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 Kilkrazy wrote:
The Space Marine codex sales figures revealed in the Chapter House case were for North America only. The NA market at that time comprised about 30% of the total world market.

I thought the person who collected the data said that it was global. But maybe it was just NA.

But whatever, at the end of the day I still don't think the 40k IP is worth a hell of a lot outside of wargaming and within wargaming it's dependent on how well GW manage it before someone wants to buy it.

We actually had a thread a couple of years ago and Sean_OBrien gave his insight which I think, as a rough estimate, isn't too bad in terms of active GW customers....

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/520064.page

Sean_OBrien wrote:Back in 2008, a former employee of mine worked for a company who did a contract for GW regarding their website...

At that time, he had said the target was around 400,000-500,000 active customers in total. I was lead to believe that that number was based off from the sales figures of their core rulebook for both games and starter sets (with cross over between the two). That meshes well with information I had gotten from retailers regarding average spending per GW customer per year and their top line sales figures in their annual reports. The figure was needed for determining load balancing and server requirements for the new GW website (yes - that monstrosity).

Take it for what it is - third hand information from an anonymous source that is several years old.

Sean_OBrien wrote:I would say that 800,000 is a very, very generous estimate of GW players...not just 40K players.

Trying desperately to stay on topic...

That document in the CHS thread has the sales figures for the 40K rulebook (4th Edition - $1.5 million covering the whole lifespan...5th Edition - $1.6 million covering the whole lifespan) and Battle for Skull Pass starter set ($1.3 million covering the whole lifespan) and the 7th Edition Warhammer Rulebook ($648K covering the whole lifespan...pretty sure it is 7th...though I don't follow WFB enough to know for sure). You can work some math...poke some numbers...do some estimates and come up with a pretty tight range that will tell you what is what.

First the estimate - is it retail values or is it GW revenue? It should be retail value based on other cases I have had to provide similar information in. So, if we take the $1.5 million in 4th Edition books sold and divide that by the $50 cover price we get a number...30,000 copies. I think 5th started at $50 as well...though it bumped up somewhere along the way IIRC...still that gives us another number 32,000 copies. The other end of the spectrum would be if all of those were at wholesale (which we know they are not) lets simply double the number. 60,000 and 64,000 respectively. Lets go ahead and double it again for the small rulebook from the starter sets (although there is no 40K starter listed that I recall - there is the WFB starter which sold twice as much as the rulebook...and cost about twice as much too - soooo...happy, simplification and assumptions). Realistically though, since the split for sales is about half through independents and half through GW - you get about 45,000 copies sold.

Worsed case reasonable guess of the 40K community at large would be 60,000 or so. Best case would be 120,000 or so. Realistic best case would be about 90,000. WFB is about half that. In the US of course - could extrapolate further using financial report numbers and the segment break down information to determine how large it is globally...just a quick speedball puts the North American market at 25% of GW total sales...to times by 4.

So, we have a range of 240,000 to 360,000 40K players and maybe another 200,000 to 300,000 WFB players (WFB being more popular outside the US...I would tend to fudge the numbers upwards even though it only put up numbers less than half what 40K did in the US). Total GW customers - 440,000 to 660,000.

Also, keep in mind...this is off memory pretty sure those numbers are close. Will double check tonight when I get home to a regular computer as opposed to using the silly tablet thing.

The Sean O'Brien educated guesstimate is more like what I would expect if GW were able to define a customer and enumerate them. Basically around about 500,000 people.

That means a spend of about £240 per head per year. This sounds reasonable to me, as it covers the case of someone buying a couple of boxes (£70 value) balanced by a big spender buying most of an army (£400.)

Despite this large number of customers, and ex-customers, (if correct) I don't believe the IP has much value outside wargaming. It doesn't look and feel like a good SF or Fantasy universe for fiction. The vast bulk of GW's revenue has always come from tabletop sales, for what that is worth as an indicator.

 jeffersonian000 wrote:

Makumba wrote:

Yeah, it failed but with Maelstrom especially you can see how a more balanced list with a blend of offense, defense and mobility was supposed to work better than all-all-out war lists.

