The 2026 Community Survey

 Back in 2024 I ran a community survey and got some genuinely surprising data back. This year I did it again! 236 responses this time, and there's one finding that I think explains something a lot of us have been wondering about for ages.

I put together a full report on the findings which you can find HERE.

The survey covered hobby habits, warband ownership, play style, event attendance, sentiment on game design, and content consumption. It also includes a focused look at events, since that is where the gap between what players say they want and what they actually do is widest.

This survey was distributed primarily through my YouTube channel (youtube.com/@OffMetaMusings), the Warcry subreddit, and a number of Warcry-related Discords and Facebook pages. Respondents are therefore self-selected from people who already engage with Warcry content and community spaces and, beyond that, from the subset of those people willing to spend the time filling out a survey.

This matters for how the results should be read. There is likely a substantial hidden population of players who don't show up here at all: people who play Warcry but don't follow content creators, browse Reddit, or join Discords. The expectation is that this hidden group skews more casual, since players most invested in matched play and the competitive scene tend to be the ones most active in these online spaces; watching tactics content, posting on Reddit, and discussing the game in Discords and Facebook groups.

In other words, the casual-leaning results in this survey (open play preference, low event attendance, Warcry as a secondary game) are likely a floor, not a ceiling; the true player base may be even more casual and even less engaged with the competitive/event scene than these numbers suggest. Conversely, any matched-play or competitive-leaning figures here are more likely to be an overestimate of that group's true share of the overall player base, since the survey's distribution channels favour reaching that audience.

The Hobby

Playing is by far the favourite part (75%), ahead of building & converting (33.9%), painting (23.7%), modelling (19.5%), and lore (17.4%). Collections are spread fairly evenly across small, medium, and large; about 28–32% in each of the 1–5, 6–10, and 11–30 brackets with only 9.3% owning 30+ warbands. This isn't a hobby dominated by hoarders; most people have a modest-to-mid-size collection. Bespoke kits (65.3% owned) trail Compendium (75.4%) on raw ownership, though bespoke is clearly the sentimental favourite based on how often it's championed in free text.

51.5% of all faction selections were bespoke warbands, despite there being fewer bespoke factions to choose from than compendium ones (29 vs 34). Bespoke factions also average more owners per faction (54.4 vs 43.7). This is the data confirming what the free text screamed: people love bespoke kits, and GW's own catalogue imbalance hasn't dented that.

How They Play

63.6% say Warcry isn't their main game; it's a secondary or rotational system for most of this audience. Age of Sigmar (39.4%) and Killteam (36%) are the most common other GW games played alongside it. Whether people also play non-GW miniatures games is close to a coin flip (50.4% no, 49.6% yes), but the free-text list of other systems played is huge and varied: Trench Crusade, Frostgrave, OPR, and dozens more, suggesting a skirmish-gaming crowd with broad tastes rather than GW loyalists.

Format preference strongly favours open play (57.2%) over matched play (34.7%) and narrative (7.6%), and skirmish-scale games dominate over large-scale “Bighammer” games (87.7% vs 12.3%).

The most striking year-over-year shift. Matched play nearly doubled in share. Casual/open declined by almost 15 percentage points. The community is shifting — but the reason why has implications for events.

Worth flagging: there's a common community perception that open play maps roughly onto “casual” play and matched play onto “competitive” play. The survey doesn't test this equivalence directly; it's a framing the community brings to the data, not something the questions confirm, but it's the lens most readers will naturally apply.

Sentiment

Complexity is the strongest point of consensus in the whole survey: 62.7% say the current level is exactly right, with only a mild lean toward wanting more (17.8%+3.4%) over less (4.2%+11.9%). 

Balance also centres solidly at 3/5 (47.5%), and people feel winning leans skill-based rather than luck-based (peak at 4/5, 57.6%). On warband building restrictions, the centre wins again (46.6% say it's about right) but with a lean toward wanting more openness (29.7% combined) over more restriction (23.8% combined). This is consistent with free-text requests for expanded ally and thrall options. Where the game should sit between casual and matched play also centres at 3/5 (47.9%), meaning most people feel it's currently striking a fair balance rather than leaning too hard either way.

'Please don't let this game die from neglect' is the loudest recurring sentiment. The community loves Warcry, they're just scared GW will deprioritise it. Mechanical concerns exist but are secondary.

The Events Story

The survey asks two separate questions:

• "How many events are you planning to attend this year?" → 44.9% said zero
• "How many events have you actually been to in the last 12 months?" → 60.6% said zero

The gap is: more people attended zero events in the past than plan to attend zero in the future. In other words, people expect to go to more events than they actually end up going to. Their intentions are more optimistic than their behaviour.

That's the intent to attendance gap. It's the difference between what people say they'll do and what they actually do. The same pattern shows up in gym memberships, diet plans, etc. You ask people "will you exercise this year?" and more say yes than actually do.

What makes it interesting here is that it suggests the barrier to attending isn't primarily "I don't want to go." The desire is there; or at least people think it's there. Something between the intention and the follow-through is breaking down. That something could be cost, distance, timing, awareness of events happening, format feeling wrong when the actual event arrives, or just life getting in the way.

