Do you play with special characters?

[Archon]

I really don´t like SCs. Thats so, since my early days in fantasy. We never played them much and most times they are too over the top. Nowadays, when I took a look at tournament GK-Listes, geuss who´s showing up: The cheaply underpriced and overused coatez - this is the most hated of special chars, he is so broken, like the codex hes out of. Since GK spams the tournaments its no fun to play these. But i am drifting of...

SCs are too definied an mostly the are fluffwise to "big" to be on a battlefiled with a handfull of points. Abi should leading a 3K force minimum. For example.

The only SCs I like to use are: Lucius - it is very rarley, that i play him though i like his rules, his story und EC/Slaanesh in general. He little bit overpriced compared to his buddys.
Sometimes I play Marbo but I don´t see him as a SC.

Since Choas has only a 1/6 Chance of infiltrate (yes they stole infiltrate from chaos, look back. In the last codex we have the choosen and in the holy book before that crap of codex you a have the freedom of choice and could infiltrate a whole army (AL)) I plan to use a IW Chars with the rules of Huron. Not that he will allow you to infiltrate, no he has perceft stats for a IW hero (armourbane) and a bonus, he can make a little bit of sorcerey - come on, how to do you get that with a normal lord for 160 pts?

But I still don´t like SCs.

[chicop76]

Depends on what army I am playing. Grey Knights and Sisters I use special Characters so in one I don't have to play grey knights and in the other the regular hq went to huge suck space.

With my Tau and Daemons I don't feel the need to do so. The character options make it to where you can field a decent army without the need of special characters. In daemons it's hard to use on without taking a tax. Fateweaver is awesome, but he is support ranged. You need to take a beat stick that takes away your other hw slot. You can go flying circus and have litterly almost no troops.

I think if you have been playing since 5th than you should had lost I will not play attitude. I can see in 4th and under it made sence. Now it is srongly encouraged. Like in dark angels I have to get a special character if I want an all bike army, and with vanilla marines they just need a captain on a bike.

[DarkLink]

People used to get really whiny about special characters. Luckily most of the community has grown out of it, even to the extent of realizing that most special characters really even aren't that good. Grey Knights only use Draigo and Crowe to swap troops (Coteaz is really, really good, but he's certainly not broken, broken implies something that can't reasonably be beaten, and Coteaz is nothing like, say, the Farseer Fortune DE Archon with rerollable 2++ save, he just has lots of useful abilities and he's pretty good in combat, all for very cheap). There are only a few special characters that are better in any meaningful way than the generic HQs.

[Wolfshade]

A lot of hang ups are inherited from previous editions where you had to have your opponents permission to take them.
I tend to play a lot of games at the 1,000 - 1,500 pt range and so special characters are really too expensive to take in my opinion.
Imagine a BA list that takes Mephiston, that then leaves you 750pts left to field an army.
Having said that I have used Mephiston since 2nd and he is my favourite. CC monster.
Lemartes I often take for my DC as he is the same price as a chaplain + jump pack so that is a bit of a no-brainer.
But usually, I end up taking a libriain for cheapness.

When running orks, it is unusual that I take a special character after all boyz before toyz. Sometimes I take Old Zogwort but that is for random fun, aterall nothing is better than seeing a model turned into a squg, especially if it is some big hero type.

One of the things I dislike is the thought of these big name characters, like Dante who conducted the other chapter masters during the 2nd war for armageddon being used on such a small scale, I imagine that they would be too important to be utilised in sch a small skirmish.

[pgarfunkle]

I don't have an issue with special characters in games, sometimes I'll use them and sometimes stick to the stock heroes. In smaller games some of the higher tier characters can be a bit much especially if your opponent isn't expecting them but generally if I can come up with some sort of narrative for the head honchos to be involved in a smaller battle then it's cool. I mean someone you might think that a character like Dante would not be involved in anything smaller than an apocalypse battle or you could think he is leading a special mission or task force to achieve an objective while a larger battle rages elsewhere

[DarkLink]

That the higher ranking officers would be fighting at all is nonsense. Don't think about it too hard.

[Deadlift]

I like SC, but then I'm more into fluff lists and they add a bit of extra fun for me, I usually always run 2 HQ despite the points cost and its 1 SC And 1 generic dude. Example say Vulcan and a Libby in TDA. However my Cron lists are always generic overlords with the obligatory war gear because to be frank they are just too good not to use.

[Anakzar]

I am mainly a Tyranid player and almost everyone I play against uses special characters, most of whom are overpowered and too cheap in my opinion. So I decided to join them and brought in the doom and swarmlord for tourney play. The doom is sort of over powered for its cost and I hear a lot of whining but I just point out their characters and it usually stops.

Many of the tyranid special chars rules are abit too complicated to take for games with a time limit and can slow the game down.. so I don't like them for that reason. The lector(deathleaper) special char is closer to what the standard lictor should be... if he didn't have all those special rules to slow the game down and don't get me started with the parasite, its not that its that slow to use the rules but people always have to see those rules in the codex before they will believe them... and even then there is whining.


For orks you are forced to take a special char if you want to have fast attack biker type army. I would be just as happy to take a war boss on a bike if it gave me biker troops. With a war boss I can take one group of nobs as a troop and put them all on bikes along with the boss and a painboy... makes a expensive hard to kill unit. So there are works around but its not the same as being able to field an all biker army with the special char.

I liked the old days when I could give all my orks a ride and call them evil suns and be fluffy Or go with blood axes and use some guard tanks painted badly with bits stuck on randomly. Back then all the Blood ax komandos could take power axes and imperial ranged weapons.

Well rambled on enough for now...

Personally I liked how the old 2nd ed ork codex was based off what clan you had taken the boys mob from instead of it being based off Special chars. And it might be nice to try to go back and bring that idea into
6th.

[Mr.Pickelz]

I find that a SC makes for a fun time and adds character to a fluffy list, like Wazdakka and lots of Bikerz, or Ghazkull leading multiple boyz mobz, Or Draigo with a squad of paladins deepstriking right into the enemy forces.

old habits say that SC's are only in larger battles where their "generally better" qualities are more balanced, but even at lower levels the cost of an SC usually is the balancing factor. Draigo is 275 or close to that in points cost, and that's a hard sell when looking at a 1,000 point list. Same goes for Wazdakka, and Ghazkull. Both these character are a points investment and leave no room for versatility, Space Marines i find is a bit of an oddball when it comes to this, in that their characters aren't as aspect focused as Xenos characters are. Even Lysander has a good Ballistic Skill, even though he's melee focused wargear wise.

[chicop76]

Personally the Doom is the most overpower piece of @;*&%? Of all times. Even worst with broodlords and deathleaper lowering leadership when the doom ds in the middle of you army. What's aggrivating is for 2 turns he blast you with his area effect.

Even if you kill it more than likely the doom has easily made back it's points. What's worst is the aure effect is not a psychic power. If models are deepstriking with the doom than it is pretty much game over. Trygon primes with 2 squads of 20 devil gaunts.