Tactic Articles

[DementedPotato]

Mabye this is well known to everyone and I'm just a little slow but it seems to me that there are hidden marketing ploys in the WD tactic articles. This seemed very evident to me from WD 302.

The Ogre Kingdoms tactica did not talk at all about Gorgers or Gut Magic, which many people now think are great and purchase and employ them in their armies, but they did have tactics on Maneaters, a unit that some ogre players dislike and therefore are less prone to purchase, and a large tactic section on Gnoblars, another unit some Ogre players consider not worth taking.

Is this just a coincidence, or does Gamesworkshop release tactics on units that don't sell as well to increase purchases?

[Houston]

Hate that this has to come as a shock, but White Dwarf is entirely a marketing gimmick. It's still a great magazine, but really, its all about helping GW's sales. We've had two new army releases recently, and GW has reflected every part of the sales pitch to get these races off to the greatest start that they can.

Ever since the Ogre Kingdoms came out pretty well every fantasy article is about them. Likewise, ever since the Space Marines were re-released, we've had nothing but SM coverage in the 40k section. Even the LOTR section is trying to show people "look, you can still buy our stuff because although the movies are over, we can cover things in the books!". This is the case with their most recent "Scouring of the Shire" direction.

Its even been suggested (proven?) that WD battle reports are rigged so that one race is predestined to win it. I'm sure that this race always happens to be either the one that is most recently released and needs the support, or its one who's sales have been lacking recently and they want to bolster them. Just look at all the 40k battle reports featuring Orks recently (2 in 2 consecutive issues, no less). And it just so happens that as of right now, Orks are the second-least popular race in sales, next to Dark Eldar. Hmm.

WD is, as are most magazines, mostly a vessel for marketing goods. But then, I guess I really don't mind because I love the mag. I'm well aware of what GW is trying to do with it (push their product), but that doesn't mean I have to let it get in the way of my enjoying the magazine.

Admittedly, however, the recent spike in Space Marine coverage coupled with the lack of battle reports in every issue has made me rethink my plans to subscribe to WD. I'll only pick one up occasionally now, after I hear about what's in it and determine whether the articles are worth my money.

Just remember, to expect that WD is not peddling GW's stuff is silly...they are SOMEWHAT BIASED, afterall. You can't expect an honest tactica from them because, as you pointed out, they will support what they need to to maximise their profits.

An example of WD marketing politics: Writer goes to editor, says "I'm going to do an article on the Tyranids this month, cause I've got a really great idea for one and I think this coming issue could do with the topic diversity." The editor replies, "No, no - we're doing Space Marine articles for the next few issues; save your Tyranid article until its new codex comes out. Here - this is a good idea for an SM article you could do in the meantime.".

My advice - look to internet forums and articles from independent parties for your tacticas and army info. That's as close to non-biased as you're likely to get.

[DementedPotato]

I suppose people look at GW more as like their good friend or just fellow gamers because most people we see in the company play the hobby, and your good friend and fellow gamer wouldn't want you just for profits would they?

Yes they would, and it's not like their "evil" or "greedy", they're a company, like anyone else, like Coke, Microsoft, or Sony, they need money. I think because the people in the company seem less distant and more like fellow gamers people expect the company not to operate as much on profits. It's still a company and they will still be motivated by money, even in a subtle way like through tactics and other articles. At least they aren't trying to advertise cigarettes to children or something.

[Ultramarines r cool]

Whenever they make a new army all you see in WD for like 6 months is about that army (tactics, painting, rules ect.) That always makes me mad because all they are trying to do is advertise that army, and with LOTR already taking up a quarter of the mag the ogre stuff will waste more then half of a $10 magazine!! Oh, and did I mention WD is overpriced?

[dre3013]

Originally posted by Ultramarines r cool@Feb 28 2005, 16:25
Whenever they make a new army all you see in WD for like 6 months is about that army (tactics, painting, rules ect.) That always makes me mad because all they are trying to do is advertise that army, and with LOTR already taking up a quarter of the mag the ogre stuff will waste more then half of a $10 magazine!! Oh, and did I mention WD is overpriced?

