Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

 Chute82 wrote:
Not sure how many of you remember 1985 when new coke came out ( yes I am old). It was a flop and angered their loyal customers. AoS is the new coke all over again

OH MY GOD finally someone else who shares my opinion! Also I'm >20 so your not old.

Anyone notice how well AoS sells on amazon?

 bitethythumb wrote:
Anyone notice how well AoS sells on amazon?

Good or bad?

Fairly well. Been seeing a lot of the core sets sold, and lots of the Stormcast blisters/boxes sold as well.

There weren't any Khorne releases until this past Saturday so time will tell on that front. Seen a lot of Wrathmongers and Warshrines get sold though.

That last part is fairly significant as those are part of what is suggested in the core set's included book as "how to expand" for the Khorne stuff.

It is no.304 in the UK Amazon chart of tabletop and wargames, being beaten by Tantive Cruiser for X-Wing, Flames of War Somua 35 tank and other stuff.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
It is no.304 in the UK Amazon chart of tabletop and wargames, being beaten by Tantive Cruiser for X-Wing, Flames of War Somua 35 tank and other stuff.

its number 11 on this

http://www.amazon.com/Best-Sellers-Toys-Games-Miniature-Table/zgbs/toys-and-games/295325011" target="_new" rel="nofollow"> http://www.amazon.com/Best-Sellers-Toys-Games-Miniature-Table/zgbs/toys-and-games/295325011

and it was I believe 4th spot previously

AOS is doing great in my store. The number of new players has doubled and many of the veterans are digging their old armies back out

I was pretty surprised that in the two stores in my area (it sucks, the closest is 25 miles) Age of Sigmar was shown open disdain by the actual owners. One said that "if you liked Warhammer Fantasy before, you'll probably hate this" (I think that was geared more towards the fluff changes, but I'm not really sure), and the other literally told me how he thought even bothering with it past a first experimentation for his store would be a losing proposition for him as he's had a couple of people buy starters, but never show any more interest.

Kind of a bummer, as the latter was a store that I only gave a shot after learning about because it's the only one of the three stores near me ("near" being within 50 miles) that even has tables for playing on at all, and I wondered if AoS, with it's smaller army intro size, would be a good way for me to find players, or god forbid, a casual gaming group (which I have never had before). But the evidence I saw there was lackluster, and showed a lot of the negativity of the open nature of the game that's been bandies about here on the forums (armies of half a dozen giant models, arguing about some of the unit special rules, etc). When you hear even one player arguing about the legitimacy of the "roll of a 13-1st turn win", it's disheartening.

I have painted models for various game systems for nearly two decades, but have never had a group to game with in that time other than a spouse or a buddy or possibly two. Figured I could make a cheap and quick side adventure with an army mainly of Island of Blood skaven, but I'm not really sure if that's the welcome the game gets in my area.

Hopefully if others are having fun, they are also having better luck in their areas.

 AegisGrimm wrote:
I was pretty surprised that in the two stores in my area (it sucks, the closest is 25 miles) Age of Sigmar was shown open disdain by the actual owners. One said that "if you liked Warhammer Fantasy before, you'll probably hate this" (I think that was geared more towards the fluff changes, but I'm not really sure), and the other literally told me how he thought even bothering with it past a first experimentation for his store would be a losing proposition for him as he's had a couple of people buy starters, but never show any more interest.

Kind of a bummer, as the latter was a store that I only gave a shot after learning about because it's the only one of the three stores near me ("near" being within 50 miles) that even has tables for playing on at all, and I wondered if AoS, with it's smaller army intro size, would be a good way for me to find players, or god forbid, a casual gaming group (which I have never had before). But the evidence I saw there was lackluster, and showed a lot of the negativity of the open nature of the game that's been bandies about here on the forums (armies of half a dozen giant models, arguing about some of the unit special rules, etc). When you hear even one player arguing about the legitimacy of the "roll of a 13-1st turn win", it's disheartening.

