In the old days this would be terrible necromancy, but I guess I did once roleplay a vampire...
- His comments about Bretonnia and that "all they had discussed through the years was put into the Nagash book", made me realize GW had absolutely no clue what to do with them since the 6th ed book. That is way more depressing, than all the rumours about supposed development plans that got cancelled.
Speaking from the perspective of a Bretonnia player/fan, it doesn't surprise me particularly. I suspect that Bretonnia was in the same situation as the Squats all the way back in the 90s and early 2000s - GW would keep putting them off because no one on the design team had much passion for them, or could find a good angle on the army. Eventually the idea of maintaining an army that no one's willing to write an army book for just gets silly, and they die off.
I wonder sometimes if - or how much - GW was surprised by the occasional outpouring of fondness for Bretonnia after their end, or after their implementation in
Total War.
As far as the End Times specifically go, I think it's pretty evident just from reading the books that GW had no clear vision or grand plan as regards Bretonnia, and indeed basic things like what Bretonnia is or who the Lady is change from book to book.
The Fall of Altdorf's portrayal of the Lady is flatly inconsistent with
Archaon/
Lord of the End Times', and for that matter so is
Warhammer Armies: Wood Elves (8th edition)'s. GW never seem to have decided, so what Bretonnia ended up getting was extremely scattershot and inconsistent. That's not to say there weren't good moments, because they were, but they never cohered into a clear creative vision.
(That said, considering what a clear creative vision got the elves, sometimes I think that might have been a blessing...)
- He did acknowledge that new army books had a lot of copy-paste fluff from previous editions, but that it was impossible to remove it as most players were pretty attached to it. It also wouldn't make sense, as this fluff was by this point the history of the world. This left very little room for pushing the narrative forward or just exploring some new ideas.
That's always been a difficulty, though. What's a new army book supposed to be? If you just reprint stuff (e.g. 7th to 5th), then long-time players feel ripped off. On the other hand, if all the background is new (e.g. 6th), then new players can be very disoriented, and just begging for a clear explanation of the basics. There's only so many ways to describe the history of the Empire or its various provinces.
- He also said that by the time he was leaving, the writing team has actually shrunk in comparison to 6th edition times, when he joined in. Well...that explains a lot!
Bear in mind that 6th edition was the time when every single army book was a complete relaunch, with zero reprinted material. That would take more writers, naturally. 6th edition was also the high point of campaign writing: Dark Shadows and Storm of Chaos were both in 6th edition, and I think Nemesis Crown was in early 7th?
I think that generally Ward gets a great deal of flak from tons of things, some of which he probably doesn't deserve. After End Times people would talk to the author josh Reynolds and he was filling in the fates of characters who didn't get mentioned.
I asked Josh about that
once on SB (I'm Unhappy Anchovy there): GW eventually yelled at him and got him to stop doing that, and to be fair a lot of the 'characters' people asked Josh about were just their OCs. There was a thrill in getting a licensed author to give 'official' answers - even though I'd personally argue that was a rather silly mentality and you should decide your OCs' fates for yourself.
Still, I do have quite a bit of respect for Josh for trying, and while it did get absurd with online Q&As and silly/annoying fans, I appreciate the sort of thing he did in
Lord of the End Times: writing conclusions for Valten, Settra, Volker, Ulric, etc., that were either much more satisfying than the campaign book version, or simply existent at all. That he went to the effort indicates a genuine care for the setting and desire to respect it. This is especially the case for characters like Settra, where
End Times: Nagash clearly foreshadowed his return, and the later campaign books forgot about him entirely.
It does show in retrospect that the
End Times books themselves were not planned out consistently. I suppose the obvious example is
Glottkin ending with the return of the gods of the Old World and their triumph over Nurgle, and then the next time we hear of them in the next book they've all died off-screen, with no explanation offered.
Truth be told I could not work my way through the End Times books, after I've learnt what they were leading to. I might try reading Nagash again I guess.
The hardest part is all the 'bolter porn', I think. Eventually my eyes glaze over through a lot of the battles. Still, I'd argue that, while
Nagash is very depressing,
Glottkin,
Thanquol, and
Archaon all have quite solid parts and can get the blood pumping at times. Once you know where they're all going and you're not holding out hope, you can just relax and enjoy the mighty, doomed battles before the world ends.
Khaine is the only book that I think is truly irredeemably bad. All the others I can find some merit in - but for
Khaine, nothing.
As I was really into 40k prior to Ward coming on board and missed the whole boat on WFB, what exactly did Ward do to make him so controversial?
Ultramarines.
(Personally I think that was rather unfair. The 'spiritual liege' line was dumb, yes, but for the most part I think the Ultramarines are fine. I think he was also responsible for significantly playing up the grimdark with Grey Knights? I myself have more of a grudge against him for the 40kification or eldarification of the elves.)
I'd buy the "the game is Eurocentric and everything else is in the background" if, when they made the Ogre Kingdoms, they didn't set it at the other goddamn side of the Darklands, or the Lizardmen in Lustria instead of the Southlands.
If you sit down and read a lot of 4th and 5th edition material, it's surprising how rich the Dark Lands are and how much is going on there. Chaos Dwarfs, Skaven, and Orcs & Goblins all had large holdings there, Dogs of War naturally had a trade route through there (and not just the one to Cathay; they explored Dragon Isles as well), and of course Lybaras, Lahmia, and Nagashizzar itself are on the Dark Lands side of the World's Edge, never mind the fortress of Vorag. Then add in that the Kislevites came from horse nomads in the Dark Lands and are occasionally suggested to have a few holdings east of the World's Edge, of course the Kurgan, and then 7th edition's eastern Ogre Kingdoms, and you have a very vibrant picture of the Dark Lands, full of potentially warring factions. There are ample opportunities for armies from outside the Dark Lands to go there: the High Elves visited it in the Chaos Dwarf army book (well, compilation) battle report as part of their navigations, Imperial or Bretonnian traders or even punitive expeditions could easily go there (cf. Robert Earl's
Wild Kingdoms), dwarfs might well pop over to fight greenskins or prospect for minerals, and so on. Even Dark Elves might occasionally do business with Chaos Dwarfs or do some slave raiding, though it's more of a stretch for them.
As far as I can tell Lizardmen and Wood Elves are the only armies without some plausible reason to ever visit the Dark Lands, and frankly Wood Elves have always had this problem with everywhere.
