Matthew Ward
 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. |
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Matt Ward is GW's lead marketer in charge of the kid demographic, as such he is charged to change armies to make them have less depth and be more understandable and "cooler" to obnoxious fat kids. Necrons and Blood Angels alliance? Check! Grey knights + Daemonhosts? Check! Matt Ward is the embodiment of GW's greed and non-respect of veteran and mature players. You'd expect them to answer something like: "That's retarded" to "Dude, I'm gonna make Grey Knights carve their names into the heart of daemons they kill!", but no, instead they say things like: "Sure! And why don't you create one that puts the Emperor's work to shame too?". Fortunatly, they can't put him to work on every codex.
Summary
"It would be a shame if it wasn't."
-Matt Ward responding to Daemons of Chaos criticism about it being overpowered.
Wargamers, especially in ones with particularly active communities like that of Warhammer 40K, are a rough crowd, and have a reputation as being unpleasable dickbags. This is, of course, not factual: Cursory examination of the likes of /tg/ shows that they can, actually, be very easy to please; just give them decent army updates that don't ruin shit and you'll generally have pleased fans, especially for veteran players. On the other hand, occasionally you have fluff and crunch writers who just don't get it, or, more commonly, who never should have been given custody of a codex or gameplay update in the first place.
Many are these: Gav Thorpe will never live down the hatred of Chaos Space Marines players everywhere for removal of options and general tactical-blunting of the Chaos army list. Robin Cruddace is now synonymous with the cluster-fuck that is the current Tyranid codex, resulting in its current, dramatically-underpowered state. C.S. Goto will be forevermore remembered for Multilasers on every vehicle and Land Raiders that transform into Razorbacks in under a page and a half.
To be fair to all involved: Thorpe and Cruddace generally do extremely good work when not assigned to armies that they neither play nor are terribly interested in, and have written considerable awesome fluff and crunch. Goto may be the literary equivalent of shitting on a typewriter, but most of his shit can be easily ignored, because he's not writing crunch and generally can be completely written off without consequence.
There is an exception to this, however, and his name is Matt Ward. No writer Games Workshop has ever, and quite possibly will ever truly be as maligned, distrusted, or flat-out hated by the community (especially /tg/) as Matt Ward. The reasons behind this furious dislike are manifold and to the observer, bizarre; many long-time fans of Warhammer 40,000 hate the man to the point of almost cartoonish charicturization, which by no means makes the true source of their malice easy to observe. In truth, the Ward-hate is a complicated issue, and one far more so than many are willing to admit. Quite on the contrary, it's quite simple. He's bad. It's easy to understand that in any company, there are good and bad employees. In this case, Phil is good and Matt is bad. Couldn't get less complicated than that. You see, there are people who will defend everyone, hoping that everyone gets along and dance holding flowers in a wheat field, and people who will see the truth and hope shit gets done about bad situations.
To Ward's credit, he is not a monolithic bogeyman intent on the destruction of all that is awesome in the Warhammer universe - but you'd be very hard-pressed to tell many of the veterans of the community this. A polarizing force like none other, the mere mention of this man working on a codex is enough to get /tg/ to break out in hives and descend into burning piles of troll and derp for several pages. What can make one writer such a polarizing force? Is this just one more example of /tg/ proving it can be just as retarded as every other board when it needs to be?
The answers to these questions and more will be answered, soon enough. right now:
-He's a bad writer.
-Yes.
Factions of Ward
The various viewpoints on Ward can be broken up into six factions. Like most of /tg/'s inter-departmental-bickering, this is by no means a comprehensive list and the various factions can come in various flavors of This Guy and That Guy. Some would argue more of the latter, and others more of the former.
The Old Guard - Maintain that Ward is the anti-Christ. Loudly complain when he's writing a new codex and vehemently hates his fluff. Will fight to the bitter end decrying that Ward's rules are overpowered, but is notable mostly for his utter hatred of Ward's fluff and completely disregard of previously-established canon. The most devout of them focus their hatred on the new Necron codex. More than simple alterations isolated to the Necron fluff and the 6th ed codex. They vehemently argue that in messing with the past, Ward had changed Warhammer 40k history in total, affecting such things as the origins of Nulls, Necron motivation, their battles with the Eldar, and due to the notorious Allies chart, changing the very manner in which every race interacts.
