That's part of the problem, is that they're gimmicks. Gimmicks are bad game design and tend to irk people, and when they do work tend to do so in a way that's not particularly fun and is greatly imbalanced. Imotekh being a prime example.
In the Marine Codex, Calgar takes on an Avatar and wins, but damn near gets himself killed in the process, stopping the Wailing Doom only because of his unobtanium gauntlets. In the Blood Angel Codex, the Mary Sueguinor beats up an Avatar with one angelic hand tied behind his angelic back. In the Grey Knight Codex, Draigo fights the universe and wins.
The first was sorta passable, the second was simply stupid... and the third... by the Throne...
Actually, I was thinking how it could possibly escalate from there with the next Chaos Codex? What could a new Chaos character do that could trump Draigo's exploits?
Then I thought of time travel... and the missing Primarchs..
Abbadon is gonna carve his name into the reborn Star Childs heart - and it hasn't even been reborn yet. So there.
But he still can't take Cadia.
EDIT: Oh wait, you said new character? Ok, so Abbaron is gonna ... well, you know.
Omegus wrote:
5. He occasionally signs his name as "Mat" with one "t". For some reason that affectation irritates me to no end.
Give the man a break, we all know that writing is not his strong suit.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Experiment 626 wrote:
BA's however are everything codex marines are but +1.
This is my main beef with the BA book. They get basically everything that SM get, and then much more. He basically copy pasted C:SM and then added bunch of stuff, some of it crazy. They are not just a better assault army than vanilla marines, they're a better shooty army too.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
LunaHound wrote:
Neither does Monica Lewinsky smoking Clinton cigar have anything to do with Clinton's work right?
Well it really didn't...
A writer giving interviews in the company magazine about a book he wrote for said company however does.
Vaktathi wrote:That's part of the problem, is that they're gimmicks. Gimmicks are bad game design and tend to irk people, and when they do work tend to do so in a way that's not particularly fun and is greatly imbalanced. Imotekh being a prime example.MY PERSONAL OPINION OF COURSE
I suppose the fact that the Necron codex has multiple viable and different builds to play must be 'irksome' and 'not fun' to people who play with monobuild only codexes.
Also god forbid that people want to play with 'gimmicky' lists like Deathwing, biker lists, or horde lists.
Crimson wrote:
Omegus wrote:
5. He occasionally signs his name as "Mat" with one "t". For some reason that affectation irritates me to no end.
Give the man a break, we all know that writing is not his strong suit.
Or quite evidently, comprehension is not the strongest suit of most of his haters. Show me where he refers to himself as MATT Ward, its either MATTHEW Ward or MAT Ward, which is an acceptable abbreviation and more importantly what HE chose, and not what anyone else thinks it should be.
I want to say one positive thing about Ward. He is innovative. He is not afraid of trying new things and with childlike enthusiasm invents all sorts of crazy stuff, some of it good. But he just needs an adult to supervise him, as he absolutely has no restraint nor ability to tell when he has gone too far. Someone to swat him with a rolled newspaper and say: "No Matt, dreadnoughts will not get jump packs!"
Crimson wrote: "No Matt, dreadnoughts will not get jump packs!"
Why not?
Also that's awesome.
Actually, to be fair. Why don't they have jump packs? You'd think there'd be some lost technology that would allow dreadnoughts to get into combat far faster than just drop-podding them in.
Crimson wrote:A writer giving interviews in the company magazine about a book he wrote for said company however does.
No, it doesn't. Like Blaxican said, you could make a case for his enthusiasm for Ultramarines bleeding into the codex, but there is no case to be made that all codex chapters view the Ultramarines as their spiritual liege. It's simply not anywhere in the background, and trying to assert that it is, because someone said it in an interview, is stupid.
Crimson wrote:A writer giving interviews in the company magazine about a book he wrote for said company however does.
No, it doesn't. Like Blaxican said, you could make a case for his enthusiasm for Ultramarines bleeding into the codex, but there is no case to be made that all codex chapters view the Ultramarines as their spiritual liege. It's simply not anywhere in the background, and trying to assert that it is, because someone said it in an interview, is stupid.
Not to mention that's not what he said in the first place. Most Chapters DO view Calgar as their spiritual liege, because 60-ish percent of the Chapters are of UM origin. It's the same kind of deal as the Unforgiven all Boeing to Azrael or the Blood Angels successors coming to help them protect Baal:
Crimson wrote:A writer giving interviews in the company magazine about a book he wrote for said company however does.
No, it doesn't. Like Blaxican said, you could make a case for his enthusiasm for Ultramarines bleeding into the codex, but there is no case to be made that all codex chapters view the Ultramarines as their spiritual liege. It's simply not anywhere in the background, and trying to assert that it is, because someone said it in an interview, is stupid.
From earlier in the thread...
So there we go, Matt Ward's opinion. The majority of the 40k fan community probably wouldn't agree with him on that point, but there it is: 'with a few fringe exceptions'.
Pacific wrote:So there we go, Matt Ward's opinion. The majority of the 40k fan community probably wouldn't agree with him on that point, but there it is: 'with a few fringe exceptions'.
That's great, but can you point me to an actual background source that states that?
His opinion, as stated in an interview, doesn't mean squat.
Pacific wrote:So there we go, Matt Ward's opinion. The majority of the 40k fan community probably wouldn't agree with him on that point, but there it is: 'with a few fringe exceptions'.
That's great, but can you point me to an actual background source that states that?
His opinion, as stated in an interview, doesn't mean squat.
Background source that states other chapters look up to the UM's as their spirtual liege? while that may be taking it a bit far I dont see a issue in saying other chapters would look up to the UM's, they are mostly all codex chapters which comes from the UM's, they have a very good record and report with the high lords and administration they even have their own star system with forge worlds and multiple recruiting worlds and support, they are pretty powerful in comprassion to other codex chapters it is not hard to imagine other chapters admiring them. But saying they are the spirtual lieges is maybe taking it a bit too far.
Cant say I view this as a major issue though and those that do seems, imo, quite a small gripe in comprassion to some other fluff inventions/changes
Crimson wrote:I want to say one positive thing about Ward. He is innovative. He is not afraid of trying new things and with childlike enthusiasm invents all sorts of crazy stuff, some of it good. But he just needs an adult to supervise him, as he absolutely has no restraint nor ability to tell when he has gone too far. Someone to swat him with a rolled newspaper and say: "No Matt, dreadnoughts will not get jump packs!"
Every artist should have a large, burly man standing behind him with a large hammer... To hit him with it when the job is done. Prevents additional additions to an already repetitively redundant addition.
MarkyMark wrote:Background source that states other chapters look up to the UM's as their spirtual liege? while that may be taking it a bit far I dont see a issue in saying other chapters would look up to the UM's, they are mostly all codex chapters which comes from the UM's, they have a very good record and report with the high lords and administration they even have their own star system with forge worlds and multiple recruiting worlds and support, they are pretty powerful in comprassion to other codex chapters it is not hard to imagine other chapters admiring them. But saying they are the spirtual lieges is maybe taking it a bit too far.
Cant say I view this as a major issue though and those that do seems, imo, quite a small gripe in comprassion to some other fluff inventions/changes
Indeed. Even in his interview, he clearly states that the chapters who think otherwise are either Imperial Fists, their successors, or chapters who backed them up when Dorn and Guilliman were competing who had the biggest pauldrons.
No matter how he said it ("Those non-Ultramarine chapters suuuck!") I believe he still simply meant that the Ultramarine successor chapters, which by the way make up over 60% of all Astartes, view Guilliman as their spiritual leader and revere the Ultramarines as the greatest Space Marines there is. It is also completely logical considering every other chapters which originated from either IF, BA, DA or WS also think their Primarch and Chapter is the best one out there and have nothing to do with Guilliman or the Ultramarines.
If you have ten children in a room, six of whom have the same father and four of whom have four separate ones, and ask them who they think is the best father out there... Well, you get the idea.
Crimson wrote: "No Matt, dreadnoughts will not get jump packs!"
Why not?
Also that's awesome.
Actually, to be fair. Why don't they have jump packs? You'd think there'd be some lost technology that would allow dreadnoughts to get into combat far faster than just drop-podding them in.
They are called GK Dreadknights and BA Librarian Dreadnoughts...
Crimson wrote: "No Matt, dreadnoughts will not get jump packs!"
Why not?
Also that's awesome.
Actually, to be fair. Why don't they have jump packs? You'd think there'd be some lost technology that would allow dreadnoughts to get into combat far faster than just drop-podding them in.
They are called GK Dreadknights and BA Librarian Dreadnoughts...
And the author is....
As much as people hate him, he does have some of the most innovative dex's when considering it.
Some people see it as innovative, other people see a lot of it though as fan-fic gone wild
There's nothing wrong with new stuff, the problem is when it's hamfisted in with ill fitting fluff, half the time breaks previously long-standing fluff convention, and has painfully juvenile naming slapped all over it.
I always thought that a codex was a group project? More and more it appears to be a one man show. They should be a group project so that the group could tell Ward "Hey 75% of this great but this other 25% needs to be toned down" the same thing would help Cruddace "Hey man 25% of this is decent and 75% of it really sucks"
I like mr. Cruddace Tyranids. Played with terrain applied by the book, 25% with large LoS - blocking pieces included, the army was great to play and 160 points for Carnifex is not his idea for sure but entire GW standard shady action to make people buy new beasts. If mr Cruddace was chosen to write 6th edition codex, I'd be ok with that.
Now, the thought that Mat Ward could be the one writing 6th edition Tyranids makes me cringe, the guy is bad news. I guess he thinks he's funny or has great ideas when writing but the outcome is kind of a mess, ridiculous and over the top but certainly in a bad way for me. Also his unashamed stance on unbalancing the game should end with him immediatly out as a writer of rules, at least in a proper game designing company.
Omegus wrote:2. His mentality towards writing rules does not at all consider balance, but rather how he feels about the army (I don't like Orcs and Gobbos, so their book sucks. Daemons are DAEMONS!!1!!, so they should be unbeatable. For people saying Space Marines is balanced, when it first came out it was certainly the top-tier cheese with Vulkan in every army list).
Well, to be fair every book is cheese for the first few weeks - it's just the basic laws of wargaming! (heck, even 7th ed Orcs&Gobbos were "cheese" for the first 5 days! )
C:SM's overall is pretty balanced with the exception of a couple standout combos. (Vulkan = king of 5th due to his meltagun buffs, Lysander + Sternguard = horrible things, etc...)
BA's however are everything codex marines are but +1.
GK's are basically the best of every marine codex +10!
Newcrons are just disgusting right now.
Wood Elves in 6th were hienous, awful things with forest-surfing Treemen & Waywatchers doing nasty things to everyone. Daemons broke 7th edition entirely. (even DE's & Sakven couldn't compete! )
7th ed O&G's just sucked the big one...
WotR is unplayable if one player wants to roflstomp
So out of 8 total 'army' projects, 1 is well balanced, 1 sucked to the point of being nearly un-winnable, and the rest are all either OTT or outright broken as feth!
lolwut?
I can basically agree with everything here, but... WE? Broken? Not even in 6th, man. Not even when that book came out. Not by a long sight. And they certainly didn't weather the transition to 7th well, to say NOTHING of 8th. One can make an incredible argument that WE took 8th ed the hardest of all books, if one didn't count the distance the army in question fell in power. WE went from being 3rd tier to being the bottom of it. VC went from being in the top 3 armies of 7th to one of the bottom 3 of 8th until the new book came out. Demons took nearly every change of 8th ed and laughed it off, as none of the things that affected VC touched them. Even DE took a hit from the step up rules, variable charges, and loss of charge blocking. Necrons went from somewhat balanced in 5th to wtf in 6th, Grey Knights appear largely untouched. Ward books (the REAL ones) don't "suffer" from new editions.
This is the first I've heard that MW wrote the Wood Elves, but I assure you it was never a broken book, even on release. It was a manuver army in a manuver game that had a tourney system that rewarded crushing victories to the near exclusion of all other results. A good WE player might win every game in a tourney in 6th, but still not place in the top 3 (or even 10) because they could never muster the murder levels demanded to do so.
