Intro
Sam and I (the Sam’s Club of Ohio, if you will) both played at US Masters for Kings of War for the first time this year. We talked on the phone for a good portion of our drives home and realized we wanted to write up a reflection of our time at Masters. It’s a tournament unlike anything else we’ve gone to before. Every game is against a seasoned veteran and you’re out there fighting for your life. 6 games across 2 days is exhausting. And there’s the real stress of the weight knowing that you’re playing in the most prestigious event in the US. That said, we both had a wonderful time in game and out of game. I’m excited for us to share our experience as first time players at US Masters.
Sam Moore List
Overview
I went to my first tournament in November of 2025. In the last 8 months I’ve traveled the country to try to both grow my skills and qualify for Masters. I fell just short of qualifying, but the Northeast team picked me to merc for them (fill a spot they were unable to fill). I’m immensely grateful to Mike Rossi and the NE team for giving me the opportunity to play at Masters this year.
I went 2-1-3, finishing 41st overall out of 64. I want to be satisfied with that performance given the short time I’ve been playing, but I’ve had a hard time being happy with how Masters went. All 6 games were against great opponents who were wonderful to play with, but I drove away from Minneapolis feeling unsatisfied.
The 4 games I didn’t win were all games I could’ve won if I played better. If I went to Masters and felt out of my league, I think I’d be happy with 2 wins. But instead I went to Masters and learned that I can hang with the best.
Game by Game Breakdown
Game 1, Push: 9-11 Draw against Billy Henninger’s Trident Realms List
This game was a blast. It came down to 3 factors. First, push was a strong mission for Billy’s list into mine and he got first turn to push toward me from the getgo. Second, Billy had a better gameplan. He put his tokens on his 3 gigas, two of the gigas on one flank and the other in the middle. My plan was to hold up the gigas on the flank with a weak flank of my army and then deploy the rest of my army in the middle and opposite flank. The thought was that even if his two tokens got across, I should get my 3 and the middle one across on the rest of the board. In reality, Billy was able to use his drops and the gigas’ natural defense to slow me down in the middle so I couldn’t get far enough. And third, I messed up a reform. My final action of the game was reforming a horde holding a token. I thought I was less than an in side stepping from the center, but did NOT measure. So I declared a sidestep, rolled a 1, then realized I needed a 2 or higher. If I just pivoted, that corner of my base would’ve been across the middle and I would’ve won. I had time on the clock and just chose not to measure. MEASURE YOUR REFORMS! Either way, super fun game with Billy.
Game 2, Invade: 4-17 Loss to Stephen DeRose’s Orcs List
I have a single win against orcs in 4th edition. It is a matchup that both I as a player and my army are terrible at playing. On paper, I actually thought I had a decent matchup into Stephen since he didn’t have the usual weight of dice I’ve grown to expect from orcs. However, his shooting with the skulks and shrine absolutely ripped me up and he had just enough speed to push me back on the flanks. Also, orcs on invade are bonkers and he got first turn (which is comically overpowered on invade, the vast majority of players who got first turn on invade at Masters won this round). But it would be silly of me to blame those things for my loss. I need to get better at this matchup.
Game 3, Fool’s Gold: 2-19 Loss against Jon Becker’s Ogres List
I lost this game while we placed tokens. I had a feeling Jon would deploy on one half of the board (he did) and that I could use my fast cav units to run up the flank he didn’t deploy on and flank him (I did). That was the wrong strategy. Jon and I placed the majority of our scoring tokens on one half and he placed his ENTIRE army on that half. I went wide with my fast units but it took me entirely too long to get them into his lines. Speed 7 on the frostfangs really hurt me here. My goal was to lose slowly with my hordes against his ogres on his strong flank, but my hordes folded way too quickly. I played this game entirely wrong. I should’ve gone wide with my tokens and forced Jon to spread his army. I let him make a deathball and walk me down. Lesson learned.
