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last issue :

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/703937.page

Be better if the people who vote also provide a comment -- it is a discussion board after all.

Ideally those who vote would be those who've read/bought the magazine, but we can't really enforce that so keep your internet poll broomstick of skepticalness ... ? ? ..... or whatever to hand when reviewing the results.

be extra handy if you could say which bits you really did/didn't like, what you'd like tweaked or added and so forth.

ta.

Received rather early this time. Did a first flick through it but didn't finished it so far.

Looks a tad weaker than last issue... but I'm not *that* interested in 30k either. Final verdict outstanding.

From FB (I don't have the WD yet). What a corker in the Army on Parade section. Stunning.

Holy mother of god. Now THAT is inspiring. Although I wonder if a force like that can be used on the table, rather than display. Seems like you wouldn't have synergy.

Holy cow!! My eyes are actually tearing up from how amazing that is.

That is an excellent use of terrain. Well done to that guy.

7.

Maybe a 7.5, but I'm still bitter about getting the last 2 issues super late!

Got my copy yesterday and read it while watching the Cubs game. Still some articles I want to read in detail, but I looked at every pretty picture. I wish I had it in front of me to give a better review. From memory:

'Eavy Metal: I liked the tutorial on capes/cloth. The particular colors they used were especially appropriate as I generally do a dull blue or grey for capes. Thanks for that! There was also an article on how to use the new texture paint for bases, wash, and then dry brush. A different wash an dry brush can give a fairly different looking base, even from the same initial paint. I am not sure if this was a 'Eavy Metal article or not, but it showed about a dozen different bases. Not an Earth shattering revelation, but I had not thought about a simple wash to change the tint/shade of the base. I have dry brushed all of my textured bases, though.

Throw-Back WD magazine (can't remember title): Had a WD issue from 1995. Showed the diorama someone did of the Emperor and Horus facing each other down on the Vengeful Spirit. The Emperor was all "WTF, Bro? I don't even!" And Horus smirked back 'Come at me Bro!" And Sanguinius was all "....." I would have liked to have seen a larger picture, but I have the googles. There were a few other article reviews from that WD, but none of the rest was as interesting! It is worth noting that, IMHO, the original artwork is fine except for Horus, who looks like the Comic Book Meme guy. The rest of the drawing is cool, but he ruins the whole experience. Like an ugly stripper.



Burnination of Prospero: Finally! (I ordered my board game on Saturday and can't wait to play it.) There was an additional scenario for the board game that I, along with 91.8% of the purchasers, will never play. They interviewed the artist for Ahriman in one of the snippits, which I found to be the most interesting part of the compilation of Pre-View Article and Side Bars. For whatever reason, I enjoy a glimpse into a real artists motivation/muse. Apparently he and the Fell-Handed sculptor collaborated so that when facing each other, the two leaders look like they are about to throw down over the last pizza slice. I must have flipped through this section about 5 or 6 times, noticing something new each time. I also hadn't realized that one of the Custodes is sporting a mohawk. Now my head-cannon is all Custodes are either Native American or Heavy Metal fans. Rules for the Custodes are included. Next month is for the Sisters of Silence, I Kill You!

Letters to the editor (can't remember title): Standard blah, blah. I like painting, long walks on the beach, and sniffing glue accelerator. Hold the phone! What is this teeny, tiny letter/response on the left hand side in 3.5 font? "Hi, I'm Duncan and an expert on all things Sisters. For example, Hellena punked out a bloodthirster solo-style in front of the Emperor on his throne when gak got real! Anyway, are we going to get Blah (don't remember) or Blah (Don't remember)? Something, something, more Custodes and Sisters stuff?" "Well Duncan who is totally not a plant or our YouTube How-To Painter (really, how many Duncans can the UK ecosystem support?), you should get more sun and try to kiss a girl once in a while. Anyway, whilst I cannot reveal any information of any importance or I lose my ability to pay my rent, you are really going to like some things that are coming soon!" Obviously I wrote that word for word so that Dakka will get a cease and desist, but I thought that was probably the most interesting few sentences of the whole damn magazine. More Sisters of Silence/Battle gak is coming soon! So feth you and your trolling, Double D. You know who you are, you fething "edgy" teenager.

