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@warboss - Here's the FW top 10 -

http://www.forgeworld.co.uk/en-CA/Top-10

Top spot goes to the GBP1240 Warlord, #2 goes to Ta'unar, at GBP 250. Quad rapiers are #7, and it would just stun me if FW sold more units of $2000 warlords than $50 quad rapiers, since so many space marine players use those as models for Thunderfire Cannon (it's actually cheaper)

But of course, the Christmas GW list could be measured by a different metric than FW's top 10.

@Tsilber - I think Razorbacks. Personally, I would never buy a Rhino kit now. I'd just buy the razorback and not use the extra sprue (or not glue on the top, so it can be both). Rhno is $37.25 is $41.25, and the option is definitely worth $4 IMO.

Thanks for the link. It doesn't look like FW qualifies it any further than "top 10" so it could easily be revenue for them (unlike what the word "popularity" implies).

For how huge and awesome and long-awaited the Warlord Titan is, it very well could have moved more units than the other items.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
For how huge and awesome and long-awaited the Warlord Titan is, it very well could have moved more units than the other items.

Well, Ta'unar too. And all the primarchs.

I can only go by what I've seen, and I have never, ever seen a real Warlord, or known anyone who has bought one. I don't even know anyone who has ever seen one, excluding people who have gone to GWHQ. Man, would I would love to see one though! It's not just a matter of price, either -- I know a guy who has bought ungodly amounts of FW stuff, but he wouldn't buy a Warlord because it's just too big a project for him, and he wouldn't have anywhere to put it.

The number of Sicarans, primarchs, rapiers, though... I see them all the time; they're very common, in my experience.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
For how huge and awesome and long-awaited the Warlord Titan is, it very well could have moved more units than the other items.

No way, if people bought THAT many, they wouldn't have time to cast anything else!

 Talys wrote:
@warboss - Here's the FW top 10 -

http://www.forgeworld.co.uk/en-CA/Top-10

Top spot goes to the GBP1240 Warlord, #2 goes to Ta'unar, at GBP 250. Quad rapiers are #7, and it would just stun me if FW sold more units of $2000 warlords than $50 quad rapiers, since so many space marine players use those as models for Thunderfire Cannon (it's actually cheaper)

But of course, the Christmas GW list could be measured by a different metric than FW's top 10.

@Tsilber - I think Razorbacks. Personally, I would never buy a Rhino kit now. I'd just buy the razorback and not use the extra sprue (or not glue on the top, so it can be both). Rhno is $37.25 is $41.25, and the option is definitely worth $4 IMO.

Oh I agree on the value in a razorback appose to rhino, but with after market twin linked assault cannon some people might opt for rhinos., I picked up 8 rhinos and then bought twin linked assault cannons for $9 each.

Lets just change my post to razorbacks and/or rhinos, lol.

Sure, it could be dollar value, but...

Mymearan wrote:You missed a big category - people who replaced their old metal/finecast zoans..

I meant to include those people under hyper-enthusiasts but I realise now that I worded it incorrectly, my apologies.

Sinful Hero wrote:Venomthropes had really good rules backing them- stick one in a Bastion and nearly your entire army had a cover save.

Yes but those rules existed for, umm, I think a year or so before the new plastics came out. So most people who wanted to exploit that rule had already purchased the old Venoms some time in the past year.

Most 'nid players would have already owned 1 to 3 or more Venoms because of their cover saves before that box ever came out, and the people who couldn't afford the metal and resin versions wouldn't have been won over by the very high price of the new Venom/Zoan kit.

There's definitely reasons why people would buy them, but enough to make it 16th overall compared to the hundreds of other kits GW makes? I very much doubt it.


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Talys wrote:@warboss - Here's the FW top 10 -

http://www.forgeworld.co.uk/en-CA/Top-10

Top spot goes to the GBP1240 Warlord, #2 goes to Ta'unar, at GBP 250. Quad rapiers are #7, and it would just stun me if FW sold more units of $2000 warlords than $50 quad rapiers, since so many space marine players use those as models for Thunderfire Cannon (it's actually cheaper)

But of course, the Christmas GW list could be measured by a different metric than FW's top 10.

@Tsilber - I think Razorbacks. Personally, I would never buy a Rhino kit now. I'd just buy the razorback and not use the extra sprue (or not glue on the top, so it can be both). Rhno is $37.25 is $41.25, and the option is definitely worth $4 IMO.

warboss wrote:Thanks for the link. It doesn't look like FW qualifies it any further than "top 10" so it could easily be revenue for them (unlike what the word "popularity" implies).

