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I'm not defending Phil Kelly. I'm saying he's more capable of putting out a decent Codex than Matt Ward because he actually has some understanding of the game system. Case in point: I don't know what the competitive scene was like in 6th Ed, but in 5th the Space Wolves ruled the roost while the DEldar were usually contenders. Necrons and Grey Knights, which were supposed to be the new hotness, had a bit of an impact until people sussed them out, at which point their relevance fell off a cliff, while the Spess Mehrens often managed to place well by dint of the fact six out of ten entrants were playing them.

I'm very curious what meta you were playing at the time, because Dark Eldar usually stayed around the mid to low range due to the fact that GK permeated the scene with S8 Dakkadreads, and they tended to do very poorly against Leafblower IG, and the other top competitors at the time, Necrons and GK were near mid-top with SM near the Mid.

EDIT: Cruddace wrote the 7th Edition book, but the black heart and twisted soul is retained from Ward's 5th Edition iteration. His fail echoes through the generations - see below.

The new GK Codex is more or less a direct translation of the 5th Edition cack-fest, with all points costs and special rules (that's "Ralph Wiggum" special, not "unique and noteworthy") largely intact. Same with Codex: Adepta Sororitas. His failure echoes through eternity. He also wrote the Space Marine Codex we're currently using, and you can tell he did because a Tactical Marine costs 2pts more than a Sister of Battle.

Aside from the fact that yes they kept the specials, what sort of argument is this? I mean seriously, he's now dictating points from outside the company just to keep tacticals strong? I honest to god don't know how to respond to that.

Sisters never had trouble in 5th Edition. They were mechanised MEQ infantry with 2 Meltaguns per squad at BS4; they were **made** for 5th Edition. I used to love bringing my ladies to the FLGS and rolling Smurfs who thought my army sucked because it hadn't been updated for 2 Editions; they'd scoff and snicker until I blew up their Derp Pod Squads with twin-linked Heavy Flamers and Rended their Terminators to death with Bolters.

Hmm, this is explaining much about your strange meta, because the top meta lists for SM were Las/Plas razorback or SM Biker Squads mixed with some Dakkadreads and assault terminators, maybe some Sternguard Drop pods.

tl;dr - Ward ruined my armies in the same way Kelly ruined the CSM. The difference is Kelly **can** write Codexes capable of building competitive armies when he puts his mind to it, whereas Ward's best effort consists of trash fanbooks with derptastic special rules and undercosted units that give the appearance of competitiveness.

Considering that the Grey Hunters were under the cost of a SM tactical, while being the same cost as CSM while having more rules, cheaper specials, and overall having powerful backup units, the problem is you seem to undercut how often Kelly's stuff is so badly costed that it gives the semblance of competitiveness while the real reason is they are so dreadfully undercosted.

A Bloodthirster which costs 50pts is "OP". An army which is capable of playing the game according to its rules is not. Learn the difference.

That you cannot see that you are accusing Ward of something Kelly does? I suppose one could undercut all the options in a codex by 50 points and do well so long as they match up to the rules edition hm?

Also what do you mean "explain the Wraithknight"? What exactly is it you want me to explain about it? Do you think it's OP because one killed your Smurfette Chapter Master despite the fact you gave him 350pts of melee wargear?

Cute, but this is possibly the best example showing that you honest to god don't understand how badly balanced the Wraithknight was in its original incarnation, and the fact that it became a Gargantuan Creature was possibly the biggest insult with it's point cost.

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:
I'm very curious what meta you were playing at the time, because Dark Eldar usually stayed around the mid to low range due to the fact that GK permeated the scene with S8 Dakkadreads, and they tended to do very poorly against Leafblower IG, and the other top competitors at the time, Necrons and GK were near mid-top.

"Meta"? I'm judging by the last year I played 40k in anger - 2011. Tony Kopach won both the NOVA Open and Adepticon with his min-maxed mech Space Wolves, which was the only way the army could be run if you wanted to have any success with it, but if you ran it that way you'd go far, kind of how Eldar are right now (and, conspicuously, exactly how they weren't in 5th Edition). Rifleman Dreads, Psybolt Razorbacks and Gauss nonsense were supposed to be a nightmare for that army too, but they couldn't knock the Wolves off their perch. That's because neither Codex: Inquisition nor Codex: Necrons were costed properly, with many units costing too much for their utility and others not enough, and thus struggled to compete with an army composed of correctly priced units. Both were consistently outstripped in terms of placing by Codex: Smurfs Salamander armies and Bike armies, which were, as we've discussed, undercosted. Blood Angels had a bit of a run as well if I remember correctly, for similar reasons.

