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 AegisGrimm wrote:

Mat Ward didn't write any of that. All of the above comes from 1995's Codex: Ultramarines, written by Rick Priestley, one of the original creators of 40K...

Yup, I agree. That's one of the things I would say that makes me laugh about 40K. All this hate towards the Ultramarines as if their fluff is some new construct of Ultramarines fans, when basically everything about them that exists but the theory about how all other Chapters idolize them (which is dumb) was established in one of the oldest army books of the entire game of 40K and penned by a guy that, at least who used to be, universally loved.

I also smirk when Black Templars players rage about anything that might make their Chapter less cool - especially making it a section of the Space marine codex with special rules, when us old players knew that army as just one of many generic vanilla successors pictured in the Ultramarines Codex, which was the original "Vanilla Codex". And then in 3rd edition when it was an "addendum to the vanilla codex, with special rules".

Also, the fact that the "technology as magic" part of 40K is getting out of hand so badly it's not even funny, but rather confusing. Techpriests don't know how to build anything technological anymore without a magical STC to spit it out, but then they can repair that same technology??? I understand the methods of operation being ritual, but it's getting to the point that GW is portraying humans as cavemen with laserguns.

The emo-ness of the technological stagnation of the Imperium is starting to just be a knee-jerk reaction that makes little sense. Pretty soon they are going to say that the method of making autogun ammo has been "lost to the mists of time", though luckily... Forgeworld XXI-B can still make Warlord Titans.

I dont find that funny. Thats all stuff about 40k that actually really hate lol. So i ignore it and move on happy as a clam lol

Good point Galdos, there is little respect gained for people that ridicule and tell people how to feel and think. At most forums doing that is a ban-able offense. Of course I'm just speaking for myself.

Wait...did i say something out of line? Didn't mean to.

 Beaviz81 wrote:
Good point Galdos, there is little respect gained for people that ridicule and tell people how to feel and think. At most forums doing that is a ban-able offense. Of course I'm just speaking for myself.

I agree. When someone tells me I should hate Ultramarines, and Mat Ward is literally hitler I wish they would get banned.

 Kaldor wrote:

 Beaviz81 wrote:
Good point Galdos, there is little respect gained for people that ridicule and tell people how to feel and think. At most forums doing that is a ban-able offense. Of course I'm just speaking for myself.

I agree. When someone tells me I should hate Ultramarines, and Mat Ward is literally hitler I wish they would get banned.

I can see the part about commanding you to hate the Ultramarines, that's not kosher. But if a guy think Matt Ward is literary Hitler, then it's an opinion (as for myself, I think his hyperbole is akin to Michael Cole not Hitler, which hopefully is a massive difference as Michael Cole is just a hyberbole-filled commentator, while Hitler was a very bad man).

 AegisGrimm wrote:
Wait...did i say something out of line? Didn't mean to.

I was just saying I think you posted that in the wrong topic sense this is for funny stuff lol.


I hate Matt Ward as much as the next person though I like to think I avoid talking about him. I actually like the Ultarmarines so usually if I contribute ( ithink) I just comment on how I really like McNeil's books because they good through such lengths to portray them in a more reasonable fashion.

The really old fluff for Orks used to have some funny bits about their whole gestalt psychic field thing. Im pretty sure back in 2nd or 3rd edition Orks could make just about anything fire bullets so long as they believed it was a gun, even pieces of wood.

I'm surprised no one has mentioned Trazyn the Infinite yet, his "Gift" and message to Inquisitor Valeria was pretty funny.

The quote about Imotekh pitching HIgh Marshall Helbrecht off a cliff while he was screaming was also pretty funny.

The Zahndrekh quote thinking the Orks were Necrons, is also, quite awesome.

In one of the IW books, a squad of terminators kills a titan.
By entering in its foot.
Everything's normal.

In another one, (that I did not finish reading), an iron warriors shuttle is used against a battle barge as a bullet.
The battle barge is wrecked, the shuttle just pursue its venture.
Everything's normal.

You can fit 10 fully equiped space marines, including up to 4 heavy weapons, in a rhino. + a pilot.
Everything's normal.

 Seb wrote:
In one of the IW books, a squad of terminators kills a titan.
By entering in its foot.
Everything's normal.

In another one, (that I did not finish reading), an iron warriors shuttle is used against a battle barge as a bullet.
The battle barge is wrecked, the shuttle just pursue its venture.
Everything's normal.

You can fit 10 fully equiped space marines, including up to 4 heavy weapons, in a rhino. + a pilot.
Everything's normal.

