Draigo - The pinnacle of bad fluff?

[Aluinn]

Additionally, didn't Shadowsun supposedly wipe out a Hive Fleet or something? Didn't Sliscus take out a planet because their envoy mispronounced his name or something like that?

In other words, everyone gets to do absolutely ridiculous things, but people only complain when a Marine does something ridiculous. It's obnoxious. Honestly, a fine lot of you would make great politicians - calling out actions of your opponents with heavy hyperbole while downplaying/ignoring your own faults.

I think that people would have just as many problems with it if Shadowsun had single-handedly destroyed a Hive Fleet, or Sliscus conquered a planet on his own. You know, he emerges from a webway portal, with nothing but his poisoned knives and an eight ball of coke, and the planet is somehow conquered three days later, because, like, he cuts people so bad. Yes, readers would call the author out for that.

Even that analogy is overly favorable to Ward, since a more accurate one would be Sliscus rocking around Terra and doing lines off the Emperor's bum, and no one being able to stop him because he's just that cool.

As it turns out, Shadowsun and Sliscus have large armies, which is a bit of a help when it comes to conquering planets or turning back Hive Fleets.

We understand that much of 40K fluff is ridiculous, that it's space fantasy, and all that, I'm sure. That doesn't mean that it can't be too ridiculuous. Draigo's fluff is too ridiculous.

If you want to talk obnoxious, making this argument personal is obnoxious. Sure, some people insulted Mat Ward's writing ability--they weren't calling him a bad person. You, on the other hand, have called anyone who did so politicians, which is a pretty serious insult and does imply that they are bad people.

[spartan116]

...Just belting up the gods with no real effort is boring...

He never faught any of the Chaos Gods. Althought I may have misinterpreted what you said.

Also, as far as I can remeber, he never toppled Tzeentch's 'city'. He destroyed a wall and it crashed down on a greater daemon. I will have to read it again as I can't remember it OTTOMH.

[Pigboyneo]

Am waiting for when Ward get his hands on other codex's;

Wards Tau - they can use the warp now, then expand into half the Imperium! Tau are now ninjas in CC! Farsight kills 12 Bloodthrister while he is still ASLEEP!

Wards Necrons - all Necrons awake and wipe out half the new tau empire and the other half of the Imperium! You can now take the Void Dragon!

Ward then thinks "crap I think I went too far this time...I know what to do! I write a new Codex:SM! How about if they can now use Roboute Guilliman! Wait even better how about Guilliman and Calgar FUSE together! In to MEGA-CALGAMAN, who then punch's a hole into the fabric of time and space itself, goes back in time and pwns the **** out of Horus!!! and makes Abaddon CRY!"

******* MATT WARD

[Iracundus]

Am waiting for when Ward get his hands on other codex's;

Wards Tau - they can use the warp now, then expand into half the Imperium! Tau are now ninjas in CC! Farsight kills 12 Bloodthrister while he is still ASLEEP!

Wards Necrons - all Necrons awake and wipe out half the new tau empire and the other half of the Imperium! You can now take the Void Dragon!

Ward then thinks "crap I think I went too far this time...I know what to do! I write a new Codex:SM! How about if they can now use Roboute Guilliman! Wait even better how about Guilliman and Calgar FUSE together! In to MEGA-CALGAMAN, who then punch's a hole into the fabric of time and space itself, goes back in time and pwns the **** out of Horus!!! and makes Abaddon CRY!"

******* MATT WARD

I think the greater danger is if he gets nominated to write a Codex for an army that he doesn't play and has no interest in, which is from what I hear what happened with WHFB O&G book. He underpowered them, either from inexperience with them or because he simply didn't care enough about them, while overpowering Chaos Daemons. The last thing a game designer should be doing is playing favorites based on his own personal likes or dislikes.

[Robot Unicorn]

Additionally, didn't Shadowsun supposedly wipe out a Hive Fleet or something? Didn't Sliscus take out a planet because their envoy mispronounced his name or something like that?

In other words, everyone gets to do absolutely ridiculous things, but people only complain when a Marine does something ridiculous. It's obnoxious. Honestly, a fine lot of you would make great politicians - calling out actions of your opponents with heavy hyperbole while downplaying/ignoring your own faults.

My feelings as well. There's a pretty intense double-standard for anything in power armor, while every other faction gets a free-pass for killing bio-titans with psychic martial arts, or driving a motorcycle through the head of a titan.

