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I have a WD subscription and every month I dutifully pick it off the mat, prize the dog off the cellophane wrapper and sit down and have a read over a cuppa.

I have to say that when I first got into the hobby, batreps were my favourite bit in WD. In those days you didn't get a report every month and they were a real treat to read. They didn't exist purely to act as an extra advert for the new stuff that was out, either and you'd sometimes get batreps with no new stuff at all!

Now having read (or rather skimmed, I couldn't bring myself to read it all) this months WFB Chaos vs Dwarfs offering I have to ask what the point is anymore.


It doesn't work as a battle because the not-released-this-month army is deliberately chosen to be as weak as possible (I refuse to believe any gamer, including those who picked up a starter last week and haven't finished reading the rules yet, would select an army as poor as Alessio's Dwarfs) while the released-this-month army is chosen so as to include as many shiny new toys as possible, without thought for how it actually works.

The above factors make it poor to read as a battle report and poor as a narrative (there's no dramatic tension as you already know who'll win) so what is it there for? One option could be as a 'mini-Tactica' article, showcasing how new units do in a battlefield setting. This would be fine except the games are played out with no thought whatsoever (to continue with Alessio's piss-poor performance, how does a prospective Chaos player learn how best to use their new army when you show it used against a small, immobile army set up in a long thin line with huge gaps, no reserves and inadequate missile support?).
All they're saying is if you play even a moderate army against the worst player you can find, then you'll win! (well, there's a galloping shock...)


This leads us to the inescapable conclusion that the batrep is simply an extended advert for the new army. Am I the only person who thinks that:

1. They advertise it enough?
2. A far better incentive to get people to play it would be a proper tactics article followed by a tough game report where you believe both players are trying?

What's the point of WD?

Fixed your typo.

Anung Un Rama wrote:

What's the point of WD?

Fixed your typo.

So true. These days I 'read' WD by flicking through the first few pages of new products in the newsagent. The rest of the magazine is more or less that material reproduced several times in a number of different and colourful ways.

yeah,
there's no defending the 'Auto-Wins' the new armies get... your right it's just showing the new stuff in a biased game...pointless!
Look at what the new deatray super-cannon does to a tightly packed unit of low armour foes... Awesome!!!

I love reading my WD... But When the BatReps not 40k and there's a new WHFB army on the cover I don't even bother reading the BatRep, I just skim to the end, look at who won and say 'yeah thought so'... And I'm sure I'm not the only one who does this and when you think about it that must be actually damaging sales? If i read the bat rep, I might think ''ohh that was cool I'll start a Chaos mortals army (or who ever their playing)'

I thought they were turning a new leaf when SMs managed a win draw and loss last month...

What WD needs to realise is that people will still buy the New Chaos Mortals after they see them lose in a BatRep to another army but are shown to give them a good run for their money...

Who would you have pitched them against?

PaniC...

Personally I think that Dwarfs were a good matchup for Chaos first time out - an army totally different in style but built, like them, around a core of tough infantry - a chance to compare and contrast.

I would just like to have seen someone play the Dwarfs properly. The thing is, Alessio used to be a regular tournament player. He had a reputation as been TFG and was even warned for cheating once (he measured his hand, arm, fingers etc before going and would lean on the table before 'guessing' his ranges). Even so, you'd have thought the author of the fething rulebook would have a slightly better appreciation of army selection and tactics.

GW's key target market segment is 12 year old boys who do not have the critical faculties or in-depth product knowledge to understand what a lot of nonsense WD has become.

In fact it's probably a perfect magazine for them just because it's full of this month's uber army of death (x2).

I was a 12 year old boy myself once so I know these things.

Chimera_Calvin wrote:What's the point of a WD battle report?

To sell the current month's new releases.

Did you really need to ask that?

BYE

allways read it monthly
mainly since it sometimes has decent stuff in it, but more often than not its just a waste of £4. Could buy myself a pack of GS a month for tht (not that it would last me)

It's for the pretty pictures. I usually end up buying it and "reading" it.

It's like Playboy, except Playboy has better articles. And pictures.

...and battlefield tactics.

Being (re)newish to the hobby I remember that batreps where the only reason to buy it. Though the Space Marine edition had a win a loss and a draw in it, it is now geared to selling, but why are we constantly surprised at this?

Amen Brick wrote:...and battlefield tactics.

You really think WD has greater battlefield tactics over Playboy?

I think he thinks Playboy has better battlefield tactics at least these days.

Panic wrote:I thought they were turning a new leaf when SMs managed a win draw and loss last month...

Er.....Was it just me that thought this was incredibly unlikely? How very convenient for three battles to have all three possible results.....

WD has gotten better with it's battle reports in the last year. The low point was the ork release, when the space marines did everything organizationally sand tacticvally possible to lose the game. (Twin-Las/missile dread vs. Orks? Jumping an assault squad into the open 9" from an Ork slugga squad, and not even playing it up as a mis-estimation of distance? gah!)

I'm not familiar enough with fantasy to evaluate if this report was horrible, but it seemed legitimate enough. I would have been much happier if it was more narrative, but yeah.

I just can't shale the feeling that the WD was interesting for Vets too when I started the game about 8 years ago. At least it had decent terrain articles and let's not forget the awesomeness which was In Nomine Imperatoris. Why, yes, I would like to play 40k with exploding frogs and imperial Zealots, tnak you very much

I couldn't believe Alessio's method for picking his army: Choose one of each unit!

That's great if you want an army with no focus. He goes on to say his Skaven army is built the same way.

That means, he's only got one unit of clanrats. I never play with less than 3 at 2000 points. Plus a couple Warlock Engineers. One level 2 wizard vs. any army with magic defense won't do anything unless you roll IF.

It makes my head hurt to think about it.

Noisy_Marine wrote:I couldn't believe Alessio's method for picking his army: Choose one of each unit!

It's well known that Alessio doesn't like big numbers and counting. If he only has to count to 1 over and over again, he's a happy games 'developer'.

Noisy_Marine wrote:It makes my head hurt to think about it.

That's ironic, given that Alessio's head hurts when he has to count.

BYE