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Breton wrote:

Trying to use your personal head cannon to claim that they're not is an impressive level of gymnastics.

I didn't see anything that was personal headcannon. A Chapter Master is fundamentally just a guy with rank A Phoenix Lord is a sort of immortal demon armor that posesses the wearer. There may have been hundreds of thousands of Chapter Masters since the OG foundings. The Phoenix Lords have been the same entities for millenia, reborn time and again. Phoenix Lords are more akin to Primarchs of their respective shrines in terms of "history", and more like Lucius the Eternal in manifestation.

I’m gonna agree that Phoenix Lords are something else entirely.

Yes, each incumbent adds knowledge and experience to the whole. But, it appears the dominant spirit/personality is that of the original.

Same as Cawl’s completely not illegal never gone get burned at the stake for that one tech, which allows him to subsume the knowledge and experiences of others into his own, without those personalities really competing with his own.

Both are essentially parasitical routes to immortality and learning.

When Calgar, Azrael, Dante and all inevitably meet their end? Their chosen successor may well take up their arms and armour. But they don’t assume the mantle of the person.

Batman I see a third thing. Batman isn’t Bruce Wayne. Batman is as much an idea and perhaps an ideal as a living person. The cowl and the mission are Batman to Gotham and its populace. And so it is a mantle, like Black Panther, that can be passed on. And so just as T’Challa didn’t become his father, or Shuri become T’Challa? Damian Wayne didn’t become Bruce Wayne. They did become Black Panther, and all that embodies to the Wakandan people, and The Batman and all that embodies to Gothamites.

 LunarSol wrote:
While I generally like the idea of the more sandbox elements of the setting, I'll admit that it never drew me the way the characters of Space Marine and DoW did and I think that's ultimately why things are the way they are now. As much as we all like the idea of creating our own characters, the overwhelming majority is more drawn to learning about characters the setting has created for them.

I think, for all its merits, character creation doesn't have that broad of appeal, particularly for newcomers with almost no way of properly grasping the world they're trying to create a character for. There are definitely people who come in with that mindset off the start, but for a lot of people its more of a barrier in a hobby that already has a lot of them.

That said, I think having a lot of aesthetic options on character kits is a huge plus and something I'd like to see more of. I just think that works better to get people invested in creating their own characters when you don't put much in the way of rules behind them. Creating a bunch of head options is great and weapon options too as long as they're of the "power weapon" variety. Put the rules on them and people actually get less invested in designing the character their way when their way is "bad" in gameplay.

IDK. Getting rambly. TLDR. I think generic characters are cool and would help a lot from having more head options. I think there's a reason that named characters keep getting focus though and I suspect its because custom characters just don't have as broad appeal

I think it's fair to query how much of this is down to how GW sells elements of the game.

Anyone remember GW's old website? There were pages where designers would show off their armies and how they'd made custom characters to lead them.

Now everything is just focused on what you can buy from the GW webstore.

Likewise, you cite games where you play as defined characters, yet surely that only highlights the point that even the video-games promote the use of pre-made characters, rather than letting players make and play as their own Space Marine characters?

I'm reminded of the old adage that Space Marines need to get more support because they're the most popular faction. Yet this theory never seems to consider that the fact that SMs may in fact be related to them getting near-constant releases, on top of being the poster-boys, the main protagonists of virtually all the fiction, the faction that's included in all the starter sets etc.

By the same measure, it doesn't seem unreasonable to speculate that GW's constant promotion of pre-made characters and off-the-shelf models might actually play a role in newer customers not valuing customisation and 'your dudes' as much as the players of old.

Clearer examples of what the forthcoming character creation rules are bringing.

https://www.warhammer-community.com/en-gb/articles/hjiieqr9/the-warhammer-community-team-put-the-maelstroms-custom-character-rules-to-the-test/

 Jidmah wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:
Why should being a Psyker (with a related ability) and/or leading Poxwalkers be unique?
I don't mind if the exact details change. If the number of MW was dropped or it was changed to an actual weapon, that's entirely fine.

I'm talking about a pretty radical change from where the game is now. It would require a lot of smaller changes too. Not the least of which would be points for options again.

The game is not going to change radically though. The current game is both financially successful and widely liked. Any radical change will endanger stakeholder value and therefore will not happen.
In addition, the whole hateboner for named characters is a relic of the distant past. People still clinging to the philosophies of 4th or earlier editions are outnumbered by more than 10:1 by players that came after them. Games like Spacemarine II, Tacticus and DoW heavily focus on named characters and have huge fanbases themselves. GW keeps releasing named characters for novel protagonists because people keep buying them. Primarchs are selling out when they are released. Marine players are buying whole boxes of duplicate units to get that named sergeant for their chapter early.
Without any intent of offending you, if everyone who disliked named characters like you do left the game and never spend a single penny on 40k ever again, GW probably wouldn't even notice - especially since the overlap of long time veterans and people who are spending minimal amounts on GW product is rather large.

So there's your answer. The ship has sailed and it is not coming back. Named characters aren't just accepted into the game, the have become an integral part of it. Neither the management drones at GW, nor the fanbase would support removing them. Just the few people here on dakka who have mostly lost touch with the real community of the game being played years ago.

This is the truth of it. Regards "marine hate", marines just get characters invented left, right and centre to the point where there are more than there are units for some armies. They're also ubiquitous in the "introductory your dude" faction. So the two things are at odds.

Many factions have very few special characters for a loooong time and hence gain a sense of renown in the fanbase. If you want a modern example, canis rex is now recognised by people as *the knights hero* and even if there were customisation options, he's that character and cemented in game lore now. There is no other knight character, they're an npc faction in that respect.

Marines however, get a slew every year. They then got so many more customisations options than anyone else did *on top* of this in 9th. So when your small number of epic heroes who have renown and pedigree, in lore and tabletop history is going to resonate more for the community than some recently named marine character who is one of half a dozen characters who are special purely because they're in power armour and have supporting DIY characters with more options than most armies entire wargear menu.

Not saying they deserve hate or bias, not saying they dont deserve characters, just saying that most people will be less invested in a lot of the marine characters and care less if they're gone accordingly. This was hard to phrase.

The new customisation stuff will hopefully be a standard thing in 11th, seems a good halfway house.

Not sure what Breton's on; Phoenix Lords are on another level from Chapter Masters.

