White Dwarf #385 Review

File this one under: The Imaginary Wars Lease Continues to Capitalize My Time. 

I bought the newest issue of White Dwarf the day it came out, had started on the review by the next morning…and then BAM! Monday hit and I was left scrambling trying to do five different things (including taking care of my daughter) so that this review had no other choice but to be set on the back burner until all the final bits of getting the lease could be completed. 

So after all the drama that Monday and Tuesday held, I’m finally able to say that I have a store location (no more of that “things are almost 100% confirmed” garbage that I’ve been saying for almost a month now!) and I also have the time to finish my review of the newest White Dwarf issue. 

Probably best I do it correctly, now that it's time to roll up my sleeves and REALLY get to work.

Of course I’m also sad that GW has decided to cast away War of the Ring; they haven’t said as much, but the repackaging of the infantry boxes says enough: if a person wants to get into War of the Ring, for most formations in the game he’ll likely have to buy six box sets just to get one formation at a semi-adequate size of three companies (movement trays) in strength. It’s not too huge a difference from the current way in that players have to buy three box sets; but I think it’s fundamental enough that War of the Ring is now as relevant as the 54mm-scale game, Inquisitor. It really is too bad; War of the Ring was very close to being an awesome game—I’d say it was one edition-rewrite and FAQ away from being an exemplary game. Who knows, perhaps when the second Hobbit movie comes out and GW needs a rules set to better re-enact the Battle of Five Armies.

 

White Dwarf 385

Page 0: Message from the Editor: Andrew Kendrick gives a quick run-down of the issue’s contents: lots of Lord of the Rings coverage, another installment to Warhammer: Civil War, new scenery rules penned by Jervis and a lot of 40k material that highlights the game’s 25^th anniversary.

Page 1: Table of Contents

Pgs 2-19: New Releases: Apparently GW has released a NEW starter box for Lord of the Rings and a new hardcover Rulebook—I jest! After the splash page showing the two starters, the magazine delves into showcasing the considerable amount of new Lord of the Rings releases, closely followed by info on the new Vampire Counts battalion box, Necron battleforce box…and the new piece of tower scenery, Deathknell Watch, the skull-tower with a blood-skull hot tub on its top floor (seriously, that’s what it looks like in the photos).

Pgs 20-21: Also Available… GW reminds us what other FineCast™ box sets are available for Lord of the Rings. Ho hum.

Pgs 22-23: New Releases: Black Library and Fantasy Flight Games Releases—though it needs to be pointed out that the space dedicated to a text box telling readers to follow GW on Facebook & Twitter, a text box telling readers to follow Black Library on Faceook and Twitter and a text box informing readers that GW is (desperately) seeking new store managers outnumbers the space dedicated to new releases by a factor of about 3 to 1. Don’t let it ever be said that White Dwarf is strictly a glorified catalogue…

Pgs 24-31: Lord of the Rings SBG: Race to the Ruins (battle report). What’s cool is that this battle report also shows the mission write up from the sourcebook the mission is taken from. The Watcher in the Water model and rules are heavily featured; I don’t know…I have problems using a giant octopus for battles fought on land…regardless of how cool the model may be.

Pgs 31-33: Advert: GW Hobby Centre grand openings. Nothing to see here; move along.

Pgs 34-45: Lord of the Rings SBG: Armies of Middle Earth. This article serves as an overview of the five new sourcebooks that have just been released for the LotR SBG (Moria & Angmar, The Free Peoples, The Fallen Realms, Mordor, and The Kingdoms of Men). Each quick, quarter-page overview includes a sample army list too.

Pgs 46-53: Lord of the Rings SBG:  The Storming of Harlond (battle report). Unlike The Race to the Ruins, this battle report doesn’t include the mission’s write up; I think it’s just a ‘kill everything’ type of mission replaying a scene from the movie—except in the movie, when Aragorn and his Army of the Oath Breakers came to the battle of Pelennor Fields, they weren’t squaring up against Easterlings, a Ringwraith and a Beast of Gorgoroth.

Pgs 54-55: Advert: Lord of the Rings: all the repackaged infantry plastic kits for the entire Lord of the Rings / War of the Ring range—it should be pointed out that by “repackaging” GW has cut the number of models per box in half.

Pgs 56-57: Standard Bearer: Jervis phones it in by going on at length about how cool tape measures are. Then wraps up by writing about how also-cool templates are.

