Permanent death of heroes and villains in Warhammer 40K lore. We need it.

[Evil Eye]

36 minutes ago, gaurdian31 said:

So this discussion has me curious, what makes a named character? Is it just having a name and being written about in novels? Is it their specific rules? How is bringing Marneus Calgar different from bringing a captain in Gravis armor with two power fists to every game? If I name my unnamed character and always have in my army is that making the setting smaller or is it fine because he doesn't have a name in the wider lore? Like I said, this has made me curious on why Calgar is bad, but captain power fist is ok for one example. I tend not to bring named characters, but that's mainly because the main army I play only has one with the Red Corsairs and Huron needs a new model, otherwise I would use him more often.

For me it's a combination of it being a pre-made character as opposed to one you made yourself, and the tendency for them to be overpowered in the fluff, the tabletop or both. Obviously not all named characters are created equal, and I think someone making a Red Corsairs army led by Huron Blackheart (who himself is a much more minor but interesting figure than a lot of the other "He's the [X]iest [Y] in the galaxy!" guys) is a lot more respectable than "I have always loved Guilliman, hence why I bring him to every game, please ignore the yellow paint showing through on my Ultramarines". I dunno, "legendary but rarely-seen pirate lord from the Maelstrom" is a lot cooler than "He's the biggest baddest big bad ever and he deletes Dreadnoughts by looking at them and he's everywhere and isn't he cool?" at least to me.

[HeadlessCross]

1 hour ago, Evil Eye said:

So now you're just being disingenuous and intentionally obtuse, got it. You know what I meant. But just in case you didn't, existing "canon" named special characters (Primarchs, Phoenix Lords, Ghazghkul etc) becoming ubiquitous to the point it's more rare to see an army without one of them is trite, boring and a little depressing.

 

Ironically, Age of Sigmar of all systems actually had something good going for it with the Anvil of Apotheosis system allowing for custom characters to be made and used in the game (with opponent's permission)- I used it to write up a battle standard bearer for my GSG, both mitigating the horrendous leadership of the faction and also more importantly allowing me to put a goblin with a big impressive flag in the army, until GW decided to shoot themselves in the foot with AOS 4th edition. I dunno if AoA made it to 4th but considering the amount of stuff they wiped out- a bunch of Stormcast units, Beastmen as an army in AOS, Savage Orcs as an army at all, and perhaps most damningly the entire leadership/morale system- I'm not interested in finding out.

 

Anyway, point being there's lots of things they could do to improve players' ability to make their own characters and represent them on the tabletop without resorting to "reskinning" special characters, but GW won't do it for fear of people realizing they don't have to buy that ridiculously posed new named character with a mini-diorama on his drastically oversized base, or that parts from different boxes can be freely combined to make something not in the instructions.

Once again, you're not relegated to use the exact model and/or paint scheme when you use those unit profiles. As I said above to someone, your lack of imagination and sense of superiority is not my concern nor should it be the rules writer's concern (they clearly have other things they need to focus on). My own "Chapter Master" has a Flamer, and has used every profile from generic guys with a Flamer + Relic to make it better to Huron to Vulkan to Artemis, all depending on what type of list I want to craft. 

[Sonder76]

If a named character for a faction I collect has an amazing model then I would buy & use him. However I dont care how good they are in the rules... if the model is bad I aint buying it and therefore wont be using it. 

 

This probably comes from me being a painter & converter of models first and gamer second. 

I know they aint characters specifically but a good example of my thinking is that I hate the Marine Bike asthetic and have never used Marine Bikes. They look dumb and wouldn't be usable on tarmac let alone a warzone. 

 

However In the grand scheme of things it doesn't bother me much if big time named characters are available.

[Evil Eye]

12 hours ago, HeadlessCross said:

Once again, you're not relegated to use the exact model and/or paint scheme when you use those unit profiles. As I said above to someone, your lack of imagination and sense of superiority is not my concern nor should it be the rules writer's concern (they clearly have other things they need to focus on). My own "Chapter Master" has a Flamer, and has used every profile from generic guys with a Flamer + Relic to make it better to Huron to Vulkan to Artemis, all depending on what type of list I want to craft. 

"I have always loved the Iron Hands!"

