WHITE DWARF · JANUARY 2023
Boarding the Herald of Misery, the Kill Team expedition finale, AoS character conversions and Idoneth Warcry quests.
COVER TO COVER
In printed page order
Lyle introduces the Herald of Misery as White Dwarf’s recurring window onto the Arks of Omen offensive. Its changing inhabitants and battles will give readers a setting for their own boarding adventures, while events aboard the hulk will connect to the larger story rather than remain an isolated diversion.
Readers discuss the survival of the studio’s old World Eater champion, battle-report maps and the enormous scale of an Imperial display. Painting advice explains Karkadrak skin and glowing runes, while Roberto Sirchia describes using warm and cool reflections to give Sigvald’s shield a convincing mirrored surface; a lore answer considers the competing ambitions behind Genestealer Cult alliances.
Colin Cubbon considers humanity across ordinary populations, augmented servants, engineered warriors and stable or unstable mutations. Contradictory Imperial prejudices mean that political usefulness can protect some divergent groups while others are persecuted, making the boundary of acceptable humanity a question of power and belief as much as biology.
Andy Clark and Richard Butler explain Abaddon’s bargain with Vashtorr, the daemon of destructive invention whose gifts enable an enormous hunt for scattered Key-fragments. They discuss the scale and linked structure of the five-book story, the competing ambitions of its villains and how space hulks let players invent local conflicts within this galaxy-wide catastrophe.
Warsmith Czagra accepts command of a monstrous space hulk and sends expendable followers into its depths before committing his elite troops. His conquest becomes a methodical, destructive struggle against Deathskull Orks and a vast mutant inhabitant, and apparent victory still leaves unreliable maps, hidden enemies and questions about the vessel’s true nature.
Warp-infected Entity tiles add an unpredictable living hazard to Boarding Actions. Different revealed body parts interfere with movement, attacks and actions, while striking the heaving flesh can make the whole creature recoil and reappear elsewhere, giving the following six missions a dangerous opponent beyond the other army.
Armies fight to control the Ark’s systems while the resident mutant lashes through the decks. Holding strategic locations generates a steady score, but successfully hurting the entity also earns points, giving commanders a reason to approach a hazard they might otherwise avoid.
Forces compete for psychic keystones that can reveal the Ferryman’s hidden chamber. The prime objective, wider control and the fate of the opposing warlord all contribute to victory, turning the search for command of the ship into a contest over both territory and leadership.
Repeated encounters with the mutant complicate a struggle to establish connected footholds within the Ark. Scoring rewards several levels of objective control, so commanders must balance expanding their influence with keeping enough strength together to survive the creature and their opponent.
Czagra’s followers try to make the creature’s activity an instrument against their enemies. Unequal scoring for prime objectives and opportunities for aggressive movement give attacker and defender different incentives, making the approach to hazardous territory as important as occupying it.
An attacker tries to break the faith of the creature’s worshippers by injuring their living idol. All entity tiles begin active and the final tally depends on which remain exposed, while restrictions on the defenders’ entry points reinforce the sense of a fanatical garrison protecting a besieged shrine.
Relentless hunters drive survivors towards their final defensible chambers. Objective control scores during the battle and again at its close, while the mutant’s shifting presence makes a seemingly secure position vulnerable and forces both sides to keep adapting their final stand.
Duncan Waugh explains why fixed layouts, small armies and restricted construction create tense, personal games aboard starships. Doors and corridors make positioning matter immediately, while tailored missions and modest faction options preserve varied experiences without requiring the full range of units and combinations found on open battlefields.
Duncan recommends enough ordinary objective-holders to support elite attackers, then examines screening, friendly models blocking visibility and the timing of opening doors. Worked examples show how Overwatch and counterattacks can make an apparently exposed objective difficult to assault, while the closing advice stresses balancing patience with the need to retain initiative.
An annotated position explores the first turn of The Pipeline mission using Genestealer Cults against Space Marines. Several possible lines of attack show how the central passage can enable rapid responses or be blocked by a durable unit, while nearby doors threaten objective-holders with charges from unexpected directions.
Lyle’s Kommandos and Matt’s Warpcoven inspect energy cells in a hangar where lighting controls repeatedly alter the fight. The Sorcerers’ extra actions and mobility initially give them an advantage, but the Orks use numbers, firepower and late objective captures to win 16–10, with the post-game discussion identifying mission understanding as crucial to the result.
