Dark Eldar outselling Marines

[eldargal]

I meant to post this yesterday, but forgot.

According to two GW stores in the south of England, DE have outsold Space Marines since their release. This is the first time, according to one of them, that another race has outsold Marines over an entire half year.
Obviously these aren't sales figures (nor do I expect they will continue to outsell Marines for long), it will vary from store to store and region to region, but I thought it was still rather good news. It may, at least, make GW realise there is a market for Xenos and not to treat them like an afterthought.

[newtoncain]

GK soon to eclipse DE:mad:

[DadExtraordinaire]

I meant to post this yesterday, but forgot.

According to two GW stores in the south of England, DE have outsold Space Marines since their release. This is the first time, according to one of them, that another race has outsold Marines over an entire half year.
Obviously these aren't sales figures (nor do I expect they will continue to outsell Marines for long), it will vary from store to store and region to region, but I thought it was still rather good news. It may, at least, make GW realise there is a market for Xenos and not to treat them like an afterthought.

Hi Eldargirl,

I believe there was another time when an alien race outstripped SMs and that was when the Tau were first launched, obviously though that was many moons back.......

The news is still good news and I look forward to other alien races and minor Imperail like SoB getting the same treatment as DE......we can only hope :)

[HsojVvad]

Well this is not surprising. DE were so bad, everyone stayed away from them. Almost everyone has manrines you can say, so bought them all. Now DE came out, and are new and not so bad, hardly anybody has them, so now they are new and exciting, of course they would sell more than marines.

Hard to sell something when you already have it. Nobody has Dark Eldar. As said above, that will change with Grey Knights come out. People will want the latest hot thing, or they will want the mins for thier SM since, they never had them before.

But it was nice to see something out sell the SM though. Is that just in your area, or all over?

[eldargal]

Just in this area, but they said they had heard similar stories from other stores.

I'm not convinced GK will outdo DE, actually. From what I've seen so far the reaction to the new GK has been far, far more muted than the reaction to Dark Eldar. I'm sure they will do well, but the difference between old and new is not significant enough that people will be scrapping entire old GK armies to upgrade to the new plastics.

I wouldn't say it was unsurprising, even GW thought they were taking a considerable risk revamping the Dark Eldar range. Hell, plenty of people thought they would never do it for that reason.

[Lemt]

IMHO what happened with DE is that it was an old army with old minatures and old rules, so many people that wanted to start them saw too many drawbacks. And with the new dex and minis, those people wanted them badly.

[harveydent]

what happened is that they created a model line that looks fantastic and backed it up with a set of rules that was extremely appealing to a huge range of player types.

[wittdooley]

I'm not convinced GK will outdo DE, actually. From what I've seen so far the reaction to the new GK has been far, far more muted than the reaction to Dark Eldar. I'm sure they will do well, but the difference between old and new is not significant enough that people will be scrapping entire old GK armies to upgrade to the new plastics.


Gotta remember there are going to be plenty of regular space marine players buying boxes to deck out their marine armies. Could potentially figure into sales spikes.

[DarkLink]

DE models were horrible, and now they're great. GK models have always been awesome, and now... they're pretty much the same, just in plastic with more bitz. And people are so worked up about how the Dreadknight doesn't follow the standard imperial ascetic that they despise it despite the fact that it really is a great model (it's just too static, but that can be fixed).

[BuFFo]

I doubt GK will touch the DE in sales.

[ninjacatz]

Yeah dark eldar! Does marines stand for just space marines but wolves, angels, salamanders etc...
If it was all of the marine codexes then grey knights won't outsell DE but if it was just the vanilla marine codex than grey knights might sell more than DE.

[HsojVvad]

Just in this area, but they said they had heard similar stories from other stores.

I'm not convinced GK will outdo DE, actually. From what I've seen so far the reaction to the new GK has been far, far more muted than the reaction to Dark Eldar. I'm sure they will do well, but the difference between old and new is not significant enough that people will be scrapping entire old GK armies to upgrade to the new plastics.

I wouldn't say it was unsurprising, even GW thought they were taking a considerable risk revamping the Dark Eldar range. Hell, plenty of people thought they would never do it for that reason.


I doubt GK will touch the DE in sales.

Oh I hope this is so true. I would love for GK to back fire on GW, maybe this way they will actually hype up thier release 3 months or more in advance than the 4 weeks they do now.