[gaurdian31]

15 hours ago, Evil Eye said:

For me it's a combination of it being a pre-made character as opposed to one you made yourself, and the tendency for them to be overpowered in the fluff, the tabletop or both. Obviously not all named characters are created equal, and I think someone making a Red Corsairs army led by Huron Blackheart (who himself is a much more minor but interesting figure than a lot of the other "He's the [X]iest [Y] in the galaxy!" guys) is a lot more respectable than "I have always loved Guilliman, hence why I bring him to every game, please ignore the yellow paint showing through on my Ultramarines". I dunno, "legendary but rarely-seen pirate lord from the Maelstrom" is a lot cooler than "He's the biggest baddest big bad ever and he deletes Dreadnoughts by looking at them and he's everywhere and isn't he cool?" at least to me.

So is it more of the band wagon jumping that you don't like? In your Guilliman example it sounds like someone decided to take him for his rules as the army was previously Imperial Fists? Sorry, I'm not trying to call you out or anything, I'm just trying to understand.  How do you feel about models like the Avatar of Khaine, which is and isn't a named character? Thought now I feel like I am going a bit off topic.

[Evil Eye]

1 hour ago, gaurdian31 said:

So is it more of the band wagon jumping that you don't like? In your Guilliman example it sounds like someone decided to take him for his rules as the army was previously Imperial Fists? Sorry, I'm not trying to call you out or anything, I'm just trying to understand.  How do you feel about models like the Avatar of Khaine, which is and isn't a named character? Thought now I feel like I am going a bit off topic.

That's pretty much my point yeah. Taking [X] character just because of his rules regardless of how well he fits the theme of the army always rubbed me the wrong way. I feel the same about particular subfactions getting used all the time regardless of the actual army; if your Chapter is descended from the White Scars and there are rules for White Scars successors, then running them with rules specificially meant for a different Chapter (or successors thereof) does seem a bit weak. Especially when the exact Chapter they count as seems to change according to the latest patch.

 

Primarchs in particular are a bit of a special case as honestly I'm not a fan of them being in the game at all, but the point still stands.

 

The Avatar is a bit of a different case as it's not a unique "only one in the galaxy" entity; there's one per Craftworld, after all. I think they should be reserved for larger games given their last-resort nature but that's about it.

[HeadlessCross]

59 minutes ago, Evil Eye said:

That's pretty much my point yeah. Taking [X] character just because of his rules regardless of how well he fits the theme of the army always rubbed me the wrong way. I feel the same about particular subfactions getting used all the time regardless of the actual army; if your Chapter is descended from the White Scars and there are rules for White Scars successors, then running them with rules specificially meant for a different Chapter (or successors thereof) does seem a bit weak. Especially when the exact Chapter they count as seems to change according to the latest patch.

 

Primarchs in particular are a bit of a special case as honestly I'm not a fan of them being in the game at all, but the point still stands.

 

The Avatar is a bit of a different case as it's not a unique "only one in the galaxy" entity; there's one per Craftworld, after all. I think they should be reserved for larger games given their last-resort nature but that's about it.

Why should someone use Ultramarines rules for their Doom Eagles if they don't think the rules fit?

5 hours ago, Evil Eye said:

"I have always loved the Iron Hands!"

Yeah, the guy that uses the Huron rules would clearly be a pure powergamer vs someone experimenting with lists. You sound awful to play against. 

[Evil Eye]

1 hour ago, HeadlessCross said:

Why should someone use Ultramarines rules for their Doom Eagles if they don't think the rules fit?

6 hours ago, Evil Eye said:

"Well Guilliman is really good and the top tourney players recommend I use him so I guess they're Ultramarines today. No, there isn't a tournament coming up and my FLGS is mostly a friendly environment, why do you ask?"

 

1 hour ago, HeadlessCross said:

You sound awful to play against. 

"You don't run your army as a proxy for the New Hotness? Ugh, you must be a terrible opponent!"

[Beef]

Who ever said logan need to be killed off is a heretic.  For me personally i would love Tycho to come back, he had an awesome model when he was retired and seeing the BA models now i feel a conversion would be easy enough.  Sorry I digress, as others being a painter first ever since i first saw the Ragnar and Ulric model back in the 90s and played during 3rd and 4th edition I have always loved character models, they are the centre piece of any army.  

 

There was a time when you needed opponent permission to use a named character which encouraged players to make their own generic characters.  In all my years having owned Ragnar i have never actually used him in a game not that i played much but instead used my own generic Wolf Lord(i stopped playing around 5th edition or was it 6th with all the flyers) 

 

I will be using Ragnar for the first time ever on Thursday hopefully.  

