O'shovah & The Tau are the Reason for the Collapse of Warhammer 40,000!!!

[ElectricPaladin]

Because its NEVER <enter random overpriced and weak SC here> to do these things, its always the best SC in the codex.

Yeah, ok. It's true that I'm relatively new to this hobby (only a couple of years) and blessed with an FLGS with a really cool and narrative-friendly 40k community.

[Tepogue]

quoted section removed by mod: [url]http://www.lounge.belloflostsouls.net/faq.php?faq=termsmaster#faq_termsuse[/url]

This is completely offensive. There were female players during the old Grand Tournaments. My wife was one of them. And to refer to any woman who showed up as a "whore" is so, <self censored>

[The Girl]

Next time, PinkTerror, keep your sexist comments to yourself... and if you just can't help yourself, expect a timed ban in response. We don't allow that here.

[Jstncloud]

Clarification, Farsight and Shadowsun both had this restriction in their 4th edition books.

[ChosenChaos]

I'm not so sure about this - saying that SCs are the ruin of WH40K is a bit of a stretch, given that with some care and attention, you can create a generic model that's almost as good as a SC from the available wargear options in a codex. A couple of examples from the Chaos Space Marines codex:

1. Take a generic Lord, give him Terminator armour, the Mark of Tzeentch, Aura of Dark Glory, the Black Mace (or the Murder Sword if you have a particular target in mind) and Veterans of the Long War. You now have a HQ choice with almost the same stats as Abaddon, but only costing 185 points. You could throw in a Lightning Claw to get something that looks more like Abaddon and that only take the cost up to 202 points.
2. Alternately, start with a Daemon Prince and give it power armour, the Mark of Tzeentch, the Aura of Dark Glory and the Black Mace... and you now have a monster that has a number of stats that are better than Abaddon's, but still coming in cheaper at 240 points.
3. Alternately alternately, start with a Sorceror, and push his Mastery to Level 3, and give him the Mark of Tzeentch, Aura of Dark Glory, a force weapon, a spell familiar and Veterans of the Long War, and you now have a mini-Ahriman for 160 points. You could also give him Scrolls of Magnus for that extra bit of psyker goodness, which pushes the cost to 205 points - still cheaper than Ahriman.

And these are just three examples I cobbled together in 15 minutes. I'm pretty sure that if anyone wanted, they could do something similar with other codexes.

[PinkTerror]

...saying that SCs are the ruin of WH40K is a bit of a stretch...

No, no. That wasn't my point. It wasn't about the Special Characters, it was about the asking for permission. The deletion of that declaration started a chain of events that spider-webbed into a free-for-all whatever you like dancing upon anarchy; cumulating into one of the biggest differences in opinion with a new ruleset.

One of the hallmarks of a competitive system is that you not only know how to strategize with your rules, but if you've done your diligence to 'know thy enemy' then you have an idea of your opponents capabilities and worry mainly about his (or hers) strategy; and luck. But the inclusion of limitless possible opponent combinations makes it almost impossible to rely upon your knowledge of the opponents; seemingly to the chagrin of the competitive player. Not robbing the game of enjoyment, but not as easily adaptable to competitive organized events either.

It was probably inevitable anyway, the game has to grow - but then again, so do weeds.

[Charon]

I'm not so sure about this - saying that SCs are the ruin of WH40K is a bit of a stretch, given that with some care and attention, you can create a generic model that's almost as good as a SC from the available wargear options in a codex. A couple of examples from the Chaos Space Marines codex:

1. Take a generic Lord, give him Terminator armour, the Mark of Tzeentch, Aura of Dark Glory, the Black Mace (or the Murder Sword if you have a particular target in mind) and Veterans of the Long War. You now have a HQ choice with almost the same stats as Abaddon, but only costing 185 points. You could throw in a Lightning Claw to get something that looks more like Abaddon and that only take the cost up to 202 points.
2. Alternately, start with a Daemon Prince and give it power armour, the Mark of Tzeentch, the Aura of Dark Glory and the Black Mace... and you now have a monster that has a number of stats that are better than Abaddon's, but still coming in cheaper at 240 points.
3. Alternately alternately, start with a Sorceror, and push his Mastery to Level 3, and give him the Mark of Tzeentch, Aura of Dark Glory, a force weapon, a spell familiar and Veterans of the Long War, and you now have a mini-Ahriman for 160 points. You could also give him Scrolls of Magnus for that extra bit of psyker goodness, which pushes the cost to 205 points - still cheaper than Ahriman.

And these are just three examples I cobbled together in 15 minutes. I'm pretty sure that if anyone wanted, they could do something similar with other codexes.

None of your examples are even close.
You "abbadon" has no Ap2 in melee, no T5, no fearless, no rage, no WS7, no A4, no counterstrike, no eternal warrior....
In short he isnt even CLOSE to Abaddon.
Same with the daemon prince.
Abaddon is not a good example anyways because he is not really good.
Same goes for Ahriman. You dont get ML4 and fearless or casting the same wichfire multiple times out of ANY other codex entry.

You keep ignoring that a SC has a PACKAGE of things you re normally not allowed to combine (mutliple marks for example).

Kairos is not just a Lord of change with one or two rewards. He allows you to do thing no other codex entry will allow you (picking all powers of certain schools, rerolling a single dice no matter what this dice was)

[Jan Wiklo]

In 2nd ed there was no permission to ask if someone could use x y z SC. The only time you needed permission to use something was if it was from citadel journal. I remember cause I used to run with every single BA character in a 2000 pt game and it was quite silly to see Mephiston / Dante Frenzied.

[Power Klawz]

I think when they removed the opponent approval fiat from special characters they were taking a big step away from competitive play support. They stopped promoting their big tournaments so much and really started to shrink the tournament aspect of the game to the point where it is now, which is basically nonexistent but for a few third party sponsored events. I think any emphasis that was once placed on competitive play was more a byproduct of simplicity. Back in the day they simply didn't have the ability to churn out something like a riptide or plastic baneblade. It was inherently more balanced simply because it was inherently more limited.

But this was never the vision of the design team or the creators I believe. All their source artwork depicts apocalyptic war scenes with super heavy vehicles and titans strewn about the background. They always wanted a spectacle more than a tight rules set.

It always kind of irked me when they let special characters roam freely though. I think I always had a vision of the game in my head that you were creating your own stories and characters. I started playing when I was around 12 years old and always named my characters and tried to devise a history for them, that would then entwine with whatever battles they fought. To me special characters were too jarring to the narrative, they came replete with their own premade histories and, in a lot of ways, would overshadow the conflict at hand. Its one thing for brother-captain Terrenus to battle off an incursion of orks from a far flung outpost, but its entirely less when commander Dante does it. Why would he even bother? Doesn't he have a galactic threat somewhere to handle?

So I am sort of torn with the current state of affairs. On the one hand I love that themed lists can now fit neatly into a very open framework. I like that there are whole new layers to the game with flyers and super heavies and I appreciate the variety and most importantly the sheer volume of great models. However, I can't help but feel that they do it all just to sling plastic crack and have since stopped caring, even a little bit, about rules functionality, and balance went out the window long ago when space commies flew in on jetpacks.

[Jose A. Fabian]

I don't get why people argue balance in 40k. The game and armies are unbalanced, yes, but it's a moot point to argue that when the game uses dice to determine results. I'm not saying go play chess, but what I am saying is that chess doesn't use random determinators for a reason. Playing 40k is closer to gambling, and hey there's nothing wrong with that, there are competitive gamblers out there and they have fun.