WHITE DWARF · AUGUST 2018
Adeptus Titanicus and Kill Team arrive, Sacrosanct design, diorama construction and Cawdor painting.
COVER TO COVER
In printed page order
Adeptus Titanicus and the new Kill Team arrive alongside more Stormcast, Nighthaunt and Cawdor miniatures. The issue surveys modular urban scenery, faction starters and specialist games, with fiction and licensed releases placing these new projects in their broader Warhammer settings.
David Sanders explains a compact game of specialist operatives pursuing vital missions behind enemy lines. Alternating choices and the need to plan individual actions create a different tactical rhythm from army battles, allowing a handful of models to carry a complete story.
Andy Clark describes the name, history and personality tools that make operatives more than anonymous weapons. A converted Cadian team demonstrates their use, with individual backgrounds and habits giving future casualties and campaign achievements a personal meaning.
Selected stories introduce Clint Werner’s witch hunters, aerial adventurers and dark conflicts across several settings. The guide shows how recognisable character types can lead readers into different corners of Warhammer, providing practical starting points rather than a requirement to follow every related series.
Correspondence reaches the magazine from unusual places, including a reader working inside a volcano. Questions about rules, models and possible future articles sit beside personal projects, showing the variety of ways the hobby continues beyond a conventional gaming room.
White Dwarf 179 returns through memories of major releases, back-cover armies and occasional Rules of Engagement articles. Familiar silhouettes and long-lived magazine ideas connect this earlier era to current features, illustrating how both miniatures and hobby presentation have retained recognisable roots.
The introduction explains how compact warbands and tailored decks combine in Shadespire’s arena battles. Different allegiances offer contrasting approaches, while a small model count and clearly defined fighters make the game an accessible project for collectors seeking a new challenge.
PlayFusion’s team explains a card game built around four champions, rotating actions and powerful blessings. Physical cards can be scanned into a digital collection, with augmented-reality features and persistent card histories connecting the tabletop deck to an additional layer of play.
James Hewitt introduces Titan combat as a matter of managing a few extremely powerful machines. Shields, heat, damage and support crews all matter, making each engine feel like a fighting system whose survival depends on crew decisions rather than a single durable miniature.
James Hewitt teaches Dan Harden by gradually adding advanced rules to a small Titan battle. Reactor strain, damaged shields, weapon arcs and Knights attacking a vulnerable rear show how activation order and positioning can outweigh apparent size, with James’s small engines helping him win the demonstration.
Mark Harrison and fellow sculptors develop the Sacrosanct Chamber as noble warrior-mages with a shared visual language of robes, celestial instruments and lightning. Individual leaders, Dracolines and artillery extend that identity, with practical equipment and older wizard imagery making their magical roles readable in miniature.
Readers’ votes make Mortarion the Miniature of the Year for 2017 and earn him a place in the Hall of Fame. Maxime Pastourel’s design gathers the Death Guard’s masks, censers, decay and asymmetric mutations into a looming figure whose apparently welcoming pose conceals absolute despair.
Sam Pearson’s Nighthaunts attempt to recover souls from James Karch’s Idoneth in a sequel to May’s raid. The ghostly army claims an early lead, but loss of key heroes and the dangerous movement of its own endless spell allow the Deepkin to take the sites and win nineteen to twelve.
Studio and ’Eavy Metal painters explain markings as tools for identity and storytelling. Transfers, freehand, camouflage, tattoos and animal patterns each demand a different approach, with planning, reference images and restrained colour choices helping even elaborate designs remain readable on a miniature.
Real animals provide a believable starting point for fantasy skin and fur patterns. A mottled eel develops from darker spots that merge along its spine, while a separate check-pattern demonstration begins with a thin grid and removes the unused lines only after alternate squares have been filled.
Existing decals can become new heraldry when combined with painted details or other symbols. Their wear should match the material underneath, while guides and masking tape help maintain straight markings across armour panels without flooding paint beneath the mask.
Tattoos sit beneath the skin and require clean edges, while surface warpaint can smear or flake away. Colour and placement affect the implied character of a warrior, with contrasting blocked areas also offering a simple way to direct attention toward a face, symbol or weapon.