Breton wrote:

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:
As a Marine player (primarily, among many other factions), I'd like to say that I don't think for one moment the arguments presented by people in this thread have been "Marine hate" - if anything, they're quite on the money.

It's certainly not the blatant misrepresentation of Eldar Phoenix Lords as anything like a named non-Primarch Space Marine (and this is coming from someone who errs on the negative side when it comes to the idea of playing Eldar).

Eldar Phoenix Lords are very much like a named Non-Primarch.

Keywords for Lysander:
INFANTRY, CHARACTER, EPIC HERO, IMPERIUM, TERMINATOR, CAPTAIN, DARNATH LYSANDER

Keywords for Jain Zar:
INFANTRY, CHARACTER, EPIC HERO, AELDARI, ASPECT WARRIOR, PHOENIX LORD, JAIN ZAR

They're quite literally parallel where the only differences are faction/name based. Terminator vs Aspect Warrior (Faction Armor) Captain vs Phoenix Lord (Faction rank keywords) Lysander vs Jain Zar (Their name)

This is only true if you ignore context.

Are Custodian Wardens and Barbgaunts the same thing, because they both have only three keywords, those being Infantry, Faction Name, and Unit Name?
What a laugh.

I want to make clear: I don't care about their mechanics. I care about how meaningfully distinct *in a lore sense* a character is from either others of their ilk, or if their core archetype (Primarch/Daemon Primarch/shard of divinity/etc) is wholly distinct from the rest of their army. This is, to some degree, subjective.

For example: a Primarch, Avatar of Khaine, or C'Tan Shard is Epic. These are, for the most part, wholly unique from other heroes in their army.
A Daemon Primarch, while ostensibly also a Monster in an army with access to others, is narratively A Big Deal, more so than any other Daemon Prince or Greater Daemon.
A Phoenix Lord, despite being an empowered Exarch, is narratively so so so much more important and powerful than other Exarchs of their Path.
Ghazghskull Thraka is narratively (and in stature!) much more important to the wider Ork faction than any other Warboss.
Farsight, despite not leading all the T'au, is noticeably much more distinct from any other Tau leader in terms of how he fights - on a narrative level. T'au *don't* do what he does, and so he is Epic.

Creed? She's narratively a Castellan of an important group, with some skills to back that up. Not meaningfully so, no more than there might not be another guard commander who can do that.
Calgar? A very capable Chapter Master, among a thousand other Chapter Masters. What does he do *narratively* which other Chapter Masters don't?
Imotekh? A powerful Overlord, among other powerful Overlords. Maybe even the strongest Overlord, outside of the Silent King - but not vastly so.
Eldrad? The best living seer the Eldar have, but outside of that... narratively, what else?
Old One Eye? A tough Carnifex. I'm sure that's never been replicated. /s

This is subjective, obviously: but I don't think I'm the only one who's making this claim. Perhaps, like Jidmah says below, it's not the popular one in the current 40k audience, but it's got its fans. Ultimately, I don't think people hate the idea of unique heroes and named characters - but they need to be MEANINGFULLY Epic (and not just "we gave them good stats!") to be considered so.

And you're more than welcome to believe wanting to squat ALL the Space Marine Epic Heroes and ONE Eldari Epic Hero isnt Marine Hate.

It's not. You're ascribing malice where there isn't none.

Jidmah wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:
Why should being a Psyker (with a related ability) and/or leading Poxwalkers be unique?
I don't mind if the exact details change. If the number of MW was dropped or it was changed to an actual weapon, that's entirely fine.

I'm talking about a pretty radical change from where the game is now. It would require a lot of smaller changes too. Not the least of which would be points for options again.

The game is not going to change radically though. The current game is both financially successful and widely liked. Any radical change will endanger stakeholder value and therefore will not happen.

Correct (to a point, see what GW did with HH!), but it doesn't stop people having opinions and hopes! But, yes, your post is correct - GW have found that having very merchandisable and recognisable characters is popular with a majority of audiences, or at the very least, the audiences which they are trying to engender themselves to. Folks like their memeable heroes.

I don't really care what happens in 40K as a whole any more, but the gradual shift to main characters over my characters is one of the reasons I don't care and have moved on to other things.

I'm aware that I'm in a small minority of players in that, and I'm perfectly comfortable with that.

I agree with OP to the extent that I'd vastly prefer granular character customization.

That being said, I believe named characters should absolutely exist, but be sidegrades rather than upgrades to generic characters, unlocking special interactions and complementing skew builds.

 Wyldhunt wrote:

Breton wrote:
Not only did you say Marines shouldn't have Epic Heroes, you even included one sacrificial Eldar character you probably neither use nor like. That's definitely proof it wasn't Marine Hate. Hey, we should totally get rid of all Eldar Characters. And Captain Tycho. All Eldar characters and Captain Tycho so it doesn't sound like Eldar Hate.

I didn't say marines shouldn't have epic heroes. I said marines are especially prone to having epic heroes that aren't weird/unique enough to *need* bespoke datasheets rather than just being covered by the generic datasheets. A lot of their named guys are conceptually just captains, librarians, etc. It wouldn't be weird (in terms of fluff) or game breaking for Shrike's uppy downy rule to be an option for generic captains.

And while I wouldn't call Eldrad a regular staple of my lists, I did field him in literally my most recent eldar game and found him quite useful! And I find his fluff fine. Not the coolest thing ever, but fine. I also listed Ahriman as a character than should lose his bespoke datasheet and specifically stated that I do use him pretty often.

So you've misrepresented me to engage poorly with the points I was making, and you're being unnecessarily rude while doing so. Which, as I pointed out previously, are traits that make me think you might be trolling.

Bespoke datasheets with the Epic Hero keyword are literally what makes them Epic Heroes. You want to keep YOUR Bespoke Datasheets and get rid of all the bespoke datasheets for Space Marines even though without the name and very minor variations - a point of movement, a point of toughness, a point of armor save give or take and so on depending on the Aspect and the Captain - you can't tell the difference between them. Oh except maybe one or two Space Marine Primarchs. I have represented you entirely correctly.

My understanding from your response is that you were saying:
* The distinction between a named character like calgar and a generic character like steve is essentially just that the Epic Hero rule means you can only have one of the Calgar datasheets in your army but multiples of the Steve datasheets in your army.
* You then seem to be stating that designing Steve to be as strong as Calgar would be imbalanced because you could have three of him whereas having only one Calgar means that it's fine for him to be a little overtuned for his points because you can only take one of him? So you're essentially saying that being 0-1 should be used as a balancing factor for a unit being designed or costed less well than it could have been?
* You also seem to be suggesting that every faction should have some number of these overtuned 0-1 units as a way of balancing factions against eachother.

