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I subbed the new Digital iPad version due to price, £44.99 instead of £55 so works out at £3.74 an issue.

Looks great on the retina display and is easy to read, the images look great and being able to take screenshots of screen so I can put up reference images on pc while painting is very handy.

Some of the large models require a split shot and I can just join the two together on pc.

Overall very please with the digital version.

Vermillion wrote:
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...

It's all about perspective. If you've been spoon-fed crap for a few years then what they were doing 5 years ago does look good, and perhaps the current edition is a 'return to form'. The longer you've been wargaming the further back your exposure of White Dwarf probably is. I mainly bought it from issues 100-250 and you could see the decline even then. But it's a long road back to that sort of quality and the will to do this just isn't in the company. The management are apparently satisfied with the magazine because it is just a dressed up catalogue, they don't seem interested in a true supplement to their games giving proper support to their systems. Magazines like Dragon are dedicated to a single product too, but last I looked they are full of scenarios, rules for NPCs, some floorplans and maps to copy out, rules for obscure new spells or monsters, etc. Just heaps of stuff to throw into games. GW are content to produce dross and it's an expensive magazine compared to most similar hobby publications.

 Darth Bob wrote:
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 hasn't increased in content amount:
A. The all new picture size means less room for actual text (the images are also freely available online at GW website)
B. The all new Forge World section, just read the Forge World website, most of those minis are not new releases.
C. Still has a massive list of retailers taking up way too many pages
D. Font size has increased so you get alot less actual text
E. The battle report is padded out with massive photos which don't help explain what is going on.

Good points:
A. Kitbashing article - although this isn't new, it used to be a regular article.
B. Player's army - again nothing new
C. army design process - again nothing new, happen every codex release

The new WD has gained better paper and lostactual content, I would rather pay for a magazine I would want to read than one that feels alittle better when i turn a page.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 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?

[...]

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

Heh, sounds like 100x as much content to me, but that's not because there's much good stuff here. It's just that there's the occasional good bit in the new white dwarf, as opposed to no good stuff in the old ones. I'm seriously thinking of stopping with the white dwarves, but at least there is something there worth reading.

With dakka at our fingertips, it could be said that some of the tactics etc. aren't accessible easily without buying the magasine, but I reckon you can pretty much read it all here for free if you know enough to siphon out the rubbish. To me it's far better, but still not good enough to spend that much money on. If it's a question of 12 white dwarves and a battleforce, to me it's a no-brainer.

I thought the battle report was fairly interesting and that Jervis Johnson said some revealing things about collecting being the core of the hobby and painting and gaming secondary.

Beyond that I was disappointed. Some lovely photos but nothing to make me want to buy another (prior to this I last purchased a White Dwarf in about 1991).

I suppose as a magazine for keen collectors, it's probably worth it. Gamers and painters, not so much.

Why do you even need a store list when it's so easy to access the Internet? I thought it was useless padding over 10 years ago.

 Blood and Slaughter wrote:
I thought the battle report was fairly interesting and that Jervis Johnson said some revealing things about collecting being the core of the hobby and painting and gaming secondary.

Beyond that I was disappointed. Some lovely photos but nothing to make me want to buy another (prior to this I last purchased a White Dwarf in about 1991).

I suppose as a magazine for keen collectors, it's probably worth it. Gamers and painters, not so much.

You mean "buying stuff from Games Workshop because this is the Games Workshop hobby!!" coming first and then anything which doesn't get them money being secondary? Well, at least they are showing dome honesty there

And yes Howard I agree the decline was clear through those issues, but at least they did try in there at times, with adding rules etc and having updates. And RT era you just had to buy WD for the rules unless you wanted them in one place which was great

You mean "buying stuff from Games Workshop because this is the Games Workshop hobby!!" coming first and then anything which doesn't get them money being secondary? Well, at least they are showing dome honesty

Yes.

In fairness I though his remarks about putting too many limitations into list building were in general quite sound, especially the terrible need some people have to impose house ruled restrictions in order to 'balance' things that they simply don't like either through prejudice or fear -- Forgeworld haters take note . . .

But really, beyond the two half decent articles and a small feature making me rather wish I lived near central Glasgow (now there's something I never thought I'd write!), it didn't do much for me. Again, in fairness, if I played fantasy the rivals article might have been okay.