Armies on Parade and People who emailed us pictures of their gak: Holy gak, there are some amazing painters and Diorama Makers out there. Those aren't just display boards, those are better than museum displays like Night at the Museum with those 2 dudes from Zoolander. Well done, fethers!

Orks Battle Death! (Battle Report): I don't know gak about AoS or Warhammer Fantasy, other than book one of the crazy naked Barbarian dwarf (Felix?) and friend odd couple book, but the pictures were stunning. I admit the game looks interesting, and I read a few paragraphs here and there. You roll for initiative every fething turn? Madness, I say! Anyhow, 8 pages of blah with pretty pictures.


I was entertained.

It gives me slight hope that mine won't be 2-3 weeks late since Kronk has a copy already.

 kronk wrote:




Throw-Back WD magazine (can't remember title): Had a WD issue from 1995. Showed the diorama someone did of the Emperor and Horus facing each other down on the Vengeful Spirit. The Emperor was all "WTF, Bro? I don't even!" And Horus smirked back 'Come at me Bro!" And Sanguinius was all "....." I would have liked to have seen a larger picture, but I have the googles. There were a few other article reviews from that WD, but none of the rest was as interesting! It is worth noting that, IMHO, the original artwork is fine except for Horus, who looks like the Comic Book Meme guy. The rest of the drawing is cool, but he ruins the whole experience. Like an ugly stripper.

This one by Mike McVey?



It was on display at Warhammer World as of Mar 2016. It was nice to see it in the flesh.

That's it! Awesome!

Welp, as this is the second month in a row I've not received it early (yet got the first one when there seemed to be quite a few problems in time) I'll be cancelling.

Was prepared to give it a chance, but there's just not enough to keep me repeatedly chasing up my issue. Undoubtedly a big improvement, as close as it's got to the magazine of my childhood in quite some time, but I guess grown up me has other gaming interests and has acquired the cynicism to get quite tired of all the sales speak pretty rapidly.

Still haven't picked one up. I almost wish they would have a separate issue for 40k and AoS, but nothing has convinced me to dive in yet. I may ask for a subscription as a holiday gift, but I have been hard pressed to justify buying them yet. None of this is a gripe really. Sorry to be off-topic.

-

 Bottle wrote:
Still really enjoying all the content. Only tale of 4 warlords is weak for me. When you're not budgeting it seems like there is no point? The best part of the original was them getting to save the pennies from month to month (or spending them on Bacon Sandwhiches if you are Paul Sawyer).

i'm quite enjoying the blue Nurgle army...
it looks great, and makes for a nice change from the standard green...

i just told Paul, the other day, that his remake of the original 4 Warlords Beastmen army that he is working on will not be a proper trip down memory lane without mention of a bacon buttie

cheers
jah

Much has been said, getting dates is nice. Little details about specialist games, batreps, a modeling guide texture base article I conveniently need at this time

Best issue for me personally.

Got mine early for a change. Really enjoying it. Strongest issue yet for me. Doing an actual background for the DE as fluff expansion is awesome to see back. The AoS batrep is awesome. The armies on parade is phenomenal. Overall I still haven't finished it yet but I'm enjoying it.

Old school battle maps with hit counters were the best part for me - it actually feels like they are listening to the readers!

Got my issue Friday, first time it arrived "on time". So that was an improvement.

The free item was rater forgettable. Save $12 on a $60 game that will be discounted either during the X-mas sale or the Spring sale, but.....that's not what I am grading the issue on.

Highlights for me were the AoS articles featuring Ben Johnson. It was nice to see a army list and battle reports done more from a competitive prospective. The article on the GHB design was good and topical especially the blurb about the random player turn each round.

The articles on Prospero were informative.

The sprues and glues was okay, but from a relative new comer's perspective certainly worth while.

The Master Class was not as appealing as last couple of times.

The Army of the Month spread was gorgeous and really like the detail they went into about some of the kit bashing and how it is used in the game to try and keep it consistent with the fluff.

The Dark Eldar primer was also well done even if for the more informed GW gamer it was filler.

The 4 generals section is still interesting.

The other continuing gem is the call back to issues from year's past. Really enjoy the bit of nostalgia.

TL;DR 7 out of 10

I also got mine on time (even a day or two before release date) this time, so that is a huge improvement. The first two issues were both about two weeks late.

