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There is no other chapter like my chapter, so the problem does not exist for me. Although there are different brotherhoods in the chapter, and they do function in different ways, based on the number of specific units they run or even the type of recruit they use. The Librarian Company is heavier on the essoteric and magic users, then the 10th company or forces made out of brotherhoods existing outside of the chapter structure. I may one day be interesting to play those, thankfuly the limitations set up by GW rule set discourages such things very effectivly.

 fraser1191 wrote:

PieInTheSky wrote:
Why don't more people do this? It seems the overwhelming majority go with Ultramarines, Dark Angels, Space Wolves or Blood Angels

It's simple. I'm not creative enough.

My marines would have ended up a shade of blue regardless, and I really like the Ultramarines lore and appearance so there ya go

Nothing wrong with that! I actually consider myself very creative and I am really tempted to just go Ultramarines too! Their lore is awesome and the colours look great. Don't fix what ain't broke.


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Arcanis161 wrote:
I lean more towards custom chapters as, well, I'm not sure why. I just always have to do something different.

My Guard army is predominantly Red and Grey, and consists of various models from different regiments. I excuse it as "the hive cities on their world act semi autonomously, and each buys gear for their PDF and Guardsmen from different Forgeworlds")

I do have Catachans, painted in mostly Catachan colors, but their Knives are all black.

My 30k Ultramarines are silver and blue rather than gold and blue.

I'll likely do my own custom chapter too, I've got a scheme planned out and everything.

I'm the same. "Painting by numbers" or copying box-art holds zero appeal to me. I wouldn't get silly and paint Ultramarines fluro orange or anything, but you've got to add you own personal touch, right?


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 H.B.M.C. wrote:
For my Primaris army I invented my own Chapter (Iron Paladins), but they're still using the White Scar rules (advance + charge is easy to remember!).

Yeah, to be honest, I think anyone complaining about their opponent doing that is just a douchebag. "So my army would have been acceptable if it was painted in GW-sanctified colours with a GW-sanctified name ... but this one that is identical otherwise is not okay? Give me a break.

....


In any case, I'm really thinking of an Astra Militarus army with one detachment of Space Marines as "backup" or whatever (see my other thread of the appropriate name). They will either be Ultramarines, Imperial Fists or, most likely, my own unike chapter (I'm thinking camo green and fire-orange trim for the colours).

Insectum7 wrote:In much older editions I believe even special characters were said to be capable of being used in custom chapters as they were intended to be a example of an exemplary individual that could actually be quite common.

5th Ed SM codex and 4th Ed DA were significant in this. In order to get additional "Chapter Rules" (or Company for Dark Angels), you had to take the appropriate Special Character. As codices were released for 6th Ed and 7th Ed, this went away for more generalized rules or specific detachments.

Insectum7 wrote:Plus, in somd editions the special chatacters were only allowed by the opponents permission, keeping them out of TAC lists. That made custom chapters less painful, rules-wuse as well.

3rd Edition and the codices from the first half of 4th Edition were like this. The Characters even has specific rules that stated you needed your opponents permission to run them. This basically made the models unpurchased for anything but paperweights as few would give permission. This changed with 4th Ed Eldar, as they removed the restriction, and it became more poignant when 4th Ed Dark Angels came out and you could have a certain unit change slots with certain Special Characters (pretty much making it stupid to restrict them).

 Charistoph wrote:

Insectum7 wrote:In much older editions I believe even special characters were said to be capable of being used in custom chapters as they were intended to be a example of an exemplary individual that could actually be quite common.

5th Ed SM codex and 4th Ed DA were significant in this. In order to get additional "Chapter Rules" (or Company for Dark Angels), you had to take the appropriate Special Character. As codices were released for 6th Ed and 7th Ed, this went away for more generalized rules or specific detachments.

Insectum7 wrote:Plus, in somd editions the special chatacters were only allowed by the opponents permission, keeping them out of TAC lists. That made custom chapters less painful, rules-wuse as well.

3rd Edition and the codices from the first half of 4th Edition were like this. The Characters even has specific rules that stated you needed your opponents permission to run them. This basically made the models unpurchased for anything but paperweights as few would give permission. This changed with 4th Ed Eldar, as they removed the restriction, and it became more poignant when 4th Ed Dark Angels came out and you could have a certain unit change slots with certain Special Characters (pretty much making it stupid to restrict them).