Masked colour blocks make vehicle camouflage manageable, while more complex freehand requires a planned drawing and progressive refinement. Shading the completed design with the surface beneath it helps a banner look woven rather than pasted on, and restraint keeps large decorations from overwhelming crucial insignia.
An Easy to Build Intercessor becomes a campaign-worn veteran through added Ultramarines details and extensive weathering. Oils and enamels establish desaturated armour and grime, with brighter Citadel-painted insignia supplying contrast and hand-sculpted details giving the sergeant a personal identity.
An Orruk Shaman becomes a Weirdboy through futuristic trophies and a few carefully chosen changes. Blue psychic light draws nearby elements toward his hand, while an improvised boot and repaired horns preserve the comic eccentricity of a character who hoards every useful scrap.
David Soper’s Slayer Sword winner develops bone-coloured plague armour through varied stains, corrosion and carefully related colours. Gouache rust streaks and subtle blue-green metal connect the weapon to the rest of the figure, creating a rich surface without losing its coherent pale scheme.
Four single-miniature entries accompany the competition’s featured winners: a Flesh Tearers Chaplain, Eldrad Ulthran, Khârn and a Black Templars Captain. Together they demonstrate the breadth of character subjects recognised beyond the trophy places.
A Seraphon-versus-undead display develops from rough scenic blocks to a finished narrative encounter. Establishing stairs, mausoleum and principal figures first makes the composition work before small details are added; separately painted models and a secondary lurking encounter then lead the viewer around the scene.
A street-level scene explores ordinary life in a Kharadron port rather than another battlefield. Foamboard and plasticard create the architecture, familiar ship components establish its technology, and overhead cables frame the view while suggesting a larger city continuing outside the display.
A towering magical scene balances above an extended staircase, demanding structural planning before paintwork begins. Internal support and a back-to-front change in height make the composition practical and readable, with vivid daemon flesh reinforcing the setting’s impossible, shifting character.
An earlier Golden Demon duel becomes the heart of a larger Firestone Peninsula scene. The surrounding volcanic landscape recalls the opening Age of Sigmar battles, with the new base arranged to preserve the original warriors as the clear centre of attention.
An oppressive Shyish street surrounds converted mortal citizens and a divine warrior. Grey architecture, skull-filled details and an oubliette establish the city’s mood, with a revised terrain palette ensuring that the figures belong to their surroundings instead of appearing disconnected from them.
Titan and Knight transfers communicate legion identity, individual service and battlefield honours. Kill markings, princeps laurels and star-chart armour show how tiny heraldic details can carry a large amount of background, helping the new scale retain the personalities of much larger war engines.
Mark Bedford’s yellow Titan uses hand-painted black flames and carefully selected transfers to identify the Tiger Eyes. A pale head contrasts with richer armour, while darker smaller panels prevent the bright primary colour from becoming overpowering across the whole machine.
A legion from Anuj Malhotra’s invented oceanic forge world wears dark blue armour that blends into lighter tones. Identification markings, marine-themed background and salt-tarnished metal explain the engine’s appearance, imagining Titans raised from the seabed by immense cranes before departing for war.
Three Knights introduce a house allied to the Tiger Eyes and the forge world of Incaladion. Reversed Mechanicum colours distinguish their heraldry, while the wider showcase demonstrates how shared snowy bases can keep allied Knights and Titans visually connected despite different armour schemes.
A custom knightly house draws on its association with Legio Astorum for symbols and colours. Grey introduces variety beside blue and yellow, and even swapped weapon arms and individual combinations remain united by the repeated eclipsed-sun imagery.
The designer of the plastic Warlord paints his own engine in the teal and white of Legio Krytos. Bright metal and heat-weathered cannon barrels complement those colours, with the Eye of Horus making an explicit declaration of allegiance to the Warmaster.
Deep blue armour, restrained yellow and warm gold establish the Warp Runners’ identity. A parchment-coloured head and distinctive transfer details add focus, while dark reactor metal and a grounded base keep the finished engine’s competing colours under control.
