WHITE DWARF · AUGUST 2017
A major Primaris expansion brings design interviews, implant background, a painting challenge and new-edition codex and stratagem explanations. An Age of Sigmar doubles battle accompanies Path to Glory, colour theory, Hallowguild tutorials and Deathworld terrain rules. Advertising, catalogue material and brief promotional inserts are excluded.
COVER TO COVER
In printed page order
The editorial celebrates the expansion of the Primaris range from starter models into a complete collection with specialists, heavy infantry and vehicles. It directs readers towards the design interviews, new codex coverage and painting challenge that explore what the reinforcements mean for both the setting and the hobby.
The month’s releases turn the Primaris into a broad force with Aggressors, new vehicles and multipart versions of familiar troops. Codex: Space Marines combines those additions with existing units, while Chapter tactics, relics, stratagems and supporting cards express the differences between Chapters.
The Redemptor encloses a mortally wounded hero inside a larger, heavily armed walking chassis. Opening sarcophagus armour, alternative main weapons and a wide range of articulated joints make the kit accessible as instructed or highly poseable after removing locator tabs.
Gravis-armoured Aggressors advance with close-range firepower rather than standing back as conventional heavy-weapon troops. Alternative flame or bolt gauntlets, ammunition feeds, reinforced servos and rebreather heads explain the unit’s identity through the construction of the three-model kit.
The new grav transport retains the blunt, layered construction of Imperial vehicles while replacing tracks with crushing anti-gravity plates. A detailed component tour covers alternative guns, modular stowage, crew positions, access hatches and an adjustable flying stand.
Ten multipart Intercessors offer standard, automatic or stalker bolt rifles, auxiliary grenade launchers and abundant personal equipment. The preview identifies how magazines, sights and accessories distinguish each weapon and broaden the poses available beyond the starter set.
The ten-model Hellblaster kit adds heavy and assault plasma incinerators to the standard weapon seen in Dark Imperium. Cabling, backpack reactors and targeting equipment make those differences visible, with numerous heads and sergeant options supporting individualisation.
Three descending Inceptors carry assault bolters or paired plasma exterminators. Reinforced legs, shock absorbers, adjustable grav-vanes and alternative blast visors make the figures read as warriors surviving an orbital descent rather than ordinary jump troops.
The multipart Reiver squad expands the shock troops with bolt carbines, grapnel launchers and grav-chutes alongside pistols and blades. Alternative enclosed helmets and half-masks provide different expressions of the unit’s intimidating infiltration role.
Skull imagery, tomes and reliquaries identify the Primaris spiritual leader as a Chaplain while his cassock and raised crozius suggest a determined advance. The preview links individual sculpted details to the preservation of Chapter traditions and reminders of mortality.
A deliberately partisan chronology follows the Traitor Legions through the Great Crusade, Horus’s revolt and their flight into the Eye of Terror. Abaddon’s Black Crusades culminate in Cadia’s fall and the renewed activity of the Daemon Primarchs.
The Apothecary is captured inspecting a recovered progenoid above a dead battle-brother. Surgical tools, collection jars and the reductor pistol convey his responsibility for future recruits, with a helmeted alternative retaining the medical order’s helix symbol.
A Chapter upgrade frame supplies decorated shoulder pads for both Tacticus and Gravis armour, heads, a sword, scabbard and small equipment. The illustrated sergeant combines several pieces to demonstrate how the generic Primaris kits can acquire a recognisable Ultramarines identity.
New Grey Knights and Chaos Space Marines codexes update two very different descendants of the original Legions. Background, organisation, datasheets and unique stratagems receive attention alongside the separate release of Grand Master Voldus and reference decks for psychic powers and objectives.
A collected Path to Glory book brings together warband lists, battleplans and campaign progression across the Mortal Realms. New Fyreslayer, Beastclaw Raider and Slaanesh starter boxes offer ready beginnings, with the preview presenting the system as a natural expansion from an established Skirmish warband.
Trish Carden and Gavin Newton’s new Gwaihir descends on a Warg and its frightened Orc rider. The scenic base establishes a specific moment in the rescue of Thorin’s company, distinguishing the Wind Lord from an ordinary Great Eagle.
