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Reading a threat about Mephiston...apparently he can beat up deamon princes in his sleep and his semen is toxic to primarchs. Yadda yadda yadda.
Obviously there's draigo...whatever nonsense he did.
Seems with a lot of charectors there's no sense of scale whatsoever, and it's mainly the fault of the codexes. Dan Abnett is as theatrically over-the-top as anyone, but Gaunt struggles to even kill Chaos Astates (iirc he kills one or two but can't fight more than one at once and even then it's pretty close).
When I played 40k back in the day (3rd edition iirc) it wasn't like that, I don't think so anyway.
It seems very adolscent to me. Like "OMG this thing is so uber and powerful but OMG THIS IS EVEN MORE POWERFUL AND THIS IS MORE POWERFUL STILL AHHHHH".
Makes it hard to take background fluff seriously.

Well franky every new codex has it's hero who is awesome and unbeatable.
Eldar - Eldrad, Magun Ra
Marines - Calgar
Blood Angels - Mephiston
Grey Knights - Draigo
Necrons - Imotech
Orks - Gazzy
Chaos - Kharn, Abbadon
etc...
Of course, these were made for kids who love superheroes. No matter if they alter a balance in the fluff a little...

I don't see why its a problem for every race to have a hero.

I mean honestly, the galaxy is a big place. The odds of those heros coming into contact is pretty remote, and if it happens... legendary.

Horst wrote:I don't see why its a problem for every race to have a hero.

I mean honestly, the galaxy is a big place. The odds of those heros coming into contact is pretty remote, and if it happens... legendary.

This.

All the people you listed have done incredible things or are in a position where their skills are synonymous with their seniority.

Mephiston is the Blood Angels chief librarian and the ONLY individual to ever cast out the black rage.

Draigo is the Supreme Grandmaster of the Grey Knights and has devoted centuries of his life battling the daemonic.

There's always a reason behind something, if you look underneath the "nonsense"

Iranna.

Horst wrote:I don't see why its a problem for every race to have a hero.

I mean honestly, the galaxy is a big place. The odds of those heros coming into contact is pretty remote, and if it happens... legendary.

Well the genetic stock of humanity is so small that "extraordinary" people don't really happen.
Mephiston seems to have the strength and toughness of an avatar for no reason whatsoever. He's just "special". It just happened.
He was buried under rubble and spontaniously decided to obtain the strength necessary to lift tonnes of boulders out of the way.
Calgar is a more "traditional" charector, still have S4/T4 and is pretty badass, but is not a living demon-thing.
And I don't think I need to expand on Draigo.

Think of mephiston in Dragon Ball Z terms. Remember when Goku and Gohan were training to beat cell? They stayed in Super Sayain mode 24/7. Mephiston is like that. He stays powered up by psychic powers constantly.... makes him much stronger / tougher / faster.

Draigo... I am always of the opinion that the grey knights should be the most powerful warriors in the game. However he is doing some INSANE stuff, even for that. Its not beyond the realm of possiblity that its Tzeentch messing with him, empowering him, so he may serve some end that we all cannot see yet.

I could imagine there would be "humans" like Mephiston. There are demon gods for crying out loud. Not to mention the Big E himself. I'm sure if there was someone that could do what he does. I'm sure that Mephiston could do what he does. I feel like you are saying because humans can't do this now so we shouldn't be able to do it at all in the future. My point is that there are mo frackin demons running around slaughtering people and you think its weird to have a Mephiston or a Calgar. And besides this is fiction anyways.

I may be bias in my defence of Calgar here, but he does seem to be, at the end of the day, just a very clever Space Marine. He does do extraordinary things, but he does have limitations unseen with other characters. In 4th ed he was rumoured to be dead, there are several stories where he's lying down broken and others need to protect him, he's had all his limbs replaced with bionics due to extreme injuries. That being said though, Calgar does amazing things, he beat up an Avatar, but that was because he had the Gauntlets of Ultramar really, he held the gate against Orks for a day and night, but as a Chapter Master, he's expected to be able to do this. His mind is his greatest asset, and I think his fluff, stats and rules reflect this.
Want a really 'WTF' style Ultramarine character? Try Cassius, he makes little sense, or Tigurius being the MOST POWERFUL PSYKER EVAR!!!1ONE

Horst wrote:Think of mephiston in Dragon Ball Z terms. Remember when Goku and Gohan were training to beat cell? They stayed in Super Sayain mode 24/7. Mephiston is like that. He stays powered up by psychic powers constantly.... makes him much stronger / tougher / faster.

Draigo... I am always of the opinion that the grey knights should be the most powerful warriors in the game. However he is doing some INSANE stuff, even for that. Its not beyond the realm of possiblity that its Tzeentch messing with him, empowering him, so he may serve some end that we all cannot see yet.

