Do People Like NAMED or GENERIC Characters in their Warhammer 40K Armies?
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- Опубліковано 10 лип 2024
- Let's talk about some of the pros and cons of named and generic 40K characters in setting and gameplay...
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tinyurl.com/yc69mguy - Ігри
Im honestly on the side of not even wanting my units to show faces
Spoken like a true Kriegsman.
On a similar feeling with my marines, as much as I like variety I really love the helmets
I just don't like the idea of soldiers taking off their helmets in an active confrontation
@@DisasterLordI mean... Even helmets can be varied in design.
You're on a battlefield, not a parade ground! Put your helmet on!
I love having named characters because I love the lore, but I’ll always take helmets if I can because I despise painting faces
Obviously this isn't The Lord Solar Leontus leading my army, this is the Lord General of my regiment. He just happens to ride a horse and style himself quite similarly.
me when I play Lord Solar Jones
My Phaeron Sahket the Tempest Lord is just a really good strategist whoes reslly gloomy so he had a cryptek build him a storm generator so it would always be rainy around him thats all. Any relation to other storm calling strategists are just pure coincidence
And is also Gay
@@Exitus3932 and a black woman
I have a custom Krieg General as my lord Solar. His name is Hödenhal
In cannon Giliman is a tough sob to bring down and has dire consiquences
in tabletop
Ultra Marine Captain: "sir our primark fell in the recent battle"
Chaplain: "Did he die gloriously holding the line to an unspeakable horror from beyond"
Captain: "...kinda..."
Chaplain: "..."
Captain: "..."
Chaplain: "...he died to a random lasgun shot didn't he."
Captain: "he rolled a lot of 1's"
Chaplain: "eh he'll be okay in a few minutes"
Or "Our primarch fell to a warboss and a dozen or so ork boyz"
@@alphacore112 opens mouth
"and no it wasn't a cool one like gazgul"
I will always prefer generic characters thanks to the system in 9th.
Being able to take a generic captain and turn him into the Chapter Master of my homebrew chapter as an actual buff, and then give him more buffs on top of that, will always and forever be superior. It made it feel like my decision to create a homebrew chapter actually mattered. It made it feel like I was playing with *MY* stuff.
Even now, when the character system is absolutely abysmally bad, I prefer generic characters because there’s still that small sense of “this unnamed character is mine and it was my creativity that brought him into the game”
That rule is still in the Crusade rules for 10th
Yeah, making characters my own is the main appeal of playing Crusades and why matched play doesn't pick my interest. Sure in 3rd edition I would have loved to run Azrael because that model got me into the game, but I could even build my own using the artifacts as upgrades...
@@CuriousLumenwood I still don’t understand why there isn’t a chapter master enhancement in 10th. You could even balance it by having it so that only one chapter master can be in your army at once or something, to stop you from taking a custom chapter master and Dante, for instance.
Ur Vanilla Bolterporndude#3552. Shaddap and keep quiet until i get back half my ork and necron characters, that got axed because fuck me.
Animosity aside. those characters had army exclusive rules and roles and were exclusive leader options to some units.
This.
1:58 The motivation was roleplaying. Back then there was a much greater emphasis in roleplaying and flavourizing your characters and army.
Codexes, WD, CA... They all encouraged adding your own touch.
noone ever wanted to roleplay in warhammer.
named heros were always the misunderstanding of gw of "narrativ"
we always named our heros ourselfes, noone ever needed gw to do that, so we have
the 332nd hero name djeff in a battle, thats the opposite of narrative.
rename your heros!
It definitely feels weird when I hear the head of the entire Adepta Sororitas, a living saint, and the bones of a dead saint all show up to the same random border skirmish.
I think I'll limit myself to a single epic hero in an army, if any, but they'd mostly be modelling projects.
Not just the head of the Sororitas, but a High Lord of Terra no less! 40k has some serious scale creep in terms of lore.
Celestine kinda makes sense though. She dies and comes back where needed. Same with Swarmlord and Deathleaper.
@@EddieJET some characters make more sense them others, like orks, tyranids, necrons, daemons, and some others can literally just revive. But it is still weird how Angron is somehow at every world eater fight everywhere and other examples where characters are either super common or you get a situation where the entire set of named characters show up to one fight for some reason like with the sisters example.
