Age of Sigmar Army Popularity Survey (Results)

[LuminethMage]

3 hours ago, Doko said:

Up to you,some people who knows how read number showed how winnrate dont matter(noobs playin the fotm faction and loosing) and lumineths are the second army with more tournaments podiuns.

 

Also i dont know because you are everytime saying that elfs are the most popular and dwarf arent popular\must be deleted\are ugly etc etc.

Plz a respect for dwarf players if you want that people dont take you as a hater of dwarf and only ignore you

For the record,dwarfs were the 8th more played faction and high elfs 4th. So neither dwarf are last or high elfs were the more popular

https://www.tabletoptournaments.net/t3_armies.php?cid=0

 

 

I think you have to be a bit more humble with your interpretations. This table about tournament statistics in Europe is always shown around because it's almost the only data we have about Fantasy.

It's still just a snapshot in time. And he didn't say dwarves are last, but that elves are more popular, which that table would verify: 19,100 elf entires via 6,133 dwarf entrees. If the table showed popularity, which it doesn't, it's just tournament entrees in Europe. It's only pretty good data because we do not have much else in terms of data. But it certainly doesn't contradict what he mentioned above. 

He mentioned that the LRL are one of the most played faction on the TTS right now, which at least from what I know is true. Now, you can speculate on the reasons, and they could very well not be one of the most popular faction a few months down the road, but it's still true right now. 

And Lumineth don't have a very high win rate at the moment, neither on TTS nor during in-person events. Again, they might have one in a few months with all the new models and people congregating on the sub-faction with the highest win-rate (eg Syar), but right now, they don't. You can't just put them together with Seraphon and IDK because that fits your narrative if the numbers don't show it. 

Btw. the respect goes both ways. Like what you wrote there - Lumineth could only be popular because of their win rate while also "Noobs playing fotm faction and loosing" : ) 

[Grim Beasties]

I think everyone needs to chill and realize Gloomspite Gitz are the best Gitz around!

No but really let's remember this poll is all for fun and not a reason to start yet another War of the Beard.

[Doko]

5 hours ago, Doko said:

 

I have high elfs,wood elfs,dark elfs,dispossesed,ironweld and fyreslayers.

I love both elfs and dwarfs in special white lions and while i really dislike the lancers and archers of lumineths,i love the hammerers.

I dont know if i was taken wrong or something.

Edited February 19, 2021 by Doko

[Feii]

7 hours ago, NinthMusketeer said:

Fyreslayers have a lot going against them beyond theme;

-Tiny unit roster. Literally the army has three infantry units and the rest is heroes.

-Lack of distinction. Said three infantry units all look very similar on the tabletop, and blend in with the foot heroes.

-Price. Building a decent Fyreslayer army is absurdly expensive because those units have an insane cost relative to the number you need. On top of that their heroes have all gone direct only. The infantry NEED to be reboxed at a lower price per model to make the army a commercial success. This is almost certainly a case where GW pushed the prices beyond what the community would accept and ended up with less money than they would have had with lower prices.

-Internal balance. Vulkite berzerkers exist for theme only, because hearthguard berzerkers do what they do but are massively better at it. The three-unit roster just dropped to two. The characters suffer similarly, especially with magmadroths largely being less effective than more stuff on foot. You basically end up with an army that has less than 10 viable choices to put on the table. To shoot customization in the foot further, certain heroes are basically mandatory to make the army work.

Both DoK Khirenai units are basically naked elven women with wings but both look very distinct and you can tell at the first glance which unit is which. Fyreslayers looking so much identical is GW's development fail. Give those badass slayers who shooot their min iroockets a metallic face masks or something and repackage the units. 

Personally I dont think the price matters as much as people say it does. The newest Slaanesh release is even more expensive than fyreslayers and at the same time you need extra demon sculpts for summoning and people still buy it and it most likely will sell better than the fyreslayers. I would say a concept is far more important than the price, people who play MTG (which is a much more expensive game) pay more money for a piece of cardboard than for 2 boxes of berserkeers because they think they want it. If the concept cannot make people  buy it then it needs some reworks. 

