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Phil Kelly, then Ward, then Cruddace.

Phil K as his books are strong but not rediculous (aside from SW which have *always* been silly)

Ward as he tries new things but on the other hand fluff is terribad and bloodmissiles on a bloodraven bloodangel bloodship is annoying as are things like 'tesla' guns for the 'Crons

Cruddace... Tyranids... ZOMG... that is all!

Zweischneid wrote:

Iur_tae_mont wrote:
I always liked Mat Ward. >.>


Balanced rules and rejuvenating the old fluff with a spice of new toys.

Yup. Me too. Brought me back into the hobby. For writing good, diverse lists. But most importantly for rejuvenating the 2nd Edition fluff (both in detail and in spirit) that I loved, that first drew me into the hobby and that 40K had lost for far, far too long.

Ward is what makes 40K worthwhile.

Thing is for me, the appeal of the hobby is the fluff. I enjoy painting the models and reading the stories. Playing the actual table top game, is pretty rare, and not all that fun for me.
As a result from my point of view Ward tend to write very poor stories, and when he gets excited like in the grey knights codex, his actual writing style drops dramatically. It really drops to below levels that you would expect from someone who gets paid to write.

However, regardless of his poor literary ability, he definitely makes the best balanced rules. From a tabletop game perspective his books are the best, not as in overpowerd best, but the most unique and fun and balanced.

SylvanaSekNadin wrote:Thing is for me, the appeal of the hobby is the fluff. I enjoy painting the models and reading the stories. Playing the actual table top game, is pretty rare, and not all that fun for me.
As a result from my point of view Ward tend to write very poor stories, and when he gets excited like in the grey knights codex, his actual writing style drops dramatically. It really drops to below levels that you would expect from someone who gets paid to write.

However, regardless of his poor literary ability, he definitely makes the best balanced rules. From a tabletop game perspective his books are the best, not as in overpowerd best, but the most unique and fun and balanced.

Thing is for me, the appeal of the hobby is the fluff too.

If I have to slog through the ridiculous, decidedly "un-40K" garbage produced by the likes of Kelly with Mowgli-Marines raised by Cartoon-wolves to later ride He-Man style Cyber-wolfes, Marines going Grand Theft Thunderhawk on their own chapter or ambushing Sisters of Battle for no good reason (unlike Space Wolves, Grey Knights at least had an ambigious, "grim-dark" motivation to go after the Sisters) or worse, the Loony-toon madness of Dark-Hole-flipping Dark Eldar, I just get this massive, uncontrollable urge to wretch, vomit and cry, lamenting the cruel gods that saw it fit to curse the 40K game-line with such inept, untalented, incapable twits like Phil Kelly.

For a 40K fan who loves the fluff, Ward is the only Codex-author out there worth reading.

I'm going to have to call Ward's "balance" into question. When was the last time anyone was a Space Marine list that didn't have razorbacks and/or TH/SS terminators? Or Grey Knights with Psy-autocannon dreads?

Luke_Prowler wrote:I'm going to have to call Ward's "balance" into question. When was the last time anyone was a Space Marine list that didn't have razorbacks and/or TH/SS terminators? Or Grey Knights with Psy-autocannon dreads?

Drop Pod/Sternguard lists and Bike lists rarely if ever have TH/SS Terminators and/or Razorbacks. Then there's the Draigo/Stormraven variant lists that don't always have Psyflemen.

Luke_Prowler wrote:I'm going to have to call Ward's "balance" into question. When was the last time anyone was a Space Marine list that didn't have razorbacks and/or TH/SS terminators? Or Grey Knights with Psy-autocannon dreads?

I play an all terminator deepstrike list similar to Draigo list that Walrus mentions at mid point levels. It's lost twice out of the 12 times or so I've used it, once because I deep struck half of the army to death, and once because I just got outplayed, fair and square.

Even if not, I reiterate by saying "When was the last time you saw a Nid list without hive guard or zoanthropes? When was the last time you saw an Eldar list without fire dragons? When was the last time you saw a Dark Eldar list without ravagers? When was the last time you saw a SW list without long fangs? When was the last time you saw a Tau list without Broadsides?