@@jacksonhoiland2664 completely agree. That's what I was trying to get at. Sometimes my brain can't convey its own thoughts that well. Lol
its even worse on sororitas, they have a unit of epic heros on one huge base, it doesnt get dumber,
but competitive players dont care...
I feel like seeing the same characters all the time Is sort of immersion breaking. I really like It when people use the characters datasheets but kitbash/convert an entirely different look and name :D
Agreed! I made a custom Inquisitor (just a dreadnought coffin) and I play him as whichever version makes the most sense.
I only use generic characters. Half the fun of 40k is making your own custom army, characters included.
Custom characters in 10th edition? Would be nice
It's a model, you can call it whatever you want.
I just run named characters under different names
Ragnar Blackmane? Nah, Joruman of the Warrior Council
As an AdMech player with literally one named model in our entire faction list and with only having a handful of other generic characters I could truly stand to get one or two more of each.
@@saintmayhem9873 GW will make them cost more and give them rules thatll make they must haves while nerfing your unnamed characters.
In all honesty, I prefer creating my own characters. Creating a back story and naming them always feels satisfying. I've rarely ever used named heroes.
I prefer generic characters because I like the narrative aspect. But, when Typhus is 80 points and literally known as, "Typhus the Traveller." Some characters are easier to reason myself into using than others.
This is generally how I feel. An issue with Typhus in particular though is that there’s so much official art of him that I couldn’t bring myself to paint him in my otherwise uniform warband colour scheme and he thus he sticks out like a sore thumb.
@@bendre1997yes to both of these. You shouldn't be customizing the paint or model. I also don't have as much trouble imagining the demon primarchs coming out of the warp for every battle the same way I know the Gman can't.
not in 40k at all, in fantasy it was kinda better, in 30k its quite ok.
30k is such a small timeframe with pseudo historical background which makes named characters bearable.
in 40k we have the eternal war, there is only war, not only sly marbo...
there are so many battles but only a few named ones, the scale is so small compared to the general scale in 40k that named heros are just dumb, they are comicly unreasonable.
fantasy is inbetween, fantasy is the objectively most generic and best game gw ever did, and they killed it...
heros were something they got in because of the lore, it wasnt just a huge world with endless battles like 40k,
fantasy was always about the actions and ambitions of a few individuals, and so it was quite natural that named heros were part of the army lists pretty much all the time.
but there was also always the problem that they were subfaction specific, i didnt want to play quiek in my clan rictus army, but thanquol as a grey prophet can show up in every army.
I remember at a tournament early in 10th, i was playing as Necrons, but talking to my opponent abt my CSM army. He made an assumption that I must be running Abaddon a lot, and when I said no, my army is Word Bearers he looked a bit confused. When I explained that it would be lore fine for Abaddon to fight with a Word Bearer warband, but I think I'd want to paint up a unit of Black Legion terminators to accompany him otherwise it would look a bit silly him turning up with precisely zero of his own soldiers, and I didnt want to go to the effort of doing that, he seemed even more confused that this might matter to someone.
One day we'll have Lorgar and you'll be happy you didnt get Abbadon
I really dislike how generic characters have steadily become less and less relevant over the past couple of editions. Now it's not uncommon to see multiple Captains or Chaos Lords in lists as if they unit Sergeants.
If named characters were more balanced across all the factions, I think more people would be into them. As it stands, a few factions get an advantage with 'overpowered' named characters.
If only Guilliman was ever playable 😢
The stratagem change has made him pretty good again. Try taking him off the shelf.@@kylekeenan3485
Not only how good the characters are, but also just how many named characters they have period.
I like narrative casual games, so running a kitbashed generic kinda guy for my homebrew is the way to go.
Every player should have at least one kitbashed generic hero to lead their army. Doesn't need to be played all the time, but once you do one of these you will always look for an excuse to get them on the battlefield.
Imagine if 11th edition comes out and the new lore is that the Silent King died, but his throne blowing up helped defeat the a genestealer cult in one battle, and that Guilliman was mobbed to death by Grots.
As a guard player, I like having named characters, but for the scale of the game, the big names don't make sense to include for me. The named catachan characters who lead Regiments are thematically cool and fit the scale. On the other hand Lord Solar Leontis leading 50 dudes on the front lines is a little silly.
You can always just tell yourself, your leading a small section of a much larger battlefield.
