WHITE DWARF · JANUARY 2020
New Year hobby projects, Kill Team dispositions, the Silent King, aerial battles, scenic bases and a battle for a Bone-tithe Nexus.
COVER TO COVER
In printed page order
The editor turns New Year enthusiasm into a practical painting challenge: complete a hero, unit or monster every month and share progress with friends. A checklist at the back of the issue adds bonuses for varied projects and finishing the whole year.
Readers share a father-and-son Imperial Fists project painted with Contrast, ask about House Cadmus heraldry and Warcry monsters, and display finished miniatures. Andrew Corcoran explains his looted Imperial Knight Morkanaut, while Harvey Snape supplies a Triplex Phall colour recipe.
Phil Kelly describes his conversion from leaving bare plastic bases to treating them as part of a miniature’s story. Examples range from his ill-advised use of real moss to ruined masonry, scenic character bases and small environmental details that link an army to its home or battlefield.
Five optional narrative dispositions give a kill team a shared fighting identity and access to three themed tactics each. Ferocious, Guerrilla, Headhunter, Dread and Covert teams specialise respectively in aggression, coordinated movement, assassination, terror and concealment; faction examples illustrate how to invent an appropriate background.
A violent encounter rewards melee casualties, charges and penetration of the enemy deployment zone. Random blood frenzy can compel fighters to charge, and a dedicated tactic lets a player impose it deliberately, making restraint increasingly difficult.
An attacker tries to sabotage a single defended objective while both sides also earn points for incapacitating enemy fighters. Guerrilla teams naturally take the attacking role; the deployment arrangement and protection for distant raiders encourage a sharp strike rather than a static firefight.
One defender becomes the Mark whom an attacking kill team must eliminate before time runs out. Defensive terrain, taking cover and a protective tactic help keep the target alive, while an attacker can use distraction to shield an operative until they have fired.
The attacker tries to destroy at least two of three objectives representing symbols important to the defender. Broken kill teams can decide the result early, while themed tactics reward concealed charges and rallying shaken fighters beside an endangered idol.
A small defending patrol begins unaware of an approaching kill team and receives reinforcements only once the alarm is raised. Proximity, visible movement and shooting can expose the intruders; the attacker must secure the objective while balancing stealth against the limited battle length.
Both kill teams start scattered among six randomly selected battlefield sectors after a disaster. Players score by assembling the largest group of fighters clear of the enemy, with additional rewards for breaking the opposition and tactics that help isolated operatives reunite or support a threatened comrade.
The history of Szarekh follows the divided Necrontyr through biotransference, betrayal by the C’tan, rebellion and the Great Sleep. His secret return is driven by the Tyranids’ threat to the biological future he hopes to recover; Inquisitor Draxus’s records add ominous, unreliable fragments of Imperial investigation.
Galactic War Zones turns the cities of the Imperium into a theme for an army’s equipment, camouflage and basing. Cadian and Valhallan examples sit beside T’au, Tyranid and Blood Axe schemes, showing how similar tonal values can suggest concealment while preserving readable models on the gaming table.
Studio contributors demonstrate urban specialists through scavenged equipment and elaborate rubble bases. Examples include Andrew Palies’s converted Feirros, heavily equipped Blood Axe Kommandos, Jon Flindall’s dug-in Eliminators and a Battlewagon made for demolition; Neil Roberts explains scaling scenic detail to a model’s importance.
Captain Gronki Klarruz investigates a ruined Kharadron ship and discovers that profit-seeking salvage has led his crew into a daemon ambush. With gunfire and flight both failing, he turns the Ironclad’s skyhook and torpedoes into a desperate close-range attack on the Bloodthirster hunting them.
The aerial-combat expansion adds rules for strafing ground targets, ground fire, dangerous low-level flying and floating terrain. It explains the difference between quick duels and larger wing encounters, then supplies scenarios, a persistent campaign and specialised monster warscrolls to extend the previous issue’s core game.