I have painted models for various game systems for nearly two decades, but have never had a group to game with in that time other than a spouse or a buddy or possibly two. Figured I could make a cheap and quick side adventure with an army mainly of Island of Blood skaven, but I'm not really sure if that's the welcome the game gets in my area.

Hopefully if others are having fun, they are also having better luck in their areas.

I suggest bringing 2 painted armies of AoS and start demoing it at the store on a weekly basis, like every sunday, I doubt the store manager is going to tell you no, no matter how many people don't like the game.

It sounds like your going to have to create the interest in the game and start your own gaming group.

I did the above with Bolt Action and expanded the player base from 1 to 15 within about a month, just sat in the store, placed the models on a table, got a friend/ spouse to show up and play the game, and the interest began to flow in from there as people begin to see painted miniatures in play and the dice rolling.

Games Workshop did a crap job on promoting AoS. The players who like it are going to have to take up the slack.

I however dislike AoS, its pretty much dead in the water here, a single release event and crickets since then.

Same as a few weeks ago, fantasy models are shifting as well as they did before the release, as in not at all. 40k still dominates the stores and the AoS boards remain untouched. I think there's legitimate dust gathering.

AoS is selling well, both in gw stores and through trade accounts. It's not doing amazingly, but apparently it is selling at expected volume. So it hasn't smashed it, but it isn't underperforming either.

I checked in with a local store I like to frequent recently. The box set has sold a bit, but mainly to people who play it at home. The ability to do pick-up games (what I'm interested in) is pretty much absent. The manager cited the lack of army-building (aka points) probably being a significant detractor on interest- it's just hard to drop $50 on a five man squad of knights when there's not a strong framework backing them up.

Seems this is the way GW wants things to go. Games are meant to be between groups of friends at home. Sad since the box set is really nice and the cost is decent (although it's hard to tell if that will stay the case with new releases).

 AegisGrimm wrote:

I have painted models for various game systems for nearly two decades, but have never had a group to game with in that time other than a spouse or a buddy or possibly two. Figured I could make a cheap and quick side adventure with an army mainly of Island of Blood skaven, but I'm not really sure if that's the welcome the game gets in my area.

Hopefully if others are having fun, they are also having better luck in their areas.

To echo Comrade, pick up the boxed set, clean up the minis and go in with a friend for a while and just play games. You may not pull in any of the regular 8th edition crew in, but you do have the chance of pulling in new blood who sees a game in action and gets interested and wants to try it out. This is the tried and true best method to generate interest in a game: Play and have fun with it where others can see you doing so. Worst that happens is you just end up playing those same 1 or 2 friends for a while, but best is that you generate some interest and get other people to play. If the complaints are really loud you may want to confer with the store owner about what you'd like to do and ask if they will help keep the complainers away from the table. After all, you generating interest in the game can only help him make money so I would expect he would be accommodating. It might not work, but if you don't try it you'll likely never see a group show up for the game.

It sells really poorly. In facts, it has also hampered the sales of 40k, since a few players (including me) pretty much gave up on all games made by GW because of AoS

It really sucks, but it's true. I have met with a situation when a LGS worker literally discouraged people from buying stuff with AoS in mind telling them to wait before they spend money as the game is bad now and he also actively voiced his loathing towards it when there were two people playing it, eventually leading to them having bad experience with AoS thanks solely to the negative attitude (one of them told me).

So yeah, it's really sad when the workers/owners diss the game, because it really builds up on the negative opinion it gets and without a real reason. The game can even be enjoyable to someone but he will get negative experience with it or will be outright driven away from even thinking about playing it just because someone decided to ruin his fun.

