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 A Town Called Malus wrote:

As it is he is a boring character with no negative attributes in a situation which allows his positive attributes to shine. If Ward wanted him to be tragic then he should have put him in a situation where his positive attributes become negative.

So something like putting him in a situation where his work is unmade constantly and his strength doesn't matter. Gee, it's almost as if that's happened somewhere...

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

As it is he is a boring character with no negative attributes in a situation which allows his positive attributes to shine. If Ward wanted him to be tragic then he should have put him in a situation where his positive attributes become negative.

So something like putting him in a situation where his work is unmade constantly and his strength doesn't matter. Gee, it's almost as if that's happened somewhere...

That is not what I described. If Draigo kills a daemon, it takes time for that daemon to come back. During that time that daemon cannot threaten the material world. That is a net gain as whilst the daemon can and will come back it cannot do anything until it does so.

Now, if the Lords of Chaos were to find a way to use Draigo's strength against the Imperium itself, without his realising it, then that would create the situation I described, where Draigo's strength is weakening the very thing he is fighting to protect. A man who fights for what he believes is right but only ends up destroying it is tragic.

I must concur... Although, with the state of the Inquisition, presumably taking out innocent "victims"... One could say that Draigo has a certain amount of tragedy, in that his chapter is intimately involved in the Inquisition...

Yes, yes! Maybe! No, back to work...

It's grasping for straws, but is vaguely conceivable...

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
So something like putting him in a situation where his work is unmade constantly and his strength doesn't matter.

See my previous post regarding this. The fluff regarding Draigo pays lip service to this being the case, but this isn't actually reflected in the things that we see. He bested Mortarion. He burned down Nurgle's gardens. He killed the chosen handmaidens of Slaanesh. And the list goes on. True, Slaanesh can choose more handmaidens, and Nurgle can rebuild his gardens, but this doesn't make Draigo a Sisyphean character. He's still doing more single-handed than the Emperor himself could have, and at what is apparently no cost to himself. The fact that daemons can reincarnate in the Warp should they ever be destroyed no more makes Draigo Sisyphean than it does the Empire as a whole - and if you say that it does make the Empire as a whole match that description, then Draigo's "punishment" for his victories isn't punishment at all, because it's no worse than what would happen to him if he had never been "cursed" in the first place.

He's still an unstoppable warrior who's single-handedly done more damage to Chaos than pretty much the rest of the Imperium combined, without the gifts of a Primarch or any other such justification. He's just a Space Marine. A Grey Knight Space Marine, but still just a Space Marine. And, as awesome as Space Marines might be able to be, there is no Space Marine - hell, no Primarch, and probably not Emps himself, either - who should be capable of what Draigo does as a matter of course. Saying "all his victories is pyrrhic" is both flat-out false and entirely pointless in the first place, as all of those victories are still things that should be impossible.

As for the discussion regarding weaknesses, you're using the wrong term, which is resulting in the argument getting muddled and pointless. Draigo doesn't need to have weaknesses, per se. He needs flaws and limits. Look at other characters from Space Marine fiction. Hell, look at the Emperor himself. He has no real "weaknesses". He's an incredible warrior, the most powerful human psyker of all time, and a genius surpassing all geniuses. What he does have are flaws and limits. Despite all of his incredible, god-like power, he was limited in that he could not simply stride into the Warp and take on the Gods of Chaos single-handed and come out unscathed. Despite his genius, he was flawed in that he was arrogant and authoritarian - perhaps by necessity, but he still was. And he failed to see the corruption of Horus, instead letting his favoritism drive another of his sons, Magnus the Red, to Chaos.

Draigo has no apparent limits or flaws. He's done what has been described to us before as quite literally impossible without any apparent effort. He has no personality to begin with, so he has no flaws, either; he's not arrogant or overconfident or anything of the sort. He's not a dick. In essence, the entirety of his character is that he's defined by his lack of limitations.

On the subject of other characters, particularly villains... well, the truth is that you really can't compare protagonists and antagonists using the same criteria, particularly in a setting as dark and bloody as Warhammer 40,000. And you're also leaving out the fact that a lot of them - particularly Kharn and his ilk - are explicitly empowered by the Vile Gods to be capable of feats that surpass their non-Chaotic counterparts, and the more favored they are, the more destructive they become. They may border on invincible, but that's fine, as their role in the setting is to provide obstacles for the good guys to overcome, not richly-nuanced characters for the players to empathize with.

Draigo, on the other hand, is a protagonist. And he fails at all the criteria for being a good one.

