History EnemyMine / TableTopGames

** In the ''Eldritch Moon'' set the non-mutated humans, werewolves, and vampires all team up to battle the abominations created by [[spoiler: Emrakul]], and Liliana's zombie army proves to be immune to this corruption and vital to driving them back (while none of her teammates are explicitly her enemies, few of them would team up with her unless forced to).

** The events of the ''Zendikar'' block have the vampires, elves, humans, Kor, minotaurs, goblins, merfolk and what-have-you uniting against the [[EldritchAbomination Eldrazi]]).

** ''March of the Machine'' follows New Phyrexia invading every plane in the multiverse, and everyone teaming up to fight back. Monsters and cathars on Innistrad, angels and gangsters on New Capenna, rebels and cops on Kaladesh - some of them gain a new respect for each other, though many know that as soon as the massive threat is dealt with it will be business as usual.

** ''TabletopGame/WarhammerAgeOfSigmar'': Tyrion and Malerion (formerly known as Malekith) don't hate each other any less than they did as mortals; if anything, becoming the new gods of light and shadow, respectively, has only made their old rivalry worse, as they're now as opposite as it's possible for two beings to be. However, they put were willing to put their differences aside if it meant saving countless elven souls from Slaanesh, and together with Teclis and Morathi, trapped the Chaos god, ripped as many souls as they could from his stomach, and divided them between them to begin the resurrection of their race. They since have agreed to mostly just ignore each other, but lately they've been seen testing the border's of each other's Realms...

* 'TabletopGame/DeltaGreen'':

* ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'': There's not much love lost between the githyanki and the githzerai, sundered subraces of the ancient gith, but their mutual hatred of the mind flayers who once enslaved them is intense enough that any hostility between the two peoples comes second to killing mind flayers whenever they raise their heads. If you see a githzerai monk and a githyanki knight in the same force, they're probably setting off to behead some illithids.

** Almost all cards in ''TabletopGame/MagicTheGathering'' are divided into one of five categories, defined by certain characteristics and assigned a colour. The five colours are seen on the back of the cards in a pentangle. The characters and creatures associated with any particular colour are hated by the colours on either of the nearer points, but even they will ally to fight against a colour further away (physically ''and'' thematically) from one of them.

* ''TabletopGame/InNomine'': Normally, an Archangel and his EvilCounterpart are bitter enemies, but this is not the case for Dominic and Asmodeus, the leaders of Heaven and Hell's respective inquisitions. They instead have a secret ''alliance'' across battle lines for the purpose of dealing with serious problems; just hunting Outcasts and Renegades won't cut it, but major issues -- large groups of Outcasts or Renegades, rogue Superiors, potential emergences of the Grigori, large plots by pagan gods -- can see Dominic's angels and Asmodeus' demons assigned to cooperate.

* Creator/GamesWorkshop games:
** ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer}}'': While the [[UsefulNotes/HolyRomanEmpire Empire]] and the [[Myth/ArthurianLegend Bretonnia]] have been fighting each other on and off for centuries, they will readily join together in the face of large external threats such as [[BloodKnight Greenskin]] migrations or [[EldritchAbomination Chaos]] hordes. Knights from the two factions even launched a counter invasion of [[ArabianNightsDays Araby]] after the southern kingdom was manipulated into invading the Old World by the [[RatMen Skaven]]. despite the two human nations being rivals.

*** [[SpaceOrcs Orks]] are naturally violent creatures who spend most of their time fighting amongst themselves but should an Ork world come under attack from an external force, the invasion will often cause the Ork population to join together without a second thought to fight against the non-Orks. There have even been instances in the lore where such an invasion has triggered an Waaagh! where the now united Orks continue to fight together and invade other worlds.

** ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer}}'': While the [[UsefulNotes/HolyRomanEmpire Empire]] and the [[Myth/ArthurianLegend Bretonnia]] have been fighting each other on and off for centuries, they will readily join together in the face of large external threats such as [[BloodKnight Greenskin]] migrations or [[EldritchAbomination Chaos]] hordes. Knights from the two factions even launched a counter invasion of [[ArabianNightsDays Araby]] after the southern kingdom was manipulated into invading the Old World by the [[RatMen Skaven]].invasion. despite the two human nations being rivals.
** ''TabletopGame/WarhammerFantasyRoleplay'': Lore from some editions of the game mentions that, while Bretonnian nobles are often at odds with the Herrimaults, forest-dwelling bandits who steal from the nobility to help the peasants JustLikeRobinHood. The nobles and Herrimaults, however, will still join forces or at least cease hostilities to deal with the worshippers of Chaos -- the Code of the Herrimaults has a special proviso allowing them to ally with tyrants in order to oppose the Ruinous Powers.

