[ntaw]

I recently read a comment about using dual force organization charts, which made me look to see if that stipulation still exists at 2,000 points in 7th; turns out it doesn't (or I just really can't find it). It got me thinking about whether you can take two Combined Arms Detachments from the same Faction. I've always been under the impression that every Detachment had to be from separate Factions because of the way Allies work and how certain Codices and Supplements have specific stipulations for how Allies with their parent Codex or allying with themselves (like with Codex: Space Marines). Got me doing some looking:

Pg. 118 states that "there is no limit to the number of Detachments a Battle-Forged army can include and you can use any mixture of Detachments you have available, within the restrictions of the rules that follow." Pg. 120 says much the same, adding the stipulation "provided you have sufficient units".

The only restriction for Combined Arms Detachments is that "all units chosen must have the same Faction (or have no faction)".

Which got me to thinking that you can indeed still do a dual FoC list from the same Codex provided you play two Combined Arms Detachments instead of using an Allied Detachment to only add in one extra Troop choice. Bonus. It also got me thinking that you can ally a Codex with itself provided you have a third Detachment and that is your (Combined Arms) Primary Detachment, as the restriction on Allied Detachments states they "must have a different Faction to any of the units in your Primary Detachment (or no Faction)".

Do I have this straight? It's an awesome revelation for me, my gaming group is able to push the size of the games we play up to almost 3k and one FoC is hard to work with at that level for my model collection.

 

[Drohar]

I've red it through many times and yes I think you can do that.
Nothing(that I've found) says you cannot choose detachments from different factions and only restriction on ally's is that you cannot have the same faction as your primary detachment.
@ntaw I think you want to do something like this:
Primary Detachment: e.g. Tau
Secndary Detachment: e.g. Space Marine
Ally Detachment: e.g. Space Marine

I think that is legal.

 

[scscofield]

The way I read it, the above example would not be legal. I read it as you can take as many CAD in your primary faction as you want. They just each need 1 hq and 2 troops.

So it could be
Primary CAD: SM
2nd CAD: SM
3rd CAD: SM
Ally: Tau

Now if you wanted to then add formations into the mix you are really only limited by what the restrictions of the formation state. The biggest limiting factor of all this really is points. It is hard to cram all the goodies into 2k list when you start adding all those extra formations and CADs.

 

[Xabre]

From what I've read, your 'Combined Arms Detachment' is 1 HQ, 2 Troops, plus all the fixin's.

An 'Allied Detachment' is smaller, 1 HQ, 1 Troops.
Formation Detachments (and other shinies, like a Nemesis Strike Force Detachment), all have their own requirements.

CADs are how you build a double force org, and there are no restrictions. ALLIES are restricted to a different faction (exception: Space Marines of different Chapters, I believe). This forces you to run 2 full CADs, instead of 1.5 with the Allied Formation loophole.

Tau & Farsight together needs 2 CAD. Space Marines and Tau can use 1 CAD and 1 Ally.

 

[ntaw]

ALLIES are restricted to a different faction (exception: Space Marines of different Chapters, I believe)

Can this can be negated by taking multiple CADs of different Chapter Tactics or does the Allies section of the SM codex stop that? For the purpose of one-stop reading,

A Space Marine detachment chosen from this codex that
has one set of Chapter Tactics may ally with another Space
Marine detachment chosen from this codex that has a
different set of Chapter Tactics (Ultramarines and Raven
Guard, for example). For the purposes of the Allies rules,
these detachments are treated as if they were chosen from
two different codexes and are treated as Battle Brothers.

Do ya think this means you can't take multiple CADs to expand past two sets of Chapter Tactics in your army? Not that this even specifically applies to me, all my SM armies are from different Codices. Just curious.

 

[Creon]

Or you can ally where specifically allowed. I.e. Farsight is specifically allowed to ally to Codex:Tau armies. And I think it's the same for different chapters of SM.

