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My local group is working on getting a campaign up and running. Now one of the rules being considered is not allowing special named characters in lists. So no unique named choices. The players will upgrade a standard character by using a experience table.


So my question is, which lists would players not be able to run if we ban special characters? These days it seems rarer and rarer to get a character to shift, say, terminators to troops. Little list problems aren't a big deal, not having Pask still lets you run tanks, but we want to make sure someone's army isn't impossible to play anymore.



We have come up with these possible problems below:

Farsight lists without Farsight. Can crisis still be troops?

Dark Eldar special character that gives vehicles deep strike?



Any other problems you can think of?

Raptor007 wrote:
My local group is working on getting a campaign up and running. Now one of the rules being considered is not allowing special named characters in lists. So no unique named choices. The players will upgrade a standard character by using a experience table.


So my question is, which lists would players not be able to run if we ban special characters? These days it seems rarer and rarer to get a character to shift, say, terminators to troops. Little list problems aren't a big deal, not having Pask still lets you run tanks, but we want to make sure someone's army isn't impossible to play anymore.



We have come up with these possible problems below:

Farsight lists without Farsight. Can crisis still be troops?

Dark Eldar special character that gives vehicles deep strike?



Any other problems you can think of?

Everyone's army is playable. It's called Unbound. Most people will at least be able to proxy their leaders, but in most armies, it's nearly always best to go vanilla. AM are very much an exception to this, due to Pask being the only decent attacking HQ in the army, but regular Tank Commanders should do fine.

But yeah, every army is legal, due to Unbound.

Farsight allows his unit to Deep Strike without scatter. Crisis suits are still troops without him.

The Dark Eldar ability is the Webway Portal, and it's available to all HQs.

A couple lists gone are in Chaos. Infiltrating heavy lists, like my own Red Corsairs, don't work without Huron Blackheart. Zombie lists need Typhus to even make the zombies. But those lists are pretty rare and neither are competitive.

I can't think of any others that are really killed from lack of a named HQ. Just reduced a fair amount.

Certainly a good point, now I feel like a fool for not saying earlier we also have a no-unbound rule. Our group has ignored that rule since it came out and I kinda forgot about it.

My army is IG so Pask will be annoying not to have, but it doesn't effect my list all that much. A couple extra points to spend somewhere I guess.

CSM armies with plague zombies, I guess? FoC shifting SC's are all but gone now, mostly being replaced by formations.

We usually ban special characters in low point games. The problems you'll find involve Tyranids and Tau having better non-special characters than everyone else. They might need an XP penalty or they'll get strong insanely fast.

A Flyrant being upgraded with +1 WS or 90% of the other things on the Chaos Boon table (what I imagine an experience table to look like) isn't going to help it. A Buffmander, sure, some of it will help, but not that much. And in low point games, a Buffmander is a weighty investment. All the eggs in one basket and all that.

 SharkoutofWata wrote:
Farsight allows his unit to Deep Strike without scatter. Crisis suits are still troops without him.

The Dark Eldar ability is the Webway Portal, and it's available to all HQs.

A couple lists gone are in Chaos. Infiltrating heavy lists, like my own Red Corsairs, don't work without Huron Blackheart. Zombie lists need Typhus to even make the zombies. But those lists are pretty rare and neither are competitive.

I can't think of any others that are really killed from lack of a named HQ. Just reduced a fair amount.

Good to hear about the Dark Eldar and Tau.

We do have a couple chaos players, at least one Khorne and Tzeentch. The Zombies are a good point, we might need to make them unlockable on a Nurgle Chaos Lord or something.

Dark Angels Ravenwing Strike Force requires all models to have the 'Ravenwing' special rule. As written, the only HQ choice with the 'Ravenwing' special rule is Sammael.

Raptor007 wrote:

Dark Eldar special character that gives vehicles deep strike?

Why would you ask this? Do you kick puppies and mock people whose houses just burned down too?!


For real, though, no. They've done a wonderful job this last cycle of removing the epic characters the setting is supposed to be about in order to force us to play Johnny Nobody. Barring lists from the two supplements (isn't there a Champions of Fenris and like some kind of Ghazghul supplement?) I think the only thing you miss out on is Farsight Bombs.

 Ghaz wrote:
Dark Angels Ravenwing Strike Force requires all models to have the 'Ravenwing' special rule. As written, the only HQ choice with the 'Ravenwing' special rule is Sammael.

Indeed so note to OP: If you've got any Ravenwing players you'll need to pick one of the two popular house rules (any Biker IC can lead the RWSF or Bikes grant Ravenwing).
While you're at it you might want to nerf their Jink rerolls.

CAD Ork all biker lists would become illegal if you removed Zhadsnark da Rippa because it is his warlord trait that makes bikes troops.

I think Abaddon makes Chosen troops out of Black legion.

Not that anyone ever takes that option, but it is there.

Ghazghul's war council specifies Ghazzy as a requirement,

I think the Chapions of Fenris has a bunch of special characters required for some formations.

Cassor the damned is a troops dreadnaught for BA out of ... shield of baal or leviathan.

Korvydae makes assault marines troops as long as you take a unit of scouts, though his rules are horrandously outdated.

Chronus takes up a HQ slot while being a tank upgrade.

Tyberos makes a unit of LClaw termies troops

Cypher as a dataslate can be the bulk of an army with infiltrating chosen