** ''TabletopGame/WarhammerTheEndTimes'': When the [[BigBadDuumvirate Skaven and Chaos joined forces]] to aunch one final invasion, the resulting destruction forced the warring forces of Order to join together with their traditional enemies to counter the threat -- the High, Wood and Dark Elves unite after millennia of bitter rivalry and ally with the Dwarfs (who have their own deep-seated vendetta against all Elves) and the Empire, with the resulting alliance then joining up with the forces of Death (the Vampire Counts and Tomb Kings) against the combined forces of Chaos in a final battle at Middenheim to decide the fate of the Old World.

*** It's not unheard of for Hunters, the people Heroes ''think'' they are, to form alliances of convenience between cells that dislike each other for personal or ideological reasons against the horrors in the dark - a fundamentalist Protestant from the Tribulation Militia likely doesn't have much regard for the secular, scientific compact of Null Mysteriis, for example, but at least a Godless evolutionist is somewhat better than a vampire. (Although any Hunter cell with a white nationalist or Neo-Nazi bent is not going to be able to form an alliance with [[TheAtoner the Loyalists of Thule]] under any circumstances, and indeed can consider themselves lucky if they survive the encounter.)
*** Some Hunter cells will even ally with the less evil monsters in order to drive out something worse. However, Hunters don't generally have access to the core books from other game lines, so their ability to tell which monsters are the "good" ones isn't necessarily reliable. The Hunter term for such an arrangement is a "cancer cell".

** ''TabletopGame/WerewolfTheForsaken'' does the same thing as well, with the Forsaken and the Pure reluctantly willing to put aside differences and put down Bale Hounds or the Idigam whenever they pop up. An entire Lodge, the Lodge of the Hunt, exists to invoke this trope, bringing together werewolves who have a common ArchEnemy.

* In ''TabletopGame/{{Paranoia}}'', even if someone's ideology is directly opposed to yours (Psion vs. Anti-Mutant, Corpore Metal vs. Frankenstein Destroyers), alliances can always shift to suit the demands of the moment. You can always hose them later.

* In ''TabletopGame/RocketAge'' when humanity started pushing its interests on Mars many warring city states put aside their differences to combat the new threat. Thus far this hasn't worked so well for them. There are also some adventures where the heroes could find themselves shoulder to shoulder with their rivals and enemies, at least for a little while.

* ''TabletopGame/{{Pathfinder}}'': The non-canon {{Bad Ending}}s of a number of adventure paths see enemies, sometimes very bitter ones, join forces to combat a new and far worse threat.
** In ''Rise of the Runelords'', of the [=PCs=] fail to prevent Karzoug's return into the world and to sabotage the Leng Device, Karzoug's return completes a ritual that allows [[EldritchAbomination Mhar, the World Thunder]], to be born from beneath Xin-Shalast, annihilating the city and Karzoug's forces. Although Karzoug survives by teleporting away, the narration notes that Mhar would pose such a cataclysmic threat to... everything, essentially, that the [=PCs=] might be forced to ally with Karzoug to face it down.
** In ''Wrath of the Righteous'', if the [=PCs=] lose to the demon lord Deskari and his forces and fail to halt the next major demonic incursion from the Worldwound, then the already overwhelmed defending forces quickly collapse and the hordes of the Abyss swiftly overwhelm most of northeastern Avistan. The existential threat posed by this impending apocalypse causes a number of alliances to form as nations that have been enemies with each other for most of their existences -- including the eternally-warring Nirmathas and Molthune; the crumbling empire of Taldor and its former colonies, the freedom-loving democracy of Andoran and the devil-worshipping tyranny of Cheliax; and the Ulfen warriors of the Land of the Linnorm Kings and the winter witches of Irrisen -- join forces with one another to hold back the demonic tide.

