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I just got a worthwhile Lucius, like I am going to advocate for banning him!

I think, for quite some time now...40K has been designed around special characters. They're no longer just special characters in the back of the codex with good stats (remember: auras, buffs, and nonsense didn't exist back several editions).

Now they're far too important to the army...and I think they're designed that way. I do think it's a little lame. I don't think I would play an army which was predicated on using "synergy" related to special characters.

 Galas wrote:
I don't know what is stopping people from using the rules of special characters like Commander Dante of the Blood Angels to represent his own Chapter Master of a Blood Angel Sucessor.

Or using Abbaddon rules to represent a custom Chaos Space Marine Warlord. You just need a terminator guy with a powerclaw and a Daemonic Sword, and WYSIWYG. Then you are no more facing Abbadon, just a custom dude that uses his rules, so no problem ,no?

Because I don't know if people don't want to play against special characters or agains't their rules. To me, the name attached to a datasheet means nothing.

This is exactly what I do. Regular characters without Relics are just silly boring. I'm gonna be building a host of characters without using the official models. I like the rules for Lias and Asterion as much as I like my idea for the White Scars/Alpha Legion Biker Captain/Lord using a Storm/Combi-Bolter and Teeth Of Terra/Blade Of The Hydra.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:
I just got a worthwhile Lucius, like I am going to advocate for banning him!

This is definitely the first edition where he didn't feel like total garbage.

The fact that special characters are, in fact, special shouldn't be shocking. Plus, those aren't the broken units getting spammed in competitive play. It's commissar number 157 and Malefic Lords, etc.

Trying to limit competitive play doesn't fix what you're trying to fix - it just makes a new unit the top dog. Lowering the power levels just caters to the people who don't want to bring the most competitive things to a tournament. I can respect that, but don't think that you should win every game if you have that attitude.

ERJAK wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:
You are going about it all wrong. Competitive play needs to make an actually unbroken point system. Special characters on the whole aren't even that busted - you can only take one of them. They just need to be pointed right. Guilliman needs +40 points as does Azreal. Celestine needs +100. There are plenty of units that need obvious point adjustments - start there.

Oh feth that. Guillamen needs 100 Celestine needs like 10-40 tops. She's a T3 model, if you can't deal with her it's because YOU suck and that's IT.

Disagree. Circumstance and luck matter. An Exocrine loading into Celestine at full should do plenty of damage right?

I do think SCs are pointed oddly, but that's all subjective to play and further testing. I can without a doubt say that Swarmlord is not worth 300 points at this current time. Get him into combat and he's pretty scary, but walking up the board requires another unit to take damage off him, or you need a Tyrannocyte to throw an expensive, synaptic lynchpin/brick out in the open to hopefully make a charge (or automake a charge, but that means he's alone after your opponents next movement phase.)

 Carnikang wrote:
Disagree. Circumstance and luck matter. An Exocrine loading into Celestine at full should do plenty of damage right?

I mean... Yes?

12 shots, hitting on a 3+, for 8 hits. 6.67 wounds, 3.33 unsaved, kills both Geminae and deals 2.something wounds to the big lady herself, or has a good chance of killing her outright if she's alone.

 JNAProductions wrote:

 Carnikang wrote:
Disagree. Circumstance and luck matter. An Exocrine loading into Celestine at full should do plenty of damage right?

I mean... Yes?

12 shots, hitting on a 3+, for 8 hits. 6.67 wounds, 3.33 unsaved, kills both Geminae and deals 2.something wounds to the big lady herself, or has a good chance of killing her outright if she's alone.

And you then resurrect one of the Gemini and charge.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:

 Carnikang wrote:
Disagree. Circumstance and luck matter. An Exocrine loading into Celestine at full should do plenty of damage right?

I mean... Yes?

12 shots, hitting on a 3+, for 8 hits. 6.67 wounds, 3.33 unsaved, kills both Geminae and deals 2.something wounds to the big lady herself, or has a good chance of killing her outright if she's alone.

And you then resurrect one of the Gemini and charge.

