Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

So, in the spirit of funzies and 'thelulz', several of the guys at my club have developed custom units for their armies. Going balls to the wall is an understatement with many of the SM players running primarchs.

After a few games tonight, a friend and I came to the mutual conclusion that these sooooped up characters (Primarchs, eldar characters, nids etc..) just didn't seem worth it. Let me explain our reasoning;

- We felt that, despite the ultra hardness of the characters, it seemed like too much a risk to put in so many points into a single model. Sure, it could lay the smacketh down - but if it died, thats a lot of points down the drain!
- For their points cost, they VERY VERY rarely made their points back. A single model can only be in so many places over the course of the game
- We kept asking the question, would it have been more feasible to spend those points on other, regular, units? We generally thought yes

Our main conclusion that we drew was that, although fluffy and fun to a degree, these larger than life characters - who we tried to design to our satisfaction - were still just single models. It was always way more fun to bring more troops.

Have you guys any experiences playing with these sorts of characters? What do you think?

When I've used them, they've always been free. So we could all take our regular armies then take our uber characters on top. Made for some titanic duels.

Judging by the rules I've seen made for Primarchs in the past, I'm not surprised they're too much.

They should remain in the background only; demi-gods don't belong in the game IMHO - it was a fundamental flaw with C'tan too, albeit for opposite reasons - as their abilities, role and somewhat-plot-armour don't translate well into game.

Just Dave wrote:Judging by the rules I've seen made for Primarchs in the past, I'm not surprised they're too much.

They should remain in the background only; demi-gods don't belong in the game IMHO - it was a fundamental flaw with C'tan too, albeit for opposite reasons - as their abilities, role and somewhat-plot-armour don't translate well into game.

C'tan are in the game. Man I hate them!

A lot of people on dakka are obsessed with Primarch because they have "daddy issues".
Never seen them as anything more than fictional charectors from the HH series myself. But then, I'm somewhat old school. To me, Primarchs are names in (fictional) history books, and naming conventions.

Thrawn2600 wrote:

Just Dave wrote:Judging by the rules I've seen made for Primarchs in the past, I'm not surprised they're too much.

They should remain in the background only; demi-gods don't belong in the game IMHO - it was a fundamental flaw with C'tan too, albeit for opposite reasons - as their abilities, role and somewhat-plot-armour don't translate well into game.

C'tan are in the game. Man I hate them!

C'tan shards are, but the original C'tan were simply too weak for god/demi-god beings.

I think that if people are trying to run primarchs within their army, it will almost always fall flat.

However, if we were running a 10k point apoc battle, a recreation of the siege of terra or something like that, and had an event organizer draft rules for primarchs with 'equality' in mind it could be fun (ie. A huge apoc game where vulkan, guilliman and dorn are allied against perterabo, mortarion, and magnus, each primarch/daemon has his own rules but doesnt count against your points with cool rules that make him sort of equal to the others)

I still think Abbadon is as close to a Primarch as some people can get in game. I had 2500 points of Orcs rushing at me screaming with whatever their big named character is. They were on top of me almost right off, and my rolls for resv were going no where, it was just walking Marines into an Orc meat grinder, and all I was doing was watchin Berserkers and Plague marines die on one side of the table and my Thousand Sons on the other side in a rhino hang on for dear life. As soon as I got Abbadon on the table, his HQ, Battlewagon, 6 Def Koters all fell in short order (two times I rolled a 6 on the number of attack Abbondon got) He walke in with three Termies, who took a lot of the abuse at first, but that one man turned the game around. After that my Marines were moving again, lessr deamons hit the table, my heavy weapons that were blocked on my tank opened up. So I think anything stronger than that, is a either awaste or game changer.

I have never seen a balanced proposal for the Emperor or any of the Primarchs.

The simple fact is that they will always be overpowered and no one will agree on what abilities they should all possess, let alone who should be better in close combat as each person will obviously assume their favourite primarch is the best.

40K -- even Apocalypse-- is way too small-scale a game for primarchs. They belong in Epic, maybe, or in BFG, maybe. Definitely NOT 40K.

The thing is, there IS a rule for a primarch in the game currently.

Angron of the World Eaters was given stats in his daemonic prince form.

Apoc only though, he gets a Retinue of Bloodthirsters, kinda awesome.

They aren't supposed to be that awesome, considering they could only really beat the lower level bloodthirsters, the only true overpowered ones would be Horus (powered by all four gods at his highest point) and the Emporer (There's NO way to put him on the field ever)

I mean the primarchs in the fluff most likely couldn't take the big badass Most Powerful Greater Daemons of the gods. If Breaking one was Sanguinas achievement, one of them, not a big badass one, just one of the one's there.

Just Dave wrote:Judging by the rules I've seen made for Primarchs in the past, I'm not surprised they're too much.

They should remain in the background only; demi-gods don't belong in the game IMHO - it was a fundamental flaw with C'tan too, albeit for opposite reasons - as their abilities, role and somewhat-plot-armour don't translate well into game.

This is about right. They're too powerful for a standard game of 40k if you go by the fluff, and if you make them just slightly more powerful captains why bother? They'd have to be far and above beyond any characters we have now, and given the beatsticks out there like Kharn, Lysander, Draigo, and so on, that could get pretty ridiculous.

Joey wrote:A lot of people on dakka are obsessed with Primarch because they have "daddy issues".
Never seen them as anything more than fictional charectors from the HH series myself. But then, I'm somewhat old school. To me, Primarchs are names in (fictional) history books, and naming conventions.

Well that's a hell of an assumption isn't it? Try painting with a less broad brush. People on Dakka just want to see models/rules for them because they like the characters and their fluff; same reason people have wanted Ciaphas Cain or any number of other BL characters as models. Also, for some younger players the HH novels might be the closest thing to literature they've read outside of required reading for school. That must make these stories and their characters seem pretty incredible; I know I was way more into the whole proposed rules for fictional characters thing more when I was in high school.

This is about right. They're too powerful for a standard game of 40k if you go by the fluff, and if you make them just slightly more powerful captains why bother? They'd have to be far and above beyond any characters we have now, and given the beatsticks out there like Kharn, Lysander, Draigo, and so on, that could get pretty ridiculous.

Someone explain to me how we have Greater Daemons than, please if one of their accomplishments, was to beat ONE of them.

I'd think that primarchs would have some crazy stats and rules, but would be somewhere in the range for 250-600 range. Toned down from the fluff a bit similar to how GD's and Space marines are.

Generally, I'm not a big fan of fan-made Primarchs. Regardless of costs, they tend to get overloaded with too many special rules and wargear. Often this is because the designer tries too hard to make the game=fluff thing work.

I think many of them would do well to do some research first, and take a good long look at GW's own attempts at such characters. Profile-wise, I'm still a big fan of GW's take on Angron for daemon-primarchs, though that could do with a cut of around 150-250points there. For a normal primarch I'd go with S6/A5, as S7 to me speaks of Angron's Daemonic stature and A6 is his Mark of Khorne or Berserker stereotype bonus. Using that profile as a base, I'd probably then only add one or two more unit/army boosting abilities to what its got.

Didn't Russ once have rules?