Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Davor wrote:

commander dante wrote:*Starts Collecting Sisters of Battle*
*Matt Ward posts that he has returned to GW*
RIP me and SoB

That is more about you than Matt. If this is suppose to be sarcasm I don't see it. This is just petty.

Now why not say "GW please make Sisters of Battle, I would love to spend a lot of money on it, but if it has bad rules/fluff, I feel like I can't justify buying it then." But nope you just said something petty. I guess that shows you how much you really like your SoB.

I see it as amusing.

Isn't Ward the guy who wrote fluff about Grey Knights slaughtering Sisters of Battle so that the Knights could coat themselves in blood?

(yes, it was technically described in slightly different words)

Makes sense that a fan of the Sisters would be somewhat leery of what Ward might do next.

^_^

 Adam Spielmann wrote:

tneva82 wrote:
One difference is penatent thingie isn't supposed to be safe or sensible. Criminal is expected to diex he's sacrificial. Grew knight isn't

And the Dreadknight is supposed to operate against enemies who don't use snipers, such as Chaos Demons and rarely Chaos Space Marines. So, again, the design of the Dreadknight is flawed because Matt Ward (who simply wrote the detailed lore and the rules, and didn't design the model nor its basic lore) while the Penitent Engine is a wonderful demonstration of the baroque, gothic aesthetic of the 40K?

I think there's way too much negative bias for that guy. Am rather pleased he's working with GW again. Plus, Centurions look far more clunky and awful...

The problem with the Dreadknight is it was totally unnecessary from the original lore; part of what made Grey Knights awesome was that they didn't need massive war machines. They could face down a daemon prince with just a sword and their faith in the Emperor. Ironically that makes the rather shaky Draigo fluff more in keeping with the original concept than everyone wants!

And you're right, he certainly didn't design the model or even the concept.

 Dryaktylus wrote:

tneva82 wrote:
One difference is penatent thingie isn't supposed to be safe or sensible. Criminal is expected to diex he's sacrificial. Grew knight isn't

That was odd. The engines were described as holy relics; ancient and sacred. One of the things you don't expect is that they use them as suicide equipment for sinners where they are destroyed most likely.

Machine yes, sinner inside it no. They are there to get absolution from their sins by dying. Hopefully taking somebody with them. But church probably isn't too happy if death sentenced manages to actually come back alive.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Adam Spielmann wrote:

tneva82 wrote:
One difference is penatent thingie isn't supposed to be safe or sensible. Criminal is expected to diex he's sacrificial. Grew knight isn't

And the Dreadknight is supposed to operate against enemies who don't use snipers, such as Chaos Demons and rarely Chaos Space Marines. So, again, the design of the Dreadknight is flawed because Matt Ward (who simply wrote the detailed lore and the rules, and didn't design the model nor its basic lore) while the Penitent Engine is a wonderful demonstration of the baroque, gothic aesthetic of the 40K?

I think there's way too much negative bias for that guy. Am rather pleased he's working with GW again. Plus, Centurions look far more clunky and awful...

That's my point. Dreadknight makes no sense. Peninent engine meanwhile the sinner controlling isn't SUPPOSED to come back alive. So it isn't odd that he's so vulnerable. That's the bloody point. He's there to die. Grey knight isn't.

 doctortom wrote:
Well, if we're going to have Ward write an overpowered Codex (which it doesn't look like he'll be doing), they might as well have him write a new Sisters of Battle Codex and turn them into Amazons that can cleave Marines in twain with one swing of a weapon.

Yes please!

tneva82 wrote:
That's my point. Dreadknight makes no sense. Peninent engine meanwhile the sinner controlling isn't SUPPOSED to come back alive. So it isn't odd that he's so vulnerable. That's the bloody point. He's there to die. Grey knight isn't.

Penitent engine doesn't make sense. If you want to kill someone, you don't need to waste a precious walker, and if you want a precious walker to kill enemies, you'd better protect the pilot at least a little bit. The two objectives of the Penitent Engine (i.e. killing enemies and killing the pilot) are in direct contradiction.

