White Dwarf June 2017
TL:DR You will like this issue if you like reading about Primaris Marines and looking at pictures of models.
I will give this issue 1.8 out of 5.
As everyone is aware a new edition of 40k has been released and this issue is where you can learn all about it.
I think I should point out that since White Dwarf was relaunched in Sept of 2016 this issue is only the second time that 40k has been given more than ten pages of detailed coverage.
Personally I feel a bit underwhelmed by the whole experience. In my opinion this issue comes across as a way of hyping the Primaris rather than an introduction to the new edition of 40k.
One page of meet the team, one editorial page, two contents pages, eleven pages of adverts and thirteen pages of stuff that you can buy or pre-order now. That is 17% of the mag.
The magazine is split into seventeen sections and they are:-
Latest News, Contact,
Cover Feature: There Is Only War (New game, new background & new miniatures for 40k),
Cover Feature: First Blood: Warhammer 40,000 (Members of White Dwarf play their first 8 edition games aided by the designers) ,
Cover Feature:Armies of the Dark Millennium (4 players work out army lists), Battle Report (Defence of Konor), Golden Demon (The Horus Heresy), A Tale of Four Warlords, Legion of the Realms (AoS army showcase), Ultimate Guide (Blades of Khorn), Imagists and Illuminators (Interview with the art team), Illuminations (the art team choose their favourite pieces), Army of the Month (Harlequin army by Harvey Snape), Paint Splatter (how to paint the Dark Millennium models), Temporal Distort (1997, issue 207), Readers’ Models, In the Bunker.
Including the adverts (but not the latest releases or Paint Splatter) and counting two half pages of pictures as one this issue has 64 pages that are nothing but pictures/photographs. That’s just shy of 40%.
For me that 40% figure is what spoiled what should have been a really good issue.
A good example of this is the “There is Only War” article. Ostensibly an article about the new edition this twenty four page article has eight pages worth of material that is nothing but pictures be that art work or photo’s of models. It also includes four pages of an Eavy Metal article on how to paint the Primaris in the colours of the four most popular (sic) Chapters.
I liked the little bit of background info, the Datasheet guide and the Mark X armour and Death Guard vector (4 pages) explanations but think more space should have been given to the rule changes and background instead of just filling the space with pictures.
I can’t say for why but I like the First Blood articles you really get a feeling that you are learning something. It is quite a simple article but the way it is written you really makes you feel like you are watching as people play and learn a game for the first time.
I liked (tolerated) the article on the Armies of the Dark Millennium. This is eight pages detailing how four players picked their 8th Edition armies from their existing collections. Thousand Sons, Tau, Blood Angels and Tyranids were the armies in question. As ever the article was watered down because even though each player had two pages one page (or more in the case of the Blood Angels and Tyranids) was taken up with photo’s of the models.
The Battle Report like most of the previous Battle Report leaves me wanting something different. As I read this Battle Report I came to realise that it is not just the narrative nature of the Report that is making me dislike them it is the overall layout. Each turn of the Battle Report is displayed on two adjacent pages but there is more than a page worth of pictures included for each turn. I think that what I discovered is that I dislike the lack of detail and at the same time I dislike the amount of detail they are trying to cram into the limited space.
That probably doesn’t make a lot of sense so for example at the start of the Report they show the armies deployed on the board and they pick out some of the most important units. So that is good detail but it is let down by its execution. This is because the accompanying picture is too small to show the detail that they are trying to point out. That is, they point out where Guillman and the Devastators are on the map but they are all but indistinguishable. This makes me realise that they might as well go back to the old style of map that had icons for each unit.
Other detail that I like is that each turn includes little bits of tactical information but once again the layout of each turn makes this hard to assimilate. There is a quarter page of narrative writing about the turn and then various little boxed out areas of information surrounding a photo of the board that takes nearly 50% of the two allocated pages. I suppose what I am complaining about is that the layout just isn’t linear enough for my tastes.
A Tale of Four Warlords is once again just information on how the Warlords painted their latest army additions. This month was Fast Attack.
If you like this sort of thing there is an interview with the Design Studio’s art team but this in then followed by eight pages of art pieces chosen by the art team. The fact that the eight pages of the interview is essentially four pages of artwork then the whole article comes across as just nothing but pictures.
The Ultimate Guide to Blades of Khorne was a really good read and I don’t think that it is a coincidence that I end up liking a article where the words and pictures are balanced.
Like last month’s Readers’ Models the article was let down by the quality of the pictures. They lack the clarity and crispness of the in-house photo’s.
From page 84 onward you have Golden Demon, Four Warlords, Army Showcase, Illuminations, another army showcase, Paint Splatter, Readers’ Models and In the Bunker. This is fifty seven pages of how to paint and photographs of models.