WHITE DWARF · AUGUST 2019
Sempiternals lore, Hysh hobby guides, Apocalypse warfare, Golden Demon witches and lighting masterclasses.
COVER TO COVER
In printed page order
Lyle introduces Apocalypse as a separate system for bringing huge collections into an afternoon’s game. He imagines linking its battles with ordinary Warhammer 40,000 and Kill Team missions, letting different scales of action contribute to the story of a wider planetary war.
Readers praise the magazine’s renewed features and discuss practical and personal benefits of the hobby. Simon Adams explains glossy Khorne flesh, while Giuseppe Chiafele’s converted ghostly Blood Bowl team pairs inventive ball-carrying figures with blended spectral blue robes.
Phil supplies ways to explain unlikely matchups and civil wars without breaking the setting’s atmosphere. Geography, travel, misunderstandings and competing loyalties can all provide motives, and discussing those ideas with an opponent turns an ordinary game into a shared story with consequences worth remembering.
Jervis recommends rereading the exact text, then tracing its dependencies back through the wider rules before looking for a contradiction. Worked questions about Fanatics, Aetherwings and objective control demonstrate the method, while commentaries and a temporary dice roll remain tools for genuinely unresolved cases.
The Anvils of the Heldenhammer bring ancient souls and funerary traditions into Sigmar’s armies, while their Sacrosanct warriors wield storm magic against undeath. The defence and fall of Lethis’s Midnight Tomb defines the Sempiternals’ present burden, turning a failed sacred duty into a determination to recover what escaped.
The Lord-Arcanum’s mortal life as a tomb-warden ends only after he rebels against cruel authorities, preparing a soul suited to Sigmar’s solemn work. His reforged leadership cannot save Lethis, and the loss of the great prisoner leaves him pursuing atonement with a severity shaped by both former and present failures.
The chamber’s leaders apply different forms of magical discipline to war, scholarship and the protection of souls. Short histories and an organisation chart connect personal deeds to the hierarchy, showing the breadth of expertise gathered under Ghalmorian rather than treating the chamber as one undifferentiated host of wizards.
The Anvils’ campaign record links the battle of Glymmsforge to the treachery and overwhelming assault at Lethis. Later crusades aim to reclaim lost ground and confront rival warlords, leaving the Sempiternals active in a realm whose dead and living powers continually undermine certainty.
Four battalions strengthen the chamber’s coordinated spellcasting, unbinding and supported attacks. Lynus Ghalmorian receives a named Gryph-charger profile with powers suited to his history, while points let players integrate the formations into an organised army.
James Perry explains why a black spray is followed by a painted black foundation before adding cold edge highlights. Gold, red and pale robes separate the materials, while violet grave-sand and spectral green patches root the Sequitor in Shyish rather than leaving the dark armour without an environment.
Skulls inserted into altered haloes and a ruined burial ground make the Liberators embodiments of their Stormhost’s morbid culture. Scratched armour and glowing purple eyes suggest a force long campaigning in Shyish rather than freshly arriving from Azyr.
Spirit Hosts surround a skull-faced officer armed with a Cairn Wraith’s scythe. Ghostly candles complete an image of communion with Shyish’s dead, turning artillery-command wargear into a sinister but still recognisable Stormcast character.
Astreia becomes an Anvils officer through a white death-mask and a purple-grey Dracoline with dark scales. The limited cool palette connects rider and mount while small bright accents preserve clarity on the sombre model.
A skull helm and chest icon personalise an Incantor above a base of magically lifted rocks. Reflective but chipped armour makes the figure both imposing and weathered, while an amethyst staff stone ties the character to Shyish.
Hysh’s brilliance suggests white and gold but also prismatic colour and unusual materials. Enlightened mortals, crystalline weapons and altered creatures offer different themes, with the article encouraging collectors to use both palette and environmental details to express a realm whose outer reaches defy ordinary perception.
Pale city stone is washed blue and drybrushed white before gold details define its sculpted ornament. Painting the base separately makes this textured method quick, with alternative tinted washes offering different crystalline impressions.
