WHITE DWARF · JANUARY 2022
The warlords’ final armies, Nachmund faith, Wyrmblade rules and winter armies of the Mortal Realms.
COVER TO COVER
In printed page order
Readers share young painters’ achievements and ambitious displays from Thailand, including a moving giant Trygon. A gallery and painting questions connect these elaborate projects with everyday hobby progress, ranging from individual characters to a large freehand-decorated Titan.
Michael Hanns builds Inquisitor Sebastian von Dernbach’s retinue from mismatched figures and equipment. Their shared John Blanche-inspired grime unifies unusual specialists and a daemonhost, with stippled and spattered paint helping the warband feel like inhabitants of the same unpleasant corner of the Imperium.
The studio explains the red and yellow quarters of Robin’s Howling Griffons. Controlled shading preserves the strength of both bright colours, while successive highlights define armour edges and help the Chapter’s complex heraldic scheme remain clear across a complete miniature.
The four collectors finish their challenge at 150 Power and reflect on a year of growing armies. Their final rosters and photographs show how a restricted beginning became a substantial force, while Crusade stories and plans for future additions demonstrate that the end of the series need not end the collection.
Joel Martin finishes with Firestrike Servo-turrets and a Repulsor, increasing the fire support available to his mobile green-armoured force. A final narrative attack puts Vaylund Cal at its head, while the full roster and army photograph reveal the scope of the Atropos War Clan he has assembled.
Szarekh becomes the crowning centrepiece of Jonathan Stapleton’s Thokt Dynasty, joining the Monolith and Void Dragon. Painting the Silent King takes longer than expected and delays his intended Praetorian escort, illustrating both the demands and satisfaction of finishing an already spectacular collection.
Drew Palies adds heavy weapons and reflects on the predominantly short-ranged firepower of his Argent Shroud. Face-painting advice uses natural mixes and soft transitions, while his future plans and lessons about protecting against deep strikes connect the finished models to continued painting and gaming.
A Gargantuan Squiggoth named Doof gives Lydia Grant’s Goffs an enormous final addition. Grots, Mek machinery and the growing Waaagh!’s stories keep the collection playful, and her plans for Beast Snaggas and additional retinue models underline the difficulty of declaring an Ork army finished.
A complete army photograph brings together the units collected during the challenge, showing the relationship between rank-and-file models, vehicles and major characters. Repeated colours and basing hold the diverse additions together, making the final scale of the force and its individual centrepieces easy to appreciate.
A complete army photograph brings together the units collected during the challenge, showing the relationship between rank-and-file models, vehicles and major characters. Repeated colours and basing hold the diverse additions together, making the final scale of the force and its individual centrepieces easy to appreciate.
A complete army photograph brings together the units collected during the challenge, showing the relationship between rank-and-file models, vehicles and major characters. Repeated colours and basing hold the diverse additions together, making the final scale of the force and its individual centrepieces easy to appreciate.
A complete army photograph brings together the units collected during the challenge, showing the relationship between rank-and-file models, vehicles and major characters. Repeated colours and basing hold the diverse additions together, making the final scale of the force and its individual centrepieces easy to appreciate.
The struggle for the Nachmund Gauntlet spreads beyond Vigilus into a region where Imperial faith is under severe pressure. The Geminon System’s shrine, industrial, agricultural and tallow-producing worlds form an interdependent network, threatened by Chaos incursions and internal cults even as their inhabitants rally around Saint Wynn.
Major Hesper’s Khymeran infantry retreat through the shrine gardens of Aq’arus under relentless pressure. As news from neighbouring positions grows worse, frustration and faith push him toward an all-out bayonet assault, giving his exhausted soldiers a decisive action even when wider Imperial support remains absent.
A Crusade of Faith tracks Righteous Inspiration earned through themed agendas. Miraculous abilities, psychic fortitudes and relics reward units that advance along this path, allowing faith to shape a developing army whether its devotion is directed toward the Emperor, Chaos or another power.
Rich Packer combines Sisters of Battle and Imperial Knights against Calum McPherson’s Death Guard in Deliverance. His aggressive opening and exploding Knight cause damage, but the resilient Death Guard survive and take control of the shrinking objective network, winning 62–34 after eliminating the remaining Imperial defenders.
Wyrmblade broods turn ordinary-looking labourers into remarkably coordinated insurgents and assassins. Accounts of their infiltrations introduce Neophytes, icons and specialist cult agents, showing how generations of hidden preparation allow a small team to strike at precisely the point where Imperial authorities are least ready.
Tables generate operative names, brood titles, demeanours and bases of operations for Wyrmblade teams. The options connect mundane social origins to alien devotion, making secret transit routes, old survivors and revolutionary cruelty useful starting points for a team’s campaign identity.
