2012 First ETC draft

[sulla]

When our group bans something its as much for annoying as overpowered. Having d3 units slowed while a dwarven gunline shells you to death is pretty damn high in the annoying catagory.

Probably more of an indictment on Dwarver runed up artillery than anything else. It can make a hell of a mess of armies before their first turn, so I'd rate the artillery as the bigger villain than the character/anvil.

But as a general rule of thumb, any special character that screws with the magic phase in any meaningful way is generally a red flag. I think the main three (Teclis, Kairos, and Thorek) are an easy concencus because you almost never see a Hard Boyz list without them, which is also a pretty big red flag.

At least with Teclis and Kairos, it's safe to say they are heavily discounted and substantially better than an equivalent character you could make from the armylist. I'm not so convinced about Thorek as you give up a lot of handy runic options to get that powered up anvil. I'd probably put him in the 'more balanced in 8th edition than he used to be' camp. Tec and kairos are probably the only SCs I'd look to outright ban in this edition.

Finally, like I said earlier, Skarsnikt is mainly an issue because of his reserves thing, which makes it really hard to balance certain scenarios around and randomly wins entire games if someone has over half their army go into reserve. If he did not have that ability, he would not even be a blip on the radar, really.

Possibly this is more of an issue if the opposing army is built around deathstars? For that reason alone, I wouldn't have an issue with him. It's no different to a player losing because they shaved points on standards and then rolled blood and glory as the scenario; they made their list, now they have to play it regardless of the scenario/opponent/first turn bad luck.

[Lord Inquisitor]

I should add that there is ONE argument I think is valid for banning special characters. They represent a big burden of memorisation. There's a ton of special characters and not only do they have their own profiles but they all have unique special rules, often a good few per model. Remembering and recognising all of them on top of every other generic character and magic item is difficult for even the best players. Actually having experience against all of them is next to impossible. It seems reasonable to remove them in the interest of keeping the metagame manageable. Then again, adapting on the fly to new threats is a skill as well.

[Phazael]

Well, if you play in a closed list environment like we do around here, its actually kind of the opposite. A SC is a known commodity that you completely know when it hits the table. The newer ones also tend to mimic their equivalent lord/hero statlines, though not always. Really, its a hell of a lot easier to deal with Changeling than it is to play the "lets guess who has the Speculumn" game when you go up against empire. Also, its pretty much on the shoulders of the person using the character to be upfront and explain what the guy does before the game starts. I say this as someone who ran the old Morghur back in the day, where I had a five minute chat with every opponent before the game, explaining why there were 12 spawn on my tray....

[Drongol]

Well, if you play in a closed list environment like we do around here, its actually kind of the opposite. A SC is a known commodity that you completely know when it hits the table. The newer ones also tend to mimic their equivalent lord/hero statlines, though not always. Really, its a hell of a lot easier to deal with Changeling than it is to play the "lets guess who has the Speculumn" game when you go up against empire. Also, its pretty much on the shoulders of the person using the character to be upfront and explain what the guy does before the game starts. I say this as someone who ran the old Morghur back in the day, where I had a five minute chat with every opponent before the game, explaining why there were 12 spawn on my tray....

Absolutely. And frankly, only 12 spawn? What sort of Morghur list were you running?

If we're going to use "complicated rules" and "not a lot of chance to playtest against every possible permutation" as reasons to ban special characters, then I have to ask, with no rancor intended, why we allow normal characters to take magic items in the first place, or why things like Mortis Engines and HPAs aren't comped out. All of those are far more complicated than someone like, for example, Ludwig.

[Lord Inquisitor]

Well, if you play in a closed list environment like we do around here, its actually kind of the opposite. A SC is a known commodity that you completely know when it hits the table. The newer ones also tend to mimic their equivalent lord/hero statlines, though not always. Really, its a hell of a lot easier to deal with Changeling than it is to play the "lets guess who has the Speculumn" game when you go up against empire. Also, its pretty much on the shoulders of the person using the character to be upfront and explain what the guy does before the game starts.

