White Dwarf 392. August 2012.

I had huge expectations for this issue. As the follow up to the huge release of 6th edition 40k I had in my head a lot of designer's notes, extra fortifications, more armies from GW staff, terrain articles about how to recreate some of the awesome boards from the rulebook. I don't know why I set my expectations so high each month but I refuse to give up on this once glorious magazine. I firmly believe that it has to get better and I'll keep on hoping that it does each month. With that out of the way lets jump right in...

New Releases - Those expecting to see Chaos Space Marines or Dark Angels will be disappointed, GW have decided to spring some Chaos Daemons on us. I've never been a fan of Daemons, but some of these have started to change my opinion, slightly. The seeker chariot / Hellflayer of Slaanesh just looks weird in my eyes, the Exalted Seeker Chariot of Slaanesh is a bigger improvement on them though. The plaguebearers and nurglings actually look alright and I might be tempted into grabbing a box of each as allies to a CSM army I might start at some point. The screamers, Flamers of Tzeentch and the Blue Scribes don't really do anything for me either I'm afraid to say. Loads of old stuff has been re-released in finecast. Speaking of finecast it's the Beastmen's and LotR turn to receive the resin treatment this month.

Maybe I'm missing something with these Daemons? Please comment below with what you think of them. Do you play them? What do you like about them?

The Hobbit - A double page photo with a tiny little box that gives us almost no information at all.

Chaos Daemons - A look into the four powers of chaos in "closer" depth, along with some mini paint guides that don't show step-by-steps, just what paints to buy. I think a possible reason why the models don't do it for me is because they're inherently compromised. Having to fit in with two radically different settings probably meant that some things had to be compromised along the way, just my opinion though.

Modelling Workshop: The Warp Forge - An interesting article into how Chad Mierzwa got a lovely fucked up effect on his Soul Grinder using liquid green stuff, and Andrew Kenrick shows us his Death Guard he kit-bashed with some new plaguebearer bits along with his amazing Forgeworld Nurgle Dreadnought. This has to be my favourite page of the issue so far.

Battle Report - Eldar & DE v Daemons. The joint Eldar team took a cool looking army and thankfully didn't include any imperial fortifications in their list. The Daemon army looked like the only selection criteria was "is it new? I'll use it!". Because of this and the extremely uninspiring terrain I couldn't be bothered to read the report, sorry.

Battle Brothers - Having to wait until page 60 for some content about 6th edition is quite cheeky/fucking ridiculous depending on how polite you are. It's all about allies and showcases some more personal armies from the studio team and it's well worth the wait. Phil Kelly's IG and Wolves look incredible, Robin Cruddace's Howling Griffins brought back major 2nd edition nostalgia!

The Librarians of Tzeentch - Mat Ward gives us a little bit of background about the strange blue scribes.

Battle Report - Daemons v High Elves. The Daemon army now includes the Soul Grinder. This is a really bizarre decision, it looks completely out of place! The High Elf army looked really nice though with nothing strange going on. Once again the table didn't look great, a couple of citadel woods and an arcane fulcrum a battlefield does not make!

Arena of Death - A revisit to the versus concept from a few months back pitting brand new fantasy characters against each other. While the fact that this article takes up too much space is annoying I like the fact that they thought outside the box and did something that wasn't in the rulebook.

Blanchitsu - John shows us how various people have tackled the Warhammer Nurgle Chaos Lord, over and over and over. There are 9 photos of the whole miniature on 3 sides of paper, and that doesn't even include the multitude of close ups.

Working with Citadel Finecast - I'm not going to say anything other than I hate that this article has to even exist.

Armies on Parade - A look at Matt Spencer's great Ork army. Painted in Bad Moonz colours with tons of weathering, battle damage and even a converted Stormraven.

I can't tell if I've been so negative because I'm so tired from watching loads of Olympics or if that would be making excuses for this issue. Much of it seems plain lazy so it gets a disappointing 2/10. Those points are for the Armies on parade, Phil Kelly's allied army and Kenrick's Nurgle models. Other than that the WD team really need to pull their socks up and get back on the right track they were heading down in the past few months. Next month looks like it's going to be Dark Angels rather than CSM from the back cover.

I'll be following this review up with a video review in the next day or so. In the meantime if you want to see anything specific from the issue or the accompanying Daemons update pamphlet all you need to do is become a follower of the blog and leave a message below! Cheers for reading.