And that's even worse given the fact that each sold copy is literally profit for them, so they're being really stupid as they cut their own sales down with pointless negativity. That's why I enjoy demoing games for my local gamer community no matter what system it is - I play for fun, so I always have positive attitude and do my best for the other player to enjoy the game, so even if he doesn't decide to start collecting it, he will at least have a positive experience to remember for years to come. And this way he can decide himself if he likes it or not, rather than have someone craft the opinion for him. Of course if he asks me if/why I like something I'll just answer his question, but I refrain from preaching stuff. I may list main features for them to see if they are interested in a demo game, but I rarely state my opinion, to prevent influencing their own.

I wish demoing games for people was a paid job, I'd be great at that, haha!

It's been doing well in my local area from being played 4 times a year to 4 times a month.

I think GW might be paying the consequences of treating their LGS section of the market so poorly over the years. It's hard to diss 40k when it makes up a big chunk of your business, but with a new game...
- Whose predecessor was selling poorly due to an over-bloated ruleset with over-bloated armies
- Which destroyed the old game many LGS owners possibly enjoyed (at some point!)
- And doesn't lend itself at all to pick-up play (through the removal of most balancing mechanisms), perhaps actively discouraging people from attending the LGS in the first place

I think these things, coupled with poor treatment by GW(trade relation issues, movement of more items to direct-only channels, issues with LGS not receiving limited edition items at times, and the sheer silence GW has about anything it sells, making planning out things for the LGS extremely risky), has just resulted in a souring tone coming from the stores.

The LGS I was at, the manager didn't seem particularly excited to admit that AOS wasn't selling all that well, and definitely not drawing people into the store. The store has signs up for the game and they have like ten copies of the box set, so they must be at least trying to sell it. It's just all of the hurdles GW puts up to selling their product is turning their vendors against them.

 Accolade wrote:
I think GW might be paying the consequences of treating their LGS section of the market so poorly over the years. It's hard to diss 40k when it makes up a big chunk of your business, but with a new game...
- Whose predecessor was selling poorly due to an over-bloated ruleset with over-bloated armies
- Which destroyed the old game many LGS owners possibly enjoyed (at some point!)
- And doesn't lend itself at all to pick-up play (through the removal of most balancing mechanisms), perhaps actively discouraging people from attending the LGS in the first place

I think these things, coupled with poor treatment by GW(trade relation issues, movement of more items to direct-only channels, issues with LGS not receiving limited edition items at times, and the sheer silence GW has about anything it sells, making planning out things for the LGS extremely risky), has just resulted in a souring tone coming from the stores.

So why attempt to stock it? It's not as if GW give these things out for free.

Dissuading customers from buying copies of games you've purchased for the sole intent of selling isn't a particularly smart protest.

Edit: Thought you were implying they were doing it on purpose. I can see why some stockists may not be enthusiastic, even if it's fairly unprofessional.

Perhaps because GW requires independent retailers to stock a particular range of GW products in order to be able to order the ones they actually want.

It's pretty obvious that GW want to get as many copies of AoS out there as possible, during the launch phase of the game, while all the marketing effort is at its peak.

But for a retailer with limited spelf space, who is selling as much 40K and Infinity as he likes, the 10 boxes of a new, unproven title might be seen as a burden.

Well, I'm not sure how things are with AOS, but I know with WHFB stockists were required to carry a certain amount of WHFB stock alongside their 40k. So they may be carrying the box sets for this reason. Additionally, the new box set is a pretty good deal, and I think that, coupled with AOS being a whole new version of WHFB, there has been some palpable excitement stores owners are hoping to capitalize on.

However, with the way the game works (i.e. lacking in most balancing mechanics- discouraging pick-up play in stores), and some of the new releases costing a fair bit (that Lord-Castellant is $40!!), I'd guess some LGS owners are deciding the game might not be worth their time.

EDIT: and as KK said!

No one in my club bought AoS... and none have any intention of doing so.

But only half of the club play any GW games anyway, and then mainly 40K or 6th Edition WFB.