DEldar struggled against autocannon/AC spam, but ironically did reasonably well against mech Wolves, provided you went first and had some Haywires to compensate for the single Lances whiffing.

Aside from the fact that yes they kept the specials, what sort of argument is this? I mean seriously, he's now dictating points from outside the company just to keep tacticals strong? I honest to god don't know how to respond to that.

The rules in the new edition are much the same as they were in the old edition. Matt Ward wrote the rules in the previous editions. That's what I'm getting at.

Hmm, this is explaining much about your strange meta

Not my meta. Big US tournament scene meta. See above.

because the top meta lists for SM were Las/Plas razorback or SM Biker Squads mixed with some Dakkadreads and assault terminators.

3rd Edition Sisters had the beating of those too, purely because you could fit 12 transports with dual meltas in a 1500pt Sisters list, plus an Exorcist or two if you swapped a BSS or three for ISTs, whereas the Spess Mehrens were running maybe 6 transports and a Dreadnought or two at that points level. Plus bad kids usually run a wargear mule Mary Sue Chapter Master, which eats up a lot of points that could be spent elsewhere

Considering that the Grey Hunters were under the cost of a SM tactical while being the same cost as CSM while having more rules,

Grey Hunters had the same kit as a CSM, plus Acute Senses, Counter-Attack and ATSKNF - yet what you fail to mention, presumably because it damages your argument, is that the codex CSM were using in 5th was an abject trainwreck of overpriced garbage. It's less that the Hunters were undercosted, more that the CSM cost too much.

What Grey Hunters didn't have was Combat Tactics, so you had no way to get them out of CC once they were in it unless you won. Riddle me this: if there'd been an optional upgrade to swap the CC stuff for Combat Tactics at the cost of 1pt per model, the difference between a Hunter and a Tactical Marine, do you think the competitive SW players would've taken it? I know I would've. I'd have taken your arm off if you'd offered me that, because that's an extremely powerful ability I've had to give up for the sake of more numerous transports. Same deal with the old Sisters book; you had access to a butt-load of vehicles, but the price you paid was that your troops vanished whenever anyone charged them.

cheaper specials

Special weapons cost the same in both books, as far as I recall.

and overall having powerful backup units

... which were largely the same as their Spess Mehrens counterparts, aside from the Space Furry wolf cavalry stuff. How many competitive Wolves lists used that stuff?

the problem is you seem to undercut how often Kelly's stuff is so badly costed that it gives the semblance of competitiveness while the real reason is they are so dreadfully undercosted.

You're wrong.

That you cannot see that you are accusing Ward of something Kelly does?

See above.

Cute, but this is possibly the best example showing that you honest to god don't understand how badly balanced the Wraithknight was in its original incarnation

In 6th? I didn't play in 6th, so I can't really comment. I don't think the current one is particularly overpowered in any meaningful way.

and the fact that it became a Gargantuan Creature was possibly the biggest insult with it's point cost.

I don't see how it's an insult. The D weapons are a bit of a pain, but I've seen Cult Metamorphs take them out in close combat and AdMech Grav Guns blow them up in a single turn of shooting. Surely if something is OP cheese, it should take more than a single turn to blow it up? And if it's undercosted I should see lists with 3 or 4 of them running around everywhere. I don't see that. Just because Chapter Master Gary-Stu of the Zebio Ravens Chapter got taken out by a Heavy Wraithcannon doesn't mean the Wraithknight is unbalanced.

"Meta"? I'm judging by the last year I played 40k in anger - 2011. Tony Kopach won both the NOVA Open and Adepticon with his min-maxed mech Space Wolves

That he did, If I recall it was Njal, Six units of GH with Meltaguns, a few in razor the rest in Rhino, Longfangs with five missile launchers, Combi-melta Wolf Guard and.. Scouts I think? Course he was a very skilled player and he straight won his wins fairly enough

That's because neither Codex: Inquisition nor Codex: Necrons were costed properly, with many units costing too much for their utility and others not enough, and thus struggled to compete with an army composed of correctly priced units. Both were consistently outstripped in terms of placing by Codex: Smurfs Salamander armies and Bike armies, which were, as we've discussed, undercosted. Blood Angels had a bit of a run as well if I remember correctly, for similar reasons.

