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Ok this idea came to me a few days ago and its started to bother me.

GW seems to be streamlining all the armies with new HQ choices that greatly change the FOC.

SM, Orks, and now IG and Necrons (potentailly) will all have armies whose HQ's can change the FOC.

Armies like Deamons, Eldar and CSM have powerful HQ's with tons of options (bikes, insane psychic powers, etc. that make up for this)

Deamon Hunters and Witch hunters can be added as allies so I dont worry too much about them.

However Tau and Nids seem to not be able to fit in this mold (not sure about DE). Nids and DE seem to be able to either evolve or potentailly fit into one of the molds if they can be done correctly. (dont know enough about nids either honestly). Tau I seem to feel are either getting abandoned or something. I just cant seem them adding more special characters to tau due to fuff and i can't see FOC changes occuring either.

So Why is GW seeming to favor all of these new FOC changing characters? Is it that they are ultimatly trying to expand the customability of each army? OR is it something else? (such as who's HQ can do the most outrageous stuff/have best stats will win the day for you?)

(sorry if this makes little since or is really confusing)

What you describe is not Herohammer. Herohammer is when the rules are arranged in such a way that a single character can tromp multiple units all by himself. See: 40K 2nd ed and WHFB 5th ed for examples.

They're seeing the advantages that games like AT-43 and Warmachine both use. In place
of trying to balance complete customizability and the horror of non-viable options, they
have archetypes based on characters and army types.

I see it as their way of rewarding players for a thematic army, or trying to at least, without
unbalancing the game. So instead of every Imperial Guard /Space Marine army taking
specific doctrines, you're going to have spend x number of points on character y. In
compensation you get to change rule z.

Players have to just let it go that a special character is that character all the time
and only one exists in their universe. It's not like people didn't kit out their HQs in similar
fashions throughout armies anyway (how many heroic Junior officers can there possibly
be out there?).

malfred wrote:...how many heroic Junior officers can there possibly be out there?

Considering the amount of Guardsmen in 40K, there could be millions of them...

Tau I seem to feel are either getting abandoned or something.

They better not. After all the money I wasted on this game...people would die.

Mattlov wrote:

malfred wrote:...how many heroic Junior officers can there possibly be out there?

Considering the amount of Guardsmen in 40K, there could be millions of them...

But it's like that's all there is!

Modifying an army by addition of special HQ characters is a great way of making different style builds from the same basic codex.

I see no reason why Tau can't have special characters -- they already have Space Pope, Shadowsun and Farsight -- but the next Tau codex is probably two years off. The current codex was written before GW had the idea of characters modifying army status.

Nids can easily be varified through different evolutionary paths or swarm queens or something. It won't be name characters but it will give the same kind of benefits.

Good discussion.

Pariah Press wrote:Herohammer is when the rules are arranged in such a way that a single character can tromp multiple units all by himself.

Agreed.

Casper wrote:Is it that they are ultimatly trying to expand the customability of each army?

I think GW is trying to enhance customization, specifically because we've seen GW abandon one-man-army heroes in Warhammer Fantasy Battle.

Casper wrote:Armies like Deamons, Eldar and CSM have powerful HQ's with tons of options (bikes, insane psychic powers, etc. that make up for this)

Eldar Phoenix Lords are, in my opinion, the nascent incarnation of this style of HQ choice, but CSM HQ's are still just old-fashioned tough guys, with the exception of Fabius Bile's ability to grant Enhanced Warrior.

Casper wrote:Tau and Nids seem to not be able to fit in this mold

This will change when the codexes are updated, unless GW totally changes their course. (always a possibility)

malfred wrote:They're seeing the advantages that games like AT-43 and Warmachine both use.

I haven't played AT-43, and I agree that the army-altering hero is a direct inheritance (politely worded) from Warmachine. And it's a concept that I love. I can't wait to see Tyranid HQ's who grant Rending to all troops, Imperial Guard HQ's who grant Sharpshooter, or Tau commanders who grant Vulkan-like twin-linked for all guns...

Each army book in AT-43 offers three army platoon patterns. Each pattern has its own
costs for various units in the army plus some ability for using that platoon. Apparently the
Frostbite expansion offered two new platoon patterns for the various armies, but I
haven't seen it yet.

