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Sisters of Silence

2016-11-17T23:12:56Z

2601:44:0:67BF:54EB:64F8:9785:3CE3: /* After the Horus Heresy */

[[image:Sisters of Silence art.jpg|right|250px|thumb|Don't fuck with these crazy bitches!]]

:"''That's their function...aside from the fact that they fight like bastards. Got the pariah gene in 'em.''"
:--[[Leman Russ]], [[Primarch]] of the [[Space Wolves]], on the Sisters of Silence

The Sisters of Silence were an elite, all female order created by the [[God-Emperor of Mankind|Emperor of Mankind]] to man the [[Black Ships]] and round up a planet's renegade [[psyker]]s.

==History==
[[image:Sisters of silence.jpeg|right|250px|thumb|The Sisters of Silence. NOT ELDAR!]]
As stated, the Emperor formed this all female army at the beginning of the [[Great Crusade]] as a counter-measure against untrained psykers, which had increased at the start of the [[Age of Strife]]. To do this, the Emperor ensured that they were all [[Blank|pariah]]s, human beings with no presence in the [[Warp]]. As such, the psyker's abilities would have no effect on them, but would be cancelled out when they got close enough to them. In one of his odder decisions, the Emperor explicitly had the Sisters take literal vows of silence upon becoming full Sisters. They could communicate via several sign languages (including [[Space Marines|Astartes]] battle-sign) but would not speak a word upon completion of their training. To ensure communication between other branches of the [[Imperium of Man]], Sisters in training would serve as communicators.

The Sisters of Silence are also consummate warriors, trained to the same levels as the Space Marine Legions and using similar wargear, such as [[bolter]]s and [[power weapon]]s, as well as being covered in SoB-like power armour, albeit with no armored helmet or other head protection aside the massive [[Ork|jaw-like collar]] that hides their mouths, which leads to a lot of deaths from headshots during the burning of Prospero. As a military force they are formidable; during the Burning of [[Prospero]] they were deployed to augment the [[Space Wolves]] and the [[Adeptus Custodes]]. While this was more because the pariah gene would neutralize the [[Thousand Sons]] psyker abilities, they were more than capable of fighting with the Astartes. They would also in turn augment the Custodes, the [[Imperial Fists]], the [[Blood Angels]], and the [[White Scars]] during the [[Siege of Terra]], where the pariah gene became a boon fighting the [[Daemon]]s unleashed.

===After the Horus Heresy===
The fate of the Sisters of Silence following the [[Horus Heresy]] has not been completely documented yet. What is known is that the sisterhood was either abandoned, exiled or betrayed by the Imperium after the internment of the Emperor on the Golden Throne, and as a result the sisters had given up their vow of silence.

They refuse to recognise the Imperium in its political form as of M32, seeing it as a corrupted simulacrum of what the Emperor actually intended, but they still acknowledge the Emperor as the focus of their loyalty. Thus when their services are required again in the [[War of The Beast]] they accept the calling and return to Terra, where they are granted an audience with the Emperor in his sanctum on the throne; a privilege that not even the High Lords are afforded.

Also, according to a GW response to a question as how to field the Sisters (and custodies) they stated that both still exist. Now as to what the Sisters of Silence do is up for debate. But as it seems, they still exist. A common rumor is that they be added into the upcoming [[Sisters of Battle]] relaunch. If so, that would be an interesting revision; on the one hand, the Sisters of Battle, despite being designated witch-hunters, were lacking in the anti-psyker department. On the other hand, The Sisters of Silence, much like the Space Marines, are big believers in the Great Crusade era of the Imperium and likely won't mesh well with the [[Ecclesiarchy]]. Although the Beast Arises book ends with the Sisters of Silence being whipped out killing the Beast meaning its possible the Order was reformed.

==Tabletop==
Official crunch [https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/Datasheets/Burning%20of%20Prospero%20Imperial%20Datasheets.pdf here] if you want your ministorum wax seal.

They count as Armies of the Imperium
{| border="1" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="5" align="left"
! || Pts || WS || BS || S || T || W || I || A || Ld || Sv
|-
| '''Sister of Silence:''' || 15 each || 4 || 4 || 3 || 3 || 1 || 5 || 2 || 10 || 3+
|} 
Default squad size 5, max size 10.

'''Wargear''':
* '''Bolter'''
* '''Knife'''
* '''Psyk-out Grenades''': S2 AP-, Blast, causes Perils if it hits something that can generate warp charges. Also count as defensive grenades if charged by something that can generate warp charges.

'''Special Rules'''
* '''Bane of Psykers''': Re-roll all to-hit and gains Precision Shots/Strikes against things that can generate warp charges
* '''Psychic Abomination''': Anything capable of generating warp charges 1) doesn't if standing within 12 inches, 2) manifests warp charges on a 6 only, 3) suffers -3 Ld
** and any Blessing or Malediction cast on a unit (friend or foe) gets nullified if the SoS get within 12" or vice versa
* '''Fear'''
* '''Fearless'''

'''Upgrades''':
* One Sister can become Sister Superior (Character, +1 A) for 10 points
* Any model may swap Boltgun for:
** Flamer for 2 points
** Executioner Greatblade (S+1 AP2, two-handed) for free

'''Formation''': Null-Maiden Task Force 
Composed of 1 to 3 squads of Sisters. 
So long as two squads of Sisters are on the table, enemy players generate 1 fewer warp charge dice per turn. So long as ''three'' squads of Sisters are on the table, enemy players generate ''2'' fewer warp charge dice per turn.

So after yeas of speculating if GeeDubs will even give them rules at all we get... Sisters of Battle, essentially. At least in terms of statline. That wasn't too surprising overall, given they were never Astartes. Hitting at Ap2 with three attacks each on the charge can deal some respectable damage, even hitting at only Strength 4 under most circumstances. Though at a mere T3 with 3+ and none of the 6++ their successors got, they usually won't withstand whatever desperate fire the enemy will throw at them to keep them the fuck away from their psykers. That being said, the amount of fire this 150-180 point squad will attract against an army with psykers might make them well worth it on its own.

==Gallery==
<center>
<gallery>
SoS vs. TS Dred.jpg|Being in a Dreadnought does not make you safe from these Chicks.
SoS vs. EC Noise Marines.jpg|Even these Bastards are having a hard time dealing with them.
</gallery>
</center>

{{Imperium}}

Armageddon

2016-11-17T18:57:21Z

2601:44:0:67BF:54EB:64F8:9785:3CE3:

[[File:Armageddon.jpg|thumb|right|a typical Tuesday on Armageddon]]

'''Armageddon''' is an Imperial [[Hive World]] in the [[Segmentum Solar]]. It is one of the most well-known hive worlds in the galaxy, with an industrial output surpassing that of many [[Forge World|forge worlds]]. As it supplies dozens of worlds with materials and protection, Armageddon is a strategically vital world and is heavily garrisoned. Climate-wise, Armageddon is an ash-filled poluted hellhole. On the main continent there is little more than ash filled deserts, though it's southern regions and the secondary continent have jungles. It is home to the [[Armageddon Steel Legion|Steel Legion]], one of the most recognized [[Imperial Guard Regiment]]s in the galaxy and Armageddon was also the location of some of the largest wars in the history of the galaxy, including the Third War for Armageddon which was the largest land and space battle in the history of the Imperium of man, barring none. Notably it was also the largest gathering of Space Marine ships in history, including during the [[Siege of Terra]] or the Ullanor Crusade (which is funny since it turns out to be Ullanor).

== First War for Armageddon ==

'''The Beginning'''

The first war for Armageddon began with a series of [[Chaos]] rebellions in the hive populous as the demon space hulk ''Devourer of Souls'' came out of the warp above the planet. Much of the [[World Eaters]] chaos space marine legion was aboard the hulk, and they made planetfall amid the bloody rebellions, [[RIP AND TEAR|slaughtering all resistance on the main continent]]. Realizing that the main hives were lost, what was left of the loyalist populations on armageddon retreated to the smaller continent across the sea to regroup and resupply at the small military bases and outposts located there. For a few short weeks while the [[Khorne|Khornate]] hordes busied themselves with sacrificing civilians to summon daemons to bolster their ranks, and the Loyalists used this time to fortify as well as they could, but they had little more to offer their foes than [[Lasgun|flashlights]] and insults. As the Blood God's hordes turned their eyes to the last defenders, now bolstered by daemons and the [[Daemon Prince#Demon Primarch|Daemon Primarch]] [[Angron]] himself. The ragged refugees and soldiers could do little more than pray for deliverance when...

'''The Cavalry Arrives'''

Out of the fucking blue with no real lore explanation the [[Space Wolves|Vlka Fenryka]] showed up, led by the [[Logan Grimnar|Old Wolf]] himself! The wolves blasted the fuck out of the ''Devourer of Souls'' and made planetfall to help the remaining [[Planetary Defense Force]] and [[Armageddon Steel Legion|Steel Legion]] forces defend the remaining civilians while they awaited the [[Grey Knights|help]] that [[Logan Grimnar|Logan]] had called for. After months of [[RIP AND TEAR|bloody battle]], the [[Grey Knights]] fucking finally showed up to the party. This 'ragged brotherhood' fought Angron and his retinue of [[Bloodthirster]]s and won when their brotherhood's Grandmaster was able to banish [[Angron]] after [[Hyperion]] shattered the daemon Primarch's blade. Of the 109 Grey Knights who took to the field, [[Grimdark|13 survived]].

'''The Months of Shame'''

Following [[Angron]]'s banishment the Wolves and Steel Legion were able to destroy the few Khornate forces that remained. Given that the whole planet had been contaminated by [[chaos]], and by the sanction of an [[Inquisition|inquisitor lord]] the remaining population of Armageddon, civilians and soldiers alike, were to be [[Grimdark|sterilized and sent to inquisitorial compounds to be worked to death]], and any space wolves who had seen the Grey Knights were to be mindwiped, save for Grimnar. The space wolves were not fucking amused. Logan [[RAGE|politely and calmly]] explained to the inquisitor that by punishing the citizens of Armageddon for their heroism and survival, the inquisition were sullying the honor of the men that yet lived and disrespecting the memories of the dead. The inquisitor more or less told Logan to go fuck himself. [[RAGE|The Old Wolf was not amused]]. Shortly after this exchange the refugees and soldier survivors started to mysteriously "disappear" from inquisitorial custody. The inquisition pretty quickly figured out was up and called the wolves to explain their deeds, but they weren't feeling talkative. The inquisition began firing on any civilian craft leaving the planet, including the ones escorted by the space wolves who blocked the inquisitorial fire, [[Noblebright|first with their void shields and then with the hulls of their ships, but never fired back.]] After months of tense standoffs and passive resistance against the inquisition, the Space Wolves finally got sick of the inquisiiton's shit when they destroyed the relic [[Battle Barge]] ''Scramsaex'' and the space vikings started shooting back. Evidently the inquisitor lord thought it was a good idea to be in a void war with [[Logan Grimnar]] a dude who can call on EIGHT battle barges and FUCKING THIRTY strike cruisers. He was wrong.

'''The End'''

After months of the inquisition getting its ass kicked the Inquisitor finally called on every resource he could muster and set off to [[Fenris]] with an entire [[Imperial Navy]] fleet, a [[Grey Knights]] strike cruiser and the entire [[Red Hunters]] chapter fleet. To make a long story short the wolves lost some ships and some men, the inquisition lost a lot of ships and men, and everything ended with [[Logan Grimnar]] teleported onto the Grey Knight's strike Cruiser, killed the inquisitor and Grandmaster, and threw [[Hyperion]] a beating, but was forced to stand down when [[Bjorn]] teleported up into the party and had what is quite possibly the single most "Bjorn" moment ever. Not only did he tell the inquisition to get off his damn lawn, not only did he tell Logan to quit making so much damn noise with his out-of-hand party, Bjorn actually came onto a Fenrisian inquisitor, calling her a "beautiful frost-born maiden" (or some other flowery shit, it's been a couple years since I read ''The Emperor's Gift'', okay?) revealing himself to be a krachety old romantic neckbeard. Everyone was pretty fucking dumbfounded, and the inquisitor was dead, so everybody pretty much went their own way.

[[skub|TLDR: Wolves fought the inquisitors, it was a draw.]]

==Second War for Armageddon==

To make a short story even shorter, the Second War for Armageddon was a massive fucking meatgrinder full of happy orks and pissed off humans. [[Ghazghkull Mag Uruk Thraka]] arrived on the planet with a bunch of Roks and a few billion [[Ork]]s and decided to make things more interesting. The local PDF's big cheese was a fucker by the name of Herman von Strab, though he sucked at his job so [[Commissar Yarrick]], the Old Man himself, took over and started [[gets shit done|getting shit done]]. Yarrick managed to hold things together with his half-whipped and half-starved forces until the marines arrived to help out. [[Dante|Commander Dante]] arrives with a taskforce to finish the fight. Ghazghkull fucked off to space. Kinda like WWI. All this war did was: create [[Mephiston|Mephiston]] and set the scene for the big war that came after, which brings us to...

==Third War for Armageddon==

The third war for Armageddon was the biggest land war in the history of the [[Imperium]] and the [[RIP AND TEAR|galaxy's mosh pit]]. FUCKING EVERYONE was there. Well. All the orks and humans anyway. Seriously, all 9 former SM legions were there along with a lot of successors, there were a dozen titan legions and a metric fuckton of guard regiments, along with a few billion orks. There were more Void Ships and ground forces at the third war for Armageddon than any other war in the history of mankind, surpassing even the Siege of Holy Terra and the Ullanor Crusade (though this has been partially retconned by [[Games Workshop|our overlords]]). Commanding this clusterfuck you had [[Helbrecht|High Marshal Helbrecht]] in charge of the Void Battle, as the [[Black Templars|Templars]] are void specialists and [[Commissar Yarrick]] in overall command on the ground (says a lot about how hardcore Yarrick is that even the Astartes were willing to take orders from this guy). Short story shorter Ghazghkull was annoyed that he had to fuck off to space last time, so he came back with even MORE orks to come back and get Yarrick, though this time the Imperium was prepared and eventually won. Ghazghkull fucked off to space again, with Yarrick joining the Templars on an epic roadtrip to go smite the green fucker. Helbrecht had intended to build Armageddon as a bastion of Imperial might, including having several space fleets that would allow the Imperium to attack and reclaim planets that they had lost, but as soon as he and Yarrick left the lazy fuckers left in charge just did what they had done before the Ork invasion, [[derp|fuck all and hope nothing happens.]] Then GW realized that they were terrified of story progression, so this victory was retconned away.

{{Template:40k-Timeline}}
[[Category:Imperial]][[Category:Planets & Sectors]]

Sisters of Silence

2016-10-31T23:25:09Z

2601:44:0:67BF:54EB:64F8:9785:3CE3: /* After the Horus Heresy */

[[image:Sisters of Silence art.jpg|right|250px|thumb|Don't fuck with these crazy bitches!]]

:"''That's their function...aside from the fact that they fight like bastards. Got the pariah gene in 'em.''"
:--[[Leman Russ]], [[Primarch]] of the [[Space Wolves]], on the Sisters of Silence

The Sisters of Silence were an elite, all female order created by the [[God-Emperor of Mankind|Emperor of Mankind]] to man the [[Black Ships]] and round up a planet's renegade [[psyker]]s.

==History==
[[image:Sisters of silence.jpeg|right|250px|thumb|The Sisters of Silence. NOT ELDAR!]]
As stated, the Emperor formed this all female army at the beginning of the [[Great Crusade]] as a counter-measure against untrained psykers, which had increased at the start of the [[Age of Strife]]. To do this, the Emperor ensured that they were all [[Blank|pariah]]s, human beings with no presence in the [[Warp]]. As such, the psyker's abilities would have no effect on them, but would be cancelled out when they got close enough to them. In one of his odder decisions, the Emperor explicitly had the Sisters take literal vows of silence upon becoming full Sisters. They could communicate via several sign languages (including [[Space Marines|Astartes]] battle-sign) but would not speak a word upon completion of their training. To ensure communication between other branches of the [[Imperium of Man]], Sisters in training would serve as communicators.

The Sisters of Silence are also consummate warriors, trained to the same levels as the Space Marine Legions and using similar wargear, such as [[bolter]]s and [[power weapon]]s, as well as being covered in SoB-like power armour, albeit with no armored helmet or other head protection aside the massive [[Ork|jaw-like collar]] that hides their mouths, which leads to a lot of deaths from headshots during the burning of Prospero. As a military force they are formidable; during the Burning of [[Prospero]] they were deployed to augment the [[Space Wolves]] and the [[Adeptus Custodes]]. While this was more because the pariah gene would neutralize the [[Thousand Sons]] psyker abilities, they were more than capable of fighting with the Astartes. They would also in turn augment the Custodes, the [[Imperial Fists]], the [[Blood Angels]], and the [[White Scars]] during the [[Siege of Terra]], where the pariah gene became a boon fighting the [[Daemon]]s unleashed.

===After the Horus Heresy===
The fate of the Sisters of Silence following the [[Horus Heresy]] has not been completely documented yet. What is known is that the sisterhood was either abandoned, exiled or betrayed by the Imperium after the incarceration of the Emperor on the Golden Throne, and as a result the sisters had given up their vow of silence.

They refuse to recognise the Imperium in its political form as of M32, seeing it as a corrupted simulacrum of what the Emperor actually intended, but they still acknowledge the Emperor as the focus of their loyalty. Thus when their services are required again in the [[War of The Beast]] they accept the calling and return to Terra, where they are granted an audience with the Emperor in his sanctum on the throne; a privilege that not even the High Lords are afforded.

Also, according to a GW response to a question as how to field the Sisters (and custodies) they stated that both still exist. Now as to what the Sisters of Silence do is up for debate. But as it seems, they still exist. A common rumor is that they be added into the upcoming Sisters of Battle relaunch.

==Tabletop==
Official crunch [https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/Datasheets/Burning%20of%20Prospero%20Imperial%20Datasheets.pdf here] if you want your ministorum wax seal.

They count as Armies of the Imperium
{| border="1" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="5" align="left"
! || Pts || WS || BS || S || T || W || I || A || Ld || Sv
|-
| '''Sister of Silence:''' || 15 each || 4 || 4 || 3 || 3 || 1 || 5 || 2 || 10 || 3+
|} 
Default squad size 5, max size 10.

'''Wargear''':
* '''Bolter'''
* '''Knife'''
* '''Psyk-out Grenades''': S2 AP-, Blast, causes Perils if it hits something that can generate warp charges. Also count as defensive grenades if charged by something that can generate warp charges.

'''Special Rules'''
* '''Bane of Psykers''': Re-roll all to-hit and gains Precision Shots/Strikes against things that can generate warp charges
* '''Psychic Abomination''': Anything capable of generating warp charges 1) doesn't if standing within 12 inches, 2) manifests warp charges on a 6 only, 3) suffers -3 Ld
** and any Blessing or Malediction cast on a unit (friend or foe) gets nullified if the SoS get within 12" or vice versa
* '''Fear'''
* '''Fearless'''

'''Upgrades''':
* One Sister can become Sister Superior (Character, +1 A) for 10 points
* Any model may swap Boltgun for:
** Flamer for 2 points
** Executioner Greatblade (S+1 AP2, two-handed) for free

'''Formation''': Null-Maiden Task Force 
Composed of 1 to 3 squads of Sisters. 
So long as two squads of Sisters are on the table, enemy players generate 1 fewer warp charge dice per turn. So long as ''three'' squads of Sisters are on the table, enemy players generate ''2'' fewer warp charge dice per turn.

So after yeas of speculating if GeeDubs will even give them rules at all we get... Sisters of Battle, essentially. At least in terms of statline. That wasn't too surprising overall, given they were never Astartes. Hitting at Ap2 with three attacks each on the charge can deal some respectable damage, even hitting at only Strength 4 under most circumstances. Though at a mere T3 with 3+ and none of the 6++ their successors got, they usually won't withstand whatever desperate fire the enemy will throw at them to keep them the fuck away from their psykers.

==Gallery==
<center>
<gallery>
SoS vs. TS Dred.jpg|Being in a Dreadnought does not make you safe from these Chicks.
SoS vs. EC Noise Marines.jpg|Even these Bastards are having a hard time dealing with them.
</gallery>
</center>

{{Imperium}}

The Beast

2016-09-21T01:45:21Z

2601:44:0:67BF:54EB:64F8:9785:3CE3: /* The Legend */

The Beast is one of the mightiest (if not THE mightiest) ork warbosses ever to ravage the galaxy, fought during [[The War of The Beast]].

==The Legend==
Back during the forging (that is, the 32nd millennium) the Imperial Fists were idly slaughtering and driving to extinction an alien race when they found something flabbergasting. A hugeass WAAAGH!!! But it weren't numbers alone the main threat that this ork force represented, but its organization and composition. The Beast was ginormous, far bigger than good old [[Ghazghkull Mag Uruk Thraka]], and his nobs were colossal and mighty foes. How large was the Beast you ask? He is said to have been as large as a HAB-BLOCK and with a mouth filled with tusks the size of TREE TRUNKS and this could be due to the fact that he's the same breed as the ork warboss of Ullanor who it took [[The Emperor]] HIMSELF TO KILL. Hell he was so huge that when he first appears the space marines sent to kill him mistake him for a stompa before they realize there's an ork in that plated armor. Let that sink in for a moment...
How big of a threat was The Beast? The Iron Warriors teamed up with the Imperial Fists in order to fight him and his boyz. The fucking most bitter enemies in the galaxy who hated each other's guts, barring the [[Ultramarine]] fans versus the rest of the fandom during 5th edition, teamed up together against him. Whole crusades where dedicated to halt them, the mightiest fleets since the days of the heresy were assembled. Tens of chapters were lost, annihilated by the green tide. The Imperial Fists UNITED as a whole legion in order to have a fighting chance and during the most heated point the [[Deathwatch]] was created.

Let it sink: the [[Deathwatch]], the prime alien hunters and the most proficient annihilators of xenos were expressly created as a (one of many) last ditch effort to stop him. Fucking wow.

Assorted accomplishments from this dude include:

*Making attack ''moons''. Not Roks, like Thraka's. MOONS as a whole and in plural, that's a whole new level of [[looted|loot]].
*Making logistics and army structure on a sophisticated level.
**The thing goes beyond logistics and army structure. Guess what symbols do they use? For tactically gifted gits they made them wear bloody axes, snakes for the... "herders", and horns for their best shock troops. That is, Blood Axes, Snakebites, and Goffs. The space marines don't recognize this symbols despite there being iron warriors whom fought during the crusade. Let it sink for a second: he laid the foundations for the Ork Klans. His legacy is still lasting til now as the great grand-daddy of all the orks in the current setting.
*Asswhooping dozens of chapters in unison.
*He fucking reached and BESIEGED Terra itself.
*He had ork DIPLOMATS. Just think about greenskins that are capable of more complex thoughts than "run/hide and then run and bash that asshat's cranium into pulp".
**It goes far beyond that, the ork diplomat went to the Senatorum Imperialis itself, in The Golden Palace, he put in evidence what innefectual little pieces of trash most of the Lords of Terra are, what is more, and one of the most deliciously effective insults ever thrown at mankind, ''he acted in a civilized way, offering surrender terms'', confronting [[Skaven|a bunch of petty cowardly parasites who bickered among themselves like immature kids while trying to back-stab each other]], the guy nailed it in such a way not even the worst desecration made by Chaos could have hurt the imperials pride.
*He was able to sicken the frigging Iron Warriors: when they went to Prax they found that the Orks had organized thousands of farms with BILLIONS of humans in there so pumped of shit they were devolved into the cattle they were being bred for. When you've got a bunch like the Iron Warriors saying "It will be a mercykill". You know you've become a sick fuck of the highest order if other sick fucks are disgusted with you. And I remind you, this is the same legion that created the [[Daemonculaba]].
*He had ''colonized'' Ullanor. The whole world was now sporting ork cities (and very well organized to boot) that would become killing zones for the invading forces.
*He murderfucked the Ultramarines Chapter Master, the Crimson Fist's Chapter Master, crippled a blood angels captain and gave VULKAN of all people a tough fight. Normally any of the aforementioned before would have sufficed to kill him yet it was a hell of a battle for the four previously mentioned.