I could probably go on. My point is this: "Strong units are strong."

And my point is "If strong units overshadow everything else, the codex is not balanced"

Zweischneid wrote:
For a 40K fan who loves the fluff, Ward is the only Codex-author out there worth reading.

>_>

<_<

I'm struggling to come up with words to respond to this. I think most people would find this particular statement rather humorous.

Yeah, Space Wolves are derpy, they kinda always have been, and lets not pretend Ward's fluff is any better with sillyness like "all marines aspire to the dictates of the Codex Astartes but can never be Ultramarines" or Draigo's ridiculousness and whatnot. Aside from one piece of wargear with Dark Eldar (not that silly considering they're a race that once could shift stars and they within a giant dimensional pocket inside a realm of unreality created by the thoughts of sentient beings...) what's wrong with them compared with any other race?

Zweischneid wrote:
For a 40K fan who loves the fluff, Ward is the only Codex-author out there worth reading.

Ward can write some pretty bad stuff, a lot of codex space marine was very bland and boring when it wasn't sucking up to the ultramrines. However, blood angels was quite fun to read as was the necron codex. (lets leave the disaster that is grey knights out of this)
That said though, i most definitely enjoyed reading the Ork Codex far more than any other, while the dark eldar really came off as sinister and dripping malice. They were among the top 3 codex's I love, the third one being blood angels.

As a result, I am not saying Ward is incapable or writing some good fluff, it is just noticeably more rare for him to get it right then for Kelly. While I think Space Wolves was pretty bad, it was nowhere near as bad as grey knights and from a reading enjoyment perspective I would put it at a little bit worse than space marines. (Cruddice on the other hand just seems so neutral, nothing excellent, but nothing crap, and in general a little on the boring side.)

I don't claim Ward hasn't been responsible for some mistakes. But anything you may not like about his writing can easily be found ten-fold among the other writers. Black-hole-in-a-box is just one piece of wargear perhaps, but if people read over it, perfectly accepting that a Black Hole unleashed will take out a living room, but leave the nearby kitchen intact (instead of, you know, taking out the whole of Commorrah and pretty likely most of the Webway), but than complain about "unrealistic" size-differences between, say, Calgar and an Avatar, it is hypocracy of the highest order.

Perhaps, to clarify my point, I'll paraphrase Churchill and say that Mat Ward is perhaps the worst Codex writer we've known, except for all the others that have tried! (And Phil Kelly is probably the worst. Full stop!)

Zweischneid wrote:I don't claim Ward hasn't been responsible for some mistakes. But anything you may not like about his writing can easily be found ten-fold among the other writers.

Again, I think most people hold the opposite opinion. Between blatantly elevating one particular SM chapter above almost all others, characters that perform feats that would make Primarchs and even the Emperor jealous, ridiculous out-of-left-field spiritual angels that simply show up randomly with basically no real explanation, and dozens of other ridiculous things, Ward has generated more nerd-rage than any other author, and with good reason.

One will notice the lack of Phil-Kelly hate threads and threads complaining about DE/Ork/Eldar fluff (though yes, SW's are an exception).

Black-hole-in-a-box is just one piece of wargear perhaps, but if people read over it, perfectly accepting that a Black Hole unleashed will take out a living room, but leave the nearby kitchen intact (instead of, you know, taking out the whole of Commorrah and pretty likely most of the Webway),

Again, a single piece of wargear from a race that could control the very lives of stars, a race that lives in a dimensional bubble within a realm of unreality formed from thought...

If they have some way to control the size of the event horizon,it's not all that silly. At least not any sillier than anything else in 40k, considering it's a rare piece of kit from the most technologically advanced race in the galaxy, not so bad. A bit derpy? Sure, but so is Imotekh inexplicably creating storms and lightning strikes, Vulkan's mere inclusion in a force enhancing weapons, Mephiston the Librarian with stats that make Daemon Princes and Hive Tyrants jealous, etc.

