[Xabre]

Hey guys... maybe you can help me clear up some confusion I'm having with 7th.

I'm reading up on the rules for Allies, and I notice that under the 'Allied Detachment', it specifically says that an Allied detachment can NOT be the same faction as the primary detachment.

However, the ally matrix says that a Faction is Battle Brothers with itself.

So what wins? Does this mean that you can't have 2 Chapters of Marines allied, because they're the same faction? Or you can't mix Tau w/ Farsight because they're the same Faction?

 

[mayegelt]

All fun isn't it

This has been mentioned on a few other topics but still is unclear.

In the case of something like space marines (ravenguard) having a unit of space marines (salamanders) for instance the FAQ sorted it out by saying they are allies, so require an allies matrix to use as they have different chapter tactics.
Some started to argue that you could take a Primary for a Space Wolf army as a Combined Arms as Imperial Guard. This seemed to get quoshed though with the FAQ for Space Marines that said that a space marine chapter would need to take an allied detachment if it wanted to include space marines with different chapter tactics. As this proved that "Armies of the Imperium" need to ally with each other rather than combined arms.


The only arguing point at the moment seems to be with CSM - CSM CS - CSM BL. The supplements say that CS and BL are able to ally to CSM, but the new rule book says that they all class as the same 'Faction'.
With this the use of the word 'Faction' seemed to be used in 2 separate context. One to refer to the army (aka Space Wolves, Grey Knights, CSM, Tyranids), but also refers to it in the collective group (Armies of the Imperium).

I think what was meant by the bit saying supplements are counted as the same faction as the core book was only meant to refer that for the purpose of the allies matrix they count as the core book. So Black Legion or Crimson Slaughter count as Chaos Space Marines (various) for the purpose of being able to ally with Chaos Daemons or whatever. NOT that if you have a Black Legion army you could have it as your primary detachment but then include a Crimson Slaughter Combined Arms and a Chaos Space Marine Combined Arms (taking advantage of the additional daemon weapons and stuff). BUT you could still use allies formations to get them.
What you cant do however is have a Crimson Slaughter Primary Detachment you could not if have a Crimson Slaughter allied detachment if you only wanted 0-4 elite/fast/heavy, but only wanted 2-3 HQ total and 3 Troops.
What you can if you wanted the 0-4 elite/fast/heavy, only 2-3 HQ total and 3 Troops is have: CS 0-3 elite/fast/heavy, CS 1-2 HQ total and CS 2 Troops + CSM/BL 0-1 elite/fast/heavy, CSM/BL 1 HQ total and CSM/BL 1 Troops

The same I guess would be true of Tau / Farsight though I don't know if in the supplement for them if it says you can ally Farsight with Tau. I know in the case of Iyanden that it does not give them the option to ally with Eldar, though that is most likely because there is no point. The Iyanden army gets a few special extra rules, BUT has no negative things, and can still use the Codex Eldar : Remnants of Glory (though not combined on the same character who uses the Iyanden : Gifts of Asuryan).

 

[Xabre]

All fun isn't it

This has been mentioned on a few other topics but still is unclear.

In the case of something like space marines (ravenguard) having a unit of space marines (salamanders) for instance the FAQ sorted it out by saying they are allies, so require an allies matrix to use as they have different chapter tactics.
Some started to argue that you could take a Primary for a Space Wolf army as a Combined Arms as Imperial Guard. This seemed to get quoshed though with the FAQ for Space Marines that said that a space marine chapter would need to take an allied detachment if it wanted to include space marines with different chapter tactics. As this proved that "Armies of the Imperium" need to ally with each other rather than combined arms.


The only arguing point at the moment seems to be with CSM - CSM CS - CSM BL. The supplements say that CS and BL are able to ally to CSM, but the new rule book says that they all class as the same 'Faction'.
With this the use of the word 'Faction' seemed to be used in 2 separate context. One to refer to the army (aka Space Wolves, Grey Knights, CSM, Tyranids), but also refers to it in the collective group (Armies of the Imperium).

