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Poll
Should competitive play remove special characters again?
Yes 33% [ 186 ]
No 48% [ 270 ]
Each special character should have a minimum point limit to use it 19% [ 109 ]
Total Votes : 565
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Made in us
Pestilent Plague Marine with Blight Grenade





cedar rapids, iowa

The subject says it all. Looking at nearly every comp/net list of late, and getting the "How could you not take Celestine?" question waaay too often at the FLGS, this has been bugging me lately and I was wondering what everyone thought.

Also put in a third option that has been thrown around in the past as well.

Update:
Per this poll 80% of dakka think soup lists are inappropriate for normal everyday game play, I guess my contention when I created this post is this; Most competitive players I have met at GTs, Friendly Games, and Local Tournies love this game more than most. The stigma of the WAAC players is misplaced generally, but if the game system we love conflicts with a fluffy aspect of the ruleset, it's a simple matter to exclude it. We've done this in the past, it was not that big of a deal. If us "competitive" players hate the WAAC stigma, continuing to abuse FLUFF based special characters without limitation in competitive play directly counters that stigma we hate.

Update 2.0
Closing the Poll Down, I think everyone has said their peace, it looks like it's slightly over 50% that want something to change. Thanks for the good discussion, quit taking the Saint and Primarchs in all your lists you evil WAAC players.

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2017/09/25 16:47:36


 
   
Made in us
Omnipotent Necron Overlord






You are going about it all wrong. Competitive play needs to make an actually unbroken point system. Special characters on the whole aren't even that busted - you can only take one of them. They just need to be pointed right. Guilliman needs +40 points as does Azreal. Celestine needs +100. There are plenty of units that need obvious point adjustments - start there.

If we fail to anticipate the unforeseen or expect the unexpected in a universe of infinite possibilities, we may find ourselves at the mercy of anyone or anything that cannot be programmed, categorized or easily referenced.
- Fox Mulder 
   
Made in us
Dakka Veteran





I play Ynnari so I currently have a vested interested in that not happening because I can't play my army without a SC.
   
Made in us
Sneaky Striking Scorpion




Seattle Area

 Xenomancers wrote:
You are going about it all wrong. Competitive play needs to make an actually unbroken point system. Special characters on the whole aren't even that busted - you can only take one of them. They just need to be pointed right. Guilliman needs +40 points as does Azreal. Celestine needs +100. There are plenty of units that need obvious point adjustments - start there.


^ This - Special characters need to be balanced, that is all. Everyone takes Celestine because her rules were written like gak and she's way undercosted/overpowered. There are numerous workable solutions to this that don't involve saying someone can't field SCs

Froth at the top, dregs at the bottom, but the middle - excellent 
   
Made in us
Storm Trooper with Maglight



In Warp Transit to next battlefield location, Destination Unknown

I voted no, but, I think that if both sides field a SC, then niether side gets to field that SC for the battle. A SC can't be in 2 places at once.

Cowards will be shot! Survivors will be shot again!

 
   
Made in es
Grim Dark Angels Interrogator-Chaplain




Vigo. Spain.

"Ey guys, some units of Forgeworld are OP, others are fine and others are UP, what should we do, fix their rules or point costs when appropiate?"
"No way! Just ban them!"
"Ok, and what about special characters? I hear 3 or 3 from the 80 or so that exist are OP, should we fix them or..."
"BAN"
"Ok guys. Superh-..."
"BAN THEM ALL"
One week latter they all played with their imaginations.

 Crimson Devil wrote:

Dakka does have White Knights and is also rather infamous for it's Black Knights. A new edition brings out the passionate and not all of them are good at expressing themselves in written form. There have been plenty of hysterical responses from both sides so far. So we descend into pointless bickering with neither side listening to each other. So posting here becomes more masturbation than conversation.

ERJAK wrote:
Forcing a 40k player to keep playing 7th is basically a hate crime.

