Cheese Hunters: Allies of Convenience Super Cheese
January 31, 2013 by darrell
Video Sponsors: Mercs - Warmachine - Wayland Games
This is it, the big one, that one bit of cheese that may change your games of Warhammer 40K for the rest of time....
Darrell and Andy have found what could be the most game breaking rule slip up since we started looking. I could tell you what it is here, but then you wouldn't get to hear it from the horse's mouth...
Darrell's thoughts:
"Allies... we all thought having allies was the best thing you could get in this 6th edition book. We all use them to take objectives and to come to the rescue when the fight is going badly. Now try watching this and see if they really help you, or will they be the death you. Allies are your worst enemy."
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Grabs Popcorn and sits back… 😉
Your WRONG! I don’t why your wrong but someone will prove you wrong. I’m the last person to know the rules of this edition. Grant it that sounds rather funny if you can do that.
piling in counts as charging so no this is all false.
Word for word you are right, but in the spirit of the game would you really fight those agreeing to fight on your side without proper reason. FAQ must clarify for those with no common sence, and i know some of you out there will start stating from history etc , but please it is only a game………can any one else catch a wiff of stilton at there next meet/game.
I smell a FAQ being made by GW after they see this. You should mail them this video!!!
1 thing that I wanted to know for a very long time is something else with allies that aren’t battlebrothers is :”if you have abilities that target enemy models/units, do they also target them? because if you read futher it says that it can only be affected by weapons and other if it would affect friend or foe. Wel that is what i make of it. P112 paragraph 2 of Allies of convenience
i agree that word for word this is true however why would allies of convenience be actually worse for you.
I think this is an oversight and i would not try and pull this kind of cheese in any tournament. that said GW really should check these things more carefully. I mean this is a new feature in 6th so you would think they would go through it with a fine toothed comb!!
But then maybe I’m expecting too much of GW 😉
Smells like another FAQ will be coming out soon…
😉
I agree with you. This example is sooooo funny!
There’s one thing the guys didn’t figure out till after the vid and that’s that if you have a fearless char in one unit and a char who has to give and receive challenges in your allied units, and there’s no one in your opponents squad who can give or receive your allied chars will fight it out!!! XD
BoW Justin
I think both examples are actually really normal from “fluff” point of view and there is nothing strange on them. Why “nontrust allies” may hold obejctive for u, or dont deny it? Sons of the Emperor never will be pleased, when xenos hold for them important object on battle field…
And it is really easy imagine, when terminators and their “allies” xenos Necrons would be in multiple fight with Tyranids, that at the end there would be “free for all” fight…
But good examples of “cheese” i like it 🙂
After all in “friendly game” is it only question of agreement between friends and in tournament it will be question of “faqs/erratas”…
When Warren said “oh god” it pretty much says it all 🙂
Nurgle tally lists will love this! Not only are you raising the tally incredibly quickly but you are also claiming victory points for when those grots go pop! XD
Well, I’m not going to comment on the Victory Points for your allies dying, nor the ”Allies of Convenience contest your own objectives against you” – what I will refer you to is p112:
”Desperate allies are treated exactly like Allies of convenience.
Furthermore, the units from the allied detachment are non-scoring, non-denial units
In addition, the One Eye Open rule applies”
So; the only things that make Desperate Allies different from Allies of Convenience;
1) One Eye Open
2) That Desperate Allies aren’t scoring or denial.
And that’s it. As those two facts are given their own special reference, it therefore implies that that Allies of Convenience ARE scoring and Denial – simply as that’s the sole criterion which separates them from Desperate Allies (save One Eye Open which has it’s own rule).
So you can leave Allies of convenience on your objective etc… although, strangely, not if your troops are near.
The rest of it, well, GW need to sort it pretty pronto 🙂
It’s logical mistake to assume that if Desperate Allies are not scoring and aren’t denial, Allies of Convenience are. When applying rules you cannot acknowledge rule that does not exist and is only implied weakly by the word “furthermore”.
The cheese Darrell and Andy found there is – I believe so – the result of typical GW imprecision, but that’s the pattern, isn’t it? All those mistakes in DA codex, CSM codex, 6th RB, all those crazy inconsistencies and unnecessary complications. Glad you find all this cheese (which in fact is manifestation of poor rules compilation and probably extremely limited testing – if any), while it really helps to decide which sentences should not be taken into consideration at all and to establish agreement on interpretation.
Well, this is stupid, but mostly because I think you are probably right. At least, RaW.
I do think there are a couple of argument I would make against your interpretation, however. One is logical and has already been stated: why would desperate allies be better for you than allies of convenience? This makes no sense to me, not even as some kind of abstract rule. I know games workshop makes strange and/or badly worded rules sometimes, but rarely do they make something that would be as illogical and stupid as this.
