as an IG fan I am missing the orders and doctrines that allowed you to tweak your regiment towards a specific style reflecting the variety to be found in the Guard.

In fairness, this is one thing I like with the Unbound idea - I know there'll be plenty of people who go "Yay! I will take Five Heldrakes!" but they're tools and I don't have to play them.

What I wouldn't mind having a try at is doing the wierd and wonderful - like a guard cavalry platoon, or doing a deathwatch kill-team by buying 10 captains/librarians/etc as a 1500 point force.

One bad bit of news - it would appear that the background section in the main book has been written by Ward. Yay.

One bad bit of news - it would appear that the background section in the main book has been written by Ward. Yay.

Guess I'll have to be a lot more picky about what I use for my RP-Settings from 7th Edition...

I realized that GW was just in it for the money almost two decades ago, when they stopped supporting Epic (my WH40k game of choice) at the time. Their rationale then was that Epic didn't make enough money. Blood Bowl, Inquisitor, Battlefleet Gothic...the fantasy ship game...all have gone the same way.

GW has some fantastic creative people working there. But the guy in charge has money as his sole prerogative. He lets his people make and publish stuff, but axes it the instant it doesn't match up to whatever profit standards he has set.

And the pricing is just another aspect of this. A friend of mine talked at length about how GW carefully looks at the price per unit, comparing the loss of revenue versus boosted income from setting their prices the way they do. Essentially, their model is designed for maximum profit...not maximum availability or growth/support of the brand. It really is gouging their loyal fans...rather than nurturing the customer base they have. Their model is something out of the early 20th century...or a monopoly game...and its a testament to the quality of their product and their creatives that it has survived and thrived.

Its one of the reason chinese knockoffs and 3D printers are a very real threat to GW. They have done a lot to destroy player loyalty, and now the single service they monopolized (the minis) is accessible far, far cheaper elsewhere. Capitalism is a *****, especially when its driven by chinese business ethics (IE none).

Going forward, GW has some very serious challenges to overcome. I personally doubt that 7th E. can provide them with a solution, but I guess we will see what they come up with.

Hahaha, oh wow. Ward. That man. That. Man.

Will GW never learn before they're out of business?

Guess I'll have to be a lot more picky about what I use for my RP-Settings from 7th Edition...

Yep. Or a comeback of Tau Gue'vesas by attaching a couple Guard meatshields to your Tau force.

Tyranid Genestealer cults with corrupted PDF.

The possibilities are endless.

For the Deathwatch Kill-team I'd resort to the rules GW has published, but that depends on how "Epic" we think they ought to be.

In the end, the opponent can always simply say "no" if they don't want to play something. Which they already can even if you're using a Codex force. So ... no harm done, right?

Ah, you're all just jealous because you know in your heart you can never be Matt Ward. Seriously, I don't get why they don't let him just do the crunch and never let him within 250 miles of fluff chapters of the rulebook.

Alex

For the Deathwatch Kill-team I'd resort to the rules GW has published, but that depends on how "Epic" we think they ought to be.

Because I want to play 'last chancers' style games where a squad is trying to play the mission and has a chance (even if nto a very good one!) versus a 1500 point army. I could take the old movie marines list, but that's not exactly designed with fun or fair games in mind, and is an extreme case in "marines are the best evar!!!1!"

Besides which, why shouldn't 'generic veteran badass' be as tough as a captain? I never subscribed to the 'senior officers have more wounds' thing - especially where there are multiple 'ranks' as one is invariably better value for points than the other, so you only ever see one anyway.

Ah, you're all just jealous because you know in your heart you can never be Matt Ward. Seriously, I don't get why they don't let him just do the crunch and never let him within 250 miles of fluff chapters of the rulebook.

Alex

I think it was the point in the interview where he started talking about tying into the sentinals of terra background that I found myself twitching involuntarily...

Ah, you're all just jealous because you know in your heart you can never be Matt Ward. Seriously, I don't get why they don't let him just do the crunch and never let him within 250 miles of fluff chapters of the rulebook.

Alex

If anything I'm mega jealous of his ability to make greybeards tremble with rage.