I don't think he did write the WE book, he wasn't didn't join GW until 2006 or 2007 IIRC. The first stuff I think he was credited in was either late 2007 or early 2008.
Vaktathi wrote:I don't think he did write the WE book, he wasn't didn't join GW until 2006 or 2007 IIRC. The first stuff I think he was credited in was either late 2007 or early 2008.
He actually did. I just checked it. "Written by: Anthony Reynolds and Matthew Ward."
Crimson wrote: "No Matt, dreadnoughts will not get jump packs!"
Why not?
Also that's awesome.
Actually, to be fair. Why don't they have jump packs? You'd think there'd be some lost technology that would allow dreadnoughts to get into combat far faster than just drop-podding them in.
They are called GK Dreadknights and BA Librarian Dreadnoughts...
And the author is....
As much as people hate him, he does have some of the most innovative dex's when considering it.
As well some of the worst fluff. So I leave this thread with a /tg/ song we made for you codex complainers!!!
Bud Light Presents: Real Men of Genius
>Real Men of Genius!
Today we salute you, Mr. Grey Knights Codex Thread Spammer.
>Mr. Grey Knights Codex Thread Spammer!
Most trolls feign stupidity just long enough to piss somebody off. You have the tenacity to act like an idiot for weeks at a time.
>Why's it look like a baby?
Three times an hour, twelve hours a day, you create a thread asking the questions that were answered fifteen minutes after the Codex was leaked.
>I heard they can take daemonhosts!
Mod warning sticky? Those are for !@#$%6&.
>And WHYYY aren't there any girl Knights?!
You've spent hours and days devoting yourself to ensure that people will never stop talking about a Codex you have no intention of ever even playing.
>LOL Jokaero!
So crack open an ice-cold Bud Light, oh corpulent codex complainer, because without you we'd never forget that Kaldor Draigo is kinda like Samurai Jack.
Kanluwen wrote:People who cite 4chan as a source have no place to be throwing vitriol Ward's way.
Mostly because 4chan is full of so bloody much incorrect information that it makes the Fiction section look like a documentary club.
Really?
Let's hear it then: exactly which statements about Ward in the cited link comprise "incorrect information".
Btw: I don't need to refer to 4chan to "throw vitriol Ward's way." I just have to crack open anything he's ever dumped on 40K and/or WHFB. For reasons done to death in this thread and elsewhere.
Omegus wrote:2. His mentality towards writing rules does not at all consider balance, but rather how he feels about the army (I don't like Orcs and Gobbos, so their book sucks. Daemons are DAEMONS!!1!!, so they should be unbeatable. For people saying Space Marines is balanced, when it first came out it was certainly the top-tier cheese with Vulkan in every army list).
Well, to be fair every book is cheese for the first few weeks - it's just the basic laws of wargaming! (heck, even 7th ed Orcs&Gobbos were "cheese" for the first 5 days! )
C:SM's overall is pretty balanced with the exception of a couple standout combos. (Vulkan = king of 5th due to his meltagun buffs, Lysander + Sternguard = horrible things, etc...)
BA's however are everything codex marines are but +1.
GK's are basically the best of every marine codex +10!
Newcrons are just disgusting right now.
Wood Elves in 6th were hienous, awful things with forest-surfing Treemen & Waywatchers doing nasty things to everyone. Daemons broke 7th edition entirely. (even DE's & Sakven couldn't compete! )
7th ed O&G's just sucked the big one...
WotR is unplayable if one player wants to roflstomp
So out of 8 total 'army' projects, 1 is well balanced, 1 sucked to the point of being nearly un-winnable, and the rest are all either OTT or outright broken as feth!
lolwut?
I can basically agree with everything here, but... WE? Broken? Not even in 6th, man. Not even when that book came out. Not by a long sight. And they certainly didn't weather the transition to 7th well, to say NOTHING of 8th. One can make an incredible argument that WE took 8th ed the hardest of all books, if one didn't count the distance the army in question fell in power. WE went from being 3rd tier to being the bottom of it. VC went from being in the top 3 armies of 7th to one of the bottom 3 of 8th until the new book came out. Demons took nearly every change of 8th ed and laughed it off, as none of the things that affected VC touched them. Even DE took a hit from the step up rules, variable charges, and loss of charge blocking. Necrons went from somewhat balanced in 5th to wtf in 6th, Grey Knights appear largely untouched. Ward books (the REAL ones) don't "suffer" from new editions.
This is the first I've heard that MW wrote the Wood Elves, but I assure you it was never a broken book, even on release. It was a manuver army in a manuver game that had a tourney system that rewarded crushing victories to the near exclusion of all other results. A good WE player might win every game in a tourney in 6th, but still not place in the top 3 (or even 10) because they could never muster the murder levels demanded to do so.
WE's were never, ever about tabling the other guy - they're the guys who just hit-and-run all game long like forest ninjas and do decent damage while taking little to none in return. 'Ard Boyz and tournaments in general are not Warhammer, rather it's taking an inherently unbalanced game and trying to utterly break it.
WE's in 6th, when used by a good player were the worst possible army to fight. Nothing but dryads, waywatchers, treemen & wildriders suplimented by hero-level wizards who'd tree sing them everywhere. You'd never get a charge off, and you'd spend the entire game chasing your tail due to how the movement rules worked.
Sure, WE's got pretty pants come 7th, and 8th is absolutely no place for them in their current incarnation. But in 6th, they were one of the dirtiest armies around when you ran into their power lists!
Vaktathi wrote:I don't think he did write the WE book, he wasn't didn't join GW until 2006 or 2007 IIRC. The first stuff I think he was credited in was either late 2007 or early 2008.
He actually did. I just checked it. "Written by: Anthony Reynolds and Matthew Ward."
Really? I didn't think he'd been at GW that far back, he seems to have a rather large gap in published works between then though it looks like.
Vaktathi wrote:I don't think he did write the WE book, he wasn't didn't join GW until 2006 or 2007 IIRC. The first stuff I think he was credited in was either late 2007 or early 2008.
He actually did. I just checked it. "Written by: Anthony Reynolds and Matthew Ward."
Really? I didn't think he'd been at GW that far back, he seems to have a rather large gap in published works between then though it looks like.
I was surprised to see his name there when I looked. I like to think they keep him shackled up at HQ like a crazed Chaos Dreadnought between cash cow codex writing.
Vaktathi wrote:I don't think he did write the WE book, he wasn't didn't join GW until 2006 or 2007 IIRC. The first stuff I think he was credited in was either late 2007 or early 2008.
He actually did. I just checked it. "Written by: Anthony Reynolds and Matthew Ward."
Really? I didn't think he'd been at GW that far back, he seems to have a rather large gap in published works between then though it looks like.
LOTR my dear, LOTR. That is what he was occupied with in said gap. Creating Ghulavar and other such monstrosities.
Vaktathi wrote:I don't think he did write the WE book, he wasn't didn't join GW until 2006 or 2007 IIRC. The first stuff I think he was credited in was either late 2007 or early 2008.
He actually did. I just checked it. "Written by: Anthony Reynolds and Matthew Ward."
Really? I didn't think he'd been at GW that far back, he seems to have a rather large gap in published works between then though it looks like.
He was considered an "assistant games designer" at the time.
That same year, he was in several WDs opposite Jervis--starting with the "Terminator Showcase" where Ward's Necron army was used against the Ultramarines 1st Company.
He also wrote the "Creature" rules which came out around that timeframe, and specifically wrote the rules for the "Catachan Devil".
That might explain it I guess. I've never seen LotR stuff played or bought anywhere ever, so that would explain it.
It's odd, GW considers it a core product, but I've seen more games of Necromunda and Battlefleet Gothic, at stores that literally haven't sold it in years, than I've seen people ever even look at the LotR products, much less actually played.
I've never subscribed to WD and have only bothered picking up a small handful of them, and didn't play LotR, so if he spent all his time doing stuff there, that would explain why it feels like a gap.
I think it's more that he "got his start" doing that, so of course you don't really notice it until he got let off the leash a bit.
That said...
I kind of feel like Lord of the Rings/War of the Rings players probably don't play much at stores given the negative reactions most 40k/WHFB players have against the game.
I've never really played at an actual GW store aside from a bit at the LA Battle Bunker, it's always been at independents where it's almost as likely to see a warmahordes, Heavy Gear, or Flames of War game as it is a 40k/fantasy game, so I dunno if that was really an issue.
It's just nobody seemed interested in it from my experience. Few stores even stock it, of the ones that do the stock tends to not move much and they have relatively little stock with supposedly smaller games getting lots more sales and attention. The playerbases at a lot of the stores I've been around often pick up everything the store stocks, at least a little bit to try it out if nothing else, but nobody ever seems interested in LotR for some reason.
I'm not blaming LotR's status on Mat Ward, because honestly I have zero experience with it, but it would be why he feels like such a newcomer when he isn't
The Emperor's Gift by ADB is more or less an attempt to clean up the damage left to GK lore with actual good writing. Fortunately, he managed to breathe life back into a faction that Ward made incredibly unlikable.
Anyway, I despise his fluff, am indifferent to what he does in the game. Though he makes most things he touches Overpowered it seems.
Vaktathi wrote:I've never really played at an actual GW store aside from a bit at the LA Battle Bunker, it's always been at independents where it's almost as likely to see a warmahordes, Heavy Gear, or Flames of War game as it is a 40k/fantasy game, so I dunno if that was really an issue.
It's just nobody seemed interested in it from my experience. Few stores even stock it, of the ones that do the stock tends to not move much and they have relatively little stock with supposedly smaller games getting lots more sales and attention. The playerbases at a lot of the stores I've been around often pick up everything the store stocks, at least a little bit to try it out if nothing else, but nobody ever seems interested in LotR for some reason.
I'm not blaming LotR's status on Mat Ward, because honestly I have zero experience with it, but it would be why he feels like such a newcomer when he isn't
LotR is a very interesting animal actually.
Prior to Ward really taking into his own hands with the '2nd edition' that came following the RotK box game, it was strictly for those first few years a purely senario & story driven 'game'. There was little to no balance at all between 'good' and 'evil'. Hell, in both the FotR & TT's versions, evil was little more than a punching bag! RotK even the odds a bit, but really, it wasn't until the big hardback rulebook came that the game became a 'fair' battle between good & evil factions.
With Ward's BBB, the game rules themselves were decent outside of the utterly disastrous 'Fight System', but alot of the factions were horribly imbalanced. Hell, in the stratgy battle game, Aragorn was so broken due to the fight system that he could walk through an infinate amount of weaker fighters by simply rolling a 5 or 6 and auto-winning the fight!
Overall, the 'good guys' were mostly undercosted, while the 'bad guys' typically got saddled with highly over-costed troops and required fairly set lists to compete. Hobbits believe it or not were the most powerful army in the game! Thus was LotR's doom sealed as the game became viewed by many as 'so dumb & easy a toddle could trounce you!' Litterly, if you had higher fight values than your opponent, you auto-won by virtue of rolling 6's in combat. Thus, 7 year olds who simply threw hordes of elves or dol-amroth or uruk-hai at a season veteran using the likes of haradrim or goblins or such would likely beatface, unless the veteran player played a boring keep-away pts denial style game. Heroes, especially the named heroes of which Good had infinitely more of, were badly imbalanced and only made things that much worse! (ie: I once lost an entire army of Easterlings - over 50 of 'em! to just Aragorn, Imrahil & Gimli! )
With 'War of the Ring', Ward managed to actually write what's easily considered one of, if the the outright 'best' game system rules GW has ever produced! Fast-paced, exciting, easy to understand, yet highly tactical AND balanced for competitive play! It was the system that LotR players had been crying for and fixed glaring & long bemoaned issues such as the -up fight phase and named heroes being all but invincible!
Then you hit the army list section and things fell apart completely... Basically, there's a goodly number of abilities granted by heroes are just beyond stupidly OP, including most 'Epic Actions'. And honestly, if you think magic is borked in 8th ed Fantasy, it's actually very tame compared to what it can do in WotR! The system is so easy to break, that you can have Elven Kingdoms armies that can machine gun 3 mumaks in one turn, or a company of 8 'evil' models who include Amdur + Saruman + Khamul 'blendernaught' their way through an infinite number of opponents... Stupid crap like this led to WotR being shelved by almost everyone because you had to purposely go out of your way to avoid broken combos... (and even then you couldn't help but include a few that ruin the game).
