Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

For the benefit of newbies, Herohammer is a reference to 2nd Edition 40K when independent characters could be kitted out to dominate the game to the point where there wasn't much point in taking any normal troops.

3rd Edition and 4th Edition really toned that down (hello WS5 Space Marine Chapter Masters), but the three Codexes published post 5th Edition (i.e. Space Marines, Imperial Guard and Space Wolves) seem to be wandering subtly back in the direction of ultra hard mega characters who do more than pull their own weight. Infact, Codex Space Wolves seems to actively encourage it with 4 HQ choices available in standard games.

Three examples...

Space Marine Chapter Masters - Call down a 5" S10 template onto your opponent, before you get stuck in with your Thunderhammer

Imperial Guard Company Commanders - I could point to the S6 T4 combat monster that is Iron Hand Strakken, but what about being able to turn up to six lascannons into twin-linked weapons via the "Bring it Down!" command?

Space Wolf Rune Priests - Do psychic powers that can destroy a six wound monstrous creature on a good roll of a single D6 have a place in standard games of 40K?

Flashman wrote:

Space Marine Chapter Masters - Call down a 5" S10 template onto your opponent, before you get stuck in with your Thunderhammer

Scatters full distance, chapter master cant move when he uses it, situationally good, but you pay extra points for it.

Flashman wrote:
Imperial Guard Company Commanders - I could point to the S6 T4 combat monster that is Iron Hand Strakken, but what about being able to turn up to six lascannons into twin-linked weapons via the "Bring it Down!" command?

they are guard, they still have the biggest weakness of guard armies, and that is that they are guard.

Flashman wrote:
Space Wolf Rune Priests - Do psychic powers that can destroy a six wound monstrous creature on a good roll of a single D6 have a place in standard games of 40K?

yes, as does twinlinked multimeltas that can destory 250+ points worth of vehicles with a single shot.

They've discovered that the long-time albatross around their knecks - Special Characters that sit around on shelves for years at a time - can be made to move by returning to HeroHammer-esque rules. That's why there's such an emphasis on special characters - all these new models to sell is.

Remember, at GW, selling new stuff is always the most important thing:

1. Models.
2. Fluff.
...
82949399292. Rules.

I don't feel that characters are as dominant as in 2ed edition.
They now emphasize on special characters because obviously, GW doesn't expect gamers to create their own fluff and characters anymore. So special characters are almost always better than the normal joe-schmoe-commander or grant you with near-broken army special rules that are too good to pass.

Greets
Schepp himself

THeyre not as dominant for the simple reason that you cant have up to 50% of your points be characters (generally)

I also dont think you should be comparing normal characters to herohammer and I find it extremely odd you didnt even bring up special characters considering that is where the herohammer talk starts

Beginning with our elven savior Eldrad the characters have gotten more and more powerful

I must agree that the focus on characters are starting to annoy me.
For me 40k is about troops and tanks, and a good mix of them!

2 Hq units are fine by me but like in the Woofs and Deamon books where you can have more, it is starting to unbalance things.
And upgrade characters are something i really don't like. But hey, that's me!


//Edge

I prefer the Imperial Guard Company Commander and similar leaders to the rest: they should add leadership to an army, not just be another gun or close combat monster.

I also like the 2-for-1 Characters per HQ slot, so long as it's like the Chaos Daemons codex where it's one Greater Daemon or two Heralds. It balances it between one powerful choices and two secondary choices. If it was a choice of one Wolf Lord or equivalent and two secondary characters like Rune Priests, Wolf Priests, Iron Priests, etc, then it would be cool so you can have the right mix of command personnel in the Great Company.

That's something that's annoying about Codexes: Space Marines, Blood Angels, and Dark Angels: You can't take a Captain, a Librarian, and a Chaplain in the same force organization chart.

I'd certainly love to see a return of the Chaos Space Marine Lieutenant, a Chaos Space Marine with the characteristics of Space Marine/Space Wolf secondary characters (but WS and BS5). A Space Marine lieutenant character wouldn't go amiss either. I miss having those intermediate ranks like Lieutenant and Lieutenant-Commander (detachment and taskforce commanders, respectively, a detachment being 4 squads/vehicles of Space Marine troops, a taskforce being 2-3 companies).

H.B.M.C. wrote:They've discovered that the long-time albatross around their knecks - Special Characters that sit around on shelves for years at a time - can be made to move by returning to HeroHammer-esque rules. That's why there's such an emphasis on special characters - all these new models to sell is.

Remember, at GW, selling new stuff is always the most important thing:

1. Models.
2. Fluff.
...
82949399292. Rules.

Yep

Instant death is still a great balancing factor vs most special characters in 40k.....most can still be instakilled by a meltagun.......

Uber characters don't sit too well with me.

2nd Ed's characters were very OTT and I couldn't count how many times I lost a game that I was winning due to an uber character.

3rd balanced it out a bit until CSM came out for third and they were pretty Uber.
Then CSM 3.5 came out and they were obscene.

4th balanced it out again and with it came the need for more stuff and less characters. CSM became less powerful.

5th came around and said have more troops.