That's a top 10 Christmas list, not a top 10 sales list. It's just telling you that GW/FW think the best Christmas gift in their line up is the 1240GBP Warlord Titan, it doesn't mean the 1240GBP Titan sold the most units and/or had the most revenue.

I think you people have made some leaps by assuming GW and/or FW are telling you anything to do with their sales numbers Top 10 Christmas list ≠ best sales and "most popular" ≠ best sales except in 1 specific context.

I don't see a reason to doubt that it's a best-seller list, most probably by revenue.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

That's a top 10 Christmas list, not a top 10 sales list. It's just telling you that GW/FW think the best Christmas gift in their line up is the 1240GBP Warlord Titan, it doesn't mean the 1240GBP Titan sold the most units and/or had the most revenue.

I think you people have made some leaps by assuming GW and/or FW are telling you anything to do with their sales numbers Top 10 Christmas list ≠ best sales and "most popular" ≠ best sales except in 1 specific context.

The button says top 10 Christmas list, but the URL is the same one they used before, when it was just the top 10 bestsellers list on the old FW site; and, when you go to the page, it just says top 10 (not favorite Christmas items, or whatever). And, if you recall the old FW site, it was always big models in those top spots too.

I do agree that we have no idea what "most popular" means But I think we can assume on this list that it has something to do with people buying the models, and I'm pretty sure it's based on a formula, rather than GWHQ saying, "hey, Nagash was popular!" But yeah, sure, for all we know, this could be just people adding them to their Christmas wishlist on the website. I don't think so, but it's possible!

 Mymearan wrote:
I don't see a reason to doubt that it's a best-seller list, most probably by revenue.

It also contradicts their best seller list on their website.

The website has 12 40k "best seller" entries, but only 2 of them are on the "most popular" so far, so they can't physically squeeze the "best sellers" off the website in to their "most popular" list.

You could write that off as the fact this list includes AoS and the website doesn't.... but also, the Harlequin Troupe is #13 on the "most popular" list and features on the "best seller" list, yet things that are above it on the "most popular" list (Battleforce, Admech Dragoon and Admech Dunecrawler) are both missing from the website's "best seller" list.

So the lists don't agree with each other, I think that's enough reason to doubt either 1 or both of them.

IMHO GW are just using this as a chance to promote the kits they want to promote rather than actually listing any sort of information on what is selling best.


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 Talys wrote:
The button says top 10 Christmas list, but the URL is the same one they used before, when it was just the top 10 bestsellers list...

Ah ok, I don't remember that, but I'll believe you

If it's based off revenue it makes sense that the Warlord would be top I guess.

@Skink - I don't think the "Bestsellers" on the GW website is really meaningful. It's kind of like the "Bestsellers" list that GW gives to retailers, and you scratch your head, going, huh? Best that we can guess over here, the way that list is generated, GW takes a bunch of products that sell well for each faction and spread out the love.

So, the Tyranid Swarm box may be a bestselling Tyranid product; the Cadian Defense Force may be a bestselling Guard product, and Stormfang may be a bestselling Space Wolves model.

But there's no way that GW made as much money off of SW Venerable Dreadnought, or sold as many of them, as Eldar Jetbikes or Wraithknights I think my store has sold like, 1 box of Tyranid Swarm since it's been out, lol.

Regarding the top 10 list for FW... it looks like this: http://www.forgeworld.co.uk/en-CA/Top-10 and my browser autocompletes it for me. I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure the URL has been on my PC way longer than the Christmas season, or even the new website.

 Talys wrote:
@Skink - I don't think the "Bestsellers" on the GW website is really meaningful...

I will be honest, I don't think any of them are meaningful

I'm always wary of best seller lists, especially if they don't come with any numbers attached to them or even how they were calculated. I'm even more wary of anything GW says. You might say what motivation do they have to lie, my response would be what motivation do they have to actually release data on what sells and what doesn't?

I think the GW website bestseller list is BS and I think the list we've been given here is "most popular" where "most popular" does not mean "best seller".

I'd imagine the website best sellers list is probably just a refelction of what the site has sold that day/week/month or whatever (on some sort of rolling basis)

As to most popular who knows (could even be based on what people have put on their Xmas wishlists?)

