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Doesnt everyone want to be like Draigo? This guy just put pen to paper

Durza wrote:

Kaldor wrote:

n0t_u wrote:[rimarily functioning as a wish-fulfillment fantasy for the author or reader.

It is not a catch-all phrase to be used for any cliched or flat character. It refers to a specific instance, a specific type of character, that Draigo clearly is not.

Note that while that specific kind of Mary Sueism doesn't apply to Draigo, others do. New powers never seen before, simply to underline how awesome he is (surviving in the warp without any form of shielding besides his own powers), check. Ridiculously skilled, even compared to other Grey Knights (beats down Mortarion single handedly), check. No obvious personality besides probably being annoyed at Mortarion for killing his mentor, check. Totally incorruptible, check.

Of course, Mary Sue or not, he remains a fairly bland character, since we know next to nothing about him besides the over the top description we got. Which is acually my only problem with Ward; he uses far too much hyperbole. Everyone doesn't have to be the absolute pinnacle of their field, especially when you're claiming that there's a being who is better at scheming than the god of scheming.

On the note of little backstory for draigo, does anybody remember that old WD which had 4 short daemonhunter stories in the back? I like to think draigo was the kid cradling the shotgun in the middle of the blasted area, 'faith is my shield, the emperor is my sword' or whatever he was saying. I just change the name I am reading in the passage to 'draigo' (I think it is called 'finding brother somethingwhats' or something like that) and ta dah, a (really really cool) backstory

I believe the Story of Draigo is nothing more then that, a story. A propaganda piece to give hope to the Grey Knights who know they're fighting a hopeless battle against insurmountable odds. Explains everything, the blandness of Draigo, the over-the-top-ness of the story and every other annoying thing.

ZebioLizard2 wrote:

Kroothawk wrote:Actually Mat Ward got his bad reputation when he singlehandedly shot down competitive play in Warhammer Fantasy 7th edition by writing a super-imbalanced Daemons of Chaos armybook (there were threads desperately trying to make not-overpowered lists with that book). That was before he wrote any Codex. He then wrote the 8th edition Fantasy rules, making competitive play night impossible for ALL factions. And yes, his background texts look like he read too many He-Man comics.

Oh, and there ARE Phil Kelly and Robin Cruddace hate clubs.

He wrote War of the Ring before he wrote 7th edition Daemons (If I remember right), and honestly 7th edition fantasy was horrible before than regardless thanks to Gav thorpe's Dark Elves, and Vampire Counts, not to mention Skaven as well. If there's one thing that hurts is that he actually fixed up the magic phase so you couldn't overpower the enemy with 15-25+ magic dice per magic phase thrown at you. Is there a few OP spells in the lores in 8th? Yes, and they are annoying, but workable.

7th edition Daemons..Yeah, horrible, completely horrible, and by that I mean it was potentially the worst thing anyone has ever seen and I hope to god someone is smacked before this level of play is introduced back into fantasy ever again.

Not to mention 8th is doing quite well and balanced, though there are a few issues with a few 7th edition dex's, with the current codex's being done there hasn't been a truly OP 8th edition dex yet. Though I am sad to see all the unique items being toned down per book.

No, Kroothawk has it the right way 'round.

7th edition had (arguably) Dwarfs as the first book as it came out on the very tail end of 6th edition and was clearly a 'ment to be a new edition book.'

Orcs & Gobbos came next after 7th dropped and was also written by Ward.
The big complaints were that the book sucked hardcore and there was very little actual competitiveness built into it. Ward even stated in WD that he doesn't like the greenies and wasn't looking forward to writing the book when he was voluntold to do it! Now, one thing you NEVER do is publicly badmouth/trash your company's own product. He should have been fired for that one, and the final product really showed his lack of 'giva-a-damn-ability'.

High Elves were next and were seen as the begining of the 7th ed power creep as the entire army gained the ASF rule.

Vampire Counts came out the following March and the power creep was on! Gav butchered the VC material and made the new army into a power gamer's must-have due to how easily you could play a spamy points denial list backed-up by magic few could stop.