But now it's creeping back to what I call 2.5 Ed.
You need troops to claim objectives and HQ plus delivery system to beat face and win.

And ATM there are 4 Codecies that give us Uber characters:

Space Wolves - Canis, Njal and Bjorn.
Space Marines - Vulkan and Pedro.
Daemons - That huge wingless Bloodthirster and Skulltaker.
IG - CCS.

Saying that I'm a bit partial to killing stuff with Canis. Lots of fun.

I am moving this thread to WH40K General Discussions.

My main gripe about SM Chapter masters getting the S10 thing was S10 used to be something special relegated to Tau railguns and the occasional MC with a high S. Now it seems that everybody is getting more S10 options.

I also wouldn't mind some of these changes if they weren't tied to characters, but that's the way GW wants it.

freddieyu1 wrote:Instant death is still a great balancing factor vs most special characters in 40k.....most can still be instakilled by a meltagun.......

And yet several special characters are getting the ability to inflict instant death (Sicarius, Captain Al'Ahrem).

Somebody queried why I didnt include Special Characters in my original post - I was trying to demonstrate the return of the ordinary uber character similar to but not as bad as 2nd Ed (where you could have Vortex Grenades!). Current SCs are of course very Herohammer esque.

@ KK - Apologies for not posting in 40K Discussions.

I actually have to agree on this. It seems like SCs are getting more and more powerful. And that annoys me, as well as alot of the people I play with. Most of the time we dont take SCs because 1. it makes no sense fluff wise for our armies and 2. can totally unbalance a game. Im sorry but its NOT balanced when a 100pt unit can destroy 500 pts or so. Thats just ridiculous

I don't think they are getting more and more powerful. I think what they add to a list has gotten more powerful but let's be honest. We never fielded special characters ever because they were normally priced twice as high as they needed to be.

I like the new trend and don't find any of them overpowered on an individual basis. What they add to the armies is pretty intense sometimes but they require a build around them (excluding Eldrad who is what.....5 codexes back?).

I do wish that certain characters (read Eldrad) actually had some kind of drawback but meh. I'm overall happy with where the game is going and the only special character in the new wolf book I could see taking is Logan to make WG troops

@Kracker
Explain that to a 50pt melta attack bike that can kill a landraider.

If it wasn't for point imbalances and inconsistencies there would be no game, it'd just be a grinding match to see who's the luckiest. Having the point, capability, and availability matrix in Warhammer means variety, which is good because there's nothing quite as boring as playing the same cookie-cutter armies all the time.

Still, it's good to see a new codex can jog people out of their dogmatic slumbers (a cookie to you if you know who I'm paraphrasing!) and make them rethink the way that the game has most recently crystalized.

I think it's great that the elite side of the game is being propped up again, to balance out the recent trend towards larger amounts of essentials. My group can't be the only one that's noticed the back-to-basics trend where armies take 6 units of Troops and then add minimum HQ and Fast Attack after picking up Elite and Heavy Support options. I mean, I like playing 'basic' Warhammer, but having both powerful characters and powerful hordes can only be good.

I actually like more powerful characters because it makes the game more interesting in certain aspects

I dont know of any kid who wanted to be Kent clark yet everyone wanted to be superman

Kirasu:

It's interesting that you should mention that because it highlights a tension in the Warhammer game. On one hand people get more invested in individual character models, particularly heroic ones, and on the other hand some people want actual battles between masses of troops. On the gripping hand there's a sweet spot somewhere in the middle where the choice is an aesthetic preference rather than a competitive one.

I think it's interesting that people are more interested in playing with strength rather than the traditional marker of wargaming which is playing with weakness. Take falling back and pinning, which don't happen much, and which tend to frustrate the heck out of players when it does - after all who wants to take units that might run away or do nothing when other units that let you be more involved in the game exist?

On Superman:

Part of the appeal of Superman is that he can't be hurt, but that just makes writers turn themselves and the universe in knots coming up with exceptions and situations where he can be hurt so there's some sort of dramatic tension around the character. But that's also a turn-off for many people: Superman can't be hurt (except for x, y, z, etc) so where's the human interest? People get hurt: that's the same reason why so many people aren't interested in science fiction and fantasy to begin with, it's too far removed from what they find interesting and compelling.

OnTheEdge wrote:

2 Hq units are fine by me but like in the Woofs and Deamon books where you can have more, it is starting to unbalance things.
//Edge

Wolves used to have to take an HQ for every 750 points in their army. In an 'Ard Boyz game they would need 4HQs anyway.
If anything, the new Wolf 'dex will reduce the number of HQs for the Wolves, since you can only take one if you choose to. I feel it makes sense for Wolves to be very hero-centric, what with the Viking sagas and all that. Then again, maybe that's just me.

I will say the emphasis on special characters can get pretty out of hand, but I play with pretty sane players so I don't mind that much.

In the switch to 3rd, GW cut a lot of stuff deep. Probably too deep, and they've started pushing stuff back. Nobody wants 2nd edition, when a 2000pt army had a tactical squad, a terminator squad, a dreadnought and five beefy characters, but bad ass characters should be able to throw down.

The 3rd ed characters were pretty neutered. I think the modern ones are a good mix, esp in 5th edition with the emphasis on scoring troops.