Game 4, Control: 16-5 Win against Ryan Lampien’s Elves List
This game was on stream, which was very fun. I felt good into elves on control, especially after I got first turn. I deployed so that both my d4 hordes were either completely hidden or had cover, and offered shooting against my d5 horde. Ryan also deployed 2 of his archer regiments in positions where he had to move them turn 1 to shoot, which greatly reduced his shooting output. Getting first turn allowed me to move forward and force our battlelines to crash on my terms. I made Ryan plan my game instead of the other way around. After turn 2, I completely shut off his shooting battery. Northern Alliance will almost always beat elves in that kind of traditional grind, especially with my barkskin and heal spells. Once our lines came together, I played pickup sticks and took out all his units one by one. I felt in control the entire game.
Game 5, Compass Points: 18-3 Win against Mike Rossi’s Elves List
Mike is the NE team captain so he picked me to merc for their team. After round 4, region immunity ends. Despite being a team kill, I’m so glad I got to play Mike. He is a wonderful opponent and we had a blast. That said, the story of this game is Mike’s dice. I got first turn and ran straight at his elves. From there he couldn’t buy a kill if he tried. I accidentally gave Mike a charge onto my UNINSPIRED sharp frostfangs with his drakon regiment that would’ve given him a drakon behind my entire army because I did not measure from them to my frostfangs. That was a massive mistake that Mike’s dice bailed me out of, as he failed to kill them and then got killed in return. From there, nothing went right for Mike as I took out the rest of the elves. He even snaked a devastated frostclaw champion to keep an important hammer tied up for another turn. Fun game where I wish Mike’s dice had given him more play.
Game 6, Dominate: 8-13 Loss against Rick Hoy’s Undead List
This game hurt. Rick had a scary undead list with several VERY fast hammers. I set up a strong flank with my wolf regiment and the sharp frostfangs where he put the jboots soul reaver cav and one skeleton regiment. With my speed advantage there, I pushed him back while holding ground in the middle. I knew if I collapsed that flank and kept all my hordes alive, I should be able to win the middle. The game plan in the middle was to slowly walk his speed 5 hordes down while chaffing his hammers. This all went to plan until I gave a flank on a horde to the jboots soul reaver cav. It’s worth noting here that I’m unsure if it was a legal charge that Rick took. He took the charge without marking his base and we were unsure if he could’ve fit through the gap between his skeleton regiment and a piece of impassable terrain on one pivot. Without his base marked, there was no way to know. To be completely honest, I do not think he could have. However, Rick was an excellent and kind opponent AND it was a relatively meaningless game 6 of a long weekend. Rather than raising a stink, after Rick and I tried to figure out if he could’ve fit I allowed him to keep the flank charge without calling a TO. He one shot the horde and that ruined my plans in the middle. I scraped back to keep it close, but ultimately lost 9-11 on turn 6. It’s most likely a draw with a possible win for me on 7, but we ended at 6. This game was a good reminder to mark your bases but also to double and triple check your flanks on valuable pieces.
Closing Thoughts
I’ve spent the entirety of 4th fine tuning my list going back to my first 4th edition tournament, Mike Rossi’s Dead of Winter out in Albany, New York. Overall, I went 12-1-12 in GT matches with this list archetype. So my Masters performance is right down the middle for how I’ve been performing. This leads me to walk away from Masters with some regrets. I want to see more growth than I’ve seen as a player. My goal was to finish top half and I failed to achieve that. (I was also Adam Ballard’s dark horse pick so I REALLY failed to achieve that one). For the rest of 2026, I’m shelving my Northern Alliance while I mess around with other armies, mostly Xirkaali. I’m hoping to gain a fresh perspective to bring back to Northern Alliance in my push for Masters 2027.
Putting the work in to get to Masters and then the effort of actually going to Masters (6 tournament games in a weekend is exhausting, my last game felt like a fever dream) was worth every minute of my time. I’ll be back next year and I’m going to work to make sure I do better than this year.
Sam Kula List
Overview
My first Masters! I started playing King of War a couple years ago and went to my first GT November of 2024. After getting more acclimated to the KoW tournament scene and what Masters was I set the goal for myself to qualify this year and ended up qualifying 5th in the midwest which I was incredibly happy with. I was hovering around the 7-10 spots for most of the year but ended up winning my first GT in February a month before the qualifying window closed! Without Guardian Brutes!
