WHITE DWARF · DECEMBER 2024
Genestealer Cults lore, Crusade and army painting; new Kill Team and Underworlds editions; faces and the Siege of Lethis.
COVER TO COVER
In printed page order
Lyle looks back on the 500th issue, Grombrindal’s anniversary miniature, the new cover and improvements in print quality. He then turns toward hobby resolutions, suggesting monthly scenarios, painting challenges, campaigns and unfinished collections as ways to make progress. Readers are invited to share the goals that will shape their next year.
The studio Underworlds league ends with Phil’s Skinnerkin beating Leigh’s Stab Ladz, while Kelly wins the painting award. Reader letters connect novels with named character models, suggest ways to draw veterans into Combat Patrol and revisit a classic Ork shipboard scenario using modern terrain. Personal model galleries, a Fellowship diorama and cats invading a hobby bench round out the section.
Mark Banks builds a scene around an illuminated Doors of Durin ornament to recreate the Fellowship’s encounter with the Watcher. Bark provides lightweight rock texture over a simple baseboard, plastic trees receive putty roots and a thin resin layer reflects the door’s light. Grey basecoating and broad drybrushing handle the extensive rock without making the project unwieldy.
Jordan presents a deliberately partisan case for the Skaven as the Hour of Ruin’s protagonists. Their long work poisoning magical nexuses has created the Vermindoom and a tangible territorial base in the Gnaw. He links constant invention, rivalry between the Great Clans and the new region’s strongholds to opportunities for stories and personal armies, ending with a playful pronunciation guide to Queekish names.
Wade announces that the Interlopers have won the Paradyce campaign by a single Strategic point, helped by a final burst of old-edition Kill Team games. The departing Imperial fleet leaves a ruined world for Necrons, Orks and further scavengers to dispute. An accompanying dossier characterises Gorgit’s Blood Axe army, while converted objective markers turn campaign resources into tangible tabletop objects.
The campaign’s closing army photographs contrast an Iron Hands strike force with Gorgit’s militarised Blood Axes. James uses Heresy-era equipment as Chapter relics and replaces poorly performing units with Gravis troops. Wade credits his customised artillery and Mek support for destroying several venerable Dreadnoughts, matching the army’s character to its campaign achievements.
James’s detachment from Clan Company Raukaan combines contemporary troops with older armour details and breaching shields. The recipe establishes black armour with controlled grey highlights, bright cold metal and clearly defined white details. Warm rusty bases offset those restrained colours while supporting the strike force’s industrial appearance.
Wade’s Orks wear muted green armour and fatigues that echo the Blood Axes’ interest in human military practice. Skin is brighter than the uniforms, keeping the faces readable against the camouflage colours. A dark metal base, black wash and successive metallic drybrushes finish the guns responsible for the warband’s campaign reputation.
The final monthly challenge pages of the year maintain a cumulative record of games and painted units. Their rank bands and journal encourage hobbyists to preserve a history of completed projects, while the calendar explains future photograph deadlines. December’s Gods of War theme gives the accompanying community gallery its focus on powerful centrepieces.
Supply crates offer a push-your-luck alternative to fixed objective values. Players roll repeatedly to determine the materiel they recover, but exceeding the safe threshold can cause mortal wounds and reduce the reward. The underdog gains a limited re-roll, and units still near supplies at the end can extract an additional random haul.
A single objective moves between linked locations at the start of each round. The underdog chooses its next destination, while tied players randomise the move. Six points for controlling the orb and four for a battle tactic make positioning, mobility and anticipating the next relocation central to success.
The new Underworlds edition receives a flexible league structure that accommodates variable attendance and different prize preferences. Optional catch-up rules limit weekly results, double a trailing player’s next score or supply a small in-game advantage. Twelve battlefield twists introduce caches, vents, tremors, corruption and collapsing tunnels, giving the league a dangerous Embergard identity.
Stephen Box argues that deployment starts with knowing the mission map, movement values and secondary objectives. Infiltrators secure space, Scouts should be positioned for their eventual free move, and protection must account for the possibility of going second. Advice on large models and transports shows how physical space can determine later options, before a Scout deployment puzzle asks readers to combine aggression with a safe fallback.
Emily explains facial painting through mid-tones, shadows and raised areas beneath an imagined overhead light. Thin glaze highlights create softer transitions than armour-style edges, and spare heads make useful practice pieces. The worked examples progress from simple skin to varied complexions, subtle colour changes and scars, with the same principles applied to larger areas of exposed flesh.
