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JOHIRA wrote:All things in all army lists require your opponent's permission to play, unless you've tied up your opponent in your basement and are holding a gun to their head. You do not need to ask special permission to field a special character though. An opponent agreeing to begin turn 1 after having seen your army list is implicit permission. Etiquette demands you make sure your opponent understands what your army is. Nothing is required beyond that.

That's not true at all.
If you and I are playing a game, I can play any legal army I want. Period.
You can choose not to play once you see my army list, but that isn't a matter of receiving your permission. It's a matter of you deciding not to play.

Had someone said something about "not knowing we were using special characters," I'd have politely replied that permission isn't necessary when playing characters any more. Unless you agree NOT to play them, there's no reason not to expect to see them.

Eric

Actually, the consensus from GW seems to have been for several editions that "special characters in the army books, and 'counts-as' using those characters as a basis are completely legal, and require no permissions. Special characters of your own design, however, require prior consent from your opponent".

Flashman wrote:As for this being a ploy to shift expensive models, I think this is balanced out by the amount of points they use up, meaning less £££ required for rank and file models to make up your army.

this

Me and some people are putting together a 1000 pt 'cron army for a friend, but it kept getting too expensive money-wise. In comes Nightbringer, €15,- for a third of the army saved the day
(as an added bonus, because of the C'tan, the army is now critically low on necrons, screaming for expansion)

Sidstyler wrote:People worry way too much about fluff.

Oh, but I *like* to worry about it! Fluff gets you a cool, cohesive army more often than not in my experience. (Using you as a jumping-off point, Sidstyler! )

If I'm going to field a special character, I'm going to base my army on him. As an Eldar player, if I'm going to go back in time and use Farseer Eldrad of Craftworld Ulthwe, there's going to be a Seer Council going with it, there's going to be a fairly large force of Black Guardians following him, and few Aspect Warriors. Since Ulthwe has so few Aspect Warriors, I'd expect a diminished amount of them- maybe a few Dark Reapers, in honor of Maugan Ra's contribution to Ulthwe, but not *many* more (I'd limit myself to 2 squads of Aspect Warriors total). The Avatar's summoning would be an exceedingly rare occurrence under Eldrad; unless it's a 3000-pt game that I'm playing, I don't think Ulthwe (or indeed Eldrad) would deem it necessary to sacrifice the current Young King for the engagement.

Prince Yriel of Iyanden will have an escort of 10 or maybe 20 Wraithguard and a Spiritseer or two, and there'll be 2 Wraithlords, 2 squads of Guardians marching with the Wraithguard, and a Farseer, and then I'll take Aspect Warriors (none of them in large squads, and hardly any of them will be represented twice) and vehicles to support the list. Iyanden is increasingly depending on Wraith-stuff to shore up its armies, and there's a noted lack of Aspect Warriors in Iyanden as well- why NOT use that fluff to make an army?

A Phoenix Lord has more flexibility. Sure, I'm definitely taking two squads of the Aspect in question, but then I leave the rest of my list to the Craftworld's fighting style. Often Karandras or Fuegan belongs to a Biel-Tan list, Maugan Ra goes to Ulthwe or Altansar, etc.

In my case, special characters enhance the joy of bringing an Eldar army. I like playing with such cool characters, and I like the variable challenge of winning with fluffier armies. It seems right to me that when you field a special character, you take fluff-appropriate choices, 'Ard Boyz notwithstanding. If you're going to take a Chapter Master, then by all means, capitalize on his special rules. Give your army flamers and meltas and what-have-you from that one random Chapter Master, make Sternguard scoring, it really doesn't matter all that much to me, so long as your army reflects that it's a Salamanders or Crimson Fists army. Use that fluff to make a list with a distinctive fighting style!

I don't always arbitrarily restrict myself in this way, especially when I'm not fielding a special character, and there's no way in hell I would ask other people to limit themselves to fluffy armies. For some games, I just want to make a Mechdar list, or a footslogging list, with no attention to fluff or craftworlds. I want to find evil combos of units, and I won't let the fluff stop me. But, if I'm using a noted hero with a history, I AM tailoring the list to make it appropriate to his backstory and to his craftworld. I can't expect others to do that, I just wish they would join me in this. And yes, wanting a better chance of winning has something to do with my objection to special characters used...strangely. I'd rather not face an army with both Colonel 'Iron Hand' Straken and St. Celestine, unless we're going for a massive ultra epic battle where every hero is coming along to add his/her 2 cents. Eldrad and the Avatar in an 1850 lists gets a millisecond-long frown from me, then I go back to smiling and joking while we play the game.

