Battle reports in WD - Do they think we are morons?

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**Emperors Faithful**

Y'know, your avatar goes incredibly well with that post.

**Nurglitch**

I'm pretty sure empirical research consisting of reading forums, particularly Warseer, and certain blogs, the most reasonable conclusion would be that GW fans are morons. I'm inclined to agree, though I'm a GW fan so what do I know?

/derp

**Slarg232**

Emperors Faithful wrote:Y'know, your avatar goes incredibly well with that post.

It does indeed.

But yeah, I only ever bought 4 of the magazines before not buying any more. Everything that I need to know is on the website, and the battle reports don't interest me.

**Trasvi**

I wouldn't care if GW rigged the battle reps if they at least took sensible lists. Fantasy is much more prone to ridiculous lists than 40k, due to the studio armies consisting generally of 1 of each unit. I remember the first ever white dwarf I got (260 something) had High Elves vs Vampires - the HE army was literally 'we have 2000pts in the studio army so I took everything, including 20-strong units of some of the weakest units in the army'.

Player armies are good to see, as they are interestingly different to GW, and they have the correct balance of real units people would actually use. Seeing a Tau player show up saying 'normally I like railguns but I'm deciding to try out XX' just makes me cringe.

**CatPeeler**

Two things:

1) The players in the reports are limited to whatever the studio army has painted. Not as big a deal if one of the armies is Ultramarines... but if you're looking for anything but a one-of-everything list, you ain't going to see it in WD.

2) A one sided battle will be chucked and replayed until a close battle is the result. When the Armageddon codex came out, one of the multigame reports mentioned that the White Scars army (Paul Sawyers, IIRC) was slaughtered in a couple turns. Despite the games' outcomes directly affecting the outcome of the story, they decided to take a mulligan.

In contrast, the "tale of four gamers" reports were a bit better. I'd guess that since the players were using their *own* armies, that was a factor.

**Mistress of minis**

wuestenfux wrote:Have you read the battle report BA vs. Black Legion in WD at April 2010 ?

Of course they wanted to show some possibilities to play the new BA.
However, the Chaos player moved his TS and Berzerker units (both on foot) a bit forward (in 2nd turn) so that an Assault squad incl. S. Priest was able to charge the Berzerkers and the DC squad was in the position to charge TS.
Both Chaos units got wiped out. Surprise. Surprise.

At the end of the game, the Chaos player complained about his bad shooting in 1st turn.
However, he had not many shooting options (Defiler, CSM unit with heavy weapon, Tzeentch DP, PM with 2 plasma guns) and his LR was partly behind cover.

GW obviously thinks we are morons, or what?

Umm, you're still buying/reading White Dwarf- so GW is just making the apparent observation

Its like you bought a turd sandwich and you're surprised it tastes like crap

**Samus_aran115**

wuestenfux wrote:Have you read the battle report BA vs. Black Legion in WD at April 2010 ?

Of course they wanted to show some possibilities to play the new BA.
However, the Chaos player moved his TS and Berzerker units (both on foot) a bit forward (in 2nd turn) so that an Assault squad incl. S. Priest was able to charge the Berzerkers and the DC squad was in the position to charge TS.
Both Chaos units got wiped out. Surprise. Surprise.

At the end of the game, the Chaos player complained about his bad shooting in 1st turn.
However, he had not many shooting options (Defiler, CSM unit with heavy weapon, Tzeentch DP, PM with 2 plasma guns) and his LR was partly behind cover.

GW obviously thinks we are morons, or what?

THANK YOU !!!!

So dumb! They threw in abaddon and a price and lost? How stupid do you have to be to lose with the best HQ options?

WHY DID THEY WASTE THAT DEFILER? So stupid,they threw it into combat,even though it's FAR more useful as anti-infantry with a battlecannon.

That was a pathetic battle. It poorly demonstrated everything that the black legion is (a united force of chaos space marines working together to completely destroy their enemies).

Awful,just awful. I play black legion,and my friends were like "dude,your army sucks" when they read that report. I cried myself to sleep that night..