 
   
Made in us
Longtime Dakkanaut





I think this problem will resolve itself as more Codexes get more characters. Yes, the current characters limit playstyles in competitive games, but if you're into the tourney scene, then you sign up for going up against the most broken stuff anyway.
   
Made in us
Confessor Of Sins




WA, USA

The sweeping ban is, as it always has been, using a chainsaw to perform surgery. Does it cut out the bad part? Sure, but it also destroys and rips out everything within a large radius of it.

I understand the impulse, it feels good to give a big ban. It makes you feel like you're *accomplishing* something. But the bottom line is that SCs are a complex problem, and it takes whole system rebalancing and work to fix it, not just "ha ha I banned things!"

 Ouze wrote:

Afterward, Curran killed a guy in the parking lot with a trident.
 
   
Made in de
Longtime Dakkanaut




Yeah, the problem here seems to be limited to a handful of characters. Nothing about any of them seems inherently unbalance-able; they're just undercosted. A minimum point limit seems like a particularly weird fix because some of them, like Azrael and Guilliman, get better the more points you have to spend on other things.

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2017/09/14 19:32:58


 
   
Made in us
Pestilent Plague Marine with Blight Grenade





cedar rapids, iowa

 Xenomancers wrote:
You are going about it all wrong. Competitive play needs to make an actually unbroken point system. Special characters on the whole aren't even that busted - you can only take one of them. They just need to be pointed right. Guilliman needs +40 points as does Azreal. Celestine needs +100. There are plenty of units that need obvious point adjustments - start there.


Most of the special characters are large force multiplier in addition to being tough as nails. GW is not going to make them less playable.

The sweeping ban is, as it always has been, using a chainsaw to perform surgery. Does it cut out the bad part? Sure, but it also destroys and rips out everything within a large radius of it.

I understand the impulse, it feels good to give a big ban. It makes you feel like you're *accomplishing* something. But the bottom line is that SCs are a complex problem, and it takes whole system rebalancing and work to fix it, not just "ha ha I banned things!"


What I'm proposing was how 40k existed until sometime in fifth edition, so a lot of us do not view it as a chainsaw, just as a method to force people to think outside the box.

"Ey guys, some units of Forgeworld are OP, others are fine and others are UP, what should we do, fix their rules or point costs when appropiate?"
"No way! Just ban them!"
"Ok, and what about special characters? I hear 3 or 3 from the 80 or so that exist are OP, should we fix them or..."
"BAN"
"Ok guys. Superh-..."
"BAN THEM ALL"
One week latter they all played with their imaginations.


“It is a wise thing to be polite; consequently, it is a stupid thing to be rude."

I play Ynnari so I currently have a vested interested in that not happening because I can't play my army without a SC.

Excellent point, which is why I really don't like the idea of banning but making things at least harder to field. (A Primarch AND the Emperors Angel in every imperium army? Come on guys, that's lazy.)

 
   
Made in ro
Regular Dakkanaut




The reason why people always want to ban things is that GW started fixing things by FAQs like 2 months ago, so thinking about fixes was pointless. Even now it is, but it is nice to guess what they will do.

So before 8th, banning things was the better option because nobody could complain about how the nerf was too hard/not hard enough.
   
Made in us
Potent Possessed Daemonvessel





 sfshilo wrote:
 Xenomancers wrote:
You are going about it all wrong. Competitive play needs to make an actually unbroken point system. Special characters on the whole aren't even that busted - you can only take one of them. They just need to be pointed right. Guilliman needs +40 points as does Azreal. Celestine needs +100. There are plenty of units that need obvious point adjustments - start there.


Most of the special characters are large force multiplier in addition to being tough as nails. GW is not going to make them less playable.

The sweeping ban is, as it always has been, using a chainsaw to perform surgery. Does it cut out the bad part? Sure, but it also destroys and rips out everything within a large radius of it.

I understand the impulse, it feels good to give a big ban. It makes you feel like you're *accomplishing* something. But the bottom line is that SCs are a complex problem, and it takes whole system rebalancing and work to fix it, not just "ha ha I banned things!"