 

[Xabre]

Or you can ally where specifically allowed. I.e. Farsight is specifically allowed to ally to Codex:Tau armies. And I think it's the same for different chapters of SM.

Wrong. The rules in FSE are NOT saying that you can use an Allied Detachment (since that rule didn't exist at the time the codex was printed). That rule is stating that FSE and Tau are Battle Brothers, and are treated as such. In 7E, the new 'factions' make this rule moot, because now both are part of the Tau Faction. but never once does it say you can break the BRB rule that states an Allied Deatchment must be a different faction.
@ntaw: Based on what you quoted, I would recant my previous statement and say no, you could never take an Allied Detachment of one Marine Chapter vs another. same as above with Tau: the Allied rules say they can NOT be the same faction. C:SM allows different chapters to be battle brothers, and to treat each chapter as it's own army, but you'd need to CAD both chapters in the same faction.

 

[ntaw]

you could never take an Allied Detachment of one Marine Chapter vs another

I'm talking about multiple Combined Arms Detachments though, the ones without any fancy restrictions. Lookit here! I checked the FAQ and there's a total rewording of what I quoted from 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 that they have a different set of Chapter Tactics.

This nullifies the Allied Detachment restriction in this specific example, but leaves Combined Arms Detachments out of it. Seems to me so far it would be legal take:
CAD Imperial fists
CAD White Scars
AD Salamanders

 

[Creon]

Wrong. The rules in FSE are NOT saying that you can use an Allied Detachment (since that rule didn't exist at the time the codex was printed). That rule is stating that FSE and Tau are Battle Brothers, and are treated as such. In 7E, the new 'factions' make this rule moot, because now both are part of the Tau Faction. but never once does it say you can break the BRB rule that states an Allied Deatchment must be a different faction.

While valid that the rule didn't exist, I checked the FAQ and no correction was made to this text:

"In adidtion to following the allies matrix for Codex:Tau Empire, Farsight enclaves detachments and codex:Tau empire detachments may ally together as battle brothers" (empasis added)
(I only have the MOBI edition, can't quote you a page)

Since they saw fit to not FAQ this, it tells me they can both use the ALLY formation with each other. As that's the wording they use.

 

[Xabre]

While valid that the rule didn't exist, I checked the FAQ and no correction was made to this text:

"In adidtion to following the allies matrix for Codex:Tau Empire, Farsight enclaves detachments and codex:Tau empire detachments may ally together as battle brothers" (empasis added)
(I only have the MOBI edition, can't quote you a page)

Since they saw fit to not FAQ this, it tells me they can both use the ALLY formation with each other. As that's the wording they use.

Again, no. The ALLY MATRIX is designed to tell people how two factions react to each other. So the ruling in FSE says that Tau and FSE may ALLY TOGETHER and count as Battle Brothers... because at the time of 6E, the ALLY MATRIX did not show anything regarding Farsight to tell them what their relation was (after all, in Fluff they may NOT be Brothers). The word ALLY in the FAQ is talking about the matrix, because an 'Allied Detachment' specifically says that you can't use the same faction. GW had no reason to FAQ that original rule, because the new BRB Faction rules have incorporated this. Or you could read what I'm about to write to @ntaw and realize that since they did NOT put this in the FAQ for Tau, but did for Marines, it suggests that Marines are the exception, not the rule (and therefore Tau isn't either).

Ntaw... that FAQ is why in my first response I said 'I think Marines can do it'. I don't play Codex Marines so I wasn't keeping up with their rules too much. In your example, that's perfect. Basically the way it boils down is when you choose your detachments, one becomes primary. wherever your Warlord is, really. And I think if you take a CAD, one of those needs to be primary. You can keep throwing in other CADs, and the Allied restrictions are based of the primary FACTION (emphasis there mostly for Creon). In the case of Marines, your example is valid because of the FAQ exclusions.

Heck, you could get away with

Primary CAD: Salamanders
CAD: Tau
Allies: FSE (specifically because it is not the same faction as Marines).

