Now after reading that it does not say he is no longer there. It could be that he updated his page in May and rather than put current he put a date instead and it is just out of date. It does not say he is looking which is what most people put on their Linked in page when they are no longer employed.
If Ward has left, I hope they get someone new who is good at writing cool, fluffy rules like Battle Focus. Neither Kelly nor Cruddace are very good at balanced rules, and Vetock is still somewhat uneven.
If he was pushed out, I feel sorry for him. The amount of vitriol spewed at him by people online was insane. He was a game designer, not someone who worked at Haliburton or Bain Capital. The people who called for him to be fired should be ashamed.
Well, you don't really need writers for the quality of product that GW is producing these days.
Who needs a department for writing when you can just copy-paste from the past and then add random unit? A half-blind monkey, drunk on banana alcohol could randomly bang a keyboard and make more sense than what we've seen recently.
MajorWesJanson wrote: If Ward has left, I hope they get someone new who is good at writing cool, fluffy rules like Battle Focus. Neither Ward nor Cruddace are very good at balanced rules, and Vetock is still somewhat uneven.
If he was pushed out, I feel sorry for him. The amount of vitriol spewed at him by people online was insane. He was a game designer, not someone who worked at Haliburton or Bain Capital. The people who called for him to be fired should be ashamed.
Of all the authors there Kelly should have been axed. That guy has no idea how to balance a book and he has no excuse having been there as long as he has. Lets not forget he is the guy responsible for the SW naming convention not ward.
Think about it. Kelly did the eldar, demons and chaos, three of the most horrible books ever.
I believe Ward did both the last WHFBDoC army book and the current WHFBDoC book, both of which were pretty ridiculous for different reasons. The last one was attributed for "breaking" WHFB 7th edition, and the current one had the more poorly written version of Reign of Chaos coupled with horrible, horrible internal balance.
You never know all the hyperbole thrown his way could have really cut into him. He could have quit simply out of drain or depression over what people were saying.
By all accounts he was a nice guy, he didn't deserve it, he just wrote it how he thought it should be written.
I don't think codex quality will change but i'm sad to here this if it is true. Some here and on other forums no doubt must bear this but I bet most won't blink an eye.
MajorWesJanson wrote: If he was pushed out, I feel sorry for him. The amount of vitriol spewed at him by people online was insane. He was a game designer, not someone who worked at Haliburton or Bain Capital.
No, but you should see what some other game designers are capable of.
agnosto wrote: Well, you don't really need writers for the quality of product that GW is producing these days.
Who needs a department for writing when you can just copy-paste from the past and then add random unit? A half-blind monkey, drunk on banana alcohol could randomly bang a keyboard and make more sense than what we've seen recently.
This in a nutshell. Change the sentence order and artwork around a bit, add 'unit x was solely responsible for winning the battle at planet x, holding back an entire horde of x' into the timeline bits for whichever is the new, previously unseen miniature or vehicle, remove a special character or two that doesn't currently have a miniature on sale, and bobs your uncle!
I wouldn't actually be surprised if he left of his own accord in search of some creative freedom. Both the gaming and background sides of 40k/WFB have been utterly turgid within GW over recent years, and for him to have been there as long as he had he had problem reached the point of having to re-write what he had already re-written, and got to the 'all work and no play makes Matt a dull boy' stage.
Will be interesting to see what he moves on to in any case.
Wards books were hit and miss as far as rules go. The blood angels book was fantastic in its time, and in 5th ed/early 6th was powerful, though not overtly so. The 5th ed space marine book was balanced as well, and from a rules perspective necrons have only gotten unfairly cheezy in some regards because of 7th edition changes. Grey knights and 7th ed fantasy daemons have been the only huge rules foul ups, and the fluff inthe current GK dex is just horrific. I dont particularly like him, but i also dont think he deserved all the acidic hate spewed his way.
MajorWesJanson wrote: If he was pushed out, I feel sorry for him. The amount of vitriol spewed at him by people online was insane. He was a game designer, not someone who worked at Haliburton or Bain Capital.
No, but you should see what some real game designers are capable of.
I hope you arent one of those people who yell at the waiters for late food, or yell at Mc Donalds workers at the counter for delays or for running out of ice cream. (I.E the wrong people to yell at)
I am very sure (I do a lot of design for a living) he had some guys breathing over his neck pushing him to do certain things etc. The finished product, while I made it, is hardly under my control. I simply make what the guys with the money want. Im sure Matt Ward was in the same boat.
I wouldn't actually be surprised if he left of his own accord in search of some creative freedom. Both the gaming and background sides of 40k/WFB have been utterly turgid within GW over recent years, and for him to have been there as long as he had he had problem reached the point of having to re-write what he had already re-written, and got to the 'all work and no play makes Matt a dull boy' stage.
I think the word that sums it up best is institutionalised. Or maybe that's a little strong in this instance. Possible
MajorWesJanson wrote: If Ward has left, I hope they get someone new who is good at writing cool, fluffy rules like Battle Focus. Neither Ward nor Cruddace are very good at balanced rules, and Vetock is still somewhat uneven.
If he was pushed out, I feel sorry for him. The amount of vitriol spewed at him by people online was insane. He was a game designer, not someone who worked at Haliburton or Bain Capital. The people who called for him to be fired should be ashamed.
Actually, matt ward did write the battle focus rule, he suggested kelly include it while he was writing the eldar dex. To be fair wards rules really arent bad as things go, grey knights were hella OP yes but they were clearly written for 6th ed which severely toned them down to a very mid-tier army. Other than that id say hes not a bad rules writer at all, all units in his codexes are useful somewhat (theres no riptides, wave serpents, dark talons or mandrakes in his books) but his fluff is just aweful.
Fair enough. Edited to reduce the vitriol a bit. But - especially considering what people like th3maninblak posted - I'd hazard the worst of his excesses weren't exactly written with a cocked revolver at his head.
(Heck, I've been the waiter in my time. I'd be a bit miffed if diners yelled at me for late food, but I think I'd hold my hands up and take it if they yelled at me for setting the blue steak in front of the vegetarian, dropping the food on the floor, or slopping hot soup all down their front.)
Vermis wrote: Fair enough. Edited to reduce the vitriol a bit. But - especially considering what people like th3maninblak posted - I'd hazard the worst of his excesses weren't exactly written with a cocked revolver at his head.
(Heck, I've been the waiter in my time. I'd be a bit miffed if diners yelled at me for late food, but I think I'd hold my hands up and take it if they yelled at me for setting the blue steak in front of the vegetarian, dropping the food on the floor, or slopping hot soup all down their front.)
Yea, I wasnt directly targeting you, just used your post as an example thingy. Of course, the drafts I think he would have free reign on, then after that he is making changes based on what his boss wants. I would assume anyway, as thats how my experience with people goes.
As for the waiter thing, yes if he really did screw up, he should own up, but we cant possibly know if it was him or not. Unlike the waiter example you gave.
I am on the boat of too much flak is fired his way. Of course, being the designer and author, part of his job is taking the flak. Maybe that part of his job he just got sick of and left as a result.
I get a lot of flak when the boss gives me a wrong number and I send it off to get published. Hardly my fault, but its part of the job I guess. Or when I the published result looks ugly next to another companies page (yet again nothing I have control of) it also generates some flak.
MajorWesJanson wrote: If he was pushed out, I feel sorry for him. The amount of vitriol spewed at him by people online was insane. He was a game designer, not someone who worked at Haliburton or Bain Capital.
No, but you should see what some real game designers are capable of.
I hope you arent one of those people who yell at the waiters for late food, or yell at Mc Donalds workers at the counter for delays or for running out of ice cream. (I.E the wrong people to yell at)
I am very sure (I do a lot of design for a living) he had some guys breathing over his neck pushing him to do certain things etc. The finished product, while I made it, is hardly under my control. I simply make what the guys with the money want. Im sure Matt Ward was in the same boat.
I can't stress this enough. I sculpt minis in my spare time on commission for game devs/private collectors and it sucks when you have a great idea and concept and they tell you it needs to look X way or be catered toward Y players. It is what it is, but I have seen great work get overworked into rubbish more then a few times. I can only imagine applying creativity in a corporate setting. The definition of Hell for an artist I am sure.
MajorWesJanson wrote: If Ward has left, I hope they get someone new who is good at writing cool, fluffy rules like Battle Focus. Neither Ward nor Cruddace are very good at balanced rules, and Vetock is still somewhat uneven.
If he was pushed out, I feel sorry for him. The amount of vitriol spewed at him by people online was insane. He was a game designer, not someone who worked at Haliburton or Bain Capital. The people who called for him to be fired should be ashamed.
Actually, matt ward did write the battle focus rule, he suggested kelly include it while he was writing the eldar dex. To be fair wards rules really arent bad as things go, grey knights were hella OP yes but they were clearly written for 6th ed which severely toned them down to a very mid-tier army. Other than that id say hes not a bad rules writer at all, all units in his codexes are useful somewhat (theres no riptides, wave serpents, dark talons or mandrakes in his books) but his fluff is just aweful.
Notice his books on their own are actually extremely balanced and open ended (meaning you can make countless builds) on their own. It's the core rules set that are responsible for his books being OP or falling flat. GK were brutal because wound allocation was busted in 5th. Blood Angels had a short go because vehicles were written poorly.
Now pick up a Kelly codex. Every book has an auto include in every slot and then nothing but useless broken units. Literally units that don't even work in most of his books.
His fluff was mediocre to bad. But his books were solid and balanced with his other work. He really was one of the best rule guys they had codex wise. I'm gonna miss him homestly if he's gone.
Hulksmash wrote: His fluff was mediocre to bad. But his books were solid and balanced with his other work. He really was one of the best rule guys they had codex wise. I'm gonna miss him homestly if he's gone.
I concur. His books, Necrons and Grey Knights, are still solid today.
Hulksmash wrote: His fluff was mediocre to bad. But his books were solid and balanced with his other work. He really was one of the best rule guys they had codex wise. I'm gonna miss him homestly if he's gone.
I never noticed the fluff because I usually flipped past it. Once I read the fluff from the 2nd ed codexes to death like I did as a kid I never felt the need to re-read it all through someone else perspective. His rules were extremely balanced with themselves, which actually puts fault on his colleges IMO.
I've had a feeling for a while that they quietly axed most of the design team. Attitude over skill, the ones that are left are the ones who shut their mouths, nodded at everything and only opened their mouths to say "yes sir, right away sir, 2+2 = 7 and snow is black, got it". It's evident for a while what a hack jervis is, it's a pension to him and nothing more.
Why? Even if he wasn't evil he was still an incompetent game designer (like everyone else GW employs) and should have been fired a long time ago (also like everyone else GW employs).
Why? Even if he wasn't evil he was still an incompetent game designer (like everyone else GW employs) and should have been fired a long time ago (also like everyone else GW employs).
The High Elf, Dark Elf, and Wood Elf books all beg to differ.
Why? Even if he wasn't evil he was still an incompetent game designer (like everyone else GW employs) and should have been fired a long time ago (also like everyone else GW employs).
The High Elf, Dark Elf, and Wood Elf books all beg to differ.
Internet contrarian until the bitter end as usual Kan....
Internet contrarian until the bitter end as usual Kan....
Or maybe I just liked Matt Ward better than I did the pathetic writings of Phil Kelly(y'know, the guy who wrote an Ork driving a warbike through a Titan's head for example as fluff...) and the crap that Cruddace spews.
He was hands down the only guy who actually seemed to be able to make an internally balanced with lots of options books for 40k. Hate his fluff if you can work up to it but you really should at least awknowledge his books have held up best over the course with diversity. Then again i never went in for the Ward hate since the fluff has always been a bit bad from any normal sci-fi perspective.
Hey, I'm usually on the "hate train" too, but I grew to like Ward for his rules. They usually made for good armies and there were minimal boat anchor or useless units.
They should have leveraged that strength and just let Black Library folks write fluff. Vetock is the only good one left?
I don't believe Ward got so sick of criticism he upped and left.
First, he clearly has not get a new job yet and you don't resign until your next situation is secured.
Secondly, I find the timing significant. He left GW in May, before the end of their financial year, allowing them to roll his redundancy payment into the £ 4.5 Million of exceptional expenses incurred last year.
Internet contrarian until the bitter end as usual Kan....
Or maybe I just liked Matt Ward better than I did the pathetic writings of Phil Kelly(y'know, the guy who wrote an Ork driving a warbike through a Titan's head for example as fluff...) and the crap that Cruddace spews.
