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How do you feel about Special Characters fluff ?
Do you always use them as they are in the fluff ?
Or do you use them as count as? Just like the rule in wh40k saying you can use any special character stats to fit your own character.

That depends on the character, personally. I'm a Haqqislam player, so I'll just use their examples. Saladin, as an ALEPH reconstruction is somebody I'd field as is. I like the fluff around him, and if I ever field him, I'm almost certain to have a Lasiq sniper in the same force as part of the Old Man of the Mountain's safety measures. An example of a character I might refluff might be Hussein al-Djabel. His fluff feels too generic, but works well as the template for a character one step above your average Fiday. Alternatively, makes for interesting potential because you never know how many copies of al-Djabel really are running around the Human Sphere. The Old Man has his personality record after all, and can probably afford multiple copies. (Hmm, suddenly, fun campaign idea right there.)

I figure I'd use Tarik Mansuri and Izzat Beg as is as well. Badass action hero and scummy bike ganger. For some reason Beg reminds me of a more unscrupulous Jimmy Raynor, especially given the Kum illustration from the Infinity rulebook.

As someone who is deadset on making up their own everything, I do use Special Characters, but always make them my own. At the moment, I don't have any sort of fancy fluff assosciated with anything, but that's because I've been focusing on painting more than writing.

I have one special character at the moment, Hussein Al-Djabel, and he's awesome, but will get renamed to something else for use in my Haqqislam force.

I like reading about special characters but i refuse to use them as anything but 'count as' units.

It just doesn't feel right to for William Wallace to lead my force in my insignificant little battle. Don't get me started on how ridiculous it is to even have stats for Abaddon never mind bring him out for a 2000pt 40k game.

To be fair, Infinity has more of a special forces flavor (although in a weird combination of line troops fighting alongside the black ops) and in that sort of action "heroes" are more visible. Who can forget John Malcolm Thorpe Fleming "Fighting Jack" Churchill of the British Commandoes during WW2 once you've read of him? Not me, that's for sure.

Kaptajn Congoboy wrote:To be fair, Infinity has more of a special forces flavor (although in a weird combination of line troops fighting alongside the black ops) and in that sort of action "heroes" are more visible. Who can forget John Malcolm Thorpe Fleming "Fighting Jack" Churchill of the British Commandoes during WW2 once you've read of him? Not me, that's for sure.

That guy is straight up the coolest person ever. Period.

I don't have many characters for my lists other than Sun Tze. So I haven't used any much. I don't mind it though at all. In fact I wish there were named characters for the Combined army just so you can identify with them a bit more.

Good to know i'm not the only one thinking that way =D

phelanw0lf wrote:That depends on the character, personally. I'm a Haqqislam player, so I'll just use their examples. Saladin, as an ALEPH reconstruction is somebody I'd field as is. I like the fluff around him, and if I ever field him, I'm almost certain to have a Lasiq sniper in the same force as part of the Old Man of the Mountain's safety measures. An example of a character I might refluff might be Hussein al-Djabel. His fluff feels too generic, but works well as the template for a character one step above your average Fiday. Alternatively, makes for interesting potential because you never know how many copies of al-Djabel really are running around the Human Sphere. The Old Man has his personality record after all, and can probably afford multiple copies. (Hmm, suddenly, fun campaign idea right there.)

I figure I'd use Tarik Mansuri and Izzat Beg as is as well. Badass action hero and scummy bike ganger. For some reason Beg reminds me of a more unscrupulous Jimmy Raynor, especially given the Kum illustration from the Infinity rulebook.

As a fellow Haqqislam player, I can say I do the same. I have no problems with using all the characters, counting Al-Djabel as well, as they are presented in the book. I like the fluff, but I would not really field the biker guy or the Tuareg guy because of aesthetic choices.

I've been considering using the Tarik Mansuri profile for my Khawarij, largely because the regular Khawarij profile isn't very "super" a super soldier.
They move at a normal speed, their CC and BS are shared by other LI, their WIP isn't a huge increase but makes promoting them to Lt. a bit of a giveaway when it comes to rolling Initiative, which is compounded by having no improvement to ARM or W, BTS is the same, Shock Immunity doesn't come up that much, and their PH, while good for LI, isn't that unusual overall. Super-jump has its bonuses, but if I have a super soldier I wanna see something a little more spectacular than them pogo-sticking around the board.

I wouldn't want to use the rules as Tarik himself though, as I really prefer to write my own characters rather than using special characters who, frankly, are far too unique to show up in a regular game.

There's fluff for characters?

I just use the profile and put the little mandolly on the table. It doesn't live long enough for me to bother with backstory.

chromedog wrote:There's fluff for characters?

I just use the profile and put the little mandolly on the table. It doesn't live long enough for me to bother with backstory.

Who needs to live, you just need cash.

I play with models that look cool.
Rules need to work within the framework given.

Fluff is irrelevant. Especially when it concerns the French, Russians, Werewolves or furries.

Looking at Haqqislam, I've so far been unimpressed with the special character models. In particular al-Djabel looks inferior to the regular Fidays, Saladin is a pretty boring sculpt.

I actually thought the Khawarijs model was a special character. That thing oozes awesome.

@chromedog: Obviously, it's an entirely subjective matter, but I have to disagree. A huge part of the appeal of wargaming for me is the escapism, the immersion within the universe and the story.

I have to admit that I'm actually a little surprised at your apathy. Wargamers tend to have the kind of imaginations that are willing to elevate the act of throwing numbered polyhedrons at the shaped whitemetal on the kitchen table to something beyond that - the people that don't have such mindset don't tend to play this kind of game.
Your approach, if you really are that uninterested in the fluff, seems unusually "clinical".

MarcoSkoll wrote:the people that don't have such mindset don't tend to play this kind of game.
Your approach, if you really are that uninterested in the fluff, seems unusually "clinical".

Got to disagree with that entirely. Just look at the tournament scene. While some people try to build a competitive but fluffy army, most simply put together the most effective combination of units and don't give two hoots about the story. There's also plenty of people like that who never go to tournaments. Those sorts of people are as populous in the hobby as people who play for the story.

That's not what I mean. Even a tournament player who just picks the most effective combinations is more immersed in the story and the game than "mandollies who I'll be taking off the table in a few moments". The mind at least accepts the game as a representation of soldiers battling it out in war.

Now, obviously, there's a whole sliding scale of immersion and story involvement, but if you go up to a serious tournament player, and say "What's the coolest thing that's ever happened in one of your tournament games?", a) they'll probably be able to tell you and b) they'll probably describe it at least somewhat "in character". Not "Who cares? They're models."

MarcoSkoll wrote:That's not what I mean. Even a tournament player who just picks the most effective combinations is more immersed in the story and the game than "mandollies who I'll be taking off the table in a few moments". The mind at least accepts the game as a representation of soldiers battling it out in war.

Now, obviously, there's a whole sliding scale of immersion and story involvement, but if you go up to a serious tournament player, and say "What's the coolest thing that's ever happened in one of your tournament games?", a) they'll probably be able to tell you and b) they'll probably describe it at least somewhat "in character". Not "Who cares? They're models."

Chomedog always strikes me as a bit bitter when it comes to this sort of thing for some reason. No idea why, but don't worry about it. I love the fluff too, and getting into it proves a lot of fun for the majority of players.