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Pacific wrote:The thing is, battle reports have always resulted in the new army coming out on top. The only exception I can think of to that is when the 2nd edition Eldar codex came out and they were forced to a draw by Space Wolves. However, this has been taken to the next step by having any new kits/units generally rampaging their way through the enemy army.

I noticed this too, the flavour of the month seems to come out on top more often than not, the only exception that I can personally think of being the Dark Eldar vs Blood Angels report which came to a draw as both had had recent new releases, so obviously neither was allowed to lose

8/10. Yes, I know. Although I usually only pick it up in one of two situations:
1) There's a release I'm interested in.
2) I want something to read for a long journey.


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Also, in regards to "new things always win"- The Necrons lost this month.

Vampirate of Sartosa wrote:8/10. Yes, I know. Although I usually only pick it up in one of two situations:
1) There's a release I'm interested in.
2) I want something to read for a long journey.

...How slowly do you read?

Wait! Crap, did not mean for that to be offensive. But, c'mon - you can't actually claim that White Dwarf is good for any amount of time over a half hour.

4/10.

I don't hate it, but I don't love it.

I'll pick up the odd issue only when it pertains to my army (So I only have 2 issues... Grey Knights and now Necrons) and it's mostly just to get ideas on how to paint/model my guys - the content is very bland and generic. If you could buy specific models that had White Dwarf stats, or even if White Dwarf released "kits" that you could equip units with and again, the stat lines would be in the issue, i'd consider it more frequently - also they need to broaden up each release instead of it getting so focused. I have 0 interest in dreadfleet so i ignored the last few issues exclusively because of this.

edit: also their battle reports could be a bit more clear... they sort of jumble in what happens on a turn all together... i mean the necron one this month all of a sudden a monolith is gone and they make a small note on it...

I had stopped being a regular buyer at about #250 and only picked up occasional issues as far as #280. I have a complete run, or very nearly complete from #95-250

The last issue of WD I bought was #304 because it was the 30th anniversary issue and had a few nice things.

Before that I had issue #300 - yeah I'm a sucker for anniversaries. That had really cool looking Dwarf Brewery scenery which they didn't say much about so I just had to enjoy the pictures.

Wow, that's over 6 years ago now.

I never actually thought to myself "You know what, i'll go and buy a White Dwarf today."

Consequently, I don't own, nor have I ever owned a WD, and I don't have any regrets about not buying them.

I'd rate it as a 0/10.

I had every issue dating back to 136, but recently I just got so fed up with the P**s poor quality of the rag, that I cancelled my sub & got rid of some newer issues. I tore out the pages I wanted to keep, and out of 2 yrs worth of WD, I got less than a magazines worth of stuff worth keeping - ridiculous.

Now, I just flick through each issue in the supermarket (where possible) and decide if I want it or not - I haven't bought any of the last 3 issues.

I feel no regret at my dicision. WD was once a great magazine, now it's just a lame overpriced catalogue, and has been for a long time.

I just wonder how long it will be before all WD's come plastic wrapped, either forcing you to take it or leave it. If that happens I know which I'll be doing.

infinite_array wrote:

Vampirate of Sartosa wrote:8/10. Yes, I know. Although I usually only pick it up in one of two situations:
1) There's a release I'm interested in.
2) I want something to read for a long journey.

...How slowly do you read?

Wait! Crap, did not mean for that to be offensive. But, c'mon - you can't actually claim that White Dwarf is good for any amount of time over a half hour.

If you like the models you can always look at the pictures

I voted 1/10. Just got back from my hols, had one hell of a train journey so though what the heck will buy WD, Have not bought a copy in some 10/12 years.
Wow, is this really the state of WD. I’ve read a few topics over recent months about the standard of it but was not expecting it to be half as bad as it was. Basically it’s just an over sized sales leaflet. I can't believe that they would actually have enough subscribers to warrant making it month after month.
I’ve just sat down with my box of old WD's (120 to around 200 odd) to compare them with this thing I wasted my money on and what little faith I have left in GW has taken a massive kick in the plums...

infinite_array wrote:Wait! Crap, did not mean for that to be offensive. But, c'mon - you can't actually claim that White Dwarf is good for any amount of time over a half hour.

Is there any magazine good for any amount of time over a half hour?


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Also, in what way was it better before? I've the oldest issue I've seen came from 2004, and to be honest, I prefered the newer ones.

Vampirate of Sartosa wrote:Also, in what way was it better before? I've the oldest issue I've seen came from 2004, and to be honest, I prefered the newer ones.

There's a few 'review' threads that Kid Kyoto (I think) has done that will show you the content. They used to have new rules and scenarios for games, templates for scratchbuilt vehicles and buildings, modelling items, readers letters, bits of fiction, conversion articles.

