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Also, a brief note: Some of his rules are superior. Nemesis Force Weapons as actual Force Weapons is a good change. Making Grey Knights psykers instead of telling us they are and then giving them no powers. Giving us infantry squads cheaper than 150pts before upgrades. All these were good things.

My biggest gripes with the new GK book's rules, ignoring fluff entirely, are the lack of Inquisition stuff, the Special Characters, and the changes to heavy weapons; the lack of Inquisition stuff has been mitigated by 6e's Allies (Guard Veterans. Not quite Inquisitorial Stormtroopers, but close enough), and the Special Characters are easy enough to solve (though saying "Purifiers and Paladins are 0-1 Elites choices, but if you take the right Special Character the limitation is removed" would still have been better than allowing them as Troops).

The heavy weapons are more of a problem. Once upon a time psycannons were S6 heavy bolters that could be fired as Assault weapons at half range and ignored Invulnerable saves; they were effective weapons against Daemon infantry, and allowed for a variety of uses. Now they're S7, don't ignore Invulnerable saves, and are stuck at 24" range, which makes them significantly less effective against Daemon infantry and less versatile while making them better at killing light vehicles. What? We're the 'Daemonhunters', not the 'Light-Vehicle-Hunters'...

 pretre wrote:
In order to completely bone a daemon player with GK, you have to do strike spam. If you do strike spam, don't you almost auto-lose against any non-daemon player. I don't think you're going to run into that problem competitively.

You need a single 10 man squad in a castle style deployment to fairly screw up a Daemon army.
Fully spread out the max 2" coherency and gaining a 6" move to help set-up a solid frontage, you effectively lock-off an area around 22"x30" or so. (12" from every. single. model. in the squad!)
That's just the auto-mishap zone! As a Daemon player, you then need to factor in your average 7" scatter and aim your units 7.1" away from the quake zone.

So in actual game-play, the GK player gives themselves a buffer zone about 30"x37" from just a single fully spaced out squad!

2 full squads is pretty much a one-player game. 3 full squads and Daemons have about a 6"x8" or so area to deploy half their f'ing army on your average 6'x4' table!
You don't need to have every last inch covered by the quake bubbles themselves either. No unit that isn't just 3-5 models is going to fit into 2"/3" gaps, even with a direct hit...

Warp Quake is 100% broken because it effectively removes an entire army from the game.
Notice how the Necron's own similar ability maxes at just 6"? If Warp Quake were the same, then it wouldn't be a huge problem because then you'd need 40-50+ models to really gimp a Daemon army.
12" however is simply too much, especially when multiple units have the ability!



And yes, I see it alot. I've had to pretty much shelve my entire army because of Warp Quake.

And yes, you can build a solid TAC list that still gives coverage across almost the entire table, since you can simply take 2x 10-man Strikes + 1x 10-man Interceptor. That's still a solid core for a fairly competitive GK army... (just sprinkle in some HQ's w/BRB psychic powers, some termies, a psyfleman and/or dreadknight or two, perhaps a cheap henchman unit, etc...)

The only GK armies I've ever played that didn't have at least one Strike or Interceptor squad were;
a) Idiots running 100% pure Pallies.
b) Purifyer spam

Every other time I've run into at least 1 Warp Quake unit, right upto people who've pulled out 4x Strikes + 2x 'Cepter list tailoring b s!

Must be your area. The most I have seen is 1-2 WQ squads. They really aren't that great a unit when compared with what else you can get.

 pretre wrote:
Must be your area. The most I have seen is 1-2 WQ squads. They really aren't that great a unit when compared with what else you can get.

This. In my two years of playing Daemons, I've seen ONE player use Warp Quake at all, let alone spamming it. It sounds like they people in your area suck.

I think if it were a problem in my area I'd just bring multiple armies to the store when I play and not tell my opponent which one I was using until we were about to play.

Yeah, if your opponents are tailoring, you have bigger problems than the GK codex.

 undertow wrote:

 pretre wrote:
Must be your area. The most I have seen is 1-2 WQ squads. They really aren't that great a unit when compared with what else you can get.

This. In my two years of playing Daemons, I've seen ONE player use Warp Quake at all, let alone spamming it. It sounds like they people in your area suck.

I think if it were a problem in my area I'd just bring multiple armies to the store when I play and not tell my opponent which one I was using until we were about to play.

I never travel with less than 6k+ of models for that very reason.

