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"Seasons". Give me a fething break.

Go on, GW- keep simping after the tournament crowd...

 Kanluwen wrote:

 Sim-Life wrote:

chaos0xomega wrote:
I think the timing of it is a response to consumer feedback on that survey from a few months back. Overwhelmingly, based on the chatter I saw on dakka, facebook groups, twitter, etc. it seemed most people thought 6 months was the optimal frequency for "balance updates" in response to the questions posed in the survey. I think it follows that they listened to what the people want and decided to move ahead with a 6 month season based on that.

I doubt that's the case. I didn't get the impression that this was balance update, more just dumping more rules on the game. Balance updates would be altering points values and existing rules, which the WarCom article makes no mention of as far as I can see.

The first season introduces a new Grand Tournament Mission pack, which provides the framework for the next six months of competitive play. There will be new missions, new secondary objectives, and updated points costs for the armies in Warhammer 40,000.

Second book is point values.

I stand corrected. Thats super gakky of GW.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

chaos0xomega wrote:
I think the timing of it is a response to consumer feedback on that survey from a few months back.

If true then we need to be very careful what we tell GW in the future, as it seems they take every suggestion as "We like this, so sell even more of it!".

 Mr Morden wrote:
New Sisters are in White Dwarf?

What?

Novices rules are in White Dwarf not a supplemet?

I don't know why you're talking about Sisters.

I hate the fact they have called them seasons, why not just call them campaigns and say there will be a new one every 6 months.

Seasons just reminds me of everything I click through when playing any thing like battlefield

What’s worse is the feeling that players who don’t engage with the seasons will be missing out on something that improves the games and will be forced to buy the odd book here and there for some rules that make the game work better.


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It also concerns me that there will be a growing divide in players knowing the current state of the setting and latest narrative updates. The setting was once static and the dark imperium was a huge update, now the story of the whole galaxy is getting updated every 6 months…..

so basically season pass obsolesence and money grabbing greed from the Mobile gaming industry has achieved bookformat with gw.

 Daedalus81 wrote:

Voss wrote:
All bad- more bloat, more of the same.

Just a promise that every book will be invalid in 6 months. Excitement!

Structured bloat, yes, but let's look at what we've dealt with...

Warzone Charadon : Book of Rust
Warzone Charadon : Book of Fire
Warzone Octarius : Rising Tide
Warzone Octarius : Critical Mass

vs two Warzone books.

And in my naive brain I'm hoping this prevents Pyshic Awakening style releases on top of campaigns.

PA: Blood of Baal
PA: Engine War
PA: Faith & Fury
PA: Pariah
PA: Phoenix Rising
PA: The Greater Good
PA: War of the Spider
Vigilus Ablaze
Vigilus Defiant

If they stick to this it is decidedly far less bloat than we've had.

Not sure how this invalidates books though ( other than missions )?

What exactly makes you think they'll only release one Warzone book per season? This announcement only seems to mean they'll be focusing on one Warzone per season, nothing is stopping them from releasing two in that time frame. And I expect they will, because all this is just a marketing plan. They're going to release the same things, in the same order, as previously planned, just "branded" as "seasons" instead of "whatever we're throwing out right now".

And I seriously doubt it's a response to the recent community poll as many are theorizing. Gw can't change their production and printing schedules that quickly. If anything is a response to that, it's the recent digital document that nerfed Admech and Orks while giving "get your by" rules for the Guard, Necrons, and CSM. This is most likely just the same stuff they already had on their release schedule anyway, just branded to look more like a coherent package.

 Daedalus81 wrote:

Not all Codex Supplements are as egregious since they put 9th edition tools into older books ( like PA did ) -- Cadia, Leviathan, and Raven.

Those are the most egregious. You get minor fixes, but only if you play subfaction Y is pretty piss-poor.

Then you have the "get you by" segments, which are the Nids update, Be'Lakor, CSM reprint from PA, and Inquisition reprint.

Reprints are _utterly_ unnecessary and pointless. That's just padding out a subpar product so they can sell it.

Now, they did not mention any Codex Supplements for this next batch - just "one AoR", which to me is fine.

Good for you, I guess? To me they're the same kind of indistinguishable garbage rules bloat.

