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Just curious how much money people spent on AoS products (books and miniatures).

The few people I know who played it just bought a starter set or dusted off old mini's, played with free rules and haven't spent a dime. But obviously that's just a dozen or so people so I would like to get a feeling from a larger sample size.

Thanks

edit: I am interested in the new AoS releases - not old fantasy model kits and books.

Well, so far I've only bought the starter set.

I'm going to buy alot more in the future. Especially those sword-armed Stormcast and anything novel related.

Bought the starter, that's about it. I'm having more fun with my dwarves than the sigmarines.

I gave a guy $15 for some of his marauders out of the starter set. Not a bad deal at all I think, they were surprisingly good models to paint up.

I think Ive spent a little over 300 dollars on the game since it came out. I basically have been expanding on my Beastman army.

I think the one thing to watch out for when it comes AoS sales is how previous fantasy models are moving around. People in my area are more interested in playing all the other Fantasy army's like dwarves, lizardmen and Tomb Kings rather then sigmarines or nu-chaos as they just find the other army's cooler looking. So sales based solely on the starter box is a little deceptive (although I have seen two of them leave the shelves none the less).

Zero-ish? I've done some back and forth trading, though.

I have one gryph hound. It's cute.

0.

Might consider the gryph hound to convert into a baby gryphon for Stormwing, but from Ebay.

I printed things, so that consumed paper and toner that I think is closer to $1 than "FREE", so I'm technically in the $1-100 category.

Haven't bought any models, though, just playing with existing stuff, and traded some old WFB stuff for OOP WFB stuff. If I get back into AoS in a bigger way, then I might buy some more OOP WFB stuff.

nada, already have huge armies, and enough spare round bases to convert....now IF they do anything for my undead, then they will get some money.

500-1000.

Probably over if I bought at regular retail. Even then 1k is probably too conservative. I might be in denial!

Aside from 2 boxes of Putrid Blightkings and Gutrot Spume that I bought during the End Times, I've bought about 25 more Blightkings, 1 Lord of Plagues, 2 Maggoth Riders, 3 boxes of Nurglings, an Overlord Bastion, the sphere thing terrain piece, and all of the tomes/books. Also did a few bits orders for headswaps on the Blightkings, so that each model is as much an individual as I can make it.

From FW, I got 3 Plague Toads, 3 Plague Ogres, the new Nurgle Daemon Prince, and the mounted Nurgle Chaos Lord.

Also bought the starter set, a box of Stormcast Liberators, Khorne Bloodreavers and the Khorne warriors whose name escapes me. I bought those for gaks and giggles just to have some variety in my painting rotation. Will be picking up Skarbrand in a few days. Or more Stormcast, I can't decide. Probably Stormcast though, as its been some time since I collected a good faction, and they are deceptively versatile kits that are fun to put together and easy to paint.

$150 including paint, books, and modeling tools. Retail would be $475-ish because I did a lot of trading.

Maybe $300? Two terrain pieces, about 40-50 Stormcast and the first big book. All of it used except one terrain piece and two Stormcast characters. Retail would be way more.

Too much lol. I bought all the terrain, the starter box, a box of blood warriors, the slaughter priest, and an entire fortress.

Got the starter set, all the novels, both LE Battle Tomes, an extra set of blood warriors, and a khorgoth or what ever it's named. Needless to say that's easily in the 500$ range.

If novels do count I also bought most of the E shorts from the Black library as well.

My local crew and I haven't touched AoS. Everyone is more into Fantasy than I am, and they've all pretty much abandoned Fantasy altogether. I think honestly out of the 6 guys that used to regularly play, we've legitimately spent $0 since AoS was released.

Not a single krone, I do not wish to encourage GW by buying their nonsense

I had never played fantasy, decided now was the time to dive in with both feet and I'm having a blast. I first bought the last Island of Blood from my FLGS the week or so before AoS released. I then purchased the AoS starter set, the first book (BRB?) measuring tool (works for warmahordes too for the most part) and Stormcast Eternal dice/shaker because I loved the dice. I went back to 40k after that but I'm already planning out additions to my Skaven and Stormcast Eternals. I will also most likely pick up some Nurgle models to run with the Khorne guys. I love me some Nurgle.

So it seems to me that most people spent little to no money on AoS but those who did spent enough to more than make a tidy profit for GW. This seem to me to reflect GW's entire strategy right now, they don't care if they lose customers as long as those that do buy buy a lot, and for a huge profit margin. If less people buy, they just jack up the profit margin.

I don't mean to editorialize this unscientific poll and I may be wrong. I would love to hear what you guys think of the results.

The poll is a very small sample, of self-selecting respondents and not to make any imputations against anyone but we cannot verify any of the answers anyway.

