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Some people say when Matt was in charge, he overpowered the Imperium too much in the fluff by making Draigo beating Mortarion, Calgar fighting Avatar and Elder Host, A squad of Grey Knights beating back a entire army of daemons etc. Since he left, which factions is ward's replacer overpowering now? I'm not too up to date with the news. Thanks in advance.

 Tardzan wrote:
Some people say when Matt was in charge, he overpowered the Imperium too much in the fluff by making Draigo beating Mortarion, Calgar fighting Avatar and Elder Host, A squad of Grey Knights beating back a entire army of daemons etc. Since he left, which factions is ward's replacer overpowering now? I'm not too up to date with the news. Thanks in advance.

they haven't really done much of anything with the fluff really, and they've stopped attributing authorship of books to any single writer since then.

A lot of that fluff got retconned with the roll-back of the 13th BC. A lot of it was also just brushed aside.

Fluff-wise, the Imperium is still the 800 pound gorilla, they just have too many enemies to face all at once.

Draigo Calgar and Lysander are still kinda IoM fluff smashfethers and only way to stop em is Ghazzy coming up with something big...
Oh god it has to be Ghazzy

Lets analyze this for a moment...

1. Matt Ward was the primary author of 6th edition W40K, the shortest lived 40K rules in the history of the game (lasted barely 1.5 years).

2. Matt Ward was the primary author of 8th edition WFB. The aftermath of which GW literally had to kill off one of the industries most iconic tabletop games that's been around for 30+ years.

3. Matt Ward generated SOoo much negative publicity that accreditation of authors is no longer published in GW's literature.

There's a reason, several in fact, as to why Matt Ward is no longer employed by GW.

As far as i know they just kinda ignored most of the 6th ed stuff, thank god.

As far as I know, they retconned out the Necrons and Blood Angels' special friendship:

 CrashGordon94 wrote:
As far as I know, they retconned out the Necrons and Blood Angels' special friendship:

YESSSS!!!!!!!! Praise the Omnissiah! Praise the Emperor!! Praise Gork and Mork!! Hell Praise Tzeentch!! That fluff was beyond stupid, the Necrons have nothing to fear from the Tyranids and the two races simply avoid one another.

The what do you call this from Codex Necrons?

999.M41 THE FATE OF CRYPTUS
Anrakyr the Traveller and the recently awakened Mephrit of Perdita form a desperate alliance with Dante and the Blood Angels Space Marine Chapter to save their world from Hive Fleet Leviathan.

 Ghaz wrote:
The what do you call this from Codex Necrons?

999.M41 THE FATE OF CRYPTUS
Anrakyr the Traveller and the recently awakened Mephrit of Perdita form a desperate alliance with Dante and the Blood Angels Space Marine Chapter to save their world from Hive Fleet Leviathan.

I. SEE. NOTHING.

Why is a temporary team up against mindless bugs so crazy? It's sentients vs non-sentients. There are so few space marines compared to Necrons, that if I were the Necrons, I'd team up with them all the time to beat down the more numerous foes in the galaxy. Why be mindlessly stupid when you can use another faction to help do your dirty work?

Well, most of it has to do with them letting each other go afterward, I'd suspect.

 CrashGordon94 wrote:
Well, most of it has to do with them letting each other go afterward, I'd suspect.

Why exactly do the Necrons give a crap about BA? They are doomed in the long run anyway.

And if you read the BA codex, they are constantly up to their necks in battles they really shouldn't be able to win. I'd let the Necrons go, too. It's called not being totally brain dead and not fighting every Xeno you come across. If I were Dante, I'd refuse orders to engage Tau because they don't pose any kind of a threat in the big picture.

But then again, everyone in 40K is a fething moron the way they are written.

Martel732 wrote:
Why is a temporary team up against mindless bugs so crazy? It's sentients vs non-sentients. There are so few space marines compared to Necrons, that if I were the Necrons, I'd team up with them all the time to beat down the more numerous foes in the galaxy. Why be mindlessly stupid when you can use another faction to help do your dirty work?

In and of itself the concept wasn't bad, it was the execution. The Necrons (particularly at the time, before their reboot) would not have seen the Marines any differently than they would the Tyranids. Then the Marines no longer apparently wish to fight these omnicidal xenos enemies of the Emperor just because they had a common enemy interrupt their previous conflict.

Had it been written differently, probably nobody would have batted an eye "separated from engaging each other by the overwhelming tide Tyranids, both sides fought to survive against the horde. The Necrons used this chance to escape the wrath of the Blood Angels, and the Space Marines, depleted by their battle with the Tyranids, could only watch and swear vengeance as the Xenos evaded the Emperor's Justice".

But the whole "we fought alongside each other and no longer wished to fight against each other after that" came off...poorly.

Forgot that Necrons used to be mindless, too.

It doesn't make much sense with the old Necron back story. But with the new one, it's a totally calculated move by the Necrons. And maybe Dante, too. There's a lot of people that Dante probably hates more than the Necrons. Chaos and Orks for sure. (Orks cost him his top captain)

Most Necrons are still mindless.

 oni wrote:
Lets analyze this for a moment...

