As opposed to ratling guns or skinks?In my gaming group we tend not to use them as they often destroy the balance of the game.
As opposed to ratling guns or skinks?Just don't take them to every single battle, it quickly becomes boring, then.
Special characters are the least problem with the game, especially in terms of game balance and repetitivness.
I would love to see more special characters used, instead of the non-stop wave of min/maxed lists. It's those that are boring.
True. Ratlings are slowly rotting the skaven list. I laugh at SAd armies when GW get their act together and put a limit or some way of weakening them into the rules.
Skinks are annoying also. Although there is worse...pegasus knights...no limit of 0-1 stupid.
Special characters ( if made properly ) aren't realy that unbalanced. True they can be used in cheesy ways etc but then again most armies can be made to do that without resorting to special characters. Atleast special characters have a limit of only being 1 of that character per game so they are anti cheese unlike core, special or rare units where you can take multiple resulting in much worse games than one single character that is slightly above the norm.
Account replaced with Gekiganger
I use Aekold Helbrass and Azazel sometimes. Its fun and of course I always like the idea of Special characters. Never had a problem with them.
Can 13,000 points of models FIT onto a table? One would think that a special character would be required in this case.Originally Posted by Lord Lucifer
Thoughts on special characters?
I used Luthor Huss in a 13,000 point game. My opponent complained about me being cheesy
I hope your opponent for the game wasn't a goblin horde.
I've used Balthasar Gelt, mainly because I like the model. Both Empire characters are overpriced in my opinion, and your opponent should smile when they hit the table. I've also taken Aldebrand Ludenhof, Asarnil the Dragonlord (Does DoW count?) and the classic dwarf Engineer with the B.I.O.N.I.C. arm!
"Come here! Come 'ere, I say.... I'm gonna squish ya...." *pant-pant*
I'd say that LARGE special characters (whatever LARGE means) are cooler when used some times, rather than all times, because it makes those particular games more "special." I'll take it as a challenge to kill the "Everliving" and get excited when I see him hit the table. Earning bragging rights and such can be as fun as killing wave after wave of the same, old skeleton. Classic Elector Counts and the like aren't as LARGE or "special" in my opinion, so field them all the time, and if they die all the time, then no big deal, but killing some classics like Death Master Snikch, Archie, and other LARGE specialties are memorable...
Last edited by LaughinGremlin; 14-10-2005 at 22:11.
COAL BIN BROS. : the best 3-man progressive folk rock band that you never heard!
the best thing about special characters is when you get to watch your opponent shrink into his seat when you kill one. the death of archaon was my proudest day...
apart from those rare moments i'm not to fond of the whole SC idea and i think they can be just as game breaking as a SAD or RAF army
*Goes off into happy dreams of Eltharion killing Malekith*the best thing about special characters is when you get to watch your opponent shrink into his seat when you kill one. the death of archaon was my proudest day...
However, I don't think they are as gamebreaking as the SAD or RAF. Because when you use things like Archaon and Tyrion in 2000 point battles, they take up so many points that your entire battle plan becomes dependent on them. And thus, when they die (they tend to have everything aimed at them), you're in trouble.
"Oh... man... forget silly Nagash and the foppish Dark Elves, English 2000 and Eldacar are the true villains!" ~Twisted Ferret
"You sir, win at life." ~Damien 1427
"Eldacar ~ The quote in your sig still stands." ~Damien 1427 ()
"Old men with beards are always hard. Have you guys never seen any kung fu movies? Do you not play video games? You do not **** with an old man with a beard. Proof: dwarfs." ~Bubble Ghost
thats what i mean though, you're either going to be massacred or massacre your opponent and break what could have otherwise been an entertaining game. personally i prefer close games, and if you take a special character you're begging for a mundane predictable game that makes me sad every time lord kroak breaks the game table.
How did you do this? I've never managed to kill him. My friend who plays chaos has promised to eat a box of mayonaise if Archaon ever dies in a battle, and one time I it all came down to a roll to decide how many wounds he would get from the Repeater BT, 2 wounds would kill him (ie. 3+), though,of course i managed to roll a 2. My friends face where quite releaved. He's never fielded him since though...
A healthy dose of screaming skulls, decked out tomb lords, and the slayer of kings eventually resulted in the death of Archaon for me. In the end it was his own sword that killed him (he was about to kill my tomb lord after whipping my tomb prince when he cut himself to ribbons)....but as you mentioned in your post it's artillery that does the best damage.
Not really, I don't think. They are powerful, but they have flaws, just like anything and everything else in the army. Tyrion, to bring up a random example, is very dangerous in combat, but his horse is poor, and is a weak spot that can be easily exploited.thats what i mean though, you're either going to be massacred or massacre your opponent and break what could have otherwise been an entertaining game. personally i prefer close games, and if you take a special character you're begging for a mundane predictable game that makes me sad every time lord kroak breaks the game table.
"Oh... man... forget silly Nagash and the foppish Dark Elves, English 2000 and Eldacar are the true villains!" ~Twisted Ferret
"You sir, win at life." ~Damien 1427
"Eldacar ~ The quote in your sig still stands." ~Damien 1427 (
"Old men with beards are always hard. Have you guys never seen any kung fu movies? Do you not play video games? You do not **** with an old man with a beard. Proof: dwarfs." ~Bubble Ghost
Do Regiments of Renoun count as Special Characters? I like the RoR units. I don't use them much because of their point cost, but they are fun.
