WHITE DWARF · SEPTEMBER 2019
September 2019 brings named model contributions, Warcry missions, Golden Demon entries and illustrated recipes. Promotional redemption card contents are not reconstructed.
COVER TO COVER
In printed page order
Lyle reflects on the enthusiasm generated by seeing collections and competition entries at Warhammer Fest. The issue carries that inspiration into Dark Angels, new Warcry projects and painters’ interpretations of a shared challenge, offering several ways to turn admiration into a personal hobby project.
Readers discuss recent articles and share practical painting ideas, including smoky magical effects, dark cloth and colourful greenskin projects. Kai Röder’s weathered Ironclad demonstrates how an imaginative conversion and a clearly explained metal-and-green palette can inspire another collector’s next project.
Jordan explains how a force’s organisation expresses the culture behind it, from Skaven multitudes to Ironjawz fists and Space Marine companies. Published formations and significant numbers provide useful starting points, but a collector can adapt that structure into names, command relationships and stories that give a personal army a life beyond its army list.
Robin traces the armies and gaming experiences that shaped his interests, beginning with Space Hulk and moving through Dark Angels, Sisters of Battle, Howling Griffons and Necrons. Cityfight campaigns and competitive play leave different impressions, explaining why memorable narrative connections remain central to the way he enjoys Warhammer.
Apharan leads his Greyshields into a Slaaneshi vessel where overwhelming sound and brutal resistance steadily destroy their squad. A Deathwing intervention redirects the mission and forces him to defend a desperate chokepoint; surviving the ordeal draws him towards the Dark Angels’ hidden brotherhood and the unsettling scrutiny of the Watchers in the Dark.
The Dark Angels’ secret war grows from the betrayal of Caliban and the unresolved fate of the Fallen. Recent upheavals on the Rock and the arrival of Primaris warriors test the Chapter’s suspicions, while Lazarus, Apharan and Nerael illustrate different routes into its evolving leadership and guarded inner circles.
A Dark Angels force tries to seize an enemy agent whose knowledge could advance the hunt for the Fallen. The mission rewards capturing the quarry alive rather than simply killing him, while special stratagems let the attacker prolong the engagement and the defender escape a dangerous melee.
Gareth builds his Dark Angels alongside the Conquest subscription, finishing each delivery before the next arrives. Carefully glazed green armour, traditional red weapons and freehand chapter symbols give the growing force a consistent identity, while shared bases and blue energy effects help allied Imperial units fit the collection.
James builds smooth bone armour with several thin coats, shades its recesses carefully and highlights it up to white. Separate recipes distinguish weapon casings, brass, green panels and stone icons, while Ravenwing accessories and ruined city masonry give the Redemptor a recognisable Deathwing identity.
Ice worlds range from barely habitable wastelands to violently unstable death worlds, shaping the equipment and character of their inhabitants. Winter clothing, camouflage and bright recognition marks offer modelling ideas, while coloured skies and reflected light permit a much wider palette than plain white snow and blue ice.
Alexandre turns the former Steel Cobras into plague-ridden survivors of a Chaos-tainted ice storm. Quartered bronze-green and white armour preserves their old identity while tying them to a frozen world, with dirty washes unifying the newly invented history and its decaying miniatures.
Wheels and chains replace the Taurox’s tracks, while a large plough combines mining-vehicle parts, tank components and screws. A roof-mounted incinerator and fuel tank complete a transport equipped to force its way through deep snow and stubborn ice.
Stowage and lights from the Atalan Jackals kit prepare the Ridgerunner for winter operations. Grey paint beneath a hairspray layer is exposed through scuffed white, while a paper-and-glue tarpaulin shelters the missile launcher and reinforces the vehicle’s improvised expeditionary appearance.
Extra sensors and scanner-carrying crew turn a Hammerhead into a specialist hunter for snowstorms. Purple, blue and white colours evoke an ultraviolet-lit ice world, while ruined masonry and a small crew scene make the vehicle part of its environment.
A Cadian Command Squad figure gains sculpted goggles, a scarf and a bedroll for winter campaigning. Patchy white, grey and black camouflage extends the cold-weather story into the paint scheme while retaining a recognisable Imperial infantry silhouette.
Sculpted fur edges turn the Chaplain’s robes into a heavy winter coat, while hanging parchment becomes bear paws appropriate to his Chapter. A weapon spike supplies an ice-pick Crozius, showing how a few carefully chosen alterations establish a distinctive cold-world identity.
Textured grey ground is drybrushed pale and broken up with clumps of snow. Fine green, purple and white lines across the blue areas create the impression of cracked, reflective ice, giving Alexandre’s plague warriors a frozen setting with more depth than a single blanket of white.
