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Gitkikka wrote:Awesome - I wonder what they'll jack the price up to this time?

Just buy White Dwarf, you will be the first to know*.


* - As of July 2011 appearantly!

I'd say it's still not worth it. Chapter approved would be nice, as would the new Sororitas, but unless it's consistent, I'd see no reason to buy it.

Their problem is... Most 40k players could care less about fantasy, most fantasy players could care less about 40k (well, maybe not), and no one cares about LOTR. They're covering too many subjects, without providing enough quality to bother reading it. The main boon of WD is the pretty pictures of studio models, and the painting sections (GEMS!!!!!!). They should focus on that.

I'll admit I've only skimmed through but after all, it's like six pages in two days.

At this point, GW could be trying to do something reasonable and different but there's only so many times you can burn your hand on the stove before you can't look at it without wincing and blaming it for something.

I'm inclined towards too little too late.

Yes, there are plenty of catalogues that people pay quite a large amount of money for. However, they usually come out once or twice a year and are as thicker than a codex.

I don't like reading things off screen, I like them in my hand. But there's only so much I'll pay for when only part of it interests me, if any at all.

In the past I've bought maybe one out of every three White Dwarfs if that. I'm not saying they should split the three games, but the content does need to be better. And not just with new rules. Good painting and conversion guides would be a start.

I bought one on the basis that I was told it had a painting guide to the Imperial Sector. Was very excited and bought it just for that as I had a half assembled sector (one of two) at home. It didn't. It was "here's a killer colour scheme". Umm...pretty, but not a painting guide.

I remember being told (and told, not seen myself so old time gamers correct me if I'm wrong) that "your army could only be show cased in WD if it had a good fluffy back story". Implying that people used to send in photos of their armies to be published for all to see. With the story behind their army! Oh how awesome! I'd love to see fan fic like that and other painters' models in print. I know we got it on the forum but it's the kind of thing I like flicking through on the bus, not staring at the screen. The 'Eavy Metal team are brilliant but a bit too brilliant when it's what you see all the time, I find myself getting quite intimated by my own poor skill in comparison. But to see the slightly better than average have their army show cased? That would be great.

The boys are always regaling me with tales of when WD used to not only come out with addendum rules to fix problems, and battle reports weren't just flavour of the month or if they were, they said what went wrong when flavour of the month lost and how they fixed that unbalanced game they had to test them out and this battle report is from the time they won, but came out with cut out cardboard terrain over the course of a few months. There's something "free" you can use on the table and want to buy (and need to buy) every issue it's in to assemble the whole thing (a bunker iirc). Or special edition WD only release minis!

Cool stuff. Stuff that makes you want to buy it rather than "we're holding you to ransom to know what's coming out at the last minute". I'm sorry, I like to be able to get excited and save up if necessary. I like the people I'm buying things from to be informed. Even if it's not my army, I enjoy that look of excitement and anticipation in the staffers' eyes when they're saying how cool it's going to be and how they can't wait.

Leaks will happen. Always. The best you can do is control the leaks and beat them to the punch, using it to build up excitement.

Battle reports have been flavor of the month for a very very long time, but occasionally they would have two existing lists which were more interesting. Batreps also cycled between being lazy to full on pics and detailed map affairs that were right out of a history book.

I liked chapter approved. Revised lists with NOT TOURNEY LEGAL on the top would be fine, but that would clash with forgeworld so I am thinking no way.

I don't think they've put in fluff stories in years, or alternate missions or anything.

Changing WD GW's excuse for raising the price of it.

That is the point: They promise to put content into the WD like they did 20 years ago. We know that August will feature the first part of the Codex Sororitas and official rules for a new Vampire monster. Last WD Codex (Blood Angels) and last WD rules (Eldar Nightspinner) are rare and quite some time ago. So we already know some of the new direction. This is good news in principle.

As GW wants to shut down all other information sources, WD will also regain some importance as source for official news, incl. pics. No more black boxes, no more preview Codices, no more preorder pics more than a week in advance. This may get some people back into stores. We will see.

Yet another idiotic strategy from GW in an effort to deny the community and the culture that supports their games.

Sorry, GW, but anticipation and product excitement is a very real and very profitable marketing strategy. I like to be aware of things on the radar months, not just weeks, in advance. I like the comraderie of shared discussion, planning and excitment.

This latest move from GW? A resounding "Meh" from me.

