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If you already have a subscription, when will they change the amount you pay? Will it still be £9 for this quarter if you've already had one of them?

 Flashman wrote:
I'm glad there are a few people seeing past the "Emperor's New Clothes" effect and highlighting that aside from looking pretty, not much has changed.

That was what I was afraid of and reading the painting section reviews I feel like it was another BIG missed chance there.

 finnan wrote:

The warpstone 'tutorial' shows six steps. The first two seem COMPLETELY pointless to me!

Gotta say, this has bugged me about a few of their painting guides and tutorials. Basecoat and shade only to cover the entire area with another basecoat / layer...? In the flipbook painting guide, they have people airbrushing miniatures one base colour, then airbrushing it another base colour immediately, for total coverage. What's the point of this? If the new coat of paint obscures the old entirely, the first coat serves no purpose at all. If it DOESN'T cover the old paint, then the new layer or basecoat isn't doing its job. I hope it's not a ploy to increase paint sales, as painting an army takes long enough as it is without artificial steps included.

Perhaps I'm being too cynical... any more experienced painter-types shed some light on this?

Cheers!

Craig

Got the digital version, I even subscribed, hoping to send a message of "More digital stuff please".

However. Jaded by my profession... the magazine reeks of amateurish graphic design decisions and the content felt like it was even more haphazard in it's execution.

It's the first issue though. The layout/design problems are something that usually gets ironed out in a few issues time. It irks me that they have missed some really obvious things though. But I attribute that to 1) having a short deadline 2) trying to break old conventions.

I hoped for a ground breaking issue, with content on par with whats in Edge magazine, and was sadly dissapointed. But I guess I'm pleased with what I (we) got. It still feels like they're trying to break the advertising pamphlet box White Dwarf has been living in for the last years. Time will tell if they succeed. I sure hope they do.

I have to say been reading WD since 2001 and this one is of a different quality, closer to a lot of Console gamer Magazines. The lay out could do with a lot of improvement (the new way of managing army lists for example is rubbish).

There are more contributor articles which is nice and links back to the 2001 to 2004 era and overall it is a little less of a catalogue and more of magazine, but it is still pretty clear that it has a major flaw, the fact that it is in-house.

Still a mild improvement over the last few months. Hopefully they will stop with all the dark red and graphic boxes, as well as the footnotes on EVERY photograph (That just reminds me of so many home decorating magazines!).

First White Dwarf that I picked up in a while, and it does seem to have some improvements.

I do like the improved photography, battle report seems a bit more detailed, and there seem to be more staff interviews.

I do like that it covers "licensed games" and Forge World now, but a cynical person might say "You are paying more, for more advertisement!". But I like it.

Multiple pages highlighting the return of staff (and non-staff) armies instead of the same old studio armies. A nice section of a great looking battlefield. Sure it's GW battle field stuff, but it does show how you can make pre-made terrain look much better.

No chapter approved that I saw, but I haven't really read it other than thumbing through the thing.

I give it a solid B and a good step in the right direction.

£5.50 is too much for me, very little has changed in the magazine itself apart from the paper. I would rather have better articles and more new unit rules for my money.

My flgs hasn't recieved any yet, any other independants not recieved them?

Mick

Looked at my friends new and improved white dwarf. It looks different, but, still smells like crap. Lets review:

White Dwarf prior to change: For the past few years it was a glossy commercial for the newest armies of whatever system, a battle report that showcased the new army (of course it always won with the predetermined dice rolls) and a bunch of pictures of the paint jobs the studio employees did.

White Dwarf after change: Came in a plastic bag with some sort of poster. Even glossier pages that is a gigantic commercial for all things GW and forgeworld.

I picked up some old WD in a trade, and the ones that are five years or older seem to have real content. Some fluff articles/stories. Different scenarios for game play, some good ideas and articles on how to build certain items such as terrain. Now all WD does is say "buy this terrain".

Not worth all the hype that was put into this "new" white dwarf. However, to be positive, it seems GW did better with this than they have with finecast.

Am I the only one who seems to have noticed that GW seems to have abandoned the image on the outside spine of White Dwarf that they've been building since the first of the year.

 martin74 wrote:
Looked at my friends new and improved white dwarf. It looks different, but, still smells like crap. Lets review:

White Dwarf prior to change: For the past few years it was a glossy commercial for the newest armies of whatever system, a battle report that showcased the new army (of course it always won with the predetermined dice rolls) and a bunch of pictures of the paint jobs the studio employees did.

White Dwarf after change: Came in a plastic bag with some sort of poster. Even glossier pages that is a gigantic commercial for all things GW and forgeworld.

I picked up some old WD in a trade, and the ones that are five years or older seem to have real content. Some fluff articles/stories. Different scenarios for game play, some good ideas and articles on how to build certain items such as terrain. Now all WD does is say "buy this terrain".

