WHITE DWARF · DECEMBER 2021
Soulblight intrigue, Crusher Stampede rules, a three-battle Path to Glory campaign and twenty years of Middle-earth.
COVER TO COVER
In printed page order
Readers explain how the hobby supported home learning and regular social gaming, alongside a gallery of painted armies and characters. Questions about vampires and miniature photography sit beside a handmade Helm’s Deep fortress, demonstrating the range from small personal projects to years of scenery construction.
Alessio Pizzo uses the transparency of Contrast paints and directional airbrushing to create striking eel riders. Manual highlights establish a fast non-metallic gold effect, while drilled metal pins attach the eels to underwater pillars and make the bases an integral part of the composition.
Thomas Naili imagines Stormcast warriors transformed after investigating a shrine in Ulgu. Stormcast and Chaos parts, Dryad branches and unusual skulls create three distinct bodies, while modelling putty hides the joins and shared bloody details tie their mutations to the same sinister event.
Andy Clark offers tables for origins, missions, bases and defining quirks, then works through examples for several armies. The results are prompts to adapt rather than rigid prescriptions, encouraging players to let their models, opponents and games gradually build a force’s identity.
The warlords approach their final target with substantial armies and increasingly ambitious additions. Games reveal the collections’ developing personalities, while the new units range from disciplined infantry to enormous monsters, showing how different hobby choices can sustain the same long collecting challenge.
A Scinari Loreseeker and Bladelords reinforce Martyn Lyon’s Lumineth, joined by his converted Bannerblade. The conversion prompts a useful lesson about dry-fitting components before glue, while the growing army’s support for its magical characters shapes his plans for future games.
Miyuki Foulkes paints Be’lakor with a bright blue-to-red wing transition and adds another much smaller Chaos character. Small games with her husband reveal how important familiarity with unit abilities becomes, encouraging her to learn through approachable battles while anticipating revenge for destroyed Varanguard.
Rich Packer introduces the Order’s duardin, using individual shield runes and shared gold, purple and green to connect them to the wider force. Dark armour and magically glowing bases distinguish these subterranean allies, with recipes showing how new colours can extend an army’s established palette.
Calum McPherson tackles a Mega-Gargant as his largest painting project so far. The resulting mercenary becomes a powerful distraction for the army’s faster elements, and its success against a mountain spirit gives the enormous newcomer an immediate place in the host’s history.
Ghyran’s Everspring Swathe remains scarred by Nurgle’s invasion, but Alarielle’s renewed power brings the possibility of recovery. Maps and regional accounts connect sacred waters, the Oak of Ages Past, the Phoenicium and the Bleeding Gate, showing why the struggle for life continues long after an apparent victory.
The Soulblight dynasties maintain courtly identities while struggling against hunger, bestial degeneration and Nagash’s dominion. Alarielle’s Rite of Life and the Era of the Beast destabilise their territories, creating both disasters and opportunities for ambitious vampires who hope to preserve their power or escape their master.
An official update adds Legion of Blood expertise, Zombie Dragon traits and new scoring options alongside open-play material. Path to Glory adapts the roster system to summoned undead, then supplies quests, territories and heroic upgrades that let a vampire’s expanding domain support the army’s development.
Two to four vampire rulers compete for influence and territory across Nurgle-tainted Invidia. Victories extend their domains, while defeats still provide opportunities for political interference; devotion to Nagash and courtly ploys make the campaign a contest of reputation as well as battlefield success.
Sam Pearson explains how quests, injuries and territorial growth link individual battles into a continuing story. The system allows players to develop an army without requiring a fixed opponent group, while its aftermath sequence turns success and failure into concrete changes for heroes, units and strongholds.
Sam Pearson’s Khorne warriors pursue an ancient talisman through Shyish, opposed by Lyle Lowery’s funeral procession of Young Charles Sealth. The introductory army histories and rosters establish a three-game Path to Glory campaign, with each aftermath changing the forces available for the next encounter.
A central tower and timely Nighthaunt redeployment leave Khorne’s leaders struggling to reach the decisive combats. Replenished Chainrasps outlast the Bloodbound attackers and secure the realm, after which injuries, renown and new territories begin to give both armies a campaign history.
Vorgakhos attempts an ambush, but Lyle channels the assault into resilient, repeatedly restored Chainrasps. The Nighthaunt win 22–2, leaving the Khorne leader critically injured and forcing Sam to rethink his approach as the procession prepares to add a Black Coach.
Unable to break through by conventional means, Vorgakhos attempts a ritual while his followers contest several arcane sites. Although the Black Coach exacts a heavy toll and the champion falls again, Khorne’s forces hold enough ground to complete the ritual and recover the Talisman of Burning Blood.
Castellan Beren Kiergaard brings the Black Templars’ Dammerhal Crusade to Abundantia, attacking Ork hunters and defending its reclamation cities. Tyranid incursions and the Cult of the Toothed Coil complicate the campaign, while Magus Shaylagh Dysther uses hidden influence and expendable followers to preserve the cult’s ambitions.
Black Templars and Battle Sisters descend into Abundantia’s storage facilities, where Tyranid attacks escalate from swift lesser creatures to a tunnelling monster. Hendrech’s guidance of the Neophyte Koenrad becomes part of the battle itself, as disciplined cooperation offers their best chance of surviving the confined underground fight.
Abundantia’s industrial slaughter districts introduce dangerous chemicals and performance-enhancing stimms into narrative battles. A Theatre of War and new Crusade relics turn the agri world’s production processes into tactical choices, allowing units to gain temporary advantages while risking harmful exposure.
Large monsters and vehicles compete for nodal emitters that enhance their destructive abilities. Special actions and stratagems allow these battlefield colossi to smash terrain and batter enemy giants, making the mission an unusually physical struggle over both objectives and the scenery surrounding them.
