Matt Ward

The 1000 thing really bothers me too.

I mean, with normal marine force organization, gk's can't do crap. They can't possibly cope to fight in all places needed.

I'm gonna go with that my gk's are part of the 2000 gk's that were lost, and don't do this new stupid stuff.

Kids' minds wouldn't be able to deal with the idea that there are thousands of Grey Knights across the galaxy bit they still work in small task forces.

'It don't make sense. Ultramarines are only a thousand men but an Ultramarine army is bigger.'
'Thats because they're only in a handful of places while the Grey Knights are spread everywhere.'
'So it's easier to be a Grey Knight? Because there are more of them?'
'Your parents are too rich and you, boy, are too stupid.'

Constantine wrote:I agree that we should be happy that we got fleshed out with some fluff!
I am also an old school GK guy who doesn't think that GKs should be fielded with daemon hosts or other daemon touched weapons/troops

That being said, it is only MY vision and interpretation of what the GKs should be.
Variety is the spice of life, so just do what feels right for you.

Yep Constantine agree with you there. These are the comments I have heard or observe on the Gk fluff
We have a Grand Master with a postal address on the wrong side of the warp, who really knows if he is tainted or not ? he is still stuck there!
We have the guy who sees dead people and gets surrounded by ghosts, no-one knows why
We have the guy who takes the absolutely deadly dangerous daemon blade into battle he doesnt have the faintest idea how it works anyway then waves it in front of the deamons saying "here it is take it if you can".
GK's have better daemon blades than daemons, who fixed that up?
We have the Jesus Justicar who resurrects on a 4+ no-one knows why
We have the guy who goes to battle riding in a lazyboy chair

Just read where the GK's slaughtered the sisters at St Mariel for talismans of protection. What nothing else would work ? Did the sisters agree to this plan or did they just get a force sword in the back. Even DA dont do this sort of stuff, Inquisition yeah but GK's?.....

All this begs a long visit from the Inquistion, wait dont we work for them anyway? Shoot they hang out with deamons offshift look at their deamon hosts for emperors sake!

Amongst the many things I do like about the Grey Knights Codex is it is titled Grey knights ....not Inquisiiton. Its like we have an unspoken schism here between our bosses the Inquisition and Grey Knights , is it only me who sees it.
GK have never turned to chaos but Inquisition?
I believe the GK codex will bring balance to 40K. For certain it will make space puppies whimper and run. Those dog boys have had things their own way with a point and click EZ win codex for too long.
GK is an elite army and will dominate other elite low model armies like Space Wolves.
It will allow non PA armies to develop more variety as it changes the content of dominant PA armies like space wolves.
GK will impact Guard, Dark Eldar and Eldar too. I6 and purifiers are almost anti Eldar items.

I like most of the flavour of the month wolves players are now collecting GK, so its only balance of a sort :p

The thing about the grey knights in this new codex that struck me was that while like many armies in 5th ed, theyre changing the structure and fluff to fit around the game only, and losing sight of the fluff. This doesnt have to be a bad thing, but it does mean people will be mad, but what infuriates me is that it seems like theyre trying to shy away from Black Templars.
I\'ve been running BTs for about 2 years now and I am an avid reader of every scrap of fluff I can get my hands on, so listen to this...
The grey knights dont go over 1000 men because the BTs do, but they fullfil the same purpose of branching across the galaxy, and they made the BTs the stout zealous space marines that hate everything and especially the demonic, soooo they let grey knight children that didnt learn what the Independent Character entitles, play with a super demonic swoard. Now grey knights are Super uncoruptible because before they were just uncoruptible like everyone I know thinks about the BTs. its crazy, and theres probably loads more.
Does anyone get the idea that GW is just neglecting the comraderie and inteligence of the Imperium, (well, whats left of it anyways), and setting up all these differences between everybody to set up another Grand Civil War?

