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In the good old days, there was a rule which simply said that you had to ask your opponents permission to use special characters. This was because they were very powerful, and some people simply didn't like having to deal with that.

Nowadays, it seems like there's a named character in most games of 40k. And it seems a bit off. As said in this post, there's a fairly large sentiment for not having these ultra-powerful characters just turn up for random little skirmishes.

I propose some hard rules to reduce the overuse of characters:

1: An army cannot have any more than one named character, unless otherwise stated.
(For Example, ghazzie and makari are an obvious combo. Ghazzie and Kaptin Badrukk, less so.)

2: Any secondary objectives for killing characters or the warlord double their payout if the slain warlord/character is a special character. I think it's fair to say your guardsman with a plasmagun gets bonus points for slaying Abaddon, after all these years of the imperial assassins trying.

3: Secondary Objectives are added for games with special characters in them. If Ghazzie shows up to a fight, you can expect that the enemy army will take a bit more notice than just letting what happens happen. Actions to send the information back to base to say that the warlord of the enemy is on this planet. Special characters, who are probably interested in pursuing their own agendas rather than ensuring this handful of enemy troops dies, get their own specific Secondary objectives which you can take. For example, Ghazzie will be interested in killing the most to prove he's the biggest and the best, so might have a secondary you can pick which scores points as he kills stuff, and doubles if he's still alive at the end. Assassination Order would give 10VP for killing a special character, instead of 6 for slaying the warlord, in the same section (so you can't pick both).

4: There is a 25% limit on special characters - the one you pick (or 2 if allowed) cannot be more than 25% of your army, by points or PL.


I think this would give an improved sense of occasion when a special character comes to play. Chances are you're getting different orders as soon as your chaos lord learns that Commissar Yarrick is in the enemy army, or Guillimann.

What are you trying to improve exactly?

I don't think you need hard and fast rules for this. This is, obviously, not something that will adopted by GW or most tournament organizers, so it seems the easiest way to make this work is to just talk to your playgroup.

You say Ghaz and Makari are fine, but what if I also want to toss in the Mad Dok? Hell, he was the one who stitched Ghaz back together, it makes perfect sense for Ghaz to keep him close.

I 100% understand your desire to see less special characters, but I really do think it's better to just talk to those you play with and see about getting a compromise that makes everyone as happy as possible, rather than making rules that technically allow special characters but punish you for taking them.

The problem of every list being built around a named character is a fluff problem (why is e.g. Ahriman in every Thousand Sons deployment?) and a balance problem (the named characters are always straight-up better than their generic equivalents and tend to have an outsize impact on the army by having some unique buff aura), but limiting people to one named character isn't going to help. One is frequently enough.

Yeah. If I was so inclined and skilled enough, I'd want to make it so any named character (or at least, almost any) wasn't a unique character in the rules. They're just a configuration of a generic character that happens to have a place in the lore.

Obvious exceptions would be for people like Bobby G, who can't really be generic. But Calgar? Grotsnik? Lelith? They can just be loadouts.

 JNAProductions wrote:
Yeah. If I was so inclined and skilled enough, I'd want to make it so any named character (or at least, almost any) wasn't a unique character in the rules. They're just a configuration of a generic character that happens to have a place in the lore.

Obvious exceptions would be for people like Bobby G, who can't really be generic. But Calgar? Grotsnik? Lelith? They can just be loadouts.

Agreed.

Dante has been a poor value for 25 years until now, so I'm not sure why I'd need permission to gimp my army.

To say named characters are always better is also simply NOT true.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
To say named characters are always better is also simply NOT true.

Correction: The named characters that are problems for the game because they're fielded in close to every list (Kor'sarro Khan in every White Scars list, for instance) are strictly better than generic characters. There are also named characters that are pointless (Watch-Captain Artemis, for instance).

 AnomanderRake wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
To say named characters are always better is also simply NOT true.

Correction: The named characters that are problems for the game because they're fielded in close to every list (Kor'sarro Khan in every White Scars list, for instance) are strictly better than generic characters. There are also named characters that are pointless (Watch-Captain Artemis, for instance).

Khan USED to show up, but now he doesn't because no more free Scout move.

I can't be bothered to keep up with the tournament meta in 9e. Fine. There are named characters that show up in every list because they render generic characters irrelevant, and named characters that don't. If you want a tournament-balanced solution that nerfs or restricts the named characters that are overused at the competitive level in 9e I can't help you.