All that said, taking it at face value, there are eight high spending AoS players who in the past three months have each spent about as much on AoS than I have spent on 40K in the past 10 years, and I have Tau and Tyranid armies.

Clearly GW are going to like that kind of high-spending customer, but to me the logic of the company is aimed at developing a wider market.

Why have hundreds of shops? Why have mass-production of cheap plastic kits? Why even bother to make a new game? Presumably there are a few people who bought huge amounts of 40K or WHFB. If they weren't enough to support the company, why can it be done with AoS? Above all, a wargame requires opponents to play with. Fewer customers means less opportunities for the customers you do have.

The overall setup of the company is aimed at a much wider market.

It's good to have elite customers, but GW really need to activate the two thirds of the player base who have either rejected AoS or just dabbled their toes in the water and found it a bit too cold.

It is also an entirely social driven game and a very social hobby. Someone entering the game will mention it to their friends, those friends will then look at it and he may try to convince them to join him. If he joins a club that club will thrive and more members will join.

If one person leaves a club the club suffers and more people are at risk of leaving. If that one person leaving is leaving it is probably for a reason, a reason he will tell his friend if his friend gets interested in the game.

Ultimately even those big spender 'elite' customers may well be forced to drop it if they have no opponents to play against. Some of them might stick around just to paint and collect the models but the discussion about that in Dakka General recently makes it seem pretty clear the vast majority (at least of us here) need at least the idea of a game to continue buying GW products.

 Kilkrazy wrote:

Why have hundreds of shops? Why have mass-production of cheap plastic kits?

Well, let us continue the completely non-scientific analysis

That 8% you quote seems a small number, especially compared to the 44% who spent nothing. However, if you extend it to the next highest spenders, that totals about 20% of gamers in the higher brackets (and, actually, I am now remembering something about the 80/20 rule - Zipf's Law, is it?).

Extend it to the next two higher categories, and you have about the same percentage as all the non-buyers.

So, we can conclude that about 40% of gamers in the entire world are buying into AoS

Yes, that's roughly correct.

GW need the spend of these 40% to exceed the previous spending of WHFB customers.

Intro box with a 25% discount. The sigmarine winged dudes are going to a KoW basilean army. Not sure on what to do with the rest but I'll probably have fun just painting them.

Chaos stuff fits seamlessly with my current WHFB chaos armies.

So far nothing else has piqued my interest. I doubt anything from the rules side will get any money from me, and though the terrain is interesting is too expensive for an impulse buy and we have plenty of homemade terrain pieces anyway.

I have 8 WHFB armies so once/if HE/Beastmen/Undead/Empire/Skaven/Daemons/etc. get the AoS treatment I'll see if there's something I can buy.

Nada. My Marauder-era dark elves play just fine in the rules. I'll eventually pick up the Khorne minis from the starter set off Ebay though.

$75

Back when AoS launched, a few FLGSes got a ton of the starter boxes. After 3 weeks of virtually no sales, they cut the retail in half and offered a $100 gift card to anyone who bought one, which could only be redeemed on the WHFB stock they wanted to clear out. I bought one to get the gift card and figured I could sell off the Sigmarines and Khorneguys. I'm still sitting on the Khorneguys.

So I guess GW got one over on me.

Getting around $400 I think. It brought me back to the hobby, and I happen to be in a work/life situation now where I can dedicate a lot of free time to modelling.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Yes, that's roughly correct.

GW need the spend of these 40% to exceed the previous spending of WHFB customers.

Apparently, that has already happened, from GW's rather cryptic comment that AOS is exceeding expectations.

Remember that Dakka is a very tiny slice of the GW market, and is not representative of GW customers at large.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:


Remember that Dakka is a very tiny slice of the GW market, and is not representative of GW customers at large.

There is a 13 page thread on warseer discussing the state of the game by region/country. Judging by it, either people lie/grossly underestimate how much it is being played or the game is truly poorly welcomed. As GW's cryptic claims in front of a shareholder representative on a semi-official meeting/dinner mean nothing to me, I really hope people underestimate. We'll see the official numbers in three months time.

People grossly underestimate how much it is being played. These forums consistently believe that competitive play is a significant portion of GW revenue and play, say 20%, 30%, or more. In reality, the numbers clearly demonstrate that it's more like 1% or 2%. The forums are loud, but meaningless. That's why GW canned their forums and stopped supporting competitive play.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
People grossly underestimate how much it is being played. These forums consistently believe that competitive play is a significant portion of GW revenue and play, say 20%, 30%, or more. In reality, the numbers clearly demonstrate that it's more like 1% or 2%. The forums are loud, but meaningless. That's why GW canned their forums and stopped supporting competitive play.

I'd like to see where you get those numbers.