Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

I wrote this over on Tale of Painters, it's quite interesting. It might just win over some rage-quitters before they leave the hobby, or it might push them further over the edge.

Check it out and let me know if you prefer old or new.

http://taleofpainters.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/review-white-dwarf-february-2013-vs.html

I'm wondering why you didn't value the freebie Necron warrior in that issue as anything. Greanted, feelies like it were rare even then, but I don't think you can underestimate the cool value of it. The free Terminator I got with WD when Assault on Black Reach was released is still doing sterling service among my First Company, too.

EDIT: Ach, I see you mention it at the very end. I was expecting it to show up first, since it's right there on the cover. :-)

Interesting article. Would you do one with an issue from 2003-ish?

 Agamemnon2 wrote:
I'm wondering why you didn't value the freebie Necron warrior in that issue as anything. Greanted, feelies like it were rare even then, but I don't think you can underestimate the cool value of it. The free Terminator I got with WD when Assault on Black Reach was released is still doing sterling service among my First Company, too.

EDIT: Ach, I see you mention it at the very end. I was expecting it to show up first, since it's right there on the cover. :-)

I'm wondering why he valued a bunch of short opinion articles from people over RULES FOR AN ENTIRELY NEW WH40K Army.

It's like comparing comic books by the letters from the bullpen section.

Funny, I just did a (coming from White Dwarf) Review of Ravage Magazine as possible alternative to the Dwarf...

Thank you for doing that comparison review.

I know a lot of people like to talk about how great it was "back in the day". It's good to be able to really see what was really happening then as it certainly puts things into much clearer perspective, at least for me.

New issue beats the old issue hands down for general hobby content.
(...)
New issue wins this round because the old issue isn't an article it's an advert.
(...)
People make the mistake of saying the new issue is one big advert, this isn't the case. It has loads of GW product in it which you can buy but it doesn't make it an advert or catalogue.
(...)
Page count: Old issue is a measly 100 pages, new issue is a massive 156. When you think the old issue has all those adverts and 17 of those yellow catalogue pages showing parts and model numbers at the back you start to think the old issue is all filler while the new issue is all killer. New issue wins.

Funny how you missed that the pages are smaller, have more white borders, and that there are 10-14 pages in each issue listing every friggin GW stockist in the whole world with telephone number and all!

This is the first White Dwarf I ever owned. It's also the last of your articles I'm ever going to read.

A single-issue review can hardly encompass the differences between old and new. Additionally, the author places a high value on aspects of the magazine, such as the new model photographs, which simply did not exist 'back then'.

The reality is that White Dwarf started as an all-hobby magazine (Yes, it was even mentioned by name in the first AD&D Dungeon Master's Guide right next to 'Dragon Magazine').

It became a GW-only magazine, filled with interesting content and ideas.

Now, it is a monthly product catalog. A very well done catalog.

Each phase has it's advantages and disadvantages.

tl;dr:

Original WD: Promote all hobbies.
Mid-WD: Promote Games Workshop's wide variety of games and Citadel models.
Now: Sell Models.

It's all subjective. Comparing content for content is all very well, but I bet the 1998 version was more interesting to read.

I'm not sure I agree with your article. The way you've done weightings of the various sections seems off to me, since many of the sections which the old issue won are by far the most important sections in the mag imho!

Most importantly the sections with rules add huge value to a mag, since you can use them over and over. Not having rules in the new WD's is one of the main reasons they are currently worthless. Likewise, the converting sections used to come up with new and inventive ways to make things. Often they'd use non-GW bits, they'd suggest using sprue or ways to make your models go further. Now, the converting articles all revolve around buying more stuff from GW. Similarly with the terrain; I feel it is unfair to judge on the quality of the terrain, when the article actually has suggestions on how to build your own terrain, very cheaply and quickly. The new mag focuses on finished and fancy looking pieces chockablock with GW bits but doesn't really state how to make them or how you might achieve such an effect yourself.

This for me is what makes the biggest difference between old WD and new WD. Old WD used to have minimal and not very important new-product sections. With a larger proportion of the mag going towards converting, painting and building terrain, often with a focus on saving money. E.g. using sprue, cardboard terrain, scratchbuilding vehicles.

When people say the new WD is a big advert all the way through, they don't mean that there are lots of advert-pages, or product feature pages. They're referring to the constant tone of the 'hobby' content, which newly always prioritizes kitbashing (where both kits are GW produced) and utilization of GW terrain rather than home made terrain.

I still remember the high point for my white-dwarf-reading was issue 222, with the "Last Stand at Glazer's Creek" battle report between the Fat Bloke and the Grand Warlord. It was a fun variant scenario with irregular forces, and it had a strong backstory to it. I think this was also the issue that had a big IG photo gallery and a tactics article in it (This was before digital cameras were big, so even if there was Internet sites, photos of hobbyist armies were few and far between). I wasnt even an IG collector back then, but I loved poring over those photos, practically with a magnifying glass, since army shots in the old WDs often contained old Rogue Trader stuff you could see nowhere else.

