White Dwarf May 2017
TL:DR You will like this issue if you like reading about Grombrindal, the history of White Dwarf and looking at pictures of models.
So this issue celebrates forty years of White Dwarf publication and to be honest I have no idea how to score this issue. On the one hand it suffers by comparison to all the previous issues because of its mostly focused content and I wouldn’t score it higher than 1.2 out of 5. On the other hand some of the articles make for interesting reading.
It seems that my early summary that White Dwarf is nothing but a reimaging of the Visions magazine is partly true. There is a bit of information in this issue that explains that this iteration of White Dwarf is meant to combine the best bits of previous White Dwarf and the best of the Visions magazine.
Personally speaking I think that there is too much influence from Visions to make this a truly great White Dwarf.
Including the front cover and backside of the back cover the magazine has 156 pages. Interestingly I notice that in one of the articles they refer to this run of White Dwarf as containing 148 pages instead of the normal 156 that they claim.
One page of meet the team, one editorial page, two contents pages, twelve pages of adverts and fifteen pages of stuff that you can buy or pre-order now. That is 20% of the mag.
The magazine is split into twenty one sections and they are:-
Latest News, Latest Releases,
40 Years: 40 Years of White Dwarf, Contact,
Interview: The Dark Baroque(
John Blanche on his 40 year career),
40 Years: Blanchitsu (
a 40 year retrospective of Blanchitsu) ,
40 Years:Illuminations,
40 Years: Golden Demon,
40 Years:’Eavy Metal, Battle Report (
4 players, three linked battles, five days to play), Paint Splatter (
how to paint the new Grombindal), Battleground (
An Astra Militarum display),
40 Years: A Tale of Four Warlords, Shadow War Kill Teams, The Master of Fate (
Jervis talks about GM’s in Warhammer Quest), That Still Only Counts As One (A Middle-earth minigame), Spike! Magazine, New Rules ( Grombindal & The Black Gobbo rules for Blood Bowl), The Blood Bowl Playbook (Tactics article), Readers’ Models, In the Bunker.
Including the adverts (but not the latest releases) and counting two half pages of pictures as one this issue has forty six pages that are nothing but pictures/photographs. That’s 29.5%.
The main point of interest in this issue is that they show the front cover of every White Dwarf that has been published. What I learned from this is that I like the artistic covers more than I like covers that just show a picture of a model. From one of the articles you learn that the photographic front cover started in 2012.
This month’s Battle Report was yet another narrative effort featuring the Kharadron. To be honest I could have been reading last month’s report. The narrative approach, for me, makes every Battle Report read pretty much the same. It will be interesting to read a 40k Battle Report to compare to all of the previous AoS ones to see if I like them any better.
I am not sure if the Battle Reports are popular but I am beginning to really dislike the narrative approach with the little box-outs of information and the large, two page, picture of the gaming board approach.
I was all set to skip reading A Tale of Four Warlords as once again it is an article on how the Warlords painted their recent acquisitions. This month was saved though as each of the Warlords had to write a background story for their army. There was also a short (one page) Battle Report. As you can imagine a four player battle covered by one page wasn’t that good but its inclusion along with the very short stories made Warlords a bit more bearable than usual.
Once again Blanchitsu is beyond description and similar to last month covers a warband for the narrative campaign called the Pilgrym. Fittingly enough the warband for this month was John Blanche’s. His Centaurmebrideapede has got to be seen to be believed as it is one creepy looking model.
I also liked the Blood Bowl strategy article. Never played the game and mostly likely never will but I really like informative articles such as this. It had a small background piece on the strengths of each team, how to maximise the potential of each turn and information on how to use and break cages. I really wish they would produce a similar article for AoS and I hope we see an article like this for the new 40k.
Readers’ Models was more of a let down than usual due, surprisingly, to the pictures. Compared to every other picture in this magazine the photos in this article look “odd”. They aren’t as bright and crisp as the other photos in the magazine for one thing and there is a hint of a low resolution look to them.
12 pages on the history of White Dwarf, 4 pages of letters from readers reminiscing on their favourite issue, 8 pages discussing John Blanche’s career, 2 pages regarding the history of Blanchitsu, 6 pages of John Blanche’s favourite art work, 2 pages on the history of Golden Demon, 4 pages on the history of ‘Eavy Metal, 2 pages on Battle Report history and 2 pages on the history of A Tale Of Four Warlords. That’s a lot of history and 27% of the magazine.