The Crusher Stampede concentrates on Tyranid monsters, exchanging normal hive fleet adaptations and access to small creatures for special protection and overwhelming mass. Warlord traits, stratagems and psychic powers reinforce resilience and melee pressure, creating a distinct army structure rather than simply adding bonuses to a conventional swarm.
Novitiates emerge from the Schola Progenium with intense faith but still have to earn their place in the Adepta Sororitas. Their training, weapons and dangerous first assignments reveal how the Orders cultivate disciplined warriors, directing youthful zeal toward the defence and expansion of the Imperial creed.
A full squad datasheet brings the Novitiate miniatures into larger Warhammer 40,000 battles. Equipment options and their charge-related ability distinguish the inexperienced Sisters from regular Battle Sisters, while a limit tied to existing squads places their enthusiastic aggression within a more established Order force.
The Red Gobbo’s origins in Gorkamorka introduce a revolutionary hero who promises freedom to downtrodden Gretchin. His return in festive form connects the old rebellion to a new miniature, preserving the mix of political parody, reckless optimism and dangerous improvised weaponry that defines the character.
A Warhammer Legends datasheet supplies the mounted Red Gobbo with his own profile, weapons and points. Bounca’s unruly appetite and the rider’s explosive gifts turn the festive miniature into a playable character, accompanied by the article’s explanation of how Legends rules fit different styles of play.
Aly Morrison and Chris Innes discuss three incarnations of the Red Gobbo, tracing repeated jokes through changes in pose and equipment. The latest squig-mounted model adds wrapping paper, lights and bauble grenades, with painting notes explaining the deliberately artificial Christmas colours and metallic decoration.
Dave Sanders introduces cover and gloom hexes, Grand Alliance cards and new attack-related mechanics in Harrowdeep. Changes to defensive positioning, activation consequences and the power-step sequence reshape familiar decisions, while guidance on starter products and card rotation helps existing and new players find an appropriate entry point.
Cado Ezechiar visits the fading city of Glimmerheart while struggling to restrain his hunger. Memories of an apparently benevolent temple and the discovery of familiar bronze rings draw him toward the corruption beneath ordinary life, turning his search for shelter into another confrontation with servants of Chaos.
Rob Alderman looks back over twenty years of Middle-earth gaming, from the first film tie-in releases to the game’s renewed development. Miniatures, tournaments, supplements and ambitious display battles form a timeline that also records the sculpting and production changes behind memorable models.
Lewis Collins introduces a group of vignettes and a reversible gaming board inspired by the Fellowship’s journey. The projects grew from long-held ambitions and the practical needs of playing Quest of the Ringbearer, combining photography, display and scenario scenery in the same collection.
Frodo and the Witch-king confront one another among fallen ruins, with accumulated earth and debris establishing the scene’s scale. Subtle blue-purple and natural green tones separate the figures, while repeated bone highlights produce the subdued clothing colours appropriate to the film-inspired composition.
Pippin’s disastrous curiosity becomes a small diorama focused on posture and recognisable props. A delicate spiderweb and carefully positioned dead Dwarf reward close inspection, while straightforward red and blue clothing recipes keep the Hobbit distinct within the muted stone chamber.
Boromir races to the Hobbits’ defence in a woodland scene built around natural-looking fallen leaves and a dead tree. Sea foam and seed materials create convincing small vegetation, while related recipes for Boromir and the Uruk-hai maintain a coherent palette across the opposing figures.
A removable rock backdrop and laser-cut acrylic door create a display, photographic setting and playable board around the western gate. Textured foam, model trees and a carefully planned water area make the dramatic entrance usable for miniatures without sacrificing its strong scenic composition.
The underside of the same lightweight table becomes the Chamber of Mazarbul, allowing the board to be flipped between two distinct scenarios. Foil, foam and textured surfaces create the excavated stone, while a broken doorway records the Cave Troll’s violent entry into the tomb.
Work-in-progress views explain the frame supporting the reversible board and the layout checks made before permanent assembly. Separate recipes use common grey drybrushes with different washes to distinguish the tomb, surrounding rock, pale ruins and green-blue water, preserving unity without making every surface identical.
An overview contrasts the visual identities of the Free Peoples and Sauron’s servants while encouraging personal choices grounded in the films and novels. Natural materials and regional clothing colours make Middle-earth a useful setting for practising restrained palettes, whether building a small fellowship or a full army.
Nick Bayton builds a Pelennor Fields-inspired Rohan army around Théoden and a large mounted bodyguard. A staining method speeds the infantry and cavalry, while separate light brown, dark brown and grey horse recipes create believable variation; dismounted versions keep the collection ready for battlefield casualties.
Studio hobbyists share film-inspired characters and small scenes, including luminous spirits, Hobbits and Arwen. Colour choices and scenic bases create a sense of place, while selective conversions show how familiar figures can be associated with a particular event without losing their recognisable identities.
Jay Clare presents favourite heroes from a varied collection, including Bard’s family and several versions of much-loved Hobbits. Scenic basing gives individual characters more presence, while restrained blue glazing over silver creates a distinct metallic finish without departing from the natural palette of the wider collection.
Dan Collister uses Middle-earth’s diverse characters to revisit familiar methods and practise new ones. Purple shading under carefully restored flesh tones gives faces character, while glazed metals and subdued equipment support individual personalities rather than applying a single uniform recipe to the whole group.
The studio ends the year with newly painted models and a review of hobby bingo. Different painting habits produce very different totals, but favourite projects and plans for the coming year give the challenge a personal focus beyond scores; short recipes also explain details on Radukar and other recent miniatures.