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My LGS has a row of boxes of old gaming mags on the back wall that are being sold off for 25 cents each. I've gotten a good dozen or so old White Dwarfs, and really, really enjoyed them. The army profiles, conversion corners, rules ideas, and battle reports were nice enough that I walked back into the store a few days later looking to give WD another chance. Well, let's just say I didn't walk out of the store with the new WD, but paid another 50 cents for some more back issues after comparing the content. White Dwarf is very anemic these days.

here's the letetr I'm sending to Jervis. haven't put loads of points in due to the length, and I don't intend to insult or offend anyone anywhere with it. If you don't agree that's fine, we're all entitled to our opinions.

edit - I have checked the spellings before I sent it, please ignore mistakes in this one!

Dear Jervis.

Standard Bearer

This is my first letter which I have written to WD (or GW!) since starting the hobby many many years ago now, and I’ve put it on paper in the hope that it will reach you rather than getting lost with one of your servitors. The reason for writing will become clear in a minute. I’m sorry this letter may seem a little long, but I sincerely hope that you have the time to read it before it reaches the bin/crack of doom, whatever you have sitting by your desk.

For the past few months now I’ve been a member of a 40K forum on the internet, and have both expressed my disappointment and supported many of the things which Games Workshop does. As I’m sure you know there’s a lot of people on there who spend most of their time moaning about prices, quality and about 40,000 other things (awful pun – White Dwarf) One of the issues which generally gets bashed around with very little support is the content of White Dwarf. I have to admit that I am one of those customers who in recent years is constantly disappointed with the magazine. Yes I still get it, and that may make me stupid if I don’t like it, but it is the only Warhammer magazine easily available, giving little choice. However, unlike many, not all, of the ‘online community’ I decided to write to you instead of expecting you to check the forums and magic something up. After all this is a hobby, which we are involved in. It’s our hobby and so it should be us to suggest improvements and help it to move along, rather than asking GW to spoon feed us. Please don’t this letter as a rant from an unhappy customer, but as a letter from someone who is trying to at least suggest improvements, and do what they can. From my own professional job I know what it’s like to constantly receive complaints about everything without any useful suggestions.

With regards to White dwarf, many people I know who used to subscribe no longer do for many reasons, but on the whole it comes down to the content. White dwarf has become a nice clean modern magazine, which seems rather odd when you look at nearly any gamers modelling area, it’s usually far from clean, more of a messy pike of paint, tools and grey bits of plastic, with a wall tile thrown in for good measure. The point that I’m trying to make, and I’m sure many of the online folks will support me, is that White Dwarf is now a different magazine from the one us ‘older gamers’ (used VERY loosely!) ran home from school for. It now has more ‘wasted’ space than before, which could be filled up with side notes etc, around the main articles, in a similar way to how the new rules are explained in Julys issue.

Another gripe many of us have is the content of the articles. It’s nice to see how the ‘eavy metal team paint, but the style in which it is done makes the articles bland and doesn’t interest the more experienced gamer, we want to know they what’s and whys rather than the hows – why wash that bit? What else could be done/used? Why not use XXX technique. The current format is a basic step by step for someone who wants to paint their models the same colours as ‘eavy metal.

Also, lotrs seems to get the ‘best’ content with new scenarios, ideas, modelling tips, new rules/units and ways of playing etc. Can we have more for warhammer and 40K rather than the standard, this is the latest models, these are the bits, this is a battle report showing them winning and here’s a token something else. To many this is coming across as advertising rather than hobby info. We understand that GW is a business, but if articles inspired people to be more creative, they end up buying more anyway. I’m currently making an Adeptus Mechanicus army, with every model having some sort of small (or large) conversion, it may be small but it’s cost as much as a large army would anyway but adds a little something new to the experience. It’s nice to see that ‘A Tale of Four Gamers’ is making another comeback, and I know many of us are sat quite excited, but at the same time dreading that it will not match up to the original article as the last attempt failed to. The original is seen by many as one of if not THE BEST ARTICLE that WD ran for the last 20 or so years. It was exciting, showed how different people collect, game, model, paint. It gave a window into the hobby from someone else’s eye. This is the sort of stuff we want. We don’t expect the whole magazine to be crammed full with hobby stuff, we accept that you have to advertise and show of the latest stuff in a good light, but what we don’t like is when it’s at the expense of good quality hobby articles. In the same way, I always like the readers army articles, even though I was always disappointed that you couldn’t fit more of them into the magazine. However it’s now quite rare to show a ‘normal’ gamers army. Julys showed two from the tournament, which was nice, but didn’t say much about how or why they were made.

