White Dwarf #18 – Gorkanaut & Jokes

White Dwarf Weekly #18 is here – introducing the Gorkanaut and kicking off the new Warhammer 40K Ork releases (which, it seems, will continue with Flash Gitz next week).

Still, this week is all about showing off the Gorkanaut (and Morkanaut). Despite the model’s size and plenty of Ork jokes, it feels like GW are struggling to fill this issue with content.

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#1 – The Gorkanaut

First up is the new Gorkanaut. He gets a 4-page special, which is mostly large pictures. Page 1 and 2 above, 3 and 4 below.

The variant Morkanaut gets the same 4-page treatment. 1/3 of the White Dwarf done with. There is also a splash page for the rerelease of ‘The Crimson Fist‘ Horus Heresy story and the new Mournfang Brown Spray (apparently undercoating brown is good to paint green?).

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#2 – Lots of Ork Jokes

Of course, this week’s White Dwarf is full of Orky jokes and Orky language, starting from the “green” White Dwarf font on the cover, the editorial by Jes Bickham getting hijacked, to new titles throughout (e.g. “Sprooz & Gloo”, “Paint Splatta”).

At it’s worst, they are repeating the Gork (or possibly Mork) joke roughly 100 times in the issue. Less would’ve been funnier. At it’s best, the Ask Grombrindal Ask Ghazghkull feature at the end actually gives you an answer to where Makari went off to (kinda).

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#3 – Da Roolz

Aside from one Jeremy Vetock column and one short article about objective markers, the rest of the issue is fully dedicated to Orks and to the Gorkanaut and Morkanaut in particular.

The latter actually seems like a nice walker. It’s cheaper than a Land Raider, and thus a lot cheaper than an Imperial Knight, gets 5 Hull Points, a Str. 10 (though no Str. D) close combat weapon, lots of weapons (a Heavy 3D6 weapon for the Gorkanaut, lots of Str. 8 dakka for the Morkanaut, who also comes with the option of adding a kustom force field).

And, of course, a bit of transport capacity, even tough the Gorkanaut is no assault transport (or open-topped).

Not all that bad.

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#4 – Thoughts?

Overall, I felt the White Dwarf team were stretching the content a bit in this one, using many, many very large pictures to fill it up to 32 pages. It wouldn’t have hurt to add the odd article… maybe something on terrain or (shocker!) Warhammer Fantasy or the Hobbit, just to add a bit more meat.

That said, if you are looking for Ork-content, Ork painting-tips, Ork humour, etc.., the issue is laser-focused to your needs.

Let me know what you think!

Z.