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The truth is the the fluff may be interesting, it may be cool stories, but the actual writing of it has ALWAYS, all the way back to Rogue Trader, been terribly written and off-putting. Just read a wiki, read some Black Library, and who gives a gak what specific person is writing the crap fluff in the codex itself? The rules are all the matters in the codex; the fluff has plenty of better places to live.

 Zweischneid wrote:

 Void__Dragon wrote:


I find the fluff vastly more important than the rules. Frankly, I can't imagine how people couldn't care about the fluff. The setting is the only thing that puts it above other games.

Agreed.

Which is why Ward's books are the by far most popular ones out there. He took 40K back to the golden 2nd edition glory days. It's largely his achievement that 40K became tolerable again after the abominable years of 3rd and 4th edition.

Which is also why Phil Kelly should just do Dreadfleet 2nd Edition or something and stop polluting 40K with his loony toons crap.

What is this hate for Kelly? He wrote the golden codex of 40k. Orks has withstood the change of two editions, has very few crap units, wonderful fluff, an incredible model range and is still strong competitively. Eldar and Dark eldar were largely ruined due to the current edition rather than the actual codex. 4th ed. eldar was one of his earlier 40k write ups, and skimmers were already absurd in that edition. 5th specifically had to nerf them, so you can't really say that it wasn't written to age well. The edition just came along and bunked it. Dark eldar were incredibly well done. Perfect glass cannon balance and multiple builds, with a great model line and great fluff. Once again, it was nerfed from the change of editions, which Kelly had no part in writing. And from my understanding, they aren't totally irrelevant now either. The recent chaos book has fantastic internal and external balance, and lots of different builds jumping around, and the fluff is uninjured. I think we can safely expect better things from him in the future. Wolves were silly, both in fluff and balance, but they were at least well-aging. He's getting better and better, and frankly, i consider him the best codex writer of the three current ones.

 loota boy wrote:

 Zweischneid wrote:

 Void__Dragon wrote:


I find the fluff vastly more important than the rules. Frankly, I can't imagine how people couldn't care about the fluff. The setting is the only thing that puts it above other games.

Agreed.

Which is why Ward's books are the by far most popular ones out there. He took 40K back to the golden 2nd edition glory days. It's largely his achievement that 40K became tolerable again after the abominable years of 3rd and 4th edition.

Which is also why Phil Kelly should just do Dreadfleet 2nd Edition or something and stop polluting 40K with his loony toons crap.

What is this hate for Kelly? He wrote the golden codex of 40k. Orks has withstood the change of two editions, has very few crap units, wonderful fluff, an incredible model range and is still strong competitively. Eldar and Dark eldar were largely ruined due to the current edition rather than the actual codex. 4th ed. eldar was one of his earlier 40k write ups, and skimmers were already absurd in that edition. 5th specifically had to nerf them, so you can't really say that it wasn't written to age well. The edition just came along and bunked it. Dark eldar were incredibly well done. Perfect glass cannon balance and multiple builds, with a great model line and great fluff. Once again, it was nerfed from the change of editions, which Kelly had no part in writing. And from my understanding, they aren't totally irrelevant now either. The recent chaos book has fantastic internal and external balance, and lots of different builds jumping around, and the fluff is uninjured. I think we can safely expect better things from him in the future. Wolves were silly, both in fluff and balance, but they were at least well-aging. He's getting better and better, and frankly, i consider him the best codex writer of the three current ones.

@Loota Boy: Don't bother trying to reason with Zweischneid... It would seem that in some past life, Mr.Kelly hunted him down and ruthlessly stomped all over puppies just to piss him off. It's the only logical explantion.
Or he's just being a Troll.


Thus far, in terms of outright killing an entire army or edition, the various authors has;
a) Cruddace;
- Wrote Tyranids which were generally below the curve all through 5th.

- Wrote Imp Guard which has horrible internal balance, but still has multiple highly competitive lists that make grown men cry big girls tears!

b) Kelly;
- Wrote Orks which is 2 entire editions old, yet still competitive. Solid internal balance with only a couple terd choices, (looking at you Flash Gits!) Wound allocation abuses made Nobz hienous in 5th, but overall the codex still has a few solidly competitive lists.

- Wrote Eldar which is 2 entire editions old. Then had the entire codex re-written on him when he went on sabatical for three months! Not really his work, but rather a Kelly/Jervis debacle due to a last minute shift in codex design ideals.

- Wrote Space Wolves. Some of the background wasn't the best, but then SW's have always been the 'silly viking marines'. Gets blamed for alot of the 'wolf' monikers which is silly since most of them were established in the 3rd ed codex! Wolf claws being new, along with Thunderwolves & Canis being the additional 'wolfy' items.
Codex is still considered OP/top tier.