Because I want to play 'last chancers' style games where a squad is trying to play the mission and has a chance (even if nto a very good one!) versus a 1500 point army. I could take the old movie marines list, but that's not exactly designed with fun or fair games in mind, and is an extreme case in "marines are the best evar!!!1!"

Besides which, why shouldn't 'generic veteran badass' be as tough as a captain? I never subscribed to the 'senior officers have more wounds' thing - especially where there are multiple 'ranks' as one is invariably better value for points than the other, so you only ever see one anyway.

True, I don't really like the additional Wounds either... but that just makes me even more opposed to the idea of fielding entire squads of Captains.

For the squad thing I'd rather use the (generic, not DW) Kill-team rules as they seem to come with a couple more rules to make the game more enjoyable for both sides. I get what you're trying to achieve, but as an opponent, it'd just feel a bit anti-climatic to see my force ripped apart by what still looks a bit like Movie Marines.

I mean, on the flip-side we could also have IG players fielding squads of Company Commanders and Lord Commissars to pick apart a 1500pt SM force, but how would the SM player feel about this?

Ah, you're all just jealous because you know in your heart you can never be Matt Ward. Seriously, I don't get why they don't let him just do the crunch and never let him within 250 miles of fluff chapters of the rulebook.

Alex

If anything I'm mega jealous of his ability to make greybeards tremble with rage.

LOL. What's truly remarkable is that GW lets him get away with some of his stuff. Any 12-year old can troll long-timers by rewriting fluff in a childish way after all. The trick is to get it into an official publication instead of merely posting bs on /tg/.

Alex

So, as a counter-rant:

GW are a business, yes. It's in their interest to make money - indeed, they're not legally allowed to not make profit, as they do have a responsibility to shareholders.

Thing is, what is so often lost in amongst all that "Corporate GW grumble grumble grumble", is the individual people working there.

Two very good friends of mine now currently work in GW's design studio. They're two of the most creative and passionate people I know... and I've had contact with a lot of creative people over the years. One of them hasn't been working there long enough for his published material to have reached the public yet, but the other was responsible for a good chunk of the background in the Astra Militarium book (amongst other, smaller, projects that came before that).

Here comes the point. The people actually writing the rules and background - as much as they get insulted with impunity by the internet on an hourly basis, because the internet is without common sense, restraint, or decency, and embraces hyperbole such that even the mildest dislike as a world-shaking cataclysm - are people who genuinely love the game and the rules. They might not necessarily have the same ideas as you about it, and they aren't immune to mistakes, but that is no reason for the incessant streams of vitriol and invective flung in their general direction for nothing more than daring to have a different idea than the gestalt meme-consciousness of the internet. I may not agree with some of the decisions made by the games developers, but I acknowledge those as opinions rather than the absolute truths that the internet paints them as, and don't tend to regard missteps as being the end of the world.

The competitive side of miniatures wargame is a small-but-rediculously vocal part of the community who've taken it upon themselves to decide what is and what isn't worthwhile, and anyone who disagrees with them is guilty of badwrongfun. Warhammer 40,000 isn't - to their eternal chagrin - written for them.

Thing is, games developers don't set prices. They don't handle corporate policy, lawsuits, or any of a variety of unpleasant things. They write rules and background, and it's the kind of thing that you could only do as a labour of love - it certainly doesn't pay enough to draw in anyone who doesn't love the game and the setting.

The problem comes when you consider the actual process. Designing games isn't easy, as anyone who has ever tried will attest. It's also much easier to design a game for a small group of likeminded people, than it is for a vast sprawling horde of differently-minded people. It's far easier still to design when you don't have previous editions constraining your ideas - you can't introduce the sweeping changes you might like to introduce, because it would invalidate things that have come before and make people irate, but not making sweeping changes irritates the people that don't like the status quo, so you'll piss some people off regardless (if this sounds familiar, it's because it happened here with successive editions of the 40kRPGs, but especially with Dark Heresy).

