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 Kaldor wrote:

jdjamesdean@mail.com wrote:
The GK fluff/Background is possibly the worst I have ever read. I think that others tend to agree, while I like the rules and how the army plays, the fluff is quite terrible. Overall I give it a C- .

It's certainly no worse than any other codex out there.

I agree with you Kaldor, to a point, the actual direction he takes the background I am fine with, but I think his execution is flawed, take the whole Mortarion thing for example, it reads as if Draigo just kinda whistled his way up to Mortrarion and did a little scribble on his heart.
Is this what actually happened? Probably not, perhaps if he used a little prose to set the scene of the battle it would have turned much better, in my opinion anyway.

The bloodtide incident is similar in its poor execution, he tells us what the bloodtide did, but not how it did it/what it was, which makes people who haven't read the Hunt for Voldorius/been on lexicanum automatically assume its some warp based phenomenon when it is in fact a relic from the dark age of technology.

 Krellnus wrote:

 Kaldor wrote:

jdjamesdean@mail.com wrote:
The GK fluff/Background is possibly the worst I have ever read. I think that others tend to agree, while I like the rules and how the army plays, the fluff is quite terrible. Overall I give it a C- .

It's certainly no worse than any other codex out there.

I agree with you Kaldor, to a point, the actual direction he takes the background I am fine with, but I think his execution is flawed, take the whole Mortarion thing for example, it reads as if Draigo just kinda whistled his way up to Mortrarion and did a little scribble on his heart.
Is this what actually happened? Probably not, perhaps if he used a little prose to set the scene of the battle it would have turned much better, in my opinion anyway.

The bloodtide incident is similar in its poor execution, he tells us what the bloodtide did, but not how it did it/what it was, which makes people who haven't read the Hunt for Voldorius/been on lexicanum automatically assume its some warp based phenomenon when it is in fact a relic from the dark age of technology.

yes it is poorly executed. very poorly to me. the whole point of the grey knights is doing what no others could do. i get that, i go back to the SoB story. Grey knights are the most pure warriors in the galaxy. They dont need the blood of the most pure nor can they be corrupted. So that leaves very few reasons for it. There was a justicar with a bone to pick with the sisters, or matt ward doesnt understand they grey knights.

Kaldor wrote:

Exactly. I'd never argue that people don't like it. But that doesn't make it objectively bad or even objectively worse than the other codexes.

If we're going that route neither is joe-neckbeards internet fanfic codex...

And that reason is (largely) the bandwagon. In my experience, most of the haters haven't even read the parts they hate, let alone conducted an objective analysis or comparison.

You keep blaming it on the bandwagon, yet we've never seen such with other authors despite getting as much negative feedback at times.

The key there is that they don't do such things consistently. Phil Kelly did Eldar, which became a metagame nightmare, but his fluff was ok. Orks then came out and everybody loved that book by and large. Then Space Wolves which was as bad as any Ward book and he's been thrashed for it, and then Dark Eldar which much like the Ork book was pretty universally liked, and finally CSM's which has been largely a non-event. A very mixed history.

Ward's work between Space Marines, Blood Angels, Grey Knights and Necrons has generated consistent negative feedback on the same 3 or 4 points every time. Fluff that reads like internet fanfic, fluff that breaks even 40k's suspension of disbelief, gimmicky rules and over the top army mechanics. When it comes to his Fantasy stuff, he did Wood Elves which for a while were very powerful and gimmicky and then stopped working very soon after a new edition, and then he did Daemons which *broke* an entire edition.

If it appears there's a bandwagon, it's because Ward keeps releasing material with the exact same issues, bad fluff, gimmicky and over the top rules, and thus keeps feeding the fire.

gh05tdemon wrote:
i go back to the SoB story. Grey knights are the most pure warriors in the galaxy. They dont need the blood of the most pure nor can they be corrupted. So that leaves very few reasons for it. There was a justicar with a bone to pick with the sisters, or matt ward doesnt understand they grey knights.

See, it's stuff like this that proves the bandwagon theory. Have you even read the codex, gho5tdemon? Because it sure doesn't sound like it.

 Kaldor wrote:

gh05tdemon wrote:
i go back to the SoB story. Grey knights are the most pure warriors in the galaxy. They dont need the blood of the most pure nor can they be corrupted. So that leaves very few reasons for it. There was a justicar with a bone to pick with the sisters, or matt ward doesnt understand they grey knights.

