WHITE DWARF · OCTOBER 2005
Mines of Moria introductory battles, heroic resources and terrain projects accompany Kill-team Nemeses, a complete Gnoblar army, forest encounters, Knightly Orders and detailed face painting.
COVER TO COVER
In printed page order
Guy Haley introduces the magazine’s reorganization, with the editorial moving to the front and staff hobby reports joining the letters pages. Owen Rees and Rik Turner bring the website team into White Dwarf so both outlets can work together. Haley also announces his approaching departure from the UK editorship while retaining a wider role helping the Games Developers prepare articles.
A Sonic Lance Revenant Titan, simplified troop kits and brush-cap superglue lead the news. The Thorians sourcebook becomes freely downloadable, the Mines of Moria receives website support, and the Citadel Miniatures Hall opens to visitors. Book previews accompany the launch of Dark Millennium’s collectible cards and online campaign, while a longer notice explains the company’s contemporary response to counterfeit miniatures.
The company describes its investigations and action against counterfeit miniature sellers, placing the emphasis on disappointed collectors and poor reproductions. A checklist highlights lost detail, bubbles, doubled mould lines, implausible materials and concealed defects beneath undercoat. It asks readers to provide evidence of suspected operations. The piece records Games Workshop’s published position in 2005 rather than offering independent legal or materials-testing advice.
Adam Troke coaches newcomers Andy Stewart and Sean Turtle through four Mines of Moria starter scenarios. Andy protects the Fellowship while Sean learns to exploit the Goblins’ numbers and the Hobbits’ vulnerability. Archery, an isolated Aragorn, reinforcing trapdoors and finally a Cave Troll introduce rules progressively, with each player explaining plans and lessons afterward.
The Fellowship must cross the room without losing anyone, while Goblin bowmen need only one victim. Andy’s first move exposes Merry, and Sean kills him immediately to secure Evil’s objective. Both continue anyway: Andy uses pillars and stronger heroes as protection while Aragorn and Legolas eliminate the archers. The short game teaches the importance of accounting for an opponent’s movement before assuming a Hobbit is screened.
Aragorn scouts alone and must fight through a doorway guarded by eight Goblins. Andy initially hunts a smaller group and waits for a favourable opening, but enemy control zones prevent his hoped-for escape. Sean closes the trap, eventually driving Aragorn into a corner and wearing him down. The players discuss the tension between concentrating at the exit and actively pursuing the stronger lone hero.
Boromir and Gimli attack one reinforcing trapdoor while Gandalf and the remaining companions contest the other. Aragorn never arrives, and three Hobbits die, but the stronger fighters gradually close the entrances and clear the Goblins. Andy wins before Sean can claim another victim. The aftermath identifies a useful trap for the defender: keeping Goblins on a trapdoor stops it closing but also prevents new reinforcements emerging there.
The larger tomb adds doorway reinforcements and a Cave Troll to the trapdoor battle. Sean distracts Boromir and Gimli while concentrating on the weaker companions; Legolas falls to archery despite Blinding Light and the remaining heroes are progressively surrounded. Boromir gets one final opportunity to kill the Troll and salvage a draw but causes no wounds. Sean wins the game and series, while Andy recognizes that sending Gimli after an isolated archer wasted his best fighters’ time.
Adam Troke turns the starter box’s lid and base into a compact Chamber of Mazarbul board. Polystyrene ledges, foamcard steps and rubble create usable raised edges before textured paint and grey-brown drybrushing finish the stone. The plastic scenery then completes the room. Two further pages explain jumping, climbing and defended obstacles so players can gradually use the board with the full manual rather than only the introductory rules.
Removing a long side from each half of the box creates two matching room sections that can be joined for play or stored separately. Six-centimetre ledges leave openings for the doorway and layered foamcard stairs, while rubble masks construction gaps. Black spray, two greys, Rotting Flesh and brown in the corners give the board a rich worn finish before the boxed scenery is placed.
The new ledges provide a practical way to add full movement rules to starter games. Obstacles are judged against the model’s own height, with a test determining whether it stumbles, crosses slowly or keeps moving; taller obstacles penalize the roll. The guide distinguishes jumping down, Goblins’ Cave Dweller advantage and elevated fighting, while discouraging models from climbing pillars imagined to reach the ceiling.
Adam Troke examines how limited heroic resources turn individual decisions into decisive moments. Might can change dice or fund actions, Will supports spells, resistance and courage, and Fate preserves wounded heroes. Worked examples emphasize saving a life, reaching objectives, arranging cavalry charges and preventing a broken army from fleeing. Troke also explains when an action is unlikely to repay its cost, encouraging selective use rather than automatic expenditure.
