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I agree that it is a vast improvement from the previous iteration. But it is one data point on the chart...
It can get better or it can get worse... I will wait and see what happens...

Well I dont know how good was the September one, but I have mixed feelings about the November one.



Since I am not a fan of AoS, I wouldnt buy, because I guess their is going to some pretty big *ss propaganda bull droppings in it. On the otherhand its Grombindal.... but since this



pefetic attempt of advertising I dont really know that he is WHFB or AoS character....

herjan1987 wrote:

Agreed on the sentiment regarding the recycled Slayer model as The White Dwarf. Really GW, to celebrate the rebirth of WD you're proffering a repaint of an existing model as your iconic Grombrindal? Weak sauce.

Back OT, I did enjoy the new magazine. The Slaughter Priest was an absurd perk and I didn't have the model, so, BONUS! I enjoyed the content and presentation.
I'm also just very happy they got rid of the two magazine offering. Cumbersome, disjointed, not missed.

Err, the free Grombrindal on the cover is for the Total War: Warhammer PC game, it's a DLC code, so it will be proper old-fashioned Warhammer Fantasy Grombrindal not the cacky AoS one.

I've no doubt there will be AoS content in the mag, but I doubt SEGA/Creative Assembly are going to let GW shoehorn AoS pish into TW:W.

Right so finally had a look through Septembers NuWD and am quite hopeful for this new iteration. There was enough that I am content to have taken out a 12 month sub. Definite things that can be improved upon (ed needs to take a breath and calm down, a bit more crunch in the writing, work on the basis the reader is a bit up to speed/not just write every thing as an intro).

What intrigued me the most was the Letters Section. It actually seemed that they had correspondence from real people that addressed actual issues/problems from people. Don't get me wrong it wasn't the "You've fethed RPGs/miniatures/Wargames GW" type letters from oldWD in the 80's (some rants then would put some contemporary forumites to shame) but but on letter raised GWs lack of customer interaction in the past and welcomes the more recent turnaround. Hopefully they continue in this vein but we'll see, Letters page are always the first thing to go it seems

I hope the freebies continue for some time too, most welcome.

Overall a 7 from me.

 Yodhrin wrote:
Err, the free Grombrindal on the cover is for the Total War: Warhammer PC game, it's a DLC code, so it will be proper old-fashioned Warhammer Fantasy Grombrindal not the cacky AoS one.

I've no doubt there will be AoS content in the mag, but I doubt SEGA/Creative Assembly are going to let GW shoehorn AoS pish into TW:W.

I think CA quoted on their forums at some point said they had no intent on adding in any AoS content. I got the impression that from the way they put it that they weren't too impressed by what GW had done with WFB.

What I'm wondering is whether the code is for the 20% off TW:W or whether you can only get the White Dwarf from the mag? I've no real desire to pick up any more WDs and £5 for one character DLC is a bit rich. I also think there might be some negative feedback from non-wargamers who play TW games if this happened. (You could also argue you are screwing over those that pre-ordered and paid up front vs those that waited).

As for WD well I'm sort of mixed on it overall. It's obviously an improvement on the weekly format but I'm not likely to buy it again unless there is another free thing that's worthwhile. I found myself skipping a lot of the content after a while because I found it rather a tedious read and wasn't finding it that enjoyable.

The good points I think were:-

More content overall
More content for the boxed games (I have none of them but I see the benefit)
The magazine is substantial (in that the paper is thick and likely hence to survive multiple read through's)
There's a bit of interesting background but I couldn't help shake the feeling I'd read it all before.
The Golden Demon stuff was good (but would have liked more information on how some of the effects were created like gold filigree, the marble effect etc)
Blanchitsu (but I wouldn't want to see this over and over).

The bad points:-

The layout was chaotic. Fonts, formats, text size and page layouts were all over the place; trying to work out which order to read things in was a bit of guesswork.
The battle report was poor and amounted to run at gaps, roll dice, remove models and repeat (note this isn't a swipe at AoS, the same applies to 40k battlereports). It's more that they failed to explain why they did certain things, what the strategy was etc
The paint splatter stuff is still rubbish. The videos are much better.
There's wan't any really interesting background, or short stories etc. Something that might have been more engaging
The terrain feature wasn't great. For most people a creation something like that is outside abilities/time/resources etc. A more down to earth article would have been appreciated.
The writing style seemed tedious and repetitive.
It was either 40/30k or AoS, it would have been nice if there had been something else on the Hobbit or Specialist games (Blood Bowl). Even a section on games gone by would have been nice to break things up a bit.