Two detached heads demonstrate the complete process for light and dark skin. After a black undercoat, their base colours receive different flesh washes, followed by increasingly selective glaze highlights. Final translucent pin highlights define noses and brows before eyes are added, preserving a natural transition instead of stark facial lines.
Eight heads demonstrate how a small palette can produce varied human complexions. Three-colour methods offer quick results, while longer recipes change base colours and highlight mixtures. Additional red and violet glazing creates facial variation and depth, and pink highlights make scars appear sore against the surrounding skin.
A reader’s request for the Scions’ camouflage is answered through an Aquilon sharing the same scheme as the 7th Rhoin Cobras. Lighter green patches sit over darker armour, with a cool wash and pale edge highlights bringing the pattern together. Separate recipes cover muted fatigues, green lights, black weapon casings and bright metal.
Readers display named heroes, alien leaders and a towering gargant as their armies’ centrepieces. Studio favourites pair Matt’s Angron with Dirk’s Mortarion. Matt contrasts supernatural red skin and purple wings with weathered mundane equipment, while Dirk intensifies an already colourful Death Guard scheme through elaborate wing markings and bright green armour.
Lyle and Matt complete their 2024 bingo sheets and make progress on second cards, while other team members reflect on unfinished goals. Photographs show Ravenwing, Goliath gangers, Lumineth and a growing Genestealer Cult, each attached to a personal year of gaming and painting. Reader feedback leads to separate painting and gaming sheets for 2025, allowing participants to choose either challenge or both.
James’s cult rises from workers mining decorative luxuries for wealthy outsiders, then expands by infiltrating the troops sent to suppress it. Grimy industrial equipment is offset by brass and turquoise inherited from the former owners’ livery. Alien bodies share a sandy Hive Fleet Bakasura scheme and blue psychic markings; character conversions draw on Cawdor, Ministorum and Idoneth components to give the uprising its own visual history.
Dark primer and drybrushed grey mining suits establish a practical industrial base before skin and brass details are added. Turquoise fabric recalls the mine owners’ ostentatious livery, while the alien skin progresses from sandy bone into purple and yellow limbs. The recipes preserve both the cult’s working background and its shared Tyranid ancestry.
James repeats the infantry’s worn industrial character on vehicles with shaded silver, weathered turquoise panels and yellow hazard stripes. Brown recess washes accumulate around details to imply dirt, while stippled metal looks scratched rather than neatly outlined. Blood staining and selectively bright edges give the machinery the appearance of hard use during an uprising.
The fractured Chalnath Expanse gives Genestealer Cults time and opportunity to infiltrate, though T’au and Ork attacks often force uprisings before the approaching hive fleets are ready. The region lies between Kronos, Leviathan and opportunistic Typhon, whose organisms even consume other Tyranids. Examples show marine salvation myths, liberation creeds, agricultural sabotage, prison revolt and a multi-sided hive war, demonstrating how one alien purpose adapts to very different societies.
The Reaping Talon turns farm machinery and prepared roads into weapons against Imperial reinforcements on Wyldreach. Gorbrim’s Unshackled exploit their prison guards and defensive systems, only to face both zealots and escaped Chaos worshippers. At Saint’s Halt, the Hivewyrm’s infiltration reaches the governor’s circle before T’au intervention and Deathwatch reinforcements transform the uprising into a prolonged struggle across several hives.
A Genestealer Cult strategist receives Planning points to equip units with carefully prepared battlefield advantages. Deadly Crossfire rewards two or three units concentrating fire, while other schemes provide concealment, traps, coordinated charges or withdrawal into reserves. Agendas, Battle Traits and character-specific relics develop the campaign around ambushes and spreading control; three Crusade badges recognise increasingly elaborate plans.
Tempestus Aquilons defend Volkus’s manufactorums from Vespid Stingwings in the first report using Hivestorm’s new rules. Elliot’s early drops pressure the aliens and build an intelligence lead, while Leila’s Swarmguard proves unexpectedly lethal in melee before burning through the Imperial positions. Trooper Tylax survives repeated final-round attacks, preserving a decisive swing in scoring and a 14–10 Aquilon victory.
Emily builds the Firewing Strain’s saturated orange exoskeleton over Wraithbone with Tau Light Ochre and a vivid orange wash. Pale wing membranes carry individual teal markings, while mottled red areas enrich the body. The guide separates Battle Ready basecoats and shades from Parade Ready highlights, covering claws, neutron crystals, metal, optics, weapon panels and wear as well as the insectile flesh.
