"White Dwarf coming back?!" Topic

Got an email alert from GW they're bringing back WD as a monthly. Very promising.

That depends.

It is GW and their track record over the past two decades has not been that great.

Maybe, but their track record over the last year has been absolutely amazing.

People wanted plastic Horus Heresy stuff: Done.

People complained about codex creep: AOS has no codex creep at all.

People complained about the expense of the army books: All AOS rules are free on line.

People complain about the cost of starting an army: Get started boxed sets come out that allow you to put a fairly complete AoS army together for about $200. USD

People wanted Warhammer Quest back: Done

People complained because it was just going to be a one off game with no support: they have already released one supporting boxed set for it.

After complaining about Codex creep and GW eliminating it in AoS, people complained because the game doesn't have "points": GW is bringing out rules to have points in the game.

People complained because the games were too "gamey" and rules lawyers were ruining it: GW brings out a game where the focus is entirely on the narrative aspect of play and not at all on the rules.

Why we just had a poll here on TMP where everyone responded that they preferred fun over winning. GW released a game where the fun is the primary aspect.

And this has all been since last July.

Unless you haven't been paying attention you have to admit that GW is responding to customer requests in a big way.

Due to a change in management. Deathwatch Overkill and Silver Tower harken back to miniatures designs of old. Six Build & Paint kits to be released at Walmart. I'm no fan boy, but I believe the GW ship will be righted with moves like this.

Not sure why it depends. I don't get that comment.
White Dwarf is back to a monthly release come September. 154 page A4 setup.

Grimm

They can do whatever they want, but as long as a starter set for $200 USD is considered a revolutionarily good deal they will still be overpricing me by orders of magnitude.

Unless you haven't been paying attention you have to admit that GW is responding to customer requests in a big way

I can't disagree with that. However, one swallow does not a summer make and GW have employed some fairly questionable, hard nosed approaches over the last couple of decades so that'll take some turning around but they have made some moves in the right direction recently.

So let's see: credit where credit is due.

Dwarf returning to its previous publication model? Probably a good idea (I like glossy paper publications but… well, I'm biased).

$200 USD starter sets? I don't have a problem with that. Wargaming is a cheap hobby*
The "Games Workshop Hobby"** is less so but that's a very acceptable price point to start an army.

IMHO. YMMV.

John T

*compared to many others

** gosh I dislike that title…

"They can do whatever they want, but as long as a starter set for $200 USD"

But they don't. They are often half of that. Age of Sigmar was $125 USD and had 47 figures in it including 5 characters and a monster and one of the characters riding a monster.

The 40K starter sets are about $100 USD, maybe $105 USD? They contain a bunch of figures too.

The Betrayal at Calth set was the most expensive. If you consider it a starter set. It was $150 USD had 30 regular marines, 5 terminators, two characters and a dreadnought. Plus an entire board game that was actually pretty decent and good enough that some people use it for regular gaming.

If you break it down evenly, you are paying about $3 USD for the marines. $5 USD for the terminators. $8 USD for the characters. $19 USD for the dreadnought and getting a game for free.

That is a pretty good deal in the fantasy/sci-fi world by anyone's standards.

It would be nice if WD came back in its early form, filled with modeling and gaming articles, rather than the overpriced catalogue it became in the past decade.

"People complained because the games were too "gamey" and rules lawyers were ruining it: GW brings out a game where the focus is entirely on the narrative aspect of play and not at all on the rules."

What are you referring to here? Age of Sigmar?

Yes.

It would be interesting to see some sales comparisons between WHFB and AoS. Either way I suspect that they are small in comparison to 40K.

While I have purchased WH Quest I have no intention of getting back into 40K. Every year seems to bring some "must have". Aircraft that remain on station on a 6x4 board? Imperial Knights at £95.00 GBP each? I haven't got the cash or time to invest in stuff like that.

People complained because the games were too "gamey" and rules lawyers were ruining it: GW brings out a game where the focus is entirely on the narrative aspect of play and not at all on the rules."

What are you referring to here? Age of Sigmar?

Thing is I read and seen the Age of Sigmar stuff and determine that it was even more "gamey" since it provided many ways to "cheese" out your army.

