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What if 40k had no more unique heroes to play with on the TT? I know this wouldn't solve every problem but if every codex no longer had unique heroes with their unique rules how would this effect the game?

Before asking this question could you tell us why anyone would think that removing unique characters would be a good idea? Most characters are not at all overpowered and removing them would just mean removing an interesting fluff element.

Considering that unique characters aren't generally a source of the major balance problems the way they used to be, I imagine you'd basically just make the game more bland and remove options for representing certain characters and concepts.

Marines: Would miss out on Tigurius I guess, but they'd still be able to spam units with demi companies.

Eldar: Would lose tons of HQ options and the avatar, but they'd still be able to take seer councils, wraith knights, and scatter bikes. Banshees would be less viable if they lost Jain Zar, and the codex as a whole would no longer have a beat stick HQ.

Orks: Would lose some often-cool-rarely-worth-it options.

dark eldar: would lose Lelith, drazhar, and Urien, and I'm pretty sure those are rare sights already.

Tau: Would maybe lose the ability to do the Farsight enclaves? I'm not clear on if he's actually mandatory for that or not. Outside of Farsight and maybe ShadowSun and Longstrike, I'm not sure any of the Tau units really see much use.

IG: Would lose Pask thus nerfing them further.

Tyranids: Would lose the Swarm Lord (who is rarely taken) and a couple other unique bugs (that are pretty much never taken).

Space Wolves: Lose a bunch of options. Can still put together a nasty beat stick character. Lose access to Bjorn & pals shenanigans thus strengthening the gap between themselves and vanilla marines.

Blood Angels: Lose even more differentiation from vanilla marines.

dark angels: Lose some options. Still work pretty much the same.

'Crons: Lose some of the more flavorful rules in their book that are generally less competitive than simply throwing in more warriors/wraiths.

Sisters: Lose Celestine, Jacobus, etc. Aww. Hope you like your canoness.

GK: Would have more of a reason to use their generic HQs.

Overall, it seems like you'd be taking away options and limiting playstyles without really impacting most of the dominant competitive playstyles.

lols at nok mentioning of CSM.

No body uses, Lucious, Fabius, Abaddon. People sometimes use Kharn and Typhus is taken for plague zombies.

not sure about Ahrimand n Huron. both have infiltrate d3 infantry.

Only Huron is ever taken do that because Ahriman sucks.

Remove Sammael and then RAW no one can play Ravenwing Strike Forces anymore. I just realized that I have the miniatures for all the DA named characters, even Seraphicus and Bethor and I've only ever used Sammy in a game. Maybe I should do something about that? Time to make a DA super-deathstar with a RWCS, an Interrogator-Chaplain, Ezekiel and Azzy!

 Lammikkovalas wrote:
Remove Sammael and then RAW no one can play Ravenwing Strike Forces anymore. I just realized that I have the miniatures for all the DA named characters, even Seraphicus and Bethor and I've only ever used Sammy in a game. Maybe I should do something about that? Time to make a DA super-deathstar with a RWCS, an Interrogator-Chaplain, Ezekiel and Azzy!

Sammael and maybe Belial are the only DA SC's worth considering anyway. Ezekiel is a bit overprice imo, and a generic Interrogator-Chaplain can do just as well as Asmodai. And... well, let's forget about Azrael.

 Lithlandis Stormcrow wrote:

 Lammikkovalas wrote:
Remove Sammael and then RAW no one can play Ravenwing Strike Forces anymore. I just realized that I have the miniatures for all the DA named characters, even Seraphicus and Bethor and I've only ever used Sammy in a game. Maybe I should do something about that? Time to make a DA super-deathstar with a RWCS, an Interrogator-Chaplain, Ezekiel and Azzy!

Sammael and maybe Belial are the only DA SC's worth considering anyway. Ezekiel is a bit overprice imo, and a generic Interrogator-Chaplain can do just as well as Asmodai. And... well, let's forget about Azrael.

Azrael in a vacuum is indeed a bit disappointing, you just have to know what to combo him with. Azrael in a massive IG blob with a priest going for save rerolls and Azzy's FNP for the unit he's in when within 3" of an objective warlord trait and you have some truly hilariously tough guardsmen. 50 guys with 4++ rerollable and FNP? Yes please!

Oberron wrote:
What if 40k had no more unique heroes to play with on the TT? I know this wouldn't solve every problem but if every codex no longer had unique heroes with their unique rules how would this effect the game?

This literally does nothing except make the game more boring to play than it already is.

And how much does all that cost, out of curiosity?
My only issue with this is that he's a LoW choice. If he was still just HQ, fine by me, but as LoW he's... severely lacking.

Although removing named characters take away flavor, it will most likely take away a whole slew of special special rules and special exclusive weapons and wargears which can potentially remove so much clutter.

Regular HQs still have acess to special war gear therby continues the problem of clutter.

Independent Named Characters are a central part of wh40k and will not be going away. I hate that and I wished we did not have so many darned named characters with so many special rules and war gear. I had to fight a necron newbie with 4 named HQs and we had to keep looking up their freaking profiles because niether he or I know them well enough.

I expect this form space wolves because they can take extra HQs.

To be fair Pask is only usable in a Punisher, in everything else he is a waste of points.

If WH40k can eliminate all redundant rules then they could go more main stream by making the game easier for newbies to learn.

 Filch wrote:
If WH40k can eliminate all redundant rules then they could go more main stream by making the game easier for newbies to learn.

See, I look at it from the opposite angle. Generic characters are there for players who want to keep things simple. Named characters are there for people who like to mix things up a little. Necrons have that guy that transforms at some point in the game. That's pretty cool! It would also be a pain to have to use if it were on whatever generic HQ he would otherwise be represented by. Putting it on the special guy gives you the option, but also gives you the option to *not* take the transformation power by just taking the generic dude instead.

Back in the 5th edition codex, Dark Eldar characters did things like making your wych drugs more reliable, let you run a hellion-themed army, and let you represent a certain faction of Dark Eldar by taking a character that could play around with deployment (representing her above-and-beyond cunning and plan-making-ability.) Characters like this are a great way to introduce cool optional rules without forcing people to play with them if they want to match fluff. You can run an Iyanden army without Yriel, but you can also play an Iyanden army *with* Yriel if you want to enjoy his unique set of rules.

Yay?

I wish they'd put back the experience system from like, 2E. I'd would like a campaign option where you could make your own troops better and unique through play, but toss out 40K's prebuilt unique characters that you can just throw into any ol' army.

My beef with deleting special characters is that it would hurt some armies more than others. As pointed out, Adepta Sororitas have only one non-special HQ. IG would barely notice, but Sisters would be nearly crippled (Canonesses are not on the same tier as Captains, or even Autarchs). Still others would find the change disruptive because it removes so much fluff - Space Marines, Chaos, especially. There are armies that could take it or leave it: Eldar and Tau come to mind.