Honestly, if GK's are OTT/borderline broken and 7th ed Daemons of Chaos killed the game entirely, the armies you can make in WotR would be considered the opening of Pandora's Box - except 'Hope' decided to just up and say 'screw you all' and left us to our fate!!!
Then add to this fiasco the cost involved with putting together a decent force due to all the metal/finecast in the range and the lack of details on the older plastics, and it's pretty easy to see why the LotR game has failed miserably since the films were first out.
Harriticus wrote:The Emperor's Gift by ADB is more or less an attempt to clean up the damage left to GK lore with actual good writing. Fortunately, he managed to breathe life back into a faction that Ward made incredibly unlikable.
The Grey Knights never should have been likable in the first place.
They're not your "knights in shining armor". They're steel clad killers.
Harriticus wrote:The Emperor's Gift by ADB is more or less an attempt to clean up the damage left to GK lore with actual good writing. Fortunately, he managed to breathe life back into a faction that Ward made incredibly unlikable.
The Grey Knights never should have been likable in the first place.
They're not your "knights in shining armor". They're steel clad killers.
Ward didn't make them that. He made them invincible mary stu's that can do no wrong and humiliate everyone else.
Emperor's Gift humanizes Grey Knights, but doesn't absolve them. It brings up moral questions that Ward wouldn't contemplate, as his GK's are too busy giving Mortarion and Magnus wedgies to ponder such things.
Experiment 626 wrote:
Overall, the 'good guys' were mostly undercosted, while the 'bad guys' typically got saddled with highly over-costed troops and required fairly set lists to compete. Hobbits believe it or not were the most powerful army in the game!
Ah yes, the infamous Hobbit stone-throwing army..
With 'War of the Ring', Ward managed to actually write what's easily considered one of, if the the outright 'best' game system rules GW has ever produced! Fast-paced, exciting, easy to understand, yet highly tactical AND balanced for competitive play! It was the system that LotR players had been crying for and fixed glaring & long bemoaned issues such as the -up fight phase and named heroes being all but invincible!
Then you hit the army list section and things fell apart completely... Basically, there's a goodly number of abilities granted by heroes are just beyond stupidly OP, including most 'Epic Actions'. And honestly, if you think magic is borked in 8th ed Fantasy, it's actually very tame compared to what it can do in WotR!
I always thought WoTR was more or less similar to Warhammer historical games, but with the added magic? I've possibly got the chronology messed up. If Ward (and Vettock) did indeed build the WoTR rules then they definitely get some kudos points from me for it, I always thought they were a nice set of rules, and certainly seem tighter than either of 40k/WFB at the moment.
Harriticus wrote:Ward didn't make them that. He made them invincible mary stu's that can do no wrong and humiliate everyone else.
Really? I must have missed those parts in the codex. Could you give some examples where the Grey Knights proved themselves better at siege warfare than everyone else? Or perhaps where they were better at attrition warfare than anyone else? Or space warfare?
Because the only thing I remember them being better at than anyone else was Daemon hunting. Fancy that.
Emperor's Gift humanizes Grey Knights, but doesn't absolve them. It brings up moral questions that Ward wouldn't contemplate, as his GK's are too busy giving Mortarion and Magnus wedgies to ponder such things.
Like killing innocents to prevent (potential) Daemonic corruption in the future? No, there's plenty of that in the codex. Like Kanluwen said, the codexes are the condensed versions, and don't have enough room for moral exploration.
And yet most other authors never an into the same issues with similar size and space requirements.
The old Daemonhunters book certainly didn't have the same issue and yet got across the point that the GK's were very definitely the "by any means necessary" and "ultra-elite" type fellows with nearly half the page count without making them do ridiculous things.
Vaktathi wrote:And yet most other authors never an into the same issues with similar size and space requirements.
Not really. It's a case of "finding a problem where you want to find it".
People ignore an Ork castrating a Daemon Prince.
People ignore the Dark Eldar book and some of its silliness.
People ignore an Ork crashing into a Titan to destroy it.
Now, of course, all three of those examples can be used to simply say "SEE, THEY'RE BAD TOO!"...or simply to say that "Over the top is part of the setting".
The old Daemonhunters book certainly didn't have the same issue and yet got across the point that the GK's were very definitely the "by any means necessary" and "ultra-elite" type fellows with nearly half the page count without making them do ridiculous things.
The old Daemonhunters spent more time talking about the Inquisition than the Grey Knights.
It also, seemingly, set the precedent that Grey Knights are "good guys".
Vaktathi wrote:And yet most other authors never an into the same issues with similar size and space requirements.
Not really. It's a case of "finding a problem where you want to find it".
People ignore an Ork castrating a Daemon Prince.
There's a difference between a Daemon Prince and a Daemon Primarch, and we don't know *exactly* what happened, he just "made a gesture of his own"...with a powerklaw, as his last act in the battle. He becomes a plaything of the daemon world thereafter to fight and die every day for eternity as a plaything of Khorne. Granted, he's fine with that, but it's still a lot different than carving a name into the heart of a Daemon *PRIMARCH* and going on about one's business, and Draigo's tenure in the Warp isn't really controlled by anything, the Chaos entities don't want him there, and it's made clear he'll break free one day, there's little to suggest he's the tragic plaything of the Chaos gods as opposed to innumerable other possible explanations given that the big 4 aren't the only thing present in or capable of controlling the Warp.
People ignore the Dark Eldar book and some of its silliness.
Vect's new fluff is a bit silly in some areas, but aside from that anything in particular?
People ignore an Ork crashing into a Titan to destroy it.
Now, of course, all three of those examples can be used to simply say "SEE, THEY'RE BAD TOO!"...or simply to say that "Over the top is part of the setting".
Granted Wazdakka killing a titan was very goofy. That said, as you already noted, there is some place for "over the top" in the setting, and that particular faction is known for goofy and ridiculous going back 25 years, so it's not as silly as with other factions, though yeah it's not something I would have written. The problem with many of the examples of Mat Ward's fluff is that they're in factions where they aren't supposed to be goofy.
The old Daemonhunters spent more time talking about the Inquisition than the Grey Knights.
It also, seemingly, set the precedent that Grey Knights are "good guys".
It did talk a lot about the Inquisition, but that's sorta irrelevant, nobody thought of the Grey Knights as anything but deadly serious, victory at all costs, elite of the elite type guys, without the ridiculousness of the current GK book.
As for being "good guys", well, it's a matter of perspective. They work for a greater good, but as written in the DH book I certainly wouldn't want to be anywhere near them, with a canticle of theirs going on about unstinting hatred, a hunger for holy war, going on about punishing deeds and nobody evading their cleansing fire and all that, an excerpt from a "book of indoctrinations" about how it's better to die in vain than live in "abomination" and praising "zealous martyrs", with psychic powers called "holocaust", "scourging", going on about chants of detestation, etc.
Vaktathi wrote:And yet most other authors never an into the same issues with similar size and space requirements.
Not really. It's a case of "finding a problem where you want to find it".
People ignore an Ork castrating a Daemon Prince.
There's a difference between a Daemon Prince and a Daemon Primarch, and we don't know *exactly* what happened, he just "made a gesture of his own"...with a powerklaw, as his last act in the battle. He becomes a plaything of the daemon world thereafter to fight and die every day for eternity as a plaything of Khorne. Granted, he's fine with that, but it's still a lot different than carving a name into the heart of a Daemon *PRIMARCH* and going on about one's business, and Draigo's tenure in the Warp isn't really controlled by anything, the Chaos entities don't want him there, and it's made clear he'll break free one day, there's little to suggest he's the tragic plaything of the Chaos gods as opposed to innumerable other possible explanations given that the big 4 aren't the only thing present in or capable of controlling the Warp.
It's really not though. If an Ork can castrate a Daemon Prince(it makes it quite clear that this is what happens, as "Tuska reached up between the Daemon's leg and made a final gesture of his own"), then is it really so over the top and unbelievable that a Grey Knight--one who has been trained since their indoctrination to fight the Daemonic--can subdue a Daemon Primarch temporarily, who just slew a Grey Knight Grandmaster and likely other Grey Knights as well, in the midst of a battle?
People ignore the Dark Eldar book and some of its silliness.
Vect's new fluff is a bit silly in some areas, but aside from that anything in particular?
Mostly just Vect. Sliscus is a bit silly, as is Malys, but Vect is the biggest problem.
Oh. And giving a black hole to someone as a "gift".
People ignore an Ork crashing into a Titan to destroy it.
Now, of course, all three of those examples can be used to simply say "SEE, THEY'RE BAD TOO!"...or simply to say that "Over the top is part of the setting".
Granted Wazdakka killing a titan was very goofy. That said, as you already noted, there is some place for "over the top" in the setting, and that particular faction is known for goofy and ridiculous going back 25 years, so it's not as silly as with other factions, though yeah it's not something I would have written. The problem with many of the examples of Mat Ward's fluff is that they're in factions where they aren't supposed to be goofy.
I don't often say this, but...
A little bit of goofy might be necessary at this point. Trayzn is a good example of this, giving Inquisitor Valeria a Tesseract for a "gift" after she sent Guardsmen to steal an artifact from him.
Draigo isn't necessarily "goofy", but the idea is so over the top that it just feels right fitting into the setting.
After all, the Ruinous Powers do so love to toy with heroes...
The old Daemonhunters spent more time talking about the Inquisition than the Grey Knights.
It also, seemingly, set the precedent that Grey Knights are "good guys".
It did talk a lot about the Inquisition, but that's sorta irrelevant, nobody thought of the Grey Knights as anything but deadly serious, victory at all costs, elite of the elite type guys, without the ridiculousness of the current GK book.
As for being "good guys", well, it's a matter of perspective. They work for a greater good, but as written in the DH book I certainly wouldn't want to be anywhere near them, with a canticle of theirs going on about unstinting hatred, a hunger for holy war, going on about punishing deeds and nobody evading their cleansing fire and all that, an excerpt from a "book of indoctrinations" about how it's better to die in vain than live in "abomination" and praising "zealous martyrs", with psychic powers called "holocaust", "scourging", going on about chants of detestation, etc.
You would be very surprised at how many people thought of Grey Knights--even before they got a unit called "Paladins"--as "knights in shining armor". It still exists as a problem today.
Blood Talons are grrr. That you can shove them on an AV13 walker for free is silly. Especially when said walker is WS5+.
Because your hoarde army with paperthin armor saves really needs a hoarde killer that requires the Heavy ranged AT weapons, not the heavy ATCC ones you've got. And it comes with ranged weapons built in. Yay!
Also:
"
It's really not though. If an Ork can castrate a Daemon Prince(it makes it quite clear that this is what happens, as "Tuska reached up between the Daemon's leg and made a final gesture of his own"), then is it really so over the top and unbelievable that a Grey Knight--one who has been trained since their indoctrination to fight the Daemonic--can subdue a Daemon Primarch temporarily, who just slew a Grey Knight Grandmaster and likely other Grey Knights as well, in the midst of a battle?
"
Because an Ork Warboss... you know, The Biggest Thing an ork can be, and some of them can be big enough to take on the emperor and win, is completely unable to defeat a daemon prince? Get thine grip.
Kanluwen wrote:
It's really not though. If an Ork can castrate a Daemon Prince(it makes it quite clear that this is what happens, as "Tuska reached up between the Daemon's leg and made a final gesture of his own",
It's implied but then...does a Daemon Prince of the blood god even have that hardware? And it's his last act of the battle, he certainly doesn't walk away from it, and he doesn't win the battle, nor does it necessarily mean any harm came to the Daemon. He is thereafter plainly a plaything of Khorne, fighting and dying every day for eternity for Khorne's pleasure. He enjoys it, but that doesn't change the fact that him and his boyz are eternal playthings of the chaos gods to be butchered every day for eternity.
then is it really so over the top and unbelievable that a Grey Knight--one who has been trained since their indoctrination to fight the Daemonic--can subdue a Daemon Primarch temporarily, who just slew a Grey Knight Grandmaster and likely other Grey Knights as well, in the midst of a battle?
