Here you go: UK COK 2024 preview. I’m out of town at a corporate retreat right now, so I’m typing this up slightly tipsy and without the usual proofreading/factchecking. As you spot errors, let me know, so I can correct them. But the parsed data should be directionally correct.
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I am apparently playing Kings of War on hard mode! Herd, Varangur, and Kingdoms of Men are all at the bottom of the heap for both Clash and US Masters.
Even with so little representation, there was a lot of variety in those Clash lists. Very great to have those collected and organized enough to thumb through.
With the Forces of the Abyss also largely absent from US Masters, I was a bit surprised to see them so well represented in Clash. I would think folks would be waiting for the refresh, but I guess the more casual setting and celebration / focus of Mantic is probably the contributing factor? They already have a pretty good range of Mantic models after all.
Good luck to all the players! Seems like a great time.
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That’s probably fair 
They’re all off-meta, which I suspect provides some advantage for not being as commonly seen. But in our local meta, we get to see them all the time.
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Here are the results/match-ups
Anything interesting you can come with out of this lot?
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I parsed it and will have an article up later this week, fingers crossed.
One of the slightly annoying things is that the names on lists and the names on the tournament don’t necessarily line up perfectly. Hyphenated last names, using middle names, non-English characters, or the occasional nickname result in a jumbled mess to sort through on the back end. I would love if there were a way to download the results directly as a csv file or something rather than parsing the dual-row per entry HTML. I think I got it sorted out but am trying to error check.
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Think it’s mix of how the lists were submitted, how people are registered on the Companion and/or uk master site. As the organisers don’t need the three to tally up directly, they don’t bother making things consistent as they knew who people were.
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Yep, I totally get it. For a 20-person tournament, it takes 5 mins for me to fix. For 190, it becomes a bit of a hassle to guess on which name goes with which person. I think I got it right and hope to have more for you soon.
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Summary stats here: 2024 UK Clash of Kings: Dwarfs Defy Expectations in a Stunning Victory – Data and Dice
The tl, dr:
- Ogres, Twilight Kin, and Empire of Dust led the charge when it came to Fibonacci win points, a metric that accounts for both wins and winning percentage (which is a way to compare, e.g., a 5-1 faction vs a 22-6 faction). Ogres, in particular, have had a strong year, echoing their dominance in the US Masters.
- Northern Alliance continues to be popular but only managed a 46% win rate. This suggests that while the faction is competitive, it’s balanced and not overpowered, which is a credit to the rules committee.
- Twilight Kin continued to perform strongly, reflecting their success in other major tournaments. However, they showed some weaknesses against Halflings, Goblins, and Ogres. Note that high range of TK results, suggesting to me that they’re a high skill-cap faction that requires finesse, so if you don’t know what you’re doing, it can get ugly fast.
- The Orcs continue to suck. Will anyone be surprised to see them disappear from a future version, now that Mantic has RFO?
- Why is Order of the Green Lady so good in the US and so bad here? Situational based on players? Or is that reflective of the overall differences in the meta?
- Why don’t more people play Rhordia? It continues to be a fun faction, but now that Halflings are all over, I wouldn’t be surprised to see them disappear in a future update.
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What army archetypes actually appear on the table?
The first in a multi-part series: how do we define and identify the archetypes, and which factions do them best?
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How you can help:
If you have a tournament coming up and want a list preview, let me know. Even better if it uses the mantic companion so I can parse the results and add the preview/result to my database.
If you have questions around data and kings of war, or ideas for posts, put them out there! Usually I post when I hear something on a podcast that I want to investigate, so I’m always looking for new ideas.
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Publicly sharing some idle ideas of mine for future articles, figuring others might sound off to reinforce interest in a specific article. Please forgive the wall of text, I’ve had a lot of work meetings this week.
