Matt Ward strikes again!

[vahouth]

After reading this article of Matt Ward, I stumble into this gem about Tycho:

Tycho's got Blood Song (a combi-melta packed full of special issue ammunition)

and the Dead Man's Hand (a power weapon with built in digital weapons)

Now is it, or is it not a power weapon therefore granting him +1 attack in close combat? ;)

[JamesI]

After reading this article of Matt Ward, I stumble into this gem about Tycho:

Tycho's got Blood Song (a combi-melta packed full of special issue ammunition)

and the Dead Man's Hand (a power weapon with built in digital weapons)

Now is it, or is it not a power weapon therefore granting him +1 attack in close combat? ;)

By rules its not. If GW wants it to be an actual Power weapon, they need to issue some errata. for Tycho's cost, I don't think it would be overpowered to let him have the +1 attack, but we need a better rules source than Mat Ward article in a White Dwarf.

[Looted Monolith]

If he wrote the codex why wouldnt he push the great Over Powered units our codex has to ofer?

 

Why didn't he suggest TH+SS termies and a Sang Priest?

or the game breaking Librarians?

Or about the BBQ baals everyone obsesses about?

 

Their his work

 

I also support the idea that red thirst should have a down side

its pretty hooky that our flaw makes us FC and Fearless.

[Vilicate]

If he wrote the codex why wouldnt he push the great Over Powered units our codex has to ofer?

 

Why didn't he suggest TH+SS termies and a Sang Priest?

or the game breaking Librarians?

Or about the BBQ baals everyone obsesses about?

 

Their his work

 

My vote is that he doesn't understand how the game works or he's just on such a different mindset regarding the game that combos like this don't appear to him.

[Pcm979]

Probably the same reason why they never thought anyone would take dual Daemon Princes.

[vahouth]

If he wrote the codex why wouldnt he push the great Over Powered units our codex has to ofer?

 

Why didn't he suggest TH+SS termies and a Sang Priest?

or the game breaking Librarians?

Or about the BBQ baals everyone obsesses about?

 

Their his work

 

I also support the idea that red thirst should have a down side

its pretty hooky that our flaw makes us FC and Fearless.

 

He does mention Baals, Sanguinary priest combos and Librarians.

Not TH+SS termies.

[Zanrian]

Or perhaps the auctioneers doesn't really care about the game itself, nor the players, but only about the money they get from selling more and more toy soldiers, while boosting the prices.

 

But yes, the quality of the rules and dexes are becoming more and more a joke imho.

[Escaflowne_Z]

I also support the idea that red thirst should have a down side

its pretty hooky that our flaw makes us FC and Fearless.

 

Not having combat tactics is enough of a drawback, I think. It would essentially grant us a hit and run for our assaulters and another round of shooting for our shooty stuff. Combat Tactics is very very useful, and many normal SM players overlook its usefulness.

[Isryion]

I also support the idea that red thirst should have a down side

its pretty hooky that our flaw makes us FC and Fearless.

 

It would make the army virtually unplayable. For reference, please see Orcs in Fantasy. BTW, one guess who wrote that army book?

 

Edit: And for reference, I've had around 1 red thirst roll for every three games. I may be unlucky, but with it being a "1" I never bank on it, so it simply ends up making one of my priests redundant. I actually think Red Thirst is actually a solid game rule that adds a bit of fluff to the game without breaking it.

[Red Fury]

Hey I'm the first to give Ward a good elbowing, but to say they don't care at all about the game or the quality (of play, minis, dexs) is a bit OTT. The quality and smoothness of the game and minis now compared to how it used to be is pretty amazing. I started this game back in Rouge Trader days and have seen it go trough all the ups and downs and really like how it is now. My big gripe is actually with Juan Diaz, I personally think his sculps are crap...mostly anyway.

 

However, White Dwarf is clearly just pushing minis. Notice how they didn't mention the Sang Guard? Probably because they are haveing NO problem selling out their stock on that item. And why didn't he mention the Storm Raven...Oh because there is no model to sell you.

 

I gave the article a good proper read last night and I'm just shocked at how he seems to not understand what he did to the DC. Rage, all the time, uncontrollable rage, and no rending to boot. I love the DC and still field them, but to not put them into a transport...that's just crazy. He actually said that the biggest downside to the DC is just that they are not scoring. *sigh*

 

And the 40 models in 1500 points thing, not hard at all if you don't like tanks I guess. Even their batrep in April had right about 40 models in a 2000 point game and only took 1 tank, the flamestorm Baal (oh and two killer Rhinos too). Although that list was terrible in the first place, but that's a whole other topic.

 

-Fury

[mercury]

Having read the article, it's pretty clear IMO that the Blood Angels as written do not work quite the way that Matt Ward intended. Whether this is due to his own inadequacies or due to multiple dilutions of the rules as a result of playtesting is not known. I also suspect that Mr Ward is not really much of a competitive player. The best piece of advice in his article, IMO: "my personal favourite is to take a Librarian with the Wings of Sanguinius and Blood Lance powers. The former allows the Librarian to scoot around the battlefield as if he had a jump pack". Why on Earth would anyone do this when you could just purchase a jump pack which cannot be dispelled by a hood, does not require a psychic test to use, and does not waste one of your psychic power choices??

