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So far when I've been making lists I've been putting in 1 or 2 characters. I'm eyeballing some lists on here and I'm seeing like 3 or 4. Doesn't that get expensive? Or is that sort of the meta? (I'm not too experienced with Fantasy... let alone 8th edition... I've maybe played 2 or 3 games of fantasy during 7th).

EDIT: Lords and Heroes are 'characters' right? I sooo wish I had my rulebook with me right now.

It depends on the point total and the race for me, but I usually try for a general, BSB, and a sorcerer. Some armies I can get away with the sorcerer and general being one character, however, I seem to be going over that lately with my lists.

Really depends on what army you are running, some - like WoC can get away with 2 characters, others - like empire require more to make up for their inherent deficiencies (dont get me wrong I love empire and play them but they are just human )

what army are you playing?

cheers

Papasmurf

I totally forgot to mention point total and army.

The lists I'm making are 2500 and they're for Warriors of Chaos.

With WoC you are unlikely to get many characters even in 2500 but in OnG armies you can get tons, a night goblin witg great weapon is only a few points and is a canny little hitter

Yeh, my gobbo bosses are slightly more expensive than a chaos knight and with M5/6 on gobbos you can get a nice Mbuff with a gargboss.
Wierd stuff like getting a full rank of gobbo gargbosses for the ng regiment pops into mind - these buggers cost nothing really.

Enough characters to get the job in mind done and no more than that. For O&G and Skaven that's probably a good deal more than WoC and other elite armies. The only time I really max out my character allotment on Dark Elves is when I'm playing with a Monster Mount list, but at that point it's purposefully unoptimized.

I agree with the general thoughts here. The amount of characters you should use is a variable of both the type of army you are running and the point level you are playing at.

It may seem obvious to say, but is often overlooked. Your character selection must bring something to your army. A lot of characters can be dead weight and a point sink.

For example a standard army at any point level will most likely include a wizard of some sort for both magical offense and defense, but 3 wizards will not offer 3x's the benifit of 1 wizard.

A martial character can add a nice couple points of CR which could be helpful making a standard unit into something a bit more dangerous.

In summary there is no hard and fast rule of the right way to do it, but there are lots of wrong ways.

Not gonna lie. I've played around a LOT with the idea of putting a hero character in front of every one of my units, using the units as a sort of "hero delivery system".

As a tomb-kings player, I'll certainly have the points for it.

I play Empire and toyed around with the idea of sticking Captains as unit leaders. A vanilla captain with full plate armour and a shield runs at 60pts, not bad for what they do (Ld 8, 3 attacks as a little punch, 2+ save). Points will be an issue, but it comes down really to personal preference. I'd recommend a combat general for frontline leadership, a BSB to keep your force together and a wizard of some description for magical offence/ defence. For WoC, depending on your army style, that should be balanced enough, hope this helps

Thanks for the input folks. I think part of my problem is that I'm so used to 40k where you have 2 HQs... and I think I keep associating 'characters' w/ 'hqs'.

Running with Dwarfs, I tend to go with just two characters. I'd include more in a non-optimized build for fun maybe. It's just that, for the most part, I realize a character that runs me ~300 points could instead buy 30 great weapon warriors. The latter will tend to do more damage.

So the characters need to bring some value that I can't get elsewhere- magic defense (or casting) and BSB re-rolls tend to fit those categories well in most armies. Some have other requirements (leadership boost, actual damage dealing, etc)

My Empire , in most cases, will see 6+ charcters. For all my Elfy armies its 3+, as I have them all.

My Skaven tend to run 4-6 on average. 4 if I run a Bell or Furnace, 6 if I'm going magic heavy, 5 normally(Seer, Warlord, BSB, 2 Engineers).

I usually run 4-8 in my human armies (3000 points), 2-3 in my elf armies(3000 pts), or 2-4 in my daemons or WOC.

I usually don't run more than 3 or 4 characters(at 2500 points).

WoC - Level 4 Sorc, BSB, Sorc to carry Puppet
O&G - Level 4 Wizard(Head if Orc, Dispell scroll if Goblin), General, BSB, Level 2 Wizard(Head if Orc, Dispell Scroll if Goblin)
OKs - Tyrant, Slaughtermaster, BSB

On the high end, I ran 2500 points of Orcs and Goblins with 32 characters. (15 goblin heroes, 12 skulkers, and 5 goblin lords)

On the low end, I've run my dwarves with a single character, though more often I run 2 characters.