Nurglitch wrote:Kirasu:

It's interesting that you should mention that because it highlights a tension in the Warhammer game. On one hand people get more invested in individual character models, particularly heroic ones, and on the other hand some people want actual battles between masses of troops. On the gripping hand there's a sweet spot somewhere in the middle where the choice is an aesthetic preference rather than a competitive one.

I think it's interesting that people are more interested in playing with strength rather than the traditional marker of wargaming which is playing with weakness. Take falling back and pinning, which don't happen much, and which tend to frustrate the heck out of players when it does - after all who wants to take units that might run away or do nothing when other units that let you be more involved in the game exist?

On Superman:

Part of the appeal of Superman is that he can't be hurt, but that just makes writers turn themselves and the universe in knots coming up with exceptions and situations where he can be hurt so there's some sort of dramatic tension around the character. But that's also a turn-off for many people: Superman can't be hurt (except for x, y, z, etc) so where's the human interest? People get hurt: that's the same reason why so many people aren't interested in science fiction and fantasy to begin with, it's too far removed from what they find interesting and compelling.

I just believe that characters can offer a new avenue for tactics and army building in general. I oppose 2nd ed hero hammer but I welcome army changing characters such as Vulkan or Grimnar. 3rd ed was horribly boring in terms of army building and 4th ed was an interesting mix but crippled by the entanglement rule

Personally i enjoy highly tactical and intelligent games of 40k so I dont want unstoppable characters ruining it. 5th did a decent job with requiring troops, but a bad job at giving armies equally powerful troops

I think there should be more of a limit on taking 2 characters of equal power to avoid super combos, yet there should be high powered leaders. Dante should have better stats than a captain, etc.. Because hes Dante

I think Herohammer left its mark and is something GW wouldn't want to go back to, atleast not in the way it was in its hayday. We're steadily moving towards Herohammer Lite... where Heros are becoming more and more neccessary but don't really break the game like they used to. GW appears to be more calculating about this.

Polonius wrote: Nobody wants 2nd edition, when a 2000pt army had a tactical squad, a terminator squad, a dreadnought and five beefy characters,

Thats sounds great to me

I love hero hammer, Its why I started playing SW back in 2nd, If any army in the 40K universe should have hero hammer HQs its the SW.

I would agree with you, if ICs didn't tend to get shot to death while standing on their own so much in this edition.

Even the ork warboss Ghazzkull Thrakka couldn't stand up to Broadsides or Obliterators shooting him in the face with lasguns/railguns...I mean yeah it's overkill, but he's standing on his own, and worth about as much as a land raider.

Not to mention you can pick ICs out of squads in close combat, so guess who eats that nasty power fist attack hidden in the tactical squad? In fact, you don't even have to do this, if you can win combat against the IC's squad, he gets run down along with them.

While IC's are powerful, the new CC rules and the amount of shots flying around your standard battlefield, really makes heroes more balanced.

Why would you ever have an Independent Character out on his own? The whole point of Independent Characters is to have them hidden within a unit. At least where Chaos Space Marines are concerned, part of combining an Independent Character with a unit is about ensuring that the opposing unit is obliterated.

Ill agree with nurglitch here.

also, whats a lascannon or railgun going to do to a T5 model that cannot be killed via insteant death, has a ++ save ontop of a basic 2+ save.

He allows a fleet move of 6" to all ork units in the 2nd turn onwards with no ill effects.

Oh, and 7 S10 klaw attacks on the charge


Ok, he is the same cost as a land raider, but he is alot more destructive.



Now it just seems people are shaping thier lists around a single characters special rule/s.
Which pretty much restrics competative builds to no more than a new cookie cutter choice.

Only time i even use a special character is when i get bored and take Mephiston, and for his 225 points (same as ghaz) he is 100X easier to kill, has no over the top special rules, and he doesent change the army structure.

starbomber109 wrote:I would agree with you, if ICs didn't tend to get shot to death while standing on their own so much in this edition.

Even the ork warboss Ghazzkull Thrakka couldn't stand up to Broadsides or Obliterators shooting him in the face with lasguns/railguns...I mean yeah it's overkill, but he's standing on his own, and worth about as much as a land raider.

Not to mention you can pick ICs out of squads in close combat, so guess who eats that nasty power fist attack hidden in the tactical squad? In fact, you don't even have to do this, if you can win combat against the IC's squad, he gets run down along with them.

While IC's are powerful, the new CC rules and the amount of shots flying around your standard battlefield, really makes heroes more balanced.

As stated.. why would they be on their own.. despite poor generalship

Also those arent "new" assault rules as they are exactly the same as 4th in regards to characters being different units during assaults.. In REALITY 5th ed rules make characters HARDER to kill because of the little addition of "must strike units in B2B contact first".. thus you can position ICs to avoid power fists very easily

The only thing that i dont like about special characters or characters in general is that that it seems that they are all geared to one of 2 things, psychic powers or CC.

I mean are there any characters out there that use their shooting as the main hook. IG command squads are more like support so i dont count them.

lol i remember back in the day when you had an option for a Kai gun for your chaos commander.