# Why the Matt Ward hate?



## Ddraig Cymry (Dec 30, 2012)

I've heard about the hate people seem to have about Matt Ward and what he's done to the Space Marines. I know he basically idolizes the Ultramarines and Grey Knights, but has he done anything else to change the SM? I've wondered about this for a while.


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## Jacobite (Jan 26, 2007)

Google is your friend here. Search Matt Ward hate and you will get all the examples you need.


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## darkreever (Apr 3, 2008)

Ddraig Cymry said:


> I've heard about the hate people seem to have about Matt Ward and what he's done to the Space Marines. I know he basically idolizes the Ultramarines and Grey Knights, but has he done anything else to change the SM? I've wondered about this for a while.


Beats me, like a few others I have yet to see any reasonable arguement supporting all that hate beyond petty bitching.

Now before anyone else comes in with a 'this has been done before, use the search function' let me link you to some of the other threads Do You Support Matt Ward, Why the Matt Ward hate?, and Who is Matt Ward and why does every one hate him?


For anyone wondering why I am pre-empting them on that response, its because it was my first thought but and when I put action to words I found out that these were the only ones I found out of the forty threads it brought up. While some threads may have devolved into Ward hate, you wouldn't know that from title alone.


And beaten by Jac at least.


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## Barnster (Feb 11, 2010)

People hate him for Necron and GK fluff more than his smurf fan boyism. He never messed with their fluff (much)

The hate is his later works including strange episodes Eg GKs, being the purest of the pure needing to conscrate their blades with the blood of matyred SoBs in order to fight deamons, Draigo's story etc

The SM book is his most conservative book, and he introduced sternguard and vanguard, (good!).


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## Magpie_Oz (Jan 16, 2012)

Ddraig Cymry said:


> I know he basically idolizes the Ultramarines and Grey Knights,


As you'll find in most of those threads this misconception is the main reason.

No one really knows anything about Matt Ward or what his out look or attitudes are. Yet they continue to suggest they do.

I'd be willing to bet that the chap has no particular yen for one thing or another but simply writes codices in the manner in which he is briefed. 

"Matt Ward's a fucktard/idiot/moron" is actually petulant nerd speak for "I don't particularly like what Mat Ward has written"


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## Ddraig Cymry (Dec 30, 2012)

darkreever said:


> Beats me, like a few others I have yet to see any reasonable arguement supporting all that hate beyond petty bitching.
> 
> Now before anyone else comes in with a 'this has been done before, use the search function' let me link you to some of the other threads Do You Support Matt Ward, Why the Matt Ward hate?, and Who is Matt Ward and why does every one hate him?
> 
> ...


This helps a lot, thanks. It looks to be somewhat undeserved and overreacted. Some of the stuff he wrote seems stupid, (Draigo beating a damn primarch then carving a name on his heart being one of the worst in my mind.) But other than that it seems relatively stupid.


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## darkreever (Apr 3, 2008)

Ddraig Cymry said:


> Some of the stuff he wrote seems stupid, (Draigo beating a damn primarch then carving a name on his heart being one of the worst in my mind.) But other than that it seems relatively stupid.


One of the things I always hate is when people bring that up.

-Draigo is noted as being exceptional and he is equipped with gear specifically designed to combat daemons.
-Mortarion is a daemon primarch, and it can generally be assumed that the event took place outside of the warp. Why is this important? Because daemons (which Mortarion now is) are weaker in the material universe and can be pulled back into the warp.
-Mortarion had just finished fighting and killing the previous grand master of the Grey Knights, an individual who was likely no slouch in and of himself.


I mean come on, everything was stacked against Mortarion, I'd have been more surprised if he had been beaten back relatively unscathed. (Some people may try to point out Angron and the hundred Grey Knight terminators that were killed, but I don't recall hearing any grand masters in their ranks and Angron didn't single handedly kill one hundred grey knight terminators.)


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## Magpie_Oz (Jan 16, 2012)

I'm with Reeve?

Which one is it OK to be OP? 

Why is it not ok for the top daemon hunter to narrowly banish a top daemon but it's fine for a top Daemon to kill the top Daemon hunter?