The specific changes pointed out for the new edition (though it seems like 6th was the 'half-way' edition, setting in place elements for more thorough changes now)... well, sure, rules for new models, and rules for allowing you to use models often require you to have models. Summoning daemons has been part of the setting since the Realms of Chaos books, so the introduction of such is hardly a concept pulled out of nowhere, and surprise surprise that using daemons requires having daemon models. Unbound armies... how many people don't just collect and build an army to fit the force org charts, but rather just pick whatever seems cool and add that to the collection? That's what Unbound armies are for.

The only time that buying new models should be seen as mandatory is when you're a slavish adherent to the cult of the metagame... and I personally regard that as a personal flaw, rather than anything else. But only internet fandom could be given options and see them as requirements.

So, yeah. All I see is a load of self-entitled whining (then again, you can't spell "Warseer" without "arse"). It's a hobby, something as far from mandatory and necessary as it is possible to be. If you don't like it, fine, but don't spend hours a week complaining to anyone that'll listen about how awful it all is - that's just sad. Nobody likes the guy who stalks fan pages just to complain and criticise. I have no particular interest in collectable card games, don't like Warmachine or GURPS, and generally have a whole raft of things I dislike... but I don't intrude into discussions of those things to proclaim my distaste.

I wrote a really harsh response about your typo but it was pretty mean-spirited so instead I'm just going to link this:

http://nedroid.com/2008/08/beartato-25/

[...] Seriously, I don't get why they don't let him just do the crunch and never let him within 250 miles of fluff chapters of the rulebook.

Alex

This. As someone that couldn't give less of a sh*t about the rules for WH40kTT, I've been led to understand that Matt Ward actually writes pretty good rules, in all his neckbearded glory. That's all fine and well, and I understand that to the competitive TT scene, that's naturally the meat and bones of their hobby.

To them, it doesn't matter what the background is, because the important part for them is what's going on on the table. Who gets what bonuses, what each army can do and so on and so forth. Great.

But for everyone that remotely cares about the fluff, Matt Ward a worse writer than 4chan. And I wish to the gods I was joking, but the stuff /tg/ can come up with as a collaborative effort, even if it happens to be the bleeding Angry Marines, has a higher quality of writing and are more congruent with the spirit and nature of the Warhammer universe than anything that's been produced by the sausage fingers of Matt Ward, Spiritual Liege of Rowboat Girlyman, fedora-wearing neckbeard extraordinaire and Ultramarines fangirl of near-mythic renown.

I can probably visit a random fanfic website and chose a random fanfic, and come up with better writing and depth than anything even touched by Matt Ward. Even Stephenie Meyer, curse her soul, at least has a fanatical fan following that adores her terrible, terrible, terrible, utterly terrible writing, the majority which is far easier for me to ignore, seeing as how I don't remotely care about sparkling vampires in a series that will be forgotten by the next decade; Matt Ward unfortunately does not have the same status, because he is crouching down and letting off steaming loads straight over something I actually care about, and by doing so, forcing others to adhere to it.

It is very easy to say "just ignore it, it's not that hard". But it is, because what GW says - and thus by extension, Matt Ward - goes, throughout all the lines. Necrons are Tomb Kings in Space now? Well, that's something FFG has to take into account when they depict Necrons. It's no accident that Helbrutes just happened to appear in Only War (if I'm not mistaken) just after Helbrutes became a part of the TT line. And you can all bet that Astra Militarum and all that will make it's way in quick as all hell, in one way or another, even if it just ends up being a small snippet in one of the books - but far all we know, all references to the Imperial Guard will now be "Astra Militarum", it depends on the amount of influence GW has and what FFG's contractual obligations are.

There's just no way around it.

Just let him write rules. Keep him the hell away from the fluff. It's not rocket science.

Ah, you're all just jealous because you know in your heart you can never be Matt Ward. Seriously, I don't get why they don't let him just do the crunch and never let him within 250 miles of fluff chapters of the rulebook.

Alex

If anything I'm mega jealous of his ability to make greybeards tremble with rage.

