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Guys, those saying it's too much of a wall-to-wall advert, did we all forget the classic strapline?

"White Dwarf: Games Workshop Present Its Monthly Hobby Supplement And Miniatures Catalogue"

Catalogue. Was always there in black and white.

Slipstream wrote:
It appears someone got on their high horse at my last comment!
/rant deleted/

Mate, you care about this WAY too fething much to the point that you're losing the plot and going into an insane and frankly unrealistic rant. You've clearly decided in advance that you think it's going to be gak, and there's clearly no way that it can meet your personal standards and desires for it, no matter how unrealistic they might be. But you know what? That's fine. So again. Seriously. Just don't buy it.

Buy No Quarter or Wargames Illustrated instead.

Use the uncountable number of free resources on the internet for your hobby needs instead because WD/GW is clearly not going to meet them. You might want to consider switching games as well if GW gets your goat that badly. That way you'll be supporting a company you might even like rather than one that gets you so worked up. Gates of Antares by Warlord, written by Rick Priestly, or Bolt Action for WW2 gaming that's accessible to 40k players. I've heard that Warlord is working on a Fantasy version of Hail Caesar as well. Mantic might one day come up with a finished ruleset in the 40k space, but their Kings of War is a great Fantasy Battle Game. 9th Age is free. Ditto for In the Emperor's Name. There's never been a better time to be a miniatures gamer. There's never been so many easily-available alternatives - for models, for rules, for modelling supplies, for hobby articles... Many of those games will even work with your existing models. I gave up on WHFB years ago myself. Now I play KoW with my Warhammer models.

Here's a YouTube video that came up yesterday on saving money in the hobby (and it's not a dumbass video, either) https://youtu.be/Rxt2zfxWN5c

My suggestion for you and GW, though:





Automatically Appended Next Post:

 JohnnyHell wrote:
Guys, those saying it's too much of a wall-to-wall advert, did we all forget the classic strapline?

"White Dwarf: Games Workshop Present Its Monthly Hobby Supplement And Miniatures Catalogue"

Catalogue. Was always there in black and white.

Not Always. It seems to have been added back in WD167.



So November 1993. Not long ago at all, then.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
When I started buying WD is was AUD$5.99, then it went to $10 when it became 'Fat Dwarf', and then stayed at $10 when they went back to the original size. Now it'll be AUD$15.

Good for them I guess.

You're missing the few years when it was $12-14 dollars (can't remember exactly which, just that I needed a $10 note and some gold coins to by one without change and that if I bought one with a $10 + $5 note I' get change back).

So not as large of an increase, but still one (unless they upped the price to $15 when they thickened them up again with more shiny model pictures in the release section in October 2012, at the time I was still subscribed to the thing so I don't recall the price then).

Yeah, it spent a couple of years at AU$12 as well.

@Azazelx that's a good level of pedantry right there! I frickin' remembered the strapline... Whilst 'always' might have been hyperbole, ya gotta give me 23 ago years as a decent precedent, right? :-P

(And FWIW, me and my friends used to love the catalogue pages in particular. The painted shots were cool, but the pages of white metal components were just wonderful!)

Incidentally, newsstand prices are at all time highs while sales are at all-time lows. I'm curious about White Dwarf's performance relative to other magazines, over the years.

This article, written in September 2015, indicates a drop of about 28% between Q1 2015 and 2014 -- with more than 70% of hard copies left unsold on shelves. Sounds grim!

http://cnsnews.com/blog/barbara-hollingsworth/average-cost-newsstand-magazines-all-time-high-sales-all-time-low

 JohnnyHell wrote:
Guys, those saying it's too much of a wall-to-wall advert, did we all forget the classic strapline?

"White Dwarf: Games Workshop Present Its Monthly Hobby Supplement And Miniatures Catalogue"

Catalogue. Was always there in black and white.

The catalogue bit at the back was one of my favourite bits as a kid, the yellow bordered black and white photos of disassembled lead minis. I used to love wishlisting what models I would save my meagre pocket money up for.

Anyway, a lot of people are saying that it's going to be difficult to find content or that it will just end up being adverts.