- Wrote Dark Eldar which again has solid internal balance. (Mandrakes are a wtf? moment though). Beautiful model line, good competitive ruleset that kept the glass cannon aspect front and center. Not his fault the army got junk-punched by a new edition he didn't help write.

- Wrote the new Chaos Marines. Gets to be the 'test monkey' for a new edition and a new style of codex. (always fun - not!) Still, the book is overall decently balanced internally, and it's competitive level is likely high middle-of-the-road. (if every book can get to roughly this level, 40k will be in a golden age indeed!)
Gets flak from every old-school Chaos fanboy who wants special snowflake rules & units for every legion from specific & repetitive Cult Termie entries, to 2-5 specialist units per Legion. (3.5 sucked in terms of overall balance, leave it good and dead please!)

c) Ward;
- Wrote Codex Marines which is a solidly balanced codex and has aged pretty well. A few wtf? background moments, (everyone wishes they were a cool Ultrasmurf!), and 3++ storm shields raised alot of eyebrows at first, but overall, the book is solidly high middle-of-the-road.

- Wrote Codex Blood Angels. A giant wft background bit with the BFF BA/'Crons, but overall the background isn't that much worse/better than the average codex. (it's most certainly not Orky'tastic though!)
Rules-wise the codex reeks of being 'Marines +1' leaving most codex marine players feeling butthurt. Was solidly competitive in 5th due to how effecitve transports & MSU melta spam was. DoA's made Daemon players feel stupid. 6th kicked 'em in the teeth.

- Wrote Codex Grey Knights. The background is laughably bad and it reads like some 10 year old's crappy school english project.
Ruleswise the internal balance is solid, but externally, it's the worst balanced codex. Too many easy to get hard-counters to almost any type of opposing lists. Forced Daemon & Tyranid players to simply shelve their armies.

- Wrote Codex Necrons. The background is a love/hate bit. Personally, I like the direction, just not the childish 'sunday morning cartoon' execution.
Again, overall wonderful internal balance. Had a couple annoying lists in 5th. Now the 'kings of 6th' due to how readily they can spam fliers.



So we have one author who's either Crud or Ace, one author who's typically on the mark but has a solid miss, and one author who understands internal balance, needs to understand other armies exist and simply needs to stop writing marine background like a twelve year-old would!

Kelly managed to turn Space Wolves into the most counter-fluff-intuitive army ever seen, turning heroic viking-inspired marines into the ultimate Wizard-led, table-edge hogging gunline. Cheese-Falcons pretty much necessitated the need for 5th Edition pretty much all by themselves. And the train-wreck-atrocity of fluff that is the Dark Eldar Codex has nothing to do with editions. The sooner it is forgotten the better.

There was no variety of build in the Dark Eldar Codex either. Everything it ever was was rushing across the table in paper planes to drown the opponent in dice (CC or poison rapid-fire).

It couldn't have been nerfed by some minor rules changes in 6th Edition if it hadn't been one of the worst one-trick-pony-Codexes ever written to begin with. Just because there is several different units (all doing essentially the same) doesn't mean there is true variety in game play (e.g. as you would in a Blood Angels DoA List vs. a Blood Angels AV13 list vs. a Blood Angels Golden Army list vs. a Blood Angels MSU list vs. probaby another 20 Blood Angels list, all with more game-play variety than the sum of Kelly's work in 40K together).

There is little doubt to anyone looking at the material unbiased that Kelly is the worst of the current writers (and by a fair margin too). Space Wolves also holds the record for the longest FAQ for any Codex. His understanding of the rules and how they work to create a game is just atrocious. There's a reason he gets to write as little as possible and ideally is sidelined to do things like DreadFleet and why he isn't included in actually writing core rules for the major game lines.

And the "golden Codex" in 40K was surely written by Mat Ward. The sheer scope and potential of the Grey Knights Codex is mindboggling. From the "ultimate-low-model-beginner-army" of Paladins to the "ultimate-free-form-hobbyist-challenge" of Henchmen, there hasn't been a 40K Codex, hell not even an Expansion like Apoc or a GW sub-division like Forge World, which has added so much creative latitude and scope for development to the 40K hobby in decades, if ever.

 Howard A Treesong wrote:
But then they had to become s gaming regular on the table top in the demonhunters book, which effectively watered down the sisters of battle lists, and they were expanded to have marines and drednaut as well as terminators.

Point of Order:

It should be mentioned that the Grey Knights did have a list that had PA Marines, and various standard Marine characters and so on back in the RT days. They actually lost all that in the transition from 1st Ed to 2nd Ed (where they became a single squad taken as allies), and through part of 3rd Ed until the DH Codex came out.

Furthermore, the DH Codex was more than just Grey Knights. Far more. Inquisitorial armies were possible without a single GK on the table (I should know – I fielded such an army). Now that isn’t possibly without a damned Special Character.