LOL. What's truly remarkable is that GW lets him get away with some of his stuff. Any 12-year old can troll long-timers by rewriting fluff in a childish way after all. The trick is to get it into an official publication instead of merely posting bs on /tg/.

Alex

This. You really have to ask yourself who he's selling his behind to and who actually hired this guy to write fluff.

... You really have to ask yourself who he's selling his behind to and who actually hired this guy to write fluff.

A big part of the problem is that GW no longer supports as many venues for cultivating new writers (Inferno Magazine, Citadel Journal, comics) as they used to, and thus no longer have a 'deep bench' of talent to draw from. Now, writing jobs just go to whoever is available, regardless of fan opinion...

Your feminization of Matt Ward to disparage him is entirely in keeping with my wholly negative perception of you, Fgdsdf.

But for everyone that remotely cares about the fluff, Matt Ward a worse writer than 4chan. And I wish to the gods I was joking, but the stuff /tg/ can come up with as a collaborative effort, even if it happens to be the bleeding Angry Marines, has a higher quality of writing and are more congruent with the spirit and nature of the Warhammer universe than anything that's been produced by the sausage fingers of Matt Ward

I wouldn't go that far. I've seen both amazing and absolutely atrocious stuff come from /tg/ - making it very hard to nail them down.

Even Stephenie Meyer, curse her soul, at least has a fanatical fan following that adores her terrible, terrible, terrible, utterly terrible writing, the majority which is far easier for me to ignore, seeing as how I don't remotely care about sparkling vampires in a series that will be forgotten by the next decade; Matt Ward unfortunately does not have the same status, because he is crouching down and letting off steaming loads straight over something I actually care about, and by doing so, forcing others to adhere to it.

In fairness, this could be just because he's not writing for the "Old Guard". I wouldn't discount the possibility that a lot of newer players think his stuff is totally cool. I don't really like his vision of 40k myself, but there must be a reason they let him keep doing this?

As Gav Thorpe once said, 40k exists in thousands of different visions in all our minds - including the different authors. I'm sure each of us can name a number of books whose ideas they dislike, yet someone else in this thread would point out that they like it that way.

But it is, because what GW says - and thus by extension, Matt Ward - goes, throughout all the lines. Necrons are Tomb Kings in Space now? Well, that's something FFG has to take into account when they depict Necrons.

I'm not so sure about this one... FFG seems to have opted to renege on the whole "Chaos sorcery" bit that is a thing with Grey Knights now, too. Pretty much the only thing they adopted was the Dreadknight, no?

(although that one was terrible enough )

I'm not so sure about this one... FFG seems to have opted to renege on the whole "Chaos sorcery" bit that is a thing with Grey Knights now, too. Pretty much the only thing they adopted was the Dreadknight, no?

(although that one was terrible enough )

You, my friend, really need to get up to speed. Check out Necrons as they're described in later Deathwatch and Black Crusade.

Luckily, I get the feeling that FFG actually realizes how dumb most of the Wardian fluff is, and tries to give it a back seat as much as humanly possible. But they're still subject to the whims of GW, which is completely understandable but, due to Ward, deeply regrettable.

(I didn't know that the Dreadknight was in any FFG publications. That's just.. gnah. Next up, Centurion Armours? Where does the Dreadknight appear?)

... You really have to ask yourself who he's selling his behind to and who actually hired this guy to write fluff.

A big part of the problem is that GW no longer supports as many venues for cultivating new writers (Inferno Magazine, Citadel Journal, comics) as they used to, and thus no longer have a 'deep bench' of talent to draw from. Now, writing jobs just go to whoever is available, regardless of fan opinion...

Jervis Johnson once said, during the development of Epic: Armageddon, that games design is not a democracy.

Why should fan opinion have any bearing on who gets a job? I mean, have you seen some of the people who are fans of things, and the opinions they have?

To point to another fanbase furore, consider the casting of Ben Affleck as Batman. Huge streams of criticism and mockery by people who have nothing better to do, and who have forgotten that Michael Keaton was similarly met with doubt and derision when he was cast in the same role twenty five years earlier ("Mr Mom as Batman?"), or more recently, that the internet was rife with jokes about "Broke-bat Mountain" when Heath Ledger got the role of the Joker.