Is my understanding there incorrect? If not, I think my points were valid. I'm basically arguing that a 0-1 limitation shouldn't be used as a way to balance undercosted units. Instead, Calgar's capabilities should be options for generic captains, and they should be designed in such a way that they don't break the game.
EDIT: Wanted to clarify on this point. 0-1 could be a reasonable limitation for gimmicks or mechanics that are fine when you have one instance of them but problematic if you have multiples. The distinction here being that there's something about the character's mechanics that makes them a problem when taken in multiples; *not* just that the unit does too much damage or is undercosted for what it does. Off the top of my head, maybe one Maugan Ra sprinkling mortal wounds around with his special rule is fine because it's just a bit of chip damage here and there, but three Maugans would be a problem because you're increasing the odds of finishing off units with the sprinkled-on mortal wounds or potentially piling up lots of mortal wounds on a high toughness/good saves target rather than just doing a bit of chip damage to help the rest of your army along.

So you wanted to clarify YOU think it could be for limiting out-of-scope abilities, but you didn't clarify that maybe that's what I thought to? Yeah, its different when you do it. The Ultramarines used to have what was or would have been an epic hero named Antaro Chronus. He was decidedly UN-Powerful. He still should have been an Epic Hero.

Like, I know we're just using Calgar as an example here, but his special rules right now include:
* Inspiring Leader: This is a shoot/charge after advancing/falling back rule. Other captains can probably be inspiring and/or good at fighting in a mobile fashion.
* Master Tactician: Extra CP. Other captains can probably be smarty pants who help their forces execute complex maneuvers (stratagems).
* Honor Guard of Macragge: He gets feel no pain wihle he's attached to a squad of honor guard. Other captains could probably have body guards that are especially good at keeping their bosses from getting sniped out.
* His Armor: It's basically gravis armor with a 2+ instead of a 3+ because reasons. Kind of falls in that territory of just having better than normal gear because the blacksmith decided to give a darn that day, but sure. If Calgar's blacksmith can have a good day, so can some other captain's.

So he's kind of just a bundle of abilities that would make just as much sense on any number of other captains in the galaxy. Just like Eldrad's CP generation, Doom, and Mind War would be perfectly at-home on a generic farseer.

Breton wrote:

And I strongly disagree. Inspiring Leader definitely should NOT be readily available. It is way too mechanic breaking. Multiple people have told you that rule - not the super fists - is the reason people take him. This ability is all three doctrines (from Gladius/Blade of Ultramar) turned on all game long for one unit. You can't stack doctrines in the Dets, and you can't (usually) apply one here and one there. its one doctrine at a time, for the entire army, for one turn. Gladius also doesn't allow you to reuse Doctrines, while Blade does but ONLY if you're taking Calgar. (which I disagree with here). There is also the Bastion Det, which gives the Super Doctrine Combo (and a second boost to advance/fallback and ACTION MONKEY) but only to BATTLELINE units. They are working very hard to keep this off of multiple "elite" units. Terminators, Aggressors, Centurions and such. (which is too bad, it might actually fix Assault Centurions - though they can't get a LEADER so they can't get it FROM a LEADER either) - I wouldn't want to see four LEADERS all with Super Duper Doctrine Always on leading four units of Terminators. Its too potent and to uninteractive.

So make Inspiring Leader only available to one-model-per-army, but make it a generic upgrade that any Chapter Master can take at a hefty cost. I don't see anything game breaking in that.

Breton wrote:

Trying to use your personal head cannon to claim that they're not is an impressive level of gymnastics.

Lets play a game. I'm going to read you parts of a datasheet. You tell me who it is. Movement is 12". Maybe 14". Toughness is either 3 or 4. Save is either 2+ or 3+. Definitely a 4++ Invuln. Definitely 5 Wounds, and a 6+ Leadership and OC1. 6, maybe 7 S5 -2 D2 melee attacks a bespoke that lets you move them and their unit into Strategic Reserves along with one more. Who is it?

You are definitely trolling now. Me quoting what the fething codex says a phoenix lord has been for 35 years is not personal headcanon and if you can't go read that yourself then you've got nothing to add to the conversation at all.

Trying to make abstract rules mechanics that change every edition somehow an objective arbiter is some crazy mental gymnastics and absolutely dishonest. Guilliman was T6 and now is T9, is he now a different character because his stats are different? Karandras has been T6, T4 and now T3. Has his character changed every edition his stats did?

The fiction tells you what a character is and the rules are a method to interpret them in a game. Or do you think that a human shot in the head by a bolter survives 1/3rd of the time because they're only s4?

your argument is asinine and absolutely irrelevant to the conversation.

 RaptorusRex wrote:
Not sure what Breton's on; Phoenix Lords are on another level from Chapter Masters.

In the books MAYBE, not the tabletop. Even in the books, Chapter Masters get a similar level of plot armor. And he didn't say remove them from the books, he said remove them from the tabletop.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Insectum7 wrote:

Breton wrote:

Trying to use your personal head cannon to claim that they're not is an impressive level of gymnastics.

I didn't see anything that was personal headcannon. A Chapter Master is fundamentally just a guy with rank A Phoenix Lord is a sort of immortal demon armor that posesses the wearer. There may have been hundreds of thousands of Chapter Masters since the OG foundings. The Phoenix Lords have been the same entities for millenia, reborn time and again. Phoenix Lords are more akin to Primarchs of their respective shrines in terms of "history", and more like Lucius the Eternal in manifestation.

The Avatar is more akin to a Primarch. Phoenix Lords are more akin to Captains and Chapter Masters.

 vipoid wrote:

I think it's fair to query how much of this is down to how GW sells elements of the game.

Anyone remember GW's old website? There were pages where designers would show off their armies and how they'd made custom characters to lead them.

Now everything is just focused on what you can buy from the GW webstore.

Likewise, you cite games where you play as defined characters, yet surely that only highlights the point that even the video-games promote the use of pre-made characters, rather than letting players make and play as their own Space Marine characters?

I'm reminded of the old adage that Space Marines need to get more support because they're the most popular faction. Yet this theory never seems to consider that the fact that SMs may in fact be related to them getting near-constant releases, on top of being the poster-boys, the main protagonists of virtually all the fiction, the faction that's included in all the starter sets etc.