Also, if you are going to use the argument that you wouldn’t trust your enemies to hold an objective, well, apparently you trust your most mistrusted allies more than your only-slightly-mistrusted allies. As I said: no sense.
The other thing I would argue, and I’m a little less sure here because English is a second language to me, is that the rule really only says that your units treat allied units as enemy units. Emphasis on “your units”. It does not say that the game treats your primary detachment and allied detachment as enemies for other effects, such as scoring.
And as for the allies fighting allies in close combat, well, I’m a little more unsure about GW’s intention here, because, well, it would be pretty hilarious and they might just want that to happen. I don’t think so though.
As funny as the example is – I believe it to 100% accurate. GW outlined the various ally types; Pros and Cons. BOW crew just highlighted some of the differences – these guys are not Battle Brothers. Gotta be on alert anytime you fight along side an enemy. Great Job guys
I thought Warren mentioned that the horrible sound discrepancy would be fixed, fux-ake.
Was hoping guys misread the rule…. but you haven’t Its really clear they do exactly what you say they do. Amn’t even going to try to form an arguement against it, its crystal clear
So now any allies other than Battle Brothers are better for your enemy than they actually are for you. Thank the emperor i m dark angels so most of the good stuff is Battle brothers anyway
I don’t play 6th Ed but that’s funny…
Like other rules it’s clear what the intent is – that allies shouldn’t fight eachother, but the rules don’t seem to cover it in that way for that particular example. I think the argument for kill points is solid though – if you can get your enemy to fight and die for you at your ultimate benefit then why wouldn’t you? To me that’s quite fluffy but I can see it being changed…
Good one guys 🙂
I don’t take desperate allies but will enjoy pointing this out to any one who does. As I only play for fun I’ll finally concede the argument but not until I’d milked it for all it’s worth
Give an infinite number of monkeys an infinite number of typewriters, one will type the entire works of William Shakespear, word perfectly.
But the majority will type a book that makes far more sense than the 40k 6th ed rule book….
I’m pretty sure this will change but enjoy it while you can lol
For a first the fluff actually backs up this theory, just think about it,
Dark eldar and guard allies – fluff being the dark eldar are in a sticky situation and tell there new captives fight for freedom (of course after the fight they’il be dragged to the dark city screaming regardless) seriously thats not going work the whole time the guardsmen are either going try desert the feild or regroup and maybe try fight there new masters.
A few more examples
Tau and orks – in theory sounds quite nice lots of models, lots of CC units, lots of long range fire support and blasty killy tanks sounds like the perfect blend of two armies on tabletop. Yet in the fluff orks will fight anyone and everything and wont understand or believe in the taus combat strategy. As well as soon as they realise the tau warriors arnt as ‘ard as em they will want kick their heads in.
Eldar and marines – the minuete to many eldar warriors die thats it they’il just flee to preserver the lifestock of their craftworld, there not as tough as marines or numerous as guard and dont do the artificial birthing system like dark eldar do. Also the imperium at this point should be wanting to burn the witch.
Overall it was a nice idea but unless your battle brothers just isnt worth it and lets face it most battle brothers are so similar its not even worth it.
PLEASE NOTE :- Of course there will be exceptions to this theory so please don’t get all mad and have a rage if you are a allies of convenience player.
I think you are wrong.
if the rule is how you read it then units consider these allies to be enemy troops. This does not say that you must consider them to be enemy troops at any other time, only when it would matter for a unit. therefore, they are not enemy units to you, and so the player would still get all of the benefits of these units besides the ones mentioned.
Disclaimer: I do not actually have the book in front of me, i am simply going off of the reading in the video.
I think it makes perfect sense for distrusted allies to be an enemy. Is it not an awkward alliance when your allies might be heretics or even worse planning to eat you after the food depletes on the other side of the table. One might get nervous and start to bash these allies with a rock before anything worse happens.
As for objectives or kill points, they might be trying to steal them or there could be a cunning plan to get rid of your allies by letting them do the dirty work and loot their belongings (Da shiny stuff!) afterwards.
I don’t know, it kinda brings more character to games as it stands. Maybe it was planned to be so? People think its broken because they just want to boost their armies with awfully good units from other codices and make them work together. It seems this requires a little more planning after all. ;]
lol – this is by far the stinkiest cheese I have seen 😀
Having said that, as others mentioned, I can certainly see elements of this making sense fluff wise (leaving an ally of convenience to guard the objective might bite you on the arse later) but only element 😉
The RAW does not say that you have Enemy units in your army.
You have ALLIES in your army. Allies are not enemy they are simply treated as enemy by your UNITS not your army.
Allies!, realy!,REALY!, crazy but right!.
