Where can I find an army popularity list?

[Redmore Trout]

I realize its somewhat of an impossible question to answer 100% effectively, but I am looking to get into the hobby it'd irk me if I later found out I bought and painted the most common army that everybody is sick of playing against.

[readercolin]

There is no real army popularity list that covers casual play.  You can check the honest wargamer out to see what is popular in competitive play, but that doesn't necessarily count for your local meta.  For example, fyreslayers tend to be one of the less popular armies, but the last area I lived in, half the people had a fyreslayers army.  Meanwhile, now that I've moved, I've seen fyreslayers hit the table once in nearly 3 years.

Because of this, the only real option is to get involved in your local scene and see what people have/play.  It may be that locally no one runs stormcast, and they are a great army for you to pick up.  Or it may be that everyone has a stormcast army and they sometimes run a stormcast showdown where everyone shows up with their stormcast list.  Again, you won't know your local scene until you get involved.

[Aztok]

I've heard rumors that the least popular (or at least worst selling) army is Idoneth Deepkin, but that it's a relatively close spread. I know my home area isn't a great metric either as it's either the least populated or second least populated warhammer area in my country, but I know that Gloomspite Gitz, Stormcast Eternals, Ironjawz, Maggotkin, Nighthaunt, and Seraphon are the armies most commonly collected, if not the most commonly played, with Sons of Behemat being somewhere in the upper middle.

To answer the second half of your question, the army everyone's sick of fighting is (insert recent tournament rankings here). Sons of Behemat and Lumineth are armies I hear a lot of people grumbling about, with a couple people refusing to let go on a long-standing irritation for Kharadron Overlords and Disciples of Tzeentch. That all being said, do not let others opinions dissuade you from playing the armies you want to play. Never let others browbeat you for painting and playing the armies you think are cool. If you're trying to find an army that people won't have any qualms fighting, but isn't so bad and underpowered you're basically a glorified punching bag, Soulblight Gravelords, Slaves to Darkness, Kruleboyz, Sylvaneth, Fyreslayers, Cities of Sigmar, Ogor Mawtribes, and Ossiarch Bonereapers generally fall in the middle of the pack, barring a handful of tournament level lists that are especially strong and sweaty. But even then most people wont get mad at you for playing Lumineth if you just want to goof around and have a good time with them. Most people only get itchy when they see the maximum tournament level list stuff, and from the sound of it you're nor aiming to bring that sort of thing. I hope this helps a bit!

Edited December 19, 2021 by Aztok

[Indecisive]

check out your game store for the best answer, but this isn't like 40k with space marine mirror matches out the wazoo

[Skreech Verminking]

Start with a single doomwheel,

and since you feel generous you might add another 2 to your list, to round it out at 3.

if you feel highly lucky, I would even go so far and add another Doomwheel to your list

at this point you will want to have a warlock of some kind with the artefact known as the vial of the fulminator, to boost the random movement characterisitc theses doomwheels already have. (And don’t worry the randomness will stay😉)

and if you still have some points left, You can always fill it out with whatever else you want to.

my favorite being the warplightning cannon.

with such a skaven list you will never face a player who will despise your faction or list in any way or possible.

Yet beware of the extreme competitive man-things. Some of these people just hate-hate randomness in total and will detest every second they have to play against and opponent where they just can’t be certain if a dominating victory will be possible.

Edited December 19, 2021 by Skreech Verminking

[yukishiro1]

It really depends on your local scene. The Honest Wargamer has the tournament breakdown stats, but that's only for competitive play, so it only matters if that's what you're interested in. 

One of the good things about AoS is there is no one army that's played by almost everybody the way Space Marines are in 40k. If you're looking for an army people don't hate playing against, I wouldn't pick Sons of Behemat or Lumineth (for totally different reasons), but that isn't based on popularity so much as the way the armies work. And all that may be about to change in the FAQ that's coming in the next few days (supposedly) too anyway.

But really, I would just pick what you like the look of and the general playstyle of. It's generally a mistake to try to pick an army based on what other people like rather than what you like. 

Edited December 20, 2021 by yukishiro1

[novakai]

There was a few survey done really well by Warhammer weekly that gave a good picture of each armies player base 

I believe most played and owned army was SCE and Fyreslayers was on the bottom 

[yukishiro1]

Oh yeah, that's a good point. A bit out of date now (i.e. Sons and Lumineth have been seen a massive uptick since then) and probably a bit skewed towards competitive play too, but not as much as the Honest Wargamer stats.

