WHITE DWARF · MARCH 2020
Space Wolves and Primaris reinforcements, Ork Mekworlds, the Hallost campaign and the final battle of the Stormvault Warlords.
COVER TO COVER
In printed page order
The editor explains why the cover now displays a continuing issue number instead of a publication month. January’s issue 450 restores the legacy monthly sequence, replacing the less visible relaunch volume numbering; production lead times explain why the change is discussed only in March.
Reader correspondence mixes hobby questions and miniature photographs with the White Dwarf team’s replies. The feature also follows the magazine beyond the usual hobby desk, keeping readers’ modelling projects and experiences at the centre of this month’s community pages.
Jordan Green follows Da Morkagorka Madladz from a randomly chosen Bonesplitterz warband into a cast of named characters with victories, deaths and new recruits. The Warcry campaign inspires purple warpaint, conversions and a later army, demonstrating how playing with a collection can generate its own distinctive background.
Elliot Hamer draws on running tournaments and campaign weekends to challenge rigid divisions between narrative and matched play. Thematic armies can still be effective, while adapting to uneven mission conditions tests generalship; discussion between opponents helps combine background, challenge and memorable moments in the same battle.
The Space Wolves’ Fenrisian culture, recruitment trials and flexible pack organisation frame the difficult arrival of Primaris reinforcements. Their conduct, shared genetic burden and the Chapter’s desperate losses help win acceptance, while sagas and the evacuation of Sorilia show the newcomers fighting alongside their older brothers.
A defending force holds a frontline while its rearguard and supporting fire resist a superior attacker. The mission supplies asymmetric deployment, limits on deployment tricks and additional stratagems, creating a desperate stand that can represent an evacuation or any battle in which buying time matters more than territorial gain.
James Perry paints blue-grey armour over Grey Seer, using a warm recess shade before two careful edge highlights emphasise solid ceramite. Separate stages cover fur, gold, skin, red hair and shoulder markings, while snow-covered bases provide the traditional Fenrisian finishing touch.
The Contrast version uses Space Wolves Grey over a light undercoat to establish armour shading quickly, with conventional highlights available for a more polished finish. A pinned separate head makes facial details easier, and the guide demonstrates controlled applications for beards, hair, pack markings and the Chapter’s yellow shoulder pad.
Studio Space Wolves collectors personalise Primaris models with traditional heads, pelts, weapons and talismans. Simon Grant converts an Invictor, James Karch builds around Ragnar’s new model, Emma Turner gives a kill team a shared pack identity, and Andy Barlow mounts a converted Battle Leader on one of Russ’s wolf-kin.
Galactic War Zones explores the junkyards and industrial sprawl left by Ork conquest. Looted panels, mismatched machinery, clan colours and heavy weathering suggest armies shaped by these worlds, where any useful component can become wargear and the landscape is buried beneath scavenged material.
A collection of exuberant kitbashes turns Imperial and alien machinery into Ork war engines. Examples include a flying Fragdrill, an Invictor-based Deff Dread, a Dreadknight Meka Dread, a tracked grot bike and heavily armed wagons, illustrating how mismatched parts and rough construction can support the greenskins’ visual character.
Adam Cooper combines a ruined Sector Mechanicus factory with Mekboy Workshop components to create an improvised industrial den. Hairspray chipping reveals the metal beneath red panels, sponged secondary colours vary the scrap, and a brown-and-orange weathering wash gives the whole structure a rusty, neglected appearance.
The Archivist enters Kill Team as an independent third-party threat rather than a conventional kill team. Deployment and behaviour rules let the Zoat disrupt rival operatives while pursuing its own objectives, and a profile translates its atomic disassembler, eradicator glove and unsettling presence into skirmish combat.
Zoats are presented as rare, technologically sophisticated manipulators whose motives remain uncertain even to Imperial observers. The Archivist’s apparent bargain to salvage a lost Zoat vessel in the Seethe conceals a web of competing expeditions, illustrating its willingness to exploit other explorers and eliminate those it cannot control.
Jason Lee’s Crusaders of the Last Watch combine black-armoured Custodians and Sisters of Silence within his growing Imperial collection. Artwork and the idea of a prolonged, unfulfilled crusade inspire the subdued armour, white details and snowy bases; recipes and modelling notes show how he keeps the elite force unified and deliberately unweathered.
A Torchbearer fleet struggles to locate the Flames of Aries, finding their ship under attack and their Chapter near ruin. Shield-Captain Galion Magethus must overcome his suspicion of Space Marines while fighting beside Primaris reinforcements, recognising that fulfilling his duty requires trust as well as martial power.
Jervis Johnson adapts the roll-and-write idea into an Age of Sigmar campaign played across five battles. Results fill prestige tracks and generate resources for drawing and upgrading a settlement, with printable charts, structure costs and bonuses turning battlefield successes into a competing city-building project.
