How many of you remember a time of big White Dwarf magazines chock full of tutorials, battle reports, and jaw-dropping conversions? Not that I’m bashing on the new iteration of the WD (the weekly hit is nice), but over the years, the community spirit has been substantially depleted. This is why I’m so excited for what Adam from SprueGrey is doing and why I put together a Golden D6 review.
For those who haven’t seen, The Golden D6 is a hobby magazine written by bloggers and pulled together by Adam Jones with the help of ex-White Dwarf Matt Weaver. This is his third issue and packed full of goodies.
A bit of a disclaimer: Adam has been kind enough to feature me in his magazine, including this one. Also, if you buy a copy of The Golden D6 through my link Adam also pays me a portion of the sale. So if you buy a copy, you get an awesome hobby magazine, Adam get a sale and can continue his mad plan to build a media empire, and I get to buy a cup of coffee 🙂
Overview
As you can see from the cover, Issue #3 features Jeff Tibbetts’ fantastic Queen Bee – a truly epic knight, but in the 60-page ezine, Adam packs in 9 other articles – and not a product add to be seen.
Included in this edition is:
- Two battle reports: 40k between Iron Fists and Imperial Guard, and an epic narrative between elves and humans
- Five tutorials:
- Two terrains: building a pill box and a landing pad
- Two painting tutorials: carnifex (mine) and a dwarf slayer
- And how to pin models
- Picture galleries: Frozenbears fantasy monsters, Tibb’s Queen Bee
- Review of AFV Acrylic Techniques DVD
While most of the articles started off as blog posts from each of the writers, Adam and Matt have transformed them into full page spreads that highlight the pictures and text in a way that most of us can’t do well on a blog page. For example, you can read my article on how to paint a carnifex right here on my site, but where you compare that to how it looks in The Golden D6:
It becomes apparent that I need to up my game! All 60 pages are fantastically laid out from full page shots of Queen Bee to detail shots of painting the Slayer.
Content Quality
So what about the actual content?Again, all the articles are written by hobby bloggers, and most of the articles were written as blog posts. With that said, Adam has done a great job of picking the best materials to fill his magazine and going through an editing process on each as well. This means that the content inside is often better polished than our original pieces.
The quality also shines through the pictures Adam selected and Matt’s magic with the publishing tools. Just check out the image above that I snipped from a few pages.
Variety
As I started this whole post with, I miss the days of the old White Dwarfs and their variety of articles. From the Standard Bearer to Tactica to Battle Reports, it had a bit of something for everyone.
The Golden D6 is a through back to this era with a great mix of article topics, writing styles, and even miniature manufacturers. Some of this comes to the purpose of the White Dwarf vs. the Golden D6. Games Workshop changed the WD to sell more of their miniatures, selling the WD is just an extra bonus. Adam’s goal with the Golden D6 is to make it such a great hobby magazine that you buy it for the content.
And while this is only issue #3, Adam has also done a great job of mixing it up in each issue as well. Issue #2 had nine articles on a host of other topics. This included a battle report for the Hordes game, an interview with Andy Chambers, and a painting tutorial for Bolt Action.
Value
The value of a product is always hard to judge as it is almost never empirical. Right now the Golden D6 Issue #3 (60 pages) is $5.95 USD whereas the White Dwarf (30 pages) is $4. So price wise, you are getting a hefty magazine for the cost.
Another thing that shouldn’t be understated here is that Adam is a hobby fan, building a magazine for hobby fans, which in of itself adds a good deal of value to this magazine.
Pick It Up
So if my Golden D6 review has convinced you of how awesome this issue is, buy a copy, enjoy the read and help Adam keep going. (and if you use my link, he’ll buy my next coffee!).
