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i would be stoked if anyone from GW that had any pull actually read this thread, or let us know that GW realtes to the gaming community in any other way besides wanting our money.

I'd read it more maybe if they included content that dealt with some hot models... not miniatures but human female models like you see in Redline or Import Tuner...

I will buy it when it becomes a magazine again, and not an advertisement.

I will buy it when it becomes a magazine again, and not an advertisement.

Truth. While unpacking in my new house, I found some older issues. All unpacking progress halted, to the chagrin of my better half. These old issues are amazing! I want to scan some pages in and do a Kid Kyoto style retro review. Early 200's issues. March 1997, when Lizardmen hit the scene. Articles on Collecting lizardmen, painting different skin types, unit selection, the heinous Slann model and temple guard, and that's just 20 or so pages in. There's a collection of staff IG armies, featuring the armies, conversions, and the owners themselves. There's a multi page spread on the sprawling and beautiful Games Day display (Antioch planes or somesuch, massive Lizardmen vs. Brettonian display, supporting the recent WHFB edition) There's a multiple page article on rules lawyering, featurettes on skaven models and units, a sweet WHFB battle report (one not specifically featuring a victory by the current months new release) and several pictures of actual people playing actual games in actual stores.

I loved the hobby magazine. If it ever returns to that, I'll buy it. Right now, it's merely an overpriced monthly catalog.

I think we should go back to issue 50 when they had Call of Cthulhu adventures in it.

I must say that the May US version wasn't all that bad. The price was a bit steep, but they had a triple IG battle report with a nice character driven back ground. They had some okay modelling articles, but the NMM bit seems interesting and I will be checking that out when I get some time. The LotR stuff meant nothing to me as I don't play the game, but it seemed like some interesting tactic stuff for WotR. And they had rules for some of the new models to use in the strategy battle game.

I don't think I'd suscribe to WD, but I pick them up when I see something interesting and it seems a bit stronger than it had recently.

New battle reports are AWFUL. Remember the old ones from around the 150s to 180s? Maps of each player's turn, photos in-game, and a description of exactly what happened each turn, in narrative form (!!), plus the page long articles about choosing their army.

MUCH better than the current, rushed photoshoot they call a batrep...

I've just been reading the May battle reports, comments;
+ interestng character driven scenario (I actually want a go at it!)
+ 3 reports (although short they still give a good flavour for the games

- what if you don't have the models? Older battle reports (and many lotrs ones) give alternate forces.......
- should include a short (1-2 pages) on building the terrain - I'm quite interested in using the 40K ruins in new ways, the temple looks great but there's only a few photos to go on, a couple of wip shots and again alternate ideas would be good.

as far as the standard bearer goes, I actually liked mays (although it looks quite dull), good to have the extra boxes of related info around. Why can't more be like this instead of as was said earlier 'Jervis masturbating'. And cut some of the bablle - Jervis you say in the article you've gone OT and babbled - STOP IT its a waste of space and MY MONEY!

And yes again MORE READERS ARMIES!!!!

Teek - I've got those issues, they're great! The guard army with the storong highlighting and 'bright' colours in particular is a favourite of mine. I think it's got a converted Nork covered with small armour plates?

I keep finding old WDs in my local Half Price Books and they're awesome. I can see the love of the game that the writers had and the crazy artwork. It's like it was the "Golden Age of GW Articles". The models didn't look as great as these new CAD designed plastics but at least the articles didn't suck.

Now not too far back we had issue 300, which in itself may have been close to being worth $9 due to the amount of content. Plus the "movie marines rules" were a lot of fun. All I can do is scratch my head and say "what happened and why is this so damn expensive?"

What I had suggested about more ads was more from other companies. Sell some ad space to someone other than themselves and not only do they get revenue fo selling the mag but straight up cash money from the advertiser.

I agree that WD used to be better, hell in 1999 it was a damn sight better than it is now, all they seem to do is advertise, and what they can't fill with advertising they fill with LotR.