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## Taggerung (Jun 5, 2008)

Magpie_Oz said:


> Why is it not ok for the top daemon hunter to narrowly banish a top daemon but it's fine for a top Daemon to kill the top Daemon hunter?


Because in pretty much all other fluff the only thing more powerful than a primarch is/was the Emperor, and when they became empowered by the chaos gods, the only force in the galaxy that could defeat them were either their brothers (Which if you ask Manus, Guilliman and Sanguinius it didn't exactly work out well for them) or the Emperor himself. 

So you mean to tell me, that some mortal Grey Knight is as powerful, if not more so, than a Primarch? If a primarch came back and then cut his name in Mortarion (I kind of hope it's Magnus is anyone does do it) you wouldn't have the same hate because it is someone of equal power in the 40k realm. In no case, should anyone, even a top demon hunter, be able to match the power of a Demon Primarch...it's just silly otherwise. 

Though, not as silly as Space Marines saying, you know what...let's trust these soulless killing robots.............................


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## maelstrom48 (Sep 5, 2012)

I can believe Draigo beating Mortarion, given the Grey Knight vs Daemon argument Darkreever made. But I giggle a bit at the thought of Draigo crouched over Mortarion's prone form holding up a dagger and saying with his tongue stuck between his teeth, "Keep _still_, damn you! You think I _like_ doing this shit?"

Strikes me as a bit ridiculous, that part. Unless Ward is speaking figuratively! To have someone's name carved into your heart implies that you have a bone to pick with that individual, in my mind. Though I think Ward meant it literally.

I don't dislike Ward. Actually the Blood Angels fluff, he didn't wreck at all. It's more or less the same fluff you saw in the 3rd edition codex and Index Astartes way back when. Rules... I've heard people argue that they're pretty beardy on the tabletop. But I've managed to beat them handily on many occasions.

Oh and on Ultramarines, I believe someone had previously linked an article where Matt Ward is quoted as saying UM are the epitome of what a chapter should be, and basically that every chapter in the Imperium strives to be like them (with a few notable exceptions).


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## Magpie_Oz (Jan 16, 2012)

And here we go again "I don't think that follows v I think it does" 

At the end of the day it is our opinions and really has nothing to do with Matt Ward or anything else for that matter.

If anything, I think it is a master stroke by GW to generate a debate that just goes on and on and on, just like the battles of the 41st century and ours on the table top. 

Matt Ward hate = GW profit and I get the biggest lol every time the GW haters bring it up ! 

(not suggesting of course that Matt Ward hate = GW hate but often the two go hand in handand I just love the irony.)



maelstrom48 said:


> I can believe Draigo beating Mortarion, given the Grey Knight vs Daemon argument Darkreever made. But I giggle a bit at the thought of Draigo crouched over Mortarion's prone form holding up a dagger and saying with his tongue stuck between his teeth, "Keep _still_, damn you! You think I _like_ doing this shit?"
> 
> Strikes me as a bit ridiculous, that part. Unless Ward is speaking figuratively! To have someone's name carved into your heart implies that you have a bone to pick with that individual, in my mind. Though I think Ward meant it literally.


Or maybe it's Draigo's prowess with his sword and during the battle royale he had with the Daemon he knew his only chance to banish such a powerful entity was to slash the name of a SGM into his heart? It's a bit like spending 20 minute reciting the true name of a daemon to banish it is is the usual method?


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## Jace of Ultramar (Aug 2, 2011)

Well, I like Matt Ward. 
We share the same amount of letters in our name.
We use the same letters for our first name... almost.
Our last names have the same first and last letters.
I went to his place one time and he offered me a Pepsi.
I saw his dog cough up what I thought was a hair ball, but, was a slobber covered Grey Knight.
I saw the same dog poop a Necron.
He asked me for fifty cents one time and paid me back the same day.

I don't see what everyone is so up in arms about, he's actually very decent.


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## maelstrom48 (Sep 5, 2012)

Magpie_Oz said:


> Or maybe it's Draigo's prowess with his sword and during the battle royale he had with the Daemon he knew his only chance to banish such a powerful entity was to slash the name of a SGM into his heart? It's a bit like spending 20 minute reciting the true name of a daemon to banish it is is the usual method?