 

As for people switching armies because something is now the hottest army at tournaments thats always been the case since 3rd edition.  This hobby falls into a few categories.  Those  that play casual, those that play competitive, those that love the lore, those that love to paint/convert.  Most fall into one of these or several of these categories.  

 

Yes let named characters die, im fine with that as long as its not Grimnar or Ragnar or any SW characters or Dante.  Personally i feel Azrael and Azmodi could be retired now that the lion is back.  

 

Rant over

[HeadlessCross]

3 hours ago, Evil Eye said:

"Well Guilliman is really good and the top tourney players recommend I use him so I guess they're Ultramarines today. No, there isn't a tournament coming up and my FLGS is mostly a friendly environment, why do you ask?"

 

"You don't run your army as a proxy for the New Hotness? Ugh, you must be a terrible opponent!"

And there's a problem with someone tightening up their list writing because....?

[HeadlessCross]

2 hours ago, Beef said:

Who ever said logan need to be killed off is a heretic.

Killing off characters is perfectly fine as long as you can still use them. 

[Evil Eye]

38 minutes ago, HeadlessCross said:

And there's a problem with someone tightening up their list writing because....?

Turning your army into a counts-as for a different subfaction solely depending on the meta =/= "tightening up their list writing".

[Brother Tyler]

We're getting sidetracked with some really petty bickering. Just because someone has a different opinion than you doesn't make them a bad person. Nor does it mean that their opinion is wrong.

 

This topic is about whether or not members of the community think that [some] characters should be killed off in the lore. Let's get back on that topic.

 

And remember - we're not all going to agree, and that's okay.

[ThePenitentOne]

9 hours ago, Evil Eye said:

 

 

The Avatar is a bit of a different case as it's not a unique "only one in the galaxy" entity; there's one per Craftworld, after all. I think they should be reserved for larger games given their last-resort nature but that's about it.

I love the fact that you have to sacrifice in Crusade in order to field an Avatar. In 9th I think you had to remove an Exarch from your order of battle. In 10th, I think an Aspect unit has to take a battle scar. It also only stays with your army for as long as you're guiding fate; once the Crisis is over, it returns to the craftworld, while the sacrifice made to bring it to battle remains.

 

Since the Nachmund campaign opened up named characters in Crusade, I think it might be interesting to expand situational narrative costs like these to other armies as a way of ensuring that it makes narrative sense to include a named character in a battle. Obviously this wouldn't apply in matched play games, so it doesn't solve any problems for pick-up games, but it provides a system that might be more conducive to successful inclusion of named characters in narrative games.

[TheTrans]

100% percent love characters being killed off in the lore.

Currently in the middle of a multi year 3rd binge, where dead models being available to use in game very much exists, as well as generally point limitations on which characters can be used (I think Abby needs to be in an army of 2000 points or greater, so he isn't rocking up to a skirmish) as well as the opponents permission (which in all honesty to me, is just GW passing the buck on).

Off the top of my head you have Tycho (and the ability to run his entire company that have succombed to the black rage), Ancient Helevictus and First Captain Invictus who both died during the First Tyrannic War. Hell Gaunt and his Ghosts are long-dead in the current timeline also.

I thing, and its just so GW can sell models, so I've said that now and won't touch on it again, but the current 'everyone is all here' events are just crap, sure everyone gets to be involved, but it weakens any real narrative IMHO. The extension of everyone is always invovled, therefore generally has the byproduct of well now these named characters (which luckily have a model) are involved, which does make the universe feel smaller. This all to me at least stems from 40k going from a slowly-churning 'setting' which has fantastic sandbox qualities, to a sequential narrative, always moving forward, which does in now way encourage 'dead' characters or older settings. Primaris probably should have been a big warning of things to come, they explicity can't exist in any setting prior to Guillaman getting back up an Cawl running about with his mr fix it box. 

So we get to the crux of named characters dying. Now in the past, many characters that existed as models, were already dead at the in univers 'current' date, but due to that current date generally not moving, people were happy sort of going back in time and getting a bit of an historical 'bent' to it. Again this was encouraged by 'dead' models existing and normalsing 'historical' battles. 

But now with the churn, only models that exist having rules etc and if its not a new plastic model, there is a good chance its getting 'Legend'd' then there isn't really any impetus or in many cases, ability, to build for an historical battle. Next link that wargear nominally no longer exists, people don't really ahve much of a WYSIWYG reason to create their own cool dude, and the fact that many named, special characters have very powerful, or at the very least, useful rules, that people don't leave home without them. While characters skewing army builts have certainly been around for a pretty long time 4th onwards maybe... it feels like the skews get larger as they coincide with new plastic model releases. 

