There are probably plenty of reviews already covering all pages and dissecting rules and articles to the bone, this is not the aim here, its just rather a casual and my personal angle on it. I'm foremost a sculptor & painter and I have a professional artistic background so all is a bit arty fartsy for me…
The design is functional and if you are a subscriber you get a fancy alternative cover with no text and just the illustration on the cover.
The content it's clearly divided by the different games so you do not have mixed content like fantasy with 40k. The good thing about that is that you can immediately ignore the bits you don't want and skip to your favourite game, the bad is that you will quantify the pages you actually want to see and compare it with the price tag. In short if its all mixed up you don't know how many pages say of 40k are in there so the price does not bother you much but now you know that 40k will be from page 92 to 120… personally I like all games but what really grabs me is the painting and Art.
The art is pretty much what I wanted from WD, there is PLENTY of it and big pieces too, in fact they also have a 6 page section ( which is not new) called illuminations just with inspiring illustrations. I can spend hours just looking at one Illustration so this is a big thing for me. The WD is quite special for that since if you don't buy all the games and respective rulebooks you would probably not see some of them but now you are exposed to so much that it makes it fun and enjoyable to go through each one of them.
As a painter Im always looking for nice colour combos and ideas, tips, tricks and tutorials etc soooo does the New White Dwarf delivers or is just the boring easy tutorial you see every time?
Previous Editions ( not seen all of them but around 60%ish) always had some form of cool pictures of outstanding painted minis, either in the form of Readers models, Heavy metal, Golden Demon coverage, Heavy metal challenges ( love those) etc… Well this one has all of them bundled in loads of pages and articles and yes the heavy metal challenge is there and is freaking awesome!
A selection of the mini paint jobs that blew me away! Fair to say that the quantity of quality, original and inspiring paint jobs is 5 starts.
On the painting tutorials side of things you still have the typical step by step base colour, shade, layer, highlight tutorials ( this time for the Crimson Fists) which have their uses and still quite functional but it needs more meat for the advanced painters. The section of the golden demon and the heavy metal challenge has very detailed descriptions of the methods used but no photos or step by steps there, so its all just fluff really. I did find that more effort was put into this, so it's a step in the right direction, but still much needs to be done on that front.
Kudos for a nice little original idea of lava buildings, quite cool actually, like I said more effort is evident on the WD.
Modelling, conversions and sculpting tutorials… Not much really there, they only included 2 pages with 5 minis that had different bits rearranged as examples. Not original and all quite basic and boring. Not impressed. You could argue that the section for the featured army of the month has some really good conversions though and Oh boy that army is something special. This featured army section has more jazz than usual with some nice pictures and even colour formulas etc, it almost makes me forget how the conversions tutorials is so bland.
This White Dwarf also will appeal for the fluff fan with plenty of background to read and enjoy. Worlds of Warhammer with Phil Kelly and then a short story fiction pages for Age of Sigmar Kharadron Overlords and another short story for 40k set in Vigilus…and the immense and for sure the Star of the magazine.
INDEX ASTARTES.
Right!.. This index has 10 pages of background and Rules for the Crimson fists so if you want to do this army you really need this magazine, if you don't you still need it just to keep you on the loop.
I think this is something that gives the magazine so much more BANG for your money, its a full codex supplement for 6 pounds. To go with all that there is a Crimson fists Army on display and also a Crimson fists painting tutorial.
Crimson fists take the most of the 40k dedicated pages and do it with style.
There is also an extensive battle report for 40k between Aeldari and the Imperium which does not appeal to me much and looks quite… dull. By the time I digest the other tasty bits of this mag maybe I will find the time to go through it.
MOAR Rules - Well ,well, well, the bar is up there with this Magazine, not satisfied with the Index Astartes you have the 11 pages of new Rules for Age of Sigmar Skirmish! Wow.
Not into 40k or AoS? Maybe you like kill team?
Lets just say if you like Kroots and are into Killteam you will be happy to know that you have the rules for Kroot mercenaries also covered.
Conclusions
Does this magazine delivers on its promise of being the New White Dwarf? The break from previous recent editions and with plenty of extra value added?
If you are gamer you will have to say YES. It's undeniable that the amount of FULL rulesets provided are amazing and for 6pounds you will get hours of fun. This also makes the Magazine quite relevant now on the gaming scene.
If you are into the background - YES, 2 short stories and a full Index Astartes? Cant go wrong there.
If you are a Painter - YES Loads of heavy metal tips and pictures some basic tutorials, Heavy metal challenge and Golden demon. Perfect for the medium painter and a good starting point for the experienced one. I think More could be done here but still plenty of content.
For the Modeller- NO, apart from the Army of the month this needs a huge revamp, very modest content.
Overall YES, I enjoyed my White Dwarf Illustrations, Heavy metal challenge paintings, Golden demon and some fresh ideas there. Good for an impulse buy but will not commit to a subscription. If they manage somehow to scratch the surface of the modelling tutorials of Rackham Cry Havoks then I would be tempted!
Thanks for posting this review! As an occasional buyer of WD, it is good to know the direction that the magazine is going in, even if it continues to give short shift to the modeler.
ReplyDeleteI think the magazine does show an effort to make it more relevant to the gamers but I do agree that for the modeller it just doesnt deliver.
Deletethe mag has seemed a bit unfocused recently. leading up to xmas it seemed every month GW had a new quick play game added to their catalogue. hopefully they may still include some books & video games though. i love getting a huge tome from the Black Library & digging in for a long reading session. they do need to include readers models as it's our chance to see what's possible & inspire us to improve our painting skills. all considered it wasn't a bad January issue but I still miss the centre fold out battlescape each month.
ReplyDeleteIt was a positive restart on some aspects of the magazine but it really depends how they will expand on it each month.
ReplyDeleteThere's clearly a core of painters, gamers, readers and modellers to attend to so its never going to be very in depth for all in just one month. They could in February go all modelling and that would make it more interesting.