See, it's stuff like this that proves the bandwagon theory. Have you even read the codex, gho5tdemon? Because it sure doesn't sound like it.

I'd be curious to hear a justification, as I have read the story and it made me go O.O and put down the codex.

 Kaldor wrote:

gh05tdemon wrote:
i go back to the SoB story. Grey knights are the most pure warriors in the galaxy. They dont need the blood of the most pure nor can they be corrupted. So that leaves very few reasons for it. There was a justicar with a bone to pick with the sisters, or matt ward doesnt understand they grey knights.

See, it's stuff like this that proves the bandwagon theory. Have you even read the codex, gho5tdemon? Because it sure doesn't sound like it.

I have read it, I've got the book not 5 feet from me, and I still think it's a stupid, forced story.

 Evertras wrote:

 Kaldor wrote:

gh05tdemon wrote:
i go back to the SoB story. Grey knights are the most pure warriors in the galaxy. They dont need the blood of the most pure nor can they be corrupted. So that leaves very few reasons for it. There was a justicar with a bone to pick with the sisters, or matt ward doesnt understand they grey knights.

See, it's stuff like this that proves the bandwagon theory. Have you even read the codex, gho5tdemon? Because it sure doesn't sound like it.

I'd be curious to hear a justification, as I have read the story and it made me go O.O and put down the codex.

*sigh*

Grey Knights are not immune to the power of Chaos. They can die from Nurgle's Plague or be burned by the fires of Tzeench. This is why they wear the Aegis, pentagrammic wards, etc, to offer some protection from things like that.

When faced with the Bloodtide, they (quite sensibly) decided that extra protection would be a good idea, so this particular Chaos power would be less likely to overwhelm their Aegis and pentagrammic wards. One of the ingredients for that extra protection was the blood of innocents. So they took it. It had nothing to do with being 'pure' or 'corrupted' and just goes to show that gho5tdemon hasn't objectively evaluated this particular story, let alone the entire codex, and doesn't actually know what he's talking about.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Vaktathi wrote:

 Kaldor wrote:

gh05tdemon wrote:
i go back to the SoB story. Grey knights are the most pure warriors in the galaxy. They dont need the blood of the most pure nor can they be corrupted. So that leaves very few reasons for it. There was a justicar with a bone to pick with the sisters, or matt ward doesnt understand they grey knights.

See, it's stuff like this that proves the bandwagon theory. Have you even read the codex, gho5tdemon? Because it sure doesn't sound like it.

I have read it, I've got the book not 5 feet from me, and I still think it's a stupid, forced story.

Thats great. Now I'd like to see how it's more stupid and forced that Vect's background, or the exploding Void Whale from the Space Wolves codex.

Objectively, of course.

The void whale, and most of the SW fluff *was* stupid. I'm not denying that, the entire book was as awful as anything Ward has done. But, it's pretty much a one-off for Kelly, his other books aren't are pretty good fluffwise.



As for Vect, which particular aspect of Vect's fluff are you talking about?

 Kaldor wrote:

gh05tdemon wrote:
i go back to the SoB story. Grey knights are the most pure warriors in the galaxy. They dont need the blood of the most pure nor can they be corrupted. So that leaves very few reasons for it. There was a justicar with a bone to pick with the sisters, or matt ward doesnt understand they grey knights.

See, it's stuff like this that proves the bandwagon theory. Have you even read the codex, gho5tdemon? Because it sure doesn't sound like it.

I have but not in a long while. The fact something like that is even in there is my problem. i honestly dont understand why your attacking me though, im on your side with lets look at this with all others considered. Which brings me back to when did you join grey knights? they are based around absolute purity. attacking SoB for any reason shows corruption. i have one problem and one problem only and it is that one. maybe you have only taken up opposition because you are a no talent who cant even play without cheese. ever consider that?

and drop the band wagon bs if he is so good put up your every redeming trait of him. we have put up what we hate now put up what you love.

 Kaldor wrote:

jdjamesdean@mail.com wrote:
The GK fluff/Background is possibly the worst I have ever read. I think that others tend to agree, while I like the rules and how the army plays, the fluff is quite terrible. Overall I give it a C- .

It's certainly no worse than any other codex out there.