Still have yet to play a game, though

Tau already fit the bill, the farsight enclave only exists with farsight altering your army composition. The tyranids and necrons should really be the only forces that are not based on special character derivations. Firstly, because they don't have special characters that are members of their army (the tyranids have none at all as it should be and the C'Tan aren't necrons. They are the necrons gods.), and secondly because their leader units are not generals in a typical sense. The hive tyrant directs troops within his segment of the hive mind, but his entire force is bred for a very specific task, and he himself has no say in what that task is or how it is accomplished. Necrons lords are questionably sentient and basically just wake up and use what they have. They don't alter the makeup of their force to fulfill a purpose, they just use what they've got. Hence necrons not being customizable at all and nearly every tyranid being very customizable.


Every other army could well have its force org based on its commanding character (I think the orks best accomplished this, though a boss on a bike should have just allowed you to take bike troops, rather than forcing wazdakka). The specialities of the general make the force what it is, and the previous doctrine style of accomplishing this was very difficult to track and understand for people that didn't own your codex.

It just works better.

Agree with Malfred. I think it's a direct result of looking at games like Warmachine; changing one character alters the entire play style for the army. Likewise, a special character gives the army a real theme that has an in-game effect and isn't just, say, an over-priced Captain with a power fist, or exarch, or whatever. You saw a little of this in the last ed. SM codex, especially with Tiberius, Shrike and the Imperial Fists character who's name is escaping me. Schaeffer in the IG codex was probably the next closest thing.

While on a certain level it's irritating to see that Eldrad has gotten a lot busier since he died, it does give a purpose to ind. characters who before were just overpriced HQs that didn't do a whole lot for you (C'tan and similar excluded), and armies were tending toward 'cookie cutter'. I don't think 40k will EVER get away from cookie cutter until they completely redo the game design from the ground up, but this is a pretty effective 'patch' on that issue.

I don't know about special rules, but the Grey Knight Grand Master packs enough brute force to take on 20+ enemies at once on a good day. Everything else in my GKs just feels like extra.

i can make you some labels to put on the special charater names.
like
"generic super cool leader that lets you do things that you couldn't normally do due to his cunning. he isn't one of a kind just special in a special way."

Eldar phoenix lords may have the original idea or concept for this, but they sure don't accomplish it.

Each only affects their own aspect, and only the one squad of their aspect they're bought for. In addition, the only thing they do for said aspect is: make it fearless.

Not much of an army customizing there. None of the eldar Hq's do this. The first army to really do this (IMO) was CSM (just a little bit) and then Orks ran with it hardcore.

ShumaGorath wrote:Tau already fit the bill, the farsight enclave only exists with farsight altering your army composition. The tyranids and necrons should really be the only forces that are not based on special character derivations. Firstly, because they don't have special characters that are members of their army (the tyranids have none at all as it should be and the C'Tan aren't necrons. They are the necrons gods.), and secondly because their leader units are not generals in a typical sense. The hive tyrant directs troops within his segment of the hive mind, but his entire force is bred for a very specific task, and he himself has no say in what that task is or how it is accomplished. Necrons lords are questionably sentient and basically just wake up and use what they have. They don't alter the makeup of their force to fulfill a purpose, they just use what they've got. Hence necrons not being customizable at all and nearly every tyranid being very customizable.

Every other army could well have its force org based on its commanding character (I think the orks best accomplished this, though a boss on a bike should have just allowed you to take bike troops, rather than forcing wazdakka). The specialities of the general make the force what it is, and the previous doctrine style of accomplishing this was very difficult to track and understand for people that didn't own your codex.

It just works better.

I dunno about your objection to Tyranids and Necrons: you have to get away from the idea that the commander on the ground is the ultimate commander. A tyranid force could easily be conceptualized as a specialized detachment dispatched by the hive mind; a "hunter-killer" focused force could involve taking a specific type of tyrant, which, say, gave the rest of the force leaping, or made raveners cheaper or able to take objectives or whatnot. Oooh, just imagine being able to take a genestealer cult army, with the ability to field magi and other abandoned archetypes...

Similarly, it's easy to imagine Necron Lords purpose tasked for their duties: a fabricator lord deep in the tombs making sure everything is properly maintained (gotta have some pretty good QC to keep sufficiently advanced tech working over countless eons...), Genocide Lords tasked with overseeing culls of unarmed sentients, Military Lords designed for destroying armed targets, Lords tasked with monitoring and analyzing data (they have a galaxy-wide empire, presumably the C'tan don't crunch all the numbers themselves... actually, given the fluff, it's doubtfull the C'tan crunch anything but victims) and so on.

Mmmm, Platinum-tier Genocide Lord. Now that's a special character name...

The only thing Farsight does in "customizing" an army is throw restrictions on it and allow a larger retinue. It isn't like it allows Fire Warriors to take heavy gun drones in their squads, give units fleet, allow rerolls for shooting or whatever else you can think of. With the rule changes in 5th a Farsight list is arguably harder to play than any time since 3rd edition.