Most special characters were and still are garbage, so restrictions are bad.

Terrible as it was, at the very least the 4th Edition 'Chaos' Codex avoided the whole "You must bring Special Character X to play Faction Y".

So you didn't need to bring Lucius to play Emperor's Children, or Typhus to play Death Guard.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Terrible as it was, at the very least the 4th Edition 'Chaos' Codex avoided the whole "You must bring Special Character X to play Faction Y".

So you didn't need to bring Lucius to play Emperor's Children, or Typhus to play Death Guard.

That's a really, really low bar. There's been one Codex in the history of 40k that's ever tried to do that (5e SM).

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:Most special characters were and still are garbage, so restrictions are bad.

Most were pretty decent back then, and could be quite game-breaking. Nowadays without that restriction, they tend to be more limited.

H.B.M.C. wrote:Terrible as it was, at the very least the 4th Edition 'Chaos' Codex avoided the whole "You must bring Special Character X to play Faction Y".

So you didn't need to bring Lucius to play Emperor's Children, or Typhus to play Death Guard.

That never was an actual thing. Even with 5th Edition, you only needed the Special Characters to get access to specific rules that were just in character for the Chapter. You could still play White Scars without Khan or Salamanders without Vulkan, they just weren't as much fun, and some of them could be quite garbage without those rules. SM's 4th and 6th+ have been far better at it, and then there was Chaos' 3.5 codex.

Pie
In the ancient bygone times of the 1990's there was a chapter that was custom made. It started as being quartered red and yellow. It's symbol was a standing griffin. The chapter was known as the Howling Griffins. It became so well liked that GW would feature it from time to time in White Dwarf. I believe it was included in a codex or two to show off It's color scheme. Remember they are your models paint them as you wish. If you can't free hand the symbol you have chosen check out shapeways. It a website that will help you customize your symbol. They also have a huge selection of chapter symbols for space marines. Enjoy

Pointer5 wrote:
...If you can't free hand the symbol you have chosen check out shapeways....

You can also get waterslide decal paper that you can put in an ordinary laser printer if you don't like the raised-icon aesthetic, but the backing paper needs the right varnish to go translucent.

 AnomanderRake wrote:

Pointer5 wrote:
...If you can't free hand the symbol you have chosen check out shapeways....

You can also get waterslide decal paper that you can put in an ordinary laser printer if you don't like the raised-icon aesthetic, but the backing paper needs the right varnish to go translucent.

Thanks for your advice, both of you.

IMO, much is simply because the custom chapter rules are simply worse than the ones for regular chapters.

There are some home made chapters or subfactions that are so cool that other hobbyists make armies of them.

IMO to make a personal chapter you have to make a website in notepad, like they say in this comment from dakka 12 years ago.

The best chapter listed in that comment is the star foxes, and their website doesn’t exist anymore. I say best because they were a fan chapter shown in white dwarf, which happened every few years at the time, and if you look for them on the internet the only ones you’ll find are by a different hobbyist who has painted an entire army following the background of the original chapter from the website and white dwarf feature.

pelicaniforce wrote:
There are some home made chapters or subfactions that are so cool that other hobbyists make armies of them.

IMO to make a personal chapter you have to make a website in notepad, like they say in this comment from dakka 12 years ago.

The best chapter listed in that comment is the star foxes, and their website doesn’t exist anymore. I say best because they were a fan chapter shown in white dwarf, which happened every few years at the time, and if you look for them on the internet the only ones you’ll find are by a different hobbyist who has painted an entire army following the background of the original chapter from the website and white dwarf feature.

Sounds like something I'd really love to do to be honest! lol.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
IMO, much is simply because the custom chapter rules are simply worse than the ones for regular chapters.

That reasoning just doesn't jive with me. I'd prefer to be creative and have fun than to simply ensure my army is "the best" as far as leveraging the rules.

However, I totally get the other side of the coin too. There's nothing wrong with finding enjoyment in the competitive side of the game and planning out the most effective army and strategies to kick ass. Nothing at all wrong with that, just not what I'm in it for personally.

Probably the main reason for playing custom chapter is the fun of it. Especially if your into painting

 Charistoph wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:Most special characters were and still are garbage, so restrictions are bad.

Most were pretty decent back then, and could be quite game-breaking. Nowadays without that restriction, they tend to be more limited.