And finally it’s difficult to ‘water down’ an army that didn’t really have a proper list, just various WD incarnations. The SoB’s got their own list in the WH Codex later.

I get what you’re saying Howard, and I don’t necessarily disagree, but let’s not forget the history of where the GK’s started and when they had a full-blown list in the first Realms of Chaos book.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Void__Dragon wrote:
To an extent? Of course it would. But the 5e codex went balls-out and made them hammy, mustache-twirling cartoon villains.

See that’s my biggest problem with the Newcrons. I don’t mind them diversifying them and giving them various dynasties, but I much preferred it when their troopers were soulless automatons and their leaders were unfathomable personalities.

I said it when the Newcron Codex first came out, but look what happens when you remove the names from the Special Characters in the Codex and just leave their titles.

You get:

1. The Stormlord.
2. The Diviner.
3. The Illuminator.
4. The Infinite.
5. The Vanguard.
6. The Traveller.

This, to me, would be a far more interesting way to present the special characters. Don’t give them hokey pseudo-Egyptian names (Imhotehk? Really?). Keep 'em mysterious.

I remember a campaign GW did ages ago... Medusa something... anyway it was a campaign where every race had to be shoehorned in (and by that I mean they had to find a way to involve the Tau and Dark Eldar). In that there was a Necron Lord who’s name escaped me (could have been Stormlord, or Herald of the Storm, or something like that). It was just the title, no name, and it made him mysterious without robbing him of a personality. Then when he failed (as the Necrons didn’t win the campaign), the Deceiver showed up, uttered one word (“Failure!”) and the Necron Lord was left motionless on the world to suffer the fate of being engulfed by a Warp Storm whilst the rest of his forces were teleported back to the tomb.

When I did my own Necron army I did the same sort of thing. None of my Necrons were given names, but titles. My Destroyer Lord was simply called “The Harvester”, and that to me was way cooler than Osiris Tehkmutonatron the Third, leader of the Harvester Dynasty or whatever Tomb King-y nonsense the new book has.

I get what people say when they complain that the Necrons (and the C’Tan) were emphasised a little too much in that they were behind everything, but at their core the mystery of how unknown they were made them so much more interesting. Take that mystery away and you just have Tomb Kings in spaaaaaaaaace.

And yeah, I really hate the way Necrons “pilot” vehicles. Machines piloting machines just doesn’t make sense. I’m mostly ok with the Newcron fluff (aside from what’s mentioned above) but I truly hate the way Destroyers were treated. In my mind Tomb Blades simply shouldn’t exist, and the pilots on the Command Barge and that God-awful troop transport should be integrated in the way Destroyers are. And the troop transport should be a mobile portal, not a Trade Federation Battle Droid Dispenser.

 Void__Dragon wrote:
P.S. I recall you mentioning that you find that FFG RPG fluff is good at improving the fluff blunders of the codices without outright ignoring it, an opinion I share. If you've read it, what did you think of Tome of Fate's Necron fluff?

Luckily I worked on Tome of Fate, so I got to see that stuff take shape, and I was quite happy with the outcome. Leave it to FFG to take something that irks a lot of people (Wardian Grey Knights, Newcrons) and turn it into something far more subtle and grounded. The guy who wrote the Tome of Fate Necron rules also did work on another FFG book called The Outer Reach, which is the Deathwatch line’s Necron expansion book. That has all the ancient mysteries and unknowable eldritch horrors elements put back into their story, as the FFG RPG’s are set before the Imperium really knows what the Necrons are, so things can be vague and hinted at and we get something called the ‘Dark Pattern’. It’s a thousand times more interesting than the legions of Pharaohtehk Tutantehkman Ramisises IX and his Legion of Doom.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

Experiment 626 wrote:
So we have one author who's either Crud or Ace, one author who's typically on the mark but has a solid miss, and one author who understands internal balance, needs to understand other armies exist and simply needs to stop writing marine background like a twelve year-old would!

This is probably the best summary in the whole thread.

Grey knights had a pretty scant RT list from what I recall, they were still all terminators and little else. Sisters of battle had their own codex in 2nd, had to share it with inquisitors and grey knights later on, and now have a white dwarf listing.

 Howard A Treesong wrote:
Grey knights had a pretty scant RT list from what I recall, they were still all terminators and little else. Sisters of battle had their own codex in 2nd, had to share it with inquisitors and grey knights later on, and now have a white dwarf listing.

They didn’t even have Terminators in their first list (Terminators aren’t even in the book!). They were all PA. They were just another Marine list (Tac, Dev, Assault and so on) and had GK Techmarines, GK Chaplains and all the usual things that Marines could get.

And I know Sisters had a Codex in 2nd Ed. The DH Codex didn’t ‘water [that] down’ because by then the 2nd Codex was irrelevant.

