Matthew Ward

This article is about something that is considered by the overpowering majority of /tg/ to be fail.
Expect huge amounts of derp and rage, punctuated by /tg/ extracting humor from it.

This article or section involves Matthew Ward, Spiritual Liege, who is universally-reviled on /tg/. Because this article or section covers Ward's copious amounts of derp and rage, fans of the 40K series are advised that if they proceed onward, they will see fluff and crunch violation of a level rarely seen.

Matthew Ward (Commonly known as Matt Ward) is a writer working for GW, as well as the world's single largest Ultrasmurfs fanboy.

There are few things so capable of inflicting apocalyptic rage in the 40k community at large than this man. He is as hated by Space Marine players as much as he is loathed by Chaos Marine players (not quite as much as Gav Thorpe for Chaos players who made any use whatsoever of Daemons/Cultists/Variant faction rules, however). Necrons are terrified that he may be the one in charge of their update. He is as reviled by Tyranid and Imperial Guard players as he is despised by Tau and Dark Eldar. Orks, Eldar, and other factions of the 41st Millennium may normally wish nothing but to murder each other into oblivion, but the one thing virtually all will unite upon is their blinding fucking hate of Matt Ward, a burning rage so potent that it would give an Angry Marine pause.

Take C. S. Goto and give him carte blanche to play with the setting of the 41st millennium. You now know why Matt Ward is hated.

Actually - Nix that. Read Ward's shit long enough and you can't even see too much wrong with Goto. I mean, he seems like he's trying to keep things in context, he's just very confused about it and happens to write one word when he meant another. He's got maybe a bit of an ego, sure, but Goto seems more like a newfag who refuses to admit he's a newfag, rather than someone who's decided that everyone has to indulge in his stupid fantasies. He has ruined literally every codex he has ever written, and every single army he's come into contact with has had its fluff raped, been turned into an unstoppable table-destroying death-army, or, more commonly, both.

He also makes a disturbing practice of having the Sisters of Battle get killed horribly, often for the stupidest of reasons, in just about every bit of fluff he can get his claws into, causing many to believe he does it as part of a bizarre, deviant sexual pathos - and he is believed by the bulk of /tg/ to be one seriously sick fuck.

Overview and Analysis

Email this image to Matt, make him rage.

There are two things Matt Ward is infamous for: atrocious fluff-writing that induces vomiting and making fucking broken rules sets for armies that turns them into table-flattening steamrollers by putting so much cheese that it accounts for about 80% of the entire army.

Your classic case of an ascended fanboy; Matt is a stereotypical over-promoted moron who chooses to change things not based on any respect or reverence for the franchise he works for, but rather to reflect his own personal agenda and how he feels things should be. Initially this was primarily what he was known for, but in more recent times he's gotten better with the crunch in exchange for creating fluff so horrifically stupid that it is worthy of C. S. Goto. Note that whilst his work on crunch has improved, he is known to add a bit of brain-igniting retardation here and there just because he sucks that badly.

In essence, /tg/ regards him as a living embodiment of every giant fuck-up Games Workshop has ever made.

Over hyping a single faction to the exclusion of all others, constantly blowing stories so far out of proportion that they lose all context or believability (especially in the face of previous fluff), constantly trying to one-up his last bullshit story with an even-less-believable story, and not really giving a damn about what any of the other players think of what he does, Matt's abuses have been so consistent and numerous that it has caused several posters on /tg/ to say that Matt Ward is the herald of the impending demise of Warhammer 40k - as if he were one of the horsemen of the apocalypse, riding ahead on an endless wave of Space Marine releases that will inexorably alienate every player of every single faction - both those being updated and not - until each give up in disgust and rage and leave the hobby.

In some anti-Ward threads, someone (whom much of /tg/ strongly believes to be Ward himself - and there's considerable evidence to support this theory), has begun claiming that everybody is just hopping on-board a Matt Ward hate-bandwagon. There's even a picture of a bunch of anons riding on a wagon with Ward's face on it, blaming Ward for everything from the Judean People's Front to head lice.

