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.

Hey All,

I proposed to a few friends that we play a tournament with no named characters from codexes. Needless to say a few of them didn't seem too happy about the idea.

I wasn't sure if this was the right area for this but nearly every codex has a non-named character HQ correct? Is there any detriment to an army for not being able to use a named character? Would it bring a bit more balance or strategey to the game if they were removed?

Thanks for the info and opinions in advance!

Every codex has atleast three i believe non named HQ choices if thats what your referring to, some armies are built around the use of a special characters

I argee try to use the same technic every time on the table. so it might be an advantage to the guy whos set up is more balanced. .lol

Necrons have a billion different named characters, none of them are powerful in their own right. The named characters seriously change how the army go together. If it were a necron guy who based his army around Imotekh's lighting, or Zhandrek's USR boost, then I would be frustrated to.

If there is a Dark Angels guy, who plays deathwing, I wouldn't be happy with it either. Belial is required to unlock terminators as troop choices, which is one of the few ways to make DA viable nowadays.

Nids shouldn't have a problem, they can kit out a Hive tyrant similar to the swarmlord, not exactly, but similar.

Overall it is a good idea, but the problem with limiting HQ choices is that you are severly handicapping some armies.
Some HQ choices are meant to be super awesome killing machines on their own (Mephiston or someone similar). While some HQ choices are meant to augment an army (necron SC, Belial, Draigo, Ghazkull and his waaghh!).
I'd be fine with limiting the killy HQ choices which don't really help out the rest of the army, but don't limit the choices that are there to help make the army work together

Moronic Nonsense wrote:Necrons have a billion different named characters, none of them are powerful in their own right. The named characters seriously change how the army go together. If it were a necron guy who based his army around Imotekh's lighting, or Zhandrek's USR boost, then I would be frustrated to.

If there is a Dark Angels guy, who plays deathwing, I wouldn't be happy with it either. Belial is required to unlock terminators as troop choices, which is one of the few ways to make DA viable nowadays.

Nids shouldn't have a problem, they can kit out a Hive tyrant similar to the swarmlord, not exactly, but similar.

Overall it is a good idea, but the problem with limiting HQ choices is that you are severly handicapping some armies.
Some HQ choices are meant to be super awesome killing machines on their own (Mephiston or someone similar). While some HQ choices are meant to augment an army (necron SC, Belial, Draigo, Ghazkull and his waaghh!).
I'd be fine with limiting the killy HQ choices which don't really help out the rest of the army, but don't limit the choices that are there to help make the army work together

I agree with this 100% I play Deathwing and if I was told I could not use special characters I would soon find myself without an army to play with. I mean TBH Belial isn't even any better than a standard space marine captain anyways. The only reason we take him is because we HAVE to in order to play a Deathwing army.

Maybe striking the ultra killing machines would make more sense but even that can change an army. Draigo who is an absolute monster allows a GK player to create a specific army. I think limiting special characters changes the game entirely.

Beerfist wrote:Hey All,

I proposed to a few friends that we play a tournament with no named characters from codexes. Needless to say a few of them didn't seem too happy about the idea.

I wasn't sure if this was the right area for this but nearly every codex has a non-named character HQ correct? Is there any detriment to an army for not being able to use a named character? Would it bring a bit more balance or strategey to the game if they were removed?

Thanks for the info and opinions in advance!

I have never used a named character in a game and probably never will. I have considered it with my daemons, but still haven't even done it there either. I love the named character figures in the line, but just find it silly that such major and important figures show up at the most insignificant battles. Characters like Draigo, Calgar and Abaddon shouldn't be allowed unless the game hits 2000 points and starts to become big enough for these figures to take part personally. The only reason for people to whine about losing special characters is because they rely on some of their special rules to get an advantage, like Vulkan and his ability to make all flamers and meltas twin-linked in an army. That is a MAJOR advantage, so why would someone who relies on it willingly give it up?

Skriker

Skriker wrote:
I have never used a named character in a game and probably never will. I have considered it with my daemons, but still haven't even done it there either. I love the named character figures in the line, but just find it silly that such major and important figures show up at the most insignificant battles. Characters like Draigo, Calgar and Abaddon shouldn't be allowed unless the game hits 2000 points and starts to become big enough for these figures to take part personally. Skriker

I think that this the way I think it should. My bt codex actually states the point value before certain named hqs can be used

machine wrote:

Skriker wrote:
I have never used a named character in a game and probably never will. I have considered it with my daemons, but still haven't even done it there either. I love the named character figures in the line, but just find it silly that such major and important figures show up at the most insignificant battles. Characters like Draigo, Calgar and Abaddon shouldn't be allowed unless the game hits 2000 points and starts to become big enough for these figures to take part personally. Skriker

I think that this the way I think it should. My bt codex actually states the point value before certain named hqs can be used

They all used to be like that.. basically when special characters weren't the new thing that everybody wanted. Back in 4th and before they were just options to add a bit of flavour to your army if you wanted, though in those codecies you could customise your force/leader more than you can now without being forced to take special characters (mostly, I believe). Now special characters are, by-and-large, what defines forces and a lot of the meta on the whole.