It seems to me the simplest way to take the short pale one back to its former glory, while at the same time showing off their products would be to get a collection of people together who love the hobby, that's your team of writers. Have them each start an army from both of the games, and follow their progress with paint splashes, conversion guides, battle reports etc. They could explore all sorts of things like custom paint jobs, writing your own background fluff, running a narrative campaign. It's a vast hobby. There would still be plenty of room for studio painted models and glossy adverts, but I think the best way to sell the hobby to people is to show people who are enthusiastic about the hobby actually taking part and enjoying it. We all know they are going to need to push their own products like their scenery lines, and hobby tools, that's fine by me, I don't expect them to do any less. But there's plenty of scope for a lot more creative exploration within the hobby that doesn't always involve buying fifty quids worth of stuff from GW. IMO if they pushed a little bit of that, it would still encourage sales through people being enthusiastic about the hobby again.


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 Talys wrote:
Incidentally, newsstand prices are at all time highs while sales are at all-time lows. I'm curious about White Dwarf's performance relative to other magazines, over the years.

This article, written in September 2015, indicates a drop of about 28% between Q1 2015 and 2014 -- with more than 70% of hard copies left unsold on shelves. Sounds grim!

http://cnsnews.com/blog/barbara-hollingsworth/average-cost-newsstand-magazines-all-time-high-sales-all-time-low

My guess is more and more people are consuming their media on tablets and smartphones. It's nice to have an actual magazine to read sometimes, but it's much more convenient to just download them onto an iPad. It's a shame for all the newsagents, but I guess the world moves on.

The prices rising are more likely in line with increased cost of living and generally higher wages (bar the odd recession here and there) if people are still buying the magazines on tablets, then they are still going to be able to charge a decent amount, and I would imagine in some cases, print versions are more expensive.

 JohnnyHell wrote:
Guys, those saying it's too much of a wall-to-wall advert, did we all forget the classic strapline?

"White Dwarf: Games Workshop Present Its Monthly Hobby Supplement And Miniatures Catalogue"

Catalogue. Was always there in black and white.

Ah yes Catalogue. Something we don't pay for, but GW charges us for it. What is next we have to pay for the air we breath in their stores? I have never seen a catalogue that I had to pay for. Sears, free, Consumers Distributing free, The Bay, free, Walmart flyers (like a catalogue but weekly ) free, free free. Oh wait, Fantasy Flight Games have a catalogue and it's free. Shall I go on, Best Buy, Auto Car parts stores, they have catalogues and I don't ever recall paying for it. Don't bother saying anything about Privateer Press, they just seem to fallow GW methods now and charge insane prices as well now. (Not as bad but still quite a bit for some of their shoddy products).

So your point is? I still not sure what your point is. My point about it being advertising, is WE SHOULDN'T be PAYING for GW advertising. At least in the early 2000s it wasn't IN YOUR FACE blatant advertising. Now it's like Kirby is mocking us by saying "Here is our advertising and you are paying for it". Sounds like something Donald Trump will say.

At least now with the Age of Roundtree, here is hoping that White Dwarf will go back to it's glory days while "showcasing" their miniatures instead of advertising their miniatures. It's how the deliver it. Ah a memory came up. If I recall properly in the glory days for White Dwarf, while yes the first few pages were about the new releases, the rest of the ARTICLES were not. So it felt like a hobby magazine instead of a CATALOGUE.

I want a hobby magazine, I don't want a weekly or now a monthly catalogue.

I went ahead and pre-ordered my subscription. I have missed out on due them selling out that it was worth it. I just hope they put enough usable content in that I don't regret it.

If White Dwarf like the late 90's and early 2000's comes back, content-wise, I will be buying my first White Dwarf in 6 years, at least.

1) I'm old enough to remember when getting the White Dwarf each month was almost an event;YES!!! It was that good. Issue 101 was when it started to slip.

2) I don't think it's going to be 'gak' as you suggest. It will be to all intents and purposes 'the same' because they don't want to rock the boat,will they? What I meant was; It needs to evolve.

3) Wargames Illustrated is solely aimed at Historical gamers.I did buy it for a good few years for the painting articles but stopped when Flames of War took over.

4) I lost the plot years ago/I thought I'd found it again recently but, alas no!

5) I'd really like to start buying the WD again,which may surprise you or make you want to smash your computer in dismay. I really would. But for more of the same? New word again;EVOLVE.It has to.They used to do a questionaire each year but they stopped that.Why? you stop asking your demograpihic audience what they want and they seemed shocked when the sales go down;have they not heard of research? Now it's seems to be 'Here's the new stuff.We don't care what you do with it as long as you buy it".

6) I do use the net for the resources as you suggest and I do get a lot of ideas from them. I started collecting and painting before computers took over,so I tend to favor the non digital(yes! There are still old b*****s like me still around! I'm not dead yet!Well...). I like to pore over stuff over and over;can't do that before the sciatica kicks in sitting staring at the screen! One of life's great pleasures is being comfy and reading something interesting.I wish WD will be that again.I really do.

