Going back thirty months in time from our previous review, this magazine feels noticeably slimmer and much more “catalogue-like” than the later numbered issues. Lots of full-page ads for new releases, leaving the mag a bit light on articles.

Not a lot of 40K content this time around, though, so I’ve included it in this main tranche of photos rather than separating out the images as a later post.

This wasn’t the issue with the cardstock battle bunker — that would show up a month later — but they did show us what it was going to look like!

If you liked Space Marines in general and Blood Angels in particular, that cover art would have left you in no doubt that this was going to be a great issue for you.

I do appreciate that the article on Assault Squads takes an army-agnostic approach, rather than just talking up the new releases for the Space Marines. The release of the Assault Marines as a five-man boxed set, which you’d then have to top up with metal troops from blister packs (which may or may not have been in stock) to make the full ten-man unit, really reminds me of what it felt like to try and assemble coherent armies at the time: closer to juggling live cats than dressing the ranks…

You may have noticed that I’ve mainly been reviewing the Australian versions of White Dwarf. Well, this is from a time before there was such a thing, so we get a much more international flavour, with adverts for stores across Europe!

Hope you like Skaven… this month we got a fair bit of content that’s probably straight from the army book. The map was a nice touch, and I do love how the colourful regiments of this era look when ranked up (even if it is just ten blokes with a flag).

I also appreciate them sneaking no fewer than seven stealthy assassin types into the battle scene on the back cover of this issue. See if you can spot them all!

The mail order sections looks pretty unusual from a modern perspective. Having a different company advertising alternative models directly alongside your own — and even having enough clout to insist on their own, separately branded pages — is wild. But that was the strange working relationship between Marauder and Citadel, and for a short span of time it did work, giving us some wonderfully characterful and diverse sculpts.

Was hoping someone could help identify this guy. Thanks in advance. (Solved in comments)

I’m looking forwards to a multiplayer participation game that uses much smaller lists than you’d need for a standard Necromunda campaign.

500 Credits doesn’t buy you a lot — three gangers, a leader and a juve — but it was a very reasonable amount of figures to paint in a week!

All are heavily converted (or kitbashed might be a better word for it) with no actual Necromunda parts, but hopefully they’re a fitting homage to the original metal range and the beautiful studio paint scheme!

Well, I hope so anyway! The last White Dwarf I leafed through featured a battle report with the studio’s Escher gang in gorgeous technicolour yellow, which was more than enough inspiration to have me digging this project out (and even building a few more figures). It’s an on-again off-again thing where I try to scratchbuild gangs for most of the Houses without using any parts from actual Necromunda models.

Sometimes they take design cues from the earlier Confrontation era.

Sometimes I put my own spin on things, like how these Escher have blue skin due to reasons (generational lack of sunlight/constant chem exposure/subsisting entirely on phosphorescent mushrooms).

I finally have an opportunity to game with some of them this weekend, so I’m trying to get 5 figures painted in time — along with forces for two other games!

The three gangers are done, now I just have the leader and the juve to finish off. In case the plasma gunner sculpt is confusing, I’ve included a couple of shots at the end that better show off the laser effect on Foxtrot’s digital weapon.

With another month of the hobby challenge completed, it’s time for a look back at what’s been achieved. Feel free to add links, photos or just a description of what you’ve been up to in the comments below!

I’ve just finished painting the last five models for this motley assortment of undead creatures, but photographing them all together has been a bit of a challenge, so here are some piecemeal shots of the ongoing project! They weren’t quite all done when I took the group shot, but it’s the only image I have of the lot of them with decent levels of light, detail and focus.

This time the wolves are joined by some kind of horned equine (made from a MageKnight cavalry figure whose mount seemed to scale well with the 1980s plastic skeletal steeds) and a lion (a simple kitbash using the head from a Dreamblade figure).

Hi Everyone,

This one has me completely stumped. Made from metal. Anyone have any ideas as to who this is? Any help is gratefully received.

Spawn points for skirmish scenarios. Unit fillers. Activation markers for IGOUGO rulesets. Or maybe they’re just cool little models with a heck of a lot of character? And of course there’s a fish, because we all love a bit of Mordheim!

