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Branching off from the "AM in tournaments" thread, this question is about whether Special Characters in general are broken.

For the *most* part, I would say "no" though with qualifiers. I've avoided discussing 8th in general, but historically, very few characters were actually worth fielding. There were notable anomalies of course: Njal was a staple in 5th Space Wolves due to his ability to singlehandedly shut down your opponent's Psykers and blow up half their army with Chain Lightning. Likewise, although Fateweaver was an autoinclude for Daemons in 6th and 7th, he was taken less for individual prowess and more to mitigate the randumb from Daemon armies.

Of course, come the end of 7th and the rise of 8th, Magnus came out, as well as Celestine and Bobby G. Roboute was arguably relatively tame in Rise of the Primarch, but 8th has made him a reroll machine to the point that he crowds out other Marine options. Magnus and Mortarion instead show a creeping forth of "yet another big monster." Then again, 8th is also conscripthammer or alphahammer. Could the impression that certain characters break 40k merely be a psychological (or Timmy) aversion to the idea that GW spends more time pushing "big" models rather than writing "all bases covered" armies?

I don't think they are necessarily "broken" but they provide a level of scaling that other armies don't have right now. Once more armies get their codices and extra "stuff", I think it'd be a better time to come back to the same question. It's just too hard to tell with the limited number we have right now. They are good, but I don't think they rise to the level of broken unless other armies end up not having access to units like them.

Some yes, some no. From a narrative perspective, they're wildly overused, regardless of power - however in a tournament setting that's to be expected.

Costes apropiately nothing is broken. Even a revived Emperor could be viable to play costing 1500points

I'm not really sure what you're trying to ask. Is anyone denying at this point that Guilliman, Cawl, and Celestine are bad for the game because they're basically auto-includes in at least their own factions' lists and often in others? Guilliman and Cawl are particularly bad because they make a lot of their factions' codices irrelevant -- you're always going to be playing Ultramarines and Mars.

I'm not as familiar with Chaos, but I could believe that you pretty much always want to bring Magnus and cast that +1 to saves power on him. This would be a problem. I haven't seen much of Mortarion yet. But at least these two don't lock you in to other choices the way Guilliman and Cawl do.

Celestine is clearly hugely overpowered for her points, but this would not in principle be a huge problem if she couldn't be taken in any Imperium list. Like, it's fine for an army to have a unit that it's always going to bring, even if that unit is a special character (leaving aside that Sisters are otherwise really strong anyway right now and don't need the help). And she's cheap enough that it's not a big deal. Mortarion being an auto-include in Death Guard would be a little more annoying since he's such a large fraction of the list. You would want it to be possible to field strong Death Guard armies without him.

But at the same time I don't know if any significant number of people think that most special characters are causing problems. Generally when people say something like "special characters are broken" they don't mean this.

My gripe is that special characters are really restrictive, since they often come with really useful abilities but are locked to their characters.

Like, I would love it if Typhus's Poxwalker buff was available on generic Lords of Contagion (as a buyable upgrade of course, I'm not expecting it for free here), or (as Unit said on another thread) take a Pask-esque Tank Ace outside of Cadia.

In terms of relative strength, I think most characters are OK (barring the occasional broken one), but it limits army building and creativity when every Ultramarine army is fielding Guilliman. Speaking of Guilliman (and by extension Celestine and the two Daemon primarchs) sometimes the special characters are in a complete class of their own, meaning there is simply no way of taking a generic version. I'm not saying I want a generic, build-a-primarch system, but it skews things even more when one faction does have one and no one else can take anything even resembling it.

If their relics and abilities were buyable upgrades, and the characters themselves are just a specific set of relics and upgrades, then I'd be totally fine with them.

For the most part no, most special characters aren't worth their points.Look at the Eldar, between Craftworlders, Drukhari and Ynnari they have more special characters than almost anyone else, but other than Yvrain and the Yncarne (at least one of which needs to be taken to make the army Ynnari) you'll almost never see them as they aren't worth it. This has been the case for quite some time as well.

 Imateria wrote:
For the most part no, most special characters aren't worth their points.Look at the Eldar, between Craftworlders, Drukhari and Ynnari they have more special characters than almost anyone else, but other than Yvrain and the Yncarne (at least one of which needs to be taken to make the army Ynnari) you'll almost never see them as they aren't worth it. This has been the case for quite some time as well.

