The Word of Hashut, A Look Back - Part I

 

(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/

The Bellower Issue 2

The big flabby guts over at Ogre Stronghold are back at it again, and this time with the latest release of the Bellower. The Bellower being the ezine of the excellent Ogre Stronghold website. As one would imagine (but for the benefit of those not in the know) this is for the game of Warhammer, specifically the Ogre faction of the Warhammer World. The Ogre Kingdoms site can be accessed at: (www.ogrestronghold.com)

In much the same way the production delays seem to plague the Word of Hashut the Bellower got out a bit later than last time, not that I know anything about that...

For layout it is in the horizontal (landscape) format again and that is fine. To me personally it is immaterial as my laptop is often hooked up to a large monitor for reading or I read them on my home desktop and a 24” screen…

There are no real noticeable production glitches and being the geek that I am I noticed that the ezine was created in Scribus which is open source. That would be my choice if I did not use InDesign on Gold and Glory and The Word of Hashut so kudos there. Why would anyone check this you ask? Because if you create these things you wonder what someone else is using that’s why. Scribus is freely available from here: http://www.scribus.net

First off the good things that I liked or noticed as I read through it

Great job on the cover. A good looking cover is a necessity for ezines in this day and age. In a world of increasing ezines it is harder to stand out unless there is a good cover. This one fulfills those requirements. The cover also ties in nicely to the content inside. It shows that the Bellower Staff is looking at theme rather than a random picture on the cover that has only marginal meaning to the contents.

I enjoyed the focus on the Trapper. It is always nice to see articles that challenge the status quo of thinking for a particular army, whether it is from the theoretical or a necessity. All too often many Warhammer players can’t get out of their rut. I think those that don’t play “Point and Click armies” are able to do this better and such is the case here. Also the Trapper article was well laid out and an easy read. A few more graphics and/or pictures might have helped it “breathe” a bit more as the last page of the article felt a bit cramped in terms of its space.

I also really liked the recap of Animosity IV. This is a great example of a short, concise article that gets to the salient points quickly and is an easy read. Great job here Mercules.

The Saber step-by-step guide: It was well laid out and clear about what steps you were doing. In short a great guide for a newbie to follow. A few bigger pictures showing the painted goods might have gone a long way here.

I like the look of the ezine with varying shades of gray. It breaks up the pages nicely. With that said see my comments below about improvements. Also the flip side of prolonged usage of white text on dark backgrounds is eyestrain. This issue has a lot of reversed type. The flip is to beware of too dark of a background with black type as it can blend. (Of course this blog is black and white but I keep the posts short(ish).)

Things to work on

The next step for the Bellower Team is to step up their game and to attempt an ezine in full color. The (largely) black and white layout/theme is well executed and looks great. It is also fun to do once in a while but for the sake of variation it is good to add more color. This is more difficult to accomplish but worth it to give it a try. This is more of a style thing, not that anything is wrong.

I noticed a few typos here and there; nothing too major and I know how tough it can be to catch them all.

Careful use of the text wrapping tools! I know for a fact how tricky this one can be. The fact that the software can easily wrap text is great. The downside is that it can produce tight text to an object or even weird separations or gaps of the text. When finished it is always a good idea to have someone else look at it who has a fresh set of eyes: after looking at it for months you tend to fill stuff in mentally, I know I do.

From the layout perspective the Painting Competition article was a bit unfocused. What I mean is that it was not always clear looking at it what won what placing in the competition. I know I did a double take a few times here and there. Once I looked it over again I can see where the idea was going but it seemed a bit disjointed.

The back cover is a minor point but an important one. The back cover sets the tone for the next issue and also gives a sneak peek as to what is coming next. Now how this goes it is likely that someone was supposed to do it then “something came up” forcing Randroid to scramble, not that I would know anything like that.

If you are looking for a great read that focuses on the flabby mercs of the Warhammer World then these are your lads and this is your mag. There is nothing bad about the issue at all and overall I would feel comfortable giving it a 4 out of 5 rating, easily. All in all a fine effort from the group here and all around it is nice to see an improvement from Issue 1. Congratulations on the good work and keep it up.

Willmark

Word of Hashut #8

Word of Hashut #8 Finally done! 

This is not a review of my own work, but more of a post to say yep it is out and I am glad it is done because now it is onto Gold and Glory #4 for Dogs of War Online.

Word of Hashut #8 was a milestone in many ways. For one it is now equal in terms of issues to the Citizen Levy for the High Elves and puts us on par with the Skavenblight Gazette.

It is important to note that for me this is not just about the length of the content or how many issues. Truly and simply it is about giving something back to the Warhammer community and to keep the dream of Chaos Dwarfs alive.

It is also important that now we are closing in on Issue #9 and 2 years of doing the ezine as well as our 10th issue right after. All fine achievements, but we are not resting on our laurels. We are looking for new ways to make it even better.

Many across the web think we (I) are dreaming about the return of Chaos Dwarfs to Warhammer. To which I say: "What is wrong with dreaming?" To paraphrase from the movie Miracle "I find the term Dream Teams ironic, because now that we have dream teams, we seldom get to dream".

I do not know about you but a little dreaming coupled with some hard work is not a bad thing.

Review of the Invocation #4

It is the end of a three month span so we all know what that means. A number of ezines will soon be making their way to the internet. The first out of the gate is the Invocation from Carpe Noctem and can be found here:

https://www.vampirecounts.net/articles/the-invocation-issue-4.71/

Once again the guys led by Disciple of Nagash have done a good job for the undead fans of the Warhammer world.

Likes First off I liked the step-by-step painting guide for undead beasts: pictures were clear and color was/is good on the photos.

Next up is the comic/graphic novel: I am liking it. The style of the story fits well as does the storyline and action. The artistic style also has an appeal to it (to me at least) that evokes the right feelings. I especially liked the final panel.

Battle Report: Knowing how much of a pain these are to organize, photograph and write I have to give props just for getting one in! For those not in the know these are not necessarily the most fun thing to do for an ezine. It follows and reads well so you can clearly see what is going on.

Now to some of the criticisms Each time the Invocation has been out each issue has felt long and this one is no exception at 149 pages. Simply put reading it tends to feel like a chore in spots. No ezine is immune to this and I for one am looking to cut down the Word of Hashut so it is not as unwieldy.

The use of white text on an illustrated background with no stroke to the characters. This is not a problem in and of itself but makes for difficult reading when it is an issue of this length. Again, in and of itself not an issue, but coupled with page length it becomes more noticeable.

A minor quibble for typesetting: Either make a headline bold or underline, but not both at the same time. ;)

In short the criticisms are minor and correctable for the future but it looks like the DoN and the gang did another fine job. I plan on re-reading it again more in depth and will add any further comments to this blog post.