Who would you want to write the next Codex?

Just a bit of a random musing but who would you like to see author the Dark Eldar codex when it is eventually redone and why? Is there a particular person you'd like to avoid?

Kelly did a great job with the current edition, and to be honest the new chaos book wasn't bad either. Jeremy Vetock isn't a bad writer and I was pleased with Ogre Kingdomes, and Dark Angels looks like an interesting book, with lots of options. Though I think I would still go with Kelly.

The only person I don't want to write the book is Matt Ward. I do not want the Dark Eldar codex to be violated and rehashed into a monstrosity of fluff contradictions beyond comprehension. I still haven't recovered from the Necron codex. Necrons use the Webway really? *explodes*

As long as he's not allowed anywhere near the fluff then I'd be happy for Ward to write the codex. His rules are actually pretty decent most of the time. But I think I'd like to stick with Phil Kelly.

Count Adhemar wrote:

His rules are actually pretty decent most of the time.

He has one way of writing rules: make it as powerful and as cheap as possible. Finesse is not in his vocabulary. Reavers would become T6 and shoot liquifiers templates out their behinds, and get a point reduction despite each reaver having a dark lance, splinter cannon, a shadowfield and being level 1 divination psycher. Cause they went to the pimp my ride guy in Commorragh.

Well, the same can be said of most GW authors. Phil Kelly wrote Space Wolves - a prime example of exceptional but underpriced units. Cruddace wrote Imperial Guard, the army that every man and his dog now wants to (and can) ally with. Vettock wrote Dark Angels which seems to be a step up in power from CSM but at lesser cost.

The only thing that really annoys me with Ward's rules are that he seems to feel the need to write rules that specifically contradict other game rules. Hammerhand for example, is applied before other modifiers, whereas all other similar rules apply after other modifiers. So a GK with a Nemesis Hammer (x2S) and Hammerhand (+1S) is S10 but a BA with a Thunder Hammer (x2S) and Furious Charge (+1S) is S9. If he can overcome the need to be a special snowflake and never, EVER touch fluff again, I think he'd be okay.

I just don't like the fact that he feels the need to turn everything up to 11.

Psychic flying dreadnoughts with wings!

That's the problem though he loves being a special snowflake and stepping on other books. I mean necrons are now the most mobile army in the game... Grey knights are more psychic than Eldar... etc

I'll admit I fall on the Mush side of that debate.

I think Phil did pretty well, though he had some gaffs. I think most of the current authors tend to have their hits and misses and strengths and weaknesses. Besides a general dislike of Ward for how he handles fluff I don't think any of them really leap out at me as preferable.

One thing that I like about the current book is as a whole the internal balance is a lot better than the GK, IG or the Necron books. I hate having dead entries in a codex.

Whilst we're on the subject of the DE Codex, what things would you like to see changed? For me, just off the top of my head:

Flyers to get Vector Dancer (and to swap names - the bomber is a better fighter than the fighter and vice versa)
Remove the 1+ for each model in the Court (all Sslyth Court, here I come)
Give DE units "Webway Assault" special rule that allows them to assault from a WWP.
Mandrakes to be useful
Incubi to get grenades (or something similar)
Reaver bikes as an option for some IC's

Mushkilla wrote:

One thing that I like about the current book is as a whole the internal balance is a lot better than the GK, IG or the Necron books. I hate having dead entries in a codex.

Ahem....Mandrakes
I would prefer to have Phil Kelly if the codex were to be redone. I think the current codex is balanced yet potent, and fully inline with the fluff(for the most part)

I would like to see Matt Ward never write a codex again. As Mush mentioned, he really is the Spinal Tap of GW codex writers.

Evil Space Elves wrote:

Ahem....Mandrakes

3 mandrakes - 45pts

Scout/infiltrate blockers (can't infiltrate within 18" of a unit, can't scout move within 12"). Hide behind wall come get me line breakers.

Damn Mush, you know how truly know how to make lemonade from lemons. (Or, how to polish a turd )

From what I seen, Phil Kelly should without a doubt.

[quote="Mushkilla"]

Evil Space Elves wrote:

3 mandrakes - 45pts

Scout/infiltrate blockers (can't infiltrate within 18" of a unit, can't scout move within 12"). Hide behind wall come get me line breakers.

And, yet, they're still not worth fielding since they'd take an Elite slot away.

Thor665 wrote:

Mushkilla wrote:

3 mandrakes - 45pts

Scout/infiltrate blockers (can't infiltrate within 18" of a unit, can't scout move within 12"). Hide behind wall come get me line breakers.

And, yet, they're still not worth fielding since they'd take an Elite slot away.

Mine are usually empty and yet, I have sometimes 50 Points free and no idea how to spent them.

Me.

Barring a spectacular temp job with GW I'd probably take Kelly. Although all of them come down to good days and bad days, I'd rather take Ward* on a good day than Kelly on a bad one.