The expedition’s third stage completes the team’s Gallowdark campaign and reveals the final material totals. Lyle finishes unbeaten and leads the overall haul, followed by Dan, Matt, Ben and Sophie, while the partly depleted map leaves the group a setting they could revisit with new operatives.
Lyle reflects on the change from open battlefields to tight corridors and how the games motivated additions to his Kommandos. Final commendations increase his support assets, while the completed roster and stockpile record a victorious team whose campaign story has become part of its modelling identity.
Sophie finds enjoyment in the campaign despite a harsh record, recalling games that were closer than the standings suggest. New Players broaden her roster and a chase after a stolen trophy produces an especially memorable scenario, while the final ledger shows how narrative resources and development continued even without victories.
Matt describes the modelling pleasure of new Tzaangors and converted Thousand Sons alongside the tactical rewards of mobile Sorcerers. Games against Lyle expose areas for improvement, but an experienced and varied roster remains at the end, with rewards and final acquisitions recording the team’s development.
Ben’s final games turn on a narrow objective contest and costly encounters with Harlequins. Two more permanent deaths temper his growing confidence with Veteran Guardsmen, while closing experience, equipment and asset choices leave a detailed record of a battered team that learned through difficult opposition.
Dan concludes his Pathfinders’ uneven campaign with two victories that lift him to second in the material standings. He credits some fortune and risk-taking alongside his developing understanding of the rules, while the roster’s many injuries show the cost of bringing the team through its successive battles.
The five players compare their expedition’s accumulated injuries, deaths and experience before awarding honours for spectacular kills and absurd incidents. The memorial to lost fighters sits alongside tales of door-closing, impossible survival and explosive squigs, illustrating how a campaign can generate shared memories beyond its final ranking.
Elliot Hamer explains the revised mission sequence and the distinct demands of Loot, Capture and Secure. Examples show when to spend actions, leave objectives behind, use a tough or high-APL operative and steal a decisive point, with the new pack encouraging repeated interaction and meaningful choices on asymmetric terrain.
Skragrott sends his followers against the skaven strongholds beneath Ayadah as Brasswhisker’s experiments damage the region’s magical foundations. The grots plan to replace dangerous warpstone contamination with their own fungal influence, and a doomed scout’s glimpse of a monstrous weapon shows what is at stake in the impending underground war.
A short branching campaign pits Gloomspite invaders against skaven forces secretly divided among three locations. Early victories determine access to the final stronghold and carry rewards into subsequent games; underground battle effects and Path to Glory integration let the same arc serve a brief standalone contest or an ongoing army narrative.
The former palace offers a religious prize for both factions. Its battleplan options lead into a reward that strengthens the skaven’s great-clan leadership or projects the Bad Moon’s influence from the victorious grot heroes, turning the location’s sacred importance into an advantage in the next game.
A contested nexus links its mission choices to the struggle over Chamon’s damaged magic. Skaven victory enables additional casting, while the grots can begin the following battle by summoning a chosen endless spell without the usual uncertainty, making control of the site particularly attractive to magic-heavy armies.
Sprawling inhabited tunnels provide opportunities to ambush enemies and recruit roaming creatures. Their reward lets unmounted skaven heroes retreat at a crucial moment or adds a band of Squig Hoppers to the grot army, providing contrasting mobile advantages for the campaign’s next clash.
The campaign’s final battle divides the underground battlefield into smaller quarters instead of ordinary objectives. Limits on claiming territory make spreading control and eliminating enemy units competing priorities, with the skaven laboratory providing the setting for the grots’ attempt to finish their assault.
Kraken Blades hunters launch a dangerous attack on a colossal sea beast and its animated idol as Ka-rokk’s advance spreads towards Lendu. Cooperation between ship-borne warriors and Prosecutors eventually brings down the monster, while surrounding reports describe both the wider devastation and Chagga Weird-eye’s extraordinary magical violence.
A framework of name, domain, history, motive and palette turns an army leader into a distinct character of the Mortal Realms. Celemnis demonstrates how these elements work together, while the Anvil of Apotheosis and the following conversions encourage readers to develop both models and stories for their own heroes.
A Stardrake and Bloodthirster become a towering Shaggoth whose new plasticard hammer and stripped armour retain only suitably stormy decoration. Green scales, bronzed flesh and layered rust tie the two donor kits together into an ancient creature of Chaos.
