This month marks the release of the new edition of the Apocalypse expansion for Warhammer 40k. Prepare to read the words “apocalyptic”, “cataclysmic” and “titanic” more than once in this month’s issue of White Dwarf. Hit “More after the jump” to find the monthly Tale of Painters WD review with a look at every article.
New Releases
52 pages of the latest products from Games Workshop, Forgeworld, Black Libary and licensed games. This month is dedicated to Apocalypse, the two new Necron and Khorn super heavies, the new collection of Space Marine captains and last but not least the apocalyptic terrain kits. With this month’s releases, the spark didn’t really jump over me, I mean the Lord of Skulls is quite nice, but I don’t get why the Tesseract Vault gets so much praise, it’s just looks like a quartered, hollow Monolith spread out with some stuff inside. And why do you need to buy four Captains for 21 Euro each, when the old Apocalypse council of Space Marine captains was 26 Euro for four models?
Army of the Month
Jamie Forster’s Warrior of Chaos. This is probably one of my favourite army showcases so far, I really like Jamie’s strong and cohesive paint scheme. Basically it’s a sea of silver, flesh and other dark and muted colours with a generous use of turquoise as a spot colour. Very well pulled off, with a couple of conversions here and there, even though I still think the Forsaken models are terrible. Only six pages, would have enjoyed two or four more.
War Diary – Armies on Parade 2013
This is part two of this kind of Four Generals article, but GW is all about collecting now so this time we’ll follow several people from the studio who don’t paint gaming armies but Armies on Parade entries. There is a stunning Harlequin Wraithlord and some impressive pink Plaguebearers, amongst other nicely painted models. Four pages.
Jervis Johnson
Talks about how Phil Kelly and himself wrote the new Apocalypse book. Rather interesting how he describes the different approaches of him and Phil concerning the writing of rules. Usual size of 2 pages.
Apocalypse
In this 14 pages, most of the guys from the WD staff talk about Apocalypse and show off their latest apocalyptic additions to their armies. Andrew painted a Lord of Skulls and some Khorne models for his Death Guard, Adam a formation of three Predators and six Librarians for his Dark Angels, Matt added a third Land Raider to his already impressive collection of Black Templars, Eric painted a Stompa, Jes a Tesseract Vault, Glenn started a tank company of the Imperial Guard, Dan added two more Riptides to his Tau and finally there is some advertising for Forge World as well. An okayish article, as even though most of the models are new, the armies they belong to have been shown numerous times before. I would have liked to see some Apocalypse armies from the other people at the studio for a change.
Battle Report
Probably the main feature of the issue as the report spans 30 pages. There is even a second centrefold showing the whole table with the set-up armies. Jes’ Necrons and Andrew’s Death Guard, reinforced by Chaos and Necron super heavies from the studio and Forgeworld, form an unholy alliance to fight against the Angels of Death: Matt’s Blood Angel battle company he painted for the first Apocalypse book, and Adam’s Dark Angels. By the way, Matt mentioned he needed to paint three more dreadnoughts because the battle company formation changed, let’s hope this isn’t a trend in the new Apocalypse book to force you buying new models. Of course, the table is full of the new terrain kits. If you got the tiny amount of 1269 Euro spare, you can buy the table with all terrain pieces in a handy 1-click-bundle over on GW.com, even though after a first glance the bundle is short of 6 Realm of Battle tiles in comparison to the setup in the battle report.
Parade Ground
As if there wouldn’t have been enough 40k in this issue, this month’s theme of Parade Ground are Warhammer 40.000 squads. There are Blood Angels, Eldar Rangers and Guardians, Ultramarines, Grey Knights, and more Marines and a squad of Death Korps riders in the readers’ submissions. Most of all I enjoyed the turquoise Guardians because I think of painting up some Eldar in turquoise sometimes, too. Six pages.
Hall of Heroes
Michael Perry nominates Brian Nelson’s Vampire Counts Necromancer. Two pages.
Paint Splatter
Consisting of eight pages, there are two pages of Andrew explaining how he painted his Lord of Skulls, two pages about Jes’ silver and blue Tesseract Vault, two pages about painting the new terrain kits as seen in the battle report, one page about painting bases and one page about how Jamie painted his Warriors of Chaos as shown in Army of the Month.
Jeremy Vetock
… talks about fond memories of huge, oversized battles. Two pages.
