7th Ed. Chakax Too cheesy?

[denixrelic]

alright so im thinking of running chakax with my unit of tg and a slann, however from what i have heard people often frown upon the use of special characters. im looking for opinions; is he too cheesy or is he fair game?

 

[strewart]

In fact he is a bit overpriced for what he does. Very expensive for a hero choice and will boost the value of that TG unit to massive proportions, generally all eggs in one basket is not a good idea. He is very good at killing characters in challenges and could probably be backed against the majority of lords around, but that means opponents will do all they can to keep their expensive character away from him and when you are a M4 unit of saurus, thats not too hard to do.

The model looks awesome, use him as a scar-vet or revered guardian instead.

 

[Stegadeth]

I agree with Strew. Not sure he is too overpriced, really, but if Chakax is doing what he is supposed to be doing, which is guarding a Slann in a TG unit, that unit is incredibly expensive. Of course, it's also a tough nut to crack at that point, so the points are protected fairly well. What sucks is when the unit gets charged (as Strew said, M4 just doesn't let you get the charge off) by something like a Chaos Lord on Chaos Dragon with 11 attacks, even Chakax might not survive that. And he has to challenge.

As for named characters, it depends on your local meta-game. It's common practice around here for "friendly" games to have named characters, which I hate.

 

[walach]

as i've said before, imo chakax is terrible.

if you're fighting another block of something, they will decline the challenge and then laugh as thier rank-and-file/other character chop chakax to ribbons, as outside of a challenge he basically gets no special rules and is simply a scar veteran with a GW that costs 3 times as much as usual.

the alternative being that a much more powerful character charges, gets into a challenge with him, shrugs off his attacks and again butchers him.

he does have his uses, especially against WoC, but for me his downsides (enormous points cost, extreme vulnerability when not in a challenge) far outweigh the chance of him getting something good to whack.


i would try and say he's the worst special character in the LM book, but there's only a couple of them that are any use at all really.

 

[Marsdreamer]

I know this is off topic slightly, but it would clear up some confusion I've been having about some of the special character rules in general. I'm pretty sure my intuition is correct, it just seems off. Anyway, here it goes:

Is Chakax's armor save JUST a 4+? He has 4 Scaly Skin, but no shield, no light armor, no other wargear that specifies whether or not he gets a better armor save. It seems silly that the most "badass" Temple Guard in the army has half the save the regular Temple Guard get.

Anyway, for anyone who could clear this up for me, that'd be fantastic

 

[Wolf]

Yeah, he only has a 4+ armour save outside of challenges

 

[Marsdreamer]

Then I would say Chakax is terrible. There is no way one model is going to outperform what, for example 30 Sauros could do, or a full unit of Temple Guard (Minus command). Thats just silly, he should have a better armor save.

 

[JohnMavrick]

Chakax...yeah he's overpriced and his armour sucks outside the challenge. I like his statline and his abilities and what he gives the unit. But as everyone before has stated he's incredibly over priced, is dead if an uber lord comes along and his armour value stinks if he's not challenged. A unit without a champ or character could direct their attacks to him and kill him outright in a turn or two....not a good thing. Not to mention you've turned your already overly expensive unit into something over 1000 points...risky at best.