Oh and Silver Tower is not Warhammer Quest.

I'm kind of bummed about the new WH Quest. It seems to be a Willy Wonka-esque reimagining that is slathered with the stuff of AoS, not the gritty, dark dungeons of the original WHQ. I hate the new models with all their frippery and the board sections look equally bad, like the party is assaulting the Italian Crème Soda Dungeon.

Fortunately, for half the price, I was able to pick up Mantic's "Dwarf King's Quest" dungeon-crawler, which looks more like what WHQ used to be.

"Thing is I read (sic) and seen the Age of Sigmar stuff and determine that it was even more "gamey" since it provided many ways to "cheese" out your army."

Even if it did, which it doesn't, it provides no incentive to do so.

"Every year seems to bring some "must have". Aircraft that remain on station on a 6x4 board? Imperial Knights at £95.00 GBP GBP each? I haven't got the cash or time to invest in stuff like that."

I got back into 40K and 30K when the Betrayal at Calth stuff came out last year. So far I have zero new aircraft and no Imperial Knights. I do have a Tau ground attack craft that I bought more than a decade ago but we rarely use it for 40K.

You don't have to use any of that stuff. The game plays fine without it.

I've seen some games of 40k that look not appealing at all – a 6x4 foot table crammed with tanks, aircraft and titans. It looks ridiculous. It seems like if you are playing a game with a titan in it you would automatically need more than a 6x4 foot table.

We rarely play on a 6x4 foot table anyway. Games seem to have more room for maneuver and exciting things to happen if you start on a bigger table. The last game of 40K I played was on a 8x6 foot table.

Even if it did, which it doesn't, it provides no incentive to do so.

Oh it does if you spent the time to read up on the units and what they could do.

Like take High Elf Reavers (Ellyrian Reavers):

Ellyrian Purebreeds: In the shooting phase, before or after making attacks with this unit, you can roll two dice and move all of the models in this unit up to that many inches. Models cannot start or end this move within 3" of an enemy unit.

Swift Volleys: Models in this unit make 3 attacks with their Reaver Cavalry Bows if the unit is not within 3" of an enemy unit.

So back in last Edition of WFB they were not that great due to their high cost per model.

But in Age of Sigmar they are a killing machine because you should almost always be outside of 3" of an enemy unit.

The thing is just how many of them can field? Which for most individuals are very few since that sucked back in WFB.

Though there might be individuals like me who could put 45 of them onto the table top.

That is 135 shooting attacks and that is just one of many units that can make High Elves very nasty.

So yes you can cheese out your army if you actually read what certain units abilities are and knowing just what they can do.

Oh and the incentive has always been to same WAAC.

That has not changed with Age of Sigmar.

The thing is for GW to bring out Age of Sigmar they had to…

Kill off Warhammer Fantasy Battle

Yup that is the GW way of doing things.

Not sure why it depends. I don't get that comment.

Well there was a time when The White Dwarf magazine was great. That would have been around 20-25+ years ago.

It had great Battle Reports where GW was not trying to harp their latest models.

It also had great articles as well.

But then GW decided that putting out a great gaming magazine was not what they wanted to do and they trashed it.

It turned it into just one big advertisement for their latest models.

The Battle Reports were horrible but they did show off nearly every single new model.

The articles also featured the new models and it was packed full of petty pictures of the newest models.

Oh and sales tanked big time because they kept on increasing the price and it was no longer a great gaming magazine.

Then they went to the weekly issue so that they show those petty pictures of the latest models sooner.

So now they are going back to a monthly magazine but what will it be and what will be the price?

If they go back to when they turned it into an advertisement that is only meant to showcase there new models then all they are doing is going back to before it went weekly.

Oh and given GW this is the most likely thing to happen since I really doubt that they will go back to how it was when it was a great magazine.

"So yes you can cheese out your army if you actually read what certain units abilities are and knowing just what they can do."

But again you've never actually played the game so you remain ignorant about how things actually work. Those high elf reavers wouldn't stand a chance against one Tzeentch sorcerer if someone were playing to win.

