Early 4E Faction Diversity Looks Narrower, But the Comparison Is Messy

TL;DR: The early 4E tournament field is more faction-concentrated than the 2024–2025 sample. That is worth watching, but it is not a clean apples-to-apples comparison. Fourth Edition has fewer faction buckets after several armies were consolidated or removed as separate entries, so some rise in concentration is expected.

The early 4E tournament data gives us a useful first look at faction selection. Across Adepticon, Bugeater, Aussie COK, ConVic, Hoosier Storm, Northwoods GT, and Shroud of the Saint, the field is more concentrated than the late 3E events in my current dataset. That part is clear in the numbers.

The harder part is figuring out how much of that concentration is player behavior and how much is edition structure. Fourth Edition has fewer distinct faction labels than late 3E. Orcs and Riftforged Orcs are no longer separate buckets. Brothermark is no longer sitting out there as its own faction entry. Other book and army-list changes also reduced the number of ways players can be spread across the faction menu. That matters because fewer buckets naturally means more concentration.

So the cleanest version of the claim is this: early 4E tournament fields look more faction-concentrated so far, but some of that was built into the edition change. The useful question is whether the field is more concentrated than we would expect from faction consolidation alone.

What HHI measures

For this article, I used HHI as a faction diversity measure. HHI stands for Herfindahl-Hirschman Index, which sounds like something you would only say if you were trying to make a hobby game less fun. The math is simple, though. For each tournament, I took every faction’s share of the field, squared those shares, and added them together.

A perfectly even 20-faction event would have an HHI around 500. A perfectly even 10-faction event would have an HHI around 1,000. Higher numbers mean the field is more concentrated. In Kings of War terms, HHI answers a practical question:

How much of this event was taken up by the same few factions?

That is useful, but it has limits. HHI tells us what people brought. It does not tell us why they brought it, whether those armies overperformed, or whether those factions are too strong. It is a meta-diversity measure, not a balance verdict.

The faction pool changed

Before looking at the year summary, this caveat needs to be up front: 4E and late 3E do not have the same faction menu. That creates a taxonomy problem. We are not just comparing player choices across editions. We are also comparing different sets of available labels.

Late 3E had separate faction entries that no longer exist in the same way. Orcs and Riftforged Orcs were split. Brothermark appeared as its own bucket. In 4E, some of those choices have been consolidated, removed, or folded into a different structure. That affects HHI directly. If two armies that used to be separate are now counted together, concentration rises even if the underlying player behavior does not change much. A room with three Orc players and two Riftforged Orc players looks more spread out under the old labels than it does if all five effectively live under one broader Orc identity.

So when 2026 HHI goes up, we should not immediately say players have become more repetitive. Some of the increase is expected because the faction structure itself became more compressed. That does not make the signal useless. It just means the article needs to stay careful.

The year-level picture

Here is the event-weighted summary from the current dataset.

The 2026 number jumps out: average event HHI rises from 653.5 in 2024 and 632.0 in 2025 to 997.4 in 2026. Median HHI also rises, from 655.4 in 2024 and 605.5 in 2025 to 835.6 in 2026.

The top-faction share tells the same basic story. In 2024, the average event’s top faction made up 10.9% of the field. In 2025, it was 10.1%. In 2026, it is 18.0%.

The average number of factions per event also drops. The 2024 and 2025 events averaged about 20 to 21 factions per event. The 2026 sample is at 14.4.

That is a meaningful shift, but the interpretation needs to be narrower than the hot-take version. A typical 2026 event in this sample has fewer factions represented and a larger share of the room concentrated in the leading faction. Some of that appears to be player convergence. Some of it is almost certainly the result of fewer available faction buckets. In other words, the field is narrower, but the cause is mixed.

A large share of the HHI increase is exactly what we would expect from going from 29 factions to 20. The remaining increase may reflect early-edition convergence, smaller 2026 event sizes, or real meta pressure, but the raw HHI jump overstates the change.

The small-event warning

Small sample warning applies here.

The 2026 sample has seven events and 205 lists. The 2024 and 2025 samples are larger, with 483 and 431 lists. That matters because HHI is sensitive to field size. In a 15-player event, four players bringing the same faction creates a 26.7% top-faction share. In a 60-player event, four players is only 6.7%. The same number of duplicate factions means something different depending on the size of the room. That is why the event table matters.

The three highest HHI events are also the three smallest 2026 events. Hoosier Storm had 15 lists, Shroud of the Saint had 20, and Northwoods GT had 16. Those events are doing real work in the average. That does not make them bad data but it does mean we should read them correctly.

Hoosier Storm was highly concentrated because Trident Realm took 4 of 15 spots. Shroud had Kingdoms of Men and Ogres both at 4 of 20. Northwoods had Forces of Nature and Ogres both at 3 of 16. Those are real local signals, but small events magnify every duplicated faction. The stronger read is that concentration is visible across the full 2026 table, while the largest spikes come from smaller rooms.