Not worth all the hype that was put into this "new" white dwarf. However, to be positive, it seems GW did better with this than they have with finecast.

Thing is the ones you say are good are ones which I would describe as you do the current. Many years before it became a gigantic ad for their stuff, and gradually got worse, I am actually surprised to see what you said it conatins 5 years ago. To me it was worthless long before. And as for the price thing...
Years ago they said there was going to be a rise in the cost, to cover that they were going to put card inserts in each insert for various things, be it wargear cards, extra space hulk sections, whatever it happened to be. Few issues down the line that went, no more card, yet the price remained the same. Time shall tell, after all they had previous swapped to a cheaper metal for casting a couple of years earlier and hiked the prices up for greater profits. sound familiar?

The new army lost, doesn't that count for something?

 d-usa wrote:
The new army lost, doesn't that count for something?

Was it because they didn't have enough of the super new amazing mega kit (link to kit and also a link to re-mortgage your house so you can afford to buy a couple of them)?

 SilverMK2 wrote:

 d-usa wrote:
The new army lost, doesn't that count for something?

Was it because they didn't have enough of the super new amazing mega kit (link to kit and also a link to re-mortgage your house so you can afford to buy a couple of them)?

Actually crappy dice rolls.

Actually, the chaos army had one of each of the new models in it, plus a second big rhino dude.

I think it's more to do with, Andrew Kenrick really likes chaos armies. And he's got a record of always losing that makes me think he should play against Jervis some time...

I also found the ridiculous editorial by Jervis Johnson to be hilarious.

Basically says he's trying to tear down any force limitations in the game because he wants you to buy more models and first and foremost, this is about buying/collecting as opposed to constructing/painting/playing.

 Harriticus wrote:
I also found the ridiculous editorial by Jervis Johnson to be hilarious.

Basically says he's trying to tear down any force limitations in the game because he wants you to buy more models and first and foremost, this is about buying/collecting as opposed to constructing/painting/playing.

It is about constructing/painting/playing. But you should be able to construct/paint/play with everything you want to buy

 d-usa wrote:

 Harriticus wrote:
I also found the ridiculous editorial by Jervis Johnson to be hilarious.

Basically says he's trying to tear down any force limitations in the game because he wants you to buy more models and first and foremost, this is about buying/collecting as opposed to constructing/painting/playing.

It is about constructing/painting/playing. But you should be able to construct/paint/play with everything you want to buy

I'd like to introduce you to my ALL LasCannon Equiped Space Marine Chapter

Gatta say I really like the look and feel of the new White Dwarf magazine. My only gripe is the inflated price tag. I very much like the previews and articles but no matter how you look at it is a tool for GW to see their models. So I ask why not set the price at $5 to $6 US? Then they would quadruple the sales of the magazine and be a better tool to get the word out on GW products.

I am a huge fan of warhammer and warhammer 40k the games. Just not of the GW business model of trying to price out new perspective consumers...kids wanting to get in the game.

 Ghaz wrote:
Am I the only one who seems to have noticed that GW seems to have abandoned the image on the outside spine of White Dwarf that they've been building since the first of the year.

yeah i know right.... that spine image buildup was a little weak.. it would have been nice if they did it proper for the people who like collecting the printed versions. some of the older white dwarfs had doubleups on the spines too so when you sit them all side-by-side they dont quite match up...

finnan has a pretty good post back on page 2 covering a lot of the stuff in the new WD. i agree with most of it. especially the part about Jes Goodwins' design sketches towards the back. I love the concept art stuff (they also did a pretty cool video about the hellbrute where they show lots of the sketches). it reminds me sumwhat of how no quarter has lots of nice concept art in there too.
hahah also, not sure if it was finnan but sumone mentioned they were distracted by the players photographs. ahhaha so true, those guys look pretty halarious. (the rivals on pg76 hahaha).

and yeh, all the forgeworld stuff is sweet. im glad GW is advocating more accepting of the forgeworld stuff

Still full'a advertisements. Still full'a huge pictures rather than maps and turn-by-turn BatReps. Still full'a stuff you can get on the web for free. Still full'a nothing but Citadel™ Terrain™ on Citadel™ Realm™ of Battle™ Boards™.

The new paper is nice though.

The white dwarf is cool, and well worth the little bit extra. But now you have a CHOICE which WD's to get with your subscription, and the subscription is valid til 2014 anyhow. The subscription in my humble opinion is now the way to go, plus you are also getting a new WD mini as well.

Um, alround coolness for the WD team.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Still full'a advertisements. Still full'a huge pictures rather than maps and turn-by-turn BatReps. Still full'a stuff you can get on the web for free. Still full'a nothing but Citadel™ Terrain™ on Citadel™ Realm™ of Battle™ Boards™.

The new paper is nice though.

