Agreed. They act on the same player turn as your main army, just simply do not co-mingle that much.

Personally, I am very excited for a game I will be having later today.

It will be either 1500 or 1850 and I'm going with Necron allies, using Imotekh and two crypteks with solar pulse to get the majority of the game to be night fighting. It seems fairly cheap to get nearly all my Tau to have night vision and I'm hoping being at ranges of 30 inches and above will keep me safe.

Possible report later.

@Kyranor

Careful about the Imotekh guy they kind of nerfed him with the new rules as an ally. His seize as per the necron 6th FAQ only works if he is the warlord (Which he can't be as an ally) and the wording in the book referenced the lightning only working on a Necron shooting phase and you roll for every enemy unit (Non Battle Brothers treat other units as enemy units for everything but what is listed in the rules blanket effects such as Imotekh's lightning and writhing world-scape effect you). So either the lightning doesn't work at all with him as an ally or you have to roll for lightning strikes on tau units.

Trust me I am as sad about this as you as I was super excited to use this combination but it looks like GW specifically said nope on this combo. Another odd thing is I think Vect can still do his higher chance seize initiative so it was only the stormlord who got nerfed as an ally for seizing.

Additionally, with the change of the nightfighting rules, it's hardly worth the points to try and make it nightfighting, especially the way you're trying to do it. This seems like you're putting a lot of points into some novelties that won't have any major affect on your enemy.

I just realised someone might be trying vects 4+ seize roll with sicarius's initiative re-roll sometime later... I don't have a rulebook on me so can someone look it up and see if marines and necrons are battle brothers or if there are any other ways this might be possible? I don't want someone springing this on me unnecessarilly...

if they want to spend all those points on that gimmik then yes, they can. Even in armies that aren't battlebrothers with dark eldar can do this, so long as they can ally. Because vect's ability is universal and doesn't 'buff' their army it still is possible. But Vect is very expensive, as are Dark eldar, just for that one gimmic.


At least, that's my interpretation.

The advice given was sound. The game was not influenced all that much and it was largely a waste of points, however, it was a test and I might use it in future home games for the gimmicky effect. Perhaps I could be lucky enough to fight an all ranged army though...

Personally I don't think the Allies thing is a major deal, its nice to be able to collect armies an use them together (My Kabal of the Black Sun will final see daylight...If you'll pardon the pun). But I don't like the allies chart, some of it doesn't really make sense to me, Eldar and Dark Eldar as Battle Brothers and Tau and SM as battle Brothers stands out heavily to me.

Ok the Smurfs and Tau have fought together, once, against the old, galaxy ending Necrons, but I can't see the White Scars or Raven guard working with the Tau on any kind of equal level, though that could be just me.

The Eldar and Dark Eldar, ok they are the same race, but don't the Dark Eldar consider their brethren weak and pathetic and not worth consideration or something (Very New to the Dark Eldar-Eldar thing so pardon my ignorance please)?

But fluff concerns aside I like the idea of it, allows the Tau to cover up a few weaknesses and allows good synergy of models if you pick the right faction. Played a few team battles and I have to say Tau Fire Warriors standing shoulder to shoulder with Guardsmen and Eldar was a pretty awesome sight.

Cam see some people trying to bend the system by taking gimmicky armies, like taking Space Wolves for Long Fangs, or Blood Angels for the Sanguin Guard and coming up with some god awful fluff for it (Though I am very guilty of bad fluff, I am saying my Kabal is holding an Ethereal hostage to get my Cadre to work with them).
Anyway thats my two pennies.

If I'm recalling my fluff correctly, Calgar has a good deal of respect for the Tau and has actually threatened Sicarius if he tried to move against them without his orders. Ultramarines and Tau are far more likely to work together than work against each other (actively, anyways) since both factions recognize that there are far greater threats to both their respective empires and that a war between the two would be needlessly bloody for both sides. You are probably right about the White Scars or Salamanders or any of the "non-ultramarines" chapters that are represented in the book though.

The difference between the Eldar and Dark Eldar is largely a religious/philosophical one. And it is far more likely that they will team up against a common threat than sit and bicker amongst themselves about who is doing the "Eldaring" thing properly.

Given that the Tau Empire has a fair number of former Imperial worlds that have converted to the Greater Good, I was somewhat more surprised that they aren't battle brothers along with us.

Never heard of the thing with Calgar and the Sicarius (is he alive or dead?), especially since he led the 2nd chapter in the Ziest campaign as well as dozens of other squads from different chapters. So Yeah if Calgar is leading the marines (so no psyker) I can see the Tau and Smurfs working together happily, but otherwise I struggle to see how "the paragons of the imperium" would work with Xenos.

But I can see the Eldar allying if they have to, but I would consider that allies of conveiance, I see battle brothers as armies ready and willing to fight side by side, but then again, no other army in game wants to do that so a certain lee-way has to be given.

See, this is why I don't understand the new fluff reasoning behind the allies.

Calgar has chosen not to kill a Tau contingent once- and yet the reason why the 3rd Sphere has been halted is because a massive Space Marine army the size of something that hasn't been since the Emperor's era smashed into Shadowsun's advance with the 'Zeist Campaign'

So why are Ultramarines so buddy buddy? In fact, why are SM so buddy buddy when one of their core elements (every single Chapter) is to hate the alien. It's not an 'ally of convenience', the relationship isn't between two warring factions, it's between one race of beings that hates and despises the mere existence of another race.

The Eldar meanwhile, in the region of space the Tau inhabit, are the Saim Hann who HATE the Tau as the view them as even less than humanity as the colonize worlds closer and closer to the maiden worlds.