Ya, I just can't get behind WQ spamming. I'll sometimes bring a squad with WQ to heard deep strikers closer to Coteaz, but most people just don't deep strike when you say you are bringing GK, but if I was a Deamons player and saw lines of Strike Squads and Interceptors with Scout, I'd just resign the game and vow never to play against that schmuck again. I love winning and all, but in the end the game should be fun and some strategies are just rude; I have a feeling the new Daemons Codex will have some kind of counter to that as it really doesn't hurt other armies to that extent, or maybe the idea is to ally with Chaos Marines now to counter. I forget can CSM keep daemons from scattering?

What I think is the overall feeling with Matt Ward armies: combined with how 5th actually did OP Paladins and Driago as it is clearly a Codex designed for 6th edition, it is really hard to let go of those harsh feelings towards certain units and as 3 out of every 4 codexes have been Matt Ward Codexes designed for 6th within the past three years, its hard to let go of the anger directed at some of the previously OP units (especially when your codex is due for an update or the proper 6th edition fix hasn't quite clicked yet).

Consider me corrected. Here's a BR from Calypso2ts re: Daboyz GT. He ran Daemons and was up against a player with 4 strike squads.

http://synaps3.blogspot.com/2013/01/calypso2ts-da-boyz-gt-3-of-3.html

 undertow wrote:

 pretre wrote:
Must be your area. The most I have seen is 1-2 WQ squads. They really aren't that great a unit when compared with what else you can get.

This. In my two years of playing Daemons, I've seen ONE player use Warp Quake at all, let alone spamming it. It sounds like they people in your area suck.

I think if it were a problem in my area I'd just bring multiple armies to the store when I play and not tell my opponent which one I was using until we were about to play.

Strikes were overshadowed by everything in 5th.
The one list they became popular in though was Draigowing, since they added more scoring capability AND provided some numbers that the Pallies otherwise lacked.
In 6th however Strikes are actually really good bang-for-buck core units since Purifyers & Pallies are no longer the bee's-knees. They're the cheapest MEQ unit in the book, can pack in the Psycannons, can make better use of Psybolt ammo due to their relative low cost and have cheap transports to move them about if needs be.

Only fools discount the humble Strikes as being useless.

Interceptors on the other were always good, despite the intertubes saying otherwise.
That 30" shunt w/Psycannons is a huge boon for alpha-striking almost any vehicle with 4/S7 rending shots for example. In Draigowing or Henchmen lists, 'Cepters added another dynamic through their speed and ability to bring re-inforcements where needed right away. Otherwise, they're the best late-game disruption unit in the codex for last minute contesting of objectives.

Most of the GK players in my area simply didn't jump on the 100% Pally or Purifyer lists unless they were still 12-16 or so and not that good at actually playing the game.
Most of the Tourny players in my area always took at least 10 Interceptors in 5th because of the unit's utility and speed. The more intelligent Draigowing players took Strikes to bulk out their numbers!

Now in 6th and with allies, it seems like everyone and their mother are adding some GK's to their lists!

Sure I have another 40k army I can play, but it doesn't stop me from being outright fustrated and annoyed as hell that my 3k+ pts worth of Daemons get to sit on a shelf because of Ward f'ing the pooch with Warp Quake.



That's why I dislike Ward as rules writer, his rules more than the others tend to invalidate or outright gimp whole collections/armies.

He killed Fantasy in 7th. (DE shinanigans & WoC chosenstar simply finished off an otherwise already dead edition.)
He made Undead almost unplayable with 8th's changes. (my poor, poor VC's...)
He made Daemons all but unplayable in 40k with GK's.

Experiment 626 wrote:
That's why I dislike Ward as rules writer, his rules more than the others tend to invalidate or outright gimp whole collections/armies.

He killed Fantasy in 7th. (DE shinanigans & WoC chosenstar simply finished off an otherwise already dead edition.)
He made Undead almost unplayable with 8th's changes. (my poor, poor VC's...)
He made Daemons all but unplayable in 40k with GK's.

As has been pointed out previously, this is not unique to Ward. Kelly did more damage to Tyranids than even Cruddace did with SW and DE. And that was just last edition.

See 3.5 Chaos and Skimmer Spam for invalidating most other armies in some previous editions.

Experiment 626 wrote:
That's why I dislike Ward as rules writer, his rules more than the others tend to invalidate or outright gimp whole collections/armies.

