Warhammer Survey - Results (2013)

Firstly I just wanted to thank all who responded to this. In total there were almost 350 responses across all the forums which is a great response rate.

I know that the reliability of this data will be questioned because even 350 responses is a very small number for this kind of survey. I will therefore try to give an indication of how reliable I believe the data on each forum to be based on 2 things, the number of responses and the consensus agreement of those responses. I.e. if lots of people respond and they all largely agree the data should be fairly sound, if I get few responses and/or there are big discrepancies then it is less reliable. The number of responses on this forum was 26 which is above my target level of 20 and the consensus level was 91% compared to the average of 90% so overall I believe the results carry a good level of statistical significance.

There are a number of things the data can tell us but as lots of people will I’m sure realise there are lots of things it does not and so just before getting into the results I just want to be clear that I am not trying to measure the power level of all of the armies as this is dependant on far more things than just the power of individual units. I cannot measure the impact of synergies, tactics, comp systems, match ups, local meta etc etc.

I would also be careful about drawing too many conclusions from interbook comparisons due to the fact that I have only asked players of each race to vote on their own armies. What this tends to result in is power armies downplaying some of their more powerful options due to the fact that they are not 100% guaranteed win. I’m sure there was also varying interpretations of my guidance which may have created a few odd results such as some people rating the Dark Elf Dreadlord a 5 due to the stubborn pendant combination but others giving him a 2 either because they didn’t realise I wanted magic items taken into account or because they do not use this combo themselves.

Disclaimers out the way and onto the results. I’ve ranked all of the choices by army book category below with scores of over 4 highlighted in green and scores of below 2 highlighted in orange. In brackets following the score is the degree of consensus among all the responses as a % so this should give an idea of the reliability of each ranking. There were 7 choices above 4.00 but only 1 below 2.00. The most powerful choices according to this poll are not surprisingly the Ironblaster, Slaughtermaster but a bit more surprisingly the Sabretusk, in fact the Sabretusk was the 6th highest ranked choice of any army. The Ironblaster was 3rd best chariot behind the skull cannon and steam tank. Maneaters & Ironguts came 2nd and 3rd in the Monstrous Infantry table, Mournfang were only 3rd best Monstrous cavalry which surprised me, Sabretusks lost out to Salamanders for best war beast but the Firebelly was the best hero level character. Some of the choices that divided opinion the most were the Thundertusk, Yhetees, Maneaters and the Stonehorn when used as a mount, as all of these had less than 90% consensus.

One of the key things for me was measuring internal balance of the books (i.e. were there a large number of extremely powerful / weak units or were they all of a similar power level). This was scored on a scale of 0-4 with 0 being perfectly balanced and 4 being entirely composed of extremes (character mounts are excluded from this). Only 1 army scored more than 1.00, the best score was 0.43. Ogres scored 0.70 which puts it in 11th place so not one of the most balanced and you can see from the data below there are a fair few extremes. External balance is more difficult and I wouldn’t read too much into it but overall Ogres choices averaged 3.34 which puts them top, just ahead of Vampires.

The thread on The Warhammer Forum will have all of the inter army comparisons and will also contain links to all of the other army specific forums so you can use this to view the results of all of the other armies.

http://warhammer.org.uk/phpBB/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=115820

Lords
Ogre Slaughtermaster   4.23    (94%)
Ogre Tyrant       3.31    (93%)

Heroes
Ogre Firebelly       4.12    (96%)
Ogre Bruiser       3.69    (95%)
Ogre Butcher       3.00    (90%)
Ogre Hunter       1.73    (93%)

Character Mounts
Stonehorn (Mount)    2.23    (82%)

Core
Ironguts       4.12    (94%)
Ogres          3.46    (90%)
Gnoblars       2.85    (91%)

Special
Sabretusk Pack       4.65    (92%)
Maneaters       4.19    (88%)
Mournfang Cavalry    4.15    (91%)
Leadbelchers       3.54    (90%)
Gorger          2.62    (92%)
Yhetees       2.23    (88%)

Rare
Ironblaster       4.54    (92%)
Stonehorn       3.04    (93%)
Thundertusk       2.85    (87%)
Giant (OK)       2.35    (90%)
Gnoblar Scraplauncher    2.23    (90%)

If anyone wants a copy of the data please PM me and I will send it over (bear with me if it takes me a few days to do this). Thanks again for your participation. I know that some people will wonder what the point is of doing this as it cannot provide definitive answers but I’m sure there are others out there like me that find this kind of thing fascinating.