The entry of the foot-thingy is standard, the titan had a full company of Guardsmen as guardians.

The fact that Space Marines can even sit in tanks makes no sense whatsoever. First you have guys with super-toughness, then you dress them in powered armour, then you encase them inside tanks with their extremely large frames, and with so small entry-points that I think every Space Marine has a second setting on his bolter (this is me being witty not fluffy) teleportation.

Speaking of tanks. So many rivets and in the most unnecessary places. Also did they forget how to weld in the age of strife?

Haha yeah, the rivets seem to be everywhere. Space Marine-tanks is an absurdity alone.

Even though I would like fluff regarding stumbling Titans, that would be damn funny.

I all ways thought the bit about how Big E gets sacrificed thousands of psykers a day is funny. How many psykers are out there?

Everything orks, though my favorite is wazdakka crashing through a titans cockpit and killing the crew.
And space marines idea and camo...

 AegisGrimm wrote:
The emo-ness of the technological stagnation of the Imperium is starting to just be a knee-jerk reaction that makes little sense. Pretty soon they are going to say that the method of making autogun ammo has been "lost to the mists of time", though luckily... Forgeworld XXI-B can still make Warlord Titans.

One of by own mental jokes is that by 50k, the average Guardsman is armed with Crossbows, while only Space Marine officers get the privelage of using... gasp! Matchlock weapons!

Ooooh I get it, we got it all wrong, Warhammer fantasy is not a prequel to 40k, its a sequel!

 Galdos wrote:

 AegisGrimm wrote:
Wait...did i say something out of line? Didn't mean to.

I was just saying I think you posted that in the wrong topic sense this is for funny stuff lol.


I hate Matt Ward as much as the next person though I like to think I avoid talking about him. I actually like the Ultarmarines so usually if I contribute ( ithink) I just comment on how I really like McNeil's books because they good through such lengths to portray them in a more reasonable fashion.

Ah, ok. I was just commenting/agreeing on what was said about the Ultramarines before me.

The main part of my topic is how I think it's funny when I read something that expands the 'technological decay' situation of the Imperium. Pretty soon they will have Forgeworlds they hold in regard above all others because they have the last working "toilet paper manufactorums" to be distributed among the Imperial army forces.

Though about the Ultramarines, the cynical part of me really does think it's funny when people think some 40K stuff is the latest and most horrible work of some hated author and rant about it, when us oldies can quote it from books back in 2nd edition and can think of two or three consecutive waves of new players ranting about it over the past several years.

Ooooh I get it, we got it all wrong, Warhammer fantasy is not a prequel to 40k, its a sequel!

It's about there. There is absolutely no way that anything GW says can convince me that the crew of an Imperial cruiser flies it by faithful rituals and sacred oils to make it happy.

I would totally believe a setting where the high technology of the Imperium like Plasma guns and machine spirits (how are they different form the "banned" AIs of the setting, again?) have been largely lost and cannot be easily distributed because of the size of the Imperium vs. travel time. But right now Orks are more successful innovators than humans!

Tuska Da Daemon Killa, who, after leading his boyz across hundreds of daemon worlds in the Eye of Terror, beating the snot out of all of them, finally falls in combat against a bloodthirster lord and with his dying breath, as the daemon stands over him, rams his powerclaw up its....

 AegisGrimm wrote:

Mat Ward didn't write any of that. All of the above comes from 1995's Codex: Ultramarines, written by Rick Priestley, one of the original creators of 40K...

Yup, I agree. That's one of the things I would say that makes me laugh about 40K. All this hate towards the Ultramarines as if their fluff is some new construct of Ultramarines fans, when basically everything about them that exists but the theory about how all other Chapters idolize them (which is dumb) was established in one of the oldest army books of the entire game of 40K and penned by a guy that, at least who used to be, universally loved.

People really didn't have an issue with Ultramarines until the 5th Ed codex by Ward, which was absolutely terrible. The every non-Smurf Chapter wanting to secretly be Smurfs and making them too Mary Stewish even for Space Marines standards are responsible for this. I haven't really seen many bash them for having the most successor chapters.

If memory serves the fact that everyone wanting to be the Ultras were there from 1995, but then it was the Ultramarines who thought that highly about themselves, which I assume was the line of thought most people had due to it being in the Codex Ultramarines. And Matt Ward then came along, added some more hyperbole, made each Ultramarine sound better than the ultimate Mary Sue (Empy), and it went downward from there.

