So I keep seeing his name pop up in the GK threads. I came into 40k around 3rd edition but didn't start actually play till about a year ago. From what I gather he tends to write as what in mtg we would call a timmy ie giant monster powered dudes. So what else has he worked on.

Actually, it would be useful if someone could list the known authors of current codices. Good question, Cy.

I know he's responsible for a few fantasy books, but most of the derision he receives is because of Codex: Blood Angels and Codex: Space Marines where the fluff section consists of blatant Mary Sueism and complete ridiculousness, and the army list section either makes you cry "WTF OP" or scratch your head and go, "huh?"

Mat Ward started as playtester for the OK army book and coauthored the Wood Elf army book. His first army book as sole author was the previous Orks& Goblins book, average at release but low tier during the rest of 7th edition. His second army book was Chaos Daemons which ultimately broke competitive play in 7th edition, slightly repaired by the 8th edition Fantasy rulebook also mainly written by him. In 40k he wrote Space Marines and Blood Angels, the latter being the current top tier Codex.

When asked if he is aware that his Chaos Daemon book is way overpowered, his answer is rumoured to be that this was his intention. So he now has the reputation to give a damn about game balancing and a tendency to write juvenilish overpowered background and juvenilish names.

Lord Aislinn wrote:At Gamesday today, I was one of the brave few to talk to Matt Ward. We were chatting about how he creates the books, and we got on to talking about how points costs are scaled, and I said:

"Alot of people think a core unit that costs 12 points then gets regeneration is a bit over powered, in fact, alot of people think the demon book is overpowered."

He laughed and replied: "It would be a shame if it wasn't."

He simply has a reputation for writing completely overpowered codexes, and fluff. While I can see a case for arguing that Space Marines are SUPPOSED to have OTT fluf (being the 40k version of heroic knights), he simply takes it too far. While it is entirerly acceptable to write fluff making a certain character a crazy awesome badass, Ward goes a couple steps too far, and instead of a character being a crazy awesome badass (e.g. Commissar Yarrick), it circles around to the character being considered a Mary Sue~ish persona.

The best examples fluff wise would probably be Marneus Calgar in Vanilla Marines, and Lord Draigo in Grey Knights. Both are clearly meant to be badasses, however Ward went way too far, with Calgar doing the beat down of an Avatar, and Draigo doing....well everything Draigo did. (Starting WITH the Mortarion thing, and the whole Realm of Chaos section just mkaing his fluff worse and worse.)

Oh, no. This is the fist I've heard. The BA codex writer is now doing GK? That means it's probably going to be the BA codex stepped UP a notch in ludicrousness.

As if all of the crazy BA stuff wasn't enough...

Yeah, the fluff in the leaked codex is frankly horribly awful...I'm reserving judgement on cheesiness until we know what some of the equipment does. But...even now, an interpretation of the rules means you can have unlimited numbers of 3 man GEQ squads in a Rhino, Razorback or Chimera, each man carrying a special weapons. That's not even going into the laser monkeys....

For the love of all that is holy, please don't start the 'unlimited' argument again. I can only take so much willful stupidity in a week...

Hrmm.... how do I get this man to write Codex: Tau Empire...

To me, his biggest failing is as a WFB writer. He wrote such bad books for WFB.

Da Boss wrote:To me, his biggest failing is as a Human Being.

Fixed it for ya!

Not a very constructive addition to the debate, I feel.

ChrisWWII wrote:Yeah, the fluff in the allegedly leaked codex is frankly horribly awful...I'm reserving judgement on cheesiness until we know what some of the equipment does. But...even now, an interpretation of the rules based on an allegedly leaked book that hasn't even been releaseed yet means you can have unlimited numbers of 3 man GEQ squads in a Rhino, Razorback or Chimera, each man carrying a special weapons. That's not even going into the laser monkeys....

Let's keep it real, shall we?

I know, I know. I hated that debate as much as anyone else in that thread. And, yes pretre, we don't know what it is. Hence why I said 'an interpretation'. I was using it as an illustraton of what was wrong with that codex.

Not that the fluff isn't bad enough by itself....

But it is an illustration of what was wrong with 'that codex' that we don't even know is accurate. That's my point.

People are always getting all hot and bothered about things before they are even in stores. And it always turns out to be overblown.

Cottonjaw wrote:Hrmm.... how do I get this man to write Codex: Tau Empire...

Sorry this made me LoL.

Matt Ward sure does seem to know how to write them..

The quote he made about daemons being over powered made me lol, but the stuff in codex sm was terrible, he should stick to lotr...

davij wrote: he should stick to lotr...

Damn, that's just harsh man, you're a jerk!