Ben

An excellent and enlightening effort, a Gnob for your troubles! It would seem we Ogres think rather highly of our book!

Huh, some interesting results there indeed. Better to look at the armies individually though rather than that overall chart - you can often tell what the best units are (though Casket as best War Machine? I'll be...)

Y'know, it's kinda funny, but I think this chart accurately represents the general feel of the forums. It also happens to be quite close to my personal choices too  lol... Good work, random surveyor! Well done

I think 2.2 is VERY unfair on the poor Scrappie . So many people write it off without using it. The survey did say not to mark things down because a more competative option exists, and on its own merits its a 3 for sure in my opinion. But it was a very good survey and a great pleasure to take part in.

The problem with the scrappie is the small pie plate, but most of all it does nothing for the army.

It reminds me of Empire's rocket battery.

The Scrappie is at best a somewhat decent chariot as the ranged attack simply isn't powerful enough. Definitely not good enough to be in Rare.

Having gone though the results of the other armies it strikes me as a tad ridiculous that the High Elves only gave a single unit a score higher than 4. I wonder if the tendency towards heavy comp of the last book has made them feel a bit persecuted or entitled.

The Scrappie is at best a somewhat decent chariot as the ranged attack simply isn't powerful enough. Definitely not good enough to be in Rare.

Having gone though the results of the other armies it strikes me as a tad ridiculous that the High Elves only gave a single unit a score higher than 4. I wonder if the tendency towards heavy comp of the last book has made them feel a bit persecuted or entitled.

They seem to have very different opinions across the board. Many of them believe the old book was better but less balanced, while some like the new book better.

One poster over on Ulthuan seemed to be suggesting that the other members had voted their units rather highly because 'they weren't used to competitive books'!

Ha ha ha... 'Dem elves!

That really don't account for much because the various meta, player skills, and personal preference.

Closer inspection of how the High Elves actually voted saw things like Pyreheart Phoenixes, Dragon Princes and Swordmasters gets 1s!

I would lay the blame at the feet of people not reading the "don't downvote something because something else overshadows it" clause for that - Swordmasters and Flamespyre Phoenixes get overshadowed pretty hard in the HE army. Dragon Princes getting a 1... I have no answer for that. That just shouldn't happen, but then again that's why you make it a survey and get some sample size in there - so that you can weigh whether a given opinion is out of whack or not.

Everything Ogres looks about right to me, though I feel Gnoblars might be getting just a touch underrated. Then again, their (lack of) speed is an issue that has no real fix, so I can see where people are coming from with it.

Quite an interesting survey thanks for taking the time to do it.  Very illuminating reading indeed.

   1 gnoblar for you as a thanks.

Everything Ogres looks about right to me, though I feel Gnoblars might be getting just a touch underrated. Then again, their (lack of) speed is an issue that has no real fix, so I can see where people are coming from with it.

That is the only issue why I very rarely use them.

As cheap drops, they have their uses.

I would lay the blame at the feet of people not reading the "don't downvote something because something else overshadows it" clause for that - Swordmasters and Flamespyre Phoenixes get overshadowed pretty hard in the HE army. Dragon Princes getting a 1... I have no answer for that. That just shouldn't happen, but then again that's why you make it a survey and get some sample size in there - so that you can weigh whether a given opinion is out of whack or not.

Everything Ogres looks about right to me, though I feel Gnoblars might be getting just a touch underrated. Then again, their (lack of) speed is an issue that has no real fix, so I can see where people are coming from with it.

You probably saw it talked about on the Empire forum, but the consensus there was that that Ulthuan.net seemed to vote things very harshly. There does seem to be that mentality that there's only competitive or bust, and that people aren't used to such things like no longer dominating the magic phase, or no re-rolling White Lions and take it too hard.

I do think Gnoblars need a bit more love, but really I don't see a lot of use for them save for being redirectors (too slow at times for chaff) - with Trappers they're real deathstar hurters.