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

 Jackal wrote:
Weaknesses?
Lucius the eternal?
The whole ability to transform the person who killed you into you seems pretty top notch.
The fact its near on impossible to finally kill him is pretty amusing.

'Course that only happens if you take pride in having killed him. Draigo (being more perfect than Mary Poppins) wouldn't really care.

After all, when you've destroyed the walls of a Lord of Change, burned down Nurgle's garden, killed Slaanesh's chosen Daemonettes and killed countless Bloodthirsters, why would killing a single dude in Power Armour make you feel proud?

Lucius is an awesome character. Yeah he has the ultimate get out of jail free card (but that can be expected of the chosen champion of a god), but the guy is not invincible. He has obviously lost before other wise his armor wouldn't have all those faces. He isn't uberly strong, he doesn't have a dozen occurrences of killing stuff he has no business killing. He actually has martial pride and a rather unique way of demonstrating that on the table top (see the rules regarding his attack characteristics). He is the perfect recurring villain (a writing convention that has been used since the beginning of time) in a setting that is all about war.

His only downside, if you can call it that, is that WH40K lets you play the bad guys. As such some people will champion him and he losses a bit from the roll of the eternal villian. I will say that his "resurrection" just feels more in character and IMO is easily more accepted than that Necron guy or St. Celestine.

Since We are talking about the Spiritual Liege, might as well have fun at it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xfJUi4cB4oc&feature=relmfu

The Trials of Draigo

Win.

I see the relation between draigo and the four gods as follows.

Say that one day you get a package from someone, you wonder "what could this be?" When you open the box an angry garden gnome jumps out kicks you in the shin and runs away breaking stuff. You wonder what just happen when at the bottom you find a small note. You take it and it reads "Hope you like it, Nurgle".

So you manage to get the gnome back in the box and wonder how you can dispose of it when you get an idea. Lets send it to khorne instead. So you put another note in the box and ships the box to Khorne instead. Repeat ad infinitum as the four gods send him around to eachother to foil plans and frustrate the others.

Except one is assuming the Chaos gods are controlling Draigo, of which there is no indication.

Well, maybe there not controlling him puppetmaster style but subtly steering him by say making the roads hes walking conviniently leading to the different places.

But maybe i just thought i was much smarter than i actually am.

Boneville wrote:
Well, maybe there not controlling him puppetmaster style but subtly steering him by say making the roads hes walking conviniently leading to the different places.

And there's no indication of that, either.

I beg to differ... Tzeentch has it all planned out for him... EVERYTHING IS JUST AS PLANNED!!!

The nameless wrote:

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

Totally Agree!!!
Space Skaven all the way!!

 A Town Called Malus wrote:
That is not what I described. If Draigo kills a daemon, it takes time for that daemon to come back. During that time that daemon cannot threaten the material world. That is a net gain as whilst the daemon can and will come back it cannot do anything until it does so.

This is exactly why the argument that Draigo is in a Sisyphean struggle falls flat. Never before has he been able to more effectively combat Chaos.

And as for him being a pawn of the Chaos Gods, he is explicitly beyond their control.

 Void__Dragon wrote:

 A Town Called Malus wrote:
That is not what I described. If Draigo kills a daemon, it takes time for that daemon to come back. During that time that daemon cannot threaten the material world. That is a net gain as whilst the daemon can and will come back it cannot do anything until it does so.

This is exactly why the argument that Draigo is in a Sisyphean struggle falls flat. Never before has he been able to more effectively combat Chaos.

A Daemon killed in the warp re-spawns pretty much instantly. One killed in the material world has to go through certain steps to be able to come back. Now granted he gets to come back to fight battles in the materium, and that's pretty stupid. But everything he does in the warp is very quickly undone.

And as for him being a pawn of the Chaos Gods, he is explicitly beyond their control.

Except he's not. How else is there a perfectly crafted little pocket of the warp for him to exist in? It's kind of like a fish in a tank. I may not have control over the fish itself, it can pretty much do what it wants, but it only exists because I choose to have a tank to put it in. If I want, I can smash that tank and that fish is screwed.

 Jayden63 wrote:
The biggest problem with Draigo is the same as Mephiston. The guy should not exist as written in the first place.

One man, no matter how powerful, should not be able to effect the home realm of a Chaos God. Regardless of how meaningless it turns out to be. The destruction of a Gods home realm is for the battles of legends and whole armies. Of a group of men working in concert to overthrow an evil god. That makes a good story, with struggle, sacrifice, and ultimately triumph. Not just one man who can make a mockery of their power.