Here's the graph from that (blurry, but the only picture I could find)

 

You can get a better quality graph on the video itself: 

 

Edited December 20, 2021 by yukishiro1

[Feii]

[NinthMusketeer]

On 12/19/2021 at 2:03 AM, Skreech Verminking said:

Start with a single doomwheel,

and since you feel generous you might add another 2 to your list, to round it out at 3.

if you feel highly lucky, I would even go so far and add another Doomwheel to your list

at this point you will want to have a warlock of some kind with the artefact known as the vial of the fulminator, to boost the random movement characterisitc theses doomwheels already have. (And don’t worry the randomness will stay😉)

and if you still have some points left, You can always fill it out with whatever else you want to.

my favorite being the warplightning cannon.

with such a skaven list you will never face a player who will despise your faction or list in any way or possible.

Yet beware of the extreme competitive man-things. Some of these people just hate-hate randomness in total and will detest every second they have to play against and opponent where they just can’t be certain if a dominating victory will be possible.

Just 4?

[Baron Klatz]

On 12/18/2021 at 6:35 PM, Aztok said:

I've heard rumors that the least popular (or at least worst selling) army is Idoneth Deepkin, but that it's a relatively close spread.

And I remember back in early 2019 people were pointing out the Deepkin facebooks/fan-sites were matching Stormcasts in activity which back then were the tops in popularity(big reason was before all the scattered army updates helped stabilize the communities). And to this day they’re relatively common in AoS conversations and what people play cause flying eels & sharks are too cool.  

It’s all pretty anecdotal like how I talked to two different big tourney circuit guys, one from Europe and the other from China, and the Europe guy said Stormcasts and Lumineth outnumbered everyone while China had Sylvaneth and Fyreslayer players all over the place.

in short, it’s a massive world-wide hobby with a ton of armies and majority of players just wanting to have fun. Just pick whatever you think looks cool/badass and go from there.    

[Skreech Verminking]

6 hours ago, NinthMusketeer said:

Just 4?

I wish more would be possible, yet gw, knowing its power, had to put a limiter.

so 4 is currently the limit.

in any other case 13 would have to be the number to go

[Maogrim]

I recall opening up a thread in the DOK subforum back in May, asking about the popularity of the faction. Daughters of Khaine always show up fairly high in the meta representation rankings but there's not that much talk in their subforum which always struck me as odd. People suggested it might be due to the supposed cheesecakeyness of the faction ( a whole different debate) or the difficulty of painting them to a higher standard. So more experienced players might try their hands on them and bring them to tournaments, knowing they are in a good place rules-wise, while beginners in the hobby might be advised to shy away from them. Other armies might be associated with similar effects.

[novakai]

DoK i believe had been a very hard and expensive army to collect compared to other armies. they are show up more in a tournament scene since you find more people willing to invest in those amount models ready and at hand to play games. casuals play their player base population is probably way smaller

they always been competitively strong, but their meta percentage was never that high. probably why they also skit off without much nerfs every time there a balancing update

[NinthMusketeer]

On 12/25/2021 at 8:38 PM, Skreech Verminking said:

I wish more would be possible, yet gw, knowing its power, had to put a limiter.

so 4 is currently the limit.

in any other case 13 would have to be the number to go

You mount a rat ogor torso on top and run it as a counts-as hell pit abomination silly!

Two side by side with a bell chained between them make for a Screaming Bell.

Could definitely have a vermin lord using one like one of those one-wheeled skateboard thingies.

 

There are much-many ways to add more doomwheels!

Edited December 27, 2021 by NinthMusketeer

[Skreech Verminking]

2 minutes ago, NinthMusketeer said:

You mount a rat ogor torso on top and run it as a counts-as hell pit abomination silly!

I don’t know, what your trying to do.

I already own the max. amount of hell pits for a 2500 point game.

unless gw changes the limit, I currently don’t know What reason I would have to want to own even more hell pits.

ps: the newish sludgeraker  lizard works perfectly as a brood horror, or since it officially doesn’t exist anymore as a hell pit abomination.

[NinthMusketeer]

Do your hell pits all use Doomwheel-based movement? Because if the answer is no...

Some limb grafts would let doomwheels be used as stormfiends too!

Edited December 27, 2021 by NinthMusketeer

[Skreech Verminking]

40 minutes ago, NinthMusketeer said:

Do your hell pits all use Doomwheel-based movement? Because if the answer is no...

Yes, although they aren’t quite as fast as a doomwheel, with only 2d6 movement.

You can of course take a mutation, that always guarantees you a 7 inch move and charge roll, no matter what.