I went 4-0-2 and finished 3rd overall and could not be happier with the result. I got 3rd in battle score, advanced on my paint score and a couple favorite game votes so the overall experience went great. Not to mention the Midwest got the best overall region to boot! My goal was to qualify this year so I really wanted to have tempered expectations for my first Masters and ended up greatly exceeding what I thought I would be able to do to my surprise.
Forces of Nature is the only faction I’ve ever played at a GT even in 3rd edition. It’s my first Kings of War army and it has grown with me in terms of lists, playstyles, and hobby improvement and it’s fun and heartwarming to look at it as a whole. It also worked out that it was a very strong faction heading into this year’s masters which felt like a distinct advantage outside of a handful of other equally strong factions this year. I’ll take solace in running a strong army with the fact that I placed higher than all the other nature players this year! Haha Posers! Fairweather Fans! Guardian Brute Abusers! We’ll see who comes back with nature next year!!!
Game by Game Breakdown
Game 1, Push: 17-4 Win against Steve Malone’s Undead List
Driving 12 hours to play one of my friends that lives 20 minutes from me was certainly an odd kickoff to the weekend. I think in hindsight I’m pretty happy about it because I know Steve and know that he’s gonna put out a clean, strong, and engaging game and the uncertainty of that with a player I didn’t know might have stressed me out leading up to Game 1. Aside from being a cool dude, Steve is maybe the most unique KoW player I have ever seen in terms of playstyle and list-building philosophies. You will never be able to use previous game experiences to help navigate fighting Steve Malone and he will never bring a list you’ve seen before. People often rely on strategies and plans to guide their Kings games and this is one of those matchups that is pure tactics and reaction to what you’re seeing across the table from you. We had a really good game where we both had a strong flank and a weak flank and started to swirl around each other. The middle was really scrappy and I think I was getting pretty badly outplayed on my weak flank for the first few turns of the game. I think I made some good decisions in the middle to recover some deployment and flank mistakes I made early including a super cool play to get my Tribal Warriors into one of his token holders and I think ultimately bring the middle and most of the tokens into my control. That shift resulted in my Chieftain being freed up turn 4 to be able to tag a Soul Reaver Cav Regiment and survive a return combat aided by a critically bad nerve roll from Steve that ended up unravelling the game in my favor. It put him behind by a turn and there was just no clawing back afterwards. One of those games where the final score doesn’t show how the game went (I don’t like blackjack scoring for games like this). This was a great game to settle the nerves and get away with some mistakes and game 1 jitters. Steve and I seem to play each other at every event and he’s greatly overdue for some 50/50s to go his way and I’m due for a colossal ass beating in my next run-in.
Game 2, Invade: 19-2 Win against Mark Cox’s Ratkin List
I got to play Mark at a doubles GT in Memphis in March but I had never played him 1v1 until this. He was running the most ethical rat list at Masters and I commend him for it. Going second on invade is a fucking death sentence and thats what happened to Mark. We both had some really thinky chaff puzzles for each other turns 2 and 3 that were fun to parse followed by some absolute looney toons dice from both of us when we thought we had everything figured out. I rolled snake eyes on 3 devastated chaff pieces during this game and still think Mark had worse luck throughout. It ended in a convincing win for me but I think the only thing either of us learned is Invade isn’t a good mission right now and dice games are super fun and comical to play. I would say more nice things about Mark but he’s bald and from Texas so that’s all he gets.
