Warhammer: Visions. A Review

The new beginning is here. I found somewhere that was selling this magazine early so I grabbed it. Out of the two new publications, this was the one I was more interested in. A magazine dedicated to the hobbyist and collector? Yes please! So lets take a look. By the way, last months White Dwarf isn't in the photo just for size comparison, read on...

You see, I feel like I have forked out £7.50 for a book that has had the least amount of effort put into it and then stuck onto the shelf.
Remember how the complaints for the previous incarnation of White Dwarf was that it was a catalogue? Well now, it is a catalogue, just without the prices.
What is even better than that is the fact that they have increased the new releases section from the 30 odd pages in the old magazine to 70 in Visions.

What is even better than that, is they have just taken the photos from the last issue and just straight copy and pasted them into Visions. there are few, if any new additions, just last months content repeated. As I said, lazy and a clear lack of effort.
The magazine is multi language too. As everything (at least in the UK print) is in English, French and German. But don't worry too much, it's not like you'll be actually reading anything here as there is not a single article contained within Visions at all.

All you get is page after page of picture with a couple of lines of description. I mean, if you thought that White Dwarf had become too 'wordy', then this is perfect.
Blanchitsu is in here, but just pictures. Army of the Month, but just pictures. Kit Bash, Paint Splatter, even Battle Reports. Just Pictures.
Yes, 'Battle Reports' are just a few pictures, even the armies contain no army list or points value, and then at the end, it says someone wins. But I'll take their word for it as anything could have happened during those pages.
Paint Splatter returns, but, remember how good it was getting? Well, Games Workshop thought that it worked better as a list. So now you just get a list of paints and you have to guess where they used them and what they did in the picture.
So just to recap what you are getting for your money (in issue 1 at least). 227 of captioned pictures, and everyone's favorite store list.




Will I pick this up again? On this showing, probably not. The premier issue has to sell you on what is to come, but all I am seeing is a photobook of images that have been shot before. £7.50 for recycled material.




I want words back. I want the owner of the miniatures to give me the insight of his work. Whenever you paint a miniature, it's not just something that looks nice, the artist has come up with that look to convey a story, an emotion, a snapshot in time, and this book ignores all of it.

I want Battle Reports to be worthwhile. I want to see what each player has chosen, I want to know why he has chosen it, what is he trying to achieve with his force. Yes it looks good, but there is more to life than just looking good.

I want to know the story of the game, what was going on in these photos? Why did they end up there? Who shot it? How did one side win the game? These are all very artistic shots, but that's not how the game looked is it? These are cinematic reconstructions of what went down. So let us know what went down!

I am so disappointed in this magazine. For £7.50 I was expecting a premium product that would last me more than a couple of minutes. The problem with picture books, is once you have seen the pictures, there is very little to go back to. White Dwarf needed to change, but this is the wrong change. There is promise here, it just needs some substance to go with it's style. I want to pick it up and read an article at a whim and I sure as heck don't want to see recycled pictures from last months publication.

As of right now, I see Warhammer: Visions as a complete failure. These aren't my favorite articles, I don't want to collect this, and I don't feel like I have got £7.50 out of the magazine. I feel like there is less here than in White Dwarf.
I guess I'll have to wait and see what the Weekly brings, the sad thing is, even if it is any good, it is too expensive to buy weekly so GW's plan to give me a reason to go into the store each week is doomed to fail because of over pricing (there's a surprise).

So the final verdict, Take it or Leave it? It's a no brainer, it's a resounding LEAVE IT.