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Even the oldest WD I have (from 97 or so) was full of adverts/telephone listings, but never as full as the revamped first issue.

We bought one to see if it was changed and it was not, so I'll buy one again when they overhaul it again!

 Shandara wrote:
Even the oldest WD I have (from 97 or so) was full of adverts/telephone listings...

Well that makes sense. In the time that issue 97 came out, when electricity was still a novelty affordable only by the highest in society, the magazine was the chief form of communication. But it's not 1623 any more. The Internet exists. GW need to leverage that, but really don't.

Last issue I bought was the Sisters of Battle part 1 issue. Part 2 sold out so fast I couldn't find a copy. Haven't been moved by the spirit to pick up anything since them. I tend to look at blogs and coolminiornot for modeling more these days.

White Dwarf is an insult to hobby magazines and magazines in general. I would, like many others, call White Dwarf advertisement, but that wouldn't be fair to advertisement. Advertisement is usually upfront about being advertisement. Advertisement is relatively honest. White Dwarf suffers from severely grave hubris and tries to make people (mostly kids) believe it's something it absolutely is not. It really doesn't deserve any kind of acknowledgement, but I hate it with such a passion I can not resist reading these threads.

The White Dwarf relaunch was a bigger joke than Finecast in my opinion.

Hehe - I see that many of you are lovin' tha Dwarf!

Had a quick(ish) flick through the shiny new October 2012 issue of WD and thought I'd compile a breakdown of what constitutes 154 pages (if you include the inside covers) of "this most august of organs" (quote taken from Jes Bickham's Opening Salvo editorial)...

New products (replete with pretty pictures) - the first 46 pages +2 pages for GW Direct and their fast despatch/fast delivery advertisement
Army of the month - 6 pages of skanky skaven
Ooh look; a games designer! - 2 pages of Jervis Johnson explaining about why they impose limitations in army lists
Battle report (with lots of pictures) - 16 pages, including a post-battle review. What did they think? What do we think? Do we in fact think? Or just buy...
Tactical debate! - 6 pages
Horus Heresy special - 8 pages (including more new books & miniatures)
Blanchitsu - 4 pages of lovely pictures but it's just not enough! I think I speak for many when I say we want more of this...
Nicely painted stuff - 8 pages
Kit bash - 4 pages skimming the surface of modifiying these Orky fighta bommers
Terrain-building article! - 6 pages of lovely picturesand some useful text giving some pointers in making the Urdek Refinery battlefield
Painting guide! - Paint Splatter, as it is called, gives 6 entire pages containing "a wealth of handy painting tips and ideas to inspire your own hobby". Hmm...
Ooh look; an army book author! - 2 pages talking about stuff
Follow us on Facecrack! - 1 page
Where to buy all this lovely expensive stuff - 15 pages
This month in WD - 4 pages talking about the mainly inconsequential goings-on inside the WD team
The design studio - 6 pages worth reading, with some nice Jes Goodwin concept art
More advertising - 4 pages

Ok, so I missed one or two pages, but I think you can get the general picture. More than a third of the magazine is essentially advertising new product, Another 20-odd pages tells you where to buy the stuff. The painting guide isn't all that, and the overall content in the rest of the magazine is lacking somewhat in my humblest of humble opinions

A couple of worthwhile entries are Blanchitsu (a true legend of the game), the inspirational terrain piece and reading some of the Design Studio.

So is it true that we are buying nothing more substantial than a monthly catalogue? Are GW laughing at us so hard they risk falling off their mountain of our erstwhile cash?

Right, now I'm off to look for cheap DE on eBay...

Dworfs make me angry. Da fat little wite dworf makes me reeeeelly angry.

Yoo wudn't like me wen I is angry...

Orc, smash!

I don't have any problem with White Dwarf, I accept it for what it is, a GW marketing tool.

It would be nice to go back to the good old days with role-playing articles. Especially as FFG are producing WFRP and 40K RPGs.

 Ugavine wrote:
I don't have any problem with White Dwarf, I accept it for what it is, a GW marketing tool.

It would be nice to go back to the good old days with role-playing articles. Especially as FFG are producing WFRP and 40K RPGs.

Role-playing articles... I like!

Hello out there!!

I made the mistake of starting a thread like this one after the "relaunch" a few months ago....I got blasted to bits by the Kool-aid drinkers, but where are they now?? Thats right, crying into their TEN DOLLAR box of Kleenex.

I think most of us can agree. White Dwarf is a monthly advertisement. If you think it is anything different , you've got another think coming.

I work in the publishing industry. PRINT IS DEAD. Ive said it before and got blasted, but I'll say it again. Our Internet office employs about 6 times as many people as the print side. The print side has 2 ad execs. Internet has 7.

The ONLY reason to publish a PAPER MAGAZINE is to SELL ADVERTISING!!!!

GW shot themselves in both feet when they decided not to sell their space to competitors. Competition brings out the best in EVERYTHING!!

When we as consumers make a statement with our wallets -- i.e. by not buying their advertisements, Maybe GW will change their tactics.

So here is my wish list of things I would LOVE to see in Dwarfer..

How about a tour of the outer regions? With a model and a scenario to go with it? Get some use out of FineCrap casting being quick and easy.
How about a WorldWide Campaign? One where subscribers get a code to enter into the website to enter game results?
How about using the mag to release updates to the Rules or Codexes...the way Chapter Approved used to do?
How about a Roleplaying adventure. FFG might have the rights to make adventures, but GW still has the intellectual copyright and can do pretty much anything they want to do with their product.
How about some painting articles that actually have content...not just a swathe of color and no explaination on how the painter actually performed the painting.
How about some modelling articles that show new kids how to use the tools and what other things can be used to make terrain.

If GW spent some actual quality time on their monthly magazine and chose to sell advertising like EVERY OTHER MAGAZINE ON THE PLANET!!!, we might not have to suffer through another wave of mandatory price hikes to cover the outrageous publishing costs of the crap known as WHITE DWARF.

Hehe - some very good points there, FarseerAndyMan! I really like some of your suggestions, too, particularly:

- A worldwide campaign (not sure how it would work, but it sounds like a lot of fun!)
- Bringing back Chapter Approved (it'll never happen)!
- Role-playing adventures for Roguetrader, WFRP etc.
- PROPER painting & modelling articles!!

The quality of WD has been on the plummet for quite a while and then they bring in the people from wired magazine (which was canned) that only further the crap quality.

I spent the last ten bucks I will ever spend on one last month and after reading the ad magazine I gave it away so it wouldn't pollute my hobby area.

I hope someone from GW reads this and despairs.

i mostly miss the old 'eavy metal articles

The painting articles only seen to be there to showcase models, have been for a long time. When I last got the magazine they were doing LotR painting guides all the time, but I don't think the figures were always that good and it was little more than a guide as to the colours used.

How do they have so much time and space for simple painting guides but have never, to my knowledge, taken the time to explain how to approach techniques like OSL and NMM? It creates a disparity between the golden demon stuff and how they explain painting, because they don't tell you how to achieve done of the effects achieved by other painters, leaving it a mystery.

I tend to think of the the current WD in the same way Captain Blackadder thought of 'King and Country ' magazine.

'Ahh, King and Country magazine, soft strong and very absorbant. But why not send us actual toilet paper instead...'

I actually quite like the current issue of WD, but then again, my first issue was something like October 2007,