 

[ntaw]

Perfect! So the way to ally your Codex to itself is by bringing a Combined Arms Detachment from a different Faction and making that your Primary Detachment.

Now I can take my Deathwing CAD with Belial's need to be in the Primary, then max out the killing with a Blood Angel CAD and a Death Company AD. When the hell did I end up with so many Elites and HQ selections?!

 

[Xabre]

Depending on how many different things you were throwing in, you wouldn't NEED a CAD and AD in that example. Unless you were pushing 3 HQs and/or 7 troops? Otherwise you could just throw the Death Company in your Blood Angel's CAD.

But yes, in theory, you're correct, that's what you could do.

*note that I haven't been talking out of my ass with no BRB in front of me, but I'm about 90% sure that it's all based what what you declare your PCAD.

 

[ntaw]

3 HQs and 4 Elites, 6 Troops selections is a tough section to max out for me with all my Tactical marines shifting allegiances to Imperial Fists. Not a list I would deem competitive, but one that looks hella fun anyway.

I've been pouring over the BRB as well, and now that it's been hashed out in this thread I'm pretty confident that this is the way it works.

 

[mayegelt]

Ahh this old chestnut again...

The general consensus is that the allies rules are written badly and uses the word "Faction" to frequently to both describe the armies and collective group of armies (such as Forces of the Imperium).
Technically as written if you wanted to you could have a CAD with Space Marine Chapter Master as HQ, Leman Russ tanks as Heavy and Grey Knights as Troops in the same CAD if you read the rules as written. This is because as "Forces of the Imperium" they are all the same Faction.

The other weird one is because of the Space Marines FAQ it says something like
"Space Marines can be taken as an allied detachment even if your army's primary detachment contains units of the space marine faction, provided they use different set of chapter tactics"

HOWEVER though I don't have the FSE book, I know that from Crimson Slaughter (CS) & Black Legion (BL) they both say in clear words they treat CSM as Battle Brothers and count themselves as CSM for the purpose of being allied to. Also they may ally with CSM. So in this case you could have CSM Primary with BL Allied Detachment OR Combined Arms Detachment.

HOWEVER (again) the Iyanden book does not say either way about allying to Eldar. Though in the case of Iyanden there is no point in doing so,
Iyanden can still take the special wargear from the Eldar book, so long as they don't also take any of the special wargear from the Iyanden book on the same character.
They can freely choose the Eldar or Iyanden Warlord Traits.
They suffer no penalties such as having to take particular things or being denied anything apart from Spirit Seer must take Voice of Twilight instead of Conceal/Reveal as Primus for their powers.
Basically Iyanden just get bonus rules of being able to have Wraithknights and Wraithlords as Warlords. There Spirit Seer also get a different Primus Power. Also they can take Spirit Seers in 1-5s as a single HQ choice. As said above they also get some extra wargear and warlord traits and extra city of death and planet strike types of things as well.

 

[Xabre]

Ahh this old chestnut again...

The general consensus is that the allies rules are written badly and uses the word "Faction" to frequently to both describe the armies and collective group of armies (such as Forces of the Imperium).
Technically as written if you wanted to you could have a CAD with Space Marine Chapter Master as HQ, Leman Russ tanks as Heavy and Grey Knights as Troops in the same CAD if you read the rules as written. This is because as "Forces of the Imperium" they are all the same Faction.

What stops this one from happening is the Codex's own Force Org Chart. Yes, BRB says that you can have the same FACTION as your primary CAD, but the Codex writes out the Force Org Chart that says you can't have a Leman Russ without the rest of your Force Org, your hQ and Troop requirements. Nothing in the BRB stops that requirement (except unBound).

The other weird one is because of the Space Marines FAQ it says something like
"Space Marines can be taken as an allied detachment even if your army's primary detachment contains units of the space marine faction, provided they use different set of chapter tactics"

And THAT is the most important thing you could have said. Because no other supplement says this, this is the measure against every other standard. Tau and Chaos do NOT have something like this to say they can run an allied detachment.

