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Vaktathi wrote:

Eldarain wrote:

Vaktathi wrote:I don't think he did write the WE book, he wasn't didn't join GW until 2006 or 2007 IIRC. The first stuff I think he was credited in was either late 2007 or early 2008.

He actually did. I just checked it. "Written by: Anthony Reynolds and Matthew Ward."

Really? I didn't think he'd been at GW that far back, he seems to have a rather large gap in published works between then though it looks like.

I was surprised to see his name there when I looked. I like to think they keep him shackled up at HQ like a crazed Chaos Dreadnought between cash cow codex writing.

Vaktathi wrote:

Eldarain wrote:

Vaktathi wrote:I don't think he did write the WE book, he wasn't didn't join GW until 2006 or 2007 IIRC. The first stuff I think he was credited in was either late 2007 or early 2008.

He actually did. I just checked it. "Written by: Anthony Reynolds and Matthew Ward."

Really? I didn't think he'd been at GW that far back, he seems to have a rather large gap in published works between then though it looks like.

LOTR my dear, LOTR. That is what he was occupied with in said gap. Creating Ghulavar and other such monstrosities.

Vaktathi wrote:

Eldarain wrote:

Vaktathi wrote:I don't think he did write the WE book, he wasn't didn't join GW until 2006 or 2007 IIRC. The first stuff I think he was credited in was either late 2007 or early 2008.

He actually did. I just checked it. "Written by: Anthony Reynolds and Matthew Ward."

Really? I didn't think he'd been at GW that far back, he seems to have a rather large gap in published works between then though it looks like.

He was considered an "assistant games designer" at the time.

That same year, he was in several WDs opposite Jervis--starting with the "Terminator Showcase" where Ward's Necron army was used against the Ultramarines 1st Company.
He also wrote the "Creature" rules which came out around that timeframe, and specifically wrote the rules for the "Catachan Devil".

That might explain it I guess. I've never seen LotR stuff played or bought anywhere ever, so that would explain it.

It's odd, GW considers it a core product, but I've seen more games of Necromunda and Battlefleet Gothic, at stores that literally haven't sold it in years, than I've seen people ever even look at the LotR products, much less actually played.

I've never subscribed to WD and have only bothered picking up a small handful of them, and didn't play LotR, so if he spent all his time doing stuff there, that would explain why it feels like a gap.

I think it's more that he "got his start" doing that, so of course you don't really notice it until he got let off the leash a bit.

That said...
I kind of feel like Lord of the Rings/War of the Rings players probably don't play much at stores given the negative reactions most 40k/WHFB players have against the game.

I've never really played at an actual GW store aside from a bit at the LA Battle Bunker, it's always been at independents where it's almost as likely to see a warmahordes, Heavy Gear, or Flames of War game as it is a 40k/fantasy game, so I dunno if that was really an issue.

It's just nobody seemed interested in it from my experience. Few stores even stock it, of the ones that do the stock tends to not move much and they have relatively little stock with supposedly smaller games getting lots more sales and attention. The playerbases at a lot of the stores I've been around often pick up everything the store stocks, at least a little bit to try it out if nothing else, but nobody ever seems interested in LotR for some reason.

I'm not blaming LotR's status on Mat Ward, because honestly I have zero experience with it, but it would be why he feels like such a newcomer when he isn't

The Emperor's Gift by ADB is more or less an attempt to clean up the damage left to GK lore with actual good writing. Fortunately, he managed to breathe life back into a faction that Ward made incredibly unlikable.

Anyway, I despise his fluff, am indifferent to what he does in the game. Though he makes most things he touches Overpowered it seems.

Vaktathi wrote:I've never really played at an actual GW store aside from a bit at the LA Battle Bunker, it's always been at independents where it's almost as likely to see a warmahordes, Heavy Gear, or Flames of War game as it is a 40k/fantasy game, so I dunno if that was really an issue.

It's just nobody seemed interested in it from my experience. Few stores even stock it, of the ones that do the stock tends to not move much and they have relatively little stock with supposedly smaller games getting lots more sales and attention. The playerbases at a lot of the stores I've been around often pick up everything the store stocks, at least a little bit to try it out if nothing else, but nobody ever seems interested in LotR for some reason.