[zilberfrid]

I would argue that magic is more expensive for tournament grade, but starting is a lot cheaper.

I can buy a reasonable Commander deck for under the price of a new Underworlds warband. Requires no paint.

[Aesir Doomaxe]

I'd much rather have GW develop Fyreslayers more by giving them a second wave than simply folding them in with Dispossessed, because:

1. The latter is extremely lazy because it requires no effort to actually think of any new models or rules
2.  Elves have been given frakloads of factions with no sign of stopping, so it'd be ridiculously unfair if this same luxury wasn't given to Dwarfs
3. The latter is not possible now anyway given they already merged Dispossessed into Cities of Sigmar (and killed off half the Dwarf range in the process).

Some people have said that it's difficult to develop new ideas for Fyreslayers while keeping to the army theme, but I thoroughly disagree - as long as they have some sort of relation to Slayers in general there are loads of possibilities. I've thought of several ideas myself:

• Ungrim, Lord of the Fyre-Realm (A resurrected Ungrim Ironfist on a massive magma monster - either an ancient Magmadroth or something new - given they've resurrected objectively some of the worst characters in Warhammer Fantasy for AoS, we need at least one actually decent character apart from Archaon in there too if there's any justice)
• Hargromthi (Monstrous Infantry-sized statues of Slayer heroes that are powered by Ur-Gold Runes and wield massive stone axes)
• Fyremaidens (Unmarried female Fyreslayers that choose to fight  - gives the Daughters of Khaine a bit of competition in the bikini department)
• Magmadroth Hatchlings (baby Magmadroths that are fielded in units with Slayer handlers, a bit like Lizardman Salamanders)
• Volbex Riders (Fyreslayers riding mountain goats - I know this rips off the Hobbit a bit but goats make sense in a land of volcanoes and mountains, and Fyreslayers are the more archaic Dwarf faction so would be more likely to consider cavalry an option)
• Volbex Chariot (The same principle as Volbex Riders, but is a chariot crewed by Hearthguard or Fyreslayers with some other form of missile weapon).

You see how easy it is? If GW actually put in a bit of effort for a change the figures of popularity for Fyreslayers could easily change. I certainly don't want them do a Tomb Kings or Bretonnia with them and just leave them to rot with no love at all before eventually getting rid of them, especially as GW have now given a second wave to the Chaos God of Transvestites.

No excuses GW, no excuses!

[Aesir Doomaxe]

On 2/16/2021 at 1:18 PM, Koala said:

Fyreslayers are no surprise. I keep hearing they sell really badly. Which can of course become a self fulfilling prophecy.. sell badly => no new models => sell even worse..  but that is another debate.

It's this money-obsessed Ferengi attitude that GW need to change - if they don't give a faction any support, of course it's not going to do well, and it's just going to annoy those who do support it. GW made the exact same mistake with Bretonnia especially, and Tomb Kings to a lesser extent  (at least they got an 8th Edition update, even if it was poor).

Instead, putting some money into an army gives it a chance of overturning the trend and coming back as a winner, if people like the new models.

 

Sorry about the double post, didn't read all the thread before replying with my first one

Edited February 19, 2021 by Aesir Doomaxe

[Enoby]

33 minutes ago, Aesir Doomaxe said:

It's this money-obsessed Ferengi attitude that GW need to change - if they don't give a faction any support, of course it's not going to do well, and it's just going to annoy those who do support it. GW made the exact same mistake with Bretonnia especially, and Tomb Kings to a lesser extent  (at least they got an 8th Edition update, even if it was poor).

Instead, putting some money into an army gives it a chance of overturning the trend and coming back as a winner, if people like the new models.

 

Sorry about the double post, didn't read all the thread before replying with my first one

It's a very difficult cycle to break unfortunately; for example, that Eldar box set that seemed to clog stores for months with those new Eldar models. By all accounts that we can measure from the outside, it didn't sell well. I don't think was because of a lack of desire for new models, but rather because the box set was bad (too expensive and loads of old models that didn't work well together). After this, I imagine GW are less likely to make any large scale changes to Eldar for a while because the last one (probably) bit them badly, even though it was their own fault. 

