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 SilverMK2 wrote:
I've not bought a WD for a loooooong time. One thing that might tempt me back is if they actually started supporting some of their "unsupported" games in it; you know, terrain guides for 'munda and Mord, making BB teams from WHFB kits, BFG battle board painting tips, etc.

 Fishboy wrote:
Use it as an opportunity to bring back the lesser played games like Blood Bowl or BFG. Someone said GW only has 3 game systems but they actually have Mordheim, BB, BFG,WH, 40K, dread fleet, epic, necromunda, and warmaster. Think of all they could do to grow their other systems!! If you want to increase market share and you are peaked with the other two systems this is the best and cheapest way to do it!!

Whilst the idea of them picking up those lines again literally makes me salivate at the potential prospects, the thought of what they would do with them under their current ideology scares me. Especially with the antics they pulled with the fanbases when they weren't even supporting them anymore. My only hope is that they have forgotten where they buried the bodies of their old games, lest they exhume them, shove a Citadel Finecast pole up their rectums, and start charging admission for the puppet show. GW can't hurt them now. They are in a better place. The hearts, minds and hands of the fanbases. And that is where they should stay until the end of time, or a company that deserves them comes along.

I had the same thought with covering RTT's and large events too. It would excite the player base but the events would not be theirs so I doubt you would ever see them cover them. aaa....the good old days hehe. I miss seeing my own stuff in White Dwarf and on the website.

 Fishboy wrote:
Use it as an opportunity to bring back the lesser played games like Blood Bowl or BFG. Someone said GW only has 3 game systems but they actually have Mordheim, BB, BFG,WH, 40K, dread fleet, epic, necromunda, and warmaster. Think of all they could do to grow their other systems!! If you want to increase market share and you are peaked with the other two systems this is the best and cheapest way to do it!!

Sadly, GW's logic (which may or may not be correct, but which has been repeated to me by a number of people fairly high up in the company) has been for the last decade or so that games like Blood Bowl and Necromunda, which require vastly fewer miniatures, simply don't generate their desired level of profitability. The there's the problem of the economics of scale; a "peripheral" game like Battlefleet Gothic might, say, contribute 5% to GW's gross profits, and still turn a profit itself, but would require more than 5% of their corporate expenditure to produce and support, hence again provide a lower rate of return. Moreover, GW persist in the belief that they operate in a vacuum, and their business decisions are made in the assumption that any money not spent on their peripheral games will instead be spent on one of their core products anyway.

The upside to this policy, of course, is that it has created market niches into which Infinity, Dark Age, Malifaux and various Mantic offerings (specifically Project Pandora and now DreadBall) have fitted well, and which have given us a whole raft of new games, most of them greatly more sophisticated and distinctive than their GW predecessors.

The thing that bugs me with the supposed "Upper Management very aware that WD has declined in quality," story is that, if you're well aware that something is rubbish, why let it continue to be rubbish. It costs nothing to rewind the clock to even 12 months ago when WD still contained the odd article of interest. By all means hire some new magazine guru to sort things out, but you would at least address some of the problems in the meantime.

Yet if anything they've accelerated the magazine's downward trajectory in quality over the last few months. I really do pity Andrew Kenrick (current editor). Nobody could be that rubbish at generating ideas for decent articles. It obvious his strings are well and truly being pulled. In particular, it must have been soul destroying to have to type the following sentence in his editorial this month...

"But that's not all, of course! This is a rather hobby packed issue too."

...knowing it was a downright lie.

And I'm not being facetious, there really are no hobby articles whatsoever, just pictures of GW staff armies and individual miniatures.

IMO, the recent Space Hulk boxed set was one of the best things GW have ever done...then it just vanished. I know people who were never into mini-wargaming, play that game, because they were impressed. Now, you would think that a wise person at GW would say - holy cow SH is selling well, let's do a expansion or publish a few extra brand new missions in WD. Not only will we keep SH momentum going, we can flog a few copies of WD. Now, like the earlier poster, I yearn for the days when GW used to do this, hell they more or less gave away a SH expansion back in the day through WD.

Ditto dreadfleet. They had the means to give a brand new plastic ship away through WD (maybe an Orc ship) and a few new missions. Instead, it died on its backside. What a waste of a game, and what a waste of a once fine magazine.

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:
IMO, the recent Space Hulk boxed set was one of the best things GW have ever done...then it just vanished. I know people who were never into mini-wargaming, play that game, because they were impressed. Now, you would think that a wise person at GW would say - holy cow SH is selling well, let's do a expansion or publish a few extra brand new missions in WD. Not only will we keep SH momentum going, we can flog a few copies of WD. Now, like the earlier poster, I yearn for the days when GW used to do this, hell they more or less gave away a SH expansion back in the day through WD.

