WHITE DWARF · MARCH 2005
The Scouring of the Shire, Abhuman doctrines and renegade Space Marines, alongside Fire and Iron, Iron Lords phase two, Ogre terrain and the 10mm Battle of Five Armies. Advertisements, release catalogues, store/event listings and subscriptions are excluded.
COVER TO COVER
In printed page order
Phil Kelly previews Tyranid armies built around swarming creatures, numerous monsters or a varied middle ground, explaining the importance of Synapse and coordinated specialisms. Other reports introduce Forge World’s working-detail Bombard, Colin Grayson’s rank-compatible Plague Monks, the Byzantine historical supplement and the new role-playing edition, with specialist-game and art news rounding out the issue.
Guy Haley announces the following issue’s thirtieth-anniversary celebration and recalls playing historical battles with his father over Christmas. Family gaming, shared bad luck and a car stranded in Yorkshire snow turn the editorial into a personal account of how the hobby survives outside the studio’s release schedule.
Small Battle Companies, stubborn Necromunda rivals and new vehicles occupy the team this month. Nick appreciates forces that can grow a few painted models at a time, Greg celebrates an Eldar victory over Tau, Christian expands his mobile Imperators, and Paul Rudge continues converting Haradrim while attributing some successes to his opponents’ dice.
Adam Troke and Mat Ward explain how the Scouring of the Shire supplement makes modest Hobbit courage matter against opponents who would be unremarkable elsewhere in Middle-earth. Its linked campaign draws on the returning Travellers and resistance to Sharkey, while earlier adventures broaden the peaceful-looking setting without turning its inhabitants into conventional warriors.
Michael Perry explains how early nineteenth-century rural clothing gives Hobbit militia, Shirriffs and local notables a coherent visual identity. Agricultural implements, feathers, hats and posture distinguish their roles; the Ruffians instead look degraded and dangerous, while Sharkey and Worm avoid film likenesses unavailable for the characters’ Shire appearances.
Adam Troke’s returning Travellers and Hobbit defenders confront Pete Haines’s Ruffians in a road lined with hedges and a barricade. Adam abandons his initial shooting plan for early fighting, while Pete presses one flank and eventually brings Sharkey into the struggle; the scenario’s replacement fighters keep the battle alive long after the original formations have broken apart.
The four returning Hobbits lead militia, archers and Shirriffs against Ruffians, with Sharkey initially absent and casualties replenished through special rules. Victory hinges on Sharkey’s death or the loss of all four Travellers, making careful protection of individual heroes more important than ordinary attrition; hedges, a central road and a barricade shape the opening confrontation.
Dominic Murray uses small, repeatable highlights to distinguish Shire personalities without making their rustic clothes excessively bright. Fatty’s tailored jacket, Bandobras’s horse, Maggot’s weathered work clothes, Lobelia’s apron and Paladin’s worn coat demonstrate related techniques across cloth, skin, hair and wood, with separate colour progressions for all three of Maggot’s dogs.
Fatty’s trousers move from a warm brown base through progressively paler edge highlights, while his jacket begins with a black-and-brown mixture before grey is introduced. Restrained cloth highlights leave the recesses dark, and bright metallic buttons provide a final accent appropriate to a well-dressed Hobbit.
Bandobras’s exposed face and feet receive simple flesh layers and ink definition, while his shirt progresses through greys to white. The horse’s muscles are built up from brown through earth and bone mixtures; a separate, paler sequence gives the mane and tail enough contrast to remain distinct from the animal’s skin.
Thin lines of increasingly light brown suggest grain along Maggot’s wooden scythe handle. His smock instead uses broad earth and khaki layers with a final pale edge, leaving the darkest colour visible in folds; the two recipes establish the practical, weathered appearance of a working farmer.
Maggot’s dogs gain individual appearances from two skin schemes rather than elaborate markings. Grip and Fang receive dark mixed highlights with warmer ankles and ears, while Wolf starts brown and gains progressively lighter brown and bone accents; the instructions concentrate contrast on small anatomical details that help the animals read clearly.
Lobelia’s apron is highlighted by adding leather and bone colours to a brown base, retaining deeper shadows between its folds. Her hair starts with the leather tone and moves through bone to white, showing how a few consistent layers can give a very small character a convincingly detailed finish.