Editorial – Maps are back! Maps! Maps suit this month’s battle report!

Contents – Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V: I mean, it’s literally listed on half a page, yet it’s bulked out with pictures to fill two pages worth of space.
Wasted space.

Planet Warhammer – Meh. The amount of space used up could be cut down. Most of the text boxouts could be done away with without really losing anything of consequence.
Still less than half the page count which it used to take up in Old Dwarf, so it’s difficult to be too negative about it.

Contact – From left to right: non-answer, somebody won a competition, look at my pictures, Index Astartes conspicuously absent from answer, could’ve Googled the answer, look at my pictures, GW are great!
Ho hum. The answer to Mr Payne’s correspondence just ignores the bulk of what he wrote (about Index Astartes returning). It’s hardly brilliant.

A Tale of Four Keyboards – Like the title. Otherwise entirely forgettable. It tries to do way too much in only a single page of text.
As a conventional-style battle report of a digital battle it might have been an interesting change, or a text-based lets play, perhaps.
Otherwise just a blatant advert in the form of big pretty pictures like when the original Dawn of War was released.

Creating a Legend (Total war White Dwarf) – There’s a lot of talk (well, again, only about a page of text) about the process of designing Grombrindal (why not just copy the latest physical model like they did for most other models in the game?), but absolutely no in-progress pictures, no pictures of the artwork which is mentioned, or the various incarnations of the model etc.

Golden Demon: Classic 2016 – It used to be that all of a year’s finalists would be featured in a single issue, didn’t it?
As previously, the pictures are pretty, but the words aren’t really necessary.

A Tale of Four Warlords – This month’s totals: Cowey £65, King £125, Hutson £107, Karch £36. Totally missed the point.

Temporal Distort (issue 183) – Still don’t understand why they’re so set on making the past look so much better than the present. I mean, it was better, so it’s not inaccurate, but I’m not sure that’s what they were aiming for here...

Hall of Fame (Land Raider) – Much better than usual Hall of Fame articles – there’s far more discussion of why the chosen model deserves to be featured, and what made (/makes) it special.
It isn’t anywhere near as good as the feature from when the Land Raider was released (which again, they show a little picture of...)
This could have been expanded – add more background material, talk about how/why the design of the tank has changed over time and between systems, showcase pictures of all of the different variants (including those which never got official models like the Ares, Tartarus, Deimos) etc.

- Double page spread of gifts to celebrate the birth of the baby Jesus –

Designers’ Notes: A World in Flames (Burning of Prospero) – The faux-interview is annoying. Why don’t Cruddace and Kelly just write it themselves (or pretend they wrote it) rather than having Harden interview them?
I didn’t really learn anything about how the game plays, and still don’t understand why it has different mechanics to Betrayal at Calth.
I’d particularly like to have known why the Sisters of Silence models have gauntlets, whereas every picture my Googling turned up has them with gloves. Is it because those other ladies are gonna have gloves?

- Double page spread of Black Library –

The Ultimate Guide to: Commorragh – I still don’t think ‘ultimate’ means what they think it means. As with previous instalments, as an overview it’s pretty decent. Possibly there’s even a smidge of new background material here with the names of Reaver and Hellion gangs, and how male Wyches are effectively breeding stock for the females?

Army of the Month: Scions of Avidya (Blood Ravens) – Turner’s Blood Ravens have been seen before (as the article even points out with yet another picture of an old issue), but at least this focuses mostly on other models.
I’m not a fan of including Sanguinary Guard, Grey Knights (Ordo Psykana, ok sure. But where are they getting the Psycannons from, and why do they have Grey Knight chapter iconography?) etc. but he doesn’t need to justify it here.

‘I settled on the 2nd Company... There was no background about them in any of the novels or games...’ They feature in Dark Crusade, where they defeat the Necrons at Thur’Abis, adopting the motto ‘Victory Over Death’. So there’s that. They’re also present for Soulstorm.

Now, the way people collect Space Marines has changed a little, as the emphasis has shifted away from taking a whole Company to war, so now armies are built using the Strike Force method – so instead of your army being 2nd Company, say, it’s the 2nd Company, with assistance from Devastator Centurions from the 9th, or Bikers from the 7th, and so on’. People have always taken Scouts (10th) and/or Terminators (1st) and/or tanks (Armoury) in their Marine armies. If anything, since the core of the Gladius formation is the Demi-Company , Marine armies are probably more single-Company-focussed now than they were previously (plus there’s the actual full Company formation).