Personally I’m not keen on the tool box article either. I know it’s a bit petty and it’s usually only the one page, but most of the content could be expressed through other articles, saving that one page for something else in a magazine that’s got limited space. With that it would also be nice to see more detail on some of the terrain, which I must say in the past couple of years has been excellent! It would be nice to see more detail and a bit on how to make it. The cathedral and Vampire Castle come to mind. Not many gamers will be able to make these pieces, but could use the inspiration and instructions (and maybe even extra suggestions) to come up with their own scaled down versions. I know this was how I originally got hooked on terrain back in my school days, and our group had a fantastic snow scape board, complete with santas grotto, frosty the very dangerous snowman and a rampaging santa plus Christmas themed wargear for our annual ‘Battle for Santas Workshop’ game.

If part of the reason for this is lack or writing time, encourage more gamers to have a go at writing good articles. I would be more than happy to write an article on how and why I’m making my army plus the themed terrain I’ll be starting on in a month or so for it.

Any way, best of luck with the dice rolling, would love to hear from you, and look forward to a tale of 4 gamers!

Happy Gaming

Rob
If you wish to contact me, any of the following are great! (myself and a few others are keen to hear your take on this subject)

Mezmaron wrote:Will the free models be in the magazines on the rack, or only for subscribers? I might pick up that issue if I can get it in the store....

They will be there for everyone, just like the Skull Pass samples.

Howard A Treesong wrote:Some of the bet hobby articles I've seen of recent years were on the Black Gobbo, I couldn't understand why they were spending money on that and not using it for the magazine, some of it was great, conversions, scratchbuilding and terrain articles.

Because when you put a cool conversion on a website you can make direct links in the article that bring you right to the on-line store...

when i was in cali, the mag would come about a week after the east coast guys...now that i'm in alaska, the mag would come about 3 weeks after i saw the first reviews from others...my lgs here gets the mag around the last week of the month, which was about a week before mine would come in the mail...i didn't renew my sub. last year, 'cause i was sick of tradin' mine back to the shop for credit(as i would always buy it the day it came in)...
up here in fairbanks, it's better to go to the lgs(they do 20% off anyway)....though lately gw has been horrible about sendin' the mag out in good time...we never even got last month's issue!!! i've always loved my white dwarf, but they are really startin' to slip on givin' the customer some love...

cheers
jah

Ahh, WD it's been a long time now since I started (UK issue 166 was my first) and a long time since I stopped bothering with it. To me, it started going rapidly downhill when Jake Thornton left as Editor, and from what I've seen of newer iterations it really hasn't recovered any momentum. The hobby articles I like are mostly covered by Black Gobbo and other web based resources. I also have Dakka for news & rumours, so that helps.

What I really miss are the long form opinion articles from back in the day (Stillmania, the J files Chambers of the Horned Rat, etc.)

Man, I'm a crusty old fart.

Yes, what ever happened to Nigel Stillman? He always had nice articles on converting things with the minimum amount of skills and materials needed.

I have a reply (snail mail!)

Dear Rob,

I just wanted to drop you a quick line to thank you for your recent letter. Unfortunatly the number of letters I recieve means I can't reply personally to all of them, but I did want to let you know that I had recieved and read yours, and really appreciatedthat you took the time to write. Please don't hesitate to get in touch again; I read all of the mail I recieve and find it really helps to keep me in touch with the grass roots of the hobby

Sincerly
(signed)

PS. Unfortunatly I don't have time to respond to all ofthe points you make, but I will say that the content of WD is constantly evolving and changing over time. This is mainly because we usually have twice as much stuff that we'd like to put in the WD as will fit, and the changing balance of the content reflects on the prevailing opinion on what the mix should be like. So, just about the only thing you can be certain of is that WD will change over time, either one way or the other - it's like a pendulum that swings constantly back and forth.




so - just as helpful as the standard bearer column? Our opinion is valued but not taken into account? WD is written to fit the trend, which apparently is people who buy it as a catalogue, isn't that what the catalougues are for? I sure hope the pendulum comes back soon, it's either very big or on a very slow swing.......

anyone else have comments on the response?

Twice as much stuff, and like what.. a 4th of what it used to be in the magazine. Yuk :(

covenant84 wrote:I have a reply (snail mail!)

So, just about the only thing you can be certain of is that WD will change over time, either one way or the other - it's like a pendulum that swings constantly back and forth.

The irony meter broke after this particular comment.

The understatement meter broke too.

But hey, at least you DID get a response!

Um, what were you expecting to come of your letter?

"Crap, you are so right and we are so wrong, from now on we'll do it like the people want!"

Pigs have flown, so maaaaaaybe a tiny chance, like a snowflake in hell that something is going to happen.

I didn't actually expect anything in perticuler, but the reply seemed a bit cut and paste our standard reply sort of job to me. It's just a bit dissapointing I guess that they aknowledge how we feel but are unwillinging to do anything. Anyone fancy restarting the journal and saying u to WD? lol

Make sure to say "hello" to their lawyers at the same time!