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Somebody help me here. Has every single book written by Matt Ward been a game-balance disaster on one level or another? As far as I know, he's done:

Warhammer Orcs and Goblins (internally imbalanced, very low tier army)
Warhammer Daemons of Chaos (need I say more?)
Warhammer Lizardmen (a lot of arbitrary changes, generally handled poorly)

Warhammer 40k: Space Marines (gimmicky, boring, mostly guilty of having lousy fluff)

What other books has he done? Which (if any) has he managed well?

I think your opinion of the Marine dex is just a little bit biased.

...its not that bad.

The marine dex is ok. The only thing that really bothers me was the switch to making the tac squad the end state, rather then the initial place of a marine. It runs contrary to most modern military structure, where you become a rifleman first, then specialize.

O&G and Lizardmen suffer from a lack of focus, leaving the author to depower "must have" units and items, without real changes to make the list effective and stylish.

Where as Daemons were the opposite, they wanted a cool army that combined easily, and overlooked the powerful special characters. I suspect that is half the reason all the lizardmen chars are 100pts over priced, and Kroak and Prophet of Sotek were randomly nerfed.

The Marine Codex isn't bad at all, its pretty flexible (I would like a bit more freedom aka. taking BP/CCW marines w/ CC special weapons as my troops but meh we can't get everything)

I've noticed with the Marine Codex that some of the units/options seemed just way to expensive for games outside of Apocalypse. I'm thinking about the Honor Guard especially.

Durandal wrote:The marine dex is ok. The only thing that really bothers me was the switch to making the tac squad the end state, rather then the initial place of a marine. It runs contrary to most modern military structure, where you become a rifleman first, then specialize.

O&G and Lizardmen suffer from a lack of focus, leaving the author to depower "must have" units and items, without real changes to make the list effective and stylish.

Where as Daemons were the opposite, they wanted a cool army that combined easily, and overlooked the powerful special characters. I suspect that is half the reason all the lizardmen chars are 100pts over priced, and Kroak and Prophet of Sotek were randomly nerfed.

Thats always how marines have done it.

I think the Lizardmen Army Book is actually pretty good. It lacks focus, but you can put any kind of unit together and make a decent, if not extremely capable force.

The Lizzies just have a lot of options to choose from, and can make more versatile armies than most.

The Orc armybook is fine, it's low tier because

1. Their Orcs. Orcs without humorous results are no fun.
2. It was written primarily with 6th Ed. in mind
3. Animosity represents the army from a fluff perspective, and adds character to the army. If you don't like it, play Skaven.

The Marine one is also fine, IMHO. The Ultramarine thing is slightly OTP, as was the "use special chars in every army" thing.

I haven't heard bad things about the Lizardmen 'Dex. I would like to know of some examples, though only because I haven't read it yet.

Daemons are Daemons.

The marine book sucks. It punishes you for taking 'tactical' tactical squads.

Which is quite annoying.

"What?! I need 10 men for a Flamer?"

Bob the Hobo wrote:I've noticed with the Marine Codex that some of the units/options seemed just way to expensive for games outside of Apocalypse. I'm thinking about the Honor Guard especially.

To me, that makes sense. The Honour Guard accompany the Chapter Master. He's not likely to be around just any little skirmish, but would normally only appear for large battles where most of the chapter is deployed.

Mattlov wrote:I think the Lizardmen Army Book is actually pretty good. It lacks focus, but you can put any kind of unit together and make a decent, if not extremely capable force.

The Lizzies just have a lot of options to choose from, and can make more versatile armies than most.

Apparently you've never played against the Jurassic Park army.

12thRonin wrote:

Mattlov wrote:I think the Lizardmen Army Book is actually pretty good. It lacks focus, but you can put any kind of unit together and make a decent, if not extremely capable force.

The Lizzies just have a lot of options to choose from, and can make more versatile armies than most.

Apparently you've never played against the Jurassic Park army.

Yes, I hate it when the other player uses Sam Neil and Jeff Goldblum. It really unbalances the game.

the only thing that really irks me about the space marine codex is the change to storm shields, and the inconsistency between chapter wargear of the same name.

oh, and the overbearing focus on ultramarines.

The lizardmen army is possibly the most well balanced Warhammer army that can actually compete with top tier armies. The stegzilla list is pretty OTT but it's very one dimensional. It gets destroyed by some armies and other armies have no way to deal with it. There are a lot of other options that Lizardmen can field that are every bit as effective.

Marines seem pretty balanced. I don't play them. I play against them all the time, though. I have the dex and I've read through it. I'm not sure what the complaint is about the fluff. The fluff for marines is already written. What are you supposed to do when you're just rewriting stuff from a timeline that's already laid out?

O&G rules are meant for 6th edition. They've always sucked in fantasy because of their ridiculous rules.

I'll admit that Daemons are absolutely ridiculous. I could see how you could take one look at that and then just find a reason to hate the rest of his work.

artyboy wrote:I'll admit that Daemons are absolutely ridiculous. I could see how you could take one look at that and then just find a reason to hate the rest of his work.