 Howard A Treesong wrote:
Why do you even need a store list when it's so easy to access the Internet? I thought it was useless padding over 10 years ago.

Silly Howard. What will the average GW Customer do when this whole intermajiggy fad is over? GW has to look out for its customers, who they know are slow unintelligent creatures unable to think for themselves. This is all about ensuring they are informed for the future when the intermanet is gone, not about hawking more high quality Citadel Finewares.

I skimmed through a copy on Saturday. Whilst I must say I do love the new paperstock, and that the price 'adjustment' was only an extra 5 cents here in Oz, there is nothing in there that can lure a jaded customer like me back. The battle report looked boring as hell at a glance, the painting guide didn't really seem to provide anything beyond how to paint their official color schemes, and there was next to nothing in there to wet my whistle for next month's issue since its preview was just a picture of Ian McKellen as Gandalf.

At least they have consolidated the advertisement section, that is actually a smart move. But if this issue is an indicator of the entirety of the change then it didn't work for me. And I'll hold onto my cash until the next overhaul. Even then I will chug a shaker of salt before I believe it will win me back.

Personally I don't blame the new staff making it, they actually seem to have an idea of what they are doing for the most part. My overall biggest gripe that it only shows (note I didn't use 'supports') 3 systems at most is out of their control. And until GW decides to have more than 3 active systems they will be hard pressed to generate any content that I will be interested in, and ergo they won't be able to cross market their major lines to me and get me to part with my delicious monies.

I enjoyed it, it was decent.

Far better than the 12 I received before my sub lapsed in February and I swore never to buy it again.

I doubt Ill resubscribe mind, but Ill certainly consider buying it more often. Something I wouldn't have said a year ago.

 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.

GW has entered a really cynical phase of wanting you to pay for everything separately, so that means no decent painting articles because they want you to buy the digital painting guides (which is dumb at the moment, because not all of their customers own ipads). It won't be long before they put a paywall on their website so you have to subscribe just to look at their miniatures... I'm only half joking here

Well is it not an ad rag that doubles as a revenue generator with token bones of hobby information thrown to us hobbyists?

 Adam LongWalker wrote:

 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.

GW has entered a really cynical phase of wanting you to pay for everything separately, so that means no decent painting articles because they want you to buy the digital painting guides (which is dumb at the moment, because not all of their customers own ipads). It won't be long before they put a paywall on their website so you have to subscribe just to look at their miniatures... I'm only half joking here

Well is it not an ad rag that doubles as a revenue generator with token bones of hobby information thrown to us hobbyists?

It didn't used to be I was reading WD315 (the launch issue for 4th Edition Tau) earlier which is far from a classic, but it had a great Mordheim campaign with extra scenarios.

As for the modern day WD, I'm past the point of caring now. It's £5.50 that will be spent elsewhere.

I bought a new subscription at my local GW store on Saturday morning... strangely they only charged me $96 for it.

Promo pricing?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also, gotta say... I like that the battle report designed to show off the shiny new super powerful forces of chaos ended up with chaos getting their face smashed.

That's a bit different, too. The games usually feel more rigged than that.

 Blood and Slaughter wrote:

But really, beyond the two half decent articles and a small feature making me rather wish I lived near central Glasgow (now there's something I never thought I'd write!), it didn't do much for me. Again, in fairness, if I played fantasy the rivals article might have been okay.

Living in central Glasgow myself I can't help be intrigued? What was the feature that was so appealing to make you want to be a weegie?

It looks prettier, but it's still pretty much the same as it was before. I think there's actually less variety of content in it now.

Hopefully this is the first step towards an all round better magazine.

Edit: Question - did they finish the Dark Angel spine image or did they just abandon it with the introduction of the new look magazine?

I honestly hated the direction they went with the new photography...

*Not at all bitter about applying for that job and losing out to that tool that got the job*

Only really had a flip through it, so these are very preliminary impressions:

Good: There are some painting guides, showing a few different rust techniques/paint chips/glowing things! Horray! This is what I hope for - all the bog standard stuff I already know siphoned off into the "how to paint citadel miniatures" book with a couple of tips and tricks in the magazine.

Bad: They say a picture says a thousand words, but that doesn't mean you can get away with NO WORDS AT ALL in your painting guides.