As for dynamos like Mephiston, whose unpainted/primed model I see in every damn BA list at my local store, ever...under my own love of fluff, I can't object to him. Mephiston (and Dante, there's always a bloody Dante in a deep striking Death Company squad) gives Blood Angels a somewhat fluffy feel. I mean, I don't know if HQ choices besides Mephiston exist at my local store, but at least he makes an army decidedly 'Blood Angels.' He's actually fairly easy to beat as an Eldar player, if you mech up and compulsively take Runes of Warding and Bright Lances like I do, but I don't know how other armies handle him, to be honest...

[/ramble] It's a point of foolish pride for me

Everything is fine as long as its codex legal.

The only thing I ask is that I can be informed of the special rules the character has so I dont get blind sided during the game. Alot of players forget to inform their opponents of a nasty trick here and there and can lead to messy situations.

Con Carne wrote:
He's actually fairly easy to beat as an Eldar player, if you mech up and compulsively take Runes of Warding and Bright Lances like I do, but I don't know how other armies handle him, to be honest...
[/ramble] It's a point of foolish pride for me

PLASMA! Lots and lots of plasma! In cannons even! I've left Death CO., Mephiston, and Lemartes steaming piles of superheated goo after 2 rounds. And they said my codex was pathetically underpowered... pfft.

Never under-estimate the power of The Lion =D

We may hide in the shadows . . . but you don't want to see us when we come out =p

Talking of Dark Angels, this brings me nicely onto another great way of showing fluffyness with Special Characters. If you're using Belial, why wouldn't you have 20 Terminators smashing stuff up? It raises an eyebrow or two when I plonk 20 Termies and Belial on the table, and it may be possibly one of the worst lists for a Dark Angel army in the majority of situations. But I enjoy it dammit =p

Now Azrael on the other hand, you're going to be seeing scores of big green men in dresses coming out of tin cans with tracks . . . maybe even ones with guns on them . . .(That would be Tactical squads in Rhinos or Razorbacks =p) . . . Then you've got have veterans of one kind or another knocking around. And the greatest fury you can bring to the table . . . for none must know the secrets of the Dark Angels . . . we must have no witnesses to our work!

And well Sammael is the same as Belial, but with bikes instead of Termies =p . . . Find the Fallen, torture the Fallen, and punish them for their crimes until they repent! . . . it's always fun to go . . . "OMG! There's a fallen in your army . . . GO GO RAVENWING!!!" =p

/religious fervour =D

Oshova

Special characters are useful sometimes, and sometimes they seriously let you down. I've experienced fielding Abaddon and had him roll a 1 for the number of attacks he gets for his Daemon weapon 3 turns in a row. I have also killed Marneus Calgar with mega-nobz because my stupid opponent sent him forward without an escorting unit. I've also included Mad Dok Grotsnik and used his special ability to give my Mega-nobz a 5+ invulnerable save, which makes space marine players go seriously red in the face. It's all in how you play them, and how dependent on them you are. They are powerful, but using them right is even more important than more common units.

warpcrafter wrote:I've experienced fielding Abaddon and had him roll a 1 for the number of attacks he gets for his Daemon weapon 3 turns in a row. I have also killed Marneus Calgar with mega-nobz because my stupid opponent sent him forward without an escorting unit.

Karandras, Phoenix Lord of the Striking Scorpions, teamed with 8 Striking Scorpions (including a claw Exarch), and opened fire on a group of 8 Genestealers in open ground before charging in. It was a delicate charge situation- I only wanted two bugs dead from shooting to ensure a charge, so I opened fire with crossed fingers. 0 died. There was trouble afoot. I charged anyway, knowing that Karandras would strike first with his 7 St5, WS7 chainsword attacks, the Genies would strike back, and the rest of the surviving, Fearless Scorps would unleash hell with 4 chainsword attacks each. Then the Exarch would masterfully slay at least one more buggy.