I'm not blaming LotR's status on Mat Ward, because honestly I have zero experience with it, but it would be why he feels like such a newcomer when he isn't

LotR is a very interesting animal actually.

Prior to Ward really taking into his own hands with the '2nd edition' that came following the RotK box game, it was strictly for those first few years a purely senario & story driven 'game'. There was little to no balance at all between 'good' and 'evil'. Hell, in both the FotR & TT's versions, evil was little more than a punching bag! RotK even the odds a bit, but really, it wasn't until the big hardback rulebook came that the game became a 'fair' battle between good & evil factions.

With Ward's BBB, the game rules themselves were decent outside of the utterly disastrous 'Fight System', but alot of the factions were horribly imbalanced. Hell, in the stratgy battle game, Aragorn was so broken due to the fight system that he could walk through an infinate amount of weaker fighters by simply rolling a 5 or 6 and auto-winning the fight!
Overall, the 'good guys' were mostly undercosted, while the 'bad guys' typically got saddled with highly over-costed troops and required fairly set lists to compete. Hobbits believe it or not were the most powerful army in the game!
Thus was LotR's doom sealed as the game became viewed by many as 'so dumb & easy a toddle could trounce you!' Litterly, if you had higher fight values than your opponent, you auto-won by virtue of rolling 6's in combat. Thus, 7 year olds who simply threw hordes of elves or dol-amroth or uruk-hai at a season veteran using the likes of haradrim or goblins or such would likely beatface, unless the veteran player played a boring keep-away pts denial style game. Heroes, especially the named heroes of which Good had infinitely more of, were badly imbalanced and only made things that much worse! (ie: I once lost an entire army of Easterlings - over 50 of 'em! to just Aragorn, Imrahil & Gimli! )

With 'War of the Ring', Ward managed to actually write what's easily considered one of, if the the outright 'best' game system rules GW has ever produced! Fast-paced, exciting, easy to understand, yet highly tactical AND balanced for competitive play! It was the system that LotR players had been crying for and fixed glaring & long bemoaned issues such as the -up fight phase and named heroes being all but invincible!
Then you hit the army list section and things fell apart completely... Basically, there's a goodly number of abilities granted by heroes are just beyond stupidly OP, including most 'Epic Actions'. And honestly, if you think magic is borked in 8th ed Fantasy, it's actually very tame compared to what it can do in WotR! The system is so easy to break, that you can have Elven Kingdoms armies that can machine gun 3 mumaks in one turn, or a company of 8 'evil' models who include Amdur + Saruman + Khamul 'blendernaught' their way through an infinite number of opponents... Stupid crap like this led to WotR being shelved by almost everyone because you had to purposely go out of your way to avoid broken combos... (and even then you couldn't help but include a few that ruin the game).

Honestly, if GK's are OTT/borderline broken and 7th ed Daemons of Chaos killed the game entirely, the armies you can make in WotR would be considered the opening of Pandora's Box - except 'Hope' decided to just up and say 'screw you all' and left us to our fate!!!


Then add to this fiasco the cost involved with putting together a decent force due to all the metal/finecast in the range and the lack of details on the older plastics, and it's pretty easy to see why the LotR game has failed miserably since the films were first out.

Harriticus wrote:The Emperor's Gift by ADB is more or less an attempt to clean up the damage left to GK lore with actual good writing. Fortunately, he managed to breathe life back into a faction that Ward made incredibly unlikable.

The Grey Knights never should have been likable in the first place.

They're not your "knights in shining armor". They're steel clad killers.

Kanluwen wrote:

Harriticus wrote:The Emperor's Gift by ADB is more or less an attempt to clean up the damage left to GK lore with actual good writing. Fortunately, he managed to breathe life back into a faction that Ward made incredibly unlikable.

The Grey Knights never should have been likable in the first place.

They're not your "knights in shining armor". They're steel clad killers.

Ward didn't make them that. He made them invincible mary stu's that can do no wrong and humiliate everyone else.

