High Elves Book Containing an Indication for Allies in 9th?

[Lepaca]

While reading the new High Elves book I began to wonder about the wording of the Valour of Ages rule.
It states:

If your opponent's army roster contains one or more models from Warhammer: Dark Elves ...

(emphasis mine)

"One or more models"? Does this mean that we can expect an allies system similar to what we've seen in 40k?
Or am I interpreting too much into this?

For those not familiar with 40k I will explain the basics of the allies system there:
It allows you to include a small selection of an army different from your primary detachment.
However not every army can ally itself with every other army and not all alliances are equally stable. Depending on the members of the alliance it can be either very stable or very unstable changing how well the two armies interact.
I think this system could be applied to WHFB very well.

Which army do you think should be able to ally themselves with whom?
Empire + Dwarves / High Elves as very good alliance partners seems to be pretty obvious.
Dwarves + High Elves not so much. But what about some of the other "good" races? Who would trust the Lizardmen?

I just hope they don't stick with the idea that Dark Elves are just to untrustworthy and only allow us to have very bad alliances...

[Dalamar]

There's already allies system in 8th. Nobody's using it though.

[Layne]

Why would we want to ally? We have elves, pirates, ninjas, dragons, dinosaurs and naked women. None of our competitors can make this claim. As far as awesome is concerned, we lack only helicopters and skateboards.

[Kurze]

Why would we want to ally? We have elves, pirates, ninjas, dragons, dinosaurs and naked women. None of our competitors can make this claim. As far as awesome is concerned, we lack only helicopters and skateboards.

Too true.

[Lepaca]

There's already allies system in 8th. Nobody's using it though.

Well, that system doesn't really let you mix and match units from different books in a single army though, does it?

Why would we want to ally? We have elves, pirates, ninjas, dragons, dinosaurs and naked women. None of our competitors can make this claim. As far as awesome is concerned, we lack only helicopters and skateboards.

Personally I wouldn't mind some Ogres or Chaos Warriors.

[Daeron]

Skaven slaves. Why would Dark Elves ally themselves with Skaven? Simple! We have cheese. They have slaves.

[Dyvim tvar]

There's already allies system in 8th. Nobody's using it though.

Well, that system doesn't really let you mix and match units from different books in a single army though, does it?

It doesn't, but as Dalamar points out, there are already provisions in the rulebook for allied armies. I know that based on past experience it may be hard to believe, but maybe GW is getting a little bit better at writing rules and anticipating problems. If the rule wasn't written that way, I can guarantee you that there would be a FAQ about "How does Valour of Ages work when fighting an Allied Army?"

[Dalamar]

I don't see why the current system wouldn't let you add a single unit frrom another army to your own. If they're trusted allies, they can use your general and bsb and power dice are shared however you want. With suspicious and desperate allies though, I see more issues than it's worth.

All dark elven alliances are fragile ones so I wouldn't even bother or you could end up with that single unit of chaos knights stealing half your power dice with no way to use them.

[Sulla]

All dark elven alliances are fragile ones so I wouldn't even bother or you could end up with that single unit of chaos knights stealing half your power dice with no way to use them.

Correct, and since both armies have to roll a dice each turn, and 2 4+'s gets you to the worst result, it's not uncommon for DE allied armies to be completely rubbish by the start of their first turn. Awful rules...

BTW, warseer is rumouring that the 9th edition is going to completely invalidate the current armybooks by moving to combined armybooks, which would gel with that line in the HE book (through allied armies being more common).

Personally, I say bring it on. Slaaneshi warriors/daemons allied with DE. Beasts and daemons. Brets and wood elves.

Yes there are abuses, but there is also a lot of potential for storytelling in an armylist.

[Thetosh]

Technically when you play an allied game you play against two army rosters though, not one, whereas in 40k when you take 'allies' they're on the same roster.

I also read it the same way as Lepaca did, that it indicated we might get allies in 9th Edition

[Setomidor]

Even more interesting are the hints by Harry/Hastings on Warseer about the future on armybooks, and that ABs as we know it might cease to exist with 9th edition. This could either mean an allies-like system just like this thread is about, but it could also mean books getting knocked together into alliences, or that the game could change to having Warmachine-like release cycles where a few major release waves every year could add one or two units to many armies.

