WHITE DWARF · NOVEMBER 2024
Multiplayer 40K, Grombrindal’s duardin coalition, Petrifex Elite, Skaven paint palettes and Warcry’s Briar and Bone campaigns.
COVER TO COVER
In printed page order
Lyle Lowery introduces a festive issue offering new ways to play with friends. Cauldron of War extends 40K into team games and temporary free-for-all alliances, while Grombrindal returns with fourth-edition rules and a coalition of duardin cultures. The popularity of the anniversary miniature prompts a closing invitation to suggest the magazine’s next special model.
Honza Skypala recalls discovering Warhammer after the fall of communism in Czechoslovakia and learning to paint from a few treasured magazines. Another reader describes returning through Blood Bowl and finding pleasure in a Deathskulls collection. Letters correct the Warhammer Monthly timeline, show a handmade Kill Team medallion and accompany painted models ranging from a Black Templars vehicle to Khazad-dûm Dwarves.
Albert Żygadło replaces Celennar’s head with a Mindstealer Sphiranx component and builds a highly expressive green-and-magenta scheme. Airbrushing establishes gradients from dark blue into bright green and from purple shadows into magenta. Fluorescent highlights intensify both colours, giving the large centrepiece a distinctive presence without a named product recipe.
The eight participants in the 2023–24 series reunite for certificates, specially made coins and humorous awards. Their two challenges produced 868 models, including a record 489 for the 40K series. The ceremony recognises conversions, determination and memorable mishaps alongside the winners, and announces the feature’s return in 2025.
Wade Pryce explains how he runs a Crusade campaign for collaborative storytelling. Legends units, volunteered battle scars and optional unpredictable events allow players to follow personal narratives rather than a symmetrical competition. An in-universe fleet newsletter turns results and reminders into campaign fiction, encouraging players to contribute their own ideas.
Orks arriving aboard the Wurldburna seize an early advantage in the studio’s Pariah Nexus campaign. A coordinated Imperial operation, Iron Night, checks their advance and produces a three-way struggle, while the Necrons need a recovery in the second phase. Featured collectors describe the murderous personality behind a Necron court, a fast-painted Carcharodons force and Snarl Rukkskar’s growing Beast Snagga hunt.
Andy Thomas-Clark chooses units that suit Phaeron Empress Arkhassa’s love of intimidation, politics and hunting organic prey. Servants, advisors, bodyguards and super-weapons become extensions of her personality. The palette combines dark washed silver with black weapons and armour, then uses bright green lenses, power cables and glowing metal to focus attention.
Tom Horth starts Carcharodons because their grey scheme offers a practical route to a Crusade force and he enjoys their background. The army has beaten Orks but suffered against Necrons and World Eaters. Recipes define shaded grey armour, blue-grey-edged black weapons and unnaturally pale skin through a diluted black-and-blue wash.
Steve Barrett’s Beast Snagga warlord gathers the toughest Orks and squigs for a mobile hunting army on Paradyce V. A sand-coloured undercoat supports fast transparent colours for flesh, scars, red cloth, leather and bone. White armour and shaded silver distinguish hard surfaces, with yellow glazing adding warmth to metalwork.
The monthly challenge pages provide a cumulative record of played games and painted models, with ranks that progress from Trooper to Castellan. A future submission calendar links each showcase theme to its deadline. This month’s Monsters and Machines category encourages collectors to complete larger pieces alongside the regular gaming challenges.
Strategic Reserves can emerge behind enemy deployments from the second round, reflecting subterranean outflanking. Holding a command centre allows units near board edges to enter the tunnels again. Conventional objective scoring sustains pressure, while thirty endgame points for retaining the command centre make home defence crucial even as reserves threaten the rear.
The classic 2016 battleplan returns with current objective and battle-tactic scoring. From the third round, controlling all four objectives immediately wins the battle, creating a threat beyond steadily accumulating points. The underdog may Rally while in combat, offering a way to resist an opponent nearing complete control.
Sam Pearson treats battle tactics as a central part of list building and deployment rather than an afterthought. Worked examples show fast units taking flanks, counter-charges denying central control, reserves providing a hidden scoring option and restraint preserving a late-game kill. Grand Alliance tactics also require attention: surrendering a lower-value objective can be worthwhile if a redeploy denies the opponent four tactic points.
Dan Harden compares eight approaches to skeletons, showing how the undercoat and painting method change the final character of bone. Washes over pale primers, traditional drybrushing, zenithal light and fiery Contrast colours offer different routes to a Battle Ready army. Supporting armour and cloth can reinforce a realm or legion identity, and the studio Petrifex Elite demonstrate how several techniques coexist within one force.
Angron’s sword skulls begin bright and become progressively darker away from their hottest core. Yellow and orange glazes over white produce heat, followed by dark brown toward the edges. This reversal of ordinary highlighting creates the impression of light coming from within the skulls rather than falling onto them.