It's a good thing my guys were Fearless. One Genestealer died per turn over the next 3 close combat phases. Karandras claimed one of their lives, common Scorps got the other two.

Karandras was the last one to die, right beside the Exarch of the squad. The 5 remaining Genestealers ran into cover, and nabbed an objective.

That squad of Genestealers was later reduced to 1 member thanks to the crafty work of my Warp Spiders, and I even tried a desperate charge with Powerblades, but didn't make it through the 3 inches of terrain the bug was hiding in, and so the Tyranids won after Turn 5, holding 1 objective more than I did. The knowledge that I would have drawn the game had Karandras NOT failed in spectacular fashion leaves me with an abiding contempt for him now.

That's the risk of SCs, I know (what happens when Grimaldus doesn't get back up? What do you say after the Deceiver fails to pass a single 4+ invulnerable save? Where do you turn after Mephiston fails three psyker tests, WITHOUT any interference from the enemy?). The 'funnest' part is when someone begins the game moaning and groaning about how overpowered a certain character is, then rejoicing when that character fails utterly, and meets my sorrow with the words "He was overpowered anyway." (This has only happened once, during a PUG, thank goodness.)

Absolutley not. its your army and you shouldnt need your opponents permission to use a special character

I personally don't use special characters, mainly because I don't want to use Abbadon or the SW characters, but primarily because I like building my characters with what I have or making my own SC to use in games with friends. We balance our characters out through play testing.

I don't have a problem using SC, I do like being informed if I am going up against one though. There's this one guy at our GW that usually always asks if you'll allow him to play with SC. Which I think is nice, and he always asks if you'll allow him to use two, if he wants to take two.

I voted Yes because the entire game is one based off of consent.

Now the poll like many does not take into account varying factors. Thing like the difference between tournament and casual play. If you ask me, in person, the question that has been presented for the poll, I'd have two different answers.

At a tourney the answer would be no you do not have to ask, with the proviso of whether it violated the Tourney rules to have a special character. Now, you do have to tell me if I ask what is in your army, though.

Personally I announce such at the beginning of the gane because I feel not doing such is a douchebag P***y move. What? you afraid you can't win by facing your opponent with honor. Seriously, My deceptions are in my tactics not in my hiding an uber-unit in my list.

Now for casual games, yeah its based off of permission. What? You disagree? Try and make me play. If I'm out for a casual game and I don't want to face some power gamer with a themed army I'm building then the power gamer is SOL if now one wants to play.

Now mind you, the this is just an example. I'm almost always up for a game. Only times I turn down games is schedule or if past experience tells me that a 2 hour game will be a 5 hour argument with TFG.

Yep, game of consent.

There do seem to be some people in this thread that are stuck with the opinion that special characters are awesome when that just isn't the case. (see the comment about "every nid army would have Doom")

I can only assume that since they don't play special characters they're not basing this off any real experience.

I like to see to expensive special characters in my opponent's army - that just means less models to kill. Seriously, other than the army build unlocking ones, there are not many that are worth taking and even less that are significantly better than the same points of other stuff.

To answer the question, no permission is not required - they're no different to any other unit.

H.B.M.C. wrote:

MeanGreenStompa wrote:I'd like to see them go back to being 'by agreement only'.

Soon as that happens they stop being used for the same reasons FW stuff is never used - people are afraid of losing (though they won't admit it) and therefore won't allow something that they think will give an advantage to their opponent.

Now, as it happens, a lot of the current crop of special characters do give an advantage (but they have to - how else is GW going to make money on a model someone will only ever buy once? They have to make everyone want to buy it, and rules are the best way to do that). As soon as 'requires permission' enters back into the 40K vocab, these units vanish.

I own all DE characters that have a mini except Asdrubael Vect, High Marshall Helbrecht and Chaplain Grimaldus for my BT and Saint Celestine for my SoB. This were bought to be used. But I also have a second Saint Celestine, one Khârn the Betrayer, one Abaddon the Despoiler, one Commander Dante, one Mephiston, two Tycho, one Corbulo... all of this were bought just because I loved the minis and I wanted to paint them. My second Celestine was bought to be converted by putting her wings, and I'll paint one Tycho in his golden armour, and the other in his black armour.

So I would say the rules are not the main reason to buy a miniature for many people.