Gah, _now_ look what you made me do. You've sent me scurrying for my codex like a wheezing neckbeard flipping through the USR rulebook section and mumbling something about skyfire vs interceptor. Jerk.

Quoting page 15, "Alone and unaided, Draigo smashes his way through Mortarion's bodyguard, strikes the Primarch to the ground and carves Geronitan's name name onto the Daemon's vile heart."


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## Magpie_Oz (Jan 16, 2012)

maelstrom48 said:


> Quoting page 15, "Alone and unaided, Draigo smashes his way through Mortarion's bodyguard, strikes the Primarch to the ground and carves Geronitan's name name onto the Daemon's vile heart."


Doesn't necessarily mean he held him down while he did some tattoo art does it.

He carries the Titan Sword which yields uber strength against Daemons and is a Daemonbane? 

Yet it didn't kill the Daemon, so powerful it was that it was only stunned and lo' the Daemon proved too powerful for the might sword to even banish it as any lesser Daemon would.
In the absence of the Daemon's true name, the name of a grey knight carved on it's heart is just as much an anathema.

See? for every "that's stupid" there is a countering explanation. Matt Ward hate is really just a failure of imagination.


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## Reaper45 (Jun 21, 2011)

Magpie_Oz said:


> Doesn't necessarily mean he held him down while he did some tattoo art does it.
> 
> He carries the Titan Sword which yields uber strength against Daemons and is a Daemonbane?
> 
> ...


For once we agree on something. The fluff is a basis for thousand stories.


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## maelstrom48 (Sep 5, 2012)

...It's pretty stupid. The previous SGM carried the Titan Sword too, and that didn't do him an awful lot of good. It definitely didn't enable him to just knock aside a gaggle of Deathshroud terminators, some of the most supreme badasses the galaxy over, and then bludgeon an 'ascended' Primarch to the ground long enough to carve an 8-letter name into his actual _heart_. I mean breastplate maybe, but his _heart_? What's that thing doing out in the open?

For me, reading that was a face-palm moment. But this is coming from a guy who actually liked the rest of the codex. Like I said, I don't dislike Matt Ward. Just those few particular brow-raising lines.


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## iamtheeviltwin (Nov 12, 2012)

maelstrom48 said:


> Strikes me as a bit ridiculous, that part. Unless Ward is speaking figuratively!


The Grey Knight fluff in General and Draigo's fluff in particular read very much like old English legend and myth. With just a few name changes the whole of Draigo's fluff could have come from Beowulf or Mallory's Le Morte d'Arthur. I think this style is part of what makes people dislike the Grey Knight fluff in particular. 

I know there are some who really dislike the changes to the Necron fluff, but that is for different reasons.


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## LTKage (May 2, 2012)

I lol whenever this comes up. If you have problems with Ward, bring it up with the main editor who gave the heads up or the executive who probably said 
"push this". If you don't have a problem, then thanks for realizing that Warhammer is a game loaded with hyperbole, big guns, and wacky stuff.


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## Serpion5 (Mar 19, 2010)

Taggerung said:


> Because in pretty much all other fluff the only thing more powerful than a primarch is/was the Emperor, and when they became empowered by the chaos gods, the only force in the galaxy that could defeat them were either their brothers (Which if you ask Manus, Guilliman and Sanguinius it didn't exactly work out well for them) or the Emperor himself.


Not necessarily correct. When they became daemons they inherited every weakness a daemon has. Vulnerability to anti daemon wargear and abilities included, as well as limited sustainability in the Materium. 



Taggerung said:


> Though, not as silly as Space Marines saying, you know what...let's trust these soulless killing robots.


I do not believe those words were ever uttered.


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## Magpie_Oz (Jan 16, 2012)

All I can find is "The Silent King reluctantly joins forces with the Blood Angels to defeat a Tyranid splinter fleet"


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## Taggerung (Jun 5, 2008)

Serpion5 said:


> Not necessarily correct. When they became daemons they inherited every weakness a daemon has. Vulnerability to anti daemon wargear and abilities included, as well as limited sustainability in the Materium.


