WHITE DWARF · JUNE–JULY 2020
The Jaws of Mork, the Dreadscape campaign finale, Tzeentch hobby guides, the Pariah Nexus and the betrayal at Ithraca.
COVER TO COVER
In printed page order
The editor introduces a large Adeptus Titanicus battle with detailed reactor and damage displays intended to evoke a princeps’s command feeds. The issue also opens the Pariah Nexus war front, advances the Tome Keepers, explores Tzeentch and concludes the Hallost campaign.
Readers ask about the Order of the Ashen Shrine, Dark Angels vehicle colours and Warcry background while sharing models and hobby experiences. A school club describes using White Dwarf to inspire games and painting, and Sam Jones’s individually detailed Abaddon becomes Model of the Month.
Nick Horth explains why compelling faction stories need meaningful losses as well as victories. Examples involving Sigmar, Nagash, Archaon and Abaddon show how defeat can generate change or hide a wider plan, preserving each participant’s credibility without reducing the setting to predictable wins or perfectly alternating outcomes.
The Overbounder leads an ambitious Squigalanche in pursuit of the Bad Moon, turning Ghyran’s Yskian Veldt into a fungal nightmare. The article combines the Jaws of Mork’s strange history and campaigns with unusual squig varieties, explaining how lunatic belief, rapid breeding and relentless migration sustain the horde.
Rules give the Jaws of Mork a distinct squig-focused identity through additional allegiance abilities, traits and artefacts. A modified Loonshrine can replace destroyed squig units, while Moon-Jumper Stampede and Moon-Biter Squigalanche formations reward powerful jaws and early bounding movement.
James Perry makes a Squig Hopper manageable by treating its three dominant areas—red mount, green rider and dark robes—as the starting point. Batch painting, a purple shade for natural-looking red skin and selected highlights lead into recipes for metal, teeth, eyes, lips and other small details.
The second Squig Hopper uses Contrast colours over Wraithbone before conventional highlights refine the finish. James explains why accidental red stains need a fresh light base rather than a transparent green cover-up, recommends controlled thin coats and adds luminous cave vegetation in place of ordinary grass.
Sam Pearson encourages Warcry players to adapt battleplan cards, terrain and victory conditions to the story they want to tell. Examples range from seasonal twists and dragging treasure to interconnected tables and hunting an endless spell, with advice on borrowing an existing profile when inventing rules for a new miniature.
Hallost’s former western settlements have become a nightmare domain divided among the Chaos Gods. Fortresses, diseased cities and sorcerous strongholds frame the continuing struggles of the wider continent, while a full regional map situates the Nordyrie, Booming Scar and Vaddenheim within the threatened Land of Dead Heroes.
The final Hallost campaign map compresses four armies around valuable contested valleys in the Dreadscape. Familiar location benefits return, while bonus campaign points for holding the intervening ground encourage early confrontation and prevent players from relying only on remote strongholds.
Each army appoints a ritualist and gathers power from a ritual site, with nearby allies and enemies changing the rate of accumulation. Stored points can heal or protect the ritualist and unleash destructive effects, making the contest a balance between building magical strength and directly interrupting the opposing ceremony.
Heroes swear different attacker or defender vows before the battle, echoing the deeds whispered by Hallost’s dead. Personal goals range from position and survival to slaying enemy leaders, so the victory conditions depend on fulfilling selected promises rather than only defeating the opposing army.
The four campaigns approach their conclusions as allies, monsters and larger warbands change the games. Dan and Jonathan make progress through their second convergences, Matt learns costly lessons about which fighters should escape first, and Lyle stands a single victory away from completing his poison-themed quest.
Dan’s Cypher Lords gain confidence and add a Mindstealer Sphiranx painted to echo their bright green details. The narrative questions whether the creature adapted to its masters or manipulated them all along, while new conversions prepare the band to replace a badly injured Luminate.
Jonathan’s Unmade begin winning successive games and expand their available force through dominated territories. A Slaughterpriest adds a durable bodyguard for the Blissful One, while Furies and another Joyous One are planned to improve speed and multiply the warband’s dangerous follow-up attacks.
Matt adds an Ogroid Myrmidon to compensate for the Corvus Cabal’s fragility and limited staying power. More converted warriors use alternative arms and swapped hands to avoid repetition, while future monster ideas show how campaign expansion can lead beyond the original warband kit.
Lyle prepares for his final convergence with an expanded Splintered Fang force and the Fomoroid Crusher Jomo. A short pink-flesh recipe accompanies the new recruit, and plans for an Arachnarok hunt extend the warband’s poison obsession into a possible future monster quest.
Robin Cruddace answers recurring event questions about his job, favourite aspects of development, playtesting, FAQs and how new books are scheduled. He distinguishes the armies he enjoys collecting from the challenge of writing every faction, and defines a successful codex through fun, thematic expression and rewarding play rather than raw power.
Sister-Hospitaller Sarane struggles with grief and the crushing apathy spreading through Imperial troops fighting Necrons. Prayer helps her resist the urge to surrender as her companions fail, and she finally turns that renewed purpose into a defiant charge against the alien warriors entering her sanctuary.