I've never seen Space Pope on the board and Shadowsun's special rules are tied to her wargear, which prevent her from joining a unit.

I'd be curious to see how special characters will change Tau given the strict conformity the army units in the list in general are. Besides in 2 years, GW will probably have something else to take from Rackham or PP and abandon the current practice.

Edit: removed redundant word

If by herohammer you mean a single HQ will run crazy and wreck everything I think not but it has moved very much to having single units dominating the whole battle field.

The dual ork nob biker army is pretty much what hero hammer was except the unit isnt a hero nowday but a super powerful unit that takes up half of your army. Seer council is abit of the same and so are some of the SM configurations.

Unfortunently there are many armies that dont have the possibilty to do this or even have very much to put up any effective defence against it without specialising its army so bad it will be close to useless against other builds.

So all in all I would say its herohammer all over.

@ Pariah Press thank you for clearing up my wrong definition.

I agree with Dal'yth Dude - tau really can't be put into this mold due to their strict army structure. I have never seen anyone play a tau special character because they either dont work well (shadowsun), are too restricting/difficult (farseight - unless apoc), and no idea on the space pope (perhaps not as useful as he should be)?

Thanks guys on how Nids and Necrons could be updated. I'm still trying to rap my head around the new idea of changeable FOC.

I always thought phoenix lords should have been squad upgrades with better stats (but lower than current ones who needs BS 7 anyway?).

Keep up the good discussion.

I think I'd agree that the game is certainly drifting to more use of special characters, and those characters are significantly more powerful than regular HQ leaders you can purchase/construct yourself, and I hate it.

I feel like I'm playing magic the gathering or something, where people pick a few powerful cards (Marneus Calgar, Pedro) and supporting stuff to make a deck. I want to fight against space marines, not marines with infinitely mutable rule types and weird ability enhancing bubbles.

As far as "Herohammer" itself, try to rumble with the aforementioned Calgar and let me know how it goes.

(IMHO)It seems the Defining HQs are a part of (dumbing down) making the game more playable for the kids. By not expecting them to try to learn and exploit every rule in order to build an effective theme. It is hoped this streamlining will bring in more new players. I've got no prob with a little streamilining(eventually more available games) as long as it doesn't go to far.

As to how they would do this with the Tau. I think there are already hints in the rulebook and in the apoc book. The crisis suit configuration patterns; FireKnife, Helios, Deathrain, Ect.... they are showing will probalby get bonuses with a themed commander. There will probably be improvement with a corresponding restriction in flexibility(wargear options). Maybe the Tau will finally get effective special characters, Something as potent as Eldrad, Yriel, Gazkull, or any of a dozen other special characters that actually increase the offensive capability of their respective armies.

As to the existing Special Characters only one has a purpose beyond Giving the Tau better leadership and thats Farsight. And even then he's good but doesn't give tangible army wide improvement in any useful way.

IMHO Shadowsun is for stabilizing a gun line which is ok if you run a static army. Shes pretty good at taking out space marines once thay get close to your lines but if you run her out front the stealth field is worthless. Some one will see her and shoot her up or charge her.

I have the Space pope because its a cool model for an eventual Diarama, and from a collection point of view, nothing more. Maybe someday I will become such an awsome player that I can throw away 205 pts on an leader that has no offensive capability but I'm not that good now.


Good thread Casper


Edited for spelling and clarification

Casper wrote:@ Pariah Press thank you for clearing up my wrong definition.

I agree with Dal'yth Dude - tau really can't be put into this mold due to their strict army structure. I have never seen anyone play a tau special character because they either dont work well (shadowsun), are too restricting/difficult (farseight - unless apoc), and no idea on the space pope (perhaps not as useful as he should be)?

Thanks guys on how Nids and Necrons could be updated. I'm still trying to rap my head around the new idea of changeable FOC.

I always thought phoenix lords should have been squad upgrades with better stats (but lower than current ones who needs BS 7 anyway?).

Keep up the good discussion.

Didn't Torgoch play Farsight Gundam Wing Tau at a UK GT heat?

I agree that the Tau characters don't fit the current specification of 'special'. That's because they were written three years ago.

I believe he did in the first or second heat. I went to look to see where he placed and couldn't find anything but product on the GW site.

As of Oct 31, Torgoch says he hasn't played Farsight in 5th Edition.

Well, no, as others have amply illustrated, this is not in fact Herohammer.