Then, Ward unleashed his Daemons of Chaos monstrosity and Fantasy 7th edition was dead. Within a few months, you either played Daemons, or you lost. Sure certain builds of HE's or VC's could stand a chance, but overall, there was no way to beat a super competitive Daemons list.
Seriously, when you could pull crap like 22+ power dice Tzeentch lists that also included 2 units of the insanely broken Flamers and led by a 2D6+2 attack 'Thirster, or else a Slaanesh 'terrorbomb' that could send even Ld10 armies packing on turn 1, you knew your book was the most broken pile of crap GW had ever published! (basically, it made 2nd edition Eldar Harlequins look semi-tame!!!)
And Ward's reasoning for this gigantic crap-shoot that rendered the entir egame un-playable? "Well, they're DAEMONS!!!1!11!!" was his answer to the question at various GW events...

Sure, Dark Elves, Lizardmen & Skaven also became OTT/border line broken, but they were still miles behind Daemons in 7th edition. Daemons were basically the "here's the best special rules in the game all mashed into 1 army which also have basic stats to equal everyone else's elite units!!!"



War of the Ring came out well after all of this, and was actually the brainchild for 8th edition.

Saying that, while Ward hit a homerun with the actual game rules for WotR, he completely fethed up on the army lists... So many broken combos even the most hardcore WAAC's power gamer doesn't know where to begin! (epic rampage is about the dumbest & most broken thing ever when you combo it with ringwraith magic for example, allowing your single company to mulch an entire formation of 9 companies!!!)
The only bright side to WotR is that every single army is broken, so if say an Elven player wants to be a complete tool and bring his jerky 'epic shoot of doom' army, he can be countered by a Mordor player bringing a huge Morannon Orc horde led by Gothmog and an allied Saruman.

Orcs & Gobbos came next after 7th dropped and was also written by Ward.
The big complaints were that the book sucked hardcore and there was very little actual competitiveness built into it. Ward even stated in WD that he doesn't like the greenies and wasn't looking forward to writing the book when he was voluntold to do it! Now, one thing you NEVER do is publicly badmouth/trash your company's own product. He should have been fired for that one, and the final product really showed his lack of 'giva-a-damn-ability'.

I never had the 7th edition O&G book, I built their army after 8th, before than I played Brettonia (Still do once in a while)

I honestly never knew this before, thanks! The rest was very informative too.

No, Kroothawk has it the right way 'round.

For 8th being an uncompetitive mess or what? I

-Loki- wrote:

broodstar wrote:I'd like to know how come there isn't a Phil Kelly (Space Wolves) or Robin Cruddace (Tyranids) hate club.

There's no Phil Kelly hate club because he generally writes good books with good lists and good fluff, with only a few obviously over or underpowered units. There are people who don't like him, but I don't think there's enough to be considered a 'club'.

There very definitely is a Cruddace hate club - a portion of the IG playerbase, and the entirety of the Sisters of Battle and Tyranid playerbases, who he screwed over with sub par codices.

Not to mention, on the WHFB side, the Las Vegas casino buffet of crap that is the 8th ed Tomb Kings army book.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Tazay wrote:I have been hearing a lot of Matt Ward lately. And I was wondering who he exactly was, and why everyone hates him? Or dislikes him.

To get a grasp on Wardhate, here's a good place to start: http://1d4chan.org/wiki/Matthew_Ward

And while saying that the ultimate responsibility for the monstrosities produced by Ward lies with faceless GW suits who in all likelihood ordered him to produce them may be true, "just following orders" never absolves one when . . . . er, must . . . resist . . . urge to Godwin this thread . . .

Let me put it this way. When immature people with no concern for manners get mad about something they complain about it on the internet. Come on people, this isn't real you know, it's a game. And I'm pretty sure Mr. Ward could care less what the haters have to say when that fat pay check comes in the mail. And their is pretty much nothing you can do about it. No one is forcing anyone else to play this game you know.

Khorne's Herald wrote:Let me put it this way. When immature people with no concern for manners get mad about something they complain about it on the internet. Come on people, this isn't real you know, it's a game. And I'm pretty sure Mr. Ward could care less what the haters have to say when that fat pay check comes in the mail. And their is pretty much nothing you can do about it. No one is forcing anyone else to play this game you know.

Actually there is something you can do about it: stop buying product Ward generates.

I've no idea why people on the internet insist that everything should be aimed at them. What's wrong with aiming a codex at adolescent boys?

The OP bs of GK and BA in 5th was grating though. Like 'crons in 6th. Guess who wrote them?
It's fun to curse him mid-battle but honestly 90% of the people who rant about him don't actually have anything against him on a personal level

The reputation is that he writes OP codexes. GKs are probably seriously OP, and BA and Necrons slightly so, IMO. Marines are a really good codex, though, pretty well balanced. He also is said to write bad fluff, which is probably true, I'd say. All in all, he is a less-than-great codex-writer, I'd say, but doesn't deserve the bad reputation he has.

