The latest and greatest from white dwarf july 2011

Games Workshops White Dwarf may be seeing a bit of a come back with more rules specific to it and a push from Games Workshop for the keeping of secrets till release date.
When you add this tightening of information to the Black boxes having met their demise it should make White Dwarf a bit more relevent for players of their games. You'll notice that many of the normal spruikers of their wares on the internet have clammed up as the information has dried up and i've been careful to keep this article until the 25th which is the release date for White Dwarf in Australia.
So to the juicy bits.

release info on

• three new plastic monsters/mounts including chimera, manticore and black dragon, the black dragon in particular looks amazing
• cockatrice in finecast
• two boxes with two plastic scenic pieces each for storm of magic
• four single figure plastic sorcerors
• vortex templates (or webway portals if you like) in six colours
• funky magic dice in assorted colours for the lores of magic
• battle magic spellbook
• re releases of Lammasu and Great Taurus (both originally chaos dwarf specific), Dark Emissary, Truthsayer and Fenbeast (from the Albion campaign, i can't remember what that was called off the top of my head) and a what might be a new scuplt of a Cold One all in Finecast.
• and right at the back, eight of the classic magic figures available again although by the looks they are still in metal rather than being reproduced in Finecast

• Storm of Magic - expansion for magic in warhammer with lots of stuff on Storm of Magic of course but importantly the Chimeras stats are here
• an article on the last batch of new Dark Eldar models with some prep tips for Finecast, general talk and a bit of painting information
• Cities of Death for Warhammer 40000 gets a makeover with notice of an FAQ and errata document, presumably to come through the website, with a new strategem for each race and four new scenarios in the pages of July's issue
• not a sausage for LOTR although THQ, Black Library, Fantasy Flight Games and the Art of War Promotion all get a mention

Quick review Too Fat Lardies summer special 2011

This latest special contains 129 pages with lots of interesting stuff here drawn from the melding of minds that is the Too Fat Lardies and their supporters. Its available from the Too Fat Lardies webstore.

• french indian war La longue carabine supplement - Sharp Practice  - 16 pages
• v beach gallipoli 1915 scenario - if the lord spares us - 5 pages
• wave goodbye (france 1940) scenario - I Aint Been Shot Mum - 5 pages
• riverine warfare in vietnam - Charlie Dont Surf - 7 pages
• brown water delta rules supplement - CDS - 10 pages
• napoleonic battle in spain 1811 scenario - Le Feu sacre III - 5 pages
• rogers rangers french indian war scenario - La longue carabine - 5 pages
• russian / german scenario 1943 - IABSM - 4 pages
• brown water scenario - CDS - 3 pages
• Coastal patrol ruleset for WWII - Coastal Patrol - 16 pages
• Black night scenario - CP - 2 pages
• On company business french indian war scenaro - La longue carabine - 3 pages
• frigate actions scenario - Kiss Me Hardy - 4 pages
• mesopotamian (iraq) 1920 - through the mud and the blood - 6 pages
• platoon forward bonus scenario - platoon forward - 1 page
• part two of the mission to rescue il duce - IABSM - 4 pages
• brown water scenario - CDS - 3 pages
• Storm of dice (WWI) - higher level interpretation of if the lord spares us - 6 pages
• Storm of dice scenario (WWI) - storm of dice - 3 pages
• building WWI woods - not specific ruleset -  6 pages
• the volga ferryman - bag the hun - 8 pages
• WWII british/german scenario - IABSM (blitzkrieg supplement)- 4 pages

In my opinion this special suffers from a lack of clarity. There are a number of articles where it's unclear what rule set they are for although the contents page does list the ruleset. Which is ok if you are in the know but to a casual reader dipping their toe in the Lard it seemed like it would be a bit confusing.

The detail presented in the scenarios is done a different way each time which again is ok but seemed like it might have been done better with a standard format and more time put into getting the information across.

Did i think it was worth the money? Yes. It holds a similar amount of information to the paper magazines i occasionally buy and i'll be reading it again for the bits i'm interested in.

Could it have been done better? I think so. When i was in High School I had an English teacher who encouraged us to write rough drafts for essays which were then put away in a drawer for a couple of weeks. By the time you got them out again you could clearly see the problems with the structure. This Special could have spent a little time under the mattress to good effect.

Dark Eldar Talos, Scourges and Venom on the painting block

Three Dark Eldar units from this months Games Workshop black box. Venom, Talos and Scourges. Assembled ready for undercoating. Current metal Squat...er, Ratling for size comparison.

I had some trouble getting the lower hull of the Venom to sit flush.

Which could have been partly the curved sprue.

Dark Eldar Scourges ready to accept arms. I've blanked the arm sockets with blu tac which saves a clean up.

Dark Eldar Scourges with two shard carbines, blaster, heat lance and Agoniser / blast pistol combination on the leader. There are five carbines on the sprue. A Dark Eldar player has already snaffled the spares from these.

I'm making some progress on the Venom and Talos. The Talos will get its six little torso arms when the rest of the body is painted. Both of these have some very fragile parts.