Hard as it is to believe, sometimes the fans are stupid.

Also remember that disliking something isn't the same as it being bad. I don't particularly like Mat Ward's Grey Knights background, and he has a tendency to tell rather than show with his writing, which leaves his depiction of Ultramarines to come off as childish (the actual content is OK, but the style lets it down, IMO), but he's apparently done some very good background for Warhammer Fantasy (I don't keep up with WFB anywhere near as much as I once did), and I prefer his Necron background (the older stuff was, IMO, relentlessly dull - it was the C'Tan show, featuring the Necrons, and nobody should be forced into a supporting role in their own army book).

I guess it's also a legacy of working on the the 40kRPs - I've long since stopped regarding the so-called canon as sacred and inviolable. The concept of canon gets in the way, stifling ideas and shutting down development, and the 40k setting is one that will grow stagnant if new ideas and reimagined old ideas aren't cycled through. I greeted the news of the redefinition of the Star Wars Expanded Universe in the same light - forty years of accumulated, contradictory fiction is a heavy burden, and it can be better used as a source of inspiration rather than a noose around the neck of creators.

Wow, that thread exploding with action. Let's see...

GW are a business, yes. It's in their interest to make money - indeed, they're not legally allowed to not make profit, as they do have a responsibility to shareholders.

Thing is, what is so often lost in amongst all that "Corporate GW grumble grumble grumble", is the individual people working there.

Two very good friends of mine now currently work in GW's design studio. They're two of the most creative and passionate people I know... and I've had contact with a lot of creative people over the years. One of them hasn't been working there long enough for his published material to have reached the public yet, but the other was responsible for a good chunk of the background in the Astra Militarium book (amongst other, smaller, projects that came before that).

I see GW headed for rough waters the way they are going now. As I said before: I doubt the company can live well on new customers coming in and the old-timers have all 9 armies of 27,000 points each. Last edition they tried to sell flyers, fortifications and tried to make them buy the 10th army via allies. This edition seems like "Buy your 10th Riptide and field as Unbound Army." This won't work forever.

I think if they want to sell to oldtimers, they need to pursue the direction they have embarked on partially: warbands and "historic" units/armies. Do they really want to keep adding new units to Codex Space Marines over the next 20 years? Without phasing out units that are bog standard and already in everyone's collection? I don't think this is going to work, the shtick will be too obvious.

Here comes the point. The people actually writing the rules and background - as much as they get insulted with impunity by the internet on an hourly basis, because the internet is without common sense, restraint, or decency, and embraces hyperbole such that even the mildest dislike as a world-shaking cataclysm - are people who genuinely love the game and the rules. They might not necessarily have the same ideas as you about it, and they aren't immune to mistakes, but that is no reason for the incessant streams of vitriol and invective flung in their general direction for nothing more than daring to have a different idea than the gestalt meme-consciousness of the internet. I may not agree with some of the decisions made by the games developers, but I acknowledge those as opinions rather than the absolute truths that the internet paints them as, and don't tend to regard missteps as being the end of the world.

Well, welcome to humanity. You won't stop insults and vitriol, especially on anonymous boards. Personally, I think Matt Ward is probably a decent guy but he deserves an occasional jab for some of his stuff. I don't like picking on people and I dislike mobbing, including cyber-mobbing. But an occasional jab seems acceptable and actually something that comes with the territory of publishing. In fact, when you publish something you ideally feel that this is great and then it shouldn't bother you too hard on a personal level if other people think it's awful. (On a professional level it should.) There is no accounting for taste.

That said, 'spiritual liege' was bad.

So, yeah. All I see is a load of self-entitled whining (then again, you can't spell "Warseer" without "arse"). It's a hobby, something as far from mandatory and necessary as it is possible to be. If you don't like it, fine, but don't spend hours a week complaining to anyone that'll listen about how awful it all is - that's just sad. Nobody likes the guy who stalks fan pages just to complain and criticise. I have no particular interest in collectable card games, don't like Warmachine or GURPS, and generally have a whole raft of things I dislike... but I don't intrude into discussions of those things to proclaim my distaste.