There used to be marks on the edges of the pages to show you where to punch holes if you wanted to take pages out the magazine and keep them elsewhere. This was intended because they always had rules and scenarios for things like fantasy Roleplay and army list rules. Although they would later publish compilations of these articles so you didn't have to cut your magazines up.

Vampirate of Sartosa wrote:

infinite_array wrote:Wait! Crap, did not mean for that to be offensive. But, c'mon - you can't actually claim that White Dwarf is good for any amount of time over a half hour.

Is there any magazine good for any amount of time over a half hour?

NewYorker and Economist to name a couple, possibly the Atlantic also. There's a good hour or two of reading in each of those.

Vampirate of Sartosa wrote:Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also, in what way was it better before? I've the oldest issue I've seen came from 2004, and to be honest, I prefered the newer ones.

2004 isn't nearly far back enough to go.

You've got to go back pre 2000, to find most of the DIY and specialist content that many folks have mentioned, and you've got to go before 1990 to find a time when it actually had some measure of "journalism" regarding, and advertiesments for, non GW stuff.

I'm nostaligic for the 90's WD as that's what I came up with. Despite the DIY content of the 90's it was already a catalog by the time I started reading it, but it was a catalog with redeeming features. Not so anymore.

weird; this poll has 51 positive votes (47 if you take away the "joke" 9s and 10s), but none of these people post a message. Hello guys, are you afraid of being ripped apart by a raging mob? Nobody here with a 6+ oppinon dares to post. Its only the negative people (tbh i think they are right, but you get the point)

MrMerlin wrote:weird; this poll has 51 positive votes (47 if you take away the "joke" 9s and 10s), but none of these people post a message. Hello guys, are you afraid of being ripped apart by a raging mob? Nobody here with a 6+ oppinon dares to post. Its only the negative people (tbh i think they are right, but you get the point)

My guess would be yes. In my experience, anyone that likes anything that GW does gets the internet equivalent of being drug out of the place and beaten to a pulp.

Alright then, have at me, I originally posted 7/10 though I can't honestly remember the older wd (though I do remember sawyer). Interestingly my vote seemed to drop off though, so have voted again.

I voted this as i still enjoy reading it, still look forward to it and still value the content. Of course I want more for my money though, more battle reports, regular painting and modelling articles.

I remember years ago they did an article that allowed you to create rules and relative points values for a vehicle of your own design, would like to see that again


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Havok210 wrote:

MrMerlin wrote:weird; this poll has 51 positive votes (47 if you take away the "joke" 9s and 10s), but none of these people post a message. Hello guys, are you afraid of being ripped apart by a raging mob? Nobody here with a 6+ oppinon dares to post. Its only the negative people (tbh i think they are right, but you get the point)

My guess would be yes. In my experience, anyone that likes anything that GW does gets the internet equivalent of being drug out of the place and beaten to a pulp.

1 at a time or all at once, ill take you all on! Waaaaagh!

kitch102 wrote:Alright then, have at me, I originally posted 7/10 though I can't honestly remember the older wd (though I do remember sawyer). Interestingly my vote seemed to drop off though, so have voted again.

I voted this as i still enjoy reading it, still look forward to it and still value the content. Of course I want more for my money though, more battle reports, regular painting and modelling articles.

I remember years ago they did an article that allowed you to create rules and relative points values for a vehicle of your own design, would like to see that again


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Havok210 wrote:

MrMerlin wrote:weird; this poll has 51 positive votes (47 if you take away the "joke" 9s and 10s), but none of these people post a message. Hello guys, are you afraid of being ripped apart by a raging mob? Nobody here with a 6+ oppinon dares to post. Its only the negative people (tbh i think they are right, but you get the point)

My guess would be yes. In my experience, anyone that likes anything that GW does gets the internet equivalent of being drug out of the place and beaten to a pulp.

1 at a time or all at once, ill take you all on! Waaaaagh!

7/10?!?

WHATS WRONG WITH YOU MAN? Cant you read? are you competely nuts?? What a load of rubbish!!

just kiddin ;D

Complete and utter dross, not fit to use as toilet paper. 1/10. It's nothing more than 'buy this, buy that and don't forget that LotR is still a viable game!' pffftt.....

I remember when WD covered all sorts. It had much love for what are now known as Specialist Games, proper bat reps and good quality interviews and painting guides. Not to mention ATOFG's and some brilliant scenarios to try out. It used to be a proper magazine, occasionally over 200 pages. Now? Worthless tripe, a stinking cesspool of filth.

4/10

It still has some fairly good painting advice (and recently modelling advice for working with Finecast).

Some of the articles that a lot of people are complaining about WD no longer having can be found on the website in the forum of the blog, so it not being in WD isn't much of an issue.

I miss some of the more unique parts (contributors insights in to armies, themes, and experiences).

