October Horrors II is right around the corner, with a dedicated small-medium division. Let’s see which armies are likely to win based on recent trends.

Designed by Master DS

This year’s October Horrors tournament has six small-medium armies. These six are: Star Force, Pizzaioli of Club Penguin, SnowWalkers of Club Penguin, Fire Vikings, Shadow Legionnaires, and Scarlet Republic.

Mathematical Analysis From Top Tens

Size averages of the six armies in question from the past 6 weeks. “Unranked” means the army did not place in the rankings that week and is excluded from the forecast.

Excluding Star Force, all armies regularly host events each week, although Pizzaioli had no events last week and Shadow Legionnaires went on a self-declared hiatus.

Prediction Utilizing Basic Recency Bias & Time-Series Calculations

Initially, my analysis was purely mathematical, providing a baseline forecast of each army’s raw size for Saturday’s battle event. It uses only historical size averages, with no outside context such as battle performance or whether allies or visitors attended army events. I used a recency-bias weight of 0.5 (to favor more recent weeks) because sizes can be somewhat volatile. Unfortunately, this isn’t the best method for predicting any army’s size, except Fire Vikings, since it averages around 11 anyway. It provides a solid baseline for the rest of the analysis because it lets us consider predicted army sizes in battle. Allies and visitors usually don’t attend every training event, so predicted size helps us gauge how an army performs without those size boosts.

Predicted army sizes for Saturday’s battle event, based on a recency-weighted time-series analysis of ranked weeks only (unranked weeks excluded). Star Force’s prediction scales SnowWalkers’  prediction. Low/High = ±1 standard deviation.

What can we gather from the Predictions?

Based on the predicted sizes, Shadow Legionnaires are likely to be the highest-maxing army, which is reasonable given their history of often being among the highest-maxing small-to-medium armies. Their regular maxes, if they consist only of enlisted troops, tend to range from the 15-20 size mark, like any medium army. Star Force, however, can throw a wrench into other armies’ plans and predictions. Their lack of hosting events makes their size unpredictable, as reflected in the wide range of predicted sizes. The same is true for Scarlet Republic, which hit a 22 max in Week 4 of September, then went down to single digits. FV and SL will eventually be the highest-maxing armies in the tournament, almost doubling the other armies’ sizes.

Battle Performance

However, size matters less now, except that it makes it easier to cover more of the room. But if FV or SL mess up, any army with a 6 max can come back in battles to beat them. Anything is possible, especially for the Scarlet Republic, since they’re led by a long-time community veteran and staffed with veteran High Command members. Additionally, SR has a sizable number of veterans who may not attend regular events but could attend major tournament battles. It also helps the bottom four armies on the list, as they have an AUSIA battle where they can get a bit more practice the day before they actually battle. However, none of those four armies are battle champions, and none have won many battles against SL- or FV-caliber armies this year.

Somewhat recent battle performances of SR, SWCP, and Pizzaiolis

While the above screenshot doesn’t show the most recent SR, SWCP, or Pizzaioli, it is clear, at least, that the three have leaders with battle experience. However, considering the battles as SR vs SWCP and SF vs Pizzaioli shines a different light. SR vs SWCP seems like a close battle, while the Pizzaiolis may have an advantage over SF based on past battle performance and size alone.

Enlisted vs Unenlisted

Before I finalize a prediction that includes FV and SL definitively making it to the finals, I want to consider the enlisted factor in these battles. Many small/medium armies have visitors and allies who frequently attend, which can boost average size but make future size predictions harder. For example, take the following event picture from the Fire Vikings.

Fire Vikings event picture from last week depicting 4 visitors/allies

In the above picture, the counted size is technically 14. However, based on visual inspection, four are unaffiliated with FV and therefore not considered enlisted for the tournament. With that in mind, the revised count is 10 enlisted troops, which is what matters in tournaments. This is only an example, not to point FV out, but multiple armies do the same, with visitors and allies frequently present. Reducing just this one event for FV results in an average size of 10, with a predicted 10.38, a low of 8.74, and a high of 12.03. Doing the same for the other events yields sizes of 6, 12, 7, and 10. This gives an average of roughly 8.75, lowering the prediction further to 9.55, with a low of 7.80 and a high of 11.31.

Even Star Force, in their sole recent week in the top ten, had about three non-enlistees at their “Defense of Blizzard” during their war. After adjusting both battles for that week, that week’s average is 5, resulting in a revised predicted size of 5.02 per my calculation method. Consequently, doing this for all armies would likely cause similar drops, given how interconnected the current small/medium armies are.

Final Predictions

One thing to keep in mind, however, is that the more the size drops, the harder it is to actively fight your opponents. With three or more people, you can at least make formations and possibly cover your opponents if they’re inactive. However, with fewer, you forfeit that ability. Additionally, each of the four S/M armies that aren’t SL or FV has to battle across three time zones, making it tough to stay active and refreshed through the full tournament.

Quarter-Finals

With everything mentioned so far, I would predict SR beats the SnowWalkers because SR has more battle experience in their ranks, even if both sides max out at around five troops. After that battle, SF faces Pizzaioli, which I predict Star Force will win, despite possibly being smaller. With both Pizzaioli and Star Force predicted to be 5 or 6 troops, it makes sense to give the win to the army with the more experienced leader, Fun X Time. Additionally, SF is a predominantly early EU army, which could help them in a late AUSIA battle.

Semi-Finals

In the semi-finals, however, I predict both Fire Vikings and Shadow Legionnaires will go through swimmingly, with their size separating them from the rest of the pack and the experience they’ve gained over the past few months.

Grand Finals

Finally, we have the grand finale of the October Horrors tournament: the predicted Vikings versus the Legionnaires. In this battle, I expect both armies to fight hard and produce a close result that ultimately goes in the Vikings’ favor. While SL is predicted to be larger, it is also primarily an AUSIA/EU army, while FV has more of a US presence. Additionally, SL recently went on hiatus and only returned for the tournament. During this transition, I expect FV to eke out the win.

In conclusion, based on this mathematical, bare-bones analysis, I predict the Fire Vikings will win the S/M side of October Horrors. If one were to log on to watch battles, the most interesting rounds would be the quarterfinals and grand finals, given the lack of relative competitiveness in the semi-finals. However, no army should take any of these battles lightly, because it depends on how many people show up and stay active in the moment. Like the expression “any given Sunday” in American football, any army can technically beat any other army through either extreme grit or a stroke of luck.

Pranav
Senior Reporter

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Pranav

Eternal Lord of All Sith Empires. "Life is the enemy. Death is our solace. Darth Marr's creed. It is you who fears death, 'Valkorion'. I do not" - Darth Marr.