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Little lord Fauntleroy wrote:To be special and different, I actually quite enjoy white dwarf. The articles can be enjoyable, and the 'eavy metal tutorials have been decentas of late.

As for the new army always winning, I do have a theory about that. As the new force is nearly always commanded by the writer, they have had months to design tricks and tactics for the new book. The opponent has not, therefore, they are at a disadvantage as they have little idea what the designers plan will be.



Now I've just got to wait for the insults to start.

Also, forget ye not the arcane reality that is codex creep

H.B.M.C. wrote:I never did manage to get any of the original metal Tyranid Warriors. Penty of the plastic ones and the later 2nd Ed metals, but never any 1st Ed metals. I'd like three of them. And the Squigs - what became of Ork DNA when mixed with 'Nids? Squigs! That's what! The fluff's changed since then, but it was fun. And the Squig models were awesome.

I'm fairly sure I remember rightly that there weren't any. There were Termagaunts (Hunter Slayers), Rippers (Squigs), Genestealers (metal ones) and a Carnifex, but no metal Tyranid Warriors before the plastic (Space Crusade) ones.

I have a full squad of Zoats that I last used as Ogryns.

Chapter Approved era WD > Standard Bearer era WD, period.

You know what I still like in WD? The painting features on stuff like bronze oxidation, etc. That used to be my lest-favorite stuff, but everything else with actual gaming content has pretty much disappeared. Lame.

Good old Dungeon and Dragon get canceled in their prime, and White Dwarf limps along when it has no reason to exist. This, folks, is why big corporations suck at marketing gaming. Fortunately, it leaves room for groups like Paizo, Fantasy Flight and Privateer Press to break into the market that the behemoths fail to satisfy.

Jervis spews bland corporate slogans at a generation that has become inoculated to such BS. If Jervis's articles were targeted at 45-year-olds, they would perversely be much more effective (since they are written like a condescending version of the marketing one uses to sell cars or electronics to Jervis's generation, not for millennial-genners). Kids will just hit the off switch on the old guy who fails to cloak his marketing in something even vaguely resembling content. You'd think that GW would cut his column just to save cash on printing those extra pages. It's not like anyone would miss it.

I mean, normally I'm all for businesses cheerleading their products. But when it's done in a bait-and-switch in places where people really want useful content, it's plain disrespectful.

Thus, I don't buy WD anymore unless I see something I really like in the store copy. There are better places to spend our money, even within GW's product line.

Jervis may be a decent fellow, and I'm not judging him here. Just Standard Bearer, which is useless and insulting.

Kid_Kyoto wrote:Issue #145 was crap!



Those new missions totally broke Space Crusade!

That's why #144 was my last one!

Hey, 144 was my first issue! I remember getting my mum to buy it for me. I was only nine. At the time I could only have it bought for me every few months (I seem to remember it costing 2.50 or some other astronomical price - this was back when 2000AD was 50p). I hadn't bought it for many years until last month when I picked up a copy for a plane trip. Dreadful. The only thing I found even remotely interesting or useful was an article about painting faces. I was somewhat spoiled by the fact that an ex-colleague of my mum's gave me a massive stack of WDs from the 80s; they're still a good read now (although the quality of the painting in the "Tabletop Heroes" column was laughable by modern standards).

George Spiggott wrote:I'm fairly sure I remember rightly that there weren't any.

There were. They were in that issue. First Tyranid Warrior models were metal ones with Boneswords and that's it.

H.B.M.C. wrote:

George Spiggott wrote:I'm fairly sure I remember rightly that there weren't any.

There were. They were in that issue. First Tyranid Warrior models were metal ones with Boneswords and that's it.

There we go. Thank you Puma.

I'm sure there was an earlier one from before the WD list that looked like a giant termagaunt (not the Hunter Killer model) based on the picture in the Rogue Trader manual, but I can't for the life of me find a picture of it online... so I may be imagining it. Old age does that sometimes...

But yes. I certainly had that unit; you got three in one of those large solid plastic cases they did for the larger kits instead of a box or blister.

I started buying White Dwarf last May (it was a birthday present) and thought straight away Jervis was boring. But you have to cut him some slack, he has reached that old man time where the most simple things become a rambling of 'my best model' or 'time to use those old models again'. He shouldn't be fired, just suspended from wrirting articles in White Dwarf(for a long time). If sales improve greatly, then he should be stopped from articles all together. Not fired, because you don't fired your parents if they get a bit boring.

Parents are for life, not just for Christmas!

endtransmission wrote:I'm sure there was an earlier one from before the WD list that looked like a giant termagaunt (not the Hunter Killer model) based on the picture in the Rogue Trader manual, but I can't for the life of me find a picture of it online... so I may be imagining it. Old age does that sometimes...