...I'm just going to skip over Zweishneid... Everything he said is absurd, except the bit on space wolf fluff. Too much ridiculousness to go over one by one, and it's late. But yeah, I'm sticking by what i said. Kelly is the best codex writer. If everything could be brought up to the level of the ork and current chaos codex (or pre-6th DE) we would have a fantastic game and just as good fluff.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
See that’s my biggest problem with the Newcrons. I don’t mind them diversifying them and giving them various dynasties, but I much preferred it when their troopers were soulless automatons and their leaders were unfathomable personalities.

I said it when the Newcron Codex first came out, but look what happens when you remove the names from the Special Characters in the Codex and just leave their titles.

You get:

1. The Stormlord.
2. The Diviner.
3. The Illuminator.
4. The Infinite.
5. The Vanguard.
6. The Traveller.

This, to me, would be a far more interesting way to present the special characters. Don’t give them hokey pseudo-Egyptian names (Imhotehk? Really?). Keep 'em mysterious.

I remember a campaign GW did ages ago... Medusa something... anyway it was a campaign where every race had to be shoehorned in (and by that I mean they had to find a way to involve the Tau and Dark Eldar). In that there was a Necron Lord who’s name escaped me (could have been Stormlord, or Herald of the Storm, or something like that). It was just the title, no name, and it made him mysterious without robbing him of a personality. Then when he failed (as the Necrons didn’t win the campaign), the Deceiver showed up, uttered one word (“Failure!”) and the Necron Lord was left motionless on the world to suffer the fate of being engulfed by a Warp Storm whilst the rest of his forces were teleported back to the tomb.

When I did my own Necron army I did the same sort of thing. None of my Necrons were given names, but titles. My Destroyer Lord was simply called “The Harvester”, and that to me was way cooler than Osiris Tehkmutonatron the Third, leader of the Harvester Dynasty or whatever Tomb King-y nonsense the new book has.

Well, that's the thing, you have that option. Before, the number one question I got about Necrons was "So why are they here?" and inevitably I just had to shrug my shoulders and say "The C'tan are hungry." I understand the notion of a soulless machine, darkening the galaxy one world at a time, but didn't we basically get that with 'nids? Oldcrons were just metal 'nids as far as fluff was concerned. Now, with the Newcrons, you can be a powerhungry warlord looking to reconquer a system that you once razed just as easily as you can be an eccentric living metal aristocrat with a penchant for violence and murder or a soulless robot that only exists to kill living being in the galaxy because your ancient programming says so. The choice exists now, which is awesome

That guy that I quoted above wrote:And yeah, I really hate the way Necrons “pilot” vehicles. Machines piloting machines just doesn’t make sense. I’m mostly ok with the Newcron fluff (aside from what’s mentioned above) but I truly hate the way Destroyers were treated. In my mind Tomb Blades simply shouldn’t exist, and the pilots on the Command Barge and that God-awful troop transport should be integrated in the way Destroyers are. And the troop transport should be a mobile portal, not a Trade Federation Battle Droid Dispenser.

I think the thing to keep in mind, and this was the case with oldcrons too, is that at one point, all Necrons were individuals. Every warrior, immortal, flayed one, destroyer, lord, and even flayer was at one point a Necrotyr. Now, the aeons that have passed have hardly been kind to them, or even uniform. Some maintained their sense of individuality (lords, etc) whilst some are so buggered out by the millions of years of dormancy that they are literally just protocols and machine code (destroyers in particular).....but are still the form of an individual. It's why they carry weapons instead of just...be weapons. I mean, if you were building a killer robot, would you bother to give it digits on it's hands...or even bother to give it hands at all? Odds are, you'd just start welding on guns and stuff. But since they didn't, it's at least someone possible that shooting space marine tanks to death is just a day job to them. At the end of it all, the warriors will put their guns back and the pilots will get out of their ships and go do whatever it is that the Necrons do. Remember, they are obstensibly people trapped in robot bodies. Some of them adapted okay. Others have gone so far off the deep end that it's difficult to even judge them as individuals (Destroyers). Moral of the story: It helps to think of them as Necrotyr, not robots.

 Nerobellum wrote:
Moral of the story: It helps to think of them as Necrotyr, not robots.

I agree with you, but I couldn't help it... Necrons have feelings too!





Or, if I were a politician: Necrons are people, my friend.

 loota boy wrote:
...I'm just going to skip over Zweishneid... Everything he said is absurd, except the bit on space wolf fluff. Too much ridiculousness to go over one by one, and it's late. But yeah, I'm sticking by what i said. Kelly is the best codex writer. If everything could be brought up to the level of the ork and current chaos codex (or pre-6th DE) we would have a fantastic game and just as good fluff.

Actually the ward hate/legend started with fantasy where he destroyed an entire edition with the most ridiculous op codex you can imagine.