If he was pushed to the very limit of his power and was near death when he defeatd M'kar then okay it would have been not so bad. However, I cannot defend him when it all ends at the fact that he has ZERO flaw. They flat out say abbadon has a problem with Cadia and that I can repesct. If we are going for crunch then he is a monster that I have to throw a termicide at him to bring him down. (Termicide a kamkazie squad of termies with mark of slaanesh and metla bombs.)


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Kaldor wrote:

 Void__Dragon wrote:

 A Town Called Malus wrote:
That is not what I described. If Draigo kills a daemon, it takes time for that daemon to come back. During that time that daemon cannot threaten the material world. That is a net gain as whilst the daemon can and will come back it cannot do anything until it does so.

This is exactly why the argument that Draigo is in a Sisyphean struggle falls flat. Never before has he been able to more effectively combat Chaos.

A Daemon killed in the warp re-spawns pretty much instantly. One killed in the material world has to go through certain steps to be able to come back. Now granted he gets to come back to fight battles in the materium, and that's pretty stupid. But everything he does in the warp is very quickly undone.

And as for him being a pawn of the Chaos Gods, he is explicitly beyond their control.

Except he's not. How else is there a perfectly crafted little pocket of the warp for him to exist in? It's kind of like a fish in a tank. I may not have control over the fish itself, it can pretty much do what it wants, but it only exists because I choose to have a tank to put it in. If I want, I can smash that tank and that fish is screwed.

Hey Kaldor lay off of my world for a while. PS Mortarion wants to hang out with you again.

 Adam LongWalker wrote:
Since We are talking about the Spiritual Liege, might as well have fun at it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xfJUi4cB4oc&feature=relmfu

The Trials of Draigo

Dude flashgitz animation is amazing. I dont read the comic thing they do but I will say they are funny.

Kaldor is NOT a Mary Sue. Kaldor is a Creator's Pet (look up TV tropes) which in many ways is much much worse...

Why is he still even talked about in the open! Even slannesh would not rape him for fear of having its fluff made even gayer than it already is!

(Note am not offending the prince of pleasure here, just pointing out that even the prince could not take it up the *** from him)

I don't care for Draigo and GK that much but turning necrons into metal Pirates of Carribean in spaaace with family trees and fancy skirts is the crime beyond punisment. They went from dark sf menacing force to fantasish and cheesy in the bad way silly in-your-face Egyptian robots. I can't say how much this was a collective effort from GW but Ward is on the first page, he takes the blame . Also that fluff change somehow influenced the whole range of new models so I can't stand any of them bar maybe the Canoptek Wraiths, I want to make an army of them but it won't contain Barges, Arks, Tomb Blades and basicly anything except Warriors, Immortals and models from the older codex. So much choice, thanks Matt.

I might do a little trolling experiment. Once all of this has died down again I might just start a thread with the single line "Matt Ward" and see what happens. Or alternatively subject: Mary Sue and first post a single word: Draigo. That guy who gets well angry about the definition is bound to join in.

Plumbumbarum wrote:
I don't care for Draigo and GK that much but turning necrons into metal Pirates of Carribean in spaaace with family trees and fancy skirts is the crime beyond punisment. They went from dark sf menacing force to fantasish and cheesy in the bad way silly in-your-face Egyptian robots. I can't say how much this was a collective effort from GW but Ward is on the first page, he takes the blame . Also that fluff change somehow influenced the whole range of new models so I can't stand any of them bar maybe the Canoptek Wraiths, I want to make an army of them but it won't contain Barges, Arks, Tomb Blades and basicly anything except Warriors, Immortals and models from the older codex. So much choice, thanks Matt.

Oh no, they made the blatantly Egyptian robots blatantly Egyptian, whatever will we do?!

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

Plumbumbarum wrote:
I don't care for Draigo and GK that much but turning necrons into metal Pirates of Carribean in spaaace with family trees and fancy skirts is the crime beyond punisment. They went from dark sf menacing force to fantasish and cheesy in the bad way silly in-your-face Egyptian robots. I can't say how much this was a collective effort from GW but Ward is on the first page, he takes the blame . Also that fluff change somehow influenced the whole range of new models so I can't stand any of them bar maybe the Canoptek Wraiths, I want to make an army of them but it won't contain Barges, Arks, Tomb Blades and basicly anything except Warriors, Immortals and models from the older codex. So much choice, thanks Matt.

Oh no, they made the blatantly Egyptian robots blatantly Egyptian, whatever will we do?!

They took the right direction of subtlety with Egyptian theme making Necrons just as far away from Terminator as needed but the same time horror-esque menacing and automated. Then Matt took them back into silly metal tomb kings riding their whatever that is era, if you can't see the difference between those two aproaches then I don't know what to tell you tbh.