I still have that necron warrior.

It would be nice to mention that the reviewer has a clear pro bias towards the recent White Dwarfs. He did have his army featured in one...

Anyhow. Personally I don't think that the issues from that period are of as high a quality as later ones (as in 2000). Saying however that the old models aren't worth as much as the new ones are is totally ignoring the context that they were worth the money at the time. Its like saying there's no point in buying an antiquated piece of kit when you could buy a new one. The old thing cost you a pound when it came out, the new one's a fiver. Bringing up the price when its the magazine that's being review just detracts from it. That kind of sums up my take on the review. Its comparing the technology and state of the industry to today's standards and assuming that the older magazine should be able to compete the newer one's shininess.

Review an issue from the Storm of Chaos Warriors of Chaos release instead, at least then it had a better production value.

Do I prefer the old or new?

I prefer the old, since when I was a wee lad I wasn't really aware it was a catalogue for pushing Citadel/GW

Now I am older I only read through catalogues if I am at an Argos.

Wow that's an incredibly badly written and biased review, what a waste of electrons.

The fact that the author does not state his bias up front (having been published in the magazine he's reviewing) really sinks this 'review'.

I suspect that the decision on which magazine would be best was predetermined long before the article was started. OP needs to take his own advice and remove the rose colored goggles that praise battle reports with minimal text and filler pics showing templates held over units while downplaying things like free models and rules to a single by the way mention. The new white dwarf is pretty but has less meaningful content despite the added pagecount.

You seem to be intent on comparing the two directly together with zero regard for the technology and hobby practices that were available during the time the earlier magazine came out. Dinging the old magazine pics for not having fancy digitally added and modified backgrounds whereas the new one does? They didn't simply decide not to use them but rather that the technology didn't exist in a usable form. Terrain in the old magazine downgraded because it was mainly scratch built and not from CAD design plastic kits? Every piece of terrain back then except for the occasional minimal detail cloned ruin wall was scratch built. Any comparison of the two issue should take into account the relative quality that the issue had compared with the available magazines/competition at the time as well. Do the pictures and printing look better in the new ones? Sure, but the technology has improved in the intervening 15 years to allow it. You might as well compare a 67 mustang to the 2013 model and ding the old one for not having air conditioning, power seats, and GPS as available options.Then you poo poo the importance of the things that haven't changed or don't mention them at all like meaningful content in the battle report or a free figure with the issue. Can you imagine how happy people would be if they got a finecast figure with the chaos issue? I'm sure if that were the case for the RECENT magazine and the metal fig wasn't in the old one that you would have put that front and center in the blog article. There is probably double or more wordcount on the old battlereport compared with the new one and you don't seem to mention that despite dinging the old magazine for having less articles.

Cue long story involving that issue.

In early 2000 I took holiday in Nottingham.
Was US military stationed in Italy and had saved up for a couple of years.

I was an RPG fan and had never played a wargame.
I wander into a GW. A demo game later I walk out with 3rd edition + BFG starter plus a couple of old WDs the mgr gave me.

Necron warriors were attached to the WDs and I liked them.
I came back and bought every blister of Necron stuff they had on the pegs (I had saved up a couple of years for vacation).

The manager goes back in the back and brings me every copy of WD with the Necron warriors attached and throws them in my bag----gratis!

He also dug through and found the WD that had the Necron rules in them----this was LONG before they had a codex.

That edition reminds me of all the cool stuff about the Hobby. The manager saw somebody enthused in the game and he nicely helped me out.

Is the OP's avatar a coincidence, tongue-in-cheek, or genuine

That would explain a lot of this to me . That said, I think it's a cool idea to compare old and new WDs from the same month, I wish others would do this, too!

Say whatever you like about the contents, the covers of the old magazines were far, far better than the new ones

 Briancj wrote:
The fact that the author does not state his bias up front (having been published in the magazine he's reviewing) really sinks this 'review'.

Ah, there you go, everything he said just made sense. I didnt think anyone could say the new WD is better then the old ones with a straight face. I remember getting them and being inspired and reading them cover to cover, now I cant even stomach the lies and misdirection.

Biased article if I've ever read one. Exactly the same kind of article could be written in favour of the '98 issue. Except that article would actually have some good points.

I must say, even after reading the article I think the older one wins. Here's why:

Take a look at the painting guides. Yes, I think the old one suffers from the choice of pictures - they show you a whole mass of miniatures rather than singling out just one, and that can be confusing. However, the captions actually do have some description of how and why you should use those particular paints. Not brimming with detail, sure, but better than what we get now (i.e. a list of paints with no actual guidance). Ideally I'd want t see a combination the modern close-up step-by-step pictures and the old captions.

