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

[ThePenitentOne]

Alright, so let's look at what we're really talking about here.

 

There's the Black Library piece... That is, named characters being a huge part of novels. This is more complicated than we're giving it credit for though, because some named character models were created based on BL novels. Ephrael Stern, Minka Lesk, and the Grand Daddy, Eisenhorn... And there are probably others. We can't complain about THESE named characters being in a ton of BL material, because they were a part of BL material before they were named characters, and if BL wasn't done with them when the models dropped, we certainly don't want "fix" the perceived problem by saying "Oh, sorry Mr. Abnet, we can't publish the third book in your trilogy because we made a model of the protagonist, and people think it's ridiculous for named character models to play an oversized role in the lore."

 

What's ALSO true of this category of named-character dominance is that we have little control over it- the novels are what they are, regardless of how we choose to use them or engage with them.

 

Then there's the category of characters that were made as models first and then had BL books written about them, or who play what many of us perceive to be an outsized role in the Codex-based lore. These guys, we can choose to use in our armies or not. Now, admittedly, GW does make that challenging sometimes by making the rules for these guys SO awesome that it's a lot harder to win if you don't use them. But ultimately, that choice DOES exist, and if the issue does bug you as much as it seems, not simply not using the character IS a solution that pretty much IS firmly in our control. Want guard characters dead? Don't use'm. They're dead.

 

Unless..... Unless the REAL problem is you don't want anyone else to be able to use them either.

 

And see, that gets a little sticky. I tend to think that many of the "problems" that people post about are a result of the 2k matched stand-alone pick-up game in a store with a stranger phenomenon, and occasionally I will suggest that people just try a 500-2k Crusade escalation campaign to see if that improves their experience or changes their opinion. Sometimes people react and say "But you're telling people how to play" - but that's a misreading of what I'm saying. Because I would NEVER advocate for the removal of ANYTHING. 

 

Imagine if I was bold enough to say "All the problems everyone sees exist primarily in 2k matched stand-alone pick-up games, therefore we should just eliminate that option. Ridiculous, right? But isn't it really just a difference of degree to say "Oh, Crusade is a waste of time, space and development resources because no one plays it anyway" or "Grey Knights should be just a unit you add to other armies" or "Named characters shouldn't exist"?

 

Now, I'm all for GW adding text to their campaign books saying "Note: at the time when this campaign takes place, the following characters are unavailable because they are dead, the following characters are unavailable because they are engaged in other campaigns across the universe. Caveat: any of these characters can be used, but only if both players consent to their use."

 

This does a few things: first, it acknowledges that character death is only relevant in a narrative context. Seriously, try this: at your next pick-up stand-alone 2k matched play game in a store with a stranger, spend a minute or two asking your opponent questions like "Where in the universe is the game taking place, when and why?" The vast majority of people you play against (based on my own, limited experience, of course) will have no idea. They may find it unusual or quirky that you're even asking. And so how is it possible to say which characters do or don't belong in that battle when you and your opponent neither know nor care where or when that battle is taking place? 

 

"You can't use Yarrick because he's dead."

 

"Oh, I just assumed we would set the battle in a time and place when he was alive because I really like him and wanted to include him in my army."

 

"Yeah, well you assumed wrong."

 

"Oh, okay. When is this battle taking place?"

 

"Oh, I didn't really think about that, it's just taking place sometime after he died."

 

"Well, if you don't really have any strong ideas about where or when, why not just play it as if it's taking place during his lifetime so I can use the army I brought?"

 

Obviously, if you talk to your opponent before game night (not always possible, I know), you can come to an agreement about context. I always do- last game I asked my opponent "So in your mind, is this a Deathwatch vessel, or is it an Imperial vessel that put out a distress call when they detected Xenos on long ranged sensors and the DW showed up to save the day?" - I wanted to give my opponent control over shared narrative, because sometimes I come across as a bit of a control freak. I wanted to make sure that when I finally write up the battle and post it, he could get behind what I wrote.

 

At first, he did seem somewhat surprised I asked. But what was so cool, as that once he adjusted, he took the ball and ran with it. "How about we set it on a SpaceHulk. Both of our teams have been there a while, and we're both looking for "Stuff" and we just happen to bump into each other in this little section of the massive hulk?" I immediately agreed. Based on the composition of our armies, that's all that was necessary- neither of us HAD named characters in our army (or rather, the named characters in both our armies were OUR DUDES). If either army DID have named characters, we probably would have settled on a where and a when- I would pretty much need that, because the story of my battles is important to me. 

 

Now, for my story, the "where" wasn't super important- we're Drukhari and we travel via webway, so "wherever" my opponent needs the game to be, I'm cool. If he had been using Draxus, I'd have recommended somewhere in the Pariah Nexus, because that's where she is in the current timeline as I understand it. The "When" however, IS important to my story, because my Ascendant Lord Archon has been tasked with recovering the territories of a Commorrite splinter realm that fell to Daemons after Yvraine's Ascension during her fight against Lelith in the Crucibael.