I don't know what might have given you the impression that I watch Dragon Ball Z (pronounced 'zed', btw)
So any absurt fluff can be explained by "tzeentch did it"? So if there was a novel that had a super strong guardsmen who meleéd demon princes to death then it's okay because it's tzeentch/he's that badass.

SwiftLord14 wrote:I could imagine there would be "humans" like Mephiston. There are demon gods for crying out loud. Not to mention the Big E himself. I'm sure if there was someone that could do what he does. I'm sure that Mephiston could do what he does. I feel like you are saying because humans can't do this now so we shouldn't be able to do it at all in the future. My point is that there are mo frackin demons running around slaughtering people and you think its weird to have a Mephiston or a Calgar. And besides this is fiction anyways.

Space Marines were genetically engineered, hence the S4/T4/I4. Experienced marines improve their speed (I) and combat skills (BS/WS) but there's no need at all for more Strength or Toughness.
This is an Avatar of Kaine. It is a living embodiment of a god of murder:

Notice how he's probably about twice as tall as an astartes, maybe more. Clearly the god of murder has been slacking off if he needs something that big to acheive the same results as a space marine.

Joey wrote:
Space Marines were genetically engineered, hence the S4/T4/I4. Experienced marines improve their speed (I) and combat skills (BS/WS) but there's no need at all for more Strength or Toughness.
This is an Avatar of Kaine. It is a living embodiment of a god of murder:

Notice how he's probably about twice as tall as an astartes, maybe more. Clearly the god of murder has been slacking off if he needs something that big to acheive the same results as a space marine.

And Calgar did this to him:

and the Avatar died of shame...

Yeah but he used a power fist to do it, hence why he's not a stupid charector. Mephiston is naturally that strong.

Joey wrote:Yeah but he used a power fist to do it, hence why he's not a stupid charector. Mephiston is naturally that strong.

Psychic power which makes him S10?

Iranna.

Brother Coa wrote:Well franky every new codex has it's hero who is awesome and unbeatable.
Eldar - Eldrad, Magun Ra
Marines - Calgar
Blood Angels - Mephiston
Grey Knights - Draigo
Necrons - Imotech
Orks - Gazzy
Chaos - Kharn, Abbadon
etc...
Of course, these were made for kids who love superheroes. No matter if they alter a balance in the fluff a little...

No Imperial Guard in that list.

Straken, Yarrick, Harker, Marbo, just men (and a bit of robot in Straken and Yarrick's cases) but extraordinary still.

Because we are focusing on Marines here?
If we add Imperial Guard it will became even more silly because Yarrick rip off the Warboss hand and attach it to himself.

Actually, Yarrick's back story & equipment makes more sense than some other special characters.

What actually happened was that Yarrick was on the front lines, he encountered the Ork Warboss Ugulhard who snipped off his right arm at the elbow. Yarrick managed to defeat the Ork Warboss with his chainsword, beheading the greenskin, and removed the power claw from the defeated warboss. Yarrick held it above his head to show to the Orks that their warboss had been defeated. The Orks ran away. Nice little line from that bit in the Codex; "Only when the Orks were repulsed did Yarrick allow himself the luxury of passing out." These crazy OAP Commissars.

Anyway, Yarrick had the power claw modified into a prosthetic limb to replace his lost arm as a piece of psychological warfare. Orks began to believe he could not be killed and that he could kill them with a glance of his 'evil eye' - something he played on further when he lost his eye and had the Bale Eye bionic implant replace it.

To me Yarrick is very cool and always has been. He's awesome without being stupid. There are reasons behind his actions - he doesn't take the Power Claw because it'd be 'cool', but as both a replacement for his arm and a tool to play upon the Ork mind. He knows the Ork mind, is fluent in the Orks tongue and is one of the leading experts in the Imperium on the subject of Greenskins - he knows what makes them tick and how to use that to his advantage.

Brother Coa wrote:Because we are focusing on Marines here?

Yeah, it's annoying. Marines are practically irrelevant in 40k lore (note I said 40k, not 30k) due to rarity and their lack of interaction with other factions, but they get so much focus despite that.

I don't feel worthy to comment anymore... Melissia's here.

Iranna.

Melissia wrote:

Brother Coa wrote:Because we are focusing on Marines here?

Yeah, it's annoying. Marines are practically irrelevant in 40k lore (note I said 40k, not 30k) due to rarity and their lack of interaction with other factions, but they get so much focus despite that.

By that logic, the Tau Empire are "practically irrelevant" in 40k lore "due to rarity and their lack of interaction with other factions". They're effectively stuck within their Empire, irrelevant to the galaxy at large. Yet there's still quite some importance placed upon them, and they're actually something the Imperium considers an ideological threat.