They can do really well with unpopular factions too (just look at Sisters of Battle, though admittedly a niche case). However, I'm more saying there's less room for mistakes as popularity can't prop up an unpopular faction. As it's less safe, GW are much more likely to go with an easier option. Not that they always will, but they are more likely to because those safe options sell. 

I agree with you that they could boost the popularity of Fireslayers considerably with enough time and effort, but there's always the chance that something goes wrong and sends the release crashing down in flames so they're probably more likely to invest in something safer.

[Feii]

32 minutes ago, Aesir Doomaxe said:

It's this money-obsessed Ferengi attitude that GW need to change - if they don't give a faction any support, of course it's not going to do well, and it's just going to annoy those who do support it. GW made the exact same mistake with Bretonnia especially, and Tomb Kings to a lesser extent  (at least they got an 8th Edition update, even if it was poor).

Instead, putting some money into an army gives it a chance of overturning the trend and coming back as a winner, if people like the new models.

 

Sorry about the double post, didn't read all the thread before replying with my first one

As a guy who suffers from liking unpopular factions I agree but realisticly speaking more people  will be satisfied if my factions dont get models and the popular ones do.... as sad as it is. 


I have been waiting 3 years or so for the second wave of IDK (F the Eeels I just want to play some big underwater creatures with scary vampiric elves on top of them)  and I know that most likely after the last BR we wont be getting anything new in terms of sculpt for another year or two but the LRL mega releases and Umbraneth releases will make more peopple happy than the IDK update if that make sense. But I still want it. 

[Feii]

5 minutes ago, Enoby said:

It's a very difficult cycle to break unfortunately; for example, that Eldar box set that seemed to clog stores for months with those new Eldar models. By all accounts that we can measure from the outside, it didn't sell well. I don't think was because of a lack of desire for new models, but rather because the box set was bad (too expensive and loads of old models that didn't work well together). After this, I imagine GW are less likely to make any large scale changes to Eldar for a while because the last one (probably) bit them badly, even though it was their own fault. 

They can do really well with unpopular factions too (just look at Sisters of Battle, though admittedly a niche case). However, I'm more saying there's less room for mistakes as popularity can't prop up an unpopular faction. As it's less safe, GW are much more likely to go with an easier option. Not that they always will, but they are more likely to because those safe options sell. 

I agree with you that they could boost the popularity of Fireslayers considerably with enough time and effort, but there's always the chance that something goes wrong and sends the release crashing down in flames so they're probably more likely to invest in something safer.

which eldar set are we talking about?

[Harioch]

13 minutes ago, Feii said:

which eldar set are we talking 

Blood of the phoenix. It's the one with the new scult for Drazhar and Jain zarr.

As for your post about IDK. I sadly agree. GW releases for factions is quite erratic to me. But maybe it's because I look too much at the past. Back then when an army was re-released for a new edition (40k or Fantasy) they printed a new book and updated/added new models as well to go with. Now they mostly seems to update battletome and add some endless spells/scenery when your faction is already out. The only armies that got a new wave of models are Stormcast and Lumineth (I'm not counting the various new heros like loonboss, abhorant or ironscale because it's not a new "wave" to me. More like a bonus) so...

Maybe some will prefer unplanned waves more and maybe it feels less than before to me just because AoS is still in developement 😁.

Edited February 19, 2021 by Harioch

[Feii]

2 minutes ago, Harioch said:

Can't remember the name, but it's the one with the new scult for Drazhar and Jain zar.

As for your post about IDK. I sadly agree. GW releases for factions is quite erratic to me. But maybe it's because I look too much at the past. Back then when an army was re-released for a new edition (40k or Fantasy) they printed a new book and updated/added new models as well to go with. Now they mostly seems to update battletome and add some endless spells/scenery when your faction is already out. The only armies that got a new wave of models are Stormcast and Lumineth (I'm not counting the various new heros like loonboss, abhorant or ironscale because it's not a new "wave" to me. More like a bonus) so...

Maybe some will prefer unplanned waves more and maybe it feels less than before to me just because AoS is still in developement 😁.