Yes. Dealing 2 hits, 1.something wounds, probably 1 unsaved, kill the Geminae, and Celestine swings with 6 attacks, 5 hit, 1.67 wound, 1.39 go through and you take about 3 damage.

Or you take more than JUST one Exocrine for shooting and one-round her. She comes back, most likely, but then you can one-round her again.

Celestine is good, I won't deny that. But she's also 250 points for someone who's not that durable. (150 without Geminae.)

 Galas wrote:
I don't know what is stopping people from using the rules of special characters like Commander Dante of the Blood Angels to represent his own Chapter Master of a Blood Angel Sucessor.

Or using Abbaddon rules to represent a custom Chaos Space Marine Warlord. You just need a terminator guy with a powerclaw and a Daemonic Sword, and WYSIWYG. Then you are no more facing Abbadon, just a custom dude that uses his rules, so no problem ,no?

Because I don't know if people don't want to play against special characters or agains't their rules. To me, the name attached to a datasheet means nothing.

Yes, thats what I do too. Works great with most SCs but not all. You just cannot justify a guy with guilliman rules or a girl with celestine rules for example.
I especially hate these two. Its like you add NPCs to your army.

 JNAProductions wrote:

 Carnikang wrote:
Disagree. Circumstance and luck matter. An Exocrine loading into Celestine at full should do plenty of damage right?

I mean... Yes?

12 shots, hitting on a 3+, for 8 hits. 6.67 wounds, 3.33 unsaved, kills both Geminae and deals 2.something wounds to the big lady herself, or has a good chance of killing her outright if she's alone.

I was poking fun at Erjak. We had that scenario. Celestine was a powerhouse that game.

 Carnikang wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:

 Carnikang wrote:
Disagree. Circumstance and luck matter. An Exocrine loading into Celestine at full should do plenty of damage right?

I mean... Yes?

12 shots, hitting on a 3+, for 8 hits. 6.67 wounds, 3.33 unsaved, kills both Geminae and deals 2.something wounds to the big lady herself, or has a good chance of killing her outright if she's alone.

I was poking fun at Erjak. We had that scenario. Celestine was a powerhouse that game.

Oh, sure. Yeah, sometimes dice don't go your way, and a good unit can become unstoppable. But equally, it's technically possible for 11 bolter shots to kill Celestine entirely.

Why would you ban something when the game has ingrained balancing tools? Change the stats, powers or points to balance something.

Special characters often have very cool rules that are fun to play with, if you don't want to run that character, just run your own character as that special character, I do it all the time for my fluff stuffs

I do get tired of seeing 8 different chaos armies all led by the same 1 eyed turkey instead of a rainbow of personalized lords and princes, but special characters have become too intrinsically tied to the functionality of their sub factions to remove whole. For instance, are pox walkers really even worth fielding without typhus? Flash gitz and badrukk? Build diversity would be decimated just to cut out a few problem characters.

This is meant to be the consistently updated edition, just balance their points right or eratta broken abilities. And maybe in future editions take a step back from the trend of making HQs a bunch of aura mules and putting over half the unique auras on named characters.

My suggestion regarding special characters in competitive play is this:
If both armies have the same special character, both players roll a die. The one who scored lowest removes his/her special character from play and game continues.
There shouldn't be any complaints against this, game is full of random rng effects, so having one more a player can easily avoid should be just fine.

That's a terrible idea.

I just think it should be answer C. Guilly wouldn't be so bad if the game had to be 2 or 3k points and above.

Named characters should be banned without prior consent and a good reason.

I feel like it's targeting the wrong thing. There's a hell of a difference between fielding Rowboat and the Shrike.

 jeff white wrote:
Named characters should be banned without prior consent and a good reason.

Why?

I only allow Queens to be used in Chess with prior consent. They are waaay too OP in a game where the majority of players are fielding armies that are largely composed of Pawns.

I mean seriously, how am I supposed to counter a piece that can move in any direction as far as it wants to go?

