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Inside front cover: editorial- how sad is the tale of Arnor? Grombrindal sheds a tear.

p.1 Contents

New Releases

p.2-7 LotR Ruin of Arnor

p.8/9 40K Dark Angels Army, Ravenwing sprue teaser

p.10/11 Warmaster Araby

p. 12 Black Library

p. 13 Forgeworld Aeronatica Imperialis teaser

p. 14/15 40K Harlequin teaser

News

p. 16-24 News, events calendar, blah blah blah

LotR

p. 25-33 Ruin of Arnor preview & background

p. 34-49 Ruin of Arnor battle report featuring Arathorn and Buhrdur the Troll. Spoiler: Arathorn gets pwned

WHFB

p.50-61 Colors of the Empire fluff

p. 62/63 Empire buildings

AD p. 64/65 Nemesis Crown Campaign teaser

p. 66-68 Standard Bearer: Jervis tells us how cool special characters are, then makes a plea for everyone to just get along and give RAW a try... again.

AD p. 69- WHFB Chaos

40K

p. 70-75 Tactica: Reserves

AD p.76 pin vise, p. 77 WHFB Dwarfs

p. 78-85 Modelling Workshop- customizing a Leman Russ

AD p. 86/87 Imperial Guard Tanks

p. 88-91 'Eavy Metal: Empire large models & special characters (nice beauty shots, but little info)

LotR

p. 92-97 Painting Workshop: painting an Arnor Army

p. 98-102 Painting Masters: Mike Anderson; interview & gallery of some of his work.

AD p. 103 40K Tyranids

p. 104-107 Scenery Workshop: Arnor Watchtower.  Step-by-step with lots of photos.

WHFB

p. 108-113 Spotlight on different 2000 pt Empire armies. 

p. 114-117 Monuments & Monoliths: building an Empire monument.  Scenario rules and how-to guide.

p. 118-121 Slayer Sword Challenge- Orc Warboss. "Log on and vote for your favorite!"

p. 122-132 US 2007 Golden Demon Rules

40K

p. 124-129 Vehicle weathering & damage techniques.  Lots of variety, likely to be useful.

p. 130-135  Spotlight on a Space Wolf Army

WHFB

p.136-137 Bitz & Pieces: building an Empire Arch-lector on War Altar (based on an archive War Wagon)

AD p. 138/139 Direct Sales (p. 138 has a photo of the new Master of the Ravenwing on jetbike- very cool)

AD p.140-143 Retail store listing; p. 144 White Dwarf Subscription.

Inside back cover: Ravenwing teaser- photos of Ravenwing bikes & speeder.

I do not feel as though I totally wasted $6 this month. The only battle report was for LotR, and it wasn't even a particularly well-written report, but I don't feel slighted. A big complaint among Dakkites has been the lack of good hobby-related articles, and this issue has several. The step-by-step article on the watchtower gives lots of important basic tips on using foamcore. The vehicle weather and damage article collects things discussed in previous WDs into one spot, and adds some new & interesting ideas.

One issue does not a turnaround make, but if this is part of a trend, I think there might be hope for the ol' rag yet.

I just hope that the uk version this month has as much in it.

I didn't even buy last months WD, as I'm only into 40k I didn't miss much.

Sounds like a good one for a change.

I glanced through this issue and was particularly irritated. 1/2 of the issue was about LOTR, and then 3/8 fantasy, and 1/8th 40k. This is not including the overwhelming percentage of adds. There is so little actual content its disgusting. LOTR "The Ruin of Arnor" is a total waste of space. No one cares, not one little bit. If people do play LOTR they will likely be playing as one of the movie races, not some pointless offshoot that lacks any appeal whatsoever. In addition, the 40k articles in there have been very repetitive as well. I feel like there have already been at least two articles about damaged vehicles in the last year in WD. In the October and November issues they each had an article about using walkers/monstrous creatures and each one also had a piece about Orky terrain. Then they have the useless ones. They do a seven page spread about putting a tank together! Are even the 10-12 year olds that stupid that the instructions that come in the tank aren't good enough? The other articles that are totally useless are the ones that show all of the parts for a certin kit and how they go together. Again, there are instructions in the box, why is this interesting? The scenery building ideas are generally pretty good, but I feel like they spend way too much space showcasing color-schemes, army lists, and example models made by the studio people. Some more gaming content would be great. I really miss chapter approved articles. What I wouldn't give for more things like the swamp-fighting rules, particularly if they were backed up with a swap battle report.

