Branching off from the "AM in tournaments" thread, this question is about whether Special Characters in general are broken.

For the *most* part, I would say "no" though with qualifiers. I've avoided discussing 8th in general, but historically, very few characters were actually worth fielding. There were notable anomalies of course: Njal was a staple in 5th Space Wolves due to his ability to singlehandedly shut down your opponent's Psykers and blow up half their army with Chain Lightning. Likewise, although Fateweaver was an autoinclude for Daemons in 6th and 7th, he was taken less for individual prowess and more to mitigate the randumb from Daemon armies.

Of course, come the end of 7th and the rise of 8th, Magnus came out, as well as Celestine and Bobby G. Roboute was arguably relatively tame in Rise of the Primarch, but 8th has made him a reroll machine to the point that he crowds out other Marine options. Magnus and Mortarion instead show a creeping forth of "yet another big monster." Then again, 8th is also conscripthammer or alphahammer. Could the impression that certain characters break 40k merely be a psychological (or Timmy) aversion to the idea that GW spends more time pushing "big" models rather than writing "all bases covered" armies?

I don't think they are necessarily "broken" but they provide a level of scaling that other armies don't have right now. Once more armies get their codices and extra "stuff", I think it'd be a better time to come back to the same question. It's just too hard to tell with the limited number we have right now. They are good, but I don't think they rise to the level of broken unless other armies end up not having access to units like them.

Some yes, some no. From a narrative perspective, they're wildly overused, regardless of power - however in a tournament setting that's to be expected.

Costes apropiately nothing is broken. Even a revived Emperor could be viable to play costing 1500points

I'm not really sure what you're trying to ask. Is anyone denying at this point that Guilliman, Cawl, and Celestine are bad for the game because they're basically auto-includes in at least their own factions' lists and often in others? Guilliman and Cawl are particularly bad because they make a lot of their factions' codices irrelevant -- you're always going to be playing Ultramarines and Mars.

I'm not as familiar with Chaos, but I could believe that you pretty much always want to bring Magnus and cast that +1 to saves power on him. This would be a problem. I haven't seen much of Mortarion yet. But at least these two don't lock you in to other choices the way Guilliman and Cawl do.

Celestine is clearly hugely overpowered for her points, but this would not in principle be a huge problem if she couldn't be taken in any Imperium list. Like, it's fine for an army to have a unit that it's always going to bring, even if that unit is a special character (leaving aside that Sisters are otherwise really strong anyway right now and don't need the help). And she's cheap enough that it's not a big deal. Mortarion being an auto-include in Death Guard would be a little more annoying since he's such a large fraction of the list. You would want it to be possible to field strong Death Guard armies without him.

But at the same time I don't know if any significant number of people think that most special characters are causing problems. Generally when people say something like "special characters are broken" they don't mean this.

My gripe is that special characters are really restrictive, since they often come with really useful abilities but are locked to their characters.

Like, I would love it if Typhus's Poxwalker buff was available on generic Lords of Contagion (as a buyable upgrade of course, I'm not expecting it for free here), or (as Unit said on another thread) take a Pask-esque Tank Ace outside of Cadia.

In terms of relative strength, I think most characters are OK (barring the occasional broken one), but it limits army building and creativity when every Ultramarine army is fielding Guilliman. Speaking of Guilliman (and by extension Celestine and the two Daemon primarchs) sometimes the special characters are in a complete class of their own, meaning there is simply no way of taking a generic version. I'm not saying I want a generic, build-a-primarch system, but it skews things even more when one faction does have one and no one else can take anything even resembling it.

If their relics and abilities were buyable upgrades, and the characters themselves are just a specific set of relics and upgrades, then I'd be totally fine with them.

For the most part no, most special characters aren't worth their points.Look at the Eldar, between Craftworlders, Drukhari and Ynnari they have more special characters than almost anyone else, but other than Yvrain and the Yncarne (at least one of which needs to be taken to make the army Ynnari) you'll almost never see them as they aren't worth it. This has been the case for quite some time as well.

 Imateria wrote:
For the most part no, most special characters aren't worth their points.Look at the Eldar, between Craftworlders, Drukhari and Ynnari they have more special characters than almost anyone else, but other than Yvrain and the Yncarne (at least one of which needs to be taken to make the army Ynnari) you'll almost never see them as they aren't worth it. This has been the case for quite some time as well.

Agreed, for the most part special characters aren't a -huge- problem. Most of the Xenos special characters are (much like most of the Xenos units in general) either completely worthless, or only worth about half of what they cost. The only exception I can think of is Ghazkrul, who is actually the only character I can think of who is appropriately priced, decent, but not overpowered. This is lucky, as using him is the only way to make a half decent ork list (as long as you like running hordes of boyz).

Eldar does have a lot of named characters, if you include all the phoenix lords, but they are all (with maybe one or two exceptions) overpriced and underpowered (not a good combination). Fuegan is alright, that's about it. Yvraine and the Yncarne aren't too terrible too, but they're basically only taken because you are forced to. They aren't the worst tax in the game though, so it's hard to complain.

Special characters become a problem when you look at the Imperium though, especially in soup armies. Celestine is amazeballs for her points, Gulliman and Cawl turn balanced armies into crazy overpowered messes, and IG characters are cheap and plentiful and mostly have some pretty powerful options.

Though actually I'd say IG characters are a good standard for all armies to follow...as there is a variety of options and they all have their place, and are appropriately priced. If GW did actually do that. Unfortunately hasn't been the case as yet, and instead it has left IG being the only army with this variety of characters, which only bolsters their strength more than it already is.

So yeh, TLDR: Most special characters aren't broken. Mostly, they're awful, if you take the average to include all Xenos characters. However there are a few broken characters, which are also the only ones ever seen because they have become auto-includes. Spoils the fun for everyone.

It used to be worse, older editions had a lot more overpowered characters than 8th does at the moment. However a lot of codices aren't out yet, so GW still have time to make things worse. In my game group we still tend to follow the old (old old) habit of only using special characters with prior agreement. Fielding a primarch in a casual game without prior consent would be seen as somewhat rude. Unfortunately this does not seem to be the norm for dakka.

edit: haha, also, after checking your poll before voting, I noticed that both "No, except a few" and "Maybe some, but not most" are -very similar- responses lol. I guess it's a matter of whether someone things there's only 1 or 2, or a handful... I put maybe, because there's more than 1 or 2, and I suspect there will be a couple more added as time goes on. I just wonder how many people who ticked "No" still agree that there is one or two bad apples. One or two, who commonly appear in lists (like Cawl does) is more than enough to spoil things.

The poll isn't exact, and is a fairly inclusive range. I imagine relatively few people will state that *every* special character (or no character) will be overpowered.

"No (except a few)", "maybe some" or "yes."

I didn't like your choices, so i didn't vote. Re-reading the questions a few times is making my head hurt. Some are (and always have been), but some aren't. It's not necessarily the being a special character that is the problem, but the rules associated with them.

Yvrain got split down the middle with an axe last time I faced one. She definitely put the hurt on me in the psycher phase the 2 turns she could. Other than her every other character I've faced I've been able to kill with minimal damage to my army, except Mortarion. That thing is a monster.

 Elbows wrote:
Some yes, some no. From a narrative perspective, they're wildly overused, regardless of power - however in a tournament setting that's to be expected.

Unless tournaments forbade them and in my opinion they should. As should gamers generally unless by prior consent

Besides maybe 3 no. Anybody saying otherwise is honestly a bad player that can't bother to learn how to counter even lesser characters like Lysander and Asterion and you deserve no sympathy.

I think they shouldn't be disallowed, but they certainly aren't created equal. That said, I don't think but maybe a few are anywhere near overpowered, and those few are most all Primarchs.

I'll give an example.

I run Lemartes in most of my lists for a variety of reasons. Mostly, I love his model, and it's my favorite chaplain sculpt available for a power armored/jump pack equipped chaplain.
Secondly, he's a favorite character of mine in the lore. Seriously, I really enjoy his backstory, and history.
Lastly, he's got good rules and is reasonably priced for those rules. He clocks in at just a hair under 130 points, has the same death company keyword benefits which, while not amazing, are still pretty decent all-told. He gets a lot of attacks, and benefits death company exclusively as well instead of any same <chapter keyword> models nearby, with the added bonus of reroll charge distance (which is quite handy). He also hits a little harder with his relic, the Blood Crozius (AP:-2, and D3 Damage per swing), but as I said, does lack the ability to buff/help any non-death company Blood Angels models nearby him unlike a 'standard' chaplain.

I've never had anyone complain about me using him, and I have zero issue subbing him out of my list for a standard chaplain instead and just using the Lemartes model if asked to do so.

I think, barring a few outliers, the balance on named/special characters is pretty good. Just my opinion on that, though.

Take it easy.

-Red__Thirst-

Not adding much but aura abilities tend to be broken. They are priced as if they will effect a unit or two. The reality is however they encourage bunkering up to cover almost your entire army.
Cawl for instance is paying maybe 100 points for a 20-33% buff over a dominus. So he needs to effect 300-500 points of stuff to pay for himself (less if you value his other abilities). This is always going to happen. If anything you will get double, triple or more benefit. He can easily be worth 500~ points in improved damage output.
RG has the same issue.
Random beatstick special characters are just a pricing issue. Celestine is too cheap. Most are too expensive.

Special characters and aura abilities are no more broken than that special bomb card you played turn 3 that buffs all your troops by +3/+3 while it's in play, or gives them Trample/Haste/Lifedrain or some other shtick.

They act as force multipliers, little more. Against solid armies, characters alone cannot compete. They require the support of the rest of their army to be a threat. Magnus often dies turn 1 against competitive lists because there's just that much shooting going on and no one can succeed that many saving throws. But by absorbing shots for his fellow brothers, he allows you to get a chance at positioning, buffing, and firing before getting shot off the board effortless and losing all your stuff. Magnus serves as a bullet attraction tool that may or may not survive the process which prevents huge numbers of early game casualties before you've even had a chance to act.

The meta has developed around them already. Snipers are in almost every tournament list because they handle characters best by being able to single them out of a crowd. Sometimes targeted removal is necessary in a card game to get rid of force multipliers.

As I already have experience with card games where 2 cost units can be weak while 4 cost units can be gamebreaking, I don't find characters to be a problem. They are either supporters or stompers and both have effective counters. When you bring a list lacking counters to these things then you may feel the sting of their effectiveness. You could respond with your own version of these characters but if you are playing an army that lacks them then it's a test of patience until more come out.

Even non-Characters have been centerpiece attention grabbers. Wraithknights, Imperial Knights, Baneblades, Carnifex, units have always existed with the potential to cause great harm to our forces. The difference is that unlike 7th edition these units are now actually kill-able by our armies. You are no longer required to bring insanely high strength weapons to even have a chance at damaging a knight. It helps, just as sniper rifles help deal with characters if reaching them directly is hard, but it's not strictly necessary.

"special" Characters aren't the problem: lack of balance/ proper points costs is.

Aura's are indeed hard to pinpoint correctly that needs a lot of playtesting. That's one of the reasons why the big test for 8th's balance is chapter approved. It's the yearly balance patch, let's hope it's a good one.

I think it's a bummer that you end up with the same handful of guys appearing all the time, instead of people being encouraged to come up with their own characters, because the former is the only was to access certain benefits/rules/abilities. Would like to see more options for "generic" HQs, but it seems I'm in a minority; most people either don't care or don't have a problem with named characters.

I think Kharn is a good example of what I like in a Special Character.

Not that powerful of an aura, but a clear leader of World Eaters.

You don't play him to sit him in the back and command like some puny Imperial Commisar, you put him front and centre to rip open a tin can Russ Tank, and see what prize is inside!

No. There are a few (already mentioned ) characters who may be a little OP but I don't think any of them are outright 'Broken'

Some are, but most are fine. I do wish they had kept the "requires opponent's permission" from the olden days though, and also restricted things like LoW special characters to > 2000 point games.

Dionysodorus wrote:

Mortarion being an auto-include in Death Guard would be a little more annoying since he's such a large fraction of the list. You would want it to be possible to field strong Death Guard armies without him.

That's quite possible actually. To make Mortarion work you have to tailor your list around him because he plays kind of anathema to what Death Guard stand for: he's the rush into assault and kill everything type while the Death Guard in general are about the slow and steady advance. You don't want Mortarion in a Poxwalker swarm list for example because he's not going to be much more than a Distraction Carnifex (a really big one, granted, but that's still you spending 470 points on a fire magnet that does not otherwise synergize with your army).


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Wayniac wrote:
Some are, but most are fine. I do wish they had kept the "requires opponent's permission" from the olden days though, and also restricted things like LoW special characters to > 2000 point games.

Not gonna happen nor really necessary. From a business perspective they aren't releasing models like Magnus and Mortarion to only be used in Apocalypse games, they're a big source of revenue so they need to be usable in normal games as well. From a gameplay perspective: Superheavies are not so overpowered in 8th as they were in 7th because D weapons and special superheavy rules are gone. Mortarion, Magnus or a Knight in a 2k list is certainly powerful but in no way broken.

[MOD EDIT - RULE #1 - Alpharius]

 Nazrak wrote:
I think it's a bummer that you end up with the same handful of guys appearing all the time, instead of people being encouraged to come up with their own characters, because the former is the only was to access certain benefits/rules/abilities. Would like to see more options for "generic" HQs, but it seems I'm in a minority; most people either don't care or don't have a problem with named characters.