Why?

Because the 'focus' of 40k is generally going to be on the big battles. Those same big battles are, usually, where the Astartes will be present simply because they are big battles which have the potential for a Very Bad Thing to happen if the battle is lost.

Kanluwen wrote:By that logic, the Tau Empire are "practically irrelevant" in 40k lore "due to rarity and their lack of interaction with other factions".

I know, right?

rob-or-ross wrote:

Brother Coa wrote:Well franky every new codex has it's hero who is awesome and unbeatable.
Eldar - Eldrad, Magun Ra
Marines - Calgar
Blood Angels - Mephiston
Grey Knights - Draigo
Necrons - Imotech
Orks - Gazzy
Chaos - Kharn, Abbadon
etc...
Of course, these were made for kids who love superheroes. No matter if they alter a balance in the fluff a little...

No Imperial Guard in that list.

Straken, Yarrick, Harker, Marbo, just men (and a bit of robot in Straken and Yarrick's cases) but extraordinary still.

Personally I think Marbo's I5 *is* stupid but it's unlikely to ever swing a battle.
There are no IG with Strength or Toughness 5, or even 4 (other than yarik, which is for legitimate reasons). Only marines are special enough to spontaniously increase in strength and toughness.

Melissia wrote:Yeah, it's annoying. Marines are practically irrelevant in 40k lore (note I said 40k, not 30k) due to rarity and their lack of interaction with other factions, but they get so much focus despite that.

Like you said: everybody wants to be an elite.

Melissia wrote:

Brother Coa wrote:Because we are focusing on Marines here?

Yeah, it's annoying. Marines are practically irrelevant in 40k lore (note I said 40k, not 30k) due to rarity and their lack of interaction with other factions, but they get so much focus despite that.

Whilst I get your point, Melissia, phrasing it the way you have invites the conclusion that, for example, since they are unrepresentative of the populace as a whole, upper-middle class young women are irrelevant to the world of Jane Austen, or that cockneys are to that of Charles Dickens. Like it or not, Space Marines are central to the narrative and imagery of Warhammer 40,000, and people will, however wrongly (or inconveniently to your particular view of the setting), employ them as a benchmark.

To return to the question, yes characters are unrealistically (whatever that means in a universe in which men travel across the galaxy to fight each other with swords) powerful, but thus it has always been since Rogue Trader. Warhammer 40,000 is an epic, heroic setting, not a realistic one. Is it 'adolescent'? Yes, but then so is most science fiction. (Or at least the sort of science fiction which lends itself to forming the background to a wargame - I can't imagine 'Epic battles in the world of Kurt Vonnegut!' or 'In the grim darkness of Margaret Attwood's Oryx and Crake there is only war!' really working.)

It's power creep. It happens. It happens a little more with SM because all they really have is that they are big and powerful, so SMs have to keep getting bigger and more powerful because that is there primary avenue of charcter growth.

It happens to other armies. It's just more pronounced with SMs.

English Assassin wrote:Like it or not, Space Marines are central to the narrative and imagery of Warhammer 40,000

The latter sure, because they sell well (and even then they're easy enough to ignore). But the narrative? Not really, actually, unless your focus is on the Horus Heresy. The way GW has written the narrative, with the exception of Macragge Marines are kinda tangential to the major plotlines after the conclusion of the Horus Heresy.

Armageddon was caused by the Orks and most of the fighting was done by Orks and humans. Cadia was caused by Chaos and most of the fighting is done by cultists, daemons, and humans. The Tyrannic Wars were caused by the Tyranids, and most of the fighting is done by Tyranids, Orks, Humans, and the various minor xeno races such as the Tau Empire. Macharius Solar led his own crusade which Marines only assisted in, and fought against other humans and minor xeno races. Saint Sabbat led her crusade, and Marines merely assisted her, and when the crusade started a second time, Marines had even less of a presence. During the age of apostasy, the marines mostly stayed out of the politics, until finally they assaulted the imperial palace, but even then the sisters held them off and Alicia Dominica finally killed off Goge Vandire, not a marine. After the age of apostasy Dominica and her bodyguards each led a massive crusade to spread the word of the Emperor to the far corners of the galaxy, the greatest since the Great Crusade itself. The Guard, the Sisters, the Mechanicus, all have more of an impact on the daily life of the common folk of the Imperium, and the Guard and Mechanicus in particular have a far more prominent impact upon the galaxy in "modern" 40k (that is, the time after the Horus Heresy ended).

