So, did Daughters of Khaine and Idoneth Deepkin sell poorly

[Enoby]

This may seem like an odd question, and I would agree if not for a strange line of thought that I have seen on Facebook, Reddit, and occasionally on this forum. Normally, I'd have gotten an answer from the people saying these things or Google, but every time I've asked or searched, I've come up empty. I have seen a common statement that DoK and Idoneth performed poorly/not as well as expected by multiple people on multiple websites, with one person claiming that they had read an article about it (the article in question was nowhere to be found on Google, mind you). I'd like to satisfy my curiosity once and for all: is it total unfounded rumour that these two factions performed below expectations (my guess, considering GW never let on individual sales data), or is there some truth to this (perhaps found by a GW employee or a 3rd party seller who has their own sales data)? 

[amysrevenge]

It's a tough sell for ANY sales claims to convince me of anything, ever, unless it comes straight from GW (and even then, I raise an eyebrow). 

Everyone "knows" all sorts of details of what sells well and what doesn't, but it's all based on stuff that everyone just "knows".  It's true because everyone is saying it.  It's true because it makes sense.  It's true because it fits a narrative.

Something is selling well, so there are none left on the shelf.  Something is selling poorly, so they don't bother stocking it.  Same data, to prove opposite points.  That sort of thing.  Someone picks a narrative, selects some data that looks like it supports the narrative, and it's all true true true.

 

Anecdotally, just from my general impression of tournament results that I've glanced at but not studied, DoK are more popular than old GHB factions, more popular than Dwarf factions, but less popular than Stormcasts or Nurgle or Tzeentch.  Deepkin seem less popular than DoK.

But tournament result lists can't possibly be a reliable indicator of sales.

[Overread]

A lot of people base this often as not just on what is being played at their local store or what is being talked about online; some even go by releases rates from GW. In general such info is very sketchy. 

Talk to some and Atepticus Titanicus is selling poorly even though we already know that its core boxed set is basically sold out everywhere on launch day (which is a clear sign of selling really well!) Others might say that their local has loads of players.

 

So there's a huge variation in viewpoints.

 

I would say Daughters and Idoneth should be selling well; they are certainly well talked about and appear to be in a good position. Granted neither is going to be as widely used as Seraphon or some others as they lack a major component of old models (Idoneth is fully new whilst Daughters makes use of a once elite unit type as their core troop and thus, again, won't have heavy presence in old collections). They are also not Sigmar and thus not being thrust as much in front and centre of GW's marketing. 

 

One might suspect the lack of a getting started box might be why many think they are not selling well and thus why they haven't got the same big discount box most other factions have 

[Nin Win]

GW's annual report covers this period and while nothing is really mentioned as far as individual sales go, overall sales are way, way up.  So these two armies might have "sold poorly" compared to Imperial Knights, but great compared to other AoS releases.

Oh!  One thing they did mention was that sales of new releases made up a higher percentage of their sales than previous years.  So I guess that would include these two armies.

[Killamike]

One of my local hobby stores has said that idoneth is the highest selling aos range currently. 

He got told because they sold none so the rep inquired. 

The internet is full of fake facts. 

[novakai]

without hard sell data, I don't think we can say they sold well or poorly. the only few time GW let it slip that an army sold really well that I know  was KO, which is why you can't infer tournament make-up since KO kind of drop out from the competitive tournament scene but probably remains popular with the casual crowd. 

though I guess the reason why people may think that DoK didn't sold well because they are an expensive army that doesn't look easy to paint, and gear to the more hardcore crowd. which is similar to the problems with Fyreslayer. 

[amysrevenge]

2 minutes ago, novakai said:

though I guess the reason why people may think that DoK didn't sold well because they are an expensive army that doesn't look easy to paint, and gear to the more hardcore crowd. which is similar to the problems with Fyreslayer. 

Exactly this.  According to this particular narrative, they *shouldn't* sell well.  And so to the person with that narrative, they *don't* sell well.  And to the person they tell their theory to, it becomes "everyone knows they don't sell well".  And then it's common wisdom.

[Mephisto]

What a great question. An excellent opportunity to ruminate and pontificate. 

With GW doubling sales this last year, I highly doubt their new armies didn't sell well. It's more than possible that IDK and DOK didn't sell as well as [others] but only relatively speaking. 

This game is growing. The old bloods aren't all that dictate sales anymore and the IDK/DOK releases represent two different appeasements. DOK sort of appeal to old players in that they do use some existing stuff and nod back to Dark Elves. I can imagine older players going all in at that point when they get thrown a bone. I can also imagine some new player wanting to play, but not want to buy an "old" army. IDK is a brand new thing. Older players are in on the joke of fish elves (even thinking the teases were an extended April Fool's joke). New players got to see a brand new army and be in on that new wave from beginning. I could look at this from a multitude of angles and see the positives. 