Would love to have those options to create your own characters with their own narrative, but as it stands now named characters are often better. Also, too many options will undoubtedly lead to some hilariously broken combinations. Guess we'll have to live with it.

I think the main problem is that certain characters, Cawl and Guilliman especially tend to warp their meta around them and dictate what opponents bring. Rather than allowing players to bring what lists they would like to run they have to start teching their lists to deal with that list specifically and certain options will only deal with certain things.

I've been playing against Guilliman a lot and he isn't really that hard since his army clumps up around him making it very easy to surround them and the style of play very predictable, you just need to bring things to deal with Guilliman's army and then the weight of numbers or controlling objectives will win you the game. Even then, Guilliman himself isn't THAT tough. He's a pain to deal with yes but he's not invincible.

Do I wish he was toned down or more expensive? Yes, absolutely because like I said I dislike having to tech my list specifically to deal with his gak, but do I think it's a major problem? Not really, no.

In the case of Magnus specifically, I imagine his popularity is less because of his individual prowess (though he does have a fancy blade and Invulnerable) or the idea of him soloing your opponent, so much as because of Psychic Focus. Because you can only *attempt* to cast Warptime/Dark Guidance once per turn, you really don't want to fail, given that psychic powers are a binary pass-fail. Unlike something like, say, Cultists shooting (20 autoguns = 40 shots averaging 20 hits, but 15-25 hits is a reasonable range to assume), you either get an extra move, or you don't. (Contrast with, say, Kings of War, which would be "May move 1 inch forward for each 4+ rolled" or so). Since Magnus has +2 to cast, that ups your odds of success that much more, while making it harder for your foe to Deny.

This is similar to how he was used sans any actual Thousand Sons in 7th, because the Warp Charge system ended up favoring "big caster+batteries" rather than multiple small casters.

A few of them are actually broken (tipycally the new huge superheroes) and kill the game like any other owerpowered unit. The majority of the named characters are ok or even bad but definitely not broken.

 Arkaine wrote:


The meta has developed around them already. Snipers are in almost every tournament list because they handle characters best by being able to single them out of a crowd. Sometimes targeted removal is necessary in a card game to get rid of force multipliers.

Is this true? Last time I saw the maths on snipers, they were universally a waste of points, as you need something like 200+ points of snipers in order to reliably kill a character within a standard game length. Edit: And that is only if the character stands out in the open for the whole game.

The exception -possibly- being ratlings, because they are so cheap. (I know, right, Imperial Guard having cheap and still effective units. Hard to believe.)

Other than that, as far as I've seen, snipers are avoided due to being useless points-sinks. Even the Vindicaire take 3 or 4 turns to kill a character, and that is only if the character actually stands out in the open for the entire game.

I wouldn't say that they're broken, but they're making the game incredibly one dimensional.

Every AdMech army has Cawl. Every Death Guard army has Mortarion. Every Ultramarines army and Imperium army has Guilliman. Etc. Etc. And I see no reason why things will be any different with yet to be released codexes.

I'm seeing now, more than ever, a complete lack of diversity in army builds. Very unfortunate.

Every AdMech army has Cawl because the AdMech codex is painfully meh. That's not about Cawl being broken, it's about the Dominus being too blasted expensive and other factors.

Well, special characters have a bad touch. Generally, I dont take them.
I remember that in a GT final, I have been the only Eldar player without Eldrad. I think it was 5th.

 Elbows wrote:
Some yes, some no. From a narrative perspective, they're wildly overused, regardless of power - however in a tournament setting that's to be expected.

This.

G-man and Celestine, often together, show up at every muddy ditch in the galaxy.

It would make them much more tactical if they could only buff 1 unit instead of everybody. The latter encourages static, gunline play where a character hovers around a death star of units. Not much fun, IMHO.

Niiru wrote:
Is this true? Last time I saw the maths on snipers, they were universally a waste of points, as you need something like 200+ points of snipers in order to reliably kill a character within a standard game length. Edit: And that is only if the character stands out in the open for the whole game.

No need to ask when we have forums here with tournament listings and results. The NOVA Open winner last month had 2 squads of Elysium Snipers. Another two lists brought 5 squads each. Not all armies need them because Chaos can do psychic shenanigans (plus Malefic Lord spam) and Orks have Da Jump. The list Brad Chester ran with Guilliman and Celestine had two Vindicares in it. Another had 2 Ratling squads, another had 4 Ratling squads, another had 6 sniper scout squads, another had 20 scout snipers for their troop choices and a Culexus Assassin. This is all just from a single 32-man tournament of the best 40k players. There were others that didn't make this the cut for this list that probably brought even more snipers.

You can find lists of other tournaments too and they feature similarly. BAO had lots of snipers too for example.

 Arkaine wrote:

Niiru wrote:
Is this true? Last time I saw the maths on snipers, they were universally a waste of points, as you need something like 200+ points of snipers in order to reliably kill a character within a standard game length. Edit: And that is only if the character stands out in the open for the whole game.

No need to ask when we have forums here with tournament listings and results. The NOVA Open winner last month had 2 squads of Elysium Snipers. Another two lists brought 5 squads each. Not all armies need them because Chaos can do psychic shenanigans (plus Malefic Lord spam) and Orks have Da Jump. The list Brad Chester ran with Guilliman and Celestine had two Vindicares in it. Another had 2 Ratling squads, another had 4 Ratling squads, another had 6 sniper scout squads, another had 20 scout snipers for their troop choices and a Culexus Assassin. This is all just from a single 32-man tournament of the best 40k players.

You can find lists of other tournaments too and they feature similarly. BAO had lots of snipers too for example.

Oh, most of those being Imperial snipers I'm not surprised they passed me by. Not surprised if they're as good as ratlings either. Elysium snipers work out just as good on paper (if not better), and vinidcares are vindicares.

Don't see how Chaos Malefics help to snipe characters, as they seem to just be smite batteries. Still can't target characters. Da Jump is just another deepstrike, so again can't be used to target characters (they'll always be surrounded by 100 conscripts or similar parking lots). So basically the only way to deal with overpowered Imperial characters, is to play as the Imperium so you can take relatively effective snipers.

I run Lucius. He's the best option for EC due to the fact that he has a cool sword, actual noise marine options (Doomsiren) and interesting duelist rules.

And the voting on this is horrible. Adding the side parts just.. rigs it regardless in a wishy washy mess.

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:
I run Lucius. He's the best option for EC due to the fact that he has a cool sword, actual noise marine options (Doomsiren) and interesting duelist rules.

And the voting on this is horrible. Adding the side parts just.. rigs it regardless in a wishy washy mess.

It's a fuzzy/relative range. I should probably have added a "none at all", to differentiate between "zero, one, or five percent" or so.

Some of them are broken. Most of them are just kinda unnecessary, they should let those rules be purchased by generics.

I don't see how this poll could be very informative. Depending on how you interpret the answer options given, the same general opinion could easily result in a vote for any of these answers.

Some characters are seen extremely disproportionately, and are clearly quite overpowered options compared to their alternatives. Other characters are never taken at all.

Are OP characters a problem because they are characters, because they are OP, or are they OP because GW make characters OP more often than other models? Is the problem aura buff models rather than unique characters? It all depends on whom you ask.

As for my personal feeling on the matter, I don't like seeing named characters on the tabletop except in certain circumstances. There's only one Roboute Guilliman, seeing him in action should be rare, and indicative of a major conflict. Most of the time battle in the 41st millennium should be between more mundane leaders. Too many named characters in a non-apocalypse game only makes it look like League of Legends.

I don't think any of the SC's are broken themselves. Celestine is often cited as way under costed but the girl dies way too easily to cost more than she dies currently. I do think that you should be required to field her with both of her Geminae. Having fielded her against Mortarion, Magnus and Gman. None of them have any trouble killing her in their own way. I think the problem that arises with SC's is when they get thrown into a soup list with zero tax. How many would play Celestine if they had to field her as part of a battle forged SoB detachment?

If tournaments just put a cap of one character per list, it would curb the current abuse we are seeing.

Or create a list of characters that cannot be in the same list.

Personally i like to see characters in a narrative setting rather than a tournament setting. Watching magnus v magnus is just silly, been there done that,

Or just removed them entirely. I'm one of those old fuddy duddys from the time when Special Characters required your Opponent's Permission to use, not just sidegrade vanilla characters with pre-set equipment.

EDIT: My reasoning being that any characters worth using in a Tournament generally are the broken ones, so it's not like the unused ones will feel a change anyways. The only people who'd really be shafted would be people taking fluff armies to competitive tournaments, but some casualties are to be had.

 MechaEmperor7000 wrote:
Or just removed them entirely. I'm one of those old fuddy duddys from the time when Special Characters required your Opponent's Permission to use, not just sidegrade vanilla characters with pre-set equipment.

EDIT: My reasoning being that any characters worth using in a Tournament generally are the broken ones, so it's not like the unused ones will feel a change anyways. The only people who'd really be shafted would be people taking fluff armies to competitive tournaments, but some casualties are to be had.

You mean like Ynnari that requires you take to take one of three special characters as your Warlord? The main reason every Ynnari force has Yvraine and/or The Yncarne, is for that reason specifically.

 Happyjew wrote:

 MechaEmperor7000 wrote:
Or just removed them entirely. I'm one of those old fuddy duddys from the time when Special Characters required your Opponent's Permission to use, not just sidegrade vanilla characters with pre-set equipment.

EDIT: My reasoning being that any characters worth using in a Tournament generally are the broken ones, so it's not like the unused ones will feel a change anyways. The only people who'd really be shafted would be people taking fluff armies to competitive tournaments, but some casualties are to be had.

You mean like Ynnari that requires you take to take one of three special characters as your Warlord? The main reason every Ynnari force has Yvraine and/or The Yncarne, is for that reason specifically.

1.) I honestly forgot that was a thing and

2.) that's a stupid rule anyways. But then again I disliked the Ynnari in concept anyhow. It reeks of the End Times lists. Still though, isn't making generic HQ choices one of the primary complaints for Ynnari anyways?

 MechaEmperor7000 wrote:
Or just removed them entirely. I'm one of those old fuddy duddys from the time when Special Characters required your Opponent's Permission to use, not just sidegrade vanilla characters with pre-set equipment.

EDIT: My reasoning being that any characters worth using in a Tournament generally are the broken ones, so it's not like the unused ones will feel a change anyways. The only people who'd really be shafted would be people taking fluff armies to competitive tournaments, but some casualties are to be had.

Your reasoning sucks. Most of the characters being seen right now are the generic ones, with the only named ones being Rowboat, Celestine, and...nope that's it.

For the record that rule for permission was stupid anyway because none of the characters were exactly great. Why do I need YOUR permission if I was using Coteaz from the 3rd edition Daemonhunters, or The Nightbringer/Deceiver from that Necron codex?

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 MechaEmperor7000 wrote:
Or just removed them entirely. I'm one of those old fuddy duddys from the time when Special Characters required your Opponent's Permission to use, not just sidegrade vanilla characters with pre-set equipment.

EDIT: My reasoning being that any characters worth using in a Tournament generally are the broken ones, so it's not like the unused ones will feel a change anyways. The only people who'd really be shafted would be people taking fluff armies to competitive tournaments, but some casualties are to be had.

Your reasoning sucks. Most of the characters being seen right now are the generic ones, with the only named ones being Rowboat, Celestine, and...nope that's it.

For the record that rule for permission was stupid anyway because none of the characters were exactly great. Why do I need YOUR permission if I was using Coteaz from the 3rd edition Daemonhunters, or The Nightbringer/Deceiver from that Necron codex?

So Rowboat and Celestine aren't broken? And the rest of that didn't make much sense since you're disagreeing with me saying the unused ones won't feel the ban....by saying the unused ones won't be used anyways? I don't get your logic here.

And the rule was there because, back then, special characters were suppose to be stuff for narrative campaigns, they weren't meant to be used in competitive enviroments or pickup games, which is why you needed an opponent's permission AND meet certain points requirements (for example, Calgar and Abaddon would never show up in games below 2000, since that was basically the upper limit of 40k at the time and they wouldn't lower themselves to smaller skirmishes). It was to the point that some special characters were promo-only items for campaigns (like Valten or Harry the Hammer was, before GW decided to break out the molds again just before fantasy ended); GW honestly didn't think you'd want them as anything more than collectors items after the fact. Back then it was basically on par with sticking an Unhinged or Unglued card in your deck at a MTG tournament, and legitimately getting angry at why you got disqualified.

Sadly after the Black Templars Codex, GW decided to streamline everything and just made Special Characters a fact of life. Not at all helped by the exclusive builds or units only they can unlock (worst offender are the "wing" commanders, Logan, Draigo and Beilal) since you're completely locked out of a build if you didn't want to use special characters.

I wish there weren't any characters that were so out of line like Magnus, RG and Celestine at the moment because I really like using characters but since GW can't seem to write rules for them without making some stupidly broken potential around them I guess my vote goes against them.
Problem is some armies don't work at all without them.

 Dakka Wolf wrote:
I wish there weren't any characters that were so out of line like Magnus, RG and Celestine at the moment because I really like using characters but since GW can't seem to write rules for them without making some stupidly broken potential around them I guess my vote goes against them.
Problem is some armies don't work at all without them.

