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 usernamesareannoying wrote:
I tend to avoid them as I’m always afraid tourneys won’t allow them or people will get annoyed at their use. Do you guys run them or ever see any pushback?

Generally speaking I'll do it for one of three reasons and two of them are sort of linked:

1) The unit is pretty much the textbook example of the (sub)faction. Typhus and his Host. Ghaz and the (Goff Orks)

2) The unit does something unique/wonky that fits the theme. Tiggy giving Bobby G's bodyguard -1 to hit. Tiggy already follows Guilliman around more than Calgar now, because Primarch - and giving that mini-star -1 to hit is something he'd do.

3) The unit does something unique/wonky that makes the list possible at all: Like when Belial/Sammael made Deathwing/Raveguard troops.

On the flip side, Cassius is linked to Calgar, or Deathwing, but Guilliman not at all. I'll DIY a Primaris Chaplain with Master of Sanctity upgrade to go with Guilliman before I add the cheaper Cassius.

N/M. Got Ultramarines mixed up.

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:

 alextroy wrote:
No army fails to function with Unique Named Characters.

Found the person who doesn't play guard. Lord Solar is the only unit in the codex that can issue orders to Baneblade/Macharius tanks, and one of only two units (a tank commander with the double orders enhancement being the second-best option) that can issue vehicle orders more efficiently than just taking more basic tanks and ignoring orders. Either you take the named character or you ignore the faction ability, on top of having a detachment ability that is almost always blank text.

So you were challenged to find the 1 army that requires a named character to function - and failed.

I don't use name characters most of the time. It bugs me to think that for some reason such a well-known dude would show up in my backwater unrecorded story, like, there's no reason it couldn't or I couldn't use the profile an rename it but it bugs me nonetheless. Go figure.

I've got Straken's mini though because I liked it a lot.

 Maréchal des Logis Walter wrote:
I've got Straken's mini though because I liked it a lot.

The minis are often great proxies for generic commanders, or in other places (my Straken, to use your example, gets play in Dark Heresy and other 40k RPGs, plus Necromunda!).

ccs wrote:
So you were challenged to find the 1 army that requires a named character to function - and failed.

Ok, yes, if you mean "function" as in "can legally put models on the table" then technically you are correct. If you mean "work as intended and have any real chance of winning" then no.

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:

ccs wrote:
So you were challenged to find the 1 army that requires a named character to function - and failed.

Ok, yes, if you mean "function" as in "can legally put models on the table" then technically you are correct. If you mean "work as intended and have any real chance of winning" then no.

Baneblades and Machariuses are now essential to Guard?
You can't possibly win without them?

 JNAProductions wrote:
Baneblades and Machariuses are now essential to Guard?
You can't possibly win without them?

If you want to play with those models they are. Do you think that "your other units are de facto banned because you can't use the named character that is essential for making them work" is a reasonable rule? Is a house rule banning named characters ok as long as there's at least one list that could win a game?

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:
Baneblades and Machariuses are now essential to Guard?
You can't possibly win without them?

If you want to play with those models they are. Do you think that "your other units are de facto banned because you can't use the named character that is essential for making them work" is a reasonable rule? Is a house rule banning named characters ok as long as there's at least one list that could win a game?

So what happens when I have tank or 'Blade units that are beyond Horsey Guys command range? Completely plausible scenarios when I need tank support Left/Right/& Center. Or I've put something in Reserve & bring it in nowhere near him.Please, tell me how essential he is to units he can't reach for some reason.

Or when he gets killed. What? You think my whole army stops functioning?

Oh, & that Born Soldiers thing? That's a bonus perk for when something stops moving or doesn't need to. Handy, but not essential.

Who said anything about banning characters (de facto or otherwise).

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:
If you want to play with those models they are.

As someone who has owned a Macharius since the model was first released, let me tell you that that tank - nor any of its variants - has ever been essential.

And the idea that that it only functions when brought along Lord Horseyman is a false dilemma.

The Guard do not need him. He is a nice to have, but he is not essential. He's essential to the type of playstyle you seem to be advocating, but there's more than one way to skin a cat when it comes to the Guard.

To put it another way: The Guard don't need him, but you appear to.

ccs wrote:
So what happens when I have tank or 'Blade units that are beyond Horsey Guys command range?

You don't, because in that kind of list he exists to provide buffs to the big tanks and if they are more than 24" away something very odd has happened. And if you lose your buff support you probably lose the game soon after unless you've done enough damage that your crippled units can mop up whatever is left.


