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May be a stupid question but i've just been reading some 40k threads here and there and see alot of people saying they dont care for Named characters...

Now i know some are just not as good as other choices in said army but dont most armies have at least 1 named character worth taking atleast 50% of the time?

When most people say don't bother with "Named Character X" it's because said character tends to not be cost effective compared to other options. However I can think of three good named characters from each of the armies I've played.

For example pretty much every Eldar list runs Eldrad, he's a little expensive but worth every point as he's one of, if not the, best psyker in the game. However in the same book you'll almost never see anyone take a Pheonix Lord.

The Dark Eldar have Duke Slisscus, which gives raiders the deep strike ability, and if you're running raider spam this is a better option that webway portals(IMHO). But they also have Asdrubael Vect, who while powerful, costs nearly 500 points to bring into the game and is more of a fire magnet than land raider crusaders.

The Black Templars have Chaplain Grimaldus. Who is actually a little under priced. If you kit out a chaplain in his wargear they cost exactly the same, only Grimaldus comes with some nifty little abilities.



I don't hate named characters, if I have the points I'll use them. If not I'll run a regular non-named option then use the named characters model.

This entire post is nothing but personal opinion. To me, it isn't about being point efficient. It's about the narrative part of the game, which I realize isn't as important to everyone.

The game gives you the option to build your own heroes and I don't like to see armies constantly using the same named heroes. For me, it also gets to the point that I have to wonder exactly how many battlefields across the galaxy a given hero could show up on. I know Kharn is a great guy to hang out with, but he doesn't have to be everywhere the World Eaters show up.

I also don't like how named characters are required for alternate army lists. I think if GW wants to give options to change the basic space marine list to be more melta and flamer friendly, make it a variation of the normal army list. We shouldn't need a bunch of Vulcans is disguise handing out the flamer bonuses. I think special characters should have their own unique abilities and leave the army list variants to either normal HQ choices or just make them options in the book to start with.

All that being said, I did most of my playing in the "good old days" of 3rd edition where special characters were supposed to be for special occasions and you had to have your opponent's permission to field them. That's probably influenced my opinion.

I'd say it's because super powerful models aren't how you win games. They limit the number of boots you can get down which is why I dislike them. 250pt+ guy who can kill max 1 unit per turn or 250+ of troops who can do all sorts of things? I think the latter is better.

Of course they aren't all that costly, but most of them are just a little bit too expensive for what they do.


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 Phaeron wrote:

All that being said, I did most of my playing in the "good old days" of 3rd edition where special characters were supposed to be for special occasions and you had to have your opponent's permission to field them. That's probably influenced my opinion.

I remember when you had to play at a certain points level to use a lot of special characters. I grew up shunning them because I rarely got to that points level and thought they were silly. Now it's all different, but I still don't think they're worth their points costs.

 jeratoll wrote:
When most people say don't bother with "Named Character X" it's because said character tends to not be cost effective compared to other options. However I can think of three good named characters from each of the armies I've played.

For example pretty much every Eldar list runs Eldrad, he's a little expensive but worth every point as he's one of, if not the, best psyker in the game. However in the same book you'll almost never see anyone take a Pheonix Lord.

The Dark Eldar have Duke Slisscus, which gives raiders the deep strike ability, and if you're running raider spam this is a better option that webway portals(IMHO). But they also have Asdrubael Vect, who while powerful, costs nearly 500 points to bring into the game and is more of a fire magnet than land raider crusaders.

The Black Templars have Chaplain Grimaldus. Who is actually a little under priced. If you kit out a chaplain in his wargear they cost exactly the same, only Grimaldus comes with some nifty little abilities.



I don't hate named characters, if I have the points I'll use them. If not I'll run a regular non-named option then use the named characters model.

No Baron? lol I like my hellion troop choice

I usually dont get much use out of named characters in my experience so i usually only take them if i need something unlocked or if there just super badass (imo) EX: Sgt. Harker, marbo or col. Straken, yet not very much straken as hes point heavy lol.

Like a number of people have already said, your capable of creating your own characters and also there are only so many battles that one hero could be at.

Plus most do seem a little pricy.

I prefer to create my own so I can write their background as I enjoy it.

The doom IMO is the best cost effective special character. I can also see him appearing in many battles as the hive mind can just make him

My opinion on named characters is that some are just useless "filler" characters, such as Kheradruakh(spelling?). While others are "no brainers" that you always take, such as Eldrad. I don't mind them, its just that sometimes I feel that GW creates characters that start out as awesome that during games testing they get nerfed and nerfed until they are useless. Kheradruakh for example problably started as something much better but got nerfed to the point of being useless.

i think its mostly when your opponent brings out a model that has a rule that makes the whole game i for one dislike fateweaver tile they said he cant confer his reroll godly ness on csm and then theirs self hate like i hate the dam expensive useless space pop for us tau. aun va.

