Robin Cruddace

Robin Cruddace can be described to be as ugly as an Ogryn with down syndrome.

Robin Cruddace (Not to be confused with Robin Crapface or Robin Shitface as he might otherwise be known.) is one of the least-liked designers for Games Workshop.It is many a Games Workshop's paying customer's wonder how he isnt demoted or fired. Robin Cruddace spends most of his time editing wiki-pages of himself and snidely criticizing his colleagues, in particular Matt Ward, and writing illogical excuses for his lack of ability. He is yet unable to understand that the way not to avoid lousy reviews of his work is to just not produce lousy work or piss scores of people off to begin with. He is known to believe that he somehow did a good job with the Imperial Guard codex and that it somehow gives hi the excuse to carelessly not giving a shit when tasked to write other codexes. He often whines about being given work related to his job and has a wide portfolio of disinterested slipshod performance. He defends his changes to the Tyranids codex with the excuse that he likes Imperial Guard and does not like Tyranids. This very much explains why the codex of gigantic inter-galactic space dinosaurs doesnt have a single creature with a toughness above that of two points lower than a Wraithlord, making every single unit from the lowliest Termagant to the "living fortress" Tyrannofex vulnerable to the shots of a Guardsman's lasgun. It also explains why the Tyranids Codex, famed for hulking monstrous creatures has the worst Monstrous Creature profiles in the game (because the lead writer for the codex was the very biased Robin Cruddace given an inappropriate amount of responsibility that requires some degree of mature and unbiased judgement).

His Codices, in particular the Tyranid codex, are utter shit. They're not well-balanced internally (Pyrovores being one of numerous examples), moreover they also aren't externally balanced (i.e. against other Codices). On top of everything, he writes shitty fluff.

Recently, Cruddace has fled to Warhammer Fantasy Battle, possibly because Games Workshop realized nobody likes him and anything with the name or association with Cruddace is greatly shunned and criticized heavily over the internet.

Ahem

Robin Cruddace is a failed codex writer for Warhammer 40,000 and Warhammer Fantasy Battle and has proven to be childishly biased to the army he plays and inappropriate for the task of writing any sort of codex, even the one he is biased in favor of. This means, of course, that there is one army he is very good at writing, but not too many others, and there is much wailing and misery over the utter hackjobs he's pulled on the Tyranids, the army he was least suited for. It's also possible that he's not really a treadhead either - the guy's an Imperial Guard player, just like Matt Ward is an Ultramarines player, being just as bad as Ward, Cruddace has . On the other end of the spectrum, it appears he may have been in the camp of believers that Tyranids were overpowered with overpowered MCs, since that's what he nerfed the hardest, and then he took away all their equipment options for no valid reason other than pettiness.

He also filled the Tyranid fluff with page after page of losing battles for Tyranids, rather than the enigmatic analysis on their rapid development and adaptability which they were previously known for (their crunch now makes them among the most rigid armies in the game). In fact, he has one story about how well the Tau were able to out-adapt the Tyranids by tricking them into disadvantageous evolutionary paths. The Tau won that battle by beating Tyranids at their own game. In the Tyranids' own codex. (And thus, the Pyrovore was born!) And then the Tau were killed off by Necrons. Also, he removed all the awesome fluff about Inquisitor Kryptman (aka spehss Alan Grant from Jurassic Park). Fortunately, with the 6th edition Tyranid codex, someone else realized how stupid this was and brought Kryptman back. If only they could've saved the crunch from Cruddace.

We don't know what's wrong with Cruddace, but if he writes your army's codex, you better hope he likes your army. One theory is that if it kills his guardsmen, he'll hate you forever, sorry Tyranids! On that note, the Eldar better hope that Cruddace is never allowed near any of their future codexes, but the Dark Eldar have likely already fallen victim to his writing.

