In many of the older WDs (I started at about WD121, and have since gone back to complete the collection) you can read the articles and find them interesting now, even if they’re about games you’ve never played, or have had new editions since, or are completely out of print. One example that stands out in my mind was a Blood Angels versus Orks battle report for Space Marine (the precursor of Epic 40,000) - I never played that game in my life, but it’s passionately written and talks about the tactics that the players were trying to use to win, and it’s both interesting and enjoyable to read.
Later WDs (and especially the battle reports) simply weren’t as good, and while quality is of course subjective, that statement is nonetheless hard to argue against. Most of the articles weren’t worth reading even if they were about your favourite game or army, and usually consisted of repeatedly emphasising how amazing the latest new unit was. Hilariously, the “Giant issue” which now has such a bad reputation, is actually considerably better than some of the ones that came later - the Dreadfleet issue being the absolute nadir IMO, consisting of nothing other than page after page of “BUY DREADFLEET”, a game which was then never mentioned again.
It’s true that different people have different ideas of exactly when “the” golden era was; memory, nostalgia and simple personal preference will lead to different answers. But it’s widely agreed that it peaked some considerable time ago, and was on a major downward slope long before the end. This impression is easy to confirm just by reading a couple of issues from 2012 or 2013, and a couple from basically any point before about 2009 (and, again, different people will prefer different periods; the 1990s was the golden era for me). The production values went up over time - nicer paper, more photos, more colour - but the quality of content plummeted to rock bottom.
I sincerely hope that the reborn version of the magazine goes back to being something worth reading. Since they’re promising things like painting masterclasses and designer’s notes that they’ve flatly refused to do in years, I think it’s just possible that it might. Call me over-optimistic if you like.
I bought almost every magazine from 2002 to 2011. I always liked it. Except the issues which were more 40K heavy. It doesn’t mean that they were really bad. I just can’t tell. It’s just because I can’t stand 40K. There were some great instructive painting and crafting tutorials. And I enjoyed the battle reports.
And to mention it once again - DREADFLEET is great. In every aspect.
@Bitterman: Indeed, the writing and involvement shines through the now OOP games and editions. The Giant issue started the new format, which seemed cheap and watered-out in regards to things like background (cut-back on resources allocated to WD? I always wonder). Just compare the Vespid Index Xenos article with the one on Dark Eldar just a few issues earlier. The high watermark of an issue during my years of regularly buying WD was not when i started out, no matter the still interesting articles and global campaign WD goodies, but some years later, with #311 or something. It was packed full with content. Hell Pit and cairn undead army lists, Fatty Bolger’s escape and lots of other good things. Its printing just some issues before the new format established by the Giant one puts it all into sharp contrast. Naturally one took such a decent level of quality for granted - after all, why else pay for it? I certainly would not have reminisced so about an old WD issue here if such performance could still be taken for granted…
Fingers crossed. Decline can only go so far, before someone in the company either scraps a failing piece altogether or investigates what made it popular once before and why the customers don’t want it nowadays like they did earlier. Or at least one could hope so.
@Herby: Indeed, Dreadfleet deserves a ringing mention. Pure fantasy fun! Not the most popular mainstream bestseller, but so bloody well done. :cheers
I’ve had a two year subscription around 2006. It was back then I started working and had the money to go monthly. I enjoyed getting white dwarf every month.
An absolute favourite of mine was always the battle report! Always. A well written battle report, with photos, charts, armylists - I love them.
I never renewed the subscription I had. Part of it because I didn’t think the value was high enough considering the amount of free content on the internet. And GW themselves stopped making those exclusive previews in WD. When the magazine came all the new models had allready been posted in GWs daily blog on the web.
But the best WDs are still some of the old ones I have, from back in the 90’s when I started out in the hobby. I would buy a magazine once in a while. The content was amazing, and mostly if was due to the terrain.
I have spend hours looking at the scratch build terrain in there, build from cardboard and glue. This is the absolute top of WD for me. Because I would feel “it’s realistic for me to build something just as cool!”.
Now (and when I had a subscription) those days were long gone. Terrain was always build from multible sets of GWs on plastic terrain (fantasy) og from so many 40k bits. Then I would just feel “I could do that no problem - if I was a millionair - it’s just a kitbash”. So uninspiring.
WD going monthly again - good for GW. But how they’re gonna give it “a reason to live” is beyond me. People see all the models on the web before in a WD. There’s so many cool blogs and stuff about terrain making. They could give out free rules, that would be the way to go. Warhammer Quest scenarios, War Scrolls etc. That would be one way to add something that the internet doesn’t have.
I said my bit eariler but let me see if I can make my POV better understood.
It is what GW has become that has made have zero respect for it and can not care if they ever did in depth reports again.
When I got WD mags it was great because it was a mag that cattered to the players. It showed in ever aspect, how they went about the mag the bat reps the articles all of it. Then they started to get distant.
It is this distances and the changes that came with it that has made me hate them. You can not take a buyer base like this and just cold turkey us and expect everyone to be all ok with it. GW’s total lack of understanding on this issue just fuels the fire for disdain.
I've had a two year subscription around 2006. It was back then I started working and had the money to go monthly. I enjoyed getting white dwarf every month.