 

Regardless, I'm very happy with the way the Codex turned out. Let's face it, there is very little to moan about except maybe the poor cover art (not Matt Ward's fault!). Sure, there are the odd bits of weird fluff, but for the most part the fluff has been celebrated on these forums - I remember entire threads devoted to the brilliance of the Dante owns Calgar and Tu'Shan moment, for example.

 

In short: it's the WD article which is poor, the Codex is generally very good.

[Zanrian]

Hey I'm the first to give Ward a good elbowing, but to say they don't care at all about the game or the quality (of play, minis, dexs) is a bit OTT. The quality and smoothness of the game and minis now compared to how it used to be is pretty amazing. I started this game back in Rouge Trader days and have seen it go trough all the ups and downs and really like how it is now. My big gripe is actually with Juan Diaz, I personally think his sculps are crap...mostly anyway.

 

However, White Dwarf is clearly just pushing minis. Notice how they didn't mention the Sang Guard? Probably because they are haveing NO problem selling out their stock on that item. And why didn't he mention the Storm Raven...Oh because there is no model to sell you.

 

I gave the article a good proper read last night and I'm just shocked at how he seems to not understand what he did to the DC. Rage, all the time, uncontrollable rage, and no rending to boot. I love the DC and still field them, but to not put them into a transport...that's just crazy. He actually said that the biggest downside to the DC is just that they are not scoring. *sigh*

 

And the 40 models in 1500 points thing, not hard at all if you don't like tanks I guess. Even their batrep in April had right about 40 models in a 2000 point game and only took 1 tank, the flamestorm Baal (oh and two killer Rhinos too). Although that list was terrible in the first place, but that's a whole other topic.

 

-Fury

 

I'm the first to admit that the miniatures are becoming more and more high grade. I also can remember the Rouge Trader days and hating putting the plastics together (remember how long you had to hold the Marine arm for it to stick? I'm just saying that GW have been "high jacked" by some greedy [insert own word here] and the common employee at GW is just following orders.

 

But fact remains that every dex is becoming more and more flawed, when you play RAW and not RAI. I love Warhammer 40k because of the fluff, the gaming culture, the miniatures and the game itself. In that order.

[Heru]

He is, without a doubt, the worst armybook/codex author out there. They should've canned his butt SO long ago. Gav Thorpe had his bad moments, but he also had some good ones; several of his books were solid and well designed. Plus, the background was consistent; Gav knows how to write.

:: Looks at the Chaos Space Marine Codex, compares it to the Space Marine Codex... ::

 

I like many of the rules for BA, but let's face it; the book has got some completely OP gear and units. I wish that Ward would stick writing LotR stuff and keep his butterfingers out of 40k and WFB.

Matt Ward is actually ok for 40k, he just needs to polish his rules work abit more, and STAY AWAY from the background*. Now Jervis... keep him well away!

 

 

 

* = :: Waits for the next Codex he writes to have the Codex's army ally with Tyranids against X enemy OR for "their enemies to be crushed against their own defences" ::

[Morticon]

If he wrote the codex why wouldnt he push the great Over Powered units our codex has to ofer?

 

Why didn't he suggest TH+SS termies and a Sang Priest?

or the game breaking Librarians?

Or about the BBQ baals everyone obsesses about?

 

Their his work

 

I also support the idea that red thirst should have a down side

its pretty hooky that our flaw makes us FC and Fearless.

 

Our downside is we lose combat tactics and we trade it for an ability that only works 18% of the time. I think thats downside enough frankly.

 

As to our "game breaking librarians", I have NO idea what you're on about. Mephiston maybe- but hes a 250 point special character.

Termies? The TH/SS and Priest? You know we pay more for those than vanilla yeah? You also realise that if you're using the 3++ save of the shield you dont get your FNP anyway, yeah?

Yeah, they get FNP now, at the cost of 1 more easy to kill KP, but whos shooting small arms at termies to get them to use the FNP anyway?

 

And the BBQ Baals? (I like that term btw!) Ive been using them and found them horribly sub-par.

 

While im not saying he didnt focus on the wrong units, I am saying that these are hardly the units to focus on for an article about BA.

[the jeske]

If he wrote the codex why wouldnt he push the great Over Powered units our codex has to ofer?

 

Why didn't he suggest TH+SS termies and a Sang Priest?

or the game breaking Librarians?

Or about the BBQ baals everyone obsesses about?

noob reads WD. sees article by the codex desinger . thinks what the man says is the truth. buys meaty DC and 40 sm mix of ras and tacs..... 2 months later finds out that his army sucks and goes on to buy the stuff that works , puting DC, HG etc on his shelf.

 

Does that explain why he writes an article like that ?

 

Yeah, they get FNP now, at the cost of 1 more easy to kill KP, but whos shooting small arms at termies to get them to use the FNP anyway?

any army that cant run dual plasma in squads ??

[Wildfire]

You know, I dont think the developers are "stupid" or forgetful.