The Vet Gamer - Differs from the Old Guard in that whilst the Old Guard hates for primarily the Fluff, the Vet Gamers hate him for the Crunch. They see ward's nonsense as indicative of the power creep that the game's suffered for quite some time, often citing Warhammer 40K's flagrantly game-breaking Blood Angels codex at launch, or Warhammer Fantasy's Daemons codex as a sign of where everything went wrong.
The Indifferent - These are people who have no opinion as to whether Ward is good or bad, they are neutral on his subject, they just want people to shut the fuck up.
The Crunch Defenders - Hold that while Matt Ward does write atrocious fluff, his crunch is fair and balanced. They also defend the viewpoint that ultimately, crunch is more important than fluff because you can ignore bad fluff. Also known as WAAC players.
The Counter-Culture - Love Ward on the grounds that the Old Guard hate him too much. /tg/'s version of hipsters.
The Converted These are people who agree Ward's older books suck but believe he's getting better (and/or the suck of the older books were over exaggerated), or even a good writer now.
The Wardinites - The direct opposite of the Old Guard, the Wardinites worship Ward as a God, following the revered Book of Ward. They are identified by defending Ward, but whereas Crunch Defenders only defend Crunch, Wardinites defend both. Whereas the Counter-Culture like him because it makes them look "edgy", the Wardinites hold that he is legitimately good. Often quotes from the Book of Ward, usually: "From the Cruddex, and the monobuild, Matthew Ward deliver us". They hold Robin Cruddace as the Great Satan. It is suspected that the Wardinites have a strong powerbase in the Necrons and Tyranid communities.
It should be noted, like most religions, there are different sects within the Cult of Ward, the theological divides between them mostly concerning Codex: Grey Knights. The sects supporting Grey Knights are also divided amongst pro- and anti-draigo sects. And now recently these sects have become even more diverse thanks to a certain passage in the new Daemons codex...
It should be noted that if a member of the Old Guard and a member of the Cult of Ward meet, there WILL be blood spilled. Such is also true of a Vet Gamer and Crunch Defender meeting.
Excerpts from the Book of Ward
From the Cruddex
And the Monobuild
Mathew Ward deliver us.
-Main prayer
But Mighty Ward cannot be everywhere at once, for the Cruddace is evil and devious!
The Beneficent Phil Kelly helps Ward, but the Cruddace is a dastardly trickster!
So then it is, that some codices must be sacrificed to the Ravages of the Cruddace.
But do not mourn for the Burdened, theirs is a holy task, and the Burdened who endure will be reborn into the Kingdom of Ward.
And to mock the Burdened for their troubles is to invite damnation into the Kingdom of Crud for your arrogance.
-Book of Ward, chapter 4, Verses 17-21.
Introduction
There are two things Matt Ward is infamous for: atrocious fluff-writing that induces vomiting and broken army rule sets that turns them into table-flattening steamrollers. There's nothing uniquely Wardian about either of these things, and from an outsider's perspective it can be hard to tell why /tg/ has singled him out for vilification. Games Workshop has been systematically introducing power creep ever since they figured out they could make people buy a new army every year, and the fluff has been rewritten so many times there's basically nothing original left (and really does anybody want to remember second edition? Other than /tg/, we mean). No, its not what Ward has done in service to his dark masters, but how. We hate the zeal with which he's embraced GW's desire to rebrand everything 40k as X-treme and simplistic, the eagerness with which he turns the cheese wheel for each new release, the shamelessness of his trampling on canon.
In essence, /tg/ regards him as a living embodiment of every giant fuck-up Games Workshop has ever made. If this seems unusual to you, it shouldn't; it's rare anything manages to remain this much of an issue for this long with /tg/, and even though Ward himself has gone on to make decent Codexes with good fluff and crunch, his legendary-reputation remains... With justifications ranging from spot-on to spurious. Short of Will Wheaton being put in charge of a Dark Eldar update that gives them AV14 units and removes Darklances, it seems unlikely that Ward is ever going to be dethroned as the single most hated writer Games Workshop has... And after the likes of the Cruddacenids, Thorpe Chaos Codex, and Goto in general, that's one hell of an accomplishment.