Might is most valuable when it saves a hero, turns a failed wound into a kill or changes the timing of a crucial action. Heroic moves secure charges, objectives or Stand Fast; shooting can remove an enemy before it attacks. Heroic combat can break through to a banner or slingshot a fighter onward, but fails if even one opponent survives. Troke cautions against speculative shooting bonuses and combats that the hero cannot realistically finish.
Will dice must be committed before casting or resisting, so the guide asks players to distinguish a dangerous spell from an inconvenience worth accepting. With no enemy magic, Will remains useful for keeping heroes and followers courageous. Fate is more straightforward: spend it to ignore wounds rather than forgetting it in the excitement of combat, especially when a scenario rewards the hero’s remaining health.
Dominic Murray gives unnamed captains a distinctive identity through chosen equipment, a personal name and a history tied to their army. Illustrated techniques replace whole hands, exchange heads, reinforce heavy joins with pins and straighten an arm through a partial cut. A Green Stuff lesson hides the alterations, while finished Minas Tirith and Goblin examples combine several small changes. The emphasis is on achievable conversions that strengthen a force’s narrative.
Replacing a whole hand gives a weapon swap a stronger contact area than joining a thin blade. For heads, Murray saws away the original, files both mating surfaces flat and checks the fit before gluing and filling. Exposing a captain’s face can distinguish him from helmeted troops, while a different weapon can directly express the equipment or history chosen for the character.
A nick guides the drill, and a paint mark transferred from the installed pin locates the corresponding hole on the second part. Paperclip wire or brass rod then strengthens the join. A second example partially saws through an elbow, bends the remaining metal carefully and fills the opening, showing how drilling and limited cutting can change a pose while preserving enough material to support it.
Equal blue and yellow portions are kneaded until no streaks remain, then pressed into the conversion’s gap. Murray allows the putty to begin hardening before shaping it so it does not simply squeeze out elsewhere. A wet-looking, smooth blend into the existing surface conceals the join, and the finished captain examples suggest progressing from basic filling to new hair and other small details.
Adrian Wood translates one film photograph into a playable ruined building rather than copying every fragment literally. A checklist and rough mock-up establish arch dimensions, corner joints and a removable upper floor before the detailed foamboard version is made. Scored masonry, scattered tiles and controlled rubble communicate destruction without removing places for models to stand. Pale drybrushing, green weathering and abandoned Orc equipment complete the ruin.
A pen scores dressed stone into the foamboard walls, while a grid in card produces the upper floor’s tiles. Separate foam stones and glued grit fill debris piles around the columns. Roughcoat receives grey and white drybrushing with green streaks, and spare Warg Rider weapons add coloured wood and metal details. The finishing sequence keeps the recognizable Númenórean architecture visible beneath its weathering.
Radagast intercepts Goblins and Wargs threatening a village near Mirkwood, with Gwaihir arriving first and two Eagles following by reserve rolls. Good has ten turns to complete two of three goals: keep all allies alive, slay the Goblin captains and reduce the raiders to a quarter strength. Radagast’s affinity with beasts imposes an additional courage test on charging Wargs. The scenario balances a tiny powerful defence against numerous attackers and uncertain aerial help.
Graham McNeill previews the first dedicated Black Templars codex by tracing the chapter from Dorn’s dispute with Guilliman to Sigismund’s perpetual crusade. Dispersed fleets and variable crusade sizes explain its independence from conventional Codex organization, while close combat and refusal to retreat embody its character. New conversion sprues, Sword Brethren, Helbrecht and Grimaldus promise a range that supports the expanded history.
Two elaborate Space Marine projects turn chapter history into visible decoration. Dominic Murray interviews David Rodriguez about Calgar’s mobile-shrine Land Raider, with architectural additions and custom transfers recording famous deeds. Matt Parkes builds an imposing Crimson Fists Chapter Master from planned drawings, widened armour and carefully designed banners. Both explain how a coherent idea guides conversion choices beyond simply adding extra components.
David Rodriguez gives the tank layered plasticard arches, rod pillars, sculpted Gauntlets of Ultramar and eagle motifs assembled from several kits. Large drawings are reduced onto printable transfer paper to represent Calgar’s victories, while scripture is painted by hand. Brown chalk shades the blue hull and multiple gold layers highlight its decoration. The result is intended to look like a revered mobile temple carrying the Chapter Master and his guard.