Pgs 58-61: Warhammer: Civil War continues this month with tables to roll on for when Orcs & Goblins, Tomb Kings and Warriors of Chaos armies face off against the same kind of race/army.

Pgs 62-65: Warhammer: Deathknell Watch. Rules for the new scenery piece as well as a mission to play using the new terrain piece. WHY I AM DISAPPOINT: the rules for the Wyrding Well are nothing like the blood-and-skulls hot tub that are one of the “features” of this new terrain kit should be. I mean: hot-skulls-tub…COME ON!

Pgs 66-69: Warhammer 40k: How to paint the Necron, as covered by Chris Peach. I’m actually kind of impressed that he paints his Necron Monoliths using intaglio methods for parts of it.

Pgs 70-73: Warhammer: How Matt Hutson and Carl Dafforn have included the Vampire Counts battalion box contents into their armies.

Pgs 74-75: Armies on Parade: Nick Bayton’s Ultramarines army.

Pgs 76-80: Lord of the Rings SBG: How to paint Easterlings (both infantry and the mounted Kataphrakts), plus a sample army list at the end of the article.

Page 81: Advert: White Dwarf subscriptions.

Pgs 82-95: The Augury (adverts & independent stores’ events info)—this month, extra-phoned in: not only do they carry the same mistake forward from  last month (repeated sentence in the headline of the Augury “section”…which now that I checked has been going on for some time), but they didn’t even change the table of contents to match where the Augury’s specific sections actually are in the magazine: The Augury in this issue runs from pages 82-95, but it lists that the Events Diary and Store Information sections start on page 109 and run through to page 118. FOR GOD’S SAKE! WHITE DWARF NEEDS AN EDITOR.

 WARHAMMER 40,000 25^th ANNIVERSARY SECTION

Now upside down for your reading excitement!

The back 20% of the magazine is all about the lineage of Warhammer 40,000—annoyingly (or at the very least very gimmicky) this section is upside down, meaning you have to turn your magazine upside down and read it from the back to the front. And here was me thinking that this format (last used when Lord of the Rings was still in the theatres) pissed off enough people that GW had decided to abandon it. Guess not…

Page I: Features the 25^th Anniversary model: a Crimson Fist taken right from the cover of the original Rogue Trader book…complete with an awesome banner that the model neither holds, nor even appears on the cover of Rogue Trader.

Page II: Advert: Warhammer 40,000 25^th Anniversary schwag to be gotten on the “official” anniversary date of February 25^th (a Saturday, as luck would have it).

Page III: Models from the present; models from the past.

Pgs IV-IX: Gone Rogue: An interview with Jervis Johnson, Alan Merrett and John Blanche. A pretty interesting read, actually, as they discuss the beginnings of 40k and its evolution—they even (barely) touch on some reasons behind the game’s design choices. Too bad the interview is so short.

Page X-XI: Advert: Black Library has come up with their ‘Top 25’ list of 40k books. No Horus Heresy books are included—apparently because they’re all Warhammer 30k, not 40k. Sigh.

Page XII-XXI: 40k Eye Candy: A series of two-page spreads depicting famous 40k battles imbedded deep in its lore: the Battle for Macragge, the Battle for Armageddon, the Battle of Thesus Reach (??? apparently a “famous” battle from the Apocalypse expansion), the Fall of Iyanden, and finally, the Badab War

Page XXII-XLI: The Battle for Rynn’s World (battle report): Four games played simultaneously and presented as one giant battle report.

Thoughts on the Issue

This issue was really a mixed bag for me. The Lord of the Rings coverage was superior to the coverage they’ve given the game over the past couple years, both in quantity and in quality. (But that’s also me: I’m biased towards the game—it’s not the best game ever, but it certainly doesn’t deserve the vitriol it garners). 

At a cursory flip-through, the book feels like it has a decent amount of varied content—even if you’re a bit of a LotR hater. The Warhammer 40,000 25^th Anniversary coverage is actually present in this month’s issue, complete with a retrospective of the game (or at least as retrospective as GW can muster the will to produce). The bits of Warhammer content—most notably the new Civil War tables—aren’t too bad either. 

I was really kind of liking this issue.  

