Latest White Dwarf offerings - August 2011

Well it's Saturday morning and White Dwarf issue 380 has hit hobby stores. Like it or loathe it this is the advertorial for all things Games Workshop so here's a run down on release info and what's in the shiny new thing.

Vampire Counts - new model in the combination Vampire Lord / Ghoul King on Zombie Dragon / Terrorgheist. It's another big plastic kit in the vein of last months dark elf release. There are also two new plastic single kits being the Tomb Banshee and Cairn Wraith. I've said it once and i'll say it again. These single plastics are the future of what they should be releasing. That and Forgeworld being main range :). These models get official rules updates in the magazine.

New Chaos Demons Battalion / Battleforce. No new models just a box set.

New Terrain in the shape of the Garden of Morr. Its a Cemetary in plastic with a lot of useful pieces for 28mm gaming with a statue, fencing and the crypts. Looks very useful. Did i mention i thought this would be useful?

There's a new Herald of Tzeentch and rereleases of Vlad and Konrad Von Carstein in resin. I showed this issue very briefly to a colleague this morning who's a mad converter and he was frothing about the standards for both Tzeentch and Khorne which appear in three blisters.

What is it with Dark Eldar? They get some more love with a model each for the Ur-Ghul and Medusae. I dont know any of the other ranges that has had such a complete overhaul and continued support from GW.

Games Worshop continues with the excellent work they've been doing this year with their FAQ's introducing a thing called The Shrine of Knowledge. The latest is an amendment to the power scroll item. See the games-workshop.com page for this one. There's an ad for FFG's Dark Heresy RPG and notice of the Space Marine collectors edition. No model = :(

LOTR actually gets a bit this month in the form of a cavalry article. It runs through the basics then goes into more detail with Light and Heavy Cavalry. 

A couple of battle reports covering the Garden of Morr and Storm of Magic, Jervis Johnsons ramblings, Hall of Fame and a modelling workshop on the Dark Elf Black Dragon are in there. Sisters of Battle get the first half of their White Dwarf codex release but no new models. boo hiss. There is an interesting pose of the Penitent engine standing on one leg. How they managed to move this from the workbench to the photo table without it snapping at the ankle I don't know.  

Wargaming magazines what next?

Its a tough market for print media and English language wargame magazines are no different especially with their niche market and competition from the Internet.

Magazines like Dragon disappeared into the net years ago while Wargames Illustrated was taken into the Battlefront stable and despite increasing its Flames Of War coverage for obvious reasons i think continues to provide a good read with availability though many newsagents here in Australia. Battlegames another small wargaming magazine made the transition to both print and pdf issues some time ago which gives us worldwide access outside of the capitol cities where Ive only seen it in gaming shops. 

Games Workshops White Dwarf is a little bit different being totally in house with no outside content apart from brief mentions of the other IP licences. Its having a bit of a reposition with GW's tightening of release information and possible return to White Dwarf rule releases. If you listen to the Internet at all White Dwarf in particular may be suffering from a dropping readership, have a look at BOLS with Brents latest piece although like anything based on incomplete figures we can only speculate. It seems that around here it's disappeared out of the newsagents too. I would imagine White Dwarf will get a new lease of life with the Hobbit movies around the corner and their signing of the licence deal for those figures. 

Miniature Wargames has managed to stay independent and is a magazine I've seen only rarely in Australia with the newsagent coverage being nonexistent. They are trying some different things out with their latest being trial issues of June and July 2011 published on the Internet. The link is here http://www.exacteditions.com/miniaturewargames so wander over and see what they are doing. There are some of the older issues there to have a look at as well. I've spotted a couple of pieces that I'll have a read of.

The way they are handling it is by offering magazines to view online and on Apple and on Android devices. You can download and print individual pages but unfortunately due to copyright they cannot allow the whole magazine to be downloaded.

All these publications have to struggle with getting relevant content that isn't readily available on the Internet and when they are physically printing copies getting the advertisers to make it worthwhile. So if you happen to make an order based on a lead from a publication give the supplier a heads up on where you got that information. 

Quick review Rango

The kids and i got this movie last night from Blockbuster on DVD so here's the quicky review.

Number one its not a kids movie rather its a big kids movie that kids can watch and get a laugh from but they aren't going to get all the references. Number two if you like Johhny Deeps antics you'll probably like this as it seems to have been written for the crazy shtick that he does in so many of his movies.
The premise is that chameleon falls out of car gets thirsty looks for water and ends up saving the little town of Dirt with some amusing interludes in between. The animation is fantastic with great detail and it'll take a couple of watches to catch all the stuff that goes on along with all the side gags.

The mariachi finches work in nicely along with the hick moles that provide the big fight scene. The cast of baddies including bill nighy as the rattlesnake is great although ray winstone didnt get much of a go apart from the flame face scene.

I'm going to use the Angry Lurker scale and give this a 3.5. downgraded a bit for not having more kid stuff when that was how they were selling it here.

Storm of Magic goodies from Games Workshop

Storm of Magic sees the release of some new items including the finecast Cockatrice, the new Storm of magic expansion and new monsters including the amazing Black Dragon with Dark Elf rider options. The Vortex templates are a bit of a disappointment even though they are cool colours, made of tin and come in a pack of six but because they are a large blast size rather than the dark eldar small blast size which means we can't use them as web way portals :(.

But the stand out for me has to be the new plastic singles including the dark elf sorceress, tzeentch sorcerer, chaos sorcerer and necromancer. They've snuck these through with very little fanfare but this is where the future of the company lies rather than with finecast or the metal ranges as we have known them. Price wise they are reasonable for GW with a $22 AUD tag.
They are packaged in blisters completely enclosed, so no more tatty cardboard for retailers or bits dropping out the back, which you can turn around and see the product with a good sized colour photo on the front.

One thing that struck me while i was writing this is the lack of bits in the sprue. One figure with one specific way of putting it together. I was so excited I bought the chaos sorcerer so tomorrow I'll pull him out and take some photos.