White Dwarf Magazine Download
Michele Firmasyah
White Dwarf is a magazine published by British games manufacturer Games Workshop, which has long served as a promotions and advertising platform for Games Workshop and Citadel Miniatures products.
During the first ten years of its publication, it covered a wide variety of fantasy and science-fiction role-playing games (RPGs) and board games, particularly the role-playing games Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (AD&D), Call of Cthulhu, RuneQuest and Traveller. These games were all published by other games companies and distributed in the United Kingdom by Games Workshop stores. The magazine underwent a major change in style and content in the late 1980s. It is now dedicated exclusively to the miniature wargames produced by Games Workshop.
Originally scheduled for May/June 1977,[1] White Dwarf was first published one month later. According to Shannon Appelcline, "Issue #1 ... was a 20-page magazine printed on glossy stock with a two-color cover."[2] The magazine had a bimonthly schedule, with an initial (and speculative)[3] print run of 4,000. White Dwarf continued the fantasy and science fiction role-playing and board-gaming theme developed in Owl and Weasel. Due to the increase in available space, there was an opportunity to produce reviews, articles and scenarios to a greater depth than had been possible in Owl and Weasel.
In addition to this a generation of writers passed through its offices and onto other RPG projects in the next decade, such as Phil Masters and Marcus L. Rowland. One huge attraction of the magazine was its incorporation of mini-game scenarios, capable of completion in a single night's play, rather than the mega-marathon games typical of the off the shelf campaigns. This would often be in the form of an attractive and interesting single task for either existing or new characters to resolve. These could either be slipped into existing campaign plots, or be used stand-alone, just for a fun evening, and were easily grasped by those familiar with RPG rules.
During this period the magazine included many features such as the satirical comic strip Thrud the Barbarian and Dave Langford's "Critical Mass" book review column, as well as a comical advertising series "The Androx Diaries", and always had cameos and full scenarios for a broad selection of the most popular games of the time, as well as a more rough and informal editorial style.
In the mid-late 1980s, however, there was a repositioning from being a general periodical covering all aspects and publishers within the hobby niche to a focus almost exclusively on Games Workshop's own products and publications. The last Dungeons & Dragons article appeared in issue 93, with the changeover being complete by issue #102. In this respect it took over some of the aspects of the Citadel Journal, an intermittent publication that supported the Warhammer Fantasy Battle game. The magazine has always been a conduit for new rules and ideas for GW games as well as a means to showcase developments. It often includes scenarios, campaigns, hobby news, photos of recently released miniatures and tips on building terrain and constructing or converting miniatures.
Grombrindal the White Dwarf is also a special character for the Warhammer Dwarf army, whose rules are published only in certain issues of White Dwarf (being revamped for the most recent edition of the rules). It is never stated who exactly the White Dwarf is, but it is implied[by whom?] that he is the spirit of Snorri Whitebeard,[citation needed] the last king of the Dwarfs to receive respect from an Elf. The image of the White Dwarf has graced the cover of many issues of the magazine. The image was also used on the character sheet for the Dwarf character in HeroQuest.
In December 2004, White Dwarf published its 300th issue in the United Kingdom and North America.[a] Each issue contained many special "freebies" as well as articles on the history of the magazine and the founding of Games Workshop.
The page count of the US and UK publications was substantially different (for example, bearing in mind the US/UK numbering difference: issue US #319, 156 pages; UK #320, 132 pages) with substantial differences in actual amount of content (for example in the same issues: US, 114 pages; UK, 71 pages) and each magazine had substantial overlap with the other as well as unique articles.[4]
As of the October 2012 issue, White Dwarf was redesigned with a new nine-member production staff with Matthew Hutson, Kris Shield and Andrew Kenrick continuing from the previous version, and six new members, including Jes Bickham as the new editor. Bickham had previously edited the Battle Games in Middle-earth magazine.[5]
White Dwarf continued to be published on a monthly basis until issue #409, January 2014. On 1 February 2014, the magazine moved to a 32-page format, published weekly and renumbered from issue 1.[6] Warhammer Visions, a monthly sister title, was launched at the same time, in a format favouring the imagery over text. The weekly version of White Dwarf lasted for 131 issues and in September 2016 the magazine returned to its monthly format, also subsuming Warhammer Visions.