I dont mind most of the BA stuff as i like fluffy armies so i dont tend to abuse the army list section, my biggest gripe is the pathetic excuse of a captain we have and all that ooh we're space vampires and our hardest character might secretly have i heart daemons on his boxers emphasis.

Maybe once he's written all the army books/codices, everything will balance

Doctor Optimal wrote:

davij wrote: he should stick to lotr...

Damn, that's just harsh man, you're a jerk!

Was a bit low wasn't it lol. To be fair, he used to be good back in the good days of WD...

What even happened to LOTR, I never see any talk of it on GW anymore. Did it fail because its minis kinda suck compared to WFB and 40K?

I want to beat him with a newspaper...

I do remember when he was cool, back when people played LOTR and the trial assault rules came out.

Ulver wrote:Maybe once he's written all the army books/codices, everything will balance

This would be a scary thing. Imagine if every army had fast transports, enhanced deep striking shenanigans, crazy abilities that removed models from play and T7 super badasses….40k would basically devolve into “whoever gets their lololol rush first wins”. Now that would be scary.

The man has an obsession with Ultramarines and overpowered super-characters that can smite the most powerful of foes in one go.
- Calgar holding a gate from an ork waaagh for a night and a day. Yeah... no.
- Sanguinor bringing the hurt on an Avatar of Khaine, and in another incident taking out one of Khorn'es most favoured Bloodthirsters. Not only is this ripping on the Angel of Death for DA (search this online, I swear it's just canon) but it's like, this guy is supposed to be immortal.

The Space Marine codex has too many references to the glory of the Ultramarines for my liking and the Blood Angels one has some REALLY silly army reports. Like the rather stupid one of Dante allying with crons to defeat some random nids from nowhere, then not finishing off the necrons.

What really makes me shiver is that GW might pay him exactly for that mary sueish fluff and overpowered armylists - because they think it will sell better to 5-year-olds...

I hate his stuff. It isn't possible to take his fluff seriously, and creating more and more new uber units doesn't really add much to the game, either.

In my opinion, he should be fired today.

To be honest...its been quite a long time since I've read any good codex fluff. Characters are either stupidly overpowered....or underwhelming for their fluff's position.

Why can't authors get that nice middle spot? I blame the 40k background personally. Its pretty hard to make a character seem badass without them doing something utterly ridiculous. Lord Draigo is a good example. Its difficult to come up with written examples to explain just how badass he was.

"Oh yeah? he defeated a Greater Daemon single handedly?...that all? [INSERT NON-GK SPACE MARINE HERO] defeated one of those before single handedly. So what?"

I dislike Matt Ward; but I think the blame with this is the Fluff itself.

Jaon wrote:What even happened to LOTR, I never see any talk of it on GW anymore. Did it fail because its minis kinda suck compared to WFB and 40K?

It failed because it was a franchised tie-in to a movie series that ended 8 years ago, yet it's somehow rated as a "core" game. It probably literally has less players than most of the "Specialist Games".

Maybe with The Hobbit coming out in 2012 (?) it'll get a boost, but except for Smaug at Bree and the Goblins at the end, it doesn't really have the same sort of epic battles that LotR did.

EDIT: And Bree hardly counts, honestly. It was just "Archers, fire!" followed by "Archers, ON fire!" until whats-his-name pulled out his Mary Sue arrow and one-shotted a fething dragon.

...Hmm, maybe Ward does belong in LotR.

Doctor Optimal wrote:

EDIT: And Bree hardly counts, honestly. It was just "Archers, fire!" followed by "Archers, ON fire!" until whats-his-name pulled out his Mary Sue arrow and one-shotted a fething dragon.

.

Wasn't Bree, it was Long Lake, anyway, Bard obviously had heroic killing blow.

EmilCrane wrote:

Doctor Optimal wrote:

EDIT: And Bree hardly counts, honestly. It was just "Archers, fire!" followed by "Archers, ON fire!" until whats-his-name pulled out his Mary Sue arrow and one-shotted a fething dragon.

.

Wasn't Bree, it was Long Lake, anyway, Bard obviously had heroic killing blow.

Dragon should have had Eternal Warrior...
Damn you Matt Ward for writing the Long Lake codex and damn that last edition dragon codex (or rulebook can't remember)

ChrisWWII wrote:He simply has a reputation for writing completely overpowered codexes, and fluff. While I can see a case for arguing that Space Marines are SUPPOSED to have OTT fluf (being the 40k version of heroic knights), he simply takes it too far.

Interestingly enough, SM codex itself is hardly hugely overpowered. It is certainly true that UM-worshipping fluff went bit too far at times. I think the best part was how "Imperial Fists [and bunch of other Chapters]...can never be Ultramarines". Right, because Emperor knows that everyone aspires to be a Smurf.