Tommy Hovind Kristiansen reimagines a travelling freak show as a wasteland band of mutants and broken people. Found components suggest the initial characters before sculpting joins them together, and rough washes and highlights build outward from faces to preserve a clear focal point on each figure.
Helge Dahl’s tech-barbarians favour crude melee weapons, salvaged machinery and layered dirt. A common base colour ties their world to the rest of the Tor Megiddo project, while an inverted Kharadron ship on Rhino tracks exemplifies the group’s inventive reuse of familiar kits.
Helge adds non-player creatures and a guardian for the Promethium Tower. A snail-shell mutant recalls the world’s vanished oceans, while a floating Tech-Priest hangs from guitar-string cables; reflected warm colours on a silver scythe provide a focused finishing effect.
Jay Clare introduces a further set of Battle Companies options prompted by the enthusiasm of the playing community. A company composed entirely of heroes and unusual troop combinations broaden the models available, while a convoy scenario provides another story for existing groups.
An ambush interrupts a company returning home with its captured wealth. Ponies carry cargo that the defenders must escort off the battlefield, while attackers gain rewards for seizing it, making movement and the possession of small objectives central to the encounter.
A company drawn from the ruined city combines Warriors of Minas Tirith, Rangers and Osgiliath Veterans. Its special relationships allow the veterans to recognise their company leader as a trusted captain, retaining the mixed force’s identity as it gains experience through a campaign.
The northern Rangers form an unusual company entirely of heroes. Limited numbers and special roster rules distinguish these descendants of Númenor from ordinary soldier bands, offering a campaign built around a few highly capable individuals protecting the wild north.
Orcs, Mordor Uruk-hai and a Giant Spider share a company rooted in the tower’s quarrelsome garrison. Rules reward the uneasy relationship between different fighters, while a spider advancement allows a creature swollen by years of feeding to become an even greater threat.
Mercenary warriors of Khand bring their own recruitment and advancement choices to Battle Companies. Their mobile martial tradition provides a different collection to develop, extending the supplement beyond familiar Gondorian and Orc forces while preserving the importance of each company’s origins.
The introductory pages define the stages and techniques used in the month’s recipes. Undercoats, brush shapes and methods from drybrushing to glazing give readers a practical vocabulary for following the Cawdor guide and deciding how far to take each model’s finish.
Borja Garcia explains a Cawdor ganger painted in drab clothing with brighter mask and cowl details. Applying all base colours before washes makes the job efficient, while varied grey highlights and a final warm tint on brown cloth distinguish worn materials that might otherwise look too similar.
Modular walls, columns and floor sections combine into ruins built for larger models and repeated gaming use. Construction advice covers stable floors and damaged walkways, while compatibility with Sector Mechanicus components allows industrial pieces to extend the architecture into more individual battlefields.
Cool grey ruins begin over a dark blue-green spray, while warmer buildings use a tan foundation and sepia wash. Successive drybrushes reveal the architecture, and stippled black and brown scorch marks break up intact stone with evidence of damage and fire.
Readers contribute Knights, Space Marine heroes, spectral figures and compact fantasy collections. The gallery’s varied subjects show the range of individual interpretations possible within familiar miniature ranges, with photography advice helping painters record their models clearly.
Ziqin Lv uses controlled blue gradients and non-metallic gold to make the Captain’s armour appear polished. A red-hot breach in the ship-deck base supplies a second light source, producing warm reflections on the feet and lower armour that tie the character into its imagined environment.
Studio projects range from a Space Wolves Land Raider to new Stormcast heroes and small-scale Titans. A lively discussion of loyalist and traitor legions accompanies the painting, while Kill Team provides a quick reason for newly finished figures to reach the gaming table.
Simon Grant’s Primaris Space Wolves meet Dan Harden’s Orks in a Take Prisoners mission. Specialised shooting and carefully grouped Reivers frustrate the Ork attack, but the decisive capture is a lone Gretchin, giving Simon victory by the narrowest and most fitting margin.
Matt Hutson begins a Legio Ignatum collection using separate assemblies to reach the engine’s complex machinery. Masked chevrons, repeated yellow and modified transfers establish the Fire Wasps’ identity, with planning of the next engines turning a first painted Titan into the start of a maniple.