Blood of the Phoenix. that box was such a mess. It gave you 2 armies that didnt do anything in themselves and twice reworked and nerfed Ynnari (space elves eintopf faction) didnt need 2 halves that do the same. Just imagine a stormcast eternal/CoS box where you get only meele/ only ranged halves and not something like Phoenix guard + shootcast or sequitors and thunderers. (just examples Ynnari can/could work together much better than any AoS alliances) 

It is really weird because any battleforce sets were sold out so quickly this (last) year. 

I hope necron release has opened GWs eyes. Many of those bigger necron boxes that were sitting on the shelves for years you cannot get anywhere anymore because necrons are a pretty popular faction after their big revamp last year. 

[Indecisive]

On 2/16/2021 at 6:18 AM, Koala said:

Thank you! 

( Both to the people participating and SirSalabean)

Can we please adress the elephant in the Room: Stormcasts?

For an army that has been both pushed by GW AND blessed with a lot of great and easy to play/paint models they seem to be a tad underrepresented. It might be a statistical anomaly, though. 

Fyreslayers are no surprise. I keep hearing they sell really badly. Which can of course become a self fulfilling prophecy.. sell badly => no new models => sell even worse..  but that is another debate.

what else have you heard?

[LuminethMage]

8 hours ago, Harioch said:

The only armies that got a new wave of models are Stormcast and Lumineth (I'm not counting the various new heros like loonboss, abhorant or ironscale because it's not a new "wave" to me. More like a bonus) so..

Hedonites of Slaanesh? : ) 

And just to add a bit on what @Enoby wrote above which I think is correct. It’s about opportunity costs and risk. I think that comes into play especially for factions that haven’t sold well so far.

They could make a big effort into fleshing out let’s say Fyreslayers in the hope of them afterwards, maybe, if everything goes well, selling better, but likely not stellar, or they could focus on factions which already sell well.

A company normally does the latter. I have no idea about internals in GW, but those decisions often can also matter on a personal level - if you push a faction seen as risky, and it doesn’t work out, that could be pretty bad, and you likely have to overcome more resistance to get it done in the first place. Most of the time you need a person, or a group which is willing to take that risk and make that effort in the first place. And that group can’t do something else at the same time. So there are always costs involved from a company point of view, which might be better spend on something else. You likely get easier buy-in and throw the responsibility around if you come up with a good idea about Stormcast than Fyreslayers.

That doesn’t mean that it’s impossible, AoS designers might be freer to take risks because in the end it doesn’t really matter what they do as long as Space Marines sell well. Or they have come up with Fyreslayer models that are just so amazing everyone thinks they are a good idea. 

Just generally speaking, it’s often easy from the outside to come up with ideas about something GW should do, because we don’t have to do any real work to make them possible and don’t have to take any responsibility if it doesn’t work out. 

I only took Fyreslayers as an example because it’s the faction almost everyone agrees doesn’t sell well. 

[Doko]

Sure lets only focus and release for factions that are best sellers so aos gonna be as 40k where the 70% models are marines, because marines are the best sellers.

 

I hope aos never do that,i sold my taus because i got angry with all the marines ******.

 

If aos start to only release for the best selling im out. Stormcast had this deal the first years,but we have had luck those last months without stormcast releases

[SirSalabean]

Make sure to check out this weeks survey if you haven’t already! 

[Bosskelot]

There's a difference between something not breaking sales records and something being completely unprofitable.

The vast majority of what GW releases do not sell anywhere near what Space Marines do. Even Stormcast are a joke saleswise to the Marine juggernaut. What is different about GW now compared to the GW of 7 years ago is that this is seen as acceptable, because those other ranges and models are still profitable. Warhammer Fantasy was never actually unprofitable, it just didn't sell as much as Marines, so for Kirby-GW at the time that was seen as unacceptable. 

At the end of the day, a release has to see a return on investment for it to be seen to be worth investing in more. It doesn't need to break sales records. Most ranges and factions GW make do generate enough money to see continued support, however, as I say EVERY TIME, Fyreslayers are the biggest sales bomb of any GW release in quite a few years. There are many contributing factors to that, as people have explained above, but it is what it is.