It's kind of funny to bring this up when his list is exactly the same as most wolves lists considering that they were considered the most underpriced units in the book, and yet you were calling them correctly costed.. Regardless I actually liked how Adepticon turned out, there was a good even spread of codex's in the 45-55% win rate range with the lower par being Eldar, Tau, and Chaos Daemons(Bad codex and 5th Mech rule just hurt poor CD ) , and Necrons (Their 5th wouldn't drop till November)

The rules in the new edition are much the same as they were in the old edition. Matt Ward wrote the rules in the previous editions. That's what I'm getting at.

Normally I would say this, but it seems you didn't even realize that Matt Ward had left the company when you had wrote a few things, but rules change as you've obviously noted, there's nothing from newer authors to change it how they will, and they can as they aren't beholden to the former books.

3rd Edition Sisters had the beating of those too, purely because you could fit 12 transports with dual meltas in a 1500pt Sisters list, plus an Exorcist or two if you swapped a BSS or three for ISTs, whereas the Spess Mehrens were running maybe 6 transports and a Dreadnought or two at that points level. Plus bad kids usually run a wargear mule Mary Sue Chapter Master, which eats up a lot of points that could be spent elsewhere

I'm not going to lie, I've never actually seen 3rd edition sisters played before, they were an interesting race with some good idea's that I honestly hope come back with a 7th or 8th dex.

Grey Hunters had the same kit as a CSM, plus Acute Senses, Counter-Attack and ATSKNF - yet what you fail to mention, presumably because it damages your argument, is that the codex CSM were using in 5th was an abject trainwreck of overpriced garbage. It's less that the Hunters were undercosted, more that the CSM cost too much.

Haha, true enough but it certainly stirred a fuss when better then tacticals was -1 before, nobody used base CSM back then either because Plague Marines were a thing. However you forget to mention that they gained their second special free so you'd end up only paying 5 points for two melta with the common double melta, which was drastically better then current SM's tacticals.

What Grey Hunters didn't have was Combat Tactics, so you had no way to get them out of CC once they were in it unless you won. Riddle me this: if there'd been an optional upgrade to swap the CC stuff for Combat Tactics at the cost of 1pt per model, the difference between a Hunter and a Tactical Marine, do you think the competitive SW players would've taken it? I know I would've.

No clue on this one, seems most didn't care from what I remember.

You're wrong.
See above.

Nah.

I don't see how it's an insult. The D weapons are a bit of a pain, but I've seen Cult Metamorphs take them out in close combat and AdMech Grav Guns blow them up in a single turn of shooting. Surely if something is OP cheese, it should take more than a single turn to blow it up? And if it's undercosted I should see lists with 3 or 4 of them running around everywhere. I don't see that. Just because Chapter Master Gary-Stu of the Zebio Ravens Chapter got taken out by a Heavy Wraithcannon doesn't mean the Wraithknight is unbalanced.

You could just ask me what armies I play instead of playing the guessing game of what SM army I might use. I play CSM and CD.

Though I suppose you are right in that new things are balancing things out by virtue of being able to break them just as hard on the field, it's been a while since I've studied up on the current meta so I could be wrong on that issue, but it was certainly a problem in the early meta, of course now they just substitute more Scatter bikes in

Well, I think the pt system has crumbled since the introduction of formations.
Get objective secured for all units in a CSM formation, or
get reanimation protocol for Wraits in a Canoptek Harvest?
You don't have to pay extra points for this.

BBAP wrote:


There speaks a man who never played 3rd Edition Daemonhunters or Witch Hunters, two perfectly serviceable armies filled with units that were at once unique, characterful and useful on the tabletop - both of them utterly ruined by the Spiritual Liege. The 5th Edition rewrites were uniformly god-awful, and while there might be some hope for the Sisters on the horizon I think the Grey Knights and Inquisition have been so thoroughly molested that they're utterly beyond salvation.

Oh hello Mr. Assumption! Ok now in order.
I played against Daemon Hunters and guess what.. you are perfectly right. I played as a Chaos Marine Player so I was victim of the same butchery, with the flavour destoryed by Thorpe (another hack i forgot to name). Still I do not think we can blame Ward or Thorpe: I think that semplification was a management choice to sell more codices (chaos) or because they thought that Spess Mehrens sell better so the inquisition was to become Grey Knights.