So yeah, GW is happy off-screen murdering non-plastic model characters, but if its a new plastic character, there really isn't any stakes in a live/die fight... like.. we know they'll be fine...and I feel its, even more so, like a 'meh' and non-eventish (even though its happened in the past). 

 

[Karhedron]

My feeling is that killing off characters with models is a bad idea. It feels bad for the people who have bought and painted those models, even if they are technically still allowed to run them. Plus it creates the feeling that they could go away at any time.

 

Tycho and Eldrad were both killed off lore-wise in the 3rd edition but kept cropping up in codices. It took another 6 editions before they finally removed Tycho and they retconned Eldrad's death completely. Now we have a situation with Yarrick where he is dead but people don't know if he is really gone and keep expecting him to pop up again in the next Guard release.

 

I think killing off characters should be reserved for those who only exist in the lore and don't have rules and models. The post-rift books have given us numerous named SM Captains, we can spare a few of those. The important thing to remember is 40K is a game first and foremost. The lore exists to support the setting. Whilst I understand people's complaints about the level of plot armour some people have, I don't think people playing the game should be penalised just because of improbable storytelling in what is already an extremely improbable setting.

Edited September 10 by Karhedron

[Rogue]

I'm okay with characters getting killed.

 

I'm also a fan of Arthur C Clarke, and his particular approach to science fiction. It's not uncommon for Clarke's protagonists to die at the end of a novel - it's part of the narrative cycle, and if we're telling their story, then the story isn't complete until they can no longer influence it.

 

So in the same way, the death of Yarrick, or Tycho, or whoever - that's part of their story. It enhances their narrative rather than diminishing it. And there's nothing stopping me playing 'historical' games, set within that character's lifetime. Or even 'What If...?' scenarios - these two couldn't have met on the battlefield, but what if they had?

 

 

[Marshal Reinhard]

On 9/9/2025 at 7:42 PM, Beef said:

Yes let named characters die, im fine with that as long as its not Grimnar or Ragnar or any SW characters or Dante.  Personally i feel Azrael and Azmodi could be retired now that the lion is back.

Sort of what I was getting at earlier. "Yes, kill of named characters, just don't let it be MY characters or characters I like." 

 

Also admittedly don't know how serious you are.

 

I also would've liked to see what a modern spin on Tycho's model would be like. But we'd never hear the end of it, if he was not dead anymore.

[Karhedron]

On 9/10/2025 at 1:42 PM, Rogue said:

So in the same way, the death of Yarrick, or Tycho, or whoever - that's part of their story. It enhances their narrative rather than diminishing it.

 

There is a difference though, their narrative exists beyond the lore. A little piece of it belongs to everyone who has the model and ran it in their army. When we field a character, we are adding to their story, even if it is only within the confines of our own battle and imaginations. This could be the day they achieve glorious victory or are cruelly slain. By killing off a character, you are diminishing their narrative potential for players.

[Rogue]

Fair. But at the same time, I suspect that most of our characters (even if it's our version of Yarrick, or whoever), have pretty substantial plot armour. They might get killed in battle, but they don't really die - they teleport back to the battle barge for emergency medical attention, or slink into the tunnels, or were knocked unconscious, or even taken hostage (generating a narrative hook for the next few games) - they'll be back next time, somehow.

 

And if I really want to play a glorious last stand of a named character, I still can. Either I have to ignore the fact that they canonically died some other way; or I have to ignore that, canonically, they're very much alive and doing stuff and definitely aren't 'supposed' to be dead.

 

Ultimately, characters 'die' on the tabletop all the time, so having any kind of consistent narrative always involves some element of fudging it.

[ThePenitentOne]

I've always wanted to build a Saint Katherine model and a Witch-Cult of Mnestteus to take her down.

 

If GW had made an Age of Apostasy game instead of a Heresy game, only the Nids and I think Tau would be excluded rather than all Xenos. Vandire and Bucharris would make good Chaos models too. You could have all the Matriarchs, though Mina and Arabella's Orders (Bloody Rose and Sacred Rose) were founded hundreds of years after they died. 

[HeadlessCross]

On 9/13/2025 at 3:16 PM, Karhedron said:

 

There is a difference though, their narrative exists beyond the lore. A little piece of it belongs to everyone who has the model and ran it in their army. When we field a character, we are adding to their story, even if it is only within the confines of our own battle and imaginations. This could be the day they achieve glorious victory or are cruelly slain. By killing off a character, you are diminishing their narrative potential for players.