HOWEVER though I don't have the FSE book, I know that from Crimson Slaughter (CS) & Black Legion (BL) they both say in clear words they treat CSM as Battle Brothers and count themselves as CSM for the purpose of being allied to. Also they may ally with CSM. So in this case you could have CSM Primary with BL Allied Detachment OR Combined Arms Detachment.

This is the same argument as Farsight using different words. Nothing in those rules say you can have an allied detachment. The rules were 6E relics that say they are battle brothers, while the 7E faction rules make that rule obsolete (I've said this already). Farsight says the same thing. It can Ally as Battle Brothers... but these rules came out before an Allied Detachment ever existed, so how can this rule possibly be implying something that wasn't around? Only a specific permission, like the Space Marine FAQ could do so.


TLDR: Just because an army can ally and count as Battle Brothers, does not mean it can break a rule that says 'Allied Detachments can not come from the same faction'.

 

[Ravner298]

While I agree with the whole faction can't ally thing, it is interesting to note that adepticon has stated that you can ally with your codexes supplement (1hq/1troop+whatever) and bypass the CAD requirement (basically double force org). I don't know if other events will mirror that or not (BAO and nova did not but came before adepticon). Personally, my local store runs events with you able to ally with your supplement, so it's a non issue for me either way.

 

[mayegelt]

What stops this one from happening is the Codex's own Force Org Chart. Yes, BRB says that you can have the same FACTION as your primary CAD, but the Codex writes out the Force Org Chart that says you can't have a Leman Russ without the rest of your Force Org, your hQ and Troop requirements. Nothing in the BRB stops that requirement (except unBound).

Well only some books have their own FoC, though the ones in the rule book are different to those ones anyway, and it says these are the ones to use in the BRB unless you want to use one of the unique ones with their own rules a codex has.
The big weird one that normally throws the spanner at the suggestion by me is as I said with this whole "Factions" thing what appears to much and actually refers to different things in different parts of the rule book. Is that for instance if you have a Imperial Fist Space Marine army, as written if you read 1 way you could not ally with anyone of the same faction (as it says allied detachments must have a different faction to the ones in your primary detachment) would mean that you could not have Grey Knights or Imperial Guard or Space Wolves or whatever because they are the same faction (Armies of the Imperium). But would of course be able to include anything from any of those books in the same Primary Detachment as all of them would be the same faction. The Faction being, Armies of the Imperium, and the only restriction being on a CAD / PD being that all units contains in it must be of the same faction (being Armies of the Imperium).

I think the people who checked the rules to make sure they were well written died when Nuffle did.

 

[Xabre]

Well only some books have their own FoC, though the ones in the rule book are different to those ones anyway, and it says these are the ones to use in the BRB unless you want to use one of the unique ones with their own rules a codex has.

Since I don't have my BRB7E in front of me, I can't respond as well as I'd like to. End result: Can you find something in the BRB that says whether a CAD can use multiple armies? The default rules for a CAD apply in most cases, and I believe there are restrictions that say all entries in a CAD must come from the same codex. However, since I can't quote it verbatim, I'll leave that one in the air.

The big weird one that normally throws the spanner at the suggestion by me is as I said with this whole "Factions" thing what appears to much and actually refers to different things in different parts of the rule book. Is that for instance if you have a Imperial Fist Space Marine army, as written if you read 1 way you could not ally with anyone of the same faction (as it says allied detachments must have a different faction to the ones in your primary detachment) would mean that you could not have Grey Knights or Imperial Guard or Space Wolves or whatever because they are the same faction (Armies of the Imperium). But would of course be able to include anything from any of those books in the same Primary Detachment as all of them would be the same faction. The Faction being, Armies of the Imperium, and the only restriction being on a CAD / PD being that all units contains in it must be of the same faction (being Armies of the Imperium).