1. Matt Ward was the primary author of 6th edition W40K, the shortest lived 40K rules in the history of the game (lasted barely 1.5 years).

2. Matt Ward was the primary author of 8th edition WFB. The aftermath of which GW literally had to kill off one of the industries most iconic tabletop games that's been around for 30+ years.

3. Matt Ward generated SOoo much negative publicity that accreditation of authors is no longer published in GW's literature.

There's a reason, several in fact, as to why Matt Ward is no longer employed by GW.

Matt Ward author of Lord of the Rings, one of the best rules every made.

Davor wrote:

 oni wrote:
Lets analyze this for a moment...

1. Matt Ward was the primary author of 6th edition W40K, the shortest lived 40K rules in the history of the game (lasted barely 1.5 years).

2. Matt Ward was the primary author of 8th edition WFB. The aftermath of which GW literally had to kill off one of the industries most iconic tabletop games that's been around for 30+ years.

3. Matt Ward generated SOoo much negative publicity that accreditation of authors is no longer published in GW's literature.

There's a reason, several in fact, as to why Matt Ward is no longer employed by GW.

Matt Ward author of Lord of the Rings, one of the best rules every made.

Until you got to the armies themselves, especially with War of the Ring...

I still laugh hysterically at my friend machine gunning down 3 Mumaks in a single turn with the 3 Epic Shot elf characters! With a close second being the ability for Amdur + Saurman + The Betrayer + Khamul to auto-kill anything in the game through their infinite loop re-rolls of Dooooooooooooom!

Bear in mind, though, that everything Matt Ward "did" had to be approved by someone else. Someone whose name is, I believe, Alan Merrett, who believes Games Workshop's customers' favorite hobby is buying Games Workshop products.

Davor wrote:

Matt Ward author of Lord of the Rings, one of the best rules every made.

He didn't write those rules.

The first set of the Lord of The Rings rules, released alongside Fellowship of the Ring, was attributed to Rick Priestly. The Game Development credits also included: Alessio Cavatore, Andy Chambers, Alan and Michael Perry, Gav Thorpe, Robert Bloom, Stephan Hess, Michael Hellmig, Tim Huckleberry, Agis Neugebauer, Lindsey D le Doux Priestly, Marco Schulze and Jake Thornton. Ward is nowhere to be seen.

The second set of Lord of the Rings rules, released alongside The Two Towers, was attributed to Rick Priestly and Alessio Cavatore. Game Development credits are otherwise the same as before. No mention of Ward.

The third set of Lord of the Rings rules, released alongside The Return of the King, was attributed to Alessio Cavatore, original game design to Rick Priestly and Game Development to Rob Wood, Chris Harbor, Mark Scard, Mark Bedford, Mark Latham, Darron Bowley, Steve Hammatt, Rob Broom, Conrad Gonsalves, Adrian Champion, Kevin Barraclough and David Smith.

We do however see Wards name come up, under the War of the Ring section here, which at this point in time is a small section detailing some scenarios covering smaller battles in areas such as Esgaroth, Lothlorien and the Lonely Mountain and some new character rules (Dain), alongside some revised ones (Galadriel, Celeborn and generic dwarf kings) and some taken from Shadow and Flame (Radagast).

So no, Matt Ward didn't write the rules for the LOTR game. He just took other peoples rules and slightly tweaked them to make army composition more complicated. Because other than that, the mechanics are identical in the Return of the King book to the giant rulebook released later.

Necrons have largely been scaled back in power by the changes to the C'tan status and the fractured politics of the various dynasties. Their naval power is still extreme though, and a full on Necron invasion is still one of the most dangerous things in the setting.

The Tyranids have not necessarily gotten a "boost" in recent years, but the latest depictions of Tyranid invasions show them winning rather than being wiped out, which is a change. It's arguable that the Shield of Baal campaign did boost their power somewhat, or perhaps just more accurately described what a large scale Tyranid invasion is like (millions of ships, enough creatures to drown an entire system in chitin an eliminate all resistance in less than a week).

Chaos... well they clearly tried to up the Chaos threat with the Crimson Path (and the Black Legion series is running with this idea as well). It needs more work (a good campaign setting to really go into it in depth) for it to be convincing though. Chaos Daemons are in exactly the same place as they always have been; an almost infinite threat, but held in check because they cannot easily penetrate our universe and are reliant on mortal "support".

Orks are in an odd place. We've always known that if united, they could inflict incredible damage and maybe toppe the Imperium, but a united Ork race is far off. The Ghazkhull expansion did send us a little further down that path, but so far all that's really happened is that the Orks around Armageddon bow to him (no change there) and now so do the Orks in the Octarius empire (though they still have their hands full with another limb of Hive Fleet Leviathan).

The Eldar, Dark Eldar and Tau are all too small, too scattered or too disinterested to be major threats.

My only issue was the Blood Tide. Most mysogenistic pile of horsegak printed by GW to date.