The reason it matters for the events discussion is this: If people said "I don't plan to go to any events" and also hadn't gone to any, you'd conclude "these people just aren't interested." But that's not what the data shows. The interest appears to exist; it just isn't converting into attendance. That's a more solvable problem than a lack of interest, but only if you know what the actual friction point is.

Several things point in the same direction:

• 63.6% of respondents don't consider Warcry their main game, and around half play other skirmish systems too; this is a community with split loyalties and limited bandwidth, not one that will travel for any Warcry event on offer.
• Events are disproportionately matched-play in format, while the broader player base is disproportionately open-play in preference.
• Casual-leaning players also tend to prefer bespoke-only warband building, reinforcing the same profile: a sizeable, under-served segment whose preferences sit some distance from how the events scene is currently framed.
• The “matched play = competitive” association is more about branding than rules. Matched play simply means a fixed, pre-set battleplan rather than one drawn randomly from the deck; it doesn't intrinsically demand a competitive, optimised mindset. The association exists because every tournament happens to run on matched play, not because the format requires tournament-level intensity.
• The survey does not directly ask why people who intend to attend events don't follow through: Cost, distance, time, and intimidation are all still plausible contributing barriers but the terminology collision above is a strong, addressable candidate that the data points toward.

As TOs, what can we do to try and address this gap and bring in more players from that casual cohort who either might not be thinking about going to events in the future or those that are but perception barriers are getting in their way.

• Treat the casual/competitive labelling as the primary lever, not just the format itself: events explicitly framed as relaxed, low-stakes, or beginner-friendly (even if mechanically “matched play”) may unlock attendance from casual players who are currently filtering themselves out based on the word “tournament” rather than the actual experience on offer.
• Prioritise local, lower-stakes events with open play or relaxed matched play over pure competitive tournaments; that's where the underused demand sits.
• Treat narrative-leaning events as a clear gap: only 9.7% of attended events were narrative-only, despite open play being the dominant stated preference.

A Message To Games Workshop

This isn't a criticism of GW — it's what 236 engaged community members are asking for. The bespoke kit ask is the most consistent thread across every open-text question.

The Conclusions

Based on 236 responses, here's who the Warcry community actually is:

They're hobbyists first, gamers second. Playing is the top draw at 75%, but the community skews heavily toward the full hobby experience. Building, converting, painting, modelling all register strongly. These aren't people who just want to push models around a table; the physical craft of the hobby is a significant part of why they're here.

Warcry is their skirmish game of choice, but not their only game. 63.6% don't consider it their main game. They play Age of Sigmar, Killteam, and a long tail of non-GW skirmish games alongside it; Trench Crusade, Frostgrave, OPR and dozens more. This is a community of skirmish omnivores who rotate between systems, not a captive audience. Warcry has to earn their time against real competition.

They're collectors, but not hoarders. Collections are spread evenly across the 1–5, 6–10, and 11–30 warband brackets, with only 9.3% owning 30+. Compared to 2024, collections have grown substantially: The 11–30 bracket tripled from 9% to 31.8% suggesting a community that's deepening its investment in the game over time.

They love bespoke kits above everything else. Despite bespoke factions being outnumbered in the catalogue by compendium options, they account for 51.5% of all faction picks and have a higher average ownership per faction. The free-text responses reinforce this repeatedly; bespoke kits are seen as the heart of what makes Warcry distinct, and the community's single biggest ask of GW is to keep making them.

They play casually, in their own homes, with friends. 57.2% prefer open play. Random missions drawn from the deck. Only 34.7% prefer matched play and 7.6% narrative. Almost nobody plays large-scale games. This is a kitchen-table, casual-first community that values low-stakes fun over competitive frameworks.

They feel largely positive about the game's current state. Balance sits around "decent" (3/5), winning feels skill-based rather than luck-dependent, and complexity is the single strongest point of consensus in the whole survey; 62.7% say the current level is exactly right. There's no groundswell of discontent about the game's mechanics. The community broadly thinks GW got the fundamentals right.

They're deeply concerned about GW's support. The loudest and most consistent voice across 163 free-text responses isn't about balance or mechanics: It's "please don't abandon this game." New bespoke kits, regular rules updates, fixes for weak factions (Khorne daemons, elf profiles), better narrative tools. The anxiety isn't that the game is broken; it's that GW might stop caring about it.

They largely don't go to events, even when they intend to. 60.6% attended zero events in the last 12 months. Of those who did attend, 68.8% went to matched-play tournaments; A format skewed heavily competitive compared to what most players say they prefer day-to-day. The casual majority that makes up most of the player base is almost entirely absent from the events scene, likely filtered out by branding that signals "not for you" even when the actual events might suit them fine.

They get their content from YouTube and Reddit, not official channels. 74.6% use YouTube, 61% Reddit, only 28.8% Warhammer Community. They want to learn how to play and understand factions (53% how-to/tactics, 49.6% faction focuses) rather than watch competitive coverage. They're self-directed learners, not passive consumers of official marketing.

A passionate, collecting-first community of casual skirmish players who love this game's unique identity, are anxious about its long-term support, and are largely invisible at the events that nominally represent them.