I wish people would stop using the word "hate" for things like this. It's more like "mild to moderate derision" in most reasonable folks.

People want to have some of the abilities that named characters have without taking a named character. For instance, as a Crimson Fists player I would love to take Pedro Kantor's Chapter Tactics rules (armywide Stubborn, scoring Sternguard) and give them to my army to maintain that flavor without taking him. I almost always take him, but if I field an army without him (typically in a smaller game) I lose out on my "proper" Crimson Fists rules.

The case for a lot of special characters is that you can just counts-as that character for your army. It's been said a few times (I believe even in the Space Marine codex) that these characters are frameworks for characters in your army. Typhus may be a Death Guard special character, but my Iron Warriors could field a counts-as Typhus who is actually a bionic war construct with giant scythes for arms. Lysander might be an Imperial Fists character, but the Ultramarines might have a particularly hardy captain with a big hammer who could counts-as Lysander.

There's also some leftover derision from 3rd/early 4th ed, where they were really poorly balanced and were only allowed in games of X points. There is still some unbalance in characters (Eldrad vs. a similarly costed Farseer, forexample), but it's more prevalent in older codices.

I dislike special characters because I think they detract from the game. I don't find them cinematic, I find them idiotic. Once more I play with Eldrad and once more I find Mephiston on the other side. It's a character with a predetermined history, he's unique, and he's heavily associated with something - it really removes the whole "the whole universe is at war". They could, essentially, scrap nearly all the lore and make it a single planet - THEN it'd make sense to get so many special characters in so many battles.
It goes on. I also find them generally overpowered and too cost effective.

 Brother SRM wrote:
I wish people would stop using the word "hate" for things like this. It's more like "mild to moderate derision" in most reasonable folks.

People want to have some of the abilities that named characters have without taking a named character. For instance, as a Crimson Fists player I would love to take Pedro Kantor's Chapter Tactics rules (armywide Stubborn, scoring Sternguard) and give them to my army to maintain that flavor without taking him. I almost always take him, but if I field an army without him (typically in a smaller game) I lose out on my "proper" Crimson Fists rules.

The case for a lot of special characters is that you can just counts-as that character for your army. It's been said a few times (I believe even in the Space Marine codex) that these characters are frameworks for characters in your army. Typhus may be a Death Guard special character, but my Iron Warriors could field a counts-as Typhus who is actually a bionic war construct with giant scythes for arms. Lysander might be an Imperial Fists character, but the Ultramarines might have a particularly hardy captain with a big hammer who could counts-as Lysander.

There's also some leftover derision from 3rd/early 4th ed, where they were really poorly balanced and were only allowed in games of X points. There is still some unbalance in characters (Eldrad vs. a similarly costed Farseer, forexample), but it's more prevalent in older codices.

any objection to dislike with great intensity?

Well, in 5th Mephiston was a dick for certain armies. There are a couple of others that are considered "OP" but in general people are pretty ambivalent about most special charectors.

I get why people are annoyed that you need to take them to unlock certain army abilities, but it's a better way of doing it than the old doctrine system.

 Diezel wrote:
May be a stupid question but i've just been reading some 40k threads here and there and see alot of people saying they dont care for Named characters...

Now i know some are just not as good as other choices in said army but dont most armies have at least 1 named character worth taking atleast 50% of the time?

Because they're really, really, really good usually.

Some people can't handle other plastic toys being better than their plastic toys.

 TheCaptain wrote:


Some people can't handle other plastic toys being better than their plastic toys.

Love that comment .

Personally i view almost all charters as an archetypal frame for other characters. For example, in my Death Guard army, i run a Chaos Lord in terminator amour who, rules wise, is Typhus. I don't think of him as Typhus though, i just use his rules. I also used to run Cato Sicarius in my old Raven Guard army, as he conveyed the Surprise Attack! and Battle Forged Heroes special rules, which i thought reflected the nature of the Raven Guard way of war perfectly. This doesn't mean that Cato is leading a Raven Guard company now, its just an albino dude who acts like Cato

Some times characters are integral for an entire army though. Case in point: without Epidemius in my Nurgle Daemons army...i just have an army of over priced, underwhelming trrops. Throw in Ep, and this army can have some real teeth.