I think what was meant by the bit saying supplements are counted as the same faction as the core book was only meant to refer that for the purpose of the allies matrix they count as the core book. So Black Legion or Crimson Slaughter count as Chaos Space Marines (various) for the purpose of being able to ally with Chaos Daemons or whatever. NOT that if you have a Black Legion army you could have it as your primary detachment but then include a Crimson Slaughter Combined Arms and a Chaos Space Marine Combined Arms (taking advantage of the additional daemon weapons and stuff). BUT you could still use allies formations to get them.
What you cant do however is have a Crimson Slaughter Primary Detachment you could not if have a Crimson Slaughter allied detachment if you only wanted 0-4 elite/fast/heavy, but only wanted 2-3 HQ total and 3 Troops.

The same I guess would be true of Tau / Farsight though I don't know if in the supplement for them if it says you can ally Farsight with Tau. I know in the case of Iyanden that it does not give them the option to ally with Eldar, though that is most likely because there is no point. The Iyanden army gets a few special extra rules, BUT has no negative things, and can still use the Codex Eldar : Remnants of Glory (though not combined on the same character who uses the Iyanden : Gifts of Asuryan).

To be clear and fair, my specific situation is Tau. In Farsight, it states:

ALLIES
In addition to following the Allies Matrix for Codex: Tau Empire, Farsight Enclaves
detachments and Codex: Tau Empire detachments may ally together as Battle Brothers.


But the BRB seems to quash that. However the FAQs didn't do anything to clear any of it up, except to change the words 'Army' to 'Detachment'.

It sounds like what the rules are TRYING to say is that you can run more than one Combined Arms of the same book, just like you used to run 2 primary detachments at 2k... but you can't run an Allied Detachment in order to get 'half' the requirements in. But it's pretty murky right now.

 

[mayegelt]

Updated my post slightly after making it

"What you can if you wanted the 0-4 elite/fast/heavy, only 2-3 HQ total and 3 Troops is have: CS 0-3 elite/fast/heavy, CS 1-2 HQ total and CS 2 Troops + CSM/BL 0-1 elite/fast/heavy, CSM/BL 1 HQ total and CSM/BL 1 Troops"

So what you could do if you wanted the 0-4 elite/fast/heavy, only 2-3 HQ total and 3 Troops is have: Farsight 0-3 elite/fast/heavy, Farsight 1-2 HQ total and Farsight 2-6 Troops + Tau 0-1 elite/fast/heavy, Tau 1 HQ and Tau 1-2 Troops"

Looks like you are in the same boat as CSM/BL/CS for chaos. Technically you can take combined arms detachments for both in the same army, but also take allied detachments for each others as well.
My personally opinion is that it would be Allies only, but without it being cleared up rules as written say you can have both.

This would also mean that you could do if you wanted the 0-6 elite/fast/heavy, only 2-4 HQ total and 4-12 Troops is have: Farsight 0-3 elite/fast/heavy, Farsight 1-2 HQ total and Farsight 2-6 Troops + Tau 0-3 elite/fast/heavy, Tau 1-2 HQ and Tau 2-6 Troops. If you can combined arms.

 

[don_mondo]

OK, couple points to make.

1. Armies of the Imperium is NOT a Faction, it is a collection of factions into a single group, I'm assuming because they didn't want to list them all in the Allies matrix.

2. Battle Brothers, whatever, has zero bearing on whether or not you can ally an army. It does make life easier or you if your allies are BB, but just being BB means
nothing to the rules for Allied Detachments.

3. The Space Marine bit is an exception to the rules for allied detachments, not a standard. Only Marines can take an Allied Detachment and ally with themselves, the rest of us cannot. So my IG cannot take an IG faction as an Allied detachment.

4. Faction is what matters. And supplements are the same faction as the army they are a supplement of. So no, you cannot take a CAD of CSM and an Allied detachment of BL or CS. But yes, you can take all three of them as CADs. Hell, since the rules for a CAD only say that all units in a CAD must be from the same faction, you can even take both regular Tau and Farsight in the same CAD. Still have to meet the codex requirements/restrictions, but legally, they are the same faction and can be in the same CAD.