An Ork driving his...I'm glad I don't know what you're talking about.
Internet contrarian until the bitter end as usual Kan....
Or maybe I just liked Matt Ward better than I did the pathetic writings of Phil Kelly(y'know, the guy who wrote an Ork driving a warbike through a Titan's head for example as fluff...) and the crap that Cruddace spews.
An Ork driving his...I'm glad I don't know what you're talking about.
Wazzdakka. An excellent piece of fluff and appropriate for the manic humour of Orks. He drives his bike off a cliff to take out a Warlord titan by crashing through it's main bridge in the head after he caught fire due to going straight through the titan's void shields.
MajorWesJanson wrote: If Ward has left, I hope they get someone new who is good at writing cool, fluffy rules like Battle Focus. Neither Ward nor Cruddace are very good at balanced rules, and Vetock is still somewhat uneven.
If he was pushed out, I feel sorry for him. The amount of vitriol spewed at him by people online was insane. He was a game designer, not someone who worked at Haliburton or Bain Capital. The people who called for him to be fired should be ashamed.
Of all the authors there Kelly should have been axed. That guy has no idea how to balance a book and he has no excuse having been there as long as he has. Lets not forget he is the guy responsible for the SW naming convention not ward.
Think about it. Kelly did the eldar, demons and chaos, three of the most horrible books ever.
Don't forget also that he wrote Space Wolves in 5th ed, one of the most OP armies of that edition untill Grey Knights came out towords the end. I'd rather get Matt Ward books now adays then phil kelly.
Grimtuff wrote: Internet contrarian until the bitter end as usual Kan....
Except he's absolutely correct in this instance. Rules wise, he was one of the best they had on the team and the fluff stuff I blame on the studio Fluff Monger who's in charge of keeping the team pointed in the direction the studio wants the setting to head.
Of all the authors there Kelly should have been axed. That guy has no idea how to balance a book and he has no excuse having been there as long as he has. Lets not forget he is the guy responsible for the SW naming convention not ward.
Wow, Phil Kelly has access to a time machine and he's wasting it use to go back and write the 2nd ed. SW codex?
Space Wolves "Wolf" prefix nomenclature predated Kelly by a long time. He simply expanded on it. YMMV whether this was good or not.
Of all the authors there Kelly should have been axed. That guy has no idea how to balance a book and he has no excuse having been there as long as he has. Lets not forget he is the guy responsible for the SW naming convention not ward.
Wow, Phil Kelly has access to a time machine and he's wasting it use to go back and write the 2nd ed. SW codex?
Space Wolves "Wolf" prefix nomenclature predated Kelly by a long time. He simply expanded on it. YMMV whether this was good or not.
He's also written 4th edition Eldar, another broken Skimmerspam army back in it's day.
Kelly's dex's mostly don't hold up well when it comes to edition changes, and he's got tons of units that aren't viable in what he writes, his internal balance is horrendous.
Though I will miss Ward, I actually liked his fantasy rules (Daemons not withstanding).
I admit, Wards fluff is appaling, like seriously, and at times his armies can seem stupidly broken, but then comes the next update for the rules and his army suddenly seems a lot more balanced, and in his books no army has particularly useless units or auto-includes, each unit or model is as viable as the others, which isn't the same for some other books written by the others.
End of the day, I'm glad he wont be ruining anymore fluff, but I'm sad he wont be writing anymore Army Books or Codices, I think it will be a shame he has left, and if he does get a new job with another company, I hope they keep him well away from the fluff
TBH I don't read the fluff, I haven't ever bothered to take note of who wrote which codex, and anyway most of them always have suffered from some crappy rules and bad internal balance as well as bad balance against the meta -- which nearly all of us would recognise and admit.
Singling out any one writer for all this seems rather unfair and actually unrealistic.
However, Ward apparently had written more than his fair share of recent codexes. We know that codexes recently have not been selling so well, no doubt due to having been doubled in price; perhaps Ward merely carried the can for management's mistake in pricing books so high.
MajorWesJanson wrote: If Ward has left, I hope they get someone new who is good at writing cool, fluffy rules like Battle Focus. Neither Ward nor Cruddace are very good at balanced rules, and Vetock is still somewhat uneven.
If he was pushed out, I feel sorry for him. The amount of vitriol spewed at him by people online was insane. He was a game designer, not someone who worked at Haliburton or Bain Capital. The people who called for him to be fired should be ashamed.
Actually, matt ward did write the battle focus rule, he suggested kelly include it while he was writing the eldar dex. To be fair wards rules really arent bad as things go, grey knights were hella OP yes but they were clearly written for 6th ed which severely toned them down to a very mid-tier army. Other than that id say hes not a bad rules writer at all, all units in his codexes are useful somewhat (theres no riptides, wave serpents, dark talons or mandrakes in his books) but his fluff is just aweful.
I know about Ward and battle focus. I was trying to say that, but wrote Ward and Cruddace instead of Kelly and Cruddace like I meant. Ward had some poor parts of the fluff, but many of the most popular examples have been so blown out of proportion by internet rage hyperbole that they have become cases of "I can see Alaska from my house!" where the parody becomes attributed to the original source
Sigvatr wrote: I...I...words cannot express the joy I feel. Genuine joy. I am so, so, so happy right now. Genuinely happy. I am overwhelmed by my feelings.
Screw you Ward. Screw you. I hope you never get employed ever anywhere again. This is fair justice for ruining Codex:Necrons. For pooping all over our race. This is fair. This is what you deserve.
In the name of all TruCron players, of all Necrons, of all Necrontyr and all C'Tan...be gone. All the worst for you. Bye. Forever.
MajorWesJanson wrote: If Ward has left, I hope they get someone new who is good at writing cool, fluffy rules like Battle Focus. Neither Ward nor Cruddace are very good at balanced rules, and Vetock is still somewhat uneven.
If he was pushed out, I feel sorry for him. The amount of vitriol spewed at him by people online was insane. He was a game designer, not someone who worked at Haliburton or Bain Capital. The people who called for him to be fired should be ashamed.
Actually, matt ward did write the battle focus rule, he suggested kelly include it while he was writing the eldar dex. To be fair wards rules really arent bad as things go, grey knights were hella OP yes but they were clearly written for 6th ed which severely toned them down to a very mid-tier army. Other than that id say hes not a bad rules writer at all, all units in his codexes are useful somewhat (theres no riptides, wave serpents, dark talons or mandrakes in his books) but his fluff is just aweful.
I know about Ward and battle focus. I was trying to say that, but wrote Ward and Cruddace instead of Kelly and Cruddace like I meant. Ward had some poor parts of the fluff, but many of the most popular examples have been so blown out of proportion by internet rage hyperbole that they have become cases of "I can see Alaska from my house!" where the parody becomes attributed to the original source
What parts of the Draigo fluff and the GK slaughtering the SoB have been "exaggerated by the internet?"
I still beleive to this day that the credited authors were there only for the fluff part and that the rules were written as a collective.
So I beleive that, with his departure, we will still see brokenly OP codices, dismally poor ones and some rarelly well balanced. The design team really seems to have no consistency in their production output.
Sigvatr wrote: I...I...words cannot express the joy I feel. Genuine joy. I am so, so, so happy right now. Genuinely happy. I am overwhelmed by my feelings.
Screw you Ward. Screw you. I hope you never get employed ever anywhere again. This is fair justice for ruining Codex:Necrons. For pooping all over our race. This is fair. This is what you deserve.
In the name of all TruCron players, of all Necrons, of all Necrontyr and all C'Tan...be gone. All the worst for you. Bye. Forever.
I hope I didn't come across like that. Especially since I essentially agree with you two - Swastakowey and Red Corsair - in that 40K has been directed by higher-ups down this particular path. But I'm still a bit sceptical about how much or little autonomy he had (Same experience here, Corsair, but at the end of the day they commission you for a reason) and IMO 'great internal balance in 40K book' is like... someone who orders a diet coke with their double-mega-cheeseburger and supersize fries...
Happy to be proven wrong if he takes on writing duties for another company and turns out to be the Wyld Stallyns of wargaming.
He had no business writing fluff. Rules, he was alright by GW standards. (Which isn't saying much.) But his fluff alone should have gotten him fired long ago. I actually used to like GK. But then Ward wrote their codex and I've disliked them ever since.
I don't believe for one moment matt ward had free reign to write whatever fluff he wanted and whatever rules he wanted,the direction and style of the army books most likely came from above his head and was a management decision. Poor guy just became a public face for the vitriol and anger at the contempt games workshop shows to its customers.
I do think as mentioned he may struggle to get further game design work, guys name is mud to a lot of gamers but good luck to him
Or they toned down the Mary sue bull draigo fluff and he nerdragequit
So, the guy that gave us the only good version of Celestine has left?
Oh, wait, actually I remember he just did the fluff part of that codex, which was like everything 10 years, i.e. a rehash of 2nd edition dex+Liber Sororitas WD article. Okay. And he did the blood whatever sister killing stuff.
BrookM wrote: Hate to be the (gaming) company who hires him, the community will turn against them straight away.
Think it will be interesting to see what he turns out when (if?) he does move on to another company in a creative capacity. We'll then know if it was the 'suits' pushing him into writing schlock 2D comic-book characters, or his own spin on things.
Top nominations for a new company? Mantic, Warlord and Battlefront probably have the most ex-GW people (not sure how much he is in to historicals for the last two?), but possibly someone like FFG or even going out on his own?
BrookM wrote: Hate to be the (gaming) company who hires him, the community will turn against them straight away.
Think it will be interesting to see what he turns out when (if?) he does move on to another company in a creative capacity. We'll then know if it was the 'suits' pushing him into writing schlock 2D comic-book characters, or his own spin on things.
Top nominations for a new company? Mantic, Warlord and Battlefront probably have the most ex-GW people (not sure how much he is in to historicals for the last two?), but possibly someone like FFG or even going out on his own?
That's assuming he does not pull an Andy Chambers and move on to a video game company.
Not because MW deserved all of the hate sent his way (but certainly some of it) but because forced change is just as good as voluntary change at this point.
That is, unless, someone in a suit has decided that all these pesky designers are just an unnecessary expense and they can just ask their 8 year old boy what they want in the game and make it happen....
MWHistorian wrote: He had no business writing fluff. Rules, he was alright by GW standards. (Which isn't saying much.) But his fluff alone should have gotten him fired long ago. I actually used to like GK. But then Ward wrote their codex and I've disliked them ever since.
What was so bad about the fluff? Did he radically change things like making Sister of Battle genetically enhanced with gene-seed like Space Marines?
He did not change the slightest thing about Sisters. He did had that event where some Grey Knight bathed in Sister's blood to protect themselves from some demonic stuff, though.
Azreal13 wrote: That is, unless, someone in a suit has decided that all these pesky designers are just an unnecessary expense and they can just ask their 8 year old boy what they want in the game and make it happen....
Don't. Give. Them. Ideas.
Anyway, only time will tell what this means games development at GW. The fact that the last few books have not credited a specific author is very telling.
Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote: He did not change the slightest thing about Sisters. He did had that event where some Grey Knight bathed in Sister's blood to protect themselves from some demonic stuff, though.
I was just using that as an example, since I don't really know what he changed about the fluff.
Azreal13 wrote: Plus Draigo/Mortarion and the Necron/Blood Angel brofist of doom.
Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote: He did not change the slightest thing about Sisters. He did had that event where some Grey Knight bathed in Sister's blood to protect themselves from some demonic stuff, though.
I was just using that as an example, since I don't really know what he changed about the fluff.
Azreal13 wrote: Plus Draigo/Mortarion and the Necron/Blood Angel brofist of doom.
The what????
It happened, 5th Ed BA codex, and was referenced again in the Necron book IIRC
I have little sympathy for Ward as a writer. His rules were okay-sh, his setting writing abysmal. The absolute terror of the last Necron codex will haunt me forever.
It does seem like he could have been forced out, but if it happened because GW needed a scapegoat, well, that's yet another Kirby-ism to add to the collection.
From what I understand, the "brofist" was that Blood Angels and Necrons assisted each other in wiping out a Tyranid invasion and went their own ways afterward without trying to wipe each other out of existance. It was apparently one of the first, if not the actual first, instances of Imperial forces encountering an Overlord led army of Necrons.
Please tell me they didn't actually bro-fist and you are just using a metaphor.
How do you think this image was created?
But no, there is no explicit bro-fist and there's obviously some hyperbole going on but to see the xenophobic Space Marines be willing to "spare" and not continue to engage the Necrons after their impromptu alliance left many feeling that it was Ward trying to make an excuse to combine his favourite factions together.
