WHITE DWARF · MAY 2022
Faith turns to corruption, sentry missions for Kill Team and new Hedonite and Warcry campaigns.
COVER TO COVER
In printed page order
Readers discuss renewed inspiration, early memories of White Dwarf and newly painted miniatures. A question about repainting black armour for the Deathwatch illustrates the importance of ritual, while practical examples range from corroded machinery to a sinister Genestealer Cult scheme.
Alvin Wong joins a Canoptek Spyder to a Tech-Priest Manipulus, creating a Nurgle-devoted heretek with an unsettling mechanical mount. Spawn heads and a Plaguebearer-skull servitor spread the corruption across the model, making its allegiance apparent beyond the central figure.
The studio explains a Neophyte’s sinister palette through recipes for clothing, armour, skin and equipment. Carefully mixed shading uses ordinary opaque paints as well as washes, while bright final details stop the predominantly dark cultist from becoming an indistinct figure.
Phil Kelly explores how symbols communicate culture, battlefield roles and history before a character speaks. Space Marine heraldry, Aeldari runes and the symbols of the realms show how apparently simple shapes accumulate meaning through their use across stories, miniatures and generations of players.
Guardsman Golv expects faithful reinforcement as the Shorvale 477th struggles to hold its line. The arriving warriors and the violent confrontation that follows challenge his assumptions about devotion, exposing the terrible similarity between the language of Imperial certainty and that of those who have already fallen.
The righteous Crusade reaches its revelation: apparently divine rewards may have come from Chaos. Several aftermath paths allow armies to repent, reject manipulation or embrace damnation, with rules for scars, honours and even converting units into a new Chaos force making the decision persist beyond the Flashpoint.
Purity seals, chained weapons and devotional writing turn Imperial conviction into modelling details. A Black Templar illustrates the overlapping symbols of duty and faith, while suggestions for banners and improvised religious objects extend the same visual language to ordinary human followers.
A cream marble statue uses transparent shading, drybrushing and irregular veins to suggest carved stone. Additional recipes cover candles, braziers, purity seals, crusade seals and chains, supplying reusable details for nearly any force whose identity rests on conspicuous Imperial devotion.
Transparent red over metal gives Paragon armour a rich finish, with carefully chosen bases connecting the suits to a campaign of religious warfare. Related golden armour uses thinned Contrast shading, showing how strong metallic foundations can support several distinct yet equally ornate devotional schemes.
Cawdor bodies, replacement heads and altered rifles create soldiers from an imagined feudal world. Hooded Space Marines offer another interpretation of martial devotion, with cut transfers and freehand work adapting Chapter symbols to the unfamiliar shapes of converted equipment.
A Stormlord becomes Yarrick’s Fortress of Arrogance through an Exorcist organ, religious decoration and a suitably extravagant command presence. Airbrushed highlights, sponged chips and heavily weathered metallic details balance the shrine-like additions with the appearance of a working Imperial war machine.
Battle Sisters and Unmade parts produce a death-cult interpretation of the Sororitas, distinguished by halos and memento mori. A converted older Inquisitor receives lined features, darkened eyes and greying hair, making experience and grim religious purpose the shared themes of the retinue.
Ungors with firearms serve the Goat-Emperor in a desperate corner of the Imperium Nihilus. The article connects unusual conscripts to a wider theme of radical devotion, while another example uses sculpted acrylic-gel flames to make zeal physically visible on weapons.
A Knight devoted to Saint Sabbat carries an elaborate chapel and abandons its former personal identity for the crusade. Clear packaging becomes stained glass through drawn outlines and carefully applied Contrast colour, making the religious superstructure as distinctive as the enormous fighting machine beneath it.
Sergeant Stryker’s Catachans infiltrate a Deathskull camp to destroy a stolen Deathstrike launcher. Rain and darkness favour their careful approach, but eccentric Ork security and missing equipment complicate the mission, making improvisation essential even for experienced jungle fighters.
A sentry prologue lets an intruder move through a guarded killzone before the main battle begins. Patrol control, detection and alarm conditions create a contest of stealth and risk, with six missions giving the covert operative opportunities to change the situation before reinforcements arrive.
The infiltrator prepares a weak point in the enemy position before a larger assault. Activating enough approach markers raises the alarm, creating a trade-off between securing an early advantage and preserving the opportunity to remain undetected for another patrol.
A lone intruder tries to claim and move key assets before the main engagement. The defenders must contain that early penetration, while both sides later score through control of the opposing alpha objective, linking the stealth opening to the subsequent battle.
An exposed terminal offers access to a vital network that must be compromised before defenders reinforce it. Mission actions designate the alpha terminal, making the evolving location of the priority objective as significant as the sentries’ ability to discover the intruder.
An intruder identifies the most important assets within a guarded site. Once three priorities are designated, irrelevant objectives disappear, allowing reconnaissance during the sentry phase to define the targets over which both teams will fight when open combat begins.
A misplaced supply drop becomes a contest between recovery and sabotage. The intruder can damage supplies before the battle, forcing later recovery actions to cost more effort and giving the opening stealth sequence consequences that continue throughout the mission.
A covert specialist penetrates a communications facility to send an urgent message. Amplified objective markers improve the network’s usefulness, while the alarm and the ensuing struggle force both teams to balance fighting with maintaining control of the transmission infrastructure.
