Circus Nurgling Posted October 21, 2012 Share Posted October 21, 2012 Ok, I don't even play any of the legions in question, but it still bothers me. I don't understand the reasoning behind not having special characters (read: models that would sell and make money, GW) to represent any of the legions: Night Lords, Alpha Legion, Word Bearers, Iron Warriors. What other legion is there that doesn't have representation? Iron Hands? How many other legions have multiple representatives for their legion and chapter? Sure, there is the Apostle for Word Bearers, but it's practically unusable imho. A nice IC with a daemon-summoning special rule would've been nice and fluffy... daemons don't scatter, c'mon how hard would that've been??? On a roll of 6 they can assault after deep strike. Nice rules, yeah? Simple, not OP, and fluffy. I don't know enough about WB lore to make a truly suitable Lord/Apostle to properly represent, so I won't suggest one... Warpsmith for Iron Warriors. Ok, a bit more usable than the apostle, but still lacking in options imo. At least with allies you can bring in artillery now, for a grand fluffy Iron Warriors list with artillery and daemon engines. How about a fortification discount if you take a Warpsmith? Alpha Legion? Give D3 units CSM (or cultists?) infiltrate, no random roll on the warlord table (ok, sometimes my Alpha Legion lord works like he's supposed to... 1/6 of the time... bs). Again, I don't know enough about AL to make a proper Lord character, but saying 'you could just counts as Huron' doesn't sit well with me, so I can't imagine it not being distasteful at best (and insulting at worst) to an Alpha Legion fanatic. Night Lords. Stealth USR to the unit he's in, Fear to D3 CSM units? Unlocks Raptors as troops? Upgradeable to jump pack for free(but isn't obligated to take it)? I'm sure this has been discussed at length before, but I just wanted to add in my .02 (and couldn't find a topic to post in). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jiron Posted October 21, 2012 Share Posted October 21, 2012 From where I see it, Ahriman is not anymore of Thousand Sons (as he is exiled), Khârn is no longer World Eater (as he is betrayer) and so on. I don't think there are special characters for legion intended but special characters for god. So there is Ahriman for Tzeench, Khârn for Khorne, Typhus for Nurgle and Lucius for Slaanesh. Also three undivided characters with different playstyle. Unfortunatelly, I have to agree that Space Marines have better choice of special characters for different playstyles but I don't feel angry. We have killing machines and we are not supposed to be the top tacticians... well with exception of Alpha Legion (sorry, guys). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nineswords Posted October 21, 2012 Share Posted October 21, 2012 Yes, this was my feeling. I think one small change that would have rectified this and really given Chaos generals playstyle options was to simply allow you to choose Warlord Traits with any generic HQ choice outside of named characters. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Killax Posted October 21, 2012 Share Posted October 21, 2012 To keep it short: It would be epic if they decided to add more, it would be epic if they would give a WD or something similiar that would give you more legion specific rules and options. GW will never do it however. This is not in their current future plans. For some reason I think Word Bearers would be the ones who could get a character of their own, but now Dark Apostles are in the dex I don't expect it anymore. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kol Saresk Posted October 21, 2012 Share Posted October 21, 2012 Not specifically. I mean, I'm kind of scared what they would come up with for the Night Lords. There was Periclitor(who is now a Word Bearer, thank you Forgeworld[/sarcasm]), Krieg Acerbus seems to have faded away along with Ghorsameth and Tarroq Darkblood. The only way to go would really be to resurrect one of those guys or Zso Sahaal, but I don't think GW would do that. Look what they did to the Dark Apostles. They made it a generic unit. Every single picture there is of it in the Codex has it as either Black Legion or Alpha Legion. And with the "Raptor Legion" mentality of 3.5, it would end up looking something like a Warp Talon anyways. So actually, no, I'm not irked because the possibility would probably irk me more. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Killax Posted October 21, 2012 Share Posted October 21, 2012 Kol_Saresk, the irkiest man on the board :). More imho is always better even if it's unusable or unneeded. Unless the new character wouldn't get a model. The more I think about it, I would just like more models to chop up and convert... Cheers, Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Verythrax Draconis Posted October 21, 2012 Share Posted October 21, 2012 Alpha Legion would be in fact unfluffy to have a character. I believe Night Lords and Iron Warriors follow something common enough to be covered by the average Chaos Lord. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zeller Posted October 21, 2012 Share Posted October 21, 2012 They do. They're just not named characters. Plus, I agree with the idea that each god has it's champion instead of those 4 legions having a champion. Why have Jarulek for example when you can have joe blow apostle that fulfills all WBs eaqually? The warpsmith could probably have used a bit more custimizability though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Minsc Posted October 21, 2012 Share Posted October 21, 2012 There's no need for it tbh. Warpsmiths and Apostles with custom gear works for Ironwarriors/Wordbearers. Use a Chaoslord with customgear as your legions commander. Make up fluff and give him a name. Huron works for Alpha Legion, just call him something else and/or use a different model if you so wish. The only legion that suffers on the HQ-side is Nightlords, but you can still take Lords/Sorc's with Jumppacks and call them whatever you like. Custom-made HQ's work remarkably well for most of the legions. We are not Codex: Space Marines (thankfully), we don't need a SC for every legion. Besides, we have 7 special char's. If they removed any of those in favour of someone else, there would be complaints coming from the other direction instead. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kol Saresk Posted October 21, 2012 Share Posted October 21, 2012 Kol_Saresk, the irkiest man on the board :). More imho is always better even if it's unusable or unneeded. Unless the new character wouldn't get a model. The more I think about it, I would just like more models to chop up and convert... Cheers, Not specifically. Just that the Legions in question aren't exactly the most ordered of Legions without any true archetype to pick from. Look at the Night Lord Examples. In the Word Bearers, you get Erebus, Kor Phaeron, Marduk and more than a few others. Iron Warriors, Honsou, the Warmaster, Berossus(deceased, but still a usable archetype), Toramino(same boat), Kroeger(same boat), Forrix(same boat) and more than a few others. And the Alpha Legion has Voldorius, Phocron, three DoW characters(two in DoW, one in DoW:Soulstorm) and "Alpharius". Not to mention the backstabbing, counter-counter-infiltrating Omegon archetype. Take your pick. But somehow, I just don't think GW's pick will be worth a flip when you already have six SCs and as Draconis pointed out, these Legions can be covered by the average Chaos Lord/Sorcerer without having to live up to a specific archetype. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Clewz Posted October 21, 2012 Share Posted October 21, 2012 would of been nice after so many years of using the same characters for them to invent a new one or two Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Killax Posted October 21, 2012 Share Posted October 21, 2012 would of been nice after so many years of using the same characters for them to invent a new one or two Yes, some progression would have been nice, the thing is GW is not really into progression or changes because that carries a lot of costs with them. The sad thing about this is that even the fluff suffers from this now. We are forever doomed into the year of 41.999. But at least Prince can help us, party like it's 41.999. Cheers, Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jackel Posted October 21, 2012 Share Posted October 21, 2012 In some respects, I'm kinda glad that they didn't make characters for all the legions. The one thing I'm not too fond of in the current Space Marine codex is that if you want to take anything other then a generic ultramarine like chapter then you gotta take a special character to get all the special rules and options. Thats not to say that I disagree with new characters for Chaos but I don't really like the way your almost forced to take them to do a themed army in the loyalist book. Far prefer to have a more flexible army list that lets me the style and theme of the army. Just my 2 cents. Jackel Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Payce Posted October 21, 2012 Share Posted October 21, 2012 As an Iron Warrior player, I'm actually happy we don't have any special characters. The generic Warpsmith, while kinda crap, is more than enough. The reason is largely that most specials come with a way of "this is how you're SUPPOSED to play this army"-doctrine. Abby comes with Chosen, Kantor comes with Sternguard, Belial comes with Termies, Dante comes with Nipples. Whenever you have exceptions, they are either ridiculously bad (Lukas) or massively powerful (Huron, Njål). Special characters, in a way, "force" you to play the army around them in a specific manner. Now, like I've said in the Legions-thread, I don't endore one single piece of lore or one single character being the backbone of how a legion should be percieved on the battlefield. Not in rules, not in lore, and certainly not in special characters. Having an official Honsou or Forrix (or really, any other Iron Warriors from those ridiculous McNeill books) would just underline that "THIS piece of lore is correct". And I don't want that. I want my IA article, I want my page 41 in the 3,5 codex and I sure as hell don't want GW to tell me that "this guy is how Iron Warriors are supposed to be". So for me, the less special characters, the better. Save it for the legendary chararcters that already have a strong lore backing, making up new ones just to fill up a quota is just bad in my book. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trevak Dal Posted October 21, 2012 Share Posted October 21, 2012 Oh but we get count-as Huron for Alpha Legion, and a Spikey Tech Marine and a Spikey Chaplin. I wish they threw in Spikey ATSKNF, or at least a larger capacity/assault version of a Rhino. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Prophet Posted October 21, 2012 Share Posted October 21, 2012 Alpha Legion would be in fact influffy to have a character. Clever! Though wouldn't it be fun to include Alpharius from future Horus Heresy books? Except that he is not unique, so you have an army of those Alpharii. We don't need special characters for every legion when you can counts as and use the mega fun generic ones! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jiron Posted October 21, 2012 Share Posted October 21, 2012 There's no need for it tbh. Warpsmiths and Apostles with custom gear works for Ironwarriors/Wordbearers. Use a Chaoslord with customgear as your legions commander. Make up fluff and give him a name. Huron works for Alpha Legion, just call him something else and/or use a different model if you so wish. The only legion that suffers on the HQ-side is Nightlords, but you can still take Lords/Sorc's with Jumppacks and call them whatever you like. Custom-made HQ's work remarkably well for most of the legions. We are not Codex: Space Marines (thankfully), we don't need a SC for every legion. Besides, we have 7 special char's. If they removed any of those in favour of someone else, there would be complaints coming from the other direction instead. Exactly my thoughts. The possibility to take Chaos Artifacts and other cool wargear is perfect for making personified characters. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sception Posted October 21, 2012 Share Posted October 21, 2012 Actually, I can think of several ways to do a fluffy alpha legion character. For instance, imagine a named AL character known and hated by the inquisition who had been reported as showing up at many different fronts, some of them at the same time, and among his special rules would be that he always started in reserve and, unlike other special characters, he was not unique. So 'Alphalpha' rolls up on one flank and the enemy is like "there he is, kill him kill him", and then the very next turn he rolls up on the opposite flank, and the enemy is like ":)? what's going on?" Or maybe a special character squad leader, rather than an hq, someone who would give the attached CSM unit infiltrate and give you the feel of a unique character without breaking the AL's tactics of distributed command. Anyway, yeah, I was really hoping both for more special characters and for new models for the existing ones, and was honestly quite surprised to see neither. I honestly had half expected a special character for each legion, plus huron, bile, & cypher. And no, I don't think 12 special characters would have been excessive. The special character lineup is only one of the many small disappointments that stole the luster off this new book even as I was reading it for the very first time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Circus Nurgling Posted October 21, 2012 Author Share Posted October 21, 2012 Actually, I can think of several ways to do a fluffy alpha legion character. For instance, imagine a named AL character known and hated by the inquisition who had been reported as showing up at many different fronts, some of them at the same time, and among his special rules would be that he always started in reserve and, unlike other special characters, he was not unique. So 'Alphalpha' rolls up on one flank and the enemy is like "there he is, kill him kill him", and then the very next turn he rolls up on the opposite flank, and the enemy is like ":D? what's going on?" Or maybe a special character squad leader, rather than an hq, someone who would give the attached CSM unit infiltrate and give you the feel of a unique character without breaking the AL's tactics of distributed command. Anyway, yeah, I was really hoping both for more special characters and for new models for the existing ones, and was honestly quite surprised to see neither. I honestly had half expected a special character for each legion, plus huron, bile, & cypher. And no, I don't think 12 special characters would have been excessive. The special character lineup is only one of the many small disappointments that stole the luster off this new book even as I was reading it for the very first time. Yeah, same here. I was looking forward to some new fluff/history behind even 1 new character. That's an interesting idea for an A legion character. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vesper Posted October 21, 2012 Share Posted October 21, 2012 A Daemon Prince IC would have been fun. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paradigm Posted October 21, 2012 Share Posted October 21, 2012 I just want a doom rider update... :D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Haunter! Posted October 22, 2012 Share Posted October 22, 2012 Well, we got the murder sword for Night Lords, though it would have been nice to have a character that gave night vision. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deiros Posted October 22, 2012 Share Posted October 22, 2012 Well if you count IA (updated for 6th edition now) Alpha Legion does have a IC and they have their own unit which are pretty interesting. I also believe that Alpha Legion would use a normal Lord and customize it as it sees fit since the Alpha legion is so diverse and complex, you could probably use even other loyalist chapters as the base for your Alpha Legion. If you want the Alpha Legion unit from IA they Infiltrate, but have fewer weapon options and high leadership and cost 15pts if memory serves me right. There is also an Alpha Legion special character in the same IA. So if oyu are allowed to use them then don't stop yourselves from doing it and having a nice fluffy infiltrating Alpha Legion army. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kol Saresk Posted October 22, 2012 Share Posted October 22, 2012 Is that character the Cult Champion from the Cultist squad that's mentioned in the IA? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sanctimonius Posted October 22, 2012 Share Posted October 22, 2012 It does annoy me a little, though we do have a tonne of flavourful and strong characters as it is - kinda hard to fit any more in there. At least two legions have something they can use that are specifically inspired by their legions,t eh Dark Apostle for the WB and the Warpsmith for the IW, if only they were a little better. Many people are talking about 'counts as', but I feel that's missing the point. I want characters that reflect their legions and add a little to the backstory. Huron is a cool character and creates a new opportunity to go in a different direction, taking a renegade chapter as your army instead of one of the legions. I want a character that inspires people to choose Night Lords, or Alpha Legion, or anything but Black Legion, really. We are told the legions are very different in tactics and makeup, but right now the only real difference is a lick of paint. One day maybe they'll release some legion-specific rules. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.