Brown chalk is worked into the blue hull’s recesses as an alternative to an ink wash, with varnish recommended if the model will be handled. Brazen Brass and Shining Gold build the ornament, brown-black ink deepens it, and Burnished Gold and Mithril Silver finish the edges. Similar curling gold designs decorate black gun casings. Patient hand-painted scripture and custom transfers complete the narrative surface.
Matt Parkes sketches additions over chapter artwork before selecting parts, then uses plastic spacers to make the commander taller and broader. Bretonnian shields replace knee plates, a divided and heat-bent cloak gains motion, and enlarged shoulder rims evoke the fortress-monastery’s battlements. A shortened command banner records Rynn’s World and the chapter’s ancestry, with purity seals, chains and cabling reinforcing the character’s rank.
John Shaffer loosely follows the Into the Maelstrom cover to build Huron from Imperial, Chaos and Warhammer components. The Tyrant’s Claw is the most involved assembly, while arm magnets make painting and equipment changes easier. A Bretonnian helmet dragon with Wight helmet wings becomes the Hamadrya. Unpainted component photographs reveal the construction behind the finished Red Corsair rather than supplying an unsupported paint recipe.
Andy Hoare and Phil Kelly add an end-of-mission opponent inspired by computer-game bosses. The defender sacrifices Brute squads for a concealed Nemesis, which appears after the Kill-team reaches its objective and must be defeated before victory can be claimed. Seven flexible archetypes cover machines, mutants, daemons, psykers and ghosts, each restricted to suitable factions. An extensive conversion gallery demonstrates how the same rules can represent very different creations.
The defender secretly exchanges a faction-dependent number of Brute squads for a Nemesis and keeps its identity concealed. It arrives six to twelve inches from the team when the mission objective is achieved, or as the team approaches its escape point. The creature automatically detects its opponents and becomes a compulsory final fight, preserving the dramatic reveal while compensating for its power with fewer initial guards.
An entirely artificial guardian combines strong armour, fearless obedience and heavy or twin-linked weapons. Heavy armament imposes Slow and Purposeful, making resilience its strength rather than mobility. Suggested identities include Eldar wraithbone creations, experimental Tau drones or suits and unusual Necron machines. Mark Bedford’s robot and Andy Brown’s lancer show how the generic entry supports different faction aesthetics.
The failed experiment’s frenzy produces a fresh random number of attacks in each assault phase, while a failed leadership test can leave it unable to move or charge. The entry permits melee or twin-linked small arms, giving the creature unpredictable violence rather than reliable control. Examples range from a Painboy’s creation to an Abhuman bodyguard, Chaos hybrid or Tyranid-human aberration.
A living being embedded in machinery gains Feel No Pain from stimulant injectors and selects close-combat weapons or twin-linked small arms. The description accommodates a wounded Marine in a support rig, an Ork Mek’s creation, a heavy servitor or a cruel Chaos or Dark Eldar experiment. Its purpose is to make an unusual conversion playable without requiring a separate army-wide cybernetic unit.
The bound daemon is fearless and fights with unnatural appendages rather than purchased weapons. Timeshift dramatically increases its movement, assault reach and attacks, though the power can still be nullified by suitable anti-psychic equipment. Suggested stories include a radical Inquisitor’s imprisoned Ogryn, a Chaos sorcerer’s servant or a Dark Eldar captive sustained beyond physical death.
The unbound creature enters as a fearless Monstrous Creature with an invulnerable daemonic aura and vicious natural weapons. Background warns that summoning it and controlling it are very different accomplishments. The entry can represent a lesser Chaos power’s servant or the disastrous ambition of a radical Daemonhunter, with Mat Ward’s Skarfor the Vile illustrating the conversion opportunity.
A physically ruined but overwhelmingly powerful mind projects a gaze that forces Initiative tests, inflicts armour-piercing hits and drives survivors away. Its template remains as a dangerous zone until the creature moves or is assaulted, while an aura forces attackers to test their nerve. Possible identities include a captured Alpha-level psyker, Haemonculus victim or human driven mad by the Shadow in the Warp.
A returning saint, ancestor or fallen commander becomes an insubstantial attacker whose blows ignore armour and invulnerable saves. It moves through terrain and models and uses Hit and Run, making it difficult to contain despite its supernatural rather than mechanical identity. The suggested backgrounds connect the generic rules to Marines, the Infinity Circuit, Imperial martyrs and the founding saints of the Sororitas.