Truly this guy is the mightiest warboss ever and the WAAAGH! Beast reigns supreme as the biggest and meanest WAAAGH!, [[Ghazghkull Mag Uruk Thraka]] be damned. The WAAAGH! energy that suffuses him makes him akin to a living Ork demi-god. Able to regenerate from wounds Vulkan inflicts on him. Insanely intelligent; possibly even a genius on a human scale. Him existing has triggered a reaction in the Ork genome leading the entire race to transform into coherency and become efficient and organised. He's essentially their version of the Emperor. This Ork is the eventuality of uncontested success for a singular Ork. So vastly different have the Ork become in nature that it is possible that they are evolving into the Krork.

Oh, and he's one of six other "Prime-Orks" (technically 5, since the Imperium managed to kill one).

[[category:Warhammer 40,000]][[Category:Orks]]

Matthew Ward

2016-08-02T23:59:57Z

2601:44:0:67BF:54EB:64F8:9785:3CE3: /* Matt Ward's Writing "Highlights" */

{{editwar}}
{{Fail}}
{{MattWard}}
{{Template:Heresy}}

[[Image:Matthew Ward.jpg|thumb|Behold, the [[FAIL|great]] [[Neckbeard|beast]] has come, [[C.S.Goto|destroyer of verisimilitude.]]]]

'''Matthew Ward''' (usually shortened to '''Ultramarine Fanboy #1''' or '''The Emperor of Skub (praised be his name)''') was one of the Games Designers at [[Games Workshop]] and the Fifth God of Chaos, The Lord of Changing Fluff, 420 Noscoper and The Bringer of Mary Sues. He was the definition of [[Skub]] until he left Geedubs and Age of Sigmar/Nuhammer/Fucking Bullshit came along.

He was widely hated on [[/tg/]] for a wide variety of reasons, enumerated ad nauseam below. Since then we've had two new editions and a bunch of new codices. He has left Games Workshop altogether since, but fa/tg/uys being fa/tg/uys there's still plenty of bile spewed about him despite most of us having moved on.

It's probably telling that this page was one of 1d4chan's most controversial and fought-over; not because people are arguing over whether he's good or bad, but because they're arguing over ''how bad'' and whether he's redeeming himself with his (slightly) better work as of late.

It is also telling that for a period of time, his name was a banned word on 4chan due to the bitchfights surpassing even Edition Wars seen in the heyday and that 1d4chan appears on a google search of his name before Wikipedia.

==I'm a new player; Who is That Guy?==
Matt Ward was a Games Designer for Games Workshop. That means he wrote [[Codex|Codices and Army Books]]. He was responsible for both the rules themselves (the [[crunch]]) and the background behind the army (the [[fluff]]).

In real life he's a fairly soft-spoken and shy man, and generally nicer than you might suspect. If for some reason you want to know more about him (especially considering the paragraphs below) he does have a blog linked at the bottom which he uses to promote his independent stuff.

Basically, he was if [[That Guy]] could '''DEVOUR THE RULES'''

==That Doesn't Sound So Bad; Why Does /tg/ Hate This Guy So Much?==

Because he messed up. A lot.

''A lot.''

It's widely believed that he made some of the most broken books ever published by Games Workshop (which is really saying something), that he systematically destroyed the fluff to fit his own bloody vision of the [[Warhammer 40,000|40k]] and [[Warhammer Fantasy|Fantasy]] universes (while ignoring all of the fluff that existed beforehand) and, perhaps most egregiously, made the game boring with his copy/paste style of writing.

That being said, nowadays, a segment of /tg/ has turned against this viewpoint, noting that the other authors (in particular [[Robin Cruddace]], who is hated almost as much as Ward himself, and [[Gavin Thorpe]] who's known for the forceful insertion of Chaos into every faction in Fantasy) are frequently just as bad as Ward himself. They also note that although Ward's books were very powerful they were relatively well-balanced against each other, had a variety of good choices in army composition, and were actually fairly interesting (although as always these things are matters of opinion).

Whether or not these claims are true is a [[Skub|matter of debate]], but we present the evidence below in equal measure with viewpoints as briefly but accurately represented as possible so you can make up your own mind.

Many hate the man, others love him, and everyone else just doesn't give enough of a shit and would prefer everybody shut the fuck up and post [[Monstergirl]] [[PROMOTIONS|porn]].

==Why the Hate?==
The problem with Matt Ward is a touch complicated, but the biggest issue is the way he writes the fluff. For many, as can be seen by the plethora of /tg/ made chapters here on 1d4chan, the true appeal of 40k is designing a unique, colorful army with a rich history and engaging heroes. A good player of 40k likes to put a certain amount of himself in his lovingly assembled and painted armies, and he likes his army to reflect his own sensibilities and his own ideals. That's what makes an army truly belong to a player – that's what makes them [[your dudes|special]].

Matt Ward takes those elements and changes them to suit his tastes. Those heroes you may have liked before now seem like entirely new people, and the armies you liked before now seem to be an entirely different force you never wanted to play as and while this kind of change isn't anything new to 40K, the reason people single Ward out more for it is because the other authors (most notably [[Phil Kelly]]) at least try to keep some of the themes in the new books so that they feel like the old army with a new shade of paint, rather than some alien force wearing the skin of the one you used to like.

The biggest rage-inducing codex he has made thus far is the [[Space Marines]] codex, which explicitly stated that all chapters, [[Black Templars|excluding]] [[Raven Guard|a]] [[Iron Hands|few]] [[Space Wolves|"aberrants"]], behave and think in exactly the same manner as his army – the [[Ultramarines]]. He spelled out the organization patterns, the ideologies, who they revere and why (this is also where he made his infamous "Spiritual Liege" comment) and assumes that everyone else automatically accept this radical shift in logic from labeling the blue boys as "all-rounder guys with a Roman motif" to "TEH BEST CHAPTAHR EVAR".

Players can still make their own [[Emperor's Nightmare|factions]], but with Ward's fluff, they'll never measure up to his smurfs. This could be easily written off as the bitter anger of the old veterans, and on some level, it is - but when analyzing Ward's works, and his reactions to works by other Codex/fluff writers, patterns quickly emerge, and one cannot ignore this. The [[Chaos|flaw]] is inescapable, and Ward enforces it in all his writing with sincerity and vigor.

(It's believed by some that the codex was supposed to be called "Codex: Ultramarines" and was changed at the last minute by GeeDubs. It still would have been stupid, but we could have easily written it off as Macragge propaganda instead of pending 8 years bitching about it)

Even this would not be so much of a problem if it weren't for the fact that Ward just isn't a tactician, only rarely does he try to write factions using any kind of thought to dictate their battle (The closest he's done to writing military doctrine was the [[Necron]] codex) or just telling the player that somebody is a [[Creed|tactical genius]] without anything to show for it. The majority of Ward's heroes lead head first, sacrificing all in frontal assaults that could be circumvented with more [[Reasonable Marines|ingenuity]]. Though this isn't entirely Ward's fault as it should be noted that most of the characters he wrote were [[Marneus Calgar|front-line generals]] before he touched them and this is a very common theme for nearly every army in the setting [[Tau|with]] [[Necrons|a few]] [[Eldar|exceptions]].

As for this "tell, don't show" policy, he tells us that Marneus Calgar is a patient [[Creed|tactical genius]] who considers the danger of an incoming projectile before taking cover. The image painted in the average person's mind in that case is one of Calgar analyzing a falling bomb until it strikes him in the head and explodes, at which point he decides, “Yes, that one was dangerous, I probably should have taken cover from that one". A more reasonable explanation, however, would be something along the lines of Calgar taking note of the paths of incoming bullets, and only bothering to take cover or otherwise avoid them if they are actually going to hit him, and even then, only if they would actually pose a threat. This would paint the surprisingly badass (for Ward, at least) image of a man standing out in the open as gunfire whizzes by, occasionally cocking his head to the side or taking the odd sidestep to avoid any rounds that might ''actually'' be a danger to him, but since there are two viewpoints on it in the first place it makes it clear something went wrong.

The biggest offender of Matt's “tell not show” policy is [[Kaldor Draigo]], the [[Grey Knights]]' Supreme Grand Master, whose main personality trait is supposed to be “badass”. [[Mary Sue|Without rhyme, reason, or feasible explanation]], Draigo simply exists as this whirlwind of enemy-destroying fiction in his codex. He pops in and out of the Warp, wrecking everything, everywhere, without so much a minute of exposition or explanation. Draigo is a concept – a meaningless one without any emotional impact. He's not a person or anything to which the average man can even attempt relate because all he can write is about how badass he's supposed to be. Ward has simply declared him the best ever, and he has done so in canon, so it is. This isn't helped much by the fact that Grey Knights are a very "Tell not Show" Chapter, ever since they were made every amazing feat they do is essentially kept under a whole chest full of locks and keys.

Another problem with the simple "Ignore the Ward's Fluff" idea is that players play fluffy armies, the canon lore does matter to them, and though try as they might to ignore the glaring fact the canon fluff is forever altered by creating little pockets of what they believe 'should be' the fluff, it all feels exactly as it sounds; a personal delusion that ignores the facts: One day, it was found out that your family doesn't exist, and while you can still maintain the belief that they do, it will never be true; that's how it feels. And it is painful to play as these armies and see their fluff changed so much, or to be reminded when you play against them. Ward's codex's have been very successful, look at the number of people playing Grey Knights, Blood Angels, Necrons these days, ruthlessly exploiting every bit of cheese they can find and purchasing up all the new shiny overpriced models for them.

As for crunch, it goes without saying that it is without a doubt unbalanced, with several armies he wrote (Read: Grey Knights and Necrons) essentially flattening everything from here to hell, but the issue is that they're essentially all over the place, which one could possibly excuse Matt himself for writing, and instead place the blame on [[GW]] Marketing shoving forth new sets to force people to buy. The most damning example of his crunch-making skills isn't in 40K, but in Fantasy: When he wrote the 7E [[Chaos Daemons|Daemons of Chaos]] codex, it was so overpowered, so unbalancing, that it practically destroyed the edition's balance and forced GeeDubs to build a whole new Edition to even begin staunching the bleeding.

Whether you decide Ward deserves the rage and hate he gets, write it off as a sad consequence of his earlier work, pity him for working for GW, or simply don't give a shit is entirely your call. As ever, on /tg/, we urge you to make your own decisions. Either way, he's not the best writer they have, but he's also not [[C.S. Goto|the worst]], and his reputation will follow him in his endeavours from now till time immemorial, for good or for ill.

That said, hatred for him is dying down these days as the quality of his work has vastly improved, most of his horrible books were re-written (sometimes by him) to be much better or balanced out through another edition, and even some of the neckbeards who despised him at first are willing to forgive him now, especially in light of the clusterfuck that was the 6th edition Tyranids codex and the 7th edition Craftworlds codex breaking the game even worse than the Daemons of Chaos army book did.

== Saving Grace? ==
To be fair, Matt '''can''' write reasonably decent fluff, like [[The World Engine]] ''(which this former necron player admits is awesome despite ripping off Star Wars in several ways; the World Engine is just a renamed Death Star, and the Rebel Fle- ahem SPACE MARINES have to destroy it)'' , [[Castellan Crowe]] ''(who even this severely butthurt Daemonhunters-now-GK-player has to admit IS pretty fucking cool)'' or [[Trazyn the Infinite]]. It should be noted though that these are all new additions from Ward, and if the stuff he adds to an existing faction is good, then why change what's already there to match your way of thinking when you could just add something? Whether it's Trazyn or Draigo, adding something is still better than altering an entire chapter. There is no denying that Ward is better than several alternatives (and vice versa, though this depends on the army in question) and (in a typical book) for every good piece of fluff he's done, there's a bunch of [[Kaldor Draigo]]s and [[Khornate Knights]] to sift through - and in the eyes of a staggering plurality on /tg/, that's a big part of why he's disliked.

Another point, he's also able to create crunch that is fine on it's own (like the Space Marine codex, or Necrons before 6th edition buffed them to the stratosphere) and perfectly balanced against his other books (a trait he shares with Vetock), and the special rules he writes are usually interesting, creative and useful, making his armies very distinct from the others, and capable to do things nothing else in the game can (y'know, things like all-assault marine Blood Angels, Furioso's blood talons and magna-grapple, teleporting Dreadknights or Necron Mindshackle scarabs, entropic strike and Deep-Striking in the enemy movement phase), adding more fun into the game albeit for the cost of balance against other armies. In fact he helped create other armies' special rules, like the Eldar Battle Focus. "Unwardified" codices of 6-7E tend to change those interesting things into something mundane and simple (and often less powerful, sometimes to the point of useless, RIP mindsackles and assault troops...), or removing them entirely.

However, the fairest thing to level at Ward is the fact that, in his absence, GW hasn't stopped making shitty decisions with their intellectual property (and arguably started long before his tenure). This tells us his works were less Ward's flaw seeping into and contaminating the game insofar as it was his employer using him as a scapegoat to take the heat off their profit-driven cheese-mongering. Yes, they needed someone to write these abominations, but every writer at GW has problems writing books at some point. In essence, Ward was the ''perfect'' author for GW's shift to an all-SM production across all lines: his admittedly bad writing gave us someone to blame and at the same time, gave GW the sales burst they desired but couldn't figure out how to justify least their moves become noticeable by the community and a substantial revenue risk.

==Factions of Ward==
[[File:Mattmarine.jpg|250px|thumb|right|Banner of Rage]]
The various viewpoints on Ward can be broken up into six factions. Like most of /tg/'s inter-departmental-bickering, this is by no means a comprehensive list and the various factions can come in various flavors of [[This Guy]] and [[That Guy]]. [[/v/|Some]] would argue more of the latter, and [[/d/|others]] more of the former.

'''The Old Guard''' - Maintain that Ward is the anti-Christ. Loudly complain when he's writing a new codex and vehemently hates his fluff. Will fight to the bitter end decrying that Ward's rules are overpowered, but is notable mostly for his utter hatred of Ward's fluff and complete disregard of previously-established canon. The most devout of them focus their hatred on the Necron codex. More than simple alterations isolated to the Necron fluff and the 6th ed codex. They vehemently remind people that in messing with the past, Ward had completely changed Warhammer 40k history, affecting such things as the origins of Nulls, Necron motivation, their battles with the Eldar, and due to the notorious Allies chart, changing the very manner in which every race interacts.

'''The Vet Gamer''' - Differs from the Old Guard in that whilst the Old Guard hates for primarily the Fluff, the Vet Gamers hate him for the Crunch. They see ward's nonsense as indicative of the power creep that the game's suffered for quite some time, often citing Warhammer 40K's flagrantly game-breaking [[Blood Angels]] codex at launch, or Warhammer Fantasy's [[Daemons]] codex as a sign of where everything went wrong.

'''The Indifferent''' - These are people who have no opinion as to whether Ward is good or bad, they are neutral on his subject, they just want people to shut the fuck up.

'''The Crunch Defenders''' - Hold that while Matt Ward does write atrocious [[fluff]], his [[crunch]] is fair and balanced. They also defend the viewpoint that ultimately, crunch is more important than fluff because you can ignore bad fluff. Also known as WAAC players.

'''The Counter-Culture''' - Love Ward on the grounds that the Old Guard hate him too much. /tg/'s version of hipsters.

'''The Converted''' These are people who agree Ward's older books suck but believe he's getting better (and/or the suck of the older books were over exaggerated), or even a good writer now.

'''The Wardinites''' - The direct opposite of the Old Guard, the Wardinites worship Ward as a God, following the revered Book of Ward. They are identified by defending Ward, but whereas Crunch Defenders only defend Crunch, Wardinites defend both. Whereas the Counter-Culture like him because it makes them look "edgy", the Wardinites hold that he is legitimately good. Often quotes from the Book of Ward, usually: "From the Cruddex, and the monobuild, Matthew Ward deliver us". They hold [[Robin Cruddace]] as the Great Satan. It is suspected that the Wardinites have a strong powerbase in the Necrons and Tyranid communities.

It should be noted, like most religions, there are different sects within the Cult of Ward, the theological divides between them mostly concerning [[skub|Codex: Grey Knights]]. The sects supporting Grey Knights are also divided amongst pro- and anti-draigo sects. And now recently these sects have become even more diverse thanks to a certain passage in the new Daemons codex...

It should be noted that if a member of the Old Guard and a member of the Cult of Ward meet, there WILL be [[Khorne|blood]] spilled. Such is also true of a Vet Gamer and Crunch Defender meeting.

==Matt Ward's Writing "Highlights"==
[[Image:Zeist.png|left|thumb|This image is considered by most to be tacit proof that Matt Ward is going to a ''very'' special place in Hell when he dies.]]

For awhile Matt Ward worked for Games Workshop and, initially, his works were not too bad. Over time the problems arose, yet Games Workshop kept trusting him with more important projects. They seemed to be under the misconception that Matt Ward was their best writer when his popularity (that many people kept using his armies) was more likely due to three things; they got him to write for their most popular armies with the players choosing to put up with Ward's flawed writing rather than give up their army and throw away the money/time they invested, the power-gamers loved his armies as they were overpowered at first and the newcomers to the hobby were ignorant of the previous state of the game, so they could have been unaware of how unbalanced it had become and how often Ward ruined the continuity of the game and retconned so much previously established lore.

'''2002 - 2007'''
*Ward authors a bunch of Lord of the Rings books. Revisionist neckbeards now like to point to them as damning proof of Ward's madness in its infancy, but mostly they're just forgettable. During this time, he also worked for [[White Dwarf]], his only real defining feature being his fondness for playing the [[Chaos|evil armies]] in battle reports. In hindsight, this was probably a sign of things to come. He also creates the rules for the Mumak, the most fucking ridiculous unit ever, which can destroy entire armies in it's movement. The Mumak is eventually revealed to be so broken (and included in an army that already had it's share of cheese) that it signals the beginning of the end for the Lord of the Rings system.

*On a Warhammer Fantasy note, 7th edition Orcs and Goblin book(with really stupid fluff mistakes and the appearence of a wizard from magic colleges in Gorbad's siege, thousands of years before their foundation. He also teamed up with the long-lost Anthony Reynolds to write the 6th Edition Wood Elves army book. The fluff was passable and the crunch had a few gems. (Thanks to Reynolds)
[[Image:Ultrawank.png|right|thumb|Warning: Clicking this thumbnail may induce projectile vomiting and spontaneous neckbeard combustion.]]
'''2008'''

*Ward's [[Matt Ward's Decent into Madness|descent into skub and infamy]] begins with '''Army Book: Daemons of Chaos''', a work of such apocalyptic cheese mongering it is widely credited for '''''single-handedly breaking WHFB.''''' No army could come close to beating it (Dark Elves and Vampire Counts, accepted as 2nd and 3rd powerful in the rankings, generally had to struggle to grab DRAWS!) and the failing attempts at Power Creep to match eventually broke the entire system so hard that Fantasy required a hard reset in the form of the massive shakeup that was 8th edition. Most people write it off as an overeager premier, and whether this was Ward's own work or management fiat remains a point of [[Derp|conjecture]].

*Ward is instrumental in the creation of the '''Warhammer 40,000 Rulebook, 5th Edition''' rulebook. While the crunch is more or less accepted, much of the fluff openly contradicts previous works (sisters being all but retconned out of the universe for example), and there's considerable attempts to promote [[Ultramarines|certain]] [[Doom Eagles|armies]] over [[Salamanders|the]] [[Raven Guard|others]].

*Ward writes '''Codex: [[Space Marines]]''' for 5th edition. Thousands of neckbeards cry out in terror, and are silenced. While he manages to make this work mechanically stable, it comes at a terrible cost: Ward unilaterally decides to retcon massive amounts of Space Marine fluff and enshrine the Ultramarines as the gold standard for a "proper" space marine. The new fluff reads like [[Ultramarines]] [[Twilight|fanfic]], portraying the smurfs as second to the [[Emprah]] in damned-near all regards, and that all Space Marines view [[Roboute Guilliman|Rowboat Girlyman]] as their ''[[spiritual liege]]''. It is about this time that Ward's prejudices [[Salamanders|against]] [[Imperial Fists|certain]] [[Black Templars|chapters]] start to emerge for the first time.

'''2009'''
*Ward writes "War of the Ring", basically Apocalypse for ''Lord of the Rings'' and the basis for some of the new rules in the 8th edition of Fantasy, which will help clean up after the mistakes of Daemons of Chaos. The book isn't bad, but the fact the Lord of the Ring's hasn't been popular since 2001-2003, cheesy heroes and units on certain sides (Elves for example) and the fact the book is full of mistakes makes the game easily one sided and boring. Ward is sent back to writing 40k and Fantasy.
[[File:Crons.png|200px|thumb|Apparently [[Love Can Bloom]] for bishonen vampires and omnicidal robots too. (Appropriately, in Jewish tradition Gehenna was a cursed place of heresy and corruption.)]]

'''2010'''
*Ward doubles down on his [[Heresy]] with '''Codex: [[Blood Angels]]'''. Any and all pretense of restraint is dropped and the codex is loaded with deep striking Land Raiders, flying librarian dreadnoughts, and ICs that can unscrew [[Abaddon]]'s head and shit down his neck. Ward devises new weapons and abilities for the blood angels, giving them evocative names like blood fists, blood talons, blood reavers, blood croziuses, blood lances, blood boil, and bloodstrike missiles. That's right. "Bloodstrike" (See [[Space Wolves|Codex: Wolf Wolves]]). The fluff, while not the hate crime against neckbeards his previous work was, still manages to inspire [[rage]] by having the Necrons and Blood Angels become [[My Little Pony|Super Secret Pony Princess Unicorn Best Friends Forever]] (if only temporarily). As fate would have it, this work will not survive the next edition too well.
[[Image:CryingKnight.jpg|thumb|left|We feel his pain. :(]]

'''2011'''
*Ward gives birth to '''Codex: [[Grey Knights]]''', fusing the awful fluff and limitless cheese of his two previous works into a single abomination. While Psyflemen sweep tournament after tournament, writefags rage impotently about [[Kaldor Draigo]], [[Khornate Knights]], and the unapologetic rape of over ten years of canon.

* Ward co-authors the new [[White Dwarf]] release of '''Codex: [[Sisters of Battle]]'''. He shows incredible restraint by giving the sisters some respectable fluff, but compensates by basically reverting the Witch Hunters to 2E. The force org chart is gutted out, allies are removed, and the best strategies are promptly eliminated (with a bit of help from the [[Nerf|nerfer]] in chief [[Carnifex|Robin Cruddance]]).

* Ward next turns his fell hand to the [[Necron]]. He ups the ante again by ''completely'' rewriting their backstory, presumably while [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EGC09B810Yk&t=3m20s humming to himself] with a shit eating grin plastered to his face. The crons are now insane Tomb Kings, '''IN SPAAAACE''', who [[Rape|want your body]]. Oh and they turned the C'tan into [[pokemon]]. ''Yea''. Mechanics-wise the release fares surprisingly well, trading away some of the more egregious cheese of 3E (Monolith Death March) in order to eliminate its shittiest design flaws (Phase Out), some argue that it changes Necrons to the point that it would've been easier to change their name altogether and you know... some people could've taken up Necrons because they liked them as they were. Anyway, in its few improvements, the fluff manages to dodge [[Matthew_Ward#Why_the_Hate.3F|Matt Ward's greatest flaw.]]
[[File:HE_Up.png|thumb|right|[[/tg/]] quickly caught on with this. Godspeed you magnificent neckbeards.]]

'''2012'''
* Matt Ward teams up with Adam Troke and Jeremy Vetock to create '''Wardhammer 40,000 6th Edition'''. The whole rulebook promptly turns Codex: Necrons and Codex: Grey Knights into rape trains with no brakes (though they are later surpassed by Tau and Eldar). Every single fa/tg/uy instantly regrets ever thinking the Space Tomb Kings were balanced in the first place. We're talking cheese like '''9 fliers in a 1500pt list with flying dedicated transports that don't kill passengers when they crash!!''' What the fuck. Among other rage-worthy things of note include massive Buffs to [[Grey Knights|already broken beyond reason armies]], highly abusable mechanics resulting in severely limited builds for HQ choices (tool for challenges or suffer!) and the Space Marine segments of the fluff being [[Ultramarines|full of yet more Matt Ward Porno]].

'''2013'''
* Matt Ward rewrites '''Army Book: Daemons of Chaos''' for 8E. Many neckbeards commit suicide before the official product announcement is out, to save themselves from the predicted cheese. Many Fantasy power gamers also ritually sacrifice themselves, in anticipation of a gargantuan nerfing. In the book, Matt Ward nerfs all the overpowered units of the previous army book, puts a lot of random effects, random magic items, and does things such as taking one of the worst units of the previous book (beast of burgle), improve it and reduce its cost by 40 points/each, or giving daemons one of the best cannons in the game. Overall they ended up as one of the better armies, but nowhere near the overpowered rape train they were last edition.