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 actively retconning out contemporary writers who he disagrees with, Matt's abuses are pretty much what /tg/'s come to expect from Games Workshop.
On one hand, Ward himself may simply be a target of convenience; again, his more recent works are infinitely better and can generally be considered to be quite good. Unfortunately his earlier works and some of his more recent ones are only too vivid in players' minds, and with the updates to sixth edition and various armies he's come into contact with, he's certainly not done himself any favors. Some individuals, whom experts believe come from off-site believe Ward to be far more than he really is - the source of all the problems - which has only conflated an already complicated and frankly bugfuck insane situation further. Several others, either supportive of Ward or, more commonly, sick of the shit, claim that the younger fa/tg/uys and ca/tg/irls are just hopping on-board a Matt Ward hate-bandwagon. There's even a suitably-derpy 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 headlice.
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. Is there something deeper at work here? It's more likely than not just because Ward's just one of countless dorks being paid minimum wage by Games Workshop to churn out bullshit. GW's oppressive staffing policy prevent GW Design Studio staff from even having a Facebook page, so it's not as if he's going to defend himself on the matter.
In the end, Ward himself remains a polarizing force to this very day. Fluff/Crunch debacles have stained much of what he's worked on in original sin, as has accusations towards misogyny, even as he's worked towards putting out better work - many, even on /tg/, will defend his updates to the Necrons (or would until 6th Edition turned them into table-destroying rape-machines). But by the same vein, most of his most egregious offenses cannot be overlooked by veterans, and even newcomers to the hobby have found giant flaming problems with his earlier fluff and crunch.
In the end, it matters little. /tg/ has components that love the guy, hate the guy, and a sizable portion that just don't give a shit and would prefer they both shut the fuck up and post Monstergirl porn.
TL;DR: Another great example of /tg/ being /tg/.
A History of Violence
2002 - 2007
- Ward authors a bunch of Lord of the Rings books. Revisionist neckbeards now like to point to them as damning proof of Ward's madness in its infancy, but mostly they're just forgettable. During this time, he also worked for White Dwarf, his only real defining feature being his fondness for playing the evil armies in battle reports. In hindsight, this was probably a sign of things to come. He also creates the rules for the Mumak, the most fucking ridiculous unit ever, which can destroy entire armies in it's movement. The Mumak is eventually revealed to be so broken (and included in an army that already had it's share of cheese) that it signals the beginning of the end for the Lord of the Rings system. This, and Wards creepy fetish for Evil heralds the evil to come.... Don't forget 7th edition Orcs and Goblin book(Where with his crass ignorance writes that during Waaagh!Gorbad there were Magic Colleges!)
2008
- Ward's descent into skub and infamy begins with Army Book: Daemons of Chaos, a work of such apocalyptic cheese mongering it is widely credited for single-handedly breaking WHFB while simultaneously reinventing large portions of its fluff. No army could come close to beating it (Dark Elves and Vampire Counts, accepted as 2nd and 3rd powerful in the rankings, generally had to struggle to grab DRAWS!) and the failing attempts at Power Creep to match eventually broke the entire system so hard that Fantasy required a hard reset in the form of the massive shakeup that was 8th edition. Most people write it off as an overeager premier, and whether this was Ward's own work or management fiat remains a point of conjecture.
- Ward is instrumental in the creation of the Warhammer 40,000 Rulebook, 5th Edition rulebook. While the crunch is more or less accepted, much of the fluff openly contradicts previous works (sisters being all but retconned out of the universe for example), and there's considerable attempts to promote certain armies over the others.
