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So after seeing the third or fourth "Why does everyone hate Mat Ward?" or "This is Why We Hate Mat Ward!" thread, I thought I would take up a little poll to see how many people actually do hate the Mat Ward. Now, I feel I should point out, this isn't a matter of wondering WHY people hate or don't hate the Mat Ward. The question is, how badly do you hate him, based on the totality of the rules and background he's created, his fans, and what you know of him as a person?

Codex: Space Marines is great. I sincerely and honestly love that codex, and think it might even be my favorite of 5th edition next to Dark Eldar. It's not perfect mind you, but I have a lot of fun with it. That and Necrons give him enough good will for me to overlook Grey Knights, which while I don't think is an intrinsically overpowered book, is very easily exploitable.

I kind of think any poll on Matt Ward should have multiple answers and allow us to say 'I like him as a game designer' and 'I hate his fluff.'


Automatically Appended Next Post:
(that's where I stand)

Because we needed another one of these threads, right? It's just the thing this board needed.

I agree with Brother SRM and Henners. Rules-wise, he has some great books and some iffy books (Space Marines and Grey Knights as examples). Fluff wise, he's not the best, but it is hardly a deal-breaker for me. I prefer the new Necron fluff for the most part since it makes them interesting and characterful, but on the same token I understand why people don't like it. Amazing that someone here can actually have a moderate stance, right?

What I hate more is the constant need of Dakkadakka to whine on and on about the SAME THINGS.

We all get it, kthx.

Matt ward is fine. He's got some terrible fluff, and the GK book was a bit over the top.

The hate is overblown, it's just a popular bandwagon to jump on.

Inb4 Joey comes in whining about how Blood Angels are OP, despite anyone with a braincell knowing that they are not.

While some of his fluff is over the top..... I do enjoy it.....it makes for a good before bedtime read.

He has some of the best codexs in the game, both for enjoyment and reading of fluff. C;SM is balanced, and a decent read. I liked the GK book, the Necrons are now one of my favorite armies now. Everyone just needs someone to yell at.

What's up with all these Ward threads recently? And I'm more ambivalent. I just don't care enough.

I put dislike. I've not read any CS Goto, so couldn't really go all the way with the last one. ;P

Henners91 wrote:I kind of think any poll on Matt Ward should have multiple answers and allow us to say 'I like him as a game designer' and 'I hate his fluff.'


Automatically Appended Next Post:
(that's where I stand)

I'd say that's "ambivalent", personally.

As for myself...I don't hate him. In fact, I kind of like him.

I hate Cruddace more. Mat Ward makes good rules from what Ive read. Unlike that stinkin Cruddace...

You've only seen three or four Matt Ward hate threads? Seriously?

And there should have been another option: who gives a rat's %&#*@*#&$&?

This is still around? Seriously? I thought this thread was closed ages ago.

Well as a person who started one of those ward thread, maybe, just maybe some of them are trying to understand the over the top, troll like utter hatred that man seems to get.

I believe it goes mostly like this:

"I lost to Grey Knights! I hate Grey Knights. Matt Ward made the Codex! I hate Matt Ward!"

Or

"Ultramarines are stupid. I hate them for no ligitamite reason other than they are posterboys. Ultramarines are Space Marines. Matt Ward made the Space Marine codex. I hate Matt Ward"

As a rulesmaker, he's fine if you like all-powerful stuff. As a writer of prose, he's pretty terrible. Really, I don't give a crap. Anything he slips through is the fault of all GW, not just Mat Ward.

I hate Ward threads, but think it is funny that the haters are in the minority right now.

pretre wrote:I hate Ward threads, but think it is funny that the haters are in the minority right now.

I'm fairly certain they always are. They are just the loudest. It's like the Occupy Wall Street people. They were a minority (from reports I read) but everybody thought they were the overwhelming majority. They were just loud.

It's the same with Matt Ward haters. That and they don't have actually much to hate about him, mostly just abstract arguements and such.

Ignatius wrote:

pretre wrote:I hate Ward threads, but think it is funny that the haters are in the minority right now.

I'm fairly certain they always are. They are just the loudest. It's like the Occupy Wall Street people. They were a minority (from reports I read) but everybody thought they were the overwhelming majority. They were just loud.

Let's leave real life out of this.

It's the same with Matt Ward haters. That and they don't have actually much to hate about him, mostly just abstract arguements and such.

I kind of figured; it is just nice to see validation.

pretre wrote:

Ignatius wrote:

pretre wrote:I hate Ward threads, but think it is funny that the haters are in the minority right now.

I'm fairly certain they always are. They are just the loudest. It's like the Occupy Wall Street people. They were a minority (from reports I read) but everybody thought they were the overwhelming majority. They were just loud.

Let's leave real life out of this.

I bring politics into everything. It's either politics or 40k. I can usually find something parallel to whatever I'm talking about in them.

I put down I hate him as games designer, but then I'm kinda biased simply because;
a) I play Fantasy as well, thus, I was there when Daemons litterly destroyed the entire game system they were so badly OTT and over-powered. The reasoning behind making them so broken? "Well, they're Daemons!"
Apparently those were his own words as to why the game devolved into a 1 army fartfest of pure cheddar...

b) I play VC's. 8th edition thanks to the Fear nerf, (which was needed), the silliness of Steadfast and the sheer stupidity of the magic system killed my entire army. 8th edition basically rendered VC's into a boring 'one list to rule them all' system where you either won big and were hated for being a dirty power gamer, or else you were lucky to last untill turn 2!
However, a part of the blame for the VC mess also goes to Gav Thorpe, as his 7th ed VC book was craptastic and poor right from the start with absolutely 0 internal balance...

c) I play Daemons in 40k. Thank-you for making GK's so blaitently broken vs our army that there's no real point in playing the game most of the time, unless the GK player is kind enough to build as weak a list as possible that doesn't include specific units...