You just don't understand how the game plays. Your entire post is an advertisement of that fact.

"Oh and given GW this is the most likely thing to happen since I really doubt that they will go back to how it was when it was a great magazine."

Except that in the last year, as noted above, they have been knocking it out of the park with their products so there is at least a fair chance that when WD is re-released it could be one of the better hobby magazines out there.

Wow,
Dig all the positive comments!

they have been knocking it out of the park with their products

That is debatable since there are many who think otherwise.

"That is debatable since there are many who think otherwise."

I haven't heard anyone yet dispute the quality of Betrayal At Calth, Deathwatch Overkill or Renegade.

From what I've read of people complaining about Age of Sigmar most of them seem to be Warhammer fantasy players who can't seem to understand how the new rules work or are incapable of playing rules that are no longer in print for some reason. There are many that complain vociferously about an imaginary world being destroyed, as if that would matter.

These last ones are the most mysterious to me. They make it sound like you couldn't play games in that world anymore. They would be very upset with the authors of most historical games, were they to ever hear of them, I suspect. Not only does the world that they write their rules for and play their games in gone, in the vast majority of cases it was gone even when the rules were written.

Well the thing about most of GW games today it is the individual who can roll the most dice that has a far greater chance of winning.

Because that is what they have done with their rules.

They actually think that players just love to roll 40-60 dice and then reroll them again for the ones that missed and for the ones that hit.

Then your opponent gets to roll their bucket of dice.

Oh and yes they decided to kill off one of their major games I.E. WFB because over the past 15-20 years they destroyed it.

Then they came out with their Space Marine Fantasy setting – Age of Sigmar.

So many players have decided to not play Age of Sigmar and have moved onto; Kings of War, Dragon Rampant, Saga & Frostgrave.

So for the past year GW has been bleeding players because of their decision to kill off WFB.

So with this revamping of White Dwarf we will have to wait and see just what it will be.

But I will not be surprise if they just return it back to being a monthly advertisement.

@Pictors

I think the fact that most of the WFB range is now discontinued is what hurts players who want to continue playing Warhammer Fantasy, not the fact that the Old World got flushed down the toilet storywise.

"So many players have decided to not play Age of Sigmar and have moved onto; Kings of War, Dragon Rampant, Saga & Frostgrave."

I don't know about this. I started playing after Age of Sigmar came out and I know a lot of my friends moved over from Warhammer 40K to play Age of Sigmar. I wasn't really interested when WHFB was around because of the huge investment in an army in terms of models bought and painting time.

With Age of Sigmar things are so much easier. You can have cool models on the table of whatever type you want.

I certainly know a lot more people that play fantasy now when they only played 40K before.

Also, and I don't think this gets mentioned enough, under all the hate(?)
Gamesworkshop plastics are streets ahead of anything else I've seen, the overkill, Chaos lord. AOS figures are really stunning, my only dealing with GW are through Space Hulk, but you cannot deny the quality of their figures these days, and even though l now live in the States, I refuse to call them 'minis' that's just daft.

John

Gamesworkshop plastics are streets ahead of anything else I've seen,

Really!

There are just as good or better miniatures that can gotten for far less than what GW is selling for.

The frost grave figures are nice and I have some of the soldiers but they don't go together that well. They certainly are well sculpted but don't have the crisp details that GW figures have. They are good figures for the price.

I think some other companies are making some decent stuff but you can't really compare anything anyone else is making to things like the Glottkin or the Seraphon Carnosaur.

On price GW has most of them beat with that too. Especially with the Start Collecting sets. The Seraphon one has a Carnosaur and 20 other figures for only $85. USD

It really is a much better deal than the Frostgrave figures for $35. USD

Depends on where you buy them.

So you could get 21 miniatures for around $90 USD or get 60 miniatures when you are buying those Frostgrave set at $30 USD a box or also around $90. USD

I know who I would be buying from. Oh wait I already have.

Because you could spend around $4.30 USD per figure or $1.50 USD per figure.

Plus I am not a big fan of those large overprice models that GW is putting out.

Or jump in on that Massive Darkness Kickstarter and get what looks to be nearly 90-100+ Miniatures for $120 USD plus shipping.

