For those of you who have remained loyal/foolish (delete as appropriate), what are your thoughts on this months issue?
For those who don’t know it’s been completely revamped in almost every way.
Thicker, more expensive :~ (up 10%), pictures of new models are all artistic, but imo it’s just distracting. They’ve taken photos with a red backlighting on a dark background instead of white as they used to. It’s certainly more interesting, but imo the red backlighting is distracting.
All other photos of GW models for the foreseeable will be very dark and brooding I expect. Not sure I like it.
They devoted at least 8 pages I think to FW, including a full page interview and a review of some art.
Almost completely full of Horus heresy stuff, which is all awesome.
Overall I’d say it was a VAST improvement in content, but the delivery of it will take some getting used to.
Is it still a big advertisement for the current models, or is there significant - and useful - hobby content? I used to get WD no matter what, but recently stopped - its just not worth the money to buy their advertising.
I like the ipad version, cheaper ($7 with subscriptiom, $8 without), and easier get straight to the content you want imho.
The paper version… I guess i would say its better than the previous in presentation maybe? It feels like a high quality magazine, and must have cost them a decent amount to print. Content feels like more of the same stuff that was always in it… But saying that, the same stuff is often a nice fun read
I counted it, I’d say 82 pages of hobby material that is not just advertising (or FYI) out of 152. Is that better than before % wise? I’d have to grab another to check (too lazy).
Its thicker but its also shorter and the around 12 pages of the location of every games workshop in the world was unnecessary. I thought it had gone up a full £1 as well? I liked the pull out pages for extra large images of the new deamon engines. I found the text with the red first letter and the rest black actually pretty hard to read (or the other way around, cant remember exactly). Only looked at a friends copy. No way am i paying the new price but overall its a lot better. If they had put the price down instead of up i would start buying the occasional copy again
Went from abo to buying the occasional copy and dont regret it. Bought this one in order to decide if I should keep my CSM-army up to date and it was nice to see all the new things. But I think Ill only buy some things for painting, really like that flier as a model.
Yes, you're correct it's £1 more. For some reason I thought the old price was £5 and £4.5 for subscribers.
Grimstonefire
From a Euro perspective it got a lot better. I'm 1/3 through now. It does feel like more quality. 0.5�,� more at twice the size, can't really complain at that.
For those interested.
Old prices:
Euro 7.50�,�
DK, 60 kronas
SE, NO 70 kronas
China 65 rmb
PL, 22.50 zl
New prices:
Euro 8�,� +++
DK, 60
SE,NO 70
China 50 rmb ---
PL, 25 zl +++
So in Scandinavia, it's the same except we get screwed as always. Dang those other euro countries, it must be their fault. Great buy for my fellow Vikings though. I'm gonna buy it from Sweden in the future... maybe they have it on the boat, hmm... though I should calculate the exchange rate first methinks.
Poland also gets an increase, but not that great, that 10% in fact. In China the price is DOWN.
I managed to get mine for £4.50 because I said to the guy in WHSmiths - hold on, it’s always £4.50. He said, yeah it is, looked confused and sold it to me for £4.50. When I opened it, I saw it said £5.50 on the cover and got quite annoyed.
£4.50 for that size would be fine, £5.50 is pushing it. Considering the fact that it takes until page 52 (over a third of it!) to get on with the content, instead of advertising (albeit, with a lot more information and big pictures than usual), I wasn’t best pleased.
The black background to the pictures makes it hard to see (look at the Nightbringer - where does the model end and the shroud of darkness inherent to that particular C’tan begin) the models. The red lighting, whilst helping to create a mood for models (and clearly used because they’re Chaos), means the colours on the model are distorted, as are the lines. Whoever is in charge of the photography now, really needs to be briefed on the purpose of the advertising photography - mood lighting is great for box covers, random pics in text, cover art etc, but useless when trying to show a model in (excuse the pun, it wasn’t intended) its best light.
The issue seems very… aestheticaly harsh, is how I’d put it. Equally though, it does seem closer to the days of Paul Sawyer and I think they’re trying to remind people of that Golden Age of White Dwarf. The problem is that Fat Bloke did such a good job because of content, not design.
In fairness though, it has improved massively this month and I’m much happier with it. But because of the price increase (£.50 to £5.50, when most of the extra space is filled with extra advertising - there’s another 18 pages at the back, for a total of 70 pages of adverts: nearly 50% of the whole piece. But by showing us cool stuff and inspiring us and talking about the models would be advertising that we would welcome becaue it’s indirectly having us buy them instead of tyring to force itdown our throats.), I think I’m finally permanently priced out.