Posted By fellblade on 01/19/2007 12:01 PM

p. 66-68 Standard Bearer: Jervis tells us how cool special characters are, then makes a plea for everyone to just get along and give RAW a try... again.

p. 70-75 Tactica: Reserves

I am glad to see that WD is atleast attempting more hobby articles.

But the "tactica reserves" confuses me. Is it tactica on how to roll a die to get things out of reserrves? A tactica that tells you what units to put into reserves? A tactica telling you how to choose which units to take out of reserves?

I am honsetly confused by that.

It seems the only article that is geared towards vets though, is Jervis whining about getting along and how RAW is good, as if their rules stand up to cursory scrutiny.

Now I havent read this, so this is allsupposition, but it seems Jervis is whining more about "not hating GW, because theyre the good guys".

Hopefully I am wrong, but then again, I am not making the trek to the hobby store to find out.

I thought about saying something along the lines of, "the 40K players will probably feel slighted in this issue, but 326 is likely to be all Dark Angels, all the time, so they will get even more next month." Then I decided not to, because a) not all 40K players love Space Marines, b) it wouldn't make any difference- having a good magazine next month doesn't make up for this month's lack of pertinent content, and c) Samwise would post a scorching whine no matter what I said.

Not being a 40K player, I was prepared to ignore the Tactica article, but from a games theory standpoint I found it quite interesting.  Phil Kelly discusses what are good choices to use, how many units you should reserve, where the more advantageous location to bring your reserve in might be, and, ahaha, yes, how to roll a die correctly (actually how to make your reserve troops more reliable with things such as Lictors, Improved Comms, etc.).

In Standard Bearer, Jervis did the obligatory shill thing about how special characters are the coolest part of the game and everyone loves to convert their own, buy some now ("iconic centerpiece models that belong in every collection" {why is there no vomiting smiley?}).  In the second part of the article, he mentioned that, a issue or two ago, he suggested that when a rules dispute arises, the first step should be to look in the rulebook and decide what it says- first, try to use the rules as written, or 'RAW'.  And then he got lots of angry mail from people who told him that that was stupid and we should use common sense to decide rules disputes.  He rebuts (loosely paraphrased): common sense is the suxx0r, especially when winning the game depends on getting your way.  Roll a die and keep playing.  And if all else fails, give in to your opponent's most outlandish rule interpretations, and see if you don't have more fun.  (You get the feeling that maybe his feelings were hurt?)

rofl...nice.

would the articles about customizing a Leman Russ and weathering tanks make this issue a good buy for a guard player? I ask this because I'm struggling to figure out the whole weathering thing. Thanks.

The summary style of the original post is nice - liked that.

I do kinda miss the Chris Valera WD reviews though. Hazard warning attached to each one: "Watch out, it's dripping with venom!" ;D

Venom is your job. And Samwise's. I just post a nice, unbiased (cough, cough!) list of the contents, not a review.

 

 

Whatever happened to Chris_Valera, anyway?

Dripping with something. I guess it was venom.

I'm curious about the Nemesis Crown affair. Is it supposed to be some kind of Dwarf crown? Perhaps a crown that shoots cannonballs and flies?

I think it's a crown that steals rare and valuable works of art, while seducing Rene Russo.

A couple of minutes of The Thomas Crown Affair were great. Really great. And unexpected, too. But I digress.

So, Dwarf crown?

Teaser. As in, two page spread of an empire desktop, complete with skull, ink bottle, and quill pen. Oh, and bits of barely legible stuff in scattered books. Barely legible because of the spreading bloodstain.