40K he is actually doing pretty good. I like a lot of his new rules which are unique and tend to add something new to the army. I just wish GW would do a mini update to help the earlier codices deal with 5e fliers.

Btw orks is a masterpiece of codex writing. Definitely the best written codex out.

And the "golden Codex" in 40K was surely written by Mat Ward. The sheer scope and potential of the Grey Knights Codex is mindboggling. From the "ultimate-low-model-beginner-army" of Paladins to the "ultimate-free-form-hobbyist-challenge" of Henchmen, there hasn't been a 40K Codex, hell not even an Expansion like Apoc or a GW sub-division like Forge World, which has added so much creative latitude and scope for development to the 40K hobby in decades, if ever.

If only my feelings for Mat Ward could be summed up in a single image...

Oh right, they can.

archonisthebesthqever wrote:

And the "golden Codex" in 40K was surely written by Mat Ward. The sheer scope and potential of the Grey Knights Codex is mindboggling. From the "ultimate-low-model-beginner-army" of Paladins to the "ultimate-free-form-hobbyist-challenge" of Henchmen, there hasn't been a 40K Codex, hell not even an Expansion like Apoc or a GW sub-division like Forge World, which has added so much creative latitude and scope for development to the 40K hobby in decades, if ever.

You should certainly have a look at codex Orks.I might not be an ork player but the greenskins certainly have the most interesting and unique codex in the game.From nob bikers, to truck spam ,to kan wall ,to green tide,the codex is just superbe and with far more option than grey knights.Furthermore,just to know ,BA had 2 competitive type of lists in 5ed not 20 plus.AV 13 spam and jumpers(not Doa).Not gonna start on the de codex(imo it is very interesting unlike the 7 similar marine codexes) but i would like to point out Kelly's ability to match army's gameplay wtih fluff.Both orks,de,csm's fluff synergise excellent with the table top experience.

Being able to throw out the 4 or so lists that are vastly different at their core choices isn't necessarily a golden standard, it can also mean lack of identity to a codex. The fact that you can run it as inquisition, super elite paladin, elite purifiers or standard load out and each are considered very strong, to say the least, and a core design aspect makes me think of the possibility that the overall design is schizophrenic. It's a codex that is doing too much. Every one of it's slots is packed with choices. It's troops has 5 available choices with 3 of them being unlocked by HQs that combined can represent from a guardsman to a super terminator. This doesn't speak of good design, it speaks of lack of design as few things seem to have been trimmed. The upgrade lists and choices in this book is simply staggering. I'm not saying that I'm against choices, but there needs to be limits as well and Grey Knights do not have them.

Plus the GK Codex seems to have been designed in a world where there are no other Codices, as its external balance is all over the place.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Plus the GK Codex seems to have been designed in a world where there are no other Codices, as its external balance is all over the place.

My poor, poor Daemons... It was certainly wonderful to be forced into shelving my entire army!

Of corse, my Tyranid buddy was forced to do the same, while our Ork friends were basically forced to go buy more Killa Kans.
And my Dark Eldar friend simply pulled his hair out and then got called a WAAC's powergaming jerk for being shoehorned into bringing Venomspam.
Our Blood Angel friend who loves jumpers and played a DoA's list simply joined me on the sidelines, grumbling about how unfair Derp Quake is.

 AustonT wrote:
If only my feelings for Mat Ward could be summed up in a single image...


Oh right, they can.

So what? Love it or hate it. But if you hate it, it seems rather incoherent that you despise a brief alliance of convenience between BA/Necrons facing annihilation, but are perfectly OK with Space Wolves having a huge circle-j3rk reach-around with the Eldar in the Wolves' most sacred hall on Fenris itself, moved to tears as the Eldar "honour" the fallen Space Wolves Eldar-style.

Seems.. well.. once again like double standards of the most hypocritical sort.

Its simply irrational to hate Ward (above everyone else) for a story that Kelly did earlier, twice as childish and ten times as obnoxiously contradicting of (pre-allies) 40K fluff.

In a nut shell, Mat Ward's hate comes largely from his poor fluff writing skills and a myriad selection of 'silly' SCs, his codexs on the whole balance between themselves but tend to have a lot of room for cheese lists which make other author's codex seem underwhelming and just average.

Phil Kelly tends to write very nicely laid out and balanced codexs, as well as some nice fluff. However he tends to make his codex's seem somewhat 'meh' when compared to Mat Ward, which leaves people wanting their codex 'Wardified'.

Robin Cruddance on the other hand is generally a terrible writer for codex's he has no affinity for. Codex's he actually enjoys writing come out much more 'shiny' than his disinterested ones.

To sum up, Ward goes too far, Kelly strikes a nice balance but is out shined by Ward and Cruddance just makes bad codex's (unless he actually likes the army).

This leads to the Mat Ward hate, which is not completely his fault but comes from a lack of co-ordination and compromise between ALL the Codex authors... so largely he gets the public enemy no.1 spot with a close no.2 in Kelly and Cruddance.