The mutilated Gundabad Troll is directed by an Orc riding above its blinded head, with crude flails and iron replacements turning it into a living siege weapon. Keith Robertson’s kit also includes Bofur, whose control of the beast can be represented in the appropriate film-based scenario.
Aaron Dembski-Bowden’s sequel follows Iskandar Khayon as Abaddon tries to unite the broken Traitor Legions. Thagus Daravek’s growing power, the competing personalities of the Ezekarion and Moriana’s demand that Abaddon find Drach’nyen make the struggle as much internal as military.
Ian St. Martin places the famously arrogant swordsman in a situation his blade cannot immediately solve. Depleted forces and rival Emperor’s Children draw Lucius into a larger scheme before violence reaches the inhabitants of Commorragh.
John French’s collected Tallarn stories unite Ironclad, Executioner, Witness and Siren with an afterword. The preview highlights the vast armoured war on a devastated world whose apparent insignificance conceals its importance.
The audio drama follows former soldier Ianthe, now serving Inquisitor Covenant, into a confrontation with a Chaos cult. Its connection to The Horusian Wars allows the retinue’s agents to face their own problems away from their patron’s immediate guidance.
The author explains how a powerful psyker’s perceptions offer a distinctive narrative voice and discusses Khayon’s unfamiliar new companion. His Abaddon draws on older background and conversations with designers, remaining determined to resist the gods; Moriana’s opposed role to Khayon promises conflict within the inner circle.
The reworked Forge World gunship combines familiar Space Marine geometry with a cockpit related to the Stormbird and detailed internal access. Opening ramps, wings, brakes and sponsons add movement, while the modelling advice recommends painting the clear canopy separately and attaching it with PVA to preserve transparency.
Jim and Bob introduce the expanded computer game through its twenty-four teams, new solo career and multiplayer options. Returning stars, Amazons, Vampires, a Khemri stadium and the bear-accompanied Kislev Circus broaden both team selection and presentation.
The PlayStation release bundles a large character selection with expansions and supports solo or shared adventures. The column also previews a Dragon expansion that replaces the board’s centre with an ascent through a Dragon Tower, while recalling returning classic characters.
The expansion makes Orks playable in a campaign led by Big Redd da Warphead rather than restricting campaign command to the Space Wolves. Four new missions and additional units broaden the turn-based conflict on both sides.
A long reader letter challenges the balance between exclusive hobby material and product promotion, prompting a detailed explanation of the magazine’s intended variety. Other correspondence requests more faction diversity, Necromunda gangs and continued attention to Slaanesh, while discussing why feature order changes between issues.
Grombrindal confirms that Sigmar chooses mortal heroes regardless of sex. Angharad Brightshield, once a renowned smith and now associated with Shadespire, supplies a specific example within the setting.
The first three codexes of the new edition preserve background, heraldry, art and painted showcases while presenting units through more self-contained datasheets. Their layouts adapt to each faction rather than forcing Chapters, brotherhoods and warbands into identical organisational patterns. The central change replaces numerous bespoke formations with rulebook detachments and faction-specific stratagems. Battle-forged armies unlock characteristic abilities and tactical options, allowing familiar collections to gain individual identity through decisions made during play.
The guide explains how command points enable tactical interventions before and during a battle, balancing spectacular combinations against the need for a decisive re-roll later. Raven Guard infiltration with supporting officers, repeatedly fighting Khorne Berzerkers and an extra psychic power for Voldus show how stratagems combine with unit abilities and faction traits.
The creation of a Space Marine is explained through gene-seed, surgical implantation and the nineteen traditional organs, from the secondary heart to the black carapace. Their interdependence, conditioning and gradual deterioration between Chapters make recruitment both a biological process and an increasingly ritualised inheritance. The Primaris additions are placed within the implantation schedule: sinew coils enhance strength, the Magnificat stimulates growth and the Belisarian Furnace provides emergency regeneration. The concluding account of progenoid recovery explains why a Chapter’s future depends on preserving its unique stock of gene-seed.
Ben Jefferson and the Citadel designers describe Primaris Marines as a development of established Space Marine visual language, using familiar armour shapes and equipment to preserve recognition. The clean new suits leave room for practical wargear, while different stances and armour constructions communicate the roles of Intercessors, Aggressors, Inceptors and Reivers. Specialists retain the symbols of their professions, with the Apothecary’s recovered progenoid and the Chaplain’s moving cassock telling particular stories. Tom Walton explains the blunt grav mechanics and internal capacity of the Repulsor and the Redemptor’s modular joints and protected sarcophagus, connecting plausible function with modelling freedom.