I had no problem with a dreadnight, just didn't like the design, we will just have to wait and see what the MW'ster will do

Eumerin wrote:

Davor wrote:

commander dante wrote:*Starts Collecting Sisters of Battle*
*Matt Ward posts that he has returned to GW*
RIP me and SoB

That is more about you than Matt. If this is suppose to be sarcasm I don't see it. This is just petty.

Now why not say "GW please make Sisters of Battle, I would love to spend a lot of money on it, but if it has bad rules/fluff, I feel like I can't justify buying it then." But nope you just said something petty. I guess that shows you how much you really like your SoB.

I see it as amusing.

Isn't Ward the guy who wrote fluff about Grey Knights slaughtering Sisters of Battle so that the Knights could coat themselves in blood?

(yes, it was technically described in slightly different words)

Makes sense that a fan of the Sisters would be somewhat leery of what Ward might do next.

^_^

With all the Matt bashing on again, is just petty now. Nothing is funny. Talk about beating a dead horse.

Want to be taken serious, talk serious. Otherwise we are no better than Kirby and all his antics he said.

 Dryaktylus wrote:
That was odd. The engines were described as holy relics; ancient and sacred. One of the things you don't expect is that they use them as suicide equipment for sinners where they are destroyed most likely.

They put out the PR spin that they are ancient and holy relics. Actually, the AdMechs knocked up the penitent engines to be "ork-bait" - let the orks steal those instead of more valuable vehicles and let the orks have fun getting grots to man the penitent engines.

Davor wrote:


With all the Matt bashing on again, is just petty now. Nothing is funny. Talk about beating a dead horse.

Want to be taken serious, talk serious. Otherwise we are no better than Kirby and all his antics he said.

Seriously, Matt Ward coming back to GW terrifies me. I was very happy when he left.

Not that I had anything against him personally, it's just his fluff was so challenging. My imagination hurts when I think about him.

 techsoldaten wrote:

Davor wrote:


With all the Matt bashing on again, is just petty now. Nothing is funny. Talk about beating a dead horse.

Want to be taken serious, talk serious. Otherwise we are no better than Kirby and all his antics he said.

Seriously, Matt Ward coming back to GW terrifies me. I was very happy when he left.

Not that I had anything against him personally, it's just his fluff was so challenging. My imagination hurts when I think about him.

Honestly I'd rather have him write some crunch again, I mean after Phil Kelly makes an even stronger Wraithknight two editions in a row, add's S: D weapons all over. Maybe we can have Ward write the Ork Codex and Tyranids instead of Cruddace, they need some love.

Say what you want, Matt showed enthusiasm for every project he worked on, I'll take that over the guys writing codicies as if they were being punished because it wasn't their favourite army.

Joyboozer wrote:
Say what you want, Matt showed enthusiasm for every project he worked on

Possibly because he only ever wrote stuff he was a fan of?

 His Master's Voice wrote:

Joyboozer wrote:
Say what you want, Matt showed enthusiasm for every project he worked on

Possibly because he only ever wrote stuff he was a fan of?

Daemons, Sisters of Battle (had a decent 5th edition WD codex at least), High Elves, SM, BA, Necrons, Grey Knights, Dark Elves

Dude had a decent spread at least.

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:

 His Master's Voice wrote:

Joyboozer wrote:
Say what you want, Matt showed enthusiasm for every project he worked on

Possibly because he only ever wrote stuff he was a fan of?

Daemons, Sisters of Battle (had a decent 5th edition WD codex at least), High Elves, SM, BA, Necrons, Grey Knights, Dark Elves

Dude had a decent spread at least.

His Dark Elf book wasn't great in terms of fluff. Dragging the whole "Slaanesh eats elf souls" thing in from 40K was completely unnecessary. Gav Thorpe has always written the best Dark Elf army books, IMO.