Agreed, for the most part special characters aren't a -huge- problem. Most of the Xenos special characters are (much like most of the Xenos units in general) either completely worthless, or only worth about half of what they cost. The only exception I can think of is Ghazkrul, who is actually the only character I can think of who is appropriately priced, decent, but not overpowered. This is lucky, as using him is the only way to make a half decent ork list (as long as you like running hordes of boyz).

Eldar does have a lot of named characters, if you include all the phoenix lords, but they are all (with maybe one or two exceptions) overpriced and underpowered (not a good combination). Fuegan is alright, that's about it. Yvraine and the Yncarne aren't too terrible too, but they're basically only taken because you are forced to. They aren't the worst tax in the game though, so it's hard to complain.

Special characters become a problem when you look at the Imperium though, especially in soup armies. Celestine is amazeballs for her points, Gulliman and Cawl turn balanced armies into crazy overpowered messes, and IG characters are cheap and plentiful and mostly have some pretty powerful options.

Though actually I'd say IG characters are a good standard for all armies to follow...as there is a variety of options and they all have their place, and are appropriately priced. If GW did actually do that. Unfortunately hasn't been the case as yet, and instead it has left IG being the only army with this variety of characters, which only bolsters their strength more than it already is.

So yeh, TLDR: Most special characters aren't broken. Mostly, they're awful, if you take the average to include all Xenos characters. However there are a few broken characters, which are also the only ones ever seen because they have become auto-includes. Spoils the fun for everyone.

It used to be worse, older editions had a lot more overpowered characters than 8th does at the moment. However a lot of codices aren't out yet, so GW still have time to make things worse. In my game group we still tend to follow the old (old old) habit of only using special characters with prior agreement. Fielding a primarch in a casual game without prior consent would be seen as somewhat rude. Unfortunately this does not seem to be the norm for dakka.

edit: haha, also, after checking your poll before voting, I noticed that both "No, except a few" and "Maybe some, but not most" are -very similar- responses lol. I guess it's a matter of whether someone things there's only 1 or 2, or a handful... I put maybe, because there's more than 1 or 2, and I suspect there will be a couple more added as time goes on. I just wonder how many people who ticked "No" still agree that there is one or two bad apples. One or two, who commonly appear in lists (like Cawl does) is more than enough to spoil things.

The poll isn't exact, and is a fairly inclusive range. I imagine relatively few people will state that *every* special character (or no character) will be overpowered.

"No (except a few)", "maybe some" or "yes."

I didn't like your choices, so i didn't vote. Re-reading the questions a few times is making my head hurt. Some are (and always have been), but some aren't. It's not necessarily the being a special character that is the problem, but the rules associated with them.

Yvrain got split down the middle with an axe last time I faced one. She definitely put the hurt on me in the psycher phase the 2 turns she could. Other than her every other character I've faced I've been able to kill with minimal damage to my army, except Mortarion. That thing is a monster.

 Elbows wrote:
Some yes, some no. From a narrative perspective, they're wildly overused, regardless of power - however in a tournament setting that's to be expected.

Unless tournaments forbade them and in my opinion they should. As should gamers generally unless by prior consent

Besides maybe 3 no. Anybody saying otherwise is honestly a bad player that can't bother to learn how to counter even lesser characters like Lysander and Asterion and you deserve no sympathy.

I think they shouldn't be disallowed, but they certainly aren't created equal. That said, I don't think but maybe a few are anywhere near overpowered, and those few are most all Primarchs.

I'll give an example.

I run Lemartes in most of my lists for a variety of reasons. Mostly, I love his model, and it's my favorite chaplain sculpt available for a power armored/jump pack equipped chaplain.
Secondly, he's a favorite character of mine in the lore. Seriously, I really enjoy his backstory, and history.
Lastly, he's got good rules and is reasonably priced for those rules. He clocks in at just a hair under 130 points, has the same death company keyword benefits which, while not amazing, are still pretty decent all-told. He gets a lot of attacks, and benefits death company exclusively as well instead of any same <chapter keyword> models nearby, with the added bonus of reroll charge distance (which is quite handy). He also hits a little harder with his relic, the Blood Crozius (AP:-2, and D3 Damage per swing), but as I said, does lack the ability to buff/help any non-death company Blood Angels models nearby him unlike a 'standard' chaplain.