Yeah, i guess i can understand why they leave a lot of fluff outa the book since the black library is totaly awesome, but it could do with a whole lot more SUBSTANCE, like maps and batReps or concept art and rule stuff.
They already have the pretty pictures and advertisments down and i guess it just comes down to the fact that at the end of the day some people feel a little ripped off, having to pay so much for a advert catalogue.

I still like it tho, and i think i will go for a subscription. the subscription model is very nice, and i normally get all the WD anyway, i just like going down to the local store and buying it from there.

They should at the very least be doing rules previews.

It would have been nice if it had the Chaos Cultist rules, or peak at what makes a Hellbrute different from a Dreadnaught.

Actually yes, the subscription model they've got is quite nice in that you get to choose the issues. I think that's a very good change.

It's only a dollar more, and it has about 100x the content of the last pieces of crap. You can feel the quality in the book. It's thicker, sturdier, the cover is embossed, there's fascinating articles, great painting tutorials, even a large portion of the magazine dedicated to the FW Horus Heresy stuff! And a poster too?! Well worth the $10. I'm honestly baffled that, knowing GW, the price didn't go up to like $15.

What a refreshing, and welcome change. A good move by GW.

It would be worth $15 but I feel I should avoid this discussion for the sake of not getting in trouble...people griping about a $1 price increase while repsonding to posts on an iphone5 make me mourn the future of humanity.

I thought it was a great issue.

You can please some of the fans some of the time, and Warhammer fans none of the time.

 Darth Bob wrote:
... and it has about 100x the content of the last pieces of crap.

Does it? I don't have the last issue, but I do have the "OMG! It's 6th Edition 40K" issue, and it's poor. Laughably poor. But does this new WD really improve on content that much? Let's go through it, shall we?

You're 52 pages in before you're out of the new release section and hit the first article. That article is 6 pages, most of which is pictures. Jervis gets his say for another two and then we're into a 16 page Bat Rep. Good size for a BatRep, but again it's mostly pictures and there are no maps/turn-by-turn. It's certainly no where near as bad as the 3 page isometric photo BatReps from the early 215-230 era, but still. After that we've got a 4 page tactics article - our first real article, reminding me of the old Warhammer and Blood Bowl articles that Jake and Adi used to write - and then we're right into an 8 page advertisement for all the HH products they make. John Blance manages to find enough room to put out a paragraph of text amongst all the pictures, then we get a very nice model showcase for 8 pages (still just pictures though).

Up next we have some kitbashing using Citadel™ Parts™, then some pretty pictures of a nice gaming table that uses nothing but authorised Citadel™ Terrain™ Kits™. So after that lot of 10 pages we hit GW's paint-by-trademarks painting guide, with the wonderful advice of 'layer' and 'wash' and which official Citadel™ Painting™ Brush™ you should be using with your official Citadel™ Paints™. So that's 8 pages.

Then we hit Jeremy Vetock's article and it looks like we're about to get some real content and... wait, that's 2 pages and we're back to advertisments, notices of events and some store info. Do I need to know all this? I mean I'm happy that I can buy GW products at Quezon City in the Philippines or that there's a GW in Mollergata in Norway, but I live in Australia so... why are these pages here? All 14 or them for that matter? That better be it for this 'section'. One big house-keeping list of every store/stockist that they do once every 6 months. 14 pages of store information every issue is going to get real old, real fast.

Then it's three pages of advertisements (including one for WD) and we're maybe getting to some actual content here. Nope. We're not. I'll forgive the new WD team for talking about new WD in their first issue - that's to be expected - but now we've got some details on this months new hotness. We had that in the first 50 pages. Do we need to go over it again? That's 5 pages and... AH! Phil Kelly! Great. Some actual information that's new and interesting and/or hasn't already been covered yet. And Jes is there too! 6 pages. And back to more stuff on Forge World doing Horus Heresy, something we've already had the 50-page New Release section and an 8-page HH article tell us about. Two pages of that bring us to 2 pages of BL stuff, but thankfully as Christian Dunn and Gav Thorpe are writers we actually get more than just a paragraph. We still only get two pages before...

... Gandalf! So no Dark Angels. Just Hobbit (x2) until year's end I guess. Can't really blame 'em for capitalising on Hobbit mania, but still, it would've been nice to get a Codex for each of the starter-box armies before the end of the year. A calendar of events fills the inside cover (Games Day Modena coming soon - I don't even know where that is!) and our magazine's over.

So there's 100x the content? I'm not even seeing 10x the content. What am I missing?

 adamsouza wrote:
They should at the very least be doing rules previews.

It would have been nice if it had the Chaos Cultist rules, or peak at what makes a Hellbrute different from a Dreadnaught.

yeah i know right. i got dark vengeance and id really like to know the nitty gritty about the units rules, points cost/FOC, are those chosen suposed to be elites? ah well, guess it wont be too long till the new codex comes... and in hardcover. sheesh, i love those hardcovers but they are a little unpractical. might look for a softcover since theyre easier to use on the table