- Ward writes Codex: Space Marines for 5th edition. Thousands of neckbeards cry out in terror, and are silenced. While he manages to make this work mechanically stable, it comes at a terrible cost: Ward unilaterally decides to retcon massive amounts of Space Marine fluff and enshrine the Ultramarines as the gold standard for a "proper" space marine. The new fluff reads like Ultramarines fanfic, portraying the smurfs as second to the Emprah in damned-near all regards, and that all Space Marines view Rowboat Girlyman as their spiritual liege. It is about this time that Ward's prejudices against certain chapters start to emerge for the first time.
2009
- Ward writes "War of the Ring", basically Apocalypse for Lord of the Rings and the basis for some of the new rules in the 8th edition of Fantasy, which will help clean up after the mistakes of Daemons of Chaos. The book isn't bad, but the fact the Lord of the Ring's hasn't been popular since 2001-2003, cheesy heroes and units on certain sides (Elves for example) and the fact the book is full of mistakes makes the game easily one sided and boring. Ward is sent back to writing 40k and Fantasy, where his abilities are no better.
2010
- Ward doubles down on his Heresy with Codex: Blood Angels. Any and all pretense of restraint is dropped and the codex is loaded with deep striking Land Raiders, flying librarian dreadnoughts, and ICs that can rip Abaddon's head off and shit down his neck. The fluff, while not the hate crime against neckbeards his previous work was, still manages to inspire rage by having the Necrons and Blood Angels become Super Secret Pony Princess Unicorn Best Friends Forever (if only temporarily). As fate would have it, this work will not survive the next edition too well and the Necrons team-up does make sense, though it heralds terrible precedents for things to come...
2011
- Ward gives birth to Codex: Grey Knights, fusing the awful fluff and limitless cheese of his two previous works into a single abomination. While Psyflemen sweep tournament after tournament, writefags rage impotently about Kaldor Draigo, Khornate Knights, and the unapologetic rape of over ten years of canon.
- Ward co-authors the new White Dwarf release of Codex: Sisters of Battle. He shows incredible restraint in not turning the codex into another creepy sisters snuff-fic like his previous works, but compensates by basically reverting the Witch Hunters to 2E. The force org chart is gutted out, allies are removed, and the best strategies are promptly eliminated (with a bit of help from the nerfer in chief Robin Cruddance).
- Ward next turns his fell hand to the Necron. He ups the ante again by completely rewriting their backstory, presumably while humming to himself with a shit eating grin plastered to his face. The crons are now insane Tomb Kings, IN SPAAAACE, who want your body. Oh and they turned the C'tan into pokemon. Yea. Mechanics-wise the release fares surprisingly well, trading away some of the more egregious cheese of 3E (Monolith Death March) in order to eliminate its shittiest design flaws (Phase Out) Except that it apparently changes Necrons to the point that it would've been easier to change their name altogether and you know... some people could've taken up Necrons because they liked them as they were. Anyway, in its few improvements, the fluff manages to dodge Matt Ward's greatest flaw.
2012
- Matt Ward
teams up withquietly disposes of Adam Troke and Jeremy Vetock to create Wardhammer 40,000 6th Edition. The whole rulebook promptly turns Codexes: Necrons and Grey Knights into rape trains with no brakes. Every single fa/tg/uy instantly regrets ever thinking the Space Tomb Kings were balanced in the first place. We're talking cheese like 9 fliers in a 1500pt list with flying dedicated transports that don't kill passengers when they crash!! What the fuck. Among other rage-worthy things of note include massive Buffs to already broken beyond reason armies, highly abusable mechanics resulting in severely limited builds for HQ choices (tool for challenges or suffer!) and the Space Marine segments of the fluff being full of yet more Matt Ward Porno.
2013
- According to a rumor, Matt Ward is apparently set to make a Codex for the Orks, and the same rumors also suggested he could be updating the Tyranids and the Dark Elves. Be afraid. Be very afraid.
