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For building your army, from a fluffy persepctive, do you like using special characters in your army or would you rather use a generic one and give it equip it yourself? Or even from a gameplay perspective would you rather use generic or speicial characters with special abilities or equipment?

or what about how GW games let you have a generic character where you can come up with your own theme, vs a game like warmachine where you build your army around a warcaster whos fluff and skills already exist?

Either kind of character is fun.

The main thing is if you make it up yourself, how do you assign characteristics and points costs?

By making it up yourslef I meant like using a space marine force commander and buying wargear as normal, not just coming up with crazy stuff out of the blue

I don't use SC's, but it's due to Chaos lacking any that I find worthwhile. If I played vanilla marines, I'd probably run Cato Sicarius.

I don't ever use special characters. I think the idea of Marneus Calgar leading half the Ultramarine forces out there a bit silly. I won't even use them if there IS a tactical advantage. I prefer to tool up my own generic Captain or Officer or whatever.

For this reason, I don't really like the way the codex forces you to take an SC to take certain units/change the list.

I much prefer the idea of 'if you take a Big Mek, a Deff Dred becomes troops', or 'if you take a SM Captain on a Bike, big bike squads become troops' compared to SC-based rules like 'You must take Kantor to make the army work this way'

I'll use one if there is a tactical advantage, like using Njal cause he's awesome. However, I have models that have become their own characters. I'll put a model together in an interesting pose or with a stand out paint job (not necessarily good), and I'll be more observant when things happen to them. One of my Blood Claws is extremely pale, and has never lived long enough to get to Hand to Hand. One of my friends has offered to let me give him three attacks on his models with him if it ever happens.

Character driven can work, like Malifaux. It's the pretty much the same city for everyone. Odds are, all the movers and shakers will end up butting heads a lot. Warmachine makes it a little less believable, with the 40k making it really unlikely that I should find 2 Njals or more in a weekend of fighting.

I like to make up my own characters then use rules from Special Characters to represent him/her.

One of the most awesome thing's to me in Warhammer is making up your own character. I always take my the no name Rune-Priest or Chaos Lord.

I have made counts as SC's however before.

I love SC's, I think they drive an army forward to a good theme. I play Goff's for orks and almost always use Ghaz in a game, he offers a support role and he's just awesome for my army. Completes it.

When I started my Flesh Tearers the first model I bought was Gabriel Seth, he completes the theme of my army. If I played my army without him, people would lbe like " where's seth, you are playing FT".

I really don't like using generic characters, they don't offer any fluff or so awesome history. Plus I like SC's cause there like big shot actors, when there on the board, something is about to go down.

Today I used my Canis Wolfborn model as a Wolf Lord on Thunderwolf with Wolf Claws and a Belt of Russ. Aside from squeezing the word "Wolf" into a sentence four times, it made him much more effective and survivable for only a few more points.

I have never really been a fan of the special characters [though I am all for the great models], although they have been toned done [a bit] from their zenith, allot of the time it is a case of needing a a special character to take down a special character.

I played a game recently (only 1000points) where Lysander drop podded into my IG deployment zone first turn on turn 1. Nothing really wrong with that par se, but when he then proceeds to roll up an entire army despite a huge amount of fire power being aimed at him it gets a little dis-spiriting for the other player unless they also have a special character that can deal with them. [please don't list out Lysander beating tactics, i'm fairly sure it was mostly down to piss poor deployment!]

I think the special character to play certain army types is okay [if a little flawed] but when SC x allows you to take elites as troops say but is also say nigh on indestructable then it gets a bit silly IMHO.

We all have our favourite trooper that seems to do that bit better than the rest, despite being gamewise the same as the rest, he/she/it will pop the odd tank or take that last wound from a MC; These are the heroes for me. Marneus and his mates should do one and leave the killin' to the grunts

The special characters n 5th ed marines seem to be just another way of doing traits, while also conveniently selling GW more models.