To be fair: It is undeniably true that /tg/ hates Ward so much that most of us are willing to blame anything on him - the man is basically Satan to every fa/tg/uy who used to love the 40k fluff. However, the fact that the defender(s) of Ward are referring to the hate of Matt Ward as "bandwagoning" is extremely telling - how widely-hated does a man have to be, and how deeply-loathed before people feel the need to identify themselves as non-conformist groups of Matt Ward Not-Haters? The answer, of course, is obvious to anyone browsing /tg/: at this time, there are no remaining Ward sympathizers; at best there are indifferent/neutral parties who have accepted Ward's various crimes and who hope to move on with their lives and start families some day.

For an accurate, if satirical portrait of the man, examine Who Watches Them?

Gallery of Disaster

Artist's rendition of the Ultramarines honouring their True Spirtual Liege. Also: Proof that Rawbutt Girlyman was a transvestite.

Below is an ongoing list of Matt Ward's considerable fucktardedness in a concise, easy-to-read format. Feel free to add further examples...

Responsible for the Warhammer Fantasy Battles Daemon Codex, which is considered by most players to be the single most game-breaking army list in WHFB history. Matt purportedly set the codex up to be this cheese specifically because he felt Daemons should just be awesome like that. Completely shattered the general game balance and is largely considered the reason he's not allowed to write codices for WHFB anymore.

Responsible for the widely-ridiculed and openly-despised Fifth Edition version of Codex: Space Marines, which is basically a Codex full of Ultramarines fanfiction, portraying the Ultramarines as second to the Emprah in damned-near all regards, and that all Space Marines view Roboute Guilliman as their spiritual liege. Even in the face of their own Primarchs. Any who don't are clearly deviants on their way out, no matter how they outnumber the Ultramarines. In some cases, certain special characters are "rumored" to rival (if not exceed) the motherfucking Emperor's power. Did we mention that Matt Ward plays Ultramarines?

The tale of the Blood Angels and their Necron butt buddies

Responsible for the equally-ridiculed and openly-despised Fifth Edition release of Codex: Blood Angels, which brought us the cheese of deep-striking Land Raiders and Flying Librarian Dreadnoughts, both two of the most absolutely broken things ever put to tabletop, and proof that Games Workshop hasn't learned a fucking thing from the WHFB Daemon Codex disaster. The resulting bullshit from this Codex has made players nostalgic for when Necron march of doom and Fish of Fury were the extent of their problems. Don't worry though, he ruined the fluff, too: He's also responsible for the fluff in the aforementioned Codex that has caused /tg/ to announce that the Blood Angels and Necrons are totally Super Secret Pony Princess Unicorn Best Friends Forever, seeing as how Matt Ward depicts the two factions teaming up to take down the Tyranids and then peacefully parting ways afterwards.

Created the atrocious Codex: Grey Knights, which is so bad as to get its own entry below.

Is ~~allegedly~~ going to be doing the upcoming Codex: Black Templars. Considering the Black Templars were one of the chapters who told Rowboat Girlyman to take his codex and shove it (along with the Space Wolves and Raven Guard), and Matt's long-standing tradition of fucking over anyone who dares disparage his spiritual liege, one wonders how hard Matt Ward is going to screw the Templars over.

Is allegedly going to be doing the "Sisters of Battle" update in an upcoming issue of White Dwarf. Fear and cringe people.

Is rumored to be the one to write the Codex: Necrons. Since the Necrons managed to defeat the Ultramarines in a battle once, and the fact that Matt Ward will pretty much fuck over everything he writes about, the Necrons stood in silent horror. Ohh yeah, did we forget to mention that he had the Blood Angels team up with a Necron tombworld to destroy a hive fleet of Tyranids and then they just peacefully parted afterwards? This really begs the question as to what the fuck is going on in Ward's head- does he hate the crap out of Necrons because they dare trump his Ultramarines, or does he have a secret hard-on for them since he made them best friends for life with the Blood Angels?

Codex: Grey Knights

As of February 27, 2011, he was found to be writing the Grey Knights codex. /tg/ cringed in horror.

One big question about writing this codex was, if the Ultramarines (his favorite chapter) are already the best out there and their fluff is overdone to the point of inciting Khorne Berserker-esque rage from Reasonable Marines, how the hell is Matt going to write about the Grey Knights, a chapter that is literally, in canon, the best of the fucking best?

A bit of leaked fluff gave us the answer: he'll do it like the total fucking asshole that he is.

