Holiday Ops 2018 Begins

Ho ho ho! Have you been good this year? As far as we’re concerned, we’ve done an excellent job together. So even if you're going to miss someone else’s “nice” list, you might as well miss by a mile—we have quite a few presents under the tree for all of you! Get yourself into the festive spirit right now with Holiday Ops 2018. Read up on the event and stick around for another 30 days to get your share of gifts, bonuses, and more.

Push towards the frontlines and get your share of festive cheer in a special Holiday Ops 2018 event, running from Dec. 15 until Jan. 15. It’s packed with quests and surprises that are sure to strike a chord with all of you. Seriously, even the really picky ones. Jolly settings? Gift tanks? Totally sorted. Exclusive rewards? Presents for friends? We’ve got those. And the rest? Whether you’re looking to strengthen your Crews with new members, net fancy discounts, or boost XP earnings, Holiday Ops 2018 has all your holiday wishes covered. All you have to do to claim these pleasant bonuses is decorate a snow-covered Garage. Are you up to the challenge? Let’s see how it works then.

Essentials

The festive storm hits servers Dec. 15 at 05:00 UTC. Set aside whatever errands you had and focus on decorating and spreading cheer. Your Garage is (erm) gone, blown away with ice-cold wind. Don’t get upset, though. Instead, there’s a winter yard dressed up in fairy lights, tinsel, and a dusting of snow. It looks charming indeed, but is lacking in decoration. That’s where you come in to bring merriment and holiday spirit, all while earning delicious, delicious rewards.

How It Works

Craft snow into a snowman, and adorn the house, lampposts, and the tree to increase your Festive Atmosphere (here for a step-by-step guide to decorating). Choose your decorations wisely, though. They come in all shapes and sizes, and are arranged in five groups by rarity.

Level one items are the easiest to get; level five decorations are really rare to come by. The rarer the decorations you use, the more points they add to your Festive Atmosphere, and the faster you ascend a level.

What’s Festive Atmosphere? If you took a look at Holiday Ops last year, “Festive Atmosphere” must ring a bell. But here’s a refresher just in case: Festive Atmosphere has ten levels and defines your progress in decorating the yard. You can check your current progress at any time by clicking a snowflake icon  below the Garage top menu.

The first time you step up a level, a crate full of in-game items drops down in the center of the yard. In fact, we’ve already stashed a Level 1 crate with a gift tank right under the tree. Log in to claim it when the event starts!

Make it up to the top, and you’ll collect a bounty the old man in the North Pole could never fit into his sledge: a four-person female Crew, discounts on researchable vehicles, a host of consumables, and a set of Holiday Ops medals.

To check the rewards you’ve collected so far, click the snowflake icon and then the “List of Rewards” button to its left.

Decorations don’t just help you level Festive Atmosphere. Collecting them earns you exclusive emblems and inscriptions and a special Holiday bonus that increases the amount of XP, Crew XP, and Credits earned per battle (see “Holiday Bonus” for more details).

Decorating

This year, you have absolute freedom to decorate just about everything you see: the snow-capped country house, lampposts in the yard, and the holiday tree. Also, don’t pass on the snow: it’s waiting for you to craft it into a snowman!

If you want to try something new this year in terms of decor but aren't exactly sure what, Holiday Ops 2018 has a selection of designs for you. Go with the Modern Christmas set if you gravitate towards a contemporary holiday design. Do you like this idea, but prefer a more classic holiday color scheme? Just try the Traditional Christmas design. If you have no attachment to this whole "Christmas" thing, check out the Chinese New Year or Soviet New Year sets.

Remember, this isn't an ironclad template, rather a source of inspiration to get you thinking! Choose a set and stick to it or mix and match—designs are only limited by your imagination and creativity.

How It Works

Hover over elements that can be decorated, click the snowflake  right below the Battle! button or click individual elements for a close-up view. Use the panel to the left, in the close-up view, to navigate between interactive elements.

You can’t decorate randomly: interactive elements have designated slots for each type of items. To begin, click the Garage element you want to adorn. Then click a slot that can be decorated to open a window with all decorations suitable for it, and choose one to apply. Use the filters in upper right corner of the window to sort decorations by levels and design collections.

Collections & Holiday Bonus

Decorations come in all shapes and sizes, and are brought together in four design collections: Traditional Christmas, Modern Christmas, Soviet New Year, and Chinese New Year. From all kinds of baubles, ornaments and garlands to tree toppers and twinkling fairy lights, there's a little bit for everyone's aesthetic this year! What’s more, each design set injects the scene with extra holiday vibes through unique background music. The more items from a certain set you use, the more it manifests itself.

All acquired decorations are listed in special albums. Click the snowflake  under the Battle! button and choose Collections (to the right) to view all four albums. They show your progress towards getting a full collection and offer a sneak peek at the items you don’t have yet.