In the early 1980s, mail-order subscriber copies of White Dwarf also received a small (A5, black and white) companion magazine Black Sun edited by Steve Williams, with contributions from White Dwarf regulars such as Ian Marsh and Games Workshop staff; it offered parodies, extended reviews, humour and gaming news.
GW's US studio also ran for a while a biweekly online supplemental free e-zine Black Gobbo. It included two regular columns, "Rules of Engagement" and "Ask the Scenery Guy", to help answer gamers' questions. Similar to its printed counterpart, it was devoted to the games and hobbies created by GW. Just like its printed counterpart, Black Gobbo also has its own character, published on the web with its own article, rules and modelling tips. The name is a pun. Gobbo stands for Goblin, which is hated by the Dwarfs. Dwarfs are, likewise, hated by Goblins. Black is also the opposite of white, hence Black Gobbo is the exact opposite of White Dwarf; one being free, electronic, short, weekly, black and a Goblin while the other one cost something, printed, comparatively long, monthly, white and a Dwarf. The e-zine was cancelled in 2008 during the revision of GW's online strategy.
It now appears that White Dwarf will be moving back to a monthly format. The Facebook page promises News, Battle Reports, Designer Notes and exclusive Games and Rules. Is it too much to hope that White Dwarf will be returning to its former glory? If it does, they will have secured one regular reader for sure. With this change just recently in the news, I thought it would be the perfect time to don my rose-tinted glasses and highlight some of my favorite articles or series of articles across my White Dwarf collection. I think that these highlight what made the magazine so great.
I specifically bought the White Dwarf with the release of 6th edition (I think I had stopped buying it regularly at this point) to see the designer notes. After reading a couple of pages about making the game more cinematic, with no mention of any new rules and why they were changed, I knew that I was pretty much finished with the magazine.
Huh, my rose tinted nostalgia differs from yours... I started buying white dwarf when I first got into the hobby, begining with 169. To me that marks the golden era of white dwarf. Whilst I've bought loads of second hand back issues, and fondly recall Thrudd (and Travellers, though I don't have the same fondness for Gook), I do prefer the issues which were purely focused on wargaming.
The move to full colour was also a big step in the dwarf's development, allowing more pages of georgous minatures to pore over. Interstingly, my perception is that the quotient of adds jumped up at the same time as the card insert and the move to "fat dwarf"
As another aside, the evolotion of the special character white dwarf mirrors the mindet with which the magazine was prepared. The earliest itteration saw him suffering the alcoholism rules and armed with a magic axe that did double damage to LARPers, later itterations saw him taking himself more and more seriously whilst not actually being as fun.
The new visions is a joke in my opinion. It resembles to me, a free magazine you find on a rack in a gas station promoting a destination or maybe a little video game pamphlet in a game stop that promotes new games with brief excerpts on what the game might be like.
Personally I liked the Dews/Thornton period. Decent strategy articles and good battle reports with easy to follow maps that weren't just new stuff auto winning, scenery building articles. Thornton improved it (making it bigger [more room for articles], changing the internal layout, card Inserts) but didn't really change the direction of the magazine. It started going downhill after sawyer took over (gradually).
There were no heroquest features under Thornton's editorship. You must be thinking of Warhammer Quest (which was in production at the time (as was space hulk) and was just being advertised via content... which is exactly what the magazine should be doing)
For me the 'classic' period is c.191-211, which I think corresponded to Jake Thornton in charge; c. 212-218 was poor, and then it picked up again from c.219. I can't really say after about 240, as by then I was 16 and beginning my gaming hiatus. I got WD from c. 180 onwards, and do think it got better from around 191, but 180-190 was still pretty good in my opinion, it's just that from 191 the magazine got bigger, so I found it always had stuff which was interesting (I loved Owen Branham's scenery articles).
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