The most competitive army possible.

[thade]

I would never ever listen to anything coming from someone in the ETC for competitive advice. They have their own FAQs which change the game drastically and often have comp rules. It's not competitive if you're shooting yourselves in the foot to play now is it?

 

"No special characters are allowed" yeah, shooting yourself in the foot to play.

Your specific example here eludes me (certainly, special characters are not required to win or even have a fun game). I've never seen their FAQ though; I am curious to now.

[DarkGuard]

"No special characters are allowed" yeah, shooting yourself in the foot to play.

 

Ooo, harsh. I purposefully restrict myself against using special characters in my lists and I get on fine, many more wins than draws or losses, and I use either a generic Chapter Master, Captain or Librarian. There's a misconception, especially around C:SM, that you need to use SCs to be competitive. No you don't. They help, but only if they fit your playstyle. Other choices do just as well, and I'll have you know my Master has been performing fantastically recently, as has the rest of my army.

[TyrionTheImp]

With C:SM, it's not shooting yourself in the foot as much as say C:DA. No Ravenwing? No Deathwing? Too bad!

 

I suppose "shooting yourself in the foot" is a bad analogy, as for most armies it's not true. I've already made that point with C:DA though. It's more like purposefully making the game bland. No Loganwing, no Draigowing, no shrike stuff, no Khan stuff, no Dantewing, and people complain about not seeing variety as it is. Everything I just named is pretty competitive and pretty different from run of the mill mech stuff. That's only SM armies I've listed too.

[thade]

With C:SM, it's not shooting yourself in the foot as much as say C:DA. No Ravenwing? No Deathwing? Too bad!

 

I don't know much about the DA codex; is it 4th or 3rd ed? I've only met one DA player...and, while a nice guy, he is not very good at the game. He loves to model and, to his credit, he's very good at it.

 

All of the codecies I'm familiar with seem within reasonable range of one another power-wise with the exception of the poor Necrons, who've been left behind. They need an update badly. Possibly DA are in the same boat? :)

[TyrionTheImp]

DA are perfectly competitive if you use Deathwing or Ravenwing, and those require special characters to unlock. There's only one Greenwing (AKA regular marines and such) build that I know of that's special and only they can do and it's not very good. So yeah, no special characters would be shooting yourself in the foot with DA.

[Corby]

"No special characters are allowed" yeah, shooting yourself in the foot to play.

 

Ooo, harsh. I purposefully restrict myself against using special characters in my lists and I get on fine, many more wins than draws or losses, and I use either a generic Chapter Master, Captain or Librarian. There's a misconception, especially around C:SM, that you need to use SCs to be competitive. No you don't. They help, but only if they fit your playstyle. Other choices do just as well, and I'll have you know my Master has been performing fantastically recently, as has the rest of my army.

 

 

I restrict myself to no special characters as well , special characters , while they do make the game fun , are not required.

 

 

 

@ TyrionTheImp

 

 

It was simply a suggestion , no need to come across so defensively. Even though they've their own faq , the basic principles of list building still stands , many of the players present at the Etc have had to qualify by being the top players in their country (According to Rankingshq anyways) and for players new to the competitive tournament aspect of the game , seeing what more experienced players are doing and how it relates to your own list building could be a valuable tool.

[DarkGuard]

With C:SM, it's not shooting yourself in the foot as much as say C:DA. No Ravenwing? No Deathwing? Too bad!

 

I suppose "shooting yourself in the foot" is a bad analogy, as for most armies it's not true. I've already made that point with C:DA though. It's more like purposefully making the game bland. No Loganwing, no Draigowing, no shrike stuff, no Khan stuff, no Dantewing, and people complain about not seeing variety as it is. Everything I just named is pretty competitive and pretty different from run of the mill mech stuff. That's only SM armies I've listed too.

 

Ah, agreed, C:DA do need special characters to work.

 

It's a bit weird, but in my view using special characters doesn't add variety. It may just be because there's a lot of SCs in my local metagame, like Crowe, Dante, Astorath, Vulkan, Logan etc, and all these characters sort of force the armies into certain unit selections and style of play, thereby clamping down on the variety. These units are taken because they're powerful, or make more powerful choices more useful, and so lots of people take them, and then if you're not using an SC you're doing something different.

 

Also, not using SCs allows you to make more viable unit selections outside of what a certain SC would make you use. If you use Vulkan you can bet every weapon upgrade will flamer or melta. If you take a Captain though you can viably take plasma. But that's just my take on it.

 

But you're right, most armies don't need SCs to be competitive, but some armies like C:DA do.