I find it hilarious that many people point out special characters they think are tough yet then have no problem fielding giant vehicles or knights like it's just run of the mill business as usual.

Every named character that is an autoinclude for his/her army is broken and should be toned down.

And they shouldn't be allowed at all if a player decides to play a soup with different factions. At least in 2500 points and smaller games.


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 Arkaine wrote:

 Dakka Wolf wrote:
I wish there weren't any characters that were so out of line like Magnus, RG and Celestine at the moment because I really like using characters but since GW can't seem to write rules for them without making some stupidly broken potential around them I guess my vote goes against them.
Problem is some armies don't work at all without them.

I find it hilarious that many people point out special characters they think are tough yet then have no problem fielding giant vehicles or knights like it's just run of the mill business as usual.

I feel the same way, 100% agree.

 Arkaine wrote:

 Dakka Wolf wrote:
I wish there weren't any characters that were so out of line like Magnus, RG and Celestine at the moment because I really like using characters but since GW can't seem to write rules for them without making some stupidly broken potential around them I guess my vote goes against them.
Problem is some armies don't work at all without them.

I find it hilarious that many people point out special characters they think are tough yet then have no problem fielding giant vehicles or knights like it's just run of the mill business as usual.

I think it's funny you assume that I use giant vehicles or Knights, my biggest vehicle that sees regular use is either a Rhino, a Razorback or a Dreadnaught.
Biggest vehicles I own are a Knight that I was happy to build and paint but has only ever seen use as a bookstop because I never liked Superheavies or GMCs and a Landraider that I've owned for four years and has seen more use as a loaner than in any of my lists, I'm actually yet to run it in 8th.
Want to assume my Space Wolves only ever run TWC next? You might get closer than this effort.

 Arkaine wrote:
I find it hilarious that many people point out special characters they think are tough yet then have no problem fielding giant vehicles or knights like it's just run of the mill business as usual.

No one in my group plays any Lords of War. The largest model I've encountered is a Stormraven, the largest I've played is a Wave Serpent. I think Wraithknights and Imperial Knights should be rare sights on the battlefield as well, but not as rare as named characters. There are quite a few Knights in the galaxy, but only one Girlyman.

The Wraithknight is a cool model, and I might get one at some point for the modelling experience. I own five unique characters, none of which have seen the tabletop

I want my games to be about my guys, not whatever GW want me to play. I absolutely wouldn't play Girlyman even if I played Ultramarines.

 Blackie wrote:
Every named character that is an autoinclude for his/her army is broken and should be toned down.

And they shouldn't be allowed at all if a player decides to play a soup with different factions. At least in 2500 points and smaller games.

but then there's characters like cawl who is the only named character making him an auto include because no one else in admech does what he does as well as him

 Arkaine wrote:

 Dakka Wolf wrote:
I wish there weren't any characters that were so out of line like Magnus, RG and Celestine at the moment because I really like using characters but since GW can't seem to write rules for them without making some stupidly broken potential around them I guess my vote goes against them.
Problem is some armies don't work at all without them.

I find it hilarious that many people point out special characters they think are tough yet then have no problem fielding giant vehicles or knights like it's just run of the mill business as usual.

I find it hilarious that you think people who play special characters only with opponents consent, somehow also play lords of war and superheavies willy-nilly.

I think you'll find the kind of fair-minded gamer who plays special characters only with opponent consent, also only plays superheavies and lords of war with opponent consent. Giving the opponent a chance to tailor their list slightly, so the game isn't a total walkover.

Personally, I would hesitate to even run a flyer without notifying my opponent.

Niiru wrote:

 Arkaine wrote:

 Dakka Wolf wrote:
I wish there weren't any characters that were so out of line like Magnus, RG and Celestine at the moment because I really like using characters but since GW can't seem to write rules for them without making some stupidly broken potential around them I guess my vote goes against them.
Problem is some armies don't work at all without them.

I find it hilarious that many people point out special characters they think are tough yet then have no problem fielding giant vehicles or knights like it's just run of the mill business as usual.

I find it hilarious that you think people who play special characters only with opponents consent, somehow also play lords of war and superheavies willy-nilly.

I think you'll find the kind of fair-minded gamer who plays special characters only with opponent consent, also only plays superheavies and lords of war with opponent consent. Giving the opponent a chance to tailor their list slightly, so the game isn't a total walkover.

Personally, I would hesitate to even run a flyer without notifying my opponent.

Why would players who make the decision to tone down their 40k games give a rats behind what is or isn't allowed in a semi-competitive or all out competitive environment?

Speaking competitively with mono build Sisters and Celestine, of course she is as near to an auto take as you can get. The army is built around her. If you don't take her you are stuck with your one remaining HQ choice, the Canoness. Limiting yourself to just the Canoness pushes Seraphim out of your list entirely and limits you to Dom rush as your only chance of competing.

I would never play an ImpSoup army, they are what is causing issues. Its not like mono build Sisters or mono Ultra's are running the tables everywhere they go. I would look into putting the tax back into bringing allied factions before I thought about nerfing SC's directly.

 kastelen wrote:

 Blackie wrote:
Every named character that is an autoinclude for his/her army is broken and should be toned down.

And they shouldn't be allowed at all if a player decides to play a soup with different factions. At least in 2500 points and smaller games.

but then there's characters like cawl who is the only named character making him an auto include because no one else in admech does what he does as well as him

Or Celestine for Sisters, as well.

Some armies just don't have a choice. They need to take their special character. It's stupid, but the way to fix it isn't to ban them but rather to give generic characters more options and better customizability, plus simply having MORE generic character types for armies that lack them.

 dracpanzer wrote:
Why would players who make the decision to tone down their 40k games give a rats behind what is or isn't allowed in a semi-competitive or all out competitive environment?

Speaking competitively with mono build Sisters and Celestine, of course she is as near to an auto take as you can get. The army is built around her. If you don't take her you are stuck with your one remaining HQ choice, the Canoness. Limiting yourself to just the Canoness pushes Seraphim out of your list entirely and limits you to Dom rush as your only chance of competing.

I would never play an ImpSoup army, they are what is causing issues. Its not like mono build Sisters or mono Ultra's are running the tables everywhere they go. I would look into putting the tax back into bringing allied factions before I thought about nerfing SC's directly.

If you refuse to play Soup, you too are making the decision to tone down your 40k games. I don't see the difference.

Some people don't like Soup, some people don't like special characters showing up everywhere. Some (many) don't like either.

 Cream Tea wrote:

If you refuse to play Soup, you too are making the decision to tone down your 40k games. I don't see the difference.

Some people don't like Soup, some people don't like special characters showing up everywhere. Some (many) don't like either.

Just because I dont want to play a soup army doesnt mean I wouldn't play against one. I guess I didn't make that distinction before. Strictly nerfing or banning SC's because of what they do in a soup army has different effects on the armies they come from.

I'm pretty unhappy with the tourney meta right now. Nearly every table has one of the big 3 (Rowboat, Magnus, Celestine). About 1/3 of all tables have 2 or more. That is a pretty crappy meta in my opinion. Name characters should be mainly for fluffy/narrative games, and the lack of balance being put into a handful named characters is really problematic.

I think special characters should be a bit broken, that's kind of what makes them Special. Something like Magnus or Mortaron should be an absolute nightmare on the table, they are in the story. To me, the idea of a Special Character, is someone who has risen so far beyond the others like him/her that they truly stand out and really make a difference. As such, they should really make a big impact in the game. They should be balanced with a good point cost to offset this, but I don't see any reason why they shouldn't be a bit overpowered.

Ravingbantha wrote:
I think special characters should be a bit broken, that's kind of what makes them Special. Something like Magnus or Mortaron should be an absolute nightmare on the table, they are in the story. To me, the idea of a Special Character, is someone who has risen so far beyond the others like him/her that they truly stand out and really make a difference. As such, they should really make a big impact in the game. They should be balanced with a good point cost to offset this, but I don't see any reason why they shouldn't be a bit overpowered.

Uh, what?

No one is saying Celestine, Guilliman or Mortarion shouldn't be powerful. If they are to exist in the game they should of course be really powerful, like they are in the lore. Overpowered doesn't mean powerful, it means it's too good in context, including points cost.

If Mortarion cost three times as much as he does, he would still be as powerful, he'd still have the same stats. He'd be underpowered though, because he's not worth that much. Conscripts are weak, but they're very good for their points.

 MechaEmperor7000 wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 MechaEmperor7000 wrote:
Or just removed them entirely. I'm one of those old fuddy duddys from the time when Special Characters required your Opponent's Permission to use, not just sidegrade vanilla characters with pre-set equipment.

EDIT: My reasoning being that any characters worth using in a Tournament generally are the broken ones, so it's not like the unused ones will feel a change anyways. The only people who'd really be shafted would be people taking fluff armies to competitive tournaments, but some casualties are to be had.

Your reasoning sucks. Most of the characters being seen right now are the generic ones, with the only named ones being Rowboat, Celestine, and...nope that's it.

For the record that rule for permission was stupid anyway because none of the characters were exactly great. Why do I need YOUR permission if I was using Coteaz from the 3rd edition Daemonhunters, or The Nightbringer/Deceiver from that Necron codex?

So Rowboat and Celestine aren't broken? And the rest of that didn't make much sense since you're disagreeing with me saying the unused ones won't feel the ban....by saying the unused ones won't be used anyways? I don't get your logic here.

And the rule was there because, back then, special characters were suppose to be stuff for narrative campaigns, they weren't meant to be used in competitive enviroments or pickup games, which is why you needed an opponent's permission AND meet certain points requirements (for example, Calgar and Abaddon would never show up in games below 2000, since that was basically the upper limit of 40k at the time and they wouldn't lower themselves to smaller skirmishes). It was to the point that some special characters were promo-only items for campaigns (like Valten or Harry the Hammer was, before GW decided to break out the molds again just before fantasy ended); GW honestly didn't think you'd want them as anything more than collectors items after the fact. Back then it was basically on par with sticking an Unhinged or Unglued card in your deck at a MTG tournament, and legitimately getting angry at why you got disqualified.

Sadly after the Black Templars Codex, GW decided to streamline everything and just made Special Characters a fact of life. Not at all helped by the exclusive builds or units only they can unlock (worst offender are the "wing" commanders, Logan, Draigo and Beilal) since you're completely locked out of a build if you didn't want to use special characters.

With a small point adjustment they're honestly not broken. Give Celestine a 20-25 point bump and Rowboat 35 or so to make him 400. Quick fix.

What I'm saying is the ban of special characters in general is stupid, as most people are using the generic counterparts for most of them. So you say that they're broken but they aren't.

In fact, every time this pops up I always ask for the long list of broken Special Characters throughout the history of the game. Guess how often that gets done? Never. We had a poor attempt in the one Guard thread where someone said 6-7th Eldrad and Ghaz were more broken than their generic counterparts, and both you and I know that's simply not true in any way, shape, or form.

Also I don't care what you think GW intended. I don't need permission to run either my Imperial Knight or Tyberos or generic Chaplain in the same way you don't need my permission to run either Scatterbikes or Tactical Marines.

 Dakka Wolf wrote:

 Arkaine wrote:

 Dakka Wolf wrote:
I wish there weren't any characters that were so out of line like Magnus, RG and Celestine at the moment because I really like using characters but since GW can't seem to write rules for them without making some stupidly broken potential around them I guess my vote goes against them.
Problem is some armies don't work at all without them.

I find it hilarious that many people point out special characters they think are tough yet then have no problem fielding giant vehicles or knights like it's just run of the mill business as usual.

I think it's funny you assume that I use giant vehicles or Knights, my biggest vehicle that sees regular use is either a Rhino, a Razorback or a Dreadnaught.
Biggest vehicles I own are a Knight that I was happy to build and paint but has only ever seen use as a bookstop because I never liked Superheavies or GMCs and a Landraider that I've owned for four years and has seen more use as a loaner than in any of my lists, I'm actually yet to run it in 8th.
Want to assume my Space Wolves only ever run TWC next? You might get closer than this effort.

I find it hilarious that you think I assumed anything about you or your list when I was quite nonspecific and only quoted your post to highlight that reference.
Want to assume things about my personal life next? Maybe you can keep italicizing the 'ass' part too? Calm down.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Cream Tea wrote:
No one in my group plays any Lords of War. The largest model I've encountered is a Stormraven, the largest I've played is a Wave Serpent. I think Wraithknights and Imperial Knights should be rare sights on the battlefield as well, but not as rare as named characters. There are quite a few Knights in the galaxy, but only one Girlyman.

That's an excellent stance to take and a workable one if everyone shares the sentiment. All it really takes is a few people bringing LoWs though to encourage everyone else to do the same. My local metas, all of them, feature LoWs rather commonly so it's a matter of whether you want to curb your own build or not.

Niiru wrote:
I find it hilarious that you think people who play special characters only with opponents consent, somehow also play lords of war and superheavies willy-nilly.

That's actually been my experience though. People cite cheese as Guilliman or Magnus yet see heavy vehicles or knights as just strong tanks. I've been in many tournaments that ban unique named characters yet do nothing for that 24 wound behemoth sitting across from me because it's not special.

