WHITE DWARF · SEPTEMBER 2018
Rogue Trader design, Dave Andrews interview, Middle-earth’s new edition, Pelennor Fields and the Wrath of Fenris.
COVER TO COVER
In printed page order
A new Middle-earth edition arrives with Pelennor Fields, while Rogue Trader takes Kill Team into ships and enclosed chambers. Space Wolves, Canis Rex, Nurgle footballers and smaller-scale Reavers broaden the month’s releases, with supporting scenery, licensed games and fiction offering several possible new projects.
A struggling Nurgling and a repulsive pus-filled ball introduce different hazards to a drive. One bounces away and may escape its carrier, while the other can make an opponent refuse a pick-up; both are optional once-per-match choices that risk the kicking player being sent off.
The guide introduces the long-running adventures of Commissar Ciaphas Cain through novels and related fiction. His mixture of self-preservation, reputation and dangerous service offers a distinctive way into the Imperial Guard’s world, with suggested reading helping newcomers approach an established series.
Reader letters discuss painted models, old grudges and plans for future collecting. The replies connect practical colour choices with broader questions about Warhammer’s settings and the new Middle-earth journey, preserving the personal side of a month dominated by large new releases.
The retrospective returns to the beginning of The Lord of the Rings gaming journey and its arrival in White Dwarf. Memories of the 2001 hobby also include the T’au and the Dark Shadows campaign, placing a landmark licensed game alongside the other major changes of its original year.
Sky-fleets combine ambitious duardin, specialist crews and heavily armed vessels under the Kharadron Code. Starting suggestions explain how infantry and ships support one another, with leaders such as Brokk Grungsson offering a natural focus for a collection built around aerial enterprise.
Robin Cruddace and Ben Jefferson explain Rogue Trader’s enclosed battlefields, powerful characters and two distinctive factions. Elucia Vhane’s corporate elegance contrasts with the Gellerpox’s embodied nightmares, while door control and restricted lines of sight change how players move through the expansion’s ships and facilities.
Dave Andrews traces his scenery interests from model railways and improvised constructions to modular plastic battlefields. Practical buildings that hold full squads, architectural continuity and room for hobbyists’ own imagination explain his approach, while fast painting and narrative games reveal why usable terrain matters as much as impressive display work.
Adam Troke explains a new rules manual bringing The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit together. Heroic tiers, army bonuses and historical alliances encourage recognisable forces, while revised monsters, magic and individual heroes aim to preserve cinematic stories without allowing a few dominant pieces to dictate every game.
Jes Goodwin discusses silhouette, detail, pacing and narrative as interdependent parts of miniature design. His Cairn Wraith nomination demonstrates how negative space can imply a body that does not exist, with tattered robes and a simple rising shape creating both motion and an unmistakably malicious presence.
Adam Troke’s Rohirrim and returning heroes face Jay Clare’s Mordor army and three Mûmakil. The players favour cinematic actions over cautious tactics, with devastating trampling attacks and Théoden’s death leading to a final duel in which Aragorn secures Good’s narrow five-to-four victory.
The scenario recreates the great battle through timed arrivals and victory points attached to named characters. Rohan’s opening charge, the Witch-king and the arrival of Aragorn’s undead allies create a staged contest that encourages players to follow the film’s dramatic decisions.
Simon Grant’s Space Wolves seek revenge against Matt Hutson’s Thousand Sons in Cleanse and Capture. Magnus kills Logan Grimnar and early psychic pressure threatens the loyalists, but selective destruction and a late wave of fresh Grey Hunters let the Wolves recover to win fourteen points to eight.
A chronological journey follows Sigmar’s first lightning-borne assault through the struggle for Ghal Maraz and the wars for the All-Gates. Victories depend on costly alliances, godbeasts and heroic sacrifices, while Nagash’s distrust and the Stormcasts’ imperfect immortality leave threats unresolved after the initial campaigns.
Adie Bay converts a Salamanders Ironclad with a banner, fiery halo and fine heraldic additions. Heavy wear creates the impression of a veteran engine, while contrasting talons and carefully controlled brighter details prevent the rich texture from hiding the Dreadnought’s focal points.
Lee Bates’s first competition entry combines red lacquered armour and bright metal with unusually deep shoulder details. Watch cogs sit beneath blue-painted energy effects and clear resin, while freehand heraldry and a scenic base give the Knight a strongly individual house identity.
Richard France gives a Predator a balance of crisp insignia and accumulated wear. Carefully built thin rust layers and high-contrast details make the light armour readable, illustrating how a vehicle can feel battle-worn while retaining the visual clarity needed for competition display.
A compact team gives each specialist room for a distinctive conversion. Background generators and recognisable equipment guide a disguised Genestealer leader and explosive-laden fighters, while communications gear, binoculars and other useful components make battlefield roles visible without needing a label.
Subtle wolf iconography, replacement chest details and veteran trophies turn Reivers into a clearly Fenrisian team. The page also gathers useful components for demolition, heavy and medical specialists, showing how small, readable additions can communicate an operative’s function.