I for one never was a fan of Rick Priestly's Space Marines, but I kept to WHFB due to the Brighthammy Bretonnians and the damn funny Skaven. I first got really interested in WH40k after the turn of the millennia, and if anything the Space Marines were a major turn-off for me there. Of course I might be wrong about the thought about everyone wanting to be the Ultras being from 1995 as I was in love with WH40k's brother not WH40k itself, and I don't really care to read much about the Ultras even back then for medical reasons.

 Beaviz81 wrote:

 Seb wrote:
In one of the IW books, a squad of terminators kills a titan.
By entering in its foot.
Everything's normal.

In another one, (that I did not finish reading), an iron warriors shuttle is used against a battle barge as a bullet.
The battle barge is wrecked, the shuttle just pursue its venture.
Everything's normal.

You can fit 10 fully equiped space marines, including up to 4 heavy weapons, in a rhino. + a pilot.
Everything's normal.

The entry of the foot-thingy is standard, the titan had a full company of Guardsmen as guardians.

Yeah - but as a titan princeps, I would have add a failsafe, let's say BIG DOORS that can isolate parts of the titan in case of breach.

While Matt Ward borrowed a lot of fluff from earlier publications, he often edits a few words or phrases here and there to make them more over the top and fit his "I'm a hyper adolescent" approach to writing.

For example, Tigurius' fluff is mostly unchanged, and used to describe his connection to the Hive Mind as a qualification to be "one of the most powerful psykers in the Imperium". Ward, of course, chose to omit the "one of"

Of course, it all becomes silly when each successive book has characters that are that much better than the "best in da universe" guys from the previous book.

 Omegus wrote:


For example, Tigurius' fluff is mostly unchanged, and used to describe his connection to the Hive Mind as a qualification to be "one of the most powerful psykers in the Imperium". Ward, of course, chose to omit the "one of"

Poor Eldrad

And just about any veteran Farseer worth a damn for that matter.

 Beaviz81 wrote:
If memory serves the fact that everyone wanting to be the Ultras were there from 1995, but then it was the Ultramarines who thought that highly about themselves, which I assume was the line of thought most people had due to it being in the Codex Ultramarines.

No. That was definitely not in the 2nd Edition book. Only the parts about them having the most Successor chapters, and being the most successful of the Space Marine chapters ("Greatest of all Space Marine Chapters is the quote from the back cover). And, actually, players have always hated the Ultramarines, lol. I did a long analysis of it once, a long time ago. But, the basics of it was that they used to be hated for being "boring". Codex: Ultramarines didn't have a lot of fancy units like Codex: Angels of Death (BA & DA), and it wasn't ridiculously unbalanced and overpowered like Codex: Space Wolves. It was the "generic" or "vanilla" Space Marine list. Back in 2nd Edition, Special Characters weren't staples of the game because you were supposed to ask for permission to use them, since they were often overpowered and unbalancing. You used Special Characters for special games. In 2nd Edition, they didn't fight in every battle ever, like they do today, lol. So the basic list was what was important.

But the Ultramarines continued to be the default Chapter for Games Workshop. And for a very good reason. They were generic. If you know what a Marine is in real life, an Ultramarine looks like one, 40,000 years in the future. So, on a poster, or a game box, or in art, etc, they just looked like Big Guys in Big Armor, with Big Guns. You didn't have to explain why they were furry Vikings, or why they had fangs and blood drops all over the place, or why they had bathrobes on. But, again, because Codex: Ultramarines (and its successors, Codex: Space Marines) was less powerful, players assumed that meant, fluff wise, it was impossible for the Ultramarines to be any good. Trust me. I've been around the hobby a long time, and the player base hasn't gotten any smarter, lol. The hate for the Ultramarines has just evolved, largely fueled by the previous generation of neckbeards who hated the Ultramarines. If you just recently decided you didn't like the Ultramarines, it is because you were influenced by the previous generation of players who worked very hard, and very loudly, to convince you that you hated them. And some of them do a good job. Posing as intellectuals, rambling on about character development, and how Space Marines should have flaws, and Mary-Sueism, etc. But, in reality, all Space Marines are equally Mary Sues (in that they aren't at all, unless you think being sober, celibate, and having very little freedom of thought or action is awesome, in which case I imagine you never have sex with attractive women, have never gotten good and hammered and/or had fun), and making Blood Angels all ragey or Dark Angels all emo or Space Wolves all drunk isn't good character development, because it's all just a way to slot them into a different target segment in the Space Marine market. 40K is great at market segmentation. They've got an anime army. And an Aliens/Starship Troopers bugs army. And Space Elves. And Space Dark Elves/Fetishists. And Space Mad Max Orks. And Space Rambos. And Space Religious Nuts. And Space We're Better than even Normal Space Marines. An army to appeal to all types. In fact, if anything, the Space Wolves are the least flawed, and the most Mary Sue-like of all Space Marines, because they are Space Marines, who get to do all the stuff Space Marines don't get to do. Eat, drink, and be merry. Heck, it's even suggested they get to be all bangy with the ladyfolk. Other Space Marines take a vow of celibacy and sobriety at like Age 6. It sucks to be a Space Marine. But it's awesome to be a Space Wolf! They're Vikings! I mean, yeah, Calgar stomped an Avatar once. But Mephiston punched half a Waaagh! to death with his bare hands, and the Blood Angels have an immortal Chapter Master who one-shotted a Bloodthirster by chopping it in half. The Ultramarines Codex overstates the Ultramarines, but that's not silly? "No, of course not, because we hate the Ultramarines!"


