Review: White Dwarf Dec 2013

First of all this will be a shorter review, this because of two things. One, I got it really late and I haven't put as much time reading it as I usually do. This is partly due the fact I didn't find it that great of a read, but more on this in the rest of the review.

New releases

A lot of releases this month but the major ones are the Hobbit stuff, Two new Wh40k supplement books, Stronghold Assault and Escalation and one for Fantasy which is called Sigmar's Blood. For me there's nothing super exciting here, the Hobbit stuff does not interest me, and it feels like it doesn't interest GW either as I get the feeling that they just want to get it out and be done with it. There's really nothing in here that tries to get me excited for it or the least interested in the game something. This was not the case many years ago with the LOTR releases. 

The books I haven't much interest in either and with 40k I feel there's just much stuff going on with supplements and digital releases and what not that I just feel I don't care any more. That may have more to do with my declining interest for 40k in general though. 

Sigmar's Blood and Fantasy on the other hand I'm more interested in and we get a quite nice battle report based on this book.

The Best

The Battle Report based on Sigmar's Blood is really nice one and finally we get some Battle Reports with a history around it and some kind of narrative in it. What we get here is a campaign with four linked battles. Although I think each game is a little short they are all interesting to read and the pictures of the battlefields is very nice with fog and terrain in the background to makes it more atmospheric. Two really nice armies take the field as well.

This months Army of the Month is a extra long this time around and show us the combined Chaos army (WoC, DoC and Beastmen) of Rob Gogin and Leo Baker. A really beautiful Chaos army with strong bright colours, and with all the different miniatures used and a lot of conversions shows us why Chaos is indeed called Chaos.

Parade Ground shows us some of the Armies on Parade entries from the US. Some really nice looking armies and my favourite must be the Chaos Dwarfs with a lot of cool conversions and striking paint scheme.

Kelly's Column, instead of Jervis we instead get Phil Kelly writing about bursts of inspiration in our dear hobby, really interesting read where I have to agree with the author. 

The not as good

Not having more focus on the actual releases is strangely a let down for me. Especially the Hobbit stuff which just isn't presented in a way to inspire and lure us into buying some kits, and that is from someone who consider himself as a GW fanboy almost and want everything GW produces. I just don't feel GW wanting to push the Hobbit stuff at all, and that makes all the pages in here totally uninteresting for me.

Kit Bash, Dreadnoughts this time. Space Marines yet again with some really easy bitz swaps. Not that interesting. 

Paint Splatter is about a little of everything and is quite easy tutorials as always. Main thing though is the Hobbit elves, and well I must say I hate the design of the Palace guard. And I know GW just sculpt them as they look in the movie and it's no easy task making nice looking miniatures of these. The thing is that they don't look good with Eavy Metal team painting, I just imagine how it will it will look when we try to paint them. 

The rest of the Paint Splatter is better though, I especially like how Adam Troke's Dark Angel Defence Network is shown with little pictures with explanations under them instead of just the usual tutorials we get now, more of this please. 

This month in... Forge World. Nothing new to show us, and it just sucks that we only get 40k stuff all the time now, we want you back Warhammer Forge!

Conclusion

Now when I have written the review it's not just doom and gloom as I may have made it look like in the beginning of the article. But this issues biggest problem is all the different releases and nothing to focus on in my opinion. Some of you may see this as something positive and I normally do as well, but only if the more uninteresting parts for me still is worth to read. I didn't feel that was the case here, but that's just my humble opinion. 

Some nice painting as stuff is to be seen though and some articles is a good read as well, for any games though there's not much to gain from this issue.

Rating: 2 out of 5