Another plus point, WD doesn't lose 5-10 pages on listing GW stores and Specialist Stockest across the world!

I'm disappointed by the lack of art on the cover of the November issue, but then again - Custodes! So, you know. Looking forwards to the October issue.

Just finished writing down some more thorough notes on it. The short version: I was fairly unimpressed.

 Gen.Steiner wrote:
I'm disappointed by the lack of art on the cover of the November issue, but then again - Custodes! So, you know. Looking forwards to the October issue.

Agreed. On the one hand, I enjoy sweet, sweet artwork.

On the other hand, fething Custodes!!!

October's ish is out next week. I've already asked my local Blackshirt to stick one under the counter for me, and I'll be picking it up basically when the doors open at GW.

I might even get a subscription if the October one is as good as the September one.

Although I’m rather late to the party now, I used to do reviews of White Dwarf over on Warseer in ye olden days, and since I’ve finally managed to find somewhere which hasn’t sold out of this month’s, I might as well see what the latest format back-peddle re-launch is all about.


White Dwarf (Editorial) – ‘Fact: White Dwarf magazine launched in 1977, and its name was chosen as it carried both science fiction and fantasy overtones, representing both a small star and a fantasy character – Grombrindal himself, naturally!’ Is that true? I don’t feel like that’s true. Warhammer Fantasy wasn’t a thing when White Dwarf initially launched, so I suspect Grombindal wasn’t a thing either. It’s not a fact if it isn’t true, Bickham.

Editorials have traditionally been rather a waste of space, and the brief list of what’s in this issue and pictures of the White Dwarf team don’t greatly alter that.


Contents – When more page space is taken up by pictures than words in the list of contents, you’ve done it wrong. This really needn’t have taken up more than one page.


Planet Warhammer (News & New Releases) – Compared to the 50 page abominations of the death throes of old Dwarf, a mere 18 pages seems really rather restrained.
Honestly, it isn’t too bad. It could still easily lose a few pages, and be better formatted (less repetition, group like products together (Kharn with Traitor’s Hate, all the Deathwatch together after Death Masque, for example), etc.).
The information on all of the licensed computer games which are being churned out lately is a relatively useful update on what’s going on, and could probably have used some more page space – maybe focussing on a single game rather than having only a [short] paragraph on each.


Contact (Mailbag) – Letters pages always look great in that they show that a company is in direct correspondence with their fans/customers, but I can’t help but think that there’s almost always an undercurrent of manipulation going on. It sure is convenient that one letter says that they like Age of Sigmar not having points and bemoans their (re-)introduction, whilst another implies that they’d favour an Age-of-Sigmar-ification of 40K. Hmm...
Also, two of the four main blocks of text are from a former editor, and some dudes who helped work on the General’s Handbook respectively, which hardly makes it look like the net was cast very wide for gathering feedback/input.
The major problem of readers’ letters sections previously was that they devolved into little more than ‘Show my models GDubz? k thnx bye’; with the encouragement to ‘send us your letters and pictures...’ we’ll have to wait and see how this turns out.

Also: Issue #81 (back when they had numbers *glares at spine of current issue*) was only 95p and had an awesome Amazon lady who looks like she’s lost the rest of her hair metal band and had to enlist the help of a giant eagle with a pom-pom on its head to find them again on the cover. The 80s were incredible.


‘Eavy Metal – A sort of weird not really a painting guide look at painting the White Dwarf and Kurnoth Hunters. I’m not really sure why this is here.

A Tale of Four warlords (A Tale of Four Gamers) – Previous attempts to revitalise this series failed due to the removal of the monthly budget (and to a lesser extent the lack of a bitz service to make unique conversions). That’s not been rectified here.
Since everyone starts with a Start Collecting! box, they have technically spent the same amount so far, but going by the rules laid out here, that’s as close to parity as they’re going to get.
Of the six pages which make up this article, half a page is a big advert for the Start Collecting! Boxes, half a page is a picture of models which are about to be repeated on the next four pages, and half a page is about the previous iterations of the series.
Sadly – particularly given the tiny picture of Richard Gunson’s Bretonnians – all of the models on display here are as they come straight from the box(es) with no conversions.


