The White Dwarf Weekly Issue 14

White Dwarf Weekly #14 is here, bringing a second (and last?) wave of Wood Elves, complete with some surprisingly good hobby articles, and a teaser for Warhammer 40K 7th Edition.

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#1 – The New Miniatures

The White Dwarf starts – as usual – with the new miniatures. In this issue, the Warhammer Wood Elves Eternal Guard / Wildwood Rangers and the Sisters of the Thorn / Wild Riders.

Similarly, following the now-familiar format, there is a Paint Splatter on how to paint these new miniatures and an article by the miniature designers talking about their ideas and inspirations (as expected, the new Wood Elves infantry was very designed much designed to reflect similar Dark Elves and High Elves units in a “Wood Elves”-style).

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#2 – Painting a Wood Elves Treeman

There is no column by Jervis Johnson, Phil Kelly or Jeremy Vetock. In its place we get a very nice step-by-step build-and-paint-a-Treeman article by Chris Peach from GW’s hobby team.

This 4-page hobby-article comes in addition to the paint-splatter, making this White Dwarf an above-average one for painting and hobby tips.

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#3 – Minigame – The Defence of Athel Loren

The Treeman gets even more love in a board-game-style minigame, which pits a handful of “evil minions” trying to move from one edge of the board to the other, and the Treeman (who can also slow minions down, as well as smash them) trying to stop them.

Unlike the even simpler card-based mini-games we’ve seen before in the White Dwarf, this one even has the makings of a small board-game. The downside being, of course, that few people will own a suitable board for the game as nice as the one in the picture.

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#4 - Rules for the Wood Elves

There are rules-previews for the Wildwood Rangers and the Sisters of the Thorn.

The Sisters of the Thorn are – as a unit – a Level 2 Wizard with two specific spells they can cast; Shield of Thorns and Curse of Anraheir.

The Wildwood Rangers are great-weapon-wielding monster hunters. Having both Always Strikes First and Great Weapons, both rules cancel each other out.

I am not sure whether having to remember two separate initiative-altering special rules to remember they cancel each other out to end with a unit that does nothing special, as far as initiative go, is smart game design. I guess it is consistent at least.

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#5 – A Warhammer 40K Teaser

Last but not least, the centre of the White Dwarf has a little teaser-poster – presumably for Warhammer 40K 7th Edition – though it doesn’t say so. Even the table contents plays another little  **REDACTED** joke on GW’s own secrecy-policy. It gives the date of May 24, 2014.

The big question then, is this a teaser for next week’s White Dwarf, meaning pre-orders go up next week and Warhammer 40K 7th Edition will be in the stores on May 24th, or is the White Dwarf getting cocky, teasing two weeks ahead?

If the former were true, this would probably mean that Wood Elves are done now and will not get a 3-week treatment similar to Dwarves.

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#6 – Thoughts?

Overall, I liked this week’s issue. The added hobby-content is very nice. I like the mini-games, or at least I like to see what they come up with.

The miniatures are also nice, even though they seem a bit more fanciful than your average Wood Elves. They certainly have more bling than the LoTR Mirkwood Rangers, who are closer to what I “envision” when I hear “Wood Elves”. Call my old-fashioned.

Leave a comment and let me know what you think!

Z.