Ward delivers nothing *but* terrible Codexes, and he does so for both of the reasons you've stated there. The Space Marines Codexes he wrote were garbage (they were utterly irrelevant to competitive play by the end of 5th Edition, having been thoroughly superceded by the Space Wolves and Dark Eldar - both Phil Kelly Codexes) and only managed to maintain some semblance of competitiveness because he undercosted all the units. Kelly's Codexes are monobuild, but in that monobuild you can see the workings of a mind who understands the game system he's writing for. Ward doesn't. The rules he writes read like the kind of horrid wishlisting garbage you'd find posted on forums by wide-eyed fanboys sick of getting whupped - for Space Marines at any rate, for everyone else he just seems to write the first thing that comes into his head then mail it off to the publisher. If it's not Robot Girlyman, he just doesn't seem to care.

I'd say they are terrible for different reasons. Still, ward can come up with elegant solutions, Kelly destroyed the Space Wolves. Nobody cares about the Blood Claw -> Grey Hunter -> Scout -> long fang is all thundercrap today. My elegant, surprisingly tactical, short range engagement enemies are gone forever.
And... monobuild codices are terrible, TERRIBLE. They kill the concept available to players and the flavour of the army. Is the worst thing you can do to an army.
I can agree on the wishlisting garbage. See how petty (regardless of the power) is a Plasma Syphon.

Which of those two models do you see at tournaments? Hint: It's not the "Yo Dawg" Termi-terminator-nator with the Blade of Overcompensation.

Oh, I will never defend the DK model . In tournaments you see the most OP crap. In fact, every Kelly codex is the same in tournament.

Eldar scatbikes are demonstrably fine.

wew lad

If he starts writing Codexes again I'll stop buying GW products until they fire him again. I know they don't tell you who the authors are now, but I'll know right away if he's done a book because the units will all be undercosted and their rules will be lacklustre attempts at overpowering the army.

You have to understand that mine was more of a provocation. If you read my posts about lotr, you can see how much I love the Talented Mr. Ward (not so much). Still, I am just surprised how much hate he gathers when the current writers are even bigger hacks. Kelly is terrible, TERRIBLE.

Another lotr example: Ward introduced disgusting "orc shamans" that I had to re-convert and refluff in "orc with the medicine and beverage" to justify the save.
Current Hobbit writers introduced absolutely nonsensical melee weapons rules, stupid, unbalanced, not suitable for the game scale. Absolutely catastorphic.
Now FW has dwarves that when shieldwall have the defense of a Nazgul. with lances. When a staple of dwarven armies was that they did not have lance support other than a weird unit, SO they had higher armour (a justification I can find for the hack frauds: is the movie. Low quality Hobbit movie, low quality units).

I think that the conclusion we can draw is that GW's "we hire for attitude" choice led to the designer staff made by bumbling incompetents lacking any coordination, coherence, or vision. ALL OF THEM.

Ward wrote the 5th edition marine codex, which was middle tier, with certain builds being top tier (white scars bikes). The 5th edition Necron book was quite powerful until the 7th edition book, if run well. 5th edition Grey Knights were the terror of the tables.

Cruddace wrote the books for Marines with Grav Cannons, propelling them upwards. Cruddace ran Tyranids and AM into the ground. Cruddace plays an Ultramarines successor (Howling Griffons, as seen in the Crusade of Fire campaign book.)

Kelly wrote Eldar, both Chaos armies, and Space Wolves. Everyone knows the problems or not of these various armies. (The Chaos players won't let us forget after all.

 JNAProductions wrote:
The Wraithknight is HORRIDLY undercosted. It can easily take on a Knight or two, for less than the cost of a single Gallant.

EDIT: I did read "Deadknight" sorry!

Yes. Defend Scatbikes or WK means "hello, I just lost any argument. Forever."

I still want to know who wrote the Ork 7th edition codex. That poor soul needs therapy for the PTSD they must have from Killa Kan walls and Nob Bikers.

 Jayden63 wrote:
Is your unit new or newish? Does you unit have new models that need to be sold? If you answered no to either of the two options, then GW doesn't care what the units points or battlefield performance is. Those old units are not worth their time and effort to balance and fix as there is no profitable reason to do so.