Collections aren’t just a navigation tool to help you with redesigning your Garage—they can net you bonuses, an exclusive customization style*, emblems and inscriptions. Keep in mind that each collection grants these items to particular vehicles. Go with the Soviet setting, if you’re looking to customize USSR tanks. Enjoy playing Chinese vehicles? Then collect Chinese New Year decorations to receive emblems and inscriptions for them. Completing the Traditional Christmas collection nets you customization items for German, French, Polish, and Czechoslovakian tanks. Stick with Modern Christmas if you’d like to roll classy in American, British, Japanese or Swedish vehicles.

How to Earn Bonuses, Emblems and Inscriptions

Customization items: Completing any of the four sets will land you exclusive customization style, emblems and inscriptions for a certain nation (Soviet and Chinese New Year) or a group of nations (Traditional and Modern Christmas). There are no limits here. Collect all four sets to get a set of items and bonuses for each nation!

Holiday bonus: Your road to assembling a full collection is spiced up with per-battle boosts to XP, Crew XP, and Credit earnings. These boosts increase as you fill in the sets, but you get the maximum bonus way before completing a set.

Want to get the most of this bonus? Here’s a trick, and it’s as simple as it gets: decorate the Garage to reach the maximum Festive Atmosphere level. Solid progress on collections combined with Level 10 Festive Atmosphere lends you +48% to XP, Crew XP, and Credit earnings per battle.

Playing with Premium Account status? Here's the good news: the Holiday bonus is cumulative with Premium benefits. Essentially, maximum Festive Atmosphere, Premium Account status, and The Holiday Bonus net you nearly double the amount of XP, Crew XP, and Credits per battle throughout the event.

You can check your current bonus for the selected vehicle at any time. It’s displayed right under the Battle! button and in the Collections window.

Earning Decorations

Decoration are earned through special boxes from completing Holiday Ops 2018 Marathon missions. Another way to obtain them are the Advent Calendar daily quests that open during the event (available until December 24). Also, you can bring out your crafty side and create decorations with the Large Holidron Decorider or stock up on dazzling items on a special website. Visit it starting Dec. 15 to enrich your collection and find gifts for fellow tankers!

Holiday Ops 2018 Marathon

Holiday Ops 2018 will have all the tank-slaying-battle-raging frenzy you’d expect from World of Tanks. However, this time you can choose between battling for fun’s sake or duking it out to earn decoration boxes. If you go decoration hunting, check out 11 battle missions from the Holiday Ops 2018 Marathon. They get updated weekly and can be completed several times. Completing each rewards you with a decoration box. What’s in it? Three decorations and a little something extra. Prepare to be surprised! You never know what’s inside: consumables or maybe Credits.

Completed a mission? Go ahead and open the “congrats” dialogue window to check out what you’ve earned. Don’t feel like opening it right now? No big deal. You can do it later. Just click the box icon  in the lower right corner of the Garage and choose which one you’d like to open when you’re ready.

Advent Calendar

Along with 24-hour-only deals, the Advent Calendar 2018 offers daily battle missions. Completing them during the Holiday Ops 2018 event nets you a decoration box. Check the Calendar out by hovering over the newsstand in the wintry Garage, take up challenges, and increase your decoration collection!

Crafting Decorations

Decoration crafting caused a lot of discussion in your ranks last year. We took notice and went back to the drawing board to design a whole new machine for the job. Yes, you heard right. It’s a machine indeed—the Large Holidron Decorider, and it follows your requests to the letter, when making decorations.

Here’s how it works. Let’s say you have a few charms, garlands, or baubles you don’t feel like using. Don’t let them lie there and gather dust—smash ‘em. Then, put the shards into the Decorider and make a wish. Well, not literally—simply set the parameters (level, shape, and collection) for a decoration you really want, check if there are enough shards* to fulfill your wish, push the Craft button, and voila! Don’t have anything in particular on your wish list? Let the Decorider surprise you—pick “Random Collection” and get right to crafting.

Gift Boxes

Having a hard time finding gifts? Don't worry: we're here to help by taking the pain and effort out of your holiday hustle. Check out our Holiday Ops 2018 website (only available for the duration of the event), if you want to do some good this festive season. It offers a selection of gift boxes with decorations* and valuable in-game items to treat fellow tankers, friends, and even yourself. We stuffed them with all kinds of goodness from Premium consumables through to Premium vehicles, including the Type 59, Lorraine 40t, Rheinmetall Skorpion G and Т26Е5.

Gift boxes might save you some time in building a collection. However, there’s no need to stock up on them to get the maximum Festive Atmosphere level — keep on battling and you’ll reach it with decorations obtained through battle missions!

We hope this guide proves instrumental in supercharging your progress in Holiday Ops 2018. Join us for this fun-filled event and work your way up to reap rewards!