I have just checked the latest FAQ from GW (Update v1.2 – Released January 2013) and this isn’t even mentioned.
I think Darrel and Andy need to serve this cheese with a selection of crackers. This is insane. Who in their right mind will ally with anyone other than Battle Brothers now?
I just read it and this is some serious phrase twisting…
I wouldn’t try this during league, your bound to go to blows over this one.
kids don’t try this at your LGS it could result in serious injury
However this does continue to feed my GW conspiracy Theory
I agree with coxey292
“UNITS in your army treat Allies of Convenience as enemy units that cannot be charged, shot, targeted with psychic powers or have templates or blast markers placed over them.”
So YOU still score/deny, because YOU are not treating them as enemy units. There is still an argument weather they would deny your units or not.
As for your units attacking Allies of Convenience, your UNITS treat Allies of Convenience as enemies so they would attack them.
Hats off to the GW team if this is whats intended and from my reread of the rules looks like it is.
This brings so much flavor to the game and really suits all fluff. The Forging A Narrative box on the bottom left of the Allies really backs up this idea. I also wounder If the designers are having a little laugh at the time taken to pick up this little Easter egg.
And on the issue Kill points “At the end of the Game, each player receives 1 Victory point for each enemy unit that has been completely destroyed” so both players would get the Victory point for these units.
How many more tactical options do these guys now give you.
I love the Narrative of watching your enemy’s destroy each other.
I LOVE THIS RULE! It brings something really interesting to the game… just think about it, fluff-wise it makes perfect sense. And it brings a bit of a challenge for anyone who wants to command such an army while playing, the same goes for the opponent…
Having said that, I can understand that this rule is recived with both joy and pure hate, I mean for us fluff-loving guys who play more for fun this rule is really cool, however the tournament oriented players will probably not like it as much.
Has Saturday cartoons from the 80’s taught nothing!? Several times has heman and skelletor teamed up against a common foe and I’m sure the autobots joined forces with the deceptions before now. I’m positive that if Optimus prime was killed in a battle megaton would be rubbing his hands with glee. So I think Darrellis right not often I say this but I do now
I think you are right with your reasoning about convenient and desperate allies.
From my point of view you are absolutely, undeniably correct.
Even more the thing is inherently logical.
Knowing GW never does anything without reasons and they never make stupid mistakes it is clear that they really put some thought in this. Honestly, it is obvious, once you start fighting your “allies” you finish it.
Fight to the last man standing.
It’s not cheese, it’s a punishment for taking enemies for your battle. Most combos possible is cheese hunting, that what you guys show here is keeping balance in the game for me (a really hilarious one indeed).
No cheese here, you ae right except possibly regarding victory points, just evidence of another rules writing failure.
So in theory that makes desparate allies almost better than allies of convience – as while they cannot contest enemy objectives they don’t contest yours.
Great cheese Andy!
Loved the video, good stuff.
worryingly…you seem to be correct from the readings you took!
Oh how I love this. Wait till my next game…… Muhahahahahaha.
i am a Tyranid player and i endorse this cheese 🙂
I do agree with some of the posts above its a very cool thing if its a deliberate design choice by GW and it does add a risk/reward to bringing allies as well as fitting the fluff.
This came up a while ago amongst us hardcore gamers, and was shot down on the grounds that whilst the units are considered enemies, they are still both part of your army.
Hence, I would argue that whilst the “allied” contingents they could deny if they are both on an objective, separately they still score, as being on your side.
As with many things in the rulebook and any codex, a certain leap of faith with regards common sense is needed.
But if you really want to go with enemy-allies thing, then it is actually far worse than you initially suspected:
The allies of convenience stipulations must work both ways, the necrons treat the chaos as enemy units, and vice-versa, otherwise it just doesn’t function. The necrons can’t be enemies with chaos and at the same time the chaos be friendly towards the necrons.
So under this necessary ruling, ALL units in you army are enemy models to someone in your army, and so NOTHING in your army can claim an objective, as they are all enemy denial units. Which is a bit silly
But if you want to try and argue it that way just to annoy Jonny65, then please go ahead 😀
As for the kill points, assault pile-ins, and other shenanigans, it’s not the first time allies have been used to get around core mechanics and rules of the game, and I’m sure it won’t be the last. Ask someone about my fortuned Shadowfields.
TLDR:
Allies of Convenience might contest your objective should both factions be on it, but still score for their own objectives.
Someone said it before: YOU control an objective. Not your units. Allies of convenience are do not denial your objectives, because while they might be enemies to your model, they aren’t YOUR enemies.
they still deny your opponents objectives as they are enemy models to the opponent.