This is stated where exactly? Regardless of their weakness to Grey Knight wargear, they are still the most powerful beings in the 40k fluff...but there is zero point in talking about this since it's a matter of point of view as others have pointed out. I personally (And a lot of others) find his work to be uninspiring, boring and down right amateurish. He imo shouldn't be writing these books. However, there are others (Magpie obviously), who love the guy's writing....This whole argument reminds me of the writers of 50 shades of grey or Twilight...they get lots of flack about being terrible writers, but there are obviously people who love their work.



> I do not believe those words were ever uttered.


Clearly I was quoting directly from the book...........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................


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## Magpie_Oz (Jan 16, 2012)

Taggerung said:


> However, there are others (Magpie obviously), who love the guy's writing....


If you think my "love" for Matt Ward's writing is obvious then you need some serious glasses. Fact is I couldn't care less about it or him or anyone else's fluff.

The only thing that shits me is that so many threads that could be filled with useful debate are filled with pointless "hate".


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## bitsandkits (Mar 18, 2008)

i heard a rumour that Matt Ward hates Matt Ward's writing


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## Serpion5 (Mar 19, 2010)

Taggerung said:


> This is stated where exactly? Regardless of their weakness to Grey Knight wargear, they are still the most powerful beings in the 40k fluff...


Unless I missed my brain somewhere it is explained under the daemon prince entries in either Chaos Daemons or Chaos Space marines (mind you I have not read the new CSM codex so it could be moved or absent from that book). It is also implied that such inherent weaknesses are the reason for certain champions of Chaos not being offered Daemonhood. 

On your second point, they are far from the most powerful beings in 40k fluff. Greater Daemons for the most part are still ranked well above daemon princes and even the daemon primarchs are not always the most powerful of their kind. Angron for example even as a daemon prince is outclassed by Doombreed, Khorne's first and most powerful daemon prince who was elevated from a mere human warlord in Mankind's early history. 



Taggerung said:


> I personally (And a lot of others) find his work to be uninspiring, boring and down right amateurish. He imo shouldn't be writing these books.


Then who should? 



Taggerung said:


> Clearly I was quoting directly from the book...


Clearly I thought you were...


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## normtheunsavoury (Mar 20, 2008)

Surely it must be possible to have a discussion about Matt Ward without it turning into "Raargh! I hates it!!"

VS.

"Well, haters gonna hate, lol!"

I dislike a lot of Matt Ward's fluff, to me it just comes across as if it was written by a twelve year old fanboy writing about his bestest army ever. I also understand that this is clearly because I have a different view of the 40K universe than he does, what he has to say about things doesn't gel with my own imagination. I don't hate Matt Ward, I just think he's a bit of a dick and not the sort of person I'd want to meet up with for a pint. 

On the other hand I also understand that there are people out there who quite like his writing, they are entitled to, its their choice and their game after all. Fluff is a subjective thing, some love things that I hate and vice versa, neither side is right or wrong, its just an opinion. 

And the above is where the problems start, for some reason the internet has somehow developed a special function that renders all opinions as fact, to be argued over in a warped attempt to be 'right'. A frank and open exchange of ideas and opinions is one thing, being shouted down for simply having an opinion is completely another. 

So, by all means tell the world why you dislike or like or are indifferent to Matt Ward, but please could people learn just to take it on the chin when they disagree? I don't like his stuff, I've explained why but I'll be fucked if I'm getting into a pissing contest over it. 

You are welcome to disagree with me, feel free, you won't change my opinion on Matt Ward though.


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## gothik (May 29, 2010)

to me it seems that a lot of his stuff is based around more what he likes, i don't hate the guy, can't hate someone i never met and am never likely to meet, i just don't like his style of codex.
Some of them seem a little too Uber for me, he seems to put all the descriptions on what he likes and not much on others that he doesn't care for. I don't much care for some of BL authors as i find some of thier witing styles too off the wall but i don't hate them.
As i said bit difficult to hate ppl i never met. Some like Matt Wards style, some don't and i don't thats my choice.


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## Taggerung (Jun 5, 2008)

Serpion5 said:


> Then who should?


They should be getting real authors to write the books (not come up with the rules mind you, as that is and should remain a studio job, though I also don't like Matt Wards rules either so....), but all the fluff, information (background) on the units and characters should come from the black library writers so at least some sort of canon can be maintained. I'v only read one of his books so for but Aaron Dembski-Bowden's first heretic book was very well done.