The balance HAS to be shifted, the last but one WD was about 70% LotR (i know it was the war of the ring release) but most issues are about 60% anyway. Personally I would like to see more painting/modelling articles (I have several old issues that I still revert to for tips from ~3 years ago), I also liked the fluff you used to get in there, stories and campaign descriptions (ogre kingdoms silk road campaign for example) and golden deamon coverage, something that has now been resigned to 1 page giving the 3 top winners.

but seriously, less LotR PLEASE!

I loved it 'back in the day'! New lists, new equipment, scenarios. Then they would through it all together and publish the Compendium, etc. They were still doing that sort of thing with the Chapter Approved books, if I recall correctly. Thats what I'd like to see again.

I have a huge collection of WD and I noticed in the back of some of the older ones (I don't remember which year though) that they offered free minis for ordering a subscription. Nowadays its just like thanks for the money.

2) A short story. 2-3 pages, they have a ton of black library writers, surely someone can come up with a few thousand words once a month. Maybe serialized...

There are so many Warhammer books, that they need not even have a short story, instead take a small sampling from a book (ie the first chapter) to incite people into reading. Honestly, thats how I found out about the Guants Ghost series.

Also, they need to bring back the Chapter Approved or at least the Founding Space Marine Chapters.

Well, thats my two cents on the matter.

Drop the price.

Make it fun. As others have said, add Apoc datasheets and stuff (I really liked the Ork Cityfight strategems from earlier this year). Angron was a nice addition, even if I thought he wasn't suitably powerful for a fallen primarch that slew a century of Grey Knight terminators. I think the biggest problem is it seems like the nutty, weird 'fun' stuff that we all nostalgically remember isn't there anymore.

I like the idea of having comics in it. Short stories would be nice - heck, publish the first three or five pages of a BL novel to wet my appetite and see if I want to buy it.

I'd like to see more conversion corner stuff, especially if they would offer the 'kit' at a discount through Direct Order for a limited time. Things like the Tycho Dread come to mine. Or a kitbash like Dave Taylor's Geswick (?) rifles, you can order a sprue of Brets and a sprue of IG for like 25% off. Put additional Razorback, Predator, Land Raider, etc. weapon configs and give you a way to order the extra weapons. Don't make a Razorback with MM or heavy flamer? Have a conversion from like the Immolator sprue, but you can order it with the Razorback for only $5.

I'm going to sound like a broken record, but:

1. More content
2. Less "advertising"
3. Cut price in half
4. Get rid of Jervis' article...4-5 pages of nothing...

I also would not mind the occasional "oversized" issue that costs what it does now if we actually got something usable in it...like a 10-20 page mini-update for an army or something like that.

I'd probably buy it now, even though it's a huge shameless advertisement, if it were about $3.

Start pimping some of their specialty games. Either start releasing new models for them or give good ideas on how to incorporate old models into their new games. They could just replace the LoTR content with info about other games every month.

The last time that I bought a white dwarf was when they shipped it out with the nob and the terminator. It was the first issue that I'd bought in years. A lot of other people seemed to have the same idea considering it was the first time that I saw an issue sell out at multiple stores in a long time. If they're going to charge as much as they're charging per issue they should ship some samples of upcoming products every month.

Either that or they could just cut the price in half.

Include cut-out rules fixes/clarification, so I can paste them in my codexi.

Alright, How about This:

1) Release of the Month- A good-sized section on what's new, including at least on Battle Rep, Designers notes, Stage-by-stage painting tips for that army, and a sample army list not used in the Battle rep, with notes on the thoughts that went into makeing it.

2) Chapter aproved/Liber Apocolyptica/Scenerio section- provideing new rules, Units, FAQ's or Scenarios.

3) Other Game: A small section devoted to whichever game system was not released this month, hopefuly devoted to armies that were not released last month.

4) Terrain/Conversion Clinic- 1-4 pages of detailed, step-by-step terrain building or conversion articles.

5) From the Fans: Articles submitted by fans may be shown here. Second Largest section.

6) Series Article: For things like the Tale of Four Gamers, Multi-part Tactica, etc.

7) Specialist Games- for Necromunda, Mordheim, Blood Bowl, LoTR.