Zweischneid wrote:Phil Kelly does poor work (thank god they shoved him off to do lil' Pirate Ships). His grasp of the rules seems still poor (JoTWW sniping, wound allocation disasters, etc..), his fluff is the most ridiculous (Cyber-Thunder-Wolf-riding-Wolf-Marines.. please?) as his grasp of basic physics and size-relations (Black-Holes-in-a-box?) and his utter disregard for established 40K metaphisics like the Warp (i.e. Decapitator).

Cruddace is better with the fluff than Kelly (though retconning the entirety of the Hive War stuff just to introduce a new Super-Nid felt... unnecessary), but his grasp of balance and rules is equally poor (IG vs. Nids or SoB).

Mat Ward is probably the only one they should entrust the books too. He's the best of the batch by far (which doesn't mean he doesn't make mistakes... just that the competition of the other two is so terribly beyond the pale), which is most likely the reason the internet likes to heap so much scorn on him.

Pure truth

Luke_Prowler wrote:And my point is "If strong units overshadow everything else, the codex is not balanced"

So that I might better understand, can you show me a codex that is balanced?

daedalus wrote:

Luke_Prowler wrote:And my point is "If strong units overshadow everything else, the codex is not balanced"

So that I might better understand, can you show me a codex that is balanced?

Many codexes are well balanced against each other.

Internal balance however... not a single codex out there that doesn't have horrible internal balance. It is sad, brilliant internal balance would equal endless possibilities of great builds. Now we have the same few tired spam builds :/

As a team, I think they are doing C+ work. It is passable and even enjoyable but all the codexes suffer from a few common themes.

1. Some unit that is undercosted/overly powerful so that even if it is 1 of 6 choices for a given slot, nobody but an idiot wouldn't play them. Some codex are worse than others with multiple examples in dfferent FOC slots so that an army takes on an A+B+C = the best build for any army.

2. Most codexes give the feeling that they are viewed in a vacuum. This is to the point of codex creep and or outdating prior codexes to the point that they are not truly playable anymore.

3. Character centric - Every codex of late seems to have "Ungodly the Powerful" in it. So even if a codex is well thought out and balanced, by the simple inclusion of a named character the army is exponentially more powerful. While this may be fine with some codex, it makes for turning a slightly unbalanced codex into a steaming pile of cheese.


Codex Necron: To early to tell but I smell some cheese with royal court builds. Spyder + scarabs seems a bit over the top. (5 hits = -2.5 AV per 15 point scarab. A unit of 4 drops a landraider to AV 4 at a cost of 60 points!)

Codex GK: Multiple grenades for every occasion. Psykers but not psykers. Drago +...

Codex SW: Counterattack at no cost. Too cheap long fangs. Logan lists, Wolf riders.

Codex BA: Mephiston, superfast razorbacks at a discount...

Codex DE: Wyches, dark lance raiders and ravagers....


These are the most recent that come to mind. Take a simple one with SW. The logic goes that because the SW don't have HW in tacticals they need cheap dedicated long fangs. Because they don't get HW in tacticals, they need cheap SW. Oh and BTW they need to excell in HTH without excelling (enter countercharge). I could easily make an arguement that every SW should cost a base of 18 based on the countercharge ability. While I like the logic of SW long fangs, I find it a very bad thing when I can field 5 heavy bolters for 115 that can split fire versus a predator with SB, 2 HB and AC costing 95? points.

Rather than pontificating, just take my comments for the spirit they are intended don't sit and argue the specifics.

daedalus wrote:

Luke_Prowler wrote:And my point is "If strong units overshadow everything else, the codex is not balanced"

So that I might better understand, can you show me a codex that is balanced?

There is no perfectly balanced codex. And I admit, Space Wolves is one of the worse of the bunch. But Ward's codexes have plenty of dark spots in them to unbalance everything else in it (partiularly the razorback, and I curse it's existance)

Ward Rules = find the obvious broke unit for each FoC slot and spam it.
Ward Fluff = Forget what ever you knew about your faction before.