Seems like I've been on the recieving end of massive nerfing with almost every single Ward project as of late!
That, and his background material isn't even worth wiping my with it's so childishly fanboy'ish.

Something which bugs me is the constant statement of "Daemons broke 7th edition! THE ENTIRE EDITION!".

Weren't they released right before 8th--and slightly toned down by such? I've not played against too many people with Daemons, so it's kind of a strange issue for me.

That said, how many people remember cries from 7th of Vampires being OP?

Kanluwen wrote:Something which bugs me is the constant statement of "Daemons broke 7th edition! THE ENTIRE EDITION!".

Weren't they released right before 8th--and slightly toned down by such? I've not played against too many people with Daemons, so it's kind of a strange issue for me.

That said, how many people remember cries from 7th of Vampires being OP?

I don't square base, but some folks that I trust that do said that it seriously compromised a lot of the competitive aspects of 7th. So my answer is hearsay.

pretre wrote:

Kanluwen wrote:Something which bugs me is the constant statement of "Daemons broke 7th edition! THE ENTIRE EDITION!".

Weren't they released right before 8th--and slightly toned down by such? I've not played against too many people with Daemons, so it's kind of a strange issue for me.

That said, how many people remember cries from 7th of Vampires being OP?

I don't square base, but some folks that I trust that do said that it seriously compromised a lot of the competitive aspects of 7th. So my answer is hearsay.

People thought VC's were bad enough when they could routinely pull off having a Lord capable of killing 8-10 models in a single round of combat, combined with their 10-14+ power dice magic phases, auto-breaking your units through 'fear' and raising D6 models on a 3+ ad nausium...

Then Daemons happened and while they couldn't raise back dead models, they still had filth like;
- 22-24+ power dice magic phases.
- 'Thirsters with 2D6+2 attacks re-rolling misses every round.
- GUO's w/10 wounds, a 4+/5++/4+ regen save, (yes in fantasy you could have 3 saves!) and the ability to over-ride your 'always strikes first' rule and slap you with 'always strikes last'.
- Keeper of Secrets who regains a wound for each wound it inflicts.
- combining the Mask of Slaanesh w/Great Icon of Despair to make take your fear tests with a -3 to -5Ld penalty. (and remember, 'Fear' itself was broken in 7th!)
- Hell, every single character other than Epidemius is broken! You think Kairos is gross in 40k, he only gets to hand-pick 8 spells from any magic lore AND he still gets all the basic Tzeentch spells to boot!
- 12pts basic infantry with stat lines and/or abilities normally found on Special or even Rare type units in other armies!
- basic infantry who could cast spells.
- Siren Standard on every Slaaneshii unit. (only charge reaction you can choose is 'Hold', no fleeing, no stand and shoot, just a giant -you!)
- Flamers of Tzeentch being BS4/S5/T4/W2/A2/I4 skirmishers who would each lob D6/S4 shots for the same cost they have in 40k! And you can take upto 6 of 'em in a single unit.
Their only weakness? WS2/Ld7... But they're still Daemons so they cause fear and come standard with a 5++ save. There's a reason almost every single tournament put limits on these guys!



It seriously goes on... Basically with the way Fantasy worked in 7th, Daemons were increadably broken to the point of actually being idiot-proof with certain builds.

Playing against Daemons was pretty much pointless, and the fact they became the #1 tourny army helped to kill off the game in alot of areas. Dark Elves were able to compete, and VC's when played as a pts denial build could hold out somewhat, but overall, it was pretty pointless to actually play the game.
8th edition has balanced them somewhat. They still have alot of nasty builds and most tournaments it seems still impose restrictions on things like Master of Sorcery Heralds, ban all the special characters, limit the number of Flamers and make all the daemonic standards 0-1 per...

I'm honestly expecting the 8th ed Daemons book to be a bit of a punishment for them, similar to how Chaos Marines & 'Nids got nerfed big time for their filthy habbits back in 3rd/4th edition 40k.

ShatteredBlade wrote:What's up with all these Ward threads recently? And I'm more ambivalent. I just don't care enough.

It's not a recent thing. Mat Ward whining threads have been pretty regularly squeezed from between the cheeks of the Internet since the day Codex: Blood Angels was released.

Didn't he do the Chaos Daemons codex before it? I know that caused a lot of the early hate.

He did Chaos Daemons for Fantasy. I don't know who did the 40k one though. Thorpe possibly.

Anyway, I dislike Ward for deciding that 'Matt' is too long for him, for his fluff and for the punny names that writers seem so fond of lately when they're not just putting [word from army's name] in the name of everything in the army instead of actually making original names.

I like him because he writes good rules, even if some of them make no sense.

So I don't know... dislike I suppose. I'm sure he's a nice guy.

Mat Ward is better than Cruddace but worse than Kelly.

The holy trifecta of competitive armies was Space Wolves, Imperial Guard, and Dark Eldar. He wrote none of those; his Codex Space Marines was considered second tier at best to them. So he wrote some armies that actually competed with those. Then people started crying.

Fan Dumb can't be pleased.

rockerbikie wrote:Mat Ward is better than Cruddace but worse than Kelly.

Noone is worse than Kelly. A dyslexic monkey having a seizure on a broken typewriter is better than Kelly.