The foldout recounts Guilliman’s response to the Great Rift and the darkness of the Noctis Aeterna. A vast coalition of Imperial forces restores contact with isolated worlds, while Cawl’s newly awakened Primaris replenish shattered Chapters and provide the crusade’s most important reinforcements.
Pete Foley argues from personal experience that tournaments offer friendship, varied opponents, painting inspiration and useful deadlines as well as competition. His AdeptiCon visit illustrates the pleasure of team events and meeting familiar online hobbyists in person, even without taking home trophies.
Pete Foley and Jes Bickham’s Tzeentch forces fight Ben Johnson’s Stormcasts and Robin Cruddace’s Sylvaneth using Blood and Glory with multiplayer rules. Order’s early assassination of the Shaman removes Destiny Dice manipulation, but the loss of Durthu and repeated failed charges leave its elite units vulnerable to devastating magic. Horror splitting and mobile Discs turn casualties into opportunities to seize objectives. Despite an Order recovery in the third round, the Lords of Change dismantle the remaining resistance and Tzeentch claims all four objectives in the fifth, securing a major victory.
A history of the Heresy leads into the nine Traitor Legions and the different ways exile has changed them. Some retain recognisable organisation, others fragment into pirates or cults, and all depend on a corrupted mixture of ancient military equipment, mutation and the Warp. The guide considers rare Apothecaries, renegade psykers, Dark Mechanicum support, possession and fleshmetal before returning to the Long War. Abaddon’s crusades and the Great Rift give these ancient enemies fresh routes into the Imperium, while each Legion’s methods and motives preserve its own identity.
Six ’Eavy Metal painters convert and paint an Intercessor for a Chapter of their choice, with common plinth sizes and a deadline providing a shared framework. Jes Goodwin and Darren Latham judge how the modelling, colour and finish express each Chapter, ultimately awarding the challenge to Max Faleij’s Iron Hands figure.
Aidan Daly uses related blue-greys across armour highlights and arms, red accents and a warm desert base to balance a limited palette. Carefully irregular scuffing makes a newly deployed Primaris veteran feel used without turning every mark into identical fresh damage.
Simon Adams adds sculpted robes and Dark Angels components to a silver-armoured Intercessor. Gloss mixed into washes preserves a polished metallic finish, while different highlights distinguish leather from hard black surfaces; the judges praise the conversion but question the similar value of figure and base.
Chris Innes gives his sergeant targeting equipment and a patrolling pose, then paints a muted industrial yellow rather than a bright heraldic finish. Subtle brown shading and shape-sensitive highlights preserve the yellow, with black crenellations adding character to the greave.
Dave Perryman combines a compatible head, chainsword, pelt and small gems to make the Intercessor unmistakably a Space Wolf without overwhelming the original sculpt. Warm skin, worn leather and restrained armour chips provide varied textures, with the judges especially admiring the natural integration of the components.
Tom Winstone paints a darker red than the familiar Blood Angels scheme, using cool shadows and simple line highlights to retain its richness. A hollowed spare helmet and changed arms give the veteran a relaxed pose, while scarred skin and Chapter transfers establish his identity.
Max Faleij combines bionics, an Apothecary backpack and a modified servo-skull while keeping the model recognisably a line warrior. Subtle reflected warmth beneath cool overhead light animates the black armour, and small screens and personal heraldry introduce colour; the judges reward its composition, detail and virtuoso finish.
Artists explain how landscape, architecture and colour make the realms distinct places rather than interchangeable battlefields. The Allpoints requires recognisable but realm-specific gates, Ghyran combines abundance with corruption, and volcanic Aqshy, monumental Shyish and barren Ghur express different forms of harshness. Ulgu and Hysh mirror each other through obscuring darkness and dazzling light, while Chamon’s floating city is deliberately weathered and toxic rather than gleaming. Azyr’s blue-white pilgrimage and progressive monumental architecture close the survey with civilisation and celestial magic.