Cruddance = meh

Kelly = Flip a coin, Heads awesome, tails toilet paper

Maybe get more writers up there. Surely there are enough talented people across the pond that they can surely get at least 2 more, and maybe add an internal testing group to tell them whats stupid. Seriously so many problems could be worked out and foreseen with more testing.

I dunno doods. Complaining about the lack of realism in a game where power armoured buggers warp travel to a planet to hit aliens with swords is weird. The fluff is always over the top. There once was a time when I would have cared about Draigo killing a demon primarch would have badly annoyed the plums off of me, but then I had an epiphany. I still really enjoy the fluff and the game. If Mat Ward wants to make Ultrasmurfs the best, that's fine by me.

Armless Failure wrote:
Maybe get more writers up there. Surely there are enough talented people across the pond that they can surely get at least 2 more, and maybe add an internal testing group to tell them whats stupid. Seriously so many problems could be worked out and foreseen with more testing.

I still don't understand how it's assumed that this is just not done. Obviously, they don't test enough, for whatever testing they are doing. You won't find a single person who would disagree with that. Still, it's a system of rules. Being a system, I liken it to computer software, because that's what I do. You can spend millions of dollars testing and developing software, and it still has 'bugs' in it. It's just a fact of life; no system is perfect.

Zweischneid wrote:I don't claim Ward hasn't been responsible for some mistakes. But anything you may not like about his writing can easily be found ten-fold among the other writers. Black-hole-in-a-box is just one piece of wargear perhaps, but if people read over it, perfectly accepting that a Black Hole unleashed will take out a living room, but leave the nearby kitchen intact (instead of, you know, taking out the whole of Commorrah and pretty likely most of the Webway), but than complain about "unrealistic" size-differences between, say, Calgar and an Avatar, it is hypocracy of the highest order.

Perhaps, to clarify my point, I'll paraphrase Churchill and say that Mat Ward is perhaps the worst Codex writer we've known, except for all the others that have tried! (And Phil Kelly is probably the worst. Full stop!)

Um...actually...it matters how big the black hole is...

...and how long it exists.

One could very well, in theory, wipe out your living room but leave the kitchen intact.

There's a reason physicists aren't worried about the Large Hadron Collider creating a micro black hole that would suck in our entire solar system.

Black hole in a box? Meh...

I say roll with it. More the the point of hypocracy, people will hand-wave away ork technology working because "they think it should, therefore it does", as well as the entirety of the warp, and then have problems with a black hole in a box because it was written by Matt Ward? I mean...the bar here isn't, what I would call, "set high" or anything. People are QQing about the integrity of fluff in a universe where, apparently, lasers have to occasionally take WINDAGE into account. Again...bar. Not so high.

Though...it's a really awesome bar...

Arandmoor wrote:then have problems with a black hole in a box because it was written by Matt Ward?

It was written by Phil Kelly actually, and that is who the poster you quoted has a problem with.

Because a black hole in a box is so much more ridiculous than a little light bright that contains every star in the galaxy, and when any of said lights are put out the star supernovas.

Yeah, 40k is not and never has been anything vaguely resembling hard science fiction, it is far and away one of the softest SF verses in the genre.

Wow....

Lots of people with some strong (and clearly more than a little biased) opinions about their favorite authors.

As a player from 3rd Ed.... admittedly not as "seasoned" a players as some others out there, I can say that the one thing this hobby had going for it was the fluff. There are other wargames out there with better rules, smalelr scopes of war and a much clearer sense of overall balance. What Warhammer 40k offered its fans was the immense wealth of content not related to the table-top experience. It was the lore, the fluff, the story.

The fact that there are a library of novels that have been accepted as cannonical for the lore is min-numbing since it opens the floodgate for plot holes, and misinterpretation of the original content. The most beautiful part of the hobby is that different people can see things differently and still play the game without butting heads. The moment some cocky author sets pen to paper and writes out "this is how it is" they've destroyed the most critical element of the game

Year after year GW has doctored the lore and background of the game. The bulk of the blame for this can be placed squarely on the writers for the individual codecies. It's unfathomable to me that the writers would not have a hand in one another's work when writing rules and lore for the factions that will be interacting on the table. As well, these authors are each biased in their own ways, having read (or written) different books over their careers.