 Arkaine wrote:

Niiru wrote:
I find it hilarious that you think people who play special characters only with opponents consent, somehow also play lords of war and superheavies willy-nilly.

That's actually been my experience though. People cite cheese as Guilliman or Magnus yet see heavy vehicles or knights as just strong tanks. I've been in many tournaments that ban unique named characters yet do nothing for that 24 wound behemoth sitting across from me because it's not special.

That's because most super-heavies and Lords of War aren't nearly so bad as most special characters.
Guilliman isn't bad because he's strong, he's bad because he provides buffs that can't be acquired from any other source, for fewer points than the closest equivalent.
Magnus and Morty aren't bad because they're big models, they're bad because they're more durable for their points cost than the closest equivalent, have access to abilities that nobody else can bring, and provide better army support than any other option.

Like, the closest equivalent to Magnus is a Lord of Change. They're 75pts apart, (about 20%) but Magnus isn't 20% better than a Lord of Change, he's MASSIVELY better.
He can cast and deny 50% more powers, he's 30% faster, has two extra wounds and re-rolls Invulns of 1, has access to a psychic power that further buffs his invuln, +2 Strength, +2 attacks, a Smite that is twice as strong, (as well as access to more psychic powers in general,) a vastly stronger buff (Re-rolls on 1s to nearby invuln saves and hit rolls, as opposed to a minor, meaningless Leadership buff) he's more accurate, has a much better close combat weapon, and gets 'Death to the False Emperor'.
The ONLY thing that a Lord of Change can do that Magnus can't is... Summon. Big freakin' whoop.

If the problem was simply access to big models, people would be spamming Lords of Change and Bloodthirsters and Great Unclean Ones left and right. The problem is not access to big models, though, it's access to a specific set of overpowered special characters. Imperial Knights aren't sweeping tournaments, because Imperial Knights are kind of expensive and limited in what they can actually do.

As someone posted earlier, auras are simply not being costed appropriately. Once you make something a mathematical certainty, it's no longer random and kills the biggest defense any unit has: the dice. In guilliman' case, the fact that lascannons, assault cannons, and plasma guns can all get a huge boost in efficiency is what makes him broken, as well as his inability to be targeted to remove the buffs.

 Arkaine wrote:

 Dakka Wolf wrote:

 Arkaine wrote:

 Dakka Wolf wrote:
I wish there weren't any characters that were so out of line like Magnus, RG and Celestine at the moment because I really like using characters but since GW can't seem to write rules for them without making some stupidly broken potential around them I guess my vote goes against them.
Problem is some armies don't work at all without them.

I find it hilarious that many people point out special characters they think are tough yet then have no problem fielding giant vehicles or knights like it's just run of the mill business as usual.

I think it's funny you assume that I use giant vehicles or Knights, my biggest vehicle that sees regular use is either a Rhino, a Razorback or a Dreadnaught.
Biggest vehicles I own are a Knight that I was happy to build and paint but has only ever seen use as a bookstop because I never liked Superheavies or GMCs and a Landraider that I've owned for four years and has seen more use as a loaner than in any of my lists, I'm actually yet to run it in 8th.
Want to assume my Space Wolves only ever run TWC next? You might get closer than this effort.

I find it hilarious that you think I assumed anything about you or your list when I was quite nonspecific and only quoted your post to highlight that reference.
Want to assume things about my personal life next? Maybe you can keep italicizing the 'ass' part too? Calm down.

You do a rubbish job of choosing highlights, maybe next time you can choose someone who has actually mentioned Knights rather than somebody who admits some armies don't even work without their big bad character.
As for me being calm you're assuming I'm not. Happy?

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
With a small point adjustment they're honestly not broken. Give Celestine a 20-25 point bump and Rowboat 35 or so to make him 400. Quick fix.

What I'm saying is the ban of special characters in general is stupid, as most people are using the generic counterparts for most of them. So you say that they're broken but they aren't.

In fact, every time this pops up I always ask for the long list of broken Special Characters throughout the history of the game. Guess how often that gets done? Never. We had a poor attempt in the one Guard thread where someone said 6-7th Eldrad and Ghaz were more broken than their generic counterparts, and both you and I know that's simply not true in any way, shape, or form.

Also I don't care what you think GW intended. I don't need permission to run either my Imperial Knight or Tyberos or generic Chaplain in the same way you don't need my permission to run either Scatterbikes or Tactical Marines.

I think you misunderstood me. I meant that a general ban on them in competitive play would only affect the broken ones, since (like you said) people take generic versions of characters anyways and only a handful are the actual problem. Ban or not, the likes of Badrukk and Deathleaper aren't going to see any more or less play than they are now, while the ones people do actually complain about (Guilliman and Celestine) would be the only ones affected.

As for broken characters, I agree on Ghaz being not that broken (him being able to get a 2++ for two turns was scary, but not that big of a deal and he was fairly slow), but Eldrad was pretty up there considering he's one of only three Mastery 4 Psykers. And unlike Ahriman, his spells were actually useful (and he was way more durable than a normal farseer similarly kitted out, for not all that much more points). Speaking of which, Fateweaver is up there too; he was as ubiquitous as Guilliman is now due to being the only thing in the game that can grant a blanket reroll of anything. There was also the Doom, who, in a pod, was basically a tactical nuke (and didn't help that the rest of the Nid codex sucked, so you'd see him pop up everywhere). The rest weren't broken per se but there was a lot of characters that were basically "build enablers" and showed up everywhere because no one else had their abilities. Like Crowe and his Purifier Posse, the Duke and his band of rerolling raiders, Logan and his heroes and so forth. Hell even Draigo showed up just because he allowed paladins to be taken as troops (although to be fair, all-paladin builds weren't all that strong, it was just ridiculous to see on the board). On and everything with Vulkan and his mastercrafting shtick.

Finally, you are entitled to your own opinions, as I am to mine. As it is now, no you don't need my permission to play anything. But then again half this board has made it's intent very clear that they would not play someone who uses Baneblades or Conscripts, so it's not like you can force people to play against you either if they really don't want to. If it does eventually return as a rule though, there's really no arguing it (although when that happens, you are completely free to complain about it like I do right now).

Waaaghpower wrote:

 Arkaine wrote:

Niiru wrote:
I find it hilarious that you think people who play special characters only with opponents consent, somehow also play lords of war and superheavies willy-nilly.

That's actually been my experience though. People cite cheese as Guilliman or Magnus yet see heavy vehicles or knights as just strong tanks. I've been in many tournaments that ban unique named characters yet do nothing for that 24 wound behemoth sitting across from me because it's not special.

That's because most super-heavies and Lords of War aren't nearly so bad as most special characters.
Guilliman isn't bad because he's strong, he's bad because he provides buffs that can't be acquired from any other source, for fewer points than the closest equivalent.
Magnus and Morty aren't bad because they're big models, they're bad because they're more durable for their points cost than the closest equivalent, have access to abilities that nobody else can bring, and provide better army support than any other option.

Like, the closest equivalent to Magnus is a Lord of Change. They're 75pts apart, (about 20%) but Magnus isn't 20% better than a Lord of Change, he's MASSIVELY better.
He can cast and deny 50% more powers, he's 30% faster, has two extra wounds and re-rolls Invulns of 1, has access to a psychic power that further buffs his invuln, +2 Strength, +2 attacks, a Smite that is twice as strong, (as well as access to more psychic powers in general,) a vastly stronger buff (Re-rolls on 1s to nearby invuln saves and hit rolls, as opposed to a minor, meaningless Leadership buff) he's more accurate, has a much better close combat weapon, and gets 'Death to the False Emperor'.
The ONLY thing that a Lord of Change can do that Magnus can't is... Summon. Big freakin' whoop.

If the problem was simply access to big models, people would be spamming Lords of Change and Bloodthirsters and Great Unclean Ones left and right. The problem is not access to big models, though, it's access to a specific set of overpowered special characters. Imperial Knights aren't sweeping tournaments, because Imperial Knights are kind of expensive and limited in what they can actually do.

The Lord of Change is atrocious though. Not even a "Chaos Lord vs. Abaddon" comparison, even if Magnus didn't exist you would never take an LoC under any circumstances.

Actually, speaking of the Lord of Change Kairos Fateweaver is actually even worse because you're getting nothing of value for more points than the already bad LoC.

 Cream Tea wrote:

Ravingbantha wrote:
I think special characters should be a bit broken, that's kind of what makes them Special. Something like Magnus or Mortaron should be an absolute nightmare on the table, they are in the story. To me, the idea of a Special Character, is someone who has risen so far beyond the others like him/her that they truly stand out and really make a difference. As such, they should really make a big impact in the game. They should be balanced with a good point cost to offset this, but I don't see any reason why they shouldn't be a bit overpowered.

Uh, what?

No one is saying Celestine, Guilliman or Mortarion shouldn't be powerful. If they are to exist in the game they should of course be really powerful, like they are in the lore. Overpowered doesn't mean powerful, it means it's too good in context, including points cost.

If Mortarion cost three times as much as he does, he would still be as powerful, he'd still have the same stats. He'd be underpowered though, because he's not worth that much. Conscripts are weak, but they're very good for their points.

I agree, they should be powerful. But they also shouldn't belong to mid sized games, lilke 2000 points or smaller ones. Superheavies and superheroes leading small armies/companies means actually a bad game design that IMHO should be fixed. Banning LoWs or named characters isn't fair and sometimes I'd like to use/face them, variety is always a good thing. But if they show up everytime they should be fixed somehow, maybe by bumping up their price (by a lot, not just 20 points) or banning them from mid sized and small games.

Some armies have only few units, but if we're talking about sisters or ad mech, the problem lies somewhere else, these armies shouldn't be independent factions, SoB should be part of a single codex that includes inquisition and grey knights, while ad mech should be part of the AM.

Bobby G, Magnus, Celestine, Morty - I do agree they should be powerful and it's cool you can use them in games. But in that case, all factions should be able to field likewise powerful characters in the same amount.

Tyranids lost their best special character (Doom of Malantai) lost another cool character that opened up a build (Parasite of Mortrex) but are stuck with the Swarmlord who has been a joke for several editions. He's better now but still meh in comparison with the powerhouses (he's a one-trick pony outfought by a Spacewolf dreadnought in combat).

Nids also have Old One Eye (meh) and Red Terror (hilariously bad). Here's to Nidvember!

Remember when OOE had his auto-wound regen and "get back up on a 4+" ability?

Pepperidge Farms remembers.

 MechaEmperor7000 wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
With a small point adjustment they're honestly not broken. Give Celestine a 20-25 point bump and Rowboat 35 or so to make him 400. Quick fix.

What I'm saying is the ban of special characters in general is stupid, as most people are using the generic counterparts for most of them. So you say that they're broken but they aren't.

In fact, every time this pops up I always ask for the long list of broken Special Characters throughout the history of the game. Guess how often that gets done? Never. We had a poor attempt in the one Guard thread where someone said 6-7th Eldrad and Ghaz were more broken than their generic counterparts, and both you and I know that's simply not true in any way, shape, or form.

Also I don't care what you think GW intended. I don't need permission to run either my Imperial Knight or Tyberos or generic Chaplain in the same way you don't need my permission to run either Scatterbikes or Tactical Marines.

I think you misunderstood me. I meant that a general ban on them in competitive play would only affect the broken ones, since (like you said) people take generic versions of characters anyways and only a handful are the actual problem. Ban or not, the likes of Badrukk and Deathleaper aren't going to see any more or less play than they are now, while the ones people do actually complain about (Guilliman and Celestine) would be the only ones affected.

As for broken characters, I agree on Ghaz being not that broken (him being able to get a 2++ for two turns was scary, but not that big of a deal and he was fairly slow), but Eldrad was pretty up there considering he's one of only three Mastery 4 Psykers. And unlike Ahriman, his spells were actually useful (and he was way more durable than a normal farseer similarly kitted out, for not all that much more points). Speaking of which, Fateweaver is up there too; he was as ubiquitous as Guilliman is now due to being the only thing in the game that can grant a blanket reroll of anything. There was also the Doom, who, in a pod, was basically a tactical nuke (and didn't help that the rest of the Nid codex sucked, so you'd see him pop up everywhere). The rest weren't broken per se but there was a lot of characters that were basically "build enablers" and showed up everywhere because no one else had their abilities. Like Crowe and his Purifier Posse, the Duke and his band of rerolling raiders, Logan and his heroes and so forth. Hell even Draigo showed up just because he allowed paladins to be taken as troops (although to be fair, all-paladin builds weren't all that strong, it was just ridiculous to see on the board). On and everything with Vulkan and his mastercrafting shtick.

Finally, you are entitled to your own opinions, as I am to mine. As it is now, no you don't need my permission to play anything. But then again half this board has made it's intent very clear that they would not play someone who uses Baneblades or Conscripts, so it's not like you can force people to play against you either if they really don't want to. If it does eventually return as a rule though, there's really no arguing it (although when that happens, you are completely free to complain about it like I do right now).

Except there's still lists that use the npn-broken ones. You're just kinda tossing those aside. Cawl isn't broken for example, and arguably the only good thing going for AdMech at the moment as that's the true dud of the Codices released so far. Azrael isn't broken either, but definitely good enough that Dark Angels players want to use him a lot. Necron players like myself need characters like Nemesor/Vanguard and Toholk in certain lists. I use Lias and Lugft in a tournament list and am doing okay with it. None of these are broken obviously, but they offer stuff that in certain lists that can't be achieved with the regular character sometimes.