I have no idea what that is. Nor why you deem PA 'necessary.'

...you don't know what the Dataslate is?

Nope. I know what 'a dataslate' would be. I don't know of any GW product or publication called 'the Dataslate.'
No idea why I would.

Wait, weren't those the ebook painting guides during 7th edition? Several bucks for a specific unit?
----

MrFickle wrote:What’s worse is the feeling that players who don’t engage with the seasons will be missing out on something that improves the games

At this point we absolutely know that players who don't engage with Warzones aren't missing out on squat.

mrFickle wrote:
I hate the fact they have called them seasons, why not just call them campaigns and say there will be a new one every 6 months.

Seasons just reminds me of everything I click through when playing any thing like battlefield

What’s worse is the feeling that players who don’t engage with the seasons will be missing out on something that improves the games and will be forced to buy the odd book here and there for some rules that make the game work better.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
It also concerns me that there will be a growing divide in players knowing the current state of the setting and latest narrative updates. The setting was once static and the dark imperium was a huge update, now the story of the whole galaxy is getting updated every 6 months…..

As gw won't invalidate models the story updates are just saturday cartoon level where bad guys get beaten but not killed and they retreat swearing "i'jl get you next time" and stalemate continues.

Nice another round of books for me to ignore. Man GW is really trying hard to make me not spend money on their rules, it's almost like they're stepping over dollars to get to dimes(or quid, euros, etc).

Racerguy180 wrote:
Nice another round of books for me to ignore. Man GW is really trying hard to make me not spend money on their rules, it's almost like they're stepping over dollars to get to dimes(or quid, euros, etc).

to be fair they will still sell a ton of books so i am not sure i would say they are missing out on money by printing more books. personally I love reading the campaign book stories and playing the missions, to me there is value in them for that alone. I am more likely to skip the points change books and mission pack books just going off battlescribe

 Grimskul wrote:
Ugh, GW please. Focus on finishing and releasing all the codices first before doing campaign stuff like this. Especially since these "seasons" basically have a shelf life of only 6 months. At least battle passes in video games are "free". This drip feed approach is backwards as feth, especially within the context of the pandemic where more people have embraced online/digital platforms, it makes no sense that GW keeps pushing for physical stuff like this. Especially since it looks like they're aiming for 3 year cycles for editions, they're basically screwing over the last few codices when they inevitably change course for the new edition.

I almost can't believe they expect us to fork out $100+ for books when they tell us ahead of time they'll be kindling in 6 months. This kind of campaign is literally the perfect time to do something digital. Oh btw a global pandemic has destroyed supply chains and closed gaming stores around the world so that's a good reason too. GW gonna GW though...

 Grimtuff wrote:
"Seasons". Give me a fething break.

Go on, GW- keep simping after the tournament crowd...

Crusade and whatever 'War of Faith' campaigns are ( in addition to an entire book that is just for 'War of Faith' ) have absolutely nothing to do with tournament players. In fact the only pieces we'd care about are the single Army of Reknown and points/missions.

Usually "we're going to be doing a run of campaign books!" means "six months to the next edition!"

 Gadzilla666 wrote:

What exactly makes you think they'll only release one Warzone book per season? This announcement only seems to mean they'll be focusing on one Warzone per season, nothing is stopping them from releasing two in that time frame. And I expect they will, because all this is just a marketing plan. They're going to release the same things, in the same order, as previously planned, just "branded" as "seasons" instead of "whatever we're throwing out right now".

And I seriously doubt it's a response to the recent community poll as many are theorizing. Gw can't change their production and printing schedules that quickly. If anything is a response to that, it's the recent digital document that nerfed Admech and Orks while giving "get your by" rules for the Guard, Necrons, and CSM. This is most likely just the same stuff they already had on their release schedule anyway, just branded to look more like a coherent package.

Good point. They can totally push more books in the season, which would suck horribly and I maintain my position to not buy them regardless. Actually it probably makes sense for quarterly campaign books if they're doing quarterly Kill Team.

They can definitely print missions and points adhoc. Campaign books don't move so easily.


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Reprints are _utterly_ unnecessary and pointless. That's just padding out a subpar product so they can sell it.