Eight converted opponents interpret the rules through very different cultures and technologies. Witch Hunter and Imperial Guard constructs stand beside an Unsane, an Ork machine, two Adeptus Mechanicus creations, a Necron warrior and John Cadice’s Marine construct. The gallery names the makers and archetypes, encouraging players to invent an appropriate identity around a rules profile without presenting construction stages or paint recipes.
Adrian Wood rebuilds his long-serving Warboss and retinue for a Bad Moons collection, drawing on clan culture without treating its motifs as rigid limits. Looted Imperial guns, masks, iron gobs and trophies express wealth and personal status. His earlier Flash Gitz palette supplies varied light-brown clothing and bright green skin, while extra metallic work and bone-coloured glyphs distinguish the leaders. The conversions show how a shared theme can unify different kits and ages of model.
Snot Green highlighted with Goblin Green establishes the skin, while several pale browns over Snakebite Leather vary the tunics. The Nobz receive more attention to details, Chestnut Ink on selected metal and Shining Gold highlights. A four-step glyph builds offset black and Bleached Bone circles, then restores a little skin colour inside to complete the crescent. Bone replaces yellow in key markings so they stand out from the clothing.
A compact guide compares the six major Ork clans through their habits, equipment and colours. Goffs favour direct fighting, Bad Moons display wealth, Evil Sunz chase speed and Deathskulls loot and use blue luck markings. Snakebites prefer traditional weapons and trophies, while Blood Axes imitate Imperial kit and camouflage. The explanation makes clans ideological associations that cross tribal boundaries, providing a basis for modelling choices.
Wood uses a metal Nob for Grishnak so the boss fits his retinue, then adds armour, banners and a heavy-bolter-based big shoota with choppa blades. Plastic Warhammer Orc champions become the other Nobz, with Imperial heavy weapons, masks and trophy components individualized for each. Their enlarged silhouettes and expensive-looking guns reinforce rank without requiring every figure to share exactly the same components.
Matt Parkes describes display-level human faces through ten skin stages, carefully positioned eyes and a range of hair colours. Thin paint and intermediate mixes create gradual transitions, while ink choices alter the expression and character. Teeth, tattoos, warpaint and scars add distinct personalities without overwhelming the underlying face. The examples repeatedly use the same head so the effect of each choice can be compared directly.
A brown-and-Dark Flesh foundation is progressively rebuilt with Dwarf Flesh, Elf Flesh and bone, leaving shadows under the eyes and around the mouth. Parkes places fine highlight lines where the face catches light, then uses very dilute flesh or coloured inks to enrich its character before restoring the sharpest highlights. Milk-like paint consistency and several thin coats make these many steps blend rather than form obvious bands.
A black eye position receives a smaller white almond, leaving a dark outline before the pupil is added. Parkes keeps the eyes level and uses pupil direction to change a figure’s personality. A pupil high in the socket with white visible beneath produces a more sinister expression, demonstrating how very small alterations can distinguish otherwise identical heads.
Seven colour recipes cover black, several browns, blonde, ginger and white hair, with a separate stubble method. Textured hair can take initial drybrushing, while flat sculpted areas need fine directional lines to suggest strands. Each recipe combines restrained highlights with a suitable ink wash and renewed edge colour. Stubble instead uses diluted paint in tiny marks because ink tends to collect too heavily in small recesses.
Ordinary troops can use a fine white line inside the mouth, but display work picks out individual teeth with the smallest brush. Parkes suggests leaving gaps for a battered fighter and gives larger teeth a Bubonic Brown foundation followed by increasingly narrow bone-white lines. The comparison shows how tooth shape and missing teeth affect the expression as much as the colour itself.
Parkes preserves a tattoo’s dark colour by highlighting the surrounding skin rather than the marking, and gives warpaint frayed edges to suggest rough application. Scars begin as small red-and-magenta marks around the cut, with black added for two fine wound lines. Leaving a damaged eye white strengthens the malevolent appearance. The examples show detail serving characterization rather than merely adding complexity.
Andy Stewart previews the expansion’s snowbound Lorn V campaign, where the Cadian 412th joins the playable armies and rival forces seek a crashed Emperor-class Titan. Order and Disorder paths offer twelve missions and four possible endings, with a sixth faction complicating the final struggle. New units, impressive finishing animations and a beachhead mission that changes available reinforcements demonstrate additions beyond a change of scenery; the article also explains that the original game is required.