Part of my enjoyment is looking at a new 40K rulebook and thinking about the business strategy behind it. And not being thrown off by any form of marketing speech. So if anyone, say, in thos forum would try to hide strategy behind marketing, I would consider it a sport trying to see through it. Personally, I have a certain distaste for marketing and I would like as many people as possible to see through marketing, including self-marketing, and discern underlying interests as much as possible. Real-world politics has a lot to do with marketing after all. It's crucial to see through spin-doctoring,

But for everyone that remotely cares about the fluff, Matt Ward a worse writer than 4chan.

I am not too fond of 4chan either. 4chan is good for silliness and as such a good occasional waste of time if you have nothing better to do. But for ideas that are neither hilarious nor outrageous I wouldn't go there.

It is very easy to say "just ignore it, it's not that hard". But it is, because what GW says - and thus by extension, Matt Ward - goes, throughout all the lines. Necrons are Tomb Kings in Space now? Well, that's something FFG has to take into account when they depict Necrons.

For me it is easy. Well, change FFG Necrons to the way you prefer them then.

I have a core message to everyone who reads this: In the next 10 to 20 years, the 40K setting will change in some ways you won't like. It's inevitable. Different people with different ideas. Get used to the thought. As I didn't like 2E and especially 3E and came back with 5E, I already have. Roll with the flow, pick out what works and work-around what doesn't.

Based on personal experience, I would also advise everyone against keeping their fluff too static and give new ideas a second glance. Reinterpretations aren't necessarily bad. And why should there only be one 40K setting and not a family of very familiar unconnected parallel universes?

Alex

In fairness, this could be just because he's not writing for the "Old Guard". I wouldn't discount the possibility that a lot of newer players think his stuff is totally cool. I don't really like his vision of 40k myself, but there must be a reason they let him keep doing this?

Counter-assumption: GW thinks he is good writer based on the fact that he has a lot of decent stuff, they will just now pay more attention to no writer including fluff that will antagoinize the fanbase too hard. If they have someone qualified that gives Matt Ward's fluff a thorough sanity check, I don't think there will be a problem. Of course, it's also quite likely that Matt Ward and the rest of GW learned from past mistakes and simply resolved to avoid some pitfalls.

(I didn't know that the Dreadknight was in any FFG publications. That's just.. gnah. Next up, Centurion Armours? Where does the Dreadknight appear?)

I don't fancy the Dreadknight but I am okay with FFG putting it in. It is part of the official 40K setting and I think FFG's job is to support gamers who want to play in that setting. if you don't like the Dreadknight, don't include it. It's very easy to write it out of your universe.

FFG shouldn't support just one interpretation of 40K, they should support many possible ones. Which is why I think a Deathwatch 2E should have the same movie marines in it (everything else would be a disappointment) but DH 2E? Why not include Lynata Marines ( ) in DH 2E? Yeah, there would be an inconsistency to DW - so? If you want Movie Marines, buy DW and draw rules from there. If you want a DW campaign with Tabletop Marines, buy DH 2E or OW 2E or whatever and combine from there. That would have been fun.

You'd just have to take care to explain to players because the outcry will be there because "Incompatible!"

Also remember that disliking something isn't the same as it being bad. I don't particularly like Mat Ward's Grey Knights background, and he has a tendency to tell rather than show with his writing, which leaves his depiction of Ultramarines to come off as childish (the actual content is OK, but the style lets it down, IMO),

..except for that spiritual liege thing. I mean... this is something that shouldn't happen to a professional writer. I don't have a general problem with Mr. Ward. There are just one or two or three goofs that are of the fan-quality level that you deride. As a professional writer, you shouldn't publish stuff that makes a fair amount of the devoted fanbase cringe - you know that. That's not good.

I am not sure how many people (except for those cyber-mobbers) complain about his writing beyond those mess-ups. I don't think there are many.