You're right. Bree was across the Brandwine from the Shire.

purplefood wrote:

EmilCrane wrote:

Doctor Optimal wrote:

EDIT: And Bree hardly counts, honestly. It was just "Archers, fire!" followed by "Archers, ON fire!" until whats-his-name pulled out his Mary Sue arrow and one-shotted a fething dragon.

.

Wasn't Bree, it was Long Lake, anyway, Bard obviously had heroic killing blow.

Dragon should have had Eternal Warrior...
Damn you Matt Ward for writing the Long Lake codex and damn that last edition dragon codex (or rulebook can't remember)

but obviously all humans want to be from long lake, their the spiritual lieges of all other humans

EmilCrane wrote:

purplefood wrote:

EmilCrane wrote:

Doctor Optimal wrote:

EDIT: And Bree hardly counts, honestly. It was just "Archers, fire!" followed by "Archers, ON fire!" until whats-his-name pulled out his Mary Sue arrow and one-shotted a fething dragon.

.

Wasn't Bree, it was Long Lake, anyway, Bard obviously had heroic killing blow.

Dragon should have had Eternal Warrior...
Damn you Matt Ward for writing the Long Lake codex and damn that last edition dragon codex (or rulebook can't remember)

but obviously all humans want to be from long lake, their the spiritual lieges of all other humans

They did write that book that all the other humans 'have' to follow otherwise they aren't as good... though the name escapes me at the moment

Ulver wrote:Maybe once he's written all the army books/codices, everything will balance

Didn't he intentionally write the Orc codex in WHFB as horribly underpowered?

purplefood wrote:

EmilCrane wrote:

purplefood wrote:

EmilCrane wrote:

Doctor Optimal wrote:

EDIT: And Bree hardly counts, honestly. It was just "Archers, fire!" followed by "Archers, ON fire!" until whats-his-name pulled out his Mary Sue arrow and one-shotted a fething dragon.

.

Wasn't Bree, it was Long Lake, anyway, Bard obviously had heroic killing blow.

Dragon should have had Eternal Warrior...
Damn you Matt Ward for writing the Long Lake codex and damn that last edition dragon codex (or rulebook can't remember)

but obviously all humans want to be from long lake, their the spiritual lieges of all other humans

They did write that book that all the other humans 'have' to follow otherwise they aren't as good... though the name escapes me at the moment

Bible?

The Codex Astartes.

I've just come to a startling conclusion... Matt Ward... is the Micheal Bay of wargames! It all makes sense now!

Fafnir wrote:I've just come to a startling conclusion... Matt Ward... is the Micheal Bay of wargames! It all makes sense now!

\
I don't think that's fair. Michael Bay movies are at least fun to watch. I've yet to see Mat Ward write his equivalent of "The Rock".

I like Codex: Space Marines just fine. It's not overpowered, and aside from some suspect fluff it's pretty solid. Vulkan's abilities are probably a little too good for their cost, but it's a codex without too many problems. The Blood Angels codex is powerful but I wouldn't say it's overpowered or anything. It just steals the thunder from a lot of other armies, and has some really abysmal fluff. My biggest beef with it is how he turned Blood Angels from "slightly divergent Space Marines" to wacky fast Marines with goofiness and jackassery to spare. The Grey Knight codex that's leaked out has a lot of things I like, but a lot of things I don't. It's just a playtest/unfinished codex from what I can tell anyway, so it's best not to get bent out of shape over it until it hits store shelves.

Matt Ward can't be blamed for his terrible writing. He isn't the person paying him to write these cell phone fan fics.

I have to wonder what his face was like when GW asked him to write the 8th edition rule book for fantasy.

"You want ME to write it? You do realize I broke the entire game with a single army book right?"

I actually LOVE the current vanilla marine dex. People who have never even read the Calgar story QQ over it all the time. That avatar put up one amazing fight and it almost killed calgar, who not only got the jump on the thing but it had already been fighting the 1st companies terminators and dev squads had been firing on it.

However this Grey knight guy makes me throw up in my mouth a little bit. What does he do just hang out next to the emperor in the warp. (who is supposedly always under attack by deamons.) so in 10000 years these daemons don't fear the emperor and are still trying to kill him but they are scared of this grey knight?

Matt Ward should write Codex: Tyranids.
Winged Carnifexes with increased stats for 100pts maybe?

Th3ee Legged Dog wrote:

purplefood wrote:

EmilCrane wrote:

purplefood wrote:

EmilCrane wrote:

Doctor Optimal wrote:

EDIT: And Bree hardly counts, honestly. It was just "Archers, fire!" followed by "Archers, ON fire!" until whats-his-name pulled out his Mary Sue arrow and one-shotted a fething dragon.

.

Wasn't Bree, it was Long Lake, anyway, Bard obviously had heroic killing blow.