Randomly, the ‘Faction Spotlight’ box drops what I believe is new information on the Kaurava Campaign noting that half the Chapter was lost. Metal Bawkses!

This could well have been expanded to have a potted guide to the timeline of the events from the games/novels, just copy-paste the Index Astartes or something?

Gaming: The General’s Almanack – Eh. I’m not convinced by the argument for not having points (‘We came up with stories behind our games and created our own scenarios. It was, in a way, liberating’). And then points came back anyway; so there goes your stories and scenarios. Or something.
The argument for points was far more convincing (‘This helps re-establish that common language that any Warhammer Age of Sigmar player can work with’).
There wasn’t anything especially brilliant here, but it was okay.

Battle Report: The Border War (Stormcast vs. Destruction mashup) – There are maps. Comparing the maps here to those from issue 183 (on page 40), the older, slightly more abstract style, I find the classic version easier to read.

Maps – of course – aren’t everything. There are these things called words. Text. That stuff. There’s only a couple of paragraphs on each turn. The text for the first turn even neglects to mention how all of the wolf riders and the Megaboss were killed.
The mass of smaller pictures and bits and pieces of explanatory text scattered around all over the place don’t help matters.

It would have been better if the battle report was more closely linked to what Johnson was talking about when discussing tactics in the previous article. A discussion of the battle as it progressed from his point of view with discussion of his changing plans etc as the game went on would potentially have been interesting.
As it is, it looks more like after allowing the mostly-Orks the first turn, the Stormcast just almost effortlessly steamrolled through them (with the exception of the Mawcrusher).

I don’t see how this battle report suited maps any more than any other. But that’s how Keefe said it works...

Collecting: Armies On Parade – The pictures are still pretty. I feel it would be better if the formatting was altered so that the centrefold didn’t pass right through the main pictures of the boards. Shunt the big picture onto one page, and swap the text block across to sit with the smaller images.

Illuminations: Prospero Burns – Still seems like a way of filling six pages with very little effort. If they wanted to look at the Battle of Prospero, there could have been an actual article whilst still using most of the pictures.

Battleground: The Fortress of Kah’Rahkel – As a look at hundreds upon hundreds of pounds of GW plastic scenery it’s alright, but it’s not as of much practical use as the previous article on Dras’shiel, as there are no in-progress shots (etc.).
I don’t believe that they got all of the skulls from their bits boxes.

New Rules: Heresy & Salvation (Custodes for 30K, Contemptors for Burning of Prospero, Lord-Veritant for Age of Sigmar) – It’s seriously weak that they didn’t include rules for the Sisters of Silence – especially given the huge amounts of dead space on the Custodes’ rule pages. It’s not like they were really producing anything in the way of content surrounding the rules – they just copy-pasted them from Inferno (not even going so far as to include the inevitable HQ character(s) which will also have rules) so including the Sisters would have required barely any extra effort.

If the Custodes and Sisters were to be separated, there would have been vastly more value in some sort of Index Imperialis explaining who the Custodes are, where they came from, what they were doing in the Heresy, what they’ve been doing since, what the rationale is for them being out and about away from Terra in M41 (and then the same for the Sisters next month).

I’d also have liked the 40K rules to have been included here for completeness’ sake.

- Double page spread of Forge World Horus Heresy –

Modelling and Painting: Sprues and Glue – Did we need half a page each on removing the tab from models designed for slattabases and removing bases from already based models? Does anybody need those?
Mostly this was just ‘buy the new base kits’ with just enough filler added around the edges to bulk it out.

Modelling and Painting: Paint Splatter – Basing using the new (stop changing them!) texture paints, and a bit on tints. It’s good. There’s not too much filler. The ‘White Dwarf Basing Cookbook’ looks like a potentially useful resource.

- Page of digital products –

Modelling and Painting: ‘Eavy Metal Masterclass (cloaks, coats and robes) – Good again. Painting guides/sections seem to be the one area where White Dwarf is fairly consistently high quality.

‘Eavy Metal Spotlight: Thousand Sons – If the two full page ads in this section weren’t here, then this could have been expanded into a basic painting guide over a couple of pages.