Oh and i dont like the picture on pg. 20 because all the GK have iron haloes, and thats a misleading situation that tells me all my super exspensive infantry are harder to kill then regular space marines.

The whole game structure HAS to revolve around table top play, that is the center of the 40K business. GW can not survive on fluff alone!

Also I don't think that GW has ever promoted comraderie between the factions of the imperium, even before the Horus Heresy relations were strained between SM chapters, guard, etc...

As for the Inteligence of the Imperium, the fluff VERY consistantly follows that we are struggling to catch up with technology and understanding following the age of stife, and that many of the imperiums factions do not have or deserve certain knowledge......"Knowledge is power, guard it well....."

Promoting civil war................Perhaps...........but again, "good guys" vs "good guys" is essential if you are to be able to play table top games regularly, it's not realistic to always have a "good guy" vs a "bad guy". And the fluff very much supports each of the faction's pride, and belief of their superiority over others.

Finally.... Each Chapter's codex is egocentrical in that it highlights the heroic deeds of its members, the numerous times it has saved the Imperium from certain disaster, and how without them the Imperium would fall....... That's just the way it is......

GW want's you to buy THAT army! If a codex focused on how your chosen army is a cog in a bigger wheel, whose achievements were made possible in part because of the support and heroics of other Imperial forces, it wouldn't really get you that pumped would it!?

So.........basically, realistic fluff doesn't sell. None of the factions of the Imperium would be able to save humanity alone, it is the combined might of its components that keep it "safe". But reading that in a codex dedicatd to your chosen army is boring, you want to read about how essential your force is to the survival of the Imperium.

The BT may be getting neglected, but really NO other force can relate to GW neglect as much as the GK.....Right!?

Constantine wrote:
The BT may be getting neglected, but really NO other force can relate to GW neglect as much as the GK.....Right!?

Wrong, Dark Angels have got Templars beat hands down the DA chapter was the beta test codex for this current version the codex was rapidly ovetaken by successive favoured armies and was never even faqed till December 2010.
I do agree with your comments and at the end of the day; broken, cheesy, whatever I will play against it or with it and enjoy the wins and loses equally.
It has always been a challenge to get DA through a game. I listen to the comments and think "welcome to the DA real world of the emperium" where there not only is only war but also uncertainty no more point and click wins anymore for some of us

Grey Knights have ALWAYS been uncorruptable. (The only uncorruptable force of the imperium) Thats their thing. Removal of fearless and some of the other stupid things they did this codex kind of negated this fact however.

The GK's have also always been an extremely small force, for several reasons, like only they can truly fight daemons, and they die pretty often, and they are extremely spread out fighting in tiny groups, and barely anyone makes it through the training regime to become a true knight.

Crowe is just stupid, yes. The daemon blades for Inqusitors I feel is just a way of letting Inq based forces (including radicals) play, which is fine.

I don't really see how that infringes upon BT territory except that alot of SM players are angry that GK's are good, and that SM's are not (until the next release) the top kid on the block.
On the BT/DA side of things I think you guys need to have a good look at most of the xenos codexes. Some have had new releases and still been total crap, sometimes with a single viable competitive build, and most don't receive half the support they could use to draw in new customers and really make the game grow.
There are what... like 6+ SM codexes, which realistically are just a massive waste of GWS's time. Yes people love their SM's, and they sell amazingly. Probably because they get all the novels, all the models, all the good rules, all the support.
If GWS wasn't so retarded there would be a Space Marine compendium released every year or two, with the basic SM choices, and then the massive plethora of different chapter specific lores, rules and force organisation modifiers.
The same for CSM.
The problem is they only want money and know they have a transient playerbase many of whom will swap armies every single SM release to stay on top so instead of doing things the right way they simply do tiny releases a chapter at a time.

There's little to do to please the masses. If GW ever releases a full SM Codex with all chapters inside, surely there will be a lot of complaints, clamoring for one codex for each army.

