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So there. The whole GW - Chapterhouse lawsuit, in which secretly many of us were siding with Chapterhouse and thus jubilant when the latter kinda won, came back to bite us in the ass. As usual, we, the customers get the receiving end of whatever damage happens to GW from such intellectual property debates.

Given how GW has now fully adopted the policy of axing all special characters that didn't have their own models (instead of stepping up to the plate and actually creating models for them - even if it is in Failcast), a lot of the variety and greatness of 40k has been lost.

It just doesnt feel the same anymore with so many characters gone - the Parasite of Mortex, Baron Sathonyx, Lady Malys, Duke Sliscus, Kheradruakh, Chenkov, Mogul Kamir, Bastonne, Al'Rahem, Marbo, the Doom of Malantai, Wazdakka Gutsmek, Ol' Zogwort, etc.

Most of these characters are perfectly compatible with the new codexes so I'm wondering how many of you (non-tourney players) will stand up to GW policy and say 'no, we actually like the variety we had and will continue to use these in our armylists' rather than go with the flow? It's not like the special characters are imbalanced or broken at all - on the contrary, most are subpar compared to tooled up generic HQs, but the feeling of having a guy with history leading your army is a thing many players might prefer over having a no-name HQ, so it sucks that GW is taking the variety and choice away from us.

I remember a time when special characters were only allowed at certain points limits and even then only with opponents permission. I prefer that people use basic HQ choices and convert something together to represent them. I play blood angels and I don't use any of the named characters.

feth you GW. That's what I think.

Good fething riddance to SC's.

I miss the days of people actually building up their own characters and growing their own backstories as they enjoyed successes (or lack of!) in their own games.

5th ed was the dark days of travesty where it seemed like certain SC's made a pilgrimage to Fabius Bile's laboratories in order to have a million odd clones of themselves made up as almost every freaking game seemed to feature the likes of Vulkan or Crowe or whoever...

IMHO, "Special" Characters should be just that - special and only show up in the odd game. They're not so special anymore when they become staple auto-includes.

And before anyone whines about how their special snowflake FOC shenanigan army is no more, that's what multiple CAD's, Formations & Unbound are for.

 Grimtuff wrote:
feth you GW. That's what I think.

Ah, that's rough Grimtuff. Rough....

Me, I like special characters and hate to think that GW are taking liberties with the fluff. But it's really no skin off my nose. I'll just keep playing them whatever happens. As long as it's ok with my opponent of course...

 sarpedons-right-hand wrote:

 Grimtuff wrote:
feth you GW. That's what I think.

Ah, that's rough Grimtuff. Rough....

Me, I like special characters and hate to think that GW are taking liberties with the fluff. But it's really no skin off my nose. I'll just keep playing them whatever happens. As long as it's ok with my opponent of course...

Spent ages on that and was really proud of it. Was the beginnings of a whole army lead by Malys. Now? Nope.

 Grimtuff wrote:


Spent ages on that and was really proud of it. Was the beginnings of a whole army lead by Malys. Now? Nope.

Serves you right for converting something instead of buying official GW Citadel miniatures.

I need to learn how to make that TM symbol.

I think it's stupid. People put ages into converting and painting those characters up (due to GW neglecting to give us the models anyway) and then they just get rid of them. If someone wanted to use a SC from their last book I don't think I'd have any problems with it (especially if they have a lavish model to accompany it) unless it blatantly is broken.

I said Feth you GW, at least at home.

Can't pull that at the FLGS, so my Wazdakka is now a warboss on the Blitzbike, and my biker swarm orks are now greatly reduced.

We don't play Unbound there. No all-biker lists :(

At home i generally play 5th ed with the old codexes, if i play 40K at all. I'm losing interest in the game TBH.

I still have a feth-ton of minis to paint, which i DO enjoy...mostly. I can still convert awesome looted whatnots for my Orks,

I do miss the variety from the DE and Ork SC's though.

You could always use those converted SCs as generic HQs, but I agree it sucks.
I liked special characters, altough I think they should only be reserved for special scenario games. As an above poster said: When special characters show up in every army and game they stop being special.

Well, the nice thing about special characters was that is also allowed you to create cool counts-as models for whatever faction you played if you wanted to use that ability.

It'd be like using the rules for Al'Rahem in a Guard platoon, but modelling him like a Mordian and giving him a cool name, like Mehar LaDope.

I never liked special characters and I didn't like the move toward making them mandatory for certain builds and sometimes more efficient choices than regular HQs.

I don't want to play GWs characters, I wan to play MY characters.

That being said, taking choices away from people (the balanced choices at any rate) is usually a bad thing.

I miss 2nd edition days, which felt more narrative (despite some terrible mechanics). I think the ridiculous wargear cards were part of it... you could really customize. But there was definitely a cost in balance.

Well, I generally don't field special characters.
But for fluff reasons, I think 40k will lost an edge without SC's.

Experiment 626 wrote:
Good fething riddance to SC's.