Generic characters let's you create your own headcanon around your army and customize to your liking. Epic heroes feel pushed. It is super weird, narratively, that all these epic heroes would show up to every single little skirmish that their army is involved in. I'm glad they exist, but they shouldn't ever be the optimal and points efficient way to play IMHO.
in a galaxy as big as a galaxy, the likelyhood of 2 named charichters meeting should be near zero
When we still played GW games. We house ruled no named characters or planes in games smaller than a 5k
Trust me as a daemons player... this made for some fun list building. Which is why I mainly played my orks.
That's a good rule, although I'd allow aircraft at 3k.
I like both named and generic they both tell their stories
There needs to be a non-named alternative to every named character imo
Lots of people who feel that way will just buy the model and customize it or kit bash something similar and just proxy the rules. Most players are fine with this.
I prefer generic characters because I cant imagine the faction leader of any faction leading a tiny 2000pt force on some galactic backwater. That's what my personal, generic characters are for.
When I started Warhammer in the late 90's, named charecters were only allowed with your opponoent's permission as mentioned in the video. Because of that, I've never really got into playing with them. I also prefer to create the story of my own characters as opposed to an established character. Also, why would leader of an entire faction be leading such a small skirmish battle?
It sucks that the leader of every faction is an auto include. 3 lords of terra are fielded in every competitive list which involves their faction
Mortarion, Cawl, Patriarch aint that good tbh
no. Ghaz is not, silent king also not, morty i dunno mostly not. Ksons rules are shitty that makes magnus autoinclude. Guerillaman is not autoinclude, lion is not worth it still, cawl is never played, leontus is format warping due to shitty index rules as is magnus. angron is autoinclude for the same reason magnus is. tau has no leader. nids have no autoinclude.
we see banana boys, horse dude, magnus and angron. and that is... like it. out of 20 odd factions.
Ur wrong.
@@istvanhorvath3306 Tau have a supreme leader and he spent quite a while as autoinclude recently... as a disposable moveblocker due to his 1 turn invuln ability
@@istvanhorvath3306Shadowsun is used in most lists and she MUST be your warlord.
@Gecko18045 exceptions not the rule. typhus is the defacto leader of DG now that morty is grounded, and he is in every list
My army of orks has no named characters. It's hard too, because some of them are very good.
My group has invested in our own lore. Our ork player has philosopher orks so even named characters get a new name. Krumpamer Lennon (instead of Gaz) and his ability to krump a 450pt knight still haunts our deployment zone.
named character spam feels awful and has helped deadened the investment people have with /yourdudes/. We used to build pretty unique and interesting chaos lords, chapter masters, colonels etc and now its just Azrael or abbadon every game
I like Kharn. I hate seeing him everywhere. It’s just weird seeing lore important characters show up for what amounts to a minor skirmish.
I hate the idea of single units being _essential_ to the functioning of an army. If these rules are vital to the faction, they should be in the army / detachment rules; not in an Epic Hero
For the demon primarchs dying and then returning in other games makes sense also Lucius the eternal, trazim the infinite, the spider etc.
Absolutely prefer generics. A named character could be represented by using a relic or enhancement or detatchment etc. Feels wierd having a faction hero get killed in dozens of games over and over 😂
They don't die, they simply retreat. That's my head-canon
@@e-volt9285 kinda have to think that way or it's just... Silly 😂
@@adambusenbark63 Another win for playing a Chaos faction, we just get banished for a bit xD.
I get through as the emperors champion isn't named lol
Every named character should just have a bunch of mechanical augments and a horrifically scarred face. Even the lore is stretching it with how these guys have been non stop fighting for hundreds of years, Eldrad was the only one that originally lived in real non-warp time all these years, and he can see the future.
For me it just depends. It can be fine, but when *every* time the Death Guard go to battle Mortarion shows up I would like for the other characters who aren't named to be viable.
I've got a Master of Executions based on the lone Berzerker that won me the combat patrol tournament I did close to the beginning of 10th.
Last game was into Tyranids and they put a huge dent in my army getting to go first on a long edge deployment. I was positive I was going to lose, but here's this lone eviscerator Berzerker that keeps spiking its saves and attacks to kill the last Von Ryan's Leaper, before surviving fighting both the Winged Tyranid Prime and Psychophage, killing both in subsequent turns. At this point my opponent was so annoyed that this one dude was not just living, but killing his big models, that he ignored my Warlord sitting on his home objective scoring both primary and secondary to the point that he lost by the 4 secondary points scored by the Warlord.
