Phil Kelly
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Not Matt Ward, so it's all good.
Loves the space elves. And the evil guys. also one of The Four Gods of GW
Praise the God-Emperor Dark Gods that their faithful servant Phil Kelly is making Black Templar spess mahinees and not Matt Ward, who ass fucked everything but the Ultramarines and Blood Angels, AKA FLYING DREADNOUGHT LIBRARIAN GUYS... but not until he's done undoing the bullshit that Gav Thorpe unleashed on the Chaos Space Marines! BROTHERS! The time of suffering has finally ended! Lord Kelly finally gave us a new Codex, with which we shall take our revenge on the servants of the corpose-emperor! BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD! SKULLS FOR THE SKULLS THRONE! LET THE GALAXY BURN!
Ahem...
Out of all the current crop of Codex writers in 40k, Kelly is the one /tg/ doesn't have a beef with. This pointy-ear generally did mediocre except for his Chaos Marines codex which was shit, This treadhead buffed the Imperial Guard into the stratosphere and is generally regarded to have fucked up the Tyranid 'dex, and, well, if you've spent any time here at all you know our feelings on a certain chapter's spiritual liege. Philipus Kellius is the true savior of this galaxy, It wouldn't surprise anyone if he turned out to become the Emperor. ALL HAIL PHILIPUS KELLIUS
Why Phil Kelly Isn't Matt Ward
Matt Ward designs armies by taking a bunch of units and cranking up their power level to MAXIMUM, either by making them extremely difficult to kill, extremely shooty, extremely choppy, or any combination of the three. He then assigns points values to these units based on what he thinks they should cost and peppers a few special rules here and there for "flavour" before shitting the Codex into the printers office, then returning home to wrap a picture of Marneus Calgar around his cock and masturbate furiously to Sisters guro pictures.
Phil Kelly designs armies that work as armies, rather than a bunch of units that rely on simply being "better" than anything the opponent can field in order to function properly. That's why neither the Dark Eldar or Space Wolves Codexes have big, fat, expensive units with Thunder Hammers, Storm Shields and Feel No Pain for 200pts - you can have units like this if you want them, but where Matt Ward has to give them to you for peanuts because he can't design an army without making it broken, Phil Kelly makes you pay through the bumhole for them because in his army books, these units are a luxury, not a necessity.
tl;dr: Phil Kelly is the best designer GW have got, the only one who makes armies that require any thought to play, and the only thing standing between the gaming side of 40k and complete assmongery. If your army hasn't had a new Codex yet pray to THE EMPRAH/CHAOS GODS that it's Phil Kelly who is going to write the update because if it is, you can count on your book still kicking ass three years down the line, looking like a joke but being almost unbeatable in the right hands, or surviving through an Edition as a force to be reckoned with. Unlike certain army books written by a certain spiritual liege, which seem broken at first but quickly fizzle out as they collapse under the weight of their own hollow bullshit, and even at their peak still have a number of units that are utterly worthless due to stuff in the book that does their job better.
Why Phil Kelly isn't perfect
Phil Kelly isn't a hot topic for the boards of tg because he isn't as bad as Matt Ward, Gav Thrope, Cruddace or CS: Goto in ether the fluff or rules writing department. Kelly his short comings.
An example of this would be Codex: Space Wolves, with much of the non-Space marine wargear having the word "Wolf" thrown into it and having Space Wolves ride giant wolves while act like wolves and have wolf claws with wolf fangs, necklaces and mounts. It's an example of taking something cool, and ruining it by over doing it to an extreme level. It doesn't work, however, Kelly hasn't repeated this mistake yet, showing some sign of restraint.
Another would be the level of competitiveness of his armies, which is lower than desired except for a few lists. The exception to this is Codex: Wolf Wolves. Otherwise, it's ether Eldrad and Vect or Heldrakes and Nurgle. This isn't incredibly bad, but shows a lack of choices available to the armies he writes. Chaos space marines should have a fuckton of unique wargear, not a Predacon. These codexes also suffer from over-costing of some units for what they do and really aren't worth it unless you have a particular strategy in mind. Mediocre units are fairly common as a result. Examples being Mandrakes, Chosen, Possessed, Juggernauts, Grostuques, and so on. These suffer from the aforementioned over costing, poor stats and a lack of options.
A small list of the great deeds of Philipus Kellius
Warhammer 40k
- Codex: Space Wolfs. This codex gave them their true identity as an immensely fun and tactical army that absolutely spams the word "wolf." WOLFY WOLF WOLF FOR THE WOLFWOLF.
- Codex: Orks. A Codex that has survived through two editions still coming out very strong with a great number of competitive builds to this day. Though the cheese it once had seems to have been stolen by mice. Also, hilarious.
- Codex: Eldar. A great codex in of itself, although it has not gone through editions as well as Philipus's other codexes due to changes beyond his control (such as the vehicle rules and codex power creep), it is still one of the better written codexes of all time, fun, balanced, and fluffy.
- Codex: Dark Eldar. This, this is the best written Codex EVAR. Commorragh's description is a true masterpiece, along with Vect's, Malys', and Rakarth's background. It is powerful without being broken, fun without being weak, and as tactically challenging as a fast glass cannon should be. Moreover, Kelly managed to give new life to the evil cousins of the Eldars, allowing them to be competitive once again.
- Codex: Chaos Space Marines. We knew the bucks we were paying were worth it. Failbaddon is getting shit done and kicking Cadia's arse, possibly with the Primarchs. Possessed and the-ones-which-shall-not-be-named are better than last edition. Motherfucking daemon dino-bots and a vector-striking robo-dragon flyer. The first 6th edition Codex and the first colored 40k Codex. 'Nuff said.
- Last but not least, Codex: Chaos Daemons. The Chaos Gods will be pleased. Even if they write them half as good as their mortal counterparts will be TWO times or MORE better than they are now. You're deserving the daemonhood, Phil...
Please let Phil Kelly write the next Guard and Tyranid codexes. Or all of them.
Every general prays to Khorne/Empy/Khaine that their army's next codex is written by Kelly.
Unless you have faith in our Spiritual Liege.
Warhammer Fantasy Battle
- Army Book: Vampire Counts. Philipus has become the savior of undeath, bringing untold horrors apon the old world, and for that he has our immortal gratitude.
- Army Book: Warriors of Chaos 7th edition. Pretty damn good. And it had the saga of Khalac Swordsson in it. He put a fucking Viking drinking song into a Warhammer codex; that's how awesome he is.
And listen to this charming motherfucker chat about the Deldar with the also awesome Jes Goodwin.