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Hey all,

My 40k play group has been trying to develop a rules system for special characters/units or 'Legendary Units. We tend to be fairly liberal and open about what players can you use, several of our players have been making their special characters for years, sometimes with extensive fluff. I have listed the current rules bellow for your criticism. We are trying to come up with something as balanced as humanly possible.

Legendary Rules Restrictions

1) No named special characters, homemade special characters or unique units may be included in your army.

2) Maximum 1 legendary model per 1000pts

3) These models may not be a super heavy vehicle or gargantuan creature and must be from different force organizations slots if using 2 or more legendary models.

For +50pts the legendary model must pick one of the following options. You may not duplicate any of these options, nor may this upgrade option be selected multiple times.

1) Increase 2 different stats by 1. In the case of armour save, decrease the save by 1 to a maximum of 2+, a vehicle may increase one of its facing armour values by 1 to a maximum of 14.

2) Pick a warlord trait from any available to your army. In this case the model must be your warlord.

3) Increase 1 stat by 1. In the case of armour save, decrease the save by 1 to a maximum of 2+ , a vehicle may increase one of its facing armour value by 1 to a maximum of 14.

Pick 1 special rule from the following list:

Acute senses, adamantium will, and they shall know no fear, assault vehicle*, counter-attack, crusader, deep strike, eternal warrior, fear, fearless, feel no pain, fleet, furious charge**, hammer of wrath**, hatred, hit & run** , infiltrate, intercept, it will not die, monster hunter, move through cover, power of the machine spirit, precision shots, precision strikes, preferred enemy, psyker, psychic pilot*, rage, rampage, relentless, scout, shrouded, skilled rider, slow and purposeful, split fire, stealth, stubborn, tank hunter, vector dancer, and zealot, * may only be taken by vehicle's. ** may not be taken by vehicle's, unless it is a walker

4) HQ/Independent Character Only. Relic weapon: Increase str or decrease ap of a single weapon by 1 to a maximum of str 10 or ap 1 and pick one special rule from the following list.

Melee: armour bane, blind, concussive, flesh bane, haywire, Instant death, lance, master-crafted, poisoned, rending, shred, soul blaze, and strike down

Ranged: armour bane, blind, concussive, flesh bane, haywire, lance, poisoned, rending, twin-linked, pinning, shred, sky fire, sniper, soul blaze, and strike down -The model may not take any relics from their army list war gear section.

Any thoughts or suggestions for bans or further restrictions would be greatly appreciated.

One of our players suggested that this should be stack-able so you could create a more unique character. This has potential, but could be open to more abuse?

Thanks.

This seems incredibly bland and takes away most of the appeal of using unique characters. What exactly is the point of these rules?

Mr. Kitty wrote:

2) Maximum 1 legendary model per 1000pts

Any thoughts or suggestions for bans or further restrictions would be greatly appreciated.

Change to "Maximum 1 legendary unit per 1000pts"

For example, almost all humans are s3 t3, but there are definitely examples of human models that have better than that. You have to assume that more variation exists than is represented by the rules, because it would be pointless to say one out of every three guard squads has a single guardsman with s4. but maybe your regiment has a special program (rock climbers? wrestlers?) that concentrates all of the s4 models into their own squads.

I think you should get rid of option 1.

you should let every unique model have its own warlord trait, but if it's not your warlord the trait doesn't take effect. This is what most unique HQ in the codexes have.

One of our players suggested that this should be stack-able so you could create a more unique character. This has potential, but could be open to more abuse?

Thanks.

Tell him that there is no such thing as "more unique." You either have a model that is unlike all other models (which your rules already allow), or you have two models that are alike and therefore non-unique. You have already made rules that make the models unique.

"more unique:" what a bunch of nonsense.

Maybe he means more distinctive, but that is dumb.

The point of these rules were to offer our players an easier way to make both special characters and more specialized units. Not all of us have the time/experience/interest to write fluff, crunch #s etc. There's still lots of situations when I'd still opt for a unique character from a codex over these. You can't really recreate those unique characters using this rules variant.