Game 3, Fool’s Gold: 18-3 Win against Alex Chavez’s Ogres List
This game was on stream! I didn’t mind being on stream overall but there were a couple things from a competitive standpoint that I didn’t like and would probably push back more on if I end up on another stream in the future or if we stream games at our GT for the players. First was it requested of me to roll the 16mm dice so it would be easier to see. Big dice are harder to roll a lot of and I roll a lot of dice. It slowed me down a good bit. In the same vein I think stream games need 5 extra minutes of clock time per player. We spent a decent bit of time fussing with things in addition to dice and clarifying stuff for the stream that we paused and unpaused a lot. All of the things were necessary for a good stream and made sense but it puts more time pressure on players. Logistics aside, Alex Chavez is the nicest person I’ve ever played Kings of War with. Outstandingly chill, clean, and excellent player made for a fantastic game. I love bluff missions and set up the tokens exactly how I wanted them and it went to plan perfectly. We play a lot of bluff missions in our community and I felt really prepared for this. Seeing Alex’s list it was pretty clear he wanted to deploy a denied flank and get me into a phone booth and all I wanted to do was convince him of the wrong place to put said phone booth. I sacrificed a lot of units and board space for this to work but it ended up being very worth it. I put a 1 just on his half of one edge of the board as my first placement intended to look like a throwaway and then made a very convincing triangle of tokens just over his half on the opposite side of the board. It resulted in my valuable scoring objectives being pushed deep into his half but I was playing for a drastic advantage in deployment as a tradeoff. After tokens were flipped at the end of turn 3, Alex and I found ourselves in a bloodbath with no scoring objectives in sight on one side of the board. Meanwhile my US4 tribal horde and the rest of my army had a pretty significant speed and positional advantage where all the juicy scoring tokens were and had been waiting to confirm that. I almost completely threw this game away on turn 3 by getting antsy and considering some really sketchy charges and was able to talk myself into being patient for one more turn (thank god for base markers!). Alex has a fantastic eye and found some plays that were just out of reach that would have clawed back in but the damage in terms of mission position had already been done and ended up going strongly my way at the end of the game. Alex was my vote for favorite game but I have a caveat for that in my conclusion.
Game 4, Control: 10-10 Draw against Travis Timm’s Goblins List
Everybody said I was doomed! They counted me out! Including me! 42 unit strength Goblins on control is an utter nightmare of a matchup and also one of the handful of matchups I did not practice for heading into masters (I blame Cyle, can’t be my fault). I knew at the end of day 1 I would be playing Travis and tried to think of what the plan was while eating some delicious Lamb Korma from an Indian restaurant instead of being social and waiting an hour for a mediocre pub burger. The best plan I came up with was hope for a good mission… The second best plan was to single charge everything in his army with everything in my army and hope I win an inordinate amount of 60/40 or 70/30 kill chances with the understanding there is no melee punishment in his army so sticking in combat is the safest place to be. I was mentally prepared to give flanks and even back charges to rabble if this didn’t work out. It was a good plan I think. It’s hard to tell because both of our plans were constantly interrupted by insane swings in dice luck. Every single round that one of us thought we had a way to claw out a strong lead, something terrible happened and every time somebody felt like they were on the back foot, they had a massive turn. It was a rollercoaster of a game and my first time playing Travis and I am monstrously proud of this draw. I think I’m more proud of drawing this game than any of my wins this weekend. This matchup and mission combo felt insurmountable and I could tell by the reaction of my midwest friends when I told them I got a draw that they felt the same way with how hyped they were. You would’ve thought I won the game with the reactions I got from people. Big shoutout to my wife for talking shit to me when I was starting to get down on myself after losing the roll to go first. Sometimes the best plan is to just want it more.
Game 5, Compass Points: 9-11 Draw against Dustin Howard’s Goblins List
My reward for drawing a nonsense goblin list on a unit strength mission and going 2nd? ANOTHER NONSENSE GOBLIN LIST ON A UNIT STRENGTH MISSION WHERE YOU GO 2ND. SO COOL. These lists were both different but with similar levels of depravity(shooting) with Dustin’s being much faster and able to punish failed combats. I think Dustin will even admit his round 1 and 2 shooting was SPICY but that would discredit his play. Dustin played a fantastically clean and fun game with me and I think the way we play kings at a competitive level aligned really well, I really enjoyed myself and we both had to think real good in this one. I’m not sure he made any mistakes, Dustin was firing on all cylinders for game 5. It came down to a mildly undeserving draw for me on 6 and I get whooped on 7. Draw works for me! There was an outside chance of me winning this game on 6 with a druid charging an uninspired rabble with 5 wounds. I got the hit! Missed the wound! Again, I get completely massacred on turn 7 if we have one and probably lose like 17-4 so while this is not a draw I am proud of, it was certainly a result I’ll take everyday. Sorry Dustin! I gave you corner markers, you can’t be mad.
