Review: White Dwarf Issue 456

Today I’m going to review White Dwarf issue 456. Taking a look at the contents and sharing some of my favourite bits. More after the jump.

Features

There are a total of 21 articles spread over 144 pages in this issue. The majority of this issue looks at the Indomitus launch boxset but also has articles for Age of Sigmar, Warcry and Underworlds. There isn’t a single article that feels rushed or thrown in for filler. Every article is well presented, detailed and supported with great photography and illustrations. Nothing feels like it’s giving you the hard sell and it certainly doesn’t feel like a catalogue of adverts.

Warhammer 40,000

The largest chunk of the magazine covers the launch of the Indomitus set. Miniature design insights from sculptors Jes Goodwin, Ben Jefferson and their teams, and rules and lore articles from Robin Cruddace and Andy Clark respectively. The battle report uses the contents of Indomitus and pits the Adeptus Astartes against the Necrons using a White Dwarf exclusive mission. Battle report game pictures are large and annotated with arrows and notes. It’s easy to follow what is going on. There is a short story about Bladeguard barely featured the Bladeguard but I was actually a moved by the ending, great piece by Callum Davies. Index Astartes returns with a Primaris Chapter, the Silver Templars. This article includes their background and a Codex Supplement, it’s a must if you collect and play Silver Templars. Paint guides in this issue include the Necron Szarekhan Dynasty and the Silver Templars. From Black Library there’s a short story from the Warhammer Crime Genre and we also get part 11 of James Swallow’s Faith & Fire. Reading all this has left me totally hyped for my Indomitus set.

Age of Sigmar, Warcry, Underworlds

Phil Kelly returns to write about building Realms and more specifically the Realm of Light. It’s a joy to read anything Phil does. He makes using a photocopier sound fascinating explaining how he created the maps. Louis Aguilar writes an interesting piece on speeding up your games. Whilst I might not agree with his using averages instead of rolling buckets of dice, I do really like his cheat sheet idea. City of Sigmar Hammerhal gets it’s very own rule set for Warcry. This is such a nice feature allowing you to now field Freeguild, Duardin and Aelves in the Eightpoints with 18 unit choices, the ability rules and the campaign rules, it’s superb! Warcry continues to get coverage with a Tale of Four Warlords and we see how the Warlords are progressing along the campaign tracker. Dave Sanders returns with the second part to playing with a flex deck in Warhammer Underworlds, I’m a bit out of the loop with Underworlds but including the cards along the top and bottom of the page is so useful to understand what Dave is talking about.

Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit  

There is no Lord of the Rings or The Hobbit content.

Value

The price varies depending on where you are in the world, whether you buy it in a shop or have a subscription. I’m not going to go into each currency but it roughly equates to the cost of a couple of cups of coffee. The large amounts of insightful information from Game Workshop Studio employees, as well as official rules and missions, short stories and a painting guide make this issue really good value but for me the price of the magazine is covered by the free Hammerhal Warcry rules. If they’d included them as separate cards, it would have scored a 10.