New White Dwarf: I finally got my hands on the new White Dwarf yesterday. I must say on the whole, I wasn’t disappointed. It’s not like the last couple of months have been, back up to almost 150 pages. I am only interested in 40k, so tends to be biased towards 40k heavy issues, which this was. I enjoyed a copy of the old Necron codex in place of my White Dwarf last month given how much Hobbit there was in it. Did you know they used to put guides on how to make terrain for you army in the codexes? Anyway back to the topic.
First off, I’m going to get the free poster out of the way. It has pictures of all the Hobbit models on one side and all the Lord of the Rings models on the other. Now I’m not mad about the Hobbit but even if it was a big picture of 40k miniatures, I can see them the Games Workshop website, so I would still feel like it’s a waste of paper, to me, at least it’s going straight in the recycling with all the other junk mail. I suspect someone wants me to stick it up on my wall, so can look at it all day I wish I had them. I think someone should be paying me to do that so I’m crying shenanigans! If I was a younger boy I might be thrilled at the prospect. I think the best thing they could for the more mature audience would be to have some art work on one side. I loved the Heresy poster in the October White Dwarf Ok, so that’s the worst part of the issue covered.
There are pages and pages of Dark Angels pictures. including the obligatory four page fold out. They look fantastic, although you may have seen most of them already. I almost completely missed the battle report as it blended in to these pictures.
The battle report I haven’t been able to read yet, but it looks just as good as the one in October White Dwaf. There is even a full width picture of the table. I think this would be a much better place for the 4 page fold out to be used. I struggle to follow the layout of the table in these new batter reports. I do miss the old drawings they had back in issue 1xx, oh dear I’ve turned into a rambling old man again.
Surprisingly the editor does the write up on codex Dark Angels, He’s very passionate about the new Dark Angels and given some hints on Dark Angels carrying guilt about the fact they kill so many people, but nothing on any background changes etc. You’ll going to have to buy the codex if you want to know about that. There was no interview with the author or the sculptors. However hidden in the Design Studio section on page 140 is a small write up from both.
Jervis revisits a topic he wrote on about 18 months ago in Standard Bearer, painting. As always it was well written and I enjoyed reading it. It can be summed up in “Someone wrote to me about how they find painting difficult”. “all that matters is you do you best and keep trying.”. As good as it was it would be nice to read something new from the Farther of the Design Studio.
Jeremy Vertock wrote about playing at home and away. I’m not a big fan on Jeremy’s articles. One old man writing about their peals of wisdom is enough for me. I’d have found it much more interesting if he was writing about creating Codex Dark Angels. Admittedly I didn’t make it to the end of the column, so it may have contained the most profound revelation in White Dwarf ever and my life is less complete for missing it; ok, I’ll have to have give it another check.
I really loved the feature on the Editor’s Tyranid Army. There was lots of interesting old models in there and they even gave a painting guide in case you wanted to copy his colour scheme. I can’t help but feel there is a Tyranid release coming. This little collectors army articles are much more interesting to me than the new releases. These are what inspire me seeing what other people have managed to achive, not what the best painters on earth have done with an unlimited budget.
There are a few other gems in at the back of the issue, which is becoming my favourite part of the new format White Dwarf. Including a Dark Angels Painting guide: At last we learn how the studio paints their Dark Angels. They make it look oh so easy and I’m itching to give it a try, not quite enough to de-sprue my limited edition Dark Vengeance box set though. There also a great kit bash on making an Imperial Prescient, the only problem being £100 or so you would have to spend on kits to make it.
In summary I’m not a Dark Angels collector but I’m still going to giving this issue a resounding 9/10. It would have been a 10 if it wasn’t for the forest that got cut down to make all those posters. It’s still well worth the £5.50 in my eye’s. I just feel a bit sorry for the Warhammer collectors who got four pages of dwarfs and not other reason to buy this issue.
End, almost.
I am going to sit fairly happy after the spoof review of this month white Dwarf, which I wrote before anything of it had leaked onto the internet. If you didn’t get a chance to read it or just want to check how much I got wrong! you can find it here. http://chaptermasters.com/spoof-review-january-white-dwarf-370/
Ben
For me the December White Dwarf was a complete miss. I’m not saying it was bad, it just failed to have any content that justified me handing over my nice picture of the queen as well as a 50p coin. I’m not a White Dwarf subscriber as there are a few issues I don’t want, however on the rare occasion I don’t buy one it is leaves a hole in my life (and a weight in my pocket). There are a few way’s I’ve learnt to deal with this over the years.