Hall of Fame (Nagash) (the new one, not the clown one) – ‘Seb drew the original concept artwork for Nagash’ – the implication is that the artwork shown is the original concept work, but we’re also told that, ‘Myself and Seb Perbet sat down and came up with a load of different ideas, trying to figure out what he’d look like'. I hardly think that the nice clean sketch which is almost exactly as the model turned out was even close to the original design. Why can’t we see the earlier work? That should be the bread and butter of this series – how the models ended up as they are. Compare and contrast this with the concept art of Chaplain Cassius shown when the 4th edition Codex: Space Marines was released showing how he evolved through several stages of looking more feral and having a more obvious Tyranid influence, before ending up looking like pretty much every other Chaplain.


Army of the Month (Biel Tan Eldar) – Good. Big pictures of pretty models.
It could almost have done with a bit less text and more pictures, a mini- painting guide or something.
If I’ve got any complaints, the pull out page is annoying, and the army itself, while very nice, isn’t all that exciting – the models are in great part the standard models in a fairly standard colour scheme.


Cover Feature: Boxed Games Bonanza – ‘Games Workshop makes a huge range of self-contained boxed games...’ well, you don’t actually make Space Hulk any more do you; but go on...

New rules for Deathwatch: Overkill, Space Hulk, Betrayal at Calth, Lost Patrol, Assassinorum: Execution Force, Gorechosen, Warhammer Quest: Silver Tower, Age of Sigmar, and Stormcloud Attack (followed by a double page ad for some of them).

New rules are good, and welcome, but I wonder if it might not have been better to focus on one or two games and give them more in-depth content this month, and then do another couple next month, and so on.
New missions rather than variant rules for existing missions might make more narrative sense.
Also you can’t cut the rules out of the issue directly without chopping up other rules, which seems a pity (even more of a pity that they’re not on card pop-outs like in the good old days).


Golden Demon (The Horus Heresy) – More pretty pictures of models are good.
Again though, it seems a missed opportunity that only five entries from a single category are shown. If more space was dedicated to this, then all prize winning entries from all categories could be shown.


Illuminations (Deathwatch) – Literally just pictures taken from Codex: Deathwatch. Several of them aren’t even that great: The Deathwatch: Overkill box art has all sorts of derpy posing going on, and the Deathwatch vs Necrons picture really gives the finger to perspective. They also all suffer from being pictures of the studio models, rather than pictures of the background.


Battle Report: The Brimfire Ritual (Stormcast vs Bloodbound) – ‘No Khorne army is complete without a Bloodthirster, so I took three!’ No comment. Nuh uh.

Are the armies equal? I have no idea.
The pictures of the board aren’t as readable as actual maps would be.
The text (what little of it there actually is) reads like a shopping list of things which happened, rather than either being a narrative, or offering an explanation of why the players took the actions they did.
The battle itself isn’t greatly inspiring – the Khorne abandoned their defensive positions, the Stormcast ploughed straight through them, but Dan won anyway because he rolled well.

- Double page spread of Age of Sigmar books –

The Ultimate Guide to... Imperial Knights – ‘Ultimate’ is a strong word...
As a relatively brief overview which is mostly cut and pasted from Codex: Imperial Knights, it’s not too bad.
The double page of the Knight Warden seems like a missed opportunity to have a cutaway diagram, or Imperial Armour style technical specifications or something.


Temporal Distort (looking at an old issue of White Dwarf (?!)) – ‘...everything is relative, and Fat Dwarf’s 112 pages are in fact 36 fewer than those of the issue in your hands.' Y’know Bickham, it’s not the size which matters, it’s what you do with it that counts.

Issue202 (back when they had numbers *glares at spine of current issue*) had new rules, background, concept art, card pullouts, a battle report with proper maps. Looks pretty sweet.
Can I read that instead..?
I’ve long suggested that White Dwarf should re-publish some of the ‘classic’ background articles of yesteryear (Dawn of the C’tan, Tyranid invasions, Space Wolf Lost Companies, the Battle of Macragge, etc. etc.). This would make a good place for that kind of material – rather than showing us nice things which we can’t have.


Battleground: Ruins of Dras’shiel (Terrain Workshop) – Somewhat better than previous terrain workshops in that there is (an admittedly small) work in progress picture of the board, and a bunch of detail shots. However; the majority of the board is [still] hundreds and hundreds of pounds worth of GW plastic terrain (and resin rocks!) and there is still very little in-progress detail.
A more detailed article on how the big tower was built, or even how the big tree with a derpy face was made would have been of more practical use (but at least now I know that I can pick up rocks! Although that would entail going outdoors...)