Oh but it certainly is.

 Kaldor wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
it's very subjective

Exactly. I'd never argue that people don't like it. But that doesn't make it objectively bad or even objectively worse than the other codexes.

but that book got a lot of hate for it's background for a reason

And that reason is (largely) the bandwagon. In my experience, most of the haters haven't even read the parts they hate, let alone conducted an objective analysis or comparison.

 Kaldor wrote:
*sigh*

Grey Knights are not immune to the power of Chaos. They can die from Nurgle's Plague or be burned by the fires of Tzeench. This is why they wear the Aegis, pentagrammic wards, etc, to offer some protection from things like that.

When faced with the Bloodtide, they (quite sensibly) decided that extra protection would be a good idea, so this particular Chaos power would be less likely to overwhelm their Aegis and pentagrammic wards. One of the ingredients for that extra protection was the blood of innocents. So they took it. It had nothing to do with being 'pure' or 'corrupted' and just goes to show that gho5tdemon hasn't objectively evaluated this particular story, let alone the entire codex, and doesn't actually know what he's talking about.

Don't do the hipster sigh thing at me, please. It was an honest question. I read through the fluff, read that, went 'WOAH WHAT', read the rest, did not see the justification for it, and it hurt my brain. With what you provided above, it still hurts my brain.

Is it a big deal to me? No, but out of all the stuff I've read, that stood out to me pretty harshly. I'm not in the objective 'bandwagon', either. If you like it, great. I'm not going to convince you otherwise, nor you me. I'm in the subjective 'I dislike this fluff' camp and I think we're all reasonable enough to agree to disagree from there on.

jdjamesdean@mail.com wrote:
Oh but it certainly is.

Oh, but it certainly isn't.

gh05tdemon wrote:
they are based around absolute purity. attacking SoB for any reason shows corruption

Yep, you've definitely not read the codex.

Thanks for helping to illustrate my point, I guess.

"Needing a talisman of purity to protect against the bloodtide's taint, the grey knights turned their blades upon the surviving sisters of battle" Grey knights codex pg. 15, blodtide returns, opening line of paragraph 2.

This contradicts all existing fluff of the grey knights. If this works so well why didnt alric's squad do this in the book grey knight? why dont they do this for every single infestation? why not just skip the middle man and send these knew "more pure" forces after them? because its not who they are. They exist to fight demons because they are the most pure.there is no one more pure. and the only talismans earned in blood are those of khorne where no grey knight would turn, let alone a combat force. (and dont bother bring up alric accepting it in hammer of demons. if you read it you would understand why he accepted and ultimately rejected it.)

A rebuttal I've heard is that their minds are pure but their flesh is not, hence the pentagramic wards and need for the sisters blood.

Still doesn't improve the quality of ward's writing

 Hlaine Larkin mk2 wrote:
A rebuttal I've heard is that their minds are pure but their flesh is not, hence the pentagramic wards and need for the sisters blood.

Still doesn't improve the quality of ward's writing

Thank you for the explanation . That does do a lot to redeem them in my eyes. not enough to play them again but still explains the story. (would have been nice to have that in the book though lol)

gh05tdemon wrote:
"Needing a talisman of purity to protect against the bloodtide's taint, the grey knights turned their blades upon the surviving sisters of battle" Grey knights codex pg. 15, blodtide returns, opening line of paragraph 2.

This contradicts all existing fluff of the grey knights. If this works so well why didnt alric's squad do this in the book grey knight? why dont they do this for every single infestation? why not just skip the middle man and send these knew "more pure" forces after them? because its not who they are. They exist to fight demons because they are the most pure.there is no one more pure. and the only talismans earned in blood are those of khorne where no grey knight would turn, let alone a combat force. (and dont bother bring up alric accepting it in hammer of demons. if you read it you would understand why he accepted and ultimately rejected it.)

What do you even think purity means, in this context?

well, ive explained my dislike of ward so im gonna get off this one now. closing words, better/better explained fluff would go a long way. have fun everyone and remember the golden rule of the internet, DONT FEED THE TROLLS.

Kaldor wrote:
Yep, you've definitely not read the codex.

Thanks for helping to illustrate my point, I guess.

"zomg you're not interpreting it the way I like it, you obviously didn't read it then, thanks for illustrating my brilliance!"

