Into The Archives - My Early White Dwarf Reads (Part Two)

White Dwarf #125

Here we delve into the next White Dwarf I held onto.

Dave Gallagher provides the cover artwork titled 'Ork Nobz' for the May 1990 issue. As you can see in those days the Blood Axes really lived up to their 'Oomie luvin' reputation.

The contents page again highlights the diverse nature of the contents. Also worth noting is top right, the circulation of the magazine. I did wonder over the years how much that changed, shame they stopped giving it out.

Citadel & Store News.

Couple of pieces that are worth attention in the News sections at the beginning of the issue.

To begin we have above the first pictures of the Eldar Aspect Warrior models, these are actually the prototypes. That's right, GW showed you what they were planning and working on some time in advance in those days...

And over the page we see that Tony Cottrell even in his very pre-Forge World days was thinking big.


Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay - Plague Daemon.

Here is the thing, I have never played Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, indeed I've never played an RPG full stop (I suppose some games of Inquisitor is the closest I've ever come).

But I loved the WFRP articles in White Dwarf.

This article is different to some of the others in that it took characters from a novel and turned them into WFRP characters. It is a good book well worth a read and I enjoyed seeing the characters come to life like this. However it is quite a short piece just giving the background and stats of the main characters in the book. Other WFRP articles were better, bringing the spotlight onto parts of the Warhammer World you didn't see elsewhere. They covered characters and locations that would never see a battlefield or feature in the Fantasy Battle rule book or an army book. They were unlikely to appear in the novels either.

I loved the maps and plans the WFRP articles usually had and spent far too long looking over them imagining these hidden quarters of these imaginary cities and realms.

Advanced Heroquest - The Dark Beneath the World

I never owned Advanced Heroquest (though I had Heroquest, the first GW game I bought before I had ever heard of Games Workshop, Warhammer or White Dwarf) but I played it a fair bit.

I did own in later years Warhammer Quest, which I liked but I have a bigger fondness for Advanced Heroquest. Looking back now I think it had a darker vibe, rather than the more friendly and brighter coloured Warhammer Quest. I also liked the fact you could hire Men at Arms to go down into the tunnels with, where they performed much like a red shirt would, they are they just to die.

Much like the WFRP article above this AHQ piece takes a short story by William King and turns it into a campaign. So we get Gotrek and Felix as they were in the very earliest stories. I don't think the 'The Dark Beneath the World' short story was their first appearance but it I am certain it was one of the earliest.

Minotaurs.

I always saw this as a sister article to the one covering Beastmen in WD #124 and much like that one I loved reading this.

Later on Minotaurs became rather two dimensional, appearing as just a unit in Beastmen armies.

Here though we get a bit more (though not a huge amount, certainly not on a par with the Beastmen article), I loved the idea that they were the guardians of the most holy of the Chaos shrines.

A Minotaur led warband is a temptation...

'Eavy Metal.

Something from the 'Eavy Metal team, specifically Ivan Bartlett is this War Altar.

I have a feeling this definitely contributed to the War Altar of Nurgle of my own. In the back of my mind I'm sure I had a memory of this and the bell while I was coming up with ideas for the WAoN.

Epic Imperial Guard

Another article covering something that was being worked on by the Design Studio.

This showed you how to put together a Guard army for Space Marine, giving you the army list, organisation and a bit of background (though minimal amount).

Interesting thing, the armoured battalions for the Guard were called 'Kataphract Battalions'.

Just look at the things you could have, in these pre-Chimera days you had Rhinos, but more intesting you have bikers, assault troops armed with twin pistols and jump packs, Beastmen detachments, robot units and the (please Forge World bring these back) tunnelers

Dead Man's Curve - Dark Future.

The concluding part of the Dark Future piece started in WD #123 and continued into WD #124 I showed in the previous White Dwarf post.

This added to the previous articles bringing even more to the game, it really expands the between game elements and covers things like media exposure, recruitment as well as adding things like cybernetics and hacking.

And there we go, WD #125.

Hopefully you liked the read, next up, you guessed it WD #126. But for now I'll leave you with this...A 12 month subscription to White Dwarf for £18.