Gossamid Archer legs and wings give an Arch-Revenant the motion of a sudden dive into combat. Pale blue Contrast effects on the blade and wings sit against warm orange details, providing an experimental palette that could grow from a single leader into a whole warband.
Bastian Carthalos becomes a lone survivor returning from years in Ghur, carrying gear taken from the Untamed Beasts. A beast-head pauldron, bone tools and a new spearhead communicate his ordeal, while cool-shaded metal transformed with brown Contrast gives his armour a worn brass appearance.
Warm initial flesh tones are shifted towards sickly green to suggest decay beneath the Archregent’s skin. Matching the wing membranes to his scrap of clothing supports the unsettling idea that the creature’s former finery has become part of his transformed body.
Blood Knight components replace the Vampire Lord’s head, shield and weapon to create an aristocratic swordswoman. Red armour and bronze trim contrast against a snow-covered rocky base, linking the character to an existing undead collection.
A Ray Harryhausen exhibition inspires a moonlit monochrome treatment of Belladamma and her wolves. Zenithal white over grey establishes the lighting before dark washes define fur and rocks, giving the group the silhouette and atmosphere of an old fantasy film.
James seeks a repeatable monochrome scheme rather than a labour-intensive blended display finish. Different grey foundations and controlled washes separate robes, corsets and weapons, showing how an old horror-film mood can be carried across an entire spectral army.
A flame-bearing fist, stolen Lord of Change sword and Phoenix wings turn the Thaumaturge into a more overtly magical monster. Hot skin colours contrast with a blue-purple otherworldly base, while the painter also mentions unnamed luminous products used for the glow.
A Loreseeker imagined as a student of Ulgu carries Khainite Shadowstalker weapons and practices shadow magic. Rich purple robes unify the conversion and express the character’s unusual training without requiring a completely different silhouette.
A rusted sewer pipe and algae-like sludge place the assassin in the neglected routes beneath a city. His black robes are built up through restrained grey highlights so that the figure stays appropriately concealed within the atmospheric scene.
A Carnival of Nurgle theme equips the daemon with a plague flail, doomsday bell and unsettling clown hair made from mohair around wire. Airbrushed and washed green flesh is contrasted with dark, glazed wounds, reinforcing the grotesque showman character.
Gloomtide wreckage and the Black Coach become a full ghost ship for Awlrach, complete with coffin and mummified figurehead. Zenithal preparation supports stippled green wood and blue-green spirits, unifying an ambitious conversion from several separate scenic and character kits.
Blood-red clothes and pale skin give Annika a classic vampire appearance. Dirt on the hem connects her to the rest of Ashley’s characters and evokes a predator walking Ulfenkarn’s grim streets with no interest in mundane discomfort.
A classic illustration inspires a winged Castellan of the Winter Keep, using Scourge wings stripped of futuristic details. A replacement Blood Knight head keeps the face readable, while translucent red over bright metal and pale flesh create a dramatic moonlit silhouette.
Lockdown painting time lets Thomas lavish trophies and scavenged parts on two imposing ogor leaders. A helmet partly conceals the Tyrant’s snarling face, while matching red armour and warm-shaded metal make the heavily personalised figures read as members of the same army.
The Willowqueen’s exceptional stature is represented by joining a Branchwraith torso to the Warsong Revenant’s cloak and base. Green skin and mantle are varied with luminous eyes and blue seed pods, giving the enlarged character both a natural palette and a distinct magical presence.
Yndrasta is transformed into an eyeless humanoid silhouette crowned with painted ball-bearing eyes. A Tzeentch icon, khopesh and strange familiars change her identity further, while blue steel, fiery wings and green flames separate the supernatural materials.
Krondys becomes a wounded undead dragon through cut and sculpted tears, exposed guts and damaged wings. A rider from the Zombie Dragon kit completes the silhouette, while layered pale flesh, discoloured membranes and light rocky ground make the conversion’s injuries easy to read.
Parts from the generic Regent and Lyrior Uthralle create a challenging pose over a watery fissure. Brush bristles make reeds and tinted resin supplies the water, while teal armour and a bright sunmetal blade give the model a vivid focal contrast.