Paladin’s long coat begins with a dark black-and-bone mixture and receives narrow, progressively lighter highlights. Successive brown and bone drybrushes then dirty its lower edge, producing the worn appearance of an older Hobbit while preserving the cleaner shading on the upper garment.
The team’s Battle Companies grow through recruitment, injuries and an increasingly uneven series of contests. Harad’s cavalry wins battles and earns influence while Mordor suffers disastrous deaths; other players alter models to represent wounds, convert new leaders and discover how a small force’s developing identity can be shaped by both triumph and bad luck.
Paul Rudge expands his Haradrim beyond a single fixed warband, rotating warriors to stay within the company limit. Poisoned arrows win a ford battle against Gondor, and mounted speed helps seize a recovery objective against Dol Amroth; promotions and new Raiders compensate for a leader’s leg wound and keep the force growing.
Guy Haley mounts Gorbag on a newly converted Warg, only to suffer another punishing defeat during a rescue against Isengard. Four fatal injury rolls and an accumulating collection of wounds leave the company badly depleted, illustrating how campaign continuity can make even a small unsuccessful game matter to the next month’s modelling.
Greg MacGregor changes his Dol Amroth models to reflect the injuries actually suffered in play, removing an arm and replacing a lance-bearing arm where the rules no longer permit its use. New archers and another horse replenish the force, tying purchases and conversions directly to the company’s ongoing recovery.
A narrow ford across an otherwise impassable river forces the companies to fight for a concentrated crossing point. Movement off the opposing side and heavy losses determine the contest, while the prize is a basic warrior with a banner who never gains experience or becomes a hero; losing that banner can create a later Recovery game.
Nick Kyme combines Isildur, mounted Faramir and Captain components to distinguish a company hero, while varying greens prevents the Rangers from looking identical. Defeats against Harad and Isengard test the force, but recovered equipment, returning knights and new Fountain Court guards give the next games fresh possibilities.
Christian Byrne’s Isengard profits from underdog rewards and a strong captain while defeating Guy’s Orcs in a rescue. A further win over Gondor brings losses as well as recruitment, and new Orcs, Uruks and Wildmen give the growing company a broader identity than a single uniform block of warriors.
Andy Hoare distinguishes stable human offshoots from uncontrolled mutation, exploring the Imperial Guard’s pragmatic use of populations that wider Imperial society often despises. The Abhumans doctrine unlocks additional specialised regimental options, with each breed changing the army’s behaviour rather than merely supplying a cosmetic variation.
Feral Ogryns exchange their usual weapons and discipline for primitive close-combat equipment and a more flexible battlefield role. The doctrine allows them as Troops but removes transport and Bone ’ead options; Gabrio Tolentino’s Ogre conversions use tank details, shields, helmets and purity seals to establish an Imperial identity.
Generations beneath a world’s surface leave Nightsiders poorly suited to ordinary daylight but exceptionally sensitive to their surroundings. Their infantry doctrine grants Acute Senses, while the conversion example obscures eyes and noses with putty to convey a genuinely different human lineage rather than standard soldiers in unusual uniforms.
The slave-levy doctrine creates resilient but ponderous infantry squads, combining Feel No Pain with Slow and Purposeful and prohibiting other doctrines for the affected troops. A hunched conversion inspired by Quovandius mixes an Orc torso, Catachan parts and kneeling Cadian legs, making the regiment’s exploitation visible in its posture.
Rumoured attempts to clone great Imperial heroes produce pale, capable soldiers followed by disastrous bad luck and widespread hostility. The doctrine combines And They Shall Know No Fear with enemy Preferred Enemy, restricts incompatible doctrines and allies, and shows a conversion using exposed Catachan skin and Cadian equipment to communicate the strain’s unsettling uniformity.
Bestial Variatus enter through Conscript platoons, gaining improved Weapon Skill and Furious Charge for an additional doctrine cost. The modelling discussion combines Ungor and Catachan components but stresses Imperial insignia and restraint with obviously Chaotic features, allowing tolerated abhumans to remain distinct from an enemy Beastman horde.