Had is just been banishment back to the Warp? No. The ridiculousness of being able to subdue him to the point of carving his name in the Daemon Primarch's heart? Yes.
It's one thing to kill (or "kill" something, I can go out right now and shoot a Grizzly Bear dead from 300 meters. If it is able to get near me and it comes down to a physical brawl, well I'm probably screwed but if I've got a knife I may still stand a chance. Wrestling it down and cutting my name into its flesh while it's still alive? Hrm...no matter how much training I've had, probably not going happen, unless it's post-mortem.
Mostly just Vect. Sliscus is a bit silly, as is Malys, but Vect is the biggest problem.
I don't remember much about sliscus, can't find my book, I don't recall anything particularly odd with Malys's fluff aside from the silly name, but yeah, Vect's new fluff was really just too heavy on the plot armor.
Oh. And giving a black hole to someone as a "gift".
A small singularity with a very small event horizon? In and of itself not too far out of 40k fluff for Eldar. Had it been any other faction I'd agree, but they've always been described as having technology and capabilities so advanced as to seem impossible/magical to everyone else.
I don't often say this, but...
A little bit of goofy might be necessary at this point. Trayzn is a good example of this, giving Inquisitor Valeria a Tesseract for a "gift" after she sent Guardsmen to steal an artifact from him.
To an extent I agree, I had no problem with Trayzn's story (aside from him apparently being so off-handedly able to subdue thousands of armed and experienced troops). Even not being a huge fan of the Necrons fluff reboot I found that exchange to be rather fitting for 40k. Not *everything* he does is awful, just a lot of it.
Goofy isn't necessarily bad, in fact at least some element of it is vital to the feel of the 40k universe. But Mat Ward seemingly continually just mangles that line between "haha, that was funny"/"oh man that's badass" and "this reads like a bad Star Trek Fanscript", there's a point at which suspension of disbelief breaks and it goes from amusing fiction to gak. He's not alone in this (looking at you Phil Kelly with your stupid Wolf book), but he's the most consistent and widespread about it by far.
Draigo isn't necessarily "goofy", but the idea is so over the top that it just feels right fitting into the setting.
After all, the Ruinous Powers do so love to toy with heroes...
The problem is that it's presented in such a way that he's basically invincible and slays whatever is put in front of him as a matter of course, and making Daemons feel fear in the warp itself? >_>
And again, there's nothing suggesting that it's the ruinous powers holding him in the Warp, the ruinous powers keep actively trying to kill him, he's just too "boss" for it apparently, there's numerous other reasons he could kept getting sucked in.
Had it actually been done as a tragic, "trapped in hell" type deal where he's constantly tormented and achieves no victory whatsoever, fine. But the powers of Chaos being unable to harm him at all, while he stalks their realms at will and basically ruins whatever he comes across, is sillly.
You would be very surprised at how many people thought of Grey Knights--even before they got a unit called "Paladins"--as "knights in shining armor". It still exists as a problem today.
I never really go that impression personally in their DH incarnation, but that might just be me. To me, they always had, and still do have, a visually sinister look about them, they're the guys that get called in when everything needs to be burned to ashes, and I like that about them, just not necessarily how that is expressed in their current incarnation.
Kanluwen wrote:It's really not though. If an Ork can castrate a Daemon Prince(it makes it quite clear that this is what happens, as "Tuska reached up between the Daemon's leg and made a final gesture of his own"), then is it really so over the top and unbelievable that a Grey Knight--one who has been trained since their indoctrination to fight the Daemonic--can subdue a Daemon Primarch temporarily, who just slew a Grey Knight Grandmaster and likely other Grey Knights as well, in the midst of a battle?
Vaktathi wrote:Had is just been banishment back to the Warp? No. The ridiculousness of being able to subdue him to the point of carving his name in the Daemon Primarch's heart? Yes.
It's one thing to kill (or "kill" something, I can go out right now and shoot a Grizzly Bear dead from 300 meters. If it is able to get near me and it comes down to a physical brawl, well I'm probably screwed but if I've got a knife I may still stand a chance. Wrestling it down and cutting my name into its flesh while it's still alive? Hrm...no matter how much training I've had, probably not going happen, unless it's post-mortem.
Wait, what do you think happened? Draigo 'killed' Mortartion, banishing him back to the warp, and then desecrated his remains by carving up his heart. Did you really think he held down a struggling Daemon Primarch and scribbled on his still beating heart?
Again... as I said in the other thread you are giving far too much thought to this
Trying to legitimize it through logical explanation is a waste of time. It was written so that younger kids reading about this new character would say "OMG Awesome!", then go out, buy Draigo, paint him badly, then throw him in a box and move on. I think that's it and all about it, and when used by that measure 'Draigo' is an overwhelming success.
But the real acid test, if you will, has been the generally massive community back-lash against that piece of background. The majority of fans, those who have read extensively about the 40k background and universe and 'get' its ethos, understand that something stinks about Draigo; that he doesn't fit, and his entire concept feels at odds with the vast majority of established background. This isn't an obvious satire or in-joke like Marbo, or like some of the Orc stuff - and I don't think you can cite those as examples, considering that again those are a component of the 40k background that go back to day 1 and if anything just prove how OTT the Draigo background is - but I think just a mis-fire in terms of what the character represents.
My concern is that Draigo might well represent another step in a 'paradigm shift' of 40k. Away from the dark, gritty but also sometimes humourous galaxy that makes it so distinct, and towards more of 'action-hollywood' and a more child-friendly, simple story of good vs. evil and people doing 'cool stuff'. And in this way I don't rest the criticism of Draigo entirely on Matt Ward- he commented himself that the sales department often dictates what directions the rules take, and I think it is quite obvious here that the creative control of codex design with regards to writing and background is also being unduly influenced.
Kaldor, I'm glad you have found some enjoyment in the background of Draigo. Obviously it has struck a chime with you in some way (and I'm not criticizing that at all - what tickles our fancy, what we take from fictional background pieces, is different for all of us), but please acknowledge at the same time there are elements of the story that an overwhelming majority have not found to their taste.
Perhaps I am advocating closing the thread? I do think that we are going around in circles here, and that either side (read: Kaldor, vs. the assorted minions of the warp ) are most likely not going to have their opinions changed.
Implying that people that don't think Draigo's that big of a deal don't know anything about the background is kinda rude; just because you hold a position does not make it true, just as the same applies to me or anyone else.
Kaldor wrote:
Wait, what do you think happened? Draigo 'killed' Mortartion, banishing him back to the warp, and then desecrated his remains by carving up his heart. Did you really think he held down a struggling Daemon Primarch and scribbled on his still beating heart?
That's pretty much what it made it sound like yeah, you don't banish a daemon back to the warp and then have a big pile of Primarch remains.
Vaktathi wrote:And yet most other authors never an into the same issues with similar size and space requirements.
The old Daemonhunters book certainly didn't have the same issue and yet got across the point that the GK's were very definitely the "by any means necessary" and "ultra-elite" type fellows with nearly half the page count without making them do ridiculous things.
Spot on.
IMO the root of all GK evil lay in separating them out of the Daemonhunters codex and making them an independent codex. That was faceless GW suits' doing. The problem was compounded by turning He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named loose on it.
Kaldor wrote:
Wait, what do you think happened? Draigo 'killed' Mortartion, banishing him back to the warp, and then desecrated his remains by carving up his heart. Did you really think he held down a struggling Daemon Primarch and scribbled on his still beating heart?
That's pretty much what it made it sound like yeah, you don't banish a daemon back to the warp and then have a big pile of Primarch remains.
Right, demons don't generally leave corpses. Making the GK model heading the daemonette head a bit silly.
Kaldor wrote:
Wait, what do you think happened? Draigo 'killed' Mortartion, banishing him back to the warp, and then desecrated his remains by carving up his heart. Did you really think he held down a struggling Daemon Primarch and scribbled on his still beating heart?
That's pretty much what it made it sound like yeah, you don't banish a daemon back to the warp and then have a big pile of Primarch remains.
Right, demons don't generally leave corpses. Making the GK model heading the daemonette head a bit silly.
Except there's cases where Chaos lords and Orks have gathered Daemon Skulls before...
It's very odd and something never really explained.
My concern is that Draigo might well represent another step in a 'paradigm shift' of 40k. Away from the dark, gritty but also sometimes humourous galaxy that makes it so distinct, and towards more of 'action-hollywood' and a more child-friendly, simple story of good vs. evil and people doing 'cool stuff'. And in this way I don't rest the criticism of Draigo entirely on Matt Ward- he commented himself that the sales department often dictates what directions the rules take, and I think it is quite obvious here that the creative control of codex design with regards to writing and background is also being unduly influenced.
Thats an interesting premise.
Im not sure though that one or two (or three) isolated examples of *insert word here* (silly?) fluff back that up.
I can see where your concen is coming from though.
Having said that I thought the DE fluff was pretty bad (and that was PK writing it) and I've read fluff since 2nd ed. And the Draigo, bloodtide stuff pretty ok tbh. Thought the Nid codex fluff by Cruddace was quite good too (rules less so!).
I suppose I agree with what you also said, that some fluff sits well with some people and not with others.
Its really subjective though but as long as the fluff and Codex writers dont have a book filled with crazy, OTT and totally contradictory stuff we'll get by imho.
Pacific wrote:Kaldor, I'm glad you have found some enjoyment in the background of Draigo. Obviously it has struck a chime with you in some way (and I'm not criticizing that at all - what tickles our fancy, what we take from fictional background pieces, is different for all of us), but please acknowledge at the same time there are elements of the story that an overwhelming majority have not found to their taste.
Perhaps I am advocating closing the thread? I do think that we are going around in circles here, and that either side (read: Kaldor, vs. the assorted minions of the warp ) are most likely not going to have their opinions changed.
I absolutely agree, but I find that most people in the anti-Draigo or anti-Ward camp (and it's especially evident on threads like this) are just band-wagoning without having really applied any critical thought to it. Not everyone, some people have really valid concerns, but a lot of people just spew hyperbolic rubbish and repeat their opinion over and over. For a lot of people, the argument never gets beyond "It's crap because it's crap!" and those people get on my tits.
Vaktathi wrote:
Kaldor wrote:
Wait, what do you think happened? Draigo 'killed' Mortartion, banishing him back to the warp, and then desecrated his remains by carving up his heart. Did you really think he held down a struggling Daemon Primarch and scribbled on his still beating heart?
That's pretty much what it made it sound like yeah, you don't banish a daemon back to the warp and then have a big pile of Primarch remains.
I'm pretty sure that's exactly what you get... I mean, sure they dissolve after a while, but the novels and models are full of examples of Daemonic remains. Blood, bodies, etc, being strewn across the battlefield. The Grey Knight models even have Daemon bits in their hands and on their bases. It's not like they just evaporate into smoke the moment you land a killing blow.
Supposedly they do vanish back into the warp, but maybe it is not instantaneous. I'm still not sure why a GK would want a demon head though. I attribute that model to the Rule of Cool.
Kaldor wrote:I absolutely agree, but I find that most people in the anti-Draigo or anti-Ward camp (and it's especially evident on threads like this) are just band-wagoning without having really applied any critical thought to it. .
I think you are pretty wrong on this kaldor. What you call "hyperbolic" retorts for situations like spiderman comic, is just that.
People have been telling you the Draigo fluff is written for like 8 year olds ( like He-Man, like power ranger, like this like that ) they all felt the same way as Pacific did.
The only reason it finally sank in was, Pacific's god like patience in explaining for the past... how many pages?
Kaldor wrote:I absolutely agree, but I find that most people in the anti-Draigo or anti-Ward camp (and it's especially evident on threads like this) are just band-wagoning without having really applied any critical thought to it. .
I think you are pretty wrong on this kaldor. What you call "hyperbolic" retorts for situations like spiderman comic, is just that.
People have been telling you the Draigo fluff is written for like 8 year olds ( like He-Man, like power ranger, like this like that ) they all felt the same way as Pacific did.