Also remember that disliking something isn't the same as it being bad. I don't particularly like Mat Ward's Grey Knights background, and he has a tendency to tell rather than show with his writing, which leaves his depiction of Ultramarines to come off as childish (the actual content is OK, but the style lets it down, IMO), but he's apparently done some very good background for Warhammer Fantasy (I don't keep up with WFB anywhere near as much as I once did), and I prefer his Necron background (the older stuff was, IMO, relentlessly dull - it was the C'Tan show, featuring the Necrons, and nobody should be forced into a supporting role in their own army book).

I know what you mean but... I think oldcrons were... scarier.

I guess it's also a legacy of working on the the 40kRPs - I've long since stopped regarding the so-called canon as sacred and inviolable. The concept of canon gets in the way, stifling ideas and shutting down development, and the 40k setting is one that will grow stagnant if new ideas and reimagined old ideas aren't cycled through. I greeted the news of the redefinition of the Star Wars Expanded Universe in the same light - forty years of accumulated, contradictory fiction is a heavy burden, and it can be better used as a source of inspiration rather than a noose around the neck of creators.

I totally agree. Except on Star Wars. Haven't watched the 2nd trilogy and won't watch the new stuff either. I have no need for it evolving. The original trilogy is complete as it is and I am fine with it standing on its own. Because I know so little about its expanded universe I can create my own surrounding universe (in my head whenever I rewatch the movies) and have my what-ifs without much outside influence. In my mind I got more freedom about the Star Wars universe than anyone who has watched more than the original trilogy.

Alex

... You really have to ask yourself who he's selling his behind to and who actually hired this guy to write fluff.

A big part of the problem is that GW no longer supports as many venues for cultivating new writers (Inferno Magazine, Citadel Journal, comics) as they used to, and thus no longer have a 'deep bench' of talent to draw from. Now, writing jobs just go to whoever is available, regardless of fan opinion...

Jervis Johnson once said, during the development of Epic: Armageddon, that games design is not a democracy.

Why should fan opinion have any bearing on who gets a job? I mean, have you seen some of the people who are fans of things, and the opinions they have?

Why? Because, as you yourself said in a previous post, GW is in business to make money. They are more likely to do that if they appeal to their fan base than if they alienate them. It's common knowledge that GW 's sales have been down in recent years- the same period where Mat Ward was writing much of the fluff and incurring the ire of longtime fans. That's certainly not the only thing behind GW 's sales drop, but I can't believe it hasn't been a factor.

And, correct me if 'm wrong, but didn't Epic: Armageddon (the example you site for ignoring fan input) sell poorly?

... You really have to ask yourself who he's selling his behind to and who actually hired this guy to write fluff.

A big part of the problem is that GW no longer supports as many venues for cultivating new writers (Inferno Magazine, Citadel Journal, comics) as they used to, and thus no longer have a 'deep bench' of talent to draw from. Now, writing jobs just go to whoever is available, regardless of fan opinion...

Jervis Johnson once said, during the development of Epic: Armageddon, that games design is not a democracy.

Why should fan opinion have any bearing on who gets a job? I mean, have you seen some of the people who are fans of things, and the opinions they have?

Why? Because, as you yourself said in a previous post, GW is in business to make money. They are more likely to do that if they appeal to their fan base than if they alienate them. It's common knowledge that GW 's sales have been down in recent years- the same period where Mat Ward was writing much of the fluff and incurring the ire of longtime fans. That's certainly not the only thing behind GW 's sales drop, but I can't believe it hasn't been a factor.

And, correct me if 'm wrong, but didn't Epic: Armageddon sell poorly?

If there's one thing that being a geek has taught me is that the collective opinion of vocal fandom is typically as ill-informed and prone to snap judgements and reactionary conservatism as any other mob.

Listening to your customers is one thing. Letting a vocal minority of your product's fanbase (which aren't strictly the same as customers - many of them may not actually be buying anything) dictate policy is a whole other kettle of fish.

