Did Matt Ward purposely build an Elf super army?

[najo]

So, we've been discussing the origins of End Times Khaine here: https://www.vampirecounts.net/threads/najos-review-of-end-times-magic.28210/page-4#post-410817

@Seneschal and @Yorga mentioned Matt Ward's personal blog post here: http://www.thetowerofstars.co.uk/#!The-Wheel-Turns/c1q8z/BA5B121D-93F6-482D-AC4A-4E72A8464BD1

So, I just had a realization while working on the Elves for Battlescribe and getting ready to merge them for Khaine. After reading this link earlier, and looking back on some observations of the elves.

So, Matt Ward did all three elf books. Supposedly he worked on them simultaneously. He also mentions in his blog how much he loves the elves, loves their cast of characters and even considers one of the elves in the story his personal avatar (though not directly). My point, the elves are very personal for Matt Ward.

Each elf army has bold game mechanics that push the game's balance. High Elves have Banner of the World Dragon, Book of Hoeth, Frost Phoenix, White Lions. Dark Elves have Doomfire Warlocks, Sacrificial Knife, Witch Elves. Wood Elves have Wild Riders, Magical Shooting, super high mobility and powerful core with Eternal Guard and Glade Riders.

Then you got the strength of High Magic and Dark Magic. From awesome signature spells to both being powerful lores. The lores are on the edge of being broken.

On their own the elf armies are powerful, but have certain weak points. Combined they lose those weak points (as mentioned by Yorga above). So far, everything I've stated is kinda no duh.

But what hit me is all the items and spells that really break end times magic are elf items and spells. Then look at the High and Dark magic end times spells. One shuts a wizard down and the other kills a wizard on a fulcrum. They are the only lores that directly attack the wizards and they do it in a way that nearly impossible to stop.

Then mix that with the units that can break the end times magic. Loremasters of Hoeth get all 64 spells from the eight lores! They are lords that can take a 100 points of items, which means they can use Book of Hoeth.

Then tie to it that elves force the End Times Magic upon their opponents and that they have the best casters and tools for it.

What I propose, it is very possible that Matt Ward has purposely built a long term plan for the Elves to be the dominate Warhammer army in the game. That while he wrote them he had plans to create an army that he loved and would be overpowered and nigh unstoppable. He had control over all the pieces, he wrote all of it, he knew he was heading out at some point.

I think Matt Ward built a secret super army that has finally surfaced with End Times Khaine.

Discuss!

 

[LordTobiothan]

Idk if I'd give the guy that much credit. He likely made the rules with the awesome things the elves could do with them in mind. But he was probably just working with a heavy bias over actually plotting to make a super army.

 

[The Sun King]

Haha, you've always seemed like such a reasonable guy najo, and then you turn all "it was an inside job" on us!

Got rid of all their weaknesses? No, they are still T3 and always will be. What really annoys me with these kind of discussions is that people assume that it is fairly easy to write conssistent and good rules for a game that is made out of special rules (read: the variables will increase exponentially). This is absolute bogus, if you don't mind me saying Just take a look into the necrach workshop and see what insane ideas people come up with as "fixes" to the game. Every time I do that I become very happy that it is GW that writes the rules and their community Sure, they screw up big time once in a while, but my point is that this is INEVITABLE with this kind of game. Chess isn't even balanced, then how could Warhammer ever be?

I apologize if I seem rude, all this is in good spirit - I'm just suprised to find out that you're a conspiracy theorist najo :tongue:

 

[PureSphinx]

Well, here's the thing. Idgaf what gee dubs and Mr. Ward say, I'm playing elf legions without end times magic. I'm also 100% sure everyone else will too, and that comped events will ban or restrict end times magic, or even ban the entire elf host. It's just that dumb. While I agree with LordTobiothan and The Sun King that it's borderline illuminati to say he has been planning this since 8th came out like 5 years ago, I can't help but sympathize with Ward's haters. Everything najo said is true about the elves, and it's been proven that Matt considers the elves to be the ultramarines of fantasy.