Yet where would the fun be, if I can’t roll for those stats, and then there would be that question, what would have happened if I rolled a double 6, instead of just moving 7

 

Edited December 27, 2021 by Skreech Verminking

[Maogrim]

3 hours ago, novakai said:

DoK i believe had been a very hard and expensive army to collect compared to other armies. they are show up more in a tournament scene since you find more people willing to invest in those amount models ready and at hand to play games. casuals play their player base population is probably way smaller

they always been competitively strong, but their meta percentage was never that high. probably why they also skit off without much nerfs every time there a balancing update

They come out pretty expensive if you want to go the Witch Aelf route. But if you build an army around Melusai and Morathi you can get there quite cheap, via the excellent Start Collecting box and the DOK half of the Shadow & Pain box which is still fairly easy to get your hands on. 

And according to the meta representation chart that was posted above they are, at least by now, a little more common than Disciples of Tzeentch or Slaves to Darkness. 

[Indecisive]

Hard to be worse than Fyreslayers, I rarely see any enthusiasm for them.

4 hours ago, novakai said:

DoK i believe had been a very hard and expensive army to collect compared to other armies. they are show up more in a tournament scene since you find more people willing to invest in those amount models ready and at hand to play games. casuals play their player base population is probably way smaller

they always been competitively strong, but their meta percentage was never that high. probably why they also skit off without much nerfs every time there a balancing update

Yeah, tougher to paint as well for most people between skin and faces. Is basically a mini-faction pulled out of a WHFB faction too.
Hard to be any more niche.

Edited December 27, 2021 by Indecisive

[Maogrim]

25 minutes ago, Indecisive said:

Yeah, tougher to paint as well for most people between skin and faces. Is basically a mini-faction pulled out of a WHFB faction too.
Hard to be any more niche.

At least DOK have the Scathborn aspect going for them. The Snake Ladies are uniquely AOS and theoretically allow for more of Morathi's creations to spread the army out a little more. Right now there are three distinct themes in DOK: Witch Aelf and Sisters of Slaughter, Scathborn (Medusas, Melusai and Kinerai) and the more shadowy Assassin types like Shadowstalkers and I guess Doomfire Warlocks. While the latter could be fleshed out a little more, e.g. with an assassin type hero (would love for Gotrek's partner, Malaneth Witchblade here) I think they are doing okay in terms of variery. But there's still potential. 

I don't know what Fyreslayers could add. Fiery elementals bound by rune magic maybe? The design space does seem limited on a surface level, compared to Lumineth where it's Hyshian crystal clear what the next expansions could and will bring. Granted, I do know next to nothing about Fyreslayers. 

[Skreech Verminking]

1 hour ago, Maogrim said:

don't know what Fyreslayers could add

The whole dispossessed range.

and they could call it a day

[Maogrim]

8 minutes ago, Skreech Verminking said:

The whole dispossessed range.

and they could call it a day

Sure, that'd be one way to go about it. But then it wouldn't quite be 'Fyreslayers' anymore but rather a dwarf soup army, more akin to the Dwarfs of ye olden days. My uncertainty of what to do with them was connected to the prerequisite of keeping their dominant theme. 

[Skreech Verminking]

41 minutes ago, Maogrim said:

Sure, that'd be one way to go about it. But then it wouldn't quite be 'Fyreslayers' anymore but rather a dwarf soup army, more akin to the Dwarfs of ye olden days. My uncertainty of what to do with them was connected to the prerequisite of keeping their dominant theme. 

Yep, and exactly something the fyreslayers of old would need.

new models, a better range, units that have a keen sense of taste and don’t all look like their latter friends of the naked variant.

Models of all variants, all fighting together while still looking distinctly different from each other, something fyreslayer have needed for years, something that gives people a reason to play the basically almost never seen range of slayers models.

And something that is hopefully more then just a single unit being spammed for the whole list through and through

The dwarf of old called this variety

[Clan's Cynic]

4 hours ago, Skreech Verminking said:

Yep, and exactly something the fyreslayers of old would need.

new models, a better range, units that have a keen sense of taste and don’t all look like their latter friends of the naked variant.

Models of all variants, all fighting together while still looking distinctly different from each other, something fyreslayer have needed for years, something that gives people a reason to play the basically almost never seen range of slayers models.

And something that is hopefully more then just a single unit being spammed for the whole list through and through

The dwarf of old called this variety

Tossing Dispossessed in with Fyreslayers doesn't work the same way it doesn't work with Kharadrons. 

Back in Ye Olde Worlde, Slayers and the more 'out there' Engineer units were just small parts of the army (Heroes, Special or Rare) and aesthetically designed to fit in with the rest of the range, both in terms of rules and aesthetics. 

Fyreslayers and Kharadron however both have very distinct rules, lore and aesthetics as they're intended to be standalone armies. Put the Dwarf Gyrocopter next to any of the Kharadron airships and you can see there's a distinctive, deliberate difference between them. Hell, put Gotrek next to a Fyreslayer and he looks 'off'.