In my "to buy" list: Ahriman, Typhus, Fabius Bile... and maybe the two new BA winged guys xDD

On the thread: I don't mind to wether say or not "this mini is this character", but I don't feel obligated at all to explain it's special rules. I learn some of the rules of other characters by reading them, and some other by experience. Same should be for my oponents, if you haven't worried of reading it's rules before... then welcome to the jungle! :O

MeanGreenStompa wrote:I'd like to see them go back to being 'by agreement only'.

The biggest problem with having special characters be by argreement is with special build armies. I bring my wazzdakka army, you say no and I no longer have a legal army.

Scott-S6 wrote:

MeanGreenStompa wrote:I'd like to see them go back to being 'by agreement only'.

The biggest problem with having special characters be by argreement is with special build armies. I bring my wazzdakka army, you say no and I no longer have a legal army.

Hence my suggestion that special characters simply become one example of a build, you give all the powers and bits n bobs they bring and assign them a points cost and make them available to standard HQs in the codex.

You can then tailor your hqs to build such armies:

'Born ta be wild!' The Warboss may take bikes as troop choices, those specifically taken as troop choices count as scoring = #pts.
'WaaaghLord' The Warboss is mighty indeed and benefits from the following stat increases +2W +1WS +1T +1S =#pts.

'The Host of Hosts' You may upgrade your Captain to a Blood Angel Commander for the following points cost, this allows you to take Sanguinary Guard as troops choices.

See? I think that's a lot better and can allow people to tailor characters to their want, So for example with my Blood Axe Warlord, I could buy things that allowed say, battlewagons to be taken, minus a killkannon, as troop transports rather than Heavy Support choices, also Kommandos as troop choices or for a reduced points cost and stormboys that didn't lose troops on bad dice rolls for movement.

Allow more theme in the army via HQ choices, rather than less.
Special characters would still exist, but simply as examples of combinations of the 'powers' choices available to all HQs.

That's fine in some hypothetical future edition. However, in the current edition making SCs permission only creates a problem.

captain sicarius doesnt need permission
but 40k night goblin chaos lord needs
thats fair

The poll needs three questions not two.

Question 1 should have been split into

A. Get permission.
B. Be announced.

MeanGreenStompa wrote:

Scott-S6 wrote:

MeanGreenStompa wrote:I'd like to see them go back to being 'by agreement only'.

The biggest problem with having special characters be by argreement is with special build armies. I bring my wazzdakka army, you say no and I no longer have a legal army.

Hence my suggestion that special characters simply become one example of a build, you give all the powers and bits n bobs they bring and assign them a points cost and make them available to standard HQs in the codex.

You can then tailor your hqs to build such armies:

'Born ta be wild!' The Warboss may take bikes as troop choices, those specifically taken as troop choices count as scoring = #pts.
'WaaaghLord' The Warboss is mighty indeed and benefits from the following stat increases +2W +1WS +1T +1S =#pts.

'The Host of Hosts' You may upgrade your Captain to a Blood Angel Commander for the following points cost, this allows you to take Sanguinary Guard as troops choices.

Why not just bring back a strategy card system for standard 40K that allows stuff like this.

Elite army: May take a specific elite choice as troops

etc., etc.

No point costs, but you pick x number (eitehr a flat number or based upon game size)

If everyone has access it is a matter of picking 1-2 cards before each game with having to fudge points

Doesn't having that avaible identically across all armies kinda reduce the differentiation between races? Not to mention that it becomes difficult to balance if it's applied to every codex.

How is that acceptable but having special characters that do is not?

Scott-S6 wrote:Doesn't having that avaible identically across all armies kinda reduce the differentiation between races? Not to mention that it becomes difficult to balance if it's applied to every codex.

How is that acceptable but having special characters that do is not?

I have zero issue with special characters.

But one of the biggest complaints in this thread have been things like "this character is broken" or "this character is cheesy", etc. suggesting that other armies have something they do not and thus it is unfair.

If you make access to traits and/abilities broader across armies then people as a whole have less to complain about because you have lessoned the "grass is greener..." phenomenon.

It would be very easy to have tiered cards for example, with various ones worth 1-3 points. Each player gets 3 stratagy points and picks cards as apart of list creation. So you could pick one 3 pt. card or three 1 pt. cards. The cards would have abilities/options in keeping with cost of card.