Cutting containers at an angle makes them appear partly buried rather than perched on top of snow. Foam drifts are protected with texture paint before the scenery is sprayed, weathered and heavily covered in snow, producing a practical ammunition dump that matches an ice-world army.
The new Blackstone Fortress expansion supplies cult enemies and Imperial explorers with profiles for skirmish battles. Ordinary fighters and specialist commanders receive appropriate skills, equipment and faction access, allowing the box’s unusual characters to join a wider range of kill teams.
A flame-armed cult leader gives the Servants of the Abyss a commander who can inspire followers while threatening tightly grouped enemies. His profile translates the model’s aggressive role into a skirmish-game character rather than treating him as another ordinary cultist.
The cultists bring their distinctive firearms and brutal close-range weapons into Kill Team. Their options let players use the Escalation miniatures together while preserving the differences between basic followers and better-equipped fighters.
The sanctioned psyker and heavily armoured Crusader offer contrasting Imperial specialists. Psychic support and a shield-bearing melee fighter provide new ways to supplement compatible kill teams with characters whose tabletop roles follow their equipment and background.
A weapon-servitor and a Tech-Priest translate two very different servants of the Machine God into skirmish profiles. The former supplies direct firepower, while the latter operates as a commander whose abilities and equipment reflect technical authority.
The Rogue Trader enters Kill Team as an Imperial commander with distinctive paired pistols and access to compatible Imperial forces. Her profile supports an adventurous independent character who can accompany other specialists rather than requiring an entirely new army.
Jervis explains why Meeting Engagements require fresh tactical thinking instead of merely reducing an army’s points. A smaller battlefield and three timed contingents alter deployment and commitment, while close-quarter Open War ideas and linked street battles offer other routes to compact games.
The four collectors compare their growing armies and celebrate a successful Team Gloomspite outing. Event results, painting recognition and the latest scenery challenge connect individual hobby progress to shared plans for getting the armies onto the battlefield.
Matt adds a Lord-Arcanum, more Sequitors and a Celestar Ballista to the Umbral Spectres. The new hero makes his infantry eligible for a matched-play army, while the artillery addresses his concern about stopping dangerous squigs before they reach his lines.
Matt drybrushes the ruins in shadowy blue-greys that match the magical elements of his army. Bone skulls and glowing blue runes introduce an eerie focal point, with the idea that Malerion watches through them giving the scenery a place in the force’s story.
Alex slows down to improve the detail on her Plaguebearers and paints a pale Lord of Plagues. A first large scenery piece tests her confidence, but advice about separate components, washes and drybrushing turns the Gnarlmaw into an enjoyable project.
Alex builds the champion’s sickly skin from pale flesh and grey over a sandy foundation. Violet and flesh-coloured washes create bruising rather than healthy warmth, making the finished figure look like a decaying body among the greener daemons.
Keeping the hives and bells separate makes Alex’s first large terrain piece much less intimidating. Establishing every base colour before washing and drybrushing helps her judge the whole composition, and the successful result demonstrates a quicker approach than painstakingly layering every surface.
A converted Eidolon gives Steve a dramatic centrepiece for his woodland-themed Deepkin. Trees, slate and altered flowing fabric suggest a spirit moving through a forest, while a matching shipwreck connects the force to its Sylvaneth allies.
A tree growing through the Gloomtide Shipwreck links the terrain to Steve’s Deepkin and Sylvaneth alliance. Layered spraying and drybrushing establish the wood before green and brown washes make it look waterlogged, while bark and slate blend the wreck into its forest base.
Ben insists that every grot in his army should ride a squig, even when the mount is only decorative under the rules. Converted herders and two distinct Loonbosses expand the collection’s exuberant theme, with further bouncing cavalry already planned.
Ben keeps the mushrooms separate and drybrushes the rocky shrine before tinting the moon face with repeated thin green washes. Pale purple fungi provide a contrasting frame, and a matching base makes the oversized shrine part of the same landscape as his squig army.
Maxime describes how the six initial Warcry warbands were given distinct shapes, equipment and body language. Their different cultures are visible in armour weight, elaborate masks, animal symbolism and ritual mutilation, giving players recognisable identities even before a paint scheme is applied.
Heavy armour and closed helmets suggest anonymous industrial brutality. The duardin fighter’s scale, beard and chainmail reinforce the group’s grounded weight, distinguishing these disciplined metalworkers from the more fluid silhouettes of rival tribes.
