New 6th Allies Matrix for Dark Eldar

Lighten up! If anything, see it as a challenge! We don't need psychic powers to beat them lesser races' bums!

I heard you couldn't take special characters? So Eldrad may well be out of bounds. I'd be tempted by a Dark Avatar though.

I'm gonna try and reserve judgment until we know all the facts. Its easy to think the worse, but if game size, matrix and no special characters limit the system then it could work. I'm working on a Craftworld/Corsair force anyway so it could let me change pace with both painting and play style.

They probably won't allow Unique characters to ally, though it would be cool to run Drazhar and Karandras.

Levitas wrote:

I heard you couldn't take special characters? So Eldrad may well be out of bounds. I'd be tempted by a Dark Avatar though.

I'm gonna try and reserve judgment until we know all the facts. Its easy to think the worse, but if game size, matrix and no special characters limit the system then it could work. I'm working on a Craftworld/Corsair force anyway so it could let me change pace with both painting and play style.

I'm with Levitas. I'm sure that named characters would be out of bounds. I too am working on a Corsair force to bridge the gap between my DE and CWE armies. I'm going to have one Hell of a pointy-eared fest Apoc game someday

Does kill the psyker before it shout anything count as psychic defense?

I would probably go for all things pointy-eared if i ever do any alliances.
I dont want to have any of the armies from this list beyond Eldar/Dark Eldar, whom i already have.

a squad of pathfinders...or two...and a farseer...
pathfinders all have sniper weapons. Pick'em off before they do anything, or if they would try, farseer. Farseer is good for both psy and anti-psy, snipers are good for picking up squad leaders, for the new sniper rule.

Need better than that? Well, maybe an inquisitor null staff

Yeah, inquisitor i can tolerate as an ally.
Probably even model Inquisitor Czevak from Harlequine.

He goes into category all things pointy-eared pretty well.

Allandrel wrote:

From the few power cards seen in WD, the new powers don't seem too potent. For example, the #6 Pyromancy power, Molten Beam, is literally "fire a meltagun."

Much like in WHFB, the fire school sucks. The rest seem quite powerful tho. Biomancy has some nice buffs and a power that forces a tougnes test and if you fail it you take a wound wiht no armour saves. If that kills you, another model takes the test and so on. Divination has a power that lets you roll 3D6 for reserves, mysterious terrain and outflank and pick the result you want, and another one thta lets you stand and shoot with your own bs. Telepathy has a power that targets an enemy unit and rolls D3. On 1 they can't run or assault, on 2 they're pinned and on 3 they attack themselves.

I think you will see a lot of Farseers creep into DE lists. The ally matrix makes us brothers in arms so that will mean their powers can directly effect DE units. I think this is a good thing, despite somewhat breaking/bending/warping the fluff. Maybe the Farseer could count as a warped Shadom survivor, or a corisar void dreamer etc. Room to play around for writers too it would seem.

Tau too are deemed to be brothers in arms with Eldar, so guided Broadisdes and fire warriors will help them out. Eldar could be the main rent-a-psyker.

I dont think the Allies will ruin tournaments since it seems that there are diffrent levels to Allies. Which is about four teir levels

T1 - You are effectively the same army. ICs can join units of either side, transports can be shared, rules that affect "friendlies" effects both ect
T2 - You are using two separate forces. Each army only effects their respected units, no sharing transports, ect
T3 - Same as above, but if there is an allied unit within 6", roll a d6. On a 1, they do nothing.
T4 - Can't Ally

T1 - Eldar
T2 - Chaos Daemons, CSM, Orks and Imperial Guard
T3 - Grey Knights, Black Templar, Sisters, Space Marines, Space Wolves,

Tau being probably somewhere in T2 or T3.

At least that's how I see it. I'll finally have a reason to make my Sisters of Battle Conversion along with buying some Eldar although I would rather wait till they get a new codex.

This seems a bit ridiculous. I can see how each army having ONE ally available would be fluffy, if not balanced, but everyone having the potential to "just get along" with one another goes against the entire premise of a wargame. In the grim darkness of the far future, sharing is caring?

eohall wrote:

This seems a bit ridiculous. I can see how each army having ONE ally available would be fluffy, if not balanced, but everyone having the potential to "just get along" with one another goes against the entire premise of a wargame. In the grim darkness of the far future, sharing is caring?