Ditto dreadfleet. They had the means to give a brand new plastic ship away through WD (maybe an Orc ship) and a few new missions. Instead, it died on its backside. What a waste of a game, and what a waste of a once fine magazine.

I fairness, though I entirely agree that Space Hulk deserved better (i.e. any) support, Dread Fleet, despite having some snazzy components, was doomed to deserved obscurity, having all the tactical depth and room for meaningful decision-making of snakes and ladders, while costing £70 and taking three hours to play.

I was trying to figure out what White Dwarf could give me that Dakkadakka can't. Other than paper cuts.

I can't think of anything.

I'd like to see more detailed how-to-paint guys and more exclusive fluff. You can't get the latter online, unless it's copypasta'd from the WD issue itself.

We're already seeing it worth slightly more in any regard. Just about every month has exclusive rules in it for stuff not found in the codex. And according to rumors GW intends to keep this up monthly.

 Harriticus wrote:
We're already seeing it worth slightly more in any regard. Just about every month has exclusive rules in it for stuff not found in the codex. And according to rumors GW intends to keep this up monthly.

Just not this month

 Harriticus wrote:
I'd like to see more detailed how-to-paint guys and more exclusive fluff. You can't get the latter online, unless it's copypasta'd from the WD issue itself.

We're already seeing it worth slightly more in any regard. Just about every month has exclusive rules in it for stuff not found in the codex. And according to rumors GW intends to keep this up monthly.

There are several good hobby articles about, see winterdyne's fantastic pdf about applying decals. would never make it in a gw magazine because winter uses microsol and microset. gw offers no such analogue. and his/her writing is vastly better than the quality in white dwarf.

The last WD i bought was in 2007, at least they are going to revamp it. Miss the old WD's.

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:
IMO, the recent Space Hulk boxed set was one of the best things GW have ever done...then it just vanished. I know people who were never into mini-wargaming, play that game, because they were impressed. Now, you would think that a wise person at GW would say - holy cow SH is selling well, let's do a expansion or publish a few extra brand new missions in WD. Not only will we keep SH momentum going, we can flog a few copies of WD. Now, like the earlier poster, I yearn for the days when GW used to do this, hell they more or less gave away a SH expansion back in the day through WD.

Ditto dreadfleet. They had the means to give a brand new plastic ship away through WD (maybe an Orc ship) and a few new missions. Instead, it died on its backside. What a waste of a game, and what a waste of a once fine magazine.

I still wish they'd come out with a more stream lined rule set that could either tie into space hulk, or simply be a fairly well balanced small point game to better compete with things like warmahordes. If people could buy $100.00 worth of minis and play a truly balanced and tournament friendly game perhaps we'd see a higher influx of new customers.

[rant]
The most recent White Dwarf (WD392) is complete sadly pathetic, it's complete and utter gak. There is absolutely zero useful information, zero intriguing articles, zero engaging write ups... It is literally cover to cover ads and garbage. I know WD hasn't been the greatest, but this one is outright insulting.

Kroothawk wrote:A birdy told Darnok over at Warseer the following:

...an attempt to break with the concept amongst many readers that it is little more than a figures advert. ...

They need to announce that they canned the current editor and apologize for incompetent ass.
[/rant]

That's a little...strong.

Not having a discount for subscribers (like every other magazine, including Playboy) is just plain silly.

More 40k scenarios is always welcome, as would be special characters and the like.

However, the fact that they recently haven't made WD codex entries (DakkaJet, Chaos Daemons, Sisters of Battle) available elsewhere unless you own an iPad is even worse than silly, I'm afraid.

Since "discovering" Warhammer and WH40K a couple of years ago ( Actually I remember watching folks play this back in the late 80's/90's but was not interested at the time - too much into RPG's ! ) , I have gathered a complete WD collection back to the issues in the 70 range . Still working my way back slowly . Just picked copies of 101 and 110 . Now WD's of that era are truly a joy to read - chock full of details , weirdness and tidbits as well as good painting and hobby tips . Compare to anything above WD 350+ which really seems to be quite devoid of content except pictures of stuff I can buy if I feel inclined . Really nothing inspirational at all . If they were to drop the adds a notch or two and seriously up the fluff and hobby content I think it would be a great attempt at a return to form .

 Howard A Treesong wrote:
One problem that occurs to me is that they can't generate enough varied content having only three game systems. WD as its best was during a time when they had several games and were churning out content for all of them. Currently the whole magazine is dedicated to pushing the latest releases in only three games, if your remit is to do that, there not much room for creativity.