7) Does it really still need to be a catalogue first? I don't think it does;every potential buyer of the magazine knows what the games are/what the figures are. It would make more sense if 25% of it was advertising and the other 75% solely for things like painting and modelling/ideas for games/q+a/rules etc.... Just general hobby stuff.

8)Just so you know;none of this response was done with any malice.Maybe humour now and again but not malice. Okay?

I remember when we bought GW catalogues and liked it, first with a bit of extra content

http://www.solegends.com/citcat1983comp1/index.htm

then just with pictures of minis (long ago, before the wonders of the internet)

http://www.solegends.com/citcat1988/index.htm

and WD was full of glorious RPG scenarios (but usually for games you didn't have)

Yep i used to get the catalogue every time a new one came out and from what i can remember they cost about the same as a tactical sqd but lots of people had them . Tho you could get the monthly free one direct from the trolls

 CURNOW wrote:
Yep i used to get the catalogue every time a new one came out and from what i can remember they cost about the same as a tactical sqd but lots of people had them . Tho you could get the monthly free one direct from the trolls

I used to buy them as well, the ones around 92-96 or so were big books, but they were incredibly useful.

Why, some may ask, would you do that?

Because GW still operated the bitz service back then, and those big catalogues showed every part of every model, so you could see exactly which bit to order when you were making some custom stuff.

Daver, my point was that it was always advertising, it really was, but they were just more upfront about it. :-) I enjoyed those older mags more but the actual content was always pretty skinny. Most of the mag boiled down to 'buy more stuff of ours', let's be honest. Flash back a bunch more years when they covered scratch-building, converting and terrain making more, and then you've got a more rounded mag. I used to adore all the Epic terrain articles in particular.

As much as I would prefer terrain building articles, I'd settle for some actual articles on startegy and tactics or army building.

Wanna sell me some Munitorum Armored Containters this month ? Write me an article showing me how they can be used with different armies.

 JohnnyHell wrote:
Daver, my point was that it was always advertising, it really was, but they were just more upfront about it. :-) I enjoyed those older mags more but the actual content was always pretty skinny. Most of the mag boiled down to 'buy more stuff of ours', let's be honest. Flash back a bunch more years when they covered scratch-building, converting and terrain making more, and then you've got a more rounded mag. I used to adore all the Epic terrain articles in particular.

Fair enough my friend. Why I responded to you it sounded a bit condescending to me at first. (In a lot of pain right now, I might have read what you wrote wrong.)

This makes a lot more sense to me. Thanks for your explanation. I see you didn't really mean how I took it at the time.

 adamsouza wrote:
As much as I would prefer terrain building articles, I'd settle for some actual articles on startegy and tactics or army building.

Wanna sell me some Munitorum Armored Containters this month ? Write me an article showing me how they can be used with different armies.

What strategy can GW provide that this forum cannot? Battle reports and narratives are fun to read, but GW doesn't build armies, or use strategy or tactics to actually win :p A lot of the time they don't even use the rules correctly. The best thing, IMO, that GW can do is focus on the hobby aspect, free rules (since we all know people spend money on rules even if its for stuff like cargo containers), and things like battle reports/new scenarios.

I think White Dwarf could do good strategy and tactics articles again - mainly though having guest writers.

I am talking from an Age of Sigmar perspective here but lots of the tourney high flyers are now in direct liaison with the AoS GW community team - they could invite someone to do a guest article and it would probably be really insightful.

There are GW staff members that are tourney regulars for AoS too.

Once Matched Play hits, I would love to have some army building and tactics articles in my White Dwarfs.

 Kirasu wrote:

 adamsouza wrote:
As much as I would prefer terrain building articles, I'd settle for some actual articles on startegy and tactics or army building.

Wanna sell me some Munitorum Armored Containters this month ? Write me an article showing me how they can be used with different armies.

What strategy can GW provide that this forum cannot? Battle reports and narratives are fun to read, but GW doesn't build armies, or use strategy or tactics to actually win :p A lot of the time they don't even use the rules correctly. The best thing, IMO, that GW can do is focus on the hobby aspect, free rules (since we all know people spend money on rules even if its for stuff like cargo containers), and things like battle reports/new scenarios.

Agreed. Dakka and other sites are home o' the netlist.
The GW staff are 'playing' for their employment and they also obviously have a much more relaxed take on the rules.

Would be nice if they put in the Scratch Builds again.