*Matt Ward heads the team that made the 8th edition Warhammer Fantasy update for the '''[[High Elves]]'''. It's... really, really good. No, really! The [[Everqueen]] (and her units) were added back in and come off as pretty awesome. Tyrion retains his awesome wartime skills while being less of a Mary Sue, being given a short temper and occasional moodiness. The book also fixes a lot of the cheese that the High Elves got away with in the older book, like "every time we cast spells it's Irresistible Force" and the "we '''ALWAYS''' Strike First with fricking Great Weapons." The fluff is good (although it's arguable how much Ward is responsible for the fluff, since it's mostly copy-pasted from earlier editions), and the army is pretty well-balanced, both internally and externally... except for one thing.
** Banner of the Motherfucking World Dragon. 2+ Ward Save against ''anything'' magical. And you know what army has ''only'' magical attacks? That's right, Daemons of Chaos. Most people feel this is blatantly unfair (hell, most reviews went out of their way to point it out, because it's just that egregious), but a small number chuckle lightly every time it comes up, because they remember the days when Daemons always won. Yet the previous versions gave COMPLETE immunity to spells, were cheaper and there are currently a few spells and rules that ignore ward saves in 8th edition. This one also makes all dragons within '12 stubborn, but that applies to allied and enemy dragons. Furthermore, only one unit in the army benefits from it if the character carrying the banner joins them, thus rendering those complaints somewhat invalid.

* Writing the Codex: Eldar Supplement about '''Craftworld Iyanden'''. It's two pages of crunch with the rest being fluff for $40. Said fluff consists of turning Iyanden into a clone of Biel-Tan, forgetting how the Infinity Circuit works, retconning more or less everything involving Ynnead; and turning Iyanden's leadership into incompetents who didn't think the Tyranids were a serious threat. That said, a number of Eldar players loved it because it's one of the few fluff bits that doesn't treat the Eldar as the universe's punching bag (which is far more than what can be said about most of their fluff), and gave them a little street cred.

* Writing the "'''[[Dark Elves]]'''" 8th edition update (and according to [[White Dwarf|White Dwarf]] is now GW's go-to-guy for all things elven in WFB). Good news, the crunch is passable; Dark Elves have army wide Always Strike First like High Elves do while retaining High Elf Hatred. Also Murderous Prowess with some units getting buffed significantly with slight nerfs to balance them (Witch Elves). They also gain a glass cannon sea monster, that doesn't have any rules to let it move through water; justified in fluff so it can't escape its handlers. The bad news is Matt Ward like usual rewrote/ignored some of the established fluff to suit his tastes, though in this case it's very minor, for example Clar Karond is the Beastmasters city instead of Karond Kar like it was in every previous edition. They both deal in slaves but Clar Karond has most of the monsters now (even though or maybe because it's also the Dark Elves's main shipyard), leaving Karond Kar out in the cold (literally in the fluff). Malekith also gets an ex-wife, while not badly written it seems out of character for him and he never had one before. Another change is the fluff suggesting incest between [[Malekith]] and [[Morathi]] has been removed. Now it's changed that Morathi is wet for her step-son, Tyrion, who she thinks to use to reincarnate Aenarion in a magic ritual to name a few.

* He had a hand in the new '''Wood Elves''' update, the fluff is good, though there have been changes to some of the characters, such as Ariel having a dark side and being more gullible (she's manipulated by her arch-enemy Morghur, as well as Morathi), the personality of each incarnation of Orion is influenced by the person sacrificed to revive him, and [[Squat|Skaw the Falconer is no more]]. The heavy hand of Thorpe-ian writing is also present, jacking off Chaos at the expense of the previously established elf canon. Crunch-wise the Wood Elves are arguably better at shooting (and definitely close combat) than before, but there were some major nerfs handed out to a few things; Dryads, Treemen and especially their magic items. The Lore of Athel Loren is also gone, making the race of isolationists feel more like a race of bipolar copycats.

* Writing '''Codex: Sentinels of Terra''', he was a part of a team effort to write the book and put in charge of writing the fluff. Mostly talks about things anybody who has ever read anything about the Imperial Fist would know from other writings. Emphasizes on their Pride and Stubbornness being both their biggest strength and weakness. Went a little too far on the Assaulting when the Fist as best know for deference fighting and "Centurion Squads are awesome" (gotta push the new stuff, and the fluff does only focus on one Crusade), confusing them a bit with the [[Black Templars]] (though they are a successor chapter) and killing off their Chapter Master.

'''2014'''
* Going by the writer's traits below, it looks like Ward may have had a hand in the new Dwarfs codex for WFB. For example, it has good balance but like the last book still allows them to field a potentially cheesy gunline army. The fluff is mostly unchanged though the few new bits make heavy use of the special characters, and a few uses of the word 'alas'.

* It turns out that Ward quietly left GW on May 2014, with the Wood Elves being his last army book. The exact circumstances behind his departure are unknown (as is how nobody knew about this until it was posted on his LinkedIn profile three months after it happened), but seeing that [[Robin Cruddace]] is still employed at GW it's not likely that the quality of his work had anything to do with it.
** Whatever issues there were around Matt Ward, some people took their hatred of him too far; one reason for his resignation was incoming '''real-life death threats that he received'''. [[Grimdark]] indeed. This adds a dark new twist to hiding the author's names; perhaps it was to protect Matt Ward from potential attempts on life rather than to try and "get one over" on the fans.
** Actually, he's also come out in revealing that he's written parts of [[The End Times]] (WHFB's super-huge apocalypse event that's pretty much [[Storm Of Chaos]] II: Electric Boogaloo), taking special responsibility for writing the [[Khaine]] book (Where he writes the last swansong for all the Elves he wrote for). Predictably, it's the most skub book with some of the most insane plot twists out there ([[Malekith]] is the one true Phoenix King? [[Teclis]] was playing everyone along? [[Tyrion]] is a murderous asshole?!), but considering what followed with [[Thanquol]] and [[Archaon]], some have to consider just who exactly was behind the writing.
** His Blog does indeed list that he did work on End Times Archaon as Well as Vermintide.

'''2016'''
*On his Twitter Ward stated he's been rehired by Games Workshop.

===Excerpts from the Book of Ward===
From the Cruddex

And the Monobuild

Mathew Ward deliver us.

-Main prayer

But Mighty Ward cannot be everywhere at once, for the Cruddace is evil and devious!

The Beneficent Phil Kelly helps Ward, but the Cruddace is a dastardly trickster!

So then it is, that some codices must be sacrificed to the Ravages of the Cruddace.

But do not mourn for the Burdened, theirs is a holy task, and the Burdened who endure will be reborn into the Kingdom of Ward.

And to mock the Burdened for their troubles is to invite damnation into the Kingdom of Crud for your arrogance.

-Book of Ward, chapter 4, Verses 17-21.

==Gallery of Fail==
<gallery>
Image:Ultracodex.jpg|Matt Ward masturbates furiously to this every single night.
Image:BA Codex.jpg|Fa/tg/uys long for the days when this book was the least of their troubles.
Image:SalaRage.jpg|This Marine has the right idea. (But the wrong intel).
Image:THIS PLEASES HIM.png|[[C.S.Goto|THIS PLEASES HIM]]
Image:Matt Ward At Work.jpg|Coming to a Codex near you.
Image:MattMeme.jpg|This is believed to be true.
Image:DerpKnight.jpg|Actual Grey Knight unit.
Image:SpritualLiege.png|Spiritual Liege.
Image:Tsundere_Matt_Ward-Chan.png|So tsun-tsun~
File:Ward wagon.gif|All aboard!
File:1304719660820.jpg|This is how Matt Ward views [[Indrick Boreale|Spess Mehreens]].
File:FUCK.jpg|Friends forever.
Image:Bloodcrons.jpg|Seriously he's never living this down.
File:Ward.jpg|His body is ready, yours however is not.
Image:Wardass.jpg|Artist's rendition of the Ultramarines honouring their True Spiritual Liege.
image:Wardcultist.JPG|Know the heretic, kill the heretic.
MW sisterabuse.jpg|''Lo' though the time is dark, our faith'' (and faces) ''shines.''
File:Matt_Ward_Stage_Magician.jpg|And for his next magical trick, Matt is going to make your favorite fluff disappear.
</gallery>

==See Also==
* [http://www.thetowerofstars.co.uk/ Matt Ward's official homepage] There's an article of his here that makes the accusations of misogyny against him fall flat. Not that the accusations ever carried any weight.

* [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matt_Ward_(game_designer) Matt Ward's wikipedia page]

* [http://www.3plusplus.net/2011/03/forumitis-waaaaaaaaaard/ A heretic most foul tries to defend his Spiritual Liege]. The comments section was lost to the warp when the blog changed host, but it must have been a thing to behold.

* [[Matt Ward's Decent into Madness]]

He stars in his glamorous and sensual story, going under a different name. Getting tired of it? Keep reading to learn his dark and alluring secret. http://1d4chan.org/wiki/File:Slaanesh's_sacrifice.pdf

[[Category:Warhammer 40,000]]
[[Category:RAGE]]
[[Category:Writers]]
[[Category:FAIL]]
[[Category:Matt Ward]]

Matthew Ward

2016-08-02T23:53:25Z

2601:44:0:67BF:54EB:64F8:9785:3CE3: /* Matt Ward's Writing "Highlights" */

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[[Image:Matthew Ward.jpg|thumb|Behold, the [[FAIL|great]] [[Neckbeard|beast]] has come, [[C.S.Goto|destroyer of verisimilitude.]]]]

'''Matthew Ward''' (usually shortened to '''Ultramarine Fanboy #1''' or '''The Emperor of Skub (praised be his name)''') was one of the Games Designers at [[Games Workshop]] and the Fifth God of Chaos, The Lord of Changing Fluff, 420 Noscoper and The Bringer of Mary Sues. He was the definition of [[Skub]] until he left Geedubs and Age of Sigmar/Nuhammer/Fucking Bullshit came along.

He was widely hated on [[/tg/]] for a wide variety of reasons, enumerated ad nauseam below. Since then we've had two new editions and a bunch of new codices. He has left Games Workshop altogether since, but fa/tg/uys being fa/tg/uys there's still plenty of bile spewed about him despite most of us having moved on.

It's probably telling that this page was one of 1d4chan's most controversial and fought-over; not because people are arguing over whether he's good or bad, but because they're arguing over ''how bad'' and whether he's redeeming himself with his (slightly) better work as of late.

It is also telling that for a period of time, his name was a banned word on 4chan due to the bitchfights surpassing even Edition Wars seen in the heyday and that 1d4chan appears on a google search of his name before Wikipedia.

==I'm a new player; Who is That Guy?==
Matt Ward was a Games Designer for Games Workshop. That means he wrote [[Codex|Codices and Army Books]]. He was responsible for both the rules themselves (the [[crunch]]) and the background behind the army (the [[fluff]]).

In real life he's a fairly soft-spoken and shy man, and generally nicer than you might suspect. If for some reason you want to know more about him (especially considering the paragraphs below) he does have a blog linked at the bottom which he uses to promote his independent stuff.

Basically, he was if [[That Guy]] could '''DEVOUR THE RULES'''

==That Doesn't Sound So Bad; Why Does /tg/ Hate This Guy So Much?==

Because he messed up. A lot.

''A lot.''

It's widely believed that he made some of the most broken books ever published by Games Workshop (which is really saying something), that he systematically destroyed the fluff to fit his own bloody vision of the [[Warhammer 40,000|40k]] and [[Warhammer Fantasy|Fantasy]] universes (while ignoring all of the fluff that existed beforehand) and, perhaps most egregiously, made the game boring with his copy/paste style of writing.

That being said, nowadays, a segment of /tg/ has turned against this viewpoint, noting that the other authors (in particular [[Robin Cruddace]], who is hated almost as much as Ward himself, and [[Gavin Thorpe]] who's known for the forceful insertion of Chaos into every faction in Fantasy) are frequently just as bad as Ward himself. They also note that although Ward's books were very powerful they were relatively well-balanced against each other, had a variety of good choices in army composition, and were actually fairly interesting (although as always these things are matters of opinion).

Whether or not these claims are true is a [[Skub|matter of debate]], but we present the evidence below in equal measure with viewpoints as briefly but accurately represented as possible so you can make up your own mind.

Many hate the man, others love him, and everyone else just doesn't give enough of a shit and would prefer everybody shut the fuck up and post [[Monstergirl]] [[PROMOTIONS|porn]].

==Why the Hate?==
The problem with Matt Ward is a touch complicated, but the biggest issue is the way he writes the fluff. For many, as can be seen by the plethora of /tg/ made chapters here on 1d4chan, the true appeal of 40k is designing a unique, colorful army with a rich history and engaging heroes. A good player of 40k likes to put a certain amount of himself in his lovingly assembled and painted armies, and he likes his army to reflect his own sensibilities and his own ideals. That's what makes an army truly belong to a player – that's what makes them [[your dudes|special]].

Matt Ward takes those elements and changes them to suit his tastes. Those heroes you may have liked before now seem like entirely new people, and the armies you liked before now seem to be an entirely different force you never wanted to play as and while this kind of change isn't anything new to 40K, the reason people single Ward out more for it is because the other authors (most notably [[Phil Kelly]]) at least try to keep some of the themes in the new books so that they feel like the old army with a new shade of paint, rather than some alien force wearing the skin of the one you used to like.

The biggest rage-inducing codex he has made thus far is the [[Space Marines]] codex, which explicitly stated that all chapters, [[Black Templars|excluding]] [[Raven Guard|a]] [[Iron Hands|few]] [[Space Wolves|"aberrants"]], behave and think in exactly the same manner as his army – the [[Ultramarines]]. He spelled out the organization patterns, the ideologies, who they revere and why (this is also where he made his infamous "Spiritual Liege" comment) and assumes that everyone else automatically accept this radical shift in logic from labeling the blue boys as "all-rounder guys with a Roman motif" to "TEH BEST CHAPTAHR EVAR".

Players can still make their own [[Emperor's Nightmare|factions]], but with Ward's fluff, they'll never measure up to his smurfs. This could be easily written off as the bitter anger of the old veterans, and on some level, it is - but when analyzing Ward's works, and his reactions to works by other Codex/fluff writers, patterns quickly emerge, and one cannot ignore this. The [[Chaos|flaw]] is inescapable, and Ward enforces it in all his writing with sincerity and vigor.

(It's believed by some that the codex was supposed to be called "Codex: Ultramarines" and was changed at the last minute by GeeDubs. It still would have been stupid, but we could have easily written it off as Macragge propaganda instead of pending 8 years bitching about it)

Even this would not be so much of a problem if it weren't for the fact that Ward just isn't a tactician, only rarely does he try to write factions using any kind of thought to dictate their battle (The closest he's done to writing military doctrine was the [[Necron]] codex) or just telling the player that somebody is a [[Creed|tactical genius]] without anything to show for it. The majority of Ward's heroes lead head first, sacrificing all in frontal assaults that could be circumvented with more [[Reasonable Marines|ingenuity]]. Though this isn't entirely Ward's fault as it should be noted that most of the characters he wrote were [[Marneus Calgar|front-line generals]] before he touched them and this is a very common theme for nearly every army in the setting [[Tau|with]] [[Necrons|a few]] [[Eldar|exceptions]].

As for this "tell, don't show" policy, he tells us that Marneus Calgar is a patient [[Creed|tactical genius]] who considers the danger of an incoming projectile before taking cover. The image painted in the average person's mind in that case is one of Calgar analyzing a falling bomb until it strikes him in the head and explodes, at which point he decides, “Yes, that one was dangerous, I probably should have taken cover from that one". A more reasonable explanation, however, would be something along the lines of Calgar taking note of the paths of incoming bullets, and only bothering to take cover or otherwise avoid them if they are actually going to hit him, and even then, only if they would actually pose a threat. This would paint the surprisingly badass (for Ward, at least) image of a man standing out in the open as gunfire whizzes by, occasionally cocking his head to the side or taking the odd sidestep to avoid any rounds that might ''actually'' be a danger to him, but since there are two viewpoints on it in the first place it makes it clear something went wrong.

The biggest offender of Matt's “tell not show” policy is [[Kaldor Draigo]], the [[Grey Knights]]' Supreme Grand Master, whose main personality trait is supposed to be “badass”. [[Mary Sue|Without rhyme, reason, or feasible explanation]], Draigo simply exists as this whirlwind of enemy-destroying fiction in his codex. He pops in and out of the Warp, wrecking everything, everywhere, without so much a minute of exposition or explanation. Draigo is a concept – a meaningless one without any emotional impact. He's not a person or anything to which the average man can even attempt relate because all he can write is about how badass he's supposed to be. Ward has simply declared him the best ever, and he has done so in canon, so it is. This isn't helped much by the fact that Grey Knights are a very "Tell not Show" Chapter, ever since they were made every amazing feat they do is essentially kept under a whole chest full of locks and keys.

Another problem with the simple "Ignore the Ward's Fluff" idea is that players play fluffy armies, the canon lore does matter to them, and though try as they might to ignore the glaring fact the canon fluff is forever altered by creating little pockets of what they believe 'should be' the fluff, it all feels exactly as it sounds; a personal delusion that ignores the facts: One day, it was found out that your family doesn't exist, and while you can still maintain the belief that they do, it will never be true; that's how it feels. And it is painful to play as these armies and see their fluff changed so much, or to be reminded when you play against them. Ward's codex's have been very successful, look at the number of people playing Grey Knights, Blood Angels, Necrons these days, ruthlessly exploiting every bit of cheese they can find and purchasing up all the new shiny overpriced models for them.

As for crunch, it goes without saying that it is without a doubt unbalanced, with several armies he wrote (Read: Grey Knights and Necrons) essentially flattening everything from here to hell, but the issue is that they're essentially all over the place, which one could possibly excuse Matt himself for writing, and instead place the blame on [[GW]] Marketing shoving forth new sets to force people to buy. The most damning example of his crunch-making skills isn't in 40K, but in Fantasy: When he wrote the 7E [[Chaos Daemons|Daemons of Chaos]] codex, it was so overpowered, so unbalancing, that it practically destroyed the edition's balance and forced GeeDubs to build a whole new Edition to even begin staunching the bleeding.

Whether you decide Ward deserves the rage and hate he gets, write it off as a sad consequence of his earlier work, pity him for working for GW, or simply don't give a shit is entirely your call. As ever, on /tg/, we urge you to make your own decisions. Either way, he's not the best writer they have, but he's also not [[C.S. Goto|the worst]], and his reputation will follow him in his endeavours from now till time immemorial, for good or for ill.

That said, hatred for him is dying down these days as the quality of his work has vastly improved, most of his horrible books were re-written (sometimes by him) to be much better or balanced out through another edition, and even some of the neckbeards who despised him at first are willing to forgive him now, especially in light of the clusterfuck that was the 6th edition Tyranids codex and the 7th edition Craftworlds codex breaking the game even worse than the Daemons of Chaos army book did.

== Saving Grace? ==
To be fair, Matt '''can''' write reasonably decent fluff, like [[The World Engine]] ''(which this former necron player admits is awesome despite ripping off Star Wars in several ways; the World Engine is just a renamed Death Star, and the Rebel Fle- ahem SPACE MARINES have to destroy it)'' , [[Castellan Crowe]] ''(who even this severely butthurt Daemonhunters-now-GK-player has to admit IS pretty fucking cool)'' or [[Trazyn the Infinite]]. It should be noted though that these are all new additions from Ward, and if the stuff he adds to an existing faction is good, then why change what's already there to match your way of thinking when you could just add something? Whether it's Trazyn or Draigo, adding something is still better than altering an entire chapter. There is no denying that Ward is better than several alternatives (and vice versa, though this depends on the army in question) and (in a typical book) for every good piece of fluff he's done, there's a bunch of [[Kaldor Draigo]]s and [[Khornate Knights]] to sift through - and in the eyes of a staggering plurality on /tg/, that's a big part of why he's disliked.

Another point, he's also able to create crunch that is fine on it's own (like the Space Marine codex, or Necrons before 6th edition buffed them to the stratosphere) and perfectly balanced against his other books (a trait he shares with Vetock), and the special rules he writes are usually interesting, creative and useful, making his armies very distinct from the others, and capable to do things nothing else in the game can (y'know, things like all-assault marine Blood Angels, Furioso's blood talons and magna-grapple, teleporting Dreadknights or Necron Mindshackle scarabs, entropic strike and Deep-Striking in the enemy movement phase), adding more fun into the game albeit for the cost of balance against other armies. In fact he helped create other armies' special rules, like the Eldar Battle Focus. "Unwardified" codices of 6-7E tend to change those interesting things into something mundane and simple (and often less powerful, sometimes to the point of useless, RIP mindsackles and assault troops...), or removing them entirely.

However, the fairest thing to level at Ward is the fact that, in his absence, GW hasn't stopped making shitty decisions with their intellectual property (and arguably started long before his tenure). This tells us his works were less Ward's flaw seeping into and contaminating the game insofar as it was his employer using him as a scapegoat to take the heat off their profit-driven cheese-mongering. Yes, they needed someone to write these abominations, but every writer at GW has problems writing books at some point. In essence, Ward was the ''perfect'' author for GW's shift to an all-SM production across all lines: his admittedly bad writing gave us someone to blame and at the same time, gave GW the sales burst they desired but couldn't figure out how to justify least their moves become noticeable by the community and a substantial revenue risk.

==Factions of Ward==
[[File:Mattmarine.jpg|250px|thumb|right|Banner of Rage]]
The various viewpoints on Ward can be broken up into six factions. Like most of /tg/'s inter-departmental-bickering, this is by no means a comprehensive list and the various factions can come in various flavors of [[This Guy]] and [[That Guy]]. [[/v/|Some]] would argue more of the latter, and [[/d/|others]] more of the former.

'''The Old Guard''' - Maintain that Ward is the anti-Christ. Loudly complain when he's writing a new codex and vehemently hates his fluff. Will fight to the bitter end decrying that Ward's rules are overpowered, but is notable mostly for his utter hatred of Ward's fluff and complete disregard of previously-established canon. The most devout of them focus their hatred on the Necron codex. More than simple alterations isolated to the Necron fluff and the 6th ed codex. They vehemently remind people that in messing with the past, Ward had completely changed Warhammer 40k history, affecting such things as the origins of Nulls, Necron motivation, their battles with the Eldar, and due to the notorious Allies chart, changing the very manner in which every race interacts.

'''The Vet Gamer''' - Differs from the Old Guard in that whilst the Old Guard hates for primarily the Fluff, the Vet Gamers hate him for the Crunch. They see ward's nonsense as indicative of the power creep that the game's suffered for quite some time, often citing Warhammer 40K's flagrantly game-breaking [[Blood Angels]] codex at launch, or Warhammer Fantasy's [[Daemons]] codex as a sign of where everything went wrong.

'''The Indifferent''' - These are people who have no opinion as to whether Ward is good or bad, they are neutral on his subject, they just want people to shut the fuck up.

'''The Crunch Defenders''' - Hold that while Matt Ward does write atrocious [[fluff]], his [[crunch]] is fair and balanced. They also defend the viewpoint that ultimately, crunch is more important than fluff because you can ignore bad fluff. Also known as WAAC players.

'''The Counter-Culture''' - Love Ward on the grounds that the Old Guard hate him too much. /tg/'s version of hipsters.

'''The Converted''' These are people who agree Ward's older books suck but believe he's getting better (and/or the suck of the older books were over exaggerated), or even a good writer now.

'''The Wardinites''' - The direct opposite of the Old Guard, the Wardinites worship Ward as a God, following the revered Book of Ward. They are identified by defending Ward, but whereas Crunch Defenders only defend Crunch, Wardinites defend both. Whereas the Counter-Culture like him because it makes them look "edgy", the Wardinites hold that he is legitimately good. Often quotes from the Book of Ward, usually: "From the Cruddex, and the monobuild, Matthew Ward deliver us". They hold [[Robin Cruddace]] as the Great Satan. It is suspected that the Wardinites have a strong powerbase in the Necrons and Tyranid communities.

It should be noted, like most religions, there are different sects within the Cult of Ward, the theological divides between them mostly concerning [[skub|Codex: Grey Knights]]. The sects supporting Grey Knights are also divided amongst pro- and anti-draigo sects. And now recently these sects have become even more diverse thanks to a certain passage in the new Daemons codex...

