Topic: White Dwarf January 2018

[Alienscar]

No score out of 5 as I haven't finished reading it yet. 2 out of 5.

Looks like illustrated front covers are here to stay which can only be a good thing.
   
Including the front cover and the back side of the back cover this issue contains 156 pages. The page count and percentages don’t include the covers as they don’t fall into any category.

MISCELLANEOUS: 38.0 pages 24.68%

1 page of meet the team

1 page of editorial

2 pages detailing the contents

12.5 pages of stuff that is available to buy or available to pre-order in December

2 pages of letters submitted to White Dwarf.

19.5 pages of adverts

WARHAMMER 40K: 3 pages 1.95%

Getting Started With Orks: 2 pages on why you should collect Orks and what to collect.
 
Bringers of Corruption: 1 page of the Designers’ Notes for the Nurgle Daemons that deals with the 40K aspect of Nurgle.

AGE OF SIGMAR 36 pages 23.38%

Malign Portents: Sinister Omens – 2 pages of Malign Portents fiction.

Malign Portents: The Cycle Interrupted – 2 pages of Malign Portents fiction.

Bringers of Corruption: 7 pages of Designers’ Notes for the new Nurgle Daemons miniatures.

Battle Report: The Golden Contract – 14 pages detailing a battle between the Maggotkin of Nurgle and the Fyreslayers.

The Ultimate Guide to Death:  8 pages detailing the Legions of Undeath.  Roughly half of the article is made up of pictures.

A Tale of Four Warlords:  3 pages detailing the start of a Malign Portents orientated Warlords challenge.

MIDDLE-EARTH: 6 pages 3.90%

New Rules: The Search For The Stone – Two new scenarios for evil warbands in the Middle-earth Strategy Battle Game: Battle Companies.

SPECIALIST GAMES: 12 pages 7.79%

New Rules: Return to Hammerhal - 6 pages of White Dwarf exclusive rules detailing a new dungeon and three new bounties for use in your games of Warhammer Quest: Shadows over Hammerhal.

New Rules: Scenario: Claim the Spire – 2 pages of White Dwarf exclusive rules for a Necomunda scenario.

Let’s Play Ball: 4 pages showing off seven painted Blood Bowl teams.

MODELLING AND PAINTING: 39 pages 25.32%

Realms of Battle: 4 pages of how to make your own T’au terrain from various types of plumbing pipe and bits from your bits box.

Golden Demon Classic 2017: 6 pages of winning entries from the Warhammer 40,000 Large Model  and Middle-earth Strategy Battle Game.

’Eavy Metal: Shades of Decay – 4 pages on how to paint pus, gore and rotten flesh.

Waaagh! Zhadsnark:  8 pages of Iain Gonzalez’s Ork collection.

Battleforce Challenge: 6 pages showing off three armies painted as part of a Studio army challenge.

Paint Splatter: 2 pages of how to use the Splatter guides.

Paint Splatter: 5 pages of painting guides for Plaguebearer’s, Plague Swords, Beast of Nurgle and guts and pustules.

Reader’s Models: 4 pages of photo’s featuring models painted by readers of White Dwarf.

OTHER: 20 pages 12.98%

Temporal Distort: 2 pages covering White Dwarf from August 2013. This issue strikes me as one of the reason White Dwarf got relaunched. Army of the Month, Battlegound, Parade Ground and the articles written by Jeremy Vetock and Jervis Johnson. This was Visions in the making.

The Year That Was: 7 pages looking back at 2017 in White Dwarf.

First and Only:  6 pages of an interview with Dan Abnett.

In The Bunker: 5 pages of goings on in the White Dwarf bunker.

[Irisado]

Like December's issue, there looks to be quite a bit of variety here, although not quite as much as last month.  I am particularly interested to discover whether A Tale of Four Warlords has improved.  Some of the Age of Sigmar material could be quite informative.

[Alienscar]

I have only glanced through this issue so far but I have already noticed that it is not as good as December's issue. There is very much a Visions feel to this issue.

It is too early to tell if Four Warlords will be more than just a painting article this time around. So far the article has just detailed what the Warlords are collecting and a little bit of information on how they are going to paint them.

At least this time they haven't been made to start with a Start Collecting! box even though two of the Warlords are using Start Collecting! boxes.

Apparently Four Warlords is running alongside Armies on Parade: Malign Portents so maybe that is a sign of things to come.

[Alienscar]

I will score this issue 2 out of 5.

Not as good as last month’s issue as this month’s content seems to be driven by pictures rather than words.

You will like this issue if you like AoS and looking at pictures of miniatures.

The Planet Warhammer/Latest News content did not include as many add-ons as last month but overall I still enjoyed this section.

My favourite items this month are the AoS Malign Portents fiction pieces, T’au scenery feature, The Ultimate Guide to Death, the Dan Abnett interview and the AoS Battle Report.

I think that this is the first time I have included a Battle Report as one of my favourite items but this is not to say that the Report was perfect. I found this Battle Report to be well written and an enjoyable read. Whilst it did not offer much information in the way of strategy or tactics I liked the way it gave a semi-detailed blow by blow account of the battle. So better than the narrative approach but could still be better.

I can also recommend the AoS fiction pieces as a good if very short read. I don’t really know much about AoS Malign Portents or Fantasy but from what I have read I would guess things are shaping up for a showdown between Nurgle and Death and maybe we are looking at the beginnings of another death for Nagash.   

The T’au scenery article is also a very detailed and interesting read. I really like how each piece required is listed. I especially like how they also list which T’au model the pieces came from.

The only downside to this (if it can be considered a downside) is, as the author of the article explains, a very extensive bitz box is required. The T’au Command Tower for instance makes use of five Piranha canopies.

Even though I wouldn’t call myself a fantasy fan I found the Ultimate Guide to Death to be an engrossing article. Unlike some of the other Ultimate Guides this piece was coherent and it makes reading about Nagash and his cronies interesting.

I was really disappointed in the Getting Started with Orks article. I was looking forward to this two page (1.5 really) article but I don’t think I really learned anything concrete about how to start an Ork army after reading it.
 
Based on the article it would appear that the way to start an Ork army is to buy a Start Collecting! box and one of every other Ork model that GW sells. I would have preferred it if the article had described how to turn a Start Collecting! box into some sort of coherent army and explained the reasons for the choices.
 
Instead of an eight page Army of the Month that only has two pages worth of writing I would much prefer that the Getting Started With.. article was given more pages and that the article provided more in the way of content.  I would actually like to read the thoughts and maybe the list of a tournament player. 

The only problem with this White Dwarf, in my opinion, is the use of pictures masquerading as articles. If you ever read Visons you will know what I mean. So things like Army of the Month, Illuminations, Paint Splatter, Readers’ Models, Golden Demon and to some degree In the Bunker are articles that are nothing but pictures of models and, depending on your point of view, don’t offer anything tangible in the way of content but take up a lot of the magazine.