The 2024 US Masters Kings of War tournament has concluded, and what an event it was! Congratulations to our champion, Ed Fiske, who showcased exceptional skill and strategy throughout the competition (as well as a lot of entertainment on the Dash28 youtube feed).
Player Performance
Below is a table of player performance, including win-loss records and Elo ratings:
| Player | PlayerFaction | Wins | Losses | Draws | AvgScore | Elo |
| Ed Fiske | Ogres | 6 | 0 | 0 | 16.3 | 1864 |
| Luke Fraser | Trident Realm Of Neritica | 5 | 1 | 0 | 15.3 | 1736 |
| Jeff Radigan | Northern Alliance | 5 | 1 | 0 | 13.7 | 1718 |
| Justin Robbins | Ogres | 5 | 1 | 0 | 15.3 | 1717 |
| Corey Reynolds | Twilight Kin | 4 | 1 | 1 | 14.5 | 1707 |
| Andy Patton | Twilight Kin | 4 | 1 | 1 | 13.0 | 1705 |
| Gabe Toth | Dwarfs | 5 | 1 | 0 | 15.3 | 1701 |
| Cyle Pool | Goblins | 4 | 1 | 1 | 14.0 | 1695 |
| Jeff Bodeen | Ogres | 4 | 1 | 1 | 13.0 | 1686 |
| Marcelo Rouco | The Order Of The Green Lady | 4 | 2 | 0 | 13.2 | 1684 |
| Adam Ballard | Nightstalkers | 4 | 2 | 0 | 14.2 | 1670 |
| Mike Szedlmayer | Nightstalkers | 4 | 2 | 0 | 12.0 | 1654 |
| Chet Dudick | Goblins | 4 | 2 | 0 | 13.8 | 1641 |
| Travis Timm | Goblins | 4 | 2 | 0 | 13.3 | 1632 |
| Joe Borgese | Dwarfs | 4 | 2 | 0 | 12.2 | 1626 |
| Jesse Berglund | Twilight Kin | 4 | 2 | 0 | 12.0 | 1614 |
| Keith Randall | Elves | 4 | 2 | 0 | 13.0 | 1605 |
| Nathan Clevenger | Nightstalkers | 4 | 2 | 0 | 12.2 | 1591 |
| Greg Person | Dwarfs | 3 | 2 | 1 | 11.5 | 1587 |
| Richard Comstock | Empire Of Dust | 4 | 2 | 0 | 12.2 | 1584 |
| Aaron Chapman | The Order Of The Green Lady | 3 | 2 | 1 | 12.7 | 1575 |
| Allen Buehner | Twilight Kin | 3 | 2 | 1 | 12.3 | 1572 |
| Jon Mccready | Kingdoms Of Men | 2 | 2 | 2 | 10.5 | 1549 |
| Derek Sennstrom | Halflings | 3 | 2 | 1 | 11.8 | 1546 |
| Bart Koehler | Nightstalkers | 3 | 2 | 1 | 10.7 | 1546 |
| George O’Connell | Northern Alliance | 3 | 3 | 0 | 12.7 | 1526 |
| Chris Pelletier | Undead | 3 | 3 | 0 | 11.5 | 1520 |
| Ray Shields | Ratkin | 3 | 3 | 0 | 10.3 | 1520 |
| Sean Vilmont | Riftforged Orcs | 3 | 3 | 0 | 9.3 | 1519 |
| Dale Motley | The Order Of The Green Lady | 3 | 3 | 0 | 10.5 | 1514 |
| Stephen Derose | Varangur | 3 | 3 | 0 | 12.5 | 1507 |
| John Neeson | Nightstalkers | 3 | 3 | 0 | 9.8 | 1505 |
| Donny Krosch | Goblins | 2 | 2 | 2 | 8.8 | 1498 |
| Mark Cox | Northern Alliance | 3 | 3 | 0 | 10.2 | 1495 |
| Bruce Monach | Undead | 3 | 3 | 0 | 9.3 | 1492 |
| Mike Rossi | Dwarfs | 2 | 3 | 1 | 11.7 | 1484 |
| Jeremy Duvall | Basileans | 3 | 3 | 0 | 11.0 | 1483 |
| Nick Scibetta | Riftforged Orcs | 3 | 3 | 0 | 8.0 | 1480 |
| Paul Cravo | Empire Of Dust | 3 | 3 | 0 | 9.7 | 1473 |
| Harry Garrott | Free Dwarfs | 2 | 3 | 1 | 9.5 | 1472 |
| Rg Allen | Nightstalkers | 3 | 3 | 0 | 10.0 | 1469 |
| Cory Walizer | Ogres | 3 | 3 | 0 | 9.2 | 1467 |
| Nick Mikelonis | Ratkin | 3 | 3 | 0 | 9.3 | 1459 |
| Ryan Hoffman | Basileans | 2 | 4 | 0 | 10.2 | 1441 |
| Ben Tersch | Trident Realm Of Neritica | 3 | 3 | 0 | 10.7 | 1441 |
