Who said there's no Ale left in da house?
It’s astounding, time is fleeting…. as I will be off for a longer holiday later this month, I am running quite out of hobby time and my White Dwarf reviews – while being fun and actually blockbusters on this blog – are taking away quite a lot of them… I thought about abandoning those reviews for good, but then I think it’s always a nice thing to write about something you’ve read, so for the time being, I’ll just try my best to keep those WD reviews shorter.
So let’s dig right into this shiny March White Dwarf – should you go and buy it? And if you bought it, should you actually read it? Let’s take a look at my (german) issue…
Warhammer 40.000
- Devourer of Worlds: a mostly visual look at a variety of Hive Fleets, including the official GW-Hive Fleets Behemoth, Kraken and Leviathan as well as Phil Kelly’s own Jormungandr, Keith Robertson’s Ouroboros and Tom Hutching’s Hydra. All in all a nice set of photos with some background tidbits and some assorted comments from ‘Eavy Metal painters.
- The Swarmlord (Robin Cruddace): yes, Mr. Cruddace it is and he’s writing a bit about the new Tervigons and Swarmlords. Most of this one is made up by excerpts from Codex: Tyranids. And of course there’s a sample Army List. This one is fine for people like myself who only play against Tyranids – anyone who has the Codex at hand won’t find anything here he doesn’t already know.
- Painting Workshop: Tervigon (Steve Bowerman): Mr. Bowerman shows us how to paint a Tervigon, using the colours of Hive Fleet Behemoth. I always love Painting Workshops and if you do so, too, you’ll like this one.
- A Company of Wolves (Phil Kelly): Some background on the twelve Great Companies of the Space Wolves in general and the Great Companies of Logan Grimnar and Ragnar Blackmane in particular. The highlight of this article is some new background stuff – the Saga of the lesser-known Wolf Lord Harald Deathwolf (for unknown reasons called “Leif” in the german edition). Possibly the best 40K article in this issue.
- Painting Workshop: Thunderwolf Cavalry (Steve Bowerman): it’s Mr. Bowerman again and this time he’s painting three Thunderwolves and their Space Marine riders. His ways for painting fur are quite universal. I enjoyed the tervigon workshop more, but this one will actually be more useful for painters like me.
Warhammer Fantasy Battles
- Warhammer: Civil War (part 3/4) (Jervis Johnson): I like this expansion, and this installment is again quite colourful and nice, though sometimes illogical – the list for Wood Elves could end up in having your Civil War in two seasons at the same time. Contains the lists for Daemons of Chaos, High Elves, Dark Elves, Wood Elves and Bretonia.
- Armies on Parade: Christian Byrne’s Ogres: a nice army, but then, it’s just some photos… can’t really grow fond of this “Armies on Parade” thing…
Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle Game
- Ambush at Amon Sûl (Andy Hall, Tom Hutchings): this month’s battle report pits Mr. Halls Hobbits against some poorly rolling Nazgûl led by Mr. Hutchings. Few surprises here, the biggest being the shameless advertisement stating that the sets you need to re-fight the scenario actually sum up to 78 GBP – who is ever willing to pay that just for re-fighting Wheathertop? Especially as the Mines of Moria already includes the whole Fellowship, too…
- A Tale Of Four Gamers (pt. 1): it’s the return of that iconic series of articles. This time we follow Dom Murray (Rohan), Nick Bayton (Isengart), Simon Grant (Minas Tirith) und Dan Harden (Mordor) on their quest of building up armies. The first month has them painting up two warbands and one leader each. Some interesting approaches here, including two different takes at making paved bases.
Miscellanous
- Standard Bearer (Jervis Johnson): the Old Man is talking about Games Days and frequently asked questions there. He has a lot of standard answers to standard questions, so that you might not end up asking him that. I quite liked that – Mr. Johnson, please write more of this!
- Citadel Hall of Fame: Joe Tomaszewski of the ‘Eavy Metal team nominates the Empire Battle Wizards kit by Brian Nelson. This article includes a photo spread on the famous Wizard Painting Challenge of 2009. I like it that Mr. Nelson writes he hopes he can one day sculpt the three missing lores of magic – now that’s something we all hope!
- Slayer Sword Winners Gallery: well, photos of all the Slayer Sword winners of 2011 and a gallery of Vampire Counts entries.
Conclusion
All in all I can quite recommend this issue, though as always this Dwarf is not useful for all players. This time, it’s clearly a must-have for players of the Space Wolves and players who usually battle against Tyranids. On the other hand, for players of Warhammer Fantasy, there is little; and the Civil War expansion, while a great thing, is not something everybody needs at home.
For the occasional Lord of the Rings enthusiasts, there’s quite little to get as the articles are clearly aimed at newcomers. Curiously enough, that’S fine with me, as I am thinking about an army in this game for a long time…
As a sidenote, they are experimenting with the Layout in this issue. Both the Editorial, the Table of Contents and the advertisements show a streamlined, more modern layout and design. I quite like that, even though they forgot to note the authors of quite a number of articles.
The Spine image continues to build up to a greenish Space Marine in robes with a plasma gun – a Dark Angel indeed….