Four Mortek Guard schemes use washes over white, cream or pale grey to produce markedly different bones. Skeleton Horde gives an easy traditional result, dark sewer brown becomes mouldering bone after drybrushing, and blue-grey creates a frozen appearance. A mixed sepia-and-brown treatment with moss introduces a Ghyran theme; accompanying armour and weapon palettes carry each idea across the whole model.
The dark-undercoat examples contrast classic cream drybrushing with ancient grey bone, washed zenithal light and burning skeletons. Cyan armour recalls Tomb Kings, purple weapons suggest Shyish, and weathered metal makes the zenithal figure sinister. The Crematorian example builds a yellow-orange core beneath a blackened outer shell, turning a skeleton into a walking pyre.
The studio’s Petrifex Elite combine grey bone, lighter bone and exposed underlying material to distinguish the parts of their constructed bodies. Diluting the same grey wash produces the lighter surface, while drybrushing establishes highlights. Red armour, blue cloth and patinated bronze supply readable points of colour around the skeletal mass.
Readers submit a Warstomper, a Mindstealer Sphiranx, a Nightmare Predator and a cultist tank, while the studio takes on its own large projects. Sergi Torras’s Stormfiends use warm skin and yellow cloth, Robin Cruddace makes an elaborate Exorcist manageable through sub-assemblies, and Jes Bickham’s enormous Monolith is painted to look newly awakened from ages of dust.
With only two months left, the team still has larger models to finish and instead completes several smaller projects. Ben Humber paints a Nexos’s glowing map to resemble the studio site, Matt Hutson uses Contrast colours on a Vanus Infocyte, and Dan Harden raises Pteraxii on industrial scenery. Their short methods show how glow, bright fabric and substantial bases give small models a strong identity.
Pirate fleets from the Ful’na Nebulae add unpredictable Ork wars to a region already fractured by T’au expansion and Genestealer Cults. One crashed ramship becomes a colossal walking effigy; another fleet uses intercepted communications to choose profitable targets, while a mercenary Mek sells his services to a desperate governor. Resource-poor St Murran’s Rise drives rival pirates into shadow wars against both each other and the cultists they have displaced.
Big Mek Grokkfist boards a human ship in search of better power supplies. His teleporting equipment carries the Orks through a sealed door into an engine chamber, where he steals plasma batteries amid a fight with naval defenders. An improvised upgrade produces a devastating shot that wrecks the chamber, leaving him delighted by the damage and ready to escape with another battery for later experiments.
This multiplayer expansion supports four- or six-player teams and three- or four-player free-for-alls. It defines how allied models interact, sequences shared turns and combat, and adjusts shooting into fights between other opponents. Underdog command points and treacherous reactions encourage negotiation and opportunism, while deployment diagrams and mission-sequence changes make the format usable across different player counts.
Three pairs of transmission beacons reward coordinated control across the battlefield. Individual objectives supply points, but holding both members of a pair earns an additional bonus. The absence of further mission rules makes the challenge one of extending control across separated nodes while multiple rivals compete for the same network.
Every objective begins as a dangerous, unaligned source of power that can inflict mortal wounds on nearby units. Completing Rites and Offerings makes a marker safe to score and also earns an immediate battle-round reward. Players therefore compete over the work of aligning the battlefield as well as possession of the resulting resources.
Players can remove controlled objectives through a Raise or Pillage action that lasts into their next command phase. Units undertaking it gain improved resilience, but must survive long enough to finish. The large reward for completion competes with continued scoring from intact altars, inviting players to decide when denying a location is worth losing it themselves.
Destroyed non-character units may return to Strategic Reserves, and damaged units can spend an action calling for replacements. Bombardment punishes exposed ground, pressing forces toward deployment zones and objectives. Scoring pays more for markers cleared of nearby enemies, creating a meat-grinder battle in which repeatedly contesting a location matters more than simply eliminating an army.
Safe zones around three objectives shrink as the battle proceeds, exposing distant or partly sheltered units to increasing mortal wounds. Holding sanctuary scores throughout and supplies a large final reward. Units still outside safety can earn points by destroying enemies, allowing a desperate counterattack even as the surviving armies converge.
A central high-ground marker offers twice the normal objective score and improves the hit rolls of nearby units. The surrounding objectives still matter, but the central position combines firepower and points in one place. The resulting layout encourages rivals to contest a dominant location while judging whether its benefits justify concentrating their forces.
Duncan Waugh explains why tenth-edition detachments separate play styles from compulsory sub-faction paint schemes. The six Ork options demonstrate the design space: a general-purpose horde, focused beast hunting, reactive speed, resilient mass infantry, risky Mek inventions and a second burst of elite Waaagh! power. Each is built around a different player preference while remaining recognisably Orky.
