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I'm wondering, what is the least popular army in 40k currently? We all know SoB has been boned (and will be boned) for a good while so except SoB, which army sees the least amount of play?
Not necessarily tournament or competitive scenes but for casual games as well. In your opinion, if you walk into your regular old, FLGS, which army are you least likely to see on tabletops at any given moment?


Just curious.



Update: Sorry for any confusion but yes, I was only listing armies... well that composed like an army. So Codexes/units like Imperial Knights, Harlequins, Militarium Tempestus.... they are more often taken as supplements to the more core armies rather than a force by themselves. And as for Forgeworld armies... a lot of people never even heard of some of those armies so they are out.

I think it's easier to find it out the opposite way. Which armies do you regularly see in your FLGS and multi-option poll.

Seen everything but BA being played at my local. We've got a couple that infrequently collect, but no-one who actually runs them. Hell, we've even got 2 sisters players who actually play theirs, so SoB are more popular than BA here.

I have two stores I play at. One store (almost all vets) sees just about everything, including Militarum Tempestus.

The other store, which is comprised mostly of new guys, and old school guy (only about three of us played 6th edition, with a couple more having played 5th), only features a few armies, despite having a larger player size. Nobody is playing Dark Eldar, or Space Wolves.

I used to face Sisters a fair bit at my last group. On the other hand, I have never faced or even seen Demons or Dark Eldar being played.

Dark Eldar on virtue of being extremely hard to learn to play well in my meta

I've played against everything EXCEPT Daemons. Back in the combined CSM / Daemon days, I used to see them, but not anymore.

I know many people who abandoned their Grey Knight armies when they lost their cheese (eventhough the Dreadknight is still there).

Dark Eldar tend to be the rarest on nature of being a fragile army that either wins big or goes down in a giant ball of drugs and fire.

So it can be a big wall to getting into the army for people who don't know what they're getting into.

The runner up for that I'd say is likely mono-god Daemon armies because of all the randoms.

SGTPozy wrote:
I know many people who abandoned their Grey Knight armies when they lost their cheese (even though the Dreadknight is still there).

Same I know one person who abandoned them as soon as they lost some of their unbalanced stuff like psybolt autocannon dreads and storm ravens. He switched to Eldar and now has decided he is to good to play any games if there is not a major prize for winning.

I have another friend who was unhappy that his lone Chaos champion on juggernaut was stopped from completely wiping out a squad worth almost double it's points because of invisibility. I hate Daemon weapons I think they are way out of line for power and points cost but I can find ways to deal with them, like invisibility does wonders for nerfing the guy with 15 str 7 ap2 at initiative attacks.

Looking at the list, I can find all of them at my FLGS. It’s hard to get a good feel on popularity though. If one of the core regulars plays an obscure army, and show up all the time, it makes it seem more represented.

Armored battlegroup isn't on the list and is probably less played than SOB.

Or perhaps the Solar Auxilia, if only because people haven't gotten around to building their armies yet.

Though there're tons of armies not represented on the poll.

I think the poll is only including regular 40k armies, not the far more obscure FW ones.

Not dissing FW, but you'll not be likely to run into that many people on a visit to most FLGS's who play one of those, or have even heard of them.

I could claim Stealer cults or Squats as still being playable armies, but i'd need my abuse-resistant hat...

The list also leaves out the new Codex Harlequins, and the IK codex.

Harlequins are too new to tell, yet, and full on Knight armies don't seem to common either (at least where i've been).

My meta is power armour heavy, so playing any of the xenos armies is a rare treat.

Despite the power level of Eldar, I think I can count on one hand the number of times I've actually played them.

Same for deamons.

We did have a Tau play, but he left and went to uni...

Marines are by far the most popular, there's at least 4 BA players (including myself) despite the perceived power of that boom during it's two most recent incarnations.

D

Anecdotal of course but i've played 40k for 10 years across three states at multiple tournies and flgs and have played a total of one ork player so I guess they get my vote.

DE don't get a lot of love, mostly because they're actually pretty hard to play.

 Ascalam wrote:
I think the poll is only including regular 40k armies, not the far more obscure FW ones.

Not dissing FW, but you'll not be likely to run into that many people on a visit to most FLGS's who play one of those, or have even heard of them.

I could claim Stealer cults or Squats as still being playable armies, but i'd need my abuse-resistant hat...

The list also leaves out the new Codex Harlequins, and the IK codex.

Harlequins are too new to tell, yet, and full on Knight armies don't seem to common either (at least where i've been).

I mean, it's "So rare that they're unheard of" the literal definition of "least popular army?"

Like, so rare they're not even in the poll here. If you exclude them, it's basically "Which 40k armies (other than the least popular ones) are the least popular ones" which is a nonsense question.

I think the question had more to do with the listed armies on GW's main webstore, what used to be attributed as the classic armies.

Of course, now there are a number of sub-armies (Militarum Tempestus, Harlequins, Imperial Knights, Inquisition, Assassins) that don't really fit into the concept of an army, so that definition doesn't work as well anymore either. However, since we're excluding SOB, I'm under the impression we're excluding anything else that does not constitute its own core codex (excluding supplements and dataslates).

I see a lot a fair mix of everything at the FLGS I visit occasionally so it's hard to tell, but I'd had to say Dark Eldar. Heck, it's probably half the reason I play them!

In the entire time I've played 40k and in 3 States (AL, CA & NY), I have never seen an ork army on the table.

I'm actually surprised

Funny, I couldn't decide between DE and DA... The two leaders. Makes sense.

Space Marines is the one I see the least. Other factions such as Space Wolves, Blood Angels and such seem to be more prevalent at my FLGS.

Part of the reason I continue to play DA is because until recently I hadn't seen a single other person playing them. It may have to do with the fact that they have a hard time competing with the more recently updated armies. At least a couple of guys I talked to said that they used to play DA (one of them now plays Grey Knights). Even I am thinking of switching gears and upgrading my meager collection of Tau.

At the closest LGS the army I see played the least is definitely Daemons. Besides myself, I've only seen one other player who's continued on with the army, especially after 7th dropped and the group who runs the monthly tournament pretty much outright banned the codex itself from putting up any semblance of a fight...

In my local area, and the areas I've played in, I've met only one other DA player. Myself included, that puts DA at a tie for DE, which I have met two other players for. Everything else, yes including sisters, I have seen at least 4+ players of. Well at least everything else on this poll list.

After digging about I have to say Slaanesh Daemons may be the least popular subgroup of any one army. I have trouble even finding painting videos much less any discussion on them (and when you can find discussion it's not for 7th half the time).