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GW is officially laying out the schedule going forward.

The Good - more regular points and mission updates. This could also mean Maelstrom for those so inclined. Potentially only two Warzone books to deal with ( instead of the....four or five this past year ).

The Bad - Greater than zero Warzone books to deal with.

The Ugly - No digital or free points, which means $$.

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2021/12/28/warhammer-40000-seasons-are-going-to-change-the-way-you-conquer-the-galaxy/

All bad- more bloat, more of the same.

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

Yeah, this isn’t for me. I haven’t bought a campaign book before and have no interest in starting now.

I suppose it’s fun that they are building a theme around the model release schedule and are moving the narrative forward, but this doesn’t really seem like anything new, just a rebranding and formalising what they’ve been doing for the last year or so.

Campaigns are something I adore, and I would support this kind of effort in a heartbeat if not for the fact that:

1. The Crusade books are mostly a reprint of the 40k rules. The more of them you purchase, the more you just end up buying the same rules over and over again.

2. The Crusade rules/missions from the Crusade books should just be in the overall Campaign book. Splitting Crusade rules between two different books is unnecessary and makes me want to purchase them less.

Plus paying for rules updates once per year was wrong. Twice per year is more wrong.

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 )?

 Daedalus81 wrote:


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

Oh, OK.
Meanwhile I'm sure we'll see more such filler material come the last 6-9 months of this edition.
But you keep hoping....

 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 )?

I admire your optimism. Remember we're only 2 years into 9th, COVID/shipping crisis messed up the release schedule and not even half the armies have a 9th Ed codex yet. PA happened 4 years into the edition after all of the codexes were out, give it time.

On the topic of Season just imagine whatever the loudest groan possible is and then imagine I typed it out here.

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

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.

On the plus side this means that we can reasonably expect a battle box every 6 months.

 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.

If they are going to commit to this I'd prefer a "battle pass" and something digital for sure. As it stands I refuse to buy any campaign book.

 Daedalus81 wrote:

 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.

If they are going to commit to this I'd prefer a "battle pass" and something digital for sure. As it stands I refuse to buy any campaign book.

I mean, if Warhammer+ included books I would already be a member, I almost joined when it seemed it would include all codexes, then they said current only and going forward they were not included where you add the code from codexes for digital so... i passed.

They could still take my money if the include digital codexes and campaign books in the warhammer+ subscription but i am not sure they will ever do that

 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.

Now, ask yourself if Charadon and Octarius were supposed to be the same year, or if Covid delays pushed them closer together and biannual was the actual plan all along.

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

That does sound naive

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.

Is it...? Vigilus looks like 2 books. This is will be 8 for the year between two seasons. Hey, you've got 8 books listed there.
And they've made zero promises of no PA-like books, so we very reasonably could end up with 14 or so books. Exciting new levels of bloat are now possible.

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

Really? How many of those (especially those that have armies that got a real 9e book) still have usable content?
Vigilus is officially declared as a no-go, and with the exception of a few armies, PA has been entirely superseded.

 Daedalus81 wrote:

 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.

If they are going to commit to this I'd prefer a "battle pass" and something digital for sure. As it stands I refuse to buy any campaign book.

Seriously. If they wanted Warhammer Plus to succeed, they should have just done a subscription model where you pay a flat 12 dollars a month or something and get access to all the army rules in addition to whatever weird stuff they have as the selling points for the current subscription. As it is, there's no reason why people shouldn't just be using battlescribe and wahapedia for their rules needs.

 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.

 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.

Or they just need a LoLcat gif with 'Primaris can has swords now'



Or one of those mysterious FAQ/errata pdfs. Unfashionable, I know, but they managed this exact thing with intercessor sergeants once upon a time.

 Daedalus81 wrote:

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

Vigilus Defiant was December 2018.
It was followed by "Urban Conquest" in January 2019.
March 2019 was Vigilus Ablaze.
PA started in October 2019 and got staggered more than it likely was going to be with C19 starting up.

Voss wrote:
Now, ask yourself if Charadon and Octarius were supposed to be the same year, or if Covid delays pushed them closer together and biannual was the actual plan all along.

Not really possible since PA ended at the start of 2020 and we picked these four up in 2021. If anything these would have been quarterly.

Is it...? Vigilus looks like 2 books. This is will be 8 for the year between two seasons. Hey, you've got 8 books listed there.
And they've made zero promises of no PA-like books, so we very reasonably could end up with 14 or so books. Exciting new levels of bloat are now possible.

