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I know I'm late to the party but I just bought my first GW kits in two years recently so don't have much experience with LOW in games outside of apocalypse. With the trend of moving HQ commanders over to LOW, is it just me or is it odd that "super" commanders like Ghaz or Grimnar absolutely must have a minion subcommander underneath them to legally have a battleforged force? I understand that Stompas and Baneblades aren't commander type models and shouldn't count as HQ's but you'd think that non-superheavy/non-gargantuan previously HQ figs that in the fluff are the ultimate commanders of their forces would "count as" an HQ without taking up a slot.

It has its advantages. This way you can get pretty durable, hard hitting guys that can't be your warlord. Personally I find it's good that Kaldor Draigo can't be your warlord.

Why can't he be your warlord? He has a warlord trait...

He's a LOW, thought your warlord has to be an HQ. Might be wrong about this though since I never used one so far.

You never used a warlord?

Any character can be a warlord, and if you have none than any model.
There is no HQ requirement.

 BoomWolf wrote:
You never used a warlord?

Any character can be a warlord, and if you have none than any model.
There is no HQ requirement.

There was last edition so that might be the reason he's confused. Had to be the HQ character with the highest Ld (also why Tyranid Tervigon and Hive Tyrant became characters).

No, I never used a Lord of War slot unit Of course I used warlords. And yes, guess I got confused by the 6th ed rule.

I think the history is that GW felt that Baneblades weren't selling well enough so they created a FoC spot just for them via the Escalation expansion. The thinking was that due to the allies chart in 6th, IG could whore themselves out to everyone which meant Baneblades for All!

Of course not everyone wanted to add a $140US Baneblade kit to their army and forgeworld is notoriously slow with keeping their rules in line with the momma company. Meanwhile LOTS of people complained about the ally chart being stupid and unfluffy. Seriously, what self respecting marine player wants to bring an IG unit for anything but comic relief? That is soo beneath them.

By this point the slot exists but GW didn't really want to create a big kit for all of the armies. After all the whole problem was that the super expensive baneblades weren't selling... why dig deeper into that hole? Especially when they *still* aren't selling.

Back to the drawing board. Lowering the price for a baneblade (or really anything) to fix the sales issue isn't an option. I mean that would actually make some sort of sense.. Anyway some numb skull came up with the idea that to appease the plebes why not just promote a single high powered HQ character in each codex to fill the slot? After all, as a model company you wouldn't want to force the sculptors to actually make something usable in a game. That would be, well, I'm not sure what it would be. Point is: Win-Win! /sarcasm

This seemed to work just fine. Well, at least until they got to Dark Eldar and realized that none of the HQ units (ie: Vect) that would conceivably fit this role (Lelith? -- as a Lord of War? -- lol) actually have a model. Vect's big deal (prior codex and fluff) was his Dias. But, remember, giant $140 kits carry a lot of risk, better to do a smaller sled thing. Then again, the Space Wolf Special Santa Sleigh was generally panned as a joke. If we're lucky whoever thunk that up has moved on. Point is: Considering everyone knows the DE model range is the worst looking range in the GW line up (/more sarcasm), no one would notice that the LoW is missing (/blind special rule). Maybe they could ally in some IG AM. Tough titties for those 5 people that bought them and all that.

Honestly, I don't find much of what GW does weird anymore.

Once you realize that they don't have any long term planning and haven't required rules authors to really consider the bigger picture, then the willy nilly nature of releases and rules decisions start to make sense. Well, in a "I'm not really sure what I'm doing but this sounds fun" meets "oh crap, fewer people are buying our stuff!" with a dash of "Is that something shiny?" kind of way at least.

I think the LOW slot works fine as an optional opponent's permission slot in "normal" 40k (with the exception of Knights that should have been a 1:1 LOW instead of the ridiculous 3 per slot they get now) but I don't think the way they're cramming the big bad HQs into the same category works. At the very minimum, common sense would indicate to me that if you're going to take something that usually previously the warlord in 6e and the supreme commander of the force in the fluff that you'd give it a simple 1 line "This lord of war also counts as an HQ but does not take up an HQ slot." That way, you can have Abaddon leading his crusade without FORCING him to have an underling.

As for Logan, yeah, they stripped him of everything that made him a cool actual COMMANDER and just made him a big $60 beatstick. You might as well model him with a Kharn on a skull filled brass throne pulled by Khorne Juggernauts because that is what the supposedly most charismatic space marine commander has become in the age of "forging the narrative". Ironically, the kit I hate the most has become one of only two GW products I bought new over the last couple of years because of the conversion potential. I'm using the wolves with my Horus/Logan conversion and turning the sled into a Land Speeder conversion to accompany my tech priest that I'm converting from the actual new Logan model.

Well, like you said about the baneblades, that could be a problem, and remember the entire escalation book is lords of war. but it does seem confusing that i cant use kaldor draigo with my grey knights without having another grand master, etc, but however, draigo does appear mid-battle with the grey knights, so there would still be a brother-captain or grand master

Draigo is a bit of the exception since the fluff says he's galavanting through the warp carving his graffiti in various primarchs' bodies. Ghaz, Logan, Abaddon, and likely Mephiston in the upcoming BA book should be able to lead their own armies without being forced to rely on subcommanders IMO.

I prefer to think in fluff terms that it's not that he requires an underling to lead the force, but rather the battle is part of a much larger campaign that it requires Logan/Ghaz/Draigo etc to be personally present. Each strike force has its own commander, be it a Librarian or whatever, and the Supreme Commander has deemed it vital and so wants to lead it personally, either to take on the enemy commander personally or otherwise leave his subordinate in overall command while he fulfills a greater objective.

That's fine as a justification... but you feel like they simply SHOULDN'T be allowed to lead a force like they did in previous editions?

 warboss wrote:
That's fine as a justification... but you feel like they simply SHOULDN'T be allowed to lead a force like they did in previous editions?

In previous editions they were. In some cases they had to (Abaddon and Calgar who will be LoW next time).

In GW's mind, you don't "need" an HQ, because you can just play Unbound!

From a fluff Perspektive it makes Sense.
When Ur Ultra Mephisto you dont have time to Tell some tacticals where to Point their boltguns...

They can and have been doing exactly that in the game and the fluff for the previous 4 editions that some of those characters have been around. How is Ultra Mephisto somehow WORSE than an entry level librarian at delegating responsibility or giving orders? If the INFERIOR version of the same kind of character can do that, why does he suddenly lose the ability to think on a platoon to company battle scale with his "promotion"?

We will most likely see the Lord Of War slot split into Heroes of War and Engines of War when 8th edition comes out next year.

SJ

 warboss wrote:
They can and have been doing exactly that in the game and the fluff for the previous 4 editions that some of those characters have been around. How is Ultra Mephisto somehow WORSE than an entry level librarian at delegating responsibility or giving orders? If the INFERIOR version of the same kind of character can do that, why does he suddenly lose the ability to think on a platoon to company battle scale with his "promotion"?

For a start, Mephiston isn't a Lord of War yet so stop treating it as if he will be. Could be Sanguinor the new LoW in BA (he shows up from no-where and smashes Bloodthirsters, powerful ones at that). Secondly, see my earlier post. Its not that they are incapable of leading. They have chosen to accompany this particularly vital strike force (Warband in Ghaz's case) to make sure it goes well or fight a particularly powerful foe (the enemy's super HQ for example). The underling was already selected to lead, then Mephiston for example, has a vision, deems it vital that he accompany them to fulfill a greater objective, or take overall command (becomes your Warlord).