By the same measure, it doesn't seem unreasonable to speculate that GW's constant promotion of pre-made characters and off-the-shelf models might actually play a role in newer customers not valuing customisation and 'your dudes' as much as the players of old.

There's some interesting studies on the changes to toy manufacturing and product sales in the 80s after Regan removed the limitations on advertising to children. We saw the glut of tv show commercials to sell to kids, Transformers, He Man, Rainbow Bright, My Little Pony, GI Joe etc. Before then kids toys were really free form, you just bought a toy and played with it however you liked (basically how the toys in Toy Story are all different genre of toy mashed together),

With the 80s toys, they started building product ecosystems and used the tv shows as play demonstrations. where before kids would just play with whatever combination of toys they had, they now were being shown there was a 'right' and 'wrong' way to use Transformers toys. The gross 'canon' infected creative play with kids, so that they would police one another over how to correctly use their toys. You couldn't have optimus ride a pony, he had to be on the Ark to do it correctly.

This allowed them to close off their consumers into ecosystems and sell them everything that goes in it. Rather than using the lounge cushions to play on, you had to buy the GI Joe Bases or Castle Grey Skull to play correctly. Kids would replay episodes with their toys rather than invent their own stories. Obviously not always, but the shift to 'lore accurate' play really smashed kid's creative expression, in order to maximise profit. They figured out that they could create social license for a kid's peers to police their play, which kept them buying the correct products.


40k appeared during this phase, but by its nature was a lot more self directed. it encouraged creativity because they physically couldn't produce all the products required to fillout the 40k ecosystem. So personal creativity and self directed play were features to aid the sale of their products. but as the years have gone on, they have filled out their ecosystem and can now keep people wholly within it. 'The GW Hobby'. No more styrofoam packaging buildings, make your own narratives, etc. Every aspect is now purchasable and that social license to have your peers police you is there too. The amount of people I see fretting over whether their army or idea is 'lore accurate' is depressing AF, and even more so the people who trash other people's creativity because they don't consider it 'lore accurate'.

There was a time that 'anything you can imagine' was 40k 'lore accurate'. These days unless you're working from a GW sanctioned book or model, it's greeted with suspicion by the average player. People point to personal freedom to be as creative as you want but ignore that you require a welcoming community to do that. Anyone can technically learn anything, but it's a lot easier if your community supports it and is positive about it. In practice we like to go with the crowd and GW"s careful locking down of their ecosystem means that the crowd have become much more passive consumers than active creators.


It will be interesting to see if these character creation rules are a flash in the pan, or if it signals their return to that aspect of 40k. The current fiction focusing on individual characters doesn't bode well for that, because 40k now only turns on their actions, shrinking it down from the endless possibilities to the individual actions of a half dozen protagonists.

 Insectum7 wrote:

Breton wrote:

And I strongly disagree. Inspiring Leader definitely should NOT be readily available. It is way too mechanic breaking. Multiple people have told you that rule - not the super fists - is the reason people take him. This ability is all three doctrines (from Gladius/Blade of Ultramar) turned on all game long for one unit. You can't stack doctrines in the Dets, and you can't (usually) apply one here and one there. its one doctrine at a time, for the entire army, for one turn. Gladius also doesn't allow you to reuse Doctrines, while Blade does but ONLY if you're taking Calgar. (which I disagree with here). There is also the Bastion Det, which gives the Super Doctrine Combo (and a second boost to advance/fallback and ACTION MONKEY) but only to BATTLELINE units. They are working very hard to keep this off of multiple "elite" units. Terminators, Aggressors, Centurions and such. (which is too bad, it might actually fix Assault Centurions - though they can't get a LEADER so they can't get it FROM a LEADER either) - I wouldn't want to see four LEADERS all with Super Duper Doctrine Always on leading four units of Terminators. Its too potent and to uninteractive.

So make Inspiring Leader only available to one-model-per-army, but make it a generic upgrade that any Chapter Master can take at a hefty cost. I don't see anything game breaking in that.

It probably shouldn't be for every chapter (master). Doctrines are/were primarily a UM thing. Even the Det that lets you double and triple up on Doctrines is a UM only upgrade to the Generic but Thematic Dets available to all (Think Forgefather's Seekers and Firestorm Assault Force). (and wrongly requires Calgar like Seekers wrongly requires He'stan) I suspect the Bastion Det that gives the super duper doctrine but only BATTLELINE is an experiment in Beta Test trying to make BATTLELINE more attractive. Doctrines started as UM only - again I'm guessing as a Beta Test experiment because - they then rolled out to all chapters, but UM were then given a double-up to maintain their "doctrine expertise". The Double-Triple Doctrine Det is UM only. The Ravenwing generic Det was "You can't shoot me" while their doubledown RG only Det added their Strike and Fade stuff. I don't know what they think they're doing with Imperial Fists and Iron Warriors. Maybe they don't either. Reclaimation Force looks like trying to bring Space Marine 2 to the table top.

Breton wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:

Breton wrote:

Trying to use your personal head cannon to claim that they're not is an impressive level of gymnastics.

I didn't see anything that was personal headcannon. A Chapter Master is fundamentally just a guy with rank A Phoenix Lord is a sort of immortal demon armor that posesses the wearer. There may have been hundreds of thousands of Chapter Masters since the OG foundings. The Phoenix Lords have been the same entities for millenia, reborn time and again. Phoenix Lords are more akin to Primarchs of their respective shrines in terms of "history", and more like Lucius the Eternal in manifestation.

The Avatar is more akin to a Primarch. Phoenix Lords are more akin to Captains and Chapter Masters.

Based on what metric? Primarchs are singular beings, and their respective millenia-old founding chapters' preferences and philosophies reflect that. Phoenix Lords are singular beings, and their millenia-old respective founding Aspects preferences and philosophies reflect that.

Exarchs, are leaders of their respective shrines and come and go as Chapter Masters do. Primarchs and Phoenix Lords are the same beings/entities they were 10,000 years ago, even if evolved or transformed.

Avatar of Khaine’s stats are closer to a Primarch than a Phoenix Lord.
But their spot in the lore (which is very much relevant to what the gameplay should be, if not one to one) is vastly different, closer to a Chapter Master than a Primarch.