You don't have to see an ally as a life long friend. If you can misdirect a foe or force them to do what you want they can be a temporary ally.

The DE codex even has stories where unlikely allies are fighting with them:
- Vect lures the Salamanders to Commorragh, they probably didn't realize it, but they fought on his side. True, they would have slaughtered his forces just the same as the other Dark Eldar, but they probably focused on the ones that were attacking them, while keeping a distrustful eye on the other ones.
- The Tau were even happy for the Dark Eldar help, untill they got the bill.

Also, the fact that 2 factions fight alongside each other does not mean they won't kill each other as soon as the common enemy has been beaten.


In my opinion allies give a lot of possibilities for battles with a story. An unfortunate side effect will be all the broken combo's.

I wouldn't call the potential of units cowering in fear or disgust/stopping in their tracks and starting to curse their "allies" in all kinds of foul language/laughing too hard and not doing a damn thing a turn or even more, "getting along". So no. No friendship in the lovely year of 41,999, unless you're practically part of the club anyway.

As for the codex examples, allies work in concert. Vect bombing a rival faction with salamanders could only be represented as a three-way fight in game terms. SM dropped into that type of situation are going to open up on ANY dark kin they see, wether they are attacking or not. Tricking the Tau into delivering their people into the torture chambers and slave pits seems like a one-off, too. An advanced starfaring civilization is going to be dumb enough to be repeatedly duped by the same group?

With a little creativity, you can fluff anything up, but not without stretching the boundaries of the existing lore. Obviously you want to have fun, and I'd certainly never argue that someone SHOULDN'T paint, model, and fluff their own models any which way they choose. Most of the xenos ingame are generally self-interested, and I can go as far as seeing the occasional alliance of opportunity. The real issue, and it's pretty central, is the stated purpose of the Imperium of Man, their tactics, attitudes, etc. Those 'roided out tin cans are not about compromise or mercy or convenience.

eohall wrote:

Those 'roided out tin cans are not about compromise or mercy or convenience.

Er... most guard will... Only extremists like Sir Pimp Yarrick value the imperium over their lives (most of those that do get moved to other parts of the imperial machine anyway...).

Pretty much any imperial will view chaos as a threat over any xeno. As such, they'll take any help against the forces of chaos that they can get (tell me that the cadians would turn away DE help when a slew of daemons comes spewing from the eye).

Also, in our allies matrix, pretty much everyone we could be allied with are opportunists, as are we (I would say even the guard are opportunists, in a fashion). Our distrusted allies are the ones who contradict this, but even the vaunted marines have a history of accepting xeno help if they think it likely that they will be able to kill two birds with one stone (so to speak, one xeno unit they're working will, killing a xeno unit they like less, means much less xeno as a whole).

We can't ally with tyranids or necrons, because they are both ruthless killing machines, who dont care about getting ahead. All they care about is killing everything in sight...

Of course at the moment everyone is talking about taking Eldar as allies, and I'm all for it. I'm thinking of converting up a Farseer, an Avatar, an Autarch on Jetbike, Firedragons, Warpspiders, Dark Reapers, and a Wraithlord myself. But, how about Guard?

I'm really trying to make the slave thing work. A Primaris Psyker counting as captured psyker? Thinking of using either of the Forge World traitor psyker models.
Sentinels as Fast Attack? They fit our theme with AV10 all around and I was thinking of caged slaves in it, like a crappy shooting version of Penitent Engines.
Elite is, where I'm most fascinated in. Ladies and Gents, enter MARBO! He has all the stats of a Dark Eldar Assassin. He has the rules Kheradruakh has always dreamt of and the wargear to make him amazing:
Look at his stats. Look at them. They are beautiful! He comes with meltabombs, a fancy Haemonculus warp thingy template, a nice sniper pistol, a Venom Blade, has Stealth, Move Through Cover, the Decapitator move, Hit And Run! He's SO going to be my Assassin.

The only question is Troops. Legionnaires? An infantry blob?

No, all this breaks my heart.

First it was Haemys and wyches living together, now this.