…Which isn’t surprising; considering White Dwarf’s new modus operandi seems to be “heavy on articles, light on content” (based on, I’m sure, the m.o. of the processed food industry: high on calories, low on nutrition seems like what White Dwarf would be if it were food). Still, far better this than what they’ve been serving up the past two years.  

My “Street Beef” 

I have two this month; the first one is just two words: battle reports. There are three of them this month: two for Lord of the Rings and one for Warhammer 40,000. Honestly, I find battle reports to be the most unengaging part of White Dwarf’s format. Am I the only one? 

No matter how much I may love a GW game (any GW game), no matter how curious I am about how the new army might perform on the board, I find the prospect of reading these reports to be absolutely exhausting. The most I can muster is reading how the players chose their armies and then flipping to the end to see who won and why. 

I find battle reports so draining that even trying to write a jabbing diatribe, ranting on about how terrible they are merely results in me being able to only come up with a couple sentences. If battle reports were a small child drowning…I would still have to engage in  an internal debate as to whether I should throw a life preserver into the water or not—that’s right I already know I wouldn’t dive in and rescue him/her/them/it. Battle reports are the most tired part of the White Dwarf; if the magazine went to having battle reports present in their books only six times in the year, that would not be too drastic of a cut.

My second beef has everything to do with the editor. I said it once, I’ll say it again: FOR GOD’S SAKE, WHITE DWARF NEEDS AN EDITOR.

I could say that this is in reference to the screw up with the Augury listing, the way that it was last month’s table of contents; but this month’s Augury Table of Contents is just the break in the skin that confirms the fester beneath. I mean, right under the header for the Augury on page 83 (the Augury tells you it starts on page 109, despite all evidence to the contrary) it says—and this is verbatim:

“A directory of everything you need to get involved in the Games Workshop hobby community! A directory of everything you need to get involved in the Games Workshop hobby”

Aaand it ends there without punctuation. The header has been this way for six months.

Editing a magazine isn't rocket science...or relativity science for that matter.

This really bothers me because White Dwarf expects me to pay a price for their magazine that equates to me thinking they’re serious about themselves and consider themselves professional enough to demand a “professional” magazine price—which I’m actually willing to do, but for God’s sake if you want me to take you seriously, White Dwarf, you should be taking yourself seriously as well. A literate and attentive proof reader would go a long way to helping me think you guys are working on this magazine as your day job. 

White Dwarf #384 Late Review

Okay, so first off, I’m only doing a White Dwarf review this late in the schedule because I wrote most of it up within the first couple days following its release–and then store set-up tasks went into overdrive, forcing me to abandon most things in my life except the items I’m eBaying to help keep food on the table (as it were) until the new store is set up…and running…and giving me a pay cheque.

Plus there’s all the stuff that comes with being a parent…suffice it to say that when “something’s gotta’ give”  hobby time and blog duties will likely always be the first to suffer when being a parent and opening a business are on the table.

That said, I have a friend who’s giving me some help with the formative part of the store  and it just so happens that I’ve gotten him into Flames of War. Anyway, he and I have had several late-evening bull-pit sessions where we’ve talked about elements of the new store,  setting up the  new business…and the rules in playing Flames of War. Needless to say, a lot of good ideas have been developed–and we’ve also begun to learn how Flames of War works! At the moment, my mid-war Loyal Eddies (Canadian Infantry) are undefeated in their struggles against the Hun….not that we’ve been playing proper missions or anything like that. (At first I was terrified of his Tiger…up until the thing got into the sites of my 17-pounder anti-tank guns!)

Anyway, without further ado here’s the break down of  White Dwarf #384 …mere days before #385 hits the shelves.

Page 0: Message from the Editor: This issue is all about the undead–Vampire Counts, more precisely.

Page  1:    Table of Contents

Pgs 2-15: New Releases: Chock full of Vampire Counts releases, and all of them have plenty of Magpie-attracting shininess.

Pgs 16-17: Dreadfleet: The vaguely-limited-edition Blood on the Badlands source book sold out in a matter of weeks, but SUPER limited Dreadfleet game is still present….everywhere and in good quantities. Better put out another two-page ad slick for the game–oh wait, it says this is my last chance to buy the game. I’ll get right on that.

Pgs 18-19: New Releases: Black Library and Fantasy Flight Games releases. Of note: the Ultramarines DVD is still available for purchase (I think the DVD may be almost as limited as Dreadfleet!)