It should be noted that if a member of the Old Guard and a member of the Cult of Ward meet, there WILL be [[Khorne|blood]] spilled. Such is also true of a Vet Gamer and Crunch Defender meeting.

==Matt Ward's Writing "Highlights"==
[[Image:Zeist.png|left|thumb|This image is considered by most to be tacit proof that Matt Ward is going to a ''very'' special place in Hell when he dies.]]

For awhile Matt Ward worked for Games Workshop and, initially, his works were not too bad. Over time the problems arose, yet Games Workshop kept trusting him with more important projects. They seemed to be under the misconception that Matt Ward was their best writer when his popularity (that many people kept using his armies) was more likely due to three things; they got him to write for their most popular armies with the players choosing to put up with Ward's flawed writing rather than give up their army and throw away the money/time they invested, the power-gamers loved his armies as they were overpowered at first and the newcomers to the hobby were ignorant of the previous state of the game, so they could have been unaware of how unbalanced it had become and how often Ward ruined the continuity of the game and retconned so much previously established lore.

'''2002 - 2007'''
*Ward authors a bunch of Lord of the Rings books. Revisionist neckbeards now like to point to them as damning proof of Ward's madness in its infancy, but mostly they're just forgettable. During this time, he also worked for [[White Dwarf]], his only real defining feature being his fondness for playing the [[Chaos|evil armies]] in battle reports. In hindsight, this was probably a sign of things to come. He also creates the rules for the Mumak, the most fucking ridiculous unit ever, which can destroy entire armies in it's movement. The Mumak is eventually revealed to be so broken (and included in an army that already had it's share of cheese) that it signals the beginning of the end for the Lord of the Rings system.

*On a Warhammer Fantasy note, 7th edition Orcs and Goblin book(with really stupid fluff mistakes and the appearence of a wizard from magic colleges in Gorbad's siege, thousands of years before their foundation. He also teamed up with the long-lost Anthony Reynolds to write the 6th Edition Wood Elves army book. The fluff was passable and the crunch had a few gems. (Thanks to Reynolds)
[[Image:Ultrawank.png|right|thumb|Warning: Clicking this thumbnail may induce projectile vomiting and spontaneous neckbeard combustion.]]
'''2008'''

*Ward's [[Matt Ward's Decent into Madness|descent into skub and infamy]] begins with '''Army Book: Daemons of Chaos''', a work of such apocalyptic cheese mongering it is widely credited for '''''single-handedly breaking WHFB.''''' No army could come close to beating it (Dark Elves and Vampire Counts, accepted as 2nd and 3rd powerful in the rankings, generally had to struggle to grab DRAWS!) and the failing attempts at Power Creep to match eventually broke the entire system so hard that Fantasy required a hard reset in the form of the massive shakeup that was 8th edition. Most people write it off as an overeager premier, and whether this was Ward's own work or management fiat remains a point of [[Derp|conjecture]].

*Ward is instrumental in the creation of the '''Warhammer 40,000 Rulebook, 5th Edition''' rulebook. While the crunch is more or less accepted, much of the fluff openly contradicts previous works (sisters being all but retconned out of the universe for example), and there's considerable attempts to promote [[Ultramarines|certain]] [[Doom Eagles|armies]] over [[Salamanders|the]] [[Raven Guard|others]].

*Ward writes '''Codex: [[Space Marines]]''' for 5th edition. Thousands of neckbeards cry out in terror, and are silenced. While he manages to make this work mechanically stable, it comes at a terrible cost: Ward unilaterally decides to retcon massive amounts of Space Marine fluff and enshrine the Ultramarines as the gold standard for a "proper" space marine. The new fluff reads like [[Ultramarines]] [[Twilight|fanfic]], portraying the smurfs as second to the [[Emprah]] in damned-near all regards, and that all Space Marines view [[Roboute Guilliman|Rowboat Girlyman]] as their ''[[spiritual liege]]''. It is about this time that Ward's prejudices [[Salamanders|against]] [[Imperial Fists|certain]] [[Black Templars|chapters]] start to emerge for the first time.

'''2009'''
*Ward writes "War of the Ring", basically Apocalypse for ''Lord of the Rings'' and the basis for some of the new rules in the 8th edition of Fantasy, which will help clean up after the mistakes of Daemons of Chaos. The book isn't bad, but the fact the Lord of the Ring's hasn't been popular since 2001-2003, cheesy heroes and units on certain sides (Elves for example) and the fact the book is full of mistakes makes the game easily one sided and boring. Ward is sent back to writing 40k and Fantasy.
[[File:Crons.png|200px|thumb|Apparently [[Love Can Bloom]] for bishonen vampires and omnicidal robots too. (Appropriately, in Jewish tradition Gehenna was a cursed place of heresy and corruption.)]]

'''2010'''
*Ward doubles down on his [[Heresy]] with '''Codex: [[Blood Angels]]'''. Any and all pretense of restraint is dropped and the codex is loaded with deep striking Land Raiders, flying librarian dreadnoughts, and ICs that can unscrew [[Abaddon]]'s head and shit down his neck. Ward devises new weapons and abilities for the blood angels, giving them evocative names like blood fists, blood talons, blood reavers, blood croziuses, blood lances, blood boil, and bloodstrike missiles. That's right. "Bloodstrike" (See [[Space Wolves|Codex: Wolf Wolves]]). The fluff, while not the hate crime against neckbeards his previous work was, still manages to inspire [[rage]] by having the Necrons and Blood Angels become [[My Little Pony|Super Secret Pony Princess Unicorn Best Friends Forever]] (if only temporarily). As fate would have it, this work will not survive the next edition too well.
[[Image:CryingKnight.jpg|thumb|left|We feel his pain. :(]]

'''2011'''
*Ward gives birth to '''Codex: [[Grey Knights]]''', fusing the awful fluff and limitless cheese of his two previous works into a single abomination. While Psyflemen sweep tournament after tournament, writefags rage impotently about [[Kaldor Draigo]], [[Khornate Knights]], and the unapologetic rape of over ten years of canon.

* Ward co-authors the new [[White Dwarf]] release of '''Codex: [[Sisters of Battle]]'''. He shows incredible restraint by giving the sisters some respectable fluff, but compensates by basically reverting the Witch Hunters to 2E. The force org chart is gutted out, allies are removed, and the best strategies are promptly eliminated (with a bit of help from the [[Nerf|nerfer]] in chief [[Carnifex|Robin Cruddance]]).

* Ward next turns his fell hand to the [[Necron]]. He ups the ante again by ''completely'' rewriting their backstory, presumably while [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EGC09B810Yk&t=3m20s humming to himself] with a shit eating grin plastered to his face. The crons are now insane Tomb Kings, '''IN SPAAAACE''', who [[Rape|want your body]]. Oh and they turned the C'tan into [[pokemon]]. ''Yea''. Mechanics-wise the release fares surprisingly well, trading away some of the more egregious cheese of 3E (Monolith Death March) in order to eliminate its shittiest design flaws (Phase Out), some argue that it changes Necrons to the point that it would've been easier to change their name altogether and you know... some people could've taken up Necrons because they liked them as they were. Anyway, in its few improvements, the fluff manages to dodge [[Matthew_Ward#Why_the_Hate.3F|Matt Ward's greatest flaw.]]
[[File:HE_Up.png|thumb|right|[[/tg/]] quickly caught on with this. Godspeed you magnificent neckbeards.]]

'''2012'''
* Matt Ward teams up with Adam Troke and Jeremy Vetock to create '''Wardhammer 40,000 6th Edition'''. The whole rulebook promptly turns Codex: Necrons and Codex: Grey Knights into rape trains with no brakes (though they are later surpassed by Tau and Eldar). Every single fa/tg/uy instantly regrets ever thinking the Space Tomb Kings were balanced in the first place. We're talking cheese like '''9 fliers in a 1500pt list with flying dedicated transports that don't kill passengers when they crash!!''' What the fuck. Among other rage-worthy things of note include massive Buffs to [[Grey Knights|already broken beyond reason armies]], highly abusable mechanics resulting in severely limited builds for HQ choices (tool for challenges or suffer!) and the Space Marine segments of the fluff being [[Ultramarines|full of yet more Matt Ward Porno]].

'''2013'''
* Matt Ward rewrites '''Army Book: Daemons of Chaos''' for 8E. Many neckbeards commit suicide before the official product announcement is out, to save themselves from the predicted cheese. Many Fantasy power gamers also ritually sacrifice themselves, in anticipation of a gargantuan nerfing. In the book, Matt Ward nerfs all the overpowered units of the previous army book, puts a lot of random effects, random magic items, and does things such as taking one of the worst units of the previous book (beast of burgle), improve it and reduce its cost by 40 points/each, or giving daemons one of the best cannons in the game. Overall they ended up as one of the better armies, but nowhere near the overpowered rape train they were last edition.

*Matt Ward heads the team that made the 8th edition Warhammer Fantasy update for the '''[[High Elves]]'''. It's... really, really good. No, really! The [[Everqueen]] (and her units) were added back in and come off as pretty awesome. Tyrion retains his awesome wartime skills while being less of a Mary Sue, being given a short temper and occasional moodiness. The book also fixes a lot of the cheese that the High Elves got away with in the older book, like "every time we cast spells it's Irresistible Force" and the "we '''ALWAYS''' Strike First with fricking Great Weapons." The fluff is good (although it's arguable how much Ward is responsible for the fluff, since it's mostly copy-pasted from earlier editions), and the army is pretty well-balanced, both internally and externally... except for one thing.
** Banner of the Motherfucking World Dragon. 2+ Ward Save against ''anything'' magical. And you know what army has ''only'' magical attacks? That's right, Daemons of Chaos. Most people feel this is blatantly unfair (hell, most reviews went out of their way to point it out, because it's just that egregious), but a small number chuckle lightly every time it comes up, because they remember the days when Daemons always won. Yet the previous versions gave COMPLETE immunity to spells, were cheaper and there are currently a few spells and rules that ignore ward saves in 8th edition. This one also makes all dragons within '12 stubborn, but that applies to allied and enemy dragons. Furthermore, only one unit in the army benefits from it if the character carrying the banner joins them, thus rendering those complaints somewhat invalid.

* Writing the Codex: Eldar Supplement about '''Craftworld Iyanden'''. It's two pages of crunch with the rest being fluff for $40. Said fluff consists of turning Iyanden into a clone of Biel-Tan, forgetting how the Infinity Circuit works, retconning more or less everything involving Ynnead; and turning Iyanden's leadership into incompetents who didn't think the Tyranids were a serious threat. That said, a number of Eldar players loved it because it's one of the few fluff bits that doesn't treat the Eldar as the universe's punching bag (which is far more than what can be said about most of their fluff), and gave them a little street cred.

* Writing the "'''[[Dark Elves]]'''" 8th edition update (and according to [[White Dwarf|White Dwarf]] is now GW's go-to-guy for all things elven in WFB). Good news, the crunch is passable; Dark Elves have army wide Always Strike First like High Elves do while retaining High Elf Hatred. Also Murderous Prowess with some units getting buffed significantly with slight nerfs to balance them (Witch Elves). They also gain a glass cannon sea monster, that doesn't have any rules to let it move through water; justified in fluff so it can't escape its handlers. The bad news is Matt Ward like usual rewrote/ignored some of the established fluff to suit his tastes, though in this case it's very minor, for example Clar Karond is the Beastmasters city instead of Karond Kar like it was in every previous edition. They both deal in slaves but Clar Karond has most of the monsters now (even though or maybe because it's also the Dark Elves's main shipyard), leaving Karond Kar out in the cold (literally in the fluff). Malekith also gets an ex-wife, while not badly written it seems out of character for him and he never had one before. Another change is the fluff suggesting incest between [[Malekith]] and [[Morathi]] has been removed. Now it's changed that Morathi is wet for her step-son, Tyrion, who she thinks to use to reincarnate Aenarion in a magic ritual to name a few.

* He had a hand in the new '''Wood Elves''' update, the fluff is good, though there have been changes to some of the characters, such as Ariel having a dark side and being more gullible (she's manipulated by her arch-enemy Morghur, as well as Morathi), the personality of each incarnation of Orion is influenced by the person sacrificed to revive him, and [[Squat|Skaw the Falconer is no more]]. The heavy hand of Thorpe-ian writing is also present, jacking off Chaos at the expense of the previously established elf canon. Crunch-wise the Wood Elves are arguably better at shooting (and definitely close combat) than before, but there were some major nerfs handed out to a few things; Dryads, Treemen and especially their magic items. The Lore of Athel Loren is also gone, making the race of isolationists feel more like a race of bipolar copycats.

* Writing '''Codex: Sentinels of Terra''', he was a part of a team effort to write the book and put in charge of writing the fluff. Mostly talks about things anybody who has ever read anything about the Imperial Fist would know from other writings. Emphasizes on their Pride and Stubbornness being both their biggest strength and weakness. Went a little too far on the Assaulting when the Fist as best know for deference fighting and "Centurion Squads are awesome" (gotta push the new stuff, and the fluff does only focus on one Crusade), confusing them a bit with the [[Black Templars]] (though they are a successor chapter) and killing off their Chapter Master.

'''2014'''
* Going by the writer's traits below, it looks like Ward may have had a hand in the new Dwarfs codex for WFB. For example, it has good balance but like the last book still allows them to field a potentially cheesy gunline army. The fluff is mostly unchanged though the few new bits make heavy use of the special characters, and a few uses of the word 'alas'.

* It turns out that Ward quietly left GW on May 2014, with the Wood Elves being his last army book. The exact circumstances behind his departure are unknown (as is how nobody knew about this until it was posted on his LinkedIn profile three months after it happened), but seeing that [[Robin Cruddace]] is still employed at GW it's not likely that the quality of his work had anything to do with it.
** Whatever issues there were around Matt Ward, some people took their hatred of him too far; one reason for his resignation was incoming '''real-life death threats that he received'''. [[Grimdark]] indeed. This adds a dark new twist to hiding the author's names; perhaps it was to protect Matt Ward from potential attempts on life rather than to try and "get one over" on the fans.
** Actually, he's also come out in revealing that he's written parts of [[The End Times]] (WHFB's super-huge apocalypse event that's pretty much [[Storm Of Chaos]] II: Electric Boogaloo), taking special responsibility for writing the [[Khaine]] book (Where he writes the last swansong for all the Elves he wrote for). Predictably, it's the most skub book with some of the most insane plot twists out there ([[Malekith]] is the one true Phoenix King? [[Teclis]] was playing everyone along? [[Tyrion]] is a murderous asshole?!), but considering what followed with [[Thanquol]] and [[Archaon]], some have to consider just who exactly was behind the writing.

'''2016'''
On his Twitter Ward stated he's been rehired by Games Workshop.

===Excerpts from the Book of Ward===
From the Cruddex

And the Monobuild

Mathew Ward deliver us.

-Main prayer

But Mighty Ward cannot be everywhere at once, for the Cruddace is evil and devious!

The Beneficent Phil Kelly helps Ward, but the Cruddace is a dastardly trickster!

So then it is, that some codices must be sacrificed to the Ravages of the Cruddace.

But do not mourn for the Burdened, theirs is a holy task, and the Burdened who endure will be reborn into the Kingdom of Ward.

And to mock the Burdened for their troubles is to invite damnation into the Kingdom of Crud for your arrogance.

-Book of Ward, chapter 4, Verses 17-21.

==Gallery of Fail==
<gallery>
Image:Ultracodex.jpg|Matt Ward masturbates furiously to this every single night.
Image:BA Codex.jpg|Fa/tg/uys long for the days when this book was the least of their troubles.
Image:SalaRage.jpg|This Marine has the right idea. (But the wrong intel).
Image:THIS PLEASES HIM.png|[[C.S.Goto|THIS PLEASES HIM]]
Image:Matt Ward At Work.jpg|Coming to a Codex near you.
Image:MattMeme.jpg|This is believed to be true.
Image:DerpKnight.jpg|Actual Grey Knight unit.
Image:SpritualLiege.png|Spiritual Liege.
Image:Tsundere_Matt_Ward-Chan.png|So tsun-tsun~
File:Ward wagon.gif|All aboard!
File:1304719660820.jpg|This is how Matt Ward views [[Indrick Boreale|Spess Mehreens]].
File:FUCK.jpg|Friends forever.
Image:Bloodcrons.jpg|Seriously he's never living this down.
File:Ward.jpg|His body is ready, yours however is not.
Image:Wardass.jpg|Artist's rendition of the Ultramarines honouring their True Spiritual Liege.
image:Wardcultist.JPG|Know the heretic, kill the heretic.
MW sisterabuse.jpg|''Lo' though the time is dark, our faith'' (and faces) ''shines.''
File:Matt_Ward_Stage_Magician.jpg|And for his next magical trick, Matt is going to make your favorite fluff disappear.
</gallery>

==See Also==
* [http://www.thetowerofstars.co.uk/ Matt Ward's official homepage] There's an article of his here that makes the accusations of misogyny against him fall flat. Not that the accusations ever carried any weight.

* [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matt_Ward_(game_designer) Matt Ward's wikipedia page]

* [http://www.3plusplus.net/2011/03/forumitis-waaaaaaaaaard/ A heretic most foul tries to defend his Spiritual Liege]. The comments section was lost to the warp when the blog changed host, but it must have been a thing to behold.

* [[Matt Ward's Decent into Madness]]

He stars in his glamorous and sensual story, going under a different name. Getting tired of it? Keep reading to learn his dark and alluring secret. http://1d4chan.org/wiki/File:Slaanesh's_sacrifice.pdf

[[Category:Warhammer 40,000]]
[[Category:RAGE]]
[[Category:Writers]]
[[Category:FAIL]]
[[Category:Matt Ward]]

Power Armour

2016-06-24T23:45:12Z

2601:44:0:67BF:54EB:64F8:9785:3CE3: /* X-01 Power Armor */ fallout 3 mention they were in contact with the Institute

'''Power Armour''' is a science fiction concept of armor which increases the strength, speed, and reflexes of those who wear it. It features heavily in science fiction/fantasy settings such as [[Warhammer 40,000]].

==Starship Troopers==

Like so many military science-fiction concepts, the modern idea of powered armor dates back to the Mobile Infantry of Heinlein's ''[[Starship Troopers]]''. The "Marauder" suit is bulky, with integrated thrusters and heavy weapons (including nuclear weapons and heavy explosives, carried as easily as a human soldier carries grenades). Their primary purpose is not to destroy indiscriminately (though they certainly can), but to "make war as personal as a punch on the nose" -- to [[Drop Pod|drop in]] and destroy with precision, in order to break the enemy in exactly the right way. In other words, it's much like Crisis [[Battlesuit|battlesuits]] with less [[Tau|weeaboo]] and more [[Humanity Fuck Yeah|humanity fuck yeah]] inside.

Heinlein never discusses [[pauldrons]], but the [[Space Marines]] certainly take after the Mobile Infantry's other aspects.

==Warhammer 40,000==
[[File:Power_Armor.PNG|thumb|right|400px|All eight marks of Space Marine Power Armour.]]
Because 40k has a huge hard on for Space Marines, and because no super soldier worth his genetic enhancements will go into battle without super armaments, 40k has developed nearly as large a hard on for power armor.

===Space Marine Power Armour===

The most iconic users of power armour in 40k are the [[Space Marines]] and the [[Chaos Space Marines]]. Made of ceramite layers upon plates of plasteel and adamantium/adamantine which will deflect all but the most powerful of weapons, Power Armour possess many life support systems designed to keep the Space Marine inside alive, even in the worst and most extreme of battlefield conditions.

The Black Carapace, one of the [[Gene-Seed]] organs, is specially designed to allow a space marine to interface his nervous system with his armor and is the last organ implanted in [[Codex Astartes|Codex]] Chapters. Amongst its features, power armour possess auto-senses to supplement the Marine's already considerable senses, auspex arrays to create minimaps and transmit data between squad members and commanders, painkiller delivery systems in the event of severe bodily damage, and waste recyclers to keep the Marine going for up to fifty days without fresh food or water. The power source is a backpack mounted generator which needs initializing, but after that can take solar energy to keep itself going.

There are eight types or '''Marks''' of Power Armour used by the Astartes. Regardless of their type, they all have massive [[Pauldrons]]. Pictures can be found in the gallery at the bottom of the page.

====Mark I: Thunder Armour====
The first type of Power Armour was designed for the [[Thunder Warriors]] and worn by many of the techno-barbarians of [[Earth|Terra]]. They provided basic protection against weapons and enhancements to upper-body strength, but that is all - the suit was incapable of supporting its own weight and did not provide any significant protection to the legs. Since they were only used on Terra, there was no need to protect them against the void. Though the lack of life support systems and much lesser degree of protection make them essentially useless in the 41st millennium, several Chapters retain sets of Thunder Armour for ceremonial purposes. If you were to field one now, it would probably count as carapace armor (4+ save) with a slight bonus to strength but a penalty to initiative.

In [[Deathwatch_(RPG)|Deathwatch]], you can actually get your hands on some. Be forewarned: it's noisy, doesn't offer as much protection, doesn't work with a Marine's Black Carapace, and actually might not be a whole suit of armor depending on its state of repair. Overall, it's kind of shitty, but it's a surviving artifact linked to the days of the living [[Emperor]] and early Imperium and that impresses other Marines and those Ecclesiarchy schlubs. Take it for formal occasions.

====Mark II: Crusade Armour====
Designed by the [[Adeptus Mechanicus]] with the [[Great Crusade]] in mind, the Mark II armour was fully enclosed and contained all the life support and auxiliary systems now common among Astartes power armor, like a waste recycling unit and automated medical equipment. Much of these newer additions were made possible by a more efficient cooling system, which allowed a considerable reduction in the size of the powerpack. The helmet also came with a bunch of enhanced sensory equipment. Overall protection and flexibility was much improved, especially since the legs were now enclosed in armoured hoops and came with their own servomotors. Unlike the Mark I suit, the design is still sufficiently sound to remain in active, albeit extremely limited, use well into the 41st millennium.

====Mark III: Iron Armour====
Mark III armour was first conceived for <s>the [[Squat]] campaigns</s> boarding actions of the Great Crusade. It was pretty much a modified Mark II designed to provide better frontal protection for close quarters combat, essentially fulfilling the same role that [[Terminator]] armour would later fulfill. By the time of the Horus Heresy, the Mark III was slowly being phased out and replaced by Terminator armour, but it's still fairly common among the Traitor Legions. In fact, several of the more traditional Legions were reluctant to phase out Mark III because it was the most brutally iconic mark of power armour in their day, so there was talk of keeping it for honour guards or spear tip operations. Even into M41, the helmet or faceplate is still popular.

====Mark IV: Imperial Maximus Suit====
Now having access to more [[Standard Template Construct]]s, the Mechanicum was able to further refine power armour internal systems. In addition to having more advanced visual sensors, the helmet was now capable of movement. The suit was also made a whole lot lighter than before while managing to further improve on the Mark II's protective capabilities. Although the chest power cables were once again relocated to the outside of the plating, they were given an armoured sheath to protect them from damage. [[Horus|Horus Lupercal]] manipulated the Mechanicum's supply lines to ensure that the Legions that were planning to side with him in the Heresy would be fully equipped with Maximus Armour in time for the Heresy; as a result Mark IV was usually reserved for Chapter Masters and senior Captains of the Loyalist Legions. As the Legions were either fully or partially re-equipped with these suits by the time the [[Horus Heresy]] began, Mark IV is one of the most prevalent types of armour among the Chaos Space Marines.

Some Chapters/Legions also made their own sub-patterns of Maximus power armor, such as the Ultramarines' Praetorian-pattern.

====Mark V: Heresy Armour====
In between production of the Mark IV and what would be the Mark VI, both Loyalist and Traitor Legions found that they were running out of replacement parts for damaged systems. This would result in several Legions taking parts from older Marks and inadvertently making a brand new Mark of Power Armour. Although appearances varied widely as a result of its ad hoc nature, some form of standardization was achieved. One of the most notable was the introduction of molecular bonding studs on the left pauldron and both greaves, which made them look totally Metal. Probably one of the most common suits of armour in service among the Traitor Legions, since this was what most of them were wearing when they retreated to the Eye of Terror.