It really comes down to two things.

1: Fluff (Side A usually dislikes/hates it, Side B doesn't care or likes it)
2: Rules (Side A usually dislikes/hates it, Side B doesn't care or likes it)

It just so happens that when it comes to both rules and fluff I think he does a bad job, but that's my opinion, and everyone is entitled to one.

In the end, there is no reason to "Hate" Matt Ward he is just some guy at GW who is doing his job, but since people get very emotional when it comes to their plastic space men, you have flares against those perceived as ruining the rules/back story.


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## Jace of Ultramar (Aug 2, 2011)

bitsandkits said:


> i heard a rumour that Matt Ward hates Matt Ward's writing


I heard Matt Ward proof reads and disapproves all of Matt Wards writings.
I also heard Matt Ward can turn light beer into Guinness just by handing you the glass.


































On the plus side, there are some funny Memes for him regardless of which side of the fence you're on.


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## bitsandkits (Mar 18, 2008)

According to Phill Kelly , Matt ward cast three votes in the recent Falklands referendum all to join Argentina (his beard has two votes in Island matters)


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## Jace of Ultramar (Aug 2, 2011)

bitsandkits said:


> According to Phill Kelly , Matt ward cast three votes in the recent Falklands referendum all to join Argentina (his beard has two votes in Island matters)


I heard Barac Obama is hiring Matt Ward to write his next State of the Nation address and that so far in the first rough draft that snorting warp dust has appeared twice as a reason for current inabilities to work towards stabilizing the US economy.


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## Masked Jackal (Dec 16, 2009)

As far as I see it, Matt Ward is just an overeager fanboy. He makes lots of really stupid decisions, because he's a stupid person, but I don't think that's really worth the pure hatred he gets on a lot of sites. Perhaps the people who put him in charge of so many codexes and let him do whatever he wants should probably be more to blame.


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## MidnightSun (Feb 10, 2009)

I don't think he's done anything particularly preposterous. Read different accounts of the same stories and you'll find that it doesn't add up. Case in point is the Battle of Cold Steel Ridge. The Ultramarines Codex skims over it a little, saying Calgar was wounded and the Ridge was lost, with the rearguard 'brutalised' by the numbers of the Tyranid horde. The same story in the Tyranids Codex goes into great depth of how the Hive Mind outsmarted the Ultramarines (who wrote the book on tactics, literally wrote the book) and the Swarmlord pretty much walked over Calgar.

Codices are stories from that army's perspective, not the hard fact version; here's how it works:

Codex: Grey Knights are incorruptible.
Truth: Grey Knights marked as fit for action on the Brotherhood rosters are the only ones who are counted for this figure. Therefore, only the uncorrupted Grey Knights are 'incorruptible'.

Exactly the same things have happened in history (look at employment figures in Germany in the early 30s - they have enviable employment, but only because they didn't count most of the unemployed in the country).

Midnight


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## experiment 626 (Apr 26, 2007)

I can ignore the fanboy'ish/Micheal Bay'splosion style of his background writings, but what I can't ever ignore are his actual rules...

Case in point, Ward's 7th edition Daemons of Chaos book crippled an entire edition of Fantasy due to it being a pile of steaming, OP cheddar.
And his response to the Fantasy communit y when he was quesitoned on why the Daemons book was so obviously head-and-shoulders beyond every other army? "Well, they're Daemons - they should be overpowered!"

Total, complete lack of respect and care for the wider Fantasy community... Not only was Ward's Daemon book a giant Trololol! middle finger to every non-daemon player, but it also put the final nail in the coffin of 7th ed a severy subsiquint then had to be leveled-up to the nines in order to even remotely compete against Daemons! (and you _*still*_ had a couple of outfight unbeatable Daemons lists - it really was that bad!)

Then he did the exact same thing to 5th edition with GK's... Nothing but outright hard-counters & easy-button solutions to every single army in the game. Not to mention that Daemons became outright unplayable due to how insanely broken Warp Quake was.