Hopefully whoever does it doesn't meddle too much - fix the obvious holes, bring points costs in line with the rest of the universe i.e. lower, make our few uncompetitive units useful again, and then add some cool new stuff. Like more jetbikes.

Then I would recommend that build to you as I can't think of a better way to spend 50 points in the elite slots.
It's still not that impressive, but at least it will be something for you.

Phil Kelly in a second. DE is a really amazing book. Fantasy VCs is also really good. Eldar is AMAZING for its age.

Matt Ward's lack of finesse is.... an issue... for me. I like a lot of Vetock's work, though.

Out of interest, what books would one say are Phil Kelly on a bad day?

In order of preference:

Kelly - Always, 7 days a week and twice on Sundays without fail.
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Vetock - I like his work overall but his giant mess with Dark Angels from the craptastic that is Deathwing Knights, to needing an FAQ on release day to even USE the damn codex. Though Skaven and Ogre Kingdoms do show promise.
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Ward - Between the cheese factor that is both Grey Knights and Necrons to his HORRIFIC fluff writing i.e. what Mush mentioned, also the blood bath of Sisters of Battle to make sure they are free from demonic tant.
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Cruddace - Look at Tyranids, Sisters of Battle and Tomb Kings and say he should touch another book. Unless of course we all want any of our units to be 'Canifixed'.

Jervis Johnson or Andy Chambers, the designers of some of my favourite games ever: the Epic 40k games!

Ok, but seriously, Kelly would be just fine if he can as mentioned avoid putting in any hopeless unit entries this time round.

Having access to some very powerful and cheap units is nice in theory, but then you are almost forced to take those units all the time just to keep up with similar units in the subsequent codexes. No variety, no fun. It's also no fun for your opponent who has to suffer through games using an army with an inferior codex. I want all sides to enjoy playing this game.

Also I'd like to avoid any of the bizarre unit concepts that have chequered codexes of late, along with the ridiculous miniatures that then appear.... e.g. Thunderwolf cavalry, cyberwolf(!), Nemesis dreadnought (thought this one was a joke when i first saw it), Land Speeder Vengeance etc.

Well, perhaps this is just me and I prefer the sci-fi concepts over the fantasy concepts, but can you imagine, er.... wyches riding khymerae into battle? ....Or 'The Pain Cannon', a massive flying gun that dispenses a ray of agony (ignores cover)? I just thought of these now, but hopefully you get the idea!

I forgot to add why I asterisked my last post. My * was for

*Providing Ward writes no fluff.

Anyway... I wouldn't say Kelly's done bad books per se, but he's certainly put some very dodgy entries in. I suspect I'll get no sympathy from others for this, due to the power it does have, but I wouldn't mind my SW codex being updated for better internal consistency.

Ridiculous concepts are probably going to happen regardless of author though. I'm just going to hope they're ridiculously cool.

I agree with most here that Kelly should write the next one too, hes done a mostly solid job on this one bar a few holes that could use some work as most people agree.
I would actually like Ward in as an adviser for it. He has some interesting ideas just always implements them with no flare and cranked to 11.
If he was passing idea for Kelly to work with and make subtle then I could live with that.

I'm new to this but I am guessing that we will not get a new codex for years.

Mushkilla wrote:

Evil Space Elves wrote:

Ahem....Mandrakes

3 mandrakes - 45pts

Scout/infiltrate blockers (can't infiltrate within 18" of a unit, can't scout move within 12"). Hide behind wall come get me line breakers.

3 wracks=30 points, same thing with feel no pain and if you take a Haeme they are a troop

As for the original question: Phil Kelley for all the reasons mentioned.

For the second question: Def assault out of the WWP-thought that is a BRB issue and could be fixed by fixing the FAQ that nerfed it for us.
Something that has a resonable shot at killing a flier from the ground-seriously, we can hurtle across the battlefield and still shoot because of our superior electronic targeting systems, but they can't track a plane?

Assualt after deep strike when using The Duke.

ICs with T4

Something to keep all my wyches from dying when thier raider explodes

Kelly. Despite him saying he doesn't want to be typecasted, he pretty much is the Eldar Guy. Besides, he seems to be the only competent guy GW has. Cruddance's track record is horrible (IG was ridiculously underpriced, while every other book he's written have been just terrible), Ward is Ward (while he might write really powerful stuff stuff like having phantasm launchers fire hallucinogen grenades and letting our troops take flyers as transports and giving all vehicles shadow fields, he would completely butcher our fluff and reduce the the codex into a few extremely broken netlists that all FotM players jump to). Vetock I'm not sure about, really; his Fantasy books seem ok, and the DA are powerful but not super Matt Ward broken, but on the other hand the DA book has ridiculous amount of typos and outright errors that necessiated an FAQ within a week of release (tho that might eb due to poor proofreading, and not really the wrtier's fault).