8th Ed. Who are the very best named Special Characters in the entire game?

Throgg's Copious Vomit breath weapon attack ignores armour!

In a straight head-to-head matchup Taurox should win (barely)...




Taurox striking before Throgg carries him to victory.

Keep in mind that the above matchup does not account for Taurox's instant death rule, although it is highly unlikely to play a factor...



In reality the matchup is nearly a coin toss. Especially when we factor in that in order for Taurox to make it into round 2, and kill Throgg, he must first pass a break test on a 7. At a success rate of 58.3%, that is far from a certainty. And there is always the chance, however unlikely, that Taurox gets killed outright because of his special rule.

And therein lies the problem. Taurox is a purely dedicated combat lord who is barely able to squeak out a victory over a multi-use (both combat and buff) hero that costs a whopping 140 points less than him. Throgg's combat ability is just a single dimension of a multi-faceted character. Shifting Trolls to core and allowing a large percentage of unit types to use his leadership are both valuable aspects of the character. Poor Taurox does nothing outside of combat.

Additionally, Taurox's Flaming Attacks special rule, which admittedly saved him in the matchup against Throgg, is undoubtedly a liability overall. The K'daai Destroyer's one greatest flaw is the fact that his attacks are flaming, and thus allowing a simple 5 or 10 point magic item to negate its impressive offense.

That's two votes for Alarielle! I'd love to read a more detailed write-up on her. Is she much than Teclis? I have very little experience with High Elves.

So how is Teclis typically rated? I know he used to be obscenely powerful in 7th edition, and then got nerfed, but where does he stand now? Is he good value for his high points cost? The ability to choose your spells seems like an extremely powerful ability... especially as it allows the HE player to precisely tailor his magic phase to exploit his adversary at the start of the game.

 

Okay I'll take a shot at Alarielle now - I apologize in advance for the rather messy post and thoughts.

First though: Teclis does not seem as powerful in 8th as in 7th, not even close. I don't remember the points cost difference between editions, but I believe it is more or less the same.
Now in 7th he basically has loremaster, while in 8th he can choose spell from each lore, which is certainly better in most cases, he also gets loremaster if he chooses high magic and has the +1 to cast high magic, because elves...

His sword and scroll are the same, but his staff is much worse in 8th. In 7th it just have him an extra D3 power/dispel dice every turn, while in 8th it as a one time use, that gets him an extra dice per casting attempt in that one turn. Now that is still powerful, but the staff from 7th makes magic more consistent, which is very valuable for magic, and it gives magic defense on top of that. He can however use the staff to ignore a miscast in 8th, so there is that, but I would still rather have the one from 7th.

His crown is different as well, and I'd say both are very strong, it just depends what you are going for. In 7th it ignored the first miscast every turn, while in 8th it effectively makes him a lv 5 mage (so he natively has +6 to cast high magic - just eww).

If this was all, I'd say overall, he would be better in 8th, with his higher casting bonus, and excellent spell selection. So where does he falter in comparison?
Well it partly comes down to irresistible force and miscast being separate in 7th, and not so in 8th. Also the fact that Teclis cannot force spells through with irresistible force in 8th. In 7th though, he just flat out had the rule that any roll of a double would be irresistible force, and since it did not come with a miscast, it was just a bonkers ability, and not even tied to a magic item - in that sense, what does it matter that Teclis in 8th has a higher wizard level, if 7th edition Teclis didn't really need it to cast his spells?

All this does not make Teclis bad in 8th, just in comparison to 7th, and furthermore it has made him more niche in 8th in some sense, or at be more of a gamble. I guess one could compare Teclis's nerf of Teclis to that of our Slann from 7th to 8th, we lost quite a bit of raw power, but gained in versatility.

But on to Alarielle:

What does she bring, well let's start out by comparing her to an Archmage, which I believe is a nice Lv4 wizard, and worth his points, so what does alarielle gain from being 130 points more expensive?
first off she gains some stats increaeses, namely +2 WS, +1 BS, +1 I, +1 LD, so she is slightly more defensive baseline and is a better general if you need her to be, you still don't want her on the front lines you you can avoid it though - but her special rules make up for that, which we'll get to.