I prefer to lead with a captain and avoid special characters, I would use counts as but them I am restricted in what weapons they would carry. I would create my own but the idea of talking your opponent through it and getting his approval to use it every single game would get tedious.

I definitely agree with you there whatwhat.

Is it me or did there used to be allot more choice in the options available to regular characters than these days.

I much preferred the old "choose from a wargear list" method rather than the listed options under each HQ choice. I'm sure this would make regular charcters more variable. I can't even arm an IG officer with a lasgun at the moment FFS!

I don't really care. The rules and models exist to be used.

What I really don't understand is why it really seems to bother some people though, like the thing about Calgar mentioned above. It just seems like a silly thing to complain about when you consider the fact that there are so many Ultramarine armies to begin with...there are more Ultramarines out there than what actually exist in the fluff, but that doesn't bother people as much as the characters for some reason.

I think more people need to stop caring so much and just enjoy playing the game, because you can't honestly expect everything to go 100% according to fluff, and if it did the game would be BORING. You'd see nothing but Imperial Guard and Ork/Tyranid armies, there'd be no Space Marines or other aliens on account of how rare they are, there'd be no characters whatsoever, etc.

I just use my own model counts-as

I generally don't use special characters (mostly because I don't have their actual models). However, I will play one every once in a while just to mix things up a little and do a "counts as."

Putting aside GW's more recent fascination with (and over-abundance of) Special Characters, I still prefer to make my own.

We have a number of long-standing characters within our group that we've been using for years:

Horatio Lethus, Daemon Prince of Khorne and ex-Captain of the Ultramarine's 3rd Company.

Ar'nok the Bitter, Dark Apostle of Khorne

Ke’ru’than Angau’Rrith, Doomseer of Ulthwe

Major Lucius Sharpe of the 444th Cadian Mechanised

Inquisitrix Keira Jade of the Ordo Hereticus

Inquisitrix Ariana Masters of the Ordo Hereticus

Inquisitor Percivus Yule of the Ordo Malleus

Brother-Captain Casca Maine of the Ultramarines.

Watch-Captain Augustus Griez of the Deathwatch

Trel'ek the Lesser of the Word Bearers

Grand Master Kelse Bane of the Grey Knights

Cardinal Maximilian Voss

And so on and so on. A number of them have managed to be killed over the years - Kelse Bane's brother Spariss was killed by Trel'ek, Ar'nok was banished by Kelse Bane, and so on.

Far more interesting than just "Oh, another Vulkan Marine army. Yay."

I never use special characters. From the last thread about this I'm guessing I'm just an old fogey from the "Required Opponent's Permission" days. However, I also like my army to be "mine". I tend to shy away from GW chapter colours and play successor chapters. Customizing your own HQ to fit the fluff of your chapter is a part of that for me.

That said, I have a strong urge to use Teclis these days, though I haven't yet.

AgeOfEgos wrote:I like to make up my own characters then use rules from Special Characters to represent him/her.

And we have a winner. Rules are rules. Fluff is Fluff. My Praetorian IG have a black-ops operative, modelled with the early 2nd ed "ninja" assassin, that uses the rules for Marbo. My tactical heavy marines, the Star Owls, have a company captain that often uses the rules for Sicarius. And yeah, my Biel Tan mech eldar have a "senior farseer" that uses eldrad's rules.

I mean, with the shrinking of options for generic characters, the expanded palette of SCs and their far more aggressive costing, I think that most of the time I'm better off using SC rules than I am the generic.

I like to make my own fluff, but I have to say I see the strength in making up your own guy then using him as a 'counts as' so you can get the right rules.

I prefer generic characters, but I love some of the special character models. In my old eldar army I used to use Eldrad's model as a generic farseer just because it looked cooler than the normal farseers. For my guard, I have a sgt harker model I converted, using a cadian body and the marine scout heavy bolter. And I got the Marbo model but never used him. For my lizards, I got the carnosaur guy but I just count him as an oldblood riding a carnosaur. I also thought about getting tictac'to and using him as just a chief on a teradon.

