I have used them sparingly. Some are pretty expensive and rather small. However, I am big on some kind of organization, and believe every army should have a designated force commander on the board. I really dont like individual detachments running around with detachment HQs but no force HQ, so I prefer to have one, but they are usually the last thing I consider buying since they arent necessary in game terms.
Also, force commanders main roll is commanding, and while the 40k world is sort of Hero-hammer, I tend to leave whatever Supreme Commander I do have in the rear. I only bring them out when its to their advantage kind of late in the game. Its just where I feel they would realistically be.
I haven't seen many games (including non-GW) where there is a pretty important leadership reason for having a overall commander, nor any side effect for losing one during the game. I mean, losing a army's HQ would have a major effect on the force if it were lost in real life.
Back in AT/SM1, when infantry rules first started appearing in WD before SM1 was released, detachments had detachment commanders (some units having more than one - like a backup), but for extra cost you could turn one of these commanders into a force commander for like 50 points I think. It was a pretty big deal, because you could only give orders to units who had a commander, and if it were killed, there was a good chance that detachment would sit still, or fall back. The force commander allowed you to give orders to those units without a commander once a turn. Lose the force commander, and you lose that ability too.
But that rule disappeared when SM1 was released, and I don't know why. It one of the coolest rules I have seen in Epic, and I feel like a better representation of HQ units than in most GW games.
|