Yeah, I know I am late here… I mean, I already reviewed issue 182 (374), so probably none of you is really interested in reading about January’s White Dwarf… still, I just finished reading it and I wanted to share my thoughts with you…
So, without further ado, here are the contents and my thoughts. As always, my review is based on the german edition of the White Dwarf, but the contents are – apart from the retailer list and other paraphernalia – the same anyway…
- Editorial: Andrew Kenrick tells us that he is – again! – the biggest fanboy of everything in this issue. I am quite sure it destroys some brain cells to read it… and even more to have written it in the first place…
- New Releases: Nice photos from the Skaven they released in January…
- Skaven Hell Pit Abomination: unlike many people out there in the forums I quite like the design, especially the clockwork and steam parts to the back of the creature. But I dearly miss the opportunity to make, say, two or more abominations dinstinctive enough from each other. Sure I can utilise different heads, different weapons… but the silhouette of the model will always stay the same… quite boring. Luckily I never really plan to include more than one creature in my Skaven army anyway…
- Skaven Warp Lightning Cannon / Plagueclaw Catapult: the design of this model was almost universally panned, mostly because Games Workshop (and even this very White Dwarf) didn’t emphasize enough that the triangular platform for both machines could be used in three positions (which we could call high, middle and low). And they made the mistake to show the Plagueclaw Catapult in the “high” position, where the timber appears much too short… personally, I very much welcome that the Warp Lightning Cannon is now in plastic and the Plagueclaw Catapult sounds like a fine new option for the Skaven… sure, I would have liked more options, mor bitz… but I do think I can use this kit to make some good models and that’s enough for me.
- Tretch Craventail: fine little Skaven by Seb Perbet. I didn’t really like this character in the Armybook, but I think this model has style.
- Ikit Claw: Seb Perbet did a great job with this model. I very much like the details of this incarnation of Mr. Claw, prefer it much to the old model. I won’t use him as Ikit Claw but I could well imagine to buy the blister to use this model as a regular Warlock.
- Warhammer Battle Magic – Skaven: This little pack of Magic Cards was already sold out before it could hit the stores I had access to. Think it’s the first of these Battle Magic packs to be sold out (last time I checked there were still some packs for the High Elves and the Beastmen available in my local store). A pity, as the illustrations are really nice. But as one doesn’t really need them for playing, I don’t think I will go for the hilarious prices they are currently fetching at eBay for it (which make me wonder if all these preorders weren’t done by people with a fine nose for business opportunities).
- Skaven Warp-Grinder and Doom-Flayer Weapon Teams: last in this section but surely not least come the true Highlights of this months releases: the final two Weapon teams. Seb Perbet (Warp-Grinder) and especially Giorgio Bassani (the first time I stumbled on that name, actually) with his Doom-Flayer did an almost flawless job here. The only real pity is that the two teams – like all the others, sans the two teams in the Island of Blood box – are metal ones. I want to center my own Skaven army on Weapon teams and the fact that I will have a hard time to adapt and convert the models to my taste (and for much-needed variety) is a real shame. Before these releases there were a lot of rumors telling of a plastic weapon team set. Of course this won’t happen now for a long time to go, but I really hope that some day… some beautiful day…
- Uniforms and Heraldry of The Skaven: we should have known that the uniform book for the Empire was a test for a larger range of books to go. So, here it is. I very much love such kind of books… as a child I would rather look at some (historical) uniform books from the library of my father than at some Mickey Mouse and I guess I just retained that love… also, I am always in bad need of inspiration for colour suggestions… I guess sooner or later I will buy that…
- Re-releases Space Marines: for the Ultramarines the classical Lord Macragge (I’ll call him Mr. Big Fists) and separate Ultramarines Honour Guard and Chapter Champion (which were already previously available in the Macragge big pack) and for the Space Wolves the Classic Njal Stormcaller (a classic in being an ugly model) and Bjorn the Fell-handed. A re-release of a heavy, bulky metal dreadnought and a farily outdated little Marine with a bird? I’m no Space Wolves player but I guess I would better think about converting my own models instead of buying those… I could imagine buying that Honour Guard one day, as I like the design… but I would have to find a solution to all those Ultramarines “Omegas” first…
- Some more advertisements and little news for the Black Library, Forge World, PC-Blood Bowl and the like… the only interesting bit here is a picture of the 2011 Games Day miniature, a nice litte Skaven Warlord by Dave Thomas I really like. I guess I will have to take a good look at eBay once the Games Day-season starts…
- A Tale of Infamy: the usual design notes, this time for the new Skaven miniatures. As always I very much enjoyed the comments by Jeremy Vetock and Seb Perbet. They didn’t really say anything important, but they both have a style of their own, I think. Though I now know that I have to “thank” Brian Nelson for introducing the new “as few pieces as possible”-Skaven which make my life as converterboy rather awkward here… Several insets about new and old units of the Skaven, the one about the Hell Pit Abomination features a photo of two abominations which – despite different heads and weapons – look too much alike to be a good advertisement for the set… after the article follows an army list of 3000 points, for a change not featuring all the new releases. I guess Jeremy Vetock had his hands in here, the background and names are well done.
