40k 10.5 is out, and AoS 4th is almost upon us, so what better to do than a Workshop omake?
Codex: Allies of the Liberation is about to be released. One of the Workshop's most controversial releases to date, it promises a complete rebalancing of the units added to the USA in various supplements and White Dwarf Star issues. We ask spokesperson Warden Matthewson about the reasoning behind this release.
Good day, Warden. When Allies of the Liberation was announced, one driving theme was that many of the current top-ranking USA armies will be impossible to recreate. Needless to say, that's been a very divisive take. What lies behind this decision?
One of the Workshop's core values has been that we reflect the state of warfare as it is. Which means that if what we're seeing at our top tables don't match reality, either people at war are karking up, or our rules are wrong. Thankfully, for the USA, we can go straight to the source and ask them why they aren't fielding mixed armies of ponies, vampires, Magia and BATs.
I'm guessing they didn't say "what a brilliant idea, how did we not think of this!"
Oh, definitely not. Turns out, these kind of 'localised specialist forces' as the USA puts it have their own preferred chain of command and can't exactly be moved willy-nilly across the Warp. Oh, we do see some cases where multiple such forces converge, like the Got-ham Campaign, but that's an unusual case and also a very large commitment of forces. Moreover, when these forces dominate, that puts strain on USA command, too. Fortunately, se have a good way of reflecting these kinds of consideration - point increases.
But it's not just point increases across the board, is it? Otherwise there's going to be a lot of unplayable models.
That's right. While we've so far used a universal point system, the new 'Allies' subsystem allows us to give point discounts to auxiliary units based on your commitment to them. At a heavy commitment to a single Ally, you will be getting them at same or even cheaper costs compared to before the update. What's going away are 'soupy' USA armies that take the best of every Ally without consideration of the real-life difficulty in coordinating so many specialised, culturally different units. You still can, but be prepared to pay out of the nose for it, as the USA did in Got-ham.
Even so, that's still a straight penalty for most people. While some of that is inevitable in any balance pass, what incentives are there to pick this up?
Well, for one, don't look down on consolidating all those datasheets. We've really been putting them out in a piecemeal way, and for many newer players this might be the first opportunity to get their hands on rare datasheets like the Lasgun Magius, or the expanded Vampire Bloodlines. An option has also been added to Ally Valhalla, which allows for the recreation of historical battles. The Knights Harmonic have also been added to the Ponies, which I'm sure will excite many modelers. GUNs have also been given their own rules now!
Consider us convinced. Will this new Ally system be expanded to other Armies?
The top of our list is a Tyranid reorganisation - we've long known the split between Hive Fleets and Brood Brothers, but didn't have the tech to represent it until now. Of course, we aren't releasing that with no new sculpts, so Tyranid fans, hold tight! Valhalla is also going to be a big beneficiary, as we'll finally have the ability to represent the odd way the Astra Militarium rolls specialised units into general ones. We've got plenty of testimonials on some of the more famed recruitment worlds to chew through!
Thank you very much. Any closing words?
Changes are always disruptive, but that doesn't mean they're bad. Try the new rules and see for yourself!