The better comparison events

Adepticon is the cleanest year-to-year bridge in this dataset: In 2025, Adepticon had 51 lists, 23 factions, and an HHI of 549.8. Northern Alliance was the top faction at 9.8% of the field. In 2026, Adepticon had 31 lists, 17 factions, and an HHI of 801.2. Orcs were the top faction at 16.1%. That is a real move toward concentration. The event was smaller in 2026, and the edition had fewer faction labels, so I would not overstate it. Still, the direction matches the broader 2026 pattern.

Aussie COK is also useful. The 2024 Australian COK had 61 lists, 24 factions, and an HHI of 534.8. The top faction was Abyssal Dwarfs at 8.2%. The 2026 Aussie COK had 50 lists, 19 factions, and an HHI of 744.0. Dwarfs were the top faction at 14.0%. A 50-player event with 19 factions still has real variety. That is not a narrow room in any normal sense. But compared with the prior Australian COK sample, the field is more concentrated.

That is the recurring pattern: the numbers moved, but the explanation is not one thing.

What players seem to be doing

The 2026 top factions are not all the same army. E.g., Hoosier Storm was led by Trident Realm. Shroud was led by Kingdoms of Men and Ogres. Northwoods had Forces of Nature and Ogres at the top. ConVic was led by Forces of Nature. Adepticon and Bugeater were led by Orcs. Aussie COK was led by Dwarfs.

So the current signal is not one faction taking over every room. The signal is that individual events are clustering more than the late 3E sample did. That points toward a few possible explanations.

Players may be gravitating toward armies that feel easier to understand in 4E. Orcs, Dwarfs, Ogres, and Forces of Nature all give players clear list-building paths. They can bring durable pieces, credible threats, and enough scoring presence without solving every corner of the new edition at once.

There may also be local effects. If a regional group has several players testing the same faction, one event can swing hard. That is very Kings of War. People borrow ideas, test into the same opponents, and show up with versions of what has been working locally.

Power level may be part of it too. Representation is often where balance concerns show up first. Players usually do not need perfect data to notice what feels efficient. If a faction is easy to build, forgiving on the table, and already posting strong finishes, more players will try it. And then there is the boring math answer: fewer factions means more overlap. Boring answers are allowed. They are not always satisfying, but they are often doing some of the work.

What this does not prove

This data does not prove that 4E is unbalanced.

It also does not prove that Orcs, Forces of Nature, Dwarfs, Ogres, or Trident Realm are too strong. For that, we would need matchup data, win rates, battle points, player strength, scenario mix, and list-level performance (which, for what it’s worth, I continue to build out over at KoW Data Explorer – Kings of War Analytics).

There is also the faction-taxonomy issue. 4E does not have the same faction menu as late 3E. Orcs and Riftforged Orcs are no longer separate buckets. Brothermark is gone as a standalone entry. When the number of available faction labels shrinks, HHI will usually rise even if the community is not actually becoming more repetitive in a practical sense.

That is why I would avoid saying “4E is less diverse” as a flat claim. The safer phrasing is that 4E tournament fields are appearing more concentrated in the current data. Some of that is expected from consolidation. Some may reflect early-edition list selection. Some may reflect genuine competitive pressure. HHI is good at showing concentration. It is less good at explaining cause.

The practical use is simpler: if you are preparing for events right now, expect some rooms to feel more clustered than late 3E. You may see more repeated faction problems across a weekend, even if the specific faction changes by region.

TO and community takeaway

For TOs, I would not treat this as a problem by itself. A more concentrated field is not automatically unhealthy. Early editions often start narrow as players learn what works. Faction consolidation also makes some concentration unavoidable. The concern would be if the same few factions keep increasing in share while also outperforming on win rate and battle points.

The better TO move is to track the trend. Faction counts, top-faction share, and HHI are easy to calculate after each event. They also make for better community discussion than vague claims about what “everyone” is playing. If a field is narrowing, we can show it. If it starts diversifying again, we can show that too. That helps keep the conversation grounded, which is usually better for everyone’s blood pressure.

What I’m watching next

The next few larger events matter. If bigger 4E events settle closer to the 700–800 HHI range, this may mostly be early adaptation plus faction consolidation doing what the math says it should do. If larger events start landing near 1,000 HHI with top factions around 18–20%, then the conversation gets more serious. At that point, it becomes harder to explain the pattern as only small-event noise or fewer faction labels.

I would especially watch three things:

1. Whether Orcs keep showing up as the top faction at North American events.
2. Whether Forces of Nature keeps clustering across different regions.
3. Whether larger events recover something close to the 20-faction spread that was common in the 2024–2025 sample.

For now, the fair read is that early 4E faction concentration is higher than the late 3E sample. Part of that is expected because the edition has fewer faction buckets. The part worth watching is whether concentration stays high after players have more time to explore the new books