ADLG: Northern League Round 4 (Manchester, 21 Sep 2025)

Introduction

This was my third Northern League event in 2025. It was still dark when I got up! Winter is coming. It was also quite cold. After breakfast things had brightened up for my 50 mile trip north on the M6 to Manchester. Thankfully, my journey was trouble free, and I arrived so early that Geoff Pearson hadn't even started putting the tables out.

I learnt here's nothing like a bit of light work to heighten the enjoyment of a pre-event cup of tea. Having said that, I had plenty of time to recover from my labours. The start was delayed; a few people were delayed and then had problems finding a parking space.

A Blogger's Challenge

Jonathan Freitag runs a long standing blog, the Palouse Wargaming Journal, which has just celebrated its 13th anniversary¹. In his latest post² he mused on the effect blogging has on battle reports building on a post from 2019³ which looked at how visitors read battle reports.

I know Jonathan as we are both active on the Society of Ancients forum and from Jonathan's statistical work on the Great Wargaming Survey.

After I'd commented on his anniversary post⁴, Jonathan replied that he would enjoy seeing my views on the topic of battle reports. A challenge I couldn't resist; even if it does lead to a blogger writing about blogging!

Musing On ADLG & BHGS Rankings

Introduction

Every once in a while I check the UK Art de la Guerre (ADLG) ranking provided by the British Historical Games Society (BHGS). Not least because I find them statistically quite intriguing if somewhat strange. This week I decided to dig a little deeper and do more than just note my latest ranking. I have written about rankings before in 2023 (see the postscript).

How the rankings work

They are convoluted and closer to an algorithm than commutative arithmetic:

• Players receive points based on where they finish not on the result of individual games.
• The points available differ by event: larger competitions offer more points.
• The rankings only contain the results of events in the previous twelve months.
• All results are included until the seventh event and beyond, when only the player's six best scores count.

Until players have attended their seventh event, their ranking records both their performance and their attendance (a tracker). For example: two players can have different rankings not because of performance differences but simply because one player has attended more events.

More importantly, below seven events the ranking is a "warts and all" measure. Beyond that, poorer results get dropped and the ranking begins to represent the best of a player.

Confused? I was and I still am. Read on for more detail and analysis. Be warned it's a longish read.