Space Wolves say hi.

 JbR of the Endless Spire wrote:
In a nut shell, Mat Ward's hate comes largely from ..

In a nutshell, Mat Ward's hate comes from a silly internet theme perpetuated by jaded neck-beards, who cannot get over the fact it isn't 1997 anymore.

SC's by Phil Kelly are far sillier than anything Ward's ever written (Mowgli-Marine on a Wolf says hi). Phil Kelly also has the worst grasp of the rules, demonstrated very easily by the fact that his books need the most FAQ. Always.

Mat Ward's work adds by far the most diversity with every book he writes. The sheer variety in lists like Blood Angels or Space Marines dwarfs the combined work of the other Codex writers together. Books by Kelly don't have an inkling of "internal balance", mainly because he's never written anything other than a one-list-one-trick-pony-Codex.

Cruddace's work suffers from absurdly comical saturday-morning-cartoon-fluff (how again does on Eldar defend an entire planet all by himself.. a single person... from a Hive Fleet making planetfall?), not to mention an almost aggressive effort to defile time-treasured fluff (was it really necessary to ret-con just about everything about Hive War to shoehorn his "Swarmy"-creation into it?). It would be pretty laughable, if Kelly wouldn't constantly phone in abomination that make Cruddace work look like Hemmingway (Dark Eldar looping Black-Hole's-in-a-box), coupled with the worst kind of 5-year-old expositionary writing ("Vect was the most intelligent Eldar evaaaaa!!").

In sum. Ward is what keeps 40K ticking, despite the constant drag by the ineptitude displayed by Kelly, Cruddace and, most of all, Kelly.

 Zweischneid wrote:
Cruddace's work suffers from absurdly comical saturday-morning-cartoon-fluff (how again does on Eldar defend an entire planet all by himself.. a single person... from a Hive Fleet making planetfall?)

Inverse ninja law.

8 pages already... damn....

I don't like Ward fluff work too but 8 pages are more than enough. Can some MOD close it, this thread have became more of a excuse thread of why I hate/love Ward and other writer than why is everyone hate Ward.

 JbR of the Endless Spire wrote:
In a nut shell, Mat Ward's hate comes largely from his poor fluff writing skills and a myriad selection of 'silly' SCs, his codexs on the whole balance between themselves but tend to have a lot of room for cheese lists which make other author's codex seem underwhelming and just average.

Phil Kelly tends to write very nicely laid out and balanced codexs, as well as some nice fluff. However he tends to make his codex's seem somewhat 'meh' when compared to Mat Ward, which leaves people wanting their codex 'Wardified'.

Robin Cruddance on the other hand is generally a terrible writer for codex's he has no affinity for. Codex's he actually enjoys writing come out much more 'shiny' than his disinterested ones.

To sum up, Ward goes too far, Kelly strikes a nice balance but is out shined by Ward and Cruddance just makes bad codex's (unless he actually likes the army).

This leads to the Mat Ward hate, which is not completely his fault but comes from a lack of co-ordination and compromise between ALL the Codex authors... so largely he gets the public enemy no.1 spot with a close no.2 in Kelly and Cruddance.

^ This - IMHO Kelly can write goofy stuf as long as it is well balanced, but Ward goes with the SM+1 things, which I can't stand...
Also how WH is becoming special character centric, every player in the near future would want that his army codex is writen by Ward....

For the same reason I don't like C.S.Goto....

They take a fat dump all over the established conventions, canon and idealogies of the fictional 40k universe. Rewriting things to fit their own vision. Which on the surface seems reasonable except that they have both not taken the time to read about the universe as already written in any great depth unlike most of us within the hobby who digest all the information and have been since it began.

It's like writing about Star Wars having never watched the films, you have no frame of reference or stage within to set your concepts, stories or logic. Imagine writing a Tolkien style book without reading all of his works including all the historical works, and then basing your own story in middle earth. It would be universally panned, unless you took the time to research or consider your tone, the story, the way your ideas would fit in a context and also in a believable way for that fictional universe. For example "Gandalf bid the Hobbit goodbye and hopped into his new Porsche 911 turbo before racing off towards Bree" .

Dan Abnett or Dembski-Bowden get away with liberties because their works are well thoughtout, and if they deviate it is done in a considerate well informed and reverential tone. In many ways their works compliment or clarify previous conflicts within the established works. There is plenty of scope for excellent story telling without changing the entire nature of the beast.

Ward and C.S.Goto just create even more conflicts and contradictory elements which makes them both ill informed idiots.

 ansacs wrote:
Actually the ward hate/legend started with fantasy where he destroyed an entire edition with the most ridiculous op codex you can imagine.

Honestly I've played Fantasy back in 7th and Daemons weren't the only problem Army Book. They were just the last ones.