Back in like 2009-2010 I was at BrookHurst Hobbies in Garden Grove CA. Besides it being a very pimp hobby store with quite a few gaming lines (that we often talk about here on Dakka) it had a really great magazine section. One the modeling mags I flipped through had a scratchmade Farseer bust that was truly breathtaking. There was a step by step on how the creator started with green, added to it, painted it up, his inspirations, etc all and all it was like a 6-7 page full spread in a modelling magazine.

I have never seen that bust or its like in a WD and I really wish I would. WD is just a bloated catalog. There is plenty of fan inspired, non catalog, GW material to cover. And you're probably not going to have to look too hard to find it. Plenty of non GW minature sites post 40K and Warhammer Fantasy stuff that really eclipses "Eavy Metal talent. Why not look up those places and cover them, since they are painting up GW stuff. Sure it may cost a little more to take a trip to interview someone who's not on the corporate payroll, but in my opinion it'd be worth it.

The last WD I bought was WD311 (Gimaldus on cover) $6 US.

I'm not even sure which issue is out now.

Now, as a 40k player, I have no interest in Fantasy articles and I hate LotR (the game and last 2 movies, books are awesome).

So I'm gonna break down this issue and well place it's value (to me) by putting a "+" next to entries I found enjoyable/useful and a "-" next to entries I found to be wasting my time/money.

First off the magazine came wrapped in plastic so I wouldn't have been able to see its contents before purchase (unless someone else there bought it).

First page is "TURN 1" (saying that it is a "News & New Releases from the GW worldof hobby games). Complete BS. Its a page talking about Freud and Psycology. WTF? -

A word in your ear. Use to enjoy reading this. +

New models for the month: Plastic scouts, Sword Brethren, Termie Chaplain, Grimaldus + crew, Templar vehicle upgrade, Dwarf army box, Balrog, Isengard stuff, Rohirrim stuff. -

6 pages of dwarf stuff. -

6 pages on converting your own pikemen. -

10 pages of a cool Kislev army. +

18 page battle report between HE and DE. -

2 page article on creating models based on BL novels. +

6 pages on "Getting ready for Adepticon 2006". -

2 page suggested senario for WHFB (one page is just a picture of Skaven). -

2 page suggested senario for WH40k. -

A few adds and some fan-mail. -

15 pages of Black Templars (Basically the same models over and over again painted by different studio people and all in the same color sceme). -

4 pages of Armageddon History (more BT stuff). -

4 pages of Index Astartes Scouts. +

4 pages of Scout tactics. -

4 pages of... I guess it's supposed to be marine tactics? -

6 pages of Painting a Land Raider Crusader. -

12 page Deathwing showcase. +++

6 pages of FW models. -

22 pages of LotRs junk. - - -

4 pages of "Bitz and Pieces". +

In total 6 articles within the issue had anything of interest (to me (33 pages out of 144). So I roughly paid a dollar per article. This particular issue was basically a waste and spent way too many pages on

Black Templars, Elves and those FETHING LotRs articles!!! In truth the LotRs eatting up half the issues was the #1 reason I stopped buying WD in the first place.

Call me a cynic when it comed to GW but I'll take this rumor with a whole block of salt, not just a grain.

I think the only additional "content" that we'll see will be in the form of them pimping Lord of the Rings / Hobbit stuff.

It'll be their new baby that they devote endless attention to, hoping for a repeat of that sales "bubble" that they hung on to so deperately well past it's time 10 years ago when the LOTR Trilogy was out.

Really, I wouldn't be surprised if New Line STRONGLY dictated that they get "appropriate" advertising as a term of their licensing agreement. And GW, in their delusional minds, sees White Dwarf as "appropriate" (with some tweaking).

I don't, for one second, believe that they would actually spend the money to set up a new, remote magazine HQ office when they couldn't even ensure QC of their "revolutionary model material" when they launched Failcast.

BAH ... Grumpy ... sorry for the GW rant. It's so easy ....

 Flashman wrote:
I'm also fairly sceptical of this...

GW's current philosophy seems to be "nothing for free". There was a total absence of stage by stage painting guides for Daemon's last month BUT they did release a digital download daemon painting guide that you had to pay for.

How can you make a hobby magazine good when management decree that even the very basic hobbying skills have to be siphoned off and sold seperately?

This, this, a thousand times this. We're talking about a company that expects you to go out and spend £3-400 on an iPad just so you can have the privilege of paying them £2-5 for the puff-piece articles they used to have on their website for free. I'd love to see a return to the old format of rules, fluff, and hobby articles taking up 80% of the space, and the explicit advertising limited to a few pages right at the front, but I don't see that happening unless the entire current management team have a collective aneurism, drop dead, and get replaced with Santa.