No argument from me there.

Nope. I know what 'a dataslate' would be. I don't know of any GW product or publication called 'the Dataslate.'
No idea why I would.

Quarterly balance fixes:
https://www.warhammer-community.com/2021/11/09/game-balance-is-at-the-heart-of-this-official-warhammer-40000-rules-update/


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 Toofast wrote:
I almost can't believe they expect us to fork out $100+ for books when they tell us ahead of time they'll be kindling in 6 months. This kind of campaign is literally the perfect time to do something digital. Oh btw a global pandemic has destroyed supply chains and closed gaming stores around the world so that's a good reason too. GW gonna GW though...

These are absolutely not things you just go out and buy if your concern is matched play.

Chapter Approved is the only thing you'd buy, but I only grab it for convenience. Most everyone uses Battlescribe and Wahapedia these days ( and should continue to do so until GW commits to a sound digital platform ).

The odd person might want the first book for the Army of Reknown, but again - Wahapedia. Everything else is, I presume, useful and interesting to casual players.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 vipoid wrote:
Is it too much to ask that they release the rules for the remaining factions first before boring everyone to death with this drivel?

They need to get the rules out for the Primaris Captain Stacey (with new hat/chainsword) and Primaris Ancient Stacey (with new hat/power sword), and it's either these books (and the datasheets repeated ad nauseam) or a new Marine book.

I wish you were more wrong.

(Also, I applaud your one-man effort to turn Primaris Stacey into a meme. )

chaos0xomega wrote:

Money doesn't stop for feelings.

Feelings do, however, influence spending.

Hence why my own wallet will not be opening for any of this crap.


Aside:


Is that piece of art unintentionally hilarious to anyone else?

Something about the huge claw on one arm and the tiny, weenie hand on his other arm, plus the fact his head is so small relative to his power armour. I mean, people used to joke about terminators' arms being too high and then we have this guy whose arms apparently join a full head above his shoulders. To top it all off, the bottom of the picture fails to hide the fact that his legs cease to exist below the knees, giving him the look of a floating double-amputee.

 G00fySmiley wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

chaos0xomega wrote:
In all likelihood the schedule for this was probably set up so that these "seasons" would roll out after all the updated codexes were released.

I tend to think that the whole "Season" concept was conceived specifically because of the delays from the previous two years.

Now they're doing to two sets of these books a year, and can release them any time during a 6 month window. Allows for greater flexibility and reactions to potential delays.

my guess is they got the idea from modern video games and premium passes. with League of Legends, Fortnite, Apex Legends, Genshin Impact etc all now having battle passes people have become accustomed to there being seasons where things about a game change and you pay money per season for the good stuff, difference being GW likely is of the opinion buying into the season should be mandatory and a few published small points tweaks and new units/ formations are adequate content

If they wanted to charge me $10-20 to participate in a campaign and give out free, exclusive models during the campaign, that sounds awesome and I'm all in. That's how those video game battlepasses work. If they want to sell me $100 in books that will be invalidated after 6 months, I have zero interest in that.


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 Daedalus81 wrote:

These are absolutely not things you just go out and buy if your concern is matched play.

The odd person might want the first book for the Army of Reknown, but again - Wahapedia. Everything else is, I presume, useful and interesting to casual players.

I'm just waiting to meet all these casual players that love power levels and fluff campaigns and never play competitively. I've been playing on and off for 20 years in several states and a couple other countries. I've played in Warhammer stores, FLGS, basements, garages, and hipster bars. Everywhere I've played, it seems like 1850/2k points and matched play missions or tournament missions are the standard. There might be one guy in the group that says "hey guys I'm new, can we do power level and just play a quick casual game?" but that is a rare exception rather than the rule.

I'm not sure how they'll be able to do more than one book per 'season' - not saying they won't, GW is GW after all, calling them seasons is also absolutely awful, this isn't sports or fashion.

Anyway, the reason why they cannot do more than one book - or shouldn't be able to anyway, is if the seasons dictate the narrative, and have consequences, they cannot tailor and release a book to reflect that.