DOOMBREAD wrote:The reputation is that he writes OP codexes. GKs are probably seriously OP, and BA and Necrons slightly so, IMO. Marines are a really good codex, though, pretty well balanced. He also is said to write bad fluff, which is probably true, I'd say. All in all, he is a less-than-great codex-writer, I'd say, but doesn't deserve the bad reputation he has.

When people invest the amount of money that 40k requires, they generally aren't too forgiving about sub-par quality.

There are many haters. I personally ran up to him and hugged him in Bugman's Bar at my last tournament.

Khorne's Herald wrote:Let me put it this way. When immature people with no concern for manners get mad about something they complain about it on the internet. Come on people, this isn't real you know, it's a game. And I'm pretty sure Mr. Ward could care less what the haters have to say when that fat pay check comes in the mail. And their is pretty much nothing you can do about it. No one is forcing anyone else to play this game you know.

Oh hooray, another "it's all your fault and you can't do anything about it you bad little people!" post!


We can, we can not buy his books complain about them. Believe it or not, GW does get information from places like this, they just don't actively post (anymore at least, Gav Thorpe used to post and answer questions on Warseer up until a couple of years ago). One will notice that typically things that get whined about the most on web-forums is what GW ends up changing on the next go-around.

phantommaster wrote:There are many haters. I personally ran up to him and hugged him in Bugman's Bar at my last tournament.

I would hug him too.
Why does internet always assume disliking someone's work ( with valid reasons ) means disliking that person as a human being???

Kroothawk wrote:Actually Mat Ward got his bad reputation when he singlehandedly shot down competitive play in Warhammer Fantasy 7th edition by writing a super-imbalanced Daemons of Chaos armybook (there were threads desperately trying to make not-overpowered lists with that book). That was before he wrote any Codex. He then wrote the 8th edition Fantasy rules, making competitive play night impossible for ALL factions. And yes, his background texts look like he read too many He-Man comics.

Oh, and there ARE Phil Kelly and Robin Cruddace hate clubs.

This, a million times this. It's not that armies he touches become monstrous, it's that it's hard for armies he touches to not be horrible to play against. Sure you can ruin grey knights, but it's hard without list tailoring (ever wonder why IG suddenly have a million plasma guns when they know your draigo wing is what they will be up against?). It's not even entirely the users fault, terminators as a troop choice is always going to be a pain in the ass.

Although, it should be mentioned that he did have a hand in warhammer 8th ed, which is pretty damned good.

Mr Mugguffins wrote:

Kroothawk wrote:Actually Mat Ward got his bad reputation when he singlehandedly shot down competitive play in Warhammer Fantasy 7th edition by writing a super-imbalanced Daemons of Chaos armybook (there were threads desperately trying to make not-overpowered lists with that book). That was before he wrote any Codex. He then wrote the 8th edition Fantasy rules, making competitive play night impossible for ALL factions. And yes, his background texts look like he read too many He-Man comics.

Oh, and there ARE Phil Kelly and Robin Cruddace hate clubs.

This, a million times this. It's not that armies he touches become monstrous, it's that it's hard for armies he touches to not be horrible to play against. Sure you can ruin grey knights, but it's hard without list tailoring (ever wonder why IG suddenly have a million plasma guns when they know your draigo wing is what they will be up against?). It's not even entirely the users fault, terminators as a troop choice is always going to be a pain in the ass.

Although, it should be mentioned that he did have a hand in warhammer 8th ed, which is pretty damned good.

There will ALWAYS! be imbalances and horrible match-ups in GW games as that's the nature of their beast. GW prides itself on allowing the player to fully explore and build any option they can come up with, based on the rich background of their game worlds. So every codex & army book is purposely designed to be as flexible and offer as many varried builds as we can come up with.
This isn't Warmahordes with it's rigidly structured characters that more or less define your army, this is instead a system designed to expand on our own imaginations & creativity. Hence why every section of the army list has nearly endless possible options and combinations.

It's impossible to balance that kind of a system, as you're always going to have those one or two 'best' combinations of options. GW doesn't care about Mr.Bigtime who looks at their game as being a hyper-competitive sport though, so if his nose is put out of joint by army book imbalances, well, we know where he can go!