====Mark VI: Corvus Armour====
The much beloved [[Beakie]] armour. Designed as a stopgap measure while newer equipment remained in development, it incorporates some of the newly developed Mark VII features into the battle-proven Mark IV design, producing a suit of armour that is in many ways equal to its descendants. Although it offered no additional protection, Mark VI armour was the first to feature a redundant power system and parts that are slightly interchangeable with those of other marks. Somehow, it also manages to be lighter and fit together more smoothly than the current Mark VII Aquila, allowing for quieter movement, while the helmet includes further improved sensor systems in its, um, "beak". It was named the "Corvus" pattern after [[Primarch]] [[Corvus Corax]] of the [[Raven Guard]], as the XIX Legion was the first to be selected for field testing the armour. Due to the design's inherent stealthiness and legacy, it still remains the preferred armour among the sons of Corax, who tend to be saddled with older equipment anyhow. For reasons nobody can seem to explain, it was also sporadically used by the [[Alpha Legion]] around the time of the Horus Heresy even though it was never actually issued to them.

====Mark VII: Aquila/Imperator Armour====
The most common Mark of Power Armour among loyalist Space Marines, Mark VII armor was still being designed when the Traitor Legions reached the Sol System and seized [[Mars]]. When this fact became all too foreseeable, [[Rogal Dorn]] ordered the design teams transferred to Terra to prevent the Traitors from seizing it. Mark VII featured completely covered chest and arm cabling, a distinct helmet that provided more protection, a high level of compatibility with previous Marks, and also bore the Imperial Aquila on the chest, which was first used there to provide quick identification of the Loyalist Marines during the chaos of the Siege of Terra.

====Mark VIII: Errant Armour====
[[Jes Goodwin]] [http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/File:MkVIII_Errant.jpg originally] designed it with awesome [[Power Fist]]-style hands, a modified helmet, a streamlined power pack, and a more flexible leg-and-ankle joint. Games Workshop only bothered with using the altered breastplate, [[Derp|so the overall design looks like a regular Mark VII with a collar.]] Breaking the trend of reverse-compatibility between newer and older marks, this Mark can only accommodate the helmet designed for it, which kind of becomes a moot point when reserving it for officers, since everyone higher up than a battle brother will never wear his helmet. The specialist design, or the [[Adeptus Mechanicus]]'s head-up-own-arse tendencies around distributing new technology, are thought to be the probable reasons why it has yet to be widely adopted among Space Marine chapters. Because of its rarity, the armour is generally restricted for use by senior officers only, and even then they'll usually only be able to wear the breastplate. The [[Minotaurs]] chapter appears to be the only exception here, as almost all of their battle brothers have access to full suits.

It should be noted that, while artificer armor, at least in the art, looks like a pimped out Mk.VIII, regular Mk.VIII [[Crunch|doesn't actually improve armor save]]. But Fantasy Flight [[Deathwatch_(RPG)|gave it some love]] with an extra armour point all around, and the ability to deflect some headshots to the chest, greatly improving its protection.

====Artificer Armour====
Pimped out and individualized versions of regular suits, often enough to be considered one-off derivations in their own right. Artificer Armour can be formed from any older mark of Power Armour (perhaps barring Mk.I plate) by adding extra or upgraded protection. The upgraded and individualized suits mean that they require a lot of maintenance and needs techs to work around the clock to make sure they stay functional. Standard issue for [[Techmarines]] and optional for [[Brother-Captain|officers]], pairing artificer armour with an Iron Halo can offer better protection than Terminator armour with none of the drawbacks, yet with only some of the benefits.

====Chaos Power Armour====
While many Traitor Marines are equipped with Marks IV or later (if you go by the models, almost all of them seem to have Mark VII armour with Mark VI legs), Chaos power armor is often a mix-and-match setup. About the only unified feature of Chaos power armour is a distinct power pack with stabilizers on long curved fins, that still runs on solar converter core instead of fusion reactor of modern loyalist power packs. Because Chaos Marines often have to go long periods with no access to proper industrial facilities, proper maintenance and replacement parts became an issue. Because of that, many subsystems in each suit of armor doesn't work and replacement parts come in the form of whatever they can dig up from plunder and taken off of corpses after [[Orks|raiding and looting]]. Furthermore, Chaos Marines like to customize their armor with devotional iconography and personal trophies, making sure that virtually each suit of armor is personalized and none are exactly alike. Where things get even weirder is when the armor gets too steeped in Chaos and begins to twist, mutate, and turn partially organic, or had a daemon replace its machine spirit. It's quite likely that the parts of armor that don't work get replaced with warp magic, daemonic influence, or Dark Mechanicus tech-heresy.

Recent editions and artwork show senior Chaos marines with a sinister and more organic-looking power armour of Mark III through V, a look they pick up after a while either deliberately or due to the Warp's influence changing their outside look to match their corrupted souls. In the Rogue Trader Era, Chaos Power armor ''was'' organic, so this is actually a pleasant return to the old days. The Chosen models from the Dark Vengeance box set are commonly refered to as the harbringers of this new style, while the new Raptors/Warp Talons set incoorporate this design, alongside the regular Raptors, who's design seems like being "metal-guilded armour, that's begun to blend together and form spikes and weird shapes", hinting of what's to come for the aging Chaos Space Marine range.

====Fleshmetal Armour====
If Artificer Armour is superior to traditional Power Armour, then Fleshmetal Armour is this to Power Armour worn by Chaos Space Marines. Essentially the newest incarnation of Daemon Armour from earlier editions, Fleshmetal Armour is a "gift" from the [[Chaos Gods]] that grants superior protection to the user in which the Chaos Marine's armour becomes partially organic as mentioned above a section earlier. The results is something akin to a exoskeleton of extreme hardiness. The drawback of this armour is that the user is permanently fused with it. Normally that would be a problem, but Chaos Space Marines don't care.

====Aegis Armour====
The Power Armour of the [[Grey Knights]], Aegis Armour is master-crafted on the forges of Titan and inscribed with prayers and [[Matt Ward|wards]] to prevent [[Daemon]]s from possessing it. Based on parts from Marks VI, VII, and VIII, within the breastplate of each set is a copy of the Liber Daemonica. It frequently bears a stormbolter on its left forearm, keeping both hands of the wearer free to use. There is an Aegis/Grey Knight version of Terminator and Dreadnought armours, too.

"Aegis" is the greek name for Zeus' personal shield. Now that sounds cool, right? Well, it's not made of metal and awesomeness; it's a goathide shield much like the ones used by african tribes back in the day. Feel free to call the Grey Knights the Goat Knights from now on.

===[[Terminator]] Armour===
Set aside for space marines who are exemplars of toughness, martial ability, and wonky proportions, [[Terminator]] armor, or Tactical Dreadnought armor, provides the best personal protection available. Heavily layered with adamantium and indestructible [[pauldrons]], a suit of Terminator armor is meant to steamroll nearly everything, and gives a fighting chance against everything else, which is anything that gives anybody else a fighting chance against Terminators. Standard loadout for Terminators are [[Power Fist|power fists]] and [[Storm Bolter|storm bolters]] or [[Power weapon]]s and [[Twin-Linked|twin linked]] bolters for the Chaos variant, but they are able to fit a shoulder-mounted Cyclone missile rack, equip heavy weapons systems, and arm with other killtastic melee weapons. Since most suits are about at least as old as the chapter that owns them, and that the pauldron allegedly contains a tiny fragment of the Emperor's own power armor, these suits are holy relics as well as top-quality wargear.

Despite all the pain they lay down (and keep away), Terminator armor has a few serious drawbacks. First thing is that it is seriously hard to make. Seriously. Most chapters have a only handful that they can distribute amongst their veterans and officers, and any lost suits are damn near irreplaceable. Second thing is that they lack mobility. They counter this mostly since Terminator armor can be safely teleported from orbit into the thick of it, and judicious use of teleport homers can put them right where you need them, and a [[Land Raider]] can carry small squads. Beyond that, Terminators are otherwise going to be footslogging since they're too fucking huge to hitch a ride on anything smaller than a house. Unless you're fighting a fast or a crafty opponent, you won't care anyways.

Terminator Armor had 3 major designs: the Cataphractii pattern, the Tartaros pattern, and the Indomitus pattern. The Cataphractii was the first run at Terminator armor, developed after the mkIII power armor and sharing many systems. Bearing much larger power field generators and thicker armor, it provided better protection than future variants, but was much more unwieldy and difficult to use. In game terms, you get a 4++ and S&P. The Tartaros pattern shared many of its systems with the Mark IV power armor and was much more maneuverable than its predecessor but gave up some of its protection to do so. The Indomitus pattern is the current pattern of terminator armor, sharing similarities with the Tartaros pattern in therms of functionality, but is based of a design being tested during the heresy by the Iron Hands legion. After the Horus Heresy, Cataphractii pattern had eventually fallen out of general use; this may have been because was the last of that armor was either lost [[Adeptus Mechanicus|and the pattern became another lost technology]] in the following years, or because production was ceased in favor of later patterns, and most suits were either cannabilized or became chapter relics that wouldn't see field use again. There are also human-sized suits of Terminator armor, but the tiny amount of them that still exist are used exclusively by the Inquisition.

Finally, there was one more pattern of Terminator armour, called Saturnine. It get the hugest pauldrons one can get before moving into walkers category and was famous for it's extreme bulk, durability, cumbersomeness and difficulty of piloting - basically everything good and bad about Cataphractii turned to eleven. It never went out of field testing phase, since new smaller Castraferum Dreadnoughts could do everything Saturnine was designed for (boarding actions and indoor/tunnel fighting) better and without it's numerous drawbacks. Some legions still had their batches of test suits when Horus Heresy hit and used them to gain whatever edge over their opponents they could, but they were never seen after the Heresy.

===Centurion Armour===
Since somebody at GW forgot that the [[meme|Xzibit meme]] wasn't funny anymore, Space Marines now have Centurion armor that they equip like a miniature walker vehicle, more like a mini-mech, a cute little dreadnought preparing space marines for their life after living. Centurion armour is "worn" over regular power armor, giving better protection (like terminator armor without the invul save) and comes in two flavors: assault and devastator. Assault Centurions are heavy assault units equipped with drills and meltas or flamers, meant to get in close to enemy strongpoints and fortifications and wreck shit. Devastator units are a heavy fire support units with hurricane bolters and twin-linked heavy weapons, which, in practice, provide less fire power than regular [[Devastator Squad]]s, but higher resilience.

===Warhammer 40000: Space Marine ===
In [[Warhammer 40000: Space Marine]], the Marines are wearing what looks like regular Mark VII Aquila Armor. However, it appears to be far less bulky in comparison to similar armor portrayed in official artwork or [[Dawn of War]], suggesting it might be different. For one thing, it appears to be much more streamlined, with lower pauldrons that aren't quite as fucking enormous (although still unrealistically huge), and with more head room and mobility in the arm sections. This becomes very apparent when using ranged weapons, like the Bolter. This streamlining was likely done to avoid hilarious amounts of clipping. Judging by the fact that every other suit of Imperial power armour in the game - Chaos included - shares this appearance, it is probable that it is simply a reimagining, or a 'realistic version' of regular Space Marine armour. It's not like the Space Marine game is the first artwork to portray power armour with different proportions to other media.

===Human Power Armour===
Virtually identical to Space Marine power armor, these suits of armor are scaled down to fit regular humans (notice that this is the reverse of what it would have been 10,000 years ago). Human power armour is relatively quite rare, since it occurred to somebody that making good protection being an affordable and wide-spread asset would severely impinge on the current state of [[grimdark]], not to mention expensive.

Without the extra room and black carapace interface Marine armor provides, many suits of human power armor don't offer the same degree of protection, as much strength enhancement, or as many subsystems found in Marine armor. Still, the wearer will still be stronger, better protected, and better equipped than the [[Imperial Guard|guy in cardboard]].. There are a few variants, including a lighter suit and one for Chaos-fighting Inquisitors. Because these things are still super-rare, usually only [[Rogue Trader|people rolling in money]], [[Adeptus Mechanicus|tech fetishists]], and [[Inquisition|those able to declare not giving them power armor is]] [[heresy]], will have any.

====Sisters of Battle Armour====
Less bulky than the Space Marine armour, as they're designed for normal sized humans. Despite Astartes & Sororitas armour both giving 3+ saves on the tabletops, in actuality the power armour of the Orders Militant of the [[Adepta Sororitas]] provides less ballistic protection than Space Marine armour does. (The identical in-game protection is mostly because saves in 40k are decided on numbers between 2-6, so there aren't as many gradients in-between.)

This armour also does not provide the same level of strength enhancement, but it gives enough to carry [[Heavy_Bolter#Heavy_Bolter|heavy bolter]]s and ammunition into combat, and fire them without a sister shattering her arms. Sororitas armor has noticeably smaller [[pauldrons]]. The leading theory behind why they chose this design feature is that smaller pauldrons cut back the material cost it takes to create this variant, without having to sacrifice the pair of perky, globular breasts.

Helmets are ''not'' included as standard either, mostly because the majority of Sororitas models have distinctive haircuts. But also because (according to [[Dark Heresy]]), the Sisters of Battle do not receive their helms until about halfway through their careers. This makes them inverse of the tradition held by the Astartes, where higher ranking officers are more likely to ditch their helmets instead.
The advantage of Sororitas power armour, though, when compared to all other human-scales of power amour, is that it runs off of the same fusion reactor that Astartes armour does, and therefore can run indefinitely, rather than for a few hours at a time. Another advantage is that it is not as bulky so it does not turn the wearer into a big giant target either.

===Dragon Scale Armour===
Dragon scale armor is basically Mechanicum power armour, commonly used by militant Enginseers of Imperial Guard and Myrmidon [[Paladin|warrior priests]] of the Ordo Secutor. It does not have an external power source, as it derives power from Mechanicus implants (and therefore cannot be used by anyone outside the tech-priesthood or high-ranking [[Skitarii]]). Not as thick as Astartes power armour, it sports many more inbuilt devices and sensors and gets further pimped by the Techpriest wearing it as he progresses through the ranks of the [[Adeptus Mechanicus]] to the point where it's hard to tell where the armour ends and its wearer begins. Some wonder if it is connected to the [[Void Dragon]].

==Fallout Power Armor==
Unlike Warhammer 40,000, [[Fallout]] powered armor is more "power" than "armor". It was originally made to allow troops to use heavy weapons on the move and with increased weight limit it was obvious to put some extra armor on the exo-suit. Even while it turns you into a nearly-indestructible walking tank, sneaking and camouflage are always considered better protection than armor in Fallout, so the main reason people use it is strength and radiation resistance bonuses. It is also possibly the most realistic armor here, strangely.

Power armor got a massive overhaul in ''Fallout 4'', turning them into basically an infantry fighting vehicle rather than just better armor. The crafting system extends to upgrades and new systems for the armor, including neat stuff like a stealth field and a jet pack.

===T-45 Powered Armor===
The first generation of power armor to go into the field, the T-45 series was rushed into service to hold back the invading Chinese from taking over Alaska. It worked and contained the invasion, but had a lot of problems. Later used on the homefront. The T-45d is most commonly seen in the Capital Wasteland.

After Bethesda got the rights to make ''Fallout 3'', they were like "Guys, guys, let's make a SHITTY POWER ARMOR!" and they went through with it. The result was <s>far from shitty</s> a [[skub|mixed bag]]. Sure, it has -2 AGL, less radiation resistance, and makes you move around like the [[/co/|Comic Book Guy]] from ''The Simpsons'', but it looks '''''BAD-ASS!!!'''''

====NCR Salvaged Powered Armour====
This is the 'zombie' version of the T-45d. After the Battle of HELIOS One, the NCR recovered many suits of T-45d from fallen Brotherhood Paladins. Before issuing them to heavy weapons troops, the NCR stripped out the "power" part of the armor instead of teaching them how to use it properly.

===T-51 Powered Armor===
The second generation of power armor, the T-51 series managed to get all the kinks ironed out. Used to kick the Chinese out of Alaska and invade China. The quintessential Fallout power armor suit. The T-51b variant is common among the West Coast Brotherhood of Steel. Two suits are known to be in the Capital Wasteland.

This armor only has +1 STR for some reason. What's even stranger is that the hunk of metal that you put on your head (AKA the helmet, but who calls it that?) gives you a +1 CHR bonus (probably because it's heavily featured in old world propaganda, but yet again, so was the T-45d variant). We really should be wearing around hunks of metal on our heads these days. After all, this armor be pullin' all dem bitches...

T-51b is the most advanced power armor that existed in the world before the Great War. [[Retcon|At least it was, until Bethesda decided to change that in Fallout 4,]] [[Rage|even though this fact was well established nearly two decades before Fallout 4 came out.]]

===X-01 Power Armor===
The Enclave rolled out their advanced power armor in 2220. It went through several upgrades and variants through its operational history, like the Tesla armor, which has improved energy resistance, and Hellfire armor, which has improved insulation against heat (for which the flame weapon-armed troopers who wear them are grateful). It can be encountered, in all of its variants, on the West Coast, the Mojave Wasteland, the Capital Wasteland, and the Commonwealth.

===T-60 Power Armor===
A new addition to the series in Fallout 4. [[Fail|While there certainly were ways to make this a post-war power armor,]] [[Retcon|Bethesda instead decided to make it the best power armor that was available before the Great War, which since Fallout 1 had been T-51b.]] [[Rage|Many long time fans of the series did not approve of this decision.]]

===Raider Power Armor===
Raiders in the Commonwealth have managed to refurbish power armor frames. They weld together scrap to make external armor plates. Raider power armor is the least versatile of all the armor types.

==StarCraft Power Armor==
[[File:Terran marine.jpg|200px|thumb|right|Incredibly unoriginal, rip off of space marine armor. But still fucking cool looking.]]
In [[StarCraft]], the Confederate Marine Corps Power Armor, more simply called the CMC power armor, is the standard powered armor suit used by all military factions within the Koprulu sector. Despite the fact that each armored suit comprises a complex array of sensors and other advanced combat technologies, life-support systems, and its own independent power supply that appears to be a portable fusion reactor, it seems to be dirt-cheap as hell to manufacture, given that every armed force within the Koprulu sector can give one of these suits to every Terran marine worth a damn. Unfortunately, that technology doesn't seem to grant much actual protection; the marines are usually unceremoniously wiped out by the <s>dozens</s> hundreds during an engagement.

Along with that, however, it's not exactly known if the armor plating on the suit can protect the wearer from actual combat damage. The CMC armor is incapable of reliably protecting the wearer from projectiles, ruptures, or chemical attacks (apart from the passive hazards found in NBC environments), in both fluff and crunch, considering that it cannot hope hold out against: zergling claws, roach acid, the Marines' own gauss guns (hell, it can't even deflect the pistol rounds from their sidearms), fire and/or plasma, hydralisk spines, Mutalisk wurms, Psi attacks, Protoss photon guns, and really just about anything. Then again even tanks, huge giant robots and battlecruisers could not hold against said attacks en masse - this might say more about how nasty are weapons in StarCraft universe rather than how shitty is armor there, or more likely it's how real world armor works. In fact, some of the fluff describes it as existing more to protect the wearer from the recoil of the [[Gauss]] than anything else. In addition, Starcraft armor is primarily ablative - no armor in the game renders anything in the game immune to damage. In Heart of the Swarm game terms, consider a fully upgraded marine, marauder, reaper, and ghost:

The marine has 55 hit points and armor 3. On a per-hit basis, he takes 6 damage from a marine's assault rifle, 4 from a reaper's pistol, 10 from a marauder's grenade launcher, 23 from a ghost's sniper rifle, and 25 from the sniper rifle when the ghost psionically charges the round.
The reaper is almost identical, but his armor is thicker - he has 60 hit points, so it takes 2 more pistol rounds (one more salvo, since they fire both pistols at once) to put him down.
The ghost's armor is substantially more impressive. Not only does he have 100 hit points, he takes less *base* damage from sniper rifles - 10, rather than 23, so it takes 10 sniper rounds, not 3, to kill him. However, he takes extra damage from psionically charged rounds - 50, enough to kill him in a mere 2 rounds.
The marauder has the thickest armor of the lot: 125 hit points and armor 4, with reduced sniper damage - but his armor is weak to grenades. His spread is 5 from the assault rifle, 3 from the pistol, 9 from the sniper rifle base, 25 from empowered sniper rounds, and 22 from the grenade launcher. This means he'll die in 6 grenades like a marine or reaper, compared to the ghost dying in 10 grenades, but will last much longer against the other three weapons.

Other variants exist, based on specialised functions. Medics wear a light armor that isn't designed for combat, but which carries advanced field surgical equipment and even some minor cybernetic construction equipment, allowing them to patch up wounded troopers and fix their busted armor. More visually distinctive is a model of power armor worn by Firebats. The armor is much bulkier than the standard armor, which keep in mind was already similar in size to terminator armor, especially in Starcraft II, where the thing's arms and pauldrons are bigger than its legs. Since the the armor's bulk makes it thicker, it can take far more abuse than the regular armor. As the name of unit might indicate, the armor uses a pair of built-in flamethrowers. The armor worn by Marauders in Starcraft II looks almost identical apart from a change in color, and has the same durability, but in place of flamethrowers uses grenade launchers that are best used against armor. The visual similarity between the two is neatly explained by the fact Marauder armor is rebuilt and re-purposed Firebat armor. Despite the armors' size (and concomitantly longer legs), the guys using them are just as slow as regular marines. A third type of armor is made for Reapers, which looks similar to [[Assault Marines]] except their jetpacks are bigger.

Less well known, but still present, is the armor worn by the Protoss. This advanced alien armor, although considerably more "ceremonial-looking" than Terran armors, is actually significantly more durable. Not only is it comprised of more resilient materials, but it contains built-in devices that convert the bearer's psionic energy into a forcefield; though this is depleted by absorbing damage, it will eventually regenerate, if the user survives. Presumably, it also provides environmental protection, though that may have something to do with the fact that the Protoss' alien biology makes them hardier than humans, even without armor they can more abuse than any Terran CMC armor variant. The common "Zealot" armor also has wrist-mounted devices that can focus psionic energy into energy-blades, which they use to rip 'n' tear shit. Dark Templars use similar devices to create "void blades", whose alien energies are one of the few things that can permanently kill "ruler" type Zerg such as Cerebrates.

== Metroid Power Armor==
AKA the "Power Suit" or "Chozo Power Suit", and one of the most powerful armors on this list. Like Starcraft, pretty much every scrub gets a power suit in Metroid (especially if you're with the Galactic Federation), but the main character's suit is the one you probably want to know about. [[Samus Aran]]'s armor is like a wearable, form fitting [[Titan (Warhammer 40,000)|Titan]], designed by [[Lord of Change|magic bird people]] who took Samus in after her parents were killed. It completely kicks the shit out of basically ''all'' other technology in the Metroid universe; while a Federation plasma cannon is as powerful as a charged shot of Samus's Plasma Beam (which slices through aliens like a knife through warm butter), it's also nearly as big as a person, takes several minutes to charge, and requires a heavy power pack, while the proper Plasma Beam is integrated with all of Samus's other weaponry into her forearm-sized cannon, takes ''seconds'' to charge, absorbs ambient atmospheric energy to function, and is so energy-efficient it doesn't dip into her suit's resources whatsoever.

But that's not all, it's ridiculously modular and can accept pretty much any piece of technology ever and turn it into an upgrade, even if the Chozo had never once encountered the technology in question! Samus doesn't have any idea of how this works either [[Derp|but more or less all she knows about the suit and its functions is that it works.]]

When fully upgraded to end-game status, the Chozo suit shits all over every other suit here like a pigeon with precision diarrhea. The only real flaw in its design is that it is stupid easy to knock all of its power ups and reset to default -- Samus never manages to hold onto her upgrades between games. Like all Power Armours worth their name it also has [[pauldrons]]; the default pauldrons are actually pretty small, but add a Varia upgrade (where some materials have listed the pauldrons as a cooling system associated with the upgrade) and she can shame even the most ridiculous Space Marine.

== Halo Power Armor ==
[[File:Spartan.jpg|200px|thumb|right|Spartan MJOLNIR armour]]
Most people think of the Spartan power armor when they are asked about Halo. These suits cost as much as a UNSC ship and have the decency to protect the wearer from [[What|multiple Fuel Rod shots, despite being penetrated by a single pistol shot]]...inconsistency aside the Spartan power armor is in between the strengths of Astartes power armor and the Terran power armor. Unlike most other armors, the enhanced speed and strength given by these things is too much for an ordinary human; anybody other than the Spartans, who underwent genetic enhancements, and had a large wire stuck into their brain, ends up [[Grimdark |getting mutilated in the armor just by trying to move in it]]. Other power armor in Halo includes both the Brute and Elite combat harness which boosts their already insane strength (twice that of a human of the same mass for elites, about two or so tons for a Brute) and reaction time (although Brutes tend to be a bit more sluggish than humans).

