# UK WD 279 Review



## Stephen_Newman (Jul 14, 2009)

Its good to be back doing this again. I apologise for my lack of reporting so far this year due to a combination of work and a crappy postal system (hence why THIS report is late). However back on topic I announce what is in this months WD and give my own personal opinion. To differ from previous issues I shall not proceed through the magazine but split the review into 3 parts. Stuff and articles I liked from this months article. Stuff and articles I did not like from this issue and stuff and articles I am on the fence about. Then I shall give a final score.

WARNING! THIS REVIEW REPRESENTS MY OWN OPINION ONLY! YOUR WD EXPERIANCE MAY DIFFER! WARNING!

Stuff I like

A Magical Maelstrom: This article is a nice introduction towards the new supplement for this month, the Storm of Magic, and features a nice chat with the author of the new book. None other than Mat Ward which will not surprise some people. I like this kind of article because it gives an insight onto what to expect and what the general basis for something is. 

Here Be Monsters: This is an article about how the monsters of the Warhammer world are developed into models and features a rather indepth interview with Trish Carden who is responsible this month in sculpting the Manticore, Chimera, Black Dragon and Cockatrice. I love this kind of thing because it gives a nice link into what the designers think and consider about when they make their stuff.

Army Workshop-Dark Eldar: This is an article giving us a look at a Haemonculus themed army made by Duncan Rhodes. It is seen on the back of last months WD and I for one was very impressed and intriqued about how he made the Raider crew look very wrack like (Not a single wrack part was used BTW).

A Storm in the North: This is this months primary battle report. Unlike a lot of battle reports which I hate because they appear so scripted or have very unlikely and extreme situations. However with this months between Dark Eldar and Warriors of Chaos it seemed very balanced whilst showing off the effect of the new stuff that it could almost pass off as a friendly game between two people.

Stuff I did not like

Monsters for Hire: This is showing us what the studio are doing to prepare their armies for Storm of Magic whilst presenting lots of different army lists to provide suggestions. I did not like this because they seemed to almost shove the new monsters at our faces and I am not in the belief that they are not fully mandatory for winning Storm of Magic games as evidenced during the battle report.

The Tyrant and the Wolf: This is the second battle report of the month featuring Huron Blackhearts Red Corsairs army face down a Space Wolves force headed by Ragnar Blackmane. This battle report did hold the regular hallmarks of being very predictable but also was organised very poorly with no written army lists and very poor diagrams

Stuff I am on the fence about

Cities of Death: This article brings this 40K supplement into the spotlight again. It does so with presenting some new strategems. I have no problem with this but I always thought that Cities of Death not only takes a long time to set up and requires a lot of terrain but then there is the problem that a lot of these people will not recognize them to be official. Look at the Eldar Nightspinner for more proof if needed that these rules rarely work.

Standard Bearer: Whilst normally I rant about these and complain about there waste of space a friend of mine has put them into a different light and that these are never meant to be taken seriously and I am beggining to like them although some hatred still remains.

Modelling Workshop-Cities of Death: Again I normally like these however I doubt many people have the time or money to make the amount of terrain that they showcase. Just a minor quibble.

My review: A solid 7.9/10

If you have any issue then feel free to PM me.


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## Doelago (Nov 29, 2009)

Wait, issue 279? I thought the next one was 379?


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## Shandathe (May 2, 2010)

June was WD378, so yes, but I hardly hold it against him that he's been caught by a Tyop Daemon of Tzeentch (yes, that's the correct name ).


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## Maidel (Jun 28, 2009)

I love the fact that warhammer has come full circle (almost). There was a time when a hero/lord could pick any mount he chose and that slowly became phased out as 'race-specific' monsters came in.

Im on the fence in deciding if this halfway house is any better.

All I can say is that cocatrice minature is bleedin awful.


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## Stephen_Newman (Jul 14, 2009)

Whoopsie! I did not see that crop up. 

As for the Cockatrice-it is awesome!

FYI In next months issue there is meant to be a scroll of binding for a Vampire Counts monster, could be brand new and then there is the first half of the Sisters of Battle WD codex.


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## Shandathe (May 2, 2010)

Something that has caused the Sisters thread to explode a week or two ago, yes. There's a VC thread around here somewhere too, but relatively few people care. They might next month, I suppose, depending on the level of awesome involved


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## Arias (Jan 8, 2011)

I personally thought this WD was better than the last couple, there were some decent battle reports as noted above, a couple painting articles, as well as new rules for Cities of Death.

And how can people not recognize the WD stats and supplements as not official unless GW says its not? If that were the case why would they even release the SoB update, wouldn't that not be considered official in the same line of thinking?


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## Words_of_Truth (Sep 20, 2007)

Visited my local GW store recently and spoke to the single staff member it now has (damn cuts) anyway I told him I stopped subscribing to White Dwarf a while a go because it was less like a hobby book with stuff like Chapter Approved and Index Astartes and more like a catalogue trying to sell you stuff throughout it. Anyway he said they may be returning to that style soon, with stuff like updated rules for Sisters of Battle coming out in the White Dwarf.


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## Catpain Rich (Dec 13, 2008)

I will point out that the lamassau and great taurus are both (soon to be) back in FC.

YAY attention for Chaos Dwarves!


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## Fallen (Oct 7, 2008)

i browsed through the CoD sections but none of the "race stratagems" seemed worthwile, other than the CSM one - all psychers take a perils of the warp PER phase:victory:...in 1 building.

nothing else i cared to even check out.