Game 6, Dominate: 17-4 Win against Nic Murray’s Undead List
Spending the entire morning of day 2 getting shot to pieces, Me and Nic revealed lists to each other that both contained zero ranged damage and it was like a weight lifted off of our shoulders. HONEST Kings of War to close out masters, what more could one want? The cherry on top of a zero-ranged-phase-game is that Nic Murray is HILARIOUS. He had the same brand of weird, stupid humor as myself and we had a fucking riot of a time. Highs, lows, dice so fucked
I was asked “Do you accept hugs?”. It was a game that felt like I was playing on a Monday night at the game store. He won one flank, I won another, both with some wild moments, and ultimately we shuffled ideas and trades back and forth to each other until the dust settled and revealed that Air Elementals are a can-opener. There was a reform toward the end of the game that was off center (Zombie legions are a yacht to move, no fault to Nic he’s a very clean player) and it led to a bit of a frustrated conversation where I had to explain geometrically how it wasnt possible to land in the current final position. I have no problem doing this at tournaments, especially early in the game when it’s more important and easily provable (Mark your bases!). However, the game was mostly decided at that point and I think it was pedantic on my end to point out in hindsight that it was game 6 and we were both just over it and our backs hurt and on and on and I should’ve dropped it. Nic was receptive to the explanation and agreed with me and I apologized for even bringing it up and it was ultimately a blip of an interaction with an awesome dude and good kings player. I would normally never have even written about the interaction as I’ve spent more time describing it than the actual 30-second interaction took but it exists as a point I will make in my closing thoughts. Nic was by far the funniest person I played all weekend and put out a fantastic competitive experience to cap off my first masters. I’m really happy it was him and the vibes matched up so perfectly- both knowing we are not winning but had a strong weekend to be proud of, and both overjoyed to not be getting shot.
Closing Thoughts
The first conclusion I want to draw about masters is negative so that I can finish with the overwhelmingly good stuff. I think blackjack is a terrible scoring system for many reasons I won’t write about here and I think the hobby and sports scoring for this masters could have done with a little more fleshing out and room for more granularity. The organizers executed the tournament without a hiccup and did a great job to be clear. It’s the scoring systems I find very lacking. If not for the next two paragraphs, these scoring metrics would give me real pause about attending an event with them in place.
The second conclusion I want to draw from my first masters is about sportsmanship. The community we have built in Columbus, Ohio is amazing and every time I have ever travelled for competitive wargaming (not just Kings), there has been at least one game that makes me think “that sucked, this would never happen with the Columbus folks I wish I was playing with them right now.” Don’t get me wrong, I have significantly more fun games than unfun games while travelling for wargames but there always seems to be 1 or 2 that just leave me sour. Nobody’s perfect, wargames are home to the socially ostracized, people have bad days, Ray Shields drank too much (motherfucker), etc.. There’s always a reason and it’s never an indictment on the quality of humans that attend a wargaming tournament. That being said, this is the first GT I’ve been to outside of Ohio that did not contain a single sour game. The quality of play, sportsmanship, and cleanliness was on another level. I cannot speak highly enough of the overall experience from a sporting perspective. The only reason I even touched on Nic and I’s reform disagreement (aside from being right haha Nic!) earlier was so that now I can point out that I had 30 seconds of cordial disagreement across all 6 games this weekend and nothing else was even remotely controversial. The fact that the reform was even memorable is because there was so little drama across all 6 games. I played 6 people and if I had played any of those games at other GTs by themselves, they would have earned my favorite game vote. I was in agony trying to figure out what my best game vote was and went with Alex because I thought we both navigated the weirdness and stress of being on stream really well together and we were very considerate of each other instead of worrying about ourselves.
Travelling for Kings Tournaments is always fun, the community is unlike any other wargame right now in that it is an actual community. It’s clear that Kings of War players understand collectively that niche games NEED unity and close communities in order to survive and the players go out of their way to make you feel at home during out of town tournaments. These are not normal behaviors at wargaming tournaments, I cannot stress this enough. With all the things I’ve said that make Kings of War GTs good and sometimes bad, Masters in my first attendance was the embodiment of all the good things and none of the bad. It was an exemplary event for clean play, kind people, and hard-fought games. I want to qualify for masters next year and every year after not because I want to win it but because I want to keep being a part of the best wargaming tournament I have attended to date.