What I'm proposing was how 40k existed until sometime in fifth edition, so a lot of us do not view it as a chainsaw, just as a method to force people to think outside the box.

"Ey guys, some units of Forgeworld are OP, others are fine and others are UP, what should we do, fix their rules or point costs when appropiate?"
"No way! Just ban them!"
"Ok, and what about special characters? I hear 3 or 3 from the 80 or so that exist are OP, should we fix them or..."
"BAN"
"Ok guys. Superh-..."
"BAN THEM ALL"
One week latter they all played with their imaginations.


“It is a wise thing to be polite; consequently, it is a stupid thing to be rude."

I play Ynnari so I currently have a vested interested in that not happening because I can't play my army without a SC.

Excellent point, which is why I really don't like the idea of banning but making things at least harder to field. (A Primarch AND the Emperors Angel in every imperium army? Come on guys, that's lazy.)


A lot of that is more a problem with the "allies' system than it is with special characters. If Imperium wasn't a sprawling faction covering half the game it wouldn't be an issue. I understand the "fluff" aspect of things but for matched play I kind of feel like all armies should be a single "sub-faction", with the possible exception of things like assassins, Custodes, Sisters of silence, and inquisition. If that were the case you would only see Celestine in sisters armies, and Primarchs in their own subfaction (Magnus only in 1ksons, RG in Ultra Marines, Etc) It is just much easier to balance a game when there are less things that interact with each other. Is RG quite as good if he cannot take a conscript screen? You still might see these characters in every x-faction army, but at least it would be a bit restricted.
   
Made in de
Longtime Dakkanaut




So, I have two problems with anything that looks like a ban.

First, some are pretty reliant on unique characters for variety. Sisters have Canonesses and Celestine. Get rid of Celestine and they've only got Canonesses. The rest of Ministorum literally has no generic HQ, though it's not like anyone wants to use Jacobus anyway. Ynnari now absolutely require a special character in order to be used at all. And lots of others are quickly going to run out of choices. Even a fairly well-supported army like Craftworld Eldar has only 4 unique kinds of generic HQ (Autarch, Farseer, Warlock, Spiritseer), and one of those is pretty niche. Dark Eldar only have 3. Likewise Orks and Tau.

Second, very few unique characters have rules that only belong on a unique character. I've heard people complain about not liking seeing Eldrad on so many tables, because he ought to be rare, and I've never really understood this. Just pretend that he's a particularly capable Farseer. Nobody thinks that the rules perfectly capture the fluff; there's easily enough slop there to say that this particular Hammerhead squadron leader is particularly capable despite not being named "Longstrike".
   
Made in gb
Grim Dark Angels Interrogator-Chaplain





Earth

I would like to see a minimum % brought in to take a special character, a tax for all intents and purposes, so no ... I dont know, calgar or something, unless your army is 50% ultramarines. Its easier than ever to make a deathstar, which this Ed was supposed to stop lol
   
Made in be
Courageous Beastmaster





Bedsides some OP stuff does not need named characters ( cough conscripts cough).




 
   
Made in us
Battlewagon Driver with Charged Engine




Between Alpha and Omega, and a little to the left

Make generic HQs more useful and that'd generally solve the problem

Want to help support my plastic addiction? I sell stories about humans fighting to survive in a space age frontier.
Lord Harrab wrote:"Gimme back my leg-bone! *wack* Ow, don't hit me with it!" commonly uttered by Guardsman when in close combat with Orks.

Bonespitta's Badmoons 1441 pts.  
   
Made in de
Waaagh! Warbiker




Somewhere near Hamburg

I'd love a ban on SCs. Mainly because I think it kinda ruins the immersion. SCs should only be part of epic narrative battles and not be present in every little skirmish.

Its not fluffy, its not cool and most importantly its boring as hell. SCs have their own prewritten story and one of the biggest aspects of 40k is creating your own story and your own characters imo.

Astra Milit..*blam* Astra Milliwhat, heretic? 
   