Although, let me note that I am ALL IN FAVOR of them improving their rag by adding decent content.

I'm still waiting to see the newsletter. Why hasn't it been posted anywhere other than Germany?

Kanluwen wrote:I'm still waiting to see the newsletter. Why hasn't it been posted anywhere other than Germany?

Because they're waiting until July WD to announce it. They're really getting in on the policy from the ground floor!

Im subed cause the batreps are so funny, the pictures are cool, I laught at their attempts to sell the flavour of the month army. (also the finecast book was epic lols)

Also I get names to use for leaders/heros (I never make/buy them but i make their own stories)

Kanluwen wrote:I'm still waiting to see the newsletter. Why hasn't it been posted anywhere other than Germany?

It was released as a newsletter by mistake*. It was really intended to have been put in White Dwarf, like all future GW news will be. The fact that no one will know that all news will now be in White Dwarf unless they already buy White Dwarf just doesn't matter to GW. The people who don't already buy White Dwarf are not GW followers, and therefore don't deserve to have WD advertised to them. They're the sort of people who make fun of finecast and Storm of Magic sculpts and who have this bizarre delusion that GW miniatures are not the best miniatures on the market. Best to just ignore them and hope they go away when the Internet does.





*Not intended to be a factual statement.

Kroothawk wrote:That is the point: They promise to put content into the WD like they did 20 years ago. We know that August will feature the first part of the Codex Sororitas and official rules for a new Vampire monster. Last WD Codex (Blood Angels) and last WD rules (Eldar Nightspinner) are rare and quite some time ago. So we already know some of the new direction. This is good news in principle.
***This part could be good, if true. Frankly I believe none of it.

As GW wants to shut down all other information sources, WD will also regain some importance as source for official news, incl. pics. No more black boxes, no more preview Codices, no more preorder pics more than a week in advance. This may get some people back into stores. We will see.

***I don't see how. Its limiting their marketing to people already aware of the product. Its equivalent to making everything an FLGS in that I'm not aware of coming new stuff. I never knew about the stormbird until I saw one and asked "what is that piece of gak?" At least with FW I can get an email and then people discuss and I actually go back and check said email. Its self limiting.

Kanluwen wrote:I'm still waiting to see the newsletter. Why hasn't it been posted anywhere other than Germany?

Counter - question:

GW wrote:

Der Juli-White-Dwarf (#187) wird daher die Komfort-Abonnenten wenige Werktage später (i.d.R. am Dienstag oder Mittwoch der Folgewoche) erreichen.

in their newsletter.

But GW also provided "guaranteed" release dates at the last page of each WD:

- subscription = 22.06. GW stores& FLGS = 25.06. kiosk = 27.06.

So "normally" the july WD had to get to the subscribes first... seems they had to inform about their changes.
If their english WD issue had no release dates shown, there would be nothing to tell about beeing late.

This may get some people back into stores. We will see.

If that was the intention it seems to go against shop closures and the fact that some places don't have GW stores.

Kroothawk wrote:As GW wants to shut down all other information sources, WD will also regain some importance as source for official news, incl. pics. No more black boxes, no more preview Codices, no more preorder pics more than a week in advance. This may get some people back into stores. We will see.

You mean the stores that are running on skeleton crews or are closing entirely? Those stores?

so they want the wd to be first source of info. yet store managers have order sheets quarterly. a good manager has a rapport with his customers and no matter what gw say regular punters will know what is coming up and inform everyone else or manager or other staff will post on sites anyway. makes you wonder if any of the bigwigs at gw have any clue of how a gaming community works.

I haven't bought a WD since 2008. However, if I felt it was worthwhile, I would buy one again. We used to get great articles, and every 12-18 months or so they would produce an omnibus of the relevant articles for a specific system, plus some new stuff, in yet another book. Why they moved away from this is beyond me...

Yes, get people back into yoru stores by NOT telling them about the products you're selling!


EFFING BRILLIANT! GW WILL GET ON THIS RIGHT AWAY!

IMHO, GW did not listen to players or customers complaints, just about the only thing that makes GW do anything is the bottom line, as as i asume, the bottom faling out of the WD sales - when a brick hits them in the face - like in this case a fair amount of people not renewing their WD subscription, and a lot less people buying them in their LGS, eventualy they will wake up. But as usual with GW there is more then one drawback...


