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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 5343318" data-attributes="member: 27780">Dragon Magazine Issue 203: March 1994part 6/6Through the looking glass: Once again we see how companies are trying to survive by experimenting with different scales more. Robert's preamble this month is largely devoted to the scales. 15, 23, 25, 28, 30mm, many of these are close enough together that you can mix them, although certain ones will loom amusingly over others. I guess every problem is an opportunity in this instance, as you can use them to represent a setting full of giants and dwarves. Our first set of reviews are not of minis, but sourcebooks for Warhammer fantasy battles. Splatbooks are in full force these days, with ones for the empire, elves, dwarves and goblinoids out now. All get Robert's recommendation. In another sign of Game Workshop's expansion, they're also sourcing out production of minis, with Epcast producing an appropriately ugly riveted tank called a gobsmasher. Palladium, on the other hand get another unusually low mark, showing that they need more quality control than one person writing, editing, doing quite a bit of artwork and handling most of the business at once can manage. Grenadier, on the other hand, are their usual reliable selves, producing a whole bunch of humanoid rat variants that seem well-suited for using unofficially as Skaven. Yeah, games workshop really are on the up these days, with the competition in poor shape. This looks like it may be a continuing trend. TSR Previews: Back to firing on all cylinders and then some here. First up is the Planescape campaign set. Join the factions. Marvel at the awesome Diterlizzi illustrations. Sneer at the cant. Get ready to buy the supplements, because less than a page on quite a few of the infinities out there really isn't enough. The forgotten realms takes us to where humans are forbidden, in The elves of Evermeet. Now it's been statted, you can bet some group will ruin it. They might even be one of the official novel writers. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f61b.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":p" title="Stick out tongue    :p"  data-smilie="7"data-shortname=":p" /> Al-Qadim has the slightly misleadingly named complete sha'ir's handbook. It also has stuff fairly evenly distributed between sorcerers, elementalists, and a whole bunch of weird and wacky new kits. (which are far superior to the complete wizard's handbook ones) But the genie controlling mages are the big draw of the setting, so they get to enjoy top billing. Ravenloft shows us some more frankensteinian horror in Adam's Wrath. Is Dr Mordenheim still mucking around with these things after all the times he's messed up? He really ought to learn how to let go. Will you side with the man, or the monster? Dargonlance has another anthology. A rather large one. The Dragons of Krynn is another one that does exactly what it says on the tin, reminding us that this setting was designed to showcase the blighters in the first place. It is, as we say so many times, Dungeons and DRAGONS. Two Generic AD&D books this month. HR6: Age of heroes takes us back to ancient greece. Crack out your Legends and Lore, and prepare to get mythological. Or you could play it gritty, removing most of your armour and much of the weaponry. There's also Fighters Challenge II. The original 4 solo adventures did well enough to start the cycle again. Will we get a third go round before diminishing returns become too great to continue? Speaking of solo gamebooks, the Endless quest line returns. They got a quite ridiculous 36 books before the line ended in 1987. Will they match that run this time around? Two of them get this off running. Dungeon of fear, and Castle of the undead. The second of these is tied into the Ravenloft setting. This is definitely another interesting development. The primary conflict this month seems to be between those pushing for more darkness in gaming, and those still favoring a whimsical, lighthearted style. Seeing the two approaches juxtaposed so closely, going from the dark hyper-realism of the Bradstreet work to the wispy angular Diterlizzi illustrations really makes them both seem all the more fascinating. The two new columns are cool ideas as well, even if their initial implementations are a bit ropey. But then, the ARES section had similar teething troubles, and I certainly missed that when it ended, so hopefully I'll be able to say the same about these. So a fascinating, if flawed issue, where once again, we see how the hobby is growing and changing, if not as quickly as history would indicate. Remember, trends take quite some time to percolate out into the wider public, often years. Looking at release dates can be very misleading as an indicator of what people are actually doing on a day-to-day basis.</blockquote>

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