Why we don't need allies and wouldyou if you could

[gloomfang]

Jul 18, 2012 7:59:27 GMT Lanesend said:

And nidded up Gun emplacements can auto-fire if I'm not mistaken (don't have the book with me now) at BS 2.
Hey. That's the same as ripper tentacles on a spore. So it would be logical that a digestion pit or spore chimney with built in guns (guad-beetle-throwers) would fire at that same BS, right?

*sigh*
I need to save this rant to a wordfile so I can paste it.

Gun Emplacements do not have autofire. Emplaced Weapons do. We can not manually fire Emplaced Weapons, but we CAN fire Gun Emplacements.
Quad-guns and Icaruss LC are Gun Emplacements. You need to have someone fire them, but they use the BS of the shooter. If you have a venomthrope firing a Quad-gun it is BS4. You hit flyers (or anything else as it has intercepter) on a 3+.

The Fragstorm missle system, the HB and the TL Icaruss LC are all emplaced weapons and those autofire at BS2 at the nearest target. Except the TL Icaruss can use the Intersepter rule to fire out of turn at a unit coming in from deepstrike.

[Xantige]

Jul 18, 2012 10:31:59 GMT Lanesend said:

@xan, that's the point. 6th edition has more randomness then 5th edition. This makes it harder for competative play and easier to 'gamble' on army lists and tactics.
(for example psychic powers. A lot of nice buffs to be gained, but not sure what you get)

And please, casual does not mean: "Lets get drunk and play the game to loose, 'cause it doesn't matter anyway." The difference between competative and friendly is a lot smaller then most people will admit. (mostly because they view their own playstyle as the only right way to play).

I play friendly, but I always play to win...

Let me try and rephrase what I meant. I don't think there's any right or wrong way of playing 40k. I've met jerks that are casual and competitive, and I've met some really nice people that are some of the most competitive gamers I've ever met. I'm more of a casual player, so if 40k becomes casual, in theory, it doesn't hurt me too much (that said, I roll horribly, so the random factors do annoy me a little).

There's nothing wrong with making a casual game. Imbalances happen in games like 40k no matter what you do. In my experience, there's 2 kinds of casuals. The first is what you tend to think of when you hear "casual", it means playing mainly to have fun, as opposed to exploiting weird rule overlapping and loop holes. The second kind of casual that I've had the unfortunate luck to come across, is the idea that you can put out an extremely out of balance game, and then tell the players it's in their hands to balance it out themselves. In that case, there's the mentality that it's the gamer's fault if the game doesn't work.

I realize that it's unlikely that GW would stray to far into the latter, but I just hope they don't make the core rules more random and casual as a way to make up for past, present and future codex/rules imbalances, or worse, lean on the random mechanic and get a tad more lazy with keeping things balanced. It already seems like right out of the gate, Tyranids have been left out of the fun, ad if 40k is now more about the casual experience, than how much does our competitive worth matter?

Jul 18, 2012 13:35:15 GMT maeloke said:

Xan- You’re right, of course. They were awfully forgiving with other lists and allies, but I see that as a failing in those lists, not in the ‘Nid options. The fluff of ‘desparate allies’ pretty much says the after-battle consequences for the forces are exile or execution for treason. That doesn’t completely excuse the repeated occurrence of GKs in a tabletop Ork army, but it does make me feel better about it.

And again – what story do you tell when adding that Space Marine captain and terminator squad to your tervigon list? How do the Tau greater good the Parasite of Mortrex into their army? Allies imply some sort of ground-level coordination, which the Hive Mind just doesn’t go for. Biomass is biomass, and if the tyranids lose more gaunts in an attack by being tactically inefficient (no allies) – what does it matter? The next wave will consume them along with the prey species.

Jul 18, 2012 11:02:46 GMT N.I.B. said:

I loathe the idea of Tyranids brofisting with the food. Let us be Death.

Damn straight. Tyranids are the Great Devourer, the unknowable, unstoppable horror from beyond known space. Fluff implies 'nids have overrun entire galaxies before moving against ours. Chaos may threaten to destroy the Imperium of Man, but Tyranids threaten to consume *everyone*.