He killed Fantasy in 7th. (DE shinanigans & WoC chosenstar simply finished off an otherwise already dead edition.)
He made Undead almost unplayable with 8th's changes. (my poor, poor VC's...)
He made Daemons all but unplayable in 40k with GK's.

I respect your opinion, but I really don't feel that Daemons are anywhere near unplayable in 40k. With 6th Ed, they have become very strong, even with the existence of Warp Quake.

In tournaments, it's unlikely you'll see a WQ based list, and in friendly games, if they are in fact friendly, your opponent shouldn't play that crap if he wants to a) make sure you both enjoy the game and b) ever wants to play you again.

It sounds like most of your problems with Ward are with your local meta.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Sorginak wrote:
I forget can CSM keep daemons from scattering?

No, the old CSM codex only allowed Summoned Daemons and stuff in Terminator Armor (and Oblits) to DS without Scatter. The new CSM codex doesn't even have that, just a crappy artifact that only activates once the bearer kills something in CC, and even then it only affects CSM units.

 Kaldor wrote:

Experiment 626 wrote:
What pisses people off most about Ward is his 'couldn't-care-less' style attitude towards the community.

Can you blame him, with the volume and intensity of the personal attacks that are thrown his way? I don't think he could openly post on a forum like Dakka without receiving death threats.

Talk about overstatement, I guess you believed the hate part from the "hate bandwagon" where there is neither anything close to real hate nor bandwagon of any kind. I am very negative towards his work but not himself as a person, I don't even like the fact that it is the actual person that is bashed, or that I am bashing things that others like you for example enjoy. Still, the bad things I post are my honest opinion so what can I do? Anyway if he showed up and explained a bit/ answered questions/ showed some interest in valid complaints I think he would get a lot more respect than he gets now. And I for example would not even insult or trash talk him, death threats that's more stretched than orangutan mechanics in 40k.

Plumbumbarum wrote:

 Kaldor wrote:

Experiment 626 wrote:
What pisses people off most about Ward is his 'couldn't-care-less' style attitude towards the community.

Can you blame him, with the volume and intensity of the personal attacks that are thrown his way? I don't think he could openly post on a forum like Dakka without receiving death threats.

Talk about overstatement, I guess you believed the hate part from the "hate bandwagon" where there is neither anything close to real hate nor bandwagon of any kind. I am very negative towards his work but not himself as a person

And do you speak for everyone on the internet?

No, you do not. The hate for him is vicious, palpable, constant, and constantly directed to him on a personal level.

Wait wait wait...

So what you're saying is that people spend time and money in acquiring models, assembling them, and painting them... just so that they don't actually get a chance to use them at all?

I honestly don't see any fun in that. They might as well skip the middle step and just buy a Codex, write the list, show it to the Daemons player, and say, "I win. You lose."

Honestly, if I were playing against a Daemons player and I brought out my GK for some reason, I'd eschew the use of Warp Quake entirely.

Isn't the fact that people are simultaneously arguing that Deamons are a) unplayable or b) over-powered evidence enough that we, as a community (not necessarily on an individual level) don't have any idea what we're talking about?

 tomjoad wrote:
Isn't the fact that people are simultaneously arguing that Deamons are a) unplayable or b) over-powered evidence enough that we, as a community (not necessarily on an individual level) don't have any idea what we're talking about?

I tend to agree.

 tomjoad wrote:
Isn't the fact that people are simultaneously arguing that Deamons are a) unplayable or b) over-powered evidence enough that we, as a community (not necessarily on an individual level) don't have any idea what we're talking about?

Considering that they are talking about two completely different game systems, I would say that you have missed the point, and the rest of the community do know what they are talking about.

Daemons in Warhammer Fantasy is what the complaint about OP is, and Daemons <vs> Grey Knights in Warhammer 40,000 are where Daemons lose to Warp Quake.

After seeing this thread live for this long im starting to think it might serve well as a sticky. No more Matt Ward threads as all discussion can be sent here. It would be glorious.

That's not a bad idea.

I quite like Mat Ward's rules for Space Marines, the codex is flexible and offers a lot of viable options. Since I started playing in second edition, as far I'm concerned the fluff has never changed, and I just roll my eyes at suggestions Marines start as Devastators and work their way up to Tactical squads, as well as the suggestion that all Space Marines want to be Ultramarines. I've no doubt that the successors to the Ultramarines do respect their founding Chapter, but don't believe that Marines that have no common ancestry (like Imperial Fists) regard Ultramarines as anything other than strong and brave warriors. The weakness is obviously that while it can do everything, it doesn't do anything particularly well. Also, bike armies versus Dark Eldar is almost an autolose.