I think Matt wrote one of the best rule sets ever. Lord of the Rings, great ruleset. Clear concise rules. Great game play, and lots of tactics. Simple and not complicated.
He also made great rules for the codices as well. Not sure why all the hate. So some of the fluff was stupid or people didn't agree. To HATE someone because of that? Speaks more of the posters than it actually speaks of Matt Ward.
mechanicalhorizon wrote: I haven't read the new Necron Codex yet, but I thought the Necrons were also pretty genocidal towards living beings.
I'll have to re-read his Codexes now.
It was a very weird bit of fluff as the BA codex preceded the release of the Newcron book so when it was initially read it made even less sense as the only Necron background at the time was in the old codex (The newer book made them less "Terminators" and more "Tomb Kings in space"). I even remember staff at Warhammer World scratching their heads over it when I discussed it with them.
It makes far more sense when looking at it with the Newcron background. Newcrons and BA are fighting. Nids show up. Newcrons and BA team up and decide yadayadayada something about honour to go their separate ways rather than continue fighting one another after the Nids got destroyed.
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Davor wrote: I think Matt wrote one of the best rule sets ever. Lord of the Rings, great ruleset. Clear concise rules. Great game play, and lots of tactics. Simple and not complicated.
Pretty sure Rick Priestley conceived the original groundwork for the LOTR rules.
Please tell me they didn't actually bro-fist and you are just using a metaphor.
It's a case of internet hyperbole. The Blood Angels and Necrons are fighting, but then Nids arrive and the two fight the interlopers. The two factions beat the invasion, but decline to start killing each other again, with the BA commenting that it would be dishonorable to go back to fighting the Crons just after fighting alongside them, and the Crons just leaving.
paqman wrote: I still beleive to this day that the credited authors were there only for the fluff part and that the rules were written as a collective.
According to the Codex Blood Angel notes from WD a few years back, BOTH are collectively written. The main difference is that the studio has a specific overseer for the fluff that approves everything that makes it into a book(and it wasn't Ward) so that it doesn't go against the direction they want to move the background in.
So blaming any single author for the fluff is disingenuous BS.
The people celebrating his leaving frankly boggle my mind. Some of us like actual rules to go along with the stories of our tiny plastic men, and with Ward gone the only designer left with a passable chance at writing a decently balanced codex is Vetock. Do you really WANT more armies given the Cruddex treatment?
The problem wasn't that they were having Ward write the codexes. The problem was that they weren't giving all the rules sections of the codexes to Ward and leaving the fluff to the other guys.
Please tell me they didn't actually bro-fist and you are just using a metaphor.
It's a case of internet hyperbole. The Blood Angels and Necrons are fighting, but then Nids arrive and the two fight the interlopers. The two factions beat the invasion, but decline to start killing each other again, with the BA commenting that it would be dishonorable to go back to fighting the Crons just after fighting alongside them, and the Crons just leaving.
It's not though. Imagine reading that (and a LOT of people did I'm sure on release) with only the Oldcron background to hand. It destroys every single part of the characterization they had built up for the Necrons prior to that. Now, such a thing is moot as this kind of thing fits with Newcrons background but at the time it simply did not gel.
What I would really like to see is Matt Ward leaving GW in a cloud of shame... then going someplace else and doing really, really well!
I honestly have no idea how much of the awful, awful fluff was his fault - but I am hoping that the answer is none, and that left free of the shadow of GW he ends up being a solid rules and fluff designer.
paqman wrote: I still beleive to this day that the credited authors were there only for the fluff part and that the rules were written as a collective.
According to the Codex Blood Angel notes from WD a few years back, BOTH are collectively written. The main difference is that the studio has a specific overseer for the fluff that approves everything that makes it into a book(and it wasn't Ward) so that it doesn't go against the direction they want to move the background in.
So blaming any single author for the fluff is disingenuous BS.
From what they've said in the past, the named author is the one that came up with the 'pitch' for the book, and oversaw the whole project. They were collectively written, but one person had the vision for the direction of the overall codex. Alan Merrett is the one that approves fluff.
TheAuldGrump wrote: What I would really like to see is Matt Ward leaving GW in a cloud of shame... then going someplace else and doing really, really well!
I honestly have no idea how much of the awful, awful fluff was his fault - but I am hoping that the answer is none, and that left free of the shadow of GW he ends up being a solid rules and fluff designer.
The Auld Grump
Ok, now chalk this up to 'things I feel really weird admitting in public' dept. I've been reading his blog, and I'm beginning to like Ward.
The first post on it is a cry for more female protagonists in sci-fi and fantasy. One of his latest is defending nerdly devotion to continuity and blaming bad writers for needing to break existing cannon. You know, the exact OPPOSITE of everything we thought he was about.
Please tell me they didn't actually bro-fist and you are just using a metaphor.
It's a case of internet hyperbole. The Blood Angels and Necrons are fighting, but then Nids arrive and the two fight the interlopers. The two factions beat the invasion, but decline to start killing each other again, with the BA commenting that it would be dishonorable to go back to fighting the Crons just after fighting alongside them, and the Crons just leaving.
It's not though. Imagine reading that (and a LOT of people did I'm sure on release) with only the Oldcron background to hand. It destroys every single part of the characterization they had built up for the Necrons prior to that. Now, such a thing is moot as this kind of thing fits with Newcrons background but at the time it simply did not gel.
As much as I hate the violations of the 40K environment that went on in Ward's books I have wondered if Ward became the scapegoat when it was the direction GW wanted to go to enable the ally rules. It used to be that every faction was completely out to kill all of the others, except the occasional self-interested Eldar alliance, but that environment doesn't sell Riptides to Necron players.
Please tell me they didn't actually bro-fist and you are just using a metaphor.
It's a case of internet hyperbole. The Blood Angels and Necrons are fighting, but then Nids arrive and the two fight the interlopers. The two factions beat the invasion, but decline to start killing each other again, with the BA commenting that it would be dishonorable to go back to fighting the Crons just after fighting alongside them, and the Crons just leaving.
It's not though. Imagine reading that (and a LOT of people did I'm sure on release) with only the Oldcron background to hand. It destroys every single part of the characterization they had built up for the Necrons prior to that. Now, such a thing is moot as this kind of thing fits with Newcrons background but at the time it simply did not gel.
As much as I hate the violations of the 40K environment that went on in Ward's books I have wondered if Ward became the scapegoat when it was the direction GW wanted to go to enable the ally rules. It used to be that every faction was completely out to kill all of the others, except the occasional self-interested Eldar alliance, but that environment doesn't sell Riptides to Necron players.
I was just saying that to a friend. They may have used his fluff to sew the seeds of the allies matrix.
Yonan wrote: Speaking of people we'd like to leave ; p
Can't exalt that enough!
Yes, Alan Merrett is who should be forced out of GW. No creativity, no independent thought, derisive of the customer base, paranoid, and an inveterate yes-man whose only credential is that he's been with the company since forever, long ago promoted above his competence level.
Merrett is the embodiment of most of what is wrong with GW. The day that Merrett is fired is the day that GWmight have actually decided to seriously rethink its business philosophy. He's essentially entrenched, incompetent upper management. He's not going to get fired without a massive housecleaning at GWHQ, hence his dismissal would be a signal of substantive change.
Personally, I don't think he'll be around much longer. I think there's been a great deal of pressure put on Tom Kirby, and he's going to be running through an increasingly shorter list of scapegoats as the company's decline accelerates. Merrett has a big target on his head due to his intense involvement with the GW v CHS litigation, which Kirby has now publicly admitted as being an ill-conceived, indecently costly mistake. This puts Merrett firmly in the cross hairs, and I personally think his job is only safe so long as Kirby keeps him sheltered.
If there is indeed intense pressure on Kirby, Merrett will get stabbed in the back eventually. And don't forget that Gill Stevenson has already had her head on the chopping block, and that was preemptive. Kirby can't really put blame on Stevenson though since he personally lauded the litigation at the same time she was dismissed. Having only now admitted it was a mistake (likely because substantive investors are now aware of the litigation), somebody else has to eat the blame for it. You can't really quell disquiet like that by saying you dismissed your general counsel more than a year ago but failed to tell investors about it until now...after they found out about it on their own...
It would sort of seem like you were trying to hide something if you did that, and trying to hide things from investors is generally not considered to be a laudable practice. Hence (assuming pressure is being brought and that the case is being used as leverage) somebody else will have to take the fall.
I imagine many SOB players are quietly celebrating. But honestly, I hope he finds a kick-butt job quickly and does something amazing. (Just stay away from fluff writing, buddy.)
Boggy Man wrote: I've been reading his blog, and I'm beginning to like Ward.
The first post on it is a cry for more female protagonists in sci-fi and fantasy. One of his latest is defending nerdly devotion to continuity and blaming bad writers for needing to break existing cannon. You know, the exact OPPOSITE of everything we thought he was about.
Davor wrote: I think Matt wrote one of the best rule sets ever. Lord of the Rings, great ruleset. Clear concise rules. Great game play, and lots of tactics. Simple and not complicated.
Pretty sure Rick Priestley conceived the original groundwork for the LOTR rules.
Yes, it was Priestley, then Alessio. As one who as been around the LotR scene from the beginning, Ward took a bunch of heat when he started to write LotR stuff, but that's mostly because by that point GW started making up their own crap rather than doing book stuff.
Azreal13 wrote: It happened, 5th Ed BA codex, and was referenced again in the Necron book IIRC
I demand excerpts.
But gimme some time to brace myself.
Full excepts of the incident in question.
BA codex wrote:
Commander Dante and the 3rd company battle against the Necron legions of the Silent King amid the dusty wastes of Gehenna. For three weeks, neither side can seize the upper hand, with Dante's tactical brilliance stretched to its limits in countering the time-space manipulations of the Silent King. The stalemate is broken when a Tyranid splinter fleet enters orbit, forcing the two armies to break off hostilities and fight the common foe. The impromptu alliance proves to the the Tyranid's undoing. Following the final battle at Devil's Crag, Dante and the Silent King go their separate ways, both forces now too battleworn to guarantee victory over the other, and, at least for the Blood Angels, the idea of turning on those they had so recently fought alongside a rather distasteful one.
Necron codex wrote:
The Silent King reluctantly joins forces with the Blood Angels to defeat a Tyranid splinter fleet.
That's it. The "Bro-fisting" was just people ranting about the very idea, and blowing the whole thing out of proportion. Because it is witty to do things like that regarding GW fluff, or give things "funny" pejorative names like Failcast or Finecost or Space Chipmunk.
Davor wrote: I think Matt wrote one of the best rule sets ever. Lord of the Rings, great ruleset. Clear concise rules. Great game play, and lots of tactics. Simple and not complicated.
Pretty sure Rick Priestley conceived the original groundwork for the LOTR rules.
Yes, it was Priestley, then Alessio. As one who as been around the LotR scene from the beginning, Ward took a bunch of heat when he started to write LotR stuff, but that's mostly because by that point GW started making up their own crap rather than doing book stuff.
Did he write the war of the ring rules, is that what Davor meant?
Boggy Man wrote: I've been reading his blog, and I'm beginning to like Ward.
The first post on it is a cry for more female protagonists in sci-fi and fantasy. One of his latest is defending nerdly devotion to continuity and blaming bad writers for needing to break existing cannon. You know, the exact OPPOSITE of everything we thought he was about.
Linky-link? Please?
Under the blog tab.
http://www.thetowerofstars.co.uk/ He's not Churchill, but his writing is far more intelligent than I thought it would be.
Since it's slowly been revealed that codices are a collaborative effort, wouldn't it be hilarious if Kelly and Cruddace were writing all the parts everyone hated?
It would be nice for them to fall back on what actually was good about 40K before this clown got his mitts on it and started with his ret-conning. Much the same as all of this company's idea of "Attitude over skill" Its a hot air wish list to want to see some of the old guard come back on board and set the ship back on the right course of no nonsense gaming and fun, again.
I'll go on and say that I'm glad to see the ax falling on people who deserve it. We can't see some new books, nullifying this clowns garbage fast enough. He is a hack, pure and simple. I never enjoyed reading anything he wrote.
Kanluwen wrote: ...Robin "I Brought Hotshot Lasguns Back" Cruddace.
I've explained this one to you in the past, and even if this criticism were valid, it's a damned petty reason to dislike someone. Dislike Cruddace because he's failed at writing two Tyranid Codices, not because of Hotshot Lasguns.