Also, not to derail the thread, but Sun, how is chess imbalanced? It's literally a mirror match on the board with whoever can outsmart the other being the winner.

 

[Sception]

No, no I don't think this was intentional. Ward is just a fanboy, specifically the type of fanboy designer that tends to make the stuff they like overpowered. You see it all the time in homebrew work. Wouldn't even be a problem if GW had real editing or play testing, but they don't, so we essentially get the first draft version of any rules their designers come up with.

I don't personally believe the end times magic was in anyone's head when they were designing these books, and I don't think end times magic got more than five minutes of thought between conception and printing. I mean, just looking at the rules and how they were written tells me that nobody put the kind of effort or attention into these rules necessary for there to have been any sort of underlying secret agenda they were trying to push.

Hell, the rules are so bad that most folks I've seen or talked to just sort of outright refuse to use them barring a few test games to confirm their misgivings. Not only that, but several folks in my area are refusing to play against elven legions at all due to them being ostensibly tied to these terrible rules, and more than a few are now refusing to play against chaos or undead legions as well now that they feel they have any sort of leg to stand on in doing so (granted, these players were rather reluctant to play against legion armies anyway, and always wanted to draw a line between 'real' warhammer and 'that end times garbage', but khaine and its magic rules have certainly given them the excuse they were looking for).

So if End Times magic was part of some devious ploy by ward to create an unbeatable elf army to dominate everything, from where I'm standing it backfired pretty hard, because I'm now seeing a bunch of people who are refusing to play with or against the elven legion armies as a result.

 

[The Sun King]

@PureSphinx I'm glad you asked The simple fact that white gets to start is hugely important. On a grandmaster level you're content with a draw when you play black for this reason alone. The wiki article about this is well written: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-move_advantage_in_chess

 

[Sception]

That said, chess isn't generally played as single games, but multiple games, with both sides getting to go first.

 

[PureSphinx]

That said, chess isn't generally played as single games, but multiple games, with both sides getting to go first.

However if you're playing 2/3 then someone gets to go first twice but if you're playing 2/2 and it's a tie with each side winning when they get white you have to play another round but if the white side wins again then the other player has to get to play as white and if that's a win then blah blah blah it's impossible to determine who wins...

 

[Sception]

You don't play 2/3, you play rounds of two games until you have a winner. Sometimes that's a bunch of rounds, but that's how it goes.

 

[John Rainbow]

Whilst there is the potential for some broken combos, I disagree that the Elven ET lists are the be all and end all, or that this was designed into them. I think Chaos currently has the distinction of being the best ET list.

Then you got the strength of High Magic and Dark Magic. From awesome signature spells to both being powerful lores. The lores are on the edge of being broken.

I also disagree with this comment. I agree that both lores are good but broken? I don't see them all that often in tournament settings and they require some very careful selections in list building to work. Consider high magic for a moment, the lore attribute (+1 to [Matt] ward save erv is amazing and probably the reason that most people take the lore as it has the potential to create a nightmare unit. Arcane Unforging (destroy magic items) is also great. The other spells in the lore are ok but not amazing. The signatures are both decent (magic missile and drain magic) and the other spells have potential but only in the right matchups or with the right list to make use of them.

Is this lore really up there with Death, Shadow and the like? I think not.

 

[najo]

@The Sun King I'm not a conspiracy theorist. Part of me was having fun with it. But this isn't entirely unheard of in game design. For example, Mark Rosewater has publicly talked about him building a super secret goblin deck into magic the gathering a card at a time, so eventually some crazy goblin deck will exist. It wouldn't be tournament legal in most formats, but he as a designer is putting his stamp on the game. Likewise, Hidetaka Miyazaki (demon and dark souls) has always hidden a weapon called the moonlight great sword/beam/sword etc in the game some where. It goes back to his earlier work on the kingsfield series.