So Tau CAD, Farsight CAD in the same army, good. Either as Primary CAD, other as Allied Detachment, no. Basically, if you want both codexes in separate detachments, you have to pay the 'Troop Tax' and take a CAD for each of them. Or put them intoa single detachment.

Re BL/CS, I've been told there are statements in at least one of them that prevents them from doing the sinlge CSM/CS/BL CAD, I'll leave that to someone that has them to answer.

 

[Xabre]

@mayegelt: No offense... but I don't have a clue what you just said in your last post.

@don: WHY is the marines the exception? What makes them the exception? Is there something somewhere in writing? If so, how is it any stronger or worse than what's in writing in the Farsight Supplement that allows them to ally? That's really what I'm trying to pin down, before I have to scrap my army idea. Or at least modify it heavily.

 

[mayegelt]

Quote from CS book

"A Crimson Slaughter detachement can ally with a Codex: Chaos Space Marines detachment as Battle Brothers (and vice versa)."

Quote from BRB book

"In the case of older publications, the Faction of all the units described in a codex is the same as the codex’s title. In the case of codex supplements, the Faction of all the units described in that publication is the same as the codex it is a supplement of."

ALSO quoted from the Combined Arms Detachment bit of BRB

"All units chosen must have the same Faction (or have no Faction)."

ALSO quoted from the allies Detachment bit of BRB

"All units chosen must have the same Faction (or no Faction).
All units chosen must have a different Faction to any of the units in your Primary Detachment (or no Faction)."

Sooooooooooo
IF according to the first BRB quote is right they class as the same faction...
Allies however says that All units chosen must have a different faction to your primary detachement...
The CS / BL in their book can both ally to CSM, and it seems Farsight and Tau can also Ally...
But how can they, they are the same faction, so break the restriction of needing to be different to the primary detachment...

So the spiral continued...

The basic idea was though it seems that they used the word "Faction" stupidly to many times. But in essence either they could Allied detachment or CAD detachment it isn't really sure, but good arguments can be made that both could be acceptable, but not both at the same time.

 

[don_mondo]

@mayegelt: No offense... but I don't have a clue what you just said in your last post.

@don: WHY is the marines the exception? What makes them the exception? Is there something somewhere in writing? If so, how is it any stronger or worse than what's in writing in the Farsight Supplement that allows them to ally? That's really what I'm trying to pin down, before I have to scrap my army idea. Or at least modify it heavily.

Yep, Space Marines FAQ changes their Allies section on page 77 of the codex, "Space Marines can be taken in an Allied Detachment even if your army's Primary Detachment contains units with the Space Marines faction, provided they have a different set of chapter tactics."

Also, note the phrasing, "may be taken in an Allied Detachment". Now, note the difference between that and what Mayegelt posted for CS and BL. As I posted earlier, you can take A CSM CAD and a CS CAD and a BL CAD all in the same army, ie ALLY them with each other. In fact, you can now pretty much ally with anyone just by taking them in a second CAD, all that the allies rules do is set the level of alliance, ie from BB to Come the Apoc. The difference in phrasing shows us the difference between being an ally (ie what the CS and BL quotes allow) and being an Allied Detachment (ie what the Space Marine FAQ allows).

Bottom line, key to the whole thing is understanding the difference between being allied and being an Allied Detachment. After that, it's simple.

 

[mayegelt]

I would argue that any Ally (CSM / BL / CS) (Tau / FSE) (Imp Fist / Space Wolf) (Ravenguard / Ultramarine) has to by logic be taken as an Allied Detachment, otherwise there isn't a point in having allied detachment rules.

As said the rules are messy ATM, but the likely chance of a clear up on these things is small as they do tend to sit on their hands for long periods of time or diving in to the Scrooge McDuck style money vault.