Kevin J. Coleman presents an independent army for Gnoblars who have escaped or rebelled against Ogre masters. Cheap Fighters support leaders, Trappers, Flingers and stranger breeds, with borrowed Ogre Kingdoms monsters and restricted Greenskin mercenaries providing heavier options. Army-wide luck rerolls offset chronic bickering and fragile morale, while stolen treasures supply unreliable magical support. The list turns overwhelming numbers, opportunism and comical risk into a complete alternative force.
The Gnoblar army begins with a random pool of single-die rerolls, but most units may waste a turn bickering. Casualties and fleeing Gnoblars do not spread panic even among their own kind, making numerous expendable mobs practical. Sharp Stuff supplies short-range multiple thrown shots, while mercenary choices are limited to Greenskins and Common Goblin units whose animosity may turn on their smaller allies.
New Gnoblar breeds distinguish the horde from ordinary Ogre auxiliaries. Honchos can ride bad-tempered Rhinoxen, Manbiters hire themselves out, and Lucky Gits reroll dice with magical protection. Pigback Riders imitate cavalry while remaining stacked infantry, Blood-Gnoblars trap whole terrain features, and aquatic Boglars can become water-multiplying Toad-Gnoblars. Each rule grows out of a brief account of the creatures’ habits and ambitions.
Nine scavenged magical items offer protection, leadership and crude resistance to enemy spells. Some are straightforward charms, while Grubbi’s Dice Bag may kill its wearer instead of saving him and swallowing an Ogre Tooth risks choking. Multiple Thiefstones can accumulate resistance, and the Ogre-Head Standard suppresses bickering at the cost of provoking enemy Ogres. The items retain the horde’s theme of stolen power and luck that may suddenly turn.
The force organization uses Fighters as its foundation, limiting several other Core choices to the number of Fighter units present. A Head Honcho leads with optional Rhinox support, while two smaller Honchos can share one Hero slot. Detailed profiles and upgrades cover command groups, equipment and specialist breeds, with Scraplaunchers, Yhetees and a Slavegiant borrowed from Ogre Kingdoms. This is the practical roster section needed to turn the preceding special rules into a fieldable army.
Jim Archer examines the uneasy symbiosis between Ogres and the servants living on their scraps. Ear and nose size, personal protection and the prestige of a master shape a society of scavengers, bullies and dependent followers. Specialist groups imitate Leadbelchers, Ironguts, Butchers, Hunters and Maneaters, while trade and cruel sports occupy the shanty towns. The account repeatedly shows apparent advancement ending in paranoia, exploitation or an abrupt violent reversal.
Protection, scraps and endless replacements make Gnoblars useful to Ogres despite their incompetence. Within the smaller creatures’ society, large ears and noses imply authority and inspire elaborate frauds, while new camps prosper until the local food supply is exhausted. Shanty towns occupy whatever space their masters tolerate, expanding outward into vulnerable junk heaps. Supposed community cooperation usually serves the strongest inhabitants at the expense of the weak.
Most Gnoblars belong to an impoverished majority doing undesirable jobs around the camps. They hope to enter a prestigious servant group or become an Ogre’s pet, but even savings offer little security when hired guards may prefer theft. Hidden shiny trinkets and claims of poverty are therefore survival strategies. The portrait explains why apparent wealth and ambition can be liabilities in a society without dependable protection.
The larger independent Gnoblars boast of freedom and warrior prowess whenever Ogres are absent. Their gangs live through hunting, bullying and battlefield scavenging, looking down on servants while depending on their masters’ protection. Too many self-appointed leaders produce endless disputes, and courage disappears at the first setback. The accompanying tale of Gogruk’s appetite shows how easily an aspiring personal servant becomes another meal instead.
Leadbelchers’ servants light their masters’ cannons and commonly bear burns, deafness and explosion scars. Dangerous acceptance rituals develop into Bang, a game in which Gnoblars carry black-powder boxes and burning torches. Those who learn by causing someone else’s explosion may gain a master’s protection; the slower learners join the feast as ingredients. The story makes the profession’s practical role inseparable from its grim comedy.
The race begins as an Ogre amusement using weak or injured Gnoblars on an obstacle-strewn track. Spectators need a clear view, and the promise that only the winner avoids being eaten supplies the competitors’ motivation. Gnoblars eventually adopt the pastime so enthusiastically that they hunt down their own injured to fill its ranks, showing how their culture internalizes the cruelty of its masters.
Scrappers or Magpies turn other peoples’ discarded equipment into trade goods, dubious relics and occasionally working inventions. Rhinox caravans connect tribes, though the beasts may be the most valuable thing carried. Bik the Nail’s Scraplauncher exemplifies an effective idea emerging from borrowed wreckage. The section also explains the dangerous trapping and rough training that makes Rhinoxen usable by Gnoblars without ever making them genuinely safe.