And it doesn't work at all if GW "forgets" to give your army those 3. It works well for marines and eldars with their cheap transports and bikers, and deathstars suddenly turning in to 5 or more units in last turn of game.

Please name the armies that don't have all three.

SJ

IG does poorly on Mobility, and has far lower Defence than necessary. Not to mention that a few armies have much higher Defence than the IG's Offensive output...

CSM has naff all for all three.

 Selym wrote:

 jeffersonian000 wrote:

Makumba wrote:

Yeah, it failed but with Maelstrom especially you can see how a more balanced list with a blend of offense, defense and mobility was supposed to work better than all-all-out war lists.

And it doesn't work at all if GW "forgets" to give your army those 3. It works well for marines and eldars with their cheap transports and bikers, and deathstars suddenly turning in to 5 or more units in last turn of game.

Please name the armies that don't have all three.

SJ

IG does poorly on Mobility, and has far lower Defence than necessary. Not to mention that a few armies have much higher Defence than the IG's Offensive output...

CSM has naff all for all three.

I'll also nominate DE - they have mobility down, but their defence is virtually non-existent, and as for their offence... let's just say they're a glass cannon minus the cannon.

 insaniak wrote:

 GangstaMuffin24 wrote:

 timetowaste85 wrote:
I've noticed that most people who enjoy 7th in my area are children. Couple adults, but mostly children. Makes sense.

So now we're passive-aggressively insulting people for having an opinion?

I think it's time to lock this thread down.

There was nothing insulting about his post. It was an observation about who is playing the game in his area.

My bad, I missed the "in my area" bit in my sleep deprived state.

 vipoid wrote:
I'll also nominate DE - they have mobility down, but their defence is virtually non-existent, and as for their offence... let's just say they're a glass cannon minus the cannon.

This is a major flaw in your argument - glass can still be potent. Just break it into little pieces and then you supplement your Craftworlds army with it!
weeps in corner

 MWHistorian wrote:

 jeffersonian000 wrote:

Makumba wrote:

Yeah, it failed but with Maelstrom especially you can see how a more balanced list with a blend of offense, defense and mobility was supposed to work better than all-all-out war lists.

And it doesn't work at all if GW "forgets" to give your army those 3. It works well for marines and eldars with their cheap transports and bikers, and deathstars suddenly turning in to 5 or more units in last turn of game.

Please name the armies that don't have all three.

SJ

CSM seem to be missing all three.

Obliterators cover all three conditions, as you can Deep Strike a pair on to an objective. And that's just one unit.

IG have Veterans in Valks.

DE have fast skimmers.

SJ

That definition of 'mobility' does seem on the optimistic side.

 vipoid wrote:
That definition of 'mobility' does seem on the optimistic side.

Same mobility GKs have.

SJ

GW wishes I spent 600 pounds a year to lose miserably with red marines. Most of my tanks are from last century.

Martel732 wrote:
GW wishes I spent 600 pounds a year to lose miserably with red marines. Most of my tanks are from last century.

Technically, your tanks are from 30k, only not as good. : P

SJ

 jeffersonian000 wrote:

 vipoid wrote:
That definition of 'mobility' does seem on the optimistic side.

Same mobility GKs have.

SJ

Well, not if you compare them to Dreadknights and such.

 jeffersonian000 wrote:

 MWHistorian wrote:

 jeffersonian000 wrote:

Makumba wrote:

Yeah, it failed but with Maelstrom especially you can see how a more balanced list with a blend of offense, defense and mobility was supposed to work better than all-all-out war lists.

And it doesn't work at all if GW "forgets" to give your army those 3. It works well for marines and eldars with their cheap transports and bikers, and deathstars suddenly turning in to 5 or more units in last turn of game.

Please name the armies that don't have all three.

SJ

CSM seem to be missing all three.

Obliterators cover all three conditions, as you can Deep Strike a pair on to an objective. And that's just one unit.