This is a good point. I actually love playing with closed lists, but most tournaments (pretty much all tournaments really) that I've attended or heard about stipulate open lists. Which is a shame because I'd love an excuse to break out the Rock Eye. Open lists vs Closed lists is another topic for discussion really. I personally like closed lists but I get that open lists causes less headaches for the TOs and much less potential for cheating/mistakes to happen.

If we're going to use "complicated rules" and "not a lot of chance to playtest against every possible permutation" as reasons to ban special characters, then I have to ask, with no rancor intended, why we allow normal characters to take magic items in the first place, or why things like Mortis Engines and HPAs aren't comped out. All of those are far more complicated than someone like, for example, Ludwig.

I'm in complete agreement with you on HPAs and Mortis Engines being overcomplicated. Sometimes the writers need Jervis standing behind them with a rolled up newspaper shouting "keep it simple stupid!" I was just ranting about it on another thread. But that's not quite the point. Unlike, say, Rare choices, special characters are typically in addition to generic characters. There are a few cases where a particular archetype only has a Special Character representing it (e.g. Throgg is the only Chaos Troll Hero) and some are outright unique in their army list (e.g. Green Knight). However these are in the minority - although in 40k this is much more prevalent. You can ban special characters from the Vampire book without upsetting what models people can use - there are still Vampires, Wight Kings and Necromancer Lords even if you can't take Vlad, Krell or Kemmler. Ban Mortis Engines and you've cut out a more central part of the army than Mannfred as well as people's model selection.

It's simply the case that special characters can raise the number of unique rules quite a notch. I've certainly had experiences where I've sat down to digest Dark Eldar before a tournament because they had just been released. I was reasonably well prepared but I had skimmed the special characters. A special character had a rule I didn't know about and it really threw me for six as it allowed him to steal the initiative on a higher probability. Of course, I should have asked what he did but it really left a bad taste in my mouth as it really put me at a big disadvantage from the get-go. Obviously I blame no-one but myself for it, I should have prepared better but it was frustrating. Removing the SCs from the equation makes it easier to plan for a tournament, particularly for a new or less serious player.

Now, note that I've been arguing in favour of special characters in tournaments for the last few pages. I don't think this is a big issue really. I just think it's a valid rationale for a blanket ban on SCs, whereas banning them wholesale for "balance" or "fluff" reasons is not.

[Phazael]

I used to be in the blanket ban camp, but after seeing and playing with them more I have come to believe a surgical approach is best. I think armies based on throgg, the hag queen, ghorros, or orion ect add a nice change of pace to the game.

[eron12]

I should add that there is ONE argument I think is valid for banning special characters. They represent a big burden of memorisation. There's a ton of special characters and not only do they have their own profiles but they all have unique special rules, often a good few per model. Remembering and recognising all of them on top of every other generic character and magic item is difficult for even the best players. Actually having experience against all of them is next to impossible. It seems reasonable to remove them in the interest of keeping the metagame manageable. Then again, adapting on the fly to new threats is a skill as well.

While I think this point has some merit, it does seem to fly in the face of the whole, "comp increases variety" arguement. Comp pruning down the amount of options people have to reduce the memorization burden doesn't see like diversity promotion to me.

[Snake1311]

The strongest argument is the catch 22 one - they aren't allowed, because they aren't playtested; and they aren't playtested because they aren't allowed.

There are SCs gently creeping into the UK's comped tournaments. If that is also the trend in mainland Europe, I suspect next year we will see a vote go up like for CD this year.

I don't think the memory thing is even a consideration at that level of warhammer - the majority of participants are seasoned vets anyway, and all have had over 6 months to get ready knowing they will be going to a 'world cup' event. When you've made that kind of commitment, I'm sure you'll take your time to read all the SC rules youa re unclear of if they are allowed and you are inexperienced (never mind that in 6 months of practice games ud get most of them drilled into you anyway). Its the same as CD (I know im comparing those two things a lot, but they are the same idea in principle) - I've only got a vague idea of what they can do, but now that they are allowed I sure as hell will read their list in depth and see if I can get some games in against them.