Emperor's Gift humanizes Grey Knights, but doesn't absolve them. It brings up moral questions that Ward wouldn't contemplate, as his GK's are too busy giving Mortarion and Magnus wedgies to ponder such things.

Name a single Codex which "brings up moral questions".

Oh, and by the way? I suggest you reread C: GK. More particularly..."The Raxos Civil War" bit.

Novels are where the universe is fleshed out in full. Codices are, for all intents and purposes, the "Cliff's Notes" version of events.

Experiment 626 wrote:
Overall, the 'good guys' were mostly undercosted, while the 'bad guys' typically got saddled with highly over-costed troops and required fairly set lists to compete. Hobbits believe it or not were the most powerful army in the game!

Ah yes, the infamous Hobbit stone-throwing army..

With 'War of the Ring', Ward managed to actually write what's easily considered one of, if the the outright 'best' game system rules GW has ever produced! Fast-paced, exciting, easy to understand, yet highly tactical AND balanced for competitive play! It was the system that LotR players had been crying for and fixed glaring & long bemoaned issues such as the -up fight phase and named heroes being all but invincible!
Then you hit the army list section and things fell apart completely... Basically, there's a goodly number of abilities granted by heroes are just beyond stupidly OP, including most 'Epic Actions'. And honestly, if you think magic is borked in 8th ed Fantasy, it's actually very tame compared to what it can do in WotR!

I always thought WoTR was more or less similar to Warhammer historical games, but with the added magic? I've possibly got the chronology messed up. If Ward (and Vettock) did indeed build the WoTR rules then they definitely get some kudos points from me for it, I always thought they were a nice set of rules, and certainly seem tighter than either of 40k/WFB at the moment.

I remember when LotR first came out and was decently priced. You could get 24 orcs for $20. Too bad I couldn't get anyone to play it!

Though one time Aragorn went through 48 orcs without taking a wound, which soured me on the game a bit. Clearly orcs need Nazgul support.

Seriously, I tried to get people to play this game, and no one was interested.

Harriticus wrote:Ward didn't make them that. He made them invincible mary stu's that can do no wrong and humiliate everyone else.

Really? I must have missed those parts in the codex. Could you give some examples where the Grey Knights proved themselves better at siege warfare than everyone else? Or perhaps where they were better at attrition warfare than anyone else? Or space warfare?

Because the only thing I remember them being better at than anyone else was Daemon hunting. Fancy that.

Emperor's Gift humanizes Grey Knights, but doesn't absolve them. It brings up moral questions that Ward wouldn't contemplate, as his GK's are too busy giving Mortarion and Magnus wedgies to ponder such things.

Like killing innocents to prevent (potential) Daemonic corruption in the future? No, there's plenty of that in the codex. Like Kanluwen said, the codexes are the condensed versions, and don't have enough room for moral exploration.

And yet most other authors never an into the same issues with similar size and space requirements.

The old Daemonhunters book certainly didn't have the same issue and yet got across the point that the GK's were very definitely the "by any means necessary" and "ultra-elite" type fellows with nearly half the page count without making them do ridiculous things.

Vaktathi wrote:And yet most other authors never an into the same issues with similar size and space requirements.

Not really. It's a case of "finding a problem where you want to find it".

People ignore an Ork castrating a Daemon Prince.
People ignore the Dark Eldar book and some of its silliness.
People ignore an Ork crashing into a Titan to destroy it.

Now, of course, all three of those examples can be used to simply say "SEE, THEY'RE BAD TOO!"...or simply to say that "Over the top is part of the setting".

The old Daemonhunters book certainly didn't have the same issue and yet got across the point that the GK's were very definitely the "by any means necessary" and "ultra-elite" type fellows with nearly half the page count without making them do ridiculous things.

The old Daemonhunters spent more time talking about the Inquisition than the Grey Knights.

It also, seemingly, set the precedent that Grey Knights are "good guys".

An Ork surfing on a dakka jet while plumming into a titan = orky.

An ork using a deffkopta propella to drop down onto a titan Mary Poppin style = orky.

Thats what Orks are, over the top silly awesomeness.

Have any other factions do that, you have bad taste.