You're not imagining it, I remember that model. about the size of a 28mm horse, verymuch like the RT picture, standing on it's middle (hooved) legs with it's rear limbs coiled up under it.

I might let my subscription run out this time. It's utter crap and mindless drivel.

G

Anti-Mag wrote:There might be fellow ex-pat WD readers here who share my views that Standard Bearer is a major reason for not buying WD anymore. I place it in the same mental bucket as adverts and LOTR articles. That's a good half of the magazine there.

There is no excuse. Other magazines, such as PC Gamer (off the top of my head) offer conistently humourous and innovative articles. Long gone are the days when WD was seemingly quite random; to me that was part of its past joy. Knowing a new codex is around the corner tells you that 99% of the following issue will be devoted to selling that race. Who ever heard of a new incarnation of a race losing their first battle report?

Andy Chambers was a great writer for WD as he didn't need to sell the models. Looking back, his Piscina campaign was a great read as were his thoughts on different armies. Even Allessio wrote an original article on the most outrageous army list possible, back when free thought was a possibility in the publication.

WD is dumbed down. The single redeeming feature is the 'Eavy Metal articles, which offer superb tuition. I wish the had been included when I had begun the hobby. It's beige content coupled with its outrageous price is an affront to the GW community.

To be fair, I don't know if having the "new hotness" lose on its first outing is a solid marketing plan - especially when this part of the marketing is most likely aimed at the younger segment of their customer base...

Tim the Biovore wrote:I started buying White Dwarf last May (it was a birthday present) and thought straight away Jervis was boring. But you have to cut him some slack, he has reached that old man time where the most simple things become a rambling of 'my best model' or 'time to use those old models again'. He shouldn't be fired, just suspended from wrirting articles in White Dwarf(for a long time). If sales improve greatly, then he should be stopped from articles all together. Not fired, because you don't fired your parents if they get a bit boring.

Brilliant!

Bring back Stillmania!

Bring back terrain in WD that isn't available in stores. I swear every battle they fight now is on a Realm of Battle Board.

There are lots of small fixes available to WD, and things like Standard Bearer are pretty boring and the designer's notebooks for new armies offer shockingly little insight, but the problem with WD is that there is no need to buy it.

Without gaming content, which means rules, why feel compelled to buy it? There are lots of other reasons to want it, but no reason to feel that its necessary.

GW got rid of chapter approved roughly around the same time that internet use became overwhelming in the hobby. No rules + Web 2.0 content everywhere for free makes WD a luxury.

Now, I understand that the CA era had it's downsides, so I figure make all the new stuff explicitly not for tournaments: make it apocolypse datasheets, opponents permission only special characters, campaign units, Planetstrike army lists, or a list of special wargear you can use in planetary empires.

Well, the only part worth to regularly buy WD are sections about (professional) painting.
The rest is absolutely boring.

Although, I must admit that the battle report of Space Hulk was very interesting.
But Jervis' comments were unnecessary.

H.B.M.C. wrote:Bring back terrain in WD that isn't available in stores. I swear every battle they fight now is on a Realm of Battle Board.

Oh come on. Only someone who really doesn't care about what their gaming terrain looks like (or is really desperate for something cheap) would call for WD-supplied terrain - which would be made of cardboard, and therefore inferior to the plastic terrain pieces that GW now produce. Besides, how is anything supplied as a freebie with WD going to be a substitute for their battle boards? If you don't like them, there are plenty of alternatives, from grass mats to cheap cloth.

Incidentally, this is the metal Tyranid warrior from WD145 (the ones pictured earlier were the first plastic version):

Jervis has always rambled. It's what he does! Back in the day he produced a column called "The J Files" (always known for their originality are GW...) for WD. It was pretty rambly even then!


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I think the first "J Files" was in WD196 when he rambled about "Special Characters". Then in WD197 he rambled about "Tournaments"...

Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose....

Polonius wrote:There are lots of small fixes available to WD, and things like Standard Bearer are pretty boring and the designer's notebooks for new armies offer shockingly little insight, but the problem with WD is that there is no need to buy it.

Without gaming content, which means rules, why feel compelled to buy it?

Because you're such a newbie to the hobby that you can still get something useful out of it. And you don't know any better.

In other words, like so many things in this hobby, it's now intentionally aimed under our heads. They don't change it because they don't really care if we read it. it's not for us.

The analogy's been made before, but we (meaning veteran hobbyists) really are like a bunch of abused women. We're so ready to take GW back because we know he really does mean well and we probably deserved the beating we got. If we can just change him, he'd be perfect...

There was never any NEED to buy White Dwarf. It's just that it simply isn't interesting anymore.

