There are 5 things why ppl hate Ward how he is hated: #1 - The statement IN THE CODEX that all chapters want to be like the ultras (purity-wise from a gene-seed PoV, yeah perhaps....) #2 - Calgar smashes everyone and everything (sucker punch into Avatar) #3 - Centurions.... Because Terminators were not enough #4 - Necron-Blood Angel Fist Bump #5 - Necron => Space Pharaohs
Depends on the rules. Codex: Space Marines i'll give you were pretty solid, but since that time he seems to have gotten into the mentality of RAW POWER + NO WEAKNESSES = BALANCED ARMY. I'll not get into an argument over the fact his armies rely far too much on raw firepower, but instead focus upon an often overlooked problem - How certain armies are treated and how his erratas are written. Whereas others are used to balance out forces and cancel the more ridiculous nonsense people abuse, his ones seem to specifically encourage turning items into utterly gamebreaking I WIN buttons or things which directly benefit them. Take these two examples from Codex: Grey Knights - Terminators are suddenly able to ride around inside Chimeras despite it being long established anything smaller than a Land Raider was too small for them. This means we suddenly had the group being able to field masses of elite soldiers, without bothering with the usual costly transports they needed to enter battle quickly. The Plasma Syphon suddenly got turned from a mildly effective weapon into a god tier anti-Tau Empire device. The errata suddenly confirmed that anything remotely plasma related, including lore notes, were effective. Suddenly armies could turn up and catapult someone holding it into the enemy ranks, turning entire squads of Fire Warriors to BS1 weak meatshields. Despite this armies he was not a big fan of, such as Orcs and Goblins in Fantasy, were only written to be weaker and benefit them less on the battlefield. He doesn't just suffer from broken gameplay, he suffers from favouritism of the worst kind. Also, bare in mind it is his books which introduced the Storm Raven AKA the flying Land Raider and resulted in the single most broken air army lists imaginable. Look up Cron Air sometime and remember he had a direct hand in writing how flyer rules worked.
My Codex: Space Marines doesn't celebrate the Ultramarines to the extent people exaggerate to. It simply says that the Ultramarines saved the Imperium post-Heresy, and that their reliable gene stock has made them the go to chapter for founding new Space Marine chapters. It seems logical that most Space Marine chapters would look up to the Ultramarines as ideal role models.
"Chapters [who are not Ultramarines successors] are disciples who owe their genetic inheritance to another Primarch, but follow the Codex Astartes as keenly as their divergent heritage allows. While primarily composed of successor Chapters, this group also includes several Chapters of the First Founding - notably the Imperial Fists, White Scars and the Raven Guard. These chapters can never be Ultramarines, for their gene-seed is not that of Roboute Guilliman. Nevertheless, they will ever aspire to the standards and teachings of the great Primarch. [Chapters who do not follow the Codex entirely] are aberrants; chapters who, through quirk of gene-seed, mutation or stubbornness, eschew the Codex Astartes in favor of other structural and combat doctrines. Some, such as the Blood Angels and their successors, strive to be worthy of Guilliman's legacy, but their recalcitrant gene-seed drives them ever further from it. Others, such as the Space Wolves and the Black Templars, remain stubbornly independent, looking to their own founder's ways of war and caring little of how they fare in the eyes of others. These aberrant Chapters were always few in number and their presence diminishes with each passing decade, for their gene-seed is no longer the source of fresh Chapters." Do you require further examples? Or is the author's enforcement of "They can never be Ultramarines" and looking to the teachings of their own primarch over Guilliman as detrimental failings not enough for you. Not to mention the sudden retcon of White Scars being utterly Codex adherent.
I require page numbers. Quoting things is useless if I cannot reference it for myself. You learn that in the basics of the Modern Language Association (MLA) style of writing in college. I would like to read these passages for myself considering I've read the whole text.
Page 24, listening the multitude of Codex Chapters. Not too far from page 29, which manages to destroy a chapter's entire concept and background in one paragraph. Ward apparently thinking that turning the Mentors, a group who were created to strengthen the Imperium by operating with other forces, analysing weaknesses and passing on new tactics, should be isolationists. It's at the beginning of the part right before the section "Battles of the Ultramarines" which is devoted purely to glorifying that chapter alone. That bit which takes up as much space as the section devoted to the battles of every other chapter this book is supposed to represent.
