No Special Characters

[Kaiserdean]

Personally, I don't like special characters and I like "small-ball" play style but I find that about 50% of tourneys allow special or named characters.

Teclis is powerful and often cited as the reason SCs aren't allowed, but there isn't an apples-to-apples SCs. For a long time, Archaon and Teclis armies marched their way to the top placements at most tournaments while Ska the Falconer looked on in envy.

[L192837465]

I have actually never seen a tournament where special characters are not allowed. The most restricting one I've seen is "One character only, tournament wide", which boiled down to if you submitted a list with say, Teclis in it, you could use him. But no one else in the tournament could. Pretty ingenious, and I thought it was cool. But really, with the percentages change, they're OK, but I still wouldn't object to a tournament that banned only lord level special characters. I find it silly that all characters are banned for being overpowered when you can't even take a Chaos Lord on a dragon, which dies horribly to sniper cannons before it can do anything.



oh well. There's my thoughts, anyways.

[cerebros]

I'm not in the US so obviously can't answer the OP's question but here in the UK Special Characters are a rarity in being allowed (although in the past few months some tournaments have started letting them be used).

Personally I started playing Warhammer back in the days when you needed your opponent's permission to use special characters and frankly there are still some that enable boring to play against or overpowered options (witness Bryan Carmichael's Throne of Skulls winning Tomb Kings Khalida list). I don't think the game misses anything by them not being used.

[Nightstalker]

since i dont live in USA i cant say anything about that, but as far as i know all tournaments in Germany do not allow special characters (maybe except the official gw tournaments). I dont mind that. i rarely play with a special character, since those mostly were overpowered. one of my opponents usually plays with Grimgork Ironhide, but so far i always got him down (was pretty much fun with the old slaanesh lore and that spell which lets a character hit his own unit).

[alshrive]

personally i like special characters and haven't had an issue using them to date. it is my opinion that they are written into the Army Lists and i have to say nowadays are a lot more balanced. I find them very characterful (pun intended) and actually quite often theme my armies around them. i know in tournament play that themed armies don't tend to work but i actually think the idea of banning them is personally a bit silly. it is the equivalent of deciding not to use a certain section of the rulebook simply because you feel it unfair. I like to view the rules as my constraints, not being arbitrarily told what i can and cannot take.

ALShrive