That said, it's one thing to create some slight imbalances like those that exist in say the SW's codex where Grey Hunters are 'more pts efficient' than Blood Claws, or Longfangs with missile launchers are 'the best option'. Those lists aren't unbeatable, and they also aren't massive uphill battles for multiple armies to contend with!

However, it's completely another thing to create a set of rules that outright invalidates one more entire armies from even standing a snowball's chance in hell of putting up a fight! Look at what GK's can do to Daemons & Tyranids. It's completely wrong that those armies have almost no chance against a GK army.

Tyranids are in tough because they can't out-shoot the GK's, and their main strength of being an assault army is 100% countered by the likes of Purifyers, +2I halberds, deathcultist & crusader mobs, multiple sources of rad & psycho grenades and force weapons everywhere! Why play that game? Sure you can 'get lucky' and the GK player could roll like crap and/or the 'Nid player rolls like an epic champ, but that's not fun for either player to have the game decided in such a lop-sided way.

For Daemon players it's even worse! Not only sharing many of same weakness that hurt the bugs, but also getting the added slap in the face that a GK player can outright prevent a Daemon player from putting even a single model on the table! (30 warp quake capable models is all it takes to do so)


This is why Ward gets hated-on so much - his rules are not fun to play against because they are typically 'unbalanced' even by GW standards! Go ask any Fantasy player what 7th edition Daemons were like if you must.

Do I hate Ward himself? I've never met the guy so I don't know if he's a nice guy or what, so no, I don't "hate" him personally. I do however hate most of his army books/codicies though because outside of playing against vanilla marines, I almost never have any fun facing the other Ward books.

Experiment 626 wrote:

Mr Mugguffins wrote:

Kroothawk wrote:Actually Mat Ward got his bad reputation when he singlehandedly shot down competitive play in Warhammer Fantasy 7th edition by writing a super-imbalanced Daemons of Chaos armybook (there were threads desperately trying to make not-overpowered lists with that book). That was before he wrote any Codex. He then wrote the 8th edition Fantasy rules, making competitive play night impossible for ALL factions. And yes, his background texts look like he read too many He-Man comics.

Oh, and there ARE Phil Kelly and Robin Cruddace hate clubs.

This, a million times this. It's not that armies he touches become monstrous, it's that it's hard for armies he touches to not be horrible to play against. Sure you can ruin grey knights, but it's hard without list tailoring (ever wonder why IG suddenly have a million plasma guns when they know your draigo wing is what they will be up against?). It's not even entirely the users fault, terminators as a troop choice is always going to be a pain in the ass.

Although, it should be mentioned that he did have a hand in warhammer 8th ed, which is pretty damned good.

There will ALWAYS! be imbalances and horrible match-ups in GW games as that's the nature of their beast. GW prides itself on allowing the player to fully explore and build any option they can come up with, based on the rich background of their game worlds. So every codex & army book is purposely designed to be as flexible and offer as many varried builds as we can come up with.
This isn't Warmahordes with it's rigidly structured characters that more or less define your army, this is instead a system designed to expand on our own imaginations & creativity. Hence why every section of the army list has nearly endless possible options and combinations.

It's impossible to balance that kind of a system, as you're always going to have those one or two 'best' combinations of options. GW doesn't care about Mr.Bigtime who looks at their game as being a hyper-competitive sport though, so if his nose is put out of joint by army book imbalances, well, we know where he can go!



That said, it's one thing to create some slight imbalances like those that exist in say the SW's codex where Grey Hunters are 'more pts efficient' than Blood Claws, or Longfangs with missile launchers are 'the best option'. Those lists aren't unbeatable, and they also aren't massive uphill battles for multiple armies to contend with!

However, it's completely another thing to create a set of rules that outright invalidates one more entire armies from even standing a snowball's chance in hell of putting up a fight! Look at what GK's can do to Daemons & Tyranids. It's completely wrong that those armies have almost no chance against a GK army.

Tyranids are in tough because they can't out-shoot the GK's, and their main strength of being an assault army is 100% countered by the likes of Purifyers, +2I halberds, deathcultist & crusader mobs, multiple sources of rad & psycho grenades and force weapons everywhere! Why play that game? Sure you can 'get lucky' and the GK player could roll like crap and/or the 'Nid player rolls like an epic champ, but that's not fun for either player to have the game decided in such a lop-sided way.