Hallost’s heroic afterlife is transformed by Sigmar’s intervention, Chaos invasion, Nagash’s coercion and the theft of souls for the Stormcast. The history explains the living and dead communities, the fallen Nordyrie and its link to the Great Oubliette, setting the political and supernatural stakes for a campaign of conquest.
A map campaign alternates battlefield encounters with territorial conquest, resource collection and power purchases. Initiative and random events change the balance between players, while Hallost-specific magic, spectral interference and key-location benefits give the Nordyrie map its own identity and a fixed campaign conclusion.
Matt Hutson concludes his Umbral Spectres with more Celestar Ballistas and supporting heroes. He reflects on managing a large painting challenge through familiar techniques and changing model types, then records the complete Sacrosanct force ready to defend the Stormvault.
Alex Puszczynska finishes her first major army challenge with a mottled Great Unclean One nicknamed Mr Pickles. She describes rapidly improving through deadlines, shared advice and practice games, while Nurgle’s Rot adds a suitably unpleasant final touch to her new centrepiece.
Steve Wren reviews an Idoneth project that began through an invitation to the challenge and grew into a substantial Alliance of Wood and Sea. A second Eidolon receives another elaborate scenic base and a more metallic appearance, while his reflections stress recording recipes and finding time to practise with the finished army.
Ben Johnson ends his squig-focused army with a converted Squigapalooza, adapting the familiar grot support characters into an entirely bouncing retinue. The final roster and reflections explain both the repetitive painting challenge and the army’s unpredictable but powerful performance, with custom rules supplied elsewhere in the issue.
Two coalitions contest an exposed Stormvault in Ulgu: Stormcast and Idoneth guardians against Nurgle and Gloomspite despoilers. The bespoke battleplan uses reinforcements, objective scoring and faction-specific hidden ploys, allowing allies to cooperate while retaining their own reasons for claiming the relic within.
The four Stormvault warlords play their climactic coalition battle, with elite Order forces trying to resist a swarm of squigs and resilient Nurgle followers. Early charges disrupt the defence, a cave-squig Loonboss repeatedly kills major heroes, and superior objective control lets the despoilers win as the Gloomspite Gitz breach the vault.
A Spire Tyrants campaign follows the trail of the legendary Gorm the Wrecker and his prized equipment. Three convergence encounters demand interrogation by violence, a dangerous hunt and a final fight against rival scavengers; new traits, lesser artefacts and the surviving daemon-skull helm reward a victorious champion.
Dave Sanders surveys Underworlds from repeated core-box matchups and open play through organised Championship and Alliance events. Smaller formats, Arena Mortis, a cooperative gargant challenge and multiplayer variants demonstrate how changing deck restrictions or victory conditions can produce markedly different experiences from the same basic system.
Explorers must rescue a Jokaero whose absence has halted medical help from Sawbone Station. The Tinkerer’s recruitment stronghold requires defending its invention against endlessly returning hostiles, after which retinue rules and a character card allow its technological gifts and unpredictable tinkering to accompany future expeditions.
Adeptus Titanicus players are encouraged to draw scenarios from the Horus Heresy’s particular conflicts rather than treating narrative battles as generic annihilation games. Advice covers selecting a manageable moment within a larger war, adapting available forces and allowing one battle’s result to shape the next mission.
The invasion of Paramar V pits two Titan Legions against each other in a radioactive no-man’s-land around the Nexus. Smoke restricts long-range fire, catastrophic destruction intensifies the danger to unshielded reactors, and victory rewards destroying or structurally compromising the opposing god-machines.
The Warp Runners attempt to break the Tiger Eyes’ strength through a carefully staged surprise attack. Disrupted traitor command limits the opening response, while the loyalists must inflict a substantial proportion of enemy losses to turn a risky commitment of their available forces into strategic success.
Graham McNeill recalls moving from games development into novels and learning the craft while creating Uriel Ventris. The interview connects his interest in credible villains and Shattered Legion survivors with Sons of the Selenar, then discusses returning to Magnus and the personal failings beneath a primarch’s grand ambitions.
Miriya and the Hospitaller Verity meet through their shared grief for Lethe and begin investigating Vaun’s escape. A prisoner’s impossible memories and sudden death point to manipulation, while encounters with Neva’s rulers and Lord LaHayn deepen the suspicion that the fugitive’s arrival serves a larger concealed purpose.
Studio projects include Stormcasts, an Idoneth collection, a Shambling Undead Blood Bowl team and a heavily weathered tank. The updates mix gaming progress with short explanations of colour choices and damage effects, while previewing the next hobby ambitions taking shape on staff desks.
Sam Pearson explains how he designed the four-warlord finale around the armies available, two coalitions and a clear central objective. Hidden ploys add uncertainty to a game where opponents normally know each other’s resources, and scaling their value over time makes choosing when to reveal them a meaningful strategic decision.
Custom warscrolls bring Ben Johnson’s squig-mounted support characters to life as a Squigmancer, Squigmonger, Squigcap Shaman and Herder with Mini-Mangler. A shared battalion links the four independent units, with the article explicitly requiring an opponent’s permission before using the set in a Pitched Battle.