Feast-day spectators throw shiny goods into an arena, where volunteers fight to carry prizes back to its edge. Betting, threats and chants transform an Ogre childhood game into an organized attraction shared with Gnoblars. Physical interference is officially poor conduct, partly because it disrupts other Ogres’ wagers, although food and extra Gnoblars are routinely thrown in. Its popularity reveals the same mixture of dependency and violence seen elsewhere in camp life.
Large or important-looking Gnoblars become enforcers in the shanty towns under Irongut protection. They are more assertive than most servants and initially less consumed by copying their masters. That independence is temporary: continued dependence gradually turns even the toughest into obsessive flatterers. The brief portrait places this seemingly powerful caste within the same vulnerable hierarchy as every other Gnoblar.
An Ogre’s distinctive bite permanently earmarks a favoured Gnoblar, granting the pet authority and protection. The resulting Lords bully others but become terrified of rivals, replacement pets and their master’s death. Fraudulent earmarks offer a precarious imitation of that status. Great-King-Lord Bezer’s brief empire under Greasus ends when his master collapses onto him, illustrating how even remarkable cunning cannot remove the physical vulnerability beneath his rank.
Most personal servants copy their Ogre’s dress and behaviour while asserting authority over smaller neighbours. Their arrogance diminishes near stronger Gnoblars and can become denial when a master dies. Sprug No-Wits’ attempts to watch his master constantly lead to several competing versions of his terrible end. The stories emphasize that zealous service and jealousy rarely create lasting security.
Serving a Butcher promises good food and access to Gut Magic, but demands an obedience most Gnoblars cannot sustain. Punishment, surveillance and treacherous relatives keep the attendants in constant fear, and a battle may turn them into ingredients for the master’s magic. The account explains why this apparently prestigious association is one of the least enviable positions in Gnoblar society.
Gnoblars imitate human knights by riding pigs with long pointed sticks, sometimes attempting a more formal contest across a cleared pit. The parody quickly collapses as mounts run wild, riders lose their poles and impatient competitors join too soon. Ogre spectators add thrown objects and abuse, making the event another disorderly spectacle whose ambitions greatly exceed its participants’ coordination.
Trappers leave camp for extended hunts after the small creatures Ogres ignore, developing real skill in traps even if they cannot reliably avoid their own. Captured companions receive no special mercy. They idolize Ogre Hunters and compete to accompany them after larger beasts, often failing to appreciate that their principal usefulness is as bait. An encounter with injured cave creatures and scattered Gnoblars therefore suggests a Hunter may be nearby.
Maneater servants consider themselves the elite and dress in mismatched equipment inspired by tales of distant lands. Few actually travel, but they retell borrowed adventures as personal achievements, often mangling details they do not understand. Smaller listeners tolerate the boasts in hope of scraps or beer. The portrait distinguishes the group’s cultivated mercenary image from its generally sheltered reality.
Mat Ward continues the Cairns campaign as Kemmler’s ritual drains life from Athel Loren and raises troops from its graves. Drycha wakes Durthu to organize the forest’s scattered resistance, while visions bring the Bretonnian Grail Knight Amalric to the same battlefield. A six-turn struggle must kill the Lichemaster before his reinforcements overwhelm the attackers, supported by complete campaign profiles for both unusual allies.
Kemmler begins beside the central barrow with Krell and two Skeleton regiments, while Forest Spirits and Amalric attack from one edge. Six cairns provide additional raising spells, but wounds to Kemmler reduce their output. The attackers win only by killing him within six turns; winter still makes Forest Spirits subject to Stupidity. Alternative forces retain the structure of a larger attacking force trying to stop supernatural reinforcement.
Amalric’s early triumph against Hardakh reveals a gift that unravels the magic animating undead. His subsequent quest ends at the Grail before the Lady directs him toward Kemmler. The fixed Hero profile combines the Grail Vow, a break-test reroll and a protective icon; adjacent undead also suffer automatic wounds that count in combat. Mark Bedford’s model uses Bretonnian plastics to represent this specialist opponent of the unliving.
Durthu’s ancient grudges and scars explain a formidable but distractible defender of Athel Loren. The profile adds tough armour, stubborn determination, repeated Tree Singing and powerful root attacks, while the enemy can nominate a hated unit that may draw him off course. Kleptomaniac spites weaken victims by stealing equipment, and Tree Whack trades his normal attacks for a single devastating blow. His history places his changing attitude to Elves against enduring hostility toward forest-destroyers.
