Special Characters

[Nightspawn]

I've played 40 since 3rd ed and it seems that along the way that special characters have been making more of an appearance than before. Is it because they are better now? They just look cool? They rock?

So the question I have is, what's your favorite special character to use for an army and what makes them worth taking for you?

[SotonShades]

Once upon a yesteryear, special characters were more than a little powerful, if very characterful. Back in 3rd Ed. you needed your opponant's permission to use them, so people said no out of instinct.

Now they are more balanced and trends to change the flavour of the army rather than simply being awesome in their own right. Not needing permissipn to field them also makes them more popular.

[o0HoldFast0o]

Draigo! Because, I usually play Tau and need some revenge every now and then.

[Ironwolf]

Bjorn the fellhanded Is my favorite followed by Arjac rockfist for space wolves.

Vindicare Assassin and Crowe (even with his lack of IC rule) for Grey knights.

grimaldus for black templar.

Commander Farsight for tau, Maugan ra for eldar, icubi guy from DE, Nork dedog for IG.

Just a few

[Nick Soapdish]

I love playing with Eldrad. Who doesn't love getting to redeploy units before the game and all the psychic powers the Eldar have?

[Bean]

The only special character I've used significantly is Draigo, because I've been playing Draigo-wing.

This, really, is one of the main reasons that you're seeing more special characters, now: for one thing, GW has officially removed the "opponent's permission only" albatross from around their necks, and for another they've started tying army-wide special rules to them. Want to play Ravenwing? You have to bring Sammael. Deathwing? You have to bring Belial. Want something distinctly Salamanders in your Salamanders army? Vulkan is pretty much your only option.

Some of the special characters are really good (Draigo is pretty good, even for his exorbitant price--Mephiston, Cassius, Njal, Eldrad--to name a few) and some are really bad (Lucius, Tigurius, Ahriman, The DA Phoenix Lord) and some are reasonable but hardly overpowered.

What it comes down to, though, is that GW's attitude towards special characters have changed--they're writing more of them and generally making them more integral to their associated armies. This has led to a similar change in the attitudes of the player base--greater acceptance and more people playing special characters as a result.

[Deadestdai]

Typhus cos his fluff is so cool. Shame his rules don't match up to his points cost. (Roll on new Dex w/Eternal Warrior for all IC's!)

[DaveLL]

As a couple of people have said, army-changing rules are useful. I've seen a few things saying essentially that GW doesn't really expect that every time a special character is played, it's actually that character - you could, for instance, have another IG commander who happens to be particularly brutal with his conscripts, and use the rules and cost for the IG special character with "bring in the next wave."
(Oh, and I haven't yet taken a special character, but only because I still haven't played an army where it would make sense and I liked the special characters.)

[Kaiserdean]

Personally, I don't like them.

It seems weird to me when someone plays Marneus Calgar in a 1,000 point game. I guess it feels like they should be saved for 10,000+ point games and the little skirmishes that have less than 200 "troopers" doesn't seem like a big enough deal for a special character to be in... Except for Gaunt.

[Tzeentch_Guard]

Yarrick! I love that guy!