340803


It is indeed overpriced, as are all of GW's products.

Demented, I agree with you 100 percent. I believe that the vast majority of the articles in WD are written from a markting perspective, not to help loyal gamers. While it is expected that the magazine should advertise, I think that it is wrong to do so under the guise of a helpful, non-biased article, the integrity of which is bought and paid for with the purchase of the magazine. It's exemplary of the shady strategies that make up GW business practice.

Right or wrong it is absolutely necessary for the method of business they have chosen to conduct. Who can say that they suffered more extreme, blatant price-gouging than with GW? Many say they have thier reasons, such as overhead and the other nonsense, but in reality, they don't. They are shameless price gougers, and that is what it is.

Of course it follows that they have to use underhanded (IMO) marketing ploys to sell their stuff at 2 and sometimes 3 times what it is worth. If I wanted to sell a quarter for $0.75 I suppose I would have to get pretty creative too...of course, I wouldn't price gouge for my glorified advertisement, "Silver Quarter Monthly." I just don't have that kind of gall.

Anyway, I should end this now. I'm off to buy my next 10 dark riders at GW online. :wacko: :wacko: :wacko: :wacko:

Dre3013 :ph34r:

[box]

I think it is a marketing ploy

but also you have to look at some of the facts Gw make tabletop wargames. now you must now this isnt exactly a billion dollar franchise consider that gw made 22 million off the LOTR stratergy computer now thats a hell of alot of money but also with 40k and its other games theyd probably make alot but when you think, some computer games can make 500million in a week its kind of insignificant,

and also i think white dwarf is over priced because they only advertise their own products so they dont get other incomes for adds to be put into their mag. and be thankful tha white dwarf does not have something ridicoulous like 70% of its pages being addvertisments. believe me. in my brothers surfing magazines allmost every second page is an advertisment.

and you cant blame GW for over priceing their products they do have no serious competition what so ever.

and we do buy their extremely overpriced products

[Mikhail The Heretic]

Originally posted by DementedPotato@Mar 1 2005, 00:19
and it's not like their "evil" or "greedy", they're a company, like anyone else, like Coke, Microsoft, or Sony


I think that, that is probably debatable.

Having said that they are virtually the only minatures magazine that has such wide distribution and deals with fantasy/sci-fi models. Most of the others that i see are dealing with historical wargaming. with the exception of Harbinger which is a very good independant gaming magazine however about 25% of it is taken up with adverts. Rackham do thier own magazine which is relased every 3 months and is huge with Cards to use models in diffrent games systems (like confrontation/Ragnarock in Hybrid) it is also much larger that white dwarf however it costs £14 which is a bit steep but it is worth it (although the same limitations that apply to white dwarf apply to it i.e it's used for marketing purposes.).

[RossWatson]

Hello folks - I write the "Only War" series of 40K Tactica articles in the US White Dwarf. You may have also seen Jeoff Leong's excellent series, "The Art of Warhammer" tactics articles for the Warhammer game.

I only stopped by to set the record straight - whenever Jeoff or myself write a Tactica article, it's done to benefit the readers. There can be some input from marketing (for example, I was recently asked to write something for Terminators, since they're coming out soon), but 99% of what writers like Jeoff and I produce is influenced primarily by two factors. The first factor is - "Has the content in this article been addressed?" In other words, is the tactica we write going to be new stuff that people will find useful? The second factor is - "What portions of the game in question need to be looked at?" When we produce a tactics article, it's from the standpoint of something that comes up in actual games and has a direct application towards giving good, reasonable advice.

Thanks for reading White Dwarf and I hope you keep your eyes on the US edition for more good tactics articles in the future.

[DementedPotato]

Ah, I'm actually glad this attracted someone from White Dwarf, thanks for posting, nice to get some info from people who write the articles.

and I suppose if you go back and look at the Ogre Kingdom article, it could be viewed purely as a coincidence, Gnoblars are not viewed as well I think simply because noone ever knew how to use them, and personally, Maneaters and Hunters, which were featured in the article, alot of people also did not really know how to use them as effectively as well.