As for them Allying with the Dark Eldar? STS17 I would recommend you read Path of the Outcaste as it perfectly shows the relationships between the 3 families of Eldar. No. They would not set aside their differences and their relationship is not religious, it is a fundamental aspect of who they are as a species. They hate one another with more contempt and passion then what can be understood even between the Chaos legions as the Space Marines.

Honestly, if GW read their own fluff, the ally system would look somtething like this for Tau:

IG-Battle Brothers

SM-Convenience
Eldar-Convenience
Chaos SM-Convenience
Orks-Convenience
Dark Eldar-Convenience

Necrons- NBTA
Tyranids- NBTA
Sisters/All Inquisition- NBTA
Grey Knights-NBTA
Daemons-NBTA (seriously)
Space Wolves-NBTA

Personally I absolutely LOVE the concept and always have, when Apocalypse came around and gave players the chance to combine units from different armies it opened up a whole new world of creative possibilities for me and now that we can do it in our normal armies is just great.

While I do game my interest in the hobby is mainly centered around modeling and fluff creation and something I've seen only a few people mention is "counts as". Sure if you wanted you could represent say Eldar in a Tau army with the generic models that's certainly acceptable. But the conversionist in me see's it as a perfect opportunity to make some Eldar auxilliaries based off of Lord Dirks concepts. Or make those Mega Meks (Obliterators) that I've wanted to put into my Orks. Or for all of our esteemed ATT members who have always wanted to represent their very own xenos race in their Cadres.

Bottom line when it comes to the game as long as someone doesn't outright abuse the ability it should make for some interesting and probably more challenging gaming experiences. But for me the real value of Allies comes from all of the conversion/fluff potential. Ever since I found out that allies was apart of the basic game I've started going back over old ideas and it's kept me very busy. So fluff inconsistencies aside I love it!

@tehlegend: That kind of combination isn't going to happen as it's impossible to take Special Characters as allies so for example a Battlesuit Commander+Farseer is a go, Shadowsun+generic Chapter Master is a go but Marneus Calgar and say Ursurkar Creed isn't possible.

That's simply not true, I'm afraid. Aside from the requirement that there be 1 HQ and 1 Troop, and the ability to add up to 1 more Troop and 1 Elite, FA or HS choice, there are no restrictions on what models can be taken as Allies.

I will second this - I have yet to see any text in the rulebook that says we can't take special characters as allies. If you have found some, please feel free to point it out (and provide the source - preferably a quote with a page number).

Agreed there are no rules that I have seen that disallows you take 2 named chacaters, so you could take Farsight and Calgar or Vect and Eldrad if you wanted to. I would like to see the Fluff people come up for having Skarbrand working with Creed or a Demon Prince working with Calgar, I believe they will make any fluff fan weep.

Like I said to my group the other day, the allies system works well as long as it makes sense and not used for gaming purposes, if you want Chaos Marines to work with Tau or Grey Knights you'd better have a damn good story behind it.

Also correct me if I am wrong but you can also roll on the Warlord table with Named Characters ?

Yes you roll on the warlord table even for special characters - unless those characters have a specific warlord trait in their profile already.

Also, anyone crying over bad allies combinations (Farsight with Ork allies!) better be cutting their wrists as Draigo vs. Draigo games (or any other such game)

Thank you for understanding that... I've been bringing that up every time fluff is mentioned. There are fluffy games and non-fluffy games. If you are playing a fluffy game, you are not electing to use any of the weirder combinations without an actually decent reason (and reasons or precedent can be found for everything on the list, though some are easier than others). If you aren't playing a fluffy game, why the hell do you care? Either way, most of the concerns presented don't strike me as valid.

As for "a demon prince working with Calgar", first note that SM+chaos are in the "not before the apocalypse" category, and thus cannot ally. If they both showed up in the same force as allied contingents (of, say, Tau) I would expect the two would be maneuvering to deal with the numerically superior threat (the guys on the other side of the table), hoping to get the other guy killed in the process, and if not, whittling down the number of "other" units so that there would be less opposition when they attacked each other. Do not mistake two sides shooting the same enemy as "trust". Even an SM-Tau "battle brothers" alliance probably boils down to "you're honorable enough not to stab me in the back while the other guy breathes, so we'll work with you first" outside of exceptionally unusual circumstances.

I swear, people like to claim this rule has all sorts of corollary abuses that are simply ridiculous. It's like they aren't even bothering to think of alternative explanations. IG+Chaos alliance availability is the best one; we all know that doesn't imply the two factions are friends, but rather lets you play a Traitor Guard force. Why do I feel like I'm the only one who even considers applying that same logic to the others?

Even this is not possible. In larger games where you can take two allied FoCs they must be from the same codex. No Tau with Ork and IG allies (which is a shame, I wanted to run Yarrick alongside Ghaz and Farsight)

You are correct. The bit of digging it took me to find that makes me feel better about not noticing that before. Well, that certainly cuts down on some of the more unusual propositions, though I know how you feel about not being able to use it; no Traitor Guard "cultists" and proper Chaos Demons alongside my Word Bearers at the same time, it seems. Ah well, the Summoned Demons rules aren't terrible (especially since the wording on Icons in the CSM book is truly unfortunate for allied forces), I can still make do.

I was digging through the most recent Apoc book looking at flyers, and my eyes fell on the Eldar Hornet in the process.

If Eldar are often an ally of choice, this may be useful to look at - more armoured than the Piranha, not open-topped, with an increased number of stronger shots, more ballistic skill, and Scout. I recognise that we have the Piranha already, but it certainly caught my eye, and that's just the base model.

It's slightly less versatile as it cannot drop drones, but given the similarity in price, it makes my Piranhas and TX-42s sad.

Has anyone fielded or faced them? Very little has been said on ATT regarding them since the latest Apoc book, and they were worse before.