This allies thing is just another "spam" function for all to bastardize, man that is frustrating.

You newer players have at it, I can't shake all these years of not getting along to suddenly everyone is my friend. I am really evil but only sometimes, bah!

No fun here folks, move along, move along.

Being able to ally due to desperate measures does not friends equal. Dark Eldar are brothers in arms only with Eldar (which makes bloody sense as they are the same freaking race and not anathema like Chaos versus loyalists), everyone else is strongly distrusted at best. The sky is not falling, friendship still remains an alien concept in the grim darkness of 40k, and I will punch the next person who will try to claim otherwise through my screen, because good lord am I tired of reading that same fallacious, hyperbolic argument.

Grumpy Kwi wrote:

No, all this breaks my heart.

First it was Haemys and wyches living together, now this.

This allies thing is just another "spam" function for all to bastardize, man that is frustrating.

You newer players have at it, I can't shake all these years of not getting along to suddenly everyone is my friend. I am really evil but only sometimes, bah!

No fun here folks, move along, move along.

I can concur. I know half of the people build wych + haemoncuius combos for the pain token, but I just cannot envision the vision of agility working together with doktor Frankenstein...

However, SOME people above have stated quite interesting ideas. But the problem is that a whole lot of players will just milk such a system for victory and make a mockery of plausability...

Farseer w/ Runes of Warding, doom, fortune = Harliequin Shadowseer

3 GJB w/ Surri Cannon = Harlie jetbikes

problem solved Now its time to start modeling

Some players will make a mockery of plausability in every edition. Yes, meltavets in chimera spam is incredibly plausible, so are BA assault marines in razorbacks times six, so are three psyflemen in an army where being interred in a dreadnought suit is seen as something horrible, so are three times the fluffy longfangs and so on. All these are probable, but not plausible to the degree that you see them played. There are always powergamers that only care about winning. There will always be those that want to build the best possible omnilist against everything. Allies appearing doesn't suddenly make them any more prevalent. It's just another extra variable in the equation of making the Best List.

Siticus the Ancient wrote:

.....and I will punch the next person who will try to claim otherwise through my screen, because good lord am I tired of reading that same fallacious, hyperbolic argument.

Talk about hyperbole I think that it is interesting how passionate people are about this idea of using allies. reading through this thread has convinced me of a few things:
1. The allies system could make for some really awesome conversions. Dark Avatar FTW! It could really create some interesting combinations that could make for fun games. People working on multiple armies could try out new units for the army that they are building to help them build their new army(GW's intent I'm sure!)

2. Allies could make for some broken combinations that disrupt game balance. I think that older gamers have watched min/maxing and other spamming abuses throughout the years and are a bit more prone to grumbling about this. I think that players will self-regulate this by simply refusing to play against opponents that regularly abuse this system. It seems that this might be a problem at first as the temptation will just be to great for win-at-all-costs players, though I suspect that this will die down after a bit(unless it becomes the new norm )

3. Reading about this on a forum lends itself to escalating passions. Let's face it: it's the internet. People get hyper-focused on an idea and tend to go a little overboard when debating its importance. It reminds of the Henry Kissinger quote about professors fighting about their ideas: In academia, infighting is so vicious because there is so little at stake. We are so focused on the idea of allies being the bee's knees/end of the world that we lose sight of the fact that allies won't be used in EVERY game.

Or, we could all just go nuts over part of a game that hasn't even played itself out yet

Grumpy Kwi wrote:

You newer players have at it, I can't shake all these years of not getting along to suddenly everyone is my friend.

Well, I don't know when you started playing or who you're calling 'newer players', but allies rules were in 2nd edition, when I started. I don't know why armies like Space Marines and Imperial Guard suddenly stopped being friends for 'all these years', but maybe I'm glad they made up again.

Seriously, until we know the rules and how widely/often they'll actually be used I'm not so concerned about this. Further, even if it does open the door to some broken combinations, they're less unbalanced the more people can have access to them.

Well looks like the chart is finally out.

http://natfka.blogspot.com/2012/06/allies-in-6th-edition-perspective.html

Looks like I was wrong but all our Allies except for Eldar are Desperate Allies.