| Joey Greek | Salamanders | 2 | 4 | 0 | 8.8 | 1382 |
| Randy Davis | Dwarfs | 2 | 4 | 0 | 7.8 | 1381 |
| Justin Lengel | Northern Alliance | 2 | 4 | 0 | 8.7 | 1375 |
| Jose Vega | Undead | 2 | 4 | 0 | 8.5 | 1369 |
| Felix Castro | Northern Alliance | 2 | 4 | 0 | 8.5 | 1365 |
| Jordan Braun | Northern Alliance | 2 | 4 | 0 | 8.5 | 1364 |
| Danny Johnson | Northern Alliance | 2 | 4 | 0 | 8.8 | 1363 |
| Keith Monach | Abyssal Dwarfs | 2 | 4 | 0 | 8.2 | 1360 |
| Nathan Cerrone | Nightstalkers | 2 | 4 | 0 | 7.5 | 1356 |
| Austin Howell | Undead | 2 | 4 | 0 | 7.7 | 1352 |
| Jesse Garrett | Forces Of The Abyss | 1 | 4 | 1 | 6.0 | 1327 |
| Blake Robertson | Forces Of The Abyss | 1 | 4 | 1 | 6.2 | 1325 |
| Devlin Smith | Halflings | 1 | 4 | 1 | 8.3 | 1323 |
| Garrett Mercier | Abyssal Dwarfs | 1 | 5 | 0 | 6.7 | 1285 |
| Kyle Ritchey | Ogres | 1 | 5 | 0 | 7.2 | 1257 |
| James Greenman | Ogres | 1 | 5 | 0 | 5.5 | 1252 |
| Matthew Temple | Goblins | 1 | 5 | 0 | 5.8 | 1239 |
| Marshall Temple | Noble Undead | 1 | 5 | 0 | 5.2 | 1224 |
| Adam Marcurella | Elves | 0 | 6 | 0 | 4.5 | 1133 |
For those unfamiliar, Elo is a rating system commonly used in chess and other competitive games. It calculates a player’s relative skill level based on their performance against other rated players. In my calculations, I used a k-factor of 32 and straight win-loss-draw results without weighting. To refine the results, I ran 10 iterations, gradually decreasing the k-value with each iteration to stabilize the results.Â
Faction Performance
Let’s take a look at how different factions fared in the tournament:
| Faction | Wins | Losses | Draws | WinPct | AvgScore | Elo |
| Twilight Kin | 15 | 6 | 3 | 0.625 | 13.0 | 1650 |
| The Order Of The Green Lady | 10 | 7 | 1 | 0.556 | 12.1 | 1591 |
| Trident Realm Of Neritica | 8 | 4 | 0 | 0.667 | 13.0 | 1589 |
| Dwarfs | 16 | 12 | 2 | 0.533 | 11.7 | 1556 |
| Kingdoms Of Men | 2 | 2 | 2 | 0.333 | 10.5 | 1549 |
| Goblins | 15 | 12 | 3 | 0.500 | 11.2 | 1541 |
| Ogres | 20 | 15 | 1 | 0.556 | 11.1 | 1541 |
| Nightstalkers | 23 | 18 | 1 | 0.548 | 10.9 | 1541 |
| Empire Of Dust | 7 | 5 | 0 | 0.583 | 10.9 | 1529 |
| Varangur | 3 | 3 | 0 | 0.500 | 12.5 | 1507 |
| Riftforged Orcs | 6 | 6 | 0 | 0.500 | 8.7 | 1499 |
| Ratkin | 6 | 6 | 0 | 0.500 | 9.8 | 1490 |
| Free Dwarfs | 2 | 3 | 1 | 0.333 | 9.5 | 1472 |
| Basileans | 5 | 7 | 0 | 0.417 | 10.6 | 1462 |
| Northern Alliance | 19 | 23 | 0 | 0.452 | 10.1 | 1458 |
| Halflings | 4 | 6 | 2 | 0.333 | 10.1 | 1435 |
| Undead | 10 | 14 | 0 | 0.417 | 9.2 | 1433 |
| Salamanders | 2 | 4 | 0 | 0.333 | 8.8 | 1382 |
| Elves | 4 | 8 | 0 | 0.333 | 8.8 | 1369 |
| Forces Of The Abyss | 2 | 8 | 2 | 0.167 | 6.1 | 1326 |
| Abyssal Dwarfs | 3 | 9 | 0 | 0.250 | 7.4 | 1322 |
| Noble Undead | 1 | 5 | 0 | 0.167 | 5.2 | 1224 |
How to Read the Box Plot
- The height of the box (IQR) gives you an idea of the spread or variability of Elo ratings for each faction. A taller box means the Elo ratings are more spread out.