No they are rare choices. I supose seen as they have a distict character and special rules they are in a way but... they arnt realy the spec characters other races get.
Account replaced with Gekiganger
RoR's have "Special Characters" of a sort in them but those are entirely different than the ones people have a problem with. They are basically just hero's *maybe* with a single, low powered magic item. In fact, they are often more a liability than an asset
To me, there are two different types of normal special characters - there are the low powered ones that don't cost any more than a typical equipped Lord, and they are fine to play with. They're nifty, generally look good, and don't unbalance the game.
Big special characters, however, certainly do upset the game.
Take Archeon, for example. You're not playing a game against a chaos army, your playing a game against that character. The same applies to Kroak, or Zaccarihus(sp). Those characters are NOT fun to play against in normal games. They do have a place, though.
We often play bigger games (3000+ pts) and deliberately take high end special characters, to play one against the other in the context of a full battle (as opposed to just facing them against each other one on one). That's fun, but only as a one off thing.
Most people dislike playing against big special characters in regular games because it just gets old and frusterating. Some of them have weaknesses, but not ones that all armies can exploit. You're ability to deal with the special character depends on your own army and their character, but that becomes central to the game, not tactics or anything else. They just detract from the game so much.
If you really want to play herohammer, just dig out a copy of 5th Ed warhammer, which was all about huge characters battling it out with armies that didn't matter at all.
... but, little special characters are fine and interesting. I never object to a high elf opponent field Eltharion or Korhil, for example, or a Dark Elf opponent with Malus (or even Morathi).
According to Warseer rumour threads, WFB 8th Ed is going to be: Herohammer, Gunhammer, Troophammer, Elitehammer, Warmachinehammer, Spamhammer, Monsterhammer, SuperUnitHammer and Magichammer, Goblinhammer, and (I kid you not) Obamahammer.
Skaven characters are nice. Low point ( althopugh deadly if used properly) characters.
560
285
410
515
400
300
points isn't so bad realy.
It's when you havew a typical army Vs Archon and his retinue that you get into beardy gaming...
Account replaced with Gekiganger
I quite like the idea of special characters but the balance issue is always hard when you have characters would in fluff can destroy whole armies or summon massive hordes so they either seem to be abit hard or abit wet in comparison to their fluff. So I would probably say I am big fan of the lessor characters of the game, like The captain of the Black guard for dark elves (can't remember his name) but think the idea of not doing rules for leaders of nations or super powers like teclis or nagash would have been good if GW would have stuck to it.
When I played 4th and 5th Edition characters came out quite regularly but that was mainly because we used to play every model in that race v every model in another mega battles. And have used them a little in 6th Edition but generally only because my friend really likes his characters so fielded the witch king and Archeon on a number of occassions (4000-5000 point games usually). So when the witch king was fielded I fielded teclis for a characterful super star fight. Obviously Teclis kicked his **** something chronic every game til my friend Witch king was permantly retired (most impressively was a 11 foot magic missile, (we play on a 9 by 5 table))
And on the archeon killing question I always find the best tactic to attack his horse and then break him in combat with big units. Attacking him is a waste of time, but if you can get him on his own and then you slap his little horsey thing you can run him down. But I generally play dwarfs so theirs a cry of big block of choosen knights, splat splat splat right just archeon left!
On that point, Dwarfs are the worse affected by special characters in the game IMO as all the characters are massively over priced for abilities no much better then a normal custom lord. The only exception to this is the white dwarf, but whoever thought up those rules was on a mission to further ruin the fun of warhammer by making a virtually unkillable character
Carnage North 2007 Fantasy champion! Scientific Proof that alcohol consumption improves play
Mercenary's tournment 2007 Fantasy champion
the key for me, as to what im fine with and what im not fine with, is where the special character fits into the "special character hierachy".
some special chars fit into the "grossly powerful single model dominator" category, and others fit into the "add some interesting flair" category. when a character is of the "grossly powerful single model dominator" type, i would rather not play against them (teclis is an example of this type imo). however im generally fine with the "add some interesting flair" models, because they add to the list, the game, and the feel of the battle; and do not truly dominate any particular phase or battle (the mummy chick for tombkings is an example of this type imo).
Special characters are NOT overpowered. They are balanced like the rest of the codex.
In small playtests friends and I did and even in battles we've had, we've seen weaknesses and beaten many special characters.
Sanjay
No problem with special characters really, as long as they are used to add character to an army, not just cos they're dead 'ard....
I remember working at GW Derby and each Games Night, we'd have a big participation game. When it cane to fantasy, there would invariably be 2 Nagash, a Heinrich kemmler, a couple of Sniktch(sp) an Ikit Claw and a Skrolk, and precious few regiments...
I like the current idea of including special characters in specific army lists. Keeps the theme together, and restricts the useage...
I actually really like the new means of doing special characters - with them defining the army list character, basically making the army a themed army by default simply with their inclusion. The Woodie, TK, and Beastmen characters are excellent examples of that.
According to Warseer rumour threads, WFB 8th Ed is going to be: Herohammer, Gunhammer, Troophammer, Elitehammer, Warmachinehammer, Spamhammer, Monsterhammer, SuperUnitHammer and Magichammer, Goblinhammer, and (I kid you not) Obamahammer.
I can see how someone would be annoyed at a first turn Skitterleaping of Sniktch onto their general though when they didn't expect it...
But having Thanqual/Boneripper vs Gotre/Felix is good stuff!
Posting Permissions
Crube