Im still stuck on deciding whether to start using 3rd Ed. WFB for my games... Not sure Im ready to give up 2nd Ed just yet... Its only been 31 years.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Perhaps because GW requires independent retailers to stock a particular range of GW products in order to be able to order the ones they actually want.

It's pretty obvious that GW want to get as many copies of AoS out there as possible, during the launch phase of the game, while all the marketing effort is at its peak.

But for a retailer with limited spelf space, who is selling as much 40K and Infinity as he likes, the 10 boxes of a new, unproven title might be seen as a burden.

Which is reason to get rid of them as much as possible.

I didn't know they were required to stock certain things and I can understand being down on the game when it's replaced something you've enjoyed, but being negative about AoS will not make me buy 40k figures. I've seen stores close down purely on the basis that the owners are grumps.

I suggest bringing 2 painted armies of AoS and start demoing it at the store on a weekly basis, like every sunday, I doubt the store manager is going to tell you no, no matter how many people don't like the game.

It sounds like your going to have to create the interest in the game and start your own gaming group.

I did the above with Bolt Action and expanded the player base from 1 to 15 within about a month, just sat in the store, placed the models on a table, got a friend/ spouse to show up and play the game, and the interest began to flow in from there as people begin to see painted miniatures in play and the dice rolling.

The problem? The LGS owner literally scoffed to me about a guy who said he was going to do just that- become the store's Warhammer" ambassador and get a group running. The owner's opinion was, "Yeah, we'll see. All my Warhammer stuff's been sitting on the shelves for months, and no one's buying it, while at least the rich kids will buy 40K." He's more interested in players coming in to make purchases, rather than playing on his tables. Because of my BFE area for gaming, I haven't been to that many stores (even in 18 years with the hobby), but I don't actually have seen a more apathetic outlook by a game store owner. I got the impression of "Shrug, it's the other owner who's more into this than me, so do with it what you will. I'm more interested in the money MtG brings. If a game is not going to make me any money, I won't support it."

As much as I like gaming, with a six-month old and a new job, I'm not going to do that work it would take to go against that mindset, which seems completely back-asswards to me. Games only make money if you support them first, not the other way around.

 AegisGrimm wrote:

I suggest bringing 2 painted armies of AoS and start demoing it at the store on a weekly basis, like every sunday, I doubt the store manager is going to tell you no, no matter how many people don't like the game.

It sounds like your going to have to create the interest in the game and start your own gaming group.

I did the above with Bolt Action and expanded the player base from 1 to 15 within about a month, just sat in the store, placed the models on a table, got a friend/ spouse to show up and play the game, and the interest began to flow in from there as people begin to see painted miniatures in play and the dice rolling.

The problem? The LGS owner literally scoffed to me about a guy who said he was going to do just that- become the store's Warhammer" ambassador and get a group running. The owner's opinion was, "Yeah, we'll see. All my Warhammer stuff's been sitting on the shelves for months, and no one's buying it, while at least the rich kids will buy 40K." He's more interested in players coming in to make purchases, rather than playing on his tables. Because of my BFE area for gaming, I haven't been to that many stores (even in 18 years with the hobby), but I don't actually have seen a more apathetic outlook by a game store owner. I got the impression of "Shrug, it's the other owner who's more into this than me, so do with it what you will. I'm more interested in the money MtG brings. If a game is not going to make me any money, I won't support it."

As much as I like gaming, with a six-month old and a new job, I'm not going to do that work it would take to go against that mindset, which seems completely back-asswards to me. Games only make money if you support them first, not the other way around.

Agree with you to a point, however fact doesn't change that if GW actually took the time and some of the effort they put into 40k then they couldn't have saved Warhammer Fantasy. Also, one mate made a great point in the sense that why you even change the old world? The old world was perfectly fine and they didn't have to create some stupid, magical universe with seven different realms/worlds. Makes it sound really slowed to be frank.