Actually, what you just wrote there is exactly the point. You CANNOT have a Grey Knight or Guard or Space Wolves or anything else as an Allied Detachment with this system, because they ARE the same Faction. However, you could, for instance, run a Nemesis Strike Force detachment, or an Inquisitorial Detachment, or a Knight Detachment, etc etc. You just can't run an ALLIED Detachment.

Talking about using multiple codices in a singled CAD leads back to what I mentioned at the top of this post, in which I feel that there's a restriction in the CAD saying all entries must be from the same source.

 

[mayegelt]

Since I don't have my BRB7E in front of me, I can't respond as well as I'd like to. End result: Can you find something in the BRB that says whether a CAD can use multiple armies? The default rules for a CAD apply in most cases, and I believe there are restrictions that say all entries in a CAD must come from the same codex. However, since I can't quote it verbatim, I'll leave that one in the air.

Talking about using multiple codices in a singled CAD leads back to what I mentioned at the top of this post, in which I feel that there's a restriction in the CAD saying all entries must be from the same source.

All the CAD thing says for restrictions is that everything in it must be the same Faction or no Faction.

So the arguement becomes as i said what "Faction" they mean. At one point it says that Faction refers to the army (aka Space Marines, Blood Angels, Grey Knights, Daemons...) though only a couple of pages on it says that your Faction is things like Armies of the Imperium and such so things like Grey Knight, Blood Angels, Space Marines, Space Wolves, Astra Militarum, Inquisition... are that Faction. Though of course only the Imperial ones tend to get this as the big problem / boost to their armys. CSM of course kinda get it with CS and BL. Eldar as a said doesnt matter. I dont know about the new spacewolves expantion or ork one as well.

So if you are using the first example of Faction above as your reference then you can have only the stuff from that book or shares that books army Faction (so allowing stuff like FW gubbins what is Blood Angel in a Blood Angels army for instance), this also allows you to have an allied detachment of things like Spacewolves or whatever with your Primary Blood Angel Detachment.
The other side of the coin is if you use the word Faction from the 2nd example. This would allow as i said before things like a Grey Knight High Lord (HQ) Dark Angel Deathwing Terminators (Elite), Imperial Fist Tactical Squads (Troops) and Astra Militarum Leman Russ Tanks (Heavy) and of course all the normal FW Gubbins. This would be due to them not breaking the restriction on being 1 Faction as they are all Armies of the Imperium. BUT they would not be able to use an allied detachment to get any of those armies counted as Armies of the Imperium as this would be allying to the same Faction.

Generally I would think it is universally accepted that for the CADs and stuff it means Faction and not Faction. Unlike me though, they didnt colour code the book

 

[MidnightSun]

A Combined Arms Detachment contains 1-2 HQ, 0-3 Elites, 2-6 Troops, 0-3 Fast Attack and 0-3 Heavy Support, all drawn from the same Faction. The BRB defines Faction on page 118 as:

Adepta Sororitas
Astra Militarum
Blood Angels
Chaos Daemons
Chaos Space Marines
Dark Angels
Dark Eldar
Eldar
Grey Knights
Imperial Knights
Inquisition
Necrons
Orks
Space Marines
Space Wolves
Tau Empire
Tyranids

As the various Supplements draw from a 'parent' Codex, they share that army's Faction. So Eldar includes Iyanden, Chaos Space Marines includes Crimson Slaughter and Black Legion, Tau Empire includes Farsight Enclaves and Orks contains Waaagh! Ghazghkull.

Your army consists of a number of Detachments and/or Formations. You can have as many Detachments as you wish, of any kind. Most Detachments state that all units within the Detachment consist of units from the same Faction (the Combined Arms Detachment and Allied Detachment both have a clause to this effect).

There are a few restrictions on Allied Detachments due to the outdating of 6th edition wording by 7th edition army composition - Iyanden, Waaagh! Ghazghkull and (unconfirmed) Heroes of Fenris cannot ally with their parent Codex. All other Supplements are free to do so. There is a workaround, in that you can still bring a Combined Arms Detachment of Iyanden alongside your Combined Arms Detachment of Eldar.