The Berzerker finally went down turn 5 to a hail of fire from returned termagaunts, but my headcanon was that Khorne compelled the Lord on Juggernaut to ride out and grab him so he could continue taking skulls. Decided there that my unbuilt MoE would be him. He's killed many impressive foes since, including Be'lakor, Morvenn Vahl, Castellan Crowe, etc.
Generic was always better for personal gameplay and narative, however gw learned that they can overdesign named charcters and sell a ton of them at extreme markups to people who just collect models and don't actually create their own minor chapters, regiments, craftworlds, or tomb worlds (as they used to encourage), so named characters are overtuned by design so they can show up in competitive as yet more advertising for the pure colecting side of the hobby. I hate it so much.
Sly Marbo Cannot Die, when he runs out of wounds he retires from the field because he ran out of cigars!
I am frankly baffled by how easy it is to add named characters to your armies. Like, they sell 500pt combat boxes containing these figures of legend, and you can easily have an army that contains Gaunt's Ghosts, Ursula Creed, and even the Lord Solar all in the same place even in a smaller army.
I remember back when I painted WHF minis, you had limited slots for rare, HQ, and Hero units, and those scaled up with army size. So you couldn't field the likes of Karl Franz or Malekith unless you had a large army, and even then they would occupy multiple Hero slots. Meaning big name characters were reserved for the biggest of battles, where it would make sense that the big lords and whatnot would come out to lead in person.
And for a game balance perspective, it makes total sense. Tournaments also didn't permit them a lot of times. But GW is driven by sales and you can't sell expensive character models if they are difficult to put on the table. So game balance be damned, it is all about profit these days.
I always bring at least one named character because it adds personality to my army, makes the match more cinematic, and it's fun to give them personality
It would be nice of the Epic characters were more evenly spread out, rather than, say, the Divergent Chapters getting so many more than any other armies.
I played custom chapter and found that was getting bitch slap a lot by chapter with named characters.
"Ah, but you see, the Lord Solar simply *had* to show up to this skirmish. How else would the three tanks operate effectively?"
i wish some of the epic heroes had generic counterparts, like Morvenn Vahl having an alternate build for a canoness in paragon suit, or shadowsun have an alternate for a stealth commander. luckily with the release of canoness with seraphim wings, you can convert Celestine
I like named characters a lot, I feel they should embody a facet the way a faction or detachment embodies to give players a jumping off point or an interest in the factions lore. Generic characters are great for players who want more expression and diversity in their builds and want a bit more creativity. I like them both and I love the named character models there can be a place for both of them. That’s what’s so nice about this game!
My Ultramarines live and die by their named characters. There’s literally no reason to play them if you’re not going to use Marneus Calgar or Uriel Ventris. That said, my Aeldari army rarely brings names characters aside from The Avatar of Khaine (who I don’t count as a named character personally).
Characters are too expensive, its crazy how much 1 infantry sized model can be.
As an Eldar player we have just 4 character types (foot/bike/wings) so it's hard not looking at the 15 or so named characters we have for variety.
To be honest, I would love to have GSC named characters... a Genestealer cultist so important and successful in his job that he migrates from planet to planet, gathering large army of misfits and finally dooming them.
I think it's the part where the character would have to manage to get off-world before the hive fleet arrives for its buffet meal that'd be most tricky. like the day before they'd suddenly say 'hey guys I forgot I left my favorite revolution pants on a different planet. I'm gonna go get them but you guys keep fighting the good fight!' and take off into space.
@@Reqqlesit’s possible he’s so good at his job the hive fleet simply sends him to the next planet instead of eating him.
What would be fun is a swarmlord type patriarch
@@Reqqles They could do a splintered group with Malstrain Genestealers we've gotten in Necromunda. A Genestealer cult that is avoided by Tyranid fleet because they are inflicted by a virus that makes them unconsumable by Fleet.
@@Reqqles Day of Ascension has a character going Off-world after succefuly rebeling against some Techpriest. Being seen as a martyr that need to propaget the words of the cult.
I much prefer generic characters but there are certain options that are not available to them now. If I want a SoB character to lead my paragon warsuits, I only have one named character as an option (Morvenn Vahl). Then again, my favorite edition is 3rd where you required opponent permission to field most special characters.
I've also often been tempted to make an Emperor's Children army but I have 0 interest in fielding Lucius.