Dragon should have had Eternal Warrior...
Damn you Matt Ward for writing the Long Lake codex and damn that last edition dragon codex (or rulebook can't remember)

but obviously all humans want to be from long lake, their the spiritual lieges of all other humans

They did write that book that all the other humans 'have' to follow otherwise they aren't as good... though the name escapes me at the moment

Bible?

I hate monster quotes

How bad is it in the the supposedly leaked codex?
The fluff I mean, because his stuff is pretty bad as far as I can tell

I remember reading that statement he made in White Dwarf about Ultramarines and how all other space marines look to Calgar as their spiritual liege

I could not stop laughing at that

From the other thread.

Vaktathi wrote:Well, for instance, Draigo has Killed Daemon Prince M'kar twice, carved his name into Mortarion's (the Death Guard Daemon Primarch) heart as his first act as Lord Grand Master for the death of the previous Grand Master, held a pass for two days for an IG regiment to escape and landed every single blow and bolter shot for two days, got sucked into the warp and killed a bloodthirster and takes its axe to reforge into a new sword, burns Nurgle's garden and destroys Tzeentch's city single handedly and buries a lord of Change in it, and now Daemons are too afraid to face him in battle. Now he spends is time fighting through the realm of chaos, sometimes being able to return and getting sucked back in again.

n0t_u wrote:From the other thread.

Vaktathi wrote:Well, for instance, Draigo has Killed Daemon Prince M'kar twice, carved his name into Mortarion's (the Death Guard Daemon Primarch) heart as his first act as Lord Grand Master for the death of the previous Grand Master, held a pass for two days for an IG regiment to escape and landed every single blow and bolter shot for two days, got sucked into the warp and killed a bloodthirster and takes its axe to reforge into a new sword, burns Nurgle's garden and destroys Tzeentch's city single handedly and buries a lord of Change in it, and now Daemons are too afraid to face him in battle. Now he spends is time fighting through the realm of chaos, sometimes being able to return and getting sucked back in again.

Wow. I was only able to read half of his fluff entry before I had to stop... but after reading that I'm glad I did. That's just stupid.

n0t_u wrote:From the other thread.

Vaktathi wrote:Well, for instance, Draigo has Killed Daemon Prince M'kar twice, carved his name into Mortarion's (the Death Guard Daemon Primarch) heart as his first act as Lord Grand Master for the death of the previous Grand Master, held a pass for two days for an IG regiment to escape and landed every single blow and bolter shot for two days, got sucked into the warp and killed a bloodthirster and takes its axe to reforge into a new sword, burns Nurgle's garden and destroys Tzeentch's city single handedly and buries a lord of Change in it, and now Daemons are too afraid to face him in battle. Now he spends is time fighting through the realm of chaos, sometimes being able to return and getting sucked back in again.

I really hope that story is not true. Even from Ward, that's insane

n0t_u wrote:From the other thread.

Vaktathi wrote:Well, for instance, Draigo has Killed Daemon Prince M'kar twice, carved his name into Mortarion's (the Death Guard Daemon Primarch) heart as his first act as Lord Grand Master for the death of the previous Grand Master, held a pass for two days for an IG regiment to escape and landed every single blow and bolter shot for two days, got sucked into the warp and killed a bloodthirster and takes its axe to reforge into a new sword, burns Nurgle's garden and destroys Tzeentch's city single handedly and buries a lord of Change in it, and now Daemons are too afraid to face him in battle. Now he spends is time fighting through the realm of chaos, sometimes being able to return and getting sucked back in again.

Please tell me thats not real
Please tell me thats a joke or that I'm delusional
Because what I just read burned my eyes

I mean not even Matt Ward could come up with something that terrible could he?

Yes he could. And yes he did.

40K is all about over the top'ed-ness and 'Big Damned Heroes', but Ward's fluff takes us that from the realm where 'Rule of Cool' is all important and and puts it into the realm of really really bad fan fiction, filled with author-insertion fantasy persona characters (the bloody Sanguinor, this new Draigo guy, and even Calgar to a lesser extent) and events and lists of deeds that read like a shopping list of some 10 year old going "And then he did this, and then he did this, and then he did this, and then... and then...."

Then his rules only solidify this stupidity.

Bloodshard Rounds.
Bloodstrike Missiles.
Blood Fists.
Blood Talons.

And my latest fav - Nemesis (fething) Doomfists.

Now I love the Marine Codex, but I love it for its absurdities. Once I saw that that was all Ward was capable of, I got really worried. With the BA and GK Codices under his hat I truly fear just what he's going feth up next (Black Templars most likely).

Neither Gav Thorpe or Andy Chambers were all that good at writing rules (or, at least, realising the great concepts they had created), but damn if they weren't the best creative types. But Ward? It's just... it's almost beyond words how much of a detriment, nay, how much of a blight Matt Ward is on 40K.