I'm interested how they'll have this affect the narrative though, will they release a full lore impact breakdown at the end of each season? As again, when the next season moves to a new war zone, GW again won't have had enough time to tell the narrative impact within the next seasons book.

I mean, I'm talking as if GW aren't just going to fiddle the numbers to get the results they want anyway but hey ho...

Then all they're going to be in for is Chapter Approved, which is largely redundant given the tools available outside GW. None of those people are dropping money on the other two books unless they specifically want rules for the AoR.

What GW is doing is crappy, but it isn't some requisite purchase to be able to play.

 Toofast wrote:

 G00fySmiley wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

chaos0xomega wrote:
In all likelihood the schedule for this was probably set up so that these "seasons" would roll out after all the updated codexes were released.

I tend to think that the whole "Season" concept was conceived specifically because of the delays from the previous two years.

Now they're doing to two sets of these books a year, and can release them any time during a 6 month window. Allows for greater flexibility and reactions to potential delays.

my guess is they got the idea from modern video games and premium passes. with League of Legends, Fortnite, Apex Legends, Genshin Impact etc all now having battle passes people have become accustomed to there being seasons where things about a game change and you pay money per season for the good stuff, difference being GW likely is of the opinion buying into the season should be mandatory and a few published small points tweaks and new units/ formations are adequate content

If they wanted to charge me $10-20 to participate in a campaign and give out free, exclusive models during the campaign, that sounds awesome and I'm all in. That's how those video game battlepasses work. If they want to sell me $100 in books that will be invalidated after 6 months, I have zero interest in that.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Daedalus81 wrote:

These are absolutely not things you just go out and buy if your concern is matched play.

The odd person might want the first book for the Army of Reknown, but again - Wahapedia. Everything else is, I presume, useful and interesting to casual players.

I'm just waiting to meet all these casual players that love power levels and fluff campaigns and never play competitively. I've been playing on and off for 20 years in several states and a couple other countries. I've played in Warhammer stores, FLGS, basements, garages, and hipster bars. Everywhere I've played, it seems like 1850/2k points and matched play missions or tournament missions are the standard. There might be one guy in the group that says "hey guys I'm new, can we do power level and just play a quick casual game?" but that is a rare exception rather than the rule.

while some points and formations will be invalidated the missions can still be played years later sometimes with a little modifications across editions. heck a few weeks ago i played a game where we modified the 6th edition death from the skies book for dogfights in how we handled ariel combat. it was pretty fun honestly.

As for fluffy campaign type games they do exist. Pre covid in my town (Tallahassee FL) we were doing quarterly large narrative games. we had people show up from all over FL and some from surrounding states for our Gathering Storm campaigns and have had good turnouts for everything since. It is not that nobody does narrative campaigns I more think its a lack of much organization to them outside small groups

I might be completely clueless, but aren't they just rebranding chapter approved ?

 Toofast wrote:

I'm just waiting to meet all these casual players that love power levels and fluff campaigns and never play competitively. I've been playing on and off for 20 years in several states and a couple other countries. I've played in Warhammer stores, FLGS, basements, garages, and hipster bars. Everywhere I've played, it seems like 1850/2k points and matched play missions or tournament missions are the standard. There might be one guy in the group that says "hey guys I'm new, can we do power level and just play a quick casual game?" but that is a rare exception rather than the rule.

Sup?

I have zero interest in Points. Points are ABSOLUTE TRASH. They're a false sense of balance. They also encourage the absolute dumpsterfire that is the faux-comp scene, which basically amounts to copy/paste tourney lists.

I regularly play Power. I have a group of people that I played with regularly prior to COVID and a few of the members having new lil' ones joining their families. We played nothing but Power, with a few people also playing points in tourneys locally.

Now you've met one. Understand that it's entirely likely you're not "meeting all these casual players that love power levels and fluff campaigns and never play competitively" because Power is still, effectively, a new system and it's treated with extreme derision by people like yourself who continually act as though points are the sacred cow of gaming.

Siegfriedfr wrote:
I might be completely clueless, but aren't they just rebranding chapter approved ?