Same thing with all those supposed characters you listed. Eldrad is on par simply because he's expensive and you can get two Farseers for his price and get results. As an individual he looks like he's overtly better until you factor in his price. Doom and Fateweaver were good too but that's it. All you're doing is just listing good special characters and not ones that are breaking the game, which as we determined is rare to not at all. They can be competitive as we see though, which is why the blanket ban doesn't solve anything. Scatterbikes were an issue but we didn't ban all troops did we? Wraithlords were a problem but we didn't ban all Lords Of War did we?

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

Except there's still lists that use the npn-broken ones. You're just kinda tossing those aside. Cawl isn't broken for example, and arguably the only good thing going for AdMech at the moment as that's the true dud of the Codices released so far. Azrael isn't broken either, but definitely good enough that Dark Angels players want to use him a lot. Necron players like myself need characters like Nemesor/Vanguard and Toholk in certain lists. I use Lias and Lugft in a tournament list and am doing okay with it. None of these are broken obviously, but they offer stuff that in certain lists that can't be achieved with the regular character sometimes.

Same thing with all those supposed characters you listed. Eldrad is on par simply because he's expensive and you can get two Farseers for his price and get results. As an individual he looks like he's overtly better until you factor in his price. Doom and Fateweaver were good too but that's it. All you're doing is just listing good special characters and not ones that are breaking the game, which as we determined is rare to not at all. They can be competitive as we see though, which is why the blanket ban doesn't solve anything. Scatterbikes were an issue but we didn't ban all troops did we? Wraithlords were a problem but we didn't ban all Lords Of War did we?

See now we're into the territory of defining what is broken or not, as well as exactly where the line is.

Eldrad, Doom and Fateweaver were definitely broken during their editions as they were greatly undercosted for what they did (and in the case of Fateweaver, doing something that, at the time, no one could do that easily). For me, if they do something so well that it basically make them auto-include in a list regardless of the rest of the list, then it's a broken unit (with the scatbike example, there is no eldar list in 7th edition that would, at the very least, be hampered by having scatbikes, just like there would be no list that would not like to have Fateweaver). As for the comparison of banning Troops because of Scatbikes, or banning Lords of War because of Wraith KNIGHTs, that is a hyperbole, as I'm not advocating the banning of all HQ choices, just special characters. A better comparison would be if we, say, banned Biker Troops (which did indeed generate a lot of hate, Nob Bikers and White Scar bikers come to mind. Only Ravenwing didn't get that, and that was because they were overcosted compared to white scars). And most people were asking Lords of War to be banned (and some tournaments did so, or severely restricted them) so that just adds a precedent instead.

And finally, the bold part brings up the crux of my beef with special characters; while I don't know the reason you bring those characters, a lot of other players bring the characters specifically because they have rules that you can't get anywhere else. It's my main problem with special characters as often you can't get it anywhere else when there is little reason not to (or the ability is so OP that it really, really should not exist in the game, like Fateweaver's ability) and they often discourage the use of generic characters as a result. Vulkan had this problem in 5th if I remember; his equipment were 1.) vastly superior to what normal characters can get and 2.) he somehow worked out to be CHEAPER than a similarly equipped Captain, except the difference is that the captain obviously does not have his buffs. It's sorta like the combo meals at fast food restaurants; only a select few people actually use the a la carte option because just going with the preset combos is so much easier and require less thought.

I don't know. Maybe I'm still having hangovers from 3.5 edition where Chaos Lords could be equipped with everything under the sun, and you truly could make something uniquely yours that was not only viable, but also terrifying. But those days are clearly gone as even generic characters now are losing options left and right (the Lord of Contagion is literally just Typhus minus his Poxwalker buff and Destroyer Hive) so, in a morbid sort of way, that issue is being solved simply because now that everyone's a special snowflake, no one really is anymore (Syndrome was right after all).

(As a side note, I still think Characters should go into Narrative-only and lose their point costs but keep their power levels. Then just have their equipment as buyable relics).

I think a lot of what I read here follows how I feel. SC are not necessarily broken, however they are very hard to cost correctly as such they tend to fall into 2 groups

1.) Obvious choices, that you would always take if you were going to take a specific role of HQ. Things like Ghaz vs Mega armor warboss, Azreal Vs Company master, Magnus/Mortarian vs any greater daemon.

2.) Horribly over costed junk, typically these are character versions of HQs you would rarely take anyway, unless they were cheap.

More or less yes.

Some characters are broken, others not.

The Primarchs, Cawl, Celestine and the Asssassins are under-costed for what they bring to the table, which is why you see them so often.

Other named characters are over-costed or only efficient in specific builds, which is why they are not seen as often.

 MechaEmperor7000 wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

Except there's still lists that use the npn-broken ones. You're just kinda tossing those aside. Cawl isn't broken for example, and arguably the only good thing going for AdMech at the moment as that's the true dud of the Codices released so far. Azrael isn't broken either, but definitely good enough that Dark Angels players want to use him a lot. Necron players like myself need characters like Nemesor/Vanguard and Toholk in certain lists. I use Lias and Lugft in a tournament list and am doing okay with it. None of these are broken obviously, but they offer stuff that in certain lists that can't be achieved with the regular character sometimes.

Same thing with all those supposed characters you listed. Eldrad is on par simply because he's expensive and you can get two Farseers for his price and get results. As an individual he looks like he's overtly better until you factor in his price. Doom and Fateweaver were good too but that's it. All you're doing is just listing good special characters and not ones that are breaking the game, which as we determined is rare to not at all. They can be competitive as we see though, which is why the blanket ban doesn't solve anything. Scatterbikes were an issue but we didn't ban all troops did we? Wraithlords were a problem but we didn't ban all Lords Of War did we?

See now we're into the territory of defining what is broken or not, as well as exactly where the line is.

Eldrad, Doom and Fateweaver were definitely broken during their editions as they were greatly undercosted for what they did (and in the case of Fateweaver, doing something that, at the time, no one could do that easily). For me, if they do something so well that it basically make them auto-include in a list regardless of the rest of the list, then it's a broken unit (with the scatbike example, there is no eldar list in 7th edition that would, at the very least, be hampered by having scatbikes, just like there would be no list that would not like to have Fateweaver). As for the comparison of banning Troops because of Scatbikes, or banning Lords of War because of Wraith KNIGHTs, that is a hyperbole, as I'm not advocating the banning of all HQ choices, just special characters. A better comparison would be if we, say, banned Biker Troops (which did indeed generate a lot of hate, Nob Bikers and White Scar bikers come to mind. Only Ravenwing didn't get that, and that was because they were overcosted compared to white scars). And most people were asking Lords of War to be banned (and some tournaments did so, or severely restricted them) so that just adds a precedent instead.

And finally, the bold part brings up the crux of my beef with special characters; while I don't know the reason you bring those characters, a lot of other players bring the characters specifically because they have rules that you can't get anywhere else. It's my main problem with special characters as often you can't get it anywhere else when there is little reason not to (or the ability is so OP that it really, really should not exist in the game, like Fateweaver's ability) and they often discourage the use of generic characters as a result. Vulkan had this problem in 5th if I remember; his equipment were 1.) vastly superior to what normal characters can get and 2.) he somehow worked out to be CHEAPER than a similarly equipped Captain, except the difference is that the captain obviously does not have his buffs. It's sorta like the combo meals at fast food restaurants; only a select few people actually use the a la carte option because just going with the preset combos is so much easier and require less thought.

I don't know. Maybe I'm still having hangovers from 3.5 edition where Chaos Lords could be equipped with everything under the sun, and you truly could make something uniquely yours that was not only viable, but also terrifying. But those days are clearly gone as even generic characters now are losing options left and right (the Lord of Contagion is literally just Typhus minus his Poxwalker buff and Destroyer Hive) so, in a morbid sort of way, that issue is being solved simply because now that everyone's a special snowflake, no one really is anymore (Syndrome was right after all).

(As a side note, I still think Characters should go into Narrative-only and lose their point costs but keep their power levels. Then just have their equipment as buyable relics).

You can't possibly have thought Fateweaver was broken. He was brought because Daemon armies on their own were garbage and he was one of the only good options they had! So that's clouding your judgment there.

Also my comparison is valid. If you want to ban certain choices in a unit slot, where do you stop? You can either attempt balance or you can do a blanket ban to try and make it look like you did something. When in fact doing means you did nothing. That's why I always bring up the task of someone listing all the OP special characters like with LoW. Once you go through Wraithknights and Revenant Titans, it isn't bad is it? So you blanket ban LoW because of Wraithknights and Revenant Titans, you blanket ban Special Characters because of Rowboat, Celestine, and Magnus. Then you can ban all Bikers because Scatterbikes and Command Squads. See how it works in the end?

You also bring up the issue of not using the generic counterparts because the Special Characters are available. I'm not sure if you've seen the 5th edition Space Marine codex, but generic Captains and Chapter Masters were garbage. If you didn't want a Forgemaster, Librarian, or Chaplain, you were stuck with the named Captains and Chapter Masters. An example for the current edition would be with Cawl. Out of the 6 Codices released so far, Guard is stupidly good on all options whereas AdMech got the shortend of the stick (I could argue that Grey Knights weren't properly treated but there's super simple fixes that can be done in their case). The Dominus is SO expensive and ineffective you might as well spring for Cawl, or go for the cheap Enginseer. See how this is all coming together?
So in an example for a list I'm using currently for Space Marines, I don't want to spend 3 whole command points on the Chapter Master Strategem because both you and I know that's too expensive, while on top the Space Marine army has no command points to begin with. For a whopping 215 points, Lufgt Huron gets me that aura and an extra command point.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
You can't possibly have thought Fateweaver was broken. He was brought because Daemon armies on their own were garbage and he was one of the only good options they had! So that's clouding your judgment there.

Also my comparison is valid. If you want to ban certain choices in a unit slot, where do you stop? You can either attempt balance or you can do a blanket ban to try and make it look like you did something. When in fact doing means you did nothing. That's why I always bring up the task of someone listing all the OP special characters like with LoW. Once you go through Wraithknights and Revenant Titans, it isn't bad is it? So you blanket ban LoW because of Wraithknights and Revenant Titans, you blanket ban Special Characters because of Rowboat, Celestine, and Magnus. Then you can ban all Bikers because Scatterbikes and Command Squads. See how it works in the end?

You also bring up the issue of not using the generic counterparts because the Special Characters are available. I'm not sure if you've seen the 5th edition Space Marine codex, but generic Captains and Chapter Masters were garbage. If you didn't want a Forgemaster, Librarian, or Chaplain, you were stuck with the named Captains and Chapter Masters. An example for the current edition would be with Cawl. Out of the 6 Codices released so far, Guard is stupidly good on all options whereas AdMech got the shortend of the stick (I could argue that Grey Knights weren't properly treated but there's super simple fixes that can be done in their case). The Dominus is SO expensive and ineffective you might as well spring for Cawl, or go for the cheap Enginseer. See how this is all coming together?
So in an example for a list I'm using currently for Space Marines, I don't want to spend 3 whole command points on the Chapter Master Strategem because both you and I know that's too expensive, while on top the Space Marine army has no command points to begin with. For a whopping 215 points, Lufgt Huron gets me that aura and an extra command point.

At this point your argument is just moving the goalpost further down the road while also using several fallacies, most evidently a false dichotomy and false analogy (especially since the example with Huron is exactly the reason why I brought this up, i.e: even when I'm agreeing with you, you need to argue with me).

There is no point in pursuing this line of discussion. You can declare victory if you wish, it is now a waste of my time.

Some yes

most no

The obvious rowboat beaten to death with a horse.

personally cheesed about chapter master access.

 Red_Five wrote:
Some characters are broken, others not.

The Primarchs, Cawl, Celestine and the Asssassins are under-costed for what they bring to the table, which is why you see them so often.

Other named characters are over-costed or only efficient in specific builds, which is why they are not seen as often.

No... some ARMIES are effective, that's why you see them on the table often. You won't see characters from armies that aren't effective on the table, making the presence of all these "overpowered" guys more prominent.

Typhus is extremely good for his points and effectiveness, a mini death star in his own right, but you'll only see him if you're playing against Death Guard. No one plays Death Guard.
Lucius likewise is a good duelist character that can wipe the floor with most other characters in hand to hand easily. You'll never see him because Emperor's Children isn't competitive.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 MechaEmperor7000 wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

Except there's still lists that use the npn-broken ones. You're just kinda tossing those aside. Cawl isn't broken for example, and arguably the only good thing going for AdMech at the moment as that's the true dud of the Codices released so far. Azrael isn't broken either, but definitely good enough that Dark Angels players want to use him a lot. Necron players like myself need characters like Nemesor/Vanguard and Toholk in certain lists. I use Lias and Lugft in a tournament list and am doing okay with it. None of these are broken obviously, but they offer stuff that in certain lists that can't be achieved with the regular character sometimes.

Same thing with all those supposed characters you listed. Eldrad is on par simply because he's expensive and you can get two Farseers for his price and get results. As an individual he looks like he's overtly better until you factor in his price. Doom and Fateweaver were good too but that's it. All you're doing is just listing good special characters and not ones that are breaking the game, which as we determined is rare to not at all. They can be competitive as we see though, which is why the blanket ban doesn't solve anything. Scatterbikes were an issue but we didn't ban all troops did we? Wraithlords were a problem but we didn't ban all Lords Of War did we?