They should be removed and rewritten. Better still daemon armies should never have existed.

Did he write the lizard book ? I thought that was by Andy Hoare ?

Balance wise the space amrine codex is fine, the lack of a single UBER list would suggest.

He wrote most of the LOTR/WOTR books, I haven't heard of any OTT problems with them as such, but...I don't really follow the sites/articles/whinefests about them either.

I think DoC by itself should have been enough to ruin a designer's career.

O&G has the same problem of balance as DoC just in reverse, though there seem to be plenty of players around who can make O&G work faily well.
By comparisson the Lizardmen book and SM codex are fine.

MeanGreenStompa wrote:

artyboy wrote:I'll admit that Daemons are absolutely ridiculous. I could see how you could take one look at that and then just find a reason to hate the rest of his work.

They should be removed and rewritten. Better still daemon armies should never have existed.

I disagree. Everytime there is a codex out that people think is over powered... they cry about how they should be removed. Necrons in 3rd ed were the nuts. They were absolutley one of the stronger codices back then. NOW... not so much.

An overpowered codex is overpowered for now... until the metagame changes.

Deamons are awesome I love the fluff/feel

The SM Codex didn't impress me. I like the BA and CSM Codices over the SM Codex.

Ah yes. Good old Interweb whinging.

If you can't win with it, it must clearly be underpowered. And if you can't beat it, then clearly it must be overpowered.

Orc and Gobbo book is fine and dandy. No real power builds, which is why they do so meh on the penis extending circuit.

Daemons however, have a couple of highly abused builds which have a whiff of Gorgonzola, making them highly rated on the penis extending circuit.

Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:Ah yes. Good old Interweb whinging.

If you can't win with it, it must clearly be underpowered. And if you can't beat it, then clearly it must be overpowered.

Orc and Gobbo book is fine and dandy. No real power builds, which is why they do so meh on the penis extending circuit.

Daemons however, have a couple of highly abused builds which have a whiff of Gorgonzola, making them highly rated on the penis extending circuit.

reds8n wrote:Did he write the lizard book ? I thought that was by Andy Hoare ?

Balance wise the space amrine codex is fine, the lack of a single UBER list would suggest.

He wrote most of the LOTR/WOTR books, I haven't heard of any OTT problems with them as such, but...I don't really follow the sites/articles/whinefests about them either.

I know Andy contributed to the Lizard book, I'm not sure who got top billing though..

artyboy wrote:I'm not sure what the complaint is about the fluff.

Page 77, quote from Chapter Master (!) of the Iron Hands = EPIC FAIL.

Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:Orc and Gobbo book is fine and dandy. No real power builds, which is why they do so meh on the penis extending circuit.

Daemons however, have a couple of highly abused builds which have a whiff of Gorgonzola, making them highly rated on the penis extending circuit.

Ah yes. Good old Mad Doc Grotsnik.

Real easy to win arguments when you vilify and trivialise your opponent. Don't like tournament gamers? Just claim that they do what they do because of some sort of need for penis compensation. That's a sure way to win.

Ad hominem in extremis.

H.B.M.C. wrote:

Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:Orc and Gobbo book is fine and dandy. No real power builds, which is why they do so meh on the penis extending circuit.

Daemons however, have a couple of highly abused builds which have a whiff of Gorgonzola, making them highly rated on the penis extending circuit.

Ah yes. Good old Mad Doc Grotsnik.

Real easy to win arguments when you vilify and trivialise your opponent. Don't like tournament gamers? Just claim that they do what they do because of some sort of need for penis compensation. That's a sure way to win.

Ad hominem in extremis.

Could he not have just said it to be funny? Does it have to be a barb designed to make you explode upon reading, instead of a humorous, if slightly deprecating, joke?

Abadabadoobaddon wrote:

artyboy wrote:I'm not sure what the complaint is about the fluff.

Page 77, quote from Chapter Master (!) of the Iron Hands = EPIC FAIL.

I never read any of the quotes at the bottom of the page, but that quote is pretty hysterical.

Marshal2Crusaders wrote:Could he not have just said it to be funny?

It's Grotsnik, so no. He's a student of the "JohnHwangDD Academy of Logical Argument Creation".

Marshal2Crusaders wrote:Could he not have just said it to be funny?

Does it have to be a barb designed to make you explode upon reading, instead of a humorous, if slightly deprecating, joke?

I thought it was pretty funny.

But then, I'm pretty secure in my manhood and haven't felt the need to be "on the penis extending circuit" for a few years.

Perhaps those taking particular offense at the joke are saying something about their manhood.

Or lack thereof?

After all, 'tis so often the sharpest of barbs that strikes truest!

So...in other words, if you don't like it when people make false assumptions about you flaunting your manhood when you really aren't and call said foolish assumption into question, then you must have a small penis?

Makes sense. "You guys are all obsessed with your peens and if you say I'm wrong then you have a small peen!"