Are Unique Characters 'Good' for the Hobby?

[Ishagu]

They are more variety on the tabletop, so yeah - of course they are good for the game.

[Kisada]

More does not objectively = better 

[Antarius]

At the risk of being annoyingly wishy-washy, I don't think it makes sense to say that SCs are simply good/bad for the hobby/game.

 

I mean, I personally find it annoying if Abaddon the Despoiler, Wamaster of Chaos (etc. etc.) tags along every time ten cultists decide to pop down to the 7-11 to stock up on munchies. However, if somebody wants to do an army that is specifically Lucius the Eternal and his followers, I think that is 100% valid and that army concept would certainly suffer quite a bit, if you couldn't take Lucius.

 

As for SCs being "unrealistic" in some way, I think that's an argument that only really works to a very limited degree. Sure, there are millions of battles in the universe, so if we just zoom in on a random one, it's statistically unlikely that we'd see Guilliman striding around.

But then again, it's equally "unrealistic" that every battle involves Jarl Deathwolf's Great Company, isn't it? But I don't think you'll ever encounter the view that people ought to repaint their army to represent different chapters/companies from game to game.

 

As for SCs dying left and right, I can sort of see that argument but again, with the amount of Marines (not to mention Captains and Chapter Masters) dying every game, noone should be "allowed" to play the "official" chapters anymore, as they would certainly have all died out many games ago, realistically speaking.

So, I don't really think the "realism" argument holds up to closer scrutiny; I suspect most people do the same thing with special characters that they do with their own homebrewed characters or their army in general. They assume that they're badly wounded or taken out of the battle somehow, rather than go "oh well, now I can never use my converted and painted Chaos Lord, Endamyon Deathbringer, again - better put him on ebay straight away".

 

My point here is, we don't play this game to simulate a totally random part of the 40K universe (in which case we'd probably see a lot more janitors and cleaning ladies than Space Marines and Sisters of Battle, just to take the argument to its logical conclusion).

I mean, I get the idea that it's boring if every battle is Guilliman vs Guilliman, but that's more of an issue with boring and repetitive armies than with the concept of SCs imho.

[Noserenda]

Ive never had a problem with SCs in general, though some tend to be annoyingly broken in any version of the game, much as any other unit might be tbh. I use them from time to time, or a counts-as if i need their mechanics not their fluff. That said my latest builds have all been without them, though i am very tempted by a counts-as tank commander chap for my Scythes ;) 

I think folks previously overstate how rare SC deployments actually are anyhow, i mean the average chapter is only fighting in like 3 places at once usually, with relatively small deployments and a handful or officers on each. With most Marine SCs being Captains or equivalent it might actually be rarer for them to be out of action :D  (And thats before we get onto things like Nids and Daemons who really can be in 2 places at once).

The problem i actually have right now is the fixed armaments creeping out on characters, which is frankly godawful and a much much worse thing for the game imho.
 

[Cpt_Reaper]

A thought occurs:

 

Some Special Characters started life as a writer's captain/general/etc. Now they are more than a statline, they are a character.

 

How would that character react upon meeting mine? How would mine act upon meeting a character belonging to...Ishagu.

 

There. I just hobbied.

[deathspectersgt7]

  Now I realize that every meta is different and I'm sure that characters are plentiful in other areas 

Then don't claim someone is being deceptive(fallacy) if you have not been there.

[Bryan Blaire]

A fallacy is not "being deceptive", it's using a flawed argumentative method - a logical issue that causes an argument to be unsound/hold less value.

 

The argument about the presence of SCs breaking the "narrative of your guys" when you clearly haven't talked to your opponent before about the narrative is funny and makes the argument moot. When I say that, it's because a lot of people seem to be interested in trying to have a narrative for their army, then are showing up and your opponent "plonks down" an SC. If you had discussed the narrative of the game previously, then either they totally ignored the discussion, in which case you already likely know not to play the game, OR you didn't talk to them at all (such as this is a pick-up game or tournament), in which case you didn't make any effort either and narrative isn't really the basis of the game anyway (I.e. There is nothing to complain about).

 

Trying to re-write the "gaming universe" because of pick up games or tournaments is just silly.

 

Seriously, if you don't want to play against SCs, then talk to your opponent beforehand. If you can't be bothered to make that effort, why should your opponent be bothered to make any effort to suit your specific style/narrative for play?