Studio Spearhead leaders Leila Appleton and Jonny Simmons settle their close league finish with Stormcast Eternals against Soulblight Gravelords. Leila blocks the centre with a chariot and Vanquishers, while Jonny uses mobile characters and resilient skeletons to claim objectives. Double turns and third-round reinforcements keep the outcome uncertain; a final contested central dais leaves the title match drawn after the last skeleton fails to finish its opponent.
Grombrindal leads a Legends coalition of Dispossessed, Fyreslayers and Kharadron Overlords. Units near all three cultures become Unified and gain access to stronger prayers, shooting, charges and melee attacks. Tactical advice focuses on maintaining that network while using each contingent’s strengths, and Grombrindal’s warscroll supplies the ward protection and objective control that anchor the united throng.
The Petrifex Elite are unusual Ossiarchs ruled by master bone-crafters rather than their officer caste. Nomadic expeditions collect fossilised titans for immensely durable constructs, leaving stripped territory behind and hiding the purpose of their growing stockpile. A closing battlefield vignette shows the Grand Necromystic moving its consciousness between a scouting creature and a Harvester to crush a Lethisian defence while contemplating the true prize beneath the lake.
The opening Lethis rules instalment creates a Legends Petrifex Elite army around heavy constructs and Mortisans. Its traits absorb early damage, sustain an advance through combat, permit a delayed second fight and sometimes return a destroyed unit. Bespoke spells manipulate bone and terrain, while the Grand Necromystic’s warscroll uses harvested enemies to strengthen its weapons and enormous bulk to crush nearby foes.
Max Faleij explains how the new Skaven range combines clan identity with a coherent army palette. Neutral fur, skin, wood and corroded metals establish shared wretchedness, while warpstone and selective clan colours provide brighter points. The approach also revises how short fur blends into exposed skin and treats rough heraldry as part of the creatures’ scavenged, filthy character.
Four fur variants begin from Rakarth Flesh and use glazes, recess shading and mixed highlights to create related but distinct rat colours. Tail and ears receive a pinker treatment, while skin, iron, chainmail and two sorts of wood retain a subdued shared palette. The recipes distinguish textures without abandoning the desaturated foundation that unifies an army.
Blue-grey cloth makes Grey Seers look more opulent than their followers, while pale fur distinguishes their magical status. The swatches build blue and grey fabric with layered highlights and weathering glazes. Rhinox Hide, Wyldwood, Zandri Dust and Steel Legion Drab are used to make the ruling caste’s finery appear as grimy as the rest of Skaven society.
Aggressive red separates the warlord clans from drab fur and scavenged equipment. Three recipes vary its appearance across bright cloth, darker cloth and painted wood. Their different highlights suggest uneven fabric and stolen materials while keeping a common allegiance legible across Clanrats, Stormvermin and leaders.
Victorian industrial machinery informs Skryre’s brass-and-copper palette, with teal cloth echoing verdigris. Purple warlock robes recall older schemes, and light wood prevents every surface becoming brown metal. The swatches give shaded purple, dark iron and warm copper recipes that balance antique material with dangerous technological character.
Eshin’s black garments use several related blacks and blue-greys so their surfaces remain distinct. Burgundy cloth supplies a restrained accent, while pale fur creates stronger separation from the dark costume. The highlighted black, burgundy and blue-grey recipes support a stealthy appearance without allowing the model to become one featureless dark mass.
Green and yellow emphasise disease in Pestilens clothing and fumes. Desaturated highlights make robes look threadbare, while warm brown wood and dirty metal imply long neglect. The noxious-smoke recipe moves from bright green-yellow and white near the source toward browner, dirtier tones farther away, giving the fumes a luminous core.
Natural ochres, warm brown fabric and flesh tones make Moulder’s unnatural bodies feel disturbingly tangible. Contrasting colours define areas where fur has been peeled away, while bone and bandages reinforce the warm scheme. Yellow and drab cloth recipes accompany a brighter green warpstone treatment that supplies a focal point among the organic surfaces.
This campaign supplement develops two bands of outcasts: Ossiarchs reshaped as punishment and Sylvaneth corrupted by invasive growth. Each receives lore, three quests, artefacts, character traits, a new encampment and background tables. Teratic scouts can influence deployment, while Twistweald singers awaken hostile vegetation; Ravening Gnarloak rules add a literal threat of being kicked into the terrain’s teeth.
The guide identifies the Gnarloak’s obstacles, platforms and deadly mouth and spikes. When a fighter falls close to its maw, an opponent may try to kick them inside. Existing damage increases the risk that the fall ends with the fighter immediately taken down, turning nearby high ground into a particularly dangerous place to fight.