A diverse Deathwatch team draws on numerous Space Marine kits to preserve the origins of its members. Chapter-specific heads, books and shoulder pads distinguish the operatives, while shared equipment and repeated construction choices keep the collection recognisable as a unified force.
Bare heads and converted chainswords give every warrior a visible personality and a fittingly brutal appearance. Scabbards, veteran marks and specialist equipment offer further ways to communicate experience and combat preferences without losing the Chapter’s common identity.
Fast-moving Sicarian operatives provide a collection suited to cramped urban fighting. A heavy all-over wash gives models and bases an oily industrial finish, leaving the transonic blades as clear focal points against the deliberately dirty bodies and flooring.
An Edification Team takes shape from the Core Manual’s background generators. Flash-style urban camouflage breaks up its armour, while a comms-equipped leader and a markerlight added to a Stealth Suit make the team’s individual roles visible within the shared narrative.
A Carmine Dragon defending hidden eggs becomes the focal point of a confrontation with charging Vanguard-Palladors. Bright gold and blue separate the hunters from the woodland, while earthier Gryph-hounds reinforce their role as tracking beasts within the story.
A Gargant ambushes an Arkanaut Frigate during a treasure hunt, capturing the instant before a larger fight. Converted crew aim pistols and skyhooks toward the threat, while red and green washes give the attacker’s flesh a raw unhealthy character.
A band of heroes fights through an undead graveyard in a scene inspired by Warhammer Quest. Smaller encounters continue inside the crypt, and controlled magical light distinguishes the colourful adventurers from their darker enemies while connecting them to the surrounding scenery.
The forces of Arkhan and a Gaunt Summoner confront one another like rival pieces in an elaborate game. Converted characters and bright colours turn a Silver Tower-inspired idea into an experiment in a more vivid style than the painter’s usual dark collections.
A bright garden celebrates the energetic and grotesquely cheerful side of Nurgle. Dancing daemons, a hungry monster and a Plague Mother make the display lively, with hanging corpses supplying the darker implication behind an otherwise exuberant scene.
A Maw-krusha and Morathi appear to dominate the confrontation while a Fungoid Cave-Shaman pursues a quieter theft. A round base supports several viewpoints, and carefully aligned faces and weapons make the obvious duel convincing enough to conceal the secondary story.
Nicolas Grillet builds neglected servitors from Flagellants, industrial tools and machinery drawn from several ranges. Worn robes and damaged bodies preserve their connection to the Machine Cult, while a deliberate lack of care in their imagined upkeep gives the collection an unsettling shared identity.
Limited space leads Nicolas to turn a transport box into scenery for his servitors. Inspired by John Blanche’s wooden cases and Wayne England’s imagery, the compact dark display becomes both a practical home and a backdrop, with a fast dirty painting approach connecting models and enclosure.
The guide defines the techniques and stage labels used in the month’s recipes. Brush choices, undercoats and explanations of washes, layers and glazes provide a practical reference before readers begin the very different textures of a diseased footballer and an elaborately equipped king.
An inside-out approach begins with flesh and works outward through clothing to armour. Diseased skin, orange shorts and green plates build a varied but coherent Bloater, while the belly wound is finished last so its colours can become a deliberate focal point against the completed scheme.
Borja Garcia’s recipe covers the king’s face, hair, horse, patterned leather and elaborate gold and scale armour. Controlled recess shading avoids muddying the small details, while a separate textured base with tufts places mounted and foot versions within the churned ground of the Pelennor.
Readers share painted infantry, heroes, monsters and converted characters across several game worlds. The gallery places familiar gaming units beside more ambitious individual pieces, with advice on lighting and camera position encouraging clear presentation of the finished painting.
Thilo Engels strengthens the illusion of a floating Mortis Engine by removing some of its physical support. Bright spectral colours contrast with gloomy architecture, while green balefire and the carefully arranged scenic base frame the Necromancer as the model’s principal character.
Paul Gayner’s Marienburg Heroes combine a human team with retained classic Star Players and a complete support staff. The collection treats coaches and apothecaries as part of the team’s identity, preserving older sculpts alongside the playing roster rather than limiting the project to eleven figures.
The studio pursues Space Wolves reinforcements, Tzeentch projects and new Kill Team possibilities. Favourite Rogue Trader details and reflections on Middle-earth sit beside the painted work, showing how new releases generate both immediate projects and renewed interest in longstanding collections.
Staff members recall their first Middle-earth miniatures, favourite characters and memorable shared projects. Early Rangers, long-awaited Glorfindel collections and a doubles force based on Dale and Erebor show how affection for the books and films can sustain an army through years of hobby activity.
Michael’s yellow Armiger uses vivid glazes over a warm foundation and a carefully shaded metallic skeleton. Repeated coloured hexagons give its armour a distinctive pattern, with a simple construction method turning an ambitious-looking geometric design into a manageable sequence.