Kilkrazy wrote: However, Ward apparently had written more than his fair share of recent codexes. We know that codexes recently have not been selling so well, no doubt due to having been doubled in price; perhaps Ward merely carried the can for management's mistake in pricing books so high.
This I can buy, especially for a company that doesn't do any market research and therefore would never dare to imagine that a doubling in price might have more to do with lower sales than the guy who wrote the book.
He's the only one to include humor. I had most codexes 4th through 5th. Most of 6/7e, so, maybe I missed an item (strangely, I don't remember an ork funny story in Kelly's 5e codex).
In the Dark Eldar codex, it has you insisting on twisting your handlebar moustache ....
And there's this one:
Page 23, "An Unexpected Ally"
Iyanden eldar has already fought hive Fleet Kraken, and were spent when an ork Waaagh! assailed them. At their last resorts, they awoke their "revered ancestors from their deathly slumbers" (Wraithguard).
Dark eldar show up and help their mopey cousins beat the orks. Kelly wrote: "When asked by Iyanden's Council of Seers as to why they intervened, the Dark Eldar reply that they find Iyanden's angst ridden forays into the world of necromancy extremely entertaining."
Broken rules? Kelly *and* Ward (JoWW and MindShackleS, douche canoes, Tesla)
Good fluff? Kelly
Grot 6 wrote: I can't happy dance this mutt leaving enough.
It would be nice for them to fall back on what actually was good about 40K before this clown got his mitts on it and started with his ret-conning. Much the same as all of this company's idea of "Attitude over skill" Its a hot air wish list to want to see some of the old guard come back on board and set the ship back on the right course of no nonsense gaming and fun, again.
I'll go on and say that I'm glad to see the ax falling on people who deserve it. We can't see some new books, nullifying this clowns garbage fast enough. He is a hack, pure and simple. I never enjoyed reading anything he wrote.
Don't let the door hit you on the way out, Wart.
Let me know if the axe falls on you so I can celebrate you losing your job and do a happy dance. I can't wait to see some new poster come along either, nullyfying your garbage posts as well. You are a hack, pure and simple. I never enjoy reading anything you write.
Huh. It is easier to mock and insult people you don't know on the internet. Hmm. Maybe you are right. Schadenfreude is fun!
Hopefully (but unlikely) point made. Internet would be a nicer place if everyone treated other people with a minimum of civility and human decency.
Andy Chambers and Alessio both write damn good rules. Good thing they moved on to better companies and were given a chance to do so without Kronies breathing down their necks. Maybe Ward will actually do the same. But for everyone saying he writes solid rules...7th edition daemons and O&G would like a word with you ("I hate greenskins" and "well, of course they should win-they're daemons"). When it's been documented he has said these things, you're deluding yourself if you think GW was pulling his strings on how to write. I don't wish the man a horrible life, but maybe his leaving will end his terrible previous writing (not all was terrible, but lord there were some stinkers).
Kelly gave us Canis Wolfborn as a new character. He may not have started the wolf theme naming, but he sure ran with it. "Wolf wolfborn, riding a giant wolf!" Thats easily as bad as some of the original Rogue Trader nonsense, like Ferrus Manus leading the Iron Hands, or Corax's last words being "Nevermore!"
Ward gave us Draigo, an awesome Samurai-Jack-like character doomed to fight but never win, Trayzn, the evil prankster, and Vulkan Hes'Tan and Kosarro Khan, finally adding interesting faces to two neglected chapters.
No, no, no. Andy Chambers was an inspired creative force, a man who could (and still can!) conjure up imagery and stories that rivalled almost anyone who has worked at Games Workshop past, future or present. He is responsible for some of the greatest things in 40K/WFB lore, and has shaped everything we love about those settings in ways we can't comprehend.
Dragio is an intreasting concept, and could actually be awesomely cool if given the right treatment. his fluff needs a bit of a rewrite but the general concept is kinda cool
Kelly gave us Canis Wolfborn as a new character. He may not have started the wolf theme naming, but he sure ran with it. "Wolf wolfborn, riding a giant wolf!" Thats easily as bad as some of the original Rogue Trader nonsense, like Ferrus Manus leading the Iron Hands, or Corax's last words being "Nevermore!"
Ward gave us .... and Vulkan Hes'Tan and Kosarro Khan, finally adding interesting faces to two neglected chapters.
Game tied up again.
Damn it! Someone remembered that Ward wrote the spehss muhreen book.
I started to dislike Ward books with Blood Angles. He did three things that never should have happened and have changed the face of 40K forever and IMO, not in a positive way. Bubble Effects, MC stats on infantry sized models, and lack of deciding choice. Every unit could take every transport, If you wanted a model on the table, regardless of what was already taken, you could fit it in somewhere else.
Next was GK and all hell broke loose... So many special rules ontop of special rules that even with WYSIWYG you still never new exactly what a GK unit could do unless you yourself played the army. The more insane fluff has been covered by others.
And Lastly Necrons. I don't know how far he was responsible for the change in Necrons, but never has an army done a 180 in fluff like these guys. Add it the continuation of a lot of the problems that both GK and BA introduced and its understandable why the Necron codex can be so vehemently disliked both on and off the table top.
But to his credit and maybe GWs master plan, his books sold whole armies, not just the odd unit. Lots of plastic went out the door because of his OTT rule sets.
Jayden63 wrote: I started to dislike Ward books with Blood Angles. He did three things that never should have happened and have changed the face of 40K forever and IMO, not in a positive way. Bubble Effects, MC stats on infantry sized models, and lack of deciding choice. Every unit could take every transport, If you wanted a model on the table, regardless of what was already taken, you could fit it in somewhere else.
Next was GK and all hell broke loose... So many special rules ontop of special rules that even with WYSIWYG you still never new exactly what a GK unit could do unless you yourself played the army. The more insane fluff has been covered by others.
And Lastly Necrons. I don't know how far he was responsible for the change in Necrons, but never has an army done a 180 in fluff like these guys. Add it the continuation of a lot of the problems that both GK and BA introduced and its understandable why the Necron codex can be so vehemently disliked both on and off the table top.
But to his credit and maybe GWs master plan, his books sold whole armies, not just the odd unit. Lots of plastic went out the door because of his OTT rule sets.
Agree with everything except for the "MC stats on infantry character"
Mephiston always had beastly stats as far back as the 3e codex. (If someone could find the 2e Angels of Death codex, I'm sure he has nasty stats there too).
No, no, no. Andy Chambers was an inspired creative force, a man who could (and still can!) conjure up imagery and stories that rivalled almost anyone who has worked at Games Workshop past, future or present. He is responsible for some of the greatest things in 40K/WFB lore, and has shaped everything we love about those settings in ways we can't comprehend.
But the man couldn't write rules to save himself.
You are right about the background aspects of his influence on 40k. His homebrew campaign stories in White Dwarf were awesome.
Rules-wise, he wasn't bad. I've always liked the Starship Troopers rules he wrote.
It was his leadership that gave us the VDR and TAR, as well as the Witchhunters, Daemonhunters, and the campaign Codices (Armageddon, Eye of Terror).
I have always been disappointed that they weren't able to get the Deathwatch/XenosHunters Codex out before GW forced them to put out 4th edition.
... Bloodstrike Missiles, Bloodsong, Blood Crozius, Liturgies of Blood, Bloodshard Shells, The Sanguinor (in toto), the Blood Reaver, Blood Talons, Blood Fists, Magna-Grapple, The Bloodtide, The Vault of Labyrinths, Nemesis Dreadknights, Nemesis DOOOOOOOOMfists, Lord Kaldor Draigo (in toto), units of Daemonhosts, Nemesis Warding Staff, the Ulumeathi Plasma Syphon, NuCrons, C'Tan Shards, an army of robots that still requires robots to pilot their robots, The Alliance at Devil's Crag (aka. The Bro-Fist heard across the Imperum), Tomb Blades...
Azreal13 wrote: It happened, 5th Ed BA codex, and was referenced again in the Necron book IIRC
... ...
Necron codex wrote: The Silent King reluctantly joins forces with the Blood Angels to defeat a Tyranid splinter fleet.
That's it. The "Bro-fisting" was just people ranting about the very idea, and blowing the whole thing out of proportion. Because it is witty to do things like that regarding GW fluff, or give things "funny" pejorative names like Failcast or Finecost or Space Chipmunk.
I don't read the fluff so I don't care much about that kind of stuff. It does make sense in the context of a complete redesign of Necrons and the introduction of the Allies rule though.
It was obvious when Allies was just a rumour that it was a bad piece of rules design. This was proved in 6th edition and they have already modified the rule.
However Allies is clearly an introduction for the purpose of selling more model kits, not to improve the game as such. GW management also don't allow writers to write whatever they like for fluff.
In short, blaming any one writer is rather unfair.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Kanluwen wrote: Oh, you mean the "old guard" like Andy Chambers, Pete Haines, Phil Kelly, or Alessio Cavatore?
Good riddance to the old guard if that's the case.
Matt Ward had been there 12 years, from straight out of school or university. He wasn't exactly young guard.
Jayden63 wrote: I started to dislike Ward books with Blood Angles. He did three things that never should have happened and have changed the face of 40K forever and IMO, not in a positive way. Bubble Effects, MC stats on infantry sized models, and lack of deciding choice. Every unit could take every transport, If you wanted a model on the table, regardless of what was already taken, you could fit it in somewhere else.
Next was GK and all hell broke loose... So many special rules ontop of special rules that even with WYSIWYG you still never new exactly what a GK unit could do unless you yourself played the army. The more insane fluff has been covered by others.
And Lastly Necrons. I don't know how far he was responsible for the change in Necrons, but never has an army done a 180 in fluff like these guys. Add it the continuation of a lot of the problems that both GK and BA introduced and its understandable why the Necron codex can be so vehemently disliked both on and off the table top.
But to his credit and maybe GWs master plan, his books sold whole armies, not just the odd unit. Lots of plastic went out the door because of his OTT rule sets.
Of course his rule sets never broke the game so hard compared to Eldar, Chaos Daemons, and Tau, and his units were overall good, rather then some gimmicky unit built to break a rule in two.
It was hard, but Ward's dexs were usually hard because oddly enough they seemed to have been built an edition early for the next set (GK and Necrons), not to mention the better internal balance.
Also Necrons had horrible fluff beforehand, people were attached to the Mary Sue'tan which included a character starting to be shoehorned in behind every major event (Deciever), Nightbringer, who brought the "Fear of Death" and the grim reaper visage to every race (Despite not even humanity sharing that visage alone!). Necrons were bad metal tyranids with a focus on their masters starting to far overtake them to the point that the only interesting thing in the dex at the time was horribly mary sueish
Matt Ward had been there 12 years, from straight out of school or university. He wasn't exactly young guard.
He's not even close to old guard either, considering that by the time he started writing codex's was in 5th edition, the others that were mentioned have been there from 2nd/3rd edition +
skrulnik wrote: It was his leadership that gave us the VDR and TAR, as well as the Witchhunters, Daemonhunters, and the campaign Codices (Armageddon, Eye of Terror). I have always been disappointed that they weren't able to get the Deathwatch/XenosHunters Codex out before GW forced them to put out 4th edition.
Me too. I'd've loved to have seen his take on the Alien Hunters. It would have been amazing. Useless as an army, but amazing as a simple work of background and imagery. You're also right about his leadership - his charisma and headstrong attitude made him one of the best driving forces behind 40K. He wasn't as good at rules as some of his peers, but GW is poorer in his absence.
ZebioLizard2 wrote: Of course his rule sets never broke the game so hard compared to Eldar, Chaos Daemons, and Tau, and his units were overall good, rather then some gimmicky unit built to break a rule in two.
A lot of us don't care (as much) about the rules, and do care (a lot) about the fluff. Ward was the anti-fluff. His stuff was terrible. Kelly may not know what internal balance is and Cruddace might have ruined two 'Nid Codices in a row, but none of them wrote the kind of crap that we got with the GK Codex.
A lot of us don't care (as much) about the rules, and do care (a lot) about the fluff. Ward was the anti-fluff. His stuff was terrible. Kelly may not know what internal balance is and Cruddace might have ruined two 'Nid Codices in a row, but none of them wrote the kind of crap that we got with the GK Codex.
Kelly is the one writing out Chaos Undivided for Chaos currently, having wrote out basically most if not all instances of Undivided chaos, but seems to be actively saying that Chaos has to be forced into a side, that there's no undivided daemons in the warp, and that there's nothing ELSE in the warp either, possibly removing all instances of enslavers and all the other interesting Creatures and making it a pure daemon zone.