I've never had anyone complain about me using him, and I have zero issue subbing him out of my list for a standard chaplain instead and just using the Lemartes model if asked to do so.

I think, barring a few outliers, the balance on named/special characters is pretty good. Just my opinion on that, though.

Take it easy.

-Red__Thirst-

Not adding much but aura abilities tend to be broken. They are priced as if they will effect a unit or two. The reality is however they encourage bunkering up to cover almost your entire army.
Cawl for instance is paying maybe 100 points for a 20-33% buff over a dominus. So he needs to effect 300-500 points of stuff to pay for himself (less if you value his other abilities). This is always going to happen. If anything you will get double, triple or more benefit. He can easily be worth 500~ points in improved damage output.
RG has the same issue.
Random beatstick special characters are just a pricing issue. Celestine is too cheap. Most are too expensive.

Special characters and aura abilities are no more broken than that special bomb card you played turn 3 that buffs all your troops by +3/+3 while it's in play, or gives them Trample/Haste/Lifedrain or some other shtick.

They act as force multipliers, little more. Against solid armies, characters alone cannot compete. They require the support of the rest of their army to be a threat. Magnus often dies turn 1 against competitive lists because there's just that much shooting going on and no one can succeed that many saving throws. But by absorbing shots for his fellow brothers, he allows you to get a chance at positioning, buffing, and firing before getting shot off the board effortless and losing all your stuff. Magnus serves as a bullet attraction tool that may or may not survive the process which prevents huge numbers of early game casualties before you've even had a chance to act.

The meta has developed around them already. Snipers are in almost every tournament list because they handle characters best by being able to single them out of a crowd. Sometimes targeted removal is necessary in a card game to get rid of force multipliers.

As I already have experience with card games where 2 cost units can be weak while 4 cost units can be gamebreaking, I don't find characters to be a problem. They are either supporters or stompers and both have effective counters. When you bring a list lacking counters to these things then you may feel the sting of their effectiveness. You could respond with your own version of these characters but if you are playing an army that lacks them then it's a test of patience until more come out.

Even non-Characters have been centerpiece attention grabbers. Wraithknights, Imperial Knights, Baneblades, Carnifex, units have always existed with the potential to cause great harm to our forces. The difference is that unlike 7th edition these units are now actually kill-able by our armies. You are no longer required to bring insanely high strength weapons to even have a chance at damaging a knight. It helps, just as sniper rifles help deal with characters if reaching them directly is hard, but it's not strictly necessary.

"special" Characters aren't the problem: lack of balance/ proper points costs is.

Aura's are indeed hard to pinpoint correctly that needs a lot of playtesting. That's one of the reasons why the big test for 8th's balance is chapter approved. It's the yearly balance patch, let's hope it's a good one.

I think it's a bummer that you end up with the same handful of guys appearing all the time, instead of people being encouraged to come up with their own characters, because the former is the only was to access certain benefits/rules/abilities. Would like to see more options for "generic" HQs, but it seems I'm in a minority; most people either don't care or don't have a problem with named characters.

I think Kharn is a good example of what I like in a Special Character.

Not that powerful of an aura, but a clear leader of World Eaters.

You don't play him to sit him in the back and command like some puny Imperial Commisar, you put him front and centre to rip open a tin can Russ Tank, and see what prize is inside!

No. There are a few (already mentioned ) characters who may be a little OP but I don't think any of them are outright 'Broken'

Some are, but most are fine. I do wish they had kept the "requires opponent's permission" from the olden days though, and also restricted things like LoW special characters to > 2000 point games.

Dionysodorus wrote:

Mortarion being an auto-include in Death Guard would be a little more annoying since he's such a large fraction of the list. You would want it to be possible to field strong Death Guard armies without him.

That's quite possible actually. To make Mortarion work you have to tailor your list around him because he plays kind of anathema to what Death Guard stand for: he's the rush into assault and kill everything type while the Death Guard in general are about the slow and steady advance. You don't want Mortarion in a Poxwalker swarm list for example because he's not going to be much more than a Distraction Carnifex (a really big one, granted, but that's still you spending 470 points on a fire magnet that does not otherwise synergize with your army).