Here's the thing about us having the option to take allies: It gives people like me and Psychichobo the option of having a near nonsensical army of Tyranids with a side of <insert army here>, while still allowing folks like you and NIB the more fluff-adherent option to stay pure. Everyone wins.

Though I have to say, my new pet peeve has become people that use allies as a means to be competitive, and toss any and all fluff out the window. To me, that's different from "I just want to field a side of <insert army> and have a riot!" And that's why I've been using GK-Orks in all my examples. I saw a game where someone was trying to use that combination to have an edge over an IG army. Whether he actually made a good list or not doesn't matter to me, I just hate seeing people not care about what they take, and only caring about what it can do. What happened to the pride of your army? Your painting? Your armies name and it's history and fluff?</rant>

[Psychichobo]

As Xan has said many times, the point of the matter isn't fluff - it's fun. GW has allowed fluff to simply dictate what fun toys are given to what army, as as fleetofclaw said, it's little more than a giant middle finger to someone simply for playing that faction.

There is no actual compensation given to Nids. Every single other army was given several entire codices worth of new units that they can use alongside their main force. And it's not a funsies thing, it's legitimate as it's in the core rules, so it carries a certain weight to it (unlike having a very loose casual game where you have made-up rules and the like).


What I've found with GW at times is something Xan just pointed out - this mentality that they don't have to try and balance the game because it's all about fun. I'm sorry, but that's like writing a book and then messing up the ending, and telling the reader to make up a better one if they don't like it. You can take any game and add a casual fun element to it, make up your own rules, and so forth, but ultimately there HAS to be an element of balance to keep it being a game.


Still, there might be Stealer Cults coming soon, though I'm wary of the idea of an army that's 'designed' around being an ally to Nids, since that could very easily become the primary notion driving what it'll entail.

[firefash]

Personally I've been looking at a guard army with allied stealer units as a cult list (though I don't think any of the HQ units fit as a patriarch so well).
The fluff contains references to Ork stealer cults as it was Inquisitor Kryptman that delivered a brood of stealers into the Ork empire, there's more detail in older the codex.
Like wise I don't see any reason not to use a codex like the guard one to represent a faction not in the core rules, a count's as list would not necessarily fall into the categories/ army names used in the allies matrix. I hope it's true that stealer cults do appear in white dwarf and that it sets out option or suggestions for other use of counts as lists.

[wisdomseyes1]

Hobo, I had completely forgotten genestealer cults existed. That is... well sort of, away to justify tyranid allies.

[ragnarok]

From what I remember about cults

Eldar take to long to reproduce, so the cult dies out
Orks notice that the brood brothers had gone all bug eyed and shun/kill them, making it harder for the cult to floish (this was beofre the repoducing by spores came out)
Humans are everywhere and don;t notice the cult as easily.

Cults spieces I have herd of
Human, alot especially in very old BL books
Ork, as mentioned above
Tau, from the first chiphas Cain book, though we don't find out if it grews from the initial few converts.

[Deathnid]

I would take necrons... just for the cheeze.

[ikken]

I am beginning to mind less and less that we can't take allies .
Not because i would not like to have a land raider redeemer to carry 14 genestelers and a brood lord in , but more because ,as some one else mentioned earlier in this thread , I don't want other armies to have what we have .
Right now every one seems to be in love with IG , but if i was a tau player and needed an ally to fill in my armies weak spots I would rather have 1 tervagon as HQ , 1 gaunts squad , and another tervagon at about 450 pts , than a bunch of IG or CSM .
our dex has some of the best and cheapest troops in the game , and with the tervagon as an HQ , a player taking nids as an ally does not have to waste points on an expensive foreign HQ slot that probably won't gel much with the rest of his army .
if we could have allies , it would likely be our enemies that would benefit more from having us as allies that we from having them .

[maeloke]

Jul 18, 2012 21:24:37 GMT Xantige said:

Here's the thing about us having the option to take allies: It gives people like me and Psychichobo the option of having a near nonsensical army of Tyranids with a side of <insert army here>, while still allowing folks like you and NIB the more fluff-adherent option to stay pure. Everyone wins.