Anyway, the original question was whether you thought it was time the Standard Bearer article was removed or not, as opposed to 'Do you think WD sucks?'. I guess I should have seen that one coming from the start though.

The more veteran you get, the less there ever will be in WD to interest you.

As your modelling skills increase, articles on terrain building, painting and conversions are less and less relevant.

There is plenty of that kind of stuff on websites and blogs, and GW print their own "How To" books which are better value than WD.

There's no history to research.

WD aren't going to give away a lot of fluff they can sell in books and codexes.

H.B.M.C. wrote:Bring back terrain in WD that isn't available in stores. I swear every battle they fight now is on a Realm of Battle Board.

Terrain is very time consuming and the materials cost money. Imagine how many hours used to go into studio/staffers making a cool table/terrain for a WD batrep.

Why would GW pay employees to make stuff on their dime when they can have them use stuff that little Timmy will ask his mommy to buy for him?

Those days are gone...

number9dream wrote:

Anti-Mag wrote:There might be fellow ex-pat WD readers here who share my views that Standard Bearer is a major reason for not buying WD anymore. I place it in the same mental bucket as adverts and LOTR articles. That's a good half of the magazine there.

There is no excuse. Other magazines, such as PC Gamer (off the top of my head) offer conistently humourous and innovative articles. Long gone are the days when WD was seemingly quite random; to me that was part of its past joy. Knowing a new codex is around the corner tells you that 99% of the following issue will be devoted to selling that race. Who ever heard of a new incarnation of a race losing their first battle report?

Andy Chambers was a great writer for WD as he didn't need to sell the models. Looking back, his Piscina campaign was a great read as were his thoughts on different armies. Even Allessio wrote an original article on the most outrageous army list possible, back when free thought was a possibility in the publication.

WD is dumbed down. The single redeeming feature is the 'Eavy Metal articles, which offer superb tuition. I wish the had been included when I had begun the hobby. It's beige content coupled with its outrageous price is an affront to the GW community.

To be fair, I don't know if having the "new hotness" lose on its first outing is a solid marketing plan - especially when this part of the marketing is most likely aimed at the younger segment of their customer base...

Exactly. If I could predict lottery results like I could battle reports, I could afford WD.

The last WD (#230?) I bought was the one that had the Necron army list before the codex came out. If I want to look at a WD these days I just go to the LGS and read the one on the rack.

MeanGreenStompa wrote:

endtransmission wrote:I'm sure there was an earlier one from before the WD list that looked like a giant termagaunt (not the Hunter Killer model) based on the picture in the Rogue Trader manual, but I can't for the life of me find a picture of it online... so I may be imagining it. Old age does that sometimes...

You're not imagining it, I remember that model. about the size of a 28mm horse, verymuch like the RT picture, standing on it's middle (hooved) legs with it's rear limbs coiled up under it.

Yes indeed. I checked rogue trader; There is a picture on page 103. As funny as it may seem, tha text under the picture reads: " Battle for geo-station erpes- Orks battle Marines". As if it wasn't there. Makes me wonder if it was forgotten there, or a piece of the scenery.

Edit: And on topic. I always felt standard bearer was filler, and steadily degenerating filler too, as such, I'd say standard bearer needs to be thrown out. But you never know, battlefield challenges may just be worth your ten minutes (Fat chance).

Flashman wrote:Re: Jervis - Can't see him going anywhere for the time being unless he gets bored like Andy Chambers (be cool if he came back).

Not trying to hijack this thread but, I thought Chambers lost an internal battle inside the company and he was let go. Last time I heard he works for Blizzard now,

What's WHITE DWARF?

Hahaha! I only bought White Dwarf issues that heavily dealt with the Tau which are like 2 issues. Back in 2001 when they first came out and the most recent was when the 4th edition codex came out.

I am enjoying the irony in the article being named Standard Bearer yet it seems that if anything the article is decreasing moral in the troops.

wuestenfux wrote:But Jervis is unnecessary.

Fixed it for you

Tailgunner wrote:Only someone who really doesn't care about what their gaming terrain looks like (or is really desperate for something cheap) would call for WD-supplied terrain - which would be made of cardboard, and therefore inferior to the plastic terrain pieces that GW now produce.

I've read your post over three times and I cannot for the life of me work out what you're trying to say.

CT GAMER wrote:Terrain is very time consuming and the materials cost money. Imagine how many hours used to go into studio/staffers making a cool table/terrain for a WD batrep.

Why would GW pay employees to make stuff on their dime when they can have them use stuff that little Timmy will ask his mommy to buy for him?

But they have terrain. They've got heaps of it. Did they throw it all away? What happened to all their non-ROB playing surfaces? Where did all their non-Citadel Woods trees go? Non-Planet Strike bunkers? They still have these pieces at the studio, yet they never seem to use them.