Breton wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:

Breton wrote:

And I strongly disagree. Inspiring Leader definitely should NOT be readily available. It is way too mechanic breaking. Multiple people have told you that rule - not the super fists - is the reason people take him. This ability is all three doctrines (from Gladius/Blade of Ultramar) turned on all game long for one unit. You can't stack doctrines in the Dets, and you can't (usually) apply one here and one there. its one doctrine at a time, for the entire army, for one turn. Gladius also doesn't allow you to reuse Doctrines, while Blade does but ONLY if you're taking Calgar. (which I disagree with here). There is also the Bastion Det, which gives the Super Doctrine Combo (and a second boost to advance/fallback and ACTION MONKEY) but only to BATTLELINE units. They are working very hard to keep this off of multiple "elite" units. Terminators, Aggressors, Centurions and such. (which is too bad, it might actually fix Assault Centurions - though they can't get a LEADER so they can't get it FROM a LEADER either) - I wouldn't want to see four LEADERS all with Super Duper Doctrine Always on leading four units of Terminators. Its too potent and to uninteractive.

So make Inspiring Leader only available to one-model-per-army, but make it a generic upgrade that any Chapter Master can take at a hefty cost. I don't see anything game breaking in that.

It probably shouldn't be for every chapter (master). Doctrines are/were primarily a UM thing. Even the Det that lets you double and triple up on Doctrines is a UM only upgrade to the Generic but Thematic Dets available to all (Think Forgefather's Seekers and Firestorm Assault Force). (and wrongly requires Calgar like Seekers wrongly requires He'stan) I suspect the Bastion Det that gives the super duper doctrine but only BATTLELINE is an experiment in Beta Test trying to make BATTLELINE more attractive. Doctrines started as UM only - again I'm guessing as a Beta Test experiment because - they then rolled out to all chapters, but UM were then given a double-up to maintain their "doctrine expertise". The Double-Triple Doctrine Det is UM only. The Ravenwing generic Det was "You can't shoot me" while their doubledown RG only Det added their Strike and Fade stuff. I don't know what they think they're doing with Imperial Fists and Iron Warriors. Maybe they don't either. Reclaimation Force looks like trying to bring Space Marine 2 to the table top.

But likewise why limit Doctrrne specialty to UM only? Why not go the route of opening up the option to other codex chapters?



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 JNAProductions wrote:
Avatar of Khaine’s stats are closer to a Primarch than a Phoenix Lord.
But their spot in the lore (which is very much relevant to what the gameplay should be, if not one to one) is vastly different, closer to a Chapter Master than a Primarch.

Right. One Avatar per Craftworld. And there are hundreds (thousands?) Of Craftworlds.

There are far more Avatars than there are Phoenix Lords.

 vipoid wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:
While I generally like the idea of the more sandbox elements of the setting, I'll admit that it never drew me the way the characters of Space Marine and DoW did and I think that's ultimately why things are the way they are now. As much as we all like the idea of creating our own characters, the overwhelming majority is more drawn to learning about characters the setting has created for them.

I think, for all its merits, character creation doesn't have that broad of appeal, particularly for newcomers with almost no way of properly grasping the world they're trying to create a character for. There are definitely people who come in with that mindset off the start, but for a lot of people its more of a barrier in a hobby that already has a lot of them.

That said, I think having a lot of aesthetic options on character kits is a huge plus and something I'd like to see more of. I just think that works better to get people invested in creating their own characters when you don't put much in the way of rules behind them. Creating a bunch of head options is great and weapon options too as long as they're of the "power weapon" variety. Put the rules on them and people actually get less invested in designing the character their way when their way is "bad" in gameplay.

IDK. Getting rambly. TLDR. I think generic characters are cool and would help a lot from having more head options. I think there's a reason that named characters keep getting focus though and I suspect its because custom characters just don't have as broad appeal

I think it's fair to query how much of this is down to how GW sells elements of the game.

Anyone remember GW's old website? There were pages where designers would show off their armies and how they'd made custom characters to lead them.

Now everything is just focused on what you can buy from the GW webstore.

Likewise, you cite games where you play as defined characters, yet surely that only highlights the point that even the video-games promote the use of pre-made characters, rather than letting players make and play as their own Space Marine characters?

I'm reminded of the old adage that Space Marines need to get more support because they're the most popular faction. Yet this theory never seems to consider that the fact that SMs may in fact be related to them getting near-constant releases, on top of being the poster-boys, the main protagonists of virtually all the fiction, the faction that's included in all the starter sets etc.

By the same measure, it doesn't seem unreasonable to speculate that GW's constant promotion of pre-made characters and off-the-shelf models might actually play a role in newer customers not valuing customisation and 'your dudes' as much as the players of old.

I'm not sure it was marketing some aspects of the game or anything to do with their website. People were using Special characters back then too.

I think the issue caused the new design system and is two-fold:

1) They don't trust the players to do it. As mentioned earlier, you used to select a Captain (or a whatever) and then you could pick power armor, Terminator Armor, Bike, etc. Which then required you to modify the stat bar. Today with Terminator Armor you'd have to -1 Movement, +1 Armor Save, and +1W. They don't trust the players to do that accurately anymore.

2) They don't want the players to keep "breaking" the game. It still happens when we can't sit there and mix and match 2 or more out of a pool of 20-30 Enhancements on generic characters - how much worse would it be if we could? Imagine a Terminator Captain leading a squad of Terminators who get to Fallback, Advance, Charge, Shoot yadda yadda all day long (Inspiring Leader). Now imagine when they advance and charge they also add 1 to each/both rolls. (Grandmaster of the Ravenwing) How about Champion of the King's Guard (Arjac) and Oathbound(Ulrik) from the Space Wolves? I'm now making a 10 man Terminator Squad Plus a Terminator Captain who gives them both of those, and a Terminator Ancient that gives them the Trifold Path of Shadow from Shrike That unit now adds 1 to Hit and Wound, and Rerolls all hits and wounds vs a type keyword? and can't be shot from outside 12". And I still have a slot open on the Ancient for Inspiring Leader from Calgar. We SHOULD be able to apply multiple small to middling "enhancements" to every character to make them both typical of their type and distinctly different from each other. But those pre-chosen bespokes on the nameds need to be carefully screened for inclusion. They made sure you can't double up with those two Wolves bespoke enhancements based on who each character could join. I would not want to see Inspiring Leader from Calgar stacked on top of Knight Champion of Macragge OR Lead from the Front off of Sicarius.