 

Regarding the narrative perspective, someone already touched on this, but I've seen people say that they want to play with "their named characters" instead of SCs - okay, great, I do too! I even want to write rules for them (and strive very hard to balance them out as well), but do you use the same character model for every game? If you do, don't you find that immersion breaking already? After all, in a single sector of the greater GW official universe, you don't find Farsight Tau, Hive Fleet Kraken Tyranids, Samm Hain Craftworld Eldar, Poisoned Eyes Dark Eldar, Ultramarines led by their 4th Company Captain (or even the same lieutenant), Imperial Fists 5th Company, Flash Gitz Orks, etc. That just isn't how the greater GW official universe is laid out. Also, in many of GW's story elements, different companies of Marine Chapters or different Craftworld components, or even different splinter fleets, fight in different engagements (in the Codex text, not necessarily Black Library stuff). So if you are using the same named and modeled character for "your guy" every single game, you are already working to justify games, which means it shouldn't be any more justification difficulty as to why a specific SC is present at a battle than your repetitively named guy for your narrative.

 

Now, if you don't call him by the same name, but you use the same wargear load out and rules (and even the same model), then you are still doing the same thing as someone "counts-as"ing a Special Character, it's just that your guy doesn't have a name from GW official material. Doesn't change what you are doing.

[Blindhamster]

would would always having the same named character mean we'd struggle to justify it? Who says those games are happening close together in setting, or even in chronological order? No issue there at all. In fact, that argument is a good example of a fallacy :P

I personally like both named characters and special characters. Narrative is cool, and it's always nice to have some ideas ahead of time. Usually in games I play I briefly describe the scenario I think has resulted in the game being setup as it is (last large game I played, it was my primaris blood angels fighting alongside red scorpions against a tau player, i decided that my captain was relatively newly promoted at that point and had been secunded to fight alongside the red scorpions in the sector against the tau incursion, I also decided I wouldnt be the warlord as my ally had Culln, so felt it made sense that my captain would give leadership to him.

[Bryan Blaire]

Blindhamster, you're actually illustrating my point - if you can justify using the same character over and over when it's "your guy", then you can justify the same for any SC...

 

Edit: Ah, I see what you meant, I including "struggling" when I meant "working". I have since adjusted it to say that. The idea being "If you can figure out how to justify a narrative of 'Company Master Zachriel, Lord of the 3rd Company' at each and every battle you fight, then you could use the same method of justification for 'Cato Sicarius, Ultramarines 2nd Company Commander'."

[Blindhamster]

on that we agree, as I personally like special characters, I don't always use em, but when I do, it's special!

[CrimsonReign]

if you dont like characters, dont take them

dont tell other people how to enjoy their hobby

[Ishagu]

if you dont like characters, dont take them

 

dont tell other people how to enjoy their hobby

Truth. Lots of hobby fascists in here :-P

[Brother_Gneecapper]

A ban of special characters limits players choices, allowing special characters but having a discussion with your friends / opponents on what you're going to be bringing does not impose a game wide restriction. Special characters are good for the hobby on both sides, allowing options in play styles and allowing for cool modeling and painting opportunities.

 

If you don't like special characters don't play with them. What I dont understand is why people feel the need to impose their beliefs on the play styles of others. Tournament settings are the only times you're "forced" to play with someone and those are typically all net lists anyways with little to no variety and has been that way for years.

[Khornestar]

Elitism of preferences; mistaking one's opinions as superior to others (as if such a thing were possible ). Same as with any other hobby/thing in life related to personal taste.

[Wayniac]

I agree with the OP.  I think part of the fun of 40k is to make your own characters, and tell your own stories.  That is lost when you are fielding special characters who exist within the lore and are just adding to/retelling/ignoring their stories.  It's really bad IMHO that you are "forced" to take special characters or suffer.

[Kinstryfe]

I agree with the OP.  I think part of the fun of 40k is to make your own characters, and tell your own stories.  That is lost when you are fielding special characters who exist within the lore and are just adding to/retelling/ignoring their stories.  It's really bad IMHO that you are "forced" to take special characters or suffer.

I'm not trying to be snarky, but I see this same argument made repeatedly, and I don't think arguing that SCs limit our creativity holds up.