The masses play SM because it gets regular updates and is always an extremely solid codex. The game is designed around it afterall. Its also extremely easy to play.
Keep it regularly updated, and actually make other viable xenos choices, and instead of relying upon everyone starting each new chapter and forcing unique units to be sold TWC, Baals, SR's, Jump Infantry, you would have a playerbase supporting all forces more evenly instead of the majority forced into a single venue due to bad design and management.
Its not about removing all the chapter specifics, its making them work in one book. Its easy to do if they use some intelligence (in short supply to GWS) and people complain about EVERYTHING anyway. So work on balance and good releases and the complaints will be mainly unfounded.

The people who play to win will choose a codex that wins the most if there is a clear difference in power levels (if everything is equal they will choose according to likes), everyone else normally chooses an army on fluff/lore, looks, playstyle or just overall preference (sometimes genre based).
When the majority of non SM armies actually don't function and the internet makes sure people know you end up with a terrible gaming system.

SM sell because they are the spearhead of GW promotion of the game. I don't see WH40k being popular if they were selling Tyranids as the main army. SM have something to relate to for young gamers, and that's the selling point of it all.

I don´t see why having so many SM codexs, is bad design and management. Instead, it allows to diversify and exploit one niche that really sells. Smart business move, if you ask me. This too translates into more diversity for the game. Keep in mind that all SM chapters that have their own codex play differently, using the same standard tools of the SM codex. If they would play similarly then I would have to gree with you. They would be selling the same potato with another name. But let's be honest. a Ravenwing army is completely different to an all jump Pack army from BA. Both are marines, yes. But both have inherently different concepts and have different play styles. There's something different for everyone who wants to jump the SM bandwagon.

By having one Codex for them all, they would be doing exactly what people complain about: "They're all SM and they all are played the same". Which IMHO, many a marine player would disagree with.

I'm with DonFer here. It's nice to have an overall Codex with some specific Codexes to supplement both gameplay styles and fluff. I would like to see this in some Xenos armies. Maybe a few specific Eldar Codexes for specific craftworlds? I think they could flesh out essentially all of the Xenos armies much more than they have, and it would probably make them more money in the long run.

Well Necrons, Tau and Eldar are all slated for codex updates so I think we'll see some much more interesting stuff in the new codexes!

Thats the same mentality that they use to justify the immense investment into Space Marines.
Its the only army that receives the right level of attention, updates, and releases and as a result it is the most popular and the biggest seller.

To try and claim it is the most popular for any other reason than the fact that they use their stores to ram space marines down new players throat, and then make sure the gaming system absolutely favours Space Marines over any other army for anyone who doesn't know how to play. Disagreeing with this is like saying that Coke is a health drink. Or that smoking is healthy, 9 out of 10 doctors agree!

It is great business management if you aren't worried about a playerbase, only about sales.
Its terrible for a gaming system that is trying to create an immersive gaming world with any kind of depth.

It has been proven time and time again that 'evil' and 'bad' races can be massively popular if the right work is put into them. Many people like playing the bad guys, its also goes without saying that making sure the bad guys suck, get no support and no updates pretty much kills a gaming system. ANY gaming system.

At the end of the day they make ravenwing, and blood angel armies totally different because its easier than actually having a diverse set of armies, that people have to ACTIVELY choose to play and build.
They do have totally different playstyles, the point is that this can easily be represented within a single codex. Thats why special characters are so popular in xenos armies, hell in any armies. You can manipulate the FOC, which is EXACTLY what ALL the different space marine codexes do.

They release a Space Marine codex, basically for each playstyle, and then all the SM players whine how they want to be able to play against other armies.....

They would actually be doing the gaming system a major service if they thought laterally and worked the Space Marine system into a single codex, and then did the same for all books. The ability to manipulate FoC slots, and even have choices added and restricted, prices slightly modified would benefit all codexes, and make the game alot more characterful.
People want choices, different playstyles, and at the moment only Space Marines support this, particularly when you can use 75% of the models in 5-8 armies.