Flash gitz and kommandoes want a word with you.

 koooaei wrote:

 Jayden63 wrote:
Is your unit new or newish? Does you unit have new models that need to be sold? If you answered no to either of the two options, then GW doesn't care what the units points or battlefield performance is. Those old units are not worth their time and effort to balance and fix as there is no profitable reason to do so.

Flash gitz and kommandoes want a word with you.

Also don't forget that the Orkanauts where the big, expensive ($$$), and new stompy centerpiece model for the Orks and yet its rules are hot garbage because walkers are trash. GW sure tried to shoehorn as many of the things into formations as possible and yet I strongly suspect the sales numbers for them have been less than stellar.

 Vankraken wrote:
I still want to know who wrote the Ork 7th edition codex. That poor soul needs therapy for the PTSD they must have from Killa Kan walls and Nob Bikers.

The impression I had is someone that just never played orks and played against them a couple of times with an army yet to be finished.

Is really mind-boggling.

Is like the time traveler that wrote the IG (sorry, AM) 6th edition codex. He took the DelLorean during 5th edition and in his future wrote the codex for 6th, some month before 7th. Such codex was a perfect 5th edition point adjustment (and interesting characters removal, and stuff that would be overcosted in 5th too).

This really mind-boggling, too. I am sorry to sound insulting in my post but these books cost money and people invest time in the hobby. All of this is very sloppy and unprofessional. I just cannot respect them as professionals, all looks so amateurish.

 Vankraken wrote:

 koooaei wrote:

 Jayden63 wrote:
Is your unit new or newish? Does you unit have new models that need to be sold? If you answered no to either of the two options, then GW doesn't care what the units points or battlefield performance is. Those old units are not worth their time and effort to balance and fix as there is no profitable reason to do so.

Flash gitz and kommandoes want a word with you.

Also don't forget that the Orkanauts where the big, expensive ($$$), and new stompy centerpiece model for the Orks and yet its rules are hot garbage because walkers are trash. GW sure tried to shoehorn as many of the things into formations as possible and yet I strongly suspect the sales numbers for them have been less than stellar.

This is another nightmarish aspect - they refuse to admit they f****d up. Instead of releasing an errata or even X.5 codex, they just add formations that can or cannot fix the basic rules, stupid point cost, are not universally loved and do not address people that want more freedom in army composition or play low point games.

 Massaen wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:

Paladins do have Brotherhood of Psykers, The Aegis, Psyk-Out, Force Weapons, a built-in 5++, marginally better small arms, and the ability to buy heavy weapons, thunderhammers, and an Apothecary.

Custodiers have +1 BS/S/T/A/Ld over Paladins, a squad leader with +1WS/I/A on top of that, Eternal Warrior, AP2 at Initiative, Fearless, and the ability to buy Storm Shields.

It isn't that much of an apples-to-oranges argument; they're both melee-focused elite heavy infantry units. Custodiers take a lot more work to kill except in a few very specific cases (S7/AP2 weapons go either way depending on whether the Custodiers have Storm Shields, S2 weapons don't care which one they're shooting at), they do more damage except in a few very specific cases (basically if you aren't trying to kill 3+-armoured MCs with I4 or lower take the Custodiers). The only upside to Paladins is that you can legally use them in a bound army.

The terminators also get assault grenades don't forget which is a significant boon.

The biggest thing the Gk get though is the ability to start embarked in a transport. Like all foot slogging heavy assault units, if you cant engage quickly its a huge point sink for very little return.

Deploying in a transport versus embarking on turn one is an incredibly marginal difference, and the Custodes can use Land Raider Crusader/Redeemers or get an attached IC with grenades.

 Kaiyanwang wrote:
Oh hello Mr. Assumption! Ok now in order.
I played against Daemon Hunters and guess what.. you are perfectly right. I played as a Chaos Marine Player so I was victim of the same butchery, with the flavour destoryed by Thorpe (another hack i forgot to name). Still I do not think we can blame Ward or Thorpe: I think that semplification was a management choice to sell more codices (chaos) or because they thought that Spess Mehrens sell better so the inquisition was to become Grey Knights.

I can't disagree; the 4th Edition CSM Codex was truly wretched, but in crunch terms it sucked for the same reason Ward's books are bad. Your army never had rules. It had gimmicks, and it threw those gimmicks at people who'd never seen them before and counted on them not knowing how to deal. Plague Marines were the bane of my existence when I first encountered them, but only because I was trying to kill them instead of ignoring them and crushing the rest of my opponent's overpriced, underpowered army. Everyone always brought Combi-Plasma Chosen Terminators too for some reason, then put them in a Land Raider in case they actually wanted to shoot something.