Also of note: I’m assuming these tidbits wouldn’t fit anywhere else; so, shoehorned in amongst the new releases are an add telling us that the 25th Anniversary of Warhammer 40,000 has now begun…so we should all  buy next month’s White Dwarf so we can read the first articles supporting the anniversary. Also, GW is looking for new store managers–I guess that sort of fitting for the new release section…maybe?

Pgs 20-21: Warhammer: ”The Lords of Undeath”  ….um I think this is just serving as some kind of a title page for the next few articles in the magazine. Nice picture though.

Pgs 22-41: Warhammer: Models, rules, army lists and excerpts from the new Vampire Counts Army Book. But it’s presented in a manner where every two pages.  Is a brand. New article. (When it doesn’t necessarily require that.)

Pgs 42-56: Warhammer: ”War in the Border Princes” background story (and excerpt from the new Army Book) plus a special scenario to replay that story–and replayed for our enjoyment as this month’s battle report. Undead lose.

Page 57: Advert: Games Workshop Hobby Centre Grand Openings.

Pgs 58-59: Standard Bearer: Jervis is back! I guess this column wasn’t put out to pasture last month! Essentially Jervis talks about how GW’s games designers don’t think about how to win with the armies they write…? It could also be read as Jervis being an apologist about how GW doesn’t try to hard to ensure armies are better balanced against each other.

Pgs 60-67: Warhammer 40k: (Yet) another installment of the Tactica: Necrons. I think it’s the third one…but this feels like it’s the seventh one I’m expected to read.

Pgs 68-69: Advert: 40k Necrons range focussing on the Lord’s Paddle Boat, the Norse-Necron  Longboat, the Immortals/Deathmarks and, of course, the warriors box.

Pgs 70-75: Painting Workshop: Beastmen Ghogon, with a focus on painting Beastmen flesh.

Page 76: Advert: Beastmen plastics box sets.

Pgs 77-85: Warhammer: Civil War – An official ‘expansion’ which is very much of the same flavour as the old 40k Chapter Approved article-expansions from back in the day–which is kinda’ good! Civil War presents us with tables to roll on that will provide us with special rules, battlefield conditions and objectives to bring into games when two of the same army types face each other.  This will be an ongoing series of articles and this month covers just the Vampire Counts, Beastmen, Ogre Kingdoms and Lizardmen “civil wars.”

Applicability: meh.   Coolness: HELL yes!

Pgs 86-87: Advert:  Forge World. A two-page centerfold spread of the Reaver titan.

Pgs 88-91: Warhammer: Sorcerous Pact – how to include some Vampire Counts into your own army when playing Storm of Magic games.

Pgs 92-93: Advert: B Games Day and the big reveal for the Games Day model: a Finecast(TM) model of the Space Marine who graced the cover of the 40k 2nd Ed. starter box.

Pgs 94-95: Armies on Parade: GW’s blog writerm Dan Harden’s Harad force.

Pgs 96-97:  Advert: Battlefield terrain.

Pgs 98-105: Painting Workshop: Painting the (beautiful) Vampire Counts Mortis Engine.

Page 106: Advert: GW Hobby Centre birthday celebrations.

Pgs 107-119: The Augury: This month is not only the usual fare (adverts & independent stores’ event info), but GW gets hit by a CTRL+C/CTRL+V bomb! Underneath the header saying The Augury is–and I quote:

A Directory of everything you need to get involved in the Games Workshop hobby community! A Directory of everything you need to get involved in the Games Workshop hobby

…then it gets cut off there.

Pg 120: Citadel Hall of Fame: You know, I really don’t mind the Hall of Fame as an article when it’s ONE page long…and the last page of the magazine. Far better to have a one-page filler “article” than a one-page filler advertisement.

Thoughts on This Issue

Right now, as an editor, Andrew Kenrick seems to be using the ‘shotgun’ approach for aiming content at potential readers: the scope of the rag’s articles–just because there’s so many of them–do have a wide scatter, so he’s bound to be able to make the magazine have wider appeal. I just get the feeling that any good content comes about by a fluke; and while at the end of the day, good content is good content, I feel if I’m going to pay someone to do something for me (be it fix a sink or entertain me with their writing), I’d prefer they didn’t accomplish the goal of why I “hired” them by some fortunate accident.

