Tuesday 2 July 2013

Are Allies in 40k a good thing?

I haven't played a game in a while.  In fact I've only played a single 6th Edition game, something keeps putting me off... I've got the models, the dice, the latest codeci, I should be all over it, shouldn't I?

It's Allies.  I can't get my head around it, it just feels like cheating.  Now don't get me wrong, I'm a player who brought a superheavy tank full of Tau Broadsides to an APOC game and murdered everything... I'm happy to WAAC with the best of them.  But allies intimidates me.

It's so many options, so many flavours.  I can see the logic behind it.  After all, if everyone needs every codex and you can cherry pick cool units from other places.

Tau getting smacked - grab a Wolfpack of Terminators.

The problem is that (in line with my opinion on the meta of the 40k codex anyhow), complete freedom does not lead to a world of win... in fact it leads to predictable power play and only a handful of 'best builds'.

Necessity is the mother of invention, not complete freedom.

"Its like bringing a handgun to a game of Rock-Paper-Scissors."


I find myself totally unspired to even start to begin to learn the new 'allies-meta'.  I'm imagining a whole trope of 'auto-take' and must have unit combos that grace the least fluffy of WAAC armies.  Necron add in's combined with Wolfpack gribblies and the occassional Ork Looter air defence.  In short, I find the freedom depressing.

I've always played armies with mixed records.  I own over 5000pts of Imperial Guard and don't own a single hydra, manticore or Vendetta/Valkyrie.  I work hard to make Rough Riders and Mortar teams really work.  I own Tyranids ... but the least said about that the better.

It strikes me that handy everyone access to those 'autowin' units that every codex has opened a pandora's box where any tactical acumen is sacrificed to the 'cool stuff' of the inspired codex.

40k has always fielded deathstar units, Mephistons etc aren't unusual.  They are useful as the Doom, Mephiston or an Eldar deathball forces the tactics away from the table and into a new paradigm.  Its like bringing a handgun to a game of Rock-Paper-Scissors.  Marneus is pulling down his trousers again, ready to shaft or shit on his own tactical codex.

So I'm uninspired.  Maybe I'm old and over the hill, but if I want to play 'titan-battles' I'd rather get into Hordes... 40k should have some tactics to it... shouldn't it?
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