Our deepstriking isn't very accurate and isn't guaranteed to happen on Turn 1. So the earliest you'll see the oblits is turn 2, maybe. It also takes more than 2 oblits to blow up a tank or kill an MC, which is what you really want them for. Attempting to coordinate enough firepower to accomplish something with deepstriking for CSM is a struggle.
Not only that, but oblits are only useful at anti-tank every other turn since they can't use the same weapons. They are about as tough as terminators, unless you take MoT or MoN. The problem with those marks is the unit becomes even more expensive and the enemy will likely use the whatever weapon is most effective (So plasma guns against MoN, or bullet spam against MoT).
You are better off using Bikers (with MoN) than oblits to capture objectives.

So really, oblits are not mobile, have some offense, and some defense. Compare them to units that do well in many categories (bikers, wraiths, wolves) and you'll see they come up short. Very short.

 jeffersonian000 wrote:

IG have Veterans in Valks.

DE have fast skimmers.

SJ

The DE face similar problems. The firepower a fast skimmer can put out is relatively small for how fragile they are. They are good against certain targets but fail against a larger majority of unit types.
It's very easy to lose all your skimmers by turn 2, and be regulated to a relatively slow force. Compare this to a WS, which is most likely to last until T4 quite easily, and you can see why DE fall behind.

Just pointing out the box your thinking is stuck in. The counter arguments are more justifications for narrow thinking than actual problems within a codex.

Two Oblits are extremely accurate when Deep Striking, as they have a tiny positional foot print, and carry enough firepower as well as a 2+ save to bully enemy units. Remember, my point was on taking objectives.

DE are already fast MSU by default. Failure to understand that and utilize them to their fullest is on the DE player, not their opponent. They have mobility and offensive punch, while defense occurs via multiple small units seeking cover. Objective grabbing is their thing if you avoid open ground clustering.

IG players are still stuck in Leafblower mode, when the game has moved past static gunlines. A 50man blob behind a Chimera wall won't die to a single turn of shooting, will weathe an assault, and can knock an opponent off an objective. Yet, they are unwieldy. Veterans gravshutting out of Valks are an excellent bully unit, with enough low AP firepower to clear an objective. Add in all their artillery gor softening targets before pushing, and IG has no issues winning objective missions. If they bother to try.

SJ

Yes...nobody has bothered to try new tactics in the 3 years since 5E tactics stopped working (which only worked for 3 years to begin with). Nobody at all...

 Vaktathi wrote:
Yes...nobody has bothered to try new tactics in the 3 years since 5E tactics stopped working (which only worked for 3 years to begin with). Nobody at all...

If by nobody you mean the above posters, based on their posts its a yes.

SJ

What? No one runs Black Templars with 6x Lightning Claw Terminators in a LR Crusader lead by a Terminator Chaplain?

RAR!!!!

the Signless wrote:

 themonk wrote:

 War Kitten wrote:

 MWHistorian wrote:

 themonk wrote:
7th edition has been great for my very small, long-standing group that plays narratively, attempts to achieve a balanced, combined-arms approach to our armies and gaming, and enjoys the hobby and Black Library books. We usually don't play in stores. I think we play the game as an excuse to drink beer, cut-up, and relax.

Unfortunately I think that's the only way it can be enjoyed.

Sad, but true. 7th is very much the edition for us beer and pretzel types. Not so much for those who want a semi-decent rule set.

Here, here. The thing that has become a pain is game setup and teardown. It's a function of getting older I think.

An interesting experiment would be to try having the game group meeting just to drink beer, cut-up, and relax without playing any wargames. See how their enjoyment differs.

Have done it many times. I've known these guys for over twenty years. Sometimes we do everything but pick up dice. I will say, however, when we're hanging out just shooting the breeze, there's always an itch to play some kind of game even it's just a card or simple board game. It's hard to get gaming out of your system when you hang out with gamers.

 jeffersonian000 wrote:
Just pointing out the box your thinking is stuck in. The counter arguments are more justifications for narrow thinking than actual problems within a codex.

We could say something similar about the opposing view point. So far it's been a lot of "you guys are doing it wrong, git good" without any useful examples of what is decent in either codex.
So far, this hasn't changed.

 jeffersonian000 wrote:

Two Oblits are extremely accurate when Deep Striking, as they have a tiny positional foot print, and carry enough firepower as well as a 2+ save to bully enemy units. Remember, my point was on taking objectives.

