6th Ed Breakdown: Allies

It use to be that allies were limited or non existent in 40k. Old school players, those that played in 2nd edition, will remember the ability to take allies in your army.
Allies are back and in a big way. The Eldar have the ability to take Tau and Dark Eldar as battle brothers. This opens up a lot of possibilities for combinations. It also allows you to build a list that can have some support the primary codex does not provide, broadsides splitting open everything so my Wyches can pummel the contents? Yes please.  Some great psychic defense for the Dark Eldar. Yes Please! Flyers and Wicked close combat units for the Eldar.  Thank you!  I have to say there is a catch though.

Now I have looked and done up a few combinations that sound cool.  I have watched quit a few games with other armies and several allies combinations.  Although I have seen quit a few cool combos and some neat on trick ponies  I have to say allies must be really adding something to the primary army to warrant taking them. 

I have been tooling up a Dark Eldar list for a tournament this coming weekend and I was going to include some Eldar in the list to give the Dark kin some psychic defense and some long range artillery in the form of a Night Spinner.  After some conversations with Old School Terminator I started taking a second look at allies.

 Wolfson has been playing a lot of games with the Eldar and Dark Eldar over on the east coast with OST.  OST mentioned that when using the Eldar as Allies with the Dark Eldar they tended to slow down the Dark Eldar armies momentum.  The psychic defense was nice, but not worth the massive amount of points the Eldar took up.  So the real questions you have to ask yourself when taking allies are; what do they add?  What are you trying to supplement or add to army?  What deficiency is the allied force filling in for?

So with this in mind I have been looking at different combinations.  The main thing a Dark Eldar army is really lacking is Psychic defense and extreme long range support.  The Eldar can provide both.  The Tau are masters of long range fire.  A Broadside team or Hammerhead or any number of different units can provide long range support with extreme punch, but the Tau also have no psychic defense. So The Eldar and Tau working together can be mutually beneficial.

I have a small cadre I am going to use to see how they work with the Eldar.  I am still working out what to use with the Dark Eldar if I use anything at all.  As is the list I have built for the upcomming tournament is strait Dark Eldar.  The addition of any allies would be problematic and would not really add anything.  I am sure as time goes on Allies will be incorporated more into future Codex's. but as it stands all the current books are built for 5th, or 4th in some cases and 6th in the case of the Necrons, and although adding an allied force may give you access to a very powerful unit, it may not add anything to the whole. 

So in my opinion the Allies rules can be a trap if you don't consider them carefully.  Well Looks liek we are not getting flyers in August after all.  The massive Daemon release is taking precedence.  Granted the Daemons need an update and this does cover two different games which from a business standpoint gives GW a nice boost for the summer quarter.  I really like the new Exalted Chariot of Slaneesh.  I am also throwing it out there that I think I might have been wrong about an Eldar flyer.  I am thinking the Eldar flyer that is slated to come out is actually the Dark Eldar Void Raven.  I guess we will see.


Until next time...........


Blood Runs, Anger Rises, Death Wakes, War Calls!!!!!!!!!!!