Wich codex has the worst fluff?

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**Surtur**

Kanluwen wrote:Of course I won't back down. They are my views.
It's the same with my stance on the death penalty and homosexual marriages.

Is it death to heretics and purge the unclean?

I JOKE I JOKE!

I found the biggest problem was just how poorly the Grey Knight fluff was written. Matt Ward has a massive problem with the writing style he attempted. He tried to give off an epic poem vibe, but it falls flat and seems inconsistent at times. He overused the word purity to the point where a drinking game would kill a space wolf on the first page. The fluff was just rather unexciting and obscenely over the top at times.

**Backfire**

Yeah, he attempted to flesh out previously sparse details, and it didn't work out. Ward's best effort is Codex: Space Marines, it contains couple of UM fanboi moments but nothing too outrageous compared to later stuff.

I'm surprised so many people voted for Space Wolves codex here. I thought that pretty well written book. There are some silly moments (overabundance of wolf everything) but overall I think it sets the tone for the army, just like Ork or DE books. Is it just that people resent the book because of it's tabletop power?

**Brother Coa**

First place: Matt Ward
Second place: Phil Kelly
Third place: Matt Ward

Not that I didn't saw this coming...

**Fafnir**

It feels as though the Space Wolf codex is a satire about the fanwank of the other marine codecies.

**H.B.M.C.**

Jackster wrote:Though it was pretty well establish that Thunderhawks can transport land raiders, so they being air deploy by them wasnt really made up by Matt Ward.

Yeah. Thunderhawk Transproters land, the Land Raider detaches, the Thunderhawk flies away, and the Land Raider then drives. They don't do Land Raider bombing runs.

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Backfire wrote:Yeah, he attempted to flesh out previously sparse details, and it didn't work out. Ward's best effort is Codex: Space Marines, it contains couple of UM fanboi moments but nothing too outrageous compared to later stuff.

I agree here. Even the '[Insert Character here] kills an Avatar' moment is far more subtle. Calgar gets bitch slapped by the Avatar, and only defeats him through the handwavium his gauntlets are made out of. He's gets lucky. Mary Sueguinor just flies around and tears an Avatar to pieces with both hands tied behind his wings.

**SagesStone**

People thought a several hundred ton brick parachuted down or something?

**Over 9000!**

Jackster wrote:Dark Eldar Codex is my favorite read, especially the part about Urien and Tau (Cultural Exchange! lol!)

This, that story is my favorite piece of fluff I've ever read. As for worst I guess I would have to say grey knights,

Ps. Is it for sure Matt Ward is doing crons because if it is I might as well jump off a bridge now cuz my life is no longer worth living.

**H.B.M.C.**

Better get writing on that suicide note, 'cause Ward's a'Cronin'.

**headrattle**

Fire_for_effect wrote:Quickly getting away from the (never ending) GK discussion... Is there no one else who kinda dislikes the whole idea behind the Dark Eldar? I must admit, I haven`t read the codex and barely have any knowledge of their full fluff, but the bits I know are really ridiculous. I mean between all these races with different interesting political systems and societies, fighting for survival or at least seeming somehow "realistic", the Dark Eldar just fly around in oldschool ships with engines whipping people, get slaves and mix all living things they find together for da lulz. I understand the idea of Orks just being silly and lootin for da lulz, because they are supposed to be some kind of primitive species that doesn´t need anything more then fighting and who´s society always collapses under tribal rivalry, but Dark Eldar being so advanced and still so ridiculously silly... I just can´t sympathise with that. An entire big civilised fraction dedicated to just doing nonesense and having no problem surviving because ... they hide in some webway or behind a rainbow orsomething... Ok I have next to no idea of the fluff, but still I feel they are hugely innecessary and a lot worse then the GK stabbin some sisters, but oppinions may vary.

That isn't how the Dark Eldar are at all. They aren't doing it for "da lulz." They are doing it because they are depraved and if they don't they lose their souls to Slaanesh. They started down a slide into darkness that they can't get out of. They have to winess pain and suffering and violence in order to survive. It really is good fluff, and I advise that you shouldn't rush to judgement. Instead look at the codex. You may be impressed.

