Data & Dice has always been a numbers shop. Today, I’m writing about mindset.
Fourth Edition is announced but not released. Third Edition is still on the table but winding down. That puts all of us—tournament grinders and garage gamers alike—into an in-between space where speculation is tempting and hot takes are cheap. This post isn’t a review (we can’t review what we don’t have), and it isn’t a eulogy for 3E (it doesn’t need one). It’s a reflection on what the design direction appears to be, why it’s healthy for the game, and how I’m approaching the transition, both as a player and as the person behind Data & Dice.
The Problem Worth Solving: Spam, Unlocks, and the “Minority Majority”
Kings of War has always worn two hats. On one side, it’s a clean, tournament-capable system, with tight interactions, low ambiguity, and a rules language that generally resists loopholes. On the other, it’s a vibrant garage game played by far more people than ever show up to events. Those are different audiences with overlapping needs.
Historically, balance and iterative tweaks have been disproportionately shaped by the competitive scene. That’s not a criticism: tournaments stress-test systems. But tournament incentives also pull list construction toward extreme edges: spammy redundancy, unlock exploitation, and “all-gas, one-trick” builds that are fantastic at farming specific scenarios and miserable at representing the rank-and-flank fantasy.
From what’s been shared publicly, 4E’s army construction rebuild is aimed directly at that: keep the ranks-and-flanks feel by using clearer categories so that a legal army also looks and plays like an army. The impact is simple and profound:
- It becomes harder to field “all-of-one-thing” lists that break the silhouette of the game (e.g., the infamous flying circus).
- It reduces degenerate interactions that emerge from unlock math rather than battlefield roles.
- It communicates expectations to new/casual players: start with a backbone, add spice, finish with seasoning, to steal a metaphor from Jeremy Duvall.
Designers aren’t trying to handcuff creativity; they’re trying to keep the shape of the game intact while leaving the space for expression. As a direction, I think that’s exactly right.
Forum Fire Drills Miss the System
Every edition change evokes the same cycle: screenshots, alarm bells, and ten-post threads that confidently predict the death or dominance of [insert unit here]. We’ve all seen it. The trouble is that single-rule deltas don’t exist in isolation. Change a stat here, an interaction there, the construction rules around it, and the scenario mix above it, and suddenly you’re not evaluating a rule: you’re evaluating a system.
Systems punish premature certainty. Your favorite 3E heuristic may transfer perfectly…or it may crumble because two upstream assumptions changed. If 4E removes a common exploit and tightens role clarity, then “value” migrates. Units that were “auto-include” because of a points outlier might slide back to the pack; toolkits that were too slow to matter may become linchpins because the rest of the environment shifted.
My advice to myself (and to anyone who cares about getting it right) is simple: be curious first, conclusive later. If you want to argue on day one, argue about principles (clarity, speed of play, role definition, counterplay) rather than trying to declare winners and losers off rumors and PDFs.
What “Good” Looks Like in 4E (Design Principles I’m Watching)
Without presuming final rules, here are the principles I’ll be using to judge the edition direction:
- Role Clarity > Permission Lists
Army building should naturally produce armies with a backbone. If Core/Specialist/Aux acts like a soft “ecosystem check” rather than a punitive tax, that’s a win. - Counterplay Everywhere
Tools should have counters that exist on the table. If you can interact, you can learn. - Less Gotcha, More Skill Expression
Trim corner-case rulings and edge interactions that reward rules lawyering over clean execution. Keep the decision density in movement, timing, and risk management. - Scenario Integrity
Scenarios should reward combined arms and position, not one archetype. Scoring should be legible at the table and hard to trivialize. - Speed of Play
More games finished, fewer judge calls. Good for tournaments and weeknight garage games. That’s the sweet spot.
If 4E leans into those, the rest can be tuned quickly.
How Data & Dice Will Approach 4E (and Why the Numbers Will Take Time)
A lot of readers come here for the spreadsheets. Same. But Data & Dice isn’t going to staple 3E models onto 4E just to publish early “rankings.” Different edition, different baseline.