No, really, go back and think it through. Now admittedly, sometimes the Tyranids will lose. But a good writer is able to balance the genuinely happy sense of closure with the cosmic horror that there are always more Tyranids out there. When they invaded Macragge they couldn't win because it would kill the Ultramarines forever, and the Ultramarines are pretty damn important to the game. But it was climactic, it was intelligent. It was an epic battle stretching from the dark tunnels of a monastery-fortress to the tundras of the planet surface to the depths of space, both sides fighting tooth-and-nail. The Tyranids lost the war as a whole, but they destroyed the entire First Company and decimated the rest of the Chapter, and the Ultramarines could only manage to destroy most of them. Pretty hardcore.

In the the story Cruddace wrote, meanwhile, the Tyranids, in their own codex, lost a battle of adaptation to a random Tau force nobody knows. Consider that rapid adaptability was the Tyranids' single most important claim to fame. Then afterwards, Cruddace killed off the whole Tau force anyway. With another faction entirely. The saddest part is how easy it would be to fix: either make it a major Tau world (with the implication that, if the Tau lose, the Tau Empire is nommed), or make the Tau solution something so grimdark and apocalyptic (read: super virus) that the Tau realize the only way to stop the Tyranids when they all finally arrive is to sacrifice the entirety of the Tau Empire (and possibly all sentient life in the galaxy).

But no, he made the Tau better than the Tyranids. Apparently the Ultramarines are just chumps... (he was probably making a remark about how well a certain piece of literature from a certain spiritual liege would realistically hold up against an enemy as dynamic as 'Nids).

The ideal was as he gave it, "you wouldn't be hearing about Tyranid victories".

In any case, we are not kidding: if Cruddace doesn't like your army, prepare to get fucked.

That being said, he also made a bunch of the 8th edition Fantasy books, which were, for the most part, pretty good, and seem to be bringing Warhammer Fantasy into *gasp* balance (even if Tomb Kings are still at the arse end of useful). He was also a co-writer for the 7th edition Lizardmen army book, which was considered a strong, but balanced book until 8th edition changes to magic occurred.

There's also a skubtastic argument between Kelly's and Cruddace's fans about the mess of random tables that Codex: Chaos Daemon has become. The book's actually decent overall (unless you relied on Fateweaver to win games for you) and balance wise is in line with the other 6th Edition books. Also, the fluff does a good job in portraying the Chaos Daemons. However, if you even try to suggest that one of the two might be behind the nerf of one unit, you'll find yourself in one of the big shitstorm /tg/ is known for.

He recently wrote the new Space Marine codex, its pretty decent and balanced the Chapters lore pretty well compare to the other previous codices, even if it did leave in a lot of the Ultrmarine wank it was reedited to be more balance.

It should be noted that "crud" is an often-used euphemism for "crap". Make of this what you will.