But then there's the other side of that equation too. If Ward isn't enthused about an army, he doesn't give a flying rat's fart and writes crappy rules.
7th ed Orcs & Gobbos were a laughing stalk. Probably the most underpowered book GW has ever released. Because Ward admitted in the Wd 'designers notes' article that he didn't really like O&G's and wasn't enthused about being forced to write the book... (and guess what, it sucked so bad even die-hard greenskin players shelved their armies!)

Ward has no concept of external balance and his books tend to be extremes. His only 'good' balanced armybook/codex to date has been 5th ed Space marines.
Every other book has been crap for one reason or another...


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## Magpie_Oz (Jan 16, 2012)

How much of the OP-ness is down to Matt Ward tho'?

Remember the idea with a new codex is to sell mini's, who's going to buy a shitty mini that's no better than any other mini?

NEW MEGA OP DAEMONS !!!!! Daemon sales spike ! job's done.


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## experiment 626 (Apr 26, 2007)

Magpie_Oz said:


> How much of the OP-ness is down to Matt Ward tho'?
> 
> Remember the idea with a new codex is to sell mini's, who's going to buy a shitty mini that's no better than any other mini?
> 
> NEW MEGA OP DAEMONS !!!!! Daemon sales spike ! job's done.


Codex Marines were fairly well balanced, outside of 3++ storm shields making hammernators a bit too much of a no-brainer, while Vanguards are cool in looks/theory, but horrendously over-costed.
Dark Eldar were an amazing release and proof that you don't need codex creep to sell a model line...

The creep exists because one author one-ups the current balance, and thus forces the hand of the next author to follow suit, or else the community will be in uproar. (look what happened to Tyranids!)
Ward simply has no self control when it comes to his codex rules. He even admitted that "he got his knuckles wraped" for going ahead on up'ing the Land Raider transport capacity to 12 simply because he wanted to have a Termie IC join units. (ie: the perverbial 'wanting your cake & icecream and eating it too.')
Alot of his rules simply come off as either being outright +1 vs everyone elses identicle option, (ie: BA assault squads getting melta/plasma option & being Troops), or else simply comes across as trolling opponents. (ie: psycho & rad 'nades, mind shackle scarabs, warp quake, etc...)

I'd be fine if GW just kept him to write the basic core rules for every game - he's actually quite good at that aspect and the only major hiccup has been how badly borked 3 of the 8 Lores of Magic turned out. (Shadows, Life & Light - I'm looking squarely at you!)
Look at War of the Ring. It's easily GW's best game in terms of the main rules. (and that was Ward's baby) But then he wrote the army lists, and the game is all but unplayable due to how easy it is to make absolutely disgusting power builds. (basically, the only way to play it is to outright ban every single named character OR ban all Epic actions & magic!)

And actually, releasing an OP army is the best way to outright kill off a game.
Outside of the small tournament circuts of hard-core players, 7th ed Daemons all but killed Fantasy. People were pissed that one army basically made their collections crap and instead simply shelved their armies instead of jumping on the bandwagon on buying up the newest flavour of the month.


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## Magpie_Oz (Jan 16, 2012)

You do realise that they all work for the one company under the one creative director?

The authors don't just write what ever they want and enter into a spiralling OP race to out do each other.


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## iamtheeviltwin (Nov 12, 2012)

Magpie_Oz said:


> You do realise that they all work for the one company under the one creative director?
> 
> The authors don't just write what ever they want and enter into a spiralling OP race to out do each other.


This, there is a process of play testing that involves not only in-house designers (including the one or two designers you like, you know who I am talking about), but also trusted groups of outsiders. There are many hands in the mix besides the author's before a codex is released. 

Easier just to hate the guy who gets primary writing credit, I guess.


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## Jdojo18 (May 8, 2012)

I don't hate him, but I do hate parts of the GK codex that he wrote. I don't like how the codex took a bunch of different special characters or special rules from other codices and made clones of them. Creed's tactical genius and Draigo (I think? idr which GK character allows three units to have scout), St. Celestine and her reanimation and Justicar Thawn, Tyranid Warriors and not needing to see anything to hit models and Purgation squads. These are the only ones I know of, but I thought it was just lazy. I'm sure I could find more if I were to look in the codex more.