It all can work.
The Key is to make sure the characters bring something of value to the units. 15 goblin heroes gave me 3 heroes in the 5 goblin blocks; added 9 S6 attacks to a unit that lacks punch. 5 lords gave me a pair of level 3's, a level 2 with a random lore, a general, and a spare lord.
At that point, I added 12 more characters in the form of skulkers for the off chance (1 in 8) I get lore of beasts, and either of the two spells that buff all characters within 12".
Some day it will happen, and I'll have ~15 characters who pick up +3 attacks and +3 strength.

-Matt

HawaiiMatt wrote:On the high end, I ran 2500 points of Orcs and Goblins with 32 characters. (15 goblin heroes, 12 skulkers, and 5 goblin lords)

On the low end, I've run my dwarves with a single character, though more often I run 2 characters.

It all can work.
The Key is to make sure the characters bring something of value to the units. 15 goblin heroes gave me 3 heroes in the 5 goblin blocks; added 9 S6 attacks to a unit that lacks punch. 5 lords gave me a pair of level 3's, a level 2 with a random lore, a general, and a spare lord.
At that point, I added 12 more characters in the form of skulkers for the off chance (1 in 8) I get lore of beasts, and either of the two spells that buff all characters within 12".
Some day it will happen, and I'll have ~15 characters who pick up +3 attacks and +3 strength.

-Matt

That's fething awesome!

The only army that can truly get away with only one character is lizardmen.
BSB magelords rule


That said, i still like at least 3.

At the end of the day, I'd say it differs on army pts size and type. High Elves, OK, Lizards, Dwarves etc. can survive on a couple. Larger- horde armies can do with 4 or more. My 2000pt Empire has a Capt, BSB and 2 Lvl 2 Wizzies!

HawaiiMatt wrote:On the high end, I ran 2500 points of Orcs and Goblins with 32 characters. (15 goblin heroes, 12 skulkers, and 5 goblin lords)

Played against an army like this! Most of the goblin heroes were in a single unit- the first three ranks were totally full of characters!

Red_Zeke wrote:

HawaiiMatt wrote:On the high end, I ran 2500 points of Orcs and Goblins with 32 characters. (15 goblin heroes, 12 skulkers, and 5 goblin lords)

Played against an army like this! Most of the goblin heroes were in a single unit- the first three ranks were totally full of characters!

That must've been fun to grind trough.

It kind of was. I was helped by the gyro flaming and delaying so I could get 3 direct hits on the unit with a strength 5 grudgethrower. That kinda took the fight out of them.

Hammerers in the first round (with hatred) cracked a lot of hero skulls. Goblins won, I held, then countercharged with shield warriors in the flank and great weapons in the other flank. And that was the end of that.

If they'd arrived with enough supporting ranks to hold on to steadfast, wound allocation could have made for a bit of a pain during the grind.

Re: Goblin Dynasty Warriors: Awesome!

I build a lot of cheap characters into my WoC. At 2k at past Dakkacon I ran a level2 sorc, an exalted with Sword of Swift slaying and a shield (and I think a ward) and a warded BSB. Not too expensive, but some Ld boosts and extra killing when needed. I don't know if it is optimal though, as they really are pretty salty and I could have gotten ~9-10 more warriors for the price of the exalted off the top of my head. On the other hand, some really hard to kill characters can be great points denial for your army, if you can keep them doing something useful in the meantime.

For My WoC I've been toying with trying to get a lord and 3 heroes in there. It's very tough going in all honesty and really takes points from other areas, I think however thats the max you can do around the 2500 mark and depends on preferred style. Most armies I have seen involve a lvl 4 lord, BSB exhalted and lvl 2 sorcerer which I'd like to not play as my own army

I run 4 in my skaven list (2500-3000 pts) 1 lord + 3 heroes.
1) Grey Seer (Lvl 4 + general)
2) BSB
3) Warlock Engineer (Doomrocket!)
4) Plague Priest (lvl 1)