Yeah Wards fluff might be terrible, but so what exactly when the crunch being written is one of the things currently forcing people out of the game due to horrendous balance? While people hated GK, they still let them play on the table in most cases, as it is people cringe seeing Eldar pop out, not to mention TO's being forced to actively alter the rules due to some horrific things like 2++ daemons, seerstars, and the powerful things that in most cases broke the meta so hard they became it.
Azreal13 wrote: It happened, 5th Ed BA codex, and was referenced again in the Necron book IIRC
I demand excerpts.
But gimme some time to brace myself.
Full excepts of the incident in question.
BA codex wrote:
Commander Dante and the 3rd company battle against the Necron legions of the Silent King amid the dusty wastes of Gehenna. For three weeks, neither side can seize the upper hand, with Dante's tactical brilliance stretched to its limits in countering the time-space manipulations of the Silent King. The stalemate is broken when a Tyranid splinter fleet enters orbit, forcing the two armies to break off hostilities and fight the common foe. The impromptu alliance proves to the the Tyranid's undoing. Following the final battle at Devil's Crag, Dante and the Silent King go their separate ways, both forces now too battleworn to guarantee victory over the other, and, at least for the Blood Angels, the idea of turning on those they had so recently fought alongside a rather distasteful one.
Necron codex wrote:
The Silent King reluctantly joins forces with the Blood Angels to defeat a Tyranid splinter fleet.
That's it. The "Bro-fisting" was just people ranting about the very idea, and blowing the whole thing out of proportion. Because it is witty to do things like that regarding GW fluff, or give things "funny" pejorative names like Failcast or Finecost or Space Chipmunk.
Yeah sure, because genocidal soulless zombie-automatons(which is what Necrons were at the time) who can endlessly reincarnate and self-repair would totally just walk away from a battle because they were feeling a bit tired, and it makes complete sense that an army of genetically-enhanced posthuman killing machines brainwashed since puberty to hate and despise all nonhuman forms of life would find it "distasteful" to kill nonhuman lifeforms because they had to momentarily stop fighting them to deal with a different group of aliens.
Sorry, no. A lot of the flak GW gets is overblown, but the Battle of Brofist is one case in which every pisstake, barb, jibe, pun, and drip of sarcasm is richly deserved.
Azreal13 wrote: It happened, 5th Ed BA codex, and was referenced again in the Necron book IIRC
I demand excerpts.
But gimme some time to brace myself.
Full excepts of the incident in question.
BA codex wrote:
Commander Dante and the 3rd company battle against the Necron legions of the Silent King amid the dusty wastes of Gehenna. For three weeks, neither side can seize the upper hand, with Dante's tactical brilliance stretched to its limits in countering the time-space manipulations of the Silent King. The stalemate is broken when a Tyranid splinter fleet enters orbit, forcing the two armies to break off hostilities and fight the common foe. The impromptu alliance proves to the the Tyranid's undoing. Following the final battle at Devil's Crag, Dante and the Silent King go their separate ways, both forces now too battleworn to guarantee victory over the other, and, at least for the Blood Angels, the idea of turning on those they had so recently fought alongside a rather distasteful one.
Necron codex wrote:
The Silent King reluctantly joins forces with the Blood Angels to defeat a Tyranid splinter fleet.
That's it. The "Bro-fisting" was just people ranting about the very idea, and blowing the whole thing out of proportion. Because it is witty to do things like that regarding GW fluff, or give things "funny" pejorative names like Failcast or Finecost or Space Chipmunk.
Yeah sure, because genocidal soulless zombie-automatons(which is what Necrons were at the time) who can endlessly reincarnate and self-repair would totally just walk away from a battle because they were feeling a bit tired, and it makes complete sense that an army of genetically-enhanced posthuman killing machines brainwashed since puberty to hate and despise all nonhuman forms of life would find it "distasteful" to kill nonhuman lifeforms because they had to momentarily stop fighting them to deal with a different group of aliens.
Sorry, no. A lot of the flak GW gets is overblown, but the Battle of Brofist is one case in which every pisstake, barb, jibe, pun, and drip of sarcasm is richly deserved.
You mean the same group of despise all nonhuman despite the fact that they regularly ally with Eldar, allow xenos to live if their useful, and generally depends on chapter in question? Sure the Necrons was out of left field but blood angels are usually more "Noble"
fluff and rules are both important.
One thing to consider about fluff is that fluff is important to more then JUST the table top 40k game, but the entire franchise. The Novels, the RPGs the computer games etc.
so yeah, some people may justly so see fluff as more important. if someone's main concern with 40k is the dark ehresy game they run every sunday night, fluff changes are definatly the top of their importance list
I always thought that the Draigo/heart inscribing wasn't meant to be taken literally, but in a kind of psuedo religious/ancient historical text kind of way. "And lo, Draigo did bestride the warp, and lo he struck down the evil one Mortarion, and struck his own name upon the heart of the demonic foe".
It's kind of like Marneus Calgar holding back an ork horde on his own for a 'night and a day', or whatever it was, it has a mythical sound to it.
Obviously if you imagine someone actually doing these things (strutting around in a substance that is utterly inimical to life, and killing something that has no physical representation/form in it) then yes it sounds like nonsense. Perhaps they could have done a bit more to reinforce it as something that was written thousands of years after the event took place (ancient parchment look to small blocks of story for instance), and it would have had a better reaction.
Mind you, it all pales compared to the conceptualisation behind 'Unbound', so perhaps he thought GW have now gone too far and left of his own accord!
TheAuldGrump wrote: What I would really like to see is Matt Ward leaving GW in a cloud of shame... then going someplace else and doing really, really well!
What will he do? Move into writing?
I thought his writing was terrible, not just because of the subject. He's lucky he worked for a company with such low standards as GW, where he could freely spam "alas" every few lines, or "trapped behind their own defenses" or trailing away with mysterious ellipsis.....
TheAuldGrump wrote: What I would really like to see is Matt Ward leaving GW in a cloud of shame... then going someplace else and doing really, really well!
What will he do? Move into writing?
I thought his writing was terrible, not just because of the subject. He's lucky he worked for a company with such low standards as GW, where he could freely spam "alas" every few lines, or "trapped behind their own defenses" or trailing away with mysterious ellipsis.....
I think games designer is probably more his thing. But then again Allessio usually also does the background writing for the rules he develops freelance, and Jake Thornton does too, so whether Ward can be just a 'games designer' is debatable, they seem to be linked to the background fluff in the industry.
Of course, Merritt is the custodian of all fluff at GW, so it isnt like ward was throwing out brofists and Draigo on his own, Ward may be able to adapt to a slightly more refined writing style and prosper outside of the GW studio, which I have to think given the cuts and pressure of release schedules must be quite a toxic place to go to work these days.
His blog makes him seem a lot more reasonable. I can't say I'm a fan of his GW work but I'm warming to him and starting to believe he's just been hamstrung like everyone else who worked there.
It seems he's working on a novel, so I guess we'll be able to see from that what he's like without Merrit hovering over him.
My bigger concern is the staff GW is shedding now; we're almost through all of the staff I've heard of. I'm assuming they are dropping the design staff with the higher salaries for the biggest savings, but there's only so many more they can get rid of.
Herzlos wrote: His blog makes him seem a lot more reasonable. I can't say I'm a fan of his GW work but I'm warming to him and starting to believe he's just been hamstrung like everyone else who worked there.
It seems he's working on a novel, so I guess we'll be able to see from that what he's like without Merrit hovering over him.
My bigger concern is the staff GW is shedding now; we're almost through all of the staff I've heard of. I'm assuming they are dropping the design staff with the higher salaries for the biggest savings, but there's only so many more they can get rid of.
May, which when he seemingly left, was also the time James Hewitt went from Mantic to GW. Now, I like James, very likable guy, and he had some input into Dreadball and Deadzone, which are games I think are very well crafted, but he hadnt been a full game designer or writer before, so hes new to the game regardless, if he's Wards replacement the obvious connotation is cost cutting of the wage bill, I hope James does well there, I really do. I'm not sure the overall picture being painted for GW is a very healthy one.
Agree with everything except for the "MC stats on infantry character"
Mephiston always had beastly stats as far back as the 3e codex. (If someone could find the 2e Angels of Death codex, I'm sure he has nasty stats there too).
Yes, but Ward upped the stats. If you compare Mephiston's stats between 4th edition WD codex, and 5th edition codex, Ward basically gave +1 to every Mephiston's stat. And it's not that Meph is op (he kinda was in the 5th, not so much in 6th), it's that such a huge stats simply make no sense anymore.
Ward would sometimes write good rules and good fluff, but he never understood the concept 'less is more'. Blood Angels codex is the prime example: it actually totally killed my interest in starting a BA army. See, in the old books, BA was formerly a glorious chapter, which had hit hard times, trying to live up to their old reputation with continuously fading resources and thinning ranks of sane, capable Marines, and they were sometimes viewed with suspicion by other Imperials. This was a great theme and backstory for the chapter. But Ward wrote them as the baddest badasses of all the Badassdom. They had everything: special new flyer (which at the time was exclusive to them), so many Land Raiders they could literally throw them away, a golden flying Space Jesus, mini-sized Elder Daemon, a Dreadnought which could kill infinite amount of enemies, special weapons, equipment and spells all of which were Blood-something, and huge big villains which existed only that the Space Jesus could kill them left and right and show who's the boss. It was all just so juvenile. It read like a raging fanboy had written it in his spare time. Grey Knights codex almost felt like toned down after all that (although that too had stupid stuff).
Agree with everything except for the "MC stats on infantry character"
Mephiston always had beastly stats as far back as the 3e codex. (If someone could find the 2e Angels of Death codex, I'm sure he has nasty stats there too).
Yes, but Ward upped the stats. If you compare Mephiston's stats between 4th edition WD codex, and 5th edition codex, Ward basically gave +1 to every Mephiston's stat. And it's not that Meph is op (he kinda was in the 5th, not so much in 6th), it's that such a huge stats simply make no sense anymore.
Mephiston has always had the same stats as a WHFB Vampire Lord. It's a little on the nose hint. For example in 2nd ed. he was S7 T6, just like a 5th ed. WHFB Vampire Lord.
Agree with everything except for the "MC stats on infantry character"
Mephiston always had beastly stats as far back as the 3e codex. (If someone could find the 2e Angels of Death codex, I'm sure he has nasty stats there too).
Yes, but Ward upped the stats. If you compare Mephiston's stats between 4th edition WD codex, and 5th edition codex, Ward basically gave +1 to every Mephiston's stat. And it's not that Meph is op (he kinda was in the 5th, not so much in 6th), it's that such a huge stats simply make no sense anymore.
Mephiston has always had the same stats as a WHFB Vampire Lord. It's a little on the nose hint. For example in 2nd ed. he was S7 T6, just like a 5th ed. WHFB Vampire Lord.
..I never actually noticed that, that's pretty interesting!
Agree with everything except for the "MC stats on infantry character"
Mephiston always had beastly stats as far back as the 3e codex. (If someone could find the 2e Angels of Death codex, I'm sure he has nasty stats there too).
Yes, but Ward upped the stats. If you compare Mephiston's stats between 4th edition WD codex, and 5th edition codex, Ward basically gave +1 to every Mephiston's stat. And it's not that Meph is op (he kinda was in the 5th, not so much in 6th), it's that such a huge stats simply make no sense anymore.
Ward would sometimes write good rules and good fluff, but he never understood the concept 'less is more'. Blood Angels codex is the prime example: it actually totally killed my interest in starting a BA army. See, in the old books, BA was formerly a glorious chapter, which had hit hard times, trying to live up to their old reputation with continuously fading resources and thinning ranks of sane, capable Marines, and they were sometimes viewed with suspicion by other Imperials. This was a great theme and backstory for the chapter. But Ward wrote them as the baddest badasses of all the Badassdom. They had everything: special new flyer (which at the time was exclusive to them), so many Land Raiders they could literally throw them away, a golden flying Space Jesus, mini-sized Elder Daemon, a Dreadnought which could kill infinite amount of enemies, special weapons, equipment and spells all of which were Blood-something, and huge big villains which existed only that the Space Jesus could kill them left and right and show who's the boss. It was all just so juvenile. It read like a raging fanboy had written it in his spare time. Grey Knights codex almost felt like toned down after all that (although that too had stupid stuff).