I think it'd be interesting though to have a non-SC tournament. If all your lists are WAAC then some armies will suffer a lot, but if you all bring casual lists then I think it would work out quite well.

Plus, with 6th edition rules each army's general or "warlord" can pick from a wide choice of special rules, such as making them scoring units or everyone in 12" can use their LD.. or some to just make them nastier in close combat. I'd use that for the tournament, might off-set some of the ill feelings.

Thinking about it, there are a few armies that are absolutly awful without their named characters to give them and edge. Celestine and Uriah make SoB at least playable. It's all about finding balance. Many armies are playable, and competitive without named characters, but there are those few that need them.

Named characters are very important to a number of army builds, and while some of them are very gimmicky, you need them to run some lists effectively. My Crimson Fists wouldn't do so well without Pedro Kantor leading them, making Sternguard scoring, providing Stubborn to the whole army, and bonus attacks to those gathered around him.

The stigma against special characters is more or less a holdover from 3rd edition. While some of them are unbalanced, it's better to have the options open to everyone than pick and choose which HQs are "okay" or not.

Playing Orks, I never take special characters for the same reason as Skriker. There are uncounted billions of Orks in the galaxy, but Ghazghkull and Snikrot just happened to show up for a small skirmish on a backwater planet on the fringes of known space? That kind of breaks the immersion for me. On the other hand, the Dark Angels Deathwing consists (if memory serves me) only of the chapter's 1st company, ie ~100 warriors total, so it makes perfect sense that Belial would be there too. The same goes for any small force, like all Space Marine Chapters are. In those cases, what boggles the mind is how often the Blood Angels or Space Wolves get involved in a fight in the first place...

Im from fourth ed. and they were just too strong when we used to play. I understand that some armies need them to function, and some need them to be competitive but back when they first came out, most of them just had too much bang for their buck, and they turned games into a power race, where whoever fielded the SC usually won. This wasnt true for everyone, like my friend could field the tau SCs and it made no difference but my other buddy fielded the nighbringer in his necrons and I just could not beat him.

tournaments, fine, because its for serious, but in friendly games i really, really dont like to see SCs taken, certian ones are too good at skewing game balance too hard against certian armies.

I regulary play without named characters, the only ones I tend to take are shadowsun, typhus and chaplin cassius. Beyond that I've had fabius bile make appearences, but nothing much beyond it.

A well build normal HQ is pretty damn powerful for the cost. It seems you have 1 of 2, or both of the following players that are unhappy with this rule:

Kids that want their eternal warrior HQ's
Players that rely on a named character to make something troops.

If you have players that can actually make their own lists and understand their codex, making a list without a named character is simple. For example a normal warboss vs ghaz, it's pretty much 100 points cheaper for one less wound, ws and momentary 2+ invul and auto 6 for run. Not a bad trade.

There are a few named HQ's that are pretty awful to deal with on the table, others aren't so bad. You could simply ban a collection of named HQ's, but this isn't the best way to deal with it.

Just put your foot down. If you want to run a tourney without named HQ's, do it, and tell the naysayers to deal with it.

For me this falls in the catagory of the guy that who asked to play his bane blade in a 1500pt game.

machine wrote:For me this falls in the catagory of the guy that who asked to play his bane blade in a 1500pt game.

Help me out:

1. Asking to play with no characters is like asking to use a baneblade in a 1500pt game?
2. Using characters at all is like asking to use a baneblade in a 1500pt game?

What point are you trying to make?

machine wrote:For me this falls in the catagory of the guy that who asked to play his bane blade in a 1500pt game.

Tad off point, but I'd allow that if it was used in a custom scenario. Not in any normal game though.