* ''TabletopGame/WorldOfDarkness'':
** ''TabletopGame/BeastThePrimordial'': Heroes will happily team up with any other race in the TabletopGame/NewWorldOfDarkness for the sake of hunting down and killing Beasts. This is intended to show just why they are {{Designated Hero}}es; they are so obsessive that they will gladly ally with actually evil monsters to kill a harmless Beast, simply because they are so fixated on killing Beasts that they regard other supernatural entities as harmless.
** ''TabletopGame/HunterTheVigil'':
*** It's not unheard of for Hunters, the people Heroes ''think'' they are, to form alliances of convenience between cells that dislike each other for personal or ideological reasons against the horrors in the dark - a fundamentalist Protestant from the Tribulation Militia likely doesn't have much regard for the secular, scientific compact of Null Mysteriis, for example, but at least a Godless evolutionist is somewhat better than a vampire. (Although any Hunter cell with a white nationalist or Neo-Nazi bent is not going to be able to form an alliance with [[TheAtoner the Loyalists of Thule]] under any circumstances, and indeed can consider themselves lucky if they survive the encounter.)
*** Some Hunter cells will even ally with the less evil monsters in order to drive out something worse. However, Hunters don't generally have access to the core books from other game lines, so their ability to tell which monsters are the "good" ones isn't necessarily reliable. The Hunter term for such an arrangement is a "cancer cell".
** ''TabletopGame/MageTheAscension'' has the Traditions and the Technocracy occasionally set aside their conflict long enough to take down a [[OmnicidalManiac Nephandus]] or [[PowerBornOfMadness Marauder]].
** ''TabletopGame/MageTheAwakening'' generally sees the Pentacle Orders locked in battle against the [[AncientConspiracy Seers of]] [[DespotismJustifiesTheMeans the Throne]], with [[KnightTemplar Banishers]] attacking both sides. However, when [[PowerBornOfMadness The Mad]], [[YourSoulIsMine Reaper Legacies]] or the [[EldritchAbomination Abyss]]-aligned [[OmnicidalManiac Scelesti]] show up, all three sides will most likely declare a truce to stop them.
** Arcanacon in Australia featured a freeform called "''Film/MarsAttacks'' the ''TabletopGame/WorldOfDarkness''". The blurb for the game included:
--->Will the Camarilla fight alongside the Sabbat?\\
Will the Garou fight alongside the Wyrm?\\
Will the Traditions fight alongside the Technocracy?\\
Will the Seelie fight alongside the Unseelie?\\
...and will the [[CloudCuckooLander Malkavians]] fight alongside the Martians?
** ''TabletopGame/PrincessTheHopeful'': On the fan-made side of things, Princesses are often mentioned to dislike Beasts for their habit of hurting people as "lessons". Yet, ''[[TabletopGame/HunterTheVigilDarkAndLight Dark and Light]]'' reveals the two of them regularly join forces in their common hatred toward the Hunter Compacts known as the Ashwood Abbey.
** ''TabletopGame/WerewolfTheForsaken'' does the same thing as well, with the Forsaken and the Pure reluctantly willing to put aside differences and put down Bale Hounds or the Idigam whenever they pop up. An entire Lodge, the Lodge of the Hunt, exists to invoke this trope, bringing together werewolves who have a common ArchEnemy.

* ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'': There's not much love lost between the githyanki and the githzerai, sundered subraces of the ancient gith, but their mutual hatred of the mind flayers who once enslaved them is intense enough that any hostility between the two peoples comes second to killing mind flayers whenever they raise their heads. If you see a githzerai monk and a githyanki knight in the same force, they're probably setting off to behead some illithids.

* ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer}}'':
** This comes up often between the Empire and Bretonnia, who often join forces against the [[BloodKnight Greenskins]], [[YouDirtyRat Skaven]] and [[EldritchAbomination Chaos]] despite the two human nations being rivals. The Empire has also in their past wars against Chaos received some rather... [[{{Understatement}} unexpected]] help from the Vampire Counts and their undead minions, though here the dynamic is more like a rancher protecting his cattle from wolves even though he plans to slaughter them later.
** Within Bretonnia itself, the nobles are often at odds with the Herrimaults, forest-dwelling bandits who steal from the nobility to help the peasants JustLikeRobinHood. The nobles and Herrimaults, however, will still join forces or at least cease hostilities to deal with the worshippers of Chaos -- the Code of the Herrimaults has a special proviso allowing them to ally with tyrants in order to oppose the Ruinous Powers.
** ''The End Times'' sees the [[BigBadDuumvirate Skaven and Chaos joining forces]], the Skaven curbstomping much of the world and the forces of Order doing this on several levels -- the High, Wood and Dark Elves unite after millennia of bitter rivalry and ally with the Dwarfs (who have their own deep-seated vendetta against all Elves) and the Empire, with the resulting alliance then joining up with the forces of Death (the Vampire Counts and Tomb Kings) against the combined forces of Chaos in a final battle at Middenheim to decide the fate of the Old World. [[TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt Chaos wins]]. [[TabletopGame/WarhammerAgeOfSigmar That didn't mean the end though.]]
* ''TabletopGame/Warhammer40000'' very, ''very'' occasionally has instances where the more reasonable factions will hold off on killing each other to deal with a mutual threat. For a few minutes, anyway. The Tau and Imperium probably have the most focus on their temporary alliances - many ''Literature/CiaphasCain'' novels deal with these arrangements.
** This most common variant occurs between forces of the Imperium, Eldar, and Tau against Tyranids, Necrons, or Chaos, and matching temporary alliances may occur between Chaos, Orks, and Dark Eldar, as prominently seen during ''VideoGame/DawnOfWar: Winter Assault''. The Tyranids are the only faction that never allies with anyone else even temporarily, for [[TheVoiceless obvious]] [[StarfishAliens reasons]].
** The Eldar, being [[ManipulativeBastard who they are]], will often manipulate any allies they do make so that they take the brunt of the fighting (and thus casualties), in essence back-stabbing their allies during the alliance, as well as overtly so 5 minutes before its usefulness ends. It varies, though. For example, even the hardcore militant Craftworld of Biel-Tan, after allying with the forces of the Imperial world of Tallarn to fight off a Chaos band, departed on good terms with the humans when the threat was vanquished, with the two sides exchanging gifts and a ''pact of friendship''. Really.
** It wouldn't be too much to suggest that this is the standard Ork state of being. Individual Orks are naturally hostile to everything else, even each other and occasionally themselves, but they will form into tribes to fight other tribes, and no matter how much the Ork tribes fight each other, they'll nearly always join forces to fight non-Orks.
** ''VideoGame/DawnOfWar II'' has a new mode which exemplifies this, known as "The Last Stand", where a Space Marine Captain, an Ork Mekboy and an Eldar Farseer cooperate to HoldTheLine against a swarm of enemies. The ''Chaos Rising'' expansion throws the Chaos Sorcerer and the Tyranid Hive Tyrant into the mix of heroes in the play mode, which technically cements -- if it wasn't apparent with the widely opposing team we had before -- that the game mode is not to be taken as canon, especially when a loyalist Marine cooperates with a Chaos Marine in any way.
** The largest interspecies cooperation probably happened during the recent 13th Black Crusade, when the (non-dark) Eldar collaborated with the Imperium on a large scale against the forces of Chaos, contributing to victory in many major battles and even pulling BigDamnHeroes rescues a few times (such as on Cadia). Even the Necrons helped out - by which we mean, they aimed vaguely in Chaos's direction instead of the humans and Eldar.
** Rules for the 6th Edition allow "allies"; if the player's army allows, they can take a HQ and a Troop choice (or more if they really want to) from another army. Specifically, the categories ''Desperate Allies'' and ''Unholy Alliance'' allow players to [[InvokedTrope invoke]] this trope if they want. The example given involved the [[BloodKnight Blood Angels]] fighting alongside the [[OmnicidalManiac Necrons]] to stop a [[ZergRush Tyranid invasion]], ''without either side backstabbing the other'', which led to many cries of "WAAARD!!!" among the fandom. Many of the alliance categories also seem rather unintuitive, though there's usually an underlying logic to it as of 7th Edition.
** The Codex Imperialis (p. 62) goes so far as to describe the Eldar as "more often ally than enemy to the Imperium", which is fairly notable considering that the Dark Eldar are of course nigh-universally hostile (meaning interactions with the Craftworld Eldar are probably fairly cordial, on average).

* ''TabletopGame/Warhammer40000'' very, ''very'' occasionally has instances where the more reasonable factions will hold off on killing each other to deal with a mutual threat. For a few minutes, anyway.
** This most common variant occurs between forces of the Imperium, Eldar, and Tau against Tyranids, Necrons, or Chaos, and matching temporary alliances may occur between Chaos, Orks, and Dark Eldar, as prominently seen during ''VideoGame/DawnOfWar: Winter Assault''.
** The Eldar, being [[ManipulativeBastard who they are]], will often manipulate any allies they do make so that they take the brunt of the fighting (and thus casualties), in essence back-stabbing their allies during the alliance, as well as overtly so 5 minutes before its usefulness ends. Their evil cousins, the Dark Eldar, pretty much always do the same.

** The Codex Imperialis goes so far as to say that the (non-Dark) Eldar "are more often ally than enemy to the Imperium."

** It wouldn't be too much to suggest that this is the standard Ork state of being. Individual Orks are naturally hostile to everything else, even each other, but they will form into tribes to fight other tribes, and no matter how much the Ork tribes fight each other, they'll nearly always join forces to fight non-Orks.

** ''The End Times'' sees the [[BigBadDuumvirate Skaven and Chaos joining forces]], the Skaven curbstomping much of the world and the forces of Order doing this on several levels -- the High, Wood and Dark Elves unite after millennia of bitter rivalry, ally with the Dwarfs (who have their own deep-seated vendetta against all Elves) and the Empire, with the resulting alliance then joining up with the forces of Death (the Vampire Counts and Tomb Kings) against the combined forces of Chaos in a final battle at Middenheim to decide the fate of the Old World. [[TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt Chaos wins]]. [[TabletopGame/WarhammerAgeOfSigmar That didn't mean the end though.]]

** Came to a head with ''The End Times'', which saw the [[BigBadDuumvirate Skaven and Chaos joining forces]], the Skaven curbstomping much of the world and the forces of Order (the Empire, Dwarfs and ''united'' Elves) joining up with the forces of Death (the Vampire Counts and Tomb Kings) against the combined forces of Chaos in a final battle at Middenheim to decide the fate of the Old World. [[TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt Chaos won]]. [[TabletopGame/WarhammerAgeOfSigmar That didn't mean the end though.]]