"Change to "Maximum 1 legendary unit per 1000pts"

Done.

"For example, almost all humans are s3 t3, but there are definitely examples of human models that have better than that. You have to assume that more variation exists than is represented by the rules, because it would be pointless to say one out of every three guard squads has a single guardsman with s4. but maybe your regiment has a special program (rock climbers? wrestlers?) that concentrates all of the s4 models into their own squads."

I see what your saying, It's meant more for squad leaders or individual tanks, HQs, etc. I really like your example of a special program in the regiment, helps to build the fluff to support it.



"Tell him that there is no such thing as "more unique." You either have a model that is unlike all other models (which your rules already allow), or you have two models that are alike and therefore non-unique. You have already made rules that make the models unique.

"more unique:" what a bunch of nonsense.

Maybe he means more distinctive, but that is dumb."

I may have just worded that poorly. I meant that he suggested the rules system could allow for multiple purchases from the chart so he could build a more detailed character.
He's new and wants something more structured.

The problem with making a chart is that your legendary characters more or less become the same choices over time. Within the chart, there are clearly "best" choices for the characters, and by having it affect stats at the same cost, it makes some characters naturally better than others. For example, a Space Marine Captain gets much much more out of the upgrades than a Guard Commander ever would, at the same cost. In the end, they are just increases in number, and do not feel particularly legendary, especially since, as I said before, you as a player will always be taking the "best" choices every time. By the end of it, every legendary character is more or less the same and hardly legendary.

Instead of trying to make a complex chart, what you should do is stick with narrative campaign play and let the context of the games determine what your characters get in that campaign. Does that Commissar somehow hold out against the Tyranid Warriors and live? Increase his durability somehow. Does a Chaplain crush something way, way out of his weight class? Give him an upgrade that reflects his actions. In that way, your characters are legendary for DOING legendary things, not because you wanted to dump a few hundred points into godmode.

Mr. Kitty wrote:
There's still lots of situations when I'd still opt for a unique character from a codex over these.

But according to your rule #1 you can't take unique characters. Or was this meant to be an optional set of rules that only applies if you choose custom legendary units instead of the standard ones, and does not prevent you from using the normal characters if you decide not to use these rules in your army? You should clarify that, because right now it sounds like a new set of rules that are mandatory for games in your group.

Peregrine wrote: Or was this meant to be an optional set of rules that only applies if you choose custom legendary units instead of the standard ones, and does not prevent you from using the normal characters if you decide not to use these rules in your army?

Yes, this seems pretty apparent.

curran12 wrote:The problem with making a chart is that your legendary characters more or less become the same choices over time. Within the chart, there are clearly "best" choices for the characters, and by having it affect stats at the same cost, it makes some characters naturally better than others. For example, a Space Marine Captain gets much much more out of the upgrades than a Guard Commander ever would, at the same cost. In the end, they are just increases in number, and do not feel particularly legendary, especially since, as I said before, you as a player will always be taking the "best" choices every time. By the end of it, every legendary character is more or less the same and hardly legendary.

I don't think this is a problem. Obviously it is a little weird to be able to choose between Stealth and Shrouded for the same price, but context takes care of most of the variation in power. Also, this rule affects exactly 5% at the very most of the army.

Mr. Kitty wrote: I meant that he suggested the rules system could allow for multiple purchases from the chart so he could build a more detailed character.

Most special characters do not have boosted profiles at all, and very few of them have more than one difference between their profiles and their generic equivalent. You should show him that. Also, many of the potential combinations are "detailed." If you put +1 toughness and crusader on something that doesn't normally have them, it plays extremely differently.

pelicaniforce wrote:

I don't think this is a problem. Obviously it is a little weird to be able to choose between Stealth and Shrouded for the same price, but context takes care of most of the variation in power. Also, this rule affects exactly 5% at the very most of the army.

How does context take care of the problem, exactly?