‘A tale of Four Warlords
Our latest Warhammer 40,000 challenge begins’
proclaims the cover. So we’re really not considering last month’s ‘Tale of Four Gamers’ as an actual instalment in the series despite them getting their Start Collecting! Boxes (buy them now, dammit! What are you waiting for!?) and painting some of their models? Well, okay... whatever.
Editorial –
’[we] are often lucky enough to get our hands on a few of them [new models] before anyone else.’ Often, like, consistently every month..?
There are contents pages.
Planet Warhammer – I like that the urge to fill page after page with flying dwarves was apparently resisted. On the flip side, there is apparently no information at all as to the contents or costs of any of the sky-dwarf kits in the issue
at all.
By contrast the Sector Mechanicus releases take more space than is really warranted at a whole page for each of the three kits (plus the double page for Shadow War, and the article on them later in the issue).
Hahaha! £18 for a knife. Hahaha! £8 for TWEEZERS!
’This 24-page book describes their [Sisters of Silence] background in detail...’. Lie.
Last month:
We wanted to make sure even the tiniest details of the maps and animations felt like they’d be at home in the Warhammer 40,000 universe’
This month:
Look, there’s Angelos in Cataphractii armour jumping into the air twice as high as an Eldar Banshee is tall.
Pull the other one. It has bells on :eyebrows:
- Included in the above was a full page ad for ‘Global Opportunities’ -
Contact –
White Dwarf is great;
White Dwarf is great; ‘Blanchitsu’ is great;
White Dwarf is great;
White Dwarf in Kabul;
White Dwarf is great; couldn’t Google Terminator armour.
I must take issue with some of the comments here:
Mr Silvanto on ‘Blanchitsu/Pilgrym –
’...incredibly thorough, beautiful coverage...’. I’m sorry, but it’s been anything but thorough – we’re what, six months in (?) and only in this issue do we even find out who/what the Pilgrym even is! We haven’t seem most of the models, haven’t seen most of the board in detail, and haven’t had an overview of the game.
Livabeth on
White Dwarf content –
’...serious strategy of the Battle Report...’. I don’t know exactly which issue this is in reference to, but I defy anyone to find ‘serious strategy’ in any of the battle reports from the current run of
White Dwarf.
- Double page spread of Shadow War Armageddon –
Temporal Distort (issue 196) – A battle report between tournament winners, an article on terrain building (which isn’t just ‘mash plastic kits together’), ‘The J Files’ (before Jervis was just rambling semi-incoherently and telling us we were all playing the game wrong), an expansion for Warhammer Quest, some sort of article about 2nd ed. Space Hulk, a
‘Tilean Invasion!’ (can... can you say that sort of thing these days..?)
Golden Demon: Enemies of the Imperium 2016 – Oh god, will it never end?! Yes, yes, pretty Farseer and all, but how have we not seen all the winners yet? Is the intent to spin out 2016’s winners until the 2017 competition and then just start the process over again? It’s easy content I guess.
Cover Feature: Kharadon Overlords – Cross between a brief introduction to balloon-dwarves, and look at the different kits (minus contents, part breakdowns, prices etc.). It’s okay, I guess. It might have been better either expanded, or rolled in with the next article.
Designers’ Notes: Prospectors & Privateers – There’s some talk of
what, but as usual almost nothing of
why. One of Blanche’s concept sketches is pictured, and another mentioned; why not show more? Why not show concepts of the ships?
It would have been more interesting to ditch the ‘designers listing things in the book’ portion, and split/expand the rest into concept art/notes and details of the models/kits alongside something which doesn’t follow the same old format and layout as literally every other article – why not an in-universe report either from the floating-stunties themselves or from some adviser in one of Sigmar’s cities discussing the coming of this strange new faction who look like they’ve watched
Up one too many times? That would be cool. What about some crazy technical document trying to explain the handwavian technology of a buoyancy endrin (along the lines of the article on Empire engineers’ creations back in 6th ed. (?) Fantasy).
- Double page spread of Age of Sigmar –
Minigame: Destined Duel –
’Ever wonder what it would be like to pit two mighty heroes against each other in a clash of martial skill and brutal cunning?’ Yeah, if only
GW had some system of statlines and rules for simulating that...
I mean, if you really want a rather rock-paper-scissors-y card game, great, but... meh? It’s not like the actual characters/models actually have any impact on the game at all. A Grot will punch out Magnus as regularly as an Archon will defeat a Guard Sergeant.
Illuminations: Enemies of the Imperium – Eight pages still feels awfully filler-y.
’We wanted to show off the Daemons of all the Chaos Gods in this piece’ – I see Bloodletters, Plaguebearers, Blight Drones, a Keeper of Secrets, and Daemonmettes, but no Tzeentch daemons...