November 1997 marks Paul Sawyer’s arrival as editor and revisits Gorkamorka campaigns, Bretonnian jousting and Dave Andrews’s diorama. Other memories include Big Toof River’s scratch-built spectacle, the Falcon’s lengthy development and Andy Chambers’s discussion of different campaign structures.
The fifth month brings heavier weapons and preparations for a final narrative confrontation. The collectors now have forty-one units and 147 models between them, and their plans extend to scenery and a large Sector Imperialis battlefield as well as one last centrepiece challenge.
Chris tests his scheme on a smaller Wraithlord before spending about twenty hours on a Wraithknight, choosing twin guns for symmetry rather than their rules. Spare tassels, tiny runes, sequential diamond transfers and a metallic violet spirit seal provide individuality against the familiar turquoise armour.
James Ashbey adds another Leman Russ, drawn to the compact siege gun and the new edition’s treatment of vehicles. The existing grey recipe and red-and-white markings keep the tank within his regiment, while multiple sponson options let him explore its firepower in future games.
Maxime Corbeil follows the expanded Black Templars heraldry by making his fire-support Marines almost entirely black. Yellow plasma weapons add warmth and make the squad distinct, while small bone trophies strengthen its deliberately sinister appearance.
A Vindicator supplies the siege weapon Dan considers essential to an Iron Warriors army. Masking tape produces the dozer blade’s hazard stripes, and head and arm swaps turn Cultists into individual expendable followers, with a warning to reduce tape adhesion before using it over painted surfaces.
The warlords agree on a three-sided narrative finale and prepare a substantial battlefield for it. Dan damages and paints another Manufactorum using the board’s grey palette, Chris adds Harlequins and artillery, and Maxime hints at a gold-painted final addition.
Path to Glory grows a champion’s followers through battles, recruits and rewards, with stronger leaders receiving fewer starting units. The overview explains both campaign victory routes and the tension between spending Glory for powerful reinforcements and saving enough to win. Grand Alliance recruitment permits unusual combinations, while a sample Free Peoples patrol develops into a mixed army of humans, aelves and duardin. Champion and unit rewards, random selection and linked battleplans give the evolving collection its own history rather than merely increasing its size.
Dan Hyams and Owen plan a joint display recreating Smaug’s attack. Lake-town houses and a carefully built battlefield will provide the setting, while Smaug, Bard’s Windlance and the militia turn a film scene into a painted miniature narrative.
Mel’s first scenery project accompanies her existing Seraphon with a Realmgate. Glowing rocks and leaves will imply magical energy spreading through the ground and roots, making the setting an active extension of the army.
Sophie looks to Karl Kopinski’s art for a display expressing religious fanaticism and the disturbing character of Inquisitorial followers. Her interest in converting makes the proposed force a way to interpret the picture’s atmosphere in individual miniatures.
Dan revisits a T’au palette developed since painting his Stormsurge, replacing earlier stark purple and blue with a more considered scheme. Existing large battlesuits and a newly painted Crisis suit form the beginning of an army, although the display board remains undecided.
James returns to an established Chapter collection by adding Primaris reinforcements. Sector Mechanicus scenery is planned for the display, with the remaining challenge being how to connect its industrial surfaces to the army’s wasteland bases.
Stuart uses the event as motivation to move from sporadic individual models to a whole Tzeentch army. Measuring what will fit on the board defines its size, and assembling everything over one weekend creates a clear painting task and deadline.
Max Faleij, Aidan Daly, Steve Bowerman and Tom Moore explain how colour relationships, value, temperature and saturation guide miniature painting. An annotated Citadel colour wheel leads to complementary, analogous, triadic and monochromatic schemes, stressing that balance depends on dominance and intensity as well as the colours’ positions. Metallic washes, warm and cold whites and neutral colours demonstrate how these choices support a model’s story. House Terryn’s revised palette supplies a practical case study, and finished models show the same principles operating beneath very different painting styles.
Chris Peach explains how planning, enthusiasm and efficient methods produce an extensively converted mixed Order army. A trading city connected to other realms justifies varied equipment, while exchanging heads between kits preserves identifiable unit silhouettes and gives the force a common character. Building the initial army before painting establishes its scale and keeps the project visible. Test models determine the quickest order of operations, sprays and washes save time, and shared lightning motifs connect later fiery additions with the original celestial colours.