Army Popularity
I have enjoyed seeing you breakdown army popularity for events, and now changes in popularity from year-to-year at the same events since you’ve been coving this longer. I am wondering if it might be helpful or interesting to view this explicitly through a more competitive lens? For example, just taking I donno, US Masters-qualifying tournaments in a given year and comparing that info. (What armies are popular? How many individuals are taken? Are ASB’s becoming more popular? Average Defense/Speed/ ranged Shots, common spells?) Establishing and defining the metagame is the first task to running clever and unorthodox lists.
Theme vs Master Lists for Popularity
Theme lists vs master lists could be neat comparisons too. Running Herd and Varangur myself… they seem to get less love than the master lists, and this inquiry could be ways to quantify the Orc, Green Lady, and Rhordia questions you posited a few days ago. I feel like theme lists are less popular, but will likely stick around to support more legacy armies, or as way to rope in other players (Warriors of Chaos for Varangur, etc).
Withdraw Rule, and Individuals vs Scoring Units
Previously you’ve noticed a bit of a split in the UK vs everyone else, since the UK did not adopt the optional withdrawal rule. With optional command dice on the horizon now, this previous schism might be worth exploring a little more. For example, the US seems to highly value scoring units over any supporting individuals, which could be related to us adopting that optional rule. Taking comparable events on either side of the ‘ol pond and comparing some things (army popularity, individuals, all the things mentioned in the Army Popularity idea…) might be informative. In particular, keeping an eye on Ogres might be fun to compare/contrast or otherwise explore in detail (comparing top-performing lists maybe), as they seem very popular in both metas, but really embody our region’s preferred Unit Strength approach to the game.
Common / Ideal Unit Sizes
Given the pricing discount, Kings of War encourages larger units, and I would say that that is generally the case. I am curious if there is data to back that up, to see if folks are running units “as intended” and as big as possible? A few avenues of inquiry come to mind:
- Looking at tar-pit blocks like Undead Zombies, Abyssal Succubi Larvae, and Halfling/Rhordian Halfling Braves, where one could be run as Legions, but generally don’t. (or do they?)
- Similarly, are any unusual units being run as troops when they could be run as larger units? Rob’s Halfling Stalwart troops, and my recent Herd Trappers and Centaur Striders come to mind examples, and I think there were a few unique picks at US Masters, like a Dwarf Berserker troop and Elf Forest Guard, as very disruptive chaff.
ASBs
They got some intriguing buffs, with Very Inspiring and auras now. Wondering if the data goes back far enough to discern or prove an uptick in popularity? If not, I am wondering how many lists seem to be running them nowadays. Lute + ASB was a go-to for my KOM since way before the buff, and with you noting the Lute as a standout popular magic item in some recent tournaments, it might be neat to dig into ASBs, their popularity and their loadouts more.
Shooting
IIRC, Deadzone is often described as their shooty game and KOW is their melee game. So how popular is non-war machine shooting these days? What units are popular, and at what size? Are non-piercing bows or are piercing weapons preferred? Are Villein Bowmen or shooty hordes common at all (I tend to think we are going against the grain), or are bananas Gladestalker regiments and their ilk the only “viable” shooting units in the game right now?
Unit Tiers
Messy idea, but bear with me. In my MMU musings, I’ve started splitting units (particularly infantry units) into tiers, which got me thinking about the popularity (and viability) of certain units. Low Tier is stuff like Undead Zombies, or Nightstalker Scarecrows, or KoM Militia: stuff with 5+ to hit and/or bad defense. Mid-Tier is Herd Spears, or KoM Shield Wall, or NA Ice Naiads: stuff with 4+ Melee and 4+ defense. High-Tier is stuff like Dwarf Ironclad, or Undead Soul Reavers: stuff 3+ to hit, good offense, special rules, and/or great defense.