Some special characters are way too point efficient for what they do. Their mechanics aren't what break the game, it's their point value being too low. The easiest fix would be to increase their point value for some of the worse offenders, Celestine, Gulliman, etc.

Special characters are only a problem when they are not balanced.

i like them. but papasmurf for example is too powerful

That is clearly not enough. All characters should be banned.

Heck no.

But a 'you must be this tall to ride the ride' points requirement doesn't seem unreasonable.

A minimum point requirement doesn't actually seem like a real solution. Most people are regularly playing just one size of game, at least semi-competitively. Lots of the people complaining about Guilliman and Celestine are playing 2k games, so presumably you're wanting to set the minimum point requirement above 2k. But that's essentially a ban because very few people are playing games above 2k. Or you set it at like 1500 and that's essentially not doing anything for most semi-competitive games.

Dionysodorus wrote:
A minimum point requirement doesn't actually seem like a real solution. Most people are regularly playing just one size of game, at least semi-competitively. Lots of the people complaining about Guilliman and Celestine are playing 2k games, so presumably you're wanting to set the minimum point requirement above 2k. But that's essentially a ban because very few people are playing games above 2k. Or you set it at like 1500 and that's essentially not doing anything for most semi-competitive games.

But it would account for a lower point cost by requiring a buy-in just to bring them in.

Prior to the Blue Period Craftworld Eldar and Dark Angels codex in 4th Edition, Special Characters required permission AND an army point size in order to be used.

Army sizes have been more determined by what tournament organizers think a good number of people will bring, than limiting Special Characters. Now, tournaments may set up their point lists in order to restrict certain Characters. But half the reason GW removed the limitation was because no one was buying the models.

 Xenomancers wrote:
You are going about it all wrong. Competitive play needs to make an actually unbroken point system. Special characters on the whole aren't even that busted - you can only take one of them. They just need to be pointed right. Guilliman needs +40 points as does Azreal. Celestine needs +100. There are plenty of units that need obvious point adjustments - start there.

+40? +100?

I think Celestine is fair, and Gulliman is probably fair too.

More to the point:
At 150, Celestine alone is appropriate. I'd place her in the upper-middle of her bracket in terms of efficiency. She naturally has 14 wounds.
At 200, Celestine with 1 Gemini gains ~10 wounds., about 45% increase
At 250, Celestine with 2 Gemini gains another 2 wounds. a further 9% improvement

Something to keep in mind is the fact that once wounded, all further wounds must be allocated to her even if she has her Gemini.

Celestine is mostly a beatstick. Her AoF is used on herself, 90% of the time, either to move or to heal. She would be able to give it to someone else, but she's too expensive not to heal herself if accompanied by Gemini, because if she doesn't then you're not getting anywhere near the value of the Gemini. Her aura is at best situationally beneficial, but mostly pointless.

For 150 points, she's somewhat better than a 133 point Manticore. For 200 points, she's about as good as a Preadator at being a beatstick, but is tougher. For 250 she's more resilient than but far less killy than Pask.


Guilliman is 360 points, IIRC
Obviously, you're not buying him to be a beatstick. His physical stats aren't crap, but I wouldn't pay 360 for them, buy a Knight instead.
So, you're taking him for the buff aura, which is insanely good, but at what point does it become more efficient than its cost? Let's assume he's buffing Leviathan Dreadnoughts and Razorbacks. He improves damage output by about 55%. If we assume about 33% of the cost of a unit is for it's firepower, on the assumption that a Razorback's 80 points for the tank and 35-50 for the gun is the model for all units, which isn't entirely true, but is a fair assumption, then his presences increases the value of surrounding units by about 16%.

So, assuming that he himself does nothing, he needs to be supporting about 15 Razorbacks, or 7 Leviathan Dreadnoughts.

His physical beatstick stats:
In shooting, he's pretty bad. In shooting, he's about an Assault Cannon and a half,
In melee, he's pretty good. Both options are good, but most of the time he's going to use the Emperor's Sword.
Resiliency wise, he's pretty good, but mostly because of the character protection. Once exposed to fire, he doesn't hold up that well to plasma, melta, and lascannons, from experience facing him.