Two patrolling monsters meet from opposite corners with matching starting speed. This straightforward duel is decided by slaying the opponent, while leaving the battlefield without returning produces a draw, making it a useful introduction to aerial manoeuvring.
A hunter approaches a quarry positioned at the battlefield centre, with its entry direction determined randomly. The hunter can select its initial speed, and the asymmetric victory conditions distinguish a successful interception from a quarry that defeats or drives away its pursuer.
Two roughly equal teams of flying monsters enter from opposing ends and fight until only one side remains. The encounter supports several individual players or commanders controlling whole wings and lets each monster begin at a speed suited to its intended role.
A centrally deployed patrol is intercepted from opposite ends of the battlefield. The patrol begins at a fixed cruising speed, whereas the interceptors choose their velocity, creating a wing encounter in which starting position and coordinated attacks matter immediately.
Kharadron skyvessels brave gale-wracked mountains to extract a prize while Bloodthirsters hunt them. A randomly sized floating peak obstructs the battlefield, storms threaten the ships, and the Kharadron must approach the peak and escape rather than simply destroy their attackers.
Campaign players track individual monsters’ battles, kills, injuries and developing skills. Experience grants expendable skill points, successful hunters learn veteran abilities, and the leading killer becomes Lord of the Skies; a survival table keeps defeat from automatically ending a creature’s story.
Specialised aerial profiles adapt flying heroes, ships and monsters to the manoeuvre-and-velocity system. The selection ranges from a Lord-Celestant on Stardrake and an Arkanaut Frigate to greater daemons, undead royal mounts and a Megaboss on Maw-krusha, each with its own attacks, recovery and safe manoeuvres.
Jervis Johnson explains open, matched and narrative play as overlapping priorities rather than fixed player identities. He describes how separating them liberated rules development, recommends agreeing a suitable mixture with opponents, and argues that trying an unfamiliar style can improve everyone’s future games.
Matt Hutson adds a Lord-Arcanum on Tauralon and Evocators on Celestial Dracolines to his Umbral Spectres. Pale skin and shadowy feathers contrast with the riders’ dark red armour; he explains their battlefield roles and plans the remaining models needed to complete several battalions.
Alex Puszczynska makes Morbidex Twiceborn the centrepiece of her growing Nurgle force, rescuing an unexpectedly blue Contrast base with green washes and drybrushing. More Plaguebearers follow, while a defeat against Beasts of Chaos highlights the importance of speed, objectives and remembering the army’s supporting abilities.
Steve Wren builds a Leviadon in subassemblies and gives it a shipwreck scenic base, green skin and a striking red shell. He also converts a Frostheart Phoenix for an Akhelian King, using blue feather colours and marine basing details to bring the unusual mount into his Idoneth collection.
Ben Johnson keeps his monster-month additions entirely squig themed with a Colossal Squig and two crewless Squig Gobbas. He discusses turning the Colossal Squig’s death-spawned occupants into an objective trick, recalls a game against the Legion of Azgorh and plans squig-mounted Gobbapalooza support.
Phil Kelly’s Bloodgullet ogors attack Jes Bickham’s Ossiarch Bonereapers in a bespoke objective battle around a Bone-tithe Nexus. Katakros and supporting heroes repeatedly restore the Mortek line, but a late combined charge, successful spellcasting and a decisive Stonehorn breakthrough let the ogors topple the monument.
John Bracken recommends choosing a familiar warband, a coherent deck archetype and suitable boards before practising extensively. He separates losses into play errors and card choices, advises gradual deck changes and a pre-event cutoff, and adds guest advice on scheduling practice, specialised cards and remaining calm under pressure.
Rippa Narkbad pursues a prophetic weapon through Beastgrave while Duke Crakmarrow’s deluded Grymwatch believe themselves noble hunters of monsters. Their encounters reveal sharply different perceptions of the same violence, and Rippa’s death and inexplicable return leave his obsession with the lost blade intact.