 

And the consistency of GW mistakes leads me to believe the rules are designed by the designer in a certain way, to work a certain way and then undergo a lot of playtesting/changes by the design team.

 

This is exactly my point. The design team in general (including, but certainly not limited to, Matt Ward) are not competative players. This is why they consistantly write rules that create such huge imbalances. What GW needs to do is get more input from actual gamers, to see how codexes do "in the wild". Until then, a bunch of guys who would rather be designing role-playing games just doesn't cut it when it comes to writing tight rulesets.

[RedSaint]

As I look at the responses in this thread I think that this defenitely a move forward.

 

What we are slowly but surely doing is building consensus amongst ourselves.

 

The consensus we're moving towards is that the new Blood Angels codex is crap. Despite all the new toys, the codex is not working. Synergy is hard to achieve and even if you can get there, it is sadly not going to be good enough.

 

We are slowly facing the realisation that despite our love for this game and the Blood Angels, we must face the reality that we will be wasting our time with the new codex for the next 5 years.

 

We will not place well in tournaments - not because we are bad players, but because our Codex is just not good enough.

 

We have - once again - been let down by GW.

[daboarder]

I also support the idea that red thirst should have a down side

its pretty hooky that our flaw makes us FC and Fearless.

 

Not having combat tactics is enough of a drawback, I think. It would essentially grant us a hit and run for our assaulters and another round of shooting for our shooty stuff. Combat Tactics is very very useful, and many normal SM players overlook its usefulness.

 

Bingo, that loss of combat tactics is a huge loss considering our bonus' only work one in 6 times OR only for certain units.

as for Ward, well he may have no clue but somehow he managed to write us a brilliant codex despite that. Crudace on the other hand that man is truly an incompetent, sure guard is great but nids.......well now is not the place.

[igotsmeakabob!!]

As I look at the responses in this thread I think that this defenitely a move forward.

 

What we are slowly but surely doing is building consensus amongst ourselves.

 

The consensus we're moving towards is that the new Blood Angels codex is crap. Despite all the new toys, the codex is not working. Synergy is hard to achieve and even if you can get there, it is sadly not going to be good enough.

 

We are slowly facing the realisation that despite our love for this game and the Blood Angels, we must face the reality that we will be wasting our time with the new codex for the next 5 years.

 

We will not place well in tournaments - not because we are bad players, but because our Codex is just not good enough.

 

We have - once again - been let down by GW.

 

I disagree with this.

So far I've had a fine experience with the 'dex.

I'm quite certain that we'll have just as many viable competitive loadouts for tournaments as other codecies.

Despite a few bumps, this codex has had solid performance for me so far.

[daboarder]

yeah put down another vote for quite pleased with the new codex.

[Priest33]

As I look at the responses in this thread I think that this defenitely a move forward.

 

What we are slowly but surely doing is building consensus amongst ourselves.

 

The consensus we're moving towards is that the new Blood Angels codex is crap. Despite all the new toys, the codex is not working. Synergy is hard to achieve and even if you can get there, it is sadly not going to be good enough.

 

We are slowly facing the realisation that despite our love for this game and the Blood Angels, we must face the reality that we will be wasting our time with the new codex for the next 5 years.

 

We will not place well in tournaments - not because we are bad players, but because our Codex is just not good enough.

 

We have - once again - been let down by GW.

 

Wait what? Our codex is solidish tehres a few trap choices but a lot of great choices really. Is Marines but fast.

[RedSaint]

Wait what? Our codex is solidish tehres a few trap choices but a lot of great choices really. Is Marines but fast.

 

You are clearly still in denial. Enjoy it while it lasts.

[Crynn]

My gosh I'm the biggest sceptic here, well at tleast I thought I was but not even I would say that the codex is bad, it many not be SW or IG but it's a good dex (unintentionally of course matt wards additional unit and DC change just sucked) nun the less. I think we will be able to place at tounies I jsut think it wont be in a gererically BA way. I have found great success using this dex with a very mech based army, lots of tanks and dreads.

[vahouth]

As I look at the responses in this thread I think that this defenitely a move forward.

 

What we are slowly but surely doing is building consensus amongst ourselves.

 

The consensus we're moving towards is that the new Blood Angels codex is crap. Despite all the new toys, the codex is not working. Synergy is hard to achieve and even if you can get there, it is sadly not going to be good enough.

 

We are slowly facing the realisation that despite our love for this game and the Blood Angels, we must face the reality that we will be wasting our time with the new codex for the next 5 years.

 

We will not place well in tournaments - not because we are bad players, but because our Codex is just not good enough.

 

We have - once again - been let down by GW.

 

It's not the PERFECT Codex, but it's still powerfull.

A lot of choices, powerfull mixes and interesting units.

Why is synergy hard to achieve for you?

Why is it not enough?

Why we will not place well in tournaments?

 

Personally the only thing I don't like is the front cover, but it's ok.

I can live with it for the next 5 years.

I've already waited for it more than that....

[Wildfire]

The consensus we're moving towards is that the new Blood Angels codex is crap.

 

That's not the concensus I'm seeing.