SJ

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

Davor wrote:

Matt Ward author of Lord of the Rings, one of the best rules every made.

He didn't write those rules.

The first set of the Lord of The Rings rules, released alongside Fellowship of the Ring, was attributed to Rick Priestly. The Game Development credits also included: Alessio Cavatore, Andy Chambers, Alan and Michael Perry, Gav Thorpe, Robert Bloom, Stephan Hess, Michael Hellmig, Tim Huckleberry, Agis Neugebauer, Lindsey D le Doux Priestly, Marco Schulze and Jake Thornton. Ward is nowhere to be seen.

The second set of Lord of the Rings rules, released alongside The Two Towers, was attributed to Rick Priestly and Alessio Cavatore. Game Development credits are otherwise the same as before. No mention of Ward.

The third set of Lord of the Rings rules, released alongside The Return of the King, was attributed to Alessio Cavatore, original game design to Rick Priestly and Game Development to Rob Wood, Chris Harbor, Mark Scard, Mark Bedford, Mark Latham, Darron Bowley, Steve Hammatt, Rob Broom, Conrad Gonsalves, Adrian Champion, Kevin Barraclough and David Smith.

We do however see Wards name come up, under the War of the Ring section here, which at this point in time is a small section detailing some scenarios covering smaller battles in areas such as Esgaroth, Lothlorien and the Lonely Mountain and some new character rules (Dain), alongside some revised ones (Galadriel, Celeborn and generic dwarf kings) and some taken from Shadow and Flame (Radagast).

So no, Matt Ward didn't write the rules for the LOTR game. He just took other peoples rules and slightly tweaked them to make army composition more complicated. Because other than that, the mechanics are identical in the Return of the King book to the giant rulebook released later.

So the only contribution he made was making it more complex? In what way do you mean this? Is it harder to use or just 'more in-depth'?

 jeffersonian000 wrote:
My only issue was the Blood Tide. Most mysogenistic pile of horsegak printed by GW to date.

SJ

I don't think you quite understand what "misogyny" is.

The event, as described, is rather misogynistic. With the addition of a couple sentences, it could have been so much better, while still tying into the grimdark and allowing the GK to do their thing.

Had some mention been made of the Sisters' agency in the event, of their willingness to sacrifice themselves, a bit of dialog where even the GK have to admit that, yeah, they require aid from the Sisters to complete their mission, then it would have been fine.

Instead, we get none of that and the GK just kill a bunch of Sisters, taking no casualties, because reasons.

The IoM is the most powerful, cohesive force in the galaxy. I don't see where they ever weren't in the fluff (aside from the transition between RT and 2nd Ed, but a LOT of things were retconned and changed drastically between those 2 books).

They're not the most populace, but they're the most capable. Let's put it this way;

Orks, WAY more numbers, but can only attack a system IF they happen to get a Space Hulk landing in their current system. Other than that they have no way of attacking other planetary systems.

Nids, again they have huge, implacable numbers but their fluff makes no sense as far as threatening the galaxy at large. They move slower than light (at incredible speed, but still they lack FTL tech), so it would take hundreds of years for them to travel from one system to the next, and that's assuming you have 2 stars with planetary systems that have resources they'd want to eat side by side.

 Kanluwen wrote:

 jeffersonian000 wrote:
My only issue was the Blood Tide. Most mysogenistic pile of horsegak printed by GW to date.

SJ

I don't think you quite understand what "misogyny" is.

Pretty sure one of us understands misogyny, from a personal point of view.

SJ

If you say so...

But yeah. Let's just forget that the whole point of that relatively small fluff blurb is that whether it was the Adepta Sororitas or the Frater Militia or the now defunct Frateris Templar, the point was that "Grey Knights killed the faithful to shield themselves" and not "Grey Knights killed the women because they were women".

 Kanluwen wrote:
If you say so...

But yeah. Let's just forget that the whole point of that relatively small fluff blurb is that whether it was the Adepta Sororitas or the Frater Militia or the now defunct Frateris Templar, the point was that "Grey Knights killed the faithful to shield themselves" and not "Grey Knights killed the women because they were women".

Spoken like someone that does not understand misogeny. Its not that Grey Knights killed women because they are women, its that women had to die so the men could be heroes. Women that had been doing fine on their own, and were only murdered by the "heroes" to move the story along. That's why it was a horrible.

SJ

 jeffersonian000 wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:
If you say so...

But yeah. Let's just forget that the whole point of that relatively small fluff blurb is that whether it was the Adepta Sororitas or the Frater Militia or the now defunct Frateris Templar, the point was that "Grey Knights killed the faithful to shield themselves" and not "Grey Knights killed the women because they were women".

Spoken like someone that does not understand misogeny. Its not that Grey Knights killed women because they are women, its that women had to die so the men could be heroes. Women that had been doing fine on their own, and were only murdered by the "heroes" to move the story along. That's why it was a horrible.

SJ

That's literally the biggest overreaction ever. You're looking WAY too much into it.