In my musings, High-Tier is common because you get a nice, specialized unit. Low-Tier is common because it’s cheap and unlocks. But Mid-tier stuff seems to be uncommon, as you seem to need a significant gimmick (Ensnare, Phalanx and Regen on the Ice Naiads, for example) to make them an attractive pick. (The counter-argument is that, anecdotally, spear Hordes do seem more popular recently. I know my Herd aren’t going to run basic Tribal Warriors anytime soon, and Lima’s Ratkin are almost all Spears these days too, so I am curious just how popular these “bland” units actually are.)
(Cavalry is messier to try and describe with tiers, but could be neat to explore as well. I feel like there aren’t really Low-Tier Cav units hitting on 5’s (Even Fleabag Riders and Sniffs are Melee 4+), so Mid-Tier would be Undead Revenant Cavalry, all the shooty cav, and stuff like the KOM Mounted Sergeants and Fleabags. High-Tier would be all the heavy cav and knights. I don’t feel like Monstrous Cavalry has enough entries to really subdivide, but popularity of Salamander Rhinosaurs or NA/Varangur Frostfangs, and by extension expensive monstrous cav could be worth diving into again at some point.)
Popularity of Phalanx
I am wondering if these units are more popular now? I know my Herd aren’t going to run basic Tribal Warriors anytime soon, and Lima’s Ratkin are almost all Spears these days too. This rides a bit on the Tier idea above, but I’m idly curious if we’ve seen any data to show an uptick in the popularity of these Phalanx units.
Viability of Chariots
Ogre Chariots and Elven Nobles seem to be the only instances I hear of Chariots, though plenty of armies have access to them, either as mounts or as full units. I’ve been meaning to hobby up some KOM Chariots for eh, well over a year or so now, and just can’t quite find the motivation to sit down with them! They looked like fun units to me, but Chariots have seemed like awkward picks for years, and some data to show that, or get a discussion around them going might be fruitful to see if there is a path for them in a future edition.
Popularity of Regeneration / randomness in highly competitive games
As you showed, the Abyssals weren’t well-represented at the US Masters. I think we posited a few things that fed into that, including the looming refresh. But at this level of competitiveness, I think the “swinginess” of Regeneration also plays a part. It is not an uncommon rule, and I would be curious how often Regeneration shows up as a rule in more competitive games, and what units might be leading the charge in popularity there?
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Oh man, lots of good ideas here. As I wrap up some on list archetypes, let me see what data I have to explore these concepts better.
Offhand, you make a good point on regeneration/randomness. In general, high randomness/variability tends to benefit the weaker player. That’s part of why I started exploring siege artillery with the Brothermark–a run of ridiculous luck is probably my best bet at beating stronger players. But if you are a stronger player, no need to run a gimmick, and you probably want to reduce variability as much as possible. Let me see if there’s any data to back that up.
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How can it be that Balanced/Shambling has the same win % as their opponent in all matchups except Balanced/Mobile? Can it be a mistake? @Cartwright
Balanced/Shambling wins 48.2% against Alpha strike.
Alpha strike wins 48.2% agains Balanced/Shambling.
Balanced/Shambling wins 46.8% against Gun line.
Gun line wins 46.8% against Balanced/Shambling.
Balanced/Shambling wins 46.2% against Grind.
Grind wins 46.2% against Balanced/Shambling.
Balanced/Shambling wins 53.8% against Trash.
Trash wins 53.8% against Balanced/Shambling.
I would think the total of each matchup should be 100%?
Update: I see you understand my point 
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Thanks for catching that! Weird programming error that showed that row mirrored back. Should be fixed now:
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Well, traffic has spiked post UK CoK, and I’m getting questions re how the simulator works. I pulled together a post that walks you through the mechanics:
My Kings of War Combat Simulator: A Deep Dive into Its Mechanics – Data and Dice
Additionally, if you’re interested in helping gather data for the neural network I’m building to evaluate lists:
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Very flattering to be interviewed by Counter Charge about the data analytics of Kings of War:
I made sure to include a shout-out to the KOW forums as well as our own @TastyBagel for his prolific battle reporting.
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Very nice 
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Great interview 
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Thank you! Fun conversation for sure.
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