The energy shields in the power armor are probably the suit's most vital asset, as without them no human, genetically modified or not, could possibly survive eating at least 10,000 rounds in a single battle. Besides this, later games add a number of armor upgrades that radically augment the suit's features, such as a jetpack, bubble shield, EMP blast, etc. Sprint used to be an add-on, for... some reason, but fortunately became a standard feature.

More noteworthy perhaps for the fact it does not cost as much as a spacecraft, does not have pauldrons the size of the user's head and is implied to be halfway to efficient or practical (but if you took away its active ingredient, the shield generator it becomes as useful as wet tissue paper) and is used by the SAS in SPEHSS is the ODST armor, which has both better data analyst equipment than the MJOLNIR and suspiciously similar play style to the piece of junk used in halo 1.

Of course there are the Forerunner Combat-Skins, but putting them here on the list would shit over almost any power armor listed there save from Marvel. How powerful are they? Enough that they could fall off and survive a Slipspace rift without a scratch, tanking weapons that could dwarf most WH40K, Starcraft and Halo small-arms altogether, can command up to a million attack drones, and can shut-off your brain like a switch. However, in a setting where battlefleets can blow up planets and combat mechs can level cities (which are the size of continents), they are very tame in comparison.

It is also worth noting that Forerunner armor comes in mini-mecha and form-fitting varieties. Most of the above is for the mini-mecha, while form-fitting armor seems to be substantially less impressive.

== Metal Gear Exoskeletons ==
Exosuits have featured throughout the ''Metal Gear'' series. While not very /tg/-ish, they do deserve a spot on this list for being either [[Indrick Boreale|balls-out wacky]] or [[Gabriel Seth|complete awesome]].

===Solidus's Powered armor===
The third clone of Big Boss and leader of the Sons of the Patriots organization, Solidus Snake wore a powered armor suit that used the same artificial musculature as Metal Gear RAY. His suit protected him from small arms fire and slashing weapons and dramatically increased his strength and agility. An accelerator allowed him to travel at great speed in straight lines, leaving behind a fiery wake. The Snake Arms attachment gave him access to two prehensile [[/d/|tentacle-like limbs]] with great crushing strength, drug injectors, nanomachine analyzers, and small missile launchers. Disengaging and discarding the Snake Arms gave Solidus even greater movement speed.

===The Octosuit===
Solid Snake's signature suit in MGS4, it was made of artificial muscles like Solidus' suit. Because he'd turn into an old fart at this point, the octosuit was less of a performance-enhancing set of power armor as it was a full-body prosthetic. Still, it allowed him to fight as well as his younger self, with the added bonus of the Octosuit passively copying his surroundings to allow him to blend in better. With the added facemask, he could even fully disguise himself to remain totally inconspicuous in public - doesn't work on murderous robots at abandoned military facilities, however it does give him enough strenght to knock them over. Of course Snake should be shooting those damn things when they appear.

===Cyborg Exosuits===
After the fall of the Patriots, cyborg technology was released into the world. With CNT muscle fiber being as cheap to produce as plastic, just about every mercenary insane enough opted to be augmented and encased in one of these things. Pioneered by the Patriots, this armor enhances the wearer's strength, agility, and durability to absurd levels, basically turning them into [[Eversor|unstoppable murder machines that will completely wreck the shit out of anything they face]].

The caveat to this is that majority of cyborgs are... messed up. There is prejudice against cyborgs the same way there's modern-day prejudice against immigrants, which is often directed at their presence in the workforce ("Dey turk our JERBS!") and the obvious inhumanity of their artificial skin, white blood substitute, and polymer muscle fibers. While some accepted augmentation willingly to enhance their abilities or restore lost functionality (and are thus able to come to terms with their new life), there are others who were forced to undergo cyborg transformation. Those recipients can be injected with fear-inhibiting nanomachines that will force them to fight, regardless of the circumstances, [[grimdark|all while their inner self is trapped, screaming, in their mind and is unable to stop themselves]]. Even without that, having a body that is part machine means having various needs to maintain it; for example, cyborgs needed regular dialysis because artificial kidneys were too big to fit into the chassis.

Some of the more notable examples include [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2pWjrHIbss8 Gray Fox, the Patriots' first Cyborg Ninja], who was resurrected and became a guinea pig for further genetic experimentation. His exoskeleton was grafted to his own skeleton to allow him to safely utilize its strength-enhancing features, such as lifting incredible weights (he managed to hold Metal Gear REX's foot still while Liquid Snake tried to crush him).

Raiden was captured by the Patriots and turned into a cyborg in Area 51. Everything from the jaw down was removed and his mandible-less skull and dangling spinal cord were attached to a cyborg body. The increased strength allowed him to fight Metal Gear units on foot, have a stabbing match with a bisexual flamenco-dancing vampire, and [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RypphRK14t8 defeat a Metal Gear RAY on foot with only a single melee weapon]. A later body, built exclusively for combat, gave him the facilities to [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KzfYcwo7Wtw fight and ''suplex'' a Metal Gear the size of a Warhound Titan, then tear off one of its arms to engage it in a duel and destroy it]. The hyper-specialization for combat meant that this body couldn't have a self-repair unit; instead, Raiden had to take fuel cells from other military-grade cyborgs to keep running.

==Iron Man suits==
Probably the most well known Power Armor suit in fiction, popularized by the Superhero who's power is that he has power armor. Tony has built a lot of suits, some meant for a specific purpose, some just a stronger version of older iterations. At the high end, Iron man's suit is flat out superior to anything in nonserialized science fiction short of a few cheese builds from role playing games (but hey, comic books), even allowing him to fight Odinforce Thor, who mind you, has the power of a being who can destroy galaxies as the side effect of his fights. Sure his standard suits may be beaten by weaker stuff, but if he really sets his mind to it, the things Tony can build are essentially magic contained in metal and [[Get shit done|get shit done!]]

==Destroyer Armor==
Perhaps the snazziest and most powerful armor in fiction. This creation of Odin (Marvel Universe version) cannot be damaged by anything less powerful than Odin himself (characters who can smash planets to pieces have tried and failed) and can destroy just about anything weaker than Odin in a single hit. Forerunner suit, Chozo suit? HAH. This is made by gods who actually feel godlike. Crafted by someone who could eradicate entire galaxies as a side effect of his fights to battle even more powerful beings. Accept no substitutes, this is the finest power armor you'll ever find that does not ascend you to Celestial wonkyness. Even if it does run on magic.

Humorously, the things it was design for, to fight [[C'Tan|Celestials]] fails as they just one shot it the second it shows up.

== Strike Legion ==
[[Strike Legion]] has teraton pistols, Uzis that can outgun all of WH40K and planet busting grenades. You can survive those in one of these babies. [[Meme|''Like a bauss.'']] Even the weakest ones have built in shield generators and flight capabilities. That is really all that needs to be said. They are also mass produced. Like, standard issue level mass produced. By factions that can outnumber the Imperium of Man.

== X-COM ==
[[File:NXCom.jpg|right|200px|thumb|XCOM operatives in Titan armor]]
[[File:MEC.png|right|200px|thumb|A trio of MEC troopers with kinetic pilebunker fists and minigun. Yes, you can make your own [[Terminator]] squad using MEC upgrades.]]
[[X-COM]] always had high-tech armor, including actual power armored suits in the first game. The first one is the "Titan" armored suit, a heavy personal powered armor suit composed of alien alloys. These could drastically reduce damage, give the wearer increased strength and stamina. The other is the "Archangel" armor, while less durable, it instead sported a personal jetpack that allowed the user to hover and fly for limited amounts of time until they ran out of fuel. Finally, there is "Ghost" suit, which get more emphasis on power part of power armor, granting increased mobility and maneuverability, while only being slightly more durable than carapace armor, and as the name suggests, it spotted both passive camouflage systems and active cloaking. They're all fully sealed from the outside-environment and had an array life-support systems, so the wearer was immune to poison, fire, and getting choked to death.

However, in the ''Enemy Within'' expansion to the 2012 remake. This came in the form '''M'''echanized '''E'''xoskeletal '''C'''ybersuit troopers, or "MECs" for short. Departing from the usual type of armor, these require a considerable amount of cybernetic enhancements through the use of the game's Meld resource to use, which in game is shown in that MEC troopers have much of their body replaced with cybernetics (they basically look like smaller version of Robocop, minus the helmet) to interface with MECs; Giant powered-armor suits capable of carrying an array of powerful weapons, one of which is a [[Awesome|giant fist weapon that can insta-kill just about almost anything it hits, and let's you move faster]].

The pay-off for that is enormous, however. Unlike other low ranking soldiers in X-COM, the MEC troopers are extremely durable (to compensate for their size meaning they can't use cover.), and can use the most powerful guns in the game, that only the MEC's strength and durability allows them to use. Additionally, subsequent rank-up abilities and suit upgrades will further make MECs much more killy, and can improve the small ammo clip of the main gun.

However, while MECs are incredibly powerful, they are not invincible. They are like XCOM's equivalent of tanks, and much like tanks, they tend to draw the biggest amount of enemy fire in the map (This is especially made more problematic by the fact that even the aliens' basic plasma pistol can be a threat to MECs and the enemy AI will usually prioritize anyone not in cover.), very limited ammunition stores that forces frequent reloads, and overall [[Imperial Guard|tend to lose against numbers where they're simply drowned by the sheer amount of attacks that come their way]]. Thus, relying completely on MECs isn't the best strategy, it is always best to supplement MECs with some infantry troops for support.

Since the technology for the MEC troopers is taken from the alien invaders, they unsurprisingly have their own version called the Mectoid, own of their basic trooper the Sectoid in their own MEC suit. By the sequel they have phased these out and instead have Advent MECs, which, like the sectopod, are fully autonomous and have no living pilot. The Advent MECs are equipped with giant mag cannons and triple shot grenade launchers. And can jump 30+ feet. Failure to incapacitate (or hack) one as soon as it's encountered will end in much [[Rage|rage]]. unless you have [[Awesome|End game weapons]]

In XCOM 2 power amour takes 3 forms:
*The Wraith suit, which is similar to ghost armor in that it trades some protecting power for increased maneuverability and dodging ability. Trades ghost mode for wraith mode, which lets you walk through all obstacles for two turns.
*Basic power armour called the warden suit.
*And the "Hey guys let's strap a even more powerful Exosuit power thing on to power armor and slap a thermonuclear weapon onto the wrist and see what happens" WAR suit.

== Warmachine ==
[[File:PIP33007 500.jpeg|200px|thumb|right|A Khador Man-O-War Shocktrooper]]
[[Warmachine]] has had a number of different armors that technically qualify as power armor (almost all warcaster armor, for instance, includes enhancements to the wearer's strength and speed fueled by their magic), but probably the closest (and likely most famous) thing it has to traditional power armor is [[Khador]]'s Man-O-War armor. Designed because Khador found it the lack of materials to make cortexes for its [[Warjack]]s meant even with the effort it put into building its jacks to last, it had a problem with still having a lot of resources it wasn't using and its lack of any cheaper jacks meant the jacks it had tended to be too badly outnumbered. To compensate for these problems, they designed huge suits of armor that would allow the wearers to function almost like pseudo-Warjacks. The Man-O-War functions the same way Khador's jacks do: it's slow, heavily armored, and hits really hard when it gets in close. [[Fluff]] wise there's a problem with the built in boilers releasing steam where it shouldn't go and killing the wearer, but this doesn't show up in gameplay since it would make them too unreliable (plus it only happens when they're damaged enough, depending on the addition to the game). Not that they care as they gladly DIE IN STEAM!! Since the armor is still expensive to manufacture, Khador only allows its veteran troops to wear it, meaning they possess high skill with melee weapons.

While the Man-O-War is an industrialized solution to lacking mechanical brains for light warjack-production, they are not the only power armors in the [[Iron Kingdoms]]: Some very eccentric mechaniks actually build their own armor called "Ironhead armour". Though the Man-O-War-armour is big and scary, these tend to be even larger and impractical, and are usually built so only the bearer can use it properly. The use for these is everything from mechaniks-work to warfare, as proved by Captain Dominic Darius of Cygnar, who actually build himself a small, wearable light 'jack which in turn creates new miniature 'jacks called Halfjacks as long as he activates the thing. The thing is a four-ton heavy machine, that births smaller machines at all times. I couldn't make this shit up.

Also, the [[Iron Kingdoms]] RPG allows players to own these armors - The Gods, Nations and Kings expansion allows for the use of Man-O-War armour and career, and the 52# issue of [[No Quarter]] has rules for your own custom-build murdermachine of steel and awesome.

== Star Wars ==
The [[Star Wars]] Expanded Universe has had some minor power armor use. The iconic Stormtrooper armor is unpowered, but the zero-G assault Stormtrooper or "Spacetrooper" armor is a suit of powered armor that is worn over regular Stormtrooper armor, and may have been associated with the Dark Trooper armor. Dark Trooper armor itself was bigger and had strength enhancing and protective systems, but it attracted the most deadly of Jedi forces, and was canceled for that reason. It incorporates a set of thrusters and other integrated weapons. Visually, it looks a bit like a cross of [[Terminator]] armor and NASA's Manned Maneuvering Unit, with a goofy, oversized Stormtrooper helmet.

These were all based off of Mandalorian armor, which was more streamlined and effective than storm trooper armor, but also more expensive.

Power armor isn't used as much, since some sources indicate that the materials used in regular armor can hardly stand up to the ubiquitous blaster, nor the much rarer but much more asskicking lightsaber. Though in actuality, power armor is practically useless in the universe when compared to [[Plot Armor]].

There's also the Phase III Dark Troopers, which functioned as both automated robot infantry or could be worn as Power Armor, and was pretty much 40K Terminator Armor that wasn't hunched over, and had a built-in jetpack along with fun stuff like micromissiles.

Sadly, like all cool things in the Star Wars universe, it shows up for just a couple games and books, then gets immediately destroyed and you never use it.

== Real Life ==
[[File:Powered Exoskeleton.jpg|thumb|right|250px|DARPA exoskeleton going through it's paces in a rather literal sense.]]
[[File:RLpowerarmour.jpg|thumb|left|250px|TALOS Power armour.]]
While they are still some ways off from producing a fully functional power suit, there is interest in the idea. Some people are now looking into making functional powered exoskeletons, this includes some guys in Japan and the US government. While it's initially going to be used to help do heavy lifting where heavy equipment is impractical/inadvisable, along with helping the disabled to walk once more, using it for military applications is in the works. Hell, just look at the image. The basic idea works well enough, but there are still in the experimental phases and while they got the basics of the "power" part down they have yet to add the armor.

Even so, they still have a fair bit to go since most early versions will be restricted by a power tether or run on batteries that have at most a few hours of juice. Still, the first airplane's flight only was about 35 meters and it took less then two decades for the first transatlantic flight.

When they have a working model, this will by the only Superpower ability that isn't fictional or part of a pseudoscience (although that might be a redundancy).

When they do get armour, it will probably look like Fallout power armour.

== Gallery ==
<gallery>
File:IronHandsMarkI.jpg|Mark I Thunder Armour
File:IronHandsMarkII.jpg|Mark II Crusade Armour
File:IronHandsMarkIII.jpg|Mark III Iron Armour
File:IronHandsMarkIV.jpg|Mark IV Maximus Armour
File:IronHandsMarkV.jpg|Mark V Heresy Armour
File:IronHandsMarkVI.jpg|Mark VI Corvus Armour
File:IronHandsMarkVII.jpg|Mark VII Aquila Armour
File:IronHandsMarkVIII.jpg|Mark VIII Errant Armour
File:Power Armour Components.png|Diagram of Aquila armour components.
File:Terran marine cutout.jpg|It actually fits! Still a bit unsure about those hips though.
File:Newsletter vision study.jpg|Eternal Crusade concept art. Again, fitting real snugly.

</gallery>

[[Category:Space Marines]]
[[Category:Warhammer 40,000]]

Space Sharks

2016-05-16T02:47:58Z

2601:44:0:67BF:54EB:64F8:9785:3CE3: /* Night Lords */

{{editwar}}
[[File:B5oUxpr.jpg|200px|thumb|left|This is what [[furry|some]] believe the Space Sharks look like.]]
{{Infobox Spess Mahreen Chapter
|Name = Space Sharks/Carcharadon Astra
|Heraldry = [[Image:Carcharodons Livery.jpg|center|140px]]
|Number =
|Battle Cry = "From the void we come - darkness there, and nothing more" Alternatively: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bdhp33n3pU0]
|Founding = Either 2nd (according to a GW article) or 23rd (according to FFG) Basically '''Unknown'''
|Successors of = Either the [[Raven Guard]], [[Night Lords]] or [[World Eaters]]
|Successor Chapters = None
|Chapter Master = Believed to be [[Tyberos the Red Wake]]
|Primarch = Probably [[Corax]], [[Konrad Curze]] or [[Angron]]
|Homeworld = Fleet Based
|Specialty = Terror and scorched earth tactics, with brutal close combat preference.
|Strength = 1000 (ish)
|Allegiance = [[Imperium]]
|Colours = Grey, with black pauldrons and white helmet faces (and the occasional blood splatter)
}}
[[File:Sharks Bitch!.jpg|200px|thumb|left|This is what they [[Awesome|really look like]].]]This is what happened when someone from [[Games Workshop]] watched Street Sharks and thought "there oughta be some spess mehrens like that." These guys call themselves Carcharadons" (Carcharadon, pronounced "car-care-uh-dawn" is the scientific name for a family of big sharks), or Carcharadon Astra if they are being extra formal, <strike>but everyone calls them by their low gothic name, the Space Sharks, because that is a fucking awesome name </strike>. They have light-grey skin and black eyes like sharks, and according to FFG they increase the resemblance by filing their teeth to be shark teeth. Their chapter logo is a white shark on its side and their colours are grey with black/dark grey shoulders. Once upon a time, they were light grey with a red stripe down the middle of their helmets and their logo was a stupid looking cartoon of a black shark with red eyes. Luckily, IA10 broomed that silliness under a rug and gave us what we have right now.

They're as mad as hell, even the Angry Marines might wanna think twice before cutting in front of them in line (perhaps this anger stems from their recruitment practices, see below). They're described as sneaking into place before going batshit insane with killer rage. But, their rage is always controlled and stuff. So they're like Khorne Berzerkers (though maybe the pre-Angron War Hounds are a better comparison) mixed with the SAS. They also like to cover their armour with Polynesian looking tattoos (hunting sharks was a major rite of passage in some Polynesian societies). Also they try to stay quiet in combat, because <strike>they think it makes them cool</strike> sharks can't talk, however they do tend to roar loudly when charging. Their specialty seems to be committing indiscriminate genocide, sparing only children they can enslave into being Chapter serfs or turn into more Carcharadons (said children have to fight each other to the death). They also like to wear Heresy-era armour to give people more incentive to buy from Forge World.

The Carcharadons come up in the Badab War, where it's kinda hinted that they're Raven Guard mutants or descended from those other deranged genocidal space marines - the Night Lords. Anywho, they're deployed to Afghanistan in space to fight the space Taliban and they solve the problem that the Fire Angels had been having by killing everybody to root out teh terrorists. Grimdark. Then they go over to Badab and blow the place up, ending the Badab War. Then they go back to the ashes of space Afghanistan and make a bunch of boys kill each other to become the next generation of Carcharadons before heading back out to smash someone else's planet. Also, according to rumor, they helped to trash Failbaddon's 7th Black Crusade.

Their leader is Tyberos the Red Wake, a terminator who couldn't decide if he liked lightning claws or chainfists better, so he made Lightning Chainclaws...IN SPAAAAAACE! He can destroy just about anything in the game in close combat. His Scent of Blood rule makes him and and any Carcharodon unit subject to Rage +1 strength for the rest of the game. He is reasonable enough to wear helmet and do not carry banner and shitton of flashy trinkets on his armour, unlike most other chapter masters, whose wargear just screams "Shoot me down, sniper!" Also, allows you to take a unit of lightning claw equipped assault terminators as troops; and he and any unit he joins have preferred enemy (infantry). Why aren't you taking him again? He's never explicitly said to be Chapter Master, but its a forgone conclusion since he's got the same stats as one.

Not as cool as the [[Saharduin]], who are actually sharks from space. They do, however, share the same [[Shark|battle cry]].

Their beakies look fucking amazing.

==Organization==
[[File:Space Shark Mk5.jpeg|thumb|right|Space Shark in Heresy-era armor.]]
The Sharks are assumed to be a fleet based chapter. They follow the battle half of the codex but ignore everything else about organization. Cruising around in the void between beyond the galaxies edge can be nasty business. Years without resupply or any kind of constant reliable resources means they must be resourceful. Because of this each company practices high self-reliance, salvaging, repairing and re-purposing stuff to make sure it lasts as long as possible. This is why they sport so much working Heresy-era gear and why stuff like vehicles and Terminator armor are often kept together using a variety of patterns and models. Because of this, Techmarines are seldom seen on the battlefield. They also don't use reserve companies (realizing that having 100 of the finest warriors sitting around doing nothing is fucking stupid). Each company is thought to be a self-contained force, with their own scouts and veterans, ensuring they've got guys for every situation on hand. This has drawbacks of course as they can't simply ask for reinforcements from a reserve company and must make do, and for this reason Apothicaries are prized and kept off the front lines since every Marine makes a difference. At the same time it means that they've got all their companies actively doing stuff.

It could be theorized that part of the scorched earth campaign the Chapter did during the Badab War was in fact them violently restocking their inventory after having spent so long outside known space. Filling up on ammo, weapons, supplies, and [[Blood_Ravens|grabbing anything and everything that could be useful]], before destroying anything the enemy could possible have and inevitably returned there. We do know that they claimed a bunch of recruits post-Badab, and they probably do this after all their big campaigns (maybe every time they come back into contact with the Imperium).

==Gene-Seed Speculation==
[[File:Space Shark Tau.jpeg|right|thumb|''FFFFFUCKING WEEB!'']]
Initially, many fa/tg/uys speculated that the Carcharadons were of Raven Guard or Night Lord descent, or possibly a loyalist remnant. A minority also speculated that they might be World Eater remnants, though since that seems to be the old [[Minotaurs]]' schtick it's probably not true. Moreover, given that they are believed to have been founded by M32 and most of their wargear appears to be Heresy-era, they are most likely of the Second Founding or a product of the Heresy.

Most of the evidence for these theories is based on their military tactics and the few descriptions we had of the one Marine to be seen outside his armor, [[Tyberos the Red Wake]].

Their favored tactics, relying heavily on stealth and surprise, would seem to fall in line with the Raven Guard's combat doctrines. However, their preference for close-combat, total slaughter, and the strategic use of terror put them at odds with the "tacticool operator" style of the modern Raven Guard. Their method of war is closer to the pre-Heresy Night Lords, if substantially higher in body count, or the World Eaters, if they were a little more subtle.

Physically, Tyberos displayed pale white skin and black eyes with black sclera. These were uncommon traits of people living upon Lycaeus and Nostramo, the homeworlds of Corvus Corax and Konrad Curze, respectively. While the modern Raven Guard exhibit these traits as a result of mutations within their gene-seed, ''[[Imperial Armour#Volume Ten - The Badab War - Part Two|Imperial Armour]]'' states that the Space Shark's gene-seed is unusually pure, i.e. stable, and that these traits are unlikely to be the result of mutation. This makes their appearance all the more unusual as the Carcharadon's are known to take recruits from the worlds they conquer, meaning there is no universal genetic basis that could explain its development other than their gene-seed. It also indicates that they most likely are directly decended from a Legion, as it probably wasn't passed down a generation or two as they haven't developed mutations or side-effects. Notably, Corvus Corax was noted for his snow-white skin, and Konrad Curze for his black eyes.

===Raven Guard===
Following the publication of ''Imperial Armour 10'', new evidence was published to support the Raven Guard theory by Games Workshop's licensors. Presumably the idea that every Traitor Legion has a secret Loyalist Successor was too much for them.