Could they add to the army and sort of reignite (heh) interest in it? I guess? Possibly? But the issue is, people's main objections to the range and army are the kind of poor work done on the main battleline units and so any addition wouldn't change that aversion. Okay, you add some cool female sculpts and different unique special units. Fine. Cool. Great. When people still have to buy 40-60 of these bloody things they're still going to bounce off of the army real hard and all that time and investment on GW's part is now wasted. <-- This is EXACTLY what happened with Tomb Kings by the way. Gorgeous new monster sculpts.... and yet the game and the army still basically forced you into buying 80 of those goofy old skeleton models. It's also why the Necron refresh updated the Warriors. All the fancy new C'tan and beasties and destroyers wouldn't matter to anyone if the main thing they'd be encouraged to start out collecting and painting were those bow-legged, green tubed, cheeks-connected-to-the-sprue havin' ass goofballs.

And it's not like they'll update the Vulkite kit either. It's barely like 4 years old and has not come anywhere close enough to making a RoI yet, if it ever really will.

PLUS aside from this, you also need internal studio enthusiasm for the idea. From various accounts, we know that GSC in 40k were primarily brought back because of one guy who really pushed for it internally. Luckily enough the first release did just well-enough to see a 2nd one, also likely spearheaded by the same person.

Edited February 20, 2021 by Bosskelot

[Feii]

6 hours ago, Doko said:

we have had luck those last months without stormcast releases

those last months is 3 years? Stormcast players deserve a new chamber to be opened.  They are not marine players and shouldnt be viewed negatively just because marines have a release every month in the 40k. 

(and to be fair 40k marine sales have bankrolled the beginning of the AoS I guess nowadays it is able to pay for itself but still 40k and its success allowed GW to hire a top tier sculptors for AoS and keep releasing 2-3 new armies yearly)

[MitGas]

2 hours ago, Bosskelot said:

There's a difference between something not breaking sales records and something being completely unprofitable.

The vast majority of what GW releases do not sell anywhere near what Space Marines do. Even Stormcast are a joke saleswise to the Marine juggernaut. What is different about GW now compared to the GW of 7 years ago is that this is seen as acceptable, because those other ranges and models are still profitable. Warhammer Fantasy was never actually unprofitable, it just didn't sell as much as Marines, so for Kirby-GW at the time that was seen as unacceptable. 

At the end of the day, a release has to see a return on investment for it to be seen to be worth investing in more. It doesn't need to break sales records. Most ranges and factions GW make do generate enough money to see continued support, however, as I say EVERY TIME, Fyreslayers are the biggest sales bomb of any GW release in quite a few years. There are many contributing factors to that, as people have explained above, but it is what it is.

Could they add to the army and sort of reignite (heh) interest in it? I guess? Possibly? But the issue is, people's main objections to the range and army are the kind of poor work done on the main battleline units and so any addition wouldn't change that aversion. Okay, you add some cool female sculpts and different unique special units. Fine. Cool. Great. When people still have to buy 40-60 of these bloody things they're still going to bounce off of the army real hard and all that time and investment on GW's part is now wasted. <-- This is EXACTLY what happened with Tomb Kings by the way. Gorgeous new monster sculpts.... and yet the game and the army still basically forced you into buying 80 of those goofy old skeleton models. It's also why the Necron refresh updated the Warriors. All the fancy new C'tan and beasties and destroyers wouldn't matter to anyone if the main thing they'd be encouraged to start out collecting and painting were those bow-legged, green tubed, cheeks-connected-to-the-sprue havin' ass goofballs.

And it's not like they'll update the Vulkite kit either. It's barely like 4 years old and has not come anywhere close enough to making a RoI yet, if it ever really will.

PLUS aside from this, you also need internal studio enthusiasm for the idea. From various accounts, we know that GSC in 40k were primarily brought back because of one guy who really pushed for it internally. Luckily enough the first release did just well-enough to see a 2nd one, also likely spearheaded by the same person.

You might not get much love here for such a critical post but 100% agreed.