 

[don_mondo]

I would argue that any Ally (CSM / BL / CS) (Tau / FSE) (Imp Fist / Space Wolf) (Ravenguard / Ultramarine) has to by logic be taken as an Allied Detachment, otherwise there isn't a point in having allied detachment rules.

You could argue it. You would be wrong but you could argue it. With the new force organization allowing multiple CADs in a single list, and allowing those CADs to be from any codex, that's an Ally. And that CAD has to take the two Troops. An Allied Detachment however does not have to take two Troops, and cannot take more than three Troops, or one each of any other Force Org slot. And the Allies matrix is there to show us how units from any one faction deal with Ally units from any other faction, regardless of whether those Ally units come from another CAD or from an Allied Detachment. So there is a point in having an Allied Detachment. They've tried to provide lots of flexibility and yes, IMO, have gone too far in that contortionism. I mean really, I could take an HQ and two Troops from 10 different codexes and have a legal army. Or 1 HQ/2 Troops units from 5 codexes and Allied detachments from 5 others (so long as not same faction as my Primary) with 1 HQ/1 Troops unit. Personally, I don't really see any difference between that and Unbound, but that's just the old man being grouchy about the drastic changes in the Force Org/allies set-up.

 

[Xabre]

I think what it finally boils down to is the loop holes. GW created the Combined Arms detachment to basically be a full army. You're allowed a second detachment, and it doesn't need to be at 2k, so you get another Combined Arms.

The Allied detachment, because it's a 'half' army, is meant so that you can take something completely different... like taking a Guard army with a 'side' of Marines. But because that also meant that people could take just a single troop choice... they closed the loop hole... which also forced supplements to be shut out also.

 

[Da Joka]

I think you guys have made this super complicated... it's not as hard as you are making it.

Step one of making an Army is picking a Faction, aka Orks, Eldar, Tau, etc... This is your main faction. Your Primary Detachment must be from this Faction (Your Primary Detachment is the one with your Warlord). If you take a secondary Detachment it must be of this faction as well, BUT it can be from a different Supplement, aka Main force is Farsight, your second detachment can be normal Codex Tau.

If you want to take Allies, they can not be from your main Faction. They must be from a different one, like for the Tau above, Eldar. It would look something like this:

Primary Detachment: Farsight Enclave
Secondary Detachment: Tau Empire
Allied Detachment: Eldar

For Space Marines, the other chapters are considered the same as a Supplement. But say Imperial Knights are considered a different Faction. So it would look like this:

Primary Detachment: Iron Hands
Secondary Detachment: Black Templars
Allied Detachment: Imperial Knights

Or maybe this:

Primary Detachment: Iron Hands
Secondary Detachment: Iron Hands Clan Raukaan
Allied Detachment: Imperial Knights

Hope this makes sense to you guys.

 

[Xabre]

I think you guys have made this super complicated... it's not as hard as you are making it.

Step one of making an Army is picking a Faction, aka Orks, Eldar, Tau, etc... This is your main faction. Your Primary Detachment must be from this Faction (Your Primary Detachment is the one with your Warlord). If you take a secondary Detachment it must be of this faction as well, BUT it can be from a different Supplement, aka Main force is Farsight, your second detachment can be normal Codex Tau.

If you want to take Allies, they can not be from your main Faction. They must be from a different one, like for the Tau above, Eldar. It would look something like this:

Primary Detachment: Farsight Enclave
Secondary Detachment: Tau Empire
Allied Detachment: Eldar

For Space Marines, the other chapters are considered the same as a Supplement. But say Imperial Knights are considered a different Faction. So it would look like this:

Primary Detachment: Iron Hands
Secondary Detachment: Black Templars
Allied Detachment: Imperial Knights

Or maybe this:

Primary Detachment: Iron Hands
Secondary Detachment: Iron Hands Clan Raukaan
Allied Detachment: Imperial Knights

Hope this makes sense to you guys.

It makes perfect sense, except for one thing: There's no such thing, RAW, as a secondary detachment. RAW, you get as many Combined Arms Detachments as you want... and you nominate the one with your warlord as your Primary. Period.