I like to think that the named characters arent killed and are instead rescued by some otherwordly force, Lion taken away by Watchers, Guilliman withdraws when he drops down, the Daemons get absorbed into the Warp, etc.
Also for 90 points you can get a Gravis Captain with Ironstorm, The Flesh is Weak, and have a super tanky character leading Aggressors. Havent had a chance to test, but alot stronger than alot of the named characters lol
Customized generic characters are the coolest. I loved 3rd edditions customization for HQ mureens, paying for extra spikey bits XD. My lords wargear list looked more like a DnD character sheet. Gameplay wise i can see why thats gone. I prefered the build your own sandbox to the Jacestus Leage of named characters having offical melodrama.
They really need to bring back the Armoury system where they justhad a page with 50+ items you could equip your characters with in any combination you want from weapons, to armour types, to mounts, to Trademark Items, Bionics, Purity Seals, Grenades, Biomorphs, Mutations, Medals, Hardwired Implants, Gadgets, Archeotech, Runes... . That was peak "your dudes" and it's absurd that later editions removed it.
I love my ‘Really Quiet Royal Man’, and can’t leave out ‘Brazen the Lots and Lots’, an up and coming Necron pokemon master. Can’t forget ‘Amonkey, the Windy Guy’ either.
They really draw the robots together on the board.
Running an Iron Snakes Space Marine army, so I get no named characters, but it has been fun to make my own background for the characters. It's especially fun because I got 6 Captains and 4 Lieutenants, and it's been fun to believe it's really two brothers who got promoted to Lieutenant and have risen through the ranks to various companies.
Two Lieutenants, then get Phobos training (Phobos and Reiver), then both get promoted to Captain and follow different paths. One goes Gravis, then Terminator, the other goes back to Phobos and later becomes a Jump Pack Captain. Eventually both gain more honor and become Judiciar and Company Champion.
I think named characters are fun, but I only use them about half the time, and even then I rarely use more than two in a single list. I’m actually more apt to run ridiculous lists with super heavies than character spam of any kind. My last local tourney I brought two Harridans as the core of my Nid list (2-1 record). Now THAT was some fun Warhammer.
I like that both are options. Its fun to use characters you enjoy but also create your own out of a generic unit
Generic, except for my Ynnari actually being led by Yvraine and the Visarch.
My armies are MY armies, so the characters are my characters.
As a bonus, generic characters don't invalidate multiples of discount boxes quite as fast.
Coming up with custom characters is a whole lot of fun, even if they're so non-canon it hurts, like my Imperial Fist captain of 3rd Company: Aurelius (who actually is just using the Tor Garadon model but with an appropriate Gravis helm with captain skull marking). Or my Rogue Trader from Necromunda, Dante Catallus, using a mish-mash of parts and some liquid green stuff and becoming my stand-in model for the Creed dataslate working alongside colonel Ashe Vogel, who was laterally promoted into the Guard from the Tempestus Scions.
Personally it's very fun coming up with 'OC's for use in-play and maybe even developing their stories through inspiration on the table.
I like using named characters for their unique rules. My models are always proxies anyway, so I treat all datasheets as just rules.
The big thing for me, is that you could have the same named character on both side of the board. For example, two CSM players getting drawn against each other in a tournament and they both have Abaddon.
The benefits on Nids since their named heroes can be technically used in any army with how the hive mind part work
I think it's quite fun to have a mix of both
Cause you can use the named to help give some kind of start to your lore and incorporate the generic characters and there own goals
Or you can make a hexmark destroyer Spanish and name him Antonio after the actor who played Puss in boots
I'm currently having this trouble with Canis Rex specifically. Since he doesn't need to pay points for knights army rules he's become kind of the go-to every time you want a full knight freebladed in. Let me have decision paralysis on all the identical knights in peace!
I think it would be a good test of a faction to try and win without named characters. Could be a special tournament where everyone knows in advance. Exclusions would have to be specified to avoid accidents, like excluding the Triumph of Saint Katherine, which isn't a single character, per se. Adepta Sororitas lists almost always have Morvenn Vahl, and multiple other named characters. Can they win without them? Maybe not! But if no other armies have named characters, I'd anticipate some interesting surprises.
I have doubts whether demons can create functional list without dipping into named characters
Both armies I play don't have any good named characters so that would be a piece of cake
@@Jfk2Mr That's a fair point. At the same time, I've seen a battle report where it took 3 turns to kill a Great Unclean One, basically all the shooting from the opposing army. It would definitely require thought. Maybe demons could be limited to one major demon? There must be a way.