H.B.M.C. wrote:
And my latest fav - Nemesis (fething) Doomfists.

You missed out on the best part of that one:

Nemesis (fething) Dreadnight with a pair of Nemesis (fething) Doomfists

That's almost three times the (fething) Nemesis!

I tell you one thing, as a BT player i'm massively concerned for two reasons.

1) If Matt Ward DOES make the new BT codex, it's going to be cheesed up and made just as ridiculous - I don't want to lose the core personality of my beloved chapter.

2) The opposite may happen - in light of all these "super marine" builds, the Templars may just get hit with the nerfhammer instead.

Either way, i'm pretty worried.

Brother SRM wrote:

Fafnir wrote:I've just come to a startling conclusion... Matt Ward... is the Micheal Bay of wargames! It all makes sense now!

\
I don't think that's fair. Michael Bay movies are at least fun to watch. I've yet to see Mat Ward write his equivalent of "The Rock".

I've yet to see Ward write anything as bad as "Pearl Harbour". Yes, it was worse than anything in the leaked GK codex.

n0t_u wrote:From the other thread.

Vaktathi wrote:Well, for instance, Draigo has Killed Daemon Prince M'kar twice, carved his name into Mortarion's (the Death Guard Daemon Primarch) heart as his first act as Lord Grand Master for the death of the previous Grand Master, held a pass for two days for an IG regiment to escape and landed every single blow and bolter shot for two days, got sucked into the warp and killed a bloodthirster and takes its axe to reforge into a new sword, burns Nurgle's garden and destroys Tzeentch's city single handedly and buries a lord of Change in it, and now Daemons are too afraid to face him in battle. Now he spends is time fighting through the realm of chaos, sometimes being able to return and getting sucked back in again.

This wouldn't happen to be the M'kar who also trapped Mephiston and tried to convince him to join Chaos?

And maybe the one Marneus Calgar also fought and killed? Lexicanum says yes, but we all know how accurate Lexicanum can be.

H.B.M.C. wrote:
Now I love the Marine Codex, but I love it for its absurdities. Once I saw that that was all Ward was capable of, I got really worried. With the BA and GK Codices under his hat I truly fear just what he's going feth up next (Black Templars most likely).

Y'know, come to think of it, I'm happy with my DA codex.

There's really a simple solution for this.

Don't let Matt Ward write any fluff or name any equipment. Just write rules.

Kanluwen wrote:There's really a simple solution for this.

Don't let Matt Ward write any fluff or name any equipment. Just write rules.

Could get Phil Kelly to write the fluff. His stuff is pretty darn neat considering he's done some good fiction in the Ork dex and the Dark Eldar dex. No idea about the Space Wolf dex since I don't play them

So I just got my hands on this alleged leaked copy (for what it's worth, it looks way way way more authentic than the eventually discredited BA codex that was "leaked" a few weeks before the real one came out).... and OMG. Even without having all the descriptions of the items, this is going to be a crazy powerful codex.

And yeah, the 100-point HQ that makes henchmen warbands troops? Sick sick sick things you could do with those units. If the author was anyone but Mat Ward, I would dismiss it out of hand as la ludicrous fake, but we've all seen and read his prior work.


Oh well, I'm still going to play it, I'm just going to wait a few months for whatever the next book is, so I can buy the new Grey Knight plastics real cheap on bartertown and ebay from all the FOTM bandwagoners.

Thunder555 wrote:

n0t_u wrote:From the other thread.

Vaktathi wrote:Well, for instance, Draigo has Killed Daemon Prince M'kar twice, carved his name into Mortarion's (the Death Guard Daemon Primarch) heart as his first act as Lord Grand Master for the death of the previous Grand Master, held a pass for two days for an IG regiment to escape and landed every single blow and bolter shot for two days, got sucked into the warp and killed a bloodthirster and takes its axe to reforge into a new sword, burns Nurgle's garden and destroys Tzeentch's city single handedly and buries a lord of Change in it, and now Daemons are too afraid to face him in battle. Now he spends is time fighting through the realm of chaos, sometimes being able to return and getting sucked back in again.

I really hope that story is not true. Even from Ward, that's insane

I don't see the problem here. 40k is about OTT action. Draigo is basically forced to walk forever in the Realm of Chaos. He's been alive for hundreds if not thousands of years of effective time. The only thing I thought was a little wonky was the carving of the previous GM's name into Mort's heart, but there's no details about the encounter. For all we know, the whole chapter of GK were there and beat Mort down, only for him to escape with a little Zorro action on him.