The game is terrible for narrative play anyway, so just the usability of the model's is important. I don't mind characters being killed unceremoniously because it kinda fits the theme of the setting. For example, I saw complaining of one of the top Sisters Of Silence dying passively to a pitcher job by Khârn, but in many ways it's fitting. 

[Antarius]

I think there’s something to consider, beyond just “whether to kill character X/Y/Z off” when it comes to the feel of the setting. I never had a problem with nominally “dead” characters having rules, nor do I think there are necessarily too many named characters in the lore.
 

Upon further consideration, I think it’s mostly the apparent longevity and “always turning up-ness” of a relative handful of characters that (I personally feel) risk steering the setting towards more of a “Saturday morning cartoon” vibe, rather than the lack of on-screen deaths.

 

It’s not even necessarily that the current writing is worse than what came before (although personally, I may feel it to be so), it’s just that the same characters can’t keep having the same impact and that the mood eventually turns towards the slightly comical when you stop thinking “oh, no what’s going to happen to the XYZ sector” and go “oh, I guess Lord Insaniac is up to his old tricks again, I wonder who will stop him just in the nick of time this time, ho hum”.
One might argue that that was always the case with some of the Chaos characters and I guess, to some degree, that would be true (I would argue that the “failbaddon” memes were a fundamental misunderstanding of Abaddon’s character arc, but still, some people clearly felt he was becoming cartoonish).

 

But yeah, I don’t know what the solution is (because adding new characters always runs the risk of things going Poochie), or if there even is one. But I don’t think the problem is that we need characters to explicitly die, as much as we just can’t keep feeling like every recounting of their (basically pretty similar) goings and doings are as exciting as they used to be.

Edited yesterday at 08:34 AM by Antarius

[Felix Antipodes]

I’m also not convinced we “need” to kill off main characters.  From what I’ve read above, there are two main issues frater are aggravated about: Longevity (why is X still alive in the current setting, he must be a gazillion years old by now!) and Overuse of X (how did X manage to be in Pacificus, Tempestus and Ultra Segmentum at the same time when Warp travel is harder/slower than ever?)

In my mind these are not the same thing and can be easy to solve.  For longevity, there are already several established in setting maguffins in play (rejuvenat drugs, time dilation, etc) that can explain why Yarrick, et al, are still with us.  This only works up to a point though.  GW must learn to let go of some of their sacred (cash) cows and/or show that said as aging within the lore now that W40K has moved from a setting to a moving storyline.

As for overuse, that is a bit harder.  GW using fewer characters (imho) is down to the after effects of the Chapterhouse lawsuit and it’s no model no rules result.  Before, if a scenario required a Chapter officer leading a battle, you had 10 Captains, 20 odd Lieutenants, one dozens of veteran sergeants/squad leaders to choose from.  Now, that pool has shrunk to whoever has a model (BL are not quite as caught up in this as the W40K design studio but are starting to be pulled into it).

Remember, GW sees themselves as a model company.  The lore exists to sell models.  Why use a character with no model?  This may be why we have seen models for several of the UM Captains in recent times.  Maybe GW is already recognising the issue.

[Antarius]

Yeah. I definitely think that the “sci-fi handwavium” only works up to a point, before it starts becoming cartoony (or maybe that’s “cartoony in the wrong way”;it’s not like the setting hasn’t ever had cartoony elements before, so it’s probably more a question of what kind of cartoony you are willing to accept).

 

But yeah, I don’t think it’s necessarily that certain characters need to die (or be seen to die; e.g. Yarrick could just not be active anymore and people can decide for themselves what happened to him), as much as it’s just a question of when it starts to feel silly that noone ever stops being a major player in a supposedly enormous galaxy.

 

 I also think there is the question of character arcs/ how long a character can be effective from a storytelling point of view. It’s sort of like those TV series that go on too long; we know and love the characters and kinda want to see what happens next, but otoh it becomes painfully obvious at some point that they’re just there because the series has to go on for as long as possible.

Which is not necessarily wrong, it’s just something that makes the story and characters lose momentum and impact as time goes on. I mean, if LotR had had three equally long sequels, where Frodo returned from the Grey Havens and helped save the world by destroying an additional three world-shatteringly powerful artifacts with the help of Gandalf, Legolas and the rest of the gang, LotR probably wouldn’t be thought of in quite the same way today.

Edited 12 hours ago by Antarius