I'd say they are terrible for different reasons. Still, ward can come up with elegant solutions, Kelly destroyed the Space Wolves. Nobody cares about the Blood Claw -> Grey Hunter -> Scout -> long fang is all thundercrap today. My elegant, surprisingly tactical, short range engagement enemies are gone forever.

Destroyed? The 3rd Edition book made them a weird, wannabe-Chaos faction, whereas the rewrite made them overlords of the Edition by giving them access to cheap, effective vehicles in almost every Force Org slot. It hasn't translated to 7th because in 7th the vehicles they relied on in 5th can't be trusted anymore. This article on Variance Hammer says it best; the Codex was put together under a design paradigm that is now obsolete; the core rules have moved on from vehicles that never die despite 10 Pens and 20 Glances, and now it's all about mobility without vehicles and firepower without tanks which the Space Wolves have never really had. That's why the Eldar win currently, because they have that in spades. It's also why I think we'll see a lot of Genestealer Cults over the coming months - I predict it'll start with Spess Mehrens players whining that they're "OP" because their armour makes Grav Guns whiff, Cult Ambush neuters Derp Podding nonsense at a stroke, and finally they can beat Marines in Assault, which is a surefire way to get the fanboys whining.

I think that the conclusion we can draw is that GW's "we hire for attitude" choice led to the designer staff made by bumbling incompetents lacking any coordination, coherence, or vision. ALL OF THEM.

I think the conclusion is different. I'm certainly not going to sit here and defend Jeremy Vetock or Phil Kelly to the hilt - they've both put out some stinkers, with Tau having units that are genuinely overpowered which essentially play their army for them while Daemons manages to be competitive despite its random FUN army rules and not because of them.

Overall though, I think the conclusion is that GW have some designers capable of putting out good Codexes, and thus if you're going to sack them all you start with Ward and Cruddace rather than Kelly and Vetock.

BBAP wrote:


Overall though, I think the conclusion is that GW have some designers capable of putting out good Codexes, and thus if you're going to sack them all you start with Ward and Cruddace rather than Kelly and Vetock.

I'd rather say that they are as much random as the random tables they write. In 5th, The Crud-ace wrote both IG and Tyranids.

Good codices are coincidental. Is a dice roll. A crapshoot due to the whim of overestimated hacks. All of them.

With all of the codex writers having their favorites, biases, motives, etc the #1 problem is whoever is in charge of the codex department and signs off on the work the writers put out. Somebody has to read over it and go "yep less than 300 point Wraithknight sounds legit" and its that person who needs to get canned. If there is no oversight then whoever is responsible for making the decision to not have oversight for the codices needs to get canned.

 Vankraken wrote:
With all of the codex writers having their favorites, biases, motives, etc the #1 problem is whoever is in charge of the codex department and signs off on the work the writers put out. Somebody has to read over it and go "yep less than 300 point Wraithknight sounds legit" and its that person who needs to get canned. If there is no oversight then whoever is responsible for making the decision to not have oversight for the codices needs to get canned.

Well, Alan Merrett is gone now, so we'll just have to wait and see how things go?
Really, just put Alan Bligh in charge and everything will be sunshine, rainbows, and unicorn farts.

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:
That he did, If I recall it was Njal, Six units of GH with Meltaguns, a few in razor the rest in Rhino, Longfangs with five missile launchers, Combi-melta Wolf Guard and.. Scouts I think? Course he was a very skilled player and he straight won his wins fairly enough

Indeed - but, skilled as he was, he could never have taken a CSM list to these events and triumphed. The book didn't allow for it. He might've taken Salamanders or White Scars and done well - but again, these lists had gimmicks that worked once against opponents who weren't prepared for them then, but were less effective against anyone who knew how to counter them. The Wolves had a single reliable build that worked against anybody and everybody, provided you could play it properly.

It's kind of funny to bring this up when his list is exactly the same as most wolves lists considering that they were considered the most underpriced units in the book, and yet you were calling them correctly costed.