I like both. Im a huge fan of The Lion, Azrael, Asmodai and others but nothing beats a kitbashed Luitenant that you customized. It also helps make your army really feel like an army, as opposed to playing as the hero with other units around you
Could we get a video explaining precision in the future? As I understand, you roll to wound the bodyguard unit and if they fail the save, you can allocate the precision attacks into the character. Just asking for a clarification to it. Thank you for your videos!
World Eaters is pretty tough at the moment because we have 2 named characters in our armies than kind of make up almost every roster (Ideally). But when more models for them come out later I will be happy to see some leaders if any
The only named character I use from time to time is my chapter’s version of sergeant telion, different model and all. I love having my own named characters on the battlefield.
Since I make up my own chapter/order etc I give the named characters new names. For example, tau allied adepta sororitas is led by a redhead named Morgan (using Morvenn's model)
I find it very interesting and fun to actually see games that involve Primarchs and other characters in gameplay! Like when you play RTS-games, where you rarely see the big guys coming out to play - just because hordes are so much better😔😔😔
Going to be kitbashing a Night Lords Heir of Curze using Abaddon's rules. Just gotta find the right base model.
I wish they set up the statblocks as "name" : "title". Thus the kits can be used for custom characters with that title.
Eg, Lion el Jhonson: lord of the forest. My guy could also be a lord of the forest with the same stat block.
I've never been a huge fan of special characters turning up all the time but I like them being available
I only play narrative. I have Qonor (a Phobos libr) making name for himself by friends. It’s great to see characters develop during battles and making reputation in epic deeds.
I like building a narrative
There’s an initial incursion
A spearhead assault
A kill team mission or two
A mega waaaggghhh
Depends on results of each fight but it’s how I like to do it. Means every army we use builds and crescendos over a period of weeks/months before we switch to new armies
Means named characters don’t feature every time but are built up to
I think this is a Lore Vs Gameplay preference.
There is also a balance conversation to, as some named characters are almost integral in some armies, and almost a waste of points in others (looking at you my newer sculpt Phoenix Lords)
I think it kinda depends on how I’m painting the army, if I’m making a custom subfaction I don’t really want or like named characters, but when I pick an established one I’m kinda drawn to those named characters thematically (I have craftworld Iyandin for example and would love a Prince Yriel that isn’t finecast, not because he’s good, but for the flavor)
In 5th(?) you had to have a certain amount of points in order to use named characters. Abbadon for example required a 2000 Points army.. I always liked that..
There were some janky rules with different chars aswell. Black Templars had to include an emperors champion, cpt stern gave the opponent a keeper of secrets if you fielded him.. fun times.
I remember that. Had to have a 2k army to bring Azrael
In 5th (at least in my area) there were a lot of tournaments that did not allow named characters. Can you imagine if some GTs are not allowing Epic Heroes nowadays? Would definitely see some placing changes in armies that heavily rely on them.
I play & collect Black Templars, and I enjoy using the named characters and my crusade marshal! I do not play competitively, I play more for fun with close friends. I did the same with my previous collections of Dark Angels and Blood Angels. I'm always quite fond of my generic captain, which I name and give a slight back story to ... but I also like the named characters of each of those factions.
They used to like generic characters as you could customize them much more with special wargear. Now they just get a enhancement that is a fraction of what named characters get.
As a Black Templar player, there isn't a single list I have that doesn't have AT LEAST High Marshall Helbrecht in it.
And isn’t it lovely when two of them are staring at each other from the other side of the battlefield…
I like having a balance with my salamanders; I have Adrax and Vulkan, but I field just as often generic gravis captains or librarians
My only issue with Generic heroes is lack of options. I do kind of wish more heroes got more options, to really make them your own. Like I’m not even opposed to the idea of “It’s not on the included sprues, so you’re not left with untouched sprues of options raising the price, but it’s on the datasheet if you want to kitbash” type scenarios.
Or heck, necramunda has individual bit molds. While I doubt they’d do this, I’d love just a “build-a-hero” option too.
Data sheet options are the big thing to me though, since there are plenty of ways to get bits otherwise.
For me, it's really down to what mechanics and model kits are available for each army I play.
