Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Disclaimer up front, I have never been a fan of special characters since they first started to pop up back in the day. I don't mind playing against them, they're just not something I have ever wanted to include in my army. Maybe I will eventually just drink the kool-aid and field one someday but I'm curious on how much of a limiting factor this is.

Can a competitive army be fielded without one?

Which armies are dependent on them and which don't need one?

They are hardly needed now. Some have strong auras, but most games, they aren't any form of auto-include.

How special?

the basic characters give out really good buffs on their own.

but some of those special characters do hand out better auras or have better stats for cheaper because they are usually mono builds.

It sucks to have to shill out CP for a chapter master upgrade (still cheesed about it as a imperial fist player)

I think girlyman may be an auto take for smurf players though.

The fact that people like rowboat GIVE 3CP is what I feel is the insult, especially against things line the chapter master upgrade. You just don't have to make any trade-off for getting these huge characters.

I was going to say no, and you can probably compete without them, but most top end lists seem to include them.

-Imperium top lists seem to take a lot of Celestine, and RG. Though pure Guard can likely do ok without any special characters.
-Chaos have Magnus as a staple. Deathguard also seem to bring typhus a lot.
-Eldar/DE right now are best as Ynnari which requires you take a special character.
-Tau, Orks, Nids, Crons can probably do ok without Special characters, but are not high end competitive armies for the most part.

The issue tend to be that for many armies SC are not that much more expensive than typical versions of those HQs(if at all), and are straight up better. So basically unless you have cheap useful HQ choices, you are usually better off paying a bit more for the benefit from those special characters.

Swarmy is a special character and we usually include him.

 Purifier wrote:
The fact that people like rowboat GIVE 3CP is what I feel is the insult, especially against things line the chapter master upgrade. You just don't have to make any trade-off for getting these huge characters.

well for girlyman he is like 360ish or something even calgar is about 100 points more than a normal captain.

so i dont think its insultingly bad.

edit oh yeah i forgot as breng says celestine is stupid.

 SideshowLucifer wrote:
Swarmy is a special character and we usually include him.

True, but I don't know that he is as needed for a good nid build than SC are to other armies, but I could be wrong.

 Desubot wrote:

 Purifier wrote:
The fact that people like rowboat GIVE 3CP is what I feel is the insult, especially against things line the chapter master upgrade. You just don't have to make any trade-off for getting these huge characters.

well for girlyman he is like 360ish or something even calgar is about 100 points more than a normal captain.

so i dont think its insultingly bad.

edit oh yeah i forgot as breng says celestine is stupid.

He's getting those points worth in auras and pure stats. If he didn't have the +3 there would atleast be a tradeoff in that getting a lot of cp with an army with him in it would be super hard. Now there isn't.

Ahriman is required for Thousand Sons largely because of how laughably expensive Exalted Sorcerers are. Ahriman on a disk is 166 points, an Exalted Sorcerer on a disk is 163. So I guess an additional spell, being a super psyker, and coming with a staff that does 3 damage instead of d3 is only worth three points?

Guillliman is far and away the best unit in the game, and would be an absolute bargain at 500 points. Any Imperial list that doesn't include him is severely hamstringing themselves.

 Arachnofiend wrote:
Ahriman is required for Thousand Sons largely because of how laughably expensive Exalted Sorcerers are. Ahriman on a disk is 166 points, an Exalted Sorcerer on a disk is 163. So I guess an additional spell, being a super psyker, and coming with a staff that does 3 damage instead of d3 is only worth three points?

IIRC exalted sorcerers have better stats than even a primarus librarian.

It always saddens me to see 2 Guillimans facing off against each other... I get the point.

But some armies do kind of rely on characters. I tried running Blood Angels without them, but the core units without all of the buffs are so expensive and so underwhelming...

The 'character army-buffing shtick' is a concept that GW has used in the past... I never cared for it and I wish 8th wasn't so reliant on it, but, it is.

It all depends on the army. Some armies have really lackluster named characters (hello Dark Eldar) and some have practically auto-includes (hello Rowboat).

 Desubot wrote:

 Arachnofiend wrote:
Ahriman is required for Thousand Sons largely because of how laughably expensive Exalted Sorcerers are. Ahriman on a disk is 166 points, an Exalted Sorcerer on a disk is 163. So I guess an additional spell, being a super psyker, and coming with a staff that does 3 damage instead of d3 is only worth three points?

IIRC exalted sorcerers have better stats than even a primarus librarian.

Indeed, it's what we get in exchange for not being able to take a Chaos Lord. Still zero reason to take an Exalted Sorcerer without taking Ahriman first with that points difference.