We've been over this. The units weren't underpriced, not even compared to Codex: Smurfs, whose existence relied upon underpricing of key units such as Tactical Squads. Njal especially was way overcosted - but he had to be, because he'd been lumbered with random FUN special rules that had the potential to be decisive and extra psychic powers. Wolf Scouts were a fine unit, but if I remember rightly they were 90-odd points for bare-bones pistol/CCW Scouts who couldn't do anything, and only got more expensive once you started kitting them out. I liked them, but I usually ran Wolf Guard and expanded my Long Fang packs to deal with far-off threats. Long Fangs were cheap (not "undercosted" - again, learn the difference) if you took 3-man squads, but that bought you a jumped-up Autocannon Team that nobody really cared about.

Necrons (Their 5th wouldn't drop till November)

Yet even when it did, nobody was ditching their Space Wolves for the new hotness. I know a few Spess Mehren players who went for the Crons over their Salamanders, but I didn't bother. Didn't see a need. The book was yet another Matt Ward non-Mehreens Codex, with all the usual flaws; gimmicky special rules that Ward thought would make them OP but which instead annoyed people for a few games until they learned how to deal with them, at which point the army became mediocre at best. You could stomp inexperienced/ bad players with it, but you could do that with mech Wolves too. You could also stomp good players with mech Wolves, which was the key difference.

Normally I would say this, but it seems you didn't even realize that Matt Ward had left the company when you had wrote a few things, but rules change as you've obviously noted, there's nothing from newer authors to change it how they will, and they can as they aren't beholden to the former books.

Compare the current Spess Mehrens book to the 5th Edition one Ward wrote. They're the same army with Grav Guns, Formations, and some Chapter-flavoured bells and whistles. They look the same, play the same, do the same old tricks - they're the same as they ever were. Dull, bland, undercosted old Spess Mehrens, relying on their little tricks to annoy me into submission and whining when they don't work because the opponent's army has the tools to deal with them. Yawn.

Inquisition, GKs and Sisters are even worse. Their newer books are copy-pasted directly from their old ones. The useless, overpriced Henchmen and idiotic Warbands without grenades, the undercosted Saint, the moronic close combat Acts of Faith... it's all back, in Pog form. The Knights still rely on their Deelybopper Backpacks of Fail to get anything done, although their melee weapons seem to have been nerfed (despite still managing to be underpriced - wound everyone on 3's with this Magic Stick! Only 2pts a piece!).

So yeah. Designers are not beholden to the old books (the ruination of Witch Hunters and Daemonhunters demonstrates this), but they don't necessarily hew far from the old furrows when rewriting them, and sometimes they just straight-up copy-paste everything.

I'm not going to lie, I've never actually seen 3rd edition sisters played before, they were an interesting race with some good idea's that I honestly hope come back with a 7th or 8th dex.

Me too, but they need an update. The fact they ran well in 5th was an oversight on the part of the Nerfmaster-in-Chief; in 3rd and 4th vehicles were generally unreliable, but Sisters, being T3 models with close-range firepower, relied on them to get anything done, so most everyone who played them played mech (plus the models were metal and expensive, so mech was cheaper in $ terms - never saw a foot Sisters army above 1000pts). 5th Edition made vehicles extremely powerful, so old Edition players who had mech Sisters armies suddenly started seeing results. They were still deeply flawed - they **only** had mech and close-range shooting, with little to no long range support (aside from the Exorcist, which fired a random FUN number of AP1 Krak Missiles per turn, Heavy Bolters were the only other weapon Sisters had which could fire more than 24") and almost no defence against close combat other than transport tarpitting shenanigans - but they were capable enough of stomping gimmicky cack-lists or opponents who didn't take them seriously. They were much less fit for the likes of Blood Angels and Dark Eldar than the Wolves were, but they held their own.

Until Ward and Cruddace brought their combined fail to bear on the book.

Haha, true enough but it certainly stirred a fuss when better then tacticals was -1 before, nobody used base CSM back then either because Plague Marines were a thing. However you forget to mention that they gained their second special free so you'd end up only paying 5 points for two melta with the common double melta, which was drastically better then current SM's tacticals.

**You** forget to mention that in order to take that second special, they had to be at full strength - which meant less vehicles, and that was what made Wolves powerful in 5th Edition. That's why everyone took 5-man squads with a Combi-Melta Wolf Guard leader.

No clue on this one, seems most didn't care from what I remember.

I would've sacrificed a goat for access to Combat Tactics on Grey Hunters. It remains one of the few things Matt Ward got right, and lack of it is one of the reasons I hate Wyches to this day.