- Matt Ward rewrites Army Book: Daemons of Chaos. Many neckbeards commit suicide before the official product announcement is out, to save themselves from the predicted cheese. Many Fantasy
Daemon players (They exist?)power gamers also ritually sacrifice themselves, in anticipation of a gargantuan nerfing. In the book, Matt Ward nerfs all the good units of the previous codex, so they become unplayable, puts a lot of random effects, random magic items, no dispel scroll available, and does things such as taking one of the worst units of the previous book (beast of burgle), improve it and reduce its cost by 40 points/each, or giving daemons the best cannon of the game, while he also gives them a "burning charriot" which does not have flaming attacks at all. - He's responsible for the High Elves update. A number of the new units include extremely costly (40 eurobucks for 10 dudes!) and expensive to paint infantry (if GW's best painters have a bad time with "fire" effects, what chance does an average neckbeard have?), derpy new monsters (Firebird! Icebird! We couldn't add a lightning bird as well because Nintendo would sue us!) and a flying chariot pulled by a bird (the chariot itself flies because it's magic). Nerdrage all around. But it also solves a few op problems on the High Elves like the "everytime we cast it's Irresistible Forces" and the "we strike first with fricking great weapons". Also this was probably just a balancing thing and not on the account of Matt Ward, to compensate that balance, Matt Ward gives HE a magic banner providing a 2+ Ward save versus magic attacks (all daemon's attacks) to a whole unit, in a nice rock-paper-scissor way. Ultimately one of Ward's better books, as it's mostly mechanically stable, the fluff is good (although how much credit he can take for that is debatable, given that it's the same basic fluff the High Elves have been running for 3 updates now). Fluff was mostly unchanged from 7th edition, so High Elves are still the punching bags of Chaos. But that's okay because Chaos in Fantasy is MOTHERFUCKING VIKINGS.
- Writing the Codex: Eldar Supplement about Craftworld Iyanden. Its two pages of crunch with the rest being fluff for $40. Said fluff consists of turning Iyanden into a clone of Beil-Tan, forgetting how the Infinity Circuit works, retconning more or less everything involving Ynnead; and turning Iyanden's leadership into incompetents who didn't think the Tyranids were a serious threat. Matt even forgets the fluff about his favorite faction (Prince Yriel kills a Space-Marine-Captain-turned-renegade-pirate with a SINGLE stab in the chest with his sword; what he forgot was Space Marine's multiple hearts and lungs). That said, a number of Eldar players loved it because its one of the few fluff bits that doesn't treat the Eldar as the universe punching bag.
- Writing the "Dark Elves" update (told you so). Good news, the crunch is passable, with Dark Elves have army wide Always Strike First like High Elves do while retaining High Elf Hatred. Also Murderous Prowess, some units buffed significantly, with slight nerfs to balance them. Bad news there's the Matt Ward special of rewriting previous fluff to suit his tastes. For example; now Clar Karond is the Beastmasters city instead of Karond Kar like it was in every previous edition. To be fair, it explains they're rivals and work different areas, Clar Karond has sea-based monsters and slaves (who are viewed as beasts) while Karond Kar handles the rest. Also Malekith has an ex-wife (not bad fluff but it seems out of character and he never had one before). Another change is the fluff suggesting incest between Malekith and Morathi has been removed (The one fluff change that's not a bad thing); most likely changed for GW's new target audience (and their parents). Now it's changed that Morathi is wet for her step-son, instead. (No, not Teclis, the other guy, who isn't? Plus Teclis kinda try to murder her son)
- Also implied to be doing the Wood Elves update (not shocking he was wrote their current one too).
- Writing Codex: Sentinels of Terra, he was a part of a team effort to write the book and put in charge of writing the fluff. Mostly talks about things anything who has ever read anything about the Imperial Fist would know form other writings. Emphasizes on their Pride and Stubbornness being both their biggest strength and weakness. Went a little to far on the Assaulting when the Fist as best know for deference fighting and "Centurion Squads are awesome" (gotta push the new stuff, and the fluff does only focus on one Crusade) and killing off their Chapter Master. Overall one of his best works.
Why the Hate?
Because he's an idiot, a fucking powergamer trying to overcome Phil Kelly in codex-writing (HA!), and assumes that we are also idiots. He keeps up the fine tradition (started with Jervis Johnson) of trying to make his pet projects the prettiest and most special. His stupid isn't OUR sort of stupid, so we hate him.