The only reason it finally sank in was, Pacific's god like patience in explaining for the past... how many pages?
Look, I can't be bothered trawling through the last dozen pages, but this thread is full of pointless hyperbole. "It's literally the worst thing ever written, it's like someone vomited words on the page, blah blah blah." And further, if you don't back it up with some critical analysis, saying "it's written for 8 year olds" is just code for "I don't like it". Which is fine, but when you're trying to describe to someone why a thing is bad, you need to try harder than that.
Kaldor wrote:I absolutely agree, but I find that most people in the anti-Draigo or anti-Ward camp (and it's especially evident on threads like this) are just band-wagoning without having really applied any critical thought to it. .
I think you are pretty wrong on this kaldor. What you call "hyperbolic" retorts for situations like spiderman comic, is just that.
People have been telling you the Draigo fluff is written for like 8 year olds ( like He-Man, like power ranger, like this like that ) they all felt the same way as Pacific did.
The only reason it finally sank in was, Pacific's god like patience in explaining for the past... how many pages?
Look, I can't be bothered trawling through the last dozen pages, but this thread is full of pointless hyperbole. "It's literally the worst thing ever written, it's like someone vomited words on the page, blah blah blah." And further, if you don't back it up with some critical analysis, saying "it's written for 8 year olds" is just code for "I don't like it". Which is fine, but when you're trying to describe to someone why a thing is bad, you need to try harder than that.
See the part highlighted -_- yes I shouldnt bother
Do Daemon Princes of Khorne even have balls? And would an Ork even know what they were if it saw some?
Anyway, Orks can become big and powerful enough to fight the Emperor, and epic-level Space Marines defeat Princes not on an irregular basis. You could argue Draigo falls alongside this, but utterly humiliating a Daemon Primarch? The setting is known for over-the-top, but Ward takes it to another level. He stretches the rule of cool until it breaks.
Omegus wrote:Do Daemon Princes of Khorne even have balls? And would an Ork even know what they were if it saw some?
Anyway, Orks can become big and powerful enough to fight the Emperor, and epic-level Space Marines defeat Princes not on an irregular basis. You could argue Draigo falls alongside this, but utterly humiliating a Daemon Primarch? The setting is known for over-the-top, but Ward takes it to another level. He stretches the rule of cool until it breaks.
Not really, a Grey Knight fighting a Daemon is like some bloke fighting a vampire by stabbing a silver crucifix that radiates sunlight and is drenched in a mixture of garlic and holy water into the vampire's heart. That's what they're supposed to do, it's why they exist. And, again, he'd just killed off the previous GKSGM who was probably just as powerful as Draigo.
Look, I can't be bothered trawling through the last dozen pages, but this thread is full of pointless hyperbole. "It's literally the worst thing ever written, it's like someone vomited words on the page, blah blah blah." And further, if you don't back it up with some critical analysis, saying "it's written for 8 year olds" is just code for "I don't like it". Which is fine, but when you're trying to describe to someone why a thing is bad, you need to try harder than that.
Yes I know things have been just going round in circles. If it means anything, I have tried to explain the reasons why I don't think the Draigo background works. But, I guess ultimately it's a personal thing. And if we all thought the same about things, hey wouldn't the world be a boring place.
I would thoroughly recommend looking up Aaron Dembski-Bowden's write-up (I think on his blog - I had a quick look but unfortunately couldn't find it), where he wrote 2 or 3 articles about the 40k universe. It explains far more eloquently than I can about the 'character' of that universe, and the difficulty but also importance of trying to write characters that fit into it.
I really don't see how anyone could claim that Draigo isn't a terrible character from a literary view. He has no flaws at all.
Would it have been too uch to maybe have Draigo have an arrogant streak? Or maybe a short temper? Leaving a toilet seat up once?
Ward can't write good characters. Or at least he can't write them when it comes to his precious Space Marines as he can't possibly fathom that they could be bad in some way.
Pacific wrote: Yes I know things have been just going round in circles. If it means anything, I have tried to explain the reasons why I don't think the Draigo background works. But, I guess ultimately it's a personal thing. And if we all thought the same about things, hey wouldn't the world be a boring place.
lol very true!
You're what I like to think of as an example of 'fair' Ward-hate. You've looked at the subject matter, applied some rational and critical thought, and decided you don't like it. Fair enough, it's not going to float everyone's boat. It's just the band-wagoners that rustle my jimmies.
[quote 466293 4666899 a7bd2c219055ac10e2d72496f9c88e93.jpg]I would thoroughly recommend looking up Aaron Dembski-Bowden's write-up (I think on his blog - I had a quick look but unfortunately couldn't find it), where he wrote 2 or 3 articles about the 40k universe. It explains far more eloquently than I can about the 'character' of that universe, and the difficulty but also importance of trying to write characters that fit into it.
I'll try and check it out when I get the time. As far as I'm concerned, ADB is the only truly good author in the GW stable.
A Town Called Malus wrote: I really don't see how anyone could claim that Draigo isn't a terrible character from a literary view. He has no flaws at all.
Would it have been too uch to maybe have Draigo have an arrogant streak? Or maybe a short temper? Leaving a toilet seat up once?
Ward can't write good characters. Or at least he can't write them when it comes to his precious Space Marines as he can't possibly fathom that they could be bad in some way.
Again, I think this is an issue relating to space more than anything. The purpose of a codex isn't to create rounded and fleshed-out characters, and most characters that exist only in codexes suffer from the same problem. We only know one thing about Draigo, and that's that he kicks Daemon ass. He might be an arrogant, callous, short-sighted commander or he might be a flawless, peerless, paragon of humanity. We just don't know, and it's silly to get on the bandwagon if we just don't know.
LunaHound wrote: And conveniently leaving out the name carving part?
It only happened after Mortarion was already 'dead'. I'm sure Grey Knights often perform rituals to ensure extra anguish and frustration for banished Daemons. I mean, there's that one they have trapped inside it's own skull in their feasting hall on Titan.
Except other writers do manage to convey negative aspects of their characters in the limited space available. The writers who made Farsight put across that he was a bitter, angry militarist as well as being a tactical genius (though not quite good enough to defeat an entire Ork Waagh! with a single Tau Cadre) and charismatic leader.
They managed this in 4 paragraphs taking up just over half a page. Draigos fluff is one and a half pages long.
Oh don't be ridiculous. None of the characters, as presented in the codexes, are well rounded. Because they're not supposed to be. There isn't the time (nor is a Codex the place) to flesh out characters.
Oh don't be ridiculous. None of the characters, as presented in the codexes, are well rounded. Because they're not supposed to be. There isn't the time (nor is a Codex the place) to flesh out characters.
Then have no fluff in the codices at all and just release rules. In fact get rid of all the story in the entire game. If the codices which describe the characters are not the place to flesh out the characters then what are the places for this?
If you can't be bothered to make a decent, well-written character then you might as well not have any background at all and just have lists of stats and special rules.
A Town Called Malus wrote: If you can't be bothered to make a decent, well-written character then you might as well not have any background at all and just have lists of stats and special rules.
Characters as described in codexes are, almost without exception, simple caricatures. The space in the codex reserved for background material needs to be stretched over a myriad of topics, and it's more important to deliver the background material of the faction as a whole, than spend several pages going over a single special characters relationship with his father, or otherwise rounding him out as a believable character. The description of a character in a codex has more in common with a highlight reel from an action movie, than a detailed biography, and that's the way it should be.
Removing all background material would be cutting off your nose to spite your face, but I doubt you were actually serious.
A Town Called Malus wrote:I really don't see how anyone could claim that Draigo isn't a terrible character from a literary view. He has no flaws at all.
Would it have been too uch to maybe have Draigo have an arrogant streak? Or maybe a short temper? Leaving a toilet seat up once?
Ward can't write good characters. Or at least he can't write them when it comes to his precious Space Marines as he can't possibly fathom that they could be bad in some way.
The characters that Mat Ward wrote in the Necron codex are reasonably well written. The letter from Trazyn the Infinite to some Inquisitor is the best piece of fluff I've ever read in the 40k universe. It's clever, and it denotes him as being both treacherous and arrogant.
However, I have noticed that, IMO, many of the Space Marine characters that Mat Ward has written have basically been Poochie. I've noticed that Draigo, in particular, appears to fulfill this role so firmly that he has become the Scrappy of the 40k universe.
However, I have noticed that, IMO, many of the Space Marine characters that Mat Ward has written have basically been Poochie. I've noticed that Draigo, in particular, appears to fulfill this role so firmly that he has become the Scrappy of the 40k universe.
Incidentally, Scrappy wasn't hated until a very vocal fanbase began spreading..Just like the Mat Ward haters and Draigo started with /TG/ on 4Chan. So long ago
Omegus wrote:2. His mentality towards writing rules does not at all consider balance, but rather how he feels about the army (I don't like Orcs and Gobbos, so their book sucks. Daemons are DAEMONS!!1!!, so they should be unbeatable. For people saying Space Marines is balanced, when it first came out it was certainly the top-tier cheese with Vulkan in every army list).
Well, to be fair every book is cheese for the first few weeks - it's just the basic laws of wargaming! (heck, even 7th ed Orcs&Gobbos were "cheese" for the first 5 days! )
C:SM's overall is pretty balanced with the exception of a couple standout combos. (Vulkan = king of 5th due to his meltagun buffs, Lysander + Sternguard = horrible things, etc...)
BA's however are everything codex marines are but +1.
GK's are basically the best of every marine codex +10!
Newcrons are just disgusting right now.
Wood Elves in 6th were hienous, awful things with forest-surfing Treemen & Waywatchers doing nasty things to everyone. Daemons broke 7th edition entirely. (even DE's & Sakven couldn't compete! )
7th ed O&G's just sucked the big one...
WotR is unplayable if one player wants to roflstomp
So out of 8 total 'army' projects, 1 is well balanced, 1 sucked to the point of being nearly un-winnable, and the rest are all either OTT or outright broken as feth!
lolwut?
I can basically agree with everything here, but... WE? Broken? Not even in 6th, man. Not even when that book came out. Not by a long sight. And they certainly didn't weather the transition to 7th well, to say NOTHING of 8th. One can make an incredible argument that WE took 8th ed the hardest of all books, if one didn't count the distance the army in question fell in power. WE went from being 3rd tier to being the bottom of it. VC went from being in the top 3 armies of 7th to one of the bottom 3 of 8th until the new book came out. Demons took nearly every change of 8th ed and laughed it off, as none of the things that affected VC touched them. Even DE took a hit from the step up rules, variable charges, and loss of charge blocking. Necrons went from somewhat balanced in 5th to wtf in 6th, Grey Knights appear largely untouched. Ward books (the REAL ones) don't "suffer" from new editions.
This is the first I've heard that MW wrote the Wood Elves, but I assure you it was never a broken book, even on release. It was a manuver army in a manuver game that had a tourney system that rewarded crushing victories to the near exclusion of all other results. A good WE player might win every game in a tourney in 6th, but still not place in the top 3 (or even 10) because they could never muster the murder levels demanded to do so.
WE's were never, ever about tabling the other guy - they're the guys who just hit-and-run all game long like forest ninjas and do decent damage while taking little to none in return. 'Ard Boyz and tournaments in general are not Warhammer, rather it's taking an inherently unbalanced game and trying to utterly break it.
WE's in 6th, when used by a good player were the worst possible army to fight. Nothing but dryads, waywatchers, treemen & wildriders suplimented by hero-level wizards who'd tree sing them everywhere. You'd never get a charge off, and you'd spend the entire game chasing your tail due to how the movement rules worked.
Sure, WE's got pretty pants come 7th, and 8th is absolutely no place for them in their current incarnation. But in 6th, they were one of the dirtiest armies around when you ran into their power lists!
My VC in 6th, even as underpowered as they were viewed at the time in the tourney scene never had problems with 6th WE. Tree singing can be shut down, and easily. While they're trying to move the few trees they have on the board, I'm using magic to catch right back up again or surround them with zombies. WOC would shut down the magic with tzeentch or flame the flammable units. Empire and dwarves could outshoot them AND shut down the magic with scrolls or free dispell dice (or both) and LM had scarier magic. Good player vs bad player: winner. Good player vs Good player? A tossup at best. That is hardly "OP" and certainly no where near even BloodAngels level of playability, let alone GK or WHFDoC levels of CRAZY.