She does lose access to all 8 lores, so one minus, however she makes up for this, by being able to generate spells from High, Life and Light in any combination, so some nice utility, and these are also quite nice lores for HE. From how I understand spell generation, this also means that you do not need to decide how the distribution between lores are, before she is to actually generate her spells.

Special Rules:

Boon of Isha makes alle her unit's attacks magical and immune to fear and terror. This is great, as there are no downsides to gaining magic attacks, as now the unit can kill any ethereal unit and while it's not a big deal in a high LD army, you won't have to worry about fear and terror, which just makes the deathstar you can make with her, unable to flee with an unlucky terror check or lose effectiveness due to a fear check.

Chaos Bane is arguably her least impressive rule, dishing out D6 Str4 hits to any daemon within 12" of her, at the start of the magic phase. This is very situatoional, but fluffy so personally I like it, it's just not likely to do much. The bad part, is that if there actually are any daemons, then she has -D3 to her casting - ouch - but again situational.

Touch of the Everqueen makes her close combat attacks have heroic killing blow if she attacks anything from the Forces of Destruction. Not great with just 1 attack, but might do some pshycological warfare on your opponent, as she does have decent WS and ASF, so who knows right?

Her real power comes from her Magic items though.
First we have her Shieldstone of Isha, which gives her unit a 5+ ward save against non-magical attacks. This is very powerful, sure it won't protect against magic or magical attacks, but there is not that many units with magical attacks, other than daemons, but hey, He has the Dragon banner for that.
And remember that Alarielle has access to High magic, so she can buff this to a 3+.

Her Star of Avelorn is a powerhouse as well, healing a wound of any character within 12" at the start of the movement phase, and if there is no viable target, she heals herself. So this is getting the lore attribute from Lore of Life every turn for free. And as she has access to lore of Life, she can heal even more if she wants.

Her Stave of Avelorn is a one use only, and lets her cast a spell she has already attempted in the same phase. Not the most exciting, but probably useful now and then.

I'd say all his is well worth the extra 130 points and then some. You get a Lv 4 mage, that is more flexible if you want lore of high, light or life, and you can combine them. She protects herself, her unit, makes them situationally stronger and heals characters in range.

She then also gives access to two unique magic items.
Horn of Isha is okay, but not all that powerful. It's a one use only, used at the start of the movement phase, and last for the rest of the turn all models in the unit has +1 to hit in cc and at range. The main thing is the price of the item, being a bit too much.

The Banner of Avelorn however can be really strong. It does cost 40 points and only the BSB can take it, so fairly restrictive.
What does it do then?
It makes spells from the lore of light or life get an additional +4 to cast, as long as Alarielle is alive. So is alarielle casts a spell on a unit with this banner, she has +8 to cast, just let that sink in.
It means no augment spell is hard to cast on the unit, and mostly you just have to not get broken concentration.

Taking it all together, I believe Alarielle can make on the nastiest deathstars in the game.
imagine a horde of White Lions with the Banner of the World dragon, Alarielle and a BSB with the Banner of Avelorn.
This unit has a boostable 5+ ward against non-magical attacks and a 2+ ward against magical attacks. It also has a 3+ AS against shooting and an admittedly not so impressive 5+ AS in melee. The unit can shred ethereal units and is immune to fear and terror and is stubbonr on LD 10.
The characters in the unit can heal every turn, and any buff spells, say Flesh to Stone is +8 to cast, which means all you have to do, to cast the spell, is not get broken concentration. Regrowth is easy to cast as well, should any White Lions somehow die, and with Lore of Life Alarielle has acess to Dwellers below, a very nasty spell in itself.

 

You've sold me on Alarielle. That definitely sounds like a good deal for a 130pts extra.

Great write-up!

 

Anyone else?