A light textured desert receives diluted skeletal shading so that it stays bright rather than becoming muddy. Blue and pink Contrast foliage creates vivid plants against the pale ground, extending the realm’s unfamiliar colour logic onto the base.
Yellow and warm brown washes establish the crystals’ depth before renewed white at their tips creates a light gradient. Diluted blue, pink and green colours tint different facets, giving the magical barrier a prismatic character while retaining white as its brightest structure.
Sprue crystals replace the Ogroid’s crest and echo the shards on its base, while Luminark components form a techno-magical Luminary Rod. Extremely pale skin and a mechanical claw suggest a creature transformed by both Hysh’s light and its scientific curiosity.
Martyn reshapes a ball of energy into a projected beam using rod and putty, then carves a clear plastic sword into a rough living crystal. Pure blue, green and white colours complete a Hyshian character whose magical equipment is represented directly through the conversion.
Mark concentrates his conversion work on raised architectural bases and marble-like seeing stones. Gold spray and lacquered blue shoulder pads complement the bright Hyshian surroundings, showing how scenery and finish can change a unit’s identity without major alterations to the figures.
Mark combines Stormvault architecture with an angled magical engine and replaces flames with marbles to suggest seeing stones. Gold leaf weathers the ornament and airbrushed pale streaks imitate marble, producing a setting whose materials match his Hyshian warriors as closely as its colours do.
James Gallagher suggests beginning narrative play with the themes already present in a collection, then building missions and environmental rules around them. Linked games can move between systems and need not offer perfectly symmetric challenges, provided both players discuss their intentions and use memorable results to develop the next story.
The four collecting projects receive substantial reinforcements, but Mark gives in to a new inspiration and replaces his Orks with Death Guard. The change illustrates the personal nature of the challenge while the other collectors continue developing their existing armies and plans for larger battles.
Sam adds three leaders and mining-weapon Acolytes to a cult that already has a strong foundation. Character stories guide his enthusiasm, and repeated workwear colours keep new units linked to the industrial origins of the uprising.
James reinforces the Black Legion with infantry, a Rhino and allied War Dogs from House Lucaris. Giving the walkers names and a shared household scheme connects the rapidly growing collection to both its own narrative and the Legion’s wider war.
James converts former loyalist Armigers into named House Lucaris War Dogs. Deep blue armour, washed metal and bright gold trim give the trio their household identity, while new Chaos transfers help unite them with the Black Legion alliance.
Mark rebuilds his challenge around the Legion’s old pale armour and green details. Dark washes and rough corrosion suggest ten millennia of decay, while plans for every unit and a future Mortarion provide long-term direction for his new enthusiasm.
Completing Shadowspear gives James a substantial Phobos force, including a converted Ancient suited to its lighter armour. A tank offers a welcome change of pace and scale, with pale turret paint and red details maintaining visual links to the infantry.
A Desecrator body gains paired gatling cannons and rockets from a loyalist Knight kit. New barrel spikes, altered flamers and a repurposed transfer make the armament look appropriately corrupt while retaining the walker’s heavy firing-platform role.
A Valiant becomes a Knight Tyrant through a new faceplate and gargoyle-like weapon muzzles. A Forgefiend head and long spike transform the harpoon into a daemonic mouth, while extra Chaos barrels add menace to the conflagration cannon.
Plaguebearer faces push through the Knight’s armour and a grotesque tongue emerges beneath its mask. Spawn tentacles fit existing spike sockets, making a range of Nurgle parts appear organically integrated with the suit’s corruption.
A hunched torso, hanging cables and a Bloat-drone face give the Knight an exhausted, collapsing appearance. Added power sources and an extensively rebuilt ectoplasma weapon imply machinery kept operating through crude repairs and the unhealthy favour of Nurgle.
Exhausted Rymorian soldiers cling to duty and prayer while an overwhelming Tyranid attack tears their trench line apart. Salvation arrives in the form of armoured giants whom the survivors eagerly welcome, but their serpent heraldry and sudden violence turn the apparent miracle into a bitter deception.