Under the hood, what I’ve built over the past few years is modular, but not magically “edition-proof.” Here’s the roadmap:
- List Parsing Engine — Full Rewrite
Army construction changes (categories, unlock logic, slot caps) mean the parser needs a new grammar. That’s not a tweak; it’s a rebuild so we don’t pollute datasets with invalid lists. - Combat Simulation Core — Major Rework
If to-hit/to-wound pipelines, special rule triggers, or defense/resolution behavior change, the sim kernel must change too. The goal is to preserve speed and fidelity without baking in 3E assumptions. - Scenario & Scoring Models — Retune
If scenario definitions or scoring incentives move, our win-probability curves and utility functions must move with them. That also affects how we weight “efficiency” vs “reliability.” - Event Ingestion & Normalization — Update
If reporting formats or list exports shift, I’ll update the crawlers/ETL to keep ingestion clean and reproducible. - Metrics & Dashboards — Re-baseline
Things like attrition %, toolkit diversity, HHI of faction share, and matchup entropy are still useful—but only after we establish 4E baselines. Expect some new metrics that reflect the new construction logic.
That’s a lot of work. It will take time to do it right, and it will depend on my workload outside the hobby. I’d rather deliver robust analytics a bit later than publish attractive but misleading charts early. When the rules are final and stable, I’ll get to work; you’ll see the analysis when it’s worthy of your trust.
What I’ll Be Testing First (On the Table)
When 4E lands, my first weeks on the table will focus less on winning and more on mapping the space:
- Core Backbone Stress Test
How many cores do I want versus need? Where does the backbone start to feel like bloat, and where is it silently carrying scenarios? - Specialist Elasticity
How many specialists before the plan gets brittle? Do they amplify the core, or do they drag me into low-percentage plays? - Auxiliary ROI
Are auxiliaries true force multipliers or “win more” traps? What conditions flip that answer? - Tempo Trades
With new geometry and roles, what trades preserve initiative and which trades surrender it? I’ll track “tempo neutral” exchanges across games. - Scenario Chokepoints
Where do scenarios force me to take awkward fights? Which lists dodge those chokepoints cleanly without becoming one-note?
This is the kind of qualitative work that sets up the quantitative work. First, feel the shape; then measure it.
For the Community: An Ask and a Promise
The Ask: Let’s resist the urge to mistake predictions for playtesting. Share reps, not just reactions. When you post a take, include context: scenario, terrain, list roles, and what you tried before it worked. That’s how we learn together.
The Promise (from me): Data & Dice will stay what it’s always been: curious, transparent, and allergic to performative certainty. When I publish numbers, I’ll show the assumptions. When I change a model, I’ll explain the why. If I’m wrong, I’ll say so and fix it.
Why I’m Optimistic
Edition changes are invitations. They shake loose the calcified habits that creep into any mature meta and ask us to rediscover the core pleasures: movement puzzles, tempo manipulation, and the thrill of seeing a plan come together because you understood the board, not because you exploited a loophole.
If 4E’s army construction truly incentives “real armies,” if edge-case gotchas are pared back, and if scenario integrity stays central, then we’ll get more meaningful decisions per turn and fewer non-games. That’s good design. It’s also kinder to new players, who can buy a backbone and two toolkits and feel effective without reading the internet’s secret tech stack.
Will everything be perfect on release? Of course not. No complex system survives contact with thousands of clever players without surprises. But I’d rather navigate a living system that trends toward clarity than a static one with elegant math but brittle incentives.
Closing the Book on 3E (Gratefully)
I’ve loved 3E for its speed, clarity, and generosity. It taught me to value position over ploys and to respect the quiet power of units that just do their job every phase. If 4E builds on that DNA while protecting the “army-shaped armies” aesthetic, it will have earned its place on the table.
In the meantime, I’ll be finishing 3E by stepping outside my comfort zone at a one-day, learning a new toolset, and letting those lessons reset my instincts. When the new rules drop, I’ll be rebuilding my analytics stack from the ground up so the numbers we eventually publish are worthy of the game (and your time).
Curious first. Conclusive later. See you across the table.