Blanchitsu – Oh, Blanche, I feel bad for you. I really do.
The lighting of the models is much improved from the last time they rebooted the series, but the page count is too small, and duplicate pictures of all of the models take up too much of what space there is.
More from Blanche – concepts, in-progress pictures, painting guides, background on Cephiivytra or the characters. Content. That good stuff. That’s what’s needed here.


Parade Ground: Warhammer 40,000 Kill Teams – Once again, pictures of models are good, but this could really have done with some more space – either show more Kill Teams, or go into more detail on each of those which are shown – more focus on the conversions and background, fewer duplicate pictures, for example.


Modelling and Painting: Sprues and Glue (Tau Kill Team and Kit-bashing Deathwatch) – ‘This month we get the clippers and glue out to convert a Tau Kill Team from the contents of the Kill Team Boxed game’ ...and parts from half a dozen other kits. Don’t forget to mention those, nice GW person. There’s a Ghostkeel, Stormsurge, and Pathfinders all donating parts.
There’s nothing greatly insightful going on here.


Paint Splatter – A very basic introduction to painting, and a simple guide to painting the Slaughterpriest and White Dwarf.
The brief ‘what colours we used’ style painting guides are ok; but they’re no ‘Eavy Metal.


Designers’ Notes: Slayers of the Alien Hoard (Deathwatch) – ‘The models in Overkill are the epitomes of their Chapters – the young and reckless Space Wolf, the sullen Dark Angel, the stealthy Raven Guard...’ the whowhat? How does the Dark Angel look sullen? Because he’s wearing a cowl? And how is Mr Look at my noisy jump pack and giant claw hands ‘stealthy’?
‘...so I came up with some more weapon types / there’s the sniper...’; The Stalker isn’t a new weapon. Don’t think I wouldn’t catch that.
‘You’ll notice there are no ammo feeds or bulky backpacks for the heavy weapons...’; So we’re ignoring Rodricus Grytt then, are we? Righto!
‘I wanted all the Deathwatch to be up on their toes running into action...’; yet only one of the five sets of Mk VIII legs appears to be moving at more than the pace of a casual stroll...
‘I like how you sculpted the pouches onto the torso piece so people don’t have to glue them on...’; Erm, whut? The pouches are separate to the torso.
‘I thought it would be interesting to give the sergeant the option for an alien blade / when it comes down to it, a blade’s a blade!’; Heresy detected.
‘The [Corvus] doors are the same size as Rhino doors to keep a coherent feel across he range’; but not to allow cross-compatibility of parts. Thanks for that.
‘What we quickly realised was that a Kill Team wouldn’t specialise against Orks per se, but against hordes of infantry / There are Deathwatch Kill Teams to deal with every different unit type – heavy support, fast attack, HQs, and so on...’; So being pseudo-specialised against hordey Ork Boyz translates into being specialised against Tactical Marines? Or if the Orks aren’t Troops, not being specialised against them at all. Okay...
‘So while it may seem you’re not getting the most out of, say, the Vanguard’s jump pack, you’ll get other bonuses to the Kill Team instead...’; But Vanguard Guy totally screws the rest of the team if they want to embark in a transport. How would allowing him to remove his jump pack (like other colours of Vanguard) detract from your aim of showing that, ‘...Kill Teams really do include a diverse range of Space Marines and that they all bring something to the table’?

If the gladius swords were a sufficiently important design choice to warrant specifically mentioning, how come they’re costed in such a way that they’re basically never worth taking on Veterans?
Why don’t the Deathwatch have access to most of the heavy weapons other Marines do?
Why can they take Grav Guns but not Combi-Gravs? They get all the other combi-weapons.
Why have Heavy Bolters been downplayed so much compared to previous Deathwatch rulesets?
How come Scouts still get Hellfire shells as base, but the specialist Deathwatch don’t?
What happened to Metal Storm ammunition?
Why no Techmarines, Apothecaries, Land Speeders, Storm Ravens etc.? We know the Deathwatch have access to them.
Why don’t Watch Masters have guns?
Wouldn’t Preferred Enemy: Xenos have made sense?

Why? Why? WHY? As usual, these designers’ notes say what but not why. Why?!


