Review: White Dwarf February 2013

We got an WD not to long ago but now it's time again. Unfortunately there isn't much new in the form of articles, as it follows the exact formula we are used to by now. Which is a shame, things starts to feel a little stale, some adjustments to the current articles as well as inventing some new ones would have been great.


New Releases
The big surprise when the first leaked pictures arrived was this month's main release, namely Warriors of Chaos. So of course we get a lot of stuff for WoC and my favurites are the Dragon Ogres, the Mutalith Vortex Beast and Vilitch. We also get some new stuff for The Hobbit this month with Knights of Rivendell, Grim Hammers and some new character models. All in all nice looking stuff I really like the Dwarfs. We also get some new stuff from Black Library including a new Gotrek & Felix book and a new book with Commissar Yarrick.

Painting and Modelling
First up is the Army of the Month, featuring Paul Gayners own DIY Space Marine chapter called the Crimson Heralds. A really large army with some unusual mix of colours and some really nice kitbashing in there as well which is nice. In Blanchitsu we get even more Inquisitorial Warbands (why not make a Mordheim like game with these GW?) or at least one, nicely done by Peter Hudson. In Hall of Fame we get so see Sternguard Veterans. This months Parade Ground continues with showing the 2012 Golden Demon winners from last month, this time showing only entries from UK but there are some lovely models.

I liked Kitbash this month showing some 40k command squads, like for example a really nice Sons of Horus made by Duncan Rhodes. Battlegrounds shows us four of the best entries for the 2012 Armies on Parade Competition including Orks, Ogres, Dark Angels and the winner Jimmy Graham with his Tyranids. In Paint Splatter we get more "mini" tutorials showing us really simple steps on how to paint Dragon Ogres, the Mutalith Vortex (not the best looking one though) and how to paint various Forsaken heads in different colours. Sadly we don't get to see any finished results with eyes and what not so the end results do look quite poor. We also get a little bigger tutorial explaining how to paint a Temple of Skulls with green skulls, glow effects and snow. We also get some tips on how to paint the new Hobbit kits as well as on how to paint free hand scrollwork on vehicles etc.

I think this Paint Splatter where among the better ones but I would like to see more in depth tutorials and more advanced techniques as these are very basic.

Rules and Fluff
There are some minor fluff bits here and there in the articles but nothing major at all and certainly no main article about it. No rules to be seen either, we get as little info regarding the new WoC ruleswise as possible. Just some small Sneak Peak pictures of the new book and some hints in the Battle Report. Which is a shame I would have loved to read more about the rules for the new kits, if there are any major changes and so on.

Not even point values on the armies, are you kidding me?

Gaming
No rivals article this time month but as usual we get a Battle Report. This time it's WoC (big suprise!) vs. Night Goblins. Best thing with this Bat. rep. and all the new ones for that matter is the armies which usually are the actual generals own armies, and not the Eavy metal painted ones we have seen a thousand times already. The next best thing about these new Bat. reps. is the post battle review which gives some insight from others in the staff that watched the game. The battle was interesting and with a little twist when using hidden deployment. There are room for changes though as I have mentioned before in older WD reviews.

The other stuff.. 
Jervis talks about what miniatures it is OK to collect, as he get's this question a lot. The always smiling Jeremy Vetock on the other hand is talking about scenery and terrain as well as how his hills was falling apart. In 'This month in' we get to see some of the White Dwarf staffs newly painted models and some photos from a battle with only Chaos Space Marines. At the Design studio Alex Hedström, Seb Perbet and Mark Harrison share their thoughts about their latest WoC creations. And we also get some thoughts from Robin Cruddance when hw wrote the new WoC Armybook. (sadly nothing juicy about the book) At Forgeworld we got to see some new miniatures (well I haven't seen them before this atleast) with Lokken (from the HH series) and a pre heresy version of Abbadon. Another new thing is a Necron base which looks really promising. For last we have Black Library where we get and interview with David Annandale author to the new books Yarrick: Chains of Golgotha and Mephiston: Lord of Death.

Conclusion
The issue is as good as the last ones but I now think that there's need for some change. The issues is pretty much the same, same design same article segments. Which is fine, but we also need some diversity and everything don't need to stay exactly the same. I would like to see them redo the battle reports a little, give us better overview of the battlefield, with maps like in the old issues or something else. Add a narrative to one battle report, tell us a story. Or go the extreme opposite and go with to veteran gamers meeting each other on the battlefield and being ultra competitive. There are a lot of they can do, and I hope they dare try something else. The same goes for the rest of this issue, same same as the latest ones. Good but no new ideas at all, so because of that it gets 1 point taken from it's score.

Rating: 2,5 out of 5