See now we're into the territory of defining what is broken or not, as well as exactly where the line is.

Eldrad, Doom and Fateweaver were definitely broken during their editions as they were greatly undercosted for what they did (and in the case of Fateweaver, doing something that, at the time, no one could do that easily). For me, if they do something so well that it basically make them auto-include in a list regardless of the rest of the list, then it's a broken unit (with the scatbike example, there is no eldar list in 7th edition that would, at the very least, be hampered by having scatbikes, just like there would be no list that would not like to have Fateweaver). As for the comparison of banning Troops because of Scatbikes, or banning Lords of War because of Wraith KNIGHTs, that is a hyperbole, as I'm not advocating the banning of all HQ choices, just special characters. A better comparison would be if we, say, banned Biker Troops (which did indeed generate a lot of hate, Nob Bikers and White Scar bikers come to mind. Only Ravenwing didn't get that, and that was because they were overcosted compared to white scars). And most people were asking Lords of War to be banned (and some tournaments did so, or severely restricted them) so that just adds a precedent instead.

And finally, the bold part brings up the crux of my beef with special characters; while I don't know the reason you bring those characters, a lot of other players bring the characters specifically because they have rules that you can't get anywhere else. It's my main problem with special characters as often you can't get it anywhere else when there is little reason not to (or the ability is so OP that it really, really should not exist in the game, like Fateweaver's ability) and they often discourage the use of generic characters as a result. Vulkan had this problem in 5th if I remember; his equipment were 1.) vastly superior to what normal characters can get and 2.) he somehow worked out to be CHEAPER than a similarly equipped Captain, except the difference is that the captain obviously does not have his buffs. It's sorta like the combo meals at fast food restaurants; only a select few people actually use the a la carte option because just going with the preset combos is so much easier and require less thought.

I don't know. Maybe I'm still having hangovers from 3.5 edition where Chaos Lords could be equipped with everything under the sun, and you truly could make something uniquely yours that was not only viable, but also terrifying. But those days are clearly gone as even generic characters now are losing options left and right (the Lord of Contagion is literally just Typhus minus his Poxwalker buff and Destroyer Hive) so, in a morbid sort of way, that issue is being solved simply because now that everyone's a special snowflake, no one really is anymore (Syndrome was right after all).

(As a side note, I still think Characters should go into Narrative-only and lose their point costs but keep their power levels. Then just have their equipment as buyable relics).

You can't possibly have thought Fateweaver was broken. He was brought because Daemon armies on their own were garbage and he was one of the only good options they had! So that's clouding your judgment there.

Also my comparison is valid. If you want to ban certain choices in a unit slot, where do you stop? You can either attempt balance or you can do a blanket ban to try and make it look like you did something. When in fact doing means you did nothing. That's why I always bring up the task of someone listing all the OP special characters like with LoW. Once you go through Wraithknights and Revenant Titans, it isn't bad is it? So you blanket ban LoW because of Wraithknights and Revenant Titans, you blanket ban Special Characters because of Rowboat, Celestine, and Magnus. Then you can ban all Bikers because Scatterbikes and Command Squads. See how it works in the end?

You also bring up the issue of not using the generic counterparts because the Special Characters are available. I'm not sure if you've seen the 5th edition Space Marine codex, but generic Captains and Chapter Masters were garbage. If you didn't want a Forgemaster, Librarian, or Chaplain, you were stuck with the named Captains and Chapter Masters. An example for the current edition would be with Cawl. Out of the 6 Codices released so far, Guard is stupidly good on all options whereas AdMech got the shortend of the stick (I could argue that Grey Knights weren't properly treated but there's super simple fixes that can be done in their case). The Dominus is SO expensive and ineffective you might as well spring for Cawl, or go for the cheap Enginseer. See how this is all coming together?
So in an example for a list I'm using currently for Space Marines, I don't want to spend 3 whole command points on the Chapter Master Strategem because both you and I know that's too expensive, while on top the Space Marine army has no command points to begin with. For a whopping 215 points, Lufgt Huron gets me that aura and an extra command point.

ummmm...daemons were extremely good in 6th and 7th (top 2 to three armies), and yes FW was borderline broken. I will say that they had limited builds but FW was super good and a staple in all those lists. I played daemons and never brought FW, I still did well, but was intentionally playing a weaker list by not bringing him.

As for the Space Marine characters, were captains and chapter masters garbage in the 5e book because they were bad or because they were bad in comparison to all the special characters that cost the same or less. I ran a bike captain in 5th he was a solid HQ choice. The same is true with Cawl, is the dominus bad or is he bad because he sucks compared to Cawl, both can be true, but that is a statement about need a fix for that HQ not the need for SC.

As for the chapter master stratagem, it is fairly costed, the only reason it seems too expensive is because special characters exist, why pay those 3 CP when you can buy a SC (as you obviously have) and get that benefit and more for not a ton more points. But it is totally fair in cost, if you re-roll 3 dice with the aura it has paid for it self. It is likely if you build around said aura that will happen every turn. But with special characters it is over costed because they let you have your cake and eat it too.

now I'm not for banning SC because the game is built around them existing and many books would have very limited selections without them. I just think they are horribly difficult to balance, because they are essentially stock HQ choice with extra benefits, but not usually a ton of extra durability, so if they get too expensive they are bad, but if they are close to stock HQs they are too good. A potentially good fix could be to make special characters like relics, you can take 1, and every additional costs you a CP.

Daemons were meh until they got their 6th edition codex (which propelled them to the top 6 maybe tops, and yes Fateweaver was still taken because the internal balance of the codex led you to taking him as other options were bad) and everyone knows their 5th edition performance wasn't stellar either.
Same thing with anything FW. If it's taken, it's because 99% of the time the codex equivalent was super bad. The 6th-7th Sicaran looks super ridiculous until you look at the price point (170ish off the top of my head), and that the regular Predator was garbage. Nobody used those for a reason.

Also YES it's because those options were bad. The other HQ options fulfilled a niche whereas Captains and Chapter Masters weren't even that great in combat for their points.
The Dominus is 135 points minimum off the top of my head, and Cawl is 250. Does he really have that many benefits more for 115 points?

Lastly, no the Strategem is not appropriately costed. It doesn't scale with how few CP a Marine army can get unless you're playing 3000+ point games, and those are rare. Plus the benefit isn't as much a difference as you'd think. Compared to the regular aura, it's 3.5 Lascannon hits compared to 3.1 in a Devastators squad. Justification can be that those are eventually 3 spent CP on a reroll for a singular squad, except that you can maybe just spend the points on more Devastators instead and get the same effect. THEN you need to look at the cost of all the Chapter Masters that are named. At minimum you have Shrike, who doesn't benefit a gunline as much with his extra rules and is 150 points.

Also they're super easy to balance. Take away points or add until they feel correct. Celestine needs another 25 and Rowboat another 40 and then we adjust as necessary if that doesn't work. The key here is if you want to put in the effort.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
Daemons were meh until they got their 6th edition codex (which propelled them to the top 6 maybe tops, and yes Fateweaver was still taken because the internal balance of the codex led you to taking him as other options were bad) and everyone knows their 5th edition performance wasn't stellar either.
Same thing with anything FW. If it's taken, it's because 99% of the time the codex equivalent was super bad. The 6th-7th Sicaran looks super ridiculous until you look at the price point (170ish off the top of my head), and that the regular Predator was garbage. Nobody used those for a reason.

Also YES it's because those options were bad. The other HQ options fulfilled a niche whereas Captains and Chapter Masters weren't even that great in combat for their points.
The Dominus is 135 points minimum off the top of my head, and Cawl is 250. Does he really have that many benefits more for 115 points?

Lastly, no the Strategem is not appropriately costed. It doesn't scale with how few CP a Marine army can get unless you're playing 3000+ point games, and those are rare. Plus the benefit isn't as much a difference as you'd think. Compared to the regular aura, it's 3.5 Lascannon hits compared to 3.1 in a Devastators squad. Justification can be that those are eventually 3 spent CP on a reroll for a singular squad, except that you can maybe just spend the points on more Devastators instead and get the same effect. THEN you need to look at the cost of all the Chapter Masters that are named. At minimum you have Shrike, who doesn't benefit a gunline as much with his extra rules and is 150 points.

Also they're super easy to balance. Take away points or add until they feel correct. Celestine needs another 25 and Rowboat another 40 and then we adjust as necessary if that doesn't work. The key here is if you want to put in the effort.

LOL daemons top 6 in 6th and 7th they were easily top 2 for a long time. They also got good in 6th basically immediately with the FMC changes, then the white dwarf drop. Yes in 5th they were not great, but also not terrible. FW was not taken because the codex equivalent was bad, Lords of Change were common takes with FW, he was taken for his re-roll, and to keep you from getting screwed by the warp storm. IN an FMC list that re-roll was hugely powerful. In 7th he also provided a lot of psychic dice.

Captains were not bad in 5th, I saw them all the time in good marine lists. Now marines themselves were not great in that edition but they were not bad choices. Just not as good as say Vulkan for their points. But if Vulcan isn't there as a comparison, they look quite a bit better, same with all enemy SC, take them out and re-assess how those characters look.

As for Cawl, he has a better aura, a better repair rule, a much better statline, better melee weapon, better shooting weapon, and modifies the canticles role, yeah that seems like a lot for 115 points, if it wasn't why is he the obvious choice over the Dominus? Why not just take the cheaper option?

Space marines can easily get 9+ CP, I'm not sure why you think spending 3 of these is a big penalty, also comparing the results of the aura on 1 squad is disingenuous. If you were only looking to buff 1 squad you wouldn't bother with the character in the first place. Lets look at say a twin assault cannon RB, if it did not move you are looking at 9.3 hits with a captain (7.3 moving), and 10.6 hits(8.6 moving) with a chapter master. If you have 4 razorbacks you are looking at 5 additional hits. In your devastator example if I run it 182 times, re-rolling 1s I get 0 hits 1 time, 1 hit 2 times, 2 hits 26 times, 3 hits 79 times, and 4 hits 74 times. Re-rolling all misses I hit 4 times 129 times, and 3 times 43 times, all other combined is 10. So it is a pretty significant boost in reliably rolling 3 or 4 hits, 84% to get at least a 3 with re-roll 1s vs 94% with re-roll all. And much higher percentage of those are 4 hits (75% all vs 48% 1s) Now if you don't value that it is fine, but you cannot cost it any cheaper otherwise it is an obvious choice. As for the named characters shrike is just fine, he can deepstrike in with units to give them re-rolls, he can move with vehicles giving them re-rolls. Sure he isn't the best, but if you don't want to give up your CP he is good. And much cheaper than a similarly equipped character and still having more rules.

They are not easy to balance at all. You say Celestine needs another 25, I think she still makes almost every imperial list with that addition, and is still far and away the best sisters choice. How often do you think points will get adjusted. There is a fine line between being solid, and being OP or trash, and the more rules you pile on a character the harder that line is to find, because the rules make them better, but not necessarily more survivable, so if they cost more points, but die super easy, not really worth it. Same with having Special wargear. It is essentially the same problem GK have, either they are super under costed for what they get, or they end up super over costed for what they do because they have too many bells and whistles.

I find it extremely boring to see Celestine in nearly every Imperial list at my LGS but whatever. Characters are (mostly) cost effective. Nearly all have been discounted in 8th.

Prepare to see more Eldrads, and Celestines, and PASK in every ****ing list.

For the Armies I play, Typhus, Abbadon, and Ghazghkull are pretty nice. Korsarro Kahn got nerfed.

Plot armor exists in 40k, and the characters who are part of the plot are exceptionally nice on the table.

I wouldn't say that Typhus is anywhere near overpowered, nor are any SW characters.

I think that named characters should be a bit more expensive than their unnamed profile, but have a unique ability that makes them worthy of the name. Typhus is a psyker with destroyer hive and a better beat stick. Herald Deathwolf has a nice aura and a really good save against shooting.

I face Dante and Mephiston at the same time last night, and it wasn't like anything was bananas about them. I would rather see special characters more often than only in casual fluff narrative games.

Just a look at costing

Shrike vs Captain with Jump pack and 2 lightning claws
Shrike has better re-roll aura, and a re-roll charge aura and claws that do D3 damage and have better ap (-3 instead of 2) for 45 points.

Sicarius vs Captain with Power sword and plasma pistol
Sicarius gets a better sword (d3 damage + possible mortal wounds) and tactical squad aura for +47 points

Kahn vs Captain with power sword
-kahn has a better sword, and a bonus aura to white scars for 29 points

Calgar vs terminator captain w/ powerfist
- calgar has better re-roll aura, +2 CP, a better gun, and better fists and more attacks and wounds. for 83 points.

Kantor vs captain with Fist and storm bolter
-Kantor gets better re-roll aura, extra crimson fist aura, better gun a 2+ save for 82 points.




Automatically Appended Next Post:
Now none of those characters are considered particularly powerful, but in almost every case they are a better option than the similarly equipped generic option. Now an argument can be made for just taking a naked captain at less cost, but at that point he is just a bubble of re-roll 1s and nothing else.