For a brief example of some of the other nonsense that existed: Dwarf Gunlines come to mind. Cannons that started 10 points cheaper than the Empire variant, and have more upgrade potential than should be reasonable (~165 points gets you a BS4 Magical Flaming Cannon that rerolls misfires. For the Empire to even get BS4 they have to buy an Engineer which is far more expensive, and a hero). These are usually taken in groups of 4+, along with a couple blocks of Dwarves who just stand their and wait for you to get across the board (while you usually get Anvil'd and can't get any magic off because they're shutting it down) and then grind what's left of your army up with their T4, Heavy armour core.

Yeah, Daemons weren't the only ones that were unreasonable. The difference is that Daemons actually got nerfed by the edition change, Dwarves didn't.

 Howard A Treesong wrote:
Grey knights had a pretty scant RT list from what I recall, they were still all terminators and little else. Sisters of battle had their own codex in 2nd, had to share it with inquisitors and grey knights later on, and now have a white dwarf listing.

I actually have a copy of that 2nd Edition codex and the White Dwarf codex we have now feels like a natural extension of that. It takes out the Inquisitors that were shoehorned in (making the 3rd Edition Codex "The Inquisition and their friends the Sisters of Battle"). And while even I don't agree with the wargear losses across the book, I can see what they were doing. They took the Sisters back to their core, trimming off a lot of that gimmicky crap that was a crutch.

And before anyone flames me about that, hear me out. I play Sisters of Battle. They're currently my only army. I played Witchhunters too. And while there were some nice things in Witchhunters, the power level of the Sisters honestly got better after the WD update. They went from a grindstone that was just trying to eke out a few extra Faith Points for another round of 3++ Invunerable Saves to a force that can TABLE a Marine army if played with skill. And no, don't give me that crap about some super Sister killing Marine army you have. Sisters have the same BS and basic equipment as a Marine, but better numbers. They lay down more shots a turn than a Marine army, thus inflicting more wounds, and killing more Marines. The Sisters real weakness is massed foot Guard or the Green Tide. They do fine against armies that they outnumber, but unless you tool to handle a foot list (Flamer/Heavy Flamer in all your troop squads, Flamer Dominions and Heavy Flamer Retributors or Penitent Engines) they don't handle the armies that out number them as well. They don't have a lot of build options, and they aren't the top tier army that can ROLFStomp it's way to the top tables, but they work.

And before anyone tries to slam me for being off topic, Ward wrote their fluff. He unkilled Celestine (making her truly immortal as now only the Emperor getting off his throne can ever kill her permanently in the fluff, and only if he tells her she can finally rest in her never-ending Crusade); had a force of Battle Sisters make planet fall on a Shrine World that had been lost to the Warp, make planet fall, had a Canoness and a few squads go in to recover what artifacts they could (thigh bone of Saint Dolan and some pages from the Lexicon of Falsehoods), the Canoness and 3 Celestians make it out (despite fighting Daemons for three days non-stop in the Catacombs we actually have Sisters SURVIVE) and then the rest of the Sisters and the survivors bug the hell out before the Grey Knights even show up (just as a reminder, the Grey Knights act against Chaos ahead of time, and have the fastest ships in all of the Imperium. The Order of the Sacred Rose got there first by at least three days, and escaped before the Grey Knights managed to arrive and destroy the planet). He had the Sisters flat out annihilate the Red Corsairs (look! Marines dying!), Ulthwe attacked Dimmamar (Sebastian Thor's birth place), a Seraphim Superior and her squad tore through the enemy army, and while some Sisters fall to the enemy's psychic powers (in this case an Eldrich storm of electricity), the Superior blows through that storm and kills the Farseer with a single shot. Saint Celestine saves both the Salamanders and a force form the Order of the Ebon Chalice when she shows up and murders Black Legion Chaos Marines, and their leader, a Daemon Prince. And finally we have a Canoness take on a Hive Tyrant, press on through her mortal wounds and kill a Hive Tyrant with a Power Mace. The remaining Sisters take that feat of martyrdom and murder the swarm to avenge her death.

Yes Sisters die, but Sisters have always died (even in their own codex), but he wrote Sisters that WON. Not only did they win, in one case they managed to somehow beat the Grey Knights somewhere, but made planet fall on a Daemon infested world, fought them off for three days, and then left with what they came for before the Grey Knights had fully made orbit and could bomb the planet.

For Ward, this is something we don't really see something of....Sisters in a positive light and written fairly well. He did a better job than a codex in a magazine likely deserved at least, and that's saying something.

On a related point, I just want to point out that some of the stuff Ward gets flack for are things that already existed before he say down to write the codex (for example Tigurius tapping into the Hive Mind was something that's been around for a while, yet I see Ward get flack for it every now and then). I'd say Ward's way of handling fluff is to take the stuff he finds cool (which is likely all really over the top, but some people like that kind of thing) from the older codexes and then copy and paste it into the book he's working on, and then writes fluff to match the style and level of over the top insanity.