Though I have to say, my new pet peeve has become people that use allies as a means to be competitive, and toss any and all fluff out the window. To me, that's different from "I just want to field a side of <insert army> and have a riot!" And that's why I've been using GK-Orks in all my examples. I saw a game where someone was trying to use that combination to have an edge over an IG army. Whether he actually made a good list or not doesn't matter to me, I just hate seeing people not care about what they take, and only caring about what it can do. What happened to the pride of your army? Your painting? Your armies name and it's history and fluff?</rant>

I absolutely hear you with wanting to casually play a wacky army. In that context, though, I’d say most opponents wouldn’t mind playing a bit outside the rules. Seems like a thing to just talk to people about, rather than despair over.

You really can’t have it both ways. The problem you describe with GKs and Orks is the risk GW decided to make by including allies in the core rules, and yes it’s absurd. Take that principle, though, and imagine the narrative shitstorm that would be competitive 40k if, in core rules, anyone could ally with anyone.

I can see it now: Grey knights with a Swarmlord+guard detatchment facing off against Space Wolves with a Daemon Prince and plague marines. Nid null deployment with a side of elder skimmers beating on Deathwing teamed up with a mob of ork boyz. It’s already daft, but it could be worse.

Like others are saying, if the rules let us use other people's toys, then other people would get to use ours. I'm sick enough of seeing Tergivons in all our lists; imagine how tedious it would be to start seeing them in GK, Cron, and SW armies.

[bayne]

Jul 17, 2012 17:00:45 GMT Davor said:

Jul 17, 2012 14:42:50 GMT kippawah said:

I would say it'd make the most sense to be "allied" with IG. You know, with Genestealer cults and whatnot.

Why not Taucult, or Necrocult or Eldarcult or DEcult? Why does it have to be just IG, or I mean just humans? Wouldn't the Genestealer cults to the same to other races as well?

Now that would be nice to see. A Genestealercult for another race. I wonder what an Orkcult would be like?

I think the book was either Ere We Go or Freebootaz, probably Freebootaz. The rules for the stealer cults were actually published in the second or third white dwarf i ever bought. From what i recall stealer cults don't do well amongst orks because of their weird life cycle (being fungoid things) so a patriarch will be doing it's best to get off-world to find better species, so are fairly cheap for ork bosses to hire. The ork glyph for tyranids and genestealers was called iirc 'Da Bug Eyez'.

[Xantige]

Jul 19, 2012 16:29:50 GMT maeloke said:

Jul 18, 2012 21:24:37 GMT Xantige said:

Here's the thing about us having the option to take allies: It gives people like me and Psychichobo the option of having a near nonsensical army of Tyranids with a side of <insert army here>, while still allowing folks like you and NIB the more fluff-adherent option to stay pure. Everyone wins.

Though I have to say, my new pet peeve has become people that use allies as a means to be competitive, and toss any and all fluff out the window. To me, that's different from "I just want to field a side of <insert army> and have a riot!" And that's why I've been using GK-Orks in all my examples. I saw a game where someone was trying to use that combination to have an edge over an IG army. Whether he actually made a good list or not doesn't matter to me, I just hate seeing people not care about what they take, and only caring about what it can do. What happened to the pride of your army? Your painting? Your armies name and it's history and fluff?</rant>

I absolutely hear you with wanting to casually play a wacky army. In that context, though, I’d say most opponents wouldn’t mind playing a bit outside the rules. Seems like a thing to just talk to people about, rather than despair over.

You really can’t have it both ways. The problem you describe with GKs and Orks is the risk GW decided to make by including allies in the core rules, and yes it’s absurd. Take that principle, though, and imagine the narrative shitstorm that would be competitive 40k if, in core rules, anyone could ally with anyone.

I can see it now: Grey knights with a Swarmlord+guard detatchment facing off against Space Wolves with a Daemon Prince and plague marines. Nid null deployment with a side of elder skimmers beating on Deathwing teamed up with a mob of ork boyz. It’s already daft, but it could be worse.

Like others are saying, if the rules let us use other people's toys, then other people would get to use ours. I'm sick enough of seeing Tergivons in all our lists; imagine how tedious it would be to start seeing them in GK, Cron, and SW armies.

