How important are Characters?

[Rowland]

Guys, 

whilst making a homebrew chapter and not wanting to align with a given chapter I realised I might be missing out on Character buffs or whatever.

I have been using the app and battleforge to make up various combinations of my units.  I have the Space marines codex so I can make Space marine armies, I have the blood Angels supplement too.  The thing I find strange is that the book has a few Epic heroes from various chapters.  I can’t seem to get them up in the app.

I was thinking I could use their traits (if necessary) in my own Chapter.

What gives and at what point are Epic heroes useful?

Edited 10 hours ago by Rowland

[Karhedron]

There are no hard and fast rules as to what point a unit like an Epic Hero becomes worth taking. In theory, Epic Heroes are balanced by their points just like any other unit. In practice, some Epic Heroes have rules that interact with specific detachments and you may find ways to put together combos you would not be able to do otherwise. Also certain Epic Heroes grant an extra Command Point in each of your Command Phases which is an ability that regular Characters do not usually provide.

 

If you want to use named Epic Heroes then your homemade Chapter will have to pretend to be the matching named Chapter for the Day. So it is fine for you to run Marneus Calgar but your Marines will have to count as Ultramarines for the day. This means that you can only use units and Detachments that Ultramarines are allowed. You cannot run Marneus Calgar and use a Detachment from the Blood Angels Codex for example. Nor can you run Calgar and Dante in the same army.

Edited 9 hours ago by Karhedron

[Blissful Brushes]

Your models, your choice. Game wise, the smaller the points match, the bigger impact your epic hero is likely to have as they’re likely a hefty percentage of your army, give them a retinue/transport and that % grows. That could be a good or bad thing depending on how you’re playing and whether the dice Gods are looking down on you that day. 

[Inquisitor_Lensoven]

I have not used an epic hero since I came back in 8th and have never had any issue always been competitive even when playing against epic heroes.

[Rowland]

Thanks guys, Karhedron, sorry, my reference to the Blood Angels was a bit unnecessary. I had two questions in the one post.  The first, was do I need Characters, more specifically epic heroes, and that has been answered.  I completely understand the balance thing and that if my “Setting Sons” chapter want the traits of Captain Titus, they play with the conditions/restrictions of Ultramarines, but I’m assuming I can use any old Captain figure and call him Malcolm the Magnificent or whatever pleases me?

The second issue was a query and maybe a dig at GW over the characters in the Space Marine Codex.  I have access to the traits of several other factions epic heroes in the book, and yet, having put the certificate number into the app I can’t find a way to get them to show.  Is this a “look what you could have won” thing?

 

Tyrannids are so much simpler…

[Karhedron]

1 hour ago, Rowland said:

but I’m assuming I can use any old Captain figure and call him Malcolm the Magnificent or whatever pleases me?

 

Yes, as long as your opponent is clear which model represents what unit then it is fine.

  

1 hour ago, Rowland said:

The second issue was a query and maybe a dig at GW over the characters in the Space Marine Codex.  I have access to the traits of several other factions epic heroes in the book, and yet, having put the certificate number into the app I can’t find a way to get them to show.  Is this a “look what you could have won” thing?

 

Can you give any specific examples of characters that you are missing?

[Rowland]

Darnath Lysander, Tor Garadon, Pedro Cantor, Feirros, shrike, kor’sarro, he’s tan, agatone. 
I know they’re from “special” chapters but why include them in the codex for bog standard marines?

were these factions not behind a separate paywall when the book was published?