Named Characters

[VividSloth]

I recently picked up the Cities of Sigmar army and realised that they dont have any named characters. I have noticed a lot of other factions have named characters that are crazy powerful and that just doesnt exist in Cities of Sigmar. Is this on purpose? Is there a feature the Cities of Sigmar has that makes it so they would be too powerful if they had named characters? Or is it that Games Workshop just hasnt released those models yet and if so when will they? 

[zilberfrid]

1 hour ago, VividSloth said:

I recently picked up the Cities of Sigmar army and realised that they dont have any named characters. I have noticed a lot of other factions have named characters that are crazy powerful and that just doesnt exist in Cities of Sigmar. Is this on purpose? Is there a feature the Cities of Sigmar has that makes it so they would be too powerful if they had named characters? Or is it that Games Workshop just hasnt released those models yet and if so when will they? 

Games workshop hasn't released a single model for the subfactions in CoS since the start of AoS (except for an already discontinued one).

They haven't made any commitment to the faction except for the battletome (and now Warcry rules in a White dwarf, not even a card pack).

Named characters are not inherently more powerful, in fact, they are less versatile, because they can't have command traits or artifacts.

[Beliman]

2 hours ago, VividSloth said:

I recently picked up the Cities of Sigmar army and realised that they dont have any named characters. I have noticed a lot of other factions have named characters that are crazy powerful and that just doesnt exist in Cities of Sigmar. Is this on purpose? Is there a feature the Cities of Sigmar has that makes it so they would be too powerful if they had named characters? Or is it that Games Workshop just hasnt released those models yet and if so when will they? 

You can take SCE characters (Aventis give 1 CP if you take him in Hammerhall). I think that someone on twitter said that Cities of SImgar was a personal project from on of their designers, so that's the whole point of the battletome.

Don't get me wrong, I hope to see Cities expanded/redesigned with new characters and units, but remember that at this moment, we still don't have any second wave for any AoS-exclusive army (apart from SCE and some random Heroes/Spells/Terrain).

Edited October 9, 2020 by Beliman

[Baron Klatz]

That's half of it, the battletome was because of the Warcry dev who used to be the creator of a lot AoS fanworks which focused on the mortal stuff before GW hired them.

The other reason is because they are human focused where we have had named characters before like the Candlemen leader from the Godbeast campaign:

 But therein lies the problem. He survived and helped win that campaign to free their homeland of the Tauroi archipelago in Aqshy even as it floated in the void shores with floods of beastmen coming down from the volcanoes. He still died though because that was well over a hundred years ago by the current Soul Wars.

Same problem with any human, they live too short when the setting jumps a century to keep up with the plots of the gods, demigods or just to encompass the time passing through all the vast realms. So the immortal Stormcast are better to build around that with the ages nature in mind.(the longer lived Duardin and city aelves don't have characters simply because they're placeholders for more  upgraded armies like the Kharadron and Lumineth)

As has been said though it's not that big an issue because though named characters are tough they are far less versatile. The best ones are living gods like Archaon or Nagash which only makes sense, named characters closer to mortal scales usually get switched out for custom characters in meta since they can't compete with that on a pure power scale.

Edited October 9, 2020 by Baron Klatz

[EMMachine]

@Baron Klatz

Basicly this in a progressing lore their must be a real on for the model to be kept alive. I would like it more if we would get more options for generic characters, and the named once can be build from them.

Being a named character basicly means that there is only one of them in the entire mortal Realms and they should have richtig lore. Look Ing at the characters that are named one it is often not the case. There are Characters that have much lore and don't have a model (Black Library characters) and on the other side their are the guys that have a halve pager in the Battletome (Gavriel Sureheart) or not Lore at all (many Event miniatures).

For me named Chars are more a collector thing.

Edited October 9, 2020 by EMMachine

[Greybeard86]

On 10/9/2020 at 12:46 PM, Baron Klatz said:

the longer lived Duardin and city aelves don't have characters simply because they're placeholders for more  upgraded armies like the Kharadron and Lumineth

I think that's the true answer.

Cities of Sigmar looks like a placeholder that they will progressively erase as more armies are developed. Essentially, they moved to AoS without a full range of new miniatures. They haven been predating on the existing range to keep a game that can be played with some variety. However, I do not think they plan on keeping them around, at all. Hence the lack of support in terms of new named characters or miniatures.

I am not entirely sure what they will do with some of the first generation AoS that have very little support in terms on minis (fyreslayers). I am not sure GW knows either. If you care about playing the game (not just the "hobby" side), and you do not have the willingness to switch armies in a couple years, I would think very carefully anout starting a  CoS army.

We have seen the dawi losing miniatures, high elves, etc. Half the range in CoS is probably dead in their future plans, we just don't have a clear picture.

[Baron Klatz]

5 hours ago, Greybeard86 said:

I am not entirely sure what they will do with some of the first generation AoS that have very little support in terms on minis (fyreslayers).

Fyreslayers are fine. They're a popular top tournament army that sees frequent updates and new rules in the White Dwarf and huge story presence in the lore.

They're assured future expansion at some point even if it's more warbands.(really it's only if you don't get either scenery or Endless Spells that you should worry)

For CoS we will have to see how they make actual Freeguild armies. If they end up being based on the Warcry realm army releases then we could get stuff like Ghyran humans mixed with Living City aelves that Wanderers could proxy into or Ulgu cities for new shadowy humans & Scourge pirates.  Back in 2017 GW did say they wanted realm focused Freeguild which the creator of both Warcry and CoS may have had a hand in since they started both, the cities getting a book and mixed warbands from each realm that are composed of humans, aelves and duardin.

Even then though, a CoS army is a still a very good thing for Order players to get into as it's an updated Grand Alliance Order tome that'll let them build and branch off multiple armies for the future with their current list.

Better to have it and be able to mix in some jumping off points like Fyreslayers or Sylvaneth(with some old models to proxy) than have to restart an army from scratch.

 

Edited October 10, 2020 by Baron Klatz