The rules for Allies of convenience does not say that they are non scoring non denial. This is a wording issue similar to the Grey Knight Dreadknight where people said he could be loaded into a drop pod or Land Raider because he was “jump infantry”. The desperate allies explicitly states that they are non scoring non denial, so Allies of convenience can hold objectives.
Really this is a dead horse that has been reanimated by Nurgle or something. I thought this had been beat to death when 6th came out. If this were the case there would be no point to the allies mechanic because the points needed to field a usable allied detachment would be so offsetting you could never hope to win a game with more than 2 objectives.
When I see this I think of the rule where you’re furious and you have to move towards the closest enemy troop. You couldn’t charge them, but you would be perpetually stuck moving towards the same unit which in this case, would be your “allies”.
That’s incredible! I now have a way to keep Mad Doc Grotsnik in check 🙂
@valace2 That’s a good illustration mate of how you have to have your common sense engaged when you read the rules, good point.
As many have said if AoC are simply Enemy then there are 1000’s of situations created that are just silly.
I think the word enemy is a poor choice for allies of convenience anyway. They could have just said that the two sides don’t trust each other enough to allow the other sides ICs to lead their units and allow psychic power to be used on each other. They prolly did it to justify allowing Ghazghull and Yarick to be on the same side, which is an absolute travesty. They would kill their own mothers to get at each other. With them being allies of convenience they could go skipping merily across the battlefield holding hands. Facing a horde of a million tyranids sure Blood Angels and Necrons will stop shooting each other trying to fend off the horde but their could be a billion screaming Nids and Yarick and Ghaz would still ignore everything while trying to cave in the others skull.
The thing is right the rule does say treat as an ‘enemy unit’ with the following exception blah blah etc etc. That still means they are a ‘enemy unit’ regardless that they are allies there is no such thing as an allied unit in the book. They are enemy units with different rules.
You guys out there who are abit upset that your tau-ork army or whatever doesn’t work anymore its OK, ITS NOT YOUR FAULT and no one is having ago for it and im sure itll be corrected soon.
What needs to be done or what I suggest should be done rather is that a allied unit type is added to the rule book with certain rules of what they can and carn’t do.
However on GW’s part I do think they should seriously clamp down on there writers or whoever makes these rules, the new Dark angels book is a mess seen as you already need a piece of paper everywhere you go and now there going be a fair few rules rejigged as im sure this wont be the only one.
What do you mean there is no such thing as allies in the book? Page 112 details them.
Perhaps you have a page reference to where “Enemy” and “Friendly” are defined ?
Battle brothers are most certainly NOT enemies with different rules, they are definitely friendlies with restrictions, albeit a few.
If AoC are enemies then why are they “treated like enemies by your units” ? and not just straight out “enemies you can’t shoot” ?
I do agree tho’ that much more clarification is required.
I am convinced that GW do a lot of this on purpose just to stimulate debate.
Glad Gameswork-shop play tested these rules to Detruction! pah!!
Doesn’t mater how many play tests you do the wider community will always find many more ways to read the rules !
When I play at my GW store we treat allies of convienience and desperate allies as non scoring units that can assist in combats and deny objectives but you cant attack yourself but are subject to the on a 1 you cant do anything with those units if they are within 6 inches of each other an each test is done for every squad both your main and allies.
And in apoch games we generally ignore the allies rules and bring in anything and your not subject to the unit immoblisation of desperate allies
All wrong piling in counts as charging. Read piling in rules. clearly states this and they cannot charge each other so…… no.
mrpeanutz has got it. The page referance is 23 Start of the Initiative step pile in
After the bullet points
These moves follow the same rules as moving charging units models except …….mentions terrain and models not in the fight yet.
You can’t charge your own models per the rules for allies of convenience on page 112.
So my ork boyz won’t be beating up on my necrons warriors after all. Although that would have been a hell of an overwatch.
So My understanding is to stop your Ork boyz who love a fight with anyone even themselves and your Necrons who wish to see all living creatures destroyed from fighting in a 3 way brawl during a game. You will give any unit you charge the ability to count as charging if they make any pile in moves(since it counts as charging in mrpeanutz opinion).
I actually really liked this video compared to other ‘cheese hunting’ videos because it actually provided a compelling argument rather than basing everything off of you guys misreading the rules.
I do, however, agree with the people that feel that non-battle brothers are only enemies of your models and not enemies of yours and so none of this would apply.
Having said that, if GW faq’ed it so that your assertions are correct I wouldn’t be surprised and I think it would be totally fitting 🙂
I like the idea of objective denial by allies of convenience, but the kill points one is just wrong you could bring an army with only a few units and the rest allies and could not lose a kill mission because even if he kills your whole army hes gonna get so many points from you killing his stuff.
Im not sure what I think about the assault rules. I really dislike the allies rules in general