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.