Yeah I think we can safely disregard the best seller list on the website, but there's no reason to doubt the countdown list. It could be something other than revenue, but that seems the most likely candidate. As for the promotion theory, it really makes no sense. Why would they do an elaborate countdown list, lie about what it represents, and put such a weird mixture of kits on it (CSM for example)? It seems incredibly far-fetched! What does seem plausible, looking at the kits on the list, is that they are some of the best sellers, in some form or other, this year. It has all the obvious ones so far and some that make you go "ah, of course, didn't think about that".

 Mymearan wrote:
Yeah I think we can safely disregard the best seller list on the website, but there's no reason to doubt the countdown list.

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I don't even...

 Mymearan wrote:
Yeah I think we can safely disregard the best seller list on the website, but there's no reason to doubt the countdown list. It could be something other than revenue, but that seems the most likely candidate. As for the promotion theory, it really makes no sense. Why would they do an elaborate countdown list, lie about what it represents, and put such a weird mixture of kits on it (CSM for example)? It seems incredibly far-fetched! What does seem plausible, looking at the kits on the list, is that they are some of the best sellers, in some form or other, this year. It has all the obvious ones so far and some that make you go "ah, of course, didn't think about that".

Didn't WD have a 'hall of fame' type column for a while?

It would seem something like that is the place to hype kits they want to sell.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
I'd be surprised if the Zoan/Venomthrope kit was actually 16th in overall sales, it's not a bad kit, but most nid players already would have owned several of them and the rules didn't change when they came out so there was no motivation to buy more.

That and the fact that even though it wasn't a bad kit, it didn't save all that much money compared to the old metal and resin versions. So I wouldn't have expected a bunch of people who previously couldn't afford the metals to run out and buy the new plastics when the new plastics weren't much cheaper.

That mostly leaves it down to new players and old players who for some reason didn't already have a bunch of Zoans and Venoms or are so hyper enthusiast that they'd want to buy even more of them.

But yeah, at this stage I'm not convinced the list we are getting is actually a "highest sales" list.

The last metal Zoanthropes and Venomthropes, the ones that were then converted to Finecast, were £10 each on release, so actually the new plastic ones are 50% more expensive.

In my area, I did see an uptick of nids after Deathstorm.

 OrlandotheTechnicoloured wrote:
I'd imagine the website best sellers list is probably just a refelction of what the site has sold that day/week/month or whatever (on some sort of rolling basis)

As to most popular who knows (could even be based on what people have put on their Xmas wishlists?)

I believe the best sellers list only just appeared recently on the website.

Goodness knows what criteria they are using.... I think the criteria for both lists probably isn't "best selling" and rather "a list of stuff Fred from IT decided to put up there".

 Thud wrote:


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I don't even...

Post-sniping is very annoying, please respond to all the relevant parts of the post, with an actual argument, or don't.


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 Kid_Kyoto wrote:


Didn't WD have a 'hall of fame' type column for a while?

It would seem something like that is the place to hype kits they want to sell.

Haven't seen it, but it seems a prime opportunity for some random hype, yep! Which types of kits did they have? New ones, old ones?

 Mymearan wrote:

 Thud wrote:


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I don't even...

Post-sniping is very annoying, please respond to all the relevant parts of the post, with an actual argument, or don't.


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 Kid_Kyoto wrote:


Didn't WD have a 'hall of fame' type column for a while?

It would seem something like that is the place to hype kits they want to sell.

Haven't seen it, but it seems a prime opportunity for some random hype, yep! Which types of kits did they have? New ones, old ones?

People on the design team would pick their favourite mini from the past and tell us what they liked about it and then the original designer of the mini would say what inspired him/her to sculpt it. It featured mini from all parts of the citadel range so it wasn't just hyping recent designs, the one I'm looking at now is Marius Leitdorf from The Empire.

Oh, that feature. Yeah I loved that, one of the better features of recent WD. They always chose some great minis to highlight and it was one of the very few places where sculptors got to talk about their work.


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Here we go, next up is CADIAN DEFENSE FORCE. Great box with savings.


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Checked back a few spots, it is "top-selling" after all. My guess is still by revenue.

Holy crap. Really? I would have never guessed Cadian Defence Force was really a top selling box. I guess that means that tlthe Nid box must make it too. Wowsers!

 Talys wrote:
Holy crap. Really? I would have never guessed Cadian Defence Force was really a top selling box. I guess that means that tlthe Nid box must make it too. Wowsers!