A lot of this is moot as well because RG gets taken over basically all of these options.

Breng77 wrote:
Just a look at costing

Shrike vs Captain with Jump pack and 2 lightning claws
Shrike has better re-roll aura, and a re-roll charge aura and claws that do D3 damage and have better ap (-3 instead of 2) for 45 points.

Sicarius vs Captain with Power sword and plasma pistol
Sicarius gets a better sword (d3 damage + possible mortal wounds) and tactical squad aura for +47 points

Kahn vs Captain with power sword
-kahn has a better sword, and a bonus aura to white scars for 29 points

Calgar vs terminator captain w/ powerfist
- calgar has better re-roll aura, +2 CP, a better gun, and better fists and more attacks and wounds. for 83 points.

Kantor vs captain with Fist and storm bolter
-Kantor gets better re-roll aura, extra crimson fist aura, better gun a 2+ save for 82 points.




Automatically Appended Next Post:
Now none of those characters are considered particularly powerful, but in almost every case they are a better option than the similarly equipped generic option. Now an argument can be made for just taking a naked captain at less cost, but at that point he is just a bubble of re-roll 1s and nothing else.

A lot of this is moot as well because RG gets taken over basically all of these options.

And of course the difference being you don't have to buy Power Swords for your Captains and can use Bikes or Jump Packs, as well as the relics available. Khan has a better sword, but those points left over for cost I can maybe go with a Power Fist and Jump Pack. With Sicarus, I can get a Bike to actually move around. These are balancing factors that aren't being considered.

Breng77 wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
Daemons were meh until they got their 6th edition codex (which propelled them to the top 6 maybe tops, and yes Fateweaver was still taken because the internal balance of the codex led you to taking him as other options were bad) and everyone knows their 5th edition performance wasn't stellar either.
Same thing with anything FW. If it's taken, it's because 99% of the time the codex equivalent was super bad. The 6th-7th Sicaran looks super ridiculous until you look at the price point (170ish off the top of my head), and that the regular Predator was garbage. Nobody used those for a reason.

Also YES it's because those options were bad. The other HQ options fulfilled a niche whereas Captains and Chapter Masters weren't even that great in combat for their points.
The Dominus is 135 points minimum off the top of my head, and Cawl is 250. Does he really have that many benefits more for 115 points?

Lastly, no the Strategem is not appropriately costed. It doesn't scale with how few CP a Marine army can get unless you're playing 3000+ point games, and those are rare. Plus the benefit isn't as much a difference as you'd think. Compared to the regular aura, it's 3.5 Lascannon hits compared to 3.1 in a Devastators squad. Justification can be that those are eventually 3 spent CP on a reroll for a singular squad, except that you can maybe just spend the points on more Devastators instead and get the same effect. THEN you need to look at the cost of all the Chapter Masters that are named. At minimum you have Shrike, who doesn't benefit a gunline as much with his extra rules and is 150 points.

Also they're super easy to balance. Take away points or add until they feel correct. Celestine needs another 25 and Rowboat another 40 and then we adjust as necessary if that doesn't work. The key here is if you want to put in the effort.

LOL daemons top 6 in 6th and 7th they were easily top 2 for a long time. They also got good in 6th basically immediately with the FMC changes, then the white dwarf drop. Yes in 5th they were not great, but also not terrible. FW was not taken because the codex equivalent was bad, Lords of Change were common takes with FW, he was taken for his re-roll, and to keep you from getting screwed by the warp storm. IN an FMC list that re-roll was hugely powerful. In 7th he also provided a lot of psychic dice.

Captains were not bad in 5th, I saw them all the time in good marine lists. Now marines themselves were not great in that edition but they were not bad choices. Just not as good as say Vulkan for their points. But if Vulcan isn't there as a comparison, they look quite a bit better, same with all enemy SC, take them out and re-assess how those characters look.

As for Cawl, he has a better aura, a better repair rule, a much better statline, better melee weapon, better shooting weapon, and modifies the canticles role, yeah that seems like a lot for 115 points, if it wasn't why is he the obvious choice over the Dominus? Why not just take the cheaper option?

Space marines can easily get 9+ CP, I'm not sure why you think spending 3 of these is a big penalty, also comparing the results of the aura on 1 squad is disingenuous. If you were only looking to buff 1 squad you wouldn't bother with the character in the first place. Lets look at say a twin assault cannon RB, if it did not move you are looking at 9.3 hits with a captain (7.3 moving), and 10.6 hits(8.6 moving) with a chapter master. If you have 4 razorbacks you are looking at 5 additional hits. In your devastator example if I run it 182 times, re-rolling 1s I get 0 hits 1 time, 1 hit 2 times, 2 hits 26 times, 3 hits 79 times, and 4 hits 74 times. Re-rolling all misses I hit 4 times 129 times, and 3 times 43 times, all other combined is 10. So it is a pretty significant boost in reliably rolling 3 or 4 hits, 84% to get at least a 3 with re-roll 1s vs 94% with re-roll all. And much higher percentage of those are 4 hits (75% all vs 48% 1s) Now if you don't value that it is fine, but you cannot cost it any cheaper otherwise it is an obvious choice. As for the named characters shrike is just fine, he can deepstrike in with units to give them re-rolls, he can move with vehicles giving them re-rolls. Sure he isn't the best, but if you don't want to give up your CP he is good. And much cheaper than a similarly equipped character and still having more rules.

They are not easy to balance at all. You say Celestine needs another 25, I think she still makes almost every imperial list with that addition, and is still far and away the best sisters choice. How often do you think points will get adjusted. There is a fine line between being solid, and being OP or trash, and the more rules you pile on a character the harder that line is to find, because the rules make them better, but not necessarily more survivable, so if they cost more points, but die super easy, not really worth it. Same with having Special wargear. It is essentially the same problem GK have, either they are super under costed for what they get, or they end up super over costed for what they do because they have too many bells and whistles.

Daemons were a Top 5 army max. People just didn't like fighting them because they were a boring army to face, but don't let that cloud your judgment.
You're also talking about the Warp Storm table, which literally anybody would agree was one of the dumbest and most atrocious additions to any codex ever in the history of the game. So you're forced to taking Fateweaver for that alone along with the terrible internal balance courtesy of Kelly.

Also Captains were absolutely atrocious. Any tournament was using Librarians for a reason, and you would only take the special character for a change in Combat Tactics or whatever it was called. That wasnt worth it half the time.

Cawl is worth it over the Dominus because you're still not looking at the Dominus' cost. AdMech players like myself also do take the cheaper option of the Enginseer instead of the Dominus. I'm guessing you didn't look at the codex once.

Space Marines only get 9+ CP if they're using Rowboat, which means you already have your aura of rerolls. You're otherwise maybe getting 7, and you'd have to spend 3 of those to get the aura. So no it isn't worth it whatsoever. It's a 2 CP Strategem max.

Celestine would be 175 minimum without the Gemini. She would not make it into every list at that point. Some, maybe, but now she's almost 10% of the 2000 point list instead of just 7.5%. Then you add the Gemini cost and you see why it's a pretty good quick fix.
Grey Knights have the issue that GW kinda messed up with some of the unit entries. They increased Terminators by 2 points. That's almost incompetence right there.

That balancing factor is something that is also worth discussing further: There is a fair bit of redundancy in a lot of the Special Characters, being "short range infantry."

Chaos Space Marines are either Bela'kor, Daemon Primarchs, or melee infantry. Ahriman got the option for a Disc at the end of 7th, but that's about it really. Contrast with Marines historically having had Khan (and yeahyeah, in the Index), Shrike and Chronus. Biker, Jump Pack, and a Tank dude.

Dark Eldar? All short-range infantry. RIP Baron.

Orks? Mostly "short range infantry," barring Zagstrukk. RIP Wazdakka and Zhadsnark.

Necrons? Unless you count the C'tan, entirely infantry-based. A Destroyer Overlord would have been boss, as would an ancient Triarch, or a Cryptek that could pilot a vehicle.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

Breng77 wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
Daemons were meh until they got their 6th edition codex (which propelled them to the top 6 maybe tops, and yes Fateweaver was still taken because the internal balance of the codex led you to taking him as other options were bad) and everyone knows their 5th edition performance wasn't stellar either.
Same thing with anything FW. If it's taken, it's because 99% of the time the codex equivalent was super bad. The 6th-7th Sicaran looks super ridiculous until you look at the price point (170ish off the top of my head), and that the regular Predator was garbage. Nobody used those for a reason.

Also YES it's because those options were bad. The other HQ options fulfilled a niche whereas Captains and Chapter Masters weren't even that great in combat for their points.
The Dominus is 135 points minimum off the top of my head, and Cawl is 250. Does he really have that many benefits more for 115 points?

Lastly, no the Strategem is not appropriately costed. It doesn't scale with how few CP a Marine army can get unless you're playing 3000+ point games, and those are rare. Plus the benefit isn't as much a difference as you'd think. Compared to the regular aura, it's 3.5 Lascannon hits compared to 3.1 in a Devastators squad. Justification can be that those are eventually 3 spent CP on a reroll for a singular squad, except that you can maybe just spend the points on more Devastators instead and get the same effect. THEN you need to look at the cost of all the Chapter Masters that are named. At minimum you have Shrike, who doesn't benefit a gunline as much with his extra rules and is 150 points.

Also they're super easy to balance. Take away points or add until they feel correct. Celestine needs another 25 and Rowboat another 40 and then we adjust as necessary if that doesn't work. The key here is if you want to put in the effort.

LOL daemons top 6 in 6th and 7th they were easily top 2 for a long time. They also got good in 6th basically immediately with the FMC changes, then the white dwarf drop. Yes in 5th they were not great, but also not terrible. FW was not taken because the codex equivalent was bad, Lords of Change were common takes with FW, he was taken for his re-roll, and to keep you from getting screwed by the warp storm. IN an FMC list that re-roll was hugely powerful. In 7th he also provided a lot of psychic dice.

Captains were not bad in 5th, I saw them all the time in good marine lists. Now marines themselves were not great in that edition but they were not bad choices. Just not as good as say Vulkan for their points. But if Vulcan isn't there as a comparison, they look quite a bit better, same with all enemy SC, take them out and re-assess how those characters look.

As for Cawl, he has a better aura, a better repair rule, a much better statline, better melee weapon, better shooting weapon, and modifies the canticles role, yeah that seems like a lot for 115 points, if it wasn't why is he the obvious choice over the Dominus? Why not just take the cheaper option?

Space marines can easily get 9+ CP, I'm not sure why you think spending 3 of these is a big penalty, also comparing the results of the aura on 1 squad is disingenuous. If you were only looking to buff 1 squad you wouldn't bother with the character in the first place. Lets look at say a twin assault cannon RB, if it did not move you are looking at 9.3 hits with a captain (7.3 moving), and 10.6 hits(8.6 moving) with a chapter master. If you have 4 razorbacks you are looking at 5 additional hits. In your devastator example if I run it 182 times, re-rolling 1s I get 0 hits 1 time, 1 hit 2 times, 2 hits 26 times, 3 hits 79 times, and 4 hits 74 times. Re-rolling all misses I hit 4 times 129 times, and 3 times 43 times, all other combined is 10. So it is a pretty significant boost in reliably rolling 3 or 4 hits, 84% to get at least a 3 with re-roll 1s vs 94% with re-roll all. And much higher percentage of those are 4 hits (75% all vs 48% 1s) Now if you don't value that it is fine, but you cannot cost it any cheaper otherwise it is an obvious choice. As for the named characters shrike is just fine, he can deepstrike in with units to give them re-rolls, he can move with vehicles giving them re-rolls. Sure he isn't the best, but if you don't want to give up your CP he is good. And much cheaper than a similarly equipped character and still having more rules.

They are not easy to balance at all. You say Celestine needs another 25, I think she still makes almost every imperial list with that addition, and is still far and away the best sisters choice. How often do you think points will get adjusted. There is a fine line between being solid, and being OP or trash, and the more rules you pile on a character the harder that line is to find, because the rules make them better, but not necessarily more survivable, so if they cost more points, but die super easy, not really worth it. Same with having Special wargear. It is essentially the same problem GK have, either they are super under costed for what they get, or they end up super over costed for what they do because they have too many bells and whistles.

Daemons were a Top 5 army max. People just didn't like fighting them because they were a boring army to face, but don't let that cloud your judgment.
You're also talking about the Warp Storm table, which literally anybody would agree was one of the dumbest and most atrocious additions to any codex ever in the history of the game. So you're forced to taking Fateweaver for that alone along with the terrible internal balance courtesy of Kelly.

Also Captains were absolutely atrocious. Any tournament was using Librarians for a reason, and you would only take the special character for a change in Combat Tactics or whatever it was called. That wasnt worth it half the time.

Cawl is worth it over the Dominus because you're still not looking at the Dominus' cost. AdMech players like myself also do take the cheaper option of the Enginseer instead of the Dominus. I'm guessing you didn't look at the codex once.

Space Marines only get 9+ CP if they're using Rowboat, which means you already have your aura of rerolls. You're otherwise maybe getting 7, and you'd have to spend 3 of those to get the aura. So no it isn't worth it whatsoever. It's a 2 CP Strategem max.