A standalone Blackstone Fortress quest sends explorers into Fleshspoiler’s Weeping Labyrinth to recover a captured companion. Six linked combat and challenge stages require a captive guide, stealth through guarded corridors and a search of dangerous prison cells; repeated failure can kill the missing explorer, and the Escalation expansion is required.
Adam Cooper demonstrates worn industrial flooring with hairspray between a metallic underlayer and the surface colours. Masked hazard stripes and green panels are scuffed back with a damp toothbrush, then dirtied and sealed; accompanying advice recommends building scenic texture from the largest materials down to fine sand.
Paul Claridge builds a ruined sandstone city beneath his Black Legion, using cut plasticard, Sector Imperialis scraps, gravel and sand. Larger daemon engines receive more elaborate compositions, with flat, secure mounting points and scenery arranged to frame the miniature; separate painting recipes cover masonry and metalwork.
Andy Barlow varies a shared Shattered Dominion basing method across five Ossiarch Bonereapers. Green marble, desert sand, frozen earth, a luminous River of Souls and algae-covered ruins show how base colours can contrast with or reinforce the miniature, with individual recipes and texture-paint advice.
Lewis Collins links the Nazgûl and Necromancer to Dol Guldur through fiery light reflected across their bases, robes and armour. Sculpted rocks and shattered plaster give precise control over the composition, while warm orange fire contrasts with cool black-and-grey robes; the guide lists both lighting and clothing recipes.
Nathan Trolley and Thomas Rowley turn a Start Collecting set and Great Unclean One into an army over three days of shared painting. Contrast colours divide the assembly-line work between skin and details, with concise recipes for rotten flesh, wounds, horns, rusty metal and purple wings or cloth.
Harvey Snape bases his Briomdar collection on battletome artwork, reproducing mottled red stripes on the eels and repeating their green tones on Namarti robes. He explains the time spent on individual eel riders and supplies recipes for skin, metallic armour, mounts and pale sandy bases.
Edd Barfield draws on the Badab War books for a Primaris-heavy Red Scorpions army intended for a home campaign before Vigilus. Two Apothecaries emphasise the Chapter’s concern for gene-seed, while mixed-kit conversions, chipped grey armour, yellow trim and blue urban bases connect its background and appearance.
Dan Hyams recreates Vior’la’s white-armoured appearance using quick methods suited to finishing an army in weeks. Diluted Wyldwood supplies recess shading over Corax White, sponged brown adds damage and repeated Black Templar coats simplify exoskeletons, leaving time for red sept markings and metallic details.
Keith Robertson combines two Rohan House kits into a larger homestead with a stable, connecting passage and uneven paddock fence. Rob Alderman explains the weathered timber, thatch, earth and stained green panels, using drybrushing followed by mixed shades to give the village an appropriately rustic appearance.
A damaged Rohan house evokes the Dunlending raids in The Two Towers. Keith Robertson saws a matching gap through both roof halves, installs balsa timbers, textures them with crackle paint and replaces the ragged thatch with a grass-and-glue mixture; broken windows and a cut-away door complete the destruction.
Classic Plays recreates the Queekwell Queasers versus Tlanxla Terradons match, where flying reptiles and illegal weapons overshadow the ball. Historical background, experienced team rosters and special rules add dropped boulders, the referee’s disappearance, second-half bribes and late Skaven reinforcements to the contest.
The team reports on painting and gaming projects ranging from Blood Angels and experimental Space Marine schemes to a T’au victory over Iron Warriors. Martyn shows how a small Bad Moons air fleet made an approachable alternative to a full Ork army, using Contrast colours on the Aeronautica Imperialis planes.
A printable year-long hobby tracker encourages completing one hero, unit or monster or vehicle each month. Its scoring rewards monthly progress, finishing all twelve months, painting complete sets of model types and taking on bonus projects, providing a simple structure for a personal or group challenge.