Bone, fur and exposed physiques communicate rejection of civilisation and its forged materials. The models emphasise hunters and fierce physical fighters, making the warband’s creed readable through weapons, clothing and stance.
Elaborate masks, jewels and deliberately confusing arrangements of straps express a culture of illusion and deception. Light equipment and dance-like motion contrast with the warband’s unsettling, concealed intentions.
Leaping poses and bird-skull ornaments portray fighters who perform beneath their carrion god’s gaze. Their elevated, energetic silhouettes make the relationship between religious spectacle and predatory violence visible in the sculpts.
Gladiatorial armour and finely made blades establish a martial identity, while snakes, poison containers and bite marks make its venomous creed unmistakable. These details connect the tribe’s combat style to a repeated visual vocabulary.
Stitched skin, crude tools and mutilated bodies turn the tribe’s beliefs into physical horror. The designers make tortured flesh and ritual self-destruction central to its silhouette, producing a warband whose identity is disturbing before any background is read.
Sam prepares his Iron Golems for campaign battles against two rival warbands. Allies, thralls and quest rewards make the games part of an ongoing search for glory, so injuries and surviving fighters matter alongside the immediate result.
Sam’s heavily armoured Iron Golems meet Kelly’s Untamed Beasts in a race to take down five enemy fighters. Both leaders fall and the Golems’ strength claims dangerous opponents, but a final Beastspeaker attack reaches the required fifth kill first and gives Kelly victory.
Sam trades his expensive Ogor for additional bodies before challenging Nick’s Unmade over three objectives. The battle remains violent enough to claim both leaders, but the Golems’ flank pressure secures a six-to-four convergence victory and leaves the campaign to account for injuries and new rewards.
This campaign event brings multiple warbands into a three-round pit-fighting competition. Small fighter selections, a fame system and special crowd-driven twists create a different challenge from normal campaign battles, with a magical crown awaiting the overall champion.
Two compact warbands fight on an empty arena floor until one side is eliminated. Surviving to the end of the fifth round produces a draw and halves the fame earned, giving competitors a strong reason to pursue a decisive finish.
Each player adds a group of hostile beasts to a bare arena before racing for the escape route. A fighter who reaches the marked edge and spends an action escaping immediately wins, forcing players to balance direct aggression with movement and the danger of the creatures around them.
Several warbands compete to occupy the highest platform of the central bell tower without an enemy sharing it. A revised initiative sequence supports the multiplayer fight, and victory becomes available from the fourth round as surviving fighters struggle over a dangerously small summit.
An Iron Golem endures the speed and darting attacks of a Corvus Cabal opponent before seizing his chance at close quarters. Draug’s brutal finish wins the crowd, turning the arena’s rules and promises of glory into a short scene of personal violence.
Phil explains the aggressive Briar Queen deck that won a studio tournament. Teleporting threats, Varclav’s efficient pushes and reliable scoring combine with a deliberately large power deck, but the player still needs to manage positioning and avoid advertising the decisive attack too early.
Fourteen more winners interpret the shared theme of The Witch on a sixty-millimetre base, including five Youngbloods. The examples show how controlled lighting, character relationships and compact scenic construction can produce very different stories within the same physical limit.
Muted slime and a subdued daemon keep attention on the summoning Sorcerer’s worn red robes. Dirty grey armour, carefully placed non-metallic reflections and a simple textured pool make the figure and its environment read as one coherent scene.
An Inquisitor’s treatment of a mutant makes the apparent division between hero and monster uncertain. Complementary colours and different lighting environments contrast the characters, while concentrated detail on the Aberrant’s face and arm directs sympathy and attention.
A geometric alien structure surrounds the Navigator and gives physical form to the Blackstone Fortress’s oppressive interior. Warm gold on Locarno separates him from cold black scenery inspired by the game’s tiles, artwork and graphic design.
Older metal Sisters of Battle form a compact action scene led by a Canoness. Glazed transitions establish the figures’ lighting, while sculpted scenery and warm candles interrupt the dominant blue tones and deepen the diorama.
Greyfax and Voldus invade a Nurgle sanctuary, their polished armour and psychic power overwhelming the Poxbringer in their path. Deliberately different surface textures and strong red-green contrasts make the opposing forces distinct within the crowded doorway.
A Farseer accompanies a Wraithknight whose size tests the challenge’s small footprint. Glowing blue runes and blade energy unify the two figures, while Ulthwé freehand and controlled lighting preserve the elegant futuristic character that attracted the painter.
A Librarian looks upwards towards a Genestealer Magus in a carefully built sewer chamber. Height, warm reflected lamp light and opposing palettes complicate which figure seems powerful, while worn leather and textured masonry make the setting tangible.