A Ghur campaign gives this Kastelai vampire an earthy setting, while red cloth links him to the army’s Blood Knights. Pale upper flesh stands out against the dark lower body, and the accompanying recipes explain layered black skin, red fabric and shaded silver.
Dan uses Gobsprakk to practise glazing, first defining raised surfaces with drybrushed pale colours and then tinting them with thinned original hues. Separate treatments for skin, robes, wings and Killabeak’s flesh keep the large mounted figure coherent while preserving contrasting warm and cool areas.
Idoneth raiders enter the Gnarlwood hoping its rich souls and possibly the pools of Talaxis can ease their people’s curse. Their memory-erasing sea magic makes them terrifying but half-remembered coastal predators, establishing the motives behind the following warband rules and quests.
Optional rules bring the changing phantasmal tide to an Idoneth battle. Early emergence and ranged protection give way to changing combat pressure and fading powers, requiring the warband to plan its raid around an ebb and flow rather than enjoy a constant faction bonus.
A warband gathers souls through kills, nearby heroes and the aftermath of battle to earn a selected artefact. The rewards include defensive reactions, hypnotic protection, movement and unusual attacks, allowing the player to choose a relic that supports the developing identity of the raiding force.
The search for a dryside outpost requires battlefield progress and risky supply expeditions before a ritual-defence encounter. Securing the post expands the warband’s support and unlocks ethersea searches for consumable creatures and treasures, giving soul-raiding a lasting base within the Gnarlwood.
A stationary ritualist must survive five rounds while allies hold off an attacking warband. Expanding magical mists progressively restrict enemy abilities, reactions and visibility, creating a defence that changes as the ritual nears completion rather than relying on a static protected position.
Names, leader identities and origins help players turn an Idoneth roster into a distinct raiding party. Suggestions range from fighters adapted to Ghur’s seas to seekers following the legend of Talaxis, connecting a warband’s personal history with the wider reasons its people venture inland.
John Bracken builds a Nemesis deck from Grinkrak’s Looncourt and Fearsome Fortress, sorting cards by how well they support a common plan. Charging objectives and territorial scores guide his choices of accuracy, damage and survival tools, while repeated testing and revision remain essential even once the initial list appears coherent.
Lewis’s Gondorians defend Osgiliath against Ash’s Mordor force in a battle shaped by falling masonry, a fierce central clash and a Ranger counterattack. Gothmog kills Faramir, but mounting casualties and fleeing Orcs allow the defenders to recover four buildings to Mordor’s none, with two still contested when the fighting ends.
A custom scenario recreates the struggle for the ruined city with specified forces and six contested buildings. Continuing bombardment can kill occupants and turn a secure position into rubble-strewn danger, forcing both sides to weigh holding terrain against the risk of concentrating fighters inside it.
More than forty studio hobbyists take part in a shared skirmish challenge. The displayed warbands and kill teams illustrate the variety of personal schemes and scenic approaches developed through the event, with individual contributors explaining both their visual choices and practical painting methods.
Recessed bases filled with sand and clear resin emphasise the stilt-walkers’ swampy home. Zenithal white and a green Contrast wash produce robes that suit the watery environment while keeping the warband efficient to paint.
Matt establishes every base colour before washing the warband to set its overall tone. Warm flesh and cooler armour deliberately contrast, while red leather is rebuilt over its dark wash to preserve clear material differences across the warriors.
Josh connects his Corsairs to the developing story of Jai-Tan, a small craftworld associated with Biel-Tan. Green armour is produced through grey and white drybrushing over black followed by a translucent green wash, giving the kill team a shared identity with his wider collection.
Steve’s first Space Marines use muted grey armour with a bright accent for contrast. A display base made from an old picture frame gives the Hound Stalkers a shared setting, while a straightforward wash and two highlights define the armour.
The new grid offers several ways to score, including treating light and dark triangles as separate challenges. Staff updates report new tanks, Praetors and returning skirmish projects, providing practical examples of how modest painting and gaming goals can accumulate over the year.
Andrew builds Sons of Horus green from a dark foundation and successive drybrushes before adding sponged chips. Oil streaks supply further dirt, making the large aircraft look like an active war machine rather than an unweathered display model.
Japanese colour theory encourages Ben to try a palette outside his usual choices. Dark grey bodywork is broken up by burgundy and pale markings, with bright green lenses giving the compact vehicle a crisp focal accent.