The new converting article has some text to describe how the work was done, so that's good. But it loses out in terms of creativity and what that text is actually telling you.The old one wins for me by having some outside the box thinking - such as using Terminator backplates to make speaker grilles and making a mine layer from Fantasy shields and a storm bolter. In fact, I even thinking of using some of the ideas from the old issue, whereas the modern one shows the kind of kitbashes anyone can do with enough bits and a tiny bit of extra work (i.e. reposing the Tau battlesuit legs).

I think the old Battle Report wins hands down - much more detailed. There are loads of places elsewhere in the magazine to show pictures of miniatures on a tabletop, and with a batrep (where you actually want to know about the mechanics of the game, why the players made their decisions etc) maps are clearer. To be fair, the article is in favour of maps.

There are four double-page scans of adverts from the old issue - but in three of these images the ad is on one page and there's a tactics/rules/converting article on the other.

And of course the old issue was giving away a free model - I think the very idea would give GW execs palpitations now!

SO overall that's how I see it. Sure, the old issue isn't exactly a tome of knowledge, there is room for improvement in several areas, but I still think that overall I can look at it and find it more interesting. When I have a look at new WDs I generally just end up skimming through - the ratio of pictures to text is pretty high anyway. When I look at this old issue, I can imagine it would be worth sitting down to have a proper read of it.

I prefer the old issues, not jsut because i like the 70s-80s art style for such material, or that i love books that are used or damaged, but because if i were to go to HPB or any used bookstore, and find a copy of the White Dwarf from before i was born, i would easily lose 15 minutes without regret, if i found one more recent, i would thumb through it for 40 seconds, then move on to finding the books on my list. Why? Because older white Dwarf magazines are hobby magazines, even when they focused more on GW products, the later ones are catalogs.
My own opinion, but i prefer the older models. Quality may very well have risen since they were produced, but the sculpt design did not.

Yeah... before reading the article itself, the idea of the article seemed to be a great idea.
But after a few sentences, it became pretty obvious that you weighted some things just ... wrong :(

JUST LOOK AT THE COVERS
the new one is horrbly bland and borring while the old one is a masterpiece of what Warhammer used to look like in the 90. Massive over the top battles portraied in a semi-fun, yet serious way.

Seems to be a bit of bs written here. He bends over backwards to sing the praises of the new issue having 46 pages of new product reviews whereas the old one has 6, which is then criticised for not having much detail. The new one of course has more detail, well one would hope so given they use nearly eight times as many pages. Then he later criticises the old issue for having more adverts. He jests surely?

I don't think #217 was a stand out issue for the time, but it did come with a free Necron and rules, background and a scenario for the new army. This would be the equivalent of GW giving you a finecast Demiurg or something on the cover and then some rules for a very simple army inside. Would that happen today?

He also takes the price lists into account for the review, but the prices of the models are neither here nor there regarding the quality of the magazine. Obviously I prefer the older magazine but the models being cheaper is not something I would mention. He does but then 'balances' that by saying the new models are better. Models 'being better' is also a reason given to give the previously mentioned 'new products' section a boost in the review. I just don't see how it's fair to take the model quality being sold as a reason to mark down the older magazine.

If he was reviewing issue #117 against the new he'd criticise it for not having enough photos, being mostly in black and white, and the 20+ year old models not looking as good as the current range.

He's got his models appearing in the magazine on a regular basis. I guess he thinks its good press to be praising it in the typical in no way biased GW approach. If he were to offer an opinion otherwise then that'd be counterproductive to this I suspect.

But, if anything, it does provide an insight into what the current WD mindset is, if it is only from the viewpoint of a guy who wrote a short article. =P

Just look at the front of the new style magazine. It tells you next to nothing and the new art style is so frustratingly bad... If GW needed to change one thing it wasn't the bloody cover design - That was iconic!

Does a photo of painted miniatures even qualify as a cover? I'd take full-blown artwork over that any day, regardless of quality, and GW artwork has always been decent, that's one of the few things that hasn't changed to this day. That Chaos Lord is great, and the logo has character, as opposed to the bland, flat logo of today. The old one scream a fantasy hobby magazine, the new one is awfully generic. You could slap any title on there, change the background picture to something appropriate to the content, retain the fonts and text placement, and it would fit. It's not what I expect from a wargaming magazine.

As for the "review", it's pure spin all the way through. You should apply for a job in GW's marketing department, you'd fit right in. This bit especially made me chuckle.

Page count: Old issue is a measly 100 pages, new issue is a massive 156. When you think the old issue has all those adverts and 17 of those yellow catalogue pages showing parts and model numbers at the back you start to think the old issue is all filler while the new issue is all killer. New issue wins.

It's like comparing two models and determining which one is better based on their size only. Bigger = better, regardless of actual sculpt quality. More pages, even if each page is smaller and holds less and not as juicy content = better.