Game designers put their personal marks on things sometimes. Ward worked on all three elf books at the same time and we now know end times was being worked on then to by foreshadows in those later army books and sigmars blood. It's not that far fetched for one designer on his way out to do something like what I'm suggesting. Especially since there is no reprecutions for him.

@John Rainbow I would normally agree with you, but ironically End Times magic shuts those key spells from those lores down. What I'm referring to with dark and high magic signatures is you can spam soul quench and power of darkness all day long with end times rules.

Even if the elves have power creep and ward favored them with their items a bit and none of that was intentional. When he wrote the rules for end times magic how does he not see how powerful the elves are with it and just leave it like that?

 

[najo]

Couldn't you fix chess by comparing elo scores and then having the stronger player start on black? Another option is the white player losses a pawn off their choice before the game starts.

 

[Sception]

Again, I look at the end times magic rules, and I see five minutes worth of scribbles from a dude squeezing out a job on the toilet. They just do not strike me as competent or effortful enough to be concealing any sort of agenda, covert or otherwise.

 

[PureSphinx]

Couldn't you fix chess by comparing elo scores and then having the stronger player start on black? Another option is the white player losses a pawn off their choice before the game starts.

The best fix I saw was to give more than half a point for a forced stalemate instead of treating it as a draw. That way if a player gets black and forces the stalemate and then gets white and wins it shows he is the better player and results in a win by best play for him instead of a draw.

 

[Sception]

That... is a win, though? If you draw then win, and your opponent draws then loses, then you're up a point and win? I don't know, I haven't been into chess in decades, maybe I don't know what I'm talking about.

 

[PureSphinx]

To my understanding a draw is when each side has insufficient pieces to check-mate their opponent, while a stalemate is when one side or the other has the enemy King in check literally every turn, and they can do nothing but move back and forth or whatever it is. That to me shows the board state of the one side winning, even though neither side has been wiped. Kinda like VPs in warhammer.

So yes it's a win but it makes it so two Grand Masters going head to head won't be decided by who gets White.

Edit: a stalemate is when the opponent has no legal moves even if not in check so I was a tad off but it's the same concept.

 

[LordTobiothan]

End times magic seems like gw told someone to make magic seem just uncontrollably crazy and they wrote down whatever brainstorming ideas they had and turned it in.

GW slapped the storm of magic rules onto that brainstorm and printed it.

 

[Pirate Robot Ninja of Death]

I don't think he did so purposely, but never underestimate the power of personal bias. Even if you're consciously trying to remain neutral bias is a truly insidious force that can worm its way into your thoughts and cloud your mind.

Matt Ward is pretty notorious for this. He takes armies that he really loves and breaks them in ways only a fanboy ever could. I don't think he every thought of how savage some of the components of these lists could be when combined together. I think he just made his favourite army awesome in the way he really wanted them to be awesome.

If you look at other fan armybooks they're quite often subject to the same thing. I don't doubt that if I was behind making a new VC or TK book that I'd have to temper myself way back, or else create a travesty like the 7th edition demon book.


My overall impression of the ET books is much like @LordTobiothan says above. These ideas seem like they were the result of brainstorms that were never put to serious testing. The focus of these books is art and narrative, with the new scenarios secondary and balanced rules tertiary. Many of the rules seem stilted towards recreating those campaign scenarios rather than for standard games.

Though that said, I'm actually quite happy with the legions overall. Only the Host of the Eternity King is bent (and objectively better than the other two forces). A bit of houseruling to temper out the flaws and I think these things are all pretty cool.

Hopefully by the time the 9th book is produced they've had time to test these new concepts, and put out something a bit more polished.

 

[Sception]

Problem is that they don't test anything anymore regardless of how much time they have. We can only hope that they accidentally fall butt backwards into something vaguely more balanced than not, as they did with most of 8th edition.

As per the fanboy thing, yeah, that's the impression I get of Ward. That said, better that than the opposite problem. The last couple Chaos Space Marine codeces to be release felt like their authors couldn't have cared less about the subject, and the books were bland, boring, and bad as a result.