Not hard to understand .

Kanluwen wrote:

Vaktathi wrote:And yet most other authors never an into the same issues with similar size and space requirements.

Not really. It's a case of "finding a problem where you want to find it".

People ignore an Ork castrating a Daemon Prince.

There's a difference between a Daemon Prince and a Daemon Primarch, and we don't know *exactly* what happened, he just "made a gesture of his own"...with a powerklaw, as his last act in the battle. He becomes a plaything of the daemon world thereafter to fight and die every day for eternity as a plaything of Khorne. Granted, he's fine with that, but it's still a lot different than carving a name into the heart of a Daemon *PRIMARCH* and going on about one's business, and Draigo's tenure in the Warp isn't really controlled by anything, the Chaos entities don't want him there, and it's made clear he'll break free one day, there's little to suggest he's the tragic plaything of the Chaos gods as opposed to innumerable other possible explanations given that the big 4 aren't the only thing present in or capable of controlling the Warp.

People ignore the Dark Eldar book and some of its silliness.

Vect's new fluff is a bit silly in some areas, but aside from that anything in particular?

People ignore an Ork crashing into a Titan to destroy it.

Now, of course, all three of those examples can be used to simply say "SEE, THEY'RE BAD TOO!"...or simply to say that "Over the top is part of the setting".

Granted Wazdakka killing a titan was very goofy. That said, as you already noted, there is some place for "over the top" in the setting, and that particular faction is known for goofy and ridiculous going back 25 years, so it's not as silly as with other factions, though yeah it's not something I would have written. The problem with many of the examples of Mat Ward's fluff is that they're in factions where they aren't supposed to be goofy.

The old Daemonhunters spent more time talking about the Inquisition than the Grey Knights.

It also, seemingly, set the precedent that Grey Knights are "good guys".

It did talk a lot about the Inquisition, but that's sorta irrelevant, nobody thought of the Grey Knights as anything but deadly serious, victory at all costs, elite of the elite type guys, without the ridiculousness of the current GK book.

As for being "good guys", well, it's a matter of perspective. They work for a greater good, but as written in the DH book I certainly wouldn't want to be anywhere near them, with a canticle of theirs going on about unstinting hatred, a hunger for holy war, going on about punishing deeds and nobody evading their cleansing fire and all that, an excerpt from a "book of indoctrinations" about how it's better to die in vain than live in "abomination" and praising "zealous martyrs", with psychic powers called "holocaust", "scourging", going on about chants of detestation, etc.

Vaktathi wrote:

Kanluwen wrote:

Vaktathi wrote:And yet most other authors never an into the same issues with similar size and space requirements.

Not really. It's a case of "finding a problem where you want to find it".

People ignore an Ork castrating a Daemon Prince.

There's a difference between a Daemon Prince and a Daemon Primarch, and we don't know *exactly* what happened, he just "made a gesture of his own"...with a powerklaw, as his last act in the battle. He becomes a plaything of the daemon world thereafter to fight and die every day for eternity as a plaything of Khorne. Granted, he's fine with that, but it's still a lot different than carving a name into the heart of a Daemon *PRIMARCH* and going on about one's business, and Draigo's tenure in the Warp isn't really controlled by anything, the Chaos entities don't want him there, and it's made clear he'll break free one day, there's little to suggest he's the tragic plaything of the Chaos gods as opposed to innumerable other possible explanations given that the big 4 aren't the only thing present in or capable of controlling the Warp.

It's really not though. If an Ork can castrate a Daemon Prince(it makes it quite clear that this is what happens, as "Tuska reached up between the Daemon's leg and made a final gesture of his own"), then is it really so over the top and unbelievable that a Grey Knight--one who has been trained since their indoctrination to fight the Daemonic--can subdue a Daemon Primarch temporarily, who just slew a Grey Knight Grandmaster and likely other Grey Knights as well, in the midst of a battle?

People ignore the Dark Eldar book and some of its silliness.

Vect's new fluff is a bit silly in some areas, but aside from that anything in particular?

Mostly just Vect. Sliscus is a bit silly, as is Malys, but Vect is the biggest problem.