Looks like of any interest to me I can get by browsing through within 5 minutes.

i'm personally waiting for "tactica: go online and rip an army list" ::rolls eyes::


it wasn't THAT bad i agree though, the LOTR is now hitting rock bottom, hell in the beginning i didn't like LOTR in the magazine then i started reading religiously! But all these new expansions just dont catch my attention so meh..

OZWD has two articles that make it so much better than the US version.

1: 'The hunt is on': Each month a players army is showcased with pro photos at the studio. All exceptional modelling and or painting and most have progress pics of how to do hard conversions when a GW staffer has an army showcased. But the overwhelming number are non employees. Each army teaches me a new trick for modelling or painting and shows how high a standard you need to reach to stand out from the crowd in a tourney these days to get 'Players Choice' or 'Best Painted'.

2: The Oz studio is always running a battle report, either stand alone or as a narrative campaign or articles related to modelling/collecting adjoining. They use their own models, some of which are designed for tourneys so aren't the ridiculous GW studio lists of whatever has been painted, and on the most part show a map for each turn so you can follow what the hell is going on, unlike the UK battle reports where they jam 2 turns into 1 map and then do a heap of close ups so it can be very difficult to follow what is going on.

The Australian content section is almost universally of excellent quality and worth reading. US & UKWD could learn alot from what the OZ team are doing.

wow and here i thought that the OZ wd was not as great, i would kill for things like that in the US wd..

Yeah the OZ WD still isn't 'Great' but its allot better than the crap you guys seem to be getting. It also seems like se get a better balance of the 3 games in ours, at least of late. Still allot of stupid and pointless ads though. I fair enough i can understand shilling out their latest modeling product but sometimes you will have just finished an article and be moving onto the next one but inbetween is a totally irellivant ad for old existing range models in an army that isn't even featured in this issue. Still the price isn't horrible..... yet.

I appreciated the Slayer Sword Warboss vote-off. Gee, getting talented modelers to compete on new kits. Probably took about ten seconds to come up with that. The Oz concept of featuring a player's army for three-four pages is great...why does the US only do this sporadically? Show me cool s***...that's how to sell product.

I agree: a regular feature showcasing players' armies would be a very welcome addition to US WD. These kind of profiles are usually one of my favorite parts of the magazine.

Posted By rryannn on 01/19/2007 5:49 PM
would the articles about customizing a Leman Russ and weathering tanks make this issue a good buy for a guard player? I ask this because I'm struggling to figure out the whole weathering thing. Thanks.

I think you'd be better off looking through archives of Model Railroader or Fine Scale Modeler instead.

Posted By Breotan on 01/23/2007 5:37 PM

Posted By rryannn on 01/19/2007 5:49 PM
would the articles about customizing a Leman Russ and weathering tanks make this issue a good buy for a guard player? I ask this because I'm struggling to figure out the whole weathering thing. Thanks.

I think you'd be better off looking through archives of Model Railroader or Fine Scale Modeler instead.

Agreed. Get thyself a subscription to FSM. Great and useful articles for everyone from vets to n00bs and everything in between.   

On an unrelated note, was there ever a Feral Guard article in any recent issues of WD? I remember seeing a blurb for it in the back of an issue a few months ago.

Thumbed thru it for 30-45 seconds and put it back on the shelf unselfishly so that another customer could have the oppurtunity of purchasing it.

Another vote for FSM here. I don't have a subscription at the moment, but I never regret picking one up at B&N on the weekends.

FSM is nice, but not as nice for gaming modeling. Yes, you can glean useful tips from it, but a lot of it just doesn't transfer over to gaming style modeling.

The Leman Russ and weathering articles were rather good. It isn't always for everyone, but every so often there are little bits and ideas that spark something, or that you might not have ever thought of. I quite enjoyed this issue and still thumb through bits of it.

FSM is great. Thier photography article for models is the best I have seen yet.