- Double page spread of Black Library –
Battle Report: A Grudge to Settle (Sky-dwarves vs. Flesh-eater Courts) – This is a narrative report, so naturally, there are no maps. Because they wouldn’t suit it.
The text portion of the report covers approximately two pages, which is pitifully light on words. Fine, it’s a narrative rather than ‘Player 1 rolled X 6s and then Player 2 rolled Y saves’ etc., but it’s all but impossible to know where the units even actually are in relation to one another. The Frigate is killed on the 1st/2nd (?!) turn, but with no maps, no pictures of the board, no detailed description of unit placement or movement, I have no idea how/why it was even in a position to be charged.
The floaty-squats conclusion is little more than ‘everything was great!’ despite everything being dead.
- Full page ad for local stores –
Battle Report: The Escape From Ferro-giant Alphus (
Blood Angels Space Marines and Astra Militarum vs. Orks and Orks) –
I have some questions about the narrative being forged here:
- Why are the Guardsmen bothering to climb the rig? Why can’t the Valkyrie pick them up from the ground nearby?
- What are the Cadian 8th doing on Armageddon? Are we suggesting that Creed was there too? Small universe.
- Vardez recovered from having two broken legs?
The report is alright. Ish. Given the impracticality of mapping the board, the more narrative style works alright.
The attempt to explain the Shadow War rules while also detailing a four player battle strikes me as a poor choice though. There isn’t any introductory article/overview to Shadow War in the issue, and the picture annotations/boxouts in the report aren’t able to give a decent rundown of the game.
Also, if ever there was an opportunity to use some Steel Legion models this was it.
New Rules: Shadow War Armageddon (Skitarii and Genestealer Cults) – They copy-pasted from the free PDF on the website..? I’ve got that right, haven’t I?
The cost of the Neophyte Heavy is wrong.
New Rules: War on the Long Lake (actual Hobbit content. In my
White Dwarf? Surely not!) – Rules for fighting in Lake Town, setting Lake Town on fire, and a scenario for collecting treasure while Lake town burns down.
Finally getting some content for Lord of the Rings is good, but at only four pages, it’s painfully short (and there’s a full page-worth of pictures included in that). You’d have thought that a terrain building feature on houses/walkways/icebergs/fire would have been an obvious inclusion.
- Full page ad for Bloodbowl
ap –
Spike Magazine – One page on big stuff in Bloodbowl.
Collecting: A Tale of Four Warlords – Well they’ve finished painting the models they got last month (which totally wasn’t part of the series because reasons). Like with the last series though, I don’t really see the point? They’re going to add some more models (next month is an Elites choice and/or a Dedicated Transport), but if they can just add anything within the loose rules without having to worry about budgets, what’s the difference between this and just having four army showcases once the forces are finished?
Blanchitsu – Shouldn’t this really be titled ‘Pilgrym’s Progress’ or something? It’s only loosely connected to Blanche now.
It’s the fairly standard fare which we’ve come to expect from the new format. The models are nice and the text finally gives us a little more information on the Pilgrym storyline. It really shouldn’t have taken this long to get to this point though.
Army Showcase: The Sky Serpents (Dark Eldar) – The pictures are alright as usual, but the text isn’t really needed in such quantity.
Realms of Battle/Modelling and Painting: Sector Mechanicus – Basically an advert-article on how modular the Sector Mechanicus kits are. Most of the information could probably have been included on the previous pages on the new terrain earlier in the issue.
For the third (?) time we get painting guides for variations of industrial buildings/pipes/containers. They’re almost the same schemes as were detailed previously.
Painting and Modelling: Paint Splatter (Arkanaut Frigate and Arkanaut foot-dudes) – It’s alright.
Battletome: Kharadron Overlords ’features all three of these colour schemes’. Is that features as in ‘similar schemes’ or features as in ‘copy paste content’..?
Parade Ground: Monsters Menagerie – Some pictures of Age of Sigmar monsters. Not really sure what the point is.
- Double page spread of Warhammer World –
Readers’ Models – You could insert any of my previous comments on this feature here.
In The Bunker – Come on, protect the motherland. Come on and join your fellow man...
It’s a bit like ‘Oops we forgot to do anything about the new Blades of Khorne Battletome! Eh, put a paragraph in the back. Job done’.
As usual nothing of any real use or value.
On the back cover and in the Sector Mechanicus advert pictures, the Black Legion Chaos Marines have conspicuously broken transfers. That’s just downright shoddy quality control.
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More than anything, the new format of
White Dwarf is just kind of boring. You can be pretty certain what most of the articles are going to be and/or what format they’re going to take (see also: the
‘Next Month’ banner on the last page), and the layout/style/font etc. don’t vary between articles/issues so it all looks very homogenous.
It looks professional (except for the models with half their transfers missing...), but it lacks a soul, and is still light on actual worthwhile content.