Hmm? Not really. Just formalizing it to bi-annual.

each campaign is 1 Warzone, and because they already said that they will do different Warzones each time, what the result of one season will have no effect on any other season unless it comes back to that specific Warzone again
and there is no reason of not doing 2+ book per Warzone to get something out of it

PS: and not buying the rules but still playing the game to make a point is pretty much useless as it does not change anything
GW can get away with those things, and keep doing it, because there are enough new players who will buy the stuff, for the main reason because everyone is playing 40k, that no one else is paying for the rules or buys the original models does not matter as long as they play the game and keep the community big enough to get those who pay into the GW bubble

PPS:
I guess 10th is going to be released Sommer 2022

This looks to provide no extra value to my gaming. Pass.

 Kanluwen wrote:

 Toofast wrote:

I'm just waiting to meet all these casual players that love power levels and fluff campaigns and never play competitively. I've been playing on and off for 20 years in several states and a couple other countries. I've played in Warhammer stores, FLGS, basements, garages, and hipster bars. Everywhere I've played, it seems like 1850/2k points and matched play missions or tournament missions are the standard. There might be one guy in the group that says "hey guys I'm new, can we do power level and just play a quick casual game?" but that is a rare exception rather than the rule.

Sup?

I have zero interest in Points. Points are ABSOLUTE TRASH. They're a false sense of balance. They also encourage the absolute dumpsterfire that is the faux-comp scene, which basically amounts to copy/paste tourney lists.

I regularly play Power. I have a group of people that I played with regularly prior to COVID and a few of the members having new lil' ones joining their families. We played nothing but Power, with a few people also playing points in tourneys locally.

Now you've met one. Understand that it's entirely likely you're not "meeting all these casual players that love power levels and fluff campaigns and never play competitively" because Power is still, effectively, a new system and it's treated with extreme derision by people like yourself who continually act as though points are the sacred cow of gaming.

Make that two. And I can say my whole gaming group is like that (not opposed to points, but to tournament play). We have that one guy who always knows what's going on in the tournament scene and what's the meta but... he hasn't played a single tournament game, yet since noone else is interested in that kind of play

 Toofast wrote:

I'm just waiting to meet all these casual players that love power levels and fluff campaigns and never play competitively. I've been playing on and off for 20 years in several states and a couple other countries. I've played in Warhammer stores, FLGS, basements, garages, and hipster bars. Everywhere I've played, it seems like 1850/2k points and matched play missions or tournament missions are the standard. There might be one guy in the group that says "hey guys I'm new, can we do power level and just play a quick casual game?" but that is a rare exception rather than the rule.

Howdy! That's me and the 4 other people in my gaming group, and we couldn't give a rats about what the competitive meta is at any given time and have never done so. We play with power because it's easier to throw a list together and use our limited free time to actually do some 40k rather than waiting for people to make lists.

 endlesswaltz123 wrote:
I'm not sure how they'll be able to do more than one book per 'season' - not saying they won't, GW is GW after all, calling them seasons is also absolutely awful, this isn't sports or fashion.

Anyway, the reason why they cannot do more than one book - or shouldn't be able to anyway, is if the seasons dictate the narrative, and have consequences, they cannot tailor and release a book to reflect that.

I'm interested how they'll have this affect the narrative though, will they release a full lore impact breakdown at the end of each season? As again, when the next season moves to a new war zone, GW again won't have had enough time to tell the narrative impact within the next seasons book.

I mean, I'm talking as if GW aren't just going to fiddle the numbers to get the results they want anyway but hey ho...

Uh, they didn't even remotely suggest that player games would dictate the narrative or have consequences (well, unless the video says something different, I didn't have any interesting in watching someone prattle on about nothing). Just that these particular flashpoints would have consequences for the 40k setting. Its going to be GW's narrative to write as they see fit.

Indeed. CA is still CA whether once a year or twice.

Screw it, more stuff is fun, it isn’t compulsory, and keeps the meta moving. I’ll skip all the books I don’t want or need and pick up CA for extra mission lols.

It's gakky, but not surprising.

The current mission design is so horrible, so complete trash, and has created such a stale and unbalanced game that this is GW's shoot-from-the-hip answer to try and get players back to the table. After all, GW fuels itself off of player hope. Hope that the next time/thing will be better.

Mike Brandt = The New Matt Ward