Six generals field enormous Imperial and Chaos alliances in the new Apocalypse system. The defenders inflict devastating losses on Primarchs and war engines, yet the attackers’ asset choices and pressure on objectives establish a lead that survives the final counterattack, leaving Cahim II in Chaos hands.
The Warhammer World team combine dozens of industrial and gothic kits into an immense forge complex that can dwarf Titans. Octagonal towers, interlocking gates and hanging conveyors create a believable working site, while shared paint recipes and connective pipework unify the architecture into one playable industrial environment.
Fragdrill rails, crane machinery and several bastion kits form functioning-looking conveyors and defences. Layered construction is reinforced from inside, while distinct recipes for red walls, pale floors, metal, roads and dirt keep the huge scene visually coherent and readable.
The 2018 winners are invited to interpret “The Witch” on a sixty-millimetre base, with thirty-five accepting the challenge. The first group of entries demonstrates how the compact size and common theme still permit markedly different stories, from psychic horror to scientific power mistaken for sorcery.
A Cryptek resurrecting warriors becomes a technological interpretation of a witch. Several greens maintain a nearly monochrome scene while a pale face and restrained bronze keep the central figure readable, with inspiration drawn from earlier studio dioramas.
An Explorator corrupted by an ancient book breaks out of a containment unit beneath Mars. Tech-Priest, spectral and daemonic components create the transformed figure, and loose binary pages carry the source of the corruption into the surrounding scene.
An Inquisitor forces a bound psyker to hunt heretics, turning an unequal relationship into the scene’s central narrative. Heavily converted figures and cold overall shading emphasise hopeless service, while distinct flesh tones separate the younger master from his sickened tool.
Simon explores Blanchitsu through an Inquisitor guarding a grotesque supernatural infant and its containment objects. Pale preparation, dirty translucent highlights and textured corrosion create a limited, unsettling palette, with an amputated mechanical limb repurposed as the Inquisitor’s hat.
A Sister finally catches an uncontrolled psyker whose next destination is an ominous Black Ship. The industrial base and contrasting surface textures place the confrontation in the Imperium’s neglected spaces, while restrained armour shading separates the hunter from the prisoner’s emerging power.
Three militant Imperial arms share a broken aquila base and a common narrative of exterminating enemies. A restricted red, black and silver palette ties the different models together, while strong blue blades supply a shared accent and the ground details reflect each warrior’s particular foe.
A Librarian Dreadnought contrasts dark armour, vivid rust and pale magical light. Dave uses his experience inspecting real rusty bridges to guide experiments in powders and metal texture, seeking effects that remain convincing after being reduced to miniature scale.
Deathwatch Marines pursue the Changeling over floating fragments of reflective blackstone. The apparent chase may itself be a trap, and repeated blue-purple reflections connect the shifting pathway to the daemon while warm red cloth provides visual separation.
An eccentric uphive patron shelters a collection of outcasts in a richly textured refuge. Books, weathered walls and apparently floating figures reward close inspection, while a disguised clear support and varied varnish finishes show how technical tricks serve the scene’s atmosphere.
A Magus holds a victim beneath a waiting Patriarch, expanding the scene vertically and outward from its small base. Paper-glue webs and rusted ducts frame the moment, with the captive soldier’s helpless pose explaining the horror before the viewer reads any background.
Snikrot and a shaman move through a neutral industrial setting illuminated by intense magical light. The first experiment in object source lighting concentrates on rising smoke, while removed AoS details and substituted trophies place the converted wizard firmly in the far future.
A Word Bearer summons Bloodletters beside a marble altar, drawing on the atmosphere of the Heresy novels. Strong shadows, experimental flame effects and a weathered freehand banner make the corruption feel active rather than merely decorative.
Celestine confronts Thousand Sons sorcerers as spells and psychic dove forms cross the compact diorama. Freehand details and carefully arranged viewing angles build interest around the whole piece while presenting faith as the answer to hostile sorcery.
Untamed Beasts and Iron Golems converge on the same sacrificial prey before turning their different forms of devotion against each other. Visions above the Varanspire reveal the scale of the power calling them onward, but neither band accepts bargaining as a substitute for proving its worth through slaughter.