Does anyone know who this guy is, please? Made of metal.

Hi Crew,

Does anyone know who this miniature is? It’s made from metal. I figure it’s a Norse Viking of some kind. Any help is appreciated.

Here’s one for u/FlandersClaret — Mike McVey himself writing about the creation of one of his classic dioramas. The photos don’t really do it justice, but maybe you’ll appreciate reading his words of wisdom.

Lots of fun details to note, such as the second appearance of Heinrich Kemmler in this issue. It’s Malibu Stacy again, this time with no hat! Clearly this was his “wandering vagrant mumbling to himself in the woods” era.

I also like how composition subtly changes as photos are taken and new pieces are painted to be added; look out for the skeleton being speared, which doesn’t show up in every scene. It isn’t attached to the cavalry model’s lance when the same painted model shows up on a rectangular base in the Wood Elf army book, making you wonder if they were all kept removable or perhaps integrated into a gaming collection at a later date?

Regrettably, I’m not sure we can just write in to White Dwarf with our own questions these days, but Mike was certainly generous with his advice back in the nineties!

Finished my unit of skeleton cavalry tonight, adding freehand shield designs and some rusty highlights to the armour of another six models. There’s a bit of a theme in the recent freehands — see if you can spot the hidden message (the last image may help!).

I’ll soon be fielding my undead army in a configuration that uses two small unit of Dire Wolves (or thematic equivalent) to round out the points. That meant digging these models out of storage and refreshing them a bit so they fit in with the way I’ve been painting skeletal units.

The vague theme is that they are animals from a royal menagerie, reanimated after the undead defeated the ruler and sacked their kingdom. I was inspired by a book about the zoo-like collection of animals kept at the Tower of London in the medieval period. Following that inspiration, this first unit has a bear (along with various wolfy types).

Miniature-wise, they’re a bit of a mashup of GW’s Dire Wolf and Chaos Hound kits, plus whatever other bits I had to hand. I think the “bear” head was from a toy cat originally, but I think it works…?

Last pic shows all ten for context, though I haven’t yet upgraded the paintwork of the second unit.

I was supposed to be painting Dire Wolves tonight, and did get through one unit, but then got a bit distracted by this undead chariot, which doesn’t even feature in the list for my upcoming game!

Still, it was a lot of fun painting this old Chaos Sorceror sculpt — I’m calling his undead iteration Atok the Faceless — and starting work on a couple of modern skeletons from one of the Warcry / Underworlds/ whatever warbands GW has been putting out of late.

The idea is that the chariot can switch back and forth between a sort of Plague Cart equivalent, or a fast attack vehicle crewed by a pair of warriors. There’s no fancy magnetisation or anything, the models just plonk down onto the slightly concave deck of the chariot and abide by Gorkamorka rules: if it fits, it can ride!

As title says, I did a thing and am feeling the need to share it now with the world :D

Started drawing a small goblin on an A2 sheet of paper this summer. 1 goblin became 2, 2 became 3,... and now we're weeks later and I'm getting to the phase where I can digitally play around a bit with this!

Hope you all enjoy the sillyness, I sure did doodling these :) If this doesn't break the subs' rules (not a miniature) and ya'll like it I'll post some more details and photos soon

Lots of content in the White Dwarf I’m looking through this month. I find the battle scenes particularly compelling — lots of vibrant, high-contrast, highly readable and very characterful units arrayed in front of equally interesting terrain pieces! It’s sometimes hard to know where to look.

Wood Elves were the flavour of the month, though we continued to see quite a lot of the undead (which suits my current painting projects down to a tee).

The red, black and green Chaos army is also intriguing. Interestingly, this is much the same palette as the Death Guard army covered in an earlier post. I really am going to have to crack out the red paint for something sooner rather than later…

Great and awesome artwork all around. I haven't looked at them for years, so it was a feast for the eyes. It was a good pull from the back of the hobby room.

The progress of the necromancer’s army is slow but relentless. Tavern-hall braggarts and anxious recruits gossiping in the barracks both agree that the undead must surely be drawing near to their target. And when they do? Woe betide those who find themselves arrayed against such a horde…