Seems like just another excuse to hate marines. Notice how the Space Wolf codex had pretty tame fluff, so instead, people tore apart "marines riding wolves" as being "campy" or "shattering realism". There's no winning.

[Pigboyneo]

I think the greater danger is if he gets nominated to write a Codex for an army that he doesn't play and has no interest in, which is from what I hear what happened with WHFB O&G book. He underpowered them, either from inexperience with them or because he simply didn't care enough about them, while overpowering Chaos Daemons. The last thing a game designer should be doing is playing favorites based on his own personal likes or dislikes.

Agreed, 12 man drop pods come to mind. Fluff wise always been 10 men. Model wise 10 men. Ward wise "well the captain/chaplin ride it like a cowboy!". I really could see him doing something like that with CSM under powering them to normal marines just because in Wards world "well CSM are SM slap bags right????"

[Iracundus]

Agreed, 12 man drop pods come to mind. Fluff wise always been 10 men. Model wise 10 men. Ward wise "well the captain/chaplin ride it like a cowboy!". I really could see him doing something like that with CSM under powering them to normal marines just because in Wards world "well CSM are SM slap bags right????"

I am not saying he would do so intentionally or out of malice but simply doing a half hearted job and saying it's "good enough", in comparison to the lavishing of attention on his pet projects.

[Notanoob]

My feelings as well. There's a pretty intense double-standard for anything in power armor, while every other faction gets a free-pass for killing bio-titans with psychic martial arts, or driving a motorcycle through the head of a titan.

Seems like just another excuse to hate marines. Notice how the Space Wolf codex had pretty tame fluff, so instead, people tore apart "marines riding wolves" as being "campy" or "shattering realism". There's no winning.

This isn't entirely true, people do whine about their own xeno codex's ****** fluff, but there are a lot less of them, and xeno players have their arms full whining about how you guys get all of your nice new plastic stuff while we're sitting around still waiting for our damn Tervigons.

If you asked, you'd get plenty of hating on Shadowsun or the entire Tyranid codex, but we really have enough to complain about already.

As for Orkz, they get a free pass as a race, just because it's their purpose-comic relief with just enough serious stuff to make it a legitimate army.


Really, the only thing that bugs me about Draigo's fluff is the bit with Mortarion. Old Mort hasn't left his demon world since he got their, and is a frikin demonic primarch, there is no way Draigo could have done that at all. Since Mortarion hasn't gone into the real world, Draigo couldn't have had a ton of GK's helping him out, as he doesn't have a bunch of ghost knight followers, so I call this part BS and think that we, as a community, should choose to ignore it.

[UberBeast]

I think the only thing missing from the OP's fluff blurb is a childs voice announcing "And then... and then... and then" between each amazing feat of silliness.

[spartan116]

...Really, the only thing that bugs me about Draigo's fluff is the bit with Mortarion. Old Mort hasn't left his demon world since he got their...

What says that Mortarion has not left his daemon world since he got there? Not asking of spite but out the actual want to know.

[Hicks]

Good God, I just read his fluff and it's absolutely stupid. I really hope that's an early draft that won't end up in the real codex.

The guy is depicted as being even more powerfull than the freaking Emperor when he still walked.

Give us Alaric or Tancred, but not this terrible fluff abomination!!!!

[Sephiroth]

Oh how they must have wailed that they couldn't live up to Draigo's fappery....

Pretty much all the above but especially this for me. Explain WHY I'd need a Grey Knights army after I selected Draigo? He wanders the Realm of Chaos, beating up whole armies of daemons apparantly.

Surely he should be able to take them on in Realspace all by his lonesome too?

[Tymell]

My feelings as well. There's a pretty intense double-standard for anything in power armor, while every other faction gets a free-pass for killing bio-titans with psychic martial arts, or driving a motorcycle through the head of a titan.

As Aluinn says, the comparison is flawed: those other characters had armies at their back. That makes a bit of a difference.

Seems like just another excuse to hate marines. Notice how the Space Wolf codex had pretty tame fluff, so instead, people tore apart "marines riding wolves" as being "campy" or "shattering realism". There's no winning.

Yes, there is winning: take out the Thunderwolf Cavalry, because it's a silly idea. Simply as that.

Not everyone who criticises something based on space marines can simply be dismissed as a "marine hater".

[horus666]

obviously there is a piece of missing fluff stating that Khorne gets off his throne and rips Draigo to shreds

[Sephiroth]

Notice how the Space Wolf codex had pretty tame fluff, so instead, people tore apart "marines riding wolves" as being "campy" or "shattering realism". There's no winning.