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 H.B.M.C. wrote:
As someone who has owned a Macharius since the model was first released, let me tell you that that tank - nor any of its variants - has ever been essential.

Once again: "just don't bring the units that require the named character" is not an acceptable solution. This is not a competitive play discussion, where it doesn't matter how many units suck and never see the table as long as faction win rate is between 45% and 55%, invalidating lists and play styles is not ok.

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:


Once again: "just don't bring the units that require the named character" is not an acceptable solution. This is not a competitive play discussion, where it doesn't matter how many units suck and never see the table as long as faction win rate is between 45% and 55%, invalidating lists and play styles is not ok.

Yeah it is, because you're saying ahead of time what is allowed in a given league, and people can decide to participate or not.

Hecaton wrote:
Yeah it is, because you're saying ahead of time what is allowed in a given league, and people can decide to participate or not.

"We tell you the rules up front" is not a defense of a bad rule. Bad rules are bad rules no matter how they are presented.

People preferring their own characters over named characters irrespective of game power tend to be great people for playing narrative games, even as one-of.

People having a problem with you playing named characters are usually not worth playing to begin with. There is a high chance that you will violate any other of their arbitrary restriction on how 40k "is supposed to be played" and then have them bitching and mourning for the rest of the game anyways.

Same is true for events. Unless it's a narrative campaign, named characters being banned is a red flag of the organization not knowing their gak and that you should spend your time and money elsewhere.

The only time specifically banning named characters makes sense at all is when you are running a specific narrative scenario and:
- the character does not fit the scenario (Gulliman did not fight in any of the wars of Armageddon)
- the character is reserved for a specific scenario/narrative path (it doesn't make sense to have Magnus in your army when the goal of the campaign is to prevent the TS from summoning Magnus).
- you play a big game/simultaneous games and you don't want put one player above the others because there can only be one Abaddon on the table.

I used to avoid them when I could. I much preferred being able to mix and match a bunch of wargear to make my own characters and fluff them up and make conversions etc (so did basically everyone I played with, using named characters was basically unheard of in my community unless they were broken and you were That Guy). After nuGW neutered the ability to play to play Your Dude characters I stopped caring and so did a lot of other people I feel.
I suspect if you gave people the option to make tricked out custom characters over the more recent trend of Faction Leader And Friends cartoonishness people would choose custom characters.

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:

Hecaton wrote:
Yeah it is, because you're saying ahead of time what is allowed in a given league, and people can decide to participate or not.

"We tell you the rules up front" is not a defense of a bad rule. Bad rules are bad rules no matter how they are presented.

The whole argument has gotten a bit silly. I think this is not so much a case of rules being imposed but of a like-minded gaming group discussing their plans for their crusade and collectively deciding on ground rules (my group is actually in the process of doing exactly that for an upcoming crusade as well). On top of that, crusade rules lightly discourage bringing named characters in the first place as they cannot progress or gain experience (at least in 9th edition), which is a huge part of crusade.

On top of all that, I believe they said it was a 9th edition crusade, in which case your issues with not being able to order a baneblade are irrelevant as there is a tank ace that enables that.

DeadliestIdiot wrote:
On top of that, crusade rules lightly discourage bringing named characters in the first place as they cannot progress or gain experience (at least in 9th edition), which is a huge part of crusade.

Same for 10th. Epic Heros are explicitly called out to not gain experience, battle honors or battle scars.

use them? yes, rename them? also yes - though when on the table top they have the official name, though perhaps a more customised model.

they are just another in game unit, why wouldn't you include them if they do something that allows a theme you like?

the days of them being banned are thankfully long gone, and hopefully along with it the attitude of "of course we ban special and named characters" followed by aggression if you actually ask: "why?"

yes some were overpowered, so deal with them.

Don’t use them, prefer my dudes and they don’t fit our narrative setting, but have used them as the basis for home brewed rules rather than fully make them up so as to avoid making them too powerful.

Tournaments not allowing named characters isn't a thing I've heard of since 4e; GW's been pushing named characters pretty hard since 5th.

 AnomanderRake wrote:
Tournaments not allowing named characters isn't a thing I've heard of since 4e; GW's been pushing named characters pretty hard since 5th.

I think a lot was a hangover from the fantasy side of the games and just became a "too hard, ban them all" thing instead of "whats the actual issue?"

e.g. some pointy eared magic user, simply by existing, stopped me running either of the named Goblin heros

I think GWs reaction, essentially making the named bods essential to unlock features of the armies was aimed directly at the banhammer crowd

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:

ccs wrote:
So what happens when I have tank or 'Blade units that are beyond Horsey Guys command range?