So that's the real question... and you've partially answered it. You can't use an Allied Detachment with the same faction, as far as we can tell.

 

[mayegelt]

Yeah someone recently swayed me on this topic and from doing a load of digging at work while bored.

A Primary Detachment has your Warlord and everyone has to be from the same book / supplement.

A CAD doesn't have your warlord and has to be from the same book / supplement. Though is NOT REQUIRED to be from the same book / supplement as the primary detachment.

An Allies Detachment doesn't have your warlord and has to be from the same book / supplement. Though is REQUIRED to be from a different book / supplement to the primary detachment.

 

[don_mondo]

Yeah someone recently swayed me on this topic and from doing a load of digging at work while bored.

1. A Primary Detachment has your Warlord and everyone has to be from the same book / supplement.

2. A CAD doesn't have your warlord and has to be from the same book / supplement. Though is NOT REQUIRED to be from the same book / supplement as the primary detachment.

3. An Allies Detachment doesn't have your warlord and has to be from the same book / supplement. Though is REQUIRED to be from a different book / supplement to the primary detachment.

1. No. Do not have to be from the same book/supplement. Everything in it must be from the same FACTION. Also note that it's still a CAD, just happens to be the one you chose as your primary and has your Warlord in it.
2. No. Do not have to be from the same book/supplement. Everything in it must be from the same FACTION.
3. No. Must be from a different FACTION than your primary.


Faction, not book, not codex, not supplement. Faction.

 

[mayegelt]

1. No. Do not have to be from the same book/supplement. Everything in it must be from the same FACTION. Also note that it's still a CAD, just happens to be the one you chose as your primary and has your Warlord in it.
2. No. Do not have to be from the same book/supplement. Everything in it must be from the same FACTION.
3. No. Must be from a different FACTION than your primary.


Faction, not book, not codex, not supplement. Faction.

Your qualifications are kinda saying the same thing as mine, though I guess I forgot to add in that of course you can have stuff from Imperial Armour and other FW stuffs as well as the new tend to make online dataslates and WD articles and all that what is also the same Faction.

The FACTION normally = the Book / Supplement that you are taking from

The exception to this is of course the Space Marines book what says with the FAQ that the Chapters class as different factions.

Otherwise with the way you are saying it and the BRB says
"In the case of codex supplements, the Faction of all the units described in that publication is the same as the codex it is a supplement of."
This would mean I could as a Primary Detachment (the only difference between a CAD and Primary is the inclusion of the Warlord and the allied detachments the army can then take, that is why I made the difference between them) could have a Crimson Slaughter Chaos Lord with CS items, and the other HQ could be a CSM Chaos Lord with Axe of Blind Fury if you wanted it.

 

[don_mondo]

Your qualifications are kinda saying the same thing as mine, though I guess I forgot to add in that of course you can have stuff from Imperial Armour and other FW stuffs as well as the new tend to make online dataslates and WD articles and all that what is also the same Faction.

The FACTION normally = the Book / Supplement that you are taking from

OK, maybe I'm misunderstanding your statement then, if you think we're saying the same thing. I'm not talking about IA or dataslates or any additional stuff. I'm talking about a single Combined Arms Detachment. I'm reading your statements as saying that a CAD must come from a single source, either codex or supplement. I'm saying that a CAD must all come from a single faction and that if there are multiple sources within that faction ie a codex and two supplements, then you can have units from all three sources in a single CAD (although you must still abide by any codex or supplement restrictions.

A good example is the Tau codex and Farsight supplement. You can have a CAD with units from both, but you must still meet the Farsight unit requirements and restrictions on units allowed. Or my IG codex and Stormtroopers supplement, I can take a Stormtroopers HQ and have a standard IG Platoon as a Troops unit in the same CAD because all the units are from the same Faction.

 

[mayegelt]

Yeah of course the supplement thing normally says you can use all the stuff on the book it is based on with X restrictions. Such as Black Legion, everyone who can must take VotLW and CS the only ones who can purchase VotLW is Plague Marines, Noise Marines and Khorne Berserkers.