(With apologies to Conan the Barbarian, 1982)
Between the time before social media and the rise of the sons of Hashut, there was an age undreamed of. And unto this came Willmark, destined to bear the burden of the Word of Hashut upon a troubled brow. It is I, his chronicler, who alone can tell thee of his saga. Allow me to speak of the days of the ezine era!
I had more hair back then...
In the early 2000s, Games Workshop was a slumbering behemoth, and a few armies were abandoned in the wilderness. Chaos Dwarfs were cast into darkness; Dogs of War wandered the fringes of the Borderlands with no marching orders; Warhammer players scoured the world for scraps of lore like exiles clutching broken tablets.
From this desolation came a spark.
That spark became the Word
of Hashut: a fanzine forged in the deep furnace of the Dawi
Zharr’s will. A magazine not written by a corporation but by a
community that refused to die.
From there the era grew.
Skavenblight Gazette
rallied the ratmen and became an undisputed leader. And from Tilea
came Gold & Glory, the last great banner of the
mercenaries, stitched together with pride and desperation in equal
measure.
These were not simple PDFs.
They were acts of
rebellion.
Declarations that no army would be forgotten so long
as one fan still drew breath and had a half-functional copy of Adobe
Acrobat.
It was a wild age. A mad age.
An age driven by passion
instead of polish, by camaraderie instead of clout. It burned fast
and bright and left its scars, some of them literal. The Word of
Hashut was not the first ezine, yet its impact may have been the
mightiest.
And now, years later, the time has come to tell its story.
Now that I have your attention. As many of you know, my name is Willmark, Editor-in-Chief of Word of Hashut. And after a time, I also served as Editor-in-Chief of the ezine Gold & Glory for the Dogs of War, two of the armies abandoned by Games Workshop from seventh edition onward.
Here is the inside story of the Warhammer ezine era you never knew existed.
We are coming up on fifteen years since the last issue of the Word of Hashut. In many ways it seems like yesterday; in others it feels like a lifetime. My life has changed, my children have grown, and now there is an old man staring back at me in the mirror each morning.
Before all that, a frazzled, time-starved Chaos Dwarf enthusiast worked many nights into the small hours to produce the Word of Hashut. Looking back, it is a blur but also a heady time, when nothing constrained us. Games Workshop had forsaken the Chaos Dwarfs, but the fans had not.
Before we take even the first step, it is important to point out the landscape as it existed. The Word of Hashut was not the first ezine or webzine to exist, far from it. Several came before. In fact, the Word of Hashut would arrive later in the overall scene.
Faction |
Ezine |
Years |
Issues |
|---|---|---|---|
Chaos Dwarfs |
Word of Hashut |
2008–2012 |
12 |
Skaven |
Skavenblight Gazette |
2007–2011 |
11 |
Vampire Counts |
The Invocation |
2008–2012 |
12 |
Ogre Kingdoms |
Bellower |
2008–2011 |
8 |
Dogs of War |
Gold & Glory |
2009–2010 |
3 |
Dark Elves |
Druchii Herald |
2005–2007 |
3 |
High Elves |
Citizen’s Levy |
2008–2009 |
3 |
Dwarfs |
Doomseeker |
2008–2010 |
3 |
Orcs & Goblins |
Waaagh! Magazine |
~2006–2008 |
~4 |
Wood Elves |
Asrai Lookout |
2009–2010 |
2 |
Chaos Dwarfs (proto) |
Word of Hashut Holiday Specials |
2008–2011 |
2 |
Dogs of War (minor) |
Tilean Dispatch / 6th Column |
2009–2011 |
2–4 |
There they are. When viewed now, the list seems shorter than it felt at the time. Perhaps memory plays tricks. There always seemed to be a great deal of activity across the various forums, and always a new ezine being launched or announced. I know; I was on the primary site for each faction daily back then. Likely there were more ideas than finished projects, and the effort required proved greater than most expected.
I think I can speak to that. I handled the layouts and the Editor-in-Chief roles for two ezines. More on that soon, but it seemed wise to first set the stage before we dive in. It was a wild and wonderful age in which fans banded together to create something Games Workshop had forgotten: a hobby magazine rather than a glorified sales catalog.
The ezines had something White Dwarf did not — a soul, and it showed.
Next up: The Dawn of the Ezines, Part II.
For reference, the current Chaos Dwarfs Online site: https://discourse.chaos-dwarfs.com/
