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Simple fix; killing a named characters always yields an additional victory point to the player who kills him/her.
Fluff-wise this represents the impact of injuring/killing a legendary figure.
In-game this helps offset the often large and impactful bonuses of these characters.

A lot of special characters aren't good enough to merit an additional downside. Have you seen captain Tycho or the Sanguinor from BA fielded...like ever? I still wouldn't field them if you got a VP just for bringing them.

Which special characters specifically are you having an issue with?

This just punishes most special characters for no reason. I don't need more reasons to not use Prince Yriel... Plus there's the fact that not all special characters have large impacts on their armies.

Are there any named characters that are better than stock HQs with relics and upgrades? The only one I can think of is the ork bike boss that lets warbikers become troops, but his rules have not been updated to 7th edition yet.

Taking the last wound off a model doesn't even necessarily represent killing them - they could be teleported out, flee with jump/jet packs, down and injured, or otherwise rendered incapable of fighting.

 the Signless wrote:
Are there any named characters that are better than stock HQs with relics and upgrades? The only one I can think of is the ork bike boss that lets warbikers become troops, but his rules have not been updated to 7th edition yet.

Tigurius, Draigo, and Khan off the top of my head.

Compared to Smashfether and his various incarnations?

I disagree with the OP - there are plenty of SC that are just worse than their vanilla counterparts.
When was the last time you saw someone bring Sicarius to the table? Or Telion? Or Harker, or Kell? This would just make all SC less popular, instead of the offending ones, or the non-Unique ones decked out with relics.

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:
Compared to Smashfether and his various incarnations?

Yes, both Tigurius and Khan are vastly superior to Smashfether. Giving your entire Gladius Scout is amazing, and Tigurius's the best psyker in the game. Draigo, meanwhile, is the reason Centstars work without a transport in the first place. Smashfether provides no force multiplication to his army, he's just one of the meanest beatsticks in the game. It's not even a contest.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:
Compared to Smashfether and his various incarnations?

Yes, both Tigurius and Khan are vastly superior to Smashfether. Giving your entire Gladius Scout is amazing, and Tigurius's the best psyker in the game. Draigo, meanwhile, is the reason Centstars work without a transport in the first place. Smashfether provides no force multiplication to his army, he's just one of the meanest beatsticks in the game. It's not even a contest.

And the others aren't beatsticks. Not to mention how Smashfether can be taken by any SM army - Tigurius and Khan can only be taken in their respective Chapters. And Draigo is only good because of guaranteed GOI. If any other psyker got that power, then Draigo becomes irrelevant.

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:
Compared to Smashfether and his various incarnations?

Yes, both Tigurius and Khan are vastly superior to Smashfether. Giving your entire Gladius Scout is amazing, and Tigurius's the best psyker in the game. Draigo, meanwhile, is the reason Centstars work without a transport in the first place. Smashfether provides no force multiplication to his army, he's just one of the meanest beatsticks in the game. It's not even a contest.

And the others aren't beatsticks. Not to mention how Smashfether can be taken by any SM army - Tigurius and Khan can only be taken in their respective Chapters. And Draigo is only good because of guaranteed GOI. If any other psyker got that power, then Draigo becomes irrelevant.

Draigo is also a 4-wound Eternal Warrior with a 3++ and enough CC prowess to murder most other ICs in the game. He's a beatstick, a tank, and a force multiplier. Smashfether, for all his prowess, has the problem of having to be in melee to get anything done. The other examples are all effective from turn 1. Further, Smashfether's damage output isn't actually that amazing, his schtick is that he's frustratingly hard to kill. He's still a very good beatstick, but beatsticks just aren't as good as characters that have entire cometetive list archetypes built around them.

So, here's a crazy idea. How about instead of blanket-nerfing every character in the game, you pick out those specific ones you dislike and try to tone just them back?

It's not about characters I like and don't like. It's about how every chaos force brings the exact same belakor and/or fateweaver because why the feth not. It's about the huge advantages brought by a number of characters without any real drawbacks. Rather than nerf the characters themselves, make the cost of losing them greater (as should be the case for named characters).
Of course there are special chars that don't need this nerf (when was the last time you saw creed?) but getting into a whole "this character is okay, this one is super good he needs to give more points" is not a reasonable debate to have.

Mad_Proctologist wrote:
It's not about characters I like and don't like. It's about how every chaos force brings the exact same belakor and/or fateweaver because why the feth not. It's about the huge advantages brought by a number of characters without any real drawbacks. Rather than nerf the characters themselves, make the cost of losing them greater (as should be the case for named characters).
Of course there are special chars that don't need this nerf (when was the last time you saw creed?) but getting into a whole "this character is okay, this one is super good he needs to give more points" is not a reasonable debate to have.

Well, it kinda is.

Make the offenders cost an amount that makes the player think about what they bring for their cost.
You said it yourself - people bring the same special characters, so you know which ones need balancing.

You don't need to make people lose points if they die, just make the characters cost so they aren't an autotake. Otherwise, people will only take the beatstick characters who take a lot of time to die, and the less durable ones (Creed, Kell, Harker) aren't penalised so much.

Mad_Proctologist wrote:
It's not about characters I like and don't like. It's about how every chaos force brings the exact same belakor and/or fateweaver because why the feth not. It's about the huge advantages brought by a number of characters without any real drawbacks. Rather than nerf the characters themselves, make the cost of losing them greater (as should be the case for named characters).
Of course there are special chars that don't need this nerf (when was the last time you saw creed?) but getting into a whole "this character is okay, this one is super good he needs to give more points" is not a reasonable debate to have.

If you're wanting to improve the game, that is not only a reasonable debate but an absolutely necessary one to have.

Really not sure how that its not a reasonable debate.

I dont mind the VP loss for special characters. it certainly would make it more interesting as priority targets. but it can double up on punishing people for making it the warlord and such.

As well would prefer to see weaker special characters actually gain buffs. A Lot of them are worse then a generic leader or outright over costed for what they come with.

on the other side i REALLY dont want the game going any further to crazy town. so i would rather just nerf the bad ones.