Still, that said, issue 384 is NOT a bad issue per se…at least not when you’re flipping through it (it’s almost impressive!); however, it’s when you go back to really read any of the articles that you realise just how light this issue is. 

–Mind you, my wife is running into the same problem with her Chatelaine magazine: the publication seems to think that people buying magazines really just want the articles in the publication to be limited to six paragraphs or less–much the same sparse way as news sites post their articles that appear on your email logout page. My wife argues (and I think she’s on to something here) that if we wanted to read internet articles, we wouldn’t be buying magazines…we’d just go surf the ‘net.

Still, the Civil War article, though not really pertinent to me, was a good read!

My “Street Beef”

I already mentioned the lack of depth put into their articles, so I’d prefer to not restate that fact. But really, apart from the paste bomb that blew up in the Augury’s title page (who reads the Augury anyway???); the issue was pretty inoffensive–chock full of Warhammer Vampires, but pretty inoffensive all the same.

I think the only thing I can moan about is how on the cover the magazine mentions that THIS month White Dwarf “kicks off” the 25th anniversary year of Warhammer 40,000.

Soooo….with that on the cover I was thinking there might be an article in this month’s magazine, nothing gargantuan, mind you–perhaps a 2-4 page piece perhaps talking about how this year is the 25th anniversary of 40k..and maybe said piece would also show some of the early ads that first turned up around White Dwarf #95 (or so) to promote the “new” Warhammer in Space game. Instead we get this:

It turns out that when they say “We kick off the 25th Anniversary Year of Warhammer 40,000″ this is what they mean:

Yup, that’s the extent of ‘kicking off’ a year-long celebration of the game that pays all the bills. I’m not going to get too worked up about this; it just highlights how GW regards the people that keep them in business. You know, GW, you can conduct your business any way you like, but it seems to me when you constantly tell the people that hand over their money to you that they’re all morons, sooner or later they’ll realise it and cut you off from the money faucet.

And then where will you be?

.

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I wasn’t really meaning to get all that sour about this review; so I’m going to make a mention of what’s on the horizon that has me SUPER  excited: new Lord of the Rings models are coming next month!!!

They’re SO cool that even the fact that many are being done in Finecast(TM) doesn’t bother me (although the prices of the 4-man command packs seem to be a little on the ‘not worth it’ end of things, the monsters seem to be about on par with everything else GW does. 

My favourites so far are the Dweller in the Dark–which comes in 10 components (including two different heads!! …perhaps a few other optional pieces?) and is supplied on its own  detailed 60mm round base.

Despite it’s ungainly lunge over that rock, I’m also really liking the goblin Warg Marauder…even if every Goblin paint job I’m seeing with the new releases are completely uninspired (just look into their soul-less eyes!).

Well, that’s it for me with this update!

If Only I Lived Closer to the Mid-West!

…American mid-west, that is.

I stumbled upon an update on the Plastic Legions blog just the other night and thought I’d talk about it now–before even more time passed since the original post’s date of September 29^th. Could it be true? Could there really be a resurgence of interest in the Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle Game?

The Post Where I Whinge For a Bit….Part I

Thanks to yesterday’s battle report, I’m still reeling a bit from reliving that terrible outcome of the battle I played against Scott’s Elven Galadhrim at the start of the month. I thought of more things to comment about in the game while writing that battle report; but, rather than than making the already-long battle report even lengthier with these extra thoughts tacked on at the bottom of the post, I thought I’d just do a new post….of a more easy-to-digest size.

I won’t lie: this is a post where I piss and moan about the unfairness of life–or in this case, the unfairness of pretend life in a pretend setting that I play games in.

Unstoppable overlords of the galaxy, mercilessly harvesting souls--whom whole RACES were created in a vain attempt to stop you, huh? That's NOT what the rules say!

Did White Dwarf Just Turn Down the Suck?

The quality of article I expect when White Dwarf announces Sisters will be in their next issue.

My guilty admission: I’ve been a loyal White Dwarf magazine buyer for decades now. And despite my buying the magazine month in and month out, regardless of each issue’s individual merits, I’ve been feeling like a sucker for quite a while now. With each month’s new issue, I flip through, trying to find any content I can use to justify my buying the rag that month. With the closing of Great White, it was definitely looking like I would be capping off my decades-long collection this summer: buying a terrible magazine with my staff discount was one thing; buying a terrible magazine and paying full retail was entirely another.