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So I got a bunch of old White Dwarfs from 2002 off a mate. They used to be some amazing reads. I wanted to share a couple of things that made me really happy.

Death Guard:


Doomrider:


So what was your favorite part/parts/moments of old White Dwarf, if you have images please share.

(Sorry my images are a little blurry)

The old masterclass painting segments were great.

Going back really far, I enjoyed the D&D content (which was why I originally bought white dwarf... lol) and Thud the Barbarian!!

Talys wrote:
The old masterclass painting segments were great.

Going back really far, I enjoyed the D&D content (which was why I originally bought white dwarf... lol) and Thud the Barbarian!!

Yeah I was just checking out one of those Masterclass painting sessions before, it was really informative.

(P.S. Praise be to the Grandfather, Nurgleth, for thee divine post number of 700! [7 x 100])

They actually compiled all the index astartes articles into books, which were the fluff side of the 40k codexes at the time (which were otherwise stripped of fluff). I was always waiting for the index xenos book to be published, but alas. :(

Yes, white dwarf used to be a very entertaining read.

You mean back before it was an advertisement that they charge the customers for? GW has quite the business model, instead of paying for advertising to get new revenue, they charge existing customers for the privilege of reading their ads...

You mean before it was only available in gw hobby centres, and could be bought at any newsagent?

Toofast wrote:
You mean back before it was an advertisement that they charge the customers for? GW has quite the business model, instead of paying for advertising to get new revenue, they charge existing customers for the privilege of reading their ads...

Yes it is such a shame. It does feel the ones these days are like that.

I am hoping people have pictures of old articles etc. from old White Dwarves they could share.

White Dwarf used to be so good, and I was so happy when they got a little bit back to that with the last version of it before the current failure.

But even then my brother pointed it out to me after he flicked through 3 of that edition.

The White dwarf is the same articles in the same order each month, with almost no variation at all... its a copy and paste with minimal actual changes done :(

I loved all the little articles about new ways to use the models you already had. There was an article for WHFB once about a Mordheim-esque studio campaign using Chaos models. You bought a champion, bought a hero or two, then bought squads of mooks and beat your opponents senselss, using any and all of the Chaos models (not just the ones for Mordheim). They had articles for games that weren't WHFB and 40K. I remember a series of great scenarios for Necromunda, one involving a neverending (respawning, actually) tide of plague zombies attacking the underhivers, and another that evoked the "unkillable monster stalking a group of people" vibe of Alien or The Thing. Seriously, OG White Dwarf was written by gamers, for gamers and it shows. I still pull my old copies out of the box I keep them in and leaf through them from time to time.

squidhills wrote:
I loved all the little articles about new ways to use the models you already had. There was an article for WHFB once about a Mordheim-esque studio campaign using Chaos models. You bought a champion, bought a hero or two, then bought squads of mooks and beat your opponents senselss, using any and all of the Chaos models (not just the ones for Mordheim). They had articles for games that weren't WHFB and 40K. I remember a series of great scenarios for Necromunda, one involving a neverending (respawning, actually) tide of plague zombies attacking the underhivers, and another that evoked the "unkillable monster stalking a group of people" vibe of Alien or The Thing. Seriously, OG White Dwarf was written by gamers, for gamers and it shows. I still pull my old copies out of the box I keep them in and leaf through them from time to time.

On that, I read a couple of articles where they taught you advanced ways of assembling your models, using lot bashing and green stuff. Give me some great ideas I had never thought of. It really makes you feel special when you read these articles about your faction, even if the magazine is 12 years old.

Go further back in time, I have a WD which gave you the full schematics to build a plasti-card baneblade. Further back, full rules for a genestealer coven including limousines!

NoiseMarine with Tinnitus wrote:
Go further back in time, I have a WD which gave you the full schematics to build a plasti-card baneblade. Further back, full rules for a genestealer coven including limousines!

Wow are you able to get those plasticard instructions put on this thread? That would be cool as.

I loved the artwork covers so much. The last year or so when they switched to photos I switched off. I loved white dwarf. I get mad when I think of what we have now.

i was a big fan of White Dwarf. even the incarnation before it went weekly. but even i can't pretend to give a gak about the frothing abortion that is currently punted out.

zomg, that had so many WORDS in it that I didn't know what to do at first. Words and sentences and even full on paragraphs!

All of those words were just screaming read me, read ME, READ ME!!!

It was such a highly traumatic event that I closed the spoiler as quickly as I could. Don't do that again. Pictures are so much easier. I can just mindlessly sit there and bask in the glow of the Emprah's Light without troublesome thoughts confusing my mind.

We spent a couple hours discussing this about a year and a half ago - prior to them splitting into the two magazines but after the "relaunch".

http://theindependentcharacters.com/blog/?p=2490

In the end we really pick out some of the issues you have linked to here as the "golden age" of White Dwarf.

I miss that awesome magazine.

 Rippy wrote:
So I got a bunch of old White Dwarfs from 2002 off a mate. They used to be some amazing reads. I wanted to share a couple of things that made me really happy.