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Wayniac wrote:
Some are, but most are fine. I do wish they had kept the "requires opponent's permission" from the olden days though, and also restricted things like LoW special characters to > 2000 point games.

Not gonna happen nor really necessary. From a business perspective they aren't releasing models like Magnus and Mortarion to only be used in Apocalypse games, they're a big source of revenue so they need to be usable in normal games as well. From a gameplay perspective: Superheavies are not so overpowered in 8th as they were in 7th because D weapons and special superheavy rules are gone. Mortarion, Magnus or a Knight in a 2k list is certainly powerful but in no way broken.

[MOD EDIT - RULE #1 - Alpharius]

 Nazrak wrote:
I think it's a bummer that you end up with the same handful of guys appearing all the time, instead of people being encouraged to come up with their own characters, because the former is the only was to access certain benefits/rules/abilities. Would like to see more options for "generic" HQs, but it seems I'm in a minority; most people either don't care or don't have a problem with named characters.

Would love to have those options to create your own characters with their own narrative, but as it stands now named characters are often better. Also, too many options will undoubtedly lead to some hilariously broken combinations. Guess we'll have to live with it.

I think the main problem is that certain characters, Cawl and Guilliman especially tend to warp their meta around them and dictate what opponents bring. Rather than allowing players to bring what lists they would like to run they have to start teching their lists to deal with that list specifically and certain options will only deal with certain things.

I've been playing against Guilliman a lot and he isn't really that hard since his army clumps up around him making it very easy to surround them and the style of play very predictable, you just need to bring things to deal with Guilliman's army and then the weight of numbers or controlling objectives will win you the game. Even then, Guilliman himself isn't THAT tough. He's a pain to deal with yes but he's not invincible.

Do I wish he was toned down or more expensive? Yes, absolutely because like I said I dislike having to tech my list specifically to deal with his gak, but do I think it's a major problem? Not really, no.

In the case of Magnus specifically, I imagine his popularity is less because of his individual prowess (though he does have a fancy blade and Invulnerable) or the idea of him soloing your opponent, so much as because of Psychic Focus. Because you can only *attempt* to cast Warptime/Dark Guidance once per turn, you really don't want to fail, given that psychic powers are a binary pass-fail. Unlike something like, say, Cultists shooting (20 autoguns = 40 shots averaging 20 hits, but 15-25 hits is a reasonable range to assume), you either get an extra move, or you don't. (Contrast with, say, Kings of War, which would be "May move 1 inch forward for each 4+ rolled" or so). Since Magnus has +2 to cast, that ups your odds of success that much more, while making it harder for your foe to Deny.

This is similar to how he was used sans any actual Thousand Sons in 7th, because the Warp Charge system ended up favoring "big caster+batteries" rather than multiple small casters.

A few of them are actually broken (tipycally the new huge superheroes) and kill the game like any other owerpowered unit. The majority of the named characters are ok or even bad but definitely not broken.

 Arkaine wrote:


The meta has developed around them already. Snipers are in almost every tournament list because they handle characters best by being able to single them out of a crowd. Sometimes targeted removal is necessary in a card game to get rid of force multipliers.

Is this true? Last time I saw the maths on snipers, they were universally a waste of points, as you need something like 200+ points of snipers in order to reliably kill a character within a standard game length. Edit: And that is only if the character stands out in the open for the whole game.

The exception -possibly- being ratlings, because they are so cheap. (I know, right, Imperial Guard having cheap and still effective units. Hard to believe.)

Other than that, as far as I've seen, snipers are avoided due to being useless points-sinks. Even the Vindicaire take 3 or 4 turns to kill a character, and that is only if the character actually stands out in the open for the entire game.

I wouldn't say that they're broken, but they're making the game incredibly one dimensional.

Every AdMech army has Cawl. Every Death Guard army has Mortarion. Every Ultramarines army and Imperium army has Guilliman. Etc. Etc. And I see no reason why things will be any different with yet to be released codexes.

I'm seeing now, more than ever, a complete lack of diversity in army builds. Very unfortunate.

Every AdMech army has Cawl because the AdMech codex is painfully meh. That's not about Cawl being broken, it's about the Dominus being too blasted expensive and other factors.