The space required for a create-your-own LEADER system that is deep enough to satisfy is huge. They should still do it. But we're in an edition after people complained about "bloat", so I wouldn't expect it soon.

Breton wrote:
I would not want to see Inspiring Leader from Calgar stacked on top of Knight Champion of Macragge OR Lead from the Front off of Sicarius.

I hate to tell you this, but you currently can stack Calgar AND Sicarius in the same unit. That's totally legal.

Breton wrote:

The space required for a create-your-own LEADER system that is deep enough to satisfy is huge. They should still do it. But we're in an edition after people complained about "bloat", so I wouldn't expect it soon.

Some might say that one unit entry with a selection of (often shared) options is less bloated than 20 datasheets each with minor variations.

 Insectum7 wrote:
But likewise why limit Doctrrne specialty to UM only? Why not go the route of opening up the option to other codex chapters?

Why limit Phoenix Lords to Aeldari? Why not open them up to all the other xenos? Or everyone everywhere? Why not let Black Templar have librarians? Wouldn't Calgar make a better Master of the Deathwing than Belial? That's how they create variety. If they give Doctrines to Blood Angels do they have to remove the Death Company? Death Company Captains? Blood Angels Captains? Sanguinary Priests? One of the things people like to do is reduce (Loyalist) Space Marines all to one blob. They're not. They're 8+ different armies. Most of them will come from a specfic and more supported five but five is still four more than one.

Breton wrote:
Bespoke datasheets with the Epic Hero keyword are literally what makes them Epic Heroes. You want to keep YOUR Bespoke Datasheets and get rid of all the bespoke datasheets for Space Marines even though without the name and very minor variations - a point of movement, a point of toughness, a point of armor save give or take and so on depending on the Aspect and the Captain - you can't tell the difference between them. Oh except maybe one or two Space Marine Primarchs. I have represented you entirely correctly.

Are you under the impression that the handful of examples I gave earlier were meant to be a comprehensive list? I'm sure there are more space marine named characters than just the primarchs who are weird/rare enough in nature to warrant their own bespoke datasheets. I'm sure there are more eldar characters than just Eldrad who have bespoke datasheets and don't need them.

My understanding from your response is that you were saying:
* The distinction between a named character like calgar and a generic character like steve is essentially just that the Epic Hero rule means you can only have one of the Calgar datasheets in your army but multiples of the Steve datasheets in your army.
* You then seem to be stating that designing Steve to be as strong as Calgar would be imbalanced because you could have three of him whereas having only one Calgar means that it's fine for him to be a little overtuned for his points because you can only take one of him? So you're essentially saying that being 0-1 should be used as a balancing factor for a unit being designed or costed less well than it could have been?
* You also seem to be suggesting that every faction should have some number of these overtuned 0-1 units as a way of balancing factions against eachother.

Is my understanding there incorrect? If not, I think my points were valid. I'm basically arguing that a 0-1 limitation shouldn't be used as a way to balance undercosted units. Instead, Calgar's capabilities should be options for generic captains, and they should be designed in such a way that they don't break the game.
EDIT: Wanted to clarify on this point. 0-1 could be a reasonable limitation for gimmicks or mechanics that are fine when you have one instance of them but problematic if you have multiples. The distinction here being that there's something about the character's mechanics that makes them a problem when taken in multiples; *not* just that the unit does too much damage or is undercosted for what it does. Off the top of my head, maybe one Maugan Ra sprinkling mortal wounds around with his special rule is fine because it's just a bit of chip damage here and there, but three Maugans would be a problem because you're increasing the odds of finishing off units with the sprinkled-on mortal wounds or potentially piling up lots of mortal wounds on a high toughness/good saves target rather than just doing a bit of chip damage to help the rest of your army along.

So you wanted to clarify YOU think it could be for limiting out-of-scope abilities, but you didn't clarify that maybe that's what I thought to? Yeah, its different when you do it. The Ultramarines used to have what was or would have been an epic hero named Antaro Chronus. He was decidedly UN-Powerful. He still should have been an Epic Hero.

If you were trying to make the same point that I did in the "EDIT" portion of that post, it wasn't clear to me based on what you wrote. The relevant section being this:

Its not the name, its the rule(s) itself. EPIC HERO. And no I don't literally mean its an epic hero. I mean the rules for EPIC HERO - in the first place mean everyone needs to get some for balance - and for another says GW Made the guy, and they made the guy to be one and only one. Even if you could still make Chapter Master Steve Angryfire, he would not be an Epic Hero, and you can have three of him. But you can't have three of Calgar. That's not the reason Calgar should be stronger, its the reason Steve should not be that strong which in this case ends up the same, but is different.

I tried to ask you if I was correctly understanding what you were trying to say in the text you quoted. Rather than confirming whether or not we were on the same page, you've instead chosen to assume that I'm... what? Out to get you?

If you agree that 0-1 can be a limitation for mechanics that by their nature would be a problem if armies could take multiples of them, then hey! Common ground! Good deal.
If you're instead saying that all armies should basically just have some number of undercosted units that are then "balanced" by a 0-1 restriction, I disagree with you.

* Honor Guard of Macragge: He gets feel no pain wihle he's attached to a squad of honor guard. Other captains could probably have body guards that are especially good at keeping their bosses from getting sniped out.

You're getting Honor Guard of Macragge very wrong. He gets the FNP when the two Victrix Guard are still alive not the entire bodyguard. That rule is there to let the Bodyguard he comes with at least try to prevent PRECISION.

While this unit contains one or more Victrix Honour Guard models, this unit’s MARNEUS CALGAR model has the Feel No Pain Yadda Yadda

I was under the impression that the honor guard were the entirety of the unit rather than just models that could join another unit. My bad. Although the point I was making still stands. This is essentially a rule that lets a VIP's protectors protect him from getting sniped by giving Calgar FNP. There's nothing about Calgar that makes him the only marine in the galaxy capable of being protected from snipers (and other precision attacks) by his personal guards.

Just to be clear because your phrasing in the above quote was a little ambiguous, we're both on the same page that I was saying this rule just gave Calgar FNP, right? I wasn't saying that the entire unit he's attached to gets FNP.

Did you get this so extremely wrong on purpose or in "good faith"?