And to the person who doesn't buy Vect's little "gift," really? That's what sticks in your craw, hunh? A race that has been known to be manipulating stars for millions of years using singularities and dark matter in their HAND WEAPONS giving one to an enemy in a box strikes you as off? Next thing you know you'll be bothered by aliens transporting their consciousnesses into machine bodies...
Kaldor wrote: Characters as described in codexes are, almost without exception, simple caricatures.
Which is true enough, and that's all well and good, but even caricatures can be interesting, and usually give at least some insight into who the character actually is (the above example of one of the Necron characters, for example). Draigo's... isn't, and doesn't. It gives you nothing about who he actually is, other than "Grey Knight who is more awesome than everyone else in the Imperium combined". It gives no explanation for why he exists. Draigo is, and that's all the explanation we get.
Sorry, but Kaldor Draigo is not Darkseid. We need more explanation than that for how a single Grey Knight can do all of this. It's absolutely ridiculous, and the sheer stupidity of it is only compounded when we realize that we don't get any insight into Draigo's character, either. Even in-universe, Draigo is essentially nothing but a stat line, with his defining characteristic being that his numbers are the biggest and he will smack you with them.
It mentions in the GK codec how dragio can tell if an enemy projectile is going to hurt him. What comes to mind is dragio standing in the open looking at a artillery shel heading towards him and him thinking about if he should move or not.
Nurgle wrote: It mentions in the GK codec how dragio can tell if an enemy projectile is going to hurt him. What comes to mind is dragio standing in the open looking at a artillery shel heading towards him and him thinking about if he should move or not.
1d4chan Wiki wrote:While there is such a thing as a front-line general, the fact is that all of his heroes are like that, and ones that aren't seem both vague and unfocused. Furthermore, Matt does a lot of telling rather than showing. He tells us that Marneus Calgar is a patient tactical genius who considers the danger of an incoming projectile before taking cover. The image painted in the average person's mind in that case is one of Calgar analyzing a falling bomb until it strikes him in the head and explodes, at which point he decides, “Yes, that one was dangerous, I probably should have taken cover from that one".
While I'm not against using information from outside sources, you might at least try to give credit for other people's thoughts. Or, if you can't do that, at least get the name of the character involved right.
Nurgle wrote: It mentions in the GK codec how dragio can tell if an enemy projectile is going to hurt him. What comes to mind is dragio standing in the open looking at a artillery shel heading towards him and him thinking about if he should move or not.
1d4chan Wiki wrote:While there is such a thing as a front-line general, the fact is that all of his heroes are like that, and ones that aren't seem both vague and unfocused. Furthermore, Matt does a lot of telling rather than showing. He tells us that Marneus Calgar is a patient tactical genius who considers the danger of an incoming projectile before taking cover. The image painted in the average person's mind in that case is one of Calgar analyzing a falling bomb until it strikes him in the head and explodes, at which point he decides, “Yes, that one was dangerous, I probably should have taken cover from that one".
[url=http://1d4chan.org/wiki/Matt_Ward#Why_the_Hate.3F]Source[/u
While I'm not against using information from outside sources, you might at least try to give credit for other people's thoughts. Or, if you can't do that, at least get the name of the character involved right.
I know it's from 1d4chan I happen to help out the site quite often. If if it was a name I miss spelled most likely autocorrect.
If you want me to put sources down then the page would be filled with everybody handing out links like cotton candy.
Been on /tg/ since 08 I have seen neckbeards rage and it isn't pretty.
Nurgle wrote: It mentions in the GK codec how dragio can tell if an enemy projectile is going to hurt him. What comes to mind is dragio standing in the open looking at a artillery shel heading towards him and him thinking about if he should move or not.
I have no background knowledge of Draigo's fluff, but reading this the only thing I can have in my mind is this
Regardless of any "solid"/"insubstantial" statements made/implied about Draigo in any fluff/rules...
The main proponent of Draigo being a "decent" character, and fitting in with the fluff general fluff of 40k, calls himself Kaldor on Dakka...
Ergo, there is no way that anyone, even Ward, could cause him to think that Draigo was anything but perfection...
That would be like trying to tell me that Ghaz is terrible.
Skipphag da Devoura wrote: Regardless of any "solid"/"insubstantial" statements made/implied about Draigo in any fluff/rules...
The main proponent of Draigo being a "decent" character, and fitting in with the fluff general fluff of 40k, calls himself Kaldor on Dakka...
Ergo, there is no way that anyone, even Ward, could cause him to think that Draigo was anything but perfection...
That would be like trying to tell me that Ghaz is terrible.
I think Draigo is a quite decent character. Your move.
Skipphag da Devoura wrote: Regardless of any "solid"/"insubstantial" statements made/implied about Draigo in any fluff/rules...
The main proponent of Draigo being a "decent" character, and fitting in with the fluff general fluff of 40k, calls himself Kaldor on Dakka...
Ergo, there is no way that anyone, even Ward, could cause him to think that Draigo was anything but perfection...
That would be like trying to tell me that Ghaz is terrible.
I think Draigo is a quite decent character. Your move.
Why? What aspects of his character do you find interesting and/or enjoyable?
I love how this thread went from discussing the writing capabilities of Ward as a whole to 24/7 Draigo.
Personally, since really the only "ward dex" I'm familiar with IS the GK dex, the thing that bothers me most is that Draigo is now front and center. I miss Stern. I found him to be a really interesting character and what made me really wanna play the then Daemonhunters. Then Ward came, kicked him in the balls and left him in the street while Draigo took over and redecorated.
Also, if Draigo is stuck in the warp only briefly escaping to fight a quick occasional battle... why is he still Supreme Grand Master, loved and trusted by the rest of the GK? Who's running the Knights in his absence? I find it difficult to believe that a force as paranoid as they are about daemons and chaos influence as they are would still follow Draigo after not having seen him in forever, suddenly appearing from the warp when it's convenient. I mean they slaughtered dozens of innocent Sisters to "protect" themselves from daemonic corruption (even though they're incorruptible already). But their leader lives in the warp and they follow his beck and call? Not that I put too much investment into Draigo as a character, this just yet another unbelievable thing on top of the pile of other unbelievable things that Draigo is known for, for me anyway.
I think I ought to read the other stuff Ward has done before passing judgement on him, just to be fair. For now all I can comment on are the GK.
Skipphag da Devoura wrote: Regardless of any "solid"/"insubstantial" statements made/implied about Draigo in any fluff/rules...
The main proponent of Draigo being a "decent" character, and fitting in with the fluff general fluff of 40k, calls himself Kaldor on Dakka...
Ergo, there is no way that anyone, even Ward, could cause him to think that Draigo was anything but perfection...
That would be like trying to tell me that Ghaz is terrible.
I think Draigo is a quite decent character. Your move.
Why? What aspects of his character do you find interesting and/or enjoyable?
Regardless of what level of writing Ward has, Draigo is ultimately a sisyphean character: nothing he does matters. Furthermore, he's basically the embodyment of the Grey Knights Chapter: they fight Daemons, but in the end those very same daemons come back. I find it fitting that the life of the guy leading the Grey Knights is basically a micro-version of the entire Chapter's struggle.
That said, he's not a stellar character, but he's not, IMO, as bad as people make him out to be. Daemon primarchs aren't sacrosanct, they're not omnipotent.
I"m not a Matt Ward fan. From what I understand of his writing style and the way he writes codexes/codices whatever, he seems to lack certain fundamentals.
That being said, Draigo as a character, is kinda weak. The biggest thing that makes a character is his flaws rather than his strengths. So Kaldor, since there seems to be a misunderstanding on the Deamon Primarch, give the entire forum a breif history lesson and please site references. Most specifically if the Primarch died before said carving on the heart or was he still alive.
Just checked Codex: Dark Angels and noticed only one of the three Grand Masters shows a flaw but thats because one half of the page in wargear and statlines. Belial is almost killed by a warboss but manages to win in the end. Sammael and Azrael are not listed with flaws. However, given an addition half page a peice, I am sure there would have been more.
Joining the Band wagon is popular but you have to understand, sometimes the band wagon is correct.
Edit: Draigo isn't a character who eternally pushing a rock up a hill but never seeming to get it there, he isn't eternally have his guts pecked out by harpies. The way the character seems to be described as far as I have read, is he does what he wants and no chaos god is strong enough to stop him. Secondly, even if Nurgels garden grows back in a second, deamons have to use energy to rebuild them, meaning given enough time, Draigo would weaken Nurgel so bad, he could kill him in single combat. His achievements however small are still acheivements.
The biggest problem with Draigo is the same as Mephiston. The guy should not exist as written in the first place.
One man, no matter how powerful, should not be able to effect the home realm of a Chaos God. Regardless of how meaningless it turns out to be. The destruction of a Gods home realm is for the battles of legends and whole armies. Of a group of men working in concert to overthrow an evil god. That makes a good story, with struggle, sacrifice, and ultimately triumph. Not just one man who can make a mockery of their power.
AlmightyWalrus wrote: Draigo is ultimately a sisyphean character: nothing he does matters.
This has been (IMO successfully) disputed a number of times already.
Which is where we disagree. Sure, he wins every fight he's in. It really doesn't matter in the end though, because none of it is permanent. Hand-waving that away by just pointing out that he wins every fight, which is what I'm seeing in this thread, doesn't change the fact that nothing of it really matters. At best he is an annoyance to Chaos.
Omegus wrote: A random Space Marine, however talented, should not be an annoyance to Chaos, doing whatever he wants in the Warp itself.
The Supreme Grandmaster of the the Grey Knights is no more a random space marine than Ghazkull is just a random ork.
The warp is anathema to life. It does not obey the laws of the universe. It has no physics, no air, no gravity, and if you pull the trigger on a gun, you're just as likely to have potted petunias come out of the barrel as bullets. There is no way Draigo, or any other human, could exist there unless the lords of the warp, the Chaos Gods, molded it into a form that he could exist in. He's not there because he wants to be, he's there because the Chaos gods want him there.
Omegus wrote: A random Space Marine, however talented, should not be an annoyance to Chaos, doing whatever he wants in the Warp itself.
The Supreme Grandmaster of the the Grey Knights is no more a random space marine than Ghazkull is just a random ork.
Ghazghkull doesn't walk into the Warp and punch Khorne in the face, though.
Kaldor wrote: The warp is anathema to life. It does not obey the laws of the universe. It has no physics, no air, no gravity, and if you pull the trigger on a gun, you're just as likely to have potted petunias come out of the barrel as bullets. There is no way Draigo, or any other human, could exist there unless the lords of the warp, the Chaos Gods, molded it into a form that he could exist in. He's not there because he wants to be, he's there because the Chaos gods want him there.
Which is all well and good, except that this aspect is entirely ignored when he's doing things like killing Slaanesh's handmaidens or burning down Nurgle's garden. Draigo hasn't done anything that explains why the Chaos Gods would want him to do this stuff. It's lip service, nothing more.
The thing I don't get about Draigo is that he was apparently capable of carving his predecessors name into a Daemon Prince Primarch who is described as slaughtering said predecessor.
Either his predecessor was totally crap or Draigo was apparently several times (at least) stronger than the Grand Master he was serving under and nobody noticed it until the previous guy was butchered.
This thread has changed my views on a few things. First of all, that a thread with the subject line of 'Matt Ward' is able to go 14 pages without getting locked for turning into a flame war is something I would never have thought possible. (ba-dum *tiss*)
Overall I'm okay with Draigo now despite think him to be pure silliness originally. He is a bit of a Sisyphean character, albeit one that differs in that he completes his tasks only to have them undone rather than to never be able to have them completed before having them done. That said I don't find the bit about carving names into hearts to be all that creative, Draigo still being the chapter master makes f-all sense, and I think I'd rather see Paladins as troops be enabled by a character that's a normal part of the GK structure (perhaps my mythological non-Warp bound chapter master) than the way it is now where whenever a lot of Paladins are mobilized Draigo always happens to show up. That said I'm still picturing him running around the Warp looking for warp dust, and trying to protect his holy passage.