The worst is BA. It is as if a fifth grader wrote it yelling "wouldn't it be cool if! Awesome!"

**Ironsight**

Wow, lots of GK haters in here.

Really thinking about it, I'd have to say that the Blood Angles codex might be the worst. I didn't care for them before the new codex, but none of the "new" stuff is really any better.

I can't say most of the older codices are to my liking. The Tau feel too small for what is supposed to be a growing and diverse, technologically advanced empire, and the Necrons codex is just boring. Both factions are due for updates in the relatively near future though, so they get a pass.

**Jidmah**

Well, in defense of the GK codex, at least I didn't stop reading it because it was so bad. I did with blood angels. I'd even say it's better than the ultra-marine's happy rainbow land.

Really don't see the problem with the SW codex, but then again I really like trashy and ridiculous cliché fluff.

In my opinion the imperial guard has the highest quality fluff of all

**Ascalam**

headrattle wrote:
Fire_for_effect wrote:Quickly getting away from the (never ending) GK discussion... Is there no one else who kinda dislikes the whole idea behind the Dark Eldar? I must admit, I haven`t read the codex and barely have any knowledge of their full fluff, but the bits I know are really ridiculous. I mean between all these races with different interesting political systems and societies, fighting for survival or at least seeming somehow "realistic", the Dark Eldar just fly around in oldschool ships with engines whipping people, get slaves and mix all living things they find together for da lulz. I understand the idea of Orks just being silly and lootin for da lulz, because they are supposed to be some kind of primitive species that doesn´t need anything more then fighting and who´s society always collapses under tribal rivalry, but Dark Eldar being so advanced and still so ridiculously silly... I just can´t sympathise with that. An entire big civilised fraction dedicated to just doing nonesense and having no problem surviving because ... they hide in some webway or behind a rainbow orsomething... Ok I have next to no idea of the fluff, but still I feel they are hugely innecessary and a lot worse then the GK stabbin some sisters, but oppinions may vary.

That isn't how the Dark Eldar are at all. They aren't doing it for "da lulz." They are doing it because they are depraved and if they don't they lose their souls to Slaanesh. They started down a slide into darkness that they can't get out of. They have to winess pain and suffering and violence in order to survive. It really is good fluff, and I advise that you shouldn't rush to judgement. Instead look at the codex. You may be impressed.

The worst is BA. It is as if a fifth grader wrote it yelling "wouldn't it be cool if! Awesome!"

Remember also that GW are British, so if you were raised anywhere else you missed out on one of the main inspirations for the new Dark Eldar vibe.

Celtic folklore was used as an inspiration for the Eldar (most of the craftworlds are named after celtic holidays, their pantheon is celtic inspired etc etc) -They are space Seliegh Sidhe (Summer Court fey. Technically the better option of the two courts, but in no way the Good Guys all the time from the human perspective).

The new Dark eldar vibe has been brought into line with this, moving mostly away from the BDSM and sandpaper thong old-style DE and reimagining them as more Unseliegh Sidhe (Dark fey- manipulative, prone to stealing you away to do unpleasant things to you, and definitely always the bad guys

). There is a huge amount of inference to the connection in the codes, which is a pretty good read

Hit up some of the old Irish/Scottish fairy tales and you'll get the idea. Some of them are downright creepy in an awesome kind of way

**Void__Dragon**

Hey now.

I'm not from Britain and I got the Fey vibe that the Dark Eldar codex was trying to do.

Surtur wrote:I found the biggest problem was just how poorly the Grey Knight fluff was written. Matt Ward has a massive problem with the writing style he attempted.

Ward has problems with writing in general.

He's kind of a crappy writer.

**Grey Templar**

I'll give you that.

Ward should stick to writing rules and maybe coming up with Concepts and themes. leave the actual writing to Jervis.

**Ascalam**

I could get behind that, as long as someone else doublechecked his rules for loophole/non-clarity issues.

