Season of War - website online

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Daeron
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Season of War - website online

Post by Daeron »

And with this, GW is launching a new interactive campaign!

https://seasonofwar.games-workshop.com/

Each store is loaded up with flyers and goodies to support events for the campaign. It looks like a lot of fun, and they seem very flexible in the formats they support. From hobbying to gaming, all is included in a lose format.

I'm looking forward to the activity buzz it might give in the local store. One of my gaming buddies already is showing interest, perhaps rekindling interest for AoS in general. The store in Mechelen is looking for a way to join in on the action, and GW Brussels is already making work of it.
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Re: Season of War - website online

Post by squirrelloid »

A campaign feels silly without a real map to show progress. The 'map', such as it is, is meaningless. There's no feeling of territory at stake - the whole campaign lacks any real context, and the forces lack motivation. War because war is far less interesting than war for concrete and specifiable objectives.

Also, on the video at ~2:35, are those yellow Orc Space Marines? (I knew Imperial Fists were up to no good!)
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Daeron
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Re: Season of War - website online

Post by Daeron »

Well if it's not up to your standards, feel free to pass!
Meanwhile.. I'm planning to paint up another unit to go have some gory carnage fest at the local store!
I love me a bowl of numbers to crunch for breakfast. If you need anything theoryhammered, I gladly take requests.

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Malys the younger
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Re: Season of War - website online

Post by Malys the younger »

While I liked the old method of logging games from anywhere instead of being limited to a local store, I love the fact that they are at least doing campaigns again. The Nemesis Crown campaign is why I got into WHFB and Dark Elves to begin with.
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Daeron
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Re: Season of War - website online

Post by Daeron »

Yeah, it's a very store centric, but looking at how an independent local store is getting into it, it seems to be sufficiently open. I think they're trying to bring people together, with the stores at the center. Considering the investment they did in stores, I'm not surprised they work this in their business model.

I quite like how they bring different aspects of the hobby together. The stores have a lot more information than the website, with hobby challenges etc. I might run by the store during lunchbreak, and try to get some info.
I love me a bowl of numbers to crunch for breakfast. If you need anything theoryhammered, I gladly take requests.

Furnace of Arcana, a warhammer blog with delusional grandeur.

"I move unseen. I hide in light and shadow. I move faster than a bird. No plate of armour ever stopped me. I strike recruits and veterans with equal ease. And all shiver at my coldest of whispers."
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Malys the younger
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Re: Season of War - website online

Post by Malys the younger »

I agree with your point about bringing aspects of the hobby together. Being able to contribute by painting up units is a nice touch, and after seeing that I have an independent store in the area that is involved I might consider taking whatever I paint this month down there for credit, even if I personally dont play AoS.
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Daeron
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Re: Season of War - website online

Post by Daeron »

So I ran by the store, and it's quite an open, lose format. Points are optional. They throw in free (cardboard) tokens and a badge.
I love me a bowl of numbers to crunch for breakfast. If you need anything theoryhammered, I gladly take requests.

Furnace of Arcana, a warhammer blog with delusional grandeur.

"I move unseen. I hide in light and shadow. I move faster than a bird. No plate of armour ever stopped me. I strike recruits and veterans with equal ease. And all shiver at my coldest of whispers."
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Re: Season of War - website online

Post by Daeron »

here are the tokens they're throwing in. I didn't get the specifics on what's needed to win these... It didn't seem to be too strict, but I can't remember :D
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I love me a bowl of numbers to crunch for breakfast. If you need anything theoryhammered, I gladly take requests.

Furnace of Arcana, a warhammer blog with delusional grandeur.

"I move unseen. I hide in light and shadow. I move faster than a bird. No plate of armour ever stopped me. I strike recruits and veterans with equal ease. And all shiver at my coldest of whispers."
- The stiff breeze
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Re: Season of War - website online

Post by Catrine »

I was gonna make some counters like that anyway, my local store is awarding them when you get 4 points for the campaign, via games or painting or whatever.

Seems like a pretty neat set-up, the campaign doesn't require a lot of knowledge of the lore or story, or, at least, you can engage with it on whatever level you prefer. Seems to be quite popular so far.
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Re: Season of War - website online

Post by Darkspear »

I wanted to participate in the campaign initially, but it was so one sided that I felt it will be better if I simply play games and not log in anything. Just to spice things up. :)

I like the idea of painting warscrolls to score points as well.
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Re: Season of War - website online

Post by Shadowspite »

Order will win in all three cities. The way the campaign is set up guarantees this. There are far more Order players than any other grand alliance, because the majority of the old WHFB armies are now Order subfactions. And Order vs Order battles count as a victory for Order no matter which player wins.

I mean, none of this really matters as long as people are having fun. But don't believe that stuff about "shaping the history of the Mortal Realms". GW knows exactly how this will go.
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Catrine
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Re: Season of War - website online

Post by Catrine »

In fairness I'd probably rather have Order win anyway, seems the most likely option for advancing the plot (for a given, GW, value of 'advancing' in any case) Chaos winning isn't a huge change from the status quo, Destruction and Death could be entertaining, but the former mostly just want to punch stuff and don't seem to care much for holding cities.

Either way, can't say I'm that bothered by something of a foregone conclusion, the actual campaign itself has been a lot of fun so far and I appreciate the effort to make it open to all sorts of players/collectors.
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Re: Season of War - website online

Post by Shadowspite »

Shadowspite wrote:Order will win in all three cities. The way the campaign is set up guarantees this.

Well, there we go. If you've been watching the piecharts for the three cities, you'll have noticed that they basically didn't change all through the campaign. This is because, with a large enough volume of battle results (i.e. a whole continent's worth), the number of victories for a faction will always be proportionate to the number of players of that faction. And getting points for painting models as well as for winning games just made this even more inevitable.

If GW ever wants to run a campaign like this and make it genuinely possible for any grand alliance to win, they're going to have to significantly alter how they record results. The easiest way would be to record losses as well as victories, so if (for example) a Stormcast army beats a Sylvaneth force it counts as both one victory and one defeat for Order. That way, having more players in your grand alliance is only an advantage if they are also winning more than their share of the games. It also would act as an incentive for players to fight battles against other grand alliances than their own.

EDIT: A thought has just occurred to me. GW are actually geniuses, and this whole campaign was a giant customer survey to find out how many players collect each grand alliance. Getting this info via a regular global survey would have been difficult and expensive (staff or subcontractors would have had to actively solicit results, basically jumping on customers as they entered GW stores and quizzing them on what they collected), but disguising it as a campaign got the customers to voluntarily do all the hard work for them, and all it cost GW was setting up a single campaign website (several orders of magnitude cheaper than the alternative). Genius! :D
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Re: Season of War - website online

Post by Darkspear »

I agree. It is an ingenious way to collect market data.

My question is that since it is clear that most players belong to Order (which isn't surprising as it included 6 old WHFB armies), what is GW going to do next? Beef up the most popular alliance which is Order, or reinforce the least popular alliance which is Death.

I personally hope GW does a bit of both. Release the Duardin and the Aelves for Order and resurrect a AOS version of Tomb Kings for Death.
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Re: Season of War - website online

Post by draxynnic »

The thought did strike my mind that this might be why painting miniatures counted - there'd likely be a correlation between which miniatures are being painted and which are being purchased, so if staff are recording exactly what is being brought to them, that would give them an indication of which models are popular and which aren't.

Which may, in turn, influence which factions get expanded and which are left to wither on the proverbial vine.
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