Good: A conversion article or two!

Bad: Only using GW bits... hmm...

Good: Showing the staff playing games, getting outside contributers, concept sketches from JG!

Bad: Why the hell is this behind the store listing? I very nearly missed it, as I assume once I hit those pages that the magazine is basically over. If you've got to have a store list (and fair enough, I have actually used it before) put it RIGHT at the back.

Good: Jervis still has an article - generally interesting, haven't had time to read it.

Bad: The font size in the article looks huge, and there's a MASSIVE WHITE SPACE in the bottom right corner of the page. I though we now had Supar 133t magazine producing gurus working on this thing, why chunks of white space?

Overall, looks a lot better than the last 6 months. Still needs more text. B+ on first impressions.

I thought it was pretty good, apart from the painting guides which were awful.

Like I said, It was better than it has been for a while, but did anyone else think the batrep kinda sucked?

I think the last one I really enjoyed was Necron's V SM about 7 or 8 months ago, and I much preferred it when it was fluff heavy and had plenty of story added, the latest one seemed harder to follow and had no fluff added, I'm hoping this was more for testing the new units and they will change the format somewhat for the next one.

 mattyrm wrote:
Like I said, It was better than it has been for a while, but did anyone else think the batrep kinda sucked?

I think the last one I really enjoyed was Necron's V SM about 7 or 8 months ago, and I much preferred it when it was fluff heavy and had plenty of story added, the latest one seemed harder to follow and had no fluff added, I'm hoping this was more for testing the new units and they will change the format somewhat for the next one.

Yes, I thought the latest one was a bit muddled and I too found it hard to work out what was going on now that they have seemingly done away with the overhead map/graphics that show movement, hits etc.

I applaud them trying to do the batrep in a bit more detail and with more photos however; it is a step in the right direction. Hopefully, they will use this relaunch as a springboard to improve.

What was the feature that was so appealing to make you want to be a weegie?

Just the bottom of a page feature on the Glasgow shop towards the back where it said they had two gaming evenings (veteran's and club) and 6 gaming tables.

I picked it up this weekend and had some time to read through it on Sunday.

It was good, but not great. Certainly not good enough to get a subscription IMHO.

Oh. I barely frequent the Glasgow store due to bad experiences, thought it was something more exciting.

Nah, it was just the fact that hereabouts we now have only one 6x4 for open gaming (becoming 2 or 3 4x4s on game night).

 mattyrm wrote:
Like I said, It was better than it has been for a while, but did anyone else think the batrep kinda sucked?

I think the last one I really enjoyed was Necron's V SM about 7 or 8 months ago, and I much preferred it when it was fluff heavy and had plenty of story added, the latest one seemed harder to follow and had no fluff added, I'm hoping this was more for testing the new units and they will change the format somewhat for the next one.

I absolutely hate trying read a bat rep with "fluff" scattered through it. It's never any good. I'd rather just read what happened, what tactics were used, what went according to the player's plans, and what didn't. You know, the things that actually happen during a game. If I wanted to read a bunch of bad fiction by people who aren't paid to write fiction (but wish they could be), I'd go become an editor. That being said, the lack of an overhead map doesn't help an battle report at all.

Well, I haven't fully read my WD yet (not something I thought I'd ever say!!), but here are my general thoughts on it.

It feels good in the hand, weighty & I like the slightly raised lettering on the cover, so overall pleased with that.

Content wise - not so pleased. Still way to many pictures, to much pimping of how 'greatsuperawesome' finecast is, to much wasted space with store locations (should be a quarterly leaflet or something), poor painting guide (if you can even call it that), pretty lame 'kit bashing' article (oh look, we glued some stuff to a plane) and poor, seemingly random layout.

All said, it's better than it has been for a looooong time, and I'm willing to give it a few issues to see how things pan out, but if this is the best it gets, then, nope, count me out.

It's nice to see that somebody at Hq actually cares and their trying but still not enough improvement to buy. $10 an issue adds up over time and I would rather have more models personally. I'm interested in furthering my hobby skills not have them tell me buy product X for 50 dollars or more. I want to learn how to scratch build terrain and how to actually paint like or better than the heavy metal team. I get better painting instruction for free off utube than I do after buying their how to paint citadel mini's. Layer, wash, layer, highlight, glaze and final highlight. With the optional new dry brushing compound thrown in on occasion. Doh, they got me that time, never again.