[[Fantasy Flight Games]]' ''[[Deathwatch]] RPG'' included rules for playing the Carcharadons ('''Honour the Chapter'''). Among the fluff, it is stated that Deathwatch Apothecaries have occasionally had the chance to analyze the gene-seed of Carcharadon's slain in the service of the Deathwatch, and that they bear certain genetic markers unique to the Raven Guard. Of course, this being the Imperium of Man, you can never be certain what they're actually finding or if the records are accurate.

[[File:Thesharkyorigins.jpg|left|thumb|Forge Worlds not so subtle hints.]]

Forgeworld's ''[[Horus Heresy]] Book 3'' included a bunch of new information on the Raven Guard, and their predecessor [[Space Marine Legion|Legion]], the '''Pale Nomads'''. The Pale Nomads were noted for being the Emperor's preferred operators, often stealthing their way into enemy fortresses and armies to slay their leaders should they refuse surrender, and adopting multi-angle strike-and-fade tactics if the enemy continued to fight on. The latter is a favored tactic of the Carcharadons on the battlefield. The Pale Nomads were known for crushing any hint of resistance, which some have equated to the Space Sharks decimating entire star systems in order to sow terror. Their tactics evidenced a disdain for humans that the Raven Lord couldn't stomach, which is similar to the attitude adopted by the Space Sharks during the Badab War when they Exterminatus'd Badab and hundreds of Loyalist Space Marines along with it. The Pale Nomads were also slavers, who would take children from defeated worlds to raise as Legionnaires, a practice that the Space Sharks have adopted. The Xeric tribesmen from which the Pale Nomads recruited also had a tradition of tattooing their bodies and painting their armor with tribal markings.

This could possibly explain why the Space Sharks have an abundance of [[Beakie|MkVI armor]] alongside their other Heresy-era tech, since the Raven Guard were the first to get their hands on them when they entered production during the Horus Heresy and that they're unusually stealthy with a variety of sensory systems to assist them in the void of space. Additionally, the Raven Guard were revealed to suffer from a gene-seed defect known as the ''Ash Blind'' or ''Sable Brand''. Similar to the ''Black Rage'', this defect caused otherwise normal Space Marines to charge into battle seeking only to destroy all trace of their foes, whether they lived or died. Those afflicted would develop eyes of solid black, and would neither speak nor reason until the condition passed.

Finally, it is stated that Corvax would divest the Raven Guard of the surviving Terran-born Pale Nomads, whom he found too similar to the cruel lords he overthrew on [[Deliverance]]. One of the many branches of Raven Guard he sent off on isolated, never-ending crusades contained the [[Battle Barge]] '''Nicor''', later to be found in the fleet of Space Sharks who ended the Badab War. There is no evidence that these exiles were recalled during the Horus Heresy, and they could simply have been designated a new Chapter following the end of the civil war.

===Loyalist Traitors===
[[File:Space Shark Chainaxe.jpeg|left|thumb|[[Rip and Tear]] at its finest.]]

Contradicting the Raven Guard theory are some logical inconsistencies, the issue of their battle tactics, and recently published material from '''Horus Heresy Book 6'''.

If the Carcharadons were descended from a long-lost fleet of pre-Heresy Pale Nomads, why would they have Heresy-era gear? They would've been one of the Space Marine forces that didn't return during the Heresy, and would've had much older marks of arms and armor. Moreover, while the Carcharadons are believed to possess mostly Mark V armor, the Raven Guard adopted Mark VI armor pretty much en masse before the Horus Heresy.

Moreover, while '''Horus Heresy Book 3''' implies that the Raven Guard adopted (or reverted to) Carcharadon-like tactics during the fight to survive Istvaan V, that would imply that Corax exiled the '''Pale Nomads''' AFTER Istvaan, during the throes of the Heresy, as if that massacre hadn't weakened his Legion enough. If the Space Sharks were founded during the Second Founding, you'd expect them to have Mark VI armor. This points to the Space Sharks resupplying during the throes of the Heresy, meaning they either had access to modern armories or were supplied after the Heresy with new armor produced during it. Tellingly, even the Horus Heresy books say that the portion of the Raven Guard exiled with Shade Lord Arkhas Fal, former commander of the Legion, have no idea what happened to the fleet or to its master despite writing from a post-Heresy perspective. Considering the Space Shark's tactics and manner of deployment, it's possible that they simply salvaged ''Nicor'' and other wargear from some distant and bloody battlefield.

The Space Shark's preferred tactics are bloody and brutal, far more so than expected from any pre-Heresy Space Marine Legion besides the Night Lords and the World Eaters. During the Badab War they had no qualms about using the exterminations of worlds and systems loyal to the [[Mantis Warriors]] to draw them into battle by the scale of their horror, and they would use the shattered survivors of their bloody attacks to demoralize and weaken rebel forces.

The fact that the Carcharadon's adhere to a known pattern of crusading behavior, the "Nomad-Predation Pattern," would seem to indicate that their "recruiting" practices aren't unique to any Legion or Chapter, but an established Space Marine tactic for dealing with long crusades beyond the supply lines of the Imperium. Rather than being a relic of Xeric nomads recruited by the Emperor, it seems likely that the Space Sharks are only unique in that they utilize this pattern exclusively, obeying the order to "ravage the foes of Mankind" in the darkness beyond the galactic plane.

The history, as known, of the Space Sharks point to their being present during the Second Founding. Whether the Raven Guard exiles were recalled or returned on their own, or if they were a Loyalist remnant of the Night Lords, or more unlikely the World Eaters, and were given the chance to forge a new life and history, it seems odd that they would've been dispatched to such distant battlefields if they weren't regarded with mistrust by the High Lords of Terra. And assuming they possessed a reputation for such brutality that "ravage" is a more appropriate word for their orders than "harry" or "destroy," they should be descended from a Legion or portion of a Legion with a particularly bloody reputation.

<s>Interestingly</s> Amusingly, the same ''Honour The Chapter''' splatbook that posits that the Carcharadons are descended from the Raven Guard also says they are of the 23rd Founding, descended from the Eagle Warriors. And the Chapter immediately preceeding them in the splatbook, the [[Raptors|Reasonable Marines]], are definitively stated to be a Second Founding descendant of the Raven Guard. While the Raptors skin grows translucent and their hair grows darker as they age, the Space Sharks gain gray, shark-like skin and their hair turns whiter as they age. In addition, the Carcharadons by implication have a fully-funcitoning set of gene-seed organs, unlike the Raven Guard and Raptors who lack functioning Mucranoid and/or Bletcher's Glands, as do other Raven Guard Successors.

In '''Horus Heresy Book 6''' it is revealed that the largest of the band of Terrans exiled by Corvax from the Raven Guard turned full renegade, abandoning the Imperium to build their own Imperium Secundus in the Segmentum Tempestus. With no contact from the Imperium, no support from the Emperor, and no reward for their loyalty, it seems likely that other Raven Guard exiles could have turned. Interestingly, this band of exiles raided the fortress worlds of the Night Lords for supplies before returning to the darkness beyond the Imperium.

====Night Lords====
The Carcharadon's deliverance of bloody and total judgement upon the followers of the rebellious Badab Chapters is in line with the [[Night Lords]]' pre-Curze and pre-Heresy role and attitudes towards those who failed the Emperor in loyalty or deed. Brutal purges of the disloyal would build into a reputation that became one of terror and bloody death under Konrad Curze, and his use of fear and fluid, almost wild maneuvers in battle are seen by some in the descriptions of the Space Shark's battles.

The Space Shark's apparently fractious nature and their manner of giving personal titles of distinction and honor could be echoes of the Night Lords' practices as well. Many commanders and captains would have personal honorifics, like Zso Sahaal, would either earn idiosyncratic titles or have lurid and unique ranks within the Legion's organizational structure. Likewise, ''The Red Wake'' could be an honorific specific to the Chapter Master, or a personal one. As the Night Lords were grouped into semi-independent Companies with individual names, traditions, and markings, it's possible the Carcharadons could be one such Company that rejected the Heresy or returned to the Emperor's light. It would also explain why their forces never seem to gather in full Chapter strength; having passed down this tradition of building brotherhood solely within small, tribal bands like the gangs of Nostramo and fighting in semi-independent units as preferred by the Night Haunter, they would see little reason to fight together while other conflicts and enemies require their notice.

The Chapter's preference for close-combat is in stark contrast to the Raven Guard's preference for long-ranged and quick-moving strikes, especially as they prefer stealth and speed to the roar of assault jetpacks and jetbikes. However, these tactics were favored by the Night Lords and their Terror Squads. Indeed, the enforced silence and refusal to coordinate with Imperial forces of the Space Shark's is similar to the silence that Terror Squads would work with during the latter years of the Great Crusade. Rather than being a gene-seed curse, as with the Raven Guard, the Carcharadons simply isolate their vox nets and refuse to speak to anyone unless it is truly urgent and necessary.

As with the Space Sharks, the Night Lords were infamous for stealing the youth of conquered worlds for rapid implantation and hypNo-indoctrination. While the former could also be a hallmark of the Nomad-Predation deployment pattern, the latter is a practice that seems to have been preferred by the Night Lords since it was the fastest and quickest way to make a new, battle-ready Space Marine in spite of the risks of instability and insanity it engendered.

In the Horus Heresy short story, The Long Night, the Night Lords first captain Sevatar declares that he will become a force of judgement (space Batman) and ponders the dark spaces between the stars and beyond the Imperium's rim where he says the true enemies of man are. This could suggest that he might then go on to found the Carcharodons after the end of the Heresy.

The description of Tyberos states that his voice is a "rasping whisper," a characteristic unique to Konrad Curze. Admittedly, this is less a thread of evidence and more wishful thinking on the part of Night Lords fanboys.

Robbie MacNiven a black library writer who is working on a Night Lords vs Space Sharks book does favor this one in cast you wonder what gw favors.

====World Eaters====
Yet another possibility may be [[World Eaters]], since Space Sharks are silent and brooding outside of battle but go absolutely batshit crazy when ''in'' battle, no questions asked and they seem to have a preference for chain-axes, which is somewhat unusual among Loyalist Space Marines. Their prediliction for close-combat and bloody melee, to an even greater degree than the Space Wolves, would be in keeping with the attitudes of the World Eaters and the War Hounds. Like the World Eaters the Space Sharks also have a preference for Drop Pod assaults, fast vehicles like Land Speeders, and Assault Terminators, and it can be argued that Tyberos's Terminator bodyguards "the Red Brethren" are reminiscent of Angron's own Terminator posse of the Devourers.

The main problem with this theory is the Butcher's Nails. We can assume one of two things when it comes to the Nails:
#The Space Sharks learned to control their urges outside of battle, lest they snap and massacre each other since they're out in the void of space for long periods of time doing nothing
#Or they could have simply phased them out of their recruitment process after the Horus Heresy, seeing as it drove the other World Eaters fucking bonkers and was detrimental in the long run.

And, unlike the Night Lords, there are canon Loyalist World Eaters, both at Istvaan III and scattered around the Imperium during the Heresy.

===TL;DR===
'''The first mention of the Carcharadons says that their gene-seed might be Raven Guard''', but doesn't expand on that. Given that this was during the time that the [[Blood Ravens]] were really in the popular vogue, the idea that the Carcharadons are secretly Loyalist Traitors was pretty popular because their tactics are more like the Night Lords than anyone elses. GW has tried to walk it back a bit by saying the Raven Guard were basically the Night Lords only with Corax instead of Curze since then, but the debate still rages on because most of the documents supporting the Raven Guard hypothesis are speculative in-universe, and the Imperium would probably cover up a loyal Chapter being descended from Traitors if the Blood Ravens are anything to go by.

==On the Tabletop==

Carchadons Chapter tactics gives all Space Marines models Fear, and allows Tactical marines to replace their bolters with a chainsword or keep it and buy an additional close combat weapon for 1pt each. In addition they gain Rage after destroying or forcing an infantry unit to fallback in close combat, however they must consolidate towards the nearest unit they can hurt (after all, [[Khorne|the rape train]] [[Meme|has no brakes!]]). This can make stuff like Vanguard Veterans, Assault Marines, or even bikes surprisingly dangerous. Even a full batch of 10 footslogging Tacticals with extra CC weapons can be a pretty scary thing to face up against. Also, Dreadnoughts with Fear and Rage? Yes please.

You can only ally with Imperial Forces and all of those are bumped down to Desperate Allies. All this means that, with them, you play Horus Heresy World Eaters with Fear and all the shiny new toys of the 40k arsenal of Space Marines.

{{Template:Marines-Official}}
[[Category:Warhammer 40,000]][[Category:Imperial]][[Category:Space Marines]]

Everqueen

2016-05-16T02:41:44Z

2601:44:0:67BF:54EB:64F8:9785:3CE3: /* Age of Sigmar */

{{Template:High Elves}}

''"Life is not a problem to be solved, but a reality to be experienced."''

-Soren Kierkegaard

[[Image:1377291976783.jpg|350px|thumb|right|The day the Warp shuddered.]]

If ever there is a point where [[Warhammer Fantasy]] and [[Warhammer 40,000]] split into [[noblebright|nobledark]] and [[grimdark]], that point would be the [[High Elf]] character '''Alarielle the Everqueen''' AKA '''The Handmaiden of [[Isha]].'''
There are two [[God-Emperor of Mankind|God Emperor]]-style "good-aligned god on earth" entities in Warhammer Fantasy. The first, [[Sigmar|Sigmar Heldenhammer]], was a human in gold armor(well, armored boots, a skull belt, and a fur cape) who unified (some of/most of) humanity, kicked a lot of ass, became a god (maybe), and is now the patron god of the [[Empire]], who are/used to be the primary protagonists of the game (sound familiar?). The other one is an [[Elf]]. Despite this large strike against her record, she is made up of an amalgamation of badass <strike>psykers</strike> wizard souls, makes the [[Chaos Gods]] quake in their Chaos Boots, and has a habit of resurrection (okay, so the Emperor didn't do that last one... yet).

This Elf also happens to be queen of the [[High Elves]] and the living avatar of Isha, but we don't hold any of that against her.

==The Legend==
(Although different sources describe the origin and identity of the Elf Gods different ways, the version presented here combines the Elvish and Lizardmen versions into a version most matching up to High Elf lore)
===Isha===
Technically speaking, the Everqueen begins with Isha. Isha and the rest of the Elf pantheon were (in previous editions, beings of Chaos which was retconned to creations of the [[Old Ones]], and now they are;) the survivors of another world which was consumed by Chaos who fled to this world in it's lifeless primordial state and created a race of Elf Neanderthals who would later be uplifted by the Old Ones ("All according to plan" whispered [[Lileath]]) into being Elves proper.

Isha was a being of immense power, connected to the world and was the spiritual embodiment the Life magic (Ferngully style) which flows through all natural living things (and refuses to work with the Chaos rules all other forms of magic obey). After giving birth to [[Elfquest|an inferior race of short-lived Elves]], Isha felt the misery that comes with the fact that her second(+)born children were mortal, cursed with aging and dying (albeit at a very slow pace) while she remained as a Goddess over them. Isha wept at the fate of her youngest, and the tears became [[Soulstones]] which fell to [[Ulthuan]].
While the souls of the mortal Elves went to [[Morr|Morr's]] afterlife (or [[Ereth Khial|Ereth Khial's]], the daughters of Isha descended from her firstborn daughter each return to her upon death. In their mortal lives, the souls of the aforementioned daughters are connected to Isha and the entirety of the souls of each daughter that has lived and died (plus the currently living host) accompany Isha herself to enter the body of the current eldest daughter, resulting in an almost super saiyan state of being that can equal a [[Chaos God]] and wield power on-par with [[Lord Kroak]].
==="Elf Eve"===
Nothing much is known about the first Elves. We don't know how many there were, or if they came in multiple litters from Isha.

What we do know is that the oldest of Isha's mortal daughters is the one who became tied to her mother. She was revered as a demigoddess by the rest of the mortal Elves, and became their supreme leader in all aspects of society, from spiritual to military (not that they had much to fight early on). Upon the ascension of her own daughter to the queenly role upon the Elf Eve's death and the realization that Eve II's connection wasn't only to Isha, but to Elf Eve as well the position became known thereafter as the "Everqueen".

===Astarielle===
Everything regarding the Everqueens prior to Astarielle, including their names and how many there were, is lost to the current day High Elves.

Astarielle was the reigning Everqueen during the collapse of the [[Warp Gates]], and although the bulk of the [[Daemon]] forces went for the [[Lizardmen]], Ulthuan was their secondary target. The countryside was ravaged, the small and inexperienced armies of the Elves doing little other than slow the Daemons down. During the invasion, a badass world explorer Elf named [[Aenarion]] became [[Asuryan|Asuryan's]] mortal avatar, and with his strength (both his own and that granted by Asuryan) he more or less made the [[Daemons of Chaos]] look like unarmed children as he tore through them and pushed them back into the [[Warp]] wherever he went. The nobles of the Elves (at least, the ones who were still alive) swore allegiance to Aenarion, and Astarielle summoned him to her court to hit dat... which is actually kinda creepy, because Asuryan was Isha's father, so technically Asuryan was proxy-fucking his granddaughter on a pile of smoking Daemon corpses (but if you're at all familiar with the Greek pantheon, gods have a tendency to do whatever (or whoever) the fuck they've got a boner for right now, damn the consequences).

''Then'' shit kinda started going downhill.

Daemons of [[Khorne]] and [[Slaanesh]] (because [[Nurgle]] was mostly picking on the southwestern elves and the cavemen humans in the [[Old World]], and [[Tzeentch]] never really does jack shit in Fantasy) blitzed into the ancestral forest home of the elves, and burned/raped a fair amount of it down. Astarielle made a pact with the spirit of [[Warhammer Magic|Life Magic]], (Life Magic eats Chaos, and it was having a good ol' time unbeknownst to the Chaos Gods) to at some point in the future [[Wood Elves (Warhammer Fantasy)|send a group of Elves to serve nature forever as servants]]. In return, the Elves race in it's entirety was bound to the world (sadly making it difficult for them to reach Morr's afterlife, as Elf ghosts now are stuck adhering to gravity) and the ancient Treekin [[Durthu]] took Astarielle's children Yvraine and Morelion to safety from the burning forest. She then summoned Dryads (not the happy kind that hide in trees and get fucked by [[Beastmen|Satyrs]], these ones are spirits that possess plant bodies and turn them into [[Angry Marines]]). She then stood in the middle of the forest with her army and waited for the Daemons to come. Whatever happened isn't in the fluff, and is described as unable to be conveyed through mortal words (even that of Elves) and that none of the Daemons survived it.

Aenarion heard the news that Avelorn had fallen and, thinking that there were no survivors, went into a rage of epic proportions and drew a cursed sword of [[Khaine]] to become a living Elven WAAAGH!, making him (canonically) the strongest Elf to have ever lived. He also made shit decisions like marrying a [[Morathi|chick who liked hanging out with Daemonettes]], telling [[Malekith|his son by her he'd be badass forever and be king like his old man]], building a new kingdom out of the ruins of the most tainted land in Ulthuan, and similar full retard moves. Eventually his old buddy [[Caledor the Dragontamer]], who had come up with an awesome plan to actually BEAT Chaos decades ago, got sick of waiting for Aenarion to get off his ass and decided to start shit himself. High Elves went all over the world and set up magical rocks called [[Waystones]] covered in runes and gems, which vary in size from a large mountain to the size of a paperweight. Those rocks drain magic (which Daemons use to make themselves real) into the center of Ulthuan. Aenarion finally showed up, [[Awesome|personally fought and killed 4 avatars of the Chaos Gods themselves, suffered a mortal wound and managed to cross a HUGE continent to put that cursed sword back before dying]] (to be fair; he was carried by his also-mortally wounded-dragon, who actually made the journey. But still awesome!)

So after the smoke had cleared, the Elves decided there'd be two rulers of the race from now on: the Everqueen, who is the firstborn daughter of the last queen, and upon the death of the last queen and the passing of the Everqueen entity (now one soul stronger) into the princess she is crowned the new Everqueen. The second, the Phoenix King, is a male elf democratically elected from amongst the princes (AKA governors, not literally part of a royal family) of Ulthuan. After election, he's required to walk through a pyre in the Shrine of Asuryan. If he survives, he's buffed to badass levels and becomes king. So far nobody has died, although one asshole has managed to burn himself to a crisp when he tried to declare himself king.

The king's first job is to produce a new queen with the Everqueen (up until this point the Everqueen was produced by the previous Everqueen's own husband, who was simply the man she favored most), who will be her future heir. He's got a year to knock her up (which seems to always be how long it takes), after which the two return to their spouses or lovers as they will.

===Alarielle the Radiant===
Once again, there's a gap in fluff. This time it's not because it's a forgotten mystery, but because GW hasn't filled in the fluff.
The modern day Everqueen is Alarielle, dubbed "the Radiant" for her inspiring presence upon battlefields. See, before her the Everqueens were expected to sit at home and send condolence letters to the families of those slain in battle and to pose for commemorative plates like a proper queen. Her role in society is to be the head elf hippy and just be a pinup who conducts fertility rituals and the like (which is really important since it keeps elf birth rates up), however due to her insistence at being present in battles where the fate of the world hangs in the balance the courts of Ulthuan are beginning to gossip that she might be masculine lesbian (despite this, everyone around her gets a hard on for good and figures GOD IS WITH US in her presence, so an already fearless race becomes literally fearless if they're around her).

Alarielle's earliest mention is during the massive (recent) [[Dark Elves (Warhammer)|Druchii]] invasion of Ulthuan. Malekith sent his forces into Ulthuan, burning down a fairly large chunk of Avelorn and pursuing the fleeing Alarielle with both assassins and Daemons. As she was still young and unconfident, the loss of her home gave her a sad that sapped her powers. She was simply an Elven maiden fleeing both Seekers of Slaanesh and Cold One riding hitmen while on foot.
After the hitmen caught up to her and were preparing to turn her into a Dark Elf Battle Standard Dolcette-style, Tyrion appeared and killed the assassins although suffering poisoned wounds in the process. She was forced to carry him away as the Daemons closed in. Right as a Slaaneshi warhost was about to do even worse things to them, [[Teclis]] appeared and incinerated them.

They escaped to the gathered forces of the High Elves. Inspired by (her throbbing ladyboner for) Tyrion's bravery, she regained some of her power and restored his health. She granted the firstborn descendant of the worlds first horse, Malhandir, to him as well as giving him a magic pendant marking him as her Champion. She then gave Teclis a powerful magic staff, made by Lileath herself and granted to Elfkind.
The heroes then saddled off to the Battle of Finuval Plains, leaving Alarielle to reenact the Gone With The Wind field hospital scene.
At some point, before or after the battle, Alarielle and Tyrion shagged. She then began her one year with Finubar, and she became pregnant with her daughter.

Alarielle would also participate in another battle against Morathi and a [[Warriors of Chaos|Slaaneshi warhost]] after a failed assassination attempt (Manchurian Candidate style) left her first comatose, then awakened the Everqueen entity in her for the first time. After gathering the noncombatants of Avelorn and suiting them up as Spearmen, she summoned the Dryads of the forest and faced the oncoming army alongside a force from Ellyrion. Although initially the battle was a stalemate, the Slaaneshi Champion saw her on the field and sought her out for the purpose of "desecration". Before he could attack her however, she took his hand and cleansed all of the Chaos taint from him in an instant. She fought a tug of war for his soul with [[Slaanesh]] himself before freeing the man'sso (using the guilt from sacrificing his own wife for attractiveness) and letting go of the "rope", causing Slaanesh to pour power into the soulless body of the Champion and make it into a (rather large) [[Chaos Spawn]] which was then cut down by her forces. This plunged the forces of the Chaos warband into disarray as Slaanesh's enraged tantrum fucked up their magic.
The High Elves spent the rest of the day mopping up the remaining enemy forces until Teclis appeared and nuked the last holdouts.

Alarielle also yearly makes a dangerous pilgrimage to the summit of one of the Annulli to protect the dreamscape of the mortal races from Slaanesh.

Since her year with Finubar is up and she had a daughter during that time she's now toting around [[Tyrion]] like a puppy on a leash.

If she ever gets a voice actor, it should be Idina Menzel.

===Aliathra===
Although it was believed that she was the daughter of Finubar, Teclis found out (and revealed during the events of the [[End Times]]) that she was the daughter of Tyrion, conceived in love before Finubar's year. Although this didn't remove her legitimacy (at least in technicality, politically it may have caused some stirring) it meant she had inherited Aenarion's Curse; having a permanent lust for the [[Widowmaker]] and being destined for glory and (sometimes) misfortune.