- Page of ‘find your local store’ –

Readers’ Models – If the Golden Demon sections were formatted more like this, I think they’d work better.
I’m coming round to the idea of readers’ models just being here at the back for some totally arbitrary reason now that it’s more familiar.

- Double page spread of Warhammer World –

The White Dwarf Guide – This content could probably be spread across the rest of the issue as sidebars and little boxouts accompanying the relevant articles.

In the Bunker – Meh.
The picture of Blanche and friends at the bottom holds more interest for me than most of the other content in the issue. Is that a gingerbread church on wheels?!

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

I feel like there were a lot of missed opportunities for real content in this issue. It would have made perfect sense, for example, to provide information on what the Custodes/Sisters are doing in 40K; or to expand upon many of the articles.

Again, I think that White Dwarf would be improved by trying to do less per issue, but doing it better (ie. with more depth).


Another 4 from me.
Largely forgettable.

7/10 for me. It had some fun articles, did miss Blanchitsu.

 jah-joshua wrote:

 Bottle wrote:
Still really enjoying all the content. Only tale of 4 warlords is weak for me. When you're not budgeting it seems like there is no point? The best part of the original was them getting to save the pennies from month to month (or spending them on Bacon Sandwhiches if you are Paul Sawyer).

i'm quite enjoying the blue Nurgle army...
it looks great, and makes for a nice change from the standard green...

i just told Paul, the other day, that his remake of the original 4 Warlords Beastmen army that he is working on will not be a proper trip down memory lane without mention of a bacon buttie

cheers
jah

I'm exalting the both of you, I've been reading white dwarf since the issue numbers were double digits, that was the best thing that ever happened in an issue!

 Bottle wrote:
Still really enjoying all the content. Only tale of 4 warlords is weak for me. When you're not budgeting it seems like there is no point? The best part of the original was them getting to save the pennies from month to month (or spending them on Bacon Sandwhiches if you are Paul Sawyer).

Probably goes against one of the core business values they've got of spend, spend spend

I liked it when they were driving round different store openings to take advantage of all the offers like buy two unit boxes, get a third free.

No chance of that these days!

Anyway, I've only flicked through my copy. Does look good, can't wait to properly get stuck into reading about the Blood Ravens army.

Oh yes, Rik's Blood Ravens army is a delight to look at. The moment I saw his name I remembered how he started out all those years ago. They even helpfully list the relevant issue where he started out. Quite inspiring to see how it has grown over time.

Joyboozer wrote:

 jah-joshua wrote:

 Bottle wrote:
Still really enjoying all the content. Only tale of 4 warlords is weak for me. When you're not budgeting it seems like there is no point? The best part of the original was them getting to save the pennies from month to month (or spending them on Bacon Sandwhiches if you are Paul Sawyer).

i'm quite enjoying the blue Nurgle army...
it looks great, and makes for a nice change from the standard green...

i just told Paul, the other day, that his remake of the original 4 Warlords Beastmen army that he is working on will not be a proper trip down memory lane without mention of a bacon buttie

cheers
jah

I'm exalting the both of you, I've been reading white dwarf since the issue numbers were double digits, that was the best thing that ever happened in an issue!

issue #75 was my first one, back when the covers still looked like 'Eavy Metal mag covers, and there was more D&D content than anything else

Paul is on Facebook, and he is doing his Beastmen all over again...
an old friend just gave him back the original Herdstone that he built for that army!!!
he is also doing a classic Dwarf army, with loads of Marauder Dwarfs and original Imperial and Norse Dwarfs...
it should be a treat

cheers
jah

I finally picked it up and I have read through half of it with a level 2 skim of the rest. I am pretty impressed by this issue, but it feels a little eclectic and all over the place. I found it strange that I had to hunt for the pricing of certain products they mentioned as they decided to put them on the opposite page. I'd give it a solid 7, which is a vast improvement over the weekly issues, but the magazine itself still feels very disjointed and lacking focus. I remember the old monthly White Dwarfs tended to have a core theme of the issue, but maybe the current approach is a symptom of their weekly release schedule more than anything else.

Looking like I can expect a minimum week delay every month on this subscription plan. The fact the initial copy has been thrashed if it does arrive isn't very comforting either.