Graham McNeill adapts Lustria’s jungle-fighting framework to the forests of the Old World, Ulthuan and Naggaroth. Regional background, maps and six event or encounter tables distinguish rain-soaked Imperial roads, enchanted Elven groves and hostile northern wilderness. Scenario hooks and two modelled encounter markers help translate the rules into narrative games, using a common system without making every forest feel the same.
The Forest of Shadows conceals twisted growth and forgotten enemies, while the Great Forest occupies much of the Empire’s heartland. Reikwald bandits threaten the Bretonnian road and Axe Bite Pass; Drakwald’s Beastmen leave terrible hag trees near important northern routes. Chalons’ rocky ravines and Arden’s marshy hunting grounds give Bretonnia its own dangerous woodland character. The account ties each landscape to travel, raiding and the difficulty of rooting out hidden foes.
Rain can hinder black-powder weapons, mist shortens shooting ranges and local knowledge changes deployment. Ambushes delay a unit’s arrival, while mutant lairs, Beastman traps and burial cairns threaten troops moving through the woods. Beasts of Chaos reroll selected hostile results, giving native dangers a factional context. A neutral encounter result can remove an existing hazard, letting players sometimes spend resources to make a route safer.
Avelorn’s travelling court, ancient glamours and legendary creatures make it appear an idyllic realm of near-immortal abundance. Athel Loren instead presents a watchful, disorienting forest bounded by waystones and filled with unseen movement. The comparison shows that Elven woodland can be beautiful and dangerous in different ways, providing distinct reasons for outsiders to fear entry rather than treating all enchanted forests as interchangeable.
Elven woodland tables manipulate magic, morale and movement. Winds may strengthen spellcasting or extinguish magical equipment, gales prevent flying, and a calming royal presence stops pursuit. Hidden archers, sprites, enchanted groves and wells of power create local effects, with High and Wood Elves rerolling selected dangers. These results make a magical forest influence the battle directly rather than serve only as difficult ground.
The Petrified Forest is a silent expanse of stone trees and ash whose origin is only vaguely associated with ancient godlike powers. Northern Naggaroth’s Black Forests contain living but equally forbidding timber, slave gangs, monoliths and forgotten ruins. The two descriptions connect desolation to Dark Elf industry and uncertain prehistory, suggesting different settings for a battle within the same harsh continent.
Blizzards impede movement and shooting, dust weakens units, and dread or desertion can undermine an army before fighting begins. Local encounters add cursed ground, poisonous spiketrees, slavers’ traps and a beast whose attacks particularly endanger armoured models. Dark Elves reroll selected results, reflecting familiarity without making the land harmless. The tables supply a bleak counterpart to the magical benefits sometimes found in Elven forests elsewhere.
McNeill suggests convoys, slave caravans and royal escorts as natural targets for forest ambushes. Sacred groves, chapels, idols and herdstones provide defended objectives, while a hunt for raiders or a dangerous beast can motivate an expedition. Existing Lustria scenarios can be rethemed around these hooks, allowing the same encounters framework to support stories rooted in the Old World or Elven lands.
Aly Morrison turns Hellcannon ammunition piles into a compact skull cairn, adds a real twig as a tree and uses extra bones to identify the site. A Beastman skull gives the offering a particularly suitable focus, while clump foliage completes the branches. The marker was built and painted quickly to represent the new forest encounter, but the text names no specific paints for its grey-green bark.
Dominic Murray shows an Empire adventurer fighting to escape hands emerging from the ground. Militia parts provide the victim, Zombie arms form the attackers and Skaven tails become additional tentacles. A balsa warning sign completes the joke that this traveller ignored a clear danger. The miniature turns an abstract encounter-table result into a small scene players can place beside the affected terrain.
Mat Ward creates a customization system that gives all knights in an army one suitable advantage and one disadvantage. Legendary examples depart from that balance where their reputation warrants it, while background and paint palettes explain seven established Orders. Reiksguard also gain a dismounted option, and shorter profiles suggest further themes. The feature explicitly requires opponent consent, presenting characterful variation rather than automatic changes to the Empire army book.
An Order can gain blessed attacks, zeal, nearby morale support, wealth, resolve, fearlessness or a signature weapon. Compensating flaws include quarrels, bad luck, reckless advances, isolation, pride, humility and poor formation discipline. Costs or refunds apply consistently to the army’s knights and characters. Ward asks players to choose traits that express a defined history, and excludes mixing a custom Order with the independently defined White Wolves.
