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I do like to create fluffy lists sometimes for high points games (1750 or higher), but lower than that it doesn't feel right at all.
It's fun to make a Farsight Enclave list - and then try to play it in the way the Farsight Enclave works. It rarely wins, but it's fun.

Generally with nids, I tend to take the Deathleaper a lot because all of my friends love their psykers, and making them test on Ld 7/8 all the time is priceless. Poor Eldrad.. making psychic tests on 4d6, dropping the lowest, perils'ing on any doubles, and off Ld7
Swarmlord I'll take as a beatstick in games over 1850, because.. well... swarmlord.
Then there is Doom, which... dooms.... and the parasite, which I've used once and it promptly got zotted by a lascannon on turn 1.
And then there's OOE.. who is... a..uuuh.... "special" character to say the least...

Tyranid special characters in a nutshell!

I don't use them at all. I have been tempted from time to time, but I resist on principle.

I came from a time in which unique/special characters were "opponent's consent" only (a rule that needs to come back...if only to make the kiddie's heads explode! ) and their use was mostly frowned upon. ( I told the sotry of the guy who brought Calgar to a in-store game at my club circa 1996 or so and got ribbed with "Oh look, it's THE Marnius Calgar" comments.) So I'm quite biased against them as participants in the last Special Character's thread know.

Now using the models without the rules is another quite another thing. There are a few I like. Both my Space Wolves and Imperial Fists armies feature Marnius Calgar models that have been converted by grinding off the Ultramarines Ichonography and swaping the bare head for a MK 6 helmet.

TR

I have toyed with a few named units out of the IG codex on rare occasions. There is one that I run on a regular basis as he fits my fluff and play style well.
Al'Rahem's background is pretty close to the fluff of my commander (Hauptmann Markis Steiner) and his outflanking platoon also fits in well with my unit fluff. Honestly I wanted to make a character very close to him to fit my army better, but he is as close as I get for standard games. Tactically he works in quite nicely as I like to have a highly flexible army using some light mechanized elements in a mostly footslogging list. As I only have 1 Valkyrie and 3 chimeras, he brings a lot of mobility to one of the two platoons I normally field.

Most other named characters I can not get into as Creed seems a bit overpowered for his price (Oh look, an outflanking Russ Squadron/Titan!), and other named units like Bastone seem a bit overpriced for what they bring to the table.

Characters are usually quite expensive, so I only take them in 1500+ pts, but at those levels I love bringing characters, as long as it's fluffy, i.e. NOT Ahriman+Kharn or Eldrad+Vect, or Sathonyx commanding Kabalites. My favorites are (CSM) Kharn and Fabius Bile, (DE) Sliscus, (Orks) Mad Dok Grotsnik. I love Grotsnik's fluff, especially with the Grot lunch and spider inside his brain, so I decided to paint my Ork army in the Deathskull scheme just for his sake I take him whenever I play a friendly game, he's hilarious.

As a tau player i have a hard enough time trying to win or not lose (draw) . i really don't need special characters gimping my army

The Black Templar special characters (Helbrecht and Grimaldus) are wonderful models, but cost way too much for their on-table performance.

So I don't use them at Helbrecht of Grimaldus, but will occasionally use them for generic marshal and chaplain.

 kronk wrote:
The Black Templar special characters (Helbrecht and Grimaldus) are wonderful models, but cost way too much for their on-table performance.

So I don't use them at Helbrecht of Grimaldus, but will occasionally use them for generic marshal and chaplain.

TBH Helbrecht isn't that bad for his points, it's just that he doesn't let you take an Adamantine Mantle.

Simple, I've seen what an Iron Arm/Warp speed Swarmlord can do. First time I had that unleashed on my ork army in 6th ed, I was left in total awe as the Swarmlord and it's retinue of Tyrant guard destroyed absolutely everything it came across, Tanks, rokkits, powerklaws, boyz, nothing stopped it or even slowed it down. Even Gazghkull was cut down in short order. This convinced me to bring out the Swarmlord a lot more often, just for that off chance of turning him into an ungodly death machine with a statline that would make a bio-titan green with envy. Even the likes of Abaddon, Draigo, the old Nightbringer, and Mephiston are no match (especially because Draigo can't even wound it). Heck, once I even got him to bring down An'ggrath in single combat, which is awesome as hell.

That being said, it's a relatively small chance, but when you do roll up that combination, everything better get out of the god damned way, because Swarmy's got a head full of murderous intent and a fist full of boneswords. All and all, I am really liking the awesome results you can roll up for disciplines with psychic special characters.

with orks - I'll sometimes take thrakka, he's just a great buff to the army & I'll always take snikrot because of the whole table-edge thing with a couple o' burnaz.

With BAs I've never taken a character - for <2000pt games its just too much of a point drop... I'd rather pack another stormraven in!

Backfire wrote:
I seldom use Special characters, unless necessity (you gotta have Belial for Deathwing). Reason for that is that I like to think them as SPECIAL. I just feel it's kinda demeaning to have Eldrad or Calgar present in every frigging tiny skirmish in the galaxy. I almost never use upgrade characters and like to limit using major named characters for big games. Besides, I like customising my characters.

Yes. Exactly what he said about special characters.

Recently I very rarely I ran Ezekiel, just because I really liked the way the model looked. So I'd run him in big games, and he'd of course get shredded... Other than that I've not used special characters for some time, since like 2nd and 3rd edition when I ran Phoenix Lords.

I've considered using Marbo or Pask quite a bit, but have not yet. Probably because I'm just not that into the 'special characters.'

In any game above 1000pts you will always see Eldrad in my list.

There is simply no reason NOT to take him; if you were to give a Farseer all the upgrades that Eldrad possess, minus any special abilities or wargear, Eldrad is 5pts CHEAPER than that Farseer.

So, you effectively get the ability to re-deploy, cast three powers, ignore armour saves in CC and use the same power twice for -5pts.

I think it's a pretty good deal myself...

Iranna.