Or you could get 3 of those Frostgrave sets for $150 USD or the 21 GW figures for $3. USD That is $.14 USD figure for the GW figure vs. $2.5 USD each for the Frostgrave figures!

I mean if you're just going to make numbers up, why not?

I love that you hate GW so much that you have to compare less than retail price on one other company vs. more than retail price for the GW item. It is like making Royal Liz's point for her.

You might not be a fan of larger models, but you would be hard pressed to argue that $85 USD for a 28mm huge monster with a rider + 12 infantry and 8 cavalry is overpriced. Find something compatible that anyone else is making in that quality for that price.

I can understand if the larger models makes the tactics too complicated or something but they have pretty much always been in the game in the form of dragons or giants.

Now everyone gets one.

Don't you hate putting all those pieces together on figures? The Frostgrave figures have a ton of parts.

I love that you hate GW so much that you have to compare less than retail price on one other company vs. more than retail price for the GW item.

No I am comparing prices that I got box sets for Frostgrave miniatures.

Plus that $85 USD GW Retail needs to have taxes thrown in so that $85 USD will be more like $90 USD+.

So no made up numbers at all.

I agree with Mithmee here. GW prices are just nuts, and the Frostgrave figures are great. I like all of the extra optional parts, and I have found that they mix well with older GW parts as well.

Perry Plastic figures are also very well done, with great value in their boxed sets.

Warlord Games has some great WWII plastics out there too. I can't wait to see what they come up with for Fantasy when they get around to it.

Mantic's Kings of War figs are a fraction* of the price of GW's, and the quality is still very good. On average, KoW boxed-set minis are less than $1 USD each.

*Specifically, around 25%

"So no made up numbers at all."

Well I bought some GW stuff second hand one time and it was less than a $1 USD a figure so cheaper than the Frostgrave stuff.

If you aren't making numbers up you are comparing apples to cheese.

GW prices really aren't nuts for a lot of the range. They are pretty much in line with what most well sculpted figures cost these days.

The rank and file stuff, not that there is much that is exactly rank and file, for Malifaux is about $7 USD-10 a figure retail.

A large character or dreadnought sized monster will cost you about $55 USD retail for some of them.

2 Guild Wardens are $21 USD for example.

The starter sets are a better deal, typically about 7 human sized character models for $50. USD But they certainly aren't a better deal that GW Start Collecting sets. Which often have a huge monster in them plus a bunch of other stuff for $85. USD

And yest the Kings of War figs are not bad figures and they are much cheaper than GW, but I find that my time painting is worth more than the money I spend on figs so for my money I want the best and typically the GW stuff is just better than the mantic stuff.

Again, don't get me wrong, the Mantic stuff is nice. I think a lot of their Dwarfs are really nice and in some cases better than the GW stuff.

But the other stuff is a step or two down. That is fine, it is certainly priced to reflect this.

In some cases it isn't priced that competitively. For example the Elf Dragons from both companies:

link

Mantic one, price 30 quid.

GW one, 32 quid.

You might like one or the other more based on style but you are getting a hero on a Dragon for about 30 quid either way.

I like the GW one better. It is more dynamic, seems more realistically posed and more detailed.

But for 2 pounds difference on this and having access to the Start Collecting sets I find it difficult to say that GW prices are nuts for starting a fantasy army these days.

Well I bought some GW stuff second hand one time and it was less than a $1 USD USD a figure so cheaper than the Frostgrave stuff.

So have I but that was back in 1989-1992 timeframe.

I also got three of the Battlemasters game for 10 per game.

So that was 312 miniatures for like $0.12 USD per figure.

I than sold the Chaos Warriors and Thugs for around what I paid for all three so that brought the remaining figures down to basically nothing.

But that was back in 1995.

Today you are not going to get any of these prices today from GW.

Today you are not going to get any of these prices today from GW.

Does ANY manufacturer still charge the same 1995 sticker prices in 2016?

No, but there are several that sell box set of 20-40 models at reasonable prices.

Northstar
Mantic Games
Warlord Games
Victorix
Perry's

Oh and Games Workshop prices are far from being reasonable.