Even on Macragge, it's not unfair to say that a sizable amount of the fighting on the ground was done by Macragge's human population (they are supposed to have a talented PDF and guard, from what I recall), and in space certainly the Imperial Navy did a good bulk of the fighting. It was actually the Imperial Navy that won the battle through the sacrifice of a battleship.

Marines are only the focus of the narrative if you want them to be. It's a weird, probably unintended brilliance in GW's writing. For me, the classic bit of GW's lore is probably Armageddon.

Why? Because it would not be fun having your army's special character just being a regular guy that was promoted through length of service, opportunity and above average intelligence.
They need a personality and powers to match.

And not everyone can be guy that is just smart; there can only be one Creed.

So one character per book is crazy? For armies that have been around as long as they have? Really? First off I thought most who liked guard was cause they were more human now there is "no guard has 5 str etc." Seems people want stuff to just complain about. While I think Mephiston is silly and over the top with so many heroes its that crazy stuff that people flock too when building armies. Nobody wants to play the lil timy army with no unique characters or fluff. I think Draigo's fluff is ridiculous but they always made it out that the gk's "primarch" was the emperor himself hence why their psychic ability holocaust is similar to the power he used to smite Horus. You really think they should be the same as Smurfs and Calgar? Have you mentioned Vect? The lil hobo boy who now rules the de cause hes the smartest? Or the swarmlord who never dies? You dont think any of their fluff is just as out there? Heroes will always be larger then life. Its why folk stories and legends grow by leaps and bounds.

Kanluwen wrote:

Melissia wrote:

Brother Coa wrote:Because we are focusing on Marines here?

Yeah, it's annoying. Marines are practically irrelevant in 40k lore (note I said 40k, not 30k) due to rarity and their lack of interaction with other factions, but they get so much focus despite that.

By that logic, the Tau Empire are "practically irrelevant" in 40k lore "due to rarity and their lack of interaction with other factions". They're effectively stuck within their Empire, irrelevant to the galaxy at large. Yet there's still quite some importance placed upon them, and they're actually something the Imperium considers an ideological threat.

Only if by "the Imperium" you mean those officials within spitting distance of Tau territory, who have basically no military support because the Imperium can't even be bothered to notice the Tau and reinforce their position.

Because the 'focus' of 40k is generally going to be on the big battles. Those same big battles are, usually, where the Astartes will be present simply because they are big battles which have the potential for a Very Bad Thing to happen if the battle is lost.

Sure, they'll be present at bigger conflicts, like Macragge, but like Macragge their chief role will be running away, dying, and then taking credit for the Guard/Navy's accomplishments.


The ridiculous unique characters problem is entirely Matt Ward. Not that there weren't over the top characters before, but he's the only codex author to actually push it so far it becomes a problem, in addition to just spamming special characters in general.

You mean like kelly's 4 speacial character sw? Oh right yes that was ward too..

Its not the number of special characters that becomes a problem.

Basically there are 2 types of special charachters that people get annoyed with. Type one is rediculous fluff and or rules, and type too is soo good that they are auto take. Of course some overlap to a degree (Mephiston) and those are the most obnoxious.

The Eldar codex has 8 special characters (Eldrad, Yriel, and Phoenix Lords). People complain a lot about Eldrad because hes so powerful hes essentially an "auto take".

Eldrad, and Vulcan are examples of auto take charachters. It gets annoying to see Eldrad lead every eldar battle group in the galaxy to ever minor conflict immaginable, and the same goes for Vulcan being in the field every time the salamanders deploy.

On the other side are charachters with rediculous fluff and rules, like Space Marines who have magically super duper stats, or are carving their names in daemon primarch's hearts (Mephiston and Draigo) People don't like these because they see them as being insulting to the fluff, Matt Ward has a big problem with this, while Kelly is fully responsible for Njal.

I don't like special charachters. I find that they have a tendancy to make people boring. Sometimes they are needed (like Bile to make an enchanted marines build or Kantor to make a stern guard army) but in general they don't really add much to the flavor of the army, they often have army wide buffs that don't make any sense at all, and to add insult to injury they come at a steep discount from a similarly armed vanilla hero.

I think Warhammer should go back to a tendency for vanilla captains / chaos lords / generals. I don't mind having a few special charachters, but they should be like the IG charachters. Good, Fluffy, some are incredibly powerful, but they are balanced by their steep points cost so that you don't see them very often.

Its alot more exciting to see a guard army built around straken than it is to see "yet another" vulcan army.

Wheres our Imperial Guard hero huh? We don't get any demon-slaying, Avatar killing people at all.

All we get is and old far of a commissar that went missing, a tactical genius with no super-human powers, and a really really tough Ogryen.

How bout you all take your "Unwanted heroes" and give them to the Imperial Guard hmmmm?