If you think White Dwarf from 2002 was good, you should have seen it a few years before that. They used to include cardboard inserts and such, giving you new tokens, cards, terrain, even full games.

 cvtuttle wrote:
We spent a couple hours discussing this about a year and a half ago - prior to them splitting into the two magazines but after the "relaunch".

http://theindependentcharacters.com/blog/?p=2490

In the end we really pick out some of the issues you have linked to here as the "golden age" of White Dwarf.

I miss that awesome magazine.

Thanks I will give that a read.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Tannhauser42 wrote:

 Rippy wrote:
So I got a bunch of old White Dwarfs from 2002 off a mate. They used to be some amazing reads. I wanted to share a couple of things that made me really happy.

If you think White Dwarf from 2002 was good, you should have seen it a few years before that. They used to include cardboard inserts and such, giving you new tokens, cards, terrain, even full games.

Wow that sounds awesome. One of the guys on this forum just emailed me a bunch of old White Dwarfs from before 2002, so I will see if there is anything like that in there. (I wont name him just incase he doesn't want to be named!!!)

@Rippy

I am afraid that my old WD's, of which there are many from issue ~ 75 onward, are currently holed up in boxes in my loft back home.

I recently moved for job reasons so don't have easy access to them, but...never say never!

If do get my hands on them I will pop them in their own thread, subject to any copyright restrictions.

Sadly mine all died when my parents decided to get their loft insulated along with probably over £1000 worth of models and games goddamn their need to be warm without heamoraging money!
Went from 141- I think to about 220 plus the first 15 or so inferno's


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also played that necromunda scenario with the zombies.
Still use the advice from old wyrdies tactica too!

WD was awesome years ago. I especially liked the beta rules for Mordheim, fun battle reports, fun battle reports, Chapter Approved, Index Astartes rules and fluff for different Chapters/Warbands/Legions etc.

The real truth behind the white dwarf rebrand was that GW felt much of the content could be sold more profitably elsewhere. Imperial armour book, included in lavish over the top codecs or sold elsewhere like the death from the skies supplement. I think this has backfired and left this additional material with a very limited readership with the knock on effect.

I loved the monthly buy paint play when 4 of the team would go head to head building a force with £30.

The old battle reports were also far superior to the gak they serve up now.

The real reason WD is rubbish is purely down to the content the Editor is told/chooses to use which is dreadful.

I found a bookstore, in an undisclosed location, that has a huge stack of WD. You'll never torture it out of me, they're all mine!

Digganob, the battle for Big Toof River, John Blanche everywhere, real battle reports where Nigel Stillman does ridiculously silly things. "I'll move both my bolt throwers, twice! That will confound David Cain!" No Nigel now you just don't get to shoot them, like, at all.

Fat Bloke eating everything, and threatening everyone on staff. Adrian Wood building the veery first Ork dreads....

I could go on and on.

The original tale of four gamers and Stillmania: Questing for the Grail remain my favorite articles ever to this day. I tracked down those issues just for those.

it really is a shame what has happened to WD hopefully since it always seems to be on the shelf and the one thing even the staff aren't trying to push on you it will get a serious overhaul

Man do I miss WD from the late 90's through the early 2000's!

Reading those old WDs felt like you were just having a conversation with your gaming buddies. There was quaint charm about them that is lost in almost everything GW does these days. My favorite things were the old battle reports. The ones where they would have photos as well as DETAILED text on what happened during the battle (rather than page after page of photos with one or two sentence blurbs like "my marines ran" or "the Russ fired its big gun"). After that, and like others have said, I enjoyed the articles where 4 people would set up their own escalation league or themed tournaments.

I was particularly fond of the Fat Bloke era. I remember a battle report where he took his White Scars against Phil Kely's (I think it was Phil anyway) CSM on the studio's "brand new trench system table". EPIC.

Got a box full from Freecycle from the Fat Bloke era. Absolutely brilliant reads. I remember being really excited when the new White Dwarf came out and would get it ASAP.

Haven't bought one for a couple of years now, absolute rubbish. The batreps [usually fought by tournament winners vs. GW employee] used to be my favourite part, and now they are just advertisements for the latest models. Very sad.

I was and reman a big fan of the old white dwarf format. But I remember vividly at the time it changed the community was really silent on the matter. Most seemed to hint they felt it was time for a change. I was, to use a local northern Ireland term, ragin. My wife bought me white dwarf with the shopping once a month and even she was dismayed despite thinking the whole hobby is mad. It was a big part of my life for about 20 odd years. Sadly I think most gamers like the new format.

The new format is wretched. I used to read it in the early 90s and the battle reports were hilarious. You could really get a sense for how different armies played, even if you never played against them yourself, just from reading them. And, as others have said, it used to really feel like more of a 'zine by fans for fans. Now it is just fawning over the flavor of the month ("we couldn't believe the unbelievably detailed detail on this brand new Games Workshop masterpiece, now for sale at the low low price of $X"). You can now read good batreps elsewhere, but it is definitely something that was lost.


I don't have a grudge against GW for anything they have done - except what they did to White Dwarf.