White Dwarf 458 – November 2020

With a bit of delay (and unfortunately skipping issue #457) the November issue of White Dwarf arrived.

Games Workshop covered a brief look into the issue on Warhammer Community. And this issue covers quite a lot of nice goodies. You get a Warcry character card, a flying ace for Aeronautica, a new Starplayer for Blood Bowl, a Stratagem card for Titanicus, Tactic card for Necromunda, a code for 40k Combat card and Talisman RPG flyer. On top of that there is a double sided poster, with a game plan for a LotR wizard duell and A3 poster of the new White Dwarf Space Marine chapter the Tome Keepers.

On the first pages is a picture of a whole White Dwarf collection (EN issues). I do have the first 100 issues of the German White Dwarf myself.

There are new campaign rules for 40k and Age of Sigmar, you have the Argovon campaign covering xenos technology, and solo and cooperative gaming.

As mentioned above, the White Dwarf team created its own Space Marine chapter - the Tome Keepers. They go into very detail on that chapter in the November issue, you get the poster, a full Index Astartes article, incl. paint tutorials and some ideas on characters / conversions. It is just a bit irrating, as they look rather yellowish on the cover / poster, very white / pale in the Index Astartes and more like a more bone-coloured Deathwing.

The great Bugman didn't make it into Age of Sigmar, but his heirs did. Jakkob Bugmansson XI for Warcry, as part of the Kharadon Overlords. They are included in the Age of Sigmar battle report in this issue, for some reason they missed out on the chance to use him in it. But I love the bright orange colour scheme on the Skaven (along with the re-purposed Underworlds models in the project).

The issue is quite heavy on the two main games, but the sidekick games aren't ignored. They have a few lines on the new Underworld season, the Duell of Wizards that is supplied with a arena game matt poster. I like the article covering the outlaw big guys for Necromunda, especially with the conversion of a Deepmare and Kharibdyss. Very old schol Games Workshop. Oh and of course, who could not fancy the little rascal, a Squirrel Star Player for Blood Bowl.

The added material is quite nice and I would like to see this more often with the White Dwarf. Other than that, the cycle is getting back to normal, still a bit off but it is getting there. I think for an issue that closes the year it is well done (yes, there's a december issue, but that one is coming quite late on the 18th, so nothing to promote christmas gifts). For my taste it was a bit heavy on the narrative, as you have a lot of pages just covering lore or stories, and it could have been more about visual appeal and ideas.