Complete Wyrmblade rules combine Neophytes with a limited number of powerful cult agents. Cult Ambush, concealment tricks and specialist profiles support coordinated attacks, while equipment, Tac Ops and Spec Ops material let the team build a hidden support network and pursue carefully prepared assassinations through a campaign.
A Neophyte Brood-Adept demonstrates muted work clothes, black ribbed armour and stained metallic equipment. Recess-focused shading and increasingly small highlights preserve the model’s details, while separate recipes distinguish goggles, skin, a weapon casing and the bright red blasting charge.
Contrast colours over Wraithbone establish the cultist’s fatigues, armour and red cloth before selective opaque highlights add definition. Diluted Guilliman Flesh stains the metal, and yellow glazing around a power pick suggests a warm internal light spilling onto its surrounding components.
Nagash’s empire promises order through a landscape of necropolises, bone bridges and strictly controlled mortal settlements. Maps and landmark accounts reveal the difference between the Bonereapers’ ideal of peace and the tithe-bound existence of the living, alongside the strategic pressures threatening even these imposing domains.
The Bonereapers’ crafted bodies and composite souls make them an army designed for relentless conquest and administration. Their origins, Katakros’s rise and the demands of the bone tithe explain how this civilisation operates, while rebellions and the Era of the Beast expose weaknesses beneath its claims to inevitable victory.
An official update revises relentless discipline and adds heroic actions, matched-play scoring and open-play options. Path to Glory connects the army to collecting the tithe through new quests, abilities and territories, making the supply of bone and mastery of necromancy central to its campaign progression.
An Ossiarch expedition fights five battles to gather bones and restore Nagash’s authority. Each unit also consumes part of that resource between games, forcing the player to balance an impressive roster against sustainable campaigning; a name generator and roster support the Liege-Kavalos’s personal march of conquest.
Louis Aguilar examines how reinforcement limits, core battalions and smaller units change army construction in the third edition. Objective coverage, physical deployment space and reactions matter alongside raw power, while advice on monsters stresses that a threatening centrepiece must still contribute to the battleplan’s demands.
Winter takes different forms across the Mortal Realms, offering more possibilities than a single white colour scheme. Climate, equipment and secondary colours can make a force convincingly adapted to its environment, with Beastclaw Raiders showing how clothing, beasts and clan markings can express the same theme.
Cool neutral masonry, blue staining and patches of snow turn ruined buildings into a coherent winter battlefield. Painting one horizontal wall at a time controls Contrast pooling, while warm scorch marks and natural wood offer restrained variation within the otherwise cold scenery.
Crackle texture, transparent blue and pale drybrushing create frozen bases finished with gloss and snow. A related weapon recipe uses blue-green shading over white to suggest ice, with exposed metal details keeping the finished weapon recognisable as a practical piece of equipment.
A converted Chaos Lord joins Dan Harden’s Cypher Lords with matching weapons and winter colours. Additional examples combine metallic and Contrast mixtures with oil shading, showing how a shared icy environment can unite altered equipment and several different painting approaches.
A snowstorm-summoning Mutalith, a slowly freezing Ogroid and fur-clad commanders interpret winter through different textures. Technical paints, cold glazes, sculpted clothing and stretched clear-plastic icicles make the environment visible on the figures themselves as well as their bases.
A fiery Spirit of Durthu contrasts with snow, while heavily converted Ironjawz explore fur, rocky terrain and frozen surfaces. The playful snoworruk uses simple sculpted shapes and spare parts, demonstrating how humour and strong material contrasts can both strengthen a themed collection.
Ant Saliba experiments with the earlier ’Eavy Metal skin method on a huge Warstomper. Its converted ice mace and scattered snow suggest a long journey through frozen wastes, while greens and warmer accents prevent the enormous model from disappearing into its rocky white surroundings.
Ogor infantry adopt the habits and cold colours of Beastclaw Raiders, while an Ironjawz leader wears trophies from his prey. Lyrior Uthralle combines a cool rider with a warmer mount, showing how controlled contrast can preserve a winter theme without making every surface blue.
A turquoise-and-white Black Coach rises through a snowy graveyard, while brightly coloured Mangler Squigs deliberately stand apart from their pale bases. Lauka Vai uses cooler shadows and porcelain skin, giving three very different approaches to suggesting the same harsh season.
Nasiem’s earlier experiences as a sergeant frame the responsibilities he now carries as captain of the Tome Keepers’ Third Company. Costly battles against Necrons, difficult counsel and the closing of fallen brothers’ books lead to a new mission on a strategically essential world, while an unseen vessel follows the Chapter’s departure.
A new hobby bingo year begins with tanks, heroes and early progress on personal targets. Studio members discuss painting choices and newly finished models, while a concentrated terrain-building session produces interconnected ruins, a container depot and a repair facility for future games.