Actually, maybe that's how Draigo still functions as the Chapter Master. Whenever the GKs need him, they just have four Paladins stand around outside of unit coherency and he just appears.
As far as the Bloodtide goes it definitely is plenty grimdark, but it's one (small) step away from saying that Grey Knights would merrily summon daemons as allies if it would help them achieve their goals. Personally I'd be okay with that, but I don't think it really fits in with the fluff.
Regarding spiritual lieges, Ward can kiss *my* holy passage.
I don't know. I think it's more that it's fun to hop onto the Ward Sucks Internet me-me than it is that he's genuinely that much worse than the rest of what gets put out. If I had the chance to talk to him for an hour I'd be more interested in asking him about how the rules are made than I'd want to spend it giving him crap about his writing.
Oddly enough in todays gamer culture its quite common to have characters who are bad ass simply "because" I see nothing wrong with a character like Draigo being the GK equivalent to Optimus prime.
Hes just that good. Looking for realistic characters in a game and setting like 40k?
Please, the novels are grade school reading fare. Nothing wrong with enjoying them but tearing down fictional characters because they are perceived to be less well written or thought out then others in the 40k universe is a joke in and of itself.
Nothing in the entire black library nor the game material compares to the likes of Asimov or Clarke. Its a game, first and foremost. You simply cannot hold up examples of writing in this universe and compare them to that written by those with talent. That's just silly.
Optimus Prime is badass because he can turn into a Truck. Plus Optimus has weaknesses. His mercy and care for human life has resulted in Megatron escaping several times. What are Draigo's weaknesses?
Plus look at it this way. Optimus is killed by Megatron in the original Transformers movie, which almost results in Unicron being able to destroy Cybertron as there was no Autobot leader to use the Matrix of Leadership.
Has Draigo ever died with his death almost resulting in the destruction of the Imperium?
Draigo is not Sisyphean, after all, now and again, he gets puked out of the warp and proceeds to kick Chaos ass, potentially tipping the scale of the battle he participates in in Imperium's favor. That's pretty big if you ask me. That the Chaos gods allow this thorn in their side remain alive in the warp and let him out from time to time to thwart their own plans is nonsensical, to put it mildly. And if they're not powerful enough to put him down in the place over which they reign supreme can only mean Draigo's will dwarfs that of the Emperor himself.
No he has plot immunity, at the end of every episode nothing changes. Even in the movie after he died they just brought him back again anyway. His sacrifice is ultimately meaningless.
As much a die hard transformer fan as I am, it was terribly written but still had characters though two dimensional I enjoyed immensely. The point isnt realism or depth.
No he has plot immunity, at the end of every episode nothing changes. Even in the movie after he died they just brought him back again anyway. His sacrifice is ultimately meaningless.
As much a die hard transformer fan as I am, it was terribly written but still had characters though two dimensional I enjoyed immensely. The point isnt realism or depth.
No he has plot immunity, at the end of every episode nothing changes. Even in the movie after he died they just brought him back again anyway. His sacrifice is ultimately meaningless.
As much a die hard transformer fan as I am, it was terribly written but still had characters though two dimensional I enjoyed immensely. The point isnt realism or depth.
The point is fun.
Reread my post. A weakness does not have to be a physical one. Optimus has failed to kill Megatron on several occasions due to his merciful nature and value of all life.
These were exploited by Megatron, allowing him to escape. Megatron used parts of Optimus' character as weaknesses.
No he has plot immunity, at the end of every episode nothing changes. Even in the movie after he died they just brought him back again anyway. His sacrifice is ultimately meaningless.
As much a die hard transformer fan as I am, it was terribly written but still had characters though two dimensional I enjoyed immensely. The point isnt realism or depth.
The point is fun.
Reread my post. A weakness does not have to be a physical one. Optimus has failed to kill Megatron on several occasions due to his merciful nature and value of all life.
These were exploited by Megatron, allowing him to escape. Megatron used parts of Optimus' character as weaknesses.
Now, what are Draigo's weaknesses?
What is Vects (Perfect planning and killing people with black holes or convoluted deaths)? What is Wazdakka's? (Who by the way, rammed through a titans void shields, exploded on fire, killed the crew, and came out with flaming skulls), Kharn (Who destroyed two Legions Simultaneously in One Battle), Creed (Has he ever lost a battle?), C'tans? (Before 5th they were all but unstoppable and planning everything).
With the exception of the rest, there's still plenty more characters that have been presented with no flaws whatsoever. This was not unique to draigo or matt ward beforehand. Heck 4th edition space marines was actually quite boastful about Ultramarines moreso than 5th, and had far more Ultramarines compared to extra chapters (Ultramarine veteran's and Ultramarine honor guard used to be SC's)
Kharns weakness is that he is insane and as likely to kill his own men as he is to kill the enemy.
For Vect read the entire last paragraph of his fluff entry in the Dark Eldar Codex. His position of power is weakening and he is resorting to more blunt means of maintaining control. His plots and plans are not infallible, largely because everyone considers him a threat and so he lost the advantage of being underestimated. He lost one of his advantages.
Wazdakka is an Ork. None of their stuff is serious.
Creed, I cannot answer as I haven't got the IG book.
C'tans are now on a leash by the Newcrons.
None of those characters are meant to be tragic, which is what many of the people defending Draigo claim him to be. It is not tragic that an unstoppable killing machine is trapped in a place with infinite creatures for him to kill.
It might be tragic if he were to have to fight until he died then the Chaos Gods brought him back and repeated the process for eternity. That is a truly futile situation as not even death would release him from his prison.
As it is he is a boring character with no negative attributes in a situation which allows his positive attributes to shine. If Ward wanted him to be tragic then he should have put him in a situation where his positive attributes become negative.
Kharns weakness is that he is insane and as likely to kill his own men as he is to kill the enemy.
Which is a good thing, blood for the blood god remember? This is only a flaw to everyone else, to the Chosen of Khorn, this is the best kind of person to be. If he dies he's revived by khorn to kill more, so he cannot truly die, and everytime he goes into battle he slaughters everyone.
For Vect read the entire last paragraph of his fluff entry in the Dark Eldar Codex. His position of power is weakening and he is resorting to more blunt means of maintaining control.
And? This is how he's been for the longest time, he hasn't lost anything, and he's still going to survive and be the leader of all DE everywhere. Not to mention the fact that his plans still always succeed when it comes to maintaining order amongst the Kabals, cults, and covens.
Wazdakka is an Ork. None of their stuff is serious.
I disagree, some of their best parts come from Armageddon, as well as the more serious warbosses. Though I still keep in mind the comic relief.
C'tans are now on a leash by the Newcrons.
Which is why I specifically was pointing out Oldcrons, who were almost mary sue's in their own right.
Weaknesses?
Lucius the eternal?
The whole ability to transform the person who killed you into you seems pretty top notch.
The fact its near on impossible to finally kill him is pretty amusing.
Best story for a character though is tycho.
If anyone has not read it, flick through the BA book or find it on wiki.
Was actually written to a pretty decent level.
Jackal wrote: Weaknesses? Lucius the eternal? The whole ability to transform the person who killed you into you seems pretty top notch. The fact its near on impossible to finally kill him is pretty amusing.
'Course that only happens if you take pride in having killed him. Draigo (being more perfect than Mary Poppins) wouldn't really care.
After all, when you've destroyed the walls of a Lord of Change, burned down Nurgle's garden, killed Slaanesh's chosen Daemonettes and killed countless Bloodthirsters, why would killing a single dude in Power Armour make you feel proud?
As it is he is a boring character with no negative attributes in a situation which allows his positive attributes to shine. If Ward wanted him to be tragic then he should have put him in a situation where his positive attributes become negative.
So something like putting him in a situation where his work is unmade constantly and his strength doesn't matter. Gee, it's almost as if that's happened somewhere...
As it is he is a boring character with no negative attributes in a situation which allows his positive attributes to shine. If Ward wanted him to be tragic then he should have put him in a situation where his positive attributes become negative.
So something like putting him in a situation where his work is unmade constantly and his strength doesn't matter. Gee, it's almost as if that's happened somewhere...
That is not what I described. If Draigo kills a daemon, it takes time for that daemon to come back. During that time that daemon cannot threaten the material world. That is a net gain as whilst the daemon can and will come back it cannot do anything until it does so.
Now, if the Lords of Chaos were to find a way to use Draigo's strength against the Imperium itself, without his realising it, then that would create the situation I described, where Draigo's strength is weakening the very thing he is fighting to protect. A man who fights for what he believes is right but only ends up destroying it is tragic.
I must concur... Although, with the state of the Inquisition, presumably taking out innocent "victims"... One could say that Draigo has a certain amount of tragedy, in that his chapter is intimately involved in the Inquisition...
Yes, yes! Maybe! No, back to work...
It's grasping for straws, but is vaguely conceivable...
AlmightyWalrus wrote: So something like putting him in a situation where his work is unmade constantly and his strength doesn't matter.
See my previous post regarding this. The fluff regarding Draigo pays lip service to this being the case, but this isn't actually reflected in the things that we see. He bested Mortarion. He burned down Nurgle's gardens. He killed the chosen handmaidens of Slaanesh. And the list goes on. True, Slaanesh can choose more handmaidens, and Nurgle can rebuild his gardens, but this doesn't make Draigo a Sisyphean character. He's still doing more single-handed than the Emperor himself could have, and at what is apparently no cost to himself. The fact that daemons can reincarnate in the Warp should they ever be destroyed no more makes Draigo Sisyphean than it does the Empire as a whole - and if you say that it does make the Empire as a whole match that description, then Draigo's "punishment" for his victories isn't punishment at all, because it's no worse than what would happen to him if he had never been "cursed" in the first place.
He's still an unstoppable warrior who's single-handedly done more damage to Chaos than pretty much the rest of the Imperium combined, without the gifts of a Primarch or any other such justification. He's just a Space Marine. A Grey Knight Space Marine, but still just a Space Marine. And, as awesome as Space Marines might be able to be, there is no Space Marine - hell, no Primarch, and probably not Emps himself, either - who should be capable of what Draigo does as a matter of course. Saying "all his victories is pyrrhic" is both flat-out false and entirely pointless in the first place, as all of those victories are still things that should be impossible.
As for the discussion regarding weaknesses, you're using the wrong term, which is resulting in the argument getting muddled and pointless. Draigo doesn't need to have weaknesses, per se. He needs flaws and limits. Look at other characters from Space Marine fiction. Hell, look at the Emperor himself. He has no real "weaknesses". He's an incredible warrior, the most powerful human psyker of all time, and a genius surpassing all geniuses. What he does have are flaws and limits. Despite all of his incredible, god-like power, he was limited in that he could not simply stride into the Warp and take on the Gods of Chaos single-handed and come out unscathed. Despite his genius, he was flawed in that he was arrogant and authoritarian - perhaps by necessity, but he still was. And he failed to see the corruption of Horus, instead letting his favoritism drive another of his sons, Magnus the Red, to Chaos.
Draigo has no apparent limits or flaws. He's done what has been described to us before as quite literally impossible without any apparent effort. He has no personality to begin with, so he has no flaws, either; he's not arrogant or overconfident or anything of the sort. He's not a dick. In essence, the entirety of his character is that he's defined by his lack of limitations.
On the subject of other characters, particularly villains... well, the truth is that you really can't compare protagonists and antagonists using the same criteria, particularly in a setting as dark and bloody as Warhammer 40,000. And you're also leaving out the fact that a lot of them - particularly Kharn and his ilk - are explicitly empowered by the Vile Gods to be capable of feats that surpass their non-Chaotic counterparts, and the more favored they are, the more destructive they become. They may border on invincible, but that's fine, as their role in the setting is to provide obstacles for the good guys to overcome, not richly-nuanced characters for the players to empathize with.
Draigo, on the other hand, is a protagonist. And he fails at all the criteria for being a good one.
Jackal wrote: Weaknesses?
Lucius the eternal?
The whole ability to transform the person who killed you into you seems pretty top notch.
The fact its near on impossible to finally kill him is pretty amusing.
