Review: White Dwarf Mars 2013

Once again I found a new issue of White Dwarf in the mail last Friday, and once again we will see the exact same formula as last month. With the same segments, same layout but with new miniatures to show off of course. So on to the review.

New Releases

This month it's a double release with Daemons of Chaos/Codex: Chaos Daemons for both Fantasy and 40k. And as a release I think it's all good, nice pictures showing the new miniatures with an strange daemon looking background that don't take away the focus from the actual model. The new models is nice as well, I especially like the Heralds, and I will probably add the Tzeentch Chariot to my collection of Warriors as I think I can do something with the bits in there. Also I think that the Tzeentch herald in that kit is the best looking miniature this month, love it with the classic looking moon shaped head.

We also get some Hobbit stuff this month, new Warriors of Erebor, Warriors of the Dale and some characters including Thror teh King of Erebor. Nice little wave of miniatures as well.

Among the other things we also get to see some screens from the new Warhammer Quest game for the iPad which is lookig really nice. Some info about the new books from Black Library and painted Forgeworld Deathshroud Terminators, Justaerin Terminators and Vulkite Caliver wearing marines. 

One thing that I miss, as I have in all of the "new" White Dwarf issues is better focus on the actual releases armybooks/codexes. We see some small pictures showing us some of pages from both books, but I want some more highlight on the new rules as well. Either in this section, in the Battle Report or some other article. But there is very little info about this I'm afraid.

Painting and Modelling

Another Space Marine army in this month's Army of the Month, a little boring I might think even if the Lamenters/Greyknight army do look really good, we also get to see three Titan Warhounds among with more Forgeworld stuff. Blanchetsu shows us yet another John Blanche inspired Warband and I start to wonder how many Inquistorial Warbands they will show us in this segment.

Hall of Fame shows us the Dark Eldar Urien Rakarth made by Juan Diaz. In this month's Parade ground they continue with part three of Golden Demon 2012 winners from the UK. A lot of nice mini's but I don't know, it feels a little boring with it taking up all the Parade ground space which is one of my favourite segments. We get to see some converted Ork Fighta Bommers on the Kit Bash segment, haven't we had Ork Bommers in this segment already? In the Battlegrounds section we get to see some more UK Armies of Parade entries, including and Empire army, Tau, Orks and Imperial Fists. 

And now we get to the Paint Splatter section. Sometimes I have actually gotten some good advice from this segment, not this time though and I actually think they are really bad even. For example the Adam Troke's easy peasy take on how to pant the four different lesser Daemons. Well the end result looks horrendous and will probably do as maybe low quality tabletop standard but heck, do anyone actually need to be taught these extremely simple painting techniques? Maybe, and I will forgive it if we at least got some more advanced tips as well but no, we don't get that. Matt Hudson is showing us how he paints his Yellow Imperial Fists using a Spray gun and this tutorial is at least usable. This segment has a lot of potential and I hope they will make a better job with it in the future. 

Rules and Fluff

I might as well delete this headline in my WD reviews as there are pretty much non. May be a little fluff here and there but no actual articles. As Iv'e stated before in this review we don't get to see much about the rules for the new Daemons either.

Gaming

No Rivals article this month but an Battle Report, and as usual it's the new release army and as it's an 40k report this month they of course go up against Space Marines. As the rest goes it follows the exact formula of the other Battle Reports and my thoughts about is the same. I want something more, bigger pictures, a narrative maybe? showing us more of the new rules and info about the new units. Big potential to make better battle reports hopefully it will happen soon rather than later.

The other stuff...
In 'This month in' which is probably the most interesting part of the magazine now. Mostly because this particluar segment isn't all the same all the time. And from the WD team we see some painted minis and also proclaims that they will start an Hobby Challange and paint up a force each and played one game with them until next month. From the design studio we get to see some really early concept art for the four chaos gods by John Blanche, these sketches has then defined the take of the four Chaos powers. We then see some images with the new models released and some words from the creators, my favourite here is the picture with the Tzeentch Herald and a map of the Realm of Chaos.

From Forgeworld we get to see some new miniatures we haven't seen before, from FF we get to see the Thallax for the Mechanicum Orde Reductor and a Legion Reconnaissance Squad Marine. Also a small pic with one of my favourite chapters the Minotaurs, more of these please! We get to see some really interesting stuff from WH Forge as well, two WIP Orc command models, a Warboss/Boss and a BSB with Wyvern wings as a banner, both looking really great. We also get to see a new Battle board section similar to the ones for Necrons, this one seems to go well with Empire or Dwarfs.

From Black Library we get some words from Ben Counter, writer of the new book Van Horstman. Jervis talks about the most important rule (roll a dice to resolve situations) and Jeremy talks about his personal hobby hates.

Conclusion
Well, this issue is pretty much as the other ones and that is the most boring part. There aren't enough things in the magazine that makes it worth while to go back and check up. The painting tutorials is bad, the Battle Report could be so much better and there isn't enough useful articles in here. I would have given this issue the same rating as the last one, but I thought the Painting Splatter part of this month was so bad so I give a minus 0.5 for that so this issue comes out at.

Rating: 2 out of 5