Oh. And giving a black hole to someone as a "gift".

People ignore an Ork crashing into a Titan to destroy it.

Now, of course, all three of those examples can be used to simply say "SEE, THEY'RE BAD TOO!"...or simply to say that "Over the top is part of the setting".

Granted Wazdakka killing a titan was very goofy. That said, as you already noted, there is some place for "over the top" in the setting, and that particular faction is known for goofy and ridiculous going back 25 years, so it's not as silly as with other factions, though yeah it's not something I would have written. The problem with many of the examples of Mat Ward's fluff is that they're in factions where they aren't supposed to be goofy.

I don't often say this, but...

A little bit of goofy might be necessary at this point. Trayzn is a good example of this, giving Inquisitor Valeria a Tesseract for a "gift" after she sent Guardsmen to steal an artifact from him.
Draigo isn't necessarily "goofy", but the idea is so over the top that it just feels right fitting into the setting.
After all, the Ruinous Powers do so love to toy with heroes...

The old Daemonhunters spent more time talking about the Inquisition than the Grey Knights.

It also, seemingly, set the precedent that Grey Knights are "good guys".

It did talk a lot about the Inquisition, but that's sorta irrelevant, nobody thought of the Grey Knights as anything but deadly serious, victory at all costs, elite of the elite type guys, without the ridiculousness of the current GK book.

As for being "good guys", well, it's a matter of perspective. They work for a greater good, but as written in the DH book I certainly wouldn't want to be anywhere near them, with a canticle of theirs going on about unstinting hatred, a hunger for holy war, going on about punishing deeds and nobody evading their cleansing fire and all that, an excerpt from a "book of indoctrinations" about how it's better to die in vain than live in "abomination" and praising "zealous martyrs", with psychic powers called "holocaust", "scourging", going on about chants of detestation, etc.

You would be very surprised at how many people thought of Grey Knights--even before they got a unit called "Paladins"--as "knights in shining armor". It still exists as a problem today.

Blood Talons are grrr. That you can shove them on an AV13 walker for free is silly. Especially when said walker is WS5+.
Because your hoarde army with paperthin armor saves really needs a hoarde killer that requires the Heavy ranged AT weapons, not the heavy AT CC ones you've got. And it comes with ranged weapons built in. Yay!

Also:
"
It's really not though. If an Ork can castrate a Daemon Prince(it makes it quite clear that this is what happens, as "Tuska reached up between the Daemon's leg and made a final gesture of his own"), then is it really so over the top and unbelievable that a Grey Knight--one who has been trained since their indoctrination to fight the Daemonic--can subdue a Daemon Primarch temporarily, who just slew a Grey Knight Grandmaster and likely other Grey Knights as well, in the midst of a battle?
"
Because an Ork Warboss... you know, The Biggest Thing an ork can be, and some of them can be big enough to take on the emperor and win, is completely unable to defeat a daemon prince? Get thine grip.

Kanluwen wrote:
It's really not though. If an Ork can castrate a Daemon Prince(it makes it quite clear that this is what happens, as "Tuska reached up between the Daemon's leg and made a final gesture of his own",

It's implied but then...does a Daemon Prince of the blood god even have that hardware? And it's his last act of the battle, he certainly doesn't walk away from it, and he doesn't win the battle, nor does it necessarily mean any harm came to the Daemon. He is thereafter plainly a plaything of Khorne, fighting and dying every day for eternity for Khorne's pleasure. He enjoys it, but that doesn't change the fact that him and his boyz are eternal playthings of the chaos gods to be butchered every day for eternity.

then is it really so over the top and unbelievable that a Grey Knight--one who has been trained since their indoctrination to fight the Daemonic--can subdue a Daemon Primarch temporarily, who just slew a Grey Knight Grandmaster and likely other Grey Knights as well, in the midst of a battle?

Had is just been banishment back to the Warp? No. The ridiculousness of being able to subdue him to the point of carving his name in the Daemon Primarch's heart? Yes.