Made in us
Humming Great Unclean One of Nurgle





In My Lab

Morkphoiz wrote:
I'd love a ban on SCs. Mainly because I think it kinda ruins the immersion. SCs should only be part of epic narrative battles and not be present in every little skirmish.

Its not fluffy, its not cool and most importantly its boring as hell. SCs have their own prewritten story and one of the biggest aspects of 40k is creating your own story and your own characters imo.


Then in that case, give us support for customizable generic characters.

Clocks for the clockmaker! Cogs for the cog throne! 
   
Made in us
Waaagh! Warbiker




Somewhere near Hamburg

 JNAProductions wrote:
Morkphoiz wrote:
I'd love a ban on SCs. Mainly because I think it kinda ruins the immersion. SCs should only be part of epic narrative battles and not be present in every little skirmish.

Its not fluffy, its not cool and most importantly its boring as hell. SCs have their own prewritten story and one of the biggest aspects of 40k is creating your own story and your own characters imo.


Then in that case, give us support for customizable generic characters.


Yes please. That'd be awesome! I'm mainly a guard player and I hate how bland our HQs are. I also hate the fact that Inquisitors, some of the greatest heroes of mankind, able to order the death of planets are pretty much useless weaklings with not many customization Options.

Astra Milit..*blam* Astra Milliwhat, heretic? 
   
Made in es
Grim Dark Angels Interrogator-Chaplain




Vigo. Spain.

I don't know what is stopping people from using the rules of special characters like Commander Dante of the Blood Angels to represent his own Chapter Master of a Blood Angel Sucessor.

Or using Abbaddon rules to represent a custom Chaos Space Marine Warlord. You just need a terminator guy with a powerclaw and a Daemonic Sword, and WYSIWYG. Then you are no more facing Abbadon, just a custom dude that uses his rules, so no problem ,no?

Because I don't know if people don't want to play against special characters or agains't their rules. To me, the name attached to a datasheet means nothing.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/09/14 22:11:42


 Crimson Devil wrote:

Dakka does have White Knights and is also rather infamous for it's Black Knights. A new edition brings out the passionate and not all of them are good at expressing themselves in written form. There have been plenty of hysterical responses from both sides so far. So we descend into pointless bickering with neither side listening to each other. So posting here becomes more masturbation than conversation.

ERJAK wrote:
Forcing a 40k player to keep playing 7th is basically a hate crime.

 
   
Made in nl
Longtime Dakkanaut




Characters should not be banned, but they definitely needs a bit of rebalancing. It is boring to see every imperial army be a soup with Celestine, Roboute or both. The problem is not the inclusion of named characters, it is more that there are some characters out there that are auto-includes, simply because they are extremely good for their points. Special characters can often add a bit of flavour and variety to a list. But when the characters are auto-includes, then variety suffers instead, because every other army will bring them.

It really is the same thing with the Forgeworld debate. Banning FW is a bad option that is only considered because of the shoddy rules made by FW. Ideally FW would get their act together and make some updates, or GW could roll FW into their main model line and codices.

So banning should be last resort, but I will freely admit that it IS kind of ridiculous to see Celestine charging Celestine on the tabletop.
   
Made in us
Fresh-Faced New User




Use of special characters in competitive play is at least...5 or 6 on the list of things that need to be looked at for a balanced competitive game, and by far one of the smallest aspects.

If they ever fix the wound/point ratio issues, how massively OP heavy weapons are, the fact that 9 wounds is the tankiest a character can possibly be, super weak troop choices that are required to fill out lists, massive point and kit imbalances between factions. Special characters are real low on the list, and if you fix the above things and actually aim for a game that is balanced around point costs vs abilities then special characters arnt much of an issue anymore.
   
Made in us
Fixture of Dakka





 Galas wrote:
"Ey guys, some units of Forgeworld are OP, others are fine and others are UP, what should we do, fix their rules or point costs when appropiate?"
"No way! Just ban them!"
"Ok, and what about special characters? I hear 3 or 3 from the 80 or so that exist are OP, should we fix them or..."
"BAN"
"Ok guys. Superh-..."
"BAN THEM ALL"
One week latter they all played with their imaginations.