For Daemon players it's even worse! Not only sharing many of same weakness that hurt the bugs, but also getting the added slap in the face that a GK player can outright prevent a Daemon player from putting even a single model on the table! (30 warp quake capable models is all it takes to do so)


This is why Ward gets hated-on so much - his rules are not fun to play against because they are typically 'unbalanced' even by GW standards! Go ask any Fantasy player what 7th edition Daemons were like if you must.

Do I hate Ward himself? I've never met the guy so I don't know if he's a nice guy or what, so no, I don't "hate" him personally. I do however hate most of his army books/codicies though because outside of playing against vanilla marines, I almost never have any fun facing the other Ward books.

I almost completely agree with you.

I think that Grey Knights should crush Daemon armies, it's their purpose. I just don't like the way in which GKs do the crushing.

I have never met Matt Ward nor know someone who has. His picture is in the rulebook. A vest and pocketwatch? Seriously? Do they still do that in England? Where was his bowl hat and umbrella?

broodstar wrote:I'd like to know how come there isn't a Phil Kelly (Space Wolves) or Robin Cruddace (Tyranids) hate club.

Im in the Robin Cruddace hate club. Hes a total looser when it comes to writting anything. Never buy a book that goof had anything to do with.

DeffDred wrote:I have never met Matt Ward nor know someone who has. His picture is in the rulebook. A vest and pocketwatch? Seriously? Do they still do that in England? Where was his bowl hat and umbrella?

What is wrong with a vest and a pocketwatch? I use a vest and have a pocketwatch too (as my avatar may suggest ) and certainly am not english.

gaovinni wrote:

DeffDred wrote:I have never met Matt Ward nor know someone who has. His picture is in the rulebook. A vest and pocketwatch? Seriously? Do they still do that in England? Where was his bowl hat and umbrella?

What is wrong with a vest and a pocketwatch? I use a vest and have a pocketwatch too (as my avatar may suggest ) and certainly am not english.

With long hair like a college sophomore playing a game of toy soldiers when everyone else is in tees, it looks ridiculous. That's not to say a vest and a pocketwatch don't have a place, but was not appropriate to the context, making him look silly.

Vaktathi wrote:

gaovinni wrote:

DeffDred wrote:I have never met Matt Ward nor know someone who has. His picture is in the rulebook. A vest and pocketwatch? Seriously? Do they still do that in England? Where was his bowl hat and umbrella?

What is wrong with a vest and a pocketwatch? I use a vest and have a pocketwatch too (as my avatar may suggest ) and certainly am not english.

With long hair like a college sophomore playing a game of toy soldiers when everyone else is in tees, it looks ridiculous. That's not to say a vest and a pocketwatch don't have a place, but was not appropriate to the context, making him look silly.

That might be a valid reason.

-Loki- wrote:
There's no Phil Kelly hate club because he generally writes good books with good lists and good fluff, with only a few obviously over or underpowered units. There are people who don't like him, but I don't think there's enough to be considered a 'club'.

I find this some what odd because kelly codexes are generally really boring rules wise. With orks you have the greentide or bw spam and dark eldar are just ravager spam. With ward codexes I usually see loads of variety in lists.

Surtur wrote:

-Loki- wrote:He made an offhand comment in an interview article in White Dwarf jokingly saying all Space Marines consider Roboute Guilliman to be their spiritual leige, and the usual internet hate train ran with it and tell everyone he actually wrote it in the Space Marine codex.

Wasn't really a joke. And what is written on page 8 pretty much toes that line due to improper pronoun usage. It does very much tone down any role of any other chapter.

The spiritual liege comment only refers to Ultramarines successors. For the Second Founding chapters, their original Marines were Ultramarines, so it's obvious why they'd consider Guilliman their primarch and spiritual liege. For those derived from Ultramarines gene stock, the closest thing they have to a primarch would be Guilliman.

The line makes sense. It's the people who distort the line to pretend it refers to all Space Marines that has given it the notoriety.

illuknisaa wrote:

-Loki- wrote:
There's no Phil Kelly hate club because he generally writes good books with good lists and good fluff, with only a few obviously over or underpowered units. There are people who don't like him, but I don't think there's enough to be considered a 'club'.

I find this some what odd because kelly codexes are generally really boring rules wise. With orks you have the greentide or bw spam and dark eldar are just ravager spam. With ward codexes I usually see loads of variety in lists.

