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As "suggested" in the title, how often do you use unique characters (Prince Yreil, Al'Raheim, Mr. Thrakka, etc.)

I also want to know the reasoning behind your choice. Sample questions are below.

If often:
Do you take them because their abilities "match" your custom army's leader's fluff?
Do you take them because they give you the extra edge / are pivotal to your strategy?
When would you not take a unique character?

If rarely:
Do you think Unique characters are too expensive (point cost)?
Do you think taking unique characters breaks fluff to much to warrant taking them?
When would you take a unique character?

I take Baron and am intending to take Lelith in the future.

Baron because we don't get to jetbike/jump infantry-ised our PGL archon, he's cheap, add one to our "who go 1st" roll, and various small bonuses to unit he is with. I kinda like his fluff as well, and I've invented a slightly varied version to suit myself, based on his fluff.

Lelith because of the sheer shock value, "BS9?! WS9?! And she gets TEN ATTACKS?!! And she ignores armour?!"... And then watch my friends laugh as she fails to do much damage with that frail S3 of hers.

I run space marines and I normally take Telion. He is a cheap character for what he does. I love using all his abilities as they are useful for what I run. I run him in my sniper scouts squad with 3 snipers and 1 msl launcher. His Voice of Experience allows me to shoot a BS6 missile or use his Eye of Vengeance ability and personally allocate where the wounds inflicted by him go. Another character I run, is Pedro Kantor. Scoring Sternguard is always nice and having stubborn makes them pretty nice. Also, he himself is a pretty formidable character to fight in CC. Apart from those 2 I don't run characters. However, my friend runs a salamanders army with Vulkan He'stan. That is a VERY scary army. Run pure flamers and multi meltas and assault termies with thunder hammers. HE runs 2 sternguard squads with combi flamers and he drop pods them directly in front of his opponents to cast his fiery infernos. Add in a LR Redeemer with Assault termies inside with a dreadfire dreadnaught bringing up the rear, and Vulkan makes for a quick and fun game. (do the math for ONE sternguard squad: 10 guys. 10 flamers. All twin linked. 20 flamers. flamer template hits at LEAST 3-4 guys. 3x20=60 hits...scary isn't it). Apart from these characters I haven't really seen anyone use other characters. I have seen a few Lysander's but they never use his special Bolter Drill rule. And yeah... that's my two cents for ya.

I don't because a lash prince is 10x better than any character in the Chaos Codex.

I planned on trying Fateweaver as an ally but GW in their infinite wisdom decided Chaos doesn't really deserve any true battle brother.

well....I need bellial and draigo for my army to be legal so........

I use Eldrad in every game when I'm playing my eldar. He brings more capability than I can get in a Farseer.

When I played my BA I often used Dante in order to use his special ability in a DOA army. In the older codex, I used Lemartes with the DC all the time because Lemartes was much better than a regular chaplain.

I use Abbadon when my CSM take field, since well he prety much murders anything that gets close to him. Also I take Lysander sometimes if I feel adventurous with my SM

Well, I play Black Templars, so I kinda have to...

I'd love it if there was a special character that would fit the fluff of my Relictors.

I don't run any as a name-change 'counts as' because it feels a bit cheapening to the original. So Calgar's the finest living example of a Space marine hero, unsurpassed and revered by all? Well, actually no, as there's someone equally as good in every single Chapter out there. Bleh.

Most games, 40k and WHFB, both.

They are options for the armies and part of the rules.

'Opponent's consent' is a farce.

I seldom use Special characters, unless necessity (you gotta have Belial for Deathwing). Reason for that is that I like to think them as SPECIAL. I just feel it's kinda demeaning to have Eldrad or Calgar present in every frigging tiny skirmish in the galaxy. I almost never use upgrade characters and like to limit using major named characters for big games. Besides, I like customising my characters.

I almost never do, for a number of reasons.

One is I'm a WYSWYG guy, and I don't own many special characters. I have a Calgar. My librarian could double as tigarius (but has not) and I just a few days ago worked over one of my chaplains with magnets so he could be fielded as Cassius. I own a cronos.

They are expensive. 250 points for a HQ is a lot. Yes, Calgar can bring the hurt, but at what price? I generaly play 1,500 point games, 2k on the outside. That's a sizable fraction of my army. The fact that most special characters are loaded down with war gear goes against my boys before toys mentality. I can't bring myself to buy sgt. chronos for a tank. So many points.

Their wargear is not something I might normaly field. Cassius is a prime example of this. Most of the time I field a chaplain leading an assault squad. He doesn't have a jump pack. Prior to the 6th edition wound allocation rules, I didn't want him in with the assault terminators either.

I like combat tactics. Not a huge fan of giving it up.

Some of it is fluff. How often is the chapter master going to be fighting with a detachment of the 3rd company?

Changeling: had the points, and he seemed fun

For my traitor guard I use a count as Kenaskldsfich (Send in the next wave guy) because, he feels right with my fluff and all.

I use special characters because I like their story. or I need their abilities to make my army competitive. I use them pretty much every game but there are games where I feel like just not using them.

Too expensive. I do occasionally use The Doom of Malan'tai, though.

