So it was that I had read the Space Marines Battles book Rynn's World that got me thinking about Captain Cortez again. I got out my really old Space Marine codex and reread his old profile. His main purpose seemed to be to inspire his battle brothers and keep them on the field. So I created a character sheet to update him for fifth edition.
pts: 160 | WS | BS | S | T | W | I | A | Ld | Sv |
Captain Alessio Cortez | 6 | 5 | 4 | 5 | 3 | 5 | 3 | 10 | 3+ |
Wargear: Bolt Pistol, Master Crafted Power Fist, Iron Halo, Frag and Krak Grenades, Power Armour
Special Rules: And They Shall Know No Fear, Combat Tactics, Independent Character, Eternal Warrior, Feel No Pain, Rites of Battle, Inspiring Legend, Chapter Tactics
Inspiring Legend: Cortez is famous for suffering grievous wounds and living all for the sake of his mission. His legend as Cortez the Immortal inspires the battle brothers under his command. One space marine unit may ignore the first failed Morale Test. This applies to things that normally cause a unit to fall back automatically. Note that this ability can only be used once per battle and must be used the first time a unit has to fall back.
Rites of Battle: If Cortez is on the table, all other Space Marine squads can use his Leadership for any morale or pinning tests.
Chapter Tactics: If you include Alessio Cortez then all units in your army exchange the Combat Tactics special rule for the Stubborn special rule. If more than one character in your army has the Chapter Tactics special rule, you must choose which version will apply.
Command Squad: Alessio Cortez is an HQ choice for a Codex: Space Marines army. As a company captain, Cortez allows you to take a Space Marine Command Squad in your army. The Unit is an HQ choice and does not count against your army’s HQ allowance.
I wanted to keep the original intention of his rules as much intact as possible. However, I didn't want him to overshadow his Chapter Master Pedro Kantor who is actually in the printed codex. The trick here is to not make him too much better than a standard captain while giving him something extra to change the game. We don't want people ignoring the create-your-own section, but we don't want him to be useless either.
So here is the problem. The original rules for Cortez are pretty useless in the current codex. Space Marines are high enough leadership with ATSKNF that his rule set doesn't really improve or change this. Costing additional points for these abilities just further makes him more pointless and less desirable. Who is Cortez? What makes him Cortez? He's tough, resilient, doesn't give up or back down. He'll fight on even with only one arm. How do we represent this?
Cortez doesn't have any real special equipment. I toyed with the idea of a S10 power fist, but it didn't match his character. So to make him different from regular captains or other special characters, I increased his toughness, more in line with his character. Eternal Warrior was a must, his legacy has certainly earned it. Despite these, I didn't feel it necessary to increase his points too much because of these. His power fist makes him slow in combat, so making him more durable only helps to keep him alive long enough to use it. Captains have high Initiative, it's only worth while to use weapons that takes advantage of that. But since Cortez can only have a power fist, this really just lowers his value.
Also, he can't outshine Kantor. His Chapter Tactics should reflect his and his chapter's stubborn nature, but his Chapter Tactics can't be better than Kantor's should they be fielded together. Kantor's should always take precedence. However, with this being the case, he shouldn't be without something that makes his stubborn and inspiring presence known on the battlefield. This is where Inspiring Legend and Rites of Battle come in. With these he can still have an effect without outshining Kantor.
Then again, these rules also don't really have that much of an impact either. Right now he's got enough abilities to make him worth looking at, cheap enough to field, but he really doesn't contribute much to make him more desirable than any other character. Who cares about ignoring one failed test? So let's try something different then and change Inspiring Legend.
pts: 175 | WS | BS | S | T | W | I | A | Ld | Sv |
Captain Alessio Cortez | 6 | 5 | 4 | 5 | 3 | 5 | 3 | 10 | 3+ |
Wargear: Bolt Pistol, Master Crafted Power Fist, Iron Halo, Frag and Krak Grenades, Power Armour
Special Rules: And They Shall Know No Fear, Combat Tactics, Independent Character, Eternal Warrior, Feel No Pain, Rites of Battle, Inspiring Legend, Chapter Tactics
Inspiring Legend: Cortez is famous for suffering grievous wounds and living all for the sake of his mission. His legend as Cortez the Immortal inspires the battle brothers under his command to continue fighting, ignoring their own wounds to press onto victory. Once per game, one space marine unit may re-roll all failed armour saves for one game turn. Re-rolls still cannot be re-rolled.
Rites of Battle: If Cortez is on the table, all other Space Marine squads can use his Leadership for any morale or pinning tests.
Chapter Tactics: If you include Alessio Cortez then all units in your army exchange the Combat Tactics special rule for the Stubborn special rule. If more than one character in your army has the Chapter Tactics special rule, you must choose which version will apply.
Command Squad: Alessio Cortez is an HQ choice for a Codex: Space Marines army. As a company captain, Cortez allows you to take a Space Marine Command Squad in your army. The Unit is an HQ choice and does not count against your army’s HQ allowance.
I did consider things like, one unit gains Feel No Pain for a turn, or, pick one infantry unit, it gains the FNP USR for the rest of the game. I didn't feel that this was appropriate since I wanted the squad to be charging through on its own strength. I didn't want cover saves to help it either, because that wouldn't make sense either. They're supposed to be boldly facing the enemy fire, not boldly hiding from it.
I wanted regular fire to be ineffective while low AP shots to still have an effect. It's not an overwhelmingly powerful ability, but still interesting enough to have. Cortez also still has his commanding effect on the battlefield as well. A small points increase to represent the extra survivability with the random chance of it doing absolutely nothing.
So that's how I go about creating rules for special characters. I know, a lot of text of not very interesting theory. I haven't gotten to test either rule sheet, so feel free to take the one you think is best and try it out. If you do, let me know which one you used and how it worked. The second sheet is the final copy, but that shouldn't stop anyone from using the first draft. Go ahead and discuss how the final rules look and if you see any problems or if you think they look good. Maybe even share a character sheet you've created.
Signing off
Cursed13
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