**Grey Templar**

He just blends fluff and rules a little too much(plasma siphon, in which case it was nothing but fluff for its rules)

This is actually a decent idea, but this game is played competitivly and fluffy rules are what paves the way to gamer hell.

**Isengard**

Personally, and I'm sure controversially, I think all the codices have a major problem, reams of dull and repetitive 'battles/campaigns'. Many are thin on specifics about the races/forces and then launch into endless dull and usually unimaginative battle reports. Most of them are covering 10,000 years and have precious little to say. Both GK and Nids suffer from this. There is masses that could be thought up about nids but instead of interesting details we get nids v every race in turn. Nid battles are pretty simple - they turn up and attempt to eat everything. They either succeed or fail. The codex makes it clear that 99% of the time their tactics are to swarm the enemy. So the codex reads something like - nids swarm all over planet x, nids swarm all over planet y, etc. If the GK wiped out worlds at the rate of the new codex the Imperium will destroy itself in about 500 years!

**Omegus**

It's a tough call. Either the Space Wolves for their tedious naming convention and general Mary Sue-ness, or Grey Knights for a few stand-out pieces of atrocious fluff (Purifiers, Draigo) and complete butchery of previously established background.

Blood Angels have the tedious naming convention as well, in addition to a few herp-derp moments like the Necron bro-mance, but overall they are no worse than they've ever been. They've always been vampires in space who were very sad their daddy died.

Space Marines has that whole Ultramarine wankery going on, but if you read it as talking only about Ultramarine successors (i.e. half of the Space Marines and growing), it's not that horrible. Although it gets annoying when Ward takes previously written fluff, and edits a few words here and there to make the boys in blue moar awesomez for no particular reason.

I'll have to agree with several posters above me that all the books are pretty much garbage with the exception of the Dark Eldar (excellent), Orks (cartoonish and hilarious), and IG (passable).

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Grey Templar wrote:. leave the actual writing to Jervis.

Jervis is an abomination, and his writing is so dull and listless as to make me want to slit my wrists rather than read any more of it.

**Lord Solar Awesome**

I found the space marine codex unforgivably dull. Atleast other codices like the GK and SW have merit and are fun to read (if only because they're sooo bad). But the space marine codex is pretty much talking about a dull poster boy chapter's victories with only a few tid bits here and there about other chapters. Personally my favorite codex in terms of fluff and content is the Imperial Guard.

**Fafnir**

I think that every new writer at GW should be beaten on the head with a copy of the Ork codex to the point of near death upon taking the job, so that they really know how a good codex feels like.

**Lord Solar Awesome**

Fafnir wrote:I think that every new writer at GW should be beaten on the head with a copy of the Ork codex to the point of near death upon taking the job, so that they really know how a good codex feels like.

ROFL win! That's gonna be in my sig.

**Dark Scipio**

Brother SRM wrote:
Anpu42 wrote:From what I have been reading recently whatever the latest version of "Your" Codex is out

This post is a good post.

The Space Marines codex has fine fluff. Honestly, it's mostly good. Yeah, there's too much Ultramarines wankery, but whatever, the rest is fine. The Blood Angels fluff is mostly fine, but the whole bit about teaming up with Necrons is really dumb. I've read the codex and didn't find anything else memorably bad. I actually liked all the "end is nigh" stuff. Black Templars has cool fluff, Space Wolves have very fitting fluff that reads like folk legends. Imperial Guard fluff is solid but not too memorable, Orks are fantastic, Dark Eldar is awesome, Eldar is good too. Basically Phil Kelly = great. The Tyranids codex doesn't have anything too memorable, Tau don't have too much fluff to speak of, nor do Necrons. Grey Knights have some okay fluff but a few really awful moments stand out and the Internet latches on to those. Chaos Space Marines have fine fluff too, but people generally brand everything about that codex as horrible because the rules aren't what they could be.

This post is a good post.

Honesty people moan about BA and Necrons cease hostilities until a common foe is defeated? How wouldnt? You want them to still fight each other despite beeing butcherd by Tyranids and beeing sentinent?

Even worse with Grey Knights: You cant walk through the walk? Of course you can? Changing something in the warp changes nothing? Of course, because symbols and emotions matter everything in the warp, not matter.