Celestine would be 175 minimum without the Gemini. She would not make it into every list at that point. Some, maybe, but now she's almost 10% of the 2000 point list instead of just 7.5%. Then you add the Gemini cost and you see why it's a pretty good quick fix.
Grey Knights have the issue that GW kinda messed up with some of the unit entries. They increased Terminators by 2 points. That's almost incompetence right there.

If you look at the entirety of 6th and 7th Daemons is a top 2 army, they may have dropped a little at the end of 7th, but they won more majors than almost any other army. You can say that is based on the players using them, but they were very strong for a long time.

Captains were good, space marine bike armies were among the better builds in 5th (the codex wasn't that strong), and they required a captain on a bike. Chapter masters were bad.

I'm looking at the Dominus' cost, it is probably overcosted, that doesn't make Cawl bad for his points

Celestine at 175 instead of 150 wound still be in all the armies she is seen in now. 25 points just isn't a make or break amount of points. It makes here 8.75% of a 2k list instead of 7.5%. That said I think she is an allies issue, you cannot really cost her properly for sisters, and for her use in a soup army. Eliminate soup and she is probably fine as is.

GK have the issue they have always had, they pay for abilities you don't necessarily want them to have. Most GK players would drop the force weapons from their PA GK if it made them say 16 points base instead of 21 or whatever they are now.


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Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

Breng77 wrote:
Just a look at costing

Shrike vs Captain with Jump pack and 2 lightning claws
Shrike has better re-roll aura, and a re-roll charge aura and claws that do D3 damage and have better ap (-3 instead of 2) for 45 points.

Sicarius vs Captain with Power sword and plasma pistol
Sicarius gets a better sword (d3 damage + possible mortal wounds) and tactical squad aura for +47 points

Kahn vs Captain with power sword
-kahn has a better sword, and a bonus aura to white scars for 29 points

Calgar vs terminator captain w/ powerfist
- calgar has better re-roll aura, +2 CP, a better gun, and better fists and more attacks and wounds. for 83 points.

Kantor vs captain with Fist and storm bolter
-Kantor gets better re-roll aura, extra crimson fist aura, better gun a 2+ save for 82 points.




Automatically Appended Next Post:
Now none of those characters are considered particularly powerful, but in almost every case they are a better option than the similarly equipped generic option. Now an argument can be made for just taking a naked captain at less cost, but at that point he is just a bubble of re-roll 1s and nothing else.

A lot of this is moot as well because RG gets taken over basically all of these options.

And of course the difference being you don't have to buy Power Swords for your Captains and can use Bikes or Jump Packs, as well as the relics available. Khan has a better sword, but those points left over for cost I can maybe go with a Power Fist and Jump Pack. With Sicarus, I can get a Bike to actually move around. These are balancing factors that aren't being considered.

Well you can only use bikes from the index at this point so I wouldn't hold out hope for that very long. My general point was based on what abilities the SC have they are often under costed, or overcosted depending on what you want from them. IF you don't value the stuff they come with, they are bad.

Breng77 wrote:
I think a lot of what I read here follows how I feel. SC are not necessarily broken, however they are very hard to cost correctly as such they tend to fall into 2 groups

1.) Obvious choices, that you would always take if you were going to take a specific role of HQ. Things like Ghaz vs Mega armor warboss, Azreal Vs Company master, Magnus/Mortarian vs any greater daemon.

2.) Horribly over costed junk, typically these are character versions of HQs you would rarely take anyway, unless they were cheap.

So, how do Kaptin Badrukk, Snikrot and Zagstrukk fit into this classification?

If you'd take some wisdom from WotC who have taken a little more than a decade to get their special characters ("Legendary Creatures") right, the simple solution is to make special characters not "Generic Dude +1", but simply unique.

You take Badrukk because he has a great gun, decent BS and ok armor. Nothing in the ork's arsenal can do that.

Snikrot is stat-wise actually worse than a generic warboss, but gets to deep strike, hide in cover and tear up enemies with his knives while reducing leadership. You don't take Snikrot instead of a warboss, you take Snikrot if you want a stabby murder ork.

Zagstrukk is a slightly better storm boyz nob with unique rules, weapons and abilities.

I think more characters need to be like those. Unique things that can be gotten nowhere else.

Broken special characters aren't any worse than broken generic HQs (jetbike council), broken heavy support choices(remember riptides?) or broken lords of war(wraithknight). Broken things need to be toned down.

Increasing points doesn't always fix problems. Some rules are simply too powerful to be costed properly. For example, increasing Roboute Guilliman's points pretty much equates to removing razorbaks and tacticals from his list. Is removing one razorback enough? Maybe two? At some point the list may no longer be able to simply torrent everything off the board, but that might be the very same point at which the chapter masters (named or generic) start being strictly better than the primarch, pretty much dropping him from play.
Previously there was an example of the Emperor being fair if he costed 1500 points. If his rules simply read "All IMPERIUM models cannot lose wounds", no amount of points would make that fair.

WH40k is about awesome things happening in games. Ghazghkull Thrakka fighting a duel with Eldrad Ulthran is awesome. Yarrik getting turned into a squig by Ol'Zogwort is awesome for all but the old kommissar. Mortarion duelling St. Celestine in the middle on an imperial gunline is awesome.
Warboss Dakkan and his Hyennas racing Captain Johnson's Bikers of the Imperial Fists for a relic? Autarch Ariyel getting run over by a leman russ, because he missed the impossible to miss melta-shot? Boss Manslaughter killing 10 imperials with his big choppa all by himself? Also great.

If your joy of a game plummets simply for the reason that some of the models are named by GW instead of you, maybe something is wrong with you, not with special characters.

 Jidmah wrote:
I think more characters need to be like those. Unique things that can be gotten nowhere else.

The problem is, why take a generic if you can take those?

Take Sisters. The only reason to take their generic characters is because you have to to fill up HQ slots. A Canoness is little more than a tax, with basically no good weapon options (her best one is an S6 eviscerator, but Celestine does that far better being able to move quicker, hit harder, and take damage better),

Celestine should cost around 250-300 points to be fairly priced, and she would still be a popular and effective choice in SoB armies. But probably too expensive for soups, which is the point of having her toned down.

 Blackie wrote:
Celestine should cost around 250-300 points to be fairly priced, and she would still be a popular and effective choice in SoB armies. But probably too expensive for soups, which is the point of having her toned down.

So what, exactly, would that do to help Sisters players' lack of choice here?

Celestine is still mandatory at 250-300 points, we'd just have a smaller army for her to support. And then the Canoness would still be a near-useless tax unit. And outside of the much-derided "soup", we have no other options.

This is the problem with special character discussions. You act like every army is Space Marines with 50 billion generics and 60 billion named characters. But that's simply NOT the case. It fething sucks that we HAVE to take celestine, but we basically don't have any other choice. If we don't take her, we take two canonesses. Canonesses can't take jump packs, have gakky weapon choices, and aren't really capable of supporting our best units outside of retributors. Okay? Why would we want to do that when we could take Celestine, who actually is capable of doing something to help our army that more other units wouldn't be better at?

In truth, I think the worst part about special characters are auras that can buff entire armies. I think aura abilities should be able to benefit one or two units at most for special characters. But having one model buffing an entire army, and doing that over and over again, is pretty unfair.

Take the 'my will be done' rule for necron overlords. I think all aura abilities should work exactly like that. Exceptional units like the G-man or yarrick could do it 2-3 times.

 Jidmah wrote:

Breng77 wrote:
I think a lot of what I read here follows how I feel. SC are not necessarily broken, however they are very hard to cost correctly as such they tend to fall into 2 groups

1.) Obvious choices, that you would always take if you were going to take a specific role of HQ. Things like Ghaz vs Mega armor warboss, Azreal Vs Company master, Magnus/Mortarian vs any greater daemon.

2.) Horribly over costed junk, typically these are character versions of HQs you would rarely take anyway, unless they were cheap.

So, how do Kaptin Badrukk, Snikrot and Zagstrukk fit into this classification?

If you'd take some wisdom from WotC who have taken a little more than a decade to get their special characters ("Legendary Creatures") right, the simple solution is to make special characters not "Generic Dude +1", but simply unique.

You take Badrukk because he has a great gun, decent BS and ok armor. Nothing in the ork's arsenal can do that.

Snikrot is stat-wise actually worse than a generic warboss, but gets to deep strike, hide in cover and tear up enemies with his knives while reducing leadership. You don't take Snikrot instead of a warboss, you take Snikrot if you want a stabby murder ork.

Zagstrukk is a slightly better storm boyz nob with unique rules, weapons and abilities.

I think more characters need to be like those. Unique things that can be gotten nowhere else.

Broken special characters aren't any worse than broken generic HQs (jetbike council), broken heavy support choices(remember riptides?) or broken lords of war(wraithknight). Broken things need to be toned down.

Increasing points doesn't always fix problems. Some rules are simply too powerful to be costed properly. For example, increasing Roboute Guilliman's points pretty much equates to removing razorbaks and tacticals from his list. Is removing one razorback enough? Maybe two? At some point the list may no longer be able to simply torrent everything off the board, but that might be the very same point at which the chapter masters (named or generic) start being strictly better than the primarch, pretty much dropping him from play.
Previously there was an example of the Emperor being fair if he costed 1500 points. If his rules simply read "All IMPERIUM models cannot lose wounds", no amount of points would make that fair.

WH40k is about awesome things happening in games. Ghazghkull Thrakka fighting a duel with Eldrad Ulthran is awesome. Yarrik getting turned into a squig by Ol'Zogwort is awesome for all but the old kommissar. Mortarion duelling St. Celestine in the middle on an imperial gunline is awesome.
Warboss Dakkan and his Hyennas racing Captain Johnson's Bikers of the Imperial Fists for a relic? Autarch Ariyel getting run over by a leman russ, because he missed the impossible to miss melta-shot? Boss Manslaughter killing 10 imperials with his big choppa all by himself? Also great.

If your joy of a game plummets simply for the reason that some of the models are named by GW instead of you, maybe something is wrong with you, not with special characters.

From a balance standpoint those characters fit into "overcosted trash", you don't take snikrot to be a stabby murder ork, he is bad at that, you take him to drop on an objective and abuse the character targeting rule and his 3+ coversave. If you want stabby murder deepstrike orks 7 Kommandos do the job better than snikrot does. You generally don't take the other 2, but when you take Zagstruk it is simply for fearless stormboyz no other reason.

IF all we care about are special characters doing awesome things make them narrative only models, if we care about balance, being undercosted and OP or overcosted trash makes them bad for balance..

You realize his argument was they aren't really overcosted trash, they're designed for specific uses that you'd otherwise not be able to get out of an Ork army.

 Melissia wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:
I think more characters need to be like those. Unique things that can be gotten nowhere else.

The problem is, why take a generic if you can take those?

If you apply that logic to the entire codex, you need to take a generic Big Mek for a KFF or a SAG. You need to take a Warboss for the Waaagh! rule and having an S12 PK on a bike. You need to take a weirdboy to cast and deny psychic powers.
The only real offenders for orks are Thrakka and Grotsnik, because Thrakka is a MA warboss +5. He simply outperforms even two of them. Grotznik is a better pain boy for almost no additional cost, though in his case an additional pain boy might still make sense.
If Thrakka didn't offer the Waaagh! special rule and some other bonus instead, running a warboss next to Thrakka would make sense again, like his leftennants in the supplement that shall not be named.

The advantage of unique characters to a game designer is to allow things to exist once on the battlefield that would be totally bonkers if spammed. For example, putting Pask in every single one of your tanks.

Take Sisters. The only reason to take their generic characters is because you have to to fill up HQ slots. A Canoness is little more than a tax, with basically no good weapon options (her best one is an S6 eviscerator, but Celestine does that far better being able to move quicker, hit harder, and take damage better),

How is this even related to the discussion?. If Celestine was a generic Angel HQ, the Canoness would still serve no purpose. If the Canoness were a special characters, she would still be a terrible one. The issue is the Canoness having terrible rules, not special characters existing.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Breng77 wrote:
From a balance standpoint those characters fit into "overcosted trash",

Except two of those have been part of high-placing ork lists, so they cannot be overcosted trash. You're bending your own argument.

you don't take snikrot to be a stabby murder ork, he is bad at that, you take him to drop on an objective and abuse the character targeting rule and his 3+ coversave.

So, you're saying he serves a unique purpose, that no other character can fulfill?
I guess he is not used as intended, but that seems to be tradition for this model. In all his incarnations he has never been able to replace a warboss, nor has a warboss ever been able to replace him. This is good design.

If you want stabby murder deepstrike orks 7 Kommandos do the job better than snikrot does. You generally don't take the other 2, but when you take Zagstruk it is simply for fearless stormboyz no other reason.

Ah, I see. So Zagstrukk is only taken because of his unique rule that buffs stormboyz, not because he is better than warbosses, big meks or weirdboyz.

IF all we care about are special characters doing awesome things make them narrative only models, if we care about balance, being undercosted and OP or overcosted trash makes them bad for balance..

I wonder, did you actually read my post?
Unique Characters differ in no way from any other model in the game, except you can take less of them. Heck, the developers don't even have to worry about people spamming them. If anything, unique characters are easier to balance.

GW needs to design unique characters to not just be an upgrade of existing generic choices - in that case at least one of them is always going to be useless. If generics can do things characters cannot (relics!) and vice versa, special characters will work fine alongside generic character choices.