What about new custom units for AoS and 40k? Or even when LoTR comes back, I loved the custom/conversion units for LoTR in the White Dwarf occasionally which also had rules for them. Like there was one for I think for Dol Guldur Uruks or Slavedriver type guys and you had to get an Uruk-Hai Pikeman and mold a green stuff skull onto him. Think he was like 50 points but so cool to see unique stuff like that. Would be awesome to see some of that again especially for AoS. Kinda like they did with the Flesh Courts and mixing the Vargheists and Crypt Horrors.

 JohnnyHell wrote:
Guys, those saying it's too much of a wall-to-wall advert, did we all forget the classic strapline?

"White Dwarf: Games Workshop Present Its Monthly Hobby Supplement And Miniatures Catalogue"

Catalogue. Was always there in black and white.

No. But again it's difference of SCALE.

You do know there's difference between WD having 40% ad's, 60% hobby content to 100% ads, 0% hobby content?

Nobody is expecting WD with zero ads. But there's still difference between "ads" and "all ads".

Heck even the old catalogue pages were more useful and inspiring than the current ads as it gave some ideas for conversions. These days it's "buy and assemble as instructed" mentality.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 privateer4hire wrote:

 Kirasu wrote:

 adamsouza wrote:
As much as I would prefer terrain building articles, I'd settle for some actual articles on startegy and tactics or army building.

Wanna sell me some Munitorum Armored Containters this month ? Write me an article showing me how they can be used with different armies.

What strategy can GW provide that this forum cannot? Battle reports and narratives are fun to read, but GW doesn't build armies, or use strategy or tactics to actually win :p A lot of the time they don't even use the rules correctly. The best thing, IMO, that GW can do is focus on the hobby aspect, free rules (since we all know people spend money on rules even if its for stuff like cargo containers), and things like battle reports/new scenarios.

Agreed. Dakka and other sites are home o' the netlist.
The GW staff are 'playing' for their employment and they also obviously have a much more relaxed take on the rules.

Well that's niche for WD. Scenarios and tactics for those who aren't interested in optimized to hell lists for attempts to use 40k for competive game(for which it's particularly illsuited).

 JohnnyHell wrote:
Guys, those saying it's too much of a wall-to-wall advert, did we all forget the classic strapline?

"White Dwarf: Games Workshop Present Its Monthly Hobby Supplement And Miniatures Catalogue"

Catalogue. Was always there in black and white.

Erm, did you miss the "Hobby Supplement And" part? Of course it was a catalogue, but it was an "and catalogue" not a "only catalogue". There were a few pages at the back that showed you the new models break down with part codes so you could order individual bits and a brief listing near the start that told you what was coming out that month.

I don't think most people disliked that it was a "hobby supplement and miniatures catalogue", it was more when it became a "miniatures catalogue and miniatures catalogue".

Guys. Relax. I made a tongue-in-cheek post. It'll be fine.

I guess I am in the small minority that will really miss Visions. It was perfect for me nowadays since I still love (most of) GW:s estetics and oogling great painted minis for inspiration.

But I have not played one of the GW big games for years (though I like the new box games and play lots of Epic Armageddon).

I find I actually like the less (no) content and more pictures (!)...

But I guess I'll save a bit of money if Visions becomes a quarterly instead. And I'll buy the odd WD for expansions to the board games and maybe for the really fun releases.

i don't know what you guys are on about with it only being a catalogue...
WD Weekly has scenarios, rules, and reader's models...
Visions has Blanchitsu, Parade Ground, Army of the Month, Kitbash, Golden Demon and other painting contest minis, all featuring the work of hobbyists...

i'm with you, partisan_nick...
i've really enjoyed Visions
it has had some really inspiring minis inside!!!

cheers
jah

 JohnnyHell wrote:
Guys. Relax. I made a tongue-in-cheek post. It'll be fine.

Tongue-in-cheekedness doesn't really translate well via text.

I liked Warhammer Visions as well and hope the quarterly replacement will be the same or at least similiar. It took a while but when it changed to the larger format and focused more on army and terrain projects it was finally good at what it wants to be.

The last year's issues featured a lot of nice conversions and this is inspring stuff for future projects worth having in collected and printed form at the workbench



Could be NSFW

1700Yen in Japan... that's more than the price of my final Fantasy monthly suscription and I get much more milleage from that.
On the other hand I did like I found that unlike the last monthly WD, the weekly release had much more value and you could find cool stuff in it if you were lucky if your army was a weekly release. I hope the new monthly WD continues that trend instead of going back being a lackluster catalog.

M.