Subs represent an oppressed population used as expendable screening troops in Conscript platoons. Enemies can shoot past them at eligible units, but intervening Subs can provide cover until pinned; the example conversion reshapes a Steel Legion head into a crude hood, emphasising their social position through equipment and appearance.
The Lostok 23rd’s adaptations for fighting Tyranids on Dantis III lead to a combat-drug doctrine that grants Fleet at the risk of fatal overdoses. A suggested Lostok doctrine package links the rules to veteran fighters and xenophobic training; Gareth Harvey’s conversions combine bionics, unusual weapons and mixed greens to show the survivors’ specialised character.
Christian Byrne’s Iron Warriors defend three bunkers against Mike’s Salamanders in a roughly twelve-hundred-and-fifty-point battle. An early lascannon breach disrupts the central defenders, while Rhinos and arriving Terminators carry the attack forward; Chaos reinforcements arrive unevenly, leaving valuable heavy weapons unavailable during the crucial opening turns.
Each of three bunkers carries a substantial share of the battle’s available victory points, making occupation by a surviving scoring infantry unit decisive. Defender restrictions put most heavy support in reserve, while preliminary bombardment and the attacker’s approach create a contest in which fortifications can delay their own occupants as well as protect them.
Mike combines Rhinos, melta-armed squads and deep-striking Terminators with long-ranged lascannons and a venerable Dreadnought. The plan uses transports to close on the bunkers while supporting weapons suppress exposed targets, placing the decisive emphasis on getting infantry into positions from which it can claim the scenario’s objectives.
Christian relies on heavily upgraded armoured support, two Obliterators and a small number of Marines to defend the bunker complex. He intends deep-striking Obliterators to disrupt the attackers while a hidden Basilisk and durable Vindicator punish concentrations, but the scenario’s reserve rules leave much of that firepower dependent on arrival rolls.
Mike credits his transports and steady infantry advance while admitting that attacking unfamiliar fortifications required improvisation. Christian identifies too few Marines, delayed reserves and an unproductive Lord as weaknesses; both recognise that one more casualty in the central bunker could have radically changed the result, despite the apparently convincing Salamanders advance.
Andy Hoare examines Space Marine Chapters that rebel after the Horus Heresy, showing that doctrinal disputes, pride, corrupt leadership, alien infection and genetic instability can all fracture loyalty. Imperial judgement is neither simple nor consistent: the Badab allies receive penitent crusades, while other investigations escalate into total destruction or help drive the accused into Chaos.
Uncertain Founding records and the Imperium’s diverse religious traditions make a Chapter’s departure from acceptable belief difficult to define. Hoare considers investigation, ecclesiastical overreach and the use of fellow Chapters to impose discipline, with the Badab allies demonstrating a rebellion born of pride that does not automatically imply devotion to Chaos.
Renegades may defend heavily fortified domains, retreat into warp-storm regions, hide on environments hostile to ordinary humans or become wandering raiders. The Steel Cobras’ undersea refuge contrasts with the Astral Claws’ Badab fortresses, while the destruction inflicted on Scelus shows how a Chapter’s rebellion can doom populations left behind.
Recently rebellious Marines can retain recognisable Chapter structures, while longer exposure to exile and Chaos reduces others to mixed warbands. Huron’s Corsairs organise around a captured fleet and elite boarding troops supported by human raiders; the Damned Company instead sells military service for the supplies needed to remain alive.
The boxed history follows Lufgt Huron’s destruction of an Imperial investigation fleet through expanding Chapter warfare, disrupted trade routes and the eventual siege of Badab. The Astral Claws escape into the Maelstrom after defeat, whereas their allies are censured and sent on penitent crusades, showing different Imperial punishments within the same rebellion.
Kathal’s company celebrates victory with cannibalistic rites that horrify Inquisitor Pietas, who attacks during the ceremony. The Marines defeat the Celestians and sacrifice the captured Inquisitor, triggering the Chapter’s excommunication and flight into the Eye of Terror; the episode ties a specific ritual confrontation to the origins of a renegade force.
Chapter traditions can look monstrous to outsiders despite loyal intent, and an accusation of heresy may provoke the resistance it claims to expose. Hoare also considers ambitious commanders, spiritual damage after fighting Chaos and alien contamination, using the Subjugators’ encounter with viral cell-kin to show a threat beyond ordinary doctrinal disagreement.