H.B.M.C. wrote:Terrible as it was, at the very least the 4th Edition 'Chaos' Codex avoided the whole "You must bring Special Character X to play Faction Y".

So you didn't need to bring Lucius to play Emperor's Children, or Typhus to play Death Guard.

That never was an actual thing. Even with 5th Edition, you only needed the Special Characters to get access to specific rules that were just in character for the Chapter. You could still play White Scars without Khan or Salamanders without Vulkan, they just weren't as much fun, and some of them could be quite garbage without those rules. SM's 4th and 6th+ have been far better at it, and then there was Chaos' 3.5 codex.

Absolutely not. I can't even come up with one autotake named Character even before 6th (definitely as a Necron player and ESPECIALLY as a GK player). On top of that, many people took the named Characters in 6th-7th because they had fixed Warlord Traits and none of the randumb.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 Charistoph wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:Most special characters were and still are garbage, so restrictions are bad.

Most were pretty decent back then, and could be quite game-breaking. Nowadays without that restriction, they tend to be more limited.

H.B.M.C. wrote:Terrible as it was, at the very least the 4th Edition 'Chaos' Codex avoided the whole "You must bring Special Character X to play Faction Y".

So you didn't need to bring Lucius to play Emperor's Children, or Typhus to play Death Guard.

That never was an actual thing. Even with 5th Edition, you only needed the Special Characters to get access to specific rules that were just in character for the Chapter. You could still play White Scars without Khan or Salamanders without Vulkan, they just weren't as much fun, and some of them could be quite garbage without those rules. SM's 4th and 6th+ have been far better at it, and then there was Chaos' 3.5 codex.

Absolutely not. I can't even come up with one autotake named Character even before 6th (definitely as a Necron player and ESPECIALLY as a GK player). On top of that, many people took the named Characters in 6th-7th because they had fixed Warlord Traits and none of the randumb.

Which was well after that restriction was removed. The restriction against Special Characters was in the 3rd and first half of 4th Ed codices. This changed with the Eldar and Dark Angel codices in 4th, and it became require to take certain Special Characters in your army to run certain builds, aka Deathwing and Ravenwing. It was at this point that the power of Special Characters started to wain, along with all the rule combos which made the unupdated effective (of which, I think that the Black Templars were last to be changed with SM 6th Ed codex).

 Charistoph wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 Charistoph wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:Most special characters were and still are garbage, so restrictions are bad.

Most were pretty decent back then, and could be quite game-breaking. Nowadays without that restriction, they tend to be more limited.

H.B.M.C. wrote:Terrible as it was, at the very least the 4th Edition 'Chaos' Codex avoided the whole "You must bring Special Character X to play Faction Y".

So you didn't need to bring Lucius to play Emperor's Children, or Typhus to play Death Guard.

That never was an actual thing. Even with 5th Edition, you only needed the Special Characters to get access to specific rules that were just in character for the Chapter. You could still play White Scars without Khan or Salamanders without Vulkan, they just weren't as much fun, and some of them could be quite garbage without those rules. SM's 4th and 6th+ have been far better at it, and then there was Chaos' 3.5 codex.

Absolutely not. I can't even come up with one autotake named Character even before 6th (definitely as a Necron player and ESPECIALLY as a GK player). On top of that, many people took the named Characters in 6th-7th because they had fixed Warlord Traits and none of the randumb.

Which was well after that restriction was removed. The restriction against Special Characters was in the 3rd and first half of 4th Ed codices. This changed with the Eldar and Dark Angel codices in 4th, and it became require to take certain Special Characters in your army to run certain builds, aka Deathwing and Ravenwing. It was at this point that the power of Special Characters started to wain, along with all the rule combos which made the unupdated effective (of which, I think that the Black Templars were last to be changed with SM 6th Ed codex).

Using Ravenwing and Deathwing in your example doesn't work since Dark Angels can function without either HQ. Granted at least for Sammie he was comparable to taking any other Biker HQ to get Bike troops for regular marines, but that's more akin to saying White Scars needed Khan on a bike to run Bikers as troops, which is incorrect.

However for Belial there's nowhere you were forced to take him simply because most people aren't running Termimators. What's really being discussed is the power of said named Characters. Any silly restrictions like with Dark Angels are courtesy of GW's gak rules writing.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
Using Ravenwing and Deathwing in your example doesn't work since Dark Angels can function without either HQ. Granted at least for Sammie he was comparable to taking any other Biker HQ to get Bike troops for regular marines, but that's more akin to saying White Scars needed Khan on a bike to run Bikers as troops, which is incorrect.