- The position of the median line within the box tells you about the skewness of the data:
- If the median is closer to the bottom, the data is skewed towards higher Elo values.
- If it’s closer to the top, the data is skewed towards lower Elo values.
- The length of the whiskers shows how far the Elo ratings extend outside the IQR. Long whiskers mean the data has more extreme values.
Main Storylines
Ogres: The Unstoppable Force
The Ogres proved to be a dominant force in this year’s tournament. As predicted by the Countercharge podcast, the Ogres were indeed a major threat to win, and win they did!
Ed Fiske, our champion, went undefeated with a perfect 6-0 record using Ogres. Another Ogre player, Justin Robbins, went 5-1, only losing (from what I’m told) due to clocking out after a long hiatus from the game. The faction’s great scoring units were a key factor in their success, as I’ll talk about a bit further below.Â
It’s worth noting that two less experienced Ogre players went 1-5, which somewhat skewed the overall faction statistics. If you take those two out, the faction went 18-5-1, clearly on the top of the heap.Â
Twilight Kin: Synergy is Key
Twilight Kin, with their recently updated rules, had an excellent showing. While their raw numbers might not immediately stand out, the faction’s synergies allowed skilled players to truly shine. This raises an interesting question: Are Twilight Kin too powerful now? The tournament results suggest they’re highly competitive without being overwhelmingly dominant. The combination of rules-heavy auras/synergies make them tough to master but even tougher to face if you’re not getting regular reps against this. Will the RC nerf them as a result? It’s tough to say.
Balanced Newcomers: Northern Alliance and Halflings
Both Northern Alliance and Halflings, having undergone recent rule updates, performed solidly mid-pack. This indicates that the new rules have successfully balanced these factions, making them competitive without pushing them into overpowered territory.
It’s worth noting that Pack Hunters from the Northern Alliance were one of the most popular unit choices in the tournament. Despite their popularity, they didn’t propel Northern Alliance to the top spots. The RC will need to consider whether any adjustments are necessary for this popular unit, or whether they’re simply a solid pick in a fun list–good, but not overpowered.
What Drove Results: Insights from List Building
My analysis of pre-tournament factorsrevealed some interesting insights into what contributed to player success. To find the relationships between these factors and Elo scores, I first applied linear regression, then explored more flexible models like polynomial regression. The R-squared and MSE weren’t suggesting a good model–which is good news, because it does suggest that tabletop play, rather than listbuilding, is the differentiating factor. I played around with a few statistical models, and ultimately, I found Random Forest to be the best model for predicting Elo scores, but frankly it wasn’t great, either.Â
Here’s a summary of the findings:
- Number of Scoring Units: The most crucial factor, accounting for nearly 25% of the predictive model’s importance. Armies focused on objective play had a significant advantage (here’s to you, Ogres and Goblins).Â
- Nerve Pool: Army resilience was the second most important factor (just over 20%), highlighting the value of durability in the current meta.
- Unit Strength: Again, this points to the value of playing the scenario as opposed to simply winning combats.
- Total Ranged Attacks: Shooting armies had slightly better success than non-shooting, though the results were pretty minor.Â
- Item Points: While less impactful than army composition, investment in magical items and artifacts still contributed to player performance. My guess is that this goes back to the Gladiator vs Bricklayer concept: adding, e.g., Sharpness or Strength on an already-strong unit created even stronger gladiators.Â
Conclusion
The 2024 US Masters Kings of War tournament showcased the evolving meta of the game, with Ogres and Twilight Kin making strong showings while newly updated factions found their footing. As the competitive scene continues to develop, I look forward to seeing how players adapt their strategies and army builds in response to these results.
Did you attend the tournament or have thoughts on the results? I’d love to hear your perspective in the comments below!
