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Don't know if this topic has already been discussed or not, but....

I remember a time when special characters were just somthing special you threw into your army for an additional chuckle. Most tournment did not even allow you to use them. However starting back with the DA codex and forward it seems like special characters are almost required. Such as If you want to play Deathwing, or Ravenwing, or Salamanders, ect. So what I'm wondering is: are these lists that require a special characters legitimate lists or are they just something you use for a fun casual game? This whole delemma could be avoided if the Codex's had Generic "Generic Master of the Deathwing" like the old DA codex or "Generic Salamander Captian". If the current trend continues. (and I realize this is an exaggeration) we might end up with a CSM codex that has: With use of Kharn the Betrayer, you may trade the mark of chaos undivided for the mark of Khorn.

The current trend in Codex Design is to make the special characters a requisite to get special rules on the regular units.

Kinda feels like 40k is trying to copy warmachine, where every warcaster/HQ unit is a named charater.

I quite like the way some of it works, eg. Deathwind, Canis etc. However it can easily be made overpowered (Vulkan) and therefore tedious.

However I personally love the way they encourage a theme to an army (I'm all about the fluff), but also like the stand-alone Special characters which dont have an influence on the rest of the force.

As I like both, I want them to keep both, however I do fear the 'force-influencing' special characters will become too common and restrict the potential variety within armies...

If i'm not mistaken, special characters in Fantasy are still that way, they're ridiculously powerful, and tournaments don't allow them (I think) and your supposed to have your opponents permission to use them too.

You are mistaken Snikkyd. Named Characters are no more powerful than any others in the game with a VERY few exceptions (Thorek). GW has been leaning to the style of play where Named Characters are just like any other army book choice. They no longer require opponent's permission in either 40K or Fantasy. Why some TO's disallow them still confuses me.

I think it's kinda fun to have special characters. It gives.. well, character.. to your army. I wouldn't do an Iyanden warhost without Yriel for exemple. Well I might but.. you know.. he just fits in so right!
And of course there's the Space Marine ones that let you personalize the whole army. The IG ones kinda do that as well, though on a smaller scale.
More options, more fluff, more fun.
I like.

On the other hand, since they're so unique, it would be very weird to have the same one on both sides of the table. The rules say you can only have one but what if your opponent has one as well? Not very likely but if it happens, it's kinda ridiculous. o_O

Todosi wrote:You are mistaken Snikkyd. Named Characters are no more powerful than any others in the game with a VERY few exceptions (Thorek). GW has been leaning to the style of play where Named Characters are just like any other army book choice. They no longer require opponent's permission in either 40K or Fantasy. Why some TO's disallow them still confuses me.

Ah well I heard that a lot of them were game breaking, and when tournaments allowed, them, everyone shows up with some 500-800 point character that destroys everyone.


Although I guarantee there are some characters like this. Like Thorek, Vlad von Carstein, Skrag, Kroak.

InquisitorBob wrote: The rules say you can only have one but what if your opponent has one as well?

Then one of them is clearly an imposter...

My favourite special character back in the day was Egrimm van Horstmann who in 5th edition Warhammer cost a ridiculous 1200 points, yes you read that correctly.

Anyway, special characters tend to be a bit annoying, I prefer armies that don't rely on a handful of powerful characters with special abilities. It's a bit dull seeing the same special characters appear time and again and from a fluff perspective it stretches credulity when the chapter master turns out for some small punch up against some orks fighting over a few buildings.

Howard A Treesong wrote:My favourite special character back in the day was Egrimm van Horstmann who in 5th edition Warhammer cost a ridiculous 1200 points, yes you read that correctly.

Anyway, special characters tend to be a bit annoying, I prefer armies that don't rely on a handful of powerful characters with special abilities. It's a bit dull seeing the same special characters appear time and again and from a fluff perspective it stretches credulity when the chapter master turns out for some small punch up against some orks fighting over a few buildings.

Herohammer! Still annoying....

I like using Special Characters, but in many cases they're a risky business - they're usually no less vulnerable than any other given unit, and typically cost way more points (Though I know Shas'o O'Shovah costs less than the survivable vanilla Commander). It's not that difficult to lose that character on the first turn unless you stick him in a pile of ablative wounds.

Although I greatly prefer theming an army around the Commander, not just sticking him in there for laughs. Again, with Farsight, if he's taken, the army is best off relying on Crisis Suits. It's much better, fluff-wise, to build the army around a Special Character, rather than just having him visit for a battle.

I think special characters should be special and not used every game. I tend not to use them because they usually cost so much you have a less effective army. I liked having generic masters for ravenwing and deathwing and such. I like the space wolf type thing of the different sagas that can do something like that, but it still has regular special characters. It just bothers me after a while to see people buying special characters every time they play and relying on them to win and not the whole army. Can't get rid of special characters all together, but would be nice to see them not be the focus of the game. The increased chance of death helps that, but doesn't eliminate it.

I don't mind special characters. Would it change people's perception if Ghazghkull wasn't actually Ghaz, but rather an HQ choice "Megaboss," Or Snikrot was "Elite Kommando Nob," with a 0-1 limit? Not really. They just gave them names. Most are fine, a couple walk the line of being overpowered and, curiously, those are not the ones that are individually powerful, but ones whose "armywide" rules can be breakable.

I'm not a huge fan of Special Characters, mostly because I liek naming my characters and then using the history of the games I play to make them my own special character, 'fluff' wise, but with the change of direction with 5th Edition in regards to SC's as exemplified by the SM codex, I've become inured to seeing Vulkan etc. every game, because that's now the only way to play specific chapters and have them seem different from Codex marines.