March 1987 – a great time; my birth happens in this month. Games Workshop also releases Issue #87 of their “Role-Playing Games Monthly” magazine – “Games Workshop Presents: White Dwarf”.
I recently painted up a miniature from 1987, Squady Squotter/Korgar the Armoured — a Rogue Trader Space Ork for Orktober. I thought if I could find a product from March 1987, that would be really cool piece of history to own.
I eventually thought of White Dwarf! I went off to eBay and what do you know?
A US seller had this Retro issue of White Dwarf #87, for sale!
Yes, at this point in time, White Dwarf was not solely a Games Workshop or Warhammer magazine. Inside were adventures and ads for Tabletop Role-Playing games (TTRPG), miniatures, and supplements. This issue includes adventures for:
- Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay
- Middle Earth Roleplaying (MERP)
- Paranoia
- Call of Cthulhu Zombies
As with an typical magazine, there are a lot of advertisements. The Games Workshop products from 1987 have some great ads, though.
This ad for Blood Bowl 1st edition is quite shocking to me; it comes with paper standees and not miniatures! The first set of Blood Bowl minis are not released until later in 1987. It wasn’t until Blood Bown 2nd Edition, that plastic miniatures were included. Wild!
Here’s an ad for Troll miniatures that include stat-lines for Warhammer Roleplay and Warhammer Fantasy Battle. These troll minis look pretty cool, some almost with a giant Ork type aesthetic.
The included adventure for Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay — Night of Blood included the great artwork seen below and included chaos beastmen, mutants, and cultists.
Next, some great color photos of ‘Eavy Metal painted Citadel miniatures, painted by Colin Dixon. We see some fantasy miniatures from the “Collector Series”.
- 1904 – Hydra
- 1903 – Balgorg (big one on the 2nd page)
- 1102 – Lords
- 1104 – Champions
- 1105 – Barbarians
- 1205 – Chaos Thugs
- 1403 – Dark Elves
- 1503 – Clerics
- 1401 – Wood-Elves
- 1501 – Wizards
- 1502 – Sorcerers
- 1603 – Orc Champions
- 1701 – Skeletons
- 1702 – Armoured Skeleton Guardsmen
- 1305 – Dwarf Guardsmen
- 1302 – Imperial Dwarves
- 1601 – Savage Orcs
- 1605 – Goblin Raiders
Next up is a couple of black and white catalogs. The first page We see:
- New Citadel Chaos
- Monster (Hippogriff)
- Metal Shields
- Goblin Wolf Riders
Look at these amazing names — Balspew Flamsword & Marlockt Beastface, anyone?
Page 2 includes more awesome metal miniatures from Citadel:
- Fighter
- Wizards
- Warlocks of Firetop Mountain
- Monster (Giant Rats)
I was really excited to find the “Awesome Lies” section that talks about Work in Progress games and products. There is a nice section on Warhammer 40,000/Rogue Trader (WH40K), which in March of 1987, is not yet a product that exists!
What a great little read. Very interesting that they say that Warhammer 40k/Rogue Trader is “not ‘science fiction’ for starters, but pure fantasy set in the far future” — 40k is sort of both Fantasy and Sci-Fi wrapped into one, as there are elements of both genres.
The inside back-cover includes a nice ads for the Warhammer Fantasy Battle game supplement, Ravening Hordes. This supplement provides ten army lists, special rules and more.
The back cover of this retro/vintage White Dwarf #87 (WD87) we see an ad for a solo board game from Games Workshop!? That’s right. Chainsaw Warrior. You Have 60 Minutes To Save New York.
Games Workshop seems to have way more board games that I have known about. I need to do a bit of a deep dive. Chainsaw Warrior seems cool.
A lot of these old Games Workshop box sets and games are rare finds on eBay. When they do show up, they can be really expensive. I woundn’t mind a copy of Chainsaw Warrior and the metal minis.
Those were some highlights of this retro issue of Games Workshop’s White Dwarf Magazine #87 from March 1987.
If you didn’t check out the flip-through video yet, watch it on my YouTube channel.
I had a lot of fun reading through this issue and creating this post and video. Let me know if you’d like to see more. I’d love to do this again, and maybe even a White Dwarf history video.
Games Workshop still makes their White Dwarf Magazine. I subscribed a couple years ago, maybe it’s time to grab another subscription.
Leave a Reply