- Tactica: Dark Eldar. Phil Kelly does a great job writing down how to use the Dark Eldar the best way. Includes a table which really breaks it down: which unit of the DE is good against Space Marines, which brings down Orks most effectively and so on. Probably the best article in this issue.
- House Rules: Old Man Jervis Johnson has some new rules about attacking, defending and taking buildings in Warhammer Fantasy Battles. It would be a great article (I love Mordheim, so rules about fighting in, on and around buildings has a great appeal to me) if it wasn’t also some kind of shameless advertisement for the Witchfate Tor and the Fortified Manor. Still reminded me of the old times, when the White Dwarf featured loads of new rules by Jervis, Rick Priestley, Tuomas Pirinen and others…
- The Battle for Südhof (don’t know the english name of that, so I take the German one): the obligate Battle Report, this time written by Robin Cruddace and featuring the Skaven (Andy Hall) against the Empire (Christian Byrne). Of the writers who do Battle Reports in the White Dwarf, Mr. Cruddace is one of the best and here he does a good job. Two pages of general background, four more detailing every unit of both battleforces (down to names, anecdotes, secret agendas and house rules), that’s much better than “I chose unit X because it’s the best to kill the enemy”. Sure, Andy Halls Skaven include most of the new units, but still, it didn’really feel as forced as it normally does.
The Battle report itself was fairly straightforward and almost exactly like I would have envisioned it. No surprises, but there are much worse ways to spend your time…
- Standard Bearer: Jervis Johnson muses about how the official Games Workshop painting style has developed since back from the eighties. Nice, nostalgic read. I wouldn’t have called a Demonette as being “more realistic” painted, though…
- Armies of Middle Earth Part 1: The Free People. Well, somehow Games Workshop feels oblieged (or perhaps is oblieged?) to feature something about the Lord of the Rings game in the White Dwarf. But more often than not, they don’t seem to have a clue what they should write about and so here is the umptienth variation on the “we write down something about every possible army so that you can find out what you want to play“-theme. This one is better than others, but still… couldn’t they bring in some experimental rules, some background, some design notes? And why can’t they for once acknowledge that the books are actually more important for the background than the movies? But probably that’s part of their contract, too…
- Chris Peachs Hagashîn army: Mr. Peach did a great job with his Cult of Red Grief. Some nice conversions and Kit bashings, and I enjoyed hs red painting scheme. Some nice tips on painting were included as well. But I was quite annoyed to find out I had to go online to find out how exactly to paint that scheme. Not that I wanted to paint it, but what sense does an article have, that claims to be about painting Dark Eldar and misses this central point?
- Hall of Heroes: Martin Footit presents us Ghazghkull Thraka, done by Brian Nelson. Well, I guess that was to be expected, considering the hype Games Workshop always does with Thraka. I highly respect the works by Mr. Footit and Mr. Nelson (and here especially his Orks) and I can follow the reasons for this nomination, still… I never liked Ghazghkull Thraka. I don’t like his background, I don’t like the hype and, yes, I don’t like the model, either… still I am glad they are still continuing this series, it is always good to get some background on the miniatures.
- Colours of the Deep Empire: ten sets of Skaven converted and painted using examples of the new Skaven uniform book. I enjoyed this. In the stores I recently visited, I had no chance to really take a look inside the book and it is interesting to compare the illustrations with the skavens done according to them. I would have liked some painted Frame diagram of the Hell Pit Abomination much more, of course…
- Silver Bullets from Skavenblight: What I think this issue would have needed would have been an article on the Skaven Hell Pit Abomination and/or the Skaven Warp Lightning Cannon / Plagueclaw Catapult, featuring coloured frame diagrams and tips on painting and assembling them. They don’t even have that on their webpage so far (what they have there is, in my opinion, not enough)… instead we got this: little texts and photos on all the machinery of the Skaven, from the Screaming Bell to the different Weapon Teams. It’s denotative that I don’t find the authors’ name here… and in issue 182 (374) there’s a strategy article by Jeremy Vetock which is much better than this (and it’s about the same models, mind you).
- May you live in Legendary Times: Graham McNeill and Dan Abnett talk about their newest novels… I never read Warhammer novels, so I can’t say if this is a good one. Seemed more like one (well, actually two) huge advertisement(s) to me, though.
And this is it. All in all I would give this Issue 5 out of 10 points: if you are a Skaven aficionado or you are a White Dwarf Collector anyway, there’s nothing wrong to buy this issue. You won’t die if you go without it, though… if you are a Dark Eldar fan, wait some weeks and pick it up on eBay for half the retail price… and if you are just generally interested, there is no reason not to wait for some months and grab it from eBay when prices come down to 1 Euro (and not a cent more). It is not the worst White Dwarf if you look back at the last 10-12 issues and I am afraid it won’t stay the worst issue of 2011… surely the guys at Games Workshop will cook out an issue that’s even worse…