And I find the opposite is true... Personal experience is a terrible way to generalise because it's only like you know, your opinion!

Yes, venomspam is popular DE power build. Sure, greentide or battlewagon spam are solid Orkie lists. Point is, when you're looking for full-on competitive lists, there's always just one or three or so set builds, because you're almost always spaming the 'best' points-for-profit unit/s!!!
Doesn't matter who wrote the codex in question. At the top levels of competitive play, most lists tend to look the same. Not to mention that as a codex ages, it's options typically become more and more limited as it can't keep up with the newer books.

Now in my personal experience, when I'm not playing in a tournament, I see a helluva lot more variation in Dark Eldar armies than I do in GK or BA armies. I've played again wracks in raiders, WWP wyches, warrior/trueborn in raiders, hellions & reavers...
Mostly though when I play against GK's, it's either Purifyers or Henchmen spam or termies/pallies with maybe some Strike Squads or Interceptors on the side.

Does this mean I think that Mr.Ward's codicies are boring rules wise? No, I think it means he's created a book/s that have units which are head and shoulders above other units and thus those book/s attract the type of players that want to win without putting in the effort to fully learn how to make their army work for them!
Orks for example are alot harder to win with because they're an older book with fewer tricks and they don't have ready access to 'easy button' unit/s that can counter most any target. GK's on the other hand have a unit that crushes hordes AND meq's AND multi-wound nasties. It's far, far easier to make that book work well.

Because it seems like most players nowadays look for a 'competitive edge' and enjoy tournament play, they'll gravitate towards the 'easy button' over the 'need to think with it button' army.

Three pages in, how has this thread not been killed by MOD-fire? Do it Alphy!! Kill it!! Kill it hard!!

Veteran Sergeant wrote:

Surtur wrote:

-Loki- wrote:He made an offhand comment in an interview article in White Dwarf jokingly saying all Space Marines consider Roboute Guilliman to be their spiritual leige, and the usual internet hate train ran with it and tell everyone he actually wrote it in the Space Marine codex.

Wasn't really a joke. And what is written on page 8 pretty much toes that line due to improper pronoun usage. It does very much tone down any role of any other chapter.

The spiritual liege comment only refers to Ultramarines successors. For the Second Founding chapters, their original Marines were Ultramarines, so it's obvious why they'd consider Guilliman their primarch and spiritual liege. For those derived from Ultramarines gene stock, the closest thing they have to a primarch would be Guilliman.

The line makes sense. It's the people who distort the line to pretend it refers to all Space Marines that has given it the notoriety.

Actually, I believe he said ALL space marine chapters except for DA, BA, and SW.



Anyway, my issues with him are as follows.
1) He really needs to learn better naming conventions. The BA codex has too much stuff with blood in front of it.
2) The whole Blood Angels Necron alliance thing is very strange on the Blood Angel's part. Necron wise, it was strange until the new Necron codex came out.
3) Necrons are now pokemon masters. Kind of strange. I like the rest of the fluff though.
4) He really likes to kill the Sisters of Battle, especially in the Grey Knight codex. There really was no reason why the Grey Knights would slaughter the Sisters and wear their blood, even if it somehow magically protected them from demons. It just isn't a thought process that anyone would really have upon seeing the last holdout against the invasion.
5) Ultramarines continuing to be the shining posterboys of the Imperium with no flaws. I REALLY hope that the Ultramarines-Tau rumor eventually becomes true because then the Ultramarines will be torn between the orders of the Emperor, and the Lords of Terra, and would actually have a flaw. Throw in the fact that the Lords of Terra and the Ultramarines have always been buddy buddy, and it gets even more complicated. Right now though, there is nothing interesting about them. I miss the Crimson Fists being the posterboys.
6) The whole deepstriking land raider thing was poorly executed. I personally think it is cool as hell in how it happens in the fluff, but the way it is written it doesn't make it obvious enough that it is being dropped from a Thunderhawk. (It mainly focuses on the fact that it doesn't have the suped up engine.)


Really though, he doesn't bother me too too much, with the exception of the Ultramarines thing. Someone really needs to do something with them to make them actually interesting. Right now they suffer too much from telling, rather than showing, as evidenced by Matt Ward's writing in the Codex Space Marines codex. If they are supposed to be as Ward says they are, then there should be evidence of it.