I specifically addressed taking objectives. 2 oblits are not that hard to take out, and CSM deep striking is some of the worse deep striking in the game. Units that tend to deepstrike quite often usually can do so from turn 1, are extremely accurate, or have an absurd amount of firepower. Oblits, or really any unit that can deep strike in CSM outside of combi-weapon termies, don't really fit any of the above criteria.
How do oblits have accurate deep striking when compared to a pod?

To re-iterate;
Oblits are not defensively tough. 2 guys with 2+ saves is not going to bully anyone but the weakest armies.
Oblits do not have enough firepower. What exactly is 2 oblits accomplishing?
Oblits do not have accurate deep striking. No CSM unit does.


You are much better off taking bikes with MoN for objective grabbing. They can compete turn after turn, are tough, are fast, and are decent in CC. With a lord in there with the flamer, they can put out some good damage. Slaanesh with the FnP ability is also not bad, but its hard to say no to T6 bikers.

 jeffersonian000 wrote:

DE are already fast MSU by default. Failure to understand that and utilize them to their fullest is on the DE player, not their opponent. They have mobility and offensive punch, while defense occurs via multiple small units seeking cover. Objective grabbing is their thing if you avoid open ground clustering.

The problem is they currently don't have offensive punch. Most of the DE units just don't do enough damage for how fragile they are, with few exceptions. Cover is also becoming a worse and worse defense, as many units don't care if you get a save (scat bikes) or ignore cover (Tau). Granted, if you are facing a low tier dex like orks, you seem to have an offensive punch and relying on cover is fine. But against the top tier armies, DE don't do enough damage and fall over. De against necrons, eldar, tau, or SM is just painful for the DE player, especially with their awful anti-tank.
Even with MSU, you are still taking transports and those points do add up. Grabbing objectives may work for the first 2 turns, but by T3 (T2 against eldar/Tau), you can expect to have lost all your transports against a decent opponent.

 jeffersonian000 wrote:

IG players are still stuck in Leafblower mode, when the game has moved past static gunlines. A 50man blob behind a Chimera wall won't die to a single turn of shooting, will weathe an assault, and can knock an opponent off an objective. Yet, they are unwieldy. Veterans gravshutting out of Valks are an excellent bully unit, with enough low AP firepower to clear an objective. Add in all their artillery gor softening targets before pushing, and IG has no issues winning objective missions. If they bother to try.

SJ

IG are incredibly slow. The valks aren't bad, but a 50 man blob will die against Tau, necrons, or eldar without accomplishing too much. Killing 50 GEQs is possible in 1 turn for many competitive armies, and easily done in 2 turns by most. The 50 man blob with a wall of chimeras also eat up a fair chunk of points, for a unit that won't accomplish anything in melee until turn 3. Many melee units will knock that unit down without trying to hard (striking scorpions, wraiths, possbily MoN bikers, thunder wolf calvary) due to their WS 3 and S/T of 3.

Forget about scat bikes just unloading into the GEQ. Heck, even another IG player managed to wipe them out in a few turns using a fraction of the points. I'd hate to see what equivalent points in fire warriors with markerlight support would do.

 jeffersonian000 wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
Yes...nobody has bothered to try new tactics in the 3 years since 5E tactics stopped working (which only worked for 3 years to begin with). Nobody at all...

If by nobody you mean the above posters, based on their posts its a yes.

SJ

Tactics are only useful if they grant a meaningful mathematical advantage.

" Most of the DE units just don't do enough damage for how fragile they are

Same for BA. Same for Orks. Same for all the bad codices. Tactics can't fix this.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
The Sean O'Brien educated guesstimate is more like what I would expect if GW were able to define a customer and enumerate them. Basically around about 500,000 people.

Of course that's 500,000 active customers buying from GW. Even if we assume that number includes sales through independent stores (which wouldn't count for website load) it doesn't include people buying used models. So the guy who starts 40k by buying some models on ebay doesn't count at all in that 500k, even though they're a potential customer. Nor does a person who bought some stuff a few years ago, plays occasionally, and sometimes thinks about maybe buying another army in the future if they see something they like. So I would guess that the total pool of people that are involved in the hobby at some level is significantly larger than 500k.

 jeffersonian000 wrote:

 MWHistorian wrote:

 jeffersonian000 wrote:

Makumba wrote:

Yeah, it failed but with Maelstrom especially you can see how a more balanced list with a blend of offense, defense and mobility was supposed to work better than all-all-out war lists.