Nagash remakes failed Ossiarchs into humiliating bestial forms while leaving them aware of their punishment. Centauroid leaders, winged porters and canine hunters serve as scouts seeking Talaxis’s treasures, with Ghur-tainted bones threatening their self-control. Cycloptian warriors share vision through nadirite eyes, allowing their masters to monitor them as well as coordinate the hunt.
Teratic warriors feed corpses to Gnarloaks to recover clean bone for their masters. Campaign progress accumulates through battlefield destruction and injuries, culminating in an artefact from the Investitures of Control. Rewards enhance trampling, beast movement, command authority and the suppression of enemy abilities, reflecting a cohort’s work as both hunters and taskmasters.
A Kavalos Centari masters its bestial soul either by killing through reactions or by preserving wild dice as an exercise of willpower. Completing the chosen path unlocks a heroic trait. These traits express command over the pack, predatory aspects, trampling assaults, restorative death magic and a gaze that strips an enemy of special advantages.
Using reserves and scouting builds a search score that opens Clear the Lair. Its defenders must spread across three battlefield quarters, while the cohort forces a battle without waiting and with restricted wild-dice generation. Victory grants an Osseous Predator’s Lair, whose scouting table can move individual hunters or entire reserve groups into advantageous positions before the next fight.
Parasitic plants from the Gnarlwood invade Sylvaneth bodies and cut their minds away from Alarielle’s song. Swarmsages can slow the infection with magical insects but cannot cure it, creating bands of terminally afflicted exiles. Some take desperate missions to protect their kin, others seek isolated deaths, and the most dangerous risk spreading the parasite in a frantic attempt to reach their goddess.
The Twistweald cultivate their artefacts through bloody Gnarlwood rituals. Enemy casualties provide a fertiliser score, with large victims contributing more, until the warband earns a chosen Barkflesh Artefact. The rewards include predatory weapons, a hornet hive, healing bark and a living weapon haft, each tying advancement to the forest’s carnivorous nature.
A Swarmsage establishes a bond with a chosen symbiotic spite through actions appropriate to that creature. Kills, healing, elevated positions, forced disengagements or enemy falls can each advance a different relationship. The eventual traits offer stronger attacks, enhanced shooting, recovery, limited flight, protection or venom, giving a leader several distinct paths of development.
Killing near Gnarloaks gathers seedlings for a protective nursery. Sung in Blood pits the warband’s efforts to shape six objectives against an attacker trying to remove them. Winning establishes a Gnarlhaven that prevents injury rolls and lets a singer awaken the next battlefield, where roots, bone cages and hostile plants can damage or impede an enemy before normal fighting begins.
Four studio hobbyists begin collecting forces for the Old World’s turbulent late 2200s. Dave Scammell embraces Bretonnian heraldry, Jay Clare builds toward Settra, Dan Entwisle assembles a mass of Orcs and Connor Wilby raises Norscan raiders. Their first painted contingents establish themes and practical recipes that will carry through the coming months.
Dave Scammell uses an Errantry Crusade as a reason to explore varied knightly heraldry. Repeating each colour’s recipe makes the diverse banners and barding coherent, and he plans to build future units around a favourite scheme. Blue, yellow and red heraldic recipes accompany a simple dark-washed silver armour treatment.
Jay Clare returns to an unfinished Tomb Kings ambition with Nekaph, skeletons and a Mortuary Priest awaiting Settra’s arrival. A two-stage zenithal undercoat creates smooth light before a bone-coloured Contrast wash. Red and purple details, with dark wood, give the new host a strong ceremonial identity while remaining practical across many skeletons.
Dan Entwisle begins with two substantial Orc units and a Bigboss to establish the horde before adding unusual units and cavalry. A shaded grey primer and drybrushed zenithal highlights support transparent flesh and leather colours. The method uses additional white drybrushing beneath glazes, while rusty armour is handled with shaded steel.
Connor Wilby’s Wolves of the Sea theme emphasises Norscan Marauders, horsemen and a Chaos Lord rather than an armoured host. Snowy bases and selective pale-blue drybrushing place the raiders along Kislev’s cold coast. Recipes cover two skin tones, icy steel and yellow banners, connecting varied models through the environment in which they fight.
Following the Maligner’s death, the besieged Tattershields face a supply crisis while Harrovir violently consolidates the renegades. Medic Savos Linnd leads a sortie in improvised Ridgehaulers, intending to reconnect with an eastern garrison and recover medical stores. A drug-addicted biker gang wearing stolen Kasrkin armour draws them into a fierce fight; they secure supplies only to return to burning transports and the apparent destruction of the comrades left behind.
The recommended defence preserves command resources rather than trying a low-probability Killbow shot or rescuing every unit. Redeploying the Gutrippaz makes the Mournfang charge uncertain, while Sneaky Sneakin’ takes the Boltboyz out of danger and positions them for a later battle tactic. The Hobgrots may be sacrificed, with casualty removal itself helping lengthen the enemy’s charge.