Plus at the end of the day, who is going to choose most xenos armies when they are basically a crap version of a SM chapter?

Your tyranid statement to be totally honest is just stupid. Its one of the worst designed codexes this edition and has been a total flop because it was designed to be destroyed by marines. They tried to force people in buying heaps of models by designing a codex around sales, instead of balance...
Its also stupid because there shouldn't be a 'main' army. There should be 5 or 10 equally viable choices. There simply isn't, and thats the problem.

I miss the old days.

Then things were better.

I agree with Master Zealadin, there shouldn't really be a main army but many.
Although in my view they have kind of tried to do this in making the different SM codexes play differently.
Would be even better if they took some of those playing styles and made them into different CSM Legions, and bring back some more "villians."
GW have also been pushing DE alot, with new Codex, models, etc. Not to sure what they are like to play.

As for the Grey Knights new fluff, I like how they fleshed out more of the founding of the chapter, and what's on Titan. Don't realy like the idea of only 1,000 marines, or the Dreadknight. I loved the old image of david vs goliath, with the GM/BC, even in his suit of TDA, small compared to the Greater Daemons. He didn't need stilts to see eye-to-eye with the daemon, to defeat it. Even Inquisitor Hector Rex doesn't need it to take down Khornes right-hand man, err, bloodthirster. (loved the backround in the IA Seige of Vraks).
I was inspired to collect the 2nd Brotherhood because of a good piece of fluff on page 16, where they're on the way back from campaign (I assume a against daemons), and stop off to take out a Waaagh. It shows that while their primary goal and mission is daemons, they will stop and help.
The fluffs not all bad, there are some gems.

Just my 2 cents.

I agree with Brother Zealadin. It's business- more like monkey business. I've seen more organization in a monkey sh!t fight than some codi or the whole game for that matter. From another perspective is that just like Star wars, GW should have started with a good movie. It has an awesome story line and more realistic as far as in relation to possible time lines. At the time no body thought star wars was going to be a big hit, in fact, a religion in some cases. If anything is sacred, there should be a symposium where the designer/creator should have a chance to explain or inform why he did it a certain way. On the other side of the fence, The fans/ collectors should be able to ask questions and have the right to understand why certain things were done the way they were.

Zealadin wrote: Your tyranid statement to be totally honest is just stupid. Its one of the worst designed codexes this edition and has been a total flop because it was designed to be destroyed by marines. They tried to force people in buying heaps of models by designing a codex around sales, instead of balance...
Its also stupid because there shouldn't be a 'main' army. There should be 5 or 10 equally viable choices. There simply isn't, and thats the problem.

First of all, I would like to ask you to please refrain from calling me or my statements stupid, Zealadin. I have done nothing to deserve such an insult form you.

This is a discussion and we're only expressing opinions. Clearly this is a very delicate matter for you, perhaps even sentimental, so anything that I refute will or say against your arguments, will cause a very "fiery" reaction from your part. Still, I am entitled to express what I think even when my statements and even myself are "to be totally honest [...], stupid".