Greyfax intervenes as Abaddon threatens a fallen Celestine in a recreation of the fighting beneath Cadia. Rebuilt poses and a compact arrangement of bodies serve the story, while non-metallic armour reflects psychic blue on one side and raging red fire on the other.
A Terminator Librarian projects a spectacular psychic barrier against climbing Bloodletters. A clear sphere, resin and skeleton leaves create the energy effect, while contrasting blue armour and richly shaded red daemons make the direction of the supernatural attack immediately readable.
An Inquisitor follows the lure of a corrupted book while an apparition waits behind her. Reflected candlelight on non-metallic armour and a converted, sickly Changeling establish a trap whose danger the viewer can see before its victim.
The Changeling transforms an astonished Ultramarines Sergeant into a rat at the end of a cave. Earlier victims scattered through the scene explain the joke, while a grey-to-blue blend makes the victim appear to fade into the spell.
Brother-Captain Stern confronts a Chaos Sorcerer during a shipboard attack. Repeated red, black and silver across the opposing figures makes the scene coherent, with bright warm highlights and complementary cloak treatments linking the combatants.
A Grey Knight demonstrates psychic strength by holding one daemon’s head while hurling another backwards. Plastic rods support the airborne victim and represent energy arcs, with localised lighting showing the power travelling from the warding stave into its target.
Iskandar Khayon opens a warp portal while he and Djedhor fight to return to their ship. Differing Legion colours identify the two characters, and the creatures spilling into their route turn a moment from The Talon of Horus into a compact escape scene.
Two Ogryn brothers introduce retinue characters who can accompany the explorers without replacing the central protagonists. A leader controls their behaviour and receives rewards on their behalf, while recruitment quests explain how such powerful followers become available for later expeditions.
Gren’s attempt to protect two officers leaves him facing punishment when the regiment is defeated, until his brother rescues him. His retinue card turns that loyal but literal-minded personality into a follower whose actions depend on the situation around his leader.
Dorg abandons his former posting to save Gren and later loses himself in the fortress while hired out as muscle. His Bullgryn profile emphasises protection and powerful close combat, making the search for him a route to recruiting a particularly sturdy bodyguard.
The explorers undertake a rescue expedition to reach the missing Bullgryn before his enemies overwhelm him. Bringing the group safely alongside Dorg and clearing away the Ur-Ghuls completes the final combat, unlocking both brothers as followers for future adventures.
Brian Nelson explains the responsibility of sculpting a character with decades of visual history, retaining Gotrek’s familiar ornaments while fitting him to the Mortal Realms. Anja Wettergren describes natural skin, carefully blended highlights and integrated tattoos, showing how painting supports the new miniature’s recognisable personality.
David Guymer discusses a sequel in which Gotrek begins to accept that finding Felix and his old axe may be impossible. New companions and encounters reveal how the Slayer is adjusting to a changed world, while performance and accompanying artwork help give the audio drama its particular energy.
Darius Hinks describes writing an angry Gotrek who seeks a worthy opponent in Shyish while companions try to survive his relentless progress. The interview explores the humour and grief behind the Slayer’s fury, making his missing old life as important to the novel as the foes in his path.
Johan Grenier follows the Ghoulslayer cover from initial composition through revised poses and the final lighting. Repositioned ghouls keep the central characters legible, while Gotrek’s burning axe and Maleneth’s contrasting fighting style make a crowded action scene clear without losing its exuberance.
Jay examines the less familiar Heroic Actions and the situations that justify spending precious Might on them. Examples show how magic resistance, extra Strength, defensive survival, challenges and fast movement can change a battle, provided the player considers scenario goals and the opponent’s likely response.
Warhammer Fest conversations inspire Matt to add volkite-armed Imperial Fists and two more Warhounds to his collections. Flame weapons deliberately suit the Fire Wasps identity, demonstrating how equipment choices can support an army’s name and established character.
Dan gives Janus Draik a cool colour scheme with pale cuffs and lapels instead of the studio model’s red. A blue power blade, shaded dark and highlighted white, adds a distinctive focal point to the explorer he has been using in Blackstone Fortress.
Lyle paints constellations over blue Titan armour to record the engine’s imagined campaigns. A blue wash and stippled highlights weather the panels around the freehand stars, preserving a readable star map while making the machine look well travelled.
A short studio feature introduces Gotrek and Felix as recruitable characters for Order factions in Total War: Warhammer II. Brian Blessed returns as Gotrek’s voice, connecting the game appearance to Realmslayer and the issue’s wider celebration of the returning Slayer.