 

Isn't this what counts-as is for? Is anyone really going to tell me that my Ultramarines Chapter Master in fancy Terminator armour with two giant gauntlets with Bolters on them can't be used as Calgar in my Scouring Era force? Rules are just rules. I'm not going to get mad and tell someone that the Angels Sanguine aren't "Blood Angels" and that their warlord can't be counts-as Dante. A Consecrators army can't use "Azrael" because even though they're Dark Angels successors and using Dark Angels rules, they aren't "Dark Angels"? If you want to field James Khan, Chapter Master of the White Scars during mid m35, with the current Khan rules, I say go for it.

Special Characters don't prevent you from creating your own characters, chapter, or timeline. They give you an alternative template of rules to do that with. This is a game where two inch tall toy soldiers and dice represent orbital drops of genetically engineered eight foot tall superhumans into swarms of genetically malleable super bugs. You can't accept that premise unless you have a certain level of suspension of disbelief as to how the game universe works. Think about it, the fluff even has several logical conflicts based on what we know certain chapters were doing at certain times, or in the current date of the timeline. Ultramarines versus Blood Angels? Pretty much literally impossible at the moment, they aren't at odds. Ynnari Aeldari versus Ultramarines? Put your models away, those two groups play nice right now. If someone can justify those matchups, then certainly you can justify Igneus Flameson, Chapter Master of the Flame Lizards circa m37 in our games if you soldiers.

 

An argument against the rules aspect of SCs is a legitimate argument that needs to be addressed, because SCs do range from flavorful rules to game changing. Claiming that SCs limit our creativity and imagination just isn't true though.

[MadGreek]

 

 If you want to field James Khan, Chapter Master of the White Scars during mid m35, with the current Khan rules, I say go for it.

 

 

In a thread that has become somewhat tiresome - THIS made me laugh!

[Yodhrin]

​

 

​​​Well, I know you're not actually interested, but I'll give you the answer anyway - someone can love reading about Gaunt's Ghosts, or Angron, or Rowboat McAwesomeman, yet never ever want to actually use them on the table or play against them because we're meant to be fighting in a setting consisting of an entire bloody galaxy with hundreds of thousands of active conflicts occurring at every level from gang wars all the way up to crusades with tens of millions of soldiers, and running into the setting's Big Damn Heroes on a continual basis in a company level engagement makes a total mockery of that premise. It also means, for those of us who do actually like the setting and care about how it interacts with our tabletop experience, that we lose any real control of the narratives of our own armies - a Special Character is in a certain place doing certain things based on whatever the related official "story" is, and so to fight them your army must be in that place and time as well. You might have an elaborate story in your mind for your character and where they are in terms of the setting's "present day", but unless that story is "they are wherever Rowboat is" it means the square root of thin-air if you show up for a game and someone plonks down Guilliman. Your present-day army is going to have to experience some pretty gnarly timey-wimey stuff in order to end up centuries in the past to fight Gaunt's Ghosts, or Tycho.

​Special Characters should be what they were initially conceived as - special. As in, for special occasions, for refighting the stories tied explicitly to those characters, for campaigns dedicated to those times & places, not something you need to use to get the best rules for a given faction. But hey, GW figured out they can use the Saturday morning cartoon model to flog people big ol' build-your-own action figures, so it's not like this is actually a discussion, they're not going to go back now.

 

But could you understand why people would see the appeal in that?

If you can't, the issue isn't special characters or the people who want them, I can tell you that much.

 

Being able to take Pedro Kantor to really drive home the Rynn's World and Crimson Fists theme of your era specific force doesn't make Pedro Kantor any less special of a character.

 

You don't see anyone here forcing YOU to take stuff YOU don't like. You don't see anyone here saying we should ban all non-named characters. You're the one saying only your feelings on the narrative are right, and nobody else should be allowed to take named characters. Not every battle needs to take place in 999.M41 either. Thanks for assuming I'm not interested though, it really highlights why everyone is so upset at the anti-character crowd and their poor attitude. The fact that you think anyone who takes a named character doesn't care at all about how the lore interacts with their tabletop experience is laughable. In fact, I can probably gather a good few thousand laughs from all the Badab War participants who field their characters to recreate the campaign. The entire reason I take named characters is specifically BECAUSE I care about the lore. Otherwise I'd just use some generic min/max Chapter Master or Librarian like everyone did in 7E.

