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Outside a few things that would still need to be fixed in the Space Marine codex (I'm still waiting for my 2 special Weapon Tacticals, Terminators still being overpriced, etc), the crunch for the 5th edition Space Marine codex was pretty good as far as I recall. I'm not sure if there were generic Combat Tactics you could trade in the original for, which would've been cool as like a proto-Chapter Tactics. I DO miss my Pedro and Asterion being in the same squad simply "because".

kburn wrote:
He seemed bad at the time, but is infinitely better than robin "bona fide" cruddace and phil "eldar" kelly in hindsight.

His point values and abilities were always interesting and well balanced. Everything was a tad overpowered, but most codexes were like that then.

His fluff was terrible and over-the-top, but better than the crap we get now.

I'd rather matt ward take over, with cruddace and kelly getting the sack.

What bad fluff we get now? Seriosly, an example would be nice, as ward is far far worse than almost any fluff gw has ever produced, including the crap that is inquisition war, Dawn of war, furious Abyss etc.

He gave us Nemesor and Trazyn. You can only be neutral with him because those two amazing pieces of fluff exist.

In fact, I'm pretty much a fan of all the special characters Necrons have.

kburn wrote:
He seemed bad at the time, but is infinitely better than robin "bona fide" cruddace and phil "eldar" kelly in hindsight.

Guard were one of the lower top tier armies in 5th. "Leafblower" as it was dubbed was scary for anyone who lacked a serious alpha strike capability.

Orks meanwhile were a codex that managed to hold its own, despite its extreme age and included some of the best background of any codex written to date. Dark Eldar meanwhile were hailed as the single best balanced book of 5th edition.

kburn wrote:
His point values and abilities were always interesting and well balanced. Everything was a tad overpowered, but most codexes were like that then.

No, they weren't. The only codices that were 0 fun to face in 5th were the SW netlist of maxed-out Longwangs + 4x JotWW, BA mech spam w/army-wide FnP, and pretty much everything and anything put together from Codex: "I-Win" Knights.

Grey Knights alone pretty much broke the entire edition, and were infamous for nonsensical garbage such as Dick Quake, 'Winning' Flame, Fortitude, Psyco 'nades, Henchmen spam, Psyfledreads and numerous other bullgak.

kburn wrote:
His fluff was terrible and over-the-top, but better than the crap we get now.

I'd rather matt ward take over, with cruddace and kelly getting the sack.

Ward's fluff is atrocious, even by GW standards.

He also managed to successfully break 7th edition Fantasy through his DoC fanboy book, which then forced every subsequent book to be ramped up to the nines... He successfully broke 5th ed 40k with GK's, which alone outright removed Daemons, Tyranids and DoA from the game entirely... He also successfully destroyed the army balance of 8th ed Fantasy with DoC (again!) and High Elves, which rather humorously pulled an even bigger 'auto-win' button against Daemons than GK's did!

Ok. I know for a fact that he done goofed with his changing of the Necrons. I like what he did with the C'tan, but other than that, he done goofed . If he left it at, Czaras had his mind, no one else did so that people don't freak out, and so he doesn't, with him calming them during bio-transferrence, but he took power over them all for, well, power. He then turned on them when they were weakened and enslaved them. I don't know about the Great Sleep other than a "Ok, I'm tired of this. I'm going, see ya. Oh yeah, here is intelligence". Then just have no conscious. Or something along those lines.(definitely change it).

Now, he is a very good player. You have to give him that. However, lore wise, I believe he is the Chaos God of anti-history. Also, he likes the color blue, so he turned the Ultra-smurfs into the Eagles.


I vote 1. Ultramarines aren't eagles. They are the toilet seat people.

 Formosa wrote:

kburn wrote:
He seemed bad at the time, but is infinitely better than robin "bona fide" cruddace and phil "eldar" kelly in hindsight.

His point values and abilities were always interesting and well balanced. Everything was a tad overpowered, but most codexes were like that then.

His fluff was terrible and over-the-top, but better than the crap we get now.

I'd rather matt ward take over, with cruddace and kelly getting the sack.

What bad fluff we get now? Seriosly, an example would be nice, as ward is far far worse than almost any fluff gw has ever produced, including the crap that is inquisition war, Dawn of war, furious Abyss etc.

Do people really care about fluff in codexes ? Even in Black Library novels most of it is terrible bar Aaron Dembski Bowden and Dan Abnett
Matt Ward was no better or worse than any of the other fluff writers

The rules in his 40K codexes however where leagues above the others in 5th edition.

I feel that Matt Ward is directly responsible for the power creep in 40K as it has come to today. He also is directly responsible for several things that just should not exist and since their conception have now snowballed into the travesty that is 40K today.

1 - 3+ inv save. The stormshield should never have been made. No INV save should ever be greater than 4+ if the model has any sort of armor save.

2 - MC stats on infantry models. Mephiston should never have existed as he was when the 5th codex dropped.

3 - Bubble or Halo effects - Apothocaries come to mind and now things like FNP for everybody,

4 - Hard Counters - Now there may have been unhill fights in the past, but nothing like GK dominance over Daemons. Or Necron lightning shields vs Orks. Now we have things like Grav which GW seems to think is an good mechanic.

As for the better writer. I'll take a Kelly book over anything Ward put out in 5th and early 6th. Ward books were only balanced when played against each other. Because they all seemed to have the same OP level. Kelly books with the exception of Space Wolves (which could compete with anything Ward put out) very balanced against everything else in the game at the time. The latest Eldar book though... not sure who really wrote it, but damn... shame on them.

However even after saying all that. I truely believe the turning point in 40K was Cruddence with the 4th ed. IG book.