What about games like Malifaux where (I think) every model is a special pre-made character? I like the freedom to create my own fluff, but i think that approach could be fun too.. but I guess that would work since it's a whole different game designed that way.

I use special characters in fluffy armies (I made a 1500 khorne list just for my Kharn the Betrayer model ) It sucks, but I like it because he's my favorite SC for my favorite god in my favorite army

In just a general army I try to only use generic HQ's (why would abbadon the despoiler be running about in every single chaos attack?!)

The exception to this is with my eldar, Eldrad is my 1st choice HQ every time, purely because he's the ame as a normal Farseer just loads more cost effective.

I like it to have your own spin on things. I mean, I really want to make an imperial fist force led by lysander, and a n army of catachans led by straken, but at the same time, I'd really want to include a Marneus Calgar esque fist guy, and a deep south cowboy hat wearing Harker.

Of course, in small scale games, theres no way i'd use the 'big guns' I mean, as Gorechild stated, its hardly likely Beastlord Gorthor, or Morghor, would be running around in small skirmishes (beside the point that they literally cant) And again, the swarmlord is hardly going to lead every attack. Though in my minds eye I imagine the swarm lord as the next generation of hive tyrant. That's my excuse whenever my friend wheels out the ork kan wall.

Necros wrote:
What about games like Malifaux where (I think) every model is a special pre-made character? I like the freedom to create my own fluff, but i think that approach could be fun too.. but I guess that would work since it's a whole different game designed that way.

That's part of the fun of Malifaux to me.
When Seamus uses his Belles to draw you in, then blasts you with a .50 Flintlock and scurries away, the stories in the book flood into your mind.
There is still room for the "counts-as" if you feel the need. But a lot of the rules for Malifaux reflect the personality of the character.
Just reading the model entries in the book will show you that.

In 40k/WHFB, its more of a gear loadout than a personality. If I want the load out and don't like the stock character, I can make a new model and use the rules.
My group tends to stick with their own army, so we don't have multiple SCs. Except Lysander. He seems to be in all the SM armies.

I like the GW special characters for the most part, both for fluffiness and ruleswise. My Crimson Fists are going to be lead by Pedro for the most part, although I'm also making a MotF, Libriarian, and a few Captains to help him out. They'll all get names and their exploits recorded in the Chapter's Historium, but I'll not likely make new rules for them, just their standard character entries.

I have been mulling over converting a terminator armor version of Kantor and using the rules for Calgar. I wouldn't normally use the rules for the heroes of another chapter within my own (even though the codex gives permission, possibly encouragement, to do so) but I think if Kantor had the bling that Calgar has, he'd be just as pimp.

I rather like modular characters, as in take a terminator captain and you can take termies for troops, or jump packs, or bikes. It's that kind of stuff that I absolutely adore. Sure special characters are fun, but its not nearly as cool as making your own captain and breathing life into his background and the background of his men.

The only real complaint I have for special characters would be that they took off the points restriction limits. A lot of special characters are really broken in smaller point games. Ever played against Logan in a landraider at 1000 pts? It just ain't fun at some points.

The problem isn't' that special characters are unbalanced at 1000pts, it's that 40k itself is unbalanced at less than 1500.

Ratbarf wrote:I rather like modular characters, as in take a terminator captain and you can take termies for troops, or jump packs, or bikes. It's that kind of stuff that I absolutely adore. Sure special characters are fun, but its not nearly as cool as making your own captain and breathing life into his background and the background of his men.

The only real complaint I have for special characters would be that they took off the points restriction limits. A lot of special characters are really broken in smaller point games. Ever played against Logan in a landraider at 1000 pts? It just ain't fun at some points.

Some also really suck at 1000 points. You could make the exact same argument for generic characters too?