They didn't have a Murderwolf from planet Murdercide who murdered people with his Murderclaws in a fit of Murderlust.
Ward would sometimes write good rules and good fluff, but he never understood the concept 'less is more'. Blood Angels codex is the prime example: it actually totally killed my interest in starting a BA army. See, in the old books, BA was formerly a glorious chapter, which had hit hard times, trying to live up to their old reputation with continuously fading resources and thinning ranks of sane, capable Marines, and they were sometimes viewed with suspicion by other Imperials. This was a great theme and backstory for the chapter. But Ward wrote them as the baddest badasses of all the Badassdom. They had everything: special new flyer (which at the time was exclusive to them), so many Land Raiders they could literally throw them away, a golden flying Space Jesus, mini-sized Elder Daemon, a Dreadnought which could kill infinite amount of enemies, special weapons, equipment and spells all of which were Blood-something, and huge big villains which existed only that the Space Jesus could kill them left and right and show who's the boss. It was all just so juvenile. It read like a raging fanboy had written it in his spare time. Grey Knights codex almost felt like toned down after all that (although that too had stupid stuff).
I completely agree. A lot of his rules and fluff just were embarrassingly fanboyish. I am sure he is a perfectly nice person, but I never liked his codices.
They didn't have a Murderwolf from planet Murdercide who murdered people with his Murderclaws in a fit of Murderlust.
Parting gift?
Fits more with Kelly- Canis Wolfborn armed with Wolfclaws riding on a Thunderwolf. Ward has a lot more originality in names: Kosarro Khan, Vulkan Hes'Tan, Kaldor Draigo, Trayzn the Infinite, Oberon, Inquisitor Valeria...
Agree with everything except for the "MC stats on infantry character"
Mephiston always had beastly stats as far back as the 3e codex. (If someone could find the 2e Angels of Death codex, I'm sure he has nasty stats there too).
Yes, but Ward upped the stats. If you compare Mephiston's stats between 4th edition WD codex, and 5th edition codex, Ward basically gave +1 to every Mephiston's stat. And it's not that Meph is op (he kinda was in the 5th, not so much in 6th), it's that such a huge stats simply make no sense anymore.
Mephiston has always had the same stats as a WHFB Vampire Lord. It's a little on the nose hint. For example in 2nd ed. he was S7 T6, just like a 5th ed. WHFB Vampire Lord.
..I never actually noticed that, that's pretty interesting!
Note it's not that impressive as your 'standard human necromancer' was S4 T5, with WS7. In 2nd ed at the time, a Marine Captain was S5 T5, so Mephiston was only +2S +1T on one.
MajorWesJanson wrote: If he was pushed out, I feel sorry for him. The amount of vitriol spewed at him by people online was insane. He was a game designer, not someone who worked at Haliburton or Bain Capital. The people who called for him to be fired should be ashamed.
Don't be stupid. It's not like we were calling for his summary execution, we just wanted the job done by someone who would do it right.
They didn't have a Murderwolf from planet Murdercide who murdered people with his Murderclaws in a fit of Murderlust.
Parting gift?
Fits more with Kelly- Canis Wolfborn armed with Wolfclaws riding on a Thunderwolf. Ward has a lot more originality in names: Kosarro Khan, Vulkan Hes'Tan, Kaldor Draigo, Trayzn the Infinite, Oberon, Inquisitor Valeria...
Yes, because "He'stan" isn't a play on words either.... Geddit? "He's tan" as Salamanders went back to their original darker skintone in the book he was introduced.
I'd say Ward's failings were more down to a lack of editorial oversight or proper playtesting. For example, he could write solid rules, but occasionally something really obnoxious would slip through. Similarly, I find most of his fluff to be of the usual standard, but the howlers really stuck out. He could have done with someone to step in and say "no, calm down, we're not putting that in."
They didn't have a Murderwolf from planet Murdercide who murdered people with his Murderclaws in a fit of Murderlust.
Parting gift?
That came to mind...SW Codex was probably written at least 6 months ago, so Ward would have been in the company. It fits to his naming schemes, where he always took one word and made zillion derivates of it. In BA book, everything was Blood-something, in GK codex it was Nemesis-something and so on.
Anyway, I don't read too much into his departure. He was in the company what, over a decade? Might well be he just felt like checking out new pastures. Though it is a bit strange that it was not noted in WD or something.
And if GW needs anything, it's some new blood, fresh people with fresh styles to both lore and game design. Everybody talks about Kirby, but I think that their design department is just as stale as the board.
What GW needs is to get away from making only two games that are both set in a static universe. As far as I can tell, that strategy has been formulated by the senior management rather than the studio.
I imagine the rule designers and fluff writers have to get past the megalomania and egotism that's rife throughout management. after they've tossed ward's corpse to the wolves who'll be the next rage magnet?
MajorWesJanson wrote: If he was pushed out, I feel sorry for him. The amount of vitriol spewed at him by people online was insane. He was a game designer, not someone who worked at Haliburton or Bain Capital. The people who called for him to be fired should be ashamed.
Don't be stupid. It's not like we were calling for his summary execution, we just wanted the job done by someone who would do it right.
Exactly. For someone who's accusing everyone of Internet Hyperbole, Wes seems pretty good at demonstrating its use.
MajorWesJanson wrote: If he was pushed out, I feel sorry for him. The amount of vitriol spewed at him by people online was insane. He was a game designer, not someone who worked at Haliburton or Bain Capital. The people who called for him to be fired should be ashamed.
Don't be stupid. It's not like we were calling for his summary execution, we just wanted the job done by someone who would do it right.
..And who in the company actually does things right?
MajorWesJanson wrote: If he was pushed out, I feel sorry for him. The amount of vitriol spewed at him by people online was insane. He was a game designer, not someone who worked at Haliburton or Bain Capital. The people who called for him to be fired should be ashamed.
Don't be stupid. It's not like we were calling for his summary execution, we just wanted the job done by someone who would do it right.
..And who in the company actually does things right?
With all the poop they recently threw out, they gotta have one hell of a cleaning service.
MajorWesJanson wrote: If he was pushed out, I feel sorry for him. The amount of vitriol spewed at him by people online was insane. He was a game designer, not someone who worked at Haliburton or Bain Capital. The people who called for him to be fired should be ashamed.
Don't be stupid. It's not like we were calling for his summary execution, we just wanted the job done by someone who would do it right.
..And who in the company actually does things right?
Well there was.. wait no he's gone.
Oh.. no wait he left too.
There was the P- nope they left.
Ale- nope gone as well..
There are probably still some cool guys manning the stores who aren't all 'BUY BUY BUY BUY THEN GET OUT'?
Well, I am sure that corporate GW thinks this is "Great News!!!" In reality it is quite sad.
Ward was obviously a force for change in the company. His War of the Ring rules were very different than GWs other games. If there was no change in the rules, we could just play 2nd edition. I found WOTR refreshing and fast paced, something LOTR is not at a large or even medium scale.
So... how long until the guy who has previously worked with the Alesio and Rick Priestly turns up at Warlord? He's shown that he's not the greatest fluff writer in the world - turn him loose on historicals, where the fluff is pretty well defined...
Boggy Man wrote: Under the blog tab.
http://www.thetowerofstars.co.uk/ He's not Churchill, but his writing is far more intelligent than I thought it would be.
Since it's slowly been revealed that codices are a collaborative effort, wouldn't it be hilarious if Kelly and Cruddace were writing all the parts everyone hated?
Thanks. Yeah, he seems nice. Are you sure it is the same guy, though? He does not reference Warhammer or GW nowhere on his site or twitter?
I wish he had given use interesting Sister characters. I mean, I think the Sisters are really awesome as a faction, but there is no particular character that I find awesome. Dolan Chirosius is really, really awesome but he is a preacher…
Daba wrote: In 2nd ed at the time, a Marine Captain was S5 T5, so Mephiston was only +2S +1T on one.
Yes, Matt Ward is also the one who made most of the rules for War of the Ring - which was quite different from the core games, a "true" wargame having more in common with Warmaster than Warhammer Battle.
It's obvious he's just a scapegoat. Too bad for him, guess all the 40k fans will do the same than what happened with Thorpe - until their hate will go on someone else still working at GW. 'cause, of course, even without Ward, the game rules/fluff will still be crap.
MajorWesJanson wrote: If he was pushed out, I feel sorry for him. The amount of vitriol spewed at him by people online was insane. He was a game designer, not someone who worked at Haliburton or Bain Capital. The people who called for him to be fired should be ashamed.
Don't be stupid. It's not like we were calling for his summary execution, we just wanted the job done by someone who would do it right.
..And who in the company actually does things right?
With all the poop they recently threw out, they gotta have one hell of a cleaning service.
..Right, well you are certainly one likable fellow.
It's obvious he's just a scapegoat. Too bad for him, guess all the 40k fans will do the same than what happened with Thorpe - until their hate will go on someone else still working at GW. 'cause, of course, even without Ward, the game rules/fluff will still be crap.
And ironically it's his rules that usually ended up while strong, never really OP as hell compared to other ones.
Ward gave codex marines thunder fire cannons, sternguard veterans in their 5th ed form, bikes as troops, storm shields that are worth their points, masters of the forge, and the most inclusive space marine codex released to date at that point, with far more non ultramarine a special characters than what the 4th edition book had.
Cruddace may have given me grav cents, but Ward gave codex marines so much more.
Ousted because he didn't have the right ego . Now if everything he made was called ward-claws, ward- missiles, ward-cannons and an occasional mat-hammer, then he would still be there.
Wasn't he also responsible for the 11 man drop pod?
It might just be career and financially motivated. He’s been there ten years on a studio salary which probably hasn’t changed much in that time and its probably fairly galling that Jervis is on probably c100k and you, who do the work, will probably be lucky to break 40k if you stay there you whole life.
If you can churn the stuff out, and I suspect he can, Black Library will pay near enough the same, give you virtually carte-blanche to maul the background as much as you like, and if you do okay at it, can be a launch-pad for a career in genre-fiction and hack-for-hire scripting. Hey, it worked for Gav ‘I can’t believe they pay me to write this Thorpe, and he can barely string a sentence together.
Major Wes: I wasn't really expecting (or demanding, if that wasn't apparent without half a dozen smilies) anything, but thanks.
Grimtuff wrote: Yes, because "He'stan" isn't a play on words either.... Geddit? "He's tan" as Salamanders went back to their original darker skintone in the book he was introduced.
They didn't have a Murderwolf from planet Murdercide who murdered people with his Murderclaws in a fit of Murderlust.
Parting gift?
Fits more with Kelly- Canis Wolfborn armed with Wolfclaws riding on a Thunderwolf. Ward has a lot more originality in names: Kosarro Khan, Vulkan Hes'Tan, Kaldor Draigo, Trayzn the Infinite, Oberon, Inquisitor Valeria...
While I'm mostly on your side, naming an ancient immortal being Oberon isn't the height of originality.
Forge World sculptors. Most illustrators. Some people on the GW proper design team.
It's not like everyone at GW is incompetent.
Actually, yes, totally forgot about them. FW quality is far up-ahead of regular GW quality, including rules and fluff. Then again, the price difference is similar.
I disliked most of his background stuff and I felt like his rules were upping the ante too much when it came to complexity and power level. When I was still playing 40K competitively I would probably have been happy, but I don't care any more because it's not like I'll be buying any GW rule books at the prices they are charging these days anyhow.
Grot 6 wrote: I can't happy dance this mutt leaving enough.
It would be nice for them to fall back on what actually was good about 40K before this clown got his mitts on it and started with his ret-conning. Much the same as all of this company's idea of "Attitude over skill" Its a hot air wish list to want to see some of the old guard come back on board and set the ship back on the right course of no nonsense gaming and fun, again.
I'll go on and say that I'm glad to see the ax falling on people who deserve it. We can't see some new books, nullifying this clowns garbage fast enough. He is a hack, pure and simple. I never enjoyed reading anything he wrote.
Don't let the door hit you on the way out, Wart.
Let me know if the axe falls on you so I can celebrate you losing your job and do a happy dance. I can't wait to see some new poster come along either, nullyfying your garbage posts as well. You are a hack, pure and simple. I never enjoy reading anything you write.
Huh. It is easier to mock and insult people you don't know on the internet. Hmm. Maybe you are right. Schadenfreude is fun!
Hopefully (but unlikely) point made. Internet would be a nicer place if everyone treated other people with a minimum of civility and human decency.
Thanks, Matt.