Gray Knights roam around carving their names in the daemon hearts of daemon primarchs, an act unthinkable until Matt Ward said that it was done. They burned down the gardens of Nurgle, killed Greater Daemons on their own turf, and destroyed Daemon Worlds, all in the warp. Did we say "they"? In reality, it was just one Grey Knight. Yup, Ward thought that a single Grey Knight could do all of this single fucking handedly. However, most of /tg/ believes that this is because Matt Ward wasn't allowed to bring Roboute Guilliman back into the storyline, so he instead decided to make said Grey Knight into an avatar of Rowboat Girlyman.

He also undid 10+ years of canon in stating that Grey Knights armies can take Daemonhosts, which are daemonically-possessed individuals capable of using extremely powerful psychic powers. Formerly these units were the exclusive property of Radical Inquisitors (and the only real advantage they had to be perfectly frank), and Grey Knights rather notoriously had nothing but hatred for these creatures. Making things all the more fun, Matt removed Daemonhunters as Allies and Inducted Force rules - ergo ensuring that Daemonhunter armies that relied on not-Grey Knights were left with no choice but to buy all-new models or go for dramatically-weaker force compositions.

Oh, and there's also Khornate Knights, which kind of deserves its own entry. Apparently, Matt Ward thinks that the Grey Knights should be susceptible to falling to Chaos. Yes sir, that's decades of canon sodomized and thrown away in just one officially canon story.

Apparently, Grey Knights have no problems with Radical Inquisitors using Daemon Weapons now. Also gone is the "reasons that the Ordo Malleus may fight this faction" list, which was well-suited to lighter games and for those setting up campaigns, furthering the meme that the entire new Codex was nothing more than an "I Win at Everything Forever" tournament-level army list.

Finally, he gave them Exosuits that are worn in tandem with their power armor after watching the climax to Aliens. Even the Tau winced and looked away in horror.

Which, when combined with his utter disregard for previous editions wording on entries about the personal teleporter (unit type becomes jump infantry) means at least a few wankers will be trying to cite the teleporter Dreadknight, blathering on about RAW, as jump infantry for purposes of cramming it in a Stormraven. Complete. Fucking. Bullshit.

That sound you heard was your brain shifting without the clutch. Like everything Matt Ward produces, it's stupid, ignorant, makes no sense, and gives a giant "go fuck yourself" to the WH40K community; meaning it's exactly what we've all come to expect out of Matt "I'm a Giant Faggot" Ward.

Sadly, it wasn't just the fluff. The crunch is nearly as bad.

Grey Knight Marines that, at twenty points a pop, are nearly triple the cost-effectiveness of any other marines. Feel No Pain on two-wound Terminators. Commanders out-CREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEED-ing Creed and being able to scout d3 units as opposed to one (though The Grey Knights can't scout vehicles, while Creed can). Rad Grenades which reduce the defending squad's toughness by one for the round, and which are factored for instant death, unlike almost any other toughness-affecting items (Mark of Nurgle for example, but there are a few exceptions), basically guaranteeing that a GK unit wins combat in most circumstances.

Also, this imbecile made available wargear for thwarting Plasma weapons, since that was apparently "too good" against Terminators for Matt Ward. Bearing in mind that Imperial factions make up a sizable portion of 50% or so of the player-base (Chaos Marines, Space Marines, Imperial Guard, etc.), the effect of this item also covers Tau plasma weapons, which means the usual means for popping high-value jackasses like Terminators with Crisis Suits no longer is viable. Further, the text doesn't specifically state whether or not it affects weapons other than the obvious Plasma Pistol/Rifle/Cannon options - after all, plasma isn't a rules-specific quality of a weapon like Melta - meaning that the effect could theoretically apply to Tyranid Bio-Plasma and roughly 75% of the Tau arsenal, including but not limited to: Pulse Rifles, Pulse Carbines, Burst Cannons...

As of the June 7th Grey Knights FAQ, this is no longer theoretical. Clearly, Matt Ward wrote the errata.