The asterisk on it being... they're elves. The players that are interested in playing elves are a specific demographic, like anything else (dwarf, orc, vampires, and so on). Part of the success of Stormcast is the mass appeal of humans in armor. I'm really not here to ****** on the poster army. To the contrary, I think it's good to have "Ryu" (poster army, poster character, etc.). Still, I bet if we did a poll of favorite fantasy races that elves would come in below a lot of the others (especially if we include Vampires because I think the same personality types would be divided on the two). So, yeah, my only take away from how well I think IDK/DOK might've done is that there was some elf saturation and I don't know how strong the demographic is for people that want to play elves. 

Getting my negative out of the way I have two more angles. 

First, IDK**. 
The reception of the IDK sculpts were some of the best I've EVER seen. These models look great. The buzz on, specifically Facebook, was insane. I'd never seen so many pure hobbyists jump behind an army for the opportunity to paint and sculpt them. I'm a death player, I need you to know that before my next point, Nighthaunt are a fraction as well designed. Don't get me wrong, they look good. Better than you'd ever think possible with literal sheets and Casper the friendly ghost tails dangling behind them. But there's not a lot of room to bash them up or mod them out. A lot of their surface area is pretty thin or stretched. IDK do not have that problem. From basic head swaps to full on kitbashing, IDK are a modelers dream. I put them right up there with Nurgle. 

Second, DOK. 
I went on record on my friend's podcast (giving him the opportunity to come in and shamelessly self-promote) as saying DOK were the next big competitor army. I said this before 2.0 came out knowing they were an army, like IDK and even Legions of Nagash (my army), written for the future. As a competitive player, some armies just have the "it" factor and you could see it with DOK. Mobility, massive regiment, damage, spells, shooting if they needed it, a variety of builds, an excellent battleline, tricks, buffs, etc... and 2.0 made them better. You have entire groups of people buying and playing DOK just to chase the meta. That means sales. And the tournament reps represent that.

In both of these above last points, DOK and IDK are big armies with lots of details. It takes time to assemble and paint them so I think we've seen the results of the sales on a delay. It took them a little bit to show up in tournaments. It took you a bit to notice them at the LGS because they were being assembled and so on. In either case though I refuse to believe they didn't sell well. That goes against my purely anecdotal perception of their hype through the tease to release to tournaments. 

**IDK are a high skill floor army, much like Sylvaneth before them, the best lists weren't obvious to put together in theory craft and their tricks took foresight. It took us a little bit to see them placing in tournaments because it took everyone a little bit to figure out how they fit together on the table. This is also a factor but totally beside my points above so I left it out until the end. 

[SuperKick]

Small piece of info. The DOK blood coven box was like gold dust for months. On the DOK FB page you'd regularly see people saying "had to drive for 4 hours but I finally got one". Sold out everywhere until recently. 

[MacDuff]

All I can say is that I bought 4K of Deepkin and 1.5K of DoK in the last month.

PS: That's points, not dollars. I'm not completely insane (yet).

[Kramer]

7 hours ago, SuperKick said:

Small piece of info. The DOK blood coven box was like gold dust for months. On the DOK FB page you'd regularly see people saying "had to drive for 4 hours but I finally got one". Sold out everywhere until recently. 

And that only stopped because it’s not for sale anymore ?

[DantePQ]

11 hours ago, Killamike said:

One of my local hobby stores has said that idoneth is the highest selling aos range currently. 

He got told because they sold none so the rep inquired. 

The internet is full of fake facts. 

Yeah my store was selling Deepkins like crazy - 4 or 5 players alone started whole new Deepkin armies.

I guess DoK are swelling worse but that's because Witches are so expensive and your got to have 40 of them minimum. 

[Kramer]

10 minutes ago, DantePQ said:

Yeah my store was selling Deepkins like crazy - 4 or 5 players alone started whole new Deepkin armies.

I guess DoK are swelling worse but that's because Witches are so expensive and your got to have 40 of them minimum. 

I reckon that's the reason why we see a lot old witches and full snake armies. For me as well. Because I already had Dark Elves, a 1K list was only a blood coven box away. Now I need some new additions (another Blood coven box would be perfect) but i'm not switching out the old models due to the price. 

[hughwyeth]

Seems like DoK and deepkin might be slow-burners. DoK seem to actually be pretty powerful and I imagine their increasing success in tournaments will results in more people playing them

[Overread]

The UK seems to have al ot of the Blood Coven still in the stock system - Element games, Wayland and Firestorm have all had stock of it for quite some time and restocked since the product came off sale. Don't know if this is mirrored in other regions - either GW way overproduced or one of the 3rd party distribution groups way overordered on it and is still shifting it. It still sells like hotcakes though! 