Civility goes to someone who doesn't drive me away from a game because they can't write a codex. Nice thought hat you want to make an opinion personal, especially in light because you did it to yourself.
Had you even one iota of writing skill, you'd have written something that you could have been proud of, and not have to try to sophise it at every turn. Now run on along and stop defending the indefensible. The guys writing was weak, the codex unplayable, and retconning the game was inexcusable.
Opinions are pretty much on the table, even if you want to try pointing that self-righteous vitriol in everyone else's direction and doing exactly what your crying about.
Don't like it? I can't help you.
Because of Wart, I invested over 2 grand in an army, I expected I'd like to play it sometime, instead the stuff sits in a box in the closet based on the poor form of the codex. If that's not worth ill will, go on ahead and send me to your GW reeducation camp, so I can shell out over 5 G's more for a reach around.
I think the last ten years have had some real horrors in the rules and fluff, and that's due to the way GW execs are managing the company. I'm indifferent about Matt Ward leaving, if Alan Merritt et al were unhappy he wouldn't have been there 12 years.
I greatly disliked the air of misogyny in the sisters of battle being slaughtered so that the incorruptible grey knights could daub themselves in their blood to be even more incorruptible. It made no sense from the fluff, it was entirely unnecessary and distasteful. But even if Matt Ward wrote that, Alan Merritt and others signed it off and sent it for publishing. Those people still run the company, so I don't see anything changing.
The thing is: what else could he do but writing books? He hasn't done anything but writing army books / codices for tabletop systems and with his (rightfully) terrible reputation, I cannot imagine anyone being looking forward to employing him.
So he's stuck with writing stories which he, obviously, sucks at. While still being employed by GW, he could get away with it because GW doesn't care about quality. But now that he's on his own...good luck trying to get anyone to buy it!
...and by "good luck" I mean "I will love to watch you fail miserably. A lot.". Get ready to stock up on cardboard and plastic cups.
Sigvatr wrote: The thing is: what else could he do but writing books? He hasn't done anything but writing army books / codices for tabletop systems and with his (rightfully) terrible reputation, I cannot imagine anyone being looking forward to employing him.
So he's stuck with writing stories which he, obviously, sucks at. While still being employed by GW, he could get away with it because GW doesn't care about quality. But now that he's on his own...good luck trying to get anyone to buy it!
...and by "good luck" I mean "I will love to watch you fail miserably. A lot.". Get ready to stock up on cardboard and plastic cups.
Sigvatr wrote: The thing is: what else could he do but writing books? He hasn't done anything but writing army books / codices for tabletop systems and with his (rightfully) terrible reputation, I cannot imagine anyone being looking forward to employing him.
So he's stuck with writing stories which he, obviously, sucks at. While still being employed by GW, he could get away with it because GW doesn't care about quality. But now that he's on his own...good luck trying to get anyone to buy it!
...and by "good luck" I mean "I will love to watch you fail miserably. A lot.". Get ready to stock up on cardboard and plastic cups.
Howard A Treesong wrote: I think the last ten years have had some real horrors in the rules and fluff, and that's due to the way GW execs are managing the company. I'm indifferent about Matt Ward leaving, if Alan Merritt et al were unhappy he wouldn't have been there 12 years.
I greatly disliked the air of misogyny in the sisters of battle being slaughtered so that the incorruptible grey knights could daub themselves in their blood to be even more incorruptible. It made no sense from the fluff, it was entirely unnecessary and distasteful. But even if Matt Ward wrote that, Alan Merritt and others signed it off and sent it for publishing. Those people still run the company, so I don't see anything changing.
While yes he must have had oversight in the fluff he squeezed out the fact that nobody else produces such gak leads me to think the issue was ward.
In regards to rules given the fact that between the demon army book and 8th edition he has single handedly killed an entire system speaks volumes in regards to his ability.
Also he gets to much credit with 40k with the excuse that he writes for a following edition, he basicly in reality writes overpowered crap or o&g level crap.
Also he has admitted on more than one occasion that he let his personal feelings towards an army dictate it's power level.
In regards to him being let go I doubt it he was the boards golden child and unless he got caught pissing in kirbys tea I doubt that changed.
Gentle warning, reign it in guys. All of you. If you disagree with something that someone says, hit the yellow triangle, don't deal with it in the thread itself. Ok?
Howard A Treesong wrote: ... I greatly disliked the air of misogyny in the sisters of battle being slaughtered...
Misogyny is the hatred of women. Killing a woman doesn't automatically mean that you hate all women, so I'd be careful about ascribing motive to something without knowing whether the author actually hates women.
To be fair, that already happened before Ward. Codex: Necrons (2002) references Necrons wiping out an entire community of Sisters. Sure, it wasn't as stupid as the Ward stuff (surprise), but I always thought of SoB being the fluff's punching bags.
I'm happy to see the end of the unholy alliance of Mr. Ward and GW. His over the top, fan boy writing was distasteful. The Grey Knights codex had some real doozies. People love to trot out Mortarion's heart and SOB blood orgies, but it was always the super secret box OF DOOM that put me over the edge. As a fluff writer he was just bad. Further, his rules we're regularly out of whack with the general power level of the other codices. His name is synonymous with power creep.
Now that he is out, my feelings can basically be summarized as best of luck, but thanks for nothing.
Its interesting how polarizing of a figure he is. He has a few nice things (lotr rules, 'interesting' codex rules) a lot of bad things that have had time heal the wound (grey knights and necrons have lost a lot of power as the editions have changed) and a ton of horrible fluff (that some people will never forgive him for).
I think the real root of the hatred is he's an easy target. GW has continued to release even worse rules and continuingly questionable bolterporn fluff. But Ward was the first to give us such a startlingly fast decline.
I think, however modern rules abortions like Eldar, Tau, Knights, supplements, etc are all far more harmful to the game and my opinion of GW. Its just that Wards original forays into "destroying everything you care about" have desensitized us into not caring as much about current horrors. At this point I'm like... 3 knights with reroll charge and invulns for no extra points? Yeah sure.... whatever. I don't care anymore.
Personally I find it amusing that there was so much hate over his codices as compared to, say, Phil "Forge The Narrative" Kelly.
Of course, I get the hate seems to come mostly from Fantasy players and folks who don't like his fluff, but it's weird to see people hating on books that (in hindsight) were 6th ed books written in 5th
(After seeing the gak that Tau went through when their 4th ed book had a ton of rules/wargear thrown out the window when 5th came out a little while later I can't complain too much though)
Hulksmash wrote: His fluff was mediocre to bad. But his books were solid and balanced with his other work. He really was one of the best rule guys they had codex wise. I'm gonna miss him homestly if he's gone.
I completely agree. Ward's rulebooks had excellent internal balance, and when compared purely against each other, had fairly decent external balance. The problem came when you put them alongside Cruddace and Phil Kelly's work. Both are horribly inconsistent, with Kelly being the king of boring monobuild army books.
Also he gets to much credit with 40k with the excuse that he writes for a following edition, he basicly in reality writes overpowered crap or o&g level crap.
It isn't beyond the realms of possibility that the reverse applies, ie the new editions were written/revised in order to flatten out the power curve he kept throwing off.
As it appears the chariot rules were in part rewritten in order to fix the Burning Chariot in favour of simply FAQing it, I'm more disposed to believe this could be the way the studio works.
So someone with a strong hand in writing the recent WHFB rules and 6th/7th 40K rules is being fir. . .ahem. . .resigning? Not much surprise there. He's going to leave to write, when writing is what he did to begin with. Something smells funny in Nottingham.
DukeBadham wrote: I admit, Wards fluff is appaling, like seriously, and at times his armies can seem stupidly broken, but then comes the next update for the rules and his army suddenly seems a lot more balanced, and in his books no army has particularly useless units or auto-includes, each unit or model is as viable as the others
Ha, tell that to the Necron codex. Nothing BUT auto includes (Wraiths, Annihilation Barge, etc.) or useless garbage (Flayed Ones, Lychguard, etc.).
And the reason his codexs suddenly seem more balanced when the new editions come out might have something to do with them having to create rules just to balance out the OP crap he wrote.
I will agree, though, it might not be entirely his fault. If GW was a halfway decent company they might have employed people to monitor quality control, thus making sure cluster Please don't bypass the language filter like this. Reds8n like his didn't make it to print.
Howard A Treesong wrote: ... I greatly disliked the air of misogyny in the sisters of battle being slaughtered...
Misogyny is the hatred of women. Killing a woman doesn't automatically mean that you hate all women, so I'd be careful about ascribing motive to something without knowing whether the author actually hates women.
Hence my saying it had an air of misogyny rather than saying 'he's a misogynist'. Do try to keep up.
Pacific wrote: I always thought that the Draigo/heart inscribing wasn't meant to be taken literally, but in a kind of psuedo religious/ancient historical text kind of way. "And lo, Draigo did bestride the warp, and lo he struck down the evil one Mortarion, and struck his own name upon the heart of the demonic foe".
It's kind of like Marneus Calgar holding back an ork horde on his own for a 'night and a day', or whatever it was, it has a mythical sound to it.
Obviously if you imagine someone actually doing these things (strutting around in a substance that is utterly inimical to life, and killing something that has no physical representation/form in it) then yes it sounds like nonsense. Perhaps they could have done a bit more to reinforce it as something that was written thousands of years after the event took place (ancient parchment look to small blocks of story for instance), and it would have had a better reaction.
Mind you, it all pales compared to the conceptualisation behind 'Unbound', so perhaps he thought GW have now gone too far and left of his own accord!
That's an issue with a lot of GW's fluff writing though; they tell us we shouldn't take stuff literally, that codices are "propaganda" from the perspective of each faction, yet they continually write the actual text from the perspective of the omniscient narrator, and the two are incompatible. "Dear Diary, today we brofisted some Necrons and my pal Draigo totes carved his name into a daemon-Primarch's heart, it was amazeballs, signed Brother Cruor Angelus" - OK cool, I could accept the "propaganda" angle, but when it's presented as "This thing happened, that thing happened, a third thing happened in this series of things, this is the date on which the things happened", that's a statement of events which occurred, there's no other way for the reader to take it.
Howard A Treesong wrote: ... I greatly disliked the air of misogyny in the sisters of battle being slaughtered...
Misogyny is the hatred of women. Killing a woman doesn't automatically mean that you hate all women, so I'd be careful about ascribing motive to something without knowing whether the author actually hates women.
Hence my saying it had an air of misogyny rather than saying 'he's a misogynist'. Do try to keep up.
Why even bring it up then?
By your logic, the Necrons have "an air of misogyny" because they slaughtered an entire Sororitas convent.
If they're getting rid of the codex writers, does that mean they realize something's wrong with their codecies? And if so, do they realize what that is?
Seeing as how they joyfully don't do market research I don't they'll figure out how to fix it, but I just wonder if they realize something's wrong and are flailing around trying to fix it without understanding the problem.
Howard A Treesong wrote: ... I greatly disliked the air of misogyny in the sisters of battle being slaughtered...
Misogyny is the hatred of women. Killing a woman doesn't automatically mean that you hate all women, so I'd be careful about ascribing motive to something without knowing whether the author actually hates women.
Hence my saying it had an air of misogyny rather than saying 'he's a misogynist'. Do try to keep up.
Why even bring it up then?
By your logic, the Necrons have "an air of misogyny" because they slaughtered an entire Sororitas convent.
Necrons are clearly massive misogynists, hence the total lack of boobies on all their troops.
Sigvatr wrote: The thing is: what else could he do but writing books? He hasn't done anything but writing army books / codices for tabletop systems and with his (rightfully) terrible reputation, I cannot imagine anyone being looking forward to employing him.
So he's stuck with writing stories which he, obviously, sucks at. While still being employed by GW, he could get away with it because GW doesn't care about quality. But now that he's on his own...good luck trying to get anyone to buy it!
...and by "good luck" I mean "I will love to watch you fail miserably. A lot.". Get ready to stock up on cardboard and plastic cups.
Well, it's the internet.
Everyone that works at a company gets attacked on the internet.
It's like Greg Street, a lot like Greg Street.
Howard A Treesong wrote: I think the last ten years have had some real horrors in the rules and fluff, and that's due to the way GW execs are managing the company. I'm indifferent about Matt Ward leaving, if Alan Merritt et al were unhappy he wouldn't have been there 12 years.
I greatly disliked the air of misogyny in the sisters of battle being slaughtered so that the incorruptible grey knights could daub themselves in their blood to be even more incorruptible. It made no sense from the fluff, it was entirely unnecessary and distasteful. But even if Matt Ward wrote that, Alan Merritt and others signed it off and sent it for publishing. Those people still run the company, so I don't see anything changing.