Founded after the Arabyan crusades, the Knights Panther retain exotic furs and a southern enemy while pledging first loyalty to the Empire’s people. Their powerful northern presence fuels rivalry with the White Wolves. As a Legendary Order they receive Wealthy without a disadvantage. The accompanying recipe combines dark-blue details, pale yellow highlights and metallic armour, linking their appearance to the displayed banner and panther emblem.
The Order traces its devotion to Myrmidia to a fallen temple statue that destroyed the enemy leader during the battle for Margritta. Trade and pilgrim protection give it Wealthy, while suspicion of a foreign goddess imposes Pariahs. Black armour highlighted grey and finished with Ardcoat contrasts with bright yellow and layered gold. Its background makes religious difference a source of both purpose and social cost.
These knights defend the abandoned and uphold their own noble conception of justice, but spectacular bad luck overshadows their achievements. Stories include impossible ricochets, humiliation during a parade and a chapterhouse swallowed by the earth. Fearless paired with Jinxed translates that history into rules. Blue cloth, gold details and a green wreath provide a complete named palette for the example model.
Recruited from senior noble sons, the Reiksguard serves the reigning Emperor as household guard and battlefield core. Its Grand Master traditionally becomes Reiksmarshal, but the Order retains an explicitly apolitical loyalty to the office. Legendary status grants both Exemplars of Sigmar and Resolute without a disadvantage. A polished silver, red-and-white palette and a shield-armed foot option cover the Order’s two battlefield forms.
A Reiksguard-themed army can take the Order’s dismounted arm using the Greatsword profile and its existing restriction. Shields replace great weapons, and the unit loses ordinary Stubborn while retaining the Order’s advantages and disadvantages. The short adaptation lets classic foot models participate alongside their mounted brethren without constructing an entirely independent infantry entry.
The Black Bears of Averland channel boisterous energy into tournaments that test drinking as well as martial skill. Their official foundation story celebrates bear-wrestling, although rumours suggest a tavern supplied the name. Unquenchable Zeal expresses enthusiasm and Fractious captures its disruptive side. Brass-highlighted black armour and red cloth provide the compact paint scheme accompanying this deliberately unruly Order.
After defeat in Araby, Erich von Strommer restores his companions’ courage by returning with a man-eating lion’s head. The secular Order remembers the deed while serving the Empire with a commitment to equality and little accumulated wealth. Resolute and Humility express those principles in the customization system. Silver armour and layered bronze-to-gold decoration give its displayed model a restrained heroic appearance.
Magnus the Pious recruits loyal Knights Panther into a new temple guard after the Great War against Chaos. Their later move to Altdorf places them in uneasy competition with the Reiksguard, while constant drill makes discipline their defining quality. Resolute paired with Pride represents the Order’s character. Dark green-black armour, gold fittings and green and beige crests accompany the history in a fully named paint palette.
Five shorter profiles offer additional religious and political identities: sea-worshipping Sons of Mannan, fervent Knights of the Twin-Tailed Orb, opportunistic Black Rose, rigorously selected Sigmar’s Blood and the silent guardians of Morr. Their gods, training and changing allegiances provide starting points for collectors using the customization system. No separate rules or paint recipes are supplied for these brief examples.
Simon Cottral’s compact recipe turns a black undercoat into a ghostly green force with a Snot Green base. A green-and-Codex Grey overbrush is progressively lightened with more grey, then Fortress Grey supplies the final highlight. The limited sequence follows the sculpted texture and unifies the army rapidly, forming a substantive tutorial within the otherwise excluded Chester store profile.
Reader photographs showcase Niels Pedersen’s converted Pestilens, Benjamin Smith’s Kanak Skull Takers and Brendan Ellis’s plastic Dark Elf cavalry. Guy Haley corrects a recurring misunderstanding: his preferred brown foundation is Graveyard Earth rather than Scorched Brown. The replies also explain the converted Engine of the Gods and its remodelled Forge World beast, while the reader projects show how existing kits can fill neglected corners of an army’s background.
Owen Rees and Rik Turner join the print team as White Dwarf and the website combine, with Owen introducing his coming editorship and dual-use High Command models. Rik expands Blood Ravens and converts Eagles, Christian Byrne reaches a completed 2,500-point Chaos collection, and Nick Kyme balances his Necromunda novel with Dwarf units and new brown bases. The column presents personal projects alongside the practical consequences of the editorial reorganization.