Regardless of what weapons get affected, the result is the same - ~~the unit with the Plasma Syphon and any allied unit within 12" treats all plasma shots fired at it/them as if they were BS1, ergo making Plasma weapons virtually useless~~Learn to read rules, ya git. It's *if the Inquisitor is within 12" of an enemy unit, said unit has BS 1 with plasma...~~by then the game's decided anyway~~ It can be in range in one turn - even spammy ones like the Leman Russ Executioner - against a solid Grey Knight list, and removing what is otherwise one of the few tried-and-proven weapons to counter Terminators from consideration. To put that in perspective, you may reasonably expect an Ordos Xenos Inquisitor equipped with this to be able to survive a shot from a Stormblade and guard a bunch of Terminators from the same. The entire force comprises units that pack Force Weapons, ergo guaranteeing that armies that rely on big, scary, multi-wound models are at a complete disadvantage, thus fucking over Nidzilla and Chaos Daemons completely.

TL;DR: The only armies consistently able to beat the new army list are ~~mass-heavy armies (Orks, Blobanids, Guard)~~ (hahaha Purifiers), ones loaded with Poison (Dark Eldar) and other Grey Knights.

The Damning Evidence

Indisputable proof that Matt Ward is going to a very special place in Hell when he dies.

Still not convinced that Matt Ward needs to be stopped? Just turn to page 48 in your copy of Codex: Space Marines and read the title you find at the top of the page:

The Zeist Campaign

That's right. Matt Ward put a fucking reference to Highlander 2: The Quickening into the Space Marines codex. That's how much he hates you. Hate him back.

Trivia

Matt Ward in his fortress of solitude, jerking off to Ultramarines Porn.

He is believed to be the pen-name of C. S. Goto. You didn't think his works were this bad by coincidence, did you?
/tg/ has an ongoing betting pool on how long it's going to be before some enraged Neckbeard tries to kill him. Hopefully, it won't be long now, and someone reduces this fucktard into a pile of steaming gore.