I will not refute anything you just said, and perhaps what you say is a great solution to the SM issue in 40k. But I don't think this is a problem of whether we've got more or less SM codexes (codii??). The problem lies in that GW doesn't support other codexes as much as they do SM ones. And why? Because they sell more SMs than any other army in 40k. Why? Because they promote WH40k as the Imperium of Man against the rest of the Universe. It is logical then, that SM are the preferred choice of promotion.
Now I can agree with you that perhaps the making of one SM codex for them all, could be a great solution to this problem. But hey, being realistic, it would be around 400 pages long, hardbound and so expensive that SM player would have to sell their souls to the devil to get a copy. I can assure you that people would clamor for individual codexes after this, because they don't like to share books, price is too high or whatever. There is no pleasing the masses.
I also think that this lack of support for other armies is not GW's grand scheme to obliterate other Xeno races out of the game. It is just the neglect of a bunch of people that either, don't have time to work on every codex there is, or they aren't able to keep up with a growing market, because of plain ineptitude or lack of working force. Keep in mind that not only xenos are due an update. DA and BT are due a serious update, and there are players out there still waiting for it. Hell, Ba got a semi-update two years ago in the form of a lame WD codex. Everyone thought that was the end of BA.
I'm not trying to defend GW, since they do some things that actually deserve a big facepalm or worse, a punch in the face. But let's try to have some perspective here. The game is as balanced as it can get, with the actual rules. There are 2 armies that are sub-par (tyranids and necrons) but even they have some tournament winning lists (ok necrons don't, I give you that), but that doesn't mean they are totally crap. We are in the middle of a transition here, new codexes and, as rumours go, new rules set are around the corner. Next year xenos will have the upper hand with new codexes, and SM will need an update. All SM players will clamor and whine and scream for a new codex, and so on, and on and on.
Still, this is also another way that GW uses to get their customers to try more products (armies) while waiting for the next update. You can call it a cheap ploy, which perhaps it is. But sadly, a valid ploy nevertheless.

I agree with the points made in that it's mostly a matter of GW putting much more time, effort, energy, and money into developing space marines as a whole. This causes more sales of the space marines because people are interested in something that is more fleshed out.

There is, however, one thing that hasn't really been mentioned. That is that the masses tend to prefer things they can more directly relate to. People, being humans, are more interested in stories involving humans than in stories that do not involve humans. This is because they feel like they are actually part of it on some deeper level instead of being just passive observers. One could then ask, "well aren't the imperial guard more relatable than space marines?" Possibly, but people also like things they can describe as "epic" or "badass". Space marines are both more relatable and more "epic" on an individual scale than most other armies.

Also, come on folks, let's try to keep this mature please. We may not all agree, but we can all agree to discuss our disagreements politely.

I've been out of the game for a good long while and only have the Space Marine, Orks, Bloods Angels, and Grey Knights codexes to judge by, but I don't see all the hate for Matt Ward. The rules seem solid enough without being completely ridiculous, at least from what I have to use as reference.

He writes some questionable fluff in some cases, and I did find some parts of the Grey Knights codex to be representative with some paragraphs being nothing more than a paraphrase of something a few pages earlier, but over all I like the direction Grey Knights went from the Daemon Hunters codex. The 1000 strong chapter thing is stupid, and he went over board with the whole more uncorruptible than the uncorrupted, but I like the new hardcore mind wipe our allies so they never know we were here, slaughter a bunch of sisters for their virgin blood, Grey Knight attitude.

Grey knights would not need to conduct simple blood rituals to protect themselves from a stupid psychic phenomena that the sisters of battle was not affected by since they were more incorruptible than the gk.

Look and that is exactly what that scene is about.

Why make a khornate blood ritual for psychic protection when you already got the best protection you can get? Because Matt Ward made horrible fluff.

Mind wiping was in before and i don't see why it's more definite now than then. (although i have barely even read the new codex out of sheer disgust)

It's also matt ward that in the warhammer deamon army book, wrote that all deamons are friends (not word by word, but the basic feeling, which is very wrong.)

So why the hate? Well the rules might be good (heck, it's the most broken 40k army out there) but almost every fluff aspect is either wrong or tweaked to worse or just plain bad.
A particular hate suspect is Chuck Norris (you know who i mean) sure, a lost gm, cool.

Who does ALL THOSE THINGS? Don't think so.

But that is just my opinion (among many others)
Hate me if you like, but i think you should hate Matt Ward.

Matt Ward's contribution to 40k: >>Link<<

Saw that earlier and it's hilarious. I guess the disdain of Matt Ward is universal across the 40k player base.