Hating Matt Ward on /tg/ is almost painful these days. Although his fluff writing skills are beyond average Heresy, he has been improving as far as writing balanced codices go. So one must ask, 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? Because he managed to unbalance all three of Games Workshop's biggest games while writing ridiculous fluff, And I for one don't enjoy it when people shit nonsense in stuff I like.
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, and hands them to twelve-year-old children new to the hobby. It's our game, not theirs. The biggest rage-inducing codex he has made thus far is the Ultramarines codex, which explicitly stated that all chapters, excluding a few "aberrants", 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. However, Ultramarines have always been the posterboys and GW's butt buddies, so he just continued the age long tradition of derp. Plus there is more non-Ultramarine fluff than ever before.
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. This could be easily written off as the bitter anger of the old veterans, and on some level, it is - but when analyzing Ward's works, and his reactions to works by other Codex/fluff writers, patterns quickly emerge, and one cannot ignore this. By choosing to be different from the Spiritual Liege, they are choosing to be "lesser." The flaw is 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.
While 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 (to be fair all of the factions he has written are front-line generals types long before he wrote them). 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, whose 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. This isn't helped much by the fact that Grey Knights are a very "Tell not Show" Chapters, ever since they were made every amazing feat they do there are a dozen more form some guy no one has ever hear of doing something no one else remembers.
To be fair, Mat can write awesome (sometimes even DOUBLEPLUSAWESOME) and worthy fluff, able to earn respect from neckbeard society, like The World Engine (which this former necron player admits is awesome despite ripping off Star Wars in several ways; the World Engine is just a renamed Death Star, and the Rebel Fle- ahem SPACE MARINES have to destroy it) , Castellan Crowe (who even this severely butthurt daemonhunters-now-GK-player has to admit IS pretty fucking cool) or Trazyn the Infinite, but for some reason he does not use this talent very often, sticking to cheap pathos, Mary Sues and insane amount of illogical favoritism. As with fluff goes, he also able to create a perfectly balanced crunch like Space Marine codex, or Nerons before 6th edition edition buffed them to the stratosphere. The fact he continues creating shitty fluff and cheesy crunch while having enough skill and talent to craft a masterpiece is actually make people hate him even more - if he can do good work, why so persistently insist on writing shit?
Another problem with the simple "Ignore the Ward's Fluff" idea is that for many fluff players, the canon lore does matter to them, and though try as they might to ignore the glaring fact the canon fluff is forever altered by creating little pockets of what they believe 'should be' the fluff, it all feels exactly as it sounds; a personal delusion that ignores the facts: One day, it was found out that your family doesn't exist, and while you can still maintain the belief that they do, it will never be true; that's how it feels. And it is painful either way.
The controversy over Ward is so great that every Codex has at least one rumor that he has a hand in writing it, typically started by some fag who wants attention. Like any meme, eventually people have become tired of it. Ward threads tend to met with a response of 'meh' rather than overwhelming hate these days, though /tg/ tends to weep for the unfortunate army under the knife for a potential Ward-Codex.
There are other theories, and there is evidence that suggests that Ward's not entirely to blame. It is entirely possible that Ward may very well just be a talented writer who is basically being ground into the dirt by the GW corporate machine, and that he's just writing some of the shit he writes in an effort to just get his next damn paycheck and to be done with it... But this immediately is undermined irrevocably by a huge number o statements he, himself, has personally has said; reading his "spiritual liege" ramble for example tends to halt any momentum the sympathy-machine might have been building for him. It is, by his actions and his own words, just likely that he is actually a hack who nevertheless does occasionally have some gems come to him, and that for every diamond he gives us, he throws out chunks of asbestos and lead. There is no denying that Ward is better than several alternatives, but it is likewise an undeniable fact that GW has infinitely more-talented people in terms of both fluff and crunch at their disposal. At best, the theory that Ward is a victim in all of this must be taken with a grain of salt, if not outright suspicion as best. It should be noted that ever since the Hours Heresy Novels Games-Workshop has been reediting the lore of 40k, while this resulted in a much tighter community than before its been ripping the older apart and changing it. As Ward primary writes the factions that would be effected by this lore change the most many of his "fluff rape" may in fact be GW mandated in order to pave the way for the new lore.