Ye this is good news and not too late, I hope. A good reason to buy it, passed the occasional new rules release, would be very welcome.

On a side note Nintendo Power magazine went the same way as WD but for Nintendo. That has it's last issue this weekend people didn't buy it any longer it was just too pro-Nintendo.

If they are serious about saving it then this can only be a good move, I think.

Palindrome wrote:
Took them long enough. WD has been a mere shadow of its former self for years and an attempt to make it worth buying would be welcome.

I agree. I remember the days (when Necromunda was still in print) when it had great articles. Some of my favorite were the ones on how to scratch build terrain. I doubt we will ever see things like that again. They may improve content a bit, but we all know its still going to be neck deep in "buy our stuff".


IMO the biggest thing to get over is the price, they are going to have to stuff it really full of very good stuff to justify anything in the current price range. Even though I dont play any GW games, I do like the fluff (both 40k and WHFB) and love their minis, so if they can pull the content very close to what it used to be...I might start buying it again. It would also be nice to see a yearly rate that was a healthy discount over the monthly mag cost.

We hear this rumour every year, along with the one about speeding up Codex releases. Never happens.

The only White Dwarf I've bought in ten years is a recent on explaining a certain paint scheme I wanted to reproduce. It was a useful guide, and if they had that kind of thing regularly, and with greater diversity, it *might* justify buying it more than once a decade. But I doubt much will change.

Now maybe if White Dwarf introduced a Hobby Section, perhaps some monthly, or bi-monthly model contest, and went down in price by two dollars then I'd consider it. But I mean, if Nintendo Power stopped publication, what chance does White Dwarf have?

Not much ShatteredBlade.

I think, really, the only reason it is still around is that GW don't like to give away rules updates for new units through the website. While people are still willing to pay for those new rules the mag will continue.

But that can't possibly sustain it, IMO it will die. Unless this is put in place.

Though who will really care by then?

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Look... since I started posting here oh so many moons ago I've seen a dozen such 'announcements' that, WD is 'changing' and will be 'better'.

How many times can a small man with a white beard cry 'wolf' before we stop believing him?

I stopped beleiving way in the past.

White Dwarf was an excellent gaming mag back in the 80's, it was ok in the early 90's. It's been utter crap ever since.

When it does have articles beyond adverts for the latest release they are written by self congratulatory morons with delusions of adequacy, like Jervis Johnson. They include tactcas that a twelve year old can refute as bollocks designed to buff expectations of the unit tor army concerned and are chock a block with poorly written concept plagiarism that GW likes to pretend is their own intellectual property.

If it was handed out for free I wouldn't bother going to the store to get it, unless I happened to be in the area was bored and curious as to how bad it currently is.

 lord_blackfang wrote:
We hear this rumour every year, along with the one about speeding up Codex releases. Never happens.

Actually there WAS a small change since July last year. Not saying that splash release rules for non-limited models is a great idea, but certainly a change from posting no rules at all before.

 Compel wrote:
I think I overheard at some point it's supposed to look like the Edge magazine?

That would be quite the trick, considering that White Dwarf only features Game's Workshop products, and is owned by games workshop.

"Here! let us review these models that games workshop just released and only give them praise!"

Then agien.. not that different then how video game companies buy off reviewers so their triple A titles get good reviews.... Now that I think about it, I bassicly don't buy video game magazines anymore for the same reason I don't buy White Dwarf.... I get better reviews and insites on a product from independent online reviewers for free....

=/

I guess I'm jaded to most magazines now adays, due to being able to find better content on the internet for free. This over haul better be impressive if it's going to impress me. If it was a larger book that comes out quarterly, full of Gaming, Conversion, painting, Terrain building, ect articles I would probably buy it.

Like guides on how to modle Eldar Webway gates, Chaos Shrines, ect. Ideas for interesting ways to put together thows Cities of death buildings that incorporate the newer Terrian Kits, ect. I would LOVE a guide for converting power axes for my Traitor IG and CSM, or ideas about how to convert a Dark Eldar Power Axe.

But as is even with vague promises of "It's going to be better" I'm not holding my breath. The internet gives me so many resources, it's unlikely that it will becomes relevant to me agien. I only buy WD's now for new unit rules when they come out. (Since Games Workshop seems to have decided to start making you pay for thows rules off their site now, not to mention you need to own a Ipad to even be able to download them...)

Hope they can pull it off.


I doubt they will do it, but here is to the effort.


At this point, talk has already been on the table, and they owe the fan base the actions to back it up.

I don't really see anything they could do about white dwarf, besides can it entirely. I don't know about most GW customers, but I really don't care for 90% of the magazine, what with not playing fantasy or LotR.

Although maybe I'll quit with the pessimism. Good on them. It's been struggling.