Armies ranked by sales

[eldargal]

My brother had a little chat to the manager of a GW store we by most of our stuff from, and he was actually so good as to list the armies by sales. Obviously this is one store but I thought it was interesting so I'll repeat it here. Figures are for the last two quarters:

40k:
Dark Eldar (for the first time not a SM list)
Space Marines (all varieties)
Eldar
Imperial Guard
Orks
Daemons
Tyranids
Necrons
SoB
Tau

WFB:
High Elves
Tomb Kings
Dark Elves
Empire
Warriors of Chaos
OnG
Vampire Counts
Skaven
Lizardmen
Dwarfs
Bretonnians
Wood Elves
Ogre Kingdoms
Beastmen

[gwensdad]

I'd like to see a breakdown within the marines. I'd imagine "generic" marines are #1, but not sure overall how GK, BA, DA, BT are doing and what chapters are actually getting painted/played.

[eldargal]

I would have liked that too, sadly all my brother got was Marines all lumped into one. I think it is a testament to how well DE are doing (in my area at least) that they are outselling Marines. Not by much mind you, a few hundred pounds.

For WFB I can't help but thnk TK are up there only because of the lovely new book and range, they were slow sellers before I'm sure. A positive sign though.

[silashand]

For WFB, when I was in the UK some years ago it used to be that Dwarfs were overall one of the best selling model ranges due to their strong character and imagery. Not sure what has changed about them other than perhaps they have a really old book.

Cheers, Gary

[eldargal]

Well, it is a local thing, but over the past few years most of the armies above them on the list have received some kind of love (IoB and whatnot for Elves and Skaven, new lists for OnG and Tomb Kings etc).

[silashand]

For WFB, when I was in the UK some years ago it used to be that Dwarfs were overall one of the best selling model ranges due to their strong character and imagery. Not sure what has changed about them other than perhaps they have a really old book.

Cheers, Gary

[HsojVvad]

Where is the Lord of the Rings?

I guess SM are not number 1 right now, because almost has all the SM they need right now, so don't need to buy more. I am glad to see DE doing so strong, they sure were neglected for so long. It was a big gamble for GW for DE, it could have been a big flop, but glad it's not.

[eldargal]

My brother didn't think to ask about LOTR, sorry.

[Necron_Lord]

The figures confirm what a craptastic codex the Tyranids got. For being slightly over a year and a half old, it is down there with the ancient codices. Eldar being so high kind of surprises me, but it does have a stunning range, only the codex (and the pricing) for them is not so hot.

Fantasy is also surprising. The elves are selling pretty well (except for Wood Elves of course) but Beastmen being dead last? It can't all be explained by that horrid Minotaur kit, can it? :rolleyes:

It must be due to the aversion of not doing an uber horde, but I'm surprised Skaven and Gobbos are so far down the list. I would have expected them to be higher.

[silashand]

One word why HE are #1: Teclis

[eldargal]

Actually I've heard from a few sources within GW/ex-GW that Eldar have nearly always been the second best selling army after SM, for most of the past two decades since the Craftworld Eldar came into being with WD127. High up sources too, not store managers.

[Lord Azaghul]

I question the DoC ranking, especially since the fantasy column seems to be missing them.;)

[Thornblood]

Is this a good marketing idea...?

GW shows conversions on their blog/in white dwarf of the least loved model ranges to support them and then goes on to ask people (probably just studio challenges) to heavily incorporate some models from that range in some very sexy conversions for other armies...

I.e. seen some very nice Wulfen which are marines with Beastmen heads... maybe a white dwarf Tau Guela spotlight representing a human fringe world changing alliances to boost Imp guard and Tau sales (like we see in some of the novels). GW goes back to supporting the ranges that are not flavour of the month and it makes the bosses happy?

I think dwarfs have been especially ignored because of Storm of Tragic. This however was especially amazing marketing as GW released models that every army can use and plugged into the release and hype of the last Harry Potter film too.

[eldargal]

Well the problem is he listed Daemons under 40k only and my brother didn't bother to ask about the WFB version. It may be ranked in 40k higher than it ought because of that, and I would imagine it would be fairly high on the WFB list given their popularity in 7th.

[Thornblood]

Is this a good marketing idea...?

GW shows conversions on their blog/in white dwarf of the least loved model ranges to support them and then goes on to ask people (probably just studio challenges) to heavily incorporate some models from that range in some very sexy conversions for other armies...

I.e. seen some very nice Wulfen which are marines with Beastmen heads... maybe a white dwarf Tau Guela spotlight representing a human fringe world changing alliances to boost Imp guard and Tau sales (like we see in some of the novels). GW goes back to supporting the ranges that are not flavour of the month and it makes the bosses happy?

I think dwarfs have been especially ignored because of Storm of Tragic. This however was especially amazing marketing as GW released models that every army can use and plugged into the release and hype of the last Harry Potter film too.

[Frankio9]

[My brother had a little chat to the manager of a GW store we by most of our stuff from.