An absolute favourite of mine was always the battle report! Always. A well written battle report, with photos, charts, armylists - I love them.
I never renewed the subscription I had. Part of it because I didn't think the value was high enough considering the amount of free content on the internet. And GW themselves stopped making those exclusive previews in WD. When the magazine came all the new models had allready been posted in GWs daily blog on the web.
But the best WDs are still some of the old ones I have, from back in the 90's when I started out in the hobby. I would buy a magazine once in a while. The content was amazing, and mostly if was due to the terrain.
I have spend hours looking at the scratch build terrain in there, build from cardboard and glue. This is the absolute top of WD for me. Because I would feel "it's realistic for me to build something just as cool!".
Now (and when I had a subscription) those days were long gone. Terrain was always build from multible sets of GWs on plastic terrain (fantasy) og from so many 40k bits. Then I would just feel "I could do that no problem - if I was a millionair - it's just a kitbash". So uninspiring.
WD going monthly again - good for GW. But how they're gonna give it "a reason to live" is beyond me. People see all the models on the web before in a WD. There's so many cool blogs and stuff about terrain making. They could give out free rules, that would be the way to go. Warhammer Quest scenarios, War Scrolls etc. That would be one way to add something that the internet doesn't have.
Bloodbeard
I said my bit eariler but let me see if I can make my POV better understood.
It is what GW has become that has made have zero respect for it and can not care if they ever did in depth reports again.
When I got WD mags it was great because it was a mag that cattered to the players. It showed in ever aspect, how they went about the mag the bat reps the articles all of it. Then they started to get distant.
It is this distances and the changes that came with it that has made me hate them. You can not take a buyer base like this and just cold turkey us and expect everyone to be all ok with it. GW's total lack of understanding on this issue just fuels the fire for disdain.
Geist
I have to agree on both these points.
I started in the 2000's and collected all the old mags I could for those articles and then they changed. End of story.
It’s not perfect (letters page is a complete waste of space, no sense of coherency to the layout, far too much AoS guff) but it contains actual content. While obviously there’s still a base level of “buy this”, a bit more so than I’d really like, it’s not “BUY THIS BUY THIS BUY THIS” on repeat like it was for years. The weekly, and the last couple of years of the monthly, were an insult to gamers’ collective intelligence. This is actually interesting in places… and after an hour or so, I’m still not finished reading it (the few weeklys I picked up, I was done with in five minutes).
I would be interested in buying it again… except they have killed the game I play and I have no interest in reading about AoS. If they start producing some decent hobby/scenery articles or the 'Eavy Metal section gets up to par with the old 'Eavy Metal publications I may be persuaded
Well I loved this new white dwarf, it’s the first one I’ve read in years (and years )
Arrived the day after released which was great and it was so nice to sit downcand read a about the hobby again, the last white dwarf I read a while ago being glorified catalogue for minis I didn’t bother for a long while but felt like this one had some a real content
Tale of 4 gamers - I remember reading the first one they did and this one feels a little more like the original than the ones they’ve done before, looking forward to seeing their monthly challenges and the huge battle at the end, be interesting to see how they add to their start collecting boxes as essentially that’s my plan here too!
I love how they are giving out more content for the boxed games, perfect for the casual gamer as I’m now safe in the knowledge that when I do finally complete the full scenarios etc in box I’ve got more to choose from and they’ve done it across the board for every boxed set they have
Signed up and subscribed and I’m genuinely looking forward to next month, aren’t read all of this yet too
Well I loved this new white dwarf, it's the first one I've read in years (and years :( )
Arrived the day after released which was great and it was so nice to sit downcand read a about the hobby again, the last white dwarf I read a while ago being glorified catalogue for minis I didn't bother for a long while but felt like this one had some a real content
Tale of 4 gamers - I remember reading the first one they did and this one feels a little more like the original than the ones they've done before, looking forward to seeing their monthly challenges and the huge battle at the end, be interesting to see how they add to their start collecting boxes as essentially that's my plan here too!
I love how they are giving out more content for the boxed games, perfect for the casual gamer as I'm now safe in the knowledge that when I do finally complete the full scenarios etc in box I've got more to choose from and they've done it across the board for every boxed set they have
Signed up and subscribed and I'm genuinely looking forward to next month, aren't read all of this yet too
Ghrask Dragh
The tale of 4 gamers!!!! See that was what was SPOT on about the mag back in the day. I recall it being a cold day as I read the article about how 4 gamers went about starting up armies and the chaos player had just gotten a chaos chariot. It was a simple touch, to relate to your player base. This is all gone now.
The tale of 4 gamers!!!! See that was what was SPOT on about the mag back in the day. I recall it being a cold day as I read the article about how 4 gamers went about starting up armies and the chaos player had just gotten a chaos chariot. It was a simple touch, to relate to your player base. This is all gone now.
Geist
Hellz yeah! Beastmen was the Chaos - Paul Sawyer who had an awesome greenskin army too! I remember reading about the minotaurs from that army as well. Skaven was another I think? At a guess I'd say brettonia and... Err...I can't get wood elves out of my head but I don't think it was??
)