ended up settling on with the best mix for my playstyle was a Grey Knights w/IG allies list.

I still have all the models for it, just have not played for over a year…

"At the scale that 40k operates, is this practical? In epic, sure, but in a skirmish?"

I play +/- a company (100-120 minis + veh's) per side for 30k games. So for me, it makes perfect sense to allow a single squad of Arbiters, Sisters of Silence or Custodes on one side.

Why limit the options? I don't see a problem with allowing some kind of allies. Of course I dont think anyone wants to see Space Marines backed up by Leman Russ Battle Tanks.

Except the Space Wolves player, who *used* to have access to the tank designed by his Marines' Primarch…

I don't mind playing against armies with allies, but I'd prefer to keep it as a gentleman's agreement. Too many bad memories of Eldar with Imperial tanks as allies, or Skaven with random units of Chaos Knights turning up. If you put in rules, "you may take up to 25% of your army points value as Allies", you get cheesiness. If you just house-rule them in, it's not so much of a problem.

I'd like to see more armies that consited of, say Imperial Guard with an allied unit of Space Marines in a drop pod, or Blood Axe Orks with human advisor squads, that sort of thing.

It seems strange that people are wanting things to make sense in this aspect of 40K.

Nothing else makes sense, why should the ability to field allied forces?

I would say that as long as the army has kept within the laid down unit requirements and that the allies were limited to one other codex, then I would have no issues with playing against allies.

If allies started getting ridiculous (playing a single army with marines, orks, chaos and eldar for example) then I'd start getting fed up…

I wasn't aware that you couldn't play using allies…The various Inquisition codex's allow it and as far as I am aware, they are still valid (until they eventually get updated with the correct rules for the current rule book).

2nd edition had them and they encouraged players to collect varied forces and were fun.

Clan War had a nice ally mechanic, where a % increase was paid for out-of-list units, depending on how friendly the ally was with your faction.

I suppose that would add 'complex' math into the game… I know some of my college students can't figure percentages at all.

I don't think that for a normal 40K game allies are needed. As a matter of fact I think they can unballance the game even more. GW has been moving away from this in both 40K and Fantasy for many years now.

No.

Allies are not need for the tourney scene. For friendly games, just decide something with one's opponent.

Are we talking about allies that are specific to a certain faction (i.e. Kroot in a Tau army), or allowing a faction to take a unit from other armies (IG in a Tau army).

If we are talking about the later, then I like the idea, but the realist in me knows that it would be almost immidiately siezed upon by cheezers to make some pretty rediculous army lists. As Thomas says above Tourney no, but if it's for friendly games than who needs to make it a rule?

IMHO, the only way it could work would be if each army had a very rigidly defined selection of units from a limited number of armies that could be incorporated as allies.

Additionally, GW could get some additional sales for each army release if the codex named which units from it's faction could be used with which other armies.

Example: A new Tau codex comes out. Most IG and Eldar players aren't going to be interested, except that the new Tau Codex specifies that IG can take Kroot as allies, and Eldar can take firewarriors and Battlesuits as allies. In addition, it would specify units from other armies that Tau can take as allies.

Not for turneys… Just for home use would be cool…

Skirmish?? Warhammer 40K a skirmish game??? Play space marines and it isn't a skirmish, it has a sliding scale on figure ratios at that point. One Space marine = 1 space marine. 1 Imperial Guardsman = 10 to 40 actual Imperial Guardsmen.

As for allies – they allow allies in Apocalypse already, why write up more stuff, unless you are going to write up allies for using non-GW products to represent them? I'm all for it though.

It's already there… Apocalypse has it- all you need is a reasonable justification for the mix of forces. Inquisition forces already have it. 2000 point games(or smaller) shouldn't have it, as these are platoon or company(maybe) sized battles. Jovian1, yes, it's skirmish, not sliding scale… look at the points values in the current lists.

We use Allies with the Apocalypse rules as noted, usually Guard with Marines or Tau – for our friendly games with the guys we sometimes use what we consider logical allies, e.g. a Marine squad supporting a Guard Army

Not too many of the other races lend themselves to Allies – I mean, who's likely to ally with Orcs (humsn mercs, at a long stretch) or Chaos? Let alone the Necrons – - -

Are we talking about allies that are specific to a certain faction (i.e. Kroot in a Tau army), or allowing a faction to take a unit from other armies (IG in a Tau army).

Not a great example, as there is an errata to allow human auxiliary troops in a Tau force (they have different weapon options than a regular IG unit).

Better example would be a Marine company with a Guard Artillery battery. (Get that Limburger away from me, I'm lactose intolerant!)

GW has been moving away from "blender" lists to narrow-focus lists, especially at the 40k level. In Epic, there's already some allowance for allies, since Titans and air support is technically an allied force, not part of the Astartes/IG command structure.

As long as there are rules to cover the models they made, I'm cool. Since I have a squad of Death Watch Space Marines, etc., I'm not cool.

When did 40K stop letting you bring in allied forces?
I've only played up to 2nd but my IG justabout always have a group of Squats helping them… or even, once or twice, Space Orks.
I much prefer mixing the troops up for the story potential… and don't give a crap about 'tournaments'.

3rd edition got rid of allies and cut the points values of the models in half so you needed twice as many for a 1500 point game. Since then, they've been marching the "standard" points value up and now 1700, 2000 and 2250 are common in the tournament scene.

As for the original question, what 40k needs is GW to set a stronger and stronger "game for fun" tone in White Dwarf, their website and their local store events. They shouldn't come up with ally rules, but should just start including them in White Dwarf battle reports.

While Andy Chambers did some good things for 40k, it was during his time that we saw the greatest rise of the notion that everything had to be "official" and "tournament legal". 40k would be a lot more fun with a mindset change coming from the company itself. They're big enough and good enough at marketing that they really can have a big effect on the general approach of 40k gamers.

I think allies of any mix is ok. It is a game and imaginations should run wild.

Some of the best GW novels include Inquisitors, so they shouldn't get rid of the Inquisitor allies for Guard.

The inquisition allies lists are an integral part of the lists, and I agree, they need to stay. other armies, however, don't need anything at the official level, and at house rule level, anything goes, anyways!

I'm continually surprised, with all the GW hate on TMP, how many people have opinions on how those GW games should be played…

It seems strange that people are wanting things to make sense in this aspect of 40K.

Nothing else makes sense, why should the ability to field allied forces?

TourneyK is the current default form of the game. As an artifice for competitive play, it doesn't need to make sense within the setting.

Apocalypse, OTOH, should make more sense, and it does. The problem is that it isn't the default form of the game. GW has cemented it as a wild and dangerous variant through the understandable yet lamentable device of setting the minimum game size about twice the size tournament players buy for.

Second edition was the cut off for allies and definitive anti vehicle rules so 1996-97 were the best 40k years.