White Dwarf (401) - May 2013

The next in my series of catch up reviews, and it's a fantasy release for a change. Let's see how this one stacks up.

New Releases - High Elves this time and some lovely looking kits. the two Phoenixes look cool, if a little static. The Lothern Skycutter is really nice, and another chance for GW to use the new longer flight stand. There's also a load of new regular size models, but none of the core choices have been redone, and that's the problem I have with getting into fantasy at the moment. All the new bits of kit are gret, but if the core of your army looks shit then why bother. I'm avoiding fantasy for this reason until they sort it out.

Army of the Month - Mark Bedford, the man behind the incredible Legion Reconnaisance Squad (and also the underwhelming World Eater Rampagers) shows off his Blood Angels army. As you'd expect it's packed with Forge World goodies including a Storm Eagle and a Spartan! Tucked away in the spine there's a small but wonderful ad-Mech unit, and I spotted one of the space Hulk terminators in there too.

Jervis Johnson - Following on from last months chat about GM games Jervis ties it all up. The thing I took away from this was that it's a way to inspire projects, in much the same way the Imperial Armour books can inspire projects by doing the story telling for you. After turning my hand to some narrative gaming I'm a firm believer in this method of gaming now.

Battle Report - High Elves v Ogre Kingdoms. It's strange how most Fantasy battle grounds look quite uninspired, considering how good a lot of the scenery is for this system. Maybe it's to do with my head not adjusting to the space requirements of the game, or the fact I've never understood why there is grass on a battlefield! Turns out it was a draw.

Armchair General - Adam Troke tells us of his love for the Dark Angels. I wish I shared his enthusiasm. I bought them, played one or two games but haven't felt particularly inspired by them. Maybe it's because they were eclipsed by the Tau so swiftly. There's not much in the way of tactics, just a few pointers.

Blanchitsu - Blanche shows us the work of a chap called Julian Bayliss. His work looks very slick, I wish there had been more pages of this.

Hall of Fame - The fucking Helbute?! What the fuck is this mono-pose turd doing here? It's actually not a bad model, but they've got to be shitting me if it's anywhere near worthy of the hall of fame. It was chosen by Edgar Skomorowski, a Forge World designer, he must've been smoking too much resin when he was asked.

The Time of Dragons - Troke and Ward take a look and Warhammer dragons. There's some nice art, and an interview with Trish Carden who's designed quite a few fantasy gribblys over the years.

Parade Ground - Focusing on Dreadnoughts this month.

Kit Bash - A really cool looking Altar of Chaos using a Maulerfiend, and some interesting cultists from Mark Bedford. He's all over this issue!

Parade Ground - A selection of very impressive looking Warhound Titans and a couple of Reavers. One day they will be mine!
There's then yet more Golden Demon photos, this time from Japan, although no sign of Hugo / Ichiban Paintings lovely Storm Eagle conversion.

Paint Splatter - All kinds of High Elf techniques. Plenty of transferable tips here.

Jeremy Vetock - Almost returning to normality after last months bizarreness, we get a look into how Vetock views the collecting side of his hobby, and how it's changed over time. I'm much the same, I have the money and the ideas, I just lack the time to get anything meaningful done.

This Month In - Bethan's hair has changed from blue to green, and there's even more Dreadnoughts on show. The Design studio talk about the Elves, I'm glad they are including more of these designer's notes. It adds more weigh to the magazine.
FW show off the Fellglaive, or the Glaive as it's now known, and some nice looking Night Lords from Will Hayes.

Nothing ground-breaking in this installment then. The hall of fame left a sour taste in my metaphorical mouth, one that was only overcome by Mark Bedford, John Blanche and Jervis, all quite small sections of the mag. Because of this I'll award a respectably average but not great 5/10.