I agree that those are issues, but GW has already opened up the flood gates to the shitstorm with this. I've already seen stupid, pointless allied armies, so what's the point of denying nids that? If it's all being handed out willy nilly, why deny us? If GW was too generous, than that needs to be fixed. One way or another, something has to change, because it's inconsistent.

A lot of people have already said that allies wouldn't be so great in competitive play. Besides that, there's also been many people saying that tournaments will find a way to ban ally use, so where's the problem with giving nids official allies? As for our opponents fielding Tyranids... yes, having something like the Tervigon as an HQ/Troops does give them an edge, but Tyranids aren't some top tier army, you have to give to get. Do you think GK players are happy to see a clump of their Terminators in every list under the sun? On top of that, why would it specifically be a shitstorm at the competitive level and no other level? I've found that competitive players rarely care about any narrative more complex than "Nids verse <insert army here>." They aren't reenacting the battle of Ultramar, or some detailed campaign, they're playing with competitive lists in an attempt to win. What I'm saying is, those unallied lists already toss fluff aside to a degree when they opt for spamming certain units and ignoring others that would be a more fluffy fit for the battle at hand.

What it comes down too, is that it's easier to ignore a rule like allies, than it is to make it up yourself. You can't argue that it's fluffy, because it's not fluffy for other armies, it's nonsense. You can't say it's fair, because what did we get in return for being denied this? And you can't talk about competition if what Lanesend said about 40k becoming casual is true. And if you think 40k is competitive, than that just opens up ALL the cans of worms about balance... Really, the more I look at it, the more this thing is a giant mess. Any solution seems to be more of a fan patch than a real solution. I thin GW needs to go back to the drawing board with this idea. They either need to be more stingy with allies, or allow us some crazy allies, or give us proper compensation, or... I dunno... rewrite all the rules and codices to have awesome internal and external balance .

[maeloke]

I specified the competitive scene, because that’s where the worst WAAC players are often found. They’ll be the ones to figure out the optimal combination of different armies, regardless of fluff.

There’s never been any doubt about the balance of GW products. Their business model is too damn sluggish to actually keep codices consistent. You know, that actually gives me an idea for a project. Anyhow, no, fairness is clearly not a consideration for GW with the allies chart.

Despite your protests, the chart *is* informed by fluff, however messy and ill-applied. My own personal preference for a fix would be to simply downgrade the allies matrix by one or two stages. To wit: any current ‘Desperate allies’ are off limits, and ‘Allies of convenience’ are rare or penalized. Not perfect, but easy, and it would trim out the worst of the absurdity.

As suggested by Ragnarok, a more complex fix would be to make the chart asymmetrical. It fits fluff to have small GK detachments turning up anywhere, but a single IG unit joining the Knights? Not so much. Similar point could be made for Orks, really: give them a fight and a small warband will throw in with anyone, but fewer people would want to risk hanging out with a full ork army.

[daboss]

Honestly, I do not think the nids need allies, or belong with them. They are just to much of the all-devouring to have them. And, I am pretty sure the Ordo Xenos keeps a watch out for genestealer cults in the Imperium, and are hunted down by most others. Sure, some exist, but nids just don't seem like a team to have allies, or really need them. They are profecient at most things.

Just to throw this out there, why are Tau and SM Battle Brothers?

[vogon]

Sorry to wade in on this one on only my third post on this forum but if we look back in the history of the tyranids there are fluff reasons to include allies in a tyranid list other than genestealer cults.

Hopefully the attachment will work.

I'm talking to the group round here to go with a house rule that allows this using the original rules. basically up to 500pts from any army book but if they stray out of synapse range then roll a D6 1-4 they die, 5 or 6 they come under the control of the opponent

Cheers

Vogon

[Xantige]

Jul 21, 2012 6:32:17 GMT vogon said:

Sorry to wade in on this one on only my third post on this forum but if we look back in the history of the tyranids there are fluff reasons to include allies in a tyranid list other than genestealer cults.

Hopefully the attachment will work.

I'm talking to the group round here to go with a house rule that allows this using the original rules. basically up to 500pts from any army book but if they stray out of synapse range then roll a D6 1-4 they die, 5 or 6 they come under the control of the opponent

Cheers

Vogon

I so want to use this in a game! Old or not!