Automatically Appended Next Post:
Plus this guy's article, while it being nerd rage lol, he does make a lot of points.

http://www.nerdhammer.net/2015/07/05/age-of-sigmar-an-honest-review/

There are a couple gamestores near me that I frequent...one doesn't care at all about GW and what little bit of stock they carry now is at the back of the store in display cases that have boxes stacked in front of them. To no ones surprise AoS is dead there. The other store I go to is a far more inviting environment. The owner came out of Warhammer retirement and actively started gaming with his patrons, many of whom found the game to be a lot of fun. There it is doing well. Shocking, I know.

 streetsamurai wrote:
It sells really poorly. In facts, it has also hampered the sales of 40k, since a few players (including me) pretty much gave up on all games made by GW because of AoS

I gave up on 40k because of AoS as well, it wasn't even a conscious boycott, I just lost heart to it. I am buying fantasy units like crazy to finish my armies (which gw will count under AoS sales probably) but that will be it, goodbye and feth off.

I also wonder why would anyone want to do gw's work and promote their game, I mean if the biggest tt company doing a major release like that cant be arsed to do it properly, they don't deserve players help. Even if someone likes AoS , it's not that good in comparision to other games and gw is not some garage company reaching to community for help but an arogant corporation with illusions of grandeur and straight disdain for their own customers.

I also wonder why would anyone want to do gw's work and promote their game, I mean if the biggest tt company doing a major release like that cant be arsed to do it properly, they don't deserve players help. Even if someone likes AoS , it's not that good in comparision to other games and gw is not some garage company reaching to community for help but an arogant corporation with illusions of grandeur and straight disdain for their own customers

why do you think GW is arrogant corporation with illusions of grandeur and disdain for its customers?

 bitethythumb wrote:

I also wonder why would anyone want to do gw's work and promote their game, I mean if the biggest tt company doing a major release like that cant be arsed to do it properly, they don't deserve players help. Even if someone likes AoS , it's not that good in comparision to other games and gw is not some garage company reaching to community for help but an arogant corporation with illusions of grandeur and straight disdain for their own customers

why do you think GW is arrogant corporation with illusions of grandeur and disdain for its customers?

Probably comes from Kirby's pre-rambles. Him and Mark Wells seem to have actual disdain for tabletop gamers (of all types, I assume)

 Accolade wrote:

 bitethythumb wrote:

I also wonder why would anyone want to do gw's work and promote their game, I mean if the biggest tt company doing a major release like that cant be arsed to do it properly, they don't deserve players help. Even if someone likes AoS , it's not that good in comparision to other games and gw is not some garage company reaching to community for help but an arogant corporation with illusions of grandeur and straight disdain for their own customers

why do you think GW is arrogant corporation with illusions of grandeur and disdain for its customers?

Probably comes from Kirby's pre-rambles. Him and Mark Wells seem to have actual disdain for tabletop gamers (of all types, I assume)

meh, I have been away from this hobby for long time so I have not seen or experienced any of their disdain .. I am also not that thrilled being called a "gamer" as I game very little in this hobby... I may be in the minority but I think I am on GWs side when they say they are in the business of making miniatures... I say get rid of the gaming altogether, let GW store be painting hubs and conversion centers, let other companies make games for the miniatures

 Accolade wrote:

 bitethythumb wrote:

I also wonder why would anyone want to do gw's work and promote their game, I mean if the biggest tt company doing a major release like that cant be arsed to do it properly, they don't deserve players help. Even if someone likes AoS , it's not that good in comparision to other games and gw is not some garage company reaching to community for help but an arogant corporation with illusions of grandeur and straight disdain for their own customers

why do you think GW is arrogant corporation with illusions of grandeur and disdain for its customers?

Probably comes from Kirby's pre-rambles. Him and Mark Wells seem to have actual disdain for tabletop gamers (of all types, I assume)

Not to mention AoS being a giant "feth off" gesture to tourney players who were big part of the player base and that gw themselves have created.