I'm not saying that the codex is OP. GK players have a lot of options, but other armies can counter these options just fine (aside from daemons, though idk how they stack with their new codex). Just copy and pasting is ugly to me


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## Magpie_Oz (Jan 16, 2012)

iamtheeviltwin said:


> Easier just to hate the guy who gets primary writing credit, I guess.


This


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## experiment 626 (Apr 26, 2007)

Magpie_Oz said:


> You do realise that they all work for the one company under the one creative director?
> 
> The authors don't just write what ever they want and enter into a spiralling OP race to out do each other.


7th Fantasy & 5th 40k were nothing but a never-ending arms race of OTT/OP crap though...

In Fantasy it started w/High Elves & army-wide ASF. VC's then got a rather rediculous magic phase. Daemons sealed it by simply being at least 2 levels beyond everyone else, which thus forced DE's, WoC, Lizzies & Skaven to continue the push of OTT rules. (Hydras, Power of Darkness spam, ASF Shadestars, Chosenstar, Warshrines, Infernal Gateway, Cupped Hands, Focus of Rumination, Hellpits, 13th Spell, etc...)

40k was probably even more noticible once we went from 3++ 'Hammernators & Vulkan melta-spam to severely undercosted Grey Hunters & Longwangs, IG parking lots, BA MSU mech fest and finished off by GK's hard-countering half the game!

The studio has admited as of late that they've been told to stop the power creep.
If GW did proper playtesting, then the bulk of the crap that people vehemently rage about should be caught before the books get published.
Look at GK's: If they did do any serious playtesting, then one would think that Derp Quake alone would have been seen for what it is - _a game-breaking power that auto-wins games against an entire army whenever the Knights simply go first._ (and who's impact has only just now been lessened since Daemons can now deploy normally in order to avoid it)
You'd think too that things like Psycho 'nades & vehicle Psybolts would have been fairly costed, etc...


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## Magpie_Oz (Jan 16, 2012)

experiment 626 said:


> 7th Fantasy & 5th 40k were nothing but a never-ending arms race of OTT/OP crap though...


Yes they may have created an arms race between us but the suggestion was it was Matt Ward trying to out do the other authors. I highly doubt that probability.


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## experiment 626 (Apr 26, 2007)

Magpie_Oz said:


> Yes they may have created an arms race between us but the suggestion was it was Matt Ward trying to out do the other authors. I highly doubt that probability.


Ward is simply the one who took things the furthest and tends to show the least self control. Wether that's by poor design or simply a complete accident - who knows?

But Ward books overal tend to have alot more gimmicks & highly annoying shit than the other books... Looking at the current 'top 4' books in 40k;
a) SW's get lamented about because they have a pair of undercosted units, while Rune Priests are generally seen as rude due to one or two outstandingly effective powers and their '4+ staff of NO!'

b) IG are bemoaned because across the codex units are either amazing for their cost or outright poop. Add to that how badly undercosted Vendettas/Valks are now.

c) GK's on the other hand simply feel like your opponent is trolling you due to all the outright hard-counters to _everything_ that they can bring.
You don't ever make a GK player react to you, instead you are simply forced to always try and counter what they've brought to the table.

d) Necrons are the one army that fits 6th edition like a fine glove - even more so that the new 6th ed books that have been released! Every single change in the core rules that gimped other armies either buffed 'Crons or else didn't really hurt them at all.


With the rest of the studio, the complaints tend to be about some rather poor internal costing and a bare few badly OTT units/rules. (ie: up the cost of GH's by a point, drop Blood Claws by a point, up Longfang weapons by 5pts/weapon AND remove Jaws & decrease the Runic weapon's psychic defense to 6" and suddenly, SW's are pretty much on par with the other MEQ's)

However with Ward, the issues are far more glaring and simply leave a sour taste in your opponent's mouth. (ie: GK's vs Daemons, BA's being nothing but "codex marines +1", Necron gimmicks...)


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## Magpie_Oz (Jan 16, 2012)

And by what power of divination do you decide the level of determination that Matt Ward has in the Codex creation process?

How do we know that it is all down to him and not some manager saying "No we need to sell 100000 of these mini's make them UBER ! " 

I think the "mildness" of the SM Codex is pretty good evidence of something like that going on


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