But why do I see alot of SM players buying the minis not for GK but for thier SM chapter.

Oh I hope this is the case, that GK do not sell. I am actually a bit disapointed with the minis. I prefer the metal over the plastic, the plastics just don't have the detail and awsomness to it. Maybe the detail but not the awsomeness.

[wittdooley]

Oh I hope this is the case, that GK do not sell. I am actually a bit disapointed with the minis. I prefer the metal over the plastic, the plastics just don't have the detail and awsomness to it. Maybe the detail but not the awsomeness.

This is such an ignorance laced quote, I don't even know where to begin?

You hope they don't sell? Are you serious? Regardless what army you play, you want every one to sell well. It means more profits for GW, and it means they can focus on whatever outdated codex your neighbor plays.

What are you disappointed about? They look damn near the same as the metal ones, only they're lighter, won't break as easily, and have more customization options. I think all the aforementioned things would make these GK ooze "awesomeness" unless your sole defining factor of "awesomeness" is whether or not you can put a full squad in a sock and knock a dude out with it. If that is your "awesomeness" selling point, then the Chaos Dreadnoughts are Miles Davis.

[Necron2.0]

I think DE are doing so well for a number of synergistic reasons. The first is of course the “wiz-bang, WOW!” newness factor.

The next reason is that the original DE line, frankly, stunk on ice. Everything about the old line looked terrible, and I can only imagine that those dedicated DE players must have fielded their armies with a degree of embarrassment, especially if the person facing them down across the table were a Craftworlder with their sleek, hot sexiness.

Another issue is the timing. I bought my entire DE army with Christmas gift certificates, Holiday rebate checks and gifted money. Somehow, for those in the US, I don’t see people using their tax refund checks to do the same for GK – especially for us married types.

Next there’s the issue of how long it took for GW to get a DE update out. That created a lot of tension. By the time it finally came along, all the DE players were poised like Olympic sprinters, ready to dash to the store the moment the shot went off. Along with that is all the overt hype that came with the long awaited release. It’s hard to say if that hype was intended or if it was a symptom of DE play angst feeding upon itself, but it was very palpable, even for non-DE players (like I was at the time). Now, GK may have been waiting a long time for an update, but from what I can tell there haven't been the volume of players begging for a GK update. Everyone I've talked to admits that GK are a niche army. For the word of mouth buzz, SoB would have been a better choice to update than GK. I routinely hear folks complaining about SoB being out of date - not so much the GK.

And lastly, there’s the quality of the New DE line. They nearly match the Craftworld kits in their sleek sexiness. I don’t think the GKs will capture that same lightning in a bottle. They may be well crafted, but at the end of the day, they look like marines.

[eldargal]

Yes, DE outsold all Marine kits, regular, BA, SW etc.

I do hope GK do well, for the reasons Wittdooley mentions, but I don't see the same kind of fervour. As an example, there were very few people in my game group who didn't end up buying some Dark Eldar, even the die hard Marine players. But very few of the non-GK players are intending on buying much GK stuff. Its just anecdotal, but looking at the reactions on the forums (which I know are always a bit negative) seems to suggest this is a widespread attitude.


Yeah dark eldar! Does marines stand for just space marines but wolves, angels, salamanders etc...
If it was all of the marine codexes then grey knights won't outsell DE but if it was just the vanilla marine codex than grey knights might sell more than DE.

[HsojVvad]

This is such an ignorance laced quote, I don't even know where to begin?

You hope they don't sell? Are you serious? Regardless what army you play, you want every one to sell well. It means more profits for GW, and it means they can focus on whatever outdated codex your neighbor plays.

What are you disappointed about? They look damn near the same as the metal ones, only they're lighter, won't break as easily, and have more customization options. I think all the aforementioned things would make these GK ooze "awesomeness" unless your sole defining factor of "awesomeness" is whether or not you can put a full squad in a sock and knock a dude out with it. If that is your "awesomeness" selling point, then the Chaos Dreadnoughts are Miles Davis.

Funny how you took the " maybe this way they will actually hype up thier release 3 months or more in advance than the 4 weeks they do now." out. This would have explained why I said what I said.

If it fails, then hopefully GW would actually hype and give us info earlier instead of 4 weeks. If you are going to quote me, make sure you put everything in there. :) That should have explained it. Taking that part out changes the whole entire context of what I said.