Kind of shocking, given that Kelly wrote the current one, and he wrote our Vamp Counts book. I didn't get the impression that he was a huge vamp counts fanboy, but at the same time he turned out a book that, I have to say, is proably my favorite faction book from GW in over a decade, in terms of having tons of interesting options and reasonable internal and external balance.

 

[The Sun King]

You don't play 2/3, you play rounds of two games until you have a winner. Sometimes that's a bunch of rounds, but that's how it goes.

Sorry, I don't won't to derail the topic with my chess analogy. If you're interested in why even chess is imbalanced, please read up on it There have been many tries on how to mitigate the problem, but it's still more or less up to a coin toss. Having two games (like in match games) is not changing the fact that the game itself is imbalanced, that is just evening the imbalance out with changing sides - which in warhammer terms would mean that every second game you actually played with the opponents army list... which is fun and more people should do it.

 

[Pirate Robot Ninja of Death]

I think the biggest problem with WHFB balance is how slowly they update armybooks. TK and O&G were roughly on the level, but between them and the Ogres release they decided to ratchet up the power level of the game. Ogres, Vampires, Empire are all a notch above the previous books.

If you look at the books in chronological order you can see how many of the concepts introduced in earlier books are refined in later ones. TK undead rules suffer from 7th edition hangover, while by the time VC are released they've released they were too conservative before. Same with monster cav between the TK necroknights and the warriors' skullcrushers. With Lizardmen and Elves they're playing around with multiple signatures.

Nowhere is this trend more evident than with Beastmen, though. Their rare-section monsters were clearly priced with thunderstomp in mind, while their minotaurs were hampered by price and rules meant to keep them reasonable in light of monstrous infantry rules. All of that turned out to be a big overreaction. TK's monsters are likewise conservatively written and costed, which is abandoned in later books.

By the time you get to the Elf factions you have a writer who is clearly passionate about the armies he is writing drafting them in a mature rules system that they clearly far better understand. The DE armybook is - I think - the best written 8th edition book. It's got great internal balance, lots of interesting choices, and many distinct playstyles. HE are close, while WE are....poorly conceived (obviously written with an "avoidance build" in mind, which though fluffy is not particularly interesting, and no further diversity of builds were achieved).


I actually think that two of the 3 ET: Khaine factions are, in continuation of the other legions lists, quite well-balanced and interesting. The combination of units that you can get in Aestyrion or Phoenix King are strong but not overwhelming. Without the addition of the new hyper-powerful SCs there's really nothing to be concerned about, and with them they're on the level of other ET lists.

It's not until Host of the Eternity King that we have a problem. However, I would say that this list is purposely written to be overpowered. The combination is objectively better than either other list. There is no reason to take either if you can take Host of the Phoenix King.

 

[The Sun King]

Let's be honest though, they have been putting out new books like crazy the last two years.

 

[najo]

If Ward didn't build the broken power elves into the game on purpose, he at the least was bias in his design towards them. Problem I have though, he should of known better. He was the professional game designer. Just after one review of the rules with friends, most of us found the nasty combos immediately. He knew what he was unleashing and didn't care. As for the writing style, ironically the 8th edition brb is inconsistantly worded in regards to the term successfully cast. Maybe Matt Ward is under a curse if he ever defined it he is dragged off to some explanar deminsion by gribbilies of some sort.

But when he through the armies together in Khaine, and wrote those horrendous End Time rules, he was aware he was creating damage of some extent. How could he have not?

 

[Quinten]

I have not really liked mat ward as a game designer ever since he re-wrote the necrons but I don't think he would intentionally do something this large scale. Just doesn't seem plausible and if he did why hasn't he claimed his work? I mean he is already gone from the company he has nothing to lose.

 

[The Sun King]

The three elven books are really well written - and fun to play against. The End Times is, well, The End Times - the whole purpose is things to get out of control - not to create a balanced tournament setting.