Battle for Xilos Online Campaign Overview

The Battle for Xilos online campaign was run back in 2016 in association the Beasts of War crew to support the first Antares supplement, the Battle for Xilos. It was for players to run through the campaign and log the results of their own games to work out the campaign involving all players.  It followed the same story described in the supplement (that originally started in the main rulebook) and the outcome of the campaign helped shape the subsequent supplement, the Chryseis Shard, in that Algoryn General Tar es Janar was disgraced, having lost his gamble with the alliance with the Concord, and SD Commander Ess Ma Rahq came into her own as a supremely influential figure within the Algoryn Prosperate.

This set the tone for subsequent development: the games days influence the shape of the Antares history.

The campaign can still eb seen (as of April 2022) at Warconsole: http://battleforxilos.warconsole.com/.

Episodes

The campaign consisted of six episodes that told the story of the events on the Builder planet of Xilos. Players took part by playing battles and logging the results on the campaign website. For each battle logged, they chose which episode their battle to counted for, though the episodes were only unlocked week by week.  Rather than stick firmly to the factions in the book, however, any army could post battles in any episode, using any scenario wished.

Strategic Objectives

Each episode had a strategic objective that provides a knock-on effect in later episodes, in the form of a tabletop bonus for armies belonging to the faction with most wins. However, being the top faction in an episode could change as other game reports were sent in! To help, however, there were individual forums whee commanders of each faction could discuss strategies or army lists for each episode.

Battle Reports

Players were able to get more into the spirit of the campaign and tell everyone about their exploits on the battlefield by uploading battle reports of games, videos write-up and loads of great photos. Other players were able to recommend the best for commendations, all of which were added into a players final score in the campaign as a whole.

Rankings, XP and Achievements

Each player started out as a lowly Squad Leader, and rose up through the ranks as they played games, submitted battle reports, got involved on the forums, and so on. There were also 60 achievement badges to get, based on scenarios, having battle reports commended, and campaign participation.

Final Score

The Ghar Empire had the most final points, though gained fewer as the campaign went along, and the Freeborn ended up with the best rating – though the Rebels weren’t far behind, no doubt leading to them making great gains in the Chryseis crisis! The Boromites came out very well with a late push, but it was the Concord-Algoryn alliance who came out worst. The Isorians had a very similar final rating but had far fewer games, probably reflecting the availability of the armies at the time but also reflecting their influence in the narrative, as well! The final factions scores were:

Faction	Games	Win	Lost	Tied	Points	Rate (Avg)
Freeborn	26	17	5	4	61	.73 (2.3)
Ghar Rebels	12	8	3	1	34	.71 (2.8)
Boromite	70	37	29	4	121	.56 (1.7)
Isorian	33	17	13	3	60	.56 (1.8)
Ghar Empire	89	45	39	5	146	.53 (1.6)
Algoryn	74	31	36	7	103	.47 (1.4)
Concord	112	38	68	6	123	.37 (1.1)