**Nightrave**

So, i actually Like White Dwarf, but i tell you its not for the Battle Reports, i mean seriously, there are generally alot more things in the White Dwarf then the battle reports. Pictures and paint tips, Upcoming tourney information, new releases, new stores, the list goes on

If you want a GOOD battle report, do one of three things
1) Log into a Website (such as dakka!) and check out the BR page.
2) Go to your local Gaming club, and strum up some warstories!
3) Call some buddies and ask how their last game went

But i totally agree, the WD Battle reports are just....Terribad! Im a space wolf player, so i got a bit exited when they were featured in the new WD, i could see cool models, cool paints! and see if the Battle report was any good....then i saw what the SM player was bringing......and....wow. I know the new dex was coming, and new models but they didnt need to show off some models that badly....they didnt need to take Njal, Canis, and two other HQ's i think ulric and another Rune priest was there, but yeah. Then the rest of the lay out was just as terrible, No tanks, no Transports, no real anything. and they played vs demons, who had one of each greater Demon! (to spice things up)

They meeked out a draw and i was horribly dissapointed

now i know sometimes they make the BR to introduce story or new "insight" or even some "Flare" but sometimes, we just wanna see a no BS, not faked, no stretching of the force orginization battle royal, with things people will actually "Bring"

and if they want people to buy the shiny new models, maybe they should make some of those models actually relavent to the playlists and styles of people....or maybe they should make a model at all......(thunderwolf calv!) i mean, some of those would sell faster then the named character (canis vs thunderwolves...)

However i do think they are coming around, with the new demons coming out in august those look...well. Awesome. so maybe there is hope!?

**Warboss Gutrip**

It is actually insane how biased some of these scenarios are.

Case and point: Blood angels release.

GW Employee; "Hmmm, ho can we make BA look good? Oh, I know! we'll make an army that is assaulty into a shooty build so that it'll look really good when they get beaten into a pulp in combat! Also, we'll edge forward some of the shootier units so that they get assaulted before they can fire! And just to make sure that BA seem really, really, ridiculuously OTT, we'll play on a 3' by 4' board at 1500pts! That way, chaos will hardly get a chance to fire!"
GW employee 2: "But what if BA get unlucky?"
GW Empployee: "We'll rig the dice rolls! We wouldn't want our profits resting on luck, a game of dice, would we?"

See also: Ork re-release. They show off DA in a scenario, which the Orks only lose because of two pivotal ones and Ghazkhull Thraka mysteriously losing three wounds, though he is not shot at and has a 2+ invuln, before losing his last wound to a LC termie in the marine phase.

**oadie**

Skarboy wrote:Everyone plays in tournaments, we're all veterans, even the guy who gets the last place trophy month after month.

As a novice, I would be interested in finding a tournament that gives out a trophy for last place.

**Tzeentchling9**

I get annoyed at stupid lists* and stupid moves, but what really annoys me is illegal moves. There is no flipping way Cruddace's Scout move was legal in his match againt Kelly in the Battle Missions WD.

*For example, the SW player "allowing" the Daemon player to take one of each Greater Daemon. I'd be happy to allow my opponent to do that too!

**wuestenfux**

Mistress of minis wrote:
wuestenfux wrote:Have you read the battle report BA vs. Black Legion in WD at April 2010 ?

Of course they wanted to show some possibilities to play the new BA.
However, the Chaos player moved his TS and Berzerker units (both on foot) a bit forward (in 2nd turn) so that an Assault squad incl. S. Priest was able to charge the Berzerkers and the DC squad was in the position to charge TS.
Both Chaos units got wiped out. Surprise. Surprise.

At the end of the game, the Chaos player complained about his bad shooting in 1st turn.
However, he had not many shooting options (Defiler, CSM unit with heavy weapon, Tzeentch DP, PM with 2 plasma guns) and his LR was partly behind cover.

GW obviously thinks we are morons, or what?

Umm, you're still buying/reading White Dwarf- so GW is just making the apparent observation

Its like you bought a turd sandwich and you're surprised it tastes like crap

In fact, I'm still buying WD. What I like is the painting sections that gives me some hints and suggestions. The rest is totally neglectable.

**annabelle**

I started playing about 2 years ago. I bought an issue of White Dwarf once. Once.