It could do with being a magazine that follows such topics like tales of #gamer(s) and shows people how to build an army to a budget/theme. And maybe showing how to convert some of the missing things from codexes too.

I guess I miss the human side to WD.

Mind I do enjoy the LOTR advice and stuff...

8/10 during the Andy Chambers "chapter approved" segments and of course the index astares articles

5/10 back when there was still content for APOC and the release of different content for planetstrike and cityfight

2/10 currently

0/10 for sisters of battle codex

If you really want to know why so many 'veterans' hold the old WD in high regard and pour scorn on its slow decline, you should read H.B.M.C's tongue in cheek review of an old-ish issue here:

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/229485.page

For me, it highlights what I used to enjoy about WD (and still do to a certain degree) and that's the battle reports. Yes, they are horribly staged but they are good pieces of bubblegum fluff, enough to entertain for 10 mins or so and sometimes enough to spark the imagination off.

alphaomega wrote:4/10

I guess I miss the human side to WD.

Do you know, I think you've hit the nail on the head right there.

The magazine doesn't feel like it is written by a normal, flesh and blood, same as you and I, hobbyist. There is so much advertising, so much being inserted into every piece of writing - be it model articles, painting or even battle reports, that it pollutes the bits that maybe are more genuine, and perhaps haven't been through the 'propaganda' department.

The magazine used to be a cracking read, and still give the feeling of being impartial, even long after WD stopped featuring other companies and having any need for impartiality.

So what has changed?

I would share an experience I had, if I may.

Long ago when I was working for GW, during the 'dip' period following the LoTR movies and when the sales of the system were radically dropping, my store was visited by one of the WD writers. I won't give his name, suffice to say that he would have been recognised if you read WD at the time.

Now I understand the need for being passionate about your job - about the need to have some belief in the company you work for, but there is usually an imaginary line in the sand - the one where you are able to judge things based on some kind of objectivity, to make rational judgements about what you are being told by your superiors. Now this, to be honest, was a pretty bad time to be working for GW, not least because of the complete lack of understanding exhibited by the higher ups in the company, who could not accept that sales of LoTR were dropping so radically. That could not connect the high sales of the game to the release of movies (and a short time for the DVDs), and might have conjectured that such sales would drop once the movies started to fall from popular attention. Now of course GW HQ knew exactly what was going on, but that didn't stop the stubborn sales directives and pep talks (read: admonishments) coming on a regular basis. Now while you might expect such an attitude from a regional manager, who is parroting what has been told to him by HQ, one would expect a 'journalist' from the magazine to both be more objective, and in all honesty have more intelligence (or at least credit the staff in that regard). However, what did the staff and I, who had so enthusiastically begun conversing with him get to hear? A continuation of the same thing, an unswerving faith in the viability of the system and how it should be still sprouting legs and making it's own way off the shelf regardless of other issues. Thinking of the conversation now, it reminds me of that scene in Family Guy. The one where Joe starts to cry in the pub, make a scene, and Peter and the others start to slowly slide away without Joe noticing. That was how I felt at the time, but while sharing a brief eye contact with the other staffers sat around, it was obvious that WD guy inhabited an entirely different plane of existence to us. The point isn't so much the issue he was talking about, but more the fact that it was so utterly disconnected from reality.

Now of course it's impossible to say whether this chap's opinions were just his own, or reflective of his office, but you have to think about the kind of working environment that could spawn such a massively subjective (and inaccurate) viewpoint of things. I know that if I came up with a controversial viewpoint amongst my gaming group, I don't know: "GW plastic tank kits are fairly priced" or "the spray gun is the finest on the market" I would get shot to pieces. Had I said the same thing even when working at GW, no less from some of the managers I worked under, it probably would have been challenged.

But, and I think this is the issue here (and this relates not only to White Dwarf, but also the way the company has behaved over the last couple of years concerning a variety of issues), I think the upper echelons of the company have surrounded themselves with people who like to say 'Yes', and this is a disease that has spread throughout all branches of the company. It was a change I observed regarding not only regional managers, but also those at a local level. That White Dwarf is an absolute waste of paper compared to how it once was, that the finecast launch was almost comically badly timed with a price rise, the switch to new RoW policies, the secrecy policies. I could go on and on about the kinds of issues that have had hundreds of Dakka posters shaking their heads in disbelief over the last few years. How can any of these make sense to someone who can truly regard themselves as a hobbyist, and wants the best thing possible for the hobby itself? The simple answer is they can't. They might make sense to HQ, who have no care for the hobby itself beyond the revenue it brings (and you should hear the terms used to describe those who buy their products), but they most certainly don't make sense to anyone who genuinely has a passion for modelling and tabletop gaming. So what happens when your underlings complain, and comment there might be a better way of doing things? You replace them with someone who sees eye to eye with you - and this continues, this sorry state of affairs that removes anyone with any backbone (and I saw this happen on so many occasions, to people who passionately believed in the hobby) until you are left with a collection of people who just nod and tow the official line regarding anything they are asked to do.

