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What would have to be done to use an HQ as a basis for your own units? Say you want to base your HQ on Lucius the Eternal, but don't want combat drugs or his armor 'cause it's special to him. But want a lash and power sword, then want to add wings to it. Or Something else of that nature.

Or if you mused "Hey, I like So and so from the This and that chapter, but I"m doing a successor chapter so he's not in it. How can I get something similar in play to him." I looked through the codecies I have and they don't hold individual point values for the varied items in their Wargears to cut out and add. Are things like that allowed, thoughts?

Friendly game, why not? Anything goes.

Competitive game, no way. Not in a thousand years.

You can use a different model as a "count as" character. That's about it. Any time you do any modification, you are creating your own unit. 99 times out of 100, this created unit will be overpowered and unplayable. That other 1% of the time, you'll only be able to use him in friendly games anyway. My suggestion, don't bother.

There are two ways to create your own character:

1. Choose an existing SC that is as close to your concept asw possible and make an alternative model with the correct wargear.

2. Take the generic, customizable character (chaos lord, marine captain, whatever) and select from his options to get as close to your concept as possible and make a suitable model.

There is a third option - make up your own special character with special rules, wargear and points and wait for everybody to hate it as you invariably make it too complicated and too cheap - but that way, madness lies.

I understand that much. But it still doesn't explain how to allocate points. How does all that wargear they have still only equal out to however much. The special items that they have, how much do things like that cost, to be subtracted and such.

Willhellm wrote:I understand that much. But it still doesn't explain how to allocate points. How does all that wargear they have still only equal out to however much. The special items that they have, how much do things like that cost, to be subtracted and such.

They don't cost anything. GW(admittedly) assigns points values they feel is "fair" and adjust from there when designing characters and new things.

Look at the characters in your codex, see how they differ from the units they are based on, and figure out a rough point guide. When in doubt, make it more expensive and weaker. You can always add stuff to it but finding new opponents to play against can be tricky, especially if your last character wiped the floor with them for 100 pts.

-cgmckenzie

It's a lot easier with older codexes, where you can generally figure out how much everything is by taking the base unit and the special units and seeing what the difference is between them- for example, Burnaboyz and regular Boyz. There's a 9 point difference, but that difference includes swapping, not adding to, the weapon. Same with Lootas.


A good way to do this with characters, generally, is to take the most basic of HQs that you have, and figure out what wargear he comes with basic. If everyone else in your army comes with that basic as well, then subtract the basic unit's points from the HQs, the difference is how much the extra WS, BS, Attacks, etc. cost. Then, just take the +5 points: combi-weapon entries from other units, and use those. For special weapons on special HQs like Lysander, take what they come with basic, find out the points costs of their 'generic' equipment, like his Storm Shield, from other units (the cost of a Storm Shield from Assault Termies), subtract that out. Do the same for the basic cost of that basic HQ, if they have the same statline. This should give you all the points costs for their unique gear and special rules. From there, it's figuring out which of those should cost the most, etc, etc.

Willhellm wrote:I understand that much. But it still doesn't explain how to allocate points. How does all that wargear they have still only equal out to however much. The special items that they have, how much do things like that cost, to be subtracted and such.

If you're going to use a special character, best to keep it standard. Otherwise, use a character that has options.

You won't find any rules for equipping units other than what is given in the codex. Anything outside of that is homebrew.

If you must do that, best not to try and 'calculate' a points value. Choose a value that seems appropriate and add 50% to it (everyone always underprices...). Playtest and get your opponent's feedback. Adjust the points cost accordingly and playtest again.

Alright, a lot of that makes sense. I don't really plan on making anything up for the guy. So much as just giving him a similar wargear to them excluding the ridiculous things they get. Daemon weapon and power sword, wings, and doom siren, 170 points unless I'm doing it wrong. Ends up being more expensive than Lucius is by 10 points.

Not trying to be a giant doucher here, and over powering him with a million special powers or anything.

Price him high to start with and less people will complain. Bring the price down with testing.

Willhellm wrote:Alright, a lot of that makes sense. I don't really plan on making anything up for the guy. So much as just giving him a similar wargear to them excluding the ridiculous things they get. Daemon weapon and power sword, wings, and doom siren, 170 points unless I'm doing it wrong. Ends up being more expensive than Lucius is by 10 points.

Not trying to be a giant doucher here, and over powering him with a million special powers or anything.

Sounds like a generic demon prince with winds of chaos and wings. With a demonweapon upgrade.

Willhellm wrote:Or if you mused "Hey, I like So and so from the This and that chapter, but I"m doing a successor chapter so he's not in it."

This is explicitly allowed in the rules. If you're running a vanilla Space Marines chapter, then no matter what color or name your marines are, you can use any of the SCs from the marine codex. You can paint your marines brown and green, call them the Earth Tone marines, and use Calgar as your HQ unit, but call him Bob the Brave, and it's all 100% legal. You can't grab SCs from across codices, like deciding the Earth Tones should be led by Mephiston, with Bjorn the Fell Handed helping out, but within a given codex, whatever you want to do is fine.

For your guy, why aren't you using the daemon prince as a basis for him?

I like the idea of 'Bob the Brave' as my HQ choice. Might have to figure out how to get that to work.

-cgmckenzie

Bookwrack wrote:

Willhellm wrote:Or if you mused "Hey, I like So and so from the This and that chapter, but I"m doing a successor chapter so he's not in it."

This is explicitly allowed in the rules. If you're running a vanilla Space Marines chapter, then no matter what color or name your marines are, you can use any of the SCs from the marine codex. You can paint your marines brown and green, call them the Earth Tone marines, and use Calgar as your HQ unit, but call him Bob the Brave, and it's all 100% legal. You can't grab SCs from across codices, like deciding the Earth Tones should be led by Mephiston, with Bjorn the Fell Handed helping out, but within a given codex, whatever you want to do is fine.

For your guy, why aren't you using the daemon prince as a basis for him?

I was unaware of that actually.


I've got a daemon prince already, and as it's been said, I guess he might as well be one too. It would be cheaper points wise. They don't need to be monstrous creatures right? But I suppose the best answer I have for that is, I'm still relatively new, don't always understand or know all the rules as of yet. Which is why I [in my opinion] badgar you [the forums] with too many questions. But that question seems fair for any of the Special Characters in chaos. Why aren't all of them Daemon Princes as well? Some of them cost 200+ points as is...