Ward releases the 4th ed. SM codex. And its strong. Not OP strong, but strong. And it did somethings very wronge that pretty much the game has never recovered from... IE,,, 3+ Inv save on stormshields. However, the next codex to come out was IG. And it was freekin OP in almost every way. So many OP options, so much spammable tanks and hardware. This is where your leaf blower comes from and it was never fun to play against.

And this, GW couldn't let stand Since we all know that GW in their wisdom would never FAQ them down, but they couldn't have an non SM book be the poster child for power. SM had to be the draw to the game, because that was their thing. As such the next 5 MEQ codexs saw a power jump like you wouldn't believe. The 3+ had to be king again and it all has snowballed to where we are now.

So yeah, IMO, Cruddence IG from all those years ago was the turning point that made codex creep GWs SOP and it was Matt Ward who really fanned those flames with his BA, GK, Necron, codexs.

I didn't even bother reading the rest of that post after they complained about Storm Shields.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
I didn't even bother reading the rest of that post after they complained about Storm Shields.

Why? You think they are perfect as is? You don't see the problem allowing a model to have a 66% chance to live against anything that should have killed it in the first place. Hell, even a 33% chance should be considered a gift and you should be thank full for it.

 Jayden63 wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
I didn't even bother reading the rest of that post after they complained about Storm Shields.

Why? You think they are perfect as is? You don't see the problem allowing a model to have a 66% chance to live against anything that should have killed it in the first place. Hell, even a 33% chance should be considered a gift and you should be thank full for it.

You choose from a better chance of surviving or doing more damage. It's finely balanced.

Bartali wrote:
Do people really care about fluff in codexes?

The fluff/setting is literally the only reason to be into 40K, as the rules are dog-gak.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 Jayden63 wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
I didn't even bother reading the rest of that post after they complained about Storm Shields.

Why? You think they are perfect as is? You don't see the problem allowing a model to have a 66% chance to live against anything that should have killed it in the first place. Hell, even a 33% chance should be considered a gift and you should be thank full for it.

You choose from a better chance of surviving or doing more damage. It's finely balanced.

I would agree with you if it only worked in Melee. The way combat shields, the storm shields predecessor did. But in what way are you sacrificing damage output when its defending you against shooting attacks? Your melee weapon isn't magically flying 24" down field because you dont have a storm shield. And there are probably many, I can say that because I know of many in my area, where taking a SS over an additional CCW is a nobrainer. That one extra attack for more damage output on any one particular CC round is meaningless if the SS keep you alive even one more round where you can get the models entire attack value in.


Now, I'm not saying Storm Shields or even INV saves shouldn't exist. I'm saying permanent 3+ Inv saves against everything and anything from any and all sources shouldn't exist.

The way the game is now a 3++ isn't really that much to be honest.

Wait, 5th ed DE were balanced? You still had a load of garbage units, so internal balance was way out, venom spam was (and to some extent is, as allies) a "thing" to be worried about, and too many phil kelly trademark "no brainer upgrades", like 10 points to double the number of shots a venom spits out.

PK broke 4th ed with Eldar, exploiting every stupid skimmer mechanic AND rending to create the single most boring build ive played against, flying circus.

Ward had some good points, in at least GK I could build an intersting army (everyone could, if they werent so gak focussed on winning such a badly balanced game as 40k) and have it be semi reasonable. Compared to the pile of oh look, its nurgle again that is CHaos marines in every edition since 3.5 was over....sigh.

Ward left under a cloud though. BY all accounts pretty egotistical.

Who did Codex: Space Marines (2015)? That is good job (except gravs, IMO 40K would be better without gravs).

 Draco wrote:
Who did Codex: Space Marines (2015)? That is good job (except gravs, IMO 40K would be better without gravs).

Alan Smithee. Every other designer has left, and Alan is the sole person responsible for the rules currently.

 Jayden63 wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
I didn't even bother reading the rest of that post after they complained about Storm Shields.

Why? You think they are perfect as is? You don't see the problem allowing a model to have a 66% chance to live against anything that should have killed it in the first place. Hell, even a 33% chance should be considered a gift and you should be thank full for it.

Nope. Terminators are awful and storm shields just make them a bit less awful.

 -DE- wrote:

 Draco wrote:
Who did Codex: Space Marines (2015)? That is good job (except gravs, IMO 40K would be better without gravs).

Alan Smithee. Every other designer has left, and Alan is the sole person responsible for the rules currently.

Utterly incorrect. I personally know one of the other design team. DO you have a source to back it up, because if you do I can put you in touch with someone to correct you (Bear wizard)

Hell, they were on the stage at WHW over the weekend. You could have counted them!

IMO, terminators need all the help they can get, this edition. It really the advent of 2++ that worried me. No armour can beat that.

And the it became re-rollable, with access to FnP and invisibility...

nosferatu1001 wrote:

 -DE- wrote:

 Draco wrote:
Who did Codex: Space Marines (2015)? That is good job (except gravs, IMO 40K would be better without gravs).

Alan Smithee. Every other designer has left, and Alan is the sole person responsible for the rules currently.

Utterly incorrect. I personally know one of the other design team. DO you have a source to back it up, because if you do I can put you in touch with someone to correct you (Bear wizard)

Hell, they were on the stage at WHW over the weekend. You could have counted them!

I suggest you Google Alan Smithee...

I imagine the current set-up is Jervis determining the direction of the game, as lot of stuff he talked about in WD articles is now in 40K (integration of Apocalypse, FOC less important, unbound, removal of balance etc). Kelly, Cruddace et al doing the codexes.

Damn, I was asleep that day Apologies, missed the reference totally

Cruddace is in charge of rules, separate team for fluff.

They used to have a friday testing day, like a mini AGILE concept, but that got removed...