Have you already picked up this month’s WD? Let’s see what this issue brings apart from the new official flyer rules!
The Good Stuff:
Painting guides for the Stormtalon, the Dakka Jet, the new Savage Orc boss model and for White Scars; official rules for the new flyers; The Battle for Cardrim, 8 pages of new fluff involving White Scars, Orks and Necrons.
What’s In There For Painters and Modellers?
(Short) painting guides for an Ultramarine Stormtalon, an Evil Sunz Dakka Jet, White Scars infantry and the new Savage Orc Big Boss. There is also a beautiful Blood Angels Army on Parade, an Empire themed Golden Demon showcase and a Reiksguard themed terrain gallery (some Citadel terrain kits with some added Reiksguard bits).
Things I Didn’t Like:
In this issue were 38 pages that were either full-blown pictures with almost no text or adverts or both. When you open the magazine there appear three double page spreads, one for the new flyers, one for Necrons and one for Orcs & Goblins before you get to the editorial. That’s just too much, especially considering Orcs & Goblins merely get two characters this month. They also changed the new releases section. There are no prices (maybe because of this month’s price rise?), but each of the three flyers gets two pages of pictures, two pages of diagrams and two pages of the box contents laid out unassembled and unpainted. Just screams filler to me.
It’s also strange that this is the third issue in a row without a proper battle report. Lord of the Rings is also completely absent. Another thing that bugs me is that the turquoise/golden Nihilakh Necron army gets featured for the third time in this issue – are there no other Necron armies in the studio?
The Verdict:
There are some good articles in this issue, no doubt. Official rules for the new Space Marine and Ork flyer with proper bestiary pages with new full colour artwork and fluff, and the new fluff story they included was a nice read with a surprisingly good amount of text. The wealth of painting guides was nice, too, even though the new, uncommented style of tutorials they introduced with the new paint system is sometimes hard to follow. It’s also interesting that you see less and less ‘Eavy Metal painted armies in White Dwarf.
On the other hand, apart from this few good articles everything else seems to consist of full blown pictures with very little text. The amount of non-sense double page spreads and blatant ads reached a new spike with this issue. This brings the whole issue down. White Dwarf has really been a mixed bag lately. Do the editors don’t know in which direction they’re heading? Do the add-on rules, expansions and campaigns we’ve seen in the last couple of issues take away too much resources from the rest of the magazine? Have the bean counters at GW cut the budget of the WD staff? I don’t know, but all I can say is that I don’t really enjoy WDat the moment and rarely pick up my magazines again after I flicked through them.
4/10
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I agree with your review, this issue is far too worse than the rest. There are only two interesting articles and plenty of space filling pics. For me, this is the last drop of my patience. I am not spending my money on GW advertisement any more 🙂
How many of you guys remember the old days, when WD was real hobby magazine? Full of conversions, home made terrains, intersting armies, stories, fluff (Codex Astartes!!!), rules!! Full of interesting stuff!! It makes me sad when I think about these old days (am I getting old or what? :-))
When looking at the pictures of the Empire terrain I think "WOW!" Seems like a must buy. But hey, after thinking it over again, a handfull of pages with nice pictures of converted models are not worth spending 7€. A nearby Hobbystore sells old WDs (around the time of the last Empire releases – don't remember year or number), where you can find so interesting and essential material for our hobby.
Many pages of converted models with very helpful notes by the artists. The pages were also full of ads those days, but I don't care, if the sum adds up for the hobby.
Thanks for your reviews – it keeps me from wasting Euros the last months.
I've stopped buying, largely because of the decrease of quality in the painting and how to articles.
White dwarf as a magazine has died. All it is now is a monthly catalog update.
Stopped buying it looooong ago, now i just read it at the local library and photocopy new rules.
I quite liked the Rieksguard chapter house spread but there was basically no information on how they'd put it togther or painted it or anything.
In addition to the missing battle reports, why do the designers never comment on either the making or, or rules for, the new models anymmore? I always found those pieces interesting.
The Empire release last month was prime example – nothing about rules or miniature design and no battle rep to see how the new units worked…