Mandatory gene-seed tithes give Imperial authorities one of their few enforceable claims over the Adeptus Astartes. The article contrasts doctrinal rebellion with physical mutation, considers problems in cultivated or mixed genetic stocks, and explains how famous loyal Chapters can survive scrutiny that would endanger less established successors.
A newly rebellious Chapter can be represented through the Space Marine book and appropriate Chapter Trait drawbacks, while more thoroughly corrupted forces suit the Chaos Marine list. Corsair-style pirates may use human allies or the Lost and the Damned approach, linking the army’s chosen rules to how far its background has departed from Imperial service.
Christian Byrne builds a Red Corsair boarding party and deliberately uses fast, repeatable painting methods after completing other large Chaos projects. Layered reds and ink washes establish the armour, bright lenses and pale crests supply contrast, and unhealthy flesh reinforces the pirates’ character; metal mesh bases place the squad inside a spacecraft rather than on a grassy battlefield.
Red armour progresses from a dark base through drybrushing, an ink wash and quick highlights, with separate silver and gold shading sequences. The guide also covers green lenses, recess-shaded weapons, worn leather, sickly skin, pale crests and freehand claws, allowing a complete boarding squad to remain consistent without lengthy individual blending.
Bases are glued to wire mesh, trimmed and painted with a mixed metallic-and-ink base before a lighter drybrush brings out the grating. Christian stresses pinning the Marines through the mesh for a secure attachment; the result gives a boarding force a practical industrial setting with very little sculpting.
Nick Kyme moves the Ironyard campaign into its second three-week phase after HiveNet claims Slum Town and the Phantoms win the Labyrinth. The new Chem Wells and Junkyard offer different rewards, while challenges, temporary alliances and the Enforcers’ intervention turn unequal gang development into a source of grudges and shifting cooperation.
Two gangs in the same zone can ally against another after notifying the Games Master, while a formal challenge forces a choice between fighting and a temporary Leadership penalty. Accepted challenges award double experience and create lasting hatred for the loser, giving personal rivalries mechanical weight within the controlled campaign structure.
Control of the Chem Wells allows a gang to manufacture combat drugs or one-use medical chemicals while drawing a valuable income. A poor income roll can instead trigger an accident that sidelines the collecting ganger, giving the territory a strong reward tempered by a distinctly industrial Underhive hazard.
The Junkyard provides income and a separate search for rare equipment, with additional searching gangers improving the chance and quality of a find. Assigning them to the ruins replaces normal income collection or trading activities, so the territory offers a choice between predictable credits and potentially useful recovered technology.
Rob Mactaggert turns the Roughnecks’ surviving Juves into replacements for dead veterans and celebrates two new Gang Champions. Increasingly skilled enemy shooters encourage him to explore Techno and Combat skills alongside familiar Goliath muscle, although he still trusts his gang enough to resist hiring outside help.
Andy Holmes follows a failed rescue with a revenge raid against HiveNet’s gambling den, eventually destroying the objective with his leader’s meltagun. Experienced Juves become full Gangers and prompt weapon swaps, while a planned flamer Heavy would give the otherwise shooting-oriented force a deterrent against close assault.
Paul Foulkes’s prolific Van Saar cyborgs outgrow most rival gangs and draw a combined Enforcer and Cawdor response. Shooting advances and extensive individual conversions support his ambitions, while occasional deaths and unsuccessful medical intervention show that even the campaign’s dominant gang cannot turn every post-battle roll into an advantage.
Mark Chambers finally breaks his losing streak after rescuing Uncle Jo and gaining an infiltrating flamer Specialist. Fast-moving plague zombies absorb enormous amounts of fire and infect enemy gangers, turning the force’s grotesque character into a real tactical asset while its feud with the Unwashed Brotherhood continues.
Paul Rudge targets high-rated opponents and uses a Ratskin to influence scenario selection, hoping a favourable mission will offset the difference in strength. Missing fighters, unfortunate alarms and poor deployment positions frustrate the plan; the deaths or capture of successive leaders make his growing Stealth skills a modest consolation.
Andy Smilie recommends scenarios that restrict a larger opponent’s usable force and accepts early bottling as a way to preserve a developing gang. He recruits Juves to push the bottle-test threshold upward and considers Scummers before confronting HiveNet, showing how campaign survival can outweigh winning every immediate firefight.