And I do like the approach. Now players are choosing their armies based less on pure hitting power. For example, a Big Mek has always been a useful addition to an Orky Horde, but now he allows you to take a Deff Dred as a Troops Choice, he's a real contender. Yet to offset this, particular in 5th Edition, the Warboss allows a unit of Nobs to become a scoring unit...tasty or what?

Same with Marines. They are at once encouragement, and reward, for taking a themed army, whereas before the themeing of a force wasn't terribly reccomended apart for nutcases like myself (never, ever won with my Saim Hann force, but I loved fielding it!)

Fantasy, thankfully, has less of a problem here due to the different Organisation, and a typically wider selection of possible troops combined with how combats are resolved etc, means it's very very difficult for a theme to force a duff army.

But 40k really needs this. And when you really look at the big picture, none of them are exactly game breaking.

It's a change in design philosophy. GW tried Doctrines with IG and Traits with SM. They were very popular, but not well balanced. Some Doctrines and Traits are 'no-brainers' and most of the penalites - you could build your SM list so the disadvantage didn't matter.

They're using special characters more because:
1) They like the models and want to sell the models.
2) It's a way to provide limited customization. If you fielding a special HQ, you can only have one other HQ, and their wargear is limited, which helps to limit the abusiveness.

I think it's better than the other options: 1) No customization (third edition) or 2) Penalties that didn't matter.

i also think the changing the foc fits in with the back story. i mean just look at the deathwing. i could see a part of the fluff where the entire company goes on a campaing, and only that company, so of corse it would only be terminators and various support units, same with white scars and big meks, a s the big mek would make more kans and have more avalible, thus them being able to be used as troops, while the entire chapter of white scars is adept at biking, so they could feild more bikes.

edited for spelling.

dietrich wrote:It's a change in design philosophy. GW tried Doctrines with IG and Traits with SM. They were very popular, but not well balanced. Some Doctrines and Traits are 'no-brainers' and most of the penalites - you could build your SM list so the disadvantage didn't matter.

They're using special characters more because:
1) They like the models and want to sell the models.
2) It's a way to provide limited customization. If you fielding a special HQ, you can only have one other HQ, and their wargear is limited, which helps to limit the abusiveness.

I think it's better than the other options: 1) No customization (third edition) or 2) Penalties that didn't matter.

Army level Customization in 3rd edition took the form of sub-lists. While I miss some of
them, I understand why GW didn't like their proliferation.

focusedfire wrote:(IMHO)It seems the Defining HQs are a part of (dumbing down) making the game more playable for the kids. By not expecting them to try to learn and exploit every rule in order to build an effective theme. It is hoped this streamlining will bring in more new players. I've got no prob with a little streamilining(eventually more available games) as long as it doesn't go to far.

Edited for spelling and clarification

my thoughts exactly, focusedfire. I remember when I was younger, & Id just gotten into 40k, Special character models were a must have. I remember fantasising about my poorly painted blood angels army being led by all 6 of their special characters in the third edition codex. A little thing like 'this character can only lead an army of at least 2000 points' went straight over my head. & The younger kids at my gaming club were the same, it was all too common to see a young, new gamer just not understand why such a trivial matter as a force organisation chart didnt allow him to legally field three land raiders, dante, lemartes & a squad of scouts.
It was only after Id been playing for a few years & had matured in my attitude to the hobby that I found building my own HQs a more desirable option.

This would also fit with GW's new direction of making the game attractive to younger players in order to sell more & more models. Special characters that have too big of an impact to ignore having in your army are right up there with boxed armies & plastic superheavies in GW's quest to make more & more dollar. Theyve changed their targer audience.

And it's absolutely not an attempt to sell more models, and more evenly across each range is it? OH no.

It's always about the little kiddies.

Their target audience hasn't changed in over 12 years!

I remember when I started special characters used to have a certain taboo about them. People I played against didn't like them mostly for fluff reasons. Seriously? I have to fight Ragnar AGAIN?! How many places can this guy be?! Though, at the time, chances were you could build a more powerful character of your own (HeroHammer).

What I miss most was being able to ally armies fairly freely. If I remember correctly, in the Black Codex, one could potentially ally IG, SM and Guard together with an Inquisitor Commander. THAT was fantastic for building new armies, as you could take your existing one, and then throw a unit from a similarly aligned (good/evil) force.

Pariah Press wrote: What you describe is not Herohammer. Herohammer is when the rules are arranged in such a way that a single character can tromp multiple units all by himself. See: 40K 2nd ed and WHFB 5th ed for examples.

e.g., Abaddon