White Dwarf and Imperial Knights (and my 50th post)

Was it really only issue 4 of White Dwarf out today?  Have all the monthlies been forgotten?

Anyway this issue has been my favourite of the weeklies so far.  I may have been playing about with my Fantasy army this week, but I still consider myself primarily a 40K player.  This issue is 90% Imperial Knights, including background, tips on both assembly and painting, rules and even some advice on strategy.

The weekly mags are now closely tied in with the release schedule, which has shifted.  The familiar pattern had been everything kept under wraps until WD came out just before pay-day at the end of the month (well mine at least..), with pre-orders then up for the following week, and possibly another wave of the same release a couple of weeks later.  Now releases are being drip-fed over the whole month, presumably to get us all into our GWs regularly.  They are now live on the GW site by 7pm (UK time) on the Friday evening and I know of at least one GW store (Reading) staying open until 8pm to help people pre-order and cash in.  Imperial Knights have heen timed for 1st March, so will be in shops just when lots of people have the most disposable income.

Even so, I shall not be rushing out to get one of the mini titans. Yet.  Imperial Knights now appear as an army in their own right on the GW website and WD tells us they can form a primary or an allied detachment.  However they seem to ignore the FOC in their formations. Fair enough - you could field 4 at 1.5k - but I am not sure if they can claim objectives, but give away 2VPs each if destroyed.  I assume one would have to be your warlord too, if they were your main force.  I expect this will all be clarified when the codex is released.  Until then the welcome rules in WD will get everyone started.

Before I splash out, I will look at the models and see how they perform.  A titan has always been on the wish-list and this is a lot more reasonable than the Forge World alternatives.  My head tells me I should at least finish my Stormwing formation (which cost the same money), but my wife will tell you I tend to let my heart rule my purchases, especially with Warhammer.

I am sure GW's current business strategy is relying on our hearts too.  How else would they expect anyone to buy 5 Imperial Knights in one click?

Kill Team, a 2K pt game and Warhammer Empire.

A fairly mixed bag of gaming to report, just to keep things interesting.

First off, the B team from our school club just missed out on the Regionals at Warhammer World in March by one point.  They were well ahead on painting and gaming after 2 of 3 games, but complacency and silly mistakes meant they lost all four of the last round of games.  With most 40K games currently based on objectives, they need to learn where to put them so opponents have a hard time even contesting them.  Also, charging off of an objective in your last turn to assault a unit of terminators is BAD.

In my own gaming I played 3 games of Kill Team last Monday using 8 Assault Marines.  My first game was a very cagey match against DE Reavers, which ended up out-manoeuvring me.  After losing my second game too the last match against SW required me getting my marines off of the opposite table edge.  After killing his Thunderwolf Lord I escaped with 3 marines, which meant we drew.

After that we had a 3 vs 3 Marines vs Xenos game, where I managed to charge the biker warboss, which sent the rest of the boyz running and gave us a comfortable win.

The day after that I went to Pete's new house to try out his gaming garage.  He played 2000 pts of Guard, including a lot of anti-air, as he knew I wanted to try out my Stormwing formation.  We rolled the Relic on diagonal deployment.  Pete is always a good sporting opponent, so it was more for fun than anything.  I made loads of mistakes, like forgetting to leave a tac squad in reserve to go in the raven!  To balance that up I also forgot about Strafing Run causing pinning.  Near the end of the game my raven was on its last HP so I flew it off the table.  Having survived when it first turned up, I completely forgot about Interceptor when it came back on again.  Oops!

One of my tac squads had the Relic and Pete was trying to kill off every last marine.  The sole survivor fled 5 inches, which I thought meant he kept hold of it, but of course he should have dropped it automatically.  I claimed victory for having the Relic, but shouldn't have.  I have promised Pete a rematch.

Finally, I have started dabbling in Warhammer Fantasy again.  There has been an ongoing campaign at GW Newbury, so there has been more Fantasy happening there.  I have dusted off the Empire army from Bögenhafen I started back in about 2007, but never finished or played.  Having not played this edition (8th?) I had a quick practice game on Saturday but didn't really get very far in the hour we had.  I have now also assembled ten more swordsmen and a hellblaster to get me closer to the 1600 pts the campaign is now at.

My thoughts on the new White Dwarf and Warhammer: Visions

White Dwarf has always been a big part of the hobby for me.  I even remember it including RPG games from other companies back in my teens.  Of course, it has long been a GW-only publication.  Even with it becoming increasingly a marketing tool, I have kept a subscription for a few years now.

Despite a re-launched format only 18 months ago, this month there is an even more radical change, with a now weekly White Dwarf and a monthly called Warhammer: Visions.  As a subscriber I got both today with a letter saying I will just be getting the monthly in future, with the weekly not currently on a subscription basis.  I have no idea without trawling through the GW website how much the subs will be, but the cover price is £2.40 for the weekly and £7.50 for the monthly.  It seems they want me to pay a lot more than my previous £9 per quarter.  Is it worth it?

Visions is 230 smaller pages, slightly wider than A5 size.  As the name implies it is mainly pictures.  The only text is short flavour descriptions on most pages in English, French and German.  The first 70 pages are given to new releases, with quite a range of colour schemes, angles and detail shots. A further 70 pages roughly are for Army of the Month and Golden Demon pictures, again with multiple shots of different units.  Apart from the Store Finder (do we really need that in print?) the last 40 pages are for a useful Paint Splatter, this one showing various hive fleets, including some variant splinter fleets.  In between those sections are Blanchitsu (never grabbed me), Kit Bash (pretty good conversions of various Trukks) and a very disappointing battle report. It's mainly pictures of  models crammed together on a dark table, presumably for atmosphere, with no reference to the mission, points values or any kind of tactics, strategy or dice rolls.  No fun at all.

I think the small format doesn't help with a visual magazine.  Double-page spreads are dominated by the centrefold, which ruins any wow-factor.  Single pages are confusing, with a random mix of multiple shots or full pages of different orientations, either landscape or portrait.  It's not easy to flick through, as the eye constantly needs to re-adjust.  I suppose we are supposed to study each page for inspiration, but Visions does not inspire me.

White Dwarf weekly at 32 pages has more of the feel of a disposable flyer- certainly not something I would have to get regularly.  There is obviously more writing in this mag, with the new release dwarfs featured mostly.  There are some actual rules for one of their special characters.  For 40K players the 4 pages on the different types of Nid army are probably most interesting.

I would say White Dwarf is now more of a pocket money purchase for kids or would be more useful for beginners.   For example there are two pages on glues.  Casual players might like Jervis' mini-game alternative to rolling for the first turn.

Visions seems to be aimed at more experienced painters and modellers, but seems to lack visual impact.

Where is the strategy or tactics for the older gamers?  The advice for tackling Hive Crones? "Shoot them down as quickly as possible." Thanks for that.

I don't just want to see other people's armies.  I want a bit of personal interest. How they have evolved, which units they love playing and how have they fared on the battlefield?

The new mags deserve a bit of a chance.  Things change and we all moan.  But decent battle reports and tactica are a lot cheaper online.