Woo! I love me some special characters, and I kind of love defending them too. Let's take a look see...

 some bloke wrote:
This was because they were very powerful, and some people simply didn't like having to deal with that.

In theory, a special character should be balanced for their points. Certainly Baharroth and Death Leaper aren't out there sweeping tournaments at the moment. So if your position is that special characters are too powerful for their points, I'd say that that's a generalization and that your changes punish reasonably balanced characters while trying to punish a handful of exceptions. And if you're saying that special characters are reasonable for their points but that their points costs are too high for the scale of game you're playing (Mortarion showing up at 1,000 points), I'd counter that knights, baneblades, and even things like repulsors run into the same issue without being unique, named units.

Nowadays, it seems like there's a named character in most games of 40k. And it seems a bit off. As said in this post, there's a fairly large sentiment for not having these ultra-powerful characters just turn up for random little skirmishes.

A few things here:

A.) Those ultra powerful characters do get into a lot of fights though. Baharroth has presumably spent a lot of time scrapping. Who's to say he wasn't at this particular scrap? You probably don't want people to cite BL novels and codex references at you verifying that Baharroth did, in fact, fight orks at some point during his 10,000+ year existence, right? But if I'm fielding Baharroth, and you're fielding orks, is it real so hard for us to imagine that we're playing out one of the countless encounters Baharroth has likely had with orks over the millennia?

B.) This is going to get some groans, but the Marvel Calgar comic has him hopping in a flyer during a logistics meeting to go personally help beat up what appears to be a squad of cultists. Like, he knew it was a very minor enemy force, and he still opted to show up and do some murderizing in person. Even if you want to ignore that particular example, it's probably pretty easy to imagine most named characters occassionally getting involved in minor scraps, right? The Phoenix Lord novels have Asurmen and Jain Zar engaging in tons of skirmish-level fights. I struggle to imagine most ork characters making a habit of passing up a scrap even if it's only of moderate size. The Ragnar stories have tons of instances of him engaging in basical Combat Patrol or Incursion scale missions. Plenty of examples of this sort of thing. Stuff happens. Not every single battle is enormous in scale, but that doesn't mean special characters' weapons suddenly stop working because there aren't enough foes around.

C.) Most 40k fights are a zoomed-in view of a larger battle. It's just a question of how far the camera is zoomed in. Just because your game has Ghazkull standing next to a mere 100 other orks doesn't mean there are another million boyz just over the edge of the table.

D.) Some of like to use named character rules for non-named characters. Every now and then, Baharroth's stats and model are representing swooping hawk exarch Terry as he takes charge of my incursion force.

E.) There are only so many Grey Knights out there, and surely they're focusing on daemons more than my xenos. Can I apply the restrictions you've proposed to Grey Knights as a faction? After all, it's very strange that GK are showing up to every little skirmish. Actually, that's probably true of astartes in general. Shall we make a rule saying you can only have up to 25% of your list be space marines because they're rare and too important for this little tussle?

1: An army cannot have any more than one named character, unless otherwise stated.
(For Example, ghazzie and makari are an obvious combo. Ghazzie and Kaptin Badrukk, less so.)

Seems like that's going to be a long list of exceptions. I can think of at least a few canon battles where multiple phoenix lords showed up together (and one where they all showed up alongisde Yvraine and the Visarch). The ynnari charactesr hang out around each other all the time. Eldrad tends to be near them too. Any given marine chapter with multiple special characters could reasonably have a few of those guys in the same area. That goes for most (all?) characters that share a subfaction really, and you're already being punished (by losing CP for taking extra detachments) for taking characters from multiple subfactions in the same list.

2: Any secondary objectives for killing characters or the warlord double their payout if the slain warlord/character is a special character. I think it's fair to say your guardsman with a plasmagun gets bonus points for slaying Abaddon, after all these years of the imperial assassins trying.

Is that guardsman (or even his boss) going to be intimately familiar with Illic Nightspear and be able to report that he killed that particular dude? Is an ork going to be especially excited to have killed Aun'Shi rather than some other ethereal? Unique mechanics for killing special characters could be interesting, but a blanket reward for doing so is painting with a really broad brush. Do you feel that those of us who field Baharroth are in desperate need of a nerf? ;D

3: Secondary Objectives are added for games with special characters in them. If Ghazzie shows up to a fight, you can expect that the enemy army will take a bit more notice than just letting what happens happen. Actions to send the information back to base to say that the warlord of the enemy is on this planet. Special characters, who are probably interested in pursuing their own agendas rather than ensuring this handful of enemy troops dies, get their own specific Secondary objectives which you can take. For example, Ghazzie will be interested in killing the most to prove he's the biggest and the best, so might have a secondary you can pick which scores points as he kills stuff, and doubles if he's still alive at the end. Assassination Order would give 10VP for killing a special character, instead of 6 for slaying the warlord, in the same section (so you can't pick both).