<and now to reply to my own thread>

I usually don't take Unique characters as what Backfire said:

Backfire wrote:
I just feel it's kinda demeaning to have Eldrad or Calgar present in every frigging tiny skirmish in the galaxy.

The fluff-break bothers me too much. I've ran "Counts as" Prince Yreil a few times but was let down when he failed to make it to CC. Besides those few instances, I typically avoid named characters for both the fluff and preserving points as I prefer smaller games (1000 - 1500).

I use special characters in most games. The reason for this is I like the characters GW have made up, the are the most bad-ass people in the galaxy and for me they sum up what the 40k universe is all about. For this reason all of my 7 40k armies bar the nids are led by named characters, and the only reason the nids aren't is cos I've just started them so haven't bought the swarmlord yet!

My Valhallans are going to be using Al'Raheim often to give me a mobile, outflanking element to my army. My Crimson Fists absolutely hinge on Pedro to make them viable in close combat and make Sternguard scoring. My Chaos Marines and Orks have never used a special character, however, and my Valhallans haven't used one, and won't until Al'Raheim's chimera is painted.

Since the WD codex for my SoB, almost every game if not every game, I've taken some form of St. Celestine/Uriah/Kyrinov. Why? Because points for points, they are simply better than any possible equivalent HQ choice I could take for my SoB. Back with the 3rd Ed. Codex, I rarely took a unique character.

With my IG, I will sometimes take Yarrick, and I've certainly wish-listed for Straken (although I don't think I've ever taken him), and I've taken Creed only a few times. Harker has seen some play with me, as has Marbo. Depends on what kind of game I'm playing and the point level. But they can be fun but not seen as necessary like my SoB characters.

Almost always take Marbo, because he's good at winning games.

Rarely take other characters since I play Tau and IG. Tau characters are the worst in the game, and most of the IG characters are worse than just spending their points on more guns.

Yarrick. He is just fun and is a tough guy to take down.

Marbo. 65 points. Who else does what he does at that point level.

Backfire wrote:I just feel it's kinda demeaning to have Eldrad or Calgar present in every frigging tiny skirmish in the galaxy. [...] Besides, I like customising my characters.

+1 to both of these comments. The SCs available to me are either not interesting or way too "special" for me to field with a clean conscience. I'm certainly overthinking it, but the only way I'd ever possibly deploy Celestine was if I'd get into a very big Apoc game that I know would mark the high point of my army's history. Also, since I have already opted for an army with "homemade fluff", I will naturally also extend this to its HQ and customise the hell out of its background.

Regardless of how much I am gimping myself by fielding a Craponess instead of a Special Character. Style over substance, yo.

IG special characters are usually overpriced for what they do, yet are all total badasses. I was always a fan of Straken, and Al'Rahem is a ton of fun to use as well, but there is one I will always take no matter the list.

GUARDSMEN FETHING MARBO.

I mean seriously, the dude is the 40k version of Rambo, how can you NOT take him in an army?

As for orks, none of them really jump out at me. Wazdakka has an awesome backstory and some cool stats, but I'm only really looking into taking him because he lets me field warbikers as troops. If I could field them that way with just a vanilla biker boss I'd probably do that instead. The rest have cool stories, but don't really match what I want to do. If ol ghazgkull hadn't been nerfed into the ground with 6th, I might have taken him some though just to do a "buddy cop" list with him and Yarrick working together

I take Lysander because I like his rules and his fluff. I don't even care that he's an Imperial Fist in my army of Novamarines/Ultramarines.

Started using a custom Masque as its ability looks fun. Tends to be how I use them; I'll make my own version of them and then only if they're interesting to use. Too powerful and smashy and they're not going to see much use, sort of has to balance out.

My Guard list includes a lot of heavy weapon wielding Vet Squads, so Creed and his super-order-giving-ness is a necessity.

For my Orks: Rarely.

The generic HQ's are usually more worth it (though i will make an exception for Wazdakka, as he makes my biker army work ...)

For my DE: I use Urien a lot, as my army is a coven-based one. Other than that i nearly always use generic HQ's (mainly Haemonculi)

If I just want to have a fun, more casual game, I'll play with the Swarmlord, Deathleaper, or Doom. Usually it is just for the "That guy does what?! No way." factor.

If I'm dusting off my old Space Marines, then I almost always use Unique Characters mainly because they make the army much more interesting and influence how you play the army.

I liked Kharne a lot when I played, although I never owned the model, so it was kind of dumb. Something about 165 points just seemed like it always fit in whatever list I was running.

Well, it might to be every single game but I did mark that one. My primary two armies for 6e as of now are Deathwing (in which a counts-as Belial is a must) and Dark Eldar (I love my Hellions, but they just don't feel good enough with my custom Baroness, plus a +1 to the go-first roll is nifty). Sometimes characters are necessary, sometimes they're way too expensive, sometimes they're wonderfully undercosted, and sometimes they're just plain fun. I find myself more often than not including them.

However, I rarely ever use the actual models. I like making my own armies with my own fluff so there's an inherent incompatibly fluff-wise when it comes to just taking a character as-is and dropping him into my list. "Yeah, that's Vect. He's with my Kabal now." No. Just, no...

So I tend to kit-bash and get creative, Frankensteining up some suitably unique looking characters to attach a special character's profile to (in a believable way, of course).