Darkvoidof40k wrote:

machine wrote:

Skriker wrote:
I have never used a named character in a game and probably never will. I have considered it with my daemons, but still haven't even done it there either. I love the named character figures in the line, but just find it silly that such major and important figures show up at the most insignificant battles. Characters like Draigo, Calgar and Abaddon shouldn't be allowed unless the game hits 2000 points and starts to become big enough for these figures to take part personally. Skriker

I think that this the way I think it should. My bt codex actually states the point value before certain named hqs can be used

They all used to be like that.. basically when special characters weren't the new thing that everybody wanted. Back in 4th and before they were just options to add a bit of flavour to your army if you wanted, though in those codecies you could customise your force/leader more than you can now without being forced to take special characters (mostly, I believe). Now special characters are, by-and-large, what defines forces and a lot of the meta on the whole.

I think it'd be interesting though to have a non-SC tournament. If all your lists are WAAC then some armies will suffer a lot, but if you all bring casual lists then I think it would work out quite well.

Plus, with 6th edition rules each army's general or "warlord" can pick from a wide choice of special rules, such as making them scoring units or everyone in 12" can use their LD.. or some to just make them nastier in close combat. I'd use that for the tournament, might off-set some of the ill feelings.

Some folks have brought up a good point. Perhaps a mix of the two would be better. Named characters that are *required* to make a certain build of your army would be allowed whenever, but the higher level combat gods would require a points minimum in the force. Wasn't thinking about the characters that make certain aspects of armies possible. Draigo isn't required to build a certain type of GK army, but makes that build much harder hitting. The Warlord rules definitely change things a bit and putting warlord powers on top of some of the existing named special characters is going to be downright stupid.

Skriker

I'd advise an escalation tournament for this, with, as Striker advised, points requirements.

So for example, 1000 points and under, no SC's. 1500 points 1 SC, 2000+ 2SC and so on.

Or do a % limit, for example SC's (or even HQ choices in total, if you want) may not be more than 10% points of your army or whatever.

Brother SRM wrote:Named characters are very important to a number of army builds, and while some of them are very gimmicky, you need them to run some lists effectively. My Crimson Fists wouldn't do so well without Pedro Kantor leading them, making Sternguard scoring, providing Stubborn to the whole army, and bonus attacks to those gathered around him.

Of course they wouldn't do so well without all those bonuses. Sternguard as scoring troops and stubborn alone are pretty hard core. The thing though is that your army wouldn't be hamgstrung and useless without Pedro Kantor in it either (or your own special named character who counts as Pedro Kantor). Crimson fists are still space marines. Sternguard are still useful even if they are not scoring units. Etc, etc.

Skriker

kronk wrote:

machine wrote:For me this falls in the catagory of the guy that who asked to play his bane blade in a 1500pt game.

Help me out:

1. Asking to play with no characters is like asking to use a baneblade in a 1500pt game?
2. Using characters at all is like asking to use a baneblade in a 1500pt game?

What point are you trying to make?

I've seen guys take mehpiston and the sanquinor in 1500 point games. I'd say that's worse than a simple baneblade.

I can see your point but way back in 3rd & 4th, before I needed a special character, I spent a lot of money for 80 termies for my deathwing army and if somebody told me now I couldn't play them I would be pissed. I also know a few guys who are trying to keep in it taking coteaz to play their old inquisitorial armies. As much as I hate some of the new SC it is not right to limit some and not others.

Mr. S Baldrick wrote:I can see your point but way back in 3rd & 4th, before I needed a special character, I spent a lot of money for 80 termies for my deathwing army and if somebody told me now I couldn't play them I would be pissed. I also know a few guys who are trying to keep in it taking coteaz to play their old inquisitorial armies. As much as I hate some of the new SC it is not right to limit some and not others.

I would make this exception anyday, your whole army is based on this guy. You don't seem to have any other options.

If necessary, I would allow you to count your named guy as doing his thing normally, but bought and equipped just like a normal captain, with as similar as possible wargear.

The main problem seems to stem from dragio, cortez, mehipstion and that night fight guy for nercons.

Of course, the LFGS in question could always post a list of TFG HQ's that can't show up.

I wish to avoid this they would have just stayed with the old way, that if your DA HQ was in terminator armour you could field a deathwing army. Belial really is no better than a SM captain.

Alex what is number 2

2. playin with some SC's is like using a blaneblade in a 1500 TOTAL [b]pt game. you only have 250 points to get an hq and troops.

machine wrote:Alex what is number 2

2. playin with some SC's is like using a blaneblade in a 1500 pt game. you only have 250 points to get an hq and troops.

I follow that you are likening SC's in 1500 point games to baneblades, but then you get muddled again. Perhaps if you were to write a little more coherently. A baneblade is 500 points, leaving 1000 for "an hq and troops". I can't think of any SC that would cost 1250 points.