You're making a lot of personal attacks in this thread, so I thought it might be good to clarify exactly what you're suggesting here. Hypothetically, in this scenario where I'm intentionally going out of my way to get a rule slightly wrong, what's my goal? Are you picturing me crouched over a keyboard plotting out ways to like, ruin your life by suggesting some named character datasheets become generic options instead? Walk me through that scenario, Breton. What kind of villainous antics am I up to?

And I strongly disagree. Inspiring Leader definitely should NOT be readily available. It is way too mechanic breaking

Cool. Fair enough. Then as Insectum suggested, make it a 0-1 upgrade option for generic characters. And chiming in on your follow-up conversation with Insectum:

It probably shouldn't be for every chapter (master). Doctrines are/were primarily a UM thing.

There's a genuine argument to be made here about wanting to protect niches and faction personality. I can definitely recognize that. Hey! More common ground!

Now that said, I'd be tempted to look at a rule like this not asa *doctrine* thing but as a general mobility thing. Plenty of armies have access to a similar rule to this either as a strat, a character ability, or whatever. Generally, it just reflects the unit being "slippery" and "mobile." So I think there's a case to be made for letting a generic character do something similar. A white scar bike captain smashing his way from what combat to another without stopping would be pretty well represented by this rule. So would a raven guard captain commanding his squad to break away from the chaff so they can focus on attacking a priority target.

Trying to set aside as many variables as possible for the sake of finding more common ground, would you at laest agree that a generic UM captain could reasonably have this ability if it were limited to being a 0-1 option? At that point, it's 0-1 so no worries about it being too strong when taken by multipel units. It's UM, so no worries about wanting a doctrine-like rule to be limited to the doctrine chapter. The only difference at that point is that it's not specifically locked to the datasheet of a power fist guy who also hangs out with his honor guard.

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:

Breton wrote:
I would not want to see Inspiring Leader from Calgar stacked on top of Knight Champion of Macragge OR Lead from the Front off of Sicarius.

I hate to tell you this, but you currently can stack Calgar AND Sicarius in the same unit. That's totally legal.

That's a different version - the ability to join with Calgar is only present on that one of his datasheets (not both, and not on the Victrix unit itself), so while you can join the earlier Sicarius to Victrix units, you can't join the earlier one AND Calgar - and the while the newer one still has Knight Champion he does not have Lead from the Front anymore. And you can only do it in the one unit that's kinda meh - especially as a bodyguard unit for Calgar to buff - compared to what you COULD do it with if it was a free-for-all. But my bad for not specifying that. I was imagining 10 Tactical Terminators with 2 Cyclones getting Advance(and more) and Shoot and Charge, Scout 6", and the Near but Not That Near move. Calgar buffs their movement enough already.

Breton wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:
But likewise why limit Doctrrne specialty to UM only? Why not go the route of opening up the option to other codex chapters?

Why limit Phoenix Lords to Aeldari? Why not open them up to all the other xenos? Or everyone everywhere? Why not let Black Templar have librarians? Wouldn't Calgar make a better Master of the Deathwing than Belial? That's how they create variety. If they give Doctrines to Blood Angels do they have to remove the Death Company? Death Company Captains? Blood Angels Captains? Sanguinary Priests? One of the things people like to do is reduce (Loyalist) Space Marines all to one blob. They're not. They're 8+ different armies. Most of them will come from a specfic and more supported five but five is still four more than one.

Poor analogy. They've already done this sort of thing back in 4th edition, when you could create custom chapters from a set of traits, and named chapters just had prescribed but non-unique traits. UM are a codex chapter, like most chapters, and among those chapters many are very adherent. UM don't have to be special in this regard. Just like you'd traditionally use the BA codex to create a BA successor.

 JNAProductions wrote:
Avatar of Khaine’s stats are closer to a Primarch than a Phoenix Lord.
But their spot in the lore (which is very much relevant to what the gameplay should be, if not one to one) is vastly different, closer to a Chapter Master than a Primarch.

Which are you referring to?

Each aspect shrine is a different organisation. There could be a half dozen shrines of the same aspect on a craftworld and each is led by different exarchs that teach differently. They're all independent. When an exarch sets up a new shrine, they give it a new name and teach in their own way. Each one is like a successor chapter. When a phoenix lord shows up, they all bow to them regardless. So In that respect, they are more like a primarch, able to command any one of their aspect's shrines regardless. Just as no primarch can demand fealty from their brothers' marines, no phoenix lord commands the other aspects, excepting perhaps Asurmen as the founder of the path of the warrior in general (which arguably is how Roboute currently works).

Phoenix lords are also wanderers, they have no home base and wander the galaxy fighting by themselves. Only in fated events where they appear at a craftworld do they command their shrines. 90% of their actions are performed solo, which is unlike a chapter master or a primarch (except maybe corax and leman russ currently).

Culturally, they sit outside and above eldar society. Militarily they occupy an independent high position where everyone will listen to and follow them should they appear, just as the Lion showing up at a battlefield would have all imperial soldiers doing what he asked.

Physically, they are unlike any other eldar and no one can just become them. Exarchs are the closest physically to them, but even they aren't the same. They exist in a state not dissimilar to an avatar of khaine - when an individual is sacrificed to their suit/statue, they are resurrected. When they are damaged they go inactive, waiting for another sacrifice to bring them back to life.


EDIT: in the hypothetical reduction of bespoke special character profiles, I'd probably have a generic Primarch and generic phoenix Lord profile, and you represent them by the equipment and special rules they are given.

Back when FW first introduced primarchs they had clearly a single profile they tweaked. their core stats were some variation on WS7 BS6 S6 T6 W6 I6 A6 Ld10 Sv2+ (from the HH black books, this is guilliman, all the other primarchs went up or sometimes down on this). During that era, the phoenix lord stats worked similarly, with a profile that was tweaked for each one. In 7th ed 40k, around the time of the HH black books, they used variations on WS7 BS7 S4 T4 W3 I7 A4 Ld10 Sv2+.

They both still basically have a default profile - no eldar character has the same profile as a phoenix lord, except other phoenix lords (Drazhar as well). Lion and guilliman both look pretty similar.


So you'd go 0-1 of a primarch or PL unit, and you still get to build them to a degree. Stronger more attacks for Russ, tougher for Fuegan, battlefate for Asurmen.


For Special character autarchs and captains or chapter masters, they'd just be an interesting configuration of weapons and rules.


The new character builder sounds quite in depth so maybe that's the kind of thing we'll see.