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:

 His Master's Voice wrote:

Joyboozer wrote:
Say what you want, Matt showed enthusiasm for every project he worked on

Possibly because he only ever wrote stuff he was a fan of?

Daemons, Sisters of Battle (had a decent 5th edition WD codex at least), High Elves, SM, BA, Necrons, Grey Knights, Dark Elves

Dude had a decent spread at least.

His Dark Elf book wasn't great in terms of fluff. Dragging the whole "Slaanesh eats elf souls" thing in from 40K was completely unnecessary.

That seemed like an overhead change, since that had to be approved from above, I tend to focus more on the crunch then the fluff at times but one could see that he certainly enjoyed creating new special things. Which tends to annoys me when we get some really bad and bland codexs (New Orks, how do you make Orks so bland!)

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:

 His Master's Voice wrote:

Joyboozer wrote:
Say what you want, Matt showed enthusiasm for every project he worked on

Possibly because he only ever wrote stuff he was a fan of?

Daemons, Sisters of Battle (had a decent 5th edition WD codex at least), High Elves, SM, BA, Necrons, Grey Knights, Dark Elves

Dude had a decent spread at least.

His Dark Elf book wasn't great in terms of fluff. Dragging the whole "Slaanesh eats elf souls" thing in from 40K was completely unnecessary. Gav Thorpe has always written the best Dark Elf army books, IMO.

Gav Thorpe was the Matt Ward of his day.

Mat Ward is a better rules writer than Gav Thorpe.

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:

 His Master's Voice wrote:

Joyboozer wrote:
Say what you want, Matt showed enthusiasm for every project he worked on

Possibly because he only ever wrote stuff he was a fan of?

Daemons, Sisters of Battle (had a decent 5th edition WD codex at least), High Elves, SM, BA, Necrons, Grey Knights, Dark Elves

Dude had a decent spread at least.

... That's not a proud pedigree of destruction, considering what he did to each and every one of those books.

Not to remember to mention that it happened on his watch as the continued codex devolution brought on the large divisions of the fan bases for each and every one of those books.
Its fair to say that Ward was responsible for the current state of confusion that his garbage spawned. OP king that he is, he has no concept of game design. If he wants to stick to attempts at writing books, fine, at least he can't destroy a game system with his over the top confusion and killy-kill-kill skull fests.

I can do without that sort of enthusiasm. I was fine with the new and improved GW, now your basically bringing back one of the main culprits of their past money grabs and game devolution- Thanks, GW, but put this one back in the bad memory bin.

It's not like anyone else is making much better when it comes to 40k anymore, He did break 7th but as 40k goes its basically Eldar all the way down.

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:
It's not like anyone else is making much better when it comes to 40k anymore, He did break 7th but as 40k goes its basically Eldar all the way down.

The design studio don't have the chops any more. All the talent that built the game is long gone and doing good work elsewhere.

Has anyone discovered what temporary freelance project Ward/his company was hired for? Anyone?

 russian69hitman wrote:
Has anyone discovered what temporary freelance project Ward/his company was hired for? Anyone?

He said on his twitter it was, as with all things GW, top secret. I wouldn't expect to see it for a while though, the leadtime on projects can be as much as 2 years.

 Brother SRM wrote:

 russian69hitman wrote:
Has anyone discovered what temporary freelance project Ward/his company was hired for? Anyone?

He said on his twitter it was, as with all things GW, top secret. I wouldn't expect to see it for a while though, the leadtime on projects can be as much as 2 years.

There was something in an interview recently for Black Library discussing how they want to do more things like "The Beast Arises" series that is underway; self-contained story arcs that have a definite end frame.

I could see Ward maybe being brought in as part of that.

Fenrir Kitsune wrote:Blame matt ward for everything. No wait, blame Jervis. Wait, no, it was Gav Thorpes fault. All of it.

Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:

 privateer4hire wrote:
I played 7th WFB, which had extremely serious imbalance toward the middle/end (demons, dark elves, vampire counts). Did this fella do those army books?