Got it this weekend. Still looking through it, but I gotta say I like this issue more than any I've seen in the past 2-3 years. I didn't think the batrep sucked all that much, I think they were open and honest in what they were trying to do and I could understand what was going on through the overview. I really liked the review at the end of the batrep from the 3 guest speakers, I will say that I agree that overhead map shots would have made it better.

 Howard A Treesong wrote:
It's all about perspective. If you've been spoon-fed crap for a few years then what they were doing 5 years ago does look good, and perhaps the current edition is a 'return to form'. The longer you've been wargaming the further back your exposure of White Dwarf probably is. I mainly bought it from issues 100-250 and you could see the decline even then. But it's a long road back to that sort of quality and the will to do this just isn't in the company. The management are apparently satisfied with the magazine because it is just a dressed up catalogue, they don't seem interested in a true supplement to their games giving proper support to their systems. Magazines like Dragon are dedicated to a single product too, but last I looked they are full of scenarios, rules for NPCs, some floorplans and maps to copy out, rules for obscure new spells or monsters, etc. Just heaps of stuff to throw into games. GW are content to produce dross and it's an expensive magazine compared to most similar hobby publications.

This kind of strikes a chord with me on a couple of different levels. I remember dragon in the glory days of the nineties....hell it's still pretty good, but it's a different ballpark supporting an rpg vs. a tabletop game that people take to tourneys. People I knew didn't like GW because of the Chapter Approved stuff because they felt they had to suscribe to GW just to play the game (which mades sense to me then, but is absurd to me now)...so yes, it's all a perspective issue.

I'd like to see more mission scenario's, support for crap like Planetstrike, Cityfight, Kill Teams, Apocolypse formations, alternate ways to play the game, and revisiting specialist games should all be the domain of White Dwarf. Core rules updates that used to be Chapter Approved I think should be the FAQs. I'm curious to see how this magazine will pan out over the next 3-4 issues when there's not a major release a week away (I mean seriously, this issue was EZ Sauce because of the Chaos release).

Anyways. I'd give it a solid B+. I like the insights on the GW family dynamics. I haven't bought a WD in 2+ years. I wasn't displeased with what I received in this issue.

 Blood and Slaughter wrote:
I thought the battle report was fairly interesting and that Jervis Johnson said some revealing things about collecting being the core of the hobby and painting and gaming secondary.

I hope you understand, that Jervis claiming the core of the hobby is collecting does not in fact mean the core of the hobby is collecting. It just means that GW's current position is that the core of the hobby should be collecting.

The reality is that the core of the hobby is playing a game. For various reasons, including some related to positioning in litigation, they really want people to think it's all about collecting and less about gaming.

Quite frankly, his statement is not "revealing" in any way. In fact it directly contradicts statements he made in other white dwarfs within the past 6 months.

------------

Back on topic: Two things I did like about it, specifically the iPad version: with larger close up zoomable photos and the price. Much better. Having read plenty of other magazines, the ad content level doesn't surprise me one bit and really doesn't matter when it's delivered electronically.

I would however like the battle reports to be something that is easy to follow along so that we can really figure out what happened. Also, I don't mind the army of the month always winning and was a bit perplexed that the chaos side lost this time. What would have been absolutely perfect is a chaos marine win against grey knights, combined with a good solid battle report on how they pulled it off.

clively wrote:

 Blood and Slaughter wrote:
I thought the battle report was fairly interesting and that Jervis Johnson said some revealing things about collecting being the core of the hobby and painting and gaming secondary.

I hope you understand, that Jervis claiming the core of the hobby is collecting does not in fact mean the core of the hobby is collecting. It just means that GW's current position is that the core of the hobby should be collecting.

The reality is that the core of the hobby is playing a game. For various reasons, including some related to positioning in litigation, they really want people to think it's all about collecting and less about gaming.

Quite frankly, his statement is not "revealing" in any way. In fact it directly contradicts statements he made in other white dwarfs within the past 6 months.

Take a look at the Chapterhouse legal battle thread. It's quite possible that he made those statements because of what is going on in that at the moment, if you read the ins and outs of what has been taking place there.