WHITE DWARF · SEPTEMBER 2021
Wolfspear background and painting, Hunter Clade Kill Team rules, Leviathan hobby ideas and Slaves to Darkness campaigns.
COVER TO COVER
In printed page order
Readers describe the encouragement of their hobby communities during isolation and discuss long-distance family gaming. Questions cover Kharadron salvage and Enforcer colours, while converted Nurgle followers and a muddy Death Rider demonstrate sharply different ways to create atmospheric miniatures.
Lucas Levieux draws on John Blanche’s art for a corrupted warband with distorted bodies and heavily weathered equipment. Layered flesh colours and sickly glazes unite the figures, while corroded armour and muted clothing make their unnatural anatomy the primary focus.
A practical response supplies recipes for the distinctive armour and clothing of Palanite Enforcers. Controlled shading and increasingly pale highlights separate the cool uniform from warmer details, offering a repeatable approach for a gang rather than a palette guessed from the finished photographs.
Michael Kurz sets a Death Rider in a deeply modelled trench scene built from insulation foam and textured ground. Cool blue clothing, subtle glazes and accumulated mud help the rider stand apart from the earth, while small details such as the shovel complete the setting.
Nick Horth explains how to write compelling battle scenes through tactical objectives, meaningful terrain and contrasting combatants. Sensory detail and changing fortunes matter more than continuous gore, with clear stakes and purposeful manoeuvres helping turn tabletop events into dramatic stories readers can follow.
The Wolfspear’s origins among Primaris sons of Russ lead into its fleet-based organisation and predatory hunting methods. Oaths, seven linked packs, psychic traditions and the continuing danger of the Wulfen explain a successor Chapter that honours Fenris while developing a colder and more shadowy identity.
A Space Wolves successor supplement supplies a Chapter tactic, relics, Warlord traits and stratagems. The rules support stalking weakened prey, coordinating attacks and exploiting the killing moment, translating the Wolfspear’s methodical hunting identity into a compact set of army options.
Heraldry diagrams explain the Wolfspear’s Chapter symbol, battlefield roles and individual pack markings before a gallery demonstrates their use. James Karch, Max Faleij and other staff interpret the pale armour and dark equipment through personal characters, runic icons and carefully chosen Fenrisian details.
Cool grey armour, black equipment and warm red details establish the Chapter’s restrained palette. A precise recess wash preserves clean light panels, while different highlight colours distinguish armour and weapons; the guide recommends finishing darker areas before the final pale edges to simplify corrections.
Apothecary White over Corax White produces a quick pale-grey warrior, with controlled brush strokes determining where the deepest shading settles. Contrast leather and fur demonstrate the same principle on organic textures, while the discussion of bases explains how warm ground can offset the cool armour.
The four Crusade armies reach one hundred Power with increasingly ambitious vehicles and leaders. Their first substantial games reveal the difference between a planned collection and battlefield performance, with the participants discussing new threats and the reinforcements they now think will matter most.
Joel Martin’s Gladiator Lancer, Impulsor and Outriders give the Sons of Medusa a more mobile armoured structure. His first garden games provide a practical test of the force, while plans for a converted Master of the Forge tie its expanding machinery to the Chapter’s inherited technological traditions.
Jonathan Stapleton deploys a Monolith as the immovable centre of his Necron army and learns how vulnerable a shooting force can be when the enemy reaches combat. Those experiences encourage additional close-range threats, while the great new model brings both firepower and reinforcement options.
Drew Palies adds Dominions in Immolators to deliver concentrated fire where his Crusade needs it. A painted portrait of Canoness Eleanor develops her identity beyond the miniature, and the increasingly mechanised force continues to follow the Order’s background through aggressive transport-borne strikes.
The grot-built empire of Skartown receives its largest machine yet, the Gorkanaut Max. Lydia Grant explains the army’s red, rusty basing method and the continuing usefulness of sacrificial grots, while heavier melee units promise to make much larger dents in the opposition than the unreliable guns.
Elliot Hamer explains why the new edition treats attacks, wounds and positioning differently from its predecessor. Engage and Conceal orders, revised targeting and action-based decisions aim to make a small firefight feel dangerous while giving movement, cover and timing a central tactical role.