However for Belial there's nowhere you were forced to take him simply because most people aren't running Termimators. What's really being discussed is the power of said named Characters. Any silly restrictions like with Dark Angels are courtesy of GW's gak rules writing.

I said that they were for specific builds of the army. People were running Terminator armies with Deathwing for quite some time. And yes, Belial was required for those Terminator builds in 4th and 6th, just as Sammael was for the Ravenwing builds, until the Detachments were created which allowed them to ignore those aspects in 7th. In 3rd, Belial and Sammael just weren't listed by name, but had very specific builds, nonetheless (with the Master of the Ravenwing given a unique land speeder).

Up until SM 5th Ed, Biker Captains couldn't take Bikes as Troops, but was a Chapter Trait in 4th. Khan provided Outflank for for the army in 5th Ed, but again, this was after the restrictions on Special Characters had been removed.

If you want to bring up a specific example of a Character that was incredibly weak, but was restricted in play, please do, but just remember they had to be around before the Eldar's 4th Ed codex, and have to be considered in the Edition that they were released (i.e. Haalbrecht in 4th or Doomrider in 3rd).

PieInTheSky wrote:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
IMO, much is simply because the custom chapter rules are simply worse than the ones for regular chapters.

That reasoning just doesn't jive with me. I'd prefer to be creative and have fun than to simply ensure my army is "the best" as far as leveraging the rules.

History has shown players like us tend to in the minority, thus the observation.

 Charistoph wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
Using Ravenwing and Deathwing in your example doesn't work since Dark Angels can function without either HQ. Granted at least for Sammie he was comparable to taking any other Biker HQ to get Bike troops for regular marines, but that's more akin to saying White Scars needed Khan on a bike to run Bikers as troops, which is incorrect.

However for Belial there's nowhere you were forced to take him simply because most people aren't running Termimators. What's really being discussed is the power of said named Characters. Any silly restrictions like with Dark Angels are courtesy of GW's gak rules writing.

I said that they were for specific builds of the army. People were running Terminator armies with Deathwing for quite some time. And yes, Belial was required for those Terminator builds in 4th and 6th, just as Sammael was for the Ravenwing builds, until the Detachments were created which allowed them to ignore those aspects in 7th. In 3rd, Belial and Sammael just weren't listed by name, but had very specific builds, nonetheless (with the Master of the Ravenwing given a unique land speeder).

Up until SM 5th Ed, Biker Captains couldn't take Bikes as Troops, but was a Chapter Trait in 4th. Khan provided Outflank for for the army in 5th Ed, but again, this was after the restrictions on Special Characters had been removed.

If you want to bring up a specific example of a Character that was incredibly weak, but was restricted in play, please do, but just remember they had to be around before the Eldar's 4th Ed codex, and have to be considered in the Edition that they were released (i.e. Haalbrecht in 4th or Doomrider in 3rd).

Coteaz (and actually Stern too) from GKs is a perfect example. 185 points (IIRC) for not many improvements. As well, I remember the CTan having those certain restrictions and they were only like 5 wounds!

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 Charistoph wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
Using Ravenwing and Deathwing in your example doesn't work since Dark Angels can function without either HQ. Granted at least for Sammie he was comparable to taking any other Biker HQ to get Bike troops for regular marines, but that's more akin to saying White Scars needed Khan on a bike to run Bikers as troops, which is incorrect.

However for Belial there's nowhere you were forced to take him simply because most people aren't running Termimators. What's really being discussed is the power of said named Characters. Any silly restrictions like with Dark Angels are courtesy of GW's gak rules writing.

I said that they were for specific builds of the army. People were running Terminator armies with Deathwing for quite some time. And yes, Belial was required for those Terminator builds in 4th and 6th, just as Sammael was for the Ravenwing builds, until the Detachments were created which allowed them to ignore those aspects in 7th. In 3rd, Belial and Sammael just weren't listed by name, but had very specific builds, nonetheless (with the Master of the Ravenwing given a unique land speeder).

Up until SM 5th Ed, Biker Captains couldn't take Bikes as Troops, but was a Chapter Trait in 4th. Khan provided Outflank for for the army in 5th Ed, but again, this was after the restrictions on Special Characters had been removed.