Readers’ Models – They’re pretty enough. Bit random that they’re just here at the back, devoid of any context, but whatever.


In The Bunker – One page of some stuff which fills one page, I guess. The ‘what we’ve all been doing’ bits of White Dwarf have never contained enough information to be of any real use or interest.


Next Month – Could’ve previewed some Genestealer Cultists here, but nah.

---

I’d been hearing good things about this issue – and to be fair there is some content here; mostly the rules for the various boxed games – but the scattergun approach to articles; a little splash of this, a dab of that, a quick page or two here, a couple of pages there; hasn’t done it any favours.

Almost all of the articles really could have done with greater page counts and greater detail.

The battle report wasn’t a patch on the golden years. There was little background – and what there was wasn’t new. The painting guide was pretty weak. Designers’ notes were a disaster area. And there was no Lord of the Rings/Hobbit content AT ALL (other than in the copyright notice).

It’s not as bad as the really bad old days before monthly White Dwarf committed seppuku, but without the rules – which presumably were a one-time dealio – it wouldn’t be all that much better.
It’s possible that it will improve, with longer, more focussed articles, but given that this issue was written in May, it will be at least four months before any improvement based on reader-submitted input is visible – and previous promises of improvement haven’t borne fruit.

I almost wonder if it wouldn’t have been better to decrease the page count (and cover price!) and do less in terms of content, but do it better.

I’d probably rate this issue a 4.

---

Oh, and there was a free model, which is pretty alright, I suppose. If I’d wanted a Slaughterpriest. Which I don’t particularly. But I might find a use for him in my Diggamob army.

---

I’m gonna go read White Dwarf 202.

A little list-y, but some very solid points on the deathwatch release in particular. There were a lot of weird decisions there, and I'm particularly confused by why they didn't bother to include more marines' common rapid units- I think land speeders and apothecaries both certainly have places in the list (speeders as another lightning raid approach; apothecaries 'cause what marine force doesn't thematically have them?

Then again, there are always some weird things, regarding why specialist marine forces don't have the vanilla options, which has always felt scattershot for sometimes making them more distinct and sometimes letting all have access to the same toys.

Well, Bickham's gone, to be replaced by Keefe:
https://www.games-workshop.com/en-GB/blog/blog.jsp


'Jes’s reign was rather remarkable: a 2012 relaunch leading to what’s widely regarded as the finest run in White Dwarf’s history, then the colossal achievement of producing a new White Dwarf every single week for two and a half years from early 2014 until the middle of this year, and, finally, his undoubted crowning achievement, the new monthly White Dwarf, the ultimate Warhammer magazine.'
I'm not sure I trust somebody who can describe the worst period of quality/content in White Dwarf's 40 year history as 'the finest run'.

We'll see, I suppose...

Hm. Yes. Well, it rather smacks of loyalty to the party, I suppose. We shall see how it progresses - upwards, hopefully!

 Lord Damocles wrote:
...a 2012 relaunch leading to what’s widely regarded as the finest run in White Dwarf’s history...

PffffffhahahahHAHAHAHA, oh wow, yeah, good one guys

I must believe that whoever wrote that blurb had a huge knowing grin on their face as they wrote that, because if there exist even at GW people so detached from reality they could state the above in all seriousness, we might as well crown Emperor Trump right now because humanity is doomed.

This sort of hyperbole needs to go.

They need to accept that many of its consumers are capable of smelling bs when they happen across it, and that it damages their image when they do this (not just in this instance, everything is the "best there's ever been" or some such.)

It is quite possible to be positive and upbeat without being over the top and stretching people's credulity.

Let's be fair. They might actually think that.

Who knows what sort of brainwashing drugs GWHQ has access to?

While I've been on vacation I read the entire magazine, and I'd rate it 8/10. I thoroughly enjoyed it, but I do recognize that it could have been even better. Including a $30 model definitely helped (and such a cool model!), but the magazine itself is one I will consider subscribing to, unlike the not-so-good weekly version of the magazine.

Chris W., WD photographer, at Oldhammer Weekend. With Andy H. and Tears of Anvil amongst others, there are currently quite some RT/2nd Ed aficionados at GW which shows in the products of late imo.


[NSFW] http://realmofchaos80s.blogspot.de/2016/08/oldhammer-weekend-2016-overview.html

The October issue though came with much less new rules and hopefully the September issue's boardgame content wasn't the exception but will return in future issues.