You could just ask me what armies I play instead of playing the guessing game of what SM army I might use. I play CSM and CD

Many of the complaints you're raising are similar to those raised by "Chapter Masters". It seemed a safe assumption that you were one. My apologies. I suppose CSM players have a right to complain, especially since they haven't had a decent army book in ten years.

Though I suppose you are right in that new things are balancing things out by virtue of being able to break them just as hard on the field, it's been a while since I've studied up on the current meta so I could be wrong on that issue, but it was certainly a problem in the early meta, of course now they just substitute more Scatter bikes in

That's not how it works. I can't comment on the early meta, but as it stands they don't look so scary to me. Wraithknights serve an entirely different purpose than Scatbikes. They're not suddenly a "bad" unit because people have realised a Chapter Master can do them in, and I certainly wouldn't trade one for Scatbikes if my army already had lots of S6 shootan'.


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 Kaiyanwang wrote:
Good codices are coincidental.

I'd be more inclined to believe this if Kelly hadn't produced two well-tuned Codexes in two different Editions. Space Wolves might've been a stroke of luck, in the same way mech Sisters sudden awesomeness under 5th Ed vehicles rules was - but with 7th Edition Eldar he's done it twice. I'm tempted to give him the benefit of the doubt.

But then again he didn't ruin any of my armies, so I may be biased.

 Vankraken wrote:
With all of the codex writers having their favorites, biases, motives, etc the #1 problem is whoever is in charge of the codex department and signs off on the work the writers put out. Somebody has to read over it and go "yep less than 300 point Wraithknight sounds legit" and its that person who needs to get canned. If there is no oversight then whoever is responsible for making the decision to not have oversight for the codices needs to get canned.

I don't disagree - but if it becomes clear that a person is incapable of producing workable rules for a game system, that person should not be producing rules for that game system. Cruddace is by all accounts very good at writing WFB books (I don't know, I don't play WFB), but has a track record of wretchedness when it comes to 40k. Why he's still expected to write for 40k I have no idea. Ward has consistently produced sub-par 40k Codexes for the better part of a decade, and has apparently messed up several of the WFB books he was asked to write, hence he should not be making Codexes at all. Shuffle him off to one of the Specialist Games or something, or maybe just don't re-hire him next time he quits..

 Lord Damocles wrote:
Paladins have better shooting options, and can deploy in a Land Raider/Storm Raven. They're also able to take hammers, while the Custodes ding away at anything over AV12 helplessly.

I've never understood the logic of "this thing has more options, so it costs more points." Like, the cost should be in taking those options. Some 30k dreads have this problem, too. A basic Contemptor is more points than a Contemptor-Mortis, which is a Contemptor with additional special rules but fewer options. A Contemptor still needs to pay points to take those options, I presume Paladins still need to pay points to take hammers. That's where the point difference should come into play.

BBAP wrote:

I'd be more inclined to believe this if Kelly hadn't produced two well-tuned Codexes in two different Editions. Space Wolves might've been a stroke of luck, in the same way mech Sisters sudden awesomeness under 5th Ed vehicles rules was - but with 7th Edition Eldar he's done it twice. I'm tempted to give him the benefit of the doubt.

Bad codex writing does not happen only when the code is bad, but when is too good, too. I really cannot grasp your defense on Kelly based on the last Eldar codices.
EDIT: also, I forgot Grav was a "Crudités". We can agree in the worst author I guess

Automatically Appended Next Post:

 KharnsRightHand wrote:

 Lord Damocles wrote:
Paladins have better shooting options, and can deploy in a Land Raider/Storm Raven. They're also able to take hammers, while the Custodes ding away at anything over AV12 helplessly.

I've never understood the logic of "this thing has more options, so it costs more points." Like, the cost should be in taking those options. Some 30k dreads have this problem, too. A basic Contemptor is more points than a Contemptor-Mortis, which is a Contemptor with additional special rules but fewer options. A Contemptor still needs to pay points to take those options, I presume Paladins still need to pay points to take hammers. That's where the point difference should come into play.

Is absolutely nonsensical, I agree.

Did someone really wish they had Combat Tactics rather than just using regular 5th Grey Hunters?

Ya know, the guys that got cheap as hell weapons, had extra melee weapons and Counter Attack, and didn't lose effectiveness when moving?

Why would you even need Combat Tactics for them? They already have their own: Counter Attack and Acute Senses. That works wonderful for them already!