Oh and: Wow, those minis really do suck. Never took a good look at them as I don't care a jot for Dwarfs in general (that said, I'd rather see GW do more for Dwarfs than release even MORE Aelves (we got all the Aelves the 40k players want since 20 years) but those flailing arms are unfortunate.  Looking at my army, I'm sure the guy also posed the pink horrors way back when, who for the most part throw their hands up in the air like retards at a techno festival as well.

[Doko]

4 hours ago, Feii said:

Stormcast players deserve a new chamber to be opened

How? A army with 60 +warscroll deserve more new units when we have others 10+ armys  with less than 15 warscrolls

 

Stormcast dont deserve new chamber for others 10 years untill every other army of aos have got a new wave.

Im a stormcast player,i got the basic chamber and the vanguard chamber,i didnt get any of sacrosant and i wont get any new because i have allready enough. New tome? Sure, new units? Hell no

[Feii]

2 minutes ago, Doko said:

How? A army with 60 +warscroll deserve more new units when we have others 10+ armys  with less than 15 warscrolls

 

Stormcast dont deserve new chamber for others 10 years untill every other army of aos have got a new wave.

Im a stormcast player,i got the basic chamber and the vanguard chamber,i didnt get any of sacrosant and i wont get any new because i have allready enough. New tome? Sure, new units? Hell no

could you stop being ideological? Just because you hate space marines dont hate stormcasts. ~10% of the playerbase shouldnt be ignored just because you dont like big storm boys 

[Doko]

Im ideological? Better ignore 90% of the playerbase and release stormcast or ignore 10% of the playerbase(stormcast) and update every other army

[Feii]

11 minutes ago, Doko said:

Im ideological? Better ignore 90% of the playerbase and release stormcast or ignore 10% of the playerbase(stormcast) and update every other army

you are ignoring  90%-80% of the playerbase with each release. I think:

1. More popular factions should be updated more frequently if it means the game makes money 
2. Secondary armies in popularity should be given sculpts and rules to be able to field a good looking lore proper army while still having a room to change things/warscrolls they bring (imo IDK need 3-5 sculpts and they are finished as a faction, FEC could use some 1-2 new generic sculpts  and 1-2 reworked kits that are justs super outdated nowadays annd Ushoran and they are done too) 

Dont be aggressive towards people with different ideas than you and because you cannot quench your hate for stormcasts. 

[Doko]

Hate for stormcast? How i hate stormcast when is my army?

I dont buy new chambers because i have enough units allready for various diferent lists and i dont wanna buy more stormcast when i can spend that money for new armys.

Btw following your logic,city of sigmar is so popular as stormcast or more,and had 20+ units deleted with his tome and the reason that was given for the writer was that gw said him that he has to delete units because had too much.

So stormcast is so popular as city of sigmar and have 62 warscrolls but must get new units.

But citys have 62 warscrolls and had 20+ units deleted because they had too much also last city model released was at 2013

 

So both armys have same popular rate and same warscrolls and city didnt got a model in 8+ years where stormcast got in 2 years ago.

 

Following your logic city player deserve new units!

Edited February 20, 2021 by Doko

[Indecisive]

17 hours ago, Doko said:

How? A army with 60 +warscroll deserve more new units when we have others 10+ armys  with less than 15 warscrolls

 

Stormcast dont deserve new chamber for others 10 years untill every other army of aos have got a new wave.

Im a stormcast player,i got the basic chamber and the vanguard chamber,i didnt get any of sacrosant and i wont get any new because i have allready enough. New tome? Sure, new units? Hell no

I wouldn't mind seeing something new soon, but yeah, the army is utterly massive already. With stuff already being basically rendered obsolete within 3 years (libs -> seqs and paladins -> evos) the deluge of kits needed to be shut.
Dialing it back to Vanguard-ish smaller releases every few years would be nice. There is a stupid amount of SCE, let's not drown in redundancies but there is space to carve out if you go the LRL temples path of interesting niches.

Niches to explore could be:
mortal allies of SCE that work closely with them but aren't actually SCE.
failing stormcast that are falling apart from many deaths
a big guns crew, like a super ballista or lightning tank

smaller releases with that stuff could be neat

Edited February 21, 2021 by Indecisive