And Epic: Armageddon was poorly-timed - it came at the time when the LoTR boom ended, which led to a major reduction in support for all Specialist Games. Like the other Specialist Games, the Epic rulebook was available as a free download, and it was an internal division of GW rather than an independently-run company like Forge World or Black Library, so sales figures for individual Specialist Games don't exist. It's reckoned, however, that the income from Specialist Games would have been sufficient to support any smaller games company. This downsizing also led to the closure of Black Industries almost immediately after the overwhelmingly successful release of Dark Heresy. Poor sales and quality are not inherently linked.

All that aside, it's also one of the best games GW has produced (alongside BFG, and the woefully overlooked LoTR) - but also a cautionary tale about how even great games can fail because of poor support.

Also, the customer doesn't always know what he/she actually wants - until he/she sees it.

Alex

As far as I'm aware Matt Ward's crunch isn't bad. I'm sure he's slipped up on occasion, but overall he's got this pinned down.

As for the fluff, I'm not sure it's all that bad either...it's not MY KIND of fluff, but I'm thinking he hits his core audience pretty well.

I'm turning 40 this year. (I've been into 40k for way too long, and fondly remember the 'good ole days'. So, despite shaving regularly to keep a full reddish beard (now flecked with gray) at bay, I suppose I am a neckbeard of sorts.

Yet I haven't entirely forgotten what it was like to be young and a recent arrival on the scene: Back in the days of 1st and 2nd editions I was a horrible Grey Knights fanboi. I would eagerly have accepted the tall tales of Kaldor Draigo to name one example. I think I would have accepted RG as my spiritual liege even...

I'm thinking there are plenty of gamers out there who doesn't think as badly of Ward as you'd think after reading a couple of discussions-turned-into-Ward-flame-wars. But they are not necessarily the most vocal. Had I been one of them I certainly would not have dared/wished to waste my time trying to defend Ward-mania.

Relatedly: Ward writes crunch, Ward writes fluff. And he's been writing quite a lot now. So it's a safe bet he's well thought of at company HQ. So much so, in fact, that he's allowed to introduce a lot of new stuff into a franchise that's not always accepting of new takes on things. I mean, think about the oldcrons/newcrons* shift. That's pretty big. Ward didn't do it on his own, it was Chapter approved, but he was still trusted with putting his name on it.

* The newcrons are, in my not so humble opinion, a lot more interesting than the old, especially from a painter's point of view. There is a tab bit more diversity, and a LOT more options for personalizing each army.

For the squad thing I'd rather use the (generic, not DW) Kill-team rules as they seem to come with a couple more rules to make the game more enjoyable for both sides. I get what you're trying to achieve, but as an opponent, it'd just feel a bit anti-climatic to see my force ripped apart by what still looks a bit like Movie Marines.

I mean, on the flip-side we could also have IG players fielding squads of Company Commanders and Lord Commissars to pick apart a 1500pt SM force, but how would the SM player feel about this?

Fine. Spend all the points you like on guard characters; as with all independent characters they are fragile for their points. Much as most opponents would be on seeing ten captains across the table, I'd imagine. If you think it resembles the movie marines I feel [Tarkin] you overestimate their chances [/Tarkin].

A captain is ~120-150 points and has the durability of 3 14 point tactical marines - maybe 6 if he's taken artificer plate. Even the toughest character in the marine codex - cassius - takes less small arms fire to put down than a basic tactical squad and definitely doesn't have the firepower of one.

Unlike the movie marines, where Pete Haines decided that 100 points was a fair price for a Carnifex with a Storm Shield and an extended range Assault Cannon, you will flat-out lose if you try and engage a 1500 point army in a straight gunfight. Whilst a captain can probably take his points worth of tactical marines in an assault, (a) he's gotta get there and (b) I only said probably.

Things like 'Primarch's Wrath' - essentially a 5-shot shred bolter or 'Lion's Roar' - a combi-plasma cannon - give captains a hope of winning a localised fight, but all the relics are one-use items, even in unbound armies, and normal armies can generally have more firepower, with more spare wounds, for less points.

I like the 'proper' kill-team rules too, and the intention is to have a squad that can be fielded as a mix of sternguard and vanguard in a kill-team game, or else played against a 1500 point army in a pickup game with the 'souped up' version without worrying that it's overpowered.