Breton wrote:

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:

Breton wrote:
I would not want to see Inspiring Leader from Calgar stacked on top of Knight Champion of Macragge OR Lead from the Front off of Sicarius.

I hate to tell you this, but you currently can stack Calgar AND Sicarius in the same unit. That's totally legal.

That's a different version - the ability to join with Calgar is only present on that one of his datasheets (not both, and not on the Victrix unit itself), so while you can join the earlier Sicarius to Victrix units, you can't join the earlier one AND Calgar - and the while the newer one still has Knight Champion he does not have Lead from the Front anymore.

That still doesn't change what you said.

You said that you didn't want Calgar's Inspiring Leader stacking with Sicarius' Knight Champion of Macragge. It does, and can. The Victrix Guard can be joined by both Cato Sicarius (not Captain!) and Calgar, and benefit from Advance and Charge, Reactive Move within 9" of the UNIT (not even within 9" of just Sicarius, like his Captain Sicarius Lightning Assault ability does), and free Heroic Intervention.
But yeah, them losing Scout 6" and Assault really makes all the difference, and definitely isn't made up for by a better Reactive Move, free Heroic Intervention, and a MUCH beefier melee profile. /s

And you can only do it in the one unit that's kinda meh - especially as a bodyguard unit for Calgar to buff - compared to what you COULD do it with if it was a free-for-all. But my bad for not specifying that.

No, you're just plain wrong on what you claimed. You said "I would not want to see Inspiring Leader from Calgar stacked on top of Knight Champion of Macragge" - the "or Lead from the Front" doesn't change the first part of the sentence, nor does it even make much sense, given that Lead from the Front isn't nearly as busted as the other abilities that Cato Sicarius has opposed to Captain Sicarius, and especially on Victrix Guard.

You were just plain incorrect. And it's okay to be wrong, but there's no sense in denying it.

I was imagining 10 Tactical Terminators with 2 Cyclones getting Advance(and more) and Shoot and Charge, Scout 6", and the Near but Not That Near move. Calgar buffs their movement enough already.

I hate to also tell you this, but 10 Terminators can also already do that, minus Scout, even without Calgar! Stormlance Task Force, Blitzing Fusillade and Windswift Evasion as needed, and you could still stick Calgar in to auto-generate the extra CP for Windswift Evasion, and cut out even needing Blitzing Fusillade. Or, if you aren't going to be spending those command points anywhere else, just take a Librarian and give them Sustained Hits, or a Chaplain, for +1 Wound, on top of an Enhancement.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Breton wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:
But likewise why limit Doctrrne specialty to UM only? Why not go the route of opening up the option to other codex chapters?

Why limit Phoenix Lords to Aeldari? Why not open them up to all the other xenos? Or everyone everywhere?

Because they're Aeldari Phoenix Lords, not Ultramarines Phoenix Lords? What sort of nonsense is this?

Why not let Black Templar have librarians?

Because that's the narrative flavour of them - not a gameplay balance consideration to "create variety".

If they give Doctrines to Blood Angels do they have to remove the Death Company? Death Company Captains? Blood Angels Captains? Sanguinary Priests?

You literally can take all of those Blood Angels units and still have Doctrines. Just take Gladius Task Force.

Also, does this imply that it's not a Blood Angels army if you don't take those specific units? What about my Blood Angels army - I don't use any BA specific units in it. Are they now not BA, because I didn't bring a named BA unit?

I should also mention, many BA successors in the lore (and even successors of "non-Codex" Chapters) follow the Codex, and in many cases, even more doggedly than UM successors. The Absolvers spring to mind.

EDIT: in the hypothetical reduction of bespoke special character profiles, I'd probably have a generic Primarch and generic phoenix Lord profile, and you represent them by the equipment and special rules they are given.

Part of the reason I'm a little on the fence about phoenix lords (and would probably prefer bespoke profiles for primarchs) is that we already have a pretty good idea of what most of them are supposed to be like. So you may end up with weird combinations. For instance, there would presumably be some kind of sneaky upgrade intended to represent Corax or Alpharius, but players could theoretically slap that on Dorn or Ferrus instead. Which feels weird, but maybe I'm just yucking their yum at that point. Dorn is allowed to be sneaky from time to time.

Similarly, it would be odd if a phoenix lord that was meant to represent Fuegan was rocking a shuriken cannon and wings instead of a melta weapon and an axe. So I can see the case for locking in the loadouts of the phoenix lords. I guess the question would be whether jump pack shuriken cannon Fuegan would be more of a bug or a feature.

To my mind, the point of a generic phoenix lord profile would be to allow people to come up with their own lords. But then you'd have a lord an no aspect warriors to stick them with unless you're letting Kris-tahl, the founder of the Crystal Dragons to join squads of Striking Scorpions or whatever.

Edit: Although if you had a different exarch datasheet for each aspect, you'd probably be fine. A dragon exarch that takes both a fire axe and fire pike would be pretty Fuegan-shaped. This is, of course, assuming that we're talking about a version of phoenix lords that downplays their inconsistent skill level as sufficiently exarch-like and opt not to lean into the resurrection thing or their weird magic stuff. If you want the "demigod version" of phoenix lords, a generic profile seems a little wonky for the reasons described above.

If you can reasonably make rules for every single member of a class of unit, I think they’re fine being bespoke.

Primarchs have 16, at most, for 40k. You can make 16 datasheets.
Phoenix Lords have less than a dozen. You can definitely have a datasheet for each one.

There’s around four digits worth of Chapter Masters. You could technically make a sheet for each of them, but that’s wildly impractical.

One thing I liked about the HH primarchs early on was they had a range of weapons they could use. I like that they aren't forced to stay with the same weapon combo. They had arsenals available to them.

Similarly, phoenix lords must know how to use their aspect equipment, or it would be odd they taught them how to use weapons they themselves can't.


I'm not particularly fussed about it. Just thinking about simplifications.

If you go all the way back to 3rd ed, the phoenix lords carried generic statted exarch weapons, the power was in their profile using those weapons. The Early HH rules favoured simple weapon profiles for primarchs until they bloated out to the bespoke ones everyone has now.

IMO, in most cases, a power fist is a power fist. A dire sword is a dire sword. It seems unnecessary for them to have different levels. Maybe master crafting, but they don't need unique stats.

so when you select gear for them, you're just picking from the wargear options and their stats are what distinguishes them rather than their weapons.