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I was given a quote" the SW force is build around the characters" How much of your list is for HQ? Do you bring more than 1 HQ?
I play SW,BT,SoB but I am open to other forces. I was thinking of 3 levels :1000 points, 1500 pts and 1850 was the points uses for local game con turnys. I play mostly 1500 now but some players want to go to 1850.
{ Please lets skip Orks. A lot of the Named characters are used on a regular basis:Gazz,flanker guy-snigrot, painboy and forcefield mech boy. I don't know enough about orks to tdiscuss them} sorry.

A kid a FLGS likes terminator hero gods. DA ,Balial (spelled wrong). He was talking, that he had a better IC now.
We will talk about turny or TOAC. Not builds just to kill 1 faction. {I will gladly hear about how to kill mech eldar} The eldar player uses a "seer council" don't know much about them other than they kickbutt on normal tac/GH units.

Do people have more than 1 mega character. Or a few 120 pt SW IC's

Not IC's but Does anyone use "Lucas the trickster or WG Arjac Rockfist ?(188) points for a WG, so you will need 2 other WG models to use Arjac.
Would He be good as part of a retnue of a big build IC?

I never use any special charracters and take great joy in killing them. Your best bet against a uber dude army is to outnumber them, made even easier by the point costs on some of those guys. I play Guard, Tau and Nids however and am unable to give you specific advice for your armies, basic anty-deathstar tactics should apply though.

I usually will not take more than a quarter of my points in HQ - In fact more like a fifth.

Any more and the bodies get thin on the ground.

well the space wolf force i plan to build has a 255 point wolf lord in a 750 point list so yeah i do think a sw list is built on hero's.

After all they can have the best normal character with awesome abitlity's (Eternal warrior for bear and warrior born come to mind) And they can be cavalry so they have a possible effectiveness range of 24 inches and they look awesome. And you can have 4 OF THEM! (plus Lucas plus arjac)

And having so many heroes is fluffy for the wolfs so why not?

I did some thinking and i believe SoB can use these tricks against IC heavy lists.
In effectivness order:

1. Melta to the face owns heavily armored and lowly numbered enemies.
2. Exorcist to pop transports at range killing theyr mobility.
3. Transport spam – everybody's doing it.
4. Flamers, noone can make all his saves, and are usefull against larger units too.

I think that you have to look at the two different types of characters available here.

Firstly, you have characters that unlock a new build for the army. For example, Belial lets you take terminators as troops, Logan lets you have wolf guard, marine biker captains let you have bike squads, Shrike makes everyone fleet, etc. You also have the force multiplier characters like Vulcan.

If that build is desirable then you need the character, cost isn't really an issue.


On the other hand, you have characters that don't contribute to the army overall but are just powerful in themselves. Mephiston is a good example of this - he's pretty awesome but he doesnt directly contribute to the rest of the army.

With characters like this you need to be much more careful as it's very easy to waste points. Either the character complements the rest of your army or he fills a gap. Either way you want to be very careful that you are getting good value for your points - a character might be really good but can you buy a squad for the same price that does the same job with more resilience?


Most of the non-special characters fall somewhere inbetween - they are enablers for other units but not army-wide. A librarian or a chaplain can boost a squad quite effectively for a reasonable outlay.


Personally, I either go with a build-unlocking character or a basic cheap HQ.

On that i agree the unlocking characters are pretty great.
Vulkan however i can't agree with you on both my Nids and my IG have had no problems with him, like i said outnumbering is great and so are boneswords.

It does depend on the army. I like to limit myself to about 15% for a single leader or 25% for two of them. Most armies are going to have to spend 200 points for a decent leader.

I think Vulkan or Captain on a Bike are the best choices for Marines.

Well it seems im against the norm in this thread but for 1500 point games i spend about 350 points. For me and my Chaos Space Marines i get 2 decked out daemon princes with wings, warptime, and a mark. This allows me to hit hard and fast and decimate squads with Sweeping Advance or No Retreat wounds.

Its funny how its been mentioned that massive numbers are the best way to deal with HQ's however since my DP's have wings i always make sure i get the charge and numbers have never been a problem.

However on my Chaos Daemons list i wil spend up to 500 points on my HQ's. My reason being is i run a Daemonzilla list with a Bloodthirster, Keeper of Secrets and 2 jazzed up daemon princes. I can tell you that it takes a lot a lot of numbers to kill 4 big monstrous creatures. Also chaos daemons have high weapon skills so units like gaunts hit on a 5+ and then aura of decay thins out the crowds very easily. Shooting from gunlines like IG is simple enough with wings. I just fly from cover to cover untill i assault and then they are done.

I think your number and points worth of HQ depends on your play style. I like to run heavy on HQ's with troops supporting.

I spend as little as possible and as much as needed.

260 for 2 Princes in my CSM.
180 for my SM Bikers at 1500.
315 for my SM Bikers at 1500+.
275 for my Jetbike Eldar at 1850.

Generally less is more when it comes to HQ's I feel. The army wins the games, the HQ is there to support it.

mrwittwer wrote:Well it seems im against the norm in this thread but for 1500 point games i spend about 350 points. For me and my Chaos Space Marines i get 2 decked out daemon princes with wings, warptime, and a mark. This allows me to hit hard and fast and decimate squads with Sweeping Advance or No Retreat wounds.

If my armies had anything like Demon Princes I would run two of them as well. Sadly a pair of Hive Tyrants would now cost about 500 points to do that trick...

mrwittwer wrote:Well it seems im against the norm in this thread but for 1500 point games i spend about 350 points. For me and my Chaos Space Marines i get 2 decked out daemon princes with wings, warptime, and a mark. This allows me to hit hard and fast and decimate squads with Sweeping Advance or No Retreat wounds.

