I have jumped the gun on this one, and have another article coming that will shed a little light on this subject, as apparently my conclusions and information was a little bit off. comments have been locked on this.
He arrives early in the morning long before daylight ever hits. While most people think he is getting there to get more work done, he is actually just trying to avoid having to talk to anyone, and to avoid the glares he usually gets. The long hall to his writing office goes by desks that are empty, but soon will be full of staff that handles all the marketing for his latest project.
Finally after grabbing coffee or tea, the writer enters his sanctum. Its dark with no windows, as outside influences are greatly disdained. Finally his day starts, and closed off from the rest of world, our codex author starts writing, and putting together the armies that we will live with for years to come.
Now obviously this is not how codex writing is done. In the past I have wanted to really sit down and do an article on how a codex is put together. The idea was given wide acceptance with my own contacts, but very much hit a brick wall shortly thereafter. While I was able to gather some decent information about the process, but I was a little damaged by the wall and the project went away.
There are often email conversations that happen behind the scenes here, and recently one little bit came up that I thought I would share with the readers here. Its about codex authors and exactly what they write and are responsible for when it comes down to a codex.
So what parts of a codex does an author write? The entire book? or just parts.
the person that is named as the author of the codex/army book is nearly always just the fluff writer an doesn't have anything to do with the rules, as there usually written by a team of people working together.
Interestingly enough, Matt Ward comes to mind for the general impression people have for his codices in the later half of 5th edition. Or even any other number of codices where units are generally thought of as wasted, or units that just do not work.
Yes, their names are on the books and many of our hobby are great at throwing venomous comments around blaming whoever has their name on the inside cover. Are these people really responsible and in charge of the rules for how units are going to look in the game?
According to the conversation bit above, no.
the person that is named as the author of the codex/army book is nearly always just the fluff writer an doesn't have anything to do with the rules, as there usually written by a team of people working together.
I take this as, the author writes the book, but the rules themselves are done separately, and its the authors job to write the fluff behind all the units, wargear, background, essentially to pull the book together.
Yes, you can say all you want, that their name is on the product and that makes them responsible. However, I have learned over all this time doing this site, that the final product is done by more than a single man sitting in a dark medieval room isolated from the world.