Shop list/local news
… business as usual…
This month in…
Two pages about the battles and painting endeavours of the WD team, two pages about designing the Tesseract Vault (with a small bit of concept art, yay!), two pages about the Lord of Skulls, two pages about constructing the new terrain kits (with a plasticard prototype of the macro cannon), one page about Phil talking about the new Apocalypse book, one page about apocalyptic battles in the studio, two pages about Forgeworld with the new Minotaurs contemptor and some stunning Fleash Tearers by Steve Whitehead, one page about John French talking about his Black Library novel “Ahriman: Exile”, one page about Dark Angels painted by some Black Libary guys. All in all 14 pages, plus the parting shot.
Something special in this issue?
The second centrefold in the battle report.
Verdict
This month I’m kind of torn apart. This month’s issue isn’t really worse than the last couple issues, but I just don’t feel Apocalypse. I just don’t feel the need to buy oversized (and in case of the new releases overcosted) models just to put huge templates on the battlefield (by the way the new edition of Apocalypse uses new templates which you need to buy for 20 Euro extra, you can’t use your old Apocalypse templates anymore). I also felt that the Apocalypse article, where the WD guys present their Apocalypse additions, wasn’t that inspiring because you have seen those armies so many times before. The biggest problem of White Dwarf’s new direction remains variety.
6/10
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Another great review as always, but as a massive fan of big Apoc battles as with Garfy, this is the WD for me. Blowing chunks out of each other with uber tanks and walkers is awesome and just like any of the bigger battle books.
Tactics are still huge in this game as you try and micro manage destroying other super heavies without losing yours. Its harder than it sounds, but each to their own!
It is a pity that the Dwarfers are now basically supplying all the featured armies in each report these days. Some of their paint jobs are stinkers. I'd rather have them do the tactical articles and use Studio/Eavy Metal armies to be honest.
I still need to get me and Garfy together for an Apoc game. We have been promising this to ourselves for about 4 years. Its been about 7 since our last one at a guess?! It would make a great ToP review…
I'm a big LotR player, and have been consistently disappointed by the lack of coverage the Hobbit has received over the last six months. I've played since I was a kid during the old LotR days, when the coverage was enormous. So, maybe I'm just nostalgic and have been remembering those days with rose-tinted spectacles, but to me, GW's coverage of a new/rebranded game system over six months – one battle report!? – seems pretty lacklustre to me!
Great stuff guys. Big fan.
I'm a Hobbit Fan too. Hobbit models don't even make it into the Parade Ground or kit bash sections. It's a real shame because the hobbit models are really good. Way better then the sculpts they did for LOTR imo.
I'm lucky I collect all 3 main systems so I can always get something out of every White Dwarf.
Maybe part of the problem with the quality of White Dwarf and the lack of "content" is that all the White Dwarf Bunker Employees are apparently spending all their time each month updating their armies with the newest releases… doesn't leave much time to actually talk about tactics, unique battles or models, and doesn't leave much time to discuss the back story of the game development… I liked it better when the Studio Painters worked on the models and the White Dwarf Crew actually had time to put thought into articles… Is the battle report any better laid out than in previous White Dwarves? – J
I am of the same opinion as you Stahly, personally I can't see much point of buying rarely used and oversized models when I can add to my new farsight enclave tau army.
It was a good review and I really want my WD now, a 30 page battle report!!! 😀 I also want to check out the army of the month, a army that a very talented painter commends must be worth a look!
Nice review of the magazine btw, forgot to mention that! 😀
I don't mind the models, I don't mind the releases and if I had enough cash I would probably buy the Khorne thing just because its a chaos release.
But man alive Apocalypse as a way of playing 40k has always struck me as the most boring way to spend a day (or five). As an ex GW red shirt, this sort of game happened every weekend, and it was boring to run, boring to watch and boring administrate. There aren;t any tactics, and whilst I'd say I'm more of a narrative player than a tactical player, I don't see how it produces any kind of story at all just seeing over powered units blowing chunks out of an army.
It just seems alike a massive chore.
I love big models and I love this months White Dwarf. I'm all about Apocalypse and I really enjoy collecting formations. I can't wait to get the new rule book.
I've ordered a Tesseract Vault as well. I'm the opposite to you Stahly because I think it's an incredible model. I love the Canoptek Leeches, and the small scarab swarms inside not to mention you get a C'Tan included as well. For a floating box it's littered with details and when open actually looks really dynamic. For £95 the size and detail makes it better then FW models imo.
I'm looking forward to your paintjob, maybe it will make me like the model 😉