I miss the days of people actually building up their own characters and growing their own backstories as they enjoyed successes (or lack of!) in their own games.

5th ed was the dark days of travesty where it seemed like certain SC's made a pilgrimage to Fabius Bile's laboratories in order to have a million odd clones of themselves made up as almost every freaking game seemed to feature the likes of Vulkan or Crowe or whoever...

IMHO, "Special" Characters should be just that - special and only show up in the odd game. They're not so special anymore when they become staple auto-includes.

And before anyone whines about how their special snowflake FOC shenanigan army is no more, that's what multiple CAD's, Formations & Unbound are for.

Whilst thats a valid argument against the overuse of Special Characters, it is NOT a valid argument for removing characters from the game. Your concerns could;d have been easily addressed by putting a restriction on Special Characters that limited them to games of a certain size (e.g. >2000), to special scenarios, or being subject to your opponent's consent (as I believe it used to be before my time? I started with 5th Ed).

Deleting Characters from the game simply restricts the variety of options available to a player, and alienates those who took the time and effort to convert a model. IMO the greatest attraction of Special Characters was never the Characters themselves, it was the unique equipment and special rules that changed how the model (and in some cases the army) worked.

I know I would have chosen to make my own original character (Edithae) instead of using Kayvaan Shrike if there were some way of making a generic captain unique in some way, such as special equipment (master crafted rending Lightning Claws) and special rules (Stealth and Infiltrate). My favourite 5th Ed. tactic was infiltrating or Outflanking a squad of Assault Marines or Vanguard Veterans and going straight for my opponent's throat (metaphorically speaking).

This has been alleviated somewhat by the new Relics items and Chapter Tactics rules in the 6th Ed Codex (I've made magnetised options for the Burning Blade and Shield Eternal, and Scout & upgraded Jump Packs is nice for a Raven Guard player) but it would still be great if we could customise our characters even more, but letting us purchases certain special rules.

Lets be honest here. GW's decision is all to do with Chapter House Studios. The IP for certain characters that don't have models are weak and unoriginal, due to their being heavily inspired by other media such as movies. GW can't produce a model for them and guarantee that they can use Copyright law etc to stop others (e.g. CHS) from making their own versions and "leeching off the IP". And they don't want to leave a gap in their model range that those 3rd party manufactures can exploit either.

*Al Raheim = Lawrence of Arabia
Sly Marbo = Rambo
Chekov = a Soviet general

etc.

I didn't like them too much, especially the doom of malan'tai. I think such models tended to lead to much crying on one side, either the playing or the receiving.

I favour if GW instead brings out Dataslates like they did with Cypher or the Assassins. This works fine for me.

If they gave enough /better options to make proper SCs of your own then it would not be so bad but simply slaughtering the SCs was annoying.

Its like the Inquisition Codex - no options for real combat Inquisitors, enhanced or otherwise, force fields or other Invuln saves, artificer armour etc etc.......

Just give generic characters the option to purchase special rules and upgraded equipment, and you'd see a lot more of them.

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:
Just give generic characters the option to purchase special rules and upgraded equipment, and you'd see a lot more of them.

Eh, much as I'd like the thought of doing so, I'd rather not go the way of Fantasy and make nearly every single SC useless (even for flavor) because of how bad their rules ended up being in comparison to those you can make.

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:
Just give generic characters the option to purchase special rules and upgraded equipment, and you'd see a lot more of them.

Agreed. Just as docdoom77 said, in the days of 2nd Ed you were given pretty much free reign with giving your own HQ's any wargear cards in any combination possible. Which could make games unbalanced, but hot damn they were fun. It also meant that quite a lot of people didn't need to take GW's pre written SC's because they had the tools to make their own.

Not even a question, of course I'd allow it. If the character is very overpowered he'd still be subject to the same reservations I have for all OP units/lists, of course.

If GW gets rid of my Kharn, I doubt I'd bother with the next Chaos dex. Not sure I will anyway, of course.

Codex: Necrons (2011): Most named characters are butt-awful. If Trazyn, Imotekh or Szeras would get axed, noone would even notice them being removed.

And in general, I am in favor of it. Special characters slow the game down most of the time and introduce 2-3 USR, thus making the game more complicated.

 Sigvatr wrote:
Codex: Necrons (2011): Most named characters are butt-awful. If Trazyn, Imotekh or Szeras would get axed, noone would even notice them being removed.

And in general, I am in favor of it. Special characters slow the game down most of the time and introduce 2-3 USR, thus making the game more complicated.

You've named two of the most popular SC's in the necron codex, one of which whose fluff is beloved by quite a few people and used in quite a few games.

You might not notice, but pretty sure it would be equivalent to removing Kharn or Ahriman from the CSM codex.

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:

 Sigvatr wrote:
Codex: Necrons (2011): Most named characters are butt-awful. If Trazyn, Imotekh or Szeras would get axed, noone would even notice them being removed.

And in general, I am in favor of it. Special characters slow the game down most of the time and introduce 2-3 USR, thus making the game more complicated.