Just my 2c

From what I have seen on the internet, it seems like about 0% of GW customers are pleased with their business model, i dont know if it is just complete mismanagement or being stuck in the past, but as long as they refuse to change games like Warmachine and Hordes are going to gain business and further reduce their monopoly on tabletop wargaming.

dajobe wrote:From what I have seen on the internet, it seems like about 0% of GW customers are pleased with their business model, i dont know if it is just complete mismanagement or being stuck in the past, but as long as they refuse to change games like Warmachine and Hordes are going to gain business and further reduce their monopoly on tabletop wargaming.

Naw there are lots of satisfied customers, it's just that the internet is a vocal minority.

Is the June Issue out yet? As we've not had our usual four turn up at the shop yet, and it seems a little late two weeks into June.

Or have GW cancelled supplying John Menezies now as well as WHSmith?

Don't wear clothes with the designer's name splashed across them.
They want be to be a human billboard, they pay for my body as advertising space,
not me pay them a premium to do the advertisng for them

Like a lot of people, I ain't gonna pay for GW's advertising either.

If they want to increase sales of WD content needs to improve dramatically.
The problem may be, once the long term customer decides to stop getting a magazine, it is hard to get them back.
Same with my other hobby mags I have decided to stop buying, I just don't miss them and the money gets spent elsewhere.
I may get the odd mag if there is some research reference I need, but that sort of content will not be put into WD imho

As usual I suspect a lot of the problems stem from short term thinking and targeting a younger audience.


Am not sorry the Black Box nonsense is being ditched tbh, but it sounds like store managers are not being dealt with sympathetically.

khsofsos wrote:so they want the wd to be first source of info. yet store managers have order sheets quarterly.

They might now...

It's not too much of a stretch to see GW either issuing the release list to stores with the WD, or going back to the set-up they had here in Oz 10 or so years ago, where they would just send out the new releases to stores and you would find out what you were getting when they arrived.

How does that work for FLGS's, or are they just SOL?

Well, GW never did like local stores. They killed many of them by opening up storefronts right across the street.

Frazzled wrote:How does that work for FLGS's, or are they just SOL?

The set up that I was on, we just nominated how many we would want of a given type of item (3 of each box, 4 of each blister, or whatever) and they would just send that many of each new release item.

Let me get this straight. There are a few people on the forums here who said they like the idea and will keep Buying WD.

How much you want to be these same people will be here on the forum to let us know what is in there?

So I can't see sales increasing at all because it will be the same old, people coming here or Warseer or BoLS or where ever they go so it will be same old same old.

So instead of Sticky Monkey or What his name who likes Pies (sorry been awhile I forgot your name) it will be who ever buys the WD magazine.

Also as was said, who is to say once the subscriptions come in, GW will not revert back to their old ways again? They did it a few times now, so I can see it again.

I like many haven't bought a WD issue in years. My last WD was when it was issue 12 or so of the Canadian edition. I might get it for the SoB update but that is it, no subscriptions for me, I don't really need rumours that bad.

Katie Drake wrote:

dajobe wrote:From what I have seen on the internet, it seems like about 0% of GW customers are pleased with their business model, i dont know if it is just complete mismanagement or being stuck in the past, but as long as they refuse to change games like Warmachine and Hordes are going to gain business and further reduce their monopoly on tabletop wargaming.

Naw there are lots of satisfied customers, it's just that the internet is a vocal minority.

I have absolutely no proof to back this up, but I bet that of the people that consistenlty play the game, and dont just buy the models because they look cool, are not very satisfied with GW. If i am wrong then its good for me because GW is doing better business with happy customers and the hobby is expanding. If i am right then the opposite is true and other wargames will continue to gain popularity.

So for the sake of 40k i hope im wrong

I am getting so use too not having any knowledge of upcoming stuff, I couldn't care if WD does this now.

GW has taught me I don't need to know what is going on, so why would I need a WD now anyways?

As someone said before, I was shocked that GW charged us to buy their full catalogue, I don't need to pay for GW's marketing and advertising. Remember Advertising is suppose to keep the magazines cheap and keep us informed. WD has not done any of this, so after about 3 or maybe 5 years of not buying WD regularly anymore it's too little, too late now.

Then again, almost all of us on the internet is not GW market. We buy our own minis, we buy them at discount prices, GW market is parents who buy their $500-$1000 of stuff and never come back.

So you have to remember who is GW actual audience. So WD is not for us but for their market audience.