Things that have been shitted up by Crud

• Imperial Guard (5th Edition): His first work gave Cruddace the "Treadhead" moniker. Though the internal balancing and fluff are pretty good, the codex really throws a wrench into the metagame; months later, the infamous leaf-blower list will be crafted using this codex flooding tournaments with melta-vets, artillery and various other spams.
• Tyranids (5th and 6th Edition): Reduced to utter garbage. Cruddace has single-handedly undone all the good changes by Phil Kelly. It is a wonder how Cruddace still manages to keep his job after his work on the Tyranid codex.
• Tomb Kings (8th Edition): Largely forgettable, although noteworthy in that it clears up a lot of contention from the previous book (like making liches actual wizards) and giving the Tomb Kings Sphinxes that they use in battle.
• Sisters of Battle (the 5th Edition White Dwarf-only not-even-Codex): Continuing on the nerfing trend after Matt Ward butchered the Sisters in 5th ed. The team-up of Ward and Cruddace heralded a severe Gav Thorpe-esque reduction and tactical blunting of the previously known Witchunters list - gone are any inquisitorial support, leaving the Sisters outgunned and outclassed. Immolators? Can't take them with troops! HQ? Too expensive to be useful! Decent Elites slots? BWAHAHAHAHA - no.
• The Empire (8th Edition): Again, not very memorable. Adds some gee-whiz new war machines, but most infantry gets a price hike when other armies are getting their points costs lowered.
• Chaos Daemons (6th Edition): playing the nerfer-in-chief yet again, but balanced out (somewhat) by Phil Kelly and his random tables of random. Sadly, the victims are manifold - Juggers have no armour and Tzeentchian psykers and Flamers puff your opponent. It's all not as bad as the internet makes it out to be, especially on 1d4chan, but it is close. Because you can take Screamers and Tzeentch Heralds in the right combo to have a Jetbike unit with a re-rollable 2++, and Warpflame isn't a big deal if you fire your spells on one unit at a time. Just pretend everyone is Necrons! Also, Daemons do have ways to deal with flyers, like a Slaanesh Prince with Lash of Despair and Biomancy. Expensive, but it works, and let's not forget Bloodletters behind a quad gun that can fire at BS5. Oh, and did we mention you have a Monstrous Creature that have nine attacks on the charge, always hit on 3s with hatred, wounds everything on a 2+, ignoring armour and inflicts Instant Death? And can wreck a Land Raider by smashing it with Armourbane (Skarbrand)?
• Space Marines (6th Edition): There seems to be an uncanny pattern of switching back and forth between Cruddace's Treadhead and Nerfer personas; this one uses the former largely because of the army that he himself plays - no really, he plays Howling Griffons! It is however an incredibly stable codex with fluff--although derived from the previous edition--is not terrible. There are some casualties (like the deletion of the Black Templars as their own, separate faction and subsequent amalgamation into the book), but there are some nifty bright spots, specifically the Chapter Tactics. Now you can choose from seven different chapters to play, each with their own unique strategies. Would be seen as a great codex if it wasn't for Heldrakes and Riptides, but technically that's not his fault (c'mon, the non-Space Marine players need some things to even the playing field).
• Due to GeeDubs deciding it would be a grand idea not to tell us who the author is any more, we no longer have a way of determining who else might fall victim to the ominous touch of the Cruddace.
• He's confirmed to have written the 6th Edition Tyranids Codex (aka, the book that nerfed an already fairly low tier army into complete uselessness) thanks to White Dwarf. Much Rage abound. Also makes you wonder why censoring the names of the authors was a good idea considering White Dwarf informed us of who wrote the book.
• We also know he's one of the three guys writing Warhammer 40,000 7th edition, getting second billing after Jervis Johnson.
• Given the style of writing and changes to the crunch (farewell Flickerfields and Vect being playable), he's the main suspect behind the 7th Edition Dark Eldar codex.

And then, Codex: Space Marines

When Cruddace was revealed as the writer of the new Codex: Space Marines, there was much moaning at how badly they were going to be nerfed. In amongst all the complaining about how stupid the Centurions looked, the doomsayers spoke of an age when Vanilla Marines would be amongst the worst Codices in the game.

And then, it was released, and there was much confusion.

Unlike Cruddace's Imperial Guard, or the Eldar and Tau Empire books that had been released recently, it wasn't overpowered against the others. Unlike Cruddace's Tyranids, or the recently produced Chaos Space Marines, it was neither underpowered nor monobuild. There was shock and confusion. For the first time in a long while, there was a Codex that was neither rape nor fail. It was... good.

The Chapter Tactics, whilst having some more powerful than others, were all valid choices that could have decent army lists written for them. The Black Templars took few casualties during the transfer. The fluff (with a few exceptions) was well-written and portrayed every Chapter faithfully (with the obvious exception being Ultra-wank in every non-Ultra Chapter's story). This combined with the continued nerfing of every non Imperium faction written by Robin has given reason to believe that he is now nothing more than Ward's whipping boy and sex slave. Most of the options in each slot could be taken in a good army list. It was good.

What this means for Cruddace is unknown. Is this a sign that his Codex-writing talents are changing? A flash of brilliance in the midst of stupidity? Selfish favoritism because they're an army he plays with? Or was it just Games Workshop looking over his shoulder to make sure he didn't harm their 40k Cash-cow/Creator's Pet faction?