The purpose of PA was to drive "story" and kick out rules patches. With Dataslate, Armies of Reknown, and bi-annual missions there isn't a true need for such a transition. That isn't to say they won't decide some sort of grand campaign isn't called for in a transition to a new edition, but they have more tools than they did before.

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

Really? How many of those (especially those that have armies that got a real 9e book) still have usable content?
Vigilus is officially declared as a no-go, and with the exception of a few armies, PA has been entirely superseded.

Vigilus and PA were different design standards. These books are going to do Armies of Reknown, which stand as their own singular set instead of a tack on to any list like Vigilus was. PA was "necessary" to catch up armies, but we have Dataslate for that.

 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?

Money doesn't stop for feelings. The reality is that these various publications are being worked on in parallel by different teams, etc. Just because the codex team(s) were delayed for whatever reason doesn't mean they are going to put on hold all their other publications while they wait for the codexes to catch up. 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. For obvious reasons, there has been a slowdown in the pace at which those have been coming out, and they are putting out the other publications in advance of the codexes as a result.

 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 )?

Given that both 40k and AoS have used the "End Times" format (i.e. Psychic Awakening, Gathering Storm, Broken Realms, The Realmgate Wars) to end each edition and shepherd in the next one, I think you're being overly optimistic here that the new "seasons" format will prevent further such releases from occurring. In reality, I think the point of these books (aside from making money) is specifically to front-load rules updates to factions for the new edition in order to keep them some semblance of "balanced" against shifting meta, etc. while they wait their turn for a codex (arguably it doesn't work).


Automatically Appended Next Post:

BrianDavion wrote:
On the plus side this means that we can reasonably expect a battle box every 6 months.

Don't see what one has to do with the other. We are already getting at least 2 battleboxes a year for both 40k and AoS as it stands (some years have been more than that) so I'm not sure what this changes.

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.

 Daedalus81 wrote:

Voss wrote:
Now, ask yourself if Charadon and Octarius were supposed to be the same year, or if Covid delays pushed them closer together and biannual was the actual plan all along.

Not really possible since PA ended at the start of 2020 and we picked these four up in 2021. If anything these would have been quarterly.

Is it...? Vigilus looks like 2 books. This is will be 8 for the year between two seasons. Hey, you've got 8 books listed there.
And they've made zero promises of no PA-like books, so we very reasonably could end up with 14 or so books. Exciting new levels of bloat are now possible.

The purpose of PA was to drive "story" and kick out rules patches. With Dataslate, Armies of Reknown, and bi-annual missions there isn't a true need for such a transition. That isn't to say they won't decide some sort of grand campaign isn't called for in a transition to a new edition, but they have more tools than they did before.

 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

Oh absolutely. Don't disagree with you at all with that. Certainly calling them 'Seasons' is GW's attempt at aping one of the worst and consumer-unfriendly aspects of the AAA gaming industry. But GW was already releasing this kind of crap Day-1 DLC gak and paid-for patches prior to formalising them as 'Seasons'.

I just think that the timing of it - one per 6 months - is a response to the delays.

Voss wrote:
The 'purpose' of PA was to sell crap. There wasn't a grand campaign or transition, let alone a 'need' for one.

There was a need, because GW was expanding the design into 9th with the SM books and PA books were a leveler that we didn't really get to use, because of COVID.

Need is a relative term. I'm not saying that the game could not survive without it, but there definitely would have been a more noticeable gap even post IH nerfs.

What? Obviously PA and Vigilius were different- Vig was ostensibly an actual campaign for a selection of factions.
I have no idea why you think 'armies of reknown' are somehow different. They're just as easily invalidated.

Armies of Reknown ( Cohort, Defence, Terminus, Freeblade, Crusher, and Speed Mob ) bear their own restrictions and are self-contained. Vigilus detachments were not restricted in the same fashion and had the ability create uncontrolled balance issues if left untended.

The more egregious thing done by GW was Codex Supplements. Day 0 patches, if you will. Those are bs and should not exist. Now, COVID made things screwy and I'm sure things showed up differently to us, but surely Cult of Strife could have been placed in the DE book as well as Metalica into Admech and BA in Orks. But even these don't go stale unless we decide to dumpster stratagems, traits, and relics.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

 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.

New Sisters are in White Dwarf?

 Mr Morden wrote:

New Sisters are in White Dwarf?

They're also on the Warhammer Community page...

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.

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?

 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.