This sort of post is worthless, you explain nothing of your position, and just commit and ad-hominem attack without any knowledge of it they actually read it or not simply because you do not like how the other person is portraying it. It's the fallback of a lost position.


Responding to other posts with vague questions and ad-hominems doesn't make you right or advance your position, it just kills the discussion or keeps it going in circles.


Ultimately, regardless of the specifics, blood rituals are generally the territory of Chaos, slaying allies to use their blood in a ritual is *very* khornate and not something readers will generally like seeing in their GK fluff because it just doesn't fit the role. Yes we get it, it's to show they'll go to any lengths and the sisters blood would help the GK's accomplish victory, yadda yadda, it's still a bad story that doesn't fit the character or place of the GK's in the story. It's an act more appropriate to the GK's enemy's than themselves and that's what irks players.

The more I read the thread, the more I find it hilarious that it's a GK fanboy with a GK avatar whiteknighting for Ward.

Let's put it this way: it's generally accepted that 40k fluff was meant to be a joke in the first place and shouldn't have been taken (too) seriously. But the problem is that some of us have standards and demand at least a semblance of quality in what we read, especially if we're going to pay $35-40 for a book as opposed to $15 for your typical fantasy/scifi novel.

Ward writes like a mouth-breathing neckbeard teenager - there's no getting around it. It's almost as bad as Stephenie Meyer's rape of vampire fiction with Twilight, and I don't see how anyone would want to defend Ward. Trying to dismiss widespread criticism of Ward as "bandwagoning" is just dishonest, because no writer should ever be let off the hook for simply bad writing.

 NEWater wrote:
Ward writes like a mouth-breathing neckbeard teenager

Again with the needless vitriol.

Another perfect example of the bandwagon.

 Kaldor wrote:

 NEWater wrote:
Ward writes like a mouth-breathing neckbeard teenager

Again with the needless vitriol.

Another perfect example of the bandwagon.

Then the burden of proof lies on you to show that my accusation is false. There is no reason to assume that it is not so just because you say so.

 NEWater wrote:
The more I read the thread, the more I find it hilarious that it's a GK fanboy with a GK avatar whiteknighting for Ward..

If Kaldor was whiteknighting for Ward he would be trying to say its better than any other author's fluff.
Go back.
Read the thread again.

...

Good you're back, now as you should probably have just read, Kaldor hasn't done that.
All he has done is point out that the actions described by Ward in the Grey Knights codex are on the whole, no more, or no less worse than others such as Asdrubael "Black Hole in a bawks" Vect.
That is not whiteknighting.

@OT I personally think that Ward is just the unfortunate victim of the Twilight Effect, where, yeah sure his writing is bad (don't pretend it isn't, but its not particularly worse than other codices) but due to being picked out seemingly at random and driven into oblivion and hyperbole by the unmatched power of the internet hate machine.

 Krellnus wrote:

 NEWater wrote:
The more I read the thread, the more I find it hilarious that it's a GK fanboy with a GK avatar whiteknighting for Ward..

If Kaldor was whiteknighting for Ward he would be trying to say its better than any other author's fluff.
Go back.
Read the thread again.

...

Good your back, now as you should probably have just read, Kaldor hasn't done that.
All he has done is point out that the actions described by Ward in the Grey Knights codex are on the whole, no more, or no less worse than others such as Asdrubael "Black Hole in a bawks" Vect.
That is not whiteknighting.

@OT I personally think that Ward is just the unfortunate victim of the Twilight Effect, where, yeah sure his writing is bad (don't pretend it isn't, but its not particularly worse than other codices) but due to being picked out seemingly at random and driven into oblivion and hyperbole by the unmatched power of the internet hate machine.

You're welcome.

What I have learned from this thread is that apparently all of the 40K fluff is awful, but that there are degrees of awful.

 NEWater wrote:

 Kaldor wrote:

 NEWater wrote:
Ward writes like a mouth-breathing neckbeard teenager

Again with the needless vitriol.

Another perfect example of the bandwagon.

Then the burden of proof lies on you to show that my accusation is false. There is no reason to assume that it is not so just because you say so.

Oh please. If you want to play the 'burden of proof' card you're going to need to come up with a community approved process for evaluation of written works, an objective, community approved standard as to exactly what constitutes a 'mouth breathing neckbeard teenager' and then perform a thorough comparison and provide your conclusive findings.

