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I was wondering how the general dakkanaut feels about this magazine. I do not expect dakkas opinion to be very positive, but as always, i want to see some numbers.

I dont know what to say about them because i dont read WD often. I only saw a friends collection (well i was staying there for some time though) and i browsed through them. The earlier ones seemed quite intresting to me, but the later ones lack something. It somehow changed into a catalouge.
But anyway, i didnt look close enough to be able to give it a rating, so im asking you lot.

As some of you might know, I started a similar thread here about your opinion of GW.

1/10

It's total dross.

2/10

Which is sad because it used to be so much more

3/10, now it's just advertisment.

If it had some more useful painting / modelling techniques I would given it a better rating.

1/10

I go to a mag store and superficially look at pics for a sec and Im bored... For free its maybe a 3 but at those prices? No way.

Never read it, don't really want them now. I have a chance of getting lots of old ones for free. Should I take it anyway? Oh and btw, could we have a don't know/don't care option on the poll please?

0/10 wasn't an option. This made me almost as sad as WD does. It used to have articles. Good or bad, they used to be there. It used to be affordable. Now it isn't worth the paper it is printed on. So my vote is actually 0/10.

I gave it a 3/10. Altough it is just a glorified advertisement sold at outrageous prices, I think it has some redeeming qualities in it that stop it from being a mere 1/10.

6/10 It has its moments and the painting tutorials are usually a good read.

I went with 4/10. I tend to buy it most months purely through 20 years of habit, but I think there are usually one or two bits worth a look.

However, like most other vets say, it's well past its glory days and I don't think we're just being nostalgic.

1/10 is generous.

The mag is garbage on a good day, when they arn't too busy tooting thier own horn about how great "The Hobby" is.

Most of the articles are pretentous, and the content is not what it once was when someone actually cared about writing for WD.

If they went back to thier old school days, relearned what worked, and applied it to the magazine, they would be able to easily pull it out of the toilet.

There's nothing useful in it.

its a GW catalog not a magazine
and one tends to get catalogs for free, not pay like 12 dollars for them!
back in the day, I'd go in to get it the first day, now, I take one flip of it whenever I see it and I get everything from it from that
a magazine shouldn't do that!

The worst thing is how far it has fallen, utterly disappointing. It used to be a really good read. People getting into GW now haven't a clue what it used to be and anyone giving it high marks has to be a noob because there's no way anyone reading it 10-20 years ago can still be equally satisfied by current content.

Useless.

I gave it a three and almost immediately thought that was too high of a score. WD has changed a lot in the almost twenty years that I have read it. Well, I gave up on actually reading it regularly a few years ago, but still leaf through it from time to time. It now contains nothing I that I feel adds to my hobby, so I don't bother picking it up. It's nice when they occasionally include new official rules or ways to play like Spearhead, but years ago, that kind of stuff was in the magazine every month.

I loved the old lists they'd just stick in there from time to time
you could really tell it was a hobby magazine, now...the lists they put in there are awful and replace full codex's

shame, I so loved that magazine

1/10
I can't help but compare it to what it used to be.

So I stopped and said to myself, "Try. Imagine you are picking up the magazine for the first time ever."
Still 1/10. It's not a magazine, it's a giant glossy advertisment for the latest stuff GW has to sell- and we are expected to pay an outrageous amount to look at the pretty pictures. Is there anything in the magazine that is not available on the website for free? If so, is it worth paying for? My answers: no, and no.
Compare it to Wargames Illustrated, and weep.

1/10

Little more than a glossy advertising catalog.

8/10 - it's been improving the last few issues.

I remember going to go get it at my FLGs 8 years ago, and wondering "Gosh, why don't they carry these at bookstores, this mag is great!"

Now I look at it on a shelf wonder how lame the Battle report is, skim it, and confirm that that battle report is BS.

Does anyone actually think WD Battle Reports show how an army is supposed to work nowadays?

As I can see, WD is very popular these days.

But apparently some people still buy tons of it (spoiled kids), so GW sells enough of them to earn money (otherwise theyd change things fast!)

MrMerlin wrote:As I can see, WD is very popular these days.

But apparently some people still buy tons of it (spoiled kids), so GW sells enough of them to earn money (otherwise theyd change things fast!)

It is my impression that they don't sell like they used to. My old LGS used to complain that WHSmiths were selling them and people didn't go to his shop at the other end of town. But in Smiths I saw the same thing every month which was that many copies were still on the shelf. Maybe WHSmiths were selling half of what they started with.

Now WHSmiths don't take WD any more (and thus the independents they distribute to don't get them either), and the reasoning suggested at the time was that GW were unhappy with them putting it out on the shelf early. Well shops like WHSmiths want to turn around stock fast so they aren't going to sit on it to suit your release schedule, they have the marketplace presence to do what they like. It does seem to me though that WHSmiths may not have been able to sell as many as they liked even if they jumped GW's release date so GW getting stropy about it wasn't going to get them very far. It would be very interesting to know who broke off their deal because I can't see that losing distribution through WHSmiths has many benefits and WHSmiths are not exactly wounded by the loss of GWs custom.

Considering I buy 1 month old issues at 50% to 75% off. It's all good. Full retail would definitely turn me off.

3/10.

I never buy it myself, but it's pretty at least and can be a good read. Not worth it's price-tag mind and the substance is lacking, but some of the content is good.
My rating it 3/10 however kinda suggests quite how little of that content is 'good'...
I suspect I may rate it higher had I used it's P&M sections.

3/10. Still a good toilet read. I remember how great it used to be too. I'm pretty sure it was LoTR that killed it. All I remember is the mag going from 1/2 fantasy and 1/2 40K, to 1/3 of each of those and 1/3 LoTR which I couldn't care less about. That seemed to be the time around when the content started being sucked out as well.

lledwey wrote:Still a good toilet read.

Find the pages a bit shiny myself.

5/10. They changed when they send out copies to subscribers, i used to get mine about 3-4 days before it came out in the shop but now i get it 3-4 days after it goes on the shelf.
But still, it has got better over the last few issues, but won't be renewing my suscription.

I'd rather buy some paint.