Thoughts on Allies

[Krieger]

I like allies as an every so often kind of deal.

I like that it lends to unique and creative armies.

 

However, I don't care for it in a standard tournament. KoW has done a great job of providing balanced armies. While allies clearly throws that out the window by changing the inherent strengths and weaknesses of each army.

 

What does everyone else think?

 

Do you think all tournaments will allow allies going forward?

[Guest Mr. Bigglesworth]

I don't think allies add a true danger as you still are required to bring a minimum regiment, so there are taxes and it is not like special rules apply back and forth. I think this version of Allies is the correct attitude. Yes you can shore up weakness, but there is already such great balance between armies that Allies seem more for fluff,

 

I wouldn't mind allies to be included but I don't think there would be anything wrong with disclosing them.

[Peanut]

I don't find them to be too powerful at all. You have to bring inspiring stuff for them and their own magic to buff them, and you're limited to such a small amount. Maybe there is room for exploitation with something like a few regiments of Elohi going with your Dwarves or something like that as they inspire themselves and are terrorists. I brought men with my elves this weekend only because I didn't have enough points of Elves. Seemed like much more of a liability than a benefit.

[Don't Panic]

there are weaknesses to having allies like no inspiring or magic between them, but for some units they dont really care about that or do make up a huge dent in the army.  maybe with just some SLIGHT comp would be nice.  like there's certain self inspiring flying units or flying chaff that maybe shouldnt be allowed to ally.  that kind of ups the power a bit of some armies!  *shrugs* but honestly it doesnt bother me that much and not significant enough for me to care i think.  dont feel like its 'game changing' like giving beastmen the unkillable bsb, festus in gor and a daemon prince for ld9 in their army... not like ive ran that or anything before .

[Andrewgeddon]

Slightly off/ slightly on topic, but regarding allies, are you allowed to bring allies from multiple army lists, as long as you follow the rules for regiments/troops/heroes/monsters, and are under 25%? Not that I would, but can you take in a 2000 point army, say, a regiment of Wearwolves (Undead) and a regiment of Tunnelslaves (Ratkin)? Don't see anything in the rules saying that allies must be taken from a single army list, unless I am missing something.

[Romes]

Andrew - yes you can.

 

 

On Allies,

 

I've played 2 tournaments now and a good amount of casual games and still very much think we haven't played the game enough to have an adequately informed opinion on what already needs to be comped (including allies). The majority of games I've played  in or watched have been decided by the relative experience level of the players, and even then everyone is pretty new. In order to really see the affect of allies on power level you need multiple experienced players playing each other a good number of times. So, I don't think I'll develop a strong view on whether or not allies are a good default until 2017 and I'd encourage other's to take the same approach!

 

 

*Edit also - I wanted to add - the two primary balance concerns in this game seem to be allies to fill holes in lists and spamming of the same powerful unit in ways that some armies can't deal with (Elohi for example). 

 

So far, to me, it seems like allies is a good way to make sure all armies have access to the tools to prevent potential issue #2. 

 

This means if you start comping one thing you have to go back and comp the next, and really you would could have been fine comping neither.

 

Maybe. Will see what I think after about 100 more games.

[Threejacks]

With only allowing up to 25% of your points in Allies I don't see it ever being much of an issue.Even in the case of Elohi,thats probably only one hero and one horde,,a nasty bunch but probably just as easy to add another hard hitting horde/monsterous inf unit from the main army choice.

 

The disappointing part of the allies topic for me is that I would like to run my Mix of OnG`s as just that..a mix.Hoping this next supplement will address that.

[Krieger]

Thanks for all the responses.

 

It sounds like allies are pretty widely excepted.

 

I definitely don't want comp, but I would like to see a mix of events. Some with allies and some without.

 

Either way it's still better then AoS ????

[ClassicFlava]

Yeah I have mixed feelings on allies. In some cases it lets people use models they have that aren't represented by their army which is great, it also allows some flavorful allies like Orcs and goblins. What I don't like about it is that you will see the same units taken a lot (elohi, basusu, drakon riders, etc).

[NakedPanda]

Orcs and goblins were my concern and hope there too CF

[Romes]

Yeah I have mixed feelings on allies. In some cases it lets people use models they have that aren't represented by their army which is great, it also allows some flavorful allies like Orcs and goblins. What I don't like about it is that you will see the same units taken a lot (elohi, basusu, drakon riders, etc).

This is splitting hairs but =P

 

I don't thinki Ba'su'su is a great allied choice because he's not inspiring so you have to take him and a self inspired unit and none of his three armies have units which to me make a ton of sense to run self inspired + solo compared to other armies (elves, undead basilians, forces of nature)

 

I've thought about trying to ally with him and a cheap regiment for access to gargoyles and it always seems janky because then he's the only thing in your army inspiring the gargoyles. Better to run one of those 3 forces main and ally to something else I think.

 

Both Chris and I ran him as a main army choice. =P

[indytims]

Never been a fan of 'allies' in most game systems, because it 1) Provides a crutch to cover an army's weakness, and 2) Is a mechanism for the game company to sell more models.

 

If your chosen force wasn't -supposed- to have a weakness, it wouldn't have been designed that way.

 

At least with KOW's, there are built in limitations which make it not so bad. But if I ran any sort of event - I wouldn't allow 'em. That's just the 'purist' in me, I guess. :)

 

-Tim

[Romes]

"If your chosen force wasn't -supposed- to have a weakness, it wouldn't have been designed that way."

 

 

Well, if the game designers assumed allies as default it *wasn't* designed that way.

[ClassicFlava]

Yeah the Rules Committee has been pretty clear on the mantic forums that KoW was designed with with allies as a default rule

[Brother Glacius]

Just wanted to toss in my thoughts on this. Kings of War has been designed with allies. There are several limits and restrictions already in place. This game has been built with tournaments and the balance required for that, in mind. Therefore, allies, and the rules surrounding them, have been designed to be as balanced as possible. I think you have to trust that if an army is getting access to a unit through allies that it could not normally get access to, that the result will still fall within their balance parameters. I think allies are an integral part of the game, and to take them out, you are doing more to harm the balance of the game, than help it.

[Kremmet]

This is splitting hairs but =P

 

I don't thinki Ba'su'su is a great allied choice because he's not inspiring so you have to take him and a self inspired unit and none of his three armies have units which to me make a ton of sense to run self inspired + solo compared to other armies (elves, undead basilians, forces of nature)

 

 

There's also the bit where, being a Living Legend, he isn't legal to as an ally.

 

My problems with allies tend to lie with what seems to be the vast majority of data points collected by Mantic involving pure armies playing against pure armies (as can be seen in their beta forums) which isn't to say that the game wasn't built with allies in mind, but that they had nowhere near the testing that the rest of the game received.  This isn't really that big of an issue because units are so similar in KoW that even outstanding outliers such as Drakon Riders and Elohi don't bring too much over other units (or grant access to "problem" units to factions that do not normally have access to them).

 

Allies tend to be inherently bad design because it means everything (or in this case everything but legends) need to be balanced with everything else in mind. In GW land or even other popular games such as Infinity, Warmachine, X-Wing, Malifaux, etc this would be a death sentence as there are so many rules combinations as to make game balance extremely difficult (eg Warmachine's continued struggle with making Minions/Mercs viable), but KoW doesn't really have that issue on the table due to the relatively small and simple set of special rules.  The real problem is when you try to design new rules for a game as inclusive and tight as this one later on as allowing for almost any combination of units in a game makes for nightmare balancing where you either give up on it or deal with trying to make new things out of the same pool of ingredients each time.