A review of this months White Dwarf ... and next months ... and last months too for that matter

[MortiS-the-Lost]

One of the best ways to judge Games Workshop is to look at the content of a current White Dwarf, it does nothing but tell you to buy things. Pick up a recent White Dwarf if you have one to hand … go on … if you don't have one pop out to WH Smiths and … oh wait … no they've withdrawn them  to try and force you to goto a GW store or sign your money away ahead of time with a subscription. Anyway lets look at the so-called 'content' of this so-called 'magazine'. Don't worry that you might have picked up a different issue to the one I have, they are all pretty much the same these days

First up the editorial – only it's not an editorial is it? It's half a page of some guy telling you he thinks the latest releases are cool and how everyone at WD is excited about them and everyone wants them. No acknowledgement of any real news or even a 'let us know what you think'.

Then the contents page which points out who is telling you the new stuff is cool and on what pages they will be saying it.

From here on for 10 pages or so it's the New Releases section, which shows you all the new stuff and tells you how cool it is and in very small print tells you how much you must spend to get the new cool stuff and when you can buy them. At some point you will also be told to look a later page which shows you all the individual bits of one of the new kits and again tells you how cool GW thinks they are.

Now the news section which will A: not tell you anything about what's going on but tell you to ask at your local store to celebrate the latest releases, B: talk more about the latest products or C: some combination of the above. You will also be directed to the Games Workshop website where you can read more about the latest releases and be told to ask what's going on at your local store to celebrate the latest releases.

Then come the 'articles' and 'features'

One will be about collecting, which tells you how many of each of the new products you need to buy to make an army and reminds you that you will need to buy the Codex (or if this is one of the rare occasion Warhammer fantasy is getting some attention: the Army book) if you are going to buy them properly    

There will be one or more Battle Reports, where 2 or 3 people write about a game they pretended to play where they had all the new products on a table with some other army and the army made of the  new products won (or if it didn't win it was really close).

One or more articles will be about painting and modelling and will tell you how to stick together and paint the latest miniatures followed by some vague 'master class' tips which tell you to use inks and highlighting  

4 pages or more are given to 'Eavy Metal where you will see the latest models again painted to a hight standard, often these are the same pictures from the New Releases section but given a blue gradient background (again they may also be surrounded by some vague painting tips.)  

1 or 2 pages will also mention a few Forge World models which are in some way related to the latest new models

One article (the shortest) will mention Lord of the Rings and tell you that Lord of the Rings miniatures can be used to fight battles in JRR Tolkien Middle Earth setting and that you should have lots of them to re-create the epic battles of the War of the Ring.

One article will be a terrain making article which will tell you to buy one or more of the Arcane Ruins sets and glue them together in different ways, add bits you have to buy at extra high prices from Mail Order and paint them a different colour to the colour suggested last month.

2 pages will be given to Standard Bearer, where Jervis writes about his views on the hobby, which are some what distorted by the fact the rest of the staff seem to keep him in a cupboard and not tell him what's really going on in hobby world and heavily edited to prevent any mention of things having been better in the past.

Another 2 pages goto the Citadel Hall of Fame which show cases the best old models which are being re-relased via mail order at a new higher prices

at least one more article re-caps something said in one of the above articles

The last 10 pages or some are now given over to adverts for tournaments and a long list of all the places you can buy the latest new products when the are out. You may get 1 or 2 pages of over priced old models you can get from mail order followed by a reminder to sign your money away ahead of time with a subscription

Finally the back cover is either a picture of the lots of latest new models posed on a gaming board or some vague hint about what new latest products will be out next month.

[messyart]

Tl;dr

Much like the magazine.

WE MUST MAKE OUR OWN

[Fenryz]

*Nods to show he agrees*

*Then starts another rant on how White Dwarf used to be the really fun magazine you longed to read, or was excited to pick up old copies of once...with content for several different games, and comics, and minigames..and, tips..and letters.. and all that stuff you never see anymore*

[MortiS-the-Lost]

Hmm that gives me an idea for a thread ...

[General Biakal]

iv got issues 1-12 in .pdf format. i will bring them along to the meet if i can...

[Apocalypsedreamer]

'agrees profoundly'

A.D