If memory serves, it was Gav Thorpe that did the Dark Elves army book, the same army book that had basic DE spearmen with light armour, shield, spear, eternal hatred, leadership 8, movement 5, WS and BS 4...for the same price as an unarmoured human with a spear...

Strangely, Thorpe never got the same amount of flak as Mat ward did

Binabik15 wrote:

 JonWebb wrote:
So, on the subject of mr Merrett, I heard on the grapevine today. He left GW this morning.

No verification yet, but if so, that might be the final step in the new dawn of a post kirby GW.

Will be interesting to see if that is true.

Icanlivewiththat.jpg


I have no codizes or armybooks from the Ward era afaik, but I greatly disliked the move to single authors per codex. Hire more staff or slow your releases, geez, you made £16 million of profit, you can hire a few more low pay creative types.

Fenrir Kitsune wrote:

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:

 His Master's Voice wrote:

Joyboozer wrote:
Say what you want, Matt showed enthusiasm for every project he worked on

Possibly because he only ever wrote stuff he was a fan of?

Daemons, Sisters of Battle (had a decent 5th edition WD codex at least), High Elves, SM, BA, Necrons, Grey Knights, Dark Elves

Dude had a decent spread at least.

His Dark Elf book wasn't great in terms of fluff. Dragging the whole "Slaanesh eats elf souls" thing in from 40K was completely unnecessary. Gav Thorpe has always written the best Dark Elf army books, IMO.

Gav Thorpe was the Matt Ward of his day.

Crimson Devil wrote:Mat Ward is a better rules writer than Gav Thorpe.

Trying to tie too much stuff together here, this quote will be a mess.


Yeah, Gav had some... unique Codices and army books of his own, but I wouldn't use him as a measuring stick for Mat Ward. I'd say Mat is the Pete Haines of the more modern GW, and that's not something I'd want to see returning.

 Jadenim wrote:

 Adam Spielmann wrote:

tneva82 wrote:
One difference is penatent thingie isn't supposed to be safe or sensible. Criminal is expected to diex he's sacrificial. Grew knight isn't

And the Dreadknight is supposed to operate against enemies who don't use snipers, such as Chaos Demons and rarely Chaos Space Marines. So, again, the design of the Dreadknight is flawed because Matt Ward (who simply wrote the detailed lore and the rules, and didn't design the model nor its basic lore) while the Penitent Engine is a wonderful demonstration of the baroque, gothic aesthetic of the 40K?

I think there's way too much negative bias for that guy. Am rather pleased he's working with GW again. Plus, Centurions look far more clunky and awful...

The problem with the Dreadknight is it was totally unnecessary from the original lore; part of what made Grey Knights awesome was that they didn't need massive war machines. They could face down a daemon prince with just a sword and their faith in the Emperor. Ironically that makes the rather shaky Draigo fluff more in keeping with the original concept than everyone wants!

And you're right, he certainly didn't design the model or even the concept.

I remember reading from somewhere that the rules team has little to no say in how the models are designed and sculpted and are instead presented with finished models for which they need to write rules to include the wargear and equipment shown. Matt Ward does not deserve the flak that he gets for the Dreadknight, that should go towards the sculptors that made it.

 Just Tony wrote:

Fenrir Kitsune wrote:Blame matt ward for everything. No wait, blame Jervis. Wait, no, it was Gav Thorpes fault. All of it.

Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:

 privateer4hire wrote:
I played 7th WFB, which had extremely serious imbalance toward the middle/end (demons, dark elves, vampire counts). Did this fella do those army books?

If memory serves, it was Gav Thorpe that did the Dark Elves army book, the same army book that had basic DE spearmen with light armour, shield, spear, eternal hatred, leadership 8, movement 5, WS and BS 4...for the same price as an unarmoured human with a spear...

Strangely, Thorpe never got the same amount of flak as Mat ward did

Binabik15 wrote:

 JonWebb wrote:
So, on the subject of mr Merrett, I heard on the grapevine today. He left GW this morning.