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## TheReverend (Dec 2, 2007)

i actually liked this WD, just because it seemed more full of stuff and with less 'sell sell sell' to it. I like the cities of death battle report, not because it was as slick as usual, but because they managed to jam it in, even if there weren't full army lists and round by round reporting. They fitted it in despite all the other stuff they crammed in, especially the mahoosive Storm of Magic coverage.


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## Cypher871 (Aug 2, 2009)

Once upon a time I collected WD religiously but over the years it has really become a sales brochure rather than a hobby mag so I tend to leaf through it at my local Tesco's before commiting to buy these days. If what Words_Of_Truth says is correct I may start buying it again.

I did actually buy this issue. Although I have not played WHFB since 1993 the release of the new Storm of Magic expansion reminds me very much of the Magic expansion box set that was released after 4th Ed WHFB. Makes me wonder if we are going to see a similar expansion after 6th Ed 40K is released...something akin to 2nd Ed Dark Millenium?


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## Maidel (Jun 28, 2009)

Can someone please explain to me what made the old white dwarfs 'hobby magasines' and the new ones adverts?

Just to put this into perspective I have personally collected white dwarf since issue 122 and I have a copy of every white dward ever printed (except no. 2...)

What I dont understand is how the old ones werent advert catelogs - what made them 'hobby' orientated. 

Since about 140 or so they have had regular battle reports, they used to have painting guides, no wait, they still have that. They used to be about 90 pages long and had 10+ pages at the back of the magasine showing unpainted lead figures in glorious monochrome and they used to carry 5-10 pages of non-GW advertising (back to about 150 or so).

Id just love to know what people used to see that I didnt see...


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## Zion (May 31, 2011)

Maidel said:


> Can someone please explain to me what made the old white dwarfs 'hobby magasines' and the new ones adverts?
> 
> Just to put this into perspective I have personally collected white dwarf since issue 122 and I have a copy of every white dward ever printed (except no. 2...)
> 
> ...


Hobby articles like how to scratch build a Baneblade from cardstock, or build terrain, or paint minatures, or sculpt conversions in Green Stuff or how to do conversions....

You get the idea. The articles were (generally) more about making the game more fun and interesting than about hyping the new model kit of the month.


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## Maidel (Jun 28, 2009)

Zion said:


> Hobby articles like how to scratch build a Baneblade from cardstock, or build terrain, or paint minatures, or sculpt conversions in Green Stuff or how to do conversions.....


The baneblade was a one off (almost) its not like they did it in every issue. If memory serves they also did one on converting a landraider into a slightly bigger landraider and one on scratch building an ork battle wagon.

3 in about 200 issues.

They had a big thing on building terrain 2 WD ago, they have part of articles all the time on conversions.

Just not seeing it, sorry.


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## Words_of_Truth (Sep 20, 2007)

Maidel said:


> The baneblade was a one off (almost) its not like they did it in every issue. If memory serves they also did one on converting a landraider into a slightly bigger landraider and one on scratch building an ork battle wagon.
> 
> 3 in about 200 issues.
> 
> ...


Chapter Approved? Index Astartes? Articles on creating you own war machines with points costs etc like creating your very own variant of the land raider and being given the necessary tools to create a points cost for it. (can't remember the article but it was cool) Tons of other articles, stuff like War of the Beard which introduced proper Dragon Princes atop actual Dragons (well before their most recent updates) 

I miss the days of Index Astartes, I used to long to get the next White Dwarf for the next info on them, now it seems they've given up on the fluff side of things, only mentioning it when it helps sell new things. The "old" white dwarfs where magazines you couldn't afford to miss as they always had something crucial that would impact on your next gaming etc..


Now however you can easily afford to miss them at a time, I just bought my first White Dwarf in seven months I think because I wanted to read about Storm of Magic and it's possible effect on Ogres, I was pretty disappointed however since they got like a small paragraph and the rest of the article was aimed at...yes you've guessed it, selling their new stuff.

They just had a lot more things to make it fun for you rather than parading stuff you can buy.


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## Maidel (Jun 28, 2009)

Im going to give this its own thread I think, rather than derail this one - ill pull out a stack of random WD and list whats inside of them, I think people will be shocked as to how bad the quality used to be...


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## Cypher871 (Aug 2, 2009)

My earliest remaining WD happens to be the Baneblade issue #132. 

Cost £1.50, 80 pages long, taking all ads and the mail order bit into consideration but not including the inside covers there are 14 pages not devoted to hobbying articles shall we say.

14/80 x 100 = 17.5% worth of ads.




Current WD issue #379.

Cost £4.50, 120 pages long, taking all ads and the mail order bit into consideration but not including the inside covers there are 36 pages not devoted to hobbying.

36/120 x 100 = 30% worth of ads.



Personally I would like to see the Augury and all that kind of stuff go...that's what they have a website for.

The current WD is a third fatter than the old WD which obviously pushes up the percentage margin of ads but I don't have time to work out if that increase in size has actually caused an increase in ads.

Anyone care to do the math whilst I go to work?


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## Zion (May 31, 2011)

Cypher871 said:


> My earliest remaining WD happens to be the Baneblade issue #132.
> 
> Cost £1.50, 80 pages long, taking all ads and the mail order bit into consideration but not including the inside covers there are 14 pages not devoted to hobbying articles shall we say.
> 
> ...


If nothing else it explains the perception of the magazine going down in quality.


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## Shandathe (May 2, 2010)

They've been going up in quality again lately, IMO.


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## HereticHammer01 (Apr 29, 2011)

I thought the storm of magic issue was great in terms of not being an ad. It had two battle reports, in depth preview of storm of magic and cities of death stratagems etc. At no point did I feel like I was reading a catalogue which I have done in the past, usually when they have too many pages listing kits for an army. I do feel the last few issues are doing well to dispel that notion...


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