This. The only thing that makes a special character a "special character" is that they'r e a 0-1 choice. Mechanically, the only difference between a "special" unit and a "generic" unit is that the special one can't be spammed. And most people aren't complaining about SC's being limited to one per army.

So with that in mind, let's recognize that we aren't really talking about special characters as a whole or the "one per army" rule. We're talking about Roboute, Celestine, and whatever other named character happened to give us a bad time at the last tournament.

Roboute, Celestine, and a few other units (including generic units like conscripts) deserve to be looked at, maybe ammended, and possibly banned if there's absolutely no way to fix them (for some reason).

Baharroth, Drazhar, Dante, Helbrecht, and Kharn are not breaking the game.


ATTENTION
. Psychic tests are unfluffy. Your longing for AV is understandable but misguided. Your chapter doesn't need a separate codex. Doctrines should go away. Being a "troop" means nothing. This has been a cranky service announcement. You may now resume your regularly scheduled arguing.
 
   
Made in ca
Secretive Dark Angels Veteran



Canada

I quite like SCs and I think a ban would be a mistake. I certainly don't play them all the time, but i often take them in my Deathwing and Ravenwing armies for instance.

I understand somebody not wanting to take them because of their own aesthetic viewpoint, but I do not understand why people want to impose their list style on others. Be the list the you want to play.

Cheers

All you have to do is fire three rounds a minute, and stand 
   
Made in us
Loyal Necron Lychguard





 JNAProductions wrote:
Morkphoiz wrote:
I'd love a ban on SCs. Mainly because I think it kinda ruins the immersion. SCs should only be part of epic narrative battles and not be present in every little skirmish.

Its not fluffy, its not cool and most importantly its boring as hell. SCs have their own prewritten story and one of the biggest aspects of 40k is creating your own story and your own characters imo.


Then in that case, give us support for customizable generic characters.

That comes with codexes. Only generic characters can take artifacts and pick their warlord trait (named characters have one assigned to them).
   
Made in us
Pious Palatine




 Xenomancers wrote:
You are going about it all wrong. Competitive play needs to make an actually unbroken point system. Special characters on the whole aren't even that busted - you can only take one of them. They just need to be pointed right. Guilliman needs +40 points as does Azreal. Celestine needs +100. There are plenty of units that need obvious point adjustments - start there.


Oh feth that. Guillamen needs 100 Celestine needs like 10-40 tops. She's a T3 model, if you can't deal with her it's because YOU suck and that's IT.


 
   
Made in us
Fixture of Dakka





Morkphoiz wrote:
I'd love a ban on SCs. Mainly because I think it kinda ruins the immersion. SCs should only be part of epic narrative battles and not be present in every little skirmish.

Its not fluffy, its not cool and most importantly its boring as hell. SCs have their own prewritten story and one of the biggest aspects of 40k is creating your own story and your own characters imo.


Yep. Because when dark eldar ambushed a Blood Angels base, Dante watched the raiding force and went, "Nah man. That's only like, 4 raiders and some wyches. I'm just going to sit here and watch my brothers get murdered because I only fight in epic battles."

And we all remember that time Yarrick's column got hit by a measley 1500 points worth of orks, so he proudly sat there while the tank bustas blew up his ride.

I get what you're going for, Morkpholz, but SCs don't stop fighting or existing just because there aren't enough enemies around. Well.. Draigo does, but he's a special case. Calgar hops in a rhino with a squad of his buddies and starts heading to the front lines. On his way, enemy infiltrators ambush him. Does Calgar just refuse to fight? Of course not. And some of us think it could be fun to play out that ambush.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
 Arachnofiend wrote:
 JNAProductions wrote:
Morkphoiz wrote:
I'd love a ban on SCs. Mainly because I think it kinda ruins the immersion. SCs should only be part of epic narrative battles and not be present in every little skirmish.