 

 

​The reason I say you don't care is obvious and you indulge in it again in this post - you don't argue against what people say, you discount any qualifiers they make, and then you insist they have a bad attitude so you can dismiss them out of hand. Look at your Badab War comment, which is a complete joke when the exact post you're quoting specifically calls out exactly that kind of scenario as being what SCs should be for. You also remark on my comment about caring about the lore while totally ignoring the actual words and the construction of them - care about the setting(as in, its totality) and how it interacts with our tabletop experience. That's not an argument that people who like SCs don't care about the lore, it's an argument that people who care about the lore in a specific way are marginalised by SCs being a default rather than an optional addition. In the same way that lumping Superheavies and Fliers and giant supey-hero models into the basic rules makes the game less appealing for people who just want to collect a "normal" army and have it fight similar "normal" armies rather than be blender-fodder for someone else's power fantasy.

​

And it's once again a total joke for you to label people as "anti-SC" when I don't think even a single person has argued SCs should be removed from the game entirely, merely that they either be limited to where they were originally intended to belong - narrative games & campaigns focused on them specifically - or be recontextualised as exemplars of certain archetypes within a "build your own" character system that removes the explicit gameplay advantage many of them presently provide.

​

​Before you lecture people about bad attitudes, try toning down the disingenuous and dismissive form of your own arguments.

[the jeske]

You don't see anyone here forcing YOU to take stuff YOU don't like. You don't see anyone here saying we should ban all non-named characters. You're the one saying only your feelings on the narrative are right, and nobody else should be allowed to take named characters. Not every battle needs to take place in 999.M41 either. Thanks for assuming I'm not interested though, it really highlights why everyone is so upset at the anti-character crowd and their poor attitude. The fact that you think anyone who takes a named character doesn't care at all about how the lore interacts with their tabletop experience is laughable. In fact, I can probably gather a good few thousand laughs from all the Badab War participants who field their characters to recreate the campaign. The entire reason I take named characters is specifically BECAUSE I care about the lore. Otherwise I'd just use some generic min/max Chapter Master or Librarian like everyone did in 7E.

 

What do you mean by "not being forced". Valdus is probably in every GK army. For a lot of builds primarchs are the most optimal HQs. And this is just the edition now, before it was the same you had Eldrad in every army that could take him. Solar Macharius in every IG gunline that could take him[and this is more a case of being able to get your hands on the models. Carobul and mefiston for BAs in 5th. Draigo for Draigo wing lists etc etc.

 

the only thing I think we lost was armies being unlocked only through special[like the different wing lists DA had], but that has more to do with how FoC changed.

[Bryan Blaire]

​I don't think even a single person has argued SCs should be removed from the game entirely, merely that they either be limited to where they were originally intended to belong - narrative games & campaigns focused on them specifically - or be recontextualised as exemplars of certain archetypes within a "build your own" character system that removes the explicit gameplay advantage many of them presently provide.​​

So if the issue is with the narrative of the story of "your guys", how is limiting SCs to narrative games doing anything at all with regards to how you game? Are you saying that you care about the narrative of "your guys" in non-narrative games? If your narrative is the issue, then aren't you only playing narrative games, which is exactly where you are saying SCs should be placed, in which case under the right circumstances, it's totally appropriate for you to play against SCs?

 

Conversely, if you aren't playing narrative games, then the presence of SCs on the game table has zero impact and your narrative has absolutely no conflict at all regardless of what you are playing because you aren't playing a narrative.

 

Additionally, what does limiting them to opponent's permission do, other than give another player power over someone else's list? It doesn't change the fundamental before game discussion any. The discussion will basically go one of two ways (assuming both people feel strongly enough to want to game with figures they own):

Player 1: "You are playing with Guilliman? My guys' story don't ever have them fighting anywhere around Guilliman."

Player 2: "Oh, well, sorry, I like playing with my Guilliman that I spent time and effort on."

Player 1: "Yeah, but I really value my army's narrative, so I really can't play you because I want to keep to that."

Player 2: "Well, that's disappointing, but I think it's cool how sincere you are over your army's story."

Player 1 & 2: "I guess we're not playing a game."

 

or

 

Player 1: "Hey, I made an army list up so that I could play some of Guilliman's distribution of the Primaris Marines!"

Player 2: "Yeah, but I'm not letting you play with Guilliman, you didn't ask my permission beforehand and I don't want to play a 'Distribution of Primaris' story."