The Vermindoom’s assault on Shyish depletes Ossiarch troops and bone reserves, prompting doubled tithes and fresh demands on Lethis. The Petrifex Elite seek the lake’s ancient fossil treasure as well as the city’s inhabitants. Their durable columns overcome Vanguard harassment and the first watchtower’s cannonade, leaving the survivors to prepare a more determined defence at the remaining outposts.
A linked campaign follows the Petrifex Elite through the city’s outer defences. Players fight a retreat, an assault on two watchtowers and a battle for surrounding territory, with each result granting a choice of abilities for the next stage. The article permits either a three-battle conclusion or continuation into the following issue, and explains how to adapt the story to other armies.
Lethisian units try to leave through an escape edge while avoiding combat with their pursuers. Soul-draining sand makes low run and charge dice dangerous, adding attrition to the movement race. The number escaped, surviving or destroyed determines victory and unlocks siege-breaking, bodyguard, repair or fortification abilities for the next battle.
Two destructible watchtowers stand between the Petrifex and their next advance. Destroying one or both determines the Ossiarch victory level, but falling masonry damages nearby troops. The outcome can grant stronger assault movement or fighting prowess to the attackers, or defensive signals and restoration of slain models to the city’s forces.
Both armies compete for battlefield quarters while Shyish’s pervasive death magic damages every unit after each turn. Petrifex control is worth more points, while a tied finish favours Lethis. If the campaign continues, the result supplies movement or armour benefits to the constructs, or stronger fortification control and rallying to the defenders.
Jimbo explains the vocabulary heard around an Age of Sigmar table, linking slang to actual decisions and rules. Deployment drops, priority and double turns sit alongside descriptions of dice luck, screens, chaff, tar pits and trading units. Short examples make terms such as toeing into an objective or basing a model understandable, and readers are encouraged to ask other players when unfamiliar language appears.
Developer Louis outlines the new edition’s attempt to preserve tactical depth while shortening and clarifying its rules. Playstyle icons, universal Rivals decks and an underdog mechanic make approaches easier to identify, while altered critical saves, bounty limits and fighter health address combat balance. A redesigned board brings opponents closer and Focus lets players exchange unhelpful cards, making early decisions more active.
The four collectors expand their fledgling armies into more varied battlehosts. Bretonnian peasants join the knights, Tomb Kings gain ancient constructs and artillery, Norscans add tougher warriors and monsters, and Orc cavalry arrives to support the infantry. Conversions and choices of battlefield role explain how each month’s painting develops the larger force.
Dave settles on Couronne’s blue and red after testing knightly heraldry, then adds Men-at-Arms and bowmen in those colours. Replacing earlier riders with Questing Knights preserves the horses and their heraldic history. A Damsel supports foot knights, and a converted Duchess uses a Palatine head and Royal Pegasus kit to give the army a personal leader.
Jay expands beyond skeletons into the constructs that make Tomb Kings distinctive. Tomb Swarms, Sepulchral Stalkers and a Scorpion provide varied threats, while a Screaming Skull Catapult supports the advancing army from a distance. A Tomb Prince and Tomb Guard create a more resilient centre while the collection awaits Settra himself.
Connor equips Marauder Huscarls with Chaos Warrior weapons and shields to show their progression toward the gods’ service. Horsemen and Skin Wolves add speed, while Warriors and Spawn strengthen the infantry centre. A mounted Battle Standard Bearer combines a Chaos Lord with Knight components, bringing both a robust leader and a visual rallying point to the warband.
Dan adds a dozen Boar Boyz and a chariot to give his infantry horde a powerful mounted attack. Matching replacement boars unify the chariot with the riders, while Fenrisian Wolves make two Goblin cavalry units look more unruly. The account also admits that cherished Stone Trolls missed the deadline, leaving those and a larger addition for the following month.
While Linnd seeks supplies, Auber’s recovery party is ambushed by fellgor ravagers who burn the transports and capture Vigen. Refusing to abandon her fellow Kasrkin, she pursues them to a polluted cistern and prepares a rescue with the surviving Guardsmen. Vigen dies before she can intervene; Auber destroys the tribe’s idol and shaman in a frenzy, leaving Linnd to confront how deeply grief and hatred are changing his comrade.
The recommended Scout deployment preserves different choices depending on the first-turn roll. Starting near a solid-walled ruin allows early secondary scoring or a disruptive charge if the Marines go first. If they go second, the free Scout move pulls them behind the wall and beyond engagement reach, protecting them from both direct fire and an easy charge through the ruin.