And so that's why White Dwarf reads in the way that it does, as a advertising brochure completely devoid of any journalism. Those who are to young to remember how the magazine used to be even 5 or 6 years ago, I feel sorry for you, because by any form of comparison the current example is not worthy to share the same name on the top of the page. Sorry to go off on one a bit (the perils of the internet!), but from my own experiences I think what has happened to the magazine is indicative of a wider trend throughout the whole company, of a disconnection between the company and what its fans want. And until that changes (either a genuine hobbyist takes control of the reigns) then we can't expect the magazine to be worth anything like it's asking price, or any kind of actual journalism to be inside its cover.

Exalted, Pacific.

I remeber anticipating a copy of WD when I was at home for the School Holidays (Boarding School).

The NAFFI used to maybe get a couple of copies that were highly sought after and maybe a couple of weeks out of date but I'd head down there, DeutschMarks in hand to grab the latest issue.

There was no LotR at this point, and I remember one month they released Lizardmen and you got a Free couple of Skinks on the front.

I also remember a Battle Report where a Guard Tank army faced off against Space Marines, this was before any Imperial Armour etc..

I even have the Chapter Approved Book at home which was a collection of Articles and other bits and Pieces from WD, had the Sisters List in as well as the Armoured Company lists.
It also has an advert page in it with some prices, they used to be low...

I remember the back of the magazine was a catalogue, yes of the new releases, but unpainted unassembled and with all the little part numbers etc and there at the bottom and invitation to call the "mail order trolls" Being a recent returner to the hobby imagine my surprise that you can't buy bitzs any more!

I guess I'm nostalgic for the old White Dwarf, long has it been since I picked up a copy to buy.

Ah... The mail order trolls. How I miss thee.

Okay seems the Tank Battle I mentioned, was the one that was mentioned by HBMC in the WD review by here:
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/229485.page

Thats spooky.

I remember not long after that I ordered a Demolisher, a Demolisher that's rolling out again tomorrow for it's first battle in about 8 years....

Pacific wrote:But, and I think this is the issue here (and this relates not only to White Dwarf, but also the way the company has behaved over the last couple of years concerning a variety of issues), I think the upper echelons of the company have surrounded themselves with people who like to say 'Yes', and this is a disease that has spread throughout all branches of the company. It was a change I observed regarding not only regional managers, but also those at a local level. That White Dwarf is an absolute waste of paper compared to how it once was, that the finecast launch was almost comically badly timed with a price rise, the switch to new RoW policies, the secrecy policies. I could go on and on about the kinds of issues that have had hundreds of Dakka posters shaking their heads in disbelief over the last few years. How can any of these make sense to someone who can truly regard themselves as a hobbyist, and wants the best thing possible for the hobby itself? The simple answer is they can't. They might make sense to HQ, who have no care for the hobby itself beyond the revenue it brings (and you should hear the terms used to describe those who buy their products), but they most certainly don't make sense to anyone who genuinely has a passion for modelling and tabletop gaming. So what happens when your underlings complain, and comment there might be a better way of doing things? You replace them with someone who sees eye to eye with you - and this continues, this sorry state of affairs that removes anyone with any backbone (and I saw this happen on so many occasions, to people who passionately believed in the hobby) until you are left with a collection of people who just nod and tow the official line regarding anything they are asked to do.

This is how I imaging GW board meetings.

Tzarkahn wrote:
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/229485.page

Holy crap! That's what White Dwarf used to be like? That's... that's awesome!

New rating for me - -∞/10

Wow I always thought that there must have been a time before HBMC had "failcast" as every other word I just wasn't ever expecting to see it!

Nice review btw.

Me I remember WDs hayday as #90-#130, particularly the earlier part where it was more of an industry mag followed by RT/WHFB 3rd and Thrudd of course. Still bought it throughout the Red period but final stopped getting every one by 2000.

Since then I have got the odd special issue and for some reason the last four (SoB/DF/Necrons).

It's better than it was last year, it's not a patch on what it was.

4/10

curtistandoh wrote:3/10, now it's just advertisment.

this, exactly.

Also print is dead in the age of the internet anyway.

I use to like other gaming mags too, but why pay almost 10 dollars for the content in a single mag when you can get up to date content, rumors and images on a smart phone or PC for free in seconds? Even if it was still awesome, I'd have a tough time with the price tag, like I do for any magazine...

3/10

Just an advertisement now, long ago it was a good magazine...

Spanish issue has turned into a simple translation from UK one... Ago in the past we had even self created articles from GW Spain