It's one thing to kill (or "kill" something, I can go out right now and shoot a Grizzly Bear dead from 300 meters. If it is able to get near me and it comes down to a physical brawl, well I'm probably screwed but if I've got a knife I may still stand a chance. Wrestling it down and cutting my name into its flesh while it's still alive? Hrm...no matter how much training I've had, probably not going happen, unless it's post-mortem.

Mostly just Vect. Sliscus is a bit silly, as is Malys, but Vect is the biggest problem.

I don't remember much about sliscus, can't find my book, I don't recall anything particularly odd with Malys's fluff aside from the silly name, but yeah, Vect's new fluff was really just too heavy on the plot armor.

Oh. And giving a black hole to someone as a "gift".

A small singularity with a very small event horizon? In and of itself not too far out of 40k fluff for Eldar. Had it been any other faction I'd agree, but they've always been described as having technology and capabilities so advanced as to seem impossible/magical to everyone else.

I don't often say this, but...

A little bit of goofy might be necessary at this point. Trayzn is a good example of this, giving Inquisitor Valeria a Tesseract for a "gift" after she sent Guardsmen to steal an artifact from him.

To an extent I agree, I had no problem with Trayzn's story (aside from him apparently being so off-handedly able to subdue thousands of armed and experienced troops). Even not being a huge fan of the Necrons fluff reboot I found that exchange to be rather fitting for 40k. Not *everything* he does is awful, just a lot of it.

Goofy isn't necessarily bad, in fact at least some element of it is vital to the feel of the 40k universe. But Mat Ward seemingly continually just mangles that line between "haha, that was funny"/"oh man that's badass" and "this reads like a bad Star Trek Fanscript", there's a point at which suspension of disbelief breaks and it goes from amusing fiction to gak. He's not alone in this (looking at you Phil Kelly with your stupid Wolf book), but he's the most consistent and widespread about it by far.

Draigo isn't necessarily "goofy", but the idea is so over the top that it just feels right fitting into the setting.
After all, the Ruinous Powers do so love to toy with heroes...

The problem is that it's presented in such a way that he's basically invincible and slays whatever is put in front of him as a matter of course, and making Daemons feel fear in the warp itself? >_>

And again, there's nothing suggesting that it's the ruinous powers holding him in the Warp, the ruinous powers keep actively trying to kill him, he's just too "boss" for it apparently, there's numerous other reasons he could kept getting sucked in.


Had it actually been done as a tragic, "trapped in hell" type deal where he's constantly tormented and achieves no victory whatsoever, fine. But the powers of Chaos being unable to harm him at all, while he stalks their realms at will and basically ruins whatever he comes across, is sillly.

You would be very surprised at how many people thought of Grey Knights--even before they got a unit called "Paladins"--as "knights in shining armor". It still exists as a problem today.

I never really go that impression personally in their DH incarnation, but that might just be me. To me, they always had, and still do have, a visually sinister look about them, they're the guys that get called in when everything needs to be burned to ashes, and I like that about them, just not necessarily how that is expressed in their current incarnation.

Kanluwen wrote:It's really not though. If an Ork can castrate a Daemon Prince(it makes it quite clear that this is what happens, as "Tuska reached up between the Daemon's leg and made a final gesture of his own"), then is it really so over the top and unbelievable that a Grey Knight--one who has been trained since their indoctrination to fight the Daemonic--can subdue a Daemon Primarch temporarily, who just slew a Grey Knight Grandmaster and likely other Grey Knights as well, in the midst of a battle?

Yes. It is.

Vaktathi wrote:Had is just been banishment back to the Warp? No. The ridiculousness of being able to subdue him to the point of carving his name in the Daemon Primarch's heart? Yes.

It's one thing to kill (or "kill" something, I can go out right now and shoot a Grizzly Bear dead from 300 meters. If it is able to get near me and it comes down to a physical brawl, well I'm probably screwed but if I've got a knife I may still stand a chance. Wrestling it down and cutting my name into its flesh while it's still alive? Hrm...no matter how much training I've had, probably not going happen, unless it's post-mortem.

Wait, what do you think happened? Draigo 'killed' Mortartion, banishing him back to the warp, and then desecrated his remains by carving up his heart. Did you really think he held down a struggling Daemon Primarch and scribbled on his still beating heart?