Does ANY manufacturer still charge the same 1995 sticker prices in 2016?

Well… yeah. Satan still only requires one Immortal Soul to make a person's dreams come true. In that regard, Satan hasn't had a price hike in centuries.

link

Northstar Sell them cheaper but not of the same quality (although much better than Mantic ones)
Mantic Games Sell them cheaper but not of the same quality
Warlord Games Sell Sci-fi figures for about the same price as GW
Victorix Don't make fantasy figures
Perry's Don't make fantasy figures

So if you want high quality fantasy figs GW prices are pretty reasonable.

Well I do not think that their miniatures are all that great right now.

They nearly all have the same look and Northstar Miniatures to me are far better and…

Far Cheaper as well.

Oh and now you have CoolMiniOrNot coming out with Miniatures as well for their Massive Darkness game and those are also better and cheaper than GW's.

But this thread is not about GW miniatures but White Dwarf going back to being a Monthly magazine and given GW track record they will just make a Fanboy paid for Advertisement again.

Lots of petty pictures of their latest miniatures but very little substance.

LOL…

I don't know about that. The current White Dwarf has a lot of substance in some of the issues compared to pictures. For example issue 110 from March of this year:

$4 USD
24 pages
8 of those pages contains rules for using a Genestealer Cult list in 40k. So basically an army book worth of information, a small one admittedly but the boxed game, which you would need to get the figures anyway, will have all the back ground information.

4 pages contain some of that fluff.

4 more pages contain incredibly detailed painting guides for those figures.

Another two pages contains a little bit of fluff about the Deathwatch. Admittedly just enough to tell you a little bit about them if you know nothing. It contain no information that was of use to me but I know a lot about the 40K universe.

Another 4 pages was a review of the Clans Pestilens Battletomb which is basically half an ad. So say maybe 2 pages of real content.

So 18-20 pages of content, depending on how you count a review of Clans Pestilens, out of 20 pages.

I'd guess that is a lot less ad content than almost any other magazine out there.

Now some of the issues I've bought haven't been that useful to me. But most of them have had something of use in them.

Issue 119 was not so useful.

32 pages in this issue.

It contained mostly all reviews for the new Flesh Eater court stuff. There was an article in there for people who hadn't played AoS explaining how it worked and how you used different parts of the game and so forth. Not useful to me but certainly something that was content and probably very useful to 40K fans who haven't played AoS but are considering it. There is also a very detailed painting guide for an Ork plane that could be very easily adapted to painting any Ork armour.

So at least 10/32 useful pages, with a couple of other pages that had useful pictures for terrain ideas and painting or conversion ideas. I'd add another 2 in for this and say about 12/32.

But then issue 121 was fantastic. It had four pages of highly detailed painting guides for Warhammer Quest stuff, plus less detailed painting guides for all the other models in the game. It had a page of rules for including a Nurgle Champion in Warhammer Quest and rules for using all of the Warhammer Quest models in AoS.

28/32 very useful pages.

Issue 112 was a little hit or miss. It had warscrolls for the various types of star drakes and a very detailed painting guide for them, but much of the rest of it was reviews of this model.

It does contain a section on painting tips for doing your Deathwatch guys, as well as some fluff for AoS.

I'd say 14/32 pages of content that is indisputably quality stuff, whether it is useful to any individual gamer or not.

So over all, in the four random issues I pulled out, we have a total of 120 pages and of them 70-74 of them were decidedly useful content. Compared to most other magazines out there that seems about right.

Plus the pages that aren't content do provide some useful information for fans of the Games Workshop Hobby in upcoming product that might not be in places on-line that they usually look.

The problem with this format is that it is too small to feature the new stuff AND include battle reports or many articles on campaigns and other things like that.

If they keep up with the ratio of quality stuff like they have, including how to use models from their various board games in their respective mini games and put in some detailed narrative scenarios or battle reports then I think the new format will be great.

The current format and what has been in the issues gives me some hope that it will be pretty good.

The direction that GW has taken, focusing on story, looking at narratives more than competitive games, gives me even more hope.