Aliathra was very popular with the [[Dwarfs (Warhammer Fantasy)|Dorfs]], and the High Elves used this to their advantage by making her the diplomatic representative for their race. Her continued presence in the Holds of the Dwarfs increased relations rapidly, bringing the two elder races closer than they have been since the [[War of the Beard]]. Unfortunately, [[Mannfred von Carstein]] saw her as both a way to resurrect his master and divide the two races. He first goaded a massive WAAAGH! of [[Orcs & Goblins|greenskins]] into attacking the Hold where she resided, then sent in his pawn [[Heinrich Kemmler]]. While the valiant Dwarf and Elf defenders fought side by side and handily defeated the greenskins, the animated bodies of both the enemy and their own fallen pulled them down. Mannfred dueled Aliathra's own paramour, a Prince on a Gryphon, before taking Aliathra captive.

Although many Dwarfs and Elves blamed each other for the attack and results, Finubar and [[High King Thorgrim Grudgebearer]] managed to reign in the dissidents. Alarielle sensed through the Everqueen entity that Aliathra was still alive, and Tyrion was dispatched to retrieve her while Thorgrim assembled a massive force of Dwarfs. Thanks to M4, Tyrion reached Mannfred first. His Silver Helms battled through a massive Undead army to find Aliathra unconscious. He attempted to ride out with her only to face the largest Undead force ever assembled before him. His forced plunged in from one side while the newly-arrived Dwarf army (the largest assembled since the War of Vengeance) attacked from the rear.

Both sides met in the middle, after Mannfred swooped in with his magic and once again took Aliathra. The Elves and Dwarfs screamed insults at each other, while Tyrion arrogantly stated that the Elves had no need of Dwarfs. Maintaining his composure, Thorgrim said that Aliathra's fate was in Tyrion's hands and took his massive force to retake long-lost Dwarf Holds.

Teclis shamed Tyrion into once-again leading the High Elf forces, so he got his friends Eltharion and Eldyra to lead a High Elf army to rescue Aliathra. They arrived just before the ritual to revive Nagash started. The barely managed to fight their way through, with Eltharion reaching Aliathra just as Arkhan was about to sacrifice her. [[Grimdark|Arkhan turned Eltharion to dust with magic and killed Aliathra after she performed some mysterious spell on him]]. Tyrion was a broken spirit after her death, then it is revealed that Teclis allowed Aliathra to be sacrificed. With the revelations later that [[Asuryan]] was a dick who preferred Dark Elves and pitched a hissy fit when Malekith didn't become the eternal king of the Elves by fucking over the entire Elf race until he got his way, Tyrion went full-Aenarion and drew the [[Widowmaker]], causing him to become the mortal vessel of [[Khaine]] (after it was revealed that the Curse of Aenarion simply means you have a fragment of Khaine stuck in you). Morathi, thinking that was totally hot, forgot the feel of her son's cock and became his lover before completely losing what was left of her mind and believing she was truly with Aenarion again.
After a short three-way mixed forces civil war, Ulthuan sunk with all Elf gods other than Isha and Lileath dead. Isha, who had become senile and unable to remember anything that had happened within this world, had come to reside fully within [[Ariel]]. Lileath poisoned Ariel, then lead Alarielle to her whereupon she absorbed Isha's spirit and kept Isha's mind and personality completely buried, then merged with the entire Life Wind of Magic to become a super-goddess. She then married Malekith. [[Derp.]]

===[[Nagash]](?)===
During the ritual to return Nagash to life, powerful beings (including the daughter of the [[Lady of the Lake]]) were sacrificed to bind his spirit to the body of [[Volkmar the Grim]]. Aliathra was among them, and through her he sought to inherit the powers of the Elven Gods and of Life magic.

Although he did gain her strengths, he also inherited Aenarion's Curse ([[Just as Planned|All according to plan]]). Rather than use his newfound might to confront the Chaos Gods, he instead shut himself away within his (now flying) massive [[Warpstone]] pyramid trying to purge himself of the curse and only appearing to quickly deal with any troublesome foes before returning to his endeavors.

Since Aliathra's soul merged with Nagash's, it's possible that he is now part of the Everqueen entity. It would do a great deal to explain how he has usurped control of the afterlife from Morr, which he had made part of Sylvania.
In addition, it is possible that within the sea of elf queen spirits and Isha the soul of Nagash will forever be found (talk about an epic harem though!)

===Isha/Ariel Alarielle Fusion Dance!===
As End Times progressed, [[Lileath]] poisoned [[Ariel]] (revealed to be a senile Isha) and brought Alarielle to merge with her and become...still Alarielle, but more powerful.

They became involved in the end of the Elf civil war, transporting all Wood Elves to Ulthuan to fight alongside Phoenix King Malekith (don't think about it too hard)'s armies against the fused Khaine/Tyrion (again, just accept this and move on). Orion died, Tyrion had a death and revival, Alarielle lead all Elves except those who were confused and hated this convoluted lore rape to Athel Loren through the roots of the World Tree as Ulthuan sank due to the unbinding of the Vortex. All Elves spent a few months hating each other as Teclis bound each Wind of Magic to a living being, Alarielle becoming the entire Wind of Life.

These Incarnates attempted to save the world and failed due to Mannfred von Carstein literally backstabbing them all for no good reason other than Archaon needing to win (this wasn't [[Storm of Chaos]] after all).

===Age of Sigmar===
After End Times, Alarielle was left standing with Tyrion, holding hands (possibly standing on top of rubble that had pinned Malekith) while watching the world end, and was confirmed dead as only one being was left floating in the void after Chaos had consumed all but the remnants of the World Tree and a single spark of light...DERP, IMMEDIATE RETCON, turns out each Wind of Magic became an entire Realm and a single being from the old Warhammer was now a god within it with their soul being tied to it (so the god cannot be killed outright or the Realm apparently crumbles).

Alarielle appeared in the Realm of Life, the most changed out of any of the other gods. Rather than a self-sacrificing motherly queen of the High Elves, she became distant and cold. She initially joined Sigmar's pantheon of gods in the Realm of Light, but vanished not long after back to her own Realm where she took "Soul Pods", plant seeds containing souls from the old Warhammer setting (how and when she obtained these is as undescribed as her survival) and created a people to lead. A people who are coincidentally exactly the same as the old Warhammer Dryads and Treekin (which means she saved MUCH more women than men). She cut off her hand and planted it in the ground to create a new daughter (hopefully she knew what she was doing, or that would have been REALLY fucking crazy) named the Lady of Vines who had the exuberant and youthful personality that had been lost to the traumatized former queen.

[[Nurgle]] invaded the Realm not long after, seeking to turn the Realm of Life into an extension of his Garden and possibly securing Alarielle as his Fantasy kidnapping victim. [[Sigmarines]] intervened, although the Lady of Vines and most of the Realm of Life was corrupted in the process. In the final battle, part of the Realm was cleansed and Alarielle died, turning into a seed. The Sigmarines planted said seed at a location where many of them had died defending her, hoping she would grow back into a <strike>human</strike> warrior.

Oh, and the Everqueen thing is basically gone. No hint is made of the cascade of souls that once made her up, Alarielle is now just thousand-yard stare Alarielle now.

Leak images show she does come back as a half elf half tree giant with wings made of leafs and a wooden arm.

==Everqueenship==
It's not clear who has more political power between the Phoenix King and the Everqueen, although generally the Everqueens are fairly hands-off of leading armies and the High Elf provinces (called 'kingdoms') are fairly autonomous. Instead the Everqueens tend to administer to certain rites and responsibilities from domestic tasks like visiting the shrines of Isha to conduct fertility rituals needed to keep High Elves outbreeding their lost population, to once a year leading huge forces of elves to dangerous peaks in Ulthuan's highly dangerous Annulii Mountains to fight a battle against the forces of the Warp to keep Daemons from being able to enter the dreams of mortals and wreak havoc in their minds at will.

Her armies are mostly volunteers from all kingdoms plus sometimes requested aid that is given eagerly, since serving the Everqueen is the highest honor in Ulthuan. High Elves believe in a duality to all things (even their language for example is full of things like the words for honor and victory also meaning slaughter and loss of innocence) so power struggles are probably more philosophical argument and trying to have your cake and eat it too than any intrigue and greed (the only time any meaningful interaction between the two powers has been described in the fluff is actually recent, with Alarielle (more on her below) stepping in with support to prevent the Princes of Ulthuan from rebelling against the current Phoenix King Finubar the Seafarer).

The Everqueen's court in the kingdom of Avelorn is much different from the rest of Ulthuan, being a much more [[Wood Elves (Warhammer)|Wood Elf]] themed vibe combined with a drop of Tolkien elf mixed in (Games Workshop can't into subtlety, Everqueen's court is an 'R' rated Lothlórien that changes location in the forest periodically). At first it's hard to see the difference between this and the Cult of Pleasure of the [[Dark Elves (Warhammer)|Dark Elves]] which worship Slaanesh, but the main difference is that the casualty rate from lovemaking is 0% in Avelorn, people bathe in exotic oils and magical water instead of virgin blood and Daemonette semen, teasing is defined by making catty remarks at group poetry readings instead of cutting away the skin over a lover/cousin's ribs at a public execution (one on every corner!), and everybody involved in the activities is pretty okay with it and respects everybody else involved as an individual.

For a summary on the average Everqueen's personality, picture Snow White who has a bonus Avatar State like from that one cartoon about a monk kid saving the world that /co/ faps over and rages over between fap sessions (what was it called again? Oh yeah, Batman: The Animated Series). She is so pure and Noblebright (honest to god noblebrightness in a Warhammer setting? It's more likely than you think!) she kills Greater Daemon's by just asking them to go away please (and thank you!).

==On The Tabletop==
She had a model in previous editions that allowed you to take her Maiden Guard, but her stats were horrible and she was unusable despite the awesomeness of the Guard. She was later removed, but now in 8th she's back and overpowered although not to the point that players of other armies can hold it against High Elf players.
The Maiden Guard, now called Sisters of Avelorn (with the original Guard now represented by Hero models called Handmaidens of the Everqueen) can be fielded separately, and find themselves in the role of "best ranged infantry in the entire game".

Like [[Malekith]] (her new hubby!), she got two updated versions in [[The End Times]]; the Avatar of Isha for 375 points, and the Incarnate of Life for 540 points. Both of them are good healers, but not entirely bad at killing things either. Still, you definitely want to focus on her casting abilities, since she's much more useful with them.

As the Avatar of Isha, Alarielle is sporting M5, WS6, BS5, S3, T3, W3, I6, A1 and LD10. She's a level 4 Caster who uses spells from the Lores of Life, Light and High Magic, and sports the special rules Always Strikes First, Lileath's Blessing, Martial Prowess, Valour of Chaos, Anathema of Chaos (Daemons within 12" take D6 S4 hits at the start of each Magic phase), Blessings of Isha (Alarielle and all friendly Elves within 12" have a 5+ Ward Save and Immunity to Fear & Terror) and Touch of Purity (Alarielle's attacks are magic and, against Forces of Disorder, Wound on a 2+ and inflict Multiple Wounds (D6)). She has two unique magical items; the Star of Avelorn (Enchanted Item, heals 1 friendly character within 12" of 1 lost wound, can only heal Alarielle if there's no other viable targets in range) and the Stave of Avelorn (Arcane Item, One Use, can cast a previously cast spell, whether or not the first try was successful, by making the normal power dice & casting roll for that spell).

As the Incarnate of Life, Alarielle gets +1 to her Strength, Toughness and Wounds and +2 to her Attacks. She upgrades to being a level 5 caster who uses spells from the Lore of Life only and trades Blessings of Isha for the Locus of Renewal (reroll miscast results) and Incarnate of Life (Alarielle and all friendly units within 12" have a 6+ Ward Save and Regeneration, plus she and any friendly model within 12" regain 1 lost wound automatically at the start of each friendly Magic phase). Other than that, she has all of her old form's goodies.

==Warhammer 40k==
If there was ever an Everqueen entity in Warhammer 40k, she most likely became as corrupt and depraved as the other [[Eldar]] and was consumed by Slaanesh in his birth alongside the Eldar gods. This would imply she's much weaker than her Fantasy counterpart, but would explain how we have no information about her. Most likely she never existed in that setting, and instead Sigmar's equivalent had her power instead and became the EMPRAH while Isha was simply a plot device to give Slaanesh teeth and relevance.

==Gallery==
<gallery>
Image:Alarielle Old Artwork.jpg|Old GW artwork depicting Alarielle.
Image:Alarielle Old Model.jpg|Not bad, but GW definitely had issues with female faces. If you have one, it makes a decent Aliathra.
Image:Alarielle New Artwork.jpg|New GW artwork depicting Alarielle.
Image:Alarielle New Model.jpg|It's official, GW can now make decent females (they could before. For example, look at Dark Elf and Dark Eldar models). Now if only they can paint them.
Image:Morathi And Alarielle Diplomacy.jpg|According to 40k's logic, Dark Elves and High Elves make perfect partners!
Image:Alarielle trading card.jpg|Alarielle from the dead Warhammer Trading Card Game.
Image:Alarielle At Crystal Lake.jpg|Alarielle in Age of Sigmar.
</gallery>

[[Category:Warhammer Fantasy]]
[[Category:High Elves]]
[[Category:Host of the Eternity King]]

Second Founding

2016-05-12T12:04:40Z

2601:44:0:67BF:54EB:64F8:9785:3CE3: /* Imperial Fists */

The [[Horus Heresy]] proved that, despite the [[God-Emperor of Mankind|Emperor's]] efforts, the [[Primarch]]s were not perfect; they could easily be led astray and fall to [[Chaos]].

In order to prevent one man from gaining as much power as [[Horus]] had, the branches of the Imperial armed forces were separated, the [[Inquisition]] was founded, and the loyal [[First Founding|Space Marine Legions]] were divided into [[Space Marine Chapter|Chapters]] of roughly one thousand Marines, in accordance with the [[Codex Astartes]].

The Second Founding was not universally accepted; the [[Space Wolves]] and [[Imperial Fists]] in particular objected to dividing their Legions, and the [[Imperium of Man|Imperium]] was nearly torn apart by another civil war. For better or for worse, [[Leman Russ]] and [[Rogal Dorn]] finally relented, although the [[Black Templars]] have since grown their numbers to many more times the usual size.

==List of Second Founding Chapters==

===[[Dark Angels]]===
*[[Angels of Absolution]]
*[[Angels of Redemption]]
*[[Angels of Vengeance]]
*[[Lions Sable]] (They were destroyed trying to apprehend several Fallen in what was later revealed to be a massive trap set by [[Cypher]] shortly before [[The Beheading]] and all records of their existence were erased to hide the involvement of the Fallen in their collapse.)
*[[Star Phantoms]] - ''([[A Game of Pretend|maybe]], though this chapter definitely did exist in M31)''
*[[Angels of Vigilance]] - ''(Again, maybe, though this one is more likely)''
*According to ''The Unforgiven'' by Gav Thorpe, there were 11 total Dark Angels successors in this founding.

===[[White Scars]]===
*[[Marauders]]
*[[Rampagers]]
*[[Destroyers]]
*[[Storm Lords]]

===[[Space Wolves]]===
*[[Sons of Russ]]
*[[Wolf Brothers]]

===[[Imperial Fists]]===
*[[Black Templars]]
*[[Crimson Fists]]
*[[Soul Drinkers]] (sort of, it's a long story)
*[[Excoriators]]
*[[Fists Exemplar]] (Who may really be the present day Fist)

===[[Blood Angels]]===
*[[Angels Encarmine]]
*[[Angels Sanguine]]
*[[Angels Vermillion]]
*[[Blood Drinkers]]
*[[Flesh Tearers]]

===[[Iron Hands]]===
*[[Brazen Claws]]
*[[Red Talons]]

===[[Ultramarines]]===
*[[Aurora Chapter]]
*[[Black Consuls]]
*[[Doom Eagles]]
*[[Eagle Warriors]]
*[[Genesis Chapter]]
*[[Inceptors]]
*[[Iron Snakes]]
*[[Libators]]
*[[Mortifactors]]
*[[Nemesis]]
*[[Novamarines]]
*[[Patriarchs of Ulixis]]
*[[Praetors of Orpheus]]
*[[Silver Eagles]]
*[[Silver Skulls]]
*[[White Consuls]]

===[[Salamanders]]===
''None, as there weren't enough Salamanders left after the [[Horus Heresy]] to fill one Chapter, let alone two.

===[[Raven Guard]]===
*[[Black Guard]]
*[[Raptors (Chapter)|Raptors]]
*[[Revilers]]

===[[Grey Knights]]===
''The Grey Knights were not created from any of the Space Marine Legions, as their [[gene-seed]] was specially created by the [[God-Emperor of Mankind]] himself and their founding members were hand-picked by [[Malcador the Sigillite]]; many of them were loyalists who had formerly been a part of a [[Chaos Space Marines|Traitor Legion]] (e.g. [[Nathaniel Garro]], [[Garviel Loken]], and [[Iacton Qruze]]). They were founded to supply the newly-formed [[Inquisition]] with a strike force against future [[Chaos]] threats.''

{{Marines-Official}}
{{Template:40k-Timeline}}

[[Category:Space Marines]]

WAAAGH

2016-05-12T12:02:25Z

2601:44:0:67BF:54EB:64F8:9785:3CE3: /* From Canon */

[[File:Ork flowchart.png|thumb|right|The basic flowchart of how a WAAAGH! occurs.]]
'''WAAAGH!''' is the battlecry of [[Ork]]s throughout the universe. Whether it's a natural noise or Orkification of the word 'war' is really, really unimportant. Pointless WAAAGHing will now follow.

Not to be confused with '''[[Matt_Ward|"WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARD!"]]''', a cry often uttered by fa/tg/uys, but not associated with any kind of enjoyable activity.

==[[Rogue Trader|WAAAARGH]]==
===WAAAARGH===
WWWWWWAAAAAAAAAGH!!!

==Ahem==
WAAAGH has several meanings with the Orks. While it's most famous as a battle cry, it also refers to the military campaign and energy field surrounding the Orks. As a military campaign, a WAAAGH is named after the Warboss who gathered it together and is generally described as pub crawl and a genocide rolled into one great big party, where Orks travel from one planet to another, fighting anything and everything that they can find.

WAAAGH also refers to the energy the Orks generate while in a campaign. A highly [[psyker|psychic]] race, Orks do not draw psychic power from the [[Warp]] like [[Human]]s and [[Eldar]], but instead from each other. This allows Ork psykers, dubbed Weirdboyz, to access a large amount of psychic energy. However, if they soak up too much energy, they end up exploding, taking several Orks with them. This energy field is actually vital to the Orks' war efforts, as their ramshackle technology relies on a sufficient number of Orks agreeing that it works that way as much as mechanical laws (e.g. their belief that "[[Blood Angels|red]] ones go faster" turns into a measurable increase in the top speed of a buggy with enough red paint on it). The Orks, however, do not understand that they are making this energy field, and simply assume that the technology works because they believe that is how the universe works.

==Notable WAAAGHs==
===From Canon===
*WAAAGH [[Ghazghkull Mag Uruk Thraka|Ghazgkhull]], which became infamous for the two wars it waged on [[Armageddon]]. Currently the largest known WAAAGH in existence, and it's quite possible that it could unite the whole Ork race under one leader and cause so much WAAAGH energy that Gork and Mork (Mork and Gork?) will come crashing out of the Warp and join the scrap.

*WAAAGH Nazdreg, which teamed with Ghazgkhull for a while but then take their balls and leave when things on Armageddon went boring due to all that season of fire shit. They also participated in Medusa V campaign, which ensures major hilarity, like tellyporta-spamming a few hive cities to dust and hijacking a fully-operational Imperial ''battleship'' at evacuation stage. WAAAGH Nazdreg is famous for being the most well-equipped WAAAGH in the galaxy, having the most prominent Meks working for them (things like the Tellyporta and Submersible were actually invented by them). Nazdreg himself is like an orky Steve Jobs - ridiculously rich, arrogant, cunning, and merciless, but minus the cancer.

*WAAAGH Snagrod, which became infamous for the near destruction of the [[Crimson Fists]] when it invaded Rynn's World. Snagrod and Chapter Master [[Pedro Kantor]] later fought in single combat; while Kantor took to the field in his full panoply of wargear, Sragrod made due with little more than a loincloth and two regular axes.

*WAAAGH Skargor, which was the target of the Corinthian Crusade, taking on fifty [[Imperial Guard]] regiments and six Space Marine chapters. Skargor was eventually killed by Ancient Galatan of the [[Ultramarines]] at the cost of his own life.

*WAAAGH The Beast, a WAAAGH led by an Ork Warboss known only as the Beast (Full name "The Great Beast who will bring much Slaughter" a few millennia after the Horus Heresy. It was the largest WAAAGH to threaten the galaxy in general and the Imperium in particular in known history. The Imperium sacrificed a tremendous amount of manpower, including whole Space Marine Chapters (Including the entire [[Imperial Fists]], who were wiped out to a man, somehow), to subdue the threat. <s>That's practically all that was written about it.</s> NO LONGER. Black Library is getting a whole series of novels (with the Imperial Fists as main characters of the first book!) for the meanest [[Ork]] prior to Ghazghkull. Turns out the Beast was so mean he was the size of a Hab Block, and his Nobs were the size of Dreadnoughts. Also, ork attack moons, and by that we mean moons ''plural'', and with Orks it's probably going to be a lot. Oh and Orks with finely made wargear and use of tactics, oh and Ork diplomats.

*WAAAGH [[Tuska Daemon-Killa|Tuska]], a WAAAGH led by a Warboss nicknamed "Daemon-Killa". Tuska's fleet bypassed Cadia's defenses in order to breach the Eye of Terror and find daemons to stomp. His WAAAGH krumped several daemons worlds in the warp, up until they got to a world ruled by a Khornate Daemon Prince, where he and his warband finally met their end, although not before killing the Prince himself [[Awesome|by impaling the prince with his power klaw, right in the nuts]]. This spectacle was so hilarious that Khorne resurrected Tuska's warband back in his Brass Citadel so that they can wage war against Khorne's daemons for all eternity.

*WAAAGH Grizgutz, also known as 'the Lost Waaagh!' was lead into the Morloq system in 978.M41 by Ork Warlord Grizgutz, a noted kleptomaniac. Due to a strange accident of Warp-travel he returned to the system earlier in time than when he launched the WAAAGH itself. Grizlutz murdered his doppelgänger to have a spare of his favourite gun and the resulting confusion stopped the WAAAGH in its tracks.

===From Games===
*WAAAGH Orkamungus, which was an invasion of Tartarus during the first [[Dawn of War]] game. Their WAAAGH was co-sponsored by the [[Alpha Legion]] to distract the Imperial Guard forces on Tartarus while they find the key to the Maledictium, although the Orks eventually planned to double cross the Alpha Legion after they were done. This didn't happen though as Orkamungus was eventually killed by [[Gabriel Angelos]]' 3rd Company in the middle of the Tartarus campaign, with his WAAAGH ending shortly after.

*WAAAGH [[Gorgutz 'Ead 'Unter|Gorgutz]], which rampaged through Lorn V, Kronus, and the Kaurava system. He supposedly lost all three campaigns, but Emperor damn us all if we didn't say that he was hilarious through it all.

*WAAAGH Bonesmasha, which was the first WAAAGH to rampage through Aurelia during [[Dawn of War II]]. He was eventually killed by Force Commander Hair-gel and gang.

*WAAAGH Smashface, a WAAAGH that was gaining steam in Aurelia during the events of DoW: Retribution. It was eventually thwarted in all cases by which ever army was chosen to play, where Smashface's supply convoys were destroyed and he himself died after trying to smash the faces of the gits who raided his convoys.

*WAAAGH [[Bluddflagg]], while we're still sketchy about DoWII Retribution's canon events that his WAAAGH ever left Typhon, in his ending, he supposedly looted all of Aurelia, killed semi-daemon prince Kyras, and looted a Hulk in Space to serve as his new flagship. We do know that he lead this WAAAGH mostly to get a fancy [[hat]].

*WAAAGH [[Grimskull]], which hit Graia and tried to loot some [[Titan (Warhammer 40,000)|Titans]]. His raid failed, he was killed when [[Captain Titus]] was finished with him, and the [[Blood Ravens]] probably got the Titans and claimed that it was "gifted" to their chapter.

[[category:Warhammer 40,000]][[category:orks]]