Again... as I said in the other thread you are giving far too much thought to this

Trying to legitimize it through logical explanation is a waste of time. It was written so that younger kids reading about this new character would say "OMG Awesome!", then go out, buy Draigo, paint him badly, then throw him in a box and move on. I think that's it and all about it, and when used by that measure 'Draigo' is an overwhelming success.

But the real acid test, if you will, has been the generally massive community back-lash against that piece of background. The majority of fans, those who have read extensively about the 40k background and universe and 'get' its ethos, understand that something stinks about Draigo; that he doesn't fit, and his entire concept feels at odds with the vast majority of established background. This isn't an obvious satire or in-joke like Marbo, or like some of the Orc stuff - and I don't think you can cite those as examples, considering that again those are a component of the 40k background that go back to day 1 and if anything just prove how OTT the Draigo background is - but I think just a mis-fire in terms of what the character represents.

My concern is that Draigo might well represent another step in a 'paradigm shift' of 40k. Away from the dark, gritty but also sometimes humourous galaxy that makes it so distinct, and towards more of 'action-hollywood' and a more child-friendly, simple story of good vs. evil and people doing 'cool stuff'. And in this way I don't rest the criticism of Draigo entirely on Matt Ward- he commented himself that the sales department often dictates what directions the rules take, and I think it is quite obvious here that the creative control of codex design with regards to writing and background is also being unduly influenced.

Kaldor, I'm glad you have found some enjoyment in the background of Draigo. Obviously it has struck a chime with you in some way (and I'm not criticizing that at all - what tickles our fancy, what we take from fictional background pieces, is different for all of us), but please acknowledge at the same time there are elements of the story that an overwhelming majority have not found to their taste.

Perhaps I am advocating closing the thread? I do think that we are going around in circles here, and that either side (read: Kaldor, vs. the assorted minions of the warp ) are most likely not going to have their opinions changed.

Implying that people that don't think Draigo's that big of a deal don't know anything about the background is kinda rude; just because you hold a position does not make it true, just as the same applies to me or anyone else.

Kaldor wrote:
Wait, what do you think happened? Draigo 'killed' Mortartion, banishing him back to the warp, and then desecrated his remains by carving up his heart. Did you really think he held down a struggling Daemon Primarch and scribbled on his still beating heart?

That's pretty much what it made it sound like yeah, you don't banish a daemon back to the warp and then have a big pile of Primarch remains.

Vaktathi wrote:And yet most other authors never an into the same issues with similar size and space requirements.

The old Daemonhunters book certainly didn't have the same issue and yet got across the point that the GK's were very definitely the "by any means necessary" and "ultra-elite" type fellows with nearly half the page count without making them do ridiculous things.

Spot on.

IMO the root of all GK evil lay in separating them out of the Daemonhunters codex and making them an independent codex. That was faceless GW suits' doing. The problem was compounded by turning He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named loose on it.

The problem was doing Daemonhunters as a book in the first place.

Vaktathi wrote:

Kaldor wrote:
Wait, what do you think happened? Draigo 'killed' Mortartion, banishing him back to the warp, and then desecrated his remains by carving up his heart. Did you really think he held down a struggling Daemon Primarch and scribbled on his still beating heart?

That's pretty much what it made it sound like yeah, you don't banish a daemon back to the warp and then have a big pile of Primarch remains.

Right, demons don't generally leave corpses. Making the GK model heading the daemonette head a bit silly.

Noisy_Marine wrote:

Vaktathi wrote:

Kaldor wrote:
Wait, what do you think happened? Draigo 'killed' Mortartion, banishing him back to the warp, and then desecrated his remains by carving up his heart. Did you really think he held down a struggling Daemon Primarch and scribbled on his still beating heart?

That's pretty much what it made it sound like yeah, you don't banish a daemon back to the warp and then have a big pile of Primarch remains.

Right, demons don't generally leave corpses. Making the GK model heading the daemonette head a bit silly.

Except there's cases where Chaos lords and Orks have gathered Daemon Skulls before...

It's very odd and something never really explained.