That being said. I really don't like any of them. The game we play today (6th Ed) is a far cray from the game I started playing back in the day (3rd Ed). At that time, the game still had a gritty, Gothic feel to it. There were no "good guys". The universe was bleeding life away and all the races were desperately trying to eke out their remaining days by battling one another for all they had left. This was the last time I remember the fluff being any kind of decent.

Since then, they have completely re-written the Necron codex (re-arranged the entire chronological order of event for the entire life of the game, FORCING every other codex to re-write their lore to fall in line without contradicting. But before I get carried away with how much I hate the new lore, let me get back to my original point about the auhors; They shoud know better. Since each of them have strong and weak points, I'll divide them into 2 groups so I can more fairly explain why they are truly not equiped for their jobs.

Each codex contains 2 essential parts. The first part is the lore. When the player buys that codex, they are buying it to learn about the faction at hand .They want t know hwere they come from, what they are like, and how they shouild be played in the game. They also want to get to know some of the named characters, which helps flesh out the race and make it more relatable to the player.

The second part is the rules. Each codex offers a varient to the rules offered in the Core Rulebook. This is how players COMPETE in the game on the table. It's supposed to be a fair game, and that is all broken down into the the simplest possible form: The cost of the model/unit as it relates to the performance of the model/unit.

All the various authors have failed in one of these two places.

Kelly is just plain terrible with rules. The Current Eldar codex is laughably outdated, and his work with the Space Wolves and Orks is nothing short of a bad joke. The Space Wolves are just pathetic. Nothing in that codex mirrors the setup of that chapter as it is described in the Core Rulebook, or the existing lore. The rules were, without question, broken. At the time of its release, a Space Wolves player could feild any size arm and table a skilled opponant with relative ease simply due to the lack of balance. SWs simply had more options for the point cost than any other army at the time. All of his named cahracters are insane (Canis) and will easily out perform other named characters of the same point value 99% of the time.

Ward is the opposite. His rules were (SLIGHTLY) more balanced, but his fluff was just inexcusably awful.... to even become a Paladin, a knight must travel into the wilderness, naked, and hunt down and KILL on of the 666 named greater deamons, as just ONE of his many trials. After he graduates, and becomes a Paladin, he gets sacred armor, pschic weapons, and unrivaled wargear... but he then can't even touch a greater deamon in the table 1v1.... his scope of lore as it translates to rules is just juvenile. His rules are also a joke, but I'll spare you all the obvious imbalance in the Necron Codex or the Blood Angels.

The bottom line is... the game is quickly becoming unplayable. Continueing down this trend, since every codex for the last several released standalone (Necrons, GK, Wolves, DE) has been the undeniable choice for tourneys because playing them meant an almost certain victory.

So where do we go from here? Make every new codex just obviously superior to those prior? devalue anything that isn't new?

Or do we start writting like big boys ang girls and THINK before we write/type something up and just publish it without any regard for what's already out there

En Excelsis wrote:

Or do we start writting like big boys ang girls and THINK before we write/type something up and just publish it without any regard for what's already out there

Considering you just posted a wall of text in a thread that's been dead for 10 months...

I dont think any of them are TOO bad, none are perfect either. As more of a fluff observer than gamer I cant realy speak for game balance.

None of them are immune from writing bad fluff, Ward however arguably writes the largest amount of "bad" fluff. It seems to me sometimes they just go a bit "too far" on trying to make the characters Super Duper Ultra Awesome (Thunderwolf cavalry, Draigo, Sanginor ect). In all honesty I like most of it, it just needs a little "pruning" thats all.

The biggest problem I have is with the fluff in the necron codex, while for the most part I like the new stuff (adds a good deal more flavour to a very uniform, dull army) are we just meant to totally disregard the old necron codex which gave so much insight into the foundation of the 40k lore? In my mind I come up with compromises between different fluff and my interpretation, as im sure most people are "forced" to do.

Please let dead threads rest in peace.