Elliot Hamer explains the hybrid of physical visibility and abstract terrain rules used by Kill Team. A decision flowchart separates concealment, cover and obscuration, demonstrating how precise positioning can create meaningful choices without forcing every gap in a scenic model to function as an unrestricted firing lane.
Louis Aguilar examines ethereal defence, Discorporate protection and the revised Wave of Terror. Reliable movement and charge-triggered penalties encourage repeated pressure and coordinated attacks, while the discussion connects improvements across the warscrolls to a play style built around frightening opponents rather than simply surviving their attacks.
Scaravos Vaen’s Kastelai host attempts to reclaim the Crystal Caverns from Rich Packer’s Order of Morrda. Hero-controlled objectives force both commanders to expose important leaders, and the Celestant-Prime’s decisive attacks help the Order retain the caverns despite severe losses and the fall of its Runelord.
The Ghurish Heartlands contain predatory landscapes as dangerous as their inhabitants, with shifting territories and monstrous migrations undermining every claim to permanence. Thondia, Excelsis and the ruined land of Carcass Donse place current campaigns within a wider geography energised by Kragnos and the Era of the Beast.
Slaanesh turns virtues into consuming obsessions while his worshippers pursue rival interpretations of excess. Invaders, Pretenders and Godseekers exploit the instability of the Era of the Beast, with the Voice and Talon offering new manifestations of the imprisoned god’s power and pleasure cults undermining apparently secure settlements.
An official update rewards accumulated depravity with stronger rallying, speed and protection. Core battalions and scoring options accompany Path to Glory rules for daemonic rosters, rivalry quests, boons and territories, making personal ambition and the Dark Prince’s favour concrete parts of army development.
Two Hedonite champions compete to make offerings to Slaanesh before a final confrontation. Their first three games can pursue distinct personal feats, turning injuries, kills and risky achievements into competing claims to divine favour that alter the decisive fourth battle.
Chris Lewis unites mortals and daemons through dark skin, bright pink details, blue cloth and opulent character metals. Glutos gathers the entire palette into a major centrepiece, while conversions recalling older miniatures and reflections on tournament games show how the collection serves both visual preferences and an evolving battlefield approach.
The High Gladiatrix, Scriptor Mortis and Craventhrone fighters receive profiles and specialist abilities. Murderous precision and delayed spectral punishment distinguish the two factions’ leaders, giving existing Daughters of Khaine and Nighthaunt warbands new options before they embark on the accompanying quests.
A Nighthaunt warband follows the presence of an unusually potent soul through two convergence battles. Hunting and capturing that prey fulfils Nagash’s demands, with thematic territory and equipment options tying the expedition’s rewards to the spirits’ hunger for the torment of the living.
A Daughters of Khaine champion seeks enlightenment through increasingly complete devotion to murder. The convergences test both brutal control and purposeful violence, giving the warband a narrative route from ordinary martial success toward embodying Morathi-Khaine’s wrath.
Quest conclusions grant lasting rewards for a captured soul or a champion’s transformation into a Handmaiden of Murder. The Nighthaunt gain power from their tormented prize, while the Khainite reward creates a violent trance with stronger nearby attacks and a damaging conclusion.
Gangs at least four hundred credits behind their opponents receive scenarios designed around desperate opportunities. The introduction explains how a dangerous raid can offer a struggling gang substantial rewards, providing an alternative to asking an outmatched force to fight a conventional equal-purpose battle.
An underdog gang breaks into enemy stores and must escape with enough loot caskets to win. Carrying valuables away exposes fighters to pursuit, but successful theft offers the substantial credits and reputation needed to turn a struggling campaign around.
One gang protects cogitators while incriminating information is erased, opposed by fighters trying to hack them first. Credits, experience and reputation reward active interference, turning a technical objective into an urgent close-range struggle over a small number of valuable machines.
A weaker gang tries to collect the bounty on a key enemy fighter whose identity may initially be uncertain. Protecting or discovering the target changes the normal priorities of the fight, with victory tied to the assassination or the defending gang’s retreat rather than ordinary attrition.
The One Ring makes its bearer difficult to target and can reduce an opponent’s fighting skill, but Sauron’s influence and the Nazgûl undermine its apparent safety. Tactical examples pair Ringbearers with stronger companions, while narrative scenarios highlight the need to balance its immediate advantages against the danger of wearing it.
Ancient Kae tries to safeguard refugees and restore order at the Basileion spaceport while concealed agents prepare coordinated attacks. Bombs and expendable cultists create pressure for a hidden marksman, whose specialised ammunition turns an apparently controlled defence into evidence that the Tome Keepers still misunderstand their enemy.
Painting updates and recent games continue the studio’s hobby bingo projects. An unsuccessful mountain-spirit battle supplies tactical lessons, while new spectral details and personal character schemes show collectors adapting what they learn to both their miniatures and the next game.
The White Dwarf team attempts a Warhammer-themed escape room set aboard a starship in the warp. Confusing controls, reluctant doors and improvised problem-solving turn the visit into a humorous account of collaboration under pressure, complete with the team’s final escape time.
Dan Harden’s latest projects include undead creatures and a Pathfinder team, linked by a recurring supernatural accent colour. Meanwhile the Carcass Donse map grows more contested, with territorial exchanges, sudden reversals and rival Tzeentch forces providing stories beyond the immediate results of individual games.