Matt Ward was responsible for the death of squats.
Long-time Ultramarines players affiliated with Games Workshop, such as Matt Hudson, reportedly strongly disagreed with Matt Ward's fanboyism and tried to stop it, to no avail.
/tg/ also has an ongoing betting pool on whether or not the would-be assassin will, in fact, be an Ultramarines player (who didn't play the UM because of the "Spiritual Liege"), enraged by what Matt Ward caused.
Ergo Matt Hudson has 2:1 odds on being Matt Ward's assassin.
He has thus far destroyed every single codex whose fluff he has touched, and often left ridiculously-imbalanced shit in its wake. ~~Should the new Grey Knights Codex be as bullshit as Codex: Blood Angels was, Matt Ward will thus far be 4 for 4 in making books unilaterally loathed by the community.~~ Nevermind, Matt Ward is universally hated now.
His name, "Matthew," is spelled with two of the letter 't'. This is because the 't' stands for "terrible".
Matt Ward is actually a writhing pile of maggots hidden in a suit of human skin. The maggots lay eggs in the food around the Games Workshop offices, and when they hatch the tiny creatures burrow straight into the brains of anyone unfortunate enough to have eaten them. This is why he still has a job writing codices.
He regularly prowls /tg/, acting as the one guy in every thread rolling in a sea of hatred for Matt Ward who will actually take the time to defend Matt Ward. Normally, he is spotted and recognized instantly by every other poster.
Matt Ward's office contains a wall of posters declaring his greatness to himself. See picture at right.
In a decade, Matt Ward will have delusions of grandeur so large he will actually write himself into the fluff as the reincarnated Emperor. This will be what finally makes all the races of 40k unite in the face of such unspeakable evil. With luck, this will finally get GW to stop letting him write shit, retcon EVERYTHING he wrote out of existence, issue an order that anyone who starts to follow that path again will be fired, and perhaps move the plot along.
He has also managed to fuck up growing facial hair.
Has managed to strike terror into the soulless Necron forces by being rumored to be in charge of writing their codex.
Some speculate that Matt Ward's rampant faggatry will be the catalyst for change in the WH40K universe, where his horrid 'dex writing skills will eventually affect GW's profits and the board of directors will eventually boot his fat ass off the company and GW will then start making WH40K awesome again by re-writing the codices Ward ruined for the better and actually progressing the storyline to attract the old crowd again. Another is that the board of directors will still ignore him and WH40K will eventually degrade into Ultramarinehammer 40K and 99% of it's playerbase will quit the damn game, leaving WH40K to rot and be but another obscure tabletop game that's played for nostalgia's sake.
GAMES WORKSHOP, LISTEN TO YOUR SWEATY NECKBEARD CUSTOMERS: GET. RID. OF. MATT. WARD.
If you see Matt Ward in person, break his fingers. Show /tg/ your paypal account. Profit.
Matt Ward seems to have a religious fetish of hating on any chapter that dared give his Spiritual Liege the finger, and as such, he openly dicks the Black Templars and Raven Guard in any work they appear in that he has any creative control over.
It's also possible he hates those because their armor is black and Matt is a closet racist.
- He also appears to be behind the decision to change the Salamanders from a chapter that just happened to be made up of black people - as in the only people who might be of African origin in the setting- into coal black mutants with red eyes. So, black skin is now a sign of a genetic defect in 40K, inferior to the geneseed of the pure, white (often skinhead) Ultramarines...
Matt Ward seems to have Sisters of Battle getting butchered a lot in his fluff.
Given his aforementioned possible racism and hatred of the Sisters of Battle, experts on /tg/ strongly suggest that Matt Ward may, in fact, be Chris-Chan.
Long-time and much-loved Ultramarines writer Graham McNeill tried to correct some of the utter retardation Ward had inflicted on the chapter in the novel Chapter's Due, which brought the Ultramarines down from Mary Sue status, had them take major losses, and had them being forced to get help from the Adeptus Mechanicus and Raven Guard to fight off 17,000 traitor marines attacking Ultramar. It was fucking awesome and was a well-done example of humanizing the Ultramarines - but it managed to infuriate Matt Ward. In his next codex Ward threw in a small moment about the daemon M'Kar - writing how he was in an entirely different part of the galaxy trying to corrupt Mephiston at the same time he was supposedly attacking Ultramar as well as alive and well rather than being stabbed to death by Calgar. In summary: Ward fought the best effort so far to correct the Mary Sue bullshit brought upon the Ultramarines by Ward himself, and attempted to get the entire thing declared non-canon.
Secretly, beneath his many layers of salt encrusted shirts, Ward's body is covered in luxurious thick orange fur.
He is the chief economic advisor for Games Workshop, and is therefore responsible for every unpopular price hike and declination in services GW has wrought upon the community in recent history.
He is also the director in charge of deciding which army gets updated next, which is why 5th edition has seen nothing but Space Marine updates. Since he is working on Necrons, odds are likely that they will be retconned into Alien Robot Space Marines (by retconning away the Imperium's hatred of AIs and Aliens enough for his fantasies to work) so they can praise the Ultramarines as their spiritual liege. And then all Space Marines will have Gauss Flayers instead of Bolters, Gauss blasters rather than heavy bolters, Heavy Gauss Cannons rather than Las-Cannons, Gauss Cannons, Twin-linked gauss flayers rather than stormbolters, they'll all get We'll be back, living metal rules for all of their vehicles, warscythes and other such Necrons goodies (that will then have their weaknesses such as short ranged removed and get auto-kills/penetrating hits on 6s rather than just auto-wounds/glancing hits which they'll get on 3+s), thus making them bullshittingly overpowered. (A Predator Annihilator with twin linked heavy gauss cannons, a twin-linked gauss flayer, and two gauss blasters with longer range and living metal rules? Thought monstrosities like this could only stay in your nightmares? ~~HA HA HA HA HA HA!~~ This is not a laughing matter.)
If you've been having trouble getting a date lately, it's because Matt Ward secretly travels to the manufacturing facilities that produce your models at night. He sprays the final products with a pheromone that makes you subtly less attractive to the opposite gender, the effects of which can last for weeks or even months if you don't bathe regularly and go to the gym.
Matt Ward is actually made of pure, concentrated skub. This is clear from his ability to induce RAEG by so much as breathing, eating, sleeping or farting.
When Matt Ward farts, a new Codex is born.

Why the Hate?

Hating Matt Ward on /tg/ is almost so universal it's painful these days. Although his fluff writing skills are beyond terrible, he has been improving as far as writing balanced codices go (arguably). Hence, one begs the question, why all the unfettered rage? Can't /tg/ just ignore his fluff and play the game for what it is? Why not just make up your own fluff and ignore the guy?