If you want to bring up a specific example of a Character that was incredibly weak, but was restricted in play, please do, but just remember they had to be around before the Eldar's 4th Ed codex, and have to be considered in the Edition that they were released (i.e. Haalbrecht in 4th or Doomrider in 3rd).

Coteaz (and actually Stern too) from GKs is a perfect example. 185 points (IIRC) for not many improvements. As well, I remember the CTan having those certain restrictions and they were only like 5 wounds!

Grey Knights (as a codex) didn't exist till 5th Edition, so do you mean Coteaz from Daemonhunters? Daemonhunters Coteaz did not have the opponent's permission restriction on his sheet.

C'Tan were unusual in that they were not Special Characters who had the restriction of opponent's permission. They had another restriction based in their army, in that they didn't affect Phase Out, which causes a lot of problems if you plan on taking Pariahs and/or Monoliths. One could also only take one (not both) in the army.

Going back through some of these, it looks like the C'Tan and the Chaos Special Characters in 3.5 were among the first Special Characters without the opponent's permission restriction, so that ended even earlier than I thought it did. So considering these weak characters would have to be considered with 3rd Edition's gameplay, which had some significant differences from 4th Ed and later (from what I've been told, I started with 5th's rules, but I was collecting codices for some time before that).

I really do remember those guys having the restrictions. You sure about that?

I do also remember Farsight having restrictions and he already made your army worse at the time too.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
I really do remember those guys having the restrictions. You sure about that?

I do also remember Farsight having restrictions and he already made your army worse at the time too.

I tracked them down, and I can't seem to see it. Keep in mind, I thought they were dropped starting dropping that restriction with Eldar's 4th Edition, too. I know people were talking about them as if that restriction existed.

3rd Farsight was:

Special Character: A Tau army may include Commander Farsight as a special character. If you decide to take him then he counts as one of the HQ choices from the army. He must be used as described below and may not be given extra equipment from the Tau Armoury.

As opposed to say, Ahriman 3rd Ed, color change for emphasis:

A Chaos Space Marine army may include Ahriman as long as it includes at least one squad of Thousand Sons Chaos Space Marines. If you take him then he counts as one of the HQ choices for the army. He must be used exactly as described below and many not be give extra equipment from the Chaos Armoury. In addition, he may only be used in a battle where both players have agreed to the use of special characters. Ahriman is an independent character and follows all the Independent Character special rules as given in the Warhammer 40,000 rulebook.

And just for point of reference, Ahriman's 3.5 Ed version:

Any Thousand Sons army may be led by Ahriman. If you tak him then he counts as the Chaos Lord choice for the army. He must be used exactly as described below and may not be given extra equipment from the Chaos Armoury although he may be accompanied by a retinue of Chosen selected in the normal way.

Still, It may be put elsewhere in the codex and I can't seem to find it again or inherent in the main rulebook for 3rd or 4th Edition (of which I don't recall or have).

I'll have to see if I can find my old codices anywhere. They're probably in storage. I strictly remember a couple of them mentioning point values too.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
I'll have to see if I can find my old codices anywhere. They're probably in storage. I strictly remember a couple of them mentioning point values too.

Oh yeah, there were quite a few of them. I think mostly in the 4th Edition ones, because Tau's 4th Ed and Black Templar's 4th Ed both had 1500 point restrictions, but that's not exactly the same as opponent's permission. (Not that opponent's permission every fully dropped, as that's always been a case, but tournaments became less stringent with Dark Angels Characters moving units in to Troops).

There's more background on the official chapters and fans like being a part of that. Then there are the special rules and characters for those chapters which homebrew chapters won't ever get. But saying that, the reason why those of us who do homebrew our own chapters or factions is because they are ours, and unique to us.

 Charistoph wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
I'll have to see if I can find my old codices anywhere. They're probably in storage. I strictly remember a couple of them mentioning point values too.

Oh yeah, there were quite a few of them. I think mostly in the 4th Edition ones, because Tau's 4th Ed and Black Templar's 4th Ed both had 1500 point restrictions, but that's not exactly the same as opponent's permission. (Not that opponent's permission every fully dropped, as that's always been a case, but tournaments became less stringent with Dark Angels Characters moving units in to Troops).

I remember 1500 and for some reason 2000 being mentioned. It's been years though.