Down with the betrayer.

I think the latest CSM codex shows what can happen with fluff without Ward. I mean, it wasn't ground breaking, but it wasn't awful or terrible either. I'd classify it as "good", the first good fluff GW codex since Dark Eldar.

Plumbumbarum wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

Plumbumbarum wrote:
I don't care for Draigo and GK that much but turning necrons into metal Pirates of Carribean in spaaace with family trees and fancy skirts is the crime beyond punisment. They went from dark sf menacing force to fantasish and cheesy in the bad way silly in-your-face Egyptian robots. I can't say how much this was a collective effort from GW but Ward is on the first page, he takes the blame . Also that fluff change somehow influenced the whole range of new models so I can't stand any of them bar maybe the Canoptek Wraiths, I want to make an army of them but it won't contain Barges, Arks, Tomb Blades and basicly anything except Warriors, Immortals and models from the older codex. So much choice, thanks Matt.

Oh no, they made the blatantly Egyptian robots blatantly Egyptian, whatever will we do?!

They took the right direction of subtlety with Egyptian theme making Necrons just as far away from Terminator as needed but the same time horror-esque menacing and automated. Then Matt took them back into silly metal tomb kings riding their whatever that is era, if you can't see the difference between those two aproaches then I don't know what to tell you tbh.

Do you honestly think the entire thing was just Ward? No one man can take a fluff that far without several editors due in part to how drastic the change was .

Yes, it's a good chance it was.

He was able to get through major changes without being found out until it was too late. He admitted (I believe at GD UK 2009) that his changes to Land Raider and Drop Pod capacity weren't noticed until release for 5th Edition Codex: Space Marines and said he "got his knuckles rapped" for that, and nobody noticed until it was too late to change it, and that explains why no other SM books have gotten the expanded transport capacity.

Matt Ward's fluff sucks, but his rules are halfway decent. Writing the background in Codex: Space Marines, which is supposed to cover a significant percentage of all Space Marines, as a love letter to the Ultramarines was poor form and unprofessional, but the rules work. Rewriting the Grey Knights to serve as incorruptible paragons of perfection who are so perfect they can run around in the Warp and wield daemon weapons without complications was unforgivable, but the revisions to the rules were the best thing that ever happened to the army (yes, I've been playing Grey Knights in some form or another since they were all metal and squad leaders were fifty points each, and let me say the redone weapons, the psychic power system, and Interceptor Squads are really, really cool).

I've found the best way to deal with Matt Ward is to ignore most of the stuff he writes and assume the rest of it is in-universe propaganda. That or assume that the eight hundred Grey Knights he writes about are his Grey Knights, and the other 2,200 that have vanished in the Codex revision might cleave more closely to the old Codex's background.

 AnomanderRake wrote:
Matt Ward's fluff sucks, but his rules are halfway decent. Writing the background in Codex: Space Marines, which is supposed to cover a significant percentage of all Space Marines, as a love letter to the Ultramarines was poor form and unprofessional, but the rules work. Rewriting the Grey Knights to serve as incorruptible paragons of perfection who are so perfect they can run around in the Warp and wield daemon weapons without complications was unforgivable, but the revisions to the rules were the best thing that ever happened to the army (yes, I've been playing Grey Knights in some form or another since they were all metal and squad leaders were fifty points each, and let me say the redone weapons, the psychic power system, and Interceptor Squads are really, really cool).

I've found the best way to deal with Matt Ward is to ignore most of the stuff he writes and assume the rest of it is in-universe propaganda. That or assume that the eight hundred Grey Knights he writes about are his Grey Knights, and the other 2,200 that have vanished in the Codex revision might cleave more closely to the old Codex's background.

His rules are good?!
Sure, they're so good that he only made one entire game utterly unplayable, while he simply rendered 3 or 4 entire codices irrelevent and near-unplayable for the last year of 5th ed. (and Daemons are still screwed if there's 10+ Warp Quake models on the table!)

His rules are only semi-balanced against the other books he's written, and even then the game still becomes too much of a rock/papper/scissor afair.
Now if you want to see what actual balance looks like, go look at what's happened over the past two years with Fantasy... The first 5 books released so far are all on the same level with only a very slight advantage between the percieved best (Ogres) & worst (Tomb Kings) books. No army really has any "must-haves" choices and spaming outside of Core units is thankfully dead.

What's really telling however, Ward hasn't been involved with any these books...
With the new CSM book having a distinct impression that GW is trying to do to 40k what they've begun to achieve in Fantasy, it'll be interesting to see what happens when an eventual Ward book is thrown into the mix.