So what does that say about modellers/painters v gamers? as by all accounts the Astra Militarum and Tyranid books are atrociously poor and aren't the Admech and Harlequin books below par come to that. This is an interesting list and a nice insight into customers buying habits even though we can only speculate what side of the hobby fence they are.

The Tyranid box is pretty good. However I bought mine and most of my new Tyranid stuff last year.

Seriqolm wrote:

 Talys wrote:
Holy crap. Really? I would have never guessed Cadian Defence Force was really a top selling box. I guess that means that tlthe Nid box must make it too. Wowsers!

So what does that say about modellers/painters v gamers? as by all accounts the Astra Militarum and Tyranid books are atrociously poor and aren't the Admech and Harlequin books below par come to that. This is an interesting list and a nice insight into customers buying habits even though we can only speculate what side of the hobby fence they are.

The IG book blows chunks, though it's a little better with the recent formations. You get in the box set: 1 chimera, 1 russ, 1 heavy weapon squad, 1 command squad and 20 grunts (Cadians).

Modellers vs Gamers? This is not a set for the "release window modeler" -- it's all old stuff. I guess that's why I'm so surprised. I guess it could be for the army-building modeler, who just wants MOAR GUARD. In gaming terms, if you want to play Guard, it's a good set, because everything's useful, and you can get it with a 25%-ish discount from an independent. But like, that's a big if.

Tyranids? God only knows. I have a buddy who loves them but cries every time he cracks opens the codex.

On the bright side, you could always play Guard vs Nids!! Throw in some Blood Angels and Dark Eldar, and you have a party going on.

Seriqolm wrote:

 Talys wrote:
Holy crap. Really? I would have never guessed Cadian Defence Force was really a top selling box. I guess that means that tlthe Nid box must make it too. Wowsers!

So what does that say about modellers/painters v gamers? as by all accounts the Astra Militarum and Tyranid books are atrociously poor and aren't the Admech and Harlequin books below par come to that. This is an interesting list and a nice insight into customers buying habits even though we can only speculate what side of the hobby fence they are.

Tyranid isn't the worst codex- it's just there aren't too many different "competitive" units. I'd say it doesn't really tell you much as modelers vs gamers are concerned. Most folks will try to force their army into a competitive environment as best they can. The folks who buy/sell/buy/sell different armies to keep a competitive edge are the minority in my experience.

There's a hint of more tanks! It says, "Remember what we said about tanks? We love tanks. It makes up [sic] ever so happy that you love tanks too. Hopefully, there will be more tanks in the rest of our countdown..."

So, like, if the Bestsellers list is actually representative of best selling products, the items not yet listed are:

40k: Tactical, Knight Warden, BA Tactical, Tyranid Swarm, Bloodthirster, Admech Rangers, Calth, Stormfang, SW Venerable Dreadnought.

Sigmar: AoS Starter, Archaon, Varanguard, Carnosaur, Celestant-Prime, Blood Warriors, Treelord, Prosecutors, Retributors, Dryads

But there are only 7 spots left.

I would guess the ones that don't make the cut in 40k will be Stormfang, and Ven Dred for sure. On the AoS side, Archaon and Varanguard are too new, for sure (they probably make the online list because they are marked best selling based on some type of weighing system that favors the short term, or at least release window; otherwise, new models would have a really hard time being a bestseller versus models that are highly relevant and have sold for a long time). I can't imagine the Carnosaur was one of GW's 7 best selling models across the whole year, but I could imagine it selling well during the Seraphon focus

Who knows what will make the final cut, but my guess is...

Imperial Knight, Betrayal at Calth, and Age of Sigmar Starter for sure. AdMech Rangers and Bloodthirster, almost for sure, SM Tacticals have a pretty good shot. BA Tacticals, maybe. Treeman, a long shot.

But what tanks do they speak of? I'm surprised no Kataphron. And I'm really surprised no Eldar -- Windriders sold out, after all. And I guess no Dark Vengeance.

What's your guess for the remaining spots?

 Talys wrote:
I would guess the ones that don't make the cut in 40k will be Stormfang, and Ven Dred for sure.

It wouldn't surprise me if those are up there, I don't know what it's like these days but 5 years ago there were as many SW players as there were Eldar players (based off codex sales from the Chapterhouse case). How many of them stuck around? I dunno. But a lot of SW players bought multiple Dreads and Stormwolf/fangs when they came out