You've named two of the most popular SC's in the necron codex, one of which whose fluff is beloved by quite a few people and used in quite a few games.

You might not notice, but pretty sure it would be equivalent to removing Kharn or Ahriman from the CSM codex.

Like loosing Vect - oh wait......

 Mr Morden wrote:

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:

 Sigvatr wrote:
Codex: Necrons (2011): Most named characters are butt-awful. If Trazyn, Imotekh or Szeras would get axed, noone would even notice them being removed.

And in general, I am in favor of it. Special characters slow the game down most of the time and introduce 2-3 USR, thus making the game more complicated.

You've named two of the most popular SC's in the necron codex, one of which whose fluff is beloved by quite a few people and used in quite a few games.

You might not notice, but pretty sure it would be equivalent to removing Kharn or Ahriman from the CSM codex.

Like loosing Vect - oh wait......

Not sure of the point being made here, people plenty noticed Vect disappearing because is fluff is great, and even the lesser used nobles (and much used baron whose rules and fluff were pretty good)

 Murenius wrote:
I didn't like them too much, especially the doom of malan'tai. I think such models tended to lead to much crying on one side, either the playing or the receiving.

I favour if GW instead brings out Dataslates like they did with Cypher or the Assassins. This works fine for me.

I honestly think that's the way they're going. Something a lot of people missed is it's not like GW proper hasn't acknowledged some of the axed characters.

I point you to Daily White Dwarf Oct 2, 2014.

It'd be pretty dickish in a direct way to be like "Hurr hurr we made this conversion of Vect and are never going to revisit the idea of him as a unit for 40k play!"

Also worth noting is they are now including the rules for units in their assembly instructions:

Rules for using Putrid Blightkings in games of Warhammer can be found in the construction booklet that accompanies the miniatures and White Dwarf Issue 37.

We've had rumors for awhile they are trying to whip out the last few codexes and then will be going back to the old style of releasing new things which is alongside White Dwarves with accompanying rules. I realize this is a Warhammer fantasy unit and specifically for that End of Times event, but it suggest to me those rumors were accurate.

And then last year, we had the whole 25 day event calendar. It was mostly dataslates and whatnot, but we did get rules for Cypher and Be'lakor so maybe this year they'll step up their game and give us actual models to go with stuff we're sad we don't have anymore. I realize it's a pipedream, but I mean, they've done more or less everything we've asked them to with 7th Ed. Games are a lot more customizable within the confines of the rules of the game, gameplay itself is more dynamic, etc. Most the releases this year have been pretty cool. I like to believe after how miserable their sales have been they are starting to get you can't ignore your own fanebase forever, so I am going to choose to hold out hope.

Yes.

The idea of new codexes being nothing other than a collection of datasheets while all the new boxes they release throughout the year for various armies will contain the rules inside them (that then eventually get added to the next version of their parent codex) is pretty disgusting, tbh.

It forces people to constantly keep up with GW even if they are playing a single army because hey, that other dude playing the same army is fielding a powerful new unit that wasnt even in your codex despite your codex only being four months old.

It just doesnt feel the same anymore with so many characters gone - the Parasite of Mortex, Baron Sathonyx, Lady Malys, Duke Sliscus, Kheradruakh, Chenkov, Mogul Kamir, Bastonne, Al'Rahem, Marbo, the Doom of Malantai, Wazdakka Gutsmek, Ol' Zogwort, etc.

None of those listed above were major or particularly interesting characters for me anyways so Im not bothered tbh.
With the exception of Doom, I thought that piece of fluff was excellent.

And no theres little point trying to convince me malys or kamir etc were worthy/interesting characters. Others might have but I did not. However thats fine, we merely disagree.

I also believe once the last of the codicies get updated there will be a potential slew of new stuff to keep sales motoring along ala digital releases and updates.

 Ratius wrote:

It just doesnt feel the same anymore with so many characters gone - the Parasite of Mortex, Baron Sathonyx, Lady Malys, Duke Sliscus, Kheradruakh, Chenkov, Mogul Kamir, Bastonne, Al'Rahem, Marbo, the Doom of Malantai, Wazdakka Gutsmek, Ol' Zogwort, etc.

None of those listed above were major or particularly interesting characters for me anyways so Im not bothered tbh.
With the exception of Doom, I thought that piece of fluff was excellent.

Um, have you read the DE 5th ed codex? Malys and Vect are 2/3rds of the central trio of characters in that book (Rakath being the 3rd). Both were very major and important to DE.

Unfortunately it does appear that more and more of what would once be part of the general Codex is now going to be in various Supplements and data slates - we saw that with Guard (Storm troopers) Tau (Farsight), Orks (Gazz) and now with Dark Eldar (Covens).

So a Codex will effectively be £60-70+ :( I really can't justify that sort of cost these days.............

When I was playing tournaments regularly I liked knowing that either everyone would have one or no-one. Blog wars is a terrific tournament where everyone had to have a special character but a lot of the major tournaments in Britain wouldn't allow any which I also liked.