[Daeron]

I'm not sure if G.W. is interested in merging armies. They could make more money from splintering the armies and making each army more diverse.
If there would be an ally system, it may be designed to lure players into starting a second army.. and thus try to lower the threshold to expand to a new army.

[Dyvim tvar]

I think people are reading WAY too much into one sentence in the High Elf book.

In addition, when GW still did outside playtesting, I was actually an playtester for an earlier edition of the game. I can tell you that there was a lot of stuff in the draft I was playtesting that did not make it into the final ruleset. The rules were not locked down until about 9 months in advance of the release. So unless there is a new edition coming out that soon, I don't think there is any way that the High Elf book was written in anticipation of some specific 9th Edition rule. Valour of Ages may well have been written in a way to ensure that it would work in conjunction with a possible allies rule, but it's a huge leap from that to assume that the fundamental nature of army selection is going to change.

[Thetosh]

If they go by a similar release schedule to recent years, 9th Edition Fantasy should come out next year shouldn't it?

[Dyvim tvar]

A new edition in 2014 is possible. It's been 4-6 years between editions, and the last one was 2010. But unless we are looking at a 1st quarter 2014 release, I really doubt new edition rules are locked down right now. And a 1st quarter release would be pretty stupid since it would miss the Christmas season.

1st edition -- 1983
2nd edition -- 1984
3rd edition -- 1987*
4th edition -- 1992
5th edition -- 1996
6th edition -- 2000
7th edition -- 2006
8th edition -- 2010

*This is the edition I started with!

[Thetosh]

*nods*

Personally I hope this edition last a little longer. And the way they're churning our army books at the moment it'd be a bit odd to release an edition that invalidates all army books just after the majority of them have been redone for 8th.

[Sulla]

*nods*

Personally I hope this edition last a little longer. And the way they're churning our army books at the moment it'd be a bit odd to release an edition that invalidates all army books just after the majority of them have been redone for 8th.

They were still churning out books at the end of 5th edition.

Pretty sure allies have helped sales in 40K. After all, entire new armies are expensive these days, but if you can start with just a few unit in your existing army, it's much easier to achieve. I'm picking that's their end goal here; Give players with existing armies a reason to keep spending without a new armybook.

[Thetosh]

They were still churning out books at the end of 5th edition.

Did 6th Ediition Fantasy change the way armybooks were done though? I've only been playing fantasy for 7th and 8th ed so far.

[Dyvim tvar]

Of interest, in 4th and 5th, 25% of your army points could be used to take allies.

[Liquidedust]

Of interest, in 4th and 5th, 25% of your army points could be used to take allies.

rarely used though in 5th, since it was usually better spent on more lords, heroes or monsters sadly enough

[Meteor]

Dyvim...you're olllllddd

I might get excited about allies for fantasy like in 40k. It was a nice refreshing change and allowed for a lot of trolling as well as meta possibilities. It'd be nice to relive a Slaanesh DE army again. (Not that I ever made it in to live it in the first place, probably why I'm keen on it!)

[Liquidedust]

Dyvim...you're olllllddd

I might get excited about allies for fantasy like in 40k. It was a nice refreshing change and allowed for a lot of trolling as well as meta possibilities. It'd be nice to relive a Slaanesh DE army again. (Not that I ever made it in to live it in the first place, probably why I'm keen on it!)

Old is a matter of perspective, I've played 40k and Fantasy since -93 myself, had a slight break during end of Fantasy 6th era which also lasted the entire 7th ed.

[Ming]

I've been playing WH fantasy since '88 and stopped for 5th ed., starting again with 6th.
Old is a matter of perspective, but I'm actually old!
I was a big fan of Dogs of war (guess why... I'm Italian and I longed for a Tilean army) and allied contingents.
I actually played allied Empire - Wood Elves.
It was fun but totally unbalanced.

[Gwii2510]

Did anyone read under the Arrows of Isha? "The HE Elves (The Cowards!!!!) who shoots with these arrows cause -1 additional armorsave to forces of Destruction"

Feels kinda odd along with the "Warhammer: Dark Elves phrase"

[Dalamar]

They're clearly referring to the allies section of the BRB where Armies of Order and Forces of Destruction are listed.