Its not fluffy, its not cool and most importantly its boring as hell. SCs have their own prewritten story and one of the biggest aspects of 40k is creating your own story and your own characters imo.


Then in that case, give us support for customizable generic characters.

That comes with codexes. Only generic characters can take artifacts and pick their warlord trait (named characters have one assigned to them).


Which artefact lets me field the Avatar or Drazhar?

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/09/14 22:53:21



ATTENTION
. Psychic tests are unfluffy. Your longing for AV is understandable but misguided. Your chapter doesn't need a separate codex. Doctrines should go away. Being a "troop" means nothing. This has been a cranky service announcement. You may now resume your regularly scheduled arguing.
 
   
Made in us
Humming Great Unclean One of Nurgle





In My Lab

 Arachnofiend wrote:
 JNAProductions wrote:
Morkphoiz wrote:
I'd love a ban on SCs. Mainly because I think it kinda ruins the immersion. SCs should only be part of epic narrative battles and not be present in every little skirmish.

Its not fluffy, its not cool and most importantly its boring as hell. SCs have their own prewritten story and one of the biggest aspects of 40k is creating your own story and your own characters imo.


Then in that case, give us support for customizable generic characters.

That comes with codexes. Only generic characters can take artifacts and pick their warlord trait (named characters have one assigned to them).


More than just relics. Look at Inquisitors-look how BORING they are.

Clocks for the clockmaker! Cogs for the cog throne! 
   
Made in ca
Insect-Infested Nurgle Chaos Lord






I say yes, but this is because I'm from a time where Special Characters were more like promo-items; fun, narrative based side characters that weren't really meant to be used in armies proper (remember where they specifically required your opponent's permission to be used?). Late 4th edition's habit of promoting them to mainstream units is always something that didn't sit right with me. Special Characters should be like the Un-sets of MTG; fun, hilarious side items that aren't meant for the game proper.


Gwar! wrote:Huh, I had no idea Graham McNeillm Dav Torpe and Pete Haines posted on Dakka. Hi Graham McNeillm Dav Torpe and Pete Haines!!!!!!!!!!!!! Can I have an Autograph!


Kanluwen wrote:
Hell, I'm not that bothered by the Stormraven. Why? Because, as it stands right now, it's "limited use".When it's shoehorned in to the Codex: Space Marines, then yeah. I'll be irked.


When I'm editing alot, you know I have a gakload of homework to (not) do. 
   
Made in us
Regular Dakkanaut





 Galas wrote:
"Ey guys, some units of Forgeworld are OP, others are fine and others are UP, what should we do, fix their rules or point costs when appropiate?"
"No way! Just ban them!"
"Ok, and what about special characters? I hear 3 or 3 from the 80 or so that exist are OP, should we fix them or..."
"BAN"
"Ok guys. Superh-..."
"BAN THEM ALL"
One week latter they all played with their imaginations.


From the last FW discussion, believe it was made clear that most of the 'anti-FW' crowd's perspective (of which I'm a part) was that FW will be fine if, and only if, FW actually releases FAQs/Erratas that try and balance things (not the typo/omitted entry FAQ that we've currently got on hand) and that until FW does so or makes an effort like 'mainstream GW' is at doing so they should be banned from competitive play.

For these special characters, for the most part the problem ones are mainstream GW so it mostly becomes a question of what to do until if/when they get maybe/possibly balanced by GW in their upcoming codices (for the likes of Celestine) or in the upcoming Chapter Approved book (in the case of Guilliman).

I don't know that banning them is the solution, but to be honest I'd rather see hearty restrictions put in place on the Faction Soup we see in tournament play. Something like only 20% of your army's points can be spent on a non-specific faction keyword (e.g., if you play Raven Guard than only 20% could be Imperial) - that was something I saw mentioned in a previous discussion, anyway. But I think reducing the Faction Soup aspect would go a way to quashing special character spam of the undesirable sort (such as every Imperial list basically needing to have Celestine, Guilliman, etc).
   
 
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