Graham McNeill

A writer for the Black Library.

Not Dan Abnett, but forms the Holy Trinity of Black Library writers with him and Sandy Mitchell, (Which makes ADB the holy child or something)

Wrote the Ultramarines novels and some Iron Warriors shit. When he's writing them, the Ultramarines are not just tolerable but actually awesome.

He's also written several Horus Heresy books, including A Thousand Sons, the first Black Library book to hit the New York Times Bestseller list, the infamous short story The Last Church. On the other hand, he did write The Reflection Crack'd, which had Fabius Bile rape Fulgrim with an iron rod. So fail there. Oh, and Codex: Black Templars.

Differences with Matt Ward

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.

He's taller and has less hair than Ward. Also, he wrote the Ultramarines from the perspective of a novellist, so they're more interesting. Ward's "Fuck Yeah, buy this shit kiddies, it's cool" is the sort of thing Design Studio have to write (in order to sell toys), whereas McNeil had more freedom, and thus wrote better stories.

TL:DR; McNeil's stuff is Herp, Ward's stuff is Derp.