Oh it had bad background. There's the part where Canis Wolfborn beatup a Space Wolves aspirant, dragged him back to the Fang, had a duel with a Wolf Lord, and THEN became a Space Marine.

I mean really, they're on the only stable island-mass, surrounded by impenetrable mountains - how did a child end up wandering this place described as so deadly even a Space Marine sees it as a challenge? And did he go up to the Fang and ring the doorbell? Because apparently rather than Chapter Serfs or automated defences dealing with it, howling at the walls gets Wolf Lords to come down for a scrap...

And let's talk about Lukas; he had a heart torn out so he replaced it with a stasis-grenade. Seriously? I can just see the conversation he had during this operation...

Wolf Priest: You know this won't pump blood or anything around your body, right? I mean, it's just a grenade rigged to your life-signs. When you flat-line, everything around you goes with you, enemies, comrades...

Lukas: Yeah, I bet it'll be a real laugh!

Wolf Priest: Well, I'm too drunk to argue... hold still!

People could complain about the background there but it's less "We're over the top badasses" and more... "We're not quite right, inbred step-children Astartes..." So we cut them some slack.

[Hellebore]

Yes, there is winning: take out the Thunderwolf Cavalry, because it's a silly idea. Simply as that.

Not everyone who criticises something based on space marines can simply be dismissed as a "marine hater".

No, but it's a very easy and lazy ad hominem to use in order to discredit a poster without actually facing their arguments. 'You're biased therefore your argument doesn't count' is a logical fallacy that seems to be trotted out whenever someone can't actually defend the argument.

I dislike any instance where it says 'they won without casualties' because it lacks any kind of realism. On the other hand, Shadowsun's victory was by a fleet led by her, which is a lot different to 'and lo did Draigo by himself set demolition charges around all the towers of Tzeentch's city and did cause it to completely topple all the while defeating the very energy he walked through by hitting it repeatedly.'

Really, Draigo defeating daemons in the warp is like me defeating waves while swimming in the ocean.

EDIT: There is a very simple reason for the complaints appearing as only about grey knights - the arguments against the space wolves happened at the time the codex was released. Same for the blood angels and codex space marines. Each one produced discussion about the background (Lukas somehow is credited with sleeping with a lot of women, which is an interesting feat for someone that had to be recruited as a child...) at the time of release. The same is true of Shadowsun, the Swarmlord (and the whole 'hive tyrants randomly have personalities that reincarnate' oh and 'narvhal'...) and inumerable other examples.

The arguments have already been made. If every previous argument made had to be repeated whenever a new one was, no one would get anywhere.

Hellebore

[Asuron]

I think the only thing missing from the OP's fluff blurb is a childs voice announcing "And then... and then... and then" between each amazing feat of silliness.

That is really odd, I've heard someone say that before about Wards writing
Weird

[xxRavenxx]

I think the greater danger is if he gets nominated to write a Codex for an army that he doesn't play and has no interest in, which is from what I hear what happened with WHFB O&G book.

I have to correct you here:

Orcs and gobins is probably the single best armybook/codex I have seen in the last 5 years.

It is not *underpowered* it is also not *broken in half* it sits perfectly in the middle of the pack, the fluff reads well, several orc characters die in glorious battle, after waging a long war against the empire (this isnt new, obviously, they were dead in the last book too, but I like the tone of it.) Others live on, but none, have waltzed into anyone elses terratory and single handedly beaten everyone up. They've all been generals, leading their troops to great victory.

If that book is what you're afraid of happening, then I think you've got your priorities muddled

[Poseidal]

The Orcs and Goblins book was identified more as an underdog; I think consensus was in 7th it was barely better than the ancient non-updated army books (Tomb Kings, Ogre Kingdoms), and even worse than some of the older ones (Dwarfs, Wood Elves).

In 8th, the updated rules and changes to the magic system has helped that book, though it's now being replaced.

[Pigboyneo]

Just read Draigo, I thought it can't be that bad (but knew Ward was behind it),but........really

Is this the start of Primarch 2.0? The crap he did made the EoT sound like a joke. Carved a name in a Primarchs heart, no not just a Primarch, a ***** demon prince PRIMARCH.

I remember reading when Ragnar popped a Predator hatch open and thought thats so cool. Compared to Draigo sounds like he could do it, by just looking at the bloody thing! He did more in the EoT than the 13th Company have done in 10,000 years! On his own!

Ye I will retract what I said about TWC. They are no where near as bad as this fluff is...