Look, the whole "everyone wants to be an Ultramarines" is stupid, and incorrect anyway. What the book says is that they can never be Ultramarines, but still aspire to the standards set by Guilliman. That's all. It doesn't say that they do that at the expense of their own Primarch, or hate themselves, just that they try to exist by the doctrines in the Codex. Yeah, it's a bit hyperbolic, but it's this trend where if you repeat something enough times, eventually the story changes.

And nobody actually seems to read what the book actually says, because it becomes "funnier" to just repeat the incorrect version (the lie, essentially). Mat Ward has become such a fan pariah, that people don't think twice about perpetuating this lie either, assuming they can get away with it because everyone already hates Mat Ward anyway.

Veteran Sergeant I make up my mind, I can listen to other people, but in the end I decide what to think and feel, and me and my friends played plain old Warhammer. I never liked the Ultras for being boring, and as racism spread over football-stadiums the name has become unfortunate due to the Ultras of Italy and other countries (which in my mind should be of some concern for GW).

People also is prone to assume the worst about anything, and the statement is extremely hyperbolic as you pointed out, and I'm not sure about how you read it, of course a parsec that their own Primarch comes first should have been added.

Chapter Masters are living gods of war, and I haven't read the BA-codex since Kaldor Draigo basically accomplishes feats making him a missing Primarch. Of course the power-levels of a Greater Daemon can be taken into account. D&D has dozens of demons, while WH40k has two archetypes. There must be something inbetween or Ciaphas Cain is chasing around a Demon a Primarch would struggle to best, Inquisitor Hector Rex going toe to toe with a Bloodthirster and winning. Any kind of logic there points to a power-scale, at least a sane person would agree with me at that point.

The Ultramarines have always lacked a personality, but what Matt Ward did was making them perfect. I wish that he had added they regarded themselves as that, then I would call Ward a very talented writer, which he of course is, but as other guys state he is prone to just substracting and adding things and I stopped and I haven't dared read the other hyperbole he has written. It actually ends up seeming like the hyperbole I would expect inperson wrestlers to write about themselves. It's that bad.

Also stereotyping is just stupid. It's a really bad way of answering criticism on. The Blood Angels are vampiric sure, but they also have some awful secrets including the frakking Flesh Tearers and their curse, the Space Wolves drink sure, but they are absent of women since if the ejaculation doesn't destroy the woman the sperm would (the only chapter I know of which breeds actively is the Sons of Dorn, and they have a Pariah Chapter Master) and they have a hell of a lot of personality (the Space Wolves I mean), the Dark Angels is extremely secretive, I wish them could be more native American. All those are personality-traits, while I can see the Ultramarines as the posterboys they being perfect gets them no-where.

Poop of the emperor grenades 'Psy grenades" or whatever theyre are called , forgot the name :p

 Beaviz81 wrote:
I never liked the Ultras for being boring, and as racism spread over football-stadiums the name has become unfortunate due to the Ultras of Italy and other countries (which in my mind should be of some concern for GW).

That is absolutely ridiculous

 Bobthehero wrote:

 Beaviz81 wrote:
I never liked the Ultras for being boring, and as racism spread over football-stadiums the name has become unfortunate due to the Ultras of Italy and other countries (which in my mind should be of some concern for GW).

That is absolutely ridiculous

I know, but it is also a fact. Ultras are a growing thingy, and that's not pleasant.

A term can become synonymous with things like racism (Nazi for example) but I don't think that will happen here though. At least not outside of Italy.

Anything regardig Orks