I think a lot of the fluff is propaganda and not to be taken literally. Did he literally not miss a single blow in the pass? No, probably not. Was it the narrowest part of the pass and did he hold it long enough for them to escape? Apparently. The first time he killed M'kar he only struck the fatal blow. The second time he almost died and barely defeated him only to be banished to the RoC. All the crap he does in the RoC is after 'an uncounted age of wandering'. I'm guessing he picked up a few levels in badass and a little XP while wandering around for an uncounted age.

I was originally confused by him since he became GM in 901.M41 and was a brother at 799.M41, but it looks like he is going forward and backward in time in the RoC and that accounts for the extreme amounts of experience he has.

Either way, some people will like it, some people won't. 40k is about being OTT though, and marines doubly so, so I don't mind it.

Platuan4th wrote:

H.B.M.C. wrote:
Now I love the Marine Codex, but I love it for its absurdities. Once I saw that that was all Ward was capable of, I got really worried. With the BA and GK Codices under his hat I truly fear just what he's going feth up next (Black Templars most likely).

Y'know, come to think of it, I'm happy with my DA codex.

This made me laugh.


I have to admit, SO FAR, Matt Wards made some fairly good rules, I think the Red Thirst for Blood Angels is a good representation and play-wise, them and the Space Marine Codex aren't too bad.*

*although there is Mephiston, Deep-striking Land Raiders, Space Jesus, Vulkan and more on top of this...

However, as many have said, his fluff is ridiculous and barely makes him seem like an adult. None of the Codex writers are perfect (Kelly = Lukas, JotWW, TWC... Cruddance = IG, Trygons > Iron Warriors etc.) but I must say, I really feel Matt Ward is worst. By a long way.

Much of the leaked Grey Knights SEEMS real, but we can't discredit him for it just yet IMHO. I don't doubt what we've seen will largely remain the same, but still...

Here's what I don't get: GW has Dan Abnett on retainer. He's a brilliant author who seems to know their universe better than they do. For the amount of fluff that is in a codex...Abnett could crank out in a day material that is 1000 better than what Ward could come up with if he had an infinite amount of time to write.

Let Dan write the fluff. Maybe let him name stuff too. Or any 5 year old.

Hey - maybe "Doom Fists" can cast Doom? I mean, it is a psychic power, and GKs are all psykers. And Valeria does have Eldar wargear.... I bet that's in the final codex. *noddles*

Kanluwen wrote:There's really a simple solution for this.

Don't let Matt Ward write any fluff or name any equipment. Just write rules.

He wrote the Daemons of Chaos army book, didn't he?

^ Pure awesome.

Aduro wrote:Pic

Overblown.

Don't laugh too early: I have heard rumours that Mat is writing the Necron Codex as well

I just realized that I've already built a dead Hormagaunt but have never used it for anything, and have a ton of spare Necrons and Space Marines. I must now build that picture onto a 60mm base to use as an Objective Marker.

Just Dave wrote:I have to admit, SO FAR, Matt Wards made some fairly good rules, I think the Red Thirst for Blood Angels is a good representation and play-wise, them and the Space Marine Codex aren't too bad.*

Yeah, because a supposed disadvantage that mars a Chapter is something every player hopes to get at the start of the game for each of his units.

Good rule there I tell ya.

Hardly any worse than C:CSM.

BuFFo wrote:Yeah, because a supposed disadvantage that mars a Chapter is something every player hopes to get at the start of the game for each of his units.

Good rule there I tell ya.

Yeah, well, it really drives home the tortured-ness of the Blood Angels. How they're fighting against their curse, and they're really good people inside.....
<.< >.>

(those are shifty eyes)

BuFFo wrote:

Just Dave wrote:I have to admit, SO FAR, Matt Wards made some fairly good rules, I think the Red Thirst for Blood Angels is a good representation and play-wise, them and the Space Marine Codex aren't too bad.*

Yeah, because a supposed disadvantage that mars a Chapter is something every player hopes to get at the start of the game for each of his units.

Good rule there I tell ya.

Just because someone wants something doesn't make it a good thing. Fluff wise it is definitely bad. In the short term, it helps the goals on the battlefield, however.

Not really. With a 1/6 chance of actually coming into effect, it doesn't have any strategic value.

RE: Draigo's epic levels of badass

Having read the fluff in question, it reads as a tale of legend, likely told to Grey Knight initiates to blow some righteous smoke up their ass, rather than a "factual" account of what happened.

0h, and it wasn't his own name he is said to have carved into Mortarion, but rather of the preceding Grand Master who got wtfpwnt by Mortarion.

It actually is a good rule. In the previous edition you didn't dare take Devastators...there was too good a chance that your missile launcher guy was going to go running off to try to beat someone to death with it.

You need a way to represent the fluff, but also keep the force and all the units (you want people to buy) playable. The way to do that is to move the 'disadvantage' to the storyline, and off the table.