Otherwise you're just pissing in the wind.

I'm not going to stand up and say Ward writes excellent fluff. As a whole, 40K fluff is pretty dire. The setting is great, but many of the stories told within it leave a lot to be desired and Ward is no exception. That's my whole stance on the issue. He's no exception, and yet is treated as though he is the bastard love child of Stalin and Osama Bin Laden. The volume and intensity of hatred directed towards him is embarrassing. Watching you all pat each other on the back about it and congratulate each other on being so clever is to watch one of the biggest circle-jerks in internet history.

 NEWater wrote:

 Krellnus wrote:

 NEWater wrote:
The more I read the thread, the more I find it hilarious that it's a GK fanboy with a GK avatar whiteknighting for Ward..

If Kaldor was whiteknighting for Ward he would be trying to say its better than any other author's fluff.
Go back.
Read the thread again.

...

Good your back, now as you should probably have just read, Kaldor hasn't done that.
All he has done is point out that the actions described by Ward in the Grey Knights codex are on the whole, no more, or no less worse than others such as Asdrubael "Black Hole in a bawks" Vect.
That is not whiteknighting.

@OT I personally think that Ward is just the unfortunate victim of the Twilight Effect, where, yeah sure his writing is bad (don't pretend it isn't, but its not particularly worse than other codices) but due to being picked out seemingly at random and driven into oblivion and hyperbole by the unmatched power of the internet hate machine.

You're welcome.

Thank you.
Now are you actually gonna try and refute what I have said or are you just going to continue these pointless ad hominem attacks?

 Kaldor wrote:

jdjamesdean@mail.com wrote:
Oh but it certainly is.

Oh, but it certainly isn't.

GK's fluff is easily one of the 3 worst reads out of all the codexes.

SW's and GK's are possibly the worst. At least the part about the Void Whale had me LoLing hardcore.

jdjamesdean@mail.com wrote:

 Kaldor wrote:

jdjamesdean@mail.com wrote:
Oh but it certainly is.

Oh, but it certainly isn't.

GK's fluff is easily one of the 3 worst reads out of all the codexes.

SW's and GK's are possibly the worst. At least the part about the Void Whale had me LoLing hardcore.

Gonna be honest, have you read the Poetic and Prose Eddas? If you haven't, I suggest you do. Suddenly the SW codex becomes that much more lolwhatamIreading?.

 Vaktathi wrote:
The void whale, and most of the SW fluff *was* stupid. I'm not denying that, the entire book was as awful as anything Ward has done. But, it's pretty much a one-off for Kelly, his other books aren't are pretty good fluffwise.

So if kelly is allowed a one of for awfull fluff with wolves, then surely Ward is allowed a one off for greyknights. That is only fair right? I mean, all the ward hate is to do with grey knight fluff more than anything, so how about you give other examples of other fluff, otherwise there is no reason to say he is worse than the others. I mean, the majority say he did a good job with Necrons.

My main dislike for the GK book is actually the page of paladin fluff. It's just silly. There are these incredibly long-winded complex and asinine names for various locations that really serve no purpose and have no meaning. Also the idea that there are what, eight grueling quests, of which the first three and last one are explained, and the middle four are entirely skipped, replaced with a line that basically reads "oh, there are another four quests, but I'm not gunna tell you what they are. But trust me, they are all harder than a petrified horse cock at a bachelor party."

The first quest is really silly, because it's supposed to be a test of mental resistance to corruption. But no grey knight has ever been corrupted. So, what, does everyone just auto-pass that one or what? It's supposed to be super hard, but it's evident
that no one ever failed or else we would have a few corrupted
grey knights around.

The last quest needs some more explaining as well. You go after one of the 666 most powerful daemons with just a sword and the thing's true name. But obviously we aren't going after the really powerful ones, because then, if a nekkid grey knight could handle one, they wouldn't be that powerful. And you probably can't go after just any single one, because it's unlikely that they have the true name of every single one of the 666 top daemons, otherwise they'd be able to have taken them out already. Because I feel like a true name should be a potent and rare weapon, something that you would take advantage of with a strike force, rather than sending out a shivering paladin-in-training to take care of. And if you are chasing the top 666, then wouldn't everyone just look out for the bottom one? What, do they all just kill that guy and wait for him to respawn?