The fleeing Unwashed Brotherhood brings Crilly back from a defeat against the Dead-Marsh Defilers, only to discover that their recovered Juve has become a plague zombie. Smelly Bob’s poor marksmanship and blustering faith fail to solve the problem, leaving a flamer and a promise of revenge against the Scavvies’ sump as the gang’s answer.
A mock newspaper reports the Enforcers’ alliance with the Unwashed Brotherhood, HiveNet’s stubborn survival and the Spectres’ growing influence. Wanted notices, dubious recruitment benefits, exaggerated weather damage and a casualty column recast real campaign developments as competing rumours from the Ironyard’s inhabitants.
Reuben Kyte’s caravan climbs into the Ogre Kingdoms under protection that repeatedly proves unreliable. Gnoblars attack while the Ogre guards settle a dispute, a Hunter uses the travellers as bait for an immense cave bear, and breathtaking mountain views offer little compensation for cold, steep roads and dwindling confidence.
Brulugh Thundergut undermines Tyrant Oleg Kineater by attacking caravans guarded by his warriors. The defender’s split force arrives in stages and earns extra points for reaching the attacker’s deployment area, while ambushers suffer a coordination penalty away from characters; restricted artillery and broken mountain terrain make this an unevenly timed fight rather than a standard line battle.
Steve Cumiskey turns a familiar hill into a Maw-shaped fighting pit large enough for Ogre models and hands to reach inside. A wooden base supports layered polystyrene rockwork, dowel stakes and a bladed gate; the final painting section gives the rocks, earth, timber and rusty metal separate treatments, with comparison to Mark Jones’s more elaborate studio example.
An irregular bevelled wooden base establishes the footprint, then a drawn central opening and access path guide the first polystyrene layer. Additional offcuts build height while a knife roughens the surface into uneven rock, creating a functional arena without depending on expensive cast terrain components.
Blunted dowel stakes lean inward around the arena while vertical posts support a gate assembled from wood strips, thread and spare weapon blades. Filler, sand and gravel unify the structure, and optional bones or armour suggest previous victims; Mark Jones’s version demonstrates how curved brickwork and salvaged toy tusks can change the same basic idea.
Textured masonry paint creates a suitable drybrushing surface before the rocks and earth receive distinct grey and brown treatments. Dark flesh-coloured patches suggest dried blood, stippled brown and orange rust the blades, and leather-to-pale-flesh drybrushing weathers the stakes; mixed flock completes the transition to the surrounding tabletop.
Nick Kyme explores Joseph Wilshire’s Slaanesh-devoted Beastman collection, whose Greek influence brings white cloth, colourful monsters and gemstones into a normally dark palette. Extensive conversions make monsters, shamans and standards share a narrative identity, while retained game functions allow unusual creatures and stolen shields to stand in for familiar army-list elements.
A converted Scyla creature replaces each pair of conventional draught beasts, inspired by John Dale’s avian Beastman army. One crewman and the monster together represent the usual attacks, while stolen shields explain the model’s protection; sculpted gems and staged paint highlights bring the unconventional chariot into the army’s Slaaneshi theme.
Harpy bodies, Ungor heads and modified Swooping Hawk wings create Furies whose lost hands express the price of a Chaos blessing. Winged Nightmare-based Spawn instead suggest creatures transformed by a root potion, with exchanged heads, spikes and a Tyrant scythe reinforcing the idea of ongoing mutation throughout the army.
The four collectors increasingly shape their armies through play and personal modelling ambitions. Asger sculpts an unpleasant chariot beast, Dave adds crossbow-armed Orcs and fights Guy’s Greenskins, Paul makes professional Stirland Halberdiers from spare components, and Stephen’s improved magic and war-machine hunting finally reverse his fortunes against the Dwarfs.
Asger Granerud and Tue construct a bloated chariot beast around a sprue armature and Hormagaunt limbs, turning spare arms into stalked eyes. A combined putty mixture supplies fat, stretched skin and constricting belts, making the creature look as if it drags its own weight across the ground before it is pinned to the chariot base.
