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I play Tomb Kings and a good friend of mine plays Vampire Counts, and I must say I'm highly envious of how specific and plentiful the fluff in his army book is, especially when it comes to special characters.

Tomb Kings only has two special characters in the army book, one of which seems highly situational, so I'm interested in making my own. Has Games Workshop (or a trustworthy third party) released any guidelines for making custom special characters? Using custom-made characters in tournaments is probably out of the question, but I in casual games I doubt any of my friends would care, as long as I kept things fair. Which is why I'm wondering if there are any official or pseudo-official guidelines for it.

Thanks in advance.

in tournaments - no.
in fun games - yes.

or, simply make the character and equip a lord / hero to resemble the character.
thats about as far as you can go tourney wise.

Well, depending on how much work you want to do, everything GW adds on to a special character pretty much has a points value... and most of those special neat thing-a-ma-bobs, or something very close to it, is available as a magic item to someone somewhere. Looking at the Gromril Great Helm, and the enchanted shield will give you an idea of how much +1 AS and/or rerolling armor saves is worth for example. You can make educated guesses... then mix and match stuff. The problem arises in factoring in downsides, weaknesses and not building the irresistable force or immovable object. If you'll notice almost all, if not all of the special characters still have a weakness. The ones riding a monstrous mount can lose their ride. Others have no movement bonus whatsoever, and can be avoided easier...

Breton wrote:Well, depending on how much work you want to do, everything GW adds on to a special character pretty much has a points value... and most of those special neat thing-a-ma-bobs, or something very close to it, is available as a magic item to someone somewhere. Looking at the Gromril Great Helm, and the enchanted shield will give you an idea of how much +1 AS and/or rerolling armor saves is worth for example. You can make educated guesses... then mix and match stuff. The problem arises in factoring in downsides, weaknesses and not building the irresistable force or immovable object. If you'll notice almost all, if not all of the special characters still have a weakness. The ones riding a monstrous mount can lose their ride. Others have no movement bonus whatsoever, and can be avoided easier...

And some suffer from hideous stupidity or epic vanity (part of GW's "counts as" project).

There was a break down of the cost of each stat in 2nd edition WHFB.
Would be good if GW did a points cost, including upgrades