BuFFo wrote:

Just Dave wrote:I have to admit, SO FAR, Matt Wards made some fairly good rules, I think the Red Thirst for Blood Angels is a good representation and play-wise, them and the Space Marine Codex aren't too bad.*

Yeah, because a supposed disadvantage that mars a Chapter is something every player hopes to get at the start of the game for each of his units.

Good rule there I tell ya.

Yeah, god forbid your assault troops get Furious Charge. Providing you haven't all ready loaded up on the Sanguinary Priests who seem to be much better apothecaries than every other chapters that is of course.

To me, I don't think it's a particularly bad rule. They've usually had a form of the red thirst in one way or another and it's fluffy and barely game damaging. A small chance that your unit will be better in assault? Considering it's a Blood Angel army, I'd be willing to risk that personally.
If you had something that crippled your army, then I would consider that a bad rule. Here however, it keeps the Blood Angels true-to-fluff (largely) and gives a small chance of a couple of your units being largely better in assault.

I expect if it was as bad a rule as you seem to have implied then Blood Angels wouldn't be a top tier army, like they are now.

Kroothawk wrote:Don't laugh too early: I have heard rumours that Mat is writing the Necron Codex as well

As far as I've heard they took him off that project since he was having a really hard time not making them space marines, haven't heard who was put in his stead.

I don't understand how someone who writes that badly keeps getting work. Dos GW want their authors to write gak?


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On a completely unrelated note I hope Ward writes the next Codex: Chaos Marines. We'll get Chaos Fists on our dreadnoughts and Chaos missiles on our Chaos Storm Raven with awesome deepstriking rules for our Chaos Homing Chaos Beacons of Chaos. And Abbadon will finally go from FAIL to AWESOME. He'll destroy entire chapters with his Chaos Talon of Chaos Horus and be forced to walk the real world (instead of the Warp) fighting marines and other races. All will FEAR him and tremble, except for whatever codex comes next.

Thats a bit too much exaggeration. It isn't half as bad as people are QQ'ing about.

Noez! I want my CSM to have over the top rules. I'll just ignore the bad fluffz!

Mr Hyena wrote:Thats a bit too much exaggeration. It isn't half as bad as people are QQ'ing about.

It never is. Sigh.

But if people didn't complain about this crap, there'd be nothing else to talk about on Dakka. Seriously, check the % of 'SM are stupid' or 'X Codex fluff/rules/etc is OP/lame/poorly written' or 'GW is the devilz' versus actualy content.

It is scary.

The only bad fluff is Goto. He makes Matt Ward's fluff look like a masterpiece.

The rest is fine for an OTT Universe like warhammer.

At least Goto has a good sense of humour about it.

I don't know whats hilarious about Multilazor Mahreens and Back-flipping Terminators or Slanneshi Eldar.

Kurgash wrote:

Kroothawk wrote:Don't laugh too early: I have heard rumours that Mat is writing the Necron Codex as well

As far as I've heard they took him off that project since he was having a really hard time not making them space marines, haven't heard who was put in his stead.

After he made a playable Grey Knight character kickass a Primarch twice, he ran out of ideas of what God-like C'tan should accomplish. Or he had ideas and GW management stopped him
Maybe saves us from having a Necromancer with Necrofists and a main character called Dr. Necro of Necropolis wielding his Necroblade and casting a Necrosphere of Death

It gets really funny when you read that interview with him. I'm too lazy to find it myself, but you should try and google it or something. It puts everything into absolutely hilarious context.

You mean the ‘spiritual liege’ one? Yeah, that was awful.

That was kinda silly. Still nothing compared to slannesh eldar.

Mr Hyena wrote:To be honest...its been quite a long time since I've read any good codex fluff. Characters are either stupidly overpowered....or underwhelming for their fluff's position.

Why can't authors get that nice middle spot? I blame the 40k background personally. Its pretty hard to make a character seem badass without them doing something utterly ridiculous. Lord Draigo is a good example. Its difficult to come up with written examples to explain just how badass he was.

"Oh yeah? he defeated a Greater Daemon single handedly?...that all? [INSERT NON-GK SPACE MARINE HERO] defeated one of those before single handedly. So what?"

I dislike Matt Ward; but I think the blame with this is the Fluff itself.

Problem is the word Author. Is he an author, or a rules writer. One requires the ability to craft a story, develop interesting characters, show some form of plot progression. Make someone care about the people or situation involved. The other requires the ability to do math, to envision potential loopholes and imbalances, to balance units, weapons, armor, and the variables of the terrain on a gaming table across multiple codexes or army books. One is art, the other engineering. It's not impossible for someone to be able to do both, but it's rare for someone to be able to do both well...

For me its the introduction of ++3 stormshields and adding ++3 for some marine characters. That and the handing out of FNP like candy is a bit much.