Anyways, thank you for posting, and keep up the good work on WD.

[BooNDoCK[ID]]

dont be ignorant, some of it is good insite that not everyone has thought of


i am dreaming of a good combi-weapon

[dre3013]

Originally posted by RossWatson@Mar 1 2005, 13:29
Hello folks - I write the "Only War" series of 40K Tactica articles in the US White Dwarf. You may have also seen Jeoff Leong's excellent series, "The Art of Warhammer" tactics articles for the Warhammer game.

I only stopped by to set the record straight - whenever Jeoff or myself write a Tactica article, it's done to benefit the readers. There can be some input from marketing (for example, I was recently asked to write something for Terminators, since they're coming out soon), but 99% of what writers like Jeoff and I produce is influenced primarily by two factors. The first factor is - "Has the content in this article been addressed?" In other words, is the tactica we write going to be new stuff that people will find useful? The second factor is - "What portions of the game in question need to be looked at?" When we produce a tactics article, it's from the standpoint of something that comes up in actual games and has a direct application towards giving good, reasonable advice.

Thanks for reading White Dwarf and I hope you keep your eyes on the US edition for more good tactics articles in the future.

341656


I should say that really, really enjoy Jeff Leong's "The Art of Warhammer," and really didn't have that particualr article in mind when I was commenting above. The advice is great, and usually multiple armies are exemplified within each article.

I suppose that articles that seem to be marketing motivated could be written about often simply because the new units and armies they talk about haven't been written about before. (A big Duh for me.)

However, unless the magazines name is going to change to White Space Marines, the 40k section should really very soon start to include other armies with some consistency. Everyone knows about them already and this explanation, as valid as I see it to be, won't hold much longer.

Awesome of you to respond, by the way (Y)

Dre3013 :ph34r:

[Houston]

Yes, Kudos to you for stepping up to the plate. In fact, its interesting: when I wrote my post above, I was thinking of the current US issue of WD, number 302. In it, the "Only War" article and the "Abhumans" article were the only ones out of the 40k section that did not center on Space Marines.

I understand your explanation, and it seems sincere, but I hope you understand our concerns as readers as well. I was going to sign up for a subscription, but I have decided against it solely because the content in WD is too focused on one race at a time. That would be fine for one or two issues, but 6 in a row? Too much. The rest of us 40k players who don't play that army don't like having it flashed in our faces for 6 months straight.

I'm not the only reader who thinks this way. I'm sure most WD employees would tend to believe that they know more about how to manage their magazine than I do, and they're probably right. But just know that I'm going to be very selective about what issues I buy from now on simply because I find the content in the magazine too one-sided. When most of the 40k articles center on one race for numerous issues, I'm sure you kill the interest of a great deal of your reader-base.

This is merely constructive feedback I'm offering. I think White Dwarf is a great magazine - the only one I would even consider subscribing to. But that consideration is on hold at least until things change a bit. If you want to focus on one race (especially around the time that a new codex comes out), I understand that, and I appreciate it. But nearly every article in 6 issues? How about one or two issues dedicated solely to that race, then the following 4 having one major article in them. That would allow you to put a greater breadth of articles and topics in there. When that diversity of races and topics is not represented in your magazine, I look at that issue and see nothing of worth to me. Sorry, that's just how I see it.

[Kahoolin]

This is a bit off topic but my brother has an old WD (I think from 1992 or 3? Could be wrong) where one of the Golden Demon entries is a squad, and one of the members of the squad is a modified miniature from another company!

It just has citadel bits stuck on, and you were allowed to do that back then. The caption says something like "note the standard bearer is based on a Grenadier skeleton captain" or something. It was all about the look and feel of the game back then.

I think what houston may be trying to say is that people still think of WD as being like this, all about the close knit community of gamers creating something together, when in fact success has assured that it is no longer possible for GW to behave in this small-time way.

Try putting a Warmachine fig or something in a Golden Demon now and GW would probably have you killed. Or at least set upon by snotlings.

Don't quite know why I mentioned this, just looking at the hobby now, I find it hard to believe what it used to be like.