My problem is once you've got 2 or 3 you don't really "need" many more in terms of cauldrons/shrines. You might get 4 if you want to have the option of double cauldron or double shrine

[AlphaKennyThing]

I know this is slightly off-topic, though remains within the same realms of conversation: how is Shadespire doing?

I've noticed in buy/sell groups that they're constantly being sold on, with expansions and cards, and not many comments wanting to buy it.

[Enoby]

6 minutes ago, AlphaKennyThing said:

I know this is slightly off-topic, though remains within the same realms of conversation: how is Shadespire doing?

I've noticed in buy/sell groups that they're constantly being sold on, with expansions and cards, and not many comments wanting to buy it.

I'm not sure how well it's doing, but it may be that no one wants to buy because Shadespire is already very cheap so it doesn't have the same appeal buying it second hand. That said, if they're making a second season it must be doing well enough. 

[Overread]

Even if Shadspire itself isn't being played heavily I bet many have bought the model kits for a few unique models in their regular army 

[Kirjava13]

I've only played about eight games of Shadespire, and only ever with the starting two and the Skaven, but I still bought everything because... uh... 

Moving on!

I have invested heavily in the Idoneth and Daughters of Khaine, so if they didn't do well that ain't my fault ? 

[Overread]

I'm waiting for GW to release Daughters of Khaine into Shadspire!

 

Also I'm surprised that two factions designed with 2.0 in mind don't already have an Endless Spell drop for their unique faction endless spells (Esp Idoneth)

[hughwyeth]

5 minutes ago, Overread said:

I'm waiting for GW to release Daughters of Khaine into Shadspire!

 

Also I'm surprised that two factions designed with 2.0 in mind don't already have an Endless Spell drop for their unique faction endless spells (Esp Idoneth)

tbh I imagine they're waiting to see how the nighthaunt and SCE do before annoucning all the factions' endless spells

[Dead Scribe]

Of both of those armies, only one person that plays in my area has one, and thats a daughters of khaine army because he already had witch elves from the prior edition.

So here at least, they are non-sellers.  I also haven't noticed many when I travel for tournaments.

While that can't represent global data, on a regional level at least here they did not sell much at all.

[Nos]

DOK put me off because you need a lot of gals, and they're pretty skimpily dressed, which means painting lots of flesh, which is hard to achieve effectivley at a consistent rate.

Also while they're not indecent or immoral I think they're still kind of immature in their realisation. Not in respect to their state of undress or sexualisation, but the absence of body types makes then essentially a clone of societally idealised women. My wife or female friends would have no issue with me painting a bunch of lithe, athletic women as part of a more representative force of females but to have nothing but one female shape and aesthetic being the standard bearer for women in AOS is really pretty weak.

To  be honest they're probably the party that appeals to me most. I love the idea of an army of women kicking ass and taking names. But it's not an army of women. It's an army of  one stereotype multiplied. It's almost like they're some kind of separate women race, like orcs.

There is no justifiable fiction for it either. You do not need to be a size 6 to be an athlete. To be honest that's part of the problem too. As described in the fiction I would expect Witch Elves to look like Sprinters, muscular and powerful, not a single body type who could get blown away in a strong wind.

The fact is that I think they are for multiple reasons, some legitimate others entirely not, too embarrassing to collect.  They're a real statement to collect and it's far from being an unambiguously positive statement that you're making with them.

[hughwyeth]

27 minutes ago, Nos said:

To  be honest they're probably the party that appeals to me most. I love the idea of an army of women kicking ass and taking names. But it's not an army of women. It's an army of  one stereotype multiplied. It's almost like they're some kind of separate women race, like orcs.

There is no justifiable fiction for it either. You do not need to be a size 6 to be an athlete. To be honest that's part of the problem too. As described in the fiction I would expect Witch Elves to look like Sprinters, muscular and powerful, not a single body type who could get blown away in a strong wind.

This doesn't make any sense to me. Stormcast are all roided up bros 8ft tall. That's not a realistic body type for me. They're athletic because they slaughter people and go to war. 

[Kramer]

52 minutes ago, Nos said:

There is no justifiable fiction for it either. You do not need to be a size 6 to be an athlete. To be honest that's part of the problem too. As described in the fiction I would expect Witch Elves to look like Sprinters, muscular and powerful, not a single body type who could get blown away in a strong wind.

As shown in the art work they are thin, lith and a good head taller than humans. The models are a very good representation of the artwork Imo. Just look at the cover:

 

52 minutes ago, Nos said:

But it's not an army of women. It's an army of  one stereotype multiplied. It's almost like they're some kind of separate women race, like orcs.

You mean a separate woman race like female elves?  (also Fantasy so not comparable to human's)

and i I respect that we’re skipping the whole point of production limitations etc. Because else you’ll end up in this weird descision over what that kind of diversity is worth to the hobbyist which is so subsjective