8) Technical details: Advice on ordering, list of Stores, list of tournaments, etc.

I'd personally like to see interviews. Interviews with GD winners as well as interviews with tourney winners. Talking about painting or converting or army construction. I guess just a greater involvment with the community.

Also a painting/modelling portion that wasn't so focused on a game system as much as overall techniques, with examples of those techniques on a wide range of miniatures. Much of this could be community submitted or derived from the interviews.

Player army highlights would also tempt me to buy WD.

These things would appeal to me most, but I sure wouldn't mind seeing some of the old articles on SM chapters that don't have much documentation or craftworlds, and just a greater focus on the things that add detail and interest to armies.

Redbeard wrote:I'd like to give examples of what content I'd like to see, every month:

1) A comic page. There are at least three 40k-related webcomics out there. I remember, back in the day, that Wormy, and Phil&Dixie were in the back of Dragon magazine, and the ongoing stories were fun. Add a little humour to the magazine.

2) A short story. 2-3 pages, they have a ton of black library writers, surely someone can come up with a few thousand words once a month. Maybe serialized...

Heck, I would probably buy it just for the second point you mentioned.
Nowadays, I just pick one up whenever I come throught the train station, flip through it for a few minutes and decide its not worth a penny.

Edit: I have to add though, that this would only work if they publish the stories in english. Just seeing the translation of book titles is making me barf all over the damn store on a regular basis. Graue Ritter ... Horus: Aufstieg .... Schwarze Adepten ... yeah, nicely done fellas. So are we going to call Space Marines Weltraum Marineinfanterie as well? Idiots

Hmm. $9 for an issue, with nothing in it I really want. Or, put the money aside, take the $9 from next month, and I almost have enough to buy another 10 bloodletters. Option B please...

Of the things that have been mentioned so far, I disagree with having rules, datasheets, FAQ's etc in the magazine, unless they are immediately updated on the website as well (which would sort of kill the point of putting it in the magazine.) It's bad enough having to buy everyone else's codex and reading carefully through all their rules and rule exceptions to make sure TFG isn't pulling a fast one on you, to have someone pull out a copy of a magazine for a rule or FAQ that you don't have access to is a bit much.

hmmm I'd say if they gave away a couple of miniatures in every issue they'd sell mor and also if they featured more things done by the comunity instead of pages of promotionals and fake battle reports.

Does anyone have 1 or 2 old issues that are good they wouldn't mind sending me via mail or email. I'd love to basically do a study on what people want from the White Dwarf, and what they aren't getting.

If they do not know by now then it is likely that they will never know it is not very difficult


Give the reader what they want

OH SNAP! I went to work today at the bookstore and checked on the PC if the new WD had arrived (we're a bit slow here in SA)
There was nothing, so I asked the manager if there was a problem. He said no, we're not getting them in again because they don't sell...

>_<

My rat on a sticks worth...

Take what little content they have and use it to create a website similar to Black Gobbo, but little more like an online magazine. Use categories to organize articles so that people can navigate to the things they are interested in. Web traffic will show them what to concentrate their efforts on.

Release articles as they are finished without waiting for "Issues". Put teasers to new articles on the front page with a "Read More" link to the full article in the proper category. This will help keep traffic constant over time as readers will look for new articles periodically.

Best of all they eliminate the cost of publishing and distributing a magazine and can still get their advertisements in front of their audience.

Index something style articles. No need to be roid monkeys can be ig and even things that are directly war related. I want more fluff bout the imperium and xenos.. You can get everyting else online, rumours sneak peaks awesome modelling, tatics.. its all covered online.

I really miss the Index Astartes (sp?) and Index Xenos and such. That fluff was always fun to read.

I still read White Dwarf. I just don't buy it anymore.

frgsinwntr wrote:I was looking at old codices and such and saw pictures of people next to armies. I think GW should go back to the fan-player models showing up in places like white dwarf and codices again...

Thoughts?

Sell it in rolls? Make it squeezably soft?

Oh yeah... charge a reasonable price and actually make it worth reading?

White Dwarf in this day and age could stop publication and it wouldn't even turn a head.