Player 1: "Oh, well I thought this would be really cool and I spent the time and effort on my Guilliman model, so I'd really like to play with him!"

Player 2: "Sorry, I don't want to play against him, so either take him out of your list or we'll have to do something else."

Player 1: "Well, I really wanted to play with him today, sorry I didn't get your permission first."

Player 1 & 2: "I guess we're not playing a game."

 

Either way, someone is denying something to the other person. By denying the other person, you may be denying that person the narrative behind the army that they created and worked hard on. Is that right? If one player's army's narrative means so much to a player, then shouldn't the other player's narrative for their army matter equally? Maybe their army narrative revolves around the many undocumented battles of Captain Lysander or Mephiston or Shrike. They like the theme of that army just as much as you like yours, why should their narrative be of any less value?

 

Now, the absolutely separate argument that SCs shouldn't automatically have better rules - well, they should be balanced points-wise better if they are just flat out better in all ways (something that GW said they intended to do) or they should not have all the better rules and there should be accessibility to rules that you can't get with SCs. Not every commander is going to use forces the same way, use assets the same way, have the same capabilities, and it would be nice if the rules reflected that. Just because it would be nice to have that doesn't mean the SCs are the problem though, it means the rules are not as substantial and fully developed as players want them to be.

 

As well, even if the rules issues were resolved, it would do absolutely nothing in regards to the narrative impacts of special characters, those would still be official characters by GW that were supposed to be in specific places doing specific actions, so them showing up on the tabletop would still cause just as much narrative difficulty as they would if the rules remain exactly as they are.

 

So which of these two arguments - the narrative argument or the rules argument - is the real reason SCs are an issue?

[Ishagu]

Permission clauses are an absolutely and utterly terrible idea.

 

Also, frankly in 8th edition the imbalance that people worry about is nothing compared to what we had in 7th. Back then Tau had all the rules Guilliman provides without having Guilliman lol, and Eldar were stomping around with invincible Gargantuans.

Get over it guys. Special Characters are great. I always want to include one in every list I write, and others are the same

[Bryan Blaire]

Special Characters are great. I always want to include one in every list I write, and others are the same

An absolute statement like this does nothing to further the discussion or any arguments made. WHY do you feel like they are great, and what makes you want to include one in every list you write?

 

Until everyone gets to an understanding of the root cause of their like or dislike of special characters, nothing can really be able to be determined.

[Brother_Gneecapper]

 

Special Characters are great. I always want to include one in every list I write, and others are the same

An absolute statement like this does nothing to further the discussion or any arguments made. WHY do you feel like they are great, and what makes you want to include one in every list you write?

 

Until everyone gets to an understanding of the root cause of their like or dislike of special characters, nothing can really be able to be determined.

 

 

I think 8 pages of a thread has determined that people have deeply rooted beliefs on special characters either for or against and do not wish to give them up. I don't think we'll ever reach a general forum agreement here. I boil it down to this, if you don't like them don't play with them or against them. A large group of the community does enjoy and use them and should be allowed that right because it's all our game to enjoy. Ultimately the play groups will decide what's right for their particular scene, if your group hates SC's or people to refuse to play against them they likely wont be used much.

 

Ultimately SC's add flavor to the narrative and the table top, "generic" army approach is stale that is a problem Necrons had in their early codex's and the reason why they now have alot of SC's. If you have no character to relate to it's hard to find a story interesting.

[Slave to Darkness]

Get over it guys. Special Characters are bad. I never include one in every list I write, and others are the same

Fixed that for ya ;)

[Bryan Blaire]

I don't think we'll ever reach a general forum agreement here.

That's why I didn't ask for general forum agreement.

 

I asked specifically for people to realize their actual "deep seated reasons" for why you either like or dislike Special Characters. There can be many reasons for it, and many are valid, but may not be internally consistent, though some suggestions put forward don't seem to actually tie to the reason the suggestion was made, per my long post prior to Ishagu's.

 

Things like "I just don't like them" or "If you don't like them, don't play against them" or "I always like using" do absolutely nothing regarding defining the reasons you don't like them. Comments such as "I think they should still be permission only because that's the way it was in 3rd addition and that is the one I liked the most" is a reason that can be discussed. "They are always overpowered" or "Their rules are never fair" are reasons that can be analyzed and discussed.