This could be interesting territory to explore, but it should probably be a case-by-case thing rather than a sweeping change. And you could probably make an argument that many rules like those would be equally appropriate for non-named characters.

4: There is a 25% limit on special characters - the one you pick (or 2 if allowed) cannot be more than 25% of your army, by points or PL.

Heaven forbid I bring 4 phoenix lords to a 1500 point game, right? ;D And naturally, we wouldn't want Yvraine, the Yncarne, and the Visarch all showing up to the same game. Can you imagine? Ynnari players might field drukhari, craftworlders, and harlequins in the same list! Picture the madness.

I think this would give an improved sense of occasion when a special character comes to play. Chances are you're getting different orders as soon as your chaos lord learns that Commissar Yarrick is in the enemy army, or Guillimann.

Again, there's potentially something interesting there, but most of what you've proposed boils down to, "Punish people for taking datasheets that happen to have backstories attached to them."

TLDR: Special characters are not always (or even usually) too powerful for their points. So the argument that they're too strong and thus need to be reigned in doesn't really hold water. And if your reasoning is that you just don't like certain characters showing up for narrative reasons, well, then you're just arguing that you don't like your opponent's fluff. In which case, he doesn't like your fluff either, so nyeh! ;D

Wyldhunt wrote:
...TLDR: Special characters are not always (or even usually) too powerful for their points. So the argument that they're too strong and thus need to be reigned in doesn't really hold water. And if your reasoning is that you just don't like certain characters showing up for narrative reasons, well, then you're just arguing that you don't like your opponent's fluff. In which case, he doesn't like your fluff either, so nyeh! ;D

Problem not yet addressed: What if I resent being told "your army book works fine if you take your named characters"? What if I don't want to use the named character but the rules team has chosen to use that character as a crutch to prop up a poor army book?

 JNAProductions wrote:
Yeah. If I was so inclined and skilled enough, I'd want to make it so any named character (or at least, almost any) wasn't a unique character in the rules. They're just a configuration of a generic character that happens to have a place in the lore.

Obvious exceptions would be for people like Bobby G, who can't really be generic. But Calgar? Grotsnik? Lelith? They can just be loadouts.

Mostly agree with this. Eldrad should probably just use generic farseer rules, but Phoenix Lords and Illic don't really have generic counterparts. And as you point out, there are a fair few exceptions. Ephraem Stern (spelling) is cool, but I don't want the lore to add a bunch of generic psychic-not-psychic lightning sisters that all happen to have eldar besties following them around.

I could kind of go either way on Lelith given that her whole thing is being significantly better at what she does than the next succubus. Her stat changing mechanic is neat and kind of makes sense as a just-for-her sort of thing. If she uses the same stats as every other succubus, then it kind of turns the respect the setting gives her a joke.
"She is the next dark muse! She is without rival!"
"Okay, but she swings the same attacks as my own succubus though."
Of course, you could say the same thing about Eldrad, so... shrug




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 AnomanderRake wrote:

Wyldhunt wrote:
...TLDR: Special characters are not always (or even usually) too powerful for their points. So the argument that they're too strong and thus need to be reigned in doesn't really hold water. And if your reasoning is that you just don't like certain characters showing up for narrative reasons, well, then you're just arguing that you don't like your opponent's fluff. In which case, he doesn't like your fluff either, so nyeh! ;D

Problem not yet addressed: What if I resent being told "your army book works fine if you take your named characters"? What if I don't want to use the named character but the rules team has chosen to use that character as a crutch to prop up a poor army book?

Then you can make a compelling case that those characters, or at least their impact on their faction as a whole, have been poorly designed. That doesn't mean that all named characters should be punished; it means that the specific problem units should be reworked.

If they're "propping up" a faction because they're more efficient than the other options, then either they're overly efficient or the rest of the book is under-efficient.

If they're not necessarily hyper efficient but the army doesn't work without whatever unique mechancis they bring to the table, then that mechanic probably needs to be spread out across other options so that the character isn't mandatory for enjoying the faction. This is sort of a variation on the Shadowsun issue where her benefits are good enough to be hard to pass on, but they also actively encourage you to turn your army into a boring castle rather than pursuing more dynamic gameplay.