It's how the man sees 40K, full of completely insane, over the top badasses who can do pretty much anything. And even if he needs to work on showing more than telling, I can't fault a man for being passionate about 40K.

Besides, aren't codexes supposed to be filled with propaganda and stories told from the point of view of that faction....stories that would bend and stretch the truth to make themselves look good? I mean when you sit down with a codex shouldn't you feel a sense that that faction, the one your reading at that moment, is full of the most awesome, and coolest things ever?

They've always been that way to me, Ward just conveys this point of view a little differently than the rest of us. Almost a little too enthusiastically....but in the end, if it gets people excited about an army and makes them want to collect and paint an army that they think is cool I can live with just about anything that's in these books.

And I'll shut up now as this post has gone on way too long.

Brother Captain Alexander wrote:8 pages already... damn....

I don't like Ward fluff work too but 8 pages are more than enough. Can some MOD close it, this thread have became more of a excuse thread of why I hate/love Ward and other writer than why is everyone hate Ward.

Can't put the genie back in the bottle.

ClockworkZion wrote:Yes Sisters die, but Sisters have always died (even in their own codex), but he wrote Sisters that WON. Not only did they win, in one case they managed to somehow beat the Grey Knights somewhere, but made planet fall on a Daemon infested world, fought them off for three days, and then left with what they came for before the Grey Knights had fully made orbit and could bomb the planet.

You know a lot of that is pre-WD codex, right? The Daemon World thing is new, but Praxedes goes back to 2nd edition at least. also, where did we get that Ward wrote the fluff? I wasnt' aware of that.

Othat than that, I agree wholeheartedly. 40k codexes are supposed to be OTT and from the perspective of the faction. Anyways.

 pretre wrote:

ClockworkZion wrote:Yes Sisters die, but Sisters have always died (even in their own codex), but he wrote Sisters that WON. Not only did they win, in one case they managed to somehow beat the Grey Knights somewhere, but made planet fall on a Daemon infested world, fought them off for three days, and then left with what they came for before the Grey Knights had fully made orbit and could bomb the planet.

You know a lot of that is pre-WD codex, right? The Daemon World thing is new, but Praxedes goes back to 2nd edition at least. also, where did we get that Ward wrote the fluff? I wasnt' aware of that.

Othat than that, I agree wholeheartedly. 40k codexes are supposed to be OTT and from the perspective of the faction. Anyways.

I know some of it's old and some of it's new (which supports my point that he copy and pastes the stuff he likes and then adds his own stuff on top of it), but he could have written the Sisters like the Tyranids with almost every story ending in their defeat.

Ward writing the fluff comes from the rumor mill. When Cruddace and Ward were announced as tag-teaming the WD everyone assumed that Ward was going to write the rules and Cruddace would do the fluff.....but Cruddace did the rules which leaves Ward the fluff.

I'm actually starting to wonder if Ward is a closet Sisters fanboy and that's why he keeps using them as often as he can in codexes (and to be fair almost any faction guest starring in another faction's book tends to either take the back seat or die so if he's using them a lot because he's fan (and wants to connect them more to the fluff than they were before by adding them to battles, and key events for other races) it's only fair to acknowledge that they would die a lot....

Just a random thought that crossed my mind just now.....

ClockworkZion wrote:
I know some of it's old and some of it's new (which supports my point that he copy and pastes the stuff he likes and then adds his own stuff on top of it), but he could have written the Sisters like the Tyranids with almost every story ending in their defeat.

To be fair, every codex is written that way. And imo, should be written that way. Something old, something new, something borrowed...

Ward writing the fluff comes from the rumor mill. When Cruddace and Ward were announced as tag-teaming the WD everyone assumed that Ward was going to write the rules and Cruddace would do the fluff.....but Cruddace did the rules which leaves Ward the fluff.

Okay, so definitely in the realm of Citation Needed. Fair enough.

I've always thought the treatment of Matt Ward as being over reactive, his writing may not be the best, nor the balance of the rules but the sheer rage induced by a thread like this is a bit silly, no? While people have decided Phil Kelly is the avenging angel and last line of defense against the tide of Wards filth, I'll give an example of one of the topics;

Example: "Necron's and Blood Angels are BFF's "
The history section in both the Blood Angel and Necron codex states that the Necron's and Blood Angels allied against invading Tyranids, and by allied they stayed out of the way until the end of the battle and walked off because there was no point in further battle. With the new rendition of the Necron's fluff, the Necron's are far more tactical and saw further battle as a waste. Explain how staying out of each others way equates to this;



It doesn't, they fought the Tyranids as separate forces and left. None of this whiny BFF gak ever occurred.