For my Imperial Fists Successor Chapter, my army warlord is a generic Captain in Gravis Armour (with boltstorm gauntlet and sword) because I really like the look of the model compared to picking either of the two Imperial Fists heros and the ability to pick diffrent enhancements and equipment are really handy. And because my army is comprised mostly of Gravis marines so it is fitting.
However, my Hedonates of Slaanesh are led by Glutos Orcillion because I love his lore, and I feel he is unique and very fitting for a Slaanesh themed army. While other chaos armies are led by great warriors or wizards, my Hedonates are lead by a depraved gluttonous rich man on a chariot.
personally, I started at the very end of 2nd, and ive mostly played 3rd. when I started looking to get back into this, I started making lists. I do not like using named characters. its less realistic, and less fun I think.
I like named characters as I DO like seeing my games as these larger than life conflicts. I also like having models for characters I've read in books, such as Pedro Kantor.
I also really enjoy their models with the exception of Lord Solar, which completely ruins the tone of most Guard armies. Primarchs seem like incredibly fun projects for center pieces.
Also their unique abilities are a welcome addition to the game.
I miss when we had forge world chapters full of characters for chapters beyond the First Founding ones.
If it were me I'd make sure each faction gets enough generic leaders/heroes, then sell some named characters as alternate sculps for those datasheets. Like say the Crisis Coldstar datasheet let you take a sword, plasma rifle, and shield, so if you wanted to buy the Farsight model you could run him as a Coldstar, but if you didn't like the Farsight model you wouldn't need it.
Its hard to say cause on the one hand i dont want lord solar to be leading my army yet i love seeing iron hand straken pop off
do more tier list after the recent dataslate please !
Both; it’s cool having a named captain with different abilities
I like named characters, they’re just cool.
I also think the idea of a custom “this is my personal army with lore I made myself” thing is very much a space marine only concept.
Most other factions are limited by lore or lack of customization. No other army gets the luxury of the kind of choices that space marines have. They can be imperial, chaos, or just doing their own thing. They can be a section of an existing chapter or something wholly unique. Space marines also have a huge number of in-game options for customization.
What I’m saying is that the topic is not about generic versus named characters, it’s about whether you’re playing a faction that is compatible with generics or is your army’s best shot at being unique involves a named character.
Can honestly say it's all about the generic characters.
Currently working out lore for a campaign against a friend that plays guard and I cannot wait to have my Swarmlord or Norn Emissary take down his Commissar.
For me it's mostly about the model sculpt and then how it plays into my style of gaming, so it doesn't matter to me if it's named or not
My own characters all the way... orks demand as much conversion as possible so I don't want anything that looks like a model someone else might field. My Boyz, my Way.
I like playing with whatever I want to play with. I like the lore of 40k, but I'm playing for the sake of interesting game play. That said I like having characters in general to bring some personality to the army.
Some people seem very concerned about that it's immersion breaking to have a high ranking character in a small army, meanwhile in the fight face you connect in engagement range and models start dying a long distance away if the enemy unit is strung out enough. A tiny fraction of terrain gives as much cover as if you're only exposing a fraction. This isn't an immersive, lore accurate game. It's just a damn cool game with great gameplay and interesting lore surrounding it
I’d like to see more options for generic, really let me customise my warlord.
Generic cause then I ger to make weird cool little guys. But honestly the issue is many Named characters are must haves in army list now. I love Typhus but the fact if i dont take him im hurting my list is wild
They need a Chapter Master profile, Something beyond Captain for those who want to build their own Space Marine Chapter
I either get to play my imperial fist characters or play yellow space marines that have fist iconography now that chapter tactics aren't a thing. Not upset about it since my tor and lysander are relatively playable. The other army I'm planning to play is world eaters and one of the main reasons I'm gonna play them is the named characters, kharn originally and the they got their own codex and new models.
I've generally had more fun inventing and painting my own characters. I like being in control of what's going on in my own corner of the galaxy. If I make a ton of history with one of GW's main characters, like Abaddon, it's not exactly gonna appear in the next White Dwarf, is it?
A a crusade player they can be a fairly annoying "point tax" of getting an effect no generic units can offer.
The downside being a unit that can't gain exp or grow so I'm incentivized to use them as little as possible.
I think people enjoy named characters in terms of what they bring to the lore and narrative aspect of the hobby. But unless they offer exceptional value, I notice that most people tend to bring generic characters to lead their armies on the table.