Space Woves have to many Wolve names? Did you ever saw Space Wolves? They are walking furballs with faces.

**Void__Dragon**

Omegus wrote:Jervis is an abomination, and his writing is so dull and listless as to make me want to slit my wrists rather than read any more of it.

I sorta agree with this, to an extent.

The 4e Dark Angels codex was far and away one of the most boring codices I can recall, holy crap that codex was almost offensively boring, I can't believe I finished it.

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Dark Scipio wrote:Honesty people moan about BA and Necrons cease hostilities until a common foe is defeated? How wouldnt? You want them to still fight each other despite beeing butcherd by Tyranids and beeing sentinent?

Well Necrons are incapable of dying and most are mindless so "self-preservation" isn't really high on their list of priorities.

Though it's not that they parted ways after the Tyranids were destroyed, if they just left one another alone because their respective forces were diminished (Something very much in line with Necron fluff), then that would be at least not as bad, though frankly the idea of Necrons allying with anyone is kind of stupid. But Dante expressed a distaste for attacking their former allies. That's just lame dood.

Though yeah, it doesn't deserve the nerdrage the fandom gives it.

That kind of neckbearded hatred should be reserved for guys like Draigo... Or any Space Wolf.

**Vaktathi**

Dark Scipio wrote:

Honesty people moan about BA and Necrons cease hostilities until a common foe is defeated? How wouldnt? You want them to still fight each other despite beeing butcherd by Tyranids and beeing sentinent?

The Necrons don't see the Space Marines as any different than the Tyranids, and the Blood Angels are intensely aggressive and xenophobic genetically engineered psych-indoctrinated super soldiers whose sole purpose and sacred duty, all they live for, is to annihilate anything that could be a threat to the Imperium or quite frankly simply isn't human and under the banner of the Imperium.

Space Woves have to many Wolve names? Did you ever saw Space Wolves? They are walking furballs with faces.

There's a difference between having a theme, and taking it overboard. When you literally have a character whose name, titles, wargear and special rules have the word "wolf" or some variation a damn near a dozen times, it's gone overboard into parody.

**Dark Scipio**

But the Necrons are lead by cunning commanders, and if the thread of the Tyranids is larger than that of the Marines, it makes sense to cease hostilities to have a chance to keep existing and complete your goal later.

Same for BAs.

**ChocolateGork**

Backfire wrote:
CthuluIsSpy wrote:
Backfire wrote:
They are "daemon proof" because they have willpower and resolve to commit whatever acts it takes to avoid being corrupted or tempted. Not because they have some sort of "Mythi-Power(tm)" which makes them "daemon proof". And really, the Bloodtide incident was probably one of the LEAST collateral damage-producing actions Grey Knights or Inquisition have undertaken.

Really? What was the most?

Well, possibly one of the rather many occasions when they have Exterminated entire planet. Or maybe Raxos where Stern ordered huge number of civilian refugee shuttles to be destroyed because he suspected one of them was carrying a Daemon. Or First War of Armageddon where entire population of the planet was put to concentration camps.

Even worse is it was only those of the lower and middle classes

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And could someone count how many times the word blood or words with blood in them are used in the BA codex.

**Vaktathi**

Dark Scipio wrote:But the Necrons are lead by cunning commanders, and if the thread of the Tyranids is larger than that of the Marines, it makes sense to cease hostilities to have a chance to keep existing and complete your goal later.

Same for BAs.

To an extent, for the immediate threat perhaps, but to end parting peacefully is ascribing a reasonableness to these forces that simply isn't reasonable given the game universe.

**Grey Templar**

Omegus wrote:

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Grey Templar wrote:. leave the actual writing to Jervis.

Jervis is an abomination, and his writing is so dull and listless as to make me want to slit my wrists rather than read any more of it.

choose your poison then

Ward or Jervis?

**Omegus**

Arsenic.

**forruner_mercy**

Omegus wrote:Arsenic.

+1 there.
I would personally go with Ward. At least then I get something out of that writing.