Mr Hyena wrote:I don't know whats hilarious about Multilazor Mahreens and Back-flipping Terminators or Slanneshi Eldar.

If you smoke some crack right before you read it, it's the most hilarious thing ever. Don't feel bad, either, I mean he obviously smoked some when he wrote it.

Has anyone else ever found it weird how one author writes the fluff AND the rules? I've always felt at the least they should have one guy who writes the rules, and one guy who writes the fluff.

Indeed, then they could have people that are good at writing each of those things do it, and it would work great!
But alas, that is unlikely to happen.

BobTheChainsaw wrote:Has anyone else ever found it weird how one author writes the fluff AND the rules? I've always felt at the least they should have one guy who writes the rules, and one guy who writes the fluff.

Matt Ward claimed responsibility for the Battle of Maccrage in the Tyranid codex.

There, you got your wish.

Noisy_Marine wrote:Noez! I want my CSM to have over the top rules. I'll just ignore the bad fluffz!

Doesn't the BA codex basically have the same problems as the CSM one? Lots of marginal units that don't balance well for their point cost, but a few specific things that make for a really great build? Matt ward doesn't really seem to be a solution there.

thehod wrote:For me its the introduction of ++3 stormshields and adding ++3 for some marine characters. That and the handing out of FNP like candy is a bit much.

Where does he hand out FNP like candy? The Space Marine codex has it on apothecaries, which is fine, and what, Chaplain Cassius? The Blood Angels codex has it on Death Company who've had it for a while, and Sanguinary Priests, who weren't in the stopgap codex but were in the 2nd and 3rd edition books. The 3++ saves get kinda nuts, but at least they balanced them a bit better for Blood Angels, making them pay extra for them on assault Terminators.

Brother SRM wrote:

thehod wrote:For me its the introduction of ++3 stormshields and adding ++3 for some marine characters. That and the handing out of FNP like candy is a bit much.

Where does he hand out FNP like candy? The Space Marine codex has it on apothecaries, which is fine, and what, Chaplain Cassius? The Blood Angels codex has it on Death Company who've had it for a while, and Sanguinary Priests, who weren't in the stopgap codex but were in the 2nd and 3rd edition books. The 3++ saves get kinda nuts, but at least they balanced them a bit better for Blood Angels, making them pay extra for them on assault Terminators.

Yes, Space Marines have apothecaries who give FNP to the command squad. BA has it's version of command squad too, for exactly same price. Who just happen to get furious charge too. And FNP reaches out to all units in 6" from sanguinary noviciate. In addition they can buy sanguinary priest and have FNP+furious charge for whole army. I think that's "handing out FNP like candy"

Thunder555 wrote:

Brother SRM wrote:

thehod wrote:For me its the introduction of ++3 stormshields and adding ++3 for some marine characters. That and the handing out of FNP like candy is a bit much.

Where does he hand out FNP like candy? The Space Marine codex has it on apothecaries, which is fine, and what, Chaplain Cassius? The Blood Angels codex has it on Death Company who've had it for a while, and Sanguinary Priests, who weren't in the stopgap codex but were in the 2nd and 3rd edition books. The 3++ saves get kinda nuts, but at least they balanced them a bit better for Blood Angels, making them pay extra for them on assault Terminators.

Yes, Space Marines have apothecaries who give FNP to the command squad. BA has it's version of command squad too, for exactly same price. Who just happen to get furious charge too. And FNP reaches out to all units in 6" from sanguinary noviciate. In addition they can buy sanguinary priest and have FNP+furious charge for whole army. I think that's "handing out FNP like candy"

I agree. I liked it when Universal Special Rules were something 'special'. It's not just Matt Ward though (as much as I'd like to pin everything wrong with 40K on him) - look at the Dark Eldar codex. How many ways can something get FNP there? Drugs, attach a Haemonculi, kill something, indirectly kill something.

And, the word on the street is WBB is going to straight FNP. It should just have it's own chapter in the rulebook with a Matt Ward-esque fluff piece about a single Termagant assaulting the First Company of a marine chapter and slaughtering every last one, because it "felt no pain".

Thunder555 wrote:
Yes, Space Marines have apothecaries who give FNP to the command squad. BA has it's version of command squad too, for exactly same price. Who just happen to get furious charge too. And FNP reaches out to all units in 6" from sanguinary noviciate. In addition they can buy sanguinary priest and have FNP+furious charge for whole army. I think that's "handing out FNP like candy"

I knew how Sanguinary Priests worked, and have no problems with them. Didn't know Honor Guard gave it out in a bubble though; that's nasty. Sanguinary Priests aren't really that deadly though, and are easy killpoints in annihilation. I liked it when they were less commonplace though.