While yes he must have had oversight in the fluff he squeezed out the fact that nobody else produces such gak leads me to think the issue was ward.
In regards to rules given the fact that between the demon army book and 8th edition he has single handedly killed an entire system speaks volumes in regards to his ability.
Also he gets to much credit with 40k with the excuse that he writes for a following edition, he basicly in reality writes overpowered crap or o&g level crap.
Also he has admitted on more than one occasion that he let his personal feelings towards an army dictate it's power level.
In regards to him being let go I doubt it he was the boards golden child and unless he got caught pissing in kirbys tea I doubt that changed.
Yeah but they've got 125 people (well, 124 now) in the design studio. Is it really possible that a £130 million (well, £120 million now) international company would produce new products by letting bearded men sit in a cubby hole and send stuff off to the printer without any kind of play-testing or oversight? Especially when they have such an important IP to protect.
Yeah but they've got 125 people (well, 124 now) in the design studio. Is it really possible that a £130 million (well, £120 million now) international company would produce new products by letting bearded men sit in a cubby hole and send stuff off to the printer without any kind of play-testing or oversight? Especially when they have such an important IP to protect.
Before the recent report I would've undoubtedly agreed with you. Now, I would not be surprised if I found out that is exactly what happens.
I'm actually surprised this much hate is still directed at Ward. I can understand why GK players and Necron players are still upset, but didn't a bunch of stuff come out not too long ago saying that the codex authors have nothing to do with the actual rules themselves? I was under the impression that the unnamed GW 'design team' did all that.
If true then we can't really blame Ward for the funky rules. The fluff by all means is his doing, but the rules I thought were someone else.
TNT925 wrote: I'm actually surprised this much hate is still directed at Ward. I can understand why GK players and Necron players are still upset, but didn't a bunch of stuff come out not too long ago saying that the codex authors have nothing to do with the actual rules themselves? I was under the impression that the unnamed GW 'design team' did all that.
If true then we can't really blame Ward for the funky rules. The fluff by all means is his doing, but the rules I thought were someone else.
I believe he was also one of the chief authors of the two rulesets (WHFB and 40K) that many attribute the ruin of their favorite system to.
I think Ward definitely hurt both games, badly. But lets face it, the company as a whole is doing nothing to help. If Ward stabbed the game and left it bleeding, everyone since has been stealing its wallet and shoes, and kicked it in the ribs for good measure.
Automatically Appended Next Post: And hell.. after seeing the ork codex... I would be dancing in the streets if Ward had wrote it. He at least made armies interesting, even if they were broken, or the rules functionally unplayable without serious FAQ.
We've got a serious goldylocks problem. Its always too hot or too cold.
TNT925 wrote: I'm actually surprised this much hate is still directed at Ward. I can understand why GK players and Necron players are still upset, but didn't a bunch of stuff come out not too long ago saying that the codex authors have nothing to do with the actual rules themselves? I was under the impression that the unnamed GW 'design team' did all that.
If true then we can't really blame Ward for the funky rules. The fluff by all means is his doing, but the rules I thought were someone else.
I believe he was also one of the chief authors of the two rulesets (WHFB and 40K) that many attribute the ruin of their favorite system to.
The fact is, nobody outside of Lenton can ever really accurately assess the influence he may have had. Take the anecdote about Battle Focus, how many occasions may that have happened where an anecdote didn't surface? It is as possible that he had a hand in every poorly written or overpowered concept that has angered and annoyed people in the last decade as he was the sole voice pleading for balance while the rest of the studio laughed maniacally and released the Eldar and Tau books.
I think the easy way of summarising most of Ward's (or that which is attributed) excesses is a lack of restraint. Take the aforementioned Battle Focus, all it would have taken to become a fluffy and evocative rule, which gave an advantage without being unnecessary would have it allow running and snap shots, but no, run and fire at full BS, cause reasons.
It's a shame to see anyone get fired, or take joy in it (presuming that's what happened). That said, as someone who plays two armies that use Ward codexes (BA and GK) and two Kelly codexes (DE and Eldar) I'll take the latter any day of the week.
Fluff aside, I never felt Ward's rules were really that great. List building a Ward codex normally meant picking out the one or two near-broken units and leveraging them with a lot of underwhelming stuff. His books tended to excel in the meta they were written, but fail to stand the test of time.
Yes, Necrons are strong now -- but not because they have a well written book, but because the rules of 40K changed in such a way that they became very strong.
My caveat is that I like randomness. I'm a fan of fun special rules and weird things that can influence the tabletop, good and bad. Not so much things that are reliable or perform exceedingly well in a tournament setting.
Ultimately I feel about the big codex writers that:
- Ward's codexes are largely underwhelming except for 1 or 2 really cheesy combinations that can almost break the game.
- Kelly's codexes are a mixed bag of very good and bad units, which can work in concert -- but provide you with options.
- Cruddace's tend to be underpowered based on the meta.
Hopefully GW really is collaborating on books now, not just using that as a convenient excuse to take heat off their writers. I can't speak to the balance of High Elves because I don't play enough fantasy.
In terms of fluff I'll take Kelly over them all, any day.
Necrons have many builds. Armor 13 wall. Flying saucer. Wraithwing. Teleporting infantry.
Grey knights had draigo wing. Henchman spam. Lascannon monkeys. Purifier spam. Etc.
Necrons were strong in 5th and have remained so.
Dark Eldar is a really bad offender of only being propped up by edition rules. Without beastar, dark eldar wouldn't even be a blip in the competitive scene.
I'm not trying to over glorify ward. Just to point out Kelly is not some golden god. He's also a terrible codex writer that only props his books up with a few broken units while the rest are unplayable garbage.
I've seen a lot of people assuming he was fired, whereas my first thought was that he had left of his own devices (purely assumption in my part) and not seen anything to the contrary?
Can someone direct me to where all those glorying in the fact, or commiserating, that he was fired got that idea from?
Tau have been the closest we've ever gotten to an internally well balanced book (lol external balance though). Almost all units were usable and had a role in any army. I love the book from that standpoint.
Take even the much maligned vespid. You put them in any other book and people would love them. Jump troops with str 5 ap3 guns with stealth in ruins. Thats really not that bad. Its just the legacy the unit has that really ruins its perception
Azreal13 wrote: I've seen a lot of people assuming he was fired, whereas my first thought was that he had left of his own devices (purely assumption in my part) and not seen anything to the contrary?
Can someone direct me to where all those glorying in the fact, or commiserating, that he was fired got that idea from?
If you voluntarily quit a job, you normally already got another one on the line; noone wants to be unemployed for a longer period of time. Plus, as others already pointed out, he "left" the company before the end of the fiscal year so they did not have to write the last payment to the current financial report.
So, it all points to him having been fired. Which is the best thing that could have happened to 40k besides Kirby being removed from the company.
Azreal13 wrote: I've seen a lot of people assuming he was fired, whereas my first thought was that he had left of his own devices (purely assumption in my part) and not seen anything to the contrary?
Can someone direct me to where all those glorying in the fact, or commiserating, that he was fired got that idea from?
Maybe he decided to steal from the Mark Wells playbook and get out of dodge before the crash. Think want you want of him, he looks better leaving on his own now rather then being an even BIGGER scape goat after the fall.
Azreal13 wrote: I've seen a lot of people assuming he was fired, whereas my first thought was that he had left of his own devices (purely assumption in my part) and not seen anything to the contrary?
Can someone direct me to where all those glorying in the fact, or commiserating, that he was fired got that idea from?
If you voluntarily quit a job, you normally already got another one on the line; noone wants to be unemployed for a longer period of time. Plus, as others already pointed out, he "left" the company before the end of the fiscal year so they did not have to write the last payment to the current financial report.
So, it all points to him having been fired. Which is the best thing that could have happened to 40k besides Kirby being removed from the company.
How do you know he is unemployed? He could have a book deal for all we know. Heck he could be writing a script for another series of Middle Earth crap.
Azreal13 wrote: I've seen a lot of people assuming he was fired, whereas my first thought was that he had left of his own devices (purely assumption in my part) and not seen anything to the contrary?
Can someone direct me to where all those glorying in the fact, or commiserating, that he was fired got that idea from?
If you voluntarily quit a job, you normally already got another one on the line; noone wants to be unemployed for a longer period of time. Plus, as others already pointed out, he "left" the company before the end of the fiscal year so they did not have to write the last payment to the current financial report.
So, it all points to him having been fired. Which is the best thing that could have happened to 40k besides Kirby being removed from the company.
Well there's some significant leaps of logic there, if he's genuinely left to write for a living, that explains not having another job to go to, and I for one wouldn't consider when it was right for the company that I left, but when it was right for me, if that happened to be April or November.
So, a bunch of assumptions based on tenuous evidence then?
Well there's some significant leaps of logic there, if he's genuinely left to write for a living, that explains not having another job to go to, and I for one wouldn't consider when it was right for the company that I left, but when it was right for me, if that happened to be April or November.
So, a bunch of assumptions based on tenuous evidence then?
Just stating which things point to it. Pursuing a career as a book author when having previously proven that you're terrible at writing stories might not be a very wise decision. That's like Michael J. Fox quitting acting to become a neuro-surgeon.
PapaSoul wrote: So with Mat Ward gone, what will the whiniest depths of the community cry about now? They're not happy unless they have something to complain about! x
MajorWesJanson wrote: If he was pushed out, I feel sorry for him. The amount of vitriol spewed at him by people online was insane. He was a game designer, not someone who worked at Haliburton or Bain Capital. The people who called for him to be fired should be ashamed.
Don't be stupid. It's not like we were calling for his summary execution, we just wanted the job done by someone who would do it right.
..And who in the company actually does things right?
Alan Blighe, AKA, Mr. Horus Heresy FW books. I love everything that group is doing for 30k.
PapaSoul wrote: So with Mat Ward gone, what will the whiniest depths of the community cry about now? They're not happy unless they have something to complain about! x
Maybe they'll complain about people complaining....oh wait, you just did. Ninja-ed!
PapaSoul wrote: So with Mat Ward gone, what will the whiniest depths of the community cry about now? They're not happy unless they have something to complain about! x
Maybe they'll complain about people complaining....oh wait, you just did. Ninja-ed!
I don't think you quite understand what complaining is
Well there's some significant leaps of logic there, if he's genuinely left to write for a living, that explains not having another job to go to, and I for one wouldn't consider when it was right for the company that I left, but when it was right for me, if that happened to be April or November.
So, a bunch of assumptions based on tenuous evidence then?
Just stating which things point to it. Pursuing a career as a book author when having previously proven that you're terrible at writing stories might not be a very wise decision. That's like Michael J. Fox quitting acting to become a neuro-surgeon.
As a Daemon player who's been fethed over 4 times now by Ward, I can't help but feel a wee bit happier now!
First I was an automatic TFG just for playing DoC in 7th...
Then I because I couldn't get a game of Fantasy in without every opponent whining endlessly, I moved to 40k and took it up the bum from Durp Knights and all their OP crap...
Then the "fixed" DoC book comes out in 8th, and my Tzeentch army is rendered utterly unplayable...
And the very next Fantasy release are High Elves who Mr. Ward only handed the single most broken magic item since 5th edition's Forbidden Rod, which auto-stomps Daemons. (because our pile of crap army book wasn't quite enough of a nerf beating for some it seems.)
The only good thing to have happened to Daemons over the past 6 years has been Mr. Kelly giving us an overall fantastic 40k codex.
Here's hoping the upcoming Grey Knight book isn't going to repeat the exact same mistakes Ward made with his other works.
Well, usually it describe something more subtle than “Hurr durr, I hate women, I will hit them with a stick”.
If he actually always had the sisters portrayed as weak and ineffectual (he had not, they were portrayed “just like usual” in the WDex), then it would be sensible to suspect misogyny. However, it is clear from his blog and twitter posts (if that is the same person, again) that he is not a misogynist.
Sasori wrote: Can people not leave this guy alone.. Jesus...
He brought it all onto himself
He will certainly get some rest now, though, as he can no longer spread his terrible writing among WHFB and 40k players. And with less reason to hate him, he won't be focused as hard as he was in the past. So all in all, the decision to leave GW, whether it was he himself or some dude at GW, was the best decision for all involved parties. He now has the chance to start anew and his new works may even be positively received by another audience.
Especially since I essentially agree with you two - Swastakowey and Red Corsair - in that 