You don't, because in that kind of list he exists to provide buffs to the big tanks and if they are more than 24" away something very odd has happened. And if you lose your buff support you probably lose the game soon after unless you've done enough damage that your crippled units can mop up whatever is left.

Oh I assure you it happens.
It happened last week. And it'll happen again.
We play on boards that are 5 - 8 feet long. It's very easy for Mr.Horse not to be in range of everything you'd like him to reach. Also, terrain & counter-deployment.
It might not have been my initial plan to deploy that Demolisher that far away on the flank, but as need/opportunity dictates....
Same with movement throughout the game.

I don’t really play with any at the moment, as GW hasn’t made any I want to pay for recently.

The two new ones are the phoenix lords, but they mostly just for display.

I may get some for my custodies, but damn is that boring to play right now. >.<

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:

ccs wrote:
So you were challenged to find the 1 army that requires a named character to function - and failed.

Ok, yes, if you mean "function" as in "can legally put models on the table" then technically you are correct. If you mean "work as intended and have any real chance of winning" then no.

I would think that GW only allowing the army’s supreme commander give orders to those units was a sure sign they are intended to operate just fine without orders.

Whether the rules successfully allow for that is a different question.

Sure if I feel like it. Super Sentai Daemons assemble list with Be'lakor, Skarbrand, Shalaxi, Rotigus, and Kairos was with their crowd of adoring Nurglings was a fun list.

Voldus, Stern, Draigo. Draigo was in every army I ever made.

 alextroy wrote:
I would think that GW only allowing the army’s supreme commander give orders to those units was a sure sign they are intended to operate just fine without orders.

Why? The unit in question is in the codex and legal in normal games, why does making the shiny new model an auto-take unit mean he isn't supposed to be necessary?


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ccs wrote:
We play on boards that are 5 - 8 feet long.

Which is much larger than the standard. I'm not sure why range issues on your non-standard tables are supposed to have anything to do with how the codex is meant to work?

It might not have been my initial plan to deploy that Demolisher that far away on the flank, but as need/opportunity dictates....

Demolishers can at least use the other source of orders, even if it isn't nearly as good. And if you're taking a Baneblade (or more than one) that's going to be the focus of your army and where your best buff unit goes.

I am among those old enough to have been "socialised" in a time when special characters required your opponents consent. Over time this restriction was formally lifted, but it remained as some kind of gentlemans agreement.

Nowadays special characters are simply another unit in the codex, and should be treated just like that. Personal sentiments aside there is really nothing wrong with fielding any of them. To me it still feels weird if somebody has Abaddon in each and every game of theirs - but it is of course perfectly fine. There are plenty of good reasons to do so, and it is really none of my business.

What makes this topic more annoying to me is GWs approach to special characters these days: when in the past they were additions to a factions roster, lately they have become a requirement more often than not. Of course GW wants to sell expensive centrepiece models, I have no issue with this in principle. Problems begin with special characters being integral to a factions playstyle to the point where you would significantly handicap yourself by not using them.

Case(s) in point: Thousand Sons, Death Guard, World Eaters. All three suffer from the same problems: they have rather limited ranges and each requires certain special character(s) being used, unless you want to play only in the most casual of environments. Death Guard are in a rough spot as it is, but without Mortarion you have almost no chance to get even a proper game. World Eaters without Angron? Only if you enjoy losing almost every game.

So while no special character is technically necessary to play - anybody claiming otherwise really needs to check a dictionary for the meaning of the word "necessary" - many factions relying so heavily on one or more of them is bad game design in my opinion. I do not like it, I do not like it at all.

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:


"We tell you the rules up front" is not a defense of a bad rule. Bad rules are bad rules no matter how they are presented.

If everyone consents to a rule like that it isn't bad. What reasoning are you giving for a rule to be bad?

Hecaton wrote:

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:


"We tell you the rules up front" is not a defense of a bad rule. Bad rules are bad rules no matter how they are presented.

If everyone consents to a rule like that it isn't bad. What reasoning are you giving for a rule to be bad?

If everyone consents then why do you need a rule? You only need a rule if someone doesn't agree, otherwise people just naturally don't bring named characters in their lists because they don't want to.

And consent doesn't make a rule good. Everyone can consent to a rule that squats get 25% less points than every other faction but it's still a stupid rule.