**Samus_aran115**

annabelle wrote:I started playing about 2 years ago. I bought an issue of White Dwarf once. Once.

Um,maybe because you've been playing for two weeks? You haven't even had an opportunity to buy next month's issue! XD

**Terminus**

Well, considering you probably bought the magazine before you read the report, GW would likely be correct in thinking that. Who buys that useless rag? New editor is another tool in a series of tools.

**Aduro**

I still remember the Battle Report where a CC Hive Tyrant spent almost the entire game inside a forest in his deployment zone because it couldn't roll high enough to get thru the Difficult Terrain.

**DaveL**

Fifty wrote:I actually quite enjoy WD, but you have to read it with a pinch of salt.

I asked for a mai tai, and they brought me a pina colada, and I said no salt, NO salt for the margarita, but it had salt on it, big grains of salt...

**JohnHwangDD**

agnosto wrote:
NecronLord3 wrote:I'm not sure the issue is so much GW *thinking* the readers are morons, as much as it is those purchasing WD are morons.

Bingo!!! We have a winner ladies and gentlemen!

This.

GW knows their target audience, and tailors their content accordingly.

**FoxPhoenix135**

Every once in a while they put out some good Apoc stuff. For example, my friend uses the Big Mek Stompa alterations from one of the issues, that has some awesome stuff to add to Apoc games.

The BRs are crap. I personally have never bought a WD because I can't swallow the 9 dollar charge for a magazine that will only hold my interest for a good hour or two on the toilet. I'd rather spend those 9 bucks on a Dan Abnett book and read about Gaunt's latest exploits.

**Xyptc**

ultramarinelord wrote:I've never bought an issue of WD in my entire carrer as a gamer (of about a year and a half). It contains only rubbish and its sole aim, as most of you have stated, is to promote GW's latest product.

It used to be good... random Chapter Approved goodies, novelty army lists, hobby ideas...

It seemed to die off around issue 275. Pity.

**reds8n**

Guy Haley posted this on Warseer...oohh...years ago now, when he left the WD job

Okay chaps, listen up.

This is the one and only time I am going to post on Warseer (which I have been reading now ever since I began working for GW three years ago). The reason I am doing this is, to be honest, the amount of innacurate speculation about myself is getting a bit irritating, so I thought I would set the record straight. My direct involvement with GW prior to this precluded me from posting earlier, and to be honest I was just going to walk away, but I think I will feel better once the record has been set straight.

I am not here to comment on GW's policies, what has happened to WD or anything else about the company, only to give you some answers to the questions which come up time and again on the forums about myself.

Point one â€“ me
I have been working in magazines for 10 years. I have worked on many publications as a freelance writer, but most of my work has been for SFX (1997-2003) UK WD (2004-2005) and International WD (2005-2007). I have indeed left Games Workshop to help run a new SF magazine named Death Ray. This has been set up by Matt Bielby, who is the launch editor and editor-in-chief. My title is editor and I will be taking over full editorial responsibility for the mag once we are past the launch period. Matt and I, though we have known each other for years, have never worked together before. Though he set up SFX, by the time I began on the mag he had moved on to his next launch project. Buy it, it's great.

Aside from the odd review, I have never, ever worked on a video games magazine.

Point two â€“ Why I left
I did not get pushed. GW were very keen for me to stay, but the Death Ray job came about at a very serendipitous juncture for me, and the experience it offered was too much to turn down. I enjoyed my time at GW. It was tumultuous, but I learned a lot, and I will always love the games. Why, only last week I was playing with my goblins. So to speak.

Point three â€“ WD
WD was once pretty much one magazine â€“ made in the UK, translated and added to abroad. Over time it became seven very different editions in different GW sales territiories. I was recruited at a time when this process of fragmentation had become complete. I started out as the UK "managing editor" which at GW meant that I worked under Paul Sawyer, but I was responsible for editing the UK magazine pretty much from the word go, supervised by Paul, (From the one after the Gimili issue â€“*the number escapes me â€“*in 2004) and not just from when the title "editor" was added to my name in UKWD310.