Dave Allen adds Ruglud’s crossbows and rough-cut idols to his Grimgor-themed army, keeping varied Orc skin tones coherent through common details. Against Guy Haley, Ruglud repels magically assisted Wolf Riders and Borgut destroys the enemy command group, but a Giant decides the battle; their post-game argument exposes an illegal Goblin magic-item allowance.
Paul Scott converts armoured Empire Spearmen into Stirland Halberdiers by replacing spearheads with surplus halberd blades. Their breastplates suit troops whose awkward weapons make shields less practical, and the simple component swap lets a professional regiment join his ragged collection without an elaborate sculpting project.
A second Liche Priest and Screaming Skull Catapult force Dave Holmes to spend his dispelling resources on the Tomb Kings’ extra shooting. Stephen Green’s Tomb Scorpion then emerges among the Dwarf war machines, distracting the defenders long enough for coordinated infantry and magic to bring his Tomb Prince into decisive combat.
Stephen’s skeletons begin with a white undercoat and brown ink wash, followed by repeated white-and-bone drybrushing. Black establishes the metal areas before brass is added, the bow receives a brown coat, and sand painted in warm browns completes a repeatable recipe for rank-and-file Khemri troops.
With the Dok absent, Fixit introduces Paul Evans’s still-expanding Slayer army. Sculpted helmets connect the Brotherhood of Grimnir to Ungrim Ironfist, an added medallion links the king back to the regiment, and individually converted Slayer Pirates bring variety to a collection assembled from many generations of Dwarf figures.
A vision sends Tristan the Troubadour after Sir Artrenic, whose stolen documents could divide Bretonnia’s noble houses. The Battle of Montfort repeatedly prevents Tristan reaching his quarry, and the ensuing pursuit through Axe Bite Pass seems hopeless until reckless Knights Errant charge the Imperial rearguard; Tristan joins them, kills the traitor and burns the documents without reading them.
Two three-thousand-point armies recreate the struggle outside Montfort, with Empire command restricted after Von Abresicht’s death and Artrenic available as a Bretonnian renegade. The defenders balance knights with peasant units and hold back Parravon’s relief force, while unreliable Imperial artillery and escalating reinforcement chances capture the narrative’s decisive delays.
Tristan leads a thousand points of Bretonnian knights against a two-thousand-point Imperial rearguard trapped between the attacker’s two deployment areas. The Empire lacks cavalry and artillery and fights with halved Leadership, while Bretonnia begins with the Lady’s blessing and gains extra points for killing Artrenic, making the uneven army totals deliberately misleading.
Tristan and Jules share a Hero choice but cannot command the army, and their different social roles govern which units they may accompany. Tristan chooses a ballad each turn to improve combat resolution, magical protection or steadfastness; Jules’s acrobatics and taunts make the apparently ridiculous companion surprisingly difficult to kill and troublesome to nearby enemies.
Rick Priestley introduces a self-contained ten-millimetre game built around the final battle in The Hobbit. Coloured, clip-together regiments and supplied terrain make the box playable before painting, while a ninety-six-page manual and optional metal figures allow the system to represent other conflicts from the book.
Units move only when successfully ordered, and further orders can move them again while imposing mounting command penalties. Failed orders halt that hero’s command activity, so ambitious concentration must be weighed against scattered formations; combat, pursuit and hero support then allow a single turn to contain a substantial sequence of battlefield action.
The ford connects separated Good contingents while Goblin cavalry and infantry arrive from different directions, creating opportunities to overwhelm a wing before the defenders unite. Mountain ambushers pressure troops off the spurs until the Eagles arrive; Thorin and Beorn add further turning points, with army-loss thresholds and commander deaths determining when resistance collapses.
Priestley explains that the manual includes creatures and troops beyond those present in the named battle, including Smaug, Trolls and Storm Giants. A simultaneous metal range makes those options tangible, while the broader Great Battles of Middle-earth label invites players to reuse the system and scenery for further encounters rather than treating the boxed scenario as its only purpose.
The new Roughcoat spray creates a fine texture that can stand in for stone or rough metal and provide a useful surface for drybrushing. Compared examples of bulkheads, walls and tanks show how the texture changes the finish, while the accompanying advice contrasts its relatively fine grain with sand mixtures and coarse DIY masonry paints.