Make no mistake, it cannot be denied that he filled in fluff for armies that previously had essentially no personality at all (Necrons) and has given excellent crunch upgrades for armies (before 6th edition hit, anyway), and Ward does deserve credit for this. However, for every success of fluff he's done, there's a bunch of Kaldor Draigos and Khornate Knights and Blood Angel/Necron Pony Best Friends Forever and complete changes to existing fluff on the nature of Daemons to sift through - and in the eyes of a staggering plurality on /tg/, that's a big part of why he's disliked. The violations are so glaring, so completely immersed in original sin, that even the large amount of good work he's done is not enough to overpower the bad. Meaning the most likely problem is Ward is a writer that needs an editor, this isn't an bad thing mind you many good writers have then, and up until Necrons GW didn't give him one.
Whether you decide Ward deserves the rage and hate he gets, write it off as a sad consequence of his earlier work, pity him for working for GW, or simply don't give a shit is entirely your call. As ever, on /tg/, we urge you to make your own decisions. Either way, he's not the best writer they have, not the worst, and his reputation will follow him in every endeavor he goes from now till time immemorial, for good or for ill.
However it doesn't seem Ward can't win. A good explain if the High Elves book, the person somehow blamed Ward for both the princing of models and there design as if Ward did both, yet ignored the fact Ward fixed a lot of the OP cruch, buffed the underpowered units and new units are fairly balance only to gloss it over as if he didn't. Sure he probably worked with the artists on them but its the guy on top who has finaly say.
Also Misogyny
There is a disturbing tendency in Matt Ward's works to have the Sisters of Battle get horribly butchered in roughly 70% Ward's fluff. Whilst the ultimate example is the Khornate Knights incident, there's at least half-a-dozen works in official canon since the release of the 5th edition rulebook where the Sisters get horrifically butchered or worse.
Virtually the entire Sisters of Battle army was retconned out of existence by the omission of two paragraphs of text in the fifth-edition rulebook, and there are multiple cases of the sisters being corrupted, destroyed, and/or massacred. This has lead some to accuse Ward of sexual deviancy but it's far more likely to simply be really shitty writing ("Women in Refrigerator Syndrome") rather than a pathological hatred of vaginas.
Matt's apparent misogyny (implied or actual) have led to the meme that Ward is, in fact, Chris-Chan.
The High Elves rulebook is a great example of how Matt can never win, for better or for worse. He brought back the Everqueen and her bodyguard and was immediately accused of trying to make up for previous sexism.
To be fair to Ward on that one, though, the players doing the accusing on that one are being shits, and this was a dick move on the part of the accusers, but then again, after the barrage of Sisters snuff (intentional or not) that occurred under Ward's watch, what the fuck did you think was going to happen?
Also he did wrote the Sisters of Battle WD fluff (rob did the rules) which portray them as an competent army so it is possible that all the times he had them die was because didn't want to have yet another Imperial Guard force getting killed. It could be argued that Ward intended the SoB casualties to balance things out, and have something Imperial but not the Guard to be wiped out, but this argument runs into a simple set of logical fallacies: The guard is Co-Ed, as evidenced by various female staff members (such as Guardsman Miranda Nero), and is the most numerous Imperial faction in all fucking existence. PDFs and Guardsman units getting mulched is fucking Thursday in the Warhammer 40K universe. When the Sisters are turned into armor paint for the sake of a story, the entire argument that it was an intended balancing act runs into hurdles.