Dave groups wizards by their battlefield purpose and spells by the jobs they perform. Casting odds and deck support matter alongside spectacular effects, so he recommends choosing magic that advances the warband’s actual scoring plan rather than filling slots merely because a wizard is available.
Optional visits turn the explorers’ port into an active part of a Blackstone Fortress expedition. Characters may gain resources or inspiration but can also carry wounds into their next outing, giving the supposedly safe interval its own risks and decisions.
Explorers venture among haunted survivors and dangerous isolated passages where information and misfortune may be equally easy to find. Random encounters make the search for clues a gamble, with effects that can follow the character back to the next expedition.
The notorious tavern offers encounters with the port’s most dangerous residents. Clues and inspiration can reward a lucky visitor, but violence may force the explorer to fight alone, turning a social stop into a miniature survival challenge.
A visit to the improvised market allows explorers to exchange expedition finds for other opportunities. Special treatment for a Rogue Trader reinforces character identity, while uncertain availability keeps the location from becoming a completely predictable shop.
Explorers risk discovery cards at tables filled with cheating and dubious opponents. Winning can multiply the stake, but suspicion and violence may accompany apparent luck, making the decision to gamble as important as the outcome of the roll.
Max Faleij explains how a bright source, surrounding halo and cast light work together. Direction, material, distance and overall value contrast determine where the effect belongs, with monochrome checks helping painters judge whether the source is actually brighter than the surfaces it illuminates.
A spare Chaos helmet provides a controlled exercise in glowing eyes. Max paints the armour first, reserves white for the lenses and builds increasingly narrow red-orange glazes around them, keeping the outer halo cooler and darker than the source.
A lantern-bearing grot demonstrates mapping the light onto separate surfaces before refining the glow. Cloth, rope and metal require different reflection strengths, and final adjustments preserve the contrast between cool surrounding robes and warm illumination while smaller glowing mushrooms add another controlled source.
The 2478 final between the Skavenblight Scramblers and Gouged Eye becomes a replayable historical match. Experienced rosters and prescribed events recreate a contest undermined by the Skaven’s tunnelling, with collapsing ground and an unstable pitch threatening both sides as the game progresses.
Recent activity includes an Underworlds tournament, converted Necromunda figures and preparations for the super-heavy challenge. Personal projects and conversations about artistic inspiration show how shared events and older illustrations continue to generate new collections and modelling ideas.
Maxime Corbeil creates a sharp contrast between pale faces and worn black coats for John Blanche’s campaign. Drybrushing and washes build material texture, while blue-green shading beneath the jaw implies light rising from the dangerous environment around the gang.
Andrew approaches his first substantial model through tutorials and photographs of real vehicles. Hairspray chipping exposes mottled dark underlayers beneath pale armour, and textured mud plus earth powder make the huge tank look thoroughly used.
A reversed Stormlord becomes an Ork transport with a new ramp, skorcha turrets and a scavenged armoured compartment. Layered metal, red panels, chips and oily washes make the many donor components look like one improvised war machine.
Removing fittings and cutting the torso allows the Wraithknight to leap into a much more dynamic pose. A widened head and resculpted shoulder support the transformation, while reflective armour and pink energy effects add to the impression of a spectacular display piece.
Masked light and dark patches establish an urban camouflage scheme before transfers and heavy corrosion age the tank. Paul imagines the nearby influence of Nurgle as the reason for its rust, giving a technical weathering choice a place in the model’s story.
Jon adapts transfers and heraldic conventions to create a vassal of Deimos. Teal armour and a cog-patterned chainblade link the walker to the Mechanicus, with separate panels making the complex scheme manageable before final assembly.
Joel matches his Castellan to a Martian army through red armour and white household markings. Separate panels, pencilled heraldic guides and shared dirt washes keep the large project controlled, while brass reactor details add warmth around the mechanical chassis.
The team marks Martyn Cashmore’s move into Warhammer 40,000 work with a final full-page showcase of his House Cadmus Castellan. The large project celebrates his contribution to the magazine through a personal model from the shared studio challenge.