At that time the local editors had a lot of power, myself included, over their magazine. GW then decided to make a more unified global WD again so I was made International editor. Starting from THE GIANTS ROXXOR issue (yeah, I read the posts FPRIVATE "TYPE=PICT;ALT=" ) â€“ WDUK 316 â€“ we produced an increasing amount of centralised content. 50 pages at first, rapidly rising to pretty much the whole magazine when I left in March 2007 â€“ 98 pages in all. Owen and the other local editors actually have no influence over what the central content was, and instead produced the sales information and some of the hobby content (notably articles about hobbyists stuff). So, if you want to blame someone, blame me. I was the editor.

Point four â€“ Why the changes?
I am a magazine editor. The first that WD had had that had worked outside of GW (I think). My job is to get a brief from whoever is in charge, and make a magazine to that brief. Sometimes, like in my new job, I help define that brief, sometimes I don't. At GW I didn't. WD is the way it is because, in my opinion at least, it is the most successful way of promoting its hobby to the widest range of people possible using the new releases (which is why the content for each system moves in strict rotation to be the majority of the mag in different months) which is roughly what my brief was. Yes, it is not the magazine it used to be, but it is doing a slightly different job for different people. Most of the reasons for the changes cited on this forum are baloney, and it certainly was not some crusade of mine to "destroy" "your" magazine.

So, that's that. I will not be posting again. I just ask you, for the sake of the people that work on WD, to understand the multifarious pressures the team are under, how much work goes on to make the magazine. The team are not "lazy" they do not hate you, nor are they stupid or malevolent. WD has to appeal to people from the ages of 11 to 60. The team do not have a personal mission to spoil your fun. They are just people that love the GW hobby trying to make something cool within a set of pre-defined parameters, and I think they do a damn fine job.

Oh, one last thing. We never fixed the battle reports. We sometimes replayed them to get a better story. That story did not involve the new army crushing an old one, more for reasons of "Crumbs, the game finished on turn two and the super-nice Steam Tank blew up the first time it fired its gun". Consider this â€“ the guy playing with the new army will have been writing about it for six months. He knows all its tricks, the opponent does not. That is why the new force usually wins, it really is that simple.

Over and out,

Guy

**Emperors Faithful**

I wanna see the responses.

**filbert**

Reds8n - that must mark one of the few times a GW employee (either ex or current) has ever really posted on a fan site - I'm struggling to think of any other examples, aside from Gav Thorpe's responses to the Chaos Codex criticism on his blog.

**reds8n**

Adam Troke used to post, very occasionally, on Warseer. Inquisitor Rex was his handle IIRC. That was around the time of the High Elf armybook release.

I believe Mr. Sawyer ventured onto here once..but I gather it didn't end that well.

Mr. Hoare had a , short lived, Warseer account too AFAIK.

I'm 99% certain Jes Goodwin has posted, even if only once or twice on 'seer. Gary Morley had a little used account too

Quite a few of the BL authors get about the web and some of the forums too, Mr. Thorpe on 'seer is the standout example but Messrs. Kyme, Zou, Parker, Saville, DEmbski-bowden and a few others pop up from time to time.

Given some of the.... less than helpful or constructive criticism I can't say I blame them really.

**filbert**

reds8n wrote:Adam Troke used to post, very occasionally, on Warseer. Inquisitor Rex was his handle IIRC. That was around the time of the High Elf armybook release.

I believe Mr. Sawyer ventured onto here once..but I gather it didn't end that well.

Mr. Hoare had a , short lived, Warseer account too AFAIK.

I'm 99% certain Jes Goodwin has posted, even if only once or twice on 'seer. Gary Morley had a little used account too

Quite a few of the BL authors get about the web and some of the forums too, Mr. Thorpe on 'seer is the standout example but Messrs. Kyme, Zou, Parker, Saville, DEmbski-bowden and a few others pop up from time to time.

Given some of the.... less than helpful or constructive criticism I can't say I blame them really.

Any linkys? Would be interested to read what they have to say for themselves.

**Chibi Bodge-Battle**

Skarboy wrote:
Howard A Treesong wrote:What was the WD issue where a battle report opened saying that the first game was a bit boring and the new releases lost, so they played it again and guess what? They won. So they published that.

All of them are like that, I'm sure. Limey bastards.