Simon Elsen’s Sons of Horus army grows from enthusiasm for the novels into a collection of named legionaries and converted characters. Airbrushed sea-green armour, chipped surfaces and consistent recipes unite infantry, magnetised vehicles and inventive jetbikes, while his account traces the development of a painting style he now uses with confidence.
An unnatural silence draws Battlegroup Kallides into the Nephilim region, where warp travel and psychic communication fail and living souls succumb to the Stilling. The disastrous attack on Mesmoch reveals Necron pylons; behind the front, Szeras’s vast contra-empyric project serves plans beyond Imperial understanding, while exceptional faith offers limited resistance.
The Tome Keepers’ depleted companies are rebuilt around Primaris reinforcements while veteran survivors concentrate in the first two companies. The team explains company and rank markings, flexible extra squads, campaign badges and Babylonian-inspired names, using practical collecting choices to shape the Chapter’s organisation and emerging characters.
Dan Harden converts the first named Tome Keepers captain with a bionic arm, scarred head, distinctive axe and a prominent book. An annotated parts guide combines several marine kits, translating the developing personality of the 3rd Company commander into visible battle damage and carefully chosen equipment.
The Crystal Labyrinth provides an army theme of impossible architecture, changing forms and knowledge purchased at a dangerous price. Mutation, feathers, extra eyes and shifting pink-blue-purple palettes offer a common visual language for sorcerers and cultists without requiring every follower of the Changer to look alike.
Fantasy examples explore harmonious colours, vivid magic and unexpected signs of corruption. Steve Wren separates groups of Horrors by their greater daemons’ colours, converted cultists borrow bird features and Harlequin masks, and Ashley Lowe’s Leviadon reveals hidden eyes beneath its shell rather than announcing its taint from every angle.
The far-future gallery ranges from a gold-armoured Iskandar Khayon and Rubric bodyguard to colourful Screamers and converted cultists. Magical bases link Scarab Occult Terminators with their effects, while Alexandre Dumillard adapts Corvus Cabal bodies and assorted weapons into a coherent blue-clad Necromunda cult.
Step-by-step bases show sorcerous fire emerging from cracked stone, glass shards that seem charged with Chaos and translucent crystals rising through snow. Plasticard, existing scenic elements and layered colour effects make the magical environment part of the model’s identity rather than a neutral finishing surface.
James Perry uses a pale foundation, repeated pink glazes and carefully rebuilt highlights to make a Horror look saturated with Hyshian light. The nearly white finish retains pink in its shadows and treats the many emerging faces and limbs as part of one coherent magical form.
A much darker Horror becomes a compact mass of shadow with a residual pink glow. Deep shading, selective highlights and borrowed arcane runes suggest Tzeentch’s power intruding upon Ulgu, giving a clear alternative to the familiar bright-pink daemon without abandoning its identity.
A Ghurish Blue Horror uses the countershading seen in real animals: darker outer surfaces and paler protected areas. The guide explains how to follow the creature’s unusual anatomy when placing the contrast, then adds progressively lighter blue layers to retain a lively magical appearance.
A Daemonic Simulacrum blends orange, pink and blue to suggest a spell transforming into a Lord of Change. Separate basecoats and washes establish each region before controlled drybrushing links the colours, illustrating how supernatural fire can move beyond a conventional orange-and-yellow flame recipe.
Owen Patten’s Legio Praesagius fight a doomed rearguard against Jason Lee’s Legio Infernus on Calth. Shared void shields, artillery damage, reactor management and returning traitor reinforcements create an exhausting battle of attrition; the loyalists almost hold long enough, but their last surviving Titan finally falls to the relentless attack.
Matt Davies designs an Osgiliath display around buildings with plausible original functions, then constructs ruined docks, streets and barracks from kits and scratch-built sections. Magnetised walkways preserve transportability and gaming access, while submerged ruins, detailed stonework and weathered painting make the board a convincing home for Gothmog’s army.
Matt Davies turns Goblin-town walkways into Orc landing craft through a detailed cutting and assembly sequence. Cleaned planks form the hull, angled front ramp and strengthening beams, while adapted ladders, a winch and chain complete a transport suitable for an Osgiliath invasion scene.
The Sisterhood assaults rebellious Metis as Miriya questions the political game driving the conflict. Vaun prepares to abandon Sherring after obtaining crucial information, while the battle brings heavy losses and forces Verity to defend her medical vocation even when the wounded are condemned enemies of the church.
Studio updates mix ongoing army challenges and Warcry games with a close large-scale battle, a Lord Discordant, Jain Zar and a newly painted Titan. Brief recipes explain metallic preparation, distinctive armour and deliberately grimy weathering, giving practical detail alongside the team’s latest hobby activity.
Dean Lettice expands a Kill Team project into a full Necron army, using Novokh red armour to distinguish the force. Gold details lend a regal finish, while rusty industrial bases contrast with cleaner bodies and bright green orbs and blades; the article records the named colours behind those focal areas.