But there you go. Things change and WD is now a big and glossy semi-catalogue. Better than GW going under, and all of us wasting our money on an out of print game though isn't it?

EDIT: Just to cover my arse, it may not have been Golden Demon, it could have been a staff member's showcase army. But still, you would never see this sort of thing nowadays.

[Mikhail The Heretic]

Thanks ross for your comments although it would also be interesting to hear form the birtish white dwarf team as well.

[MobiusPrime]

This may be off topic, but I'm just waiting for the article that looks like this:

'Stupid units and worthless wargear: What not to put in your army'

Dark Eldar Scourges come to mind, as do Imperial Guard Psykers and Ogryns.

[Chaosbrynn]

Just stopped in to give an authors point of vue. When writing tacticas, it is awfully redundant to bring to light the "advantages" of a unit that everyone already considers amazing. After all, if everyone considers it amazing, its most likelly because it is easy to make good use of these units.

However, just because the community at large considers something to be worthless does not mean it is. In fact in most cases, people believe that units are less wothwhile for no other reason then many people told them so. There is nothing in this game that is "useless". Every unit has a purpose. It may be difficult to decern, and hence why tacticas are written for them, but they are there non-the less.

What Im saying is that if I were writing for WD I would do it the same as them. After all, whats the point of writing an article if no one learns anything from it?

Cheers!
Chaosbrynn

[Archetype-]

Just stopped in to give an authors point of vue. When writing tacticas, it is awfully redundant to bring to light the "advantages" of a unit that everyone already considers amazing. After all, if everyone considers it amazing, its most likelly because it is easy to make good use of these units.

However, just because the community at large considers something to be worthless does not mean it is. In fact in most cases, people believe that units are less wothwhile for no other reason then many people told them so. There is nothing in this game that is "useless". Every unit has a purpose. It may be difficult to decern, and hence why tacticas are written for them, but they are there non-the less.

What Im saying is that if I were writing for WD I would do it the same as them. After all, whats the point of writing an article if no one learns anything from it?

Cheers!
Chaosbrynn

Kudos, dude. It's like I always say, "If you can make it work consistantly, more power to ya." As long as one uses a unit correctly, they can make it work consistantly.

MobiusPrime, I just so happen to have a copy of the Dark Eldar codex. "Know thy enemy," y'know? Anywho, just looking at it, I can tell you what a good use for Scourges are. They really come into their own against hordes of light infantry, like Guardsmen or boyz. After all, Dark Eldar are all about mobility, and you can fire splinter cannons on the move. You just have to get them in the right place at the right time against the right target. Not unlike the Craftworld Eldar units, huh? Scourges may be more expensive man-for-man than a Marine in a Devastator squad, but Scourges get one thing that Marines not seeing close combat don't: jump packs. This gives Scourges far more mobility than a Dev squad, so you can put that anti-horde firepower where it needs to be more easily than the genetically-enhanced defenders of Humanity.

Now, before you or other DE players rail on me about how a Ravager with disintegrators might be better, take a look at the disintegrator's profile. Quite nice for getting through power armor, am I right? That's where Ravagers excel, cutting down heavy infantry. Large footslogging Warriors with splinter cannons? Such a unit would be quite cumbersome and dificult to get into position, much like a large bunch of Imperial Guard infantry. Against a shooty opponent, they'd likely have to fleet of foot into position and take tons of firepower from the enemy all the while.

[Mcdohl]

Well I find teh WD sure to be a bit biased but they have to their a magizine of GW ofcorse they want to promote sales. What they need to do is put a few ork articles to mabye show people that the orks are good or switcht eh ork relase with the eldar because the main turn off of orks for people is they have a starting disadvantage becuase half thier items dont work and their main tatics of 3rd are obsolete.

Also How do you find that WD is over priced? Its the best $6 i spend a month It gives me reading material for atlest a week during school.

My only gripe is all the SM stuff in it. I dont like the SM or anything about them I want to see stories behind others. When they had the eldar artical I read the artical about 2-3 times but I havnt even bee able to read the 40k section of WD the last two months all of it is on Termies and I hate them.

Gnoblers pwn and i love the stories about them along with their own army list.