His physical stats are definitely worse than a Leviathan Dreadnought; but not by too much, and a Leviathan is a good unit, so I can say that he's about 250-300 in physical characteristics.

Therefore, he has to buff about 3 Razorbacks or 2 Leviathans to be performing at-cost, not including the fact that he can't really use his melee weapon all that well while babysitting gun platforms. [His melee attack does protect them though, by deterring potential chargers, so there's that.



So, here's the way I see it:
Celestine is fair at 150 and 250, and marginally undercosted at 200. This makes sense, because the first Gemini is actually worth about 75 points while the second is worth about 25, but they're valued at 50 ea.

Guilliman is fair if supporting about 3 friendly heavy-hitting units. I think this is okay. It's not hard for him to support 2-4 friends for the duration of the game, but going more than that means you're either already winning [and therefore free to move as you will and have a lot of surviving units] or you've packed yourself in a tight bubble and are going to get outmaneuvered.

 Charistoph wrote:

Dionysodorus wrote:
A minimum point requirement doesn't actually seem like a real solution. Most people are regularly playing just one size of game, at least semi-competitively. Lots of the people complaining about Guilliman and Celestine are playing 2k games, so presumably you're wanting to set the minimum point requirement above 2k. But that's essentially a ban because very few people are playing games above 2k. Or you set it at like 1500 and that's essentially not doing anything for most semi-competitive games.

But it would account for a lower point cost by requiring a buy-in just to bring them in.

Prior to the Blue Period Craftworld Eldar and Dark Angels codex in 4th Edition, Special Characters required permission AND an army point size in order to be used.

Army sizes have been more determined by what tournament organizers think a good number of people will bring, than limiting Special Characters. Now, tournaments may set up their point lists in order to restrict certain Characters. But half the reason GW removed the limitation was because no one was buying the models.

Okay, but this doesn't actually seem like it's a response to my post. Guilliman, Celestine, and so on are problems even at 2k. And that's where lots of people are playing, especially if we're mostly worried about semi-competitive environments where list-building rules are most important for a good game. Furthermore, it's pretty impractical to start playing games at 2.5k or higher -- those just take a lot longer. So if you set the minimum point limit above 2k, what you're really doing is banning them from any sort of semi-competitive game. Which of course you could do, but it's just really weird to pretend that that's not what you're doing. You're clearly very close to "only with your opponent's permission" land at that point.

I'm generally on board with the idea that a portion of your army needs to BE that army for you to take special characters. I feel like the percentage should vary from character to character though, and probably go even as low as 0% for a few. Cypher comes to mind.

Characters only have one thing that makes them OP and then a conditional secondary reason:

- Not applying enough points for capability.
- When they have an aura or special ability that significantly impacts a host of models and so the "value" of what he provides varies wildly on what unit he is supporting.
- Guiliman with devastators and Razorbacks with AC's, Dante and flyers, Commissar and conscripts.

It is kinda the same thing we faced before with 6th and 7th of mixing and matching characters with units to augment them more than what was possibly "intended".

Automatically Appended Next Post:

 daedalus wrote:
I'm generally on board with the idea that a portion of your army needs to BE that army for you to take special characters. I feel like the percentage should vary from character to character though, and probably go even as low as 0% for a few. Cypher comes to mind.

I think that is on the nose.
I run mainly a BT SM army but I keep looking at that Guiliman model I have and wanting to have some Ultrasmurfs to go with him.
(Great point about Cypher too, who is part of that kit. I always liked him.)

To make it less number crunchy and more fluffy, maybe each special character needs a "must include x of y" to more closely tailor it.

For the purposes of this conversation, y can be a keyword, force org selection, or specific unit, i.e: "To get Celestine you must include at least 3 units of some sort of Soritas or whatever they call sisters of battle nowadays." , "In order to get Yarrick, you must include at least 3 AM troops of some sort (not that this is hard or expensive)" and so on.