 

If his army included a character inconsistent with that timeline, I would have continued to play, the game would have been just as fun, but it never would have been recorded as part of my army's story, because it couldn't possibly have been a part of their story... And that's fine. My army CAN be the Space Lane Raider force organized by Ascendent Lord Archon Sykil Draeven to win an Alliance with Aeldari Corsairs of Prince Larridian Vayle when I'm facing a force that allows me to advance that narrative, but it can just as easily be anonymous Drukhari army 453 when I'm facing a force that does not allow me to advance my narrative.

 

For my opponents and I? Problem solved, with no need for GW to make huge changes to the way the game works just to make a few random players happy.

[Deus_Ex_Machina]

21 hours ago, firestorm40k said:

 

Erebus will slip in the knife just before the Lady Malys release. No waifu for you!

[SvenIronhand]

On 8/31/2025 at 11:25 AM, The Praetorian of Inwit said:

Grimnar should be dead too.

No, and people who talk like this don't get Ragnar's arc.

Also, what Imperial Guard characters that are too long-lived? Creed has been replaced by his illegitimate daughter, Marbo is effectively a Halo Spartan in terms of myth-making around him, Gaunts' Ghosts is clearly meant to represent the characters at the time of the books, and Nork might as well be a generic profile at this point, if you ask me. 

[kabaakaba]

ok... i just don't like named characters, i prefer them in novels, not on tabletop.  

[Marshal Reinhard]

I think a potential with character deaths is, while many support the ideas of some characters dying, I'm not sure they'd always agree on who to kill off...

[ThaneOfTas]

13 hours ago, kabaakaba said:

i just don't like named characters, i prefer them in novels, not on tabletop. 

Then just don't use them on the tabletop?

[Scribe]

40 minutes ago, ThaneOfTas said:

Then just don't use them on the tabletop?

 

Sure, now convince GW to stop pushing the rules for them in a way that they actually enable various army types, and make sure all of my opponents stop using them as well.

[ThaneOfTas]

1 hour ago, Scribe said:

Sure, now convince GW to stop pushing the rules for them in a way that they actually enable various army types

Totally valid complaint, and I fully agree, I'd love for named characters to go back to being nice to have but non-essential.

 

1 hour ago, Scribe said:

and make sure all of my opponents stop using them as well

But this is completely unreasonable. If you feel that strongly about it no one is forcing you to play with people who use named characters, or stopping you from setting up narrative/crusade games without named characters, but trying to take the option away from someone else just because you dont like it is extremely 'y

Edited September 2 by ThaneOfTas

[HeadlessCross]

On 8/31/2025 at 5:42 AM, Evil Eye said:

I think one other big problem (IMO at least) with the current named character fiasco is how ubiquitous they are now. I feel like prior rulesets having some restrictions on their use, be it the "only use with opponent's permission" clause, having a minimum army point size to use them or even just costing much more than an equivalent non-named HQ made them something you'd only use if you really, really liked the character. They always felt more like "important background characters", more part of the setting itself than actual characters per se, intended to give context to the real heroes (or villains) of the setting- Your Dudes. Even the novels tended to focus more on characters made up specifically for the books (effectively the writer's dudes) rather than following named characters heavily. Nowadays, not only are they omnipresent in fluff and novels, they're also omnipresent on the tabletop, to the point of absurdity, with no real mechanical incentive not to take them.

 

Another issue is the scope creep of named characters- before, really powerful characters were restricted to Chapter Masters etc, and whilst very powerful would usually still be relatively situational (especially due to the high cost of said characters). Marneus Calgar was good, but he wasn't an auto-include. Now? The reason you wouldn't be taking him is because Guilliman is there instead. When Primarchs are running around and bigger characters get made even larger to compete with them, things just get stupid.

 

I dunno. Maybe that's just me.

Yeah until you run into issue that Your Dude Crisis Commander that likes to be up close in melee can't be done without the Farsight profile to begin with. 

 

Rules =/= You must use this specific model just because you lack imagination. Treat them like any other unit entry. 

[Evil Eye]

26 minutes ago, HeadlessCross said:

Yeah until you run into issue that Your Dude Crisis Commander that likes to be up close in melee can't be done without the Farsight profile to begin with.

Surely the solution is to add more options to allow for close-quarter weapons for Crisis Commanders rather than forcing everyone to use Farsight?

[HeadlessCross]

1 hour ago, Evil Eye said:

Surely the solution is to add more options to allow for close-quarter weapons for Crisis Commanders rather than forcing everyone to use Farsight?

That only goes so far in terms of characters you'd want to emulate. I love the idea of another Chapter Master using Calgar's wargear or something similar (which Gravis Captains really should have the ability to double up on Fists with the bolt weapon, but I digress), but when we already have the unit entry what's the specific need to make it an option?

[Scribe]

6 hours ago, ThaneOfTas said:

Totally valid complaint, and I fully agree, I'd love for named characters to go back to being nice to have but non-essential.