You and your brother probably bought most of the Eldar stuff, right? :)

[Lerra]

It looks like the Chaos SM sales get lumped in with the loyalist marines. No wonder how Chaos would fare on its own. I'm kind of surprised that SoB has been outselling Tau.

[modelguyicmt]

If you compare this to the number of posts per race section on LO it gives a nice long term comparison.


http://www.librarium-online.com/forums/40k-armies/
For example,
SM have 151,000 posts
IG have 103,000
CSM have 98,000 (CODEX LEGIONS PLEEEEEEEEEEEASE)
Nids have 74,000
Eldar have 73,000
Tau have 71,000 (kind of funny :P such a popular dex, with no updates for quite a while...)
GK 43,000 (renamed from DH with the new dex)
Crons 42,000
Orks 40,000 (this really surprises me, but Orks used to be very popular pre 3rd right?)
DE 37,000 (was below WH before the new dex :cool: )
WH 25,000
Daemons 9,000 (lowest because its the newest :P )


http://www.librarium-online.com/forums/fb-armies/
WOC 37,000 posts
VC 24,000
WE 23,000 (sad because they were so popular with the new book)
HE 20,000
TK 18,000
LM 17,000
OG 14,000
DE 14,000
Dwarfs 13,000
Empire 11,000 (GO CHAOS!!)
Brets 7,500 (Hmmm, guess chivalry isn't very popular these days :p )
OK 7,500 (new book...)
Beastmen 5,700 (boring models? boring fluff?)
Daemons 5,600
Skaven 3,700
Dogs of war 1,078
Chaos Dwarfs 996



Just for fuzzles, I'll do specialist games, LOTR, and WarmaHordes--

http://www.librarium-online.com/forums/other-40k-universe-games/
40k specialist games
BFG 4,817
Necro 1,350
=][= 1,288
Epic 308 (I'm sure NetEpic gets more Epic players than LO)
Cityfight 206 (pretty old lol)
(Dark Heresy has a small following here, but I'm sure that dedicated RPG forums are more representative.)


http://www.librarium-online.com/forums/other-fantasy-games/
Bloodbowl 1,301
Mordheim 1,035
Warmaster 56 (not surprising at all)


LOTR has 1,759 total posts


http://privateerpressforums.com/forumdisplay.php?17-HORDES-Faction-Communities&
Using the numbers for "Communities"
Everblight 56,000
Trollbloods 49,000
Circle 46,000
Skorne 37,000
Minions 9,000


http://privateerpressforums.com/forumdisplay.php?22-WARMACHINE-Faction-Communities&
Cygnar 67,000
Khador 66,000
Cryx 60,000
Menoth 56,000
Mercenary 49,000
Retribution 33,000


Ya, so wall o' stats, sorry. Let the dissection begin :cool:

[doom-kitten]

Not to surprised DE are tops where you are, back in petawawa DE was the first army my local store ever sold out of in a day, here in Victoria the love, mostly from what I've seen so far, goes to Chaos (demons included) and Non Vanilla marines.

[Asymmetrical Xeno]

Nice to see something other than SM as #1 even if it's just one shop! It's refreshing that DE are on top, it's funny to think that a year ago they had the worst models and even had people saying they should be dumped as an army...now it's the complete opposite. It does go to show that if the models are GOOD they WILL sell, and Jes Goodwin and co sure did a fine job with the range.

Kinda amused at Beastmen being at the bottom of the pile in WHF too, not really unsurprising given their boring rules and hideous models (minotaurs).

[modelguyicmt]

I typed up this huge long reply about the number of posts per army on Librarium Online for 40k, fantasy, and Warmahordes, but it was too long I guess. I got a message saying "Must be approved by a forum mod before posting." Bah Humbug.

I'm not going to go through all that work again :P

[eldargal]

I would certainly be contributing to the DE sales in a big way, but not so much the Eldar as I've not bought more than a dozen or so kits for Eldar in the last 12 months.:)


[My brother had a little chat to the manager of a GW store we by most of our stuff from.

You and your brother probably bought most of the Eldar stuff, right? :)

[Farseer Uthiliesh]

I must admit that I am surprised to see Tau so low on the list, given that mostly every time I visit the local GW store someone is playing Tau.

[Dalleron]

What people play doesn't necessarily reflect the sales. If lots of people play Tau, then they already have the army and possibly aren't buying more for it.

As they push SM of any sort down newb's throats, they will always be high.

And clearly, amazing models with good codex will sell boatloads

[Prodigalson]

I think most of the people that like tau, own tau. Also, there isn't a lot of difference in competitive tau. Crisis suits, fire warriors, some kroot, couple of broadsides/hamerheads, pirahna's and you are done. There just isn't a reason to purchase anything for Tau.

There is never really a reason to have any of/more then one of the following units:
Stealth Suits
Vespid
Fire Warriors w/pulse carbines
Kroot thing with the gun on it's back
Skyray
Sniper Drone Team
Ethereal

That's about 1/3 of the codex that has no purpose at the moment besides playing for the fun of it.