'Course that only happens if you take pride in having killed him. Draigo (being more perfect than Mary Poppins) wouldn't really care.
After all, when you've destroyed the walls of a Lord of Change, burned down Nurgle's garden, killed Slaanesh's chosen Daemonettes and killed countless Bloodthirsters, why would killing a single dude in Power Armour make you feel proud?
Lucius is an awesome character. Yeah he has the ultimate get out of jail free card (but that can be expected of the chosen champion of a god), but the guy is not invincible. He has obviously lost before other wise his armor wouldn't have all those faces. He isn't uberly strong, he doesn't have a dozen occurrences of killing stuff he has no business killing. He actually has martial pride and a rather unique way of demonstrating that on the table top (see the rules regarding his attack characteristics). He is the perfect recurring villain (a writing convention that has been used since the beginning of time) in a setting that is all about war.
His only downside, if you can call it that, is that WH40K lets you play the bad guys. As such some people will champion him and he losses a bit from the roll of the eternal villian. I will say that his "resurrection" just feels more in character and IMO is easily more accepted than that Necron guy or St. Celestine.
I see the relation between draigo and the four gods as follows.
Say that one day you get a package from someone, you wonder "what could this be?" When you open the box an angry garden gnome jumps out kicks you in the shin and runs away breaking stuff. You wonder what just happen when at the bottom you find a small note. You take it and it reads "Hope you like it, Nurgle".
So you manage to get the gnome back in the box and wonder how you can dispose of it when you get an idea. Lets send it to khorne instead. So you put another note in the box and ships the box to Khorne instead. Repeat ad infinitum as the four gods send him around to eachother to foil plans and frustrate the others.
Well, maybe there not controlling him puppetmaster style but subtly steering him by say making the roads hes walking conviniently leading to the different places.
But maybe i just thought i was much smarter than i actually am.
Boneville wrote: Well, maybe there not controlling him puppetmaster style but subtly steering him by say making the roads hes walking conviniently leading to the different places.
A Town Called Malus wrote: That is not what I described. If Draigo kills a daemon, it takes time for that daemon to come back. During that time that daemon cannot threaten the material world. That is a net gain as whilst the daemon can and will come back it cannot do anything until it does so.
This is exactly why the argument that Draigo is in a Sisyphean struggle falls flat. Never before has he been able to more effectively combat Chaos.
And as for him being a pawn of the Chaos Gods, he is explicitly beyond their control.
A Town Called Malus wrote: That is not what I described. If Draigo kills a daemon, it takes time for that daemon to come back. During that time that daemon cannot threaten the material world. That is a net gain as whilst the daemon can and will come back it cannot do anything until it does so.
This is exactly why the argument that Draigo is in a Sisyphean struggle falls flat. Never before has he been able to more effectively combat Chaos.
A Daemon killed in the warp re-spawns pretty much instantly. One killed in the material world has to go through certain steps to be able to come back. Now granted he gets to come back to fight battles in the materium, and that's pretty stupid. But everything he does in the warp is very quickly undone.
And as for him being a pawn of the Chaos Gods, he is explicitly beyond their control.
Except he's not. How else is there a perfectly crafted little pocket of the warp for him to exist in? It's kind of like a fish in a tank. I may not have control over the fish itself, it can pretty much do what it wants, but it only exists because I choose to have a tank to put it in. If I want, I can smash that tank and that fish is screwed.
Jayden63 wrote: The biggest problem with Draigo is the same as Mephiston. The guy should not exist as written in the first place.
One man, no matter how powerful, should not be able to effect the home realm of a Chaos God. Regardless of how meaningless it turns out to be. The destruction of a Gods home realm is for the battles of legends and whole armies. Of a group of men working in concert to overthrow an evil god. That makes a good story, with struggle, sacrifice, and ultimately triumph. Not just one man who can make a mockery of their power.
If he was pushed to the very limit of his power and was near death when he defeatd M'kar then okay it would have been not so bad. However, I cannot defend him when it all ends at the fact that he has ZERO flaw. They flat out say abbadon has a problem with Cadia and that I can repesct. If we are going for crunch then he is a monster that I have to throw a termicide at him to bring him down. (Termicide a kamkazie squad of termies with mark of slaanesh and metla bombs.)
A Town Called Malus wrote: That is not what I described. If Draigo kills a daemon, it takes time for that daemon to come back. During that time that daemon cannot threaten the material world. That is a net gain as whilst the daemon can and will come back it cannot do anything until it does so.
This is exactly why the argument that Draigo is in a Sisyphean struggle falls flat. Never before has he been able to more effectively combat Chaos.
A Daemon killed in the warp re-spawns pretty much instantly. One killed in the material world has to go through certain steps to be able to come back. Now granted he gets to come back to fight battles in the materium, and that's pretty stupid. But everything he does in the warp is very quickly undone.
And as for him being a pawn of the Chaos Gods, he is explicitly beyond their control.
Except he's not. How else is there a perfectly crafted little pocket of the warp for him to exist in? It's kind of like a fish in a tank. I may not have control over the fish itself, it can pretty much do what it wants, but it only exists because I choose to have a tank to put it in. If I want, I can smash that tank and that fish is screwed.
Hey Kaldor lay off of my world for a while. PS Mortarion wants to hang out with you again.
I don't care for Draigo and GK that much but turning necrons into metal Pirates of Carribean in spaaace with family trees and fancy skirts is the crime beyond punisment. They went from dark sf menacing force to fantasish and cheesy in the bad way silly in-your-face Egyptian robots. I can't say how much this was a collective effort from GW but Ward is on the first page, he takes the blame . Also that fluff change somehow influenced the whole range of new models so I can't stand any of them bar maybe the Canoptek Wraiths, I want to make an army of them but it won't contain Barges, Arks, Tomb Blades and basicly anything except Warriors, Immortals and models from the older codex. So much choice, thanks Matt.
I might do a little trolling experiment. Once all of this has died down again I might just start a thread with the single line "Matt Ward" and see what happens. Or alternatively subject: Mary Sue and first post a single word: Draigo. That guy who gets well angry about the definition is bound to join in.
Plumbumbarum wrote: I don't care for Draigo and GK that much but turning necrons into metal Pirates of Carribean in spaaace with family trees and fancy skirts is the crime beyond punisment. They went from dark sf menacing force to fantasish and cheesy in the bad way silly in-your-face Egyptian robots. I can't say how much this was a collective effort from GW but Ward is on the first page, he takes the blame . Also that fluff change somehow influenced the whole range of new models so I can't stand any of them bar maybe the Canoptek Wraiths, I want to make an army of them but it won't contain Barges, Arks, Tomb Blades and basicly anything except Warriors, Immortals and models from the older codex. So much choice, thanks Matt.
Oh no, they made the blatantly Egyptian robots blatantly Egyptian, whatever will we do?!
Plumbumbarum wrote: I don't care for Draigo and GK that much but turning necrons into metal Pirates of Carribean in spaaace with family trees and fancy skirts is the crime beyond punisment. They went from dark sf menacing force to fantasish and cheesy in the bad way silly in-your-face Egyptian robots. I can't say how much this was a collective effort from GW but Ward is on the first page, he takes the blame . Also that fluff change somehow influenced the whole range of new models so I can't stand any of them bar maybe the Canoptek Wraiths, I want to make an army of them but it won't contain Barges, Arks, Tomb Blades and basicly anything except Warriors, Immortals and models from the older codex. So much choice, thanks Matt.
Oh no, they made the blatantly Egyptian robots blatantly Egyptian, whatever will we do?!
They took the right direction of subtlety with Egyptian theme making Necrons just as far away from Terminator as needed but the same time horror-esque menacing and automated. Then Matt took them back into silly metal tomb kings riding their whatever that is era, if you can't see the difference between those two aproaches then I don't know what to tell you tbh.
I think the latest CSM codex shows what can happen with fluff without Ward. I mean, it wasn't ground breaking, but it wasn't awful or terrible either. I'd classify it as "good", the first good fluff GW codex since Dark Eldar.
Plumbumbarum wrote: I don't care for Draigo and GK that much but turning necrons into metal Pirates of Carribean in spaaace with family trees and fancy skirts is the crime beyond punisment. They went from dark sf menacing force to fantasish and cheesy in the bad way silly in-your-face Egyptian robots. I can't say how much this was a collective effort from GW but Ward is on the first page, he takes the blame . Also that fluff change somehow influenced the whole range of new models so I can't stand any of them bar maybe the Canoptek Wraiths, I want to make an army of them but it won't contain Barges, Arks, Tomb Blades and basicly anything except Warriors, Immortals and models from the older codex. So much choice, thanks Matt.
Oh no, they made the blatantly Egyptian robots blatantly Egyptian, whatever will we do?!
They took the right direction of subtlety with Egyptian theme making Necrons just as far away from Terminator as needed but the same time horror-esque menacing and automated. Then Matt took them back into silly metal tomb kings riding their whatever that is era, if you can't see the difference between those two aproaches then I don't know what to tell you tbh.
Do you honestly think the entire thing was just Ward? No one man can take a fluff that far without several editors due in part to how drastic the change was .
He was able to get through major changes without being found out until it was too late. He admitted (I believe at GDUK 2009) that his changes to Land Raider and Drop Pod capacity weren't noticed until release for 5th Edition Codex: Space Marines and said he "got his knuckles rapped" for that, and nobody noticed until it was too late to change it, and that explains why no other SM books have gotten the expanded transport capacity.
Matt Ward's fluff sucks, but his rules are halfway decent. Writing the background in Codex: Space Marines, which is supposed to cover a significant percentage of all Space Marines, as a love letter to the Ultramarines was poor form and unprofessional, but the rules work. Rewriting the Grey Knights to serve as incorruptible paragons of perfection who are so perfect they can run around in the Warp and wield daemon weapons without complications was unforgivable, but the revisions to the rules were the best thing that ever happened to the army (yes, I've been playing Grey Knights in some form or another since they were all metal and squad leaders were fifty points each, and let me say the redone weapons, the psychic power system, and Interceptor Squads are really, really cool).
I've found the best way to deal with Matt Ward is to ignore most of the stuff he writes and assume the rest of it is in-universe propaganda. That or assume that the eight hundred Grey Knights he writes about are his Grey Knights, and the other 2,200 that have vanished in the Codex revision might cleave more closely to the old Codex's background.
AnomanderRake wrote: Matt Ward's fluff sucks, but his rules are halfway decent. Writing the background in Codex: Space Marines, which is supposed to cover a significant percentage of all Space Marines, as a love letter to the Ultramarines was poor form and unprofessional, but the rules work. Rewriting the Grey Knights to serve as incorruptible paragons of perfection who are so perfect they can run around in the Warp and wield daemon weapons without complications was unforgivable, but the revisions to the rules were the best thing that ever happened to the army (yes, I've been playing Grey Knights in some form or another since they were all metal and squad leaders were fifty points each, and let me say the redone weapons, the psychic power system, and Interceptor Squads are really, really cool).
I've found the best way to deal with Matt Ward is to ignore most of the stuff he writes and assume the rest of it is in-universe propaganda. That or assume that the eight hundred Grey Knights he writes about are his Grey Knights, and the other 2,200 that have vanished in the Codex revision might cleave more closely to the old Codex's background.
His rules are good?!
Sure, they're so good that he only made one entire game utterly unplayable, while he simply rendered 3 or 4 entire codices irrelevent and near-unplayable for the last year of 5th ed. (and Daemons are still screwed if there's 10+ Warp Quake models on the table!)
His rules are only semi-balanced against the other books he's written, and even then the game still becomes too much of a rock/papper/scissor afair.
Now if you want to see what actual balance looks like, go look at what's happened over the past two years with Fantasy... The first 5 books released so far are all on the same level with only a very slight advantage between the percieved best (Ogres) & worst (Tomb Kings) books. No army really has any "must-haves" choices and spaming outside of Core units is thankfully dead.
What's really telling however, Ward hasn't been involved with any these books... With the new CSM book having a distinct impression that GW is trying to do to 40k what they've begun to achieve in Fantasy, it'll be interesting to see what happens when an eventual Ward book is thrown into the mix.
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-up fight phase and named heroes being all but invincible!