A white undercoat makes blue glazes and pale drybrushing an efficient route to Hallowguild cloth. Gold is painted and highlighted before flesh washes to avoid metallic specks contaminating the skin, leaving time for the lightning patterns that personalise the hoods.
Chris distinguishes dark lacquered armour from red cloth over the same red spray foundation. A whole-model shade unifies the initial colours, a second gloss wash restores shine to armour and gold, and selective warm highlights and grey leather finish the Realm of Fire contingent.
Jason Lee combines Voldus and a Dreadknight with limited additional parts, planning the pose with temporary putty before cutting. Turned hips, coordinated arms and an extended sword make every element point in a coherent direction, while thinning the pilot’s torso allows it to fit the harness. The guide also covers choosing cutting tools, smoothing cured putty and building cork-and-texture lava scenery.
Jason gives the converted Dreadknight bright airbrushed silver with selectively shaded recesses. Cool white and warm red panels receive layered highlights, then sponged brown chips and blackened exhausts make the imposing commander look battle-worn.
Natalie Slinn builds luminous silver armour over a metallic spray, reserving blue shade for recesses and using watered Soulstone Blue for a glossy psychic sheen. Gold lettering and red details complete the colour balance, with separate sequences for lenses, a glazed reflective sword, heraldic shield, black casings and darker functional gunmetal.
Flexible vines and bracken can be trimmed, bent and attached around models or scenery, with superglue required because their plastic differs from ordinary kits. Gentle heat sets a curved shape, and the team tests how painted leaves withstand bending; gallery examples combine the plants and skulls with bases and an abandoned throne.
Rules make hostile vegetation both cover and a danger to nearby combatants. Shardwrack and Venomgorse punish rapid movement, Eldritch Ruins strengthen psychic activity, and Grappleweed moves towards living targets before lashing them with venomous barbs.
The crystalline wall offers nearby units cover and interferes with melee attacks around its jagged growths. Models beginning or ending a run or charge close to the spine risk inflicting mortal wounds on their unit, making positioning and movement speed important choices.
Sentient thorn growth provides cover but entangles nearby melee fighters. Its shorter-range predatory attack is more likely to wound models running or charging past it than the Shardwrack hazard, giving the two scenery pieces distinct effects despite their shared defensive rules.
Reader submissions range from spectral undead and Chaos creatures to Dreadnoughts, Knights and Blood Bowl players. The accompanying photography guidance focuses on a white background, sufficient lighting, a useful front-facing angle and careful focus so the finished painting remains visible.
Juan Cardona paints a richly coloured Lord-Aquilor despite limited supplies while serving abroad. Red, gold and blue form a controlled triad against black armour and feathers, and stippled skin mottling gives the Gryph-charger additional texture.
The staff’s current projects include Blood Bowl matches, a Dark Angels versus Thousand Sons game and several Armies on Parade preparations. Ogroid and Doomseeker works in progress share space with a finished Admiral, tanks and skyships, illustrating the team’s competing hobby interests.
Michael’s mercenary sky-port commander was once a Grundstok Thunderer, an idea reinforced with a head swap. Dark brown armour, recess shading and progressively lighter brown highlights give the converted Admiral a practical identity within Barak-Khrum.
Martyn completes his first Predator with layered green armour and weathering experiments. Dirt uses the same pale earth colours as the infantry bases, while dark chips and exposed steel suggest worn panels and tie the vehicle into his Dark Angels collection.
James Littler turns the new skull selection into a painted montage for its packaging. The variety of human, alien and monstrous crania demonstrates how the same accessory set can supply characterful details across different collections.
Teleporting Scarab Occult and Deathwing exchange attacks in Matt and Martyn’s game before Ahriman destroys the Predator and secures victory. Encouraged by the performance of psychic characters, Matt paints a highly mutated Exalted Sorcerer on a reversible Disc and enjoys its many arms and conjured ammunition.
Matt K and Dan welcome stratagems as a way to express faction character through immediate decisions rather than remembered formation rules. Chapter and Legion traits, reference cards, consolidated weapon profiles, conversion ideas and returning units all contribute to their enthusiasm for the new books.
Jonathan paints the Ironclad in many subassemblies so crew, machinery and endrins remain accessible. Violet-shaded bronze contrasts with a dark red hull made by mixing Sanguinius tint into black, then bringing its edges back with red highlights.