Another option rather than a flat 3pts. for each player is to have the strategy card points related to levels of HQ. So for example a future codexes might go back to having multiple HQ levels such as for Marines three levels of commander: force commander, captain and chapter master, etc.

Then have the points tied to those levels, so a force commander gets 1 strategy card point and a chapter master gets three, etc. In addition to adding variety to game play and list design, this would allow people who wished to in effect make their own "characters" by modeling their HQ to represent the cards chosen in some way, so for example a commander given an artillery barrage asset might be modeled holding binocculars or calling in a bombardment on a vox, etc.

As for balance? You will always have people that will QQ and complain about balance, some people just because they like to make noise, but that doesnt mean a system couldn't be devised.

I would structure them as "strtategy/battle plan" cards, fir example off the top of my head:

1. One might have to do with flanking/reserves

2. One might represent wave attacks and allow troops to recycle

3. One might represnt an elite formation allowing you to take a specific elite type as troops

4. One might be naval assets allowing bombardments

There are a million potential themes and concepts that could be used, and Im not going to propose specifics here as it is beyond the scope of this thread, but the concept is doable. Such a system of traits would allow for additional ones to be added in future expansions (like COD-style books, etc.) or things like WD (hurray for actual game content in WD).


I think the various strategy cars in things like COD and Apoc. have the right idea and a system similar to this could be very easily incorporated into standard 40K as a way to customize armies, and vary game play etc.

CT GAMER wrote:But one of the biggest complaints in this thread have been things like "this character is broken" or "this character is cheesy", etc. suggesting that other armies have something they do not and thus it is unfair.

If you make access to traits and/abilities broader across armies then people as a whole have less to complain about because you have lessoned the "grass is greener..." phenomenon.

Every army has stuff that all the others don't.

As such, I feel that any kind of bonus system like you described will fail - some of the bonuses will be much better for some armies. Which will lead to the exact same complaining as about SCs from the exact same people.

Scott-S6 wrote:

CT GAMER wrote:But one of the biggest complaints in this thread have been things like "this character is broken" or "this character is cheesy", etc. suggesting that other armies have something they do not and thus it is unfair.

If you make access to traits and/abilities broader across armies then people as a whole have less to complain about because you have lessoned the "grass is greener..." phenomenon.

Every army has stuff that all the others don't.

As such, I feel that any kind of bonus system like you described will fail - some of the bonuses will be much better for some armies. Which will lead to the exact same complaining as about SCs from the exact same people.

Well 40K is a flawed system for what a lot of people want to do with it tp begin with: play it super competitively.

If more people looked at it as a miniatures-based RPG rather than as a sport we wouldn't be having a lot of these discussions, but the "sportshammer" mentality is the monster that GW created, and I don't expect that will ever change...

You say that but it usually seems to be the hobbyist players that complain the most about balance - the super competitive players take what the rules offer and run with it.

Scott-S6 wrote:You say that but it usually seems to be the hobbyist players that complain the most about balance - the super competitive players take what the rules offer and run with it.

You must be reading a different Dakka Dakka forum than I am...

I hate the idea of putting cards into the game. The mini's are enough to keep up with and now you want me to have to keep track of cards? Card games are fine, but I'm not playing a card game; if I wanted to I'd pick up a pack of cards for $4 and play WAR with them. much cheaper and the battles last just as long. This'll just complicate things even more to no point whatsoever as they will still whine and cry because their army doesn't wipe everything off the table. That can only be fixed by sending the individuals to boot camp and I'm fairly certain GW doesn't have the power to do that.

CT GAMER wrote:

Scott-S6 wrote:You say that but it usually seems to be the hobbyist players that complain the most about balance - the super competitive players take what the rules offer and run with it.

You must be reading a different Dakka Dakka forum than I am...

Just look at this thread. It's the hobby players and in-favour-of-comp players that don't want special characters. How many of the no-comp tourney players have said they should be banned?

I'd like the powers to all just have points costs, like making an individual eldar exarch used to be, back in the White Dwarf compendium days...

Scott-66 wrote:Just look at this thread. It's the hobby players and in-favour-of-comp players that don't want special characters. How many of the no-comp tourney players have said they should be banned?

So what?

Everyone doesn't have to like special characters just because GW changed a rule.