The problem with Matt Ward is a touch complicated, but the biggest issue is the way he writes the fluff. For many, as can be seen by the plethora of /tg/ made chapters here on 1d4chan, the true appeal of 40k is designing a unique, colorful army with a rich history and engaging heroes. A good player of 40k likes to put a certain amount of himself in his lovingly assembled and painted armies, and he likes his army to reflect his own sensibilities and his own ideals. That's what makes an army truly belong to a player – that's what makes them special.

Matt Ward takes those elements away from the player. The biggest rage-inducing codex he has made thus far is the Ultramarines codex, which explicitly stated that all chapters, excluding a few "abhorrent", behave and think in exactly the same manner as his army – Ultramarines, his chosen faction. He spelled out the organization patterns, the ideologies, who they revere and why, and then proceeded to tell the community at large that if they don't do it that way, then they're making their army wrong.

Players can still make their own factions, but with Ward's fluff, they'll always be bearing a black mark: the flaw of being unlike Ward's army. The flaw of being unique and of following a set of ideals that don't match Ward's. The flaw is canonized and inescapable, and Ward enforces it in all his writing with sincerity and vigor.

Even this would not be so much of a problem if it weren't for the fact that Ward just doesn't appear to be, well, very smart or insightful. Either that, or he doesn't seem particularly well-educated in what he writes. His ideas on what makes good warfare and tactics seem based around the idea that might is right and strength equates victory. His grasp of the subtle nuances of conflict and managing people revolve around things far displaced from reality. Ward's heroes lead head first, sacrificing all in frontal assaults that could be circumvented with more ingenuity.

Whilst there is such a thing as a front-line general, the fact is that all of his heroes are like that, and ones that aren't seem both vague and unfocused. Furthermore, Matt does a lot of telling rather than showing. He tells us that Marneus Calgar is a patient tactical genius who considers the danger of an incoming projectile before taking cover. The image painted in the average person's mind in that case is one of Calgar analyzing a falling bomb until it strikes him in the head and explodes, at which point he decides, “Yes, that one was dangerous, I probably should have taken cover from that one".

The biggest offender of Matt's “tell not show” policy is Kaldor Draigo, the Grey Knights' supreme grand master, who's main personality trait is “badass”. Without rhyme, reason, or feasible explanation, Draigo simply exists as this whirlwind of enemy-destroying fiction in his codex. He pops in and out of the Warp, wrecking everything everywhere without so much a minute of exposition or explanation. Draigo is a concept – a meaningless one without any emotional impact. He's not a person or anything to which the average man can relate. Ward has simply declared him the best ever, and he has done so in canon, so it is so.

So Ward is hated for these among other reasons. He yanks the floorboards out from underneath your army, telling you that you're playing the game wrong and giving your army the wrong characteristics, and then shoves a handful of nothing against your chest, insisting that, yes, this is what you've been missing all along. He's that jerk that leans over your shoulder, breathing heavily and telling you where to move your guys. He's that sweaty asshole that cheats on his dice rolls because he's not there to drink beer and chat with you. He's that complete moron in the room that everyone pegs as a sucker, and he's the only one who doesn't realize he's not a genius. Matt Ward is that guy. Yes, that guy.

TL;DR

This is how Matt Ward views Spess Mehreens.

Matthew Ward is made of skub and derp, wrote four Codices which are all rightfully skub, and Geims Werkshoop appears to have no intention of stopping him, which is strange considering that even the ever necrotic GW board of directors should have noticed that their profits and fanbase have been sliding steadily downward since Matt Ward came in. ~~HOW DARE YOU COMPARE SKUB AND WARD!? How dare you soil the image of Derp?!~~ The only two beings anywhere that are rightfully skub-level rage generators are this twit or Goto.

~~Add your name to this list to help stop him.~~ lol internet petitions do absolutely dick.

Hey Matt Ward

Macragge heresy

Gallery of Fail

Matt Ward masturbates furiously to this every single night.
~~The most broken army list in 40k to date.~~ Not since Grey Knights.
This Marine has the right idea.
THIS PLEASES HIM
Coming to a Codex near you.
This is believed to be true.
Actual Grey Knight unit.
Spiritual Liege.
So tsun-tsun~
Every time Matt Ward smiles a pony gets gonorrhea.

Every time Matt Ward smiles a pony gets gonorrhea.
Some ponies get other ideas, though...