I have no problems with SC's, as I play against them regularly. My Black Templars do not have very good Special Characters (Helbrecht and Grimaldus cost too much for what little they do). As has been posted here, disallowing SC's would prevent deathwing players from using their Troop Terminators at all, Grey Knights from using Paladins or Inquisitorial Squads as troops, and makes a number of army lists rather week. Space Marines without Vulcan or Pedro are rather lacking when compared to some other codecies out there (IMHO).

If you just wanted a one-off tournament with these rules, I'd be game for it, as would my buddies. All of the time? No thanks. If it's in my codex or yours, it's legal with our group.

Mr. S Baldrick wrote:I wish to avoid this they would have just stayed with the old way, that if your DA HQ was in terminator armour you could field a deathwing army. Belial really is no better than a SM captain.

I agree wholeheartedly here, but by GW think that means you wouldn't have had a super cool special character leading your army, dude!

Orks don't have to have special characters to allow 1 Nob and/or 1 Deff Dread to be taken as troops choices instead, so why do other forces require a special character for that kind of thing?

Skriker


Automatically Appended Next Post:

kronk wrote: Space Marines without Vulcan or Pedro are rather lacking when compared to some other codecies out there (IMHO).

Really? So space marines without twin linked melta/flamers or without scoring sternguard and stubborn are rather lacking? REALLY??

Skriker

...when compared to other codecies out there.

I get it. You don't like special characters. It's obvious as the nose on your face.

Can YOU not get that the Space Marine Codex (and a few others) have issues being equal to other codecies without special characters. I'm not talking about wanting to be over-powered. I'm talking about wanting equal footing. Without the SCs, some codecies are at a disadvantage to others.

I'll move along since you're probably just going to keep facepalming.

Skriker wrote:

Mr. S Baldrick wrote:I wish to avoid this they would have just stayed with the old way, that if your DA HQ was in terminator armour you could field a deathwing army. Belial really is no better than a SM captain.

I agree wholeheartedly here, but by GW think that means you wouldn't have had a super cool special character leading your army, dude!

Orks don't have to have special characters to allow 1 Nob and/or 1 Deff Dread to be taken as troops choices instead, so why do other forces require a special character for that kind of thing?

Skriker

Because that codex was written before 5th edition and the whole SC army definition trend became standard after the release of the 5th SM 'dex.

kronk wrote: Space Marines without Vulcan or Pedro are rather lacking when compared to some other codecies out there (IMHO).

Really? So space marines without twin linked melta/flamers or without scoring sternguard and stubborn are rather lacking? REALLY??

Skriker

From a purely competitive outlook, yes, I suppose they are. It's Blood Angels and Space Wolves that are up at the top of the meta. Sure, vanilla has plenty of competitive army lists.. though most are fairly similar, with Librarian HQ (or two), at least one squad of TH/SS Terminators, in a land raider most of the time. Often scouts as troops to maximise points that can be used elsewhere, with one or two tactical squads in rhinos maybe or otherwise five man squads to simply take razorbacks. It's through special characters that vanilla marines get all their unique and cool abilities. (Granted, there's a few other things they can do that BA or SW can't.. but on the whole it's not much)

Its a neat idea (thought about it myself as a TO) until I thought about it at length.
There is no way to eliminate the WAAC element of a tournament, comp just changes the meta and people can still break that. Eliminating characters just makes people find different ways to do it. So its not really helping on that front.
As well you eliminate:
Deathwing
Ravenwing
Loganwing
All Wolf Armies
Paladin Armies
Henchmen Armies
Hellion Armies
Sanguinary Guard Armies
As well as:
The only psychic defense that DE have
Limit SM to only combat tactics, thus eliminating a number of builds.

My conclusion was that the benefit to the meta in eliminating easily abuse able combinations was not worth the cost of eliminating the potential for variety among the player base.

Skriker wrote:

Mr. S Baldrick wrote:I wish to avoid this they would have just stayed with the old way, that if your DA HQ was in terminator armour you could field a deathwing army. Belial really is no better than a SM captain.

I agree wholeheartedly here, but by GW think that means you wouldn't have had a super cool special character leading your army, dude!

Orks don't have to have special characters to allow 1 Nob and/or 1 Deff Dread to be taken as troops choices instead, so why do other forces require a special character for that kind of thing?

Skriker

Orks let you take 1 unit as troop with the non-named HQ. The named bike HQ let you take Warbikerz as troop instead of fast. So only the named let you completely change troops just like the other codex.


OP: if you really want to change thing up. Why not some thing like...

NO SPAM TOURNAMENT
All units must be different, excpet troops (you can have 2 of the same troop choose).