I also like his rules for Blood Angels (at least now 6th edition toned them down a little) but again nothing has changed since 2nd (nothing at all) for me. I'd use the rules to represent the 8th Company of my Marine Chapter. Fairly internally balanced, and like Marines suffer from being too much the generalist versus specialists.

Grey Knights though... whilst I like some elements of the book, for example that there is little in the way of weak options, the lack of significant weaknesses makes it unbalanced versus other Codexes, especially Tyranids and Daemons.

Necrons I haven't played against often, but I can see that like Grey Knights it lacks significant weaknesses. Being swept in assault is, of course, a risk for any army without Fearless/ATSKNF.

Those are his rules of course. His fluff (as already said) I just pretend doesn't exist.

 Necroshea wrote:
After seeing this thread live for this long im starting to think it might serve well as a sticky. No more Matt Ward threads as all discussion can be sent here. It would be glorious.

Legoburner praised the Omnissiah, said some prayer over the cogitators, and communed with the Machine Spirit about this. It turns out that stickied threads are basically invisible. When we sticky a thread it just takes up space at the top of the page and people start new threads on the same topic right below it. Sorry!

 Manchu wrote:

 Necroshea wrote:
After seeing this thread live for this long im starting to think it might serve well as a sticky. No more Matt Ward threads as all discussion can be sent here. It would be glorious.

Legoburner praised the Omnissiah, said some prayer over the cogitators, and communed with the Machine Spirit about this. It turns out that stickied threads are basically invisible. When we sticky a thread it just takes up space at the top of the page and people start new threads on the same topic right below it. Sorry!

Alas, such as I feared. This blight will haunt us until the end days no doubt.

One can only hope that people will one day realize Ward hate is neither justified nor funny.

 Manchu wrote:
One can only hope that people will one day realize Ward hate is neither justified nor funny.

Not justified? So every criticism of Matt Ward's work is completely, totally and utterly 100% invalid?

Or, to put it a slightly different way:

One can only hope that people will one day realise that the reason this topic keeps coming up is because there's actually something to it, and it's not all hot air and hogwash.

No, HBMC, not everything is completely black or completely white so don't bother jumping to such extreme conclusions. The vitriol of the criticism (what I called "Ward hate") is what is not justified.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Manchu wrote:
One can only hope that people will one day realize Ward hate is neither justified nor funny.

Not justified? So every criticism of Matt Ward's work is completely, totally and utterly 100% invalid?

Or, to put it a slightly different way:

One can only hope that people will one day realise that the reason this topic keeps coming up is because there's actually something to it, and it's not all hot air and hogwash.

It's essentially just a meme at this point.

 Manchu wrote:
One can only hope that people will one day realize Ward hate is neither justified nor funny.

I don't think anyone on Dakka hates Mat Ward as much as the WoW forumgoing community hates Blizzard (the company that makes WoW).

Or if they do, they don't express it with anywhere near as much vitriol.

I don't really like reading negative opinions of things I like, because it makes me like those things less - such as what happened last year after the WD Sisters dex and the gakstorm of complaints, which basically resulted in me going from playing 4-5 games a month to 4-5 in the entire following year.

And bottom line, I just don't like negativity because it gets me down.

But I spent about 7-8 hours straight doing nothing but reading Dakka, then decided to hop over to the WoW forums, and the only comment I could think of for the first thread I read was, "I would rather read a hundred pages of Mat Ward hate than deal with this community tonight."

And if my choice was between reading a discussion on Mat Ward and a flame war on the WoW forums - they don't discuss, they have flame wars - I'd read this thread. But of course, given a more broad set of options, I'd probably avoid the Ward thread too.

When I popped over to Dakka a few days ago for the first time in months, it was a huge, huge shock, coming from being mainly in WoW.

Point is, you guys are alright, whether you like or dislike Ward (is it Mat or Matt? WD usually spells it Mat, but the forums always call him Matt.)

I do wonder if the GW forums (before they were closed) were like the WoW forums are now. There's a few years worth of a gap in my knowledge because I got out of the hobby for a while.

 Pouncey wrote:

 Manchu wrote:
One can only hope that people will one day realize Ward hate is neither justified nor funny.