Naughty Skarboy!

we're not all that bad.
or was it a typo?

You meant to say, "Slimey B's"

Can't remember where I read it, but it was words to the effect of "If the new armies shiny new toy dies to a freak shot on the first turn, we might re-roll the dice. After all, readers want to hear about the best new stuff available, not see it die on the first turn."

Sounds like a story about W.G. Grace
Bowled out first ball by a village cricketer, the umpire called no ball and told the bowler that people came to watch Grace bat not him bowl

**TBD**

I am calling Guy Haley a liar on his last comment about not fixing the battle reports. His argument that the guy playing the new army wins because he knows all the tricks is bullcrap because most of the time the opponent plays an army he has played for years as well, often the opponent's own army.

Maybe they don't fix them in the sense that they change outcomes of battles, dice rolling, intentional bad moves to set up the opponent in a favorable position, etc, but what they do, and this I have been told by someone who was actually present as some sort of trainee during the process of one of the issues of WD a few years ago, is that they play like about 10 battles and pick the one that suits them best to report in the magazine. So his claim that they only replay the battles for reasons of "crumbs" is a distortion of the truth. What they are doing is intentional manipulation and a form of "fixing".

**reds8n**

Dead. Blue.Clown is our new favourite author http://www.warseer.com/forums/showthread.php?t=247845&highlight=soul+hunter

Also see this thread on his blog

err... Nick Kyme's blog

Gav Thorpe

and and again

Mr. Zou .

That's all I can dig up for now. Many of them have blogs and the like as well of course.

**Howard A Treesong**

Guy Haley did a good job on Deathray, it's a shame it was short lived when there's such other trash on the market like 'Sci Fi Now'.

But look what he's saying. They brought him in a professional magazine editor and gave him a brief, he wasn't a gamer/studio person from within. I'm sure he plays but it clearly demonstrates the shift GW were making away from a gaming supplement to a advertising magazine. It's about "promoting the hobby "to the widest range of people possible using the new releases". That's a dressed up way of saying they wanted solely push the latest releases each month. That was his brief as the hired editor and it's what he did.

He speaks of the "the multifarious pressures" the WD team were under and that they are "trying to make something cool within a set of pre-defined parameters". I bet they are. The parameters are probably fairly narrow to what GW bosses want, there's probably very little creative freedom. So little in fact that even the two pages spreads of staff members amries and the like, that take up a miniscule amount of space in the magazine have been binned over the years. As I've long suspected, the editor's hands were bound to producing what GW bosses want. and that's what we get. Those in charge of GW are to blame and always have been not the editors. I don't think any of it reflects badly on Guy haley, he's doing the job he was employed to do, the GW senior staff wrote the job description.

Basically it sums up everything that there is to dilike about the way GW have changed from the wargaming company it once was. No one expects it to remain the "by gamers for gamers" approach being run out of someone's bedroom, but it's a long way past that now. As for White Dwarf, that's hopeless. It stopped beign readable under Paul Sawyer, compare his earlier issues to later ones, the shift in priorities is apparent, though the writing was on the wall earlier than that the rot really set in after issue #250. By #300 it was a rag. It's not even written for gamers is it? Anyone playing more than 3 months has no real reason to buy it, it's practically being written for non-gamers. Gamers had stuff squarely aimed at them like Fanatic but that's long dead. I guess we don't matter once we're hooked.

What really grinds me about the latest White Dwarfs is that they've stopped putting the prices next to the new releases. There's great big pictures, their names and product codes but no prices. What the feth?! Where are they? Are they in a key in the corner of the page, or at the front of the new release section? Damned if I can find them. Why not have them alongside the new releases as they have done for decade? It's supposed to be an advertising piece and they can't even do that right. Are they are now so ashamed of their prices they feel they have to hide them from me so I have to be lured onto their website or into a shop before I can witness the horror? What the hell?!?!

**Chibi Bodge-Battle**

Oh, one last thing. We never fixed the battle reports. We sometimes replayed them to get a better story

England 0 v USA 0

okay boys that was a dull as dishwater game.
Not good viewing and makes for poor copy

Let's do it again!
Ok once more. From the top...

and action!