What you are runing is not against the norm its in fact one of the most common CSM HQ builds.
As for the hiding in cover thing IG have vendettas and FOMT to negate that quite well, believe me it works.

Right, there are options unlockers and there are points wasters, nothing in between. If you want to play a relatively vanilla list, don't bother taking any at all.

For my guard army I spend 125. 80 on the basic unit cost and weapons upgrade and 45 on metagame upgrades (standard and fleet officer).

Unless you have something really specific in mind, I'd advise avoiding special characters like the plague. Mephiston may be very powerful for a single character, but once he starts regularly being taken down by a few extra plasma guns that your opponents start bringing, you'll wish you had a couple more tac squads instead.

Well, I usually take cheap HQ if possible:
SM: Codicier with terminator armour, storm shield, nullzone, and whatnot.
Eldar: Farseer with both runes and whatnot.
CSM: one or two winged lash Princes.
DE: tooled up Archon.

315 for my SM bikers (captain + librarian on bikes)
100 for my SM mech lists (librarian)

In my space wolf force I always take a rune priest to be my HQ of choice. If I bring my blood claws I will also bring a wolf priest. (best place for them in my opinion.) I will sometimes make my wolf priest Ulrik. One of the Cheapest character but man is he mean.

I have not played with the other characters yet but I sure want to. But I like taking the basic leader guys and try not to go crazy with my characters. I think lucas the trickster is cool and gives your army something a bit more. I know he sure makes your blood claws that much meaner. stick all those guys in a land raider crusader and watch yoru enemys squeel when they get to hand to hand combat.

I plan on running Lucas myself.

i will eventually run ragnar. that dude is just gross.

I am realising the need for IC. Trading a IC for more troops is not always good. I had a vet sarg with a PW take out 6 tac SM. Belial has crushed my army before. The kid was using the wrong SS rules. I do like lots of bodies. I would like a SW combat kickbutt machine. To go aginst Orks.
Bikes and wolf mounts are point costly. Is it points spent well?
When I put Ragnar with 15 marines with a LRC, seem to be almost 1/2 of the army list.
I am running Canis wolfborn when I use my TWC.
I need a very fast IC to take on my Mech Eldar opponent.
Sometimes Heros are not where you need them.
Please submit your HQ. Especialy SW a little on the IC's role. Canis leads the TWC, He will bolster the Wolves with the INT5.
I fielded Njal In a Rhino with 5 GH many times but I felt he was not worth the points. He was used to cause confusing and living lightning troops that would be out of range for weapons.

@resinmann:
Your post is all over the place .

Bikes and wolf mounts are spent well if they get the IC where they need to be.
Not every list uses Bikes or Wolves on Wolves, and so their utility would diminish if they had that gear an no posse to roll with.

Canis in TWC and wolves of course makes sense and would be better than Njal in a Rhino with 5 GH silliness.

If I were to go SW it would be 1 Wolf Priest on a bike, 3 Rune Priests on bikes, all thrown in on a max squad of Bloodclaw bikers with Wolf Guard on bike.

AN all or nothing Biker Death Star... it will win big or lose big of course

For anything over 500 points my HQ is always the same

Canonnes w/ Mastercraft Inferno Pistol, Eviscerator, Jump Pack, cloak of St. Aspira. The Quintessential 'Flying Nun'.
For 140 points you can't go wrong.

I don't think she's ever failed to make her points back, and your opponent's expression when she takes a melta (or three!) to the face and lives is always worth seeing.

I know it is silly but I always use special characters but in small points games I use pumped up HQ's. I like your Canoness, Azezel, I run something similar but with a Rosarius and Mantle of Aphelia.

My CSM - 155
My CD - 495

I guess ill do it too:
My IG
1500 or less=85
More than 1500=170

For space wolves I just taylor my lists HQs to make the most out of my units.

sometimes its Logan Grimnar for scoring wolf guard and super effective long fangs

sometimes its Ragnar Blackmane to make a nasty close combat force

sometimes its Wolf Priests with blood claws in a LRC

sometimes its Rune Priests with long fangs

sometimes its Bjorn with an iron priest in a redeemer right next to him


First I think about the type of list I want to play, what units will maximize my effectivness, then I think about what HQ will work best with those units in that type of an army.

As a general rule, only pay around 10-15 % of your total points on HQ. Yes, this means that you won't be able to use special characters except for at high points levels. Many players over power their HQ and turn it into a points sink. Most of the time those points are better spent elsewhere. No matter how awesome a special character is, they can still be piled upon and defeated.

It really depends. In my ork army, I'll use a large Chunk, as I take Ghazgul and a KFF Mek.
In my SW I never take anything more than 1 Rune Priest, with a CotS if I have the points free.
Eldar I use Eldrad and a Seer, so the same deal as Orks really.

IG? As little as possible. Like 10% at most.

I disagree with Azezel:Canonnes w/ Mastercraft Inferno Pistol, Eviscerator, Jump Pack, cloak of St. Aspira. The Quintessential 'Flying Nun'.
For 140 points you can't go wrong. I like the blessed weapon better than a Eviscerator. The Str is only 1 less. You can get 2nd weapon bonus and not have to go INT 1. But I do like flying nuns.

I play daemons and I ALWAYS take at least my Bloodthirster (fully upgraded at 300 points) I sometimes I mix him in with other HQ choices such as Blue Scribes (130 points) joined to my Flamers or Skulltaker (160 Points with Chariot). And sometimes its a really mean combo to run a Fateweaver (333 Points) next to Bloodthirster because Fateweaver lets all units within 6" re-roll failed saving throws. (EVEN HIMSELF!!)

I would suggest the evicerator...the +Str faith makes it str 8.......alot more utility that str 7 IMO.