And it doesn't work at all if GW "forgets" to give your army those 3. It works well for marines and eldars with their cheap transports and bikers, and deathstars suddenly turning in to 5 or more units in last turn of game.

Please name the armies that don't have all three.

SJ

CSM seem to be missing all three.

Obliterators cover all three conditions, as you can Deep Strike a pair on to an objective. And that's just one unit.

IG have Veterans in Valks.

DE have fast skimmers.

SJ

You have chosen three poor units. Well done.

 jeffersonian000 wrote:

DE are already fast MSU by default. Failure to understand that and utilize them to their fullest is on the DE player, not their opponent.

Yes, they are MSU by default, but you don't seem to appreciate why. It's because they're so fragile (i.e. the opposite of durable) that it's not *worth* adding extra models or upgrades or even sergeants.

Well, alright, that and Venoms have a transport capacity of 5.

 jeffersonian000 wrote:
They have mobility and offensive punch, while defense occurs via multiple small units seeking cover.

Except that they don't have offensive punch - that's the whole problem.

Also, MSU does not equal durability. It just means you have a lot of fragile units.

DE can saturate Lance weapons, that's a pretty good offensive punch. They can have Haywire. They can do poison.

SJ

 jeffersonian000 wrote:
DE can saturate Lance weapons, that's a pretty good offensive punch. They can have Haywire. They can do poison.

SJ

It's not enough in 7th. Just like what the BA have is not enough. All lascannon/lance type weapons have become a joke due to poor ROF.

 jeffersonian000 wrote:
DE can saturate Lance weapons, that's a pretty good offensive punch. They can have Haywire. They can do poison.

SJ

Lance spam is expensive and ineffective. The problem in the current edition is that dedicated anti-tank weapons have difficulty destroying tanks unless they are spammed, and DE have a hard time spamming lances considering how expensive their platforms are.
Hay wire is their best bet, and in their last codex you saw wyches taken exclusively for this use. Sadly this is no longer an option, and the current haywire platforms.

Take a look at Eldar. They do not uses lances (you don't even see them get mentioned) since dragons, guard, or hawks are much better at killing heavy tanks. Light tanks are better off being taken out by Str 6 spam.
De don't have these options.

Poison is very good against MC spam but falls short against GEQ and even MEQ. It's a very match up dependent ability, and it's why DE can't go up against Tau or Eldar and win.

Also, poison doesn't work against the almighty GMCs.

Martel, doesn't it wound on a 6? Honest question, we don't play with LoW

Akiasura wrote:
Martel, doesn't it wound on a 6? Honest question, we don't play with LoW

Yes, but that's basically defeating the purpose of poison, hence it doesn't work. You will never kill anything at that rate.

 jeffersonian000 wrote:
DE can saturate Lance weapons, that's a pretty good offensive punch.

No it isn't. Lance weapons are overpriced and ineffective. There's a damn good reason you never saw bright lances in Eldar lists, even before they got access to D-weapons and such.

They weren't even great in 5th, and that was before they got completely screwed over by the new vehicle damage rules. As well as other races getting vastly superior firepower.

 jeffersonian000 wrote:
They can have Haywire.

Single-shot haywire guns are certain not what I'd call 'good offence'. They're mediocre at best, and that's even before you take into account that only 2 units in the entire army can take them.

 jeffersonian000 wrote:
They can do poison.

Poison is not good offence. Not even close.

It was decent in 5th, but that was a long time ago. Before other armies got massive buffs, before many units got upgraded to GCs with nigh-immunity to poison, before other armies got Grav and such that *vastly* out-perform poison etc. Moreover, this is an edition where armies can consist of nothing but vehicles - which really doesn't bode well for a weapon that can only hurt infantry.

Sorry but you really are vastly overestimating the offensive ability of Dark Eldar.