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So my subscription to WD ran out this month and I'm looking for a new magazine. Any suggestions are welcome.

What do you want in a magazine? there is warmachines \no quarter or wamp forums portal.

What games do you play? What are you looking for from a magazine?

The non-WD magazines easily available in the UK (from WH Smiths) are:

Wargames Illustrated - Almost exclusively Historical in focus and Flames of War heavy (as it's published by Battlefront). To be honest I'm now bored of it and get very little from most articles, but it's not a bad intriduction to non-GW gaming, even if just via the adverts and show reports.

Miniature Wargaming - A good mix of topics (Sci-fi, Fantasy, Historical), but has never appealed to me as they don't show a lot of lead porn and have a reputation for showing 'real gaming level' miniatures rather than inspirational display cabinet work.

Wargames Soldiers and Strategy - Mostly Historical, published about every 6 - 8 weeks, not monthly like the others. For my money it's the best of the magazine out there - articles always interesting, good wider industry/ modelling articles and decent reviews.

In digital format, I can think of a couple of top level painting publications, Portal published by WAMP can be good and has great photographs of less well known miniatures with jaw dropping paintjobs and it's a free download. Figure Painter magazine looks interesting, along similar lines to Portal in content, but I haven't bought any yet - it's only £1 an issue which can' be bad to check it out.

 Jehan-reznor wrote:
What do you want in a magazine? there is warmachines \no quarter or wamp forums portal.

Haven't gotten NQ for a good long while, so i can't speak to the current quality, but it's important to note that it's 100% devoted to Privateer Press' IP (which is not a bad thing, just worth noting). Last time i picked up an issue was a few years back, but i still keep the painting tutorials in a binder for reference, along with the terrain making stuff.


It's like what White Dwarf used to be for GW games, just for PP games.


If you're looking for something more general, though, this might not be your best avenue.

I read NQ and while it is 100% devoted to PP stuff, they still do some great painting tutorials, and terrain stuff as well.

Just read Dakka.

What do you expect to get out of a magazine? Cool pictures? Tactics articles? News? Hobby advice? Ongoing project update stories? We got that here. The only problem is that it's online, so you can't read it everywhere. Unless you have a tablet, then you can.

I'm more of a collector than a gamer, so I'd prefer a magazine which is more about tutorials, interviews with designers and shows off a wide range of companies minis.

What do you expect to get out of a magazine? Cool pictures? Tactics articles? News? Hobby advice? Ongoing project update stories? We got that here. The only problem is that it's online, so you can't read it everywhere. Unless you have a tablet, then you can.

I'm kind of old fashioned in that I quite like to have something in my hands. It was also nice having a magazine arriving in the post very month.

While I think that's right to an extent Nevelon, I still think there is a place for a magazine due to one important factor, and that's quality journalism.

There is something to be said for reading an article that has been written by someone who has been paid to write, can write well, and has taken time to comprise and plan something that has been well thought out. I'm not saying that all online material is 'brain fart' level, but the very nature/format between online and printed magazines means that there often a large difference in this regard.

gianlucafiorentini123 - Probably one of the best magazines on the market is Wargames Illustrated. Really well written, well presented, and I would say at least a couple of hours worth of reading material in each issue (so, probably 1 hour 50 minutes or so more than you will have been used to with WD). A common criticism is that as the mag is now owned by Battlefront it has a Flames of War bias, but generally there will only be an article or two per magazine, and the rest is a real mix of historical periods and game systems. Of course, the caveat here is that you are interested in historical wargaming! Although, if you are not, I would say you have a big gap in your wargaming life, and should buy it anyway!

Sci/fi fantasy wise you have 'Ravage' magazine http://www.valiantwargames.co.uk/index.php/magazines/ravage.html It's a French magazine, published in the US by CMoN, but you can buy it easily in the UK now. I will have to say that the first few editions were a bit shaky, but of late the translation is much better, and there is more content. It covers a great range of different gaming systems, with reviews which are pretty useful, features on expos as well, and of course there are still features on GWs games so you can keep up to date with those. In fact, it's even more useful than WD in that at least there is a critique of the new releases, rather than just "these Baneblades are just so amazing I had to buy 10 of them" comments. I would say definitely worth a fiver.

Richred_UK has already mentioned Miniature Wargaming magazine - I think it's OK, although I usually get Ravage and have found Wargames Illustrated is better for historicals and has more content.

 gianlucafiorentini123 wrote:
I'm more of a collector than a gamer, so I'd prefer a magazine which is more about tutorials, interviews with designers and shows off a wide range of companies minis.

From this, you'd probably enjoy Portal and Figure Painter

http://www.wampforum.com/VB4/downloads.php?do=cat&id=1

http://www.figurepaintermagazine.co.uk/

But you will lose the physical nature of the magazine. Get a cheap-ish tablet (Kindle Fire HD is £100 now) and 30+ issues of Portal available for free vs. 2 years WD subscription and it's a breakeven

From what Pacific said, Ravage looks interesting - I haven't seen it in any high street newsagents, but now I'm aware of it I'll keep an eye out at shows

If you have an ipad, you should look to portal, it's a free magazine mainly about painting.

Thanks for all the suggestions, unfortunately don't have an iPad or Kindle, I think I downloaded the first copy of figure painter a while ago, I'll have to have a look around on my hard drive later. I think I'll buy a couple of issues of some the suggestions to see which suits me best.