In fact, the few female characters Matt Ward has created/ written fluff for, until recently, either die or are about to die. For instance the WD issue introducing the new Chaos Daemons for Warhammer Fantasy featured fluff about a High Elf Mage who was tricked and killed by daemons. So the first female character created by Matt Ward is introduced to the setting just to die. Also, some players have read disturbing implications (ie; suicide cult) into Iyanna Arienal's plans for Iyanden regarding the Infinity Circuit and Ynnead; though what her actual plans are remains to be seen. (And that Ynnead fluff has always read like a suicide cult, what with "The last best hope for the Eldar" "Only when every Eldar dies" ect)
Whether he intended it or not, the argument that Ward is a misogynist has ammo to fire specifically because of logic holes like that, and the accusation clings to Ward the same way his early works do: It stains so much of what he's done that it's simply impossible to ignore. Considering that about 70% of the factions in 40K are sausage-fests, GW is probably just as much to blame as Brother Ward, though to what extent may never truly be known (although with rumors about GW ordering all women in group shots to be photoshop out...).
Then again the above counter also have holes in logic namely while the Gaurd are co-ed only 1 in 7 guard. The most likely reason is because Sisters are in the middle between Guard and Space Marines in terms of "super awesome warrior". Despite this, the constant use of the Sister's for worfing is unnecessary. If a new faction was shown to be able to wipe the floor with a Space Marine army from time-to-time, it would be a more effective worf. In addition, not using a non-Imperium faction for the worfing seems to imply the (false) idea that no faction can compete with the Imperium's might. As for the loss of a SM chapter, this is the Imperium, where the loss of an entire PLANET with a population of billions can be written off as a bureaucratic error. The loss of an entire Space Marine chapter doesn't always have to be a huge event, especially if entire races can disappear without even a whisper, it is only so due to Games Workshop's favouritism.
Your Fault As Well
Perhaps another reason why fa/tg/uys hate ward so much is due to, despite the hatred for him, his success. The case is rather clear - look at the number of people playing Grey Knights, Blood Angels, Necrons these days, ruthlessly exploiting every bit of cheese they can and purchasing up all the new shiny overpriced models for them.
Ward is your greatest enemy and yet you feed him on your very souls and cash. If you truly wanted things to change you would refuse his codexes, adapting previous versions. You would not purchase models based on these new codexes and make it clear to your local GW store why you are not. You would defiantly raise the middle finger to GW until they understood that enough was enough.
On the other hand, oohhh, look at all the shiny Stormravens. Maybe Ward will give the Black Templars Dark Angels FLYING Dreadnaughts. Luckily he hasn't...Yet. Wouldn't that be so cool? And it happened. Now the Stormraven is available to Vanilla Marines (read: Ultrasmurfs) and Black Templars.
Thankfully, it's not all bad news.
/tg/ has gotten shit done in its time-honored tradition, and now boasts a veritable legion of players who are rage casting or using alternate methodologies (such as using GS modeling) in order to bypass the pricey barriers brought about by GW's tendency to charge upwards of 75 dollars for a hill of dirt in a terrain piece. Considering that Games Workshop has been slowly bleeding money for years even with the shiny new content, there's no question that /tg/ is definitely having an impact in this endeavor - though to what degree is a matter of conjecture.
Sometimes it feels that Matt Ward is a scapegoat used by GW in order to hide behind when they make a mistake. Sure Matt Ward probably shouldn't be allowed to touch any Codex, but there is no way he could be involved in price increases or digital copies of codexes that are the same price as paper back books. That all falls under the purview of the GW Shadow leadership.
Gallery of Fail
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Matt Ward masturbates furiously to this every single night.
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Fa/tg/uys long for the days when this book was the least of their troubles.
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This Marine has the right idea. (But the wrong intel).
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Coming to a Codex near you.
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This is believed to be true.
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Actual Grey Knight unit.
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Spiritual Liege.
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So tsun-tsun~
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All aboard!
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This is how Matt Ward views Spess Mehreens.
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Friends forever.
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Seriously he's never living this down.
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His body is ready, yours however is not.
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Artist's rendition of the Ultramarines honouring their True Spiritual Liege.
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Know the heretic, kill the heretic.
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Lo' though the time is dark, our faith (and faces) shines.
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And for his next magical trick, Matt is going to make your favorite fluff disappear.
See Also
- A heretic most foul tries to defend his Spiritual Liege. The comments section was lost to the warp when the blog changed host, but it must have been a thing to behold.