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Be'Lakor has the following:
A good statline, but nothing insane.
A strong Psychic shooting attack
A strong melee profile
He can also let your friendly Daemons reroll failed Battleshock and Leadership tests, or make enemy units more susceptible to Battleshock.

That? That's all fine. But, he has two other abilities still! (Note that the latter ability below and the last abilities above are a "Pick one of three" so he doesn't get them ALL at the same time.)

He has a 6" Aura that's always in your Shadow of Chaos-not quite wholly unique, as the Skull Altar does similar... But that's an immobile fortification for Khorne.
And he can have an Aura that makes nearby friendly Daemons untargetable by models outside of 18".

The Shadow of Chaos aura is pretty strong.
But that untargetable bit? That's army-defining! That makes the mostly melee punch of Daemons SO MUCH BETTER!

And guess what? That's entirely unique to him! Be'Lakor is the only model in the army that gives a rule like that! (Some models have Lone Operative, but that's not helpful to anyone besides themselves.)
It really, really ticks me off that something so powerful and defining is locked to a unique character.

I don't mind the existence of unique characters, though I think most should be buildable from generic options.
I don't mind when unique characters have cool abilities, or fun wargear, or even wholly unique rules.
What I do mind is when those rules can carry an army on their own.

If Be'Lakor had his old "Strike attacks ignore Invulnerable saves," that'd be unique to him, among Daemons.
It'd be powerful.
It'd be useful.
But it wouldn't be an army-defining ability, it'd just make him a real good beatstick.

I would not mind this nearly so much if Greater Daemons gave that buff as well. But they don't.

I get what you're saying and am of two minds. On one hand, I kind of feel like the whole point of special characters should be that they do something so unique that they justify being their own datasheet and not just a +1 version of a generic datasheet. On the other hand, I don't want those characters to be so powerful that they're essentially mandatory for an army to function.

I guess I'm not terribly fond of *any* unit being mandatory for an army to function, named or otherwise. Though named characters sort of write some of your army's fluff for you which is extra annoying. But like, if unit X is an auto-take because it's the only way for the army to function, that's a problem regardless of what unit that is.

So hypothetically, if the parasite of Mortrex were the lynchpin needed to make a ripper-spam tyranid army work, that would probably be okay with me. If the parasite of Mortrex were the lynchpin for making any tyranid army of any sort work, that would be a pain.

Well then I guess it's a good thing Belakor isn't mandatory to make a Demon army work.

Without Belakor?
I've seen mono khorne & mono slanesh work.
I've seen mixed stuff work.

I never said he was mandatory.
I said his ability is army-defining.

Reminds me of the tourney I played in 8th which featured my Abaddon-led Black Legion facing off against an Abaddon-led Black Legion army for the final round. His bonus was just too good.

 JNAProductions wrote:
I never said he was mandatory.
I said his ability is army-defining.

As in he defines Daemons, or as in he makes a Belakor army notably different from a non-Belakor army? I kind of feel like the latter would be a good thing?

 Wyldhunt wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:
I never said he was mandatory.
I said his ability is army-defining.

As in he defines Daemons, or as in he makes a Belakor army notably different from a non-Belakor army? I kind of feel like the latter would be a good thing?

He allows for an entirely different playstyle, by making you immune to long- and mid-range shooting. That requires opponents to draw much nearer before they can inflict serious damage.

And I do want armies to play and feel different. I DON'T want different playstyles locked behind unique characters.

 Wyldhunt wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:
I never said he was mandatory.
I said his ability is army-defining.

As in he defines Daemons, or as in he makes a Belakor army notably different from a non-Belakor army? I kind of feel like the latter would be a good thing?

To be fair, even if its a defining feature of a Belakor aligned army, that means Belakor must lead every one of their forces and cannot delegate. Something like a lieutenant/herald equivalent for Belakor that hands the ability to individual units they are attached to could be a neat extra bit, albeit that would require either creating a non-aligned daemon or a mortal who buffs their daemon allies. Not unheard of, Belakor has several unique models for Age of Sigmar if memory serves, but it would need some work and effort put in to it.

They need access to that ability----better on the all god keyword guy then making say a lord of change do it and make people who want mono god armies feel bad for not taking a loc.

I think this war against special characters was lost long ago, when GW realised it's a lot more profitable to market their characters and use them in other "IP" projects than to encourage people to make their own. I remember Jervis writing an editorial justifying the shift by how cool his kid found Mephiston.

GW bit of vax and vanes but yeah generally expect special characters be rammed down your throat.

They sell so GW keeps doing those. And it saves GW bother of having to do options. Though funnily enough some special characters have more alternative pieces than some non-special characters...

(why on earth GW feels need to have 4 different head for unique character and not provide couple alternative weapons for non-uniques...)

I don't think it is a special character issue, more of a poor game design issue that is more likely to crop up in special characters.

If a unit has a special rule that completely either gives a unique game changing ability (Belakor/Angron) or is just a more/too powerful rule it becomes auto take.

I would say the worst unit at the moment across my played armies is actually Tau Tetras.

Re-rolling all hits in a faction with base BS4 and a 5+/6+ critical hit bonus on many shots is too powerful to not bring.

EightFoldPath wrote:
I don't think it is a special character issue, more of a poor game design issue that is more likely to crop up in special characters.

If a unit has a special rule that completely either gives a unique game changing ability (Belakor/Angron) or is just a more/too powerful rule it becomes auto take.

I would say the worst unit at the moment across my played armies is actually Tau Tetras.

Re-rolling all hits in a faction with base BS4 and a 5+/6+ critical hit bonus on many shots is too powerful to not bring.

I'd also point out that sort of Game Changer Special Character isn't necessarily a bad thing - Allowing Special Captains to make their Special Units Troops should be a thing for Marines(i.e Belial and generic Terminator Captains, Sammael and Bikes), something similar for the non Hive Tyrant Nid Leaders (Old One Eye and Fex)

 Da Boss wrote:
I think this war against special characters was lost long ago, when GW realised it's a lot more profitable to market their characters and use them in other "IP" projects than to encourage people to make their own. I remember Jervis writing an editorial justifying the shift by how cool his kid found Mephiston.

A lot has changed since that article was written though.

Has anyone associated with GW ever written an article about how making your own characters is far better in Crusade than including named characters who can't grow?

And don't get me wrong- Crusaders certainly aren't the loudest segment of the player base, and almost certainly not the largest, though information about what the home-based gamer does is fairly limited and hard to come by, even for GW.