I don't think anyone on Dakka hates Mat Ward as much as the WoW forumgoing community hates Blizzard (the company that makes WoW).

Or if they do, they don't express it with anywhere near as much vitriol.

I don't really like reading negative opinions of things I like, because it makes me like those things less - such as what happened last year after the WD Sisters dex and the gakstorm of complaints, which basically resulted in me going from playing 4-5 games a month to 4-5 in the entire following year.

And bottom line, I just don't like negativity because it gets me down.

But I spent about 7-8 hours straight doing nothing but reading Dakka, then decided to hop over to the WoW forums, and the only comment I could think of for the first thread I read was, "I would rather read a hundred pages of Mat Ward hate than deal with this community tonight."

And if my choice was between reading a discussion on Mat Ward and a flame war on the WoW forums - they don't discuss, they have flame wars - I'd read this thread. But of course, given a more broad set of options, I'd probably avoid the Ward thread too.

When I popped over to Dakka a few days ago for the first time in months, it was a huge, huge shock, coming from being mainly in WoW.

Point is, you guys are alright, whether you like or dislike Ward (is it Mat or Matt? WD usually spells it Mat, but the forums always call him Matt.)

I do wonder if the GW forums (before they were closed) were like the WoW forums are now. There's a few years worth of a gap in my knowledge because I got out of the hobby for a while.

The Desecrators name is Matt, not sure why they would be lazy and give him the nickname Mat. It's just one more key poke.

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Manchu wrote:
One can only hope that people will one day realize Ward hate is neither justified nor funny.

Not justified? So every criticism of Matt Ward's work is completely, totally and utterly 100% invalid?

Or, to put it a slightly different way:

One can only hope that people will one day realise that the reason this topic keeps coming up is because there's actually something to it, and it's not all hot air and hogwash.

It's essentially just a meme at this point.

It wouldn't keep coming up if we all didn't know that he does it all on porpise:



Props to BlueDagger for the image; stolen from the other thread about Matt Ward.

 Necroshea wrote:
The Desecrators name is Matt, not sure why they would be lazy and give him the nickname Mat. It's just one more key poke.

Maybe he prefers it with one T and asked the WD team to spell his name that way?

I had a phase when I was in high school where I spelled my first name with a K instead of a Ch. I also added a high elf symbol next to it.

In my defense, the schizophrenia was getting pretty bad around then, so I might not have been in the most clear state of mind.

 Manchu wrote:
No, HBMC, not everything is completely black or completely white so don't bother jumping to such extreme conclusions. The vitriol of the criticism (what I called "Ward hate") is what is not justified.

Given how quickly a lot of people here (not you) seem to dismiss any level of criticism as mindless 'hate' in an attempt avoid making an actual cogent arguments, can you blame me for drawing such a conclusion?

My point remains - if it wasn't such a big thing, it wouldn't be such a big thing. That's circular logic in that the conclusion includes the premise, but it's like the "famous for being famous" thing that we attach to certain people. If it were minor. If it were untrue. If there wasn't some nugget of truth to it, then it simply wouldn't keep returning like this.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Manchu wrote:
No, HBMC, not everything is completely black or completely white so don't bother jumping to such extreme conclusions. The vitriol of the criticism (what I called "Ward hate") is what is not justified.

Given how quickly a lot of people here (not you) seem to dismiss any level of criticism as mindless 'hate' in an attempt avoid making an actual cogent arguments, can you blame me for drawing such a conclusion?

My point remains - if it wasn't such a big thing, it wouldn't be such a big thing. That's circular logic in that the conclusion includes the premise, but it's like the "famous for being famous" thing that we attach to certain people. If it were minor. If it were untrue. If there wasn't some nugget of truth to it, then it simply wouldn't keep returning like this.

There are cases where a completely false thing manages to spread. This tends to happen when the rumor spreads faster than the falsification.

A great example was the "fact" that an average human swallows, what was it, 7 spiders every year in their sleep? The actual number is 0, because people don't swallow things while they're sleeping and there's no way in hell a spider is going to crawl inside an animal's mouth unless maybe that animal is already dead. The entire thing was invented to show just how fast completely false things can spread.

And I'll admit, I participated in the spreading of that falsehood. My dad told me, and I told a few friends in the months between my dad telling me and my dad telling me it was actually false.

However, I don't know whether that's the case with Ward and his rules/writing/dressing/whatever.