 

But this is completely unreasonable. If you feel that strongly about it no one is forcing you to play with people who use named characters, or stopping you from setting up narrative/crusade games without named characters, but trying to take the option away from someone else just because you dont like it is extremely 'y

 

To be honest if they fixed the initial part, and the characters were not better than generic options, I would not care.

 

My buddy LOVED Abaddon, always took him in either 30K or 40K, it wasn't a problem. 

[HeadlessCross]

3 minutes ago, Scribe said:

 

To be honest if they fixed the initial part, and the characters were not better than generic options, I would not care.

Except that's completely false. There are many times through the game's history where the generic is significantly better. Even NOW that's still the case, unless you actually a reasonable argument to use Asmodai over the generic Chaplain. 

[Castellan Wulfrik]

I hate the idea of 40K as a narrative, so no. I prefer it as a setting, they have 10K years of an entire galaxy's history to explore and create stories within, if that's not enough then the writers and creatives just aren't good enough. How many trash campaigns based on false hype of progressing the story do we need before people realise it has absolutely no bearing on the quality of the story being told. Watching GW abuse their own setting to try and sell a few more of whatever is the latest model with new lore hype is painful. 

A good example is Ragnar vs Ghaz, why? Helbrecht and Yarrick were hunting him, but suddenly Ragnar just runs into Ghaz and they have a 1 v 1 not to the death because... new models? Great. In this instance and most others complaining about the lack of character death is meaningless as the two characters duelling is an absurd contrivance to begin with. Meanwhile Yarrick is unceremoniously written out of the narrative because they don't have a model planned and they're rushing ahead with a new Armageddon campaign because they want to hype the new Angron model. 

TLDR; more Imperial Armour style books, stop turning 40K into a soap opera in space.

[Sonder76]

The characters in 40k provide a solid grounding. If they are dying all the time then it becomes a barrage of new names to provide solidity to the old story or setting and without well known characters the story would become murky and messy.... or mre than it is already. The well known characters instantly give grounding to their respective areas of the narrative. You almost know whats going to happen.

For example, If they kill Abaddon then they need a new baddie but where do you go from Abaddon? ..... Jim the Bastard with zero backstory or kudos?

 

40k is the Lore and without it it would collapse. Eventually.... in the grim dark future they will decide to go nuclear and just have Horus return to the setting of 40k as a loyal Primarch. I dont see them bringing him back as a baddie but i could see them bringing him back after the Emperor comes back and all is forgiven. They are already laying the subtle groundwork in the last Siege Of Terra book.... 

 

Good Guy Horus is gonna kill Abaddon.... 

 

... making room for Jim The Bastard.

 

 

 

[Sonder76]

On 9/2/2025 at 8:24 AM, kabaakaba said:

ok... i just don't like named characters, i prefer them in novels, not on tabletop.  

I actually agree with this... I dont take named dudes at all... The idea that a primarch decides to join your gang of idiots while you capture some ruins has always been a bit crazy to me. 

[JeffJedi]

The Primarch in the ruins happens to be in the center of a 100 mile wide battle. You just focus on the exciting bits.

[Scribe]

On 9/6/2025 at 5:17 PM, JeffJedi said:

The Primarch in the ruins happens to be in the center of a 100 mile wide battle. You just focus on the exciting bits.

 

One could say that dramatically shrinks the setting.

[HeadlessCross]

3 hours ago, Scribe said:

 

One could say that dramatically shrinks the setting.

It's already shrunk the moment your same dudes fight a regular opponents' same dudes. Unless you have an infinite number of models and paint jobs, the setting when it comes to the tabletop is never big. 

[Evil Eye]

10 hours ago, HeadlessCross said:

It's already shrunk the moment your same dudes fight a regular opponents' same dudes. Unless you have an infinite number of models and paint jobs, the setting when it comes to the tabletop is never big. 

"Your collection can't be infinite so every battle having the same five characters in it" is such black-and-white thinking that it makes the original Gameboy's screen look positively kaleidoscopic.

[HeadlessCross]

13 minutes ago, Evil Eye said:

"Your collection can't be infinite so every battle having the same five characters in it" is such black-and-white thinking that it makes the original Gameboy's screen look positively kaleidoscopic.

And yet the logic is fine when someone complains about someone that likes using their Azrael model in most of their games?

[Evil Eye]

28 minutes ago, HeadlessCross said:

And yet the logic is fine when someone complains about someone that likes using their Azrael model in most of their games?

I don't know what point you're trying to make. Named characters becoming the norm is boring, Primarch or otherwise.

[HeadlessCross]

8 minutes ago, Evil Eye said:

I don't know what point you're trying to make. Named characters becoming the norm is boring, Primarch or otherwise.

I'm assuming you name your characters when you build and paint them?

[Evil Eye]

53 minutes ago, HeadlessCross said:

I'm assuming you name your characters when you build and paint them?

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.

[gaurdian31]

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.