Hunter Clades protect Mechanicus interests through assassination, exploration, specimen collection and technological recovery. Examples of missions and arcane weapons reveal troops whose neural links and specialised equipment allow their distant masters to prosecute goals that may differ from those of the wider Imperium.
Name tables, clade designations and demeanour prompts help give a Hunter Clade a recognisable identity. Functional codes can remain strictly mechanical or acquire personal elaborations, while characteristics such as secrecy or obsessive logic provide narrative guidance for the operatives’ campaign behaviour.
Tech-Priest Akhthra Mu-Psi directs small forces through Tyranid-infested underhive tunnels where her heaviest weapons cannot operate. Experiencing the battle through linked Skitarii and Electro-Priests turns the operation into both a tactical investigation and an expression of devotion to the Machine God.
A complete faction framework fields Skitarii and Sicarian operatives under shifting Doctrina Imperatives. Equipment, ploys, Tac Ops and detailed operative profiles support regular games, while battle honours, assets, requisitions and bespoke Spec Ops let a Hunter Clade pursue technological objectives through a narrative campaign.
Krieg veterans and Ork Kommandos compete to reactivate an isolated weapons battery. The Orks win 19–4 as their forward-moving specialists dominate the objectives, with the post-game discussion showing why a secure firing position alone cannot compensate for lost ground in a four-turn mission.
Leviathan’s adaptive swarms and widespread invasions provide a basis for individual splinter-fleet projects. The article connects familiar purple-and-white bioforms with alternative environments and bases, encouraging colour and conversion choices that make the organisms feel suited to the worlds they are consuming.
A Tyranid Warrior demonstrates pale flesh shaded pink, dark purple carapace and sharply contrasting claws. Alternative studio schemes show how changes in joint shading, striations and luminous details can create related strains, with the shared organic textures keeping the results recognisably part of Leviathan.
Hybridised Ork parts illustrate an unusual Genestealer conversion before a gallery moves into aquatic Tyranid monsters. Fins, eel tails, tentacles and an Arachnarok abdomen reshape familiar organisms, showing how strongly an imagined environment can influence silhouette as well as colour.
Louis Aguilar explains the Ghur-themed battlepack’s emphasis on monsters, seasonal victory conditions and varied scenarios. New battalions and scoring choices give armies ways to answer large creatures, while battleplans and endless-spell adjustments encourage players to make decisions that reflect the current region of war.
Maps and accounts explore Shyish as a realm made from mortal beliefs about the afterlife. The Prime Innerlands, the consuming Nadir and Nagash’s dominion reveal places where the living and dead coexist uneasily, with local funerary customs offering brief protection against threats that are never wholly understood.
The mortal followers of Chaos are presented as inhabitants of most of the realms, shaped by survival, ambition and the lure of divine power. Archaon’s authority, Be’lakor’s challenge and pressure from resurgent enemies reveal the fractures beneath an apparently limitless host.
An official update gives cultist units Marks of Chaos and matching Battleline options, alongside core battalions and new scoring choices. Path to Glory rules track divine allegiance, quests and advancement towards daemonhood, making the pursuit of patronage central to a personal warlord’s campaign.
Followers of Be’lakor and Archaon compete for the Banelands through influence over settlements and realmgates. Secret initial commitments, location rewards and escalating advantages shape a campaign that culminates at Dreadhold Traguska, turning an internal Chaos rivalry into a strategic contest for territory.
Max Faleij explains how the Kruleboyz palette grew from background and model design, with subtle tribal differences beneath a unifying warclan colour. Varied green skin recipes and the Breaka-boss’s contrasting Mirebrute show how existing hues can extend across beasts and equipment without introducing competing focal colours.
Mortifactors isolated by the Great Rift fight World Eaters while trying to preserve their Chapter’s gene-seed. An Apothecary’s duty conflicts with the warriors’ appetite for vengeance and inherited cannibal traditions, revealing how easily their ferocity can resemble that of the enemy they despise.
Staff discuss new Age of Sigmar projects, continue hobby bingo and display an atmospheric Barak-Nar fleet. Erik Niemz combines dark weathered metal with vividly blended lava bases, creating a Kharadron collection whose lighting and environment differ sharply from its usual skyborne presentation.