 Fafnir wrote:
Guillliman is far and away the best unit in the game, and would be an absolute bargain at 500 points. Any Imperial list that doesn't include him is severely hamstringing themselves.

Nah, I'm not even convinced he is the best imperium unit, let alone best in the game. He is very good, but if you look at winning lists at places like the NOVA he is no where to be seen. More Magnus in top lists, More Celestine.

Abaddon is really good for what he brings to the table, it's hard not to take him.

More and more I'm trying to put together lists without named models though. Loyalist marines have an easy out since they can spend CP after the fact to upgrade a Captain to a Chapter Master if they want to get the blanket rerolls to hit, and it can be done on a battle by battle basis, keeping things flexible.

I'm convinced it's quite possible to be competetive without them, but obviously some armies handle it better than others.

Named character aren't really needed to be baseline competitive. Occasionally one of them tends to end up breaking the curve a little (Gulliman right now) and a disproportionate number of lists use them

I run AM + Inquisition and even my inquisitor isn't a named character. I could swap them out for Greyfax, but at twice the point I'm not certain she's worth it.

 Insectum7 wrote:
Abaddon is really good for what he brings to the table, it's hard not to take him.

More and more I'm trying to put together lists without named models though. Loyalist marines have an easy out since they can spend CP after the fact to upgrade a Captain to a Chapter Master if they want to get the blanket rerolls to hit, and it can be done on a battle by battle basis, keeping things flexible.

I'm convinced it's quite possible to be competetive without them, but obviously some armies handle it better than others.

Its super easy when you play primaris only the army

Marine special character librarians tend to get good bonuses for quite a modest points premium. Both Njal and Mehpiston are well worth taking over standard SW/BA psykers.

Sisters army without Celestine is being kind to your opponent

Let's not mine words--Celestine IS the Sisters army.

Exce5pptionally kind. Given that most of her auras benefit sisters and their core mechanics she tends to be an auto take for sisters. Celestine gets a bad name due to her being able to taken in any imperial army. Were she sisters only there wouldnt be as much complaint.
For her poont she is the equivalent of 2 canones with combi flamer, eviscerator and jump pack plus auras. Considering she can come back eorks out about right.

Problem for Celestine and sisters is canoness had their jump pack option taken away after the WH codex. Guaranteed if canoness had jump pack again youd see less nof celestine on sisters armies and more canoness. I know id take jumping canoness in a heartbeat (due to 2 converted models now useless). As its stands, (pure ) sisters have 2 hq. Celestine and canoness. Stand neside each other and celestine is an autotake. Its like sayi g do you take a hq in your hq slot or a pumped up troop veteran?

Anyways, special characters are by no means necessary- even for sisters :p as long as geedubs have the models to sell though, theyre going to make the rules to move them.

I'm not a fan of special characters either. Too Mary Sue for my taste.

I've been having a very hard time competing with what my opponents' Typhus and Bellisarius Cawl bring to the table.

Even the crappiest special characters bring incredible value for their points cost. I can't think of any that I'd consider overcosted in points. ($$$ certainly)

So, I've decided to bite the bullet and pick up Shrike. He's only 17-29 points more than my standard captain warlord, and he'll probably save me three to seven CP over the course of a game, as well as free up my librarian to cast something other than Veil of Time. Well worth it.

He won't be "Shrike", though. His nickname will be "Captain Blender"

Generally if it has a good buff > Auto-include (even with the rumored points drop, Typhus is still auto-include over a Lord of Contagion).

If it's only a beatstick, either it has to be REALLY undercosted for what it can do, or it's trash.

Everything else generally falls into "It's final price is cheaper than a similarly kitted out *insert equivallent generic character* but a cheaper overall *insert equivallent generic character* is better."

It entirely depends. You got characters like Celestine and Roboute, and then you have complete and utter turds like the Star Phantoms captain.

As we get more Codexes, we'll get more special characters that are just too good for their points. My hope is that Guilliman goes up in points in Chapter Approved, along with a lot of the other 'auto include'.

I have a lot more fun playing games with and against armies that don't have those special characters.

 Desubot wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:
Abaddon is really good for what he brings to the table, it's hard not to take him.

More and more I'm trying to put together lists without named models though. Loyalist marines have an easy out since they can spend CP after the fact to upgrade a Captain to a Chapter Master if they want to get the blanket rerolls to hit, and it can be done on a battle by battle basis, keeping things flexible.

I'm convinced it's quite possible to be competetive without them, but obviously some armies handle it better than others.

Its super easy when you play primaris only the army

Ahh, but is that competitive?

I find it quite easy to avoid taking special characters, given that all of the vanilla DE special characters are trash