BlaxicanX wrote:Kaldor is the hero Ward deserves, but not the one he needs right now. And so we we will hunt him. Because he can take it. Because he's not Ward's hero. He's a silent guardian, a watchful protector. Ward's White Knight.

Exalted for an /epic/ win right here.

As to Ward hate I don't really hate him, or Cruddance for that matter. I do take issue with their grevious offenses against my poor Sisters of Battle fluff and rules wise, especially the now Khornate Corrupted Grey Knights. (It's canon darn it XD)

jadebullet wrote:

Veteran Sergeant wrote:

Surtur wrote:

-Loki- wrote:He made an offhand comment in an interview article in White Dwarf jokingly saying all Space Marines consider Roboute Guilliman to be their spiritual leige, and the usual internet hate train ran with it and tell everyone he actually wrote it in the Space Marine codex.

Wasn't really a joke. And what is written on page 8 pretty much toes that line due to improper pronoun usage. It does very much tone down any role of any other chapter.

The spiritual liege comment only refers to Ultramarines successors. For the Second Founding chapters, their original Marines were Ultramarines, so it's obvious why they'd consider Guilliman their primarch and spiritual liege. For those derived from Ultramarines gene stock, the closest thing they have to a primarch would be Guilliman.

The line makes sense. It's the people who distort the line to pretend it refers to all Space Marines that has given it the notoriety.

Actually, I believe he said ALL space marine chapters except for DA, BA, and SW..

The guy I was quoting was referring only to the line from C:SM on page 8.

The Codex: Space Marines just refers to the successors.

It's not Mat Ward I have a problem with, it's the people involved with the reading and signing off on what he does that angers me. Alot of his stuff starts off good, but than becomes flawed.

The whole "spirtual liege" thing pretty much states that founding chapters, who have a known primarch, prefer the teaching of the Codex Astartes over the teachings of their respected primarch (pg 24 C:SM in the Codex Chapters section) considering the Raven Guard like to go ninja/predator on enemies, Salamanders are "burn the enemy/ protect the civillian". Black Templars (yes, not a founding chapter) are a run at the enemy and cut them up with swords type of army and are larger than the prescribed 1000 head count. All this could've been avoided with mentioning that founding chapters w/ primarch consider the codex "My primarch didn't write it, so we'll read it and proceed accordingly if we can learn from it, but don't hold your breath because you'll pass out from lack of oxygen and bonk your head on the coffee table"

The whole Draigo thing- I'm pretty sure some daemon shouted out across the warp " You know that's just going to pop back up again in a bit, don't know why you're smashing it. We had this discussion yesterday and look what it got you. Your destructive tendencies are a sign of mental issues and you should consult with a doctor or psychiatrist. sigh Dumbass." and the chance of Draigo being a great tragic hero fighting against impossible odds gets buried under "Draigo smash!!!!!"

Necrons- If they can sign off on "Tomb Kings in Space", those ass-hats can bring me a "Skaven in Space" too.

So in closing- I don't hate Ward, I hate his co-workers.

ps. Phil Kelly and his "Wolfie Wolferton from Wolfensville, Wolfconsin, who likes to drive his Wolfilac down to the Wolfopolious for Wolfimania Tuesdays" needs a limit on the wolf count, suprised they let that slide too.

jadebullet wrote: 4) He really likes to kill the Sisters of Battle, especially in the Grey Knight codex. There really was no reason why the Grey Knights would slaughter the Sisters and wear their blood, even if it somehow magically protected them from demons. It just isn't a thought process that anyone would really have upon seeing the last holdout against the invasion.

Except for cold hearted post-human daemon hunters.

Right now they suffer too much from telling, rather than showing, as evidenced by Matt Ward's writing in the Codex Space Marines codex. If they are supposed to be as Ward says they are, then there should be evidence of it.

This is a common problem with Codex fluff, but I feel it stems more from the medium than any failure on the part of the writers. When space is at a premium, you can't insert a three page wall-of-text story every time you want the reader to know how bad-ass someone or something is.

I recently finished "The Emperor's Gift" which centers around the first war for Armageddon, and the defeat of Angron by the Grey Knights. During the critical fight scene one Grey Knight, a captain, fights and banishes Angron, a Daemon Primarch, and dies in the process. This is almost the exact same scene we are given when Draigo fights and banishes Mortarion. One is excellently written, and one is not. But one takes a single paragraph, while the other takes an entire chapter, and I think the difference in quality is more due to the restrictions placed on a Codex writer than anything else.