Which is a shame because Dark Vengeancce has just got me prepared to give GW another chance. Going to finish and update my armies, then probaly stop buying their stff, tbh (no, not just because of WD - that’d be an overreaction, lol).
Bottom line, if you can get it for £4.50 or less, it’s worth it
Sadly 2006 was the last one i brought . When it went to 10.00dollars an issue it was to much and when they did the white dwarf pirate, i came close to getting a year worth of White dwarf maz…
But i didn’t Even when i go to the hobby store i walk by the rack of white dwarfs.
I like it, but I’m impartial to both versions because there are things I like and dislike with each. I don’t like the individual model presentation with the weird lighting effects of this new edition of WD, but I do like the varied content of the first issue and do like the fact that they’ve devoted less pages to full on boxed game advertisements which was redundant in the previous edition. But we’ll see… I will be totally bummed if they stop releasing add on rules and troops for armies and/or varied chapter approved game content. If that were to happen I’d cancel my subscription in a heart beat.
So all and all its a kind of new WD, but still I enjoy it all the same. However I’m torn on the increase in price, because I’ve yet to decide if I truly feel like I’m getting more for my money. But I must say that glossy high quality cover sure makes you think from the outside that you’re going to be getting a far superior magazine for the raised cover price, but you know what they say “you can’t judge a book by its cover”.
Nice try on that one GW, you had me for a second on that one.
But we'll see... I will be totally bummed if they stop releasing add on rules and troops for armies and/or varied chapter approved game content. If that were to happen I'd cancel my subscription in a heart beat.
Animatone
Hmmm, then you should have cancelled the sub a couple years ago by my reckoning.
Because they've only the past 1-2 years been including new rules in the WD again. There was a long gap where they would not put rules in WD.
But we'll see... I will be totally bummed if they stop releasing add on rules and troops for armies and/or varied chapter approved game content. If that were to happen I'd cancel my subscription in a heart beat.
Animatone
Hmmm, then you should have cancelled the sub a couple years ago by my reckoning.
Because they've only the past 1-2 years been including new rules in the WD again. There was a long gap where they would not put rules in WD.
snowblizz
I hear you Snowblizz, but that's why I've only subscribed over the last 2 years. Haven't before that. So that's my main concern, but we'll see.
Me: so what is all this jazz about there being a new style white dwarf magazine hitting the shelves? what sort of changes are we going to see?
Games workshop sales rep: Well it’s going to be something new and completely different, there will be something for everyone whether you like the painting aspect of the hobby or are interested in new rules and stories. also the cover will be more glossy
and hard wearing.
Me: So it’ll be like the magasine used to be in the early 90’s to mid 2000’s but with a glossy cover?
GW rep: i don’t know, that’s a little before my time, i’ve only been with the company and playing the hobby for three years.
Me: So, you don’t know anything about white dwarf before say 2005?
GWR: I don’t even read it now.
Me: Not really selling the magazine to me are you? It’s better than the current version but you don’t know what the current version is like…
Me: so what is all this jazz about there being a new style white dwarf magazine hitting the shelves? what sort of changes are we going to see?
Games workshop sales rep: Well it's going to be something new and completely different, there will be something for everyone whether you like the painting aspect of the hobby or are interested in new rules and stories. also the cover will be more glossy
and hard wearing.
Me: So it'll be like the magasine used to be in the early 90's to mid 2000's but with a glossy cover?
GW rep: i don't know, that's a little before my time, i've only been with the company and playing the hobby for three years.
Me: So, you don't know anything about white dwarf before say 2005?
GWR: I don't even read it now.
Me: Not really selling the magazine to me are you? It's better than the current version but you don't know what the current version is like.....
I hear you Snowblizz, but that's why I've only subscribed over the last 2 years. Haven't before that. So that's my main concern, but we'll see.
Animatone
I sorta figured. You've picked one thing that tends to come and go though. Enough people complain about rules only being available in the WD and they take it away again. Only to bring it back as means to sell more WDs. Funny little circle.
Me: Not really selling the magazine to me are you? It's better than the current version but you don't know what the current version is like.....
GWR: yes
Thorne
Priceless!
Animatone
Yup, agree with that. One of the key things GW seem to fail to understand. We are nerds. That means most of us are pretty smart, we see through most sales BS.
Even when i go to the hobby store i walk by the rack of white dwarfs.