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Was lucky enough to get about 25 vintage White Dwarfs from Freecycle [the lady was just about to recycle them ] mostly from around the Paul Sawyer [AKA Fatbloke] era.

Absolutely blown away by what a good read these are. Just finished reading WD 289 and it took me about an hour to read through the battle report. The report was Iron Warriors vs. Space Wolves, being fought by two veteran tournament players [one the winner of the Warhammer Grand Tournament, and the other the winner of the Warhammer 40k Grand Tournament]. Background on why they each chose their armies, in depth analysis of unit choices, constant insightful commentary on why certain choices were made above others, gripping stuff. And this was just the batrep.

There was also an army showcase of a heavily converted Slaaneshy Chaos Space Marine army [that, shock horror, included boobs], as well as a whole new army list [White Wolf army list I think] and loads more.

Compare this to today's paltry offerings. The batrep in Visions was a complete joke [some people didn't even realise it was a batrep] and WD is just a glorified catalogue.

I realise that 'whatever happened to White Dwarf'?' posts aren't exactly rare, but I felt moved to post after reading such a high quality magazine. It can be done - just bring back Fat Bloke!

I first got into Warhammer when Fat Bloke was editor of WD, and I have to agree with you. I remember those magazines being amazingly good. Particularly the conversion articles you mentioned.

I've had a subscription to WD since I picked the hobby back up again about 3 years ago. The quality is nowhere near as good as it used to be. It really is just GW propaganda now.

I'm going to get one more edition of Warhammer Visions, to see if they make any changes at all. In all likliehood I'll be cancelling my subscription very soon.

I liked all the fun inline editor comments from him.

Quality was definitely better for White Dwarf back then. There was also more to cover, with all the specialist games. I think the 180ish to 260ish issue era was my favorite, especially 191 when they went to the "fatter" thicker issue format (and also had an awesome intro to Necromunda battle report).

Glad to see someone else misses the "Bloke"! One of my all time favorite issues of WD was one in which Fat Bloke played his White Scars army on the studio's "Brand new trench system table" against an army of Chaos marines (was it maybe Phil Kelly he was playing against - can't remember for sure). Like the OP said, the report was huge, and had a ton of background on the choices they had made and what their initial thoughts/strategies were going into the battle. I actually still have that issue and like to re-read it from time to time. I definitly remember the Fat Bloke era as being one of my favorite WD eras!

Tycho wrote:
Glad to see someone else misses the "Bloke"! One of my all time favorite issues of WD was one in which Fat Bloke played his White Scars army on the studio's "Brand new trench system table" against an army of Chaos marines (was it maybe Phil Kelly he was playing against - can't remember for sure). Like the OP said, the report was huge, and had a ton of background on the choices they had made and what their initial thoughts/strategies were going into the battle. I actually still have that issue and like to re-read it from time to time. I definitly remember the Fat Bloke era as being one of my favorite WD eras!

Nice I remember that battle report, his leader had a spear and kinda looked like Genghis Khan. That table ruled too. Definitely felt like an after action report you'd read on a forum (just with REALLY good photos) instead of the joke they call battle reports now days.

I also liked how much they joked about bribing him with food to do anything. Probably politically incorrect by todays standards, but it made the reader feel like they were laughing right along with all these friends and coworkers.

I would go back to the old style battle reports, these new ones are almost impossible for me to follow. The landscape battlefield with the different coloured and shaped units was brilliant.

The Tale of the Four Painters feature they ran for a few months was also brilliant and it gave people on a budget a real insight on how to collect a decent sized army efficiently (I know this bit was for warhammer not 40k)

Fat Bloke helped make all these things happen and would definitely be a step in the right direction to returning White Dwarf to its former glory.

I dont have a single white dwarf with this guy which is a shame but what i can say is, 3 of the oldest white dwarfs i have (372,373,384) and i compared them to the 4 new ones i have (all 2013) and although its 33 pages smaller, it packs in twice the information, and the battle reports and other things were all twice as in depth and interesting...

Bring back old white dwarf :(

What happened to that guy?

My understanding is he went to Warlord Games, specifically:

http://www.warlordgames.com/tag/paul-sawyer/

make it a single magazine again, bring back gamer showcase, bring back letters from gamers, bring back the early 90's WD concepts....

I hear a lot of "things were better in the 90's!" from folks of my generation and I generally don't agree with them, except in this case. Old WD issues are awesome, and I've been reading through a bunch of them as of late. I'd like to see another month or two of WD Weekly before damning the format wholly, but Visions sounds like a waste and Weekly sounds merely okay.

I've never read a white dwarf, and people keep saying how the new ones are worse, I was just wondering what exactly IS in the new ones?

I have been buying and reading Whitedwarf since they had advertisements for TSR, and adventures for warhammer RP, Thrud the barbarian, and ads for local game stores in the back, the oldest one I still have (that survived many military moves since) is #103, it had rules, and a orcs and goblin army list, a chaos weapon random properties chart..stats for the then brand new Rhino 3 to a box set.

and over the years as GW/citadel has grown and become more prosperous, whitedwarf has shifted its coverage to showcase more and tell less..now it is basically a very pretty, expensive, advertisement...it did have a good run under Fat Blokes tenure...but now, well it is what it is, and part of the reason..I no longer buy it, I can get my preview pics here or on the GW site..no reason to pay for it.

But I do miss the old spirit of the pale stuntie.

 thepowerfulwill wrote:
I've never read a white dwarf, and people keep saying how the new ones are worse, I was just wondering what exactly IS in the new ones?

Ones from about 2005 onward. Before that it was an excellent hobby magazine.

Both new magazines are not my taste. The weekly one is like a comic and the monthly one is like a picture book. Nothing really worth buying. Both magazines lack creativity. So bring back Fat Bloke.

Because of the competition by people on the internet making batreps and other content WD was required to make really good content to keep up. I guess that was too much work, so they gave up and made a picture book instead. We're gonna buy it to see the new models anyway, so why care about quality?

It's the GW version of a sensationalist magazine now. Zero work, all flair.

Buying and playing Warlord Games, I get plenty of Fat Bloke stuff!