No verification yet, but if so, that might be the final step in the new dawn of a post kirby GW.

Will be interesting to see if that is true.

Icanlivewiththat.jpg


I have no codizes or armybooks from the Ward era afaik, but I greatly disliked the move to single authors per codex. Hire more staff or slow your releases, geez, you made £16 million of profit, you can hire a few more low pay creative types.

Fenrir Kitsune wrote:

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:

 His Master's Voice wrote:

Joyboozer wrote:
Say what you want, Matt showed enthusiasm for every project he worked on

Possibly because he only ever wrote stuff he was a fan of?

Daemons, Sisters of Battle (had a decent 5th edition WD codex at least), High Elves, SM, BA, Necrons, Grey Knights, Dark Elves

Dude had a decent spread at least.

His Dark Elf book wasn't great in terms of fluff. Dragging the whole "Slaanesh eats elf souls" thing in from 40K was completely unnecessary. Gav Thorpe has always written the best Dark Elf army books, IMO.

Gav Thorpe was the Matt Ward of his day.

Crimson Devil wrote:Mat Ward is a better rules writer than Gav Thorpe.

Trying to tie too much stuff together here, this quote will be a mess.


Yeah, Gav had some... unique Codices and army books of his own, but I wouldn't use him as a measuring stick for Mat Ward. I'd say Mat is the Pete Haines of the more modern GW, and that's not something I'd want to see returning.

Hah, I think I know which WD Gav did the designer's notes on the desicion to make the spearelves so cheap. I don't have my WDs here or I would look it up.

I also read the WD introducing Haines (Cityfight codex) recently. Hey, btw, anyone interested in some rules for an army I play that are ridiculously OP? I mean, Iron Warriors really SHOULD have access to Khorne Berzerkers and Basilisks because anything but the biggest gun (back then) and amazing CC (back then) is unfluffy! Iron Within, Iron Without!

Ward returns? I see this as only a good thing. Eventually the whole universe will end up so confusing that someone will hit the re-set button and then we can all play in the bubble-realms

 Wulfmar wrote:
Ward returns? I see this as only a good thing. Eventually the whole universe will end up so confusing that someone will hit the re-set button and then we can all play in the bubble-realms

Huh? Not confusing now?


I still can't believe people are still not following rule #1 and keep bad mouthing Matt Ward. Wow this speaks of people's character WHO CAN'T JUST LET GO. come on people enough is enough. I don't even find the above funny, just placing blame. No wonder GW looks down on us, we deserve it. I guess Kirby was right after all. Way to go internet nerds/geeks, you just keep proving Kirby correct.

Unless Mat Ward is posting in this thread, rule 1 doesn't apply to him.

Davor wrote:

 Wulfmar wrote:
Ward returns? I see this as only a good thing. Eventually the whole universe will end up so confusing that someone will hit the re-set button and then we can all play in the bubble-realms

Huh? Not confusing now?


I still can't believe people are still not following rule #1 and keep bad mouthing Matt Ward. Wow this speaks of people's character WHO CAN'T JUST LET GO. come on people enough is enough. I don't even find the above funny, just placing blame. No wonder GW looks down on us, we deserve it. I guess Kirby was right after all. Way to go internet nerds/geeks, you just keep proving Kirby correct.

Oh geeze, you don't find my dryness funny. I do apologize.

Only, I wasn't being amusing.

Also, don't bother attributing Ward hatred - I have equal amounts of... what's the best phrase... tiredness? with the raft of writers who have led to the bloated 40K and vast array of codices, dataslates, mini-slates, codi-slates, formation-slates and other stuff we have now.


You enjoy justifying the actions of GW like the beaten housewife

 A Town Called Malus wrote:
Unless Mat Ward is posting in this thread, rule 1 doesn't apply to him.

That is actually incorrect.

Rule #1 applies to everyone, at all times.

After all, who knows who is and is not a member here, and who is and is not actually reading all of this?

And generally speaking, in life, it is always the right choice to err on the side of politeness.